Bioware was one of my favorite companies. I loved KOTOR and DA:O, and ME was good. Then ME2 was disappointing, and DA2 I played once.

I hope to God Bethesda doesn't follow in their footsteps.

That's exactly my point. Fallout didn't run into those kinds of problems because it simply never allowed you to get a position that begs the question. Even in New Vegas if you end the game on your own terms and become the new boss of New Vegas the game simply ends telling you how great of a job you did, it doesn't continue and let you manage stuff because that would completely blow the scope of the game.

In Skyrim, as well as Oblivion and Morrowind for that matter you can simply attain positions with your character that ultimately become unsupported by the games scope. The game simply can't turn into Assassin Tycoon just because you are the listener.

I would argue New Vegas handled the situation better. Yes, you can't play as the head of a faction, but you also won't get disappointed finding out you won't be able to do anything as the leader anyways.

No, and it doesn't have to.

However, it doesn't have to force the now newly ruled guild into stagnation either.

With the Brotherhood, why the hell am I the only one doing contracts? Why can't I hand contracts out in the same fashion that happened in Oblivion? Why can't I accept one I like and assign another to someone else and get a portion of their contract?

No, the question is flawed.

Why do they HAVE to appeal to the casual gamers or hardcoe gamers? Who the heck ARE casual gamers? Do hardcoe gamers never play casual games? Do they draw such black and white distinctions in the Beth marketing department? Isn't it the goal of marketing to market the product produced, while it is the purview of the producer to coordinate the development team? Aren't they entirely different departments?

Are you as a hardcoe gamer genetically superior to those supposed casual gamers who have earned through their horrible actions, the ire of the whole organized gaming community?

huh.......you can get to run New Vegas. also the BoS and the boomers had far more quests than skyrims guilds by far, and those were minor factions. add on to that mr house quests, legion. there were lots of factions.

fallout NV had an end (unmodded) but fallout 3 let you continue playing aftewards.

as for becoming head of a guild and giving orders you cant give order in skyrim either. you can get the followers before you are archmage so that isnt even a requirement. i also happen to think that being able to be the head of every guild is incredibly silly. there is no way anyone will ever convince me that its ok that i was made archmage of the college less than a week after joining passing over tufldor or any of the other mages who were more experienced and infinitely more qualified. i was an expert in only a couple of schools and i wasnt master in any schools of magic.

it made much more sense in the fallout games were you were rewarded with ranks and some bonuses but they didnt just blindly turn over their entire operation to you. hell of alot better than entrusting everything to some guy they just meet a few days or weeks earlier. the people of nirn had better not hope that bethesda incorporates a "con artist" class in their next game because those are some of the dumbest people ever.

also, if im the archmage that would probably entail that the main focus of my time should be dealing with college issues and paperwork and experimenting with spells. instead im running all over the place like some absentee father going to the bar everynight. at least with the companions the harbringer didnt really have any duties to worry about.

Well put. And the one place where I turn into a Beth fan boy. Shaping the world, or lack thereof. I would love it, but its a bit impractical with how ambitious ES already is. If stuff like that was ever possible though, I don't think there would ever be a reason to own any other game than the latest ES. It would be a strat, sim, shooting, platforming, racing, anything you can think of game. The scope as you mention would be ridiculous.

But the hard facts Erandur is that the hole industry is slowly abandoning the sandbox. I personaly get that both morrowind and Oblivion had alot more to them then skyrim. But Skyrim still has alot more then most other games around... UO (ultima online) had alot more then modern MMOS.. still people like the themparks better. At the end of the day Money talks. If you complainers are serious about suporting the Sanbox, start voting with you wallets, As I said before I see this as a WAR.. so please pick up EvE online, buy only games that are sanboxy, and try to suport the few developers that atleast try to make a sanboxy game.. Dont whine and complain.. Because the Theampark crowed outnummber us 10vs1 and in the end if they WIN, the only think we will have is Apps for phones and facebook games, because they are cheap to make, and the customers are so dumb and stupid they think its great... As I said before try and see the bigger picture... More people buy casul dumb down games.. If someone would have told my back in 1995 that in the year 2012 people will be waving their arms around in front of the TV when playing consol games (kinect, Nintendo) , and playing with fake guittars I would have said "you are mad people cant be that SIMPLE and stupid" but guess what they were.

Not many people get a masters degree, not many people become sienticst etc.. Most people are stupid.. Back in the day Smart people played with computers, these days everyone dose...

You know, for as young as most gamers are... the rhetoric you hear in every forum about any game would have you believe the so called 'hardcoe purists' were somewhere in thier 90's.

Dissent has definitely not lost in this forum, appreciation and approval are two different things entirely.

The day motion controls are put into TES, or Zynga gets a line in the software... THEN you can complain about it being 'dumbed down' or 'casual'.

A generous statistic would be that 40 percent of the commentary regarding Skryim is negative, 20 percent is positive, and the rest is trolling and "Why isn't there multiplayer" posts.

