Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Grakelin]

Discerning gamers are hardcore about playing interactive movies, as evidenced by their love of titles like Heavy Rain and LA Noire.

Please don't start another cycle of "Oooh, this is so mediocre, people who like it are mediocre". A lot of people who post in the thread like playing the game, and they do not appreciate being called zombies.

Incidentally, I don't play Skyrim for 4 days at a time. I play it for an hour or two on days where I don't go out, because I have a full time job and commitments and things. It takes a lot longer to burn out this way.

[Leatra]

since your average idiot CoD/Halo/Skyrim player is content to buy whatever simply because everyone else is(most people i have met who own skyrim have never played an earlier game in the series, im led to believe this is the primary factor in the excitement about how awesome skyrim is.), then mindlessly stare at a TV for 4 days doing the same thing on repeat, we won't be seeing any change as long as these zombies are the primary part of the gaming community.

This is the reason why I stopped complaining about modern gaming. I think games are getting more and more stupid each year. Same old shit with better graphics. Look at Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. See the difference? Now look at Oblivion and Skyrim. We used to think and even write things down while playing games you know. If people are buying it, what can we do? There are more casual gamers than hardcore gamers. If a company wants to make money, they will make games for the casual gamers and also console gamers. Hell, they will even start building the game from the console and port it to PC without working on it too much. Mods will fix it for them, right?

And most people bought the game because of the hype. Marketing is important and graphics are everything because it's what's shown while marketing. Gameplay features is just what you talk about and it's vague. People don't like reading, they like looking. It's why graphics are important. It's what you can advertise. It defines how good your game is.

Different strokes. Some like it with simple gameplay and shiny graphics, some like it with complex gameplay and simple graphics.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

The next elder scrolls will start (as a prisoner of course!) in a round room with a teleporter and a chest. The chest will have all weapons/items/magic gainable, whilst the teleporter goes to the final boss. It will be called 'Fuck it, we don't care anymore'

But it will have dynamic air.

[Gunner-Chan]

This is the reason why I stopped complaining about modern gaming.

I think games are getting more and more stupid each year. Same old shit with better graphics. Look at Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. See the difference? Now look at Oblivion and Skyrim. We used to think and even write things down [...] ect...

This is the reason why I stopped complaining about modern gaming.

[^{Citation needed}]


I know everyone's entitled to their opinion, but come on man. At least don't contradict yourself in the same post.

[bombzero]

apoligies to anyone in this thread who plays skyrim alot, however your also playing DF, so that says you at least know quality when you see it.

however, please read the entire post before complaining, and pay attention to detail.

Discerning gamers are hardcore about playing interactive movies, as evidenced by their love of titles like Heavy Rain and LA Noire.

hmm... well im not entirely sure here, those titles are fun for entirely different reasons, namely they set out to be that in many ways, and you play for the story.
by 'interactive movies' i was more referring to the fact that even 'open-world' games are pretty damned linear now, making them like those games that intend to be 'movies', depite aiming towards being 'open-world'. its a conflict of interest of sorts.

average idiot CoD/Halo/Skyrim

average, not most of the people on this forum, im talking about the people who play a game, that honestly does not have too much replay value, and can still do the same thing for 8 hours a day.
you said you only play it for fun so that's fine, you play it for some good entertainment when your bored.
i was referring to the people who call these 'repeats' a "phenomenal game with amazing replay value and tons to do" which is about most of what i have heard elsewhere besides little known game forums like DF and such.
did not mean people who realize its inadequate in some ways, and can enjoy it anyways.


see i have a issue, which im guessing Leatra probably shares, where 'ok' or 'typical' games just don't cut it, im not happy playing a 'new' game, and finding it barely compares to its predessecors in some respects, and does not try much to distinguish itself from the stereotype we have all seen x100.
it's good, yes, but it could have been better, and wasn't due to deadlines/greed/laziness.
(its not a good thing to be discerning, no really, it sucks, alot.)

The next elder scrolls will start (as a prisoner of course!) in a round room with a teleporter and a chest. The chest will have all weapons/items/magic gainable, whilst the teleporter goes to the final boss. It will be called 'Fuck it, we don't care anymore'

But it will have dynamic air.

that would amuse me in a practical joke kind of way 
but if that was directed at the complaints i voiced, im afraid you missed the point.


anyways, due to my relatively poor ability to state what i mean without offending anyone (im naturally pretty blunt, and tend to come off poorly) i give up on trying to explain what i mean.

[Leatra]

This is the reason why I stopped complaining about modern gaming.

