That's cool to me sometimes. Like I said, I don't mind it in settings where the character is created for me. Whether they're RPGs or action games. It's like watching a good movie, except with interactivity. I guess. Somehow my mind works differently in a more open setting. I have certain expectations there too. I don't want either experience to be half assed. If you're going to make a good linear story, then commit to it, and impress me. If it's open, and I get some freedom to create, then I want that idea commited to the end.

Got to say that I've just started playing the Witcher 2. I've only just finished the prologue but so far there is more of a story and much more character depth than in the whole of Skyrim. In the prologue. Skyrim is fine for what it is, a beautifully designed open world where you can roam around and you don't need to apply any thought to what you're doing. It's really easy on the brain, you don't have to do any work. No characters, no plot or consequences. Shame really, to waste all that work on the design.

too easy to have a story in a rail-roeaded RPG like withcer 2 or dark souls...

Dark Souls is not railroaded at all and has like no story...you are forced to do pretty much nothing...

Yeah, both "Souls" games have no story. As fun as they are, that's one thing I hate about them. A lot of atmosphere and implied story, I guess.

I cant see how this doesn’t have consequences, but I think the thread title is missing the aspect of what its referring too.

I play mainly sandbox games/sims/mil sims, and as much as this has the quest aspect it also has the whole sandbox "feel" to it, which I think people are missing pointing out. If RPG is all about a story and quests, that you then re play over and over I must be a non RPG "type" because all I see with skyrim is, a load of optional ways to play, different character types and styles to flesh out how you wish running parallel with different saves, different guilds in different parts in the world dealing with different styles. I have 4 characters on the go that I rotate with each week and all different types, all different levels, all experiencing separate quests and sticking to certain parts on the map ( to a point).

I just wonder if some people have just been one character and tried the lot and quested themselves to death and then felt what they feel.

I slowly worked out playing this way (if that’s true RPG IE once character experiences all) not to be the best way, you can see and work out the benefit comes when splitting into character types, all with different guilds and so they dont cross paths as much, for me its like playing 4 different games, and for that I get a massive "choice" and also the consequence of playing it that way = large, because I now have well balanced characters not repeating and experiencing different things & I get the Role Play out of it per character.

If of course you then single out each character and then get into the individual quest lines, I would then say consequences don’t come from them per say, it comes from what you do while playing them, what you picked up, how much your trained, and the whole character/stats/level building reflect on how that turns out "around" the stock quest itself.

Also the big thing missing which is your choice to ignore quests and then roam and learn/build character that way.

So is this thread really:

"I find quests dont give me ....." instead.

Part of the Story is that you are being told the story through the world. Like what would happen in real life in the circumstances that happen in game. You are not spoon fed story in real life. It is part of what I like about them tbh. Mostly because it is a rare type of game and I enjoy that change in pace.

SkyrimMonkey, fix that ^ please.

Press F5.

monkey you make valid points but I challenge you to wander through any city and not have some wandering person hand you a quest and mapmarker. It is ridiculous
to the point of making me just quit because you get overloaded with quests and pitiful meaningless stuff which you cant request not to do (as you stated).

At least in Fallout New Vegas you were a courier so they have been brilliant to the point of genius enough to make your character do retrieving quests to make some sense lorewise.

Fair enough. I know what you mean..and I still like them, but that part doesn't sit well with me personally. Like some of the elements and opponents in the game are awesome - but you don't really get into it all too much.. what they're all about. Sometimes I want things to stop and just get deeper into the background stuff.

Oh I agree with you to an extent. i would love for their to be a bit more meat. Not too much but some for those of us that like to get into that sort of stuff. I just hope they present it in ways that are open to interpretation. When speaking to characters in Dark Souls your imagination can make you think they are plotting some weird crap. Especially that golden knight guy you rescue from the top bell tower. he just feels nefarious.

Exactly but it should be expanded upon more, let your choices actually effect the world and let more people within the world and the factions reflect their feelings to you regarding your choices within the game world.

Some argue total freedom with no consequences or...well substance either. Nothing we do feel like it matters, and we can do whatever the hell we want. I never do a quest in Skyrim and think "oh wait maybe I should wait to do this after I do that" because I always think "who am I kidding, the NPCs in this game don't react to jack."

The thing is that when you have DEFINED endings, then the devs are actually free to add more detail.

