First Person: Skyrim is Soulless

[Active Schizophrenic]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SKYRIM DOESN'T CARE FOR ME! SKYRIM IS THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN!

 

[Kojiro ftt]

If you had really paid attention, you would have noticed that there were dead bodies of guards lying around that fort. Those bandits had just taken over the place. Agnis is old and senile, and had no idea that the place had changed hands. She was very much role playing.

Granted, she could have reacted to the dead bodies at her feet, lol.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Looks like the enthusiasm for this game is dropping and people are finally seeing it for what it is; NOT the best RPG ever made.

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

Skyrim is Soulless

Skyrim doesn't seem to care about you or what you do.

Read Full Article

Yeah, a game that's your personal show and playground is all you need, eh? Well, help yourself to all the other games, because they provide that in spades. Ask yourself this, however, does the real world care about you to such a degree?

I, personally never liked to be the center of attention. The only game that really relieves you of that position is "Space Rangers", where on the easiest setting the game could be over with or without you. It's an extreme, but being Harry Potter each and every time I load a game gets old very fast.

The one and only reason why Skyrim doesn't deliver to the fullest is that its story (especially the main quest) is a "meh" fantasy cliche we've seen a thousand times before, but I kind of accepted the fact that fantasy just can't have a good story no matter what you do. It has everything to do with absolutes and, well, fantasy.

 

[PhantomEcho]

Why didn't she react to you killing those bandits? You answered your own question. You mentioned she spoke about how often the fort changed hands. The "fort changing hands" probably involved the new owners killing all the old owners. So the fact that you just waltzed in and murdered every bandit there and left them on the floor is nothing new to her, and she's probably been desensitized to death enough to not be bothered with it.

Heck, she even said she has a lot of cleaning up to do. What is she cleaning? All those half-naked corpses you left behind...just like she's done every other time the fort changed hands.

That isn't soulless, that's good writing on the dev's part.

No, that's you just imagining things, trying to cover up terrible writing. It's very clear that the pieces of dialogue they decided to give her is to give the keep a sort of backstory, but it is ENTIRELY unrelated to what he did. Fact of the matter is that if he had snuck into the keep without being seen (or had befriended the bandits somehow and had been invited in), she would be spurting the EXACT SAME LINES.

If you are going to pass off the fact that an NPC is going to use the exact same dialogue depending on whether or not you are a visitor or a mass murderer who have just murdered off her employees and looted her room as good writing, then I'm happy you aren't a game designer. It neither good writing, nor is it rational or immersive. What it is is making Agnis a robot that does her programmed tasks and spit out her programmed lines no matter what happens around her. That's it.

Again I say that this is hardly terrible writing.

In fact, this has NOTHING to do with writing at all. This is just one of the many core attributes of large games with massive numbers of NPCs in them. RPGs don't have time to develop multiple thousands of answers to every reaction for a character that's really only designed to fill space and provide a slight bit of humor.

She would be spurting the exact same line because it's relevant to her character: "Generic Housekeeper NPC for Fort". They only even gave her a name because she's a unique personality... but not much more than that.

If you're getting caught up in minor NPCs' reactions, then you're getting caught up in one of the LEAST IMPORTANT parts of the game. This is something that yes, while a bit jarring sometimes, DOESN'T HAVE ANY SIGNIFICANT IMPACT on the playability or enjoyability of the game.

Yes, we'd ALL love for the world to respond to our every action... but hey... didn't they do that with Fable? Isn't this the same internet where everyone hates Fable? So it seems like a lot of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' to me.

Skyrim has it's share of problems, and flaws... but it is HARDLY terribly written, and a FAR CRY from soulless. If someone had said this to me back when we were still playing Oblivion, I would have agreed. But Skyrim?

Skyrim's got more spirit and substance than any other Elder Scrolls game to date. Even with the reduced content... even missing spells, and weapons... even with some wonkyness here and there... there isn't a single thing that Skyrim has brought to the table that was fundamentally broken.

You know... aside from a couple of quests...

But hey! At least they can -patch- those. No amount of patching would ever be able to fix Morrowind's completely worthless Marksman skill.

