What made Skyrim so good?

[babinro]

The game came out along side many of the biggest generic brown FPS games ever made.
While Skyrim isn't ground breaking in its environment by any means, it felt special and different at the time of release.

The fact that the game was good also helps things out considerably.
Heck, the escapist had several polls wherein Skyrim was in the top 3 games ever made (if memory serves).

I personally consider the game to be okay at best with a massive hype and mechanics that felt instantly dated.
What was glorious and awesome in Oblivion doesn't stand the test of time IMO.

I didn't realize this at the time of course since I bought the game expecting great things.
Some 60ish hours into the game and I haven't played it again since.
A far cry from my 300-500 hours spent on Oblivion back in the day.

 

[King Aragorn]

I'll start off by saying that I wasn't a huge fan of Skyrim. I put some hours into it when I had no other means to occupy myself but I never quite figured out what all the hype was about, honestly.
However; Skyrim like its predecessors doesn't work by presentation entirely. The game is meant to provide a basis for your imagination to build on, much like the tabletop games and LARPing heritage it springs from. I myself have a friend who writes a backstory for every character and acts in accordance to it. For example, he has an Argonian who has an obsession with glass weaponry and armour, and thus hoards these rather than selling them alone.
As is the prevalent opinion, I feel Skyrim is not up to par in this field by comparison to Morrowind, and perhaps even Oblivion (In all of its narmy glory), and said friend agrees. There was something very dry about Skyrim, dry in the sense that I did feel like I was doing chores rather than adventuring. This in conjunction with the game becoming unplayable on the PS3 after a certain amount of data has amassed left me with a very bad taste in my mouth nothing like nord mead.

I understand where you're coming from, with role playing. But the problem here is...Skyrim just didn't make me want to role play. It didn't make me feel like role playing. Whenever I try, I just get bored. And I was able to role play just fine in the previous installments. I just couldn't immerse myself well enough into Skyrim to do as such. Oblivion suffered the same thing, as by previous installments I really meant Morrowind.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Well, the initial hype I'd attribute to the advertising. The built-in fanbase will get excited on their own, but it's up to the marketing department to orchestrate anticipation from everyone else. Good game or no, there's no two ways about it, that trailer was awesome. Naturally, the excitement will taper off as time goes on, and only the few who really, really like it will stay - that's no different than anything else.

I think the game is great, though I see it as less of a game and more of a place; it's like stepping into a beautiful painting with great music and dragons. Now, I'm not a huge graphics nut, and I agree that Morrowind was much more mechanically deep and interesting, but I really appreciate Skyrim's vistas and draw distance. While I might not shell out $60 for it, or dump as many hours into it, I'd still be interested in playing it even if there were no gameplay mechanics or stories at all.

I'm still not really sure what people are talking about when they say it has a bad story though. Skyrim doesn't have a story, it has several incomplete sub-stories that require you to become involved, make the most of them, and create your own. I can see how they may come off as bland if you're not using your imagination at all, but they're intentionally left stripped down to serve that very purpose. I'm still convinced that the only reason these games even have a "main quest" is to appeal to a broader audience that doesn't quite get it.

Paradoxically, I think the game gets better the less you play it like a traditional game... which is why I think of it more as a place than as a game.

CATCHA: gives me a yes-or-no question with a drop-down list, I pick "no", apparently the wrong answer. [small]fuck you.[/small]

 

[DanielBrown]

The setting would do it for me. Norse-themed games have been quite lacking lately. Only ones I can think of right now is Viking(can't remember the full title) and Rune, both pretty mediocre games. Exploring the map was really fun as well, especially since it had much more work into it than Oblivions dungeons and often a quick way out once you were done, as opposed to backtracking the entire thing.

Though after a full run-through and one quick one for missing trophies I haven't been able to play it again for more than an hour. Tried so many times, but the excitements drops as soon as I've started up the game. Not the best of games by any means, but it did bring me over 100 hours of fun with just my first save - much more than many other games give.

 

[TransientEntity]

I'll start off by saying that I wasn't a huge fan of Skyrim. I put some hours into it when I had no other means to occupy myself but I never quite figured out what all the hype was about, honestly.
However; Skyrim like its predecessors doesn't work by presentation entirely. The game is meant to provide a basis for your imagination to build on, much like the tabletop games and LARPing heritage it springs from. I myself have a friend who writes a backstory for every character and acts in accordance to it. For example, he has an Argonian who has an obsession with glass weaponry and armour, and thus hoards these rather than selling them alone.
As is the prevalent opinion, I feel Skyrim is not up to par in this field by comparison to Morrowind, and perhaps even Oblivion (In all of its narmy glory), and said friend agrees. There was something very dry about Skyrim, dry in the sense that I did feel like I was doing chores rather than adventuring. This in conjunction with the game becoming unplayable on the PS3 after a certain amount of data has amassed left me with a very bad taste in my mouth nothing like nord mead.

I understand where you're coming from, with role playing. But the problem here is...Skyrim just didn't make me want to role play. It didn't make me feel like role playing. Whenever I try, I just get bored. And I was able to role play just fine in the previous installments. I just couldn't immerse myself well enough into Skyrim to do as such. Oblivion suffered the same thing, as by previous installments I really meant Morrowind.

I definitely agree. With Oblivion I had a pretty good while put into it of role playing, (especially playing as an Orc who kills everyone) and with Morrowind there's so much room for new adventures. Skyrim doesn't have that allure, and to me feels pretty dry, soulless. I didn't find myself wanting to role play extensively with Skyrim. In fact, I was bored very easily while playing it.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

For me, it was several things.

First and foremost was the sheer size of the world. I could wander for hours through the snowy wastes, hunting, exploring and never see a map edge.

One reason that I'm pretty sure is exclusive to me it the combat. I know most people find it clunky and odd, but after coming off Oblivion.... It was beautiful. Things hit when they hit! Spells look different beyond pallet swapped balls! The stealth was excellent, the archery was enjoyable if a bit over powered and the magic was very cool and interesting.

The biggest thing for me is atmosphere. Like Yahtzee, I can put aside a lot of crap if a game has good atmosphere and for me, Skyrim is unparalleled for drawing me in to a fantasy setting. Everything in the game world speaks of the forgotten tombs and ancient crypts. The icy winds blowing across a frozen step as I approach an ancient castle stronghold. The whole thing feels like it's AFTER the big world shattering fantasy event, which it is. Rather than victory and peace, there is only savagery and decay.

Also, while the main plot is kind of uninteresting, I felt the Stormcloak/Imperial issue was very interesting and complex. Neither side can easily be called the "good guys" and there are VERY good reasons to support either.

Finally, and this may not even count, I feel the DLC is some of the best Bethesda has made. Excluding Hearthfire and the abysmal dragon riding, both DLCs expand the world excellently and add so much cool stuff. Expansive land of the dead to explore? Turning into a huge menacing vampire lord? Sexiest fantasy character ever? Burning zombie horse to call at a whim? A bow and set of arrows that can call down sun lasers OR block the fucker out and turn the entire land to a hellscape? Hell yeah. And that's just in Dawnguard. That's not even bringing up the entirely new island, the dozen new creatures, the sword that shoots lasers and the MASSIVE otherworldly area that looks like The Pagemaster if written by H.P. Lovecraft where you have to navigate endless, ever changing towers of books guarded by Mind Flayers and huge Cthulhu-esq tentacles and giants.

 

[King Aragorn]

Well, the initial hype I'd attribute to the advertising. The built-in fanbase will get excited on their own, but it's up to the marketing department to orchestrate anticipation from everyone else. Good game or no, there's no two ways about it, that trailer was awesome. Naturally, the excitement will taper off as time goes on, and only the few who really, really like it will stay - that's no different than anything else.

I think the game is great, though I see it as less of a game and more of a place; it's like stepping into a beautiful painting with great music and dragons. Now, I'm not a huge graphics nut, and I agree that Morrowind was much more mechanically deep and interesting, but I really appreciate Skyrim's vistas and draw distance. While I might not shell out $60 for it, or dump as many hours into it, I'd still be interested in playing it even if there were no gameplay mechanics or stories at all.

I'm still not really sure what people are talking about when they say it has a bad story though. Skyrim doesn't have a story, it has several incomplete sub-stories that require you to become involved, make the most of them, and create your own. I can see how they may come off as bland if you're not using your imagination at all, but they're intentionally left stripped down to serve that very purpose. I'm still convinced that the only reason these games even have a "main quest" is to appeal to a broader audience that doesn't quite get it.

Paradoxically, I think the game gets better the less you play it like a traditional game... which is why I think of it more as a place than as a game.

CATCHA: gives me a yes-or-no question with a drop-down list, I pick "no", apparently the wrong answer. [small]fuck you.[/small]

But by that logic, can't we basically pass any story, in any game, a free pass card and say ''use your imagination''?
I'm not against creating your own scenarios, if anything, that's fun, but you must also hold the game by what it makes itself. Really, that's not much of an excuse, if they want me to do that, just give me tools to do so and get rid of the stories and be done with it.

 

[TheLycanKing144]

I guess I just really liked exploring the world and the lore it had, I also got addicted to leveling up and getting perks. The game did have some issues though and honestly I thought Oblivion was better (come at me bro!), especially the guilds as in Skyrim they are too short and those "infinite random" missions that they give you are just jokes.

 

[EvilMaggot]

awesome game.. though combat(specially spell caster combat) sucks :/ my only minus.. otherwise its one of the few games ive spent soooo many hours on ^^

 

[mattaui]

I appreciated the immersive quality of Skyrim, as I did Oblivion, Morrowind and Daggerfall before it. They certainly reduced the complexity of the systems involved, but I felt it was mostly for the better. I quite enjoyed the storyline and most of the key NPCs, and I never felt like I was at a loss for things to do and explore.

After completing most of the initial content I haven't felt compelled to return to the DLCs, but after putting in an enjoyable 90+ hours I consider it a very solid game, what I've come to expect from the Elder Scrolls franchise.

 

[fezgod]

I loved Skyrim because its one of the few games where I don't feel like I have any obligations. In Skyrim you can have hours of entertainment just wandering around exploring random dungeons, running into random quests and so on. In some aspects, Skyrim is almost like Minecraft, you have to create your own experience in the game. If I just did major quests, I probably would have gotten bored pretty fast with the game.

Skyrim is definitely a flawed game, and hardly even an rpg, but its a good game when I just want to sit back and burn a few hours away. Because Skyrim is such a simple, easy to play game, I never feel as though I need to actually concentrate while I'm playing. I may not play Skyrim a lot anymore, but its still fun to return to Tamriel once every few weeks.

 

[Gorrath]

Having been a long standing fan of both the Fallout and TES games, I found Skyrim to be a fantastic edition. I don't think there is a game that doesn't have its weaknesses, and any and all complaints about Skyrim's issues are valid. I think what it comes down to is; do the things Skyrim does right out-weigh the things it gets wrong? For me, that answer is a very easy yes.

The combat system takes a lot of lumps, but I'm not sure why. I know some find it rather clunky to sword-fight in first person, but I'll take that clunkiness over the combat systems of most any other RPG in a heartbeat.

As for the main story being a let down, I wouldn't know, as I have over 700 hours in the game (On one and only one character) and have yet to do much of it. Like someone else mentioned, it would feel hollow saving the world from the big bad dragons and then going back to being a traveling potions salesman. I do advance the main story, but only when I run out of other things to do, which is not often.

It can be a buggy mess at times, but having the power of the console commands has saved me many a quest breaking bug. I realize the "you can fix it yourself" thing isn't exactly a great answer to "this is the 14th broken quest I've tried to do", but at least it is do-able, and on top of that, the console can help you do lots of other interesting things that help you experience the game the way you want to.

Lastly, I often see the argument that the world feels hollow because you have no real effect on it, and this I can totally get behind. I wish they would, and will, make the world far more dynamic with the next installment.

I think all of these complaints though, when put together, don't faze me much simply because I don't see anything else that does this sort of game-play better, except for perhaps New Vegas. I'd call Skyrim a great game. The parts it does do right it does really right, and the things it does wrong, well, I have the power to change many of them. I can't say the same for nearly any other game. I suppose there is a reason it is my second most-played game of all time on Steam.

 

[zzkill]

As others have said, the open world made it good, the fact that it is Elder Scrolls, and the hype created. BUT, I do find it lacking. Very lacking. I became the archmage of the Mage Academy after a very short quest chain, and what did the world or the Academy have to say to that? Nothing... I used a Shout in the middle of a town, how did the town react? Nearby citizens "Gods, what was that?" "Are you the Dragonborn?", and after that, they walked away and didn't give a rats ass about me, nor did they say anything about me being Dragonborn in subsequent conversations, nor did the town "mayor" say anything about me going rampant about his town with my shouts. Really, rumors travel faster than a ship, but here nothing is known even in the same town.

Also, a friend of mine joined the Dark Brotherhood and killed the Emperor and the rebel leader(forgot his name). What was the worlds reaction? Well, what do you think? If it was that they went crazy and everything went to hell, you are dead wrong. Nothing, is right answer. This lack of reaction from the world made Skyrim a disappointment for me, all of the nagging my friends had for me when I didn't play Skyrim and wasn't planning to created expectations from this "awesome RPG, one of the best there are". Not to mention that I am an RPG fan.

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

I think "overrated" is the most overrated word in our vocabulary.

 

[carpathic]

I absolutely loved Skyrim and I still do. I think the game is fun, immersing and is my choice for working out on the treadmill because I feel like I am running somewhere other than my basement.

The world invites you in and says "Come on and stay a while, we've got this neat little thing over here for you to look at" then you breathe again and realize seven hours have passed you by...

 

[MDSnowman]

Ahhh Skyrim. On it's own it's NOT all that fun. The main story bores me to tears, the countryside of boring and occasionally repetitive, and the dungeons get pretty samey after a while.

The fun lies in making your own fun really. My Sneaky Imperial character stumbled upon the Dark Brotherhood quest-line and I got obsessed over it. I could play that game forever. The thing is that Skyrim has so much soul crushing depth that there are hundreds of little corners like that throughout the game. You stumble onto one corner that happens to speak to you, and next thing you know you lose three hours trying to save the Thieves guild, or getting over a bought of lycanthropy.

 

[Phuctifyno]

But by that logic, can't we basically pass any story, in any game, a free pass card and say ''use your imagination''?

Not at all. It depends on the style of game. A game with story as its focus, that aims to fills in all the blanks itself and leave little to the imagination, should definitely be good enough to hold up. Skyrim provides pre-existing characters and scenarios, but the focus of the game is your character creation and freedom to adventure how you choose; imagination is absolutely key to enjoying it to the fullest. With open world games, I find that the more specific and structured the stories get, the more it hinders my experience. If anything, I think the game's flaws lie in the quests being over-written and not open enough. Essential Characters, my ass.

I'm not against creating your own scenarios, if anything, that's fun, but you must also hold the game by what it makes itself. Really, that's not much of an excuse, if they want me to do that, just give me tools to do so and get rid of the stories and be done with it.

Like I said, I'd still enjoy Skyrim as an exploratory experience with no story at all (though, like I also said, I wouldn't play it nearly as much because there wouldn't be much to do after I'd seen everything), but a huge portion of the audience wouldn't at all because they expect a bare minimum. Characters populating the world with problems that need fixing is what drives the adventures forward, so including at least that much is appropriate.

When you have them in such high volume as in an Elder Scrolls game, quality of writing will naturally vary from quest to quest - I thought the Civil War was particularly well written, the Thieves Guild questline so-so, and the College of Winterhold boooring. The stories are only there to enrich the world and provide motivation; they don't need to be masterpieces, or even any good. Even if you crack open some of the books lying around, some are great and some suck. I think if every single story in Skyrim sucked entirely, that would still be enough, so that even a little of it doesn't suck is more than enough.

Complete zero story? Sure. Play Minecraft. People love it.