it gets even more irritating when people use the word streamlining as another word for "dumbing down" when it really isn't.

I don't like it. No-one seems to be up for a challenge any more. But while http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/845/845400/are-you-a-casual-gamer-20080114024809143.jp there is not much anyone can do. I hate the CoD Market with a passion, I don't really care for them at all, I don't want them touching RPG's, but there's nothing anyone can do.
But this is my own view.

Never understood the distinction between X vs Y being a "time spent" thing, to me the two groups are much simpler to distinguish against.

First group likes RPG's and their inherent choices and optional content leading to some not being overly keen on some of the direction changes basically stripping down the games to a simpler affair.

Second group hates RPG's and rather than skipping them want all RPG's turned into mishmashed hybrid games, revelling in less choice running the gamut from content to game-play as something desirable.

Unfortunately the second group is the one pandered too most often, probably because it means less effort is needed.

I really, really doubt that they're designing the game for "people who hate RPGs".

You may like certain aspects of RPG. Another person may like other aspects of it. A third person may like yet other aspects of it. But it's all still "liking RPGs".

Just because you don't consider those other things to be "worthy" of the title RPG, doesn't make it true.


(Getting tired of all these tribal divisions. "hardcoe vs casual." "True RPG Fan vs anyone else" "PC Elitists vs Console 12 year olds" "WRPG vs JRPG" etc, etc, etc. Me? I play videogames. I've played videogames since 1980. And every year, I've found good games to enjoy, in all sorts of genres, from all sorts of companies, and on various platforms. All this partisan warfare and blame is stupid.)

I personally think that the UI in Skyrim is improved, and is much better eye-candy than the list form that Oblivion took, which was quite obnoixious on a small screen (as opposed to Morrowind or earlier type of RPG games, which were icon-based).

I think people misunderstand "dumbing down". Dumbing down does not mean making a better UI, or more flowing and intuitive controls. For example, when I think of their combat changes, I DO think that the ability to individually control the left and right hands is a step UP, not a step back -- so long as it is done well. I think this sounds awefully suspicious to what Assassin's Creed has ATTEMPTED to do, but they had focused on context-sensitive applications whereas Skyrim appears to have just done it as a way to figure out how to combine the block/attack and spell-casting buttons. I do fear that it will adversely affect magic, but since the game is not out, I can't really form an opinion on that just yet.

When people start whining about dumbing down, they are talking about the way that the game feels like it was made to be a short-and-quick dungeon crawler: the quests are hand-holding, in that they tell you EXACTLY where to go -- not with words, but with icons. Essentially, you don't even have to LISTEN to the quests, you just click through their dialogue and then run to the icon. This, I think, comes from the incredible number of people who think WoW questing is awesome-sauce. The quests themselves are VERY short and are not involved. They do not include ANYTHING frustrating, except perhaps over-leveled bosses, because that would make all the "casual players" of the world not play the game. Most can be broken down into "fetch it" quests and are linear in nature. They lack politics and hard choices. You don't "choose sides" in a casual game, unless it's some clear-cut "good vs. evil" thing where you're either a Disney princess or you're Satan. (For example, the dunmer Houses -- each had their own goals, but I wouldn't call them necessarily evil.)

Even being "evil" is not evil. Apparently, somewhere along the way, we got the idea that the best way to be evil in a game is to just kill stuff. Because, you can't actually be evil any other way. Yep. Evil people. They just kill stuff. That's it.

The whole "Radiant Story" thing has me on the fence. I want to see how it actually works, but from the sound of it, I don't think it will be applicable to larger quests -- which leaves me to believe that the majority of the things Radiant Story does is just more fetch-it quests. Only instead of fetching an item/killing a target in Cave A, you're going to go do it in Cave B. In Oblivion, you could have conceivably gone the entire game without entering but a small handful of the caves and STILL you would have most of what the game had to offer, because the "dungeons" were repetitive and predictable -- and that is where it fails. In a "hardcoe" game, hardcoe players want to WANT to go into these dungeons. They WANT to be curious about them, because they may or may not be special, they are unpredictable, they are interesting. Not every cave is supposed to be some dingy hole in the ground with some wolves/rats/trolls/imps and some junk loot. Where are the hidden side quests? Where are the miners? Where are the adventurers who camp out in these caves? (And why, pray tell, is every NPC I find outside of a city insta-hostile because they're all just bandits and mauraders???).

