Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge can be pure ecstasy.

Highly debateable that Fallout is a Bethesda game more than an Obsidian one. Obviously Bethesda owns the legal rights to the series now, but Obsidian employs all the people who worked on the original Fallouts, and Fallout New Vegas connects back to older events far better than Fallout 3.

Having said that, hell, I wouldn't even say it's the RPG elements of New Vegas that Skyrim desperately needs. Would it be nice if those were there too? Absolutely.
However, the big thing that New Vegas has that Skyrim definitely does not is a friggin' writing staff and a plot. The difference in storyline depth between the two games is so blatantly obvious it hurts. One game has you having philosophical and political discussions with almost any named NPC, the other has "herp derp you bring sword??? Go caev, find sword, get goldz."

Mechanics effect gameplay, but have nothing to do with longevitiy of a game. In a sense, mechanics are the fluff.

If there was a very well made game where shooting the weapons was satisfying and fun, and you were locked in a room, and the entire game was you fighting people, how long would that last? Not very long. It would be great for a few hours, then you would be bored and would no longer want to shoot people.

If there was a game with fantastic stories, well made set pieces, well designed levels, and interesting people, but the shooting was rather basic and poorly done, how long would you play it? Assuming the shooting isn't too bad, you'd play it most likely until you complete all, or at least most, of the content. Far longer than the great mechanics game.

The mechanics affect everything, but they are the fluff in between the more solid content.

New Vegas is a perfect example. The shooting was awesome and I loved it, but everything else was bland, dry, or just poorly done. This meant that as soon as I got bored of the shooting, I stopped playing.

With Fallout 3 on the other hand, there was a wonderous setting, and great quests, while the shooting was somewhat basic and lacking. I played it for a very long time, wandering the wastes, scavenging, fighting raiders and mutants. It's mood was far more enjoyable, and better implemented.

New Vegas felt like a western. Not the post apocolyptic setting we've all come to love from Fallout titles.

Management and other fluff is actually high on my list too. I want a character I can mold and identify with, not just a pretty 3d model with no defining features such as attributes, traits and vices. There needs to be more character generation besides the visual part. I miss rolling some dice, for whatever little it's worth.

then it sounds like we both just want more in our games now, in 2012, especially, our rpg's.

i always advocate advancement, innovation, creativity, etc.

i don't think it was wrong of me to give skyrim my greatest expectations in a game ever. they had all the parts laid out in front of them and just needed to add a bit of that ingenuity to the equation and create one of the best games ever.

instead, they fell far short. though, they have greatly contributed towards the ability of the 'next game' as possibly holding that title.

Perhaps they do.

And even if they can do it themselves, having two studios giving it a shot doesn't hurt. Give Obsidian one of the smaller provinces to work with and they can focus on fleshing out the setting instead of creating a lot of content.

Should they fail than it can always be considered a spin-off. As strange as it sounds there are plenty of Fallout fans who consider FO3 to be a false fallout game because it wasn't made by the original studio. Even stranger, some of them are still willing to accept New Vegas as a real Fallout game. If Obsidian should a screw up their TES spin-off, than as a TES fan I can just ignore the game. However there is a reasonable large change that they'll succeed so I'll gladly take the risk (but it isn't up to me...).

Yep, now that they got the graphics and world-building techniques pretty well down, time to focus on the meat of the gameplay experience. The soup and salad course has been finished well, now it's time to serve up the prime rib.

Are you implying New Vegas has a blander storyline than Skyrim? Do you REALLY want to go there?

How far did you make it into New Vegas exactly? Listen, I sympathize when people say they got bored with the storyline of New Vegas. My first playthrough I felt completely overwhelmed by the choices and moral decisions that were piling up and just wanted to walk away. But I didn't, I decided to make a pure NCR character to free myself of moral decisions, doing only what benefited the NCR, that way, allowing me to play the game without regret and get a more in-depth view of all the factions. And I'm SOOOO glad I didn't give up. Once I faced all the lore instead of running cause it was overwhelming, I found Vegas provided plenty of detail to work with. Sounds to me like you chose to walk away where I sighed and gave the game another shot.
That's what Fallout 3 and Skyrim lack. Fallout 3 is a good game, but not for it's writing. The mood and setting were good, yes, but the writing was lackluster, albeit fun in a sort of "just accept it's a fantasy game and go with it" sort of way. (though all the hardcoe Fallout series fans will curse at this, as previous titles of Fallout were actually fairly philosophical, as is Vegas)
Skyrim? I'm sorry, but I struggle to name a good plot. Detail is completely lacking, depth is a myth, and there's not an original idea in the bunch.

