What is it with Elder Scrolls games?

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

What?
You sell stuff and put it in your house, not let yourself become over encumbered. You make choices that change the story line and determine what you do. Why would I care about a developer created character more than I would one I created? I honestly think developer created stories are lame compared to player created stories.

I've only seen probably 5 or so hours of Skyrim played when hanging out because I don't like the gameplay of Bethesda games at all. From what I saw of the dragon fights in Skyrim, they came off as "routine" and not threatening at all. The dragon fights in Dragon's Dogma were probably 100x better. Inventory management is so overblown in just about every video game RPG, it's ridiculous, you never had to do such management in pen and paper games. Yeah, I can fast travel back and forth to sell or drop off stuff after I fill my inventory, but that's just wasting my time. Just cut out the middle man and give straight money and let me buy what I want. One of the best things about the Souls games is how streamlined loot is, you get souls from every kill to use as you please either in leveling or buying stuff, cutting out the middle man basically. When did I say you should care about a developer created character more than your character? My question is why should I care about a quest when I don't care about the NPC I'm doing the quest for? The main reason why there was such hatred for the Mass Effect 3 ending was because players were so attached to their character along with their party characters. If players weren't attached then it wouldn't have been nearly such the big deal it was like how Assassin's Creed 3 had probably a shittier ending (the very same year) but nobody cared about the characters thus nobody really cared how bad it was. The actual story of anything isn't that important, it's everything else (characters and journey) that makes people care about it and not the story itself (like say a little something you may have heard of called Lord of the Rings). The developer still has to create a framework like a DM (the players can't create their story by themselves) and also write good characters.

Gotta say....this game is kind of garbage. I mean mostly garbage.

You make some interesting points; however; you're wrong to say that it's garbage. You can have that opinion, but don't label it as absolute fact.

There is no such thing as art being of any factual quality. It's all opinions. If someone finds a game to be garbage, it's garbage to them and that's a fact.

 

[Mad World]

There is no such thing as art being of any factual quality. It's all opinions. If someone finds a game to be garbage, it's garbage to them and that's a fact.

That's my point. He's the one saying that it's factually garbage. I'm saying that it's garbage to him, yes; however, that doesn't objectively make it garbage... and that's a fact.

Yeah, it kinda does. If I hate a game/movie/song/etc, it is indeed garbage. Just because other people like it doesn't change how I feel about it. There's no quantifiable, objective way to rate a piece of art.

Again, you seem to misunderstand what we're saying. The OP implied that the game - regardless of how others view it - is garbage.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Morrowind is the best. Cooler story, cooler locations, better mechanics, gamebreaking custom spells. That basically annihilate everything and make for incredibly stupid fun. Like being able to travel anywhere with a single jump. Morrowind is wonderful. All the rest of the series afterwards felt hollow in comparison. Morrowind basically allowed you to become Lina Inverse who could mass kill things with a single AoE spell.

Spells feel weak in Skyrim. No punch. Kind of pointless...

 

[stroopwafel]

You make choices that change the story line and determine what you do. Why would I care about a developer created character more than I would one I created? I honestly think developer created stories are lame compared to player created stories.

It kind of depends on where the emphasis of the story is I think. If the game is about exploring with the environment telling the story having a blank slate of a player character works well but as soon as there is any kind of straightforward narrative then a mute protagonist will kill any kind of immersion. Espescially when the story is already weak. Fans of Skyrim never praise the questing or story but always the exploration which I guess highlights the game's strengths. However this also means the game is 'wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle' since there isn't much substance to the game and that players will quit as soon as they are tired of exploring. The Witcher 3 is much more memorable as not only do you have interesting exploration but also a really good story(or rather multiple really good stories) which simply wouldn't have been possible without a preset character. It just provides much more incentive to keep playing and complete the game.

I did enjoy Skyrim though when it came out in 2011 but felt it was always held back by poor and unsatisfying combat mechanics. Exploring the huge map was still quite a lot of fun but other games like The Witcher 3 have innovated and hugely improved the formula which makes Skyrim look even weaker in retrospect. Even Fallout 4 didn't seem to innovate much. Bethesda have been using the same template for like decades now and having just a huge open world to explore with nothing like story or combat to compensate for just doesn't cut it anymore.

