Hey guys. Six months 'till Skyrim. Awesome. Anyways I wanna know what you guys think on the topic of "Main Characters". Having good main characters is such an elementary idea in most games, but I've always found Elder Scrolls games were more the kind where you make your own fun, and become interested in your own character. Which is all fine and dandy, hell, I still put in good ol' Oblivion every few months to roll a new character, so they must be doing something right, but I wanna know if you think they'll put some effort into making a decent supporting cast.

I mean honestly, other than Baurus (who sounded and acted exactly like a handful of other Redguards) what character in Oblivion had any redeemable value or interesting backstory? I understand that Skyrim (and the Elder Scrolls Series as a whole) is of the open world genre, in which you make your own path, and it's more based on your character and the world than individuals, but I still think of the few characters that stick around as sort of, main story guides they should make a few that really are well thought out and well written.

Not to bring an argument of other games to the forum, but I recently played the game Dragon Age: Origins, after much convincing from my friend. To be honest I didn't like the core game all that much, the quests were bland, combat was repetitive and so on, but what kept me hooked was the narrative, and specifically the characters. Never before have I seen such deep thought put into characters of a video game, they all had unique, believable, yet exaggerated personalities and it was a lot of fun.

Now trust me, I'm aware the Elder Scrolls Series is on the opposite side of the RPG spectrum, and I only hope it never begins to lean over to the "Mass Effect" side, as TES games have had gameplay and questing pinned down since Morrowind, (Bethesda, you know how to make a Game) but the characters always seem to fall flat in these games, which may have once been acceptable, but with games ever changing, generic character templates with snazzy names won't cut it for main characters, not for me anyway.

So there. I've rambled and gone off topic. Great. Anyway I'd like to know your guys' thoughts/opinions on this. Anyone else really want really powerful main characters in this game? Anyone think there actually will be?

It's possible, and it'd be pretty cool, but maybe, aside from the improved radiant AI, there won't be a whole lot of change in the npc department. Either way, we've still got six brutally painful months till we find out.

yeah Oblivion didn't have much backstory.

The backstories in Oblivion were really subtle..ever. they'd give you details, but they never laid it on thick.

Personally, I'm a svcker for backstories... but it's a style thing, tbh.

Well written supporting characters (to me, there's only one "main" character - my player character - but anyway....) adds a huge amount to the game, as far as I'm concerned. I think there were a fair number of characters in Oblivion who were at least interesting - Savlian Matius, Lord Rugdumph, Bugak gro-Bol, Falanu Hlaalu, Weebam-na, pretty much all of the counts and countesses, Ongar, Alval Uvani.... We didn't get much of their backstories, but that's fine. I don't know the backstories of lots of the people I know in real life, nor do I much care to know, really. If they're interesting people, then they're interesting. How they came to be that way just doesn't matter that much to me. That said though, I would've liked to have seen even more unique characters and even more depth to the ones that were there.

I'm not expecting a whole lot in that department from Skyrim though. Character complexity is one of the things I'm reasonably confident will be sacrificed for flash and dazzle. This game will almost certainly be even more of a casualty of time and budget constraints and the desire to maximize sales by appealing to the lowest common denominator than Oblivion was - not less of one.

Martin. Jauffre. And most definitely Mankar Camoran.


If anything, I'd fault Oblivion for having too much backstory and not enough "now." It goes unappreciated though, as always.

Yes, but I'd like to see culture and situation affect the character's development. For example, how does a Dunmer character feel about being forced to live in Eastern Skyrim? Also, I'd like to see them possess some different moral values than us without them being presented as "bad people."

I certainly wouldn't complain about NPCs having more personality, something that I feel past Elder Scrolls games could have done better. I mean, I like Morrowind, and Oblivion too, but that doesn't mean I think they're perfect, there are still areas where they could have done better, and interesting characters is something I think the series hasn't really done as well as it could. Now, of course, I'm not saying every character needs to be interesting, when you have as many NPCs as any given Elder Scrolls game, you're obviously going to meet some cookie cutter characters. But at least for the important ones, people who are like Caius Cosades, Jauffre. Martin, and even characters who are not part of the main quest but play reletively important roles in other areas of the game, such as important guild members, to have decent personalities.

Will Skyrim succeed at doing this? I don't know. I think that Fallout 3, while certainly not the best game I've played in this regard, did do better than Bethesda's previous games, so that might be a good sign, but on the other hand,, Fallout 3 is Fallout, not the Elder Scrolls, just because we see something in it doesn't mean it will carry over into the Elder Scrolls, so we just have to wait and see.

