I hate level-scaling, so that's the feature of Oblivion you won't see me defending.

I'm still expecting some boreal forests and views equivalent to that of Dive Rock, for Skyrim, however, which is good enough for me.

Dear Smug and Self-Satisfied Console Haters,

Hi there. I'm a console player. And I don't enjoy lowest common denominator gameplay any more than you do. So, uh... yeah. Get over yourselves, for the love of Christ. I know you think the entire concept of a video game console is an industry-[censored] abomination and all, but the rest of us are trying to build some common ground for the bettering of games in general. Your self-righteous indignation and scapegoating will get nobody anywhere. The idea that the content and maturity level of games would suddenly skyrocket if the enlightened PC crowd were left on its own to enjoy all games will get nobody anywhere. Refusing to acknowledge the existence of consoles much like bitter, delusional old men that still deny the holocaust will get nobody anywhere. I know the idea that all bad things can be pinned on some nebulous "other" is comforting and makes you feel more secure. But dare I say it, you're going to need to grow up now. Perhaps at some point in the future, we can get to work on impacting a positive influence on the industry.


Shaking my head sadly,

LibraryOfBabel

That does not include me.

I did not like the dumbing down act, not the players, and I know a lot of console players are as hard core player as me if not more.

And I'm grateful for the result, as it meant BGS got more money and can make better games, and hope that they can eventually reach a middle point equilibrium that can satisfy both parties, except for the most radical types.

Everyone keeps referencing Fallout:New Vegas. I have to say that's a great example how a game can have casual, console focused elements while appealing to the "hardcoe" demographic as well. I think having features that make a game more accessible to players we tend to think that means it has to take away from the actual game aspects or complexity of the game. This can be true to some degree but there is a balance such as FNV that showed a game can appeal to your more traditional hardcoe RPG fans while still have elements for more causal gamers as well. Im sure after 5 years of crying about how dumbed down and simple Oblivion's elements were in comparison to Morrowind that Bethesda will be taking note and fixing this. Oblivion and Fallout were fantastic games but each game is also an experiment. You can only guess how well received a feature will be or how it will actually turn out. I've seen a lot of growth from Bethesda in Fallout 3. In comparison to Oblivion many of the features and mechanics were overhauled for the better, they tried changing up level scaling, and the writing was by far improved. I think we will look back and see that from Fallout 3 to Skyrim Bethesda has came a long way in appealing to all of their demographics.

I'm primarily a console gamer but there is absolutely nothing casual or mainstream about me.

How many joinable factions do you want in Skyrim? 4-6 sounds reasonable. Sure it would be cool with more joinable factions but i want quality over quantity.

What kind of enemy level scaling would you like in Skyrim Morrowind level scaling for sure.

What kind of loot level scaling would you like in Skyrim? It's a tie between Scaled Generic Items, Non-Scaled Unique Items and none.

Skyrim's story and setting should be (choose closest): It's pretty damn obvious what you want us to vote on but i am gonna disappoint you anyway. :tongue:

Well polished and full of classic fantasy archetypes. Don't get me wrong, i want an epic adventure and an interesting world to explore but it dosn't need to be exotic and alien to be interesting in my opinion.

Of the following features, which would you prefer to be in the game, as an option when creating a new character or otherwise?
- Essential NPCs (Optional)
- Quest Marker (Optional)
- Buyable Houses

Because it's boring, Seti. I know I know, opinions opinions. It's still boring and generic though.

Anyway, as for the poll, I want mark/recall and levitation!

PC all the way don't let the console bring down the visuals of a horse powered PC one bit. (look at crysis 2).

No it's not. Everything can be made interesting with enough effort. :slap:

Agreed. That's not what I meant...

A game set in a generic fantasy world can still be made to look interesting enough....with enough effort.

Not going to happen mate - hell, if it goes the way of NV we could get a really decent game *and* the DLC exclusive! So ner!

On a serious note, I don't know if the type of visuals created in Crysis 2 would be possible in an open world RPG anyway - I haven't played it myself but it's an FPS, no? I'm sure I've heard that it's a lot easier to make a very pretty game if you're more limited in what you're able to do (something like that, anyway). For me it's not about how good it looks, but how well it plays. Someone else said the devs should take note of how a more complex game like NV was received and take note - I heartily agree.

I played Morrowind on console and was disappointed at the reduction of content. I know trying to push every negative quality on an outside group makes people feel irresponsibly blameless, but such is self-deception. If someone wants a simple, casual, mainstream fantasy game, it has nothing to do with their choice of gaming platform.

