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[GavJ]

Pretty much. Every generation ever thinks it's the first and last to have sex and good music, though, so I guess it's high time video games got on the list.

My claim is legit. I enjoy modern music and modern films if they are of quality, as well as modern games.

Yeah and the old codgers who grew up in the 1920's still love some modern music too -- as long as it's either classical, blues, jazz, or you can dance the foxtrot to it in general. Which has nothing to do with them being enthusiasts of modern musical trends. It just means other people with old tastes still write music.

That said, it would be nice if you tried to actually discredit my opinion instead of trying to discredit me.

Maybe--and I'm just you know, spit ballin' here--MAYBE if you don't want people to make ad hominem arguments against you, you shouldn't start out your contribution to a thread with a scathing, arrogant, ad hominem attack on half (probably more) the other people on the same exact forum about how boring all their stupid normie sheeple types are for liking games you don't happen to enjoy.

That miiiiight just have something to do with it. Just sayin'

[Soadreqm]

That said, it would be nice if you tried to actually discredit my opinion instead of trying to discredit me. Why is Skyrim a good game? It's bug-ridden and unpolished, the world is empty as a shell, characters are flat, the story is not innovative in the slightest, the gameplay has been invented 15 years ago, the game has chunks of boring shallow travelling empty landscapes in between the "good" bits, the combat gets boring after a few hours, and the skill system and general ruleset is completely broken and imbalanced.

I find this comparison utterly bizarre. Skyrim may be buggy, but Dwarf Fortress is formally in alpha. Empty world? For the last two or three years, DF has had no dwarven, elven or goblin sites at all. DF has no "characters", as such. Neither does it have a story. It's at its heart a roguelike, making the gameplay whopping 24 years old. There's fucktons of empty, procedurally generated landscape, in up to four layers. Five if you count hell. DF doesn't even TRY to be balanced, with critical arrows to the brain assumed to remain realistically lethal for the foreseeable future.

The combat is admittedly pretty fun.

Most importantly, though, Dwarf Fortress is more or less contemporary with Skyrim. Once the new update comes out, Dwarf Fortress will be newer than Skyrim. It cannot be an example of games from the early 2000's being better than games from the early 2010's, because it is still in active development, and just as new as the stuff you see in stores.

About Skyrim specifically, I can't actually name any bugs that the various patches don't fix. It's hell of a lot more polished than any Elder Scrolls game before it (which is admittedly not a very high mark to hit), and even though it's only a generic fantasy game, it's not a bad generic fantasy game. I can understand not liking it, and agree that it's deeply flawed in a lot of ways, but I don't think it's a very good example of the inexorable decay of the video game industry.

What are you comparing it to, anyway? Other than Dwarf Fortress. Could you name a good game that isn't getting a major release this year?

[indyofcomo]

My claim is legit.

That said, it would be nice if you tried to actually discredit my opinion instead of trying to discredit me.

Your claim is anything but legit.
You are confusing your opinion with some high-handed opinion of yourself that you get to define what a video game is, which is how you started.

Talk about what you like or don't like all you want, but your 'definition' of a video game means less than a XXllama wool left mittenXX.

[Arcvasti]

That said, it would be nice if you tried to actually discredit my opinion instead of trying to discredit me.

Discrediting someones opinions is generally impossible unless they have an unusually open mind. At least, convincing them otherwise is. And you don't sound very convincible to me. So I'm just going to refute the facts supporting your opinions, because that's easier and more effective.

Why is Skyrim a good game?

Because **I** rather liked Skyrim. And usually I trust my own judgement. That's really all there is. If someone thinks its a good game, its a good game. If someone thinks its a bad game, its a bad game. If someone thinks its a bad game and the people who play it are beneath them, ignorant and generally stupid, that's usually true to some degree.. If someone SAYS its a bad game and the people who play it are beneath them, ignorant and generally stupid, that could be construed as rude by some.

It's bug-ridden and unpolished.

Yep. Although most of the bugs are relatively minor and easily fixed by third party patches.

The world is empty as a shell.

Skyrim is actually pretty good about that. While there ARE boring stretches of wilderness, they're often permeated by little sites and encounter areas which make it more vivid.

Characters are flat.

Actually, a lot of NPCs have at least some backstory. That still leaves them 2.5 dimensional, but that's better then most titles I can think of off the top of my head. Although examples of better better rounded characters would be nice so we could have a baseline to compare them too.

The story is not innovative in the slightest

Yep. I mean, I KNOW that the "main story" isn't SUPPOSED to be the main feature of the game, but they could have at least TRIED. No argument here.

The gameplay has been invented 15 years ago.

And improved upon since.

The game has chunks of boring shallow travelling empty landscapes in between the "good" bits.

They've tried very hard to avoid that. As I said before, there's plenty of little mini sites and encounter areas spread out. Plus, wagons and fast travel mean you only have to do it once. That said, especially early on, there's quite a bit of it.

