I know I'm being a glutton for a can of worms here but.....

I know we debated exhaustively for and against attributes. And I understand were some of you pro attribute folks are coming from. After all a RPG without attributes seems like a pretty foreign concept, and Bethesda's goal is a lofty one. I have faith they can pull it off with maybe a few minor snags, but there you have it.

There seems to me there was a debate going around about what is and isn't an RPG, and whether or not Skyrim can be considered one.

Lets say for the sake of argument that we put the whole "what is and isn't an RPG" aside. Now lets say, hypothetically, that Skyrim isn't an RPG it's an action game with rpg elements.

Now given it has numerous RPG trappings. Specifically that is gives you the ability to create your own character. It gives you the ability to develop that character with what we hope will be a wide variety of options. And You'll get to find cool stuff for your character to equip and use along the way. Plus, houses you can buy, ruins you can explore and all that other good stuff. In other words its got all the cool features of an RPG that folks like myself like.

Now given all that, will you refuse to pick this game up because it's not a true rpg?

So far this game sounds like it has a more enjoyable stat system than the majority of other RPGs I've played. Not that I don't enjoy many RPG stat systems, but I like how Skyrim's will focus more on gaming rather than metagaming.

It has stats. Just not the traditional ones.

All the stats are there in the game, they are just now in the background. RPG stands for RolePlaying Game, not Stat Based Game, so with the minimization of stats, it allows for more roleplaying and less number crunching. It may be more on the action side of the spectrum, but its still within the bounds of an RPG.

Role playing games are a broad genre, but for me a TES RPG is:

A whole world that I can live in, and pretend to be a specific type of person, and can gradually develop that specific character to reach heights of accomplishments that I was not able to reach before developing that character.

This character has to be unique, and if I had played another style of character, I would have been to accomplish things that the other style of characters developed otherwise would not hope to achieve.

If I describe an Elderscrolls style role playing game, then Daggerfall would be a decent game, Morrowind would be a good game, Oblivion would be a bad game, and Skyrim would be excellent.

Why, because of introducing perks that would make each character unique and would let us develop our characters in specific ways that would be completely different from other characters, and hopefully, if they are true to their words and bring back somethings that made Morrowind a great game, you could not join any guild as you liked, and you had to have some perquisite skills and abilities to be able to attend them.

So each character would feel different than previous ones, and it would be a great role playing game.

Spot on. Good riddance to efficient leveling, I say. Enjoy playing the role you want without thinking about how to maximise your stats constantly.

Most CRPGs lack one or more of the elements that make up a traditional PnP RPG and combat tends to play a much bigger part in them so to a certain extent they could all be said to be Action RPGs. Skyrim looks like it will be a good game, better than DA2 or The Witcher 2 IMO, so I'll certainly get it. I hope the RPG elements will play a major role and atm I'm expecting them to be more important than they were in Oblivion but we'll have to see.

*LIKE

i agree, i dont want to calculate the things i do and force myself to play a certain way, i want to be able to be as unpredictable as myself and get away with it

Like I've said before, when I exercise in real life, I don't know how efficient my exercising was because a number in my notebook says so. I know I'm stronger when I try to lift something heavy.
I've been pushing for revamped or invisible attributes in RPGs since Fallout 3.

I cross my fingers from now until 11.11.11 that guild decisions will have somekind of effect on the game, an like in morrowind you can't join them all freely.

Thief and DB guilds could be the excuse because they are "under the radar" of the other guilds so i guess you could be a member of these and a mage or fighter associated guild at the same time.

It could be cool tho if thief and DB assignments/quests worked so if guards noticed you without somekind of disguise they would report you and thereby nullifying your progress in respected guilds. GOD I WOULD LOVE THIS ! Making the guilds and factions more then just another questline.

Agreed, 100%. I don't see it happening though.

Dont have my hopes up for the whole thing about guards reporting you and stuff like that, but hoping for guilds ala morrowind where you couldt join every one, or was it only the houses? Can't remember. Anyway with the two seperate semi "confirmed" lore-wise magic guilds i see them as "i-can-only-join-1-able". but looking forward to E3 for more info on these things.

The last time an instalment in a RPG series that I adore was "an action game with RPG elements" I got Fable 3.

Let's all pray that Skyrim is an RPG.

YES!! I agree so much.
Just the other day not to name any names but someone tried to tell me that invisible stats the game was no longer an rpg and no longer complex (literally stated "not an rpg") but simply a linear action game as if the numbers being visible was the be all and end all of rpgs, I get they are important to traditional rpgs but there's far more to rpgs than having your stats dislayed on a stat screen. Not that they should be removed completely, as they are a necessary mechanic of TES but having them invisible makes no difference to me.

I just realised that arguing about whenever Skyrim will be a true RPG or not is absolutley pointless, because there is no such thing as a "true RPG".
You could argue for weeks how Oblivion was less of an RPG than say Baldur's Gate or Morrowind, but you could also argue how those are less of an RPG than say Wizardry or Ultima.

RPG is a board and vague term, it could include and exclude a lot of things, and nearly no two RPGs tend to be the same.

But if you look at it, in Skyrim you'll be able to create your own character, it will evolve during gameplay and the end result will differ from character to character. There's also a big, freely explorable world, with many areas, quests and sidequest, which will offer multiple ways to solve them.
Sounds like an RPG to me...
What kind? Who cares...

