Fallout 4! In like 4 1/2 months, its real.

[Buddy Christ]

I agree, Beth could really step up on their QA for their products and do more testing. And I too will hold back on buying FO4 on release, but mainly because I have to see first, if I can get the uncut version here or if they pull another BS region lock stunt. And since I started modding my Skyrim, I will wait for the way, modding will be made possible with FO4. 

(You know, tasted the forbidden fruit and all that, when I began modding my Skyrim , now there is no way back to an unmoddable Beth game for me) 

 

[ElectricSheep]

 

 

First things first: If you say that you don't like Skyrim, I believe you, it's a matter of taste, really.

I believe it's more about generational conflict and a different perception of the medium.

 

When I first played Morrowind it was a new and intense experience; having the freedom to go in any direction, tons of hand placed items to find, bizarre setting and lore (masterfully put by Michael Kirkbride) and psychedelic art direction with giant mushrooms and shell houses. The game blew my mind away, I've spent months shut up in my room playing it like some maniac. Sure, today one can argue that it wasn't really all that good, since the combat was lackluster, the graphics already dated (contrary to the popular belief), animations silly, quest design fetchy and the overall lack of choices and alternate paths disappointing. However, it's not a sum of pros that makes a really good game, but the elements that stand out, and Morrowind was a game about exploring and finding stuff. You could beat it a dozen of times and still come across something new during another playthrough - an omitted note, an artifact, or a secret location. Exploration in Morrowind felt so great because it was driven by the urge to unveil secrets; put together scattered pieces of lore, find unique items, see the unseen.

 

After Oblivion was announced, my expectations would skyrocket. I remember people sending Bethesda huge whislists and discussing the upcoming game in megathreads. I was pretty much as hyped as the idiots who make these retarded "reaction" videos today. I hoped Oblivion would be as good as Morrowind plus much, much more once addressing the previously lackluster elements of the game. Which is why the game was so huge, heart crushing disappointment. Cyrodiil felt generic and was unlike anything one could read about the province in Morrowind, writing was just atrocious, quests boring, mini-games idiotic and annoying, the guilds imposed no requirements, the combat was attack-and-parry fest with retarded HP bloat on higher levels, but the most disheartening and uninspiring was the new way of loot and enemies distribution: level-scaling. It completely ruined the game for me. WHY THE FUCK would I go through countless of dungeons, chests and enemies if there's nothing of interest to find in the first place? I can just wait a few levels and the same can be bought in shops or looted from bandits, so why even bother?

 

At first I couldn't tell whether there's something wrong with me, or with the game as I just couldn't force myself to like it, even though I wanted to. So I started checking reviews and comments only to be more confused, because most of the journos and players declared it the best game ever made. Eventually I came across RPG Codex review and it was a huge relief - FINALLY someone voiced my grief.

Oblivion was a new kind of RPG: an RPG for people who don't like RPGs. It was made to be easy, accessible and always gratifying. I gave Oblivion to my father, who was only playing shooters, and he loved it, as he could just whack monsters for hours and easily grab new gear while ignoring everything else. Ironically, he was the new audience, while I was the old, alienated audience.

 

Right now I only play Bethesda games for modding, usually ignoring the story. I managed to have some fun with FO3, despite the overwhelmingly retarded story and writing, though Skyrim bored me to death even with mods. New Vegas, on the other hand, was a thoroughly enjoyable and refreshing experience. People who argue that FO3 is a better game only remind me how vast is the rift that divides us. To them branching quests, skill checks, or a story that is not about join THE GOOD guys and kill THE BAD guys is an annoyance and an obstacle, to me it's what makes the game fun.

 

So it's really not about taste, more what you expect from games in general.

[ElectricSheep]

 

you have to please the masses who for the most part have a limited attention span to make the most money no matter how much that may displease a good many people.

Yes, however that's not the main problem. The main problem is that Bethesda is simply being lazy. They KNOW people like the open world formula so much they can get away with stuff no other developers would. This is why, despite having all the money they need to make a game that would appease both masses and hardcore audience (to an extent at the very least), they always pick the shoddiest and most uninteresting option.

[GrimReaper]

 

I believe it's more about generational conflict and a different perception of the medium.

 

When I first played Morrowind it was a new and intense experience; having the freedom to go in any direction, tons of hand placed items to find, bizarre setting and lore (masterfully put by Michael Kirkbride) and psychedelic art direction with giant mushrooms and shell houses. The game blew my mind away, I've spent months shut up in my room playing it like some maniac. Sure, today one can argue that it wasn't really all that good, since the combat was lackluster, the graphics already dated (contrary to the popular belief), animations silly, quest design fetchy and the overall lack of choices and alternate paths disappointing. However, it's not a sum of pros that makes a really good game, but the elements that stand out, and Morrowind was a game about exploring and finding stuff. You could beat it a dozen of times and still come across something new during another playthrough - an omitted note, an artifact, or a secret location. Exploration in Morrowind felt so great because it was driven by the urge to unveil secrets; put together scattered pieces of lore, find unique items, see the unseen.

