the khajiit in the game dont recognize me as a fellow khajiit

And yet we still get games that have choice and consequence like FO:NV.

The expectation isn't unreasonable if a smaller developer has already done it.

Aw, that does svck. I want to play a khajiit on my second playthrough. I was looking forward to khajiit-khajiit interactions ...

seems like alot of people dont understand what elder scrolls is about...... -_-

Yeah, it's not like there are no Radiant Story elements by killing/stealing from somebody...

And reputation apart from when it's too low or too high doesn't mean much. Oh no, you don't get gifts if you're not fully good or you won't get attacked on sight when you're not fully bad with the faction.

Your actions are hardly mentioned and NPC reactions to random things are hardly any different. They say something funny when you throw stuff around or when they find a body in both games.

And choices are always there even when it doesn't poke your eye right out. Somebody questioned why cannot you just kill the guard because he knows your secret. Guess what, YOU CAN!
Oh no, you cannot decline the quest you just started? Guess what, DON'T DO THE THING THAT IS WRITTEN DOWN FOR THE QUEST.
Want to rob a place but there's a wake person in the way, I guess you have no choice there, except either drinking an invisibility potion, using an arrow or a shout to make them go somewhere else, find another way... no, these are not choices.

And you must be obviously forced to join one of their factions of the war... no, wait, no you're not, you can even make a peace treaty in the main quest.

There must be a lot of roleplaying elements for that blind guy and that crazy lady, why can't they become your companion, it only makes sense, right?

Hell, I'd even argue it's a drop-down from Oblivion's NPCs. That's THREE GAMES AGO.

Oblivion NPCs had discussions with each other and were "aware" of events around them.
Yes, everyone once and a while you'd get:

"Good day!"
"What's going on with you?"
"I'm through talking to you now."
"Farewell!"

And it was lulzy. But I think that was a fair exchange for actually having the NPCs feel alive. These NPCs are incapable of gossiping, have a line or two of dialog each, and many of their actions are scripted. For instance, I've heard the same convo from that Dark Elf Companion and another Nord one about daggers vs. warhammers like five times now. Why? Because it's scripted to trigger if they sit near each other, which they apparently do quite often. The Oblivion NPCs were just like "I'm an NPC, what should I do today? Meh, I'll go exchange random rumors with that guy over there."

You can murder or not, and you can do the quests or not.

I'm at a point where I think Skyrim shouldn't be faulted... the problem is deeper. No, it's not Bethesda or anyone specific.

It's the sub-genres that the game aspires to be.

This game have a world that has the potential to be open-ended. Yet traditional RPG demands that one of the major way you interact with others is through doing chores for them in a form of "quests". This here, the contradiction of two core design elements, is the problem. You can't be free and yet be guided through a pre-recorded story.

You want true open world with freedom of choice game? Turn TES series into true sandbox, where the world is governed by laws of... gameplay. Nothing else. No pre-planned story, no quests. Just factions, daedras, economy and better radiant AI behavior. You want epic story with cinematic story telling? Then take away elements of the game that are superfluous to the story you are telling.

The only way both ideas can exist in one system is for both to make heavy compromises. Take a look at the compromises that 'open-world-freedom' took for sake of quests; Essential NPCs that are immune from player action, heavy restriction on what player can do (you must be THE dragonborn, you can't be a Jarl, etc.). Or the compromises that story telling took... you can have the entire civil war to remain static so that you can go around hunting bandits in caves, Alduin awaits for you to gather power because you like gathering flowers or assassinating people for the brotherhood, etc.

Not that Skyrim is a bad game... but the limitations are becoming more obvious as the consumers are faced with essentially identical limitations of its predecessors. For TES to grow, it has to make a choice. Otherwise, this is essentially as good as it'll get, plus more polish and pretty looks.

This.

The author plays the game in a tedious, workman like fashion (clearing a dungeon only to raid it of every single mundane object he can pick up to make multiple trips back and forth to store all his plates and wine bottles), considers only one or two very bland, black or white possibilities, and then uses this dungeon, this one single dungeon, to claim the game has no soul.

I cant agree with this article.

