Why aren't there more Skyrim clones?

[Heroic Liberator]

 

[TedNugent]

Bethesda is a better company strictly in respect for their player base.

Horse armour, releasing Skyrim again and again, Fallout 4 Season Pass price hike, paid mods, Fallout 76 being sold for $60 along with Fallout 1st subscription and in-game shop with items directly affecting gameplay.
Don't even get me started on the state of it at launch.

Oh noooo, I have to wait until a Steam sale for the ultimate edition and a list of mods before I play the steaming pile of Bethesda dung.

I bought the game for like $10, never played it, shopped for a few mods and didn't find any I thought would unbreak the game. No skin off my keister.

The only thing that annoyed me was faggot modders releasing mods that required an expansion pack to play them.

But it just meant that I never played Skyrim. Again, no skin off my keister.

Don't get mad at Bethesda that you're a whale that buys a *snicker* Bethesda game at launch. You're literally a fucking retard if you do that. Do you watch Todd's E3 presentations and get a boner with the rest of the Xbots?

 

[Delterius]

Bethesda is a better company strictly in respect for their player base.

Horse armour, releasing Skyrim again and again, Fallout 4 Season Pass price hike, paid mods, Fallout 76 being sold for $60 along with Fallout 1st subscription and in-game shop with items directly affecting gameplay.
Don't even get me started on the state of it at launch.

Oh noooo, I have to wait until a Steam sale for the ultimate edition and a list of mods before I play the steaming pile of Bethesda dung.

I bought the game for like $10, never played it, shopped for a few mods and didn't find any I thought would unbreak the game. No skin off my keister.

The only thing that annoyed me was faggot modders releasing mods that required an expansion pack to play them.

But it just meant that I never played Skyrim. Again, no skin off my keister.

Don't get mad at Bethesda that you're a whale that buys a *snicker* Bethesda game at launch. You're literally a fucking retard if you do that. Do you watch Todd's E3 presentations and get a boner with the rest of the Xbots?

'Bethesda respects their player base'

'uh no they don't'

'lmao you're part of their playerbase so joke's on you'

???

 

[Zombra]

ahy laook aeveryone i found a secret stash of place where complaints obout behtesda games follow mbe to buried treasure >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Ubisoft's shit plays better than anything Betheada has ever made. For all the stuff they get wrong, and the stupid shit they do, the actual gameplay of their games is better. So you've got something like Fallout 4. Now Fallout 4 isn't really even trying to be a RPG anymore. It's just a really lousy open world FPS game. Ubisoft could easily make a open world sci-fi first person shooter with better shooting, better companion characters, more interesting environmental interaction, a wider variety of ways to get around the world, better stealth, and more interesting systematic interactions between things like different factions and wildlife. The only thing Bethesda does better than them is environmental storytelling, but they seem to have gotten shit at that too.

Ubisoft quests are shit compared to Bethesda's. Say what you like about Bethesda's easy mode gameplay, their quests still have some quirk and soul to them. Or at least they did in 2015, the last time they made a game (FO4).

The last time they had an interesting quest in a game was probably Oblivion, (so 15 years ago) and that game wasn't exactly packed to the brim with those either. Funnily Bethesda's most hated game, their last game, Fallout 76, is built entirely around their quest. The little I played of Skyrim the game just seemed to be a pretty straight forward hack and slash, and every quest was just an excuse to get into combat encounters between where you got the quest and where they sent you off to...Ubisoft Montreal could do that too.

This is all besides the point though. The point is if they so wished they could easily take on Betheada at their own game, (with both Elder Scrolls and Fallout) and offer more options to fuck about in the game's environment, and do so with far better gameplay than Bethesda does in their games. But they don't, for whatever reason they just don't do it. I could understand if there sales were comparable to Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but they aren't.

Ubishit's got their hands full with Far Cry, Ass Creed and whatever other crap they put out.

Well, in this hypothetical situation the teams that make Assassin's Creed and Far Cry would instead shift from those titles to what would essentially just be High Fantasy Assassin's Creed and some Sci-Fi thing (could be Blood Dragon, could be something else) that's similar to Far Cry but not called Far Cry.

If you're looking at developers that could easily make something like a Elder Scrolls game, (and I only brought this up in relation to what gurugeorge said) the Ubisoft Montreal guys that make games like Assassin's Creed and For Honor seem like they could do it easily. Why they haven't taken what they do in games like Assassin's Creed and For Honor, and just do something similar in a high fantasy setting of some type, (be it a crazy almost alien world like Morrowind, [which would be the more French thing] or something more normal like the last two Elder Scrolls) especially since Skyrim in its first year massively outsold anything Assassin's Creed, I don't know.

