Hey wanted to answer two posts :

The one that said my logic is flawed because i criticize the writing and then point in the direction of recruitment as explanation rather than pointing at the writers themselves.

It might be flawed ... but when you know "what is" a pro writer, it might make more sense. I mean, with requirements you exfiltrate profiles, you tell something to the possible candidates reading your job openings. When you seek for a pro writer to write for you, but you ask him to know about programming, you are asking for a profile who doesnt exist : "A pro writer with technical programming knowledge" ... yes, might be, but in your dreams only. Maybe it svcks, but how i see it? If you want a good writer, just seek for a guy which is good at that, and at that only, dont ask him to know anything else, if he does? even better, but he shouldnt have to.

So i dont need to know these "writers", because they should logically fit the requirements that were previously put upon them. Reworking the recruitment process might allow Bethesda to attract pure (and better) writers for futur content, if they dont, we'll stick to the same kind of unappealing stuff in the futur.

See, maybe Bethesda sees Storytelling as a "gift" like "oh, John is really talented and creative", like something that is "innate". But that's only partially innate, then you have a thousand things to learn, train, and master, just like any other "technician". If you are innately good at "drawing", you still have to learn a lot to use that gift. Writers are too often seen as "Autoproclamed dudes with a gift" where they should be seen as "Storytelling technicians/experts". A guy who dedicated his life to mastering the CRAFT of storytelling will most likely know nothing of programming (unless very rare pearl)... so if our "Storytelling expert" wants to work for videogames? He will go to Ubisoft or Bioware or WB, not Bethesda ... 'cause he does not fill the profile.

To Themagician :

And to the post that explained the difference between an easy and difficult story (hence the difference between an in-guild/closed world quest and a very very generalistic MQ), you are totally right, indeed.

But as stated i am aware of that difficulty and i made my opinion acknowledging this. Yes my anolysis might lack a paragraph on "storytelling applied to sandbox videogames", but i still think that no matter the huge difficulty it represents, some 'basic" aspects are not mastered and are failed, and that cannot solely be explained by the difficulty of writing for an open world. The points i cant find any reason to excuse :

- The reversed conflict curve (MQ is less and less tense/impressive/immersive)
- No emotional charge on our actions from A to Z
- And the few characters involved in the quest are mostly monodimensional => It doesn't matter who the dragonborn is, at least having characters with their own evolution, their own weaknesses, their own multiple emotions/reactions would be a start for more interesting characters, doing this is unrelated to the generalistic difficulty of a sandbox game's MQ.

Oh and thanks everyone for reading ... i thought no one would have actually read it (too long).

Some decent criticisms.

I think the story and writing are top notch for a game meant to appeal to a broad audience, that unfortunately means things like WAY overdoing epic battles, letting you see the big bad guy right away etc. I think the days where games like this were made to appeal to 'The sophisticated nerd' who actually want a story that builds are probably gone sadly, because now the demographic they are writing for is so much larger, with a much shorter attention span.

The story is barely serviceable, and for something that stirred in concept for so long, feels entirely phoned in and given little care or consideration past Blackreach. My problems overall with the story/quest design are:


2. Lack of branching quests with alternative outcomes. I hated this so much, there was literally little to no choice presented in any of the quests I have done outside destroying the Dark brotherhood, which is kind of a non-option since it is vastly inferior in the content you get, and the reward. There is no option to oust Maven Blackbriar, no option to work around having to bully the honest people of Riften for the thieves guild, no way of doing the companions questline while refusing to become a werewolf....nothing!

3. Lack of meaningful quests with meaningful resolutions and content. The quest to return the lexicon to Avanchzul (or however you spell it) was fairly interesting, but when we finish it...there's nothing! We can't ask Fathoms about why they actually went there, we can't ask her who the other Argonian actually was (sibling, mate?) or anything about her companions. It's just go here, finish the quest, nothing. She acts completely as if we never even met after its done.


I've said it before: It's got a great looking world that's fun to explore and there's lots to discover, but so little of it has any real substance. It's a game of endless distractions and trivial amusemants that's afraid to offer you anything better because it would impede your ability to "do whatever you want".

