Oblivion question for MSFD

[dongle]

they added this feature for people who will get lost and don't like to be lost (because of speed tree, it seems than even the developers get lost very easily, we will check when we will get the game). You can call it "idiot people" if you want but that doesn't make you more clever than this people. It is just a matter of taste and, that's why the TES games are often excellent for me (except Morrowind) : you play the game the way you want it.

Let's hear Todd Howard himself tell us about the Quest Compass:

We use it to show you where a goal is when we want you to know about it. A good example is the first quest in Morrowind, to find the Spymaster in Balmora. Most people who played Morrowind never find him, because they don't like to read directions, they get confused and lost . . . So no, you cannot turn it off. Trust me, you cannot play without it, it's not distracting at all, and it's 100% necessary to find things we tell you to find.

Now, the directions to find Caius' house were essentially, go up one block, turn left, go to the end of the street. I find anyone who can't be bothered to read and understand that an idiot. If this were a happy gentle and kind place we'd call them "mentally challenged" or "differently abled" or "power gamers". This is the mean nasty Codex, so we call them idiots. Try and look past the words on the surface to the meaning underneath.

So, they are designing a game to be easier for players who won't read or explore. What do they do? Add a big pointer, bottom center of the screen, pointing out anything of interest. Look at the E3 demo video, lots of things get pointed out -without- there being any quests active, and of course more will be added as quest goals get added. They also added icons to your fast travel map for quest goals. Get quest, open map, click, go. You don't even need to know why you should do this quest, what it means, or where you should be, just click. Then they use voice actors to read the story to you. This can only reduce the complexity of the dialogue. Simplifying things for players who won't read.

Those are my three original points (expanded here) to illustrate how the game was dumbed-down. Not because of my opinions, or Codex posters opinions, or my playing style, but because Todd Howard is saying exactly that. Not once, but time and again.

Now, you can say you like that, or it's a matter of taste whether this should have been added, or it's great for the power gamers, or you can ignore and/or turn off some of it, or go on and on about how lovely Oblivion will be in spite of it, but that doesn't address any of my arguments. Todd says these features were added for players too dumb to find Caius. If you think that's false provide some meaningful arguments, you have utterly to failed so far.

 

[Excrément]

Let's hear Todd Howard himself tell us about the Quest Compass:

We use it to show you where a goal is when we want you to know about it. A good example is the first quest in Morrowind, to find the Spymaster in Balmora. Most people who played Morrowind never find him, because they don't like to read directions, they get confused and lost . . . So no, you cannot turn it off. Trust me, you cannot play without it, it's not distracting at all, and it's 100% necessary to find things we tell you to find.

let's hear Pete Hines on the gaming Steve interview, here is the transcript :

There are completed quests log, current quests log, and active quests. The compass highlights your active quest showing where you have to go for the next part of the quest.

 

[dongle]

So?

That's proof the game isn't dumbed-down? Explain.

Believe me, I hear you saying it over and over, but it bears no relation to what I'm saying at all.

 

[Imbecile]

Then they use voice actors to read the story to you. This can only reduce the complexity of the dialogue.

Mmmm. Because clearly the moment that actors read scripts the dialogue gets much less complex. Words get shorter, punctuation is all but ignored, unpronounceable words like Elf and Tits are discarded.

It always seemed tome that the dialogue in Grim Fandango sucked, if it hadn’t have been voice acted it would have been twice as witty. Ditto for those god awful talking movies that they produce nowadays. Chaplin had the right idea

 

[Excrément]

So?

That's proof the game isn't dumbed-down? Explain.

Believe me, I hear you saying it over and over, but it bears no relation to what I'm saying at all.

No they don't dumb down the game because they didn't prevent role players to role play. they just help the powerplayers, "idiots" if you want.
I don't see any dumbing down in this issue but just new featrure that allows you to play the game in 2 different ways.

I stop here for this debate, because the brainwashing system of this forum is boring.

 

[dongle]

Then they use voice actors to read the story to you. This can only reduce the complexity of the dialogue.

Mmmm. Because clearly the moment that actors read scripts the dialogue gets much less complex. Words get shorter, punctuation is all but ignored, unpronounceable words like Elf and Tits are discarded.

What little we've seen of Oblivion is -very- simplistic. Have they been hyping the quality of the storyline, or the actors that read it to you? I'll grant they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but they seem to be in this case.