 

[Outlander]

Well, in this hypothetical situation the teams that make Assassin's Creed and Far Cry would instead shift from those titles

But Ubishit has no reason to stop making those very profitable games and risk to try something different.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Well, in this hypothetical situation the teams that make Assassin's Creed and Far Cry would instead shift from those titles

But Ubishit has no reason to stop making those very profitable games and risk to try something different.

What risk? I'm talking basically the exact same thing they already make, but instead of a historical fantasy setting it's in some fantasy fantasy setting. It'd more or less be what they're already doing but with a different coat of paint. It's also a risk that'd make sense to go after at least once; I mean Skyrim sold as many copies in a month as Odyssey sold in around a year and a half. That to me seems like a risk to take. It especially seems like a risk to take since Assassin's Creed is basically a series people mostly seem to enjoy in spite of the Assassin's Creed elements (the future stuff, the conflicted between the Assassins and Templars) now...it's a 14 year old series and half of those 14 years people have been wishing it was something else.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Both Bethesda and Ubisoft are utter shit. Stop doing this to yourselves.

If you really want to play a good version of Skyrim, play Breath of the Wild on an emulator or consoles. It's not exactly the same, but you basically get a huge sandbox to wander around in, with good combat, good story, good graphics, great world interaction, and so on.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Well, in this hypothetical situation the teams that make Assassin's Creed and Far Cry would instead shift from those titles

But Ubishit has no reason to stop making those very profitable games and risk to try something different.

What risk? I'm talking basically the exact same thing they already make, but instead of a historical fantasy setting it's in some fantasy fantasy setting. It'd more or less be what they're already doing but with a different coat of paint. It's also a risk that'd make sense to go after at least once; I mean Skyrim sold as many copies in a month as Odyssey sold in around a year and a half. That to me seems like a risk to take. It especially seems like a risk to take since Assassin's Creed is basically a series people mostly seem to enjoy in spite of the Assassin's Creed elements (the future stuff, the conflicted between the Assassins and Templars) now...it's a 14 year old series and half of those 14 years people have been wishing it was something else.

Haven’t played it, but my impression is that they did exactly this with Immortals: Felix Rising, and it badly underperformed.

 

[flabbyjack]

Fuck Assassins Creed makes me sick. I got a free copy of the Victorian England one, with my graphics card or somesuch shit. It almost made me vomit.

 

[TedNugent]

Both Bethesda and Ubisoft are utter shit. Stop doing this to yourselves.

If you really want to play a good version of Skyrim, play Breath of the Wild on an emulator or consoles. It's not exactly the same, but you basically get a huge sandbox to wander around in, with good combat, good story, good graphics, great world interaction, and so on.

There's a story in BotW? I wouldn't know, I've been looking for it for hours....

Maybe if I can climb to the top of this tower I can see it....nope, just another puzzle-shrine.

Off to another goblin camp then.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Skyrim clones are the $100 bill laying on the sidewalk that nobody is picking up.

It's a mystery why nobody is trying to ape the success of Bethesda by making similar games, isn't it.

Personally, i suspect it has to do with the fact Bethesda is operating on a game design principle that simply doesn't compute in the brain of modern game producers or even developers.

As terrible as Fallout 3 or Oblivion or Skyrim were, they pretty much still follow an "old school" design principle, diluted or dumped down that it may be, that doesn't register in the mind of the modern consoltarded brainlets that dominate this industry today.

I don't see how there's any explanation for how this blatant potential cashcow was left untapped by so many companies for so many years, literally allowing Bethesda to have a monopoly on a kind of game that's obviously massively popular with players. And no, Asscreed or Twitcher 3 or any of this Ubishit garbage even remotely qualifies as being in the same ballpark.

Modern game developers exist on a completely different world where table top RPGs, old school dungeon crawlers, or pretty much most PC games made in the 80s or 90s don't exist. They literally cannot understand what Skyrim or Oblivion actually are.

 

[TedNugent]

Twitcher 3 was actually a good game though, despite being an open world game. It has enough casual charm, personality and worldbuilding to work.

Neither Ubi not Bethsoft have the same level of talent on that front as CDProjekt. Even Bioware doesn't. Their characters might as well be cardboard cutouts. Only the Far Cry team seems to have the capability to make interesting characters out of the three, and their gameplay and metagame mechanics are too generic. I can't get into those games because fundamentally it's just a shooter sandbox game with side quests.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The good parts of Twitcher 3 have nothing to do with the "open world" aspect though. Comparing it to the swill Bethesda makes isn't even appropriate but some people do it anyway.

