1230 réponses à ce sujet

[the_one_54321]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Though I deny that the choice is entirely illusory.  Being able to decide what's happening inside my character's head was entirely within my control until Mass Effect came along and wouldn't let me avoid contradictory dialogue options.

While I will not contest the notion that you have the ability in certain circumstances to imagine whatever you wish about your character, the fact remains that choices offered you are multiple but not unlimited. You will never see the kind of freedom available in real tabletop role playing with a DM in attendence and directing the flow of the game. The choices in the game are an illusion, once which you can adopt very effectively in games like DA:O and less so in games like ME2.

[Davasar]

elikal71



You hit the nail on the head. Awesome.

[DragonRageGT]

elikal71 wrote...

I know you don't want to hear it, but when Bioware was sold to EA, I KNEW this was coming. Compare Ultima 7 and Ultima 8. It will tell you ALL you need to know. It's not that EA is evil. Such would be childish to assume. EA means mass market of the smallest common thing. EA means endless copy cat series (FIFA) with minimal change and greatest possible simplification.


... too emotional and perfect stuff to be quoted...

Hear Ya, Hear Ya, Hear Ya, EA!

You almost left me in tears, Elikal. Hail Britannia. And look what EA did to Ultima 9 too! Well, I could even enjoy Ascension after the patch because I already had the game anyway and I'm very easy to please but the conditions of the release of U9... OMG, I'm laughing about it today but when it happened...

Now, the problem is that we want to believe that they have a heart, a soul or that they care! Do they?

Modifié par RageGT, 12 juillet 2010 - 09:09 .

[Davasar]

elikal71 wrote...

I know you don't want to hear it, but when Bioware was sold to EA, I KNEW this was coming. Compare Ultima 7 and Ultima 8. It will tell you ALL you need to know. It's not that EA is evil. Such would be childish to assume. EA means mass market of the smallest common thing. EA means endless copy cat series (FIFA) with minimal change and greatest possible simplification.

The sheer number of creative small studios who had been bought by EA and over a brief time crushed, is long and sad. Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin and many others. The story was always the same. A small studio, famous and respected for making very creative games, not for a huge Wal-Mart mass market, but for demanding gamers, then bought by EA, streamlined for mass market taste and ultimately made superfluous.


Look at you, Bioware. Look how you changed. Some time ago, when I heard the news Bioware was sold to EA, I was very bitter and felt it was the end of an era. Then, for a while, I thought there was hope, I thought EA had learned. Apparently my fears back then were fully justified.


I am a Game Master for P&P games for 27 years now. And let me tell you one thing, Bioware. A ROLEPLAYING game, means that the people involved identify with a role. They want a vast variety of races and classes, they want a huge plethora of skills and talents to chose from. The more the better. There were days when games like Wizardry or Might and Magic (the RPG) had 30 classes and 20 races to chose from. And then?

Then came VOICE OVER. Then came streamlined story telling. It weren't huge steps in a single game. But step by step, little by litte, what made a game a RPG was betrayed and sacrificed on the altar of so called mass market. Now suddenly you speak of aiming it for your target audience, Bioware. I tell you what. WE used to be your target audience. WE roleplayers made you great. And now that Darth EA is behind you, we no longer count. We are no longer enough for you. We get the burning ring before us like some tamed animal and we can jump at your whim. Take it or leave it. I am sorry, what you are doing is wrong.

It is wrong because it leaves us behind who were your fans for so many years. It is wrong because we made you what you are and now suddenly we are neglectable and other people seem to be your new target audience. It is wrong, because THAT target audience may be more. But they are also fickle. They follow always the newst shiny. Today it's you, tommorw who knows. Ask SOE about their NGE and what they learned about leaving it's core audience behind. And this IS some sort of NGE. Every single approach to ignore the complaints of the core audience has, in the long run, proven to be a failure. Look at the "Last Airbender" movie. It was the same argument: they thought to bring something to a supposed broarder audience, and ignored to critique of their core fanbase they paid the price for it.


