Skyrim in my view is the Best Tes game yet! Love how they made everything grey! And made the world more gritty!

The people who are defending this game would still do so even if every RPG feature were removed, because they like the action-adventure feel it has and don't care, at all, about what TES once stood for. They're Bethbots, as someone so eloquently put it, and devote all their love to anything and everything Bethesda releases.

They can deny it all they want, but anyone who is perfectly content with spending $60 on an incomplete game, and then defending it to the DEATH, has no idea what they're talking about in the first place. Bethesda makes big, open-world games. They have been for years now. You cannot justify the bugs Skyrim suffers from because Bethesda has had all the time in the world to find solutions for them. They're far more experienced than anyone else when it comes to games like Skyrim, and yet they continually release bugged products and slowly fix them before releasing a new game with many more problems (ignoring many problems from the previous game and leaving the community modders to deal with them).

Its a Tes Game THEY Always have bugs! And to be honest when Morrowind first came out..I couldant STAND IT! In my view its just bad...And I still think it svckS!

Erm... you're aware that RPGs aren't the only fun games right?

I never saw TES as an RPG in the first place. I wanted to explore a land full of mysteries and become a hero, all the while pretty much being free to do whatever the hell I want.

I don't know about you, but to me, that's what TES stands for

But seriously, do you REALLY believe that anyone who likes something else than just pure RPGs is a brainless [censored] brainwashed by an evil company?

Honestly, I don't know WHO'S more brainwashed here...

Anyways, I'm back to enjoying my awesome game. what will you do? complain? ha! talk about entertainement for someone who knows how to have fun!

How close to Fable would you like TES to become?

I hear the next fable will be literal on a rails motion controlled shooter; like the kinds with light guns in arcades. Is that what this generations wants?

Oblivion was one of the best selling games ever and Morrowind and Daggerfall had critical acclaim.

They could have released a TES version of Legend of Zelda and it would have sold millions,

The reason people get so shirty (myself included at times) with them cutting out DnD elements and old school RP'ing elements, is because................. Well, look at the big-league competition for fantasy RPG's, the Dragon Age series (which looked promising at first, but tried to cater to people who don't really want a challenge), the Witcher series (where you don't create a character or really do too much free form exploring) and Fable (I don't really have to explain here). So whilst two of these three franchises are still good games with good lore they are completely different games in the same genre, so TES is the last game of it's type and it is changing the formula to appeal to a wider audience.

I personally think they really don't need too, Oblivion and Morrowind caused enough of a splash for people to give the series a go, no matter how many numbers it had or times they died, I think that they were succeeding at widening the fanbase without changing the games, ad in the long run they would have created their own demographic without having to appeal to the man in the street.

But realistically I will know TES is truly on the wrong path when we can't save during combat.

I think you're completely misconstruing what he/she said. I love my action-adventure series that started off as and always were meant to be action-adventure series, but TES was not an action-adventure series yet is getting progressively more and more aimed at the action-adventure fanbase as though it were an action-adventure game. Nobody said anything negative about who doesn't like RPGs... but when non-RPG fans become the target of an RPG series, you kind of have a teeny weeny little problem. How would DOOM players like it if DOOM 4 was a fullblown isometric RPG with some shooter elements?

How is that a justification though? That's like saying a car from a specific automaker with buggy brakes is fine if all previous cars had buggy brakes. These products take time to create, and in that time, you expect some advancement. Like I said, Bethesda is more experienced in these types of games than anyone else, so why haven't they found a way to keep bugs to a minimum? Why haven't they taken the time to find solutions for these problems rather than simply releasing more games with bugs?

Psychic NPCs have been in Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and now Skyrim. How, after all those games, they haven't found a solution for that problem is beyond me, especially with all the money they've made.

Interesting. The "gamesas can do no wrong" crowd are trolling those who aren't convinced and are then calling the "whiners" trolls. That's quite a nice move.

I suppose we're really just posting too soon with our criticism, however. In a year, all the 50 hour gamers will be gone, this forum will be populated by actual gamers rather than ADD kids in love with the shinies, and empirical observations about the immersion breakers in the game can actually be discussed properly. Until then I suppose we'll just have to put up with the noise from those who would eat anything gamesas serves for them on a silver platter, no matter what it actually smells like.

