The first RPG - summary
Fredrik Ekman
initiated, has finally died out. Thus, it seems fitting that I also end it
by summing up what was written. First of all, here is my original question:
>I am wondering what the very first computer RPG was. I used to believe
>that it was Rogue (released in 1983, I think), but the other day I
>happened to take a look at my old Temple of Apshai box and found that it
>was copyrighted in 1983, so I suppose neither of these games were
>influenced by the other, in spite of many similarities.
>
>Were there other, even earlier, games that the above two were inspired
>by, or did they just happen upon the same concept at the same time?
In the following discussion, many games were suggested and there was also
quite some disagreement on the matter of what should be considered a RPG
and what should not. It seems that many people would include some kind of
character individualization in their definition of RPG. This would usually
be implemented by means of different kinds of stats and skills, forming the
basis for magic and combat systems. The character should also be able to
improve on his abilities with, for example, experience points. The
definition per se is not important to me, but this is basically what I
meant in my original question.
Another fraction also counts text adventures and many other games as RPG. I
do not in the list below.
This list consists of titles and years of release subdivided into
different categories:
Not quite RPG (according to someone's definition)
-------------
-Hunt the Wumpus (1978 or earlier)
-Adventure (about 1978-1979) [There were obviously two games by this title
for the Atari 2600, one from Atari and one from Sears. I have no idea
which of these the mentioning referred to.]
-The Wizard's Castle (1980)
Text adventures
---------------
-Adventure, by Willie Crowther and Don Woods (1977, it seems Crowther wrote
it even earlier, but Woods improved it and made it available on the ARPAnet
in '77)
-Zork, by Dave Lebling, Marc Blanc, Bruce Daniels and Tim Anderson (1977)
[This game was *not* originally titled "Dungeon", nor was it written by a
DEC engineer. It was rewritten in FORTRAN and renamed "Dungeon" by a DEC
engineer.]
-Adventureland, by Scott Adams (1978)
-Eamon (1980) [This is actually a RPG according to the above definition.]
RPG
---
-Rogue, by Michael Toy and Kenneth Arnold (mid 70's?, 1981 or earlier)
-Akalabeth, by Richard Garriot (1979?)
-Ultima I, by Richard Garriot (1979?)
-Dungeons of Mordor (1979)
-Wizardry, by Robert Woodhead and Andrew Greenberg (1981, although levels
were being created by 1977)
-Fracas
-Sorceror of Siva, by Epix
-Temple of Apshai (1980?)
-Telengard's Dungeon (1981 or earlier)
-Dragonstomper (1982)
-Demon's Winter, by SSI (1988)
Many question marks still to be straightened out:
What year was Rogue released? And was that before or after Akalabeth? Does
anyone know where to find Toy and Arnold today?
Akalabeth seems to have been released for the Apple II in -79, but some
people report even earlier versions on main-frames. When was this?
If Wizardry levels were created by 1977, then what was the inspiration for
those? Does anyone know more about this?
When *was* Temple of Apshai released? My box still says (c)1983. It's the
C64 version, but with Apple II screen-shots (so presumably the box is
identical). And what about Fracas and Sorceror of Siva? Not that I think
either of them was first, but when were they released?
Were RPGs (as defined in this document) inspired by (or a reaction against)
text adventures or were both types independent developments of traditional
paper-and-dice RPGs?
The only undeniable fact that has been established during the thread is
that there are many interesting ways to spell Akalabeth. Here are some
suggestions:
Akalbeth
Aklabeth
Alekbeth
Alkabaleth
Alkabeth
Alkalabeth
The name almost certainly originally comes from Tolkien's Akallabêth - the
fall of Númenor. Did Garriot, too, misspell it? Perhaps on purpose?
And as always, as soon as the discussion goes into the origins of fantasy
literature, someone misspells Tolkien's name. (It's *Tolkien*, not
Tolkein!)
The facts in this document have been taken from posts by the following
people, as well as some investigations of my own.
csh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
edward...@jpmorgan.com (Davis W. Edwards)
dua...@iquest.net (Duane Guingrich)
haro...@genie.com (Harold Hislop)
keni...@wam.umd.edu (Ken Iwasa)
ly...@netcom.com (Lynn Johannesen)
flet...@u.washington.edu (Brent Michael Krupp)
r...@gymnet.com (Bob Luce)
luci...@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (Nathaniel Vincent Lucier)
tma...@epix.net (Thomas Matteo)
mwma...@mtu.edu (Mark W. Maurer)
Phil Priest <ph...@blkbox.com>
David Putnam <dpu...@allencomm.com>
dan....@stpete.honeywell.com (DLRapp)
rbs <r...@vision.net.au>
hik...@netaxs.com (Erik Schultz)
d...@thinkage.on.ca (David Adrien Tanguay)
Jason L Tibbitts III <ti...@uh.edu>
Tom Zuchowski <71214...@CompuServe.COM>
/Fredrik Ekman
Neutronium Dragon
says...
