I personnaly think the Witcher 2 is the best RPG ever made since Baldur's Gate 2
But you won't get a world as big as Skyrim with the Witcher 2 BUT YOU WILL have a more memorable experience and that what counts the most in my book.
The big problem with the way things are going.
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 5:02 am
I personnaly think the Witcher 2 is the best RPG ever made since Baldur's Gate 2
But you won't get a world as big as Skyrim with the Witcher 2 BUT YOU WILL have a more memorable experience and that what counts the most in my book.
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Brian LeHury - Posts: 3416
- Joined: Tue May 22, 2007 6:54 am
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 12:22 pm
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CHangohh BOyy - Posts: 3462
- Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:12 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:47 am
"Intelligence = reward' can be rewarded as "whoever bothers to min/max the hardest through some simple planning and boring spreadsheets".
Exactly like you can do in skyrim and oblivion also. So your statement=false in degree of speaking in defense of skyrim or oblivion.
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patricia kris - Posts: 3348
- Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:49 am
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:22 am
PRE-EDIT: I am aware that Morrowind was an imperfect game, as was Oblivion and as is Skyrim. However, I am referencing Morrowind not for the purposes of nostalgia, but because I believed that some of the central game design ideas have been removed to the detriment of the game. Oblivion was my least favourite TES game thus far, and Skyrim is much better, but I still want to retain the great points from MW while taking the series forward. Please read below and my replies in thread for an expansion on this idea. This has been a hard thing to put into words, so bear with me.
I've been a long time TES fan, playing it back at Daggerfall and through to now with much anticipation.
Now, I've reached a point of frustration with the entire series that I'd like to articulate. If you are absolutely and blindly in love with Skyrim then it's best if you don't reply to this, as you're probably not going to have read any of it properly and I'll be triple explaining things in the thread.
Now, down to business.
I believe, like many TES fans, that the series reached a spiritual home and peak with Morrowind. I know that is a charged statement, but I'd like to explain what I believe is wrong with Bethesda's game design philosophy, and where things have gone drastically wrong in a big way, that contributes in a lot of small ways to the game feel, and in my opinion, greatly reduces the experience from what it was in Morrowind.
After much thought and discussion, I've come to the realisation that the huge problem is philosophical, and that it has trickled down in many ways. I am always loathe to say this, and I always want to measure where I do say it, if ever, but I really believe that Bethesda has “sold out”.
Many people have incorrectly thought of it as trying to appeal to newer players, or furthering that, trying to widen the target market by making it more accessible to those who already game. What I want to correct is that this is true, but ostensibly, what has changed is the centricity of the game design.
Put simply, Oblivion and Skyrim (to a lesser degree) were designed for time = reward. Morrowind was designed, primarily, for intelligence = reward.
Let me clarify this thesis, because I can imagine a lot of anger and discontent at that statement.
Essentially, the experience of Morrowind is decidedly one in which the player is thrown into the world with a blank canvas for them to make of themselves what they like. A player is forced to grow and learn and adapt and remember features of the world. There is no GPS system, no instantly proclaimed born/unproven/inherent “specialness” to the player, no implausible teleportation to wherever it is that you want to go. Instead, the world and its challenges are statically skilled and predictably (within the gameworld’s logic, not the logic of scaling) challenging and most importantly, the intelligence and savvy and entrepreneurialism of the player is encouraged. In Morrowind, there were one hundred ways to complete every challenge, there was a point to reading notes and books besides the World of Warcraft influenced ding received for completing or receiving a new quest. Exploring was a viable option, because it genuinely felt dangerous in certain environments (which you would subsequently conquer in Morrowind), and this made it exciting and scary. What impossible obstacle would separate me from my goal, and how would I overcome it? The greatest threat in Skyrim is that I might have to teleport back to relieve my encumbrance. Not one single time have I ever actually felt as though I wasn’t up to the challenge and that I might actually have to pace myself, or work out a way around.
What the developers have essentially failed to realise, is that the strength and individuality of their brand in Morrowind was not only open worlds, first person combat and vaster skill boards, but a system in which intelligence, creativity and daring of the actual player (which is different to being TOLD that you’re adventurous and daring because you visited a GPS, teleported cave filled with a creche of whatever the game thinks you’re ready to fight). They built an environment that modeled the system of the real world, in a fantastical way. The beauty of this was that they managed to achieve, in Morrowind, what very, very few games can - an internal and accurate sense of logic within the game world. Once that has been achieved, the satisfaction of the player, I believe, is unmatched by any other RPG game (and wider than this genre). Players are able to read books to research the location of items, characters and quests, they’re able to engage in conversations they need to care about (because it won’t be summated into a single compass point afterwards) and so on, and so on.
In fact, on a side note, I feel an irony that all gained through voice acting and emphatically acted story telling is completely undermined by the game design choices surrounding it. I’d argue that many of the newer features of the game are entirely undermined by the general ease afforded by the rest of the design.
Now, while it’s good to speak about the philosophy and wider practice of game design, I wanted to ask the question as to what a change to this looks like practically. In as much as, how can the franchise return to that ill-defined, unique and amazing quality that made Morrowind so great.
Practically, what that means a removal of the crutches introduced since Morrowind. Namely, the compass and map markers (that you yourself haven’t placed), the summarised quests, circular dungeon design, the too-early player-centric “thank the Lord you’ve just arrived to save the day, here, have my sword!” dialogue and storylines, and the reintroduction within the game world of powerful boons, deadly enemies and skills and magic that allow you to “exploit” (which, let’s be honest, is the entire point and attraction of magic - the exploitation of the laws of nature), pitch black, scary dungeons (give magelight an actual purpose) and the ability for the player to actually enjoy exploring with an incentive beyond “what is that valley like?”
The biggest practical change, of all, is a removal of scaling entirely. Scaling, in all my thinking, is the number one cause for the removal of this amazing quality - removing the keystone, if you will, of RPG games.
I believe the cons of scaling far, far outweigh the benefits, and I’d even argue that scaling is symptomatic of a broken and even lazy game design. It shows that the developers don’t have the inclination to build a world (beyond the geography, which is incredibly under-utilised as everything is signposted to death) that the player must be skilled to access, and instead seem to be so keen on rushing the player to the next reward or conversation that the developers have entirely missed out on what is the meat of their franchise.
In Morrowind, success was derived from understanding the sometimes vague directions to a writ target, to finding the place in which you were to perform a task, and obviously, with a much wider skill set and character build, the way in which you were to attempt it, or heaven forbid, put it off an actually build up your abilities (which doesn’t mean potion mashing) before you’re able to face it properly. Combat was almost a last priority, as there was so much intellectual lifting to do beforehand the satisfaction of combat was almost icing on the cake. In Skyrim, the icing is the entire cake. Everything else has been “streamlined” to death. Instead of Teleportation being a skill that you can increase (and thereby increase your range of teleportation so that, at the end of the game, you can cross the map in one go), it’s some clunky, obvious game feature. Instead of actually using and leveling Clairvoyance, I can just look at my compass, or the giant damn map.
The joy of Morrowind was being rewarded for hard, and fun, work. Adventure was rewarded by incredibly powerful items, interesting quests and tidbits and encounters with far superior enemies. In Oblivion and Skyrim, the developers seem to be saying “they can’t have that too early! It’s too overpowered, it’s not in our time frame,” which, I’m afraid was the EXACT point of Morrowind. If I’m never intrepid, never daring and never read anything, and never use my head, the majority of the game is not going to be accessible to me, just like real life. In Morrowind, if I identified the armoury of a fort, I could put two and two together to realise that powerful weapons and armour might be stored there. I would then scout the place out to work out what locks I would need to pass (three masters in a row, most likely), work out how many lockpicks I might need, work out how many guards I would need to sneak past, and if not sneak, execute, and if execute, how big the bounty would be, and if I had enough to pay it off. Then if I couldn’t sneak, I’d have to work out how else to get it. Can I jump or levitate up to a back door with fewer guards and locks? Can I make an invisibility potion to sneak past all for a quick snatch and so on and so on. Finally, once I was in, I’d be able to pick up one amazing glass dagger and three thousand gold, which would put me in amazing stead for the next few levels. Essentially, reward and the addiction in Morrowind was based on finding something that I really shouldn’t have. It put the fun in theft, and if I’d fought for it, it meant that I’d proven myself strong enough against the odds.
In Skyrim, this situation does not happen because very rarely (I’d argue never) is there anything valuable enough, with enough importance to actually make it worth stealing (besides a heavily controlled stat upgrade). Essentially, as soon as you put scaling in the game, you’re immediately killing the freedom and sense of entrepreneurialism the player has. I’ve been a long time TES player, and I realised suddenly that I just didn’t want to quest like I used to in Morrowind, because I KNEW categorically, that whatever cave I would go into would bear no special reward. If a cave was too hard, I would instantly die - there would be no way around, and if it wasn’t instant death, I could still get to the end and find the relative “reward” allotted to me at that level bracket. With scaling in the game at all, you’re destroying the immersion and the age old system of work and reward (which is different to the completion of equally difficult tasks), and the ability for a player to think for themselves and to make of the game, and the world, what they would. If there was no scaling, a player’s internal and honest gameworld logic would apply (which is incredibly different to external logic applied to the game).
Essentially, what is left after all of this is removed is the last place a player’s skill can be tested: in the choosing of perks, the way combat is carried out and the ability to leave with all the loot presented you. Similarly, with actual geography and the hunting for the target out of the way, nothing is epic, or mystic, or secretive anymore. The Dark Brotherhood? Pop by the cave entrance with the big skull on it just off the road. There’s a big arrow on your compass and on the map, despite the fact that blind Freddy could have found the place on one line of instruction. Easy as you like. No reading, discernment or proactive thinking required. The super secretive base of an assassins guild located itself with a big bloody skull door right next to a main thoroughfare. There goes the mystery of any kind of subterfuge. It’s too damn easy. And this is the point - that destroys the story. It has already totally undermined it for me. If the darkest and most infamous organisation can be that stupid and easy to find, where is the portence, the gravity, of being a member?
