Most Important RPG

[Wulf]

The terms of reference are a bit vague, though i agree with woges's logic.

However, now that Jaz adds clarity for 'important' as leaning towards *genre-defining* i feel happier and voted for Gothic - probably the most unrealised game in the world for many reasons which go too deep to be explained in simplistic terms. Gothic was ten years ahead of it's time as far as gaming 'realisaton' is concerned, to date it hasn't yet been beaten (read:solved) by many hundreds of thousands of players - this is a very important gaming reason why Gothic stands head and shoulders above the crowd, a true rpg masterpiece.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Hello,

thanks for explaining, Lucky Day.

 

[Lucky Day]

UU was another one I missed, I apologize. I believe it deserves its own spot aside from the other Ultimas and if I had to qulaify it I'd put System Shock and Deus Ex as part of the same choice.

I was busy when Krondor was new so I never enjoyed it, unfortunately. I knew it was popular. Would anyone else say its "important".

What about Dungeon Master?

The early to mid 90's was a time I largely missed and when RPG's started getting called a "niche" genre when Space Sims and Myst clones really, really took off.

I like to refer to it as the Dark Ages for RPGs and just like history's Dark Ages there was a lot that happened that people ignored.

 

[shaf]

I don't consider UU as important or groundbreaking. It was just Dungeon Master (FTL) with an Ultima background.

There were a lot of SSI RPG's that weren't based on Dungeons & Dragons such as the Phantasie Series, or how about pne of my favorite Amiga RPGs "Fairy tale adventure" by Martin Talin at Microillusions.

If you want more action based games the Apshai Series should be considered.

Shaf

 

[Dasale]

If we accept the most 'influential' as the appropriate rendering, then Ultima 4 should be the clear cut winner. I don't think it's the best rpg ever, but it was certainly a powerful influence on everything which came later. PS-T was a fantastic game, but it has had little real influence except for forum discussions like this one!!

It's all the problem about influential, the first step is to look at the best known franchise and how much they have been copied.

But the second step can be quite more tricky. It's to look at what really make move the schmilblick. In music you had some example of music that was obscure and not know by the masses but by sort of geeks more or less specialized in the area. And later many groups that get well known by a large public get influenced by that past obscure music. I wonder if that's not possible in CRPG, possibly at a lesser degree.

It's quite clear that Dungeon Master had been a very big license and for some reason it is going into the obscure area with less and less players able to play it, older players had left the scene and newer don't succeed enter in it. Anyway, I agree that it is certainly one of the most influencial game of all time, just by setting up a real time first person sort of 3D adventuring.

It is a direct influence of Ultima Underworld that is a clear and direct influence of Doom that is a clear influence of all first person shooter. Most modern games get their sources in Dungeon Master. But well if you look at it deeply Wizardry was a strong influence of Dungeon Master, so Wizardry is the grand father of modern gaming!

 

[Dasale]

I don't consider UU as important or groundbreaking. It was just Dungeon Master (FTL) with an Ultima background.

Well then Dungeon Master isn't that important because it gets clearly and strongly influenced by Wizardry 1.

I see your point and eventually the step forward isn't as much important that the one that did Dungeon Master but perhaps Ultima Underworld did a step forward anyway.

The first point is, is it dungeon master that brought real time to game first? I don't have any sample but I doubt so, need some checking. Imagine you got a game like that, any and then Dungeon Master is just this game with a Wizardry 1 background.

EDIT: Ok I got it, Dungeon Master didn't setup anything new because it is just a mix of a real time maze game and a first person CRPG, ie Pac Man and Wizardry.

 

[Zaleukos]

I don't consider UU as important or groundbreaking. It was just Dungeon Master (FTL) with an Ultima background.

UU was a huge step forward in terms of dialogue (particularly the second one), interactive environment, and relatively stepless movement in a 3D world. The difference is big enough to be considered a generation shift from Dungeon Master et al. In a similar vein Dungeon Master, EotB, and a few other titles represented something new with their real time combat...

 

[Dasale]

Well even if it seems to be technical, the step from flat 3D and non continuous movements to continuous movements and real slopes, hills and so on was a major gaming step forward among the many other steps that did UU and most probably it's its most influential step.

 

[wolfing]

I first selected Wiz 1 as it was the game that 'got me' into playing RPGs (Well, there was Temple of Apshai before that, but Wiz 1 was the big BOOM). But then I realized BG simply rocked the whole CRPG world in so many aspects. I was also looking for EQ1 as it's the game in which I finally felt like I was almost living in a fantasy world.

 

[Dasale]

That topic lead me to read many bit of article around the net and if influence had to considered even for games now forgotten that could be quite complicated. For example:

• It seems that it's dnd a PLATO game that's been the first real CRPG. It was using a top-down view, had random generated dungeons and had get inspiration from Dungeon & Dragon hence the name DnD.
• That it seems to have influence Moria (not the later Moria Rogue like game) another later PLATO game that seems the first to include isometric first person view in CRPG.
• That if Rogue is really the first full ASCII game that setup the Rogue like game genre in fact Beneath Apple Manor was released before and had two versions, one of them was full ASCII.