Individuality and choice from the beginning on, is one of the core features of a RPG. And what we read sounds like an interactive movie. And already DA:O and ME2 had gone in the wrong direction. Many old school roleplayers had complained about WAY too many and way too long cinenatic scenes and cinematic conversations. Thats not what makes a Roleplaying Game! And in ME2 we had seen the choices even further limited, and essentially ME2 was mostly an interactive movie with shooter elements. It already was no RPG. Now in Sci-Fi people may be more forgiving, especially when it is a new unknown universe. But in fantasy, people EXPECT Elves, Dwarfs and whatnot. They expect many choices and many egos they can play. They don't expect an entirely premade character.



As nice as Voiceover is, it also means the character is not me anymore. What did the Avatar of Britannia, one of the most iconic heroes of gaming say? Name, Job, Bye. He never said anything, because he WAS us. He was the player. And nothing you can voiceover can be so personal as what you imagine in your mind. What you set a characters name and voice, his behavior and backstory, its no longer me. It's some stranger I follow his doings over the shoulder, but I am no longer playing myself, and THEN all those tough moral choices you add to your games mean null.

Bioware, you are losing the path. I know you listen to the EA stockholders who want profit. They want to sell millions of games, and they care less about the small RPG fan community who made you great. I can't even say it will be a financial failure if you follow this path. Heck, many generic games sell in many millions. But for us, who love complex games, who love to chose, who love to ROLEPLAY and not follow some premade characters preset narrative story, for us it is a betrayal. Do it if you think stocks are everything. But don't call it a roleplaying game and know that you are leaving us behind. You are walking a path I as a Roleplayer can not follow you.

[Davasar]

Oh, and still looking for an answer to my query above. Thanks.

[elearon1]

the_one_54321 wrote...

elearon1 wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...
We can disagree with each other without resorting to personal attacks or insults. Thank you.

Obviously this is your first time on the internet - man are you in for a let down.

I am sooooo tempted to link him directly to this post so he can issue you a 24 hour ban. <_<

Yes, because jokes are the worst thing one can inject into a thread - how dare I try to introduce some humor when so many people are taking themselves too seriously!  Step back and take a breather, man, not everything on the internet is an attack on you.

[Talof]

Davasar wrote...

I asked these questions before in a different thread...and the crickets answered me.

One of the other posters came up with an hypothesis....I will repost it here:


Akizora wrote...

The world is changing, I feel it in the earth, I feel it in the water, I smell it in the air. Much that once was is now
forgotten; for none now live who remember it.

It began with the making of the great games: Three of Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights were given to the oldschool RPG-fans, the most dedicated and loyal of all beings. Two of Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire were given to the new generation of RPG fans, great gamers and players of the new era. And Two were passed to the race of men, who  above all else desire power and were thus given Mass Effect.

The oldschool RPG-fans rejoiced upon the release of Dragon Age: Origins and as did all the other races.

...But they were all of them decieved for another game was made: in the halls of Bioware, in the fires of Internet Hate, the dark lord Gaider forged, in secret, a master game to control all others. And into this game he poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all life....This game was Dragon Age 2


Had to copy this over, it was too good not to share

laughed so hard at this.  Its awesome.

Anyway the one thing I would like to say is that its sad that the fps brink will be more of an rpg than this game is gonna be, so I am getting it instead of DA 2.  In Brink I will get to totally define MY character and I get all the benefits of leveling and chosing skills and further defining MY character, which apparently is too much to ask for in DA 2.

[the_one_54321]

elearon1 wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

elearon1 wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...
We can disagree with each other without resorting to personal attacks or insults. Thank you.

Obviously this is your first time on the internet - man are you in for a let down.

I am sooooo tempted to link him directly to this post so he can issue you a 24 hour ban. <_<

Yes, because jokes are the worst thing one can inject into a thread - how dare I try to introduce some humor when so many people are taking themselves too seriously!  Step back and take a breather, man, not everything on the internet is an attack on you.

Maybe I missread your tone. That didn't come across as humor to me. More like sarcasm or derision.

