Got the game two days ago because I finished my semester at university and I actually have time for games now. I've played Fallout 3, Morrowind, and and bit of Oblivion, so I knew what to expect, mostly. I didn't love any of those games and as much as I hate to say it, I have the same problem with Skyrim that I did with those games.

First impressions of Skyrim were pretty good, although as soon as I got to the character creation, I felt like I was playing Morrowind again. I realize they're trying to create a comprehensive lore so it's hard for them to add major things, but still, it would be nice to see a new race or two. Especially seeing as how Skyrim comes 200 years after Oblivion (and I'm assuming Oblivion comes after Morrowind), it would make sense for them to add something. That was a bit disappointing, but nothing too bad.

When I got to actually playing the game, I was both happy and disappointed. I was happy because I was in the mood to play an open world game like Morrowind, and I was disappointed because I realized that in many ways, Bethesda just remade Morrowind with a new world and prettier graphics. I'm about ten hours into the game now and while I'm enjoying it a lot, I can't help but feel like I've done this all before. At its core, I feel like the game is very similar to Morrowind, and I feel like that core is pretty outdated compared to newer games. The basic gameplay is very similar to Morrowind, and its been ten years since Morrowind came out.

My biggest gripe is something that Bethesda has flat out failed on in every one of their open world games, and that's creating a compelling narrative. It both amazes and saddens me that when it comes to story depth and character development, Skyrim is basically Morrowind all over again. It amazes me that people claim that Skyrim is game of the year or anything near when it lacks two of the most fundamental RPG elements (IMO), those being an enthralling story and well developed characters. I wish Bethesda would focus less on creating a wide open world (that honestly gets pretty old when you've explored the same caves or ruins over and over) and more on creating a deep story with likable characters. I get a major nerd boner when I think of a game in the style of Skyrim with the story and character attention of a game like Persona 4 (just an example). I really hope that Bethesda works a lot more on characters and story for their next ES game, but I don't expect them to. As long as people keep buying the shit out of the mostly similar product they've been putting out for ten years, they're going to keep making the same product.

summary: Skyrim is a good game and what's there is really well designed, but I really can't justify calling it GOTY or anything near that because it's extremely lacking in two pretty basic areas (story and characters). here's hoping that Bethesda actually does something different for the next ES game.

Talin

Montenegro10532 Posts

May 17 2012 19:41 GMT

Here's the thing.

Elder Scrolls took a turn in the wrong direction since Daggerfall for the most part, and definitely since Morrowind.

The whole point behind sandbox-y roleplaying games is the emphasis on the so-called low-level and mid-level stories - stories which are not designed in detail and explicitly served to the player, but rather the stories that the player formulates and builds himself based on the experiences his character has in the world. Think Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress as the games that create and exploit these stories brilliantly without having a single line of narrated text or dialogue, let alone predefined characters, written anywhere.

Daggerfall was a brilliant game in the sense that it used - at the time very impressive - procedurally generated world. Daggerfall world is still one of the physically largest worlds ever created in video games. Interaction between characters was also mostly "primitive" looking (not in the sense of bad primitive, but simple building-block primitive), and instead of having dialogue options to choose from, you instead had to "construct" your query from a list of topics and a set of options, which included a lot of different things including the "tone" you speak in. Like so:

[image loading]

This interface alone gave you a possibility to personalize your character, what he is like and how he behaves, more so than a vast majority of modern RPGs does. Morrowind already started going in this weird middle-way direction by dropping the procedural world generation in favor of a premade (albeit huge) continent and NPC characters. It still retained some of the Elder Scrolls charm by keeping their conversation inteface fairly basic and sticking to the "list of topics" dialogue system.

And then everything went downhill from there when Bethesda decided to make their games a visceral experience benchmark and stripped the series-defining features entirely in favor of making an artificial "emulation" of an open sandbox world mixed with heavily scripted quests, story, and a ton of elements that made the games seem less immersive and less realistic.

