Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
They didn't win as an RPG and they weren't even nominated as a Shooter. If that doesn't say "FAILURE" I don't know what does. The fanboy tears taste so good.
Fallout 4 review roundup #2
- Thread starter Kilus
- Start date
This ghoul has seen it all
T
TorontoReign
Guest
At least blind fanboy screams lose their power after a long period of times. It has to happen EVENTUALLY. Sooner or later the fans who just play the game because they like to shoot stuff and collect loot will go elsewhere. I would love to see someone with a lot of money go head to head with Bethesda. It would be good for Bethesda ultimately because they would have to actually compete more. Well I guess they tried that with the Borderlands and Minecraft inspired stuff to a lesser extent.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
It was pretty risky for Bethesda to release a Sequel to FOBOS, considering that it's the most hated Fallout series and all.
FearMonkey
Vault Senior Citizen
Dunno about the "lot of money" part, but Sony is making a open world post-apoc RPG with Horizon: Zero Dawn and it looks way better than Fallout 4 graphically. Not sure how deep it'll be as an RPG though. We've seen you get XP from killing things and you do quests and craft tools and weapons. We might get more info tomorrow morning during the keynote at PlayStation Experience.
SumsoluS
The Punchinator
http://imgur.com/a/WQkiU
"I always loved the thought of driving things in Fallout, vehicle interiors are more detailed than I expected" HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
"111 Is pretty small compared to other operational Vaults, such as 81. But this makes sense considering its only purpose is to cryogenically freeze the test subjects."
Or maybe it saves them time and resources on doing a shitty job.
"I always loved the thought of driving things in Fallout, vehicle interiors are more detailed than I expected" HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
"111 Is pretty small compared to other operational Vaults, such as 81. But this makes sense considering its only purpose is to cryogenically freeze the test subjects."
Or maybe it saves them time and resources on doing a shitty job.
TheChosen1
Moving Target
Hated? Whaat? It was immursiv and innovativ!
whirlingdervish
Brahmin Cavalry Commander
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Robot bewbes... yum-yum...
RangerBoo
Resident Schizo Poster
The fanboy tears on the Steam forums and YouTube taste the best.
Its really pathetic. What miserable little cretins.
Usamiko
The Seven-Colored Gamer
The fanboy tears on the Steam forums and YouTube taste the best.
The way they attempt to make excuses with it like "Awards don't mean shit" and "Fallout 4 will win a bunch more next year" are incredibly satisfying xD
RangerBoo
Resident Schizo Poster
The fanboy tears on the Steam forums and YouTube taste the best.
The way they attempt to make excuses with it like "Awards don't mean shit" and "Fallout 4 will win a bunch more next year" are incredibly satisfying xD
My favorite are the insults like the death threats or calling people weebos(I have no idea why this is Beth fans after all). Its really fucking hilarious.
Congratulations Beth fanboys you guys are now worse then Bioware fanboys.
culot
that that is that that is
I love how they start with, 'Fallout 4 is a role-playing game'. What exactly is a role playing game? It's a game where you shoot things in a first-person perspective that doesn't require literacy or thought, where the only role you can play is that of The Killer. While Fallout isn't as good an RPG as (say) Doom II, it's still Game Of The Year.
11/10 (let's get that Metacritic score over 100!)
<script type="text/javascript">window.onbeforeunload = function() {}</script><script type="text/javascript">window.onbeforeunload = function()</script>
Doom is as much a role playing game as Fallout 4 is!
You can role play - a Marine!
You have choices - Do I shoot, or do I not shoot? Which weapon should I use? Plasma? Chainsaw? Shotgun!
You have quests - Kill eveyone!
You can role play - a Marine!
You have choices - Do I shoot, or do I not shoot? Which weapon should I use? Plasma? Chainsaw? Shotgun!
You have quests - Kill eveyone!
Money4U
First time out of the vault
Haha.. A bucket of cold water on the head of Bethesda! Maybe they will actually think next time before ruining Fallout lore again, they win GOTY awards for Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim but now nothing?! Haha at least some people are not like those ''Bethdrones'' and can actually see many flaws that this game have. While The Witcher 3 is not a perfect game (something like 9,5/10 for me), it is so much better that FO4.
Jamesmapped
First time out of the vault
There's no way any of the reviewers giving this game a 10/10, or even a 9/10, played through to the ending.
**Spoilers Below**
To note, I sided with the "Brotherhood."
