Believe me, I didn't talk about it at school.

I'm not even sure my experience is typical though. Basically, we'd sit around smoking weed and drinking, and waste time in a story some guy made up. We were already going to sit around and drink, so might as well make it more interesting, right? Kind of like playing any board game with friends, but with a narrative added on. edit: uh, my point being though is that it always was a kind of social experience.

Again, I was referring to RP'ing as a hunter outside of Whiterun who sells meat and fur exclusively to Belathor. I wasn't referring to your own personal game play. If you feel that Skyrim is the "ultimate" RPG, please contribute to the discussion. How is it the ultimate RPG, especially considering (broken record I know) there is often only ONE option of responding to an NPC and ONE way of completing a quest.


ABSOLUTELY it breaks immersion. When I play a lawful evil character, I need a way to respond to an NPC that coincides with that alignment. When an NPC consistently states something ridiculous every time I walk near him for the entire game, yes it breaks immersion. Does written dialogue break immersion? Let's not get into the "do you read novels" debate. Written text in no way breaks immersion, ESPECIALLY when you're referring to an RPG.


Higher budget = better product. We can debate this all day, but trying to argue that additional resources won't make a game with better quality is ludicrous.

I imagine that isn't the stereotypical setting for a nice little pen and paper RPG.

But... that doesn't matter when selling to an NPC. Asking the NPC what the time of day, or how his kid is becomes irrelevant when you RP'ing a hunter. This problem you have isn't so big in the grand scheme of the game. Especially if you RP the way that the original poster did.

Do bad graphics break immersion? How about bugs, or glitches? How about putting words in my characters mouth?..

I think at this point we'll just have to disagree. You're more influenced and immersed in the written works, and I am more immersed in visual stimulus.

The totally unrealistic dialogue and completely linear nature of said dialogue, along with questing, makes it impossible to RP. Like I said, we simply won't come to an agreement here. I can tell you're sticking to your guns, which is fine, but all we're doing now is repeating ourselves over and over. If I cannot complete a quest the way that my character (i.e. lawful evil) should be able to complete a quest, it breaks immersion and makes RP'ing impossible.



Yes, bad graphics and (serious) bugs do break immersion. You're still going on "you can have one or the other, good graphics and an open world or meaningful dialogue and a good story." I don't agree with you, I think it's perfectly feasible to have both. Skyrim does put words in your character's mouth by forcing you respond in a specific way, and giving you no other options.


Agreed, however I fail to understand why we cannot have both.

Skyrim needs to be more open, if anything. All the quests are far too linear.

I agree, to some extent, with the OP's overall point (as I understand it, anyway!): The price you pay for such a freeform, open world is that it's unrealistic to expect individual aspects of the game to measure up against games which specialise only in specific areas such as combat, NPC interactions or storytelling.

I think Bethesda are incredibly ambitious in what they set out to achieve with TES games and I love them for it. But I won't mince words, I also think they make some absolutely horrible design decisions on a fairly regular basis. I'm not just talking about Skyrim here. Infact the classic example for me is the terrible level scaling system in Oblivion. Level scaling is actually a direct response to the problem of maintaining a challenging environment for the player within an open world. Linear games don't even have to face this problem. But the fact remains that amateur modders quickly came up with much better systems with a fraction of the resources that Bethesda had at their disposal.

Bethesda deserve a huge amount of praise for the open worlds they create but that does not mean they should be exempt from constructive criticism for the things they do poorly.

We can... however we don't, and it's hard to argue based upon speculation.

Speaking both hypothetically and in hopes of TES VI. If everyone acts as though Bethesda did in fact create the perfect game, we won't see any (much needed) improvements in the next installment / DLC / expansion.

EDIT: Also, that's a bit absurd to say it's hard to "argue based on speculation." The essence of every critique-- be it novel, movie, music, or game, is "arguing based on speculation."

I would prefer to be careful in my critique lest the devs get an idea that we want a more linear, more hand-held experience. And well, I'm only speaking for myself, but screw that.

