The World of Skyrim Means Nothing...

[Don Savik]

I have 3 mods on Skyrim.

Space Core (and space core hat )
Frostmourne (and some other epic Warcraft weapons)
Finn's Adventure Time Sword.

That's all I need and I can't get enough of the game. The world is just so beautiful and immersive, just riding around on my horse is fun. Its not very deep if you get down to the nitty gritty, but it feels very lived-in for a fantasy world, which a lot of games lack.

Yea the combat is simple but its not about combat, its about discovering all the stories and quests in the world, and unraveling their mysteries. I'm making this sound really cheesy I know, but people like to powergame. Sometimes I just want to kill some skeletons. Or see what some daedric prince is doing. Or save a princess. Or quell a rebellion. Its a very slow paced game, and that's what I think throws a lot of people off.

 

[Eddie the head]

Hero of Oblivion? people only know SOMEONE went into the Oblivion gates, all other aspects of his/her life forgotten

They do tell you what happens to the hero of Oblivion you can talk to him in Skyrim. He or she just turns into Sheogorath in every way. Yeah I guess the Shivering Isles did happen. If you are wondering how you know this Sheogorath mentions in his quest in Skyrim about how he was there when Martin turned into a "Dragon god."

 

[Don Savik]

Skyrim is the first Elder Scrolls game that I haven't dumped a hundred plus hours into. It's also the only one wherein I only have one character who hasn't reached the level cap yet. The world just isn't engaging to me. The people are boring and unlike other Elder Scrolls games I've played, you have to wind and, crawl your way through every single dungeon instead of finding and exploiting their backdoor.

I know there are a lot of similarities between Skyrim, Oblivion and, Morrowind but on the other two I've clocked a couple hundred hours between several characters. Maybe I'm burned out from too much of the same thing, I dunno. It just seemed like Skyrim was really over-exaggerating its own plot.

"Hello, I am Imperial and I hate Stormcloak because I do!"
"Hello, I am Stormcloak and I hate Imperial because I do!"
"Hello, we ams at war but lets not fight until you attack first!"

Complained about this in another thread but you'd think Stormcloaks would be hostile towards an Imperial loving Dragonborn.

I've met tons of people in the games that have a grey stance on the war. What game are you playing?

Also its a war, there are usually 2 sides. You're trying to overcomplicate things here.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

It comes down to imagination. How much can you, or how much are you willing and wanting to, spend the time to really roleplay and get into character? The world's there for you to live in, you just have to do it.

As an aside, I find Skyrim utterly pointless and it bored the pants off me after I killed the first dragon.

If I want to use my imagination in a standard fantasy world, I'll wait til my next D&D session. Skyrim bored the ever loving hell out of me. I tried my hardest to get into it, I really did. But the game was just so unimmersive and it fought me with it's boring combat and laughably uninteresting characters. If I had to say one good thing about the game, it's that it is very pretty. Other than that, all I can do is wait for the engine to be made into a Fallout game.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

-snip-

I've met tons of people in the games that have a grey stance on the war. What game are you playing?

Also its a war, there are usually 2 sides. You're trying to overcomplicate things here.

Just saying; I shouldn't, as an Imperial, be able to waltz into a Stormcloak encampment. There should be some sort of conflict. I should be yelled at, at the very least. It isn't that the people of Skyrim have their own stances on the War but...well, there doesn't seem to be anything war related happening until you pick a side (not counting the near execution).

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

If I want to use my imagination in a standard fantasy world, I'll wait til my next D&D session.

If your D&D games are "standard," you're playing with a boring DM, lol. There should never be anything mundane or default about fantasy--the very word means the opposite everything the aforementioned stand for.

 

[gideonkain]

My only problem with the world is the characters.
Name me one memorable character you met in Skyrim.
Yeah, thought so.

