Shadow woodsman.

This. They finally give me the freedom to just play as I want without setting prerequisite skills ahead of time as my majors and minors.

You know what my majors and minors are? The ones I use.

And making a class name means you're inviting others to be like you. No thanks.

Mage/Rogue Yes, at the same time. I suppose "Arcane Assassin" isn't a bad title. That actually sounds cool.

The greeting my first character would give the first time you talk to him if he was an NPC:
"Well met, stranger. I am Hrol, and a Crusader by trade. If you have any questions I will be happy to answer."

The "class" name is hidden in there somewhere.

This.

(It's what all my Oblivion characters were, since I always made a custom class, and didn't care about replacing the default class name.)

Marksman Brute, Prefers Bows to open up encounters but finishes off with a large two handed weapon

Butt Pirate.

Battlemage, no need to get creative because I can't name his class anyway.

Nordic Cloud Runner - An axe wielding barbarian with an affinity towards Lightning and Cold spells.

1st char: Archmage
2nd char: killer thief
3rd char: knight

Actually, this is why I'm glad they're trying this without glass demarcations. First off, because it makes for some hilarity here and there on the forums, but second, because it does entail some imagination if you want to look.

I suppose, if you like, you could call him just Dragonborn. Depending on the scenarios I find myself in, his choices of how to handle situations may be widely different. Perhaps, if I find that this character is best suited to magic, then so shall it be. Or if the sorts of goals he wants to accomplish can best be done with red blades and dented shields, then so shall it be. Or perhaps he will be outclassed in terms of strength and magic power, and must use his cleverness and stay to the dark. Then so shall it be. Or perhaps after all he will master none but use all of them.

See, I think it does expand gameplay if you care to look. Oh sure, I'll probably run through and keep myself on an archetype at least once, but I'll play the game as I believe it is intended: choose as you play.

I never cared for the classes anyway

...but [censored] works well

Focused Blade: uses an overly long katana to... oh wait...


Nah, if anything it'sj ust gonna be "warrior"

Nope wait, Butt Pirate.

Thanks srk.

i like it

Necromancer

Shadow Mage.

Illusion in one hand (chamelon/invis/rage), Alteration in the other (paralyze/unlock/shields)). Sneak and Pickpocket on the side. Will max perks for these 4 Skills.

Remaining perks past 50 i'll dump into enchanting/alchemy if I get that far without finishing the game.

I think that I agree with your last post, directly above my last post.

Morrowind and Skyrim are ultimately accomplishing the same thing. They have different means of reaching that end. One, you lump together a group of skills and give them a name, and better those skills through use, and level your character through the use of those skills. The other, you just go out into the world and do whichever skills you desire, level up through their use, and further focus and specialize on a select few skills through Perks to define your character and his "class".

soul reaper

collector of dragon souls.
an assassin with bows and arrows, daggers and magic, good aim powerful and deep slashs with daggers and powerful offence spells

DragonHeart , you know ... like the oblivion arena name , although now it's much more bad-ass cuz it fits perfectly !

eh

mage, wizard, sorcerer take your pick

soldier or warrior.
that guy.
bad ass mofo.
awesome.
WITCHER.

That is just where the story begins. You used X-Men in your post (I don't know if that was on purpose to relate to my extreme fandom of X-Men, or if that just so happened to be coincidence, but, good call ), well the story begins with young Erik Lensherr in a concentration camp. Obviously, Erik Lensherr would have had a life before the concentration camp, but the story we are being told begins in the concentration camp, and proceeds throughout his life after that.

It's the same with Elder Scrolls. Our character would have had a life before the prison, but the game purposefully leaves that previous life ambiguous so that we, as the player, could design our own creation.

I am a fan of the BioWare games, but I believe that Bethesda leaving our characters past ambiguous for us to decide and create is far superior to a BioWare game giving us a choice from 3 or so backstories that the game will acknowledge.

I enjoy creating characters, and between Morrowind and Oblivion, have created many different character concepts that have translated into gameplay. My Morrowind character was a Wood Elf named Aalaan who's backstory was that his parents were killed when he was a youth, and he had to fend for himself. He only had his older brother to look after him, and he quickly learned that he couldn't trust many people in the world. He let few people close to him, but due to the relationship with his brother, he did have an undying loyalty towards the people he did let in.

How this translated to gameplay - Aalaan had no interest in the Nerevarine Prophecies, but he worked for Caius Cosades anyways because he wanted to keep his ass out of jail, and it was a way to get out and get some money. As he got deeper involved, Dagoth Ur began setting up attacks on Aalaan. Aalaan then became invested in the Nerevarine Prophecies, not because he cared about them and wanted to be the Nerevarine, but because he now had a personal vendetta against Dagoth Ur and wanted to take him out.

