sea's (Mostly Technical) Skyrim Initial Impressions

[gromit]

When Codex was orgasmic about DA:O and I was bashing it I was getting a lot of flak too. Exactly like in this thread they were ready to tear me a new one.

When someone tears you a new one here, it's usually for being a broken clock, regardless of what time of day it happens to be.

 

[ironyuri]

The thing is that the quality level of DAO is almost bait and switch. For several of the origins (both the Dwarf origins at least), the gameplay/plot/even some choices are pretty good. It's when you get 1/3-1/2 through the game, to the Derp Roads and the Werewolf areas when the encounter design drops to shit and then so does writing and everything else.

So I'm curious when that poll was done.

This, re: DA:O.

I love playing dwarves in rpgs, don't ask why.

The dwarf origin stories piqued my interest. I played through the fucking horrible urn quest just so that I could go onto the dwarven section again, as a dwarf noble, and after however long the Deep Roads took 2.5 hours? Fuck. I nearly gave up. Despite my long-term love of dwarf-related shit in High Fantasy, the Deep Roads nearly broke me.

I steamed through the rest of the game without finishing all the quests, or the companion shit. Post-Deep Roads it was just a desire to finish and rebox that drove me. It is one of the most poorly designed areas in recent gaming history.

The forest w/ werewolves was marginally worse. And when you're worse than the Derp Roads, you're worse. The werewolf area was absolute bullshit, all of it. Nothing to redeem any of that shit.

 

[Excidium]

I kinda liked the forest. Working on becoming an Arcane Warrior and completing that armor set was p. fun.

 

[ironyuri]

I kinda liked the forest. Working on becoming an Arcane Warrior and completing that armor set was p. fun.

My character was a straight up fighter, also as I said, I skipped all side-content post Deep Roads to expedite the end of the game. I doubt I'll ever feel distant enough from DAO to want to replay it, to find out about that stuff though. :/

 

[Data4]

Then theres a lot , really a lot of hypocrisy around, i mean just go on steam and see what people in rpgcodex group are playing , all the afternoon i may add, such torment they must endure.
Make a satisfaction poll if you dare, once people have played it.But no omg skyrim being rpgcodex game of the year or second best game likely after darksouls, the outrage!

I don't know what's worse: hypocrisy or some internet creep stalking you on Steam to MAKE GODDAMN SURE your words match your actions.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Use FXAA injector rather than the absolute dogshit implementation bethesda has. better edge sampling, isn't blurry as fuck.

 

[commie]

Divinity 2 combat superior to skyrim ? they are both as primitive,you slash a bit and parry uses a few spells, i find divinity 2 being worse with the constant jumping attacks, it was never a challenge for me and was quickly boring .But you know what i dont remember many 3D rpgs doing better combats, dark souls , witcher 2 thats all.
Double standards again for bethesda games, flaws that are apparent in every other similar games become major and unforgivable: You can cut the throat to someone higher level ? my god its the same in every other rpgs...sneak doesnt instakill ? Its the same everywhere.The monsters and bandits stronghold are too close from town.. same in 99% of the games since the 80's, only games doing it right daggerfall, darklands.Id like too to see supply lines , merchant caravans, a realistic economy, X3 the space sim do it , but no rpg developper is doing it .

It's not just Skyway with the hypocritical stance regarding the 'plucky underdog' Div2. Many here praise that game with it's mediocre combat, magic missile spam, mass of straight line corridor dungeons filled with trash mobs, terrible dragon form system including a section where there is a arrow laden path telling you exactly where to go, small world made bigger with by cheating with masses of cutpasta fodder filled flying fortresses, masses of useless skills, oh and let's not forget the fetch/find quests that are abundant as well though Skyway only criticises those in other games. I enjoyed the game regardless particularly in the first area which almost seemed like Gothic in challenge and exploration(ironyuris bait and switch idea regarding DA:O comes to mind here), but I would never say that overall it is better mechanic wise than any other ARPG and certainly not better than even DA:O or Skyrim. The fanboyism here for div2 is bizarre. Haven't seen any other game with so many flaws get such a free pass on the codex. I know the Larian guys are all so 'tres witty' and self deprecating and all so lovable but niggaz please...

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Surprisingly, I only have three gripes with Skyrim that make the game pointless, so far:
1) Writing and VA. No "my father, the middle-aged guy"-grade retardation, yet, but the dialogues are both primitive and boring and the VAs sound like they're just reading sentences off a piece of paper, with no context whatsoever.
2) Linear dungeons and designers' reliance on Quest Compass. All the directions the NPCs ever give you is "go to <name>".
3) There's nothing to do in this game, except kill shit and loot stuff. And no [non-retarded] motivation to do that, either.


