It is one thing to find faults in Skyrim (every game has them), but to go such lengths as to say the game is crap and made for kiddies or BGS has sold out, is either disingenuous or shows ignorance of the true beauty of TES.

To some extent, yes. A big company like Bethesda can no longer afford to cater to a niche audience, and that's clearly reflected in a lot of their design choices for Skyrim. Zealous fans will try and dismiss the accusation... but even Bethesda themselves have frequently stated that one of of the main goals during Skyrim's development cycle has been to make the series much more accessible to a broader audience.

On the other hand, I think the term "sold out" is perhaps a bit harsh. Yes, they've dumbed down the RPG side of the series, which is a great shame... but they're still nowhere near as bad as companies like Bioware or Lionhead for making incredibly dumbed down "RPGs". At the end of the day, Skyrim is still a very enjoyable game offering hundreds of hours of content. The RPG elements are still there (albeit very lacking), and they're continuing to support the PC modding community... which is fantastic. I think i'll reserve the term "sold out" until they start making annual 30 hour action-adventure games with no modding support.

is this not what an RPG should be about?Interesting game world and story is what makes me play a game. What do you look for in a game if not these two aspects? Clearly just a game that looks effin awesome with no substance. This whole nostalgia thing is crap. Maybe Morrowind isn't for you, especially if you can't get past the graphics, but I tell you what, it's still one the best games I've ever played.

This is not to say I don't like Skyrim, I do, and I've been lucky enough to have no bugs at all. I'm having as much fun with my current character, who does no main quest/civil war/faction quests at all, and never fast travels, as I ever did on my mainy in Morrowind. It has that explorationy feel to it like Morrowind did, never knowing what was just over 'there'


OT, I don't think they're selling out. To me, that would be either, a new ES every year, or a shooter with the ES title. That is selling out.

No.

While I do agree with some that streamlining the content to fit a wider audience is questionable, I'm still not completely turned off from the series yet. In my eyes, the only way Bethesda will sellout is if they gave in and put multiplayer elements in the series. That's when I will bow out from being a customer and wish Bethesda the best.

Try reading my entire post before you ramble, I said its one of my favorite games ever when mods are included. Strawman arguments about "graphics lol" get a little tiresome after a while.

As long as we are discussing videogames and not books/movies/whatever, there's a little thing called gameplay that's a pretty integral part of it. The gameplay part of Morrowind is simply not very good. Other things it lacks that make for good RPGs: interesting characters, quests, choices to be made. I basically treat is as a dead world that has a interesting and vibrant history to it, simply because the rest of it is so dull. Don't get me wrong, I still love it for being an unique experience, but I am actually able to recognize it for what it is: a great but deeply flawed game.

Even the story is pretty badly presented even if it is good. The game basically makes you connect the dots and you have to read a ton of extra material to figure out the big picture. I know some people will think its hardcoe and therefor obviously awesome, but most people just can't be arsed to figure it all out.

"Selling out" is the compromising of (or the perception of compromising) integrity, morality, or principles in exchange for money or "success" (however defined). It is commonly associated with attempts to tailor material to a mainstream audience. Any artist who expands their creative path to encompass a wider audience, as opposed to continuing in the genre and venues of their initial success, may be disdainfully labeled by disapproving fans as a sellout. Selling out is often seen as gaining success at the cost of credibility.

So, yes.

Uldred

No, they havn't sold out. But, yes they wil. But, if you stop buying their games and stop your support becouse of it, you are just as much a sell out as them.

It seems that we shouldn't argue the point, as you have suitably put me in my place But let me point to one thing you said, which to me is so true, and sadly the way the world is going. (see bold in quote) This makes me sad, and will lead to ever more 'easy' games so that people don't have to use their brains. I despair for the future...

Christ, Morrowind [censored] are the worst. Morrowind was awful.

I'm so, so tired of hearing the term soldout. I'm going to kill whoever invented it. And I still get mad seeing how people are arguing over how Skyrim IMPROVED. What was the point of leveling up in Morrowind and Oblivion? Yay my strength went up one point. Who gives a s!@#. At least now I'm getting perks. They basically cleaned up the mess.

Uhh, no, that's some seriously flawed "logic". Some examples. The first Depeche Mode album I ever heard was their first. ( Speak and Spell: 1981) ,but my favorite album is their 7th (Violator: 1990). To me, it's not even close, their 7th effort curb stomps their first.

The first Johnny Cash song I ever heard was "Walk the Line", yet my favorite Johnny Cash song is his remake of Trent Reznor's "Hurt". That song was what? 30 YEARS later?

