The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dawnguard Review

[Rooster Cogburn]

So more of exactly what I disliked about Skyrim to begin with. Impactless, consequence-free gameplay. Just a few extra toys fill the meaningless game world with.

It's funny how attractive that sounds to me lol. Not the 'meaningless' part but the 'extra toys' for my gameworld part.

They made some attempts to give the main quest visible impact on the people of Vvardenfell in Morrowind and a lot of people complained about it. It mostly took the form of annoyingly repetitious congratulatory dialogue. That may be part of the reason they haven't tried harder to give your victories more visible impact.

Personally, I think they should embrace other types of stories then "you must save the world from- who cares? Just save the world". It doesn't fit the nature of their game worlds and it lends itself to lazy writing anyway. We all know the world isn't going to change much, so why not write a story that allows that to make sense? I mean not every story has to feature an existential threat to everyone and everything. Get them away from that and they may even write something interesting by accident (besides exposition/lore, they're great at that) .

Hell, it's even more consequence-free than before. They took out the hated at the most starved stage effect to idiot proof being a vampire now that everyone will become one.

I may be one of the idiots. I neglected to do much as a vampire in Skyrim, probably because it was such a chore in Oblivion. It was very cool to gain the powers of vampirism and accept the consequences. For an hour or two. But the consequences just amounted to busy-work in practice. Feeding and avoiding the sun wasn't a fun or complex challenge, it just wasted my time. I'll see if I enjoy being a vampire in Skyrim+Dawnguard.

 

[Shjade]

So more of exactly what I disliked about Skyrim to begin with. Impactless, consequence-free gameplay. Just a few extra toys fill the meaningless game world with.

Hell, it's even more consequence-free than before. They took out the hated at the most starved stage effect to idiot proof being a vampire now that everyone will become one.

Well that kinda suc- err, bite- ... Frick.

So I'm confused on one point: the review says both questlines (vamp and Dawnguard) have basically the same goals. Does that mean the vampires and the Dawnguard are both fighting to protect the sun? I thought the whole point of the vampire thing in this was going to be trying to snuff out the sun.

 

[Soopy]

Basically plays like the Civil war quest lines in that it makes NO difference who you side with, the outcome is the same (that being nothing changes). The characters are definitively better then other quests though and the story interesting enough.

Compared with what the the Vanila game gave you for $100aud this is a pretty good update.

Compared with previous TES titles, it still sucks balls.

 

[Soopy]

I was super excited about Skyrim, bought it at launch, played one character to about level 43, then put it down and never picked it up again. Something about it is just, I don't know, very "blah" feeling. Not like Morrowind used to feel at all.

I feel the same.

For me its the fact that the story doesn't make sense, is told extemely poorly and nothing you do matters.

 

[Josufu]

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dawnguard Review

... at the end of the video... was that you trying to murder some butterflies with vampire powers? That's dark man... like "supporting the Stormcloaks unironicly" dark.

I saw that and raced off to the threads to comment on it, but you beat me to it. I caught that bit at the end and thought, "That . . . that's just not right."

 

[Shjade]

I was super excited about Skyrim, bought it at launch, played one character to about level 43, then put it down and never picked it up again. Something about it is just, I don't know, very "blah" feeling. Not like Morrowind used to feel at all.

I feel the same.

For me its the fact that the story doesn't make sense, is told extemely poorly and nothing you do matters.

I dunno, Morrowind felt like that to me, too. It just looked uglier to boot. And had infinite diseases to annoy you with in the red mountain areas.

 

[Soopy]

I was super excited about Skyrim, bought it at launch, played one character to about level 43, then put it down and never picked it up again. Something about it is just, I don't know, very "blah" feeling. Not like Morrowind used to feel at all.

I feel the same.

For me its the fact that the story doesn't make sense, is told extemely poorly and nothing you do matters.

Its a shame, I am not sure where they went wrong but Skyrim holds none of the old magic for me. I know plenty of people love it, but I am hoping the next Fallout will give me that open ended, personalized open world RPG experience I have been craving. Perhaps the next generation systems will also lead to some more interesting experiences.

For me its simple, they went wrong when they decided to make every choice the correct one.
There is no consequence for anything, and a choice without consequence is almost an insult IMO. (It strikes me as being treated like a special needs child)

Not only is there no consequence for actions the world is static. I'm not reffering to pointless NPC's with pointless schedules to keep. But When the main antagonist is vanquished NOTHING HAPPENS. When the Civil war is ended NOTHING HAPPENS.