Why not this thread again, mr Grand Dragon? The complainers are polite and calm, everything seems to be backed up nice and easy... What's the problem? That not everybody are svcking up to gamesas, telling them that their evidently imperfect game is perfect and the best game ever made? Really?

Interesting. What part of wanting a coherent world makes one egomaniacal? And I don't think anyone is a silly sausage for "not hating the game", but I do think those who claim it is perfect have issues. That's just me, though. I also think people are crazy for thinking Fox News is anything but a mouth piece glued to Murdoch's behind. Make of that what you want.

Stunning landscapes where the physics involving hill-climbing are totally wonky and where the snow is really just a decoration. You can interact with everything in the environment, except of course if you expected snow to melt when you blast it with a fire spell. Oh well, would've been fun. Can't build a snowman either, for some reason. Can you have a nice chat with a guard, asking for directions to the nearest "advlt establishment"? Nah, can't do that. Can you barter about the price of an item? Nope, gamesas integrated it so it happens automatically since manually making that choice was supposedly annoying. Can you practice your jumping or sprinting to become better at it than your average bookworm-Breton who spends his entire life in a library? Nope. Best you can do is learn how to sprint longer but you're not going to learn how to be faster or jump higher. Tough [censored], mate.

The level-up system feels natural if you're completely ignorant on what those skills and perks are supposed to represent, and how it adds up with reality. The main 1H perk that adds +20% damage with all 1H weapons, for instance? What is that? Some level of knowledge you can attain that will make any 1H weapon ever made more dangerous? How does that even make sense? Using axes and daggers and broadswords are very, very different things so how can ONE perk add damage to ALL of them? Before it used to be a personal attribute, strength, which did this and back then it did make sense. If Hulk slashes me with a sword, even though his technique svcks, it's going to hurt. If some Hollywood actress tries the same slash, regardless of her technique, it's not going to hurt nearly as much because she's barely able to lift the sword to begin with. Oh well, I guess one can't expect a world of realism. Which is why there's only two types of armor in the world and both can reach the armor cap and both can be perked to become weightless, though God knows what you need to smoke for a weightless suit of non-magical full plate to make sense.

The ability to have companions? A good plot? The latter is decent enough but the former has been done much, much better in many games. In most games who do provide the companion option, you'll even have options such as specifying the choice paramaters for your minions or having them level with you to not become useless ten levels later. In most games it's actually an advantage to get to your favorite companions as soon as possible. In Skyrim the effect is that your companion will be stuck at a terrible level and get rofflestomped regularly and casually later on. Brilliant!

Combat is good, unless you're dual wielding or using magic. Then it's just a fair bit weird. Dual wielding is everything but graceful and fluid and magic is just a tiny bit nerfed, to the point where the million things you'd like to do can't be done, or even simulated. With all the snow in this game, I really would like to throw snowballs around with telekinesis. It would be like Luke's fight with Vader in Empire Strikes Back. Some big brute tries to swing a big hammer at me, he gets snow in his face and while he's busy getting that out of his eyes and nose, I'm busy roasting his ass. That would be awesome mage action. Can it be done? Sure not in Skyrim, even though you have all the spells for it. Credit where it's due, having NPCs react to distractions is cool. If only gamesas had delayed the game for a year to really polish those features and make it possible to take advantage of it...

Be whatever you want to be? Sure, unless you want to be a lethal super-mage who destroys all that oppose him with his overwhelming Destruction-magic. To get that option you'll need to buy a $15 DLC. Sorry. And as the duke said, you can be who you want to be but the game sure isn't going to recognize it, is it?

Obviously. So would most people. I probably would myself as well. I can totally understand gamesas, only that doesn't really make it any less disappointing. From the same reasoning, I can also simply get the pirated version of any TES game and DLC and save myself a fair bit of money. And it would necessarily bypass that Steam-nonsense, allowing me to not have that garbage running on my system. Total win / win for me, though of course it's no fun for gamesas.

