Ruin Explorer
Legend
As illustrated earlier in this thread, and am too lazy to re-write, Aldarc, not, this is not true.The move to RPGs does not exactly seem all that arduous of a task as some people make it out to be. It's sometimes a regular process of games. Even if we account for the fact that fantasy video games have been influenced by D&D, we can see how certain games have drifted towards RPGs from different genres.
Warcraft started as the RTS game Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. The sequel Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness followed up on the prior formula. Then in the expansion pack Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal, the game introduced more specialized hero units, which was greatly expanded on in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. WC3 brought in specialized hero units that were stronger than regular units, had unique abilities, and could even level up and acquire magic items found in the map. The game also shifted from larger armies and nations to smaller ones centered around the stories of hero characters. WoW was actually in co-development behind the scenes as WC3, but over time the Warcraft series shifted from the stories to the individual level, with World of Warcraft being the ground-eye individualistic level of an RTS game. It's much how D&D was a tactical skirmish game that came from war gaming roots. All it takes is one person to ask "what would it be like to play as a single unit in this game in this world?"
We already discussed how it's easy to move to "what if you control one unit", but that just makes it a peculiar wargame, like 40K's 2001 Inquisitor wargame, not an RPG. An RPG entails more than playing just one character in a wargame. And I think modern tech and design would actively inhibit doing more, because people are so used to operating inside boxes.