Hello,

I am rather bored at work (it's nearly 2am in the Great Plains of America) and have decided to somewhat follow suit in what I have seen some other topics have done but with my own spin. First, a quick background. Last night I posted a topic titled "Appreciate the little things" in which I bluntly and rather clumsily presented a frustration of mine towards the growing debate among the divided ES fans. I never was able to respond however because my laptop decided to die and I spaced bringing my charger to work. Now that I am here once again I have read through my previous topic and realized that many people seem to feel that points of praise/points of concern are not being properly voiced. Some feel their opinions are being ignored. I personally believe everyone is entitled to their opinion and I will defend to the death that creative and personal thought that all humans are capable of and have a claim to. However, due to my training as a psychological and philosophical mediator (I'm in a Ph.D program) I also believe that some opinions are more "weighted" than others. This does not mean one is more right but that one opinion is more supported and therefore sits at the top. This is the way in which I have been taught to mediate disputes. My job is to show that it is the responsibly of those in argument to support their positions. That's what I propose to do here. Note: I do not do this because I feel I am more superior or more intelligent than others. On the contrary, I admit I may well be wrong. I am simply bored and enjoy this type of conversation.

If anyone would like, I ask that they post just one concern of theirs about Skyrim and I will do my best to contest the point if I disagree. If I happen to agree with the concern raised in the post I will explain why I do with support. As for which questions I will ask, I will be returning to this topic every 10 or 15 minutes after my latest post and will pick the most recent concern posted, if anyone chooses to do so. I may not contest your personal concern simply because it got passed by, not because I am avoiding the post.

So anyone want to be first?

I am most concerned over the issues with armor separation that has been showing up since E3.

I am most concerned with how Beth will port the game over to the PS3 (which will be my platform until such time that I get the funds to build a desktop).

Oblivion ported over quite nicely, but that was with a year's worth of work. Fallout 3 however came out on all 3 platforms at the same time, and the sloppy work was quite evident. I don't know if Xbox had this problem or not, but the PS3 version of FO3 had gamebreaking memory leak issues, to the point in which players could not play a specific character through the main story without framerate drops, and continual crashing.

I'm optimistic that they will fix this problem, but will there still be obvious flaws in PS3's port? With the base game being created on the 360, will they put the extra effort necessary to port it over, or will they make another rush job?

The only real reason I'm this concerned is because of the fact that Bethesda never even bothered to fix FO3's problems for the PS3, and I'm sure they never will.

I am going to assume you mean the lack of armor separation. If so, I agree with this point. There are so many benefits to armor separations. First, we have cosmetic customization. Although it isn't my personal cup of tea, the sheer ability to mix and match armor and clothing pieces, as presented in Morrowind, is astounding. Yes, there is the physical character creation that helps define a unique character for each player, if they so choose, but to knowingly hamper armor separation/customization is hampering an extension of the character creator. Human beings, at least those who entertain themselves with the RPG genre, have a strong tendency to "look cool." From the moment we see our first superhero, we want to have amazing powers and have a look all our own. Just look at the concerns raised by the ME fanbase concerning the lack of squadmate armor customization. This is a similar situation in which we players want that control over how things look. ME2 has a good armor system for the PC. It achieves what players want. This is even more noticeable when the same fanbase complains that the helmets of the DLC armors cannot be toggled. A seemingly so simple of a thing bears a lot of weight to players because the lack of a toggle function, for many, warrants unnecessary control. Secondly, the opportunities for enchanting (assuming this mechanic is still available in a similar form seen in past games) are greatly enhanced with armor separation. A full body suit includes helmet, cuirass, left and right pauldron, left and right gauntlents/bracers, greaves (can't remember if these were separated in MW), and left and right boots. Thats nine, possibly ten different items capable of having individual enchantments. Add in accessories like necklace, two rings, and clothing under armor (robes over armor even?) and the list grows. This is great customization and freedom for players which in western culture- where we are individualistic in nature as compared to the collectivist nature of eastern culture- that freedom is important.

