I don't believe that rpgs have a core goal, just an infinite number of possible goals... just like every other genre. Your attempt to define a core goal and then categorically state that some of the most popular games in the field are not RPGs because they don't meet that core goal is like declaring that all coins are nickels, and that dimes, by dint of being very bad nickels, are not coins.
Not true. What’s the core goal of a comedy? All coins are currency, and currency has a core goal; a core reason it was created. While coins can have a value due to the scarcity or value of the metal it contains, paper money (which, like coins) also comes in different denominations, and was created for the same reason, has the same core goal. I could say that goal was to look neat-o, but it isn’t.
I’ve never once said Kotor wasn’t a rpg. And I don’t know enough Mass Effect to care, I found out it was 360 exclusive, and have no way to play it, so I never bothered to learn anything about it. My comment has been about making game’s called rpgs more cinematic, which means related to a movie.
You can believe the goal of an rpg is whatever you want. You can believe all number of things. You can state that a penis and a vagina are the same thing and no one could stop you, but it doesn’t mean you’ll be right. Rpgs were created for a reason, to provide an experience different than watching a movie or reading a book, and it’s your God given right as a Canadian to ignore this or any other fact you so choose. But ignoring or disagreeing with a fact never stopped one from being one. So we’ll have to agree that I believe in facts and you don’t, and leave it at that.
I don’t care about story so much, and Kotor and Jade Empire (I own a regular x-box) are a couple of a very small handful of games I’ve beaten in the last 7 years. Am I a huge Bioware fan? No? Is it due to the rpgness of their games? No. My biggest complaint against bioware is my biggest complaint against every other developer and is something that will never change, and that’s that the activity I spend 90% of the game time doing is way too ridiculously easy and boring. 100% of the challenge of games has been removed.
Why is combat so ridiculously easy? I think it’s because that is what sells. Is that Bioware’s fault? No. The people that like the games I do tend to be pirates. Little fat NA kids actually buy games. Some guy from one of the soviet satellite countries was telling me that he could pirate console games easier than pc games. My best friend has no idea what a rpg is or what it stands for, but he bought a final fantasy game, Oblivion and Jade Empire. He doesn’t want to think or be challenged; he loves endless hordes of easy enemies. And he will never figure out how to pirate a game. He actually buys them. Developers and publishers would be retarded to make a game that would be quite popular with pirates, and not popular with people that actually pay money for games. Pirates have no idea how much they’ve hurt this genre.
I love plenty of games that others consider rpgs that I know aren’t, such as Bloodlines, Betrayal at Krondor, Jagged Alliance, X-com, etc. I love them. I am fine with a game I love not being a rpg. And I’m fine with only rpgs being rpgs.
So I’ll never be a big fan of Bioware’s games, and its mainly due to the market and not bioware’s fault at all. But, I can hold a grudge against bioware for not trying anything new. Bioware could buy and operate a small game label that tries to be inventive and actually try and bring the rpg experience to the computer. I work in finance, I will never hold a grudge against a company that makes smart business decisions. But that is no excuse for the huge ego’s of big dev studios to not be inventive and try and really make a great game, instead of trying to make a blockbuster game with a huge budget every time. Hire Cain, Boyarsky, and Anderson to be inventive and focus on generating economic profit on a small scale with small budget, focused, real rpgs that don’t have to please 80 billion people by not really satisfying any of them completely, and use their leeway of lower risk to broaden the market and strengthen the Bioware brand as a rpg developer. Use economies of scale to have them reuse the assets the big games used, and benefit by economies of scope in using the small dev teams as a proving grounds and idea generators. Make a big budget game that I, and the non-pirate people like me, can get excited about and gush all over.
Until then I won’t have a game to play, and will continue to be bitter and jaded because Bioware doesn’t care about me, and that will force me to post nonsense in Bioware threads in hopes of getting my way. And if I got my way I’d be playing a game right now and you wouldn’t have to waste your time talking to someone you don’t like, like me. Its win-win for everyone.