Ok, cool? I never said Oblivion was a bad game, did I? I love it, just like I love Morrowind and Daggerfall. And I will love Skyrim too. Whether or not Skyrim will steal Morrowind's spot from my heart remains to be seen.

Well to be the best RPG of all time must have more rpg features and less action, the past few years the TES is going to the action side more and more, eventually it is unlikely to earn that title.

Role Playing Game - is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. So how Skyrim will be better RPG then let say even Oblivion when it will has less skills, probably less or no attributes, no classes?

Yes I forgot that it wasn't called a "Roleplaying game" it called a "Statisics Playing Game". DND requires stats because that's the only values you can work with. The only stats you need in a game are Health and your resources. Strength and all the other attributes are in no way manditory. I think skills are more than enough to constitute an RPG. Irrelevant and neglible attributes do not.



When did Roleplaying become synonymous to stats? Roleplaying is imagining yourself as your character as you play. That is the point of a roleplaying game, to immerse yourself in the game and become your character. Stats were only originally part of roleplaying games because it was a system that allowed to determine how you can make your way through the game. If you can have a new system that allows you do get through a game just as well but gives you more customization than why stay with an old system that has become less and less useful as the RPGs have aged. This is why so many things are so inefficient in the world. People get steeped in tradition when they could move into the future with more efficient systems. Thus is why the world is still stuck on gasoline....

I lol'd at the "RPG=stats" comments. Thank Christ you aren't game designers.

On topic: I have no idea if it will be the best "of all time", but based on all the info I'll say there's a strong possibility that it might unseat Morrowind as my favourite game.

It does it by providing a more realistic experience instead of, as I said, this unhealthy obsession with dice rolls and specific, old, outdated ways of handling things. Less skills mean more actual playing instead of powergaming to raise your skills and your level. Less skills can be better if they are better implemented, as I believe Oblivion's were in comparison to Morrowind's. Attributes only contributed to that powergaming on the old system and did nothing but give a very false-feeling type of progression. Classes only restricted things. In real life, if someone started off as a thief and later decided to devote their life to learning to be a knight, they could. As in Skyrim, it would be slower and initally less beneficial, but with practice, it would be possible. Real life doesn't place you into a set position for life with a list of your stats. You just get naturally better at things with practice and define what you are doing.

dude they better have skills and attributes it would be so stupid if they didnt imean that was one of the big payoffs was to try and get you player powerful enough to make that next level, and cast that spell you couldnt before, if they take that classic feature out i wont even buy the game

You have to have stats of some sort, or everybody will be the same character and it turns into an action game. Your characters profencincies shouldn't totally rely on the player, they should rely on your stats, skills, attributes etc. Whether that results into "bland", or "fun", game-play isn't what I'm talking about. I just mean we have to have stats or we wont have distinct strengths and weaknesses. Whether you call them stats, attributes, skills, greater powers, etc. We need something to define our characters.

If you string it up like that every story ever told is cliche:

Matrix: Stop robots from destroying humanity
DIablo 1, 2: Kill the Devil(s) because they are bad
Shawshank Redemption: Escape prison
Romeo and Juliet: Lovers die
Lord of the Rings: Stop evil lord from regaining power
Star Wars (old): Defy the Empire


What you said afterwards was wise: "some of the finer details may be unique" - the "finer details" are what separate a bad, bland story from a unique, interesting one.

Well, yeah, Yevgenii, a lot stories are cliche. Doesn't mean they're bad, just means they're cliche and can come off as boring or meh, but don't have to. Watch my vid for examples.

Also, it is not impossible to create unique non-cliche stories:

Read Dead Redemption (Try to get your family back together)

Wolf (Girl becomes werewolf, tries to cope) (Linked and talked about in vid)

And there are more than just those two.

And I'm loling at the posts that say "RPG = IMMERSHUUN!!!", mostly because they seem to be coming from newer players that have no idea what an RPG truly is (coming off of Mass Effect and the like).

That being said, an ideal RPG in my mind would have the perfect balance between stats defining your character and environment and lore pulling you in. The earlier Elder Scrolls games (Arena and Daggerfall) were too stat oriented (though graphics were not nearly as good as they are today, so what could they do about it), and Oblivion seemed to be aiming too much at visuals than RPG elements, something which Skyrim seems to be plowing towards. And I know it's typical that this is being said, but Morrowind was a close to an ideal RPG as one could get. The art and visuals for the time were astounding, drawing many players in, and the skills and attributes still played a prominent role in defining your character and still mattered in different aspects of the game like combat, diplomacy, thievery, what have you. The only downside to Morrowind was the craptacular combat system, but then again, what else could you do at the time?

when i played oblivion i always roleplayed evil characters like lich's necromancers and dark sorcerers, i often would ignore the main quests and imagine myself doing what i enjoy collecting things and increasing my power and maybe they occasional killing spree.

I actually prefer Morrowind's combat system. I think that if it included the proper sounds and dodge/block animation people wouldn't have hated it as much. For some reason people don't seem to realize that you're enemy is dodging/blocking, and just think that the weapons are passing through them. :confused:

imo,
though it is a common element in fantasy RPGs, lists of skills, attributes and dice rolls are components of D&D style RPGs.

