Criticism, praise and hopes for Bethesda's next games after Skyrim

[CalibanX]

Factions, to my mind, is the way to go with open world games because the player's interaction with them isn't dependent upon a scripted narrative like a quest. Joining Factions has the benefit of immediately wedding the player's choices to the consequences of the game world. Especially, if Faction allegiances were to commonly come with opposing enemy faction reactions.

 

Consider both the replay-ability and depth of consequences between joining a Mages Guild with a static, linear, Mages Guild Quest Line with the more open ended dynamic of joining a Mages Faction that has the option of destroying or befriending other Factions. Which option provides for greater interaction and consequences with an open game world?

[Rimland]

2. followers are "expendable drones." They should have had own separate quests and personalities beyond "mage" and "housecarl" and "barbarian" or "Nord" Bethesda did published New Vegas...

Most followers ARE tied to quests involving them.

 

3. most importantly, factions... been helping the Stormcloaks and, no one cares. Legion don't care, and towns associated as being "legion" don't care ! zero consequences... Bethesda did published New Vegas you know !

New Vegas only had merchants yelling insults at you, Having max rep with the legion didn't bar you from shopping at NCR places and vice versa. Skyrim is no different in this regard.

 

these 3 elements that Obsidian did so well with Fallout New Vegas are missing from Skyrim, and for me, that is just unacceptable and downright insulting to gamers... especially Bethesda gamers !!! I mean, Lord and Murphy, Bethesda freakin published New Vegas!

Publishing means NOTHING. getting mad at Bethesda for this is like getting mad at EA for not making Valve quality games because they public Bioware's games.

 

Being a publisher means literally NOTHING.

 

 

1. okay, followers' quests should have expanded on their back-story, like Erandur's... all the follower's ! and his quest is a Daedric quest anyways. Erandur was the 2nd follower I picked and man, all the rest just aren't as good (haven't done Cicero yet and DB Guild)

 

2. okay, it would be interesting having traders not trade with you due to your in-game decisions... i know NV not like this, just making a point, but thanks for pointing out my "mistake"

 

3. indeed, evidently, publishing appears do not mean anything at all. all i was saying, my 3 fundamental criticisms of Skyrim, one might logically assume that these cool immersion techniques Obsidian did in NV might have been adopted by the publishing company... Bethesda... that's all.

[sajuukkhar9000]

Factions, to my mind, is the way to go with open world games because the player's interaction with them isn't dependent upon a scripted narrative like a quest. Joining Factions has the benefit of immediately wedding the player's choices to the consequences of the game world. Especially, if Faction allegiances were to commonly come with opposing enemy faction reactions.

 

Consider both the replay-ability and depth of consequences between joining a Mages Guild with a static, linear, Mages Guild Quest Line with the more open ended dynamic of joining a Mages Faction that has the option of destroying or befriending other Factions. Which option provides for greater interaction and consequences with an open game world?

 

The problem with faction interaction is that it normally blows.

 

New Vegas was only able to get this "interaction" working for the very final mission because getting all these groups together creates a multitude of possible scenarios and would require a equally large number of recorded dialog to go with it.

Edited January 16, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000

[CalibanX]

Factions, to my mind, is the way to go with open world games because the player's interaction with them isn't dependent upon a scripted narrative like a quest. Joining Factions has the benefit of immediately wedding the player's choices to the consequences of the game world. Especially, if Faction allegiances were to commonly come with opposing enemy faction reactions.

 

Consider both the replay-ability and depth of consequences between joining a Mages Guild with a static, linear, Mages Guild Quest Line with the more open ended dynamic of joining a Mages Faction that has the option of destroying or befriending other Factions. Which option provides for greater interaction and consequences with an open game world?

 

The problem with faction interaction is that it normally blows.

 

New Vegas was only able to get this "interaction" working for the very final mission because getting all these groups together creates a multitude of possible scenarios and would require a equally large number of recorded dialog to go with it.

 

Not necessarily. All you would need is something like what already exists in Skyrim's Thieves Guild with it's radiant quests and upgradable base. Just add to that a Faction designation in relation to other factions. How fun would it be to join the Thieves Guild and advance in rank within it by stealing from the Mage's Guild? Once your actions identify you as an enemy of another Faction you don't need a quest or scripted dialogue to achieve that because in an open world game you can attack or steal from who ever you want already.

Edited January 16, 2012 by CalibanX

[Rimland]

The focus on quantity over quality is very pronounced in Skyrim, and in that goal they have acheived a monumentous success. I have yet to run a dungeon which feels like a rehash of another. That said, quantity as the EXPENCE of Quality is not, in my mind, a good thing.

 

 

 

couldn't agree more. i have like 50-something radiant quests which are cool but would rather, at the end of the day, still have quality epic quests than the radiant quests.

 

seems instead of the randomness of radiant system supplementing quality quests, it gave quantity instead...i could be wrong but that's what i think.

 

however, very impressed with the dungeons ! got bored with Oblivion dungeons, not yet in Skyrim.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Rimland

[sajuukkhar9000]

Not necessarily. All you would need is something like what already exists in Skyrim's Thieves Guild with it's radiant quests and upgradable base. Just add to that a Faction designation in relation to other factions. How fun would it be to join the Thieves Guild and advance in rank within it by stealing from the Mage's Guild?

Stealing random items from the mages guild really isn't much interaction, its exactly what we have now but the location of said item has been moved.

 

Also that causes the possibility of not being able to join every faction, if the mages guild know you Steal from them why would they let you join?

 

couldn't agree more. i have like 50-something radiant quests which are cool but would rather, at the end of the day, still have quality epic quests than the radiant quests.

 

seems instead of the randomness of radiant system supplementing quality quests, it gave quantity instead...i could be wrong but that's what i think.

 

however, very impressed with the dungeons ! got bored with Oblivion dungeons, not yet in Skyrim.

 

Lachdonin's dungeon example goes against his quantity over quality statement, if each dungeon is unique then it has more quality then Oblivions dungeons.

 

If anything, for dungeons at least, Skyrim exceeds more in quality then quantity because Skyrim has less dungeons and they are better designed/more unique.

Edited January 16, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000

[Rimland]

Not necessarily. All you would need is something like what already exists in Skyrim's Thieves Guild with it's radiant quests and upgradable base. Just add to that a Faction designation in relation to other factions. How fun would it be to join the Thieves Guild and advance in rank within it by stealing from the Mage's Guild?

Stealing random items from the mages guild really isn't much interaction, its exactly what we have now but the location of said item has been moved.

 

Also that causes the possibility of not being able to join every faction, if the mages guild know you Steal from them why would they let you join?

 

couldn't agree more. i have like 50-something radiant quests which are cool but would rather, at the end of the day, still have quality epic quests than the radiant quests.

 

seems instead of the randomness of radiant system supplementing quality quests, it gave quantity instead...i could be wrong but that's what i think.

 

however, very impressed with the dungeons ! got bored with Oblivion dungeons, not yet in Skyrim.

 

Lachdonin's dungeon example goes against his quantity over quality statement, if each dungeon is unique then it has more quality then Oblivions dungeons.

 

If anything, for dungeons at least, Skyrim exceeds more in quality then quantity because Skyrim has less dungeons and they are better designed/more unique.

 

 

yeah i did notice that and figured he just mixed up his words

[CalibanX]

"Stealing random items from the mages guild really isn't much interaction, its exactly what we have now but the location of said item has been moved.

 

Also that causes the possibility of not being able to join every faction, if the mages guild know you Steal from them why would they let you join?"

 

Thats just an example. There could be limitations on how many Factions one could join. There could be mutually exclusive Factions where joining one automatically cancels the ability to join the other (Stormcloaks vs Imperials). Perhaps if you steal enough from another Guild they catch on to you or you get caught. We already have mercs and the Thalmor and the Dark Brotherhood coming after you in Skyrim based upon the players actions. There's no reason something like this couldn't also be extended to Guilds/Factions.

[sajuukkhar9000]

"Stealing random items from the mages guild really isn't much interaction, its exactly what we have now but the location of said item has been moved.

 

Also that causes the possibility of not being able to join every faction, if the mages guild know you Steal from them why would they let you join?"

 

Thats just an example. There could be limitations on how many Factions one could join. There could be mutually exclusive Factions where joining one automatically cancels the ability to join the other (Stormcloaks vs Imperials). Perhaps if you steal enough from another Guild they catch on to you or you get caught. We already have mercs and the Thalmor and the Dark Brotherhood coming after you in Skyrim based upon the players actions. There's no reason something like this couldn't also be extended to Guilds/Factions.

Mutually exclusive factions is never a good thing, there are FAR to many ES fans who love becoming ruler of everything for that to ever work out well. The Imperial/Stormcloak thing only worked because each faction was basically the exact same except moral views, and you ended up in the exact same situation either way.

 

It isn't like there is a nicer thieves guild, or a more evil mage group, and making/adding those in with a full quest line for a counterpart guild for every existing guild would make the game extremely bloated and would probably reduce the quality of both further then what we already have.

Edited January 16, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000

[CalibanX]

"Stealing random items from the mages guild really isn't much interaction, its exactly what we have now but the location of said item has been moved.

 

Also that causes the possibility of not being able to join every faction, if the mages guild know you Steal from them why would they let you join?"

 

Thats just an example. There could be limitations on how many Factions one could join. There could be mutually exclusive Factions where joining one automatically cancels the ability to join the other (Stormcloaks vs Imperials). Perhaps if you steal enough from another Guild they catch on to you or you get caught. We already have mercs and the Thalmor and the Dark Brotherhood coming after you in Skyrim based upon the players actions. There's no reason something like this couldn't also be extended to Guilds/Factions.

Mutually exclusive factions is never a good thing, there are FAR to many ES fans who love becoming ruler of everything for that to ever work out well. The Imperial/Stormcloak thing only worked because each faction was basically the exact same except moral views, and you ended up in the exact same situation either way.

 

It isn't like there is a nicer thieves guild, or a more evil mage group, and making/adding those in with a full quest line for a counterpart guild for every existing guild would make the game extremely bloated and would probably reduce the quality of both further then what we already have.

 

Granted, I'm one of those people who don't really care about a main quest line in an open world game. In all Bethesda games, the Main Quest is always the least appealing aspect of the game to me.

 

That said, there's no reason why you couldn't have competing Mages Factions, competing Thief Factions, competing Mercenary Factions, Daedric Factions, Aedric Factions, political factions, etc. Guilds, as they are in Oblivion and Skyrim now, are really just linear, mini-main quests. What I'm advocating for is less linear based quests and more world interaction with consequences through Faction interactions.