And even then, the lack of options present in quests fails it in fulfilling its own mantra. Instead, we have exploits, poor difficulty, mechanics and balancing, generic radiant story quests that eventually cycle through each other, and many other shortcomings that mar...what could have been a truly amazing game...by making it simply good or okay. In short, it has failed to truly tread any new ground that Bethesda has not already trodden. We know Bethesda does great game worlds and lore, bu their not earning any points from me for doing what was already expected of them.

Fear not, there are still quite a few of us not intimitated by words and letters. But as someone posted above, we're a dying breed. Newer audiences tend to require immediate (and concrete) rewards, expositive storytelling, narrative shortcurts, and lots of hand holding, everything to prevent the slightest level of frustration and challenge. Oddly enough, that backfired for Skyrim. Lots of complaints about the game being too easy, so Bethesda might have underestimated the average player's level of intellectual commitment.

One thing that is important saying is that I don't hate Skyrim's main quest. At some points it really becomes something greater. For instance, when certain characters meet around a table to discuss the state of things, you witness one of those moments of greatness. Look, Actors are really confronting each other and you're just a witness this time. There's a living breathing world with actual people, with different personalities, and they are bringing conflict to the table and talking to each other. And then as soon as it starts, it ends, with all of them resuming their daily agenda of sitting around, relying on you to save the world. Wasted potential.

Brilliant post. I agree to 100%.

BioWare succeded on many points in Dragon Age: Origins...atleast imo. The characters had great personalities and the Main Quest was amazing! The side quests..not so much.

Most people don't "agree that the story is lacking." You're assuming everyone agrees with you on that.

I thought the writing was excellent. If you didn't know that you were going to be able to beat the MQ, you haven't been playing video games for very long. Your character doesn't know. The prophecy only says that the Dragonborn is the only one who can completely defeat dragons- because they're the only ones who can take their souls. That doesn't mean you will defeat Alduin, in fact you don't defeat him completely.

Hence why i said "most" people agree that characters/story is lacking. And that leaves a lot of room for you, most is not all.
And you are right, i assumed, no matter how dangerous it is to "assume", well ... i don't think that when you ask playerbase "what did you like the most about skyrim", a lot of them will answer the story/the characters. I might be wrong, i'm not all knowing, but i firmly believe that the majority of the players are vastly unimpressed with the story, they may not "hate it" or even "dislike it" just feeling "neutral", not "thrilled" by it.

As for the prophecy, please replay the game and focus on the "certainty", do you really feel that you will have a tought fight and are likely to loose? Everyone keeps spamming you with "you are the dragonborn, you are meant to save the world", and once you reached alduin's wall, it's like "written into marble" that you will win that fight and save the world.

And i am a long time player ... indeed i win at the end, just like when i start a movie i know the heroe has 90% of winning, skilled storytelling is to overcome what the player/spectator knows : it's just a story. Talent is to make him forget that this is not real, to make him doubt he will win/the heroe will win. Even if he does in the end*. We all know heroes almost always win, yet we all want to be tricked into believing it's an epic fight that the heroe cannot win. Look at the lord of the rings ... OF COURSE we all know all along that Frodo will destroy that stupid ring, but as the story climixes at the end we are all like "no, he will never make it" because all the work of Tolkien was to destroy our hopes. And finally at the end it's a stupid happy ending typical stuff, yet, we were so fooled few minutes ago during the climix.
Indeed the dragonborn will win, but we dont want to have it stated in such an advertised and obvious fahson!

* Personnal opinion : I personnaly prefer ironic endings, both negative and positive, the heroe lost as much as he won. It's more realistic and flavourful in my opinion. Like the heroe killed the baddie and saved the world but had to sacrifice everything he stood for to achieve that, that kind of ending. But indeed in most video game (even more openworld ones), we want to be the heroe that succeed in the end, i understand that, and that's fine that way, but at least try to make me doubt that i will ever win, that makes my victory even more heroic

I agree with what you're saying op but what you, and I, want is currently impossible due to technical limitations. Example given, Red Dead Redemption.

