1.) I think perks added to the types of characters that we can make. We no longer ultimately become a jack of all trades, master of all. We now have to truly specialize, which makes our characters more unique.
2.) I would agree that guilds were underwhelming, I was disappointed when I became archmage as quickly as I had. That said, I also felt that the College of Winterhold questline as a whole was much more interesting than the questline in Oblivion. Oblivion's got boring, quick. Go to each town, do some generic fetch quest and get your recommendation. It picked up after you finally got into the Arcane University and finally got to start fighting necromancers, but it took way too long to get to that point. All that said, I do wish for the re-institution of skill requirements to advance through guilds, and join guilds. It doesn't ruin my RP to be able to just join any guild, simply because if I am a pure mage, I won't join the Fighter's Guild, but I did like Morrowind's method of actually having to develop your skills to advance through the guild.
3.) The sacrifice of combat slots didn't really bother me in the least bit. I was a bit shocked at first to find out you could only have 1 ring instead of 2, but having 7 slots instead of 8 really isn't a big deal in my book. If Morrowind's style of individual gloves, bracers, and pauldrons ever came back, I'd be happy, but what we have now doesn't bother me. In terms of the spell selection, I do miss some spells (command, summons, and bound weapons mostly), others I don't (Open Lock), but on the whole I like the current magic system better than what we had before. Stream damage spells, rune spells, necromancy spells, constant cast heal spells, ward spells, etc... I find to be much funner and more dynamic to play around with than the "target" "touch" "self" spells of the past (also, I just realized that "target, touch self" could be interpreted in a very bad way... ). That said, I don't think the current system has reached its full potential. I would greatly love to see the addition of many spell effects that were removed (the previously mentioned command, summon, and bound spells), and I would also greatly love to see the combined casting of the GameJame video implemented. I feel that would be a great substitute for Spellmaking.
4.) I have never felt hand guided to a dungeon (except for Bleak Falls Barrow - it was blatantly obvious how bad they wanted to get you into that dungeon, giving it two quests right off the bat lol), despite POI markers on the compass, you still have to find a way to get there, and given Skyrim's terrain, it is not always as easy as following the arrow. As far as random quests go, if you prefer to find the dungeons instead of being told to go there, you don't have to accept the random quests. I kinda like it myself.
5.) I don't think the "streamlining" in this instance is going to shorten TES's lifespan. Skyrim is not only the highest selling TES game to date, being a huge commercial success, but it also maintains the high level of industry reviews as the previous games. Obviously, the quality is still high in TES. I don't think we lost anything meaningful, I really feel the "streamlining" really was just the cutting of excess fat, and getting down to the points that actually matter, and making those features as good as possible. I do miss some things from the past, sure, but ultimately they don't impact my enjoyment of Skyrim in any kind of meaningful way.

what I meant by perks needing an overhaul is that the constelation lock us into perks we dont want or break the game for us for immersion sake to get ones we do. I think im one of the few morrowindits that actually thinks the perks could do a decent job replacing the perks, but I think it be better done following fo style but keep the skills lvling with what u use.
I will disagree with ya on tes not doing cause and effect. It wasnt with every action u did, but the game made u see the consequences by either making u pick factions, lower or higher disposition, actually failing quests or being kicked out of factions, the npcs commenting and having having disposition shifts bc u either did a good deed or a bad one. Alot of times it wasnt in ur face and sometimes only rpers actually saw it or mattered to them bc they either had a charector that never bribed or suched at personalilty.
Alot of people are voicing complaints bc the series seems to be losing its rpg factors and being replaced or highlighted with action features. Yes they are giving us new things, but u tally the numbers they are taking away more than they are giving.
Tes has always been for the most part, freedom to play the charector the way u want to. If u wanna be a demigod then its there for ya, ya wanna be a glass cannon mage thats built like an ox, it was there for ya. Yes theyit to where u cant be a demigod anymore which dosent bother me, what does bother me is that they have so much useless perk trees and perks, that really gah I dunno. Its a fun game, im just disappointed that I pretty much experienced everything and all outcomes in 2 players. Which canbe normal, but pretty much 95% of tje game was showned to me by a npc, quest, or radiant quest. Coupled with a less than satisfactory story...eh. I guess im getting to old, I can only pray they work on their many shortcomings in this game while keeping its many strengths, but knowing bethesdas track record and todd howards mantra that easier equals genious. I just donyt know.

