You can buy unsprayed organic fruit ya know

If you had been around here when Morrowind was released you would have heard Daggerfall fans say the same thing about Morrowind. Morrowind was nothing but a shallow "action game" with all the deep roleplaying elements removed to appeal to the brainless masses, dumbed down to appeal to XBox users, it had nothing to offer but shiny graphics, ect, ect, ect.

This kind of argument never ends. Curmudgeonism never goes away. It was always better in "the old days." Me, I just play the games.

the blatant refusal is on anyone who thinks that perks can replace attributes.

they can't, unless, the perk itself is an attribute.

perks are governed by attributes, plural. attributes are fundamental characteristics. a singe perk can't do what one attribute can, let alone, the different attribute combos.

you give me any perk and i can change it with 1attribute or a combo of attributes. i'm sure there's a math guy on this forum that could get the exact numbers associated with all the possible combos with 6 attributes ranging on a 1-10 scale.

I remember my first character was a fighter, but I joined Hlaalu. After a while I realised that I would never be able to finish the Hlaalu plotline without a complete about-face to play a way I didn't wish to. My character was partly useless, through no fault of mine

It seems nowdays the companies only cared for money

Is it really the industries fault, or the consumer base who keeps buying it? Its very hypocritical to say things are getting bad, then turn around and buy their games.

I agree with all of this, except Oblivion being better than Morrowind (referencing the "every sequel is better than the last"), I don't think that's the case.

But I wouldn't call it any less of an RPG however. I just think as an entire package, it's not quite up to snuff with Morrowind.

It is, however, still a great game, one of my top 3 all time.

But basically - they can't explain why Skyrim is less RPG than the other games, other than the fact that the numbers they want are gone. I posted earlier on this page even about all the things that perks do that attributes did, and even asked to name one thing that attributes do that perks don't, and that question went unanswered.

The responses typically come down to loss of attributes (and blatantly refusing to acknowledge that perks do the same things that attributes did, and cover the same areas), lack of questline options (as if branching quests was ever a thing in past Elder Scrolls games), and an apparent lack of in game consequences (again, as if that was ever a big deal in past Elder Scrolls games, and it also blatantly refuses to acknowledge the areas where the game does acknowledge your actions and choices, and instead focuses on some glitchy dialogue that sometimes has a guard, in passing, call you the new recruit to the College when you are the Arch-Mage).

Sorry when wasn't this the case? It's the whole purpose for them when releasing a game.

That's the exact reason I did not purchase Mass Effect 3 and I won't. 2 strayed too far from the original for my taste. I wanted more RPG not less. Too many things get removed or streamlined and the games change from RPG to Action. It's all about the action and the fast pacing and hell, why not just make a first person shooter to begin with if you're going to go that way. I played ME1 multiple times. ME2 I played once and returned it. ME3 I'll never play. The franchise is dead to me now.

That's not the point. People are acting like perks are some great breakthrough or genius when in fact they really arent. If anything they should've been smarter about how they did perks, and just added them to the existing Attributes + Skills system like Fallout does. Again, what is Beth's fetish for taking stuff away?

Besides, perks as they are in Skyrim don't really provide you with more choices. It's illusory - here is the 'build' for the one handed perk tree for every single one of my characters who use one handed weapons. http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8821/perksy.jpg except switch out Bladesman for Hack-and-Slash once in awhile. If you tend to always pick the same perks for each tree, it's hardly customization - its routine.



I don't know, if you enjoyed KOTOR and like MMO's then it should be a perfect game for you. If you don't like KOTOR, or don't like MMO's then of course it's not. If you like KOTOR and like MMO's but hated SWTOR then I think you must have been on something. It may also surprise you to know that I play and enjoy both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. I also regularly play League of Legends, and most grand strategy titles from Paradox including Hearts of Iron 3, Crusader Kings II, and Europa Universalis 3. I also play RTS games from Relic including Company of Heroes and the Dawn of War series in every single one of its iterations. Furthermore I also enjoyed the Warhammer 40K: Space Marine multiplayer before I got fed up with the rampant lag.

So, trust me when I say that I have a large enough repertoire that you whether or not I like SWTOR isn't all that indicative. I also own and very much enjoy The Witcher, Metro 2033 (oh gosh I loved this game), Mafia 2, and Dead Island, which is a pretty broad range of games that could very loosely fall under the categorization of 'RPG'.

That's the exact reason I did not purchase Mass Effect 3 and I won't. 2 strayed too far from the original for my taste. I wanted more RPG not less. Too many things get removed or streamlined and the games change from RPG to Action. It's all about the action and the fast pacing and hell, why not just make a first person shooter to begin with if you're going to go that way. I played ME1 multiple times. ME2 I played once and returned it. ME3 I'll never play. The franchise is dead to me now.

