So, which game made you into a fan of the genre and why?
Well, my very first RPGs were
- Lands Of Lore 1 (remains unfinished to this day)
- Schicksalsklinge (the German original of Blade Of Destiny)
- Albion
But it was only the middle one which really got me into RPGs. It had so much "newness" around it : A new world, exploration, unknown reactions (of NPCs and of foes alike) … Plus, it was a story told. well, at least to some extend.
As I always say, I'm rather coming from the Adventure Games area, and stories are the most important thing to me. A game must have at least some sort of story, or it will bore me too no end, so to say - which Blizzard managed to do, altjough I was quite hooked there at one point.
I just wished people would long for stories as well - I'm seeing fewer and fewer adventure games these days, and humour dying out. No humour, please, it's intoxicating.
Gothic 1 was a real … new experience, but it was hard, harsh and grim. It had an interesting story, but I never managed to play it to the end.
Divinity 1 aka "Divine Divinity" was another game which had influenced me. But then I was already a member of the forums there. We started to write our own stories there.
It's kind of interesting to see that too much combat turns me off. The almost only games which I have finished to this days are all adventure games. I have finished very few RPGs.
Edit : My very first non-RPG games were
- The Blues Brothers (jump & run game)
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (Adventure)
- Comander Keen IV & V (jump & run game)
- later The Secret Of Monkey Island aka MI1
- several demos, like the demo of Micro Machines 1 and of the Beauty and the Beast disney game
well … there were some more, but I don't remember them anymore right now …
Besides, I never had any computer prior to my 486SX25