It could be deeper, it could be a bunch of things, but most complaints about gameplay or mechanics are arbitrary in the grand scheme of things... because the next game is going to be different as well.

The biggest issue with this installment of TES is performance, not what is missing or changed.

Calm down, I'm not feeling genetically superior to anyone, even though I'm too nostalgic to ignore what has been done to the series over the years. If anything, I'm feeling more like a rare freak.

And you hit the nail when you said that Skyrim is still better than 99% of other games. ES only comparison IMO is with other ES titles. Since ES makes up a good 40-50% of my gaming (since I believe they are the pinnacle of the RPG). If ES types were plentiful, I wouldn't care about the direction. But they're not. If Skyrim didn't have some of the added hand holding, and had the cut features back, it would have still sold more than Oblivion. Perhaps even better.

Then you start going all over the place, MMO's, guitar hero?

... 3 of the 5 game of the year contenders for the VGAs (The wastelands of gaming I know, but they were the first pick on google, sue me) were sandbox games.
Batman had a large open city to explore.
Skyrim had a freaking country
Zelda, while mostly linear in terms of progression, has always had an exploratory element to it.

In best PC game it was 2/5
Assassins Creed and Minecraft

I disagree with your assertion that Sandbox and open world games are going away.

Also, implying your superiority over most people is slightly narcissistic

I have to admit it's crossed my mind that Bethesda should maybe stop allowing you to head a faction - I can see why it's there, the idea of working your way up etc but honestly, every faction (and the same was true in MW and OB) has people who are more experienced and capable who should be head of the faction.

Apologies, that came out a bit more venomous than I intended...

The thing is though, that even appreciating past titles, the capacity for greater games than before only gets greater as time progresses. Also, the only people who should feel some sort of freakish-ness, should be hardcoe console gamers. Each consecutive generation moves them closer and closer to PC gaming, with greater accessibility and more features tacked on as a means of limiting the number of devices necessary for one person to be truly plugged into their media.

When we all had an SNES, you could play games, but only if you blew hard enough on the cartridge. Current Consoles are 1 part game system, 1 part stero, 1 part internet hub, 1 part gaming machine, 1 part DVD/Blueray player, 1 part recording device... add a mouse and keyboard and you've got a crappy computer with an overpowered graphics card. 2 more generations and the distinction will be by brand alone. So your hardly a minority, none of us are. Soon enough we'll be one big family under the Orwellian banner of Microsoft...

I'm personally fascinated we don't have the iGamer yet... thats just what this debate needs: Mac culters

One benefit of Skyrim for long time play is the radiant quest, no they are not deep, however they are better than doing the magic university qualification quest the 20 time.

Once that monster gets unleashed, we will be devoured.

Yes I might have gone a little overboard. But my fear is that if we complain a whine to much, we run the risk of getting fewer and fewer games like this. Because the gittar Hero, kinect crowed do not complain. The casul themparkrs are just that. They pick up a game play it a bit have some laughes and then put it down. They dont come on the forums, because to them this is just another side note in Their lives. They would never log 400 hours into a game like the OP did.
Now in the end it might not mather, but when I say that we are outnumberd by the easy going crowed i do not lie. Making games for them are cheap and easy, they have not enough driving force to care about a video game like we, the vocal Minority have. To a company their money is as green as ours but they cause alot less hassel and trubble... In the end we will see, but I started gaming back in the 80s on the commandore 64 then atari etc... Iv seen how the gaming industry progressed through the years, getting more and more complicated, and bigger and bigger.. But something happend around 2003-2004 and we have slowly gone backwards. Games Never looked this good graficly but much of the soul has gone out of them. Developers are constantly looking for the cheapest way, the fastest way.. And the Risk is that with all the casual gamers in the industry these days they really dont have to make an effort anymore. Just stick a plastic guittar in the players hand and have them puch buttons on a timer ( like a monkey). And you can make a [censored]load of money. Why put the effort into making a good game when all you have to do these days is program an app game for a phone (like scraple etc) or make a facebook game.. Cost next to nothing but the payout is HUGE..
Only time will tell.. but my fear is that the games I like will be very hard to find by the year 2020... If things ceep progressing like they have..

People asking for a hardcoe Elder Scrolls are asking for Bethesda to commit suicide. Sad, but true.

I think Skyrim is the first TES game where I actually enjoy magic. The presentation and functionality of the spells feels more visceral, where as in Morrowind and Oblivion magic (and all combat in general) seems less natural. And I'm not some 'stupid casual gamer' or whatever you people complain about either. TES, specifically Morrowind, is the standard I compare all RPGs to, and everything from Baldurs Gate to Dragon Age falls short. Personally, Skyrim is the only game that I think can compare to a (modded) Morrowind.

That said, I don't think Skyrim is as good for super extended (250+ hour) playthroughs as previous TES games, but those first 250-ish hours are waaaaay better than in any other Bethesda game.

