Skyrim has no frightening aspects unlike Oblivion

[hector530]

oblivion scared you?

[bpestilence]

I dunno... That part where the dragon skeleton came out of the ground my heart was beating pretty fast... Until I killed it with three arrows.

 

The problem with games is that we know there is no real consequence to dying. I got more scared in Atari games because there was no saving, and if you died you had to start over again...

 

Which lead me to an idea. Suppose you made a ES game (or similar) as an MMO, but made it so that you could not respawn... If you die you have to make a new character and start again. I guarantee that you will be scared s***less whenever you get in a tough fight, because you have the chance of losing all your work....

[JimboUK]

I've seen episodes of Scooby Doo that were more frightening than Oblivion.

[Evilllamas]

Anyone who finds any of the elder scrolls game's scary probably needs to sleep with a night light on.

 

Only game I've found `scary` was Condemned Criminal Origins, and that was more `unsettling` than scary...

And I was 13 at the time.

 

Played all of the `scary games` found them all laughable- if it's not first person it can't even begin to be scary, so that's all the popular `horror` games out.

[Patchup94]

In my opinion, there are certain factors which may add or detract from your experience.

Your first TES game is most likely to be the one to elicit the most emotions from you.

Your current opinion of the game will color your view of all aspects, to the extent of complete immersion or "..I'm waiting for the patch that makes the game not suck..."

Your age and what's going on in life will also heavily play into your perception.

If you are stressed you may be more inclined towards running in and chopping off bandit limbs than adventuring. You certainly won't notice the subtle connections Bethesda has placed into the story-line.

I am not going to put in any spoilers, but if you read the various notes in dungeons, stop and listen to the bandits talk before you rush in, or click through an NPC conversation thread with thought, you become aware of another layer to the story and some inter-connect.

[Thoreai]

I dunno... That part where the dragon skeleton came out of the ground my heart was beating pretty fast... Until I killed it with three arrows.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I bet the dragon was more scared then you, after 2 arrows. :laugh:

Edited December 9, 2011 by pavy

[ginnyfizz]

Perhaps Skyrim being lacking in many respects is explained by the not very widely discussed fact that the Lead Designers from Morrowind, Oblivion, Shivering Isles and Fallout 3 decamped from Bethesda and have been working on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I spotted the game on Amazon.co.uk in my Recommendations and this paragraph from the blurb caught my eye;-

 

"Open World RPG Design Led by Ken Rolston – Play your way through 60+ hours of riveting storyline, diverse side quests, and open-world exploration created by RPG gurus Ken Rolston (Lead Designer, Morrowind, Oblivion), Creative Director Mark Nelson (Lead Designer, Shivering Isles; Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3), and Lead Designer Ian Frazier (Titan Quest)."

[Jakeo]

Well a lot of the mods made for Oblivion created a lot of really bloody scary quests. I'm sure we will see the same with Skyrim. But Skyrim does lack everything that made questing extremely enjoyable in Oblivion. There is so little motivation sometimes to complete a quest, no deep backstory nor reason to do it - just fetch, kill, reward. There is so little CHOICE and what you do rarely impacts a whole lot on the world. The Dark Brotherhood was on the one hand, really fun and enjoyable, but on the other, really nothing compared to the AMAZING quests we were given in Oblivion. I mean, who doesn't love being locked in a house with several others to kill each one by one, driving fear and suspicion at every turn as the bodies pile up and no one is certain who is the killer...

 

Dungeons are pathetic and I struggle to even be remotely worried as I can see a mile ahead with the amazing fluorescent walls everywhere. Pitch blackness with a torch being essential would've been epic. Especially if your torch runs out at the worst possible moment while something is clawing at your face...running through the darkness with the sound of a homicidal creature chasing you. Now that would've been immersive. And there are so few GOOD detective quests. I loved those in Oblivion and the few that are in Skyrim are somewhat decent - nothing better than questioning witnesses and breaking into houses to look for evidence. Those sort of quests are just pure fun and a good mental challenge sometimes when the evidence stacks up against one person but you have this feeling they are being set up :) The focus being so high on combat and kill/treasure raid really kills any intellectual stimulation sometimes. And many of the 'puzzles' were more an insult than anything actually challenging. There was so much potential and I believe Bethesda missed the mark in a few places, but that is not to say the game isn't fantastic, it just could have been a lot better.

 

Does everyone remember that quest where you have to rescue the man from the painting world, through the canvas into an art world? That was awesome.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Jakeo

[Thoreai]

Perhaps Skyrim being lacking in many respects is explained by the not very widely discussed fact that the Lead Designers from Morrowind, Oblivion, Shivering Isles and Fallout 3 decamped from Bethesda and have been working on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I spotted the game on Amazon.co.uk in my Recommendations and this paragraph from the blurb caught my eye;-

 

"Open World RPG Design Led by Ken Rolston – Play your way through 60+ hours of riveting storyline, diverse side quests, and open-world exploration created by RPG gurus Ken Rolston (Lead Designer, Morrowind, Oblivion), Creative Director Mark Nelson (Lead Designer, Shivering Isles; Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3), and Lead Designer Ian Frazier (Titan Quest)."

I been looking after this game from day one it was annouced...it looks really promising, it was planned as an mmo at first but then they decided to make a single player game out of it..im curious what the feel of the game will be...i hope not too mmo-ish, so far the combat/quest/crafting system looks awesome, also the diversity of the land looks great...im definitely going to save money for that one.

 

And as you said the good designers from beth went there...win :)

Im curious about the modability of the game though.

Also "It is being specifically designed for PC, Xbox and PS3 without any console ports."...yay!

Edited December 10, 2011 by pavy

[nivea]

I found Oblivion to be very scary.....

 

 

 

 

 

As in how the hell the game made it into the stores scary...

 

 

But really the undead in Oblivion are things I point and laugh at, they looked horrible and just plain sad. Sure they moaned and groaned but so do the undead in Skyrim, personally the Spiders scare me more then anything so far in Oblivion or Skyrim (not because they are spiders) but because if I didnt happen to notice them dropping down they just come out of no where lol.

 

Now if we are not talking about vanilla Oblivion then sure there where some f***ing scary mods for Oblivion, but that has nothing to do with the actual game Oblivion and more to do with the talent of a modder.