THE ULTIMATE RPG PROJECT

I could get in on this (though I'm not entirely sure what to do in particular, except you know play them). Does having played a game before disqualify me from playing this game for the Project, though?

Absolutely not. I, myself, have finished 100% the entire Final Fantasy series and a lot others. Those that have played a game and want to play it again are welcome to do so.

About just playing the games, yes that's the focus but we'll share our experiences in this thread. We'll "play together", sharing opinions about the storyline, the gameplay, likes and dislikes, music, characters, and everything else. It is to be an expectator of the evolution of these games between the ages. Pretending you are there, seeing the history unfold. Hence the name of the project.

edited 9th Sep '12 10:00:59 AM by Steendy

That sounds really interesting. Well then, sign me up! This would be an excellent incentive for me to actually finish the Final Fantasy-games I've got lying around (instead of just abandoning them two thirds in), and I've planned for a long time to play many of the games on the list here and they're just sitting in their covers waiting to be played. Though, I'm in university, so my available time for playing will vary greatly.

yay nocturne is on the list.

which is nice. because im currently playing it. -party whistle-

and dark cloud 2. thats also nice.

and bof:dragon quarter. ...i wonder how many of the games im playing are on this list...?

—

about 19 i am currently playing. thats...terrible.

edited 9th Sep '12 10:27:55 AM by Tarsen

That's okay, a lot of people have a lot of work to do (myself included) so that's not really a problem. Those participating will manage their time (Not going too fast to leave others behind, for example), so that they can mantain a confortable pace, without hurting real life obligations.

So, we have 4 members signed up right now: Me, Lemurian and two of my friends (Razgriz X and Sosser)

Today I'll Link every game to its pages and also add up those games that people suggested.

EDIT: Tarsen, 19 games at the same time O.o. I can't even play two without feeling lost. Guess I'm really focused . If you wanna join in, you're welcome. Though I doubt you wanna leave all those games like that.

edited 9th Sep '12 10:42:49 AM by Steendy

So, uh, how will we do this? Will we play all 368+ games in chronological order? Ah, just found the post where you say we'll do just that. So...I just pick one of the early ones to play?

edited 9th Sep '12 10:49:21 AM by Lemurian

technically, if we included the games i am still playing, but havent gotten back to in the over month, the number of games would go up exponentially. (aaaand thats only including games on the list)

i need to pace myself. at the very least, soon enough the games'll go down to maybe 15.

but sure, i'll sign up.

Basically, we'll play them in chronological order. If you don't want to play some game, you can play the next one or wait till we get there. I suggest waiting, because if you play alone, that kind defeats the purpose as we'll be discussing one game, while you are playing another one.

As for Tarsen, thanks for joining in . The more people we have, the better will be the discussion.

Ah, okay, gotcha. Well, I'll look into how to play Akalabeth for now then, and you make an announcement when we start, yeah?

the start of the project seems to be the most interesting part, if probably the more frustrating part also.

will ultima 0 and 1 even work on modern computers?

also, vaguely remember spoony noting quite a few incredibly frustrating quirks from ultima 0, so i might skip it and move onto 1. is that ok?

That's right. After I'm done with the list and we have enough people, we'll be ready to start.

I am currently testing out something called a graphical environment for DOSbox-games. Hopefully that will make Akalabeth work on my Windows 7.

EDIT: Yep, it works. I am officially ready to start this project.

edited 9th Sep '12 11:43:07 AM by Lemurian

About working on newer systems, they do. You can use the DO Sbox for that. It works fine on my Windows 7.

Keep in mind that almost all old games have frustrating quirks, so you won't be seeing that in just Ultima 0/Akalabeth. Besides, I find it pretty easy, if you know what to do. But you can skip any game , it's okay.

edited 9th Sep '12 11:47:53 AM by Steendy

I'd like to participate, even if I can/am willing to play less than 10 of the games on there.

Actually, I might only be able to play Kot OR and Jade Empire (I don't remember if that's actually on the list), since my computer's busted and I have those on Xbox.

