First Person RPG's - Help me List Em

I know that things I would rate very high as needed elements in a crpg, others wouldn't care nearly as much about. For me:

1. Rewarding exploration-This can be a physical reward, such as finding a special treasure or hidden area. It can also be an xp reward. If you find the hidden button and click on it, you are awarded 50 points towards leveling. Finally, it can be an achievement type of award. I enjoyed clearing every ounce of black on Morrowind and Oblivion's maps.

2. Character building-This is where the stats/numbers fun comes striding to the fore. I love manipulating skill, attribute, perk, weapons and armor numbers. Even paper doll dressing is fun, especially if the results are graphical along with the statistical. Choosing my own race, class, and name are important to me. I don't want to be a nameless hero or some dude with an already established background. I can live with it, but I prefer games where "I" get to roleplay, not where the developer got to roleplay.

3. A great variety of treasure. I like messing with loot. I like selling it, for as much as I can get, and keeping the choicest pieces for myself. Again, a nice graphical representation is appreciated. The 3d view of treasure in Skyrim is going to be a great pleasure for me.

Other things such as story, companions, pets, factions, etc. aren't as important. Games that have great stories, good companions, political factions, but are missing my vital 3, will always have less appeal to me. The Witcher 1/2, Gothics, Planescape Torment, are all good games to many, but I found them to all be missing part of what makes a crpg great for me.

HiddenX said:

A result of a very loooooong discussion about crpg-elements at rpgdot and rpgwatch is the so called crpg-meter:


CRPG-Meter for Drakensang

CRPG-Meter for The Witcher

CRPG-Meter for Geneforge 4

CRPG-Meter for Gothic 3

It is far from perfect, but you can measure the crpg-ingredients of a given game well.

Click to expand...

Interesting. I'll check that out Thanks.

Not modern, not graphically first person but I would consider Text Adventure Games like Zork to be RPG's. I own all of the Infocom games and still play them. Love Them. I tell ya, in my book your not a gamer if you can't cut your teeth on Zork or other Infocom games.

Er.. that being said.. I wonder how may folks actually played The Original RPG - Dungeons and Dragons. I still long for a good D&D computer game that has all of the playability of D&D with the modern visual style of first person dungeon crawling.

I don't think Zork counts as an RPG to be honest. There's no stat driven character development for instance. It belongs more truly in the interactive fiction genre. But that being said, I loved the ol' Infocom games and still have some originals for my C64.

There are quite a few old timers on these boards who have played alot of the old D&D games. Speaking of such games, Descent to Undermountain (1998) belongs on your list. Whilst it's not a great game by any means (I only played as far as the third level) it's first person and AD&D.

skavenhorde said:

WHAT QUOTE? JDR didn't quote you. You just popped in and said that's not what you said.

Let me try to understand this: You quoted JDR telling him that's not what you said, however he was not talking to you, so why quote him telling him you didn't say that when he wasn't even talking to you directly?……oh great now I have a headache. I'm done. Maybe stay away from JDR for the time being. He bites

Click to expand...

Because people who are for the all subjective approach have the answer to their own behaviour.

I dont quote an individual but rather sample a line of thought. The question is worth for anyone (and they are numerous on this site) holding the view that RPG is all subjective. And the question stands: how does it come that such behaviour (as sampled by the quote) is exhibited?

Everyone with the same line of thought can answer. So far, no answer save dilatory tactics through quotations.

It would be interesting to know why people who are in the all subjective trend provide lists of game supposed to be RPGs. By their own line of thought, those lists can only be personal and unworthy to share. And it would be interesting to know why people holding that all subjective RPG type come and argue on whether or not the game fits in the list as it makes no sense by their line of thought.

HiddenX said:

It is far from perfect, but you can measure the crpg-ingredients of a given game well.

Click to expand...

A flawed approach is likely to give flawed answers. But it can maintain endless discussion as it does not allow to achieve conclusions. Suitable for the Internet.

ChienAboyeur said:

Because people who are for the all subjective approach have the answer to their own behaviour.

I dont quote an individual but rather sample a line of thought. The question is worth for anyone (and they are numerous on this site) holding the view that RPG is all subjective. And the question stands: how does it come that such behaviour (as sampled by the quote) is exhibited?

Everyone with the same line of thought can answer. So far, no answer save dilatory tactics through quotations.

It would be interesting to know why people who are in the all subjective trend provide lists of game supposed to be RPGs. By their own line of thought, those lists can only be personal and unworthy to share. And it would be interesting to know why people holding that all subjective RPG type come and argue on whether or not the game fits in the list as it makes no sense by their line of thought.

