The reason I bought Skyrim for PC, and not console, was for the modders.

While I don't expect every flaw with this game to be fixed by the modders when the CK has been around for awhile-- I do expect it to be significantly improved. Fallout 3 was like a whole new, much more enjoyable game with all the mods.


If there is one area I WILL hammer Skyrim, it's this:

This is supposed to be an RPG, and it doesn't do the "RPG" elements of the game well enough.

I can live with mediocre combat. Limited textures. Limited spells/weapons etc. Some of these can be fixed by modders, and I know they will.

But the lack of branching quests. Lack of variety in choices to handle quests. Reputation. YOUR impact on the game world. Variety of voices (come on, Bethesda spent millions on this game and actors aren't that expensive).

All of these things are critical to the element of ROLEPLAY. Acutely so in a "sandbox" style of RPG.

Games like Fable, even if you don't particularly like the morality... give you a feeling that you ARE part of the game world. You feel immersed, and that's important.

It's a crucial part of ROLEPLAY to see that your actions have consequences, and that decisions will open doors but may close others. It adds gravity and weight to the game. This is a key element to what draws us to ROLEPLAY games over other sorts of shallower pop-n-play, rinse-n-repeat, everybody is the same games.This weight makes the game feel much more real. As in real life, you make tradeoffs. Decisions and actions matter.

For example- one of my pet peeves with WoW was when they implemented allowing you to reroll Talents pretty much at will. It bothered me because it really took away the weight of your choices in character development. Instead it turned you into a FPS online shooter where you pick skills/guns at start and play.... and do it all again next time as if the first time never happened.

For example: if you have been spending your character's whole life reading books, practising arcane magicks, and developing the intellectual/mental/physical fortitudes to handle complex and difficult spells/potions etc-------- you aren't going to have time to be developing the muscle structure to swing a 2-handed battle hammer with any ability or wear heavy metal armours. It's the TRADEOFF you've made. Conversely, a brute that HAS done those things hasn't had time to spend with his nose in a book, or to develop the mental acuity to handle weaving multiple difficult spells. Or a Ranger that has spent his entire youth in the woods with his animals and his bow, hasn't had the level of interaction in civilization to be adroit in people skills. This kind of "reality" adds genuine dimension to your character and his choices. It realllllly feels like you are in the "role".Now, if you let the player just "reroll" his talents with a purchase of gold or whatnot... you just destroyed the entire gravity of decisions he's made throughout his career.


Similarly, expand that concept into decision making such as help/hurt this/that guy? Peacefully/violently/deviously/ solve this quest/problem/situation? Wear/use/study this/that item/weapon/armor/magic? Choose necromancy, be ostracized by polite society? Fight for the little people, find that common folk treat you like a hero (opening up extra goodies) but that many nobility treat you with disdain (limiting options with them) or vice versa?

That's just an example to show how weighting decisions helps to immerse the player in a "role". That gravitas feels severely lacking in Skyrim at worst, and at best it feels as if SO many opportunities are missed. Skyrim does *some* of these things...Skyrim's Perk system not being refundable helps give this feeling to your character. But it's only one of the few elements that reinforce the ROLEPLAY game of Skyrim... and for a game that's sole strong point is that it's *supposed* to be a RPG.... it's not enough. You want more, and that's the bit that gnaws at you even as you enjoy the game for what it is.

While scripting the variety of tags and a "reputation" type system certainly isn't easy....... this isn't a shoestring budget operation we are talking about here. You sort of accept when a small studio is handicapped by finances and are not able to flesh out elements of their game to the level they'd like to. But when it's a big money company, that's just being lazy.

When I buy a Blizzard game such as the upcoming Diablo 3- I expect to see Blizzard level quality and polish throughout. Doesn't guarantee I'll like it, but when you play a Blizzard game circa 2012 you EXPECT the best level of game production you will find.

If a company that is worth tens of or hundreds of millions of dollars can't give you the cream of the crop polish; who can?

Sometimes, gems like Minecraft remind us that games aren't always about money. They are about ideas and visions. Though I love this game, Skyrim leaves one feeling that the vision and ideas weren't strong enough or passionate enough, and hence the flaws in the game feel more glaring. Such is the price of being a big budget company: expectations rise.



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Final note: I say that a game that has you playing dozens if not hundreds of hours is doing *something* right. So it's not all bad. And much of that bad will be alleviated for us PC gamers when the modders can kick into full gear.

