Sorry for bursting in here like that, just read the whole thread and I think it's really interesting.
About the "pro or not"-question: In my oppinion, being a pro doesn't mean to spend all your freetime with 3DGS or any other software. To me, also somebody who actually earns his/her money with game-development isn't necessarily a pro. In my opinion a pro is somebody who is capable of doing anything he wants with his software in an acceptable amount of time without having to ask anybody else how things work. You may say now: "Hey, then that's me!" - well, I'm registered in this really cool forum for about a year now and in my opinion there are a lot of semi-pros and pros running around here
About the RPG-Question. The term "RPG" has a very large range - many people would even call Zelda an RPG (which isn't correct in my opinion). The pure RPG-genre today is mainly represented by the Final-Fantasy series for PS/2/3 and *some* other series like ShinMegamiTensei: a straight-forward game, the player doesn't have much freedome of movement and decicions, BUT what you will get in exchange is a thrilling story, a tactical (turn-based) combat-system and multi-faceted characters (FFXII however totally failed in this last point).
On the one hand we have those "classic" RPGs and on the other hand we have the Action- or Adventure-RPGs. They are (as their name implies) mixtures between diverse genres. Thinking about Spellforce and the old Baldur's Gate there have also been Strategy-RPGs. But except for a levelling-up-system they normally don't have much in common with the old-school-RPGs. And sometimes not even the level-system is included, talking about Zelda. The only thing these games have in common with a *real* RPG are a lot of characters and story, but nothing else. Oblivion itself is definitly an action-adventure-RPG and as such has to reduce its content in terms of a complex fighting system - in exchange you get a gameplay and moreover a *feeling* that you will only rarely find in other games. I love Oblivion, and I liked Morrowind, but I'm also a big fan of FinalFantasy and old-school-RPGs. But in my opinion you shouldn't call Oblivion an RPG... it's just that there is no real name for this genre.
The eye-candy-thing. I really agree with ghostyrider - there are hundreds of 3rd-person-shooters with amazing graphics. No one wants to play another one because if you know one of them, you basically know them all (however, the developers must be selling them like mad, otherwhise there wouldn't be so many of those shooters out there...). If you want to have success with your game and actually plan to earn money with it then you have to set way different aims and goals. I always claim that graphics are secondary, primary you should go for gameplay, which means: good control via keyboard&mouse, a satisfying camera-system which the player doesn't have to adjust after every corner, intelligent puzzles, a comfortable inventory-menue (if you have one), a well-balanced gameplay to avoid frustration because of a single enemy and so on. Try to attract the players by your ideas and the content of your game and not so much by its graphics. Why? Because you can't keep up with a whole professional studio working at the graphics of a single game for more than one year. Basically, if the player is able to identify an object - that's enough, every further minute you work on the model is sort of a "bonus". For example, look at World of Warcraft! Did you ever see its graphics? They are (compared to console graphic standards) nothing but a joke! And even so - *millions* of players play it every day. Why? Because of the gameplay. If you say "I'll never get a MMORPG to work all by myself" then you are probably right - that is a really BIG task. But what about the good old Tetris? How many people got addicted to it when it first came out? But that sensation was surely not based upon its graphics *lol* It was based upon the idea behind it. And now go for it, learn to handle 3DGS and show us your ideas!
Greetz!
Alan
