It has been three years since RPGDot's first appearance on the web. In order to celebrate this we asked our visitors to write something for us. Something related to RPG's. Not because it is time to do something back for us, but because we want to put our visitors in the spotlight as they made us into what we are now. If they didn't keep on visiting us and encouraged us to keep on going, we might not have lasted these 3 years. We can't ask all our visitors to write something of course, so we asked a few out of the large number of visitors we have. And if any of you feel left out, RPGDot has always been open to reader submissions ;-)

This second day we have a story from Jaz, moderator at our forums, teammember at the Gothic site and helping me on more than one occasion. Her story is about how a person coming from first person shooters, looks at RPG's.

Okay, okay. I mean, I played the occasional computer role playing game during my 10 years of pure computer gaming, though I have to admit that I'm a pen & paper RPGer first. What's more, I didn't buy my first computer because of a role playing game but a shooter. Over the course of time I became quite attached to the genre that is no genre... the games I like to describe as 'hybrids'. These mongrels which trace their heritage to RPGs, shooters and adventures often fall under the convenient if fragmentary header 'action RPG'... which in most cases doesn't do them justice.
If my disposition turns you off, don't read on.

Me, Myself And I
Sit down, take a cookie and let's talk about the first person/ third person dilemma. CRPGs tend to come in one of several general configurations, the most notable being isometric 3D, third person and first person 3D. If you don't know what I'm talking about (well, fat chance of that), here's a snippet of a live recording of an iso3D RPG gaming session:

Bill the Ranger (scratching his unkempt head): "There's a horde of black-bottomed orcs on the other side of the hill I couldn't see over, around or through if it wasn't for the birdy perspective. Besides, they're in our back. What should we do now?"
Gronk the Fighter (alerted): "Could you be a bit more specific as to numbers where a combat situation is concerned?"
Bill: "Combat situation? What makes you think it's a combat situation?"
Gronk (rolling his eyes): "Well, each time we saw a horde of potentially hostile beings sneak up on us in the wilderness we had a battle coming up."
Bill (swallows nervously, then looks around, over and through the hill in his back without turning his head): "Oh okay. They're one, two, three... 37, and approaching fast."
Gronk (raising his hand): "Okay folks, timeout! - Here's what we do. First we'll turn around, and the fighters move to the front. - The front I said! No need to panic, Bill, I'm with you! Artillery to the back! Did I say artillery? I meant mages! Mages to the - yeeees, there you go! And Louis, don't you forget to exchange spell ingredients with Anita, I noticed that she ran out of bat guano a while ago!"
(raises head to look into the camera, with a shrug) "I just wished we'd find a treasure trove full of brains for a change."

Does this sound familiar?
In an iso3D game, the player sees the world and the game protagonist from a slanted top-down angle; in short, the player sees far more of the surroundings than his or her protagonist = character would ever see in real life so a contingency plan can be formulated in advance - which is, in most cases, an absolute necessity, because frequent and what's more, constantly respawning enemies try to ruin the protagonist's life for good. Iso3D CPRGs would be, for example, anything based on the fabled Infinity engine (like the Baldur's Gate series, Planescape: Torment, or the Diablos if you count them in). Even some 'real' 3D games suffer from the same symptoms: let's take Dungeonsiege for example, even if it's more of a rail shooter, or parts of converted console games like Final Fantasy. Yes, we can zoom in so that you have in fact a third-person-over-the-shoulder view of things, but why should we? Let's just zoom back to birdy view so we see the whole world. It makes life easier.

Which brings us to the second variety (anybody remember the Philip K. Dick story of the same name?) of frequently-used perspectives. In what we will now call 'third person' the player views the protagonist from behind, peeking - if lucky - over his or her shoulder and thus being closer to the actual happenings. Here's a little excerpt from a typical situation:

Gerd the hero (astonished): "Hey Karen! What's this? I can't move, and I can't see anything at all!"
Bob the invisible NPC (muffled): "Me neifer, creep. Get your private partf out of my fafe."
Karen the player (annoyed, to Bob): "Dang - move out of my way, idiot, wherever you may be!"
Bob (caustic): "I would love to, lady, but your friend fe broadfouldered avatar manadfed to get hif alabafter body ftuck under fif rocky protrufion, and me wif him."
Gerd (starting to panic): "Get me out of here!! He'll bite! He'll bite!"
Karen: "Well, looks as if I'll have to press the see-through key." (presses 'f' and looks straight into the greenish face of a goblin) "Oops. You're an enemy."
Bob (with an evil grin): "Dead right, miff."
Chomp.