In defense of Bethesda, I can understand limiting customization means better balancing (I will not debate, in regards to this concern, the importance of balancing a single-player game). Bethesda has repeatedly, in past games, been criticized of games filled with bugs and glitches. I think these are unwarranted as Bethesda builds games that few studios attempt and therefore polishing these games are of a different nature than most games. However, in hopes to lessen these criticisms, I can believe Bethesda would limit player freedom in attempts of presenting a cleaner game. Admittedly, Morrowind is a buggy and broken game. That is a fault that can be argued against it that cannot be denied. The Main Quest can be finished in 15 or so minutes. This is a two-sided coin though because that very fault of Morrowind is due to one of it's greatest strengths, which was freedom. Perhaps, with Skyrim, they are hoping to strike a middle-ground.

My personal opinion is that Bethesda should ignore any criticisms they receive and allow that freedom that many fans clamor for.

I have stated above a stance on the topic of armor separation. Please note that yes, these are opinions, but they are supported by arguments that cannot be denied. I welcome anyone to challenge my stance on why armor separation is important but if you choose to do so, please respond with constructed reasons why. Make sure they have weight and are built on facts in which anyone can look at and agree exist. For example, my argument for enhanced enchanting cannot be denied. Anyone can look at the opportunities for enchanting in Morrowind and know that there are more than Oblivion, granted Oblivion had only Constant Effect for armor and clothing. The mechanics for enchanting were different, but the opportunities were still greater in Morrowind.

Thanks.

likly enough they wont port skyrim they will make a generalized copy for it. the ported oblivion because the ps3 came out after oblivions release so they ether had to re wright it while working on there other games or port it so they ported it. this caused a buch of game killing glitches such as not being able to cure vampirism and much more. next month there comming out with oblivion aniversory edition that has all those glitches fixed for ps3 however.

so likly enough they wont port it because ps3 is out for this ones release

I am most concerned that the drop of attributes (most of them) in favor of perks makes the interaction of our character with the world less smooth/continuous and also turns what should be obligatory and universal game mechanics, into restricted bonuses, that one must choose as perks or miss (e.g bleeding wounds constricted to a perk for axes :rolleyes: ).

I do not feel I know enough concerning the differences between the systems to adequately answer this question. I will do my best however I will be making an Argument From Ignorance.

First, I see no reason for the game to not come to PS3. I do not believe in loyalty to any form of entertainment. All consoles and PC's have their benefits for each gamer and although we can argue which benefits are the MOST beneficial, in some sort of bastardized Utilitarianism idea, I hold all equal. For me, the XBOX360 has the controller and Live services that I prefer while my laptop has the modding capability I like. I do not own a PS3 simply because it has nothing that I see I need that I don't already have.

Second, I do agree that the game will probably not be ported but be developed with it's own copy. I have read countless articles that contain development studios admitting the PS3 lacks the same programming elegance a PC or 360 have. Sony's console is beastly for a console but it requires familiarity to get it to work properly. I know of very few ports that are successful on the PS3. There are some games that run best on that console and there are other games that suffer from some of the very flaws you mentioned about FO3. From my understanding, it is always a porting issue for the PS3. As far as I know, Todd Howard and his team have not developed ground up for the PS3 but this would be a good time to do so. I could be in error about that.

I apologize for my lack of knowledge on the subject matter.

Hand to hand removed. Will it be under one handed? If so no problem, otherwise, there's my sense of reality gone, disarmed and unable to use for fists to get out? Not good.
http://cdn.devicemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Skyrim-Logo-485x284.jpg Why is it on the box, but nothing like it is in the HUD or UI?

No offense but that doesn't make a lot of sense. Firstly it is coming to the PS3. Secondly not everything is equal. The PC and 360 share a similar way the games run. I.e. DirectX (360s is different but similar). PS3 uses a variant of OpenGL. Which is why ports don't always work as well because it really is a very different way of doing things. Whether or not your Xbox has Live and you can mod on your laptop has absolutely nothing to do with why they develop for the 360 first. It's simply the platform they are most comfortable developing for, and it's the lowest common denominator graphics wise, so it's guaranteed to run on a PS3 and PC (developing for either of the other two platforms first could possibly mean they had to spend a long time making it work for the 360 - less so if they developed for the PS3 first).