>The only undeniable fact that has been established during the thread is
>that there are many interesting ways to spell Akalabeth. Here are some
>suggestions:
>
>Akalbeth
>Aklabeth
>Alekbeth
>Alkabaleth
>Alkabeth
>Alkalabeth
>
>The name almost certainly originally comes from Tolkien's Akallabêth - the
>fall of Númenor. Did Garriot, too, misspell it? Perhaps on purpose?
He almost certainly did do it on purpose. In the early Ultima games, many of
the opponent monsters are also tolkien ones, with variations in the spelling.
(Presumably this was done to avoid copyright problems.)
--
- Neutronium
Michael Carmack
: -Adventure (about 1978-1979) [There were obviously two games by this title
: for the Atari 2600, one from Atari and one from Sears. I have no idea
: which of these the mentioning referred to.]
Well, technically, they're the exact same game. Sears just repackaged it
with their Tele-Games label. (BTW - If anyone is interested, there's an
incredible version of this for the PC called Indenture. You can find it
at www.happypuppy.com I believe.)
[snip]
: Akalabeth seems to have been released for the Apple II in -79, but some
: people report even earlier versions on main-frames. When was this?
I don't see how that's possible since Richard Garriot wrote it on an Apple
in his spare time while working in a computer store. His boss was so
impressed he sent a copy to California Pacific without telling him, and
the rest is history. (This info is being dredged from my memory of an
interview with RG that I read about ten years ago, so please forgive any
minor historical inaccuracies.)
: Were RPGs (as defined in this document) inspired by (or a reaction against)
: text adventures or were both types independent developments of traditional
: paper-and-dice RPGs?
I don't think there's any hard-core facts that can establish this one way
or the other. But I would say that they grew up independently. The
original text adventure makers spent the majority of their programming
time creating better conversation engines; character stats commonly found
in pen-n-paper RPGs were largely ignored or were hidden from the player.
But in the graphical RPGs, there was practically NO conversation engine at
all (there still isn't in many cases) and character stat management was an
integral part of the game.
Bottom line: Both genres attempted to reproduce or imitate pen-n-paper
RPGs on a computer, but they each took a drastically different approach.
Neither one is really BETTER than the other (although we all have our
favorite); they both had their strengths and weaknesses. But neither one
has yet to really do a GREAT job imitating a p-n-p RPG.
: The only undeniable fact that has been established during the thread is
: that there are many interesting ways to spell Akalabeth.
[snip]
Heh heh, I've noticed that myself.
: The name almost certainly originally comes from Tolkien's Akallabêth - the
: fall of Númenor. Did Garriot, too, misspell it? Perhaps on purpose?
Oh, it most certainly came from Tolkien. I mean, he borrowed an entire
runic alphabet, why not a name as well? I would guess he misspelled it on
purpose to avoid copyright problems.
My buddy and I used to think we were so cool because we could read the U2
map with its runes. (As I recall, they didn't print a translation of the
runes in the U2 guide back then; I don't think they started until U4, but
I could be wrong.) Now I realize that we were just dorks. ;-)
--
========================================================================
"In sports, it's not who wins or loses; | Mike Carmack
it's how drunk you get." | mcarmack@freenet.
- Homer Simpson | columbus.oh.us
Harold Stein
: Not quite RPG (according to someone's definition)
: -------------
: -Hunt the Wumpus (1978 or earlier)
: -Adventure (about 1978-1979) [There were obviously two games by this title
: for the Atari 2600, one from Atari and one from Sears. I have no idea
: which of these the mentioning referred to.]
: -The Wizard's Castle (1980)
Actually, both the Atari 2600 version and the Sears version were the same
game. It looked like Sears had aranged for the game to be slightly
different titled (They did this for about 40-50 games) and to be packaged
for their tv game system. Also, I recently came across a shareware
version of this game written for the PCs. (It was floating around the NY
area on some of the BBSes, about 2-3 months ago.) Harold S.
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Fredrik Ekman
: Were RPGs (as defined in this document) inspired by (or a reaction against)
: paper-and-dice RPGs?
I don't think there's any hard-core facts that can establish this one way
or the other. But I would say that they grew up independently. The
original text adventure makers spent the majority of their programming
time creating better conversation engines; character stats commonly found
in pen-n-paper RPGs were largely ignored or were hidden from the player.
But in the graphical RPGs, there was practically NO conversation engine at
all (there still isn't in many cases) and character stat management was an
integral part of the game.
I basically agree. However, in my copy of the Rogue manual, there is
a clear reference to Adventure. Of course, it is quite possible that
this was not in the first version of the manual. It is also possible
that Rogue was inspired by some other game but that its authors knew
about Adventure anyway. An alternative interpretation is that Mr Toy
played Adventure, thought that role-playing games on computer should
be implemented in a better way and then invented one.
/F
Chris Tabar
: In article <dw3f8lz...@kerstin.lysator.liu.se>, ek...@lysator.liu.se
: says...
: >The only undeniable fact that has been established during the thread is
: >suggestions:
: >
: >Akalbeth
: >Aklabeth
: >Alekbeth
: >Alkabaleth
: >Alkabeth
: >Alkalabeth
According to "The Official Book of Ultima" by Shay Addams, the correct
spelling is "Akalabeth"...
TABE
Same guy, new signature