I'm just wondering, from the bits I've played so far, how well the DLC will sell, I feel like there's already enough game in there to keep me questing til halfway thru next year
Then on top of that, there's replay value.
I do struggle to hit anything with arrows, if it moves, but then I've always sucked at sniping and FPSs in general.
I'm sure it'll sell by the bucketload to be honest, so long as it's not just some horse armour
No, that's not what I meant. What I meant was that I enjoy sidequests that do a few of the following:
- Allow me to end the sidequests in multiple different ways.
- Add to the character development of anyone (PC or NPC)
- Add something to your understanding of the world and people around you.
- Make me feel emotions for area's or people.
- Allow me to create some significant changes to an area, city, world or the life of a character other than just "You helped me, thank you".
I obviously know that main quests and sidequests should be two completely different things. What I meant to say is that I enjoy sidequests that flesh out the world, other than just let me do things. I understand your opinion of a good sidequest, but I have to respectfully disagree.
Let me explain with my own example. It is once again from PS:T
Somewhere around the beginning, you get a new team member named Dak'kon. You speak to him about his people, his ways, his opinions and whatnot from the very beginning. Later on, you get the opportunity to do a sidequest, which involves a small item that he brought with him when he joined your group.
Within this sidequest, you ask Dak'kon for more information about his people and their past. He teaches you in "the way of Zerthimon", you become his student and he becomes your master. There are multiple levels of understanding their philosophy and their past and he guides you through most of them. After each teaching, he speaks to you about what he's just taught you, in order to understand whether you know what you've been thought or whether you know what you've been taught. As you progress through the teachings however (as your intelligence increases), you come across oddities that don't really align with what had been said before, at least according to your understanding. When you first ask him for an answer, he gives you a basic one, as if he's trying to avoid it. As you further keep questioning your teachings however, you come to realize that Dak'kon doesn't truly know what he's been studying as well. You got into discussions with him and with each discussion, you wittled away his confidence and his opinion that he did truly understand the way of Zerthimon. After the realization that he did not truly know, he lashes out at you, screaming that you will never speak to him about this again.
Later, you continue studying the way of Zerthimon and discover a new layer of understanding. You mention this to Dak'kon and even though you've crushed his ego and got into a fight with him, he replies in a way you didn't really expect. He, instead of lashing out some more and denying that you understand it better than he does, quietly and humbly asks whether you would show this to him. The student has outgrown the master. You don't speak of what happened to him until the very last layer of knowing. In the end, after all that happened, he ends it all by saying that no matter what happens, when it happens or why it happens, he will be with you until the very end.
Now THAT was to me an incredible sidequest. It adds nothing to the main quest, but what it does is that it fleshes out a character in ways I had never seen before in a game, it adds to the world around you, its inhabitants and its history. It also immerses you into the world and your character more, due to the way you handled the sidequest (due to multiple methods and results).
There's also another one, which fleshes out the universe more than it fleshes out a single character, but still:
There is a sidequest within the hive, which you obtain by talking to some "insane woman". You find out that she wasn't originally from here, but fell through a portal and couldn't find her way back. She tells you that she's been here for over 30 (40?) years and that she has never approached doorways and many other objects for nearly half a decade. This sounds absurd at first and you don't understand why..
You find out that portals can appear anywhere, take you to anywhere and can only be opened by specific objects. The location of these portals, the locations it takes you to and the objects you require to open them are completely random and you can't find out until you've accidentally come across one. This is why she is afraid. She is afraid that she might fall into one and get teleported to who knows where. Your quest is to find someone to take her home. As you try to find this person, you learn about how portals work, how the entire universe is split into multiple parts, how the world holds itself together. Everything. The sidequest tells you everything about the dimension you reside in, the personal fears of an NPC and more. You decide to help her out, find a portal traveler which helps her return to her own place. The traveler then comes to you, handing over to you an item she wanted you to have, as a token of her appreciation. And you then continue with your quest, somewhere hoping that you may come across her again one day. Where and when that might be, only time will tell.
