Ieldra2 wrote...
Chris Priestly wrote...
I have worked on every game we've made since the end of Baldur's Gate Throne of Bhaal. EVERY time we make a game, someone complains it isn't as "RPG" as the one previously. NwN wasn't BG, KotOR wasn't NwN, Jade wasn't KotOR, ME wasn't Jade, etc.
RPG is not static, RPG changes and evolves. Fallout 3 is not the same game as Fallout. Dragon Age: Origins is not the same game as Baldur's Gate. There is no hard, set rule as to what an RPG must be (beyond letting you play a role and it being a game, I suppose) or contain. That "YOU" (whoever you is) enjoys XYZ features and "THEY" liek ABC features does not mean that a game that does or does not include those features is any more or less an RPG. Yes, it absolutely may be less of an RPG in the mind of someone who wants ABC features, but gets XYZ features, but that does not change the inherant RPGness of the game.
So, you appear to imply that there are no features a game can miss without impacting its status as an RPG? That would make the definition meaningless. In fact, you're "playing a role" in almost any action game. I'd say a core feature of an RPG is being able to influence, as a player, certain aspects of my character. It may be appearance, it may be technical aspects of character creation and development like skills, powers etc., it may be defining your character through actions and decisions you make in the game. The more control you have as a player over your character, what he can do, what he does and says in the situations the story presents him with insofar they are relevant for expressing who this person is, how he does and says those things and which decisions he makes, the more of an RPG you have.
In this, the importance of dialogue cannot be overstressed. It's your primary way of expressing yourself to the fictional world. For a roleplayer, there is nothing worse than a game which forces the protagonist to say things where the player feels "that's not my character". Yes, games can't have unlimited options so no game is going to be perfect in this, but ME3 has been a particularly bad offender in this area, though ME2 had its moments as well. DAO, on the other hand, was almost perfect. In fact, it was much better than the BG games in this because it almost universally presented more ways to express your character.
So yes, I think limited dialogue options and more autodialogue are detrimental to a game's identity as an RPG, compared to other games which have more options and less autodialogue.
For you, that is.
the problem though goes back to what you said Chris implied though, that the definition is meaningless.
Well, it is. Simple as that.
See, the problem is that there is no definition because the entire culture of RPG's is poorly defined. I know people who only consider stuff similar to Lord of the Rings as role-playing, while others who say the FF games are the only pure RPG's left in the world.
You have people using a vulgar term like JRPG's or CRPG or WRPG like it was a candy-coated placebo to define something, when all they do is artifically label something based on looks or style, mechanics or conventions. In the end, that is all meaningless because such labels and accusations as to what is and what is not an RPG are pointless.
If you want to define what type of game Mass Effect 3 was, it should be based on mechanics of the game itself. But even from there, you can't define the game because of its hybrid nature of several styles of game mechanics; dialogue system from previous games, the quasi-established characterization and linear structure from FF titles, the combat mechanics out of Gears of War, its a frankenstein monster that actually avoids feature creep unlike other "bigger and better" titles because of the tightness of the storyline.
And if we really want to go back, BioWare never gave you your character mechanically either. You were within the confines of a world created by the developers, you were forced down a main storyline in every game, and had unavoidable moments within it that shaped the plot, while you, as the player character, shaped the narrative. KotoR as Revan, Baldurs Gate as the Bhaalspawn, Jade Empire as the Spirt Monk, Dragon Age as the Warden; you can control their actions and even in some cases, their motivations, but not their journey. It is no different than in Mass Effect.
So mechanically, you should be hating BioWare's entire back catalogue as being a poor definition to what you determine as a good RPG. I guess the difference is they hid it better in all of those games, which if you find ok, then I won't take that away from you. My point is that what you consider an RPG is not a universal definition and is, in fact, a minority definition of what is actually is. It is no more or less valid as my own definition, or Chris Priesty's, or xsbobs, or whoever else is posting in this thread, because the definition doesn't exist.
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