Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Surf Solar]

Yep, right in the first "town" in Flotsam you can accept a drinking duel with that blonde chick (don't remember the name) and her mercenary friends. You will pass out and will wake up on the harbor, with all your gear stripped off and a new (ugly) tattoo on your chest. There's another branching quest if you decide to get rid of that tattoo

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Well I'll be damned. Can't say I'm surprised that Bethesda needed a little "help" coming up with a good idea.

 

[Sub-Human]

so far one of my biggest annoyances in Skyrim is actually the lack of choice when it comes to quests. it's pretty rare that you get any type of choice, either you do the quest or you don't. and often you don't really know what you're getting yourself into before it's too late. this means that it's pretty common to do things in the game that are out of character with how you want to play. I guess this depends on wether you see it as a role-playing game or not. personally, I feel that this is where the game fails as an rpg.

for example:
[spoiler:816254a56c]having to become a werewolf to continue the Companions quest-line.

or the Forsworn Conspiracy in Markarth - you end up in prison and the only way out is either siding with the Forsworn, or going on a murderous rampage. both choices felt really awkward for me and neither let me do what I really wanted to do: rid the town of the Silver-Bloods who were the real evil behind it all.[/spoiler:816254a56c]

this is only for side-quests by the way, I have barely thouched the main quest.

Oblivion? Most quests ended up shouting 'WOW WHAT A PLOT TWIST' and that was it, you had no choice. Kinda stupid, don't you think?

 

[Makagulfazel]

I enjoyed the Pelagius quest the most so far. I'm a sucker for Malkavian-esque characters.

 

[aenemic]

Well I'll be damned. Can't say I'm surprised that Bethesda needed a little "help" coming up with a good idea.

to be fair, I think it looks more like a homage to The Hangover.

 

[Lexx]

So I guess the general opinion is that this game is like Mass Effect 2 in that it isn't really an RPG but is still very entertaining?

For me, not anymore. By now I have made so many annoying quests, which have send me from left to right over the worldmap, that I just don't want to continue anymore. The gameworld looks good most of the time and all that, but the lame-ness of most of the games quests and dialogue... it's just so damn annoying.

 

[Alphadrop]

Well I'll be damned. Can't say I'm surprised that Bethesda needed a little "help" coming up with a good idea.

to be fair, I think it looks more like a homage to The Hangover.

It's a pretty well used plot device so it might really be from anything but the Hangover is a pretty good bet.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

For me, not anymore. By now I have made so many annoying quests, which have send me from left to right over the worldmap, that I just don't want to continue anymore. The gameworld looks good most of the time and all that, but the lame-ness of most of the games quests and dialogue... it's just so damn annoying.

Is there any sort of fast travel system? I'm not surprised, it's how Oblivion (and Fallout 3?) was so I wasn't expecting much different.

 

[Lexx]

Yea, I am using fast travel all the time now. But this actually makes me explore even less--- because a quest sends me a long way to a different town and I really don't want to walk the way by foot or horse, so I use fast travel and skip over dungeons or events which I could have find otherwise.

Really, New Vegas' quests are so much better than Skyrim ones already only because *many* of them don't require you to walk up and down in the mojave. Instead they are more fixed on a closer area around your current location and *if* they send you far away, it is only to lead you to the next story area (Skyrim is not doing this- the game is sending you into all directions right from the beginning. It totally lacks a good flow).

 

[Crni Vuk]

yes and the world is not even that big to begin with. It just seems that when they designed their quests they don't spend much time with "logic". I mean if they make sense and feel believable. From a human point of view. Fallout Vegas was much better in that part as the quests (or most of them) and the people felt somewhat natural.

 

[Makagulfazel]

It totally lacks a good flow

While I understand the frustration of this, isn't it kind of a beautiful thing? I'm sure almost everyone went to Whiterun first, but the idea that there's no wrong turn after that is cool. In my experience, they have refined the level scaling in this game to be consistently challenging, so the absence of a defined path is a non-issue for me. It's a plus for me.
As far as the quests go, they are very bland for the most part. Put lightly, there's an abundance of FedEx missions. Some quests are nice in the sense that you can go route A(good) or route B(evil), but the dialogue lacks the wit of the Obsidian writers. The player's dialogue choices are unintentionally humorous.

Example:
"I went to the Bard's College."
- You went to the Bard's College?
- Goodbye.

