Odd reaction considering your playing a role playing game

I agree with you but the "more women must be playing" comment was uncalled for. I don't see female players asking for things like this, moreso the men who like the idea of the little wifey at home baking them apple pies and popping out a kid.

I wouldn't object to it if it was part of a larger story DLC. I don't like that it's being offered as a stand-alone. But that could be Microsoft's fault since they hate the idea of mod content where they don't get a cut.

Martha Stewart is SO gonna be my next character!

Who is Martha Stewart?

Let's say there are different approaches to ©RPGs.
The two extremes are: Number crunching, stat-heavy rpgs with gameplay clearly defined by a rather tight ruleset.
What you can do is mostly defined by the character (class) you play. Often there's not much flavor stuff in those games if it isn't necessary to the games completion.
This is the classical, oldest form of cRPGs.

And the other form of RPG, where your character is mostly defined only loosely by stats and class and the more defining aspect is what you choose to do.
However, for this to be more than mere "pretending", the game should recognize it and interact with it meaningfully.

There's nothing wrong with either of those approaches, and personally I would argue that a good cRPG should offer both to some extend.
Both have their up- and downsides, though.

The ideal a cRPG should try to reach, imho, is the original pencil&paper roleplaying experience, which offers the best synthesis of rule-based and player-driven gameplay (that probably will never be possible to simulate in a cRPG, due to cRPGs missing an human DM).

The problem I personally see with something like Hearthfire is that it's leaning too much towards "pretending", without much substance behind it.
If pretending to live in a cottage in Tamriel with your waifu (that will never do much more than mutter the same sentences over and over or maybe make the screen fade to black) and raise children (that will never grow/change/bring you beer) is what makes you happy, fine for you. I think it's pointless.
If it would offer some nice quests, with good writing, some challenge, riddles, integration with the world, etc., I might consider it.
But I'm pretty sceptic about that. And being on PC, I can anyway just download a mod that does most of it for free...

If you've been around the Elder Scrolls forums for years now like me, you would see that this is Bethesda trying to give fans what they have wanted for years. I've seen plenty of threads asking for Bethesda to do this exact thing. I like the idea, it will certianly add to the roleplaying expereince of the game. As long as Bethesda keeps thier promis about 3 large DLCs I'm ahppy if they release some small stuff in-between.

I think that mass appeal is the "problem" here. A lot of Skyrim players would never touch MW, or to a lesser extent OB. And, a lot, if they do, can't fathom the "appeal". Fundamentally, RPGs are not about connecting the dots to get a grand picture. That's what action and adventure are, primarily, dot, dot, dot, cut scene. Not RPGs. RPGs are more about what happens IN BETWEEN THE DOTS. They're about imagination and playing a role (which should be pretty self-explanatory). The great thing about Skyrim is that it can be played either way, or somewhere in between. The bad thing about that is that a LOT of players who play it one way are not going to "get" why other players like/dislike other elements within the game. This entire board is full of evidence of that.

They also do a lot of stuff nobody asked for (like removing attributes). But I digress...
I see where you are coming from and do agree in principle. However, despite all the good things they did in Skyrim, a lot of aspects remain underdeveloped.
Which is what I'm seeing in this DLC as well. A lot of stuff is just "token". It's their for the sake of being there, but lacking substance.


True I guess. I'm trying to stay open-minded, even if I indeed find the taste of some people mind-boggling...
If my post sounded too harsh, that was not my intention. But to repeat my self, I'd simply like to see more substance behind the largely cosmetic stuff that's become so popular here.

I completely agree with you in part. Though I am happy to see this the fact it is just old ideas from the game jam makes me a bit perplexed, I understand that they've obviously added work onto the original ideas though. I am just hoping they are currently developing a full expansion while they release these. I'd love to see three large DLC addons... but you know Bethesda and promises.