This is a ridiculous argument. The "intention" is to create a believable world in which you choose who you want to be. A believable world in which you can be anything requires player agency. This should be a top priority. As soon as you're prevented from performing a logical action, that veneer of believability starts to fall down. Skyrim barely tries to keep the curtain up.

If it is as you claim, and choice/consequence were not the intention, why would there be any quests that offered multiple directions? Is your argument seriously, "Well, when they do offer choice then that was the intention. When they don't offer choice then that wasn't the intention"? Because that's entirely circular and highly disingenuous.
Okay, this is fundamentally untrue. First, Morrowind offers a greater number of general options (guilds, factions, total quests). Second, it has roughly twice as many quests with alternate paths as Skyrim. Third, Morrowind allows you to kill literally everyone, including multiple gods. Forth, the factions that won't deal with you if you kill/don't kill a certain someone? One of them only offers a single random quest. The other only offers two authored quests and a single repeatable, random quest. Compare that to the Great Houses in Morrowind, where your choice cuts you off from a couple dozen alternative quests. To suggest that there is greater choice in Skyrim, in any capacity, is a total non-truth.

Seriously, you can't say Skyrim's poor storytelling is excusable because "it was never their intention." Skyrim is supposed to be an RPG, right? An RPG needs to have a good story, and it needs to have good roleplaying mechanics, or else it's just a sandbox action game.

That's the thing about good stories, it's subjective. I think Skyrim's story was just fine the way it was.

Bethesda's stories tend to have a number of logical problems. That has nothing to do with subjective tastes regarding themes or tone or whatever, and is more concerned with whether or not a story is internally consistent. See Skyrim's Thieves Guild questline.

The important issue, for me, is whether the story offers choice to the player that results in believable consequences. This is objective, either it does offer choice or it doesn't. Skyrim offers very little in the way of choice and the consequences are rarely meaningful.

I think all of that stuff still exists in Skyrim - it's just not "in your face" about it with numbers. If I do deeds for someone, they become my friend, they allow me into their home, they give me gifts, they allow me to take their possessions for my own use. Some will follow you. Others will marry you.

On the same token, I have been kicked out of guilds before, you can still be kicked out of guilds.

As far as tallying the number of things we lost vs. what we gained, you may be right if you boil it down simply to "open lock and spears is more in number than dual wielding" (and no, I didn't mention all that was added or removed, I understand that), but I think that the things that were added offer far more to gameplay than what was removed. While it may be less in number, it may be heavier in way. We may have lost 50 grains of sand, but we got 10 boulders. In my opinion, of course. Spears, Open Lock spells, and Spellmaking were more important to some people than they were to me, so I see minor losses, others see big losses that impact the types of characters they want to play. But for me, what was added is far more meaningful than what was lost.


I can claim that wasn't the intention because Elder Scrolls has never been built upon that same type of dynamic that say, a BioWare game is. BioWare is all about being essentially a predetermined character, but you get a choose your own adventure style of progressing through an otherwise linear story. TES has never been about that. Sometimes, they have some quests that give you a choice, but those are typically never in the main quest.

As far as your remark about "believable world", well, honestly, a believable world wouldn't change everytime you make a choice. I find Skyrim to be completely believable in how the world reacts to me. I'm not sure what logical actions you're prevented from doing in Skyrim.

