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

[TheDarkPrince]

I agree with the guy who made this post. They could have done a lot better and stories and quests suck, a lot. They made a better game (more immersive in everything) 10 years ago with Morrowind than what they did in this year with Skyrim.. Pity.. Krosis, Sorrow..

[masseffectman1]

why don't you just play, you now, playing? it's a game, nothing else

 

what are you expecting? real war on the field, billions of npc's which can have a cool conversation about the civil war, or whatever,

about graphics, cities etc.. if you have a cool rig it's awesome no? i think myself that windhelm, solitude or Riften are big enough and well done^^

we can talk about combat but i feel, i'll not be objective, i play assassin and a mage which are powerfull anyway^^

the only point i aggree somehow is the fact that i need mods to have a better immersive experience on this game, i mean realistic lightning or texture overhaul, but we know that most people don't have the last top end computer to play and Bethesda need to sale......

 

i don't understand people like you who complain about this or this things , you don't like, fine, go play something else^^

 

This type of attitude is what can hold games as an entertainment form back. Don't set the bar so low, games can be an incredibly deep form of entertainment. By saying "it's JUST a game" enables developers to put less effort into future titles by falling back on that weak excuse.

 

I love Skyrim, but i agree with all the OP's points. After the 20 hour mark, these points become a lot clearer. Many people hop on this forum and defend Skyrim, but you'll find they are 15 hours in and still questing in Whiterun, having hardly seen the generic-ness of the greater part of this game. Modders are a blessing to this game, i'll say that much!

[Tom21]

Morrowind Was a Lot Better Game had better and stories and quests! AND That's Way "We NEED the CK" To Make this Game BETTER to give it Better Stories, Better Quests, Better Graphics, Better Armor, Better Weapons, Better Looking NPCs, Make it More Immersive, Better Cities Biger, This Game NEEDS a Overhaul! The developers Did Not Give us this, (The developers Made this Game to make Money!) So Give Us the CK and let us Make the Entertainment!

 

P.S. I'v Been Playing this Game for Over 280 Hours, But i keep starting over and over because the beginning is a Lot Better then the END! "NOW WAY IS THAT?"

 

And I love Skyrim to DAMEIT!!!!!!!!

 

Thank You!!

[totalwarman]

All your points are correct,but still a good game,it it could be better of course,but sadly they put their efforts in made a console game,we just play a PC adaptation.

[Lachdonin]

While i agree with the OP in general statements, but dissagree with the assessment.

 

In terms of gameplay, there are really limits to how things can change with this style of game, and a multi-platform system. Sure, they could have rigged up Kinect interface, but what about PC and PS3? Sure, they could implement a directional swing system like in Daggerfall, but we learned from Dead Island that an analogue interface for combat only appeals to the hardcore. Morrowind-Oblivion seemed like a major change because you could no longer miss at point blank range, but keeping up with that type of revolution and redesign is unrealistic.

 

What we did get, however, was a major change in the leveling and skill system, one which in my mind is considerably better even in its current, unrefiend state. The perk system offers opportunity to revive skills which have become extinct (Axe, Blunt, Unarmed, Etc) while keeping the management of core skills simple enough for casual players. The removal of Stats diminishes the math side of the game and hte penchant for min-maxing. The removal of classes allows you to progress in your own way free of arbitrary limitations imposed by your class.

 

I agree that the journal/compass system is terrible, and tantamount to minimalism and handholding, but that is, in my mind, a minor greivance when one considers the major changes, all of which are for the better.

 

The graphics are a trivial, almost petty problem. By and large, their better than similar styles of games currently on the market, though the texture work leaves much to be desired. This is more of a problem with the console ports than anything, though one also has to consider lower end PC's. At the same time, Bethesda has NEVER been particularly good at doing the texturing, so i think calling this up as an issue, when it was present in both Morrowind and Oblivion.

 

Quests, NPC's and dungeons i agree with 100% however. They attempted to increase the 'quality' by making each dungeon have a unique story, but only served to make them all generic and unmemorable. I remember more about the Oblivion dungeons because, despite masses of the same bland trap-monster-run, they had nique and interesting dungeons in the mix. In Skyrim they have a single interesting dungeon, Labiranthien, and everything else just runs together despite having 'uniwue stories. At the same time, the play for quantity over quality has meant that the guilds, who should have deep involved story lines, are left floundering in favor of hundreds of other minor and often petty quests.

 

The NPC issue, on the other hand, is in my mind a problem with Voice Acting. There are simply too many characters in the world for them to be properly developed through speech. In Morrowind, you had mountains of 'fluff' text which built on the character of individuals. In Oblivion and Skyrim, because voice acting is expencive and can't easially be tinkered with after the actors leave means it highly limits the variety and 'fluff', loose out on the same level of development. With the exception of Mankar Cameron and Sheogorath, Oblivion had no memorable characters. Skyrim does do one step better, of course, because i can remember 3 characters off the top of my head, those being Paarthunax, Tullius and Ulfric. We'll see how Bioware works its famous character development with Dragon Age 3's supposed open world.

[thompsonar]

I'm surprised I've seen so many people bash the graphics in this game. I know they could have made them better (I mean the number of retex mods released all ready proves that) but they also had to fit the thing on one dvd (thanks to xbox) so I get both sides of the argument. But I thought the graphics looked pretty good (and I didn't have to upgrade my slightly outdated machine).

