That is technically true...however there is just one little thing that gets me...When you talk to the thalmor, they'll go around asking you to make some confession before they attack you. There is the yeah i worship talos, the I'll worship whoever I want, and the silence choice. The latter two could be used to that extant yes, but I really was wondering why wasn't there just a flat out no choice. I would have also loved to have a choice for them to tell the thalmor to bow down and worship my chars as god, as some of them are dellusional to some extant, but that may be too far. There's always the oppurtunity of mods for this kind of thing I guess, whenever they release the ck. :\

DA:O? Not really. You do one or two playthoughs and you've seen it all.

No, what I'm referring to is if Bethesda had some way to dynamically alter some of the game data at the start of a new game. Things like NPC greetings, disposition and general dialog options would be suited to what the player has selected in their background history during character creation. This is feasible, because if anyone had opened up the old CS and looked, there's ways you can set up NPC dialog based on your race and/or disposition.

But unlike DA:O, the game shouldn't alter anything major besides your basic NPC to player dialog choices and disposition. For example, your submitted background should not alter the MQ, but have a slight effect on everything else (depending on what you've indicated). Let the game dynamically alter the NPC's attitude towards you based on what you've entered during character creation.

This is just another random thought of mine that I feel would make the series a little better is all.

Not saying I wouldn't love to see that added, but imagine how much extra work that would be for Bethesda. BioWare was able to do it with DA:O because, after the first five hours or so of play, it only changed a few lines of dialogue in a fairly linear story, and even then they still didn't do it again in the second game, probably because of how much work it was to account for all of those different variables.

Now in Skyrim, even if the only two options were be a foreigner or a native, Bethesda would have to account for all of the NPCs that would have to have different reactions to your character based on whether they were supposed to know you already or not. That's probably hundreds of extra lines of dialogue to dozens of NPCs, for something that most players wouldn't even take note of if it was added.

For those of you complaining about very small and minor things that the game has "chosen for you", the only more free you can get is to go play some classic D&D. Or you can go play all the other RPG's with even more scripted events and such like Dragon Age. Like one of the guys above me stated, in DA:O, you pick your race (only 3 choices), how it looks, and whether you prefer a walking tank warrior, a stabby Mcstab rogue, or a pew pew pew mage. Then you get to (here's the best part of all!) Choose your very own backstory! Which you don't get to choose if you're a mage, and there are only 5 other choices I believe. Two for Dwarves, two for Elves, 1 for Humans, and 1 for a mage. So before you start complaining of the freedom of RP you can do, just remember, it can always be worse. I havnt played every single RPG on the market but I think its safe to say, Bethesda generally offers you more freedom than most, if not all the other games on the market. HORRAY FOR BETH!

Well, that might well work, but Bethesda has to walk a fine line here. I've got a good friend who has pointed out that Bethesda is usually known for being very good at the open-world type games, and perhaps not quite so good at plot as perhaps Bioware, while Bioware's Mass Effect has an absolutely amazing, fantastic science fiction plot, but doesn't grant you the freedom that TES games do. So I suppose that they probably wanted to make the beginning of the game a bit more plot-oriented, and that perhaps requires that they not give you such complete freedom over the beginning of the game. Freedom after that, yes, but keep everybody on the same page at the very beginning so that they can open with a bang.

As I say, it's a tricky balance - plot vs freedom. Too much plot over freedom will leave the player feeling like they're just clicking through an animated movie, too much freedom over plot will leave the player feeling like everything is too generic and not really all that important.

All of the NPCs would have to have a reaction?

Not really. Choose "Native," choose home town, NPCs in that home town then have one or two changed or additional lines. Not everyone in the world has to recognize that you are native to Skyrim.

Yeah, I'll agree with most of this. DA:O did have a variety of backstories according to your choices, but as you said all mages had the same story and frankly, I admit I'm a little biased against it because although the story was decent, I always play a tank first time through because it seems the simplest, and I frankly svcked as a tank in that game. Spent most of my time unconscious on the floor while my companions fought the bad guys.

I don't agree. If I made it via the CS (or CK, if it ever gets here ), it would probably take me 4-6 hours for all the quest and script writing. The hard part is not the "work" that Bethesda has to put in, it's paying the money for more voice actor work and making sure there's enough disk space to handle the excess files needed for it.

Nope, this time around ole' Beth was interested in packing so much content (caves, ruins and general "do things"), rather than put features like this into Skyrim. Hopefully they'll implement something like this in a future title. If they do that, then folks like the OP wouldn't have to wonder what it would be like to play X race with a static (and never changing) start to the game.

But Bethesda would still have to add extra dialogue to NPCs in every major town so players could have their choice of town. Sure, you might not choose to be from Windhelm in your first playthrough, but that's not to say you wouldn't choose that in a later playthrough, or that someone else wouldn't. Bethesda would have to account for every possible option.

It's like what Gram said. Bethesda's trying to allow the most freedom possible, but they have to start you out with some kind of plot to get everyone on the same page. The mysterious prisoner plot allows for the most freedom to do what you want with your character's backstory.

Except this time around they put too much "plot" in front of your classic RP'er, and gave some of us a "what in the world?" reaction.

Unlike Skyrim, the last two ES games didn't have a "cross the border" moment, or any other preconceived act by the developers. We were able to ask ourselves why we were a prisoner, and no one forced the reason of our imprisonment upon our characters.

Honestly... I would trade "Dooooooo cooooome baaaaaaaaack" and "BY THE GODS!" for every other NPC in the major cities to simply say "Welcome home! We missed you!"

