Anybody else get into oblivion more than skyrim?

[Shadeling]

I see Skyim as a step down mainly because it was stripped and is loosing its heritage due to being made for the more casual gamer, it has less guild quests and seems less immersive then Oblivion..

 

This is exactly how I felt about Oblivion after playing Morrowind for years, it felt like a HUGE step backwards for a roleplaying game and I laid at the feet of console gaming, and Bethesda dumbing down so many roleplaying features to attract the more casual console player. Oblivion played like an action adventure with rpg elements much moreso than a traditional roleplaying game.

 

Do you honestly think that Bethesda should create games for a niche group of people when they're selling way more copies to everyone?

 

That's assuming it wouldn't sell well, we really don't know if it would or not because Bethesda found it necessary to remove traditional Elderscrolls elements in the hopes it would attract the more casual console gamer. If memory serves, Morrowind sold very well so why wouldn't it be reasonable to think that future Elderscrolls games would as well if it remained a more traditional roleplaying series?

 

For one thing the dungeons in Oblivion were more perplexing... Skyrim's dungeons are average at best.

Some of those Aylid (spelling) in Oblivion were mind bendingly hard to navigate correctly... It was great, now its basic dungeons with an instant way out once you reach the end.

*crapola*

 

I haven't played enough to agree or disagree, but I have heard more than once people criticize Oblivion for only having like 3 dungeon designs. Is this false then?

 

No, that's true about Oblivion, there wasn't much variety in the vanilla game.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Shadeling

[Stemin]

That's assuming it wouldn't sell well, we really don't know if it would or not because Bethesda found it necessary to remove traditional Elderscrolls elements in the hopes it would attract the more casual console gamer. If memory serves, Morrowind sold very well so why wouldn't it be reasonable to think that future Elderscrolls games would as well if it remained a more traditional roleplaying series?

 

I don't know. I'm not the one assuming it was dumbed down for the "casual console gamer." You're arguing Morrowind sold well, but Morrowind was also the game that broke Bethesda onto the console scene.

 

No, that's true about Oblivion, there wasn't much variety in the vanilla game.

 

Ok... so what does that say about his argument?

[vertex23]

I would need all my mods (well over 150+ gameplay changes) in order to get into Oblivion. Skyrim is a pretty decent game, but just like Oblivion, it needs mods to make it what it should have been. I like Skyrim, but I really want to wait for all the massive game overhauls to come out (something like OOO, or FWE for fallout) before I can really say that Skyrim was a great game.

 

Some parts of Skyrim were spot on, but others always leave me wondering what the developers were thinking. Some examples are the NPCs and the way they act. Oblivion was pretty terrible, but Skyrim didn't even attempt to raise the bar. They still just stand around not doing anything for hours on end. Some of the scripts are terrible as well. Just like Oblivion, the lack of options when talking to them really drives me away from the game. I'm hoping a Choices and Consequences mod comes out soon....Another thing that irks me is that voice acting. Bethesda said they hired a lot more voice actors, but they failed to say they bloated the number with daedric gods and highly important quest npcs. You're still stuck listening to the same 7 some odd voice actors!!!

 

The things they got right however, was the removal of the classes. I know a lot of people hated that, but I can't see how. The only difference between Oblivion and Skyrim was you picked the skills you wanted to level up in the very beginning instead of as you played. However, Bethesda failed to balance how the skills progressed, and once again the modders had to come and fix it.

 

Skyrim isn't better than Oblivion because to be honest, both games kinda suck and left a lot of areas to be desired. I find (and found) it hard to get into both games without the modding community coming to my rescue. Thank you, modders. You do this series a great justice.

[Shadeling]

That's assuming it wouldn't sell well, we really don't know if it would or not because Bethesda found it necessary to remove traditional Elderscrolls elements in the hopes it would attract the more casual console gamer. If memory serves, Morrowind sold very well so why wouldn't it be reasonable to think that future Elderscrolls games would as well if it remained a more traditional roleplaying series?

