THIS

What is the difference in a game company changing a game so much that it is no longer the same game and in the company outright stopping to make that game series ? I think one of the reasons some people (yes, probably me included) are so disgruntled at the changes is that Bethesda was the very last company that made games like Morrowind with a lot of lore, characters with things to say beyond one liners, so many choices in customizing your character, proper directions on quests so you could enjoy figuring your way to a place rather than mindlessly following an arrow and much more. But then with the last two releases Bethesda has been going further and further from that and getting closer and closer to making just an action game. The combat is made a lot simpler and easier with less variation and NPC's now have a hundred times less things to say and magic is slowly becoming non existent with the larger jump probably being from Oblivion to Skyrim where the variety of magic was lessened 23 times.

Skyrim is not the kind of game that grabs a hold of you and doesn't let go like for example Morrowind did for me. It is rather the shiny game that will interest me for a month and then I move onto the next game because quite frankly each new game in the series is less special and unique and more like the rest of the hundreds of action games out there.

Do I not want Bethesda to stop making TES games ? I think it's a little late to ask that question.

Don't get me wrong though, Skyrim is a good game by today's standards, but it doesn't live up to the standards it set for itself years ago.

SKYRIM =/= MORROWIND THEREFORE SKYRIM = TERRIBLE
that seems to be a general mindset amongst the heated haters

I really don't get WHY they do it.

For example, I really don't like KoA: Reckoning and feel like i've wasted my money if i'm honest, but the last thing i have the motivation to do right now is sign up to it's forum and whine about how i don't like it.

What needs to be encouraged is Bethesda actually hiring writers that can create competent quests and making characters that are believable. I loved Skyrim for a lot of reasons, but pretty much all of the quests were atrocious and repetitive and the NPC's are beyond a joke.

Beth gets its praise, but it also needs to know that the way they took Skyrim was below par and insulting to intelligent gamers.

I'm actually guessing that Bethesda is interested in feedback both positive and negative.

As far as criticism affecting future games. Somehow I doubt that the company will turn down many millions of dollars in near guaranteed sales because their feelings are hurt.

It's got to be frustrating to be a gamer who does not receive the exact game they wanted on release day. It's got to be frustrating that they can't make the game they want to play but if they want that, they have to go out and learn how to make games and start a company and do it. Unless they're willing to do that, they're just going to increase their frustration by constantly complaining because they're in such a small minority. That's got to be frustrating too...to know that they're in the minority. Most of the people who are playing are having fun and I'm glad I'm in that group. If I wasn't in that group, I wouldn't be here but there are plenty of other people I can find to talk about the game with. Good luck to the ones who don't like the game; I hope you find something you like some day.

Personally I'm in the group that has loved Morrowind ,Oblivion and Skyrim which also seems to be an odd place to be. All have their flaws but they are outweighed by their strengths for me ( and fixed by mods on PC, I couldn't handle the consoles personally for that reason knowing mods where out ther but I digress)


I'd like to see the terms "haters " and " Dumbed Down" both completely disappear from the forums. Both are actually pretty offensive and exaggerative terms depending on who you are.

But you see people already did. But then it changed. Imagine in 10 years if for example TES VII is coming out, you felt TES VI didn't live up to Skyrim and you feel TES VII just isn't the same type of game anymore. You can't go anywhere else for that kind of game because supposedly you are in a minority and the only logical place to voice your concerns for the series is at a forum that makes the series, yet on those forums the attitude is "lol, you are a minority, games should only be made for sales but not as any kind of artistic expression and thus eventually all the games should be the same for max sales!".

Each new TES game will sell better than the last and each new TES game will be a bit less artistic and shallower than the last but the attitude will always be "make it yourself if you want it so much" despite that being such an illogical attitude that it's not funny. There are a thousand reasons why people enjoy games made by others more than games made by themselves but the biggest one would probably be that if you're alone and not the head of some company your game will probably have characters that are just stick figures and you will know every little detail about the game thus ruining any enjoyment that comes with learning new lore or by surprise that the game can throw at you.

I myself aspire to be a writer and I've read hundreds of brilliant books so I want to make one of my own for someone else to read and enjoy. But I'd never get the same enjoyment out of reading my own book as someone else would because I would already know the ending.

As for the question posed by spartan258 I'd have to say that somewhere in that naivé mind of mine I hope perhaps the criticism I give the game will influence the next one if only but the tiniest bit.

Right. In such big business you can't really go "Fine! You hate it, so no more games for you!! "

No, i'll keep complaining about the bad, praising the good, a using mods that fix the bad. Only of those has affected their games in the past. Come Fallout 4, i'll buy it, and continue doing the same

You think they would butcher their best milkcow because of a few threads with negative feedback?

