» Wed Dec 14, 2011 1:34 am Summary is the main point, the other information helps to explain it. Its not actually a spoiler, just hiding the information.
Spoiler
I played TES a while back.. (though I never cared enough to actually come to forums until recently) Starting with Daggerfall, but never really got into it, as a kid I wasnt allowed much time on the computer.
Then I played Morrowind, but since I was a poor student I played it on Xbox. I loved it. Must have spent the majority of my time owning an Xbox playing MW. The graphics, to me, were awesome. The world felt like A WORLD. Sure, it got a bit too drawn out sometimes and I needed to take a break every so often.. but it almost felt like a second life. I started to find that some places felt safe, and more like home because I used them as a 'base of operations' or whatever. Coming back to Sayda Neen(spelling) was like.. going home to stay with Mum or something. I got to know my way around the silt striders, and it made me feel more like I was becoming part of the society (like when you get to know the Subway lines in Stockholm or whatever, you know, a local that people can ask questions). I also really LOVEDhow unique I could make my character. Face wise? Not so much. Skills, Weapons, Armour, Spells? Hell Freeking Yes. I could make the character feel fleshed out and detailed. The best thing for me though, was that the world felt like a Real place. At level 1 on my first playthrough, due to not being an experienced elder scrolls player, I tried to treat it like... well every other game I play. Like a game. Didnt work. I started to feel scared while exploring, because some stuff is crazy hard. Kinda like Giants in Skyrim, but you dont know what they are, and they continue being hard for a long time. But I COULD face them at my level, and if I won, then I would get rewards which recognised my effort. It was Sweet! Quests & Markers etc.. Dont even get me started.
Anyway I guess I'll stop about MW. I didn't play much of Oblivion, suffice to say, it didnt have that same feeling AT ALL. Leading me around everywhere.. either I fast travel or spend all week walking across from one side of the map to another (no in game fast travel!!!), No sense of progression.. and an actual NEED to sit there and grind skills in order to be better than NPCs when you level up.. wtf.
Skyrim. I like it. Its fun. For another gaming series I'd be over the moon. This isn't another series though, its TES. To me, the last remaining RPG series. Sure there's Mass Effect.. I dunno what else I dont play games enough anymore to know but, they arent the same. Linear. Painfully so. TES was the last series that built a really in depth open RPG. So while I enjoy the game, I am disappointed. Very disappointed. When I heard that they had taken away some of the level scaling, I freeking over the moon! I heard it had a more Morrowind feel I almost threw a party. In game fast travel? Wohoooo!!!! Can turn off the HUD? Yippeeee!!! Etc.
Turns out that the loot is scaled to [censored].
Turns out the in game fast travel is a crock. Still better than none though!
Turns out you can make the HUD invisible. (what if I wana shoot a bow? I just want the enemy markers, cave/point of interest markers and quest markers off)
Guess what? Aswell as that they took away so much of the coustomization. I am prepared to bet that almost all well built sword and board warriors have almost exactly the same perks. Their armour? pretty much the same.
Spells. Forget it. My mage lasted 1 day.
Bleh whatever. I'm not going to go on and on. More.
I played TES a while back.. (though I never cared enough to actually come to forums until recently) Starting with Daggerfall, but never really got into it, as a kid I wasnt allowed much time on the computer.
Then I played Morrowind, but since I was a poor student I played it on Xbox. I loved it. Must have spent the majority of my time owning an Xbox playing MW. The graphics, to me, were awesome. The world felt like A WORLD. Sure, it got a bit too drawn out sometimes and I needed to take a break every so often.. but it almost felt like a second life. I started to find that some places felt safe, and more like home because I used them as a 'base of operations' or whatever. Coming back to Sayda Neen(spelling) was like.. going home to stay with Mum or something. I got to know my way around the silt striders, and it made me feel more like I was becoming part of the society (like when you get to know the Subway lines in Stockholm or whatever, you know, a local that people can ask questions). I also really LOVEDhow unique I could make my character. Face wise? Not so much. Skills, Weapons, Armour, Spells? Hell Freeking Yes. I could make the character feel fleshed out and detailed. The best thing for me though, was that the world felt like a Real place. At level 1 on my first playthrough, due to not being an experienced elder scrolls player, I tried to treat it like... well every other game I play. Like a game. Didnt work. I started to feel scared while exploring, because some stuff is crazy hard. Kinda like Giants in Skyrim, but you dont know what they are, and they continue being hard for a long time. But I COULD face them at my level, and if I won, then I would get rewards which recognised my effort. It was Sweet! Quests & Markers etc.. Dont even get me started.
Anyway I guess I'll stop about MW. I didn't play much of Oblivion, suffice to say, it didnt have that same feeling AT ALL. Leading me around everywhere.. either I fast travel or spend all week walking across from one side of the map to another (no in game fast travel!!!), No sense of progression.. and an actual NEED to sit there and grind skills in order to be better than NPCs when you level up.. wtf.