In short (!), I really have to disagree. Open world sandbox games do not go well with scripted narrative and well fleshed-out characters. The more the authors try to (pre)define the story and flesh out the characters, the less potent and influential the open world elements are and the less inherent freedom and personality the player has in the game. The more detail you put into the story and characters, the more static the game world inevitably becomes, and with that, so does your gameplay experience.

Ideally one should go for one OR the other, but Bethesda with Oblivion and Skyrim is the perfect example of why trying to do both at the same time can never turn out well (which is not to say that it can't sell well, which is a motivation behind a lot of the decisions they've made).

iamahydralisk

United States813 Posts

May 18 2012 04:52 GMT

On May 18 2012 04:41 Talin wrote:
Here's the thing.

Elder Scrolls took a turn in the wrong direction since Daggerfall for the most part, and definitely since Morrowind.

The whole point behind sandbox-y roleplaying games is the emphasis on the so-called low-level and mid-level stories - stories which are not designed in detail and explicitly served to the player, but rather the stories that the player formulates and builds himself based on the experiences his character has in the world. Think Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress as the games that create and exploit these stories brilliantly without having a single line of narrated text or dialogue, let alone predefined characters, written anywhere.

Daggerfall was a brilliant game in the sense that it used - at the time very impressive - procedurally generated world. Daggerfall world is still one of the physically largest worlds ever created in video games. Interaction between characters was also mostly "primitive" looking (not in the sense of bad primitive, but simple building-block primitive), and instead of having dialogue options to choose from, you instead had to "construct" your query from a list of topics and a set of options, which included a lot of different things including the "tone" you speak in. Like so:

[image loading]

I can't comment on the ES games before Morrowind (as I haven't played them), but I have to disagree that you can't have open world sandbox games with good stories and characters. Case and point, Rockstar games. The GTA series and Red Dead Redemption are both shining examples of how open world games can have really well fleshed out characters and interesting stories too. They may not be quite as open or large as the Elder Scrolls games, but like I said before, I'd be perfectly fine with Bethesda sacrificing some of the games' physical sizes if it meant they were going to flesh out the characters and story more.

Funnytoss

Taiwan1471 Posts

May 18 2012 05:18 GMT

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is also a good example of a fairly wide open game where there's still a strong storyline holding things together.

iamahydralisk

United States813 Posts

May 20 2012 00:54 GMT

additional thoughts: been playing more and enjoying the heck out of the game, but I honestly still can't help but feel like the game is really outdated. it's the little things... like how bethesda used the same character sprites for some of the different characters (acceptable for more "animalistic" races, but using the same exact models for different humans?), and using the same voice actors for a lot of the npcs. they don't even try to hide it most of the time. also how a lot of the shopkeepers have exactly the same lines... and how there are some parts where two NPCs have the same lines but different VAs, and all I can think is "if you gave them different VAs, why not different lines?" this kinda stuff just kills the immersion for me a bit. I mean, come on Bethesda. Stuff like that is just lazy in today's gaming industry.

also, random complaint: not being able to sell stolen goods at most shops. I can understand why shopkeepers wouldn't want to buy stolen stuff, but the thing is, how do they know it's stolen? sure, it might be obvious if I roll into Whiterun with 150 bottles of Honningbrew Mead (real life examples ftw), but how do they know that armor I'm trying to sell wasn't looted from a bandit or something? it's not like there's some big flashing "I STOLE THIS LOL" sign on every stolen item I try to sell. it's even worse because I remember this being a problem in Morrowind too, and I bet it was a problem in Oblivion as well (haven't played it enough to remember). this is completely nonsensical and it's lazy as fuck on Bethesda's part for this same problem to persist when it should've been removed after Morrowind.

honestly, I feel like the whole game is just lazy overall. Bethesda is a company that's very good at what they do, but they never take any risks or step outside their comfort zones as game developers. Skyrim is a very well designed game, but virtually none of it is new or innovative, and like I said before, some of it is just downright lazy.