I agree with you, and the author.

Let's take another example then.

Anyone been to that cave with the blind dude? What do we roleplay there?
I mean, you freaking TALK to the guy. So somehow this blind dude can't tell my voice apart from this other guy's? He can't hear all the metal clashing and the death screams echoing in the cave behind him? So much for developing a sharper sense of hearing.

this is a FORUM, buddy. look it up in the dictionary.

Haha, made me remember from where the term comes. Ancient Greece, the Greeks being masters of philosophy and discussion. They'd be ashamed to see the name forum tagged to places like here...

it's funny, though - many of the socratic dialogues are as confrontational as this place.

The irony of this statement is that I'm the one giving examples of what I like and want to see more of and what I dislike and want to see less of, your response is basically "I disagree, **ck you," and now you're saying the Greeks would be ashamed of my discussions.
Lol sure alright.

EDIT: Woops, my bad. I seem to have confused you with someone else.
Get a damn avatar so I can tell all you no-avi people apart!

Characters could certainly be more reactive. However I don't agree that this one NPC represents the entire game world. I feel plenty of soul and personality when I'm playing Skyrim, more so than Oblivion. Add in a little of your own imagination, and it's fantastic.

I don't buy the whole "Why am I playing a game if I need to use my imagination?" thing. All video games require imagination.

But were much more respectful and intellectual as of here. Here, some people call it heresy that we do not have an opinion which reflects the popular one, back then, they'd be the ones calling heresy on such accusations. They'd be hell-bent on having real debates on clashing opinions.

Oii, Calm down rofl being shot at on the forums is harmless, let them wallow. Relax ;p

That was terrible. I just imagined he was drunk. I shouldn't have had to, and it was much more of a stretch than the Fort Lady's explanation, but there you have it.

That was one of the more disappointing character interaction points I've had in Skyrim, though. I admit it.

Fort Lady was pretty cool, however. She creeped me out.

So you don't get bounties for killing random people in Skyrim?

And it's not like you cannot change your reputation in New Vegas either.


You know, how people complain about "no choice, baaw" it mostly look like people just don't see it because it's so bloody obvious.

Talking about "nuclear winter" was much more immersive than acknowledging your membership in factions...

EDIT:

And what the hell did you wanted to do with him?

I just don't understand this apparent "lack of RP possibilites". How would him hearing things and not recognizing your voice add to the game?
How would it help to add a "I hate you guard, so I'm going to kill you" button, instead of just grabbing a sword and killing them?

NPC reactions is a weak point of Skyrim. I agree with the writer. It's not only Agnis obviously, it's the majority of the NPCs. I didn't realise that until i played enough to see that little effort has been put in this matter. And maybe i wouldn't even realise it at all or let it bother me so much if i was new to rpgs or open world rpgs and had not played other games of Bethesda like fallout which the writer mentions.

I have posted again about dialog scripts and some are really neglected. I don't want to spoil but i'll give some examples:
-Being in the middle of a war npcs would not realise what was happening around them and talk about the weather.
-Being the leader of companions and have the guards tell you that you fetch the mead.
-Being the archmage and have people tell you that they want Savos to promote them or that i should join the college.
-Having saved their lives/their town etc and npcs giving me the same vanilla lines they gave me when i met them.
-Completely different reaction in two subsequent lines of dialog
and the list goes on..

nevermind

You can't change your reputation. Negative points accumulate separately and only the NCR and the Legion reset the negative point pool and even then, it's done only once.

It's not "blatantly" true at all. I loved Meridia's quest and felt my character called from his evil ways to new ways. I wrestled with Molag Bal's and Vaermina's (sp?) immensely later and couldn't do them.... I felt touched with sadness as the Jarl of Whiterun expressed how he felt about my betrayal.....

There is definitely 'soul' in this game. Perhaps it's that people need it delivered to them like a frozen tv dinner that you just warm up that is the problem? A lack of imagination? Players in an ADHD age?

I remember a certain "man" who was not a man silhouetted against the moon and a difficult decision..... soulful.

Totally disagree.

Well, while I have agreed with you this whole thread, I need to point out disguises. You could, technically, raise your reputation by putting on a disguise and doing quests for said faction, although once you took the disguise off, you would be right back to 'terrorist'.

To the person above me....you just pointed out two quests that had next to nothing to do with NPCs reaction to events, those were YOUR reaction to those quests. I had much the same feeling in Molag Bal's quest, but that's not what we are discussing here.

Which is why it's called disguise. It is a bit game breaking, but at least any rep gained while wearing a disguise is lost upon removal.

You're comparing a bounty in Skyrim to how NV monitored your reputation level by every faction, NPC and city in the game? In Skyrim I could walk into Whiterun with enough cash, kill a random person, pay bounty, rinse and repeat until the entire town is dead except for one person and that person wouldn't acknowledge anything and would sell me stuff and say the same things over and over to me. Well, I could do that if nearly all the NPCs weren't essential but you get my drift.

