Skyrim... what do people see in it that I don't?

[Pseudonyme]

Ack double post.

 

[Gennadios]

I liked Fallout 3 and New Vegas, so it just came to me as a surprise that I only thought that Skyrim was above average. Those games had choices, challenging gameplay, consequences and actual memorable characters. You had to specialise your character, choose your skills carefully. Nothing of the sort seems to be apply to Skyrim.

This, thus far the onlychoices I've made were what to do with the redguard woman and which faction to support. Im still looking for an interested guard to report the 3 npcs that gave me obviously illegal quests that I can't decline.

 

[Mekado]

I don't get it either. Skyrim is fun to play and addictive...so maybe it's those qualities alone that make it the best game ever. While the mechanics make it a superior game to Oblivion, I simply don't see myself putting in 300-500 hours from my experiences so far.

Wait until the modders gets their hands on the creation kit, a good part of Oblivion's appeal (to me anyways) was the mods...

 

[WeaponisedCookie]

Story- Underwhelming, Fallout 3 and hell, even New Vegas did it better
Combat- Boring, It's so backward in terms of it's combat mechanics, no amount of dual wielding is going to change that. Pathetic executions and repeated lackluster attack animations. Mount and blade did it MUCH better.
Environments- The only good part about this game. It looks good and is somewhat believable.
Characters- I couldn't care less about the bland, stuck-up drones in this game. I expected more from bethesda.
Quests- I'm sorry if I have no motivation to help drones achieve their life goal. If they were more believable for me to actually EMPATHISE with them it wouldn't have been a problem.

I have no idea why there's so much love for Skyrim and share your sentiments. When I look at the sales for modern warfare 3 though, then I understand. People with even less character than the NPCs in Skyrim support big titles. Must be some sort of group mentality thing.

 

[Zenn3k]

I've put probably 70 hours into Skyrim, with 3 different characters, all going in different directions.

I still haven't seen everything the game has to offer me, and I still haven't actually completed the "main" quest or even the civil war quest yet.

Granted, I'm starting to run out of side things to do, but 70 hours and still finding new things is a glorious amount of gaming for my dollar.

Besthesda seems unable to disappoint me.

 

[WeaponisedCookie]

Edit-Triple post

 

[WeaponisedCookie]

Edit-Triple post, my apologies

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

And, no, no, it's not bad. Not saying that But everyone, EVERYONE, seems to regard this game as being the best game of all time, or the year even, for some inexplicable reason!

I have played for some 30-40 hours now, and the last few hours have been me almost forcing myself to play, just in the vague hope that I'd encounter whatever it is that every other person in the video gaming community seems to have met. But to no avail!

The story is just the typical "the world is going to end and you are the only one who can save it, so you must hurry" scenario, quickly followed by "but you should really do the five thousand side-quests, or you'll miss the entire game" - which more than saps the immersion out of the main quest. There are no characters in the game. I am certain that, gun to my head, I wouldn't be able to name a single person in the entire world of Skyrim! They all look, talk and act the same, and none of them are even remotely interesting.

Every single quest so far, as been, more or less, the same. Travel to the other end of the land, kill half a county in some dungeon, get item, use short-cut to reach entrance of the dungeon, return item. And that isn't so bad in itself, it's just that the game doesn't exactly make combat or travelling a unique experience. Yeah, the snowy landscape is pretty, but that's basically the only landscape the game has to offer. And, sorry, but that's not enough for a game world that is this massive! And then there's the combat. The combat is, well, lacking in challenge. The AI is borderline retar- err, I mean, "special", and gets crippled if you use the landscape to your advantage, even a little. And that was before I discovered that by levelling my Enchantment skill, I could reach unlimited Destruction and Restoration Magicka, essentially making me indestructible. So there's me, running around in full Legendary Daedric armour, with unlimited magicka. After that, the game ceased to pose any kind of challenge. I play on Expert, by the way.

The first dragon encounter was great. It was tense and thrilling! The second was also pretty great. But after the third or fourth, the encounters quickly dived into nothing more than a minor annoyance, especially since they appear constantly - consisting mostly of waiting for the creature to land, so I can kill it. Currently walking about with ten+ dragon souls, all shouts activated, and more bones and scales than I know what to do with. The giants are little more than a joke. I have slaughtered every single one I have seen, and they haven't been able to hit me even once! And for all the boast of the alleged hundreds of unique dungeons, they all look the same, with the same set-pieces and textures.

And then there's the obligatory bugs that comes with the Bethesda tag. One of the worst has been when the main quest just bugged out, and the only solution was console commands - meaning, that if I had been playing on a console, I wouldn't have been able to complete the game! The menu is obviously made for consoles, and is therefore a pain to use on the PC. The score is the usual fantasy-film orchestral score, but everyone seems to think that it's the best thing since discount hookers!

So, that's my I-feel-left-out rant. I just don't see what people see in this game! What am I missing? And be gentle, please!

edit: that joke will get me banned

its all about taste, dude.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

I've played just over 100 hours of it now and I'm not even close to bored. Just started my mage character tonight. And after a 92 hour playthrough of my Nord warrior, smacking stuff with a two handed axe, I'm now enjoying burning things to death.

Maybe it's just not the game for you.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Skyrim is very very very good I love it. I do find myself making a new character everytime I hit the 40 hour or so mark but hopefully all that upcoming dlc will fill that gap.

 

[Pseudonyme]

The fact that outside the main quest, dragons are nothing more than a five minute saga of "stand around until it lands, hit it a couple of times, figure out how to carry these bones" is pretty awful, I must agree. I just don my resist gear and ignore them now.

 

[Mekado]

I liked Skyrim, but it failed to create a gripping story. The openness worked against it - the bulk of my time in the game was spent running around, and that is not my idea of fun or a thought-provoking game. I fully accept I am in the minority with this - but I would have enjoyed it more if the whole game devoted itself to a more singular story, rather than the bloated mess it is. The moments of brilliance had nothing to do with the open nature of the game that is always the target of TES games - the dialogues with Plummer, Christian and von Sydow were by far the highlight.

So:
-Poor enemy variation
-Repetitive environments
-Infinite "go here, get/kill this"
-Nonsensical enemy scaling
-No "story" to speak of
-No actual characters
-It's all about the gear

Skyrim is a single player mmo, isn't it?

As for my serious gripes -
Companions. They're universally, unfailingly, retarded. And they also don't scale with difficulty, so they're useless as well. Yes, please, stand in that doorway so I can only get past with force shout. Teleport ahead of me in the cave, turn around and run round the corner at me so I instinctively kill you with one swing. Get in the way during a close combat and painfully remind me that my last quicksave was ten minutes ago - I beg you. Was it unreasonable to expect at least the functionality of fallout NV companions?

Enchanting is made such that any act of enchanting bestows the same amount of expereince.
Hence, any soul gem that isn't a grand soul gem is essentially the same in functionality: junk to grind with. And as such, the only way to level enchanting is to enchant junk with junk a good several hundred times. And unlike smithing, there's no easy keyboard command for this. Endorsing Carpel tunnel is not a good thing, Bethseda.

Story- Underwhelming, Fallout 3 and hell, even New Vegas did it better
Combat- Boring, It's so backward in terms of it's combat mechanics, no amount of dual wielding is going to change that. Pathetic executions and repeated lackluster attack animations. Mount and blade did it MUCH better.
Environments- The only good part about this game. It looks good and is somewhat believable.
Characters- I couldn't care less about the bland, stuck-up drones in this game. I expected more from bethesda.
Quests- I'm sorry if I have no motivation to help drones achieve their life goal. If they were more believable for me to actually EMPATHISE with them it wouldn't have been a problem.

I have no idea why there's so much love for Skyrim and share your sentiments. When I look at the sales for modern warfare 3 though, then I understand. People with even less character than the NPCs in Skyrim support big titles. Must be some sort of group mentality thing.

Anyone else find it suspicious that 3 users who are here for less than a week, with 3 empty profiles are saying basically the same thing ?

Smells like angry competition to me, nice try though.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I liked Fallout 3 and New Vegas, so it just came to me as a surprise that I only thought that Skyrim was above average. Those games had choices, challenging gameplay, consequences and actual memorable characters. You had to specialise your character, choose your skills carefully. Nothing of the sort seems to be apply to Skyrim.

This, thus far the onlychoices I've made were what to do with the redguard woman and which faction to support. Im still looking for an interested guard to report the 3 npcs that gave me obviously illegal quests that I can't decline.

You get the choice to join or destroy the Dark Brotherhood.

That's probably the biggest choice you actually get in the game. Kind of.

Spoiler

Even if you join the Dark Brotherhood, most of it gets destroyed and everyone save for two characters die anyway. So it's more or less the same. On the other hand, Nazir is one of those two people, and he was the only DB member that I actually gave two damns about. Well, him and Cicero.

 

[Pseudonyme]

Anyone else find it suspicious that 3 users who are here for less than a week, with 3 empty profiles are saying basically the same thing ?

Smells like angry competition to me, nice try though.

I signed up because of this thread.
This is a forum, not a social network - I have no intention of filling out profiles.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I liked Skyrim, but it failed to create a gripping story. The openness worked against it - the bulk of my time in the game was spent running around, and that is not my idea of fun or a thought-provoking game. I fully accept I am in the minority with this - but I would have enjoyed it more if the whole game devoted itself to a more singular story, rather than the bloated mess it is. The moments of brilliance had nothing to do with the open nature of the game that is always the target of TES games - the dialogues with Plummer, Christian and von Sydow were by far the highlight.

So:
-Poor enemy variation
-Repetitive environments
-Infinite "go here, get/kill this"
-Nonsensical enemy scaling
-No "story" to speak of
-No actual characters
-It's all about the gear

Skyrim is a single player mmo, isn't it?

As for my serious gripes -
Companions. They're universally, unfailingly, retarded. And they also don't scale with difficulty, so they're useless as well. Yes, please, stand in that doorway so I can only get past with force shout. Teleport ahead of me in the cave, turn around and run round the corner at me so I instinctively kill you with one swing. Get in the way during a close combat and painfully remind me that my last quicksave was ten minutes ago - I beg you. Was it unreasonable to expect at least the functionality of fallout NV companions?

Enchanting is made such that any act of enchanting bestows the same amount of expereince.
Hence, any soul gem that isn't a grand soul gem is essentially the same in functionality: junk to grind with. And as such, the only way to level enchanting is to enchant junk with junk a good several hundred times. And unlike smithing, there's no easy keyboard command for this. Endorsing Carpel tunnel is not a good thing, Bethseda.

Story- Underwhelming, Fallout 3 and hell, even New Vegas did it better
Combat- Boring, It's so backward in terms of it's combat mechanics, no amount of dual wielding is going to change that. Pathetic executions and repeated lackluster attack animations. Mount and blade did it MUCH better.
Environments- The only good part about this game. It looks good and is somewhat believable.
Characters- I couldn't care less about the bland, stuck-up drones in this game. I expected more from bethesda.
Quests- I'm sorry if I have no motivation to help drones achieve their life goal. If they were more believable for me to actually EMPATHISE with them it wouldn't have been a problem.

I have no idea why there's so much love for Skyrim and share your sentiments. When I look at the sales for modern warfare 3 though, then I understand. People with even less character than the NPCs in Skyrim support big titles. Must be some sort of group mentality thing.

Anyone else find it suspicious that 3 users who are here for less than a week, with 3 empty profiles are saying basically the same thing ?

Smells like angry competition to me, nice try though.

I have to admit you have a point - or, you WOULD have if the game elements being criticized weren't so pervasive. I mean, would you be suspicious if three users turned up in a Call of Duty thread and all of them criticized Call of Duty for being shallow?

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

They see black people.


You racist!

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Skyrim is basically Oblivion 2.0 from what i can see with the combat being no different and not as exciting as other games along with the tacky AI and lack luster voice acting.

But i suppose i could opt with the most iconic obvious phrase that seems to be the norm these days even for games that god forbid have anything bad in them:

"Maybe the game isn't for you?".

On a side note i would not actually use that phrase as all games have something bad in them and sometimes fail at what they try not that i'm saying it's such a bad thing.

 

[Mekado]

I have to admit you have a point - or, you WOULD have if the game elements being criticized weren't so pervasive. I mean, would you be suspicious if three users turned up in a Call of Duty thread and all of them criticized Call of Duty for being shallow?

Actually if they registered all within 3 days yeah i probably would.No matter though, some points are valid but criticizing a Bethesda game for being open-ended ? really ? that's like criticizing my house because it has a roof, that's something everybody should be expecting.

Anyways whether you're 1 or 3 people i don't really care, i just though it very strange that most of the voice of dissent came from "suspicious" accounts.

If you're 1, please stop this, this is childish

P.S. oh hey i have a remark, i wouldn't even call it a gripe but heh...
Anyone realized most of the new voice actors are the dragon age 2 people ? i swear i recognized Varric,Fenris,Meredith and some others...

 

[WeaponisedCookie]

@Mekado
Three posts about a game that wouldn't change anything at all? The internet isn't a conspiracy. Judging by your reply, you must be an expert in the 'field' of angry post that aim to destabilise a game. Tell me, how does on refine himself in this pointless art? On that note, have you even played Skyrim?