I kinda don't like the sound of that. Makes me think of a Government that controls our daily lives >.>

Game designer and partly 3D/2D artist.

As a Game Designer, it's Game Design 101 to know that Game Designers balance the game, that's part of where the "fun" of the game comes from.

I understand where you're coming from, and thats why balance doesn't bother me TOO much because you can limit yourself. I guess what we're saying is that it's sad that you can't make whatever character you want without some character types being horribly overpowered. I'm a mage, I always am, and sometimes I like being a combat focused mage. I hear destruction gets really underpowered at higher levels, and if thats true it svcks because it means I can't feel powerful playing the way I want. The opposite end of the spectrum is when I want to be a wold renowned, master alchemist or enchanter. Some feel as though they can't go all out because they'll basically break the game. Thats the issue we're having, I think.

But...they do.
Have you seen all the laws and restrictions that every country, state, and local jurisdiction has on the books.
They were all created and are enforced because soooo many people can't control themselves and fail to properly limit themselves.

I said Daily Lives. Like they control where we move, go to school/work, eat, etc. That sort of control that I am against.

Yeh...I get that.
I'm at the opposite end.
I play a thief/assassin type character, and it took me several "test" characters before I figured out how to properly control and limit my perks and skills.
A lot of wasted time...but I finally figured it out.

Now...I'm enjoying a great game.

Oh...yeh...we don't want that. We've seen that stuff tried too many times.

You're comparing real life laws and vices to video game gameplay... it's completely irrelevant.


Y'know what would have saved you a lot of time?

If the game had been balanced properly to begin with, thus never having you need to find what to do and what not to do to make the game fun and challenging.

From what I've been told, the Game Designers script and create the game itself. Part of their job is to make sure the Game can be balance, if they can't fully make it balanced themselves... Which does happens. I've created my own Flash RPG game when I was young and I accidentally made an exploit and couldn't remove it without removing the whole skill itself. So I updated it so that the skill can used in a balancing way, as long it isn't exploited.

You prolly have more experience since you are in College. I'm taking my classes in a HS right now. Though, my teacher is very serious about this stuff and actually teach us college stuff.

I wasn't comparing anything. Please reread the posts correctly.

Well....just remove that part of my post from your memory then.

Skyrim...the game...is still about personal choice.

Game Designers don't code/script unless they have to. In middle sized/larger, even maybe smaller indie developers, the designer designs the mechanics (comes up with them, balances them, spreadsheets them, documents them) then moves on to the next project while everything else is being worked on. If problems arise they are called back in. Scripters write the code, designers design the gameplay.


I just multi quoted, it was more about the other poster.



Yes, and Skyrim, the game, should also be balanced so that jpo, the player, doesn't have to spend a varied amount of hours on various characters to find out what kind of choices they should/should not make to make the game both fun and challenging. You said it yourself, you wasted a lot of time, that's bad.

Yeh...but I got over it, moved on, and I'm enjoying my game.
I understand what Bethesda did in giving us many choices on how to develop our characters.
I can't tell you how many characters I started over and over again in Oblivion.
It's the way Bethesda does it...and I knew that going in.

In a game that I'll be playing for several years, 20 hours or so lost on trying different characters is minor.

Oh yeah. I always put Scripters into Game Designing because I script myself a lot, need to remember not to combine those. Btw, the graphic designers are the artistic ones and creates all the graphics for the game, which the Game Designer will take and put those into the game itself then create the game. Right? Like, the Graphic Designers will design the walls floors etc of a dungeon then the Game Designer will take them and make the dungeon itself. I'm correct on this, right? I'm asking because I'm not artistic. I cannot create good new graphic files for games.. I always use the current graphics already in the game (If I am modding the game.) If I am creating one myself, I work with my friend who is an artist. Good one too.

Yes, and that's bad.

The people on the opposite side of the line from you in this debate are wanting that changed so that everyone, including you, don't have to waste those 20 hours or so in the first place. That's all we want, and I have no idea why you would be against that.


No, the game designers usually are working on another project by the time production (like art) are being heavily worked on, if structured properly. As a Game Designer I will design the dungeon, design things like the layout, the enemies that will go in there, etc, etc and then the artists and scripters will put it together and make it work. I come up with the blueprints, things like how big the dungeon is, the time it should take a player to get to A to B, where enemies will pop up based on game flow, then when that's done everyone else does their job.

So the Game Designer aren't the ones that are on the actually Game Making Program? (Creation Kit for Skyrim as an example)

It simply fascinates me how people think that crappy game mechanics are fine as long as they are optional.
Saying that something is optional can't be used as an excuse for bad game mechanics!
Also, it's not a game if it doesn't restrict you in some way or another.
Games actually become more interesting if they restrict you properly.