 

After Oblivion was announced, my expectations would skyrocket. I remember people sending Bethesda huge whislists and discussing the upcoming game in megathreads. I was pretty much as hyped as the idiots who make these retarded "reaction" videos today. I hoped Oblivion would be as good as Morrowind plus much, much more once addressing the previously lackluster elements of the game. Which is why the game was so huge, heart crushing disappointment. Cyrodiil felt generic and was unlike anything one could read about the province in Morrowind, writing was just atrocious, quests boring, mini-games idiotic and annoying, the guilds imposed no requirements, the combat was attack-and-parry fest with retarded HP bloat on higher levels, but the most disheartening and uninspiring was the new way of loot and enemies distribution: level-scaling. It completely ruined the game for me. WHY THE FUCK would I go through countless of dungeons, chests and enemies if there's nothing of interest to find in the first place? I can just wait a few levels and the same can be bought in shops or looted from bandits, so why even bother?

 

At first I couldn't tell whether there's something wrong with me, or with the game as I just couldn't force myself to like it, even though I wanted to. So I started checking reviews and comments only to be more confused, because most of the journos and players declared it the best game ever made. Eventually I came across RPG Codex review and it was a huge relief - FINALLY someone voiced my grief.

Oblivion was a new kind of RPG: an RPG for people who don't like RPGs. It was made to be easy, accessible and always gratifying. I gave Oblivion to my father, who was only playing shooters, and he loved it, as he could just whack monsters for hours and easily grab new gear while ignoring everything else. Ironically, he was the new audience, while I was the old, alienated audience.

 

Right now I only play Bethesda games for modding, usually ignoring the story. I managed to have some fun with FO3, despite the overwhelmingly retarded story and writing, though Skyrim bored me to death even with mods. New Vegas, on the other hand, was a thoroughly enjoyable and refreshing experience. People who argue that FO3 is a better game only remind me how vast is the rift that divides us. To them branching quests, skill checks, or a story that is not about join THE GOOD guys and kill THE BAD guys is an annoyance and an obstacle, to me it's what makes the game fun.

 

So it's really not about taste, more what you expect from games in general.

 

 

That's a nice post, and I agree with most about what you said about Oblivion. However, the first RPG I played was Albion IIRC and the next games I remember would've been Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, and I played Gothic before I played Morrowind, so Morrowind didn't blew me away like it did with many others. So I don't think it's much of a generational conflict. I did like Morrowind for what it was, but it also occured to me that the game was very easy to break. Levitation and alchemy being the main culprits here. I suppose the first good game you've played from a genre will always have a special place in your memories, making it hard for other games of the same kind to even get close to that feeling.

 

I don't really like Oblivion as a game that much, but it did a few things better than Morrowind. It gave NPCs more life, they would have their schedules, they'd talk to each other and so on. The world was more believable and you had more ways to interact with NPCs. They also made the game more accessible, which can be a good or a bad thing depending on your tastes. The Dark Brotherhood questline has to be one of the best I've played in any RPG so far.

 

Anyway, you have to keep in mind that Bethesda's games are not hardcore RPGs, Morrowind being no exception. It was a blend of action and RPG, missing many features classical RPGs have, the most obvious one is the lack of a party, meaning the game itself had to be toned down a lot to make it possible to play with only one character. As a result, RPGs from the Infinity Engine-era where much more complex and harder than Morrowind. Morrowind on the other hand gave you something that most classical RPGs didn't give you: Freedom. Not the freedom to chose which dialogue option you pick, rather freedom related to gameplay. You could play however you wanted to. You could use every weapon, every armor, every spell. You weren't locked down based on which class you've picked at the creation of your character.

 

If you consider yourself a fan of oldschool CRPGs, Morrowind didn't really scratched that itch. At least for me. But it did show me that there's something new to like. It was not the stuff I usually liked, it was just something different which I also happened to like.

 

 

For me, I expect games to deliver what the devs intended. This can be a horribly complex game with gameplay that punishes you for every little mistake or it can be a comfy walking simulator. I do appreciate some games more than others, of course - But honestly, I do not see my personal taste as an enrichment for myself, I'd rather call it a limitation because it obviously limits the things I can enjoy. For example, I don't like racing games, yet there are many people who have loads of fun with them. I can't. I try to be as open minded about anything as I can be, as to not close doors that don't need to be closed. 

[Guest endgameaddiction]

I agree, Beth could really step up on their QA for their products and do more testing. And I too will hold back on buying FO4 on release, but mainly because I have to see first, if I can get the uncut version here or if they pull another BS region lock stunt. And since I started modding my Skyrim, I will wait for the way, modding will be made possible with FO4. 