As far as Morrowind goes - you're correct that it has more guilds and factions. More overall quests? I don't know about that. Do you have a source? Even then, it is hardly noticable unless you are going out of your way to find those numbers. It's not like Skyrim is lacking in things to do. As far as being able to kill anyone goes, yes, that's true, but that's neither a pro or con, it has equal benefits and disadvantages, and many players don't like having broken quest chains because they killed someone they had no idea was tied to a quest that they later want to do. In all honesty, I'd probably prefer the Morrowind way than the Skyrim way, but that's neither here nor there in quest choices which is what I was talking about, which Morrowind has hardly any choice in quests. You say Morrowind had more, and in my experiences with Morrowind, I haven't experienced more multiple path questlines in Morrowind than what I've experienced in Skyrim.

You say that the guilds that you isolate in Skyrim have all of one quest - but the fact is the choice remains there. There is no choice to join the 6th House, or the Mythic Dawn, in past games. The main questlines are incredibly linear, and able to be accomplished all of one way. Skyrim at least offers something. And as far as the actual benefits or drawbacks, here is where I think the "imagination" aspect does legitimately come into play, and roleplayers need to learn how to role play and not rely on numbers and stats to do their roleplaying for them - what about the character bonds that a character would develop with these groups? When I was faced with the Paarthurnax decision, my choice was made clear off of character bonds alone. When I eventually made my choice in the Civil War and took sides, that choice came because of character ties. I got wrapped up in the characters involved, and my own character, that the consequences that would befall all involved meant something to me. I didn't need the game to tell me "well this group gives you this reward, while that group gives you another". So I guess somewhere, Skyrim got the writing done properly, because above whatever tangible rewards I had, I cared about what happened to the characters involved. To me, those were more meaningful choices than just deciding if I wanted to give Fargoth the ring, or keep it for myself.


I never said Skyrim's poor storytelling was excusable, I said Skyrim doesn't have poor storytelling. I specifically said that Skyrim's storytelling is equal to Morrowind's. In the grande scheme of things, "story" has never been why I've played Elder Scrolls games, although I do enjoy their lore. I don't think that Skyrim's storytelling is any worse than Morrowind's or Oblivion's.

I said Skyrim's lack of choice in a "choose your own adventure" fashion of completing quests was intentional, because that's never been how TES games operate. TES games have never been about multiple outcome quest chains, and more about deciding for yourself what quest chains you even want to participate in. But when you do choose one, it's typically pretty linear outside of a few exceptions.

Yay! Me too! Errr... wait... I'm thirty-nine! Yeah! That's it!

OP: What's missing for me in newer games is mostly the sense of atmosphere. Morrowind just had loads more atmosphere than Skyrim - much easier to immerse myself in, even with the lower grade graphics. Just like Diablo - I played the original, bought the sequel when it came out and played it for a while, but went back to the original because it was SCARY. The whole atmosphere was different.

Oblivion threw me off the atmosphere a bit, but the countryside was just beautiful. Out of all the TES games I've played (starting with Daggerfall), Oblivion is the one I wandered the most in. I created characters just to roam around hunting deer, never levelling up, just wandering. It was FUN.

I give Skyrim major points for overhauling the levelling system. I think that's where alot of whiners come in - they were used to 'beating the system' and never realized that they were being corraled into spamming certain skills just to get a +5 to three stats every time you levelled up. It became boring in that respect, it really did. The new system, while it doesn't concentrate on the old paper-and-dice stats like previous games, allows you to just PLAY THE GAME and build the character according to your playstyle. You don't have to think about what skills you've used, what stats need raising. Dumbed down? Hardly.

My only real complaint about Skyrim is that everybody is your friend, even your enemies. There are NO consequences. You CAN'T screw up. In MW, OB and previous games, you could [censored] up big time - and continue on in the doomed world you created thereby (or reload a save). That missing factor is crucial to me - you had to make more choices more carefully, or you could never join certain factions and miss entire questlnes without making a new character. In Skyrim EVERY character you create can complete EVERY questline - and it just becomes a matter of ticking off completed quests in your journal.