 

[maninahat]

Bathesda are into making big environments to which they can attach a game to, rather than doing it the other way around. They call them RPGs, but offer very little in the way of player expression, beyond which order you want to do your quests in and how precisely you choose to kill bad people. As long as its expansive and can offer a trillion hours of gameplay, it doesn't matter to much to make that gameplay fun or compelling. I somehow played something like a hundred hours of this, and I spent most of it being bored or disappointed - I guess as long as it is inoffensive enough, I'll just keep going.

 

[Jonbodhi]

I've played through Skyrim 7-8 times, using different characters, on the PS3, so no mods for me. That first playthrough was about playing it as I'd play other games. It was only later that I really grasped the 'sandbox' concept. After the first time, my various characters have all stared as stealth archers, my favorite way to play. Each then branches out from there as I wrote a backstory for each character, his history, ethics and drives. Doing the same quest or dungeon has a diffferent meaning when seen through a different character's eyes.

For example, two of my favorite playthroughs look like this: a good guy, dedicated to Justice, joins the Companions and becomes a werewolf and the Mage's College to study Destruction Magic and the conjugation of elemental demons for backup, using his bow and daggers less as his power grows. He follows the main quest to save the world, joins the Dawnguard,destroys the Dark Brotherhood and travels Skyrim fighting vampire and dragons and generally doing good.

Another character is angry, alienated, and makes his living stealing. He gets infected with vampirism, joins the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood, learns how to control minds and raise the dead at the Mage's college, and sides with the vampires in Dawnguard. He also uses his bow and daggers less and less as his power grows. Eventually he's cleared my entire re dungeons without enemies ever knowing he was there. He's never heard of the Dragonborn.

I love the game for giving me the freedom to have created and played these characters, and I accept the responsibility for making my own fun. There was a point where my playtime in Skyrim matched every other game I've played combined. I didn't put in all those hours because of 'hype,' and neither are all the others who've put in so many hours.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Skrim is a blight on gaming.

It's not a bad game in itself, in fact I'd rate it 7/10, but the praise it recieved was OTT, and Open World standards which now infect games because of it have ripped the soul out of most RPGs as they all ram filler down our throats instead of quality.

However, back in t'day Morrowind was a wonderful, mysterious, hand-crafted experience which did one thing absolutely AMAZINGLY - it made every nook & cranny feel like it potentially held a valueable secret, and thus exporing truly magical. It's alien world constantly introduced new & exciting elements, and it's story was strong enough to give you a constant desire to drive on, but also presented in a way which meant getting side-tracked felt natural & never detatched you from the main quest too much either.

It's combat was crap, it did benefit loads from modding, but at it's core was a lush experience which has yet to be bettered in terms of "Explore-em-ups" IMO.

Skyrim (and Oblivion) have rode it's reputation into the new era, improving the game in certain ways such as combat, but mostly forgetting what Morrowind & the earlier TES games were about, and trading it's soul so that COD/FIFA loving fucktards can appease their tiny minds with constant, meaningless junk.

The hyped up bandwagon which everyone jumped on when it was released was shocking, and the only game which has matched such overatedness since is The Witcher 3, as that traded The Witcher 2's tight & deep story-driven game for shallow, tiresome open world bullshit & filler, and a main quest which is dull beyond belief.

 

[CaitSeith]

Now my first game with dragons came in 1993 and that was on the SNES, an RPG named Breath of Fire so I was scratching my head wondering why dragons were so awesome in 2011.

And mine was the action game Forbidden Forest on the C64 in 1983. Your point?

I made my point, that getting excited over dragons in 2011 made no sense.

For a series where the count of dragons you fought in previous games can be done with a single hand, it sounds like a big deal.

Why? It's like getting excited over driving a car in Final Fantasy. It may be a first but it's just not a big deal when you have been doing it in other franchises for years.

