Roleplaying games

When was the last good commercial RPG you played? ok, except NWN2. Nothing comes up, huh?

Surely you can find some cool “action-rpg” or the so-called “Japanese RPG” like Final Fantasy, Suikoden, and so on. But what about Troika RPG ? good old-school rpg with thousands of stats and skills, really hard quest and long lifespan? and a game like Vampire bloodlines? with adult content, and not only those cute-lovely-anime characters that personally I can’t stand anymore?

Well unfortunately the whole CRPG commercial sector went mad. Everyone is either:

1. making the ultimate (boring) MMORPG with subscription
2. making the ultimate (boring) FREE MMORPG (just to charge you for every single item you buy that is above level 1)
3. making those cute-lovely-peaceful anime/jappo RPG where characters have 3 stats
4. making an action rpg, where the RPG component is 1/10 of what it was in Diablo 1…
5. simply NOT making a rpg

and so on. The situation is dramatic, really. As an old-school player I can find hope only in indies. Spidweb, Winterwolves or hopefully new forces will be strong enough to provide some decent old-school CRPG.

Because I have enough of MMORPG or cute-anime characters!!!!

Raids sucks!!! yes, they do.

I still remember some years ago when I was working in an office, and my cousin was a student. He was bragging all the day because he was doing raids. He was an EQ addict, playing an insane amount of hours per day (more than 10-12h!!). So obviously he had leveled up much faster than me, when I was just level 25 he was already level 50+.

Now one day, with his help, I manage to get around level 45-46, so that I can partecipate in raids too. They were doing a small raids in East Wastes. Ok so I am all excited after what my cousin told me, expecting the unbeliveable from the raid.

But what happens ? first, the meeting. Some people are late. Others arrive, notice that most are missing, so start saying “BRB GOING TO BUY/SELL SOME STUFF” - and so on.

Result = 1h passes before all people are finally ready to start the raid.

Ok, I wait, then finally everyone is there and I start to think “now the full will begin!”.

No, I was wrong again. We must reach that particular location so we can enter the plane of Fear (or another thing, don’t remember now, too many years have passed!). We have to walk for interminable minutes to get there. Then do some fights on the way.

Another hour wasted.

Then finally, the raid starts. What a disappointment. Surely we were killing uber-monsters that I would never have been able alone, but was not fun. A giant mess where all tanks were screaming, casters casting, etc. almost zero strategy.

And surely, zero fun. Then after we found a no-drop item, the usual battle to get that item. Minutes and minutes wasted discussing who should have got it.

Well, after 2-3 raids, I canceled my EQ account. I went back playing some months later, but starting a new character. The real fun was when you start up and are an harmless druid/necro/wizard/warrior level 1. The first levels up to 20-25 are the most fun experience of EQ, definitely.

Unless you encounter a powerleveler or a gold seller - then you’re doomed!

Some people are nuts. Really.

I was one of them, but only for one night, some years ago. I had agreed to go out with some friends of mine. I knew there would have been also a nice-looking girl I met last weekend. Of course is easy to say that now, but I think that she was interested in me at the time….

So what happened, and why I’m talking about this in a roleplay blog? Because at those times, the hype of the moment was Everquest 1. Yes, the first incarnation, with that horrible 3d graphic (that at those time looked fantastic though). I was wandering with my level 6 female monk in the east commons, and got killed by a giant spider in a far away zone. Man, how good was the MMORPG at those times!!!

No gold sellers, no raids, no uber-players, no powerleveling… it was like a virgin territory to explore.

So, as I said I was killed and had the famous trouble of retrieving my corpse with all my precious valuables (that were really ridiculous, but I was just an EQ newbie at those times!). I had tried but there were too many monsters. And the time was running fast… until I realized that was already 8pm and I should have met with other REAL LIFE friends at 8.15!!! impossible of course since I was living 50km away, and had yet to prepare myself.

Guess what I did? I called a friend of mine telling him, with lot of embarassement, that I couldn’t come because of… that game! because I had to retrieve that damn corpse! my friend thought I was joking with him, but when he realized I was serious, he just said “are you nuts? fuck off!” and hanged the phone.

That night I was up until 2am playing EQ, until finally I got back the corpse with the help of one of the very few high levels character that was on the server. The morning after thought I realized how stupid I was. I got news that the sexy girl was there, and another friend of mine kissed her (and probably did a lot more than I know).

I said to myself “this will never happen anymore”. And luckily it didn’t. I kept playing EQ, but never started to play it if I knew that I had to do something important, in my real life, not the fictional life of MMORPG!