Top Ten Most Influential RPGs

[TheVrolok]

I'm pretty much on the exact same page as Schad. Agree with him, basically 100%.

Like Shadowknight, I'm also surprised SS1 and Deus Ex didn't make this list with how popular FPS/RPG hybrids are now. I'll need time to think on this one.

 

[Skacer]

Influential RPGS. I'm not going to try to argue placement. We've got Ultima series and Final Fantasy some good suggestions. But now we have to ask ourselves, what influenced these guys? Shouldn't Moria or one of the original Rogues be on the list? Rogue text based games are what kicked off MUDs as well as most SP RPGs and MUDs are what kicked off MMORGPS. The original Ultimas were pretty similar to rogues in a lot of respects.

And I'm not sure WoW is influential. It has brought in a lot of new gamers, but as far as influencing the way games are made, I would say that would fall on Everquest. Everquest's design is what has been influencing MMORPGs for some time now. Of course, I'd have to wonder how much Meridian 59 influenced game designs as well.

I don't think Kotor needed to be on the list, Baldur's Gate really summarizes Bioware's influence in RPGs. That is where they set the pace.

System Shock and Deus Ex weren't really influential. The game design elements there still haven't become widely accepted and games in that vein are still oddities.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: aCynic2

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: aCynic2
not Diablo or Morrowwind, if Morrowind is anything like Oblivion.

Morrowind was a good game, loads better than oblivion.

I'm not saying it wasn't, I'm considering getting it since it's still available, but it's not likely to be an RPG, if it's anything like Oblivian. I don't really consider Oblivian an RPG. It's more a sword and sorcery FPS.

I agree that Oblivion is a FPS, but Morrowind requires much more thought (quest objectives are not just marked on your map the vast majority of the time), no point and click travel, there is loads of dialog (much higher quality than Oblivions, so be ready to read a good deal), main story is much more interesting. Morrowind is still an "action RPG" but it is more of an RPG than oblivion will ever be. You can get the GotY edition with all of the expansion packs for fairly cheap now.

 

[jwpeer]

I'd rewrite the list like this.


INFLUENTIAL TOP 10

1. Ultima series: Created the western RPG, created a HUGE market that bred large series such as Might and Magic and Wizardry. Also created the MMO market with UO. And heck, it created the huge bomb to end a series in Ascension (which was like 6 years ahead of its time graphically). Some would say Rogue should be before this, but if you've ever had the ultima collection, you can play the precursor ultima game whose name escapes me that was very similar to rogue and developed at the same time. Oh and not to mentioned Ultima Underworld, which is really the precursor to games like Morrowind and Gothic.

2. Final Fantasy. Moreso than Dragon Warrior, started the console RPG craze, and then casual-popularized it with FF VII. As i age, I realize that the gameplay style does not keep me interested anymore, but I can't help but nod to the influential nature.

3. Diablo I and II. Created the action RPG genre, and has it stuck. (Can't wait for HGL).

4. World of Warcraft - Redefined the expectations of an MMO.

5. Morrowind. Popularized the FPS FANTASY rpg game, see: oblivion, Two Worlds, Project Offset. Big budget games that have huge content. Very influential to modern rpg design. People would say Gothic is on the same timeline, but it's not the big hit that Morrowind was.

6. System Shock - led the way for Deus Ex, SS2, now Bioshock. Stalker takes pages from this genre, even a series like Syphon Filter always seemed to me to be influenced by this. Even you could say games like Farcry and Crysis are taking pages from having FPS character development.

7. Everquest - Showed MMOS could make huge money, as well. Still makes tons of dough. Much more profitable than UO, and this led to the big developers getting involved in MMO design (for better or worse.)

8. Baldur's Gate - Showed that a D&D based RPg can be commercially successful and a good game. Icewind Dale, ToEE, Neverwinter Nights, even D&DOnline. Even paved the way for Torment

9. Knights of the Old Republic: Showed that a Western style rpg can do well on a console (Possibly with the right license...we'll see with mass effect).

