I fail to see how a hugely important element of the game play can be completely substandard because it "isn't the focus."

Well, what is the focus? Dungeon crawling? The "puzzles" are the worst thing I've ever seen. Story? Debatable, but it's not novel-worthy. Adventuring and becoming a hero? No NPC's recognize who or what you are in any way shape or form. Role playing? The racial trait differences aren't even worth mentioning.

Now apply that exact same situation to Skyrim and the removal of stats. If you cannot see the correlation then I'm sorry, however you just painted the exact scenario of what I see with Skyrim. Just switch mass effect with oblivion/skyrim and Gears with demon souls.

Also Mass Effect 2 is a competent shooter, Gears is a great shooter. They're not on the same level. I'm not saying Mass Effect 2 is bad, it's not on the same level as Gears.




If I bought a Prius I wouldn't be expecting to have the same horsepower as a Mustang. If someone did buy the game for the combat they would be disappointed, however we live in an age where you could do extensive research on any game before you buy it. You could watch LPs of a game before you ever played, watched reviews, etc. If Skyrim was indeed a blind purchase and someone bought it only for the combat then that is terrible. However that doesn't overshadow the fact that they're a minority.






The focus is this open world that is filled with years of history... that is the focus. I don't expect to see CoD like elements in Red Dead Redemption or GTA, I expect to see a detailed world that has its own history in which you make the story. Maybe playing Minecraft for 8 months helped me to understand the beauty of playing where I am the story and I create the lore. Minecraft had terrible combat, terrible AI, and tons of bugs, yet it was still a ton of fun.

"Exploring."


Stats have already been removed from Skyrim. And the combat isn't much better for it.

Also, I stated what I would have liked to have seen to make combat have more depth, perhaps you missed it?

Mass Effect 2 and Gears share the same ease of use in regards to combat.

ME2 is a shallow shooter plain and simple.

Some would say Skyrim is a shallow shooter if you take the archery road,emphasis on the word shallow.

Many would say Skyrim is a shallow RPG.

You made an entire lake for us to play in... too bad it's only ankle deep.

You're just very tall.

Years of history? Lore? Sure, the Elder Scrolls lore is pretty interesting-- but you can't seriously suggest that is the focus of this game. I can get that from Wikepedia.

I make the story? Again, failed. I became leader of the Thieve's Guild and the guild bartender says "So you're Brynjolf's new whelp, eh?" I can be the most horrible, mass murdering villian Skyrim has ever seen and no NPC's will recognize that. I can be the most honorable charitable hero in history and a guard will still tell me to "cast that fancy magic someplace else."

Minecraft is fun because Minecraft is innovative and is excellent at what it does. Apples to oranges. Minecraft didn't have a fraction of Bethesda's budget, dev team, any of its resources.

As someone who has gone back and played Morrowind and Oblivion I'll argue to death that Skyrim has infinitely better combat than either of those games.

Again, it has slow-mo up-close kills. This doesn't make a different combat system. It's still "swing, swing, swing" with the enemy barely looking like they got hit.

As someone who has gone back and played Morrowind and Oblivion I'll argue to death that Skyrim has infinitely better combat than either of those games. The funny thing is people also complained about how much shallower Mass Effect 2 was than Mass Effect 1.

As for ease of use Skyrim is much easier to get into than a game like Demon Souls.

Only 6'4"

You could also say that lake is devoid of any life also.I wonder if the people of Skyrim get sick of the one species of fish

Then why is dual wielding, which is the newest addition, simply the following:

Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Trigger?

It literally boils down to just that. I don't even have to move back and forth.

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.

If you're going into the idea of morality then please save it. Morality in video games is so thinly veiled that it might as well let you pick in the beginning whether you're good or evil.


The gameplay wasn't that innovative... it was basically legos. The business model is what was innovative.





And Morrowind was left click, left click, left click, left click... Tekken was Square, Square, Square, Triangle (never played Tekken don't know the combos). If you're complaining about repetitive button mashing then observe the medium for which you play a game on. A controller has maybe 6-8 possible locations for an attack, and a game with 8 ways to attack wouldn't be very fluid now would it?

Most games have 3-4 key buttons and the rest control very useless features. For god sakes I've played CoD so much that I know when to stop shooting because I have a feeling for how many bullets it takes to kill. All I do is L1, then R1, wait till that timer hits in my head then stop.

I'll say this... games are repetitive. You do the same thing so many times that you build muscle memory!

From what I have been told... New Vegas.

Also, I remember everyone referring to me as "Arch-mage" in Oblivion once I earned the title, but it's been a long time.

And, in a sense (even though it was a terrible system), in Oblivion... I could murder an entire town and the next town's guards would know of what I did.

And you mentioned it's "scripted as such," well... once I hit leader of X guild, it should be scripted that members of said guild recognize me as their leader.

Fable? And that game is old. The technology is there, Bethesda was lazy. It's not hard to have a general character alignment based on your deeds and have NPC's react to your alignment. It's 2012.


There was no game even remotely similar to Minecraft prior to its release. It WAS innovative. I'm starting to think you just like playing Devil's Advocate.

Fable is also based upon a morality system that is very shallow. Almost all morality systems are shallow.


Go look up Infiniminer please.




You also had a adoring fan who obsessed over you like you were god.

From what I remember of the guilds in Skyrim most of the heads of the guilds weren't very powerful. They were mostly referred to by their name, and the rest was merely a title. I've been greeted as Arch Mage in Skyrim, and also Guild leader of the Thieves guild. With the companions the title of Hardbringer wasn't all that important. I believe I remember Kodlak saying he wasn't the "leader" but merely a father figure.

I think the title of "leader" in Skyrim was been severely reduced. As for holds, I like that each hold has their own bounty. It doesn't make sense for Solitude to contact Whiterun because I stole a sweet roll. It just seems absurd given the context of the game (with the dragons attacking and the civil war).

And Skyrim's system is better? Setting morality aside (even a shallow system would be more immersive than no system), why am I not recognized as Archmage, Harbinger, Thieve's Guildmaster, etc?

Haha, I'm 6'4" too.

Read my top post, last quote for my thoughts on being guild master and word spreading throughout Skyrim. As for being recognized I'll just say this, I've been recognized as the leader by all the guilds. It doesn't always come up in every conversation as that is annoying. I don't want to talk to someone in the thieves guild and have me being referred to as guild leader every sentence. We don't need 20+ annoying fans.

So a random dialogue from a guard here and there satisfies you. I'm happy for you-- really, I am-- but I can see you're a [ i typed in fa.n boi and it turned it into "devoted fan" lmfao]. Skyrim is perfection in your eyes, the slow-mo executions and the "stunning" graphics won you over. I think Bethesda is an amazing company and has a load of potential, but Skyrim (for me) left a whole lot to be desired. Combat, AI, dungeon puzzles, voice acting, dialogue options... they all feel sub par in 2012 for a company with that kind of a budget and that much development time.

I'm with most of the complaints when it comes to NPC interactions and story. Just not the combat. At least with some types of combat.

What does Skyrim lack?
Not enough fleshing out of Racism, sixism, and the civil war.
You're basically god, there is nothing you cannot do. You could end up as the man who saved Skyrim from a dragons, holder of every daedric artifact, leader of every guild, and civil war hero. You're basically Talos.
Lack of options in quest, I'd like to be able to take a peaceful route if I so choose.
4 towns of interest, the rest are just carbon copies
Lack of interesting loot

I could go on but you get my point. Skyrim isn't perfect, there are many flaws. However I don't count bugs, or comparisons to other games as acceptable flaws within a game because you're essentially judging it because it's its own entity.

I am referred to a Listener every single time in the Dark Brotherhood.

As Risky said though, I will still be called a low level whelp in the Thieves' Guild even as their leader. Also, there is zero recognition, from anyone (except when buying decorations), that I have done business with the Thieves' Guild when I was climbing the ladder in the Brotherhood. No one seems to remember me at all in fact.

About the Holds, that wasn't the point I was making. You said "the next town over would only know I was a murderer of the previous town if it was scripted to happen," so I presented that in Oblivion (even though their system was terribly done), my crimes in one town could/would become known in another. Now, I'm not really expecting Rorikstead to know I murdered everyone at the nearby farm automatically, but I feel if an NPC gets away then they could (and do sometimes)... or implement something like a Reputation or Karma system. Generate a guard that passes me on the road heading toward the farm and then putting two and two together, even if vaguely.


I judge Skyrim based on itself and other games published and developed by Bethesda.

Unfortunately the flaws rip out all the fun for me.

Ah yes, Hanlon's Razor. A regurgitation of Heinlein's quote in a mostly unrecognizable form and just as inane.

Although Occam's Razor does take the prize for being a more smelly pile of tripe.

However, it does go to show you that community colleges everywhere still propagate outdated medieval philosophies and questionable quotes from insignificant and largely forgotten authors.

Yeah, you're right. It's all just a conspiracy by Bethesda designed to piss us off.