Skyrim, where's the fun?

[Swyftstar]

I find fun in character creation and customization and exploring. The combat is only good for the occasional kill scene. I really like character creation and customization in games in general though so I got a lot of fun out of this game.

 

[zidine100]

I like skyrim, what can i say my arrows are now worth a damn. I tried play oblivion with just full archer, didn't end so well.

And i do like crawling through dungeons shooting people or animals in the ass with arrows, or assrows as i like to call them, makes the kill cam so much more hilarious.

Ill admit oblivion's quests were a lot more interesting but there's fun to be found.

 

[woodaba]

All I can say is, if you're not into Skyrim it's either you never liked the RPG setting or you simply don't play too many games in different genres.

Or we can realize that Skyrim is essentially a lobotomized version of Elder Scrolls designed specifically to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Some people do have opinions outisde the realm of your comprehension, ya know.

 

[Maeta]

Mix it up a little bit: I know it makes sense to stick to one style of fighting, but I keep switching between melee/bow and arrow/magic and I like to mix it up between being in-your-face barbarian attack and sneaky picking off members of groups from a distance hoping nobody notices kinda thing.
The thing that makes me love Oblivion, Skyrim and Fallouts 3 and New Vegas (for they are the only ones I've either completed or played more than a couple of hours (didn't get far into Morrowind, but I intend on going back to it at some point)) is that you can decide almost everything you want about who your character is, and why they behave as such... And usually that means I massacre a whole town due to some imagined mental trauma (that one only really makes sense with that scenario is Fallout 3 due to abandonment and that wanker Moriarty taking the piss in Megaton). Another thing you can do in Skyrim, though... Lettuce basketball!

 

[Fappy]

I still have fun with Skyrim despite it's repetitive nature, though I wish they'd return to the quest variety offered in Morrowind

 

[CannibalCorpses]

That was exactly the question i asked myself once i'd finished it...where is the fun? The combat is boring, the skill system is so broken it's laughable and half the quests have no worthwhile rewards. The exploration part of the game is the only redeeming feature and that always leads to a dungeon with a fractionally harder bad guy at the end with a skill book and a magical item or 2. The difficulty settings change nothing but how many times you have to hit something before it dies and how many silly pause potions/meals you consume in the process.

It's a modern game i'm afraid...visuals over substance, hype over quality...and sadly it will be considered one of the best games of it's time as a result.

 

[RedDeadFred]

The freedom is awesome. The quests (IMO) are quite fun. Being an assassin is hugely satisfying and I actually like the melee combat (guess I'm one of the few).

The biggest appeal of the game for me is roleplaying. This isn't for everyone because a lot of people like guidance but I've always found that this is what I enjoy the most.

 

[Blunderboy]

I still have fun with Skyrim despite it's repetitive nature, though I wish they'd return to the quest variety offered in Morrowind

This. It's still fun and I do enjoy it but I just lost months of my life to Morrowind. Hell my alarm tone is Nerevar Rising. I wake up in a good mood some days because I instantly think of all the fun I had in that game.

 

[Fappy]

I still have fun with Skyrim despite it's repetitive nature, though I wish they'd return to the quest variety offered in Morrowind

This. It's still fun and I do enjoy it but I just lost months of my life to Morrowind. Hell my alarm tone is Nerevar Rising. I wake up in a good mood some days because I instantly think of all the fun I had in that game.

I've listened to the Morrowind soundtrack far more times than I care to admit. Oblivion's "Sunrise of Flutes" would be a good alarm tone me thinks ;3

 

[MopBox]

All the fun is hidden in Dawnstar. You find it as part of the thieves guild quest line.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I actually rediscovered the fun of the Elder Scrolls series but it may not be for everybody. You see Oblivion was the one I spent the most time with and this is because of my background music: Dragonforce (or really any other similar speed/hair metal). Something about roaming through a pseudo-medieval landscape with that kind of music just makes it seem more epic...especially when the song is Operation Ground Pound.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

All I can say is, if you're not into Skyrim it's either you never liked the RPG setting or you simply don't play too many games in different genres.

Or we can realize that Skyrim is essentially a lobotomized version of Elder Scrolls designed specifically to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Some people do have opinions outisde the realm of your comprehension, ya know.

Nah. Skyrim is a good example of streamlining as opposed to dumbing down. It's less complex than Oblivion in superficial and super tedious ways but more sophisticated where it counts.

 

[Sam17]

Conjuration/Illusion is a great challenge, I really enjoyed seeing how long I could go without killing an enemy myself, as opposed to making groups kill each other/spawning mobs to fight for me

 

[charge52]

Skyrim on the whole is a victim of the hype machine. For a game with literally hundreds of hours to, I found it too dull to even get through 30.