This, aside from being a fairly fun sidequest, adds something to the world around you and to the NPC's around you. Your understanding of it helps you immerse yourself better into the world and all this is done by a sidequest in which you basically talk to a person, talk to another person and then talk to the first person once more.
Perhaps I'm just looking for a different kind of RPG. I know nothing of Skyrim, so I do not have opinions regarding it, but when playing oblivion, I came across nothing even remotely similar to this. Most of the quests I got to do basically consisted out of people asking me to do things for reasons they won't tell, after which I travel to a place and get an item of no significance, give it back to them and they thank me. That's basically it. Sure, I helped someone, but I didn't get the feeling that I actually did anything meaningful.
Your opinion of a good sidequest, while I just partially but respectfully disagree with, is a step up from that. Your actions did have a certain effect on you personally, but I did not notice anything of the sort in Oblivion during my playtime. Again, I'm not even bashing oblivion here, as I haven't finished the game. I am merely explaining my experience with the game.
Adellebella said:
Your worry is justified. In Oblivion they had a lot of stuff like that. With Skyrim, it's a lot better. I've honestly not had a quest where I've went, "damn it, what was the point of that?? Why did I waste 30 min/1 hour trying to get this crap to whoever??".
But if your issues lie more with certain design flaws, like the ones you listed, then Skyrim will be a lot better, as it significantly improves on those things. The NPC's, dialogue, sidequests (so far as I've seen), the world itself, pretty much everything you named has improved significantly over Oblivion.
These posts are incredibly reassuring. It seems I might decide to buy Skyrim after all. It was either this, Dark Souls or L.A. Noire, but now I'm leaning more towards the first.
I see what you mean, and yes, that's a valid point. I could only counter with the statement that Skyrim is HUGE, and maybe these types of sidequests can't be as prevalent due to hardware limitations. But yeah, don't get me wrong, Skyrim has plenty of what you're looking for though, I promise. The Companions questline alone should sate you.
The two wild dragon skeletons in Falkreath disappeared while I was gone, so I wouldn't worry about that. I passed by a name dragon skeleton from earlier in the quests, and that was still there, but that was a while ago.
I would say it was around even with my expectations. I was hoping they would have given the textures and models a little more attention (some cavernous areas look like the rock textures were similar to oblivions, and the wood planks at the beginning on the cart look too perfectly rectangular), but overall the graphics were still improved. The water took a major improvement, and it doesn't look like everything was painted with high-gloss paint. Lighting also improved.
I am glad they finally changed the level system. It was too easy to overpower a character in oblivion, and the class system felt strained in it. With the new system, I can still customize my character to how I want to play, but I play into the system, instead of against it, to make my character as effective as possible. I also like that the game is grittier than the older ones. In Oblivion and morrowind, I rarely bother saving because the enemies are weak in comparison. In Skyrim, I'm level 10 and things are easier than they were at level 1, but I'm still gonna run like hell if I see a giant coming towards me. My biggest gripe is that you could tell it was a console port to pc. Yes, you can use the mouse to navigate menus, but the mouse is fairly inaccurate, and I still find myself navigating more with keyboard than mouse. This is not to say that its a horrible system. In fact, its still almost as efficient navigating menus without the mouse as it would be with, but its a nagging mention in the back of my mind.
The story so far has been very good. I'm a mage's college character, and I love the late arch-mage. the characters seem more realistic.
The game doesn't seem very buggy either. This isn't to say there aren't bugs (I found one in the first hour of gameplay), but they are less problematic than oblivion.
In some ways, the game was better than I expected (gameplay improvements, story), in other ways, it could have done a little better (Graphics). Overall, I would say it about met my expectations. My expectations were pretty high in the first place, so I can guarantee that this game will find a nice resting spot next to my copies of daggerfall, morrowind, and oblivion.
Also. I can't wait until the creation kit is released. I already want to start working on mods.
edit
overall very satisfied with skyrim, but the ui drives me up the wall, it manages to be too sensitive to the mouse, not sensitive enough in other areas, poorly designed for common tasks and no hot-keys.. really? :S
I feel your pain on the UI, but the hotkeys are there (if you mean assign 1 to sword, 2 to fire, 3 to heal). If you favorite an item/spell (F key in items/magic menu.), then highlight it in the favorites list(Q), and press a number key, it will bind that item to that key. so then if I press 1, it automatically equips fire to my left hand. If my left hand already has fire in it, then it also equips it to my right hand.
