Skyrim is 100% an RPG, any talk of it not being an RPG is completely laughable and a joke.

Hm, you'll have to define (for yourself since there are probably 1000s of different definitions) what an RPG is? What are the defining characteristics?

Baldurs Gate 2 is probably an action game then as well in a closely, boundaried world.

Or....Planescape: Torment is a boring book masquerading as a game for some.... while others think it defines the genre.

See what I mean?

But I'm sure your post probably made Bethesda call a midnight emergency meeting to discuss this crisis.

No. It's an RPG.

Gotta agree with you on that one. The choices of this game have no real meaning. The world doesn't change, you just react to it.

Wow, what a powerful, impassioned reply. I have to remember to stop daring on the internet.

Of course I wasn't expecting you personally to say it but I remember seeing that avatar in other threads of this nature so you would, I assume, have seen similar replies or blanket response. Apologies if you haven't noticed that kind of behavior.


I was thinking Morrowind, not Daggerfall, but that isn't much of an issue. I have done plenty of RPing with plenty of different systems. I find, based on that experience, Skyrim's character development somewhat inferior to some of them them. Better than a number of them. The ones it is worse then are mostly PnP ones (including the ones that don't use PnP at all).


I do hope in these threads in future I will see you take more issue with the people that do say that, since apparently you disagree with the sentiment as well.


You disagreement with what I've seen to be true and my recollection of fact - dangerous word, fact. Because I say can say exactly the same thing, only for my side of things (Skyrim isn't noticeably inferior in terms of raw character development).

And insolence!


Than let us agree to disagree.

And throwing in story development aspects at the end there.

Sounds like Morrowind.

So in Skyrim the character has no ability with a sword? Hardly. Replacing stats with player skills does nothing other than redefine the character's skill. You're still playing the role.

My point was being part of a series means there are certain expectations. If this was a new, unrelated (or even a spin off) IP, your comparison might be more valid.

Beyond that, many of the criticisms concerning RPG quality specifically refer to the campaign and the general lack of choice. This is something that goes beyond mechanics.

This post reflects my views on this silly topic almost exactly.

To reiterate: the computer RPG genre has evolved along with the technology that runs it. It will continue to evolve. Comparisons of Classic old RPG's to the current iteration of the genre is irrelevant, they can no longer be used as a base template to define what a "true" RPG is. Let go of the past and enjoy the ride.

Agreed.

There is no role in which you, as a player character, can define yourself. You are Dragonborn, that is a given, but how you reflect this knowledge is unavailable through conversation options. It's a one-click conversation fest, without allowing the player to determine how their character will respond, thus the role itself is removed and predetermined already.

Although the main plot itself is static, how you move through it and the conversation options you are given to do so, will always be the same option play after play. Offering different reactions based on how the player character responds, despite the end result being the same, does offer some illusion to character development. Skyrim fails in this account - you are grabbed by the nose and lead in the direction. You play no role other than Dragonborn, thus all character responses, based on the availability of conversation choices, are all one dimensional.

Offering a sandbox reality is far from RPG - Skyrim is a grand fantasy adventure game and nothing more, albeit, an enjoyable one despite its lack of RPG experience.

I never played Morrowind.

Stop right there! lol, a little Oblivion humour eh?
I did mention that in the very next sentence Johnny.

I still play turn based games.

I'm playing Wakfu atm.

That wasn't the point, sorry I didn't explain it better (took me ages to type that too). :/
Obviously saying the style was dead was an exaggeration... many rpgs still use it and are excellent like the Final Fantasy series as you mentioned.
But as you also mentioned open world games like TES tend to work better with real time.

I personally feel the defining trait of a good rpg is immersion, which rt combat adds to imo.

Plus I shed no tears for the style of world map random encounters in games like ff7, they were fine for the time... but man sometimes you just wanted to go somewhere without that SWOOSH.

You're right, it's not. It's something much better.

What? Sorry, just because you choose not to pay attention to what's going on doesn't devalue the depth of the quests themselves.
By the standards you hold Skyrim to, Morrowind and Oblivion's quests were both depth-free. Nope, no build-up to the confrontation with Dagoth Ur, who's just some guy you just meet at the end of a dungeon... Nope, no depth to Oblivion. WHy'd the guy beside me turn into a dragon and go into a cutscene?

Just because you ignore the lore doesn't mean it's not there...

It has nothing to do with choosing to ignore it, and more to do with the fact it's not there. Sorry but that's straight as, the development of quests in my opinion is worse in skyrim then oblivion and oblivion used a lot of books as such. Heck Oblivion had half a questline dedicated to getting the items for a single quest and worked well when a certain dungeon correlated to those quests well with no lore in that dungeon at all. You knew exactly why everything was there and how it came to be there, Skyrim has a lot which it doesn't bother to describe or explain at all.


