Probably the thing that I most enjoy about Bethesda's games is that the worlds are giant and the games have tremendous replay value. However today when I was thinking about how I replay Bethesda's other recent games, I came to the conclusion that I exploit the character creation systems in these other games to enhance their replay value. In Oblivion, it is pretty obvious I pick a thief, an assassin, a warrior, or a mage. I choose their race and their birthsign to augment the way I want to play that particular instance of the game a Bosmer/Steed or Thief, a Khajit or Argonian/Shadow or Lover or Serpent or Tower, a Redgaurd or Nord or Orc/Warrior or Lord or a High Elf or Breton/Atronach or Mage. I play the quests that are relevant to that character eg. join the thieves guild or the dark brotherhood, or the fighters guild, or the mages guild but never all of them and usually only one of them. In Fallout 3, I envision my character a thief, a sniper, a negotiator/politician, a survivalist, a hard-nosed brawler then I give myself attribute penalties and bonuses to fit that character (eg. more agility less strength or more charisma less endurance or more endurance and less agility or more strength and less luck) and I make appropriate Tag selections. This has allowed me to play and replay these games almost an uncountable number of times.

I suppose in Skyrim, I will be able to play rogue, warrior, and magic-user style characters, and limit my quest exploration the same way I do with these other games. But I wonder if the replay value will be less because of the simplified character creation system. Does anyone have any thoughts? Legitimately, I am not sure at this point.

What Beth is doing with Radiant Story will pretty much guarantee more replay.

This, the Radiant story should spice things up. I think Skyrim will have more replay value than the other TES games
(@ OP)and to be honest i could barly understand what you wrote

any game bethesda makes usually has infinite replayablity usually because of all the quests and the freedom the game itself allows

You know that is a good point. Especially if there are enough radiant story quests that not all of them come up in one playthrough and even those that are repeated are likely to send your character to a different dungeon or have a slightly different story.

Thanks good thought.

I think that 50 of 280 perks will provide the greatest replay value.

Yeah that probably is true. Thanks I am starting to feel better about this game already.

Random high valued loot drops and random dragon encounters wont hurt the replay ablity either.

Just due to the massive size, the perk system, and the Radiant Story system, I'd say that Skyrim will have a very nice replay value :foodndrink:.

for me literally every change they have made ups the replay value tremndously

Rainbow striped dragons for extra replayability?

There's still races, with racial bonuses. They just aren't "+!0 Agility, -10 Strength".


(...as for classes. Meh, I never picked any of the premade classes. I always ended up making silly "efficient leveling" custom classes, with none of the skills I was actually going to use as Majors.)

Just the spell casting system flame throw rune and such along with duel weilding assures i will go through this game as a pure mage at least once and im primarily a stealh ranger or shield sword guy with some magic sprinkled in .Weilding these spells just looks flat out fun just in the mechanics of it .

In my view, Skyrim will have a much greater replay value than Oblivion and previous TES games, for the following reasons:

• 280 perks, out of which you can select only 50
  
• Perks allow for greater specialization of non-magic using characters (for the first time personally I am interested in playing a pure warrior or pure stealth character)
  
• Radiant Story Quests
  
• Infinitely respawning dragons
  
• greater complexity in NPC relationships
  
• more potential for ambitious mods with Creation Kit
  
• possibly a more dynamic main quest, considering the backdrop of the civil war and the player's involvement with either the Rebel or Empire factions

Accordingly, I estimate 5 - 10 playthroughs of 400+ hours each, spread out over a period of several years.

This is a much greater replay value than my experience with Oblivion and Morrowind

I don't think that the replay value will be down in this game in comparison to others, simply because its an Elder Scrolls game. This time with radiant story and the perks system it will take you more game time to see everything in the game. I have played Oblivion almost every day since the day it came out, and still find new things every now and then.

Just because you don't decide everything about your character at the beginning of the game doesn't mean the character creation isn't involved. You're creating your character the entire game.

I think the replay value will be at a all time high for a BGS game and that's saying a lot. I truly believe Skyrim will be the grandest game world ever created. Add that with a character creation system with 280+ perks and more visual additions like beards and tattoos and i'm going to be playing this for a very long time.

Skyrim has vertical cliffs with dungeons and cities built into them, which would be hard to represent with a 2D map.

What everyone else said. Perks, Radiant Story, relationships (to a degree)... I'm guessing it will have huge replay value.

Throw mods into the equation and you're literally adding YEARS to the life of the game.

Voted yes on a technicality. Yes, it will reduce replay value as an isolated change. No, I do NOT expect Skyrim to have less replay value than other TES games.

+1

Skyrim will defenitely have less replay value than Oblivion. They may have perks to help with customization but its possible to get 50 perks you wan't in one playthrough. It will still be replayable, just not as much.

Another problem with Skyrim affecting replayability is how Todd mentioned the game will be "Linear" meaning fewer choices. Fewer outcomes.

Im not saying its a bad thing it can't be replayed as well; if they do a good enough job with the game, you won't need to replay it.

In Oblivion you could get all of the abilities for all of the skills if you took the time to level them up. You could pretty much do everything in the game in one playthrough.

Im sorrey. Typoo. I meant Morrowind, not Oblivion. Oblivion didn't have any replayability since I did do everything in Oblivion with one playthrough in less than 2 weeks. He got around 75-100 with every skill I would ever want to use, did all the quests, and lead all the factions. In Morrowind however, it was impossible to do everything in one playthrough :shrug:

As for if it will have better replayability than Oblivion. I have no idea. They both won't have an overly impressive replayability.

I can't really comment on Morrowind, since I can't make myself play it.