Do the developers not see that? Can they not remember how the assassins guild used to feel actually secret in Morrowind? Can they not remember that a player felt privileged because it was actually difficult to join the guild? Now, it feels as if the developers are so scared of being accused of inaccessible that they’ve thrown “challenging” out the window entirely.
Now, what many will say is that I can turn off the GPS marker on my screen (not in any other way, though), and that mods can make the game harder for me, as I require it. While this is true, the reality is that this is an address to the way the series is going. It’s an address to the entire mindset behind the creation of such a huge game. It’s an address to the money and the thought that goes into these games, and what they think that players want. I would bet, that if you gave the players the option of choosing the fast playstyle we have now, with the normal RPG playstyle of Morrowind, 80-90% would choose the normative, challenging playstyle. Bear in mind that to finish the game you have to sink 100+ hours into it anyway. Basically, what I tried to expound over the course of this article, is that the mindset of the developer needs to drastically reassess what makes their brand so unique and amazing, and not to lose sight of that in the wake of the ghost train Fable series and “streamlining” in general.
In conclusion, I’ve really reached the end of the game and absolutely loved playing it. I really did. However, what to me is the fundamental attraction to the series is still not back in the mix. The thing that set the brand apart in a huge way; the depth of the immersion, is still halfway from where it needs to be, and I still feel that the developers don’t understand why it was so good in Morrowind. In this essay (haha) I hope I’ve come some way to explaining that.
Do you agree? (And thanks for reading until the end!)
EDIT 1:
I think I should put my cards on the table a bit to clarify things.
What I personally envisaged at this stage of the series was:
* A map system similar that was entirely unrevealed but with the markers of Skyrim once the place has been discovered.
* No instant fast travel except via carriage - probably borrow from WoW and maybe even take you on it physically so that it felt like you were legitimately travelling.
* Teleport could be perked up to allow short range fast travel (range increases on skill increase).
* NPC's gave you a written description of the dungeon location, along with a journal entry for you to refer to. This would increase the length and immersion and natural exploration of the game. The place is beautiful, you may as well explore it with a purpose. Also, looking for particular landmarks was always satisfying.
* No regenerating health. Keep the wild as a dangerous place. Taking shelter in caves etc. and resting for a while added to the immersion and meant that you weren't always questing at night.
* Remove scaling entirely. Have everything statically placed. If you're too weak for one place, try to think a way around it, or just go and do something else.
* Place rare and unique weapons and items in impossible to reach, incredibly obscure or incredibly dangerous places to give the player a sense of daring in trying to get them, and give adventuring a point again.
* Alter acrobatics and athletics so that they were the same things, and the perks allowed you to run faster and jump higher, and use weapons and cast while jumping. Also give you more encumbrance. Tie jumping to stamina as well.
* Fix up spellcrafting so that it has a much better interface.
* Darken caves up so the magelight has a point.
Additions I hoped to have seen and would consider possible areas of advancement of the series (note, I know there may be technical difficulties with things such as the battles, but the point of advancement is to work out ways around those type of technical problems, and to introduce new and expansive game mechanics):
* Have settlement quests where you can build a settlement of your style/choice as in Bloodmoon.
* Have a working economy that can be effected by the player.
* Have a few new factions (Morag Tong/Imperial Cult/Houses type thing).
* Have bigger pitched battles or even a war (thinking Kingdom Under Fire type 100 man battles)
* Have better and more choice of mounts, and mounted combat.
* Introduce new weapon types, including reintroducing the Halberd.
* Do business ownership and establishment properly (as opposed to Fable).
* Finally work out a good speechcraft system.
* Some varied external architecture or magical landscapes besides the staple of that particular land.
And there are more that I'm not aware of but will come back to later!
I've been a long time TES fan, playing it back at Daggerfall and through to now with much anticipation.
Now, I've reached a point of frustration with the entire series that I'd like to articulate. If you are absolutely and blindly in love with Skyrim then it's best if you don't reply to this, as you're probably not going to have read any of it properly and I'll be triple explaining things in the thread.
Now, down to business.
I believe, like many TES fans, that the series reached a spiritual home and peak with Morrowind. I know that is a charged statement, but I'd like to explain what I believe is wrong with Bethesda's game design philosophy, and where things have gone drastically wrong in a big way, that contributes in a lot of small ways to the game feel, and in my opinion, greatly reduces the experience from what it was in Morrowind.
After much thought and discussion, I've come to the realisation that the huge problem is philosophical, and that it has trickled down in many ways. I am always loathe to say this, and I always want to measure where I do say it, if ever, but I really believe that Bethesda has “sold out”.
Many people have incorrectly thought of it as trying to appeal to newer players, or furthering that, trying to widen the target market by making it more accessible to those who already game. What I want to correct is that this is true, but ostensibly, what has changed is the centricity of the game design.
Put simply, Oblivion and Skyrim (to a lesser degree) were designed for time = reward. Morrowind was designed, primarily, for intelligence = reward.
Let me clarify this thesis, because I can imagine a lot of anger and discontent at that statement.
Essentially, the experience of Morrowind is decidedly one in which the player is thrown into the world with a blank canvas for them to make of themselves what they like. A player is forced to grow and learn and adapt and remember features of the world. There is no GPS system, no instantly proclaimed born/unproven/inherent “specialness” to the player, no implausible teleportation to wherever it is that you want to go. Instead, the world and its challenges are statically skilled and predictably (within the gameworld’s logic, not the logic of scaling) challenging and most importantly, the intelligence and savvy and entrepreneurialism of the player is encouraged. In Morrowind, there were one hundred ways to complete every challenge, there was a point to reading notes and books besides the World of Warcraft influenced ding received for completing or receiving a new quest. Exploring was a viable option, because it genuinely felt dangerous in certain environments (which you would subsequently conquer in Morrowind), and this made it exciting and scary. What impossible obstacle would separate me from my goal, and how would I overcome it? The greatest threat in Skyrim is that I might have to teleport back to relieve my encumbrance. Not one single time have I ever actually felt as though I wasn’t up to the challenge and that I might actually have to pace myself, or work out a way around.
What the developers have essentially failed to realise, is that the strength and individuality of their brand in Morrowind was not only open worlds, first person combat and vaster skill boards, but a system in which intelligence, creativity and daring of the actual player (which is different to being TOLD that you’re adventurous and daring because you visited a GPS, teleported cave filled with a creche of whatever the game thinks you’re ready to fight). They built an environment that modeled the system of the real world, in a fantastical way. The beauty of this was that they managed to achieve, in Morrowind, what very, very few games can - an internal and accurate sense of logic within the game world. Once that has been achieved, the satisfaction of the player, I believe, is unmatched by any other RPG game (and wider than this genre). Players are able to read books to research the location of items, characters and quests, they’re able to engage in conversations they need to care about (because it won’t be summated into a single compass point afterwards) and so on, and so on.
In fact, on a side note, I feel an irony that all gained through voice acting and emphatically acted story telling is completely undermined by the game design choices surrounding it. I’d argue that many of the newer features of the game are entirely undermined by the general ease afforded by the rest of the design.
Now, while it’s good to speak about the philosophy and wider practice of game design, I wanted to ask the question as to what a change to this looks like practically. In as much as, how can the franchise return to that ill-defined, unique and amazing quality that made Morrowind so great.
Practically, what that means a removal of the crutches introduced since Morrowind. Namely, the compass and map markers (that you yourself haven’t placed), the summarised quests, circular dungeon design, the too-early player-centric “thank the Lord you’ve just arrived to save the day, here, have my sword!” dialogue and storylines, and the reintroduction within the game world of powerful boons, deadly enemies and skills and magic that allow you to “exploit” (which, let’s be honest, is the entire point and attraction of magic - the exploitation of the laws of nature), pitch black, scary dungeons (give magelight an actual purpose) and the ability for the player to actually enjoy exploring with an incentive beyond “what is that valley like?”
The biggest practical change, of all, is a removal of scaling entirely. Scaling, in all my thinking, is the number one cause for the removal of this amazing quality - removing the keystone, if you will, of RPG games.
I believe the cons of scaling far, far outweigh the benefits, and I’d even argue that scaling is symptomatic of a broken and even lazy game design. It shows that the developers don’t have the inclination to build a world (beyond the geography, which is incredibly under-utilised as everything is signposted to death) that the player must be skilled to access, and instead seem to be so keen on rushing the player to the next reward or conversation that the developers have entirely missed out on what is the meat of their franchise.
In Morrowind, success was derived from understanding the sometimes vague directions to a writ target, to finding the place in which you were to perform a task, and obviously, with a much wider skill set and character build, the way in which you were to attempt it, or heaven forbid, put it off an actually build up your abilities (which doesn’t mean potion mashing) before you’re able to face it properly. Combat was almost a last priority, as there was so much intellectual lifting to do beforehand the satisfaction of combat was almost icing on the cake. In Skyrim, the icing is the entire cake. Everything else has been “streamlined” to death. Instead of Teleportation being a skill that you can increase (and thereby increase your range of teleportation so that, at the end of the game, you can cross the map in one go), it’s some clunky, obvious game feature. Instead of actually using and leveling Clairvoyance, I can just look at my compass, or the giant damn map.
