(Sorry for some of the moments of backwards Yoda talk, but it helped with the overall vibe) (Y)=extremely confusing and strange Yoda sentence

What motivates your character? (This may not be the true topic of this rant, but it’s certainly at the heart of the matter.)

So what motivates your character? Is he good? Is he evil? Is he indifferent and just going through the motions and along for the ride? I for one can honestly say that what I imagine and desire my characters to be in-game is usually far more colourful than the blacks and whites and dull shades of grey, which the Elder Scrolls games have come to supply.

Now I know that some of you may have read that and immediately felt the urge to defend TES’ honour and even now you may be straightening in your seat, or dramatically cracking your knuckles and unsheathing your keyboard in preparation to stand valiantly at Beth’s side. I assure you there’s no need — just hear me out. In my short time spent on these forums and with close to 400 posts, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve actually criticized the series, but the obvious lack of depth that has become clear in my mind, about how the roleplaying side of this ‘Heavy Hitting RPG’s’ gameplay is handled, is cause for our concern, and yet as I sit here, I find it a very difficult point and problem to accurately convey and describe.

Do I think Skyrim will be a top-notch game that will consume hours, days, weeks…oh lets be realistic here, months of my life — yes, such an outcome is inevitable — it’s already written in the stars, but for the hours and hours of enjoyment I will have playing this new game, there will come a point quite quickly, I’m sure, when the novelty and alluring mystery of Skyrim begins to wear off and the cold realization of the games limitations come creeping up like a disheartening Nordic wind. It’s the moment when that absolute freedom you first feel begins to fade and peel and chip away, leaving you all too aware of the stale, repetitive, predictable nature of the programmed mechanics of a video game. This mounting feeling of nagging disquiet and angst isn’t intentionally supplied by the Bethesda devs, and although the experience they work hard to create will be well worth my dollars and cents, I’ve come to realize that it is that which they claim to do the very best, which has become their biggest problem, for it has grown stagnant, and it has ultimately become their greatest lie.

What is it you ask? What could drive me to make such a scandalous claim? It’s the boast that they allow us to do whatever we want, be whomever we want — it’s the illusion that there’s true variety in the roleplay. Perhaps there is……perhaps there is, but it has become juvenile and hindering in its design. It hasn’t evolved with the years…it hasn’t grown sufficiently with the passage of time. Now I fully understand that this is only a game and that only so much can be expected from it, and I will gladly admit that they work damn hard to give us the opportunity to be so many different ‘things’ in their games, but I have come to feel this dread that we are only these things in title and statistic alone. Be them on the lively surface of the game we cannot — only partly in our minds, and partly at the game’s mechanical core. (Y)

You may be wondering what I mean by this…that is, of course, if by some chance you’ve actually made it this far. What I mean is that there’s very little content in-game to truly satisfy the many variations of characters, which the devs have given us the ability to play as, to shape and mould and design. Yes of course we are capable of being blunt, or polite or down the middle ‘Average Joe’. We can be a mage, a fighter, a thief or a rogue. We can fight to save the Empire, or side with a rebellious Hold and through it all, despite our true ambitions, we’re forced into the role of some hapless hero. So unlucky are these people whose lives we roleplay that any danger threatening Nirn always seems to immediately come their way. I half expect my character to throw his arms up one of these times, look at me through the screen and say “is there not another man or mer or beast brave enough to save the world on this cursed day.”

That last bit was just purely for a laugh. I honestly have no problem following a main quest that makes me a hero. It’s an expected reality of most any ‘epic’ game you’ll find. What I take exception to, and where the problem truly lies is that when I’m not out saving the world, the ambitions and motives of my roleplayed character can’t be sufficiently realized. This is the most difficult and complicated part of my dissatisfaction with which I struggle to describe and perhaps it’s also one of the most difficult things for the devs to implement, which is why its advancement within the elder scrolls series has been pushed aside.

