edit: Actually I got confused , player didnt win the game but related to all of the achievements by pressing 1 button 30 times. Still though, I'm sure it will happen eventually if it already hasnt happened. Also the game in question was Avatar: The Burning Earth

Kinda agree. In a way they're making it more simple to appeal to more people, but they're also getting rid of what they consider redundant to make way for newer systems. I really miss the character creation of Daggerfall, there were so many options and so many people you could be, but that's not to say I hate all of the new ideas Oblivion added.

Regaining fatigue whilst running - makes the game a lot more playable, if unrealistic
Fast travel - if you don't like it you have the option to, y'know... not use it. That's dwelling into "I'm unhappy about the way other people are playing the game" territory
Holds your hand, map markers - Again can be ignored
Anyone can use magic - For freedom. If you built your strength up to a high level and the game simply went "can't use magic now lol" you'd be pretty mad. What is the person was RPing that their barbarian began to study magic? Added limitations svck
Faction stuff - What if you wanted complete dominance of all guilds?
Kids- I don't want stupid kids in my game, especially as you would never be allowed to kill them. Also, would lead to questionable mods judging by some I've seen already

sorry, but i never got time to read your original post, so now im kinda confused on what you meant.



now that was kinda iffy choice to me. if you can be chief of all guilds at the same time, wheres the choice and consequences in that?

Don't worry about it, I thought it was an xbox live arcade game that ended after the 30 button presses but ended up just being the achievements and the game was an actual retail game at that. Although one of the big things for the xbox 360 is the achievements so it's still in a way rather simplistic and lazy for the developers who made that game to do that.

this, i miss reading the paragraphs of information that was in morrowind

Yes. Even I found Oblivion painfully simple and dumbed-down.

I'm just hoping that if enough people complain about it they will reverse the trend. FO3 was a little better, but it's only a small step in the direction I want it to go. Also, considering it was a completely different franchise and still felt pretty 'hand-holdy', I will definitely read a few trusted reviews before purchasing any other TES game.

There aren't any. If you want there to be some, imagine them and don't become leader of all guilds

Player imagination > hard coded limitations that effect everyone oh god

Especially for small things like that

Directions were precise enough to find what you were looking for without it. Over all, I liked Fable 2, but I despise confinement in arbitrary systems of choice and consequence. Real choice should be the character you make in the beginning, and consequence should be the story. Fable, Morrowind, and Oblivion impose stories upon characters, rather than allowing the character to make the story. A world of real consequence would look something like the CS turned into a TES game, where the story is fluid and adaptive to the character.

Again, accesability isn't going away. People with physical and mental deficiencies want to play popular video games, and they lobby for gameplay simplicity.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6669943
http://www.game-accessibility.com/index.php?pagefile=visual

Well that's the case with pretty much every problem - devs were lazy or stupid.

"BTW the "GPS" as you call it CAN be explained in a way as it's what the character imagines in his head. When looking at the map he simply imagines his target location to be highlighted."

True, but it's still half broken, which makes the feature feel broken in general. Sure I understand markers on things I know, but half the time markers are on moving or still unknown targets. Compass always makes things atleast easier and sometimes it's even the only way to complete a quest.

That's simply where it needs tweaking, imagine it like this, the marker is NOT the main guide but simply a visual aid to what you're already suposed to know. So you could do it just by following informations but the marker just adds a help, and honestly when looking back at morrowind such a help would really prevent some frustration that cam from simply bad or missleading information.

Yes that sounds good.

The markers are nice, if done properly. What was done in OB was basically hand holding, and that's not right. To be done properly is when you are given a quest, the quest giver should give you a general area of where the quest is taking place. If they want you to go to some cave, they would tell you an approximate direction, then mark the precise location on your map. Once at and in the cave, the handholding stops, and you need to search the cave for X thing you needed to do.

Going to post my idea on a more ideal quest marker in the idea thread.

