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(Veterans) Remember Your Newbie Thoughts From Your First (Best) RPG...

Martyr

Arcane
Joined
Jan 28, 2018
Messages
1,095
Location
Bavaria
at the age of 26 I'm not what you'd usually call a "veteran". I still consider myself as such, because - thanks to multiple abandonware sites, DosBox and emulators - I've played pretty much every RPG that's out there. I've not finished all of them, mind you. but I've played them nonetheless.

my first RPG was Icewind Dale. I got it because of its wintery theme and visuals, I didn't know what "RPG" meant back then. my thoughts were: a) I love the visuals b) I love the soundtrack and atmosphere c) I really dig the gameplay, I want more games like that.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
No other RPG has ever made me feel like Final Fantasy IX when it comes to emotional engagement. Western RPGs are emotionally dead.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
5,861
at the age of 26 I'm not what you'd usually call a "veteran". I still consider myself as such, because - thanks to multiple abandonware sites, DosBox and emulators - I've played pretty much every RPG that's out there. I've not finished all of them, mind you. but I've played them nonetheless.

my first RPG was Icewind Dale. I got it because of its wintery theme and visuals, I didn't know what "RPG" meant back then. my thoughts were: a) I love the visuals b) I love the soundtrack and atmosphere c) I really dig the gameplay, I want more games like that.

Everybody and their mom wants more Icewind Dale-ish games. A small dev could probably make a decent name for themselves catering to this demographic.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
5,861
No other RPG has ever made me feel like Final Fantasy IX when it comes to emotional engagement. Western RPGs are emotionally dead.

Brah, what about Numenera? You haven't been through the gamut of emotions that three, back-to-back 2-minute long loading screens can make you feel.
 

gestalt11

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
629
Watching my friend play Wizardry 1 back in I guess 1982 when I was 7 or 8 years old. I remember thinking this was a cool variation on D&D and not needing all the tabletop crap was cool. Just playing the dungeon was great because I liked to read the stat books and didn't really care about actual role playing.
 

Exhuminator

Arcane
Joined
Sep 10, 2015
Messages
609
My first RPG was Phantasy Star on the SEGA Master System, back in 1988. I loved it, though the game took me a whole year to beat without a guide (plus I was only 10 years old). Phantasy Star was so damned good, it ruined JRPGs for me for a long while after. When I played Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy on NES, I was not impressed with them at all.
 

Ialda

Learned
Joined
Oct 13, 2019
Messages
124
I spent a long part of my childhood dreaming of the cool Might & Magic 3 and Eye of the Beholder games on PC, but as a euro console peasant, my first vg RPG ever was Swords & Serpents on NES.

Yes, I'm a RPG miracle survivor.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
Since I had an Amiga I played basically everything I could get a disk from. And with disk I mean a pirated copy. Can't really remember what my first rpg exactly was. Amberstar, Starflight II, Realms of Arkania, Planet's Edge, Bloodstone, Bard's Tale, Legend of Faergahil, Dungeon Master and Hero Quest (the boardgame adaption) come to mind.

I spent a long part of my childhood dreaming of the cool Might & Magic 3 and Eye of the Beholder games on PC, but as a euro console peasant, my first vg RPG ever was Swords & Serpents on NES.

Yes, I'm a RPG miracle survivor.

I bought M&M 3 in a budget game mag and was sooo eager to play it but never managed to get it to run on my pc. A bit later I started with M&M 4/5.
 

Miner Arobar

Educated
Joined
May 28, 2015
Messages
64
Ultima Underworld 2. Bloody rotworm in the cellars. Then there were the headlesses. And the walking tree. And dealing with these, which felt like an adventure in and of itself, wasn't even the beginning...

Also: Lands of Lore. Not because of gameplay, which felt simplistic and a bit grindy compared to UU2, but because of excellent atmosphere and music.

At around the same time, I played Eye of the Beholder and Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen. EotB just annoyed me with what seemed like endless armies of enemies, Darkside of Xeen was fun in a lighthearted sort of way. But it was UU2 that got me interested in the genre.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,466
Location
Frostfell
No other RPG has ever made me feel like Final Fantasy IX when it comes to emotional engagement. Western RPGs are emotionally dead.

Depends the emotion in question.