 

I also don't care for the way the journal works, but I work around this by turning off the quest markers. I'll pop them on at the start of the quest to get an idea where to go then turn it off and set out to find the place. So it's not too big of a deal.

 

The perk system I like, but I also liked the old leveling system... I don't think there's a perfect way to do it.

 

As far as the "blahness" of NPC's, I can see where people get pissed at this. I play with the sound off about %70 of the time so it's not really something I'm concerned with. I don't really talk to most of them anyway and if they're annoying me I just run off mid-sentence.

 

I thought there was pretty good variety in the towns / caves / ruins. I've only played about 80 hours total though so we'll see when I'm further in. I mean it is one region and I don't think it's unreasonable that the building style is somewhat consistent throughout. Giant cities would be awesome but I understand why it's not technically possible (unless it's pc only and the system requirements are insane).

 

All in all I like the game and will be playing it a while. I don't play many games anymore which is probably why I'm so happy with Skyrim (nothing recent to compare it too). Another poster mentioned that he/she didn't play games to rip it apart and find every flaw possible... I completely agree with that. But I'm glad some people because it will lead to some cool mods that I never would have thought of.

[Thasic]

Keep in mind, as far as the graphics are concerned, the game MUST be designed to run on the average computer. Bethesda makes money by selling games. They want to sell to the maximum number of people. Therefore they must make the game usable by the most people possible. Most people do not have nor can they afford a high end gaming rig. If the graphics were designed to the point that a high end rig was needed to play the game, then few people would buy it. All the people that want to play with higher end graphics can get all kinds of upgraded graphics here on the Nexus. I have seen many very good graphics here. Try some of them and have a ball.

[supafuzz]

EDIT: As far as the athletics/acrobatics skills go...I found them useless and annoying in both Oblivion AND Morrowind, especially the fact that, if you didn't run everywhere and rode a horse/silt strider, you'd be forever slow. At least in Skyrim you can sprint and run at a decent speed from the get go. I swear, in Morrowind every character would start out as some slow-as-hell, out of shape derp unless they specialized in only speed and had the steed as their birth-sign. *gargles*

it might sound crazy but that's what i loved about Morrowind. at level 1 you felt like an absolute newbie struggling to kill rats who keep dodging your attacks and failed spellcasting and not to mention being chased down mountains by cliff racers. as you levelled up and made your way through the game you genuinely felt like your character was growing in power until the end where you can kill everything no problemo. in Skyrim it takes 3 hits to kill the bandits you meet at level 1 and 3 hits to kill the scaled up version of the bandits you meet at level 40.

i'll echo what somebody else said earlier in the thread - i also loved walking into a dungeon in Morrowind and getting totally slaughtered by the necromancer hiding inside, only to come back after having travelled around the province improving my skills and finding awesome equipment, and finally put that guy in his place.

 

i agree with most of the OP's comments but the thing about the graphics i think is a little harsh. this isn't the kind of game where i look for photo-realistic textures and whatnot and the environment is a lot more diverse than previous Bethesda releases. dungeons on the other hand were still all the same (except of course their flagship Bleak Falls Barrow/Golden Claw adventure which was brilliant.) still, just giving the enemies in the dungeons arbitrary names as opposed to "Bandit A", "Bandit B" etc would have made them feel a lot more "hand-crafted" and personal. end of the day there's only so many variations on the 'murky old cave' theme and it was still fun to explore them. that's probably my only gripe about the dungeons.

[Linsolv]

Games don't have to be "designed to run on the average computer." There's a reason that you get a graphics setting. "Normal" should be designed for the average computer, sure. "Ultra" should be where you push limits, and then give me the option to turn on or off some features for a custom config and you've got me going.

[sergiobor]

I agree with all most of OP said.

In this game we lost a lot of combat techniques, such as cast spells with a two haded weapon, block with with one handed weapon when we have a spell in the other, cast spells without a weapon draw, use weapons in the water.

I'm a warrior and I'm master at onehanded, smithing and enchanting, and with these skills I create weapons and armors so powerfulls that makes the game ceases to be funny, actually I only upgrade the armor and weapons and use them without enchants.

It is a pity that the weapons and armor do not deteriorate like in Oblivion that we can use more smithing to fix them again, now you upgrade a weapon/armor and they maintain the same stats until the end of the game.

I'm a Lv 81 character, but since Lv 40 even the Giants or Dragons are to easy to kill.

I more liked the system of Oblivion that the weapons/Armor/rings/necklass, as the stats in its category and you can only enchant by the sise of the soul gem you use, because with this system you can enchant some ring with 200%, 300% of resist fire/shock/magicka/disease....... or make onehanded/twohanded 200%, 400% more powerfull that makes the character so powerfull that makes the game meaningless.

Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition, was astonishment, everything was new but after 8 years we only see a graphical evolution, consequent evolution of graphics cards, but a decrease of the quality of the Quests.

 

I love this game, and will continue to play it because I know when the CK be released ( ?? ) new and astonishing quests will appear and put this good game in to another dimension.

Edited February 1, 2012 by sergiobor