I just finished and the ending is offensively bad. They somehow managed to make it worse than Fallout 3's ending. My character didn't even mention the fucking faction he'd aligned with in the 30-second cutscene that is supposed to show... growth? Character development?
Man this game was clearly dropped on its head sometime during development, because it can't remember if it wants to be an RPG that lets you decide who your character is and what they stand for, or if it wants to tell the story of a guy who lost everything and was shunted into the unforgiving world of Fallout. It does neither one well in the slightest, and as a result has neither character nor story to speak of.
I am honestly baffled by how this game made it past QA or past play-testers. Glaring design flaws are integrated into the foundations of the game, from voice-acted protagonist with a pre-defined story but not a pre-defined character, to the removal of the skill system for a perk system that manages to be blander than wheat bread, but lets also not forget the baffling removal of the faction reputation system for like/hate relationships with companions shallower then a puddle, or the complete retread of Fallout 3's final mission, except without any of the atmosphere or excitement!
At least when you were following Liberty Prime around, bored out of your skull as he kills the Enclave for you (when his pathfinding decided to work) there was a war going on and it felt kinda cool. Here, eh, the fixed the pathfinding I guess? I just followed him around in broad daylight while he killed some synths. Apparently The Institute's defenses boil down to "teleport in 4 basic synths at a time carrying basic institute rifles." Guess they didn't want to survive very much. You honestly do not have to fire off a single shot through the entire final mission.
So you meet Shaun again at the end of things, and you get to say exactly 4 things to him, so choose wisely! There's no tension here, no drama as a father and son, forced to fight because of the son's complete moronic, almost cartoonish, evilness meet at the end of things. You can't try and convince Shaun that you're side is maybe right, you can't get Shaun to step down and surrender, you can only get the codes to shut some Synths down, a completely unnecessary act as, like I said, it is unnecessary to fire off a single bullet what with your entourage of power-armor wearing, mini-gun wielding brotherhood knights.
Then, in the final death-knell of Bethesda's character assassination of The Brotherhood of Steel, the Brotherhood blow the institute up! Yeah, that's right, The Brotherhood of Steel, dedicated to recovering and utilizing lost technology, just blow up the most advanced facility remaining on the face of the planet, because robots are evil grr we gotta nuke 'em. Can you talk The Brotherhood out of this action? No. Can you even bring up the fact that maybe, just fucking maybe, it would be possible to take control of and utilize synths and synth making technology for the greater good, like The Brotherhood was founded to do? Naah, that would be smart, and Bethesda doesn't do smart dialogue.
This is what I mean when I say that the ending is Offensively bad. I mean I could go on for fucking ever about the insane design choices in the game, but what really pisses me off is just how utterly shit the writing is, because, and I ask this as an honest question, why is the writing so atrocious? Can Bethesda not hire good writers? Did all the good writers in the world just form an iron-bound pact with each other to turn down job offers from Bethesda?
No, the writing is shit because Bethesda knows they don't have to try, people will buy their game and reviewers will rate it high anyways. That is why the ending is offensive, because Bethesda could have tried, they could have worked hard to make a better game with an ending that had some small amount of relation to that game, but instead they spent five minutes doing what can't have been more than one-take of the main character spouting baffling nonsense about home and family and rebuilding. My jaw dropped from how bad the ending was, I'm still shaking with disbelief as I write this, because I just do not understand how nobody at Bethesda watched this ending and proceeded to smack the person who wrote it upside the head, fire their incompetent ass, and spend the ten bucks to get a five year old to come up with a better one, because, and I am being completely serious here, a five year old could write a better ending.
I mean, I do know how nobody at Bethesda said anything, and that is because they simply didn't care.
Then, to top it off, the game offers a small glimmer of hope as the leader of The Brotherhood tells me "It's not over yet!" I think, "Hey, maybe there's more, maybe there's unique post-game for each faction!" Only to be informed that, while the main quest was over, I needn't worry, as The Brotherhood had an infinite amount of radiant quests left for me to tackle! Also here's a jetpack, now fuck off.
A still photo of a middle-finger would have been a better ending to this game, because at least it would have been honest. Really a big middle-finger would work well for the opening too, it would set the stage for the game.
As a Fallout game I cannot rate Fallout 4 anything but 0/10, complete critical failure of comprehending or implementing a single one of Fallout's central themes.
Story: 3/10. Despite my long rant there are a few moments that honestly captivated me. These moments are inevitably followed by let down as soon as I have to speak with someone again, as the dialogue system ruins any chance of an engaging conversation with any NPC, even if the dialogue wasn't written by someone who I cannot say for sure understands the basics of communication between human beings.
