Poll: Do you play Skyrim for the Game Play or the World and Lore?

[jamesmax]

As the title implies this is a question of whether not you place Skyrim for mainly the game play or the world and lore.

This question came to me one is having a conversation with one of my classmates in college in which he pointed out he liked the warrior class. And when I mentioned that I prefer more the magic side he promptly said " I dont like that stuff, there's too much of it, I would rather go kill something with a sword then figure out all the spells.". The conversation continued and I was under the impression that he wanted to know more about the spell system. So I told him about the different schools of magic. In which he replied with " why are there so many?". The conversation preceded to discuss how morrowind had many more skills, magic schools, weapons and armor than skyrim and into how oblivion was more mainstream. He then went on to say how he enjoyed the game but did not think he would paly morrowind because it was to complicated and you don't need that much story (I understood he meant that "He" did not need that much story" But it seemed to imply that because the game had more story or more in depth of detail that he would not play it overlooking the game play.

The rest of the conversation kind of trailed off into an explanation of why I use the term ?call of duty type people? while still trying to emphasize the fact that I enjoyed call of duty, explaining why I would ?invest any time at all learning lore?, defending the fact that I enjoy video games and anime and me explaining the difference between hardcore and casual.
Mind you at no point did this escalate into anything more than me explaining some things. No elevated voices. We?re still buds. And neither of us were mad or trying to put down the other.

Personally I play The Elder Scrolls for the various spells, armor, weapons, background, people, locations.... or in other words Both.

Any comments are welcome.

....For Sum reason only two of the options showed up.

 

[Terminate421]

I do it for the moments. I love getting into the moment as I chase down a dragon only to get the rewarding badass looking animation as I see my Argonian self or my Kahjiit God of Terror stab a sword into their skull or slam a 2 ton axe in the same place, respectively.

I love the hairiness of being chased by loads of bandits/enemiesthatwanttoeatmyface.

I also enjoy the roleplaying aspect, despite it not being perfect.

Though I do think the RPG gameplay is solid and the lore is facinating in its own right.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I'd like to bring up Jim Sterling's review of Bastion. In it he says that when you strip away everything from the game except its core mechanics, it is a very conventional and basic experience. And I agree with him.

If we did the same thing to Skyrim, it would be a buggy, broken mess with a majorly skewed scaling system.

It's only when multiple elements are brought in, such as music, aesthetic, visual design and other elements that we can truly experience a game rather than just play it. On its own, the gameplay of Skyrim is rather shitty, but with the rest of the elements in place, they can offset certain negative elements to create a more cohesive product.

 

[Voulan]

I usually play RPGS for the lore, and the Elder Scrolls has that in bucket loads. I actually cared about the fate of Cyrodiil after I'd saved it from the Oblivion Crisis, and I'm excited to see what my heroic exploits will have affected on any new games after Skyrim.

 

[arnoldthebird]

I just love the feeling I get when I destroy a dragon, or sneaking through a cave and killing everyone without detection. I play for the times when you get to feel like an ultimate bad ass.

And the lore is a bonus, I love TES lore. Very expansive and very interesting

 

[skywolfblue]

The gameplay of skyrim is rather terrible.

The world and the lore and the visuals are the only things that make skyrim worth playing.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I did it for the story, even though there really isn't one. I mean, yeah, we have the main story and tones of side stories, but none of them felt really...uh, grounded I guess? It's hard to explain.
But that's also what made Skyrim great I think. The fact that you COULD run around and do whatever you wanted and forget the story was fun. You could craft your own story if you wanted. It's just it didn't ever feel like my actions had a solid, life-changing affect. It was great at establishing lore and history and background info, but when it came to me personally, I felt like I was just another person in the world, even though the game kept telling me I wasn't. Example: You'd think doing that finale Dark Brotherhood quest would have had more of an impact, but everyone just sort of carried on, occasionally mentioning that a certain someone was toast.

 

[Pinhead Larry]

For me the gameplay's unintuituve, clunky and kind of annoying sometimes. But the world is amazing, it really takes you in. I played Skyrim expecting to be all 'CONTROVERSIAL' and despise it, but it's the only RPG that a.) let's you do literally whatever you like, and b.) keeps your attention while you do.

 

[Tiswas]

I was expecting to say Gameplay but that just felt like swinging swords around and 'levelling up' but then remembered I went away from the game feeling there was no character development or much of a plot...

so I guess neither. I just found it kinda fun but once it was over it was over and had no inclination of touching it again.

 

[Tanakh]

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

I play it for the world, gameplay, mods, challenge and lore, in that order. Not so much lore thought, as tangent stories that are incorporated to my toon personal adventure, reading a somewhat long book ingame (for ingame book standards) that refers to a legend about a place, monster, skill, magic, person or item that my toon is using let me feel inmersed and frees my imagination.

And i disagree, the gameplay is not broken... well, it is, but with the right mods is totally fixable.

Edit: That said, i would probably never play it on consoles. Vanilla skyrim at launch seemed like a horrible PS3 experience and a dull 360 one. Also WOOT! the community uncapper is updated!!!

 

[ChadSexington]

Dovahkiin, dovahkiin, doing their dovah thing... Running here, running there, doing all the fetch quests..

Dude, I really liked that, it made me laugh quite a lot.

OT: I love the lore of the Elder Scrolls games. I didn't like Skyrims mechanics, I prefer Morrowinds so yeah, Skyrim was all about the lore/world for me.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

The world, I guess, if seeing the same mountains and hearing the same voice actor counts. I enjoyed the sidequests, hardly cared about the story until I was in Sovngarde, and even then, only briefly. All the character of the thing onscreen was in my own head, and was awesome in imagination, but boring in gameplay. It's not like there were great Enslaved/Portal 2 quality landscapes to get caught up in.

Daedric quests were fun, though.

 

[darkcalling]

I enjoy it for both gameplay and the lore and backstory myself.

Though if it didn't have such a rich world to explore I'd never play it. The actual gameplay, especially the combat, feel boring and dull. I seriously killed a dragon with my eyes closed once. Granted there were some city guards nearby to help keep it grounded (I was near Whiterun) but my point stands.

 

[The Night Angel]

I play it for both, but I would consider the gameplay more important, as it is quite unique (albeit glitchy), whereas the lore is similar to ones you'll find in other fantasy worlds But they are both necessary to make Skyrim what it is.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

I play the game because I enjoy it, not because I want to get at one of those. Bethesda make a great RPG with extensive lore, great gameplay and a beautiful world; they could be a bit better, but they're still brilliant.