Quiconque

Amen!

That's at least part of the issue: RPG was an apt label for distinguishing PNP RPGs from other non-digital games: war games, board games, card games, sports, etc. On computers and consoles, role-playing is not what distinguishes actual RPGs from other games, nor has it ever been what they most have in common with PNP RPGs.

It's not the lack of turns that's the issue, really. Let's not forget how overly fond I am of Dungeon Master, and Eye of the Beholder, and Chrono Trigger for crying out loud. The issue is replacing deeper tactical and strategic considerations with fast-paced thinking and manual skill. That is a change that cuts to the heart of what a RPGs were about: role- or roll-, you had to think about what to do. There's still thinking now, but it's shrunken and subordinate.

Originally Posted By: Sage of Numenor One cannot remember the great games of the past without talking. Unless the game is Robot Odyssey. Oh man... THAT was a terrific game. I looked at the same list, Alorael. Action-RPGs have to count because they have overwhelmed the RPG market, really. I remember back when Pathways Into Darkness was being categorized as an RPG, and I was confused; but actually that was just the harbinger of categorizations to come. Oh, Wolfenstein 3D, what has your legion of offspring wrought? Or maybe the blame should really go on MUDs for broaching the real-time barrier and giving birth to MMORPGs.

It's not like Jeff's first description of the game used the word "psychosexual" or anything...

The fact that nobody has ever noticed that before (in 13 years) just goes to show you how often people use revival spells rather than save-and-reload.

... Okay, video games have officially gone too far now.

Wait, this is complete news to me (because Lilith is correct that I rarely play contemporary non-indie non-Japanese RPGs for more than 5 minutes). In current games, sleeping with PCs and/or NPCs is typically a major part of the game? ?__?

Phantasy Star III (1990, "Generations of Doom") and Dragon Quest V (1992, "Hand of the Heavenly Bride") both had significant focuses on romance. Each involved courtship and weddings, and followed 3 generations of one or more families -- and which children you get depend on who you marry.

That's got to be the most fitting autocensor output I've yet seen.

Indeed, 2nd edition. I guess what I'm saying is that Baldur's Gate looks and plays pretty similarly to most contemporary games, even if the graphics quality or game mechanics are different. On a scale that goes from text-based mainframe games, to Rogue, to Akalabeth and Ultima, to Dragon Quest, to Dungeon Master, to Bane of the Cosmic Forge and the Shadow of Yserbius, to Final Fantasy 7, to Baldur's Gate and Diablo, to KOTR, to Oblivion, and a host of others... on that scale, it just isn't old.

Off topic: Excalibur, what does your avatar represent?

Originally Posted By: Dantius Communism has never worked and never will work- it's predicated on the assumption that people will work in the best interests of society as opposed to the best interests of themselves, which never ever ever will happen. Originally Posted By: Goldenking A common misconception. The classical Marxist point of view makes it abundantly obvious that... It's all about the procession of technology, which will make Communism happen, not utopians trying to get everyone to share. Originally Posted By: Dantius So essentially you're saying I'm wrong because someone stated that I'm wrong? "Because Marx said so" is hardly a very sound argument. No, he's not. You said "communism is predicated on this"; he said "actually, it wasn't, at least not in its original form." Citing the original form seems like the best way to make that argument to me. Goldenking wasn't arguing that what Marx wrote is going to come true, just that your characterization of communism was inaccurate. While he didn't quote Marx, he also didn't quote Marx blatantly out of context like you did. Myself, I think it's obviously a load of bunk: we're WELL past the point where we have the easy capability to provide a comfortable life for every human on the planet, and we don't, because people prefer their own luxuries to the comfort of others. Originally Posted By: Dantius However, we've seen nothing but a rise in living standards, nutrition, medicine, education, wages, and comfort(excepting during wars and depressions, but those are anomalies). This is true for the world taken as a whole, but it is not categorically true. There are numerous examples of times and places where living standards have fallen (beyond wars and depressions, there is in particular the result of exploitative rule, rather relevant to the theme of human morality that according to Goldenking communism is not predicated on). So the statement that we have seen "nothing but" an improved standard of living is false. Quote: If the workers are seeing constant improvement in their lot in life, what reason would they have to overthrow a system that is providing them objective benefits and by all appearances will continue to provide them with objective benefits? Um, because they could see MORE benefits and MORE improvements by overthrowing the system and replacing it with a more egalitarian one?

