I have never seen so many differing views on a game, I mean this game is marmite....you love it, or you hate it. I just can not understand alot of the gripes about this game - REAL bugs aside. I have 12 friends that play this game, 9 of them love it and have hardly a bad word about it, three say its buggy, laggy , boring etc etc.......we all play XBox all played Elder scrolls before (many before OB.....a few since daggerfall).

On the forums there are the "we love Skyrim, speak down about it at your peril" team (myself included) and the "morrowind was better/ game is too easy or hard/ i cant be a mudcrab why why why Bethesda" crew. I just dont understand how so many people have such differing views on what is eesentially the same game. Its odd!!!

I dont want this to turn into a massive war between the two parties, but why is the game so different to other people. For example, a common complaint is that the game got rid of classes making a set game style non obtainable. From my experience its easier than past ES games to create a class. raher than being boxed in you use the skills wanted for that charecter and develop perks according to that playstyle.

I dunno its rather strange!! but why? do we have different versions, different expectations what???

This is the root of the disparate opinions. Not everyone shares the same perceptions or opinions about the various gameplay aspects. Some value one method over another, some prefer aspects that others loathe.

For instance, (and its not my intention to explain why), I generally prefer class based RPGs, even though I understand that the overall intent of TES is to support a fantasy simulation that puts the player in the game world.
Some players (believe it or not) don't play RPGs as if the PC were them; Others are not concerned or interested in being shown a first person view.

Then there are the series fans that are just simply disappointed due to omissions.

**Many do not see Class restriction as a bad thing. I have a peeve with any RPG where the PC has no past; born an infant advlt (often in jail)... No past, no previous training or life experience. :shrug: (They have no class ~so to speak.)

Play a pre-Oblivion game.

Then you'll know.

I don't buy it. I started with Morrwind, it was fun, but I like Skyrim 10x as much. I think nostalgia has a lot to do with comments like these.

It gives people a feeling of superiority to point out what's wrong with other things. Art critics are the same way. Critics of all types. Some are constructive and even benificial. Some are just jerks complaining for the sake of complaining. The thing is, they are saying more about themselves than they are saying about the things the criticize.

I started with Oblivion, and seemed to prefer Morrowind ~until I played Daggerfall. :shrug:

i played morrowind .......as did many of my friends - read the origional post!! just saying. Morrwind was good im not here to dispute that.......but why the vast opinions on Skyrim

Oh, I prefer Morrowind over Oblivion (save the combat) but I prefer Skyrim over both

OP, its preference, nothing more, you cannot please everyone, and if you try, well then you get accused of "watering it down for the masses" and such and such.

My response to this is that the PC's past is up to the player to determine. I really don't like it when a game (Mass Effect, for instance) gives you a choice of what your history is. It's basically the game telling me who my character is, instead of me telling the game who my character is.

The past is created by me. I do view class restriction as a bad thing. I don't want to be forced into an arbitrary box that a mage is this, or a warrior is that, and skill A shouldn't be compatible with skill B.

BTW - I'm not getting on you for your opinion. I disagree with you, but I respect your opinion since you were able to express it without talking down to others and insulting them. It's simply my view on RPG's, and though my post may sound somewhat aggressive or hostile, that is not my intention.

Personally, I believe it's because Bethesda has tried to cater to too many people over the TES series. Arena and Daggerfall started out as Classical RPG's along the line of Dungeons and Dragons. Oblivion and Skyrim are more geared toward the Action RPG crowd, like those of Fable and Mass Effect. Morrowind was somewhere in the middle.

My gripe isn't what Skyrim is. Mine is about how The Elder Scrolls have changed from its original intent. Like it or not, the entire gameplay focus has changed. Skyrim itself may be a great game. It is not anything like a "classical" Elder Scrolls game, however. Neither was Oblivion.

This is exactly how I feel.

Because anyone who complains about this game is wrong and anyone who enjoys this game is wrong.

THIS!

Ugh, I hate this viewpoint. "Nostalgia"... People say perfectly reasonable explanations for the things they miss from the past games (Better Level Design, Aesthetics over Graphics, more content...) and it's automatically brushed aside as "nostalgia".


Then you'll know there are significant differences that many of us fondly liked. I hate that skyrim has, what, 18 skills? I don't care about perks, I like the old style skilling system.

