Stop "complaining."

Can't you just like Skyrim and accept it for what it is?

It doesn't matter whether I use 'Complain' or 'Accept'. The outcome is still the same.

I would like more consequences and perhaps some more restrictions to the factions, but really, what did you expect from the Dark Brotherhood? They're a group of assassins, who assassinate. If you want to get closer to the Void, you could always send your character the way of Lucien Lachance. xDD

Getting assassin contracts is fine.

The point was, I become the leader and all that happens is... I have the option to get more assassin contracts.

I can't send out my guild mates to do assassinations.

I can't recruit new members.

I can't expand out to another sanctuary.

Etc.

Ideally, three options per quest. Ideally, mind. Most fetch quests having only enough options to either accept or deny wouldn't bother me, since I understand lots of variety means lots of time needed to make that possible.

By three options I mean #1 being acceptance, #2 being refusal, #3 being apathy. Or even #1 'good guy' option, #2 'bad guy' option, #3 'don't care' option.

If an old lady is abusing kids, I wouldn't just want the option to just kill the old lady, but also an option to report the lady to the Jarl and have her sent to jail. The apathic option would just to be to do nothing, with that nothing causing visible concequences like if those kids start 'disappearing' one by one.

....I guess I don't want just more options, but some form of concequence for those options.

inb4goplayMassEffectDragonAge

At first I thought that was a console command.

lol

this, so much this. It's really not that hard all yo uneed is branching storyines that hook into multiple choices and that way it doesn't matter who or wha tyoru character is they will run into a hook for the story/quest. With mutiple branching quests and such you open up multiple ways to complete them so you can cover all your PC skill sets.

The freedom of exploration and open-ended world is really not such a major obstacle in creating a well-functioning storyline.

The entire point with the story in a rpg is that it's a mechanic that drives the player forward, just like the loot or advancement of the character are little rewards, like brain-candy, that tells us that we are doing something right, the advancement of the story serves as such a tool. It's a way of having the game tell us "well done" by revealing a little bit more of the plot. The best kind of such candy is when we have to use our own mind to figure something out, make some sort of deduction. The fascinating simplicity of it all is that the game really doesn′t have to force us to discover this ourselves, it's very easy to simply make us feel like we figured it out, when it was essentially really served to us.

The problem in Skyrim is that we never feel that anything is discovered through our own actions, everything is simply told to us by NPC characters after we have bashed our sword against a sufficient amount of enemies.

If a certain person that we need to find is hiding his identity, it's really easy to achieve a sufficient feeling of discovery by simply not telling where he is. There are so few towns and places in Skyrim that a person could potentially blend in that by simply travelling around we will soon start sniffing him out and when we find him and a breakthrough in the story unravels, we will feel a much larger sense of fullfillment.

And why do you think they would add such a mode?

One thing I thought of was better facial animations on NPCs. When you have a voice actor and an NPC is speaking, I want to see more movement of the lips and eyes when the character is speaking so it makes them more memorable and able to get across an emotion.

Another thread mentioned the economy and without getting into a debate I'd like to see features where you can actually affect the in-game economy in complex ways. (Cause inflation/deflation, change of currency, trade deficits, enforce taxes/tariffs, wide scale unemployment, banking, etc) Along with NPC reactions to those changes. Drive a city into poverty or the likes. Cutting off trade routes by blocking anything from coming into a city causing its people to starve.

I was wondering; looking at the variety of elements promised in the upcoming update... quest bug-fixes, mannequins that don't vanish, reducing lag on the PS3, and etc... surely these require far more coding than than adding extra dialogue/history to NPC's. You'd think a couple of hours in a recording studio and a few extra KBs in a patch would suffice to keep the game seeming fresh.
Whilst we're waiting for expansions, if Bethesda could occasionally update the lives of the NPC population during periodic patches (an new piece of guard sarcasm here, a divorce there, a Jarl takes to the bottle, whatever) it would be an inexpensive and much appreciated gift to their fans.

Hi Thesbiah; first thing I want to say (before I begin arguing ) is that I do know what you mean about wanting more storyline and dialogue even as you enjoy Skyrim. It's brought me a lot of joy since 11/11/11 and continues to do so. I'm glad to see you're enjoying it.

1. You won't see more text. I also played and enjoyed Torment but Baldur's Gate 2 and the Icewind Dales games never followed that format again (at least not to that extent). I find that a lot of people who loved BG never even bothered to play Torment. It may simply be lack of familiarity with Planescape but I think a lot of other people were turned off by the "wall of text".

I only dabbled in Daggerfall (borrowed from a friend but too difficult and buggy) so my first real TES game was Morrowind. Again, lots of text which didn't bother me at all. Yet Oblivion moved into voice-acting instead; people want to hear voices not read. The last holdout is our characters due to the number of races and classes available; I wonder how long that will last.

2. The issue of NPC reactions is sort of moot as you're comparing it to party members interacting. You only have one follower- unless you also take a dog.Having companions/followers at all is a step in the right direction. I'd like to see more interactions too. I think we may have to expect less followers but I'm willing to have that for more lively companions.

3. TES games like to shake up their world. Whether you actually SAVE it is different. In Morrowind, you didn't save the world; you took on the role of Nerevarine - or rather, were one of several who had walked that path. In Oblivion, you certainly ran around like a dikeens... but in the end, it was Martin who saved the Imperial City; you could have done nothing against Lord Dagon yourself. In Skyrim... well, this is General Discussion.
One of the tihngs I rather like about TES is that you are reminded via books and other characters that you are merely one hero among many. The world is bigger than Skyrim. You help one place... but those other places manage to take care of themselves, thank you very much.

As for people's reactions to you... I do see what you mean but reactions could also hamper character development. What if you wanted to play a Khajiit knight? Kinda hard if everyone treats you like a natural thief. Imperial... you'd probably be lynched/chased in some parts of the country. Prejudice is interesting to encounter in NPCs... NOT in your player character.

Sorry if I'm rambling but I am tired. I want to reiterate that I do see your point and would like to see some advances in the directions you've recommended!

I guess you haven't been keeping up in the Bio forums?

No, I haven't been there since I heard how disappointing Dragon Age II was. But my point was about why "streamlining" occurs at all.

Better characters. Make them more memorable.

ME3 will have a mode where you don't make any of Shepard's choices; it's all automatic.

Okay, and why do you think they'd implement that feature?

They could definitely try more text. Voice acting is expensive and keeps the dialogue short and not memorable. For the more casual crowd, you can skip to the important details anyways.

NPCs could react better to eachother. You see a little attempt of that when you first enter Whiterun and see the kids arguing with eachother or people asking eachother questions. We need more unique characters doing this to eachother. Cicero is a good example, but you can only have so many crazy people.

TES doesn't do much to shake up the normal RPG adventure stereotypes. It tries nothing daring or original. It tries to play the whole, "both sides are bad just like real life/there are only shades of grey" deal with the civil war, but it comes across souless.

Most casual games don't even use extensive voice acting. Neither does a lot of recent Nintendo games. I don't think text-based dialogue like Morrowind would've hurt much at all.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1341740-my-idea-for-a-completely-overhauled-character-development-system/

I don't think a game like Planescape: Torment has ever been made since with so much dialogue, but point taken.

Currently I am diligently working on a novelette back story of my current character, who is a female Nord. When finished I will probably upload a pdf version at Skyrim Nexus, for people to enjoy, if they so desired. The thing is, I am retired and have a lot of time on my hands, but the creative juices are still flowing --despite occasional memory lapses.