Zero Punctuation: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[abort_user]

Yahtzee, you devil! i think this might actually be one of your best reviews to date. i havent commented in probably well over a year. its nice to see you still havent lost your spunk (its just in your hands!). and i gotta agree. the best way to end Shooter Season 2011 is be more like Skyrim.

 

[DeliciousCake]

You'd be surprised, for instance it's almost a tradition for them to have the main character be some sort of backstory-less prisoner that gets freed at the start of every game and stuff like horseback-riding and dual-hand casting was already there in Daggerfall, also barely anything has changed in regards to main game mechanics from having HP/mana and a compass, to being able to hit with the sword and cast spells etc.

Crap, forgot about the prisoner thing. Yeah, its true that you start these games as a prisoner. If by dual hand casting you mean using both hands for a spell, that's different than what was done in skyrim and oblivion. In skyrim, you can use both hands for a spell at the same time to overcharge them into a costlier, but more powerful spell. You already know how you can only equip either a spell or a weapon, which is what morrowind and I suspect daggerfall did, but you could only have either a spell or a weapon in your hands. I really enjoy Skyrim's system of switching between both hands for spells and weapons: as in having a sword in your left hand and a fireball spell in your right. Oblivion's system just equipped a spell, similar to equipping a piece of armor and allowed you to cast it regardless of what you were holding or doing. But see? That's three games with very different casting systems. I really think you are oversimplifying things when you talk about game mechanics not changing at all. I mean, if you boil it down, yeah, you swing swords and cast spells. But that's basically any fantasy game ever. If I said in Half Life 2 you just shoot guns and walk around I would also be technically correct, but I'm ignoring everything else that's going on, similar to how you are ignoring the details in Skyrim.
Also, are you implying HP/Mana bars and a compass need to be changed? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Bars are a perfectly fine way of showing you status effects without having to go into menus or pause the game to figure out how you're doing.

Of course there's always refinements and improvements and at least they take several years to iterate but it basically is the very same game concept over and over again...

Well, yeah. If, of course, by "same game concept" you mean "Fantasy RPG set in the land of Tamriel wherein you play a character." I don't see a problem with the concept, but the actual games are quite different, in spite of having the same concept.

My point is that despite, finally deciding to employ such outlandish things as "level-designers" very large parts of their world still looks very samey, I posted the link just for the fact that it is the first game to have done this not the guys opinion on it. Almost every dungeon and cave in Skyrim is still comprised of almost the same basic few tile sets that are repeated... it gets really boring after a while, even if they decided to not actually copy/paste the very same layout like in their previous games.

I'm pretty sure they had level designers before, just not very good ones (especially the ones in Oblivion). I've played upwards of 100 hours and I can honestly say no two dungeons have been exactly alike. If you're complaining about the dungeons and caves having the same theme, I'm going to have to stop you right there, criminal scum.
Of course, they're going to look similar, otherwise it would be silly to walk into a dragr tomb full of stone nordic carvings and then walk into another dragr tomb full of wooden anime carvings. They need to feel similar because they were made by similar people. Now, the layouts for every dungeon are different, that's just fact. Some of the dungeons might feel the same because of the theme, but hey, its either that or silly, glaring stupidity. I guess if I can sum up the four basic types of dungeons they would be: castle ruin, nordic ruin, cave and dwarven ruin. But between these four basic types, there are also loads of subtypes and details between the subtypes. Hell, at times these dungeons run into each other. That's not even counting all the things you can find by trekking out in the wilderness.

I'm not making stuff up... I just happen to know how some of this stuff works, you can't make a game with the land-mass of say Oblivion or Morrowind without procedural algorithms and it's a rather easy way of doing it by specifying a "area/land-type" to a certain land mass and the computer will do the grass and plants and similar from there, or do you honestly believe that they put every blade of grass into the game itself?
Just Google it for a bit, there's articles about it... for instance here:
http://www.mxac.com.au/drt/OblivionProcedural.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion

Obviously I don't believe they hand plant every blade of grass. I just disagree with your implication that they arranged the whole game by putting down a big "X here" stamp and then didn't even bother to look at it.

There's also a pretty good nice looking Oblivion "Google Earth" type map here, which makes this obvious: http://www.uesp.net/maps/obmap/obmap.shtml
There's a clear separation between area types and within those area-types there are clear recurring patterns over and over again.