The joy of Morrowind was being rewarded for hard, and fun, work. Adventure was rewarded by incredibly powerful items, interesting quests and tidbits and encounters with far superior enemies. In Oblivion and Skyrim, the developers seem to be saying “they can’t have that too early! It’s too overpowered, it’s not in our time frame,” which, I’m afraid was the EXACT point of Morrowind. If I’m never intrepid, never daring and never read anything, and never use my head, the majority of the game is not going to be accessible to me, just like real life. In Morrowind, if I identified the armoury of a fort, I could put two and two together to realise that powerful weapons and armour might be stored there. I would then scout the place out to work out what locks I would need to pass (three masters in a row, most likely), work out how many lockpicks I might need, work out how many guards I would need to sneak past, and if not sneak, execute, and if execute, how big the bounty would be, and if I had enough to pay it off. Then if I couldn’t sneak, I’d have to work out how else to get it. Can I jump or levitate up to a back door with fewer guards and locks? Can I make an invisibility potion to sneak past all for a quick snatch and so on and so on. Finally, once I was in, I’d be able to pick up one amazing glass dagger and three thousand gold, which would put me in amazing stead for the next few levels. Essentially, reward and the addiction in Morrowind was based on finding something that I really shouldn’t have. It put the fun in theft, and if I’d fought for it, it meant that I’d proven myself strong enough against the odds.
In Skyrim, this situation does not happen because very rarely (I’d argue never) is there anything valuable enough, with enough importance to actually make it worth stealing (besides a heavily controlled stat upgrade). Essentially, as soon as you put scaling in the game, you’re immediately killing the freedom and sense of entrepreneurialism the player has. I’ve been a long time TES player, and I realised suddenly that I just didn’t want to quest like I used to in Morrowind, because I KNEW categorically, that whatever cave I would go into would bear no special reward. If a cave was too hard, I would instantly die - there would be no way around, and if it wasn’t instant death, I could still get to the end and find the relative “reward” allotted to me at that level bracket. With scaling in the game at all, you’re destroying the immersion and the age old system of work and reward (which is different to the completion of equally difficult tasks), and the ability for a player to think for themselves and to make of the game, and the world, what they would. If there was no scaling, a player’s internal and honest gameworld logic would apply (which is incredibly different to external logic applied to the game).
Essentially, what is left after all of this is removed is the last place a player’s skill can be tested: in the choosing of perks, the way combat is carried out and the ability to leave with all the loot presented you. Similarly, with actual geography and the hunting for the target out of the way, nothing is epic, or mystic, or secretive anymore. The Dark Brotherhood? Pop by the cave entrance with the big skull on it just off the road. There’s a big arrow on your compass and on the map, despite the fact that blind Freddy could have found the place on one line of instruction. Easy as you like. No reading, discernment or proactive thinking required. The super secretive base of an assassins guild located itself with a big bloody skull door right next to a main thoroughfare. There goes the mystery of any kind of subterfuge. It’s too damn easy. And this is the point - that destroys the story. It has already totally undermined it for me. If the darkest and most infamous organisation can be that stupid and easy to find, where is the portence, the gravity, of being a member?
Do the developers not see that? Can they not remember how the assassins guild used to feel actually secret in Morrowind? Can they not remember that a player felt privileged because it was actually difficult to join the guild? Now, it feels as if the developers are so scared of being accused of inaccessible that they’ve thrown “challenging” out the window entirely.
Now, what many will say is that I can turn off the GPS marker on my screen (not in any other way, though), and that mods can make the game harder for me, as I require it. While this is true, the reality is that this is an address to the way the series is going. It’s an address to the entire mindset behind the creation of such a huge game. It’s an address to the money and the thought that goes into these games, and what they think that players want. I would bet, that if you gave the players the option of choosing the fast playstyle we have now, with the normal RPG playstyle of Morrowind, 80-90% would choose the normative, challenging playstyle. Bear in mind that to finish the game you have to sink 100+ hours into it anyway. Basically, what I tried to expound over the course of this article, is that the mindset of the developer needs to drastically reassess what makes their brand so unique and amazing, and not to lose sight of that in the wake of the ghost train Fable series and “streamlining” in general.
In conclusion, I’ve really reached the end of the game and absolutely loved playing it. I really did. However, what to me is the fundamental attraction to the series is still not back in the mix. The thing that set the brand apart in a huge way; the depth of the immersion, is still halfway from where it needs to be, and I still feel that the developers don’t understand why it was so good in Morrowind. In this essay (haha) I hope I’ve come some way to explaining that.
Do you agree? (And thanks for reading until the end!)
EDIT 1:
I think I should put my cards on the table a bit to clarify things.
What I personally envisaged at this stage of the series was:
* A map system similar that was entirely unrevealed but with the markers of Skyrim once the place has been discovered.
* No instant fast travel except via carriage - probably borrow from WoW and maybe even take you on it physically so that it felt like you were legitimately travelling.
* Teleport could be perked up to allow short range fast travel (range increases on skill increase).
* NPC's gave you a written description of the dungeon location, along with a journal entry for you to refer to. This would increase the length and immersion and natural exploration of the game. The place is beautiful, you may as well explore it with a purpose. Also, looking for particular landmarks was always satisfying.
* No regenerating health. Keep the wild as a dangerous place. Taking shelter in caves etc. and resting for a while added to the immersion and meant that you weren't always questing at night.
* Remove scaling entirely. Have everything statically placed. If you're too weak for one place, try to think a way around it, or just go and do something else.
* Place rare and unique weapons and items in impossible to reach, incredibly obscure or incredibly dangerous places to give the player a sense of daring in trying to get them, and give adventuring a point again.
* Alter acrobatics and athletics so that they were the same things, and the perks allowed you to run faster and jump higher, and use weapons and cast while jumping. Also give you more encumbrance. Tie jumping to stamina as well.
* Fix up spellcrafting so that it has a much better interface.
* Darken caves up so the magelight has a point.
Additions I hoped to have seen and would consider possible areas of advancement of the series (note, I know there may be technical difficulties with things such as the battles, but the point of advancement is to work out ways around those type of technical problems, and to introduce new and expansive game mechanics):
* Have settlement quests where you can build a settlement of your style/choice as in Bloodmoon.
* Have a working economy that can be effected by the player.
* Have a few new factions (Morag Tong/Imperial Cult/Houses type thing).
* Have bigger pitched battles or even a war (thinking Kingdom Under Fire type 100 man battles)
* Have better and more choice of mounts, and mounted combat.
* Introduce new weapon types, including reintroducing the Halberd.
* Do business ownership and establishment properly (as opposed to Fable).
* Finally work out a good speechcraft system.
* Some varied external architecture or magical landscapes besides the staple of that particular land.
And there are more that I'm not aware of but will come back to later!
I have to totally agreed on this post.
-
.X chantelle .x Smith - Posts: 3399
- Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:25 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 7:30 am
please go play chessmaster 2000 for your intelligent and rewarding gameplay, thanks.
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Nichola Haynes - Posts: 3457
- Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:54 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:50 am
OK, sorry if it annoys some people, but I'm going to only respond to the first post, because there's simply too much here I want to respond to before I read 150+ more posts, and forget what I was going to say.
***** OK, so apparently, there is a limit to the amount of quotes I can do, so I'm going to be using === breaks to note quotes.
You know, my first experience with TES was Morrowind, when I played it on the XBox of a friend. I started off trying to make an argonian mage character, and started exploring the town, found nothing really interesting to do, and started looking for those clamshells that had pearls in them. I then kept getting my head nearly handed to me by mudcrabs, because I could basically only cast 2 spells before being out of magicka, and my attacks missed 90% of the time. After going exploring a little more, I found a small cave with a person inside of it. I went up to go talk to him, and see why he was staying in the cave, and he then killed me in one hit. Reloading, I tried actually sneaking up and trying to fight him, and he still completely curb stomped me.
It was then I basically quit the game, realizing that the game wasn't really very well level scaled. I wasn't having very much fun because none of my skills worked, and the game really wasn't giving me any information as to why. How, exactly, was I SUPPOSED to be a mage if I had to sleep for 6 hours after casting a fire spell that could hardly out-damage a cigarette lighter, or get my melee skill ranked up if I couldn't even hit a freakin' crab?! Worse, I had no particular idea where I was going, but exploration wasn't really an option because I would suddenly, arbitrarily, be face to face with something far more powerful than myself blocking my way. It actually impeded my exploration.
Now, yes, I obviously got over my initial revulsion, but keep in mind, Bethesda is a corporation, and corporations exist for the sole purpose of making money. There is no "Selling Out", they had no values beyond money to start with. And in order to make money, they have to be welcoming to new players. The sort of experience I had is anathema to them expanding their player base.
That doesn't mean everything you said is wrong, but that there is a clear and obvious reason why "coddling the noobs" should be one of their highest priorities, and giving the veterans who will stick with Bethesda practically no matter what they do second-class citizenship is also an obvious result. If you are going to argue for something, you have to argue not just from the perspective of a player who understands how Bethesda games work, and how to adapt to them, but also explain how this is something that will better attract new players to the series, as well. (Or at least, not turn them off.)
I'll respond to the specific suggestions in the bullet points individually:
I actually think Oblivion did the best job of this, putting aside the fact that your compass had some sort of weird "Spidey Sense" that would tell you that you were within 50 meters of a new cave.
Bluntly, Fast Travel makes sense. I do, myself, enjoy making the trip to a dungeon and picking all the flowers for alchemy ingredients along the way. However, after killing everything in the cave, and being completely weighted down with loot, it makes sense to just travel straight back to town, sell it off, go back and pick up the things I couldn't carry in my first trip, and return. (Actually, it would kind of be better to do the D&D thing, and just have a bunch of hirelings that sit at the cave entrance and haul the loot out for you when you're done, but that's getting a little too technical.)
