I agree with your basic premise that comparing these games is an apples and oranges type of comparison, but I am not sure how much stock I would put in someone's measurement of game length. I put in over 1,000 hours in Morrowind with various characters before even attempting to pursue the main quest. The character I finally did do the main quest with took over 200 hours to do it (doing some other questlines and general adventuring at the same time). Yet some people can complete the main quest in as little as ten minutes. Game length in an open world game seems like a completely arbitrary calculation.

Game Lenght isn't really a measure of how long it takes someone to beat the game. Morrowind CAN be 'beaten' in under 20 minutes without actual cheating (compare that to Fallout 4, where the record is like an hour 9 minutes...) but rather how long people play them for. It's a rough measure of the volume of things to do, varied approaches, challeneges and overall entertainment value of the games.


A good example of its importance is in FPS games. They rarely take more than a few hours to 'beat', but their use of multiplayer allows for far more playability than their story campaigns suggest. Some games, like MOBAs, have no story to speak of, and still consume hundreds or thousands of hours of gameplay.


Sales and awards are both highly limited means of judging if a game is 'good' or not. How long people are PLAYING a game for is a far better judge.

Still though, how long ordinary people play a game would seem have very little bearing on how long one of us might play it. Whats the "game length" of Skyrim or Morrowind? How are these stats calculated?

Oh absolutely. I've got hundreds of hours in Master of Orion 3 (I actually think it's the best in the series) but based on other statements online, I doubt many players break 100.




If memory serves (I looked it up last night) it's about 340 am d 380 hours respectively. It's calculated by the mean average of playtimes logged, so you're going to have outliers. I think it said the shortest was 3 hours and longest was 6000 for Skyrim.


I'm not exactly sure whether they get their values from a 3rd party program that tracks your time, player submissions or straight from Steam though. Which does make their figures somewhat dubious. Still, I think a measure of how many hours people put into their games is superior measure of 'better' than professional awards or sales.

How could anybody possibly know the mean average of playtime logged in Morrowind?

3rd party downloadable tracker is one possibility. Only counting times on Steam is another.


Again, as I saiid, there is some question as to the absolute reliability of the information. It's likely limited by sample size, coverage and/or sources. But it's a statistical representation of how much people PLAY particular games, which is a better gauge of how good, interesting or engrossing those games are.


Sales are a problematic determination tool because they only give a limited indication of whether or not people engage with or enjoy the product. If people KEEP buying the product, it indicates its good, but total sales can be deceptive. A game that sells 1000 copies a week for 5 years is generally viewed as ijferior to one that sells 1 million copies in one month, but nothing after that, because it sells fewer total units. The difference is, it KEEPS selling, whereas the one that sells a million practically disappears. Continued interest and investment of time may not indicate a SUCCESSFUL game, but it can indicate a BETTER one.


Similarly, professional awards are notorious for focusing on commercial success and industry fads rather than consumer engagement.


You also end up with some issues regarding products which can be extensively modified. Still, how much the consumers use something is generally a superior gauge of whether or not its well done.

You're heavily implying that having the world exist with set levels is unlike Elder Scrolls, when in reality it's just unlike Obliv/Skyrim. Morrowind was a game where you absolutely could encounter quests and enemies that were too strong for you. It was a core part of the experience in, what is probably, the most highly regarded game in the series.

Nonsense. Morrowind absolutely used levelled lists, at least as much as Skyrim did. True, Oblivion was the worst of the bunch, but implying that Morrowind was any different is entirely false.

TES has NEVER had a world with set levels like The Witcher. It's had level 'zones' which can spawn a range of enemies of particular levels, but that's not what The Witcher 3 uses. It spawns the same wolf pack at the same level in the same place every single time.

Morrowind does use leveled lists but not nearly as much as Skyrim. Skyrim does have some unleveled content but not as much as Morrowind. Unleveled content in Skyrim is pretty much limited to frost trolls and a few boss monsters, like Krosis and the other dragon priests. I just made a mod that relevels Morrowind last week so I'm pretty familiar with the Morrowind leveled lists. Not a single bandit in Morrowind is leveled. The only leveled NPCs of any kind in Morrowind are in the expansions. Wildlife, daedra, dwemer constructs, undead and corpus creatures are leveled. Some areas are more difficult than others at any level.


Of course the reason I made the mod to relevel Morrowind was because after playing Requiem, I found vanilla Morrowind way to leveled for my tastes.

Fair enough. Still, claiming that it's anything like the Levels in Wild Hunt is just outright wrong. Wild Hunt doesn't even vary its spawns, You'll find the same wolves over the same hill every time.

