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Gig
Southern Spirit
Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters |
<Sigh> I'm going to have to start putting to me in underlined, bold, italics again. 
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''Perhaps I'm old and tired but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.''--Slartibartfast |
Fri Jun 14, 2002 2:21 pm |
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Gomez The Mad
Leader of the Senate
Joined: 06 Jun 2002
Posts: 304
Location: Camp of Old |
Me too Gig. Your cool.
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His thoughts are whack.
He's "Mad so he's talkin back.
Brainwashedfrom rock and rap.
No self control, he just lets his emotions go.
~The Definition of a Madman
=Member of the Flamers' Guild= |
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Fri Jun 14, 2002 11:55 pm |
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Mattias Kreku
Magister of the Light
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 387
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An open world, an undeveloped character, a main quest. The possibility to explore, gain might and power and solve problems. That's all I need to consider a game a RPG.
Personally I prefer games where I only play ONE character, not an entire gang. I've also grown more and more fond of 3D-games over isometric ones. Also, character development systems where you don't necessarily need a teacher has also proven to be the best for me. |
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 1:57 pm |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
As people have already mentioned, there is no real definition of RPG. At least not that we are aware of. But let's look at the history if the idea. It started with pen and paper RPGs. They had rules of what is possible and impossible in a particular universe set out. Bunch of people then decided upon a role to play within that universe. Beyond that, it was up to the DM to throw tests and obstacles and purpose(sp?) at these in-role characters. The idea being that it was fun to see who could keep consistent with their role the most and best. It was bunch of people having fun doing basically improv acting on stage where the DM could suddenly create new script requirements and/or change the backdrop on the stage. Think of a continuous "Who's line is it anyways" type of thing. This is why those people were Role-Playing.
Now translate this into a single player computer game. And you quickly realize you took away just about every aspect of Role-Playing away. Computer games, on the other hand, attempt to compensate for that by giving you the ability to solve a given quest in any fashion you'd like. Thereby replacing DM infused uncertanty with your inability to know what the game will demand from you next. It is up to you to keep to your character role and complete the given quest in a fashion consistent with your character. The problem with that is the same as if you were doing improv on the stage, by yourself, in an empty theater. Namely it's boring (for most of us anyways). So computer games need to find other means of keeping you satisfied.
What happened with the original RPGs (the pen and paper ones) was that people really enjoyed them, but the idea of defining the world each time a bunch of people got together to play one was tedious. So, the whole thing got institutionalized. Therefore, we have established standardized rules, like D&D and AD&D (many generations). Unfortunately, what happened to the computer gaming industry, was the following. Such universe laws rule sets were easy to code up on a computer. After all, it was only a set of rules on what happens when the dice are rolled. Because those rule sets were made for RP games, the computer games that encoded those rules into their own worlds started calling themselves RPGs. But the soul of RP was missing. The human interaction and fun of creativity were removed from the formula. You can act all you want, but nobody will congratulate you on a wickedly thought out evil plot to backstab your party member and steal his coins, leaving him for dead by the side of the road. Doing that in these games means nothing.
I think this is the aspect that Fallout (I'm thinking of F2 specifically) approached the best till this day. That game had so many subtle ways of reacting to your presence. If you were female, sleezy men asked you for sex. If you were a tough guy (prize fighter), NPCs on the street would make comments about it (and street musicians would play your requests for free). If you ended up losing a fight with a mutant in one town, people in another would tease you about it. You show up in your normal clothes and a little kid shows you where a rip shop is, but if you show up in your big bad armor, he runs away scared. There was always a way to solve some problem (not a quest, but a problem) more than one way. E.g. you have a chip, and you can give it to one of the 3 people. Depending on whom you give it, their town of choice will come and take over this town. There is no right or wrong choice. Only the choice your chracter in his/her role wants to make.
MMORPGs are trying to change that. But many are missing the point. Games like D2 are prime examples of bastardizing the concept to the max. That game feeds of our primal urge for hunting and gathering and does it in a world that has rules resembling RPG rules. That's where its RPGness ends. DAoC goes only little bit further. Of all the online games that I played by now, AO came the closes to this ideal. Possibly because it put heavy emphasis on social interaction between real live players. You could go out and buy a party set of clothes and go out into a virtual night-club to do nothing but socialize. No experience points. No shooting or stabbing monsters. No world to save. No dice to be rolled. Just some good old fashioned socializing. And surprisingly enough, people who came there called themselves RPers. And they tried really hard not to talk about the latest football game or the Israeli-Palestinian news. They all set there with their tatooes, shades, bottles of virtual wine and tall glasses. And they discussed various things, mostly game related. Hell, few weeks before I quit the game, my character was actually starting a travel company in the game. In fact, I had two paying customers. The role my character played was that of a small built female orphan that was bullied a lot as a kid and grew up to be quite street smart. She was also very curious and would poke her head into every nook and cranny she could. She had serious inferiority complex too, so she liked to brag about all the places she's been to. I think that was the closest I ever got to a true RPG on a computer.
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Thu Jun 20, 2002 1:17 am |
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