Interesting characters off the top of my head:
M'aiq the Liar
Cicero the Jester/Assassin
Sheogorath the Mad
Barbas the Talking Dog
Saadia, the woman running from the Red Gaurd
Astrid, leader of the Dark Brotherhood
Babette, the 300 yr old vampire in the form of a young girl

 

[Charli]

Y'know here's a novel idea, when you find out you don't like something, even after sinking some time into it, have you tried... Shrugging and moving on? Just try it, you'll feel the burning to moan and complain for a little while but it will fade once you find something else.

I've had to move on from having my entire life destroyed and restructured, but oh no, something about SKYRIM offends you enough to write a page of flaws? Oh dear. Time to step back.

On a similar note, enough Skyrim whinging, this horse is dead, either you like it, or go find something in the pile of endless 'things to do in life' to occupy your mind with instead.
Complaining about factors that are of personal preference are the most inane and senseless wastes of time ever.

Nothing is perfect. Ever. Nothing. Something better will always come along but nothing will be perfect. So why be contrived little nagger about it. Some people 'like that sort of thing'. A game that caters perfectly to your tastes must exist somewhere so search harder instead of knit rifling through a popular title. If it doesn't, send more chocolates and roses to your developer of choice.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I've met tons of people in the games that have a grey stance on the war. What game are you playing?

Also its a war, there are usually 2 sides. You're trying to overcomplicate things here.

I don't know, I think New Vegas handled their Civil War plot line a little better. There were two sides, but four outcomes. Sure, the Legion was almost comically evil on the outside, but they seemed to have an end goal that was more than "Let's kill the NCR". It seems like to me that they wanted to make the Stormcloaks and Imperials so ambiguous and "technically not the bad guys" that they're both just uninteresting.

Something else I like is how the Legion and NCR have more differences beyond just wearing different armor. Their very manner of speaking is different, and the way they talk to you is different than the other side. Not to mention that every faction tends to favor different weapons. The Powder Gangers will focus on things like small arms fire and explosives, later on they'll start getting Plasma weapons. The Legion Assassin Squads will usually have a guy with a VERY strong melee, usually a Ripper or Super Sledge, backed up with a couple guys with higher caliber submachine guns and maybe a guy with explosives. NCR Bounty Squads will favor more traditional "military" looking weapons like Sniper Rifles and Assault Carbines as well as Hunting Revolvers. Just makes your engagements more interesting when you have to do more than backpeddle to win a fight.

That's just me though. Just seems like when a game totes a universe with wildly varying races, there would be more variety in your fights with them.

 

[pure.Wasted]

In a game dedicated to that sort of freedom, it possibly could be done. Would a large studio capable of making such a game put that much effort into a fairly niche feature. No.

Niche feature... I'm guessing you're not overly familiar with the ME franchise. The SINGLE most common criticism leveled against ME3 - specifically at its ending, but in general as well - was that there was not enough consequence for your actions. And believe me, there was more consequence for my actions in ME3 than there was in Skyrim. Entire races were wiped out right in front of my eyes simply because over the course of the last two games I failed to take every opportunity to make them see reason. All characters from those races died. Other characters talked about this event. Suffice to say, it was a big deal.

And people - not just me - were still dissatisfied with how much consequence there was. So saying that it's a niche feature, implying that there's no market for something like this, is more than a little out of touch with what's going on in gaming, I think.

Was this sort of thing even remotely likely to appear in Skyrim, or will even modders do it? No. Why? Because freedom on that level is simply too convoluted and complex in a world that large. By even asking for a 10x smaller world to trade for that complexity, you are asking for a different game.

Quite simply if that sort of complexity is what you want, then look elsewhere, because this is not the game for it. It was never promised, it was never expected by the majority, and if you DID expect it, then thats a problem with your expectations and not the game. The game is not trying to have that level of complexity or that level of character depth or story focus, its like calling out Tekken for not having enough RTS elements.