Oh, you do not have to counter it. My opinion holds no value when it comes to the quality of these two games, because I did not mean to bash the two games in any way with my post. I completely understand that huge games such as Skyrim may simply not be able to do the things I'd enjoy and that is in no way a flaw. There are different kinds of RPG's and different kinds of role-playing for different kinds of people; I was merely trying to find out whether Skyrim was the kind of RPG I was looking for, whether it concentrated on the area's I'm interested in the most, because Oblivion didn't seem like it to me.
King of the Sandbox said:
But yeah, don't get me wrong, Skyrim has plenty of what you're looking for though, I promise. The Companions questline alone should sate you.
That's great to hear. This thread and the reactions I've gotten have somewhat softened my personal stance against Skyrim, so I might buy it fairly soon anyway. Thank you for taking the time to read and react to my posts.
Oh and thank you for the civilized replies. The last time I asked this question somewhere, the general response was mostly something along the lines of "Go back to (insert a game that is looked down upon by the replying user)"...which didn't really make sense to me, but whatever. Glad I was able to get my point across and I hope that my posts were easy to read through.
Oh, you do not have to counter it. My opinion holds no value when it comes to the quality of these two games, because I did not mean to bash the two games in any way with my post. I completely understand that huge games such as Skyrim may simply not be able to do the things I'd enjoy and that is in no way a flaw. There are different kinds of RPG's and different kinds of role-playing for different kinds of people; I was merely trying to find out whether Skyrim was the kind of RPG I was looking for, whether it concentrated on the area's I'm interested in the most, because Oblivion didn't seem like it to me.
King of the Sandbox said:
But yeah, don't get me wrong, Skyrim has plenty of what you're looking for though, I promise. The Companions questline alone should sate you.
That's great to hear. This thread and the reactions I've gotten have somewhat softened my personal stance against Skyrim, so I might buy it fairly soon anyway. Thank you for taking the time to read and react to my posts.
Oh and thank you for the civilized replies. The last time I asked this question somewhere, the general response was mostly something along the lines of "Go back to (insert a game that is looked down upon by the replying user)"...which didn't really make sense to me, but whatever. Glad I was able to get my point across and I hope that my posts were easy to read through.
You did amazingly well with your grammar, and your points. I, too, am glad that we could debate without flaming one another. Enjoy your travels, should you decide to enter the world that is Skyrim. ^_^
If Skyrim does not have the godlike equipment only known as the "Sack Cloth Pants", I am forbidden to play it.
Unless I can mod the exact clothing back into the game.
(Me and my friend made our own personal meme; we would scream "SACK CLOTH PANTS" in an extremely manly voice and shake our fist at the ceiling every single time we saw it. Even if we were mid-conversation, or drinking, or anything, we would put everything down and yell it. Every time it was uttered in conversation, even in a normal conversation, we were still forced to yell it. It was awesome.)
There was a moment in the game, just after I'd decided to abandon the main quest and start wandering around forever. I had learned the firebolt spell, but hadn't used it yet. I was walking past a fort, and a bandit ran out yelling some bullshit. I charged up the dual cast version of firebolt, and it hurled his now flaming corpse like ten feet. That was when I knew I was going to love this game.
It far exceeded my expectations. I knew it was going to be awesome, but I was completely unprepared for the sheer scale of it. I don't mean size - I knew it'd be big, and a pain to traverse, but everything feels important. Everything is more severe, if you will. Plus the 'hirelings'. So many of them! I have like five guys hanging around the world who'll leap into my service if I go back and ask for it. I'm just too fond of my huscarl, Lydia. She may be a sarcastic ***** so far, but she'll warm to me. I just know it.
Ah, the admiration in her tone when she goes "A dragon! Slay it!"
Yup. Because I can do that. Dovahkiin powers, activate!