 

I don't know. I'm not the one assuming it was dumbed down for the "casual console gamer." You're arguing Morrowind sold well, but Morrowind was also the game that broke Bethesda onto the console scene.

 

Do you honestly think that Bethesda should create games for a niche group of people when they're selling way more copies to everyone? <-- that isn't hinting at an assumption on your part? That by keeping the traditional Elderscrolls rpg elements, future games wouldn't sell to 'everyone'?

 

..Another thing that irks me is that voice acting. Bethesda said they hired a lot more voice actors, but they failed to say they bloated the number with daedric gods and highly important quest npcs. You're still stuck listening to the same 7 some odd voice actors!!!

 

Bethesda insists on continuing to hire headline actors for their games. Just think of how much more studio time, extra actors and dialogue the games would have if they stopped hiring the likes of Christopher Plummer and Joan Allen. As much as I enjoy seeing them on film, I couldn't care less if they voiced a character or not, it has no bearing on whether or not I buy the game. I'd love to know if their names on the box covers really draws new players or if its truly unnecessary bloat to their development budget, which I suspect.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Shadeling

[Stemin]

Do you honestly think that Bethesda should create games for a niche group of people when they're selling way more copies to everyone?  <-- that isn't hinting at an assumption on your part? That by keeping the traditional Elderscrolls rpg elements, future games wouldn't sell to 'everyone'?

 

Uhm. That comment was a direct response to your assertion that taking away the "rpg elements" was "Bethesda dumbing down so many roleplaying features to attract the more casual console player." So no, no assumptions were made.

 

If you are asserting that taking away rpg elements was done to drive in the common/casual gamer, then the opposite would be a niche crowd.

[Shadeling]

Do you honestly think that Bethesda should create games for a niche group of people when they're selling way more copies to everyone?  <-- that isn't hinting at an assumption on your part? That by keeping the traditional Elderscrolls rpg elements, future games wouldn't sell to 'everyone'?

 

Uhm. That comment was a direct response to your assertion that taking away the "rpg elements" was "Bethesda dumbing down so many roleplaying features to attract the more casual console player." So no, no assumptions were made.

 

If you are asserting that taking away rpg elements was done to drive in the common/casual gamer, then the opposite would be a niche crowd.

 

It sure sounds to me like you're making the assumption that Bethesda is making more money now than they would have otherwise. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. ;)

[Stemin]

 

It sure sounds to me like you're making the assumption that Bethesda is making more money now than they would have otherwise. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. ;)

 

No, it's called playing devil's advocate.

[Shadeling]

 

It sure sounds to me like you're making the assumption that Bethesda is making more money now than they would have otherwise. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. ;)

 

No, it's called playing devil's advocate.

 

Whatever.

[tjobbins]

Well, for me, I put about 2000 hours into vanilla Oblivion before I got tired of it, and then an extra 500 when I finally got OB for the PC (I was still playing Xbox back then) and thus had mods. Then for Morrowind I put close to 3000 before I got tired of vanilla (and yet still didn't do absolutely everything, even to this day) and modded combined.

 

Oh my god, that is incredible! At first I was going to double check you'd not typo'd an extra zero on there, but am sure you've not three times! 2000 hours is the usual rough estimate for the number of working hours in a year for a full time employee :biggrin:

 

I have to ask, how did that break down? What did you spend most of all that time actually doing?

 

I can certainly imagine a few hundred hours. I've played Skyrim for 150 hours so far, and I'm not that far through the questlines. I've only been to Markath once, and haven't been to Dawnstar at all. On the main questline I have one quest left in Act 1 still; I'm Arch-Mage at the college, and I'm about half way through with the Thieves Guild and the Civil War (on the Stormcloak side.) And that's all the quests I've done. I don't know what that is in % terms, but I'm guessing no more than a third, especially as I've done well under a third in side/mini-quests. (In fact now I look at the Quests summary on the Elder Scrolls Wikia, I'm wondering if it's more like a mere 15-20% I've done so far. That's crazy, now I'm asking myself what I actually do for hundreds of hours :) )

 