Hmmm? D&D is on the 4th edition now right... where they decided that Teiflings should be moved from it's traditional spot of a playable race that was found within the monsters manual to the players manual and made gnome unplayable and moved it to the monster's manual... this and many other hack-and-slashes in the lore... no I don't buy this argument of it stands by it's traditions and I blame WotC for that. I only consider mechanical development/growth to be an element of an RPG and not a definition of an RPG. Sure D&D did not start off as strongly as it is today but campaigns have moved to include some actual story-line into the series and there is a strong lore which people play to, in the Elder Scrolls there is a strong Lore too but skyrim in my opinion while it builds on it doesn't really take advantage of it for the players experience other then the main quest which is over quicker the a single Formula 1 lap by Michael Schumacher. In fact the destruction of half of Winterhold in my opinion goes against the strong lore they could have used.

Winner.

I think Bethesda was right with what they did. They didn't go out trying to make an RPG, they just wanted to make what felt "right," and I think they did a great job. Just because it's not an RPG doesn't mean it's bad but nevertheless it still has a lot of RPG elements

The tradition I mean is that it's possible to play Dungeons & Dragons strictly as a dungeon crawler or rich story-driven campaign, with unique characters that you think up for either fluff or crunch reasons.

Wow, you are starting to sound like a Morrowind player saying Oblivion has no lore.

And you did ignore the lore, if you say that there wasn't any in the Guild questlines, especially the "There's no explanation or buildup for the end of the College of Winterhold questline"... which goes quite deep into what's going on if you paid any attention - Or did you not see the ghosts of the previous journey, nor listen to the voice that kept speaking to you throughout the dungeon?

You apparently didn't read any books, or talk to anyone about any of the places you went: There's quite a bit of lore about the Midden, what the heck happened to Winterhold, why the guilds have you do what they want you to do, etc, why you're doing what you are for the Companions... and just because a quest is "Radiant" doesn't mean it's "pointless". All it means is that some things within the quest will change. Some things that aren't explained are self-evident.

There are both, books and conversations available in Skyrim to flesh out the world. You just happen to ignore them.

So, in order for you character to be [censored] with swords, you have to purposely svck? In Morrowind, if your skills were too low, you'd miss enemies, and often. You just didn't see what was actually happening (you missing or the enemy getting out of the way). In Skyrim, you can't miss. The only thing that the skills dictate is how much damage you deal. So, you can blow your hammer 20 times in a bear's face without scratching him. Your feeble wood elf can take any warhammer and still smash it in anyone's face. As you level up, so do enemies. Another important RPG element almost gone; character progression. How the hell are you progressing if you just keep up with the enemies? What's the point of leveling up if it doesn't really do anything? At least there's perks. Although it's less of a problem than Oblivion, at least in the beginning of the game. In Oblivion you could do the main quest without leveling up. Actually it was easier that way.

The lack of choice is inherent in the medium. Every Elder Scrolls has had the same "lack of choice", from Arena up.

Fixed

The game's gone a directino that I don't consider to be an RPG. But my definition pretty much only works for me

And my point is that Dungeon Crawler has been moved into being it's own genre separate to role playing genre now, being a dungeon crawler no longer automatically classifies a game as an RPG like it use to.

Also as I said, the ghosts didn't add anything other then "oh he died, oh she died, oh he died", this isn't lore, it's a boss build up and poor one at that. Lore would be a story about how the Dragon Priest came to be where he was or why there were two guys seemingly feeding him power. How did the Arch Mage managed to seal him, he just says "I had to seal him" which isn't meaningful at all.

Sorry dude, but in FF7 there aren't many possibilities and yet it is still considered an RPG, and an awesome one at that.

RPG does NOT mean choice. It means character growth, and while a lot of people will aruge with me, I think Skyrim really does that better than past TES games


I don't think the point of these ghosts were to add to the lore anyways. Just to clarify the story, that's all. "how" doesn't need to be explained, you can VERY WELL see that their souls are trapped sealing the priest, which would VERY PROBABLY mean that the arch-mage bound them there as he had no choice.
THAT'S the fun with TES lore. It's always about possibilities. There are very few things set in stone

Not really. Plenty of CRPGs offer a great deal of choice. The fact that a computer RPG cannot offer full choice doesn't mean choice is not possible. I mean, plenty of real life GMs don't offer much choice in their campaigns while still allowing for some lateral thinking from their players. Bethesda is the GM here. I'm not arguing for all options imaginable, just some.
Which is why it's so disappointing that they haven't improved on this after almost two decades.

Um... actually, you weren't paying attention, then.