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HoloDust on 21 February 2024
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Jumpin said:
HoloDust said:

First time I hear anyone considers DQ as the first RPG, given that there was nothing proto about Ultima 1-4 (all released before DQ), which had overworld, random encounters, NPC interaction and dungeons - all characteristic of D&D, which Ultima copied. If anything, Proto VRPGs were long before on mainframes in universities, trying in various way to emulate TTRPGs of the time. Not that we actually called RPGs "RPGs" in 80s, most folks I knew referred to them as FRP (Fantasy Role Playing) games.

As for punk, I'd say proto punk goes long before Stooges, at least to Kinks, and probably earlier. Personally I would never consider Velvet Underground as anything near punk, Stooges, yeah, they were almost there, as well as MC5. For me, the first song that had that classic punk sound is New York Dolls - Trash

Heh. I was actually thinking of assigning Ultima to the New York Dolls. But chose The Stooges instead because better known.

Although, I’d call The Kinks Power Pop rather than Punk. Granted, there is a lot of stylistic similarity between Power Pop and Punk—you could probably call them cousins or siblings. The Kinks, no doubt, had direct influence on the genres and sub genres of Punk and Alternative all the way up to the 1990s. Anyway, to tie it back, The Kinks could be assigned to (and I’m just spitballing here) adventures (maybe text based), which have a lot of similarities to RPGs, and have similar influences as well as having influenced the RPG genre - perhaps we can call it Zork, which is the earliest one I can think of off the top of my head.

I see where your heart is, but I think you're really off the target here.

Ultima is attempt to make video game "D&D" (it didn't have license). And fairly successful attempt at it. It has everything - character creation (even with with free point buy of 6 "D&D" attributes, something that D&D introduced only in 3rd edition), choice of race and class, overworld map, random encounters, NPCs, dungeons (that are always in the same place, but are procedurally generated for each playthrough), open world and non linear story. You get to sail on seas (once you buy a boat) and you even get to go into space (yeah, it's that weird).

It is not a question of if, but by how much. And Ultima set the standards not just for RPGs to come, but for other games as well (Miyamotio said himself that he played Ultima and that's what made him introduce overworld into Zelda, whose initial design didn't have it at all). Ultima is arguably THE most influential VG IP of all times, especially in the long run (latest example being BG3 and Swen Vincke, Larian's CEO salivating over Ultima VII).

I can see how a lot of people had no idea what Ultima is, especially if they had only access to consoles in 80s, or that "RPGs" (as I said, we called them FRPs back then) were a thing...but that's just how it is. By the time DQ came out, Ultima was on its 4th installment, dealing with completely novel concepts of exploring virtues and morality, instead of trying to defeat Big Bad Evil Guy.