Yea, it's entirely unreasonable to expect to be able to keep a tidy quest journal. Seriously, who would ever want that?

When I go to the store I write down what I want to get. Then I write down twice as many things that I don't want to get, because a list of just things I want to get would be much too convenient. As we all know, convenience equals lazyness, lazyness means you're a communist, so if you make anything convenient you're a communist and you probaply worship the devil.

I agree with all of that, but the Great Houses was done better than any quest line in Skyrim.

I was referring to the lack of depth to the mechanics.

1. Attributes are redesigned system maybe having a neutral perk tree tie into it.
2. The lack of old spell types and the lack of spell creation.
3. The exclusion of older weapons types, medium armor.
4. Long quest lines.
5. More factions to join.
I was referring to the mechanics of the game, not the quest lines.

Well at level 25 I have about 10 active quests of which about 4 I will never complete. I consider my quest journal quite tidy and organized and I can keep track of what I want quite well. Of course that's probably due to the fact that I don't go about talking to every NPC I come across because, seriously, that's the only way I can see one get their journal full of unwanted quests.

And then you would get the argument: It isn't disk space, it's associated cost of voice acting many different lines.

In Morrowind, you could actually FAIL quests....... In oblivion, everything you did/tried, would succeed, to some degree or other. If FO:NV, doing some quests would exclude the possibility of doing some other quests. You couldn't "Be everything to everyone" like in all the other games....

The player really has no impact on the world. Doesn't matter how many you kill, or, how many you save, the world progress exactly the same.

Pretty much this. I completed the mages college in a week (ingame-time) with a thief character who knew only a couple of restoration spells and flames, that shouldn't be possible at all. You should at least be required to dedicate some of your skills to magic.

New Vegas. C:

/thread

But you don't have to do that quest. Just because it is in your journal doesn't mean you have to do it. You get map updates from people who mention a location, you get Post-It note* updates when someone mentions something. Granted, not having the ability to drop a quest/remove it from your post-it notes is a fairly large oversight on the part of the developers. Just like you have have Join the Stormlocaks and Join the Legion at the same time.

* I have played many RPGs, that thing called a Journal is clearly mislabeled as I have seen more information on a single Post-It note.

As for going against the thieves guild, well, that's only an issue because they are all marked as 'required' so they cannot die. That is due to people whining about not being ale to live with their actions (or inactions) in previous games, when people died and they were no longer able to complete a quest. However, I don't see how this negates Skyrim's claim to be an RPG. The only RPG that allows you to do whatever you want in only available in pen and paper format, and even that is subject to how good of a GM you have.

Now, you could run through the thieves guild and 'down' everybody at least once, then just RP that you killed them. Yeah, I know, just not the same. Ironically, I have the opposite issue, where I have a thief that will not harm another creature (no attacks, ever), and yet cannot complete the thieves guild due to having to kill. That doesn't stop me from being a thief though. My Paladin has quests in his Cliff Notes Journal that he will never complete. In fact, the only character that I was unable to play was a character that focused solely on Illusion and Restoration, and let her companion kill things, but the things that her companion skilled were listed in her combat summary thing, and that was the end of that. Still, I have 7 other characters, and about 3 more that I have planned out, and they all do things a little different.

While Skyrim has many major flaws, I don't think you can honestly say it is not an RPG. There's certainly a lot to complain about with regard to the shallowness of the role-playing experience in the game.... but it is an RPG.

This game railroaded my character. Sure, I have the freedom to jump off the train (ignore the NPCs), but no subtlety, no finesse, no nuances.

This is a valid point, and has been mentioned thousands of times, and most of the whole forum is crammed with the same question put in various different ways. Maybe the sheer size and scope of the game makes it nigh on impossible to have a cause and consequences roleplay experience and a purely responsive world to your character, and not having a pre-determined race or character makes it even harder. It probably could be done, but it would probably take another five years of development to cover every angle.

Morrowind had a lot of flaws as a result of its openness. I actually don't think getting rid of stuff like spellmaking or medium armor was a bad thing.

