I am currently using a box filled with sand and lighting that is communicating with another box to discuss an imaginary world that can be seen and interacted with and asking for a 10 minutes of extra dialog and a couple more "if then" statements being wrote is to much?

I actually heard that the Witcher 2 did this quite well. It is a sandbox rpg, and you choices has a real impact lator on in the game.

The Witcher 2 is not a sandbox RPG, which is exactly why the developers were able to put in so much character interaction.

Oh. i didnt know. I havent played it yet but I just told what I heard from people.

The basic structure of TW2 ...
- Prologue: single starting point
- Act 1: one location
- Act 2: one of two locations, depending on your decisions in Act 1
- Act 3: one location

In each location, there is some leeway for exploring the world and doing sidequests, but the focus of the game is very definitely on the main quest. It's basically a very rigidly scripted story, and CDProjekt took the time to branch the middle of the story into two different locations. Kudos to them for offering such a variable story, but it's really not a sandbox RPG.

Yep, easy to have big choices and character depth in a linear game with side quests. And no excuse for poor storytelling either, as you are stuck with that story, however many branches. What Beth does, and what a lot of people love them for, is to give you a big open world to mess about in, telling your own story at the expense of some depth in the 'big' story.

You know, Skyrim has extremely linear and fully independent questlines too... it wouldn't be hard to add one or two branchings in each of the major ones, and a couple special checks here and there to really make some concequences of your being, say, leader of DB or the Mage College...and would hardly take any space and effort to put all the extra dialogue and coding and sequences... I mean they spent time and effort to have ppl react to tiny items hidden deep inside my bag and levels of my skills, ffs =_=

If the moment wasn't supposed to be so climatic I would agree, its the moment for a witty/honorable comment or a mini-speech depending on your role. I want them to commit to it i guess rather than being so awkwardly pushed through it like they had to. Oh and on quest ruining I love that nothing says commitment like having to denie ones self a quest to do the right rp thing(but i did say DO). Leaves room for replaying too.

I agree about essential NPCs. There should be MUCH less of them.
I thought this "radiant story" thing would take care to "replace" dead NPCs. Another option would be to just give a ****. If you kill an NPC, who could offer you a quest or be part of one, you just can't do that quest anymore. I would have no problem with this.

I would even compromise on a second wind thing so they do they kneel and i decide now what i want to do.

i get the impression that people who claim that its impossible to get choices and consequences into skyrim have never played fallout NV or fallout 3 which was a bethesda game with an equally impressive world. skyrim is simply a major step backwards compared to those to games and this is their main franchise.

the most obvious things missing are faction relations. that was such a huge improvement in fallout NV and it is very simple to implement in the game. if i put on a stormcloak outfit the script detects it and then causes nearby imperials to either outright attack me or even better they might question me and i would have to persuade them that you are in disguise or you just found it on a dead soldier, WITH NO OPTION TO BRIBE LIKE YOU CAN EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE GAME which is my other gripe since gold isnt really that hard to come by you dont even need speech at all.

people say that NV was much smaller. not it wasnt. skyrim is the same size as oblivion and on top of that fallout 3 was only a little bit smaller than skyrim and had an equally impressive world and it still had more choices and consequences than skyrim. fallout NV was also made with fewer than the 100 people working on skyrim. id bet that fallout 3 had fewer people than skyrim as well because they probably had some people working on skyrim since oblivion was released nonstop.

This consistently drives me nuts. Who thinks the game would really be fun if you could kill everyone? The world is no longer living and breathing as before because every NPC is dead and your the only human left.

Don't be so harsh. Even Oblivion had some interesting multiple-outcome DnD stuff. Like Glarthir. The minute the CK comes out I'll mod the resident eccentric into Skyrim as a follower. Maybe even mod the voice for it so whenever an enemy attacks he can shout "Just as I thought!". There should be a huge mod for Skyrim that mods the most memorable characters from both MW and OB into it.

I miss the Adoring Fan...

If Beth had made them killable there would be 30000 topics saying, "Why did Beth let me kill (pick NPC)? Now the game is ruint because I can't do the (pick unavailable) quest. I hate Todd Howard." Instead of 30000 posts saying saying "Why did they make NPCs essential?"

Whatever Beth does/did/will do someone will get their posterior in a tizzy. "Why don't we have dragons in TES?" "Why did they put stupid dragons in TES?" "Why can't I get married in TES?" "Why did they put in the stupid marriage option?" "Why don't they put a TES in Skyrim?" "Why did they put the game in stupid old Skyrim?"

Because that's the way they decided to do it. It was their choice. If you don't like it, find a mod or use the console. If you're on a console deal with the fact that you're on a system that won't let you make any changes. That's your choice.

This.

Also, don't forget DnD exists to SIMULATE events. in DnD players have no direct "control" in the sense of TES. They can tell the DM what their character wishes to attack, what actions to perform, but they have no fine control. TES takes the genre, but turns it into a twitch based FPS style game, where the player has almost total control.


Take this example:
The player needs to sneak down a corridor past a guard.