[Jimmy Fury]

elikal71 wrote...
Then came VOICE OVER. Then came streamlined story telling. It weren't huge steps in a single game. But step by step, little by litte, what made a game a RPG was betrayed and sacrificed on the altar of so called mass market. Now suddenly you speak of aiming it for your target audience, Bioware. I tell you what. WE used to be your target audience. WE roleplayers made you great. And now that Darth EA is behind you, we no longer count. We are no longer enough for you. We get the burning ring before us like some tamed animal and we can jump at your whim. Take it or leave it. I am sorry, what you are doing is wrong.

If you expected BW games to never change then you were only deluding yourself. I mean no offense, I'm not going for a personal attack. But things change over time, they always have and they always will. At no point was Bioware ever a non-profit organization. So assuming they would push themself into the red, and out the door, just to deliver a very specific style is not logical. It costs more to make games for current system. Not just consoles, but PC's as well (more, actually, if I recall correctly). The faster computers advance the more it costs bioware to make a single game. If they continue to focus on a shrinking audience then they will go out of business.

Look at the "Last Airbender" movie. It was the same argument: they thought to bring something to a supposed broarder audience, and ignored to critique of their core fanbase they paid the price for it.

#2 movie in the country opening weekend.
current gross box office of $109 million.
Only been out only 2 weeks.
That's not such a hefty price. In fact, their worst mistake was to release anything opposite the sparkly vampires.
I myself very much want to see The Last Airbender. But I would throw myself into a wood chipper before I walked into a theater full of Twilight fans.

Anyway, you certainly have every right to feel any way you feel. and you certainly have every right to stand up for your convictions. For that I applaud you.
At the same time It sounds like your battle is already lost. If BW has been upsetting you for 4 years now then it may be time to lay down your sword.

Modifié par Jimmy Fury, 12 juillet 2010 - 09:34 .

[Ecael]

AlanC9 wrote...

RageGT wrote...
Well, they haven't come close to tell us the why now, have they? Other than "it's our game and we do what we like with it"?

What sort of answer are you looking for? In the end anything would reduce to "we think it makes the game better," but are the advantages the changes are meant to provide really that obscure?

What AlanC9 said.

If BioWare had a shaky reputation with making RPGs in the past, then we'd have every right to question the developers. However, this isn't the case. While fan feedback is always wanted, BioWare doesn't need fan feedback to know how to make a great game or how to modify an existing one. A lot of them are gamers, just like us.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Jimmy Fury wrote...

Out of sheer curiosity, since this same sentiment has been voiced multiple times, can you provide any examples of this contradictory dialogue?
Note that contradictory dialogue would mean that you chose something that meant one thing and it came out as something else entirely like "I like you" came out as "Shut up and die you moron"

That's not what I mean by contradictory dialogue.  What you describe would be contradictory, yes, but that's not the whole scope of the problem.

My concern is that if you choose an option, knowing exactly why Shepard chose that option (you're playing him, after all, so you know his deepest darkest thoughts - you have to in order to make these sorts of decisions for him).  Then, some time later, you're given a dialogue option that you think has nothing to do with the earlier motive you used to make the prior decision, and then Shepard goes ahead and does something or says something that directly contradicts the basis for that earlier decision.

So now everything Shepard has done in the intervening time doesn't make any sense because there's no coherence to his thoughts.  His every action snce that first decision was coloured by what he did and why he did it, and now suddenly the reason why he did it (which was only ever known to you) can't be truebecause Shepard just behaved contrary to your preference.

The system doesn't need to contradict itself within one dialogue option in order to break.  If it contradicts itself at all - regardles sof how far apart the contradictorty events occur - that also breaks the character.

Within a single option, the only example that springs to mind (and again, this contradiction happens throughout the game, just not always within a single option) is your first conversation with Anderson and Udina after rescuing Tali.  I selected an option only to have Shepard make assertions I didn't think were true.  I never would have selected them if I'd known what they were, but here Shepard was expounding on some point where she was saying things that were pure conjecture and presenting them as if they were facts.

