agreed, that example was very poor. Morrowind had few choices but they were there and I brought up one already. of which gives far more choice than a Grande portion of Skyrim. there are no alternate outcomes, the all end the same. not claiming Morrowind doesn't have that either. I'm saying it has more instances of Tangible in game built outcomes not massive gaps that need the player to draw their own inconsequential conclusions

No, there is loads of lore in the books, there are a few bits here and there from conversations. And read all my hundreds of comments defending Skyrim's mechanics and character progression before you dare to accuse me of moaning for the sake of it. I defend if I think BGS made a good decision, and I will criticise if I think they have made a poor decision, thank you very much.

There are some choices left in your hands, like (spolier)

Whether to kill parthannox or leave him be.

Some of the dialog is fine, if you think it's dialog is bad play other games like Risen, Two Worlds, Mercenaries 2. Dialog's in those are a joke.

But I do miss Morrowinds Journal and depth to each character, I know text is a lot easier and means the emotion mainly comes from discriptive writing, whereas Skyrim and Oblivion need good voice acting. But I'd still love it if I could ask every character about their background and various things.

To the two people people debating the map/direction thing, both of y'all make good points and I don't know who to side with. My opinion is each system work best for the game it goes with. Say the playin area for both games are the same(I know skyrimis bigger) but the landmass the games are supposed to cover are a lot differents. Let's just say morrowind is Georgia, now if someone ask me how to get to atlanta I might say something like this. Take a left at the next light, keep going untill you see Bells Ferry, go east on that until you hit 575, take 575south untill it merges to 75, and that will take you all the way to Atlanta. Now let's take skyrim and say it covers the whole U.S. and someone wanted to know how to get from Georgia to Texas(for some reason there map don't have state names on it) then yea I would say let me see your map so I can mark it down. Sorry this has nothing to do with the OP topic.

lol. This kid is hilarious.

I'll be back to debate after I figure out what I was ACTUALLY doing for those 200-something hours I thought I was playing Skyrim...

Ok at what point in New Vegas are you told what you can and cannot do? Inb4 "I can't go north!11!" Boo hoo, you can't go whatever direction you like for the first three hours of the game.

But obviously Bethesda is all about freedom right? It's not like they make you become a werewolf if you wanna join the Fighter's guild. It's not like they make you oppose the Thalmor. It's not like they make you be Dragonborn to take part in the war. It's not like they make you "join" the Thieves' Guild.

You can criticize if you think they made a poor decision all you want, but in this case, you are wrong because you are making factually incorrect statements. If I knew all of the NPC names, I would make a list of different NPC's in Riverwood and Whiterun alone that give tons of lore and exposition that don't come out of books.


Paarthurnaax, A Night To Remember, In My Time Of Need, those are just 3 quests off the top of my head that are all based on choice and how to go about doing the quest. I know for a fact there are also choices in the Forsworn Conspiracy / Escape From Chidna Mine line of quests as well. Saying there are no alternate outcomes is a false statement, plain and simple. You are wrong.


What are you rambling on about?

Becoming a werewolf is a consequence of a choice, being forced to oppose the Thalmor is no different than being forced to oppose the Sixth House, you're not "made" to be Dragonborn, you can avoid that just as easily as you can avoid being the "Nerevarine", and how are you "made" to join the Thieves' Guild? Oh, because of that completely false assumption that you are "forced" to join them during the main quest? That's funny... cuz uh... I did the main quest and never joined the Thieves' Guild. And I didn't do some alternate route to avoid talking to the guy either... Again, factually incorrect statements that have no basis in reality.

Compared to Morrowind the dialogue is just bad.
There hardly is any to begin with and the vast majority is just one or two sentences, followed by a a quest of follow-the-arrow.
It was a real dissapointment for me when I just had the game. I brought a Dwemer thing back to a ruin because an Argonian was very distraught at having taken it from there, and when I came back there wasnt even any dialogue about it.
Not even a 'thank you', the Argonian just had random villager dialogue. 'What do you want?' and all that.

There arent any real directions given, often the 'here let me mark it on your map' is even implied.

There are some parts of the main quest that are well done, and some of the random dialogue between NPC's is fun and well done but they really dropped the ball here, especially compared to Morrowind that had loads of text that achieved in giving characters personality and even compared to Oblivion, that had less dialogue due to it all being spoken instead of written, but at least managed to give distinct personalities to many of its NPC's, and some actual interaction.

Wait is this a joke, that's like sayin

In Skyrim can I join the Thalmor? No?

At least in Morrowind I can pick between 3 different Houses to join

And in Skyrim you choose to side with the Greybeards or the Blades, and there is consequence of either action...

One good example, two bad : the Companions are fine, they are warriors not scholars, you get some history, some background, but they are more about personal honour and prowess than history and collective pride; wouldn't make sense for them to reel off the deeds of past Harbingers as though they were cramming for exams. The Bards, however, should be full of stories, history, weirdness that no-one else would remember. And Urag gro-Shub is the College librarian, a character who have benefitted from being an absolute mine of information about the College's history, if nothing else.

The Talos priest in Whiterun, Faerengar, Adrienne's father, Alvor, Hadvar, Ralof, even the sister of the guy who owns the Riverwood Trader, all of these people have good bits of dialogue and backstory and exposition, or detailed directions on how to get anywhere. Plenty of nice dialogue and exposition after you slay the first dragon, from Irileth and the Whiterun guards about the Dragonborn legends. The Greybeards have tons of historic dialogue. These are just NPC's off the top of my head and don't even begin to cover all of the in depth dialogue I've encountered in this game. Apologies for vague descriptions or incorrect names, as I'm not playing right now and don't have the UESPWiki in front of me.