But hey, that makes it better than the rest of this year's bunch, so RPGOTY2012, for sure.

 

[Stinger]

But hey, that makes it better than the rest of this year's bunch, so RPGOTY2012, for sure.

What....that description makes it sound like it has nothing going for it whatsoever.

I'd take Witcher 2 over something like that (although frankly, Dead Money still takes the cake).

 

[Forest Dweller]

Wait, there's an rpgcodex group on steam?

 

[sgc_meltdown]

WELL WELL WELL WHAT HAVE WE HERE

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPGCodex/members

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

But hey, that makes it better than the rest of this year's bunch, so RPGOTY2012, for sure.

What....that description makes it sound like it has nothing going for it whatsoever.

Exactly. :/


Though, there was a tint of irony in what I said, I still liked TW2 even less - partly because I couldn't take its overwhelming concentrations of pretentiousness and soapy drama without frowning my face in. The writing quality and VA were obviously better in TW2, but what's the point if the context still made me cringe. The rest was either on par or balanced out by other pros/cons. Except character progression. Character progression is better in Skyrim.

Didn't play NV's DLCs, though - but frankly, I wouldn't consider DLCs for GOTYs, if I did. What are we gonna nominate next - patches? Pfft.

 

[thesoup]

WELL WELL WELL WHAT HAVE WE HERE

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPGCodex/members

Didn't know 'dex had a steam group. You will have the honor and prestige of having me as a member.

 

[visions]

Not to mention that combat in DA:O is definitely more difficult with more fights that caused me reloads and tactic/party member changes, whereas KOTOR is one of the easiest awesome-button games of all time with only two good fights (

I am playing Dragon Age right now on hard and within the past approx 40 hours of playtime ( the dlc village you got the golem from, Return to Ostagar dlc, Brecilian Forest, now Orzammar but not at the Deep Roads yet), I've had to reload three times because of a lost combat. I always use the same party. Just sayin'. Reloads were more frequent earlier on though.

The thing is that the quality level of DAO is almost bait and switch. For several of the origins (both the Dwarf origins at least), the gameplay/plot/even some choices are pretty good. It's when you get 1/3-1/2 through the game, to the Derp Roads and the Werewolf areas when the encounter design drops to shit and then so does writing and everything else.

Incidentally I am playing a dwarf with the commoner origin and Orzammar seems to be the most well done out of the locations, judging by both, the origin story and my second time there (with the probable exception of Deep Roads, haven't quite reached that yet), this goes for the visuals as well.

I kinda liked the forest. Working on becoming an Arcane Warrior and completing that armor set was p. fun.

I didn't mind the forest as well (as in, didn't find it horrible) but that may have been because of low expectations, since I was told that this is the most horrible part of the game. It also seemed quite short, compared to the redcliff + urn and mages + the fade (fuuuu) lines.

/DERAILIN' THE THREAD

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqaFGemOxW0

 

[Stinger]

WELL WELL WELL WHAT HAVE WE HERE

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPGCodex/members

Pretty much everyone playing a game is playing Skyrim.



What is this the MW2 boycott group?

Though, there was a tint of irony in what I said, I still liked TW2 even less - partly because I couldn't take its overwhelming concentrations of pretentiousness and soapy drama without frowning my face in. The writing quality and VA were obviously better in TW2, but what's the point if the context still made me cringe. The rest was either on par or balanced out by other pros/cons. Except character progression. Character progression is better in Skyrim. I am very smug about this issue.

Didn't play NV's DLCs, though - but frankly, I wouldn't consider DLCs for GOTYs, if I did. What are we gonna nominate next - patches? Pfft.

Fair enough-I agree that Witcher 2's plot was stupid and soapy (and annoyingly cutscene driven) but I'd rather take that over "I'm looking for an Old Guy hiding in a cave" or whatever it is that's in Skyrim. Also Witcher's Enhanced patch won Codex GOTY 2008 or was that your point?

 

[Stabwound]

So, I've played about 20 hours so far. To me, the most disappointing thing about the game by far is the lack of details NPCs will give you about quests. Yeah, that's a valid complaint that I saw others mention. This is much worse for the "randomized" radiant quests, where the game will pick a random area you haven't been to. Unfortunately, that often means a cave on the other side of the world, with no way to know where it is other than looking at the quest marker. The NPC will say something like "I need to you retrieve my stolen sword." and the quest journal will read "Get Dumbfuck's stolen sword from the Cave of Bandits." Really, it wouldn't have been hard to program it so that it gives you a general area or landmark to look around, even for the randomly generated quests.

