Question about skyrim to the real fans of Bethesda

[Charlinho]

To those who've played at least 200 hrs. of Bethesda Games....

 

short introduction...I started with Oblivion in 2008, first 3D Roleplay adventure...loved it..and love it still. Moved on to Fallout 3(and Vegas). There could hardly be anything more contrasting...but...Fallout 3 is a beautiful world in its own right. I played all games mostly vanilla and then added mods after the main quests. To be honest I think it's the fantastic mods for these games that make them endless ...plus the construction set and so on. I've probably got around 150-200 active mods per game and as far as I'm concerned I'll just keep adding. My question is this, regarding Skyrim...I've seen quite a few trailers but couldn't yet decide to get the game. Is Skyrim, for the real Bethesda die-hards out there, more challenging, exciting, creative, innovative than what we've seen so-far ? Skyrim has great reviews but I'd prefer some opinions from real gamers.

[Thoreai]

I dont know if i could consider myself a die-hard fan of them, i did spent immense time playing their games, but i had always mixed feelings about their priorities.

There werent any other games that would be moddable to such extent with open world.

 

Long story short, to me no, skyrim is basicaly oblivion even more simplified, with bether graphics, but thats just my opinion.

[IndorilTheGreat]

To me, it feels like Skyrim is a partial "throw-back" to Morrowind. It almost has the atmosphere of Morrowind that lured me in so well. Keyword being "almost."

 

I love the game, but for some reason, I can't seem to find the motivation to finish it. I'm sure I will find it eventually. :happy:

 

But to answer your question; if you liked Oblivion, you will like Skyrim. There is no more awful "level-scaling" that was so prevalent in Oblivion (which I for one am thankful for), and it has the same "massive" feel of its predecessors. If you're curious, you should watch some game-play. I have a Let's Play on my Youtube channel (not to toot my own horn :whistling: ) that demonstrates a fair amount of game mechanics without spoiling too much of the plot.

 

Best of luck in your decision. :thumbsup:

[RedRavyn]

What you heard was mostly hype. I don't consider Skyrim to be GOTY material because it's the buggiest game ever released by Bethesda -- probably one of the most fragile games ever released for public consumption by any developer, in fact. There are so many ways to break quests, and even the game, itself, that you pretty much have to play it with wiki in-hand, and consult the Notes and Bugs sections for any place you go before you go there. My relationship with it is truly a love-hate relationship. It has so much promise, but falls flat on so many points. It's going to take the modding community a long time to fix this badly-broken game, but it will happen and when it does it will be worth playing 24/7.

 

It's less challenging, exciting, creative and innovative than Oblivion. Much of it is eye-candy, which the hype has focused upon to hide the obvious downsides. It's simplistic, compared to Oblivion. Pathetically so, compared to Morrowind. This is the direction the franchise is going, and does not bode well for the next installment of the series. With every new release in the ES series Bethesda removes features from the game. Would you believe there's no "Cure Disease" spell in Skyrim, even though it's part of the game-system, itself? You can't fight slaughterfish underwater, even though you could in Oblivion. Sure we have dragons, but they really aren't the fearsome creatures they should be. They took out most of the daedra, including my favorite (scamps). You can't create your own spells (although two of your fellow students at the College of Winterhold are working on custom spells. Most of the primary quests are buggy and seem uninspired and even unfinished. The list goes on and on, so I won't bore you with more.

 

On the flip side, the terrain is beautiful, if a little shoddily built in places (floating rocks and trees, "cracks" in the terrain that show through to the "void" outside the gameworld, etc.), but you can overlook those because the developers did a much better job this time around in making things look realistic. Caves and dungeons are no longer the same-same deja vu experiences we had in Oblivion, for instance. The weather is more realistic. When you pick flowers for ingredients the plant changes to reflect this. The addition of crafting, while not entirely well thought-through, is welcome, and I think that in many ways the custom enchanting is an improvement from Oblivion. We finally have dual-wielding of weapons (and even spells). I think the perks concept could have been done better, but this is a fresh diversion from the way we structured our characters in Oblivion. Gone are the ideas of character class (and I really applaud Bethesda for that decision). Our character now becomes what we play him as. If you do thiefy stuff you become a better thief. If you use your bow a lot, you become a better archer. The player's character seems much more like a real person because of this approach.

 

Skyrim is a mixed bag, to be sure, but since I got it I haven't played much of anything else, save for a few short interludes to revisit Half-Life 2 and Borderlands. As much as I complain about Skyrim, I think this speaks for itself. I keep going back and generally play it for at least three hours every day (I'm retired, so I can afford to play it all day if I want to).

