Skyrim is so generic.

[DeadSpace]

Generic...good term. A very generic offering in the same line as everything else bethesda has produced, not much new, yet more removed. Calling their AI an AI is an insult to every other game AI. DDO has one of the worst i've seen and beths radiant compared to it makes it look like a genius. some fan of beths mentioned that no one ever compares other games to skyrim...

 

i'll keep it short (5 each)

in the better character/mob animation category:

standalones: deus ex: human revolution, crysis 2, rage, two worlds 2, gothic 4

mmo's: DDO, Vindictus, rappelz, rusty hearts, age of conan

 

figure detail category

standalones, see above

mmo's: vindictus, rusty hearts, forsaken world, perfect world, rift

 

i could go on...but why? complexity? most mmo's have more depth, character options, character customization and builds than skyrim...and much more in depth crafting systems. beth has stated they're not interested in creating a mmo...small wonder why. megaten, running the gamebryo engine...has more depth than the oblivion and skyrim put together. so it could have been done. i quit playing skyrim about a week ago...same old same old. immersion? in skyrim? only if you ignore everything that breaks it. good job by beth creating the world, poor execution populating it and trying to make it breath. a game has to stand on it's own, as it was made and released. mods don't count. so saying 'when the ck comes out everything will be better' still doesn't change the fact that it does need modded to be truly enjoyable, nearly a complete overhaul.

 

the hype about the AI, the world, how intelligent, reactive, living it was supposed to be...didn't pan out. the hype about using havok behavior for the animations...not even close to fluid if you do something outside what was intended. bleh, crafting, spells, lumped armor...heavy treated like light with perks? 200 years and still no one has figured out that you can throw things? like daggers, axes, etc? no creature can jump? or swim for that matter. why i added that little bit there with the 'fan' ignoring something doesn't make it any less valid.

 

skyrim was fun...for a little while, didn't live up to the hype, and whats going on with steam, bethesda, and people who are getting shafted for buying the game, that weren't already screwed over by a bad console port not working on their particular configuration...makes me wonder how skyrim ever got nominated for gotw...bribing the judges? not really...the game is easy, simplistic...caters to the lowest common denominator...has some quests that seem edgy, but then those jar with a world where people will draw steel if you knock over a few plates, after you've saved the city from a dragon. and it's known that you're a legend come to life...and they want to kill you over some tableware...yeah...that happens a lot in the real world...all the wars through history were started over table utensils o_O

 

what most irks me...is modders will make this game great, and bethesda will give them no credit...and in fact will steal any good idea they can for the next installment of TES. wonder if they'll rename the engine again...yet continue using the same one. (pssst, it's called 'rebranding') this will most likely be the last beth title i buy. there are better games, i listed a few, and mmo's due to be released that blows skyrim away...pc only. they don't really want the pc users anyway...we cause to many problems...what with all our customized systems, different operating systems, multiverse of hardware configs....beth, as skyrim shows clearly...likes things simple, consoles are simple, they don't vary.

[Jakeo]

I don't know why Bethesda doesn't employ something similiar to GSC's A-Life Artificial Intelligence Engine. Just look at the AI in Stalker SoC and with the mods they added it got even better. Skyrim's AI feels scripted and bland. It does need an overhaul somewhat. And the reused voice actor (Robert Picardo) for every male pissed me off - he already annoyed me enough on Stargate SG1 & Stargate Atlantis...

[Xydonus]

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.

 

You do realize that Oblivion's NPC's were far worse in their npc repeats, not to mention the mishap dialogues with the beggars and the lack of voice acting. Skyrim has improved on that, granted, not by much, but at least its improved. I don't see how anyone can like Vanilla Oblivion over the likes of Skyrim, Skyrim has far more character than Oblivion ever did.

 

Also, to anyone else, don't bring 'mods' into the discussion. This is Vanilla Skyrim and Vanilla Oblivion, comparing modded Oblivion to Vanilla Skyrim doesn't make much sense...

 

Regards to some of the posts I've read, some good valid points have been made. First off, I love Skyrim, not been playing it constantly like some have, considering I've got it since release and am only level 28-29, but to me it has blown me away. Is it perfect? No, far from it. Can it be immersive breaking at times? Certainly can. I also take notice of all the little details that some people ignore.

 

For one, I'm really surprised Bethesda has included the broken record of 'I took an arrow in my knee' statement for every single guard. You would think as a developer you would avoid unique statements becoming globalised in a game like Skyrim, and there's more than a few cases of this happening in the game.

 

It's a great game but it does feel like theres stuff missing, yet I still firmly believe it's the best game yet. I've played Daggerfall, Morrowind+expansions, Oblivion+expansions and now Skyrim, I've also played the fallout games. One thing that I see a lot of people doing in this thread is taking Fallout 3 and stating how this in Fallout should be in Skyrim and this should be that, etc etc...

 

Fallout is fallout, and while its only natural for people to look at some of the quality stuff in Fallout and how it could work in Skyrim, they are completely separate games. Made by the same developer, yes, but completely separate. The mentality for creating a game like Skyrim is the Elder Scrolls mentality, not the Fallout mentality...