Understanding why people do what they do does not mean their actions will disappoint you any less. I can be as much a dike towards gamesas for cash reasons as they are in reverse. Only thing stopping me is honor, morality, the desire to do what is right rather than what is easiest or cheapest or most profitable. The thing is, eventually you're going to ask yourself why you're acting that way if everybody else are not?

Anyways, I'm guessing this will be it for my nightly whining. I'll be off playing Skyrim, most likely. No, it's not what I wanted it to be but it's not terrible either. Just isn't anywhere close to being the best game ever or even game of the decade or even RPG of the decade.

Because whether characters or factions respect you of trust you just has to be a number? That doesn't make much sense.

If people respect you you get to hear that. If a guild trusts you you get higher profile jobs and more access to equipment or even secrets. If an enemy respects you he will face you head on instead of letting his henchman do his work for him. I don't see how you have to know a number for this when a character's actions speak for themselves.

The thieves guild gives you higher profile jobs to do and eventually propels you into the guildmaster rank. Why would i need to know whether my reputation is at 32999/36000 for this? What good would it do me?


While i cling to some form of numbers to differentiate your character skills (after all, you have to define the player character as opposed to the player, a number for "swords" can indicate your character can do more than yourself, as it were), clining to numbers just because they were in older games doesn't make sense. Reputation scales have been a part of RPG's for two reasons: Since older games had to rely on "purer" gameplay the player needed to know these numbers as he continued. However, after games started to involve characters that can speak to you and stories in RPG's started to get bigger and and more fleshed out, a number for reputation simply isn't needed anymore. You don't have to know a number to know that someone trusts or respects you, you get to know this through their dialogue with you, or even from rumors from others.

To be honest, a reputation scale became obsolete as early as Ultima 4. A true roleplayer doesn't need numbers at all. Numbers allow you to game the system, not play the actual game. It's very sad how even a lot of P&P people i know forget this and just powerplay, using every loophole they can to gain an advantage, then say that "it's not roleplay" when you do a session that's based entirely around dialogue and not a single roll of the dice.

What exact reason would there be to include a reputation scale or other numbers aside from those that define your character's basic attributes?

People always bring up the arithmophobic "numbers are obsolete" claim. All that needs to be asked to counter it is what is there in return? First off, I never said anything about numbers, I said something about the reputation system, which Skyrim simply doesn't have. Skyrim doesn't react to specific actions, to titles (I'm Dovakhiin who's about to save Skyrim... that doesn't warrant recognition?). It doesn't provide any consequence, be it revilement, adoration, or any general acknowledgement, it doesn't provide any feedback to my character's "choices" (well... Skyrim lacks those, too, so...), to the role I'm trying to play with my character. There is no reputation system, period. Why is that a good thing? In the case of numbers, which I did not mention, they are necessary for a reputation system. It's an inherent nature of any and all computer programming. You need numbers to support a reputation and that is an incontestable fact.

I've already stated my reasons for why a reputation system is a good thing. You call it obsolete... so cutting it out completely is a good thing and is justified because you think numbers are supposedly bad or outdated? That makes no sense. You're essentially simply advocating the removal of a feature entirely because you have a penchant for disdain for numbers? I'm not talking about a useless number, I'm talking about an actual feature. I'm talking about feedback for, you know, actually role-playing. Playing make-believe isn't role-playing. Having a gameworld actually recognize your chosen role and having your playstyle be impacted by it is something any real "ultimate, open-ended fantasy RPG" should have because without it, the gameworld doesn't give a crap what I am or want to be.

There is no recognition for what I've done, no political rulers growing to hate me for helping the commoners or no lawmakers hating me for rising to the top of the Thieves' Guild... and on the topic of factions, as I've already explained, they're barely even there and their disposition towards the player is practically nonexistent. Within their own ranks, there are no changes for rising to the top, which happens in a small handful of boring quests, by the way. People don't recognize the hero, nobles don't recognize you as a political pawn, the law doesn't recognize you as scum... there is no reputation system, no alliances or opposition with various factions or groups of Skyrim, and subsequently, very little meaningful interactivity with the gameworld.