The reason I'm so curious is because I can specifically recall 3 seperate times in Origins where my dialogue options with Alistair  appeared friendly and sarcastic but were apparantly offensive and mean because Alistair took offense and lost approval.

That's an entirely different sort of thing.  In your case, you're concerned that the NPCs didn't react as you expected them.  In my case, I'm complaining that my PC didn't act as I expected.

Yet for the life of me I can't recall the same thing happening in ME. I never once picked a Paragon option only to have him renegade out on someone.

If that's all the detail you ever wanted from the responses, then I'm not surprised the game never bothered you.

But when Ashley tells you about her faith, how did Shepard feel about that?  Why did he feel that way?  I would always have the answers to those questions handy if asked, but the game doesn't know what those answers are.  So what happens later (maybe hours later) when Shepard says or does something entirely contrary to those previously determined answers?  Again, the game doesn't know about them, so it can't avoid them without my help.  But since it never asks for my help (I can't see the dialogue options to avoid them if they would break my character), I'm powerless to prevent it, and the game rushes headlong into nonsense.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 12 juillet 2010 - 09:41 .

[the_one_54321]

Jimmy Fury wrote...Look at the "Last Airbender" movie. It was the same argument: they thought to bring something to a supposed broarder audience, and ignored to critique of their core fanbase they paid the price for it.
#2 movie in the country opening weekend.
current gross box office of $109 million.
Only been out only 2 weeks.
That's not such a hefty price. In fact, their worst mistake was to release anything opposite the sparkly vampires.
I myself very much want to see The Last Airbender. But I would throw myself into a wood chipper before I walked into a theater full of Twilight fans.

Airbender didn't disappoint the fans. I'm a fan. I liked it. I got more or less what I expcted from.
Point being, the analogy is indeed off.

[Bryy_Miller]

elikal71 wrote...

I know you don't want to hear it, but when Bioware was sold to EA, I KNEW this was coming. Compare Ultima 7 and Ultima 8. It will tell you ALL you need to know. It's not that EA is evil. Such would be childish to assume. EA means mass market of the smallest common thing. EA means endless copy cat series (FIFA) with minimal change and greatest possible simplification.

The sheer number of creative small studios who had been bought by EA and over a brief time crushed, is long and sad. Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin and many others. The story was always the same. A small studio, famous and respected for making very creative games, not for a huge Wal-Mart mass market, but for demanding gamers, then bought by EA, streamlined for mass market taste and ultimately made superfluous.


Look at you, Bioware. Look how you changed. Some time ago, when I heard the news Bioware was sold to EA, I was very bitter and felt it was the end of an era. Then, for a while, I thought there was hope, I thought EA had learned. Apparently my fears back then were fully justified.


I am a Game Master for P&P games for 27 years now. And let me tell you one thing, Bioware. A ROLEPLAYING game, means that the people involved identify with a role. They want a vast variety of races and classes, they want a huge plethora of skills and talents to chose from. The more the better. There were days when games like Wizardry or Might and Magic (the RPG) had 30 classes and 20 races to chose from. And then?

Then came VOICE OVER. Then came streamlined story telling. It weren't huge steps in a single game. But step by step, little by litte, what made a game a RPG was betrayed and sacrificed on the altar of so called mass market. Now suddenly you speak of aiming it for your target audience, Bioware. I tell you what. WE used to be your target audience. WE roleplayers made you great. And now that Darth EA is behind you, we no longer count. We are no longer enough for you. We get the burning ring before us like some tamed animal and we can jump at your whim. Take it or leave it. I am sorry, what you are doing is wrong.

It is wrong because it leaves us behind who were your fans for so many years. It is wrong because we made you what you are and now suddenly we are neglectable and other people seem to be your new target audience. It is wrong, because THAT target audience may be more. But they are also fickle. They follow always the newst shiny. Today it's you, tommorw who knows. Ask SOE about their NGE and what they learned about leaving it's core audience behind. And this IS some sort of NGE. Every single approach to ignore the complaints of the core audience has, in the long run, proven to be a failure. Look at the "Last Airbender" movie. It was the same argument: they thought to bring something to a supposed broarder audience, and ignored to critique of their core fanbase they paid the price for it.