[effoff]

I've played 400 hour+ of Bethesda Games, Skyrim as a game is by far the best game i've played in many years "in My owm opinion!" It lives up too the hype

As redravyn as already pointed out the game is bugged But it's that vast, it's really excusable

I've read that some people have played 300hrs and not hardly touched the main quest

So yes, It' truly is a Bethesda game to the core

[Karasuman]

Is Skyrim, for the real Bethesda die-hards out there, more challenging, exciting, creative, innovative than what we've seen so-far ? Skyrim has great reviews but I'd prefer some opinions from real gamers.

 

From someone who has sunk hundreds of hours and countless characters into Morrowind and Oblivion, my opinion is that Skyrim is not as good as the reviews would have you believe. It is not in the same league of variety, creativity or complexity as Morrowind, and lacks the vividness and lush environments of Oblivion, I see some people saying Skyrim is a simplified Oblivion with better graphics. I definitely agree with the simplified part, but I think that saying Skyrim has "better" graphics than Oblivion is a very questionable statement. Both games were made for the same console(s). Oblivion's shadows are better and less jagged, for instance, and the game itself has more varied environments than Skyrim. In other words, Oblivion, for its time, was way ahead of the curve graphically relative to what you have with Skyrim now. Frankly, I'd rather look at Oblivion anyday over Skyrim.

 

If you like attributes, character speed variance, lots of different skills, Daedra, enchantment choices, spell variety, in-game graphical settings, and a useable UI, then Skyrim says "piss on you," because you won't get any of those. Ok, I take that back. There's a few Daedra here and there. Mostly the ones you summon.

 

Being such a fan of the previous games, Skyrim was a let-down and a waste of $60 for me, and it sits on the shelf doing nothing. However, taste may vary. It's a reasonably good game if you haven't played the others, but in my opinion, Skyrim left too much potential on the table because it was made primarily for a couple of 5-year old consoles instead of utilizing current technology.

Edited April 14, 2012 by Karasuman

[Elsarian]

What you heard was mostly hype. I don't consider Skyrim to be GOTY material because it's the buggiest game ever released by Bethesda -- probably one of the most fragile games ever released for public consumption by any developer, in fact.

 

I find it quite funny that you would call this "One of the most fragile games released for 'public consumption'." Go take a good look, if not very long look, at Daggerfalls bugs. And then come back and talk. EVERY game this big will be buggy. Personally, I believe that this is one of the least most buggiest games ever released by Bethesda. I, literally, have not had one single problem with this game other than the fact of mod incompatibilities with all the patches being released so fast and frequent. That is the only problem. So, since everyone's experience is not the same, then I would recommend that the creator of this thread actually purchase the game, and see for yourself. That's all I can say.

 

On another, if not more positive note; I would like to add that I have been playing this game ever since it was released. I find it to be a wonderful new edition to the series and can not wait to see what their next game will bring to the table. By then there should be a new generation of console hardware, so devs will be able to kick things up a notch in terms of graphics and other technologies, which in turn, will also benefit PC gamers as well. Myself included.

 

As far as hours are concerned; I have put in roughly 800 hrs into the game since release. I am still going strong as well. However, I also have a decent list of new games to get so that I can have a break. Also, these hours are a culmination of all characters that I have had while playing. Lot's of 'em died due to mod reliances and incompatibilities with the patches. Sad, I know. But, I just make another character and hope for the best. I have actually decided to try and stick with a vanilla game until the patches really start to slow down. Which will probably be a while from now, but I can hope can't I?

 

-Elsarian

[ElricOfGrans]

200 hours... total, for all games? Is that all?

 

To understand Skyrim, take Oblivion. Fix many of the *core* complaints (eg copy-paste landscapes/dungeons, Daedric-equipped Bandits, etc). Add some of the highly-demanded features (eg dual-wield, crafting). From there, simplify a lot of things and leave the rest of the game (eg combat) much the same. It basically depends on what is important to you. In terms of creating a world, they have put considerably more love and attention into crafting Skyrim when compared to Cyrodiil. You will constantly spot small details that show they cared about this. Many of the game's systems, however, are quite disappointing. Magic is worse than Oblivion (and it was poor there too), none of the issues with Combat where addressed. Quest-lines are shorter, but generally slightly better crafted: still poor when compared with, say, Bioware, but better than Oblivion (mostly; Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood was far better than Skyrim's). Love them or hate them, everyone surely must agree that Dragons are better than Oblivion Gates. ALL Bethesda games are buggy messes, but my experience with Skyrim is far better than any other Bethesda game. In fact, better than many non-Bethesda games I have played recently, which is saying something!

