Casual Gameplay is a state of mind, for the hardcoe gamer.

Everyone wants a sense of discovery, but not everyone agrees that skyrim had that. Everyone has been complaining, since Oblivion, that TES games were getting too obvious and casual.

Skyrim DOES have a sense of discovery. The ONLY time it ever gives you a location to go is during a quest. As for everything else, you need to fast travel by carraige, or explore. Simple as that.

Your Dodge Skill has Increased to 100.

Threw up another edit and further dodging in my previous post.

Ding!

Your pretending to make a guy look stupid skill has increased to . ..... ... ..67? Shuddap.

And as I have understood it they complained about the series becoming dumbed down when Morrowind arrived too.

And yes, I think Skyrim has a sense of discovery. I would have loved that they had added more fun, small, unique items specific for certain dungeons(nothing super powerful would be neede, just unique stuff), but I love how you can almost always find a small story, having a chance of finding a word wall and things like that.

Well, I tend to take objections to pseudo intellectual spin with no admission to false beginnings...

Some people are always right, regardless...

It should be quite clear that Todd Howard himself makes the distinction between "alien" and "wonder of discovery". Your subjective opinion that they're the same just don't hold up.

@Syv well in that case...


I'm glad we've apparently reached common ground. The reason I picked the article was because I happened to notice it listed on Steam under Morrowind's 'Most Recent News', and clicked on it which gave me the inspiration for this thread. Frankly I'm glad that the YouTube video featuring a lengthy interview with Todd was in fact posted, it gave me a lot more to point out and reference since the article I originally gave didn't have much in it.

And now @ Tdroid

This is probably true. I only joined these forums last summer, and wasn't active in any online TES community until that point. I also have never played Daggerfall or Arena.

Daggerfall was an Olympic sized pool. It was huge, you could do a lot of things in it, and enjoy yourself in the deep and shallow end
Morrowind is a normal sized pool. You can still do most everything you could in Daggerfall, it had deep and shallow parts, great fun though it would be nice if it was a little bigger.
Skyrim is a hot tub, it feels good, it can be enjoyable, it looks nice, but you realize it's really shallow and you can't really do much with it. And if what you're looking for is a pool then you probably just aim for the Morrowind-edition. You'll be able to upgrade it later.

How's that for a tortured anology?

In what possible context was that a Subjective Opinion? I was just hopping on the train with you and the conversation you were having with Ravenius.

Was the statement in your second paragraph intent on sarcasm? I couldn't quite piece it in all honesty.

But regardless. The earliest of the early TES games had no compass. People liked that, because they didn't know where they were going. They relied on their memory, and quick-thinking intelligence to get from one place to another.

If you want to know my personal theory for the reason bethesda bumped down the difficulty? Not everyone has a perfect memory. Some people, if not, most wouldn't even touch the game, because they would get lost within the first few minutes.

I don't blame them.. but still.. making it a bit more casual is OK. Not compared to the people that think a small compass destroys everything.

Well, there's a quite clear distinction between "an alien feeling" and "wonder of discovery". Don't throw paragraphs of text on the former when you're really arguing the latter. In that context he's not correct =P

To answer your question. In the linked youtube interview, the distinction is pretty well drawn.

Nope, no sarcasm.

I never even meant to take a side in this 'argument'. It was merely a practical joke. No harm done.

Ahah. Well.. touche'. Nontheless, it's true.

Arguing on the interweb after 24+ hours of no sleep is fun

You're lucky.

I have a mental/sleeping disorder that affects me in a few ways. If I stay up longer than 2AM at night, and wake up the following day, I get dizzy mood swings.

Well easter wreck havoc on internal time. Need to sort it by tomorrow.

oh... oh GAWD.

Had to re-read that eurogamer article. Truly, they speak of morrowind regarding alien, but the whole thing (including its source) is such scrambled rubbish that its easily misunderstood..

Ok, enough.

Procedural content. That is the source of most of Skyrim's woes.

In Morrowind, every cell, every house, every single NPC of that game was designed with a purpose, with context, with flavor.

In Skyrim, almost every location and almost every person is the product of a computer algorithm. Math cannot impart context to a situation, it can simply generate content. Only a human being can tell a story without typing or saying a single word.

Procedural content is a powerful tool, but like all powerful tools, it can, and often is misused with disastrous results not immediately evident. You can't tell me why a particular fort or cave is special if you change the context every 10 game days.

