I am somewhat disappointed that in such a beautiful detailed and majestic world, I am given virtually no choice in what type of character I play. In this context I am referring to attitude, morality, personality etc. The extent of my control is essentially that I can choose weather to undertake a quest or not. I can perform small actions outside the scope of a quest to "color" the experience such as pickpocketing individuals to add an "evil" undertone, but there are no substantial decisions to make which affect the outcome of the quests or the path you follow. I'm aware there are a few exceptions but they are few and far between. Undoubtedly someone will try to point to these few quests (I'll start - "In My Time of Need" for example). Frankly these type of quests are a rare treat compared to the onslaught of absolutely 100% linear quests. To claim otherwise is to demonstrate that you have not played very much of the game at all, or you are one of those users who defend Bethesda and Skyrim at all costs against all arguments.

I don't want to delve into the realm of spoilers, but if you have played a substantial amount of the game ask yourself this simple question: How many times have you "selected" a dialogue option which was the only option available? Even when there are multiple options, a majority of time time there is only one selection that "advances" the quest dialogue, the others are just a little flavor dialogue.

Can't you leave the convo? Just press the exit button and you're out. And for the good and bad part...we need karma back!

I guess I'm the opposite. I like the dialog options in TES games. I think many other games over-do it. I really don't need to spell out to people that I'm evil and I strongly disagree with *blank* or whatever the case may be. It seems more realistic like this.

I have one that happened recently to me

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This screwed over my Holy Warrior role-playing more than you can imagine.

The role playing part of this game, even the plot, is weak. The rest is so-so. I had high expectations for this game. They blew it up. Obsidian made a better game with New Vegas, but the lags were inexcusable. Skyrim would've been so much more with their writers. And what's the deal with removing so many skills that people loved to use in the older instalments? Sure, the game is beautiful and all, but it feels like an empty shell. You don't role play your character, the game plays it for you. You're the dovahkiin, a role pretty much defined at the very beginning of the game. The rest doesn't really matter, I guess because people just ignore what you are in the game. The fame and infame system doesn't exist anymore and the radiant system is just lacks the depth some of gamesass Games used to had.

Excellent example. And yes, you can leave dialogue options for the most part (sounds like maybe you couldn't there) but as I said there should be more available than simply walking away or abandoning quests. Although this is a reasonable approach in some ways (If you want to be a righteous character, just don't play the thief guild quests for example), there should be some options during quests to express your character's personality. Not that I even care about the Karma system itself so much as the choices and options that fueled the Karma system.

I'm a huge Bethesda fan-boy but I don't have any problem admitting they need more quest branches and more quests in general. I doubt the reason is ignorance or laziness on their part and is probably primarily owing to financial constraints: it's expensive to pay actors to do thousands of lines in the studio, and expensive to have testers test every possible branch. It's disappointing but no game is perfect.

ES games have never really been about this kind of choice though. The series has always been about roaming the open world and seeing the sights, defining your character through their experience rather than their choices.

The problem, if you perceive it as such, is that with Oblivion and onwards, and the move towards more action-RPG mechanics, there is really very little in-game limit as to what the character can and can't do, and the only means of defining that character is through the player enforcing an external handicap on themselves ("I'm role-playing a thief so therefore I won't join the Companions") The game itself offers little scope for developing a character within its own world and framework.

But of course, that's kinda Skyrim's main design objective "go where you want, be who you want to be" -- and also by extension 'at any moment, without restriction'.

Personally I'm with you, but I don't think its necessarily a total 'oversight' on the part of Bethesda that that's how the game works.

It's true. You are given a handful of dialogue options and usually 3/4 of them are fluff. I guess Beth wanted to keep it kind of linear because they want the story to flow well into the next installment. I mean, you cant have massive story line shifts and ~5 different endings when you are essentially the second coming of Christ.

The way that they approach dialogue in TES is too try and not get in the players way too by putting ANY words in the players mouth.

Do you really need to rationalize you're actions to the npc's too play haw you want?

Completely true issue, and a valid complaint. Anyone who disagrees with this is clearly delusional and doesn't know how RPGs work.

To be completely honest, I'd be fine if the conversations ended up in the same place as now; either you accept their task or you don't.

What I don't like is having it be completely one-sided and not having any input on how it develops.