I still don't get it...400 hours and you're on here complaining.

I mean, it's one thing to write a couple of posts of reasoned criticism, it's another to post non-stop your problems with a game that evidently is a big dissapointment to you, yet you spent a huge amount of time on.

I wouldn't listen to you either if I were Bethesda, because any merit in what you say is erased by the fact that you,and a few others on here have made it a career to complain irrationally about a game you more than got your money's worth out of. On top of that 90% of what you actuall ypost is this weird rambling nostalgia about how the world has changed and the casuals are ruining it all, and very little in the way of actual substance.

Seriously, I have my complaints about the game too, but it's like you guys live in this alternate universe where TES games were once these detailed, nuanced hard core RPG's. They were never that. Sure the game is light in the depth department as far as quests go, but there is more to the game than that, and if people like you cannot see it's strong points - points where it outshines the previous titles by a good margin-(wandering, dungeon crawling, improved combat ,general world and atmosphere)..that is YOUR PROBLEM.

Seriously, you think that Bethesda should do something else because you happen to not care about the aspects of the game that they improved on?

I hope it does drown people like you out because your complaints and vision for the game are totally not constructive, there are people who have valid criticisms and have talked about them, but the criticism which basically springs from nostalgia of a Game That Never Was and your feelings about how the unwashed masses are ruining your game... that really isn't worth taking seriously, and I hope Bethesda does not!

Borkelsplatz- are you talking to me? I've made a career out of criticizing Bethesda?

"totally not constructive?" Speaking in sweeping derogatory generatlizations, are we?

Here's some post constructionism for you:

Deep guild quest lines, help complete immersion.
Character build is almost everything, see above for deep guild quest line- and the character build process has been shortened , with many racial gifts gone there is no reason to be one humanoid vs another. Leveling in Oblivion was almost universally agreed to be flawed. People I respect say so- I didn't mind it personally, because it meant you had to be involved in your character. The current perk system fails to replace that level of involvement.

How many hours do you have on Skyrim?

Oh- I see now- he was not speaking to me but to another poster with 400 hours.

We do see the strong points, btw, that's not the issue.

You know, you are almost putting disent in the position of saying since it's better than the market, we should shut up and be happy. Since Skyrim has many postitives, there is no reason to care about what is gone.

I loved Bethesda because they gave the gamer what he wanted- whatever that was. Tha's just not true on Skyrim. People liked making their own spells- having it their way. That in itself is many hours of happiness in a game such as this. People liked deep guild lines, and being involved in their character's growth. Perhaps the perk system can be improved- why not? But it needs it.

I love the open world. I wish character building was as strong as it had been in earlier games. The open world, though wonderful, by itself is not enough. It's great- but not enough. Worlds get explored; it is character development that keeps you coming back.

Seriously ....
The sucess of skyrim os more due to the fact that there s no competition around.
The grafic are merely good,
The crafting system is incomplete (smithing) and moronic (enchanting), when not righteously useless (food), and lazy (Smithing= Taning, Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing and Jeweler i wonder why they havent put horseshoe crafting)
The engine date from Morrowind, still contain flaws from that date, flaw from Oblivion, flaws from FO3 etc...
The world has serious flaws is sustainability (too much things doesn t make sense), cities are a world example in lazyness, guilds are made of weaklings, but indeed there is some progress even if shoddy...

But as there s no competition:
We overlook all the flows to have our fix.
Mod to death for having something coherent. (which remember i have to download 2 more mods that complement and fix smithing)
Bethesda does 65% of the work, the comunity the last 35% so the game is enjoyable.

The day someone step in, with the same proposal and a more polished and thought gameplay, Bethesda will have a un for is money on the next title, and thats really whats lack NOW, competition so we get better quality products.

I have about 150 hours, why? Does it matter?

I have basic reasoning skills and I can read criticisms from people like you with needing 400 hours invested, some things you say are valid.

Then again, at least 50-70% of the 'anti' stuff on this forum i'd say is couched in this viewpoint of feeling like a cool outsider and whining about how you 'don't matter anymore' because the game you apparently thought belonged to you and you alone has gone in a different direction, it's incredibly obnoxious, and if anything makes it hard to digest what there might actually be in your arguments that is worth listening to.

Here's my suggestion:

If you want to be listened to, stop repeating the same whiny garbage over, and buffering everything you say with it... and over, and over again..it's exceptionally annoying and I can only imagine that Bethesda is more likely to listen to people who post like advlts, instead of people who attach all their complaints to feelings of elitism and entitlement.

Wow I'm actually surprised at the civility of this discussion thus far, my note on Luke's statement is


who says "Casuals" can't appreciate a good rpg with Varying options? I mean Look at Da mage's post earlier depicting siblings who don't neccesarilly care to much about the TES series saying the same gripes that have been echoed on this very forum by critics and people with the nades to speak up no?