Buit that's not the issue. I think the problem here is that modern devs tend to think in terms of "mechanics" only and can't see the bigger picture. They see people shoot at animals with arrows in a Bethesda game and they think they have to "copy" that mechanic without understanding why that shit is in there. They don't see that the appeal of Skyrim is the simulationist, LARPing aspect of it. Ubishit games are a primary example of what i'm talking about. Those games are nothing but an assortment of formulae and nothing else. I remember watching my nephew play Far Cry 5 and at no point it felt like he was immersed in the world. It's like he was doing things just to fill up a checkbox.

When you are that contrained by the mechanics you are essentially locked in a linear path whether the game is "open world" or not.

And my theory as to why nobody tried to tap into the same market of Skyrim is that modern gaming companies just don't get what Skyrim is, or where it comes from. Bethesda may be bad at what they do but they are the only ones doing it. That's just damn bizzare, isn't it?

 

[Gradenmayer]

Both Bethesda and Ubisoft are utter shit. Stop doing this to yourselves.

If you really want to play a good version of Skyrim, play Breath of the Wild on an emulator or consoles. It's not exactly the same, but you basically get a huge sandbox to wander around in, with good combat, good story, good graphics, great world interaction, and so on.

There's a story in BotW? I wouldn't know, I've been looking for it for hours....

Maybe if I can climb to the top of this tower I can see it....nope, just another puzzle-shrine.

Off to another goblin camp then.

What? You don't like doing 100 dungeons with the same copy-pasted tileset? Or the amazing sidequests which involve collecting X of a thing?

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Well, in this hypothetical situation the teams that make Assassin's Creed and Far Cry would instead shift from those titles

But Ubishit has no reason to stop making those very profitable games and risk to try something different.

What risk? I'm talking basically the exact same thing they already make, but instead of a historical fantasy setting it's in some fantasy fantasy setting. It'd more or less be what they're already doing but with a different coat of paint. It's also a risk that'd make sense to go after at least once; I mean Skyrim sold as many copies in a month as Odyssey sold in around a year and a half. That to me seems like a risk to take. It especially seems like a risk to take since Assassin's Creed is basically a series people mostly seem to enjoy in spite of the Assassin's Creed elements (the future stuff, the conflicted between the Assassins and Templars) now...it's a 14 year old series and half of those 14 years people have been wishing it was something else.

Haven’t played it, but my impression is that they did exactly this with Immortals: Felix Rising, and it badly underperformed.

That's not Elder Scrolls, it's Ubisoft Quebec's take on Breath of the Wild. Outside of Ubisoft saying they're happy with it's sales, I can't find anything about how that game preformed. At the least it doesn't sound like it underperformed. This is however an interesting point to bring up with regard to this topic, because in the case of Immortals: Felix Rising Ubisoft did chase after another game, but they chased after something that didn't sell nearly as well as Skyrim did.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

The good parts of Twitcher 3 have nothing to do with the "open world" aspect though. Comparing it to the swill Bethesda makes isn't even appropriate but some people do it anyway.

You could say the same about 90% of the games, most open world game would be better off without the opening world..

They don't see that the appeal of Skyrim is the simulationist, LARPing aspect of it.

Does the casual fanbase of Skyrim actually engage in the LARP aspect of the game tho ?

Why nobody tried to copy Skyrim? My best bet is that's hard af to make a similar game without using Bethesda's engine and expertise in map design, so it's just easier to take TW3 route.. It's less unpredictable or whatever.. I should stop rambling..

I actually don't think Avowed going to be a copy of Skyrim. I think they going to try once again aim for the FNV audience but in a medieval world.

 

[Delterius]

People will say that Skyrim is 'wide as an ocean, deep as a pond'. It's derogatory, yes. But who said plowing an ocean wide pond is easy? CD Projekt is by all accounts a good developer. Their pipelines are well oiled and their products are popular. They are very good at what they do. But then they tried using the same team that made the Witcher 3 - open world of mostly fields and trees focused on a cinematic experience - to make a Rockstar esque experience - maker of high density urban open worlds that are not that cinematic when you think about it. The entire thing caved into itself. Simply put most developers are not geared towards doing what Bethesda does.

 

[Gradenmayer]

People will say that Skyrim is 'wide as an ocean, deep as a pond'. It's derogatory, yes. But who said plowing an ocean wide pond is easy? CD Projekt is by all accounts a good developer. Their pipelines are well oiled and their products are popular. They are very good at what they do. But then they tried using the same team that made the Witcher 3 - open world of mostly fields and trees focused on a cinematic experience - to make a Rockstar esque experience - maker of high density urban open worlds that are not that cinematic when you think about it. The entire thing caved into itself. Simply put most developers are not geared towards doing what Bethesda does.

