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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shadow" data-source="post: 337910" data-attributes="member: 2182">The biggest talk among gamers nowadays is about Computer Role Playing Games being the wave of the future.  As a fan of good ol' D&D and other pen and paper RPGs, I really question that assumption.  For a long time, computer games really lagged behind traditional table top games because of poor graphics, cheezy sound effects, and complicated interfaces.  Now with the release of Neverwinter Nights, the bar has been raised.  Suddenly I've been hearing talk of CRPGs either succeeding traditional RPGs, or CRPGs being used as a tool to "recruit" fresh blood into the RPG hobby.  In spite of CRPG success, I'm convinced that they are a entirely different beast.I see CRPGs as falling into one of three categories.1.  The plot and story heavy games like Final Fantasy.  These games have great stories that rival many movies (and certainly many a cliche adventure hook in traditional RPGs)  However, since computers can't mimick a human dungeon master, the player is severely limited in terms of what path the characer can take.  The result is a very linear story, that is very railroaded (something the DMG warns against in a D&D game).2. The hack n' slash games.  The prime example of these type of games is Diablo.  Whereas Final Fantasy focuses primarily on plot, Diablo throws out all pretense of having a plot (Sure the instruction book gives some background in order to set the tone of the game, but does it really come into play during the game?)  The result is gameplay that focuses on killing monsters and aquiring treasure.  Although some people run D&D games that are primarily hack n' slash, most groups like to at least have some type of plot.3. The MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online RPG) like EverCrack and Ultima Online.  Although I'm not really familiar with these type of games, from what little I've seen of them, they are really different from traditional RPGs.  First of all, there are no Dungeon Masters to provide a story, so players are much more free to do whatever they want, but there is less of a direction and a story.  Also, you get a lot of people with stupid screen names, people who spend all their time in town begging for items, or those who prefer to PK others.None of the aforementioned games really capture all the elements of the traditional RPGs.  I'm not arguing that they can't be fun in their own right (I, myself, am a Final Fantasy fan.), but I can't possibly foresee CRPG as the successor of the pen and paper RPG.  Moreover, there just is something about a group of friends getting together in the evening gathered over the dinner table  with a pile of books, pizza, and soda that CRPGs can't emulate.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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