Siege of Avalon

The creators of Siege of Avalon, Digital Tome, called it an Episodic Game Novel. This is nothing but a fancy new (and therefore trademarkable) term for the old shareware principle known from Wolfenstein 3D and Doom: The first episode (or, here, chapter) is free, and if you like it, you can buy more. Five more in this case: Chapter 1 (the free one), 2, and 6 forming the main story, while 3, 4, and 5 are optional expansions, each focussing on one of the three character classes, Fighter, Scout, and Mage.

You are not restricted by your Character Class, or any other selection. The "Expansion" Chapters are enhanced for their relative class focus (Chapter 3 = Fighter, Chapter 4 = Scout, Chapter 5 = Mage), but any player can successfully complete any of these Chapters. It will be easier to complete an expansion Chapter if you play it in a style consistent with its focus; for example, if a Fighter player enters the Mage Chapter then you really should teach your fighter at least some defensive magic to make combat more balanced. Since the Character Class is not a strict limitation in Siege, you can create any hybrid of skills and capabilities you desire; thus allowing you to face all the environments and challenges of Avalon successfully with a highly unique and customized player character. Character Class will mostly limit certain quests and advancements.

In most RPGs that have them at all character classes are a rigid thing. In Siege of Avalon, they are just a matter of training, and, to a certain extent, the equipment you wear. A Scout can always become a Fighter or Mage if he takes the right lessons. Heavy armor bears a high penalty on stealth, so a Scout wearing heavy armor simply won't be a Scout any more.

Speaking of equipment, I have never played a graphical RPG with as many equipment slots as Siege of Avalon. Well, Ragnarok is, strictly speaking, a graphical RPG, but in Ragnorok your hero's appearance does not change with the clothes and armor he wears. In Siege of Avalon, your hero's appearance changes a lot, since the game even takes into account which piece of equipment is worn on top of which, and there are multiple graphics for most or maybe even all items.

Add to that a fully interactive environment: you can open and close containers and actually use them for storage. This is solved even better than in Fallout, you can put things into open containers without any tricks (in Fallout, you either had to close the container and open it again, or apply the steal skill).

As in many classic RPGs, you gain access to the world only slowly, map by map. Siege of Avalon does a better job to make this plausible than most others. It is, for example, fully credible that you need permission to leave a castle under siege.

Combat is real-time and rather similar to Diablo and Throne of Darkness. Some players will not like this, just as some will regret the linearity or the fact that your hero can only be male. A planned sequel, Pillars of Avalon, would have introduced a gender choice, but it was never finished.

For Siege of Avalon was not only the first (ahem) but also the last Episodic Game Novel. In 2003 it went open source (but not freeware), and a Linux version is in development.