I play on consoles and PC. I do believe that RPGs have been suffering from a "dumbing down" over the past decade or so, but I don't think it's the because console gamers wouldn't like more complex games. I blame the game developers for underestimating their customers. They think console gamers are all casual players who will be scared off by more complex game mechanics. Oblivion and Mass Effect 2 (and, to a lesser extent, Dragon Age) are all examples of this happening. I think any player who likes RPGs, whether they play on consoles or PCs, would like to see a bit more depth than these recent titles offered. And really, people who like RPGs are the only ones RPG developers should be concerned about. If they want to appeal to people who don't like RPGs, they are in the wrong genre.

I hope that, rather than dumbing down the entire game to appeal to people who don't like RPGs, they will just focus on player training and implementing a gentle learning curve so that beginners can get accustomed to the game. I wish developers would abandon the idea that gamers will give up on a title if they can't completely master it in five minutes. We're not so averse to learning as they think we are.

That's [censored]. I'm mainly a console player myself, and telling this makes no sense, pc developers had no problem doing games on pc exclusively. Morrowind was only released on the xbox and I think it didn't do particularly well for obvious reasons. Oblivion would've been 100% possible without consoles (without the 360 you mean), hell they pushed back the release date because they didn't have the xbox tech in time. Oblivion sold very well on consoles, but that has nothing to do with Bethesda's ability in releasing Oblivion period, as well as I'm sure their ability to release Skyrim. Why the hell wouldn't they be able to release Skyrim without consoles? The only thing the consoles do is bringing a mainstream crowd to video gaming, a crowd, which I'm sure, is not even interested in RPGs and such. While I'm sure some people who bought Oblivion are more mainstream, I highly doubt anyone bought the game solely for killing creatures, but you know, to play an RPG. Having a console doesn't disable you from buying pc games (anyone who has a console has a pc no?), I myself have Morrowind both on xbox and pc and will soon for Oblivion too. Hell, mods is a good reason for any console players to buy TES games on PC.

Morrowind did well on the XBox, better than expected iirc which is why I for one was so surprised by the, err, changes made to Oblivion. Regardless of my opinion, the sales of Ob were exactly what Beth needed.

I sense some bias in this thread title

Why do I get the impression that a lot of people are going to be disappointed in regards to the amount of joinable factions in the final release?

I'm hopeful they'll add more, but somehow I don't think they will. Prove me wrong Bethesda.

This is ridiculous. PCs are more powerful, and capable of much more in terms of graphical sharpness, scale, and content. The best way to go if you have the cash on hand to make a hotrod that can play the newer titles at their max settings.

Consoles are cheaper, thus more common, and a money machine. A console is something that a gamer with no big PC aspect in his life can buy, plug in, and have some fun.

To each their own. Stop trying to spin consoles as the almighty destroyer of game-quality. When I read posts about how Elder Scrolls titles shouldn't be made available to console gamers, it makes me sick. At the same time, trying to make consoles out as superior to a good PC is just stupid.

Everyone can enjoy the series on their chosen outlet, the developer makes sure of this. If you're angry about something screwing with the series, blame the maker.

I feel like the console market has provided developers with a lot of money to actually make games better too, I mean generally if you expand from PC to include consoles then you have a lot more people who will be buying your game.

I think your main problem here is that your posting this on the Elder Scrolls forum. Almost everyone here will be a hardcoe fan. Anyone who marginally cares about the game, or casual players will likely not be on these forums.

That said, this forum is built from the core elder Scrolls fans *caugh the people who matter caugh* the core are the people they should make the game for.

Scale the items that enemies use/drop to the level of the enemy in question. Every day bandits should not going to be beyond what level 10-15, regardless of the level of the players level, and should use the appropriate level gear. Each type of enemy should have a "rank" which determines its maximum level possible, and a class to determine what items it can have/use. For example a human enemy, he should have a rank within the human hierarchy which determines his maximum level, and he should scale with the players level within a +/- range until he reaches the max level designated by his rank. He should also have a class chosen from the class list which determines everything else about him, attributes, major skills, armor and weapon type, or if he is a caster or hybrid caster class, what spells should he have at his given level, maybe have a set of spells for each predetermined class and have a few randomly picked for each level he has to bring some diverse combat to the game. If the AI is improved he should be able to decide which or attack to use based on a set of variables like his level, health, mana, fatigue, spells, which spell he just used, what spells he has available, and your health, attack style (melee/range/magic).


