Have you played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games? Sounds like those would hit the spot. You can probably get them for peanuts in Steam by now.

I think they in general listen to complaints, but tend to ignore all those (these) whiners.
Fixing bugs, glitches, crashes etc likely has a 'slight' bigger priority on their agenda atm i think.

i find that questionable logic at best and just downright insulting to the modders out there who have done things that put bethesda to shame. they have dramatically improved the AI, made better quests, frankly made very good worlds (nehrim anyone) better followers, better locations such as ivellon dungeon and the gates to aasgard mod. it confuses me because fallout 3 had very good writing and then we see this........stuff in skyrim which isnt even close. it's like they fired all the good writers and kept the mediocre ones.

as far as listening to complaint you bet they do. they changed level scaling based on negative feedback from oblivion, they made unique dungeosn based on negative feedback from oblivion. they changed TES formerly boring magic system to something like bioshocks and dark messiahs which was well recieved and as other people have mentioned they put carriages in for the no map travellers like myself out there.

the reason that TES is so special is because they are the only developer out there of their size that makes this type of game. two worlds 2 is a very good game considering it came from a very small publisher. obsidian did a much better fallout than bethesda did with the exception of fallout 3 having a better gameworld design. i have a feeling that if some other major developer started making an open world sandbox game that TES would start to lose its luster.......there just isnt any competition for them since everyone is making shooters or racing games.


all my criticisms aside skyrim is a HUGE improvemnt over oblivion and even beats out morrowind because of the vast improvement in combat. hopefully mods will sort the shortcomings out.

Huh?

They DID fix alot of the things people complained about...you can now not have the compass/hud (though it's kind of overkill lol), the combat is HUGELY better, and the dungeons and terrain are actually interesting. There's also all kinds of crazy events and stuff that goes down in the world, instead of just some daedra, some guards, oblivion gates, and an imperial huntsman..or like Morrowind, nothing except cliff racers, nix hounds, mud crabs, and the occasional static NPC.

I admit the game is still weak in the quest department, and all I can figure out is that's just not what they do well...it seems pretty consistent.

The only mistake I was kind of amazed that they haven't rectified is the insanely repetitive NPC remarks.

Obviously it's not scientific, but literally everyone I knew personally that played Oblivion shared the same major complaints: Ugly, boring, generated terrain, boring copy pasted dungeons full of trolls and mountain lions. Skyrim is a huge improvement in that department at least.

Sometimes the criticisms from hardcoe fans doesn't particularly interest them because it won't help them sell more copies.

Bethesda themselves are artists, pure and simple. They create beautiful worlds, and give good enemy/loot variety to boot, but are weak with their game play concepts and quest design. Granted, I think they have been improving since Oblivion (the quests have generally been more interactive and deep with better use of scripting and even a small amount of improvement in terms of narratives), but the flaws are still there and very much apparent. You only have to look at what the makers of Nehrim to see what a proper fantasy quest line should look like and be like to play. Its also noteworthy that the civil war quest line, which was fairly well written, had a similar story formula to the main quest of Fallout New Vegas. Which is fine with me, in all honesty.

Was thinking the same thing...

I think Bethesda is more influenced by people doing what works rather than saying what is wrong. Look at all the popular Oblivion mods which were nearly copy pasted into Skyrim:

Deadly Reflex (finishing moves and decap)
Many companion mods & romance mods (companions are much better than in Oblivion & you can marry)
Bows do more damage (mods)
Illumination within (skyrim has windows that light at night now)
Better weather
Cooking mods
Harvest flora and harvest containers
A lot of stuff from OOO
Leveling mods & a LOT more

Someone complaining about this or that doesn't really mean much. Showing them what actually works better by demonstrating it in an effective mod does. A complaint is just an opinion. As far as they are concerned they did it right, the quests are great, and everyone should Please continue, my good sir.. Make something better with a mod and they might respond to that a little better. I think they are blowing away all the other RPG makers in the industry, so what else can you expect?

Broken Steel.

*And the Witcher is great.
I think that most players are not prepared, or at a point where they can mod a proof of concept fix... but they are able to point out what they don't like and describe what they would like.

eh? much more like a bandaid for an open sore. There is still the mundane action that compensates for lack of progression. Or I should say one story progression.

Bethesda definitely listens to its customer base. Although some things couldve been implemented better (Thats always the case), this game is leagues above Oblivion

yes leagues above aesthetically.

OPINION

I agree.

In fact, Bethesda should hire some random person off the street to be the ultimate "damn it" doll!

His or her sole job in life will be to log on the forum and open up one thread. In that thread they'll say that they're a developer and they're here to listen to the fans. The moderators will sticky this doomed thread and it will never get locked as long as it's active. Let the haters hate while letting the rest of us, (who dosen't care for reading doom and gloom threads at the time) read in peace.

I'm confused

Like that's an achievement.

Not surprised.

I'm at work, and my mind is totally toasted from the busy night I've had. For all I know, the reader could have just read the tendencies of African Swallows on their seasonal migrations instead of what I was trying to convey.

There's a big difference between Bethesda and us: they see their creation from inside while we see it from outside. They probably find the criticisms you mention as irrelevant to their point, which is expand the TES lore and world from one game to another.

Looks like they've added some features to Skyrim, like the followers and probably some others I don't think about now, because they were asked to by their fans though.