But look at the Dark Brotherhood in comparison to the other guilds. The listener communicates with the night mother who is a key component to the guild. It's also Cicero who calls you the listener the most as he is very fanatical.


Why should an NPC care about you and that you're climbing up in the dark brotherhood? Especially a NPC in Riften?


But even then it's still scripted to happen. If an NPC got away you'd have to script for them to then relocate to another village, in which case they may remember you. This would require many new elements like the ability to create ghost towns, NPCs who would then leave or flee, or other towns coming to help. That sounds more like a god game, then an RPG. Although I agree it would be very immersive and interesting it would require a level of hardware, and development that very few developers have.

As for the bold my problem with morality is that you'd have to define morality. To me killing Grelod the Kind isn't bad as she is sadistik, and immoral. However that action would require some type of label applied to it to fit into the system. The same could be said of bandits, is it bad to kill bandits? Are they evil people? Needless to say I like the system as it is now. Nothing is defined as good, or evil as both sides have their ups and downs. The civil war would have to be defined as good or bad, when in reality both sides have their points and that's what sparks debates on this forum.

I like ambiguity as it leads to interesting debates and allows for creativity to fill in the blank. Life isn't Black and White, which is why I find a morality system to be too "gamey". It never feels natural and always feels shallow as most of the choices are already defined. I know via colored text whether this is good or bad, there is not mystery as it's already defined by the developer.

To be fair, a morality system doesn't have to be black or white across the board.You could make it so that particular mobs/NPCs carry a certain tag that changes if you kill them. And that tag could affect your reputation differently with different people. Sort of like faction reputation in other games.There are dozens of ways to implement a system of choices having fallout. You don't have to color code choices. You don't have to tell the player any info whatsoever about what the potential outcome of a choice would be. Let him figure it out on his own, or through talking to NPCs throughout the game world (actually making conversating with ALL the people you meet matter). Etc etc. It doesn't have to be black/white one-size-fits-all.

Maybe you've been scarred by contact with poorly implemented morality systems. Just because many games have done it terribly, doesn't mean there isn't a way to do it better.

While climbing the Dark Brotherhood ladder, I dealt directly with the Thieves' Guild. Thus them knowing about me is not out of the question.

Handle it the same way crime is handled now. If an NPC witnesses me doing something, they head off for the guards. If, after a certain amount of people in the town die, if those who are left are witnesses they flee to the nearest town.


You're actually incorrect. Good and evil are present in the game as the mechanics of "friend" and "enemy."

A Bandit is "evil" because they will attack you on sight, sometimes they don't even issue you a warning.

Karma/Reputation can then be handled that way. And really, in terms of the overall game... since it takes place in Skyrim, the Empire play the role as antagonists while the Stormcloaks are the protagonists.


This.

If there was a system like that I would be joyous... but there hasn't. The way morality is implemented currently feels more like a gimmick than a fun gameplay element.

Yes. Keep your mind open to it. Discussing it with other gamers on game boards, making developers aware of such things being possible and desired-- it's all important.I just don't want you to give up on the idea of a morality system that can work.

I'm actually a game designer, work for an indie company making our first title while I finish my degree in game production and have a little over a year of experience in the game industry.

My ultimate project is to make a game with a morality system that is streamlined to the point where you don't always know when you're making a morality choice. No color coding, no "pick this to let the slaves free, pick this to kill them all and take all the gold."

I actually want to do it so that players are picking almost purely on what they would actually do in that situation.

You do it once and honestly its about business to them. The different members of the thieves guild are pretty self absorbed and really don't give a hoot about you. I guess to me it makes sense that they don't involves themselves in your life, nor do they both with mundane comments like "How's the weather? You moving up in the Dark Brotherhood?" That kind of dialogue is crap you'd hear at the office in which people feign interest for the sake of getting along.

I think that is a great idea. I'm just wondering how it would fit in the vast spiderweb that is Skyrim.



But are bandits really evil? Or were they forced to live the life they live? Sometimes the dialogue you overhear with bandits talking makes them seem like they're forced to live this way until they can pay off their bounty. I think in many ways bandits do what they have to do, and honestly as far as attacking on sight I've killed my fair share of people who've just run at me, only to realize they were just trying to talk.

The only "evil" beings in TES are the Daedra, as they act the way they do because they like to watch people suffer.

@ Krensada: I was about to state, that your theory is false, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

What I want to say with this is: I don't know if there is really a marketing genius behind all these stupid things that happen in Skyrim. But because there are so much stupid things in the game, EVERYBODY knows about it. And a product, that everybody knows about, is usually a product that sells well.

