Why does nothing the PC does make any impact on Skyrim?

You kill the Emperor and no one cares. You join the thieves guild and start robbing stores and houses blind, but no one adds security. You win the civil war but everything is just like before. Dragons start attacking towns, but no one builds defenses. You save the world from the uber dragon, and no one gives a rip.


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I'm surprised at the number of responses to my post.

I find the explanation that having the game not react to the PCs actions is that it's technically impossible to be not credible based on the fact that Fallout 3, which uses an earlier generation of the same game engine, did a more than satisfactory job of accounting for the players actions.

Time constraints and a stupid 11/11/11 release date.

STREAMLINING.

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Because an open world game that isn't based on linear, scripted paths, cannot account for everything that can happen in that world, cannot account for every action that the player can take in that world.

Other games have the illusion of having better reaction to player choice, but that is because those games offer less for the player to do, there is less choice, and the choices that the player do have are more linear and scripted.

It's a video game. Not an alternate reality.

It's what happens when you make a game this open. If you want a roleplaying game that's like a story where your actions can change future events, play Dragon Age. If you want a roleplaying game that gives you a sandbox feel and an open world, play Skyrim.

So far, even though BioWare has done a good job with choices in Dragon Age and Mass Effect, I feel as if there's no game that truly gives you a story where all your actions are meaningful. I can understand your sentiment that you want a larger impact on the world, but that would require programming many, many more things, as well as taking into account every possible choice that can affect the world. It's not plausible given the time, money, and hardware restrictions

Thread/, although Skyrim is still good.

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Not enough disc space. I wonder what else got thrown out when they ran out of space. One DVD is not enough for the type of game they want to make, so the stuff that might have made this game excellent never got put in.

I guess the next elderscrolls game is going to be the same as the last two, nice to look at but shallow as hell.

Well, we've seen these threads before, right?

However, what many people haven't stressed is that doing quests is not the point of any of Beth's games. The point is to offer you a world to explore. That's it. The quests are only one means to that end, an excuse to get the PC to go to various areas, if you will. Nothing more, nothing less. That is why no quest is required, per se. You can choose to do no quests at all after the tutorial. Why? Because that's the point of Beth's games: to explore as you wish.

In addition, even though this is restricted to PC versions, another point that has always been just as important is the ability to alter the game as you see fit. Beth was originally focused on PC and has always supported the community with this approach, so their games continue to have this fundamental element even if they are offered on consoles.

If you consider these points, you can see why there is no point to trying to have the world change due stuff like dragon attacks, completign certain quests, etc. In fact, such changes are not even possible because there is no way Beth can predict if any particular player will do any, some, or all of the quests, and stuff like dragon attacks only happen after a certain point in the beginning of the main quest.

Beth doesn't make linear games, so this is one consequence.

I found is amusing that some people think that Beth games are shallow. On the contrary, Beth games are extremely deep in environment, lore, and world space, as well as allowing players freedom to alter what they wish, pretty much. Name another game that offers such depth. Name another company that supports such depth. Anyone who wants a deep story for their characters need only make such a story. Beth gives us the tools; it's up to use to use them.

They still had almost 3 gigs of space left to fill on the weakest medium (360).

Why?

Because Bethesda has never been any good at actually implementing the changes your decisions make. Unfortunately, this even extends to guilds you join, which is really jarring when you're the Guildmaster but people think you're still a noob.

Sure but where'd they put the added content for the rest of us?

And like you said, those games that offer more "impact" on the world, you are severely limited in what you can be.

Dragon Age is literally Warrior, Mage, Rogue. That's it's. And each of those three has some skill trees you can advance through, but nothing as deep and complex as the character development system in Skyrim and Elder Scrolls, where archetypes are completely thrown out in favor of giving the player ultimate freedom.