 

I fully expect in a year or two, modders will have created the technology to push Skyrim well past Oblivion. Skyrim today does not compare to heavily-modded Oblivion, but give it time ;)

[shotgun188]

What you heard was mostly hype. I don't consider Skyrim to be GOTY material because it's the buggiest game ever released by Bethesda -- probably one of the most fragile games ever released for public consumption by any developer, in fact. There are so many ways to break quests, and even the game, itself, that you pretty much have to play it with wiki in-hand, and consult the Notes and Bugs sections for any place you go before you go there. My relationship with it is truly a love-hate relationship. It has so much promise, but falls flat on so many points. It's going to take the modding community a long time to fix this badly-broken game, but it will happen and when it does it will be worth playing 24/7.

 

It's less challenging, exciting, creative and innovative than Oblivion. Much of it is eye-candy, which the hype has focused upon to hide the obvious downsides. It's simplistic, compared to Oblivion. Pathetically so, compared to Morrowind. This is the direction the franchise is going, and does not bode well for the next installment of the series. With every new release in the ES series Bethesda removes features from the game. Would you believe there's no "Cure Disease" spell in Skyrim, even though it's part of the game-system, itself? You can't fight slaughterfish underwater, even though you could in Oblivion. Sure we have dragons, but they really aren't the fearsome creatures they should be. They took out most of the daedra, including my favorite (scamps). You can't create your own spells (although two of your fellow students at the College of Winterhold are working on custom spells. Most of the primary quests are buggy and seem uninspired and even unfinished. The list goes on and on, so I won't bore you with more.

 

On the flip side, the terrain is beautiful, if a little shoddily built in places (floating rocks and trees, "cracks" in the terrain that show through to the "void" outside the gameworld, etc.), but you can overlook those because the developers did a much better job this time around in making things look realistic. Caves and dungeons are no longer the same-same deja vu experiences we had in Oblivion, for instance. The weather is more realistic. When you pick flowers for ingredients the plant changes to reflect this. The addition of crafting, while not entirely well thought-through, is welcome, and I think that in many ways the custom enchanting is an improvement from Oblivion. We finally have dual-wielding of weapons (and even spells). I think the perks concept could have been done better, but this is a fresh diversion from the way we structured our characters in Oblivion. Gone are the ideas of character class (and I really applaud Bethesda for that decision). Our character now becomes what we play him as. If you do thiefy stuff you become a better thief. If you use your bow a lot, you become a better archer. The player's character seems much more like a real person because of this approach.

 

Skyrim is a mixed bag, to be sure, but since I got it I haven't played much of anything else, save for a few short interludes to revisit Half-Life 2 and Borderlands. As much as I complain about Skyrim, I think this speaks for itself. I keep going back and generally play it for at least three hours every day (I'm retired, so I can afford to play it all day if I want to).

Your comments on bugs is simply not true. You are way over exaggerating. After the patches, the game has very few game-breaking glitches. I have personally never experienced a glitch that was more than just a "lulz" glitch(like an animation glitch after I jumped off a hill that killed my horse but not me, the glitch fixed itself after 20 seconds) except for in one quest and that was on an unpatched PS3 version. Skyrim is way less buggy than Oblivion and there's even an unofficial patch to fix the few rare bugs that Bethesda have missed. Again, I've only experienced one glitch that broke even a single quest once and that was way back before the first patch. I also think I broke it by doing the quest wrong and stuff like that.

 

Skyrim's gameplay is so much better than Oblivion's in almost every way. The landscape does look dull but it is the the province of "Skyrim" after all and it is way less dull than Fallout 3 and NV so you'll be fine. The Companions questline is worse than the Fighters Guild by a million miles but besides that, the factions are pretty good(but a bit short).

Edited April 14, 2012 by shotgun188

[yota71]

Well i play TES game since the beginning (Elder Scrolls: Arena) and i am a true Fan of Bathesda product (i have all games) on me skyrim is one of the best, in confront Oblivion is truly boring (i have played it just twice, finished once), in time much of the bug are repaired (in 1.5.26) ane even in the first version i have found just few little bug :)

 

Higly raccomanded ;)