User Generated Role Playing

My favorite genre of game is the RPG. From Legacy of The Wizard, Ultima, and the original Final Fantasy to Lost Odyssey, Elder Scrolls, Fable II, and MMORPGs of today I have always loved this genre above all else. Although they started with "user generated content" as table tops, the scope user generated content for platform rpgs has been minimal.

Until recently, user generated content for games consisted mainly of hacks for advancing game play. Legacy of the Wizard was one of THE HARDEST games for the NES, and most people seemed to rely on the game genie for an extra edge to beat the final boss. Or imagine if you will beating Sephiroth with a zombified Aeris; ok she's not actually re-rendered as a zombie, that would be too awesome, but people do actually sell these hacks -just when my memory seemed to be telling me that the game shark codes had been free. On the bright side, this seems to have been discouraged in later years by memory cards corrupting with hacked saves, and Valkyrie Profile 2 will not accept a hack and play for more than 5 minutes running. But I digress, even with current gen console RPGs there is not a huge emphasis on user generated content. It is in MMORPGs that user generated content finds its welcome home.

MMORPGs have released updates that accepted what users had been wanting to see. They even hold contests for users to create the next class or quest. I can even see where an MMORPG may someday be able to take purely user generated content, from the users computer, and share it with other players in real time on main stream servers.