Change driving a car with driving a motorcycle and you get a more accurate comparison.

And the past generation I saw a lack of dragons as relevant game elements in general (even in Final Fantasy).

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

That's my point. He's the one saying that it's factually garbage. I'm saying that it's garbage to him, yes; however, that doesn't objectively make it garbage... and that's a fact.

Again, you seem to misunderstand what we're saying. The OP implied that the game - regardless of how others view it - is garbage.

Oh, come on, you don't have to put IMO before/after everything you say that's an opinion, it's assumed. It's not like the TC is said "Skyrim is garbage and anyone that loves the game are idiots" or something along those lines.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Now my first game with dragons came in 1993 and that was on the SNES, an RPG named Breath of Fire so I was scratching my head wondering why dragons were so awesome in 2011.

And mine was the action game Forbidden Forest on the C64 in 1983. Your point?

I made my point, that getting excited over dragons in 2011 made no sense.

For a series where the count of dragons you fought in previous games can be done with a single hand, it sounds like a big deal.

Why? It's like getting excited over driving a car in Final Fantasy. It may be a first but it's just not a big deal when you have been doing it in other franchises for years.

Change driving a car with driving a motorcycle and you get a more accurate comparison.

And the past generation I saw a lack of dragons as relevant game elements in general (even in Final Fantasy).

Well whatever but the hype for Skyrim was and is over the top. Imagine a world where Nintendo releases a new Zelda game but it's hated by most because of endless forests, the level scaling breaks the game and it needs modders to patch out many bugs. Now imagine 5 years later when Nintendo announces the next Zelda game but they show dragons and people start calling it GOTY and GOAT after E3 and before release. Wouldn't you be scratching your head wondering why a company who makes broken games that are full of gameplay flaws can overcome that reputation with....dragons?

 

[CaitSeith]

Now my first game with dragons came in 1993 and that was on the SNES, an RPG named Breath of Fire so I was scratching my head wondering why dragons were so awesome in 2011.

And mine was the action game Forbidden Forest on the C64 in 1983. Your point?

I made my point, that getting excited over dragons in 2011 made no sense.

For a series where the count of dragons you fought in previous games can be done with a single hand, it sounds like a big deal.

Why? It's like getting excited over driving a car in Final Fantasy. It may be a first but it's just not a big deal when you have been doing it in other franchises for years.

Change driving a car with driving a motorcycle and you get a more accurate comparison.

And the past generation I saw a lack of dragons as relevant game elements in general (even in Final Fantasy).

Well whatever but the hype for Skyrim was and is over the top. Imagine a world where Nintendo releases a new Zelda game but it's hated by most because of endless forests, the level scaling breaks the game and it needs modders to patch out many bugs. Now imagine 5 years later when Nintendo announces the next Zelda game but they show dragons and people start calling it GOTY and GOAT after E3 and before release. Wouldn't you be scratching your wondering why a company who makes broken games that are full of gameplay flaws can overcome that reputation with....dragons?

Who knows? It was very similar with No Man's Sky, but the hype on the later just went down in flames after release. Skyrim seems to still be fondly regarded as a fun game. Maybe that's why. Lots of people found Skyrim fun (and its negative aspects negligible) once they had their hands on it, while very few did the same for NMS. Hype doesn't last 60+ hours of playtime.

EDIT: Besides, if you ask Skyrim fans what they liked the most from the game, they'll rarely put the dragons in first place.

 

[CritialGaming]

That's my point. He's the one saying that it's factually garbage. I'm saying that it's garbage to him, yes; however, that doesn't objectively make it garbage... and that's a fact.

Again, you seem to misunderstand what we're saying. The OP implied that the game - regardless of how others view it - is garbage.

Opinions are opinions man. The game is a hot stinky turd. Do I really have to say, "In my honest opinion....Fuck this game. Fuck it right in it's sweaty meat hole." for you to understand it is just my opinion? I really shouldn't. So when I say the game is garbage, I mean that in my eyes the game is shit. Skyrim, to me, has absolutely ZERO redeeming qualities to it.