As for it being a good time to develop for the PS3 from the ground up, it's about 3 years too late for that. PS3 users will just have to hope that Bethesda does a good job with the port this time. It's all down to how much time and money they are going to put into porting the game.

I am most concerned with the progression in game style I have seen elder scrolls evolve in since Daggerfall.
Ever since that game things are removed, gimped, stunted or ignored.
Oblivion was a terrible let down for me. It felt rushed, and unfinished.
I am most worried that Skyrim will turn out to be a hollow shell of what the series once was, continuing the trend of Oblivion instead of harking back to the strengths of the series.
I am unhappy with the removal of yet more skills.
I am very unhappy with the removal of spellmaking in favour of spells looking cool, I prefer substance over looks.
Same thing with attributes. It seems to me that perks do what attributes did in a more fluent way, perks seem gimmicky and gamey.
The removal of acrobatics and speed makes me suspect we will have one run and jump speed the entire game and that is an invitation to design levels with that in mind. insurmountable barriers forcing me down a pre-made path means the death of the open world.
I guess you could say that my concern is that Skyrim will have veered so far away from being an open world RPG into a linear hack n slash that I simply wont be able to enjoy elder scrolls anymore.

On a final note, I very much hope I am wrong. I am just worried Im not.

im concerned with the extreme streamlining, mostly in the little details
all the talk ive heard todd say about how spears and crossbows and menus are superfluous and were taken out to make the core weapons and whatnot more defined really worries me
the armor scare (even though nothing has been set in stone) is also a big concern of mine
it seems like theyre just taking oblivs annoyances and making them even more prevalent in alot of instances and covering it with 'we think the player is better off with this'
idk, i know ill love the game
but i just dont like the idea of lionhead tactics sneaking into a Bethesda game

Gee.
I wonder how something that is replacing another yet does the same thing only ?in a more fluent way? could be a bad thing.

Because I obviously do not think they do.
Attributes are gradual and therefore fluent and organic. Perks are an on/ off switch. There is no overarching governing of skills or anything gradual at all about perks, so far they just seem to replace certain aspects that attributes used to handle better. The perks I have seen do not impress me at all.
This is my opinion.
There is no need to get all sarcy and snarky about my opinion. It is perfectly within reason to have an opinion and if you dont like it, deal.

Again, I don't know much about the systems. My first point was done in anticipations of a fanboyism flame war coming, which has not. I was pointing out how, yes, down to the nuts and bolts there are differences between each system but those can be balanced by concepts. For me personally, I like the Live functionality and the ability to mod. Those are functions that can add strength to a person's reasoning why they may choose one form of system over another. A 360 may run differently than a PS3, some may say more inferior, but there are other details about a 360 that may make it more valuable to a person. Thus, the systems are balanced. If someone likes the shape of the 360 compared to a PS3 and they can defend that likeness with more than "it looks cool" then it balances out in that person's mind.

Oh, but i'm not discussing your opinion.
Rather this:


That statement speaks for itself.
Or does it?

So?
Is it not an opinion then?
Sheesh.
So Im not allowed to say that I feel attributes handled progression more fluently than perks can?

Oh!
I misunderstood you as saying that perks did what attributes did but did it - perks - in a more fluent way.
I thought I noticed a galring contradiction there, but i just misunderstood your statement.

My bad.

No worries.
Lets share a http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/3943/fishystickcf7.jpg

Sure!
Wait...
...maybe the fan interview is coming out today...ya know...
...and we'll quarrel to death over some of Todd's more intriguing answers.

Let's save it for later!

:D

I'm going to focus on spears, crossbows, and menus since those are specifics you mentioned.

