The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

[Trenton.]

I had recently bought the game about three days ago and amassed about 25 hours of game play. I am a level 15 Imperial and have even already married the woman who's personality I had affection for, the Dark Elf of the College of Winterhold, Brelyna Maryon. I have done lots of quests and have gone lots of places. All of this has given me time to think. That this game is one of the most epic that I have ever played in the Role Playing Games genre. And how similar it is to Spiderweb Software games, particularly the Exile/Avernum saga. Say like Argornians and Khajit. Bandits and magic wielders. Giant cities who's guards will smite you if you step one toe out of line. It would be awesome, though unlikely, if Jeff made an open world RPG like Skyrim. I would pay any amount of money under $1,000 for it. Would this or would this not be a great idea?

 

Post your thoughts below.

[Lilith]

where exactly are you going to get $999 at your age

[Tirien]

not to mention $999 wouldnt pay for this. And the fact that Morrowind was far superior to Skyrim.

[Trenton.]

where exactly are you going to get $999 at your age

 

Internet.

[Student of Trinity]

Well, dang. I knew I should have switched to Chrome.

[Death Knight]

I dislike many things about the elder scrolls series. Here's the things I like first-Its an old school rpg and like Trenton said has 'a few similarities between arg. and Khajits and Avernum.' Other than that, I can't seem to get into the game even though Ive tried and at one time owned both oblivion and morrowind. If I ever was to give it a shot again I would go with morrowind as the direction the game took after that was not favorite.

 

Here's what I don't like-The lvling system is horrible. I really can't seem to figure out why I have to use a skill to put points in it. I much prefer the idea that I want to make a build-I make it. The fact that the game has skills on everything such as athletics is a little problematic. If you played morrowind you know right away that taking athletics as a main skill will ruin your character as you will just lvl that skill up so much to the point where all you get points in that skill/nothing else. For me, I just can't enjoy the game as the lvling system makes everything impossible to.

 

The first time I played morrowind I had a nord who wielded axes. The game wasn't much fun as I had to power game to make the lvling system somewhat work. I ended up with a lvl 15 nord that could kill anything in 1-2 shots with his axe. I couldn't keep on maxing the weapon skills as my strength was cracked to 100. Agility was high too.

 

I didn't like Oblivion any more than morrowind as they took out number of weapons in game.

[Ohsky]

Tried Morrowind years ago but i got bored quite fast of it, not very engaging to me it´s system, openness, whatever. Since i saw someone who could get to the ending in under 2 hour i thought to myself " this is nonsense for an RPG, of those i used to like". Such a thing is impossible to do on the Spiderweb games i have played. There are quite ovbious directions to follow and that´s what i like.

 

Freedom is boring. It was Morrowind´s "infinite possibilities", and lack of a really indepth engaging argument, strong main quest, what dissapointed me in the first place. "You do whatever you want". And why i would like to do whatever i want on such a game?, for that it´s real life..., where you can do "wathever you want". Under that concept, im not attracted to those kind of open RPGs.

[Student of Trinity]

I've never played either game, so I find these reactions very interesting. It sounds as though a 'big open world' isn't everything, because if you can just go anywhere and do anything, then nothing really matters, and it ends up feeling as though you can't really do anything at all. On the other hand I can understand that the opposite extreme, of a small little world where the plot runs on rails, is somehow disappointing, too. For me what's best is a big world, where I'm free to wander around quite a bit, but where I'm likely to run into things that turn out to be important stories, not just one-shot side-quests. That gives the feeling that there's treasure out there to find — not in-game loot, but stuff that will be really cool for me as a player, stuff that will go somewhere, and actually matter, other than just by helping me level up.

 

The leveling system does also seem fundamentally flawed. It sounds like a good idea to enforce some realism, by making you gain expertise only in things you actually practice. But somehow it goes completely against the munchkin fantasy that the leveling mechanic is really all about. People are prepared to spend hours and hours in sheer tedious grinding, for the reward of being able to gain whatever skill they want. And people are prepared to spend hours pursuing side-quests, to gain particular skills given only by that quest. But what no-one wants to do is feel locked into a particular playing style indefinitely. That's not the power fantasy that RPGs are all about. That's weakness. Limitations are for real life.

[Ohsky]

It sounds as though a 'big open world' isn't everything, because if you can just go anywhere and do anything, then nothing really matters, and it ends up feeling as though you can't really do anything at all.

