Do you think Beth is getting lazy because of modders?

[Lachdonin]

I do wish they'd move on from Gamebryo though. I wish they'd left in custom spell-making too, as well as reusing the companion wheel from New Vegas. It really felt like a step backwards having to scroll through dialog again to work with companions. The wheel was so much better.

 

 

New Vegas was designed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda, it wasn't a 'true' Bethesda game. The implementation of some features in Fallout; New Vegas in other games could have been restricted by Obsidian's copyright.

[ladyillicit]

Skyrim's environment is nice. The open world is pretty amazing. To have such a diverse, sprawling landscape and so many NPCs in one game -- that's pretty cool.

 

That said, I think Bethesda can be lazy with crafting good stories within their fantastic open worlds. Skyrim's written dialogue is uninspiring. The quests are boring. The plot is not well executed in a meaningful fashion. The NPCs are like cardboard cutouts; there really aren't any memorable, standout characters in Skyrim. There's no attempt to give your player-character one ounce of personality. Want to play as anything besides a Nord? Oh, okay, you'll just get treated like you're a Nord anyway, with some minor, superficial commentary on your race every once in a blue moon.

 

Bethesda consistently chooses quantity over quality. Which is all fine, I guess. It allows people to really and freely create their own stories and worlds. And while I do enjoy that, a lot of the time I feel...unsatisfied with Skyrim. Where are the cool, fleshed out followers? How about some actually good voice acting? And, as for the plot, where's the sense of urgency? Or of impending war and doom?

Edited September 15, 2013 by ladyillicit

[majormittens]

Less and less work? What about RadiantAI? What about the detail they put into every single corner of each huge map they make? You must be kidding. Nothing but improvements, the only thing I hate about Bethesda's work is that they favor Xbox over any other platform, but I guess they have to make up for the amount of content us PC gamers have.

Edited September 15, 2013 by majormittens

[Wouter445]

 

I do wish they'd move on from Gamebryo though. I wish they'd left in custom spell-making too, as well as reusing the companion wheel from New Vegas. It really felt like a step backwards having to scroll through dialog again to work with companions. The wheel was so much better.

 

 

New Vegas was designed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda, it wasn't a 'true' Bethesda game. The implementation of some features in Fallout; New Vegas in other games could have been restricted by Obsidian's copyright.

 

that's something only old RPG still have, this racisme thing i kind of missing ingame.

for example, those stormcloaks only like Nords, but if i play a High elf they are acting all normal.

racisme is fine in computer games it adds realism and deversity., also playing as Mage have no real impact in skyrim also a drop ball.

[WarlordThorvald]

Actually no, because they are making the games primarily for consoles now - where mods have no effect on the game. Morrowind was the last game they actually made for PC - since then all of their games have been made for consoles - then ported to PC with as few changes as they can get away with. As it was a management decision to make the PC version as exactly the same as the console version as possible - with the mistaken belief that the experience of playing the game would be exactly the same no matter which platform you had. :sad:

 

then please explain why the **** hair meshes in TESS were so freaaaaking ugly.

yes, they are getting lazy. very lazy. your argument that "no because they make games for consoles" is for nothing, because they just don't care about consoles honestly - look at problems skyrim had with ps3. now thanks to shitthesda, pc players got problems because 1.9 screwed engine in a way that actually helped it to work better on ps3. instead of rewriting only console version, they did the main - because they would have to write patches separately for consoles and for pc. they ARE lazy. ain't no way they are going to make me buy teso.

[MidevalGuy]

Skyrim's environment is nice. The open world is pretty amazing. To have such a diverse, sprawling landscape and so many NPCs in one game -- that's pretty cool.

 

That said, I think Bethesda can be lazy with crafting good stories within their fantastic open worlds. Skyrim's written dialogue is uninspiring. The quests are boring. The plot is not well executed in a meaningful fashion. The NPCs are like cardboard cutouts; there really aren't any memorable, standout characters in Skyrim. There's no attempt to give your player-character one ounce of personality. Want to play as anything besides a Nord? Oh, okay, you'll just get treated like you're a Nord anyway, with some minor, superficial commentary on your race every once in a blue moon.

 

Bethesda consistently chooses quantity over quality. Which is all fine, I guess. It allows people to really and freely create their own stories and worlds. And while I do enjoy that, a lot of the time I feel...unsatisfied with Skyrim. Where are the cool, fleshed out followers? How about some actually good voice acting? And, as for the plot, where's the sense of urgency? Or of impending war and doom?

 

I agree 100%.

 

However, you wrote it yourself when you stated it's a trade off between quantity vs. quality.

 

This may sound sad, but I will take Bethesda quantity over quality in this case because that is what allows for such an open-ended game, ironically.

 

The story, good or bad, and how quests are presented are just tools for the player to craft their own adventure. It's not so much the why, but the how that gives Skyrim and TES games their freedom. We also aren't at the point yet where we have true, dynamic AI that can adapt to whatever a player does. That would be the ultimate in RPGs, but we just aren't there yet due to technological and more importantly budgetary reasons.

[Lachdonin]

^{I wouldn't say that Bethesda goes for quantity over quality, because that idea is difficult to apply in the situation...}

 

^{Take, for instance, dungeons. In Oblivion, almost every dungeon was a generic environment, with either Undead, Goblins or wildlife. The only dungeons which had a story were ones with relatively important quests associated with them. Flash forward to Skyrim, where every dungeon has a unique story to tell, for those willing to poke around. In this regard, we got quantity AND quality.}

 

^{And not at the cost of the main quests. Realistically, the main quest line and the Guilds aren't any less rushed than those in Oblivion. You still rise through the ranks absurdly fast and save the day. The only difference is that none of the guild quests contain frivolous filler (which, admittedly, is appropriate for Guilds). The main quest against Alduin isn't really any shorter than the quest against Mehrunes, both contain exactly 17 steps. Technically, Skyrim's quest is longer, because it's last step isn't "claim your reward".}

 

^{We keep getting more stories, but we haven't lost any quality in the stories from Oblivion to Skyrim. We lost a lot of quality from Morrowind to Oblivion, mind you.}

Edited September 17, 2013 by Lachdonin