Yes, there are quest branches, all of which typically boil down to "good", "bad", "neutral", or "anti-hero". Skyrim and Elder Scrolls isn't about blatant, branching style of choice, but rather choice of "do it". I.E.: The game did not give me the choice to kill the Forsworn at the end of "Escape From Chidna Mine", I just -did- it because that's what my character would have done, and what I as a player wanted to do.

In that regard, Skyrim offers more choice than a BioWare game could ever dream of.

BioWare is better at scripting their choices, because, well, it's a branching path of linearity. You may have choice, but it's all pre-scripted. Your choice is whatever the game tells you you can choose.

I disagree that it's "impossible" for Beth to have NPCs react to you differently after you save the world. It does take extra programming but it's a simple:

If world saved then "have NPC react this way" else "NPC maintains status quo" ....

I believe the point is Beth wants to maximize the sandbox and things like "realistic reactions" are sacrificed ...

I don't know, I think the fact that every NPC doesn't react to you being Dragonborn is pretty realistic.

I mean, do you know who the members of Seal Team 6 were that took out Osama Bin Laden? Can you pick them out, walking down the street, and say "ALL HAIL SEAL TEAM 6!!"

Or if you walked past them on the street, would you just keep walking, oblivious to who they were?

It's a good point, but it flies in the face of other things npcs happen to randomly notice, like us being part of the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves guild, etc.

You're expecting too much from a video game of this size. Come back in 50 years and I'm sure they'll have the technology. But for now you're going to have to use your imagination.

Because this is not Mass Effect or Dragon Age. I love those games but they are on rails and not nearly as open world as Skyrim. Implementing a reaction for every player action would be impossible for the technology available today.

They can't make to many of the changes you might want... without breaking the design. Currently, you can do many different quest lines in a variety of orders. You can finish the main quest before even starting the civil war quests. You can do the Dark Brotherhood before doing the main... or the other way round. Since each of these storylines has to assume some "normality" to it's environment, none can drastically change that environment. There are changes though... when you do the main quest you dramatically change the dynamics in different cities depending on the truce agreement you work out. The civil war modifies the behaivor of guards. But the basics have to remain the same.

Indeed.

Also. Excessive freedom has it's downsides. Everything becomes unrewarding, unmotivating and generic - and eventually the freedom becomes the limiting factor by cutting down the sensations of accomplishment, reward and risk.

But actions in Fallout 3, which uses the same engine, had real and lasting impacts.

I rather think its a cop out to say that you can't have consequences in a open world game. That is utterly wrong. The problem is that Bethesda never wants to shut doors on a player for the decisions they make. Which is the ultimate problem. They COULD make things matter and effect the game world, but it would ultimately mean that a single character would suddenly find themselves unwelcome in city or have difficulty in performing certain things because of decisions they had made earlier.

That is the problem. There is no reason the game couldn't be made to adapt to some of your actions, but those adaptations would mean that there would be a lot of people complaining that they think the game is broken because so and so won't let them turn in a quest x because of something the player did.

Its not the open world problem, its the player base that generally doesn't want anything to ever matter because consequences to actions might prevent them from "playing the way they want to play". A game with real consequences would be an RPG.... a game without is a fantasy action adventure game. Oblivion and Skyrim are the latter.

Well, such changes in the dynamics of the choices in which you, as a hero make, would essentially be a role that you could define and create as the story unfolded.

By doing so, Skyrim would have to be called an RPG, rather than the adventure game really is - which sadly, hides behind the acronym of RPG that many feel it is.

The amount of options that would be required to fill this may never have met the 11.11.11 release date, so rather than offering a multitude of conversation options to define your hero, as well as changes to the world as those choices were made, they grab you by the nose and pull you along through one-option dialog as well as never put any plot recognition in.

I don't think it's lack of technology. The game disc wasn't even maxed out as it was for space for example.

It's down to having a deadline and less staff than they need. With all the money they have made from Skyrim they could easily double the size of the development team and more people means more depth as they can then start focussing more on other areas that don't get prioritized