The topic is as bizarre as someone saying "Battlefield is deep" or "WoW is realistic".

I like to think of games with "big impacts" as shallow. When big guns shape big events and where huge things happen and I save mankind plus the universe do I feel a lack of substance. Such games are the bloated and shallow ones. They use their effects to hide from me the things that truly reflect life.

Who here thinks of themselves as having a big impact on the real world? If you are being realistic for a moment will you see how small we - everyone on their own - really are. Being able to take part in a civil war, to catch butterflies, to fight dragons and having a guard thanking you for reopening a trading company, because he can now buy "breton cheese" again, has got all the depth and impact I need. These are the big and strong impacts.

Having hundreds of delegates of thousands of galaxies thanking you for saving the universe may seem like the bigger impact, but it never beats the feeling of one, single being thanking you for what you did. You get this in Skyrim more than in any other game.

Could someone bring up what sort of impact you had on the gameworld in Mass Effect?

Almost none of it happened on screen, from what I can remember. Whenever you made a fateful decision, the game shuttled you right on out of there, off the entire damn planet. You could change a government, but then the game ended. They tried very hard to make sure they didn't have to actually show any of those big consequences.

And they could get away with it because it wasn't a consistent open-world game.

So exactly what are we comparing to here?

Never played Mass Effect, not my sort of game thanks. So no clue.

As far as what's being compared.... I really don't know. Apples and oranges probably, since that's usually what happens. There are people who love TES because it's a relatively open-world system; there are also those who hate it for the same reason. You simply cannot please all the people even a small part of the time.

Most decisions tend to impact your experience rather than the gameworld. However I noticed a few quests that result in ruined cities or towns and or the death of key NPCs. One big decision I made right from the start is no main quest. That has had an impact in the lack of general destruction and dragons flying around; and the freedom to do as I please without the pressure and expectations of being 'Dragonborn'.

Yeah, guards dialog will change

Why is everyone complaining about the game being too unrealistic. Yes its "formula ridden." How else would Bethesda make the AIs? Magic? Formulae are what run the entire game. Try make your own open world game and see how easy it is to think of, prgram, and animate every little thing a player can do to influence the game

That is a nonsense argument.
I dont need to have run a country to critique the way mine is run, I dont need to be able to build a car to call something a rustbucket, and I dont need to be able to make games to have an opinion on them.

Secondly you are taking the argument that the game is quite apparantly formulaic and vapid and dragging it all the way to the other side, getting it to mean that the game runs on math.
While that is an obvious truth, its has nothing at all to do with the topic at hand.

Sorry, but that's my view. If someone's gonna complain, at least try and look at the other side. And yes it is off-topic. So what do you think is the most impactful decision in Skyrim?

This is the most bizarre post I've ever seen.

It's like the existance of New Vegas was erased from everyone's mind.

Bizarre? Serethil is right on the money to my mind. Suits worrying about performance issues alienating consumers is the reason why MMORPGs are in the state they are in currently. Nobody wants to scare away casual gamers playing online with basic home computers. I have no doubt Beth would have also extensively planned, designed and tested for performance. And it would certainly come to bear on the complexity/shallowness of Skyrim.

Like I said earlier Skyrim is shallow and vapid when compared directly to previous TES games or even other open world RPG's. Other games have better stroylines and are better RPG's. For an open world game Skyrim is very linear in that nothing you do impacts anything, it is linear because the quests follow very transparent formula's that get tiring after a short time.

It simply is shallow, repetitive and nothing you do makes a difference. They could have made the ending more rewarding, scattered some random high powered loot around to make exploring worthwhile and written at least a few good quests.

I'm tired of the excuses A big open world game doesn't have to be pointless and shallow with crappy quests and a crappy storyline.

No. Not a single one. I guess the developers' focus on player freedom has the effect of making player impact minimal in order not to limit anything that involves said player freedom. Bioware is a helluva lot better at managing this to be honest.

Yeah but they completely miss the point, What good is freedom in a game if nothing you do effects or changes it? We have zero impact on the game the game might as well just stay sealed in the game case cause weather we play the game or not the game world stays the same. The game just plays like a Bethesda money grab that aimed for a particular release date.

This game allows no choice and impact of events is usually minimal, aesthetic and often overlooked (like Elisif ruling Solitude despite Ulfric's victory).

It all falls down to preference of course. Some (most?) just prefer roaming dungeon after dungeon watching the view and delivering lost property to poor farmers.

The Mods always do that, they will probably lock the topic soon enough...

It is a bit silly really when you think about it, and the OP is right. BUT maybe there just isn't the space to write the code needed for various things to really have an impact.

Agreed as others have said, considering who you kill in the DC quest, it's insane that all hell doesn't break loose.

What though would be really new for me, is if you could join a questline, and at the end NOT end up being in charge of it. It was the same in Oblivion. I'm just surprised they don't make you the freaking emperor tbh. Sorry but it's lame and if it was real, it would be embarrassing getting such a promotion over much more experienced bods.

I cannot believe the people that claim not to have noticed changes. Those are the people that are oblivious to traffic lights and stop signs. There are so many things that have changed and continue to change. For example, I killed the fence for the Thieves guild and all the people were pissed and now the thieves guild cannot grow to it's potential. Had I not killed the guy at the shipping docks after following him, he would still be a "Major" NPC character within the story, and I would be able to sell him stolen goods. Stalls would have start to develop down in the Cistern, but now they haven't. The game reacts to Gender, Race and actions. I have seen a majority of my decisions affect the dialogue and outcome of various quests.
Bonjoyle