10. (The Super Future Influence Pick) - Hellgate London - Creates the 3rd 3D action rpg genre. If you don't think there'll be clones of this game, you're crazy. Right now nothing really comes close.


notable missing: Planescape: Torment. Best RPG ever, not influential.

Fallout is the same way. It didn't lead to any real influence on the rest of the genre, outside of the devs who worked on it doing Arcanum, and the terribly flawed Lionheart.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Originally posted by: bfdd
I still think the Ultima series should be 1st or second. There was only ONE mmo before UO came out and there was a TON of Ultima RPGs before the MMO. It's the whole reason EQ came out and we even play that genre today.

UO only came out because of Dark Sun Online which was only successful becuase of Neverwinter Nights (on AOL), which was the father of PVP in MMO games.

The original NWN should definitely be on any list of most influential. It introduced PVP, Guilds, death penalties, and had a character deletion "death chamber" arena for the ultimate PVP stakes. I posted about it yesterday on the wrong thread (the X-UO players thread).

 

[Sgraffite]

@jwpeer
In the big scheme of things I would think Everquest has had much more influence overall than WoW, especially since WoW is like a refined Everquest.

 

[KeithTalent]

Bah, Final Fantasy is waayy too freaking low. If it was a best RPGs list I would want Phantasy Star 2 on there; one of my favourite games of all time!

WoW is too young to be most influential. Popular does not necessarily equl influential.

KT

 

[ayabe]

hmm, no Eye of the Beholder series. That's old school DnD, but I guess that's what you get when the list was probably written by a 20 year old.

 

[alaricljs]

EotB? What about The Bard's Tale?!? (The original!) Not to mention Rogue, Moria, Nethack... Or DIKU for the MMORPG influence?

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: alaricljs
What about The Bard's Tale?!? (The original!)

Totally agree with that one. Probably the first RPG I ever played!

KT

 

[Skacer]

I still think it's somewhat shortsighted to attribute PC RPG gaming directly to Ultima. Ultima Series did pave a lot of the road, but let's not forget the roots, from Wikipedia:

"Role-playing video games began in 1975 as an offshoot of early university mainframe computer text RPGs on PDP-10 and Unix-based computers, starting with Dungeon and graphical RPGs on the PLATO System, pedit5 and dnd, themselves inspired by traditional role-playing games. Other influences during this period were text adventures, Multiple-User Dungeons (MUDs) and roguelike games. Some of the first graphical CRPGs after pedit5 and dnd, were orthanc, avathar (later renamed avatar), oubliette, baradur, emprise, bnd, sorcery, moria, and dndworld, all of which were developed and became widely popular on PLATO during the latter 1970s, in large part due to PLATO's speed, fast graphics, nationwide network of terminals, and large number of players with access to those terminals. These were followed by (but did not always lead directly to) games on other platforms, such as Akalabeth (1980) (which gave rise to the well-known Ultima series), Wizardry, and Dungeons of Daggorath."

Dungeon is also known as Zork. And that name should ring a bell to any pc gamer.

 

[jwpeer]

The problem is, you have to start SOMEWHERE.

And you also have to pick out something that had a HUGE impact. When you pick the ultima -series-, you pick a series of games that influenced MULTIPLE segments of rpg development, not just one small stepping stone. That's what I was trying to do with my list.


I could easily have picked out MUDs in general as an influential game, or DIKUmud, but I was trying to define influence as having broad impact and acceptance.


I hear the thoughts about Everquest having more influence than WoW, as of the immediate moment, but when making a list like this, you also want to try and at least do a BIT of predicting, or then you're totally nullifying EVERYTHING current.

WoW is such a HUGE success that it HAS redefined what to expect from MMO's, just like Everquest did in the first place. My opinion is that the change is even MORE drastic than before. Now an MMO isn't going to be considered a success unless it can get 5 million+ subscribers. That's INSANE.

