Just a quick background, I've been playing the TES games since TES I (getting it on the new updated 3.5 floppy disks!). I even played Battlespire (but not Redguard). One thing I loved about these games is the ability to role-play your character. And the roleplaying didn't begin when the game started. The roleplaying began before the character was ever created in the game. Sure I'd start a few characters up to learn the game and see what is needed and useful. But then I would spend hours and hours working on spreedsheets like these:

http://i54.tinypic.com/2ylr9sl.jpg

http://i51.tinypic.com/1omyqa.jpg

In addition to the build spreadsheets I would write up long and drawn out backgrounds, explaining why or how the character began in the class they were in or with the skills they had. Things they liked, did not like, weapons of choice, races they hated/loved, etc. My point being that all these earlier TES games allowed you to start your roleplay before the game started.

Now comes Skyrim, and honestly I feel like every character, whatever the race, is going to feel like a clone, an unborn ... thing, waiting for the game to start designing him or her from scratch. To be honest I am just not happy about it.

Now before you cover me with Napalm please note that I love TES games and have played them all a combined several thousand hours, so I feel like I can justify voicing my opinion here. I totally agree that OB needed some changes. But this total change from the TES standard by removing classes and attributes (and thus racial and birthsign bonuses to attributes) is just a huge step in another direction. The last franchise game I played that made major changes (Dragon Age Origins to Dragon Age 2) blew it completely (IMO) and I can not even make myself play DA2.

I will get Skryim and I will play it, but how soon before I am done with it. After I beat the main quest and slay a few dragons will the thrill be gone? Will I even want to bother making new characters as different races and played a different way (different perks). Or will I be ready immediately to move on to something else? Every TES game so far and held me and entertained me for hundreds if not thousands of hours. I am just concerned that Skryim will not have that kind of replay value with the way it is currently set up.

Your thoughts? (flame suit on)

i will say wait for game to be release

Are you saying that, if you can't micromanage your stats, you aren't "roleplaying?" Roleplaying is fleshing out your imaginary characters personality, and GOOD RPing is assuming their attitudes and such. It has nothing to do with spreadsheets. That's why the direct stats have been made somewhat invisible to the player, to get out of the way of roleplaying.

18 skills, and 50 to 75 perks out of 200 odd. Is that enough to define a character, a unique character sufficiently different to another character made with the same system. I would say yes, and that's enough mechanics to role play for me. With the extra additions to the world with the cooking, companions, extra collection for crafting and so on, I really can't see a problem.

I don't think that specifying a class is really much of a loss as your character will still be defined by the skills in which you specialise. Infact, in some ways, the new system is better as the jack-of-all trade approach is no longer possible.

However, the removal of attributes is a great shame. The whole thought process behind that decision makes me concerned about the future direction of the TES series.

I think by endgame your characters will be vastly different due to the different skill, "attribute", and perk choices you can make. However, I still find it disconcerting that nearly every character seems like it will be exactly the same in the early game. Race seems to have little affect on gameplay, mostly cosmetic and maybe dispositions to certain skills, and there's no class or archetype bonuses. I find myself wondering how my character could no absolutely nothing from his life before being imprisoned and think that might be something to be modded in. We won't know for certain until the game's release of course.

you and this guy would make great friends: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1228312-your-all-overworking-yourselfs/ LOL

I am still not sure why people attatch such importance to the attributes in helping them roleplay. When people played Oblivion did they only make intelligent choices in conversations when they had raised their intelligence above a certain unspoken level? Did they only jump off things when their agility was high enough that it seemed somehow more appropriate that their charcter could? Considering that towards the later game most charcters all had attributes of around the same high levels did it mean that on each playthough they ended up playing as the same charcter?

Roleplaying isn't about some abstract numbers and star signs. It is about basing your choices in a game depending on what YOU think the charcter is capable of. If you are playing as a weak charcter don't go round picking up loads of items. If you charcter is a bit thick don't choose the smarter dialogue choices. The idea that you somehow need the computer to tell you how to play your charcter depending on some stat they has no bearing on how you have roleplayed up to that point seems at best artificial and at worse restrictive.

You can still plan your character. You can create back stories and great events that shaped them. The only thing now is that the engine doesn't limit you to creating a back story that fits in with the restrictive character generation system.