Individuality and choice from the beginning on, is one of the core features of a RPG. And what we read sounds like an interactive movie. And already DA:O and ME2 had gone in the wrong direction. Many old school roleplayers had complained about WAY too many and way too long cinenatic scenes and cinematic conversations. Thats not what makes a Roleplaying Game! And in ME2 we had seen the choices even further limited, and essentially ME2 was mostly an interactive movie with shooter elements. It already was no RPG. Now in Sci-Fi people may be more forgiving, especially when it is a new unknown universe. But in fantasy, people EXPECT Elves, Dwarfs and whatnot. They expect many choices and many egos they can play. They don't expect an entirely premade character.



As nice as Voiceover is, it also means the character is not me anymore. What did the Avatar of Britannia, one of the most iconic heroes of gaming say? Name, Job, Bye. He never said anything, because he WAS us. He was the player. And nothing you can voiceover can be so personal as what you imagine in your mind. What you set a characters name and voice, his behavior and backstory, its no longer me. It's some stranger I follow his doings over the shoulder, but I am no longer playing myself, and THEN all those tough moral choices you add to your games mean null.

Bioware, you are losing the path. I know you listen to the EA stockholders who want profit. They want to sell millions of games, and they care less about the small RPG fan community who made you great. I can't even say it will be a financial failure if you follow this path. Heck, many generic games sell in many millions. But for us, who love complex games, who love to chose, who love to ROLEPLAY and not follow some premade characters preset narrative story, for us it is a betrayal. Do it if you think stocks are everything. But don't call it a roleplaying game and know that you are leaving us behind. You are walking a path I as a Roleplayer can not follow you.

Yes, your thread WAS locked. Reposting what you wrote will surely not get others locked as well.

The fact that you reposted this makes it clear that you didn't write this for BioWare's eyes.

[Ecael]

elikal71 wrote...

The sheer number of creative small studios who had been bought by EA and over a brief time crushed, is long and sad. Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin and many others. The story was always the same. A small studio, famous and respected for making very creative games, not for a huge Wal-Mart mass market, but for demanding gamers, then bought by EA, streamlined for mass market taste and ultimately made superfluous.

No, the story isn't the same for BioWare. Instead of crushing BioWare with its fist like you described, they expanded BioWare by at least four-fold.

Also, Electronic Arts hasn't been the same since the EA Spouse Controversy back in 2005.

Then came VOICE OVER. Then came streamlined story telling. It weren't huge steps in a single game. But step by step, little by litte, what made a game a RPG was betrayed and sacrificed on the altar of so called mass market. Now suddenly you speak of aiming it for your target audience, Bioware. I tell you what. WE used to be your target audience. WE roleplayers made you great. And now that Darth EA is behind you, we no longer count. We are no longer enough for you. We get the burning ring before us like some tamed animal and we can jump at your whim. Take it or leave it. I am sorry, what you are doing is wrong.

You're starting to sound as if BioWare were guilty of adultery, rather than making improvements to their games.

It is wrong because it leaves us behind who were your fans for so many years. It is wrong because we made you what you are and now suddenly we are neglectable and other people seem to be your new target audience. It is wrong, because THAT target audience may be more. But they are also fickle. They follow always the newst shiny.

Fickle would be telling BioWare that you're going to jump ship to another "shiny" RPG upon reading the most minor of BioWare press releases.

It was the same argument: they thought to bring something to a supposed broarder audience, and ignored to critique of their core fanbase they paid the price for it.

M. Night Shyamalan doesn't work for EA.

And in ME2 we had seen the choices even further limited, and essentially ME2 was mostly an interactive movie with shooter elements. It already was no RPG.

Define RPG.

Modifié par Ecael, 12 juillet 2010 - 09:44 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Maybe I missread your tone. That didn't come across as humor to me. More like sarcasm or derision.

Sarcasm is humour.  Are you not familiar with the adage "sarcasm is the lowest form of humour"?