 

[Shydrow]

I think this points out a huge flaw in the gamers playing a game like Skyrim over Skyrim not being the god game everyone knew it wasn't going to be. With that many NPC and that big of a world is isn't like they where going to spend a few more hours on making sure npc pointed out shit you did over and over. I mean i get the off hand comment of leading the Dark Brotherhood by a city guard or walker by. I get off hand remarks from people who don't like my wolfish grin. I get told about things i did in said city often enough and if i murdered a bunch of people and got caught the guards don't seem to kind to me so i am trying to figure out what exactly it is you wanted them to spend time on during development. Would you rather have them worked on a AI process so they react more realistically then i must say herp derp to you and have fun fighting a dragon with a fish merchant which you wont QQ about. It isn't about soul or anything the world is about you and how you go through it. YOU being a key part cause YOU have an imagination i would hope and if something isn't coded right into the game YOU in YOUR head can add it in.

The problem isn't the game being soulless the problem is you lazy bum not wanting to add to the experience past what the developer gave you. I've read like 5 of you talking about "role playing" well you must be shit at it cause you can't even imagine or add anything not in the game already past your character i would assume. BTW i'm not mad i'm annoyed that people who call themselves gamers/geeks/role players and such have forgotten such a simple and easy thing as ADDING to the world even if they can't hardcode it in. It is really sad.

 

[Shadeovblack]

I was in the thalmor, I released all the prisoners and they just sit in their cells. I go up to one of them and he says "Leave me alone." this pretty much echos the response I get from all the other prisoners.


I have to agree, Skyrim has no soul.

 

[Levethian]

Part of the problem is voice acting.

The problem is voice acting.

Agree with this - the 'need' for spoken dialogue is very limiting.

I find the New Vegas comparison suspect.

Agree. Consequences weren't will mirrored in that game either - or any Bethesda game. Why? Because they're too big to map out reactions to all your numerous status updates.

I really wish Bethesda would learn something from New Vegas.

I wonder if people would feel this way about New Vegas if it actually let you play on after the main plot to reveal how little the world had actually changed...

A pattern quickly revealed itself: find a dungeon, kill everything within it, make multiple trips back and forth from said dungeon to my house in the city of Whiterun to stow all the loot, and then sort through and sell everything I looted and decided not to keep.

Multiple trips to town for 1 dungeon? Sounds like a lot of fast-travel going on, which I find more immersion-breaking than an innocuous unscripted NPC. The reaction of a role-player would be to sort through stuff BEFORE heaving it miles back to your house .

Skyrim has soul, it's just thinly spread where NPC's are concerned. The mountains and cities are full of it.

 

[seraphy]

Good article. And I agree, with it.

I really wish Bethesda would learn something from New Vegas.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Without a player, a game is just inanimate code. It does not and cannot have a soul - you have to use your own.


(disclaimer: above statement is made under the assumpiton that the theoretical soul exists, but does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of its author, a soulless bastard)

 

[Athinira]

SNIP

Again I say that this is hardly terrible writing.

In fact, this has NOTHING to do with writing at all. This is just one of the many core attributes of large games with massive numbers of NPCs in them. RPGs don't have time to develop multiple thousands of answers to every reaction for a character that's really only designed to fill space and provide a slight bit of humor.

She would be spurting the exact same line because it's relevant to her character: "Generic Housekeeper NPC for Fort". They only even gave her a name because she's a unique personality... but not much more than that.

(...)

Yes, we'd ALL love for the world to respond to our every action... but hey... didn't they do that with Fable? Isn't this the same internet where everyone hates Fable? So it seems like a lot of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' to me.

...which is why Skyrim perhaps SHOULD have taken a cue from some other games. Particularly Baldur's Gate.

You see, the developers of Baldur's Gate understood that if you keep uninteresting/generic characters around, it brings out their robotic tendencies, and for that specific reason, the developers understood that characters sometimes needs to f*cking DISAPPEAR! If the mentioned Fort in Skyrim had been a sidequest in Baldur's Gate instead, BioWare would perhaps have made Agnis either do something useful (provide information) and then have her flee the scene afterwards, never to be seen again.

It's a perfect demonstration of the fact that sometimes, less is more, and Agnis ironically becomes a much more colorful and interesting character when you make her flee the scene and disappear so you can't track her down later and spam your "Talk" key until you realize she is a robot. There is nothing wrong with her being a shallow character, but Skyrim makes the fatal flaw of keeping her around, which eventually means that players are going to discover that she is shallow. It's like doing a long story, but stretching it out too far until the audiences becomes bored. Sometimes, it's best to stop while the fun is at its peak.

If you're getting caught up in minor NPCs' reactions, then you're getting caught up in one of the LEAST IMPORTANT parts of the game. This is something that yes, while a bit jarring sometimes, DOESN'T HAVE ANY SIGNIFICANT IMPACT on the playability or enjoyability of the game.

Ah, the good old "You are playing it wrong" argument. Is there where i go fetch the Steve Jobs "You're holding it wrong"-picture just for emphasis?

Listen, if it didn't have any significant impact on the enjoyability of the game, then this article wouldn't exist to begin with. It obviously had an impact on the article writer, and while i haven't been to that part of Skyrim yet, i can tell you that it would also impact mine (and have so already, just with several other characters than Agnis).

It might not have impacted you, but you don't represent anyone, and the shallowness of most NPC's in Bethesda Games is one thing they have been critisized for MANY times before, so obviously it's something many people consider to be detriment to their experience.

Skyrim has it's share of problems, and flaws... but it is HARDLY terribly written, and a FAR CRY from soulless. If someone had said this to me back when we were still playing Oblivion, I would have agreed. But Skyrim?

There is a difference between "not being something" and "hiding something".

Skyrim exceeds it's predecessors because it's much better at cloaking/hiding it's faults through improved design, but many of them are still there, and people - especially the ones who were annoyed to no end by the bugs - are eventually gonna discover them if they pay close enough attention.

Now don't get me wrong, it also directly fixed many of the flaws, especially of Oblivion, but the basic formula is still the same, and many of the same problems persist. I will applaud them for going so far and improving the series so much, but at the end of the day, they still have a long way to go.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

This guy still has a column with The Escapist? Go figure. I hadn't seen it in ages.

 

[Therumancer]

Agnis? I could have sworn I killed her as part of the Dark Brotherhood storyline. Maybe I'm wrong.

For me, Skyrims soul lives in the environment it gives us. I have spent hours just jaunting through the hills enjoying the snow and wind.

I believe you are correct Agnis is a Dark Brotherhood target.

Most NPCs seem to have some use, if you haven't found it, then chances are you don't have the relevent quest/storyline.

You might be going "huh, what" only to find out what was going on later on down the road.

Going by the other games in the series, The Dark Brotherhood isn't as evil as they are portrayed even if the members are kind of twisted. The concept is similar to that whole Wanted/Weapons of Fate thing, where they kill people for the greater good without it nessicarly being obvious why. I get the impression Sithis and The Night Mother play the role of nilistic murder machines for a higher purpose and I believe that was spelled out in some other games. If you look into some of the things going on (the stories told through the enviroment) there is oftentimes a clear reason why your killing someone... like say a cult shrine in their basement, relation to another NPC, or whatever else.

Oh and if you attack Agnis if I remember she's a little tougher than you might expect... I'm just saying.

"Oh please don't hurt me..." Gullible much.

A response to the article as much as to the message I'm quoting.

 

[Jonluw]

Wow.
The way you play sounds extremely boring.
Do you really feel you need to take several trips to a fort only to empty it completely for loot? That's the most robotic playing style I've ever heard of. Hell, the last time I went through a fort, I just left everything that wasn't special items that would be useful for my character. And even though I play like this I am still carrying 17,000 septims.

It sounds to me like you are the one ruining your own experience.

 

[Panayjon]

I think the ultimate problem with Elder Scrolls-style open-world games can be pointed out by expanding the Uncanny Valley concept.

Games that fit into a 16Mbit cartridge were only very vague approximations of reality. Players didn't expect realistic responses from sparsely-animated pixels that marched along two-dimensional platforms. It was easy to divorce oneself from reality because the games of the old-school make no pretensions toward reality.

Now, technology can't possibly emulate the real world perfectly. Heck, we barely understand half of how the real world works at all; there's no chance under heaven and earth that we could have powerful enough technology in the foreseeable future to model that. Why, then, do we expect realism from Elder Scrolls and not from Mario? Because the pretensions toward reality are very much present. The Uncanny Valley is a computer-graphics trope originally, suggesting that a point when things get close to realism, but not quite there, the ability to accept and appreciate them falls off dramatically. In short, they're close enough to seem real, but that just makes them more obviously not real.

Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind have been firmly rooted in the Uncanny Valley. Back in Morrowind, aided by mods, I could adventure the world, dungeon-delve, cast spells, get my character pregnant (with attendant difficulties wearing armour) and carry a child to term... but the child would never grow beyond an infant. In Oblivion I could listen to conversations between NPCs... that would make no sense. (I'd make a Skyrim comparison but I haven't played it yet.)

Elder Scrolls games and their like don't feel real because they come so close, and clearly want to come so close. It makes the suspension of disbelief a lot harder because it only has to happen sometimes. I know I can't kill things by stepping on them like Mario does, so I'm already pulled out of reality when I play one of his games. Mentally I'm already prepared to accept a world I don't recognise, so things that don't seem believable are the norm for its existence.

Don't let it be said that I don't like Elder Scrolls games; I'm still hacking away at Oblivion mods. I kind of like living in the Uncanny Valley, but it never lets me forget I'm there.

The very first word that came to mind for me was Uncanny Valley. Thank you for typing it out so I don't have to

 

[AxelxGabriel]

It Doesn't Matter How Great Something Is, There Will Always Be Someone Who Says It Sucks And You Suck For Liking It.

 

[Athinira]

It sounds to me like you are the one ruining your own experience.

I'll repeat again: The "You're playing it wrong" argument is no better than Steve Jobs "You're holding it wrong" argument.

Some people (including me) are min-maxers, and we don't enjoy a game unless we get every advantage we can get. In the case of Skyrim, this means getting all the gold you can acquire, which means that the limited carrying space and the fact you have to search the entire country for merchants who still has gold left is limiting our experience. This is NOT because we play the game in a boring way, it's because we can't enjoy the game as much if we don't min-max and the game is preventing us from min-maxing without having to waste our time en masse, or in short, it's a game flaw.

If a game can be played "wrong" in the first place, then it's the fault of the game, not the player, because for some players, playing the game "right" isn't enjoyable. It's like listening to raiders back in vanilla WoW telling casual players that they were playing the game wrong if they weren't raiding. Fortunately Blizzard understood that it's a terrible excuse, and instead gave the casuals more content and ways of progression in later expansions instead of telling them to raid or GTFO.

 

[GaltarDude1138]

I like roleplaying. I like to make it up in my imagination as I go. I think Bethesda took that into consideration when designing this game. And I think it worked out well.

For instance, my wife is petrified that I am dead, when I've actually been press-ganged to join the Dark Brotherhood. And before that, she was petrified to learn that her husband had been sent to work for life in the silver mines of Markarth, only to tearfully reunite with him after secretly escaping with a group of murderous rebels and the Jarl clearing it up as a misunderstanding.

So yeah, I roll with whatever the game throws at me.

 

[coheedswicked]

I think a game like this you get out of it what you put into it. If you want consequences... Do quests! There are tons of quests that have consequences. If you dont want consequences go into dungeons and kill bandits and the like.

I killed a cave full of witches and have been recognized for the feat because it was part of a quest. I killed some people in Markath now the guards will attack me on sight. Im currently fighting in the war between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks (on the Imperial side) and have dethroned a jarl that was a Stormcloak sympathizer. There would be New Vegas either if all you did was loot dungeons. Its just not how these types of games work.

 

[spikeyjoey]

Basically, its nit picking of the highest order.. yes we can ***** about the little things, but who here hasnt dumped at least 50 hours into it?