It doesn't need to be mundane pvssyr. But things like making me still shake down the three merchants for their debt is quite dumb if they are already faintly aware of your abilities and stature.

To get a bounty, you must break the law correct? If Bandits were so "noble," as you;re tying to paint them out to be, just "down on their luck," why don't more of them simply come up to me and ask for some charity?

"You're recognized as the leader in many of the guilds. Could it be more extensive? Yes, however the latter part of your post is just silly. There are no games that have that level of detail. How many games have that level of detail to where if you murder a whole village, the next village will be afraid of you? Unless the game is about murder, in which the game is scripted as such."


I'm sorry I have to stop you there...Fallout...New Vegas especially did this, even FABLE did this.....was it perfect? No. Is it an inprovement over how Skyrim handles things? Yes. Is it unnacceptable how I get treated like a guild newbie by guards when I just saved the world and am the guildmaster? Yes.

And I hate to argue philosophy / divine metaphysics with you, but daedra are unknowable. We can't comprehend their actions or goals so any attempt to classify them as good, evil, or somewhere in between is a vain effort. Some of them seem, and probably are, evil like Molag Bal and Mephala, while others SEEM to be good like Meridia or Azura, even though some say Azura is just a manipulator who uses people like the Nereverine, but that's neither here nor there.

The point is, it's not that simple when it comes to Daedra. It never is.

Also when you've done a lot of work on your character, having some in-game impact resulting from it is gratifying. Being treated as if you're just another jabroni makes it all seem pointless.

If you hear the name of a famous bandit, you fear it more than if you hear the name of some nobody robber that hasn't accomplished anything yet.

Just another part of the ROLEPLAY that Skyrim misses the mark.

The thing I don't get is when they have two or more voice actors recording the same exact dialogue. You would think if they were already going to take up the space to have a different voice than they would have also recorded different dialogue to give it even more diversity, and cut out repetition.

I agree with batman!

Cannabis is bad for you.

They keep doing the same mistakes and you keeping buying their games.... An advice, before buying a game and getting annoyed, wait for a few weeks and read the forums.

My opinion, i like the game, i think its better than oblivion, and have better and worse features than morrowind. I'm playing it since december, just stopped a little to try the twisted metal demo *_*

Why is the game the way it is....?

Four reasons:

1) They had a plan, they implemented that plan, and it took them five years.
2) At about year between year three & four when everything was running they realized the game barely ran and needed brute force processing to even run at all.
3) They spent most of the last 18 months year disabling things, but they could not just pull out code, so the code was still bloated.
4) They needed to put the game out so they put it out broken.

SPECIAL REAON # 5: Bethesda really is not very good at making games. They get away with their clunky ill-considered design philosophy because nobody makes similar games. If open world RPGs were as popular as FPS shooters, the competition would be bigger. Multiple studios from Activision, EA, and Ubiosoft would be making RPGs and the better coders, writers, and game designers from those studios would blow Bethesda out of the water. But’ looky looky’ Skyrim sold well...so maybe more studios will tackle open world RPGs to seek out the sales to people who like these games.

Good thing i dont use it then isn't it?

Umm... Bethesda's offices are in one of the main hubs of gaming today. They are neighbors with companies such as Epic, you know?

Also... physical location has nothing to do with modern game development (or modern development of almost any product, for that matter).

@MonkeyKing:

Other studios such as Bioware and Ubisoft do not have better game designers than Bethesda. In fact, Bioware attempted to compete with games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. They cannot do it.

You might also want to recall that Beth didn't take 5 years to make Skyrim. They released Fallout 3 in fall 2008, did DLC for it all through 2009, and assisted with FONV after that. They took perhaps 2.5 years, and Todd stated that Skyrim was developed faster than any other game they have done. Frankly, that's because the same team has been using the same basic software tools for over a decade. When they switch to newer tools, their products will have to be simpler due to the increased learning curve and the consequent costs involved.

This. Seriously, Bethesda is not conspiring to make it's fan base and customers insane. Besides, it wouldn't work anyway, most of us are already crazy.

Of course a businesses primary duty is to make money. I resent you implication that they or any business is unethical when you lack any evidence. I find that most businesses are extremely ethical.

To be fair, a lot of RPGs such as Final Fantasy games don't utilize branching storylines.

Not the same type of rpg, my friend.

lol come on really none you can think of?! What games have you played If I had to guess it would be pong and skyrim.