Skyrim is worse than Oblivion in every way

[Vaarna_Aarne]

@ricolikesrice what a post

Why I "prefer" Skyrim over MMOs? (And for me Skyrim is a 5/10 game)

-Grinding is not forced upon you.
-After 25 hours I played this game I'm done with it, in an MMO I wouldn't have achieved anything in that time (Maybe reached lvl 20 or so)
-I see dungeons traveling there alone

So the prime reason is that it is shorter and I can see dungeons without having to join a group full of random morons. This is the main problem with MMOs after I played WoW for 200 hours I can't play an MMO similar to that anymore (The same goes for more open MMOs like UO which I also played 200+ hours)

Join our band of bros in DCUO or Champions Online. CO in particular is pretty much the perfect MMO for a person who has pet peeves like that with the genre, since it does a lot of things differently. It is also in a blessed state where there is no fucking gearing bullshit.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Morrowind had also lots of quests that could be solved without fight. No idea how Skyrim compares.

What I've noticed is that you can rarely if ever talk your way through non-quest encounters with hostile NPCs.

You did say "rarely", so maybe this is just one of those rare instances, but...

Spoiler

The quest with the Redguard mercs looking for a girl ends with a fight or parley and deal situation. Not sure if there are any long-term consequences to the decision (doubtful), but I chose to hand her over to the mercs. Assuming they're speaking the truth, she betrayed her city in Hammerfell to the Aldmeri Dominion and is wanted by the Hammerfell Nobles for treason. Seeing as how I hate the Dominion, I took them at their word. The alternative is to fight 6 guys of unknown strength in a bandit cave.

Are you sure they're not Thalmor colaborators? She told me she's from ocupied city and is hunted for speaking against Thalmor, judging from conversations with High Elf in Imperial service met in Driften Thalmor does has the habit of hunting down disidents outside their borders.

 

[ThunderHorse]

what i dont get is why people who like huge worlds to explore and can even forgive a few flaws for doing so ..... well why do they play TES games instead of trying out MMORPG which imho do the "TES gameplay" much better ?

i mean from the biggest hater to the biggest apologist i think we can all agree on that storytelling and world-changing quests arent exactly Bethesda s forte and i doubt it suddenly became in Skyrim ( i havent played it yet btw and am not trying to bash on it, hell based on the "proper morrowind sequel" vibe i ve been getting i might check the GOTY/modded version out sometime ) and thats the biggest weakness of MMORPGs ... but heck as far as i m concerned some quests/story-bits and writing i encountered in MMORPGs been far better than not only what bethesda but even what bioware (okay those arent exactly high standards :p) had to offer.

so what do these games/Skyrim offer that MMORPGs dont ?

-explore a huge world ? good MMORPGs have far bigger worlds with far more variety and far better designed dungeons.

-combat & character development ? pretty much any MMORPG eats skyrim for breakfast in this department. mostly because bethesda doesnt give a rats ass about balance in their singleplayer game while MMORPGs have to be remotely well-balanced if only for the PVP crowd.

-loot ? TES games are awful in this department , especially after oblivion (and what i m reading of skyrim) scale loot tables to player level (correct me if i m wrong regarding skyrim) .... meanwhile Loot is they key factor in MMORPGs so they usually do it very well.

the only advtange i could see in TES favour would be:

1. its only you playing and you ll never meet random internet morons (which you can happily ignore most of the time in MMORPGs - you might miss out on some group specific content but most semi-recent MMORPGs are entirely playable "solo" for the largest part)

2. you only pay once (hahaha, DLC, hahaha ) opposed to a monthly fee. then again plenty of MMORPGs have free trials or are entirely free (unless you desperatly crave pink hats) to play and even if there s a monthly sub ..... is 10 bucks really that much if you can get 100 hours of fun for it ? unless you buy a MMORPG at release the base game is usually free/cheap pretty quick.