That doesn't mean the developers pressed the "Make the game button" and fucked off to twiddle their fingers. Also, to be fair, the mapping in Oblivion was quite bad, there wasn't much flow when you went between two already mapped areas, it always seemed to snap into another territory, but I never felt that way when I traversed around skyrim, so I don't think the oblivion map really applies.

I also wasn't talking about how "good" a game is, but about the amount of work that went into its creation and while every indoor and outdoor environment in The Witcher 2 and RAGE is truly different looking and also feels different that can hardly be said for any of the Bethesda games, including Skyrim (although as I said, they improved slightly... for instance they had a few different city types for once).

I completely disagree with your supposition that less work went into Skyrim's creation than W2 and RAGE. As for the few different city types, there were always different city types in Morrowind and Oblivion. You're being a little deceptive here: Every main city in Skyrim is unique. There are some similar looking towns in terms of their style that varies throughout the landscape, but that's kind of dependent on where you are, although there is always an underlying theme between all of them: they're nordic. They were built by either ancient nords or current day nords, so of course they have to look similar.
I understand complaining when everything looks the same, but to complain that everything doesn't look different is kind of silly.

I also included that video just because it describes rather well how a "brush" tool for plants, trees and rocks etc. works too as that is what is being used in most of these "Sandbox" games, I could obviously not find a video of a Bethesda developer creating a level for Oblivion or Skyrim... if you can find any you're welcome to show it

I can't find one. Neither could you. So maybe we should not assume that Bethesda made skyrim on a glorified MSPaint until we either see direct evidence or the game designer flat out say how they made it.

I am and I will, I played Skyrim to about the part where I was supposed to collect some Horn for the Greybeards and had explored about 3 of the main cities and quite a few of the caves etc. till I got bored by it and moved on to other titles, I've played through both L.A. Noire and Saint's Row 3 (in Co-Op by the way, which improved the enjoyment of the game a lot) and also played the SWTOR Beta amongst other things... still haven't started Batman yet as I'm waiting on a clear up about their DRM and the DirectX 11 support and I don't think I'll be returning to Skyrim at any time.

Don't get me wrong, you sound like a fair, upstanding gentleman who obviously knows his way around video games, but its just so very strange to find somebody with a perfectly opposite opinion of a game. I truly enjoy skyrim, from its art design, to gameplay, to sound, to story, to even giants that can catapult me up to the sky. In fact, it has become one of my favorite games of all time from the sheer amount of fun, immersion and story that the game has presented to me. I have argued with friends about character motivations, story elements and even the large number of grey moral choices that the game presents. The gorgeous sweeping landscapes, the interesting tomes and notes from those long or recently dead... To find somebody who calls it bland and boring is just something that strikes me dumbfounded. My experience was so positive and enriching that to hear(or see, in this case) somebody saying things that are literally opposite to things I had experienced is just beyond my ken.

 

[Andaxay]

Missingno? Is that you?!

That last line made me laugh so much, combined with the little Yahtzee with his face in his hands it was beautiful. Skyrim does have a few glitches, my biggest niggle is that the shops and inns have the same layout whichever town you're in, but I'm still having mighty fun with it.

Bows and arrows are the way forward.

 

[superline51]

All this glitch nonsense must be on the PC. I have the 360 version, played for over 48 hours, and have yet to see anything more than a dead headless witch standing up. Maybe I'm just awesome.

 

[Jennacide]

I really wish I didn't know this, or that this was true. But the first was already made. So many modeling hours that could be used on cool enemies/weapons . . . gone . . .

You mean time that could of been equally wasted porting Oblivion models without consent or making yet another Sephiroth outfit/sword? You know that's where the bulk of modeling effort goes to outside nude skins. The number of unique models tends to be pretty scant, unless it's mild pornography, otherwise it's just porting stuff from other games.

My hope is guys that worked in Oblivion days, like Martigen, Quarn, and for the custom modeling section Skeleton_K, come back. I'd love to see a new version of MMM, and we could stand to get one of those big old Unofficial patches.

 

[Brawndo]

Yahtzee is right: most of the potions, scrolls, and status aliment spells are pointless. That's what happens when you have a real-time action RPG instead of a turn-based one - it's easier to just spam the attack button or the same two spells over and over until whatever in front of you dies.

