More 80% of those mentioned were never even in a video game before, and most would take months maybe even a year to implement.

Poison their food/drink? You can poison them by putting poison into them if your a stealthy character. \

Yes you were answering my request but not in a logical way.

Just because they DIDN'T Implement those MINOR aspects, doesn't mean they SHOULD have. You can't please everyone. Not even the next TES game will have a fraction of what you want.

Why? Because it's business.

It would take months or a year to implement performing a Dark Ritual?

No, I can't poison their food or drink. I can put something I poisoned into their damn pocket. In Oblivion you could actually leave poisoned apples out on a table for anyone to eat.

I like how depth is a "minor" thing. I would certainly love to know how many people would rather enjoy being able to say, go higher up the ladder in a guild, by talking their way through rather than being asked to beat up Arcadia, or bust some guy's vase.

When I say nothing I do matters, I mean 2 things.

1. Quests are the primary method relationships are built in-game. The overwhelming majority of quests are strictly linear and have absolutely NO alternative methods to complete the task. Because of this, the ONLY choice I have in how I want the game world to perceive me is whether or not I want to take on the quest. For instance, if I want to play as a murderous evil mage, no matter what I do through quests excludes me from becoming Archmage of the Mage Guild. Even if I am an evil Archmage, I can still become Harbinger of the Companions, Leader of the DB, and head of the Theives Guild. There are no in-game limits to how relationships are built. Every limit is self imposed.

2. Why do anything if the game-world does not respond to me. Just because there are apparent consequences, does not mean those consequences are of any value or make me regret my prior actions. For example, (real story) I accidentally stole a cheese weel from an inn without noticing, as I recieved no notification. A few days later a gang of hire mercenaries track me down and I kill them, read the note as to who hired them (the innkeeper). I go back to talk to said innkeeper and its like nothing ever happened. Everything continues as normal, no option to confront her or anyting. This applies to every single apparent consequence.

Baloney. The people you interact with in the DB certainly do acknowledge the act. Stop telling me that the things you WANT to have happened didn't, so that means NOTJING happened. It's patently false. Should something more earth-shattering occur? YOU BET. Just becasue minor things happen doesn't mean that NOTHJING happened. There are undeniable consequences for that act. They just aren't what you'd prefer to see- or what I would prefer to see, too. It doesn't prove your argument

You're saying that since it only snowed 3 inches this year, it didn't snow "at all"

Fine.

Nothing worthwhile happened.

And what did happen carried little weight.

Better?

1. This is a franchise-wide aspect. You can think of it as a flaw, but only in terms of what you want from a game. If being Archmage meant I could not be harbinger, however logical or cleverly implemented, it would still restrict a lot of playesr' actions re: how they want to play. But at least you concede that "something" you do matters

2. An example for you- before you take on the MQ, you can clear out a fort near Whiterun. It's infested by bandits. if you clear them all out, the Empire takes over the fort. The gameworld reacted to your actions

You're telling me that since each and every action doesn't have detailed consequence, the game has no consequecnes. You cannot sway me with that premise

if you say that the game SHOULD have those detailed consequential aspects, I will be right next to you agreeing

Yes, much better. Now you're making logical sense

I was making logical sense before, you were simply taking "nothing" as the fully literal meaning rather than what one would normally assume, i.e. "nothing worthwhile."

That's utter nonsense. You went and made the "nothing world-changing occurred" argument and presented it to me as "nothing happened". I refuted it and you agreed. Do you need a time machine, or can you scroll up the page?

Actually Eric he turned your Statement into an absolute opinion, in that no matter what truth resides in that statement, it is just your opinion and can be refuted. as opposed to your not blatantly saying its an opinion former post.

you sir have been out gunned by Hathy

It's nice to be noticed

If my past actions (in the form of a quest or npc-interaction) exclude me logically from embarking on some other aspect of the game, I would consider that a thoughtfully written part of the game. I rarely, if ever see that occur in Skyrim. Yes I agree it is more of a franchise-wide criticism, but enough time has passed to expect more from this particular sphere of RPG development


These are what I call "apparent" consequences. Yes, it is satisfying to see things like this happen, but how does that contribute to how the game world perceives you? It changes how you view the world, but it does not affect your relationship in any way with the Empire. You cannot (well logically there are reasons) claim that you did that and want a reward or recognition from the Empire. Imagine if, instead of simply clearing out the fort, there was a small force of Imperial troops outside the fort who you could talk to and either 1. offer aid in assisting them take the fort over by clearing the bandits yourself OR using your speech skill to convince them that they can take the for OR use your barter skill to say you are a traveling merchant who would like to set up shop in that fort, and you would pay them alot to attack the fort. All of these options would make the Empire like you better or whatever. OR you could decide to kill the Imperial pigs at which point a contingent of Stormcloak troops would show up a few days later, giving you the same options. I mean I just thought of these options in under 2 mins. Quests like that offer increased choice, enhanced repercussions, and a dynamic effect on how the world reacts to you. The Empire simply moving in after you clear it out is just a poorly thought out and lazily implemented consequence.

EDIT: Barter as in the merchant perk in the speech tree lol. Forgot im not playing FNV =p
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Is that not our duty as informed consumers? To demand adequate standards in an aspect of a game?

Oh well. Point was agreed upon however, nothing worth noting happened, but we want it to.

