I'm wondering just how "Old School" we're talking about? In this thread, I'm asking the "Old School" people what they're talking about; as for the rest of you, just tell me what the Oldest "Old School" RPG youi've ever played is, even if you just downloaded it from an abandonware site and attempted to play it using DosBox. (As opposed to the other thread that asks what was the first RPG you played.)
Also, you might mention anything you liked/disliked in particular about the game. Perhaps you might also mention which RPG you liked the most (of the one's you've played), and which you liked the least.
As for the "Old Schoolers", when you say "Old School":
Are we talking Net Hack (hmm, is that even an RPG, or just a hack and slash dungeon crawler?), ZZT/SuperZZT/Megazeux, Kingdom of Kroz?
How about Realms of Arkania , The Bard's Tale, or many of the SSI offerings?
Planet's Edge? (I don't really know of any other comparable PC games.)
Arena or Daggerfall? Or how about Betrayal at Krondor or Betrayal in Antara?
Perhaps we're talking more about something like Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale or maybe Fallout?
Or is it Neverwinter Nightes, Darkstone or Dungeon Siege (does Diablo count as an RPG, I don't know, never played it).
I know it's not Deux Ex or Outcast (the one from Infogrames/Appeal, not the Star Wars one).
All of these could be considered "Classic" or "Old School" by someone. (And yes, I realize that some of these are not strictly RPG, but add in Adventure, Strategy, First Person Shooter or other elements.) And, by the way, I've played all of the above, and more that I don't recall, as well as a ton of Adventure games and some Adventure/FPS games (going all the way back to text adventures from Scott Adams, Crowther and Woods, and Infocom, Apogee and Epic Megagames' early offerings, the Tomb Raider series, Myst series, Journeyman Project series, Tex Murphy mysteries, Dark Side of the Moon, and a host of others I'd have to do some research to recall what they were). In a way, I consider at least some of the "Action/Adventure" games RPG, by dictionary use of the English words (as in, you are playing the role of some character, even if you aren't interacting with anyone or doing any fighting - and in my opinion, you don't have to have fighting to have a role playing game).
Come to think of it, which platform are we talking about? TRS-80 (pick a model), PC (JR/XT/AT), C=64/128, Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh, Archimedes, or any of the other "PCs" that have died in relative obscurity? Perhaps your oldest "Old School" RPG was actually on "Big Iron" - a mainframe!
Or is it one of the "consoles": Amiga (CDTV/CD-32), NES/SNES, Atari, SEGA, PS1, Dreamcast, etc.?
I'm guessing "Old School RPG" around here means console RPGs like Star Ocean, Dragon Quest, Zelda, Chrono Trigger, etc. or the PC game Albion (though that had a curious mix of 3rd-person overhead 2-D and 1st-person 3-D).
In my opinion, games like The Bard's Tale and Realm's of Arkania series were even tougher than anything some people on here seem to complain about in Eschelon Book 1. At least in Eschelon, you can see the enemy coming, most of the time, and you don't get randomly attacked while you're trying to find your way around your first town
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Anyway, I'm just curious, how "Old School" are you?
Well, this post is already too long, so I'll answer my own questions (again for some) in the next post, and turn the thread over to you guys.
PK