Man, I've given this more thought than necessary, but I've had what I'm about to say rolling around in my head for awhile. It just took a little bit before the articulation decided to come online, and even that isn't guaranteed.
Before I truly answer the question this thread poses, allow me to paint a picture of a roleplayer from my perspective. In essence, I guess I describing myself, but I'm sure there may be one or two who can agree with my points.
In the beginning, there was PnP. Not too many people could get into it, because it involved a lot of raw data and challenged the players individually to build the game around it. That in itself created a delineator between RPGer and non-RPGer in a very, very broad sense. Those of us who persevered tended to have similar qualities: Vivid imagination, above-average intelligence, ecclectic senses of humor, and people skills that left a lot to be desired. Some of us have a fondness for the fantasy classics, like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Some of us also share a love for the more modern fantasy literature put out by anyone from Weis & Hickman to George R. R. Martin. With that may be an enjoyment of science fiction in various degrees
What some of us found-- myself in particular-- was that those we eventually grouped up with to share a game over the ubiquitous take-out pizza and endless supply of Mountain Dew became a "safe" group. We could relax and be ourselves, comfortable in knowing that no one would, for a lack of understanding, riducule the general weirdness we exemplified. Out in the world, in school, among non-gamers and average, ordinary people, we were nerds, geeks, and objects of scorn, so we placed a certain value on those groups of people we'd hang out with an roleplay with. You never had to worry about someone not getting your vague, Monty Python inspired joke, and you could always talk about the general silliness about something as goofy as The Princess Bride (why do a lot of us RPG geeks love that movie so?).
So now, we enter the world of computer games. Just like most things in life, such as movies and music, these games started to split up among genres. You had your action games, shoot-em-ups, sports games, platformers, FPSes, and of course Roleplaying Games. Now, we can argue til the end of time what makes a good RPG and what doesn't, but I'd be willing to bet good money that the people who played RPGs starting from... oh... 2000 and back, probably shared some common characteristics of the old school PnP RPGer. Intelligent, ecclectic, imaginative, and with that same weird sense of humor that only few people get.
Now, what does this have to do with this thread? It's simple. Simpletons are being let into the club. Morons who would dare call more serious players "nerds" in a derogatory way for wanting some tradition maintained in the RPG genre. Idiots who can't even follow basic directions for accomplishing tasks in a game. I know the "those who can't find Caius" argument will turn into it's very own version of "SOILS EROZIONS!!!", but the significance of it is too apparant.
I don't like to associate with people lower than me on an intellectual scale. I don't apologize for the elitsim that oozes. I am an elitist. Don't like it? Fuck you. I don't like hanging around with stupid people, because as is often the case, when they don't understand the level I'm operating on, they accuse ME of being stupid, and you simply cannot argue with them. If I decide I want to be a part of an online community centering around RPGs, I don't expect someone to berate me for wanting to do a little reading in the game. I don't expect to see a modding community littered with people who want stupid shit like Masterchief armor made for Morrowind. Or machine guns (not including total conversions. I'm talking about people who want to dress the Nereverine with high tech gear and sent him out to conquer Vvardenfell.).
Here's an example taken from a situation in World of Warcraft several months back. Now, before you go off on me about how much the game sucks, I will admit that the mechanics of it doesn't allow for true stats-based RP other than to take part in what feels more like an interactive Disney attraction than anything else. However, with the right group of people, good, creative, freeform roleplay can happen, and sometimes it's great fun. Too bad you have to literally sift through elephant shit to find them, but I digress. The guild I was in was recruiting. We were a roleplaying guild on a roleplaying server. I had my own criteria for who I wanted to play with. They simply had to answer a few questions. They were:
1. What is the answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything?
2. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
3. Who did Raistlin take the place of when he went back in time?
Those who could answer those questions turned out to be fantastic roleplayers and great people all around. Those who couldn't usually told me I was stupid for giving people a quiz to join my guild and oh, btw "u r a nerdd!!11"
So, what does this have to do with Oblivion? Simple. Bethesda made a business decision that's probably as sound as any on Wall Street. They chose to go for the widest possible group they could. It's first person and includes a fireball shooting gun. It's got high paid voice actors. It looks breathtaking in parts. And best of all, it's got a built-in GPS so players don't have to resort to that pesky deductive reasoning based on dilligent information gathering that their clueless "Can't find Caius" focus group lacked. The Oblivion forum itself is a textbook case of what happens when stupid people are let into RPGdom. Not all of them are stupid, mind you, but if the posts there are indicative of the generation that's going to run things ten years for now, my hopes for this world are dashed.
So to wrap this all up, I'll just repeat what I said in my first post in this thread. I'm not too cool for Oblivion. Just too smart for it. If that bothers you, I invite you to suck the remnants of the last crap I took from my rectum.
-D4