******INTERMISSION******
(I’m impressed if you’re still here and reading. I’m gonna try and take a break from the rhymes so we can really look at the meat of the matter)

Okay so where was I…ah yes, the inability to realize many of my characters ambitions in a roleplay sense of the game. What does that mean? Well it means many different things depending on the type of character you’re trying to roleplay, but essentially what I feel the game is lacking in this regard is a level of complexity in its interactive design. A level of complexity which has fallen short in a part of the game that should truly be considered the ‘soul’ of any open-world sandbox RPG that wields a, be who you want, live how you want, do what you want mentality.

As it stands, the games Bethesda makes are superbly done. There’s no arguing that, and there is an element of what I speak of in them, but as I stated before that ‘soul’ has not matured and evolved alongside other aspects of the game design. To believe that the characters, which the long-time fans of the Elder Scrolls series, or heavy RPer’s, or even just modern gamers in general are creating and desiring to play as, are so basic, unsophisticated, shallow and one-dimensional; so black, white or generically grey that they can fit into these simple moulds of good and evil; rude and polite; warrior, rogue or mage, is a mistake on Bethesda’s part, on both a creative level and from a practical business standpoint. Unfortunately they design the player’s many possible interactions, with these very simple classifications in mind.

In my opinion, it is in these murky waters of complex character motive that Bethesda must swim if they wish to take that next big leap forward and move beyond what they do in Skyrim. They have to understand that we the gamers want more from the experience, not just new dungeons or lands to explore, but with ever-improving technologies and with bigger budgets because of a greater fanbase which in turn means a bigger and better team of developers, which again translates into greater talent and ingenuity at the helm, we the gamers have come to expect…well, we expect…(oh I hate using this word but)…we expect more immersion into the game and into the role we’ve chosen to play. They have to begin creating larger ‘niches’ within the gameworld, which supply unique and interesting situations (clusters of quests, lairs and abodes, dialogue options, items, weapons and armour, in-game literature, involving interactions and seemingly spontaneous and sensible NPC reactions, etc. etc.) which are tailored for and can better accommodate the many personalities, ambitions and motives which could possibly be driving the wide array of individualized characters their games allow us to design and create. They must venture out from the comfort and safety of building their game and designing their quests to best suit one of those three core classes, because what they are inadvertently doing is creating story and narrative that many of our characters can’t relate to anymore…or they can, but often it comes at the cost of the role played. They must try and understand why our characters would be trying to behave rudely, politely, selfishly, altruistically, deviously or honourably in any given situation and then try and create enough variance in the possible interactions, and more importantly, in the NPC reactions within the gameworld to cater to these more complicated character types. Finally, they must move beyond the stereotypical sentiments of good and evil and realize that no one — real or fictional — is entirely one or the other, and in fact are often far more layered than even both of those qualities combined.

So what does all this long-winded mumbo jumbo mean when it comes to the game and how it plays? Where’s my beef and what do I want to see changed? I guess it can be vaguely summed up like this; it’s just not enough to allow me the ability to create a title for the specific type of character which I have in mind, nor do I feel that selective skill progression alone is enough to define that character. We need more individualized in-game substance and circumstance to really feel as though a less mechanical or generic experience is being had…one suited to the type of character I’m attempting to roleplay. If such substance were added effectively and creatively to the gameplay, than it would go a long way to re-enforcing the role I was trying to play, thus increasing immersion and adding unique depth to my character. The problem is, somewhere along the line, statistics and skillsets became the be all, end all, driving and defining forces that shaped our characters in the game, and although these elements of game design are important, they alone cannot fully create a roleplaying experience, nor can standardized responses from the world and its NPC’s, which only take into account the most computerized and basic of our character’s traits.