Teleportation that has a maximum range has a few problems: First, range makes no difference - you can just teleport waypoint by waypoint to where you are going, and the only result of your change is that you make the player sit through more loading screens. That hardly adds something. Second, it makes "pure" characters who are not mages significantly less viable. Players might not like to level up without really intending to by fast-travel. Third, consider why we have a "wait" function in the game... it's because sometimes, you need to wait for something, and it's just plain boring to do so. The fast travel system isn't the player teleporting, it's just the game's "story" skipping the paragraphs where you simply ran straight past everything to get to the point where you wanted to go as fast as possible. If a player just wants to get on with something, and not enjoy the scenery, the game shouldn't smack his/her hand and tell him/her no, they should let them, because it's ultimately the player's game. Reward the player who stops to pick the flowers, but let players play as they choose. You can always just choose not to use it, and indeed, many people don't use it except for when they are specifically just trying to get to town to dump off their excess junk or report in a quest.
With that said, I do think actually having to find the place yourself the first time does make sense, and does reward exploration.
==========
* No regenerating health. Keep the wild as a dangerous place. Taking shelter in caves etc. and resting for a while added to the immersion and meant that you weren't always questing at night.
==========
I partially agree with this, although I think something like having a "sit down and rest" mechanic where you didn't enter the time skip, and just started regenerating there would also be a decent compromise. Since every character starts the game with a healing spell, just having them constantly regenerating while sitting down and taking it easy to regenerate magicka still makes sense. Having enemies that actually would patrol from room to room so that you can't just sleep one room away from the next enemy ambush would make a lot of sense, as well.
==========
* Remove scaling entirely. Have everything statically placed. If you're too weak for one place, try to think a way around it, or just go and do something else.
==========
I'm going to have to disagree on this, like I have in all the other level scaling arguments.
Simply saying that we should make low-level characters hide in the newbie grounds until they level grind up to higher levels just because that's what other RPGs do is not very good reasoning. In fact, level grinding is one of the things that turns off many potential players from getting into RPGs in the first place. Bethesda shouldn't be doing something just because everyone else does it, especially when this break from convention is justifiable.
Level scaling by itself is not a bad idea, it just needs better implementation. Without level scaling, the world is too weak and boring for a high-level character just as much as it is too frightening for a low-level character. Worse, it tends to wind up with the new players getting constantly curb-stomped in battles they can't possibly handle.
This works better when you have enemies that you can clearly visually tell the power levels of from a glance. A level 4 player learns early on not to mess with giants. Meanwhile, I have absolutely no idea how powerful a humanoid is until I start exchanging blows. (Well, unless there is a clue in the form of armor they use.)
What works better is for the game to more properly use its level scaling system to make the effects more subtle. You can still have hard areas and easy areas, but instead of making easy areas completely useless to a high-level player, they can scale up with the player at around 5 levels behind the player. A difficult area could be 10 levels or more higher than the player. Rewards can similarly be scaled to the challenge you had to face to achieve them. Interstitched between, many potential threats, from wolves to elk to giants and the like, could be completely unbound by player level, meaning that players have to keep track of what wildlife they have to avoid until they are a higher level, but still have the ability to actually hunt wolves when they are a much higher level than them.
Likewise, even back in Oblivion, the game had minimum and maximum levels on many NPCs. You can simply make it so that no dragon will ever be less than level 15, and the final boss will never be less than level 35. Plus, that final boss is always 10 levels higher than you. You just need to set up some sort of warning sign to players that says not to go forward with the main quest it until you hit level X.
Maybe it annoys the "the game is getting stronger, but I'm not, leveling makes me weak" crowd, but it is far superior to having the game so completely lose challenge that you have to throw a fireball into the guard garrison just to get a fight that lasts longer than 3 seconds after hitting level 50.
==========
* Place rare and unique weapons and items in impossible to reach, incredibly obscure or incredibly dangerous places to give the player a sense of daring in trying to get them, and give adventuring a point again.
==========
Makes sense to me, although I would think that level scaling could still be applicable here, as well. Simply make the rewards for your feat a treasure from the treasure table normally reserved for a player several levels higher than yourself. Part of the problem with the alternative is that enchantments the player can use will eventually overwhelm any unique equipment unless it scales.
==========
* Alter acrobatics and athletics so that they were the same things, and the perks allowed you to run faster and jump higher, and use weapons and cast while jumping. Also give you more encumbrance. Tie jumping to stamina as well.
==========
This is a problem for a few reasons. First, in a game where you have your levelups based upon skill rank, every skill needs to be balanced to one another. Meaning, you can't have one skill that lets you plow through all your threats, and then another skill that does little to help the character overcome challenges like a skill like acrobatics did. Acrobatics was useful only as far as you could use it to break the game's faulty pathfinding AI, or to go beyond the ability of Bethesda to properly bound skills, and do crazy game-breaking things with it.
Ideally, every skill should help the player overcome challenges somehow. "Overcome challenges" does not necessarily mean kill things, but a sneak expert should be able to simply sneak around enemies and grab their loot, and thus overcome the challenge that the guards posed. (Since I'm not going to get much better chance to say it, "Detection" should probably also be a level scaling ability of different enemies, so that sneak isn't so absurdly overpowered in the late game.) Lockpicking and pickpocketing make sense only if they are individually capable of giving the player the sort of advantages that allow him/her to win entire fights. They could probably stand being merged, and making a difference between less observant and more observant pickpocketable enemies, as well as having less-linear maps that allow lockpicking to bypass some major threats.
Speech, however, deserves special attention. Speech needs to be useable to simply BYPASS a fight altogether. That's how Arcanum made a diplomatic character playthrough remotely possible. You need to have the ability to talk your way past the guards. You need to be able to talk a giant into helping you fight that dragon. Maybe even make speech have a perk that lets you charm wildlife, and get them to help you.
Now then, back to the combined athletics and acrobatics skill - this would make more sense in the context of having acrobatics that were actually acrobatic. Rock climbing as a skill function would make exploration more interesting. Simply running around should not level this, either, as that is potentially unwanted ranking up of skills.
Also, naturally, the stupid AI needs to just use vector pathfinding, and understand how to handle uneven terrain. They also need to understand how to either use ranged attacks or else just run away from a guy with a bow.
==========
* Fix up spellcrafting so that it has a much better interface.
==========
Well, we need spellcrafting back first, don't we...
Anyway, I think it would actually make a bit more sense to have spells scale to our character, with some sort of in-menu scaler on our spells. The higher your maximum magicka level and your magic skill ranks are, the more you can expand upon the basic functionality of a specific type of spell - firing off half-power or over-powered versions of the same spell. Expanding or removing area of effect. That sort of thing. You can just favorite specific settings on the same spell, but you would only need to buy one fireball, instead of having to relearn the same fireball spell with umpteen different versions.
==========
* Darken caves up so the magelight has a point.
==========
Yes, obviously. Also, we need water in dungeons back. Let argonians have their racial advantage count by simply swimming through submerged passageways to get around in dungeons. And water walking. And the ability to cast underwater if you can breathe underwater, as well as at least do claw attacks.
==========
* Have bigger pitched battles or even a war (thinking Kingdom Under Fire type 100 man battles)
* Have better and more choice of mounts, and mounted combat.
* Introduce new weapon types, including reintroducing the Halberd.
==========
Ever play Mount And Blade? That game does this sort of thing very well. (I actually was playing M&B up until the release of Skyrim.)
Anyway, they have an excellent system of mounted combat, especially with couched lance charges and horse archery. They also have a system for managing armies of up to 150 soldiers into combat in a real-time first/third person environment. The latter of which could probably use some more polish, however.
==========
* Have settlement quests where you can build a settlement of your style/choice as in Bloodmoon.
* Have a working economy that can be effected by the player.
* Do business ownership and establishment properly (as opposed to Fable).
==========
Building a whole settlement may be a bit much to ask of Bethesda, but I definitely like it. It requires a lot of work to make these things look natural. More importantly, I would like to see the Radiant Story system actually evolve to the point where the game can actually spawn new characters when old characters die, move in to replace dead people, and take up roles that let them give quests or talk to the player based off of a template that is fleshed out enough to make them seem like their procedurally-generated backstory makes a good deal of sense in the context of the game.
Working economies are actually not that difficult to handle if you just look at some other games that do these things. You can abstract out an awful lot. Look at Mount and Blade for tips on this, although their economy could be expanded, as well. In that game, however, cities rely upon nearby villages to supply it with food and raw materials, while the cities produce finished products based upon the supply and productivity rating of the city, and supply of goods affects prices, while merchant caravans will buy up and sell goods and set their destinations based upon where they will make the most profits. Villages that are raided because of war stop producing goods and lower their productivity, hurting the city's economy, especially if they are perpetually starved of resources.
It works to create a larger sense of a living, breathing world you are participating in, and would help propel the game more towards the point where we don't even really need scripted scenes anymore, and we can really just be plunked down in a world that just runs on its own, where you participate in it.
==========
* Have a few new factions (Morag Tong/Imperial Cult/Houses type thing).
==========
I've been arguing that we need to have less factions that are just "If you are a mage, join the mage's guild!" What we need are factions that actually have some meaning, and to do that, you need to have more opposing factions. Why do we have to join The Companions, why can't we also have a choice to join the Silver Hands? They are competing factions, and we could be offered a spot in both of these factions based upon which one's philosophy we most agree with? Keeping things morally gray gives the player many more interesting choices, and helps them establish what they are when they role-play, because their affiliations actually speak to what sort of personal choices they have made, aside from simply having joined the Mage's guild just because it was there.
==========
* Finally work out a good speechcraft system.
==========
Any suggestions?
==========
* Some varied external architecture or magical landscapes besides the staple of that particular land.
==========
Makes sense to me, although it should obviously be done in moderation.
Oh God, did this ever take a long time to write...
***** OK, so apparently, there is a limit to the amount of quotes I can do, so I'm going to be using === breaks to note quotes.
Way too much text from the original post to leave in a single quote.
