For me Skyrim (or any other TES game) is mostly about exploration. I don't really care about quests. In my opinion, most quests range from average to flat out bad (with few exceptions). It's just a sandbox world where I can just fool around and it never gets old. That's why it has such a huge replay value to me.

Dragon Age (or any other game by Bioware actually) tells this epic and very engaging story with really deep character interaction but the sandbox feeling is not there. Even though I know there are many ways to finish quests, develop relationships etc, the outcome isn't different enough for me to justify replaying the game.

I do love both games though, just for different reasons

Which begs to question how boring it will get once you do all of that free roaming. I mean, going around killing draugrs, and animals only has so much appeal before long. DA:O has such an evolving story and what you choose to do makes the game vary greatly, aside from the fact the paths of the main quest one can choose to take. I played it 14 times with different races and classes and all were different in ending. I don't see myself playing Skyrim anymore, other than playing with the CK. I have lost so much interest in it, even though I only played one of the Guild qusst lines, the DB. I am not saying that your point is invalid as playing that way may work for you. But for me, that would be just plain boring.


Romance in Skyrim is non-existent. You really don't even express words of romance in Skyrim. You get married, but your spouse acts the same way in the end with no additional varying dialogue. Don't even remotely expect the romantic dialogue you encountered in DA:O, or you will be sorely disappointed.

Agreed Tommy after the CK what TES usually turns into for me is a glorifed dressup and screenshooters tool.

The exact opposite is true for me. I could roleplay to an extent in Origins, not in other Bioware games. Skyrim lets me create the character I want, whereas most Bioware games force a lot on me. That kills roleplay for me. The voiced protagonist especially.

To the OP: Another big difference is that in Skyrim, "codex" is in the notes and books you find lying around in the world or in loot. Nothing is going to flash at you demanding you read them, but they add incredible richness to the world and important story details. Read them. Sometimes if I don't feel like reading them in-game, I do so on the wiki. Someone even made an http://capane.us/2011/11/24/dovahkiin-gutenberg/ of all in-game books.

Yes, IMHO DA:O was a scam. It was an atrocity I feel scammed every time I realize I paid 60 dollars for that trash. I have not liked anything from Bioware since ME1.

You didn't know this type of question would go viral? That's too funny cause for those of us who have been on this forum for a while, we could see the writing on the wall. If you really want to see viral though, just ask something like "Is Skyrim a REAL RPG?" Then you will see some pretty strong opinions come out.

Glad you got your questions answered. As for romance, I haven't gotten to that part of the game yet, but from what I have read, the others posting in this thread are spot on. There doesn't seem to be much to it, other than you can get another follower with a few additional perks. At least they fixed the glitch where all the wedding guests turned up dead.

That already exists, the series is called "The Sims". But not for me. I don't see really any point in playing a wide open world style game where there is no point of a story to pace the game along as one plays it.

OP, if DAO is your preferred RPG, you may very well dislike Skyrim as the two games are dynamically opposed to one another. Bioware created DAO to appeal to their "old school" RPG fans from the early 90s. Bethesda created Arena, the first TES game in the early 90s, as a way to bring their previous doomlike action 3D engine customized for a Terminator game into a tolkain fantasy genre.

Just remember today anything with cliches as elves, swords, magic and a resemblance of leveling up will be called an RPG, Role playing or not. If DAO appeals to you don't think the latest "RPG" your daughter purchased will be similar. Look out for those early 90s PC games, have an open mind to graphics and to reading text and you will find deep experiences.

DAO has much of the same brain dead zombie villains as other modern "RPG"s, an enemy without any real motive other than it is a bad thing. blah, blah,blah but at least the quests were coherent. Hell, I played throgh the 20 minute mage quest in Skyrim and I have no clue what happned. several fetch quests, I saw dead people??, I don't know why I saw dead people, I heard a garbled voice in a generic dungeon, I don't know why I heard a garbled voice, I killed some other ghost wizards, I don't know who they were??? why they attacked me??. ... this type of crap is common in todays "RPG"s but I do recomend Fallout New Vegas on PC

I get the feeling from your post that you have little experience with Bioware games. Origins allowed a huge amount of role playing. If being able to do what you want is RPiing in an open world game, I won't argue that. My view is from playing RPGs going back to D&D games from the mid 70s (yes, I am that old). Baldur's Gate allowed for huge role playing as did NWN, which I loved. But let's not forget KoTOR which was huge for role playing. You mentioned voiced protagonists killing RPing for you, other than the Mass Effect series and Dragon Age 2 (ugh, what a terrible game that was), Bioware always used the silent protagonist and did in Origins.


What!!! Dragon Age: Origins had far more lore books that told the story of the races, world and the history of the how things came to be way more than Skyrim or Oblivion did. Most books you find in Skyrim (like Oblivion) games are repeated over and over again. I mean, how many times have you found the book "Biography of Queen Barenziah". Most books are journals anyway, not about the land and the lore like in Origins. The codex in Origins was huge. Hell, even Mass Effect had more codex than Skyrim or even Oblivion.


Outside of the ad hominem, you are entitled to dislike whatever you like. But if you liked ME1, which I did as well and I think that it has the best story I ever experienced, I guess you like voiced protagonist or you like futuristic games. Origins was deep in role playing and by far more than ME1.

I never thought of it this way, but that's a pretty good description.

No thanks. I will stick with TES. If The Sims Mideival had half the graphics, combat mechanics, lore and depth of Skyrim, I'd probably play it.

