Yawn - another visionary design philosopher who dethrones the classics to promote his own stuff.

While I agree that most games called "RPGs" today are extremely dumbed down action-adventures (even compared to, say, Ultima Underworld), something similar happened in other genres, too!

However, I don't agree that hardcore rpg-gamers have to accept shoddy interface design with lots of big text windows, tiny text and unspectacular control elements. Even though there are obviously some talented graphics people to put up decent stuff the screens still look bad.

Does he expect his happy customers to creep into the text windows? The interface could be made much more dynamic, elegant and forthcoming to the player.
You can say whatever you want about the sometimes extremely linear plots of Japanese rpgs but they often have a much slicker interface - no doubt a consequence of being made for consoles, but still: One could learn a lot of them and transfer that to the PC/Mac platform.
(Of course there are people hating "slick" interfaces but there are also people piercing their nipples.)

What I like about him is that he seems to be absolutely confident that he is doing the right thing. One must think like that to produce something, but should this mean that one has to be "controversial"?
Something like "Look at this guy, he's great, has some revolutionary ideas! His game must be great, too!"?

I dream about endless possibilities and free gameplay, too, but let's be honest:
That's not controversial but an endless fight against the system. A system consisting of the game's plot, the player's expectations, the technical abilities and the costs.
Not-linear games are, more or less, sandbox games but even they need goals.
"Free" role-playing not only means that the player can choose his modus operandi but also the freedom to pursue his own goals - and not many games provide for that. We'll see if his does.
 

Meh, destined to degenerate into the old "Yes, the word 'roleplaying' as understood in games is a different thing than 'roleplaying' in a psychologist's office or in a couple's late-night amusements, but guess what, that other type of game got here first, it got the word 'roleplaying' in its name, that's that, choose a different word, get over it' debate.

Never understood this thing... it's like some people just can't understand that words and names are just that. Words and names.
 

Sure, we can go off on things like that. And I do. It gives me blog fodder when I can't think up something interesting to write about. :)

But - by the same token - whether it's affected or genuine, I love the passion he has for what he's doing. Especially when doing something like an RPG which has anything but a well-defined audience.

So while I don't think there's just the "one true way" to make an RPG, I don't mind him focusing on that. I think we need that. I hope it'll shake things up a bit.