Just read through most of this thread and I agree a lot with the OP and there's been some good discussion around the pros/cons of the game.

I've been playing Skyrim for a few weeks now and I'm constantly amzed by the scenery, the views, smoothness etc. Why bother with butterflies? Because they can and it just makes it more amazing in my view. But then I started playing games on a Sinclair Spectrum, moved onto an Amiga and have had PC's from the 9.5K modem days. I have a reasonable understanding of just how much effort goes into making a game like this - and I am amazed at how far things have come since those days. I'm also aware that it would take forever to code a perfect game and that what the devs think was a great idea, may not appeal to everyone else - the old "you can keep some of the people happy all of the time.." addage applies.

There are faults - there always will be. But unless you want to spend many years ironing all those faults out - the game will be out of date. Or you want to spend a fortune on staff to speed that process up. Games (probably all software) will be be released with bugs in - that's life.

For me I think the game is great - walking up a mountain (or smallish hill in reality) I looked up to see a full moon, perfectly lit on one side - and that's breathtaking detail. I think the character movement is not bad at all, again considering what I've seen over the years. The size of the map is probably limited as to what you can fit on a DVD (with everything else). In years to come when storage and downloads have increased - expect to see more I would guess.

Bad points for me - more to do with gameplay than anything. It's a bt too simplistic at times. Some of the quests for the guilds, even the war, go like a child's story - "I joined this gang and they thought I was so great they made me their leader." I'd like a bit more effort to become head of The Companions, Thieves Guild etc. Even the war was disappointingly short. I played Imperial, not for any great reason, I'll play Stormcloak next time, but after capturing several very easy (and very similar) forts and killing Ulfric that was it. I expected an awful lot more. Even with difficulty on max it was all too simple. And I did like the part where the troops were massed to storm Windhelm. All nine of them...

And having done that, no-one seems to have noticed. I popped over to Solitude to see what Elisif thought. She was still talking like the war was still on and Ulfric was alive. I couldn't even tell her. Same in Whiterun, Jarl Balgruuf stuck in the same old dialogue. That seems poor to me.

But it's kept me engrossed and the small side quests and plots are intriguing and entertaining. There's sufficient diversity of tasks to keep me interested - I think I've got my money's worth.
Looking at it from the perspective of what has been, where games are now - I really look forward to the future and what will come.

They make the blueprint. Like what the Creation Kit is supposed to allow the player to do.

Yes. Very yes. These are some of the flaws I was talking about before that bother me far more than overpowered skills.

Like how racism is pretty much non-existent. Khajiit aren't even question when trying to enter a city/town.

And one thing I forgot - funny as it was to watch my horse go running up a flight of ricketty wooden stairs and along a battlement to attack an enemy, it was just plain daft! (and please stop the damn things wandering off!)

Races should each feel at least a little different, and should each have at least some advantages and disadvantages storywise. They should all be capable of more or less the same things, but they should sometimes have to go about things differently, get treated better by some npcs, or get an extra quest or two involving their race. Like how Altmer can disguise themselves as Thalmor at the embassy. There should be more stuff like that. It was the only time I actually felt like I WAS my race. There should be a random event where a crazed dumer refugee attacks your argonian. At the very least npcs should be AWARE of your race when talking to you. I hate how Ondolemar explains to you what an elf is when YOU are an elf. Stuff like that gets under my skin. Another that bugs me in regards to race is the fact that if you play a tall race like an orc or altmer, when you look through first person perspective you're shorter than a nord. This wasn't a problem in Morrowind or Oblivion, and to me shows a new level of sloppiness when I see they didn't get the first person camera right this time around.

Because the only way that Bethesda can do that is by putting limits in what we can or cannot do.
For every person like me who doesn't want to be "overpowered", there is a person like my co-worker who likes to beat down everything and be a god in Skyrim.

This game is the only game out there that really lets us, the player, decide how we want to play....how powerful or weak we want to be.

So I don't think it's bad. It's just never been done quite like this before so it took a bit of time to figure out. There's nothing really wrong with that.

And just for those of you who think I'm just defending this game and find no faults with it....

* I play on the Xbox right now and I don't understand why I can't toggle the compass on or off.
* I don't like skill or perk trees...never have, never will. Just let me pick what I want without having to go through a tree/perks that I don't want. I don't care if you double or triple the cost of some perks....I just hate trees.
* Why are all the female clothes (besides the rags) dresses. I want to wear pants...and sometimes just pants. No shirt.
* Hand to Hand is kind of messed up. Viable yes, but messed up.
* I hate mini-games...like the lockpicking thing. Give me an "autopick" option where my characters skill actually matters.