Why I love Skyrim

[Risewild]

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.

By that logic Skyrim is an awful game for me and many others. If it was just fun what dictates if a game is good or not then no game would be good or bad because no game is fun for everyone.
A good game has to be well constructed, you say how good a shovel is is determined by how much you can shovel, but that is still a shallow thought, you can shovel with just a flat wooden board (shoveling is just digging), and probably shovel a lot using it but it is still a bad shovel, you can even shovel with a pickaxe but it still is a bad shovel.

While you look at games being good or bad if you have fun with them (again by this logic no games would be good or bad when applied to everyone who plays them), you don't look if they are good or bad by the way they are made.
"Interactive" Visual novels (which Japanese companies really seem to like to make), are awful games, all one does is read all the text and if the player reader is lucky it will have 4 or 5 choices in the whole of the game where he will interact and choose something. Awful games, but great for people who enjoy reading and good stories (if the "game" has a good story). People have fun "playing" those, but they are not good games.

On this thread with three pages of posts, the majority of posters didn't seem to like Skyrim that much, if the majority doesn't like it or don't have much fun playing it then by your logic Skyrim is a bad game.

Again I make the distinction, Good =/= Fun. A bad game might be fun. Lets see, if a game has a lot of bugs (including crashes and game breaking bugs), is poorly optimized, has glitches, corrupt the save files, etc, it is a bad game, no matter how fun it is for some people.
I will recall my theme park ride example: A rides only purpose is to be fun, that is why they are made. But if a ride is badly made (with cheap materials, missing screws, goes over the safety speed limit, does not have safety bars, etc) then it is a bad ride even if it is fun.

I can't have fun with Skyrim, I see why others can have fun with it. I am not bashing your tastes in games at all. The problem I have is that you are biased by how much fun you have playing a game that blinds you to how good or bad the actual game is.
As a modder I look into the inner workings of games, I see the errors and mistakes that are under the hood, I can see if it's a good and solid game, built the right way or if it is full of mistakes and broken things. Skyrim is full of mistakes and broken things, Skyrim's engine is also full of mistakes and broken things too. Under the hood it is a mess in some places (with no good reason to be like that at all). It is a broken game and that makes it a bad game.
It is still fun for thousands of people, there is no doubt about it, and i am glad others enjoy their purchases, but at the end of the day it is a mess of a game, very broken, weak, full of errors and mistakes, a bad product.

 

[R.Graves]

Here's what I have to say about skyrim:

1. The voice acting is as bland as bland gets. Bad voice acting is at least memorable but bland voice acting? I'd rather play a more text-based game.
2. All Characters have little to no personality. I can't remember a single one.
3. Quest design is a bit too linear for my taste.
4. The civil war questline is painfully inconsequential to anything or anyone in game.
5. There aren't enough friendly dragons; too many seem to be mindless beasts. The one exception, paarthunox, only highlights this problem.
6. Killing a Dragon 30 minutes into the game ruined whatever awesomeness the dragons could have had. From the point on they became a nuisance. I feared saber cats more than I did Dragons.
7. Guild quest often don't require much skill In the profession that guild is built around. *joins thieves guild; Battles draugr*
8.The new dual wield system is pretty awesome tbh.
9. For the first time in An elder scrolls game archery feels Natural.
10. There are objectively far less spells and weapons than in previous games.
11. The return of dwarven ruins was welcome.
12. The character creation/skill tree systems are FAR too forgiving imo.
13. The world design is horrible. No trade routes or patrol routes and the supposed capital consists of two streets and a "castle".
14. You can kill the emperor and not a single person will give a single shit. You can even then turn around and fight for the empire and no one mentions it in any serious way.
15. Riding dragons looks dumb and is dumb.
16. The game painfully lacks the ice vampires and were-bears we were promised.
17. The game is arbitrarily set 200 years after oblivion with little to no technological advancements.
18. It's a fun game but the bad far outweighs the good imo. What is good are mostly cosmetic things such as armor and weapon design And the different regions.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

7. Guild quest often don't require much skill In the profession that guild is built around. *joins thieves guild; Battles draugr*

Isn't that most of the game's quests?

 

[Shaodeus]

I like running around as a werewolf in Skyrim and ripping shit up. Or be a bandit and just run around mugging people, its a game I enjoy best with never going into towns or the like. Since there are many inconsistencies within the writing. There are a lot of good and cool concepts, like the civil war, the main storyline. However their execution are quite horrible along with much of the writing that has a lot of inconsistencies.

Oh and Skyrim has Master Neloth of house Telvanni, who is definitely one of my favourite characters ever in anything.

 

[Crni Vuk]

The best way to enjoy Skyrim is by not thinking. The moment you start to think about what you do in the game, what the NPCs say to you, the towns and locations or about the quests, the game is loosing a lot of its appeal.