I will take your word for that. I haven't played Wild Hunt. So I have no direct knowledge about that game. It doesn't seem like my kind of game though.

Time spent playing a game doesn't really matter. Elder Scrolls is a more repeatable series but that doesn't mean it's better. Hell I have 200 hours put into Farming Sim but I'm not going to start calling it a better game than Fallout 4 which I only have like 70 hours in.

While they are apples to oranges there are some things that crossed over and can be compared things like graphics, writing, etc... Looking at those things TW3 Absolutely kills BETH. CDPR destroys Beth in terms of writing, a good 90% of the quest in TW3 had me enthralled and were interesting yet very little in Skyrim or FO4 did. BETH has some good writers an each game does have some pretty good quest in them but they rely way too much on Radiant Quest [censored]. Even then with Skyrim and FO4(although can't speak much for FO4 as I havent finished it) they've shown a huge drop of quality in writing, just look at how bad and short the guild and MQ quest were in Skyrim. CDPR kills BETH again in terms of graphics, compare TW3 to FO4 and TW3 absolutely destroys it. Graphics aren't the most important thing but they do matter to a degree and as of late BETH is lagging hard.

While different games they're also pretty similar and TW3 has shown a lot of people including myself just how much BETH has been slacking in terms of the RPG scene. Still love BETH and TES I wouldn't be here on their forums if I didn't but with how Impressed and amazed I was with TW3 and how unimpressed I was with Skyrim & FO4 it's sort of disheartening especially when i know or at-least hope they're possible of so much more. TW3 felt like a game made by a bunch of super passionate RPG devs that aimed for some pretty high goals and crushed them while BETH games are starting to feel phoned in at this point, still a lot of passion but they don't seem to really be pushing any boundries.

I would call it better. Because it's held your attention and involvement longer. As an entertainment medium, games are only good if they keep us busy and entertained. It doesn't matter if they're well written, mechanically sound, or even fun, what matters is that they ENTERTAIN. The longer they can do that, the better. And the more people they can entertain for longer the better a game they are.

And Naughty Dog absolutely slaughters CD Projekt Red in the same field (The Last of Us was probably the best written game in a decade).

That's not to say that Bethesda's writing is necessarily good. Or that it's stories cannot or should not be improved... But it's a very different game, and doesn't RELY on those stories to serve as it's entertainment. Without it's story and its characters, Wild Hunt is a generally dull game. It's power lies in its characters, their interactions, and it's story, but a great deal of that is based squarely on the shoulders of it's set protagonist. But at the same time, games like The Last of Us show that stories can be made even STRONGER if you take away the ability to make choices. Choice inherently erodes the ability to deliver a good story, but choice is the cornerstone of what Bethesda does. Which inherently makes its stories weaker.

Graphics isn't something i can argue against. Bethesda is well behind the curve on graphics, that's a simple fact. I tend to think it's simply a manpower issue, as they don't have an army of slaves new hires to do textures and rendering like, say, Ubisoft, but it's something they really need to deal with if they want to compete in the AAA game.

There are lessons to be learned from Wild Hunt. Lessons that Bethesda should take a hard look at. But it's story telling standard isn't one of them, nor is is really achievable with Bethesda's model. Better stories, yes, but taking it to 'Witcher 3 level' would require either an absolutely unfathomable amount of work (fully developing hundreds of characters into distinct personalities that you then develop relationships with and THEN using those potential relationships to develop stories) or totally compromising the Bethesda model.

Haven't played TLOU yet but I'd say comparing a linear story driven game to an open world game isn't exactly the same as comparing an open world RPG to another open world RPG. That said I understand that TW3 is a Story Heavy RPG compared to BETHS more Sandbox approach. That said I would still say BETHs writing is pretty weak as of late at-least. Ignoring the main story I would say TW3 still had Side Quest that were way more interesting than Skyrims. I understand TES is more Sandboxy but that doesn't excuse them for [censored] writing especially when it feel like a lot of it was just half assing it and meeting [censored] release dates. I had no idea who most of the characters in TW3 were that I was suppose to care about but they were written so well that I did care. Even DAI had some pretty great characters like Iron Bull Casandra that you could relate to and care about and they were met within that same game. Beth is just really bad at creating interesting characters with personalities. FO4 showed some improvement but not much.

Another reason I think a lot of people like TW3 so much is because it feels more like an old school RPG with the way it plays difficulty wise and they give choice weight (or atleast the illusion of weight) Someone earlier brought up the Staticness of some of the Witchers quest/creatures and how they didn't scale which was something I really liked.

