Lack of role play

[abaris]

Morrowind had a ton of choices. You could even kill the main quest key character, rendering the questline uncompletable!

 

That's lazy developing and not really a choice.

 

Morrowind suffered from the same lack of roleplay as the other Elder Scroll titles. It's only that Morrowind was released back in 2002 and was groundbreaking at its time. You didn't notice because you were overwhelmed by the landscape and the endless exploring possibilities. Also there were no games to compare it with back then.

[Seviche]

Morrowind had a ton of choices. You could even kill the main quest key character, rendering the questline uncompletable!

 

That's lazy developing and not really a choice.

It's an excellent choice. In a sandbox RPG, such as Skyrim purports to be, player choice is the ultimate breaker of deals and changer of lives. Your player changes the fabric of the environment just by being there, that's what a "sandbox" is really about. If your character decided to kill a person, that choice should have consequences. Punishment by the law is good, but punishing the player by making a quest they might have wanted to do go away is even better. You want players to know that killing NPCs is a bad thing? Then treat the NPCs as real people and make killing them have an effect on (and in) the game. "Oh, you needed that character's potion of awesome elixer to beat the Supreme Dragon of Serious Badness? Maybe you shouldn't have killed him for his cool robes back when you first saw him."

 

"Lazy developing" is having characters in a game be immortal because they want you to fetch them a bottle of mead.

[abaris]

 

It's an excellent choice. In a sandbox RPG, such as Skyrim purports to be, player choice is the ultimate breaker of deals and changer of lives.

 

 

It would have been an excellent choice if another fork had opened up presenting you with new options.

 

But Morrowind was as lacking as Skyrim in that department. Without mods Morrowind was as flat as Skyrim when it came to roleplaying. Having more kill options doesn't make a good RPG.

[Seviche]

 

It's an excellent choice. In a sandbox RPG, such as Skyrim purports to be, player choice is the ultimate breaker of deals and changer of lives.

 

 

It would have been an excellent choice if another fork had opened up presenting you with new options.

 

But Morrowind was as lacking as Skyrim in that department. Without mods Morrowind was as flat as Skyrim when it came to roleplaying. Having more kill options doesn't make a good RPG.

You're right, it doesn't make it a good RPG. I didn't say it did. I said it makes a better "Sandbox RPG" environment. I also said it's not lazy design. You have to include that on purpose, as they obviously made a purposeful choice in Skyrim to make immortal NPCs. That's not "lazy design," it's a design choice. Bethesda decided that players couldn't be trusted to make their own choices with regards to plot continuity, so they added "Plot Shields" to quest givers in Skyrim.

 

But I never said it alone made a better RPG. It can certainly enhance the RPG experience as making your own choices with regards to morality is an good choice for players to have to make. It's a choice I want to be able to make. A world where my decisions matter little more than "Did I kill X monster? Yes/no?" makes for a poor sandbox RPG. If those are all the choices we're going to get, then why make the game a sandbox at all?

 

Here's why I think it's a bad idea to give NPCs plot-driven immortality:

After you defeat the Stormcloaks in the not-quite-so-main questline, there are scattered Stormcloak camps that dot Skyrim. The hardcore Stormcloaks, one could say. Every camp I have run into has an un-killable named NPC. I can get the NPC to stagger/begging for his life mode, but he cannot be killed. Why? There's no quest for these guys that I have ever found. If there is, it's going to require me to kill him anyways, so I can't be trusted to do the right thing an kill him now?

 

This detracts from the sandbox experience. Hell, it even detracts from the RPG experience. In other words, it makes no sense. This is a design choice that helps kill off the RPG elements in Skyrim. You're helpless to do anything that the game/plot doesn't want you to do. That's not "sandbox" and it certainly can be argued that it's not "RPG."

 

If I wanted that lack of choice, I would be playing a JRPG.

[abaris]

I agree on one thing, not being able to kill a NPC because later on there might be a quest where you have to guide him to the toilet, is a bad choice and it can even be a nuissance because you can end up with having an eternal immortal foe.

 

But killing off a NPC thereby unrevokably killing off the main quest, is also a bad choice, since you have no other option than start over with a different character. Both are examples of linear and lastly bad developing.

 

And in the long run it didn't make and still doesn't make a difference if you go running around killing people or helping them. Noone notices your fame or infamy. The robots still repeat their one single line or make snide comments about something you're not even aware of. And it didn't make a difference in Morrowind either. The only difference was that the whole open world genre was new and groundbreaking.

[bruisedooze]

It would have been an excellent choice if another fork had opened up presenting you with new options.

 

But Morrowind was as lacking as Skyrim in that department. Without mods Morrowind was as flat as Skyrim when it came to roleplaying. Having more kill options doesn't make a good RPG.

 

In Morrowind there existed actual faction rivalries between various houses and guilds you could join, which would prevent you from progress in rival factions. Not only that but it influenced NPC reactions both positively and negatively. The Fighters and Thieves guild were heavily intertwined, and had an interesting questline associated with the rivalry. Oblivion had no choices, and Skyrim has only the Imperials and Stormcloaks.

[Tsixth]

I think this all boils down to the limitations of development.

 

Like Seviche said, there are plot shields so players don't have to save over and over incase they made a bad move like in some Japanese porn game. The other logical option is to make plot shields optional, but also have to make scripts for so many different endings which is really taxing on the creative people.

 

I agree that Bethesda could have done more in terms of dynamic NPC reactions, but I think compared to most RPGs they've already done so well with how everyone goes about their business. I personally liked how Farangar would praise you alittle more if you came to him with the Dragonstone before he even asked you to get it.

But Inevitably things will start to repeat themselves. Today is no different from yesterday or tomorrow, unless you triggered some event.

We can't expect Bethesda to script for every single possibility. If they did that they'd have created something even the world's leading engineers are unsuccessful in.

[abaris]

 

I agree that Bethesda could have done more in terms of dynamic NPC reactions, but I think compared to most RPGs they've already done so well with how everyone goes about their business.

 

 

The didn't even do well by their own standards - when it comes to role playing mind you.

 

The Fallout series had much more options in that department. If you compare it to the Elder Scroll series, it's just more of the same. But time and technology have moved on since Oblivion and certainly since Morrowind.

 

If you take Skyrim as an action game, it's one of the best and if you're content with that, you probably get all you bargained for. But if you understand it as a role playing game, it's not amongst the better ones.

[Tsixth]

Yep. I also heard that Fallout was much better in terms of role playing, haven't tried myself.

But then again it seems like the best games for role playing still come from Bethesda. Just hope they work more on the dialogue and character dynamics of the TES series.

If I saved the whole freaking world from Alduin before deciding to lend a hand to the Stormcloaks, I expect conversations to change based on my fame. The way that guy sent me off to kill a ice wraith when it's known I can slay dragons was just disappointing.

[abaris]

Yep. I also heard that Fallout was much better in terms of role playing, haven't tried myself.

 

 

I'm usually not a fan of that kind of setting, but after trying it out, I got addicted and must have played them for months on end.

 

That's why I'm rather disappointed by what Bethesda delivered with Skyrim when it comes to role playing. I hoped they would build on what they already had with Fallout. But probably, different teams, different supervisors.