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

[redhorizon09]

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.

 

2. True, but the concept was poorly implemented. Companions generally lack personality, and they usually have little background/story. For example, Lydia and Illia use the same comments in battle and when players approach certain areas; they also use the same voice which makes it worse. Illia has more story than Lydia, but it's still very short.

 

As for the publishing thing? True that Bethesda did not develop New Vegas, but Obsidian used Fallout 3 as their template for making New Vegas. Bethesda may not have developed New Vegas, but it shouldn't be an excuse that they didn't seem to learn anything about what many fans loved in that game (companions + their own story/background; factions with consequences; etc).

[sajuukkhar9000]

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.

I don't really see how there would be competing Aedra or Daedra factions. The Aedra don't command people because the Aedra are dead except Talos, and the Daedra worshipers are to busy with their gods to have much of a reason to fight other Daedra worshipers. Beyond that there are the Vigilant of Stendar who do go out and kill necromancers and stuff, ive come across several of their battles.

 

There are fighting political factions, I've seen four or five scripted events were some Imperial and Stormcloak solders fight each other in some random place.

 

Mages are generally despised in Skyrim and are either Jarl's wizards or locked up in The College, and The College barely hangs together itself by enchanting, having two opposing factions really doesnt fit the lore or make much sense on how they would stay afloat. Also since they almost never leave the college it doesn't give much time for them to fight.

 

Mercs would have a hard time competing with The Companions due to their fame, and The Companions leaders/members already do raids into Skyrim to kill things, Ive run across Vilkas, Aela, Skjor and other random Companions members in the middle of nowhere while they were fighting bears and such.

 

 

Also most of the things you do, or that you could conceivably do, really wouldn't have much of a impact on Skyrim beyond a few people saying something different. Ive seen the argument that kill titus Mede II doesn't prove enough "impact" when in reality how it is portaryed is most likely how it would be had it happened IRL.

 

If killing an Emperor doesnt change much, you should know that very few things will.

As for the publishing thing? True that Bethesda did not develop New Vegas, but Obsidian used Fallout 3 as their template for making New Vegas. Bethesda may not have developed New Vegas, but it shouldn't be an excuse that they didn't seem to learn anything about what many fans loved in that game (companions + their own story/background; factions with consequences; etc).

Problem is factions DIDN'T have consequences beyond replacing the NPCs at one location with either Legion or NCR replacements, or having one or two dialog changes.

 

EXACTLY the same thing that happens in Skyrim's towns/Forts/Jarls.

Edited January 16, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000

[CalibanX]

I like the TES lore. It really helps to define the flavor and history of the game world. But, if I have to choose between a mechanic that adds more enjoyment to the game at the expense of some minor lore contradictions I'll go with the fun new mechanic. :)

[sajuukkhar9000]

I find that if I don't fast travel the world feels a lot more alive then what people make it out to be

 

-Fights between The Imperials and Stormcloaks

-Meetings with Companions members fighting animals

-Groups of Vigilant of Stendarr fighting necromancers and the like

-Nobels escorted by guards going on hunts

-Bandits attacking traveling merchants

-Merc groups going to caves/giant camps and attacking/killing things in them

-Farmers giving cows as tribute to Giants

-Wizards fighting each other

-Drunks walking down roads who give you free booze

-An Old Orc looking for a good death

-Getting jumped by 3 bandits dressed as Legion soldiers asking for a toll

 

There are a lot of random encounters, even more beyond the ones I have listed, in the world that make it feel alive. The problem seems to be that the occurrence for them seems to be terribly low

Edited January 16, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000

[Rimland]

I find that if I don't fast travel the world feels a lot more alive then what people make it out to be

 

-Fights between The Imperials and Stormcloaks

-Meetings with Companions members fighting animals

-Groups of Vigilant of Stendarr fighting necromancers and the like

-Nobels escorted by guards going on hunts

-Bandits attacking traveling merchants

-Merc groups going to caves/giant camps and attacking/killing things in them

-Farmers giving cows as tribute to Giants

-Wizards fighting each other

-Drunks walking down roads who give you free booze

-An Old Orc looking for a good death

-Getting jumped by 3 bandits dressed as Legion soldiers asking for a toll

 

There are a lot of random encounters, even more beyond the ones I have listed, in the world that make it feel alive. The problem seems to be that the occurrence for them seems to be terribly low

 

... dragons ! they're random encounters too !

 

i love the RE in Skyrim !

 

here's a really good "trick"

 

go to Western tower, head south, random event - near silver ore. travel towards Secunda's Kiss (giant camp), turn left, go up mountain to the Bleak Falls, the "other path" to the lookout, down the stairs and then you're in front of Anise's Cabin... and another random event.

 

go back whence you came and you'll be back to the random event behind Western Watchtower... whole new random event. then go back to "in front" of Anise's Cabin and whole new random event.

 

good fun.

 

do it 6 or 7 times, back and forth, and you'll be amazed at what, and whom, you can find !

Edited January 16, 2012 by Rimland

[sajuukkhar9000]

i love the RE in Skyrim !

 

here's a really good "trick"

 

go to Western tower, head south, random event - near silver ore. travel towards Secunda's Kiss (giant camp), turn left, go up mountain to the Bleak Falls, the "other path" to the lookout, down the stairs and then you're in front of Anise's Cabin... and another random event.

 

go back whence you came and you'll be back to the random event behind Western Watchtower... whole new random event. then go back to "in front" of Anise's Cabin and whole new random event.

 

good fun.

 

do it 6 or 7 times, back and forth, and you'll be amazed at what, and whom, you can find !

 

except none of those places trigger random events or are random events.

 

At least none of them have for me.

Edited January 16, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000

[Lachdonin]

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.

 

Actually, it doesn't, but i suppose a little more explination is in order. The unique flavor of each dungeon is, in my mind, a quantity issue as much asa quality. Yes, each dungeon is unique, but none of them are 'good'. Even Laberanthien, a dungeon which has monumental potential, is mediocre. They went for a quantity of unique dungeons, but not having any really good ones, rather than having a few really good ones and a bunch of generic.

 

Ideally, we would have all really good ones, but thats asking your your cake and eating it too.

 

In essence, the dungeon system in Skyrim offers quality, while instead throwing quality-wrapped-quantity at you. Not that their bad, but you know what they say. Saying everything's unique is just a nice way of saying nothing is.

[Cyrotek]

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.

 

Actually, it doesn't, but i suppose a little more explination is in order. The unique flavor of each dungeon is, in my mind, a quantity issue as much asa quality. Yes, each dungeon is unique, but none of them are 'good'. Even Laberanthien, a dungeon which has monumental potential, is mediocre. They went for a quantity of unique dungeons, but not having any really good ones, rather than having a few really good ones and a bunch of generic.

 

Ideally, we would have all really good ones, but thats asking your your cake and eating it too.

 

In essence, the dungeon system in Skyrim offers quality, while instead throwing quality-wrapped-quantity at you. Not that their bad, but you know what they say. Saying everything's unique is just a nice way of saying nothing is.

 

The dungeon in Skyrim are in fact better than those in Oblivion. But theres still A LOT space for improvement. And i personally think also, if Bethesda woud implement less dungeons, caves, etc and concentrate more on quality, the games woud be better. I dont need 200 Dungeons if i get 25-50 good ones.

Also iam missing some scriptet or random events inside those dungeons. There are so many possibilitys and all you get are a few hole traps.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Cyrotek

[sajuukkhar9000]

Actually, it doesn't, but i suppose a little more explination is in order. The unique flavor of each dungeon is, in my mind, a quantity issue as much asa quality. Yes, each dungeon is unique, but none of them are 'good'. Even Laberanthien, a dungeon which has monumental potential, is mediocre. They went for a quantity of unique dungeons, but not having any really good ones, rather than having a few really good ones and a bunch of generic.

 

Ideally, we would have all really good ones, but thats asking your your cake and eating it too.

 

In essence, the dungeon system in Skyrim offers quality, while instead throwing quality-wrapped-quantity at you. Not that their bad, but you know what they say. Saying everything's unique is just a nice way of saying nothing is.

I have found more memorable and "good" dungeons then I ever found in Morrowind or Oblivion.

 

The dungeon in Skyrim are in fact better than those in Oblivion. But theres still A LOT space for improvement. And i personally think also, if Bethesda woud implement less dungeons, caves, etc and concentrate more on quality, the games woud be better. I dont need 200 Dungeons if i get 25-50 good ones.

Also iam missing some scriptet or random events inside those dungeons. There are so many possibilitys and all you get are a few hole traps.

Having only 50 dungeons in a world as big a Skyrim would make it feel INCREDIBLY empty.

 

Also you should see arrow traps, bear traps, logs swinging from the ceiling traps, fire coming out of the wall traps, soul gems that shoot fire/frost/electricity traps, swinging spiked wall traps, along with the hole traps.

 

There is a sneak perk that makes it to where you don't trigger traps so if you have sneak perks that may be why.

Edited January 16, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000

[RokHere]

There is no such thing as "game lore", there is only the limited and often untrue way in which we see things through the gameplay. Lore itself is found in books inside the game, or real life books about the series.

As I mentioned before, reading a book about Cairo or Tokyo is never like asking the inhabitants of the city and getting answers from them. If asking people who live in the city isn't helping you, then you're obviously asking the wrong people. This is how things work in real life. If a game developer is producing a game where you cannot get familiar with the cities of the map or know the lore while playing and having conversations with the NPCs, and your only option is buying a novel based on the world, then the game developer is obviously ****ing up, being lazy, or simply not caring about the story of the game at all. If NPCs are saying "untrue" things, then again, the developers are ****ing up. If the NPCs are not engaging in conversations with me that are as good as the in-game books to understand the world, then again...the developers are ****ing up. It doesn't take a genius to understand all this, and your counter-arguments sound like nothing other than marketing material for game books or some sort of a delusional, self-righteous concept that lore is exclusive to books, and is never in conversations about the world. If that's your dogma to feel smarter and better about yourself reading game books, be my guest, friend; it's fine.

 

You sense wrong. I was just fixing your gross oversimplification. I would love to see you try out Sins of a Solar Empire, fighting against 9 AI. Try playing that and telling me its about "trial and error". There is no trial and error only do or die.

Sins of a Solar Empire is such a niche in the strategy genre; it isn't as popular as your average RTS, like Warcraft III or Company of Heroes. Have the sense to use typical examples when trying to make generalized statements, please. I made a generalized statement about FPS and RTS games. You dubbed my statement ignorant; what is your reason? "There's this one-in-a-million RTS game that is actually genuinely complicated". Great. So now because we have a few exceptions, the exceptions suddenly define the whole genre? If your line of thought isn't the actual ignorance, I don't know what is. Exceptions don't define genres; only typical examples can define a genre. It isn't rocket science.

 

Because there are many instances in the ES universe of mages opening portals to other realms, destroying cities single handedly they make entire islands disappear for periods of hundreds of years or more, mages can summon Daedric princes etc. etc. Mages are grossly overpowered.

Yeah, and do those instances or books tell you that every single mage walking that fictional world can do these things? And there are no instances or tales at all of warriors doing miraculous things and causing much havoc and destruction? Don't answer; rhetorical questions.

 

Lets see Neverwinter Nights does not portray monsters with the same strength of powers as it does in the books, Fallout 3/New Vegas don't portray many weapons/power armors or the Enclave as stated in previous lore, Knights of the old republic doesn't portray light saber combat as Star wars lore dictates it is. the discrepanceys between lore and gameplay are so obvious as to not need explanation.

You're still insisting on clinging to game books to justify lore discrepancy, and still insisting that lore is exclusive to "books", especially books outside the game. Dude, feel free to give yourself privileges and adopt dogmas, but the rest of the world doesn't work that way. Lots of people do not care about game books! And that's not because they can't read or aren't into reading; I, for example, love reading; I just don't read game books, I read other stuff. I also like to "know the story" and "understand the world" through my interaction with that world and its inhabitants, not through books, and that's a perfectly valid approach to things. I'd love to understand a theory or a field of science from books, but to understand a world and know a story? I'd definitely prefer to visit that world, look at it, listen to it, interact with it, and so on. If such activities are not enlightening me with the world's lore, then there's something very wrong with that game or interactive entertainment production. So no matter how many times you keep referring to books, people like me will continue to believe that a "game's" lore is what we learn about while playing the damn game, not while reading a damn book about the game! And if this is not working, or if sequel 3 of the game is contradicting with things in sequel 2 without a logical explanation, then the developers are ****ing up. It's as simple as that.

 

You obviously don't have enough important things to do that you can sit around playing games, especially considering you are playing a game that most of its lore comes from in game books, of which there are 600 in Skyrim alone. Secondly "lore" is not dictated by gamers it is dictated by the series owner. What a individual decided to take as lore is irrelevant as only Bethesda can determine what is the ES lore just as George Lucas can determine what is Star Wars lore etc. etc.

I never said I have "enough important things", never gave myself extra importance with a comment like that. So learn to read, please, before trying to suggest someone's not important. I said I had "better things to do", and better here =/= important; better can mean more fun or more interesting, which is a subjective opinion. And thanks for the stating the obvious about lore being dictated by the series owner; where exactly have I ever suggested that lore is dictated by gamers? I have no idea. You think that saying that lore is what we learn while playing a game means that we determine it? How exactly is that even a half-intelligent conclusion or understanding for the statement? Man, you really need help in communication and argumentation. Starting with Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston may help.

 

There will always be fans who don't like sequels because of various reasons, it does not make the games any less of classics or future classics. Many did not like how Neverwinter Nights changed gameplay from Baulder's gate yet NWN is still a classic. Beyond that Bethesda adapted the fallout games into the new age and brought them back from beyond death, no other game dev could have done what they did for that series.

Yes, maybe no other developer would've done a better job, but that doesn't mean that it was a job well done. And I actually welcome change, so changing things in a sequel is never a problem for me, as long as the developer does it intelligently and justifies it one way or another, and makes at least some effort to have it make sense. But I would've preferred the Fallout world to remain "dead", because at least it was dead in practice, but its memories remained and I sometimes even talked to other gamers about things in the early Fallout games. I still maintain that Fallout deserved better, and I wasn't bothered with the changes in Fallout 3; what bothered me was that the world lost its spirit, and instead of breathing the scent of Fallout I or II while playing Fallout 3, I was breathing the scent of Oblivion, and I just couldn't take it. As shocking as this may sound, I think that Borderlands reminds me more of Fallout than Fallout 3 does! And I know that Borderlands is completely different from Fallout, but I'm just saying that if Fallout was to be turned into a first/third-person shooter, then the "feel" or "spirit" of Borderlands was more compatible with Fallout than Fallout 3 was; I would've wanted them to just implement the RPG rules and storytelling of Fallout with the spirit and gameplay of Borderlands, perhaps even including the art-style, to produce a Fallout 3. Which proves my point that I don't mind changes to sequels; just do it right and stick to the series' or world's spirit and feel.

 

Again as I pointed out, what happens in game =/= lore. Lore is whatever the series owner chooses to stay happened in the next game.

Good. At least you're talking about the "game" here, rather than some vague books that 90% of the people who played the game never heard of. Yeah, if the lore is what the owner / developer chooses to make happen in the game (which is obvious), then great. Now let's hope that the lore showcased in the game stays consistent throughout its sequels, regardless to whatever the heck books say.