Combat: 5/10. The only thing that one might be able to say is noticeably improved from previous Fallout games. Even then it's not up to par with any action RPG you'd care to name. Melee and unarmed combat is the surest way to get yourself killed, stealth is OP as all fuck, and with the new perk system the way you play the game never really changes or upgrades, you just do more damage while doing the exact same things as before. Still, it is competent, and I had some amount of fun whenever the game had the balls to actually be difficult and require strategy, which is absurdly rare.
RPG mechanics: Fallout 4 is not an RPG. The Perk system, the last vestige of being an RPG, is boring beyond belief. Gone are perks like "Terrifying Presence" or "Confirmed Bachelor" that can really change the way you approach the game. Instead almost every perk offers only a flat percentage increase in damage, leading to the problem mentioned above that you never really change the way you play the game, you only gain the ability to fight the same enemies that are now a slightly-higher level. The removal of perks that really alter the way you play the game, abundant in the original Fallouts and New Vegas, and even Fallout 3 to some extent, really highlights Bethesda's baffling strategy of cutting good ideas from the original games that were handed to them on a silver platter. You really get the sense that Bethesda is bitter at how competently made New Vegas is, and decided to rebel by going the opposite direction in terms of depth as part of some misguided attempt to prove that they can also make a good Fallout game. I really cannot stress enough how badly this game fails as an RPG.
I just... The best part of Fallout 4 really is that Obsidian might get to make a competent game using it as a base. If not, Bethesda has wasted everyone's time and showed honest to god contempt for hardcore fans of both Fallout and Bethesda games in general as they staunchly refuse to improve on any aspect of their games despite how well the company is doing, and continue to slowly cut away anything good that remains.
**Spoilers Below**
To note, I sided with the "Brotherhood."
I just finished and the ending is offensively bad. They somehow managed to make it worse than Fallout 3's ending. My character didn't even mention the fucking faction he'd aligned with in the 30-second cutscene that is supposed to show... growth? Character development?
Man this game was clearly dropped on its head sometime during development, because it can't remember if it wants to be an RPG that lets you decide who your character is and what they stand for, or if it wants to tell the story of a guy who lost everything and was shunted into the unforgiving world of Fallout. It does neither one well in the slightest, and as a result has neither character nor story to speak of.
I am honestly baffled by how this game made it past QA or past play-testers. Glaring design flaws are integrated into the foundations of the game, from voice-acted protagonist with a pre-defined story but not a pre-defined character, to the removal of the skill system for a perk system that manages to be blander than wheat bread, but lets also not forget the baffling removal of the faction reputation system for like/hate relationships with companions shallower then a puddle, or the complete retread of Fallout 3's final mission, except without any of the atmosphere or excitement!
At least when you were following Liberty Prime around, bored out of your skull as he kills the Enclave for you (when his pathfinding decided to work) there was a war going on and it felt kinda cool. Here, eh, the fixed the pathfinding I guess? I just followed him around in broad daylight while he killed some synths. Apparently The Institute's defenses boil down to "teleport in 4 basic synths at a time carrying basic institute rifles." Guess they didn't want to survive very much. You honestly do not have to fire off a single shot through the entire final mission.
So you meet Shaun again at the end of things, and you get to say exactly 4 things to him, so choose wisely! There's no tension here, no drama as a father and son, forced to fight because of the son's complete moronic, almost cartoonish, evilness meet at the end of things. You can't try and convince Shaun that you're side is maybe right, you can't get Shaun to step down and surrender, you can only get the codes to shut some Synths down, a completely unnecessary act as, like I said, it is unnecessary to fire off a single bullet what with your entourage of power-armor wearing, mini-gun wielding brotherhood knights.
Then, in the final death-knell of Bethesda's character assassination of The Brotherhood of Steel, the Brotherhood blow the institute up! Yeah, that's right, The Brotherhood of Steel, dedicated to recovering and utilizing lost technology, just blow up the most advanced facility remaining on the face of the planet, because robots are evil grr we gotta nuke 'em. Can you talk The Brotherhood out of this action? No. Can you even bring up the fact that maybe, just fucking maybe, it would be possible to take control of and utilize synths and synth making technology for the greater good, like The Brotherhood was founded to do? Naah, that would be smart, and Bethesda doesn't do smart dialogue.