I think games are getting more and more stupid each year. Same old shit with better graphics. Look at Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. See the difference? Now look at Oblivion and Skyrim. We used to think and even write things down [...] ect...

This is the reason why I stopped complaining about modern gaming.

[^{Citation needed}]


I know everyone's entitled to their opinion, but come on man. At least don't contradict yourself in the same post.

I got a lot of complaints built up inside. Sorry for... complaining, I guess.

[Biag]

Spoiler: one monster of a reply to bombzero (click to show/hide)

since your average idiot CoD/Halo/Skyrim player is content to buy whatever simply because everyone else is(most people i have met who own skyrim have never played an earlier game in the series, im led to believe this is the primary factor in the excitement about how awesome skyrim is.), then mindlessly stare at a TV for 4 days doing the same thing on repeat, we won't be seeing any change as long as these zombies are the primary part of the gaming community.

Yeah, but is that a bad thing? People who hadn't heard of the series before got excited because "Hey, all these people are excited and they seem to know what they're talking about! They're saying this game is going to be awesome because of such-and-such reason and that reason appeals to me too! DRAGONS!" That's how word-of-mouth works. If the only people who bought the game were people who had played the prequel, Bethesda would have died off ten years ago because how many people do you think bought Arena at launch?

Discerning gamers are hardcore about playing interactive movies, as evidenced by their love of titles like Heavy Rain and LA Noire.

hmm... well im not entirely sure here, those titles are fun for entirely different reasons, namely they set out to be that in many ways, and you play for the story.
by 'interactive movies' i was more referring to the fact that even 'open-world' games are pretty damned linear now, making them like those games that intend to be 'movies', depite aiming towards being 'open-world'. its a conflict of interest of sorts.

average idiot CoD/Halo/Skyrim

average, not most of the people on this forum, im talking about the people who play a game, that honestly does not have too much replay value, and can still do the same thing for 8 hours a day.
you said you only play it for fun so that's fine, you play it for some good entertainment when your bored.
i was referring to the people who call these 'repeats' a "phenomenal game with amazing replay value and tons to do" which is about most of what i have heard elsewhere besides little known game forums like DF and such.
did not mean people who realize its inadequate in some ways, and can enjoy it anyways.

Do you consider Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas open-world? Because it has one of the most linear stories I've ever seen. Similar: Saint's Row 2, LA Noire, Super Mario 64. To contrast, Knights of the Old Republic is lauded for the nonlinearity of its story, and it's open-world in that you can pick the order in which you do four dungeons (out of six? seven? It's been a while since I played). "Open world" does not mean "we have written an artificial intelligence that writes you a new game every time you play," it means that you have a bunch of shit to do and you can choose when to do it.

In a similar vein, just how many hours do you want out of this game? I've put in close to thirty myself and I think I've explored maybe a third of the possibilities. You've got a questline from every Jarl in every Hold, plus a questline for every temple, plus the Dovahkiin line, plus the Stormcloaks, plus the Imperials, plus the College of Winterhold, plus the Bard College, plus the Thieves' Guild, plus the Companions, plus the Forsworn, and that's just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head. Sure, there's not a ton of replay value, but that might be because you're looking at a game with close to a hundred hours of content (estimated, obviously).

Regarding the fast-travel system, I view it as a design crutch but not one that really gets in the way of me enjoying the game. Sure, it's there because they couldn't make it interesting to walk the same road over and over, but I've never expected Bethesda to give me infinite entertainment. It also could have been more complicated and interesting, like Draignean was talking about, but I feel that that kind of system would get boring quickly; I know a lot of the people here are playing on PC, but in console-world we have five-second load times when we fast-travel. Teleporting around the map is five seconds for us, chartering three boats and a carriage is twenty. It doesn't seem like much but that's twenty seconds where the player is completely inactive by necessity and therefore twenty seconds of ensured boredom interspersed with minute-long yes-I-would-like-to-go-to-Whiterun conversations.

I understand the argument that some people want more roleplaying in their action-RPG. That's totally fair. Design-wise, though, everybody is down with action, and the fast-travel system is meant to make the action more accessible. I've spent hours pissing around Whiterun talking to everybody in sight and doing the whole roleplaying thing, but I'm a lot less interested in portraying exactly which route my character is going to take into Riften, and I'm extremely uninterested in portraying that every single time I need to go anywhere.

But on the other hand, do you know what I would trade the current system for in a heartbeat? No fast-travel, ever, in the entire game. Except the first half of the Dragonborn questline is in the area around Whiterun and High Hrothgar, and after that you get a fucking dragon and you get to ride that shit around. Throw all the lore you want at me about why that doesn't fit with the Elder Scrolls canon; do you think you'd be complaining about your dragon? No, you wouldn't, you'd be fucking riding it.

