Why do people like Elder Scrolls games?

[ToastiestZombie]

I like them because there's such a small amount of restrictions. See that mountain? You can probably climb it. The only real thing you have to do is the first few main quest missions, to get shouts then you can just do whatever you want. And with mods you can make the game so much more, with MASSIVE quest mods that rival official DLC, hundreds of awesome armour mods and tons of mods that break your immersion, but are so funny. An example of the last one is the one that changes all arrow sounds to "Pew Pew"

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Because they provide a rich, huge open world to explore at the players leisure, with some nice character customization. They also give a whole lot of gameplay for their price in comparison with other titles.

This. If you NEED the story to be up to par, you won't be able to enjoy the things people like about the elder scrolls OP.

But I agree with you. Obsidian for example blows Bethesda's quest design out of the water. And even the balance and gameplay most of the time.

But the reason I like Oblivion and Skyrim is that for me personally, Bethesda's concept artists are the best in the industry, bar none. Perfect aesthethic design for me. (Though they rival the Half Life 2 + Episodes concept artists) And adding the large number of quests onto that, and the many ways to customize characters, I do find something fun in them even if the stories and dialogue annoy me.

Don't you reckon that pretty much every gamer who likes TES/Fallout wants Obsidian and Bethesda to team up for the next game. Bethesda's awesome art design, atmosphere and alright bug fixing. And Obsidian's awesome story, gameplay and balancing.

 

[viranimus]

Its mostly nostalgia based for some coming from a time when an open world sandbox type of game that resembled the depth of an MMO but with the focus of a single player game was actually an uncommon thing.

For others, its focused heavily on the hype machine that Bethesda has since became and producing RPGs that will consume a large amount of time to complete.



Realistically, there is no real reason to justify it. Simply reasons why it is, for as depressing of a state of RPGs and gaming in general that makes.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

So why do people like these games? They're* crap!

OP, tell me what your favorite game series is and I'll tell you why you're wrong. Just as you can criticize Elder Scrolls because it's a game series you don't like, I could criticize whatever Call of Duty you prefer. Or some RPG that suits your fancy better. It's all a matter of perspective and you bloody well know it.

To make things clear, I have ONLY liked Skyrim so far. I have played the others, yes, the first one I played being Morrowind, but Skyrim was really easy for me to get into. I considered all of the other Elder Scrolls games to be 'walking simulators', where as I got really hooked on Skyrim and I can't really even tell you why.

 

[NiPah]

After the first little intro mission it plops you out into this huge expansive world and pretty much tells you "ok go in this general direction to some place over here". You don't have to go to that certain place, you can go towards this huge interesting mountain, or maybe you see a river that looks interesting, it's pretty much a hiking sim tacked onto a huge RPG.

Really dude you have to know by now that posts like this only make you out to be an asshole, they may get a lot of hits from people defending the games they enjoy but afterwards everyone just remembers you as the idiot who made another one of those "why do people like things I dislike" posts. Next time don't follow the status quo, discuss the merits of game continuity, their impact on game immersion, and how Skyrim can integrate new ideas.

You gotta know you made a stupid post when half the responding posts are people pissed off at you.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Because of the MASSIVE OPEN world, an aspect that is becoming rarer these days. Some of you points are valid (especially the I'm the leader of everything) but that at very least for the moment will be insumunatable due to the limitations of the current PC/console generation and the shear amount of coding required.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

-snip-

ITT: OP looking for attention by not liking a popular game.

Seriously? Why did you even make this thread? People like them for the exploration, being able to do whatever you want and modding the hell out of it to once again, do whatever you want.

Maybe we dont care about story or about connecting questlines or about how our sex or race affects quests, that doesn't matter to us like it does to you. This is not rocket science, its called an opinion, and people have different opinions to you for a million reason, and making a thread asking about it will not make it clear to you or help you understand it.

 

[Bolwing]

Because they provide a rich, huge open world to explore at the players leisure, with some nice character customization. They also give a whole lot of gameplay for their price in comparison with other titles.

This. If you NEED the story to be up to par, you won't be able to enjoy the things people like about the elder scrolls OP.

But I agree with you. Obsidian for example blows Bethesda's quest design out of the water. And even the balance and gameplay most of the time.

But the reason I like Oblivion and Skyrim is that for me personally, Bethesda's concept artists are the best in the industry, bar none. Perfect aesthethic design for me. (Though they rival the Half Life 2 + Episodes concept artists) And adding the large number of quests onto that, and the many ways to customize characters, I do find something fun in them even if the stories and dialogue annoy me.

Totally agree. On a side note: I'm afraid that Bethesda's head concept artist is, unfortunately, dead. He died shortly after Skyrim was released.

 

[Mr Cwtchy]

Wonder how long it will take for Anthraxus to turn up in this thread..

For me, having only played Skyrim, I love the complete freedom the game offers. See that mountain in the distance? You can climb it. Those ruins? Explore them. That big ass Dragon on the hill? Slay it.

Or if those don't appeal to you, you can turn around and go in a different direction.

Also the atmosphere and art design.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

After hating Oblivion

There's your problem. Go play Morrowind.

Their crap!

"They're"

Also, opinions.

 

[Polite Sage]

Wonder how long it will take for Anthraxus to turn up in this thread..

For me, having only played Skyrim, I love the complete freedom the game offers. See that mountain in the distance? You can climb it. Those ruins? Explore them. That big ass Dragon on the hill? Slay it.

Or if those don't appeal to you, you can turn around and go in a different direction.

Also the atmosphere and art design.

That mountain? There's only a few of those and are usually only climbed with the vertically moving horses bug that's yet to be fixed.

Those ruins? Draugr slaying simulator #67745. And they're all linear as our cocks.
Skyrim's dungeons are literally either draugr, bandit, spider, animal, falmer or dwarven themed. Way less enemy variation compared to earlier TES games and the "harder enemies" (reskins) just have more DPS and take about a million hits before going down.

How about the guild or main quest dungeons? They're better, right? Right?
Nope. See that "Labyrinthian"? One of the most linear dungeons in the game.

And Dragons? Dragon Nro. 56777690988 with no variations from the previous ones? What Bethesda? Give player time slow, freeze, curses, detect life, summon storms, disarm, summon dragons and all kinds of other shit from shouts? What do they give their every single dragon, the foes that supposedly are the ones that INVENTED the language? The dragons that have been faking death for thousands of years without losing or forgetting a speck of their hatred for humanity? Fire or ice flames. And exactly the same move sets.

What about our final boss, Alduin then? Easier than your random encounter ancient dragon.

Bethesda has moved to a point where they have stopped giving a shit and except their fans to fix / finish their games for them? Oh, and what if you're on console? Too bad ************.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Its a sandbox game. You can't expect everything to be interconnected like that. Plus, its not story oriented, its action and exploration oriented.

 

[surg3n]

People tend to like games that offer a lot of 'surface' freedom, I mean like being able to explore, or be a douchebag, or mainly just play the game however they want. Most games don't offer a lot of freedom and a lot of story at the same time, but Bethesda games do that best.

I like my sandbox games, like Skyrim, Dead Island, Minecraft, DayZ, GTA4 etc etc. Skyrim is a great sandbox, and the main storyline does suffer a little - it actually feels more like several overlapping side quests to me. But that's ok, maybe that's just the way that makes the most sense during development. Maybe the Elder Scrolls incarnation will have even less storyline, and be made almost entirely out of side quests, or maybe we should start calling them quests. A game world as big as Skyrim is too big for any single plot, and managing the logistics of having storyline decisions. Well ideally Elder Scrolls will stop doing that. Bethesda, Stop giving the player decisions to make when you know 95% of players will choose the same option. I'd still like Skyrim if there was no storyline, no political subtext - just an adventurer doing quests and becoming an even more kick-ass adventurer. That is all we really need from Elder Scrolls. IMO it's the side quests where Bethesda really shine, the inventiveness, humour, attention to detail etc spent on a quest that might take 3 minutes to complete, is what makes Skyrim the game that it is.

 

[Galletea]

I probably dislike most of the stuff you play, but I don't make pointless inflammatory threads about it.
I play Skyrim and I played Fallout 3 for hours and hours, and some more hours because I enjoy it. I like the exploration, and I like the various dungeons, caves and pits, and I like the little things you find in certain caves that makes them unique. I enjoy the crafting aspect and I like to kill dragons and deathclaws and whatever.
I'd much rather go and try to climb a mountain for a couple of hours than shoot some minorities in a grey complex, just because some guy is telling me to do so.

 

[Polite Sage]

its action and exploration oriented.

Too bad both are shit. Dungeons are reskins, quests are shitty fetch jobs which almost ALWAYS involve getting from one corner of the world to another. If you use fast travel, fine. Otherwise it's padding with endless roads and Draugr Slaying simulators with a dragon encounter every other minute. Only thing they made right was the overworld, which at least LOOKS good.