Spears are a popular weapon choice among those who participate in this bored. However that does not seem to be the case in the general public. I believe that is due to two main reasons:

1.) Lack of outright damage compared to other weapons. Many spears lack pure stat damage compared to other weaponry, such as Long Blades. This is somewhat of a moot-point thought because the damage done is often balanced by other means. For example, in Oblivion there were mainly three types of blades: claymores, regular, and dagger. Claymores packed the most punch (excluding artifact weaponry) but were slow. Regular were middle ground and daggers were weaker but faster. I believe the enchanting capabilities even changed with each sub-type with daggers have a lot of charge (I may have that backwards). The same can be said about spears. Their apparent weakness is made up by their reach would added a noticeable defensive capability to the weapons that other types lacked. I find this argument concerning their usefulness (see:damage) to be weak.
2.) The other reason I am aware of concerning their lack in popularity is simply because fantasy is bombarded with imagery of swords. This could be a direct repercussion from actual history in which proper swords, constructed in the manner seen in fantasy, were relatively short lived compared to other weaponry because firearms were invented. Swords legendary in their symbolism and appear in common fantasy stories that take place in times where the sword may not be common. Go to the nearest library, look in the fantasy section, and I guarantee there are more stories written concerning special and all powerful swords or the box art has a giant sword unsheathed. Next to the sword sits hammers which have a different approach to combat and have more history (probably the oldest melee weapon ever designed). Between these two archtypes are weapons that blend their traits like axes and maces. Spears are kind of odd ball. This is an example of Bethesda catering to the rule of majority. It may seem to many that spears are useless and therefore a waste of time to focus on in development. That is a very valid point. Why spend time developing a mechanic for spears (the new combat approach would make it difficult with animations at least) when so few will use them? The difficulty comes from deciding what is more important. From development point of view, Bethesda needs to get this game out as soon as possible but still make a game they know will sell well. It is a fine line they tread. By taking out things like spears they create a little more time to focus on presentation, world building, AI, animations, storytelling, and other things Bethesda works on. The exclusion of spears limits choice but, in theory, would allow time for a more polished and detailed world. There is always a trade-off for things and Bethesda may feel justified in making those trade-offs. Think back to Morrowind real quck. It's three-attack combat would not condone whip for a weapon. It would not fit the combat system and probably only a few people would use it out of a sample of players. Therefore it makes sense that they would not have such a feature in the game. Spears, sadly, don't fit Skyrim gameplay or majority audience.

Crossbows are a similar deal except I think these would actually work with the current system. All that would change would be animations but everything, including perks, could roll-over in archery. Wouldn't have to be a separate skill or anything. This I don't really understand except I know it would be easy fan-service and kudos points for Bethesda if they included them.

I love the new menus and here is why. I believe that proper presentation in a game can outweigh any flaws a game may have. We all know this from real life experience where proper self-presentation can woo any man or woman, depending on your preference, no matter how flawed of a person you may be. And if you are not flawed and a living, breathing second coming, presentation is still key. In a game, whether the game is perfect or has a few rough edges, presentation can all fix that. It's not so much gimmicky as proper. And I will defend against any "streamlined for stupid" arguments right here. Making things easier to understand is not streamlining. In school or work, writing an essay or presentation, we do not just throw all out ideas onto the page and then tell the reader to make sense of it. If they can't, they must be stupid. No, it's actually laziness and narcissistic on the writer's part. Instead, we have been taught to organize our papers, heck let's even do novels, into chapters, then pages, then paragraphs, then sentences, the subject/predicate, and so on. There is a clear and concise order to constructing a paper. Same thing with menu design in a game. To this day I still sometimes click on the wrong tab in Oblivion's menus. Morrowind's is easier albeit cluttered. The inventory menu does a similar function, even going down to pulling out the item in question into existence instead of leaving it as text on a page. Skyrim combines Oblivion's text inventory with MW's image inventory. It looks fantastic. The skill system is similar. There is visual representation of progression in the skill menu. There is creativity and organization. You may have to point out actual faults of the skill menu (neglecting the fact that it's based on perks; focusing only on presentation) cause I see few problems with it. The map is the only one I butt heads with. It is more organized and easier to visualize on the map locations when the map is just an omnipotent view of Skryim. But a precise map can do something just as well. There is no real navigational benefit between the two. Skyrim's map could possibly be more aesthetically pleasing but from an immersion point of view, a hand held map cannot be beat. Ever play Far Cry 2? I loved driving around with my map out, not seeing where I was going, and crashing into things. The map itself was highly accurate and easy to navigate and it existed in game! I was not suddenly jarred from my character to a god-like view of the world. I have a hard time defending Bethesda on this one. I think the map should just be an in-game quick key item, same with the journal, that is completely interactive.

