P.S. Bethesda's games aren't RPGs.
Well you can't really say you're trying to have an objective discussion and claim an obviously subjective opinion as fact, but maybe I missed something, and I'm curious as why you'd say Bethesda's games aren't RPGs?
I consider the Elder Scrolls to be the ultimate, real Role Playing Games around. One of the very few games that let you be what you want to be in a virtual world - I'd agree that they lack choices and consequences, although Skyrim ( and FO3 before that ) has been working to counter this.
This is also why I consider housing a critical element of the Elder Scroll games - you can use them, you can ignore them, it boils down to how you want to RolePlay you character. RPGs, even cRPGs, aren't all about fighting and adventuring, and it's nice to chill once in a while, get your stuff together, repair it, improve it, populate your shelves, cloth your dummies, well, take a break. And it really makes more sense for a rich Daedra-armor-wearing adventurer, savior of city X, to have a large house in said city rather than having to resort to sleeping under bridges.
This is however down to how I perceive cRPGs, and RPGs. Let's be a bit blunt and say there are two ways of playing a RPG :
- Spreadsheet and dices with little place to imagination, where things are ruled by the Natural 20 ( have a look at
http://tabletitans.com/ , stories from tabletop RPG players, are almost always dear remembrance of natural 20 and dice-determined victories ( or failures )).1
- Roleplaying and discussion, where outcomes are determined by talking, decisions, argumentation, and as little dice-casting as possible.
Now, before you say I'm off-topic, my point is that there are at least two types of players who do not share the same expectations and therefore the same views on thing. I love the ES games, I love what they did with housing, even if doesn't have any meaningful impact on the gameplay and content of the game.
I make it meaningful because of the way I play. This is, I believe, called Emergent Gameplay - taking elements of the game and making use of them in a way that is meaningful and relevant as well as problem-solving.
Now, I perfectly understand that someone playing a cRPG ( or RPG ) mostly for monster slaying would find such a housing system perfectly useless and irrelevant. Not the way they play. They'd rather have it provide at least combat bonus, wield some strategic importance, something that would make the rest of the game experience better at the very least.
And, yes, PoE stronghold clearly succeeded in being neither and being completely, utterly useless, pointless and boring
HOWEVER
DOS2 would clearly NOT benefit from a housing system ala Skyrim. I know, I didn't play DOS2, but DOS1 would already not have benefited from this, and I don't expect a game telling the stories of a few hunted people to be able to add a meaningful The Sims kind of housing. In a very story-driven kind of game, housing would have to integrate fully, at least. It would even be best if it offered options and, given the nature of the Hall of Echoes, conflicts. After all, you're probably going to meet a few people you may have slightly murdered !
Larian had a good thing going on in Divinity 2 and we can only hope they'll iterate from there, that's for sure.
Just a last, slightly off topic thing : sadly, today's art isn't backed anymore by most of what you say. More and more the charisma of the artist and their ability to self promote are the keys to a piece of art being recognized as masterpiece / good art. Same goes with videogames, but it's actually worse : a "good" game doesn't need to be good if you have enough money to push it forward and get yourself some good critics. Of course, if the game is actually very bad, the backlash will be violent. Or will it ? Blizzard latest games ( starcraft 2, hearthstone, Diablo3 ... ) are quite bad, but they are a huge success.
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