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RipTen's Skyrim Review

curry

Arcane
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Jan 10, 2011
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Cooking in the lab
http://www.ripten.com/2011/10/29/th...ampaign=Feed:+ripten+(Ripten+Video+Game+Blog)

I find the companion system is very similar to that of the current Fallout games (except that you can have only one) in that you can make them carry things and they will equip what you give them. However, there doesnt seem to be any way to make them decide whether to use ranged or melee attacks or decide which armor to put on if they are carrying lots of it. I find all this rather frustrating.

I took this as an opportunity to check out Faendal’s equipment. Seeing as I was now level 6 and he had been using the same gear I found him in at level one. What a shitty companion I was. I undressed him in the least sexy way possible and threw all his loot on the ground. Since there doesn’t seem to be a away to equip your companions in specific gear, I put the best leathery armors I could find in his inventory first and he equipped them. The same went for his bow.

Now, maybe I’m wrong, but once again I can’t express how frustrating this whole companion equipment system is. If I can issue basic tactical commands and gear preferences to my companions in New Vegas, why the hell can’t I do it in Skyrim. It’s an annoying and cumbersome system and I don’t fucking like it.

When morning came the snow had let up a bit and I could finally see the massive river before me. I marked out a course and dove in. It was hard to see underwater but I swam and jumped furiously to make it to the other side. Finally I emerged victorious and turned around to see Faendal literally gliding across the top of water to meet me. My god, all this time I had been traveling with Jesus.

Sure sounds like a heap of fun :smug:
 

SharkClub

Prophet
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Strap Yourselves In
If I can issue basic tactical commands and gear preferences to my companions in New Vegas, why the hell can’t I do it in Skyrim. It’s an annoying and cumbersome system and I don’t fucking like it.
Obsidian does what Bethesdon't.
 

Andyman Messiah

Mr. Ed-ucated
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Messages
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Narnia
Reconite said:
If I can issue basic tactical commands and gear preferences to my companions in New Vegas, why the hell can’t I do it in Skyrim. It’s an annoying and cumbersome system and I don’t fucking like it.
Obsidian does what Bethesdon't.

The Curse of Obsidian Entertainment:
Original developer (Bethesda): makes a game with clumsy limitations, shit story and shit gameplay. Game of the Year!
Obsidian: improves on absolutely every single possible part and adds things that should have been in the first game. Boo, not as good as original!
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
When morning came the snow had let up a bit and I could finally see the massive river before me. I marked out a course and dove in. It was hard to see underwater but I swam and jumped furiously to make it to the other side. Finally I emerged victorious and turned around to see Faendal literally gliding across the top of water to meet me. My god, all this time I had been traveling with Jesus.

Now it would be nice to believe that RadiantAI has made him use water walking to cross the river, but who am I kidding?
 

Stinger

Arcane
Joined
Aug 13, 2011
Messages
1,366
He seemed awfully enthusiastic about the game at the end considering the shitload of flaws he found in that preview build.
 

baronjohn

Cipher
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Messages
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Location
USA
S0xnM.jpg
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
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Messages
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Stinger said:
He seemed awfully enthusiastic about the game at the end considering the shitload of flaws he found in that preview build.
Bethesda gives journalists the five star treatment, of course his concluding paragraph isn't going to say anything mean about his awesome buddies who treated him so nicely and to so much free stuff.
 

roll-a-die

Magister
Joined
Sep 27, 2009
Messages
3,131
Stinger said:
He seemed awfully enthusiastic about the game at the end considering the shitload of flaws he found in that preview build.

Yeah, he's being bribed or otherwise threatened to be. It's standard practice, you don't muscle in good reviews and previews early on, you lose review copies and preview access. It's why a lot of the time you'll see retrospectives a year or so down the line that take the utter piss out of games.

At that point the publishers don't care, they've already sold the majority of the copies. And a 2 bit retrospective isn't going to lose them any customers. Still you are under threats the majority of the time to not put out anything critical, or the publisher will pull review copies away from you. Meaning that you'll lose those precious "Exclusive Early Review"''s that sell copies of your magazine/garner more ad money/clicks.

Trust me, the difference between the day of release and a week after release means a lot in terms of ad revenue and magazines sold. Especially games like Skyrim.

Ripten is pretty much doing his best to get around this with the kind of panicked saccrine "I'm going to be sent to the pewter pouring plant if I don't doll this up" style of writing, that still points out errors, but mixes them with humor and general lightheartedness in an attempt to distract whatever PR watchdog is looking at the articles from the subtle mocking.