 

[ikazuchi87]

The best way to enjoy Skyrim is by not thinking. The moment you start to think about what you do in the game, what the NPCs say to you, the towns and locations or about the quests, the game is loosing a lot of its appeal.

This is true for a lot of game, especially for thoes made by beth.

 

[Millim]

I just started Skyrim again but now using mods.

Yeah, it's better this way, I can live out my lifelong dream of being King and surrounded by naked slave women who I behead whenever I feel like it

 

[The notorious OVB]

My word, the requirements for guilds in this game, you can become the archmage with hardly no experience with magic, same with the thieves guild, it's like having the developers of Call of Duty develop the next Dragon Age.

That isn't my only problem either, the lack of dialogue options, the towns being smaller than a child's wardrobe in Malawi, the civil war brushing down to go here, kill everyone whilst your comrades stand around with their thumbs up their arses, the dragons boiling down to pigeons that spawn everywhere and rain fire from above which damages you as much as biting your own nails, the only interesting character being locked in a DLC (Neloth by the way,) having being announced as the saviour of the world 30 GODDAMN MINUTES INTO THE GAME, AND HAVING THAT TITLE DO NOTHING, oh and let's not forget Alduin shall we, Alduin was completely forgettable, he did nothing except resurrect a couple dragons here and there, yeah sure, Dagoth Ur wasn't on screen for a lot, but at least he did something, Alduin after resurrecting those dragons just twiddled his wings in Sovngarde, and for a dragon who's supposedly of the blood of Akatosh, why could I defeat Alduin by merely sneezing in his general direction, and why does that do nothing for the world afterwards, in Morrowind, the hero was congratulated, he was praised for saving the lands from the Blight and Dagoth Ur, meanwhile in Skyrim, there are still dragons flying around you, everybody still treats you like your a damned peasant and guards will still arrest you for stealing a damned SWEETROLL, and that's just a few of many problems.

Overall, whilst Skyrim improves in terms of gameplay over Oblivion, the combat and movement is more fluid, the soundtrack still kicks ass and the exploration is still quite fun, it has too many problems for me to overlook, however, i'm not one of those people who go "OMG YOU LIKE SKYRIM, GO DIE!!!" if you like Skyrim, good for you, I just don't. (Sorry for the text wall guys, I have no other way of expressing myself.)

 

[CT Phipps]

My word, the requirements for guilds in this game, you can become the archmage with hardly no experience with magic, same with the thieves guild, it's like having the developers of Call of Duty develop the next Dragon Age.

I do think the makers of Oblivion should be drug out in the street and shot for making skill requirements to play the game. It was such bullshit busy work that reflects the fact the developers assume you need to have your fucking hand held the entirety of the game. God, it made me HATE the questlines with a furious passion. "Oh, sorry, you can't do the next Thieves Guild quest until you steal X amount of loot." Fuck you game, fuck you hard.

Skyrim removing those requirements is a big reason why I liked it. It falls on the player to actually be an archmmage if they're AT A COLLEGE FOR MAGIC and act like they want to learn it. I remember one guy claiming he beat the College with knowing no magic and how that was stupid. I was like, "So you're just a bad roleplayer, are you?"

Then again, I always tend to favor maximized freedom over telling people how to roleplay, which is one of the things I agree with the majority of people here on Fallout 4. You can be a archmage, a fighter, a thief, or an idiot savant in Skyrim and that kind of storytelling is hard but very rewarding.

By that logic Skyrim is an awful game for me and many others. If it was just fun what dictates if a game is good or not then no game would be good or bad because no game is fun for everyone.

Oh yes, I very much am of the mind one man's treasure is another man's trash. I can only speak on whether Skyrim was a "good" game for myself rather than speak for you or anyone else.

A good game has to be well constructed, you say how good a shovel is is determined by how much you can shovel, but that is still a shallow thought, you can shovel with just a flat wooden board (shoveling is just digging), and probably shovel a lot using it but it is still a bad shovel, you can even shovel with a pickaxe but it still is a bad shovel.

Yes, which is kind of my opinion of Fallout 4 in a nutshell. It's a hopelessly flawed and unambitious game but still got a status as a "good" game since I was able to have a lot of fun with it. It was only disappointing in the context of being after two of my all time favorite games. Three if you count Skyrim.

While you look at games being good or bad if you have fun with them (again by this logic no games would be good or bad when applied to everyone who plays them), you don't look if they are good or bad by the way they are made.

Yes, I don't believe in an objective quality of good or bad when it comes to art but how it makes the viewer feel. One of the interesting problems of Dadist art was that it was deliberately designed to make fun of the concept of art. However, the fact was that it made a lot of people feel something (that art was pretentious and also that art as a concept was meaningless after the carnage of World War 2) made it art. One of the concepts I've explored in my blog was how Video Games, Comics, and spin offs of both like Comic Book Literature and Video Game Books can be art with valid messages.

