As for EVE Online, it is NOT a RPG. It is a massive indeed, it does hold some of the worst parts of most traditional RPGs, such as character advancement, grinding, and small-time quests, but in fact, nothing is changing MUCH in terms of overall storyline, or in fact, effects of it over the universe while you're playing. Maybe, you can find some changes after an upgrade, or after someone other than yourself completed one major quest. But on the whole, I have never felt I had ANY SORT OF incidence over that universe.

*yawns* How about a RPG that is NOT set in the same old cliched D&D inspired worlds? Now that would be something!

Hmmm...In fact there are a couple RPG-like goal less games out there that arn't bound to the lame D&D setting. GTA is one of them.

The Sims while not technically an RPG works off the idea that you are just a person in the world.

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Original post by MSW *yawns* How about a RPG that is NOT set in the same old cliched D&D inspired worlds? Now that would be something! Hmmm...In fact there are a couple RPG-like goal less games out there that arn't bound to the lame D&D setting. GTA is one of them.

Wow, you posted just to say you missed the point of my post. Had you read the post you would have realized that what I'm suggesting and what GTA is is different. GTA has a goal. There is an end. You progress by being in certain places and sometimes at certain times. But anyway...

Fournicolas good point. Though I was thinking that the player could affect his immediate surroundings. Basically if decided to be a soldier in the king's army and was a scout, you have to notify generals when the enemy is coming. If you didn't or just missed a battalion. Then that could lose you the battle and that in turn to lead to other rippling percussions.

Hakiko also a good point. From what I heard, the Sims does act sort of what I've proposed. I never played it so I can't say how close my idea is with theirs.

There are a few problems I see in ideas like this. First, is the assumption that a lot of people will buy an RPG to play a farmer or a blacksmith's apprentice. If you market the game as a typical RPG and attract typical RPG players, 95% will want to play warriors, mages, and rogues; not farmers. They will want to fight, explore, and quest; not plow fields for hours. Now, there is also an audience that enjoys sim-farm type games, but they don't really overlap that much with RPG players. Making an entertaining farm simulation would require an entirely different UI and interface than an RPG, and while it's theoretically possible to merge the two games into one, it's not necessarily a good idea.

Secondly, is the problem of communicating what is going on "dynamically" to the player. The Elder Scrolls games have NPCs acting and doing theoretically interesting things without the player's involvment, but it's mostly wasted since the player isn't there to see it happen. In Daggerfall, you'd occasionally get some dialogue like, "Hello there. Did you hear King Joe of Greenville was assassinated by the Knights of Akatosh? Now Bill is the new King. All hail King Bill." Rarely would I (or anyone I know who played the game) think "WOW!! THAT'S SO INTERESTING!!!!" Instead, they'd just ignore it since it's ultimately meaningless and has no effect on what they're doing. In Oblivion, there is a new AI that allows NPCs to steal from eachother and kill eachother in interesting ways. But the only people who get to understand the story behind it are the devs with debug trace logs. They can say "Oh neat. Joe was a drug addict, and he ran out of money and tried to kill Bill but then the guards came and killed Joe, but then Joe's friend Steve got mad and attacked the guards and Bill ran away." But the player just walks into town and sees Joe and Steve's corpses on the ground, and posts an angry message on the Oblivion forum about how he was supposed to turn in a quest item to one of these guys and they're just lying there dead with no explanation.

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Original post by Fournicolas As for EVE Online, it is NOT a RPG. It is a massive indeed, it does hold some of the worst parts of most traditional RPGs, such as character advancement, grinding, and small-time quests, but in fact, nothing is changing MUCH in terms of overall storyline, or in fact, effects of it over the universe while you're playing. Maybe, you can find some changes after an upgrade, or after someone other than yourself completed one major quest. But on the whole, I have never felt I had ANY SORT OF incidence over that universe.

Ever step out of 1.0 space in that game (The safest space possible)? How is it NOT an RPG? Sure, it isn't D&D, but lets lay it out: You have a character, it has stats and such, and you play a role of a starship captain. And guess what, it is a game. How is this NOT an "RPG"?

Also, the game DOES change, over time. Did you know that if a group of people move into a low security space and kill a large number of NPC pirats, the security level will increase over time? If people for some reason fail to kill the rats over a long period of time in a system, it will slip back down a level? The main game really happens out in 0.0 space (No NPC 'control' it is all player made, and 'pirates' no large empire like deals that protect the player) and this is where the player has a real effect on the game. Going out to blow the snot out of another player company's mining operations is going to mean they guys you just hit are going to suffer a slowdown in production levels, Which are important to a company keeping going.

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Original post by Hakiko The Sims while not technically an RPG works off the idea that you are just a person in the world.