3. modding in penises and animated gay sex/sodomy (ok thats a huge drawback but you could just use TES games for mastrurbation purposes and then play a MMORPG until you re ready for the next act of digital perversion )

honestly, what am i missing when people say they "enjoy TES games because there s nothing else like it" ? from where i m standing there s dozens of similar but much better (combat, exploration, balance, loot, challenge, crafting size, variety etc.) games whether its age of conan, guildwars, warhammer online, DDO, whatever, that despite being MMORPGs can be played just like a solo game except that you might encounter R4Nd0M R3T4RD once in a while and can only tackle group content once you outleveled it.

the way they play TES games are like "offline MMORPGs" that are inferior to their online counterparts in pretty much every single way , yet they are soo freaking popular, whats the catch ? why would guildwars 2 never create that much buzz around here despite most likely being an in every way superior game (that doesnt even charge monthly) ? if you go "apples and oranges" please explain why.

Well this is easy.
MMO's Tend to demand some sort of commitment if you want to be a part of a meaningful guild. For adults who value their real lives, they don't want to feel committed to play a GAME.
MMO lore and quests are virtually ignored and silly mmo players take any and all immersion out of it by their "lets go a pwn some n00bz and get uber lottz from this mob!" mindset and lingo
No MMO has ever captured the mood and environment I've seen so far in Skyrim.
MMO's always end up motivated be trying to keep a subscription base which has resulted in horrible dumbing down of mechanics.

Your argument against mods is horrible. Sure some pathetic kids just want to make nude mods, but you seem to be neglecting the majority of mods which add graphical enhancements, world enhancements, gameplay enhancements and many, many, other useful types.
Try again maybe?

 

[Gord]

Are you sure they're not Thalmor colaborators? She told me she's from ocupied city and is hunted for speaking against Thalmor, judging from conversations with High Elf in Imperial service met in Driften Thalmor does has the habit of hunting down disidents outside their borders.

It all comes down to who you trust more. No idea if there are some additional informations hidden somewhere.
At least they did indeed not kill her outright.

 

[made]

@rico instead of Skyrim, you should play LotRO if you haven't yet - it beats Skyrim in every way imaginable despite its obvious MMO trappings:

-better world design (without level scaling) with many distinct, atmospheric areas
-better writing and story
-better quests (tons of kill X, but also a good number of extensive storyline quests)
-better dungeons that don't consist of a single long corridor
-better, if excessively grindy, crafting
-factions with ranks and reputations
-better character system
-better combat
-you can ride around on your horse for hours on end and "explore" just like in Skyrim

 

[Kraszu]

Not the biggest fan of static open world games, but the things that is better there is that you can use different builds that don't have to be optional it is much more chill in that way, and you can abuse the gameworld in various ways, you can steal very powerful items early on, use magic as was noted. Your equipment is useful nobody will give you sword better sword because it cost 15gold, and he has 38525275gold now lolz. When you do something it will stay that way, you are free to kill most NPC or all of them, and they will not resurrect either. You don't stand in line to get a quest or a respown.

And you don't have to talk with other people. Forums are less intrusive form of communication then chatting.

 

[UserNamer]

I have said this in the other threads and I will repeat it here, I can't get over how boring the combat is... I am playing on the highest difficulty setting, and I had to use the traps in the first dungeon to get over the incredibly boring zombie fights. Can somebody tell me if fighting gets more fun later on? It's absolutely worthless right now, and also overly long for how boring and bland it is. Maybe I should lower the difficulty, but then I'm afraid the game would get a lot more pointless.

Anyway I have played very little of it, I think no more than 3 hours in small bursts.

other notes:

-the npcs are as repetitive as ever with their stupid fucking lines...
-the music, while good, is out of place most of the time. Why must epic music play when I'm fighting a worthless bandit or a shitty zombie in the first fucking dungeon? It annoys me, I think it is pompous... also the first small village has an EPIC background music. I think it's retarded. Can't they save the epic music for the actually epic moments?

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Jesus fucking christ. This place is retarded. Every fucking AAA piece of shit that comes out is the same fucking story. I can't wait until three months from now when everyone hates Bethesda again.

Bunch of faggots, I swear.

 

[Nael]

Because i am lazy, don't feel like reloading, and for great bumpage does anyone know if you can take alternate paths on the more evil Daedric quests like Molag Bal and Namira to help the priests or Vigilants of Stendaar to thwart the Daedric Princes?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

yeah, don't do the quest.

