In this poll we're checking which of the year's upcoming CRPGs you're the most eager to play. Of course, half of these are likely to be pushed to 2012 by the end of 2011, but that's the way the cookie crumbles in game development.

Dragon Age 2, but of course.

Witcher, Skyrim and Mass Effect 3

Skyrim :D

Skyrim for me too :)

Skyrim, open world ftw.

A year full of sequels... but, out of those, The Witcher 2, Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2, in that order. Skyrim and Diablo 3, well, just no.

Does Star Wars: The Old Republic count? Sure, it's a MMO... but for crying out loud, people, it's a Bioware RPG based on the Old Republic - that is a formula for win and awesome!

Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2 and the Witcher 2 are definitely going to see some time on my computer, sure :) . However, at the moment SW:TOR is the game that has got me the most psyched up.

Dragon Age 2. :)

I voted Skyrim. But looking forward to the Witcher 2 and Diablo 3 also.

DA:O didn't exactly leave me wanting for more, Oblivion kind of put me off of Bethesda produced RPGs, especially since Fallout 3 wasn't much of an improvement, never tried ME because the first part had that silly online activation that I really don't like and part 2 couldn't even be called an RPG anymore, by most accounts.

That leaves The Witcher 2 for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the first game, even though it was not without its faults, so I'm looking forward to seeing what CD Projekt did with the sequel. Hopefully they managed to maintain the feeling that your choices were real moral choices rather than the standard Bioware Good-Neutral-Bad choices.

Diablo 3 isn't an RPG, it's a hack & slash. Deus Ex was more of an RPG than Diablo was.

I voted Mass Effect 3. Its the last part of the story, and that made it win out. As for Skyrim...the more i read about it, the less hopes i have for it. It has even less skills that Oblivion now. Mysticism and some other ones have been removed. If they keep this up The Elder Scrolls 8 will only have 3 skills. Will see how it goes. I will buy it anyway.

Side note: I think Drakensang 2 should have been on the list too. It might not be the best looking rpg out there, but it has a complex rule system, and plenty of charm. Thats a breath of fresh air these days, where the norm seems to be dumbing down games.

Side note: I think Drakensang 2 should have been on the list too.
Wasn't Drakensang 2 released last year already?

Aah, Drakensang 2 ... now that you mention it, I haven't played it yet even though I liked the first part (and even though I really should play it, almost as a patriotic duty, since it is a German game). Game graphics, especially of the cities, by far beat Dragon Age.

As for me, I probably look forward most to Mass Effect 3, Witcher 2 and then Dragon Age 2 - in that order. And then there is the big wild card, Deus Ex 3 (which should have also made it to the list IMO).

The Witcher was the new discovery for me last year. Outstanding game, but totally underrated and it really went under the radar for many gamers - very much undeserved IMO. If Witcher 2 retains its qualities without screwing up badly something else ... what a prospect.

What is this Drakensang 2 game that you are talking about? Drakensang: The River of Time was released last year and it is a prequel to the 2008 game Drakensang: The Dark Eye. Also there is an expansion, Drakensang: Phileasson’s Secret, but I do not know if it has been released yet.

Additionally there is another game in development which uses the same ruleset and world; The Dark Eye: Demonicon. But apparently the release date has been pushed back to 2012 from 2011, if it will ever be released that is.

Yeah it came out last year in some european countries. Its not out in the UK and the US yet though, so I figured it would be elligable since its only...well...half released yet. And yes, its the river of time. I didn`t bother writing down the whole title, thats all. The next one is aparantly going to be a browser game. MMO crap. So the series dies with the prequel.

Erod, it is Drakensang: The River of Time - it is often referred to as Dragensang 2 because it it, prequel schmequel, still the second Drakensang game. In fact, before using the term lazily, I myself implicitly scolded Rawgrim (http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?p=739498&highlight=Drakensang#post739498) for being imprecise for using the wrong name :D

And then there is the big wild card, Deus Ex 3 (which should have also made it to the list IMO).
Arguably, Deus Ex 3 is not an RPG, or at least I wouldn't classify it as such. But then again, Diablo 3 is on this list as well...

I have high hopes for the Deus Ex prequel as well, the trailers are very atmospheric, reminiscent of Blade Runner. They're only trailers, though, so I'm waiting until the game is out and people start talking about gameplay and story before getting too excited about it.

Skyrim. Witcher second

I voted ME3, but I'm interested in all of them (except Diablo 3, which looks just like Diablo 2, but with new wallpaper for the Skinner Box). I'm currently playing through The Witcher, and enjoying myself -- hooray for someone figuring out how to incorporate some actual gameplay in a single-character focussed Aurora Engine game! Assuming CD Projekt can keep the good ideas coming (and work out some of their misogyny/maturity issues), The Witcher 2 could be the best fantasy title of the year.

Skyrim is currently on probation: Oblivion was very disappointing, and whilst Fallout 3 was excellent, Bethesda are going to have to sit down and really think about immersion, and how to do it well in a TES game. I'd suggest making armour that actually looks like proper fantasy/medieval armour, rather than day-glo flourescent green space marine armour would be a good start. That, and working out their combat system (hint: start with a 3rd person perspective, and go from there). Manual blocking was a good step up from Morrowind's random system, but melee doesn't work well from 1st person, and anything designed to be 1st person tends to end up playing like an FPS. This is not a good thing for a fantasy RPG.

As for DA2... well I just don't know. It all hinges in whether the Fighting game/RTS switching works, or just turns the game into a dog's dinner of jack-of-all-trades ambition. It could be brilliant; Jade Empire with swords'n'sorcery. BioWare, though, either need to grow some cojonnes and deal with the controversy monster head-on, or find a better way to represent romance than some pants-on dry humping. Again, here's a hint: no game ever sold fewer copies because Fox news declared it to be evil. That's why everyone at Activision owns two yachts. :p

Suits me right for vanishing to RL for months - there's another Drakensang game out? Awesome. :D *dances*

Definitely a lovely year for CRPGs.

