the not so obvious dilemmas

[ltknight88]

There are a several "decisions" that have ramifications.

Most of the Daedric quests - you have to kill or betray someone to get a weapon or item.

That may not seem like a big deal to you, but to that NPC, their game is over.

 

Then there are quests like "Destroy the Dark Brotherhood" that change a lot of your options. And you don't get to meet the Night Mother or the Dawnstar sanctuary.

 

There are also other sides to choose from - Greybeards Vs. Blades and Parthunax. These can effect your Dragon hunting team, and what shouts you can meditate on.

[Hallinskioi]

This has been a very interesting read.

 

But you're right Itknight, some decisions the player makes do have some serious ramifications, however from a personal standpoint, I wish there had been more of them. The Civil War for instance, I so wished that Balgruuf had taken into account the players choice, or that attacking military camps would aid/damage that factions ability to defend castles and what not.

[Honorgirl]

I think that for a wide open sandbox game, Skyrim did a pretty decent job in creating a game with options. The Civil War is an example of this, as well as the many side quests in the game.

 

That being said, I really did wish they finished the Civil War :(. I understand that trying to create an amazing civil war battles while trying to make sure it's able to run on consoles AND make the 11/11/11 deadline must have been really difficult. A lot of cool stuff in the civil war was cut out due to those restraints :sad: .

 

@Hallinskioi

 

On the Balgruuf thing, I believe that they did this on purpose. If you joining the Imperials or the Stormcloaks would have Balgruuf joining you, it would lessen the consequences for choosing a side on the war. When you join the Stormcloaks and realize you'll have to be fighting one of the few decent Jarls and human beings in the game, it makes you realize that this IS war, it truly is friend against friend and brother against brother. When you sack Whiterun you're supposed to feel sort of like a jerk in order to add the grey vs grey feeling of the Civil War. I think Betheseda really outdid themselves in the storyline of the Civil War. Hell 2 years later you can still find people arguing over Stormcloaks vs Imperials.

 

 

I

[dweldy]

In the case of Saadia and the Alik'r, I played it both ways and wasn't too impressed or distraught either way.

 

I remember playing "Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic". Even though it was so linear, the developers managed to make me care about the characters. I played a light-side Jedi the first time but then decided to try out the dark side. It went fine until it came time to kill "Mission". A 14-year-old Twi'lek. I couldn't do it. I deleted the save and have never played an evil character on any game since. I realize it's just pixels but it goes to show how good a story can be when the writers care enough and aren't trying to rush it out the door. I wish we had that kind of story with todays graphics and open-world technology.

[AfroGamerNinja]

In the case of Saadia and the Alik'r, I played it both ways and wasn't too impressed or distraught either way.

 

I remember playing "Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic". Even though it was so linear, the developers managed to make me care about the characters. I played a light-side Jedi the first time but then decided to try out the dark side. It went fine until it came time to kill "Mission". A 14-year-old Twi'lek. I couldn't do it. I deleted the save and have never played an evil character on any game since. I realize it's just pixels but it goes to show how good a story can be when the writers care enough and aren't trying to rush it out the door. I wish we had that kind of story with todays graphics and open-world technology.

Is The Old Republic a prequel to KOTOR?

[MidevalGuy]

There are choices in the game, but they only impact the player's story (experience), and not the larger world around them like the Civil War, the Main Quest, Guild affiliations and reputations, etc.

 

This was probably a conscious decision on Bethesda's part because it means total freedom as far as the big setpieces go as well as the smaller side-quests which is where the decisions have the most impact. I also think it was because Bethesda is like any other developer and they want to make sure players experience every thing that was put into the game regardless, of whether being able to do that in-game is realistic, or not. They can then turn around and market this under "hundreds of hours of content" in an attempt to justify the $50, $60 price tag they charge consumers, too.

 

The alternative to this is what we got in Fallout: New Vegas.

 

The emphasis was on old school RPG elements such as faction affiliation, reputation and even quest incompatibility and multiple outcomes.

 

If you were sent on a quest for the NCR, chances are you were going to run into The Legion, so being aligned with the NCR had real consequences in terms of being totally cut off from doing any Legion quests, or side-quests that might involve The Legion and it's affiliates. If you killed a certain NPC during the course of a quest, you received a "Quest Failed' notification for a quest on the other side. That's how RPGs used to be. Developers were not afraid of players not being able to see everything the game has to offer in one play through. The irony is this is what gives RPGs replay value versus trying to allow "unlimited freedom" like Skyrim, and Oblivion does even though I like both of those games.