An interesting opinion for sure.
FONV complaints - too much work, quests too complex, too many options/choices

othershave

Skyrim complaints - quests too short/easy/straightforward/simple no complex interactions between factions etc...

Fallout 3 having great quests is extremely controversial. Objectively, the quests and story in FONV are much more in debth and complex. But if you like the simple quests of FO3 that's fine, it's just an interesting use of great.

I gotta be brutally honest: name a Bethesda game with good RPG mechanics.

Something they all miss is balance. Bethesda doesn't seem to believe in balance, as every game has it's god tier skill or stat (Alchemy, Intelligence in Fallout 3, Smithing) and every game has that end-game weapon and armor that, once you get it, nothing will top it. There's not a single Bethesda game where you find that one character is more powerful wielding Umbra whereas the other is more powerful wielding the Ebony Blade. No no, one of those two is always superior to the other one, no matter which character equips it. New Vegas fixed this by working on making reload speed, crit rate, crit damage, firing speed, spread, etc etc etc vary both in the gun you pick up and the character you create, meaning different guns are powerful on different characters. Bethesda has NEVER done this, and judging by how simple and lazy the stats in Skyrim look, I doubt they've ever sincerely sat down and put thought behind balance. It feels like someone just said "how about all the perks increase damage by 20% for everything" and no one actually bothered to run through and test how well the game balances out if this system is used.

The second thing is just Bethesda's philosophy. Fallout New Vegas vs. Fallout 3, the speech skill. In New Vegas, you need a specific number on your speech stat to pass a speech check. Simple, makes sense and the result is that a character with a high speech stat can do things a character with a low speech stat cannot. Fallout 3? Speech only increases your odds of success. Anyone can save scum and keep reloading until they succeed with the speech check. Bethesda believes every character should be capable of doing everything, and while that may give people more freedom to complete quests as they want for their character, I think it's weak as an RPG element. I think that, in an RPG, part of the fun is making a new character and seeing how the world reacts to your character differently. With Bethesda's philosophy on things, the world DOESN'T react differently. You have to pretend it does. Thus, Bethesda RPG elements have always been rather weak. It'll stay this way simply because their philosophy is different from that of the standard RPG philosophy.

Indeed, well put Long knife.

it's almost as if people are playing the game as a fps and not a RPG. new vegas was obviously set up with multiple, multiple pc's in mind. it's almost as if those who played it expected a roleplaying sim instead of a rpg game based on core character-based mechanics.

it must be the guns,lol

They do that because of the story of FO3, the FO3 ending ret-con and how FONV is actually ground up based on FO worlds, FO1, 2 and even Van Buren.

FO3 was more tech first, FO story/world added later

I can't believe that some people didn't enjoy exploring in NV as much as FO3. I'm the polar opposite. Exploring in FO3 svcked. I hated subway tunnels, by the end of that game. Seemed like you couldn't get very far before having to take one. I'd totally be up for an Obisidian TES, unless Bethesda changes the direction they're heading.

I'd like to see what a TES game made by Obsidian would look like...rather than Apple.

the thing that gets me is that the mechanics of morrowind

your second paragraph is so full of absolute rpg truths, i give you a heartfelt clap over the net.

consequence. true unique character creation. in-game DiD-like gameplay, ie. create a different character. world react = enough said and along with better a.i. this needs to be paramount in future games.

and, finally...

actual, functioning IN-GAME mechanics vs. freakin mindplay.

enough of being dumbed-down, streamlined and 'accessible.' FOREVER!

No no no no no a million times no!

Bethesda should never let people make TES games, the only exception to the rule would be the mobile games, but Bethesda's baby is TES. We don't need any company sticking their spoon in Beth's gumbo.

I think you guys are assuming that depth means good, while lack of depth means bad. I'm all for depth, and New Vegas certainly had a lot more than Fallout or Skyrim do, but that by no means makes the quests good.

