Why I love Skyrim

See this is why people get pissed off. You have superior products that you admit are superior, yet you still prefer Bethesda's shit. It's like each Bethesda game slowly lowers your expectations so that you can be fucked over by the next one with its lazy DLC, shitty business practices, terrible writing, casualized gimmicks...

Bethesda fans are like tribals now, they just love their games so much.

I admit, this is something I ran into a lot in academia where I pissed off my fellow literature teachers a lot. A lot of them believe in objectively "superior" works while I've always been a believer it doesn't matter if a book is GOOD or not by some technical terms versus how it makes you feel.

God, that irritated them.

I'm like, "Entertainment is its own reward."
 
I've always been a believer it doesn't matter if a book is GOOD or not by some technical terms versus how it makes you feel.
No no no...
I'm with your teachers buddy, something can be objectively good. There is such a thing as a 'critique' which values actual merit above interpretation or personal experience.

It's good if you like games that were poorly designed and horribly executed, but you're confusing quality with entertainment.
 
No no no...
I'm with your teachers buddy, something can be objectively good. There is such a thing as a 'critique' which values actual merit above interpretation or personal experience.

It's good if you like games that were poorly designed and horribly executed, but you're confusing quality with entertainment.

My fellow teachers in this case since I taught literature before I became a full-time writer. I come from the view that Pulp and genre fiction can have their own place in the annals of awesome.

:)
 
You fool, there is only one true class!
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True, especially the one that riding horses
 
The thing here is that @CT Phipps, you're confusing fun with good.
Something can be bad and still be fun, but that will not make it a good product.

For example the Sharknado series of movies are bad movies, really there is no doubt they are bad, bad dialogues, bad effects, bad story, etc. But that series of movies seems to be popular because I guess there are enough people out there who have fun watching them.
Same with a ride in a theme park. You can have a ride being closed down because it was badly made and is unsafe, but some people will still say they had fun riding it and are sad it got closed down. The ride is bad, but it is fun.
Another different example. You buy some cheap and bad wine, it is bad, almost taste like vinegar. But it still got you drunk and so you thought it was fun.
And yet another. You buy a car with square tires, without seats, that only goes backwards. It is a bad car, but you still have fun driving it.
The examples are endless.

Product = Bad, but, Product = Fun. A product can be both, fun and bad or good and boring.
Now anyone can say that if the product is fun than it counts as good, but that is a totally different kind of good. That doesn't make the product good in it's own category (a good car, a good movie, a good ride, a good wine, etc), it makes it a good product for your fun.

I am all about people having fun with the products they buy, I am not so shallow as to say "I don't like this game, no one should like it!". But I can also see when a product is good or bad regardless of if it is fun or not.
 
It's funny, these mentions about "wanting to live in Skyrim". I've seen quite a few similiar mentions elsewhere too. I usually start missing the real life drudgeries whilst playing the game for more than 30 minutes. It's a very chorish game; not as much as Fallout 4, but still. Huge amounts of stuff that have little to no payoff.
 
It's funny, these mentions about "wanting to live in Skyrim". I've seen quite a few similiar mentions elsewhere too. I usually start missing the real life drudgeries whilst playing the game for more than 30 minutes. It's a very chorish game; not as much as Fallout 4, but still. Huge amounts of stuff that have little to no payoff.
Yeah but if you lived in Skyrim and you weren't the Dragonborn life would be hell. And if the Dragonborn was in Skyrim they could kill you at any time for s&g.
 
It's as beautiful as Tolkien in appearance.
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That's pretty ballsy Phipps. You didn't or barely mentioned mods, but now excuse the crappy visuals with modded images.

And the music!
Oh yeah the cover. HAve you even heard the in-game version?

They don't even look like they read the lines! And there are 7 minutes total on the OST... Even Enderal had plenty better more.
 
Is it modded?

I tried to find a decent skyline image and used the first one which looked good. I thought it was from the Special Edition. Also, I didn't actually think I was expected to provide every single reason why the game is good. I was just providing two off the top of my head.

I was hoping the other fans of the game on the board would be throwing their ideas up.
 
You know what the dumbest moment was for me in Skyrim? The fucked up Thieves quest line. Nothing in this game has such a fucked up narrative and is such a display of sloppy work like the Thief guild. That they even exist, is an attrocity when you look at it. Sadly I can't find the Youtube *video where someone is dismantling them as a guild, the NPCs, literaly EVERYTHING sucks and demands from the player to have the intelligence of a troglodyte (Ancient greek for caveman) and the memory of a goldfish. Like seriously, the Thief guild and their quests really only work if you assume that everyone in the whole world of Skyrim is an complete and utter moron.

*Oh hey! Not a video, but text actually!
Or why the Thieves guild sucks so much.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=14422
 
The thing here is that @CT Phipps, you're confusing fun with good.
Something can be bad and still be fun, but that will not make it a good product.

This is where I disagree with you @Risewild as I consider games to be tools and their inherent value a reflection of the axiom of function over form. What is the purpose of a video game? The purpose of a video game is to allow the video gamer to have fun. Much as the shovel's purpose is to shovel, how good of a shovel one is, is determined by how much you can shovel. How good of a video game a video game is, is determined but how much entertainment one can draw from the object in question.

One of the greatest video games of all time is this guy.

Pac-man.png


The form and function of eating quarters while providing enjoyment provided by it. In the case of Skyrim, I really really love the game as a result in ways I feel the game provides. If we were discussing other elements of Skyrim, such as its lore or storytelling or so on then that would be different. However, I judge a game on my blog for the simple premise of:

Did I get my money's worth?
 
It's funny, these mentions about "wanting to live in Skyrim". I've seen quite a few similiar mentions elsewhere too. I usually start missing the real life drudgeries whilst playing the game for more than 30 minutes. It's a very chorish game; not as much as Fallout 4, but still. Huge amounts of stuff that have little to no payoff.

I only have a few genuine disappointments in the game with the Alduin and Miraak quests being the big ones.

Also, being unable to marry Serena.

I had a lot of problems with the Companions "marriage" too and wish they'd dialed down and done more like they did in Fallout 4 or New Vegas with a smaller number with a lot of personality.

Maybe 10 total in the world.
 
I only have a few genuine disappointments

I have quite a few. There's a boatload of potential in there for different character systems and quirks (like zone specific temperatures and race specific temperature tolerances and effects, gear and gear crafting for specific climate types, and so on and so forth) and reactivity (racial, narraitve, skillbuild specific, behavior specific..), a big boat. And it was all apparent during a first run in the game, the constantly re-emerging question: "Why the fuck didn't they do [insert an obvious improvement]" and "What the hell were they thinking with this [insert an inane narrative path] shit?"

But all the game wants to do is a "do what you want" checklist of chores nobody really gives a fuck about. It is their shtick, and that's ok, I don't really care all that much about TES. But one has to wonder that with all the talk about "attention to detail" and "interactivity" with clutter items with physics like being able "roll hundred cheesewheels down the hill", where the hell do their priorities lie, what are they thinking about (are they at all)?
 
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