Please understand that TES games are RPGs, not action adventures.
People that object to Bethesda's decisions do not want their favourite series to be transformed into something that's incredibly shallow and boring.

Sure, there's hundreds of quests out there, but they're all boring as hell due to you not having to figure out anything.
Quests in TES series have always had the general set-up of "Go to X, kill everything, bring Y back", to put it bluntly. In previous games the joy was figuring out where X initially was, then where Y was inside of X. (Dwemer puzzle box anyone? Jeeeesus)

Now there's some magical arrow pointing to wherever you need to go, all you need to do is slay the odd 10 monsters in your way.

That, my friend, is boring.



Most of us are hypocrites, wanting TES games to be shaped for ourselves and other TES fans. (putting it VERY bluntly here.)
I've played TES games since Morrowind (tried Daggerfall and Arena, but the limited view distance scared me so much I stopped playing, pixellated rats jumping out of nowhere are scary.), as a result of this I like to think I have a good idea of what a great TES game could be like. If you scramble together the best bits of Morrowind and Oblivion, you can end up with an incredibly game, catering to a very wide audience.
Personally I think Bethesda went too much out of their way to streamline the game for more people to get svcked into it. Leaving a lot of older fans dissapointed. (This all happened to me in WoW too, loved that game, almost cried to see what it has become now, I do not want TES to follow the same path.)

I'm fairly sure there is no justifying their reasons for hand holding to be honest other than the fact that they just wanted it to be this way. People on any given platform will accept a good challenge in a game(See: Dark Souls, Warcraft 3, Starcraft 1 etc.). All comes down to how the team working on Skyrim wanted the game to be.

You think their are enough of the those type of gamers to support a game like that with the TES franchise today?

This is incorrect.
In fact, all but two of Morrowind's route descriptions are accurate and easy to follow.
There is one quest in which there is a typo, mistaking east for west. Since the previous line of the direction got you on a small island, this really didnt matter much as there werent many places the cave could be.

The second is the daedric quest for Mehrunes Razor and is supposed to be vague.

I challenge you to find me any other directions given in Morrowind that are factually incorrect, vague, or hard to follow.

Dwemer puzzle box?
In the same small room as a hostile NPC called Boss Crito.
Where is the treasure? With the boss of course, as in any videogame.

Spot on!

Problem is, there is a very small crowd who wants the game to be like what you want it. gamesas either sells out and makes what they are making now or make it your way and sell 1 million copies and put in doubt the series or sell 6 million copies changing the game to fit the mainstream ensuring another game will be made. Pick your poison.

Except you don't know anything about them, everybody spews the exact same pre-written dialog about most things.
Heck, characters are more deep in Oblivion/Skyrim, as they are actually doing things and when talked to they tend to say at least one personalized thing.



No, I don't want it to be better, because quite frankly that's pretty impossible.

Beth themselves said it, they always start anew, never just grab the old game and add things to it.
This how a series should really work, especially if they have a long list of games behind them, and you don't want the older games to be forgotten. Why would you play dusty old Morrowind when there's the better, much more improved one?

A lot of other developers who made very successful games decided when making a sequel to outdo themselves, trying to figure out what made the old game good and improve it and add more, but that just only makes them miss the point of what truly made the first game good, many times getting way beyond their heads.

And if you played Daggerfall, can you really say that Morrowind was better or the other way around?

All games has their ups and downs, and no you cannot "just add features", it doesn't work that way.

There would be if the majority of game developers would respect human intelligence. I do not play a large amount of games anymore, but have played some new releases at friends. Some of them genuinly insulted my intelligence.
It may sound really odd, but I believe that after years of this being in effect, people have gotten used to extreme handhelding.

But it can be succesful without, look at Dark Souls. (No, keep your Dark Souls hate out of this thread, it was an example. This thread is actually pretty damn mature and constructive when compared to the rest of the forum.)



Same here. I personally believe people have gotten used to handhelding and Bethesda catered to it because, like any company, they like large profits.