To answer your question Longknife, I beat New Vegas. I sided with the NCR because I had no clue where to go, and beat it. But afterwards I didn't feel accomplished or proud. I didn't enjoy it at all. When I beat Fallout 3 and Skyrim I had a sense of joy, pleasure and accomplishment. They were far more linear, yes, and had less depth, yes; but they contained so many more elements that pertain to good storywriting than New Vegas does.

I can write the most complex quests I want, with a branching choice every 5 seconds, but it wont be nearly as good or satisfying or enjoyable as a linear version of the same quest with the proper elements.

Writing branching non-linear quests is a very tough thing to do well. IF done well, the results are far better than any linear experience could ever be. However, I just don't feel that Obsidian did it well. They jumped into the deep end of the pool with weights tied to their feet, and while they tried their damndest to float, they didn't. I gave New Vegas that second chance, and played from start to finish, but they went so far the opposite direction, wanting to avoid linearity, that they swamp the player down with choices, which often times are poorly explained, or explained in an incoherant manner, that I often didn't know what choice I was really making, and it became a large guessing game.

New Vegas had more depth, in all the wrong places.

The reason obsidian did so well With NV (bugs aside), was that many developers worked on earlier FO games and know the lore and setting through and through more than Bethesda people like Emil and Todd. TES however is a totally different matter and would be a total flop if made by them. It should stay with Bethesda

EDIT: Misread the post, disregard this.

lol!

obsidian does well every time because they know what works and pack it all into less money, less access and less time.

my auto-bet would be obsidian to put out a great game over any other company.



why? because they're creative and take chances. and, don't get rid of the core.

Also let me clarify something and go back to the original proposed question: Obsidian doing spinoff of TES.

Allow me to briefly tell a story.

Once upon a time, there were two series. Battlefield, and Call of Duty. Both were very different, and each had their advantages and disadvantages. Battlefield 2 offered a very paced, slow playstyle. It encouraged teamwork, had vehicles and the maps were huge. It was similiar to being in a large scale conflict.

Then there was COD: Modern Warfare 2. It entailed faster gameplay, focusing more in indevidual skill and perception. It had no vehicles and focused on infantry gameplay, and had smaller, more concise detailed maps.

Though people have fueded for years, simply put, the games are different and cannot be compared. They simply cater to different play styles. However, now BF3 is out, and it's no longer a true Battlefield title. Why? Because they saw COD, and copied too much of it. BF3 is essential now COD with vehicles and bigger maps. Same fast paced gameplay, same focus on indevidual talent. They are no longer two seperate games each with their own style, but rather two competing games that are very silimiar.

I don't want that to happen to my TES. Obsidian has a certain style, which plenty of people enjoy, but it's very different from Bethesda's. I want it to remain that way. This way the people who like their style, can go buy their games and enjoy those, while at the same time, those who enjoy Bethesda's style, can buy their games. They are two seperate styles, that cater to two seperate groups.

If Obsidian starts doing TES games, then they change that style of the TES game. It no longer caters to Bethesda's fans, but rather their own. It's muddying the waters by combining two seperate styles into one, inevitably leaving someone out in the rain, instead of keeping them two distinct seperate ones.

Let Obsidian make their games their way, and Bethesda make their's.

Anywho, enough word walls for me. I've said what I came here to say.

Depth isn't automatically good. But the vast majority of Fallout fans would agree that FO3 has the worst writing and quests of all the cannon FO games.

That doesn't make it absolute, just the vast majority of Fallout Franchise fans would laugh at the idea that FO3 quests and writing is better.

alexander-

kiralyn's remarks are perfect examples of what you're saying.

no big.

but, too many people are saying that skyrim DOESN'T lack rpg mechanics. or, newvegas isn't deeper than fallout3. just not true. period. i can prove it. personal likes and dislikes aren't part of the equation.

do i want obsidian doing tes? hell, no.

i want obsidian getting tons of money to make a new rpg-character based game.

i want rpg companies to start coming out of my pores and start giving us tons of true rpg's every year. just like the fps and sport crap.

morrowind was a greatness that can only be repeated with creativity and innovation and money.

I think the problem with game development today is that it's just that, GAME development. There's a complete lack of creative fantasy writers and authors and instead programmers take the front seat. They need to get a hold of some of the old table top RPG writers and pick up some of those old scenarios, not just develop for the game station generation. Now everybody wants a quick no-brain-needed fix of screen adventure. It's ok if there's more to it than that.