Skyrim. I like it. Its fun. For another gaming series I'd be over the moon. This isn't another series though, its TES. To me, the last remaining RPG series. Sure there's Mass Effect.. I dunno what else I dont play games enough anymore to know but, they arent the same. Linear. Painfully so. TES was the last series that built a really in depth open RPG. So while I enjoy the game, I am disappointed. Very disappointed. When I heard that they had taken away some of the level scaling, I freeking over the moon! I heard it had a more Morrowind feel I almost threw a party. In game fast travel? Wohoooo!!!! Can turn off the HUD? Yippeeee!!! Etc.
Turns out that the loot is scaled to [censored].
Turns out the in game fast travel is a crock. Still better than none though!
Turns out you can make the HUD invisible. (what if I wana shoot a bow? I just want the enemy markers, cave/point of interest markers and quest markers off)
Guess what? Aswell as that they took away so much of the coustomization. I am prepared to bet that almost all well built sword and board warriors have almost exactly the same perks. Their armour? pretty much the same.
Spells. Forget it. My mage lasted 1 day.
Bleh whatever. I'm not going to go on and on. More.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say, is that Skyrim is a great game. It has many, many improvements over the old games. The thing is though, you expect that from a game which is 5 or 10 years newer. What Skyrim isn't, is the game it should have been, as a TES game. The reason us 'old crusties' complain about this is, there is Nowhere else for us to go, other than back to P&P or replaying old games. You newer players can go to your RPG Hybreds, to your FPS games whatever.. but those of us who want a Pure RPG, are out of luck. TES used to be the last RPG series for us, but now that it's changed, we have nowhere left to go. So yes, I will be complaining about the streamlining.
A post by someone who is obviously better at english & smarter than me, explaining it again - maybe more easy to understand. Thanks Kovacius!
Spoiler
The annoying and generally WRONG stereotype about the "nostalgia glasses" and "your first RPG" are intended to make any MW fan seem like they never played anything before MW, and can't stand anything that isn't exactly like it. It makes their own slanted and twisted argument sound more rational in their own minds, I suppose.
I had a couple of decades of game-playing before I played Morrowind, and have played numerous games since (most of them fairly complex Strategy or Empire-builders: HOI3, X3:TC, etc.). The things that made Morrowind, what little I've seen of Daggerfall, Fallout (the original), the very old d&D games (like Azure Bonds), Baldur's Gate, and many others entertaining was the sense of improvement and advancement, and giving you a feeling that what you were doing actually mattered. To me, having everything levelled and scaled, and having your status and accomplishments unrecognized and unremarked, while everyplace you go respawns and resets in 3 days or so (as in Oblivion) makes your presence and advancement pointless.
Technology should have made the "numbers" less visible: just play and let it happen. Instead, the numbers, and more importantly the meaning that those numbers represented, have been stripped from the game, or else rendered irrelevant by the simplified game mechanics and excessive scaling. Oblivion added perks, but made them mandatory at each 25 point skill increment; it REDUCED character diversity because every character had to take them at that point. Skyrim made the perks choosable, but removed Attributes from the game. Now, you now have perk trees instead of Attribute numbers, so you still have to manage it, and the Perks are in your face instead of the numbers. I don't see how that's "better", only "different".
I don't want "Morrowind 2.0", I want something BETTER, and definitely not more "simplistic". If that's "nostalgia glasses", I'm quite happy with this pair. I'm a lot less happy about the last two TES games.
I had a couple of decades of game-playing before I played Morrowind, and have played numerous games since (most of them fairly complex Strategy or Empire-builders: HOI3, X3:TC, etc.). The things that made Morrowind, what little I've seen of Daggerfall, Fallout (the original), the very old d&D games (like Azure Bonds), Baldur's Gate, and many others entertaining was the sense of improvement and advancement, and giving you a feeling that what you were doing actually mattered. To me, having everything levelled and scaled, and having your status and accomplishments unrecognized and unremarked, while everyplace you go respawns and resets in 3 days or so (as in Oblivion) makes your presence and advancement pointless.
Technology should have made the "numbers" less visible: just play and let it happen. Instead, the numbers, and more importantly the meaning that those numbers represented, have been stripped from the game, or else rendered irrelevant by the simplified game mechanics and excessive scaling. Oblivion added perks, but made them mandatory at each 25 point skill increment; it REDUCED character diversity because every character had to take them at that point. Skyrim made the perks choosable, but removed Attributes from the game. Now, you now have perk trees instead of Attribute numbers, so you still have to manage it, and the Perks are in your face instead of the numbers. I don't see how that's "better", only "different".
I don't want "Morrowind 2.0", I want something BETTER, and definitely not more "simplistic". If that's "nostalgia glasses", I'm quite happy with this pair. I'm a lot less happy about the last two TES games.
