I find this debatable, Oblivion sold way better than Morrowind on mainly what was the positive press for Morrowind and a bigger advertising campaign. Skyrim (and Oblivion) would have been massive either way and could have made the trademark TES fun mainstream.

Or how about this lore friendly way. Not all in skyrim are mages, not all have spells and know how to use them. But if you look at these exits as something else then a easy path out for the player there could be a more logical explanation why the people who uses the dungeoun has made an exit like that.

1) It could because the owner of the loot hidden there wanted to have a escape route in case people should enter the dungeon on the hunt for him Sorry. That des not compute. The shortcut usually leads to the begining, right under the nose of hypothetical trespassers.
2) It could be because he wanted to have a "hidden" way in and out that few would stumble upon. A lot of these exits ends on location people don't simply stumble upon Again, sorry, the shortcut way back is usually rather obvious.
3) It could be a natural path in the mountain that they have blocked off as exit only to prevent people from entering the room with the loot without going through all the traps, thus making this path a exit only. I have seen dungeons that feels like this, where there is no way for me through the bars so obviously I have found the exit and not the main entrance. I've seen this happen once. Once.

For my part it feels more natural that there is one of these reasons behind these quick exits rather then to give me a spell to throw that teleports me to X location, specially since I so far haven't played a character who uses spells. They could easy have included the spells Mark and Recall as they had them in Morrowind, and it would have been nice if they had done it as it would have given spell casters a way to get out of caves the way they want too without having to use the "backdoor". No matter how you look at it both your and my explanation on how it could be are perfectly lore friendly, the exits are very handy, but they could be handy for a reason like the one I posted above and not only meant to be a easy way out for the player. No bandit that makes their hideout in a mountain would risk having only one entrance and exit to the place unless there is no other way to get out and in. Hmmm, hand drawn local maps? The ones where the secret exits are marked down?

Hi there Swollenwabbit. Good you dropped by. Please find my response marked in red.

the landscape of video games, it's technology, advertisemant and acceptance by the general public has completely changed since morrowind and the early 2000's.

it is completely mainstream now.

in fact, it's funny to see individuals try and use the old misconception that video games are for nerds or that it's some weird hobby or pasttime.

those arguments and 'putdowns' don't work anymore.

That's not what I was saying

I was saying that Oblivion would have sold with it's advertising campaign and hype if it was BIg Rigs Racing quality.
It's funny to see you accusing a video game enthusiast on an online forum of using the word nerd as a putdown.

Hi there Swollenwabbit. Good you dropped by. Please find my response marked in red.

I find this debatable, Oblivion sold way better than Morrowind on mainly what was the positive press for Morrowind and a bigger advertising campaign. Skyrim (and Oblivion) would have been massive either way and could have made the trademark TES fun mainstream.

Hi again.

We'll see. Skyrim's sales figures certainly prove the PR department right. Let's see how DLC performs. I'm not entrely convinced linearity, predictability and shallowness really appeal to the masses. In fact, what got me into SKyrim, and TES for that matter, was the whole idea of a vast, fresh and intriguing world ready to be explored. I'm persuaded the same happened to a lot of folks.

Skyrim sold because they spent a fortune on marketing.

No one knew how the game played before it was released, Oblivion wasn't as basic and Morrowind less so again. So if each game rides of the success of the last, Bethesda are going entirely the wrong way about it.

There is nothing stopping Bethesda making Morrowind 2 (hypothetically) it would sell every bit as well as Skyrim has.

hey, i was agreeing with you. your response to cicero was right on, imo.

see, cicero, THIS is why we have to post 'loudly', lol.

edit: the nerd part was for those who put down video game enthusiasts, like us.

hey, i was agreeing with you. your response to cicero was right on, imo.

see, cicero, THIS is why we have to post 'loudly', lol.

edit: the nerd part was for those who put down video game enthusiasts, like us.

hey, i was agreeing with you. your response to cicero was right on, imo.

see, cicero, THIS is why we have to post 'loudly', lol.

edit: the nerd part was for those who put down video game enthusiasts, like us.

Marketing is necessary and inevitable in "our times",and works only as "incentive" -but even other great game companies use this "escamotage" so why to criticize even that aspect ?

Look at this way :

Morrowind < Oblivion in terms of sales - this after many years and apart from "marketing" cause potentially who had played Oblivion would have been attracted even from Morrowind

What Bethesda would have choose to improve sales even more ?

The only reason Oblivion sold way better was because:


1. It was a new game, and hardly anyone got the chance to review it on day of release.

2. Worldwide gaming forums were already submitting reviews. (i.e Gamespot, Gamefly, IGN)

3. Gaming forums falsely advertised the rating of the game, just so they could get more money from Bethesda.

4. It had improved features.

cicero-

lol! i'm not actually angry. cmon, man. my point was very clear: how easy it is to misunderstand in these online forums.

i gave a perfect example of why i (and, many others, btw) write things so harshly or 'loud' or brazen, etcetc

as a side: debate is not for everyone. many hate it and don't actually understand it or make false assumptions about it. MANY don't have the skills or logical ability to engage in it successfully. ie: it's not for everyone and these "personal battles" are only debate-specific and not actually personal attacks on the person.

Or perhaps "someone" have better things to do in real life that "debating" on a forum on someone else's assumptions ad infinitum

Apart from joke you are offensive again - even against yourself without knowing you really pretend to judge someone else's skills or logical ability ?

And this is where being loyal to fans comes into play, sure they could sell their fanbase up the creek and go for the bigger market, but look at the success of Mount and Blade or Wasteland 2. They could help indie developers out by giving the genre a big budget release to raise awareness..

The "fans" for Bethesda are all those who buy their products.

I understand that its difficult to accept but "us" hardcoe players/fans here on the forum represent the minority,so Bethesda priorities probably still will go elsewhere in the future.

For the "indie developers" - i agree with you,but its not easy to face objectively with such sensitive issues/arguments.

This,

Have anyone here played Daggerfall? That game have the most tedious dungeons I've ever been in.
Waltz right in to just find some lost lady, run about for two hours in real time, find the woman, and try to backtrack for the next three hours.
After those dungeons I'm grateful for the shortcuts, even if the dungeons are easy to navigate.

Have anyone here played Daggerfall? That game have the most tedious dungeons I've ever been in.
Waltz right in to just find some lost lady, run about for two hours in real time, find the woman, and try to backtrack for the next three hours.
After those dungeons I'm grateful for the shortcuts, even if the dungeons are easy to navigate.

Daggerfall was a dungeon crawler though. The cities were just quest receptacles/loot trading areas to get you back in the dungeon as quick as possible.

tedious backtracking and grateful shortcuts are one thing.

linearity and lack of creativity are another.

People are actually comparing Skyrim's dungeons negatively to Oblivion's. Unreal. I shouldn't be surprised by anything I see in the forum, but sometimes it happens.