<b>Seven</b>
I don't think I did miss the point. He's basically talking about how language evolves, and a word might take on new meaning as time goes on. CRPG may mean _more_ than it did several years ago.
However, and this is important, YOU are artifically restricting the usage and meaning of the word to a specific subset of what that word should mean. (Maybe not you personally, but I'm assuming so since you are arguing with me!) You take this <i>subset</i> of the RPG genre that includes only, for lack of a better term, "western" style RPGs and ignore the console style RPGs as some other meaningless genre.
This is <i>exactly</i> the same thing he was chastising the FF fanboys for doing in the opposite direction!
<b>Otaku_Hanzo</b>
An interesting point you make about console and computer RPGs. I think this has become more true than it originally was, though in some aspects you may be a bit off. I can't remember many exactly, but it seems like in many of the early console RPGs you could indeed choose your own character. In Final Fantasy you could... though it occurs to me that you never could in the Dragon Warrior series...
Some of the Final Fantasy games HAVE kept a large amount of customization available however. In FF6 and FF7 for instance you could have your main character focus more on magic, and even in FFX you can have your characters follow different paths than the regular ones on the sphere grid.
I think, for the most part though, I am inclined to agree with you.
As for PnP linearity... how would you know?
Seriously, unless the DM whined every time you made a decision he hadn't planned for you'd never know that the castle which was going to be north of you ended up west of you because you decided to turn west!
<b>Locue</b>
You are wrong.
Please don't take that as a bash or flame, but I went into great detail on this in the "definition of CRPG" thread. Maybe wanna take a look at the last couple posts, but essentially the elements which you believe "make" an RPG are absent from a HUGE number of RPGs (essentially all but 5) and could be used in ANY other style of game.
As I suggested to RGE at the end of that thread, perhaps there should be a <i>word</i> which encapsulates those ideas and can be prepended to to the genre of any game containing them.
Unfortunately I can't think of a good word...
<b>Exitium</b>
Ok, in my last reply to you I said I might be misunderstanding what you mean by "traditional" so at this point I need you to explain before we go any further...
I _thought_ it basically meant old school games such as the original Bard's Tale or Pool of Radiance, but now you are maybe using it to refer to "western" style RPGS? Or PnP RPGs?
Gotta know man...
<b>dojoteef</b>
Yeah, I think I just missed that "on the whole" thing. sorry.
My only point with KOTOR was that computers and consoles largely have the same capabilities these days. Computers may edge out in graphics IF a player has the best video card available, but since programmers write games with average cards in mind there's not that much difference. Control schemes can be different, but console controllers have tons of buttons these days and many keyboard keys go unused...
I don't feel like even qualifing this with a response, though for your sake you should be glad Exitium decided to indulge you.
Both styles of games use stats, random factors, decisions instead of reflexes and character development.
The linearity of the story has no bearing on those things, and therefore no bearing on whether it is an RPG or not.
You can take a highly non-linear story and put it in an FPS, this does not make the FPS an RPG. Therefore that does not make an RPG an RPG either...
Read what I said to Locue, or the "definition of CRPG" thread for more info.
Also, come up with a good word to prepend to genres that can mean non-linear story with lots of meaningful dialog and character choices!