Backstory:

1997-2000 was a glory era for PC gaming, I was right there playing all the latest games and loving the selection that we had. As that old computer became obsolete, my life became more hectic. Gone were the lazy Saturdays of playing an RPG until my butt got numb. In 2000, I quit playing PC games. In 2005, I picked up a new PC for some job related activity and began to regain interest in PC gaming.

It was fun to leaf through all the old reviews and forum posts of the old RPG's I missed. Gothic, Morrowind, NWN, new Pool of Radiance, Arx Fatalis, etc et al. Slowly, I began to collect these and play through most of them (as time and patience permitted).

While there were some quality RPG's in there ... I felt as if I had fell asleep in 2000 and woke up to find that nothing had changed. In fact, by reading the old reactions from users of these games .. PC Devs had actually REGRESSED in terms of making games that were playable and stable. But that is another issue altogether. One of the last games I played was BGII (in 2000) and nothing had even come close to eclipsing it since. As if CRPG evolution had fallen straight off the cliff.


Big Picture:

The most disheartening thing for me, besides the sparse amount of titles that you could call AAA was the sheer monotony of the settings. I cut my teeth on C-64 games like Wasteland, Neuromancer, Buck Rogers. At the age of 14, I was just staggered at the sheer variety in types of CRPG's you could play. Sure there were 10 variants of the Wizardry/Bard's Tale games ... but there was SO MUCH PROMISE for this style of game to be introduced into different settings. I daydreamed of a Wild West RPG, a Police Quest (Sierra's old game) style RPG, a beefier Pirates! game with deep RPG elements. The possibilities were endless, once the devs got tired of making the same D&D clones surely they would move onto new settings!
Instead, I am mucking through Oblivion .. awed by the visuals but depressed by the combat, setting and lack of imagination.

Yet, here we are in 2007. The next "big RPG" I am looking forward to is imaginatively called 'Dragon Age'. Same as it ever was ...

Conclusion

So, what happened? Why haven't we seen more cyberpunk games? More
post-apocalyptic games, more space rpgs? Hell, I'd settle for more KOTOR's where they take a license and cram it into RPG shoes. The 'RPG mechanic' (dice rolls to determine possible outcomes) can be applied to just about any genre setting you can imagine .... yet nothing different is coming out.

Now that the 2D era is officially dead and PC RPG's are becoming more and more 'consolized" ... I am beginning to wonder if the ship has passed. If we are forever going to be looking for the "next big sword" or looting yet another goblin king of his pretty treasure. I will still play them all and even recommend many of them .. but will always be dreaming a different world I would rather be in.

Well Basilisk games seems to have another game in the works that might interest you....stay tuned true believer!@

Coming up at 7, Rune 74 brings you the inside scoop on what's cooking at Basilisk Games!

In reference to the OP (no easy quote for me to grab), is your primary complaint that systems haven't progressed or that settings lack creativity (e.g. 'medieval fantasy' still dominates the market)?

The settings. Medieval fantasy has completely swamped the genre and if you do have an alternate setting, it is in a game like Mass Effect .. which is kind of a hybrid game (and a prime example of a game being "consolized" for greater distribution).

I guess, a great game like Eschalon (and 1C's Fantasy Wars) reignites my hope to see another cyberpunk/post apocalyptic game in a traditional RPG framework with old school mechanics.

I completely agree with you. Modern mainstream RPGs have become consolized hybrid shooters. I have neither the skills nor the desire to play them. I have the sneaking feeling that with EA buying up Bioware (which has been consolizing itself anyway), I won't care for Dragon Age. I don't have a solution for this problem, but I'd love to see an Old West RPG with old school mechanics. I've wanted this forever.

Medieval fantasy is a setting that developers know will sell, especially for CRPGs. Yes, I know FallOut was a successful alternate setting RPG, but I do not know if it sold as well as the medieval setting gold box games. Also notice the number of medival setting gold box games. I would love to see more of Ravenloft myself and a western CRPG so I can slap on a six shooter. The fact that medieval fantasy setting sells leads to the problem of the me-too effect. Bards tale came out and was a hit. All of sudden everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Diablo came out. We saw lots of me-too Diablo clones some very good (better than Diablo), but most pretty sucky. The first person shooter (Castle Wolfenstein) gave birth to Quake and others. How many first person shooters do you need? As many as people will buy. It all comes down to dollars and cents. Money talks everything else walks. People vote with their dollars.

Well I think Mass Effect and the knights of the old republic games have shown that people like scifi rpgs.... at least thats what I see.

People play only what's been released. Big game companies have a case of "make what's been made because it sold and it will sell again"-itis, and so what is being made forever becomes less and less varied.

There have been thousands of games made since 2000, and maybe 10 of them are as good as the very best games from the 80s/90s; they may be easier to play and look at, but they are in no way imaginative.

The savior of gaming will be the indies, a golden age of indie games is right now beginning to come to fruition - Aquaria, Dwarf Fortress, many others, these are just what come to mind right now.

Indie developers are just like the people who made games in the 80s/early 90s - they do it because they love games.

The people who make games for big publishing houses are pretty much just calling it in; they might as well be working at Burger King, they really don't seem to care about what they're making, they just want the big bucks. The quality of the games is basically equal to the quality of fast food.

Take all the RTS's that are being made - so, so, so the same, and so, so, so not different. The only different one is Medieval, and perhaps Company of Heroes.

Big gaming houses have no idea how to make a quality game, if they weren't advertised so heavily and covered by all the (getting paid behind the scenes) big gaming sites they would be overlooked.

This is all just my opinion, take it with a grain of salt or two, but the only people who care what they're making are the indie devs. There may be people who care in the big publishing houses, and I don't blame them for selling out, we all need to get by; but the big houses might as well be churning out furniture for all they care, as long as they're making big bucks. They are not in it for the games.

A creation reflects the attitude of its creator. Indie devs make the creation with solely the love of the creation in mind. This is what it boils down to.