Perhaps I want to extort the quest giver, or convince him of his wrongs, or disagree with his moral standings. It would all (for the most part) end in either doing the quest or not. The only difference is walking away with the illusion of having shaped the world.

I believe this is something TES could benefit from.

I found the lack of Speech options just lame as well. For example there is one quest in the main quest line which I won't spoil but it invovled talking to a lot of people at once. That would have been a perfect speech oppurtunity and they didn't use it. Then after that quest you are tasked with killing a certain someone for a certain faction which if you don't do it then they won't help you again another perfect optortunity for speech and they didn't implement it.

Speech while I guess people didn't like it in Oblivion is just forgotten in Skyrim which a better option of just punching the crap out of each other and that is just flat out lame. I hope they dlc this problem away. There is no reason why dlc can't change the over all map instead of just creating an isolated area. Anyway maybe that will just be a pipe dream.

That's fine for people who play the game once and follow the MQ. What about the rest of us? TES games used to be about making your own damn adventure!

Erm...

I don't need to vocalize my character's personality. To do so actually doesn't make sense. People don't do this in the real world. It's just not realistic.

However, if someone I'm talking to says something unfavorable and I walk away, that's something that happens in the real world. I think the role you're playing in this RPG is a very unrealistic one and anyone who disagrees is clearly disillusioned and doesn't know how human interaction works.

Beth never really did branching quests/ dialogue until FO3.

It's a great game, but I'm disappointed with this as well. My hope was that Bethesda took a few things from Obsidian's New Vegas and give us lots of dialogue choices. The dialogue is a huge reason why people liked New Vegas over Fallout 3.

i like how bioware handle the dialogues in DA2 (event thought that game sux), it doesnt change the outcome though, but it helps "define " your character through conversation

Its like every other ES. Where the choices and options come from what you decide to do, or not to do. Not from dialogue.

We need branching quests...you know: You retrieve item A for a Wood Elf and you have the option of giving it back to them or selling it to some guy. And for the quests that aren't like that and actually involve deeper interaction, really branch out into multiple paths. I understand it's impossible to do so for dungeon trawling quests but really? In the three guilds I've done (College of Winterhold, Dark Brotherhood, and Companions), you get very little choice in the quests.

Yeah I understand you can choose certain dialogue options but it doesn't change the outcome. You become Guildmaster of the faction. What I wanted was some depth to that. You know, based on your choices, you would be restricted from accessing certain features and gaining ones that were previously inaccessible. For example: In the College of Winterhold quest, how about giving you the option to help the bad guy or at the very least, the option to do stuff differently.

Or heck, in the Dark Brotherhood, why not give the option to not listen to the Night Mother and rather Astrid and her family. JUST GIVE ME SOME OPTIONS BETHESDA!

But still, it's just a rotten apple in a sea of gold. It's irritating but still doesn't tarnish the game that much.

She did deserve it to be honest. A person who treats kids like that doesn't deserve to be breathing. <_<

No Elder Scrolls game has ever had branching dialogue. Heck, Morrowind and Oblivion had wiki-dialogue with only the rare...very very rare opportunity to select an actual response. As far as branching quests...the only Elder Scrolls game to have that was Daggerfall's main quest, that's it afaik (EDIT: Oh and Bloodmoon).

I agree that Skyrim should have done it better if only because Bethesda did get some experience with dialogue in Fallout 3 they never had in the past. Skyrim has persuasion skill checks, that's a pretty big step forward (even if it is usually made meaningless by bribing).

But let's not pretend like The Elder Scrolls has ever had good dialogue.

I think a lot of Skyrim felt rushed and incomplete. It's a great game, but unfortunately the linearity of the quests and a few other things give it a lower replay value than previous games.

Even if TES games aren't really about that kind of choice (and i have to force down some bile just to type that), there's no excuse for railroading a character to a pre-defined quest outcome. Either by putting words in the character's mouth, or by force scripting events to happen one way and one way only. "Do the quest" or "Don't do the quest" are really the only options. Completely unacceptable in a roleplaying game.

Sure she deserved it, but that isn't what I was getting at.

It becomes increasingly apparent how characters that may do similar quests (say for example a humble warrior and a scandalous barbarian joining the companions) have the same personality. It may do well-enough for only a handful of character archetypes, but as your character numbers increase, the limited personality for each of them is magnified.

Again, I'm not claiming TES has ever done this, but I do feel it is something that would be of great benefit to the series.