[The13thRonin]

Anyone who says Skyrim is a bad game is flat-out wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that one can't dislike Skyrim for one reason or another but as a game it succeeds on so many levels.

Comparing it to previous Elder Scrolls games invokes nostalgia to smooth over all the jagged edges of the design we didn't like leaving only the shiny finish of the things that we did.

Sure it's not perfect or 'as good as it could be', whatever that means. But there is nothing in life that couldn't be improved upon. You don't have to stop enjoying mouthwateringly greasy kebabs because they're not wrapped in bacon and you don't have to stop enjoying a mouthwateringly greasy kebab wrapped in bacon because it isn't smothered in sweet chilli sauce... You just have to learn to either accept it for how it is and enjoy it or choose to enjoy something else.

I personally found Skyrim very enjoyable and far from an 'interactive movie'. The atmosphere was so thick you could cut it with a knife and there was plenty to do and see. Skyrim is a world that I will keep coming back to just so I can enjoy the little things like stalking deer through the many forests or climbing the various peaks to pick exotic alchemy ingredients.

Bethesda put a remarkable amount of effort into the newest Elder Scrolls game and it shows. It is far from a hack and slash job hence why it's enjoyed substantial critical and popular approval. Skyrim gave me hope again that during these dark days in PC gamings descent into casual gaming, pay-to-win and Modern Man-shooter XVIII [now with thrice the level of brown but with one third of the new content you used to expect] that there is still hope because there are still some developers out there that are focused on making quality games with remarkable depth who may not be perfect but are at least trying to make it work.

[Microcline]

Anyone who says Skyrim is a bad game is flat-out wrong.

To the extent that this can be true I am willing to agree.  I don't think that anyone is arguing that Skyrim is bad in a way similar to, say, DAII, and it certainly deserves praise for being an ambitious open-world RPG in an industry increasingly dominated by cutscenes and quicktime events.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that one can't dislike Skyrim for one reason or another but as a game it succeeds on so many levels.

On the other hand, while I'm willing to give Skyrim points for trying, I wouldn't necessarily classify what it does as "success".

Comparing it to previous Elder Scrolls games invokes nostalgia to smooth over all the jagged edges of the design we didn't like leaving only the shiny finish of the things that we did.

This is something I would vehemently disagree with.  The cry of "nostalgia" is a byproduct of the industry's focus on only hyping the latest products, and damages the credibility of games in comparison to other artistic mediums.  If anyone tried to brand a critic of The Godfather Part III, Aliens 3, or the majority of horror sequels as guilty of "nostalgia" they'd be laughed out of the room.  Looking at Skyrim in comparison to previous TES titles, the writing is weaker, the setting is poorly developed, and character customization and player abilities have been severely reduced.

I personally found Skyrim very enjoyable and far from an 'interactive movie'. The atmosphere was so thick you could cut it with a knife and there was plenty to do and see. Skyrim is a world that I will keep coming back to just so I can enjoy the little things like stalking deer through the many forests or climbing the various peaks to pick exotic alchemy ingredients.

I don't know what game you were playing, but the "atmosphere" of Skyrim is the naked Nord joke character from Morrowind copy-pasted a couple hundred times.  They really didn't put any effort into depth or nuance for the Nord culture.

Bethesda put a remarkable amount of effort into the newest Elder Scrolls game and it shows. It is far from a hack and slash job hence why it's enjoyed substantial critical and popular approval. Skyrim gave me hope again that during these dark days in PC gamings descent into casual gaming, pay-to-win and Modern Man-shooter XVIII [now with thrice the level of brown but with one third of the new content you used to expect] that there is still hope because there are still some developers out there that are focused on making quality games with remarkable depth who may not be perfect but are at least trying to make it work.

The game was heavily consolized, as demonstrated by the terrible UI, cut features, delayed CS release, and Xbox content lockout.  I'm willing to concede that Todd Howard is likely one of the few AAA devs who actually cares about his games, but I think there's good reason to question his competence.  If the amount of features gained is compared to the features lost in Oblivion and Skyrim, you'd find it a quite unacceptable ratio.

[nenjin]

To me, Bethesda finally dialed in the game they've been making since Oblivion. So you can call that a success. On the other hand, I've liked each game progressively less since Morrowind, found the experiences less memorable, and seen my mechanics complaints get totally ignored, and worsened. If you shave enough fat off of something, yeah, you get it nice and trim. But you also take the thing that gives it all the flavor out of it too.