This is a more reasonable rebuttal, I think. But even so I have to ask you: what do you see Skyrim-like games looking like 10 years from now? 20 years? How are they different? Just better graphics, bigger towns to explore, or are there other things going on as well?

I find it very hard to believe that the game worlds are going to remain at the same level of (non-existent) depth. So you might say that all I'm doing is trying to speed up the inevitable. Because I really, really, really want to play Skyrim 5.

When you go to sleep at your house or an inn, you should be able to be killed in the middle of the night. When you eat, your food should be able to be poisoned. When you go exploring, you should be attacked by a miniature army of people seeking revenge. Your Housecarl should be able to be murdered while defending your home, and your house should be ransacked. You could lock the door, but that won't stop people from picking the lock. That'd be showing genuine consequences.
All or nothing, right?

As long as it's fun. Exciting. Interesting. Thought-provoking. Whatever. Then, absolutely! If the game developers can find a way to make going to sleep and worrying about locks getting picked fun, why in the world would any of this stuff be a bad thing?

And if you can think of a reason why a world with more meaningful interactions with and amongst NPCs might be a bad thing, I'll eagerly hear you out.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Why the hell would you want that ?

All things considered, the Skyrim engine is new and shiny. Way better than the Oblivion engine. I'm not saying I want that god awful abortion of a level up system Skyrim has, just the shiny new engine and the possibility of dual wielding in my Fallout game.

If your D&D games are "standard," you're playing with a boring DM, lol. There should never be anything mundane or default about fantasy--the very word means the opposite everything the aforementioned stand for.

Well, if I've got a game with Orcs and Elves, I want it to be fun. But unfortunately, the "fantasy" genre has become stagnant with tropes that seem to pop up in every "fantasy" game. Forced racism to make us sympathize with "non-human" races, the very idea of orcs, and every game being seemingly set in medieval Europe, ect. I understand that TES is supposed to have this deep interesting Lore, but you just don't seem to see it. You just read about it and hear about it, so it PLAYS like just another standard fantasy game.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

If your D&D games are "standard," you're playing with a boring DM, lol. There should never be anything mundane or default about fantasy--the very word means the opposite everything the aforementioned stand for.

Well, if I've got a game with Orcs and Elves, I want it to be fun. But unfortunately, the "fantasy" genre has become stagnant with tropes that seem to pop up in every "fantasy" game. Forced racism to make us sympathize with "non-human" races, the very idea of orcs, and every game being seemingly set in medieval Europe, ect. I understand that TES is supposed to have this deep interesting Lore, but you just don't seem to see it. You just read about it and hear about it, so it PLAYS like just another standard fantasy game.

I definitely know what you mean.

I make sure everyone creates their own race and that there is no mention of "standard" classes or races in any game I play. I'm so sick of elves being fair skinned pricks or little people in forests, dwarves being miners and humans being some jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Drop them all from our fantasy vocabularies, I say.

 

[RatRace123]

My main problem with Skyrim, as with every Bethesda game, is that the land just feels dead.
It's pretty, but it's obvious that its populated with soulless automatons instead of people. People who glitch into walls and say the same 5 lines of dialogue.

I have trouble getting immersed into that world, and I find most of my enjoyment coming from killing dudes, sure that's fun but it doesn't really draw me into the world. I want to venture into the city and not have people notice me and stop in their tracks to spout their inane dribble that I've probably already heard from another guy with the exact same voice. I want to believe that these people are actually people instead of bits of data doing what their programming tells them to, and sometimes failing at that and glitching out.

Basically, in Bethesda games I'm very aware that I'm playing a game instead of exploring a living breathing world, and interacting with its citizens, and that's not even getting into the glitches. Oddly enough I find myself more immersed when the people stand ram-rod still, don't talk to me and just wait for me to walk by them so they can give me a quest.

