I really liked the directions in Morrowind and they did not have a compass that held your hand and pointed in the direction you needed to go, I got lost a few times and I enjoyed what I found when I was lost.

The sad reality is that, in a lot of cases, you can't trades features like that anymore. Meaningful choices become more of a balancing issues (not to mention scripting) as players expect more and more from their games and they want every option to be as viable as the next. Reminds me of the threads on the forums complaining that Mages were not as efficient as Warriors back when Skyrim was released. You CHOSE to be a mage, etc, etc.

"Why am I being penalized for saying NO to an NPC? Now he won't give me the quest" type of thing. It's an exaggeration but you get the point.

Stuff like Graphics and Audio aren't really up for trade anymore since they don't limit game design like they used to.

Very true. I understand that the possible amount of gameplay choice lost or gained is purely theoretical. Not to mention they have an entire lore that has to make sense beyond the actual quests working. Although I personally have said they should just do what Mortal Kombat has been doing since the 90s. You can end the game in multiple ways, but only one is the "True" ending and that one is the one recorded in the lore. Hell, RPGs have done that before. Although I know a lot of people would have a huge problem with that.

I was just always the one thinking, what if instead of going to Weynon Priory with the Amulet of Kings, I was delivering the Amulet to the Mythic Dawn, I was leading the siege on Bruma and Kvatch, I was the one fighting Blades and Martin?

No, not just as well--in Skyrim you don't get directions to your quest object--you must follow the silly all-knowing compass. I also want to be able to ask about a specific person. In the town or city where he lives, at least few should know which is his home, or where he works. I don't care that he isn't always at those places, but someone should know those things, and be able to tell me.

Oh god! My entire Orc campaign in Warcraft 1 and 2 RUINED!!!

the two things are not mutually exclusive.. look at bioware games. but there is still only a limited amount of interaction.. you'll only get a lot of dialogue with a few people. in morrowind you could talk to everyone, but 90% of what they said was just copy pasta. and still not much "choices". because at the end of the day it doesnt matter in the same way as biowares dialogue does.

I want full voice acting and deep branches. If that's not possible (although we all know it is) then I choose voice acting.

Dragon Age Origins managed both pretty well.

Yeah, also an incredibly linear game compared to Skyrim... like I already mentioned in the OP...

It is sad. Especially since not all options should be equally viable. There should be various paths, but some better than others, and some used solely because it's still possible (given the PC's past actions or recent events). It's silly IMO to always expect access to the best and most ideal (and profitable) outcome.

I disagree ~except... not so much when the scope of the game is so shallow that flashy-visuals use up resources that would otherwise not get used. I truly believe that games can be made that use the hardware for more than just shaders. One could make even a first person game where the PC is blind and the engine uses detailed 3d audio (and voice work ) as well as limited graphical effects to impart the surroundings...

Imagine a Zatoichi RPG done this way ~where your role is (of course) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zatoichi. Styled much like a non-fantasy Witcher 2; but the screen is usually pitch black unless something makes a noise, and then you see white light pulses that follow the contours of the 3d level geometry (in addition to the accurate sounds). There is a game that has no textures, and need only be done in greyscale ~yet could be just as deep as they wished... and if they put effort into carefully designing the interface with audio cues... they could sell the game to both the sighted and the blind.

But why exactly? (or specifically)

Is it that depth is not really as important?

a foreign language is best because
1/ it`s realistic-Why do they happen to speak English in Tamriel?
2/ Dialogue samples can be repeated to represent different words-Only the type who writes English-Klingon dictionaries would be any the wiser- more dialogue.
3/ Having a text interface spoils the immersion into the game but subtitles must be better than silent actors.

I'm not saying that you can't have a game without video or audio (although, it wouldn't be my thing), I'm saying if your game has video or audio, putting more or less effort/money doesn't really have that much of an impact on game design. In this particular case, if you want more options in your dialogue, you have to design your game that way; voice over or not. So you might as well have the artists do the best work they can.

There IS depth, though. It's just elsewhere. Having someone actually deliver a line of dialogue, or walking down the street and hearing characters dance, sing, cheer, shout adds so much to the atmosphere. Add that to the convenience that the player only had to walk around to get that experience is phemoninal and I wouldnt trade that for more options especially consider how well Bethesda handled the dialogue mechanic in the Elder Scrolls series. I personally think its clever and better than anything Bioware did (although I think that's another discussion entirely - if you're curious, I'll definitely share my thoughts)

Quality, not quantity, I always say.

I personally can't read that fast. Problem not solved.


If that had been true Oblivion would have been at least as hardcoe as Morrowind, but it isn't. The VA fills over half the disc's space, leaving very little for content.


That's like chosing a game with good graphics and bad gameplay over a game with bad graphics and good gameplay.

New Vegas managed to get some sixty five thousand lines of dialogue (somewhat more than Skyrim), all generally of higher standard than Skyrim's dialogue and have lots deep branching conversations. This issue isn't voice acting, its that Bethesda isn't willing to put the time and effort into making sure Skyrim has good dialogue. I remember Pete Hines saying they didn't put that much effort into FO3's dialogue because 'they only had so many monkey's with typewriters'. I think that attitude shows exactly what the problem is.

Well said
Why should we choose between cake and pie when we can have both. It's Bethesda who needs to better their writing.

Those who have shackled themselves to the false choice of either/or refuse to acknowledge the existence of games like New Vegas which demonstrate empirically that you can have both.

1.) washing clothes by hand is not the correct application to text. text isn't inferior. "keeper feature" actually adds to his argument.

2.) yes, other games aren't as open or nonlinear as TES. redundancy doesn't apply. your argument simply states that a game not as open or nonlinear as skyrim has full voice acting. ok.

3.) i really wanted to see how someone would counterpoint this fact about text. to disregard space and money doesn't work because those ARE the qualities that matter, i assume, in the end.

yes, i want full voice acting with the OPTION to turn it ALL off and use subtitles only. and, i want deep, varied, and meaningful branches.

in a vacuum argument, sure, your point is valid, but, that is not the type. with limited space, money, and time and all things being equal, text will always allow for more because of its inherent nature.

I'm always curious about other viewpoints, and I agree about quality over quantity ~to an extent.
However... I would rather a vast & complex RPG with Diablo 2 style graphics and audio, over a seventeen room photorealistic dungeon simulation.

When I look at a game I boil it down... and in the end http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Kills-Dragon.jpg; I don't rank them as different or one better than the other.
(and its a fact that if the designer only had to track & display the sprites instead of render a dozen shaders and several multi-K polygon models, and their lighting) they would have more RAM and resource for story related AI and events. It's common knowledge that the graphics settings dictate the frame rate and AI speed. When I tried FO3 on a minimum spec PC, the game played fine at higher settings, but became a slideshow when combat commenced against even a single enemy.

Voice acting, if I wanted to read I would go and buy a book.

completely miss the entire point.

That bethesda don't have the man power to implement everything you want? I would call that a fact of life rather than an attitude.

It's not missing the point, if everything is text and there is more quantity of it, when am I ever going to be able to play instead of read?

The question is (loosely put), if given the choice, would one want a fully voiced story with a 100 page script, or a [mostly] textual story with a 1000 page script?

*In these games the script is more like the old 'Choose your own Adventure' books, where a 100 page book actually had three or four 25-30 page branching stories in it.

That's not the immediate point of it ~yes their could be more text, but the intent of that is that there could be more story; and more tangential side quests and interaction.

The answer is already in my answer, I want voice acting.