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Okay, the title and the tags where done tongue-in-cheek, so don't go looking for your angrypants. I've seen two big RPG releases in the last few years tout themselves as "open world", only for developers to come back quickly and clarify to the effect of... It is open world, but it's not. The areas are big, etc. The two recent games that I know of are DA: Inquisition and Witcher 3. Don't misunderstand, these are both great games and have the kind of large roomy areas that conveniently assuage any potential claustrophobia on the part of the player. However, these don't seem to fit the classic definition. i.e. You cannot run from one edge of the map to the other without opening a menu, which is conveniently called "map", in order to move from one "zone" to another. Open worlds have: stream loading, most or all areas accessible from the start, may or may not have player-relative enemy strength. Personally, I find the games without mob level adjustment have the most charm. After all, nothing says hello quite like a "Welcome Bear". Examples: Skyrim, Fallout, Most MMOs, older Might & Magic games and I remember at least one way back on the original PlayStation, but don't remember the name. So, why are we seeing this term thrown around? Is it really just marketing departments seeing "valuable words" produced by the success of others and just too eager to apply them to things they're trying to sell?

While I nonetheless expect this to be somewhat controversial, I want to start this off by saying that I appreciate Infinity Engine games for what they are, and this thread is not about what Project Eternity should be. Rather, I ask what Project Eternity is, which is very related to what Infinity Engine games are, or even more broadly DnD-based cRPGs. The reason is that I have noticed an increasing overlap in the past several years between the "action/adventure" and "RPG" or "role-playing game" genres, and it got me thinking about what the difference between them actually is. The obvious realization is that most players don't actual roleplay in any significant capacity when they play so-called RPGs, so where does that leave the genre? Certainly some of this apparent contradiction might have to do with the fact that different players define role-playing differently, but there are certain a substantial proportion of player who can hardly be said to roleplay at all. In some ways I think action/adventure games and role-playing games might exist along a spectrum, with the ideals of one genre at either end, and most games inhabiting the continuum in between. Where do Infinity Engine games, or Project Eternity, fall on this spectrum? I for one feel that the amount of combat focus (which perhaps just comes with any DnD-based game) is somewhat action/adventure-oriented, and at times the games feel more linear than some others that feature more open worlds. Additionally, certain aspects of characters are de-emphasized and the interactivity of the world is quite limited (ability buy property and so on). This leads me to believe that the majority of games marketed as RPGs are in fact action/adventure games glorified in certain manners, rather than games designed with holistic roleplay in mind. Please leave your thoughts on these questions and vote in the poll as I am sure the results will be quite informative to me.

I LOVE what I am seeing in the updates. This all sounds fantastic, and I really hope we get the role-playing freedom promised here. What I would love to see is a storyline that really coerces the character to participate. New Vegas had a great (though pretty harsh) opening hook. Arcanum opened well, too; bad guys were after you from the start. Fallout of course was very motivating, although the hard time limit has been hotly debated ever since (I don't think it's necessary). This is a great chance for a CRPG to have a story written from the ground up that can include a temperamentally non-heroic, non-adventuresome protagonist. Obviously I don't know what the real plot is, but let's just say the hero is haunted by a ghost for no apparent reason. The ghost appears periodically, wrecking stuff, perhaps hurting people. The "hero" tries running away, but the ghost just keeps showing up, and consequences maybe keep getting worse. People get killed. Companions are lost. The hero starts taking permanent damage or something. Eventually it will get to the point where even the world's biggest coward will have to start looking for clues to deal with the haunting and face the problem head-on. Of course a braver character might just start off going straight for the evil wizard. I just want to make sure that the story will draw in even a more, well, realistic guy, who doesn't necessarily have the cojones to solve every problem by challenging five guys to a battle to the death right off the bat. Now I know there are some "open world" advocates out there who never want to be rushed. They want to take their time, exploring every outhouse and chicken coop in the game, wandering from place to place without a care in the world. They don't want any consequences to ignoring a bad situation. I can totally appreciate that kind of gameplay ... but in this case I say thee nay! I don't have to be forced down the rails through the entire course of the game - in fact it's great if sometimes I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next - but the story should always be looming, and always making me want to resolve it. Open world, do-whatever-you-want-whenever-you-want games can be great, but not every RPG has to be built on that foundation. In fact many good RPGs would be ruined without the sense of urgency that strong plotting provides.