 

[ThunderHorse]

Jesus fucking christ. This place is retarded. Every fucking AAA piece of shit that comes out is the same fucking story. I can't wait until three months from now when everyone hates Bethesda again.

Bunch of faggots, I swear.

Lol@ this guy judging games based solely on the company who makes them.

 

[Data4]

Morrowind had also lots of quests that could be solved without fight. No idea how Skyrim compares.

What I've noticed is that you can rarely if ever talk your way through non-quest encounters with hostile NPCs.

You did say "rarely", so maybe this is just one of those rare instances, but...

Spoiler

The quest with the Redguard mercs looking for a girl ends with a fight or parley and deal situation. Not sure if there are any long-term consequences to the decision (doubtful), but I chose to hand her over to the mercs. Assuming they're speaking the truth, she betrayed her city in Hammerfell to the Aldmeri Dominion and is wanted by the Hammerfell Nobles for treason. Seeing as how I hate the Dominion, I took them at their word. The alternative is to fight 6 guys of unknown strength in a bandit cave.

Are you sure they're not Thalmor colaborators? She told me she's from ocupied city and is hunted for speaking against Thalmor, judging from conversations with High Elf in Imperial service met in Driften Thalmor does has the habit of hunting down disidents outside their borders.

That was the chance I took. I figure if they did renege on their word to not kill her on sight, I'd kill the guy in retaliation to satisfy my inner LARPer. It was just that main guy when you turn her in, so the fight wouldn't have been as lopsided.

 

[Data4]

i m not sure why you get the idea you are pissing me off by playing skyrim , certainly cant be from my post were i even wrote i ll likely play it myself at some point - but i find these "this guys dumb, who s with me?" type of posts hilarious. if you cant even think/talk for your own on an internet forum thats really fucking sad mate .... also you may adress me directly when you have your own balls back

Well, given the time and effort you put into your post detailing why those of us who are playing and-- for the most part-- liking Skyrim should play another game, it looked to me like you were damn near offended that someone who is not you is playing a game that you're not. The premise is so ridiculous that it sounds much more fun than saying "I'm playing it because it's surprisingly good in parts and I'm having fun with it."

Kinda like talking Xenu to a Scientologist.

 

[Mortmal]

Game of Thrones? Mature? It's so shitty that it makes Dragon Age 2 look like Lord of the Rings.

Let me guess , youll say you prefer jack vance no ?

 

[hoopy]

Game of Thrones? Mature? It's so shitty that it makes Dragon Age 2 look like Lord of the Rings.

Let me guess , youll say you prefer jack vance no ?

No, and I've never even read anything by him.

 

[Notorious]

-Grinding is not forced upon you.

and WHO forces you to grind in MMORPGs ?you can easily go from 1-60 in WoW without grinding a single minute just by exploring and doing quests (WoW just being the most popular example) . of course grinding easy enemies that can barely touch you often is the most efficient way to level up / gain loot .... but who forces you to play like that ? may i remind you that in Morrowind you could level up by doing nothing but jumping around like a retard for hours upon hours ? or casting the same single spell over and over for hours ? i m pretty sure the later was/is more efficient then going around the world and exploring so why doesnt anyone complain about that kind of grinding which is even more stupid than grinding in MMORPGs?
because you dont HAVE TO play like that, thats why.

there usually is challenging and non-grindy content for singleplayer in any recent western MMORPG so the only one forcing you to grind would be yourself which brings us to the next point...

How are the quests in WoW not grinding? I mean you can write a story around killing 10 wolves, but you still have to kill 10 wolves (Thus you have to grind). I haven't seen many quests in Skyrim that do similar things like that (Like collect 10 stones etc.) They are there, but rather rare. (That somehow rhymed)

-After 25 hours I played this game I'm done with it, in an MMO I wouldn't have achieved anything in that time (Maybe reached lvl 20 or so)

oh, you didnt "achieve" anything . well if thats how you play MMORPGs than thats your problem. when i play a MMORPG i play it like i played Morrowind: explore the world, do interesting quests, travel around and when the game gets boring (sometimes that happens before reaching max level, sometimes not) try a different class starting in a different place of the world and explore what you havent seen ..... and ultimativly stop playing the game when it gets to the "grindy" parts. thats EXACTLY how TES games play - hence my post. except that recent MMORPGs had far better world & combat design.

