I wasn't referring to you.

oh sorry my mistake.

Probably not as many as most on here. I was born unfortunately late in the life of the gaming industry.

It's more Fable TLC, and it's more nostalgia from playing that game for the first time than anything.

I don't know. I like Fable, but not necessarily the way it goes about RPG aspects. So because Fable is one of my favourite games it happens to be one of my favourite RPGs, even if it isn't particularly good as an RPG :shrug:

Leave me alone :sadvaultboy: I can like Fable if I want to.

Somewhat unlikely. Morrowind holds that title, and I doubt Skyrim will claim it. I do hope it does though, it would be awesome.

100% better than oblivion, 35% it's the best of all time

I think a lot of the Fable hating comes from an elitist TES fan mentality, others pick up on that and think it's cool to hate other RPGs.

The definition of RPG has always been somewhat subjective and as such tricky to pin down. The situation has worsened in recent years with marketing departments claiming RPG status for games that allow you to pick between two guns - it has choice right? Must be an RPG :sick:

My list of elements that constitute a RPG:

Ability to create distinct character types.
The character may or may not change during the game but all characters need a beginning from which they can evolve.

Ability to control character development.
For character balance or pure RPG development it is sometimes necessary to override the 'optimal' choices. My aim is not to win the game, my aim is to play the game.

Game support for various character builds, especially within the MQ.
Can I talk my way into or out of various situations? Can I trade or bribe my way through life? Bullying is an option. Maybe if I heal a certain leader an entire faction will fight for me? etc.

The game should strike a balance between my l337 skills and those of my character with the skills of my character taking preference where ever possible.
This balance is tricky, and subjective. Too much emphasis on character abilities and the game becomes a slide show, too much emphasis on player abilities and the game becomes a simulator and not a RPG.


heh, I thought the list would be longer but that is about it.


Notable omissions that are nice to have:

Great variety of clothing and other equipment.

Great variety of specific skills.
I don't want a jack of all trades simulator

Exploration.

Reward for exploration.
I don't need a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, that would be a big immersion killer. One nice item out of every 3, 4 or 5 locations is fine.

The chance to face impossible odds.
It should always be possible to return at a higher level when the odds are more favourable.

Entertaining story and/or quests.
Funny, interesting, involving, frightening.

Variation


heh, this list could go on and on. Simply put, the core mechanics may define the game as a RPG but it takes much more to make the game interesting and fun to play


So, back to the OP. Skyrim: best fantasy RPG game of all time?
I honestly do not know, not enough information. It looks like Sk is going to be another magnificent Todd Howard combat simulator with all the usual variation in the way you kill stuff - it has choice right? Must be an RPG :sick:. I very much doubt Todd can turn this into what I would consider an interesting RPG but who knows?

Edit:
spacing

its not that its just like watching a cartoon theres nor realism

Shall we not make this a debate about Fable's merits?

Cheers.

Nah, it's not that I don't like it, it's just that it doesn't hold a candle to RPGs such as Arcanum, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Fallout, Planescape etc.

Anyway...

From what I've read Skyrim is losing RPG elements in favor of being more palatable to mainstream action-oriented gamers.

yeah thats exactly what i think too they are losing the element of originality.

They blending skills to get rid of the ones that were nonsensical in the first place and cutting out some of the number crunching so that people can play the way they always wanted to rather than feeling pressed into pursuing +5+5+5 level ups.

That's a good thing. How about for TES:VI they go back to text based RPGs. Would that be hardcoe enough for you?

Best rpg of all time? That's dammn strong word, doubt it will replace torment as my number 1, still chances of being really good rpg are high.

Certainly one of the best. I don't think it is likely to be the #1 best, but it has a shot.

It has a medium chance, the expectation for the new scroll are very high because Morrowind and Oblivion were epic. What we saw 2 days ago was just a "glitch" of Skyrim! We didn't saw the best things yet and all the other new stuff. But I believe in Skyrim that it could be the best rpg ever :thumbsup:, and if it won't be the best then Morowind or oblivion will be still on the throne :rolleyes:

I don't think it would be better than Morrowind IMO, but it could be 2nd best.