Now for the one person who has managed to hold his/her course and venture this deep into my rant, I congratulate and thank you. You may be thinking that Bethesda is already attempting to solve the problem I’ve thoroughly mentioned with their new ‘Radiant Story’. The truth is, however, that although radiant story could be considered a step in the right direction…from what I understand of it, it is a step forward, but in a very generalized direction (generalized being the ultimate problem and issue at hand). It is the equivalent of a band-aid being used to close a gaping chest wound, or an exposed heart. I’m sure it will be of great benefit to the variety in the gameplay, for it is essentially a random quest generator with a handful of interchangeable variables, which produce quests that are mildly suited for your character and which point him/her towards that which has yet to be explored, but it will not really, truly and honestly address your roleplayed character’s motives, nor will it add depth to, or properly cater to his/her intended essence—an essence initially conceived in the player’s mind and then birthed through the canol of the in-game character creator, but beyond that, it is this essence of your roleplayed character, which the game does not provide with the proper nourishment it needs to adequately evolve or grow or distinguish itself. Sure the game scatters heaps of feed our way (quests/interactions) like we’re a cluster of chickens, giving us the option of being corn fed chickens (good/warrior/polite) or grain fed chickens (evil/mage/rude), or some combination or variation of the two (roguish/adventuring/etc.), but rarely does the game offer up the specific food we really want to eat to help our character grow into that which we envision and imagine in our minds.

Now what kind of a post and rant would this be, if I didn’t supply some clear examples of what I mean or solutions to the problems I see, but I’m also pretty sure that this rant has run on a little long (longer than most would have been able to bear) so for anyone still here, I’ll say that’s enough for now, but I will update with some more specifics later.

Thanks for reading.

Masterfully done. I pay that post the highest compliment I can ever pay one - I wish I had written it.

A somewhat oblique, but decidedly pointed, response:

I'm willing to bet that a good 90% of the people who might've ventured into this thread got bored and left long before they finished reading the post. I wouldn't doubt that a good chunk of them saw the size of it and left on that account alone. I think it might fairly be argued that those few who might've stayed and read it through are the same few who share your yearning for a complex and vibrant world of complex and vibrant characters capable of providing an at least relatively believable setting for whatever character we might choose to play at whatever time. However, the other 90+% account for at least 90+% of Beth's sales amongst those inclined to post on their forum, and doesn't include all those not so inclined.

I agree that there's both need and capacity for a truly groundbreaking game that will provide all the open worldedness we might desire. And I'm certain that that game will come not from a large and established company such as Beth is now, but from a small group of dedicated and talented individuals willing to gamble on an idea sprung from their passions, such as Beth was a decade or two ago.

Thanks for the read though. It helped to cleanse the horrible taste this forum usually leaves in my mouth....

wow, this is a needlessly long way to say 'make the game better somehow'.

From the few things that I could understand, you want that every game, every character should have their own unique story, quest and everything.
This is pretty much impossible, if you truely want it properly, without giving you your personal writer to chnage and write everything in the game for your character.

Quite an essay. I'm proud to say I actually read all of it (Which I usually don't do due to atrocious writing), and enjoyed it.

For the most part, I agree. The lack of individualized roleplaying elements to truly define your character is a problem, however it doesn't bother me quite as much.
It seems like it would be really difficult to fully implement your ideas, so I'll be happy if Beth somehow manages to pull off a halfway decent attempt, but I won't be disappointed otherwise. This would be very, very nice, but sadly I don't see it happening anytime soon.


*Chuckles at how much his post pales in comparison to the 2090 word epic above it*

I would pretty much sign that post. You named the problem quite accurately, although there still need to be more suggestions for solutions. I hope some will come out of a constructive discussion in this thread.

I read through the whole thing. (my eyes feel weird now, thanks for that..)

I'll try to answer in some respect at least. First I agree partially, but when you actually consider what you're talking about, it just isn't possible, not for another 50 or more years. If only for the fact that it would take that long to make such a game as you describe. How could any team of developers, even one as large as Bethesda, possibly incorporate features that service every conceivable character that is layered beyond good evil and neutral? And you're talking with every quest, every npc every likely action that the player chooses to do. Sure, we can all imagine better or more true to life situations, but it's just not doable in a game of such scale. Do what everyone else does and use your imagine to fill in the blanks, because when it comes down to it, that's all we got, sorry to say.

