This is the crux of the problem. The direction of the series should be heavily influenced by the artists, NOT by the fans or the corporate bean-counters and stuffed shirts. If it's good, it will sell, regardless of whether or not it fits nicely into some category that the "experts" think there's a market for. If you don't have enough confidence in the crew who made the company what it is today to allow them a little latitude to make something GOOD, instead of something that's "guaranteed not to be bad", then you are undermining and stifling them, not helping.

The thing is, though, that the newer games sell regardless of how much they tear apart what we've come to expect from the old games. They aren't bad games when taken on their own, and most consumers don't really care, so there's no way of taking Beth or Zeni to task for throwing the uniqueness of the series as a whole out the window when most buyers don't take the previous games into consideration when they purchase and play the newer versions (and I do include myself in that, at least initially; I had to play Skyrim for a few months, and then distance myself from it so that I could think about it objectively, before I could see where the problems lay). Those of us who dislike the new games might not want to buy them, but so many others throw their money at the screens that withholding our few dollars is no incentive for Beth to go back to their previous baseline. So if we don't complain, if we don't tell Beth what we think they're doing wrong and what we'd prefer to see from them, then they won't hear us at all (not that they'll listen anyway).

I don't think there's any substantial evidence that they *aren't* making, for the most part, the game they want to make.

Michael Kirkbride was just one person on a large staff, and his vision of Tamriel was not necessarily everyone else's.

We have a tendency to lock onto particulars of a single game without ever coming to know the point of the game. When it comes to satisfying the core principles of the series, Skyrim probably does just as well as Morrowind.

I like to think that the developers are just fighting a losing battle against the people who are holding the purse strings. Which accounts for the lack of depth in the last couple games. You can't build a world as gorgeous and expansive as Skyrim without really wanting to be there wanting to see it come to fruition. The amount of work that must've gone into it is staggering.

I just wish the leveling system and quests weren't all so dumbed down...

Yes they do, as they dish out the DX9 console version to the public.

Er...wait, what?

I've been playing TES games since late 1994, and even I didn't think the questlines in Skyrim were "dumbed down" to any significant degree.

Not all the time, mine didn't.





Glitches are sometimes annoying and gamebreaking but those are not what I have problems with, its the laziness of some aspects of the game. Vampires for example, the devs knew players would want them back and instead of creating a unique new vampires for skyrim, they just copy and pasted from oblivion and watered it down and added some small differences. Dawnguard improved it a bit yes, but its still a re-used system.
Worse part is that they did not even bother to give players the same abilities as npcs, Vampire npcs have the ability of vampire touch (extra unarmed damage) that players do not which is very wrong. Spells are limited in number and certain animations as well but all in all, skyrim was a very good game, there is just that could have been done and still could really.





The Dark Brotherhood quests were not as good as oblivion's even though they werecopying it. (getting betrayed etc)
The civil war could have been done better and even though both are supposed to be morally ambiguous or grey, stormcloaks come off as racist pigs who are starting a war that will weaken skyrim for the dominion. While the worst thing the imperials have done was nearly chopping off your head which was actually just down to one lazy female officer.

Let's not forget that said lazy female officer in effect becomes your boss if you join the Imperial Legion (it was Rikke, wasn't it?). And considering the number of civil war debates on this forum, I'd say they did well enough in making both sides equally ambiguous in terms of where a player's sympathy should lie. That said, the war itself could have been better done; I believe (this according to UESP's notes, IIRC) that there were supposed to be several battles for various cities that didn't make it into the final game, but the files were never removed. I'll have to check that again.

Edit: "Leftover dialogue, markers, quest updates, and a plethora of other things suggest that at one time the civil war was going to be much more dynamic and less straightforward than it currently is. Taking a hold would have involved capturing the outlying villages and/or points of interest as well as completing the regular missions. In addition, sieges like what is seen during http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Battle_for_Whiterun_%28Stormcloaks%29 and the final two battles were supposed to be a part of each hold capture instead of only happening twice. On top of this, the opposing side would actively participate in the war, which would have forced players to play defensive missions as well as offensive. Finally, it would have been possible for the opposing side to lose their main capital yet still have other holds, meaning the final battle may have taken place elsewhere (Example: For the Stormcloaks the final battle could also have taken place in Markarth as well as Solitude.)"

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Civil_War

This is the kind of war I would have been happy to fight.