(You know, tasted the forbidden fruit and all that, when I began modding my Skyrim , now there is no way back to an unmoddable Beth game for me) 

 

Modding is probably the only reason why I'm still gaming. I've been modding for a long time that's mainly what I look for in a game. And it's the only reason why I hang on to Beth games. As much as I like Fallout 3, without mods I wouldn't have gain interest in that game. And it's because of mods I found out about Fallout 3. I was dedicated to MMO and modded that, but I ran my own events in my guild and it kept me busy for a very long time until I needed to start taking breaks after the MMO was getting nerfed to the point that Square Enix didn't care about their long time dedicated users and started to make it far too easy for newbies to clash with vetarans and it started to have a negative impact on endgame events where new people had it easy leveling up their jobs far too fast and the outcome of it was having to do events with random people because Square Enix chose to change around the system and it lead to fails because newbs didn't take the time to master their jobs.They would pay their way to the top and when it came to knowing your job it started to show how shitty they played, but it was a system that couldn't be changed any more and I had to just get away until I officially quit and dedicated myself to Fallout 3 and the mod scene for it.

 

So since 2005 I've been into mods and only prefer games that I'm able to mod. And Fallout 3 became very exceptional as I seen the amount of stuff you can do in it.

 

And once that ball starts rolling for console gamers to have access to mods and the toolkit in the future, When those people get accustom to mods, I don't think many of them will like the game for just the game if the game turns out to be bad. And they'll carry that same mentality as most of us pc gamers do.

 

Once you mod, you never go back. And I think the console gamers who have purchased the game again for PC to be able to mod it won't consider buying it on console. Unless they feel up to the task to buy FO4 on console to mod, but it will have it's limitations.

[ElectricSheep]

 

 

(...) I played Gothic before I played Morrowind, so Morrowind didn't blew me away like it did with many others. So I don't think it's much of a generational conflict. 

 

I don't really like Oblivion as a game that much, but it did a few things better than Morrowind. It gave NPCs more life, they would have their schedules, they'd talk to each other and so on. The world was more believable and you had more ways to interact with NPCs. They also made the game more accessible, which can be a good or a bad thing depending on your tastes. The Dark Brotherhood questline has to be one of the best I've played in any RPG so far.

 

Anyway, you have to keep in mind that Bethesda's games are not hardcore RPGs, Morrowind being no exception. It was a blend of action and RPG, missing many features classical RPGs have, the most obvious one is the lack of a party, meaning the game itself had to be toned down a lot to make it possible to play with only one character. As a result, RPGs from the Infinity Engine-era where much more complex and harder than Morrowind. Morrowind on the other hand gave you something that most classical RPGs didn't give you: Freedom. (...)

 

For me, I expect games to deliver what the devs intended. This can be a horribly complex game with gameplay that punishes you for every little mistake or it can be a comfy walking simulator. I do appreciate some games more than others, of course - But honestly, I do not see my personal taste as an enrichment for myself, I'd rather call it a limitation because it obviously limits the things I can enjoy. (...)

I played Gothic shortly after it came out and it was never one of my favorite games. AFAIK there was even some bad blood between Gothic fans and TES fans back in the day. But liking one game over another hardly disproves any argument I was trying to make.

 

Morrowind is pretty much as easy to break as any other Bethesda game. However, despite encountering bugs (well, obviously), I never managed to break it. I would die endlessly trying to steal from Ghostgate or trying to cheat-kill Umbra.

 

There is no general consensus on what a role playing game really is; what elements a game should consist of to be worthy the title (some even say the RPG is not a genre on its own, but a sub-genre that borrows gameplay elements from other genres, i.e. Deus Ex), hence it's rather futile trying to convince anyone that TES series was never a *true* RPG. Besides, it doesn't really matter whether Morrowind was an RPG, or an adventure game with RPG elements. Again, it hardly has to do with anything that I've said earlier.

 

I don't see how Oblivion had a more believable world other than in the sense that it was closer to the real world (generic is the word). NPCs had their silly schedules and uninspiring exchanges about mudcrabs (horrible creatures), but it was hardly rendering the towns lively or believable in any other sense than the above-mentioned. The towns felt empty and all the same. Sure, it's not like Oblivion introduced no improvement AT ALL, however for the most part the game was a step back.

 

The Dark Brotherhood questline was interesting but overall mediocre. And it went down the toilet after the cleansing as if the developers stopped giving a fuck.

 

It's rather peculiar to expect games to deliver what the devs intended. I, for one, expect what *I* expect (not that there even is a way for me to know what the devs really intended, as I'm not into telepathy). Also, I don't feel bad about disliking certain games, because the world is a vast place and there's always something else I can waste my time on. Like, a better and more inspiring game e.g. - and not necessarily a role playing one.

[Kendo 2]

What constitutes a roleplaying game is subjective.  Castlevania is a roleplaying game.  When I played it, I played as Dracula; that's a role.  It is a predetermined one but nonetheless it is a role.  The two things Bethesda has going for it as far as a vanilla game goes is openworld and character identity.  When they remove or limit those they start cutting into what they get right.  That leaves us with just another game.

 

From what I can see of FO4, Bethesda is taking another step towards the console market.  Sure, they want a game editor for PC users...so we can make content for consoles.  The new cut scenes for dialogue are just like what is available for ME3 or TW3.  Even the interfaces look similar (a circle with branches instead of the usual Bethesda list of options).  This might be a good thing, but that depends on how added dialogue from mods will be handled; and we don't know anything yet.