Oh and it'll most likely take up years playing skyrim for a lot of us, not months..

As well written as that was, all you really did was throw around a bunch of buzzwords (sorry). I think the statement I quoted is really the heart of the argument, but what is it exactly you want? More dialogue options?

You took a long and well worded time to explain that you don't feel immersed in the world, but never explained exactly why that is. I would say level of immersion is entirely dependent on the player as I rarely come across the same sort of issues you do, but then again I don't rationalize that those short dialogue options we get are what my character is actually saying.

Maybe if you could boil all that down to something specific?

I think you were a bit vague in your requests, honestly. Though I agree with the spirit of what you meant. The 'bwa ha ha' ebil quests and the 'shining knight of goodness' quests are nice, but I would also enjoy some more neutral questlines that aren't generic "Fighter's Guild" or "Mage's Guild" ones (and those names are just [censored], by the way, and not something an organization would be called in a realistic setting).

Would've been a much more easier read had you saved the drama.

Simple answer to your rant: you cannot have true freedom to do what you want in a video game; you cannot have anything more than black, white, and some shades of gray simply because anything your highly-pixelated character or any of the characters does, or doesn't do, or does half way, has to be coded. Every single thing. Animations, dialog trees, the grow exponentially for every choice the game gives the player. The amount of effort it would take to code a wide range of human emotions, activities, desires, etc into a game, it'd certainly take much more time and manpower that is dedicated nowadays to producing a game, and would certainly will not cost $50-$60. And even IF they did so, I am sure the "wide variety" is not going to be enough for those people who want to be "a part of the game" or "create a mental connection to [their] character" , as I've seen posted elsewhere on this forum.

It is simple, really. Based on a concept/story/treatment, game producers create a setting, and define the boundaries of that setting. Based upon that setting and those boundaries, the story tellers write, coders code, the graphic artists make 3d models and animations, and the "assemblers" ( I don't know what they are actually called) put it all together.

Pretty much this. What you're asking for as tending towards actual artificial intelligence, which is probably not going to come out of the gaming industry (the tech they market for is not powerful enough to have anything close to AI).

@SystemShock, I think they are called "World Builders"

I agree to a point but you have to come to terms with the fact that what you ask (for a game to turn into a life simulator) simply can't be done. No media will ever be able to replace completely our imagination. You'll always have to fill in the gaps. It all boils down to having realistic, multidimensional NPCs, digital human replicas, which is a very hard thing to do.
The only solution to the problem you describe would be for the game to generate content on the fly, which I don't believe can be done currently. I played a game (more like a tech demo really) 2 years ago that tried to be a dinner simulator. Programmers had put in only certain lines the characters would say, but didn't program when or if they would say them. You interacted with them through natural language actually. Although it had many flaws, it certainly showed the way for future games. I think it's what you actually ask for. It's called http://www.interactivestory.net/

I had a sick urge to hit the quote button But my reply is somewhat long as well, hope you don't mind, as I did read your whole post.

While I agree that anything that is an improvement on the game world in any way or capacity as long as its well done is welcome, the premise you are working off of is that what the devs mean by an "open world where you can do anything" should include realistic human emotions and relationships. That really is the heart of the matter. In your rant against how limited the games can feel, you pointed out a great many things that indicated the opposite. Being able to use so many different fighting styles, magics, equipment, and tactics, and to be male or female, so many different races, and create your own unique face and enchantments is quite a lot of variety and customization right there. If you don't get a guide or read walkthroughs online, and refrain from using fast travel (which is still an option and another way for people to play how they want), how you go about exploring the world really is up to you and the way you do so makes for a story unique to your character. The bottom line seems to be, though, that TES is more about the quests, loot, cool locations and dungeons, and (for each in its time) amazing visuals for the genre. Its focus is heavily on the epic parts of the hero's quest, and on the balance and challenge of combat (or avoiding it) and exploration.