Housing for console players has always been an issue. Hearthfire will go a long way to mitigating those problems, although I'm sure that most of us were hoping for something like this in the vanilla game. They have indicated that a small group has been working on this, and the price is cheap. Usually I like to rain on Skyrim, but this is something I really can't argue with. It isn't intended to be much, but it's nice to have.

True, I wasn't happy about them removing attributes and classes but nor was I really angered by it. All the micro-managing of stats is not what make a Bethesda game for me. Its the large open world that gives me plenty of oppurtunites for roleplaying and this DLC is just adding a piece to the puzzle.

True, true. There are a lot of people who have no idea what RP is and just can't understand what on earth a house mod can add to their game. What, no new weapons, no new quests, no new bunnies to slaughter? It svcks! But hey, everyone is welcomed to jump on the RP wagon and ask for advices to enjoy the game even more. I love when open-minded people open threads like http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1405145-teach-me-to-roleplay/, for instance. I'd just wish people as a whole could understand that for the sake of RP every little bit helps, as this DLC will do.

Yes, that's a very important aspect. Still, had they given the attributes meaning, making them define your character and his interaction with the world, I feel Skyrim would have been better for it.


There's roleplaying and there's roleplaying. I prefer the game to recognize my character (e.g. certain NPC should approach a mage differently from a fighter, and not just offer some flavor text like "I see you are good at destruction magic") and his attributes and talents interacting with the world, in short: roleplaying should be not only due to pretending to be a smith by keeping a fictional schedule and spending time around the Whiterun smithy, but by the game registering it.

In an ideal world these things would happen but for what Skyrim is, I love it. I wish they had kept the preset classes and attributes in but I guess they were trying to change things up in order to stay fresh and attract new fans while also maintaing their current fanbase. No matter what hey did they would fo gotten a group of vets saying Bethesda is selling out and so on and so forth.

Too bad at the end of the day it's all due to AI limits. How well NPC react to the player presence is probably the most difficult task to accomplish in a game like this, due to its open-world peculiarity.

I like a healthy balance of the two. I wouldn't play skyrim if it was just wandering towns, choping wood, mining ore etc.

The positive side to skyrim catering to the 'casual' gamer, is that the combat mechanics have vastly improved over past games. It's not perfect, and we've lost a lot of quest depth and consequence, but I try to remain positive.

I am overjoyed at the news of Hearthfire's inception.
I had a number of things on my DLC wishlist, and adopting kids was high on it. And seeing the rest of it makes me excited to get to building, too. Maybe you can't be jarl, high king, emperor, or grand pooh-bah of all creation, but you can be lord of your own estate.

Many players wanted the opportunity to build and customize their own homes, it was repeatedly mentioned in innumerable 'DLC wishlist' topics. Hearthfire's existence proves that Bethesda listens to players' requests. BUT, they can't make everyone happy.

More roleplaying options is always good, and letting us actually build houses ourselves is a nice step for roleplaying. Not all characters wanted to live in the city and now those characters get real options not to.

This is worse than horse armour. Why is it called Hearthfire? Is it cause it's released in September? I expected to go to Cyrodiil. What a rip off. Bethesda have really let themselves down the past few months.

Yeah I agree this is a ridiculous DLC, if I wanted something like this, I would've gotten a mod. Personally, I'm surprised so many people like this... fighting off skeevers and adopting kids eh? I guess next we'll have cooking mini games or something. But if Beth is going to stick to their word and we will get another (proverbial) "Dawnguard" only bigger and better than that's cool.

EDIT: People want more roleplaying? Then add more dialogue for NPCs, or different ways to do quests, or a DLC that has a character creation overhaul from previous games (that would be sweet actually), or... ANYTHING but this.

At least this is the last dlc that is going to be Xbox Exclusive.

"Home is where the hearth is"

So by this logic only women play minecraft. Score.

I'm excited about it cause its opening more options for housing. I've always loved exploring the real estate options and decorating my homes.

Expectations will rarely live up to reality. Why jump to the conclusion that we'll never go back to Cyrodiil? They haven't even revealed the DLC after this.