They do have large sand beaches though >.> And thanks to the Khajit, I bet Elder Scrolls doesn't lack it's fair share of, uh ... what cat's like to do with sandboxes.
Minecraft is a sandbox game with limited exploration elements and even more limited adventure and RPG elements in survival mode. The Elder Scrolls RPGs are RPGs that, since Daggerfall, have had exploration elements featuring heavily, and, since Morrowind, have had both exploration and sandbox elements featuring heavily.
They are not their own genre any more than rogue-likes, seeing as there are rogue-like platformers, rogue-like RPGs, rogue-like hack and slash, rogue-like shoot 'em ups, rogue-like first person shooters, rogue-like dungeon crawlers (which is what the original Rogue is) it's pretty clear rogue-like is a descriptor APPENDED to a genre, not a genre in and of itself. "Diablo clones" is also not a genre, Diablo is an ARPG, which is an action game with RPG elements or vice versa, and yeah there are a lot of ARPGs and there were even *gasp* ARPGs that predate Diablo! It's not a new genre, people just say "Diablo clone" because Diablo is heavily influential on the ARPG genre and people like to differentiate the ARPGs clearly in the Diablo tradition from other ARPGs that eschew Diablo's standards.
RPGs can have elements of other genres, and very often do. Early RPGs, both console and computer, were very often also dungeon crawlers like Rogue when they weren't entirely text-based (and often the text-based ones were also technically dungeon crawlers) and yet very few modern RPGs heavily lean on dungeon crawling, even if they do often dabble in some element of that genre. Similarly there are dungeon crawlers almost entirely absent of RPG elements, both back then and now, even though the two were synonymous at their birth in the early days of electronic gaming. Almost every game since the 90s ended has had elements of another genre in addition to their primary genre.
The Elder Scrolls series has always been more about their RPG elements than any other elements in them, which is why they are RPGs with exploration and sandbox elements rather than sandbox games with RPG and exploration elements or survival games with RPG and exploration elements. The industry sets standards and follows them, and as @BelleSorciere points out, those standards do evolve over time but it's worth noting that RPGs where you adventured solo without a party, has stats, got XP and leveled up, did quests, defeated monsters and engaged in conversation with NPCs, bartered and traded and so on all far predate Skyrim, or even Morrowind. In fact, one-on-one DM/player games of D&D have all of those traits and those predate electronic gaming of any form and are, arguably THE definition of solo RPG adventuring from before there was any other such standard to look to. Skyrim has all of those, and focuses on those as the core of their gameplay, not the periphery like their sandbox and exploration elements which serve the RPG elements, not the other way around. You explore to find new dungeons to do a dungeon crawl through and slay enemies, find new equipment and money to buy stuff in towns, and the sandbox is not as expansive as in a game where the sandbox is the point, like the GTA games, and is often rail-roaded by elements of the main plot or the bigger faction quests/side quests...because the sandbox element serves the RPG element!
Like I don't see how Skyrim and Baldur's Gate differ so dramatically in your mind when it's really clear they share more elements than they don't. Baldur's Gate also has exploration! So do the isometric Fallout games, which are RPGs! They're just isometric rather than first person exploration, and being isometric exploration doesn't negate that exploration elements are there any more than first person makes a game not an RPG (or are System Shock and Deus Ex, both designed explicitly by their designers to be first person RPGs, not RPGs to you too?)
A text-based RPG isn't not an RPG for being text-based. A top-down isometric RPG isn't not an RPG for beign top-down isometric. A third person RPG isn't not an RPG for being third person. A first person RPG isn't not an RPG for being first person. Baldur's Gate isn't not an RPG for having exploration elements (and you accuse Skyrim of having adventure game elements but I can't think of any it has that any Black Isle RPG doesn't also have).
