A short treatise on open worlds: Or, one of the few ways Skyrim fails

[BloatedGuppy]

The brand new engine it got for Skyrim is too old?

Honestly? Yeah. There's way too much Gamebryo in Creation for me to consider it some kind of state of the art engine.

 

[Glongpre]

Really? This far and nobody has mentioned the towns in Daggerfall? Sure, they're kind of empty[footnote]or rather, generic -- there's something in every last one of the buildings, and NPCs all over the place. It even has a rudimentary schedule system, in that shops will close at a given time and most people will leave the streets. Basically every new feature that wasn't a total replacement for another one (like the changes to the combat system) in all the games since have been features that were either already in Daggerfall and dropped for later games, or planned for Daggerfall but dropped because computers at the time couldn't handle it.[/footnote], but they're also absolutely massive. There are randomly generated towns in that game that are bigger than the capital cities in any of the games since, and what's amazing is they're all fully integrated into the game world, they're not instanced the way they are in Oblivion and, unless I'm wrong (never played it), Skyrim. The hand crafted, storyline cities? They're friggin' huge. You could probably fit all of Oblivion's map in the city of Daggerfall alone.

I played Daggerfall recently, and it is kinda boring. I liked all the skills and stuff but the world was so lifeless and boring. It was pretty awesome at first to see the scale but I would just fast travel everywhere. The dungeons were boring and really hard to navigate even when using the right wall trick. There was just so much filler. The towns were meh, having to run for 5 mins to get to a guild after every quest killed me. It didn't help that all the quests were the same.
I would rather have Oblivion's towns or Skyrim's, they had more personality. Quantity does not equal quality.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Really? This far and nobody has mentioned the towns in Daggerfall? Sure, they're kind of empty[footnote]or rather, generic -- there's something in every last one of the buildings, and NPCs all over the place. It even has a rudimentary schedule system, in that shops will close at a given time and most people will leave the streets. Basically every new feature that wasn't a total replacement for another one (like the changes to the combat system) in all the games since have been features that were either already in Daggerfall and dropped for later games, or planned for Daggerfall but dropped because computers at the time couldn't handle it.[/footnote], but they're also absolutely massive. There are randomly generated towns in that game that are bigger than the capital cities in any of the games since, and what's amazing is they're all fully integrated into the game world, they're not instanced the way they are in Oblivion and, unless I'm wrong (never played it), Skyrim. The hand crafted, storyline cities? They're friggin' huge. You could probably fit all of Oblivion's map in the city of Daggerfall alone.

I played Daggerfall recently, and it is kinda boring. I liked all the skills and stuff but the world was so lifeless and boring. It was pretty awesome at first to see the scale but I would just fast travel everywhere. The dungeons were boring and really hard to navigate even when using the right wall trick. There was just so much filler. The towns were meh, having to run for 5 mins to get to a guild after every quest killed me. It didn't help that all the quests were the same.
I would rather have Oblivion's towns or Skyrim's, they had more personality. Quantity does not equal quality.

A lot of that comes down the the technical limitations of the time, though -- it came out in 1996. Besides, a lot of the discussion was around sheer size, and it was just weird that nobody had even mentioned Daggerfall. It's also still a pretty good game, it's just more of a dungeon crawler than its sequels were. I'd take it over Oblivion, but probably not Morrowind.

 

[Requia]

The brand new engine it got for Skyrim is too old?

Honestly? Yeah. There's way too much Gamebryo in Creation for me to consider it some kind of state of the art engine.

There's none at all. If Bethesda had included a single line of gamebryo code there'd have been a massive lawsuit by now.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

There's none at all. If Bethesda had included a single line of gamebryo code there'd have been a massive lawsuit by now.

http://peter.corrosivetruths.org/2011/12/21/is-skyrims-creation-just-gamebryo/

Or if you prefer, from a Fallout Wiki...

Creation engine

The Creation Engine is an improved version of the Gamebryo engine, developed by Bethesda Softworks.

The Creation engine was developed for Skyrim basing on the Gamebryo iteration used for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. It features improved physics, a more powerful and effective renderer, scalable level of detail for distant landscapes, particle effect and other improvements. It retains exactly the same file architecture of the original Gamebryo and NetImmerse engines, as well as the cell-based gameworld (interiors are loaded separately from the outdoors).

