I know that, but I also believe that these distractions should be done in a way that doesn't harm the main story? And isn't the quality of these "distractions" important as well?
I'll try to explain with as little grammar errors as possible:
In Planescape Torment, for example, the sidequests allowed me to to, as you said, craft my own tale. It allowed me to create my own character, to roleplay, to immerse myself into the world. But most of these sidequests not only had a interesting tale of their own, they also added something to the backstory and/or depth of characters or to a district, city or world et cetera. These sidequests not only allowed me to craft my own tale, but also allowed me to immerse myself even more into the world and my character, but also got me more interested in the main quest. It boosted the main plot, while providing distractions. I never truly got derailed.
Oblivion on the other hand, at least the first 15-20 hours of my playtime, merely gave me (mostly) random fetch-quests for random items for random people for no interesting reason and that completely drained away my interest in the main plot. I mean sure, you can say I was role-playing, but it wasn't satisfying or interesting. I didn't feel as if I was actually developing within a world as a character, but just wasting time. I felt as if I was still the same person (unable to develop as a character and grow more attached to anything), still living within the same world, where my actions for the past 15 to 20 hours didn't matter whatsoever.
I hope I was able to explain it well enough. English isn't my first language.
Then why do people keep saying that if you didn't like oblivion, you won't like Skyrim?
And isn't the "Getting sidetracked" thing a problem in itself? It's giving me the idea that the main story isn't interesting enough that you'd want to learn more about it as fast as you can and instead get sidetracked constantly.
I thought Oblivion was kind of average but think Skyrim is amazing from what I've played so far, hell I haven't even fought a dragon yet.
Also getting sidetracked isn't a problem at all, it's all down to player choice really. For example the next part of the main quest for me sounds awesome, but I'm also hearing a lot about some sort of magic school; I like magic so I want to check it out! Maybe magic will help me on the main quest There's a lot more to it than just assuming the main quest isn't interesting.
Protected Riverwood from a frost dragon...brought it down on the street, crowd gathered around to look at the carcass and cheered for me. Best moment in a game ever...except for the final assault on the arch demon in DA:0 possibly.
Now if someone would just tell me how to fix this damned memory leak so that i don't have to restart the game every 30 minutes.
For me, Falkreath has been a fucking dragon magnet. Two attacks in as many days. Those were lots of fun, but I'd like to see some in the wilderness so I can have a nice face off uninterrupted by NPCs (although I'd love to see some dragon/giant action).
Also, I'm being slow about going through my campaign (so it gets the proper feeling of epicness it deserves), so can anyone (simple yes/no answer, no spoilers) tell me if wild dragons are still around after the main quest line finishes?
I know that, but I also believe that these distractions should be done in a way that doesn't harm the main story? And isn't the quality of these "distractions" important as well?
I'll try to explain with as little grammar errors as possible:
In Planescape Torment, for example, the sidequests allowed me to to, as you said, craft my own tale. It allowed me to create my own character, to roleplay, to immerse myself into the world. But most of these sidequests not only had a interesting tale of their own, they also added something to the backstory and/or depth of characters or to a district, city or world et cetera. These sidequests not only allowed me to craft my own tale, but also allowed me to immerse myself even more into the world and my character, but also got me more interested in the main quest. It boosted the main plot, while providing distractions. I never truly got derailed.
Oblivion on the other hand, at least the first 15-20 hours of my playtime, merely gave me random fetch-quests for random items for random people for no interesting reason and that kind of derailed me from everything else. I mean sure, you can say I was role-playing, but it wasn't satisfying or interesting. I didn't feel as if I was actually developing within a world as a character, but just wasting time. I felt as if I was still the same person (unable to develop as a character and grow more attached to anything), still living within the same world, where my actions for the past 15 to 20 hours didn't matter whatsoever.
I hope I was able to explain it well enough. English isn't my first language.
Your worry is justified. In Oblivion they had a lot of stuff like that. With Skyrim, it's a lot better. I've honestly not had a quest where I've went, "damn it, what was the point of that?? Why did I waste 30 min/1 hour trying to get this crap to whoever??".
I know that, but I also believe that these distractions should be done in a way that doesn't harm the main story? And isn't the quality of these "distractions" important as well?
I'll try to explain with as little grammar errors as possible:
In Planescape Torment, for example, the sidequests allowed me to to, as you said, craft my own tale. It allowed me to create my own character, to roleplay, to immerse myself into the world. But most of these sidequests not only had a interesting tale of their own, they also added something to the backstory and/or depth of characters or to a district, city or world et cetera. These sidequests not only allowed me to craft my own tale, but also allowed me to immerse myself even more into the world and my character, but also got me more interested in the main quest. It boosted the main plot, while providing distractions. I never truly got derailed.
Oblivion on the other hand, at least the first 15-20 hours of my playtime, merely gave me random fetch-quests for random items for random people for no interesting reason and that kind of derailed me from everything else. I mean sure, you can say I was role-playing, but it wasn't satisfying or interesting. I didn't feel as if I was actually developing within a world as a character, but just wasting time. I felt as if I was still the same person (unable to develop as a character and grow more attached to anything), still living within the same world, where my actions for the past 15 to 20 hours didn't matter whatsoever.
I hope I was able to explain it well enough. English isn't my first language.
I really don't understand what you mean other than maybe you like sidequests that impact the world or the main story in a major way. Well, if that's the case, then I wouldn't call those sidequests. The purpose of sidequests is to help you craft your own story independent of the plot-wagon.
Let me give you an example of a good side-quest. As I walked through the marketplace of Whiterun, I overheard a man and wife arguing about the man losing his fathers family sword. Your basic fetch quest, right? But then you go deeper and realize his wife won't let him go, as the thieves are dangerous and highly armed. So, I agreed to retrieve the sword for some coin, my character being the type to help, as long as he is promised a reward.
Much later, after completing the quest, I obtained a story quest to a place far beyond the local mountains, but the path there led me past the fort where I'd fought the bandits from before. They were still dead, and I knew where I was and felt more at ease about not getting lost. I was also quite proud that I'd already handled these bandits before and didn't need to fight them again.
To me, THAT is roleplaying. My actions, my choices, influenced the world, and my story. Sure, it didn't advance the main quest, but I'm glad it didn't as I still have much of this amazing land to explore.
Also getting sidetracked isn't a problem at all, it's all down to player choice really. For example the next part of the main quest for me sounds awesome, but I'm also hearing a lot about some sort of magic school; I like magic so I want to check it out! Maybe magic will help me on the main quest There's a lot more to it than just assuming the main quest isn't interesting.
Yeah, I know. That wasn't the kind of derailment I was talking about. I know there's more to a world than just the things that happens within the main quest and I know that there are plenty of things outside of it that let you develop as a character. The magic school stuff kinda sounds awesome too. What I meant with sidequest derailment was getting bombarded with sidequests that add very little to the world or your character, other than a letting you do a bland fetch-quest or something like that.
Although I will admit that I did make a mistake with that first post (So I totally understand KotS's post). I instantly assumed that nearly all sidequests would be like that when I posted that, but that was quite illogical of me. My apologies.
Totally surpassed my expectations! I knew it was going to be pretty, but geez, it's is a staggeringly beautiful game. The first time an aurora lit up the sky, that is something real special. I didn't even know they'd tweaked with the levelling system either, so that came as a very pleasant surprise. Apart from that, the combat, NPCs, writing, story, magic, it's all better, much better.
I was expecting a flaw riddled steaming crap pile, I was pleasantly suprised, also even though I WAS planning on buying it around christmas, a buddy of mine bought it for me on release day and I played it for like 26 hours after that, time just flew away, only a good game does that, Like Fallout(the original) I beat that twice all the way through including litterally extinguishing all life the second time through in one go(yes I took breaks to eat/go to the can but it was the shortest 70+ hours I've experienced, I was... like 12 at the time that was like 13 years ago and I still remember it fondly) and more recently New Vegas I played the crap outa that game around 300 hours at this point, I'm rather lucky in the case of bethesda games as I RAREly if EVER run into the game breaking bugs people apparently run into all the time, in new vegas I think the autosaves were broken for the first like... couple days before they patched it and fixed it, that's all... and with skyrim it crashed once, so so far nothing much...
But yeah damn fine game, I've practically totally reviewed it in one of my previous posts about it...
Skyrim's a rather fun game. I am loving my High Elf and magic is fuckin' awesome, everything dies before it reaches me. Well, almost everything. xD My only gripe is the visuals. There are several times when the textures are so low res it's unbelievable. As many games that have come out this year, I have to say that Skyrim has by far among the worst visuals I have encountered. As far as I can tell, Uncharted 2 looks so much better than Skyrim on so many levels, and it's way older. They aren't exactly terrible, because it's definitely pretty. But pretty stops when you get close up, to he honest. But overall, I'm having fun with Skyrim.
It's actually surpassed mine. To be fair, I wasn't among the frothing masses for Skyrim before it came out (Skyward Sword and Mass Effect 3 are the ones that make me do that). But I was expecting to love Skyrim nonetheless.
But it has surpassed my expectations in a few ways:
-Writing: Not that it's outstanding or anything, but Bethesda's writing is usually pretty awful. It's competent here. There is also a great deal of environmental storytelling to be found out in the world, and I love that.
-Difficulty: I've actually had a few encounters that I just had to run away from. There is a sense of danger to the world, and that adds to the experience greatly for me.
-Character animations: I've seen some people complain about this, but I'm not seeing the issue. They look fine overall. I can only think of one time where an awkward character animation kind of brought me out of the experience.
-Bugs: I still haven't found one. Applause for that.
There have been a few disappointments, though. I haven't switched companions for a while, but the one I've had with me has absolutely no backstory or personality (Lydia). That's pretty disappointing after getting to know all of New Vegas' companions. Maybe I need to find someone else?
It's absolutely fantastic but I was so hyped, it didn't really exceed my expectations
Edit: One thing that did surprise me was how easy it is to get immersed. Until now Fallout 3 was the most immersive (and generally best) RPG I had ever played and although I loved Oblivion, it's vanilla version was not so immersive what with bland animation etc. However, in Skyrim I totally get lost in making a tale of my character - I spend a lot of time stalking game in the tundra, it doesn't pay well but I feel like a real hunter
It is really good - but how the hell do I change the aspect ratio? I can't find the option (on the xbox360) and my T.V. isn't widescreen, so stuff gets cropped off the edge.
I was nervous about getting it after not enjoying Oblivion or Fallout, but so far it's been the best RPG I've ever played. Every single moment of the game is awesome. I really can't find any major flaws except for unkillable characters. It's no fun when you want to massacre the town but some unkillable NPC keeps harassing you.
Yes it did. I'm was about 12 hours into it when i though "hey wait a minute.. i don't like mages". I'm split between a dual-wielding warrior and archer thief.
Every time i pick one of them, i think about how awesome the other one is. Story of my RPG life.
Because it's still a high-fantasy, open-world, first person action RPG. If you liked a lot of fundamental design ideas about Oblivion, basically the idea of Oblivion, then there's a fat chance you won't like Skyrim.
But if your issues lie more with certain design flaws, like the ones you listed, then Skyrim will be a lot better, as it significantly improves on those things. The NPC's, dialogue, sidequests (so far as I've seen), the world itself, pretty much everything you named has improved significantly over Oblivion.
And isn't the "Getting sidetracked" thing a problem in itself? It's giving me the idea that the main story isn't interesting enough that you'd want to learn more about it as fast as you can and instead get sidetracked constantly.
Oh no, I just have the attention span of a kitten on speed sometimes. The world is just an incredibly brilliant place to explore and simply ride around in.
The mainquest looks good so far, at least quite a bit better than Oblivion's. If only because this time you're not just the main character's (Martin in Oblivion) errand boy, but the actual main character.
No, that's not what I meant. What I meant was that I enjoy sidequests that do a few of the following:
- Allow me to end the sidequests in multiple different ways.
- Add to the character development of anyone (PC or NPC)
- Add something to your understanding of the world and people around you.
- Make me feel emotions for area's or people.
- Allow me to create some significant changes to an area, city, world or the life of a character other than just "You helped me, thank you".
I obviously know that main quests and sidequests should be two completely different things. What I meant to say is that I enjoy sidequests that flesh out the world, other than just let me do things. I understand your opinion of a good sidequest, but I have to respectfully disagree.
Let me explain with my own example. It is once again from PS:T
Somewhere around the beginning, you get a new team member named Dak'kon. You speak to him about his people, his ways, his opinions and whatnot from the very beginning. Later on, you get the opportunity to do a sidequest, which involves a small item that he brought with him when he joined your group.
Within this sidequest, you ask Dak'kon for more information about his people and their past. He teaches you in "the way of Zerthimon", you become his student and he becomes your master. There are multiple levels of understanding their philosophy and their past and he guides you through most of them. After each teaching, he speaks to you about what he's just taught you, in order to understand whether you know what you've been thought or whether you know what you've been taught. As you progress through the teachings however (as your intelligence increases), you come across oddities that don't really align with what had been said before, at least according to your understanding. When you first ask him for an answer, he gives you a basic one, as if he's trying to avoid it. As you further keep questioning your teachings however, you come to realize that Dak'kon doesn't truly know what he's been studying as well. You got into discussions with him and with each discussion, you wittled away his confidence and his opinion that he did truly understand the way of Zerthimon. After the realization that he did not truly know, he lashes out at you, screaming that you will never speak to him about this again.
Later, you continue studying the way of Zerthimon and discover a new layer of understanding. You mention this to Dak'kon and even though you've crushed his ego and got into a fight with him, he replies in a way you didn't really expect. He, instead of lashing out some more and denying that you understand it better than he does, quietly and humbly asks whether you would show this to him. The student has outgrown the master. You don't speak of what happened to him until the very last layer of knowing. In the end, after all that happened, he ends it all by saying that no matter what happens, when it happens or why it happens, he will be with you until the very end.
Now THAT was to me an incredible sidequest. It adds nothing to the main quest, but what it does is that it fleshes out a character in ways I had never seen before in a game, it adds to the world around you, its inhabitants and its history. It also immerses you into the world and your character more, due to the way you handled the sidequest (due to multiple methods and results).
There's also another one, which fleshes out the universe more than it fleshes out a single character, but still:
There is a sidequest within the hive, which you obtain by talking to some "insane woman". You find out that she wasn't originally from here, but fell through a portal and couldn't find her way back. She tells you that she's been here for over 30 (40?) years and that she has never approached doorways and many other objects for nearly half a decade. This sounds absurd at first and you don't understand why..
You find out that portals can appear anywhere, take you to anywhere and can only be opened by specific objects. The location of these portals, the locations it takes you to and the objects you require to open them are completely random and you can't find out until you've accidentally come across one. This is why she is afraid. She is afraid that she might fall into one and get teleported to who knows where. Your quest is to find someone to take her home. As you try to find this person, you learn about how portals work, how the entire universe is split into multiple parts, how the world holds itself together. Everything. The sidequest tells you everything about the dimension you reside in, the personal fears of an NPC and more. You decide to help her out, find a portal traveler which helps her return to her own place. The traveler then comes to you, handing over to you an item she wanted you to have, as a token of her appreciation. And you then continue with your quest, somewhere hoping that you may come across her again one day. Where and when that might be, only time will tell.
This, aside from being a fairly fun sidequest, adds something to the world around you and to the NPC's around you. Your understanding of it helps you immerse yourself better into the world and all this is done by a sidequest in which you basically talk to a person, talk to another person and then talk to the first person once more.
Perhaps I'm just looking for a different kind of RPG. I know nothing of Skyrim, so I do not have opinions regarding it, but when playing oblivion, I came across nothing even remotely similar to this. Most of the quests I got to do basically consisted out of people asking me to do things for reasons they won't tell, after which I travel to a place and get an item of no significance, give it back to them and they thank me. That's basically it. Sure, I helped someone, but I didn't get the feeling that I actually did anything meaningful. I believe that my knowledge of the world and its inhabitants has a direct effect on my role-playing, as my knowledge effects my opinions and that effects my actions. If there are no sidequests that flesh out anything and all merely alter a few things (often in a black-and-white manner), I start having a bit of trouble immersing myself into the game.
Your opinion of a good sidequest, while I just partially but respectfully disagree with, is a step up from that. Your actions did have a certain effect on you personally, but I did not notice anything of the sort in Oblivion during my playtime. Again, I'm not even bashing oblivion here, as I haven't finished the game. I am merely explaining my experience with the game.
I now hope that I have been able to successfully explain my viewpoint on the matter.
Adellebella said:
Your worry is justified. In Oblivion they had a lot of stuff like that. With Skyrim, it's a lot better. I've honestly not had a quest where I've went, "damn it, what was the point of that?? Why did I waste 30 min/1 hour trying to get this crap to whoever??".
But if your issues lie more with certain design flaws, like the ones you listed, then Skyrim will be a lot better, as it significantly improves on those things. The NPC's, dialogue, sidequests (so far as I've seen), the world itself, pretty much everything you named has improved significantly over Oblivion.
These posts are incredibly reassuring. It seems I might decide to buy Skyrim after all. It was either this, Dark Souls or L.A. Noire, but now I'm leaning more towards the first.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
There's a lot more to it than just assuming the main quest isn't interesting.
