Despite what you're thinking, the purpose of this post is not entirely about making "computer RPGs" better. I want anyone posting to leave that outdated notion of CRPGs behind. What I really want to talk about is how we can make computers and pen-and-paper RPGs collide to create some thing better, or at least as good as, a pen-and-paper RPG.
Up until now the worlds of computer games and true RPing have been very separate. The single player CRPG has very little in common with the pen-and-paper RPG experience. There can be a good plot but, the world is very linear, and combat is emphasized to ludicrous extremes. It's all bullocs anyway, since this can NEVER equal a true RPG because there is no human interaction.
On the other hand, there is the multiplayer CRPG. There are MUDs which have some player interaction, but its mostly plotless hack 'n slash. There are the "massively multiplayer" RPGs, which amount to little more than an action oriented MUD with 3-D graphics. Neither of these are solutions because player interaction is limited to what you can pound out on a keyboard and plot is minimal or non-existant.
What we need to create is a CRPG game that is less "computer game" and more of a simulation of the pen-and-paper RPG experience. The end result would be a multiplayer CRPG that you could play a few friends(just like a real RPG). This game would so perfectly "simulate" the RPG experience that you could play a campaign with a character on the computer and then transfer that character to a gaming group or vice versa. Eventually RPG publishers could make a pen-and-paper campaign and a computer campaign in which every experience was identical.
This is the paradigm, but how do we get there? That is what I'm asking. That is what I want all of you smart people out there to think about. If this subject is popular enough, I'll chime in with my ideas about how to find the Holy Grail.
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