🚀 go-pugleaf

	Greetings, Tim,

In article th...@wam.umd.edu (Tim Hoelscher) writes:

>I've developed a little pet peeve recently and I was wondering if anyone had 
>similar complaints.  It seems that 50% of new RPGs come with a standard 
>"character" with which you must play the game.  For example, in Lands of Lore,
> [...clipped...]

	Yes, the tendency is game-creators just decide to amaze us RPG 
players with digitized pictures, voices, lots of predefined dialogs and so 
on. It can be judged as bad situation and a good one.

	It is bad because RPG genre does *not* limit the player's 
imagination, by default - and by definition, too. Thus, the limitations and 
flaws you're talking below are imposed. They do not mean the RPGs are that 
similar and inconsistent. Do not believe that.

	It is good because it's good time to create a game which will refute 
the opinion stated above. RPGs *must* allow a player - if the player wishes 
so - to have as full control over all game functions and customizations as 
he/she desires. 

	If it interests you, I am trying to create a FRP computer game with 
as much freedom of tuning as possible. I expect from you and all the other 
interested people postings on this subject. Remember: *DO NOT MAIL ME* large 
texts abd/or data until I agree to receive them. My email resources are very 
limited. Post everything you want to discuss. Let the discussion be 
open to everyone.

>I realize that some people prefer this, and that to them character generation 
>is a real chore that must be completed before playing the game.  I, however, 

	If the player does not wish to generate a character, let him/her be. 
But if he/she *wants* to, *why* it is forbidden?? I agree with you. This 
should not be allowed in a good CFRP game.

>The worst part of this is that most games that come with pre-generated 
>characters are the ones that really excel in the areas of graphics, sound, 

	It is not bad there are predefined characters - provided one can 
generate customized ones.

>I'm guessing that this trend has begun for a couple of reasons: first, lots of
>new CD-ROM games have spoken dialogue and/or video, which require that at some
>point a NPC say the character's name (or something along those lines).  Pretty

	My opinion is there should be *no* spoken dialogs in a game until 
the player *requests* them. Digitized sound is not a feature able to 
astonish a player. In fact, the reason this speech is predefined and there 
are *no* games able to speak truly what's written on the screen - not 
playback someone's voice again and again - is quite enough to dislike 
digitized speech. This is like digitizaed animation - it's too easy to make 
it - thus it does not demonstrate creators' imagination at all.

>Is the art of character generation and REAL role playing dying out?  
>Or has advancing technology actually limited role playing to choosing 
>actions for a character we can't, won't, or don't identify with?

	If we game creators and game players allow, the RPG genre can 
degenerate and die. Let's not allow that.

	Hope to read discussions soon.

	Best regards,

Konstantin.


--------------------------------------------------------------------
 Konstantin Yu. Boyandin, aka Master Bo       m...@ccphys.nsu.nsk.su
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