My first JRPG was FF VII and i hated it. I was used to be able to do anything. To choose everything about my char and party, from a typical elf sorcerer to a crazy monk goblin, become a lich, learn how to teleport, cast meteor, fly, enchant weapns, etc, etc, etc and ... When i picked a ff vii from a friend's recommendation, i could't play for more than a hour. Why i can't choose my main character? Why the game foces this boring androgynous teenager? Why the game forces me to use this ginormous unpractical sword? Why the melee combat is so boring? Line A vs Line B?
 

jebsmoker

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 17, 2019
Messages
2,578
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In I helped put crap in Monomyth
No other RPG has ever made me feel like Final Fantasy IX when it comes to emotional engagement. Western RPGs are emotionally dead.

really? disco elysium is insanely self-introspective, which connected to me on an emotional level, and a ton of quests in the witcher franchise are tear-jerkers
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
Depends the emotion in question.

My first JRPG was FF VII and i hated it. I was used to be able to do anything. To choose everything about my char and party, from a typical elf sorcerer to a crazy monk goblin, become a lich, learn how to teleport, cast meteor, fly, enchant weapns, etc, etc, etc and ... When i picked a ff vii from a friend's recommendation, i could't play for more than a hour. Why i can't choose my main character? Why the game foces this boring androgynous teenager? Why the game forces me to use this ginormous unpractical sword? Why the melee combat is so boring? Line A vs Line B?

The only WRPGs that have made me feel the things (some) JRPGs have made me feel are unsurprisingly those with pre-defined characters (The Witcher) or those with a fairly defined protagonist (Planescape: Torment). Despite the presence of dialogue options (considerably many in PS:T's case) I always feel like I'm nudging them in the right direction, but they are still fairly defined characters with goals and motivations, and personalities even. Same with games like Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy IX.

I like a good narrative with characters I care about. But there's no protagonist to identify with in most western RPGs. I don't play western RPGs for the emotional attachment, which is fine because it comes at the cost of gameplay options.
 

Alpan

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 4, 2018
Messages
1,340
Grab the Codex by the pussy Pathfinder: Wrath
The very first RPG I played was... the Return to Krondor demo off some game magazine CD. I remember enjoying it quite a bit, actually; must have been the wonders of being 9 years old at the time. Never did get around to playing the full version.
 

Ysaye

Arbiter
Joined
May 27, 2018
Messages
771
Location
Australia
I think the first electronic RPG I played may have been:

1. Phantasy Star on the Sega master-system....OR
2. Infocom's Spellbreaker (a text based game where you play an enchanter in the Zork universe) OR
3. Some game I played on the primary school computer in which had you roleplay as person migrating from Europe to Western Australia trying to make living in a number of ways that were entirely up to you.

The first role-playing game I had on a PC was Magic Candle 2.

A slightly more interesting story was that of going to the house of a friend who had a "higher end computer" (IE. it was a Pentium and he also had a CD ROM drive when both of those were rare things to have) - he had Ultima 8: Pagan newly installed and I remember seeing said friend playing it (come to think of it, were we really the minimum age for that game? hmmm oh well...). I was so intrigued by it but it was too high spec for my home computer (a 486SX? with no CD ROM drive but with a decent sound card - go figure!?) but I found that Ultima 7 would apparently run on the family machine, so I purchased that game in CD ROM form (I think in one of those bargain $20 buys) and got my friend with the higher end spec machine to work with me to transfer the files onto (I am pretty sure) 21 floppy discs so that I could then load it onto my home computer. Having done this, I think I found that what I had actually loaded up was Part 2: Serpent Isle, not the cool looking Black Gate (Again - age sensitivities with respect to game let us ignore)...so when I came back to Black Gate latter I was a bit disappointed with the fact that there was no updating Avatar dolls which showed what you looked like with the various armor sets on and the like, although there were many other parts of Black Gate I liked better. And technically speaking I have never ever came back to Ultima 8: Pagan (Although it is still on my bucket list to do).....
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,466
Location
Frostfell
The only WRPGs that have made me feel the things (some) JRPGs have made me feel are unsurprisingly those with pre-defined characters (The Witcher) or those with a fairly defined protagonist (Planescape: Torment). Despite the presence of dialogue options (considerably many in PS:T's case) I always feel like I'm nudging them in the right direction, but they are still fairly defined characters with goals and motivations, and personalities even. Same with games like Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy IX.

I like a good narrative with characters I care about. But there's no protagonist to identify with in most western RPGs. I don't play western RPGs for the emotional attachment, wh

I hate most of fix protagonist RPG's, there are exceptions like Vampyr but Vampyr is far worse than VtMB IMO.

Gothic you also play as a fix protagonist, but can do whatever you want.