And action? Let me sum up the different builds.

Melee - You spam your heaviest attack. There is no penalty / reward, between a slow, but powerful or a fast but weak attack. Your best bet is to spam power attack until you run out of stamina and wait for it to recharge. What about movement? Back pedal kite TO THE MAX.

Bow - You shoot at stuff and kite. Occasional sneak shot, but sneaking in Bethesda's games has always been broken either way.

Mage - This has a bit more variation since there are multiple schools, but they're still dumbed down versions of earlier TES games.
Destruction = you shoot bolts. And then you shoot bigger bolts. Runes would be nice if used in tandem with sneaking, otherwise they're used like bolts because the AI is too stupid to disarm or dodge them.
Alteration = You have more armor and that's it. Comes with some "cool" but useless utility spells too.
Illusion = One of the two game breaking spell builds. You can pretty much walk through dungeons without dirtying your hands.
Conjuration = First starts out a nice familiar boost but quickly turns into OP weapons and summons that do all your shit for you.
Restoration = You heal stuff and get some background perma buffs.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

its action and exploration oriented.

Too bad both are shit. Dungeons are reskins, quests are shitty fetch jobs which almost ALWAYS involve getting from one corner of the world to another. If you use fast travel, fine. Otherwise it's padding with endless roads and Draugr Slaying simulators with a dragon encounter every other minute. Only thing they made right was the overworld, which at least LOOKS good.

And action? Let me sum up the different builds.

Melee - You spam your heaviest attack. There is no penalty / reward, between a slow, but powerful or a fast but weak attack. Your best bet is to spam power attack until you run out of stamina and wait for it to recharge. What about movement? Back pedal kite TO THE MAX.

Bow - You shoot at stuff and kite. Occasional sneak shot, but sneaking in Bethesda's games has always been broken either way.

Mage - This has a bit more variation since there are multiple schools, but they're still dumbed down versions of earlier TES games.
Destruction = you shoot bolts. And then you shoot bigger bolts. Runes would be nice if used in tandem with sneaking, otherwise they're used like bolts because the AI is too stupid to disarm or dodge them.
Alteration = You have more armor and that's it. Comes with some "cool" but useless utility spells too.
Illusion = One of the two game breaking spell builds. You can pretty much walk through dungeons without dirtying your hands.
Conjuration = First starts out a nice familiar boost but quickly turns into OP weapons and summons that do all your shit for you.
Restoration = You heal stuff and get some background perma buffs.

And is it different to any other RPG? Or any other game for that matter? No, its really not. Platformer: Jump or die. Shooters: Shoot till no more enemies are shooting back. RTS: Click stuff. MOBA: same as RTS.

 

[Polite Sage]

The answer to all of those questions is "Because they're good.".

Why do people like Twilight? Why do people like Justin Bieber? The answer is not "Because it's good". Popular doesn't equal quality, just that people are easily drawn in by the bling bling.

And is it different to any other RPG? Or any other game for that matter? No, its really not. Platformer: Jump or die. Shooters: Shoot till no more enemies are shooting back. RTS: Click stuff. MOBA: same as RTS.

It is. There actually are well executed games. Dark Souls is an RPG with a good combat system and exploration. Deus Ex is a good RPG. Not Skyrim's scale of exploration, but instead not every area is a reskin. El Shaddai is a platformer / hack'n'slash with actually well executed gameplay mechanics. Little Big Planet has some fun new ideas for platforming. Half Life and Human Revolution are good shooters with pacing and differs from nowaadays Military Shooter 34 Regenerating Health Quickscope Prestige.

Skyrim ditched it's RPG elements in favor of a "perk system" that you won't even notice, since most of those are background modifiers like +20% mana rege, +15% one handed dmg etc. Okay, fine. Maybe it could have compensated with a better combat system. But it's still shit. No improvement from earlier TES games. Hitting an enemy or a wall feels same as hitting air, but with a "slit" or "clonck" sound instead of a "whoosh". Skyrim's combat has no weight whatsoever. And neither does it's "you can climb it slogan" exploration or "radiant AI infinite quests" which are actually repeatable fetch/kill jobs.

Instead of crunching bad gameplay elements and polishing the good ones, Bethesda opted to go for the widest audience.
Skyrim is a very shallow game with good first impressions.