I play on the console

Hello, I played Skyrim for about 100-200 hours and I do not think I will be playing any more. Simply, nothing I do matters and it is frustrating. I recently bought Fallout:New Vegas and I am astounded at how this game puts Skyrim to shame in almost every area except graphics. It's like they made huge leaps forward in terms of story/quest/dialogue construction in FNV, but decided to ignore everything when they made Skyrim.

It just feels like after the first 50 hours on any character it is the same quest styles with no real choice or consequence; go kill x or collect y. In FNV the factions I decide to join and the quests I take on matter because it could negatively impact my character in the future. In this game however, I can be and do whatever I want and join any faction no matter how nefarious without consequence. I am just in a sandbox with pretty scenery, not a living breathing world. There are just so many quests and npcs but hardly any value outside of the main quest.

This is a shallow, superficial game. I think they should have taken 6 months after they finished the world to include branching quests and dialogue choices that end differently and interestingly depending on choices made. Is this really too much to demand? It has been done in about every Bioware game and Fallout 3/NV.

There is no longevitiy, only volume. The only replayability is in creating different character builds. This is the 21st century, games have progressed beyond that. Sorry for the rushed feel of this post, I kind of just threw it together to share my thoughts on a game that is both progressive in terms of visuals but massively regressive in terms of choice and consequence.

They didn't make FONV.

I know, but they clearly knew about it.

Doesn't matter...they are still two different devs. BTW welcome to the forums. Have a fishy stick. http://images.uesp.net/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg

I don't think choice and consequence was ever a huge part of the Elder Scrolls series, but I still do agree that was perhaps my one let down with this game. Then again it isn't something I was really anticipating. So yeah, as long as they can still differentiate between the two games in how they play and are constructed I will continue to enjoy Skyrim and eagerly anticipate the next Fallout.

I never got the sense from NV that its a living breathing world. The quests are slightly more varied ill give em that, but the world is so boring and bland, they had to make up for it somehow . I agree about consequences, but not choices .

When I first went underwater in the lake that Hoover Dam is near, I was astounded that there was fish, coral, and algae. When you dive in Skyrim's water, all you see is ugly brown seaweed and muddy water blurring your vision. F:NV's world isn't completely bland, in fact it's more colourful than skyrim in terms of water. I think this is because Bethesda hates water but Obsidian loves it.

I believe your referring to World of Warcraft

Just browsing through 20+ quests in my quest log. Almost every quest either tells me to get some item from a cave or kill something in a dungeon. There are some decent quests like the prison one in Markarth and the Daedric quests. Actually the Markarth quest is one of the few that gives you a choice and a different ending depending on the choice, albeit with little reverberating consequences.

The factions and choices in Skyrim really are a huge disappointment. It's not as if they haven't played with proper consequences before either: Daggerfall and FO3 both had multiple endings (though Fallout's were mostly variants of the same ending).

Even in oblivion you had more choice with reward/consequence then you do in Skyrim.

Main example is to help the village east of the imperial city.

You had various ways to complete it as well kill one of the goblin factions or steal the staff of one of the shamans then put into the other goblin's cave starting a ground war.

Overall choice was to help or not. If you did not help the builders would be killed. If you helped the builders would build a small inn as well as farm that grew overtime that gave you a free place to stay as well as free ingredients from the farm.

"Because you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."

I agree with the TC. I love Skyrim but why is it that the game is the most fun in the beginning and seems to go downhill from there? I made a bunch of different characters and tested various builds which was fun but now that im done with all that it just feels empty and repetitive.

Why is it that Oblivion and Morrowind kept me going but Skyrim is losing steam?

Bethesda don't make good RPGs anymore. They make good open-worlds (which they then spoil with a myriad of hand-holding features ...but that's a whole other argument).

Perhaps they've grown over-confident in the open-world aspect as the main selling point of the series, completely neglecting how much RPG elements can really add depth to the experience. Or perhaps they're consciously selling out to a wider audience who wouldn't normally like RPGs. My guess is a little of both.

May I suggest The Witcher 2 if you value good story telling,branching quests with consequences and solid characters.That is if you have the Xbox 360 it's due out in April,and I agree Skyrim completely and utterly failed in terms of adding quality to a pretty amazing looking open world.