Combat remains my least favorite part of the TES series.

 

[irishda]

I just watched his oblivion one for some perspective. Skyrim suffered from much of the same problems as Oblivion that Yahtzee pointed out but he let slide in this one. I'm chalking this up to Skyrim being a reprieve from his shooters.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/75-Oblivion

 

[Slayer_2]

I love in the end credits he knows that there will be nude mods and child murder mods. The second one having been already made. The mod community can be nice, but also stupidly predictable at times.

While it's predictable, it also kind of makes sense. You have a game that lets you do pretty much whatever you want, EXCEPT a few things. You tell a human they can't do X, and they'll try do it. Then Bethesda has the cruel sense of humour to make kids jerks who are also invincible.

Example: Fallout 3 has a place called "Little Lamplight", it is tied to the main quest and it features a bunch of shit-talking little kids (and no adults) who are by FAR the most annoying NPCs in the game. Yet they are untouchable. You can't even land a bullet or blow on them, it's like trying to shoot/beat up a ghost. Well, in my mod for Fallout 3, I made them not only killable, but made it so you can complete the quest without them.

As for the female nudy mods... Well, it's the internet. I'm surprised those aren't already here.

I haven't played Skyrim yet (waiting for the Creation Kit), but more realistic damage values and killable kids is definitely high on the priority list for my mod. I hope this game doesn't steal as much of my time as Fallout 3 did.

 

[Jennacide]

I love in the end credits he knows that there will be nude mods and child murder mods. The second one having been already made. The mod community can be nice, but also stupidly predictable at times.

While it's predictable, it also kind of makes sense. You have a game that lets you do pretty much whatever you want, EXCEPT a few things. You tell a human they can't do X, and they'll try do it. Then Bethesda has the cruel sense of humour to make kids jerks who are also invincible.

There is nothing cruel about it though. Bethesda wanted to play it safe since games have come under a ton of scrunity lately. Fallout may of allowed child murder before, since you could kill anything, but that was when it was a niche game and went completely unnoticed. After fiascos like Fox News and Mass Effects 'explicit alien fornication' Bethesda hedged their bets, and I don't blame them one bit.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Snippitysnip

Its changed a lot. In Arena/Daggerfall you could create a spell that could wipe out a whole village in one blow,

Morrowind limitted this, but you could jump so high that you would fall down and die (And unlike Skyrim, that would take like 50ft). And run ten times faster than a horse. But you couldnt quite make damagespells of total destruction and doom.

Oblivion limitted this, you could still create the same damage spells as Morrowind, but now you were kinda limitted on other points such as running and jumping.

Then we had Skyrim, no creating spells. Whatsoever. No running faster and no jumping over tall buildings, still. They took a trip back to the roots of Morrowind by allowing mountainclimbing. Kudos for that.

Call of Duty 1 - Duck behind cover, shoot stuff with rifle.
Call of Duty 2 - Better graphics Duck Behind cover, shoot stuff with rifle.
Call of Duty 3 - Better graphics, now you can instead of ducking behind cover, actually hug cover.
Call of Duty 4 - Same as other 3, but in mdoern times! Grenade launcher are now inbound.
Modern Warfare 1-2. Like 4, shorter campaign. Kind of in the episodic sense. But it was back to familiarity.
Black Ops - Modern Warfare 2, but made by another company. With a whole different story.
Modern Ware 3 - End of story, follows mostly same gameplay with no real major changes to Call of Duty 1. Except perhaps the loss of dedicated servers.. Although that isnt exactly excluse to this game, nor is it gameplay. Nor was it actually MW3.

Now I must admit, if you played Call of Duty changed from being a semi-realstic for the time WW2 shooter, to going to a semi-realistic for the time Modern Shooter. To going completely batshitcrazy B-actionmoviestyle with the story and abandoning most senses of logic it had

And if you only played as a meele fighter Arena through Skyrim. I can see your point, only thing to really change then is the enchanted gear. Because of the magic, but then again. If you since Arena have played a warrior scared to merchants and enchanting and everything magic (God you're boring) Then you wouldnt have noticed much of a change besides graphics.

 

[DeliciousCake]

What almost all of those story-based plotline games have in common is a carefully hand-crafted experience, and even in the case of the "Open-World" RPGs I actually like, like Gothic or Risen there's a high degree of care that went into the level and game design.

For instance, every single dungeon is an entirely different experience for itself and wasn't just put there because "you can enter it and kill some undead", they are all different and offer a challenge, different puzzles and a goal, which I find a lot more fun and interesting, even if that means it's "only" ~10-15 fully-built and designed dungeons instead of the "amazing" number of 120+ that all look and feel almost the same (or have no point to them) I'd take those over the others any day.

I once again disagree with you saying all the dungeons are the same and have no point. Same theme =/= the same. And if you're telling me you can't see the point to them, did you completely forget that plot point about you gathering dragon shouts? Because with many dungeons, that's what's laying at the bottom. Not to mention how most dungeons have an associated quest or contain a little story. I think what you did was just scratch the surface, because when I think back, I recall nearly all of my dungeon visits to be memorable and different.

For example,

Spoiler: Several Spoiler Stories Ahead

there is one in which you find the remains of a little adventuring group led by a murderous, crazy guy who was looking for an artifact of power. When you visit his camp outside the ruin, you notice its been abandoned for some time as snow has piled up around it. Retrieving his book, you realize he left to go down there with some goons about a few weeks to a month ago. Going down into the ruins, you find dead dragurs, dead hired hands killed by traps and undead, etc. You're basically following this guy's story. Upon reaching a certain point, you find him collapsed on a wall, in a pool of blood. In his hands, he holds the notes to finding a long lost necklace of great power, which if you found the book related to it, you already know about. I found out about this quest by reading a goddamn book I found laying around in the game world. Anywho, this quest spans 4 unique nordic ruins and actually collides with another quest for the mages college. I would talk about it more, but its on to the next one.

Another quest I remember fondly is about a little town in the middle of nowhere full of suspicious nords. They say that the burial mound to the north of town is cursed and haunted. Me, being the adventerous type, decide to investigate. I go down into the ruin, whereapon I see a goddamn ghost past the bars of a door. After I do a little lever puzzle to open it, I follow his path down as he shouts something about "THE LIVING ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!" The ruin is full to the brim with traps and is much tighter than most other ruins I've visited. After fighting down, I find a door that can only be opened by a dragon claw jewel, so I turn around...only to find an elven ghost staring me in the face telling me I will not leave this place. So, the battle begins...and then ends as I strike his ass down with some magic and power attacks. "Wait a minute" I think to myself... "Ghosts don't bleed..." After a bit of snooping, I find a room that wasn't there before and discover a nice little bedroom/study room packed with food and potions and stuff like that. A bit more snooping and I find a journal. Within it, the dude details how he made up a potion to scare the townsfolk away (scooby doo style) by making him look like a ghost so that he could continue his research of nordic ruins in peace. After a certain point, however, he loses the key to the door and goes completely insane, thinking his is the ghostly protector of the tomb. Upon returning to town with the proof that it was old elf jenkins dressing up like a ghost to scare people, I am rewarded with... the dragon claw key to the door the elf went crazy over. The following dungeon past the door was also loaded with traps and real enemies, as well as fun little lanterns you could drop unto pools of oil to light those dragur up.

Lastly, it appears as though I am running out of space, so I'll make this one quick: this dungeon started with a goddamn skeletal dragon surrounded by skeletons "Jason and the Argonauts" style and ended with killing ghosts to free an ancient undead dragon priest who decides the best way to repay the dragonborn for freeing him is to give me a nice little dose of murder. On the way, you see ghostly projections of the Archmage from the nearby Winterhold College leading a team of mages to find an artifact (The same one you're supposed to find). This appears to be from several years ago and you notice that their numbers dwindle the father you get into the dungeon. By the end, you find out a nice chunk of backstory about this place, the archmage and you even get yelled at by a magical, mana draining voice and dodge fireball traps and more.

Never could particularly get along with Bethesda games because of the reasons above, if a (inherently not very creative) computer algorithm can create something, why should I waste my time playing it? Most of that stuff seems like padding to me.

Look closer at what you're doing than not at all. Read books. Go for hikes. Also do those things in skyrim. You'll notice more care went into this game than you would like to admit.