While previous TES games the character creation/development system heavily favored jack-of-all-trades characters, Skyrim heavily favors jack-of-all-trades questing. Whether I'm a mage, thief, or sword and board, my journals are all nearly identical by the time I'm level 50 or so. And while folks complain about short questlines and poor quest rewards (a valid complaint, esp for the MQ), the real problem is the lack of a sense of accomplishment. Yay, I beat the game :golfclap:

I cut any bits about how engaged you were with the story. I'm not really interested in debating the finer points of Skyrim's narrative, as it is.
I'm not talking about the main quest, I'm talking about quests in general. If the majority of quests allowed for multiple, meaningful choices, then it wouldn't be nearly as egregious if the main quest did not. I'm talking about faction quests, miscellaneous quests, that logically should offer multiple choices, but instead railroad you down a single path. Forced to become a werewolf, forced to become a Nightingale, unable to even attempt turning in various criminals.

If your argument really is, "TES has never been about providing multiple quest solutions except when it is," then I'm not sure this discussion can really go anywhere. Your argument is circular, and is predicated on the idea that if something wasn't done before that it shouldn't be done in the future. You're effectively arguing that stagnation is okay, improvement ought not be expected.
Of course it would. The change doesn't need to be dramatic, it might simply be one where you support one random NPC over another and it doesn't really go any further than that. The issue is that the small quests don't often allow for choice and so the result is always the same, and the big quests that occasionally offer a choice have next to no impact on the world (or even the region/town they happen to center around).

I have difficulty believing you can't think of some situations where there might have been an alternative, logical choice that wasn't available.
Morrowind has somewhere around 430 to 450 quests. Skyrim has something approaching 400, maybe a little more. That's accounting for Skyrim's randomized quests. If you only look at authored quests (which is all of Morrowind's) then the difference will be somewhat more significant.

Being able to kill everyone is a pro, period. We are talking about the level of choice here, not whether the consequences of the choice bum you out or not. Unless the consequence is wholly illogical, it's irrlevant to the discussion.

You're free to visit UESP if you don't believe me, but it's a fact that Morrowind had a greater number of quest choices. Still not fantastic, by any means, but definitely more. I don't have the time or inclination to go through again and count them all out. Some notable choices: Fighters/Thieves guild line, great houses, bring escaped slaves to missions or turning them in, paying ransom ashlanders or killing them to rescue hostages, the aforementioned Fargoth business. House Hlaalu has a line dealing with ebony (I think) smuggling in which each quest gives the option of informing on your employer to various people. In the end you can opt to continue in the smuggling operation or turn him in. The Mages Guild has a bunch of early/mid progression quests in which you can basically murder everyone you're tasked with meeting. The quest giver is sort of sociopathic like that. If you choose not to kill anyone, you can later frame her as a telvanni spy and get her removed from the guild. The main quest has a whole backdoor method of completion should anyone essential to it be killed. There's only more choices once you start looking at the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions.

Morrowind was EXTREMELY original, it was so surreal that its not Skyrims fault if its not the same. Morrowind had u playing as a stranger in a new land... every aspect of the world was new

I'm only going to reply to this right now, because everything else, it's just too late for, and a lot of it is like I said, if you have to go to the UESP to find out exact numbers to make your claim that Morrowind has more, then it's not a significant enough claim. Skyrim isn't lacking for things to do. And as far as all the choices you mentioned you can make in Morrowind, I can make a list just as long of choices you have in Skyrim

My point isn't that stagnation is okay, my point is that if it is an area that the game never tried to focus on anyways, that's never been a major focus of the series, then no, it's not something that requires improvement.

Things that TES focuses on that require constant high quality and improvement - character development, open world, freedom.

Pre-scripted "choose your own adventure" style quests have never been a major part of TES games. That's not what someone plays TES games for. That's what they play BioWare games for.

