I've heard the clamour on both sides. But, if I may, allow me to give a brief explanation as to why the relationships, occupations, and other features that are "non-essential" to the main quest.

The much floated word is Immersion. But, an equally apt phrase might be that these things aid in providing an Immersive and Viable Alternate Reaility. bliviongate:

All games offer a type of escapism. But the RPG, more than the typical adventure game, more than the typical film or even the typical novel, has the intention of offering a VIABLE and highly INTERACTIVE escapism. It offers an alternate reaility, where the player takes on a role more akin to what he or she might want to be but hasn't the means to be in real life: a powerful wizard, a mighty warrior, an expert thief, a professional assasin, a vastly wealthy Baron/Baroness with hordes of warriors at his or her disposal etc. It will also often offer a world/time that the player wants to live in or at least visit, but that is not accessible in their everyday world.

And the more realistic the social social features (friendships, plausible reations in conversation, plausible reactions to events, feats, deeds, status etc., romances, affairs, marraiges, occupations, negotiation, allegiances etc. etc. etc.) the more immersive the alternate reality becomes.

The noise about these features not "adding" to the overall story, aside from being erroneous, misses the point. All of these features are things that help MAKE a story. Certainly they help enormously in making a player's story more unique AND more verisimilitudinous. More realistic, in the level of immersion.

"But I can do these things in real life," or "But its not supposed to be like my regular life! I don't want cars in it!" are arguments that also, COMPLETELY MISS THE POINT. . . they also MISUNDERSTAND the intent. The game becomes a more viable escapism by becoming more viable; more "life-like". This does not mean the game becomes identical to your actual, everyday life. It means that THE IN GAME EXPERIENCE WILL BE MORE CONVINCINGLY THOROUGH, INCREASINGLY PLAYING AS THOUGH YOU WERE ACTUALLY A PERSON LIVING IN THAT GAME WORLD, AND FULLY ABLE TO EXIST AND INTERACT THEREIN" if you so choose, of course.

The thorough RPG allows for the player to escape, during their spare time, into an alternate reality, where they exist as a mighty warrior or warlock, not just hacking and slashing their way through a series of quests, puzzles, and plot points, but interacting with the world and being interacted with by the denizens of the gameworld. The relationships aren't about making friends and lovers in a game as if you didn't have them in real life. It is about ideals not present in your real life. You may BE married in your own life. But in game, you are a warlock, married to three Elf Princessess, living in a high tower overlooking Markath. Or whatever alternative it is that you have an interest in.

The more RPGs follow this example, and the better Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls that follow manage this, the more immersive they will be, and the more they will appeal to gamers. . . some of whom may well end up lost in them.

And of course, if you truly have no interest in such things, they remain optional. You can walk right past them and hack, slash and riddle solve your way to the end of the main quest just as you would have 20 years ago playing Link The Legend of Zelda.

I totally agree with the OP. The more elements in a game other than just killing stuff or questing, the more immersive my experience is, which explains my disappointment with so many other titles, except the Elder Scrolls of course :tongue:

I agree through and through. You're basically explaining immersion, and it can take effort from the game as well as gamer, same with the table top RPGs which hold a lot of the effort from the gamer but can be just as rewarding of an experience if the gamer is willing to be immersed. And, in my opinion, would probably be the most important for the person.

A dream can create this world for you too and it can become confusing with reality because of the almost total lack of conscious thought involved. I know I've had it where I awoke and was surprised where I was. The point being, immersion is best made when something is as believable as possible. A big reason why things like"friends" and "relationships" in these games help. Whereas glitches, imperfections like clipping, lack of proper physics and other inaccuracies can hinder that.

That post was kind of ironic....

Anyways, I agree OP... To some extent. I don't really care too much that marriage is in... Since I will have trouble finding that believable (NPC interactions), but the jobs? That is awesome.

While you may have a home, a wife and kids in real life, you can't leave your home to go slay dragons. How could this not be more immersive? The more realism the better, it makes it easier to RP in the G, not less.

Lol. True. Yet, To be fair, I sometimes feel compelled to let a poster know that I agree with their point, even if I have nothing to add.

I think you may have scared some people off with your deep contemplation on the subject.

Getting too engrossed in what you have suggested is a dangerous thing.
Though I do see what you are getting at.

Good read.

I would have to agree as well. These features can only add to the game, so I don't see why anyone can complain. I think many people forget that this is Bethesda's game, and they are nice enough to share.

I think something as simple as forming friendships in the game will go a long way. I don't know about the rest of you, but I get attached to in game characters fairly quickly (some times). Take Halo for example. If during a battle my actions cause the death of some marines, I tend to feel bad. Taking this to the next level and allowing you to get to know that individual will add a lot to the roleplayer. Especially if that friend has the potential to ruthlessly slaughtered by a raging dragon, or a group of bandits.

PS. For the record AinurOlorin, I always enjoy your posts. They are very constructive and informative, and usually provide what (I feel) these forums are lacking. Plus Olorin is the greatest character ever.

I completely agree. Will I use marriage? Maybe eventually. Does it add to the over all experience? Of course it does.
I've yet to see a single argument regarding marriage that isn't selfish.

It adds to the game, it further diminishes that line between games and reality, and I support the concept.

How I feel on the execution? Let's wait and see.

I deleted a couple of posts that were non-contributing. If you have nothing to say but some dismissive one word remark, or a nonsense sentence that says nothing, I strongly suggest you move along to find a topic you DO want to participate in. You probably think a snotty one word "sure/whatever" type of response is funny. You are wrong. (I also deleted the post that was off topic just questioning those posts.)

subtle ironic deadpan... lost on most.