Back to what "dumbing down" is -- The leveled lists. The obnoxiously long tutorials. The large HUDs which appeal to FPSers. The fact that you CAN breeze through the entire game without once listening to a string of dialogue. The emphasis is put on "LOOK AT MY GRAPHICS DURRRR" rather than, "Figure out this story." The streamlining process, where you take all the work out of thinking up unique character concepts. I will only like Skyrim's attribute removal if the perk system is a good replacement for it, but otherwise, no. I don't think it's at all cool to have argonians and dunmer and high elves all run at the same speed, or be equally charismatic. I don't like that my interactions with other races and people in Oblivion was incredibly dumbed down with a minigame rather than me choosing dialogue choices and having to think about what I want my character to actually say. I don't like that this gave the appearance that there were no racial relationships, either. (In Morrowind, it seemed to me that racial relationships were MUCH more defined.) I mean, let's be frank -- I don't want to see dunmer and argonians in Skyrim being all palsy-walsy given the lore, and I don't want to see every "highwayman" be a generic khajiit.

I will wait and see what Skyrim brings to the table, but I'm not happy with all of its "upgrades."

Some of the wisest words I've heard (err, read) on these forums.

They definitely seem to be dumbing down the RPG side of things. Then there's all the hand-holding they insist on putting in the game which is detrimental to the open-world experience.

So really, what you're left with is a game that's dumbed down as an RPG and somewhat dumbed down as an open-world game. That doesn't bode well, considering this is supposed to be an "open-world RPG".

Why are they doing it? Perhaps to appeal more to the much broader action-adventure audience. Many BGS staff members have said it themselves in interviews that they want this game to be much more streamlined and accessible...

Yes, it's ignoring much of the rest of your post, but I just had to toss in a few quick comments...



You do know that every game that isn't utterly linear has some form of leveled loot lists in it, right? (Even ones that have some hand-placed unique items, still have most of the loot leveled.)

....long tutorials?


And the large HUD is generally attributed to "console", since they're 1) looking at it on a TV screen from far away, rather than a computer monitor from 2 feet away; and 2) have a controller & thumbsticks to (clumsily) choose things, rather than a mouse to accurately select small text.

There is a huge difference between dumbing it down and making it easier to use. Fast travel is just for convenience sake. Sometimes I want to explore the world on my way to another city, Sometimes I just want to get the damn quest over with because the first part gave me a too much of a hassle. Levitation is... What? I'm sorry. How is taking this out 'Dumbing it down' or making it easier for casual gamers? If anything it makes it harder because you can't CHEAT and fly around anymore. Quest markers... Meh, I have conflicting opinions on this. Part of me liked finding my own way with no guidance and part of me is saying I'd probably snap my disk in half after about 100 hours of playthrough since I'm only 20% done the [censored] game. And no, It isn't because it's 'Hard' or 'A long game' it's because they made the directions so vague in morrowind it could have been practically anywhere and that's just flat out ridiculous. Also, They're refining the scaling system from what I hear. So you can and will run into monsters that will completely destroy you because it's 30 levels higher, Such as dragons.

As for radiant story and AI, In my opinion it's over hyped for good reason. They're taking someone not many developers have done yet and trying to make it as awesome as possible. It's the start of what could turn out to be an revolutionary AI system. AI that can start to react to situations and act accordingly? That's fan-[censored]-tastic.

In short, A franchise doesn't evolve without some sort of change. So, Yes they might be polishing it, Making it look nicer and adding in/taking out features that you do and don't like but that doesn't automatically make it an easier game.

