But, why would you want it to be mature? Besides there's mods that make it possible to cut kids heads off. Sooo yeah.

Like others said, maturity of writing and storytelling is what's lacking. They need to hire better writers, Skyrim is no better than Oblivion or Fallout 3.

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/9499/goret.jpg

I agree with several of your points, which are essentially restatements of what many on these forums have called "lack of depth."
However, there are several places in the game where journals or vignettes have truly horrifying implications.

He's talking about making Skyrim a less sugar coated fantasy and more like Excalibur (Arthur making choices between good and evil), LOTR (Frodo making the wrong choices and slowly becoming a Ring Wraith), or Star Wars OT (Luke using "anger, fear and aggression" and slowly turning to the Dark Side). I don't think he means losing its humour, 'cause all three of those aforementioned stories had humour, just have the game showing consequences. The game has no real comeuppance for evil acts (players who like to murder Lydia for the fun of it. ) and no rewards for being a big hero. There's no hero's recognition in Skyrim for finishing the game. I mean, after the big climix people don't seem to even notice you've done anything! BIG let down.


You obviously haven't seen some of the porm mods some users have made!

@op I agree the world and atmosphere would benefit greatly from a more detailed depiction of poverty, brutality, war, and last but not least the reaction to dragons. People seem so disconnected sometimes... well most of the time. I'm mostly interested in stories in meaningful dialogue and role playing opportunities and the mature content in these areas is indeed lacking.

The M rating doesn't indicate how the game has more advlt life type things or even lacks immaturity. It is a rating that is for the more extreme violent content, sometimes more extreme sixual content, and simply just more extreme content than found in a T rated game. Silent Hill 2 has an M rating and is extremely mature in writing and how it uses advlt fears. Strangely, the ESRB never noticed how the game had tons of sixual content(it was extremely subtle, but I don't think that scene where Pyramid Head is first seen is far from sixual... Seriously.). Shadow Hearts was more misrated and should have been T rated, but the intro was the most extreme thing in the game they probably were shown. Then we have this strange trend with the Super Smash Brothers games where they are rated T despite having very E10+ things going on.

Skyrim isn't being rated M for advlt type of mature. Just more extreme violence and the like. I didn't expect it to have anything like Silent Hill 2's advlt fears or even anything an advlt could relate to.

Agree with this fellow on all salient points. Political correctness reeks from the center of this one. It's a kids game, sadly. The only time I perked up at all, was when the cannibal quest came along. But, there is no large cannibal/anti-cannibal social conflict currently going on in our society (that I'm aware of anyway.. :shudder: ) so they didn't have to worry about offending some sensitive victimhood group on that one. Besides, they'd already cleared that one by testing cannibalism in the Fallout series, and knew it wouldn't grab much attention from anybody.

But I suspect most people these days don't want a more extreme level of grittiness and realism- they want the vanilla hero fantasies, not the thought-provoking and sensibility-offending scenes that might jar their comfortable suburban lives.

We're probably a minority.

As for more complexity, depth, difficult/grey choices, consequences good and bad from your actions- that kind of maturuity... hell yes, it needs much more of that.

I would definitely prefer a more mature game in terms of: dialogue, choices and consequences, little to no handholding. The player should be given more credit for solving puzzles, putting clues together for quests without automatic updates for dummies, killing npcs and living with the consequences. As concerning the prisons that lack prison atmosphere, I agree wholeheartedly, it's one of the things I've been posting in the suggestions threads regularly, but nothing has changed.

For them, yeah. For us, it would have been a godsend. They might have actually finished the game.

Too mature is not fun
Not mature enough is dumb.
Skyrim is right in the middle.
I think.

Because eating corpses is so child friendly.

Well, for sixual content, there's still Arondil's deviance.

I'm still wondering why did Bethesda add something like marriage to the game but didn't "expand" it. Quests, options for some to be trained.

Would be cool to be able to turn ur other half into Vampire/Werewolf and go on a hunt...


Imagine that he kidnaps your wife. The quest could be modified to rescue her.

None of which is actually shown. No trace of nudity or sixual activity. Even the written descriptions of his perversion are non-descriptive and bland. Pretty much the whole quest is just "hey, pervert down there, go kill him and steal his books for another pervert who'll pay us." If I recall correctly, the most awful thing about it, which were just words in some journal, was "He captured young women to turn into undead ghosts for his vile pleasures", or something close to that. Hehe, pretty risque stuff, that. If that rather minor and non-graphic quest is an example of 'advlt' content in Skyrim, it would take a virgin nun sunday school teacher to consider it as such. 'Inferred' advlt content is pretty soft stuff.

I'm not advocating for porm in Skyrim, by any means, but people saying that the few limp-assed and extremely minor (mostly written, lol) instances referring to 'advlt' sixual activity in Skyrim... heh, I just gotta shake my head and chuckle. You never actually see anything. Not even a nipble. Or even simple kissing, for that matter. When I married Lydia, our lips never quite touched, even. Hawt stuff, that bawdy Skyrim!

