What do you believe is the common perception of what constitutes a CRPG?
A game in which you play a character that has a number of abilities (which you can choose to a certain degree) and that progresses in skill as you achieve things. In the game you are given a quest which you must solve to complete the game. Often there are other minor quests that you can complete aside from this main quest.
What are your own philosophies on the matter?
In my opinion a good CRPG has.
-Good player-NPC interaction.
-A good story.
-Non linear gameplay. (You should be able to return to most places you visited and you should ba able to go to many places from the start of the game. NWN missed this)
-A system in which your character progresses in skill.
-Combat where you decide the strategy. The character skills are responsible for succes or failure of an action. You are responsible for maximising the chance of succes.
To what degree does that philosophy actively define your enjoyment of a CRPG?
I enjoy roaming around in a relativly free world (doesn't need to be Morrowind free tough) yet with enough depth concerning background and interaction with that world (mainly NPCs) I enjoy an RPG that does not count on reflexes but uses your strategy (Long live the BG pause otion, I don't understand why there are still games that don't use it) I also enjoy an RPG with a good story (or stories) the richness of the NPCs background and main story in PS:T are a good example of this.
What challenges should the game present to a player, and how integral should they be to the role playing elements?
Decionmaking, every action you take will have it's concequences. The player should be chalanged to choose the action which will have the consequences that best suit his needs. if you play evil than the consequence of someone dying isn't that bad, but if you play good you try to avoid it.
Where do you see the "evolution" of CRPGs headed?
Sadly I have seen the RPG genre deteriorate to a more and more action packed gerne ever since 3D graphics became mainstream. The party based (strategic) system is often ignored in favor of a cool looking 3D system that doesn't work good with parties so the player only controlls one character (this is why NWN and morrowind combat was boring) the 3D graphics also put a big load on a PC so there are less things that can be put into the world. A good balance between amount of things and quality of graphics would be good but IMO they're leaning too much towards the quality aspect. Also graphics usually come first and gameplay elements are based on that. In OB you won't be able to climb becouse it would give clipping problems, also levitate has been cut because of it. i would have preferred if they would work the other way around (I want this, this and that, now make some graphics for me)
What direction would you take if you had a controlling stake?
I would make a game with a story like PS:T, combat like BG:II and a world map in the style of BG:I. I probably would make a 2D games with drawn backgrounds, or a 3D game with a fixed camera view, every map would be created with that camera viewin mind (no levels jumping, no things blocking your sight/overview) I would try to add as many as possible options yet stop when it becomes unbalanced.[/b]
A game in which you play a character that has a number of abilities (which you can choose to a certain degree) and that progresses in skill as you achieve things. In the game you are given a quest which you must solve to complete the game. Often there are other minor quests that you can complete aside from this main quest.
What are your own philosophies on the matter?
In my opinion a good CRPG has.
-Good player-NPC interaction.
-A good story.
-Non linear gameplay. (You should be able to return to most places you visited and you should ba able to go to many places from the start of the game. NWN missed this)
-A system in which your character progresses in skill.
-Combat where you decide the strategy. The character skills are responsible for succes or failure of an action. You are responsible for maximising the chance of succes.
To what degree does that philosophy actively define your enjoyment of a CRPG?
I enjoy roaming around in a relativly free world (doesn't need to be Morrowind free tough) yet with enough depth concerning background and interaction with that world (mainly NPCs) I enjoy an RPG that does not count on reflexes but uses your strategy (Long live the BG pause otion, I don't understand why there are still games that don't use it) I also enjoy an RPG with a good story (or stories) the richness of the NPCs background and main story in PS:T are a good example of this.
What challenges should the game present to a player, and how integral should they be to the role playing elements?
Decionmaking, every action you take will have it's concequences. The player should be chalanged to choose the action which will have the consequences that best suit his needs. if you play evil than the consequence of someone dying isn't that bad, but if you play good you try to avoid it.
Where do you see the "evolution" of CRPGs headed?
Sadly I have seen the RPG genre deteriorate to a more and more action packed gerne ever since 3D graphics became mainstream. The party based (strategic) system is often ignored in favor of a cool looking 3D system that doesn't work good with parties so the player only controlls one character (this is why NWN and morrowind combat was boring) the 3D graphics also put a big load on a PC so there are less things that can be put into the world. A good balance between amount of things and quality of graphics would be good but IMO they're leaning too much towards the quality aspect. Also graphics usually come first and gameplay elements are based on that. In OB you won't be able to climb becouse it would give clipping problems, also levitate has been cut because of it. i would have preferred if they would work the other way around (I want this, this and that, now make some graphics for me)
What direction would you take if you had a controlling stake?
I would make a game with a story like PS:T, combat like BG:II and a world map in the style of BG:I. I probably would make a 2D games with drawn backgrounds, or a 3D game with a fixed camera view, every map would be created with that camera viewin mind (no levels jumping, no things blocking your sight/overview) I would try to add as many as possible options yet stop when it becomes unbalanced.[/b]