The bigget problem I have had with any elderscroll game is it recognizing who I am . This is an immersion killer for me and really elderscrolls is all about immersion. Bethesda goes through years upon years of creating a vast interactive world that revolves around me being the hero but then fails to recognize me for it .

So how do the eldercrolls game create immersion :


Factions -

You can decide that you want to join multiple factions in the game and rise to the top of any faction of your choosing. This sounds great and adds immersion to the game. you worked your way off and got the payoff of being the faction leader.

Why it fails : In theory it sounds good. Untill you ge to the top and become archamage for example and no one seems to recognize you for it who is not a mage . Want to be the fighters guild leader as well go ahead no one cares as no one recognizes that your both . Everyone hates the thieves guild in oblivion for example but hey if u wanna rule them you can and no one makes a stink about it . Heck you can join them as well as being the archmage and the fighters guild champ if you like.

Quests -

Ah good ol quests . Nice interactive epic quests. When done right quests make you feel like you have done something impactfull.

Why it fails - once again .. no one cares what you do . There is no reputation system for the area that you did ur quest in so no one cares that you recovered some artifact or just spent the last few hrs helping the countess. No quests really change the enviroment or world so it feels kind of flat.


Main Story\ Open World -
The main story drives the narrative of the game. Its supposed to get you immersed in the plight of the community you are fighting for

Why it fails - When the main story arch is over and the main arch ends there seems to be nothing to do . Elderscrolls games are single player so throw the player a bone. give me something to do other than wait for dlc after the game is done. Open up some new high level content or make it so that there are some things i actually have to work hard to get or make it so that there is someone\somethig who is stronger then me out there that i can work towards killing. When the game ends and the quests are done you feel like this brutish warrior who is standing in the welfare line waiting for DLC .

I hope skyrim can recognize what I do and who I am as a hero .

As a sidenote I have played all the previous games and love the series . I just hope skyrim can fix this problem that has so far gone unchecked.

I didn't feel that immersed in Oblivion either...but in a different way to yours.

Sure,it was silly that I was wearing KotN armour when I entered the mages guild and they accepted me like that,but,what if I wasn't?They wouldn't know me at all - I'm just a normal guy and to be honest I like not being mister popular and mister unpopular in Oblivion(I like being treating like a newbie).I say that if you aren't wearing any shiny armour in a different town to the one you saved then hardly anyone should notice you.But,if you are,I see no reason why not.

Infact,I'm not even bothered by the imersion problems you were on about - I was more bothered by the fact you could go from an initiate to a leader in any guild by just doing missions which took three hours at most.To truly gain ranks you should have to do some kind of training involved with the guild (I think you could complete the Mages Guild questline without having to cast a spell) and interact with your fellow members.After all,if they aren't happy with you being the leader,they'll leave.

The answer is yes, it will be immersive enough. I have faith! I think that we can expect the same ideas that made Fallout immersive applied in Skyrim. Now don't get mad, I am not saying the reputation system is just gonna be transfered straight over, because no one will want that, I don't want that. What I am saying is that I think Beth learned how to make their worlds more immersive and I expect to see that happen better than ever in Skyrim.

Nothin to do except main quests!?

I've spent over 150 hours in this game, in 3 different long playthroughs about 50hrs each, and not once have I completed the main quest, pff.

Some end-game ultra-hard dungeons with insane loot would be cool though

Well, judging by Fallout 3, they've lost the shininess that was everywhere - that was probably the major problem with OB.

Although there'll probably still be fast travel

I was going to leave this topic alone, but then I saw this:

I'm sorry, but... Really? Never mind that it can sometimes take a hundred or more hours to see the main quest through to its conclusion(s) in TES. When all that is said and done, there still remains a vast open world to explore, with dozens upon dozens of uncompleted quests from various citizens and guilds. Even in the smaller iterations of TES (the most recent two) that gives perhaps a hundred more hours-ish of playtime. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that no other game developer on the planet gives the player that much "bonus" content. And then there's the replay value of a different character build, whereby you could double all those hours. That is a lot of hours, my friend.