Like I said, that's like saying that Madden NFL should incorporate more RPG mechanics in it's game, because hey, it's stagnating.

Madden isn't an RPG, thus doesn't need RPG mechanics.

TES isn't a "choose your own adventure" game, thus, doesn't need branching questlines.

The "choice" is about being able to explore any content in the game that you choose. But when you get into that content, it has always been linear. You said it yourself, even in Morrowind the amount of choice you had in quests was poor. It may have been more than Skyrim, it may not have been, that's besides the point. The point is, that has never been the focus of TES.


And that kind of change is there. You can kill Paarthurnax, isolate yourself from the Greybeards, and maintain your relationship with the Blades, or vice versa. You have that choice, and it has a consequence. You can turn Saadia in to the Alik'r, or you can kill them and save her. That is a choice, and it has a consequence. You can side with Ulfric Stormcloak against the Empire, or you can side with the Imperial Legion and weed out the rebellion. That is a choice, and it has a consequence. During the peace talks at High Hrothgar, you have plenty of choices that have plenty of consequences on the world.

Your choices have plenty of consequence on the world. Do deeds for a hold, become a thane. Do good deeds for individuals, they become your friend, they give you gifts, they allow you into their home and you can take stuff from them without it being a crime. People will follow you. You can marry people. I'm not sure what more you want - just because there isn't a number next to their name in a menu telling you how much they like you on a scale from 1-100 doesn't mean that your actions don't have an impact on the NPC's around you.


Meh, I don't care about the difference between "400-450" and "nearing 400" - like I said, if you have to go to UESP to find out how many quests each game has, the argument is irrelevant, because Skyrim isn't lacking for things to do.

Being able to kill everyone isn't inherently a pro. If it was, then there wouldn't have been people [censored]ing about breaking their questline when they were playing Morrowind. It was a very vocal complaint, and now we have essential NPC's. Sometimes choice has to be restricted for the sake of having a functioning game. This is one such instance in the minds of many.

Fighters/Thieves guild line
Can you explain what these choices are? I didn't do these questlines when I played Morrowind.

great houses
Yes, siding with one Great House keeps you out of the others. This is the same choice and consequence as choosing to side with the Greybeards or The Blades.

bring escaped slaves to missions or turning them in
In Skyrim you can help Saadia escape or turn her in to the Alik'r.

paying ransom ashlanders or killing them to rescue hostages
What hostages? My mind is blanking. However, it is to my knowledge that you can choose to kill a hostage in the Dark Brotherhood questline, or instead kill the Dark Brotherhood. So you have the choice of killing or rescuing hostages.

the aforementioned Fargoth business.
Fargoth is so small and insignificant, there is plenty of choice of this caliber in Skyrim. It might not give you bright red text to make your decision, but you never have to turn in the Golden Claw to the Riverwood Trader if you want to keep it...

House Hlaalu has a line dealing with ebony (I think) smuggling in which each quest gives the option of informing on your employer to various people. In the end you can opt to continue in the smuggling operation or turn him in.

The Mages Guild has a bunch of early/mid progression quests in which you can basically murder everyone you're tasked with meeting. The quest giver is sort of sociopathic like that. If you choose not to kill anyone, you can later frame her as a telvanni spy and get her removed from the guild.
Again, I'll take your word for it, I'm not sure as I haven't done these questlines.

Other Skyrim choices - you can decide who to turn Azura's Star into, which gives your Azura's Star a different function depending on your choice, you can convince the Redguard farmers to help Cicero, or you can turn Cicero into the nearby guard, which results in the death of the Redguard farmers, in A Night To Remember you can pretty much bypass the entire quest itself by intimidating everyone into giving you the information, there is an Imperial Legion quest which allows you to ambush a group of Stormcloaks solo, or with a squad of Legion soldiers, you can choose who you want to sacrifice to Boethiah, you can side with the Forsworn or the Nords in Forsworn Conspiracy / Escape From Chidna Mine, you can side with the Forsworn to make your escape from the prison, and then when you escape actually help Thonar and the Silver-Bloods, I could go on.