I mean, am I sad that spears, halberds and crossbows are gone? Yea, those were cool. Having seperate skills for all of them was stupid though, it meant that a warrior either had to stick to just one type of weapon, or had to learn multiple weapon skills, which gave no benefit at all in a fight since you can only yield one type of weapon at a time.

Medium Armor? I really never understood that concept, even in Morrowind. I mean Ok, I get it, Medium armor is chainmail and such, stuff that isn't quite light armor, but isn't really a suit of plate either. Now that armor can be made weightless there would only ever be a point to medium armor if it had an entirely unique perk tree, and it's fairly obvious that they ran out of ideas for good perks with heavy and light already.

The spellmaker, I honestly find the spellmaker to be overrated. It gave you a bunch of ways to break the game, I'm honestly not sorry those are gone. The only thing that was really good about it was the ability to continuously improve spells you liked, or combine effects such as regen health and regen stamina into a single cast. The big problem with Skyrims magic is that some of the spell schools give you spells that do the same thing as their previous version, only slightly better, while others give you spells that work differently, while neglecting to scale the old ones. For example, if you are a master level destruction caster and you really like runes you still can't cast a rune that will do appropriate damage since it isn't a master level spell. That's something they could have overcome with more judicious design though. While the spellmaker was fun, it was more a source of gamebreaking exploits than real depth. There is damn near nothing you could make with it that wasn't game breaking that isn't in some way still around.

More factions and quests, well, that can be explained by text vs. VO, though people who say that VO doesn't allow for branching quests on a large scale have clearly never heard of a little thing called SWTOR.

If it is a RPG, it's a crappy one.
Come on: no meaningful choices? world not responding to player's actions? shallow dialogue? factions outfits not meaning a thing?
The way the civil war is portrayed is absolutely horrendous. Seriously, what is that?

This game is a modern shooter with guns replaced with swords. And some character development options glued on top.

I've a question, why is it people tout how this is a modern RPG and "Times are a changin" and that the days of DnD table top mechanics are OVA. and yet bellow that one should still imaginate, the lacking aspects of the game in their head and shut up? I mean...when you RP'd for table top DnD, it was neccesary since there was no other mediu, you had to imagine the look of that Dragon or deep dark dungeon or the doomed fate of that injured warrior. now we have Skyrim, why is the Idea that we still need to Imaginate everything else other than our characters motivations still being drummed?

Its an RPG in the sense that it is an open world with several hundred quests in which the player is free to do which of those quests he wants and where he wants to go. The many options available in character design and development and how you can interact with the world (hunting, mining, crafting, farming, etc.), random treasure maps, magical forges and other miscellany lets you choose lots of different paths.

The main problem lies with the lack of options within the quests themselves. Most quests are very linear and without choices. There are a few which break the mold like the Redguard women in Whiterun which poses a dilemma, and the nightmare one where you can choose a good or evil path, but unfortunately those sorts of quests are few and far between.

I guess though its a matter of give and take as to what they can spend time developing and what has to be set aside. A game like DA:O can focus on storytelling and not have to worry about the complexities of creating an open sandbox world.
Personally I enjoy both types of games as they provide a different sort of gaming experience. It would be nice to see a melding of the two, but it may not be possible for the $ price of single game.

I would suggest that this whole Morrowind was a deeper roleplay experience is a bit of an urban myth, especially as far as cause and consequences and NPC responses to character, dialogue, etc, is concerned?

Let's see the holy trinity for the monacled rpgers out there are Planescape Torment,Fallout 1 and 2.They were made by Troika,Interplay, and Black Isle Studios.Two of them no longer exist and one is on life support.That type of game has a small very dedicated following.

Lets look at FO:NV
Your choice and consequence is what uni the bad guys wear on the dam for the final fight.
But wait you say I could choose between the PC,Mr. House, the NCR, or Caesers legion running vegas.
Well no the devs will do that( and asfaik there are no dragonbreaks in the FO universe...yet)

With that being said I believe there is room for more C&C in TES, but please don't try to turn it into a "pick a path to adventure" type of game

So, what is the argument you are trying to make?