[GrimReaper]

 

I played Gothic shortly after it came out and it was never one of my favorite games. AFAIK there was even some bad blood between Gothic fans and TES fans back in the day. But liking one game over another hardly disproves any argument I was trying to make.

 

Morrowind is pretty much as easy to break as any other Bethesda game. However, despite encountering bugs (well, obviously), I never managed to break it. I would die endlessly trying to steal from Ghostgate or trying to cheat-kill Umbra.

 

There is no general consensus on what a role playing game really is; what elements a game should consist of to be worthy the title (some even say the RPG is not a genre on its own, but a sub-genre that borrows gameplay elements from other genres, i.e. Deus Ex), hence it's rather futile trying to convince anyone that TES series was never a *true* RPG. Besides, it doesn't really matter whether Morrowind was an RPG, or an adventure game with RPG elements. Again, it hardly has to do with anything that I've said earlier.

 

I don't see how Oblivion had a more believable world other than in the sense that it was closer to the real world (generic is the word). NPCs had their silly schedules and uninspiring exchanges about mudcrabs (horrible creatures), but it was hardly rendering the towns lively or believable in any other sense than the above-mentioned. The towns felt empty and all the same. Sure, it's not like Oblivion introduced no improvement AT ALL, however for the most part the game was a step back.

 

The Dark Brotherhood questline was interesting but overall mediocre. And it went down the toilet after the cleansing as if the developers stopped giving a fuck.

 

It's rather peculiar to expect games to deliver what the devs intended. I, for one, expect what *I* expect (not that there even is a way for me to know what the devs really intended, as I'm not into telepathy). Also, I don't feel bad about disliking certain games, because the world is a vast place and there's always something else I can waste my time on. Like, a better and more inspiring game e.g. - and not necessarily a role playing one.

 

 

I didn't say I like Gothic more than Morrowind, I just stated that a lot of the elements Morrowind had were introduced to me with Gothic, so Morrowind is not that special for me. I suppose Morrowind was the first game of that kind many people played/enjoyed and as such is always held in high regard.

 

I also never said that Morrowind wasn't a 'true' RPG (because that would be the often used 'no true scotsman fallacy'), just that Morrowind isn't your run of the mill hardcore cRPG like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. You said that Oblivion was a RPG for people that don't like RPGs, that's why I brought it up, because Morrowind wasn't that different in that regard. I'm not trying to define RPGs here, just that there are several sub-categories with different core aspects. Skill checks and branching quests are not the core aspect of TES games. That would be the realm of the classical cRPGs, Pillars of Eternity being the newest game in that genre.

 

See, for you the AI improvement wasn't that important in Oblivion. For me it was, because it made the world feel alive. If you don't care about 'silly schedules' then that's fine, but it's hardly anything more than just mere taste. And if Oblivion's towns were empty and boring to you, then Morrowind's world should've been even worse than that, because NPCs did even less in that game.

 

 

You can usually see what the devs intended by looking at screenshots, videos or even the description of the game. If I buy a RTS game, I'm pretty sure the devs intended it to be a RTS. If there no basebuilding, than the devs obviously thought that basebuilding had no place in the game. Oblivion removed the RNG checks on attacks because the devs felt that it's counterintuitive to have a game where you clearly hit people yourself, but the game tells you that you missed because RNGesus said no.

 

You kinda have to judge if the set goal was reached or not. If you want to paint a woman and someone complains that you should've drawn a man instead is kinda silly. You may not agree with the goal someone tries to achieve, but that's something that comes down to taste. There is no ojective way to determine if game A is better than game B.

 

[Kaz Aanh]

There's always been a feud against FO3 and FNV fans, Bethesda followers vs Interplay followers. Or there's been a feud against Fallout and TES fans against Bethesda because they have a reputation of making really bad quality games.

 

The issue that stands out the most to me is Bethesda ignoring their fans after the nonstop criticism given upon them for making such games. I have to say they deserve every bit of negative comment about them because their broken games have been a rinse and repeat. They are so capable of being much better but they continue to provide us with these mediocre games. Basically treating us like second class consumers. Which is why I stated in a previous post (rant thread) that I don't know how they get away with this. But truth is, money talks. And if people are providing Bethesda with money purchasing their games, what do they care? They got what they wanted. Their toolkit is what compensates them and gives them more than enough reason to slack off making games because they leave up to the rest of the people to do their dirty work.

 

Fallout 2 was hated too when it was released, it was considered a weaker game that first one.

 

Now everyone hates New Vegas and everybody loves Fallout 3.

