» Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:55 am
Boring is a subjective term, but I totally agree with what you're getting at. Let's break it down:
Voice Acting: In and of itself it's very good, but the voices are so unique that it's VERY obvious when you keep running into the same voice actor for several different NPC's. Aside from this, the expense and time constraints related to voice acting is the exact reason that we have no dialogue options, no branching choices, no consequences. When intimidate / pursuade shows up (laughably) 3% of the time and I choose "intimidate," (i.e. I'll rip your head off if you don't do this...) the NPC will go on as if nothing had happened, and we're still pals. The dialogue is weak and unbelievable. Aside from all of these issues, the same lame one-liner shows up every time you walk near an NPC, my favorite example being "HI I WORK FOR BELATHOR IN BELATHOR'S SHOP!!"
Cities: I'm sorry, but 5 houses, a temple, and a tavern don't make a town-- especially when the guards obviously outnumber the residents. Thankfully, mods are fixing this issue slowly but surely (populating cities more heavily, and an outstanding audio mod is coming out that adds "city noises" both inside and outside houses.
The story: The main quest is bland and mediocre at best, most people agree on this. What is abysmal is the guild quests. First off, when you become guildmaster nobody recognizes it. After I became head of the thieve's guild (and completed arguably the most poorly written quest in video game history) the bartender of the guild still states "So, you're Brynjolf'd new whelp, eh?" Come ON! The guild story lines are even worse than the main quest. It's sad.
Quests: No variety to speak of. "Go get X and come back," or "Go kill Y and come back." It's the same thing over, and over, and over. Why couldn't we have interesting and diverse quests? For example, help fortify a town against a dragon attack-- positioning guards, scorpions, catapults, archers, and so on?
NPC's / AI: Abysmal. I won't even touch on their total lack of personality or depth, but they're incredibly stupid. Why don't they run into their houses when dragons attack? Why don't bandits set up ambushes on the road when there are obvious points of advantage? It's 2012, AI should be better than this.
Combat: Dual wield: Tap X. Magic: Hold X. Two handed: Tap X. It's boring. It doesn't look interesting. The only real improvement I see from even Morrowind is a kill cam. Big deal. KoA proves that an "open world" isn't an excuse for boring combat.