And saying that aol neverwinter online was first, then means you have to go back to Gemstone and then to Muds, etc. Obviously there's ALWAYS going to be a progression, but what I tried to do, and what is probably impossible, is to pick out what had the LARGEST impact, started the MOST trends, created the MOST spinoffs, and innovated the most at the same time.

and it's difficult to decide whether it was influential on the -players- or -developers- or both. You have to look at both aspects. You could just start back with Rogue as 1 and keep going down the progression of RPGS, but I think you'd just be doing a -timeline- not real documentation of INFLUENCE.


-
Edit: and I played MUDS and the modern rogue-like games more than ANYONE for years...But I can't consciously consider them hugely influential. Hugely addictive, that's for sure.

Zork is an awesome game...but it's the same thing, trying to avoid the timeline contradiction, and really trying to pick out the huge changes.

 

[jwpeer]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent


WoW is too young to be most influential. Popular does not necessarily equl influential.

KT

how does popular NOT mean influential.

That's pretty much a huge factor in being influential.

Video Games are a business.

Businesses want to make money.

Businesses need customers to make money.

If a game is popular, they will have more customers.

Thus, it influences the decisions of EVERYONE in how they design a game, that they've seen these aspects are successful...are you saying that doesn't matter?

Game Design has VERY obviously throughout history trended towards the most popular being the most influential. Just look at the huge number of FPS games as an example of that.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Why is it all new school stuff (other than Ultima)? That doesn't really make any sense...

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: PhatoseAlpha
The list is a joke, and a bad one at that. It has very little to do with influence, and is essentially a 'games I liked' list.

No rogue on influential rpgs list = bad. And since Diablo's on that list, can't claim hack n' slash isn't rpg. The game essentially created the underlying game mechanics every last rpg uses (kill stuff, get bigger, kill bigger stuff).

You are saying that Rogue created the idea that kill stuff=get bigger??

 

[Skacer]

Popular does not mean influencial because you could have a really popular game (IE: WOW) that doesn't really bring a lot of new things to the table. Therefor, even if someone copies that game, they are really copying the ideas of the games that came before that one.

Game A is a top down RTS, Game B is also a top down RTS that emulates Game A. Game B becomes hugely successful. Game A is still the influential one because it created the ideas that put everything in motion. If Game C,D,E and F all resemble Game A then later on down the years people are going to be saying "Game A was really responsible for this trend in gaming".

In this case, it's Everquest. Everquest's styles shaped the genre especially when you compare it to what came before: UO and it's direct competition: AC. Everquest's style is the one now present in games such as WoW and DAOC.

 

[Skacer]

Originally posted by: jwpeer
The problem is, you have to start SOMEWHERE.

And you also have to pick out something that had a HUGE impact. When you pick the ultima -series-, you pick a series of games that influenced MULTIPLE segments of rpg development, not just one small stepping stone. That's what I was trying to do with my list.

Technically, it is pretty unfair judgment to pick some games as series and some as standalone. Zork is a series of something like 12 games. Morrowind is part of the Elder Scrolls series (Daggerfall had huge impact). Everquest is a series of EQ1 and EQ2. Kotor is a series of 2 games. Fallout will soon be a series of 3.

Then you can look at other series, like the Zelda series. What about the *hack series or rogue series. If you start looking at it as a series you get 100s of games since they are open source all built off a base. And if you don't think text based adventures and ascii games contributed anything to RPGs you are fooling yourself. Where do you think all the old developers got their inspiration? You said it had to start somewhere, it technically started with adventure text games which were directly from D&D. That got the ball rolling.

And no I'm not necessarily talking a timeline. Because I'm not saying text adventures have to be first in the list, perhaps Ultima was more influential. But I'm saying in the grand scheme of things, with a list that has Kotor and a spot reserved for a not released Hellgate London, Morrowind, Systemshock and Diablo. I'm saying somewhere in there how can you possibly ignore the roots of all these games combined and the original inspiration for it all. It doesn't add up.