I dunno what to tell you. It's as plain as day there are elements of the previous Gamebyro titles in the Creation engine. Skyrim is a lovely game and I like it a lot, but that doesn't mean certain elements of their engine aren't long overdue for an update. It's possible they can achieve this by iterating on Creation, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Requia]

There's none at all. If Bethesda had included a single line of gamebryo code there'd have been a massive lawsuit by now.

http://peter.corrosivetruths.org/2011/12/21/is-skyrims-creation-just-gamebryo/

Or if you prefer, from a Fallout Wiki...

Creation engine

The Creation Engine is an improved version of the Gamebryo engine, developed by Bethesda Softworks.

The Creation engine was developed for Skyrim basing on the Gamebryo iteration used for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. It features improved physics, a more powerful and effective renderer, scalable level of detail for distant landscapes, particle effect and other improvements. It retains exactly the same file architecture of the original Gamebryo and NetImmerse engines, as well as the cell-based gameworld (interiors are loaded separately from the outdoors).

I dunno what to tell you. It's as plain as day there are elements of the previous Gamebyro titles in the Creation engine. Skyrim is a lovely game and I like it a lot, but that doesn't mean certain elements of their engine aren't long overdue for an update. It's possible they can achieve this by iterating on Creation, but I'm not holding my breath.

The *only* evidence your source cites is that the word 'gamebryo' appears in files, with no knowledge of what the word actually refers to in code. And you are ignoring that Gamebryo's owners would have sued the crap out of Bethesda

Nor do you seem to have any idea of what 'gamebryo elements' are. Bethesda's own code has little to do with what people think of as Bethesda's Gamebryo games. Compare it to other gamebryo games like Civilization IV.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Nor do you seem to have any idea of what 'gamebryo elements' are. Bethesda's own code has little to do with what people think of as Bethesda's Gamebryo games. Compare it to other gamebryo games like Civilization IV.

I'm fully aware that Gamebryo is a flexible engine that has been used in a multitude of games. Indeed, at times it seemed like the only engines anyone was using for anything were Gamebryo, Unreal and Source. The fact remains that Bethesda's "Creation Engine" plays and handles almost identically to its 100% Gamebryo forerunner. You are aware, of course, that when the Creation engine was made, they set out to "change a few things" in their existing code and ended up "changing more than they expected", indicating Gamebryo was the base from the beginning. I'm aware that this is more a question of how Bethesda USES the engine than the limitations of the engine itself, but that's just semantics. We're discussing about the application of it in Elder Scrolls games, not discussing the engine itself.

Ostensibly from DeadEndThrills:

Anyone who's tinkered with one of these Gamebryo-powered RPGs before will recognize the engine almost immediately in Skyrim. Why the Wikipedia entry still claims that the Creation Engine is "entirely new" is beyond me, 'cause it ain't. There is, however, an entirely new layer of bells and whistles that sits on top (or thereabouts) of the old Oblivion and Fallout 3 tech. Shaders and shadows are the most obvious, and there?s no denying the difference they make.

Long discussion on the topic, with much flaming on either side.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2220502.html

As the people in THAT forum were unable to come to a conclusion and eventually started calling one another names, I suggest we agree to disagree at this point.

 

[SajuukKhar]