 

[Imbecile]

What little we've seen of Oblivion is -very- simplistic. Have they been hyping the quality of the storyline, or the actors that read it to you? I'll grant they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but they seem to be in this case.

As we are taught by the Tao, its very easy to hype an actor, but it’s a lot harder to hype a plot, or dialogue. How many film trailers (or general publicity) do you see that give you a good idea of what the plot might be? The dialogue and plot may very well be utter balls, but I don’t plan to jump to that conclusion simply because Bethesda are drawing the general publics attention to the voice actors rather than the storyline.

Voiceover does not equal crap/good storyline/dialogue
Advertised voiceover does not equal crap/good storyline/dialogue

It doesn’t mean anything.

 

[dongle]

No they don't dumb down the game because they didn't prevent role players to role play. they just help the powerplayers, "idiots" if you want.
I don't see any dumbing down in this issue but just new featrure that allows you to play the game in 2 different ways.

So, they -did- dumb it down, you'll just ignore it while you play. Good for you.

 

[dongle]

It doesn’t mean anything.

I could envision where it'd be a tremendous strain on time and resources to develop the plot. What if you wanted to add a branch? In MW you'd simply get Rolston to type it up, paste it into the editor, done. In OB you'd need to call the actors back in, etc. Unless they got the story wrapped up and done perfectly the first time a year ago I can't see how it wouldn't hamper story development. If you had unlimited time and resources, sure, but show me a major game studio with that.

You are correct tho, we know little of the plot and dialog complexity, so I have no right to knock it.

 

[Nog Robbin]

Actually many film trailers show the best bits, the funniest lines or best action, and do give a good idea of the story line - if not the whole thing with twists and turns.

Having actors effectively reduces the amount of dialog - you have to pay for time, the more speaking, the more time, the more storage, the more cost. Having a written script does allow for easy modifications - even if it may not be as immersive as hearing someone "speak" to you.
Of course, written script does allow you to put your own take on the voices and inflection.

Dumbing down is hard for people to accept, because it seems to imply the target audience is, well, more dumb than the initial audience. While this may not be the case on the whole, the target audience has shown a lesser aptitude and ability towards following a free form story where you can skip around the story line at your own pace. Consequently we get the addition of quest points that you can teleport straight to, a compass to unerringly direct you to the goal without having to especially think about it, a game focus that *sounds* like it focuses pretty much around the action (anything else being incidental), and hype about features such as the actors doing the voices (because as with films, a big name often attracts people).

If anyone seriously believes that game has not been simplified for the target audience, I'd really like to hear how they explain the reductions made to the system. Ah yes - improved gameplay I think is the term. Still sounds like a crock (for example they could have had extra skills even with the enhanced combat but that was considered too restrictive for the new audience who couldn't understand why learning one weapon wouldn't automatically allow them to wield another).

 

[Solik]

why in order to raise my level do I need to raise the major skills?

Where on earth did you get this idea? You raise your level by raising your skills, not vice-versa. When I said "mage", I didn't mean that in a straightjacket class manner; I meant that in a general archetype manner. A character focused on magic skills.

And so my argument that TES system is flawed by forcing a class based system on a skill based system.

Except it doesn't. A TES "class" is nothing more than a pre-selected set of 7 skills, chosen by the devs to make a good set of standard characters for people who don't want to micromanage or are happy with some of the provided options. There are absolutely no special powers or traits associated with classes in any way, and even the levelup mechanics have nothing to do with class. It's really just a label.

If your complaint is that you have to raise certain skills to levelup, well, I confess that I don't understand why that's a bad thing. You get to choose exactly what kind of character you want to play. A full 1/3 of the skills in the game can contribute to your gaining a level. You're really making something of nothing with this.

Idiot.

When the game forces leveling in the a class system and lacks something like d20 Feat system or WoW Talent system you end up with exactly the same type of character on the class they selected at start.

True.

But there are 116,280 potential classes.

I fail to see the problem. It's not like builds are extremely limited.

The way to get away is raise skills that are not directly involved in the "level up" of the class but those will be raised anyway to reach the x5 multiplier.

Pay attention. That's how it worked in Morrowind, not Oblivion. This time, getting a x5 multiplier will mean that your other multipliers will be smaller. You can't max out a bunch of misc skills to get tons of stats anymore.

So in the end we get about the same "master of all characters".

Yes, if you play for 100 hours with the same character. If you like to play that way, more power to you. I prefer roleplaying myself.