Pretty much :\

since they made the game the way I like it (with few exceptions, like cloaks and crossbows) I would say yes Bethesda does read and take feed back from players...

well from me at least XD

There are alot of the same issues there but most of them in this game are worse then they were in Oblivion, F3 and F:NV ie. All 3 had much more responsive worlds then this. AI lacks the ability to not say things not suited to the situation, Arrow in the face "...My imagination".
And really it's not all opinion, games aren't on some special plan of existance and bethesda isn't immune from easily quantifiable, qualifiable measures and comparable points.
That said I don't think they ignored everyone, they brought in Marriage, in a far worse way then mod makers have made relations ships alone in 2 years after the game when they had 6 years with a huge team and massive resources they get paid to do the job.
And they made carriages, wait that's brought back a system from 2 games in the series prior, with one glaring flaw that even though you have the carriage to load things into it can't take more weight then you, when a horse being ridden on can.
If they didn't improve the models and graphics from TES VI imagine the raging on the forums then? People already moan over the poor quality textures that don't blow up PC graphics cards everywhere, they'd never hear the end of it by the oh so hard done by PC users that at least can mod and console the way though thier broken quests.
To claim the leveling scaling and balance is poor in this game is opinion? Yeah they got rid of bandits having the best gear but instead of dealing with high level bandits that had the gear to make them strong you now get bandits with nothing but iron and are absolute tanks, makes much more sense.

PS. If you don't want to read "doom and gloom" threads how about not opening them, reading though them and even replying with something thats is purely negative, because you don't want to argue agianst anypoint made. I'm sure you'd be the first to argue "ignore it" to quests that only hav evil ends and "self control" over balance issues.

-Story is still weak
NOT really since its a fantasy story and some of the "side" quests are pretty epic (*no spoilers*wolf queen, dwemer locked box to name a few)

-Most characters are forgettable
Some are not like in MW and OB and any other game really, I only remember the storm cloak guy Hadvar the rebel king Ulfric queen of Solitude, Alduin, the alchemist from the Hags cure (no idea why) Sindorian ..... yah I would say ur horribly wrong on this one.

-Modders are fixing bugs and making balancing tweaks at a much faster pace and more successful then any official patches.
as always since the modding community is MASSIVE (100000000000 people > 100 people at Beth.)

-Nothing you do in the world seems to matter or have any noticeable impact including completing major quest lines; making the world seem very dull and lifeless and rarely does anyone or the world react to what you have done.
and the open world game that does this is................... does not exist, and in Skyrim some actions matter (like joining the rebels or the empire)

-Repetitive content throughout the world. Beyond level 30 I feel as if I am doing the same things over and over again. "Go here, kill some draugr, go here, kill some bandits... oh look a dragon!"
wth do you want to do other than that??!!!!

-Poor level scaling and balancing
Some imbalance here and there that is true for ALL games.

-Anti-climactic conclusions to most major quest lines
opinion pure and simple.

-Traveling by foot offers almost no rewards or excitement other than sight seeing.
LOL...yah right

-AI is almost just as bad as it's always been throughout Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas
I have yet to see a game with "stellar" AI.

-Under developed follower system.
Indeed it looks basic

Seriously these are pretty much the same complaints rampant in Oblivion; is Bethesda incapable of evolving or anything that could be considered innovative?
I played OB and skyrim fixes pretty much every thing that was wrong their, with few exceptions like companions and larger cities.
but plz don't even try to say its the same game with same mistakes.

I was having a lot of fun with the game until around level 30 at around 50 hours... After that my interest started to plummet due to the reasons mentioned above
Try not to over think things AND try to RP (don't use fast travel unless ur carrying full loot, don't do all quests for one character, don't cheat..etc) and enjoy the game as it is.

I do enjoy the game but I can't help but feel Bethesda learned absolutely nothing between the release of Oblivion and the release of Skyrim.

dude they pretty much copy pasted some mod ideas, its true MW still has the most complex faction/story but it was a text based tech. so they could really write 10000000000 lines and not be bothered by costs, the only thing that was better in older TES is pretty much the depth and complexity of MQ in MW and thats it Skyrim comes pretty close though in epicness AND beats all other TESs in every other way.

That's what I was thinking. I have no idea what the whiners are talking about. It's like they're playing a different game.

*tiny little violins*

Not that I agree with many of his points, but "That's like just your opinion, man!" Isn't an answer. It solves nothing, and does not add to the discussion in the least. I think it's a failure of the education system in some countries how people seem to think that every opinion has equal value. Some opinions are more based on hard evidence, some less. Something being an opinion doesn't make its truthfulness subjective.

Thanks & have fun arguing on the Internet.

Level Scaling needs to die.

Otherwise I absolutely LOVE this game.

Only two points I'd disagree with. Traveling by foot has been extremely rewarding for me - I've come by a few quests I wouldn't have found otherwise which ended up leading me to even more unique locations. As to the "repetitive" content, what do you expect? People need to understand that the elder scrolls series is never going to have Deus Ex/Mass effect quality stories and quests, its just not what the game is about. The main quest in Skyrim isn't the content from a design perspective - its the filler! The filler for the vast open world Bethesda created! For all the things I complain about, if Skyrim didn't include a main quest at all I would have been more excited for the game! My point is, all those radiant quests, side quests and main quests are the filler and atmosphere for a world in which you're suppose to create your own content.