Rdr is in my opinion the next best thing in sand box style games and it has what your describe, an engrossing storyline told through in engine cutscenes. There are plenty of real characters and real character development, as well as plot twists and a great ending. Problem is, player choice and freedom is sacrificed to achieve this. You are John Marston period, you can be a dike to the people around you, you can kill them, fight the law or help them and the game notices this stuff and reacts. However when it comes to story you are still stuck with the most important decisions being made for you. Bummed you can't get a hoker? Bummed you can't start a romance? Wanna talk to essential npcs outside of a cutscenes, or kill them? Sorry you can't. Those decisions HAD to be made for you for the sake of the story. Can't have John's character develop into the tragic hero saving his family if you're out [censored] [censored]s.

The reason it has to be like this is simple technical limitations, if you have complete freedom of choice the game has to write a dynamic and engrossing storyline on the fly, otherwise you're back to being on rails and having major character decisions made for you, there just isn't an engine capable of writing a story around your decisions or hardware capable of running it.

Even games like those from Bioware with their detailed stories only have pretend choice. All of your character choice boils down to a generic good choice, generic bad choice, then a don't care or sarcastic choice where every possibility has to be predetermined and thus limited in scope to save dev time and investment as well as meet hardware capabilities. Bioware games are essentially "Choose your own adventure" books with a pretty Gui.

So the storyline you want and the freedom we expect won't happen until significant advances are made in both software and hardware.

Nice point OP. I think the main problem relies in the lack of mystery, drama and the "easy pie" feeling you get since you kill your first dragon.

OP, you would only get a TLDR response is because of all your TLDRs!

Anyways, my biggest gripe is that you are forced into the MQ if you do the civil war. I don't like that. You bring up good points though. Not only is the story somewhat lackluster, the mechanics behind it are also lackluster, ie lack of recognition.

Voice acting is also limited by the media itself. There is only so much you can cram on a disk, and voice files take up a lot of space. Perhaps this won't be a problem in the next Beth game assuming it's designed for the next generation of consoles.

Text isn't a viable alternative anymore, though. Sadly, even the OP felt compelled to include the "TL;DRs" because people can't be bothered any more to read anything longer than a tweet.

I've personally railed about my disappointment in the story of this game probably way too much.Yes , there's a limit to what you can cram into anything , especially hard when you're treading dangerous waters trying to please everybody.But my disapponitment and sometimes almost anger at the problems in the story part of this game isn't because of just the story not being all it could be , it's because the rest of the game is so markedly better than anything I've played before.You get this feeling of good god , if they can create this massive interactive beauiful world , then surely they can flesh out the social parts of the game.Given different perspectives and not knowing how hard or easy certain things are in generating a decent game , I withdraw the anger part of my rails.

I see that there is a pre-made "kit" where you can generate parts of the game and develop what you want , but I don't seem to have heard mention of anybody trying some similar idea with voice acting.And no I don't believe every single voice generated in a game should be some dynamically awesome star voice actor.That would rub against the grain of immersion as some people in reality aren't exactly blessed with the "gift of gab" or just seriously have terrible voices , to no fault of their own.maybe if there was a sort of spoken word type of site kind of like a word-tube where people interested could read random lines and if their reading is accepted maybe recieve a discount coupon for something random.I'd even pay a small subscription fee to be a member of a work like that to support small recompense to people whose voices got used.Then the forum section could be bragging rights about getting sourced alot for this.

As an example of why I think something widespread and used by more than just one game developer , while playing this game i swear i heard the sergeant cook guy from Mass Effect2 and I was like ok , everybody else in this game has an accent that kind of hints you where they're from except this guy.General Tullius , while a great voice just sounds like an american sergeant who has had to yell way too much for a good part of his life , I truly expected more of a tougher than nails britich commander voice when I first spoke to him.But all of this is random wants from one person and there's literally millions of us with wants and opinions.

All of this.
Thieves Guild was especially annoying in that sense.

Oooh. I just thought of something: Most of my favorite stories, quests or vaults in Fallout New Vegas came from a young and hopefully up-and-coming designer named Eric Fenstermaker. Bethesda, hire this kid.

Note, there is some 2 gb of room left available and unused on the xbox Dvd and it's the smallest media the game comes on. So storage space was not the issue.

^This.