--More variation within the pattern decreases repetition. Cave, camp, mine, ruin, cave, camp, mine, ruin is more repetitious than Cave, camp, mine, ruin, hut, giant camp, grove, animal den.
--That's one of biggest complaints people have with Skyrim. Once you have been through a few caves they all start to feel the same. Putting space and content that is more varied between the caves cuts down on that feeling.
--Did I say that? No, I didn't say that. There is a guy in Whiterun who's only job in the game is to chop wood. He doesn't give any quests. He doesn't give any useful information. He is pure background fluff. Giving him dialog and a daily routine is a complete waste of developer time because the vast majority of people will barely recognize that he exists. Giving the Jarl of Whiterun dialog, a background and a daily routine is perfectly acceptable.
--Wrong. Take those books for example. With procedural generation, a simple code could stop those 3rd era books from spawning in any Drauger dungeon. The fact that they show up there now is because someone put them there when hand crafting the dungeon.
--Minecraft's world is more repeating because the game is only 60mb. If it took up nearly 6gb like Skyrim does, you would probably never run into the same thing twice.
--If I go into my kitchen and look at the knives I have in there I see a lot of variation. Some have wooden handles, some have plastic. Some are serrated, some are straight edged. Some are older than others, some are duller than others. Some are large, some are small. Not every knife is created equally.
--And why can't an iron dagger be better than a dagger made by elves? Is an elven blacksmith who just started an apprenticeship better than a human blacksmith who has been honing his craft for over 50 years? Just because one dagger is made with moonstone doesn't mean it's quality automatically surpasses all daggers made with iron.
--Skyrim does not do this. If I go into a cave, kill the bandits inside and look at their character models, then start a new game, do the same thing and compare the character models the my other game, they will be the same. In Left 4 Dead, if I kill a zombie in a red shirt, then start a new game and go back to that same spot, there's a very good chance that the zombie with the red shirt won't be there.
--Again, proper coding can prevent things from showing up where they logically shouldn't. But if I make my way through some Dwemer ruins destroying all of the contraptions inside and have to leave some loot behind because it weighs too much, it wouldn't make much sense if I returned to find all of the contraptions working again. It wouldn't make sense to kill all of the bandits in a cave only to return later to find more bandits that look like, act like and have the same equipment as the bandits I killed before.
--So it doesn't make sense that the forsworn would, having stolen something, hide in a cave from any possible pursuers?
--Try, "more for the sake of greater variation." In any game, whether it's done in enemy design, items, locations, whatever; more variation equals more possibilities. More possibilities equals more fun. Less variation equals more repetition, more repetition equals boredom.

--Problem with that is, all possible dungeon types, that should logically be there, are already used within a given area. Random content would not increase variation in the patterns, it would only increase repetition.
--Putting in dead space does literally nothing to combat that, and again, randomly made content can only make dungeons feel more samey by more constant re-use of dungeon interior areas over and over again. So that would only make the problem worse.
--Actually, he does serve a purpose, if Belethor gets killed, that guy, who is his apprentice, takes over his job, and offers the services Belethor did.
--You are aware that loot inside dungeons is placed by a random loot system and not by the dev? Things like books on shelves in dungeons are randomly chosen each time you start the game by the loot generator, the work on the same system that chests do.
--You would run into the same thing multiple times because unlike minecraft, which just spews its world, a randomly generated area of Tamriel would be equally repetitious, even if it was 6 gigs large, because local areas within a game, and the places in those areas would logically be similar to each other.
--No, but every 9 inch stainless steel knife with a wooden grip is made the same. Your analogy is off because you are comparing multiple types of knifes, against one type of iron dagger.
--Elven material is better then iron, just like daedric material is better then ebony. a ebony dagger will always be better then a iron one, and an elven one wil be better then an iron one as well, because of the material used.
--well you are provably wrong. Its mentioned not only on the wiki, but even minor observation will show its false. Draugr are the easiet ones to spot the errors, since due to the random generator of Skyrim, female draugr can have beards. And furthermore, yes you can start a new game and go into a cave and get different character models each time, literally, its incredibly easy to test.
--Actually it would since
1. Dwemer machines have been running constantly for over 4,000 years making new constructs, and those constructs can repair each other.
2. Bandits across Skyrim are roughly equally equipped, so them moving into a cave of a previously defeated bandit group would mean you should face enemies of the same type as before.
--Does it make sense the Forsworn would have hidden in a cave, when they have a camp not to far from the cave? No.
--Except, as proven already, it does NOT offer greater variation, it offers more repetition.

--Incorrect, I don't recall ever seeing jungle or desert in Skyrim. Or rolling hills or giant chasms in the ground. In fact the only way that Skyrim has more variety of world is in the settlements, and even then it's only in a few ways.
--I would debate whether it was "highly" criticised. But there's no doubt that collecting loot in Borderlands is much more exciting than doing so in Skyrim.
--In a very limited manner.
--In the lore the Draugr awaken in order to clean and maintain the tomb. They awake in shifts.
--No he's asking for more variety. Don't play willfully ignorant.
--But single player games should be incredibly easy to balance.
--No it's not, your calculation there would require the player to be in possession of a horse at the very start of the game. It would need to stay alive throughout the entirety of the game and be usable in towns and dungeons. You also have to take into account the decreased mobility, reduced combat capability while on a horse and the amount of time you spend watching animations, getting on and off the horse..............
--It's not the consumers fault if the developer designed the game in a way that makes part of the game boring and borderline pointless

--You must be terribly unobservant then, because, Whiterun is vast rolling plains, Morthal is a large swamp, Eastmarch is volcanic hotsprings, The Rift is a large forest of autumn trees, Falkreath is a large forest of a more typical nature, tall oak like trees that are green leaved, Winterhold is snowy and full of steep glaciers, The Pale is a valley with tall mountains on either side, so there is quite a bit of variation.
--There is plenty of doubt, getting loot in Borderlands is boring because 90% of all the guns are useless as crap, at least is Skyrim, due to its level scaling nature, there is a higher chance that most of what I find will be useful.
--It should only be in a limited manner, or else we end up with more silly things like female Draugr with beards! which Skyrim is prone to occasionally doing. One of the flaws of "random" anything. illogical spawn appearances.
--You forget that the Draugr's spirits dont reside in thier bodies until awakened. Killing their mortal bodies only causes them to "die" temporarily, until the mags that keep them "alive" recalls their souls from Sovengade back into their bodies, so that they might rise again. Killing them is only ever temporary.
--I am merely responding to his posts as he makes them.
--Actually, they should be harder to balance because, due to the nature of there not being other players to have to interact with, single player games can offer a larger variety of powers and strengths, which requires more effort to balance then a multiplayer game where everything is highly limited in scope.
--You can get a horse in whiterun less then 30 minutes after the game has started.
--Horses are dirt cheap to buy, meaning you should never be without a horse, also, shadowmere from the DB, and Advak from Dawnguard, both immortal horses.
--You dont have decreased mobility on a horse..... its actually faster.
--Horse combat. Also, you shouldn't need to fight anything while traveling between locations.
--which are about 1 second each.
--That's actually because most people have run always on, and dont ever walk in Skyrim, so the increase between player and hrose speds feel lower then it actually is.
--Well they aren't so, please try again.
-Well its not pointless, unless shaving off 19ish hours from your game is useless.

OT: I agree with OP. Although I think the boring travel is more of a symptom of a larger problem. A lack of atmosphere or depth. Like has been said previously in the thread, Serana is the only character in the whole game, with the slightest hint of personality. The towns feel static and unchanging, the choices boil down to evil or not, if it even gives you a choice. Important plot points that are vital to the lore are reduced to one or two (maximum) lines of dialogue that never gets mentioned again.
The developers need to play some of the Deus Ex series before they release the next installment.

--I do pray that your joking... Alduin, Tullius, Ulfric, Balgruuf, the Daedric lords, Parthuunax, Esbern, The Greybeards, Cicero..... all have quite a bit of personality.
--There are no evil choices in TES, only those that allow you to help forces of change, or deny them.
--That happens literally never in Skyrim. There is not a single lore important event that is just one or two lines of dialog.

 

[cojo965]

Well my problem is less relevant to what's being discussed here but it is still iffy. In Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, I had cleared out every enemy on the way to the final boss that I didn't know was as close as it was at the time, only to reach the boss room, that I now knew was the final boss room because recognized it from the trailer, I popped out to restock my curatives. When I got back from that, however, not only had everything I had fought through to get to that point respawned, but also the unpopulated lost city suddenly had a stupid high population of cursed Pawns and Strigoi vampires (even though there were only two of those but the fact they could fly made it very easy to be blindsided). Why the FUCK would you not make some kind of shortcut that allows the player to pop out for this very reason? Daimon is already hard, he doesn't need help from this. Dark Souls did this as well, but at least there wasn't too many enemies between you and the boss and even if there was, they were usually slow enough to run past them. Dark Arisen, meanwhile, not only throws very strong enemies at you in bulk, but makes it very hard to get past them without engaging them. This means that you will likely be back where you started by the time you get back to Daimon's room for the fight.

 

[Maeta]

I love walking around Skyrim: you get so much random shit it's amazing! I've been accosted by thieves and bandits numerous times (I tell the thieves I'm in the guild, then murder them anyway since it makes me laugh). I also find hunters, Khajit caravans, prisoner transports and stuff you can interact with. Then you've got these ghosts that shoot past you, occasionally on horseback, and I'm never quite sure of what I saw. Then, of course, there are the dragons as well. I also love seeing 2 random creatures or factions fighting each other. Or even unmarked locations, like where when I first played it, around level 10, and I stumbled across an altar with a skeleton on it, laid out with a full set of armour far superior to mine (I think it was orcish) and a glass greatsword with some cool enchant, and loads of gold, and skeletons of people who were no doubt attendants of this hero they had laid to rest. I love that none of this is explained, and so I can just try imagining it.