People complain about the Mass Effect ending. Heh, at least it had an ending. Skyrim must have been written by Damon Lidelof...

 

[Soopy]

I was super excited about Skyrim, bought it at launch, played one character to about level 43, then put it down and never picked it up again. Something about it is just, I don't know, very "blah" feeling. Not like Morrowind used to feel at all.

I feel the same.

For me its the fact that the story doesn't make sense, is told extemely poorly and nothing you do matters.

I dunno, Morrowind felt like that to me, too. It just looked uglier to boot. And had infinite diseases to annoy you with in the red mountain areas.

The story in Morrowind was infinitely better and your character had a developement process.
Skyrim, you walk out of a cave, down the road and ZOMG YOUR THE DRAGON BORN!!!!
Then you get led by the nose for a few hours and everyone ignores you.

 

[hydroblitz]

I was super excited about Skyrim, bought it at launch, played one character to about level 43, then put it down and never picked it up again. Something about it is just, I don't know, very "blah" feeling. Not like Morrowind used to feel at all.

I feel the same.

For me its the fact that the story doesn't make sense, is told extemely poorly and nothing you do matters.

Its a shame, I am not sure where they went wrong but Skyrim holds none of the old magic for me. I know plenty of people love it, but I am hoping the next Fallout will give me that open ended, personalized open world RPG experience I have been craving. Perhaps the next generation systems will also lead to some more interesting experiences.

I feel the same. Skyrim just didn't give me that same wonder as Oblivion did. It might have been that it was my first real open world fantasy RPG and now that I've gotten used to the internet crack that is WoW, it doesn't seem very special anymore...

 

[Shjade]

I was super excited about Skyrim, bought it at launch, played one character to about level 43, then put it down and never picked it up again. Something about it is just, I don't know, very "blah" feeling. Not like Morrowind used to feel at all.

I feel the same.

For me its the fact that the story doesn't make sense, is told extemely poorly and nothing you do matters.

I dunno, Morrowind felt like that to me, too. It just looked uglier to boot. And had infinite diseases to annoy you with in the red mountain areas.

The story in Morrowind was infinitely better and your character had a developement process.
Skyrim, you walk out of a cave, down the road and ZOMG YOUR THE DRAGON BORN!!!!
Then you get led by the nose for a few hours and everyone ignores you.

There's definitely a more gradual climb for the Nerevarine than for the Dovahkiin, but I wouldn't say that makes it "better" by default. It just means you had more fetch quests to complete before people decided ZOMG YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE. It's equally arbitrary. At least in Skyrim you actually do things that pretty clearly show you are this chosen whatever, whereas in Morrowind you're basically just an adventurer who people decide must be this prophesied hero because you're doing cool stuff for them.

I don't remember any Nerevarine-specific powers akin to the Dovahkiin's inherent connection to Shouts. Maybe it's been too long since I played it, but I'm pretty sure you're just Some Adventurer and kind stumble into the whole Nerevarine deal.

As for the story: both games have pretty choppy stories by virtue of their open-ended non-linear do-what-you-want gameplay. They both struggle to keep a clean, smooth, coherent story in line when they have so much space for faffing about in between. I mean, look at what you said: you walk out of a cave, down the road and suddenly, bam, Dragonborn. Sure, that can happen. Or, if you do what the guy you exit the cave with tells you to do (Split up, don't follow me), you could end up going the other way, find yourself in Falkreath, and before you know it a month has passed and you're embroiled in the conflict between the Forsaken and the far west city with the name I can't remember off the top of my head with no one having mentioned anything about this Dragonborn business.

To me, Morrowind and Skyrim feel pretty much the same in terms of story quality, in that I didn't really play either of them for the story (as I find neither compelling in that respect). For the open world and gameplay, however, Skyrim definitely has the upper hand. I will say I seem to recall I liked the factioning setup of Morrowind more, though. I dunno, maybe I just miss the Morag Tong.

 

[Shocksplicer]

It should also be mentioned that if you choose to become a vampire lord while doing the Dawnguard side of things it breaks the storyline until you cure yourself.

 

[Soopy]

I was super excited about Skyrim, bought it at launch, played one character to about level 43, then put it down and never picked it up again. Something about it is just, I don't know, very "blah" feeling. Not like Morrowind used to feel at all.

