From what I read in this forum some players claim that the TES series was "dumbed down" to appeal to wider public. But aren't these same people overlooking the fact that with evolution everything tends to get easier?

Installing a game on your PC back in the 90's was an herculean task. You had to set all the parameters like DMA values to sound and video among other things. Sometimes it took hours to just get the game running if you didn't know what a DMA was. Today the game basically installs itself.

Programing your VCR to record a TV show when you were away from home was almost as complicated as operating the Large Hadron Collider. Today we can do the same task with the press of a button.

Could we say these things were "dumbed down"? Most certainly, but is this bad? Of course not, it takes away the tadious tasks and leaves only the good parts like actually playing your game or watching your favorite TV Show.

That's how I see the new leveling system in Skyrim. You don't have to fiddle with a screen full of stats and numbers to get the best out of your character. You just use the skills you want to get better at and the system takes care of the rest leaving you the good part that is using those skills.

I never could get into D&D based games like Neverwinter Nights because the sheer amount of numbers and calculations and rules you need to take into account to realize if your build is correct is so overwhelming.

In Skyrim you just start with a clean sheet, no classes, no attributes, no restraints. What you do and what feels natural to you is what you're gonna get better at and if you want to force your character into a certain "class" you just use the skills of that "class". I think more RPGs should learn from this and use this concept from now on because that's evolution.

So keep in mind that if things weren't evolving constantly we would still be living in caves because using a lighter to start a fire is nothing more than the two sticks technique "dumbed down".

The phrase means "I don't ike this feature."

i think most of the people complaining that it is "dumbed down" were/are probably hardcoe D&D players, where with the pen and paper you controlled EVERY SINGLE aspect of the character you were roleplaying...I think there is a difference between that kind of role playing (with total freedom) and the kind of role playing games like skyrim give you, where you must work within the laws of the game...

Is this guy for real? Because I can't really tell

there is a difference between D&D number crunching and RPG video games...most people would rather the CPU do the number crunching (role) for you so that you don't have to pull out a pad and paper and figure out exactly how much damage your weapon will do if you enchant it with frost...some people like the number crunching, but I think overall, the majority of people don't want to crunch the numbers but they want an experience that is just as immersive (example: KOTOR...great D&D game, limited stats and number crunching, yet people had the freedom to play as they saw fit...)

I think it's like going from Pauly D to Ronnie.

And you would be part of the wider audience that the "Dumbed down" game is looking to appeal to since you did not enjoy that part of the game - so you may see it as a good thing but to those that play this type of game mainly because of the sheer amount of numbers and calcualtions and rules you need to take into account will definitely not see it that way as to them it is ruining what they looked for in the game so that it appeals to a wider audience -- YOu have to remember that what you consider "Leaving only the "good part" could also be regarded by others as removing the BEST part of the game and the main reason they enjoy the game leaving only the watered down hollow shell of what the game could be !

Complex and complicated have very different meanings.

Dumbed down = no attributes, fewer skills, less magic options, no spell making, one piece armor, simplistic quests, no npc immersion, few special treasures, same looking caves,crypts and enemies etc...

Personally I play CRPGs for the immersion factor. I don't care for min/max stats, actually I find them detractive to the fun part. So maybe that's why Skyrim has appealed so much to me.

Yes, if you don't care much for RPGs Skyrim is great.

(lol)

exactly what i was trying to say...

Theres two different reasons people give for the game being dumbed down
1 is its having departed from traditional RPG mechanics. Thats tosh IMO. D&D and other traditional RPGs didn't require much intelligence to understand the rules systems although it did require time and a lot of reading to become familiar wirth them
2nd is less complexity in the game world itself. Very few choices having serious consequences, no conflicts between different factions except between the Stormcloaks and Imperials etc. I feel theres some validity to this although its exaggerated. Oblivion had no conflict between factions and few quests with serious choices and consequences. MW had a little but not much more.

OK but how many CRPGs like that were launched in the last year? They are becoming rarer and rarer and the tendency is that they will vanish at some point because there are not enough audience out there to make these games profitable. So companies adapt or evolve like Bethesda is doing.

It sure is easier to start a fire with a lighter than two sticks, but mechanism behind a lighter is far much complex. Can't say mechanism behind Skyrim got any more complex, better working and thus resulting in better outcome, instead it seems simplified and very predictive. Of course, this is generalizing as this concerns only part of the game but hey, noone is complaining about new battle system.

