I can't play skyrim anymore.

[Stupidguy]

The only thing that has kept me playing is collecting crap and storing it in my house. My wife is useless, unless like on one of my other characters it's the Nord chick from Riften. Magic seems so blah too. I've got roughly 4 spells for Frost, Fire and Lightning, and imo the rest of the magic schools suck. The alchemy is nice though, but, it's pretty much the same thing as past games, only now you can watch your character grind in bowl repeatedly. I share the OPs boredom quite a bit though. The only place I feel they really succeeded was the art. Not the graphics, those kinda suck, but the world environment, dungeons etc are really nice. What I really hated was, after finishing the main quest, no one even cared. It's as if nothing had ever happened. At least in Morrowind you were hailed as Neravarine, and Oblivion you got a statue. But in Skyrim, they all act like it didn't happen, instead they sit there and insult my magic and tell me to be careful.

[abaris]

It's as if nothing had ever happened. At least in Morrowind you were hailed as Neravarine, and Oblivion you got a statue. But in Skyrim, they all act like it didn't happen, instead they sit there and insult my magic and tell me to be careful.

 

Yeah, that's the main flaw if you're a roleplayer. But, nostalgia aside, it wasn't that different in the previous games either. If you strip away the hailing and the statue, you were still everyone's dork in Morrowind and Oblivion.

 

The main diffrerence to Morrowind and Oblivion is that time has moved on. In 2002 or 2006 you didn't expect much in the NPC department. There haven't been comparable games doing it any better. Now there are quite a few actually.

 

And there's another crucial difference. With Morrowind or Oblivion you had to meet certain requirements to join particular guilds let alone rise through the ranks. Now they're more or less shoved down your throat. That's something I really blame on catering to the youngish "I want it all" textspeech crowd. And that's one of the points where the dumbing down argument has some base in reality.

[HadToRegister]

And there's another crucial difference. With Morrowind or Oblivion you had to meet certain requirements to join particular guilds let alone rise through the ranks. Now they're more or less shoved down your throat. That's something I really blame on catering to the youngish "I want it all" textspeech crowd. And that's one of the points where the dumbing down argument has some base in reality.

 

Good point there.

 

When I started this game for the first time and learned of the Thieves, Fighters, Mages Guild and the DB, I thought, Oh cool

they're is still that aspect to play.

But I also thought, "oh man, here we go, a million "gopher" quests to work through the entire guild up to Master of the guild", and instead

when I did the Mages Guild line, I was "You've got to be kidding me, already?" "I just got here and joined Yesterday!"

 

I'm still sticking to my "The better the graphics get, the less content there is" hypothesis

[abaris]

 

I'm still sticking to my "The better the graphics get, the less content there is" hypothesis

 

That's as maybe. But it seems that the common illiterate idiot is considered the core audience in today's entertainment industry. Might be their numbers are on the rise.

[HadToRegister]

That's as maybe. But it seems that the common illiterate idiot is considered the core audience in today's entertainment industry. Might be their numbers are on the rise.

 

That explains the popularity of achievements.

 

Those stupid things are turning every game that formerly had stories etc into nothing but Easter Egg Hunts.

 

"You killed 20 people YAY!!! Here's a Cookie! Good Job!"

 

"You did some mundane task in the game 500 times! Yay! Here's a cookie!!! Good Job!!!

 

So, Lot's of good graphics, minimal content and Achievements for doing nothing, up the ying-yang.

 

Sounds like what happened to ME2 and DA2 as well.

[Matth85]

I'm still sticking to my "The better the graphics get, the less content there is" hypothesis

Almost, but not all true. It is not the fact that the graphic needs to be better that dumbs down everything else, it is that the majority of the playerbase are the so called "CoD" playerbase. These guys like action, streamline, online and blood. So, all companies lately tries to grab them, while showing us - the old playerbase, the middlefinger. A core example is Dragon Age II here. I would also say Skyrim, albeit great game, lost all of its RPG elements and all of its powergaming elements. This was to get the more "casual" players and probably grab some of the Call of Duty playerbase.

 

Of course, it does hang a little with graphic, but what can we expect? A game costs more money than half of this board know, and Zenimax won't let Bethesda have too much money, or time, to finish a game. Then there is the nice idea of choosing a date a year in advance, and all that crap.

 

Allthough I slightly agree, I would like to add to your comment: "The more aimed at CoD FPS gamers, the less RPG there is".

[HadToRegister]

 

Of course, it does hang a little with graphic, but what can we expect? A game costs more money than half of this board know, and Zenimax won't let Bethesda have too much money, or time, to finish a game. Then there is the nice idea of choosing a date a year in advance, and all that crap.

 

Allthough I slightly agree, I would like to add to your comment: "The more aimed at CoD FPS gamers, the less RPG there is".

 

I'll need to be clearer with my hypothesis then.

 

Since consoles are already outdated, and game developers still want to rake in the money from them, they have to sell the game with "WOW! AMAZING!" graphics,

which, (because of Consoles limited hardware and space), some cuts need to be made in the Content department, The entire Spellmaking machanic of Morrowind and Oblivion

are gone, and there's not much spells to choose from.

 

That mechanic was in Morrowind and Oblivion, and fit on one DVD so consoles could play it too.

 

Now the graphics are greatly improved, at the cost of DVD space and fitting the game on ONE DVD, so, in order to make room for better graphics, remove and entire section of the game mechanics,

dumb down magic to the point of not really being fun.

Remove the entire Spell Creating/Naming part of the game.

 

etc....

 

So yea, content does suffer when a developer is trying to shoehorn a lot of graphics on one DVD for the Console Market.

 

And by the way....

Bethesda PUBLISHED Skyrim, Bethesda set the release Date, so don't go blaming Zenimax.

[abaris]

 

Allthough I slightly agree, I would like to add to your comment: "The more aimed at CoD FPS gamers, the less RPG there is".

 

I know that's true, since at least EA admitted openly to fish for the COD crowd when developing DAII. My personal judgement about that excuse for a game was that I decided not to buy once I played the demo. The general judgement seems to be that they failed miserably, since they managed to alienate their old fanbase without drawing enough newbs into their franchise.

 

It remains to be seen if that's a lesson learned. We will know more once MEIII is published.

 

But the whole calculation is wrong, as I have previously explained. The COD player will not be drawn into a single player game. Yes, they probably love action, but they lvoe team based action. The constant looking at the COD sales is a splendid example of managing boards not being worth their money. It's common sense that we're talking about two totally different audiences.

 

And there we're probably at the core of the general problem. Today suits decide what is to be developed, how high the budget will be and what kind of audience they're looking for. And they set the development time. That's a relatively new development and it didn't do gaming any good.

 

 

Since consoles are already outdated, and game developers still want to rake in the money from them, they have to sell the game with "WOW! AMAZING!" graphics,

which, (because of Consoles limited hardware and space), some cuts need to be made in the Content department, The entire Spellmaking machanic of Morrowind and Oblivion

are gone, and there's not much spells to choose from.

 

 

The problem runs deeper than that. The publishing companies, run by people who probably didn't play a game in their lives, assume that the drooling idiot kiddie is bashing the console controller. Therefore the game has to be simple enough for the drooling idiot. It's called broadening the audience.

Edited January 4, 2012 by abaris

[redhorizon09]

I'm going to have to disagree with this. People are used to a main quest arch, so when one is fairly unimportant (and finished), quite a few people feel it's pointless to continue. It's a matter of conditioning, not human nature. Personally I think Bethesda should have scrapped the story entirely and made the Guilds and regular quests that much more interesting. I, for example, don't plan on finishing the main quest. I got just far enough into it to make dragons start flying around, then I totally lost interest in the main quest. Bethesda's stories aren't really very good; they never carry emotional weight, lead to attachment, or surprise you. Their world-building, however, is superb. This naturally creates problems when people are so used to a single main quest, and still think of side quests as a temporary diversion. I disagree. Side quests (really well made ones, like some of the mods, with persistent, individualistic characters, also like the mods) should be the entire game.

 

Can anyone honestly say with a straight face that they would have enjoyed Oblivion if they played the unmodded story first, and quit playing immediately afterwards?

 

It's clear from looking at the top 100 mods for Oblivion and Morrowind what people want in Skyrim, and every ES game to come, and Bethesda really should address some of the largest and most persistent mods, like better companions and locational damage.

 

I actually enjoyed the main quest for Oblivion. At least in Oblivion, the Mythic Dawn, the Oblivion Gates, and Mehrunes Dagon actually felt like they were real threats to Cyrodiil. I agree with you about Skyrim's main quest sucking though. For Skyrim, dragons don't seem like a real threat or crisis to the land and the world. The dragons seem nothing more than pests that giants, bandits, and a few town guards can take down. In fact, during a blood dragon attack, I watched two wolves fight the dragon as it turned its attention away from me and went after the wolves. My character went into sneak mode and hid. It took the blood dragon about five minutes just to kill the wolves. It was funny watching the dragon fly around trying to kill the wolves with its flames and failing until it landed. I wasn't aware that wolves have this epic resistance to the same dragon flames that can sometimes make my health drop rather fast.

 

Gee Bethesda, you mean to say that a mighty dragon has trouble one-shotting wolves but I don't? I've seen NPCs such as guards and bandits one-shot wolves with ease as well. Furthermore, one ancient dragon can't even hold it's hold against two giants; this is sad indeed. Alduin as a main villain wasn't all that imposing either. He didn't seem like he can end the world. Maybe it was because that his powers didn't seem all that impressive or the citizens of Skyrim knew of the dragon threat, but they it didn't seem to bother them much. So Alduin destroyed a crappy small town called Helgen; this pales in comparison to what a few daedra creatures, along with some dremoras, did to Kvatch. Alduin didn't even have the balls to attack a major city such as Solitude, whereas Mehrunes Dagon wreaked havoc in the Imperial City and would have destroyed it had it not been for Martin and Akatosh.

[Matth85]

So yea, content does suffer when a developer is trying to shoehorn a lot of graphics on one DVD for the Console Market.

And which people play the Xbox360 the most? Hm... Yeah, I think that was my point?

 

Bethesda PUBLISHED Skyrim, Bethesda set the release Date, so don't go blaming Zenimax.

And Zeninax got them by the ballls. I am not sure how you know this works, but nothing is done if Zeniax feels it take too much time or costs too much.