Anyway, is far easier to do a good story for a specific character than make a story for a character that can be anything from a half dragon warlock to a human fighter. You can see for example the trial of NWN2. They assume that you are a human fighter. A arcane caster could solve the problem by "N" different ways. A divine caster in another different ways.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
at the age of 26 I'm not what you'd usually call a "veteran". I still consider myself as such, because - thanks to multiple abandonware sites, DosBox and emulators - I've played pretty much every RPG that's out there. I've not finished all of them, mind you. but I've played them nonetheless.

my first RPG was Icewind Dale. I got it because of its wintery theme and visuals, I didn't know what "RPG" meant back then. my thoughts were: a) I love the visuals b) I love the soundtrack and atmosphere c) I really dig the gameplay, I want more games like that.

Everybody and their mom wants more Icewind Dale-ish games. A small dev could probably make a decent name for themselves catering to this demographic.

WRONG~

Everybody and his dog thinks they has the cojones for tactical games. But they simply dont.

Witness the Codex: Inside this most glittering piles of gems of hatred and unfufilled desire, among this den of tyrannies, you would think the ratio of tactical gamers higher than elsewhere on Net.... But No, they remain small and tiny.

IF they are that numerous, Dungeon Rat, that tactical spinoff from AoD, beloved by Codex, would not just sell for the thousands units it did.
 

Chaosdwarft

Learned
Patron
Joined
Oct 8, 2019
Messages
272
Location
Old outpost in the middle of Iberia
To be honest I don't remember which was my "first" real RPG. I know I played a lot of Diablo 1 back in the day... The one I would consider my first real RPG experience is Fallout 1 that a friend lend me in middle school.
 

TwoEdge

Scholar
Joined
Jan 27, 2017
Messages
237
It was a roguelike that I never knew the name of. My father worked at Datapoint Corporation and he left me playing it whenever I came to visit. It's probably lost to history, as I think it wasn't a commercial game, but an employee's side project. After that it was probably Knightmare II - Maze of Galious on the MSX, a game I couldn't possibly have the ability to comprehend at a tender young age, but I loved the first so much (which was not an RPG, by the way) that I wouldn't let go. I was only able to finish it as an adult. The first one I managed to complete on my own was probably Might & Magic II.

I guess my tastes didn't change much, as I still love roguelikes (of the old kind, mind you), I played La Mulana (a spiritual successor to Knightmare) to completion and I wish more blobbers/dungeon crawlers would come out.

I also think that nothing can beat the feeling of awe and surprise from our more impressionable years. Probably why nostalgia is such a strong feeling.
 
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eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
I can't remember my first RPG specifically, but a lot of the early ones were Wizardry, the Realms of Arkania series, Stonekeep, The Elder Scrolls: Arena, some of the Gold Box games, and I can't go back and play them anymore, because even though I love these games, every inch of them is burned forever into my memory. It's been over a decade since I last seriously played one of these games, but I remember every single area, every secret, every map, most of the dialogue; it would just be a waste of time. I remember thinking Star Trail went on forever, so I played it over and over again, combing over every inch, trying to find new things. I'm pretty sure I've seen absolutely everything in the game, multiple times, and I could do that because I was a kid and I had time. So I guess if I were to replay something now, it wouldn't be something I've already replayed 100 times.
 

jebsmoker

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 17, 2019
Messages
2,578
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In I helped put crap in Monomyth
My first RPG was Gothic coming from Zelda A Link to the Past.
I didn't know what RPGs are and compared it to Zelda the whole time.
I expected that i find new items in Dungeons i have to complete.

Had no way to play Ocarina of Time back then or i would have ended up as a massive Zelda faggot.
Somehow lost interest in the whole thing after playing Gothic.

i need to be patient with gothic 1 and give it a serious go - the only thing that annoys me about it is its controls. beyond that, it has some of the best atmospheric presentation and environmental storytellling i've seen in an old 3D crpg
 

JDR13

Arcane
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Messages
3,930
Location
The Swamp
First crpg was Dungeons of Daggorath. (Google it)

First console RPG was either Ultima III on NES or Phantasy Star on SMS.

First modern CRPG was Baldur's Gate.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
12,785
I don't remember specific thoughts, but what I do remember from those days was that I was much more immersed in those games (good or bad, it didn't matter) than I am these days. I play with a much more detached, analytical mindset today, and I rarely forget that I'm just playing a game. When I started out, it felt more like really going on a grand adventure. Sure, I knew that it was just a game, but it seemed in hindsight easier to momentarily forget it, to keep up the big illusion

I do miss that ability to some degree, but I found other ways to enjoy gaming
 

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