Roleplpaying deteriated by hack 'n slash

[Kethruch]

The border between roleplaying and being an entertaining diversion for a lot of people is a small one, but it is there. In many of the games mentioned, you can roleplay some, but a lot of it depends on how others (in the online versions) want to play as well. If you truly want to roleplay, other than joining the SIMs, the engine does not exist out there that will satisfy everyone. Why do I say this? It is because the only real way to roleplay is with other people who want to do the same at the same level. If you are a serious roleplayer and really get into your character, you have to hope that the others in your group are doing the same, otherwise you will feel that the experience was lacking. However, for the others, the experience might have been more fun than they imagined it could be.

 

Also - the roleplaying angle has never been big in any of the games. If you look at just about all of them, their base is a combat engine, and overcoming foes through force. Look at how far games like Morrowind have come, however, from their ancestors of Castle Wolfenstein, and the other 3-d shoot-em-ups.

 

Another, probably more important problem that roleplayers have with computer games is that they are limited by what they are - computer games. AI has come a long way, but the true roleplaying adventure will come when the AI can think and react for itself, where you can be a peaceful wanderer and be treated as such by the game, rather than the limited responses that the engines now allow due to sheer size constraints. Imagine the resources that would have to go into having the entire world react to you based on your past actions that they know or have heard about, and deal with the myriad of possibilities on what you might do - what pose you're taking at the time, where you are, what the situation is, etc. It took a long time and a lot of money to create a chess program that is the equal of the best human players, and they only have to deal with a finite number of variables (possible moves from a certain position on a chess board). In a RP setting, the number of choices at any time is exponentially greater than that.

 

So, what I guess I'm trying to say is that if you truly want an RP experience, a computer game is not necessarily the place to get it. The biggest, fastest, most complexly programmed computer is not a match for the intricacies and breadth of human imagination.