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[Lord Dullard]

Not so sure about that, SomethingCreative.

I have RL friends who I would describe as 'casual' gamers in a second. They are the types of consumers who will buy games purely because they look awesome/have good graphics and get a lot of media coverage. I have one friend who bought Skyrim for exactly those reasons and probably played it for all of 4-5 hours, but will still describe it as awesome/badass just because of how it looked. This in spite of the fact that he barely touched the game from a roleplayer's standpoint.

Yep.

[Duke 2.0]

When I played Oblivion I got hours and hours of fun. When I played Skyrim everything seemed simple, easy, unrewarding, like I had only one option the entire time and overall it left the stale taste of 'Call of Duty' in my mouth.

Huh, this was inverted for me. Oblivion dungeons were bland and uninteresting, just like a majority of Morrowind caves. At least sometimes in Morrowind caves you would find something of use like unlock scrolls in barrels. I'm sure Oblivion had massively powerful artifacts just sitting around in practically unguarded tombs, but I was never interested enough to go out and find them. Nor did I really feel like engaging in quests, because I got a pervasive idea that no rewards were good.

Skyrim had a ton of cool dungeons I wanted to travel to and quests I wanted to complete because I wanted them complete and didn't feel like a waste of time. I check out random caves I stumble across because there is a pretty good chance of finding something cool in them. I like exploring again.

I guess this makes me a casual fuckup :\

[Mech#4]

Huh, this was inverted for me. Oblivion dungeons were bland and uninteresting, just like a majority of Morrowind caves. At least sometimes in Morrowind caves you would find something of use like unlock scrolls in barrels. I'm sure Oblivion had massively powerful artifacts just sitting around in practically unguarded tombs, but I was never interested enough to go out and find them. Nor did I really feel like engaging in quests, because I got a pervasive idea that no rewards were good.

That was an issue I've come up with quite a few times when I've thought about Oblivion.
In Morrowind there was a kind of 'guarentee' that you would find something half useful in a dungeon delve, be it an amulet of mark/recall, valuable armour or weapons, even scrolls found frequently in the vases. Oblivion didn't really have anything like that, and I think it was because there was too much usage of leveled lists. Gear was too dependent on your level as to when it would appear.

Two cases I really don't like was Umbra, who wore full Ebony armour, leveled Ebony Armour that if you got at the beginning was slightly better than chain, and a tomb with a blue tinged armour set used in a quest, which was far too heavy to wear and had really low armour value. I don't like that kind of... tampering with items.
I know I have read a few times the opinion that you should raise your skills without ever sleeping and raising your level, because the monsters quickly grew too strong for the player to manage with the weapons that were available.

Though I must add that I don't think I ever had that much of a issue, but then again I usually played as an archer and x6 damage tends to solve most combat problems.

[Sordid]

IMO Skyrim dungeons suffer from the same problem Oblivion dungeons suffered from. Like Duke said, there's a sense of pointlessness to it all when you know that the loot is all leveled and there's zero chance of finding anything interesting. Visually they're stunning, no question about that. But the magic just isn't there, there's no thrill of exploration when I know that if there even is anything interesting it's going to be behind a locked door that "requires a specific key".

[Duke 2.0]

 What no, there are plenty of dungeons that have a reward that isn't loot. Find a lighthouse with a pile of bodies inside with a series of notes? Skyrim is all over that shit. Morrowind had a few special instances of stories, Oblivion didn't really have much of that. And hell, I'll even consider dragon shouts loot.

[Micro102]

I found a random maze with 4 staves, and after solving the puzzle and digging a deadra, I got a circlet that reduces mana cost for all schools of magic. How is that not an epic dungeon?

[fqllve]

Bethesda had to have a fanbase like CoD's. You can't make money if you don't have a big fanbase.

changing the game to appease the casual gamers... This is why people think it's getting casual.

This absolutely boggles my mind.

You know what absolutely boggles my mind? This idea of the "casual gamer" that every company is apparently trying to appeal to. The second thing that really gets me is how casual is usually equated with stuff like Call of Duty as opposed to stuff like Cooking Mama. Have you guys ever met a Call of Duty player? Those guys are way more hardcore than I am half the time. They take that game seriously. Is it really impossible to believe that Bethsoft is just trying to improve their series and has a different opinion on what was weak about it than you do?