DM: "Rounding the corner you find the corridor is dimly lit, the dank cobblestones shimmering slightly in the light of a lone torch, shadows abound. At the far end you can make out a reinforced wooden door"
Player: "I look to see if there is anything of intrest obscured by the shadows"
DM: "Hidden in the shadows you successfully make out the silhouette of a guard leaning against the wall his head bent down and arms folded, apparently getting some sleep on the job"
Player: "I sneak past him towards the door"
DM: "You tiptoe gently past him, he scratches his nose but his eyes remain shut intent on catching up sleep after last nights drinking. Reaching the door you find it to be locked"
Player: "i get out my lockpicks..."


As you can see there is a good reason games like DnD have a multitude of skills, they need to account for almost every action a player might make. Concepts like "dodging", "spot", "listen", "search", "accuracy" are rendered moot when these are determined by the player's own skill rather than a dice throw. (Incidentlly I'm not much of a DM, I'm just giving a mechanical demonstration, a good DM is an amazing storyteller, and nothing that bland ;p)

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=614, http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=615 and http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=937 of http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1144

Basically what you would need is a cognitive AI. The game itself would have to run server side so that the entire world is loaded and running all at once. Then the AI would have to be given personality profiles and the freedom to make decisions and act based on both the personality given and what they know and perceive through cognition. The virtual world would be real to them. Of course, to have them talk to your character, they would have to improve upon this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhvvNGeHHME

But how would you be able to supply a single player game experience to millions of people when the game is run server side?

Then there is the virtual world. To make it as physically accurate as possible. The npc's would have the ability to manipulate their virtual environment. Buildings could be destroyed and built. Falling a tree means that it is gone, running logs through the mill means the logs actually reducing in number and cut logs increasing in number. Mining actually mean removing material from on location, so mines actually grow in size until either technology limits its progression or the material being mines is all taken.


As for essential npc's. There was an npc that I killed. I sought revenge on a girl that hire goons against me by making her an orphan. When I killed the npc I immediately failed a quest. The game knows if npc's are tied to a quest or not. It would be easy for them to program it so that you can kill any npc you wish but if you kill one connected to quest(s) then you should get a message stating that you can't do x number of quests because is dead. Then the person simply has to decide if they want to load the game. The game could then have more consequence for actions and the game can have more involved choices. Like completing one quest means you can't complete another and vise versa.

1. This is wrong.
2. With the oh-so-hyped radiant story quests should be doable even if there are NPCs killed, which would have participated in it.



Yeah well ... this system is actually one of the biggest flaws of the series!
They tried it numerous times now and it never worked. It's not rewarding, it's not satisfying, it's extremely hard to balance, it's not fun ... it's just not working.

I hope, Bethesda reconizes their mistakes (although I seriously doubt it) and finally makes TES the game it could be by introducing an XP-based leveling-system for the next Elder Scrolls game.

Oh by hell it isn't! I tried the XP-based mods, and they are FAR inferior to TES's skill-based leveling system.

Go back to Two Worlds.

I don't know two worlds or any TES XP mods, but I know Fallout 3, Gothic 2, and a lot of other XP based RPGs.
And guess what, they ALL had a lot more rewarding, satisfying and better balanced leveling than TES.


The TES system has proven to not work so many times now ... it's time to finally move on and use a leveling system, which is actually fun.

You are mostly alone in your opinion here.

I don't think so.

And instead of just fanboying by going "no no no, TES is great, TES is perfect, TES is my favorite game, and XP based leveling is far inferior to TES, because TES is different", you should at least consider to seriously think about that topic before posting and compare the pros and cons of both ways.

One pro of the TES method would be for example, that it makes more sense from a realistic point of view ... question is: How important is that really?
Pros of the XP based method would be for example:
- easier to prevent speed-grinding
- more flexible for the player
- XP rewards for questing possible
- more rewarding feeling for the player (putting points on skills is fun)
- better feeling of getting stronger (because skill-leveling comes in bigger portions)

Actually, it's less flexible for the player.
There are XP rewards for questing even in Skyrim's quests - They just grant relevant skill-ups.
Perks+Attributes give a good enough sense of getting stronger.

I like Skill-based leveling more than XP-based leveling because it allows you to increase the "utility" skills you use a lot without making you feel like those points would be better spent in combat skills, especially in a game with skill thresholds.

Care to explain? Oh, you can't because you are wrong.
Let's take the speech skill for example. In Skyrim you can't play a character, which solves his problems by using speech, because (besides the fact, that there are much too less options in conversation to actually make use of it) there is no way to train that skill.
Every character, no matter if mage, warrior, thief, whatever will level that skill about as fast as the other "classes". It slowly goes up with time and you have near to no influence on it. Using speech-checks when you can is something everybody does anyways as is selling goods.

The whole system is weak from a gameplay point of view, because it adds almost nothing.
Where is the fun in auto-leveling? Where is the fun in having to grind a skill to a level, where it's finally useful?
Let's say I played a warrior the whole time, but later want to add bows. In a game like Fallout you could just start to spend skill points on it and then use it, when it's strong enough to be fun. In Skyrim you have to painfully level your bow-skill by using it even on the weak levels.
Also you can't just "do what you want and be who you are" (one of Todd's marketing-phrases) with the TES leveling. You are forced to do stupid/annoying stuff to grind skills, if you want to be strong. You can't just play how you want and then spend your points.

You can easily do that in an XP based leveling system for example by providing different skill points for a) combat influencing skills other skills.