I also thought of The Sims when I read Alha_ProgDes' initial description. I've always considered The Sims to be more role-playing oriented than most RPGs manage to be. While many people play the Sims with the objective of living the most successful life possible, I always prefered to play it as some kind of soap opera, with widely different and clashing personalities for many characters. The villains whose job was to make other people miserable were the most fun (and also the areas done the worst in the game design, too. If these were fixed I'd still be playing The Sims).

The problem with this aim for RPGs is it isn't as story-oriented with what most people consider RPGs to be. The story structure is pretty much central to the gameplay of RPGs, with the player as protagonist, and in my option allowing the player to do mange divergent actions will only work if it is encompased within a story of its own. For example, if the protagonist sits around and does nothing while his village burns, following the logic of stories he should be punished for that action, so that he "learns his lesson" and becomes a hero (or an antihero if he fails the lesson [wink]).

Of course, the real challenge for that kind of system is to make enough content for it to work, and to design it in such a fashion that making significant story choices is both possible, fluid and doesn't make the writers choke a fit trying to create all the possible options. I suspect pre-scripting everything in the usual fashion is only possible up to a point, and (spruiking my favourite topic!) interactive storytelling generative methods is the way to go.

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Original post by makeshiftwings Making an entertaining farm simulation would require an entirely different UI and interface than an RPG

I think this fact is often not stated loudly enough when ideas like this are brought up.

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"Hello there. Did you hear King Joe of Greenville was assassinated by the Knights of Akatosh? Now Bill is the new King. All hail King Bill." Rarely would I (or anyone I know who played the game) think "WOW!! THAT'S SO INTERESTING!!!!" Instead, they'd just ignore it since it's ultimately meaningless and has no effect on what they're doing.

"It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace."

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In Oblivion, there is a new AI that allows NPCs to steal from eachother and kill eachother in interesting ways. But the only people who get to understand the story behind it are the devs with debug trace logs. They can say "Oh neat. Joe was a drug addict, and he ran out of money and tried to kill Bill but then the guards came and killed Joe, but then Joe's friend Steve got mad and attacked the guards and Bill ran away." But the player just walks into town and sees Joe and Steve's corpses on the ground, and posts an angry message on the Oblivion forum about how he was supposed to turn in a quest item to one of these guys and they're just lying there dead with no explanation.

The problem is that it's a game and there'll always be some level of detachment. In real life, not being able to complete the quest would make the loss of life that much more tragic. In the game, there's only frustration because you didn't get your twinkie for completing the quest.

For my own part, if there's no goal, it doesn't really interest me. That's why I just can't get into SimCity and its ilk anymore. If I wanted a world that goes on even if I sit on my ass, I'm living in it right now. "Yeah, but in the real world orcs don't go about their daily business while you sit on your ass." True, but I'm too busy sitting on my ass to notice the difference.

I'm all for less epic RPG's; they don't all have to be about killing some angelic threat to the world. However, I do want to be given some task. And, getting back to the UI bit, one advantage games have (even though you're looking to remove it) is they can streamline tasks like farming. The UI (and gameplay as a whole) can be designed such that only things relevant to farming are given to me.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid Of course, the real challenge for that kind of system is to make enough content for it to work, and to design it in such a fashion that making significant story choices is both possible, fluid and doesn't make the writers choke a fit trying to create all the possible options. I suspect pre-scripting everything in the usual fashion is only possible up to a point, and (spruiking my favourite topic!) interactive storytelling generative methods is the way to go.

I also thought of Chris Crawford's thought provoking book Interactive Storytelling when I first read this thread. I think that is the road you would have to head down to accomplish this goal.

As a long time pen and paper role playing gamer I no longer equate RPG with role playing game. RPG is just a class of video games (one that I enjoy) to me. Ironically the Sims is much closer to a roleplaying game than almost any RPG.

Many MUDs (as pointed out by Richard Bartle numerous times) were able to allow the players to impact the world. However they had the advantage of a smaller playerbase (that was usually more mature than the average), user created content, and very little asset expense (no artwork).

I am currently making my first game, a prehistoric RPG called Stoned! Basicaly, you play the role of a a caveman and your goal is to stay alive on randomly generated prehistoric steppes. You hunt, make tools, seek shelter from elements, eat, get pneumonia and generaly carry out day-to-day tasks that are necesary for your survival. I chose paleolithic/mesolithic because it makes it much easier for me to simulate human societies and because I find this period to be the most fascinating in the (pre)history of mankind. The game will have no magic, level-ups or mad combat skillz. No matter how long you play, you'll never be able to attack a mammoth with a club and expect to survive. Anyway, here's a screenshot (note that I'm very bad at making graphics):
http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/4470/stonedscr17xr.jpg