I agree with this. It also forced you to explore.

I'm glad there are some people who actually understand that.

Because a featureless arrow tells you the proper way?

I do not think for a minute gamesas could make a game to cater to the hard-core and not operate from game to game, budget wise. The PC market is just too small. To have security in this industry you have to sell on consoles.

If Skyrim is like Morrowind, I'd lose interest just like I did in it. Call me stupid, call me a fan boy but I need a compass and some prodding to complete quest. Going through the process of reading directions and following them to me was tedious. I wanted to go steal stuff and kill stuff and look at stuff. Morrowind was a novelty to me cause I could be kelpto. But once that wore off, it got boring quick.

Agree 100% with this post. I was surprised to see Elder Scrolls/Oblivion/Morrowind fans complaining about how Skyrim had updated and better graphics and gameplay that has moved away from the garbage graphics of the past. Welcome to the future noobs. Skyrim is more like Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas...which is good. It is VERY Bethesda 2009-2011. Its alot better than the past games so get over it.

I followed the directions the NPCs gave me. So let me guess in Skyrim you like the exact location zeroed in on.

Not everybody likes to play the same way people should accept that. I am just stating my opinion. :biggrin:

I think you underestimate Bethesda's popularity. Morrowind was incredibly popular, but it was the first TES game to really break into big audiences. I know a lot of RPG fans who have never even played it, yet would be very interested in a similar game.



Correct, but it still adds something. No matter how useless it may be to some. Character uniqueness has come far in the series, but character depth has stagnated or almost regressed, in my opinion.



I'm not sure how serious I can take Bethesda's development philosophy anymore, seeing how similar this game is to Oblivion. (Which isn't a bad thing in my opinion.)
But it seems they are purposely withhelding great features just to stick to their philosophy, which is even more odd.

Bethesda is learning from their ups and downs, but sometimes it feels their development team lacks common sense when it comes to certain stunts they pull off...



When did I specify it should be PC only? If I did I take that back, it would be pretty damn stupid to say.
I don't even mind the games being developed for consoles, then ported. It's personally given me 0 problems with Skyrim, just some minor inconveniences. But I prefer RPG factors over improved controls/UI any day.

By most estimates Civilization IV sold only 3 million copies. SC II took 10 years to develop and look at it's overall sales numbers. Two of the most popular games in their genres. I do not think a game the magnitude of TES and it cost can survive on that kind patronage alone and get better progressively with out transforming to the console market.




Most of the issues people present and want to change about Skyrim would not go over well with the console market. In fact, most of the changes in the series can be attributed to targeting the console market. Most of the people who remember Morrowwind and want a game like that play on PC, not console. I'm making a guess on that, but it seems to be the case. The console market is action, not deliberate and planned movements to which takes time and thought.

Oh bull. its incorrect. I specifically remember doing it so dont tell me its bull. Sure i exaggerated a little, for dramatic effect, but it helps illustrate what happened.

And making me try and remember a 10 year old gaming experience by naming the exact quest doesnt make me wrong if i cant divine the answer.

I remember multiple multiple times wandering Vvardenfell for hours trying to find WTF they were talking about. I'm not neccessarily complaining, but it was there. One time it was go west of (I forgot the name of the town on the island way up north) and it was all the way on the other side of the shegorath region. just for one example. Another was the cave for the magic claymore cant remember its name either.

Yeah, I mean, Doom was in 320x200 and with sprite instead of 3D models, so it would be perfectly okay to release a FPS with such graphics today. It's not like technology has gone forward, or like Bethesda has more means than before, or like many issues should have been fixed by now.

Regarding the whole dialogue and NPC depth issue, I was musing on this the other day because I was bummed about how few conversational options I had with on NPC in particular. Anyway, I was thinking about that new voice function on the newest iPhones (can recall what it's called), the one where you can just ask it any random question and it can supposedly recognize syntax and speach and such and provide you with relevant information, and was wondering, could something like that be loaded up with game-data rather than real-world info?

Could a dialogue system be designed for an Elderscrolls game where, instead of having dialogue options set for you, you could, instead, just speak into your PC/Console microphone with whatever questions you want and have an NPC give you information relevant to your question?

For instance, you could walk up to an NPC and just ask them, "Hey, can you train me in Blacksmithing?" and they might reply, "Of course, for 250 gold." or "You appear to be more experienced than I, perhpas Steve Bob could help you out?"
Then you might say, "Where can I find Steve Bob?" and they might reply, "Steve Bob runs a forge up north in Solitude." then you says, "Thanks, bro." and they'd be all, "Have a pleasant day." and then you're off to Solitude.

Or, "Hey, guy with the pickaxe, is this Deephole mine?" and he'd say, "Naw, this is Deepcrack mine, Deephole is up the road a bit farther, just before the Really Big Bridge."

Of course the info available would have to be subdivided into categories and those categories assigned to the proper NPCs, so you don't have beggars giving you lengthy diatribes on the history of the Falmer or something, so you'd divide it up into groups like; General Knowledge, Local, Arcane, Spiritual, Martial, Quest Specific, History, Ancient History, etc. Heck, you could even program merchants to haggle with you in real time, or program quirks and personalities.

It'd take work, but in theory the software -already- exists.

Probably would wanna work on a solid voice-modulation software to get the voices sounding realistic rather than robots, but other than that, the technology is already available to make it reality.

Anyone that says Morrowind has bland characters hasnt read any dialogue.

Vivec.
Aryon.
Divayth.
Yagrum.

It goes on and on.

Random NPC out on a field:
Travelling-New-Woman: "My parents told me not to lick the Hist tree until my Naming Day, so I did. My parents caught me and a boy from my nest in a soft-leaf patch right before the naming ceremony. I feared I'd get more of a licking from my parents than I gave the tree... So I ran as fast as I could through the swamp and into the rest of the kids waiting for their naming ceremony. Everyone had a good laugh and the name stuck."

Bland?

Correct. I remember many people specially new players(console) found Morrowind boring because there was too much text. In those days reading was a joy, and reading an in-game book really meant something.

Listen.. If you were to make a product and sell it to as many people as possible, would you

A: listen to the 5-10% of the target group?
B: 90-95% of the target group?

And don't even try to debate that it would be A. Sure they love games at bethesda, but they also have homes families hobbies and lives... For crying out loud. They're giving the majority what they want...

Uniqueness? What uniqueness?
Again, everybody spews the exact same thing when asked about something, the Breton alchemist will use the exact same words to describe his job as the Telvanni Dunmer Alchemist.

Because Skyrim is void of unique character stories?
Because in Skyrim everybody talks about the same thing over and over again?

Yes, there are some NPCs with actual character, but they're in the minority.

Not to mention I wouldn't call "I'm the last Dwarf, and it's boring" Yagrum and "I'm a crazy wizard and I honestly don't care which ultimate artifact of mine you're going to steal" Divayth fyr are not exactly on the same level as, say Bioware characters tend to...

On the bright side, since I am not a long time fan, I am more eligible to complain than those who are.

I didn't get into Elder Scrolls until well after Elder Scrolls IV came out and then only after I had modded it up. The same is true when I first started playing FNV. The fact is I have never played a vanilla game of FNV ever. That also goes for Skyrim. I purchased Skyrim three days after it came out on 11/11 and before I started my first game I had installed several mods. I am not thirteen years old and therefore my taste for eye candy differs; and, I don't mean just character body wise. Most of what I had installed in the beginning was Hi-Res texture mods. The truth of it is I got extremely spoiled with Dragon Age Origins and everything about the game: and, I mean everything --the interactive companions and the romance and its adjoining cut scenes. I was enthralled by the fact that, in my opinion, it was mature and then some. And, I have been intrigued ever since. Sadly, however, there will never ever be another game like it created by game developers. Even Bioware has changed since it was purchased by EA. In the end, this is just me and my personal opinions whether it matters to anyone or not.