The World of Skyrim Means Nothing...

[Jitters Caffeine]

Here's my problem: why do I want to do any of that?

You can do damn near anything, but the world can't react in a believable way to any of it. Why bother killing a person when it's just a puppet with no identity? Besides, how much freedom do you really have? How many ways can you interact with the world aside from killing people and taking their stuff?

I'd rather a game that restricts my freedom, prohibitively if necessary, but provides a world and characters that react to my actions.

And no, having guards say, "Perhaps you can brew me some ale" when I get 50 points in alchemy is not sufficient.

This guy knows what's up. The characters in Skyrim were laughably hollow. It's probably the first thing that that really took me out of the experience and made me go back to playing Fallout 3. Had to remind myself that the genre was capable of being fun. There's no sense of urgency to do anything in the game. I'm supposed to be stopping the world from ending, right? Why does no one care? People know I'm the dragonborn, don't they? Why do they treat me with absolute indifference or seemingly utter contempt? What is Alduin doing while I'm out catching butterflies for the local Apothecary who needs them for... some reason? The game has about 3 huge overarching, possibly world changing plotlines going on, but it doesn't do anything with them. Sure, New Vegas had a Civil War plot, but it did something with it. You saw it through to an exciting climax where you and all your allies battle for control of the Hoover Dam. When you finish the Skyrim Civil War plot, you unlock some new lines of ambient dialogue to have shouted at you in towns and you get to play real estate manager with a few NPCs you couldn't give two shits about.

 

[Something Amyss]

Here's why: every RPG you've ever played casts you as an immortal unstoppable badass with magic powers clothed in artifacts drawn from the hoary mists of legend- who's forced to put up with the nonsense of unwashed peasants, nobly sacrifice himself when prompted and fall in love with whatever perky set of tits first walks on set.

Not just forced to put up with them. Usually, you're forced to do errands for them.

Still, a world with characters I don't give a damn about and story I don't give a damn about is not one I really want to play. If I wanted to spend hours crafting stuff...Well, I'll never want to do that. Slaughtering towns? Meh. Without some sort of structure, games aren't really games.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

There are two kinds of RPGs, the way I see it:
-Those that try and tell you a tight, contained story (most JRPGs, also Bioware's stuff.)
-Those that try to give you complete freedom (like everything Bethsoft does.)

Now, some people like one kind, some like the other, and both types have produced both excellence and crap (and if you think that all JRPG stories are automatically crap, have you ever played Earthbound?) But when developers try and intertwine the two, the freedom feels less free because "you have to do this story mission sometime" and the story has its pacing murdered by the fact that you can ignore the anomaly that's supposedly going to kill everything in a few days to go finish all the stunt jumps. And unfortunately, I found Skyrim to fall into this third category.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I'm supposed to be stopping the world from ending, right?

Yep

Why does no one care?

People constantly saying how bad it is the dragons have returned is no one caring?
Those random encounters on the roads with NPCs who claim to have lost everything to dragon attacks and beg for money isn't people caring?

People know I'm the dragonborn, don't they?

Guards saying "you cant possibly be the dragonborn of legend can you" and "hail dragonborn", amongst other things, isn't evidence that people know who you are?

Why do they treat me with absolute indifference or seemingly utter contempt?

Why would they not? No one sees you do 90% of the things you do.

What is Alduin doing while I'm out catching butterflies for the local Apothecary who needs them for... some reason?

Play the main quest for more then 5 mintues, they tell you Alduin is raising all the dragons you fight back to life.

The game has about 3 huge overarching, possibly world changing plotlines going on, but it doesn't do anything with them.

Because going to the realm of the dead and fighting Alduin along with 3 of the Nords ancient heroes, and raiding the enemies capital city, and killing the ruler there, is doing nothing?

 

[Epona]

So I haven't been able to get into Skyrim, loved Oblivion though. Maybe I just had too much Oblivion and Skyrim really isn't that different. Anyway, is the world less reactive to you than it was in Oblivion?

Also, Skyrim isn't beautiful. Snow and mountains aren't what I call beautiful, also, ever notice how sometimes the game looks like it's running in black and white?

 

[pure.Wasted]

Here's my problem: why do I want to do any of that?

You can do damn near anything, but the world can't react in a believable way to any of it. Why bother killing a person when it's just a puppet with no identity? Besides, how much freedom do you really have? How many ways can you interact with the world aside from killing people and taking their stuff?

I'd rather a game that restricts my freedom, prohibitively if necessary, but provides a world and characters that react to my actions.

And no, having guards say, "Perhaps you can brew me some ale" when I get 50 points in alchemy is not sufficient.

Basically this. If I want to get revenge on somebody who kidnapped me in my sleep, I want to chop off their fingers one by one, put a leash on them, and parade them around town. I want to tell them to call up all of their friends, all of their friends' friends, and let everybody know that I'm the new sheriff in town, and they'd better respect me, or else.

That's freedom. Putting a sword through someone and stealing their loot? All that does is ensure there can be no interesting plot, no interesting relationships amongst the NPCs, because any one of them could be dead at any given time.

All or nothing.