As it happens, that scale places puns as the highest form of humour, so take that for what it's worth.

Ecael wrote...

If BioWare had a shaky reputation with making RPGs in the past, then we'd have every right to question the developers.

They have now made two games which they claimed were RPGs but didn't allow any roleplaying.  That seems like a reasonable level of doubt.

Of course, the DA team wasn't the team that made those games.

[Ecael]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

Maybe I missread your tone. That didn't come across as humor to me. More like sarcasm or derision.

Sarcasm is humour.  Are you not familiar with the adage "sarcasm is the lowest form of humour"?

As it happens, that scale places puns as the highest form of humour, so take that for what it's worth.

Ecael wrote...

If BioWare had a shaky reputation with making RPGs in the past, then we'd have every right to question the developers.

They have now made two games which they claimed were RPGs but didn't allow any roleplaying.  That seems like a reasonable level of doubt.

Of course, the DA team wasn't the team that made those games.

Again, we'd have to agree on the definition of an RPG (and a video game RPG, more specifically) before declaring two games as "not role-playing enough".

[joriandrake]

Ecael wrote...

Define RPG.

roleplaying game:

you are able to set character stats and skills and abilities
you are able to decide on the name and looks of the character
you are able to decide the race of the character
you are able to decide how oyur character acts and what/how it says

character travels in a party of 4 or more
character influences the world around itself, and the world also influences the character
characters influence eachother as they travel together, changing their personality even

characters
abilities decide the effectiveness of its spells and melee/ranged combat
and not the ability of the plyer to swing a sword (or click a mouse)

character can decide how the armor and weapon looks like what it picks up, it may even be able to decide on its own coat of arms and the armament/cloth colors of its personal army in case it has access to such being a noble
or a rich merchant (or a mage lord or similar)


the character and its party experiences multiple events and quests, multiple campaigns as it grows "stronger" (meaning may  differ)

Modifié par joriandrake, 12 juillet 2010 - 09:52 .

[Bryy_Miller]

Ecael, don't bother. They are posting the same thing in every thread, and are most likely going to get banned.

[the_one_54321]

Ecael wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
They have now made two games which they claimed were RPGs but didn't allow any roleplaying.  That seems like a reasonable level of doubt.

Of course, the DA team wasn't the team that made those games.

Again, we'd have to agree on the definition of an RPG (and a video game RPG, more specifically) before declaring two games as "not role-playing enough".

Let go of the catch phrases. Whether or not it's an RPG is pointless to argue at all.
Focus on what helps you support the illusion of the game and what makes you incapable of supporting the illusion of the game.

Aspects and characteristics of the game. Not catch phrases and titles.

[joriandrake]

Bryy_Miller wrote...

Ecael, don't bother. They are posting the same thing in every thread, and are most likely going to get banned.

...right, you don't know Bioware forums then, or you believe in the right of free ...censure

[Ecael]

joriandrake wrote...

Ecael wrote...

Define RPG.

roleplaying game:

you are able to set character stats and skills and abilities
you are able to decide on the name and looks of the character
you are able to decide the race of the character
you are able to decide how oyur character acts and what/how it says

character travels in a party of 4 or more
character influences the world around itself, and the world also influences the character
characters influence eachother as they travel together, changing their personality even

characters
abilities decide the effectiveness of its spells and melee/ranged combat
and not the ability of the plyer to swing a sword (or click a mouse)

character can decide how the armor and weapon looks like what it picks up, it may even be able to decide on its own coat of arms and the armament/cloth colors of its personal army in case it has access to such being a noble
or a rich merchant (or a mage lord or similar)


the character and its party experiences multiple events and quests, multiple campaigns as it grows "stronger" (meaning may  differ)

You just roughly defined Dragon Age: Origins and essentially weeded out every other RPG in existence.

