Critique of the game and why I don't like it (anymore).

[ElricOfGrans]

Would it hurt for an NPC to brag about this thing he found in a cave so we can go and break into his house? Nope, you have to go fetch it for him.

 

*two NPCs are talking to each other*

First: I saw a Mudcrab the other day.

Second: Nasty creatures!

First: I kicked its shell half-way to Hammerfell.

*fist pump*

[yota71]

*two NPCs are talking to each other*

First: I saw a Mudcrab the other day.

Second: Nasty creatures!

First: I kicked its shell half-way to Hammerfell.

*fist pump*

 

LOL one of the more used and annoyng line in oblivion, the people say every time the same thing in Oblivion, one day out of frustration i have exterminated the imperial city. and all the other cities

 

Till now in Skyrim i havent exterminated entire cities, just nazeem :)

[LiamNeesonsWetSocks]

Who does the animations at Bethesda? Talking to NPCs feels like watching a goddamn puppet theater. A lot of the animations look so unnatural that they send you screaming into the Uncanny Valley. I sometimes wonder if Bethesda can actually make good games or if they're in reality just an overrated maker of mod platforms.

[ElricOfGrans]

The animations (all of them) have been terrible in every Bethesda game. Modders frequently have improved animations available in rather short time, which suggest Bethesda simply lacks anyone with the appropriate skills. They could perhaps get away with it in Morrowind, but by Oblivion it was a joke, and Skyrim is unacceptable. This is probably the one weak area that Bethesda could have easily resolved in this game, and the fact they did not is plain bizarre! I doubt decent animators are in such demand that Bethesda could fail to attract any to their staff.

[kapti]

what u expect from pure shitsole port, this game must be simply for ppl that playng on shitsole and shitsoles was they main target

[Grimoa]

Without having read the entire thread I'd like to say: Try Daggerfall.

I've missed two weeks of Skyrim (playing and modding) because of it now. My DF character is level 6 now and I haven't started the main quest. I've done some temple and some thieves guild quests. I haven't been outside the Daggerfall province yet.

The world and cities are huge, true. But they also feel empty. Lots of houses are just homes, they seldom have a "use". While that is cool from a realism point of view, it starts to get annoying because of the long ways in the cities. And most of the buildings look the same. There's just more of the same buildings. (Adds to the confused me getting lost all the time.)

The dungeons are hugh. They are randomly generated, but the pieces are reused and recogniseable. They all start to feel the same after some time.

The guild quests are random, and you can get the same quest multiple times (from the same person even!). "Go to (that dungeon) rescue (that person) you got (amount of days) time."

Every time you get that quest, it's with excactly the same text, just replaced names. It doesn't make the questgivers or guilds feel particularly alive aswell. As of now, I haven't found any sidestory at all.

Cities are populated with tons of clones. They all look the same.

 

I started playing DF because I feel that MW really felt more immersive and alive than Obl and Skyrim. So I thought maybe... But no, it seems MW was an exception.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's an Elder Scrolls game, so of course I like it. ;)

And I still love the moments when I find an awesome looking new piece of armor in one of those repetitive dungeons.

(Armor and clothing options really seem to get worse with every game.)

 

But well, for now I'm back in Skyrim. At least combat feels... uh like action. And I LOVE shield bashing!

Edited April 17, 2012 by Grimoa

[sbrowne]

I find that the growing list of customization tips and mods can change the gameplay considerably, and change it to my liking.

 

One small example: In slow-traveling from one location to the next I got tired of hostilities with assorted bandits on the route. No opportunity to be civil and talk, or just bypass them. So, through a console command, I joined the bandit faction. Now they all ignore me.

[SubjectProphet]

what u expect from pure shitsole port, this game must be simply for ppl that playng on shitsole and shitsoles was they main target

 

Please speak proper english, I couldn't quite understand the sentence.

[yota71]

On me to make the best game in years they need to find some good story-writer (or subject writer) and they have solved all problems

[eltucu]

The animations (all of them) have been terrible in every Bethesda game. Modders frequently have improved animations available in rather short time, which suggest Bethesda simply lacks anyone with the appropriate skills. They could perhaps get away with it in Morrowind, but by Oblivion it was a joke, and Skyrim is unacceptable. This is probably the one weak area that Bethesda could have easily resolved in this game, and the fact they did not is plain bizarre! I doubt decent animators are in such demand that Bethesda could fail to attract any to their staff.

I believe that the issue isnt the animations per se but the animation engine that does a terrible job at blending animations in between transitions from one to another. Thats what makes animations on videogames feel organic. Unless you have animation data for each frame displayed and for every action with their respective transitions to the last vertex displacement, its going to look bad on real time (not so much in movies when you can fine tune every single thing).

 

So the solution for that is an animation engine that can "fill the gaps" between animations on the fly. Its not necessary to get to the point of Euphoria or Endorphin, which pretty much make up complete animations on the fly, BUT some degree of dynamism is needed. For example, Epic's games made with Unreal Engine have pretty good "organic" animations, Crysis 1 and 2 has an animation engine that adapts the animation data to the current environment pretty well (so the NPCs dont clip with the wall if they're too close to it, so every character steps on the surface they're on instead of clipping the landscape with their foot, etc). A good implementation does some job to adapt the animation to the current character's position.

 

All TES games had horrible animation engines that did nothing else exept run the animation data on the character's skeleton and thats it, that way every animation will look horrible given all the places in which a character could be running a particular animation on such big open world. I think the most "crazy" stuff we saw is that in FO3 they made the character's feet to adapt (a little) to the landscape they were stepping in.