Psst.If we say there wasn't enough bonus content,Bethesda will make more,which will be awesome,no?

Shivering Isles was effectively a new game and people are complaining about a lack of bonus content? From what I've heard, SI is 4 times as long as Gothic 4.

I've played Oblivion for over 500 hours and haven't finished the main quest, so I guess I haven't done anything in that time. :mellow:

Skyrim will certainly not be immersive enough for some. There will always be someone who will complain that there are no toilets, children, or sanitation engineers. I agree with your points from a 'the game is not realistic enough' point of view. The other side is though, that it is a game, and I for one want to be able to do everything with my character. Once I've finished the mage's guild I move on to the fighter's guild and then on to the dark brotherhood etc. Realistic? Of course not, but my character gets to do everything. Maybe he gets corrupted at some point, or is just curious. It doesn't matter to me. Making me run through a new character would increase the replayability of the game for sure, but guaranteed that if the game won't let you join all the factions at the same time there will be a mod within a month to let you do exactly that.
But yes, from the realistic point of view, you shouldn't be able to master everything with the same character. There was a thread about this a long time ago where I argued that you should never be able to master a guild. I figured you should be able rise to the rank of respected member, but that's all. The npc you're replacing is usually an old verteran (think of the mage guild or the dark brotherhood's vampire character) and you role in off the turnip truck, fetch a few items and whammo - guild master. Although that dark brotherhood questline was one of Oblivion's betters...

I felt pretty immersed in Oblivion. Sure, there were times when my suspension of disbelief was challenged (like being able to become the archmage when you're only moderately skilled at best at magic) but overall if you role play yourself through the game a bit, you can feel very immersed. For example, when I played through my first character I intentionally did things that only made sense in a more immersive way. I had chosen to be a Nord warrior/knight, for example, and I didn't even bother trying to join the mage's guild because my character would naturally be turned off by that path even though technically the game would let me do it. I also didn't consider joining an organization like the thieves guild or the dark brotherhood because their code of ethics didn't match my own (my only wish is that I could have done something to attack those guilds and bring them to their knees for their wicked deeds! ).

The second character that I created was a dark elf that started out good (he even beat the MQ and saved the kingdom) but went to the Shivering Isles and became "touched in the head" by the experience and lost his mind. This led to him eventually going down the path of being power hungry and insane, which led him directly to the thieves guild and dark brotherhood where he flourished and caused much havoc on the realm.

So I guess what I'm saying is the game will only be as immersive as you make it through your efforts at role playing.

Whhhhhhhhhaaattt?

it took you 100 hours to complete OBs main quest?
were you playing with one hand or somthing lol

Maybe he ignored the main quest.

This is how i see it.

Besides, this isn't like Dragon Age, where there are limited options per playthrough. In games like that, it's a lot easier to script in proper NPC responses. In open games, there are huge amounts of variables that need to be taken into account. I think I'd rather have them spend their time making more content rather than messing about with NPC recognition scripting that take all character actions in account.

To OP:

I've spent well over 500 hours in Oblivion and i have completed it one time. I have about 140 hours in my current game (although i haven't played much since the FOs came out) and although I'm playing a modified Witchhunter, I haven't even finished the mage guild chain yet. There are TOO many things to do in Oblivion, and I think that's the best part of the game.

I agree. If you played through the MQ and felt like there was nothing left to do...I can only assume that you had already completed all side quests, guild quests, and explored all of hte caves/dungeons. Put simply, when I beat the MQ I still had MANY hours of gameplay left.

