Wolv0rine said:
But it'll never take the place of actually playing D&D because (as has been touched on before) D&D (technically table-top RPGs, but we're talking about D&D in specific here) has the potential to include pretty much anything at the drop of a hat.
People keep saying this on all the threads about this -- I guess MMORPGs are the new 4E around here -- but it's not true.
Yes, you
could do anything in D&D, but most people don't.
Most games take place in inns, villages, crypts, dungeons, ruins, forests, mountains and (once in a while) plains. Get fancy and you can throw in aquatic environments and deserts. That right there encompasses 90 percent, at least, of where people play.
Now, you
could resolve a conflict in D&D by spontaneously mutating and growing giant pincers out of your forehead and decapitating your enemy after mating with him, and then eating his head, but you probably don't.
Instead, you probably a) kill them, b) bribe them, c) bargain with them, d) trick them or e) flee them.
In a NWN-style system, where you have a DM controlling NPCs, all of those are available today.
Not only is the notion that online games can "never" offer what D&D an untrue assertion, they're 90 percent of the way there
right now. Give the platform two generations (especially if they get competition along the way), and this thread will seem a hilarious or embarassing memory, depending on which side of the fence you were on.
Heck, they'll even have all the wacky environments and other stuff as add-on options you can pay more for, once the standard bases are all covered.