It is pretty annoying in many cases. Some that immediately come to mind are:

1. Delivering food to the Greybeards for some guy in a village = the Greybeards never remove the food from the chest to eat it.

2. Failing the initial task to get into the Thieves guild = you get allowed in anyways.

3. Tell the shady Argonian in Solitude you don't want to do their quest, and intend to report them to the authorities = quest goes in your journal anyways

4. Killing the emperor = DB is infamous again. Random guard goes "I know who you are, Hail Sithis!" Wait, if every guard knows I am in the DB, shouldn't I be attacked on sight by now?

no, halthor proved a lack of common sense, as, "nothing" obviously meant the inclusion of "worthwhile", since, his definition makes no sense whatsoever.

otherwise, every dumb statement would need an, in my opinion, clause. which, is obviously, insane. it's a given.

this game is shallow. period. it has less.

It's really easy.

I just wish Speech was a worthwhile skill and we could have more choice in the way we interact with NPCs. There is a lot to be desired in this department. The world does NOT react to your actions in a organic manner. ie, the consequences often do not make sense. If the civil war is won for one side, there should be celebrations to follow. If the emperor is assassinated, there should be mourning in the streets or celebration depending on where you are at. With the emperor dead the Legion should be in chaos and [censored] should literally be hitting the fan. All it would take is a few lines of dialogue from some legion members saying things like a dark time is coming or something to set the mood.

The fact of the matter is that Bethesda focused on making quests. But not consequences for them that make any kind of sense. The world does not feel organic nor does it feel connected. The NPCs are aware of things they shouldn't be and unaware of things they should be. Like the end of the Civil war. Several NPCs still talk like it is still going on after the fact. Even weeks or months after the fact.

Pure and simple. BGS did not put enough effort into this department and this area definitely needed it. Truly it would not even have required a [censored] ton of effort. It would have been work yes. But not something that would cause more than a few arbitrary features to be missing from a game that truly just needed more time spent developing it. A March release would have been fine and so would a 12/12/12 release. 11/11/11 was a mistake and they obviously felt obligated to release their game on the promised date even though it was nowhere near being done with bug testing. IMO they obviously cut features they were planning to be in the game to make room for the release date. You can feel this as you play the game.

There are so many moments that feel like they needed just a little more time spent on them. Factions for one instance. The companions faction was obviously being rushed before release as they did not want to tell people about werewolves. Then they do not even manage to put the werewolves in the leveled lists or any sidequests with werewolves other than a Daedric one. Werewolves are also horribly implemented as a game mechanic. They barely made it into the game and would not have at all if BGS did not KNOW that fans really wanted them in. So they tossed them in half-assed to satisfy the werewolf fans.

I'm not sure the 11/11/11 release date had much to do with it--these are issues Bethesda has struggled with since Arena. Oblivion was delayed, and there were still enormous bugs and obviously missing content. Ditto Morrowind and Daggerfall. This is as "finished" as Bethesda games get on release.

How big a selling point is C&C?
I am not asking if it should/should not be in the game.
From a purely business standpoint what games have focused on this as part of their advertising and design process and how well did they do Commercially?

It was not so much the bugs as the content and poor implementation of several features that leads me to believe the game was rushed for that 11/11/11 release date. See what I said about werewolves. Also crafting is pretty flawed as well. Then include the factions in the game and it just feels like content is missing or was rushed to a sloppy finish.

The bugs ARE an issue. It still is more than it seems so it is not excusable for them to keep releasing games in the state that they do. It sets a VERY bad precedent for other gaming studios who are looking at BGS as a template for success. Many ARE looking too. Including Bioware and EA. So it is just completely pathetic for BGS to release games that were as buggy as Skyrim was. They claim things like it was their most solid release and the people who experienced bugs are in the minority but I know one statistic that is inexcusable by itself. EVERY PC user needed a 4GB patch. They ALL needed CPU optimizations as well. There were glaring issues with the game on release and even in after several patches that is downright inexcusable for what is called a AAA developer. While BGS makes up for this with constant patching it still is not right and most games that are released to not have devs that will care to patch there games and thus the games are left buggy. This is an increasing problems with gaming studios. They cut corners in the worst of ways sometimes and it is only getting worse.

/rant
Pretty big actually. Most of Biowares titles pretty much rely on choice and consequence. They make pretty good amounts of money.

This is a less convincing but worthy addition imo.
COD even does this to a smaller degree with the way it uses its items and killstreaks. While COD as a game has like zero choices the multiplayer choices are great and very appreciated by the fanbase. This has helped lead to its wide acclaim and success. It has many RPG-like features that allow many different styles of play and thus make the game much less repetitive. So if you play it again you usually are not doing the same thing.

Pretty much everyone can appreciate C&C.

Guys, the problem is that you're all thinking that this is an RPG game. Its not, its an ACTION adventure, with some light role playing elements. I started playing Risen a few days ago, and it completely craps over Skyrim in terms of choices, quests and role playing. Skryim is a shooter.

FNV may have a much better story but it failed in the world you played in, IMO the world was really weak, especially when you compare it to BGS games.

Yet somehow it immersed me and kept me interested longer than skyrim did after getting over the pretty scenery.

To each their own I guess, I personally prefer the world in FO3 and think the world in Skyrim is the best work BGS has ever created, I played FNV for 3 months then gave up and never played it again, and that was some time after it's release so I tried the mods as well and still found it to be a disappointment.