^ And here's the reason why this series is going down the drain. The "wider audience" simply doesn't care.

+1

Exactly my thoughts. That is the new target auidence for Todd Howard and it's a damn shame.

It's the " wider audiance " that payes the bills.

Elderscrolls is a blockbuster sucess thanks to the " wider audiance "

If you dont like the series any more, go find somthing else to fill the void in your life... untill you obsess over that so much that your not happy with that anymore either... find some forums to post your mellodramatic opinions....

Dont worry, the world will keep turning and normal people will still be reasonably happy.

What about your speech about world hunger and the trampling of human rights?

Still be happy.... and and those lucky enough not to be suffering will be apretiative of life....

Unless they spend inordinate amounts of time obsessing over trivial matters.

I think your enjoyment of video games is trivial. Let's take it away! What now?

LOL... yeah thats not mellodramatic.

I guess I'll just watch the Three Stooges then.

( actualy I'm watchin em now )

All I'm saying is that you're tossing around your judgments and calling people's criticism trivial and demanding that they invest their efforts in more productive goals, yet here you are arguing with them about first world problems on the very same video game forum. In simpler terms, you're a hypocrite.

Dude, you're being trolled.

This anolysis is completely wrong in my opinion. If you design your game properly such a problem shouldn't occur, all classes and playstyles should be rewarding, if it's in the design it should work in the game. When I design my character I shouldn't be thinking what powers I may want later, if you flesh out the decisions properly I should be intrigued by them right from the start :"Oh, Nightblade, that sounds cool, I′ll go with it", the problem arises when chosing Nightblade later proves to be the worst possible choice if you actually wanted to play that style of character (Morrowind and Oblivion).

I agree that the system is Skyrim is more elegant, but if the reason behind it was that they believed that players would not be able to make a choice and stick with it, they anolyzed the flaws of their previous games completely wrong and seemed to have ended up with a better system by more luck and coincidence than actual understanding of the problems the design in previous games created.

Indeed. This explains quite a lot if he thinks choosing 2 weapons and 2 perks are ''hardcoe'' RPG elements. RPGs are about more than choosing to kill faceless enemies with either a sniper rifle or grenades; it's about making decisions that change and affect both the PC and the game world in meaningful ways, whenever it's in gameplay or in story. CoD certainly isin't one, and Skyrim's own claim is shaky at best when almost nothing the PC does ever changes anything other than people having different greeting lines (maybe). Numbers do not make an RPG (else every single game would be an RPG); world-building, choice and consequence, characters do.

Let's take another example; Darksiders. In that game, you have a selection of weapons (that get better as you use them), a selection of weapon enhancements, a selection of activated powers, and a selection of special abilities/combos, and your character generally becomes more powerful as the story goes. Is it an RPG? Hell no. Whatever you choose has no influence on the story, only on the gameplay. Whenever you are a ranged specialist, a hit-and-run like guy or you just use that big sword and powers of yours to crush fools, doesn't change anything in the story. Same with Skyrim; you can become Arch-Mage without having a single perk point into any magical school, or become leader of the Companions as a sneaky, very much dishonorable assassin. Meanwhile, RPGs like New Vegas or ye olden games like Planecape;Torment restrict (I know, this is a bad bad word in this day of ''immersion'' and ''but just use your imagination!!!'') what the player can do in-story based on the PC's skills. High social skills, or technical skills can open up paths previously unreachable, get more of what you want from NPCs, ect. There is none of this in COD, and precious little in Skyrim.

Well, this ended far longer than what I intended. TLDR; I can't disagree with Todd more.

Nah... thats what forums are for ...discussion... and theres absolutly nothing wrong with criticzim either... I understand what you are saying.... but I'm just trying to point out the melodrmatic tunnel vision that seems to evolve over time... and sarcasticly try n point to some perspective..

Look at the rediculus other side of it... I point out that a poster might want to take a step back and look and present opinion in a more encompasing way... and am told that I'm whats wrong with the world LOL.

Not to sound insulting , but I think you might want to read the article more slowly. Tod Howard never said CoD had hardcoe rpg elements... just that it has rpg elements and is a hardcoe fps respectivly... pointing out that he feels that the average gamer wouldnt be put off or overwhelmed by a hardcoe rpg (skyrim)... pointing to the sucsess of CoD.

But I think he was backpeddeling and being a bit pre-emptivly defensive.... while I think pointing to the sucsess of CoD, and other non-rpgs that are incorperating experiance/level progression is a valid point ( everyone loves leveling, evolving, and gaining new abilities ) his statement that he didnt feel the need to " dumb " the game down seems a little odd seeing that they already did.

Some of it for the better, and some just leaving me with the feeling of less...

I'm sure that with the next itteration they'll find a better balance... you try somthing and see how it work... what does and what dosent.

So you think someone who uses an assault rifle that is designed for medium close range is playing the same "role" as someone who uses a long range weapon? I am not in to FPS but I can see how as a designer you would want to pay attention to how other designers are building games. Particulary with the blurring of genre occuring. Keep in mind that any cataloguing of anything is all based on opinion.

There's that magic phrase again. It's rather strange seeing how it crops up here a lot, because when I think of many RPG series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Pokemon, Might & Magic, etc., the whole concept of "choice and consequences" seldom had a significant presence if at all. In fact, that seems to really just be Bioware's shtick, rather than an essential trait of RPGs. It certainly wasn't a major selling point of TES games at the least.

"Bethesda, well, Todd Howard, said the team don’t need to dumb down Skyrim to attract a wider, broader range of audience."

From the article. Thats kind of funny, because thats exactly what they did. The man will take this series straight down the toilet. He's off to a fine start.

All the RPGs you mentioned are JRPGs, which typically focus more on a single linear story with character stats and skills being the customization aspect. TES is more heavily inspired from Pen and Paper RPGs, similar to Neverwinter Nights, Baulder's Gate, KoTOR, etc. It also has been heavily influenced by other DOS RPGs back when the series started with Arena.

I guess an article like this could explain Skyrims shortcomings.