 

[mad825]

For starters, they could go back to making decent physical maps

Morrowind [http://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-gallery-display/gallery_files/mapmorrenormous.jpg] vs Skyrim [http://www.wallsave.com/wallpapers/1600x1200/skyrim/779367/skyrim-high-resolution-maps-gamingreality-779367.jpg][footnote]Both links contain large res pictures[/footnote]

Just by looking at the Morrowind map I can see places to go even though they aren't marked locations, I know that there are places I can explore by non-conventional means. There will be no HUD icons to help me, there' only the map.

 

[Dragonbums]

I mean, Skyrim has always been fun from going to point A to B.
And sometimes it was so great to do it, that I would often just go exploring with no goals in mind, and get giddy with excitement when I find a cave or an abandoned sentry post.

The only thing that disappointed me with Skyrim is that they fail to immerse the player when it came to character. It doesn't matter that you are a Khajiit. You are allowed to enter the towns and villages while all your other kin were left to simply sell on the outskirts of the walls.
It didn't matter if you were an elf.
None of the NPC's would so much as throw a slur at you outside of battle.

To me these things can add a great variety of experience and really change the way people can play in the game.
Do you start out as the privileged humans or elves?(dependent on region of course) who will have the upper hand in the game?
Or will you start off as a lowly "beast race" that has to use everything they've got and never take anything- no matter how small for granted?

 

[Furnacewhelp]

--Problem with that is, all possible dungeon types, that should logically be there, are already used within a given area. Random content would not increase variation in the patterns, it would only increase repetition.
--Putting in dead space does literally nothing to combat that, and again, randomly made content can only make dungeons feel more samey by more constant re-use of dungeon interior areas over and over again. So that would only make the problem worse.
--Actually, he does serve a purpose, if Belethor gets killed, that guy, who is his apprentice, takes over his job, and offers the services Belethor did.
--You are aware that loot inside dungeons is placed by a random loot system and not by the dev? Things like books on shelves in dungeons are randomly chosen each time you start the game by the loot generator, the work on the same system that chests do.
--You would run into the same thing multiple times because unlike minecraft, which just spews its world, a randomly generated area of Tamriel would be equally repetitious, even if it was 6 gigs large, because local areas within a game, and the places in those areas would logically be similar to each other.
--No, but every 9 inch stainless steel knife with a wooden grip is made the same. Your analogy is off because you are comparing multiple types of knifes, against one type of iron dagger.
--Elven material is better then iron, just like daedric material is better then ebony. a ebony dagger will always be better then a iron one, and an elven one wil be better then an iron one as well, because of the material used.
--well you are provably wrong. Its mentioned not only on the wiki, but even minor observation will show its false. Draugr are the easiet ones to spot the errors, since due to the random generator of Skyrim, female draugr can have beards. And furthermore, yes you can start a new game and go into a cave and get different character models each time, literally, its incredibly easy to test.
--Actually it would since
1. Dwemer machines have been running constantly for over 4,000 years making new constructs, and those constructs can repair each other.
2. Bandits across Skyrim are roughly equally equipped, so them moving into a cave of a previously defeated bandit group would mean you should face enemies of the same type as before.
--Does it make sense the Forsworn would have hidden in a cave, when they have a camp not to far from the cave? No.
--Except, as proven already, it does NOT offer greater variation, it offers more repetition.

- It's not the random content that would be creating the variation. The content itself would be varied and applied randomly to the world.
- Please note that I specified "space and content that is more varied" not "dead space." Again, the content would not be randomly made but randomly applied. The re-use of dungeon interior areas over and over again is exactly the problem that Skyrim suffers from now. You cannot increase repetition by increasing variation.
- So his only function in the game occurs after another NPC dies. So before that happens, if it happens at all, his dialog, routine and background serve no purpose within the game other than to be fluff for his being fluff.
- Within containers, yes loot is random, but not the loot that is placed within the game world. The books on the shelves in the palace in Whiterun are the same in every game. A developer put them there, they were not put there by the loot system.
- You keep making the assertion that more variation equals more repetition. Please explain to me how that works.
- But you wouldn't expect to see such standardization in their manufacturing if each one was made by hand would you. When crafting multiple iron daggers you would expect to see differences in their construction. Some blades would be longer than others, some would be heavier than others, some would be more brittle, some would be less able to hold a sharp edge. That's not even mentioning if the daggers were made by multiple craftsman using different forging techniques.
- There's more that decides the effectiveness of a weapon than just the materials used to create it.
- I've never seen this. Perhaps I've never noticed it because of the lack of variation in Skyrim's design.
- 1: Hmm, it makes you wonder why they're only found in ruins.
2: But there shouldn't be a guarantee that more bandits will move in in the first place. Once the bandits are gone there would be nothing stopping a pack of wolves or bears from moving in instead.
- Who said that their camp was near the cave?
- Again, explain how variation increases repetition. To explain how I see it, let's look at a sword. It has 3 basic parts; the blade, the guard and the handle. Now, let's make 3 different designs for each of the 3 parts, that gives us 9 separate designs. When we put those designs together we have the possibility to create 27 distinct swords. If we only had 1 design for each part we could only make 1 distinct sword. With the 27 possibilities, the chance that we will come across one of the swords that we already have is small. But of course our chance increases with every sword we find. With only 1 possibility, we are guaranteed that every sword we find will be the same.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The only thing that disappointed me with Skyrim is that they fail to immerse the player when it came to character.
-It doesn't matter that you are a Khajiit. You are allowed to enter the towns and villages while all your other kin were left to simply sell on the outskirts of the walls. It didn't matter if you were an elf.
-None of the NPC's would so much as throw a slur at you outside of battle.

-The only Khajiit that have ever been barred from entering the cities are the caravans because they are shady. You are not part of the caravan's, thus they don't care.

-Guards, and various NPCs, frequently call you "lizard", and "cat" if you play an Argonian or Khajiit, and guards and other NPCs frequently call you an "elf" in a harsh tone if your an elf of any kind.

- It's not the random content that would be creating the variation. The content itself would be varied and applied randomly to the world.
- Please note that I specified "space and content that is more varied" not "dead space." Again, the content would not be randomly made but randomly applied. The re-use of dungeon interior areas over and over again is exactly the problem that Skyrim suffers from now. You cannot increase repetition by increasing variation.
- So his only function in the game occurs after another NPC dies. So before that happens, if it happens at all, his dialog, routine and background serve no purpose within the game other than to be fluff for his being fluff.
- Within containers, yes loot is random, but not the loot that is placed within the game world. The books on the shelves in the palace in Whiterun are the same in every game. A developer put them there, they were not put there by the loot system.
- You keep making the assertion that more variation equals more repetition. Please explain to me how that works.
- But you wouldn't expect to see such standardization in their manufacturing if each one was made by hand would you. When crafting multiple iron daggers you would expect to see differences in their construction. Some blades would be longer than others, some would be heavier than others, some would be more brittle, some would be less able to hold a sharp edge. That's not even mentioning if the daggers were made by multiple craftsman using different forging techniques.
- There's more that decides the effectiveness of a weapon than just the materials used to create it.
- I've never seen this. Perhaps I've never noticed it because of the lack of variation in Skyrim's design.
- 1: Hmm, it makes you wonder why they're only found in ruins.
2: But there shouldn't be a guarantee that more bandits will move in in the first place. Once the bandits are gone there would be nothing stopping a pack of wolves or bears from moving in instead.
- Who said that their camp was near the cave?
- Again, explain how variation increases repetition. To explain how I see it, let's look at a sword. It has 3 basic parts; the blade, the guard and the handle. Now, let's make 3 different designs for each of the 3 parts, that gives us 9 separate designs. When we put those designs together we have the possibility to create 27 distinct swords. If we only had 1 design for each part we could only make 1 distinct sword. With the 27 possibilities, the chance that we will come across one of the swords that we already have is small. But of course our chance increases with every sword we find. With only 1 possibility, we are guaranteed that every sword we find will be the same.

-Worlds are not random, to apply random content to a world is to make it not a world, but a random assortment of stuff, which does nothing but lower the quality of a game.

