Andrew Park Senior Editor

Upcoming Role-Playing Games Worth Watching: Dragon Age, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Can We Get More Role-Playing Games?

Couple of skeletons, couple of bugs, and monthly fees all mean a guaranteed gold mine. Right?

There was a time when role-playing games (that were not massively multiplayer) were among the most prominent and popular games you could get for your computer. It's pretty obvious why this isn't the case anymore, right? Single-player role-playing games are typically very labor-intensive games to develop, considering how any good RPG worth its salt is supposed to be packed full of different characters, weapons, armor, items, and/or magic spells (for games that feature magic), which all require one or more of the following: separate sound effects, separate animations, separate special effects, separate voice samples, and so on. And most people don't even finish them. Those that do play through entire RPGs to the end may just put the game on their shelf and move on to the next one. Why make a game like this when you can work on a massively multiplayer game that takes in a zillion dollars a month in regular fees (for those who actually think everything is that simple, consider that successful massively multiplayer games require tremendous overhead in the form of server maintenance, support staff, and ongoing development staff, among other things) and keeps people playing for months, or even years? Single-player RPGs aren't worth the bother, right?

Believe it or not, this is a role-playing game. Of sorts.

I'd disagree, of course, not just because I'm a great fan of role-playing games, but because I think there's room for traditional RPGs to expand in the future. If nothing else, like with traditional adventure games, which include elements like logic puzzles, character interaction, and branching dialogue, we're seeing hybrid role-playing game mechanics sneak their way into plenty of other unrelated games. Don't take my word for it, keep an eye out for NHL 2005, which will feature a role-playing game-style training system that lets you hire specialized coaches to improve your team in specific areas, or Soldner: Secret Wars, a game that, like Counter-Strike before it, translates your previous experience into funds that you can use to purchase equipment, much like in typical hack-and-slash games. In fact, one of the most intriguing role-playing games on the horizon is a first-person shooter.

Have I mentioned this game before?

But don't role-playing games have specific strengths on their own? Sure they do, including strengths that lend themselves to continued play past "finishing" the game. Time, for instance, was when RPGs had real replay value and actually had an end in sight, like one of my personal favorites, Fallout. Stop me if you've heard this before, but Fallout was compact enough to be played through to the end in less than 30 hours (closer to 15 to 20 or less if you knew exactly what you were doing). Even though it was shorter than the typical "epic" role-playing game that usually requires a projected 50-plus hours to complete, you tended to enjoy every minute of it, and also actually wanted to replay the game a time or three thanks to the open-ended world and the equally open-ended character-advancement system.

Champions: Return to Arms for the PS2 will do what any good hack-and-slash sequel should: let you import your previous character.

Role-playing games have also, in the past, emphasized story lines and interesting characters whose careers and adventures you may want to follow in sequels. But also consider the role-playing game's unique ability to let you create a customized character that you develop over time and want to keep around--even to the extent of grabbing up expansion packs and sequels to keep advancing your character. Take a look at Blizzard's Diablo II, which kept people hacking and slashing for years. Other studios, like Sony Online Entertainment, have already realized this and allowed for character importing in the upcoming hack-and-slash PS2 sequel, Champions: Return to Arms. Yes, creating hack-and-slash games with hundreds of items and magic spells requires a great deal of content to be created, especially after players have been at it for a while and have seen most everything there is to see.

Taking on the hordes of the Underdark is just the beginning.

Are there ways to extend a game's suite of content after it's released and played and enjoyed? Here's one: Open the game up to fan communities to create their own custom content. Enthusiastic fans of games like Baldur's Gate II have done this for years by hacking into the game's code and creating new adventures. More recently, BioWare released Neverwinter Nights (the spiritual successor to Stormfront Studios' long-lived online game that ran over AOL), an original role-playing game that came with a powerful tool set right out of the box. In the time since Neverwinter Nights and its two expansion packs have been released, fans have used these tools to create hundreds of custom adventures. The same can be said for the PC version of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which also shipped with a custom editor that die-hard fans are still using to create new quests, items, and features to this day.

So no, nonmassively multiplayer RPGs aren't necessarily a dead-end street, nor do they all have to be 100-hour monstrosities padded with 70 hours of filler. Do they have to be watered down or compromised to appeal to any kind of audience? Maybe that's something I'll get back to another time.