Heck, MUDs inspire every MMORPG in creation, they are continually trying to create 3d worlds for games that existed ages before them. MUDs were inspired by Pen and Paper games which were basically paper versions of multi user dungeons. The translation from pen and paper to a mud was an easy jump but the jump to 3D has been much more difficult. Everything they've done has been done before. Raiding existed in MUDs, rare drops, rare spawns, timed spawns, grouping, unique items, botting, casinos, powerleveling and then way more, the ability to rename items, user created content, multiple ways to interact with an environment.

 

[Skacer]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
You are saying that Rogue created the idea that kill stuff=get bigger??

"get bigger" as in leveling up, comes from D&D. That was never a unique concept. There were also Monty Haul style games before Diablo. That most likely influenced it's style of gameplay.

Although, perhaps it is fair to say Diablo popularized that style of gameplay.

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: jwpeer
I'd rewrite the list like this.


INFLUENTIAL TOP 10

1. Ultima series: Created the western RPG, created a HUGE market that bred large series such as Might and Magic and Wizardry. Also created the MMO market with UO. And heck, it created the huge bomb to end a series in Ascension (which was like 6 years ahead of its time graphically). Some would say Rogue should be before this, but if you've ever had the ultima collection, you can play the precursor ultima game whose name escapes me that was very similar to rogue and developed at the same time. Oh and not to mentioned Ultima Underworld, which is really the precursor to games like Morrowind and Gothic.

2. Final Fantasy. Moreso than Dragon Warrior, started the console RPG craze, and then casual-popularized it with FF VII. As i age, I realize that the gameplay style does not keep me interested anymore, but I can't help but nod to the influential nature.

3. Diablo I and II. Created the action RPG genre, and has it stuck. (Can't wait for HGL).

4. World of Warcraft - Redefined the expectations of an MMO.

5. Morrowind. Popularized the FPS FANTASY rpg game, see: oblivion, Two Worlds, Project Offset. Big budget games that have huge content. Very influential to modern rpg design. People would say Gothic is on the same timeline, but it's not the big hit that Morrowind was.

6. System Shock - led the way for Deus Ex, SS2, now Bioshock. Stalker takes pages from this genre, even a series like Syphon Filter always seemed to me to be influenced by this. Even you could say games like Farcry and Crysis are taking pages from having FPS character development.

7. Everquest - Showed MMOS could make huge money, as well. Still makes tons of dough. Much more profitable than UO, and this led to the big developers getting involved in MMO design (for better or worse.)

8. Baldur's Gate - Showed that a D&D based RPg can be commercially successful and a good game. Icewind Dale, ToEE, Neverwinter Nights, even D&DOnline. Even paved the way for Torment

9. Knights of the Old Republic: Showed that a Western style rpg can do well on a console (Possibly with the right license...we'll see with mass effect).

10. (The Super Future Influence Pick) - Hellgate London - Creates the 3rd 3D action rpg genre. If you don't think there'll be clones of this game, you're crazy. Right now nothing really comes close.


notable missing: Planescape: Torment. Best RPG ever, not influential.

Fallout is the same way. It didn't lead to any real influence on the rest of the genre, outside of the devs who worked on it doing Arcanum, and the terribly flawed Lionheart.

I agree with all that except for Fallout. Fallout was the first RPG where you could go anywhere and do anything (well, maybe Fallout 2 fits the bill more), and it really is one of the most influential games (just look at all the crazy fanbois for Fallout 3) I think it would have been more influential if Black Isle hadn't gone under.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Are there really no former oNWN players on the board?

I don't know how you can make any list and not include this game. From the original NWN on AOL Wikipedia entry:

Neverwinter Nights was the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) to display graphics, and ran from 1991 to 1997 on AOL (then called Quantum Computer Services). The genre had previously been pioneered by the all-text Islands of Kesmai series created by Kelton Flinn at Kesmai.

In addition to being the first graphics-based MMORPG, the game also marked the first appearance of online Clans and Player versus player (pvp) combat in multiplayer RPGs.