The problem with WoW was that there were no interesting quests only an interesting game concept and an interesting world. (And a good combat system I guess)
The advantage of Skyrim is that the quests are generally more interesting and the places they lead to.

-I see dungeons traveling there alone

apart from there being lots of singleplayer-friendly dungeons in most western MMORPGs there s also the thing of having a great time by doing group dungeons when you are more powerful, i.e. say doing a group dungeon intented for lvl 40 on your own at lvl 45+. usually highly challenging, rewarding and possible in any good MMORPG.

I'm sure that there are MMOs out there with single player dungeons and I have had alot of fun in dungeons in online games.
The point is that Skyrim attracts so many people because it's a single player game. The quests don't need to waste your time, because the developers don't care how long you play it, because you have given them all the money they can get from you from this game. So all they want is to make a good game to make you buy their future games.

Don't misunderstand me, I loved WoW and Ultima (And a few shards), but I'm done with the concept of making quests resolving around grinding and killing tons of mobs. In Skyrim I can sneak around enemies, in an MMO that would be impractical (And most times even impossible) because I would lose a lot of loot and xp's. Getting to a relative high level takes 10 times as long in your average MMO then it does in open world sp games like Skyrim simply because they don't need you to play their games for 100s of hours.

 

[Notorious]

Join our band of bros in DCUO or Champions Online. CO in particular is pretty much the perfect MMO for a person who has pet peeves like that with the genre, since it does a lot of things differently. It is also in a blessed state where there is no fucking gearing bullshit.

Hmm these games seem to combine the trash quests from WoW with the trash quests from games like Assassins Creed or Prototype. (From a few videos I have seen on yt) There might be more to these games but it doesn't matter because I sadly don't care for the superhero genre one bit.
I just wish they would combine the quests of games like Arcanum and BG2 with an MMO but that would probably be too much work.

 

[Xi]

Quests are always going to be fetch or kill. There's just not much else one can do with them. A quest is another word for "work." It doesn't matter what you do to them, you can't fill a game with interesting quests because eventually interesting quests become boring too.

What examples of quest styles are there beyond kill/fetch/deliver? And, can they be implemented with any amount of frequency?

You have to design a totally different style of gameplay that doesn't involve quests for it to work. Not sure what that would be, but maybe the quest concept is just coming to an end? Lots of quests? So what. What people want, is gameplay that changes the world. Choices/Consequences.

When you deliver something, and the reward is gold. It doesn't matter how much variety they have. They will become pointless. The reward needs to be changes to the game state. Changes to the politics, NPC factions, etc that reflect what has occurred. That's rewarding.

 

[attackfighter]

The advantage of Skyrim is that the quests are generally more interesting and the places they lead to.

 

[attackfighter]

Quests are always going to be fetch or kill. There's just not much else one can do with them. A quest is another word for "work." It doesn't matter what you do to them, you can't fill a game with interesting quests because eventually interesting quests become boring too.

What examples of quest styles are there beyond kill/fetch/deliver? And, can they be implemented with any amount of frequency?

You have to design a totally different style of gameplay that doesn't involve quests for it to work. Not sure what that would be, but maybe the quest concept is just coming to an end? Lots of quests? So what. What people want, is gameplay that changes the world. Choices/Consequences.

When you deliver something, and the reward is gold. It doesn't matter how much variety they have. They will become pointless. The reward needs to be changes to the game state. Changes to the politics, NPC factions, etc that reflect what has occurred. That's rewarding.

Elaborate quests are the awnser... multiple paths, multiple stages, good amount of exposition and flavour. And aternatives to kill/fetch/deliver: investigation, sabotage, travelling...

 

[Neeshka]

@ rico

Im glad there are other people that feel the same way about bethesda games as I do (maybe except morrowind which i kinda liked)

Oblivion, fallout 3 and skyrim all do indeed feel like single player mmo's, and you are right that in almost every respect an mmo is better. It's really strange that people choose them over mmorpg's.

