Fair enough. I do think many here would agree that, at the very least, the gaming concept of building your party and making strategic decisions regarding race and class combinations, and then taking into account enemy types, spells and such:
that this constitutes "RPG role playing", as you are using your character's skills, limitations, abilities, etc, in order to use the game's tools allowed to the player to advance your party and characters.
Yes, it is a limited form of role-playing, as it is relegated almost exclusively as to how your player decisions end up affecting mostly/only how the game's combat encounters are resolved (the conflict resolution aspects), but it definitely qualifies, IMO.
plus, you know, stuff like only a thief-type being able to properly find hidden passageways, or deal with traps and chests; yes, it by now in our modern standards very much "primitive" to the point of becoming i dare say... banal, but i think it is very hard to argue against an RPG focusing on rock-solid mechanics that, 30+ years later, are still being copied and in most cases yet to be improved upon.
(for example, wizardry's loot being tied exclusively to what floor is being explored and not tied to enemies or to enemy-types; this is a very simple, EXTREMLY simplistic way to entice the player to always want to continue exploring the dungeon ever further, and the mounting danger of party's depleting resources, i.e. hit points, spells, etc, while again being a basic form of resource management still, to this day, prove to be tried and true way to evoke psychological "immersion" or, rather, suspension of disbelief, as the player begins to worry about their party possibly not making it alive back to town because they DECIDED to continue down the dungeon out of bravado).
you know what I most wish?
a game that has all that fucking shit I just word-vomited, but ALSO has NPCs with well-written and meaningful dialog, and at least a few dialog trees, and even branching content that doesn't boil down to the insulting type of R. L. Stein-type choose-your-own-fate books from the 80s/90s; where there are choices to be made but they end up insipid scenarios such as, "oh, you went to page 10 and ate a brownie and shat your butthole to death. turn back to page 8 to continue the story!".
Example of that sort of thing: none of other than good ole PoE. And Tyranny too, but as mediocre as Tyranny is at least it features decisions that actually change complete maps/areas.
For PoE 2 I hope Sawyer, (because we all know he makes these games by himself due to massive ego), that he concentrates less on the type of C and C which simply changes one area where you liberate some children or whatever instead of the other possible area which is... the same map with adults joining you in the fight to save the little tykes... or whatever.
That type of C and C is, IMO, p. much completely meaningless as there is no legitimate reason to split the content in my example into 2 mutually exclusive scenarios as both always lead to the same type of result: some sort of reward for the player.
We all know it is simply way too expensive for a studio like Sawyer's studio to actually goa head and take my (dumb) example above and extrapolate all of the possible ramifications, like maybe the kids you save growing up evil and then forming a band of lord of the flies-type gang of children who murder their parents for reasons (which SAwyer will know!) and then it turns out saving them forces the party to make, etc, etc, etc.
i got tired of typing.
tl;dr: I hope PoE 2 is good, because I legit liked PoE 1, even though I have never bothered reading a single dialog from any NPC in the game in all of my 3 playthroughs. :D
EDIT: btw, sawyer's 3 picks you mentioned are legit... but I think Fallout New Vegas is a better game/RPG than those 3 games combined. And yes, come at me, I am ready to argue this for the following 50 pages. I find it extremely odd he didn't pick FNV as one of his fave rpgs, since if there's one thing about sawyer it's that he humble hs is not. He has plenty to be proud of with FNV.
that this constitutes "RPG role playing", as you are using your character's skills, limitations, abilities, etc, in order to use the game's tools allowed to the player to advance your party and characters.
Yes, it is a limited form of role-playing, as it is relegated almost exclusively as to how your player decisions end up affecting mostly/only how the game's combat encounters are resolved (the conflict resolution aspects), but it definitely qualifies, IMO.
plus, you know, stuff like only a thief-type being able to properly find hidden passageways, or deal with traps and chests; yes, it by now in our modern standards very much "primitive" to the point of becoming i dare say... banal, but i think it is very hard to argue against an RPG focusing on rock-solid mechanics that, 30+ years later, are still being copied and in most cases yet to be improved upon.
(for example, wizardry's loot being tied exclusively to what floor is being explored and not tied to enemies or to enemy-types; this is a very simple, EXTREMLY simplistic way to entice the player to always want to continue exploring the dungeon ever further, and the mounting danger of party's depleting resources, i.e. hit points, spells, etc, while again being a basic form of resource management still, to this day, prove to be tried and true way to evoke psychological "immersion" or, rather, suspension of disbelief, as the player begins to worry about their party possibly not making it alive back to town because they DECIDED to continue down the dungeon out of bravado).
you know what I most wish?
a game that has all that fucking shit I just word-vomited, but ALSO has NPCs with well-written and meaningful dialog, and at least a few dialog trees, and even branching content that doesn't boil down to the insulting type of R. L. Stein-type choose-your-own-fate books from the 80s/90s; where there are choices to be made but they end up insipid scenarios such as, "oh, you went to page 10 and ate a brownie and shat your butthole to death. turn back to page 8 to continue the story!".
Example of that sort of thing: none of other than good ole PoE. And Tyranny too, but as mediocre as Tyranny is at least it features decisions that actually change complete maps/areas.
For PoE 2 I hope Sawyer, (because we all know he makes these games by himself due to massive ego), that he concentrates less on the type of C and C which simply changes one area where you liberate some children or whatever instead of the other possible area which is... the same map with adults joining you in the fight to save the little tykes... or whatever.
That type of C and C is, IMO, p. much completely meaningless as there is no legitimate reason to split the content in my example into 2 mutually exclusive scenarios as both always lead to the same type of result: some sort of reward for the player.
We all know it is simply way too expensive for a studio like Sawyer's studio to actually goa head and take my (dumb) example above and extrapolate all of the possible ramifications, like maybe the kids you save growing up evil and then forming a band of lord of the flies-type gang of children who murder their parents for reasons (which SAwyer will know!) and then it turns out saving them forces the party to make, etc, etc, etc.
i got tired of typing.
tl;dr: I hope PoE 2 is good, because I legit liked PoE 1, even though I have never bothered reading a single dialog from any NPC in the game in all of my 3 playthroughs. :D
EDIT: btw, sawyer's 3 picks you mentioned are legit... but I think Fallout New Vegas is a better game/RPG than those 3 games combined. And yes, come at me, I am ready to argue this for the following 50 pages. I find it extremely odd he didn't pick FNV as one of his fave rpgs, since if there's one thing about sawyer it's that he humble hs is not. He has plenty to be proud of with FNV.