You need to use your imagination a bit (not saying you don't). Even though the world is presented to you digitally, that doesn't take your creativity out of the picture. If you CHOOSE to view the game as nothing more than mechanics and rewards, it'll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you do every single guild on one character, tyring to save the world from Umaril and being the Listener for the Dark Brotherhood, being the champion of the Fighter's and Arch Mage while wearing the Grey Cowl all at the same time while fast traveling to each quest location and using charm spells on every person you talk to and always entering combat under 100% Chameleon, then yes, the game will start to get a bit stagnant... but if you limit yourself and actually RP with your own storytelling abilities, and refrain from power-gaming so that you have to make a character balanced a certain way, then the combat/exploration mechanics themselves can feel a lot more deep, even though it doesn't solve the emotions and motivations issue.

Some people love it, some people say its one of the worst games of the genre out there, but the recent Fable III goes into emotional RP moreso than any other game I'm aware of. That game is the opposite of TES in that the primary focus of it is the hero and emotional content, where combat and exploration are sacrificed significantly to accommodate it. Really,you are not a hero, but a superhero in a world of normal people, but the game is more about your interactions with others. The crowd who hated this game is the crowd that wants more of what TES has to offer, more complexity, diversity, and depth to the combat, exploration, and loot/rewards. To enjoy a game's emotional content, you have to enjoy that content as its own reward. You don't get anything for being a drunken husband, or a wife who likes to sleep with her husband wearing a chicken costume, and you almost never get anything that is really significant or significantly different for being a brutal murderer who kills a village of hippies or for giving thousands of gold away to the poor. When I say you "don't get anything" I mean that the rewards are either in the doing and experiencing itself, or in the form of aesthetics and mood (you look good/evil, people like/dislike you). Even in this game that had its primary focus as the emotional content, the things you could choose to do on an everyday basis with your character were corny, humorous, and repetative like using "expressions" to make people love, like, hate, or fear you. The real emotional content was in the plot and in culmination of all of the daily things together making your character evolve as good or evil over a long time.

What you need to make a truly integrated emotional narrative is scripted events, meaningful dialogue, having the people around you exist in a world that evolves in its emotional context. Trying to do this with a sandbox, quest-based, combat-and-reward-centric game like TES would be a contradiction in and of itself. If you have a plot that has meaning to the PC, you have to have events, people, dialogue that go with said plot. You can't have emotional context without specific emotional plot. By pumping up the emotional content of the story, what actually happens is that you have either one, or a few, storylines for the player to choose from by a few script-starting actions.

I guess what I'm saying is, adding more emotional context to TES would very likely leave you with two disparate systems or a severe diminishing of the current system. Yes you can argue that they "could" do a better job and we shouldn't be so pessimistic about what is possible. What I see happening though with even the best of attempts for the devs to present us with emotional content would be either one of two scenarios. Either you are going to end up with a sandbox world of quests that has emotional things tacked on to the end, like you can stop questing and then do the emotional thing, then go back to questing, essentially non-integral except maybe for the emotional content parts being what governs disposition. This still wouldn't give your character "motivation" for doing the quests, it would just add emotional behavior and reactions to the PC and NPCs, but unrelated to the quests. Or you are going to end up with a game that has its sandbox nature limited because there is one, or a few, storyline options available for the character that you have to follow to be given the context. You can't just let someone wander around how they wish, and also have a coherent story with events and dialogue that produce a set of deep emotional circumstances that make any sense to the quests.

What are they going to do, force your character to have a spouse/friend/child that is captured or killed, (which is forcing your character to have emotional ties in the first place, and therefore not giving you a choice to be a total loner) and despite where you wander first this happens in whatever dungeon you first go into? Now you are out for revenge or closure? Against who? The imp that killed your spouse? Or the necromacer that killed your spouse? Or the trap that killed your spouse? Then what happens? You go on a quest to save/revive this person? What happens then? How does this tie into saving the world from dragons? If you ask me, the fact that you are forced to be a "Dragonborn" where your "motivation" is that it is your "destiny" to defeat the dragons is already too much forcing out the choice in RP as it is. Handing too much to the player in terms of their motivations limits the feeling of what you do as a function of combat RP choices, and if overdone for emotional content, it would only be able to be shoehorned in to the sandbox nature of the game.