But let me expand. I totally agree, the draw for most into such an escapism artform is not so much the amount of blood on your blade but the miles on your boots. Now a good long road well tred needs to have depth and investment. When looked back upon you should see where you've been and how you've effected those along the way. Key word THOSE because if it wasn't for the thousand of NPC's that bake your pies and serve your meads than, well Skyrim would be dark and lonely place indeed.

I remember in morrowind. I only ever sold my goods to a particular merchant in a shop on the lower east side of the river. If me and this mate could have had a richer relationship than just a menu box betwix us, they game would have been that much better.

Very true. And the RP allows you to rush out and protect your family and village from the rampaging dragon. ETC.

Social interactions make for a greater emotional investiment in the game. The more friendships I have in the village, the better my interaction with those people, the more relevant the act of saving them from fiery doom will be to me, and to most players, I expect.

I'm not in principle opposed to marriage, but I remain sceptical about how well it will be executed. If it is too clunky, I might prefer it if Bethesda had spent their time working on something else.

But jobs: yes, this strikes me as a major improvement. For all the ways that NPC behaviour in Oblivion was a substantial improvement over NPC behaviour in Morrowind, this was one area that I felt Morrowind did better than Oblivion. Of course, you didn't see the NPCs working in Morrowind. But there were mines, and NPCs in those mines. And NPCs would tell you about their jobs. In Oblivion, one would wonder "Where did all this money come from? How do all these people live?" Morrowind at least gave you some feeling that there was a working economy, and that the NPCs did more than just wander around [censored]ing about mudcrabs.

Agreed. And, thank you very much. And yes, he is an Awesome character. High praise to you for knowing the refference :tops: :foodndrink:

I agree with the op fully. I wish we had a bit more elaboration on how these activities occur. It would be nice to know prior to release but maybe stuff like this left up in the air until you put the disc in.(fire it up from steam in some cases) I hope this rabbit hole goes deeper then it appears to.

Thank you. And VERY WELL SAID! It might be redundant to say I agree to you agreeing with me. Lol. However, I really like your examples. And I fully empathize. I remember I always went back to Alsweel and visited with the Dark Elf in keeper there. It was the first sidequest I did, lifting the invisibility curse upon their village. I also made a point of always passing by to make sure no dangers were lurking along their stretch of road.

Long story short, Interaction leads to emotion which is key to deeper immersion.

Peace to you, Ainur. Good read, as always.

While I do respect the concerns of those who don't want Bethesda to include relationships unless they are "done well", I feel inclined to ask for someone to explain what kind of implementation of the marriage and relationships feature would satisfy you as a player? Not necessarily make you want to utilize that feature, as I'm sure its not going to be for everyone. Just...what would convince you that it wasn't a "waste of time and resources", as some have put it?

You made me laugh!
Its so true that such posts as these get purposely ignored, I myself sometimes feel ignored because i get the feeling that people just don't have way to answer back and decide to just ignore your statement in order to protect their own. Like for instance in all does threads about nudity you people being radically against it but seem to always forget to properly argument why.

I think it's great that they are adding these things. There are so many mods for past games that have tried to add things like this - look at all the companion mods that are out there. It'll be nice to have a system for it built in.

Zelda was immersive!!! Just as long as mundane things are left out. I don't want to clean my house in game because I'm procrastinating cleaning my house in real life by playing the game. Oh man. I think I'm caught in some sort of time warp bubble thingy.

The game that includes everything is a game that is worth 2 hours. Companies gotta make money to produce more games and every feature added technically means a feature is left out or not as polished. Role playing a household really doesn't add anything to the point of elderscrolls but it will sure take away valuable development time.

Solution, become a multi-millionaire and donate to create a huge game. I'm still working on the first part.

What about some of the arguments stated in Ainur's OP? Have you considered engaging any of them? I mean, instead of just saying, "role playing a household really doesn't add anything to the point of TES", perhaps you can try elaborating on what the "point of TES" is, and demonstrate how the inclusion of marriage and relationships contradicts that "point"?

I'll answer that for ya. But in my opinion, the inclusion of such features DOES NOT contradict the point. The point of TES is to lose yourself in another world, to be who you want to be, go where you want, and do what you want. The more we can do (marriage/friendship/relationships/jobs/etc.), the more we can be who we want to be and do what we want. Those who wanted to get married in a TES game can now do so without having to install a mod (I play on console) and can now have jobs (something I always wanted in Oblivion)

You have my support of donating millions to Bethesda. However I must disagree with your first statement. The Elder Scrolls motto: Live another life, in another world. The features mentioned in the OP add to this immensely, without detracting from anything else. It takes away from valuable development time? Somewhat true; It does take time to implement these features, and time could be spent on other things. HOWEVER, as stated before, this is Bethesda's game, the game THEY want to create. They can do whatever they like, and don't owe us anything. I like to compare it to an author writing a book. What if fans started demanding certain plots to play out a certain way in the Harry Potter series and got upset when certain things didn't happen the way they wanted? It would be absurd.

Well written OP!

People need to realize that The game isn't JUST about the main story- you can play it that way if you choose to, but you'd be missing out on all the details that make it more than a game. There are already enough games out there that solely dedicate theirselves to the main story- why not take Elder Scrolls to the level it was meant to play and explore every crevice, every option? You will? good.

It's Bethesda's job to give you all these options that have nothing to do with the plot, but have everything to do with playing an RPG.