Click to expand...

Ummmm, yeaaaaa…….. okkkk. Just a little helpful advice. Don't flat out tell someone that "I didn't say that" if that person is not directly responding to you. It's a little weird.

As for responding to a train of thought, well of course. That's what these threads are all about. Just don't make it seem like he was talking to you directly before. Hope that helps.

I dont quote posters as persons, I quote the posts. I dont single out nothing other than words.
I pick up lines of thought. Nothing weird in that. Actually the norm when ideas are discussed.

Strict FP RPGs I didn't see mentioned yet:

Bard's Tale (absolute classic, a must play, _extremely_ challenging without maps or clues)
Bard's Tale 2 & 3
Dragon Wars
Dungeon Master (another classic)
Dungeon Master 2

Gregz said:

Strict FP RPGs I didn't see mentioned yet:

Bard's Tale (absolute classic, a must play, _extremely_ challenging without maps or clues)
Bard's Tale 2 & 3
Dragon Wars
Dungeon Master (another classic)
Dungeon Master 2

Click to expand...

The OP asked for "modern" FPRPGs, which is probably why these haven´t been mentioned, though what constitutes modern is of course disputable, har har.
Personally I consider the first modern FPRPG to be Ultima Underworld.

Also, you list Dungeon Master and Dungeon Master 2, but omit Chaos Strikes Back!? What is this.
))

Yeah modern RPG's. The thing with me about older games is I can't get into them anymore.. played a lot of them years ago. It's not that those answers are not good, just not the kind I wanna play, but folks can post em cus they might help someone else.

If there is an older game I wanna play like System Shock 2, I look for fan made texture mods and graphical enhancements to make the game more modern. You might be surprised how much of this kind of thing is around for older games.

I have been playing the Nehrim mod for the past few days and really like it. TC's rock.

I'm picking up Might & Magic IX (9). I took a look at all the others ( previous titles and the Hero's series) and I wont play anything you need to use your mouse cursor to move with. At least this way I'll get to see what all the fuss is about over these games.

Dark Phoenix said:

I'm picking up Might & Magic IX (9). I took a look at all the others ( previous titles and the Hero's series) and I wont play anything you need to use your mouse cursor to move with. At least this way I'll get to see what all the fuss is about over these games.

Click to expand...

Run, don't walk from Might and Magic 9. Play MM VI, VII or even VIII again. Or better yet, pickup Wizardry 8 and call it day. I'm VERY stubborn about finishing games I've started, and I've tried three playthroughs of MM9, and gave up out of frustration all three times.

Dark Phoenix said:

I'm picking up Might & Magic IX (9). I took a look at all the others ( previous titles and the Hero's series) and I wont play anything you need to use your mouse cursor to move with. At least this way I'll get to see what all the fuss is about over these games.

Click to expand...

You don't need to use the mouse to move in any Might and Magic game. Modern mouselook was even implemented for 6-8 in recent fan patches. Playing M&M 9 to get a feel for the M&M's is like playing Ultima 9 to get a sense of the Ultima series. Do not do this.

darkling, Perhaps it was the videos I looked at that gave me the impression they were controlled by the mouse. I wouldn't know about the modern mouselook in 6-8 unless someone told me about it. You did and I thank you for that.. I'll take another look at them. Does telp.org have these mouselook patches built into to their patches?

Sir Markus, I understand 9 had tons of bugs but most of the game stopping ones were fixed with fan patch 1.3a. Perhaps that may solve your problem. That's what I plan to install. Look here: http://telp.org/ <- they have patches for 6,7,8 & 9

6 on I may be able to play but I don't think I could abide graphics worse than these. On the other hand ( shameless plug) GOG is an awesome place for older games and they have 2 MM titles, 7 and 8 I think.

Oh my, those telp patches are really old!

Here's a link: http://www.celestialheavens.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10622

This post on Celestial Heavens has links to the three patches for M&M 6-8, near the bottom of the post. This "GrayFace" fellow has been posting these patches for a while now, I take them for granted. But yeah, even before, the games used a really awkward keyboard movement system.

Also, I always thought Xeen was graphically superior to the 6-8 games. Well-drawn pixel art totally beats the blocky hideous sprites and low polygon buildings of the late 90's games. I was one of the folks who really didn't get into 3D at first, it was always so ugly compared to the fantastic 2D art of the games that came out before. It was so bizarre in the late 90's seeing people rant and rave about the graphics of Final Fantasy 7 (a game released at the height of ugly 3D) and then talk about the dated ugly 2D art of Baldur's Gate (a game released a year later with fantastic 2D art). But to each their own, I guess. D: