Skyrim V Oblivion

[Brittainy]

 

In many ways it feels more like an action game disguised as an RPG. Something about it just doesn't 'click'. (But I'm sure plenty of people feel that way about Oblivion.)

 

 

Yeah, that my feelings too. But truth to tell, I had the same feeling about Oblivion and if I take off my rose tinted shades of nostalgia, Morrowind didn't have much in the roleplaying department either. The reason why I felt differently about Morrowind was the novelty of the whole concept back then.

 

I think, it boils down to this: I'm a huge fan of the open world concept, but I don't like the open end concept. Opend ended invites developers to be lazy when it comes to storytelling. The result is an endless stream of so called quests being pretty much the same over and over. It also makes it near impossible to give the player a sense of real importance, since the rightfully assume that a godlike figure wouldn't fit in with venturing into the nearest cave.

 

The whole Elder Scroll series suffered under these conditions.

 

I love things being open ended. Perhaps it's a throwback to my early gaming days, but I always dreamed of non-linear games with free roam worlds when I was confined to linear 2D games. I couldn't stand being restricted ever again.

 

I think what restricts both Oblivion and Skyrim is the voice-acted dialogue. Everyone saying the same stuff over and over. Text-based dialogue would allow for much more variety and immersion.

 

But anyway, I know what you mean...but I don't necessarily think the answer is being more restrictive and less open-ended. I think a better dialogue solution could make a huge difference.

 

;)

Edited December 22, 2011 by Brittainy

[abaris]

 

But anyway, I know what you mean...but I don't necessarily think the answer is being more restrictive and less open-ended. I think a better dialogue solution could make a huge difference.

 

;)

 

Not more restrictive. I don't know if you played Fallout New Veags, since its a different genre. There you could explore to your hearts desire, but the game let you know if you're walking down that final path, its going to be game over. That way, you could become a hero, a real hero, whose achievements mattered to the world.

 

Truth is, I always felt empty when I tried to play on with my Elder Scroll characters after beating the main quest. Why would the Nerevarine, by all accounts a godlike creature, submit themselves to some lowly guild career? Why would the hero of Cyrodil suddenly crawl into the nearest cave to kill of some spiders? And even more important, why wouldn't anyone give a damn. After beating the mainquests, the NPCs not reacting to your status becomes even more of a nuissance.

 

I always ended up creating a new character and tried to do things differently.

[luxwing0go]

It honestly depends on what you prefer. Oblivion is more fantasy, medieval-ish, Skyrim is more realistic, barbarian-ish. (As far as realistic can be demonstrated in Bethesda Games, twitching cows and all)

 

Don't like Skyrim now? Got is on PC? Wait a year - I'm sure someone is working on Oblivirim already. :thumbsup:

[Brittainy]

 

But anyway, I know what you mean...but I don't necessarily think the answer is being more restrictive and less open-ended. I think a better dialogue solution could make a huge difference.

 

;)

 

Not more restrictive. I don't know if you played Fallout New Veags, since its a different genre. There you could explore to your hearts desire, but the game let you know if you're walking down that final path, its going to be game over. That way, you could become a hero, a real hero, whose achievements mattered to the world.

 

Truth is, I always felt empty when I tried to play on with my Elder Scroll characters after beating the main quest. Why would the Nerevarine, by all accounts a godlike creature, submit themselves to some lowly guild career? Why would the hero of Cyrodil suddenly crawl into the nearest cave to kill of some spiders? And even more important, why wouldn't anyone give a damn. After beating the mainquests, the NPCs not reacting to your status becomes even more of a nuissance.

 

I always ended up creating a new character and tried to do things differently.

 

I definitely agree with that ^

 

But again, with text-based dialogue, you would have a HUGE potential for expansion of how NPCs treat you and react to you over the course of your adventures. Could really make things a lot more compelling.

 

I'm the Champion of Cyrodiil and yet those infernal NPCs give me the same gossip over and over? Bah! :pirate: My wonderful killing spree in the town sqaure is forgotten after a quick rest in jail? Argh! :wallbash:

 

I mean really. Even my spouse in the Sims 2 holds my affair with the next-door neighbour against me longer than the citizens of Cyrodiil and Skyrim do when I try to slaughter their families.

 

:mellow:

[djinx187]

I would actually love that new vegas type ending for elder scrolls since I do the same thing after the main quest I end up rolling a new character. I mean writing a reaction to every event for every npc would be a ton of work even if it was only text. Throw some voice down on that and your looking for a huge amount of work. To me open ended like it is in oblivion and skyrim really is a big cop out seems like a short cut from actually writing a nice ending for the story instead of being just another quest. I mean the fallout endings gave your actions some meaning to it and were able to cover some of the what-if's.

 

Ever since Elder Scrolls came out i hate the term open ended. When a book is open ended when your done with the story the book is finished you need to start over. In a game though when you do hit the ending and nothing else progresses in the game world it's like a kick in the nuts. The story is over but nothing else in the world changes like it naturally should just irks me. I know I hit the ending of the game but it doesn't feel like the end because I'm still there and nothing changed. The phrase doesn't have anything to do with endings gameplay wise but how the gameplay actually is and it drives me insane.

 

Do me a favor and explain how text-based dialog would increase variety and immersion. To me the more reading there is when interacting with npc's the farther immersion is(just npcwise I actually like the books and notes in the game). Most of the good npc's in skyrim would have been completely broken if it had been all text. That Cicero feller would have been far less annoying as all text but it would have ripped him of that personality. He would have been the same as every other npc just dressed differently. Maybe you mean variety for quests? A badly written quest is going to be a badly written quest with or without voices. Text-based dialogue to me is less personal and does less for me then voice. (Same way with letters and text irl too) I am more apt to do quests when I hear somebody talking then just reading it. I'm more apt to actually listen and do optional objectives. It's a lot easier to show emotion through sounds then it is through text. I mean has anybody ever sent a sarcastic remark over a text message which would have been funny if it was said but made you look like a prick when written down because there was no tone to it. (not including emotes because the last thing I want to see is those things in games)

 

Oh and damnit jakeo I completely forgot about that I knew there was a reason I didn't back up oblivion for later use just quite yet lol. Still can't wait for that to get out seems like it will be out right when i get completely sick of skyrim

[KratosAurion777]

Morrowind > Skyrim > Oblivion

 

Morrowind was the best because of the Ambiance , the atmosphere ( Everyone that played morrowind will agree with this ).

 

Skyrim and Oblivion don't have this , they are both very good in other ways .

 

Now a small comparison between skyrim and oblivion :

 

The quest are better in oblivion .

The Combat Are better in skyrim .

They are not broken funny exploit in skyrim ( dunno if it is a good or a bad point ^^ )

Oblivion is beautiful , but the color are so "flashy" that i wanna s*** a rainbow . graphic in skyrim looks real .

Skyrim is damn easy in max difficulty , Oblivion was a pain in the ass .

[abaris]

Morrowind > Skyrim > Oblivion

 

Morrowind was the best because of the Ambiance , the atmosphere ( Everyone that played morrowind will agree with this ).

 

 

I'm not entirely sure. If it wasn't for the modders I wouldn't have played Morrowind for four years straight. Oblivion never convinced me. I lost interest pretty soon. Have to try a heavily modded version some time. And well, Skyrim is fun. But I can't imagine playing it for a longer streth unless the modding community kicks in with a vengeance. If that happens, I can easily imagine Skyrim to become the best in the series, since there's obvious potential in the vanilla version. Potential, mind you. Right now its just an action game to kill some time without too much thinking-

[justwannaddl]

I like Oblivion better. The UI was functional and I wasn't blocked left and right by impassible rocks when I went exploring. Spellcrafting made spells useful no matter what level. People were also nicer in Oblivion, even the daedra.

[Matth85]

Morrowind > Skyrim > Oblivion

 

I do not see a "Morrowind" in this topic. This is OBLIVION versus SKYRIM.

 

And no, I played Morrowind and did not like it one bit. Chugging potions left and right, and being lost more time than I can count. I just blew up your theory.

[Jakeo]

Oh and damnit jakeo I completely forgot about that I knew there was a reason I didn't back up oblivion for later use just quite yet lol. Still can't wait for that to get out seems like it will be out right when i get completely sick of skyrim

 

I know, right? It should hopefully come out just in time for the time-lag between people getting sick of Skyrim and then going back to playing it again when all the great mods start flooding in. Check out the facebook page and look at the latest architecture video, looks amazing.