Hi, I'm Razgriz X, one of the 2 friends Steendy is talking about(I am not a sucker!!) and I'll be starting the project soon at Ultima I if I manage to stomache it's primitivity. We did something similar to this with mainly platforming games(but we played a few others too like bomberman which aren't exactly platformers, I guess) a few years ago, just the 2 of us and it was great. Of course it took us a lot of time and we only played the mainstream ones, we didn't play ALL of them, but it was very fun nonetheless. I was a bit against this at first because there are a lot more RP Gs and they take a lot of time to complete so I thought this was just impractical but after I was reminded of the fun we had a few years ago doing basically the exact same thing, I was convinced. I guess the important thing here is not to feel binded to this like it's some kind of chore, that you have to beat them all and you can't be left behind, etc. We're here to have fun and share our experiences in playing these games that influenced the history of gaming, that made what it is today. The chronological order is so that there is some kind of order, so that this doesn't degenerate into a mess where everyone is talking about completely different games, though I guess after a year or so this is inevitably going to happen... It's basically what Steendy said: It's not about the end, but the journey itself. Just remember to play the games however you want, at whatever speed you want, share your experiences, and have fun!

edited 9th Sep '12 7:23:56 PM by RazgrizX

Nice to meet you, Razgriz! I've got to admit that I too had some severe doubts about this project at first, but the more I think about this, it is a great opportunity to learn more about the genre and see exactly how it has developed through the years. I hope we'll have a lot of fun with this project and I look forward to playing with all of you.

edited 9th Sep '12 7:37:45 PM by Lemurian

I guess something we should do first is filter out this dauntingly huge list a bit. I guess Steendy decided to make an all-inclusive list first so he doesn't miss any important series. We could start with this first: If you know A LOT abour RP Gs and you NEVER even heard about a game that is here, then we should consider removing it, Steendy could put a comment beside it that it was voted out by someone or something like that. And, most importantly, if you see some game on the list that you've played, heard about, seen footage about, or heard someone relentlessly thrashing on it and it made you think "Wow, what was he high on when he decided to put THAT on the list?!" then we should probably remove it, also linking to where you learned about the games that made you have that reaction would be very helpful as well.

If that's the case, then Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is just... it's terrible.

I can't link anything, because this is from personal experience, but I would rather do a lot of painful things than play that game ever again.

Personally I doubt the necessity of all of Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights. As far as I can tell, the games run very similar (using the same engine and being set in the same world) and I wonder if it might be better to focus on one of them. But I have only played the first game of Baldurs Gate and just parts of the first Neverwinter Nights, so I'd like to ask someone who knows more about these games to comment on it.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:57:11 PM by Lemurian

Baldurs Gate I basically revived/started (not sure which one) the whole "tabletop RPG in computer form" business, and its sequel basically improves on it and starts quite a few things in WRP Gs (for example, NPC interactions, romance options). Neverwinter Nights is revolutionary in terms of the fact that it is very module based, ie it is more like a gaming engine by itself and you use it to play modules which are the actual games (even the official campaign is a module itself).

edited 9th Sep '12 10:09:21 PM by IraTheSquire

I agree with some things Razgriz said, but I don't think it's a good idea to filter games based on personal opinion. Some obscure ones, that nobody knows about, it's okay to remove from the list. But there are so many games that people don't know much, like the Mother series, the Ys series, The Legend of Heroes series and a lot of others that should be played, because they are good, not famous.

What games/series do you think we should remove from the list?

^^ How about Icewind Dale?

I did a quick search and removed 3 games because they don't even have pages on tvtropes.

1.Dragon Buster

2.Generation of Chaos

3. Code Age Commanders: Tsugu Mono Tsuga Reru Mono

Even their wikipedia entry is kind limited so I decided to remove them.

Like Ira said, I find Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights to be very important games. Not so sure about Icewind Dale, as I never played it.

edited 10th Sep '12 8:45:41 AM by Steendy

Icewind Dale didn't do much for the genre. It's basically just a standard dungeon crawler.

Still fun games, though.

Also: The difference between Mother and Fallout: Brotherhood of steel, is that Mother is generally seen as a fantastic series except by the most ardent JRPG haters.

Conversely, BOS is generally regarded as a piece of shit. That's even it's Fan Nickname, Fallout: POS

Of course, if even one person admits to liking it, it's probably worth being on the list.

edited 10th Sep '12 5:19:59 PM by Mukora

We're now thinking of removing unneeded Spin-offs, the kind that have nothing to do with the main series and didn't really contribute to anything and are generally disliked by even fans of the main series.

I guess that would include Fallout:BOS since it's spin-off, isn't it? Anyone knows of some others that should be removed that are on the list?

edited 10th Sep '12 6:05:07 PM by RazgrizX