Spoken like a true TES fanboy ... "the modders will fix it"

Except that's not at all what I said. Spoken like a true bandwagon camper. I thought you people liked reading? Learn to do it sometime.


On "dumbing down":

If "dumbing down" means providing features that make the interface more usable to more people and makes some things easier to do, then yep, Oblivion is "dumbed down" -- but the label is meaningless and certainly not worthy of the scorn that's automatically associated with it. If "dumbing down" means weakening game features for a different audience, then I'd say it's absolutely not. Just the opposite; many of Oblivion's systems are more complex than Morrowind's or Daggerfall's, even if you happen not to like the way in which they are more complex (combat, persuasion, lockpicking, etc).

 

[Nog Robbin]

On "dumbing down":

If "dumbing down" means providing features that make the interface more usable to more people and makes some things easier to do, then yep, Oblivion is "dumbed down" -- but the label is meaningless and certainly not worthy of the scorn that's automatically associated with it. If "dumbing down" means weakening game features for a different audience, then I'd say it's absolutely not. Just the opposite; many of Oblivion's systems are more complex than Morrowind's or Daggerfall's, even if you happen not to like the way in which they are more complex (combat, persuasion, lockpicking, etc).

No offence - but making the items more complex that you have listed are not items really related to an RPG - they are action game features. The RPG aspect is dumbed down (skills removed/combined, features added to simplify the quests etc.) to make it simpler to understand and remove more limitations, while the action features are increased.
In RPG terms - it's dumbed down.
Adding complexity to the action features does not make for a better RPG. If I want those features I can play a game that specialises on those features.

 

[Solik]

but making the items more complex that you have listed are not items really related to an RPG - they are action game features

I wasn't aware that only action games had combat systems.

The RPG aspect is dumbed down (skills removed/combined, features added to simplify the quests etc.) to make it simpler to understand and remove more limitations

First off, arguing that this was done to make it "simpler to understand" is ridiculous. A game isn't easier to understand because it has 21 skills instead of 25. Of course, the reasoning is really a red herring. What matters is results.

Second, you're judging the "dumbing down" of a game based purely on the number of features. That is bad logic. By this definition, games like chess and go must be very simple, dumbed-down games.

Any intelligent game designer knows that the best games are easy to learn and hard to master. In computer game terms, this means the game's interface should be streamlined, accessible, and easy to use. The underlying mechanics, however, while somewhat easy to understand, should interact in very involving ways. Nobody here has the hands-on experience with the game to make that kind of judgment call at this time.

 

[Thrawn05]

maybe because of speedstree, it could be very hard to find your way.
I won't be surprised if you not find a small dungeon entrance when I see these screenshots :

Anyone who can get lost in the woods deserves to be lost. It's not that hard to find your way out.

you have a better sense of the orientation when you are in real life than in front of your monitor.

That's your problem, not mine.

 

[Excrément]

No offence - but making the items more complex that you have listed are not items really related to an RPG - they are action game features. The RPG aspect is dumbed down (skills removed/combined, features added to simplify the quests etc.) to make it simpler to understand and remove more limitations, while the action features are increased.
In RPG terms - it's dumbed down.
Adding complexity to the action features does not make for a better RPG. If I want those features I can play a game that specialises on those features.

skills removed/ combines= yes, but 4 perks for each skills. It is quality over quantity. To my mind, the RPG aspect is improved. Even if I understand some people prefer the "talen trees", it is still a big improvement compared to the previous TES games.

features added to simplify the quests = ok I don't go back to my speech about active or non-active quests, I already made a point in a previous post about it. Otherwise I just would like to say that Bethesda claim to have make big improvement in the quality of quests. Less fedex quests... (we will see, check the emilpags quotes about the darkbrotherhood quests, the quests looks very good thanks to "RAI"). So for me the new quests will improve also the RPG aspect.

Lockpicking and speechcraft mini games give also a better role play experience because now we will directly see the consequences of your skill in action. So it is a better immersion and role play. Another improvement of RPG aspect.

 

[Micmu]

Lockpicking and speechcraft mini games give also a better role play experience because now we will directly see the consequences of your skill in action. So it is a better immersion and role play. Another improvement of RPG aspect.

Minigames have nothing to do with RP aspect.

 

[Nog Robbin]

First off, arguing that this was done to make it "simpler to understand" is ridiculous. A game isn't easier to understand because it has 21 skills instead of 25. Of course, the reasoning is really a red herring. What matters is results.

Second, you're judging the "dumbing down" of a game based purely on the number of features. That is bad logic. By this definition, games like chess and go must be very simple, dumbed-down games.

Any intelligent game designer knows that the best games are easy to learn and hard to master. In computer game terms, this means the game's interface should be streamlined, accessible, and easy to use. The underlying mechanics, however, while somewhat easy to understand, should interact in very involving ways. Nobody here has the hands-on experience with the game to make that kind of judgment call at this time.

21 instead of 27 - and more than that IIRC in Daggerfall. See the trend? Less, and less again. Skills have been grouped to make it easier to understand - I've seen dev quotes commenting on how people complained that their character could use a short sword, but had no skill with a claymore. Hence combining. However, this could have been done in a way in which there were *more* skills - but with a tree linking them. So you could be a specialist, but know that picking up a similar weapon type would give you some skill still. It's a computer controlling the rules system - it could be really complicated as to how it allocated skills on the tree - with the player just know what their actual skills are. But it would have meant more stats, and more reading of figures.

Chess has many features - one target, but many features. There are 6 different types of piece, each with different move limitations for a start. But comparing an RPG to chess is pretty much a waste of time - they are totally different in play. If you go into comparisons like that, you could compare it to any game - football maybe? Poker? They are just not the same thing.
And it isn't "features" I'm basing my comments on. It was skills affecting the player and his abilities. Less skills, less chance for a different character. Yes - we now have "perks" - but these apply to all characters of the same skill level. This could have been a chance to again add variety to different characters, having a choice of perks and allowing the character to choose one. But it would have meant one character couldn't do everything - and that seems to be a primary aim. Forget replay value - one character should be able to do everything.

And Excrement - splitting daggers/short blades from blades would not have had an impact on the perks anyway - they would have been there regardless of whether they chose to combine the skills or not. So the "quality over quantity" doesn't apply in that instance at all. You could apply quality over quantity to the removal of spears, or thrown weapons, or melee staves. Whether we get actual "quality" we can't say yet - the devs say we do, but I've read quotes from the MW development which said spookily the same things...

 

[VenomByte]

True.

But there are 116,280 potential classes.

I fail to see the problem. It's not like builds are extremely limited.

If you're going to throw numbers, I should point out that it's 18283 times fewer classes than Morrowind.

7 major skills. Yet only 7 skills in each group (combat, magic, stealth).

If I want to play a pure warrior, please tell me how many different options I have for customising that warrior's skill set? And how may of those will be seriously different?

Unless you're playing a hybrid rather than a pure archetype, you have virtually no choice in which skills you pick.

 

[Excrément]

Whether we get actual "quality" we can't say yet - the devs say we do, but I've read quotes from the MW development which said spookily the same things...

Yes we will see but I remain very optimistic.

 

[Nog Robbin]

True.

But there are 116,280 potential classes.

I fail to see the problem. It's not like builds are extremely limited.

If you're going to throw numbers, I should point out that it's 18283 times fewer classes than Morrowind.

7 major skills. Yet only 7 skills in each group (combat, magic, stealth).

If I want to play a pure warrior, please tell me how many different options I have for customising that warrior's skill set? And how may of those will be seriously different?

Unless you're playing a hybrid rather than a pure archetype, you have virtually no choice in which skills you pick.

Good point. Same applied to the "pure mage" - wouldn't even be able to have a minor skill of a weapon as a backup (not if they wanted all mage schools). And that's with enchant removed as a skill.

 

[galsiah]

...It is not about "fixing mistakes" I know that even some modders claim that themselves, but it is just arrogance. They fail, like you, to see that what they perceive as a mistake, doesn't bother someone else, or is even preferred by them to their mod.

It is about fixing mistakes - i.e. bad or needlessly sub-optimal design. I have two arguments on this. I guess you'll disagree with the first one, but I can't see how you can disagree with the second [to be honest I can't see how you could disagree with the first, but that's probably just my arrogance ]:

(1) The current system rewards the player for spending a lot of time thinking about which skills / stats are best to increase. It penalises natural play, and rewards thinking about game mechanics rather than the game world. However you dress it up, this aspect of the system is a design flaw. It should be fixed.

(2) Currently there are two camps of users: Those who like / don't mind the current system, and those who think that it sucks. Now imagine a the system were changed so that the second group liked it, and the first lot still liked it. That would be a definite improvement. Can such an improvement be made? I think that it can. It's certainly conceivable that it could be. Sticking with the current system because "most people seem to like it" is just lazy. Most players don't have a clue what the possibilities are. It is up to designers to take things forward and surprise players with better systems - to make them think "Wow - I liked the old system, but this is so much better. I never would have thought of that.".

