Okay, how about I evicerate your entire post?
Legendsmith said:
(Original Thread title: Skyrim shouldn't be classified as an RPG: Discuss)
This thread was brought about by the following post:
Andrew_J_Drake said:
For me it is a tie between Kingdom Hearts:Birth by Sleep(for better controls and combat systems than the console offerings) and the Elder Scrolls:Skyrim(Because its freaking massive and the executions).
You're judging the best RPG a
role playing game by it's
combat system and size?
For shame!
What you are doing is akin to judging a car by the quality of the seats and ignoring the rest of the car.
If you want to judge a game by its combat system there are plenty of hack and slash/shoot, etc games out there, Magicka being a prime example with its magic system. Hell, there are other games that are fantasy RPGs, like Skyrim, with are far better combat system than Skyrim.Mount & Blade Warband; to name one So it fails there anyway!
No, Mount & Blade's combat is NOT better than Skyrim's. It's clunky, slow, and unintuitive. Skyrim uses a combat system similar to
Dark Souls.
Skyrim is definitely not the best RPG because there is a distinct lack of roleplaying and well, character to the characters. Lydia is a prime example. She has no real character to speak of. At no point can I speak to lydia about what she thinks of what's going on or any subject. She just blindly accepts, points out that there's a cave when you pass by one and seems resigned to carry the player's burden.
She's not a follower, companion or anything. She's like a pet, doing exactly what she's told.
That's not a character. As far as I know, most of the companions are like this.
So, you're basing the personalities of ALL the characters on the one that is intentionally the most resigned and jaded?
If Skyrim was a tabletop RPG all the players would be complaining of the extreme railroadingRailroading definition: When a Game master of a tabletop or Pen & Paper RPG restricts the players to a narrowly defined, planned path, much like how a train is restricted to its rails. Any attempt by the players to deviate from these rails is met by immovable resistance, pretty much like the invisible wall in video games..
"But Legendsmith" I hear you say "Skyrim has a massive open world and tons of quests and stuff and levelling up."
My response is "so what?"
Just Cause 2 had a huge open world, as big as or bigger than Skyrim's if I recall correctly. It had a lot of missions and you could level up health, improve weapons, etc by finding various objects. But it sure wasn't an RPG!
Your railroading argument falls apart - While there may be "one way" to do quests, you are under NO obligation to do such quests - as opposed to a Railroaded campaign, where there ARE no dungeons outside the ONE you have to go to RIGHT NOW to progress the pre-determined story. There are a few "Guard Rails", but it's not Railroaded by any means.
My character has the option to outright REFUSE to do quests if she finds it offensive or not worth her time, or maybe get around to doing them later. There are too many quests to be able to do them all.
In Skyrim, there are very few or no consequences for your actions. For example, assume a player kills a shopkeeper. Their relatives inherit the shop, but they'll still sell you stuff and even give quests. The different dialogue options are a joke. 3 or 4 is the usual amount, but they have no real impact on anything. Older RPGs have had far, far more. I've seen one that had 18 options to start with. There is very little choice in skyrim.
If a shopkeeper dies, their apprentice gets a promotion. That's a consequence. Also, that person is no longer around to listen to. That's a consequence. My Dad's friend and co-worker was murdered a few years ago by a house robber - life goes on for everyone else. If you kill some people, you loose the respect of their friends. Killing Aeval pissing off Mjoll the Lioness comes to mind.
You don't need dialogue choices in Skyrim to have choice - A simple "Yes" or "No" generally works for a quest. You can also qualify your quests.
Indeed, Very few quests have any kind of choice either. The ones I have encountered that do are side quests with no impact on the main story; they just earn the player some money/items, just like all the other quests, bar those that earn you a companion. The quests in skyrim have loot as their reward, which is pretty much expected, but it's no more than that. That is not expected of an RPG.
What choices do you want in those quests? You always have at least two choices - To do or Not to Do. You also generally get the option of killing the quest-giver if he pisses you off enough. There are numerous rewards available from NPCs, who show their gratitude for your services in a number of ways, from giving you a title (Which comes with a pack mule and get-out-of-jail-free card) and letting you buy land, offering their services if you need a companion, some offer a free lesson to help you on your way, some offer payment, and some give you their whole life savings - Two Septims!
The only thing I found memorable about characters in skyrim was that they were not memorable at all. A role playing game has you play the role of a character, a role where you interact with other characters. But there is no character to the other characters in Skyrim.
Whoa - this is just wrong... There are at least twenty memorable NPCs in each hold - even the ones with only 20 people.
Let's have a look at a Sandbox action RPG; Mount & Blade Warband.
In that game, the player can accumulate followers who actually have personalities. They talk to the player about various locations, giving insight into their own personal histories. They interact with each other in positive and negative ways. In addition, the player him/her self must interact with them. If two followers are disagreeing then the player has to reprimand one and support the other, because they will bring their disagreement to the player since ingame he/she is the leader of the warband. If you choose to support one over the other, they will become unhappy and may even leave. Any significant character can be interacted with and has a like/dislike relationship slider. Cities and towns can also like or dislike the player. There is an actual element of roleplaying. I had a friend who plays the game describe his game in great detail, as if he was telling a story.
I have not seen anyone speak like that to me of Skyrim, and I have even more friends who play it than I do M&B warband.
On another note, I've seen people say that skyrim's random encounter thing, where enemies are randomly spawned so you get things like a mammoth fighting dragons is really awesome.
Is it cool? Yes. Is it amazing or new? No. M&B had a similar thing.
Mount+Blade's companions are certainly interesting, but no more so than some of Skyrim's characters. Every companion has something to say about your actions, but the inability to have more than one follower does eliminate the bother of petty arguments between them.
Mount+Blade: Warband doesn't give ANY personality to your REAL followers - the ones who lay down their lives for your cause every day to fuel your lust for conquest, in hopes of earning a bit of coin for themselves and their families. In
Skyrim, even the lowliest cookie-cutter bandits have dialogue and a semblance of personality.
Now, you might say "why don't you just play those games if you want those features?"
Well yes, I do play them. But I expect roleplaying elements in a game that's supposedly an RPG. Skyrim disappoints here. But it had the potential not to.
Skyrim could have been a really good RPG without the game being rewritten; but it wasn't.
We can't help you being blind and deaf.
I must conclude that Skyrim is no more an RPG than Just Cause 2 is.There are other points I'd make to support my conclusion, but being the hour that it is I can not recall them.
In fact, I'd classify them the same way, both are open world action-adventure games. (The difference being that Skyrim is like an action adventure game trying to be an RPG).
If you look at Skyrim in the open world action adventure light, then it it's far, far better, than it is as an RPG; but still not the best.
Perhaps I've been spoiled by P&P RPGs, where there is a real person crafting a story there with the players, but I doubt it. Skyrim's RPG elements seem quite lacklustre to me. I was looking for an engaging story with interesting characters, but its strangely absent in Skyrim.
[/rant]
Two last thing, if anyone complains about comparing Skyrim to other games, they should realise that comparing something to other, similar things is a perfectly valid way to evaluate it.
And finally:
I am not saying Skyrim is a bad game that you should feel bad about liking. It is enjoyable. But it is not the best. It is not a breakthrough in anything. Everything that is can boast about or does well has been done already and done far better.
What seperates Skyrim from Just Cause 2 is that you always have the same character and personality in JC2 - In Skyrim, my cruel, homicidal witch is nothing like my Berzerker is nothing like my noble Sword-and-board warrior.