I say: "I want my quest journal to only list things I actually want to do because it's more convenient"
And you reply: "That's not something I have a problem with, and you probably wouldn't either if you wouldn't play the way you enjoy to play"

So, that begs the question, for one, what is the reason why you are opposed to someone asking for a more convenient quest journal? Would that hurt you in some way? Secondly, even if you do have some kind of good case as to why a more convenient quest journal is a bad thing, your reaction should be to explain your side of the issue so a compromise can be found, instead of simply insisting that if everyone was like you there wouldn't be a problem to begin with, because that's rather close minded.

The dialogue wasn't voice-acted so they had a bit more room to add variety. That said, there weren't many causes and consequences except for which of the three houses you joined (although Skyrim has the Imperials vs the Stormcloaks), and the Thieves and Fighters guild questlines dovetailed so you had to choose.

The main quest of Morrowind didn't really impact much on the world, almost all of the NPCs were oblivious to it. At least in Skyrim when you fight and kill a dragon in a city there are probably going to be a few casualties and all the npcs will gather around the dragon-corpse afterwards and have a few things to say about it. I don't remember any of the NPCs in Morrowind ever reacting to anything like that, although their AI was pretty primitive so most were permanently house-bound.

This argument is silly. Whether or not it is an RPG hinges on your personal definition of RPG. There is no "exact" definition of RPG and anyone who tries to say otherwise is blustering balderdash.

Here's my definition of a RPG: You get to create a character of your choosing. You are placed in a world that offers you a range of activities to choose from, NPCs to interact with, and places to explore. You can choose to pursue any of these different activities at different times depending on what you feel like doing. The game offers you optional goal-oriented activities that provide a reward (quests).

As long as the character is created by me and not someone else, and I can choose to pursue any of the in-game actions or quests anytime I feel like, it's a RPG. A lot of people would call that a sandbox game. A lot of people would require statistics and character progression. A lot of people require that their actions have a long-term impact on the world. I don't see any of those as essential to RPG. Those are nice features to have, and I'm going to like an RPG more for having them, but as long as I can be who I want to be and move about the game world as I please interacting with NPCs and objects, it's a RPG. It's a game that allows me to play a role of my choosing and doesn't force me to follow a script written in advance by a staff writer.

Any game that forces you down a path is not a RPG in my books. It's just a linear narrative with RPG elements, like stat allocation, resource management, dialogue choices, and combat tactics, all of which are nice additions to a real RPG. I don't feel pressured to follow quests in Skyrim. I have a 27th level thief and I've never joined the thieves' guild. I've put hundreds of hours into Oblivion and never got more than half-way through the main quest. That indicates to me that they are giving me choice and are therefore RPGs. Not many games allow you to ignore or abandon the main narrative and keep playing. Any game that does not allow you to ignore the main narrative is not a RPG to me.

And I'd be very surprised if anyone agreed with my definition of RPGs and suspect that they were lying to themselves, since I doubt any two people have the same definition.

It's more of a fantasy simulation to me.

You mean like D&D?

Just Cause 2, FarCry 2 and GTA4 are all RPGs then.

Wait... so they give you a huge fantasy-land to explore, the possibility to do whatever you want to do and to be whoever you want to be... and you call it "NOT a ROLEPLAYING game"?


YOUR personality is your character's personality.

What? No. That's not what roleplaying should be. Your character's personality is supposed to be distinct to your own.

Assuming I get to create a character of my choosing and I'm not simply playing a character handed to me by a developer, then yes, they meet my criteria.

I shouldn't even waste the time posting to such a ridiculous question, of course Skyrim is an RPG. Now it doesn't have as many elements of it as the previous games do, it's not a hardcoe RPG like Morrowind or Oblivion but that's not a bad thing. The old attribute system was horrible and hurt the true more important attribute stat, Skills. Skyrim is better off without some of the bad elements.