A stupid question, since it IS an RPG, I have absolutely no doubt about that, with or without attributes, in the sense they were used in past games. I'd say that if a few numbers representing your characters' physical and mental abilities are what defines an RPG for you, then you have no right to complain about "dumbing down" the game, because your definition of an RPG is extremely shallow to begin with. Attributes are not what makes an RPG what it is, role-playing is what makes an RPG what it is, in theory, of course the term has been used for such a wide variety of games that it seems any game involving skills and leveling could potentially be labeled as an RPG, but I'm talking about the purist definition of "RPG" we can see from the genre's name here. RPG is short for role-playing game, that's role playing game. Not roll playing game. Of course, in many RPGs, the attributes play an important role, because they serve to define your character's abilities, but attributes, such as they were handled in past games, don't HAVE to be what's used for this, most RPGs still rely on such a system, yes, but that doesn't mean another system can't work, it just means that not many developers have made an effort to come up with a different system. As I see it, the only reason most developers prefer to stick to the traditional approach is that it's been proven to work, and many creators feel they don't need to bother trying to come up with original ideas when they can just use tried and true ones, but that doesn't mean trying to do a different system can't be a good thing, because while trying to do something different can have its risks, the results can actually be better then the tried and true concept. So maybe getting rid of attributes, as we knew them, will actually make the series better, and maybe not, I'm not ready to pass judgment on that yet, but I don't feel the need to complain endlessly about the absence of attributes when I haven't even tried what the new system is like yet. We must remember that the removal of attributes isn't the only change to the character system, since perks were also added, I'm not sure how well perks can replace attributes, but I'm not going to acuse Bethesda of "simplifying" the system when one thing is removed and another is added, and we haven't seen how well the addition will work, and even if the system is a little simpler, that doesn't always equate to less depth.

Even if somehow, Skyrim turned out to NOT be an RPG, though, I'd still play it, why? Because it's the Elder Scrolls, as long as it can still capture what I like about the Elder Scrolls, why should I care if it fits some vague definition of "RPG" that no one seems to be able to agree on? Genres are a convenient way to give players some idea of what to expect from a game, and allow them to more easily find a game that suits what they're looking for, but that's they're only meaning, once I've already chosen a game, it doesn't matter to me what genre you call it, what matters is whether it's what I actually want to play or not, and based on all we've heard about Skyrim, I can say that it does, in fact, sound like a game I'd want to play.



Except many would argue Fable was "an action game with RPG elements" from the beginning.

Yes please. yes. ! I'm not gonna miss the stats. Have always found stat's in every game a little strange, mostly because im the biggest fan of their skill progression and thinks this should be added to most aspects of character development. And the fact that all attributes infact does end in one of the three or are more a skill then att.(personality anyone). The last is ofc l uck, but i dont think it makes sense to be master over your own luck. Always found it strange.

Agility + speed = Stamina
Endurance + Strength = Health
Willpower + Intellect = magic

Personality is a skill and should be improved by how much you interact with different npc's and the likes. Like in real life you only get better ppl skills by using them.

Luck is for me better left out since i find it stupid to be like, now i have grown as an adventure, i should be more lucky now. Say what? things in the world doesnt vary in quality depending on who finds them. On the other hand special artifacts incl magical ones should effect your luck of dodging and landing crit hits i think.
I just realised that i am pro random loot on enemeys, but that im prolly also pro pre-placed items.


Maybe a little off topic but i just feel better now getting that of my chest will all the talk about it flying around..

The flaw I see here is that, for most of us, games need not be anything close RPGs for us to pick them up. We like all kinds of games. If a game is not an RPG, then it lacks the essential quality that makes a game an RPG. If you are craving a game with that particular quality, then the best you can hope for by buying something else is a distracting substitute. Your craving will still be lurking in the background.


There is such a thing as a true RPG, just as there is such a thing as a true racing game or a true shooter. You already named a few.

I'm in the pro-attribute camp but I think (or at least hope) that Skyrim still retains many qualities that I associate with RPGs. If Bethesda pull off their evolving local economies, improved NPC interactions and stuff like that Skyrim may end up feeling more like an RPG than Oblivion did.

I guess with recent disappointments lke DA2 and Fable 3 there's always going to be a little bit of concern that TES might one day go down the same route and compared with Morrowind I don't think Oblivion had quite the same subtleties, complexity or originality so I wonder if that's a trend or a blip. But at the moment, the idea that a new TES game is not even worth playing is something i'd have to see for myself before I believed it.

With the advancement of technology, I think that it is only natural that stats would disappear. In the future with virtual reality, you will be in the game, just experiencing the experience. There were no stats on the holodeck. After all, we are no longer sat around a table with our smelly friends, with pens and paper, imagining that we are slaying goblins in a dungeon. Welcome to the future. :thumbsup:

Ehhhh can i say this ??? Yes?




THIS

Let me ask you people this.

When an Elder Scrolls Game comes out, despite things taken or added here and there based upon what the team feels right, has that ever stopped the game from being something very unique and like nothing before it?

I'd say no. This team has been together for the most part before some of you were even born. Have faith in Bethesda boys and girls. It's just a game and I'm sure it will be one worth remembering.

I think the whole "true rpg" thing needs to fall downs some stairs and die. I'm more concerned about quests not being in depth enough for role-playing than a loss of a few stats.

As with everything else in this thread, it depends on the definitions one gives to vague and undefined terms.

But from one point of view, no computer game is a "true" RPG because it doesn't have enough interaction options - there isn't a GM who can improvise on the fly and change the story / gameplay / etc, when the players decide to do something that wasn't planned for.

But, like I said - it all depends on the definition of RPG you're using.