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Quote: Carter was a frigging peanut farmer That isn't a poor man's profession. They make a decent living even without the agricultural subsidies. Quote: Clinton was the son of a poor salesman Clinton and his wife were both lawyers. The whole Whitewater scandal was about them trying to get rich quick in a real estate deal where they put up almost no money. Was the question about previous profession, or socioeconomic origins? I think you'll be hard-pressed to find ANY U.S. Presidents whose previous careers were primarily in low-paying or low-prestige industries. On the other hand, there is a real difference between the childhood you get from a wealthy family where your elders have high-ranking positions in industry and government, like Kennedy and Bush had, and a poor family that struggled, like Nixon and Eisenhower had.

In a genre where the first games appeared in 1974 and 1975, and in which games were appearing in high numbers and good quality by the mid-to-late 80's, 1998 is not rather old.

Originally Posted By: Bladel Take Wizardry. It had similar party system but then BANG you could change character class and transform him into something completely different. I don't want to say this mechanic is so great but it offers a choice, gives me a chance to think. Avadon will have skills - now that's something. I agree that many of the stats in SW games are "boring" to increase. Level ups are not always exciting. And I guess they _were_ much more exciting in Wizardry, since they meant increased stats AND increased skills AND new spells, OR the option to change class... however, class changing in general was a pretty wretched mechanic. Instead of inspiring variety it inspired a sprawling swamp of purely logistical considerations: players spent hours re-rolling characters to ensure their stats would be high enough for a whole chain of class changes, did way too much math to make sure this would be possible, reset level-ups when needed, and half the point of class change was to repeat the lower levels over and over with fast-advancing classes like the Valkyrie. A dismal system that unbalanced the game significantly. Originally Posted By: lordofdc Mmm, how about a classic like Baldurs gate? That's a classic now? Sheesh.

There are exactly zero "hidden" abilities like that in the game.

It's been a long time, but I think there are multiple spellbooks upstairs in different locked rooms. Are you sure you found all of them?

Originally Posted By: Excalibur A corporation has a strong incentive to satisfy its customers, because if the customers don't like their product, they'll go out of business (unless corporate welfare is going on). Governments have an incentive, but to a much lesser degree, as they are elected only periodically. They can dissatisfy their customers and still stay in business as a whole, unless they do something really bad and spark a revolution. That is traditionally true of corporations, but in reality it often isn't true. It doesn't require a monopoly for prices to rise and product/service quality to fall. Cornering ANY aspect of the product/service, no matter how small, can lead to this. Perhaps a better statement is: A corporation has a strong incentive to keep its customers MORE satisfied than they would be without their products/services (or to keep them dependent on them), but they have minimal incentive to keep them more satisfied than the minimum. I think with that statement the analogy fits perfectly. Governments have a strong incentive to keep people happy enough that they aren't going to revolt (literally or in the voting booth), but minimal incentive to keep them more satisfied than the minimum.

That's like a sniper land mine.

No, very different people.

Not quite Greece, but: "...only a minority of Romans were citizens. As such, having votes in elections for choosing representatives and then the votes of the powerful were given more weight through a system of Gerrymandering." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy#Ancient_origins I don't know if they mean geographic Gerrymandering, which is typically what it means, but hey.

Also, we need a study to tell us that would happen? The bullet points there are basically the talking points for Glenn Beck.

I agree with everything you said, except for the part where you said "these days." People have always been misinformed. Democracy exists to allow the mob to make certain decisions, not because the mob is smart, but because it is a safeguard against evil tyranny, one of the few positive functions of the mob. "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." H. L. Mencken

No, I think this is a substantive difference. "No one would give it a second look" implies the same thing I was saying, I think, that there is little inherent draw to it -- not that there is no way it could ever be marketed.