My point?

As far as I'm concerned, there is plenty of choice and consequence. No, these types of quests aren't what TES are built around, but they are there. I don't feel Skyrim is lacking, and if Morrowind had more, so be it. It really doesn't "feel" like it when I play.

I said I was gonna respond to only that one thing, and then I responded to more, and I know I probably didn't articulate as well as I wanted to, it's late here. I'm going to bed.

It's good to be drawn into the experience but its also good to voice your dissatisfaction of something. That is my opinion on the matter OP.

I think what it is is that every game is catered to a certain type of player and each game afterwards trys to cater to a new type of player. Sometimes the player who a certain is catered to feels left behind.

Now the question is will they aply this mantra of easier is genious with the new fallout game, if so they will have doomed the series imo. I just hope that they actually get the sweet spot of the story, mechanics, consequences of fonv and the rich landscape type quality of skyrim...but I doubt it since I think alot of fonv fans and tes fans like myself were expecting that. Maybe thats why alot of us are disappointed in this fun game, the standard was there and the ck proves they yried, but making the release date they chopped quite a bit and bandaided it together so obviously u can see.

Fun game, just dosent live up to the standard of past games. Hopefully this run they learned whats important not to sacrifice and what we can live without. Im just scared the dollar signs will give them motivation to go the next round with even less.

Very true. You are quite welcome to point out shortcomings in the game, else they may never be addressed.

What I would say though, is that Oblivions engine was used for 3 games. It was looking creaky, so it was about time they gave it an overhaul, and the next ones gonna be on next gen... I know what you mean though, there's a balance to be struck between activisions "pump it til it's dead" approach, and re-inventing the wheel as you put it. Let's hope they adopt that balance after TES VI...

I'm glad I approach these games the way I do because I have more fun. I absolutely love Obivion; it was my first and got me back to serious gaming again after a long time. It's just gorgeous and I don't care about the things that bother other people so much. It's the whole experience that I love. FO3, FNV and Skyrim give me four huge games to play, worlds to explore and imagine myself in and some day I'll get back to Morrowind because I want to explore that world and story too. I have a harder time with the older tech but I'll get there. The lore has really started sticking with me too. What you mentioned about how it is when each game is released...well, I'd love to see a lot less Waahhhh, and more Wowwwww. It's a lot more fun to feel that way. I'm going to stay open to what they want to make and maybe I can even learn to mod a little.

if ur on pc, grab the game and use the morrowind overhaul from kingpix, it maes a 10 year old game look like it came out last year.

Also for fairness since ive listed the short comings, I want to list the good I wany to see carried over.

I want the grpahics quality to carry over, I want the combat to carry over, I want killcames, carriages, choices between factions, grey areas, music, the quality u put into faces and bodies, the handcrafted dungeons, weather, the detail towards wildlife, the crafymanship of towns and outdoor hideouts, the npcs routines, the effects. Keep the same artists u used for skyrim, bring them over to the next game bc it showed that they poured their heart into the work.

Its did great in so many areas, what id like to call the skin but needs alot of work in the soul of the game. Tbh just take the reigns outta the golden arrow and give the player the choice of holding the reigns and more beef to story with overhauled radiant quest and perks, and I woulda be still happily playing it and wouldnt be nowhere near as critical. Its all opionion, what some may not see, to others its blantly slapping them in the face. Give us a great story and mechanics and choices in a detailed and alive playgroumd and u got urself another immortal game that will be played for years.

You didn't say that Skyrim has plenty to do, you said Skyrim has more options than Morrowind. That is what I responded to, and that was what was wrong.
Again, your argument is circular. Obviously if you only ever look at what TES has done, then they've never tried to do anything else. But that can be said about literally anything. TES games used to have a largely randomized world, no longer. TES games used to have hit rolls, no longer. TES games used to have spellmaking, no longer. I mean, we can go on about this for ages. The point is, until they've actually done it, you can always say that it was never the intention (even if the reason it wasn't the intention was purely due to time constraints or budget concerns).