I'm not convinced by the "No system will please everyone, so stick with the current one and mod in changes." argument. For a start, there's no reason to think that a system couldn't please everyone. No system will be perfect for everyone, but that's a different matter entirely. Bethesda have a system which some people like, many think is ok, and quite a few think sucks. Why they don't try to improve it is a mystery to me.

Galsiah fixes the levelling system because he thinks the original sucks. I don't like his mod.

Did you try it? If so, what did you not like? I would really like to know. Perhaps I'm wrong in thinking that a system could be made to please everyone (more than the current setup at any rate). What did the standard system do better than GCD?

There are two elements I can think of that I'd like to improve:
(1) Choice.
GCD removes in game choice from character progression (apart from choice through action / skill training). I find making important choices one of the interesting features of character building, so these should not ideally be removed. However, the standard system doesn't do much better - the only choice is how to allocate a few attribute points. This choice makes no long term difference, and a very small short term difference.
Compared to making in game decisions in e.g. NWN, the Morrowind decisions are pretty uninteresting.

I'd prefer to have choice of new character abilities rather than of a few attribute points. Preferably I'd also want those abilities to be linked to the game world - through quests / guilds / factions / trainers... If I had time, I'd attempt to make such a mod for Morrowind, giving the player really interesting choices of different abilities as he played the game. No such system is part of GCD, since it can be independent - such a mod wouldn't require GCD, and GCD wouldn't require it.

(2) Versatility.
GCD enforces a character's class quite rigidly. Choices you make at the start have a huge effect on the the entire game. I prefer this to Morrowind's standard system, but I don't think that it is the ideal. My ideal system would allow a character to change "class" very slowly over the course of the game. His actions would influence not only his skill increases, but would also slowly influence the rate of those increases, and their benefit to attributes. A mage who switched to playing as a pure fighter would find it very hard going for a long time, but would eventually get used to his new role, and progress at a reasonable rate. This kind of system would require skill atrophy, but could be very effective if done well - combining character versatility with character diversity.


If you don't like the removal of choice, then using GCD with another mod could give you more interesting choices. If lack of versatility is the trouble, then I agree GCD isn't going to please everyone in this regard. If it's something else, then please let me know. I like to know why people don't like GCD as well as why they do.
I'm aware that you don't need a GCD-like system to enjoy the game, but what offends you specifically?

I've never maintained that GCD is perfect, since it isn't. That's one of my main objections to the way things are in the standard game - a mod takes a lot more effort to do a lot less than a standard system could. The system should be fixed (yes, fixed damnit), not modded.
I'd be surprised if a system couldn't be made to suit both your tastes and mine. Having a system that a load of people consider badly flawed is not good. This should be "fixed", where "fixed" means: make a system that isn't badly flawed in these people's view, and is ok with the people who like the current system.

If GCD is not an improvement on the standard system in every respect, that does not mean that the standard system doesn't suck - perhaps they both suck, but that doesn't mean a better solution is not out there.

Presuming that there is no better solution is closed minded.
Not looking for one is lazy.

Actually the necessary skill points for the perk is most likely a game setting variable and thus accessible through the CS.

But can you alter the level at which perks are awarded for each skill independently? Can you change the order in which perks are awarded? Can you disable the skill level based perk trigger and award them when you want to via script?
It's possible, but I doubt it. Of course I hope to be wrong.

 

[OverrideB1]

It highlights yur objective only if you decide it :
let me explain : you have for example 10 quests in your journal, if you choose to activate one quest, the compass will highlight stuff. But you have to manually activate them so without activating them you won't get signs from your compass.

There are a couple of obvious problems that you're glossing over.
First, is the fact that the compass will still show things that Bethesda think you should know about - regardless of which quest you select. So, regardless of which quest you're on, or if your journal is pointing to a "dead" quest, the Deep-Hole of Uber-Loot will still be highlighted on your compass.
Secondly is the problem that Bethesda have had for a while - there is no way (AFAIK) to turn down a quest

and about the mini games you can skip them. I understand the mini games angers a lot of guys here because it has been done to put "more fun for console players" and it is quite "mainstream", but you can still skip them.