"Gee, some people here aren't very pleased with our game... we better pull the plug out of the series because they have hurt our feelings!" Really?

I wouldn't consider myself a hater I enjoyed my time with Skyrim. My biggest problem with the game is the essence of Roleplaying is gone. It's so much harder for me to Roleplay in Skyrim in comparasion to Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. I can still Roleplay in Skyrim but it's not easy especially with the Streamlinging of Attributes and other features. I do worry about Fallout 4 but that's all going to depend on how much of Skyrim is transfered over to that game and how much Todd Howard likes New Vegas. Hopefully it's more of the latter and not the former although the former can work if Beth doesn't screw up the model too much.

Loved Fallout 3.
Loved Fallout New Vegas.
Loving Skyrim.
Loving mod community for all 3 games.

Everyone is entiteld to their own opinion, but their are some people who just spit bile and acid at every opportunity and don't let a single opertunity to go by to remind everyone that they dislike the way this game went.
When I see certain people that fill all their posts with some jab at Bethesda or another reminder that they hate skyrim even if it doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand it just becomes stupid.

Plenty of topics around here where you see someone try to derail or refocus a topic on how Bethesda failed or disappointed them.


It's not that I disagree with them, heck, so many things could have been better in Skyrim.
But these people are just making me mad, and I doubt I'm the only one annoyed at this, hence this topic.


I loved Morrowind, I enjoyed Oblivion and I adore Skyrim, but damn it. They are not the same games, if you enjoyed Morrowind more then play that, don't stay on these forums spewing hatred if you can't make good constructive criticism without decending into blaming or just insane troll logic..

/rant

Now does this sound like a hater to anyone? He is constructively criticising the game. But according to some this is `hatred`.

That`s why terms such as hater is wrong and only used to create negative emotions and label people wrongfully.

People have this wacky idea that developers don't play their own games and take criticism from themselves and their own team, even after a game is released. They're not idiots. They don't need a legion of forum-goers to tell them what nit-picky details they got "wrong".

More importantly, how would the developers be able to do anything at all if they tried to "fix" everything that people on these forums identify as being wrong?

the difference between hater and non-hater can be very subtle, I for one agree that that post you quoted was not a hater.
I actually dislike the term hater to be honest, it's pretty much a instant 'discredit argument' card.

At worst I'd say their are people with very strict opinion who for some reason don't seem to look at it from any perspective then their own.

I think It's just a large group of closeminded people, either against something, 'haters', or behind something, 'fans', and both are pretty much idiots in my opinion.

They get blinded by pride, It happens to everyone. You need outside opinion to know whether or not your creation is up to snuff or not.

lol sure
in fact the outside opinion says it's game of the year

Rubbish.

Time has shown again and again that people, not only in games but in other forms of developement, benefit from an outside point of view.

Many Developers run a serious risk of losing touch if they assume they know it all without any critical advice.

Actually, the only people I know of who get blinded by pride are those who aren't very good at what they do in the first place. These guys are some of the top people in the industry.

And while you need outside opinion to know whether an artistic creation is working for people, the popular critique is often found in sales figures and reviews instead of forums where only people with an inclination to whine are going to feel compelled to post in the first place.

Edited for above: Again, it's not about not getting outside input, but it's about where that input comes from.

Well, they don't need a forum or something to give the feedback they need.

In the end sales is usually the most important feedback, high sales? They like it.

Not saying that it's the best feedback, but compared to forum feedback...
Forums are not best known for the best of ideas, the amount of stupid, bad or just plain [censored] ideas drains out the good ones.
Not to mention all the good ones that get ignored.

At least sales just state the facts without and buts and ifs.


Of course, in a franchise sales are less definitive as feedback due to people buying it because of being a sequel, but then the next game usually tanks in sales.



Almost everyone Game of the Year award is pretty much worthless in this day and age, between the bad categories and the votes by public there is not a lot of room for proper evaluation of what is a good game.
If you ask me you should disregard any Game of the Year or other awards you see on a box and check it out yourself, they carry as much value as some random guys approval.

Why so serious?

I'm not a fan of the word "hater" but it best describes the strong negative vibe on here. Constructive criticism is healthy for growth but when i see 7 page threads "things you hate about skyrim" there's nothing constructive there.

I'm just curious about what would those same anti-skyrim "haters" would say if beth decided to stop making TES...would you feel like mission accomplished, saving the world from a sub par game?

Personally there's much i don't like about skyrim but there's so much more i love about it...it's still the best game of it's kind and gives me a sense of freedom that not even GTA and other open world games offer

Except that the "high sales" they got was from launch day before anyone had the chance to really play the game. It doesn't account for people like me that bought the game early (adding to those sales) and ended up disappointed. There are a lot of us by the way.

lol, thanks for this...