The problem is that you are using an oxymoron as an argument here.

"You can be whatever you want to be, but not this."

then why play the game if you have to make up in your head what it lacks? no its not the people. peeps shouldnt have to Imagine to make up for lack of choice and options, roleplaying YOUR characters Motivations and YOUR characters choices is excellent. why does roleplaying need to extend to addressing the games lack of options, choice and Dynamics?

Mechanics wise it's more action than RPG but I have imagination and I make it an RPG experience.

It wouldn't take crazy ammounts of dialogue, that's just flat out a lie. All it would take is that whenever you get to a point where your character confronts an ethical dilemma the game gives you multiple options of resolving it.

It's not as though games don't manage this sort of thing just fine all the time, acting like Skyrim can't do it because its too much to ask is just silly. Heck, Fallout 3 did a perfectly satisfactory job of it.





Oh yes, how silly of me. I should have realized that if you play a ruthless thug you get a questline, a unique armor set and a hideout with a fence, but if you play an honorable robin hood type you get absolutely nothing of the sort. Clearly the problem is entirely with me for not being perfectly content with getting the short end of the stick because I interpreted my character differently than that lazy writer at Bethesda.

If you think like this then this game is probably not what you are looking for and that's ok. there are tons of FPSs out there that feed you every detail and where you won't have the herculean task of using your brains for anything other than aiming and shooting.

Eh... I used to think choice was a big deal. KOTOR and to a lesser extent Fable completely blew my mind at the time (console only gamer here). After playing the last few Bioware games and Fables, I can't say choice is really all that important (compared to Bethesda's strengths). Skyrim is ten times the RPG and game those are, even without choice.

Sure, adding them to what's already there would be great if resources were infinite, but choices are really only as good as the writers and the asset makers can produce on budget. How much other content would get cut in Skyrim if they implemented lots of choices? I love Fallout 3, but the choices were pretty sparse and unsatisfying (IMO). They had one really big choice in Skyrim, SC vs Imperials, and that wasn't terribly satisfying (as a choice) either--who do I choose, the guys who were going to kill me or the terrorists led by a self-serving demagogue? Choice! TES is fine as it is and I don't think Bethesda has the resources or really the will to see through real choices, there was no real impact on the world when you complete the Civil War stuff even.

I'd say to leave choices for the interactive action movie "RPGs", but Bioware's cut back on them massively (based on plot leaks, half your choices are made redundant in ME3) themselves. These are people whose entire modern fanbase is predicated on dialogue options and they aren't delivering either. Bethesda do what they do well, no point in trying to change them or their style, especially for a feature so few games can even hope to get right.

Not really.

I think he's correct. First of all you can ask why you have to set some guy up so he loses his business. If you don't want to participate in that kind of activity, you're given the option not to.

Also the quests where you decided to beat up the store owners, you didn't have to do that. You can convince the store owners to pay up, or steal from them. There are plenty of options.

Your idea for roleplaying a Robin Hood character is also horrendously uncomplicated. You don't even need to join the thieves guild. This game has nobles, who carry money, and have money in their homes. This game has beggars who accept money, and religious charities who you can donate money to.

My thief hasn't joined the thieves guild by the way. He just prefers working alone, and built up a reputation of his own (using the speech perk tree) to make his own fences. No fuss and no muss. I'm not gonna cry because the thieves guild isn't tailored specifically for me, it's easily good enough, I just prefer to not use it.

It is always more enjoyable to do your character "inside" the limits of the narrative ... instead of "cheating" your character threw it. Like.. i want to play a power-hungry undead necromancer that wants to kill all living things in the world. Giving me the option to become a lich and join a brotherhood of undead crazies like me is very satisfaying.

Oh... and Skyrim is more intricate then fallout. You are nobody in fallout, just a dude with a gun. You even have a backstory. So the only branching out is moral-wise. In skyrim, even if bethesda wants to eliminate it, is very class based. There isnt just warrior moral choice, theres barbarian, paladin, mercenary, dark knight, crazy naked fist fighter, monk, wood elf barbarian, swashbuckler, etc... all of them have nuances that make it praticly impossible to let you play him out exactly like you would want him to be played. There's even a different moral choice between murderer and psycopath. One kills for satisfaction, the other... cuz he didnt like his shirt. Only a text-based game could be that complex. BALDUR'S GATE did it ... and the first fallouts when i think about it

It's an action game with RPG elements. Does the action fairly well, the RPG? Not so much.

After reading a lot of posts in this thread I finally realised that a lot of players have no idea what roleplaying is all about.

It has nothing to do with console players. I've been a console player all of my life (and I'm an old fart unfortunately.. no "2001" talk here. More like Colecovision and Atari 2600 days. Heh). I've been playing PC games since 1992ish or something. And Amiga games before that.

That all said, I like open-ness and more depth to RPGs. I agree with some of the things people want more of. Just because I prefer to lay on my ass rather than sit in a computer chair doesn't define any of my tastes. Nor other console players.

You can do that without even joining the thieves guild

Exactly, Skyrim provides the tools to players for roleplaying. In the same way that D&D ruleset and campaign addons provide the tools to the player to roleplay with. The roleplaying cannot be specifically tailored for each individual player and Bethesda recognize this and do not bother to try it. Roleplaying is where you live inside your characters head, feel what he feels, decide what he wants to do, rahter than what you want to do. Not picking from a list of 9 different dialogue options.

Some players expect the game to have an answer for every single action they perform. Now imagine 10 milliom copies of the game and the NPCs would have to react to every single player differently depending on what they do and how they behave.

