It seems several people don't understand what linear means. Sad really, because they continuously hold onto the idea that they're right in spite of proof to the contrary.


Scripted events can be avoided in Skyrim. Just activate them and go on your way. You are not obligated to stick around and watch the scripted event unfold. If you were rooted to the spot for the duration of the event, then I'd be inclined to agree with you, but you're not.


Oh? You mean the miscellaneous quest for that collector? The one that has you seeking out these statues for someone else... Stones of Barenziah and Dragon Priest Masks (included because they're collected for a reason other than personal want). No Stone Unturned may have to be activated in one way, but you don't need to activate the quest to collect the stones. You can collect the lot before speak to either Maul or Vex.


So you want a gameworld where nothing happens unless the player wants it to? I'm sorry, that's not how TES works.


So you go through life noticing everything that's going on around you, listening to everything everyone says? Wow, I'm surprised you have enough time to play Skyrim to complain about it.


Actually, it wasn't important. "you can choose what level you want." And? What's your point? It has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Great post.

Nobody said the WORLD was linear; hell, it'd be quite an amazing achievement to make a world linear in a game like this.
But all the NPC content? That's linear.

Bethesda can still build the same old world with the same old realistic trees and rocks, but talking to people? Delivering their content with the same attitude as a dry humor comic? Making quests that require player initiative? Quest pools that REQUIRE multiple playthroughs? Bethesda has forgotten all of that.

Actually that's exactly what the OP stated.

That's the illusion of freedom.

Linearity isn't just about whether or not you explore, it's about the storytelling. Beth are moving into giving you the freedom to go where you want when you want but wherever you go you'll be faced with linear tasks introduced with a lot of scripted cutscenes you can't avoid. They even stop you from killing half the NPCs because players can't be allowed to take responsibility for their actions. By the next TES it will probably be entirely 'do this quest now/do this quest later' - but you can wander freely!. Like a FPS except you decide the order you play the levels in. They're moving away from an open world into an open playpen.

Some things in Skyrim could be a lot less linear. For example, with EVERY new character I play, I stumble upon the same group of companions fighting a giant near whiterun. Wouldn't it be... uh... more 'dynamic' to not see them always? It's not a random encounter if you see it everytime!

Amen to that.

Very well put.

And the game does seem paranoid about the player not missing any quests. I did like how in Oblivion you could play trough the game without even knowing the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood exist.

Nobody is saying the ENTIRE game is linear. We're being objective and focusing solely on quests, which yes, are linear. The order you do quests in, you're free to choose, but ffs that's hardly an award winning feature. HOW the quests are completed or even how your character gets involved with the quest? That's all decided for you.



And what of immersion? Can you not understand that RPGs typically imply people are trying to be immersed in the game, and how immersion breaking it is if I have to PRETEND my character didn't just witness a murder?
What about when later, I talk to an NPC who had a scripted convo and they immediately start referring to it and I have NO FRIGGIN' CLUE what they're talking about?


No, we want a mix. Skyrim is severely lacking in quests where I'm expected to take the initiative.
Hell, even when I do, it holds my hand. I recall walking into a dungeon or two, immediately getting a quest in my questlog and then being told to go to a map marker. These types of things used to be handled as unmarked quests, with the player actually having to read the damn note to figure out what to do....





No, the difference is that if I go into a bar and DON'T listen to some guy trying to find his daughter, he doesn't come up to me later and say "you should try checking at the Hilton Hotel, tell me if you find anything." Why? Because I'd be sitting there thinking "the hell is this drunkard talking about?" No, he would assume not everyone was listening in and not everyone volunteered, so he'd explain the situation to me.
Many scripted events in Skyrim do NOT do this, so if you ignore them, later you have some NPC blathering to you about some problem and you have no clue wtf their deal is.



Because that's your exact argument, as if doing or not doing is choice that automatically qualifies the game as being non-linear. Super Mario World I can say "nah not gonna do the next level," that doesn't make the game non-linear.

Skyrim isn't linear in the sense that it MAKES you do every quest, but the quest structures themselves for each individual quest? Incredibly linear. Skyrim could be seen as a book or a TV show. You're free to reador watch any chapter to your hearts content and you can read/watch the chapters in whatever order you like. However, that doesn't change how the chapters play out; they're the same every time. For a game that CLAIMS to be an RPG, where the world generally should react to your character, this is horrible.

The fact you can randomly bump into the Companions out in the world anyway or choose to investigate their crib blatantly sitting in the city you're most likely to encounter early on off your own initiative isn't enough. There's a slight possibility you could possibily miss their existence by spending the game wandering around in a daze and that would never do. You want to be a werewolf, right? Werewolves are cool and you're going to want to be one.

The vigilante guy in Markarth won't stop asking you about that stupid house, until you agree to help him out.
You have no choice really, unless avoiding all of those people harassing you is an option.

Or listen to their [censored] and have a quest journal filled with rubbish like this:
-Speak to Hod.
-Join the Imperial Legion
-Join the Stormcloak rebellion
-Join the US army
-Listen to Brynjolf's sceme
-Read Eltrys' note
-Speak to Aventus Aretino

and mostly everyone disagreed and said the world felt linear.

Skyrim doesn't give you enough choices for resolving quests. Either you solve them Bethesda's way, or the quest fails or stays incomplete in your journal. Morrowind did it better. I guess where I found Skyrim lacking was the relative absence of world-altering decisions made by the player character. Remember the option of blowing up megaton in Fallout 3? That choice alone gave the game a sense of non-linearity. Bethesda did try though... there's a quest to destroy the dark brotherhood instead of joining them. IF they gave us that kind of choice with all the major guilds for the game, it would be a LOT less linear and more... personalized. I mean.. instead of playing through an entire questline, wouldn't it make sense for an assassin for the Dark Brotherhood to kill the leader of the companions? No, Skyrim doesn't give you that choice. It's basically tailor=made so that you can be the Dragonborn and master of ALL the guilds in the game simultaenously. Nothing you do will really mess up another questline beyond repair (besides bugs ).