Ok if we stick to better known license here a sample list proposal:

• Rogue
• Ultima
• Wizardry
• Ultima III
• Wizard's Crown
• Dungeon Master
• Pool of Radiance
• Wasteland (Not sure of this one, is it really influenced anything and Fallout?)
• Final Fantasy II
• Eye of the Beholder (Following Dungeon Master but setup an improved standard that get copied during multiple years)
• The Bard's Tale Construction Set (First construction set?)
• Dragon Quest IV
• Ultima Underworld
• Ultima VII (Influence not obvious, eventually more recent games)
• System Shock (Not a real CRPG but a clear influence anyway)
• The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (I know the TES I was released before but it's more Daggerfall that get spreading)
• Diablo (Ha well CRPG or not, why debate?)
• Fallout
• Baldur's Gate
• Final Fantasy VII
• Planetscape: Tourment
• Deus Ex (Not a real CRPG but a clear influence anyway)
• Diablo II (Multiply the influence already set by Diablo I)
• Gothic (this one isn't obvious, could be more Gothic 2)
• Neverwinter Night
• Gothic II and Night of the Raven (it's more that release that get a better spreading)
• Dungeon Siege (Diablo influenced but trying include more CRPG, perhaps get more copied than Diablo)
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
• More recent will be too recent.

Well we all know this list and that makes it uninteresting. :

 

[blatantninja]

For most important, I would say that it has to be one that had such an influence that it genuinely changed the direction of the genre. Now granted, I have not played every game on these lists (I know, I'm a big slacker!), but I would have to say of the ones I know, only two come to mind, Ultima IV and Baldur's Gate, and for very different reasons.

Ultima IV introduced the virtues system. It may not have been the first to have an ethical system of actions and consequences, but it definitely was the most widely known and spawned pretty much every ethical system that came after it.

BG is often credited with 'saving' the single player RPG. While the real-time turn based system was pretty awesome, it had already been used in Fallout prior to this, IIRC. The storyline was pretty cool, but again nothing revolutionary. However, given the dominance of MMORPG's, without something as massively successful as BG and its sequel, the stand alone RPG may well have died.

 

[Dasale]

Baldur's Gate 1 is quite older than MMORPG but ok BG2 is later. For me unlike Fallout, BG didn't bring anything very new. But it brought big contents with solid rock quality and good tuning in every aspects and setup the modern era just after Fallout.

In the end of the 90's many idiots was buying only online game because of a longer game length. That's probably why BG became NWN.

 

[Lucky Day]

that's a good list Dasale. I would argue that Morrowind (separately from Daggerfall) was seminal as well because we had never seen an RPG of this graphic quality before.

NWN reminds me to that the original AOL:NWN is pretty important because it seems it was what broke the MUD into the world of graphics which would lead to MMORPG's.

Is WoW in anyway more important than EQ? EQ brought 3D gaming to MMOG's something probably not thought possible at that time.

 

[Benedict]

Depressing question, the ones that I'd like to say have been most influential / important tragically haven't influenced the industry nearly as much as they should.

With a heavy heart I'd have to say Diablo, because it showed developers that they could dispense with plot, complexity and dialogue in favour of mindless but strangely compelling clickfests, spawning more clones than anything else, sucking life and investment out of the more thoughtful ends of the rpg spectrum and ultimately laying the groundwork for World of Warcraft that by any sensible reckoning has had the biggest overall impact of any rpg type computer game.

Shame I couldn't answer Planescape Torment for this poll really

 

[Thrasher]

What is meant by "important"? To do this properly you need to define clearly what is meant by "important".

Important from a sales point of view?
Ground breaking technology?
New or redefined genres that changed the landscape?
Most affecting from a personal perspective?
Most fun to play?
So horrible that it had serious repercussions throughout the industry?

etc, etc,...

 

[woges]

"Planescape: Torrent"

 

[blatantninja]

Baldur's Gate 1 is quite older than MMORPG but ok BG2 is later.

UO was two years old when BG was released, and Everquest was released just after, and dozens more were nearing completion.

 

[SALZHERZ]

For me a clear vote:

Ultimat IV (masterpiece, your action counts)
Bards Tale 1 (i love the party based play)
Dungeon Master (i remember the first mummy MOVES ! OMG IT MOVES !!)
Fallout 1 & 2 (yes, not 3.... NO NOT THREE... NO FOR REAL NOT THREE)

 

[magerette]

That was really a hard choice for me, not having played a lot of the earlier games--I was basically limited to Diablo, Gothic and BG/PS:T. I tend to lean toward Benedict's assessment that as importance goes, Diablo has probably driven more sales, more imitations and clones, attracted more players and influenced more developers, but I don't think of it as a cRPG, so I voted for BG/PS:T, which also did many of those things, if on a somewhat more modest scale.

 

[Stanza]

As far as this poll goes, I'll have to go with DnD, since that was the first of those games I ever played. Even found a copy online earlier this year and gave it a try. Only to be killed about three steps in by a balrog.

The real important one for me was Advent/Adventure/Colossal Cave, which was my first PC game circa '82, and what got me interested in programming, and started 20 years of writing (bad) interactive fiction games.

Then blame IWD 20 years later for getting me interested in graphical games and RPGs, and causing me to spend every waking hour of '02, '03, and '04 playing every RPG that I could find (when I wasn't at work, of course, ahem).