Well, if I need a quest item to continue and I lost that quest item, and there's no apparent backpath in sight, there's no reason not to assume that I'm screwed.

Not everyone plays multiple characters. Sure, some do, I do, I play tons of different characters, but there are some who have only had one character, and there are plenty who don't plan on playing the game multiple times, and a little mistake that forces them to start all over just to get through the main quest is a big deal. It would certainly be enough to put me off of that series if I was new to it.

Play a different game, like Super Mario.

I hate it when they Idiot Proof games.

Its why i still play Morrowind, instead of Oblivion

I agree with Velorien that an NPC should only be killable by the player.
In all other instances they should go unconscious, or some other mechanism that ensures they do not dissapear from the game through no fault of the player.
Player kills are a different matter however. In Morrowind the best advice given by an NPC was 'do not take a life carelessly. It cheapens you.' And conversely, if I know beforehand that an NPC is or is not important, it cheapens the game.

As for quest items, the game can easily be made so that very important items such as needed for the main quest do not spawn until the relevant quest stage or are in areas inaccesible until the relevant stage.
But for items such as the sanguine items series in Morrowind, I believe they should have weight, and be sellable/ dropable.
It would just be very jarring and gamey to have them zero weight in my inventory when I havent even found the Morag Tong yet.

I couldn't agree more, Hircine.

Success has no value when failure is impossible, and it makes the game-world feel completely unreal.

I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that these ADD gamers with the attention span/memory of a goldfish that play an open world sandbox RPG as a linear FPS game that you're describing actually exist.

Also, who said we wouldn't know of a backpath? How about this hypothetical situation based on an altered part of Oblivion for my example:

Martin: Get me Azura's Star, I need it for this ritual
Player: I don't have Azura's Star. I lost it.
Martin: *Rage, rage, rage* Ok then, go get me the Skeleton Key. That'll do.

Oh, look at that. A simple in your face backpath that any idiot could follow. Various situations like this could be easily replicated. Or this for Morrowind:

Hasphat: Get me a Dwemer Puzzle Box from Arktwathumwiuhfbweiuih
Player: I acquired the box a while back. But I accidentally lost it.
Hasphat: *Rage, rage, rage* Ok then, I've been told tales of another box hidden somewhere in Nchleftuchsdfjkhdf

Hey, another one! If a player could fail these situations, I don't think he would actually possess the motor skills required to play a game anyway.

Of course, the backpaths of the quests would be significantly harder than the originals.


Anyhoo, that's all for today. I require sleep.

I am not saying I agree with it, I am just saying it is a theory as to why Bethesda do certain things in games that don't make sense for us gamers that like it harder. I certanly feel that games on the snes were for the most part harder than games now. I lost count of the amount of times I died on Mario on the higher levels feeling the frustration but then the joy of finally doing something that has taken ages to acheive was worth it. Now when I finish a game it isn't the same, unless it's my age, I hope not I am only 23.

Morrowind was certainly harder than Oblivion was, at least I felt it was

I agree with half of it. There should be consequences, but the game shouldn't be made unwinnable due to whatever stupid reason, there are game-breaking bugs that do just that.


The those new fans ragequit after the first few ours because they just lost something or cannot find something or cannot kill something...

And... what are you talking about anyway? Stagnant? Smaller game with less changes? Isn't the main problem is that too many things are changed?

That's a different suggestion then. I'm all for including backpaths to quests and alternate ways to solve them, but those weren't really present in past games, with one or two exceptions. If those were common enough, then I'd be in favor of letting players sell or drop quest items.

Just so long as it doesn't result in "I'm screwed forever now" because that's taking "have the players deal with the consequences of their actions" too far. In an open-world with a ton of quests, it's so easy to forget what a specific item does. I'm the type of player that will grab every quest in sight and complete them at my leisure later, meaning I end up with a lot of quest items, and a week later, I've forgotten what half of them are for.