Here's your challenge: write a single scene between the player and one of the main quest characters that is engaging, carries dramatic tension, and has convincing dialogue. Here's a small test sample of player characters that the dialogue must be written for:

1. A player who wants to play the part of a noble warrior (the Nord equivalent of a knight) who fully embraces his destiny as a Dragonborn. He's big and tough and wants to "save the world". (Here's your "straight" character.) How does your quest character address them? What does he or she say?

2. A player who wants to play the part of a mage who is physically weak, craves magickal power, has rarely ever stepped outdoors and is skeptical of her destiny as a Dragonborn. She is indifferent to the plights of the many and only concerned about accumulating knowledge and furthering her own development. She'd rather read a book than delve a dungeon.

3. A sleazy Bosmer cutpurse who has spent his entire life stealing from people he considers trusting fools. He thinks the whole Dragonborn thing is a load of crap, but he'll use his "destiny" to score some big gold from superstitious idiots who think he is some sort of hero. He couldn't care less who lives or dies as long as it isn't him.

4. A high-minded Altmer who has decided to spurn civilization and live in the forests as a druid. This character doesn't believe that man or mer have any more right to existence than the dragons. He is indifferent to civilization and views all things dispassionately from the perspective of natural balance and harmony. He has no interest in participating in the affairs of men and cares nothing for politics, seeing all men as equally foolish.

5. A simple Breton alchemist who wants to tend her garden and heal the sick. She's much too humble to believe that she could be the Dragonborn, and while she might go along with it, she always thinks that it's a mistake, that somehow the gods have chosen the wrong person. She spends most of her time trying to convince people that they have the wrong person.

6. A bloodthirsty Orc barbarian whose sole purpose in life is to prove that he is the most powerful warrior that ever lived. He cares only for his own glory and nothing for others. Being the Dragonborn simply confirms what he already believes. In fact, there's no reason why he shouldn't be the high king of Skyrim since he's obviously been chosen by the gods.

Now, write a dialogue between this character (through dialogue options) and the main quest character they are conversing with. The dialogue options have to suit the player's character and the NPC's dialogue has to apply equally well to each example character. (All of them are equally valid RP options, so you can't exclude any of them.)

Now write a story arc that accommodates each of these player's RP preferences. Each quest in the story has to be able to appeal to all of these (and innumerable more) types. Has the plot changed at all based on the character?

Now try another experiment: pick any one of these characters and write dialogue and a story arc that applies to this character alone. The player has no choice but to play the part of the character you have selected. Was this easier to do? Was the writing better? Was the story more engaging?

I encourage everyone reading this to give it a go.

Writing for sandbox games is not the same as writing a linear script. Each dialogue "chunk" has to stand alone and appeal to every possible play-style. Every quest has to appeal to every possible character type. Unless you provide branching options. If you take a single narrative for a pre-made linear game and allow for even one other character type written with the same degree of depth and conviction, you have effectively doubled the length of the script. You have also doubled the cost of writing and voice acting and added additional testing. I guarantee you that no two lines of dialogue will be the same if you are writing convincing dialogue that effectively captures the player's choices. Every time you add another character type and expect to achieve the same high quality as the first, you have added the full length of the script again, along with all of the different branching quest options, etc. And that doesn't even include cutscenes, which are almost anathema to a sandbox RPG.

The only way to reduce the workload is to remove choices from the player. The fewer choices the player has, the easier it will be to write, and the less it will be a sandbox RPG. The developers pick a point somewhere on the line between tightly scripted linear narrative and open, free-form sandbox and write to that point. The closer you are the first pole, the better the writing is and the fewer choices you have. The farther to the latter pole, the worse the writing is and the more choices you have. That doesn't mean sandbox games have to have bad writing, and that some aren't better written than others, only that they need to spend exponentially more time and money writing and producing it if they hope to provide the same quality as the linear narrative.

Some great points made throughout this thread. Thanks all for taking the time for intelligent critique. I've thought a bit about the shortcomings of Skyrim in comparison to the opportunities offered by tabletop RPGs run by humans as opposed to consoles/computers. It seems to me that the limitations identified by Federally and TheMagician are a bigger hindrance to a better Skyrim than the writing talent at Bethesda.

