Skyrim Is a Neverending Story

[Ghengis John]

Being able to do something and enjoying doing it are two separate things. A man could eat nothing but donuts for only so long, and bad donuts for even less time. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say. I'm curious just how much variety they'll have in these quests, how much I'll enjoy doing them and how much fetching will be involved.

 

[MegaR]

too bad procedurally-generated quests are most of the time pretty generic.

 

[Phishfood]

Procedurally generated quest?

1) Generate X,Y, (Z?) co-ords for quest.
2) Randomly select foe.
3) Randomly select number.
4) Randomly select reward.

Procedurally generated quest complete.

 

[Keava]

Yeah. The repetition. The generic-ness limited to "bring A to B" and "kill n of C". There are reasons why RPGs evolved towards more story-telling oriented gameplay rather than procedural generated content.

Of course, they could just invent and amazing algorithm that creates plots with voice overs and whatnot.... but i somehow have my doubts about it. What makes Skyrim (and Morrow, and Oblivion) playable for years after is modding community and that's the place i'd rather look for "expanded adventures".

In the end procedural generation works best for hack and slash diablo-esque games.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

So wait, that post a while back that talked about a speedrun done in less than 2 hours or so, is it bull, then? Because I noticed two things: The mentioned a "series of main plots" and and endless game. So...no such thing as speedruns in this game?

It was a speedrun of the main quest line.

I'm not sure how much of the previous Elder scrolls series you've played, but the main quest line is like 2-3% of the game. There's various factions and such that have quest lines that are about the same length

 

[JoesshittyOs]

it sounds like a good idea if the quests affect the world.

like a guy needs helping planting crops and if you say screw you and come back after a month in game time that town will be running out of food and people will be dying in the streets or because the town would have to rely on imports their economy would be all messed up and they would jack up all the prices and if you refuse to help long enough the game will go through a random check to see wether the townspeople fix the problem by themselves or wether the town becomes a rat hole.

But you need to make the stuff more varied like along with food troubles have new dragons being born and causing problems, people being kidnapped, increase in gang violence, government conspriacies, and if you let the gangs go out of control they would mug you or you could join them and help them beat up other gangs and spread their power through out the world causing an alternate ending to the game.

The problem with the first thing is that a lot of the time (and I mean a lot of the time), you get told quests that you don't do till months later.

It wouldn't be very smooth to have "Help me now" type missions

 

[Casual Shinji]

Skyrim Is a Neverending Story

Does that mean we <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/namegame/9203-Name-Game-The-Never-Ending-Game>DO get to ride Falcore?
Cuz that would be AWESOME!

I was hoping that we'd get to kill Falcore... then eat that delicious looking stuff on his belly that looks like corn.
Mmmm: Corn.

As a kid I thought it was exposed fat tissue from underneath his skin. Always made the damn thing look rather icky to me.

I got Skyrim yesterday and I wasn't too enamored with it. The lighting engine gives off some funky shadows.

 

[Krantos]

Randomly generated quests? IMO thats just lazy programming to create stuff that will have no setpieces and no bearing on the world in general. I'm personally disgusted that Bethesda would lower themselves to such a practice.

Shovelware quests, if you like...

Simmer down there killer. These will basically be additional activities placed around the world to give the game more end-game appeal. They've already said that all the main factions' questlines have been handcrafted. I suspect there will be a large number of handcrafted side quests as well.

Personally, while I find this interesting, I doubt it will effect me much. I never did finish all of MW or OB's sidequests so it's likely I won't even finish Skyrim's primary side quests. Typically, once I've done all I want with a character I just start a new one.

However, I like that the various guilds will continue to have jobs for you. Makes them feel a little more real that way.

Not expecting much on quality of these random quests, tbh, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Comes out in two days? OH WAIT! I live in Australia and currently enjoying the shit out of this game!

 

[Samurai Goomba]

That was a good book, but man was that movie awful.

And before the flames scorch my beard, I shall retreat swiftly. (Also, procedurally-generated quests sound boring and lame, I don't want to play my video games forever. I never bothered with any of the once-a-week quests in Oblivion, I sure don't care about this.)

