You say you want a revolution

[andrewducker]

You have to buy this, so my brother can get a huge bonus and then spend it all on me.

Comments

[chuma.livejournal.com]

Gaining abilities during level progression, increasing in attributes and having effects on other NPC and Monsters, an aspect of randomness or attacks and defence, stats on items and clothings etc. There's a disctinction in my mind though, for example, Zelda is an action adventure and Secret of Mana is an RPG. Game can be a hybrid though - GTA 3 : San Andreas was part RPG, but none of GTAs since have been. Fallout 3 and Borderlands are both FPS RPGs, Fable II was an Action RPG and ISS2000 had a Football RPG (only one I am aware of). It has to have these core things in play though and whilst, sure you gain some abilitys and find items in Zelda and increase your health, it does not come under the bracket of RPG.

I hope that goes some way to explaining it? For desktop and roleplay gamers I imagine the distinction is a little harder to grasp as RPG in their worlds tends to focus more upon the role play rather than the hitpoints and stats to decide what makes it an RPG.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I don't want to go into detail until the information is in the public domain, but we still have the majority of those things, though we're certainly more of an action game than a true RPG (moreso than Fable 2 as well). There will definitely be plenty of character progression, though I believe most of the stats aren't thrust in the player's face and mainly appear through how you affect creatures and villagers. I wrote more, then deleted it. I wouldn't like to get fired before the bonuses kick in :)

[chuma.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't want to put you in that position, thats why I asked if it would be okay to talk to you about it. If and when it would be permissable, can I take up some of your time for a quick interview on the subject? Also I ask about the review copies and such so I can point Phil or Graeme at the correct body to talk to about it. Can you tell me who we should contact and when it would be best to do so? (If everything is about getting it gold for xmas release I wouldn't want to hassle anyone whilst it was particularly unwelcome)

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I was waiting a reply from our PR lady to find out the process for getting review copies. Unfortunately I don't think she's in today (or has more important things to do), so that'll have to wait. I also don't think I'd be the best person to talk to on the subject unless you wanted to know about navigation or the 3D world map (which I guess is a new feature but a bit of a specific topic of knowledge). We'd more likely want to throw a designer at you if anyone, depending on what you wanted to know about :)

I'll let you know when I have a response from PR, but you might want to go through the usual channels for getting review copies of Microsoft published games, whatever that might be...