This.
Or a game option on the settings screen.
can or cannot drop quest items
can or cannot kill quest npc's
etc

What's the deal with your signature? Is it sarcastic?
Because TES has been continually "dumbed down" and simplified since 1996. It's just a matter of whether that simplification improves the game or not. Morrowind was arguably better for the loss of features in Daggerfall; too much complexity bogs the game down, makes it unplayable, and disallows the developers from polishing other features. Sort of a "quality vs. quantity" argument.

But when there's a problem with a feature, the ideal solution is NOT to just remove it, which seems to be Bethesda's philosophy with Skyrim, and that worries me.
They say attributes were redundant (though they weren't), so rather than making them useful, they just get rid of them.
The say mysticism was redundant, so rather than fixing its redundancy and making it uniquely useful, they got rid of it.

I don't know. We'll see how well their plan works out when Skyrim comes out.

I agree with the OP completely.

Yes, I'm basically making fun of the "downward slope" theories that goes around.
... and people who call Arena "deep"...

I would LOVE a quote were someone said Arena was deep :lmao


Arena was Hey lets make a game, we're being experimental, no idea if it will stick but lets see eh?

Battlespire - hmm just testing the waters a bit


Daggerfall was - Alright Arena was a test, got a good feel, lets RUN with it, just...******ing do it, now.

Redguard (I have no idea lol)

Morrowind - oooh shiny new tech its nothing like previous games ....lets see what we can do, ah we couldnt get things on the scale of Daggerfall -but thats ok- Quality over Quantity (first only handmade worldspace TES game) lets make a world you can FEEL and experience


Oblivion -- ooh Shiny new tech, its like nothing of previous games, oh wait did you hear about Lotr? awesome dude! ( I have no idea what happened here Morrowind and Oblivion are the same in that they are not like previous games and despite coming to a new frontier Morrowind still held six......why didnt Oblivion? )


Skyrim - ???


It doesn't matter if New guys ragequit, then the game isnt for them Im pretty sure you already know the term trying to please everyone ends up pleasing no one right? you don't turn a FPS crowd into an RPG crowd without the RPG taking a sideline, in FPS's the only consequence is Dying nothing a point save doesnt fix and more often than not there is only -one- way to complete and Objective. this is exactly what happened in Oblivion, there was only -one- way to do anything with regards to the story, and even worse you -couldn't- fail and live with it :shrug:

Surely you realize this, but they just don't want you to accidentally sell some quest item and screw yourself over.

Same here. That was something that frustrated me in Oblivion. Essential NPC's were so annoying, and if I want to be an assassin and assassinate the count of Cheydinhall I should be able to, without him just becoming unconsccious.

So it requires you too think before you act which would be a good thing imo. If people want an easy game Nintendo can cater for them quite easily

The whole point is that we should be able to do just that.
Having quest items stuck in your inventory puts you on a sort of rollercoaster path from wich you cannot deviate.
The ability to fail at a minor quest is a good thing, not a bad one.

Not every people who gets stuck are dumb FPS gamers, I know some people said for other games, how they liked the game itself but not the part where they screwed up and had to start over or something. Same thing with bugs.

And again, I'd like to bring up Fallout 3, where many quests had multiple ways to complete and some of them had a way to fail it. Many of them even had backdoors to complete.

Again... the Quest Item flags and Essential Character flags aren't to protect the Player from failure, nor to protect NPCs from the player. Not all non-essential NPCs weren't important, and not all essential NPCs were important. Most of the Essential NPCs were required to access very large portions of the game, and had a high risk of getting killed by the AI. There were several quest items that weren't flagged as such (Such as Amelion's sword), and several "important" NPCs that weren't Essential. There were some quests in Oblivion that would have been unplayable had the NPCs not been essential... most of them escort quests.

They are to protect the game from failure. It is a far better use of their resources for them to idiot proof items and characters essential to the game than to spend excess hours on creating contingencies for specific situations, considering each contingency takes at least as long as the intended path. I didn't find the NPCs to be obtrusive in Oblivion, and the only quest item that really bugged me was the Blade of Woe.

Anyone else a fan of Sierra Adventure games?

But there are better ways to protect from failure.
NPC's should be unkillable by anything but the player anyway. A mechanism can easily be devised where they go unconscious, or even respawn if things get really impossible, like falling in lava or walking yourself off a bridge.