It was cooler when it required me to think (Morrowind) rather than make me feel like I'm playing a medieval version of an FPS.

Think of the difference between a manual and automatic transmission.

In both cases, you get to drive the car.

Some people just want to be able to put it in drive and go, others want to be able to control more of the driving experience.

If you were an auto manufacturer, had to design a model that was either manual or automatic transmission, with the goal of selling as many cars as possible, which transmission would you choose?

What in the world does npc immersion mean? The immersion is the player's.

That's because you're looking for a different experience than me in RPGs. I play RPGs for the immersion factor. Having to stop the game every time I level up to distribute points in several stats is immersion breaking for me.

In real life I get stronger if I constantly lift weight, I don't need to put numeric values into some stat to make me stronger. If I run everyday I get faster. If I shoot a gun constatly my aim will improve.

That's immersion, that's natural and that's what Bethesda achieved with Skyrim.

Actually, they're http://education.yahoo.com/reference/thesaurus/entry/complicated.

why does humanity judge everything based on how much easier it makes something? this is a game. interactive. doing stuff and being challenged is the whole damn appeal... or it was before the world decided doing anything for yourself was bad. a little effort can make the most menial of tasks seem so much more rewarding you know.

as people have stated, old RPG mechanics werent really too much for anyone to handle.... so why do they keep getting stripped down? for those of us who had no problem playing them, what the hell is the advantage of making something we already understand fully easier to understand? we get nothing from it, while losing a lot from the missing features.

and evolution does not make everything easier. evolution makes you better prepared for one thing and less prepared for another. its an overall flat change, not an improvement. we can enjoy a wealth of delicious meats, but can no longer eat them raw without a good chance of illness. we can kill things with the pull of a trigger, but put us fist to fist with a bear and we get curbstomped. that is evolution. skyrim is more along the lines of a great hunter rising to wealth and gluttony and becoming a fat useless spoiled [censored]. things are easier for him, but he isnt exactly better himself.

No it's not.

Dumbing down means oversimplifying things (possibly for stupid people).

So you are wrong on both counts - that evolution equals simplification (it's actually the opposite) and also that modern program installation versus the early '90s is what people mean by "dumbing down".

The lighter example you give actually results from increased complexity of thought, ingenuity, invention and engineering. Neanderthals just weren't clever enough to conceive of such a thing, never mind design, build and use it; and even if they were, they didn't have the technology to make a modern cigarette lighter.

But you may be right in the sense that when the bomb goes off, or the zombie plague sweeps the Earth, and all the lighter fluid runs out, those less tech-dependent people who can adapt to using flint and steel or rubbing two sticks together will survive. The rest of us dumb-asses will be out of here.

Daggerfall was nothing like AD&D 3.5E. But I I found the game-play and character/class design aspects of Daggerfall far richer than Morrowind. Similarly, I found that Oblivion was oversimplified compared to Morrowind. I can't play Skyrim because it won't install from the disk, but if they have followed the trend it will, indeed, be dumbed down. One of the worst games ever was Lord of the Realms III. Compared with the first two it was absolutely appalling because it seemed to play itself without any interaction from me. And nothing I did seemed to make any difference to anything. This was the last thing I wanted from a strategic "build a kingdom"/combat game.

If we wanted classless role-playing, we'd play Amber or something like it. As it is, the TES series has ended up where classes in Oblivion are meaningless because in the end they are just a list of skills which are all at 100 so it makes damn-all difference. The only difference between a maxed out Necromancer and a maxed out Barbarian are the racial traits and birth-sign characteristics.

I hope Skyrim has not continued this.
.

But then, I'll probably never know...

~

It means they are rollplayers, instead of roleplayers.

You had to think while playing Morrowind?

Dumbed down is assuming the player is stupid and/or lazy and that it's your duty (as the developer who wants the player's money) to make things easier than they should be. For example, you promised emphasis on the cultural aspect of the land (ancient language, study the words, unlock secrets of the past in the dungeons), the players expect their brains to be used like in the classic adventure games, but soon they discover the so called "puzzles" are not challenging because the answer is always provided in the same form, either in your inventory or on the walls. I wonder what's the average IQ they took into consideration when they "designed" the difficulty of the puzzles and the depth of the dialogue "trees".