Yeah I read his/her post. I just don't know how anyone can voice any concern about the information we've been given about Skyrim so far without being labeled a whiner. Hardly fair but to each their own. But I'm not just saying this game is going to be terrible and leaving it at that. I put more thought into my concerns.

And I may be completely wrong. I may LOVE the design by Perk system and wonder to myself why it took so long for RPG's to use this system of character development. Gary Gygax was clueless right? We'll see.

Now the only thing you have to do is the background - you can focuse more on the narrative. Tell us that your character is a warrior, that he likes to hunt with his bow or something like that. You don't pick a class, you just tell the "audience" what your character is good in and then play like the class you intent him to be... and after some time you are the class you wanted to be^^ Makes even more sense now to me. If you pick the class paladin in another game, your character isn't paladin-like at all in the beginning. He becomes paladin later on, yes. But the level 1 dude in sackcloth is neither paladin nor spellsword nor battlemage, even if the game tells you he is

I also felt a little bit dissapointed at first when they announced it, but now i'm more optimistic.

Considering that Gary (May he Rest In Piece) created a completely different leveling structure than Elder Scrolls uses I don't see much reason to think his way was the only way.

When we were all very young we would all play 'Let's Pretend' in the playground. We would pretend to be cops/robbers/heroes/villians. When playing we would do things because we knew the charcter we were using could do that.

"I'm gonna throw this car at you because I am a super Hero"

"Well I can deflect cars because it is one of my special powers"

Ironically enough that is probably the perfect example of roleplaying. 5 year old children have taken on a role, decided what it's abilities and flaws are and acted them out. It is only when we became advlts we suddenly felt the need for somebody else to tell us what the limitations of our charcters are. We need to be told that our charcter is strong, rather than just playing a strong charcter. We need to know that we can jump x feet from the ground etc. In some ways this takes the roleplay out and turns it into a game of exploiting rules.

Skyrim (as are the other ES games) is mostly (for me) a sandbox game. It is about going to another world and living in it. Being able to be free to choose what you want to do. Yes we all love to see ourselves get better, therefore skills will always be in the game. But I for one won't miss the game telling me that i couldn't be this sort of charcter because it doesn't fit in right with the rules.

This works so much better if the game works with you on it. I shouldn't have to explain that. Sure I played an Imperial Paladin who refused to touch anything deadric. I played a Bard that collected every book in the game. I can do these things with ease. But if my character was actually weak (say I'm playing a female Khajiit) then the game actually giving me a carrying weight limit adds to the immersion into the roleplay. Saying "I'm going to pretend I'm weak" is just not going to work.

For example here is a character I made for MW: http://i54.tinypic.com/nnv9mp.jpg

I would LOVE to play this character in Skyrim. She would have had an early life of training and skills needed to fill this role. I would want her to be a light to medium clad warrior, weilding a spear and having healing and cold based magic. But you know what, this character will NEVER be able to be played in Skyrim. To much has already been taken out. Fine, so I change a few things. But what? Her begining as a Female Nord will be EXACTLY like every Female Nord started in the game. Like yours, like everyone elses. Nothing will define her as anything special. No background. Just nothing. No, I can't say I'm happy about it. Whining? Sure why not. But maybe, just MAYBE, the perk system will let me build her the way I want with time. We'll see.

i agree. when some aspect of a games series that you've really enjoyed in the past is removed, expressing any concern or doubt about it almost instantaneously earns you the whiner tag. of course this usually comes from people who have no history with the game series and don't understand what has made it what it is. all they look at is the hype and the doctored up demo's, which by all accounts do look very good, and go gaga. however, when it comes down to the nitty gritty of what an elder scrolls game is they can't see that others truly enjoyed aspects that have been removed and they are rightfully very concerned about it.

But why will she be the same? Just because you don't have a set of attributes in front of you (which to be fair no-one looked at except when they levelled up anyway) doesn't mean she will be the same as every other Nord Women. Just play her as you would. Give her the spear (you had one in Oblivion so i can't see why you won't have one in Skyrim, medium armour too!) use the skills she would use. Just because you don't start with the exact skill distribution doesn't stop you making that charcter.

