The RPG Glut
By Pete, November 1998

This article was originally printed in QB:TM Issue #3

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Since about January first, the QBASIC community has gone crazy about 
Sprite based RPG's. Ever since Dark Crown has been released, everyone's 
wanted to make an RPG. Everyone from newbies to experienced programmers 
all want to make the all-new epic RPG to take the QBASIC community by 
storm. Very few RPG's have been finished since the infamous Darkdread 
disapeared. The reason is that a lot of programmers are very lazy, and 
have other things to do. RPG's get put on hold, because programmers 
don't have time, or get too frusterated by "Out of Memory"or other 
errors to continue. They are usually not taken off of hold, and the 
idea of the RPG fades in the programmers mind, after a few hours of 
work, a demo, and ten screenshots are completed. It's pathetic that 
programmers with so much potential can fail...

We've talked about why RPG's fail, but not why they are started. I 
think the reason that RPG's are started, and why programmers like to 
play them so much is because programmers like to do things themselves. 
They like to figure out puzzles, make goals, and most of them like 
epic, (mostly fantasy) stories. And of course, all programmers have a 
passion for playing video games. If you mix these ingredients together, 
you've got a person that wants to make their own game with a long, epic 
fantasy story, make their own decisions, not go through some C++ 
programmer's courses that he lays out in his order, with a story that 
can't be different every time you play.

What I'm trying to say is that programmers have personalities and 
hobbies, and are not copies of the other people in their school that do 
have personalities. They can make their own decisions, and don't depend 
on someone else to do things for them. They want to play role playing 
games because they want to play the role of a character, just like they 
want to play the role of their lives. They want to make an RPG for the 
same reason: they want make an epic story where you (the player) make 
the choices for him or her, and make their own story. And they want to 
do it on QuickBASIC-their hobby.

Now, if you would excuse me, I have to go work on my brand new, epic 
RPG that's going to take the world by storm. Or not...