Then designate which types of enemies can spawn in a given area and the % chance each rank of that type will spawn, the higher the rank the lower the chance, depending on what area your in. That will eliminate the scaling issues.

As for the whole console vs pc thing, i have all of them and play all of them. but never should a company hurt either of them by taking the lazy way out and only developing one UI. Oblivions was discusting on pc and was obviously designed for the consoles, which is OK, because a console would have the same complaint as those of us on pc if the tables were turned and the game only had a UI designed for pc with the mouse in mind and smaller text, etc. They need to optimize the UI of the pc version for the pc and the console version for the console, then nobody would have anything to /censored/ about.

Also for the people saying its not fair that pc gets mods while console does not, such is life. Im sure if bgs developed the game on the console then there would be some kind of construction set for it, but its not. I feel bad for console players who don't have the money to afford a good pc, as they are missing out on a whole other level which can be reached by these games through the modding community.

Thats it right there. Its not the gamers its the developers and its specific to RPG developers. While RPGs are loosing depth (Dragon Age was more of a decline from Baldur's Gate than anything) sports games are becoming more complex, and requiring more strategy and knowledge of the sport. If you look at the best selling sports games per-sports its the realistic titles with depth that out sell the casual brands. Platformers and Racing games are still more difficult than most of todays RPGs. Fable, Oblivion, FO 3, even Dragon Age which was kinda tough have nothing on Yohi's Island or Project Gotham.

In Interplay's demise you can see the disconnect. Baldur's Gate was playable on the PS 1 and they didnt even port it to the PS 2 and Xbox. Instead they gave console gamers that Dark Alliance crap. If Interplay would have tapped the console market like Bethesda they would still be around but they didnt understand console gamers as a demographic.

Who is that core, exactly? I care very deeply about the series, but what you are insinuating is that I must not because I want the options people mark as "casual"? I can tell you that the first two iterations of the series shared much of these "casual" traits with Oblivion. Morrowind players who think the series should be Morrowind 2 all around... must not actually have much of a grasp on the series, instead of just one game.

... that was not a complaint, just an observation. Making Oblivion available for xbox pushed the release date back, made it more difficult to properly make the game for both the pc and 360, I don't see how it helped making Oblivion possible. If anything, waiting for the xbox tech only made work on Oblivion harder and that may very well be a reason why Sutch was cut out as numerous quests or some features, they had the tech for only 6 months before the release. But my point is that the only thing making Oblivion available to the xbox made to Oblivion itself was to cause problems.



You should read properly before calling people "[censored]". I never said everyone would be able to buy it, only that it wouldn't have made it impossible to release Oblivion or Skyrim. Crytech had no problem making both Far Cry and Crysis while they are extremely demanding games (at least for optimal performance), and both were never released on consoles. Releasing games on consoles isn't a necessity - in fact, consoles existed long before this generation you know? Yet games were as exclusive as ever and developers still managed to release them - it's only a question of making more money.



I know that, read my post before posting. I never said people buying Oblivion on 360 or PS3 (like me) are casual gamers, I said the opposite... I said most casual gamers aren't interested in RPGs.



So? PC game developers never asked themselves if everyone could run their games on their computers, making it available to consoles is only a question of making more money, not a necessity. Plus, even if their pc doesn't run the games as good as their consoles, they may still run them appropriately.



You're kidding with 2000$, unless you want to play Crysis at top performance (even then you can be surprised what type of pc can run it at lower performances) or want all the mods that increase graphic performances, you don't need the best gaming rig. You can build a decent one (one that can run new games) for a very decent price if you build it piece by piece by a friend who can do it. But you don't know, maybe if the PC had more exclusive titles a lot of people would turn away from consoles. Because in case you didn't know, consoles cost money too. And you had to pay for the computer you use, I'd be surprised you keep the same for 10 years (you don't keep a console for 10 years anyway). And you don't need to upgrade a pc too often, a lot of games can still be run even if it's not at the maximal performance the game allows.

Again, I could be [censored] up too if Bethesda decides they no longer want to release games on consoles (that would be highly surprising considering how well Oblivion and Fallout 3 sold), but me getting mad over this still wouldn't disable them from releasing the game exclusively on PC, and THAT is the question at hand. And if you buy a 2000$ gaming rig, you bet you'd be able to do a lot more than run Oblivion or Skyrim mods.

I voted for all the Oblivion choices, and the no lore choices, to make casual gamers look bad.

*giggles*