For example, he keeps dwelling on the smiling face of the woodelf companion, and the fact that he seems to disappear and reappear seemingly at will. This is an attempt to subtly dig at how creepy and unrealistic this is. Further he dwells on the Golden Claw quest, and the bugs therein, pointing out how boring repeated playthroughs will be. And the fact that Zenimax PR is being redonkulous with it's canned playthroughs of the exact same quest 20 or so times. After that he makes light in humourous form about how "Awesome" it is to KAMEHAMEHA people seemingly at random. At the beginning he makes light of the fact that bethesda has seemingly left it's progenitor platform in the dust. Prefering to only show the XBox version of the game.


Basically the gist of it is, he's trying to mix legitimate criticism with a saccharine tome, so as to not anger the Zenimax PR people and deprive him of future deals like this, that drive up ad revenue and clicks.

If you read between the lines, it's almost entirely critical, with a few points making light of some truly awesome things that hadn't really been covered before.. M'aiq being the main one. Likely throwing in some PR bullshit he was instructed to add. The reference to the library, the "prepare to lose yourself," etc, etc.
 

Skittles

He ruins the fun.
Joined
Apr 20, 2011
Messages
983
The young writer from the Journal had gotten into the elevator with me as well.

“What did you think?” He said.

I could hardly think straight. I could barely conjure words at this point. ”Great stuff!” was all that apparently came out of my mouth.

EDIT: That is to say, I agree with roll-a-die to some extent. I think he genuinely wants to like it and liked some parts of it (which, to be honest, is probably how I would feel about the game playing through what he played through), but c'mon. He's ridiculing the game at every chance. He talks about them bribing reviewers. He spends a page talking about Bethesda's in-game spokesperson, defending their design decisions with kind-of-shitty-if-we're-being-perfectly-honest-and-not-fawning-over-a-game-company-just-for-being-'meta'-writing. He talks about how shallow the reactions to character creation choices are. He talks about the fact that people don't respond to one another. He talks about how fucking easy it seems to be to wander into a cave, find a big flaming sword and wield it despite no character investment/planning/advancement in the wielding flaming swords department, and then kicking ass.

That is to say, this was a really fun approach to griping about Bethesda and Skyrim, which kept some optimism in, so kudos.
 

Menckenstein

Lunacy of Caen: Todd Reaver
Joined
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Messages
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Remulak
Damn I love the stupid preassembled answers and talking points these guys throw out in interviews.

I took a workshop course on bullshitting (public speaking / presentation / salesmanship) through a company that specifically markets towards human garbage like Hines, The Doctors, myself and Howard. If I knew what more game devs looked like I'm sure I would've recognized somebody in the group. The worst part of going to workshops like that is eventually you can't turn that bullshitter mode off. It'd be interesting to compare old interviews to the ones from Skyrim/SWTOR to see how their craft has evolved.
 

thesoup

Arcane
Joined
Oct 13, 2011
Messages
7,599
Andyman Messiah said:
Reconite said:
If I can issue basic tactical commands and gear preferences to my companions in New Vegas, why the hell can’t I do it in Skyrim. It’s an annoying and cumbersome system and I don’t fucking like it.
Obsidian does what Bethesdon't.

The Curse of Obsidian Entertainment:
Original developer (Bethesda): makes a game with clumsy limitations, shit story and shit gameplay. Game of the Year!
Obsidian: improves on absolutely every single possible part and adds things that should have been in the first game. Boo, not as good as original!
This.
Everyone agrees that F:NV is the better game, but F3 has better grades, for some reason. :?
 

Stinger

Arcane
Joined
Aug 13, 2011
Messages
1,366
Modders can fix that.

Good luck getting a modder to sort out the utter mess of mechanics that were Oblivion and Fallout 3.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
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MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
thesoup said:
Andyman Messiah said:
Reconite said:
If I can issue basic tactical commands and gear preferences to my companions in New Vegas, why the hell can’t I do it in Skyrim. It’s an annoying and cumbersome system and I don’t fucking like it.
Obsidian does what Bethesdon't.

The Curse of Obsidian Entertainment:
Original developer (Bethesda): makes a game with clumsy limitations, shit story and shit gameplay. Game of the Year!
Obsidian: improves on absolutely every single possible part and adds things that should have been in the first game. Boo, not as good as original!
This.
Everyone agrees that F:NV is the better game, but F3 has better grades, for some reason. :?
Agreed.

"Obsidian Does" would be a good new Codex meme though.

EDIT: And let's not forget KotOR2. It actually gets even worse treatment than New Vegas, despite also being astronomically better than the original. Hell, it's even being wiped off the series continuity now!
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
Patron
Bethestard
Joined
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Messages
21,144
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Stinger said:
Modders can fix that.

Good luck getting a modder to sort out the utter mess of mechanics that were Oblivion and Fallout 3.

The mechanics in NV and Fallout 3 were almost identical. Skyway is right, you fuckers really are completely insane. :lol:
 

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
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Mastermind said:
Stinger said:
Modders can fix that.

Good luck getting a modder to sort out the utter mess of mechanics that were Oblivion and Fallout 3.