Maybe in 50 yrs time we will have computers with real AI that will be able to handle that. Today we need to use our imagination to fill the gaps and adapt to the circunstances. If you can't do that then you can't roleplay.

Exactly, but there is a way to deepen the experience. Going back to a stat based character would help, with strenght and stuff. It would be a way to define and predict what the player wants to play. If he puts 3 in wisdom, he's probably gonna be a little psycotic. If he puts 3 in intel and 18 in strenght, odviously a dumb warrior. If you put in your alignement ... say evil , good, neutral... you can odvously divide the moral choices effectively to satisfy the msot people possible.

IM NOT SAYING " ripp-off DnD bethesda"... i'm just saying there are ways to structure your game to make it possible to "predict" who the player wants to be, and give him the options to do so based on a intricate system. But i guess they would rather spend that time on dlc's...

No, its an action/exploration game. There is no way to role play any quests you receive, you either do the quest or you dont. Level up you say, most first person shooters have a level up function these days. It means nothing.

After reading your posts I realized that you fail utterly to see peoples point when they say they want leeway to define their character within the content of the game and instead just like to get hung up on what is and isn't roleplay.

Get real dude, Skyrim isn't 100% open world, it has a set of content, defined by quests for people to complete. There is nothing wrong with expecting those quests to accommodate more than one viewpoint. Pretty much every other game within this genre manages, whether or not we're going to call it a roleplaying game.

It's RPGish.

It's open world action adventure with multi linear storylines that your character may choose. The choices pretty much end there, you either take a quest line or leave it. The real RP part comes from character creation in this game.

I like the idea of RPG games. TES comes the closest to satisfying what I want. One day we'll get a dragon age origins / morrowind combo. I'll probably be done playing by then.

There are lots of quests that can be completed in different ways. The Thieves Guild have a bunch of them. The main quest not so much because here you're supposed to be the good guy anyways.
Sometimes the choice you make will not get you any reward but that's part of being able to make a choice in the first place. If there's one quest where you can't complete any way your character would (not you, your character) then you skip it and move on. Try to do things your character would.

Wanting the game to react to everthing you do is ok if you're playing a linear scripted RPG, not an open world one. That's not only unrealistic expectations, it's also wanting the game to roleplay for you. That's not roleplaying at all.

Skyrim is an RPG, and its a great game in my opinion. However, no one can deny that with each TES release whilst we gain some new features we also always seem to lose a lot of content. It appears that TES while still an RPG is heading towards the borders of the "action adventure game". I just hope that the streamlining stops here and TES never crosses that border.

I am fully enjoying Skyrim, just because some people notice a few bad points does not mean we hate the game. It has its good points too.

Skyrim is still vastly better then oblivion. I guess i just want a baldur's gate 3 Bethesda, buy that IP plz I WIL GIVEZ AL ME MONYZ!!!

This guy is telling me to go play an FPS, complete ignoring the point of the post and is dismissing me because he has a notion of what Rping is when Rp is different for everyone and doesn't even have a set method of going about it.

let me break it down as to supress the inherent belligerence that inflates in folks these days


When you Rp you RP your character, thier motivations, and their choices. SKYRIM stomps on and breaks that notion because your actions don't matter, your choices are non existent, and there is no reprocussion for your descisions in the game.

but for some reason there is this plague that for everything the game lacks OUTSIDE OF YOUR CHARACTER, the Player must Imagine "Why Nazeem is a dip" "the outcome of ignoring the Blades or Imagining that they denied the blades and reorganized them where in game those Imaginations DO NOT MATTER.


And personally, I couldn't give two Breaks in the wind about what RPING is, I know that I am playing a game that lacks choice, variety and Dynamics, and for all that talk about how each game is different is bs when I and several others have tried to play differently only to end up forced down the same road.

Its either you do or you don't in Skyrim, there is no choice.

*sigh* drakes fortune is an action game. Skyrim is more RPG than action game by far, it just has action game elements to make it play better. Better than Morrowind or oblivion anyways. Sure it could have done with a bit more love put into the storylines, but that doesn't stop it from being what it is: a sandbox RPG.

people want skyrim to deliver a similar experience to Mass Effect, that game had all of what you mention. Thing is it was 1/10th the size and a very controlled environment.

Skyrim is huge, and since everything is voice acted, not every little thing you do will be recognized by the NPCs. If the main quest was a dud, thats a shame they should have spent more time on it. But its a small part of the game.

How would anyone even find out your the dragonborn? were you on the nightly news or something?

Sure, you can solve any quest with either a 1H axe OR a 2H axe. And you get a choice of either weightless heavy armor OR weightless light armor (whichever best matches your hair) to do it in. That's, like, practically infinite possibility!

I gave up on pretending that BGS makes RPGs after a couple of the skyrim hype events pre-launch, and now I love it. It's a great open world action adventure with a few light RPG elements they haven't removed yet. And that's exactly what BGS wants to make.

But there is a TES style game that is a good RPG--fallout new vegas. Made by a small company under a tight schedule, and they managed to put in branching quests, npc interaction and depth, and actual consequence into the game.

So yeah, it's possible to make a TES game that is ask RPG, but that's not what BGS wants to do. Incidentally, the role playing elements seem to have turned off a lot of BGS fans. Go figure.

Rough numbers:
FONV: 6 million sold
Skyrim: 12 million

So what's the cost of making an RPG? If BGS wants to get even bigger numbers for TES6, they're going to have to put more features on the chopping block. (Granted, fantasy sells better than sci-fi, and there are other variables, so it's not quite that simple.)