I've seen the redundant questions so many times, I'm been hoping for some NPC to say, "Are you dense?" but to no avail.
They went quantity over quality, for suresies. The persuasion in quests is laughable. "You shouldn't do that." "OH, now I see." Another thing that really irked me is the quests that involve paying off other NPCs. Get rid of some mercenaries for you? Ok. Bride them for 400 gold to leave, receive 1250 gold as a reward. Lulz, what? Logically, most of the filler quests are about as bright as a lame kitten.
This all said, I'll take this F3 inspired dialogue over Oblivion. Hated that wikipedia shit.

 

[Crni Vuk]

what do you mean ? Wiki dialogue was Morrowind. Oblivion was just some random monologue.

 

[Makagulfazel]

You click on one word, they give you their spiel on the topic.
I suppose the terminology is more fitting for Morrowind, since it wasn't voiced and was verbose.

 

[Lexx]

While I understand the frustration of this, isn't it kind of a beautiful thing?

Not for me, not the way it's done in Skyrim. The world can be open and all, even without every quest sending you into a different direction.

Hell, I was like 2 hours into the game and I got a quest that was sending me to a town straight bottom right of the worldmap and when I walked 10 meters further, I got a quest that was sending me to the top left corner of the worldmap, etc. Why the game wants me to cross the whole country already this early in the game? It totally feels like a waste of potential to me and this makes me angry. They "force" me to explore the world with this and it just feels unnatural to me. Hey, maybe they wanted to make the quests feel longer / bigger due to this?... Smaller steps, which guide me from one bigger area in the game to the next - in which I then would get quests for the local area - would have been much, much better.

Now, I don't think that I am very far into the game, but to me it feels like I saw nearly everything already, exactly because I have crossed nearly every area. Right, I could just go back to the towns which I have visited already, but I really don't like that. In this case, it's as if I have to search for the quests to get me entertained.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

^Now, I'm ignoring Skyrim so I don't know it's exactly the same, but what you're describing sounds like one of the big reasons why I stopped playing FO3.

Maybe it's just me, but I like spending 5 minutes to get to a half-hour quest, not vice versa.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Guess I did the smart thing of ignoring Skyrim after all, the more I read about it the worse the design sounds.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

see, i just go from town to town of my choosing, collecting quests and solving them as I go along.

IT works out very well for me, because, for the first time in Bethesda game, I'm enjoying exploration.

 

[Makenshi]

So I guess the general opinion is that this game is like Mass Effect 2 in that it isn't really an RPG but is still very entertaining?

For me, not anymore. By now I have made so many annoying quests, which have send me from left to right over the worldmap, that I just don't want to continue anymore. The gameworld looks good most of the time and all that, but the lame-ness of most of the games quests and dialogue... it's just so damn annoying.

You said something like that before (and I agree 100%):

Bethesda is just sending you straight over the map to some far away points, so you have to run through the other stuff (with quest marker), while the original games have led you through the world in a logical way from one point to the next. Bethesda wants, that the player explores on his own "here, we give you some main quests, but keep in mind that we would like it more, if you just run around the map and find all the other stuff".

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56298&start=0

Note: I accidentaly clicked the ! button while trying to click to quote button, sorry for that Lexx. Big hug!

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Maybe it's just me, but I like spending 5 minutes to get to a half-hour quest, not vice versa.

I honestly am not very found of navigating towns to get to quest givers, especially not multiple screens. One thing that Fallout 1&2 did very well was the town map screen that popped up when you entered a town. It saved a lot of time and hassle to just be able to click on the area and just have to navigate it rather than the whole damn town.

Does Skyrim have fast travel like Oblivion or Fallout 3?

Guess I did the smart thing of ignoring Skyrim after all, the more I read about it the worse the design sounds.

I'll have to give either New Vegas or Fallout 3 a try because I think that they have the best chance of being enjoyable for me. I'm not a fan of Beth's style of games because they really don't do anything consistently well. They do a lot of different things but none any better than average and most mediocre. Add in the TES "learn from doing" system which applies to even non-combat skills and I'm out. I honestly don't get the appeal of the TES games beyond wandering around the world and playing dress-up.

Honestly the genre doesn't really appeal to me but I feel quite safe to say that Beth doesn't even scratch it's potential.

 

[lmao]

I wasn't following Skyrim news at all and had no idea of the radiant quest stuff until I was actually 15 or so hours into the game. A lot of these boring fetch quests are actually randomly generated, I guess...lame. I've hit the typical TES wall where I just don't want to play any more, and the radiant story actually makes it worse. It fills my journal up with tons of quests I could be doing, but all those quests are boring. The main quest is decent. Dialogue is awful.

Every time Morrowind music starts playing I get all nostalgic.

I think I might have gotten some people on GameFAQs to play Fallout: New Vegas though since I posted a thread today comparing the two, and a few were interested in it. So maybe some good came out of Skyrim after all