Yeees, the particular camera angle of third person view sometimes prevents the player from seeing anything when the brawny protagonist's physique effectively blocks our vision. Thank the programmer who implemented the see-through key or, in some cases, automatic protagonist invisibility when inadequate camera angles come into play.

Not too many CRPGs fall into this category. Third person view has mainly been utilized by the 'true' action adventures, three-dimensional platformers like Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain, and the occasional shooter... Heretic II being one of the very few games with an intelligent third person camera. The rare RPGs making use of third person which immediately come to mind are Gothic - itself accused of being a hybrid - and Morrowind... even though the latter game's none-too-pretty third person or 'vanity' mode probably was born out of the wish to make players forget the ridiculous rendition of the Daggerfall paper doll. Don't get me wrong now, I like Morrowind alright, but... * sigh. Paper doll. Mumble.*

Morrowind proper does fall into the third category - first person view. In this mode, the protagonist is not visible. The player sees what the protagonist sees, which does a lot for identification with the protagonist and generally enhances immersion into the game world. It also tends to do a lot for changing the player's social life forever. Addiction, anybody?
Yes, I admit, I'm addicted to first person view. It rarely strikes me as awkward or illogical - it's WYSIWYG. No see-through hills. No low-poly body parts blocking the camera. And a good audio system surely makes up for the lack of a 360° radar sight - I learned to trust my ears. There are cases where a first person perspective DOES strike me as awkward or illogical, but we'll come to this later.

Let's have a party!
Still with me? Good. Now let's talk about having a party. Yes, I mean a real party, the famous congregation of lost souls banded together for eternity, or at least until death does them part... provided the collective runs out of resurrection scrolls. You could also call them 'a host of people travelling together for no obvious reason other than a shared IQ in the two-digit range'. And well, for most 'hardcore' CRPGamers parties are a necessary aspect of gaming.....Why?

Do you like to be followed around by a horde of first-graders who need to be shown how to tie their shoestrings each time the shoes need to be tied?
Well, I don't. Teacher at an elementary school never was what I wanted to be.
This doesn't necessarily mean that all parties consist of no-brainers, not at all. In Jagged Alliance (to a lesser degree in Planescape: Torment), for example, NPCs used to have their own way of seeing things, and they rarely failed to express this. But in many CRPGs party members tend to be dumb, extremely tolerant and always in need of being saved from imminent death. This is too much for somebody of my disposition; call it information overflow, but generally I'm quite content with having to handle one character's problems only. Two might be in order as well, but more party members tend to addle my mind.
'Okay,' you'll say. 'Then don't hire more than one NPC.'
Hmmm...well, yes, this might work. On the other hand, it might not. In many CRPGs with parties you need the variety of skills and classes a party will offer to succeed.

There are games propagating the dyad, though, meaning a mini-party of two, one protagonist, one sidekick. Like Diablo. Or NWN. Or Gothic. But once again the simple presence of my companion tends to distract me from other, more pressing matters, especially when he tries to swat me with his big axe due to a scripting error.

Yes, I admit it, I'm a loner. I want to do what I want to do the way I want to do it, and Sancho Pansa is definitely in my way.
'Bah', you will say. 'The problem is that you're hooked on shooters because they're first person, and generally shooters don't have parties (unless you count the secret level in Deus Ex). So here's the solution - find a first person CRPG with a party and you'll be a party lover in no time.'
Wrong!

First person CRPGs with parties are quite common. Yes, I know that you know that. Imagine... imagine you're playing one of the Wizardry or Dungeon Master or Might and Magic series. Or, if you prefer, Stonekeep. Heck, you may even think of Thunderscape if you wish, even though I enjoyed the latter, or rather, I believe to remember that I enjoyed it... has been a while after all.
Now turn around quickly. Turn around so quickly that you should manage to surprise your party with your sudden movement. What do you see?
Nothing. Or rather, not your party!

See what I mean? This is where the illogical and immersion-killing factor sets in. No matter where you turn to, your party members always manage to keep out of sight. And what's more, you usually start the game with more than one character, so the identification factor is pretty low as well... at least for me.
Digging through the worm-eaten coffer of my memory I found exactly one first person game with a real party... I mean with a party I as the protagonist could see and touch. Ironically enough, this game was a shooter, and a badly-executed one at that. In 'Mortal Coil' you as the protagonist had four other team members to talk to and order around just like in the usual party-dependent CRPG. And just like in the usual party-dependent CRPG, party management and lack of AI managed to turn me off. Mortal Coil has the dubious honor of being the first shooter I didn't finish.

So it's no use, I'll probably stay a party pooper until somebody - a game developer in all probability - finally restores my faith in artificial intelligence.