I prefer to play with the quest/compass disabled, which you can mostly do, but when it comes to some of the quests, it's almost impossible. Exploring is fun, but when you hit a brick wall in a quest line and won't find the dungeon you're supposed to go to for 20 hours without looking at the map, it kind of ruins it. I guess you can LARP that the NPC is marking the location on your map, but it's disappointing that they couldn't put in the effort of giving you a vague direction to look in, like "in the valley near Whiterun." Not even the pre-set quests give you this kind of info, and contrary to what someone else said here, it doesn't seem like NPCs will give you information on most of the quests, either.

So, yeah. That's one big shitstain on what I think is otherwise a pretty good game.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

WELL WELL WELL WHAT HAVE WE HERE

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPGCodex/members

 

[Akasen]

WELL WELL WELL WHAT HAVE WE HERE

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RPGCodex/members

We had a Steam group? Consider me there!

 

[Excidium]

Nothing ever happens in that group, though. Hell, I don't know recognize 80% of the people there.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

So, I've played about 20 hours so far. To me, the most disappointing thing about the game by far is the lack of details NPCs will give you about quests. Yeah, that's a valid complaint that I saw others mention. This is much worse for the "randomized" radiant quests, where the game will pick a random area you haven't been to. Unfortunately, that often means a cave on the other side of the world, with no way to know where it is other than looking at the quest marker. The NPC will say something like "I need to you retrieve my stolen sword." and the quest journal will read "Get Dumbfuck's stolen sword from the Cave of Bandits." Really, it wouldn't have been hard to program it so that it gives you a general area or landmark to look around, even for the randomly generated quests.

I prefer to play with the quest/compass disabled, which you can mostly do, but when it comes to some of the quests, it's almost impossible. Exploring is fun, but when you hit a brick wall in a quest line and won't find the dungeon you're supposed to go to for 20 hours without looking at the map, it kind of ruins it. I guess you can LARP that the NPC is marking the location on your map, but it's disappointing that they couldn't put in the effort of giving you a vague direction to look in, like "in the valley near Whiterun." Not even the pre-set quests give you this kind of info, and contrary to what someone else said here, it doesn't seem like NPCs will give you information on most of the quests, either.

So, yeah. That's one big shitstain on what I think is otherwise a pretty good game.

Yeah. Stuff like this is retarded. And it's not just a fault of Skyrim. The only game that I remember giving actual directions was Entomorph.

 

[Data4]

Anyone having mouselag issues, here's a fix that worked for me.

Search your system for SkyrimPrefs.ini (mine is in My Documents\My Games\Skyrim).

Under [CONTROLS], set and/or add the following if not already there:

fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0350
bMouseAcceleration=0

To turn off Vsync, look under [DISPLAY] and add:

iPresentInterval=0

 

[Forest Dweller]

Well they can't really give directions if it's randomized. I don't see how looking at the map would be bad in that case.

So who can tell me about the factions? From what I can tell, there are the four guilds, and then either Imperials or Stormcloaks. Is that it?

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

My impressions so far: it's ok. It doesn't even come close to FO:NV which is the latest masterpiece. But it's ok. It's close to Riven or DKS, a bit better than the latest and a bit lesser than the first. It's certainly a lot better than Oblivion. Morrowind is a better game but Skyrim's more fun.

And, please, for heaven's sake:

SKYWAY SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH.

 

[ksjav]

Did anyone figure out how to disable HDR? I don't want to start wearing glasses after my eyes get fucked by all the color swimming and sudden brightness changes.

And yeah second correction on quest directions. After completing quite a few more quests it seems proper directions are rare, and most of the time people just go "let me mark it on your map!". Also you can't really ask the town guards for directions in towns (bros Oblivion is so much better than skyrim! herpa derpa), but theres one/two designated directions people in a town, problem is that you have to find them first, which means talking to pretty much every npc before you can do a quest for which the directions state "BRO GO TO THE STONE QUARTER AT NIGHT" :/
Luckily the clarovoyance(spelling) spell actually came in handy :D

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

I certainly prefer it to the Witcher 2 but I guess it's a question of taste. I of course prefer it to the Bioware crap. Really, it's not bad. Nothing to get utterly excited about neither, the writing's still as bland as you can expect it from a Bethesda game (Morrowind being the exception).
Skyrim's the embodiment of the "it's good for what it is" meme.