Items very important for the main quest could be set to spawn only at the relevant quest stage. This can put them in an NPC inventory, on a spot in a dungeon, whatever. They can be in areas inaccessible until the relevant stage. Like the grand soul gems in Oblivions vampire quest.

Items for side quests such as collectors quests could be set to stay in a merchants inventory if sold.
But if a player decides to toss the sanguine boots of security into the red mountain volcano, well, then that is his choice.
They should not be stuck in the inventory.

If the player decides to kill the count of Cheyindhal then nothing more should happen but something like the message in Morrowind. Wich basically told you that you broke the main quest and that you could reload or play on, as you liked.

So, for the main quest other, better safeguards exist and for sidequests there should really be no such thing, apart from ensuring only the player can remove an NPC from the game world.

And all those cures I see as worse than the issue.

I find it easier to accept that a given NPC is so awesomely tough nothing can kill him until his task is done, than an NPC that is awesomely tough that nothing can kill him until his task is done except by an extremely obscure exception, such as Only One Person In the World able to kill someone.

Having quest items only spawn at the proper stage is annoying, because it leads to backtracking. Where goes the open world when conversations like this occur:
Quest-Giver: "Go get the MacGuffin from the Evil Tomb, where it has been locked for thousands of years"
Player Character: "I just got back from looting every nook and cranny from The Evil Tomb. The MacGuffin is not there."
Quest-Giver: "Well, it is now, because I need it."

Not only did I not imply that people who get stuck are dumb FPS gamers, but I also never implied that FPS gamers are Dumb, first off, name a FPS game released during Oblivions time where there was an actual consequence for failing that the player had to live with? and fast forward and see a Massive space of gaming is enveloped by FPS games, Sports games -use- to be a big cheese but they are falling way to the wave of FPS and MMO's running around now. the point you couldnt screw up in Oblivion, yes you could screw up in Morrowind, no there were no alternatives essentially, no thats not a good thing, yes I -think- FO3 offered alternative ways to complete some missions but I don't think that was a staple.

where I have hope for Skyrim I'm hoping that replacer NPC's are a one time affair, so those that made the mistake have a backdrop and those that do it intentionally can live with the satisfaction/Consequence

To me the issue is worse for the reasons I have explained.
I dont really see these problems you are talking about. Rockslides can happen, you can be given a key to a hidden door, etc etc.
The puzzlebox in Morrowind was just scenery untill the quest. You couldnt pick it up.
That kind of thing.
And I really do not want a game where NPC's randomly kill NPC's and people walk off bridges and die.
I simply think that this should avoided at all cost, and I dont see how that somehow gives the impression of a world where only one man can kill things. Again, I am not talking about scripted events, just weeding out the randomness.
Travelling NPC's in Oblivion forced you to fast travel past level 15 if you didnt want to see them die.
This could easily be avoided by ways I have explained and no doubt other people can think of better mechanisms.

Which is why I prefer that any NPC can be killed at any time. If the game kills an essential NPC - too bad. If it's a straightforward quest (like buying Rosethorn Hall in Oblivion, which could be broken if Shum fell through the bridge to the castle), then maybe put a contingency plan or two in place.

Really - this comes down to quest design. One of the basic problems with Oblivion is that almost every quest has to be finished one step at a time, in a specific order, without skipping any steps and with no alternatives. If the quests were more complex to begin with, with multiple paths and multiple ways to complete them, then the vast majority of those "essential" NPCs wouldn't be essential anyway, or, more accurately, they'd only be essential to one particular path. There should be multiple paths anyway, just to make the game more dynamic, and a great side effect of that would be that it'd settle the issue of "essential" NPCs.


I'd agree with that, which is part of why I'd prefer a conversation that went like:

Quest-Giver: "Go get the MacGuffin from the Evil Tomb, where it has been locked for thousands of years."
Player Character: "I already got the MacGuffin, but I didn't know what it was, so I threw it away."
Quest-Giver: "..................... well.................. you're an idiot then and there's nothing I can do for you, so go away."