I, speaking personally, am very interested in the forum's members opinion towards the RPGDot editorial that Alrik posted.
It's an interesting article that has some relatively strong and lots of weak points. First of all, it's almost as if he wants to cancel epic 100+ story's altogether. (Not exactely, but it goes in that direction.) Here one must say no, of course not, there should always be a main quest. Sure, these are almost always the old save the world plot, but what the heck, if they are, as he points out, "written well, and serve to draw the player into a compelling, deep, rich and satisfying game world", they never cease to compel. Keep it.
Second, his main point is obviously: let me be able to do almost anything I want so I can have ten minutes of fun with an RPG. This includes short quests and all sort of extra-quest activities. Ok, I follow, but not entirely. Here's why.
The way I see it, RPG's just aren't games you spend ten minutes playing. Ten minutes is ridiculously short anyway, for any game. If we use the more realistic half an hour standard, I somewhat agree this time span should be worth the trouble of starting the game, but it's still not long. These games aren't shooters, they're meant to be more drawn out, a gradual time absorbing process; isn't that what role playing is all about? Having said that, I think he is very hard on Oblivion in this way. Any fan will agree that you can do two or even three quests in half an hour. Just join a guild and there you go. Or enter the arena and have some fun there. I mean, the majority of RPG's work that way, the term side-quest doen't exist for nothing. Even if a game is a 300+ über RPG like Baldur's Gate II, that doesn't mean it isn't filled to the brim with all sorts of minor quests that make every half an hour enjoyable.
Not that I disagree with his wanting to be able to do all sorts of stuff, even ploughing fields perhaps ( <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> ), but let's not exaggerate. If one can raise bunnies in Larian's next game and sell them on the market, ok, but who will seriously spend time doing that? If you want a quick fix, play an online shooter or, as he suggests, GTA. If you want to play an RPG in segments of ten minutes, I'm sorry, but then frankly I don't think it's your kind of game.
A short word about the stronghold: yes and yes again. Properly worked out it can be an amazing part of the game. I loved how you had to build a stronghold in Morrowind, fulfilling different quests to get it and enjoyed even more the setting up of an entire miner's village on Solstheim. Fun and rewarding: the corner stones of a good quest.