You know, my first experience with TES was Morrowind, when I played it on the XBox of a friend. I started off trying to make an argonian mage character, and started exploring the town, found nothing really interesting to do, and started looking for those clamshells that had pearls in them. I then kept getting my head nearly handed to me by mudcrabs, because I could basically only cast 2 spells before being out of magicka, and my attacks missed 90% of the time. After going exploring a little more, I found a small cave with a person inside of it. I went up to go talk to him, and see why he was staying in the cave, and he then killed me in one hit. Reloading, I tried actually sneaking up and trying to fight him, and he still completely curb stomped me.
It was then I basically quit the game, realizing that the game wasn't really very well level scaled. I wasn't having very much fun because none of my skills worked, and the game really wasn't giving me any information as to why. How, exactly, was I SUPPOSED to be a mage if I had to sleep for 6 hours after casting a fire spell that could hardly out-damage a cigarette lighter, or get my melee skill ranked up if I couldn't even hit a freakin' crab?! Worse, I had no particular idea where I was going, but exploration wasn't really an option because I would suddenly, arbitrarily, be face to face with something far more powerful than myself blocking my way. It actually impeded my exploration.
Now, yes, I obviously got over my initial revulsion, but keep in mind, Bethesda is a corporation, and corporations exist for the sole purpose of making money. There is no "Selling Out", they had no values beyond money to start with. And in order to make money, they have to be welcoming to new players. The sort of experience I had is anathema to them expanding their player base.
That doesn't mean everything you said is wrong, but that there is a clear and obvious reason why "coddling the noobs" should be one of their highest priorities, and giving the veterans who will stick with Bethesda practically no matter what they do second-class citizenship is also an obvious result. If you are going to argue for something, you have to argue not just from the perspective of a player who understands how Bethesda games work, and how to adapt to them, but also explain how this is something that will better attract new players to the series, as well. (Or at least, not turn them off.)
I'll respond to the specific suggestions in the bullet points individually:
* A map system similar that was entirely unrevealed but with the markers of Skyrim once the place has been discovered.
* No instant fast travel except via carriage - probably borrow from WoW and maybe even take you on it physically so that it felt like you were legitimately travelling.
* Teleport could be perked up to allow short range fast travel (range increases on skill increase).
* NPC's gave you a written description of the dungeon location, along with a journal entry for you to refer to. This would increase the length and immersion and natural exploration of the game. The place is beautiful, you may as well explore it with a purpose. Also, looking for particular landmarks was always satisfying.
* No instant fast travel except via carriage - probably borrow from WoW and maybe even take you on it physically so that it felt like you were legitimately travelling.
* Teleport could be perked up to allow short range fast travel (range increases on skill increase).
* NPC's gave you a written description of the dungeon location, along with a journal entry for you to refer to. This would increase the length and immersion and natural exploration of the game. The place is beautiful, you may as well explore it with a purpose. Also, looking for particular landmarks was always satisfying.
I actually think Oblivion did the best job of this, putting aside the fact that your compass had some sort of weird "Spidey Sense" that would tell you that you were within 50 meters of a new cave.
Bluntly, Fast Travel makes sense. I do, myself, enjoy making the trip to a dungeon and picking all the flowers for alchemy ingredients along the way. However, after killing everything in the cave, and being completely weighted down with loot, it makes sense to just travel straight back to town, sell it off, go back and pick up the things I couldn't carry in my first trip, and return. (Actually, it would kind of be better to do the D&D thing, and just have a bunch of hirelings that sit at the cave entrance and haul the loot out for you when you're done, but that's getting a little too technical.)
Teleportation that has a maximum range has a few problems: First, range makes no difference - you can just teleport waypoint by waypoint to where you are going, and the only result of your change is that you make the player sit through more loading screens. That hardly adds something. Second, it makes "pure" characters who are not mages significantly less viable. Players might not like to level up without really intending to by fast-travel. Third, consider why we have a "wait" function in the game... it's because sometimes, you need to wait for something, and it's just plain boring to do so. The fast travel system isn't the player teleporting, it's just the game's "story" skipping the paragraphs where you simply ran straight past everything to get to the point where you wanted to go as fast as possible. If a player just wants to get on with something, and not enjoy the scenery, the game shouldn't smack his/her hand and tell him/her no, they should let them, because it's ultimately the player's game. Reward the player who stops to pick the flowers, but let players play as they choose. You can always just choose not to use it, and indeed, many people don't use it except for when they are specifically just trying to get to town to dump off their excess junk or report in a quest.
With that said, I do think actually having to find the place yourself the first time does make sense, and does reward exploration.
==========
* No regenerating health. Keep the wild as a dangerous place. Taking shelter in caves etc. and resting for a while added to the immersion and meant that you weren't always questing at night.
==========
I partially agree with this, although I think something like having a "sit down and rest" mechanic where you didn't enter the time skip, and just started regenerating there would also be a decent compromise. Since every character starts the game with a healing spell, just having them constantly regenerating while sitting down and taking it easy to regenerate magicka still makes sense. Having enemies that actually would patrol from room to room so that you can't just sleep one room away from the next enemy ambush would make a lot of sense, as well.
==========
* Remove scaling entirely. Have everything statically placed. If you're too weak for one place, try to think a way around it, or just go and do something else.
==========
I'm going to have to disagree on this, like I have in all the other level scaling arguments.
Simply saying that we should make low-level characters hide in the newbie grounds until they level grind up to higher levels just because that's what other RPGs do is not very good reasoning. In fact, level grinding is one of the things that turns off many potential players from getting into RPGs in the first place. Bethesda shouldn't be doing something just because everyone else does it, especially when this break from convention is justifiable.
Level scaling by itself is not a bad idea, it just needs better implementation. Without level scaling, the world is too weak and boring for a high-level character just as much as it is too frightening for a low-level character. Worse, it tends to wind up with the new players getting constantly curb-stomped in battles they can't possibly handle.
This works better when you have enemies that you can clearly visually tell the power levels of from a glance. A level 4 player learns early on not to mess with giants. Meanwhile, I have absolutely no idea how powerful a humanoid is until I start exchanging blows. (Well, unless there is a clue in the form of armor they use.)
What works better is for the game to more properly use its level scaling system to make the effects more subtle. You can still have hard areas and easy areas, but instead of making easy areas completely useless to a high-level player, they can scale up with the player at around 5 levels behind the player. A difficult area could be 10 levels or more higher than the player. Rewards can similarly be scaled to the challenge you had to face to achieve them. Interstitched between, many potential threats, from wolves to elk to giants and the like, could be completely unbound by player level, meaning that players have to keep track of what wildlife they have to avoid until they are a higher level, but still have the ability to actually hunt wolves when they are a much higher level than them.
Likewise, even back in Oblivion, the game had minimum and maximum levels on many NPCs. You can simply make it so that no dragon will ever be less than level 15, and the final boss will never be less than level 35. Plus, that final boss is always 10 levels higher than you. You just need to set up some sort of warning sign to players that says not to go forward with the main quest it until you hit level X.
Maybe it annoys the "the game is getting stronger, but I'm not, leveling makes me weak" crowd, but it is far superior to having the game so completely lose challenge that you have to throw a fireball into the guard garrison just to get a fight that lasts longer than 3 seconds after hitting level 50.
==========
* Place rare and unique weapons and items in impossible to reach, incredibly obscure or incredibly dangerous places to give the player a sense of daring in trying to get them, and give adventuring a point again.
==========
Makes sense to me, although I would think that level scaling could still be applicable here, as well. Simply make the rewards for your feat a treasure from the treasure table normally reserved for a player several levels higher than yourself. Part of the problem with the alternative is that enchantments the player can use will eventually overwhelm any unique equipment unless it scales.
==========
* Alter acrobatics and athletics so that they were the same things, and the perks allowed you to run faster and jump higher, and use weapons and cast while jumping. Also give you more encumbrance. Tie jumping to stamina as well.
==========
This is a problem for a few reasons. First, in a game where you have your levelups based upon skill rank, every skill needs to be balanced to one another. Meaning, you can't have one skill that lets you plow through all your threats, and then another skill that does little to help the character overcome challenges like a skill like acrobatics did. Acrobatics was useful only as far as you could use it to break the game's faulty pathfinding AI, or to go beyond the ability of Bethesda to properly bound skills, and do crazy game-breaking things with it.
Ideally, every skill should help the player overcome challenges somehow. "Overcome challenges" does not necessarily mean kill things, but a sneak expert should be able to simply sneak around enemies and grab their loot, and thus overcome the challenge that the guards posed. (Since I'm not going to get much better chance to say it, "Detection" should probably also be a level scaling ability of different enemies, so that sneak isn't so absurdly overpowered in the late game.) Lockpicking and pickpocketing make sense only if they are individually capable of giving the player the sort of advantages that allow him/her to win entire fights. They could probably stand being merged, and making a difference between less observant and more observant pickpocketable enemies, as well as having less-linear maps that allow lockpicking to bypass some major threats.
Speech, however, deserves special attention. Speech needs to be useable to simply BYPASS a fight altogether. That's how Arcanum made a diplomatic character playthrough remotely possible. You need to have the ability to talk your way past the guards. You need to be able to talk a giant into helping you fight that dragon. Maybe even make speech have a perk that lets you charm wildlife, and get them to help you.
Now then, back to the combined athletics and acrobatics skill - this would make more sense in the context of having acrobatics that were actually acrobatic. Rock climbing as a skill function would make exploration more interesting. Simply running around should not level this, either, as that is potentially unwanted ranking up of skills.
Also, naturally, the stupid AI needs to just use vector pathfinding, and understand how to handle uneven terrain. They also need to understand how to either use ranged attacks or else just run away from a guy with a bow.
==========
* Fix up spellcrafting so that it has a much better interface.
==========
Well, we need spellcrafting back first, don't we...
Anyway, I think it would actually make a bit more sense to have spells scale to our character, with some sort of in-menu scaler on our spells. The higher your maximum magicka level and your magic skill ranks are, the more you can expand upon the basic functionality of a specific type of spell - firing off half-power or over-powered versions of the same spell. Expanding or removing area of effect. That sort of thing. You can just favorite specific settings on the same spell, but you would only need to buy one fireball, instead of having to relearn the same fireball spell with umpteen different versions.