Uh-huh, you CHOOSE to become a werewolf. Sure.

Just like how some people CHOOSE to go north and get [censored] by deathclaws in New Vegas.
You really have no choice about being Dragonborn. The game will still treat you like him, even if they don't call you him (which they might anyways).

Skyrim is totally railroaded with barely any choice in quests or anything. It boggles my mind that people consider New Vegas more linear just because you can't go north (CAN go every other direction) at the beginning of the game, but linear dialog trees that always lead Dovahkiin in the same direction? That stay that way the entire duration of the game? Perfectly acceptable!

Are you always this hostile, or is this your afternoon very-devoted-fan session?

Back to dialogue options/depth (you know, what the thread was about, before you went postal), it's disappointing that, with a couple possible exception (that I can't think of), nothing you say really matters. If you talk to a quest-giver, not only can you not reject the quest half the time, but responding in a rude way has no bearing at all on what happens. The whole issue goes hand in hand with the fact that, guards aside, no one really realizes any of your actions. We've all had people ask us if we're the new Companion's member, when we're already the Harbinger.

Except again, you're wrong.

Acting rude can have a bearing on what happens, watch how Ysolda reacts when you intimidate her into telling you what happened during "A Night To Remember"

Who cares that guards have some glitchy dialogue sometimes or Faerengar still tells you to join the College when you already have. Does that really have any bearing? No. Certainly less bearing than on quests that actually do have choice that does have bearing.

Nell you're kinda missing the point here...like really....I was clear, when I said Morrowind has its dead end choices, I never said Skyrim has no choice, I said it has less. I'll redact on the no alternate outcomes since the examples you gave ARE actual examples.

but I will argue that they are to an effect Mute, You either kill Paarth or don't no skin off your nose aside from 2 dips or a mountain full of angry pacificts

A night to remember? a one time thing in the end effects you next to nothing, you appease or piss off a number of people done and done

In my time of need? you help her or get her caught, done and done.

I see what you're saying and I'll redact, because the same can be Said for Morrowind and we're trailing into the "my actions have no effect in Skyrim". so I'll focus back on the original Topic. the Dialog is balls imo

Wait, are we talking about the game recognizing what you've done, or dialogue options. I could have sworn this thread was about dialogue options.
While it's true that many of the game's dialogue choices take you to the same conclusion, many don't.

In fact, almost every Daedric quest has a major outcome split, depending on how evil you want to be.

Now, while I agree with you that it's ridiculous how many times Farengar has suggested I join the Mages College after I've already become the Arch-Mage, that's not what we are talking about here.
We are talking about having meaningful choices, and I think we have quite a bit of them.

It's just that the Main Quest doesn't have that many, and I think that bothers a lot of people.

Except, again, you failed to read (and, nicely done with ignoring my question.)

"with a couple possible exceptions..."

There, was that hard? And, it maybe affect how she reacts, but does it affect the outcome of the quest?

Let's be honest, at this point we all realize that, in your eyes, Bethesda can do no wrong, and you'll white knight for them till the day you die. While we're being honest, your attitude is humorous, and sad. Congratulations on that little dichotomy.

But I don't think it has less. Morrowind hardly had any, but it seems like I'm always presented with an option in Skyrim to at least intimidate my way through finishing a quest, or do it the old fashioned way.

Way, the "radiant" quests that have you fetching an item from random cave A doesn't really have any choices on how to talk your way through it or accomplish it, but plenty of quests I've encountered have plenty of dialogue choices. Certainly no less frequency than Morrowind's, which really had no dialogue choice, but rather just a bunch of encyclopedic topics that don't constitute dialogue choice, and no more frequency of quests that have branching outcomes.

But these aren't isolated incidents. This is a trend throughout the entire game. A trend both New Vegas and Morrowind avoid. Both of those provide reactions and consequences from NPCs.
FFS, Briarhearts will hire thugs to kill you after you pickpocket their heart and kill them.

Bethesda can do wrong, but I'm not going to falsely call a flaw a flaw when it's not, and then try to unsuccessfully back that claim up with false evidence.

Bethesda designed Skyrim to have more quests at the expanse of deeper quests with branching options. This is decision made as the result of a time crunch. It is easier to make, test and debug 2 or 3 short linear quests than to make 1 long multi-path quest.

This is especially true since we have a whole lot of new programmers in the skyrim project. Remember that skyrim has twice the number of people working on it compared to oblivion? Well it also means that half of the people working on Skyrim did not have experience working on the older games. Programming is an art form. Really. An experienced programmer can do the work of 3 junior programmers.

My take is that the new DLC should do better in this regard.

You're right. I simply said they go hand-in-hand.

I think it would be more accurate to say, "most of the game's dialogue choices take you to the same conclusion, some don't."

Wait, geez. What? How many different issues is this thread going to talk about? Every single bug?
That's totally unrelated to branching dialogue. Completely unrelated.

But AGAIN, these are the exceptions to the rules. Daedric quests have gotten praise from the players for this exact reason.

Unfortunately they don't even make up 10% of Skyrim's total quests. It's great there's an exception to the rule, but it's still the vast minority.