What Did Skyrim Do Right?

[Enatiomorph]

...You can tell the game was rushed by all of the cut content, and their PR.

[Bjornheim]

Things I think is great with Skyrim

It's a big world

lots of sites that you may have yet to discover since the release or since you started the game, I just discovered Voluundral today! (a hidden draugr special crypt with a magic quest)

good atsmosphere

good soundtrack and sounds, good story kind of meh but still pretty awesome at the awesome parts.

Characters look better than previous TES games (Mods improve it even more)

 

Negative things

4gb ram restriction - anything beyond that and the save file/game starts to mess up and may result in corrupt save, seriously bethesda its 2012, you came out with skyrim 2011, that means you started working on it mayby 2008? In 2008 we had the technology to fix that s***, and we still haven't fixt or improved.

High chance of corrupt files

Not so mod friendly script wise , can easily mess up your save

Changeing things with console mods can change more than the one thing you want to change (timescale can affect npcs and quests, which is terrible, unless timescale is set to default (20) )

Not so interstring combat system, for a wide melee fighting game, with many weapons, there are realy few animations for each weapon, You would think that mayby your character would get more and more steady with a sword as his sword skill increases, meaning smoother moves when fighting with swords, not the same you have had since lvl1

The CTD crash that is so ever related to bethesda games...

 

 

Overall, Skyrim was a little rusht, and was hella lot bugged at the start.

But thankfully, many mods makes many things forgiving, graphic mods for example

Edited November 9, 2012 by Bjornheim

[Riprock]

All that unfinished content in the CK means is that there's unfinished content in the CK. That's the only thing the facts tell you- that it's there. People want to see it as something bad, and that's all they will look at

[JanusForbeare]

All that unfinished content in the CK means is that there's unfinished content in the CK. That's the only thing the facts tell you- that it's there. People want to see it as something bad, and that's all they will look at

 

My post was in response to someone who said that the game wasn't rushed. I cited the unfinished questlines (among other notable problems, such as the half-hearted port) as evidence that it was rushed. The question wasn't whether these cuts were good choices or bad ones - obviously that's going to be a matter of opinion. However, when considered alongside the abominable, mouse-unfriendly vanilla interface (not to mention the emphasis put on 11/11/11 long before the game was released) the unfinished content strongly suggests that Beth ran out of time to fully develop the game.

[slainia]

All that unfinished content in the CK means is that there's unfinished content in the CK. That's the only thing the facts tell you- that it's there. People want to see it as something bad, and that's all they will look at

 

My post was in response to someone who said that the game wasn't rushed. I cited the unfinished questlines (among other notable problems, such as the half-hearted port) as evidence that it was rushed. The question wasn't whether these cuts were good choices or bad ones - obviously that's going to be a matter of opinion. However, when considered alongside the abominable, mouse-unfriendly vanilla interface (not to mention the emphasis put on 11/11/11 long before the game was released) the unfinished content strongly suggests that Beth ran out of time to fully develop the game.

 

 

well said. I honestly don't get the appeal to the release date, either - sure, it's catchy, but the date itself seemed kind of tacky. a lot of game companies have been going the gimmick route lately though, so i guess l can't be too surprised. at least bethesda puts some fairly decent depth in theirs.

One thing that l've definitely noticed with the game - this is something someone else said, but l was thinking about it last night.

 

For being a game, Skyrim has made me think about racism more in depth than anything else has managed. maybe that says something bad about me, but the moral overtones to the game - even when l don't like the options of a specific quest - are quite well done. it makes you think and question things. in todays society, anything that makes us do that is well needed imo.

[JanusForbeare]

For being a game, Skyrim has made me think about racism more in depth than anything else has managed. maybe that says something bad about me, but the moral overtones to the game - even when l don't like the options of a specific quest - are quite well done. it makes you think and question things. in todays society, anything that makes us do that is well needed imo.

 

That's a good point, and is something that I like about the game (and the entire TES series, to be honest) as well. Very little is black and white - the sources of conflict hit much closer to home than your typical dungeon-crawling RPG. I find myself identifying with certain groups and the situations they face: the Khajiit and Argonians facing revulsion and prejudice in the cities, the Imperials struggling to preserve a declining empire, the Dunmer being expelled from their homeland... these are situations that seem very human to me.

 

Even the philosophy of the Thalmor can be understood on a certain level: their civilization once ruled Tamriel, and gave it art, science, magic, and culture, until they were displaced by humanity and relegated to the humiliating position of being an Imperial province. Now they find themselves once again ascending to a position of power, and see an opportunity to reclaim their place at the (figurative) centre of the world. To use a real-world parallel, it's not so different from the perspective of certain Chinese nationalist politicians*.

 

Whatever technical and/or PR failings Bethesda may be guilty of, I have to give them credit for crafting a deep and compelling world and story. More than any other aspect of their games, it's the complexity of the writing that keeps me coming back.

 

*This is, of course, coming from a Western perspective, and is not a perfect metaphor - I certainly mean no disrespect to anyone, Chinese or otherwise, who might disagree with me. My point of view on this subject is largely based on Henry Kissinger's recent book, On China, as well as my own observations of Chinese foreign and domestic policy.

[slainia]

Pretty much the only character l really can't empathize with is Nazeem. I think they did that on purpose, actually. o.O

Although, something that really does impact my immersion in the game - and my ability to again empathize with the npcs - is the over-use of certain voice actors. I'd really - at this point - much rather have the dialogue text-only after hearing the same snotty voice so many times. (I swear it's the voice by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Picardo (of start trek voyager), but it doesn't say anything about skryim.)

 

back on point though, in a society that places so much emphasis on instant gratification & mindless violence, anything that makes it's audience think & question the game, or even better themselves/their values is much needed.

 

There are so many areas that make me cringe, just because they echo real life so well. Not in the literal direct copy sense, but in the way they highlight the faults of being human & a major cluster F*** of personalities & values gathered together and manage to do so without shoving it down our throats.

 

honestly, l don't think it would work out so well if the parallels were more obvious, either. With the way they have set up & played right now, everything has *just* enough of a video-game/fantasy sheen to it that we're left to draw our own conclusions & figure out how it relates to the real world as our perceptions change.

 

 

heh. sorry for the wall of text. (though it's actually one of my smaller w.o.t's. lol.)

 

l meant to add - one reason l've never gotten past the battle for whiterun quest:

l can't stand the thought of helping the guys who were gonna chop my head off w/o any form of trial, but helping the guys who treat the dunmer/argonians so badly just makes me cringe. l can't stand either side :O

Edited November 10, 2012 by slainia

[nakakita]

Even as scaled back as it was, I think the Civil War was better than the 'Main Quest'. One of my friends actually thought it was the main quest (and has never actually gotten farther in the actual main quest than Ustengrav...) If one of your side quests is a lot better than your main quest.. then you need to find something to make your main quest better. This goes for the cut royalty questline from Oblivion. As I have not, and cannot play through it, I cannot determine if it was better or not, but if it really was more compelling than Oblivion's main quest.. then why cut it out, instead of keeping it, and trying to make the main quest as compelling? As it stands, the Civil War is about as interesting to complete as the Arena questline in Oblivion. But if I'm not mistaken, that's another area that got seriously cut back.

 

More drama isn't really the answer. Skyrim's opening is wonderfully dramatic. Which is exactly why I have been avoiding it, and using Alternate Starts. It is literally screaming at you, "I am so Dramatic! LOOK AT ME!" and, as a result, it looses it's impact after the 2nd or 3rd time. I wasn't too interested in Oblivion's opening either. It also, is just a tad overly dramatic (though not as bad as Skyrim's). Morrowind's opening for some reason though makes me shiver each time I see it. (As I'm indecisive about character builds, this has been frequent.) But it's really so much less dramatic than the other two. You are anticipating freedom, not death. You don't "meet" anyone important in your first few minutes. You're just thrown out into the world without much guidance. Even if you do follow your first objective, and get to it right away, they encourage you to do other things. Saving the world can wait. At least until the Hero has a bit more experience.

 

I still feel bad about not being able to identify at all with the Stormcloaks. I'm not sure what it is, but even if I attempt to ignore the racism, I can't make myself do it. I do rather envy them though. They know their history, their culture, their ancestors... they have a homeland (well, they think it's their homeland even if it's someone else's that they conquered) that they believe is worth fighting for. I've never really achieved either of these. I know a lot about one side of my family, next to nothing about the other, and I have always felt completely disconnected from my country. Would I fight for it? ... probably not. As long as there was somewhere else to run to anyway. I guess this makes me a terrible person. :facepalm:

 

As for other things they did right, I like that they at least tried to make the races a bit more balanced. Morrowind Nords are horribly overpowered (100% frost, and 50% shock resistance? seriously?), while in Oblivion and Morrowind, Altmer were seriously disadvantaged (25% weakness to each element in Oblivion, an additional 25% weakness to fire in Morrowind..) Sadly this makes different races feel a bit 'samey', but at least they tried. I also appreciate how they tried to make the human races look different from each other. Sadly, I still get some bretons, imperials, and nords confused. My swapping the breton female normal map out for the female nord one to get rid of the weird permanent wrinkles bretons have on their foreheads probably didn't help much here. But that's my fault not Bethesda's. In Oblivion and Morrowind I generally tell races apart by voice if their names don't give me a clue already. They had the right idea with adding more voice actors for Skyrim.. but I do wish they had kept them somewhat more race-specific. Revyn Sadri and Nazeem have nothing in common, and shouldn't sound exactly the same. (Just for fun, try marrying Sadri sometime. You will know exactly how Nazeem's wife feels after this, and probably never do it again.) There are a few exceptions.. Ralof's voice set while overused isn't present in non-nords, and Ondelomar's voiceset is only present in male Altmer for example. There should have been more of this though. And I'm still rather sad that my favorite non-unique voice sets do not have any marriageable candidates associated with them. Then again, their lines might have been as bad as Sadri's.

[luzburg]

It has nothing to do with rushing the game, it has to do with simple good game design.

 

OR bad game design. The civil war was terrible and most of the other guild quests were too.

[slainia]

i actually sorta find the civil war quest faintly boring, but l'm more of an exploration type player.

l also tend to restart characters Wayyyy too often, to the extent that l start to dislike the game.

As per the voice acting - i think they kind of failed at it.

 

Sure, the quality is better, but whoever came up with the idea that having every character in a game using voice acting... they either need to provide the company with millions to pay for all the voice actors in the first place, or be fired.

 

The way bethesda handled it, it's turned into more of a gimmick/talking point than anything else.

Why should l buy the game? it's got this newfangled voice acting! tha'ts sure to be awesome!

 

Then of course you get in game, and here the same damn voices from 30 different npcs, *with the same freakin accents!* And often multiple npcs in the same town use the same actor, so it's like you're hearing echoes.

Did the actors even TRY to give the lines individuality?

l know a lot of stuff is stock data, read once and used over and over, but not all of it is. Frankly, for me voice acting is a step backwards because it's so overused.