MY IDEAL RPG

                An article by Stefan Herber

Thank you very much, Sue, for inviting us poor consumers to indulge
our fantasies. I hope that the full assessments of your readers
will be sent to the major games companies for their consideration.
They can't ignore RPGs any more after the commercial success of FF7
and Baldur's Gate, not to mention the USA market, can they?

I write this during a lull period from RPGs. I have too many
adventure/strategy/educational titles gathering dust so recent
releases such as Baldur, Fallout 2 and Return to Krondor are having
to wait their turn. For me the ideal RPG has already been released
- unfortunately it was not completed. This of course was
"Daggerfall".  How any distributor, let alone a company the size of
Bethesda was able to get away with it says a lot for the game's
strengths; unfortunately it was bugged in ways most people could
not even imagine (in what other game can you find yourself trapped
in the structure of a building with no way out?), it had the worst
and most incomprehensible automap ever devised, and it was very
ugly. BUT - a free plot, the ability to do what you wanted when you
wanted and to build up your skills at your own pace and a huge if
not infinite map area. The downside was the time limits on certain
quests, but you can't have it all.

So starting from scratch what would my ideal game be? I'm a
traditionalist - a mythical setting with gnomes, dwarves and
dragons will always be preferable to a science fiction setting with
monsters dreamed up by the programmers. I like to generate my own
characters but by all means let there be a default setting for
people who dislike this. A strong mysterious underlying plot please
- simply collecting the missing seven jewels to recreate the
ultimate weapon that will save the planet from untold misery is
just not good enough anymore. Any hope of characterisation?  This
was an area where FF7 excelled - I'm not surprised that some people
were in tears when one of the characters unavoidably dies.  This is
of course more difficult with self generated characters but it
surely is not impossible.  Freedom of movement, plenty of
sub-quests and as much personal choice as to what to do are also
important a la Daggerfall and Arena.  No time limits although maybe
a bonus for completing set missions within time restraints may be
acceptable.  AND - NO MONSTER REINCARNATION - once a field is
cleared you should be free to explore freely. A simple and
intuitive control system helps if only in the early stages. I also
feel that equal emphasis should be given to physical and magical
attributes or the manufacturer should stress otherwise. This was
where both recent Might and Magic titles failed - each made too
much of only one of these.  No doubt one will collect strange
relics along the way - unless it is important to the plot not to
give away their function please don't leave us wondering what they
do (if anything). I note I've not mentioned graphics but they to me
are the least important element. I've played too many games where
they seemed the only reason for the game's existence.

Maybe one of the unopened games I have fulfil all the above but I
doubt it. Maybe the sequel to Daggerfall, "Morrowind", will be the
game that succeeds. Somehow I doubt it.  Anyhow if anyone knows a
game that succeeds in all the above please let me know!
                              - o -