-But you aren't increasing variation, you are increasing repetition through the constant re-use of the same basic dungeon blocks via a random content generator.

-No, he is there so simulate a realistic world of master/apprentice, and to take over the job of his master should his master die, like what would realistically happen. He is not just fluff

-Actually that wrong, the loot that is placed in the world is random, some of it is hand placed, but a large numbers of things like books just sitting on shelves in dungeons are picked from a random table. Please learn how the game works.

-Because its NOT more variation, that's the problem, you argument is fundamentally flawed because it relies on the premise that a random content generator re-using the same basic dungeon block over and over again, as random content generators do, can increase variation when it can not. It can only increase repetition of those dungeon building blocks. that is not how content generators work... period.

-The vast majority of weapons and armor is made using the techniques founded by the Empire, there is standardization. The nonstandard weapons, thaty break the mold, take the form of unique/artifact items.

-And no matter what, diamond will be the hardest thing on the mohs scale. Some materials just are stronger then others.

-That's because Skyrim actually keeps its values within realistic rangers. Purely random games like minecraft can achieve more because they dont have to deal with pesky things like consistency, or believability, or any sort of lore.

-Because Dwemer machines are programmed to stay in their ruins and maintain them as best they can.

-The bandits killed any animlas that moved in before you got back there.

-As I already pointed out, there is no more variation from random content generators, that's not how they work, there is only constant reuse of the same thing.

Spending time to create 27 variations of the same sword, just for more looks, is a god-awful waste of time, especially when most people dont care that all iron swords look the same. That time would be better spent making new perks, new enemies, new dungeons, new ANYTHING. something that adds REAL content to the game, that changes how the game is played, instead of some trivial look.

 

[Dragonbums]

The only thing that disappointed me with Skyrim is that they fail to immerse the player when it came to character.
-It doesn't matter that you are a Khajiit. You are allowed to enter the towns and villages while all your other kin were left to simply sell on the outskirts of the walls. It didn't matter if you were an elf.
-None of the NPC's would so much as throw a slur at you outside of battle.

-The only Khajiit that have ever been barred from entering the cities are the caravans because they are shady. You are not part of the caravan's, thus they don't care.

-Guards, and various NPCs, frequently call you "lizard", and "cat" if you play an Argonian or Khajiit, and guards and other NPCs frequently call you an "elf" in a harsh tone if your an elf of any kind.

Yeah but Khajiit as a whole are still distrusted.
I mean...I guess I was just hoping for more...racism then some petty insult behind my back. A little something more in depth.
Like if you are an Argonian you would have people heckle you saying "Shouldn't you be back at the docks?"

Or if-as an elf- you decide to get married to a human and you and your wife/husband get racist remarks, or confronted with violence on occasion.

Of course this is just a small complaint in an otherwise great game. Personally I'm not going to fault them for that. They have a bunch of stuff do do already for the game.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Yeah but Khajiit as a whole are still distrusted.
I mean...I guess I was just hoping for more...racism then some petty insult behind my back. A little something more in depth.
Like if you are an Argonian you would have people heckle you saying "Shouldn't you be back at the docks?"

Or if-as an elf- you decide to get married to a human and you and your wife/husband get racist remarks, or confronted with violence on occasion.

Of course this is just a small complaint in an otherwise great game. Personally I'm not going to fault them for that. They have a bunch of stuff do do already for the game.

Most Nords, and most anyone, aren't that racist though.

Thousands of years of being ruled by giant monolithic empires that enforced some semblance racial equality and tolerance will do that to people.

People like The Stormcloaks, and Thalmor are incredibly small minorities.

 

[Furnacewhelp]

-Worlds are not random, to apply random content to a world is to make it not a world, but a random assortment of stuff, which does nothing but lower the quality of a game.

-But you aren't increasing variation, you are increasing repetition through the constant re-use of the same basic dungeon blocks via a random content generator.

-No, he is there so simulate a realistic world of master/apprentice, and to take over the job of his master should his master die, like what would realistically happen. He is not just fluff

-Because its NOT more variation, that's the problem, you argument is fundamentally flawed because it relies on the premise that a random content generator re-using the same basic dungeon block over and over again, as random content generators do, can increase variation when it can not. It can only increase repetition of those dungeon building blocks. that is not how content generators work... period.