Frankly, I never considered the Witcher's writing to be anything to write home about. Better dialogue, sure, but what actually happens? Not so much. The only thing I found good was the entire Letho ordeal, Geralt and Ciri's relationship (Which, y'know, only exists within the context of Geralt and Ciri), and the Hearts of Stone DLC. That was it. The rest was...incredibly standard.

Trying to be a Dark Souls clone and gambitting the AI's attack pattern isn't what I'd call "good" difficulty. The only genuinely good fight I had in the entire game was against Olgeird, and that was because his attack animations are beautifully done.

I

Well I;ll mention the Bloody Baron again because it's one of the most interesting parts of the game that also get a lot of acclaim. There was the Crones who were interesting especially the ordeal with the druid in the tree (Which you find out may be their mother if you read some of the books in game), There was where geralt put on a play, there was the drunk guys night out, Keira and the cursed island was interesting, Finding out about the Wild Hunt and those fights were interesting. TW3 Had tons of great writing with tons of great dialogue. Even it's side quest were interesting like the Werewolf who accidentally killed his wife because of her jealous sister setting her up, Gravewitch who was stealing children from a village, Hell even the beginning area had some interesting quest like the one where a lady ask you to get her cast iron pot back and you end up finding out a tale of espionage or finding out about the hunter being gay lovers with a lords son and exiled and the other quest attached to that. TW3 had phenominal writing and dialogue choices just looking at it as it's own entity and when you compare it to Skyrim or FO4 it only looks better by comparison.

By difficulty I more so meant there being static leveled enemies and areas that may be too hard unless your skilled or come back at a higher level. An actually Hardmode where you don't regen health over time or by sleeping and has rewarding combat unlike Skyrims you do less damage while your enemies do more damage and have more health bullshyt they call legendary difficulty. I'd also say the Combat is closer to some Legend of Zelda games than Dark Souls although they are similar, I would say Witchers seem to be better in some respect as the combat in fromsoftware games looks very slow. Even then it's streets ahead of Beths hack and slash and see who dies first combat.

They can do better than that

Can gamesas make TES IV on Witcher 3 Level? Maybe, but I definitely hope they never sink that low.

Yea I hope Tes never makes a game like the one that beat out theirs almost unanimously as the better game and is the most awarded video game ever. That would be terrible. /s

...........Why?

I agree. One of the strengths of TES is you can enjoy the game without ever pursuing the main quest or even any of the other questlines. In all my thousands of hours in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, I've completed the Morrowind main quest exactly once and never completed the main quest in either Oblivion or Skyrim. There are many questlines in all three games I have never done. I know a lot of other players here who play like I do, making up our own stories and bringing our characters to life in the game, rather than following the narrow questlines Beth creates.

With that type of playstyle, the game can have great longevity, regardless of the quality of the quest writing. What's more important is the quality of the writing in the back story -- the books and lore that make up the world, and Bethesda is first rate in that department.

Awards me this, awards me that. Awards are highly subjective and volatile, what matters most is the game design philosophy. To have your own original formula and be recognizable and appreciated for it. It's what Bethesda is known for the last two decades. Some prefer the CDPR style, some others the Bethesda style, there is no need to mix these styles. Skyrim was the highest awarded in 2011 and it isn't like Witcher 3 more than Fallout 4 is, so the Witcher formula is not the winner formula every year. Witcher was indeed the flavor of the year 2015 more than Fallout 4, but that's it, Bethesda doesn't need to do anything about it, all they need to do is keep their unique formula that draws such a big fanbase, bigger than Witcher's anyway.

I believe that BGS could benefit from having the option to choose between Story mode and Free-Roam mode in their future titles. The Story mode would contain the MQ and obviously be a more focused experience, while the Free-Roam mode would deliver the classic open-world TES experience while omitting the MQ.

The problem is, that type of philosophy creates an 'Either Or' situation. What if you want to free-roam and do the Main Quest later? What if you want to break up the Main Quest with some periods of adventure and/or soul searching?

Multiple game-modes compromises the philosophy of being able to tackle the content as you want, by forcing you to do so in particular ways.

Maybe I'm missing something in what you're saying, but it sounds to me like we already have this functionality now. We can follow the main quest, effectively creating our own "story mode" or we can skip the main quests, creating our own "free roam mode."

I guess I'm not really seeing what would be different about these games with the addition of "story mode" or free roam mode?"