While I agree that Skyrim isn't an RPG if you believe it is then Minecraft is a RPG as well. I wouldn't say its due to Beth going to the "wider" audience because if a game is backed by enough PR it will make a audience. You can "quicken" the pace of a normal RPG without missing or breaking defining mechanics that make it a rpg. See Tera for combat its action hack and slash but still keeps to the RPG mechanics of leveling stats, skills, traits, etc but its a MMO another MMO is GW2 that has an excellent questing having options within the majority of quest on how to go about doing it and each quest having an effect on the zone as well as how skills are unlocked using a weapon = better at that weapon not just the norm mmo of level = skill of all. (for those who have not seen GW2 a ton of beta footage has released today my favorite videos are Totalhalibut Mesmer video and yogscast 4 (more tomorrow?? videos)

Both are examples of games that do hold RPG mechanics as well as faster paced action that seems to be the wanted feature of today's market as well as add new things to their games. GW2 being the most impressive for being a MMO seems to have a decent amount of quests and outcomes even though GW2 is focused more so on PvP.

Play Morrowind, modded it looks absolutely stunning, feels like a living breathing world. Far more depth in gameplay.

check out how it looks!

https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/59777185/1/OldFashionedGuy%20Morrowind%20Gallery?h=b3d3ad

I agree with OP.

People gave obisidian a lot of crap about FONV but really the quests and consequences are MUCH MUCH better than skyrims

I blame trying to make the 'new' engine and a fullc omplete game in only 2 years. That is no where near enough time. I think its pretty obvious that Skyrim was an unfinished game. It really should have come out 12-12-12 and would still probably not be 'done' to the way people REALLY wanted.

Where as obsidian had an already built engine and mainly crafted a story.

No matter the reasons though, Skyrim fell way short in this area

Most of Skyrim's failures can be put down to the proper 12/12/12 deadline being dumped for the marketing 11/11/11 deadline.

clearly they know the world is ending and wanted to make some money before it does

This is quite true, TES have never really been about deep consequences and those things. However I would have hoped that it had these things as it really brings some depth into your character's decision.

What if you are forced to choose what person should be the new jarl of 3 alternatives in Riften for instance, each of them would impact the city in their own way and also have some side effects. One could be willing to allow the thieves guild to exist and would also use themactively a s tool to gain more power riches as a tax for allowing them to stay, another would want to get rid of it and do anything in their power crush them, which would lead to a relocation of the thieves guild and a quest line to rebuild the guild to it's former glory and the third would care little about the thieves guild, so that the thieves guild would exists as it always have while the jarl had her focus on other things. Each of these would allow the player to really feel that his/her decisions has a consequence. By allowing of the removal of the thieves guild from Riften there would still be thieves around, but they had relocated to a different city/area or was left scattered and highly unorganized. By choosing the one that wanted the thieves guild to exist and also use them as a tool to ensure that person kept the power it could open up possibilities for the thieves guild to increase their power. The thirs option would be that thieves guild stayed as it was, no disadvantages nor any positive effects. Companion guilds could have had several choices also, what if the player was approached by the silver hand after discovering the truth of the companions wanting the player on their side instead. This would eventually lead up to the silver hand replacing the companions guild in Whiterun. These types of decisions would impact the game quite alot and give the player the feeling that his/her decision actually matters. Allowing the silver hand to take Companions place means the few remaining companions would see the player as theyr arch enemy and thus try to do anything to kill the player, while the silver hand would then have a job to do in the aspect of gaining people's trust in Skyrim.

Have you played Fallout 3? Did you ever dive in Potomac river?

The mere fact that you can do whatever you want is choice, only a linear path has no choices. In Skyrim why does everyone in the world have to know what decisions you have made, they don't have TV's and the news in Skyrim, things don't travel. Do you even have to do quests to play this game? No.

The most important choices and consequences are those that allow us different character builds with different things to do and different ways to do them. Acquiring different items and powers or missing them, or stumbling into traps or not, and taking the path that kills us or the one that doesn't, are important choices and consequences. Having a choice of three different pre-determined plot outcomes -- choose A, B, or C -- is nice, but it isn't what makes me pick up a game.

(Almost) Every choice you make in a TES game is cannon, that's how they write the games. The reason NV had more choices was because they aren't worried about the next game having to take into account the battle at the Hoover Dam. If they want to, they'd just pick a cannon path and write the next game. But TES has always said that every choice is the right one, and so in the next game they have to write so that anything you could have done in the vanilla game would be reflected in the next game.

Brave? Yes. Smart? Up to debate.

Some people like it and other's dont. Personally, it probably holds the writters back thusly sending more hate their way than they diserve. Some they do diserve, but that's not the point. I'll wait for the dlc to make my final verdict, but as of now I hope we get to make some smaller choices that won't reflect on history so that we get some more meaty differences between playthroughs.