 

[Kahani]

I think this will be a good thing. Sure, the random quests are likely to be rather generic and get boring pretty quickly on their own. But the point is, they're not on their own. As someone else pointed out, this is something that's been added on top of the huge amount of effort that's already been put into handcrafting just about everything in the game. It certainly won't make the game unending, since once the proper stuff has been done the random stuff is really not going to add much reason to keep playing. But with it interspersed all through the game while you're playing, it's likely to add a nice bit of variety and keep every playthrough from being basically identical.

 

[DeepComet5581]

I have my copy of Skyrim in my hand right now , but I CAN'T INSTALL IT!

Bethesda, why must you mock me so?

 

[Quellist]

Randomly generated quests? IMO thats just lazy programming to create stuff that will have no setpieces and no bearing on the world in general. I'm personally disgusted that Bethesda would lower themselves to such a practice.

Shovelware quests, if you like...

Simmer down there killer. These will basically be additional activities placed around the world to give the game more end-game appeal. They've already said that all the main factions' questlines have been handcrafted. I suspect there will be a large number of handcrafted side quests as well.

Personally, while I find this interesting, I doubt it will effect me much. I never did finish all of MW or OB's sidequests so it's likely I won't even finish Skyrim's primary side quests. Typically, once I've done all I want with a character I just start a new one.

However, I like that the various guilds will continue to have jobs for you. Makes them feel a little more real that way.

Not expecting much on quality of these random quests, tbh, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'll reserve final judgement on this until i actually play the game, which due to my work schedule wont be until monday at least

In the meantime i'll just hope this is in addition to a decent amount of real content, not instead. Dragon Age 2 showed me just how some developers (not Bethesda so far i'll admit) are happy to throw in some crappy cut and paste content to last something out

 

[DeepComet5581]

Randomly generated quests? IMO thats just lazy programming to create stuff that will have no setpieces and no bearing on the world in general. I'm personally disgusted that Bethesda would lower themselves to such a practice.

Shovelware quests, if you like...

Simmer down there killer. These will basically be additional activities placed around the world to give the game more end-game appeal. They've already said that all the main factions' questlines have been handcrafted. I suspect there will be a large number of handcrafted side quests as well.

Personally, while I find this interesting, I doubt it will effect me much. I never did finish all of MW or OB's sidequests so it's likely I won't even finish Skyrim's primary side quests. Typically, once I've done all I want with a character I just start a new one.

However, I like that the various guilds will continue to have jobs for you. Makes them feel a little more real that way.

Not expecting much on quality of these random quests, tbh, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'll reserve final judgement on this until i actually play the game, which due to my work schedule wont be until monday at least

In the meantime i'll just hope this is in addition to a decent amount of real content, not instead. Dragon Age 2 showed me just how some developers (not Bethesda so far i'll admit) are happy to throw in some crappy cut and paste content to last something out

Also, let's face it, when Bethesda do add something in to draw the game out a bit (Fallout:NV DLC), at least they add GOOD content, content integral to the story of the game or the lore of the series and they at least make it last a decent amount of time (A good hour or 2). I have every confidence that these ad-hoc sidequests are supplementary, NOT a replacement.

 

[Divine Miss Bee]

"Skyrim, the latest chapter in the Elder Scrolls series, features procedurally-generated quests that will give players an endless list of things to do, even after the game's various plotlines are wrapped up."

...i am never getting my boyfriend back, am i? >.< well, i guess if you can't beat 'em, i'll just have to get it. when the price goes down.

being serious for a second, that's actually really cool. i like the idea of a game that never ends, that may actually be worth the arbitrary $60 price tag of all games.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Skyrim Is a Neverending Story

Does that mean we <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/namegame/9203-Name-Game-The-Never-Ending-Game>DO get to ride Falcore?
Cuz that would be AWESOME!

I was hoping that we'd get to kill Falcore... then eat that delicious looking stuff on his belly that looks like corn.
Mmmm: Corn.

As a kid I thought it was exposed fat tissue from underneath his skin. Always made the damn thing look rather icky to me.

I got Skyrim yesterday and I wasn't too enamored with it. The lighting engine gives off some funky shadows.

Maybe it's his brood waiting to hatch.
Mmmm. Popcorn.

Got it early? I would expect it to be visually glitchy but hows the gameplay?
What platform did you get it for?
I like their games but I have a ps3 (which, in my experience, gets crappy ports from Bethesda) so I'm going to wait for the obligatory "big patch" that we're sure to see anywhere from 2-6 months from now...then get it for the pc. And depending on how busy I am (I'll have a lot going on and those games are really involving), I might just wait for goty.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Even if the procedurally-generated quests don't quite live up to their billing (and I have no idea how that's actually going to work out), the "real" game should be unaffected. I doubt most players will get to the point where it becomes relevant anyway. Consider the number of hours you can sink into the game's various plotlines, and then add onto that the time it will take to get tired of auto-quests - even if it completely sucks, it's still going to grossly outweigh just about every other game out there. I look at it as a bonus.

Daggerfall was a mess at launch, yes, but Bethesda did a good job of patching it up, enough so that Computer Gaming World actually re-reviewed it. It was still a mess, but a playable mess - and a hell of a game.

 

[Quellist]

Randomly generated quests? IMO thats just lazy programming to create stuff that will have no setpieces and no bearing on the world in general. I'm personally disgusted that Bethesda would lower themselves to such a practice.

Shovelware quests, if you like...

Simmer down there killer. These will basically be additional activities placed around the world to give the game more end-game appeal. They've already said that all the main factions' questlines have been handcrafted. I suspect there will be a large number of handcrafted side quests as well.

Personally, while I find this interesting, I doubt it will effect me much. I never did finish all of MW or OB's sidequests so it's likely I won't even finish Skyrim's primary side quests. Typically, once I've done all I want with a character I just start a new one.

However, I like that the various guilds will continue to have jobs for you. Makes them feel a little more real that way.

Not expecting much on quality of these random quests, tbh, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'll reserve final judgement on this until i actually play the game, which due to my work schedule wont be until monday at least

In the meantime i'll just hope this is in addition to a decent amount of real content, not instead. Dragon Age 2 showed me just how some developers (not Bethesda so far i'll admit) are happy to throw in some crappy cut and paste content to last something out

Also, let's face it, when Bethesda do add something in to draw the game out a bit (Fallout:NV DLC), at least they add GOOD content, content integral to the story of the game or the lore of the series and they at least make it last a decent amount of time (A good hour or 2). I have every confidence that these ad-hoc sidequests are supplementary, NOT a replacement.

I hope you are right, only time will tell

 

[jonyboy13]

This brings up the question, what if I kill all the NPCs? Will their ghosts haunt me with quests?
Ghost NPC: "Please kill 10 ghost spiders."

 

[Casual Shinji]

Skyrim Is a Neverending Story

Does that mean we <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/namegame/9203-Name-Game-The-Never-Ending-Game>DO get to ride Falcore?
Cuz that would be AWESOME!

I was hoping that we'd get to kill Falcore... then eat that delicious looking stuff on his belly that looks like corn.
Mmmm: Corn.

As a kid I thought it was exposed fat tissue from underneath his skin. Always made the damn thing look rather icky to me.

I got Skyrim yesterday and I wasn't too enamored with it. The lighting engine gives off some funky shadows.

Maybe it's his brood waiting to hatch.
Mmmm. Popcorn.

Got it early? I would expect it to be visually glitchy but hows the gameplay?
What platform did you get it for?
I like their games but I have a ps3 (which, in my experience, gets crappy ports from Bethesda) so I'm going to wait for the obligatory "big patch" that we're sure to see anywhere from 2-6 months from now...then get it for the pc. And depending on how busy I am (I'll have a lot going on and those games are really involving), I might just wait for goty.

I got it on PS3 and I haven't had too many problems interms glitches, except for the occasional npc disappearing into thin air. Nothing game breaking though. There's actually a pretty fun glitch if you get smashed by a giant's hammer, causing you're corpse to get launched atleast 300 feet into the air.

Gameplay took some getting used to, but only because the V.A.T.S. mechanic from the Fallout games was still hard-wired into my brain, and I started off as an all-marksman character. But as a sorcerer I'm pretty much smoking tail all over the place.

...Love raising those corpses from the dead.