One lesson to learn for sure. Witcher 2 is a PC game, and it shows. It shows very well in graphic and audio quality. Unmatched by anything so far in 2011. Witcher 2 is a great game and has a lot going for it.

That said, let's not encourage Bethesda to make claustrophobic feeling game areas. I 100% prefer the wide open world system of TES games. Witcher 2 has the same problem the original Witcher did. The areas you get to wander around are too forced. Especially irritating when you're dealing with small ledges you should realistically be able to jump off of but have to traverse half a map to get around.

Eh, I understand the desire for more dark/mature fantasy, but the atmosphere of the Witcher wouldn't really fit with TES.

Elder Scrolls is its own world. It doesn't need to imitate the "lots of six and profanity" angle of The Witcher to improve.

As for hand-holding, as long as there isn't a 45-minute tutorial dungeon I'll be happy...

let me time to edit my posts [censored]. dont answer so fast when people post something most of the time they will edit it

I have hated, and still hate this hand holding that is creeping into the later games especially role playing games.

Most of the times, the games are rates as "Mature", because of excessive violence and also mature themes, but on the other hand, the players are treated as kids, ho need to be helped all along with the chores that a game might require.

It just does not add up, in my book. Please threat the players of the games rated as mature, as mature. Please.

When I am confronted with a problem, or a challenge, and I need to use all my wits about, in order to win the challenge, the more I feel satisfied when finally conquer the situation.

Just let me feel that I have done something myself, and not followed the simple rules, hints, signs and markers around, all the way.

Especially, in role playing games, one of the prime essences of the game is that you start small, weak and undeveloped, and you develop your character to become bigger, more powerful.

So How do we get the feeling that we are becoming bigger and more powerful?

In an open world game, the best method is by providing us challenges of different scale, so at any state of development that our character stands, some of the challenges would seem to be approachable, and could be tackled with, to provide experience for both the player and his game character.

But some challenges should seem impossible at the beginning, but as we gradually develop our characters, those challenges should seem to be more and more approachable, so that at some point, we say to ourselves, what the heck, let's try to see if I can enter that fortress and take the prize and exit, without getting stuck in the middle, or whether I can open that lock, or whether I can convince the people of the clan to join my cause, and so on...

This is what we need to feel that our characters are developing and the satisfaction that we would feel after beating those long term challenges, are unbelievable. Believe me.

OK, here was my two cent, and my feeling about the hand holding that is wide spread in the current games with conflicting ideals, that seem intended to provide violence and mature themes for a bunch of kids.

Part of the issue is that some of the things Witcher 2 does well are things that would alienate some noticeable portion of the current fanbase if it were implemented in TES. I have no problem with dropping some of the 'handholding' aspects, but it is also true that if it is too easy for people to get derailed from the main story the boards will be flooded with "What do I do next?" posts. I also don't mind the more advlt themes presented in W2 but its better to leave something out if you don't think you can implement it well, such as romance.

A better question might be what lessons other gamemakers could learn from TES. I think many of them should look at how lore is presented in TES games.

Edit: Okay, I'll admit they can also learn the power of dedicated PC development as opposed to multi-platform development. But that same feature will also limit W2's revenue.

were not here to critic a game were here to find out how bethesda can learn from the success of the witcher and what elements they should look into. also keep in minde that The Witcher is a narrative you might not like that kind of gameplay but it had just as much prestige as any other style of game. and you obviously didnt play that game because they dont hold your hand, its excessively hard if you play on hard or insane and you have to carefully plan your combats before hand or prepare to get ripped appart and thats what lacks in ES games. if you have the right numbers at the begining of the game you can just go and hack n slash your way to the end. i think its worse than having a predefined path because you have no challenge it ends up being the same thing.

I think Lord is talking about the way this game (W) is making a kind of universe with certain charge of crudity or rawness maybe? Concetrating on mundane aspects of life in a RPG game perhaps offers some realistic advantage but sacifices a lot of possiblilities like combat deeply, character progression, character diversity, map size, and others (it's too notorius my sandbox predilections?) . If the main quest have a decent argument i will be cool. i will scare if any other game has large armies epic battles (i guess this is the next step on TES's path).

care to elaborate on that? i realy want to know.

@damnsymphoner I think they will announce at E3 that they will port it http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/05/25/get-ready-for-more-witcher-at-e3.aspx

What is this learn from the success of the Witcher stuff? Oblivion has a better metacritic score and W2 won't match it in sales, let alone match Skyrim. We'll see where the majority of the GotY awards go.

I'd like to see Skyrim be more dark and gritty as much as the next guy.

But what I really want it to take from The Witcher 2 is the combat difficulty, which in turn would be taking from Demon's Souls. In the review on Wired, the combat of The Witcher 2 is described as being similar to Demon's Soul's, and that game probably has the best medieval combat system I've ever played in a game.

tl;dr: Skyrim's combat should be similar to Demon's Soul's.

Your argument is that Oblivion has a better metacritic score? REALY? lol youre going low on arguments now. even if Oblivion was more crtically appraised does not mean in ANY way that bethesda should not look in another franchise that is getting alot of popularity (that is PC only and that did not come out during early current-gen console hype and was the only decent game on xbox at the time) and look for stuff that they can do better because TW2 do some stuff better than ES and if bethesda looked at it it could only make it better. stop your hate machine.

-Characters are better (lets not include protagonist because its a tradition in ES games to be whoever you want)
-Atmosphere is better (theres no atmosphere whatsoever in oblivion, the dark brotherhood is the most ridiculous assassin's guild ever in this game)
-Graphics seems better than skyrim (hard to accept from bethesda a company with a much higher budget than CD Projekt the young polish dev)

And GTA is to satire, what wit is to College Humor. I don't get it OP, a Prostitution Guild? So, a pormo studio, leasing its 'girls' to celebrities/politicians, union leaders, and business men? A secret institution, to keep the spank friendly, casual, and paying?

