To be frank, it sounds like the writer didn't really pay attention to the stories and/or rushed them.

This, to me, screams that he didn't pay attention to pretty much any of the dialogue. The main focus on of the main quest is that dragons have returned, you are not there to make dragons extinct, you are there to stop the end of the world. I don't know how he missed that.

Now I have a real problem with this for one specific reason. Why are you doing the College quest line if you are not a mage? I do see this as Beth letting you do whatever you want no matter how you play but even if you do the most basic of RPing a warrior really has no place enrolling in a school for magic if he has no intention of using said magic.

While Bethesda has never been the best when it comes to story telling, they are hands down the best when it comes to world building. It doesn't bother me that this isn't someones game of the year, the article does bother me because it was written to a guy that seemingly didn't pay attention to the game, he was caught up in the visuals and not the story.

No. They create threads like this, with an article, to better get their opinion across. We're not all writers, so finding someone who shares your thoughts, and can articulate it to a higher standard, is a good thing.

My thoughts on this? The questlines are simply not up to standard with anything today. They are pathetically short, pedantic and highly repetitive with fetch-this quests. Some of the quests might as well have been written by an online MMO quest creator. "Go here, do that, come back"

Hire new writers, Bethesda, or at least try to pretend you give a crap about the stories, the College of Winterhold, Civil War and the Companions were a complete joke that a five year old could have written.

What I feel skyrim lacks is interesting weapons and spells, something thats actually takes skill and creativity to use. My first thought on a weapon that could actually go past the "click and kill" method is a boomerang, but that may be hard to program.

I did read the article. The criticisms are valid, but not very telling. He's just stating a preference. I don't criticize linear games for not giving me a variety of narratives to choose from. That would be judging them for not conforming to my preferences. You shouldn't criticize sandbox games for not having the same quality of writing in any one narrative. They are completely different activities.

Writing a single narrative from a single perspective centered around a single character is much easier than writing multiple narratives from any possible perspective that the player may adopt. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't understand how writing works. Why do you think so many "RPGs" are now centered around a single, slightly customizable character instead of an open, player-driven mechanic? Because it's vastly easier to write a compelling narrative around a single character. That is the sole reason. People demanding better narratives may see it in future games: by being forced to play the character the developers have written the narrative around.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1322303-sorry-bethesda-but-forbes-has-a-pretty-good-article-about-why-they-havent-ranked-skyrim-goty/page__view__findpost__p__19880741

The game shoehorns you into the College during the Main Quest and for one of the side-quests. For most, passing through the gates is pretty much the symbol for being a member, as after that point you can access Guild services, training, and further quests.

And you have to pass through those gates to complete the Main Quest without resorting to going the psychic route.

I'm still trying to figure out why the source... Forbes... even matters. Or why anyone matters - for that matter. There's no discussion here to begin with. It's not like games can be objectively quantified, judged by some impartial jury, and truly be deemed "GOTY" or not. It's like saying the same things about Art. No one can truly classify whether a peice of artwork is "objectively" "Art of the year". It's not a popularity contest. It comes down to whatever appeals to individuals. If it's good for you, then that's enough.

You can objectively judge broken-ness, terrible implementation of games, etc.. And maybe for some people/platforms, those things hamper Skyrim. As far as game content goes though, it's great for some, and not for others. It does not matter in the slightest that all of these people have to agree on something, nor do they need to point to some random magazine to find their "master" to tell what is good or not. Their master is themselves. The sooner people realize that, the better.

Now everybody move on and play the game.. or not. And have a merry x-mas.

I agree with the article. I just finished the College of Winterhold a day ago and was very disappointed by the lameness of the transition from new student to Archmage in the questline.

I also agree that Skyrim is in many ways (world size, lore, beautiful graphics, extent of content, etc,) a great game, and its why I have 150+ hours in it...so far.

Its so incongruous to me that the world graphically has so much attention to detail and so much work put into dungeons and caves and such, while the storylines, NPC dialogue lines, and quality control are so lacking.Its as if separate companies built different aspects of the game.

I'm a really devoted fan with over 200 hours played and 12 deleted dead is dead characters and I agree with his assessment. Doesnt stop me from saying it kicks deus ex ass IMO. From an overall perspective wen it comes to awards he's right.

Skyrim is my game of the year, only because the only two games i bought this year were battlefield 3 and skyrim

The only thing that matters is that Forbes is not a gaming related publication so therefor it's article and its writers are irrelevant.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. The only story I was ever really pulled into in the game was the DB story, and sad to say Beth kind of screwed that up by watering it down with the equivalent of fetch quests.

I loved the DB story and yet if you really try to allow yourself to get svcked in, Beth slaps you in the face and says "You're playing a game, now go kill some completely random people so you don't blow through this quest chain faster than you otherwise would".

Good article, I think he should reassign his hotkeys if the "awkward spell-switching system makes fighting a chore, even though you’re doing the exact same order of summon-defense-attack spells in every encounter" is a problem but overall, fair enough. It gets a "solid third" GOTY from someone who has a lot of problems with it, which isn't that shabby.

If they marketed to only the PC audience, I can guarantee they'd have sold less than half of the amount of copies they did. I don't see the point of your smart ass argument. The sales figures speak for themselves.

I think it does raise an interesting question about storytelling. Most Rpg's these days take the approach of an interactive movie - Bioware's recent offerings have excelled at this. They're fun, they're dramatic, and sometimes the writing is great. Elder Scrolls has always taken a different approach, and it's not to everyone's taste. They leave little fragments of stories, a line or two from every npc, a skeleton quest line, a discarded note in the depths of a dungeon. The player has to fill in the gaps. For some, this is a flaw, incomplete storytelling. But for others, this becomes a door through which you pour your imagination. I find myself imbuing Npc's with a whole personality based on those few lines. Sometimes I even feel like I have rivalries with them. I feel attached to Lydia, not because she's a great conversationalist but because it's almost like this bundle of pixels has shared the experience with me.

