Where has this been seen?

This

Agree completely but frankly I've heard this with every TES game starting with Morrowind.

Hahahahaha!!! That's funny...I say that all the time on the L train...

I have to agree with the OP. However I believe that almost all people that purchased the game, would still purchase as it is still a solid game.
I know that the aforementioned titles on your list are examples but Its sad how you feel about Final Fantasy X & ME2 because I loved them and still do. FF games has no relevance to each other. Every game is set in a different world with different mechanics. Apples and oranges. TES is always the same world but devs gave us less sand to play with this time.. sad.

People [censored] about how much it's like Oblivion, people [censored] about how much it's not like Oblivion, people [censored] about how small it is, people [censored] about how easy it is, people [censored] about how hard it is, people [censored] about the weapons, people [censored] about the armor...on and on into Oblivion.


If I was in the Goo Goo Dolls I'd put my middle finger to all people screaming sell out and write music I liked instead of what they tell me I should write. The same goes for bethesda and TES.

I don't know why FFX is in there it's one of my favorite Final Fantasy games only second to FF8

i agree...mass effect 2? lol i mean come on, its a nice polished game but its hardly an open world game to even compare this game to, skyrim is super good, i'm hearing the fallout new vegas crowd whining here.. its not an rpg? ROFL its close enough, hahahaha, cause there is too much combat? bethesda games are very combat oriented.. apart from the bad patch, this game is plenty good and if you don't like it don't play it, to whoever is complaining that much. i also like how most everything respawns and the random aspect to bethesda games, as opposed to a game like new vegas which is stagnant and boring as hell helf way thru since nothing respawns and the utter lack of exploration and no fun battlegrounds to fight and stalk enemies in... also, skyrim is way better than oblivion, and it was a super good game..i think some people just don't get bethesda games, and the cool things bethesda does in their games.

I don't really like the perk system i like Oblivions system better even though it wasn't perfect it's still better than what we have in Skyrim. other than the attribute and level system Skyrim is way better than Oblivion. They should have used an oblivion type system only better that would have gone along way to reducing the criticism, and made a better RPG. If you can even call Skyrim an RPG it's more like an open world action adventure game with RPG elements.

agree with op, with no choices, few attributes, very limited world, its just not what i used to think of TES game.. they can only do this a few time before the old gamers stop buying their games..

I think bait and switch is a bit much. I thought I would miss having the stats to customize but I really don't. I've adapted to the game and I'm enjoying myself. Oblivion took me two tries to get through..it bored me at times. Not having that problem at all here.

Well said.

Well then, I don't see the point in reading the rest of your post.

Goodbye.

Using your logic, was Oblivion "bait and switch" from Morrowind and Morrwind from Daggerfall? Oblivion, IMO was the worst of them all, except for the open world, which I still think looks great, but that is all.

I also think you used the "bait and switch" term incorrectly with these anologies to other game sequels. Skyrim follows the series lore sticking with with its traditional races, beliefs, etc. It also sticks with the open world elements of the previous TES releases. I see no significant departure from the series in the whole of the theme. Your other game comaprsions don't follow either. While DA2 was an atrocious follow up to DA:O, it wasn't because of the story, etc. It was the the near complete removal of player agency and the inclusion of a very over the top unrealistic combat system. Otherwise, the story in DA2 was fine and still followed Dragon Age lore. Fallout 3 was advertised to be a totally different story from the first two Fallouts, when the previous developer went belly up and Beth bought the series and decided to take it in a different direction by making the setting in the east instead of out west.. Mass Effect 2, well that falls somewhat in the same line as DA2, too much combat, removal of RPG elements, but the story was good and followed Mass Effect nicely.

On your last statement, you painted a fictitious group of "most people", since you are using your own words to make it seem that there is this large consensus out there.

i prefer the new hybrid type rpg, with plenty of action, some fps elements and rpg elements, i would of liked a system like SPECIAL, for things like luck, perception but i think the perks are pretty cool and well thought out, and those along with the standing stones and option to add points to health, stamina and magic are plenty to still make a unique avatar, so i'm with todd howard on this one, i think nostalgia makes it seem like all the old stuff is better, change isn't always easy, but the old rpgs are going by the wayside, people want more balance, and something new, bethesda is kinda at the forefront of hybrid rpgs, they're the future of rpg games. not those old stale boring games from the past. skyrim is a dynamic game with all sorts of cool things implemented but even todd howard said that not everyone will "get" their games, but i can see a lot of the cool things they did, so apart from the bad patch and a few minor complaints, i think the game is excellent.

None of the ES games have been copies of the title that came before it in the series. Many players act as if those games either should have been copies of the previous title, set in a different place, or convince themselves that it was supposed to be that way.

The premise of this thread is that Skyrim doesn't deliver as an ES game. In my opinion that's laughable tripe, since aside from lore, there's no hard and fast definition for "An ES game" except in the minds of the people that try to cubbyhole them

Matter of opinion. You think Skyrim is bad? Well good for you, it's not fact. I think Skyrim is GREAT and I know it's not fact.

To those who really do think Skyrim is a disappointment, it's basically a Terminator 3 scenario. As a movie, T3 was pretty good. As a Terminator movie, it wasn't that great.

TES has been evolving ever since Arena. (I know; I was there.)

Anyone who has played more than one TES game knows that they are not all the same.