And I keep hearing that argument about "it plays in the same xxx region, of course it looks the same" and it just sounds like an excuse for laziness and lack of creativity, as they are completely open about how to design their game, what to include and where to set it etc. or also how the landscape will look from the very start... kind of like saying "my game plays in complete darkness, of course you're not able to see anything!" just on another level to get away from actually doing the work xD

I thought I could respect you for knowing your stuff, then you end this passage with a smiley face. And your argument is strawmanning me in a way. I admitted the stuff looks similar, and I offered that because it was all built in the nordic way, it would look similar. I'll admit to you that yes, a lot if not most of the inns look the goddamn same. And some towns have eerily similar layouts. But you must recall, a lot of this was commanded to be built by The Empire, who I'm pretty sure have stringent building policies. I never said it all looked the same, so you're just putting words in my mouth there. I will once again press the point: These be nordic empire lands. The smaller towns will be similar because they lack materials and money that larger cities have. They are built not for style, but for necessity. I see this and understand this. I really don't see what the problem is. I'll concede that there are building which look the same (mostly inns and watermills), but if you actually take a longer look, you'll see the differences.

As for the city types, the same applies, sure they're going to have a different-looking layout, that's the least you can ask from them, but the base building-blocks (like the models of the houses and other buildings outside... for instance those windmills are like everywhere are usually the very same and they barely put any work into it, the few taverns I entered also all look the same (from inside), they just have different NPCs walking around and as I said most of the homes of a lot of people also are, there's basically small/middle sized/big house.

Those are watermills. Windmills use wind and watermills use water. I think I've seen maybe like 2 windmills while most towns have watermills if they're next to a river. Only makes sense though, might as well harvest that water power if its there.
Also, Whiterun is completely different than Solitude, both in style on the inside and outside. They are both different than Markarth, Windhelm, Winterhold, Riften and Morthal. I unfortunately haven't visited Dawnstar or Falkreath yet, but if the other cities are anything to go by, I'll bet they're different as well. As for the smaller towns, yes, they appear similar, especially with their inns and mills, but the homes have differences.

Bethesda loves to employ those techniques in a lot of what they do (from terrain generation to loot, enemies, generated quests and a lot more), same thing with the "infinite" amount of dragons that can spawn everywhere... just because there's *more* of something doesn't make it better, I'd rather have had just a few distinct and very different fights than over a dozen/hundred samey ones...

There aren't an infinite amount of dragons. Counting the ones whose soul you can drink, there are about 60. Then there's Alduin and Odahviing and Paarthurnax. So about 63. And these dragons are another random encounter which genuinely spice up the game even more. Hell, I was exploring Winterhold College once and went out onto the roof and a goddamn dragon did a flyby on me! I ran inside because my magic wasn't as powerful as my swords and did some tasks inside. When I went out onto another tower, the dragon was still there, circling the college. He proceeded sit on a building a breathe ice on me. I once again ran inside and healed up, did a task and then went into the central area in the college, and the dragon was still there, waiting for me. He landed, we dueled and now there is a nice little dragonbone decoration in the field of the mage's college. Now, I can give a bunch more unique dragonfighting events like I did with the dungeons, but I won't. Because I don't have the time to type it all down.

Hell, if I wanted to, I could probably type up an entire thread's worth of random encounters, dragon attacks and dungeon experiences, but I quite honestly don't have the time and I'm fairly sure if I did, you would still not be convinced that more care, love and time went into this game than a press of the "generate random game" button. If this is all really the work of a random generator, then it must be an amazing one because it can craft an experience better than most gaming companies can.

 

[civver]

Not discussing the flaws so you can take another swipe at games you have already denounced...sigh, how disappointing.

 

[Slayer_2]

I love in the end credits he knows that there will be nude mods and child murder mods. The second one having been already made. The mod community can be nice, but also stupidly predictable at times.

While it's predictable, it also kind of makes sense. You have a game that lets you do pretty much whatever you want, EXCEPT a few things. You tell a human they can't do X, and they'll try do it. Then Bethesda has the cruel sense of humour to make kids jerks who are also invincible.

There is nothing cruel about it though. Bethesda wanted to play it safe since games have come under a ton of scrunity lately. Fallout may of allowed child murder before, since you could kill anything, but that was when it was a niche game and went completely unnoticed. After fiascos like Fox News and Mass Effects 'explicit alien fornication' Bethesda hedged their bets, and I don't blame them one bit.