...okay...if this is about peoples reaction to The witcher's mature content...WHY IS IT IN THE SKYRIM BOARD!

You put this thread in the skyrim board and when people mention Skyrim you get all pissy and defensive sayin " Oh noez, but this aint comparin, its just about how mature the witcher is!" Then why did you put it in this board!?

If you dont want people to compare it to Skyrim , dont post it here.

From your comment I assume that you listen to Top 40 radio and believe that the best album of the year is the one which Billboard tells you is.

very good anology to what he said in my oppinnion

- Characters in Oblivion did kind of svck (Sheogorath and a handful of hilarious orcs excluded), but then, Elder Scrolls games have never been about a great storyline or characters. Besides, you have no idea what the characters in Skyrim are like yet.
- Atmosphere is better than Oblivion's perhaps, but not Skyrim's in my opinion.
- Graphics ... really? You're seriously comparing the graphics in a linear, story-driven RPG like the Witcher 2 to an open-world game like Skyrim? *sigh*

Many games just stick sanitized background info at you as if to say "Here. Lore. Look. Now move on." By presenting lore through the often conflicted viewpoints of actors who may or may not have agendas, BGS has created a background that is nuanced and uncertain. If a retcon is necessary to make a game work, its trivial to do seamlessly in the TES universe so long as you don't directly contradict content personally experienced in a previous game. The only adjustment of this type that has been necessary so far to my knowledge is the "Warp in the West".

- I'm just saying that out of the past. but it might be just as bad so seeing the witcher i hope its just as good as in the witcher. get it?
- You saw nothing of the atmosphere yet. all im saying is. oblivion atmosphere was bad, witcher atmosphere was awesome therefore beth should look at how they made the atmosphere so present in the witcher 2 and see themselves if they made the same mistakes or not (im not saying that skyrim atmosphere is not as good because i havent experienced it yet and you didnt either)
-Yes I am because Bethesda has much more money therefore they should be able to optimize Skyrim to look better and run on cheaper hardware than TW2 but they seem to be too lazy. back in the days ES games were always the best looking game when they were coming out (from daggerfall to oblivion at least) and now Skyrim is just an avarage graphics game. To me thats pretty frustrating because they probably could have done better and they did not

Sorry I think some people are getting confused. This isn't about what aspects of the game, i e potion making, combat, Tech, FPS, PC vs Console etc (need i go on?), are better in TW2 than TES. THAT WOULD BE A COMPARISON THREAD.

This is about the desire for games to be advlt and aim higher in their expectations of players. Not taking out blood (Creative Assembly i'm looking at you) because you are scared to offend. It's the games that take risks and feel right because they are fleshed out, complete and confident in themselves that become the classics.

TL:DR Too bad read it

Sorry for you but threads go along the discussion if we think what were saying is more interesting we will keep saying it. we are here to discuss and its perfectly normal for the subject to derive on other matters.

@Morgrus okay i know what you mean
also in TW2 the approach is similar (some lore is directly in the story tho) you have books and rumors and stuff like that. and along side quests you learn about the lore too. but i would think that the ES approach is better

Um what? No bro make a new topic that is how a forum works. You aren't allowed comparison threads in here anyhow. So you want to get this thread closed? Because you want to compare two games of which one isn't even released and you think that is more interesting? Cool man

Skyrim launches in 5 1/2 months and you can cut a month off for preparing for a simultaneous worldwide launch. What could they "learn" and implement?

I don't think a gaming company that has made games out of a franchise now 14 years old, should take any notes from an upstart company that had a lot of people complaining about their first outing before they "enhanced it".

Both games play differently and has their own lore.
I want Skyrim to feel like an Elderscroll game, not change and look to other games for how it should be.

That is like asking Jeremy Soule to take notes from Hans Zimmer, why on earth should he or vice versa?

They both do their own thing.

Witcher 2 is getting over-hyped now, it's NOT the best thing since sliced bread.
It has decent graphics, far from realistic mind you, and it has a great story, but so do many other games as well.

One is a linear game with a fixed character, the other is an open world game with it's own lore.

You can say that this is not a VS thread but it is.
Right in the title "lessons to be learned", why on earth should Elderscroll games take ANY lessons from Witcher? They aren't even remotely alike.
Even if Skyrim would be "darker" it will still not have the same tone.

OP, seriously a prostitution guild? Talk about killing off ANY argument you had to begin with.

I guess a murder guild is "not mature enough", only way something is mature is if it has [censored] and ass, right.
I would say that is more something to appeal to the IMMATURE. Cussing doesn't make something mature either.

It's almost like the level of intelligence dropped when Witcher 2 came out.

This is a game, there is nothing immature about Elderscroll games, if you want to talk immature look at Fable III, farting and dancing like a chicken.
Elderscrolls if perfectly mature, as I said, cussing or nudity doesn't make something more mature, besides that what is so mature about Witcher 2?

:facepalm:

You don't seem to understand. It doesn't matter how much money Bethesda have, they're making an open-world game on some outdated consoles. Both Morrowind and Oblivion were released early in the lifetime of the consoles they were available on, so of course they were going to impress more graphically. Would you rather Skyrim be delayed until 2014 just so it can have slightly better graphics?

The Witcher 2 is a PC exclusive and isn't as open as TES games. Frankly, i'd be shocked and amazed if it didn't look better than Skyrim.

All things considered, Skyrim looks very impressive for a game being released on the same console as it's predecessor, Oblivion.

Yes, youre right on that one. but were just discussing for the sake of discussing its a forum and you should know it because youre always on here commenting every threads