==========
* Darken caves up so the magelight has a point.
==========
Yes, obviously. Also, we need water in dungeons back. Let argonians have their racial advantage count by simply swimming through submerged passageways to get around in dungeons. And water walking. And the ability to cast underwater if you can breathe underwater, as well as at least do claw attacks.
==========
* Have bigger pitched battles or even a war (thinking Kingdom Under Fire type 100 man battles)
* Have better and more choice of mounts, and mounted combat.
* Introduce new weapon types, including reintroducing the Halberd.
==========
Ever play Mount And Blade? That game does this sort of thing very well. (I actually was playing M&B up until the release of Skyrim.)
Anyway, they have an excellent system of mounted combat, especially with couched lance charges and horse archery. They also have a system for managing armies of up to 150 soldiers into combat in a real-time first/third person environment. The latter of which could probably use some more polish, however.
==========
* Have settlement quests where you can build a settlement of your style/choice as in Bloodmoon.
* Have a working economy that can be effected by the player.
* Do business ownership and establishment properly (as opposed to Fable).
==========
Building a whole settlement may be a bit much to ask of Bethesda, but I definitely like it. It requires a lot of work to make these things look natural. More importantly, I would like to see the Radiant Story system actually evolve to the point where the game can actually spawn new characters when old characters die, move in to replace dead people, and take up roles that let them give quests or talk to the player based off of a template that is fleshed out enough to make them seem like their procedurally-generated backstory makes a good deal of sense in the context of the game.
Working economies are actually not that difficult to handle if you just look at some other games that do these things. You can abstract out an awful lot. Look at Mount and Blade for tips on this, although their economy could be expanded, as well. In that game, however, cities rely upon nearby villages to supply it with food and raw materials, while the cities produce finished products based upon the supply and productivity rating of the city, and supply of goods affects prices, while merchant caravans will buy up and sell goods and set their destinations based upon where they will make the most profits. Villages that are raided because of war stop producing goods and lower their productivity, hurting the city's economy, especially if they are perpetually starved of resources.
It works to create a larger sense of a living, breathing world you are participating in, and would help propel the game more towards the point where we don't even really need scripted scenes anymore, and we can really just be plunked down in a world that just runs on its own, where you participate in it.
==========
* Have a few new factions (Morag Tong/Imperial Cult/Houses type thing).
==========
I've been arguing that we need to have less factions that are just "If you are a mage, join the mage's guild!" What we need are factions that actually have some meaning, and to do that, you need to have more opposing factions. Why do we have to join The Companions, why can't we also have a choice to join the Silver Hands? They are competing factions, and we could be offered a spot in both of these factions based upon which one's philosophy we most agree with? Keeping things morally gray gives the player many more interesting choices, and helps them establish what they are when they role-play, because their affiliations actually speak to what sort of personal choices they have made, aside from simply having joined the Mage's guild just because it was there.
==========
* Finally work out a good speechcraft system.
==========
Any suggestions?
==========
* Some varied external architecture or magical landscapes besides the staple of that particular land.
==========
Makes sense to me, although it should obviously be done in moderation.
Oh God, did this ever take a long time to write...
-
Soph - Posts: 3499
- Joined: Fri Oct 13, 2006 8:24 am
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 3:46 pm
The problem is that not everyone has the time or the patience (or perhaps intelligence) for an immersive and intricate story telling/gameplay.
If you enjoyed the game, then that is pretty much job done as far as Beth are concerned. There are a million and ones things I would like to see added to the game, but that's just tailoring to my specific preferences, and I understand that those preferences would alienate other players if developed, so ...
My biggest gripe and a major biggie is that they should have ensured the UI for the PC was sorted before release. I've stopped playing until there is an official patch that does this.
If you enjoyed the game, then that is pretty much job done as far as Beth are concerned. There are a million and ones things I would like to see added to the game, but that's just tailoring to my specific preferences, and I understand that those preferences would alienate other players if developed, so ...
My biggest gripe and a major biggie is that they should have ensured the UI for the PC was sorted before release. I've stopped playing until there is an official patch that does this.
The thing here is that you cant really take "if you have time" approach on RPG games. They are meant to take time to complete just like their predecessors table top RPG's. If you wanna go play some 15 minutes brainless shooting action, go play CoD or similar dumbed down corridor shooter.
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Robert Garcia - Posts: 3323
- Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2007 5:26 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 7:47 am
You can play skyrim exactly the same way you played Morrowind. You don't need to use the fast travel. The nostalgia you're feeling is based on the newness that MW had. Now, you EXPECT. It's this expectation that's the problem... not the game design. When ever you expect something to behaive a certain way and it doesn't, you get disappointed. That's not the game's fault. It's your fault for expecting it to behaive the way you want. Play the game. Enjoy it. Or don't. But quit telling everyone what you expect in a game. It doesn't matter a lick.
But the thing is, you really cant. We have [censored] UI, classes getting so OP that they 1 hit dragons etc, mages getting less powerfull, we dont have character stats or many of them missing skills. We dont have spell making. WE only have handfull of quests with more than one solution to it. We have game that i find more and more fails the more i play and less i want to play every time. There is so many things missing that there is no way you can play this like morrowind.
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Janeth Valenzuela Castelo - Posts: 3411
- Joined: Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:03 am
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:01 am
Having read many of the "Morrowind is better than Skyrim" threads recently, I decided to revisit Morrowind to see how much has changed. Yes, things have changed, yes Morrowind is almost a different game to Skyrim, but is it any better? No.
I've watched the evolution of games for over 30 years. You will always get a series of games that appear to differ from their predecessors, Skyrim is one of them.
With Morrowind, I found the UI almost unbearable. I found the quests in no way as intricate or as fun than in Skyrim. The graphics engine hasn't aged at all well either. In all honesty? I was bored after 30 minutes and promptly loaded up Skyrim again and marvelled at how far the genre had come.
Bottom line - Skyrim (and Oblivion for that matter) has(have) changed the TES series in some rather extreme ways, but to sit there with nostalgia glasses on and whine about how it isn't the same game is to really miss the point of evolution. It's funny how human beings don't like change.
All I know is, I'll go home from work tonight and sink several hours into Skyrim, and maybe give Morrowind (and Oblivion) a thought or two whenever I stumble across a book that reminds me of it, but I doubt I'll be venturing through it's (now) aged towns and quests.
And just to note: I'm not blindly in love with Skyrim, or any other game for that matter. But I know what I like in a game series, and that is a sense of evolution, a sense of progression. Skyrim delivers that to the series.
Just my tuppence worth.
I've watched the evolution of games for over 30 years. You will always get a series of games that appear to differ from their predecessors, Skyrim is one of them.
With Morrowind, I found the UI almost unbearable. I found the quests in no way as intricate or as fun than in Skyrim. The graphics engine hasn't aged at all well either. In all honesty? I was bored after 30 minutes and promptly loaded up Skyrim again and marvelled at how far the genre had come.
Bottom line - Skyrim (and Oblivion for that matter) has(have) changed the TES series in some rather extreme ways, but to sit there with nostalgia glasses on and whine about how it isn't the same game is to really miss the point of evolution. It's funny how human beings don't like change.
All I know is, I'll go home from work tonight and sink several hours into Skyrim, and maybe give Morrowind (and Oblivion) a thought or two whenever I stumble across a book that reminds me of it, but I doubt I'll be venturing through it's (now) aged towns and quests.
And just to note: I'm not blindly in love with Skyrim, or any other game for that matter. But I know what I like in a game series, and that is a sense of evolution, a sense of progression. Skyrim delivers that to the series.
Just my tuppence worth.
I just pretend you didnt say that you hated the morrowind UI. If you have played games for 30 years then you should know better to see that skyrims UI is blashphemy towards PC game UI's. Why the hell i have to go through 2 or more screens to see same things that i saw in 1 screen playing morrowind or other RPG's? The damn ability to have inventory, characters stats etc open at same damn time was perfect. Now i have to friggin push 3 to 5 buttons to equip a damn sword.
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Lovingly - Posts: 3414
- Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:36 am
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:25 am
It's sad that everyone forgets this - Morrowind had enemy and loot scaling! There was low level loot for your lower levels, and as you progressed the loot got better and better, just like in Skyrim. Enemies were scaled, too. Yes, enemies were scaled too.
The game adjusted itself based on your skill level, just as Oblivion and Skyrim did. Morrowind simply did it in a better, less obvious way. (Can't speak for Skyrim's noticibility of scaling. I'm only level 11 so far.)
The game adjusted itself based on your skill level, just as Oblivion and Skyrim did. Morrowind simply did it in a better, less obvious way. (Can't speak for Skyrim's noticibility of scaling. I'm only level 11 so far.)
Only certain mobs scaled and when they scaled they were totally random. You could find 15 levels lower bandit or 20 lvls higher atronach. And dungeon mobs didnt really scale much. You could find so totally hard dungeon that you didnt have change to win until you went to lvl 10 more lvls. Now speaking about oblivion, you simply knew that every mob that came after you. You could just smash. With skyrims scalings it luckily a little more better with higher scaling range. However at least on my observations the mobs dont ever be lower than you, they simple be same lvl that you can smash to pieces or 10~ lvls higher that has a bit more challenge. As a mage and with master difficulty only things so far i have found difficult are ice trolls and only if they get into melee distance for some reason. So such kind of brick wall moments like in morrowind where you had to come back later to succeed. And like in friggin most of the PC RPG's before the [censored] scaling mania started. And lol you especially didnt find ebon fitted bandits spawning every where and letting you loot them and be even more invincible like in oblivion.