This is what I mean when I say that the ending is Offensively bad. I mean I could go on for fucking ever about the insane design choices in the game, but what really pisses me off is just how utterly shit the writing is, because, and I ask this as an honest question, why is the writing so atrocious? Can Bethesda not hire good writers? Did all the good writers in the world just form an iron-bound pact with each other to turn down job offers from Bethesda?
No, the writing is shit because Bethesda knows they don't have to try, people will buy their game and reviewers will rate it high anyways. That is why the ending is offensive, because Bethesda could have tried, they could have worked hard to make a better game with an ending that had some small amount of relation to that game, but instead they spent five minutes doing what can't have been more than one-take of the main character spouting baffling nonsense about home and family and rebuilding. My jaw dropped from how bad the ending was, I'm still shaking with disbelief as I write this, because I just do not understand how nobody at Bethesda watched this ending and proceeded to smack the person who wrote it upside the head, fire their incompetent ass, and spend the ten bucks to get a five year old to come up with a better one, because, and I am being completely serious here, a five year old could write a better ending.
I mean, I do know how nobody at Bethesda said anything, and that is because they simply didn't care.
Then, to top it off, the game offers a small glimmer of hope as the leader of The Brotherhood tells me "It's not over yet!" I think, "Hey, maybe there's more, maybe there's unique post-game for each faction!" Only to be informed that, while the main quest was over, I needn't worry, as The Brotherhood had an infinite amount of radiant quests left for me to tackle! Also here's a jetpack, now fuck off.
A still photo of a middle-finger would have been a better ending to this game, because at least it would have been honest. Really a big middle-finger would work well for the opening too, it would set the stage for the game.
As a Fallout game I cannot rate Fallout 4 anything but 0/10, complete critical failure of comprehending or implementing a single one of Fallout's central themes.
Story: 3/10. Despite my long rant there are a few moments that honestly captivated me. These moments are inevitably followed by let down as soon as I have to speak with someone again, as the dialogue system ruins any chance of an engaging conversation with any NPC, even if the dialogue wasn't written by someone who I cannot say for sure understands the basics of communication between human beings.
Combat: 5/10. The only thing that one might be able to say is noticeably improved from previous Fallout games. Even then it's not up to par with any action RPG you'd care to name. Melee and unarmed combat is the surest way to get yourself killed, stealth is OP as all fuck, and with the new perk system the way you play the game never really changes or upgrades, you just do more damage while doing the exact same things as before. Still, it is competent, and I had some amount of fun whenever the game had the balls to actually be difficult and require strategy, which is absurdly rare.
RPG mechanics: Fallout 4 is not an RPG. The Perk system, the last vestige of being an RPG, is boring beyond belief. Gone are perks like "Terrifying Presence" or "Confirmed Bachelor" that can really change the way you approach the game. Instead almost every perk offers only a flat percentage increase in damage, leading to the problem mentioned above that you never really change the way you play the game, you only gain the ability to fight the same enemies that are now a slightly-higher level. The removal of perks that really alter the way you play the game, abundant in the original Fallouts and New Vegas, and even Fallout 3 to some extent, really highlights Bethesda's baffling strategy of cutting good ideas from the original games that were handed to them on a silver platter. You really get the sense that Bethesda is bitter at how competently made New Vegas is, and decided to rebel by going the opposite direction in terms of depth as part of some misguided attempt to prove that they can also make a good Fallout game. I really cannot stress enough how badly this game fails as an RPG.
I just... The best part of Fallout 4 really is that Obsidian might get to make a competent game using it as a base. If not, Bethesda has wasted everyone's time and showed honest to god contempt for hardcore fans of both Fallout and Bethesda games in general as they staunchly refuse to improve on any aspect of their games despite how well the company is doing, and continue to slowly cut away anything good that remains.
D Borous
It Wandered In From the Wastes
You say one thing, they say another, I've heard some say the dialogue system is more immersive, but most say it is a waste. I find the perk system troubling myself, but have heard others say the opposite. I've heard fanboys that sing its praises to no end while remaining blind to criticism, and I've heard others doing the exact opposite; dragging out the flaws and damning the entire game with little thought for any positives.
Truly it is the very definition of a contested sequel.
Truly it is the very definition of a contested sequel.
Mr Fish
Slippy sloppy, The
Seriously though, an argument I've seen from Bethfans about roleplaying is that in a Beth game there are tons of roleplaying options. And what do they use as an example? What weapons they use and how they choose to engage enemies in combat. That's what roleplaying is to them. Whether they choose to loot everything or loot as little as possible. Whether they use sledgehammers or lasers. Whether they use a lot of VATS or avoid it at all costs. Whether they sneak or don't. The ones that use this kind of argument never bring up anything else. Such as being able to solve things diplomatically. Or being able to make choices in quests. Or anything that gives their character 'character'. All that matters to them is that they can be either good or evil and if quests only allow one option then they simply choose not to do quests that force you to be good or not to do quests that force them to be evil, what type of weapons they'll use and how they'll approach combat.