Can you see the skill set of the NPC's you meet? Will they all seem the same?

Well ofcourse most people are sad by "dumb-down" but for me I personally don't mind it to much. Sure its annoying but i can still roleplay and spend hours coming up with back stories and which sidequests my character can do and his/her mood on exploring. Like my wood elf theif likes to sudduce people. Tends to hate traveling main roads and prefers staying in towns. Much can be roleplayed still but getting rid of the complex stats doesn't mean clean clones

Nothing says "roleplaying" like a good spreadsheet.

(That was sarcasm by the way.)

I roleplay very heavily in Elder Scrolls games, and I have to say, stats are a very unimportant part of that. Roleplaying is about the character, their personality, their traits, etc. I don't need a bunch of statistics telling me my character is efficient with swords in combat, that idea is expressed by my character picking up swords and killing things with them and the rest is in my head. My "(Long) Blade" skill or whatever means very very little to me from a roleplaying perspective. What matters more is what I want my character to be.

It's like if I pick an Argonian as my race, but the game does not have a name for that race, that doesn't mean I have no race. I'm still an Argonian because I can see my character is an Argonian and I know in my head that my character is an Argonian. Roleplaying takes place in ones head.

It is a fact that in TES I through TES IV I could make a Female Nord that, at level one, is COMPLETELY different than a 100 others I could make. Sure these all get balance out with time, though some things like birthsigns and such stay with you. In TES V this can't happen, at least from what I've seen. About the only thing I can change from one Female Nord to another is her hair design and facial tats. That is just not the same. Chosing a Class, which in turn changes your starting attributes and skills, is a basic concept of nearly every RPG I can think of, and I have played many (starting with the old D&D Gold Box series). Pulling this out is a completely new RPG design. Yeah I'm concerned and I'll say I don't like how it makes character design choices meaningless at the game start. If I just come out of my mothers womb (like FO3) then starting with a blank slate is fine. Bethesda trying to protect these poor dumb players from making bad character design choices by removing them completely is wrong IMO. Let them make poor choices. Let them learn from them. That's part of the fun of these games and why you would replay the game.

Exactly. Sense has been made.

You have something of a point here, it is slightly odd that whatever backstory you give to a female argonian her starting skills will be the same. Hopefully they give us a few skill points to allocate at the start of the game.

On the other hand I do like the fact that after 100hours gameplay each of those female argonians will be very different in skills and perkg rather than converging as they do in previous games.

If we have the opportunity to up a few skills at the start it will be ideal for me, otherwise it will still be a good tradeoff for diverging high level characters.

I suppose you can put it into the context of "define roleplaying" if its like d&d styled then the roleplaying factor of this game has been brought down alot. If you look at it as a lets just pretend to be something different then the games roleplaying factor has increased.

Seems to me you lack the creative skills of the 'poor dumb players' and therefore need to be confined by rules and laws. As I pointed out, 5 year olds managed without them so why can't the intelligent hardcoe RPGers? I find it a bit sad that the only way some people know how to tell other people apart is by their skillset and attributes. Obviously some people don't understand such things as personality. I tell you what show me how to design a character in the previous ES games that was useless at everything.

Kind of agree, but if you try and role play a master swordsman but in the game you always die in sword fights because you have low skill its not really role playing a master swordsman. It's just denial.

The game needs to support the role play, so your master swordsman needs a high skill level so you win sword fights. OP is saying initial stat differentiations are needed to support back stories as well as in game actions and role play.

I don't do back stories but I can see it would be odd if you do. Hope there is some possible differentiation at the start.

Blank slate in terms of what your stats are, but not blank slate in terms of what your background is... And i prefer to have my own background/identity then having my own class but not my own identity/ a given background. I'm with Velorien, stats are not really important for me, and i always felt that deciding what you want to be (especially with soo much skills like in MW) is a little bit too much to decide right at the start.

Why should you be soo unique right at the start btw ? You are not a hero who is in prison, you are a nobody in prison that eventually (surely) becomes a hero.

Well obviously, it would be ridiculous to be a level 1 master swordsman :whistling: And it's not like master swordsmen ever needed to practice, go figure.

Well then, there isn't much of a step from that to say that stats help support a back story and having the same stats for every char no matter what their back story is a bit odd.