This game needs a serious overhall in the character department. Every single person I do quests for is completely forgotten within minutes after our relations are finished. After playing for 40 hours I can only remember two characters and the only reason I remember them is becaus they followed me around: lydia and gollidir. Everyone else is either the thane of this town or guild memeber with blue skin or shop keep owner. None of these characters have any sort of conflict or interesting stories, at least interesting enough to stick. I finished the companion guild, half way through Mage and theives guild and I can't remember a single characters name or what they stood for in the world.

I think there are two reasons this problem occurs:
1. The characters are just bland stereotypical video game nobodies filling up space just fo the sake of being there.

2. The vastness of the game dilutes the importance and meaning of the characters.

As dialog driven as this game is they could do alot better. Maybe it has something to do with the fact my character is pretty much a mute and can't effectively probe the world through drama.

For the next game take some notes from game of thrones or lord of the rings. Stories that are very character heavy while maintaining the gravity of their personalities and motives.

The Dark Brotherhood quest chain is enjoyable. Though it does have a few filler missions.

I have to disagree. I have found many a memorable character.

Spoiler about the civil war



So yeah, that was within the first couple of hours of play, I've met some memorable people.

It also might be the lack of animation and facial expression. Sometimes I think they should look more excited or sad or happy but they all carry around the same kind or eexpressionless face. Yeah I havnt done the dark brotherhood line yet.

I swear I like characters in other game or a least remember them like deus ex, metal gear, uncharted

See I did that part of the civil war and I felt no empathy for doing it. I'm just thinking yeah there's like 10 other jarls just like who almost look exactly like you and sound exactly like you and even say almost the exact same things. Maybe next time seperate the towns using themes. Towns and their residents should have some type of common goal that very different from the next town down. Sure it's a massive amount characters but they are all flat.

More talented writers and animators would be nice. Please try capturing te emotion of the voice actors too.

What town do you know of that has a theme? Where every citizen is united in a single goal? Just because you feel nothing does not mean the game lacks.

I've found MANY characters that are some of the best I've seen.

Mercer Fray, Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl Balgruuf, Hadvar, etc.

That's more than I can say for most games. And besides, TES has never had incredibly deep, meaningful, and interesting stories. They have the best lore of ANY video game, movie, or book universe, however.

other games hav def invoked more feeling through character development like the sadness I felt for snake as an old man running out of time or in sotc with Afro. This game lacks in feeling nothing feels genuine it's all forced.

Themed town are all over the place in fantasy lit
like I said game of thrones or lotr are prime example of talented writers using a fantasy setting and fleshing out the stories and characters.

I bet those games are not of the scope of Skyrim either. I bet that emotion came while watching a cut scene. I'm pretty sure fantasy lit can do a whole hell of a lot more in describing emotion than a game. Comparing Skyrim to a book or tv show is ridiculous, especially a set of books along the lines of those. you demand to much from the game.

The difference is that those are books/movies, not games. They don't have to have dozens of characters in each city, because they don't even focus on them. You can't tell LotR to talk to that guy in the background that's just standing around. You CAN in TES, so they can't make as much depth. Not to mention that there's a lot more space to cover in general in TES, and they need to spend time on gameplay and the world first, and writing second.

For an open-world, sandbox RPG, Skyrim has MANY memorable characters. Enough to rival linear games like Mass Effect, which has a focus on writing and characters.

I have also noticed many memorable characters. i remember many characters by name with interesting personalities. true many people are just faces with copied scripts, but many characters are unique with their own stories, motives, personalities, and position. i think its just about slowing down to take in all the details, instead of rushing through to finish all the questlines. if you talk to somebody twice strictly for business and then never converse with them again youre probably not gonna remember their name.

For me, "memorable character" in TES games roughly translates to; a ) Vivec; b ) Somebody who is really [censored] annoying.

Character development isn't Beth's strong suit.

I guess I just have no imagination and should go play CoD. :rolleyes:

How about gta4 vice city San adreas all have memorable conflicted characters. Mass effect def has more memorable characters and a customizable main chracter.

People would have taken your argument seriously, had you not just mentioned games with completely different focuses than TES.

I agree, there does need to be a bit more character development, but it shouldn't be the main focus.

It aint Mass Effect dude.

Skyrim has a thousand times more interactios with quest related NPC's.

I think people need to be a little more realistic with their expectations.

Again, you get the emotion through cut scenes. Dedicated screen time where the entire character acts. Skyrim doesn't have that. You also cannot talk to 90% of the people in GTA games, they are even more mindless than the characters in Skyrim.

While It's true that there are not many character centric stories going on (They focus more on the lore, etc.), It's also true that there have never been such in TES games, and this may very well be the TES game with the biggest ammount of "interesting" characters: Arngeir, Ulfric, Erikkur, Tulius, Galmar, Esbern, Delphine, Cicero, Balgruf, Eliseif...

PS.: I might have screwed It with some names, but you know who I mean.

I've always felt the TES games are about your character. If they put to much more into the other characters it would be about them.

Yeah, that's more like a Fallout thing (Baldur's Gate also went down that path, minding RPGs). I also found Vivec to be an interesting character, but he doesen't do a single thing in the whole game, the only apporach you make to him is reading the two versions of the battle of the Red Mountain and killing him (or not). One more proof of TES games being lore-centric: It's not about reating a novel, speaking of fantasy, like aSoIaF does, but rather building the world arround more simple yet "beliavable" happenings (Closer to tLotR, maybe the Silmarillion more so).

Seconded. I know Lydia and Ulfric. That's it.

However, Bethesda's not known for their story and character development. This is the equivalent of asking Bioware to create a sandbox world. They just can't do it. Bethesda's niche is sandbox RPGs.

Mods may fix this.



There's a more simple explanation for this: the characters don't recur enough. Once you've finished their allotment of quests, you have absolutely no reason to interact with them ever again. I'd like to see characters periodically seek you out, or have one or two quests 'in stock' to give you when you reach a high enough level or fulfill some kind of prerequisite (e.g. get the Attractive perk in the Speech skill tree). Or they can do something as simple as wander throughout their region/town. Usually, it's the no-names that do this. I'd like to see important NPCs going about their lives- shopping, training, travelling, discussing.

There's only so much you can put on one disc, though.

Mods may fix this.



No, thanks. I don't want another DA2. Instead, I'd suggest Bethesda look to Gothic 1 and 2. Those games were almost, almost perfect in their depiction of a fantasy, medieval setting and characters.

Balgruuf, Tulius, Ulfric, Hadvar, Ralof, Paarthurnax, Cicero.

Seven characters off the top of my head who are memorable. There might be a few more in the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild, but I haven't finished them yet. If you were expecting someone as memorable as Vivec, Helseth, Mannimarco or Divayth Fyr, I'm sorry.

As I stated, those characters were as intrincated as you imagined them to be. No matter what, chars in TES games appear briefly and henceforth leave few memories, being the game as a whole what really makes up for It (I am now remembering that orc knight in Cheydinhall, for some reason).

Well, I have to admit that in Oblivion you do all the work and in the end, Martin gets the credit. lol