The only thing you should be looking at is the broad goal, not every little specific detail. The broader goal is to create a living, breathing world in which the player can become who they want. And, objectively speaking, a lack of quest options necessarily runs contrary to this goal. "Be whoever you want to be" means having options beyond saying yes or no.
I'm totally aware that there exist quests that do offer choices in Skyrim. My argument is that there aren't enough. Listing them out doesn't change that.

On NPC disposition: It's painful in Skyrim. You grab a handful of ingredients for someone and now you can rob their house without consequence? Skyrim turned the system into a binary "Loves You:No Opinion" scale. More granular systems are always better for accurately modelling how an NPC feels about you. It doesn't need to be displayed, it can be tucked away under the hood. It doesn't change the fact that the implementation in Skyrim is embarrassingly contrived. It's a step above Fable's stand in the street and fart until everybody loves you, but that's not a benchmark one should aim for.
No, we are making an objective anolysis of which game offers a greater deal of choice. Someone's personal preference as to what choices are available is irrelevant. The issue is: Does Skyrim offer more choice than Morrowind? The answer is yes.
My argument is that it doesn't matter what it "feels" like. It's objectively true. The fact that you didn't play or don't remember some of the Morrowind choices I listed might explain why it feels that way. When they can't even provide secondary options to some major decision points, that's lazy writing. It doesn't even pretend to account for what the player might want to do. It's holding their own preferred storyline as sacrosanct, regardless of what the player might want. It's directly contrary to player agency, something this series claims to support, but often only in the most superficial fashion.

Mainly just the PS3 guys complaining. Well, because its hard to let your imagination run wild when your game freezes.

Multiple outcome quest chains would greatly improve TES - it's supposed to be an RPG, but it doesn't support playing a role within the context of a quest, or if so only very minimally.

Skyrim shows a direction deliberately set out on by Bethesda to prod the player in certain directions, as has been discussed a lot here recently. The game design is predicated on an assumption by the devs that players should be being giuded into participating in a number of linear quest pathways. Otside of the free roam structure and random events in the open world, the game design is premised on this.
Take the guilds - the Companions are designed to be waved in the player's face early on when many players will go to Whiterun - even if you choose the 'not interested' dialogue option when you see them kill the giant, the game still tells you to go and talk to them and sticks it in your quest log.
Aventus Arentino is apparently the hottest topic of conversation in Skyrim - if you go to see him like the game clearly wants you to, you cannot talk him out of what he's doing (and inexplicably being allowed to do with zero interference) - the game initiates the quest automatically with no option to say "no I'm simply not going to be doing that". This is the only guild you can actively oppose, yet you have to perform an assassination in order for that option to even be available.
The game pushes you towards the thieves guild and doesn't make it all obvious you can totally ignore their questline
The game forces you to join the Mages college and initiate their questline just to talk to them - necessary for the MQ

The game can't make you follow any of these quesltlines, but the design philosophy is very clearly one of pushing the player towards very linear questlines. Bethesda seem to be adopting a game design philosophy whereby the player is to be constantly signposted and prompted to follow a selection of linear paths within an open world structure. It expects you to do it but thinks it'll leave it up to you exactly what order you do it all in. It makes for an open world that's surprisingly claustrophobic and very repetitive on subsequent playthroughs. What worries me is how much further they'll go along this path in the future. Because Bethesda are clearly moving into thinking if the world is open and freely exporable and you can level up yourcharacter, that's the only freedom you need. Hell - look at Dawnstar - you can't do anything there until youi've ploughed through a particular set quest. Apart from one quest where the game is going to tell you to go there when you hit level 20 - in case you (shock horror!) manage to miss it.