-The vast majority of weapons and armor is made using the techniques founded by the Empire, there is standardization. The nonstandard weapons, thaty break the mold, take the form of unique/artifact items.

-And no matter what, diamond will be the hardest thing on the mohs scale. Some materials just are stronger then others.

-That's because Skyrim actually keeps its values within realistic rangers. Purely random games like minecraft can achieve more because they dont have to deal with pesky things like consistency, or believability, or any sort of lore.

-Because Dwemer machines are programmed to stay in their ruins and maintain them as best they can.

-The bandits killed any animlas that moved in before you got back there.

-As I already pointed out, there is no more variation from random content generators, that's not how they work, there is only constant reuse of the same thing.

Spending time to create 27 variations of the same sword, just for more looks, is a god-awful waste of time, especially when most people dont care that all iron swords look the same. That time would be better spent making new perks, new enemies, new dungeons, new ANYTHING. something that adds REAL content to the game, that changes how the game is played, instead of some trivial look.

- Worlds are random assortments of stuff. It makes no difference to the world if you go into a cave and find a chest instead of a barrel or vice-verse. It makes no difference to the world if you find, inside that container, a sword instead of a shield. A world doesn't become any less of a world if a cave turns right in one game and left in another.

- You are if you are applying variation to the basic dungeon blocks. If I make a cave using rocks then only make 1 type of rock, the cave will be very repetitive. But if I make 5 different types of rocks, the cave becomes less repetitive.

- "he is there so simulate a realistic world of master/apprentice," That's what fluff is.

- Again, the variation is in the basic dungeon blocks that the random content generator is using. The more variations of dungeon blocks that the random generator has access to decreases the instances that each individual variation is used in the game. That decreases repetition.

- Here's an experiment that you can perform yourself. Give 10 people a piece of paper and ask them to draw a straight line. I can guarantee that each line will be different than the others. Whether it's in the line's length, direction or position on the page, no line will be exactly the same as any of the others. The same goes when different people forge a dagger. The blacksmith's experience and effort along with the quality of the material he is using can drastically alter the final product.

- A diamond crafted into a dagger by a master blacksmith will not be the same as a diamond crafted into a dagger by his 12 year old apprentice. There is more that affects the effectiveness of a weapon than just what it is made of.

- You don't need to apply the randomness to everything. If the lore says that the Jarl of Whiterun is a man, they can make the Jarl of Whiterun a man. The consistency and believability of the lore will not be affected by a cave in one game turning left and the same cave in another game turning right.

- And by the looks of the ruins they aren't doing a very good job at maintaining anything. If the collapsed walls and ceilings are any indication then, most likely, the machines that create the constructs are in a similar state of disrepair that would leave them unable to produce more constructs. With the inability to create more constructs, the ones that I destroy when I clear the ruins wouldn't be able to get repaired.

- This implies that 1: the bandits need a place to hide, 2: they need it bad enough that they would risk their lives for it, and 3: the bandits, which are some of the weakest enemies in the game, were able to overpower whatever had moved into the cave; whether it was a pack of wolves or bears, spriggans, foresworn, giants or a dragon.

- You aren't creating the 27 different swords, the only content you are creating is the 9 designs for the 3 sword parts. The random generator then chooses which design for each sword part is used whenever it spawns a sword. That decreases the repetition in the design of the swords you find. And people do care that all of the swords look the same. That's why they are complaining that everything looks the same, because they don't like everything looking the same. Using this method of design is much more efficient than designing everything by hand. Using this method you can create 27 different items by only creating 9 different parts. Hand crafting the same number of items requires that you create 27 different items instead of just 9. Random generation gives the developer the ability to create more content in the same amount of time it would take to create a lesser amount of hand crafted content. If you can make 9 designs for 3 sword parts (27 designs) in the same amount of time it takes to create 27 whole swords, the individual parts allow for the creation of 81 different swords. That's 3x the content in the same amount of time.

-Actually that wrong, the loot that is placed in the world is random, some of it is hand placed, but a large numbers of things like books just sitting on shelves in dungeons are picked from a random table. Please learn how the game works.

- So, by your assertion that randomly placing things in the game only serves to increase repetition, your statement here proves my point of how repetitive Skyrim is. Unless you are wrong that random generation increases repetition and instead increases variety. In that case you would agree with my position that more random generation would solve the problem of everything in Skyrim looking the same.