 

[Iron Criterion]

It's kinda realistic how nobody gives a shit about anything you do. In real life the NPCs would gush over your actions for a bit and then be all like "yeah, yeah but what have you done LATELY?"

 

[Iron Criterion]

Here's my problem: why do I want to do any of that?

You can do damn near anything, but the world can't react in a believable way to any of it. Why bother killing a person when it's just a puppet with no identity? Besides, how much freedom do you really have? How many ways can you interact with the world aside from killing people and taking their stuff?

I'd rather a game that restricts my freedom, prohibitively if necessary, but provides a world and characters that react to my actions.

And no, having guards say, "Perhaps you can brew me some ale" when I get 50 points in alchemy is not sufficient.

Basically this. If I want to get revenge on somebody who kidnapped me in my sleep, I want to chop off their fingers one by one, put a leash on them, and parade them around town. I want to tell them to call up all of their friends, all of their friends' friends, and let everybody know that I'm the new sheriff in town, and they'd better respect me, or else.

That's freedom. Putting a sword through someone and stealing their loot? All that does is ensure there can be no interesting plot, no interesting relationships amongst the NPCs, because any one of them could be dead at any given time.

All or nothing.

Unfortunately we don't have the technology to pander to the whims and desires of the depraved.

 

[SajuukKhar]

So I haven't been able to get into Skyrim, loved Oblivion though. Maybe I just had too much Oblivion and Skyrim really isn't that different. Anyway, is the world less reactive to you than it was in Oblivion?

Also, Skyrim isn't beautiful. Snow and mountains aren't what I call beautiful, also, ever notice how sometimes the game looks like it's running in black and white?

considering less then 40% of the map is snow or mountains I dont see how you can make that claim.

The Reach, Falkreath, Whiterun, Eastmarch, The Rift, and Hjaaimarch holds are canyons, pine forest, plains, volcanic steam pits, and a oak/elf forest in perpetual autumn respectively.

 

[Westaway]

Fuck Skyrim. Just wait... You just wait...

Until SureAI unveil Projekt 5 and descend from the fucking heavens to make another total conversion and fucking beat Bethesda and their pathetic effort on a budget of 2 cents and a piece of string.

I love it when people come in and say that the modders make better games than the devs, it's honestly ridiculous. The two games I've seen it the most for are Bethesda games and Minecraft. It's so silly I'm having a hard time phrasing how wrong you are. Wait a minute, let me think about how to say this.

...

Ok. This is going to come out as condescending. You do realize how hard it is to make a game, right? Can you fathom how much time and money it takes to make a COMPLETE game? From SCRATCH? Every movement? Every noise, from footsteps to swords clanging? Every line of code? Modders don't have to deal with that shit. They just take games and make them better, because they have free time. The devs are amazing game creators; they made the fucking game. They probably could make the game better, but they probably ran out of time.

I'm willing to bet my whole bank account that most modders couldn't make a game as good as Skyrim even if they had a whole dev team, millions of dollars and three years.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Ok. This is going to come out as condescending. You do realize how hard it is to make a game, right? Can you fathom how much time and money it takes to make a COMPLETE game? From SCRATCH? Every movement? Every noise, from footsteps to swords clanging? Every line of code? Modders don't have to deal with that shit. They just take games and make them better, because they have free time. The devs are amazing game creators; they made the fucking game. They probably could make the game better, but they probably ran out of time.

I'm willing to bet my whole bank account that most modders couldn't make a game as good as Skyrim even if they had a whole dev team, millions of dollars and three years.

This is the problem I have with many people also.

People always whine and complain "the modders do things so much better then the Devs" and they say that while completely ignoring the fact that modders dont have the time and monetary limitations Devs do.

Had Bethesda had unlimited time and money would they have done a crap of what the modders did? FUCK YES. They would have done so much more, but they can't, and people try to take limits imposed upon them as a sign that they suck at making games.

Its annoying and laughably stupid, because it only works by completely ignore the entire situation the devs are in.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Here's my problem: why do I want to do any of that?

You can do damn near anything, but the world can't react in a believable way to any of it. Why bother killing a person when it's just a puppet with no identity? Besides, how much freedom do you really have? How many ways can you interact with the world aside from killing people and taking their stuff?

I'd rather a game that restricts my freedom, prohibitively if necessary, but provides a world and characters that react to my actions.

And no, having guards say, "Perhaps you can brew me some ale" when I get 50 points in alchemy is not sufficient.

Basically this. If I want to get revenge on somebody who kidnapped me in my sleep, I want to chop off their fingers one by one, put a leash on them, and parade them around town. I want to tell them to call up all of their friends, all of their friends' friends, and let everybody know that I'm the new sheriff in town, and they'd better respect me, or else.

That's freedom. Putting a sword through someone and stealing their loot? All that does is ensure there can be no interesting plot, no interesting relationships amongst the NPCs, because any one of them could be dead at any given time.

All or nothing.

Unfortunately we don't have the technology to pander to the whims and desires of the depraved.