This is a more official version, that I posted on the Off-Topic forums:

Brittanica has the best definition of it:

electronic role-playing game - electronic game genre in which players advance through a story quest, and often many side quests, for which their character or party of characters gain experience that improves various attributes and abilities. The genre is almost entirely rooted in TSR, Inc.’s Dungeons &amp; Dragons (D&amp;D; 1974), a role-playing game (RPG) for small groups in which each player takes some role, such as a healer, warrior, or wizard, to help his party battle evil as directed by the group’s Dungeon Master, or assigned storyteller.

Anders Tychsen further elaborates:

The use of a [computer RPG] virtual world is of both advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is that the players are provided an immediate representation of the game world. This alleviates a fundamental problem in PnP RPGs, that players perceive events through their individual minds eye, which can lead to confusion, for example about who is doing what during an encounter with opponents. The disadvantage is that the representation of the game world hinders the formation of deeply personal visualizations in the individual minds eye of the players. Furthermore, current CRPGs do not have any genuine dynamic feedback capacity as that provided by a human GM.

To break that into a list, video game RPGs have:

• Main quest or storyline (often with side quests)
• Main character (often with side characters)
• Character improvement or progression (often through "experience points")
• Character classes or roles
• Immediate representation of the game world

In other words, quests, characters, progression, classes/roles and a fully designed game world at the player's disposal is the definition of an RPG.

BioWare is further up on the end of RPGs because they provide well-written and clearly defined quests, dialogue and characters. The actual game world is more immediate in that there are many ambient sounds, characters and - most of all - voices that populate them.

The last part is the most important part - an "electronic" RPG is designed so that most or all the imagination is not up to the player. They play the role defined strictly by the developers - they only give you their options to choose from, not yours. That is the limitation of every video game defined as an RPG.

[the_one_54321]

Arguing about the definition is not going to change anything about the mechanical aspects that people do or don't want to see in the game. What label you place on those aspects is irrelevant.

[Ecael]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Arguing about the definition is not going to change anything about the mechanical aspects that people do or don't want to see in the game. What label you place on those aspects is irrelevant.

Except it's not a label when those "aspects" are strictly defined.

Being able to choose your race isn't tantamount to an RPG "aspect" in any shape or form.

[mr_nameless]

 "Spiritual successor" of Baldur's Gate indeed...

[Jimmy Fury]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

That's an entirely different sort of thing.  In your case, you're concerned that the NPCs didn't react as you expected them.  In my case, I'm complaining that my PC didn't act as I expected.

Is it entirely different though? In both cases the dialogue chosen did not match what you and I expected. You intended Shepard to say X and Shepard said Y. I expected my warden to say X and my warden said Y.
The only difference is that you knew it was Y when it came out of Shepard's mouth and I knew it was Y when Alistair reacted.
It's the exact same thing. Dialogue not being what was expected. Further more my point that was that it's not a problem restricted solely to ME and a VO. It's still present in Origins.

If that's all the detail you ever wanted from the responses, then I'm not surprised the game never bothered you.

Well that was a bit elitest. I never said that was all the detail I wanted I only said that never happend. People keep talking about how they chose a dialogue option only to have shepard say something wildly different and the polar opposite of what they chose. It never happened.
The fact that you and I have a different preference in terms of detail does not mean i'm less interested in my character. For the record I gave my Shepard an absurdly detailed backstory taking place before the events of the game. I invented new characters to populate that backstory including a family history spanning multiple generations. Had I ever been bored enough I would have written that history out.

But when Ashley tells you about her faith, how did Shepard feel about that?  Why did he feel that way?  I would always have the answers to those questions handy if asked, but the game doesn't know what those answers are.  So what happens later (maybe hours later) when Shepard says or does something entirely contrary to those previously determined answers?  Again, the game doesn't know about them, so it can't avoid them without my help.  But since it never asks for my help (I can't see the dialogue options to avoid them if they would break my character), I'm powerless to prevent it, and the game rushes headlong into nonsense.

I did the same thing. I considered all of Shepards possible motivations for everything he did.
However, I also allowed him to have multiple layers of depth. If something came up that I wasn't expecting my imagination compensated for it. I gave him a reason why he would react that way instead of the way I had originally expected.