Doing and not-doing is not roleplaying. I can choose to play or not-play the game; that doesn't mean "omg there's tons of ways to play this game!!1111"
Drinking a potion of invisibility or just killing everyone is not roleplaying. By that logic, taking cover behind box A, behind box B or just running in rambo style in Goldeneye 64 makes the game qualify as an RPG.


And have you done the Legion/Stormcloak factions yet? Pro-tip: THEY'RE EXACTLY THE SAME!!! Same dungeons and EVEN THE SAME DIALOG! There's like two quests that are different, every single other part is completely rehashed.
When I found out I was so angry that I started slaughtering my troop, except half of them were essential and didn't seem to notice when the other half was killed, so they kept spouting their scripted dialog.

You can't be serious? Have you played NV or read the post I was responding to? It would be Fing around in Skyrim. In FO it would forever turn that town and most of its people against you. That's soul. A world that actually reacts to you and where there are consequences to your choices.

My favorite example of [censored] AI:

I had to deliver forged orders to a Stormcloak Officer. Just to see if anything would happen, I did this in full Legion regalia. Officer says, "Excellent! Thanks. Here's 5 gold - have a drink on me!"

:foodndrink:

It's my favorite example because it's comical. It really isn't as bad as that time I walked into Windhelm, wearing full Legion armor with a sword in hand, walked all the way to and into the Palace of Kings, and finally sprinted towards Ulfric - and managed to make it all the way to him without anyone stopping me.

Let's put it this way....

What's a more realistic reaction to witnessing your neighbor being brutally murdered by someone: you remember that person for that incident FOREVER, no matter what good deeds they may perform in the future AND you might join in/flee if your neighborhood tries to stop that person/kill them

OR

You basically forget about it after the guy serves his time/pays the fine and don't care about the incident at all anymore?

That's it?

That's not soul, not even close.

Care to elaborate on what you find soulful about Skyrim?

I hope it's not the pretty scenery.

Well, yeah, that's what happens when they get rid of their good writers.

History is full of examples of opposing sides looting and using the others' uniforms/equipment.

Not sure why this is such a stretch of the imagination?

BTW I have had a comment about wearing legion armor before. Something like: "I hope you found that gear off of a dead soldier"

No, he was using that as one example of what is endemic in the game.

And all this, use you're imagination crap that people keep saying? That's for me and my character. I use my imagination to envision a backstory, and my characters motivations and why they'd choose to do what they. It's the job of the game designers to use their imagination to craft an immersive believable world where NPCs have backstories and motivations that can be explored. The world is supposed to present you with characters that you can RP with. You can't make any meaningful RPing choices when nothing you do matters and everyone is a bland cypher. If you have to make up crap to try to explain why an NPC is doing something ludicrous then the designers failed in that aspect of the game.

It's not only that. It's the ones who scripted the npcs too...



I agree. That imagination argument (if you can call it like that) would apply to a MUD or a PnP etc. In Skyrim, if the npc says something that doesn't make sense, it only sabotages your rp.
Skyrim and Bethesda could definitely do better than that, FO series showed it.

This is how I feel. I expected the writing to be fairly bad and I didn't buy the game for the dialogue, but I just can't seem to get immersed into the game world. I just don't get it, it's a beautifully designed game world and there are plenty of places to explore... but I just don't feel like I'm part of the game.

Did they actually fire a lot of their writers?

Oblivion Thieves' Guild quest, Morrowind's main quest, Shivering Isles....these are the examples of well-written stories in the Elder Scrolls. Perhaps that's not exactly frequent enough to call Bethesda excellent writers (or perhaps so, depending on how you look at it), but a diamond in the rough can save a game. There's no diamonds in Skyrim though, so it truly does feel like they laid off some writers...

i did the exact same thing. :biggrin:

i also walking around stormcloak areas after 2 fort battles and not one stormcloak even blinked an eye. skyrim just svcks when it comes to how the gameworld reacts to your actions.

Hmm 256 tracks is a lack of music?

I agree with the article. There is essentially no recognition for anything I do in the game. It feels pointless.

I wish you negative [censored]ers could have your own forum, I sick of your [censored], why don't you [censored] off and play something else?

Cause I wanna play Skyrim :thumbsup: