https://crpgbook.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/crpg-book-preview-5.pdf

I'm certain Valve would intervene at some point when Cleve does a better job at screwing over customers than Valve can, Valve holds a monopoly over that and takes offense to any who would try to dethrone them. On a unrelated note, if anyone wants to get the non-steam version of Grimoire just send me a PM...

Usually I'd be first in line to be an apologist for Cleve. The guy is an eccentric and most of the complaints voiced in this thread here on gog seem to stem from the fact that people can't handle the guy's larger-than-life persona.

Banning felipepepepepe though (who is one of the less drama-prone posters on the dex - a guy who just wants to talk about RPGs and knows his shit) and bragging about cancelling his backer key and withholding his backer rewards over a piece of constructive criticism, that's some grade A dumbfuckery right there. I don't think it's going to sit well with the rest of the Codex either. Deleting valid criticism is nothing but cowardice and not befitting of a guy that claims to have fought Mexican gangbangers with nothing but a bottle of baby food.

That's the irony of the game. All this talk about incline and such, but when it comes down to it, it's just not a very good game. Any criticism triggers the dev and/or a small very loud group of people to throw insults, and, sometimes if we are lucky, these hilarious non-sequitur strange rants.

Incline/Decline basically describes how games evolved through time and became easier and more streamlined, catering to new players of new generations, becoming "easier" than old games, etc.

It's basically old school gamers complaining about the usual stuff, how things were "so much better in the good old days", how games didn't hold your hand, how much closer to the REAL pen & paper experience they were, how we have been experiencing "decline" for years, now. Because, obviously, every single gamer in the world feels that games should only cater to their own needs, and leave everyone else out, because video games should be an elite thing, and not for everyone.

Because, see?, you can no longer play old games or even pen & paper RPGs anymore, developers *have* to keep making the same old games over and over again. Or else they're promoting decline.

Just to make things clear: I don't agree with these people and I generally tend to dislike them. If they want to keep playing the same game over and over again, they can just keep playing the same games they already play.

You're welcome .

Thanks for the explanation groze.

Groze, thank you. Explanations of the incline/decline meme tend to get lost in the thread.
Maybe groze's post should be stickied to the top of every page.

The divisive Grimoire cRPG question is "What angle is the incline/decline?"

Certain angles of declination can make you feel like you are flying.
Certain angles of inclination are too steep for tractor trailer trucks with heavy loads.

I have to agree. I've played CRPGs since the early 1980s, and encountered various incarnations of the "they just don't make games like they used to" clubs over the years. They bring out the same tired tropes--ours were tougher, we forced you to think, we had more features, games pander these days to xyz, etc--and in the end, the complaints at various times all blend together. The early Wizardry game crowd said the same thing about Wizardry 6 and 7. And I suspect if any of that lot come upon Grimoire, they'll whine about it being a decline. I'd love to see reviews on Steam from that perspective, though I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_(video_game)]This[/url] was my first cRPG, played on my trusty Apple ][c, on a green-and-black monitor with no hard drive. I poured hundreds of hours into it as a kid. I learned a lot about programming in BASIC from designing my own dungeons and having to script events. Now THOSE were the good 'ol days!

Temple of Apshai was my first. (Let's not run with that phrasing.) I played it on my TRS-80 in lovely black and white, loading from a cassette tape. Everything after that has been a decline, of course.

HA! I can play this game!

My first games were also on the TRS-80 (which I still have) which came with an asounding 4k of RAM and ran off of cassettes.

I don't remember many, though. We didn't have that one. We had Star Trek and some adventure game where you had to get into a pyramid or temple or something.

Had to graduate to the Apple to get into some real gaming.

Did you also have Sargon? Those RAM restrictions made it so dumb that even I could beat it.

Google tells me that was a chess game. I don't think so; I don't remember anything like that. But then again I really only remember the two I listed earlier.