Col_Pladoh said:
According to experts,. most of the computer games of fnatasy and like sort borrow at least something from the A/D&D game.
That's is why I am mentioned as being so influential in computer gaming
Cheers,
Gary
I know this is quoted from an older post, but I was doing a magazine article about the history of computer RPGs and almost every one of the old designers from the 70s and 80s were avid fans of DnD and readers of Tolkien, or so it has said on their websites or among the few you can get a hold of and speak.
The original games were named such things as pedit5, and were made in the mid-70s, but non-commercially and as hobbies. The first truly shared CRPG was Adventure, aka, the Colossal Cave, and was created by two hobbyists, one who liked DnD and Tolkien and the other who like caving. The map is actually based on a real-life cave. It was shared by members of the old DECUS network. You can still play this one on the fanpage. Some guys from MIT created Interplay and created Zork from this idea, and made some decent cash.
Another non-profit fan game was Rogue, and it came very closer to simulating pen and paper dynamics in a game, though it is not impressive to today's standards. You played a '@' symbol who would walk around killing 'r's (rates), 'w' (worms), etc... The descendants of Rogue are still being created by amateur programmers today.
The first MUD came around in 1980, was called MUD1 (later British Legends) and based itself on the Adventure/Zork model, but was on-line. A copy of this can also still be played on its own fanpage.
An 18 or 19-year old man named Richard Garriott created Akalabeth and Ultima I around 1980, based on pencil and paper DnD and his love of British lore, and in this fashion made enough money to go through college and start his own company, Origin.
Wizardry I also came out in 1981, and introduced the party concept into the CRPG, and was probably most like DnD. It sold very well and was a simple dungeon crawler, which appealed to those normally outside the fan base.
Since that made money, too, the rest was history. I played a number of the TSR DnD Dragonlance CRPG titles, but never really got into them. They never seemed to feel right. It wasn't until Black Isle created Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment that I found a pure DnD title that stood out from the CRPG competition. The creators of those had a love for the game and it really shone through with good gameplay and an unbelievably rich storyline.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