I did hope to see more reward and consequence, but it's hard to know if this was seen as possibly breaking the radiant story system or if there is an unfinished feeling to certain quest lines because they ran out of time. But what I'm talking about are tweaks, not major changes.

As I've said throughout this thread (and others), I don't want anything more linear. Skyrim's current quests and dialogue are extremely linear. I want more options, better dialogue, and consequences.

The ultimate issue is the acceptance of the direction beth is going and the understanding of developmental cycles/manpower/hours/deadlines and focus.TES is now and will now be an action-adventure game with diminishing rpg like mechanisms. (Dialogue trees, different quest outcomes, bigger and more expanded guilds, weapons, etc) The development and enhancement on the new game/world engine (gamebyro) and the hand placement of the world (that drives people so nuts) eats such a significant amount of manpower-hours that is simply not in Beth's interest to devote much to anything else. There is evidence that some elements in Beth (perhaps some developers) wanted to include and indeed did start to include deeper RPG elements into the world, that were unfortunately not fleshed out, or poorly implemented.

The unfortunate nature of single releases over MMO's is that there is almost a real time evaluation of people's satisfaction with MMO's over than a single player were people cannot really voice their displeasure after they bought it. If not for players complaining on forums like this, there is no way for beth to be aware of features or issues people like or dont like.

The nasty thing about game review companies and websites is that there are theories that reviewers will only play a game for 20 mintues or so before making a review and conspiricy theories about how gaming companies will pay off certain companies to give 9 or 10 or GOTY marks without actually really devoting time to all the corners of the game in order to boost sales.

Sure, Skyrim could of sold 7 million copies, but what if 3.5 million people ended up not liking it? What if those people did not know how to voice their displeasure of the game after the fact? They cannot return their game, only sale it back. Beth has still gotten their money, and to beth, they think that everyone loves their game.

It is our duty as gamers to voice our displeasure with aspects of the game if we have any hope at all to improve it in the feature due by the one point nature of game sales and feedback process.

Tweaks, yes. I think that's what others here are talking about as well. Not complete overhaul into a linear game. I doubt anyone here would even be playing it now if we wanted that in the first place.

But you're going to get more linear quest lines if there needs to be a lot of clear distinction between choice A and B, because they will then have to cut down on the variables that are introduced by having no control over the order people do things in, time period, etc.

That makes such little sense it makes my head hurt.

Maybe because you're punching yourself too much.

The more triggers that have to fire at certain times, the more can go wrong. So the more elaborate the quest string has to be, the more they are going to simplify to keep things from going haywire. In a game where people are doing their own thing, taking things at their own pace, the number of variables to account for goes up a lot. I don't think it takes a genius to figure this out.

3 or 4 variables would be a cool compromise for me. Two is actually fine to a point as well, but gods, not just one. A lot of quests here fall in the latter category.

Besides storytelling, some tweaks in the faction systems would be welcomed. For example, I was just escorting Esbern and Delphine to a location.. and we stumbled upon Thalmor. I attacked them, and then Delphine sided with the Thalmor and attacked me.. because it triggered my bounty, and she's part of a guard faction. How's that for storytelling?

So you honestly believe that giving a player 2 or more options in a dialogue sequence would be inevitable failure, considering the technology we have available in 2012? You're seriously telling me that giving a player ONE option to select and ONE way of completing a quest is somehow a good move on Bethesda's part because it prevents potential problems? What?

he's not saying that at all-you're just trying to assume that's what he said.
he said that they can't get too many options in each quest because that creates more and more possibility for error. You can make quests have more than one way to finish, but the more complex you insist on making the quests, the buggier they are going to be.
A lot of quests should have at least two ways to finish them, but not too much more, since they'll just get harder and harder to manage

And I approve of having more options, so don't try to pull that [censored] on me

Games are always an ambitious project, in all of their aspects. You can't look at it like a consumer. Developers already juggle tons of things and variables in how they implement things. Especially with dev houses that don't rely on third party kits (like premade facial animations, textures, etc..), and do everything or mostly everything themselves. And Bethesda does this and meet this level of ambition. Except with the stories. It's just a simple matter of what they kind of overlook. Not what they can't do, technically. If they were as obsessed about it as environmental detail, then they could definitely do it. Point being though, it's not their strength. Just like other developers don't have strengths in world design or class mechanics, or whatever.

