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"The Future of RPG's"

It occurs to me that RPG's are just too easy nowadays. You die, you go back to just before you died and start from there in most games. How about, you die, you start from the beginning? That would be the ultimate challenge for RPGers. Diablo II online already has a version of this, called 'Hardcore' mode, but to become a Hardcore player you have to complete the original game on all three difficulty levels. Then, when your character dies, it's removed from the server memory for all eternity. This really does add an element of realism to the game, and makes you think very carefully about your character's abilities before deciding to go into battle against human opponents whose attributes you are not sure of.

I think more games should have this type of play for the console. It would make adventuring more of an intelligent process as opposed to the hack and slash attack most players adopt.

Kinda. RPG's were never 'mainstream' as a genre. They were the first sort of game developed for processors (text based adventures etc.,) so there has always been a core of dedicated RPGers which now span all ages, from about 5yrs old to....whatever.

You are right about the cycles though, the FF series really boosted popularity in the genre, and the RPG clan grew a little, but then Gran Turismo, Colin McRae and Rage Racer brought driving genre back into vogue, so the part-time fad RPGers went to that. The core remains eternal.

On the subject of RPG's I read a rather intersting article some time ago, with a theory that RGP's will become less popular over the coming years, as gaming tends to have cycles.

The current cycle, which sees RPG's as being popular began in the USA with FF6 on the SNES, this lead to FF7 recieving plenty of hype before its release on the Playstation. And all of a sudden RPG's were hugely popular.

However, like all cycles it will reach an end, and another genre will become more popular again.

Does this theory hold any weight?

Plan A was to continue with Plan B.

Or was Plan C to continue with Plan B, and Plan A was to eat all information regarding Plan B, along with plan C, and possibly Plan D. Not Plan E though, and Plan F is way out.

Depends. What is a Moff, and what was Plan A in the first place?

Of course not, Grand Moff FantasyMeister. Proceed with plan B?

A few more deaths wouldn't be noticed...

It would also cause a lot of deaths in real life too...

It occurs to me that RPG's are just too easy nowadays. You die, you go back to just before you died and start from there in most games. How about, you die, you start from the beginning? That would be the ultimate challenge for RPGers. Diablo II online already has a version of this, called 'Hardcore' mode, but to become a Hardcore player you have to complete the original game on all three difficulty levels. Then, when your character dies, it's removed from the server memory for all eternity. This really does add an element of realism to the game, and makes you think very carefully about your character's abilities before deciding to go into battle against human opponents whose attributes you are not sure of.

I think more games should have this type of play for the console. It would make adventuring more of an intelligent process as opposed to the hack and slash attack most players adopt.