This isn't an exaggeration. This is a serious argument from some Bethfans.
According to this, the Battlefield series would constitute as an RPG.
Then again, series' like Diablo and jRPG's are considered to be "RPG's" despite not offering any choice in how to roleplay, only in how to kill enemies, whereas a series like The Sims where you can create a shitload of very 'very' different playthroughs and RP in isn't considered an RPG, it's considered a "simulation game". Are the ones who "roleplay" in Fallout 4 wrong? What is the "real" definition of a role-playing game exactly? Who gets to be the arbiter of that?
Personally, I can't stand the "RPG" label. It's too broad and has been for a very veeeery long time. See if I asked you to think of a racing game a bunch of you would list different games and none of us would argue their validity of the label. Same with shooters. Same with point and click adventure games. Same with third person hackNslashers. But when it comes to RPG's there are so many different types out there that the genre has become meaningless. Nothing and everything is an RPG because everyone has different definitions of what an RPG is. Sure, a lot of definitions will be overlapping with one another but they'll always have that little difference to them where the one defining it is willing to bend it for game X but not game Y whereas someone with an almost equal definition would feel the reverse.
And even if all of us here agree on some core points about what constitute as an RPG it does not mean that the rest of the gaming industry does.
We make fun of them for calling so-and-so an RPG but if their definition of what makes an RPG fits that game then are they really wrong? To us, sure. But that's just our opinions. Are they 'objectively' wrong? We're not exactly going to make any progress in either direction by just chucking opinions at one another. We (the whole damn gaming industry and audience) need an objective criteria. Until we do, they're in just as much of a position to claim what is an RPG and what isn't as we do. And if all we're left with is opinion bickering then... Well, aren't we all just circling the drain? What's the point? Poke fun at them for thinking that some game --we don't consider to be an RPG-- is an RPG? Ain't really gonna accomplish much. Cause as much of a hissyfit as we throw over something the one who developed the game will see the overwhelming majority pleased because they gave them 'their' kind of an RPG, so they're just gonna keep making them and claim them to be fitting of the label as "RPG's".
At the end of the day we're stuck with what the majority decides. And the majority decides that Fallout 4 is an RPG, because 'to them' it is an RPG and fits all the right criteria. Like I said, I can't stand the RPG label. I'd much rather we work towards creating a new label and abandoning the sinking ship that is "RPG". Making fun of them is, well, fun. But it's a momentary joy that accomplishes nothing really. And once we're done poking it with sticks a new thing pops up ready to be poked. And then another. And another. And another...
I guess I'll end this rant leading nowhere with this; I remember someone on Bethesda Forums once said that any game where you play as a "role" was a role-playing game. And yes, that included Half-Life. To this person a game where you are given a role to immerse yourself into made it a role-playing game. That's how useless the label has become. That someone can spin it into such a direction that a completely linear game with zero choices in it fits his/her definition of what constitutes a "RPG".
[edit]
That also goes for the term of "role-playing" as well. It's become meaningless as it'll change from person to person, not "how" you roleplay, but what even 'constitutes as' roleplaying.
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FearMonkey
Vault Senior Citizen
To be fair, Diablo used to be an RPG or at least more of one. In Diablo 1 (and 2 iirc) you had character stats and on level up you could pick which attributes to put points into. With Diablo III they got rid of that and it automatically updates your attributes based on what character class you picked so that dumb people wouldn't increase the wrong attributes and screw up their characters and they could focus more on items or some such nonsense.
I still like Diablo III, it's a fun game, it's just not an RPG.
I still like Diablo III, it's a fun game, it's just not an RPG.
Mr Fish
Slippy sloppy, The
According to that: Saints Row 2 is to be considered an RPG. Neither are (what I would consider RPG) RPG's to me. Diablo is a hack and slash game (because it is) with RPG elements where as Saints Row is an action sandbox game (because it is) with RPG elements. I don't really see how having a slightly bigger health pool because I decided to put points into Vitality is to be considered "role-playing". Role-playing, or at the very least my definition of it, is about making real choices when it comes to defining your character. His/her personality, morals, strengths and weaknesses and how they'll react to the world around them with the world reacting back, all done through things such as quests, dialogue, events, combat or building your character. In Diablo the only choice I can see is how good at killing shit I'll be and how I'll kill it and with what character I'll do it.