Yes there is a lot of flak from anti-game lobbyists, but if you played Fallout 3 you'd know that someone had fun with making those kids as annoying as possible. In reality, those anti-game lobbyists are like a mouse attacking a battle tank, they really can't do much, gaming is a business that brings in billions, and it's quickly widening it's audience. Soon it will be as common as TV or rock and roll, other forms of media that were hated upon equally. Some people are just resistant to change.

Regardless, I find the children mods are popular because they're easy to make, and they "fix" the game, at least in some people's perspective.

 

[Darkmantle]

Snippitysnip

Its changed a lot. In Arena/Daggerfall you could create a spell that could wipe out a whole village in one blow,

Morrowind limitted this, but you could jump so high that you would fall down and die (And unlike Skyrim, that would take like 50ft). And run ten times faster than a horse. But you couldnt quite make damagespells of total destruction and doom.

Oblivion limitted this, you could still create the same damage spells as Morrowind, but now you were kinda limitted on other points such as running and jumping.

Then we had Skyrim, no creating spells. Whatsoever. No running faster and no jumping over tall buildings, still. They took a trip back to the roots of Morrowind by allowing mountainclimbing. Kudos for that.

Call of Duty 1 - Duck behind cover, shoot stuff with rifle.
Call of Duty 2 - Better graphics Duck Behind cover, shoot stuff with rifle.
Call of Duty 3 - Better graphics, now you can instead of ducking behind cover, actually hug cover.
Call of Duty 4 - Same as other 3, but in mdoern times! Grenade launcher are now inbound.
Modern Warfare 1-2. Like 4, shorter campaign. Kind of in the episodic sense. But it was back to familiarity.
Black Ops - Modern Warfare 2, but made by another company. With a whole different story.
Modern Ware 3 - End of story, follows mostly same gameplay with no real major changes to Call of Duty 1. Except perhaps the loss of dedicated servers.. Although that isnt exactly excluse to this game, nor is it gameplay. Nor was it actually MW3.

Now I must admit, if you played Call of Duty changed from being a semi-realstic for the time WW2 shooter, to going to a semi-realistic for the time Modern Shooter. To going completely batshitcrazy B-actionmoviestyle with the story and abandoning most senses of logic it had

And if you only played as a meele fighter Arena through Skyrim. I can see your point, only thing to really change then is the enchanted gear. Because of the magic, but then again. If you since Arena have played a warrior scared to merchants and enchanting and everything magic (God you're boring) Then you wouldnt have noticed much of a change besides graphics.

almost every complaint about skyrim boils down to "you can't break the game like you used to, waaaaahhhhhh"

tough luck, sorry you can't abuse the mechanics any more.

 

[Misterian]

My favorite part was how he joked on how the authorites of Tamirel keep imprisoning the Elder Scrolls heroes.

Couldn't Bethesta go with something slightly more inventive next Elder Scrolls game? like having the hero be a recently freed slave?

 

[BlackWidower]

Role-playing someone with a crippling fear of victory and success?

Oh, you played as an Occupier.

AHHA!! HAHAHA! It's funny cause it's true.

 

[BlackWidower]

Funnily enough, while I wrote the comment before I watched the video, I didn't actually post it until after I watched it in case I could add something like:

"Oh no, Yahtzee's had a seizure, it's the only possible explanation, considering he just praised it."

So you are saying he gave a good review!? Well, relatively, yeah. But it's still pretty harsh, which was my point.

I think he gave it a better review than Oblivion. I'm wary to say he gave it a good review, because I can't be sure he isn't just really sick of Shooter Season 2011 and thus much more forgiving of a game that his eyes can enjoy without being shoved between an ironsight.

I agree with him, though, the game needs a hardcore survival mode like Fallout: New Vegas. And a "middle-man" options so you can have merchants sell your expensive gear for a small commisssion, allowing you to get a better price for all your loot so long as you're willing to wait a few days (the money could be delivered to your home or by courier).

I hope modders are listening to this.

...that sounds incredibly boring. Then again I think the Elder Scrolls series sounds incredibly boring. I'm probably not the right audience for this.