The World of Skyrim Means Nothing...

[SajuukKhar]

]I said that I don't mean some bullshit comments which don't actually EFFECT THE GAME IN A MEANINGFUL WAY. And all you do is talk about how so and so mentions this, or mentions that.

If you remove the ending credits from New Vegas do you know what you get in terms of "consequence"?

You get generic NPCs led by one named NPC replacing other generic NPCs led by one named NPC

Killing NCR at Helios via death ray
Before - Generic NCR led by named NPC
After - generic Legion NPCs led by name NPC

Killing Legion at Nelson
Before - Generic Leigion NPCs led by named Leigion NPC
After - Generic NCR NPCs led by named NCR NPC

Finding a cure for the supermtants
success - 4 generic and 1 named super mutant stay
fail - above leave, but no encounter after wards

All the world events that stem from actions you take in New Vegas are the same for everything you can do.

Either
A. NPCs get replaced
B. NPCs just leave and never show up again

the ONLY time your actions have real consequence, that actually changes things, is in the last 5-10 minutes of the game were your allies show up and help you at hoover dam, that and the epilogue.

95% of world altering consequences are only ever TOLD to you in the epilogue, it only exists in some voice overs, you dont get to physically see the world change, you are just told it is, which makes all said consequence pointless because you never get to experience it.

I would stake my life that had skyrim had a radio with a newsreporter and a series of epilogue slides we wouldn't be here having this discussion.

And at the end of the day the "conseuqence" Skyrim would have had would have been just as fake as NEw Vegas pretends it has.

95% of New Vegas's "consequences" is fake because you never get to see it or experience it, your are just sat down and told it happened in some ending slides. Its a really cheap, and exceedingly transparent gimmick that tricks people into believe their actions had more consequence then they did. that people still fall for it amuses me to no end.

 

[The_Echo]

My only problem with the world is the characters.
Name me one memorable character you met in Skyrim.
Yeah, thought so.

M'aiq the Liar and fucking Cicero. I feel like I will never completely forget that clown.

OT: I'm a little confused about the OP. Complaining about the world being not-super-awesome, and then gushing about the freedom the game gives you? I... I'm not 100% sure what the point you're trying to make is.

Anyway, I like the worlds in TES. Even if the characters are hollow and the world is kind of same-y (more so in Oblivion than Skyrim) I still have a lot of fun with it. Maybe it's because I'm not trying to get immersed into the game or anything.

If I ever did have a problem with the world, it's that the massive amount of lore behind the series is so beyond the background. There's so much history to the Elder Scrolls universe, but you never really see that through playing the game. Unless you decide to become a scholar and read every book in the game, that is.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

The PC in an RPG is the ubermensch. He's a time traveling (by dint of save/load) immortal (by dint of respawn) unstoppable (by dint of persistence) badass (automatically). So stop forcing him to be a good boy and go along with the motions in the name of laziness/corner cutting. Let him off the damned leash already. You're so close as it is... you just need to tweak a few more things...

I will never look at Saving and reloading the same way again.

 

[SajuukKhar]

So if someone assassinated the president of the United States, people would say "that's too bad" and go on with their lives? Lol?

If someone assassinated the president of the untied states people in Canada wouldn't give a shit. People in Skyrim dont really see themselves as part of the Empire, they dont really care about what happens to its leaders.

Are we talking about the same game here? The one that encourages you to kill the Emperor of your society? Kill dragons? That sort of thing?

If the game doesn't want you to have crazy consequences for your actions, then your actions shouldn't be crazy to begin with. Have a game about a guy who works as a mercenary protecting caravans. Beat up some bad guys, talk to some NPCs, visit different lands. There you go, HF. The consequences there can be perfectly realistic and almost non-existent at the same time.

Not killing fucking emperors.

A emperor's death and giant monsters being kills is commonplace, how you would think its "crazy" is beyond me.

I will never look at Saving and reloading the same way again.

It is funny how Bethesda has integrated the inventory and save game system into the lore of the sarees.

Pausing time by opening the menu is something your character actually does.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

The freedom I want isn't possible? How do you know? Who's tried?

I would take a world 1/10 the size of Skyrim if it offered me genuine consequence for my actions. Still no plot, still no characters. Just on those two variables alone.

In a game dedicated to that sort of freedom, it possibly could be done. Would a large studio capable of making such a game put that much effort into a fairly niche feature. No.

Was this sort of thing even remotely likely to appear in Skyrim, or will even modders do it? No. Why? Because freedom on that level is simply too convoluted and complex in a world that large. By even asking for a 10x smaller world to trade for that complexity, you are asking for a different game.