There are MANY examples like this and whenever they're mentioned we're labelled as bashing, flamebaiting, nostalgia goggles wearing Morrowind/Daggerfall fan boy trolls.

I think it was something I like to call 'Elder Scrolls Expectation Syndrome' Fans have automatic thoughts of their first TES experience be it Oblivion, Morrowind, or even Arena. It essentially shows a trend that Bethesda has changed the way the make their games, and old fans notice it and some don't like it.

Because people are Human? if you're alive you have differing opinions. there really isn't anything philisophical about this really.

Skyrim: one step forward, and two back.

QFT.

Also, agree in that order of preferences.

Still don't get the Daggerfall love. If I'd played Daggerfall first, I would never ever have become a TES fan. That being said I've loved Morrowind, Oblivion and now Skyrim. Skyrinm is my favorite so far but I played the other two for literally 1000s of hours.


I think its different expectations as well as feeling of whats in the game as opposed to what's missing in peoples eyes.

Im not brushing anything aside. I'm simply stating that the vast majority of people who like Morrowind more, IMOSHO, have not played it in some time, and have not played the vanilla version in even longer. Hell, I still have it for the xbox, the Setting is beautiful, the gameplay is lackluster. As will all things there is a give and take, and IMO, Skyrim gives more than Morrowind and takes less.

I don't think that's a bad thing tho. Things evolve and change over time.

The Metal Gear series is nothing like what it used to be when it started out on the NES. Same with Final Fantasy. Same with Mario. Same with pretty much every video game series in the history of ever, that has had a long run like that. That change isn't a bad thing. It's kind of the natural progression of things.

Well, I think recent Final Fantasy's kind of svck, but that's a different subject altogether.

Morrowind was my first Elder Scrolls game. I haven't played Arena or Daggerfall in depth. I've checked them both out tho, for a bit. But I really don't think Oblivion or Skyrim are really all that significantly different than Morrowind. Some things were taken out, more things were added, but the foundation of the games remain the same. I don't really see the Elder Scrolls series drifting as far away from it's roots as it's made out to be, and the ways it is distancing itself, I believe it's doing so in a good way.

Fanbois and non-fan-bois

I'm just saying, I feel like you can do more with Skyrim's 18 skills (thanks to perks) than you could do with Morrowind's 27, which were never changing.

Simply because Skyrim is a game that came with a lot of changes from previous installments that were appealing to new audiences (and a few older players) but were a massive fart on the old audiences. Like look at magic, it has a massive appeal if you're more in love with the flashy "boom boom" aspect of the game and if you like having less worries about choice. But most older players preferred the old system where you didn't perhaps have as flashy magic and you had to think more about the spells but you had a lot more choice and could do a lot more in general with magic, and in many cases you could even have spells working together in synergy that could make two mediocre or even bad spells into one good or fun spell.

Most series don't change too much. A series like Tekken continues to be fairly loyal to its original concepts and garners very little debate from game to game for example. It's not like they would suddenly make the game center around using ranger weaponry and items, but if they did it would most certainly create a lot of debate between older fans and newer fans about which version of the game is better.

Basically Skyrim doesn't appeal in many ways to people with very sincere and heated opinions about the series. (Such as myself if I may say so.)

Edit: And don't listen to the "it's just nostalgia" crowd. They don't have a clue what they are talking about. Yes I mentioned not liking the change but to take an example my favorite game in the series of the few I've played (the three most recent ones) is Morrowind yet I played Oblivion mostly before it. And many TES fans such as myself play all the games or their favorite + the most recent one equally much at the same time. When you're playing two games at the same time then having a stronger opinion about one of them can't be nostalgia. After all you're not just reminiscing about the past, you're actually playing it right now.

Great post, and I completely agree. It seems there are critics of this game that also want to see Bethesda fail. They don't like the idea of a big budget, huge project like Skyirm doing well. They see it as commercialized or something. But I've definitely encountered these types. They nitpick the game to Oblivion and claim it's just so bad. When really the game is a masterpiece in my opinion. Even being as objective as I possibly can, I cannot say at all that Skyrim is a bad game in any way. Objectively speaking it does so many things well. It's like trying to argue that Michael Jordan was a bad basketball player. Some people will do it because they don't like Michael Jordan. But those people are crazy.