A slight correction, players who lack an active imagination are the ones who I would say fell victim to the hype.

My imagination works overtime when I am playing the game, self narration in my head, thinking of my characters in their own way and their individual stories as they move through the world ect.

Not everyone can do that, and they are the ones who are failed by the game.

Er, so what your saying is that you have to write a story for the game world, or else there is nothing interesting? This isn't fucking minecraft, that is a flaw, if a game is so poorly designed that people have to imagine something else is happening than it is a bad game.

 

[charge52]

I have analyzed some behaviors about the fun in different genre. All I can say is, if you're not into Skyrim it's either you never liked the RPG setting or you simply don't play too many games in different genres. The appeal of Skyrim and possibly other Bethesda games is the "freedom" found in it that are rare in today's videogames.

I have played games from every genre, and I am a RPG fanatic, yet I still think Skyrim is a horrible piece of shit. Whats the point of being free if all you can do is go to the same areas and kill the same baddies doing essentially the same quest over and over again.

 

[lacktheknack]

Most of the time I just enjoyed exploring.

The perfect mix would be Morrowind's openness and range of variety with Skyrim's world and Oblivion's quests.

... with Daggerfall's spellmaker. Can't forget Daggerfall's spellmaker.

 

[Woodsey]

Most of the time I just enjoyed exploring.

The perfect mix would be Morrowind's openness and range of variety with Skyrim's world and Oblivion's quests.

... with Daggerfall's spellmaker. Can't forget Daggerfall's spellmaker.

And some Hubba Bubba.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I thought werewolfness would help spice things up a bit but it makes me really weak.

That was my first reaction when I played as a werewolf. But if you have the Dawnguard DLC it adds a skill tree and leveling system to the werewolf power. Give it some time and feed on a few bodies and it actually makes for a pretty unstoppable wolf-man killing machine. Although that function should have been in the base game...

I always wondered why a tiny part of me insisted that Oblivion was better despite the god-awful flaws the game had. It's so true though, Skyrim may play better but it's nowhere near as much fun as Oblivion, I just never noticed it before.

 

[TrevHead]

That was exactly the question i asked myself once i'd finished it...where is the fun? The combat is boring, the skill system is so broken it's laughable and half the quests have no worthwhile rewards. The exploration part of the game is the only redeeming feature and that always leads to a dungeon with a fractionally harder bad guy at the end with a skill book and a magical item or 2. The difficulty settings change nothing but how many times you have to hit something before it dies and how many silly pause potions/meals you consume in the process.

It's a modern game i'm afraid...visuals over substance, hype over quality...and sadly it will be considered one of the best games of it's time as a result.

Yeah this is what i've been afraid of as if yet to play Skyrim.

To me a good ES is all about exploration, loot & questing and since I want to play it on PC i've been putting off playing the game till I upgraded my GFX card. However judging by how crap Fallout 3 is with it's exploration, loot and questing i'll be better off waiting till all the DLC and high quality mods are out before playing it.

With F3 all the most interesting places were the DLC. If it the game would have been set in Vardenfall, only the ash wastes and mountain would have been in the game, all the other areas like the swamps and plains and faction towns would be DLC.

BTW how long is Skyrim's main quest? It's not as short as Fallout 3 is it?

 

[charge52]

Skyrim on the whole is a victim of the hype machine. For a game with literally hundreds of hours to, I found it too dull to even get through 30.

A slight correction, players who lack an active imagination are the ones who I would say fell victim to the hype.

My imagination works overtime when I am playing the game, self narration in my head, thinking of my characters in their own way and their individual stories as they move through the world ect.

Not everyone can do that, and they are the ones who are failed by the game.

Er, so what your saying is that you have to write a story for the game world, or else there is nothing interesting? This isn't fucking minecraft, that is a flaw, if a game is so poorly designed that people have to imagine something else is happening than it is a bad game.

You dont have to, but you are a nameless, voiceless protagonist, its only a bad game if you go into it expecting something else, it is fine for what it is.

It is up to you what your characters motivations are, why you are doing what you are doing, not every game needs to hold your hand and tell you why you are doing what you are doing, thats fine for the majority of games, but not every game has to follow that model.

Why is it that so many other RPGs can establish a character while still giving you control over who they become, but skyrim can't? Also, I like how the Ultima games gave you a nameless voiceless protagonist, yet those games don't suck. It is not fine for what it is, because all it is is a failed attempt at making a RPG.