Guys I know this title might lead you astray but this topic isn't about WRPGs vs. JRPGs. It's about differences in world-building between the two traditions. If you want to turn this into another East vs. West blahblah-party, you sould probably make another topic.

And many of them don't even understand what Todd Howard meant and how it was perfectly correct and how every WRPG and JRPG designer would agree with him. You've tried to explain in what way WRPGs are more realistic, but..

WRPGs tend to be more realistic. Not so much Bethesda RPGs. In Oblivion and Fallout 3 people fall unconscious all the time and it's stupid. In New Vegas you can kill anyone.

Whenever I hear people talk about JRPGs, they usually refer to the more popular games (such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tales, etc.), which tend to have similar attributes (such as being in the high-fantasy genre), but not all JRPGs are like that.

I think Yakuza 3 is a perfect example of a JRPG that takes a more realistic approach.  Before someone says that Yakuza 3 isn't an RPG, you earn experience and gain levels, level your abilities, collect items, customize/upgrade your weapons and equipment, explore, complete quests, make dialogue decisions, gain trust from other characters, and so on, so it's very much an action RPG.  In many ways, Yakuza 3 felt more like an RPG than FF XIII, at least in my opinion.

In Yakuza 3, the main character isn't some young, effeminate-looking male, but instead, a former yakuza in his forties.  Instead of magic or high-tech equipment, you merely have some good old ass-kicking with fists and normal objects, such as bats, knives, and other real-world items.

Valkyria Chronicles is another example of a game that takes a little more realistic approach.  It's a turn-based game, but aside from the game's more epic battles, it's mostly combat based on firearms.

Hell, even Demon's Souls, a more fantastical game genre-wise, has combat that is more realistic than many other RPGs.

Anyway, the point is that many people restrict their categorization of JRPGs to only the most popular franchises, but either aren't aware of, or simple ignore, the other types of Japanese-developed RPGs.  At the end of the day, these debates are flawed because too many people try to narrowly categorize each genre, when there is a lot more diversity found in each type of genre.

WRPGs are more grounded in reality.  That's not a good or bad thing at all.  It's just different.  Western gamers tend to prefer "grounded in reality" science fiction while the Japanese gamers prefer fantasy and "fantastical" science fiction.

This is pretty much more to do with cultural differences between East and West than anything specifically to do with RPGs. Compare Western cartoons with Japanese anime and the difference is immediately apparent. Just compare Alice in Wonderland with Spirited Away. Japanese love to introduce mad and mind bending concepts with fanastical story. Western shows (and RPGs) are just that bit more grounded in reality, even when they're trying to be mad or insane.

Can't believe I'm defending Alistair but:

At the start of the game Loghain's decision not to support the King and the Grey Wardens leads to the deaths of the only people that Alistair truly saw as family. Duncan was like a father figure and the other grey wardens like siblings to him. With that in mind why wouldn't he want vengeance and justice? You expect him to just forget about the other Grey Wardens? I think it's totally justified that he'd want Loghain dead even under the circumstances.

And Loghain's decision obviously wasn't a good military one. It was based off of ignorance. He effectively let the vast majority of the Grey Wardens who are needed to defeat the blight die, and would have doomed all of Fereldan had you and Alistair not survived. Not only that, but throughout the game there is no indication that had Loghain followed through with the original plan that they would have lost. In fact the opposite is true if Loghain had simply flanked the Darkspawn as he was supposed to have done in his own plan (not King Cailan's).

It was a joke.

this guy from bethesda is almost as whacked out as the heads of bioware... almost

what is it with Wrpg developers..., this type of article & statements from the developers (combined with quite a few from bioware over the last year or 2) explains why the quality of Wrpgs has taken such a dive over the last (almost) decade

Imo only of course, haha

Oh Baldurs gate 2, arcanum and planescape, you are but a fond memory now...

bethesda is the real deal - japanese publishers are lagging bad this generation.

even kojima said game creativity is dead i japan, and i think he is japanese