Like, I love JRPGs and WRPGs both and a lot of the arguments in this thread make my eyes roll back in my head, but at least most of those arguments understand implicitly, and correctly, that both are RPGs even if they somehow think one type is superior to the other. But trying to invalidate an RPG as an RPG because you don't personally like it is just conflating subjective personal opinion for objective standards, it at least sort of makes sense to say "I don't like that kind of RPG" but it's not the same thing as saying, "RPGs I don't like don't count as RPGs." which is just...not even an opinion, it's provably false. You can say, "I have my own definitions of RPGs that differ from those of the game industry of any era, game developers of any era and are much more restrictive than most people's" but that doesn't make it fact for the game industry or developers of RPGs, or for people who play those RPGs and rightly consider themselves RPG fans for playing...well...RPGs.
I think I would also like to say when it comes to JRPGs and WRPGs (for the most part) you cannot compare them. Don't try to. It's like comparing an FPS to a racing game. As prior stated I use to hate JRPGs because I kept judging them for things they didn't have or try to have. Now that I realize that they aren't in the same genre at all so my expectations and wants from them have changed. It was due to poor definitions that I had the misunderstanding in the first place which is partly a mistake on my part.
I grew up on JRPGs but after experiencing my first game of D&D in 2011 and later Baldur's Gate:Enhanced Edition in 2013 I realized there's so much more to roleplaying than stats and leveling up. I would act as my character would and make choices based on their experiences. I then thought that JRPGs were garbage RPGs for not facilitating role-playing a character since all choices and dialogue are pre-determined.
It took me until like last year to really get that's not what they were trying to do and that instead linear storylines and pre-generated characters. Now when I play a JRPG I'm looking for something more akin to a playable book than a role-playing experience.
and I realize I can't compare the two genres because they are so vastly different. They share the word RPG but have totally different connotations (possibly like trying to label Portal as an FPS despite it being more of a puzzle-game).
I suspect the OP generalises a bit, maybe. And possibly exagerates lack of love to hate, as in hate being a very strong emotion.
Let me just state my case from the opposite angle: I am generally an unconditional of PC RPG, but have never played a jRPG, because from what I know of it - the stylized visuals do not work for me, I prefer a different style.
Do I hate jRPGs? No! Do I expect jPRG fans to be more open to my preferred visuals than I am to "theirs"? Not at all - but I also think there shall be cross-over styles maybe neither of us know about.
"Theirs" above indicates that I expect manga or kungfu-game extreme visuals to typify jRPG - but when I say this, I also accept that I have never been much exposed to jRPGs, and I think it must be actually more diverse than the stereotype.
"Not preferring to play" - does not equal "hate" in any case. I hope!
In the end it comes down to this argument: How can two vastly different games that only share similarities in settings and very few, very basic gameplay mechanics and appeal to different audiences be part of the same genre?
Calling both BG and Skyrim RPGs renders the term "RPG" meaningless. They are both too different from each other to be part of the same genre.
But your premise is wrong. Putting aside the argument as to how many gameplay mechanics Skyrim and BG share, they both appealed to the same audience: the CRPG audience. Skyrim was very, very popular within the gaming audience that buys RPGs and virtually unknown outside of it. I can dig up some numbers to support this if you don't believe me (they came up in a previous debate over the topic; I was myself startled that for all of Skyrim's omnipresent advertising, it was still only really known within the small portion of the audience that buys RPGs, though it was very well-known within that audience).
They are by and large the same audience. The people who like Skyrim like and buy CRPGs. So do the people who like Baldur's Gate (and this was even more true than BG was new). There is no divide there, no separate audience, not even as much as the audience divide between JRPGs and WRPGs (and that is probably overstated too, since there is a demonstrably large crossover element there as well).
And that's why I refuse to call anything an RPG that doesn't have it's main focus on roleplaying.
In that case, Baldur's Gate isn't an RPG. Its main focus is on exploration and a linear plot, not roleplaying. You spend far, far more time on the former two than the latter. Indeed, in that respect it is identical to Skyrim.
BG2 has a bit more character choice-emphasis, but it has an even more rigid and linear plot with few choices of consequence. And it also has large amounts of exploration time. So it's just like a Skyrim with a more pervasive plot and a few more "either/or" character choices. A difference of degree, not kind.