 

Many people hate real life just because of that.

 

Hah, when life isn´t fun because of it´s "limitations", there are videogames to "solve" the problem, created out of human mind limitations. Minecrafts, Wows, Skyrims.... Sandboxes is what many like. Multidimensionality is just about that, creating alternative dimensions to experiment. The fractal game; universes inside universes, created by demiurges. In the future you will be into them like the matrix, it´s a question of time. "Be a warrior in a fantasy land!", "and have sexual intercourse with sexy elves!". Isn´t it that paradigm in the cradle nowadays?, check Skyrim for an example.

 

Is this life another open RPG, in such a technological level you can´t imagine?, most probably yes. It´s an open rpg as long as you are ignorant of it´s limitations, and this life has limitations, beginning with those of your human body.

 

In so that some of the world of some of those RPGs is generated by computer alghorithms, they lack the essence of a human hand on them, you simply know they are created there to fill the void of a senseless existence out of them. They are created for compulsive and indefinite consumption, devoid of any higher meaning beyond the perpetuation of a playstyle based on having no playstyle. No matter what, we are always locked to our tastes.

 

 

Goin for realism is what made a lot of recent games really boring to play, i saw that in some FPS. I found out the less realistic the more fun just because they were less realistic out of budget limitations. Such limitations created different ways of playing a game, not related with forced to be like real life, not forced to show there is a intention on being accurate to real life. Some realistic games are forced to be realistic, like any car driving game, etc, being less realistic for them is just not the way to go. But in RPGs.... that´s different, as in FPS.

[Prince of Kitties]

The leveling system does also seem fundamentally flawed. It sounds like a good idea to enforce some realism' date=' by making you gain expertise only in things you actually practice. But somehow it goes completely against the munchkin fantasy that the leveling mechanic is really all about. People are prepared to spend hours and hours in sheer tedious grinding, for the reward of being able to gain whatever skill they want. And people are prepared to spend hours pursuing side-quests, to gain particular skills given only by that quest. But what no-one wants to do is feel locked into a particular playing style indefinitely. That's not the power fantasy that RPGs are all about. That's weakness. Limitations are for real life.[/quote']

 

I think you hit on a fundamental truth there - RPGs are a greed sink of sorts.

 

Not sure about the idea of being able to gain any skill whatsoever though. Part of the appeal for me is being able to create really specialized characters.

 

(And that is one area where I think Exile is a bit lacking. You can't create stealthy rogues, for instance. Boo.)

[Death Knight]

Well aside from that, its also pretty clickfesty like diablo. There really aren't any tactics you normally would have access to. Once a battle starts you really cant run away and regroup like some other games. In morrowind even more so-click click click. The reason why I like games like Eschalon is that while it is click click, you can also change the pace of the game whenever you want. If you are in a large battle, you would be almost forced to take your time. The problem I have with almost all the first person rpgs is that the tactics just don't mesh well and usually force the same results time after time.

 

Vampire the Masquerade-Bloodlines is a perfect example-its nothing more than a click fest in melee, guns are useless throughout beginning midgame and controls are terrible. Other than that, has a lot of the good stuff like Elder Scrolls. But again if cant stand the combat system, you'll never make it through midgame. People have recommended System Shock 2 and Deus Ex, Arx Fatalis to me. I ask them the same question-is there any real difference between each game?

 

Ive been offered a beta/qa testing intern at an indie company that is making a vampire first-person rpg like Bloodlines. The game looks cool and it would be interesting, but I doubt I could wade through the whole game as first person rpgs are just not fun to me. They are almost like getting teeth pulled at the dentist.

 

I give anyone credit to get past those games, I find controls are very crucial to making a simple, easy to use game. Spiderweb games have some very minor things like pathfinding, but I could honestly care less as I can figure those games out with little problem. Guess my hat's off to everyone that master controls of games like Gothic 1 and 2. Those games are brutal.

[Trenton.]

You can run away and regroup if you wanted to... Most dungeons let you leave and come back later, and 99% of enemies get bored and go back to what they were guarding or hunting if you get far enough away.

 

I also love the open-world theme. I find nothing more fun than hunting actually. If I have a nice bow, and 30 or more steel arrows, I enjoy tracking fleeing Deer, Elk, and the yet even more difficult to kill because of their size and speed, Hares. They drop skins and antlers that I collect as trophies, so that's cool too.

 

Also, Dragons. 'Nuff said.