I'm sorry, what?

By comparison to the earlier games in the series, Oblivion WAS very superficial. That is kind of the point. Skyrim will probably be a very pretty, very fun FPhacker action game with very little in the way of actual depth.

Hey now, CoD has its place. Well, everything prior to MW2 and with the exception of anything made by treyarch (because the last good game they made was Die by the Sword.).

I like Call of Duty but these guys definitely shouldn't be talking about Skyrim.

Obviously not big RPG guys, when talking about TES they're only saying how it needs to be more accessible than Oblivion and has to have better graphics. I hate simplistic fools like that, they're ruining my favorite series.

They say this stuff and Bethesda goes "NO! We need to make it easier!"

You are picking out stuff you want to pick out. They also criticized the old engine and believe that is one of the reason that the graphics wasn't as good in their opinions. They also recognized that the TES did things that no other games were doing at the time. Oblivion in my opinion did an awesome job on the forest and the climate, but I think that the way the people look could have been better and have little more variety. At least three of the guys that were talking in the video are strong RPG players.

Very little in actual depth? I'll tell you what's superficial, your knowledge of Skyrim.

How do you even read that into it? Firstly, the one who said he didn't like Oblivion said he loved Fallout 3. Secondly, he was disparaging the beginning of Oblivion as being not very accessible, which it wasn't. Oblivion's starter dungeon is boring as hell.

Also, you aren't understanding the difference between accessibility and pure simplification. Nothing would be more simple for Bethesda than just adding a whole bunch of stats with titles and having them run everything. That isn't very accessible though. They need to balance complex mechanics with accessibility.

Sure, it's going to have more depth than CODBlops, but I was speaking in relative terms to previous games in the series and making an estimation based on the trend of games in general and TES specifically in the last decade.

And anyway, EVERYONE'S (excepting devs and a handful of others) knowledge of Skyrim is superficial at this point. Don't be silly.

That was sarcasm I hope. Right?

wow these critics really love CoD imo a terrible game compared to the battlefield series, anyways to stay on topic they talked about the elder scrolls not having the best graphics? i thoguht oblivion had amazing graphics for its time. In all honesty these critics clearly are biased

In terms of previous games Skyrim has potential to surpass them all.The only one it pretty much hasn't surpassed yet is daggerfall, and then we have to discuss what exactly we mean by depth. Depth in what area.

Its rather simple... ob takes quite some time to get you to anyplace that doesnt svck. It also makes you choose a bunch of stuff before new players know what the bleep they are choosing. And lets be honest most birthsigns were crap. and alot of skill choices were crap too.

Take out the crap and the svck and make sure ALL the early choices are good.. and tada you have accessible...

New players understand magic elf is good for magic character.. sneaky woodelf is good for sneaky character.. nord is fighter. Its something they already know well from movies.

And now by the time you can actualy make important choices you will know what your doing even if you were totaly new to elder scrolls when you started.

Oh and also the random ugly button didnt help either....

Anyway with the way skyrim seems to be set up they should be able to get a few million more players maybe more specaily if the early area looks very nice.

It does look alot like Oblivion, to me.

I heard accessable a couple dozen times, as though MW and Ob were too hard. Now, if you want to call the beginning of Ob too drawn out then I am happy to agree, but not accessable? It's not like it was complicated, just too long winded. MW was just fine. A quick interview and you are playing a new character in 10 minutes or less. I have always enjoyed the process of character creation so I like putting some thought into my character at the beginning.

It comes down to this, will Skyrim's improved accessability come down to a better way of creating interesting characters in an interesting world or will it be a sop for those who lack the attention span to think through a character for more than two minutes before playing the game.

I don't know - neither do you - we'll find out in about 6 months.

I actually think the whole accessibility thing has to do with how quickly you're actually in the game. In both Morrowind and Oblivion you could spend a good amount of time in the character creation beginning, and then came the unskippable tutorial (in OB's case). Now part of who your character is in skyrim will be much more unfolded through how you play, so Skyrim basically jumps over that step, and bring the player faster into the world. It basically makes character creation part of interacting with the world. Sure this was sort of also in the past games, but now with the focus on specialization, and in general choices having a much larger impact on who you are, it becomes much more essential. No more jack-of-all-trades, no more is the difference between a fire mage and a frost mage, simply a label and a spell animation, fire and frost now have different properties and act like actual elements. Same with sword, axe, or mace user, depending on what you excel in, it will basically change what strategy is best, and through that completely change playstyle.

Anyways, this is why when they say that it will be more accessible, yet still be a hardcoe rpg, I actually believe them. You're quickly in the game, and the game is deep, with lots of paths your character can go down, but it's not thrown at you all at once, you gradually move to the deep end of the pool, while learning how to swim.

Sure Skyrim has the potential to surpass them all, but I sort of doubt we'll see that realized. Oblivion had that potential too, so will the next one. Depth I think, should be found in all areas of a game. If the game has a really great combat animations, and really solid controls and a complex control layout that allows you to parry, block, dodge, disarm, trip, suplex ect. ect. ect. but has a storyline that railroads you into a single course of action with no options for role playing can you call that a deep RPG?

I would say depth requires a number of things. Quality and quantity of content, quality of storytelling, game mechanics that are coherent, fun and detailed enough to create a rewarding learning curve.

My impression, and what seems to be the case in most of the games I grew up loving (see Tribes and TES franchises) "accessible" seems to imply dumbing down the gameplay to essentially remove the learning curve and grant instant gratification for the lowest common denominator.

Hopefully I will be surprised by Skyrim, but every time they mention "removing skills to eliminate redundancies" or something of that nature, my hope is diminished. I for one want redundancies, multiple ways to approach the same problem and skills that aren't necessarily going to help me slay monsters, but could be fun to play around with. Furthermore, I don't want practice with a dagger to magically make me highly skilled with a longsword.

For me, the most appealing part of TES has always been the openness and the options (with consequences). It seems that every new game since daggerfall has been getting prettier and taking options (and consequences of your choices) away.

(Edit: Having read your latest post, you may have restored a bit of my hope about consequences.)

That said, I'm sure it will be a fun game that I will put a lot of time into. Bethesda has yet to make a TES game that I didn't enjoy on it's own merit. The problem I have is the trend toward simplification and mainstream appeasemant that has transformed a detailed rpg into something more akin to an action/adventure game.

True, I think this is because TES is unique among Rpgs, in that it isn't just an rpg, it's a blend of first person, sandbox, action rpg., and so don't have the same conventional choices, it's always been about go where you want, do what you want, most rpgs have scripted choices/consequences, (which have it's advantages), whereas TES is more a fluid world which you can poke, and it pokes back as a response.



Well I could make a case that Oblivion really isn't as simplified as people want to believe, but it did have things about it that was unappealing. Most people look at progression from OB to Skyrim, when they should factor Fallout 3, and shivering isles into it, since Fallout 3 did a lot of improvements, and as such I see the trend beginning to turn the other way. Skyrim appears to actually be the first where you have a game that's "easy" to jump into (for first time TES players), but deep, for those who know what they're doing.