Skyrim is so generic.

[abaris]

Haters gonna hate

 

That's a perfect example of a broken record. And it always comes up when someone is criticising a game, any game. The other broken record is "the ones who like it are too busy playing it". To me it seems, these are taken out of the book "trolling 1.01".

 

So you're fully satisfied. More power to you. But someone criticising a product (games are products and not labors of love), has every right to their citicism. I like Skyrim. A lot more than I liked vanilla Oblivion. But does that mean I'm overlooking the obvious and immersion breaking flaws? Not a chance, especially not since Bethesda has published Fallout 3 and Fallout NV these last few years. They have shown what's possible in the NPC and in the dynamic quest department.

 

So the OP has a valid point. When some NPC keeps repeating over and over I should join the mages college, when I already am Archmage or when other NPCs keep treating me like a rug when in fact the made me leader of their group, it's immersion breaking. In fact, quests have no meaning, since noone is recognising your efforts. The NPC are mindless bots and they make no efforts in hiding their cardboard character.

[hymhym]

Haters gonna hate

 

That's a perfect example of a broken record. And it always comes up when someone is criticising a game, any game. The other broken record is "the ones who like it are too busy playing it". To me it seems, these are taken out of the book "trolling 1.01".

 

 

Hear, hear! My thoughts exactly. Skyrim has a nice engine, and is mostly a good game. But it is not the greatest thing on this planet since flan flavored soap. Most of the criticism piled against Skyrim are quite reasonable in my book, and have nothing to do with hating for hating's sake.

 

We, the customers, were promised a dynamic and rich world, a clear improvement over the previous titles. We did not get that. Sure it's pretty, but what game isn't these days? And of course it's tech is better looking that it's five year older sibling. That does not make it automatically the bestest thing evar! And stating that thing, does not make one an unreasonable git who just can't appreciate the awesomeness that is Skyrim.

 

As for what is bugging me about Skyrim, is it's shallow nature and hollow dialogue options. What I was looking forward in SKyrim, were all those much hyped improvements in the way the game handles AI, quests and dialogue. And the way it was supposed to track all your actions, and to use them to mold the playing experience. But so far I've seen none of that. In fact I keep bumbing into really sloppy oversights all the time. Stuff that even Oblivion got right.

 

A simple example: I recently revisited Swindlers Den (Since my Map didn't label it as being cleared for some reason. I thought I had missed some treasure chest or something and went to check it out again.) When I got there, much to my annoyance and total breaking of immersion, I found that Kematu was still hanging around (with his five mates) in that last chamber. Even though I finished the quest with Saadia weeks ago, weeks in real life. Couple of months in game time. The cave had reset while I had been away, and was full of bandits. Had no problem with that. An empty cave in the wilderness? Naturally a new band of brigands will move in sooner or later. But why was Kematu still there? After all, he was supposed to have returned to Hammerfell with Saadia ages ago?

 

It's like the developers assumed, that I would never bother to revisit that place ever again, so no need to clean up those character refs. All they'd had to do was to include one line of script that turned those refs off after having finished the In my time of Need Quest. Not doing so is sloppy design.

 

Another event that really rubbed me the wrong way, was when I finally got around to joining the companions. I marched in the hall in a full suit of enchanted Orcish mail, lugging around Volendrung on my back and wearing one of those Dragon Cult face mask artifacts. The dialogue was utterly ridiculous, and was clearly written under the presumption that I would join the companions at the start of the game. When I really was a just a whelp in rags in need of proving myself. It made no sense for them to speak to my level 42 character that way, especially when I was a frigging thane in their town.

 

Now, do keep in mind, that I am not saying the dialogue was bad. It was actually fairly well written and quite entertaining. It just made no sense in my situation. The thing is, if you publish a game, that touts the go anywhere, do anything be what ever you want to be aspects of it's design the key selling point, then you really should design your games quests and dialogue to be more adaptable and better mold itself to the events that have taken place in the game.

 

The way these things are implemented in Skyrim, is as they would have been done in a fully linear game. Having an open sandbox world and quest lines that assume you do them in a certain order, and never revisit any place for any reason, is just a stupid combination to have.

 

And again - do note that I have never said that the game is bad. I'm just saying it has some rather serious design issues. And it could have easily been even better.

[AssyMcGee]

 

As for what is bugging me about Skyrim, is it's shallow nature and hollow dialogue options. What I was looking forward in SKyrim, were all those much hyped improvements in the way the game handles AI, quests and dialogue. And the way it was supposed to track all your actions, and to use them to mold the playing experience. But so far I've seen none of that. In fact I keep bumbing into really sloppy oversights all the time. Stuff that even Oblivion got right...

 

 

Another event that really rubbed me the wrong way, was when I finally got around to joining the companions. I marched in the hall in a full suit of enchanted Orcish mail, lugging around Volendrung on my back and wearing one of those Dragon Cult face mask artifacts. The dialogue was utterly ridiculous, and was clearly written under the presumption that I would join the companions at the start of the game. When I really was a just a whelp in rags in need of proving myself. It made no sense for them to speak to my level 42 character that way, especially when I was a frigging thane in their town.

