So now many of us are absolutely hyped for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, me included (how am I gonna get the cash together to get a proper PC till then????).
The trailer looks to me like it's gonna be a solid sequel. All the goodness of the open-world, do-what-you-like approach for the Elder Scrolls games with some really asskicking graphics.
I have played Morrowind on and off, played Oblivion for a few weeks like an addict and have now recently revisited Daggerfall for a few hours. And with every game, I have the same issue.
When I play a Bethesda game, it always goes like this:
1. I am already having lots of fun in the character generation process
2. Then I set foot first time into a crazily vast, beautiful world and get totally pumped up
3. I get even more pumped up after wandering around a bit as if I was on mushrooms
4. I kinda feel at a loss at what to do
5. I decide to follow the main quest for a bit
6. I decide to branch and join a guild
7. Depending on the quality of the quests, I get bored sooner or later
8. I start feeling like this isn't really leading anywhere
9. I catch myself trying harder and harder to keep up the flame of motivation that was ignited at step 2
10. I start sobering and noticing the eerie emptiness of the world more strongly
11. I just stop playing
After a few months, maybe years I remember the game in question, look at some youtube clips of it and get really pumped up again. Procedure starts again.
Why is that?
Over the course of Daggerfall -> Morrowind -> Oblivion I notice that Bethesda changed these things:
1. Improve Graphics
2. Decrease sheer size of the world (Oblivion might not be factually smaller, but it feels like it. Blame fast travel)
3. Decrease quantity of quests and groups to join
4. Make NPCs appear more life-like (voice acting in Oblivion, better animations etc)
5. Make the game more accessible (UI, controls)
So I expect Bethesda to follow this general pattern for Skyrim. And that's where I think that I will still go through the exact same 11-step-procedure.
The thing is that Bethesda isn't addressing what I (and many others) feel is the actual issue with Elder Scrolls games. It's not simply that the world is too big with too few inhabitants (though that is a valid complaint). The problem is that even though the game promises amazing adventures and near unlimited freedom of interactivity, there really isn't much MEANINGFUL choice. You follow a chain of quests and in a few instances, you can make a choice about the outcome of the quest. In that regard, Bioware's games were always stronger. You have the choice to create a character in the beginning and choose the chain of quests, a path that you want to
tread with that character. But you're still always the one running all the errands from NPC to NPC, from place to place. Even though Bethesda is getting better at offering variety and making more entertaining quests (loved the dark brotherhood missions in Oblivion
), it still is all very static. In that regard, Bethesda hasn't improved and is still in the same place as they where in the beginning (I assume that Arena wasn't any better).
At some point the impression of the beauty of the world at the beginning will wear off and what is left then to carry the game? The quality of the quests and the possibilities of messing around in the world. Granted there is replay value by creating a new character and going through a different series of quests than the previous time, but this only improves the experience in a horizontal way, it still is very much plagued with the same issues.
When I play a new Elder Scrolls game for the first time, I don't look forward to the quests. This isn't what appeals to me at all. If that was the case, I'd rather be playing a Bioware game with their stronger narratives. No, I am always coming back to Elder Scrolls games like a fly towards a lamp because of its promise: a huge world full of possibilities of adventures that doesn't tell me what to do and where to go, where I'm fully responsible for my own actions.
It's almost like a hero-simulator, only that you don't have to be a hero.
So this leaves us with "possibilities of messing around in the world" as the main element that must carry an Elder Scrolls game. And here is the problem. Bethesda has failed to really move things forward in this aspect, leaving the games with nearly the same low amount of meaningful choices to be made for their players.
With "meaningful choice" I mean choices that bear consequence for the social and environmental condition of the game world. It isn't a very meaningful choice to steal an apple, yet Bethesda goes to great lengths to let me steal apples, forks, booze and all kinds of trash from everywhere just to reiterate the attention to detail its level designers had. I appreciate that, but on the other hand I feel that it's really quite unnecessary. No, meaningful choices would be for example to lie to a husband that you saw his wife cheating on him, causing him to beat up his wife, causing her to call the city guards, putting him to prison. A meaningful choice would be to provoke a clan of trolls in the name of the empire, causing them to plan an assault at the nearest village of the empire. These dynamics are what are sorely missing from Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. In these games, NPCs are little more than information stands and quest givers. The impact of your actions does not exist. You have to imagine it, which is not encouraged much. I try to sort of put my mind into the role and roleplay in my head when playing, but if the game gives me so little feedback, it just isn't fun.
The real non-scripted ways of interaction that you DO have in these games are:
1. Killing NPCs
2. Stealing from NPCs
3. Taunting, flattering NPCs
4. ...wait..that's it?
Everything else is static and therefore not a real choice. Dialog is static. Choices given to you by the designers are by definition static.
What Bethesda really needs to focus on is AI. They need to come up with a system that simulates all these intricate social dependencies. I imagine it like in the Sims, actually. Then, the player needs to be presented with more ways of interaction. A button to flirt/charm an NPC, a button to tell a lie (and then choosing from a range of lies depending on the skill and context of the NPCs current life situation). Actually, there wouldn't be much more separate ways of interacting with people for the player. The few that are there would be context sensitive, leading to automatically appropriate final actions. The actions then would kickstart a much more interesting chain of events, completely dynamic and unscripted. Like in the above example with the jealous husband, all the player had to do was know that the husband had a wife and be good at lying. Everything else would be a chain reaction, and incredibly fun to witness I think.
So...I don't have all too high hopes for Skyrim. I'll probably get play it crazily for a good while until I end up with the same complaints. Of course I could be absolutely wrong, and that'd be great. Anyways, please think about this Bethesda!
The trailer looks to me like it's gonna be a solid sequel. All the goodness of the open-world, do-what-you-like approach for the Elder Scrolls games with some really asskicking graphics.
I have played Morrowind on and off, played Oblivion for a few weeks like an addict and have now recently revisited Daggerfall for a few hours. And with every game, I have the same issue.
When I play a Bethesda game, it always goes like this:
1. I am already having lots of fun in the character generation process
2. Then I set foot first time into a crazily vast, beautiful world and get totally pumped up
3. I get even more pumped up after wandering around a bit as if I was on mushrooms
4. I kinda feel at a loss at what to do
5. I decide to follow the main quest for a bit
6. I decide to branch and join a guild
7. Depending on the quality of the quests, I get bored sooner or later
8. I start feeling like this isn't really leading anywhere
9. I catch myself trying harder and harder to keep up the flame of motivation that was ignited at step 2
10. I start sobering and noticing the eerie emptiness of the world more strongly
11. I just stop playing
After a few months, maybe years I remember the game in question, look at some youtube clips of it and get really pumped up again. Procedure starts again.
Why is that?
Over the course of Daggerfall -> Morrowind -> Oblivion I notice that Bethesda changed these things:
1. Improve Graphics
2. Decrease sheer size of the world (Oblivion might not be factually smaller, but it feels like it. Blame fast travel)
3. Decrease quantity of quests and groups to join
4. Make NPCs appear more life-like (voice acting in Oblivion, better animations etc)
5. Make the game more accessible (UI, controls)
So I expect Bethesda to follow this general pattern for Skyrim. And that's where I think that I will still go through the exact same 11-step-procedure.
The thing is that Bethesda isn't addressing what I (and many others) feel is the actual issue with Elder Scrolls games. It's not simply that the world is too big with too few inhabitants (though that is a valid complaint). The problem is that even though the game promises amazing adventures and near unlimited freedom of interactivity, there really isn't much MEANINGFUL choice. You follow a chain of quests and in a few instances, you can make a choice about the outcome of the quest. In that regard, Bioware's games were always stronger. You have the choice to create a character in the beginning and choose the chain of quests, a path that you want to
tread with that character. But you're still always the one running all the errands from NPC to NPC, from place to place. Even though Bethesda is getting better at offering variety and making more entertaining quests (loved the dark brotherhood missions in Oblivion
), it still is all very static. In that regard, Bethesda hasn't improved and is still in the same place as they where in the beginning (I assume that Arena wasn't any better).At some point the impression of the beauty of the world at the beginning will wear off and what is left then to carry the game? The quality of the quests and the possibilities of messing around in the world. Granted there is replay value by creating a new character and going through a different series of quests than the previous time, but this only improves the experience in a horizontal way, it still is very much plagued with the same issues.
When I play a new Elder Scrolls game for the first time, I don't look forward to the quests. This isn't what appeals to me at all. If that was the case, I'd rather be playing a Bioware game with their stronger narratives. No, I am always coming back to Elder Scrolls games like a fly towards a lamp because of its promise: a huge world full of possibilities of adventures that doesn't tell me what to do and where to go, where I'm fully responsible for my own actions.
It's almost like a hero-simulator, only that you don't have to be a hero.
So this leaves us with "possibilities of messing around in the world" as the main element that must carry an Elder Scrolls game. And here is the problem. Bethesda has failed to really move things forward in this aspect, leaving the games with nearly the same low amount of meaningful choices to be made for their players.
With "meaningful choice" I mean choices that bear consequence for the social and environmental condition of the game world. It isn't a very meaningful choice to steal an apple, yet Bethesda goes to great lengths to let me steal apples, forks, booze and all kinds of trash from everywhere just to reiterate the attention to detail its level designers had. I appreciate that, but on the other hand I feel that it's really quite unnecessary. No, meaningful choices would be for example to lie to a husband that you saw his wife cheating on him, causing him to beat up his wife, causing her to call the city guards, putting him to prison. A meaningful choice would be to provoke a clan of trolls in the name of the empire, causing them to plan an assault at the nearest village of the empire. These dynamics are what are sorely missing from Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. In these games, NPCs are little more than information stands and quest givers. The impact of your actions does not exist. You have to imagine it, which is not encouraged much. I try to sort of put my mind into the role and roleplay in my head when playing, but if the game gives me so little feedback, it just isn't fun.
The real non-scripted ways of interaction that you DO have in these games are:
1. Killing NPCs
2. Stealing from NPCs
3. Taunting, flattering NPCs
4. ...wait..that's it?
Everything else is static and therefore not a real choice. Dialog is static. Choices given to you by the designers are by definition static.
What Bethesda really needs to focus on is AI. They need to come up with a system that simulates all these intricate social dependencies. I imagine it like in the Sims, actually. Then, the player needs to be presented with more ways of interaction. A button to flirt/charm an NPC, a button to tell a lie (and then choosing from a range of lies depending on the skill and context of the NPCs current life situation). Actually, there wouldn't be much more separate ways of interacting with people for the player. The few that are there would be context sensitive, leading to automatically appropriate final actions. The actions then would kickstart a much more interesting chain of events, completely dynamic and unscripted. Like in the above example with the jealous husband, all the player had to do was know that the husband had a wife and be good at lying. Everything else would be a chain reaction, and incredibly fun to witness I think.
So...I don't have all too high hopes for Skyrim. I'll probably get play it crazily for a good while until I end up with the same complaints. Of course I could be absolutely wrong, and that'd be great. Anyways, please think about this Bethesda!