[Sacremas]

First off you guys can just drop the whole thing with what's a RPG or not because it derives from a real-world term where you theatrically play your role  out. D&D via Chainmail simplified that and puts numers and stats on it further, so that stepped away from actually role playing your character to roll playign it. Baldur's Gate while an awesome game is much more an adventure game mixed with a strategy game with a stats system than it is a "RPG" like we would have known if of Ye Olden Days. CRPGs as of such can be all sorts of things, it can be the deep storytelling of Pillars of Eternity, or it could be playing the role of Dracula in Castlevania. Neither is any more a RPG than the other, because neither game really is an RPG as originally defined. As such let's try to look at these things as enjoyable games, rather than enjoyable role-playing games, or try to score points in regards to which of them can be considered to actually be a RPG or not (CoD Advanced Warfare can be said to be a RPG as much as Fallout 3 was, as picking your weapons is kinda picking your stats in a way). Sure Morrowind appealed more to the old-school number-crunchers than Oblivion did, but it wasn't any more of an RPG, and the transitions between Daggerfall and Fallout 4 is pretty much the same as from Call of Duty 1 to Black Ops 3. Both game genres have been dumbed down to appeal to the masses, and fans of both types of games fall into camps of old school vs new school.

 

Anyway, to move back to the subject at hand...

 

 

 

You can usually see what the devs intended by looking at screenshots, videos or even the description of the game. If I buy a RTS game, I'm pretty sure the devs intended it to be a RTS. If there no basebuilding, than the devs obviously thought that basebuilding had no place in the game. Oblivion removed the RNG checks on attacks because the devs felt that it's counterintuitive to have a game where you clearly hit people yourself, but the game tells you that you missed because RNGesus said no.

 

 

You know, it does occur to me now that Bethesda is doing the exact same thing over agian. Skills in Fallout 3 determining if your bullet hit the guy between the eyes or not rather than where your crosshair was is exactly the same RNGesus at work, and with skills now being removed and non-VATS working like a normal shooter,that's pretty much the exact same transition as they did between Morrowind and Oblivion.

[GrimReaper]

Maybe instead of reacting to people not liking Elder Scrolls game past Morrowind, I could state what I like about them.

 

First and foremost, I do know that TES games (or the newer FO games) have some glaring issues, some entries being worse than others overall. However, what I do like is that Bethesda tries to do something that others don't. Sure, you have games with better combat - like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic or even Mount&Blade. You have games that have a bigger and more believable worlds at first glance, like The Witcher ot GTA. You also have games that do the whole sneak mechanic better, like Thief (excluding the newest entry in that series, haven't played that). But nobody really tries to fit everything into one game, only Bethesda does that. You can sneak, fight, use magic, trade, steal and traverse a big open and most importantly, persistent world.

 

Combat in Dark Messiah is better, yes. But it's also a linear game that takes place in handcrafted, limited areas. There's never an enemy where no enemy was placed and there are no fights that weren't intended to happen exactly where and when they happen. It also has no interactive NPCs that have their own agendas and motivations. It's just you, the enemy and the excellent combat, nothing more.

 

The Witcher and GTA create a big and fancy illusion of a big, lively world. However, they're not persistent - enemies and NPCs spawn and despawn how they are needed. There are no NPCs that are interactable, they just serve as decoration to hide the barren and empty world. GTA for example has hundreds of pedestrians and dozens of vehicles most of the time in one scene, but everything evaporates the moment you drive around the next corner. You can blow up hundreds of cars, murder thousands of civilians and cops and the moment you turn around, it's all gone, as if nothing ever happened. In the Witcher, you can't even hurt civilians AFAIK. Whereas a vampire or dragon attack in Skyrim can lead to real casualties. Adrianne Avenicci that gets sucked dry by a vampire or eaten by a dragon stays that way. There's not many NPCs in Skyrim, but most have their place and lead their lives and it has real consequences if they die.

 

Sneaking in Thief feels awesome, there's so much thought put into the mechanic itself that you feel like you are really being a master thief IF you do it right. However, Thief is also a very limited game because you can't do much else. There's no real NPC interaction aside from the sneaking mechanic and the world consists of levels and is actually quite small.

 

 

 

TES games lets you do all of the above and more in one game. Sure, they're often buggy messes and tend to be quite shallow at times, but they're the only games that offer freedom in the sense that you can do anything you want at any time. If Bethesda are a bunch of lazy bums that do mediocre games, how come nobody tried to copy them thus far? You have loads of Diablo Clones, CoD Clones, World of Warcraft clones and so on, yet there are no devs that try to develop something like the Elder Scrolls despite it being such a retarded success. Most people don't know about game development and only tend to judge a game based on if it fulfills their desires or not. When people talk about The Elder Scrolls, it gets often compared to other games that are only at the very surface similar in nature, like Witcher or GTA. I'd like to see what R* would be able to accomplish if the only new feature they added was fully interactable inventories for every entity in the game world. I suppose it would be a horrible, horrible mess.

[Guest endgameaddiction]

Oh gosh... I hope they fix auto aim for this game. That was one of my biggest pet peeves of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. it's like the laser projectiles from the gatling gun were magnets. Hard to miss from supermutants. That and when I aim and shoot a NPC it hits a different one.

[Kendo 2]

D&D via Chainmail

You're fossil just like I am.