And I don't care what anyone says, just because a game can be modded out the ass doesn't make the game good. I don't buy a video game because I can mod it to not suck. I understand that a lot of people enjoy the playground that modding can provide, but that is not the experience I have ever looked for in a game. And frankly the game is out on so many consoles in which modding it isn't even an option, or if it is it is very limited, so it is very reasonable for me to expect something out of the developer made version of the game.

Also to the people that said that if I had done even a little bit of research I would have known that I wouldn't like Skyrim before I bought it. You guys can get over yourselves. Seriously. I'm glad you like Skyrim, but saying that I shouldn't have looked into a game so stupidly popular because I should have known I wouldn't like the game is just asinine. Sorry if I upset your little Skyrim bubble, but I simply could not overlook the absolutely poor haphazard construction of a game that is supposed to be so beloved and fantastic.

Then again I also thought Breath of the Wild was shit, so maybe I just don't get "it" whatever "it" is.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I've played through Skyrim 7-8 times, using different characters, on the PS3, so no mods for me. That first playthrough was about playing it as I'd play other games. It was only later that I really grasped the 'sandbox' concept. After the first time, my various characters have all stared as stealth archers, my favorite way to play. Each then branches out from there as I wrote a backstory for each character, his history, ethics and drives. Doing the same quest or dungeon has a diffferent meaning when seen through a different character's eyes.

For example, two of my favorite playthroughs look like this: a good guy, dedicated to Justice, joins the Companions and becomes a werewolf and the Mage's College to study Destruction Magic and the conjugation of elemental demons for backup, using his bow and daggers less as his power grows. He follows the main quest to save the world, joins the Dawnguard,destroys the Dark Brotherhood and travels Skyrim fighting vampire and dragons and generally doing good.

Another character is angry, alienated, and makes his living stealing. He gets infected with vampirism, joins the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood, learns how to control minds and raise the dead at the Mage's college, and sides with the vampires in Dawnguard. He also uses his bow and daggers less and less as his power grows. Eventually he's cleared my entire re dungeons without enemies ever knowing he was there. He's never heard of the Dragonborn.

I love the game for giving me the freedom to have created and played these characters, and I accept the responsibility for making my own fun. There was a point where my playtime in Skyrim matched every other game I've played combined. I didn't put in all those hours because of 'hype,' and neither are all the others who've put in so many hours.

See, that is how I see that Skyrim was meant to be played. It provides the background, the props and you decide which direction you want to go with it.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Now my first game with dragons came in 1993 and that was on the SNES, an RPG named Breath of Fire so I was scratching my head wondering why dragons were so awesome in 2011.

And mine was the action game Forbidden Forest on the C64 in 1983. Your point?

I made my point, that getting excited over dragons in 2011 made no sense.

For a series where the count of dragons you fought in previous games can be done with a single hand, it sounds like a big deal.

Why? It's like getting excited over driving a car in Final Fantasy. It may be a first but it's just not a big deal when you have been doing it in other franchises for years.

Change driving a car with driving a motorcycle and you get a more accurate comparison.

And the past generation I saw a lack of dragons as relevant game elements in general (even in Final Fantasy).

Well whatever but the hype for Skyrim was and is over the top. Imagine a world where Nintendo releases a new Zelda game but it's hated by most because of endless forests, the level scaling breaks the game and it needs modders to patch out many bugs. Now imagine 5 years later when Nintendo announces the next Zelda game but they show dragons and people start calling it GOTY and GOAT after E3 and before release. Wouldn't you be scratching your wondering why a company who makes broken games that are full of gameplay flaws can overcome that reputation with....dragons?

Who knows? It was very similar with No Man's Sky, but the hype on the later just went down in flames after release. Skyrim seems to still be fondly regarded as a fun game. Maybe that's why. Lots of people found Skyrim fun (and its negative aspects negligible) once they had their hands on it, while very few did the same for NMS. Hype doesn't last 60+ hours of playtime.

EDIT: Besides, if you ask Skyrim fans what they liked the most from the game, they'll rarely put the dragons in first place.