They did not use the same team. Everyone left after Witcher 3 :D

 

[Delterius]

People will say that Skyrim is 'wide as an ocean, deep as a pond'. It's derogatory, yes. But who said plowing an ocean wide pond is easy? CD Projekt is by all accounts a good developer. Their pipelines are well oiled and their products are popular. They are very good at what they do. But then they tried using the same team that made the Witcher 3 - open world of mostly fields and trees focused on a cinematic experience - to make a Rockstar esque experience - maker of high density urban open worlds that are not that cinematic when you think about it. The entire thing caved into itself. Simply put most developers are not geared towards doing what Bethesda does.

They did not use the same team. Everyone left after Witcher 3 :D

From what I understand a lot of developers are always leaving every company since the videogame industry sucks. Team building is a perpetual effort. It is all about making sure new hires are well integrated into the existing pipeline. It's like how your body's cells are totally replaced every 7-10 years.

 

[Butter]

The reason Bethesda are able to make games as wide as an ocean is because they're as deep as a puddle. Most developers have too much self-respect to deliberately half-ass their systems, but it's the only way you can get one of these games made in under a decade. The moment you decide to put more effort in, you end up having to cut things and then you're not providing the Bethesda experience.

 

[Delterius]

I don't see any reason to think that Bethesda employees do not go through crunch or aren't as overworked as everybody else. It's not a matter of effort. It's a matter of directing effort away from digging the pond and towards plowing an ocean wide puddle. Bethesda probably still has to cut things, but those are not ponds or lakes, they are more like extensions of the oceanic puddle-complex, or occasionaly holes here and there.

 

[Van-d-all]

The good parts of Twitcher 3 have nothing to do with the "open world" aspect though. Comparing it to the swill Bethesda makes isn't even appropriate but some people do it anyway.

You could say the same about 90% of the games, most open world game would be better off without the opening world..

They don't see that the appeal of Skyrim is the simulationist, LARPing aspect of it.

Does the casual fanbase of Skyrim actually engage in the LARP aspect of the game tho ?

Why nobody tried to copy Skyrim? My best bet is that's hard af to make a similar game without using Bethesda's engine and expertise in map design, so it's just easier to take TW3 route.. It's less unpredictable or whatever.. I should stop rambling..

I actually don't think Avowed going to be a copy of Skyrim. I think they going to try once again aim for the FNV audience but in a medieval world.

Virtually the only universally good thing in Bethesda games lies in the minutiae of their worlds. While it became gradually diluted from environmental storytelling in Morrowind (Creeper) to generic nonsense in Fallout 4 (Pullowski shelters) it still takes a horde of level designers (from lack of better term) to place all that damn clutter (cutlery on every teable etc.) all around the map.

And that's the issue here - it requires a kind of developer who not only works specifically for said game (as opposed to outsourced content that can be bought from 3rd party and just put inside it with some adjustments) but also one who fluently works with said game's internal dev tools like the editor (unlike just knowing a universally used programming language or 3d tool).

Having such developers is quite hard, because if the studio didn't internally grow them up themselves it gets down to either reassigning people doing something else or hiring and training new people to do it, and in both cases it means lots of time or/and money, something that will pop up blaring red in new project's risk assessment, ultimately to be deemed not worth the effort.

Some games try to do it still (Prey 2017) but in a very limited scope of environment, and as such I even expect that next Bethesda titles will tune it down - there just aren't enough readily employable people to do the brunt of work required.

But ultimately, as with self-service checkout - why hire and bother, if some people will do it for free - "mods will fix it". While they won't make an entire game, full conversion mods like Endereal or Nehrim ARE exactly the Bethesda clones possible with given job market.

 

[Bad Sector]

I think the Gamebryo engine which has been the basic thing they've used and interated on since Oblivion (maybe even Morrowind?), is a different beast from those earlier games though.

Most of the engine was written by Bethesda, what they did was use NetImmerse (which was later renamed to Gamebryo) to provide the rendering and some basic framework functionality, but NetImmerse didn't provide anything more than graphics. It was a coincidence that it was also used in MMOs and got some association with big world games, but the engine itself didn't support any gameplay, networking or even big world rendering functionality - those were added in the much later versions, but Bethesda never used them and kept their own branch that they had since Morrowind.

There was an article with the history of Gamebryo and some developers saying (long after Gamebryo was sold off) they found amusing that gamers associated bugs with Gamebryo in functionality that the engine never even provided :-P.

 

[Delterius]

bugs are the special sauce that rpg developers inflict upon all technology