Danny Dowling said:
"I don't take offense to things, therefore neither should you. and here is a quote from an educated man to back this."
No. Everyone is different.
I don't think you quite hold the influence enough in this business to call out games that are known as RPG's for not being that. You're playing a role, the role of the adventurers is to get from A to B with a crap load of stuff in the middle. Having conversations with NPCs for the purpose of relationship development is not a necessary part of role playing. And that's really the main issue; you're confusing relationship developmentation with role playing. I've played D&D, you don't need to build relationships with any NPCs at all.
Also, actually, there was never any point where I was against the conversations as a thing you do, the thing that I was highlighting was the sheer volume of it. I don't mind decent story or time spent building up to the next big thing, but the amount of time stood around talking outstayed its welcome.
Also let's look at something like Kindgom's of Amalur. Loads of running around killing things, loads of levelling and upgrading and getting items, and time spent talking to people either befriending or making enemies. That's how you do it right.
I know there's this weird cult thing about Mass Effect where any negatives have to be met with "duhhh" and other ridiculous justifications for the slop that it actually is ones the novelty of having a hot Shepard wears off. But this isn't the place to throw out that pointless drivel.
Stephen Fry is a comedian. The point is "being offended" is meaningless as all it boils down to is that you didn't like what someone said, that's it.
I never said anything about relationship development, and most of Mass Effect's conversations aren't building relationships either. You are defined as a person in real life by what you say and do, same thing with characters in fiction. If you take away the saying aspect, you're just left with the doing aspect, which can only characterize somebody so much. Most of a character's personality comes from what he/she says. It's about character building/development of your character, not NPC relationship building per se.
An RPG is not supposed have LOADS of killing enemies (that's like every fucking genre already; shooters, hack and slash, etc.). That's the main problem with video game RPGs, too much combat. You find yourself fighting more than anything and the combat is usually lackluster so why should I play an RPG when I can play an action/combat game and have better combat? If I want to play a shooter, I wouldn't play Mass Effect, I'd play a shooter. Also, RPGs don't require leveling either, there's plenty of 1-shot RPGs out there with no experience. And, once you reach max level, the game doesn't stop being an RPG because there's no leveling.