The phrase "Work Smarter, not Harder" comes to mind. If game improvements are made that make playing the game easier that can not be a bad thing. I honestly believe this is what Beth is striving for.

Even though this very topic was discussed for about 100000000000000000000000000000 times, I'll give the most objective answer as I possibly can:
Skyrim IS being dumbed down. As to what extent? Currently we have no idea. People around here like to wine about having fewer attributes or the removal of skills, but they aren't objective and they only do it because most of them can't imagine a game working without these features, or simply because they liked these features in past games.
BUT, if you look at Skyrim for what it is, it IS dumbed down, but not in these aspects. Having fewer attributes does not mean they are dumbing down the game, it means they are changing this system for whatever system they think is best, it has nothing to do with dumbing down. Removing classes is not dumbing down either because they simply removed a feature they thought was useless, and I agree as well, the TES classes WERE useless.

HOWEVER, dumbing down is being expressed here in the form of the compass, which guides you to whatever destination you need to get. Also it shows enemies as red dots in the compass which you can clearly see is dumbing down. People MAY like some of these new features, but it doesn't mean they aren't dumbing down the gameplay. Having dungeons and points of interest appear in the compass. That's dumbing down.

In conclusion! Every feature that removes a certain gameplay experience to make it easier for the less RPG players IS dumbing down.
Attributes and classes don't fall under this category due to the fact that they made these changes for ALL players out there, and not for a certain group of people.

I like it, more than Oblivion but I still hold Morrowind to my heart.
I have plenty of effective builds made.

For me, it isn't about divisions or elitism at all. I love a good console action-adventure game just as much as I love a good RPG. That doesn't mean I want an RPG series to be changed to the point where it's basically an action-adventure game with RPG elements (Skyrim isn't that bad, but the series does seem to be heading that way).

What it comes down to for me is the general rule that the more people you try and please, the worse the product will be. An open-world RPG should be made for fans of open-world RPGs... not every gamer out there. Just as an action-adventure game should be made for fans of action-adventure games.

This rule applies to lots of things, like music for example. If a band appeals to fans of [insert genre], they'll be loved and well respected. If they then decide they want to make their music more accessible to people who don't necessarily like [insert genre], there's a high chance their next album will be an inferior [insert genre] album.

Am I the only one who gives a heavy sigh when I see people ignoring the forum rules?

Really. There may be forums that demand perfect spelling and grammar at all times. This forum, however, is not one of them.

Well thanks for explaining why it isn't steamlining. Very constructive.

People say lots of things. It doesn't make them so.

This. Don't start complaining until you've actually played the game please.

There's an auto aim?

Same can be said for people praising over speculation, they have said many things about Skyrim, none of which we can take for granted until we see the final build on our own systems (pc or console).

They said many things about Oblivion too before it came out, some of which was accurate, some of which was exaggerated and some of which was completely false.

:lmao: :rofl: :clap: funniest thing I read today. probably because its true .

Or it has to do with that the removal of so many things, coupled with a focus on things being 'intuitive', 'easy' and 'foolproof' means that some of us see it as less game for your buck than the previous ones.
The removal of all that needed a modicum of thought, oten accompanied by interesting little soundbites as 'spreadsheety' plus the above may have something to do with the qualifier 'dumbing down'.

Ouch, casual is always made to sound like a sin. So sue us "casuals" for having lives outside of gaming, like work :foodndrink:
Can I spend 6 hours a day playing games? Yep! But thats just not enough for some of you strangers =(

Work smarter not harder. Dumbed down? No, just streamlined.

I would appreciate a toggle for the compass marker though.

yes casuals are a threat to our very existence. Good job making this thread without making it seem like a rant.
But TES will always remain too complex for those who don't have the time to sit down and think of the numbers.

Why do casuals pay so much for what they can get for free on flash game sites?

Any changes from Morrowind are most likely to be dumbing the game down for the masses. Morrowind got just about everything right, and why they would simplify everything for casual gamers is a mystery to me. Wait, no it's not-- they're lazy and greedy.

Casuals aren't the cause of anything, its the Developers making the game.