So what was driving all the hype from E3 if not the dragons? Another broken open world game, LOL?

 

[WeepingAngels]

Also to the people that said that if I had done even a little bit of research I would have known that I wouldn't like Skyrim before I bought it. You guys can get over yourselves. Seriously. I'm glad you like Skyrim, but saying that I shouldn't have looked into a game so stupidly popular because I should have known I wouldn't like the game is just asinine. Sorry if I upset your little Skyrim bubble, but I simply could not overlook the absolutely poor haphazard construction of a game that is supposed to be so beloved and fantastic.

Then again I also thought Breath of the Wild was shit, so maybe I just don't get "it" whatever "it" is.

The research would tell you that the combat sucks but that's ok because it's better than Oblivion and the rest of the game is awesome. When a game is hyped as much as Skyrim, reviews are worthless because they are all going to downplay the flaws and praise everything else beyond what it deserves. When it comes to hyped games, reviews are like an extension to the marketing department.

Breath of the Wild may be a fine game but I got maybe a half hour in before I realize that I just couldn't do yet another open world game. Frankly, I hate that everything has to be open world and side quest driven these days.

 

[CaitSeith]

Now my first game with dragons came in 1993 and that was on the SNES, an RPG named Breath of Fire so I was scratching my head wondering why dragons were so awesome in 2011.

And mine was the action game Forbidden Forest on the C64 in 1983. Your point?

I made my point, that getting excited over dragons in 2011 made no sense.

For a series where the count of dragons you fought in previous games can be done with a single hand, it sounds like a big deal.

Why? It's like getting excited over driving a car in Final Fantasy. It may be a first but it's just not a big deal when you have been doing it in other franchises for years.

Change driving a car with driving a motorcycle and you get a more accurate comparison.

And the past generation I saw a lack of dragons as relevant game elements in general (even in Final Fantasy).

Well whatever but the hype for Skyrim was and is over the top. Imagine a world where Nintendo releases a new Zelda game but it's hated by most because of endless forests, the level scaling breaks the game and it needs modders to patch out many bugs. Now imagine 5 years later when Nintendo announces the next Zelda game but they show dragons and people start calling it GOTY and GOAT after E3 and before release. Wouldn't you be scratching your wondering why a company who makes broken games that are full of gameplay flaws can overcome that reputation with....dragons?

Who knows? It was very similar with No Man's Sky, but the hype on the later just went down in flames after release. Skyrim seems to still be fondly regarded as a fun game. Maybe that's why. Lots of people found Skyrim fun (and its negative aspects negligible) once they had their hands on it, while very few did the same for NMS. Hype doesn't last 60+ hours of playtime.

EDIT: Besides, if you ask Skyrim fans what they liked the most from the game, they'll rarely put the dragons in first place.

So what was driving all the hype from E3 if not the dragons? Another broken open world game, LOL?

I don't know. I was pretty disconnected from the gaming community at that time. But, how many big budget open world games were released back then? Most games seemed to want to be constricted/pre-scripted linear experiences (with multiplayer modes for good measure).

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

In his defence, the context by which you referenced mods implied that they negate any negative points which he provided.

Hmm, I suppose at a stretch the "what am i missing" part might be interpreted that way. Even then, entirely in context, mods might make the game more enjoyable, they might be "what he's missing". Unlikely, but whatever, I probably should have left the last bit of the quote out, it was left in because he was "missing" that people like different things from their games.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Now my first game with dragons came in 1993 and that was on the SNES, an RPG named Breath of Fire so I was scratching my head wondering why dragons were so awesome in 2011.

And mine was the action game Forbidden Forest on the C64 in 1983. Your point?

I made my point, that getting excited over dragons in 2011 made no sense.

For a series where the count of dragons you fought in previous games can be done with a single hand, it sounds like a big deal.

Why? It's like getting excited over driving a car in Final Fantasy. It may be a first but it's just not a big deal when you have been doing it in other franchises for years.

Change driving a car with driving a motorcycle and you get a more accurate comparison.

And the past generation I saw a lack of dragons as relevant game elements in general (even in Final Fantasy).