I only went for the evil version because it had already been brought up. I play paragons 90% of the time, so just substitute severed fingers with hiring a bard to follow me on my journeys and then sing about my great deeds in a tavern, so the entire fucking realm can know how epic I am, so I can use my influence to overthrow the evil king and open up some free elections.

Don't have the technology for it yet, all right, that's fair. But that's like setting out to build a game that can be enjoyed purely for its photorealistic beautiful scenery... back on the SNES. You have to understand that what you're doing is impossible, and that you need to pick up the slack elsewhere.

Give me a strong plot, give me compelling characters, mystery and intrigue and plot twists and drama... and everywhere else, freedom. Sure.

 

[Epona]

So I haven't been able to get into Skyrim, loved Oblivion though. Maybe I just had too much Oblivion and Skyrim really isn't that different. Anyway, is the world less reactive to you than it was in Oblivion?

Also, Skyrim isn't beautiful. Snow and mountains aren't what I call beautiful, also, ever notice how sometimes the game looks like it's running in black and white?

considering less then 40% of the map is snow or mountains I dont see how you can make that claim.

The Reach, Falkreath, Whiterun, Eastmarch, The Rift, and Hjaaimarch holds are canyons, pine forest, plains, volcanic steam pits, and a oak/elf forest in perpetual autumn respectively.

I guess I saw the ugliest 40% then.

 

[Iron Criterion]

Here's my problem: why do I want to do any of that?

You can do damn near anything, but the world can't react in a believable way to any of it. Why bother killing a person when it's just a puppet with no identity? Besides, how much freedom do you really have? How many ways can you interact with the world aside from killing people and taking their stuff?

I'd rather a game that restricts my freedom, prohibitively if necessary, but provides a world and characters that react to my actions.

And no, having guards say, "Perhaps you can brew me some ale" when I get 50 points in alchemy is not sufficient.

Basically this. If I want to get revenge on somebody who kidnapped me in my sleep, I want to chop off their fingers one by one, put a leash on them, and parade them around town. I want to tell them to call up all of their friends, all of their friends' friends, and let everybody know that I'm the new sheriff in town, and they'd better respect me, or else.

That's freedom. Putting a sword through someone and stealing their loot? All that does is ensure there can be no interesting plot, no interesting relationships amongst the NPCs, because any one of them could be dead at any given time.

All or nothing.

Unfortunately we don't have the technology to pander to the whims and desires of the depraved.

I only went for the evil version because it had already been brought up. I play paragons 90% of the time, so just substitute severed fingers with hiring a bard to follow me on my journeys and then sing about my great deeds in a tavern, so the entire fucking realm can know how epic I am, so I can use my influence to overthrow the evil king and open up some free elections.

Don't have the technology for it yet, all right, that's fair. But that's like setting out to build a game that can be enjoyed purely for its photorealistic beautiful scenery... back on the SNES. You have to understand that what you're doing is impossible, and that you need to pick up the slack elsewhere.

Give me a strong plot, give me compelling characters, mystery and intrigue and plot twists and drama... and everywhere else, freedom. Sure.

Don't get me wrong it is enjoyable to play as an evil bastard - my latest Skyrim build is a serial killer; but there will always have to be limitations,because quite simply being evil is the one of most imaginative things you can be. And there's no way developers could let you do whatever twisted thing you wanted, it would just be too much of an undertaking.

I guess the best thing we could hope for would be to give a few more ways of being evil.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I guess I saw the ugliest 40% then.

Considering most of the intro sequence, and the path to whiterun, the very first part of the game , is mostly not in the mountains, and mostly snowless, you apparently quit in the first 5 minutes.

 

[Frostbite3789]

I think the biggest problem is the same one Peter Moleneaux(Don't know how to spell it) Had when making fable. Your choices and actions fail to have any meaningful impact on the world. We don't see consequences for our choices or actions. When we kill Ulfric we're just told that we win the war, but it's not something all that visible.

It's funny, I still had plenty of NPCs complaining about the war after it was over, in a sense that to them it was still actively being fought.

 

[SajuukKhar]

It's funny, I still had plenty of NPCs complaining about the war after it was over, in a sense that to them it was still actively being fought.

Gotta love those dialog system bugs.

What's funny is that like half of the guards programmed quotes, several shouts that are useable by dragons, and a large chuck on other NPC dialog, is bugged due to an error in how the game picks what dialog options to use.

What's even more funny is how broken the random encounter system is, ever wondered why there are no werewolves outside companions quests? there are, they are just bugged

 

[BaronUberstein]

Here's my problem: why do I want to do any of that?

You can do damn near anything, but the world can't react in a believable way to any of it. Why bother killing a person when it's just a puppet with no identity? Besides, how much freedom do you really have? How many ways can you interact with the world aside from killing people and taking their stuff?

I'd rather a game that restricts my freedom, prohibitively if necessary, but provides a world and characters that react to my actions.

And no, having guards say, "Perhaps you can brew me some ale" when I get 50 points in alchemy is not sufficient.

I hate when the guards talk, because then they get angry when I steal their sword and enchant it for them! YOU ASKED ME TO ENCHANT YOUR SWORD YOU STUPID GUARD!