"Interactive" Visual novels (which Japanese companies really seem to like to make), are awful games, all one does is read all the text and if the player reader is lucky it will have 4 or 5 choices in the whole of the game where he will interact and choose something. Awful games, but great for people who enjoy reading and good stories (if the "game" has a good story). People have fun "playing" those, but they are not good games.

Telltale has proven these sort of things have a market and can be quite entertaining of thmselves. I also consider them to be among the best video games on the market today and hope to get more things like "Life is Strange" over the next parody of Call of Duty. I used to like those games a lot before they lost all storytelling balls.

On this thread with three pages of posts, the majority of posters didn't seem to like Skyrim that much, if the majority doesn't like it or don't have much fun playing it then by your logic Skyrim is a bad game.

For them, it clearly is.

Again I make the distinction, Good =/= Fun. A bad game might be fun. Lets see, if a game has a lot of bugs (including crashes and game breaking bugs), is poorly optimized, has glitches, corrupt the save files, etc, it is a bad game, no matter how fun it is for some people.
I will recall my theme park ride example: A rides only purpose is to be fun, that is why they are made. But if a ride is badly made (with cheap materials, missing screws, goes over the safety speed limit, does not have safety bars, etc) then it is a bad ride even if it is fun.

Venus is a great statue even if she has no arms. If you have the funnest game of all time with serious flaws, does it not deserve a 10 out of 10 versus a "perfect" game which doesn't have that kind of staying power?

I can't have fun with Skyrim, I see why others can have fun with it. I am not bashing your tastes in games at all. The problem I have is that you are biased by how much fun you have playing a game that blinds you to how good or bad the actual game is.

No, I reject the idea that games have objective quality beyond their fun for the player.

Bugs and optimization can affect my enjoyment and that's where the issue comes. For example, Mafia III was a game I really enjoyed and was going to give an 8 out of 10 except it became a 6 out of 10 when I was unable to finish it due to the bugginess of the game.

 

[The notorious OVB]

Then again, I always tend to favor maximized freedom over telling people how to roleplay, which is one of the things I agree with the majority of people here on Fallout 4. You can be a archmage, a fighter, a thief, or an idiot savant in Skyrim and that kind of storytelling is hard but very rewarding.

Yes, but Skyrim is also limited because you have the big fuckin' dragonborn title under your belt, even though how I mentioned earlier how worthless it is, you can't act like a normal person hunting animals or whatever, because people constantly remark "OH, WOW YOU ABSORBED A DRAGONSOUL, GREAT JOB, NOW PAY THE FINE!"

 

[CT Phipps]

Yes, but Skyrim is also limited because you have the big fuckin' dragonborn title under your belt, even though how I mentioned earlier how worthless it is, you can't act like a normal person hunting animals or whatever, because people constantly remark "OH, WOW YOU ABSORBED A DRAGONSOUL, GREAT JOB, NOW PAY THE FINE!"

Yeah, I agree. It would have been better if you had to trigger a quest in order to become the Dragonborn. I can ignore the fact I'm the Dragonborn by just avoiding Whiterun but it still feels like you could have done differently with the game.

 

[Crni Vuk]

No, I reject the idea that games have objective quality beyond their fun for the player.

So Transformers and 2000: A Space Odyssey have the exact same value I guess. I mean it's both just entertainment.

 

[CT Phipps]

So Transformers and 2000: A Space Odyssey have the exact same value I guess. I mean it's both just entertainment.

I would argue their quality of affecting the viewer is the measurement of their value in terms of affects.

So a better example would be Star Wars, which have changed the lives of people in ways which have sponsored charities, religious beliefs, moral development, and how people view the world.

Note: Bugs and optimization can affect my enjoyment and that's where the issue comes. For example, Mafia III was a game I really enjoyed and was going to give an 8 out of 10 except it became a 6 out of 10 when I was unable to finish it due to the bugginess of the game.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Star Wars, is still not in the same ballpark like Odyssey. Star Wars is not even Science Fiction - neither is Transformers but Transformers was writen from the get to go as nothing but entertaining schlock. And this is also true for Oblivion and Skyrim. Those games are entertaining, but they are not classics, they are not Plansecape Torment. That's the point. However, I have the opinion that there should be enough space for both, games like Skyrim and games like Plansecape Torment. The problem is only, when some people believe that one is inherently more worth, that there should be NOTHING ELSE but Skyrim RPGs. And that is sadly what you see so often with AAA games these days, where it is open-world or bust, and that sucks.