 

 

 

I agree with you completely on these two points. I joined the Legion because I thought it would be an incredible gaming experience, and a very immersive one to be part of something so large and organized, and hell I liked the uniforms. But to run around Solitude and have fellow soldiers tell me to "Mind the law citizen" and to tell me "No lollygaggin" was really immersion breaking. Especially when I became a superior officer. There is no way they'd talk to General Tullius like that, or Legate Rikke. So why me? Because Bethesda just assumed everyone would be a mindless adventurer? Joining the Legion or Stormcloaks was NOT an after thought. It's with you from the literal start of the game. I figured of all the quests these would be the most dynamic and offer me the most change depending upon rank, or Holds captured. But no, I still enter cities and towns and have people berate the Legion to my face. Sure maybe they would in the real world. But you figure they'd leave me well enough alone for fear of execution or imprisonment.

 

As for the dialogue regarding the PC, I'm thoroughly let down again. After playing Oblivion and having the option to say "Yes" or "No" to certain quests, or to only take good or kind hearted responses to questions I just assumed all Bethesda games would be like that. Then I played Fallout 3. To have so many dialogue options was incredible. I could be sincere, sarcastic, mean, neutral or comedic. It really helped me develop my character in my way. I had just assumed that Skyrim would be the same way. But then I find out I'm only given a few dialogue options. I remember one option getting a surprising result from an NPC, I don't remember what I said, but the NPC yelled at me and told me that it was a serious matter and I should stop joking. I was amazed I had the option to include a personality for my character in this game.

[Wyrdfire]

*ponders thread*

 

That's what happens when people hype something up to run up the money. Eh, Bethesda?

Edited December 3, 2011 by Wyrdfire

[abaris]

There are a lot of things surprising you in a pleasant way. There are people reacting to small things and that's truly love for detail. But where it really matters, your advancement in the world and the things you achieved on your way are totally overlooked. People just don't notice, your are some noteable person, even a hero of some kind. And that's immersion breaking.

 

I got the feeling, they assumed everyone was in there for the fights and the exploring. But at least in my case and obviously in the opinion of quite a few others, that's not enough. I'm in it, like with every RPG, to get lost in the world and live it. I don't even fiddle with difficulty, since fighting is mostly secondary to me. I want to get the feeling of being someone and that's where it loses out.

 

Now, it is even more annoying since the obvious details show how well the parts could have been made to fit. And so it is a good game, excellent in some aspects, but very bad when it comes to questlines, NPCs and the overall feeling of changing the world - or at least not being the new stable hand.

[ShadowscaleB1980]

Every npc repeats the same thing over and over again like a broken record. The articficial intelligence in Skyrim is almost non existent. After all the years the programmers had to make the game better, it seems to have gone backwards. I like Oblivion better. It has a lot more class and finesse. Skyrim sucks.

 

your complaints are generic. If you want to complain about something be specific and provide suggestions on how it can be improved - otherwise you are just wasting everyone's time.

Edited December 3, 2011 by shadow_scale9180

[Wyrdfire]

IMO there are enough "specific complaints" in this thread. I agree with you, Abaris. But my impression is that the "Skyrim iz s00 EPIC" crowd is mostly made up of the kind of players that enjoy killing every thing that moves... they don't notice any faults in the roleplaying aspects because they couldn't care less about them.

[csgators]

At least they are not calling me the Hero of Kvatch for ever and ever and ever. To pretend that Oblivion was somehow better in this regard is laughable.

[J_R]

It's not that the complaints aren't legitimate.. lord knows I have my own laundry list of how this game could be improved.. it's just that they've been recycled over and over again in numerous threads and really don't contribute in any way to this community or serve as a constructive medium to improve said issues. The whole "why I hate skyrim" thing has been overdone. Take it to the mod request/discussion sections and start working to do something about it.

 

(And do know this is more directed at the OP than others who have provided far more in depth commentary)

Edited December 3, 2011 by J_R

[ShadowscaleB1980]

It's not that the complaints aren't legitimate.. lord knows I have my own laundry list of how this game could be improved.. it's just that they've been recycled over and over again in numerous threads and really don't contribute in any way to this community or serve as a constructive medium to improve said issues. The whole "why I hate skyrim" thing has been overdone. Take it to the mod request/discussion sections and start working to do something about it.

 

(And do know this is more directed at the OP than others who have provided far more in depth commentary)

 

1+

 

I agree, there are enough complaints and grievances over this game. I wish people would just deal with it constructively instead of just spreading their malcontent around and ruining the experience for everyone else. When the Construction Kit comes out there are going to be some busy modders. personally I'm building up a heap of high resolution textures to be used in a mod Idea of my own. Though I think using my 40 Megapixel pentax 645D for the project is a bit of overkill, though considering how many complaints there are over textures not being High-res, perhaps not.

Edited December 3, 2011 by shadow_scale9180