Mom, is that you? :blink:

These forums could use a shrink sometimes lol, anyway, my major concern, besides from those mentioned, are I'm afraid they're forgetting about important parts of lore realted to Skyrim, such as werebears, werewolves, Volkihar and even Labyrinthian. If they're not included, they should at least explain why (I mean as an in-game explanation like they managed to rid the disease or Labyrinthian had fallen into ruins).

bro ill say it again they only ported oblivion because the ps3 came out after oblivions release. they likely wont port again they will make a seperate copy if they dont already have on... its not difficult to fit formating for another systam why do you think the other malti platform games dont have an issue.

I am most worried about the lack of character customization. When they announced the removal, I was actually quite happy. Classes are a superficial concept and anybody that does want to play with a class will do so whether the game says they have one or not. I will certainly still be focusing on about 8 or so skills and will be primarily ignoring the rest of them. I don't think it makes any difference whether the game is telling me that I am focusing on them or not.
when I heard about the removal of attributes, I was a bit concerned. I think that the idea that you can decide to change play-styles mid play-through is great, but there should be a penalty for it. While you were playing as class X, you would have been increasing attributes ABC, so when you decide to change to class Y, you will be at a disadvantage for a while because class Y's main attributes, DEF, will be lower. This makes sense because the skills you would be using in class Y will be at a low level when you choose to change mid play-through, so you would be sort of starting from scratch anyway. I thought that attributes were a pretty important part of the game and that removal was not an improvement at all (as Bethesda always claims that whenever they remove something, they do it to improve their game). However, I accepted that I would just have to forget about attributes.
Then I heard that they were also removing birthsigns, I started to get a bit angry. Birthsigns were always a very important part of shaping your character and the removal of them puts far more emphasis on the idea that everybody should just play a jack-of-all-trades character. There seems to be no actual character customization left.
When they showed the star stones (I forgot their name), I got even more angry. They basically cut down the birthsigns to three primary ones and then made them changeable at any time.
These decisions indicate to me that TES is heading in an action oriented path, and moving away from it's heavy role-playing oriented past.

(separate from my other point which I'll make as soon as I can)

I am concerned by the finishing move mechanic, as opposed to giving the player the controls necessary for combat to look awesome, Bethesda are relying on a random digital dice to turn up the right number (and only as the last enemy is killed, it would appear). This saddens me, particularly as their combat animations don't look particularly impressive compared to what I have already seen in other, much older formats.

I am also concerned by the lack of variety both horizontally and vertically across weapon categories (only two types of ranged attacks, yet ranged attacks appear essential to taking down a dragon, while there is only apparently one type of bow, and only one ranged weapon)

I am finally concerned about the action oriented path that TES appears to be sprinting along - for the simple reason that my gut feeling is that they will fail in including a wider fanbase as their die hard fans and will lose their existing fan base.

i get what you mean
but the actual functionality of the weapons or their damage doesnt really interest me
i just have a problem with them removing them because it just seems weird to me
i like to use weaker weapons sometimes in RPGs if theyre interesting and different from the norm, and morro's Xbows and spears were a nice change
sometimes i just WANT to hunt something with a spear, or shoot a bolt at a mammoth instead of an arrow
i just dont like how theyre using the 'skyrim is more rugged so they dont have as many weapons' thing to shoe away those weapon sets
the believability in the world is of more concern to me than how much damage a bolt or spear does
in oblivion, changing complete weapon styles just meant the same animations with a weapon that had a different tip
ax->generic swing, mace-> generic swing, sword-> generic swing, claymore-> generic big swing, etc...
just seemed lazy and boring to me
but i guess youre right
if the majority doesnt want it, games dont do it anymore