What's beautiful about Fallout New Vegas is that it has defined enough endings needed to be detailed and feel alive, and yet there's enough freedom in that there's multiple endings, with many factions or towns having their endings be completely independent of the main quest. They encompassed every reasonable ending (cause "and then the Powder Gangers took over Vegas" sounds pretty farfetched) and then allowed for every possible PATH to those endings.


Let me put it this way. A lot of people seem to think "Well what if I don't want to support the NCR, Legion or House?" Yeah, there's an option for that. "But what if I don't want ANY involvement in the politics?" Then don't get involved?
People just focus on the big picture and seem to see three factions they think they HAVE to support and think "omg my freedom," but it's not like that. Meanwhile, I feel like New Vegas provides MORE freedoms within side quests. Fallout New Vegas really amazed me because it rarely happened to me that I thought "I wanna solve this quest THIS way, but somehow I doubt the game provides an option for that." No, they thought of just about everything, and thus you can solve multiple quests in a multitude of ways, allowing for con-artists, hot-headed frontal assaults, spies, demomen etc.
So I have to sit here and laugh when Skyrim fans say "yeah I have more freedom!!" when they're forced to solve every single quest the same exact way (off the top of my head I can name THREE quests that are an exception to this, only one having any impact on anything) whereas I can discover new ways of playing a quest every single day in Vegas.

That's what the focus is for us. People here seem to think "omg they're gonna define my character by providing preset options," when in actuality the preset options are DAMN good and reasonable for all potential reactions to solving a quest. Meanwhile Skyrim is SOOOOOO phobic of designing the player's character for them that Skyrim actually ends up not getting [censored] done. There's no way to enhance the player's character in Skyrim either because the game provides no tools to do so with, and ironically, despite their phobia of defining the player's character, they end up doing so by providing every quest with ONE way to be solved and ONE dialog option to reply with.
My guess is? Their writers are just bad. It's really NOT that hard to write good dialog options and quest branches for a multitude of potential characters and people, but Skyrim has yet to do this at all...

FONV has an amazingly small, shallow, boring world space though...

Haven't you been reading this thread?? FONV is mankind's greatest achievement so far, the closest we shall ever get to conceiving the unknown mysteries of the universe. Just to gaze upon one of its literally ENDLESS loading screens is to experience emotions that put our primitive concepts of "joy" and "happiness" to shame. Skyrim, on the other hand, is an appalling disaster, a deliberate insult to anyone who ever thought there might be some good in the world. These are facts.

Plenty of reasons why there's no real choice or consequences, probably the main one is laziness and the fact that the game was rushed out the door for the precious 11-11-11 date. I'll admit I thought that date was cool at 1st but not anymore, game should've been delayed so more seasoning was added.

Here is good example of a wasted opportunity for choices in a quest. Possible Spoilers.

I agree with the OP here too... unless I decide to massacre nearly every NPC in Whiterun, or anyother town.. there are no consequences to my actions. This makes it hard to role-play the game, if I am a good charachter there are not option to complete many of the Daedric quests in a manner that twarts them, or why are there so few divine quests?? There are 8/9 divine depending on your beleifs, but only 3 quests for them. Then to further complicate role-playing, to complete the main quest you basically have to do the Theives Guild initation to find Esbern and join the College of Winterhold, to get access to Septimus Signus. I thought this was ridiculous... my inital run through I was palying a straight Nord Warrior, with a good alignment, i.e. NO THIEVERY, NO MAGIC... yet I have to get involved in both of these activities to complete the main quest. Or is that my consequence??? I don't know, but I did not like that you HAD to do that to advance the main quest.

I am not sure if you are trolling but the point I was trying to get across when I refenenced FONV was that it is a recent example of good writing and it is something Skyrim lacks. There are very few in-game mechanisms in Skyrim to draw you in via providing branching choices and consequences for those choices, which in my OPINION makes an excellent RP experience and is almost necessary. We are given a majesticly constructed world with thorough lore to play around in but must resort to player-created limits and imagination for any meaningful RP experience, which is often hurt by poorly written quest lines. That is why I called this game superficial and shallow because beyond the surface of this beautiful world lies much to be desired in terms of quest construction/writing. FONV is in no way the greatest game ever made but there are meaningful areas in which it surpasses this game and has made evident to me the deficiencies of this game and why I find it repetitive after ~50 hours.

Edited for clarity