Quite simply if that sort of complexity is what you want, then look elsewhere, because this is not the game for it. It was never promised, it was never expected by the majority, and if you DID expect it, then thats a problem with your expectations and not the game. The game is not trying to have that level of complexity or that level of character depth or story focus, its like calling out Tekken for not having enough RTS elements.

 

[.No.]

Here's my problem: why do I want to do any of that?

You can do damn near anything, but the world can't react in a believable way to any of it. Why bother killing a person when it's just a puppet with no identity? Besides, how much freedom do you really have? How many ways can you interact with the world aside from killing people and taking their stuff?

I'd rather a game that restricts my freedom, prohibitively if necessary, but provides a world and characters that react to my actions.

And no, having guards say, "Perhaps you can brew me some ale" when I get 50 points in alchemy is not sufficient.

Basically this. If I want to get revenge on somebody who kidnapped me in my sleep, I want to chop off their fingers one by one, put a leash on them, and parade them around town. I want to tell them to call up all of their friends, all of their friends' friends, and let everybody know that I'm the new sheriff in town, and they'd better respect me, or else.

That's freedom. Putting a sword through someone and stealing their loot? All that does is ensure there can be no interesting plot, no interesting relationships amongst the NPCs, because any one of them could be dead at any given time.

All or nothing.

When you go to sleep at your house or an inn, you should be able to be killed in the middle of the night. When you eat, your food should be able to be poisoned. When you go exploring, you should be attacked by a miniature army of people seeking revenge. Your Housecarl should be able to be murdered while defending your home, and your house should be ransacked. You could lock the door, but that won't stop people from picking the lock. That'd be showing genuine consequences.
All or nothing, right?

 

[Zeema]

the only thing i found wonky bout the world is how no one seemed to care i had save all there lives.

its like if Shepard killed the reapers and just forgot him.

 

[SajuukKhar]

When you go to sleep at your house or an inn, you should be able to be killed in the middle of the night. When you eat, your food should be able to be poisoned. When you go exploring, you should be attacked by a miniature army of people seeking revenge. Your Housecarl should be able to be murdered while defending your home, and your house should be ransacked. You could lock the door, but that won't stop people from picking the lock. That'd be showing genuine consequences.
All or nothing, right?

When walking near cliffs one should be able to die by random avalanches
When exploring the world one should be able to be killed by random assassins who sneak up behind you with 100 stealth and invisibility and insta-kill you via a stealth critical

the only thing i found wonky bout the world is how no one seemed to care i had save all there lives.

its like if Shepard killed the reapers and just forgot him.

No one saw you kill Alduin, ofc they aren't gonna care, you cant prove you did it.

You can't even prove Alduin ever existed.

All the main heroes are destined to be forgotten
Hero of Arena? no one remembers him/her
Hero of Daggerfall? dead, no one remembers him/her
Hero of Morrowind? no one knows what happened to him/her and no one can remember what he/she looked like
Hero of Oblivion? people only know SOMEONE went into the Oblivion gates, all other aspects of his/her life forgotten

 

[Anthony Wells]

My only problem with the world is the characters.
Name me one memorable character you met in Skyrim.
Yeah, thought so.

Yarl Balgruuf the Greater from whiterun. He was the most memorable character i have met in almost any game i have played. Your move.



OT: meh someone else already said it. i went in expecting a fantasy story. with a fantasy setting. with tons of lore, dungeons, and loot. and a heroic badass. i wasnt disappointed

 

[SajuukKhar]

Yarl Balgruuf the Greater from whiterun. He was the most memorable character i have met in almost any game i have played. Your move.



OT: meh someone else already said it. i went in expecting a fantasy story. with a fantasy setting. with tons of lore, dungeons, and loot. and a heroic badass. i wasnt disappointed

I love Balgruuf, he has that perfect sitting pose down.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

My only problem with the world is the characters.
Name me one memorable character you met in Skyrim.
Yeah, thought so.

J'zargo is displeased that he is not memorable, but is conscious of the fact that many of my peers are very underwhelming.

 

[TheBestPieEver]

Yeah, the world feels dead and stagnant. The only character whose name I could remember died in the last game so... I really don't care.

If any I play it because I have like 3 characters who hang around diferent corners of the map and none of them discover they are dragonborn, so is fun to pretend they exist in they same universe. And yes, Skyrim's story is so boring that I had to make my own.