Yes if you look at newer MMOs like WoW or TOR quest design is a lot better.
There are obviously a ton of kill x or fetch x type boring quests; but there are 2 points:

1) questing and levelling to max is a very small part of mmo's.
2) there are a lot of superb quests even in WoW:
i) plants vs zombies in hillsbrad - an entire minigame as a quest.
ii) bombing run type quests, aerial vehicle type quests
iii) long chain quests that involve a subplot or narrative

ultimately in an mmo the endgame of scripted pve encounters or player vs player combat is what becomes important.

MMO developers try to make the combat as interesting as possible to keep subs. This driving force actually makes mmo's have combat that is actually quite good compared to most single player single character rpg's.

If you actually take a look at some of the better designed WoW classes the combat has a lot of depth - take blood (tank) deathknights, assasination rogues and hunters.

There is typically 2 or more resources; core abilities on varying cooldowns applying different varying duration debuffs on to enemies. There are also dynamic or reactive abilities that become available under certain conditions.

In the end what this all means is there are a number of buttons (at least 8 for example) that are pressed in conjuction at different times based on the situation.
By contrast a game like skyrim has you pressing 2 buttons in no particular order.

People that like TES/Bethesda games probably like them over mmo's for the following reasons:

1) they dislike the typical mmo end game of pvp or scripted pve.
2) combat itself isn't that important to them -----> this is something i find to be really odd.
3) they are graphics whores : mmo's typically have awful graphics for obvious reasons
4) they don't have the time commitment required for mmo and want a more casual laid back experience
5) they enjoy hiking simulators.

To me games like Mass Effect/Bioshock/Deus Ex HR are appealing because they are very different from mmo's; have superb storylines and very well done combat.

Games like BG2/KOTOR/Dragon Age 1/Witcher 2 are nice because although they are RPGs they tend to have far better stories than a typical mmo and the combat is usually party based. Well written dialogue, interesting narratives and characters to interact with, good music, art design are also big plusses.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QUFfYA0wA

That was the day the imperial guardsmen started to worry about Andyman's ideas of equine revolution.

 

[Neeshka]

What examples of quest styles are there beyond kill/fetch/deliver? And, can they be implemented with any amount of frequency?

Quests that involve an elaborate mini-game: something like plants vs zombies in WoW
Quests that involve sneaking around and recovering/pickpocketing/stealing something so basically a stealth minigame
Escort quests with AI that isn't horrendous - sadly this never seems to work
Quests that have you play as a completely different character with a different set of abilities - vehicle quests in WoW
Puzzle or solving riddle type quests - something that used to be fun in older RPGs like BG and NWN.

 

[kris]

MMORPGs are sickly timesinks with llittle to no redeeming value. I would only play them if someone paid me to do it.

 

[Xi]

Elaborate quests are the awnser... multiple paths, multiple stages, good amount of exposition and flavour. And aternatives to kill/fetch/deliver: investigation, sabotage, travelling...

Investigate = Fetch.

Sabotage = Kill.

Travel = Deliver.

They are all variants of the same underlying structures. I do like the idea of multiple paths/stages, exposition and flavour, and of course altering game states that reflect the results of each quest and/or a combination of the results of many quests with multiple branching paths. This is difficult to develop though, and while interesting, would probably bore your average joe. Using one's brain, while awesome for you, me, and the Codex in general, is probably the last thing that will sell a title.

It's the same analogy that graphics sell because players can perceive the difference, while underlying structural differences don't sell anything because it requires an investigative mind to determine the subtle differences during player choice. The player can perceive the simple reward for the simple linear quest path they follow. This makes it easy to understand and somewhat extrinsically rewarding, yet repetitive (conditioning at its best). For people who like intrinsic rewards (self learning, knowledge, etc) the fetch, kill, deliver just isn't rewarding. Still, these people are few and far between.

 

[Data4]

Show me a MMO with enough depth of lore and "stumble upon" content that a single person can lose himself in it for hours and I'll be the first to sign up.

Spoiler

Such a thing is impossible, because 1) Not only will someone else find said content, but intricate details, min/max spreadsheets on how to deal with it, and YouTube videos about it would be posted minutes after release, and 2) It's logistically impossible to tailor make crap like that for players to have unique experiences in a game where an excess of a million players could potentially play.