Well whatever but the hype for Skyrim was and is over the top. Imagine a world where Nintendo releases a new Zelda game but it's hated by most because of endless forests, the level scaling breaks the game and it needs modders to patch out many bugs. Now imagine 5 years later when Nintendo announces the next Zelda game but they show dragons and people start calling it GOTY and GOAT after E3 and before release. Wouldn't you be scratching your wondering why a company who makes broken games that are full of gameplay flaws can overcome that reputation with....dragons?

Who knows? It was very similar with No Man's Sky, but the hype on the later just went down in flames after release. Skyrim seems to still be fondly regarded as a fun game. Maybe that's why. Lots of people found Skyrim fun (and its negative aspects negligible) once they had their hands on it, while very few did the same for NMS. Hype doesn't last 60+ hours of playtime.

EDIT: Besides, if you ask Skyrim fans what they liked the most from the game, they'll rarely put the dragons in first place.

So what was driving all the hype from E3 if not the dragons? Another broken open world game, LOL?

I don't know. I was pretty disconnected from the gaming community at that time. But, how many big budget open world games were released back then? Most games seemed to want to be constricted/pre-scripted linear experiences (with multiplayer modes for good measure).

I remember it being mostly about DRAGONS OMG! After the game came out the dragon hype died down fast though because the dragons sucked and became the the new Oblivion gates which people wanted to avoid, they were basically random battles. What were people expecting from an Elder Scrolls game, a strong story involving dragons? I don't remember if there were many open world games in 2011 but I can say that shit is played out in 2017. Even Final Fantasy and Zelda went open world which IMO, ruined them.

 

[CaitSeith]

I don't know. I was pretty disconnected from the gaming community at that time. But, how many big budget open world games were released back then? Most games seemed to want to be constricted/pre-scripted linear experiences (with multiplayer modes for good measure).

I remember it being mostly about DRAGONS OMG! After the game came out the dragon hype died down fast though because the dragons sucked and became the the new Oblivion gates which people wanted to avoid, they were basically random battles. What were people expecting from an Elder Scrolls game, a strong story involving dragons? I don't remember if there were many open world games in 2011 but I can say that shit is played out in 2017. Even Final Fantasy and Zelda went open world which IMO, ruined them.

It seems currently it's a bad trend period of gaming for your tastes. In your place I wouldn't worry though (been there, done that). Game trends inevitable end at one point or another (and I doubt the next one will be more open worlds).

 

[Kerg3927]

So my answer is: Skyrim is as popular as it is because of the pre-launch hype and there is still lots of hype for the damn game.

It's way more than that. According to Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games], it's the 10th best-selling video game in the history of video games. Hype doesn't explain that. Unsubstantiated hype fizzles out at some point, usually followed by a strong backlash (see Dragon Age: Inquisition). There are apparently millions and millions of people who really do love Skyrim.

So the story is nonsense, the world is big but pointless, the combat is weak, so why do people love this game? What am I missing?

It's for the people who like the "do your own shit" PnP RPGs and exploring a world.

Fuck story, I never like what anyone else writes anyway. I even modded out the start of Skyrim because I didn't want to be stuck with what little story they had put in.

If exploring is it's own reward for you then a big world isn't pointless.

Yeah, the hand to hand combat is shit. Stealth and sniping all the way.

Mods.

I think it's for either: 1) casuals who just like to piddle around, do random quests, explore, and look at scenery, i.e. people looking for a mindless time waster; or 2) really serious role-players who just need a sandbox world and can make up their own story in their head and play along.

I didn't get it, either. I played it about a week, and was like WHAT... THE... F*CK... this game is BORING. How is it so popular? It's a Scandinavian hiking simulator.

But what I've learned since then is that I hate massive open world games. I am an OCD completionist, so exploring every inch of a massive map and doing every quest when there are hundreds, most of them of the fetch variety... it just leads to agonizing tedium and boredom for me. Too much freedom is a bad thing for some people. I like more linear RPG's with an strong, engaging main story, and that is the opposite of Skyrim.