Oh. And nothing prepared me for how beastly it would look when I transformed into a werewolf, while the dragon landed in front of me, snarling as dragons do. I expected him to see the werewolf and fly off. Nope. He fought like a man. Dragons have honour!
Now, I never liked magic in oblivion, it felt a bit too detached from gameplay having separate controls for magicing people and stabbing them (especially on PC, where it defaults to something weird, like "v"), but Skyrim gets it right! Nothing more fun than shooting lightning from your palms while cackling maniacally!
Well from the little I've played from having a friend bring it over, I gotta say it did exceed my expectations. Albeit my expectations were pretty low cause I didn't enjoy Oblivion and was expecting more of the same, but at least they are working to make things better.
I actually felt immersed for once in an Elder Scrolls game, which is saying a lot cause in previous ones I lost that immersion almost instantly whenever I would either fight in melee, watch an enemy ragdoll and bounce around, or talk with ANY NPC in the game. The combat is better now since you can actually see enemies react rather than just grunt and lose some number detailing how close they are to flailing on the ground, I haven't killed anything humanoid yet so I don't know about the ragdoll but so far wild animals at least die like animals, and while the NPCs still feel like mannequins they are much less so and don't have the awkward Oblivion stare.
All in all, this game might actually make me say that I've enjoyed playing an Elder Scrolls game. Which after playing Oblivion was something I honestly never thought I'd say without becoming deathly ill or going insane. So take it from someone who previously hated the Elder Scrolls: this game is actually good. Not my GOTY good, but definitely worth looking into.
The two wild dragon skeletons in Falkreath disappeared while I was gone, so I wouldn't worry about that. I passed by a name dragon skeleton from earlier in the quests, and that was still there, but that was a while ago.
The story is actually good. I actually give a shit about what's going on this time.
The combat is fun and visceral and I love the new magic system. Also, yay bows and arrows no longer feeling lame to play as.
Dragons. Some of the best video game fights of all time.
It only crashed once for me, and it was such an obscure situation (accidentally unplugging my laptop from my TV) so an extreme lack of game-breaking bugs.
Sky view, ala Giants.
So much more, too. It's fucking fantastic. The one thing that I was hoping for, that I have yet to say I'm outright disappointed with, is that the environments aren't as varied as I would have hoped. BUT, I've only been around the south-eastern regions of Skyrim, so I'm sure it'll get a bit more varied as I go along.
So yeah.
First time in years a game has exceeded my expectations.
You did amazingly well with your grammar, and your points. I, too, am glad that we could debate without flaming one another. Enjoy your travels, should you decide to enter the world that is Skyrim. ^_^
Thank you, that's good to hear. And judging from the replies, I'm sure I'll enjoy it.
I'd like to say "Enjoy your travels as well", but it seems you already do .
It blew them away. I think it's my Game of Forever. I was expecting it to be as good as Oblivion. It's way better. All the nitpickers make me laugh, really, but I guess it's so good, any flaws really stand out to some people. And it does have flaws. It's crashed on me, it's lagged in framerate, I've had an issue with absorbing a dragon's soul and I've seen some minor things like floating trees and dialogue that shouldn't be going on being played, but with a game as huge as this, I'm just happy they fixed most of the problems and it's playable as a whole, and super fun to play at that.
I'm one of those apparently weird people who play an RPG for the story. So, when I played Oblivion, and burned through the main quest in like a day, I had a massive "WTF? This is it?!" moment. Then it was explained to me that the appeal of these Elder Scrolls games is all the additional content. So, I gave that a try, and eventually got bored of it, because I had zero emotional motivation to continue (the main quest usually provides that for me).
Then Fallout 3 came out, so I figured it would be similar, and I made an effort to really explore a bit more and do every side quest I could find. It proved to be hugely enjoyable. So, with Skyrim, I went in expecting something similar, and I'm taking a similar approach. It's been pretty damn fun so far.
I'd say I still prefer the Bioware approach to RPGs... the balance between "main story" and "fucking around" is more to my liking. But, Bethesda definitely deserves a huge heap of praise for this game.
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