[GrimReaper]

 

 

You know, it does occur to me now that Bethesda is doing the exact same thing over agian. Skills in Fallout 3 determining if your bullet hit the guy between the eyes or not rather than where your crosshair was is exactly the same RNGesus at work, and with skills now being removed and non-VATS working like a normal shooter,that's pretty much the exact same transition as they did between Morrowind and Oblivion.

 

Not the exact same thing, however.

 

Morrowind: You hit where you aimed at, but whether the hit connects or not is determined by RNG + your respective skill

 

FO3: The direction your attacks go is determined by RNG + skill, but a hit will always be a hit.

 

Sorry for the nitpicking.

[Sacremas]

 

D&D via Chainmail

You're fossil just like I am.

 

 

I'm 34, my first cRPG was Diablo 1, then Fallout 1 after that followed by BG, BG got me interested on Forgotten Realms, then that got me into D&D playing with 3rd Edition. I'm just historically aware and with a sticky mind for facts, I've never played an actual RPG like I speak about, but I have friends that have (LARPs and such, running around in the forest pretending to be a vampire and biting people, I find it silly but it's way more RPG than rolling a 20 sided dice).

[ElectricSheep]

I don't think that Morrowind shares a lot with Gothic aside from being an open world game. And then again, it's a completely different kind of open world; it's build around character development mandatory to overcome various obstacles blocking the path to win the game. On the contrary, you can beat TES games while still being a noob and the whole map is accessible from the very beginning.

 

 

 

You said that Oblivion was a RPG for people that don't like RPGs, that's why I brought it up, because Morrowind wasn't that different in that regard. 

Borrowed from NMA:

 

The most telling sign of the loss of depth in Oblivion was the continued drop in skills from Morrowind's 27 to Oblivion's 21. Weapon classes were lumped into Blade, Blunt, Ranged, and Unarmed skills. Axes were considered to be in the blunt category, while spears and crossbows were removed altogether. The magic skills were also whittled down, as the Gamebryo engine didn't allow for the seamless world that every previous Elder Scrolls game featured for the outdoors, so gone were spell classes that aided levitation and necromancy. (...)

 

More significant was the complete loss of any real consequence for the player's actions. The choices for a player were also extremely limited. When talking to a quest-giver, the quest is automatically activated regardless of whether the player actually wants to do it. The factions themselves were all-inclusive, and player characters could be the leaders of all 4 guilds. The player was also capable of completing the guild quests without any skillsets specific to them. A fighter could complete all Mage Guild quests, mostly because of the homogenous nature of the skill system.

 

Curiouser was the lack of any significant impact on the gameworld. Any murder can be bought off with a thousand spetims (the in-game currency), and beyond the deaths of non-quest reliant NPCs, nothing the player does creates an appreciable impact. The player could become the "Hero of Kvatch" after a certain point in the main quest, yet when interacting with NPCs, they still all treat the player character like they've never seen him before in their life, despite having just called you the Hero of Kvatch.

 

Yet even with the amorality of buying off any murder (including the murder of guards), the player was incapable of joining the more evilly-aligned guilds such as the Necromancers or the Black Wood Company, because doing so would interfere with the quest lines of the Mage's and Fighter's guilds, respectively.

 

The loss of any consequences and gameworld impact was a jarring transition from Morrowind, which featured guild quests that sometimes conflicted with each other. There were also three Great Houses which the player character could only be aligned with one of. In Oblivion, the choice of becoming a member of one faction and not being able to join another was removed completely.

 

The much-touted Radiant AI was also exposed to be an of hype. Instead of characters performing contextual tasks and giving themselves goals, NPCs followed strictly scheduled patterns in which they would go to a location just to stare at a wall for 5 in-game hours and have disjointed conversations with other NPCs about mudcrabs.

 

Perhaps the greatest flaw of all was the inclusion of a poorly designed level-scaling system, which scaled all enemies and items to the player character's level. This eliminated any chance of the game being too hard or too easy, eliminating the possibility of any challenge. This resulted in queer inconsistancies such as bandits with plate armour. Because of the scaling, all items were of little use, being set to the player's level. This trivialized any sense of progression and surprise in the game, making it possible to accomplish any task at level 1. The player could become Arena Champion, the greatest fighter in all of Cyrodiil, at level 1, and Mannimarco, the powerful Necromancer, puppet master, and God to the terrible sloads, could be killed by a level 1 character with an iron dagger.

 

Oblivion also offered very little else in terms of lore, and merely accomplished the end of the Septim line and the beginning of the Fourth Era in The Elder Scrolls. Most of the lore in Elder Scrolls games is supplemented through books that are readable in-game. Yet most of the books in Oblivion were copied from Daggerfall and Morrowind, with very little new information.

 

source: http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?175874-Don-t-Buy-the-Hype

 

 

There is no ojective way to determine if game A is better than game B.

 

Of course there is, despite not always being possible. One can always argue about different styles and approaches, but when it comes to quality, there are standards and objective criteria. Which is why Superman 64 is shit.

