Issue 30 - A Roleplayer in Azeroth

[The Escapist Staff]

Will HindmarchThough descended from tabletop games, CRPGs borrowed from the settings and mechanics much more successfully than they captured the spirit. Will Hindmarch, a self-professed RPG snob, discusses his feelings on this, and how his experience in World of Warcraft has affected them.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Weefz
http://www.theaveragegamer.com
Am I reading it wrong or does this article basically say "I didn't like Morrowind so it's not an RPG even though it has practically all the characteristics and I like World of Warcraft so even though you're only sort of role-playing I'm still going to call it an RPG"?

Sounds like you have a need to validate your gaming fun under the term RPG even though you said yourself that the role-playing isn't the source of the fun. Bit of a confused article, I find...

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Mark

I've said it before, and I'll probably keep saying it. Attempting to define "RPG" is an exercise in futility. The most that anyone can agree on is that it involves numbers that are visible to the player, and even that is disputed.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Dave
http://warcraftdays.blogspot.com
WOWing is more often like 'roll-playing' rather than 'role-playing'. To most players, it's about aiming for the highest statistic, frequently DPS, more than anything else.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Ian

Weefz: I think the author is saying that in traditional CRPGs, there is no player interaction, because of the nature of the single player game. Because of this games like KotOR and Morrowind are not satisfying to him; i.e. they do not deliver what he wants when he plays RPGs, and therefore cannot be an RPG, by his definition (because an RPG delivers what an RPG delivers). WoW is almost an RPG because it delivers something close to what he gets out of RPGs.

I suppose he's saying that there's something unique about pnp RPGs that is almost nonexistant in CRPGs, in a roundabout way.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Delstro
http://www.Armageddon.org
Maybe graphical games aren't what you are looking for? I'd suggest Armageddon.org. Check us out. It'll be fun. I agree on Morrowind. Infinitely big, but not enough quality. It is basically a lot of walking and a lot of repeated action. You can choose to play a role, but you can play an adventure game to and do whatever it is you want, if your PC likes it or not.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: rod furlong

What the hell is a crpg?

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Mark

Computer RPG.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Will Hindmarch
http://www.wordstudio.net
To be fair, I hardly think my opinion of Morrowind has much power to define what Morrowind actually is. I'll be the first to admit that the importance I put on the distinction between CRPGs and RPGs (it's more than just than the "computer" part that separates them) is snobbery, moreso than objective criticism.

Still, I think the differences between CRPGs and RPGs are much more interesting than their common traits. RPGs aren't necessarily superior to CRPGs, so I don't understand the offense taken when a CRPG is said to be not a "real RPG" by paper-lovers like me. What RPGs are is more beloved by me, which has almost nothing to do with quality, so no worries there.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: macem

i expected an article about the RPG servers of Wow. Blizzard has some running in the EU so i guess they have them in the US too. I never played on any of these and stopped playing Wow altogether. What i mean by RPG WoW servers are the servers like some UO freeshards with a ruleset and GMs that make you play your role or you bail off the server.
Would've been an interesting read about the RPG servers.