The mechanics in NV and Fallout 3 were almost identical. Skyway is right, you fuckers really are completely insane. :lol:
Two words:

Damage. Threshold.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
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Messages
35,656
Vaarna_Aarne said:
EDIT: And let's not forget KotOR2. It actually gets even worse treatment than New Vegas, despite also being astronomically better than the original. Hell, it's even being wiped off the series continuity now!
Soz, but content-wise it was worse. Too many ridiculous stat-boosting items, and body-hopping. :x I can tolerate extreme dullness to a point (the kind found in Peragus and Telos), but I can't tolerate active frustration, the kind found in the second half of Nar Shaddaa and those parts restored by those idiots in their mod.
 

Ruprekt

Scholar
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Jun 3, 2010
Messages
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Location
Exploring small rings in 3D
I just click through dialogs.

So, for me RPGs have a two point checklist:

1) Invisible walls?

2) Walking animations.



Why? Because I'm not a directx10 believing endomorphic homosexual.
 

SuicideBunny

(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻
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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
Mastermind said:
The mechanics in NV and Fallout 3 were almost identical. Skyway is right, you fuckers really are completely insane.
fo3: damage==damage*(1-dr/100)
nv: damage==max((damage-dt)*(1-dr/100), damage*0.2)

it may be look like a small change, but if had fucking gargantuan consequences, the least of which is allowing for different kinds of ammo since dr reduction previously was exactly the same as simply increasing overall damage but with dt you can have high dt bypass ammo with low damage or high damage ammo with low dt reduction and it will produce different results on different enemies.
even the small change of fixed 20% damage minimum vs soft 7% minimum has huge gameplay consequences, especially with mods.
 

Elwro

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Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
"So with Oakflesh cast upon myself and my best armor on (no robe was going to save me) I ran as hard and as fast as I could past these Maibatsu Monstrosities. As I barely made it past them (they’re clumsy beasts) I turned to see that their attention had been cast upon poor Faendal who had been stopped by a giant’s ground stomp and was now being pummeled to death. It’s not entirely his fault. Before I started running I had used the companion command system to tell him to attack the giants and had basically used him as bait. The poor bastard, he just couldn’t catch a break. Good thing he was immortal, I knew I’d see him smiling beside me soon enough. "

:hmmm:
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
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Bethestard
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
SuicideBunny said:
Mastermind said:
The mechanics in NV and Fallout 3 were almost identical. Skyway is right, you fuckers really are completely insane.
fo3: damage==damage*(1-dr/100)
nv: damage==max((damage-dt)*(1-dr/100), damage*0.2)

it may be look like a small change, but if had fucking gargantuan consequences, the least of which is allowing for different kinds of ammo since dr reduction previously was exactly the same as simply increasing overall damage but with dt you can have high dt bypass ammo with low damage or high damage ammo with low dt reduction and it will produce different results on different enemies.

TBH I don't remember any DR reduction weapons in Fallout 3. Fallout 3 had -health weapons, which in essence have the same effect as dt bypass ammo, with one exception:

even the small change of fixed 20% damage minimum vs soft 7% minimum has huge gameplay consequences, especially with mods.

Actually having any minimum damage at all ruins the main advantage of DT: that you can become invincible to small fire when wearing very good armor. Though there is a mod that fixes this, which I don't use because the game isn't balanced for it.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Elwro said:
"So with Oakflesh cast upon myself and my best armor on (no robe was going to save me) I ran as hard and as fast as I could past these Maibatsu Monstrosities. As I barely made it past them (they’re clumsy beasts) I turned to see that their attention had been cast upon poor Faendal who had been stopped by a giant’s ground stomp and was now being pummeled to death. It’s not entirely his fault. Before I started running I had used the companion command system to tell him to attack the giants and had basically used him as bait. The poor bastard, he just couldn’t catch a break. Good thing he was immortal, I knew I’d see him smiling beside me soon enough. "

:hmmm:

NV companions were immortal outside of hardcore mode too.
 

Elwro

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Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
Mastermind said:
Elwro said:
"So with Oakflesh cast upon myself and my best armor on (no robe was going to save me) I ran as hard and as fast as I could past these Maibatsu Monstrosities. As I barely made it past them (they’re clumsy beasts) I turned to see that their attention had been cast upon poor Faendal who had been stopped by a giant’s ground stomp and was now being pummeled to death. It’s not entirely his fault. Before I started running I had used the companion command system to tell him to attack the giants and had basically used him as bait. The poor bastard, he just couldn’t catch a break. Good thing he was immortal, I knew I’d see him smiling beside me soon enough. "

:hmmm:

NV companions were immortal outside of hardcore mode too.
Oh. Didn't know that (I finished the game in the hardcore mode). I wonder whether there'll be something like that mode in Skyrim.
 

Elwro

Arcane
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Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
WELL GOOD THING I"M NOT BUYING THE GAME THEN
 

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