I've played both Morrowind and Oblivion like many people I was hooked onto the idea of an sandbox fantasy game where you could be anyone and do anything. But after playing each one extensively I realize that while you can do so much in each game, there's very little reason to do it

Does anyone else get the feeling? You can loot dungeons, join guilds, steal stuff and level up but if I was in the situation of my character I would honestly just steal an deadric sword, sell it buy a house and live a nice peaceful life. I feel that the game should incorporate some element to make a necessity to level up, loot dungeons, join guilds, do quests or you would die. Simple as that.

In Oblivion there were many random dungeons around and basically they were means of leveling and loot, but leveling just meant to game got harder and loot was only as useful as the stuff you could buy with it. But what if the player was forced to level up and become stronger and you needed money to survive (much like you do in real life).

My idea is that basically throughout the game, there's an shady organization that wants to kill you, and you must level up so you can fend of their increasingly vicious attempts at your life and money is an absolute necessity so you can afford the means to defend yourself,

Okay.

I agree to a degree that there isn't always enough motivation to want to level up or too want to complete quests as there wasn't enough of an impact on the world or the people in it.....

.....but I don't agree with having an organisation hunt you down throughout the game to test you, that would be too..... premeditated and planned to be good.

Not an organization again, please. I hated those mercenaries in Fallout 3.

Dragons is not a motivation enough to level up and become strong enough to kill them?

It's called the main quest end of the world your the hero motivation.

If your not main questing it then no there no motivation in rp your fantasy apart your it being your own bit. There could be more reasons to be certain things or do certain things but that's a very wide topic from in depth companions to long term guilds and business ect ect

I don't think you need a motivation to level up, what you need in TES is not being penalised because of leveling up. Oblivion fails horribly at this, but this has been fixed since then.

If you were your character, it sounds like you're not all that motivated and adventuring isn't for you.

I don't ever want to play a game where at any time I become so powerful that everything is easy. If it is easy, you don't feel like a hero, and if you're not going to feel like a hero, why play at all?

What is this I don't even :cryvaultboy:

I think it's perfect the way it is in morrowind and somewhat in obliivion lol

So you want to take the sandbox aspect of the game and give it an urgent purpose? This would effectively ruin exploration for me which is deeply rooted in going the opposite direction the story points me. No thanks, some of us actually like the largely non-story related world.

Personally I think they should give you more of a reason to explore. Like when I found that village where everyone was invisible...That was a really fun quest. But they should do a variety of things from finding treasure, to finding a damsel in danger. Or sense dragons are now in maybe find a Dragons Lair filled with treasure, and many dead warriors. These things would be awesome.

Well, that would screw Todd Howard's motto: "Be whoever you want, do whatever you want."

They tried this (the urgency to do something) in oblivion half-way (the mainquest) & made that game kind of unbelievable with the daedric invasion.
I really hope they do something different this game (even SI's mainquest was like that - the appearing Jyggalag-gates)

Sandbox is a double-edged sword in this respect, and it's a very interesting issue. I'm surprised I haven't seen it discussed here in detail before.

I think the most important thing to maintain is interactivity, and a sense that the world can happen to the player character, not just the other way around. People talk so much about consequences in RPGs, and often forget that without cause there is no effect. Linear RPGs can cheat, and steer the whole course of the PC's life if necessary. PnP RPGs and multiplayer CRPGs based on them can take advantage of the presence of a Dungeon Master, which can mean anything from a black cat crossing the PCs' path, to rocks falling and killing the whole party(!), at any given moment.

Single player, open world sandbox CRPGs have it rough by comparison. Ironically, level scaling is part of the solution, in that enemies you can't overcome -- particularly those you need to overcome -- are the most basic reason to advance a character in an action-oriented RPG. Oblivion, unfortunately, just utilised level scaling in precisely the wrong way, by effectively making greater character power result in less ability to advance and explore in relative safety.

But I believe Skyrim's got at least one secret weapon - of the hostile, flying, fire-breathing, artificially intelligent variety.

I don't approve of artificially forcing the player into motivating scenarios, on the other hand, because the simple beauty of a sandbox RPG is that it largely plays the way you want it to. In TES, "peaceful flower-picking alchemist" is just as valid a character concept as "fearless dragon slayer"; the player's motivation to advance -- and ultimately, to play at all -- is the most important factor, but many players don't need anything more than their imaginations to continue to do just that.

lol

dude it means ur bored its perfectly normal

I got the feeling of Oblivions dungeons to be useless, since every one was almost the same, but not im Morrowind.

I agree there should be something to motivate you, but not quite this.

Motivation and freedom doesnt have to cancel eachother out, nor should it. Even if a wide open sandbox game is focusing on giving you as much freedom as possible, you should still be given motivation to make decisions.

I never lacked motivation to do stuff in morrowind, but I sure did in Oblivion. It felt completely pointless to run around and discover things, the dungeons had little purpose of cleaning out and a massive amount of quests gave you little to nothing.