Like the old saying goes, if there's a will, there's a way.

I don't see the logic in assuming that several ways of responding to NPC's and a few different ways to finish a quest will inevitably result in more bugs at release. It will take more work from the developers to polish the game and work out the bugs prior to release, sure, but to say it's not doable is crazy.

I mean, better graphics will also leave more room for error-- so should we say that we hope TES doesn't improve its graphics for the next installment? I didn't ask for "complex" quests, but something a little less linear then the present system would be nice.


Uhh... what?

It's not a question of personal perspectives, but rather an acknowledgement of the fact that the sudden death of a leader inevitably triggers a power struggle, and that any such struggle will automatically impact the Empire's ability to fight in Skyrim. How long-term the effects are doesn't matter either, since the civil war is not a long-term conflict. The best way to represent this in-game is to have completion of that mission have a direct impact on the CW if you haven't resolved it yet, since at the very least there's going to be a sizable morale shift.
The whole point of the MQ is stopping the Dragon rampage, so it's silly on the face of it for there to still be some raising hell after you banish Alduin. If that means additional words cannot be unlocked after the MQ if you didn't store some dragon souls, so be it, since that's the direct consequence of the choice to complete the MQ before having done so.

It's always bothered me when a faction (in this case, the Forsworn), is locked into the 'villain' role, since I'm a big fan of having alternative paths. Unfortunately, that's something Bethesda is rather bad at.

That's some good stuff, and I would add that there should also be the opportunity to topple a given guild, such as with the DB in Skyrim, since some RPs will be diametrically opposed to a specific guild's purpose and will want to expunge them.

Idiot

The OP has to be trolling.

I agree there should be a recognition for what happens, but a thing like that could result in several things;

• A boost in activity by the empire to root out and find the murderer
  
• A temporary morale drop that allows Stormcloaks to advance and capture new areas
  
• Imperial soldiers starting to ramp up activites to defeat the stormcloaks once and for all

Without a doubt there will be a power struggle, but the empire wouldn't withdraw it's troops back to Cyrodiil in an instant. The power struggle will be going on in the empire and the conflict in Skyrim would be going on as before. In old time killing the leader of an army meant the war was over, but in this conflict the leader isn't even at the fighting grounds. in old times you would find the leader to be an active part of the fight, leading their men into battle. The whole way the story is presented this is not the case here and thus in my opinion it makes sense that there isn't a drastic change. However it should be a change to the conflict tho, but not a huge one.


The way I have understood the main quest is the main point to stop Alduin the world destroyer, also when reading the quest lines and what happens they seem to offer a explanation why dragons will still be around.


So based on that text bit alone I see no reason why dragons should all dissipear. the explanation why you still see them is that some simply will not follow the way of the voice



a faction like this is a untapped resource that could give so much variety in playstyle, the problem could be that due to time they just made it a villain faction rather then create a full blown faction with it's own quest and background story. Sadly few developers are good at these things and they often seem to just add a bunch of villain factions that are interesting but impossible to join or do anything with except kill them.


Guilds are really a thing I would love to ee more focus and details on, it would give so much more to the game if they made guilds more meaningful then it is today. Imagine the possibilities you would have with a micromanagement system.

If you choose to expand the thief guild it means you coul?d earn more gold, but at a risk of getting the guards attention. Infiltrators could come to join you simply to plot against you from the inside, you could choose which members to send on which mission and based on hidden factors and their specia?ity that would determine if the mission was a success or if the thief got caught and ended up in jail. If he ended up in jail it would be like a side quest for you as a player to get him out, either by breaking him out or paying the fine or simply allow the thief to sit the time out but then loose an asset to the guild in those days/weeks.

Or how to make sure the secret of the companions stays hidden, which persons to send on which missions, maybe the silver blades try to infiltrate and it would be up to you as a player to find out who it is.

Another thing that could be nice would be to allow for instance Brynjolf to do all the daily management if you as a player don't want too.