You made a dig at American education... probably an inference that most Americans are stupid. While not arguing with that point specifically, I'd just like to clarify that we borrowed our American version of stupid from your German version of stupid. Chain of custody. It's there for rumination and study if one desires.

And now this thread is completely off the rails.

Isn't stupid pretty much universal?

You're the infinitely wise being aspiring to God-hood. You tell me what you've seen on the other side. This side of the glass is very smudgy.

Now that I think about it, the games that originally hooked me were open-world-ish adventure games, the original Zeldas. And the best games of the past few years IMO have been in the same genre (Witcher series, Souls series).

The boundaries between genres have definitely blurred over the years in my opinion. I would certainly have counted myself as mainly an "RPG" fan to begin with, but by that I'd have meant something like Baldur's Gate. Then along came the FPS and I was (perhaps a bit snobbishly) horrified at this new "dumbing down" of the PC gaming scene ; but then we got a game like Deus Ex, which is both an FPS and an RPG, or contains elements of both, or something like that !

To begin with the FPS was typically a run and gun type of game (e.g. Doom) and contrasted starkly with (and was easily distinguishable from) the Baldur's Gate (or even earlier) type of RPG. Since then, however, both of these originally quite distinct genres have gone their own ways and have often melded and intersected in lots of different ways. So now it's hard to say what is an RPG and what is an FPS, if the game in question is played in the first-person perspective.

I would say that genre boundaries themselves have changed since I started gaming, so yes, my favoured genres have (inevitably) changed, but 'm not sure whether that' has more to do with any changes in my gaming tastes or with the way games have evolved since the late '90s. For me, Baldur's Gate is a "proper" RPG, whereas Deus Ex is a hybrid FPS/RPG. And the Elder Scrolls games - how would you categorize them ? They are RPGs but in some ways they play like first-person shooters. Boundaries between genres of game, much like boundaries between genres of music, are always changing and consequently always blurred.

So my answer to the OP's question is : Yes, No and Maybe ! The only thing I can say for certain is that my taste in games is now broader and more "eclectic" then it was to begin with. The games industry is certainly alive and kicking in terms of creativity and imagination.

How do Elder Scrolls games "play like first person shooters"? I mean, they're viewed from a first person perspective, but that's about it. There may be things to be say about, say, the modern Fallouts I guess, but Elder Scrolls?
As for Deus Ex, yeah, enjoyed that one, but not even necessarily in spite of the FPS core, but just because it mostly allowed me not to play it as such. The modern/near-future setting was bad enough, so just played as a hacker/sniper, but sniping when I had to, did my best to use stealth and melee wherever possible and play it as a more proper RPG.

Okay, "first-person shooter" is probably wide of the mark when describing the Elder Scrolls games. I suppose what I wanted to say is that they are really "action" RPGs in a first-person perspective, rather than old-school turn-based and / or D&D rules-based RPGs, such as the Infinity Engine games and earlier offerings which, for me, are "RPGs proper". When I started gaming, rightly or wrongly, everyone thought they "knew" which genre a game belonged to. Now it is much less clear than it used to be. I don't think that's a bad thing, by the way, it just makes the OP's question harder to answer. What IS a "role-playing game" exactly ?

With an older discussion over [url=http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,184501/]here (starting a bit further down).

The initial personal definition I put there was:

1. The player directly controls the characters through the actions of which the game progresses. (This would rule out strategy titles, sports management ones, etc.)
2.The player-controlled characters have a character sheet with statistics that, possibly in combination with player skill, determine their chance of successfully completing actions. (So may be just a virtual roll, click (or whatever) and the stats alone determine the outcome, or may be stats+skill, but not just skill.)
3.The player-controlled characters' statistics improve over the course of the game as a result of the player's actions. (May be simply exp gain from grinding, may be completing entirely optional side-quests, may be finding "secrets", may be many things, but the point is that they must develop and not only as a result of advancing the main plot.)

But then of course exceptions were pointed out even to that :))

I just saw your comment on VTMB and whether or not it qualifies as an RPG. I'm just about to start playing that game so it's interesting to read your opinion, which I have heard before elsewhere. Elsewhere I've heard it described as an "FPS adventure with role-playing elements". It was all a lot clearer 20 years ago, but that's because we didn't analyze everything so much !

Don't see why it wouldn't. It's a non-standard approach to experience gain and the stats work more like feats than determining chance of success, but it's fully RPG by my standards at least. (And I don't know about shooting, I *may* have used a pistol once in the whole game. Maybe. Otherwise, played Tremere, blood magic's cool, and so are swords :p)
But anyway, do enjoy it. Outstanding game, that one, despite the mess. The atmosphere and writing/dialogs are awesome.

Gaming life for me began way back when with an Atari 2600. Onwards then to Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64, then an Amiga, before getting my first PC. Never bothered with consoles after that.

From PC onwards, my preferences have always been (and tend to remain) RPG, Adventure, Strategy and Simulations, although some Action and FPS games have been enjoyed along the way.

As for MMORPG's, my first and only real foray into that genre was right from the start with Ultima Online. Spent over 10 years playing that on and off, made some great friends around the world, some of whom I remain in contact with. Just haven't the time to invest in anything like that now though.

My return to older games via GOG has been spurred on of late by the abysmal quality of many modern releases. Indeed, the Witcher 3 is perhaps the only recent game I really enjoyed, without any problems. The Social Club DRM with GTAV (what a broken mess that is!) rendered it unplayable and the only other title I fancied, Fallout 4, I've not bothered with after reading detailed player reviews.

So many supposed AAA titles these days seem to be dumbed down so much, or trying to clone something else, I don't enjoy them. Either that or they're rushed out the door by developers and come with so many bugs and issues, DRM problems, or the need to download huge amounts of data (30GB+ for some games, when I've bought the disc versions), they're simply impossible to play or enjoy and not worth the price paid.

Hence, I find myself adding some classics I've played over the years to my GOG wishlist, along with others that for some reason or another, I missed out on or never got to play at the time. My overall genre preferences still remain the same though.

Currently GOG has pretty much everything I could wish for when it comes to RPG's. For the Adventure (point and click), I'm patiently waiting to see if they add Discworld 1 and 2, along with a few others, if they can get them listed here.

Of course they changed. At first the only available were jump n runs...action games.
But than the first RPGs hit the stores and I was hooked (with a short FPS period).

I dunno. I was only there for a few seconds before my mom called me to dinner, so I came back immediately.

i made a terrible mistake and posted here.. sorry, wrong thread :(