Haha yeah, Skyrim is pretty child-friendly. Parental control won.

QFT.

I think "mature" comes in shades of gray. I was surprised when the tutorials for the Creation Kit made you log in to YouTube because the game carried the "M" rating for "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, sixual Themes and Alcohol Use" (none of which appeared in their video tutorials, btw). The first two I concede. There is blood, gore and intense violence. Especially after you get the decapitation perk. sixual themes? Umm... Still looking for those. I think that was thrown in because you can undress females. I have yet to find a "sixual theme" worthy of an actual warning. Besides some flirty NPCs (and the Necro-perv with the female ghosts), there's nothing even close to a sixual theme in the game. While I'm not looking for "Grand Theft Horse, Whiterun" where I get to tune up hokers, if you're going to add it to the rating, have a reason other then increasing sales. And alcohol use... Really? In medieval culture, water was often bad and something with an alcohol content was way safer to drink. Plus, besides some stat hits, it does little or nothing game-wise.

Mature content? As in world situation and daily life? It could be a little grittier. Whiterun is nearly pristine, even after the civil war. Windhelm is a skeever hole, Solitude (Imperial boot-lickers that they are) has probably the nicest city, but still a bit run down (I do get the implication that the war is seen as redneck goat-ropers vs. the might and beauty of the Empire). No explanation of why things are trashed everywhere and no one seems interested in rebuilding the cities struck me as odd. I get the war, but afterwards, shouldn't clean up start? Gradually see buildings rebuilt and reopened? New merchants appearing after certain post-war benchmarks are hit.

The story is medieval fantasy. That was a nasty, scary time for humanity full of brutality, murder, theft, etc. Add fantastical goings-on, dragons, the influence of the Daedric Princes and a civil war and it should be non-stop horrorshow. I would like to see choices be tougher with no clear path to the goal. To a large degree, game mechanics, budget and time constraints are the most important factors. You can only do so much with the time, money and tools you have at your disposal. That's just life. But there are some parts "missing" from the game. It wouldn't really impact the story line, just add to the immersion factor.

Having brothels or convincing a serving wench to come to your room should allow you to get the "Lovers Embrace" bonus, and the possibility of contracting a disease. Getting married should give the same bonus, for less money (but possibly a gold diamond necklace) and a (hopefully) smaller chance of catching something. Dragon Age actually had (an admittedly strange) love scene. Nothing graphic, but still enough to convey the fact that the player got lucky. THAT I would consider a "sixual theme". Skyrim has jack in that department. Like I said, it's marketing, not an honest warning.

I think that having a series of quests that allowed you to bed different NPCs would be awesome. An actual use for the speech skill other then getting better deals from merchants. Catching your spouse cheating on you, or them catching you cheating. It would be an incredible addition to the game and fun to do. Hooking up with someone working with bandits and get robbed while you sleep? Hooking up with someone that ends up being a vampire? It could be done in a way that wasn't required, wasn't gratuitous, and could still add to the experience of the game. The guards from that city could even add lines to their dialog making fun of the fact that you were rolled during a tryst.

Sorry if I kind of rambled. Had a lot of different (and perhaps unconnected) thoughts on this topic.

There is enough mature content for mature individuals to know what is going on and to fill in the blanks themselves. The OP is requesting a gratuitous spectacle of morality and human misery, not depth.

Well a lot of people seemed to misunderstand the TC especially the 2nd poster ( i think it was)

From my gist he doesn't seem to went excessive violence, and lots of nvde women but a more dramatic atmosphere.

In Dragon Age when the darkspawn invaded Ferelden I could feel how desperate things were and the fear. In Skyrim if I had come over my friends house and saw him playing Skyrim for the first time I wouldnt really tell where the conflict is, because no one around him would tell.

Also Assassins Creed is "mature" in atmosphere, look at the the way prisoners were treated. Like TC said prisons are like small hotels their practically fancy.

TC is right there should be more controversial issues.

You know what's wrong with Skyrim these days? Everyone is obsessed with death.

So, "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" mature content deserves a warning? Is that actually content? Implied content to sate the "mature" among us? When Muiri in Markarth tells you how she is very grateful for killing two innocent people for her... Were you busy "filling in the blanks"? I know I was. It was amazing, and far beyond the TOS for this forum. Goodness. Now I'm going to need a moment.

I'd hate to see what would've happened if she'd *winked* at you, too. Damn that hardcoe game content. Here- have a moist towlette....

sorry you didnt get the TES Hustler you wanted OP skyrim is mature enough.

as stated in this thread with absolute clarity: TES hustler is NOT what 'mature content' most are referring too.

as well, implied maturity is irrelevant and has no place in this discussion.

Yeah, 'Mature' content was probably a poor choice of titles, by the OP. Not because it isn't accurate for what he's talking about, but because it is so highly susceptible to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. I'm sure many just read that title and immediately replied negatively (or gratuitously) without even reading all of it.