I like this type of thing. If you've ever played World of Warcraft without using any map or quest helping addons you're forced to read the description of what to do and where to go for each quest. It works nicely. Although... I personally don't care either way because I like both, prefer either one and it doesnt bring me out of immersion one bit even with the all-knowing compass of Nirn.

Played WAR. Like how they did their map markers, for the most part. Gave you the area where you could find the NPCs, nothing too specific. Bunch of stuff also had to be discovered too.

so now i have to use imagination to make up for something that was implemented just fine in earlier games?

i must be able to get into everything without any restrictions at all so i can get all the phaat lewt and achievements, right?


i remember a time where i had to draw my own maps and fill it out with info, research with pen and paper which armor/sword/other had the best bang for the gold with the printed items list in the manual, learn what spell did what since it just consisted of a 4 letter word like FLCO and take serious notes on hints cuz there be no repeating of it once it had been spoken.

good times.

In any way? C'mon, if you're truly honest, you have to allow a caveat. There seems to something over-arching with regard to the whole compass thing, a design philosophy behind the scenes that fostered its conception - one that hinders exploration from my perspective. I, too, explored much of the map before starting on many quests. However, as I explored and completed quests here and there, I realized that there was almost nothing unique that wasn't also quest related. Put another way, it saddened me to realize that nothing truly unique was painted into the game-world unless it was tied to a quest. It seemed to me that it was always a quest that necessitated the existence of something unique to discover. Therefore, why explore if by simply pursuing quests would I ever discover anything interesting worth seeing? The quest compass was just another element to support that design philosophy by making quests easier. Why deviate from the linear path of your present location to the map marker if you know all things interesting to see will be seen with a quest? Furthermore, knowing that the compass illuminates everything "interesting" nearby, I found myself paying more attention to the compass for new cookie-cutter dungeons than necessarily to the world itself. Perhaps it was a result of my own failings, but it diminished exploration for me.

Don't get me wrong, I think the concept of a compass is good. I just think they made poor design decisions implementing it by causing the player to rely on it instead of just having it available as an aid for difficult quests. If they would have designed the quests as if there were no compass, and then added it in later - that alone would have alleviated one of my greatest grievances.


EDIT: Oops...just realized I wasn't at the end of the thread and that a lot of this was already mentioned.

When you start making these games to play with ease on consoles it kind of simplifies things. I have nothing against consoles, and I may be wrong. With all these platforms we have a larger audience, maybe different age groups then before. Some of the dynamics of our tes games we are so fond of may change to appeal to more people. Every new tes game leaves out something from its predecessor. Im not worried, it would have to be some pretty drastic changes to turn me off.

Oh yes, hard-coded limitations are such a pain. You know what other hard-coded limitation I dislike? Having to do quests to get to the head of a guild. Oh god, it's just too restricting. You should just become the head of a guild right when you join, and then then those who wanted to rise up the ranks with quests or skills can just imagine that those quests are required to advance.

You know what other hard coded limitations svck? Having to pay fines or go to jail to get rid of bounties. I think bounties should be removed for free just by talking to a guard, and then those who expected to have to pay a fine could just bribe a bunch of people or go to the nearest dungeon and wait a bunch.
[/sarcasm]

"Player imagination" is the most BS excuse ever regarding things that 1) the game is capable of conveying, 2) the game is not stylistically opposed to, and 3) contribute to a more believable environment for the player to explore in. Creating a backstory for your character is a proper use of player imagination, as the game is stylistically opposed to telling you what you were. Embellishing on things that don't occur in the game (like RPing massive 10,000+ member armies) is a proper use of player imagination, because the game is not capable of conveying such scale.

Saying, "I want to become the Arch-Grand-Master-Listener-Fox, but I don't want to put any extra effort into earning that title, so all relevant mechanics should disappear and be replaced with player imagination," does not fall into categories 1-3. Instead, it's saying, "I don't want challenge OR believability in my game, and I'm willing to sacrifice both (not just for me, but for everyone else) so that I can quickly and more easily earn take the title of 'uber.'"

Player imagination is for tabletop D&D and other RPG board games. If you're already playing a computer game, you're surrendering some of your imagination to it.