1000 hrs for sure. 1 completion. 5 diff characters, including 1 that I took to 100 on every level , just to back them down with the jail/felldew glitch to pump level to 80+! New character created after annoncement of Skyrim, and immersion is imminent. This game is the Only game that seems to break other games to me......IE every gameI try to beat, I get caught up in a TRUE RPG like Oblivion,where you are rewarded for playing THE Way YOU wanna PLAY! I can't wait,I wonder if Oblivion will ruin Skrim for me much like Morrowind did for Oblivion?

oh i thought he meant that it took him 100 hours of questing on the main quest :L

I agree with you there is plenty more to do, but in any case that was only one point, and the main point that he's making is absolutely true. There needs to be something the character can do that he was excluded from doing, or incapable of doing, even upon completion of the main quest. I'm fine with the character being the biggest baddest guy in the game, but not just because he completed the main quest, there should be impenetrable prisons somewhere, giants and oracles lurking in the top of mountains that the mortal world fears, terrors beyond the imagination of the most seasoned warriors lurking in the depths of the earth, sleeping juggernaughts be it a dragon or more preferably a lich of some sort hidden away in caverns or in a mages tower buried deep in the mountains. You know? Just something to immerse the player... Perhaps go swimming and find an underwater city or something. Yes old ideas, sort of cliche, but hell they have creative writers, use them, make something equally as amazing and epic and add it to the game, if they aren't that creative, I assure you TES fans won't kill you for lack of creativity if you give them amazing things with wonderful rewards to find that are something to STRIVE for, something beyond the typical characters abilities, something even the hero of the main quest would question tackling.

Finally the main point of this article, give the character some recognition, not just for the guilds and mainquest, but if I uncover the long lost Curaise of Saviors Hide hidden in the top of a Mages Tower, buried in the middle of Titan infested Mountains enchanted with an eternal hurricane blocking the path to their bounty, and guarded by a 1000 year old Vampire Lich Lord who's plotting to overthrow the local kingdom... Does it hurt that maybe I can tell my story? Show my bounty, brag a little? You know maybe be treated as a hero even if only by the local townsfolk? I've always found it odd, they have a bard class, and yet I can't tell a story, sing, or play an instrument? What the hell type of bard am I anyways?

But yes... Definitely NEED MORE IMMERSION!

Seriously, the main storyline was only like a third of my whole gameplay time.

Well I only played through the Main quest in Oblivion once. Because there was a decent amount of things to do after I had completed it. But I probably have a 1000+ hours into Oblivion... I know for a fact that I have had well over 300 characters.... And double/triple those numbers for Morrowind. But to the threads main topic. It would be nice if the npcs responded to everything you did, but I'd rather the team work on adding that extra quest, rather than a few lines of dialogue.

on topic - i agree, even though the people that design and make the quests are 100% different from the people that do the voice acting.

I have to agree with TC. I mean lets see some examples: (SIDE QUEST SPOILERS)

A lady tells me that if I decide to betray her she will lie about me to the Bruma's count to get me arrested, since her word is above mine. Well, sorry to break it to her, but I did earn my own eternal gratitude of the count, and even have my own God damned statue in this city! In this case her word should mean jack s**t.

Another one, some random guy thinks Im a random peasant who he thinks can lock me in a fort and then murder for fun. I guess somehow the fact that Im the arena champion, have the highest rank in all the fractions and became the knight of the nine escaped him (even thought his dialogue still recognized me as the arena champion.... silly Ai)

The main story was bad, but because of my own reasons (MAIN QUEST SPOILERS). It was supposed to be an epic tale about ME, the hero. But instead EVERYTHING concentrated around some guy who is kings son and blah blah blah, he gets all glory, becomes a dragon and EVEN steals my fight with the main bad guy! And what do I get in the end? Shiny freacking armor and a little bit of recognision which, as I explained beafore, apperantly means jack. They didnt even proposed me the throne for my efforts, and I was the one who had to do EVERYTHING for mr. princy, including going to literall hell on severall ocasions, surely I would make atleast a great general. No freacking wonder Cyrodil quickly gone extinct in my game, everyone pissed me off too much.

This.

I didn't mind the fact that I had to help Martin, I did mind the lack of response and glory.

imo, you ask for too much in a non-linear game.
bethesda would have to write - manually - every possible dialogue outcome for every since verbal encounter at every stage in every major faction.
that would take hours upon hours to do.