Blade1130 said:
Vrach said:
How about a counter question, what seems boring about them?
I guess I should've answered this back when you asked it, would've made this discussion a lot easier. This might be part of the fact that I keep seeing the same damn trailer in all the ads but have seen a few others and in general, it feels like a big world with nothing in it. Judging by what everyone else is saying this is probably not true but that's the impression I get from it. For instance all the Uncharted 3 trailers depicted Nate in a desert next to a crashed plane, looking for the "City in the Sand" or whatever, and that kind of worried me. Because if half the game takes place in a desert then that does not offer very interesting level design. Now I'm certain Naughty Dog is smarter than that, as is Bethesda, and won't do it but it's the same feeling I get from all the Oblivion / Skrim trailers, a lot of nothing.
A couple people asked what games I like, and I guess it's MAINLY shooters, though I never really got into CoD or Battlefield. I have played hundreds of hours of Team Fortress 2, and slightly less in Left 4 Dead 2, I have played every Half-Life game all the way through several times, and Portal is Jesus (ask me who my favorite developer is). Of course in terms of RPGs I've played both Mass Effects many times through, along with the Deus Ex, and Human Revolution, and I'm a long time fan of Zelda if you count that as an RPG. Though that's still kind of debatable.
A couple people compared Elder Scrolls to MineCraft, and I guess I should point out that I do have MineCraft and I keep switching on off between playing it. I never got into the multi-player aspect of it, but I found myself unable to come up with something to do. I would play for a few hours each time an update came out, but then have nothing to do and quit. Once I dug a tunnel to the center of the Earth and a tower to the top of the world I couldn't come up with anything else to do. I do still need to give Terraria a try.
Yeah, this is what I expected. Well, for a start, TES is great because it's about freedom. If you are the kind of player that likes getting told what to do all the time, it might not be the game for you. TES takes you through a quick introduction, tells you it has no clue who you are and lets you loose on the world to do whatever you want in it within the limitations of gameplay.
However - this does not mean there's nothing to do nor that the level design is uninteresting. In fact, level design is something Bethesda is probably best at. Oblivion got a lot of complaints it was a bit of a copy-paste design, but frankly, even it had varying landscapes, it just happened to be mostly set in a lush environment where it was largely forests and meadows. In Skyrim however, Bethesda said they focused even more on diversifying landscape, giving you everything from green meadows to frozen ice peaks.
As far as what there is to do... if you're looking for one overarching storyline - it's there. But it's not the main focus of the game. Don't get me wrong, the main storyline is likely gonna be awesome, it's just that if you ignore everything else, you're not gonna feel like you've completed the game at the end of it. If you're simply looking for amount of things to do though... well, you're in for a treat.
TES has a ridiculous number of quests in the game. There's different guilds (main being Warriors, Mages, Thieves, Assassins, few more in Skyrim I believe) and their storylines, there's Deadra quests (Gods/demigods sending you off on tasks) and loads of other factions as well as NPCs throughout the towns and even scattered across the wild who need things from you. It's really hard to run out of things to do in TES games and even then, you're not really done with it.
Primarily the game is about exploration. As such, just experiencing the world around you and visiting places is a huge part of it. The beautiful part of TES is that if you can see it, you can get there. There's no invisible walls (other than the edges of the entire world map, but you've gotta stop somewhere, the game is obviously not infinitely big), there's no trickery of "this mountain is too steep for you to scale so you're gonna have to turn around now" and no similar bullshit. You just take your gear and set off in whatever direction you please. There's also a multitude of dungeons to explore and while they may not always have quests (although with Radiant Questing, plenty of quests will lead you into them anyway), but you'll always have reasons to explore them - lore, gear, facing monsters etc.
But again, if all you're looking for is a clear, concise and most importantly linear narrative - you're not gonna find it here. This is a game that's about making your character and having him take his place in the world the way you want him to. It's a bit similar to Minecraft in that way, but unlike Minecraft, it has PLENTY of gameplay other than what your imagination is capable of. You don't have to have a vast imagination to play in it at all, but it still gives you plenty of room to add yourself to the experience and customize it the way you want to.
The game's combat is in line with the world - it's free. It's not complicated and if you're expecting a bunch of power attacks, fancy button combinations for sweet moves and such, you're likely gonna feel it comes a bit short on that. But on the other hand, the freedom it gives you is something I find much better, more enjoyable and by far the most immersive. It's also something heavily improved upon by Skyrim, by allowing you to now customize how you fight by choosing different weapons/spells/etc. for each of your hands.