The combat gets boring after a few hours.

To some degree, yes. But some places have decently fun interactive environments[Not enough of them, sadly] and some strategies require a lot more tactical thought then others. Stealth, for example, is one of the things I LOVED about Skyrim. It gave the combat system a lot more depth, in my opinion.

And the skill system and general ruleset is completely broken and imbalanced.

hMMM. Not sure about this one. Mind giving some examples? I wouldn't discount that its unbalanced, but I don't remember any game-breaking ones off the top of my head. Its been a while since I played much Skyrim.

Honestly, Trickman, your points ARE valid, just exaggerated. I can understand completely why you prefer DF to Skyrim. I can understand why you dislike how its been simplified so less gamery people[normies] can play it easier. I just think you can be a little less harsh in voicing these opinions and that you should refrain from exaggerating your supporting facts as much as you have been. Also, try and follow your own advice. Discredit others arguments and opinions rather then doubting their credibility.

[alexandertnt]

Normies

All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They

[tuypo1]

I agree with Urist, I've found Skyrim to be quite playable without community mods - and I've been playing it on the PS3. You know, the version that randomly freezes and the developers have said "Whelp, we're sorry, but we have no idea what the problem is, so if it freezes on you, load your save and don't do exactly the same thing/carry exactly the same stuff/have exactly the same spells favorited and you might avoid it happening again. Oh, and disable autosaving."

On the plus side, I'm guessing that if we didn't have the physics-immune horses in Skyrim, we probably wouldn't be able to play Cliffhorse.

when i saw the review on clifhorse on good game i couldent work out why they dident mention the obvious skyrim influence did they really not notice it maybe they dident want bethesda to notice and start another stupid legal battle with mojang in fact that may be what notch was trying to do taunt bethesdas lawyers 

[Elaxter]

I liked Skyrim. Heck, I still do. It's a casual RPG that doesn't act like it's hardcore. Just because something's casual doesn't mean it's not a good game. Dwarf Fortress is totally different in most aspects. I guess you could draw lines like in the OP, but they are stretching out a little bit.

[terko]

When I go back in time ... Arena -> quite some time played. Daggerfall -> even more. Morrowind: Oh, don't even ask how many hours went in there. Oblivion? -> not as much as Morrowind, but, quite some time. Skyrim -> 12 hours, according to Steam. And that's about it.

Somehow, with Skyrim they've lost it. It became even more mainstream.

[tuypo1]

When I go back in time ... Arena -> quite some time played. Daggerfall -> even more. Morrowind: Oh, don't even ask how many hours went in there. Oblivion? -> not as much as Morrowind, but, quite some time. Skyrim -> 12 hours, according to Steam. And that's about it.

Somehow, with Skyrim they've lost it. It became even more mainstream.

arena and daggerfall i dident the randomness in charecter creation (also i wasent very good at them) i hate randomness in charecter creation youve got a whole game to make dice roles with let me have this to my own skills morowind i auctualy havent played oblivion i liked but i dident finish the main quest because i couldent bring myself to

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

destroy an artefact

but the shivering islands were fun and skyrim i have played a bit of but i dont own a copy but from what ive played its good fun although looking back at interviews with the developers during its production its clearly unfinished they explicitly stated there would be the ability to ruin riverwoods economy by sabotaging the mill but its good fun although they should have had a way to keep random civilans from getting killed by dragons and i was very sad that once you become archmage you cant move your spouse in with most you could just brush it off as not letting outsiders into the collage but theres ones you can get within the collage

[SmileyMan]

Just to say that at 42 I feel really old, thanks for that!

[miauw62]

When I go back in time ... Arena -> quite some time played. Daggerfall -> even more. Morrowind: Oh, don't even ask how many hours went in there. Oblivion? -> not as much as Morrowind, but, quite some time. Skyrim -> 12 hours, according to Steam. And that's about it.

Somehow, with Skyrim they've lost it. It became even more mainstream.

Anyone who says "mainstream" as a way to discredit something instantly loses all legitimacy for me.
Skyrim is certainly a solid game, and it can be a good, even great, game with mods (which has been Betheseda's bussiness model since Fallout 3)

E:

Spoiler: rant (click to show/hide)

Also, STOP THE FUCKING ELITIST BULLSHIT. If you tried to think really hard, just maybe you could imagine that people could, *gasp*, enjoy different things than you do! "casual" and "mainstream" are two words that, if used derogatively, remove all legitimacy of their speaker. People saying that "ALL PEOPLE BORN LATER THAN 1994 ARE SHITHEADS AND DONT APRECIATE ANYTHING!" should donate their bodies to scientific research, because the amount of compressed bullshit in their brains could probably solve world hunger. Not everyone wants to have to "think deeply and strategically" when they're playing a game. And if you're saying that only games that require such thinking are "real" (even thinking the term of "real game" makes it hard for me to keep a straight face), then surely games like Doom, Quake and Half-Life are not "real" games, merely casual shit that is below a "true" gamer.

