Xzi said:
Zarkov said:
Ah, you are a worthy opponent.
But as a tip, just because you say something has quality, doesn't mean it has quality.
And oh, how you dodged what I meant about quality over quantity is called putting up a straw man.
You didn't reply to my basic argument, and instead focused it to another part of the game, character creation , instead of skills [the original subject] and decided because character creation has depth then my previous argument is invalid, which is untrue and a fallacy in and of itself.
But other than that, I definitely agree Morrowind has it props in character creation and the depth of one's character. I personally believe the quests in Morrowind did more for the character and the world it resided in than Oblivion. But that's based in opinion, not in fact. And it's also not what I was talking about before.
In other words "my opinion is that quality + quantity > quality" was never supported in the argument we were holding and therefore has no relevance to the issue at hand; that issue being that of only the skills in Morrowind versus Skyrim. And unless you wanted to start a whole other argument irrelevant to this one, then the statement was out of place.
Oh, and about the sword and dagger conundrum; I think you over thought what you put down. Just because a weapon's stats are different [a dagger hitting more accurately and quicker by nature, versus a sword doing more damage upon impact by nature] doesn't mean that how you USE the weapon is different. Skills are based upon how well you accomplish a task, and if the task at hand was killing someone by jabbing or slicing then there wouldn't be a difference between say a sword, dagger, or an axe. If you can use a sword well, chances are you can use a dagger well also. Now, that doesn't mean that because you can use a sword as an expert that you can use a lighter dagger as an expert. Skyrim solves this quite elegantly with the skills tree. By using a weapon in the "shiny pointy objects" skill, the certain weapon that you are using [let's say shiny pointy object A] will start to ascertain abilities for that weapon. However, the skill number will remain the same for each of the shiny pointies, including shiny pointy object B. Make sense?
Heh. I should stop talking before I get my panties in a bunch. lol
I probably could have done a better job of clarifying. By saying I prefer quality + quantity to quality alone, I meant that most, if not all the skills in Morrowind did have their uses, and therefore have quality to them. Which is also what I was getting at with the sword vs dagger thing.
Now, don't get me wrong, not all of the skills/spells in Morrowind were necessarily useful in combat. They did, however, add depth and enjoyment to the game, as well as adding to the meta-game. They gave you a world of depth to explore outside of the combat alone. In stark contrast, combat is where almost all of the focus lies in Oblivion, and will consequently be most of the focus in Skyrim as well.
I wouldn't guess that I'm alone in turning to RPGs as a genre as an escape from the entirely combat-centric genres like FPS games. That doesn't mean that I don't want the combat to be fluid or action-packed, it just means that I don't want combat to be the ONLY thing there is to do in the game. Especially in the higher character levels. We'll see how the perks/skill trees work out in Skyrim, but if I had to take a wild guess, I'd say they'll probably be almost entirely combat-related as well. Likely to follow a formula similar to WoW's, since every RPG these days seems to aspire to that while every FPS aspires to be CoD.
...Reminder to self: buy some Activision-Blizzard stock.
Good argument! I have a much harder time arguing a point this time, or at least finding a discrepancy.
One thing though; My argument was that quality or depth of skills in of themselves was the more important factor. In this regard, Morrowind did not have as much depth as Oblivion. Therefore, with Morrowind having more skills is of less importance than Oblivion having deeper skills.
I actually find myself agreeing with most of what you said. I do see that through the games they have become progressively more combat-centric. But you do have to remember that in Arena that's all there was. Daggerfall was the first to add more than combat, and Morrowind only improved on the original idea. So maybe Oblivion was just a call back to Arena? The TES universe didn't start getting weird until Daggerfall into Morrowind, but Oblivion, departing from the trend completely, actually seems a little odd considering the obscurity of Arena now-a-days. Todd said that Skyrim would be much more reminiscent of Morrowind however, so it is likely that you gain abilities in Speechcraft, which could include the mercantile skill and many other non-combat skills. You have to remember though, skills check what one can do. And as far as skills go, combat is the easiest and most obvious of them all. I do believe a balance between combat and non combat interactions would really be wonderful, but as great as Bethesda is, I'm not too sure they'll pull it off. Especially since there's such a focus on dragons and dragon voices. However, I could see dragon words being used outside of combat too. I'm just not sure a non-combat centric side to Skyrim really fit inside the world they already crafted.
The original idea for TES was combat; Daggerfall had a lot of combat, and so did Morrowind. It just happen to be that Morrowind also had a lot of non-combat interaction. I'm just not too sure we'll see a huge return in that respect, seeing as Morrowind [and some Daggerfall] were the only games to actually truly incorporate non-combat as a path through the game. And, really, as a fanboy, I can see how they'd make the decision. These games are all about an epic adventurer traveling among the land seeking his fate. I mean, with this sort of theme going on, combat is likely going to be given special attention. The game has to feel epic, it has to feel adventurous, and it would be preposterous if you were this weakling charismatic merchant whom takes up this quest. That's just my opinion however.
Either way, I'll still love Skyrim. With the new movement/combat engine, I'm going to have a lot of fun getting sucked into this game for hours on end.
Sorry, I get caught up in the conversation. Good stuff though, glad you're responding.
EDIT: "I probably could have done a better job of clarifying. By saying I prefer quality + quantity to quality alone, I meant that most, if not all the skills in Morrowind did have their uses, and therefore have quality to them." I pondered this statement for a while, and I came to the conclusion that you find quality in quantity; in that since there's a lot of skills, there's more to do, there for better quality gameplay. Blown my mind my friend, that's no simply quality quantity argument right thar. I'd rather not go that way, but yes, I see what you mean. I can't gauge whether the pure quality and depth alone in Oblivion would be better than the quality within quantity argument you set for Morrowind, so I'll just leave it at that lol.