No idea which (if any) from the list will I get to play any time soon, but looking forward to pretty much all of them, in theory. Haven't been reading much about CRPGs last 6 months or so, and any RPG looks great at this point.

(Including Deus Ex 3 :p , even if 2 did disappoint me)

Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2, Diablo 3 - in that order.

I thought The Witcher was pretty poor, personally. It's just Generic-Cheap-RPG v.12, with poor, unimmersive dialogue, bad voice acting and even poorer combat. And I gave it a really good crack of the whip.

What was generic about The Witcher exactly? Felt more original to me than most of BioWare's recent games... And I appreciated the cheesy old-school feel, even though some of it was really quite silly.

I liked the witcher as well. The setting, especially, was really cool. As for Diablo 3; it seems it won`t come out untlill 2012. Saw some info about it the other day. Its pushed back. No biggie for me though, I never really thought of Diablo as roleplaying games. More like action games with some few rpg aspects to it.

I just didn't feel it broke the mould at all. It didn't offer anything different to what I had already seen. That's why I like games such as Mass Effect, as I hadn't seen it's like before. Like I said before as well, I thought the characters were wooden and poor, which was down to low quality dialogue and cheap voice acting. I didn't like the 'click now... click now.. click now' combat system, either. It got old after like the 3rd mob.

I'm sort of concerned about Dragon Age 2, it just doesn't look like it's shaping up to be quite the game i'd hoped.

TES V
I have a minor position on the MERP team (a Middle Earth total conversion mod for TES IV) and this is a great interest to everyone involved.

---------- Added 0 hours, 6 minutes and 6 seconds later... ----------

As for Skyrim...the more i read about it, the less hopes i have for it. It has even less skills that Oblivion now. Mysticism and some other ones have been removed. If they keep this up The Elder Scrolls 8 will only have 3 skills. Will see how it goes. I will buy it anyway.

So true. Game companies are now lazy and greedy; They rush a game out with bugs just to make money and then rely on the modding community to fix and improve on the game.

Cuts like that are made in the name of accessibility and playability. It has to appeal to more casual gamers as well as hardcore players nowadays.

A little surprised by the dead heat between DA:2, Diablo 3 and Skyrim. Kinda cool.

Witcher 1 and Mass Effect 1 had that extra thing with the worlds it was played in. mass Eeffect 2 lost that, and the remaining RPG mechanics.

I dismiss Dragon Age 2 if it follows the same path as ME 2

Why is diablo 3 even on the list. Its not even a rpg, really.

Then there hasnt been an RPG since PS:T.

Diablo doesn't fall under the core RPG category, but it certainly fits the action-RPG compartment. So it's just a different type of RPG than most on the list.

Speaking of which: Die-hard Diablo fans will probably like Torchlight (http://www.torchlightgame.com/).

According to its Wiki entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchlight):Development of the game is led by Travis Baldree, designer of Fate, and Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, co-designers of Diablo and Diablo II, joined by the team that developed MythosAlso, not really an RPG, but it plays very Diablo-ish, and looks far nicer.

Played Torchlight a bit. It is a nice fast paced hack and slash. Not bad, not fantastic, but still nice.

Other. Avadon should be out in a few months - probably the only pure RPG this year.

Then there hasnt been an RPG since PS:T.

You appear to be saying that Diablo 3 is as much of an RPG as Dragon Age.

I'd be interested in seeing if you can justify that.

Witcher, Skyrim and Mass Effect 3exactly :)

You appear to be saying that Diablo 3 is as much of an RPG as Dragon Age.

I'd be interested in seeing if you can justify that.
Going by your apparent reasoning, he would also be calling Serious Sam or Red Alert 2 as much of an RPG as Dragon Age.

He's saying that neither are much of an RPG, he's not saying they're similar in their RPG elements (although ironically, the skilltree in D2 is more advanced than it was in DA:O).

Avadon? Looked it up. Indie game?

Yes - by Spiderweb - the Geneforge/Avernum guy.

Avadon looks great. I hope its out soon.

Dragon Age 2 than it is ME3. Besides that no other game as I really don't have the time to play them with grad school and a family.

Welp, that was a short wait. Avadon was just released: http://spiderwebsoftware.com/avadon/index.html

On Mac only, of course. They'll be beta testing for the superior Windows version coming in Spring.

This Avadon looks interesting, and I hear positive things about the Geneforge series as well. Assuming that both series have similar game mechanics, can anyone tell me what kind of character skill and leveling mechanism these games are using?

I think Avadon has a different system than Geneforge, but I'm sure they're not radically different. It's not a revolutionary system or anything - on levelling you get points to spend on upgrading stats and skills. There's quite a few to choose from and they cost differing amounts. You can also upgrade the stats of your creations when they level, though it costs mana. In general creations a very disposable though.

Spiderweb's demos are huge, so if you're interested you might as well get one and have a look yourself.

Which Geneforge would you recommend for me to get acquainted with the Geneforge gameplay?

Probably the first one, although it's widely agreed that #2 is the best game. There's something to be said for doing things in order though (... except skip #3 - it sucks), and the gameplay is fairly consistent. The scope of the story and the amount of politics involved increases in the later games and there are more things you can shape, but it's all basically the same idea.

I will have to look into those games. Looks cool.

I am waiting for diablo 3 but sence its a 2012 game Im currently waiting for skyrim for 2011

Though the other ones interest me as well (duh), I'm guessing the new Elder Scrolls will be a tad bit more exciting then the rest of the bunch. ME3 I will probably buy as well, that is if i'm already working then. :p