All that being said, IF they could do it well, and leave what is good about TES intact, then sure, I'd be for it. But I see very good reasons why not to try to integrate the storytelling too much into the sandbox, as they are, after all, disparate systems by nature. It would be a truly superhuman feat to make them both work together in one game and not lose what is already good about the series.

Don't know. Never really thought about it. (But, then, my characters tend to be a collection of skill and an appearance - my general motivations for them are "try something different this time" and "explore".)



...of course, this pretty much means I'm not the target audience for your comments. Sorry. :sadvaultboy:


-------

Edit:



Ah, good point. And yeah.... this is what I play Bioware games for. Different game styles for different experiences & outcomes......

That is not entirely accurate. No program can decide on its own when to do something. The programmer/coder has to at the very least give some parameters as to when the program does something. What you have there is more of a "randomizer", which still has to be programmed, than a program making its own choice of what to say and when.

In other words, you can't just put within the code something like comment="Did you see the news today" and expect the program to do anything else with it other than know it is there.

This is really is the crux of your complaint, and also the reason it will not, and cannot, be fixed aside from huge advances in artificial intelligence.

Sorry, but this just isn't an intelligent thing to complain about. To mold your own motivations, implant them with custom dialogue into your character, and expect the game to dynamically respond to whatever you can imagine in a reliably believable way is so far from current technology that it's not even remotely worth worrying about yet.

This is like me complaining that I don't have a holodeck.

Try using your imagination a little instead of over-anolyzing the limits of current roleplaying possibilities. In the past, we had games with fewer choices, fewer gameplay options, and comparably terrible visuals, but we still "roleplayed" by filling in the missing bits with our imagination, the same way you fill in some details that are not precisely described when you visualize the events while reading a book.

TES, and games in general, have improved. The *are* giving us deeper and more player-tailored experiences as the years pass. Enjoy the ride and don't ruin it for yourself just because we're not already at the end game.

As several other posters have pointed out, the idea is good "in theory"; the implementation of any solution to it is likely to be a problem.

Unfortunately, the switch to voiced dialog seriously limits the number of available responses, drastically more so than what might now be possible with a text-based "conversation AI", and considerably more than what was put into either Daggerfall or Morrowind. In short, it's not going to happen anytime soon.

In a related way, the steady decline in the number of skills from DF to MW to OB, and apparently now to SR, limits what my character can be, and what distinguishes him or her from the other 482,000 characters that have been created by the players. Worse, the decline in the IMPACT of those skills increasingly means that it doesn't really matter what you take, the game plays out about the same, and depends on what YOU, the player, do, not what the character would or even could. The character is becoming increasingly "irrelevant", and the player's own skills and motives now "trump" those of the character through mini-games, "can't fail" tasks, and a FPS combat system that really doesn't play out all that differently whether your character is Level 2 or Level 30; only the numbers are scaled higher and there are a few "special moves" added to make it "feel" like your character is actually "getting somewhere".

Reading the forum here, the big concerns of a large part of the player base are about "weapons", "finishing moves", "gore", and other primarily FPS issues. All that makes for a fine open-world "action" game, but PLEASE don't keep telling us that it's primarily an open world RPG, while reducing the RPG elements to nothing but a token.

I don't really see the two being mutually exclusive in a design or even philosophical standpoint, but in terms of time, budget, and complexity maybe they are. I could certainly envision a game that had the characters and companions of DA:O in the game space and storyline of Oblivion. The question the developer/publisher would probably be asking me though is "how much money is that going to take to make?".

I'm guessing you missed the whole 280 odd perks to help make your character more unique . . . . ??

Yeah, I really don't get the folks who complain about RPG elements being removed from TES. You want to see a "rpg" having all its rpg elements removed? Go play a Bioware game.