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Jeff Tingler - Posts: 3609
- Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:55 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 4:31 am
Sadly, your tl;dr post, which seems well thought out, seemed to miss the fundamental concept that game developers have caught on to but some players who I would categorize yourself as a part of have not.
The average person doesn't have time. To do anything.
Do you know why a game like Magic the Gathering so instantly and ridiculously caught the imagination of millions of D&D players all over the world in the span of like a year and is stretching out to two decades?
It's because you can get the experience in 15 minute intervals.
This isn't an instant gratification thing. It's not like, say a movie that is paced like Star Wars to hold your attention. It's a time management thing. It's why Star Control II was (and still is) widely considered the greatest game ever made - because the game gave you something to do and enjoy along the way, and cut down the tediousness of the work or attention you needed to do/give to get to that enjoyment.
That doesn't mean you can't have a long and over-arching end-game that might take you hundreds of hours to complete, but what it does mean is that I can't spend 10 minutes creating my own map or reading over a diary of my own notes because soon it's going to be time to have dinner. Then it's going to be time to tuck in the kids. Then it's going to be time to work out at the gym. Then, tomorrow, I have to put up the Christmas lights. Or go to a party.
A game like Morrowwind, to really enjoy it, required you to generally sit down for hours at a time (sometimes) before there was any kind of pay off. Sure I think the pay off was pretty good, but honestly that might take me 3, 4 or 5 sessions before something happens that actually makes me want to sit down again.
The number of people who have and can create that time without failing some other, more important part of their life are simply too few to build a game around. Game developers have caught on to this in basically the same organic way that every other entertainment medium has.
tl;dr - the gaming industry has evolved to it's gross market. And the market doesn't have a lot of chances for marathon sessions.
The average person doesn't have time. To do anything.
Do you know why a game like Magic the Gathering so instantly and ridiculously caught the imagination of millions of D&D players all over the world in the span of like a year and is stretching out to two decades?
It's because you can get the experience in 15 minute intervals.
This isn't an instant gratification thing. It's not like, say a movie that is paced like Star Wars to hold your attention. It's a time management thing. It's why Star Control II was (and still is) widely considered the greatest game ever made - because the game gave you something to do and enjoy along the way, and cut down the tediousness of the work or attention you needed to do/give to get to that enjoyment.
That doesn't mean you can't have a long and over-arching end-game that might take you hundreds of hours to complete, but what it does mean is that I can't spend 10 minutes creating my own map or reading over a diary of my own notes because soon it's going to be time to have dinner. Then it's going to be time to tuck in the kids. Then it's going to be time to work out at the gym. Then, tomorrow, I have to put up the Christmas lights. Or go to a party.
A game like Morrowwind, to really enjoy it, required you to generally sit down for hours at a time (sometimes) before there was any kind of pay off. Sure I think the pay off was pretty good, but honestly that might take me 3, 4 or 5 sessions before something happens that actually makes me want to sit down again.
The number of people who have and can create that time without failing some other, more important part of their life are simply too few to build a game around. Game developers have caught on to this in basically the same organic way that every other entertainment medium has.
tl;dr - the gaming industry has evolved to it's gross market. And the market doesn't have a lot of chances for marathon sessions.
So either you have played 30 card match or the players have been crap. Average MTG card game takes at least a hour with 60 card + matches. And if players dont have time anymore, how they have time to play skyrim? That arqument really dont work here.
And whats the point of running every dungeon to lvl lock them? That way you r gonna lessen the already easy game even more.
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Skivs - Posts: 3550
- Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 10:06 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:18 am
Dear ope,
I've read your entire original post and the edits. First of all, my compliments and my admiration for being so thorough and honest about your perspective. Game discussions aside, every aspect of our contemporary lives could use a bit more of that attitude (imho).
When it comes to your critique of Skyrim, from the perspective of Morrowind (Bethesda's magnum opus to many of us, a sort of Sgt. Peppers of computer games), I have to say that I agree with your points in terms of legitimacy, but "disagree" with what you make with them in terms of conclusions. The title of the topic and the premisse for your critique are absolutely reasonable, after all it's a given that you're talking about your opinion. On that regard, here's mine:
A cultural manifestation, doesn't matter the form it takes, if it gets big enough in terms of intensity of appreciation and range of people that appreciate it, will always escape the control of its creators. Even if they realise the things that are out of control. TES became a franchise in an economic engine that involves money. Bethesda is a company that, even tough it may not say it's their primary concern, cannot ignore prospects of profit, especially if we're talking about world-wide perspective of profit. I'd agree that selling its soul to profit would be horrible, but I don't think that's the case with the way Oblivion and Skyrim were made (bear in mind that I know you're not implying that either, I'm just pushing the envelope for the sake of argument).
At the risk of already sounding like a sycophantic apologetic of gamesas, I say these things because, surprisingly enough, I think there's a validity in wanting TES to be able to be enjoyed by teenagers, console players etc. Here's where I'll probably lose you but, I don't think they "sould out" the main core of TES, its very soul: the Construction Set and the power that it enables players to freely change the game even in its most fundamental features.
I'd ask you to indulge me in approaching this issue with a different perspective, in the form of a simple question: Would you say that Skyrim's engine and hardcode mechanics made it impossible for the players who subscribe to a "Morrowind approach" to mod it so?
I think the answer is no. Almost all of the things you mention at the end as issues you'd want modified can (and will) be achieved in the form of mods. And think about the fun we'll have making this.
I think a computer game is a cross between a work of art and a car: it has a fundamental aesthetic appeal with limits of funcionality built into it, to appeal to as many people as possible. Every sucessful computer game designer started out as a company, as small as they were in the begining. And as a company, the hard thing is - ironically enough - to be prepared for sucess, not for failure. If TES failed miserably it'd be easy to solve the issue. The catch 22 is what do they do when it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Yes, the engine feels like a console, smells like a console and look like a console game, but the soul is there: we can change it ourselves. I think they've achieved sucess in maintaining a balance, otherwise you wouldn't even bother with caring so much as to make such an in-depth criticism of it.
In the end, and please don't be angry with my metaphor because I mean it in the most respectable and humorous way, but I feel like players like you and I are just like the original Beatles' Liverpool fans. When the Fab Four left their hometown and gained the world in 1963, a lot of their hardcoe Cavern Club-going fans were disheartened, feeling as if they lost The Beatles. In a way, when half the planet started to enjoy them too, they did.
Fact is ope that TES doesn't belong just to old and hardcoe fans anymore, other type of fans (like teenagers who want more gore for example, i.e., Skyrim's finishing moves) are also on the boat now. Their input became as valid as ours.
Cheers friend.
Best regards from Brasil.
I've read your entire original post and the edits. First of all, my compliments and my admiration for being so thorough and honest about your perspective. Game discussions aside, every aspect of our contemporary lives could use a bit more of that attitude (imho).
When it comes to your critique of Skyrim, from the perspective of Morrowind (Bethesda's magnum opus to many of us, a sort of Sgt. Peppers of computer games), I have to say that I agree with your points in terms of legitimacy, but "disagree" with what you make with them in terms of conclusions. The title of the topic and the premisse for your critique are absolutely reasonable, after all it's a given that you're talking about your opinion. On that regard, here's mine:
A cultural manifestation, doesn't matter the form it takes, if it gets big enough in terms of intensity of appreciation and range of people that appreciate it, will always escape the control of its creators. Even if they realise the things that are out of control. TES became a franchise in an economic engine that involves money. Bethesda is a company that, even tough it may not say it's their primary concern, cannot ignore prospects of profit, especially if we're talking about world-wide perspective of profit. I'd agree that selling its soul to profit would be horrible, but I don't think that's the case with the way Oblivion and Skyrim were made (bear in mind that I know you're not implying that either, I'm just pushing the envelope for the sake of argument).
At the risk of already sounding like a sycophantic apologetic of gamesas, I say these things because, surprisingly enough, I think there's a validity in wanting TES to be able to be enjoyed by teenagers, console players etc. Here's where I'll probably lose you but, I don't think they "sould out" the main core of TES, its very soul: the Construction Set and the power that it enables players to freely change the game even in its most fundamental features.
I'd ask you to indulge me in approaching this issue with a different perspective, in the form of a simple question: Would you say that Skyrim's engine and hardcode mechanics made it impossible for the players who subscribe to a "Morrowind approach" to mod it so?
I think the answer is no. Almost all of the things you mention at the end as issues you'd want modified can (and will) be achieved in the form of mods. And think about the fun we'll have making this.
I think a computer game is a cross between a work of art and a car: it has a fundamental aesthetic appeal with limits of funcionality built into it, to appeal to as many people as possible. Every sucessful computer game designer started out as a company, as small as they were in the begining. And as a company, the hard thing is - ironically enough - to be prepared for sucess, not for failure. If TES failed miserably it'd be easy to solve the issue. The catch 22 is what do they do when it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Yes, the engine feels like a console, smells like a console and look like a console game, but the soul is there: we can change it ourselves. I think they've achieved sucess in maintaining a balance, otherwise you wouldn't even bother with caring so much as to make such an in-depth criticism of it.
In the end, and please don't be angry with my metaphor because I mean it in the most respectable and humorous way, but I feel like players like you and I are just like the original Beatles' Liverpool fans. When the Fab Four left their hometown and gained the world in 1963, a lot of their hardcoe Cavern Club-going fans were disheartened, feeling as if they lost The Beatles. In a way, when half the planet started to enjoy them too, they did.
Fact is ope that TES doesn't belong just to old and hardcoe fans anymore, other type of fans (like teenagers who want more gore for example, i.e., Skyrim's finishing moves) are also on the boat now. Their input became as valid as ours.
Cheers friend.
Best regards from Brasil.
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yermom - Posts: 3323
- Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:56 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:33 am
@Free Skyrim!:
Thank you for your very well-thought out and respectful response to the OP. More people should follow your example.