How can you skip the mini-games - it was my understanding that they are integral to the gameplay. How do you "sweet-talk" someone if you don't play the mini-game?

And you are making a big mistake if you think that "adding more fun" to the games is what pisses me off about the mini-games.

 

[Lumpy]

Perks are awarded whenever you gain a new rank in each skill. You gain a new rank at 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, most likely. And those values are probably impossible to modify.

 

[Solik]

21 instead of 27 - and more than that IIRC in Daggerfall.

I was always of the opinion that Daggerfall had too many useless skills. The design focus of Daggerfall was "lots of everything," which doesn't often result in a solid game. The purpose of more skills is to increase options; however, if those are false choices, what's the point? If there's little real in-game impact between the choice of long blade and short blade, then the choice is purely aesthetic. Removing these false choices isn't dumbing down, it's being honest -- and hopefully allows the developers to focus on making the real choices even more involved.

But it would have meant one character couldn't do everything - and that seems to be a primary aim. Forget replay value - one character should be able to do everything.

It's really annoying when people repeat the same defunct arguments in the face of evidence to the contrary simply because it's what they want to believe. I'll explain it yet again below:

If you're going to throw numbers, I should point out that it's 18283 times fewer classes than Morrowind.

The trick here is that Morrowind actually did suffer from the "good at everything" problem. Oblivion does not, in a normal play-through.

To state it plainly: misc skills in Oblivion increase far more slowly than they did in Morrowind, and trainers are not so easily acquired and abused. Being good at everything would require a huge time investment that I really doubt anyone at the RPG Codex would ever attempt. Do you really care if some guy you've never met spends 100 hours to get good at everything? Do you care when he uses console cheats, too?

Your choices of primary skills hardly mattered in Morrowind; those were just what you needed to boost to levelup. In Oblivion, they will have a much more significant impact. The choices are a lot more real.

If I want to play a pure warrior, please tell me how many different options I have for customising that warrior's skill set? And how may of those will be seriously different?

Unless you're playing a hybrid rather than a pure archetype, you have virtually no choice in which skills you pick.

I fail to see your point. Instead of lots of options for "pure" classes and few options for hybrid classes, TES offers lots of options for hybrid classes and few options for pure classes. I can't for the life of me see how that's a design flaw or a simplification. It's a matter of taste, sure, but that's all it is.

Same applied to the "pure mage" - wouldn't even be able to have a minor skill of a weapon as a backup (not if they wanted all mage schools).

Depends on what you consider a "mage school" (alchemy?). At any rate, you could probably get away with focusing on one or two misc skills and being "good enough" at those. They wouldn't contribute to increasing your character level, but of course they certainly contribute to increasing your character's overall power.

 

[Drakron]

(1) The current system rewards the player for spending a lot of time thinking about which skills / stats are best to increase. It penalises natural play, and rewards thinking about game mechanics rather than the game world. However you dress it up, this aspect of the system is a design flaw. It should be fixed.

"Natural play" is button mashing without much tought of stategy.

Any system requires the user to think how to use it, TES requires people to think on how to use it but because of broken mechanics on how to ABUSE IT.

The current TES system is easy to abuse.

(2) Currently there are two camps of users: Those who like / don't mind the current system, and those who think that it sucks. Now imagine a the system were changed so that the second group liked it, and the first lot still liked it. That would be a definite improvement. Can such an improvement be made? I think that it can. It's certainly conceivable that it could be. Sticking with the current system because "most people seem to like it" is just lazy. Most players don't have a clue what the possibilities are. It is up to designers to take things forward and surprise players with better systems - to make them think "Wow - I liked the old system, but this is so much better. I never would have thought of that.".

No, there are far that just 2 camps.

First we have the Xbox Halo retarded camp that wants a FPS with stats.
Second we have the TES loyalists that want to maintain the flawed system.
Third we have the people that want to fix the system.

In Oblivion the first camp won, its not the FPS with stats but its close.

I'm not convinced by the "No system will please everyone, so stick with the current one and mod in changes." argument. For a start, there's no reason to think that a system couldn't please everyone. No system will be perfect for everyone, but that's a different matter entirely. Bethesda have a system which some people like, many think is ok, and quite a few think sucks. Why they don't try to improve it is a mystery to me.

No system can please everyone ... if you think otherwise you are a fool.

You want a example ... made it turned based.

So its q question of what you to be damned for ... problem is that Bethsoft current staff does not really understand it and when we have professionals on WotC fucking up the D&D d20 system ... well ...