Dhruin
SasqWatch
These roundtables are RPG Vault's best feature, in my opinion. Number 7 asks various developers "Are RPGs as much fun as they could or should be?" Jeff Vogel, Ed Del Castillo (Liquid - Rise of the Argonauts) and Michal Madej (CD Projekt - The Witcher) are among the respondents. Here's a bit from Ed Del Castillo, because we haven't heard him speak on the genre before:
More information.My first rule is that I get to do cool stuff. Things I've never done before, would never think to do, that I've seen in my favorite movies... you know, cool stuff. I don't want to be looting dead bodies (unless I'm a villain), fiddling with my inventory, counting my coppers, or dare I say it... fishing! I want to kill two guys at once using a maneuver only Jet Li and a jungle of wires could pull off, not the oh so fun I hit you, you hit me combat we have today. My laser rifle should burn holes through starships, and my deeds should be etched into the temple walls.
My second rule is that I want to look cool. I want my armor to gleam, my gun to sound like a howitzer, my ship to look like it can do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. Most importantly, I want it all to look good together. If I'm a thief, I want to look like one at every level. If I'm a knight, I don't want to carry around a rinky-dink shield just because it has better buffs. I'm tired of looking like a medieval dumpster diver when I play these games. I can't form a cohesive vision for my hero when I look like the sidekick.