Role Playing and Skyrim

[yanqueezoulou]

I think video games are candidates for being the art form invented in the twenty-first century. An ambitious view with an elitist bend, but such masterpieces as Morrowind certainly made the cut. So I regret the dumbing down to mass trend that we are now witnessing, although I understand the need for wide profitable markets. The TES history mirrors the industry : originally the technical limitations were such (think Wolfenstein) that the plots had to be very simple. As better hardware and software allowed for more complexity, both in the graphics and the gameplay, nerdy developers gleefully went for Wagnerian scale RRG's, some of which will never be paralleled, as some past monuments of Litterature or Film-making.

 

TES games still have the prodigious advantage of leaving the player total liberty in terms of space (geography) and somewhat in terms of time (quests can be made in whatever order, and many quests can be executed before they are even triggered, through chance exploration). This is in my view much more interesting that the linear corridor experience in Bioware games. The downside is that the emotional build-up of the hero is more difficult to script. Dragon Age is more emotionally engaging than Skyrim. But Bethesda proved with Morrowind that some awesome emotional triggers could be built-in (Azura's cave, the Corpusarium...) and did the same in Oblivion where the character of Martin is very successful.

 

This is important because an RPG is about Role, ie character building and storyline. Fights will be better in Crysis, strategies in Total War. Our objective as players/spectators is to immerge into a story where we impersonate the hero and we take decisions for him. The whole branching out of decisions, with impacts on the folding out of the plot, is what RPG's should be about. This requires a high degree of scripting complexity, all the way to the plot maturing in ways no developer could always predict. Of course the latter is an utopia, with a high risk of conclusion becoming impossible, but it is the spirit that needs to be followed.

 

The Disney-like "streamlining" needed for the mass market may be unavoidable, but today Skyrim is far too easy, including the fighting. (At "Master" difficulty, I haven't yet found a boss that my level 16 Breton Mage able to conjure a Frost Atronach and hire a mercenary could not beat). Playing Morrowind or Oblivion at top difficulty setting obliged to maintain careful accounting of levelling stats. I understand that could have been seen as a chore by our friends who do not like maths, but it cetainly focussed the mind on character development and therefore on character differentiation. The replay value was fantastic.

 

Maybe the game developers could offer their hard core clients more perks. The gameplay options would not be only about jerking up the stats of opponents, it would also open up more choices at every level of character development and plot. If Bethesda does not do it, maybe it is the Royal Way for modders. It's nice to have naked bodies and gleaming armor, but I could not play Oblivion without OOO. Modders should focus on plots and storytelling, with more branching out and really difficult character development choices.

 

And since I am at it, I would also like better characterised NPC's (Oblivion, and particularly Dragon Age, were much better at that), and an unobtrusive interface designed for large computer screens, not for consoles. (I understand DarN is working on this).

[Immortalsinner]

Of all the things you can complain about in Skyrim, you pick the levelling system? And hold up the broken systems from Morrowind and Oblivion as better? Please.