I feel the same.

For me its the fact that the story doesn't make sense, is told extemely poorly and nothing you do matters.

I dunno, Morrowind felt like that to me, too. It just looked uglier to boot. And had infinite diseases to annoy you with in the red mountain areas.

The story in Morrowind was infinitely better and your character had a developement process.
Skyrim, you walk out of a cave, down the road and ZOMG YOUR THE DRAGON BORN!!!!
Then you get led by the nose for a few hours and everyone ignores you.

There's definitely a more gradual climb for the Nerevarine than for the Dovahkiin, but I wouldn't say that makes it "better" by default. It just means you had more fetch quests to complete before people decided ZOMG YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE. It's equally arbitrary. At least in Skyrim you actually do things that pretty clearly show you are this chosen whatever, whereas in Morrowind you're basically just an adventurer who people decide must be this prophesied hero because you're doing cool stuff for them.

I don't remember any Nerevarine-specific powers akin to the Dovahkiin's inherent connection to Shouts. Maybe it's been too long since I played it, but I'm pretty sure you're just Some Adventurer and kind stumble into the whole Nerevarine deal.

As for the story: both games have pretty choppy stories by virtue of their open-ended non-linear do-what-you-want gameplay. They both struggle to keep a clean, smooth, coherent story in line when they have so much space for faffing about in between. I mean, look at what you said: you walk out of a cave, down the road and suddenly, bam, Dragonborn. Sure, that can happen. Or, if you do what the guy you exit the cave with tells you to do (Split up, don't follow me), you could end up going the other way, find yourself in Falkreath, and before you know it a month has passed and you're embroiled in the conflict between the Forsaken and the far west city with the name I can't remember off the top of my head with no one having mentioned anything about this Dragonborn business.

To me, Morrowind and Skyrim feel pretty much the same in terms of story quality, in that I didn't really play either of them for the story (as I find neither compelling in that respect). For the open world and gameplay, however, Skyrim definitely has the upper hand. I will say I seem to recall I liked the factioning setup of Morrowind more, though. I dunno, maybe I just miss the Morag Tong.

The thing with the Nevarine was that the only reason the things you did, could be done, was because you were Lord Nervar incarnate. Sure there wasn't much flash to it, but it was what it was.
If you followed the story line from start to finish without veering off, it flowed pretty well and after all was said and done,the world did change.

Skyrim, not so much. Most of the story progression is spurred by an completely arbitrary event as the antagonist did bugger all after the opening scene. I mean, we could have just ignored Alduin's little escapade and the world wouldn't have been effected even in the slightest. At least there was the plaque in Morrowind, 6th house assassins and political conspiracy to give the character some reason to persu the antagonist (who's motives aren't even immediately clear).

 

[Fasckira]

Whether you decide to fully embrace your vampire destiny, or else take up arms against a sea of blood-suckers, the story beats and quests are far too similar. The NPCs, goals and locations don't really change. All that matters is whether the vampire powers are being used by or against you.

This sums up my gripe with Skyrim's civil war arc too. It would have been nice to see two completely different quest lines so on replay you get to experience fresh content but alas..!

Whats the final vote on the crossbows? Worth the wait?

 

[Draconalis]

So more of exactly what I disliked about Skyrim to begin with. Impactless, consequence-free gameplay. Just a few extra toys fill the meaningless game world with.

But now it's stupid vampire toys!

That's something right?

Gods, I hate vampires...

 

[BehattedWanderer]

So, what you're saying is...it's a Skyrim add on, where the quests don't actually matter, it keeps waggling it's eyes provocatively about certain ways to play, and the people continue to not react properly to things. I'd say I'd wait for this, but since I'll be waiting anyway, this claim stands there picking it's nose for all the weight it carries.

 

[Durgiun]

So more of exactly what I disliked about Skyrim to begin with. Impactless, consequence-free gameplay. Just a few extra toys fill the meaningless game world with.

So much this.

That reminds me of Oblivion. No wonder I prefered Fallout 3.

 

[Soopy]

So more of exactly what I disliked about Skyrim to begin with. Impactless, consequence-free gameplay. Just a few extra toys fill the meaningless game world with.

So much this.

That reminds me of Oblivion. No wonder I prefered Fallout 3.

Skyrim makes Oblivion look like a literary masterpiece.