But, still a fun game, still the best Bethesda game I've played, and the problems I have with it were more severe in previous games (Fallout 3, Oblivion). So, I guess it means that they're getting continually better.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

If your D&D games are "standard," you're playing with a boring DM, lol. There should never be anything mundane or default about fantasy--the very word means the opposite everything the aforementioned stand for.

Well, if I've got a game with Orcs and Elves, I want it to be fun. But unfortunately, the "fantasy" genre has become stagnant with tropes that seem to pop up in every "fantasy" game. Forced racism to make us sympathize with "non-human" races, the very idea of orcs, and every game being seemingly set in medieval Europe, ect. I understand that TES is supposed to have this deep interesting Lore, but you just don't seem to see it. You just read about it and hear about it, so it PLAYS like just another standard fantasy game.

I definitely know what you mean.

I make sure everyone creates their own race and that there is no mention of "standard" classes or races in any game I play. I'm so sick of elves being fair skinned pricks or little people in forests, dwarves being miners and humans being some jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Drop them all from our fantasy vocabularies, I say.

While they were still pretty generic, I really liked the way Dragon Age: Origins handled Dwarves. They weren't just "short people who live underground that mine", but they have a Caste system and were somewhat immune to Magic because of their handling Lyrium. It was different enough to make them interesting. Their Elves were still "tree people" but they were handled in a way that was refreshing since the Dalish, who were the elves that proudly lived in the forests and shunned the more "civilized" world, hated the "City" elves, who were lucky to be even treated as second class citizens most of the time. There was a little more dynamic to the relationship there beyond just "HUMANS HATE ELVES".

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Why the hell would you want that ?

All things considered, the Skyrim engine is new and shiny.

Wouldn't you rather have something that actually provided some good combat, FFS ?

Fuck new and shiny. Gameplay over graphics, remember ?

Well, Oblivion didn't have particularly engaging combat either, but they made Fallout 3 and New Vegas out of it. I'd say they could make a Fallout game out of Skyrim fairly easily. I've actually heard a couple rumours that people have found Fallout data in Skyrim, so if that's true, it means that the engine could be easily adapted.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

I could get into this, go on about the problems I had with skyrim, but I think I'll just go play Dark Souls.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

Niche feature... I'm guessing you're not overly familiar with the ME franchise. The SINGLE most common criticism leveled against ME3 - specifically at its ending, but in general as well

The two situations are different. The original situation you gave is consequences for seeing condequences on a far smaller scale. For the Mass Effect example you have consequences for your decisions with the buildup of 3 games. And yes I can agree that was a total failure of closure because you didn't see these consequences almost at all. That being said, that is very different to being able to see the consequences of killing a group of people, or even sometimes of just completing one quest. You might say that there wasn't as greater set of consequences for some missions or for the story missions in Skyrim, but its simply not practical in a game of that scale. The difference is because in Mass Effect, the story IS the game so seeing the consequences of your actions is key. In Skyrim, planning out these elaborate consequences for the major decisions you can make becomes incredibly convoluted, because a lot of the time, players might not even experience that content.

But even so I have to ask you: what do you see Skyrim-like games looking like 10 years from now? 20 years? How are they different? Just better graphics, bigger towns to explore, or are there other things going on as well?

I find it very hard to believe that the game worlds are going to remain at the same level of (non-existent) depth. So you might say that all I'm doing is trying to speed up the inevitable. Because I really, really, really want to play Skyrim 5.

My last point basically leads into this. They will become what you want. Thats not a maybe or an "if" its a will. Skyrim has made great steps into the breadth of content, there are some really cool quests and really in depth storytelling for something as simple as a cave full of bandits.

There are essentially two ways games like Skyrim can develop. Either by expanding on the "standard" amount of content and story telling, focusing on character depth and plot etc, or expand on content to give a huge amount for players to do.

Mass Effect does the first option while Skyrim does the second. In the future what will happen is games will be able to do both, taking a huge volume of content but being able to develop it to the level that you want. Right now though its mostly on or the other or a mixture. So in short, be patient