Dragon Age also was a huge let down. I enjoyed the first one a lot and was hoping the second one would get even better. Instead they took the absolute worst aspects of the first game and that was the second game. Blah. What the hell were they thinking? I played the demo and hated it and then read what everyone had to say and I didn't buy that game either.

I have to say Bethesda has gone that way to some degree but not so badly that I'm going to trash them over it. I just hope it doesn't simplify any further. If anything it needs to head back to the RPG roots and complexity it started with or at least find a way to blend some of that in so the series doesn't continue to devolve into another action clone.

This was one of the very serious failings of Morrowind. There were specidic requirements to join factions, but the game never informed the player what those requirements were. That is bad game design, pure and simple.

It is probably much closer to good game design than it is to a serious failing. The player is given opportunities to learn what each House stands for before he has his character join one. He is supposed to join on principle, not on skills compatibility, and the principles of the different Houses cue the player in somewhat to which skills each house prizes.

I know this opinion isn't a very popular one, but I actually like the perk system more than the old exposed levelling algorithm of Morrowind/Oblivion. Though I enjoyed making super-duper jacks-of-all-trades in both previous titles becaues it was easy to figure out the algorithm and exploit it (how could I not give into that temptation), I actually like not being able to any longer with the perk system. If I start out with a particular build in mind (strict fighter class), I cannot become a super mage/thief later on in the game (though I could train/develop those skills, I'll never be able to take full advantage of their perks). In Morrwind/Oblivion, I could create gods. In Skyrim, it's much more difficult to create something like that.

I think we need to accept that there are two ends to the RPG scale: micro-managed (aka "anol") and adventure (aka "dumbed down"). Most of the games that some RPGers cite as "classic" tend to involve enormous amounts of work on their character before and during gameplay. That's fine, if that's what floats your boat, but many of us find it very hard to get going, and very easy to lose interest. I'm one of those people who does NOT want to have to pause the game before every combat to set the fight up or whatever. As for deep character setup, the problem with that is a simple one: it's far to easy to **** the build up right at the beginning. Those harking back to Morrowind forget how easy it was to accidentally gimp the build. I remember my first character was a fighter, but I joined Hlaalu. After a while I realised that I would never be able to finish the Hlaalu plotline without a complete about-face to play a way I didn't wish to. My character was partly useless, through no fault of mine. Now I had enough time to play another character (and eventually about forty more) but many players would just give up at that point - I did for nearly four weeks.


A point the hard-core RPGers struggle to understand is that they are a minority: most gamers play only a little, and only a few games. They want to be able to leap in, and not spend an hour setting up an optimum build. Yes, some do, but most don't. The beauty of Skyrim, and it's bigest joy, is that you can just play. And then you can just play another way if you wish. But I don't have to spend twenty minutes moving points around or whatever. I'm not saying there isn't room for Baldur's Gate three, it's just most people won't play it.

I have no incentive to build another character in Skyrim, why should I? I can be a warrior, a mage, an assassin, a thief and the hero of Skyrim in all one character.

It makes no difference what race I choose, I can do them all with no problems with no problems.

I can just change my "Standing Stone" at will. Again, no decision to make no consequences for those choices.

I don't have to decide whether I want to be a mage or a warrior or a thief or an assassin. I can choose one, when I get bored I choose another, and then another, and then another. No decision, no consequences.

RPG's have never been about "Easy"

and it's a damn shame that TES has turned into that.

This is odd to me, because it was much easier to be all those things in Oblivion. Level up every skill, get every perk, get every ability at max power. Skyrim, can't do that. So I've honestly no clue what you're talking about.



And how is this different than Oblivion? The skill & stat bonuses between races all disappeared after a few levels. All that was left was..... racial abilities! Which we still have. I already just picked race in Oblivion by "theme" or appearance. Stat differences meant virtually nothing.



Just like in Oblivion.



Again, the only thing that restricted you to "warrior" or "mage" in Oblivion was your personal decision of which skills you wanted to use on "Bob" vs "Joe".



Don't believe they were ever about "Hard" either.


Again, you seem to be acting like this is something new.

It is something new. It started with Oblivion and it's gotten even worse in Skyrim. I dislike Oblivion, I dislike Skyrim. I have said since the beginning that Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind were the TES RPG's. Oblivion and Skyrim are just open world games, nothing more than that.

All that stuff you quoted, that was a response to what you said, can be said about Morrowind as well.

You obviously didn't play Morrowind because Morrowind had all of those things. It has classes, attributes and birthsigns. It had races that had distinguishable differences. You actually had to make decisions before hand on what you wanted to do and those decisions has consequences on your character during the game and your ability to level up in the game.