There was no "bait and switch". Bethesda delivered the game they hyped. Name three features that were hyped but not delivered.

For the record, I love Skyrim and think it's the best TES yet. Perfect? Not by a damn sight. But it does a lot of things right and most of its evolutions make a more fun game (for me, anyway).

Kind of off topic, but if the devs learn one thing from Skyrim's mistakes, I hope it's that narrow and shallow quests and one-dimensional conversations are unsatisfying. Even the shortest quest should have at least two distinct ways of completing it, preferably three. And every dialogue should have at least two meaningful possible outcomes. (No, "accept quest"/"walk away" are not meaningful choices.) Honestly past TES games were no better in this regard, but story options are kind of a baseline expectation in RPGs nowadays.

Things lost in the transaction from Oblivion to Skyrim that I can name off the top of my head.

- Proper guild ranks: you're "called" arch mage but there is nothing that really indicates your position in the guild other than random one liners from NPC's and when you can jump to the last rank from the first rank without having to go through at least two or three other ranks then something is wrong.

- Proper recognition: "Good day arch mage, if you think you have the aptitude for magic, you should consider joining the mages guild", "hello leader of the Companions, I still don't know why you were let into the guild", "You saved the world from Alduin ? Another traveler come to lick my father's boots. Good job."... and I could go on... Bethesda really did a bad job on this one, they took no care to not have two dialogues that conflict with each other running at the same time.

- http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1302338-a-small-observation-on-the-amount-of-spells-in-the-game/ http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1303444-excusion-of-spell-making-a-bad-developing-decision-and-why/ If you think I'm not covering this topic well enough just click the links...

- Proper quest lines: You join a guild, do like six quests, you're in charge, hurray! And really, most of the guild main quest lines are really short. The main quest itself surprisingly enough is only one quest shorter than the Morrowind one and one quest longer than the Oblivion one (knew this already from past research) yet it's set up in such a way that you breeze through it in a fraction of the time it takes you to properly do the Morrowind main quest. Heck I remember two quests where all I had to do was sit and wait. And they felt proper epic like, we had the ash storms in Morrowind making everyone and everything blighted and sick and in Oblivion the main city itself gets invaded. In Skyrim we have bears killing Dragons who hardly feel like a thread at all despite all the talk of the danger behind them (Oblivion relied on the "strength in numbers" thing and Morrowind actually had things dying not from creatures and even the creatures were often on a certain level and would wipe you off the face of Nirn with a single spell if you tried to kill them at level 1... unlike the dragons who have been reported being slain by the Dovahkiins horse around these levels...) and with the general faster pace of the game I was expecting the main quest to be even longer.

- Attributes, yes they were important. My mage is as strong as my warrior, as fast as my rogue and is unable to buff many aspects of his summons and companions through restoration spells and unable to decrease many aspects of his enemies through destruction spells. We have health, magicka and stamina, cramming everything into 3 "attributes" if you will, making there be a lot less variation especially considering it's not on a 1-100 base scale but generally on a 1 - => 81 scale (may depend on race). I will say however that attributes could be removed but only if we were given the same tools as in Oblivion and Morrowind to work with the numbers they represented.

- Daedra, really. Three atronachs and one type of Dremora (before you jump your guns I understand the Familiar is not really a Daedra) does not really cut it... where are the Clannfears, Daedroths, Scamps, other types of Dremora, Xivilai, Spider Daedra ? And to name a few from Morrowind, the Ogrim, Hunger, Winged Twilight and the Golden Saints ?

And there could be more, only nothing else really pops into my mind at this moment.

Edit: I must mention though that I think Skyrim is a good game. It's just not a good TES. Especially in comparison to Morrowind rather than Oblivion. When I first heard of Skyrim I was hoping for a Morrowind kind of game with Oblivion graphics. Not a even less like Morrowind game than Oblivion with amazing graphics...

On the bright side, without attributes they can't make the only black people in the game congenitally stupid.

1. An interesting and varied magic system.
2. Affecting an economy.
3. I cant think of a number three. Cant remember if they said we would have interesting guilds or main quest.

Ha!

Honestly, what I loved in TES is still there, so I'm happy. I still get to make my own story, so whatever the hell I want to, and live in a world that's really, really well thought.
The gameplay is also something I really hold on too, and on that, Skyrim fails to disappoint.

I'm happy. no euphoric. Sometimes I just wish people know that happiness is easy to get: you just decide to be happy

theres no excuse for skyrim. i dont care about radiant quest since they lack any context or plot longer than one line. guild/faction questline design is awful and short. characters involved shove their undeveloped identity towards me(no matter how important or interesting they are designed to be, the game absolutely fails to pursuade me). theres no guild ranks, and in thieves guild many npcs dont even recognize me as guildmaster!

overall individual faction quests may involve more action and dungeon design is better, but my disappointment just proves a good quest is not something that shows, but perceived by the gamer. skyrim faction quest designs(less the MQ. i havent touched them) have literally failed to deliver the feeling that allows me to believe what they have packed inside the quests.

and for this defect in quests i am obliged to rate unmodded skyrim lower than equally ummodded morrowind or oblivion. sure theres a lot more to the game besides quest, but quest is the prime reason my character can matter in gameworld. lame quest and quest npc design is regrettably my big disappointment towards skyrim that lets me down. the fact that decent quest mods are usually hard to come by, and take longer to be developed makes the problem more severe