I was being facetious in a sense, not actually suggesting that you go out and buy The Sims. I only stated that what you posited for a style of gaming, really already exist.

I agree pretty much with the other points you covered but this. Nearly all RPGs going back to D&D and even the first cRPGs in the early 80s have main antagonists to kill. Origins didn't have some brain dead zombie without a motive. The AD in Origins had a clear goal on what it wanted to do in Ferelden, that is to turn everyone into one of it minions or kill them and make the land a huge point of blight like the evil being it is. having the common the fight against an evil being may be cliched, but not how the story of the cliche wants things to be in their evil meme. Same thing in Oblivion, though the story is really weak. Same thing in Skyrim with Alduin. There's a plot, and it does have a meaning to it.

I have never actually played The Sims, although I have watched others play it for a few minutes. What I am positing would be more dynamic than what I understand The Sims to be. There would be joinable factions and joining one faction would affect the disposition of all NPCs. Some would like you more, some would like you less dependign on what factions they belonged to. Bandits and such might have their own faction, so you could live with the bandits if you choose to do so and could figure out a way to permanently raise their disposition toward you enough for them to engage in conversation rather than just attacking you.

There would be no set story but there would be raidant quests and things like that where NPC's would ask you to do things to advance your status in a particular faction, but they would all be generated by the AI, rather than being scripted. You could kill anyone in the game but there would be consequences for getting caught.

There would be multiple ways to advance through each of the factions ways to get kicked out, ways to get back in after being kicked out, but all of that would be generated by the AI, rather than being scripted so it would be different each time you play, with no set story behind it.

In such a game you could decide to depose Ulfric and become the leader of the Stormcloaks and eventually High King yourself, if you could figure out a way to do it. Or, you could do anything else you wanted.

You could have more or less real conversations with the NPC's, rather than just a few scripted dialog options.

I am basically talking about Skyrim but taking their radient quest idea to the nth degree, so that was the whole game and it was meaningful. We are years away from having that type of AI available in a videogame and it would have to either be text based dialog or they would need a much better voice synthesizer than what you have now.

wtf I don't even......

Dragon Age: Origins is a great Fantasy RPG, but it isn't really open world. Next you'll be asking if Civilization is the same as Age of Empires.

Didn't read the OP, sorry.

DA has better characters and story is Party based and has characters that you care about. Skyrim is all about your character and how your character advances in the game. Skyrims story and other characters are thin compared to DA, but good not like DA good but descent the thieves guild qwest is strong but to short.There are no real relationships with other characters except whats neccasary to further the questline. Skyrims strength is it looks fantastic has excellent combat and fun quests for the most part, and it has alot of character skills and customisation much more than DA. There two completly different games . As a fan of both games i can honestly say i'm looking forward to the next DA game because BioWare knows they have to put out a great game now and overall i like there formula and style of game more than Beth's TES and i think DA3 will be a much better game than DA2 or Origins. If it's not DA fanbase will likely look elsewhere for there sword and sorcery rpg's and BioWare knows it. I'm still playing DAO and the DLC .

If you play a mage you have to pause every 0.5 seconds to choose a new spell. I can actually play DA:O with a good set of custom companion commands and pause less often than I do in Skyrim.

I haven't read the entire thread and I've never played a Dragon Age game so can't offer anything about the differences but I'd like to offer something else. If you give yourself up to Skyrim, it's not just playing a game, it's exploring and being a part of a world. I love the open world games that Bethesda publishes and have never heard of anyone doing them like these. I'm so glad I found them. Have fun...I know you will.

What you describe wanting to do can pretty much be done in Fallout: New Vegas.

Well, that's a preference really and I won't belittle that. But, unless you've played an RPG where your choices and actions actually have effects on your companions, NPCs and have huge implications in the storyline plot states, I'd say you're missing out on a lot to be honest. Daggerfall was really the least tried and true TES game where choices I made in the storyline changed the endings, though romance wasn't an option.

Dragon Age: Origins strikes me as a far better game. I prefer the open-world style, but Skyrim turned out to be rather disappointing, for reasons I've mentioned before, will mention again, but don't feel like doing now.

Except for the kill sequences, I'll complain about those being repetitive, disruptive to the flow of the game, and badly directed. Thankfully, I've got a mod for that.

Really? I will have to try it. I am still in the middle of Fallout 3, or I was until Skyrim came out. May have to give NV a try.

I all honesty, Oblivion played the same way as Skyrim, except that Skyrim seemed to have a better story to play out for its character with much better dialogue and voice acting. OTOH, I think Oblivion is the better game since it holds me to my choice of character class and skills I choose and it has a much better magic system and spellmaking. THough the graphics and aesthetics and realkism are better in Skyrim's world, I like Oblivion's better because it has more different creatures and people being around. Morrowind was really the last great TES game and that went down from the greatness that was Daggerfall.

To be honest, in what you decribe you'd, you can pretty much do in any TES game and even a few Bioware games (especailly KoTOR). DA:O, you know you are chosen for a mission after near the beginning of the game. But in Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallouts, *and even KoTOR) you are a blank slate, not knowing what is going on or the story at hand. So, in a sense, you are already allowing the game to play out as you venture and make the story come to life. Vegas just has a lot of factions to choose from to join and they have consequences. The writing in that game is among the best of any Fallout game I have ever played, but be prepared for some serious bugs; it is typical Obsidian quality control, or lack thereof.. My heart still lies with Fallout 1 being the best of them all.

you have to give them credit however they only had a year and a half and they had to work with gamebryo.