I miss the days of Morrowind, where you could 'sever the chain of prophecy'. Now THAT was non-linearity and a rather brave effort by Bethesda.

Ok,another of these threads...i disagree on almost all your statements above,sorry if i can't read all the topic and someone had already said the same things...

1- no one forces you to play Skyrim
2- play Oblivion if you prefer this last
3- you can refuse the Tg and avoid even the "scripted events" if you want
4- Oblivion and Skyrim are different provinces/landscapes; we are in the nord and we are forced to have mountains and "linear roads" for the most
5- the guild aren't short,they seems so because we have a lot of radiant (optional) quests - some of them even fun to do
6- Skyrim its over-simplified to reach the largest possible audience,let's hope in the future Dlcs for depth and better Rpg mechanics/elements

Totally.


That's not going to happen. In fact, the opposite is more likely. They'll give you new spells, shouts, weapons and armour and enemies with a gazillion health on the assumption that's what will make you happy. There's only a chance of more depth if they came to believe that makes commercial sense.

There are several quests that can be activated in different ways or even completed in different ways. Azura's Star can be completed in one of two ways and the quest to involving the Aretino boy; you can kill the woman at Riften then go see him, or vice versa.


Who said anything about pretending your character didn't witness a murder? It doesn't have to be your job to figure out what's going on. If anyone later decides to talk to you about it, just exit out of dialogue with them and walk away rolling your eyes.


Go into your quest journal and deselect the quest... problem solved; especially if there is a note left to read.


So ignore them, just because they give you a quest, doesn't mean you have to do it with that character, or any other. I've not done the quests following the beheading in Solitude wiith any character. You are not shoehorned into a quest just because you are given one.


And your argument seems to be "I've been given a quest, I have no choice but to complete it.". Let it sit in your journal; finding the guys dog isn't your problem unless you make it your problem, the Redguards missing woman is nothing to do with you, the rivalry between the Battle-Borns and Gray-Manes is their own business. If I have no intention of completing those quests, I treat them as if I would and argument on the street... not my problem and keep walking. I watch the murder/beheading then go on my way once the initial excitement is over.


Somehow I get the feeling that your argument is about as open world as Skyrim is. I'm sure you've said that you are forced to do quests.

Wow. You mean you can talk to someone and then kill someone or kill someone and then talk to someone?
Or get an artifact or get a slightly different artifact that's a bit less powerful?

And let's not forget that quest where you can kill a guy and get a staff or not kill a guy and not get a staff. Or that other one where you can kill a guy and get a dagger or not kill a guy and not get a dagger.

RPGs sure have come a long way in their player challenging narrative structure.


Then that person will likely hang around forever waiting for you or keep trying to talk to you again. Because you've gone off script.

I wouldn't call Skyrim's gameworld as a whole linear. More linear than Oblivion and Morrowind, definitely, but still pretty open.

Mountains do feel a little bit linear at times when you try and deviate from the path and get that invisible wall effect. I found a nice way of overcoming this though - increase your jump height slightly (only a slight increase is needed, nothing excessive) using a console command.

What would've been nice is a climbing skill, allowing skilled characters to ascend up steep mountains from pretty much any direction, while unskilled characters have to stick to the safer paths that gradually wind their way up.

You are forced to initiate some quests. We just a had another big thread about it. You cannot complete the Galdur's amulet quest without starting the college of Winterhold questline - whether you want to do that questline or it's remotely in character or not - and you cannot complete the MQ without signing up to the college (and at least starting questline)- even if your character uses no magic and would never do such a thing. Even if you never follow the quest, certain NPCs will be stuck forever in limbo waiting until you do. Skyrim is not a dynamic world. The actions of NPCs revolve heaviy around the player and constantly prompting them to do things.

Those were just examples and they served their purpose; to disprove the fact that you are forced to start every quest in one way or forced to end them in one way. Your examples are just examples of ignoring quests... which also just goes to show that you are not forced to do every quest.


Kill them, then they won't keep trying to talk to you. If they just wait around and you don't talk to them, how can you be sure they're waiting there because you went off script?

Protip: Everyone and their mother is marked as essential.

While I hate the journal with a passion, so I am a bit biased toward this view anyway : I find the game so much more enjoyable if you treat the quest list not as a list of things you have to do, and just wish they would go away if they don't suit you, but rather as a list of things you know someone would quite like you to do. It does try to pull you here and there, and everywhere else at the same time, so you have no chance to miss the 'cool' stuff, but the less time you spend looking at the journal, the better a time you have imo. That's the problem, you get a non-linear open world, but only if you are prepared to ignore certain things, and you really shouldn't have to.

I had an idea for a mod, but as I have no time to learn Papyrus currently it will probably stay an idea.
Basically this mod would give those scripted scenes a chance (in %) to occur. Some would also get additional conditions that must be met for this scene to play.
Though, some scenes will immediately have to play, e.g. entering Markarth as I think a NPC comments on how it's the player's first visit to the city.

Riften Thieves Guild example:
Brynjolf will only seek the player out once
- the player has stolen enough items
- it's evening or late afternoon (are enough NPCs around that time? not sure)

That scene would have a chance of say.. 40~60%


This would make each playthrough less linear and more unique I think as not every character will experience everything.

I'm confident instead; the developers had already reached their purpose; now they're relaxed and can even contemplate to accomplish the "old fans" -like they've done in the past with Shivering Isles in my opinion.You're too negative perhaps...