(supposed to be REAL in the title, not reak)

One thing that hit me again is how you can first think that you will make a radical choice that you might follow, but then you realize it is not possible. If your "idea" was too radical. Let me give an example of the previous Bethesda game, Fallout NV. There I did a rather radical thing, I killed Caesar the moment I first came to his tent, wiped out the whole camp. But I was terribly disappointed in how it didn't reflect in the game world at all. It was like it never happened, and did not matter more than killing a camp of bandits.

Earlier in Oblivion, when I first came into contact with the Dark Brotherhood, I kept waiting for my chance to turn on them and wipe them all out, but that was also not possible to do, I had to do all their quests to the end and all that. I was the hero of Cyrodiil, and then suddenly I was a scumbag murderer.

Now in Skyrim, an idea was in my mind when I went to Riften and the whole thieve's guild. I was thinking, ok, I want to become a "thief hunter", wipe out the whole thieves guild from existence. But you can't really do that. You can either go and join them (like I anyway did in the end) or you can ignore them and go away.

It would be very cool IF you also could in this case for example, arrange something with the Jarl to wipe out the thieves guild and work undercover or something. It's silly that you cannot really immerse yourself in your character, I mean first you are the great hero Dragonborn, Thain of 3 cities, the good guy "superhero" but then suddenly you are also supposed to be a lowlife thief. It's cool to play the quests, sure, but it makes your character a bit hard to really "get in to".

Anyone thought of this?

Totally understand the hate towards unkillable npcs. If you want to kill em then they should let you do so. Wanted to kill the thieves guild as well since they are all [censored]s

Ah I was planning to do this on my warrior. Nice to know that Ive avoided an unnecessary bounty.

They'd rather hold your hand and make sure you don't mess up than give you a game where actions have real consequences. Why? They probably think the entire TES gaming community is comprised of 5-year-olds and mentally deficient teenagers who need to be shown how to play games.

If you want to be the harbinger, Arch Mage, Guild Master, Listener, and Dragonborn that's your choice. You aren't required to choose one so I would say that's a lot of choice and not lack there of.

Look how large the game is. Look how many choices you listed.

Yeah, I think the list should be longer. Oh, and you don't choose to be Arch-Mage or Dragonborn (can't comment on the others, but I'm fairly certain they're forced on you as well -- there is no dialogue option in-game that asks if you'd like to be x).

Exactly.

If I had real freedom of choice, I'd be able to join the Thalmor.
>___<;;;

Also, what was the problem with letting us kill everyone!? In Morrowind you'd 'sever the threads of the prophecy' if you killed someone important, and it was your choice to care or not. That didn't ruin the game for me.
But having every other idiot in the world be invincible - ya that's kinda game breaking...

you do have freedom of choice to a degree (much larger than that of Oblivion) for one you can wipe out the entire dark brotherhood

Yeah, everyone and everything should be killable. If you kill a quest-giver, then that quest should no longer be an option, unless someone else has information on it. To me that would be more realistic than "I'm immortal. And if you choose to do my quest, you'll have to pick one of two choices."

Bethesda makes it really hard to seriously play a "bad guy."

Because Bethesda knows that too many people would whine and complain about how Bethesda somehow ruined their game because the player decided to go on a killing spree in the capital city, killing every living thing there, and then found out that they had to talk to the King (who they killed). The same people would then complain about how those quest-essential people aren't marked in some way. Yes, they could use common sense and assume that killing the king would break the main quest where you save the kingdom but, guess what, most people don't have common sense.

Also, killing a quest-giver for no reason is stupid. You're not just being an evil character, you're being "Stupid-Evil". Do their quest, get the reward, and then kill them. Guess what happens when you do their quest; they are no longer marked "Essential", which means you can kill them. They're preventing you from being Stupid-Evil, not Lawful-Evil.

lies. when you do a quest for an NPC most remain essential for some reason (at least ones iv attempted to kill), and soem people like to play stupid-evil, i like chaotc-stupid myself (and how can i be 100% random without the ability to kill people as well as take their quests)

I hear ya....oh I hear ya on that one.

I feel exactly the same way.

Agreed OP. All NPCs should be killable. I like how Morrowind did it, where every NPC was killable, but if you killed an NPC who was vital to the main quest, a message popped up basically telling you so, so you could reload and change your mind if you wanted to.

Only reason to have unkillable NPCs is to prevent people from screwing up the main quest. But if people are smart, they'll save often and if a message like Morrowind would pop up, the player could just say, oops, guess I shouldn't kill that guy, and reload.

I was under the impression that Radiant Story/AI was supposed to fix this.

So bethesda is supposed to account for every possible whim you might have and how every little thing you do will have a ripple effect throughout the gameworld? You really think that's what they are supposed to do, because somebody told you that you have 'freedom of choice'?

Oh brother. They give you a choice in conversations. They give you a choice to join factions...or not. They give you a choice to accept quests...or not. Even the MQ.

You think that they meant a "choice in every aspect of every part". That's your misinterpretation. It would be really cool if they did it, don't get me wrong. But get serious.

Reading this thread made me realize that I'd trade all those choices for 90% of the landmass and NPCs in the current model. I don't care for a whole province. I don't care for a dozen cities. I don't care for 2000 shallow NPCs. I'd rather have one incredibly detailed city and 200 NPCs that I can really interact with and the ability to change the world around me to my liking. Depth > Width.

Games seem to be designed for idiots these days. Sad.

Agree with op. Though thats not even my main disappointment regarding choice. What my problem is, is the general lack of choice in the quests themselves. Most quests go like this 1. Go fetch item X 2. Enter dungeon, slaughter a bunch of things 3. Find item X along with some general loot 4. Return for reward

Needless to say thats extremely boring. With random quests I'd accept that every now and then but even guild quests, civil war quests and main quests are usually like that. I'd want choices and consequences in quests as well as dialogue. The choices need to be there and they need to reflect on the game somehow.

Me too, [CENSORED] liars... "Oh yeah, 'em quest markers and essentials tags will be unnecessary (quest markers) and all but main quest removed (tags)... 'cuss people will lead you to dungeon X and if the person die his Y will take over the quest... that happened for ONE [CENSORED] quest, I really thing this is BS... :thumbsdown: :facepalm: :shakehead:
Guess they pulled a radiant AI all over again, thanks.

While I agree that unkillable NPCs are annoying, if they did allow ANY npc to die, there would be even MORE people on here [censored]ing about how they broke their game that they had poured 150 hours into without realizing that a few weeks ago they killed some pivitol person who they now needed in X quest...

That's two separate topics. Radiant AI/radiant story cannot account for unique NPCs, and Bethesda never said that it would.

Well they certainly shouldn't boast about this kinda crap and then only have it on ONE [CENSORED] quest? Should they?
AND they did say that if a quest giver dies a relative will take over the quest...

It would have been nice if you could choose to wipe out the Thieves' Guild and free Riften from its impoverished state. Everyone there is talking about how life there svcks, and it's all the Thieves' Guild's fault... but you can't do anything to change that.

So still, nothing you do in an Elder Scrolls game makes any difference in the world. It's a shame that by now, this still is impossible.

Yes, I also want to wipe the thieves guild from existence and I think it's far too easy to do everything. I accept that a lot of people probably like this. Sure I could restrict myself but I'd much prefer better in-game handling and consequences.

This.