Though you can roleplay a character, the game is clearly not designed with that in mind. It wants you to be a thief, a warrior and a mage - and probably an assassin - on the same playthrough. That's not just an option - it's very blatantly designed on the assumption that's what you'll want to be doing.

Duplicate

XCRmonger,

I think sparking conversation wasnt meant to be done on nuclear devices.

sincerely,

The Skeleton sat next to whats left of the forum

They can just imagine that it's not freezing.

Thing is, all this stuff is done in Morrowind as well. If I so much as talk to a quest giving NPC in Morrowind, it is thrown in my journal - in 1st person narrative mind you - that I should "check out" or "help", or generally do whatever it is that the NPC is asking to be done, whether I intend to do it or not. It is there - in my quest journal, for the entirety of my game. What Skyrim did is no different than what was done in past games like Morrowind or Oblivion.

Who cares that it is thrown into your quest log to go see the Companions? It is nothing more than a note that you encountered this quest, and you can go do it or not. If you want to do it, it is there for you, if you don't want to do it, then you never have to check it, it will never pop up on your compass, and you go about your day. Just like I did in Morrowind when the game was putting words and thoughts into my character's head, when he wrote "I should go check out this dungeon that NPC X mentioned in Balmora because he wants me to bring back his magical slippers and I think I should look into that".

As far as forcing to join the College of Winterhold, I was already part of the College when I got to that part of the main quest, but it is my understanding you need to enter the College to gain access to the library - which means you have to cast a spell or use a shout for the high elf female at the door to be granted access to the College. From there, you go to the library, get the info you need, and never return to the College again if that's your bit. There's no "joining", it's merely gaining access. Don't talk to the NPC's who give you the tour of the facility, don't go to the first class, and don't go to Saarthal. You're not part of the College of Winterhold. Done and done.

And again, as far as the choice beyond "do the quest or don't" goes - that's what the choice has always been in TES. Your choice and freedom has been in regards to what content you choose to experience with your character, but when you experience that content, it has always been on the linear side of things. What I'm saying is that you can't condemn Skyrim for something that it wasn't even intended to do. Daggerfall didn't attempt hand crafted worlds, it did random worlds, so you can't criticize its lack of hand crafted worlds when it never tried to do that. This is working as intended, and at that point, it's up to you to decide if it is a game you want to play or not. And if Skyrim suffers for having a lack of choice in quests, then so does Morrowind. Yet, people weren't criticizing Morrowind for that...

That's simply not the type of game that TES is. Maybe they will attempt to make it that type of game in the future, but when that is not their goal, you can't condemn them for coming up short on it.

Faralda says "I think you'll be a superb addition to the College. Welcome, Apprentice". Sure sounds like she's welcoming you to the College as a new student to me. Now sure, you can pretend in you head that there was an option to say "No thanks, I'm just here to talk to the librarian" but as far as the game is concerned you have at that point been accepted into the College as an apprentice and have begun the associated quest line.

I suppose no one here has heard of the term "social engineering"? So what are thieves and corporate scammers doing who pretend to be someone else and even go so far as infiltrating a company/organization by joining them just to get the goodies? I find it utterly amusing that so many people are upset that they "must join" the College in order to get the goodies inside of it and are complaining that this somehow restricts freedom and poo-poo's on the open world concept. Hullo, is reality not an open world? Wouldn't it be nice if thieves and corporate scammers didn't have to go that far in real life... then the term "social engineering" wouldn't even exist! How many of you work in the corporate world? I know I do, and I'm forced every year to take compliance examinations specifically on how to detect and report this very thing!

LOL.. you guys crack me up. Are you going to start complaining to the government because you can't waltz right into your local banking headquarters and steal all of their precious confidential client information without going to school and getting a degree in business related IT, getting yourself hired, then hopefully getting the right position where you can start illegally mining that data? Jerks are ruining your immersion! This real world is so unreal!