Then again, I always tend to favor maximized freedom over telling people how to roleplay, which is one of the things I agree with the majority of people here on Fallout 4. You can be a archmage, a fighter, a thief, or an idiot savant in Skyrim and that kind of storytelling is hard but very rewarding.

You mean non-existant. What you're talking about is pretending, make belief, imagination. That's not role playing. We had this discussion a thousand times on NMA with a lot of games - quite often with Bethesda titles ...
Pretending to do 'something' in a game, is not role playing. You can pretend to play a medieval knight in Call of Duty who happend to be also a trime traveler, and using nothing but your knive to kill enemies, but that doesn't mean that you're really playing one. And that's what happens very often in Skyrim.

 

[CT Phipps]

Star Wars, is still not in the same ballpark like Odyssey. Star Wars is not even Science Fiction - neither is Transformers but Transformers was writen from the get to go as nothing but entertaining schlock. And this is also true for Oblivion and Skyrim. Those games are entertaining, but they are not classics, they are not Plansecape Torment. That's the point. However, I have the opinion that there should be enough space for both, games like Skyrim and games like Plansecape Torment. The problem is only, when some people believe that one is inherently more worth, that there should be NOTHING ELSE but Skyrim RPGs. And that is sadly what you see so often with AAA games these days, where it is open-world or bust, and that sucks.

Planescape: Torment is certainly a good example of the kind of game which I feel is certainly great and enjoyable but I can't say is one of my favorites of all time. It had memorable characters and a strong fundamental theme but isn't anywhere near my top games of all time. I think, fundamentally, Chris Avellone's nihilism and the fact it ends on such a dour empty note left me from really appreciating it as much as I could. Still, it was a great example of how roleplaying protagonists can be pre-defined yet still amazingly versatile in what you can do with them.

You mean non-existant. What you're talking about is pretending, make belief, imagination. That's not role playing. We had this discussion a thousand times on NMA with a lot of games - quite often with Bethesda titles ...
Pretending to do 'something' in a game, is not role playing. You can pretend to play a medieval knight in Call of Duty by using nothing but your knive to kill weapons, but that doesn't that you're really playing one. And that's what happens very often in Skyrim.

Pretending is the very definition of roleplaying. You just gain assistance for the story.

 

[Deleted member 93956]

Pretending is the very definition of roleplaying. You just gain assistance for the story.

So i'm just pretending that there are consequences at varying effect in actual RPGs? Wowie! I thought I was going crazy with all that C&C in Tyranny!

 

[CT Phipps]

So i'm just pretending that there are consequences at varying effect in actual RPGs? Wowie! I thought I was going crazy with all that C&C in Tyranny!

Yes, because it's all make believe anyway.

Oh well, I'm glad I could share why Skyrim meant so much to me.

Much appreciated, everyone, for listening.

 

[3160b0]

"So you're just a bad roleplayer, are you?"

Why bother, the world doesn't ever acknowledge your role anyway. You can pretend that there were any obstacles between you and the win state if you want, but I prefer some semblance of world building in my games. Also, video games aren't tools to achieve fun, you fucking knob. It's people like you that keep games in the perpetual state of products to be sold rather than the extremely effective art medium that it is.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Planescape: Torment is certainly a good example of the kind of game which I feel is certainly great and enjoyable but I can't say is one of my favorites of all time. It had memorable characters and a strong fundamental theme but isn't anywhere near my top games of all time. I think, fundamentally, Chris Avellone's nihilism and the fact it ends on such a dour empty note left me from really appreciating it as much as I could. Still, it was a great example of how roleplaying protagonists can be pre-defined yet still amazingly versatile in what you can do with them.

Neither is it my top favourite game - that will always be Baldurs Gate. But I can objectively say that Planescape Torment is a better Role Playing Game and a classic if you compare it directly to Skyrim. Skyrim has a very high entertainment value, I will not argue about that, one can spend countless of hours with it and get a lot of fun out of it. But Skyrim, in my opinion, is simply no classic and it is not a good role playing game.

 

[CT Phipps]

Why bother, the world doesn't ever acknowledge your role anyway. You can pretend that there were any obstacles between you and the win state if you want, but I prefer some semblance of world building in my games. Also, video games aren't tools to achieve fun, you fucking knob. It's people like you that keep games in the perpetual state of products to be sold rather than the extremely effective art medium that it is.

This is hilarious to me. I'm sorry.

Neither is it my top favourite game - that will always be Baldurs Gate. But I can objectively say that Planescape Torment is a better Role Playing Game and a classic if you compare it directly to Skyrim. Skyrim has a very high entertainment value, I will not argue about that, one can spend countless of hours with it and get a lot of fun out of it. But Skyrim, in my opinion, is simply no classic and it is not a good role playing game.

You've explained your reasoning and I don't think your conclusions are unfounded. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you and would love to hear your recommendations.