And what exactly about Skyrim is so casual? The only things I can think of are that they removed the character progression system, which was so awful that it is more like excising a tumor than dumbing the game down, and the extraordinarily linear dungeons that always have an exit. Which sucks, yeah, but I'm not sure that nonlinear 'get lost for hours' dungeons are really that popular among people who never played Wizardry or any other first person dungeon crawl. And before anyone says, "But those are casual gamers." No, those are younger gamers.

edit: Oh, and magic. I dunno what they were thinking when they got rid of spellcrafting. I'd guess it had something to do with how completely broken spell stacking was, but I don't think removing the system was necessarily the answer.

[Vattic]

I got the impression that part of the reason for linear dungeons was the removal of the mark and recall spells coupled with how frustrating it can be to get lost. Having a spell that returned you to the entrance of the current dungeon would have been nice but I guess they didn't want to have to design dungeons around it.

[Sordid]

I'm not sure that nonlinear 'get lost for hours' dungeons are really that popular among people who never played Wizardry or any other first person dungeon crawl. And before anyone says, "But those are casual gamers." No, those are younger gamers.

So what? We were young gamers when we played Wizardry and Daggerfall. If anything, now while they're young is the time to teach them to have high expectations, to find pleasure in overcoming challenges and immersing themselves in experiences that have some real depth. Which following a magic quest arrow around simply does not. It seems to me that a generation of gamers is growing up that's fine with and even expects to be led by their noses and have everything spelled out to them in the most simplistic manner.

That's another difference between Morrowind and Skyrim. In Morrowind, you never do find out what actually happened at Red Mountain, who betrayed whom. All you have is a bunch of conflicting accounts. In Skyrim, there's no ambiguity, and therefore no mystery. When you finish Morrowind you're left wondering. It's been ten years and I still occasionally ponder the question, even though I know there's no answer. When you finish Skyrim you just go "welp, that was nice" and move on to the next game that comes along.

[fqllve]

I was more making the point that first person dungeon crawls are a dying genre, beyond Etrian Odyssey, Minecraft, and TES younger gamers haven't really had a chance to get their feet wet in it. If you were born in the 90s then there's a good chance your first and last experience with a nonlinear crawl was Morrowind. Bethsoft isn't obligated to try to only please fans who began with Daggerfall by accident of birth but also people who started with Morrowind and Oblivion who have different expectations when it comes to dungeon design. I think it just turns out that first person navigation is extremely disorienting and has only niche appeal.

And you have to remember, when Bethsoft made Morrowind they were still a no-name company with essentially one noteworthy release under their belts. It will always be that type of company who are the innovators, which is why indie gaming is so popular right now. I mean, just look at the narrative arc of Chris Avellone. Fallout 2, PS:T,  KOTOR2, NWN2, Alpha Protocol. After PS:T every single one of those is less deep than the last. I think it's just the natural lifespan of a game company. Innovation, refinement, and then over-refinement toward simplicity.

[Furtuka]

This argument going on right here keeps irritating me but I'm unable to look away. T_T

[Gunner-Chan]

You aren't the only one. But I guess it's gonna exist as long as the whole Indie/pc gaming master race mentality keeps existing.

Plus I'm once again shocked that someone out there considers Fallout 2 worthwhile.

[fqllve]

D: What's wrong with Fallout 2?

You know, other than the somewhat awkward combat system and the childish attempts at being adult-oriented.

[Gunner-Chan]

Those two plus trying to scale up the combats to a level the engine can't handle. And generally making a mess of any sort of gameplay balance. But this is a bit off topic.

[bombzero]

meh, why the hell is shit i say taken offensively with no actual thought?

by 'more casual' i meant leaning towards an adventure game, with straightfoward missions and more combat heavy, something that has been happening in the elder scrolls series.

arena, daggerfall, and morrowind were much more based on character skill with the player providing the logical thought side of the action. these types of games are sometimes very linear though. (Dungeon Siege, Dragon Age, etc) but still possess the same 'spirit'.
with oblivion and skyrim, they are more based on linear as hell dungeons that are extremely combat heavy, with a few simple puzzles. neither one is 'bad' its just they are different.

the Skyrim-esque games are better for a quick play when you just want something more casual and simple, but im more of a fan of complex games.

apologies for sounding snobbish but i always considered the 'best' types of RPGs ones that had many skill paths, were its impossible to max everything, you have to make tough decisions, and the challenge is high. i realize 'best imo' would have been better to say than 'true'. hope that clears things up.
a great example of the above is how in morrowind you #1 cannot lead every faction, and #2 must actually harm other factions during quests for eachother, requiring you to make a actual decision with long term consequences.