 

If you've played all the Elder Scrolls games, you see there's a pattern that they've followed for years. unfortunately, they've yet to vastly improve that pattern, sometimes they've done the opposite! I play Skyrim with the Elder Scrolls mentality mindset and not the Fallout mindset. Both games are unique in their own way. Bethesda doesn't need to take stuff from the Fallout franchise, while it doesn't hurt to do so if it improves the game, what they really need to do is improve the pattern that they've stuck with for the whole Elder Scrolls series rather than drastically changing it into something vastly different.

 

If you've not played the earlier Scroll games and have gotten into Skyrim and only played the likes of Fallout, then I can't blame anyone for sharing similar opinions that stuff in Fallout would work well in Skyrim (it wouldn't). I like to play Skyrim and not be reminded about a vastly different game called Fallout, and thankfully I'm not reminded of that fact.

 

But I would also like to play a game where the developer learns from its mistakes and improves on them, such as immersion breaking dialogue to the interface among other things. Just so long as they follow the Elder Scrolls pattern... :P

[abaris]

I think, the references to Morrowind or Oblivion are a severe case of nostalgia. Morrowind was groundbreaking - at its time. Even with the abundance of mods, I wouldn't want to fire it up today. And Oblivion never gripped me in its vanilla state. It was generic. In most every aspect.

 

Skyrim is a lot better, but it still suffers from the same ailments its two predecessor suffered. The AI, the world never noticing what you have done and achieved and the NPCs repeating over and over the same lines. One could say, silence might be golden, when you hear for the uptenth time that someone works with Belaphor. Inroduction is fine, but I don't need to hear the same broken record everytime I pass by.

 

They obviously had the right ideas in some aspects. With the little things like NPCs fighting over a dropped piece of armor or weapon. Marriage is quite the idea, but it fails to deliver, since its not really a roleplaying element.

[saintjimmyz]

I think the main problem with Skyrim is the relative lack of extra content. Sure, there are little bits here and there which make you stop and think "wow, they have really put in a lot of time and effort over this little tiny detail" - stuff like the bandits dressed up as guards, beautiful touches like that. But they are so few compared to the size of Skyrim, and are repeated so often... I think the developers needed to spend another month or two just doing 'padding' content, more armour, more weapons etc, more random conversations, just more of everything. Thats what I think its missing, and I think it was rushed out for the pretty release date a tad too early.

[Shantih]

People who say Skyrim isn't an RPG can't say that Oblivion, Morrowind or Fallout 3 are RPGs... The truth is that these games are CRPGs not true RPGs. Computers are fine but they will always be more limited than pen and paper RPGs because a computer can't replace a game master (at least not yet).

 

I believe that the "nostalgia" factor is why so many players are raving about Oblivion when it's obvious (to me and a few others) that Skyrim is the better game (and dare I say CRPG).

 

Generic is not the right term anyway. Oblivion was generic. Skyrim has a defined atmosphere that some people dislike and others like. IMO the icy north is a great place for adventure, it's not a generic setting.

 

Also seriously nobody wants to start commenting on the AI in Oblivion or Fallout 3 (or any Bethesda game for that matter).

[Denizen]

Some contructive criticism of Skyrim:

I think Bethesda put most of their effort into the visuals like character/monster models and the much more detailed landscape. These areas are a lot better than oblivion, but I think that Skyrim suffers from the same immersion breakers as Oblivion did, such as too repeating dialogues from npcs, pc dialogue options that don't reflect the way your character has developed, and it suffers most from time management; the other day I played for 30 mins and all I did was enchant then sell my loot.

I think the inclusion of travel services is a little weak because it doesn't force you to use them; the landscape may be great but it's too easy to just fast travel and not feel connected to the game world (gta is an example of how no fast travel works really well). The danger they promised from the harsh winter climate is non-existant, where are the 80 mph ice storms? Plus I never fall off cliffs because I can wall hack jump down them.

First person view is as lack-lustre as ever, yes there is a slight head bob but the arm positions are awkward to say the least (no legs, no sheathed arms, no visible off-hand weapon, i mean that's just depressingly like 2005).

I also think that you end up taking too many simultaneous quests which results in a lack of connection to the individual stories, and 'power' gaming by sitting down and intensively reducing the quest list to unclutter the start menu (this is something that could be solved by simply introducing time limits on quests, realistic huh?).

Dragons are glitchy as hell: disappear when they crash, defying the laws of gravity, can only be fought on somewhere with a lot of flat ground, bones dancing around towns.

Underpowerd shouts. I'm dragonborn and some draugr is better at shouting than me?

No vampire or werewolf perks...

Limiting enchantments in stupid ways, why can my boots improve one-handed?

 

Saying this I do really like Skyrim, but it sometimes just feels like a visually updated oblivion (with aspects of fallout) when I was expected something completely new. However I understand and appreciate the greater appeal of the game and the fact that it can be modded to suit... but my laptop sucks! So I play on xbox, and having seen it playing so smoothly on a £700 pc shows just how poorly consoles handle modern games, and makes me so unhappy that I can't mod it...

 

From this experience I have learnt: only play bethesda on a PC!!!

 

Skyrim is way better than Oblivion, it's just feels a little rushed in some aspects...

Edited December 5, 2011 by Denizen

[JimboUK]

I wish people would stop claiming that those who prefer Morrowind or Oblivion do so because of nostalgia, people are still playing them today so the claim is clearly not based in reality. Not everybody likes the same things, the world would be a very boring place if we all did. Those who prefer other titles aren't wrong, they just have a differing opinion.