I typed this up as a reply to a thread that got locked, and decided to post it anyways. Waste not want not, etc.

The topic was Skyrim being “soulless”.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1309579-skyrim-is-soulless/

Take the starting town of NV as an example. I can remember very clearly (and it's been a long time since I played that game) most of the NPCs there, due to their distinct personalities.

The doctor who had lost his wife. I managed to sweet talk him in to giving me extra medical supplies (a use of the speech skill that actually mattered and had some effect).

The hunter who taught me how to shoot and cook. She had a dog, it died while we were saving another woman from some Geckos, and she was devastated.

The old guy who liked to sit on the porch of the bar. He used to be a treasure hunter, and he didn't trust me enough to give me some explosives. Again, a speech test that mattered.

The bar owner. She had a broken radio. I had the option to be a complete dike to her when she started talking about it rather than the info I was after.

The shop keeper who cared more about his own safety than anything else.

The cowboy robot?

And there were MORE. Each with tons of dialogue.

Almost immediately there was the option of helping these people, forever becoming a hero to them (and it was reflected in what they said). Or siding with a gang of escaped convicts to wipe the town out, an act that would put me in good with their faction for later.

Fallout 3. Megaton. Even longer since I played.

The Sheriff. I killed him, stole his clothes, and lived in his house. His kid used to come down while I was sat at the table and say “You'll never be my father!” with real hatred in his voice. The rest of the town called me “Sheriff”.

The woman who wanted you help write her book. She was overly cheerful in a crazed kind of way, especially when sending you in to danger.

The ghoul bartender, the prosttute with attitude, the shady bar-owner, the guy wanting you to help nuke the place...EVERYONE in the bar. All memorable.

You could literally wipe the town off of the map.

Let's compare that with Whiterun. Sure, I know the NPCs, but only because I've seen them so often. I've talked to them, most only have one liners but a few did offer me some backstory. I've had no real interaction with the majority of them. What can I tell you about the battle-borns, one of the major families of the town? One has a moustache, and one likes to lean against buildings. I took out the Jarl in single combat, putting someone else on the throne...noone cared.

The NPCs in places like Rorikstead, I can't really recall at all, except in a blurry kind of way. One guy was the owner and...nope, that's it.

The only NPCs I've encountered who I really liked have been the Dark Brotherhood. All good, strongly written memorable characters. The moment you walk in on them for the first time and they're swapping stories was fantastic. They all have lots of dialogue updates depending on which stage of the quests you're on. Cicero is the man. Fact.

I don't expect every single NPC to be so finely detailed, but I don't think a few in each hold would be too much to ask. Those saying “TES has NEVER been like that!!11”. Well, maybe not. But this isn't whatever-year-it-was Daggerfall came out. Improvements are to be expected.

For the record, I love Skyrim. But let's all be honest about its flaws.

It's been well known that Beth does't make deep, soulful games.

I'm sure they got a lot they want to do with their next game. Improving the combat system is definitely a priority for them (considering all this "Dark souls" crap we've been hearing lately). I imagine that "adding deeper more soulful characters" is also on their to-do list considering all the flack they've been getting (especially on marriage). Beth is pretty unique in that they listen to their fans and they especially keep an eye on the most popular mods for their games.

Their dev team, as it stands, is more like "oh look at all these cool things you can do". They're not really big into making soulful chars.

I could understand that, if they hadn't been behind Fallout 3, which had excellent NPC interaction. The things that Skyrim does well, they're awe-inspiring, which makes the contrast with the things it doesn't do well all the more glaring. I just can't see why they'd take a step back from something they have managed in previous games.

Fallout only had like 20 quests.

That's really all there is to say about it lol

kinda surprised that thread got locked.

Threads only go for 200 posts as a rule.

It was at 300, so lock was inevitable.

The exploration, aesthetics, and detail of the world in Skyrim is amazing. But yeah I do agree that the rest is severely lacking. I miss the choices and consequences from Fallout: New Vegas, especially since it was the last game I played before picking up Skyrim.

I'm afraid that New Vegas is one of the last of it's kind. RPG's are a dying breed and they will soon be replaced by action/adventure games like Skyrim and Fable. People don't want to have to think about choices and consequences in a game, the majority just want to pull the left and right triggers on their controllers and see cool things happen on screen. Games like Mass Effect make me wonder why some game developers don't just create movies instead.

Regardless of it's faults though, I've enjoyed Skyrim for what it is - an action/adventure game. It's not the great RPG experiences I was hoping for but it does a few things really well (enough that I have put 250+ hours in the game). I still keep thinking about New Vegas though, and wonder what it would be like to side with the NCR next time, or make other choices throughout the game. It's choices like these that will keep me coming back to New Vegas for years to come whenever I have an itch to play a good RPG. Skyrim on the other hand I will probably turn to whenever I'm in the mood for an open world first person sword fighting game.

Those quests were crazy long, though. but that wasn''t really the point of FO3. Almost every place you discovered was a quest in and of itself, with interesting stuff to do and its own little story. It's playtime is up there with the big boys.

Still, much better than Oblivion, and specially Morrowind.

The problem is the voice acting. Skyrim is much bigger than Fallout, I mean, Megatown is suposed to be the bigest city in the area, and it must have half npc′s than Whiterun. With so much characters as you have in Skyrim its hard to make them all alive with meaningfull content.

less is somtimes more.

Is it me or does Oblivion have better facial expressions? When you talked to a character in Oblivion it zoomed in on the faces, and you could see on their face if they were mad, happy, excited etc. In Skyrim, there is no emotion really, some voices alter slightly but not to any large effect. True Oblivion had a more comic line with the voice acting,attacking threats, 'stop right there criminal scum!',and such but they could have varied Skyrim a little more. Skyrim looks and plays great but the quests and npc seem to have suffered.

YOU COULD DO THAT TO THE SHERIFF.... Im so going to reinstall fo3 whenever i beat skyrim .. which will probably be in a few years.
also im convinced that that that crazy women writing the book has the same voice actor as the person who specializes in restoration magic at the college of winterhold



one of my my favorit things about them.. is they wern't afraid to say "hey... yea... we played this mod for archery in oblivon, and it was WAAAAAAAAAAY better than what we had originaly had in the game, so... you know.... its inspired the new system in skyrim"

im also excited for the "steam workshop" thing.. i think they will probably be able to easier see what mods get downloaded the most... so if 90% of the people who have the game download a mod that adds spells. they can be like "hey the next game/dlc should have more spells"

Just did a search.

Whiterun has 42 NPCs.

Megaton has 27, not counting the numerous filler "settler" NPCs.

I don't think that's really a huge difference, if you consider that a lot of Whiterun only has one liners.

I'm not saying that all the characters have to have some life to them, but just SOME would have been really nice. Scattered here and there,

Sometimes less is more. In particular if less means more fleshed, consistent and inter-related quests, characters and locations.

Word.

If Skyrim had better character development, I would have squirted tears of joy. I like some of the characters of Skyrim, but I loved some of the characters from Fallout 3/Fallout: New Vegas.

I disagree with you one hundred percent, there were a whole maybe 5 full towns in new vegas and fallout 3, that is why they could put more detail into the chracters, there are MANY MANY more towns in skyrim, and the game isnt nearly as ridiculously broken as NV or fallout 3. No to mention the OODLES of more quests in Skrim versus fallout 3 and NV. NV was a joke actually, a really really bad joke.

Another thread on this! Let's see if I can clarify a bit the matter...

Fallout = C&C &
TES =/= C&C =>
TES =/= C&C

Skyrim = TES =>
Skyrim =/= C&C

Don't ask for a non core feature of TES games and then complain if Its not there.

It seems this game is maybe playable 2x whereas Fallout 3 and NV was replayable many times because of nonlinier quests and charater Dev options.

Yet a single playthrough will last you for 3 or 4 times as much, and you're assuming you have the need of exploring all the possible outcomes of a quest/questline.

Daggerfall had over 750,000 NPCs. Every single one of them had more to say than the vast majority of NPCs in Skyrim. They said the same things, perhaps, but that's still better than saying nothing at all... and especially repeating the same thing over and over and over and over... and over. I'm about to take the arrows from their knees and shove them down their throats!

Voice acting or not, there's no excuse for lack of dialogue... none whatsoever. Bethesda had the time and the money. If they didn't want to commit to it, then they should have stuck with text. They're already using text to deliver quests from couriers and wandering mercenaries. In that sense, it doesn't feel too different from Daggerfall.

Yes, because every game in a series should be like the last and never add new features. What kind of person even wants character development in an rpg anyway? Damn fools that they are.

That's just silly. And that's putting it nicely.

They're taking core features like spellcrafting out, while adding new features like dual wielding. As long as they're changing the game up like that, people have every right to ask that C&C be one of the features they want added in. And to be disappointed when it isn't one of them.

fallout NV is infinitely more replayable. ive done all the guilds, every side quests i could find, all but one of the daedric quests cause i cant find the last one and both sides of the civil war and the main quest. there is literally nothing in skyrim that beacons me to come back other than mods and future DLC. with fallout 3 and NV im always wanting to go back and do more things and try different ways of doing stuff. ive done all the questlines in that game but im still not bored of NV and im going to pop in fallout 3 as well since you can now play them both at the same time with the same character with the requiem mod. :drool:

Skyrim is the best single player Fantasy roleplaying game of this multiplayer era. Sorry, I don't know what kind of options there were in the Fallouts, but I can't get into roleplaying that isn't fantasy. Even at a young age I couldn't play more than 5 hours of Final Fantasy VII because it strayed too far from the genre and the Hobbit world I fell in love with.

Is it wrong to ask for core features of the series to actually stay intact?




A single playthrough of Daggerfall could last you... umm, is there even a mathematical equation to answer that? You couldn't even experience the entire game without MANY playthroughs.

So is this going to come down to a quantity or quality comparison? I'm not taking anything away from Skyrim. It is what it is. But it won't hold up well to either comparison.