I'm not even sure what RPG would qualify as having its main focus on roleplaying except maybe Planescape Torment (if you ignore the huge flaw that just like a JRPG, it has a preset character with a past and characteristics you cannot alter or ignore). Dragon Age II, maybe, but even there you probably spend more time adventuring than role-playing, although it's closer than most other things. Same with KOTORII, for sure.
The thing about western rpgs is that, for a long time, they were made by tabletop rpg fans( see Richard Garriot and the Obsidian crew) for tabletop rpg fans with computers.
JRPGs always had broader appeal for the following reasons.
well i got into rpgs with super mario rpg back in 96. it was not until 2007 until i got around to playing my first wrpg knights of the old republic. and it was not until 2012 that i started playing the classics like baldurs gatee.
@ShapiroKeatsDarkMage Why do you keep reviving this thread? The last post was in September of last year, and every time I see you necro here, you bring up the same points.
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And thanks to the Khajit, I bet Elder Scrolls doesn't lack it's fair share of, uh ... what cat's like to do with sandboxes.
Minecraft is a sandbox game with limited exploration elements and even more limited adventure and RPG elements in survival mode. The Elder Scrolls RPGs are RPGs that, since Daggerfall, have had exploration elements featuring heavily, and, since Morrowind, have had both exploration and sandbox elements featuring heavily.
They are not their own genre any more than rogue-likes, seeing as there are rogue-like platformers, rogue-like RPGs, rogue-like hack and slash, rogue-like shoot 'em ups, rogue-like first person shooters, rogue-like dungeon crawlers (which is what the original Rogue is) it's pretty clear rogue-like is a descriptor APPENDED to a genre, not a genre in and of itself. "Diablo clones" is also not a genre, Diablo is an ARPG, which is an action game with RPG elements or vice versa, and yeah there are a lot of ARPGs and there were even *gasp* ARPGs that predate Diablo! It's not a new genre, people just say "Diablo clone" because Diablo is heavily influential on the ARPG genre and people like to differentiate the ARPGs clearly in the Diablo tradition from other ARPGs that eschew Diablo's standards.
RPGs can have elements of other genres, and very often do. Early RPGs, both console and computer, were very often also dungeon crawlers like Rogue when they weren't entirely text-based (and often the text-based ones were also technically dungeon crawlers) and yet very few modern RPGs heavily lean on dungeon crawling, even if they do often dabble in some element of that genre. Similarly there are dungeon crawlers almost entirely absent of RPG elements, both back then and now, even though the two were synonymous at their birth in the early days of electronic gaming. Almost every game since the 90s ended has had elements of another genre in addition to their primary genre.
The Elder Scrolls series has always been more about their RPG elements than any other elements in them, which is why they are RPGs with exploration and sandbox elements rather than sandbox games with RPG and exploration elements or survival games with RPG and exploration elements. The industry sets standards and follows them, and as @BelleSorciere points out, those standards do evolve over time but it's worth noting that RPGs where you adventured solo without a party, has stats, got XP and leveled up, did quests, defeated monsters and engaged in conversation with NPCs, bartered and traded and so on all far predate Skyrim, or even Morrowind. In fact, one-on-one DM/player games of D&D have all of those traits and those predate electronic gaming of any form and are, arguably THE definition of solo RPG adventuring from before there was any other such standard to look to. Skyrim has all of those, and focuses on those as the core of their gameplay, not the periphery like their sandbox and exploration elements which serve the RPG elements, not the other way around. You explore to find new dungeons to do a dungeon crawl through and slay enemies, find new equipment and money to buy stuff in towns, and the sandbox is not as expansive as in a game where the sandbox is the point, like the GTA games, and is often rail-roaded by elements of the main plot or the bigger faction quests/side quests...because the sandbox element serves the RPG element!
Like I don't see how Skyrim and Baldur's Gate differ so dramatically in your mind when it's really clear they share more elements than they don't. Baldur's Gate also has exploration! So do the isometric Fallout games, which are RPGs! They're just isometric rather than first person exploration, and being isometric exploration doesn't negate that exploration elements are there any more than first person makes a game not an RPG (or are System Shock and Deus Ex, both designed explicitly by their designers to be first person RPGs, not RPGs to you too?)