[GrimReaper]

Borrowed from NMA:

 

The most telling sign of the loss of depth in Oblivion was the continued drop in skills from Morrowind's 27 to Oblivion's 21. Weapon classes were lumped into Blade, Blunt, Ranged, and Unarmed skills. Axes were considered to be in the blunt category, while spears and crossbows were removed altogether. The magic skills were also whittled down, as the Gamebryo engine didn't allow for the seamless world that every previous Elder Scrolls game featured for the outdoors, so gone were spell classes that aided levitation and necromancy. (...)

 

More significant was the complete loss of any real consequence for the player's actions. The choices for a player were also extremely limited. When talking to a quest-giver, the quest is automatically activated regardless of whether the player actually wants to do it. The factions themselves were all-inclusive, and player characters could be the leaders of all 4 guilds. The player was also capable of completing the guild quests without any skillsets specific to them. A fighter could complete all Mage Guild quests, mostly because of the homogenous nature of the skill system.

 

Curiouser was the lack of any significant impact on the gameworld. Any murder can be bought off with a thousand spetims (the in-game currency), and beyond the deaths of non-quest reliant NPCs, nothing the player does creates an appreciable impact. The player could become the "Hero of Kvatch" after a certain point in the main quest, yet when interacting with NPCs, they still all treat the player character like they've never seen him before in their life, despite having just called you the Hero of Kvatch.

 

Yet even with the amorality of buying off any murder (including the murder of guards), the player was incapable of joining the more evilly-aligned guilds such as the Necromancers or the Black Wood Company, because doing so would interfere with the quest lines of the Mage's and Fighter's guilds, respectively.

 

The loss of any consequences and gameworld impact was a jarring transition from Morrowind, which featured guild quests that sometimes conflicted with each other. There were also three Great Houses which the player character could only be aligned with one of. In Oblivion, the choice of becoming a member of one faction and not being able to join another was removed completely.

 

The much-touted Radiant AI was also exposed to be an of hype. Instead of characters performing contextual tasks and giving themselves goals, NPCs followed strictly scheduled patterns in which they would go to a location just to stare at a wall for 5 in-game hours and have disjointed conversations with other NPCs about mudcrabs.

 

Perhaps the greatest flaw of all was the inclusion of a poorly designed level-scaling system, which scaled all enemies and items to the player character's level. This eliminated any chance of the game being too hard or too easy, eliminating the possibility of any challenge. This resulted in queer inconsistancies such as bandits with plate armour. Because of the scaling, all items were of little use, being set to the player's level. This trivialized any sense of progression and surprise in the game, making it possible to accomplish any task at level 1. The player could become Arena Champion, the greatest fighter in all of Cyrodiil, at level 1, and Mannimarco, the powerful Necromancer, puppet master, and God to the terrible sloads, could be killed by a level 1 character with an iron dagger.

 

Oblivion also offered very little else in terms of lore, and merely accomplished the end of the Septim line and the beginning of the Fourth Era in The Elder Scrolls. Most of the lore in Elder Scrolls games is supplemented through books that are readable in-game. Yet most of the books in Oblivion were copied from Daggerfall and Morrowind, with very little new information.

 

source: http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?175874-Don-t-Buy-the-Hype

 

 

There's a few things wrong with that borrowed post of yours. Levitation wasn't cut due to engine limitations (Morrowind uses the netimmerse engine, which is the same engine as gamebryo, just an older version) but because of gameplay reasons. It was so easy breaking Morrowind just with the levitation spell it ain't even funny. As long as you had a potion or spell that allowed you to levitate, most encounters became a breeze but more importantly, you could simply run away with impunity. Essentially, levitation was a noclip mode that didn't allow you to pass through objects.

 

While it is true that you can get away with murder as long as you have enough gold, evil deeds increase infamy which can't be lowered with gold. Infamy had an impact on the game, such as not being able to use the shrines of the nine divine anymore and good people liked you less while evil people liked you more. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Infamy

 

I agree with the NPCs, mostly. What the author fails to mention though is that the NPCs in Morrowind were even more lifeless. Oblivion tried to make the world more alive, and compared to Morrowind, they achieved it somewhat. Not by much, but it was an important step in the right direction. The system was completely in place, it simply lacked content such as more topics and more idle animations. A very minor thing compared to the whole, because that's something that's easy to fix. Developing and implementing the system is the hard part. But, like I said, most players can't see whats beyond their own desires. They do see what is missing, but often fail to see what is there.

 

The levelscaling/guilds were horrible, there's nothing to save them.

 

 

 

Sometimes I get the impression that some people need the game to spoonfeed them with numbers to make the player feel like there's something happening. Like, if there isn't a note in your textbox saying

 

ALIGNMENT CHANGE: +15 EVIL

NEW ALIGNMENT: CHAOTIC EVIL

 

when you kill a bunch of random NPCs, they feel their actions have no impact. I'd rather have more organic interactions, like those people actually being dead and missing from the game world, and their NPC friends and family being sad about it.