No, she's not Rikke. I believe she is just some nameless captain you never see again after Helgen.

No, That female officer was not Rikke as she is a nord, the female officer in the beginning was a redguard I think or perhaps an imperial, either way, the imperial legion come off looking like the more better side in the civil war, the stormcloaks are depicted as racist/xenophobic, incompetent (starting a war which will leave skyrim weakened for the dominion, and while dragons are coming back. Ulfric stupidly killed the high king when he could have just asked the king for skyrim to be independent) and perhaps power hungry (Ulfric wants to become high king), the war could have been done better, they should have made the imperials crucify people, give them a dark streak to match the stormcloaks.

Huh, I could have sworn that was Rikke. Then again, I never bothered with the civil war or any other questline during the short time that I played Skyrim because I was playing on someone else's system and knew I wouldn't get through the whole questline before I had to give it up, so I never met her. I personally am an Imperial supporter, but considering the number of people I was arguing against in the civil war debates on this forum, I'd have to say that Skyrim's presentation of the war doesn't appear to be as cut-and-dry as you claim it is. Other people, at least, don't agree (mainly because the Empire is a weakening state that might as well be bending over backwards for the Thalmor, or at least that's what I understood from the Stormcloak supporters' view of the matter).

Edit: Back to Rikke for a moment, especially on the idea of identifying her and the other officer by race: For some reason I found races (specifically human races) to be really hard to decipher in Skyrim. I thought Adrianne Avenicci was a Redguard for a long time; sure, the name didn't sound anything like you'd expect for a Redguard, but she was so stained with soot that I couldn't imagine her being anything else. That character creation option for adding dirt to your face really screwed things up in that regard, since Redguards were one of the few human races I was comfortable identifying (I could usually keep Redguards and Nords straight from everyone else, but Bretons and Imperials were too much alike for me in many cases). Then comes that dirt, and even Imperials and Bretons get to look like Redguards now. [sigh] For the same reason, I can't think of a single Bosmer in Skyrim right now, because I don't know if I ever ran into one. Shows how much I pay attention, I guess.

Im of the impression they love the game because of the money it makes them.

Just listening to interviews with Todd just make me wanna cring. Anything he dosent like or requires just fine tuning or expanding gets the infamous "its to spreadsheety". Basically thats is escuse for lack of requirements to guilds and quests, absence of spell making, etc etc. they love the game for the money it brings them, love of the lore and mechanics I feel they falling out of love with and just going thru the motions.

Thats just my opionion, they made an amazing action game that u can rp in as long as u stay away from the actual game quests and events.

I stopped paying attention to what Todd has to say years ago, for essentially the reason that although his words give great insight into who is largely responsible for the direction these games have been heading in (i.e., who I can blame for things getting over-simplified), they also, at times, make me want to punch a small child (I'm exaggerating, but you get the point, I'm sure).

As I said before, I'm sure 99% of the people who actually make the game give it their all. The person who did the creature sound FX for Skyrim probably didn't get to decide whether or not the game had enough creatures. He/she just made the coolest sounds they could and left it at that. The person who created the creatures themselves (the meshes, textures, animations, etc.) probably didn't have any say in how many or what they were either. The people who implemented the perk system probably had no say in how that was to work. If they downright thought it was stupid, they probably had to keep their opinions to themselves if they wanted to keep their jobs. And so on.

In all likelihood, there's a very short list of people responsible for any number of changes that have, over time, made these games simpler, and simpler, and simpler. And in my estimation, they're probably the ones who aren't so attached to their work.

I believe Bethesda cares about their games. But as others stated it is the publisher and Zenimax who are the culprits. As anyone can tell they cut out alot of content to meet the 11/11/11 deadline. It is the publisher who puts constraints on the developers. I'm sure some devs are unsatisfied with the finish product, but that doesn't mean they hate it.

How many games had great potential, but were butchered due to publishers unrealistic deadlines.

Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords- LucasArts unrealistic deadline, forced Obsidian to release an unfinished game. They weren't even allowed to play the first games, until 7 months into production. I still think it was better than the first though.

Dragon Age 2: The first one was great, but EA's unrealistic deadline, forced the once great Bioware to release a game that paled in comparison to the first.

Fallout New Vegas: My favorite rpg of the last 5 years. But due to [censored] Q&A by beth and their unrealistic deadline, Obsidian released a very buggy and unfinished game. Still love the game though.

Skyrim: Was forced to make cuts to the game to meet the 11/11/11 deadline.

That is why I am glad that Obsidian has their own property in "Project Eternity" they don't have to meet a publishers ridiculous deadline.

Id also like to say which I didnt in my post that the devs and little people do care about the game, Todd and the higher UPS care about it simply because its a paycheck.

I've only watched a few Todd interviews, where does he say the spreadsheety line?

edit: Also, let's hope Todd has as little to do with F4 as possible.

I'm not sure if this is the interview Redneckdevil is referring to, but here's a transcript of one reference:



Interviewer: One thing that when I was down to see you guys at the studio was stuff related to how spells would interact with each other and that kind of thing. And I would suspect that the results of your experimentation on that would have an affect on whether you have anything like spellcrafting, right?

Todd: “Yeah, spellcrafting is a real wildcard. Something that we’ve done a lot. And there are pluses and minuses to it. We’d like to find… we have some ideas that we really like on how to solve that, and I don’t know where that’s going to go. But the thing that we DON’T like about the previous systems that we’ve done, is it becomes very “spread-sheety.” It takes the magic out of magic. You got to see the game, but your listeners haven’t. There’s a bigger emphasis on how the magic physically acts. Just a spell like fire; there are different spells for how the fire moves. Like putting down a rune that explodes when you walk over it. Or fire you can spray that lingers on the ground, like you’re spraying a wall, and you can spray the ceiling. Or fire that travels like a flamethrower out of your hands. Or a fireball that you charge up and throw and it explodes at a distance. So our main goal is to make magic feel like this arcane powerful thing. And once it goes into a spreadsheet in the game where you can just say I want something at this distance and this power, it removes the illusion of like how this stuff actually works. So we have some ideas of ways around that, but we don’t know where those are going to go yet. We do have the benefit of, we’re really, really happy with how the magic plays in the game, both visually and mechanically. And then being able to do it with both hands. There are opportunities there for combinations and things you can do without getting into the spreadsheet aspect of it. Which I do know some people like, but it does take away from the impact of the spells that you’re finding and mechanically how they work.”

Thanks, though I honestly don't get what the hell Todd's trying to say. Can someone sum it up for me?

thats one of the interviews. If I can find the others, ill link them the one he says spreadsheety for atributes, weapon and armor decay, and other things. I keep seeing him throw around spreadsheety like its a bad thing and that hes trying to presaude new people to come in to the series by saying hey I agree with ya, I dont like spreadsheety either or having to plan out my charector.

Some of the changes are fine just done wrong but coulda done right, but it just grates me when he keeps using that as a reason.

Omg the interview when the person asks todd what he thinks about players putting a huge focus on game story now and whats his views....priceless lol.

I remember in one of the interviews, probably some E3 one, he got asked about the story and he became visibly nervous lol. He also said something about how choices and consequences are important and that they're "not there yet" when it comes to those things. So sometimes he shows that he does want to please the old crowd too, he's just not having much of a success as of late. Hopefully the Dragonborn DLC will be a fairly story-heavy one.

Yes, i think, that they'll make it better in future.

Immediately after saying "spread-sheety" Todd describes how a spell can look and act differently. I think he means that in the past, the only difference between two fire spells was damage, duration, and success. He's trying to say magic spells should visibly stand out as unique from one another. As painful as the loss of spellmaking is in Skyrim, the spells in place do show effort to make them more visibly memorable. Runes are such a new addition to the franchise, it now needs refinement and polish in future games.

To me Todd is someone that by circumstance is in his position when he was content with being a team lead within the studio, being directly on the front line rather than make approvals behind lines. He cares about the games, but he's nowhere as powerful as we like to think he is in making games. He's someone that gets excited while being inarticulate. I find that as time goes on, he's more subdued in interviews.

I know I bash alot but I do wanna say something positive. So far I have been impressed with how they implimented the game jam content into the game instead of just shoving it in there.

When I saw the giant crab my immdidiant thought went to redorian crab mansion being brought to,life during the oblivion crisis that wiped out redorian leader and the town. Now morrowind in the dlc, I see them using that giant crab as a way to construct our very own redorian manor and hopefully grow our very own telvanni tower.

I bash alot and while they do quite a few things wrong imo, they have been doing somethings right.