As a general rule of thumb, when you're dealing with Sentient NPCs, Procedural content should be used sparingly. Impart very specific contextual details whenever possible. "Animal" or "Monster" Caves need not be so precise. However, spawning 4th era Nord weapons in a Dwemer Ruin still patrolled by active animunculi, or an Altmer-make Glass Sword in an ancient Nordic Ruin are blunders... Even when it was "Random" Morrowind still spawned items with context. Eventually conditioning all players of Morrowind to greatly anticipate seeing Daedric ruins, as their fiercely devoted cultists would often leave wonderful offerings for their deities.

Wait. The only procedural content in Skyrim is the quests (particularly the radiant ones) loot, enemy generation (unless interrupted by a quest) and the AI. the world was handcrafted (well I assume they used a heightmap but hey even Morrowind did that), the dungeons were handcrafted, the towns and places were all handcrafted... so to say locations were procedural is wrong, that was Oblivion (and earlier games like Arena and Daggerfall) that did that.

However, I do agree with your point about contextual levelled lists, I do miss them, they made a lot more sense than the generic loot we get. Still, could be worse, everything could be levelled akin to Oblivion (well most things, but enough to be a problem).

nope. i'm with criminal on this one and i think you're missing the point: EVERYTHING had context, flavor and purpose.

has nothing to do with handcrafting every locale. that's art and graphics and detail.

the 'cookie-cutter algorithm' goes beyond the unique interior design. that's just 2002 vs 2012.

it has to do with meaning and attachment to those places and people and events.

skyrim definitely has some of it (i always do the gold claw quest because it has identity and flavor), but, with all their tech advances over morrowind and the like, should have much more of it.

/thread.

The terms Procedural and "Product of a computer algorithm" specifically mean generated by a computer. To say locations were computer generated is wrong. "Cookie-Cutter algorithm" (referring to humans building something to an algorithm) maybe, but procedural? No.

And actually, outside of the Radiant Quests, Skyrim's characters and dungeons are very contextual. What is lacking is in the loot mostly. The dungeons are very immersive, have a distinct purpose and there is often a story to be told in each of them (unless it's a one room cave with say, a bear in it), but they have two flaws - loot which does not fit because it WAS placed procedurally and the fact that most are far too linear.

Morrowind was admittedly better in some ways, though it still suffered from random caves for caves' sake. Other dungeon types were fine, but the caves were often just caves. Also, Morrowind's dungeons were just as cookie-cutter as Skyrim's (as in, not very), with the exception that loot made more sense. The dungeons rarely had stories, but this wasn't too bad as you got the idea of what was going on anyway. They were also the smallest of the series, but this did make them more places than dungeons.

The radiant quests are a call back to Daggerfall, intended to be a solution to the problem of running out of acceptable quests.

yes, i understand your interpretation of algorithm and i obviously don't know exactly what his entire meaning of the phrase consisted of. however, specific is anything but the only meaning of the phrase.

for me, it means much more than a computer generated repetition or hand-crafted locales.

even contextual has issues with many, since, it's hard to find non-contextual locations: caves' sake is exactly what many want more of.

radiant quest has nothing to do with what i'm talking about. in fact, i could care less about them. there's enough content already and too many other aspects got whittled or eliminated.

again, i'm talking about context, flavor and purpose outside of specific quests and graphics.

edit: really, what i'm talking about is exactly the question the op put forth: is skyrim 'alien?' for me, hand-crafted locales has nothing to do with it. graphics and art style don't matter. radiant quests are beside the point.

skyrim is anything but unique or compelling.

You're only half right, which makes you all wrong. The landscape, dungeons, Spawn points and item spots are all hand crafted. How those slots are filled out are almost entirely procedural. Even instances of items laying out in the open are procedural and radiant (For example, you can find an Iron sword in a fort, and on another playthrough, the same sword will be an Ebony sword). Skyrim does a lot better work with Procedural stuff, but it's still too much.

So what this creates is a world with a ton of detail, but very little context. Go back to Morrowind, and go through a cave. Each NPC had specific apparel, armor and loot which could impart context to their life, including class, fighting style and success (Successful bandits tend to wear better gear). Likewise, you find similar items strewn about within this area. You're not going to find any Ebony, Daedric or even Dwemer items in the smuggler cave of Adamasartirus (Or whatever it's called) right outside Seyda Neen. But out in the Dagon Fel region, you can find more successful bandits boasting Ebony or orcish armors. This even goes so far as to personalize base weapons for individuals, such as the custom Axes and spears many of the Ashkans and Agulukahns of the Ashlander Tribes use.