Not to be an a$$, but every time I hear this "First experience, rose colored nostalgia glasses" crap, all I can think is, I hope to God the person saying this is barely in their 20s or younger, anyone older should have earned enough wisdom to laugh at such over simplified rubbish.

Folks prefer Morrowind ( or Skyrim) because.. they prefer it.. it really is that simple.

An example of irony:

Upload a Metallica picture for an avatar, quote James Hetfield, then complain in a thread with "Sellout" as the main topic.

I get it. LOL

Uldred

Not trying to take a stab at the guy. I just found the situation... you know, ironic.

Funny you say that because that's pretty much my exact story too, lol

I loved Oblivion, but I fail to see how Skyrim is in any way simplified or dumbed-down compared to it. It's a snowy, mountainous Oblivion on steroids!

No. Morrowind is overrated and people love it for the nostalgia. I guarantee most of the people in the forums would scoff at playing such a primitive game (in comparison to modern game like Skyrim that is)

I played 45 minutes of it and couldn't go on. The combat svcked something fierce.

Actually, Most of the Morrowind love comes from those X-box people who had -never- seen anything like an open world CRPG like game. CRPGS to them were Final Fantasy. Legend of Vay. Some of it comes from the PC end where people could actually mod the game without mad code hacking skills.....you'll note than very, very few wax poetic about vanilla Morrowind in the PC arena.


Remember that most of us 'oldsters' are still waiting for that true sequel worthy of Daggerfall. We've gotten 3D, speedtree, dragons, etc. We've lost complex quests, most of the factions, time limitations (you tripped one part of the main quest in DF, and you had X worldtime to finish the main quest or Things Happen no matter what you want). You could choose to wallow in the Thieves Guild in DF....and it would impact how folks would talk to you, or in some cases -if- they would talk to you. Meaning there was more than one point source of info for a quest. You just had to find it. The world size has contracted in such a way and degree and with such rapidity that they should have formed a singularity.

They've been going more and more for flash over substance, bling over compelling story arcs. And sadly it won't change for the better until the console makers get off their spreadsheets and field those next gen consoles that =should= have more memory, processor power, and GPU capability (and please keep in mind that the longer you clutch the current out of date stuff to your chest, the longer they will put off upgrading. Console hardware is a known loss leader; the next generation will be the same, so the longer they stretch it out, the longer they get to keep all that development money to play with), or until the PC undisputedly reclaims the crown, and developers can flip off the newer kids and code for the power platform first.

Was Daggerfall perfect? Good God no. But it felt more like a lived in world than the later 3 games. Was far, far larger. And as much as possible for a DOS game, there were consequences to your actions. If you joined a faction, your place in it was determined by the questing you did in it. And it wasn't 4-ish quests and blammo, you are archmage. Quests that didn't require any magical training or knowledge. Skyrim has been successful on the books. But here's the rub. People will still have to be playing and modding it 15 years from now for it to equal Daggerfall's success, because people still play that 'old game'. Despite the bugs, the hybrid 2.5D graphics, the text dialog. The hoops you have to jump through to get DOS software to work on current Windows OS's. How many other games can claim that longevity? People still hunt for it on ebay. How many Ultima's do you see there.......?

I wouldn't say that Skyrim is a sellout even with the removal of classic attributes,classes,and signs.
But the 2 things that make Skyrim have this bad "dumbed" feeling are different IMO:

1) One is that Bethesda unfortunately has the mindset of "if I have a headacke I will cut my head off to stop the pain".
In practice it means that when they see they didn't do well on something,instead of imrpoving that feature they completely remove it. For example let's take the Disposition system Oblivion featured: Many players complained for the not so user friendly mini game Oblivion had to alter the disposition of an npc.Instead of re-working the mini game and making a new one,they completely drop the disposition system and in Skyrim there is no disposition meter,or potions,enchanted items and spells to alter an npc's feelings towards you.Same goes for Acrobatics,Athletics,and other stuff.. Instead of trying to improving them and making them more meaningful,they completely removed them.

2) A second thing to take in account is shortened development time.Skyrim might came out 5 years after Oblivion,but Bethesda only worked on it for 3 years because the first 2 years after Oblivion they where working on Fallout 3.
That's about 40% less development time than what Oblivion or Morrowind had,and it's reasonable to expect that Skyrim won't feel so rich as past games felt,and that there will be some minor details not so well thought out and made.For example they overlooked and forgot to add an option to name the enchanted item you create,and enchanted items get auto-generated generic names like "Steel Sword of Fire". It's those little details that we who played past games see and think "Oblivion/Morrowind had that while Skyrim doesn't".