 

[octafish]

I have a lot of problems playing games like Oblivion because of their blandness and narrow focus. The risks of playing Arcanum I guess.

 

[SajuukKhar]

It's pretty bad when you gotta start making this own shit up in your head to compensate for the lame 'story' elements. At least it has good gameplay though ...Ugh, NOPE. The combat is shit too folks !

Why are these so called 'rpg fans' so fascinated with just wandering around these 3-D environments again ?

Combat was better then Oblivion and Morrowind..... I would even prefer it over Fallout since fallout's entire combat design was based around the instant win button known as VATS

fallout's combat is so craptastic you might as well open the console, type TGM, and just run around, the difference between that and VATS in completely unnoticeable.

 

[Altorin]

well, the thing about Skyrim is, that's certainly a way to play it, but there IS a deep rich setting there for you if you want to explore it. It's actually the first Elder Scrolls game I actually cared about the story for. In fact, it made me MORE interested in the other games' stories as well. So it not only had a decent story and great setting in its own right, it made other games better as well for providing a historian's eye to the events in those games.

Feel free to run around chopping off ALL the heads though, I wouldn't begrudge you that. It's great fun.

 

[krection]

Okay.... you do have a point here. I didn't really enjoy Skyrim as much as Oblivion, but it's still good. I really hated its attempts at making it "cinematic".

 

[Fidelias]

The thing about Skyrim is that I just can't care about it.

I mean, it just seems like 90% of the characters that I meet are complete assholes. And the other 10% could still be assholes, I just can't confirm it because the game will only give me two options without giving me any context or options to confirm my suspicions. (In My Time Of Need: Saadia's Quest)

Not only that, they are BORING, POORLY WRITTEN assholes! I mean, sure, the game seemed fun; it was pretty, the combat was fun, and you get to fight FRIGGIN DRAGONS! But I shouldn't catch myself yawning when I'm playing a game.

I just recently re-installed Fallout New Vegas, and I've gotta say; New Vegas makes Skyrim look like shit. Sure, the graphics aren't as nice, the people do the whole 'soul stare' thing, and the combat isn't as good, but the people and places have character! New Vegas has it's fair share of assholes, but it also makes me kind of see where these "villains" are coming from too. Plus, you also have characters who are mostly good, or at least friendly towards you, like the companion characters you can get. This makes me care about what happens to these characters at the end of the game. I like Veronica's quirky attitude, I like cyber-dog Rex, I want to know what happens to these characters.

This makes New Vegas ten times better than Skyrim, in my opinion.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Combat was shit in all these games, but at least VATS makes it more tolerable. The difficulty being too easy is another matter entirely.

I'll take the combat in Fallout 1/2 over all those games you just mentioned anyway. And that could of been alot better. (as far as turn based combat goes)

VATs made it tolerable? a instant win button that makes you godlike regardless of difficulty setting is even remotely good combat to you?

Reads the rest of your post................ you seriously think turn based combat is good at all? wow that's............. kinda sad.

Turn based anything is up there with
-Dice-rolls
-Quick-time events
-Cutscenes
as the shittiest things one could possibly put in games

Its almost as silly as the Witcher's stupid "this type of sword doesn't work on monsters for.......... no explainable reason".

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Skyrim is the first Elder Scrolls game that I haven't dumped a hundred plus hours into. It's also the only one wherein I only have one character who hasn't reached the level cap yet. The world just isn't engaging to me. The people are boring and unlike other Elder Scrolls games I've played, you have to wind and, crawl your way through every single dungeon instead of finding and exploiting their backdoor.

I know there are a lot of similarities between Skyrim, Oblivion and, Morrowind but on the other two I've clocked a couple hundred hours between several characters. Maybe I'm burned out from too much of the same thing, I dunno. It just seemed like Skyrim was really over-exaggerating its own plot.

"Hello, I am Imperial and I hate Stormcloak because I do!"
"Hello, I am Stormcloak and I hate Imperial because I do!"
"Hello, we ams at war but lets not fight until you attack first!"

Complained about this in another thread but you'd think Stormcloaks would be hostile towards an Imperial loving Dragonborn.

 

[Macgyvercas]

My only problem with the world is the characters.
Name me one memorable character you met in Skyrim.
Yeah, thought so.

One word. Paarthurnax. That was a character that both was memorable for me, and threw me a fucking loop when I first met him.

Spoiler: Spoilered for those who haven't played

And when the Blades want you to kill him, you can go talk to him about it, and he gives remarkably candid comments about the situation, followed by the ultimate armor piercing question: "What is better, to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"