It will likely be a superior game, but not recognized as the best of all time because of peoples' nostalgia over games they remember as being their favorites.

It's really hard to outdo nostalgia.

Really? I'd say Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, Might and Magic series, and maybe even Dungeon Siege were single player DnD styled games for people who lost their gaming groups. Take the role playing out of rpg and you just have a game that may or may not have elements of other game styles. TES games to me are action/adventure games with a deeper plot than first person shooters. Sure you could argue that you're playing the role of the hero, but you also did that in every other game in the history of games (The exception being strategy/sim games for the most part) are they all rpg's?

Is there any reason at all to play a pure healer in any Elder Scrolls title? No. Why? Because there's no one to heal but yourself. Is it useful to have healing skills? Sure, healing yourself is always handy so there's a restoration skill and an alchemy skill. These are rpg elements but it doesn't make it an rpg. Is there a reason to specialize as a pure healer when you have a party of adventurers? YES! Because you're playing a role in the game and that role is keeping the party alive. See what I'm getting at?

Don't get me wrong, I love TES games for what they are, and I don't wish to see multiplayer or anything like that. I just don't categorize them as rpg's because I don't see them that way.

I have been immersed in some games, but most, if not all, of them weren't RPGs so that'd be a terrible definition for me. Hell, I spend most of my time thinking about RPGs from the outside, as in "What would my character do here?", "How does my character feel about this person?", rather than from the inside where I just react immediately to the game. I almost never play an RPG where I consider the character to be me.

How were people pressed into this anyway? I don't think I ever got an x5 multiplier in Morrowind, I certainly never went out of my way to get one. They definitely weren't essential to playing the game, or even to getting through it without much difficulty.

The best RPG of all time!?

You... you mean, no one would ever produce something better? What a depressing thought .

:D

Seriously, I voted 'no way'. It will, I'm sure, do some things very well, other things poorly, and a lot of things not at all. There won't be a party of companions offering their differing views of the gameworld, current events, and the moral vs. practical ways of dealing with said events. The character creation will become more user friendly, but will take away from the fun of building a specific character and trying to win the game within that character's limitations. The option to explore the world an wander aimlessly will be brilliant, but the main storyline will be short and fairly straightforward.

What I'm trying to say is, it will be different to RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, The Witcher, 'Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines', or Dragon Age. It won't be definitively, unarguably better.

In Bloodlines I played a Malkavian. Any RPG where you can't spend the whole game spouting lunatic, comic gibberish and for it to work, has something missing for me .

Its best chance is if it is the first RPG you've ever played, other than that it doesn't have much of a chance. Everyone looks for something different in an RPG. Mine is over 25 years old already.

Not Going To Happen. But it will hopefully be a very good game.

anyone at least think they will add necromancy now i have a dim view for anything that the majority of TES fans like me hoped for

People felt pressed into it. The game basically rubbed it into your face every time you didn't level perfectly.

I know that not everyone was irritated by Oblivion's levelling system, and powerlevelling is not required for beating the game satisfactorily. However, gamers as a market are notorious completionists. I personally couldn't enjoy Oblivion unless I levelled my character before touching the game's quests. BGS has obviously recognised this, and so has streamlined the levelling system. Just because a system has fewer numbers and requires less effort doesn't make it worse. Past TES games' levelling systems had these elements, but they were barriers to enjoying the process of growing in power rather than augmenters. All Skyrim is doing is making the system more accessible. Challenge in a game should come from within, not from my own inability to first understand the mechanics and then the process of manipulating them.

I know that not everyone feels the same way as me, but many do. Why would you argue against the streamlining of the series when all it does in this case is remove dilemmas that were just an obstacle to playing the games the way they were intended in the past (TO SOME PEOPLE).

Very little irritates me more than "well I didn't have a problem with it so obviously nobody else did either". Spend a month on the forums prior to the GI article and many a thread would come up regarding the opaque levelling system. Just because it wasn't a problem for all 100% of the fanbase doesn't mean that a significant part wasn't irritated by it no end.