A Morrowind class system does not make that kind of backstory anymore possible than a Skyrim skill system. I have the beginning stages of a backstory set out for my Skyrim character as well. I have a select few skills that I'd like my character to focus on. The character backstory and skill selection is dependent on what I as a gamer want to accomplish in my time with the game. After I finished my original Morrowind character, I realized how much I like the Enchant skill, and I developed an entirely new character concept because I now had new goals as a player. My Oblivion character is heavily based off that concept, but with Enchant not being a skill in Oblivion, I did have to alter my character's motivations, as my player motivations changed.

My gaming tendencies went from being a hit-n-run type of lightly armored ranged character, who used magic and bows, to a heavily armored, big sword wielding tank. So I wanted to implement that into Oblivion. I also wanted to implement my "dark magic" interests of summoning, and soul stealing, so I implemented skills like Conjuration and Mysticism, as well as Alteration to help with tanking (Shield spells) and Destruction just because it fit my character concept. I've had more fun with this Oblivion character than I've ever had, because I finally found a character design that worked for me. Characters in the past weren't as well thought out.

Skyrim is no different. I know what skills I want to use. I want to dual wield 1 handed swords. I want to capitalize on the new magic system. I want to summon evil creatures, I want to steal the souls of my enemies, and I want them to fuel my magical abilities by using them to give my weapons arcane abilities. I have a character design to fit that, his motivations, why he makes the choices that he does. A class system does not make it easier for you to create a backstory for a character. A backstory happens regardless, and a character becomes more than just the skills he's good at.



But this game does make your choices carry weight. You might be able to go around and do any skill you want (but you could do that in Morrowind and Oblivion, as well), but you can only specialize in a few. There are almost 300 perks in the game, and you can only get 50. You're going to have to make choices, and you're going to have to specialize. And, as far as I know, your perk selections are permanent. They can't be undone to the best of my knowledge. I don't know how many perks are in each skill's perk tree, but let's say for the sake of argument that there are 10... if you want to max out your perk trees, you can only focus on 5 skills. So if those skills are, say, 1-Handed Weapon, Heavy Armor, Conjuration, Enchanting, Destruction (I'm selecting what will probably be my 5 main skills), then going out and using 2-Handed Weapons, wearing Light Armor, and casting Restoration spells is probably pretty pointless. Sure, you can level them up... but you won't have room to focus on them. And if you do want to be good at other skills, let's say you want to be good at Sneaking and Alteration, then you're going to have to make the decision to not specialize as much in, say, Destruction and Heavy Armor, because you only have so many points to toss around.



I believe there are pro's and con's to a dice roll system over a "real time" system. I would have no problem with spell casting going back to a dice roll system like Morrowind, where you can try to cast any spell, but if you're not good enough, you're probably going to fail the cast. That doesn't seem to be the case though. They went with a more real time combat system, which I feel is much more adrenaline fueled and exciting than a dice roll system, so they make it that your skill determines the amount of things you can do in a skill, not whether or not you can do it.



But in a game who's motto is "Live another life, in another world" and "Be any kind of character you can imagine", why should I be limited from being that person?



But again, the perks system means you are going to have to specialize, and thus, "define" your character and his "role", or "class", whichever term you deem more appropriate.



Some people aren't as creative. My brother loves RPG's, but he doesn't like creating in depth characters and backstories. When Fallout 3 first came out, and I played it the first time, he watched me create my character and I was like "Damnit, I don't know what I want to name my character!" and his response was "How about Allen? That's a good name." (Allen is my real name). My brother is one of those people who builds his characters as "classes". That's not a wrong way to play. That's Bethesda's motto, there is no wrong way to play their games. My brother likes to play the "White Mage", healer type class, and do goody goody quests and be the good guy, and name them after himself or his kids. I like to create characters who have entire backstories and spend their time in game making decisions that reflect that personality (which is typically based off an extension of myself and what I want to accomplish in the game). Neither way is wrong, but the great thing is that neither way is being discouraged through the skills system. For those that want to just play the game and do whatever, they can, they can just go and do whatever skills they think are fun and cool, and level up that character that way. For those of us who want to create in depth characters and have those determine our game experience, we still can, and we'll have perks to truly define and specialize our characters so they aren't just a maxed out all skills badass at everything character.

I really don't see this Skyrim skill system being significantly different than what we've had in Morrowind and Oblivion. We're still using the skills we want. Instead of a labeled class limiting us to a certain amount of skills (and even that class system didn't do that, because we could still go outside of that class, and in Oblivion that was a common playstyle, so as to "control" leveling), we have perks to limit us to a certain amount of skills. And just like how in Morrowind and Oblivion, it is only a certain amount of skills that get boosts and level us up, but you could still do any skill you wanted, Skyrim is the same way. You can do whatever skill you want, but at the end of the day, you're only going to be specialized in a few of them.

Trying to find out a feminin version of "Crimelord" Crimelady? No, no.

But something to that nature.

Ranger, skilled w/ bow and sword. and restoration