I think the criticisms stand. The questlines could have been wriiten more originally, or logically, or more cinematically. If you're going to construct quest chains like that, you shouldn't go half-baked. But to me that's a minor flaw, because Skyrim is strong in a type of storytelling that no one else provides in a game these days - except perhaps (don't flame me!) the Sims. What the world and ai provide are just structured enough to allow the unexpected to happen. If you play the Sims just to max out your career, you kind of miss most of the point of the game, and it's kind of boring. It gets exciting when you say, hmm, what if I try to pick a fight with the neighbor, or allow pizza boxes to pile up? When looked at with cold reason, it's just a bunch of fragmentary ai scripts, but it's the player who must imagine those things together as a story. And I find that immensely satisfying, and it's why I sleep with the Skyrim box under my pillow at night.

Skyrim is GOTY, putting Deus Ex ahead of it is just dumb and laughable. Games shouldn't be judged by story, they should be judged by the fact that they are good and not boring, Skyrim clearly acomplishes that and at least with Skyrim not one combat type aspect is broken or forced upon you, unlike Deus Ex where they basically force you to be stealthy instead of a gunner. In Skyrim you can be a mage, warrior, thief, or whatever and you will be good at what you do and won't be forced to use other skills.

Play a wizard.

I wish you could re-order the favorites list. Kind of dumb having to sort through the whole list because Stoneflesh is near the bottom and Conjure X is near the top.


You can play the game like a cover based shooter. You can't be a tank and just take the shots though.

Seriously, Metal Gear is the best franchise in existence, did you seriously suggest that having to use a degree of tactics to survive in the game makes it boring? People like you are the reason why many people are whining about Skyrim being dumbed down. Jesus...

I disagree. This might be true from a new player perspective, but more seasoned TES player already know that not the stories but the ultra-immersive world is what makes those games. The main quest svcks, and it has svcked since MW (which was my first TES game). The reviewer even mentions 'getting lost' in the worlds Beth creates - and that's what makes those games so bloody fantastic. There is hardly a video game out there that can make you forget the real world around you. There's Rockstar's GTA games, there's TES and maybe Just Cause II if you're only in for some open world fun. The rest are copycats, failing miserably every time they try.

TES games are comparable to James Cameron's Avatar movie. The story svcks big time as you know how it'll end anyway 10 minutes in. But the world Cameron created draws you in and makes you sit through.

Huh. Personally I found many of Skyrim's stories compelling.

It's a pretty objective review by the Forbes writer but what he fails to mention is Skyrim is a Sandbox game thus replayability is far and away greater then Deus Ex, Portal or even the Witcher seires.. I finished Witcher 2 in 15 hours. The game was great but there is zero point in booting Witcher 2 up again....

The bottom line is I am HAPPY that people are starting to question the game design Bethesda puts forward with each game. I am glad the main topic of discussion is turning towards "Does it really have to be this broken?"

Ever since Morrowind this series has gotten more and more attention and more sales. Now we are at a tipping point where the amount of people playing and the amount of people reviewing it has made it impossible to not to identify the problems. All these people frowning while that say, "Well, that is what an OPEN WORLD is like...that a TES game." need to understand nobody cares about the past low standards this community has allowed. Bethesda wanted to sell big, and now they need to take their lumps.

I really hope the discussion about Skyrim only accelerates and intensified. I hope the eyes of the whole industry peer down on Bethesda’s business practices.

The whole industry needs to have an open debate about Bethesda and broke games in general. The ESRB started because of fears of federal interference with game ratings. Now I think there needs to be a new “industry created” body to monitor and fines companies. They indystry needs to do that BEFORE the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) makes a “Software Consumer Protection” law.

If the game software industry wants to wait for rules straight out of Uniform Commercial Code to be used for software, they can be my guest at the NIGHMARE table. I would love to use Section2-601 of the commercial code against Bethesda. I would love for a “Lemon Law” for game software to come about, because the industry could then blame Bethesda for being incompetent idiots for making that come about.

Forbes game of the year?

What will we be waiting on next, the Southern Living game of the year? Car and Driver game of the year? Tiger Beat game of the year?

It's not so important for those hoping for the release of the reation kit. Those who wonder how much it is going to bring a new breath of life to the game. It has bugs, probably not such great questlines, so what else can be expected? I can hardly believe no other company uses pre-order marketing. But spitting out a rushed game is certainly leaving mark.

Skyrim is definitely my game of the year. Quantity of content does matter. I've put an embarrassingly large number of hours into it so far and I'm far from finished with it.

I absolutely loved Portal 2. It was fantastic. But I finished it in about 10 hours. They were really good hours, but there's no way they can stack up against the hundreds I've already put into Skyrim.

Skyrim's strength isn't about going through the motions of guiding a character through somebody else's story, it's providing you with a place to visit and create your own. It's the very freedom and light touch on the individual stories within that makes the next playthrough possible for me. Games like New Vegas which arguably had better writing and storylines having more importance to the game also seems to narrow the horizons for a truly new experience should I play them again because "the story" is inescapable.

Some people like games that present them with an interactive movie. That's fine.

I prefer games that presents me with a playground. That's fine, too.

The Deus Ex story was worse than some Skryim questlines in my humble opinion. Where it beat Skyrim is in the stealth gameplay, but well... yeah, it is supposed to.