I really miss my character in Skyrim reacting to his surroundings and living beings (people and animals) like it would do in Oblivion.

In Oblivion your character did smile to certain NPCs and animals, or portrayed a facial gesture of despite, or an angry expression, and leaned his neck for looking directly to the body of a dead wolf if it was near enough, and the same happened in the case of any defeated bandit lying at the floor.

In this way Oblivion had a noticeably greater degree of vividness and expressiveness thanks to this feature (I don't know how to call it, "facial gestures and partly body-neck movements for reacting to NPCs and animals"), while conversely, Skyrim offers to us extremely static and inexpressive characters that don't bother to direct their gazes towards their own mounts even if they are at a foot of distance: for instance, my character isn't smiling anymore at Shadowmere, nor directs his head-gaze towards it when the horse is near. The same goes in my Skyrim for any animal or NPC, live or dead. My character is always motionless, impassible.

Thus, Skyrim portrays player characters as a sort of embodiment of robotic coldness (which was "OK for Neverwinter Nights 1" . . .) and total indifference towards the world and living beings that are surrounding them.

While this "robotic coldness" could suit -let's say- some "character concept" (a sociopath, assassin or bad*ss guy), it nevertheless looks like an odd simplification of the factual game engine: I think that this great feature what I was enjoying so much with Oblivion seems to have been forgotten by Bethesda's developers, don't bringing it to Skyrim for some reason.

And I'm wondering about that.

So the game not taking control over YOUR character is a bad thing now...


ooookay.

If you're not playing in 1st person anyway you're doing it wrong.

Shallow game is shallow. The glory days are long gone and Bugthesda has abandoned the vets of this once proud series.

My Char gets angry..when he fights, gets this mean Scowl.

and you haven't met cicero....have you.

You must learn that what you're seeing on a screen is never going to be perfect... and the closer you get to perfection, the more noticeable the flaws will be. In short, there's nothing they can do about it. They have to draw a line somewhere, and if they made people smile appropriately, you'ld have been here complaining about their eyebrows or something they didn't do. Play the game and enjoy it for what it is. Get over your quest for perfection.

Angry expression is still there during combat, easy to see with khajiits as their ears move, haven't seen a happy expression though. My characters were always so happy after Umbacano paid them for the statues in Oblivion, i guess you just can't make a Dragonborn happy. Or to turn his head

Would you at least try to be relevant... like at all.

This is the second thread on this topic posted this morning....

Oh yeah, it was so much more charming and immersive to play the little speech minigame in Oblivion and have the NPC read the PC's mind and give the "appropriate" expression before they even said anything.

PC head tracking. Bethesda disabled it for Fallout 3 (I've no idea why) and it hasn't made a return since. As you say, it makes the PC look like a zombie in third person. I tried for some time to get it working again for FO 3 with the GECK and couldn't, so I guess it's hard coded.

Personal preference. I personally cant stand 1st person. The camera wiggles annoyingly, and things seem too "in your face".

Quit the crying. If youre such a veteran then you'd realize facial expressions (if you would want to even call them that) was only in Oblivion, which sometimes bugged to having a permanent scowl. And if you hate shallowness then you probably hated almost every single dungeon and daedric ruin in Morrowind which were comprised of 3-4 rooms tops and the same generic interiors save for a select few

Combined with seeing your join date, you're just simply too obvious.


I'm pretty sure that the word you want to be using is "impassive," given the context of the statement.

One other thing to bear in mind is that plenty of people play in first-person perspective. I find the Third-person perspective too off-putting in Bethesda games, and I only use that camera view for when I want to view my character in the actual environment, like striking a pose.

You are in Skyrim...

...no one ever smiles in Skyrim

This. It's a grim, grim place, and everyone hates you. The people... hate you. The environment... hates you. Everyone... hates you.

I've been here much longer then my join date suggests. Why people get caught up on join dates is beyond me. Just because I "joined" in December doesn't make up for the fact that this series is all but in the [censored]ter anymore. Time to go back to the drawing board Bethesda.

I'm also dissapointed the stars don't twinkle anymore.

Skyrim svcks

What the heck do you think they did with Skyrim to make it feel so different from the past games? They do that every damn time, and you're telling them to go back and do exactly what's ticking you off so much.

Your arguments are untouchable, I admit defeat.

So Oblivion having the feature that I'm talking about was a bad thing then . . .


Really? Come on.


What can I say. Actually, you are pretty wrong about that.

im·pas·si·ble (m-ps-bl)
adj.
1. Not subject to suffering, pain, or harm.
2. Unfeeling; impassive.


It's better if you speak for yourself.


Yes, I have seen Cicero, but I am not talking about the script of a particular NPC like that one.


"There is nothing they can do about it." ??? Keep in mind that they already did it: this feature was working in Oblivion. Perhaps you can check Oblivion, who knows. If Bethesda implemented this feature into Oblivion (back in 2006), the same can be done for Skyrim. Certainly there is nothing unattainable regarding this, and it has nothing to do with "a quest for perfection".


. . . and besides, I guess the Dragonborn is a solipsist: nobody exists for him/her, so the Dragonborn doesn't look at anybody, even when he/she is engaged in a conversation or in a commercial transaction. Why to look at the seller if you can sell and buy wares backwards to him, after all?

Maybe Skyrim is a grim place, but it is clumsy and awkward too.


That is interesting to know. Thank you.


I guess that it is indeed shallow, but however implementing that Oblivion feature wasn't a really hard thing to do. Despite what gloops is saying above, I wonder if a future DLC or any Creation-Kit powered module could address this aspect of the game, at least in an optional way for those of us wanting it.

How so? The feature to have 3rd person is a literal REALITY that Bethesda (i.e. the creators of the game. Unlike you) put in. It is "right" to have one or the other simply because the option exists.

The Elder Scrolls is not a "tradition" or a religion, where everything is written in stone, and there's a council of judges like yourself who deem everything right or wrong.

edit: lol. That aside, I'm finding the problem more accentuated in Kingdoms of Amalur btw.. just because a lot of dialogue options come up. And the player character constantly looks uninterested and cold.

I am personally extremely disappointed in the use of brain invasion for interactive content generation. As if things weren't bad enough! Brain invasion! What has the world come to?

/sarcasm

So you point out I'm wrong in my suggesting the usage of the word "impassive" when you use the same word in defining the word you used to begin with?

Haha, wow.



And I have, did you note the word I used? "Plenty." That's not "none" nor is it "all." For someone being so touchy about pointing out words, you sure missed that key one.


It's already obvious enough, now it's even moreso, and pointing out the join date was just icing on the cake.

He's saying that your wrong in "correcting" him when his original word was correct in the context.




Dragonborn's too cool to be socially adjusted.