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Gamasutra unearths RPG history

suibhne

Erudite
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
1,951
Location
Chicago
Game design site <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/">Gamesutra</a> has inaugurated an impressive series of articles detailing "The History of Computer Role-Playing Games", written by one Dr. Matt Barton from St. Cloud State University. Part I focuses on <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070223a/barton_01.shtml">"The Early Years (1980-1983)"</a>, beginning with PnP antecedents and the very first Wizardry and Ultima titles, and Part II moves us up to the Bard and his ilk in <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070223b/barton_01.shtml">"The Golden Age (1985-1993)"</a>. Be prepared for a <i>long</i> read - pull up a chair and brew a pot of coffee - but this is rewarding for anyone interested in the early years of computer RPGs.

For some of us, it's also a trip into our own past. Barton recounts my personal first RPG:
<blockquote>Although Ultima was quickly laying the foundations of the genre, it wasn't the only kid on the block. A company named Sir-Tech began publishing a prominent rival series in regular installments starting in 1981. While it had much in common with Akalabeth, it differed in some key respects. First off, it was a party-based rather than a single-character dungeon-crawler. Like Rogue, the mission here was to descend into a dungeon and find an magical amulet, smashing whatever got in the way. However, this game had better graphics and a very intuitive layout. While most of the screen was taken up by relevant statistics and other information, the top left corner offered a first-person, 3-D perspective of the dungeon (or a picture of the enemy during combat). The dungeons were always the same from game to game, so again players were rewarded by making their own maps (or purchasing them).</blockquote>Helping my parents clean out their old study over the holidays, I discovered the Wizardry maps I'd created by hand over a quarter-century ago.

Thanks, dojoteef!
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamasutra.com/">Gamasutra</A>
 

FrancoTAU

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
2,507
Location
Brooklyn, NY
I doubt I could find any of my old maps. I had to erase and reuse my graph paper over and over till they fell apart.
 

dagorkan

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 13, 2006
Messages
5,164
suibhne said:
Be prepared for a <i>long</i> read - pull up a chair and brew a pot of coffee

What makes you think people read the RPGCodex standing up?
 

dagorkan

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 13, 2006
Messages
5,164
It's a good joke you're not getting, lol. Anyway I'm reading the article so I can respond constructively.
 

elander_

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 7, 2005
Messages
2,015
The early years rpgs were so simplistic i can't believe i enjoyed playing some of these games. Realy nothing more than tactical turn-base games with very a simplistic AI and a minimal story sometimes fitting on 2 pages of text for the all game, with some notable exceptions (*). The only thing that saved these old games was gameplay that used to be the main selling factor at the time so these games were very well balanced, enjoyable to play and to replay for the most part.


(*) Like for example Starflight with the equivalent of 50 pages of messages, notes and dialogs. There was so much text the author add to create their own specialized zip compression algorithm so that they could fit the entire game in two floppy disks of ~700k each. Still the dialog system they used allowed for Aliens to take initiative of starting or breaking communications and questioning the player for anything they which to know with someones bad consequences for the wrong answers.
 

Seboss

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
947
FrancoTAU said:
dagorkan said:
suibhne said:
Be prepared for a <i>long</i> read - pull up a chair and brew a pot of coffee

What makes you think people read the RPGCodex standing up?

Language barrier? Or is there some bad joke that i'm not getting?

Hint: pull up a chair...

Captain Obvious saves the day again... :|
 

dagorkan

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 13, 2006
Messages
5,164
Interesting article. The author reads like an annoying fag (who hasn't heard of ROA1?) but it was worth reading anyway. Like how all these bad ideas (RT, one-screen-for-everything, pretty grafix, crappy settings) that have become mainstream were already polluting the genre in the 80's. I'm going to check out those pre-Gold Box SSI games I never heard of (Phantasie, Wizards Crown, 50 Mission Crush etc).

@elander: I agree. I tried to play the Gold Boxes again a couple of months ago and I couldn't. I used to spend days playing them but when you've got the choice between Arcanum why would you? I also used to be big into Dungeon Hack/Beholders and that Drizzt game which were the mindless Diablos of the 'Golden Age'.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
I expected a different perspective and actual thought; not a spaz attack of boring words that say nothing.
 

FrancoTAU

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
2,507
Location
Brooklyn, NY
Volourn said:
I expected a different perspective and actual thought; not a spaz attack of boring words that say nothing.

I'd agree with you if there were already so many comprehensive straightforward history of RPG articles out there. AFAIK, even the Codex, Dot, Watch, etc don't have anything like that. It's not mindblowing, but it's not like the guy decided to write up the 100th article over the definition of RPGs or something.
 

Amasius

Augur
Joined
Sep 24, 2006
Messages
959
Location
Thanatos
David L. Arneson in Computer Gaming World said:
"Another common problem in CRPGs may be an emphasis in glitz and glamour rather than substance. If it is pretty, the assumption is that people will buy it. The question is, however, do these beautiful graphics really add anything substantial to the game? "
Damn, not much has changed the last two decades...
 

Ladonna

Arcane
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Messages
10,637
Nope, this war has been waging since I used to buy copies of Commodore magazine (With awesome black and white game reviews!).

I noted that he forgot Knights of legend and Windwalker, two of my favourite RPG's of those times. :cry:

Still, the fact that so many can be forgotten just shows you the sheer numbers of games released back then.
 

Dragon

Augur
Joined
Aug 1, 2003
Messages
101
Location
Toulouse, France
They didn't mention the old "Lord of the Rings" game (1990 ?) either it seems, I really enjoyed this one.
 

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