Edited October 18, 2013 by MidevalGuy

[dweldy]

Is The Old Republic a prequel to KOTOR?

KOTOR is Knights Of The Old Republic. KOTOR II: The Sith Lords was the sequel. I think The Old Republic is the online version of both. I've never played it.

[Honorgirl]

There are choices in the game, but they only impact the player's story (experience), and not the larger world around them like the Civil War, the Main Quest, Guild affiliations and reputations, etc.

 

This was probably a conscious decision on Bethesda's part because it means total freedom as far as the big setpieces go as well as the smaller side-quests which is where the decisions have the most impact. I also think it was because Bethesda is like any other developer and they want to make sure players experience every thing that was put into the game regardless, of whether being able to do that in-game is realistic, or not. They can then turn around and market this under "hundreds of hours of content" in an attempt to justify the $50, $60 price tag they charge consumers, too.

 

The alternative to this is what we got in Fallout: New Vegas.

 

The emphasis was on old school RPG elements such as faction affiliation, reputation and even quest incompatibility and multiple outcomes.

 

If you were sent on a quest for the NCR, chances are you were going to run into The Legion, so being aligned with the NCR had real consequences in terms of being totally cut off from doing any Legion quests, or side-quests that might involve The Legion and it's affiliates. If you killed a certain NPC during the course of a quest, you received a "Quest Failed' notification for a quest on the other side. That's how RPGs used to be. Developers were not afraid of players not being able to see everything the game has to offer in one play through. The irony is this is what gives RPGs replay value versus trying to allow "unlimited freedom" like Skyrim, and Oblivion does even though I like both of those games.

I sort of agree. I understand Betheseda wanted us to experiance all the content (no problem with that) but would be nice if you knew your actions had a bigger impact on the world and had more consequences. It would be pretty hard to pull off in an open world sandbox game, but I think Betheseda can do it.

 

 

That being said, I think the next TES6 will have elements of this in it's gameplay. Maybe it won't be "do X quest and now every thing in the world is radically changed from the main quest to faction storylines". It'll probably be save X person in a side quest and then later on in a faction quest that X person was Y's sister, who is now willing to do you a favor.

That seems something that is most likely to happen.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Honorgirl

[Lachdonin]

It would be pretty hard to pull off in an open world sandbox game, but I think Betheseda can do it.

 

I love Bethesda. i really do. But don't give them ideas. Please? They've got too many things that they could develop into a great game, they don't need to throw in other half-baked and under-realized concepts like turning TES into a sandbox game.

 

Part of their major problem is they try to come up with something revolutionary for each game, and end up failing to actually explore the extent of what they have. The combat model introduced in Oblivion, for instance, could have been expanded using analogue combat and a variable magic system (vocal and gesture spells), but instead they didn't look at ways to improve what was there and went to include more.

 

The saddest part is, the CK has alot more potential than we see in Skyrim. It's capable of simulating a fluctuating economy with supply and demand, large scale battles with hundreds of actors, and even ship-battles. As it stands, it's more than capable of handling the minor acknowledgements for your accomplishments that people want. However, as is Bethesda's usual problem, the tried to do too much and paid to little attention to the potential of each change. The Perks are a prime example of this, offering the potential for more variety in skills and abilities than we've seen since Daggerfall, but it's left a jumbled mess.

 

The idea of a living, sandbox fantasy world is a grand one, but let's not give Bethesda ideas on new things to half-realize until they've finished with the great ideas we sorta-have now.

[MidevalGuy]

^What I and Honorgirl are discussing isn't impossible. It's just not practical from a time/development/limited hardware (Xbox 360; PS3) stand point if you are Bethesda... Which is ironic since out of all developers they are the ones who could push boundaries to keep on the cutting edge by doing precisely what we are commenting on.

 

If Bethesda was given just another year, or two they could have easily written and recorded more dialogue (cost of voice actors becomes negligible at that point) for closure-type events that would give the player a more realistic and tangible sense of accomplishment as far as their reputation in and outside different factions goes, and more importantly how their small actions had big ramifications on a greater world. They just chose not to because they already made a huge world as-is and they had to release the game sometime (in 2011), or else investors would have been up in arms because their quarterly 2012 report would only have seven zeroes instead of eight :wink: