Skyrim - Bethesda, you should be very, very proud.

[Kraszu]

But then you'd be afraid of doing things on the off-chance it's a quest objective and you wouldn't get a reward for doing it before asking for the NPC's permission.

Yeah that is why I rather have the notification/NPC paying for something that you had already done, little derp for better gameplay is a good trade off there.

 

[zodden]

The only thing I FUCKING HATE are the posters who might be dishonest about their real enjoyment of it (and maybe lie to themselves first) because they invested time or even money in it.
Or those who like it very much and backpedal because of the haters.

I think the more likely hater here is the person who hates on it over and over without having played it and so just repeats what they read others posting. This person thinks that since the Codex hates on everything they must also be good little sheep. These posts are pretty obvious though to me.

As for me 110 hours in and level 33 on my first char and I am still having a blast. Haven't started civil war yet and probably 3/4 done with the main quest. 1Spent time looking for/reading about/installing various mods also and have fun with that too.

A few posts back a poster mentioned random exploring in dungeons. I do this now and then but I also like to generally get a quest before I go in. My random exploring has left me with quest items in my inventory that have weight and that I can't drop or know what to do with.

I was going to go in early on the Old Republic but now I may not even play that when the game launches next week unless I am done with this first.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

Saw a mudcrab the other day...then it took an arrow in the knee...


Skyrim is definitely a big incline. An incline from mostly shit doesn't mean too much, though.



My biggest problem with Skyrim is that every single time I'm getting excited about anything in the game, some facepalm-inducing bullshit is already waiting behind the nearest corner. Which means that even though there is quite a lot of good stuff, I can't take the world and characters seriously and eventually just don't care anymore.

I live in middle Europe, but Beth's take on pseudo-scandinavian culture is laughable even to me. Most of the time I don't feel the North from the people, I don't feel it in the soundtrack, the architecture... Well, people who maybe know the name Thor from that Marvel Comics abomination will be still happy, I guess.

Things might get better later on in the main story or whatever, but it will be harder to suspend my disbelief.


The rest of potential goodness is ruined by lazy implementation. A festival resulting from your quest to become a bard turns out to be a single cart of free cookies for the player. A group of mystic norse sages turn out to be three fragile old men living in a huge stone palace on a mountain, being treated as Tibet monks. And the moment you draw your sword to finish off that dragon, your horse runs in and kicks it to death (after taking out three bandits coming from the opposite direction, otherwise horsie would tank the dragon for you from the start, of course).
Even those interesting dialogues are botched by unability to interact beyond accepting a quest. If you could question people about their beliefs and loyalties and tell them stuff you found out elsewhere, the pretty well laid out political and social unrest wouldn't be in vain. Too much work for an AAA title, it seems.

And since Bethesda's motto seems to be "have fun now, think later/never", the remaining possible reasons why play an RPG are gone. Slightly less broken character system. Level scaling ,which makes anything you find on lower levels redundant. Overpowered crafting, which makes almost all stuff you can find redundant, and you don't even have to leave the city to get any materials needed.
IF the game had a clever story and good writing, I wouldn't mind being held by hand here and there in order to experience it as intended.

The darker (not grimdark!) theme helped a ton, and unlike Oblivion (downright repulsive to me) I can still have some fun with it. If they fix it so that saves don't get corrupted radomly, I will.
But most of my thoughts when playing will still go in the "what I'd do differently/not at all" direction.


Also:
-embarrassingly low-res textures right next to detailed ones
-stupid companions - they can only die from friendly fire! So it doesn't take care of stupid accidents and gives you an unkillable tanking bro as well.
-waterfalls - they finally look awesome, so they have to be fucking everywhere. In dozens.
-puzzle - the one you "solve" in many dungeons over and over in slight variations
-guards - Beth got clever and gave them al closedl helmets so that you don't mind the cloning. They all got an arrow in the knee, though.
-dragons - they pose no threat and are defeated easily, basically overgrown and rare cliff racers
-horses - your horse always wanders off the moment you get off it. It usually engages in combat, and is victorious most of the time. Did I mention horses can even kill dragons?



If I were 13, I would probably enjoy Skyrim a lot more. Remove the gore bits, add saturation filter and you can keep those 90+ ratings around, it would be an incredible kids' game. A pinnacle of CRPG? Not even close nearby.


Now please someone make a traditional fantasy game where 90% content isn't pulled out of the ass during one evening.

 

[Drakron]

unfortunately except for the few that are truly unique in their enchantments, daedric artifacts are worse than what you can make even with only 60s in smithing and enchantment. some quest rewards that could've been great are also leveled so that makes their only worth either disenchant or sell.

The maximum number of enchantments you can give a item are two, Daedric Artifacts usually have three enchantments.

Also you can improve then with smiting.

As for the quest rewards ... I looked at the testing cell and yes, some unique items are leveled (I seen 3 instances of the Nightingale blade and bow) but others are not and yes, they do offer random created leveled items only good to sell or to disenchant.

But is that a flaw? I found a amulet of 100% disease resistance ... I could disenchant it but I cannot replace it by creating a new one, enchanted gear be it found or awarded is usually better that what you have, not to say what are you proposing exactly?

If you make reward gear unique then enchanting became unless. if do not level reward gear then it either becomes overpowerful or useless ... did you even think about that?

-embarrassingly low-res textures right next to detailed ones
-stupid companions - they can only die from friendly fire! So it doesn't take care of stupid accidents and gives you an unkillable tanking bro as well.
-waterfalls - they finally look awesome, so they have to be fucking everywhere. In dozens.
-puzzle - the one you "solve" in many dungeons over and over in slight variations
-guards - Beth got clever and gave them al closedl helmets so that you don't mind the cloning. They all got an arrow in the knee, though.
-dragons - they pose no threat and are defeated easily, basically overgrown and rare cliff racers
-horses - your horse always wanders off the moment you get off it. It usually engages in combat, and is victorious most of the time. Did I mention horses can even kill dragons?

-I am not going to complain about attempting to lower VRAM use, besides 2048 textures for a bottle?
-Wrong, some companions are immortal but followers can die ... its just when they go into "crawling in the ground" due to low health enemies stop attacking and they recover, also they will die if a enemy attack connects when they are in "crawling in the ground".
-Is this really a complain?
-There are several, to my shame I was stuck for a while with the Observatory one in the Mages Guild Quest.The Claw Door and the Pillars are the most common one but not the only ones.
-Again, is this really a complain?
-Ok, I am getting fed up with this one ... Dragons in mythology range from overgrown lizards to the D&D "what a God am I" Dragon, I will NOT complain about Skyrim because their implementation is as valid as any.
-Yes, they can kill dragons at low levels ... dragons WILL kill then after you level enough, same with some of the wildlife that can also kill dragons, yet I lost my horse with the Magical Anomalies so you are trying to pass Horses as Invulnerable Machines of Death you are simply ... WRONG, also a lot of people would rather the horses were more coward since they can get themselves killed by charging a bandit camp and just because they are victorious at lv 5-10 when the most you see is a bandit, they will not when the tougher versions of bandits start to spawn often.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

If you make reward gear unique then enchanting became unless. if do not level reward gear then it either becomes overpowerful or useless ... did you even think about that?

Results from enchanting could be completely different from what you can find. At the very least, different strength of various enchantments could be stronger either when enchanted or found, so that for example you could make a powerful fire weapon yourself, but handmade paralysis would be relatively weak.
Or the most useful combinations could be hard/impossible to find, so that a crafted combination of weaker ones would be a valid option.

By the way, this is already present, to a degree. Probably a side effect of random item and skill design, rather than intention.

 

[villain of the story]

Big problem with Enchanting is that the perks are utter shit. Fire/Frost/Magick and HP/MP/Stamina buffs dominate the already few perks. Useless. And it doesn't even make sense that Fire/Frost/Magick are the linear steps in one single branch.

-Ok, I am getting fed up with this one ... Dragons in mythology range from overgrown lizards to the D&D "what a God am I" Dragon, I will NOT complain about Skyrim because their implementation is as valid as any.

Not to mention they also look fucking good as well (easily the best ones in recent gaming history as far as my knowledge goes) and act like you would expect from a huge winged beast breathing fire and frost. Unlike the retarded shit they tried to pass on as dragon fights in Dragon Age. Their only real flaw is that they are ridiculously easy to kill. And their predictability.

BUT, they could at least try to add more variety. Add some overgrown lizard type dragons here, leathery disgusting winged dragons there where each required different tactics etc. Predictability damages the experience.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

Villain, no dragon can look "dirty". It HAS to be gritty, man.

 

[Drakron]

BUT, they could at least try to add more variety.

They kinda have a range of attacks, Blood Dragons do use their tails so if you go into their backs thinking its safe you would suffer damage and I seen Dragons using their bite attacks on guards and even on me ... its a instant kill move but its a attack.

I would say the problem is Dragons pretty much just use the breath shout, if they used the other shouts they they would be more dangerous since they could negate all damage with the Spirit Shout, weaken the player with the Marked for Death Shout and ruining the day with the Storm Call, apparent they can use Fireball, Ice Storm and Unrelenting Force but I never seem then doing so.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

I still think that whatever valid points you bring in it, people here either cross a thin line into like or dislike, really not caring.

Let's just cool down, shit over other stuff (Amalur, Grimrock, Legends of Dawn, Vogel remakes), and wait what AWESOMENESS TESVI will bring.

Oh, yes, by the way: let's open the bets of the location and title of the next TES.

 

[crufty]

What I would like to be able to do is l1 r1 on a target and have my companions attack it. I would also like to l2 r2 on a spot and have companions retreat to that location.

On the mq I escorted that riverwood chick w. out fast travel, and on the way we pass that (pretty cool) bandit hideout bridge. We take fire and...she charges up the stairwell. Now, what was one red dot, turns into 20. Great. Arrows are flying. She takes a knee. Immediately all the bandits coverage on my location, and I get oneshotted by the bandit leader.

Reload. This time I save before the bridge. And.....again, as we pass under, she takes fire, turns around and goes apeshit. And again, she takes a knee. I am quickly overwhelmed and die. And again.


Similar thing, riverwood or whatever, to some spot in tthe west, this time with two. I don't mind fast travel on my own, but when escorting or getting escorted I prefer to do it the long way.

Except now...right after my save, w t h is that. A dragon? Across the river. And with cries of ecstasy and joy, my two companions draw their bows and eagerly draw the dragon towards us. As the dragon sets our trail on fire, he flies over a mountain. Oh great. Guess who's going up the mountain? Gagh.

 

[flushfire]

The maximum number of enchantments you can give a item are two, Daedric Artifacts usually have three enchantments.

Also you can improve then with smiting.

In the case of weapons, base damage is still the most important. 2nd is IMO paralyze, which no daedric artifact has. Because of the way smithing works, at 100 you can only upgrade daedric artifacts to flawless while regular weapons to legendary if you have the relevant perks. AFAIK you will need 192 smithing to upgrade daedric artifacts to legendary, but regular weapons would also upgrade better at that level, because upgrading goes beyond legendary.

As for the extra enchantment, less than half have 3.

If you make reward gear unique then enchanting became unless. if do not level reward gear then it either becomes overpowerful or useless ... did you even think about that?

Reward and crafted items can both be unique but I don't think that's necessary. Reward/loot can easily be balanced by the difficulty of acquisition. Other games have done it before.

 

[villain of the story]

Oh, yes, by the way: let's open the bets of the location and title of the next TES.

I wish they returned to the Daggerfall formula, that is, a geographically limited (but still large as MW/OB/SK in gameworld size) zone intersecting a few provinces with a bigger focus politics and all that. I hate that they have reduced the entirety of Tamriel and its entire culture to a pocketful of a backwood landpatch of tribals pretending to be big shots.

Anyway, I think they might go full retard once again. Especially if they decide to stage Summerset Isle as the next location, what with MAGICAL ISLAND!

I think the most likely candidate is Hammerfell or High Rock, or both!

Black Marsh and Elsweyr are out of question imo because they would be too much outside the comfort zone of Bethesda and TES fan base ie. Tolkienesque fantasy with humans and elves where beastly races are only an exotic sight. Also too much "new stuff" for Bethesda to handle and possibly too much work without any financial benefit over picking safer options. Black Marsh, going by the lore, would be cool, though. Swamps, different variants of lizard people, a completely different, alien culture.

Anyway, that leaves Summerset Isle, Valenwood, Hammerfell and High Rock.

Valenwood would be out as well because it's, again going by the lore, pretty dull and is already done. Forests. Greenery. It's also considered a wasteland by other races and holds no organised civilisation. No game appeal.

Not sure about Summerset Isle. But I know this for sure that if they pick Summerset Isle exclusively for the next location, there will be some mystery magic crisis where the Altmer will have been losing their magic and dying out as a race and mysteriously, the player will be this almost sole protagonist who will be able learn and master magic or some shit along those lines.

But anyway, I feel that the "one province at a time" business model for TES has become outdated. I don't think they will do it again, doing one place exclusively.

In fact, I think they will start doing that for Skyrim, already. This was the first thing that the 3D map made me think of. It is so flexible and already contains 3D landmass of other provinces, they will add limited zones from other provinces in DLCs with new quest lines.

My gut is telling me that the next TES game will contain a huge landmass from at least two other provinces and those will be Hammerfell and High Rock. And in fact, they might even include parts of Elsewyr and Black Marsh, if only for completion's sake so entire games staged exclusively in those provinces won't be expected of them by anyone again.

 

[Drakron]

I think the most likely candidate is Hammerfell or High Rock, or both!

I say no because Daggerfall already cover it and people would comparing to it.

Black Marsh and Elsweyr are out of question imo because they would be too much outside the comfort zone of Bethesda and TES fan base ie. Tolkienesque fantasy with humans and elves where beastly races are only an exotic sight.

I would not say so, when Oblivion come out there were complains it was not Morrowind and I would even say Shivering Isle design was influenced by it.

Valenwood would be out as well because it's, again going by the lore, pretty dull and is already done. Forests. Greenery. It's also considered a wasteland by other races and holds no organised civilisation. No game appeal.

Except it was only done in Arena and its pretty open, the thing it works against is how little there to work it besides a few things.

Also it would work well since its similar to Skyrim, you can get away with a few towns because its supposed to be like that.

Not sure about Summerset Isle. But I know this for sure that if they pick Summerset Isle exclusively for the next location, there will be some mystery magic crisis where the Altmer will have been losing their magic and dying out as a race and mysteriously, the player will be this almost sole protagonist who will be able learn and master magic or some shit along those lines.

Yes, if we ignore the whole Thalmor thing ... serious, there are things to work with Summerset Isle but I think they would pass it because the feeling I get is that its like High Rock, its a densely populated area.

I think you are missing a point, with current technology its almost impossible to compete with Daggerfall that is the bar, they cannot do another Arena or Daggerfall because the current level of technology does not allow such massive worldspace, development would have to take 10 years because how long it would take to put everything on it.

I would say Black Marsh, Elsweyr and Valenwood have the bigger chance to be the next one since there are several plot hooks in Skyrim ... the invasion of Morrowind by the Argonians, the disappearance of the Moons and the rooting of Falinesti.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

Akavir.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I would say Black Marsh, Elsweyr and Valenwood have the bigger chance to be the next one since there are several plot hooks in Skyrim ... the invasion of Morrowind by the Argonians, the disappearance of the Moons and the rooting of Falinesti

For the record, NPCs in Oblivion would constantly talk about an incoming crisis in Summerset (when they weren't debating about the nature of mudcrabs).

 

[Turjan]

I think the most likely candidate is Hammerfell or High Rock, or both!

I say no because Daggerfall already cover it and people would comparing to it.

Yup. Can you imagine Bethesda ever building another Sentinel?

 

[Neeshka]

My biggest problem with Skyrim is that every single time I'm getting excited about anything in the game, some facepalm-inducing bullshit is already waiting behind the nearest corner. Which means that even though there is quite a lot of good stuff, I can't take the world and characters seriously and eventually just don't care anymore.

The rest of potential goodness is ruined by lazy implementation.

And since Bethesda's motto seems to be "have fun now, think later/never", the remaining possible reasons why play an RPG are gone. Slightly less broken character system. Level scaling ,which makes anything you find on lower levels redundant. Overpowered crafting, which makes almost all stuff you can find redundant, and you don't even have to leave the city to get any materials needed.
IF the game had a clever story and good writing, I wouldn't mind being held by hand here and there in order to experience it as intended.

The darker (not grimdark!) theme helped a ton, and unlike Oblivion (downright repulsive to me) I can still have some fun with it. If they fix it so that saves don't get corrupted radomly, I will.
But most of my thoughts when playing will still go in the "what I'd do differently/not at all" direction.

I agree with all of what you posted. It's funny how reviewers and fanboys completely gloss over all of Bethesda's shoddy development efforts.

Level scaling though not universally a bad idea is horribly implemented in skyrim. Some enemies seem to have a fixed level : trolls - around 20 ? giants around 30ish and dragon priests probably 35. Othere than that everything seems to very loosely scale with your level [Draugr - vanilla, restless, wight, scourge, overlord, deathlord]. But this scaling stops at around level 40 or so. Games like diablo 2 or borderlands probably have the best or most balanced enemy level scaling that I can think of.

Another problem that worsens the situation is that after a somewhat intelligent selection of perks, everything dies in 1-2 power attack hits.

Companion AI and scaling being mong-mode is also frustrating; I keep killing them in 1 hit .....

No matter the difficulty, AI and your own attack strategy is exactly the same for EVERY SINGLE ENEMY.
nudge close, power attack x2, nudge back, potions repeat.

Crafting/enchanting+alchemy is totally broken; there is basically zero incentive to ever get any loot in the game.

Nothing will ever beat a fully upgraded daedric sword with paralysis+fire or shock and damage health poison.

If that's the case what's the point in fighting harder enemies ? And then again "harder" enemies don't even exist as a concept in this game.

Bethesda games have a very very serious lack of incentive to play them or the feeling of increased power and the ability to face more challenging content as seen in most RPGs and even mmo's. I mean think of BG2. Your character slowly becomes a god, and enemies drop amazing loot; and are more and more challenging. In skyrim this progression system is just absent.

I guess certain demographics find the slow-motion badly animated kill sequences cool but they're positively rage-inducing for me.

Beth games = single player mmo hiking simulators for nerdy LARP types.

 

[villain of the story]

I think you are missing a point, with current technology its almost impossible to compete with Daggerfall that is the bar, they cannot do another Arena or Daggerfall because the current level of technology does not allow such massive worldspace, development would have to take 10 years because how long it would take to put everything on it.

AssCreed series disagree with you on getting that "populated huge city" level. Bethesda should drop this bullshit about small towns masquerading as cities with named NPCs and go partial procedural and try to make a real population. But either way, I wasn't talking about land mass, the physical scope of the game but the thematic scope, politics, having more than one major "nativity" factor, bouncing between courts of different provinces and cultures.

Also, let's not bring "technology level" into it. Unless you're a teenager, you ought to know better, that it's a bullshit argument. It can be done. Technology is here and gives us many tools to be clever but nobody needs to be clever and creative because generic Tolkienesque shit with a few towns pretending to be a big old culture sells like hot cakes. Assassin's Creed has done a great deal in that area and it was barely scratching the surface in terms of utilising the technological potential.

And that's also the basic axiom of Bethesda. Tolkienesque fantasy. Beastly races are their exoticism appeal, not a selling point. Replacing humans and elves with beasts... I just don't see it happening. Not as exclusive one-province stages.

Black Marsh and Elsweyr are out of question imo because they would be too much outside the comfort zone of Bethesda and TES fan base ie. Tolkienesque fantasy with humans and elves where beastly races are only an exotic sight.

I would not say so, when Oblivion come out there were complains it was not Morrowind and I would even say Shivering Isle design was influenced by it.

"There were complaints"

I'm pretty sure whatever complaints there were, were invalidated by impressive sale figures in the eyes of Bethesda. As for speculating about public perception, is this the time I should say "I saw people heaping praise on Oblivion as a bold step away from Morrowind, the lifeless boring wasteland". I can't remember how many times I saw that argument. There were massive amounts of complaints about a LOT of things. None of which Bethesda gave a shit about. Because they don't need to.

Also, can you even imagine the guys going up to the suits and telling "so the next game will take place in the land of reptillian people / furries"?

Valenwood would be out as well because it's, again going by the lore, pretty dull and is already done. Forests. Greenery. It's also considered a wasteland by other races and holds no organised civilisation. No game appeal.

Except it was only done in Arena and its pretty open, the thing it works against is how little there to work it besides a few things.

Well, they did Morrowind, Cyrodiil and Skyrim even though they were also done in Arena, so how exactly is that even an argument? It's not, of course.

Yes, if we ignore the whole Thalmor thing ... serious, there are things to work with Summerset Isle but I think they would pass it because the feeling I get is that its like High Rock, its a densely populated area.

Cyrodiil was supposed to be densely populated, what with being the cosmopolitan center of multikult, and with great political nuance if we are to go by the lore. It was also supposed to be a jungle. "Emprah changed the climate LOLOLOL".

I would say Black Marsh, Elsweyr and Valenwood have the bigger chance to be the next one since there are several plot hooks in Skyrim ... the invasion of Morrowind by the Argonians, the disappearance of the Moons and the rooting of Falinesti.

Yeah, look how all those plot hooks turned out for Skyrim, set 200 years after Oblivion, burying all of the previous games in history, though I'm sure most people see that as "developing game history". Past events that don't mean a thing. Entire series' lore is full of very interesting events, recent and distant, which Bethesda doesn't seem to give a crap about incorporating as game elements. They even let a hack of a writer rip TES lore to pieces with his below-mediocre sewage masquerading as books that took a good long shit on several good things. What more do I need to say?

I would say Black Marsh, Elsweyr and Valenwood have the bigger chance to be the next one since there are several plot hooks in Skyrim ... the invasion of Morrowind by the Argonians, the disappearance of the Moons and the rooting of Falinesti

For the record, NPCs in Oblivion would constantly talk about an incoming crisis in Summerset (when they weren't debating about the nature of mudcrabs).

Yeah, they talked about it 200 years ago. That crisis has come and gone, bringing a minor political faction in Summerset Isle into power which ended up with the invasion of the empire.

It also doesn't fit a game lore context for people to be talking about an imminent crisis that could take 200+ years to happen, to have the crisis itself as the next stage for a TES game. Skyrim took care of that. It would have worked were it not for Skyrim fast forwarding time so substantially.

Yup. Can you imagine Bethesda ever building another Sentinel?

What exactly is the problem with "another Sentintel"? Should we also talk about "another X place" since Arena had the entirety of Tamriel, however generic and shit?

I think the most likely candidate is Hammerfell or High Rock, or both!

I say no because Daggerfall already cover it and people would comparing to it.

Once again, the same argument that goes for the entirety of Tamriel. And so what? People have been comparing the immense landmass of previous games to the newer games since forever. Bethesda doesn't give a shit about logistics issues like that.

