Oh Goody, old timers bickering... this should be interesting.
Your too right about the target audience. The last time I had a challenging puzzle was, dont laugh, the pillars in the first one. But considering the current trends and what type of games are big now (shooters, great, what interesting goals
), the chance of any old style RPGs, what with the current kind of gaming, is slim. If you were a company CEO and saw the people liked more action based games and the target was for pre 16 year olds, what would you make?
Old RPGs were more popular, cause at the time, what kind of game was the easiest to make. Any action and strategy game sucked (city building was OK), and the best kind of games were "wandering RPGs" (I dont know where I got the term, but I like using it, it rolls out of your mouth nicely), cause you could incorporate movement with plot development, like reading a 3D (ok, 2D, but with pretty colours!) book.
But now those take time. I think that the best way to enjoy an RPG is to get a nice new series and play it, since its release date is more determined by when its done then !CHRISTMAS SEASON! If Kotor III comes out, Ill be waiting a while for the price to lower before I get it.
And I have a feeling that this thread is gonna turn into one of those where 400 people post and nobody reads it.