One point that I'm not sure has been made is the idea that your emotional investment as a player in the story and characters might have been intended to happen outside the game. For example, I have become rather attached to the NPC Lydia because of the adventures she and my character survived together in the game. Thus, I have invested character resources in keeping her alive. It is not the most "efficient" way to play, but it is a bit of RP that I have self-imposed because I had an emotional connection. I suspect that Bethesda's intent was that we the players would develop emotional interests in characters and stories on our own, rather than through their plot machinations. Their success or failure in this regard is clearly up for debate. I won't argue that there are elements of the game and story that hinder emotional investment, but considering what I view as Bethesda's intent, I'm happy to explore my own little emotional investments in their world. When my immersion is broken by limitations of the game mechanics or story options, I move on to other things.

This is correct. Bethesda wants us to add to our game experience through Rp and they give us a lot of choices to do so. Some of the writing could be improved as you've mentioned but as has been pointed out technical and fiscal limitations will prevent what you and most of us want, which is a dynamically written story that adjusts to the player.

What Bethesda could achieve and us a much more realistic goal is simply a world that reacts a bit better to the character as a whole. Simply adding a few dialogue lines to guild members that show acknowledgment too your leadership role or a few lines from npcs thanking you for killing certain big bad guys, the list could go on. It wouldn't be to difficult to make the game further allow and notice thee players Rp without having to write incredibly dynamic story lines with unending possibilities based on player choice. Just doing what they are doing better would bring up the immersion level quite a bit and would really improve the experience even if the mq story is a bit generic.

Everything you say is accurate. I agree completely. Your post should be turned into a memo at Bethesda's offices and made mandatory reading.

the story isn't what makes bethesda games like the elder scrolls or fallout 3 great, they actually implement a lot of good aspects to a good story quite well....drama, suspense, action, epic moments...but bethesda games are not story driven and i'm glad they aren't...they are exploration and combat driven mostly...if you get too focused on story you end up with a game like new vegas which the story ends up not that good anyway and everything else gets neglected like good battle locations or large dungeons and you end up with a boring empty gameworld with hardly anything going on...what makes the game fun is cruising around, taken over guilds, fighting enemies, exploring dungeons, doing different quests, the game has plenty going for it and the story may not be stellar, but its a story and it serves as the backdrop to events.

I don't have an issue with the lack of branching in the faction questlines, although quests should be resdesigned so there's consisderably less hand-holding. So long as the conditions are met, it shouldn't matter how the player achieves them. Yet this insistance on hand-holding is actually hampering player freedom and creativity, by forcing you to do x and y before the game will even acknowledge you met objective z. Not all quests suffer from this, but enough do. As an example of how ridiculous it's gotten - I couldn't complete a quest until I went back and used a particular door (and gotten the update for the damned door).

Where the game is in dire need of branching paths is the MQ. Your character is bounced back and forth between opposing factions for no logical reason and then forced to side with one of them so late in the questline that it's pointless. The main characters have no depth, and that's badly needed for us to care. Didn't Bethesda already get hammered on this point for Oblivion?

I don't expect this game to be like real-life. This would require more advances in the software and hardware.

I do expect the game to recognize where I have been, and what I have done. I do expect the game to advance the storylines, both major and minor.

Ysolda is a character in Whiterun. She is attempting to learn skills as a merchant so she can become the owner of the Bannered Mare, in the same city. She is working with the innkeeper at the inn towards this goal. She is trading and acquiring skills from the Khajit merchants. She buys Sleeping Tree Sap from the player for reasons that aren't disclosed. Everytime I pass her, I feel that she has become frozen in time for she repeats the same lines. How hard would it be to create a story for her? My character wouldn't necessary need to be completely involved in her story (maybe helping her with a few tasks that help her to her goal), but wouldn't it be nice as I pass her that I notice that her character is moving closer to her goal and to see her one day as the innkeeper. And, if I did help her, I think there would be a reward system, maybe a discount at her inn for her wares and for a room at the inn.

I don't fault Bethsaida for prioritizing graphics and aesthetics over story and characters. They are riding and benefiting from a trend that is prevalent in the industry today.

I get your point but it's not as bad as you think. Kill the innkeeper in whiterun and see what happens with Ysolda.

Bethesda did a decent job of programming reactivity into the game, so it baffles me how they managed to drop the ball with the end of the Civil War questline.