It's not that I'm desperate to disagree with you. It's that your reasons are contrived bullshit.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

You have the ball, villain. But, to be honest, all the TES games I tried bored me (I played from Morrowind onwards). Since daggerfall XL came out, would you recommend me trying it? How much better is Daggerfall compared to Morrowind?

 

[villain of the story]

Daggerfall is my favourite TES game and in my top 10 RPGs but to be fair to a newcomer, it could be summed up as a dungeon romp. Content wise, it's very repetitive and can become dull and especially vomit inducing if you have a poor sense of spatial movement and don't have the stomach for maze-like dungeons. But it has the best game mechanics in the series and it's those mechanics themselves that make you play and explore the game.

It's perfectly playable in DosBox though, and DaggerXL is far from complete.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

I know. I was just using it as a workaround for my laziness in setting up DosBox.

The only thing I would ask is if there's a reasonable chance of respite from combat if you clear a zone and don't wander off - because that kinda thing annoyed me verily in an otherwise awesome game, Wizardry.

 

[Carrion]

I wish they returned to the Daggerfall formula, that is, a geographically limited (but still large as MW/OB/SK in gameworld size) zone intersecting a few provinces with a bigger focus politics and all that. I hate that they have reduced the entirety of Tamriel and its entire culture to a pocketful of a backwood landpatch of tribals pretending to be big shots.

This would be cool, although very unlikely. In general, I'd like to see a smaller part of some province instead of the whole thing. Morrowind felt just right because, you know, Vvardenfell was not the entire Morrowind. Skyrim (the game) shouldn't really be any bigger than it is, but it might've been better had they just set the thing in some part of Skyrim instead of trying to do the whole province.

 

[villain of the story]

For fuck's sake, this game is offendingly unintelligent. I just did the bard's college quest.

They send you out to find a long lost Edda from King Olaf's time in history missing from the Poetic Edda, which is the "living history of Skyrim where Each bard adds to the edda in his or her time" in Giraud Gemane's, the dean of history of bards college, own words.

Spoiler

You find the edda along with the silent ghost of the long dead bard who wrote it and he leads you to the burial chamber of King Olaf, the subject of his edda. After defeating an undead King Olaf, he seems to play his lute and disappear. This latter part is entirely optional and not a part of the quest, btw. You can return the edda the moment you find it without giving a damn about the ghost though you find a word of power in the burial chamber.

Then, back at the bards college, Viarmo, the headmaster of the colege, finds that some key verses have become unreadable over time. You propose to make up the missing parts and he jumps on it. Now, apart from how seemingly inconsistent this is compared to how the bards college is such a serious establishment studying and preserving history through verses and shit, the things you get to make up are retarded.

But what really is offending is that the game has utter disregard for your little optional encounter with the bard's ghost and the confrontation with King Olaf. I found the quest itself interesting and colourful in nature but they could have done it so much sensibly. It could be that after you defeat King Olaf, the ghost bard would sing his Edda one last time to you before disappearing and you could then relay it to Viarmo or actively lie about it and how they would receive your version of the "truth" would be another matter but it would be a good way of handling and recognising the player's involvement in events.

Instead, we get absolute juvenile crap that's aimed at 12 yo fucking morons.

The entire game is full of similar moments. There are many interesting quests but they fuck it up in favour of simplistic juvenile crap. Every. Single. Time.

 

[villain of the story]

I know. I was just using it as a workaround for my laziness in setting up DosBox.

The only thing I would ask is if there's a reasonable chance of respite from combat if you clear a zone and don't wander off - because that kinda thing annoyed me verily in an otherwise awesome game, Wizardry.

There are no "zones". There is no wilderness and free-roaming sandbox world in the same sense there is in later entries of the series. You can of course walk forever in the wilderness but it's utterly pointless. There are towns, cities and dungeons and dungeons reset upon exiting/entering.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

Since thay like bugs and laughing, maybe they'll take the saints row path, huh? Going full retard and crafting a massive game only for the lulz.