I found the atmosphere good, but sold by the visuals. The dialog was still pretty much Bethesda dialog, and the NPC routines are much the same they've done before, no real surprises there.

So in the end I feel like I got exactly what I paid for: a continuation of stuff Bethesda has been doing for a while that I don't really like....and great visuals. I don't feel my purchase has been wasted, I never do with a Beth game. I'll get 150 hours out of within a few years.

But Bethesda is not listening, and they haven't listened for a long time. I really think I'm not going anywhere near Skyrim Online or whatever that thing is they're doing next. Not until it's in the price range of others games that I'm not really sure I care about anymore. They're no longer interested in trying something novel.

[scriver]

As I've said before; as a game in general, Skyrim would get a 7-8 from me - it was a fun game while it lasted and I have over a hundred hours invested in it. As a game in it's genre, however, it would get a 3-4, because as a nonlinear "sandbox" action-rpg, it sucks. And I'm extremely disappointed in it.

[Leatra]

On the other hand, I've liked each game progressively less since Morrowind, found the experiences less memorable, and seen my mechanics complaints get totally ignored, and worsened.

That's exatly like my experience with TES games. I'm not saying Skyrim is teh worst game evah. I'm saying it's the close to being worst TES game (excluding Daggerfall and Arena). It might be though. I don't know if Oblivion is better or not. I don't get the feeling I got with Oblivion for some reason.

You know, Bethesda doesn't even have to try anymore. They just have to do it like CoD. Same old shit with a different setting and more shiny graphics.

A TES game has to suck at least 100 hours of a player. It's not a game you can just play 30 hours, say "eh, it was fun" and delete it. Skyrim just falls short compared to other TES titles.

[Mech#4]

Hm, interesting opinions here. I would consider Skyrim as a vast improvement over Oblivion in nearly every way. The world feels more full for one (It's not so many tracks of forest and plains, there's more variation in the landscape), the dungeons each seem more unique and there's more tangible benefits to exploring (Oblivion's dungeons to me always felt more copy pasted, and the loot was far too level restricted to be much useful collecting).

Also, there's more going on in the world besides the main quest, more which also relates to the main quest but isn't a part of it. One thing I remember in Oblivion was outside of the main quest, there were few references to the daedric invasion. In Skyrim you have the legion and greycloaks, the dragon priests, as well as the random bounties (Which I like a lot, it's nice to see some randomisation of quests reimplimented) all relating back to the dragons.

Whether I would consider Skyrim better than Morrowind? Well... it's too difficult to compare them. Morrowind is quite old now, and within the limitations of the time it was awesome, but I play it now and (1) I walk and run SO slowly, (2) The combat was an awful holdover from Daggerfall and (3)... hmm... I would say the world feels so dead compared to Oblivion and Skyrim. That last one is being quite unfair though, considering Morrowind came out in 2002.


Bah, whatever. To me Bethesda have gone up and down in the quality of their games over each iteration.
From a dip with Oblivion (despite all the hours I have in that game) to steadily rising again with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Skyrim fixes all of the problems I had with Oblivion. I have 160~ hours in Skyrim and really the only reason why it's not higher is because I've been pacing myself. I could have finished it all within the month of getting it, but I enjoy things more if I come back to it and things are all hazy and I can rediscover them again. As it stands I still haven't finished the main quest and I have four different characters on the go.


Edit: Oh, except the UI. That was a mess. Mods for the Mod God!

[forsaken1111]

I know this isn't a popular opinion but personally I didn't get into Morrowind nearly as much as I did Skyrim or Oblivion. Not because everyone in Morrowind looked as if they had downs syndrome either. Really I'm not sure what it was about the game that turned me off but I really disliked Morrowind and never felt invested in the story at all. Skyrim, once you get over the HURR DURR UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE SAVE US bit is really pretty good. I ignored the 'main' quest altogether and just played the game I wanted to play, which was a sort of tomb raider/indiana jones game with a bow where I recovered ancient artifacts and took them to riften to drop in alleyways and watch the poor fight over them. my house to put on display.

[Sordid]

I know this isn't a popular opinion but personally I didn't get into Morrowind nearly as much as I did Skyrim or Oblivion. Not because everyone in Morrowind looked as if they had downs syndrome either. Really I'm not sure what it was about the game that turned me off but I really disliked Morrowind and never felt invested in the story at all.

To be fair, Morrowind does have a lot of flaws. The combat system is crap, the AI is non-existent, and the setting is almost too unique. I initially found myself sticking as much as possible to Imperial areas because they had familiar architecture. The dunmer culture was too alien for me and made me feel uncomfortable until I learned a bit more about it and began to understand it.