 

For me, more numbers don't make a game necessarily more deep or complex, they just make the game feel more artificial. For example, splitting alchemy into two skills - Poison brewing and Potion brewing for example - would not add anything to the game, except more numbers. I wasn't mad about there being fewer skills, but I was mad about the limited amount of weapon types, because those do add depth to the game if done right.

[afa]

I thought Diablo is very much an action rpg...

 

All that stuff about "Morrowind" does "right" could easily be consider a limitation to the player. Joining one guild prevent joining of another, skill requirements, and house faction could very well be seen as blockade. It prevents the player from doing everything that he/she wants.

The whole "moar skillz" is quite frankly just stacking numbers on top of each other just for the sake of having it. If you want to use a sword you want to use a sword, the fact that separated skills only means your character will in turn suck at using anything besides a sword is pointless. The whole more and more mentality in a way is causing the current gaming world chasing after more bombast and make it bigger and bigger with no realization of what is actually needed.

 

Oblivion level list system is actually not "easy", it is fucked, but I would say if you don't know what you are doing it is the hardest of all three recent TES game. Part of it has to do with the way old TES level up your character (which part of it I absolutely hate) Oblivion makes it so if you have weak level ups you end up not able to match equal level enemies and equal level enemies are everywhere. Morrowind sort of let you slide as long as your keep leveling up you will get through the easy areas, but if you are at max level and still have shit stats then you are pretty much fucked. Skyrim was treading close to that but legendary patch sort of band-aid it with an imperfect, but workable solution.

[Merana33]

I cant wait till FO4 arrives. I'm one of the lucky few who managed to grab a pip-boy too.

 

I'm just hoping that it's as moddable as Skyrim is (or hopefully easier to mod)

[ElectricSheep]

 

Levitation wasn't cut due to engine limitations (Morrowind uses the netimmerse engine, which is the same engine as gamebryo, just an older version) but because of gameplay reasons. It was so easy breaking Morrowind just with the levitation spell it ain't even funny. (...)

 

While it is true that you can get away with murder as long as you have enough gold, evil deeds increase infamy which can't be lowered with gold. Infamy had an impact on the game (...)

 

I agree with the NPCs, mostly. What the author fails to mention though is that the NPCs in Morrowind were even more lifeless. Oblivion tried to make the world more alive, and compared to Morrowind, they achieved it somewhat. Not by much, but it was an important step in the right direction. (...)

 

(...)

 

Sometimes I get the impression that some people need the game to spoonfeed them with numbers to make the player feel like there's something happening. Like, if there isn't a note in your textbox saying

 

ALIGNMENT CHANGE: +15 EVIL

NEW ALIGNMENT: CHAOTIC EVIL

 

when you kill a bunch of random NPCs, they feel their actions have no impact.

 

 

I'm not sure what the author meant by "engine limitations", but I tend to believe he was referring to performance issues, due to which it was impossible to place the towns (exteriors) on the world map. And even without the seamless world previous TES games had, TESIV was infamous for its bad optimization. Obviously, officially levitation was cut due to "gameplay reasons", but so were spears. So yeah...

 

AFAIK there was a legit way to reset infamy to 0.

 

"Oblivion tried to make the world more alive, and compared to Morrowind, they achieved it somewhat." --> It was a newer game after all, however the keywords here are "tried" and "somewhat". The lack of content is hardly a minor thing when the whole point of the system was to imitate natural behavior. Still an improvement though, so let's leave it at that.

 

Having your actions represented in a numerical form is not in any way contrary to said actions actually happening. I fail to see how it's bad whatsoever, as knowing your reputation is more useful than not.

 

 

All that stuff about "Morrowind" does "right" could easily be consider a limitation to the player. Joining one guild prevent joining of another, skill requirements, and house faction could very well be seen as blockade. It prevents the player from doing everything that he/she wants.

No limits to what the player can do renders any challenge or sense of accomplishment non existent; where there is no punishment for failure, there can be no reward for success. Replayability is also much lesser when everything is doable with a single character that can be both a murderer and a paladin, a mage and a fighter etc. Besides it makes no sense.

[Sacremas]

I knew most of these, but some will probably be of interest and amusement;

 

[ElectricSheep]

 

(...)

7:05

(...) If a nuclear bomb went off anywhere near you that you could see, you should probably run the hell away.

 

If you're Speedy Gonzales then yeah, otherwise good luck with trying to escape from the shock wave.

 

If you're on the street you should quickly lie down behind something made of concrete and open your mouth to equalize the pressure.

[Buddy Christ]

I can't believe they actually recommended looking at the explosion

[Sacremas]

The whole "duck and cover" thing was a fake ad in I think Fallout 2, complete with a demonstration video (based on real world 50s stuff), and of course in Fallout 3 it's the name of the Explosives skill book.

[Buddy Christ]

The whole "duck and cover" thing was a fake ad in I think Fallout 2, complete with a demonstration video (based on real world 50s stuff), and of course in Fallout 3 it's the name of the Explosives skill book.

 

"Duck and Cover" was pretty real

This is a Civil Defense Film from 1951: