Ragsnstitches said:
Regardless of what others have said, I think Bethesda has created a great game. Not because of polish, or production values, or even plot, but because it offers a well realised and ambitious frame for a Role Player. It doesn't guide me down a set path, at no point do I feel constraint and every action I take feels like I'm exercising my own will in this virtual world. By no means did it get it perfectly... at almost every level it could do with improvements, some more so then others.
But the game still stands out to me. Besides other TES games or Fallout 3/New Vegas, there are no other games that fill that spot that Skyrim has created in me. Other games have better stories, better gameplay, better graphics, better overall execution... but for me, nothing is as engrossing as Skyrim. It perfects nothing yet excels at what it aims to do. It is greater then the sum of all its parts.
I appreciate the game for what it is but I'm not blind to it's flaws either. However I like if not love the game as it is and any improvement on the formula will only make me like it more.
So what you're basically saying (reading your critical points) is that you like the formula the game is based on. This is also what I've been saying about Skyrim from the start: The game is a world class recipe. It just could do with a better cook.
One thing i can't do is write this post without giving you commendations for the amount of bad design you were able to point out in the game. It's by far the most I've seen from a Skyrim fan, and it definitely makes me take you more seriously than the rest (even if i don't agree).
Ragsnstitches said:
Do not dismiss it as some sort of psychological affliction... I find that notion grossly offensive, it's also a massive cop out in any topic as you would like keeping picking on the flipside of any point made and imply that it's all in our heads.
Which funnily enough, it all is...
There is a difference between your opinion being "worth less" and your opinion being in the "appropriate place". The worth of your opinion depends entirely on who wants it. If the person asking is a game that has the same fetish for Open World games as you, then your opinion is worth 10 times mine to him. That still doesn't mean that your opinion, if it's based on emotional attachment, is appropriate in every place (in this case game critique). It's the same reason that the justice system doesn't appoint family members of someone who was murdered to judge the murderer. Some fields
requires emotional detachment (and some require emotional attachment).
Ragsnstitches said:
Your not a special person.
I don't need to be special to be more knowledgable about a subject than someone else.
The trick, of course, is convincing people that you're more knowledgeable. Failing to convince people of that can be fatal, but it doesn't mean you weren't right/more knowledgable. Case in point: The first people who claimed that earth was round, not flat (and who was executed for being heathens on that count).
Ragsnstitches said:
Critical analyses is very easily attained. The difficulty is tempering your critical eye as to not detract from the overall piece. A fair judgement is made on all it's merits against it's deficiencies.
And this is where you are so so wrong. The job of a critic is NOT to review something. It's to point out flaws.
If two people (a reviewer and a critic) were served at soup which happens to be a bit to salty, the reviewer might say something like "It was overall a great soup with a lot of attractive flavors and a nice consistency, which unfortunately was let down by it being a bit too salty. But i otherwise enjoyed it at a nice price". The job of the critic, on the other hand, is to point out one single thing: "This soup is a bit too salty". That's it.
It's a reviewers job to temper their critical eye and make sure that their overall review of a product takes everything into account. A true critic, however, only has one job: Pointing out mistakes and bad design decisions/practices so they can be corrected.
Ragsnstitches said:
Having a grudge against deficiencies that inhibits your ability to see it's merits makes you unfit to judge.
And as i said, it's not a critics job to judge.
It's not a critics job to have a grudge either. Like i said, i enjoyed Skyrim, and i can see why other people like it (and even why they might like things that i despited about it). But when you put on your critic glasses, grudges and affinities have to disappear, and you need to remember that the things that made you love Skyrim despite its flaws (your nice little list earlier) might not make someone else love Skyrim despite the flaws, so the only thing you can objectively stick to in that case is, well, the flaws.
Ragsnstitches said:
"High standards" means you hold something to a standard that is above average or, more often then not, your idea of perfection. othing will ever meet an individuals view on perfection, let alone the masses, so again that makes you unfit to judge. Not to mention the "average" is also entirely subjective (unless you can pull out statistics and documented facts), meaning it's just as unreliable in making a fair judgement on something as it would be if you judged it against perfection.
Not really. You are confusing the word "Standards" with judging if something is below/above average. That's not the same. Standards are common requirements, and there are many kinds of standards, like technical standards, educational standards, architectural standards (like my example with the house below), engineering standards. "High standards" mean that you look at something and ask yourself "How is this piece of work done compared to similar products". Emphasis here on "work", because the work done doesn't say much about how the result turned out to be. Modern Warfare 3 being the best selling game ever doesn't mean (from a critical standpoint) that it was the best piece of work done ever.
You can't describe perfection. But you can describe when something is terrible work.
Let me give you an example: I can't describe the perfect house, but i can still (as a critic) say that a house which has terrible insulation against cold (meaning it leaks heat through holes or walls made of a bad material) is a terrible piece of work. That doesn't mean that the fault can't be ignored. If you have a lot of body fat, or a lot of money and don't mind a high heat bill, then it's perfectly possible to live in the house comfrtably. That still doesn't change that it's still a terrible piece of house-design from a critical standpoint, and therefore low standards work (at least in that regard).
I don't judge the house. I just point out that something about the building of the house wasn't planned or executed very well by architectural standards, and similarly I'm just pointing out how some things about Skyrim aren't planned or executed very well compared to gaming standards (not at least the terrible amount of glitches and crashes).