Skyrim is my first TES game and now I've realised how much there is to do, I'm blown away. There's enough different kinds of content to keep me going continously for very long periods, and each content type has goals I want to achieve and projects I want to complete. I might spend a few hours hunting mammoths to fill my grand soul gems - diverting here and there to check out some new hut I just saw on the radar, or to find another giant/mammoth camp between respawns of existing ones - so that I can build up enough to enchant a whole set of new, better smithing gear, so that I can forge and improve a new set of slightly better weapons, which I then need to enchant as well (more soul gems). In doing all that I collect a whole bunch of new loot, some of which I can sell immediately, and others that I first want to improve and then enchant (more souls gems, more mammoth trips.) Then I go on a big sales trip, hawking all my gear around at the best possible prices - perhaps stopping off at my quarters in the College of Winterhold to brew a new batch of Fortify Barter potions, plus some high value potions to sell; but perhaps before I do that I want to make some better alchemy gear, oops out of soul gems best go mammoth hunting and/or buy some! When I'm finally done with all that - or just bored of it for now - I might actually do a couple of quests and put my new gear to good use. Or I might just wander the wilderness, discovering new places to clear and the odd mini side-quest to investigate. When I'm really tired or just want to relax, I might sit and read some books, or take a Scenic Carriages ride. And then if I finally do decide to shut down the game, there's hundreds of mods to read about and consider, and then trying them out and getting yet more new content or another mechanic to consider.

 

So maybe I've answered my own question about how you played 2000-3000 hours on the earlier games! :) By doing those sort of things I suppose, and starting many new games with different characters/styles/approaches.

 

But the question still stands, in terms of how that time broke down, because now I'm curious to know what you feel is lacking from Skyrim that means you won't spend that time in Skyrim where you did in earlier games?

 

 

It also helps if you've never done it before to do a hardcore, iron-man playthrough, which is what I've been doing with my characters now that mods like Frostfall and Imp's MC Needs are out. Get really invested in your character and put them in a world where they'll very easily die and make it so that if you do die you can't reload and start over. You die, you die. Its total fun.

 

This is definitely something I want to do. When playing a game I'm really into, I like to imagine all the ways I'd make it better, or perfect, if I were heading the project and if I had unlimited budget/time. I've always thought it'd be awesome to have an RPG with an "ultra realistic" setting with the option to disable or limit save-reload cycles and then realistic modelling of life and death. You would play so differently.So I was excited to see all the "Realistic Needs" type mods for Skyrim, which can implement most of this.

 

At the same time, or maybe separately, I want to play a similar scenario: realistic followers. So I'd play with UFO mod set-up so that followers can die, and also using a realistic carry-weight mod. So you have to take care of your followers else once dead, they're gone forever, likely along with lots of expensive gear (or give them crap gear, but then they'll be more vulnerable. Trade-offs/decisions like this are the makings of a great challenge :) )

 

So if a follower died, I wouldn't reload, and although I could go recruit another one (or would already have others with me, using UFO's follower-limit increase), I'd want to take care of them. Actually that scenario would be even cooler combined with mods that makes the followers more unique and individual and useful, beyond being another sword and another pair of hands. For example, one or two followers who heal you; one who is super strong and can carry loads of loot; one who can turn undead up to a very high level (but sucks against the living.) And so on. So that there'd be a reason to care about an individual follower rather than any one of them being dispensable and replaceable. And so that really tough challenges could be solved by the right combination of NPCs and their skills. The more I think about it, the cooler that sounds actually - proper tactical battles, strategised by picking the right set of followers for the task! Definitely a great idea for a mod I reckon.

Edited June 5, 2012 by tjobbins

[Imaginator]

I felt that I got into oblivion way more than i did skyrim. Don't get me wrong skyrim is a great game but i don't think anything could beat oblivion. Opinions?

 

One of the biggest let downs for me in Skyrim that made Oblivion great was the cities. There is so much you can do in the imperial city; several quests, the arena, and lots of shops. In skyrim, there are very few quests that involve staying in a single city, other than maybe the Forsworn in Markarth.