[MUD-Dev] Why are we all making RPGs?

[Brian 'Psychochild' Green]

Andrew Kirmse wrote:

Andrew!  Good to have you on the list.

For those not up on ancient history, Andrew was one of the original
Meridian 59 developers.  He also provided a great quote which you
will find in my .sig below. :)
 
> I've often wondered when, or indeed if, the spread of the Internet
> and the graphics technology we've had available for the past 5
> years or so would lead to new types of online games.  However, the
> tried-and-true RPG is still enjoying overwhelming dominance among
> large-scale online games.

In addition to the reasons you stated, I think there's a few more
reasons why RPGs are dominating the field.  (I also think they'll
continue to dominate the field for a while.)

I think the biggest reason why RPGs are natural for the "online"
medium is because it is the one genre that benefits the most from
being online.  All RPGs involve other characters.  Computer RPGs
(CRPGs) usually have players control one or more of the "good"
characters, while the computer tries to cover the rest of the
characters.  As any fan of traditional tabletop RPGs can tell you,
the computer does a terrible job of making a dynamic story.

Having other players fill in the roles of other characters just
makes sense.  Other players provide enough "real" depth behind the
character to make it intresting.  Instead of giving me the same
stock answer when I use the same selection in a dialog tree, a
player will actually carry on a conversation with me.

Other known genres don't fill the bill quite so perfectly.  Imagine
Myst with multiple players going through the world.  Would that make
the game any more fun?  Wouldn't it take away from the eerie feeling
of solitude that really helps set the tone for the game?

AI is making tremendous leaps and bounds in action-orientated genres
as well.  I can leap on a FPS in single-player mode and get quite a
challenge from the computer players.  In an RTS, good level design
can create an excellent challenge for me; plus the computer doesn't
weenie-rush me every single game. Not that multi-player doesn't make
these games potentially more fun, but the game is still quite fun
with or without multiplayer.

Yet every time I start playing a single-player RPG, the computer
requires me to either use a dialog tree or it spits out "I don't
understand that." about every other line.  As a hard-core RPG fan
and a game developer, I can understand why this is the case, but it
doesn't help me get immersed into the game.

The other main reason I think RPGs rule the roost is because the
online medium is still VERY new and there's so much uncharted
territory out there, even in the RPG genre, that we're sticking with
what we know. Some of the biggest problems we face in online RPGs
aren't going to go away when we make a game in a different genre.
For example, grief players are going to show up in any game.  How do
we handle them?  What do we want?  Can we make them contributing and
useful members of our communities?  Or, should we just cut our
losses and boot these people out of our games?

Even more basic than that, we're still struggling with how to make a
solid community.  Community is the main reason to make an online
game, IMHO.  Can we make groups with vastly different points of view
work together as Raph hopes?  What can we do to retain established
groups within our games?  These are questions that any game must
struggle with.  Would a game in a new genre be too much of a
distraction to trying to answer these questions?

That said, I think there's still a lot of interesting things that
are going to happen in the online space.  I think whole new genres
that couldn't possibly work in single-player games are going to be
developed and exploited.  I also think that gaming is going to have
the same effect on connectivity as it did on computer hardware.
But, before all these wonderful things take place, we are going to
have to answer some of the questions that form the foundation of
game development in the online medium.

And, for that, RPGs make a wonderful test bed.  It's worked so
far. :)

Comments welcomed.

--
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
     Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
       |\      _,,,---,,_      *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   "They're not bugs, they're 'place-
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'    holders for code that works.'"
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)         - Andrew Kirmse, Meridian 59 creator
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