Elitism and nostalgia are horrible. Combining them creates a synergy that invokes a feeling as if Cthulu has focused all of his evil intent onto me and me alone.

Playing DF doesn't give you the right to write other games off as "shallow casual mainstream graphics-focused short attention-span lowest common denominator shit" just because there's a few things in them that you don't like. Out of all fucking mainstream games, Skyrim is probably one of the ones that deserves the least shit. You'd better complain about something that's actually shallow, like Watch Dogs.

Sorry for the rant, but I had to get that out.

[Manveru Taurënér]

When I go back in time ... Arena -> quite some time played. Daggerfall -> even more. Morrowind: Oh, don't even ask how many hours went in there. Oblivion? -> not as much as Morrowind, but, quite some time. Skyrim -> 12 hours, according to Steam. And that's about it.

Somehow, with Skyrim they've lost it. It became even more mainstream.

Anyone who says "mainstream" as a way to discredit something instantly loses all legitimacy for me.
Skyrim is certainly a solid game, and it can be a good, even great, game with mods (which has been Betheseda's bussiness model since Fallout 3)

E:

Spoiler: rant (click to show/hide)

Also, STOP THE FUCKING ELITIST BULLSHIT. If you tried to think really hard, just maybe you could imagine that people could, *gasp*, enjoy different things than you do! "casual" and "mainstream" are two words that, if used derogatively, remove all legitimacy of their speaker. People saying that "ALL PEOPLE BORN LATER THAN 1994 ARE SHITHEADS AND DONT APRECIATE ANYTHING!" should donate their bodies to scientific research, because the amount of compressed bullshit in their brains could probably solve world hunger. Not everyone wants to have to "think deeply and strategically" when they're playing a game. And if you're saying that only games that require such thinking are "real" (even thinking the term of "real game" makes it hard for me to keep a straight face), then surely games like Doom, Quake and Half-Life are not "real" games, merely casual shit that is below a "true" gamer.

Elitism and nostalgia are horrible. Combining them creates a synergy that invokes a feeling as if Cthulu has focused all of his evil intent onto me and me alone.

Playing DF doesn't give you the right to write other games off as "shallow casual mainstream graphics-focused short attention-span lowest common denominator shit" just because there's a few things in them that you don't like. Out of all fucking mainstream games, Skyrim is probably one of the ones that deserves the least shit. You'd better complain about something that's actually shallow, like Watch Dogs.

Sorry for the rant, but I had to get that out.

Just calling something mainstream doesn't necessarily mean you're discrediting it. I certainly agree that the The Elder Scrolls series have gone more mainstream/casual with the last 2 games (and probably Morrowind too to some extent). That doesn't mean I think Skyrim is a bad game, it's sadly just not quite the game for me anymore. Even more sad though is how, as you stated, people turn to elitism and believe their view is the superior one.

Majority rules sadly, nothing to do but accept it. If you aren't part of a large enough niche that game developers want to cater their games towards you (or lucky enough to have a genius in a fey mood coding away somewhere for years and years ) one just has to suck it up. No amount of moaning, belittling or raging will change that.

[sal880612m]

I tend to agree that game development has gone down-hill since about 2000. I had a text wall written out but erased it. For me what it comes down to is that if there isn't RPGish elements in the game it isn't really a game but more of a simulator. This is taken further by the fact that I define gamers based not only on things like what they play how often they do/would like to but also what they get out of it and how they go about it.

I will grant that since most things have been done before it is harder to be innovative but there are entire franchises that are essentially stagnating while generating ridiculous profits. Sure pokemon games add new things and tweak the gameplay but honestly how many of the games do you get a bird and a rodent or a dog on your first route. I haven't played X/Y or B2/W2 for that matter but collect pokemon, train pokemon, get 8 badges. It's been done, add something new, change something up. It is pretty bad that I think a mod is attempting to do more for a franchise than the series itself, failing in some ways but attempting none the less.

The game development situation was further worsened by DLC. This is one point I will not bend on DLC should not exist. I have only done it once and honestly I regret it more often that not. This is a practice that should be actively discouraged and I am enough of a jerk to admit I think continuously and consistently paying for DLC is retarded and makes everything worse and there isn't a damn thing anyone can say to convince me otherwise. It bothers me that people defend and support the current trends in gaming development. Sure there are exceptions but on the whole things have gotten worse.

[indyofcomo]

A sim isn't a game?

[sal880612m]

Not exactly no, but given how I define gamers there is also some degree of flexibility in the definition of what qualifies as a game. I think technically DF is supposed to be a fantasy world simulator but it is definitely a game. A flight simulator is less of a game as far as I am concerned same with most FPS games. It's complex and hard to explain hence the erased text wall.