Neverwinter Nights was followed by a series of progressively more successful graphical MMORPG's, including Shadow of Yserbius (1992-96), Ultima Online (1997-Present) and Everquest (1999-Present). By 2000 the category was well-established and multiple titles began to appear in North America and in Asia.

--------

The game originally cost USD$6.00 per hour to play. Some users bragged about monthly game bills of $500 or more. As the years progressed, Internet connection costs dropped, AOL and NWN membership grew, the servers became faster and the hourly player charge declined. As a result of these upgrades, the capacity of each server grew from 50 players in 1991 to 500 players by 1995.[2] Ultimately the game became a free part of the AOL subscriber service.

Near the end of its run in 1997 the game had 115,000 players and typically hosted 2,000 adventurers during prime evening hours, a 4000% increase over 1991.[3]

---------

...The iterations of these and many other spells made NWN PvP arguably the most skill-based strategic PvP engine ever created in the online world to this day.

 

[jwpeer]

But in the end, you ARE talking about a timeline, because it always comes back to the "This one comes first, oh wait, THIS one came first."

Surely, in the end, you have to sit down and say "Which things made the LARGEST difference in the way things were done." Those games were INFLUENCES on each individual game after it, but did they start huge trends, did they inspire people who wouldn't normally be that way.


Sometimes a whole SERIES can be innovative, sometimes only a single game. Daggerfall did not influence a whole lot other than it's own series, it was a unique game, but it didn't pack the punch that morrowind did.

Everyone's complaint with doing a list of influential games seems to come back to the roguelike/Nethack games, but I don't see them as being hugely influential as anything but technological precursors, the design ideas really aren't used outside of random dungeon generation...but is that a reason for it to be MOST influential?


With Game A and Game B you seem to be talking about something like Dune vs. Command & Conquer. Where Dune was the original but C&C popularized the genre.

Saying WoW didn't innovate is denying the number one thing it did do: Made MMO's fun for casual players. For people who don't really play a lot of video games even. A lot like the Sims, and surely THAT was an influential game.


I was looking at influence from TWO axes...the popularity/business impact AND technological/design impact. You can't look at just one. I feel WoW had both, and in greater amounts than EQ.

Obviously this is all opinion anyway, the reality is it's REALLY a timeline, and cherry picking so many, or trying to RANK which thing is MORE influential comes down to factors that you can't make a real decision on. It's as much intuition as fact, if you don't do a comprehensive timeline...

 

[soybeast]

I nominate Real Life as the most influential rpg ever. If people hadn't been playing it, heck I might not even be here

You can find a full review here: http://www.gamespot.com/gamesp...71103minusworld/1.html

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate
Are there really no former oNWN players on the board?

I played it, but I hated the online version, I hated the rest system, yadda, yadda, yadda. As good an upgrade it was to the infinity engine, it sucked for persistent world. It was from that and hearing other people's horror stories, I decided MMORPGs are not for me.

Co-op is good, MMORPG no!

 

[Rangoric]

Originally posted by: aCynic2

Originally posted by: TheAdvocate
Are there really no former oNWN players on the board?

I played it, but I hated the online version, I hated the rest system, yadda, yadda, yadda. As good an upgrade it was to the infinity engine, it sucked for persistent world. It was from that and hearing other people's horror stories, I decided MMORPGs are not for me.

Co-op is good, MMORPG no!

It used the Gold Box Engine.

The original NWN was out way before the game that came out recently with that title. As in NWN2 is really NWN3.

Posted By: Canai
I agree with all that except for Fallout. Fallout was the first RPG where you could go anywhere and do anything (well, maybe Fallout 2 fits the bill more), and it really is one of the most influential games (just look at all the crazy fanbois for Fallout 3) I think it would have been more influential if Black Isle hadn't gone under.

Arena and Daggerfall both predate Fallout. And both have the Do Anything model.

 

[RandomFool]

Originally posted by: Tizyler
Crono Trigger?

I realize this is PC games but seriously, Chrono Trigger is perhaps the best RPG ever.