Oblivion of Western RPGs at 1UP

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1UP has published an article entitled The Oblivion of Western RPGs, discussing the current situation of this genre of games. The difference between the Western and the Eastern is explained and trends are discussed using the example of The Elder Scrolls series, especially the newest instalment, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Here's an excerpt:

Arena, the first Elder Scrolls game, was developed to "re-create the pen-and-paper RPG experience" in Tamriel, a world created for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign by the design team. D&D is the seminal tabletop RPG, a game that involves a few people sitting at a table, rolling dice, and talking. Everyone plays the role of his or her character aside from the "game master," who plans and narrates everything else in the whole world. The game master is responsible for everything that the players encounter, the dialogue of every nonplayer character, the combat tactics of each minion cut down or each boss triumphantly defeated, all without any limits besides planning, imagination, and effort.

Read the rest at 1UP.

[ April 01, 2006, 16:23: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

I didn't even know there was such a thing as an 'Eastern' RPG.

By the way, that link is to page 2 of the story so anyone wanting to read from the start has to push the 'prev' button.

 

Yeah, thanks. Linking to page 1 now.

Most people would say console RPG or Japanese RPG, I guess, and that would be more recognisable. Eastern is a tad bit vague. I suppose they went for the sharper East and West divide rather than console/PC. After all, many of those console RPGs have PC versions and there are console-style PC RPGs, of which perhaps some don't even have a console version.