RPG is kind of vague imo. I'll think of a good way to put it at some point, but the main thing is, the player plays the role of a character, usually advancing their story and often powers over time according to the rules of the game world it is set in.

hmmm...diplomatic flaming frogs. :wink_smile:

sounds like a frog leg barbeque! :flamethrower:

No one is saying that your character won't be variably different. The point is stats don't make an RPG. So, if they really took attributes out of the game in Skyrim...so? They have perks,skills, racials and birthsigns to augment your damage, give you cool extra abilities that have been missing from the game since Daggerfall. It's not like they cut them from the game, they just aren't visible and don't allow you to alter them directly which, as I have said, became obsolete because they had little effect on your character as rpgs moved along. The new systems give you more customization than previous TES games, how is that making the game simpler? It's the same flawed logic of how Oblivion was a dumbed down version of Morrowind even though Oblivion introduced an actual mechanic to lock picking and Speechcraft. Also, every sees they got rid of 3 skills from the game even though they are just merged skills, they are still in the game they just aren't individual, pointless skills. The same goes with Morrowind to Oblivion. Everyone was like, "OMG we lost 8 skills!" , which isn't true at all. Many of the lost skills were consolidated into the same skills and enchanting was turned into a universal system. They removed spears and levitation because they were heavily abused to make yourself OP, same goes for enchanting and thus is why they toned down enchanting in Oblivion. Removal of attributes doesn't mean ever character is the same, you still have health, magicka and stamina to alter and your perks and skills. I guarantee you can compare 50 players characters in Skyrim or Oblivion and none of them will be exactly the same.

Indeed, but they're more than just that, they're diplomatic flaming mutant frogs. :hehe:

They should definitely be added to Skyrim.

You do indeed have a point, as I prefer it as well. It's just that, for me, missing someone when you should be hitting them really fractured the immersion for me. If they had put in animations for dodging, then yeah, I would say Morrowind is the perfect RPG. As it is right now, it is very VERY close to that title.

Yet they do, there has never been an RPG that didnt have stats. From D&D to JRPGs to WRPGs, all have had stats and all were better for it. Ive never stated (yet), that Skyrim will be less of an RPG or anything, just that you have to have stats of some type for it to be an RPG. If you don't, then its an action/adventure game.

I didnt have the internet when i played morrowind or oblivion so my opinion wasnt swayed before hand, i disliked oblivion all by myself so your theory doesnt hold much weight.
And the only reason people compare oblivion with morrowind is because it was its sequal, of course people were going to compare it, particularly the things it removed or the things it did wrong that morrowind did right.



Stats determine what your character or party can or cannot do, that is what seperates it from an action game, in an action game the players skills are what matters, not the characters, this point is illustrated by the lockpicking minigame in oblivion, where I, the player can pick a very hard lock even though my character doesnt know the first thing about lockpicking.
So i stand by what i said, stats are necessary to determine what our characters in the game can and cant do.
Nice passive aggression in your post by the way.

This game has massive potential so 0% ?? I honestly believe that Skyrim will be my fav game of all time, just as oblivion is now. However greatest RPG of all time? Havn't played them all so can't say really.

No one truly knows what an RPG is. It's very clear, especially on these forums with all the craptastic Daggerfall vs. Morrowind vs. Oblivion and Fallout 1/2 vs. Fallout 3 vs. Fallout: New Vegas "debates". People think they know what an RPG is, think everyone else is wrong, and continue believing what they believe without a shred of evidence. I've never played a Mass Effect game, while I am at it. As for immersion, yes, immersion is kind of the point of playing a role, or role-playing. Immersion must be coupled with progression in power and influence, in my opinion, and that means I support the more realistic system presented by games that don't use those, in my opinion, awful dice rolls and permanently set classes. In addition, what you perceive as downsides to Morrowind, Oblivion or any other game are just that, what YOU perceive as downsides. Combat isn't my only problem with Morrowind, and neither is just graphics, or the fast-travel system, or the pace, or the, in my opinion, bland side quests, or the lack of buyable houses, or the limited containers, or the, in my opinion, non-atmospheric dungeons, or the lack of variation in gameplay, or the stealth system, or the, in my opinion, pathetic implentation of fatigue, or the low amount of interaction, or the leveling system, which I hate in Oblivion, too, by the way. No, no, no, I hate many, many things.

i kinda agree with the stats being what define a rpg. I looked it up on Wiki, and here is what it says:

+1

The one thing that defines RPGs as being RPGs are stats. Stats are the VERY FOUNDATION of RPGs, and if you were to take the stats out of an RPG, it would be just like every other game on the market. Imagine WoW or Diablo without stats. Or Fallout. Or even Final Fantasy. Those games would lose a lot of depth and replayability to them, no?

Also, how can you play a role in an RPG without something like stats DEFINING YOUR ROLE???

Ah yeah, that is better than my description, i agree with wiki.

Not sure where you think stats are what define an RPG though, that wiki quote makes zero mention of player stats.