My opinion is that people seem unable to see more than their own(and sadly very often narrow) view on things. A lot of people on this forum states that a game must have some sort of attribute and class system and that it is the character sheet who make a game an RPG or not. They also completely ignore that the perks combined with the magica/health/stamina choices make more difference in how your character plays, and make the decitions make upon leveling more important.

These gamers also seem to foget that RPG stands for Role Playing Game, rather than Roleplaying-through-a-set-of-predefined-choices-who-do-not-allow-you-to-try-new-things Playing Game.

There are generally two definitions of RPGs: One is a stat-based game where you build a character, and the other is a game that emphasize on roleplaying.

As I see it the perks, magica/health/stamina choice, equipment upgrading(not as in smithing, but that you can get better gear so you become more powerful, like getting a dwemer hammer instead of iron) and the open wold who lets you roleplay the character you want to play make Skyrim git under both categories, even if so-called "pure" RPG gamers(the ones who would classify Skyrim as an Action/Adventure game) will dissagree since there are no atributes.

Bingo. You said this much more efficiently than I did.


Hero system games, like Champions.

sure it can, since they define what you can do in the game. XD


Not "nessisary" yes but it makes for deeper and more defined characters.

I doubt that these power-gamers play role-playing games though...

And these self-described "pure" RPG gamers seem unable to distinguish a mechanic from a game. An RPG does not require a specific mechanic.

Exactly.

The secret is there are 18 classes with their own feats and experience level and there are no restriction to multi-classing.

They didn't do it to make you "go for the highest level".

They did it because they felt it was restricting.Whether you agree with that or not will of course influence whether or not you like their RPG mechanics. Classes are nice because they mean less need to design your character yourself. Some people like that, some people don't.

The problem is that people cant stand Tes changing, Alot of Morrowind Vets cant stand Tes being simplified, I love the new system, its less complex in a good way.

I don't care about the RPG terminology, its a futility to argue what is and is not. what I do know that if I am going to play a role in a role playing game, I'd like that role to develope...since thats what happens to roles...they develope. if thats to spill over into my char then Si I would love developement to my char. Stats wouldn't hurt and attributes give greater control than mirrored percentage increased perks and +10 to HMS which are pretty much one dimensional now Health? to tank, Magicka? to shoot magick, Stam? to swing and sprint" otherwise the char is just a beefed up thing rather than having Dynamics. imo



-Complicated- is always bad.

-Complex- is possible without Complicated, I don't see much Complex about Skyrim tbh in terms of the GAME.

They certainly have an effect, but the game isn't ABOUT the mechanics. The mechanics are merely tools.

I think simplified and "less complex" is the wrong terms to use. Your character is more complex than Morrowind and Oblivions now, but the system is more userfriendly making it seem less complex. That said, neither of the three last ES games are very complex(neither is any game really) beecause it stops being "complex" after you start to understand it. Gameplay complexity is often more a description of how hard it is to break the machanics down to an understandable level than how complex the game actually is.

In my view it is a complete rpg definition wise, but it's not a complete product because of game breaking glitches and bugs.

What's lacking? You can make choices about what organizations to join (Companions, Magic College, etc.) if any, about what self-defined "alignment" to impose on yourself, whether to participate in the Civil War or not and if so, which side to support, whether to bother becoming a Thane of any of the holds, what skills to employ (and hence what self-defined class to play) and more. Attributes are an unnecessary multiplication of stats, when we already have three main stats (health, magic and stamina) plus eighteen skill stats and a whole mess of perk choices.

what would you say TES is "about"? Open world sand box right? See that a gameplay Mechanic. If they wanted to they could make TES a narrow scripted storyteller where you are a specific person and do specific things.

Well certainly some people are running into bugs, and for some people the bugs get bad enough to make the game unplayable. That's a real minority of people, though. I know of PS3 players that are having no problems whatsoever.

THat's not a mechanic, though, that's a story choice and whether to lock the character into that story. By "mechanic" I mean the hard-and-fast rules of how the game operates under the hood. In Oblivion your abilities - for example, how well you did with a sword - were affected by both a set of base statistics (Attributes) and skills - in the case of swinging a sword, your Strength and Blade skill both came into play. Now if you want to be good with a sword, just pick it up and use it, and you'll get better with it - which is how you do things in the real world anyway.

I've played several prior TES games, and I always felt the presented classes were sometimes close but never a perfect fit for me.
I've always appreciated designing my own class, and now I have the ultimate freedom. Now the most time-consuming character design moments involve how my character looks.
I do miss the psychoanolysis questions that helped determine my class, but I never went with the results.

they are both gameplay mechanics. they are only on lets say a higher and lower tier.

Guys I spent like 2 hours trying to decide which perks to use for my build and what skill i should use, No, i spent 3 hours!

ah see all these right here are effects to the -world-, wrong guy to bring that up to since they definently lacking in the after effects department. and you know what thanks only compounding the point of the Char running through Radial opposing guilds and it having 0 bearing on not only the world but the Character in question. not undermining your whats the word....your....damn it whats the term I'm looking for...Value? in Rping but I'm responding of self and not all inclusive.

My Char bares little "advancement" from the trials and tribulations undertaken, no no TES has done this, no I don't feel my stance is unreasonable. yes I kinda expected some advancement and not being a greenhorn at everything but hey thats just me. all those options? mean pfft in the end imo.

I'm not really looking for a label per say, as you and others have said. pop the neon light sign in your head and give it a label/Class. and the geounds of what your speaking about its perfectly reasonable to just not bother with class labels since thats all they were in past games, aside from the few bonus dialog in Morrowind. I'm looking past that, I do not care about what RPG means to anyone, I don't care how its done in past games nor do I want that, I'm looking for something more which could have been handled by RS and I'd love to see someone complain

"RS IS GIVING MISSIONS TO MY HUNTER TO HUNT ELK, I DONT WANT TO"

;p

I couldn't care less about classes. What I do want is attributes back, and some kind of point allocation system when creating my character to give them a base.

Okay, you lost me there. Can you explain what you mean?

See, I don't get what it is that Attributes do that people find lacking. What do we need the Attributes for?

I've struck the orginal post a few more times,