You can in Freeside.

Not if you killed someone. Walk back into that place and you'll get shot all to pieces. And there isn't a way to get it back up once it goes low enough as the King's Outfit doesn't count as a disguise.

Cap put it well.

But you COULDN'T change your reputation in New Vegas. Did you even play this game? Bad rep and good rep; they stayed with you forever. Once you had bad rep, you couldn't get rid of it. You could only get even more bad rep or get some good rep to mix in with your bad rep, but people would remember your bad deed all the same and react accordingly. They lost trust in you forever.

And in Skyrim, sure you get a bounty.....IF YOU CAN FIND SOMEONE WHO'S NOT ESSENTIAL. Holy crap, this is one game I'm never going on a killing rampage in. Tried it and ended up with four essential NPCs on me....


And hell yes New Vegas suffered from repetitive dialog too. (Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSUEE_e8a0I&feature=related) You know what the difference is? The repetitive dialog came exclusively from nameless NPCs, so you expected it. Being nameless was like wearing a sign that says "I'm boring, don't bother with me." You know the second thing that made the difference? The nameless NPCs knew how to mind their own damn business. They did their own thing and generally only fed me repetitive dialog if I stared directly at them and/or hit E. (again, check my proof. He's provoking every single one of them) Now why am I so hard on Skyrim? Because back in the day, we all laughed at Obsidian and asked "wtf made you guys think it was a good idea to tell 10 voice actors to spew the same line?" and Jason Bergman and Josh Sawyer would joke with us and say "lol iunno seemed like a pro idea at the time." (yes they frequented the forums) We thought that was bad. Fast-forward to Skyrim and wtf....they hired like 70 voice actors but only ever used Arnold Schwarzenegger 90% of the time, and named NPCs can't even discuss rumors; they all have (maximum) two lines of unique dialog they spout nonstop.

Skyrim? I go to buy a freaking health potion and half the town is like:

"omg look everyone! The Protagonist!!"
"I'm gonna go tell him I work for Belethor at the general goods store!"
"I'm gonna ask him if he gets to the Cloud District very often!"
"I'm gonna suggest mercenary work to him!"

And then they close in on you like zombies and there's nothing you can do.


And please tell what choices Skyrim provides me.



As for the blind dude, I'm saying he's an immersion breaker. He's blind, not friggin' deaf. Those are practically opposites; if anything, he should immediately catch me because he of anyone should recognize that he's not hearing his friend's voice. He of anyone should hear the battle noises. But nope, no depth to him whatsoever. He just sits there, for no reason whatsoever, as if Bethesda thinks blind people are truly that clueless and helpless.

skyrims npc interaction is average at best. its a huge drop in quality coming from Fallout NV and even Fallout 3 for that matter. ive been everywhere now in skyrim and there might be 3 or 4 instances of npcs leaving an impression. cicero because he is so [censored] annoying, mjoll....i married her just because of that accent. and lydia cause all she does is complain and the orc librarian cause its comical. there were a couple of dialouges that were funny but nothing that sticks in my memory for along time. i laughed and cringed at the dialogue whole lot more in NV and Fallout 3.

npc wise skyrim is no different to me than oblivion. i can run around in imperial or stormcloak armor and go into windhelm or solitude and no one even takes notice that an enemy soldier is walking around in their capitol. do that in FNV and you get shot. its pathetic.

I have to somewhat disagree here about the "without souls" skyrim theory.

I just finished a gaming session , where I had travelled from Whiterun to Riften to the east. Upon arriving, The Riften guard immediately commented on the fact
that I was an alchemist, and that he could never seem to get a grasp of the skill.

I stopped dead in my tracks and just looked at him......... like, "ummmm......yeah" I said to myself, he's right, I am an accomplished alchemist.

I also notice on occasion people commenting on my conditions......if your character is diseased, they will notice, and will ask if I need healing or you look sick.

I get stopped on the trail often by wandering mages, the occasional laughable "revellers" who offer me drinks......

When i add my own roleplaying to the mix, it just makes it so much more enjoyable.

So, for me.......and the plenty of npcs in skryim, "we got soul"

I didn't kill them, IIRC. I think I just walked passed him. The point is, blind people develop an acute (not better, just more refined) sense of hearing. He should definitely have been able to recognise me and start screaming for others to help him, or say 'Who are you? Please don't hurt me!' or attack me, or something. Or the team responsible for the quest could have at least put an empty wine bottle next to him, so that inebriation is implied, which could excuse his not noticing that my voice is an unfamiliar one.



People have to remember that Skyrim's install disc has a limited amount of space on which to put things. That means that you have to cut content where you can. Usually, this means less voices/interactions/choices. It's an unfortunate limitation of current-gen gaming, but there it is.



Yes ^

Why would they WASTE time programming a reaction to you just wanting to F around?