JagarTharn, have you tried Dark Souls and Demon's Souls? Have you tried Risen? Risen 2's coming out next year. It looks to be amazing. Have you played Gothic or Gothic 2, yet? (Avoid Gothic 3 or 4. The creators had little to do with how bad 3, and nothing to do with how [censored] 4, turned out to be.) Ownership/licensing/use of the Gothic name is returning to the original creators. We may yet be playing a new Gothic.
Those were just mainstream titles. There are a hundred and one indy titles from which to choose.
TES changing is not the end of the RPG genre.

Indie games are indeed the future of RPG gaming, but are they really going to have the budget to do what TES can do?

I meant that TES was the only big name Fantasy RPG that was still using the old RPG formula, and the only one that had the potential to bring the style of game to a wider audience.

I have seen the poles. people are generally satisfied with how this game plays now.

Except the people who aren't.

Or in the worse case, starting to get bored of it.

This is my first "RPG" other than Pokemon, so maybe I just don't get it. I adore this game to death, but perhaps it's an ignorance is bliss situation.

That said, many of the complaints in this thread are just absurd. The fire shout doesn't melt snow: GAMEBREAKER. Your morality is not measured by a karmic number system: GAMEBREAKER.
It has become increasingly clear that no matter what you do, there will always be a group of cynical perfectionists who think ______ is awful and overrated.

Maybe what's happening here goes deeper than we thought. Maybe longtime Bethesda fans want Beth all to themselves. I would completely understand that. This explosion in Elder Scrolls popularity is a threat to your relationship. Your aren't feeling polygamous- I get it. But the complaints border on the ridiculous. One person mentioned the clunky mountain scaling. Take a moment to reflect on past gaming experiences: how many scenic mountain vistas were completely untouchable, purely artistic backdrops?
Every single one, as far as I can remember. There have always been physical limits. Skyrim said f*** that, and gave us the ability to create our own path.

I've climbed many peaks that I first assumed impossible. It's true, not every rocky cliff has a path. But many of them do. I think that warrants appreciation.
What other game offers even a glimpse of hope that every mountain can be climbed?

The bulk of these nit-pick comments remind me of my Dad back when he was drinking. If I scored four goals in a soccer game, he'd say, "yeah, but one shot hit off the post"
I'm starting to think that if Bethesda achieved world peace, you folks would say, "yeah... but what about the aliens?"

Seems i misunderstood. My apoligies. Skyrim does feel lacking in this area i have to admit.

I do agree that reputation has to matter! On that sidenote,i just don't want to have it matter in the form of a stat on a character sheet. It makes me feel like i'm just there for the grind instead of letting me go through a natural development.

Obviously you haven't played morrowind
You wouldn't say what you've said if you've played it.

Should I pity you that you've only ever known low standards ? and never known better?

Actually he would be disgusted by it since its a bad game compared to games these days...Its VERY Dated...

Just because someone doesn't like or appreciate the same things you do, doesn't make them any less appreciative of quality gaming. Everyone has different tastes and preferences believe it or not. There are many valid reasons to dislike Skyrim, but bemoaning about the good 'ol days isn't one of them.

I still love Morrowind and the Purple Rain album.


The problem is, aside from a few awesome independent game producers, the whole statbased RPG genre has been adbandoned, and seeing as indie devs don't have the budget to make something on the scale of Skyrim the genre is in danger of dying out.

But its all very sad when someone can be so excited about reduced features, knowing there was once much more.

Of all things, admiring that there a paths in the mountains.. ?

New players will never know the freedom of levitation, jump, or wall climbing. And be content in blood splatters and decapitations.

Well said

In retrospect, the only things Morrowind still has going for itself is strong RPG elements, an alien world, and an engaging story. Other than that, it's a pain to play or even look at. Having your combat system based on a "hit-and-miss" system, or have your NPCs walk around like they're constipated, does not make a quality game. It may've been a breakthrough that deserves the attention of anyone that likes RPGs, but it's not God in the form of a compact disc.