I feel that Bethesda needed a bit more time to develop Skyrim and that it would be better if these 2 "Fallout 3" years wheren't spend in Fallout 3 but instead on Skyrim.
But anyway,thankfully I'm playing on PC and there are high chances that there will be mods to fix/add anything Skyrim misses in comparison to past TES games.

Don't neglect all the additional things added by Skyrim that weren't in previous games. Crafting and cooking is a major one, and others like alchemy have really been improved with the new range of ingredients you can harvest from the landscape like insects, birds and fish. There are also many new spell effects we haven't had before added by the shouts like force push, become ethereal, fast run, and so on.

The AI is much more sophisticated and the Guilds no longer end when you finish the main quest line, allowing you to continue with smaller quests indefinately.

The range of armor and weapon has been vastly expanded over Oblivion with all the faction and monster ones like Falmer, Ancient Nord, Forsaken, and so on. Even something like the fur armor comes in five varieties.

Perks are also a great new addition. Some of them were included with the old skills in previous games but many of them are brand new. They certainly allow you to customise your character a lot more instead of being forced to use default ones gained from levelling.

So you really have to weigh up what was lost versus what has been added.


You press the F button in Skyrim before committing the enchantment to type in a name for the new item.

I'm in agreement with just about everything you said with the exception of some of what I've quoted here. I started with Arena (that's the original TES, for any serious newbies floating around), and I've lamented the contracting world size in every subsequent game as well. But with every new game, I've been happy with the decreasing use of random generation. It's a zero sum issue, and what it all boils down to is whether you're the kind of gamer who can accept or even appreciate random generation, or not. We obviously can't have a game at once as sprawling as Daggerfall or Arena and as detailed as Oblivion or Skyrim.

I despise random generation. Roaming around an algorithmically generated landscape just doesn't cut it -- I need to believe that a dev team actually put thought into the game I'm playing, even if in reality they algorithmically generated it themselves. If it's designed, then it logically follows that there may be complex surprises / secrets, and that's absolutely key to the exploratory nature of the genre in my mind. But... of course, that's just me.

For what it's worth, I'm not the least bit disappointed by Skyrim's world size, particularly given that it was all thoughtfully designed.

OP you do know this forum is filled by people who have played Skyrim as their first TES game and all of a sudden think they own the franchise and speak condescendingly right?

I do agree with your points but this post won't end in a good way.

I find it kind of sad people are throwing the word fear around. There is nothing to fear, Bethesda will take the Elder Scrolls series in a direction they see fit. This has been, by far, their most successful game to date. While certain aspects could be improved upon, mainly with the bugs and possibly some more creative plots/sub-plots. It's refreshing to see a game like this, considering the market seems blitz by FPS this and that.

There are a lot of posts about how Morrowinds combat system was bad. Does anyone else feel that combat is the part of a roleplaying game that is least important to them? I like exploring strange and beautiful terrain. Discovering stories. Solving odd puzzles to get around some obstacle. Combat to overcome an obstacle is one way, the one I have least interest in. But I wish there was more obstacles that could ONLY be overcome by sneak skills and others that could ONLY be overcome (I'm not talking about killing something) with magic. Also more puzzles that need simply imaginative interaction with the world. Running around kill this, kill that, as the only point of a game is just boring to me. That's why I don't play FPS games. Thing like there is a chasm you have to get across. You could levitate, You could use telekinesis (if you were good enough) to pull a timber on the far side to make a bridge. There is a door you need to get through. You have to sneak by something unkillable and pickpocket a key from something that for whatever reason can't be killed (or if killed the key is lost). Or say there is some physical obstacle you need to get through, could you lure an mammoth close and get it to attack it or attack something on the far side to destroy the obstacle? They need more imagination in this game.

And once again more [censored]'n

Skyrim is far from perfect and some changes I would like to make(especially the perk system), but its a pretty darn good game in my opinion.

*Patiently waits for some smart mouth forum noobie to reply*

Exactly! every TEs game is putting more focus towards kill this and that. I can almost never use my speech to get out of a situation, I have to fight. Every quest has a dungeon I have to clear. Why cant there be more political intrigues and plots and investigation quest where I as player have to think a bit and really look for clues, interogate peolpe an so forth.

It is clear that the games are becoming less rpg and more combat simulator. Also I do find the combat silly and repetitive.