Wow, you really don't seem to understand what they have said about the system at all, and been rather selective in your evidence in anolysing the forum community. For one, the levelling and playstyles is no more irrelevant than Oblivion, arguably less so.

/shrug

While the story was weaker, I actually thought Mass Effect 2 had stronger "RPG" elements than the first one. Dialogue choices weren't as obvious (like, the "paragon" response wasn't always "good", etc.), there seemed to be more choices for your characterization, etc. Yeah, the inventory system was reduced. So what? Combat system + having do micromanage lots of junk =/= "RPG".

Ah...interesting responses so far and actually more than I expected.

Let me first say, that when viewed holistically my orginal post is a true reflection of how I feel when I play the Elder Scrolls games. Looking at my post and reading through it, most of you will admit that at the very least it was well written and somewhat entertaining (as the Elder Scrolls games are also well designed and entertaining to play). As you progress through my post, a very general sense of the displeasure and dissatisfaction I was trying to convey begins to take shape in your minds. It's quite palpable, yet at the same time it remains generalized and vague, leaving the reader's imagination left to figure out what exactly it was I was trying to say.

It's a similar feeling which I get when I'm trying to flesh out and roleplay my characters in-game. I'm not asking for anything that the Elder Scrolls doesn't already encompass in some way. What I'm asking for is that they put greater effort into bridging the gap between the underlying, defining skills/statistics and the imagination of the gamer by supplying the more unique characters we can design with a certain level of appropriate interaction. It is in this regard that their game design has become stagnant. They haven't yet pushed beyond good and evil; pure and obvious rude/polite; or rogue/warrior/mage, and yet I am capable of bearing the preset title of a righteous monk, a duplicitous noble, a shady agent, etc., but I am not given enough response, reaction and scenario in playable game terms to truly justify those characters simple personalities and titled names. Those are but three examples and there are many more. I plan to go into further specifics eventually, but I don't have time right now.

To the few that sifted through my convoluted rant and managed to clearly see the heart of the matter and agree with it(even if only somewhat) -- well it's good to know that I'm not alone.

To the few that believed I was asking for full blown AI or asking for more than I was, I'm afraid you missed the mark slightly -- don't worry it was my own shortcomings in how I described my issues with the game that are to fault. Realistically, I know some things aren't yet possible and perhaps never will be.

To evilmog: I certainly appreciate your response, but my post was less about relationship and emotion and more about Bethesda making the effort to recognize (in terms of NPC interaction and gameplay scenarios) the reasonable and sensible ambitions and motives that one could reasonably assume would be present in many of the various character types that they already allow us to create in-game. On a side note, I am currently playing through Daggerfall which is an 'imagination heavy' game for the roleplayer, so I don't have any problem using my imagination I just think that ideally the goal of the developer, in this situation, should be to try and bridge that gap and make it so that the player's imagination can easily take root and weave itself into the gameplay.

Well said. You took took the ink right out of my pen. If you watch certain folk like Veriax doing 'Lets plays' of Oblivion they do exactly this and the game seems so much better played this way, the long term enjoyment of the game comes from putting some effort into role playing the character, which means not using certain spells, not using every weapon that you pick up and not diving into every hole you see open up in front of you. For instance I intend to play a shortish character and have already decided that she will not be able to carry large double handed swords and will probably be too small to wear the average male armour she comes across. Not to mention the ultimate role playing sacrifice I am making of switching gender from real life. I think we could all benefit from writing up character backgrounds during the next few months, we should have a book each done by 11-11-11. The game would be fantastic then!

That made me chuckle, but you are correct. This "immersion" thing has gotten so out of hand; indeed some posts on this forum read as if some people want to have their own holodeck.

The definition of "role' in "role playing game" has gotten so distorted... It simply means the player's character is going to play a role in how the story unfolds based on the decisions the player makes when presented with 2 or more choices, not that the character is going to take on the persona of the player and act as some sort of avatar in a digital world. I blame James Cameron and Gene Roddenberry

I think you missed the OPs point entirely.