That said, I must disagree with one of your points. There are certain things that, in my opinion, mods will not be able to fix; or rather, they won't be able to fix well. I am thinking mainly of the poorly written and rushed questlines. The current set up of the game makes me believe that any such quest-fixing mod will need to be voice-acted, or else risk feeling out of place. Of course, most modders are simply incapable of providing the kind of voice-acting that will match Bethesda's in terms of quality. Maybe I'm mistaken in believing that voice-acting is necessary here, but my experience with Oblivion seems to indicate that I'm not.
This is really one of Skyrim's few shortcomings that I can't forgive Bethesda for. Some of the quest lines have been absolutely atrocious, even by ES standards. I sincerely hope that this isn't a result of them catering to the "15-minute-attention-span" gamer.
---
Edit: @Wraith_Magus:
Just finished reading your post. Excellent points all around. I especially agree with you that the concept of level-scaling is not an inherently bad idea. What is bad is Bethesda's poor implementation.
Thank you for your very well-thought out and respectful response to the OP. More people should follow your example.
That said, I must disagree with one of your points. There are certain things that, in my opinion, mods will not be able to fix; or rather, they won't be able to fix well. I am thinking mainly of the poorly written and rushed questlines. The current set up of the game makes me believe that any such quest-fixing mod will need to be voice-acted, or else risk feeling out of place. Of course, most modders are simply incapable of providing the kind of voice-acting that will match Bethesda's in terms of quality. Maybe I'm mistaken in believing that voice-acting is necessary here, but my experience with Oblivion seems to indicate that I'm not.
This is really one of Skyrim's few shortcomings that I can't forgive Bethesda for. Some of the quest lines have been absolutely atrocious, even by ES standards. I sincerely hope that this isn't a result of them catering to the "15-minute-attention-span" gamer.
---
Edit: @Wraith_Magus:
Just finished reading your post. Excellent points all around. I especially agree with you that the concept of level-scaling is not an inherently bad idea. What is bad is Bethesda's poor implementation.
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Katey Meyer - Posts: 3464
- Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2006 10:14 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:52 am
@Free Skyrim!:
Thank you for your very well-thought out and respectful response to the OP. More people should follow your example.
That said, I must disagree with one of your points. There are certain things that, in my opinion, mods will not be able to fix; or rather, they won't be able to fix well. I am thinking mainly of the poorly written and rushed questlines. The current set up of the game makes me believe that any such quest-fixing mod will need to be voice-acted, or else risk feeling out of place. Of course, most modders are simply incapable of providing the kind of voice-acting that will match Bethesda's in terms of quality. Maybe I'm mistaken in believing that voice-acting is necessary here, but my experience with Oblivion seems to indicate that I'm not.
This is really one of Skyrim's few shortcomings that I can't forgive Bethesda for. Some of the quest lines have been absolutely atrocious, even by ES standards. I sincerely hope that this isn't a result of them catering to the "15-minute-attention-span" gamer.
Thank you for your very well-thought out and respectful response to the OP. More people should follow your example.
That said, I must disagree with one of your points. There are certain things that, in my opinion, mods will not be able to fix; or rather, they won't be able to fix well. I am thinking mainly of the poorly written and rushed questlines. The current set up of the game makes me believe that any such quest-fixing mod will need to be voice-acted, or else risk feeling out of place. Of course, most modders are simply incapable of providing the kind of voice-acting that will match Bethesda's in terms of quality. Maybe I'm mistaken in believing that voice-acting is necessary here, but my experience with Oblivion seems to indicate that I'm not.
This is really one of Skyrim's few shortcomings that I can't forgive Bethesda for. Some of the quest lines have been absolutely atrocious, even by ES standards. I sincerely hope that this isn't a result of them catering to the "15-minute-attention-span" gamer.
It's possible that you could fix the shortness of the questline with Radiant Story quests... Basically, like how you needed to fence X amount of random stuff for the Thieves' Guild in Oblivion, in order to advance to the next major plot point quest in one of the guilds, you would have to do X number of radiant story quests. That way, it breaks up the major events with some lower-intensity questing where you "earn your place" doing some of the lower-level work of the guild.
The more I think about it, the more I think procedurally generated Radiant Story quests may just be the future of the series. If better developed so as to feel less repetitive, you can do an awful lot with procedural quests that involve little more than the caravans requesting a guard as they make their way from town to town, or having a farm that will occasionally send out requests for extermination of the local fauna (with food supply hurting if you don't take up those quests, forcing up prices, and hurting trade).
Radiant story quests can be connected to the overall "living, breathing" nature of the world, and give out quests based upon the needs of the individual towns in a way that a scripted storyline quest WHERE YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE cannot.
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patricia kris - Posts: 3348
- Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:49 am
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 12:32 pm
It's possible that you could fix the shortness of the questline with Radiant Story quests... Basically, like how you needed to fence X amount of random stuff for the Thieves' Guild in Oblivion, in order to advance to the next major plot point quest in one of the guilds, you would have to do X number of radiant story quests. That way, it breaks up the major events with some lower-intensity questing where you "earn your place" doing some of the lower-level work of the guild.
The more I think about it, the more I think procedurally generated Radiant Story quests may just be the future of the series. If better developed so as to feel less repetitive, you can do an awful lot with procedural quests that involve little more than the caravans requesting a guard as they make their way from town to town, or having a farm that will occasionally send out requests for extermination of the local fauna (with food supply hurting if you don't take up those quests, forcing up prices, and hurting trade).
Radiant story quests can be connected to the overall "living, breathing" nature of the world, and give out quests based upon the needs of the individual towns in a way that a scripted storyline quest WHERE YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE cannot.
The more I think about it, the more I think procedurally generated Radiant Story quests may just be the future of the series. If better developed so as to feel less repetitive, you can do an awful lot with procedural quests that involve little more than the caravans requesting a guard as they make their way from town to town, or having a farm that will occasionally send out requests for extermination of the local fauna (with food supply hurting if you don't take up those quests, forcing up prices, and hurting trade).
Radiant story quests can be connected to the overall "living, breathing" nature of the world, and give out quests based upon the needs of the individual towns in a way that a scripted storyline quest WHERE YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE cannot.
Absolutely - radiant quests can definitely be used to serve as those typical gruntwork quests. This is part of the reason why I can't forgive Bethesda for blowing it with the factions: they already had the tools that could've been used to at least prolong the experience, and make you feel like you've earned a place in the faction.
But there are still lots of other problems with the faction questlines, as well as with the MQ, that radiant quests won't be able to alleviate.
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megan gleeson - Posts: 3493
- Joined: Wed Feb 07, 2007 2:01 pm
» Mon Dec 05, 2011 12:43 am
@Free Skyrim!:
Thank you for your very well-thought out and respectful response to the OP. More people should follow your example.
That said, I must disagree with one of your points. There are certain things that, in my opinion, mods will not be able to fix; or rather, they won't be able to fix well. I am thinking mainly of the poorly written and rushed questlines. The current set up of the game makes me believe that any such quest-fixing mod will need to be voice-acted, or else risk feeling out of place. Of course, most modders are simply incapable of providing the kind of voice-acting that will match Bethesda's in terms of quality. Maybe I'm mistaken in believing that voice-acting is necessary here, but my experience with Oblivion seems to indicate that I'm not.
This is really one of Skyrim's few shortcomings that I can't forgive Bethesda for. Some of the quest lines have been absolutely atrocious, even by ES standards. I sincerely hope that this isn't a result of them catering to the "15-minute-attention-span" gamer.
---
Edit: @Wraith_Magus:
Just finished reading your post. Excellent points all around. I especially agree with you that the concept of level-scaling is not an inherently bad idea. What is bad is Bethesda's poor implementation.
Thank you for your very well-thought out and respectful response to the OP. More people should follow your example.
That said, I must disagree with one of your points. There are certain things that, in my opinion, mods will not be able to fix; or rather, they won't be able to fix well. I am thinking mainly of the poorly written and rushed questlines. The current set up of the game makes me believe that any such quest-fixing mod will need to be voice-acted, or else risk feeling out of place. Of course, most modders are simply incapable of providing the kind of voice-acting that will match Bethesda's in terms of quality. Maybe I'm mistaken in believing that voice-acting is necessary here, but my experience with Oblivion seems to indicate that I'm not.
This is really one of Skyrim's few shortcomings that I can't forgive Bethesda for. Some of the quest lines have been absolutely atrocious, even by ES standards. I sincerely hope that this isn't a result of them catering to the "15-minute-attention-span" gamer.
---
Edit: @Wraith_Magus:
Just finished reading your post. Excellent points all around. I especially agree with you that the concept of level-scaling is not an inherently bad idea. What is bad is Bethesda's poor implementation.
A lucid point like ope's commands an appropriate reaction. Actually, you make an excellent point when talking about voices in mods. I feel this pain since the Morrowind days. I tried to help out in putting some VAing together for Tamriel Rebuilt, but it didn't work. There's a subtle but essential detail that I never realised. The english language, like it or not, is the language that enables people from different parts of the globe to communicate. I'm from Brasil, my native language is portuguese, I can only be here posting if I use english. When it comes to voices, accent plays a fundamental (even if somewhat overlooked) roll on setting the ambiance. For example, my english svcks, but I'm able to express my points in a reasonable manner as to maintain dialogue, the function of communication is effective. However, if I were to send you some VA lines of Malacath for a mod that would explore Orcs in-depth, it wouldn't work, my accent would make it not enjoyable, if not a goofy experience.
That being said, I'm still optimistic when it comes to VA in mods. I think that with the speed of our internet connections evolving and global interaction coming to new levels, I think able and talented english-speaking individuals will make good contributions to mods. But in the end, yes, you're right when saying this is a major setback in modding such a modern game as Skyrim, in terms of changing the main plot, new questlines, factions etc.
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Loane - Posts: 3411
- Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2007 6:35 am