Having the option for you being from Skyrim raises questions, where are your parents? childhood friends? people you grew up with. Either your choice to be from skyrim would be really shallow or a lot of details of your history would need to be predetermined. And of course what would foreigners gain? If choosing natives gives you all this added material surly those who opt out should get something.

I see where you're coming from, but there's a line that has to be drawn.

Now, I'm not saying detail your entire life before you start the game. Simple things like what you've done in the past, who you are now, and why are you imprisoned would be a start. Let the game dynamically shift some (not all) of the dialog that fits your background entries.

And next time, let the RP'er decide the minor details afterwards instead of having the developers laid them down for you. That should fill-in the detail and continuity gaps to a point.

Ah, but the opening doesn't really assume that you aren't from Skyrim. My character is, he just spent some time outside of Skyrim. You can still invent the reason that your character was a prisoner just like in Morrowind and Oblivion, and the only thing it might be hard to say is "he never left Skyrim at all".


lol

Okay, I laughed at that. That's one thing I do get tired of. That and "I am SWOOOOORRRRN to carry your burdens." And the blacksmith chick repeatedly accepting that she isn't the best blacksmith in Whiterun.

The Thalmor consider many of their own to be "impure," so the fact that you're a high elf living outside of Alinor is likely to put you on their list of undesirables.

I'm currently playing an Altmer and think it's moving, though startling, to find she is the dragonborn.

And that's my point from my post that you've quoted... we shouldn't have the game assume that we crossed the border in the first place. They should have done something different like initiating a general NPC dialog with Ralof:

"Hey you! You're finally awake. What did you do to get arrested?"

(your options)

1. What's it to you?
2. I don't want to talk about it.
3. If we get the chance, I'll tell you later okay?
4. I'm innocent!

Or something along those lines.

Ralof assumes you were trying to cross, and Galmar doesn't know you. He calls you an outsider, not a foreigner. For some reason, you were near the border. It's up to you to decide if you were crossing, and if so from where.

Somehow you also end up in rags, while the Stormcloaks are armored. That's what I find interesting.

Next time you decide to join up with the Stormcloaks, listen to Galmar closely. He explicitly assumes you're a foreigner... it's present in his dialog. That's what broke my RP experience with that side of the content.

You were imprisoned because you got caught by accident in an ambush intended for someone else. How does that in ANY way define your character? You could invent a thousand and one reasons why you were crossing the border how does it define you in the slightest possible way. It doesn't you could have walked out of your shack to take a piss. In Morrowind you enter the region by boat counts thats crossing the border. Especially as the Emperor had you sent there so you would meet the criteria of the Nerevarine. Damn Septims and there visions of destiny. So don't act like Skyrim is doing anything knew with its introductions.
Your making mountains out of grains of sand

None of which have appeared in any previous elder scrolls game. The line is drawn, Your not native to skyrim. Your never native to whatever region the game takes place in. Evident by the fact your the mysterious figure of destiny who came from nowhere. Giving the option to be from the region means they either have to define your history or your from that region and you have no history anyway.

If you weren't a forigner they'd have to add a bunch of NPC's who know you. Which would mean defining your history. OR to keep you freedom no one knows you which means you might as well be foreigner.

That's incorrect; there's no reason you can't be from Skyrim.

Quite honestly, this isn't a game for roleplaying. At all. Skyrim and every TES game has been about an immersive world and linear story. Nothing you do matters. The developers focus on character creativity and an immersive environment, just like the Fallout series. Go play Dragon Age if you are going to whine about small things that derail your fantasy. TES isn't going to change from an amazing environment and character development-focused game and turn into Dragon Age with a different back story. Yes, the story is amazing, but it's linear. That's the way it was planned. I don't want to see TES turn into a back story changing game. I want the simplistic but still extensive character development and [censored] awesome environment.

Except for the fact no body met you before. You can say your from skyrim but you must have been a hermit or you make-believe past relationships. But if you can make-believe your from skyrim you can come up with an explanation as to why you were at Ulfric's ambush.

And with each questionable development decision by Bethesda is like a grain of sand, each purchace we inherit the desert.

Either you do not RP a game like I do, or as an RP'er youself, you don't mind having conditions like these determinded for you. My beef is that the reason for my character's imprisonment was pre-determinded by the dev team. It wasn't determined for us in the other titles. Perhaps I assumed that we would start in a prison cell (or a boat's compartment space) again... sadly, it was neither this time around.

So starting off crossing the border had already defined my character... before I even had the chance to use the WASD keys.


If it were me and I wanted to claim "be who you want to be" and "in another life in another world", I would look at all possible angles of freedom. Granted, the ES series does that better than anyone else, but there's always room for growth. If a player wants to be a native in whatever region the setting is in, they should have the freedom to do so. That's why I'm suggesting the idea of developing character backgrounds to fit with the games theme and setting. No harm in that, is there?

You want to be a Skyrim caught illegaly crossing the border? Then be one. That little part in the beginning about you not being part of the Thalmor? Pretend it never happened. The way that the story of TES unfolded isn't going to allow mutliple backgrounds. Fallout on the other hand WAS designed for roleplay, as well as an awesome environment and character development. But that's just because of how the story of the Fallout world unfolded. There's no changing the TES system without breaking it.

My character is a Nord born and raised in Skyrim but spent years outside wandering the Empire. He returned to see Skyrim again and just got caught up somehow in a patrol and mistaken for a Stormcloak sympathizer, when he had no idea what the hell a Stormcloak is.

Only child, no family left, bit of a loner. All his friends are outside of Skyrim.