When I say pointless I mean that they almost don't help your character to advance forward or become better in anyway, be that by leveling up, earning money, gaining knowledge, gaining friends/reputation or gaining valuable items/weapons/armor.


As much as I love exploring, I still need a reason to do it other than "it's nice to wander around and enjoy the nature". For example, in morrowind I loved to explore, not only because the design of the world was awesome, but because it was thrilling to find new quests, new dungeons or new villages and cities, or if I was lucky, some hidden unique powerful items, deep inside a dungeon or by some hidden and long quest.


In Oblivion I was like that at first, but the more I explored and the more quests I took the less interesting it got, because almost every dungeon was just filled with nothing but wolves and worthless chests. And most quests only have you enough gold to be able to repair the items that got damaged by doing the quests, or maybe I got an item that was worse than what I already had. Just continously collecting ingredients from farms was the most effective way to gain money, and continously beating your horse was the best way to make your character better. And getting the best armor in the game was to simply get to level 20 as fast as possible, and suddenly every NPC in the game is wearing glass and daedric armor and weapons.




I don't like your idea, but I do want it to be more rewarding to do quests and exploring. I'm certain they will not dissapoint me.

I felt that just experiencing what was in Morrowind and Oblivion was enough to motivate me. Seeing thing's different from reality, escaping into another world. I can't say I ever felt like I lacked motivation in either game. There again, I'm not too fond of reality so, maybe those worlds just held a different level of appeal to me than to you.

The organization idea of you constantly having to keep on your feet doesn't strike me as a good idea, but that's just my opinion. To me that sounds like everyone who plays the game would be forced to at some point play the same way and not be able to go about their own thing's without having limits in place that arn't very strict, but still exist. Talking limits, I like the idea of 'the further out you go the harder it is', but people trying to roleplay in general could find themselves interrupted, though minor it's there. Constant contradictions in this though as with the AI you do find some thing's happening before you that you had no input on which can equally interfere with people just roleplaying a life. It could also cause issues with peoples 'class' types they are choosing to play as, archers might find it harder to deal with an organization sending waves after you while a warrior might not, but that's me thinking of this organization idea as being a fixed style of challenge and not one that caters to your play style. Too many ways to look at it really to have a solid opinion.

I wasn't fond of the mercaneries that come after you in Fallout: New Vegas because more often than not I found myself not being able to deal with them because of my choice of using light firearms the majority of the time and running away only to have them slay the people I ran towards. Found myself trying to avoid open areas or purposely going out armed to the teeth after knowing they are currently in 'find mode', but that sort of thing forces peoples hand into playing a certain way otherwise they can't win or will struggle alot. Again though, an answer to this would be, "you caused trouble, you deserve the hassle".

I talk too much, I know, but I saw an opening to share my opinion on motivation in videogames and having people come seek you out pushing you to progress at the same speed as other players.

...Then play a character that isn't yourself. How dreadfully boring all TES games would be if everyone just played themselves as accurately as possible. Of course most people would just try to live a simple life without adventuring and all that, that's why the vast majority of NPCs simply stay in one city or travel back and forth between two or something like that. The whole point of Elder Scrolls games is that you are playing an exceptional person, someone who isn't like the average person in today's society.

There are endless possibilities of motivation as to why you do what you're doing, it is your fault that you cannot come up with one on your own.

You know you can RP in a RPG.

I don't really like the idea of making leveling up urgent because you are being hunted. If anything, TES really stands out as the game you can play at any pace you damn well please and that's an aspect I really like about. Even though I usually play at a pretty high pace compared to most other players, but that's beside the point.

That being said, I would like to see more of an incentive or motivation to level up. In Morrowind there was an incentive to level up initially because you got a lot more powerful and were able to loot higher level dungeons and get better items. But this stopped after about level 20 where you were so powerful that everything became a little bump in the road instead of a challenge.

In Oblivion there really wasn't any motivation to level up. It was even easier if you didn't level up and just pumped minor skills to become more powerful. This had to do with the dreaded leveled enemies and loot and the lack of handplaced items and artifacts. The only incentive maybe were the Daedric quests which required you to be a certain level.

Judging by the information currently available I have a positive feeling about how they're handling the leveling in Skyrim. Todd Howard said there were areas with more powerful enemies, so it won't be a leveled soup like in Oblivion. They hopefully (and probably) won't make the mistake of making characters become god-like to soon like in Morrowind.

Oh and what you said about if you actually were you character: You'd probably live similar to how you live your life in the real world, probably just a commoner in a city. Being a hero isn't really cut out for most people.. or anyone for that matter. But that goes for any game and isn't really specific to TES the way I see it.

Given the large number of times I've started new characters in OB & FO3, and generally ignored the main quest in favor of wandering the hills and exploring dungeons & ruins?

No, not really.

Soooooo Saints Row Skyrim edition?

The more sandbox the better as far as i am concerned.

Not really a motivation to play video games in general, yet we do. It's magic!