Todd indicated this about NPCs:

"...And in that we sacrifice them having a lot of depth or personality or individual stories. And there still will be some like that..."

http://theelderscrollsskyrim.com/bethesdas-todd-howard-podcast-interview/

We seem to be getting a bit off topic. I just mean interesting characters, unique personalities that you could tell apart in seconds. The kind that you could come up with a scenario and know exactly the kind of thing they'd say or do in that situations. I'm talking a whole different level of character writing.

So do I.

Sometimes its hard to strike a balance I think. I too thought Origins quests and combat were bland, but the characters were interesting. I think Oblivion has some memorable characters, that are pretty fleshed out. However, they are fewer and farthere between; not the constant companions giving you humourous banter about what you are currently doing.

My opinion is, "if yer gonna save the world it should be a world worth saving" that goes for the people in it too

I have a feeling that they will make decently written main characters, and I hope they are good.

^Well said. In Oblivion I had a hard time trying to empathise with those people, they sounded so artificial and ungrateful. A few npcs that I helped with various tasks thanked me and then literally invited me to get out of their houses (probably based on race/faction disposition, but that was pretty disconnecting to say the least. I just saved your damn husband's life, you stupid xxxx!). And then there were the main characters, the emperor died too soon to build a connection, whereas Martin was more like a whining housewife, I would have killed him on sight shouldn't he be essential. It's funny that the easiest character to care about were Gray Fox and Lachance, although my character was not quite into their business. I want Lachance and Sheogorath multiplied in Skyrim, people with distinct personalities and people you meet and talk to many times in time. Strong relationships can't be built in short dialogue lines with little to no options to choose.

I found it an absolute chore to complete Dragon Age, I'm not the strategical type. But Its still one of my favorite games ever made because of the amazing writing.
If there's one thing I could wish for in Skyrim it would be this.

DA:O is a great game, and indeed the characters are the best part of it. That said, I think the tradeoffs between that game and what an ES game gives you should be pretty obvious. (Though really, the main quests in DA:O and a TES game aren't really all that different in terms of length or quality its really just the characters that are the main difference).

Personally I'd love to see companions of that sort of depth and quality but the amount of time and resources it would take to create that would certainly have to come from somewhere else. Anyone want to take responsibility for deciding what gets cut to make that happen? :shakehead:

I think its more likely we'll get FO level companions, and hopefully even better than that. I found them to be quite good. I don't disagree with your base suggestion, I just don't know how realistic that is.

This is the one area of TES I really wish they would improve on. The worlds always feel so lonely. I don't care whether its a group of optional companions, or some rival characters, or Esbern and several other characters relating to the main quest, they really need to focus on adding in some deep and well writtten recurring characters for the player to emotionally invest in, love or loath, whatever.

I dunno, if say there were even just two or three companions of DA:O calibur with stories and motivations intertwined with the main quest as opposed to...however many there were in dragon age, I don't think it would take enough resources to make a particularly noticeable negative impact on the rest of the game. That said, I'd be happy with companions comparable to the New Vegas companions. Not the Fallout 3 ones though, they were essentially the bare bones of what I expect from a companion character. Once they joined me they had pretty much nothing to say and no opinion whatsoever on anything going on.

That was about companions. And the part you've put in bold was after explaining that most will be void of any depth and personality.

They never said they would be void of personality, just that theywould be less complex than Fallout due to them being more of them.

I would like this, but i rarely find a character i really feel attached to in games. Alister from Dragon age is probably the only one i've ever truly felt anything for. The trouble with heroes is that they are all the same, all business and no play.

I'm sure you'd like Nathan Drake from Uncharted then.

Oblivion was not helped by the fact that there were like six voices for most of the cast.

This is the thing i missed the most about Oblivion: Well written characters with alot of personality.
I want characters that i will get emotionally attached to.
Characters that will make me laugh.
Characters that will make me feel sorry for them if they lost someone dear.
Characters that will make me want to continue troughout the game cuz i want to see more of them, talk with them, interact with them.
Characters that will make me literally shed a tear if they died.

This is one of the best things i think devolopers can have in a game,
Probably thats why Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favorite games of all time.

Exactly. That's the only reason I even liked Dragon Age: Origins. In Oblivion characters are too focused on their own goal, they never really feel like characters. They'll greet you, tell you what you need to know, and send you on your way.