Diablo was never (what I consider to be an RPG) an RPG to me and it baffles me when others consider it one.
But like I said in my previous post, that is the problem. Definitions. So many different definitions...
[edit]
And like I said, therein lies the problem. Some will consider Doom an RPG, just like the one I mentioned in my previous post who considered Half-Life an RPG. The label is meaningless at this point and bickering about what role-playing means is ultimately not going to lead anywhere because there is no objective criteria. My comment on Diablo in this post is meaningless as I don't really have any merit over you as to what is an RPG and what isn't.
Diablo was never (what I consider to be an RPG) an RPG to me and it baffles me when others consider it one.
But like I said in my previous post, that is the problem. Definitions. So many different definitions...
[edit]
And like I said, therein lies the problem. Some will consider Doom an RPG, just like the one I mentioned in my previous post who considered Half-Life an RPG. The label is meaningless at this point and bickering about what role-playing means is ultimately not going to lead anywhere because there is no objective criteria. My comment on Diablo in this post is meaningless as I don't really have any merit over you as to what is an RPG and what isn't.
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It's an discussion that is at least as old like the Pen and Paper crowd when the first Role Playing Game was released on a computer. And I think it's somewhat missing the point. At least as far the gaming markets with high budgets and big publishers goes.
What makes a REAL RPG? I am pretty sure someone in the 80s had the exact same discussion when a PC player meet a Pen and Paper player who was deeply in Dungeons and Dragons or a similar system. Where the one tried to explain the other why his form and medium was the only choice for playing RPGs and why the other one was not enjoying a true RPG.
The thing is, you had many ways to define it, and I think, they all had their place. Even Diablo 1. Because they satisfied different expecations and they gave you all a different experience. Diablo 1 or 2 are for me not less or more RPGs than Fallout 1 or Planescape.
I don't care so much what a true RPG is or isn't or what defines it.
What I really find disturbing, is that a lot of diversity is lost today when you look back to some of the so called classics. There was Diablo, there was Fallout, there was Planescape, there was Eye of the Beholder, the Gold Box Games and many more, you could tell the difference between all of those. ou had niche titles inside of niche genres even! You could tell that Dagerfall was not the same as Eye of the Beholder or Bards Tale. And there was enough room for all of them to exist. There was a chance to make something like Planescape in a company enviornment. With real budgets. And big teams.
Can you imagine someone today trying to sell a concept like Planescape to a CEO of Blizzard, or EA? Would Bioware or Bethesda take a real risk? You know, where they actually want to really challange the player, with the narrative? Or would they tell you, that this is an outdated concept and as interesting as it sounds, but they want to play it save, in fear of displeasing 30 millions of so called fans. Because marketing value and some guy who has spend years on a college with buisness studies tells them that Minecraft and Borderlands are right now the absolute height of fashion.
What makes a REAL RPG? I am pretty sure someone in the 80s had the exact same discussion when a PC player meet a Pen and Paper player who was deeply in Dungeons and Dragons or a similar system. Where the one tried to explain the other why his form and medium was the only choice for playing RPGs and why the other one was not enjoying a true RPG.
The thing is, you had many ways to define it, and I think, they all had their place. Even Diablo 1. Because they satisfied different expecations and they gave you all a different experience. Diablo 1 or 2 are for me not less or more RPGs than Fallout 1 or Planescape.
I don't care so much what a true RPG is or isn't or what defines it.
What I really find disturbing, is that a lot of diversity is lost today when you look back to some of the so called classics. There was Diablo, there was Fallout, there was Planescape, there was Eye of the Beholder, the Gold Box Games and many more, you could tell the difference between all of those. ou had niche titles inside of niche genres even! You could tell that Dagerfall was not the same as Eye of the Beholder or Bards Tale. And there was enough room for all of them to exist. There was a chance to make something like Planescape in a company enviornment. With real budgets. And big teams.
Can you imagine someone today trying to sell a concept like Planescape to a CEO of Blizzard, or EA? Would Bioware or Bethesda take a real risk? You know, where they actually want to really challange the player, with the narrative? Or would they tell you, that this is an outdated concept and as interesting as it sounds, but they want to play it save, in fear of displeasing 30 millions of so called fans. Because marketing value and some guy who has spend years on a college with buisness studies tells them that Minecraft and Borderlands are right now the absolute height of fashion.
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