A text-based RPG isn't not an RPG for being text-based. A top-down isometric RPG isn't not an RPG for beign top-down isometric. A third person RPG isn't not an RPG for being third person. A first person RPG isn't not an RPG for being first person. Baldur's Gate isn't not an RPG for having exploration elements (and you accuse Skyrim of having adventure game elements but I can't think of any it has that any Black Isle RPG doesn't also have).
Like, I love JRPGs and WRPGs both and a lot of the arguments in this thread make my eyes roll back in my head, but at least most of those arguments understand implicitly, and correctly, that both are RPGs even if they somehow think one type is superior to the other. But trying to invalidate an RPG as an RPG because you don't personally like it is just conflating subjective personal opinion for objective standards, it at least sort of makes sense to say "I don't like that kind of RPG" but it's not the same thing as saying, "RPGs I don't like don't count as RPGs." which is just...not even an opinion, it's provably false. You can say, "I have my own definitions of RPGs that differ from those of the game industry of any era, game developers of any era and are much more restrictive than most people's" but that doesn't make it fact for the game industry or developers of RPGs, or for people who play those RPGs and rightly consider themselves RPG fans for playing...well...RPGs.
I grew up on JRPGs but after experiencing my first game of D&D in 2011 and later Baldur's Gate:Enhanced Edition in 2013 I realized there's so much more to roleplaying than stats and leveling up. I would act as my character would and make choices based on their experiences. I then thought that JRPGs were garbage RPGs for not facilitating role-playing a character since all choices and dialogue are pre-determined.
It took me until like last year to really get that's not what they were trying to do and that instead linear storylines and pre-generated characters. Now when I play a JRPG I'm looking for something more akin to a playable book than a role-playing experience.
and I realize I can't compare the two genres because they are so vastly different. They share the word RPG but have totally different connotations (possibly like trying to label Portal as an FPS despite it being more of a puzzle-game).
Let me just state my case from the opposite angle: I am generally an unconditional of PC RPG, but have never played a jRPG, because from what I know of it - the stylized visuals do not work for me, I prefer a different style.
Do I hate jRPGs? No! Do I expect jPRG fans to be more open to my preferred visuals than I am to "theirs"? Not at all - but I also think there shall be cross-over styles maybe neither of us know about.
"Theirs" above indicates that I expect manga or kungfu-game extreme visuals to typify jRPG - but when I say this, I also accept that I have never been much exposed to jRPGs, and I think it must be actually more diverse than the stereotype.
"Not preferring to play" - does not equal "hate" in any case. I hope!
They are by and large the same audience. The people who like Skyrim like and buy CRPGs. So do the people who like Baldur's Gate (and this was even more true than BG was new). There is no divide there, no separate audience, not even as much as the audience divide between JRPGs and WRPGs (and that is probably overstated too, since there is a demonstrably large crossover element there as well). In that case, Baldur's Gate isn't an RPG. Its main focus is on exploration and a linear plot, not roleplaying. You spend far, far more time on the former two than the latter. Indeed, in that respect it is identical to Skyrim.
BG2 has a bit more character choice-emphasis, but it has an even more rigid and linear plot with few choices of consequence. And it also has large amounts of exploration time. So it's just like a Skyrim with a more pervasive plot and a few more "either/or" character choices. A difference of degree, not kind.
I'm not even sure what RPG would qualify as having its main focus on roleplaying except maybe Planescape Torment (if you ignore the huge flaw that just like a JRPG, it has a preset character with a past and characteristics you cannot alter or ignore). Dragon Age II, maybe, but even there you probably spend more time adventuring than role-playing, although it's closer than most other things. Same with KOTORII, for sure.
JRPGs always had broader appeal for the following reasons.
1) consoles.
2) anime.
3) plenty of emotional moments.
4) simple mechanics.
so for me i like both wrpg and jrpgs.
(And JRPGs actually took a lot of inspiration from tabletop too. http://arcadesushi.com/the-history-of-final-fantasy-part-1/ It was never just a WRPG thing.)