Skyrimjob sells 10M units, also the best PC seller

[Machocruz]

This is such a bullshit argument. Maybe if the Internet didn't existed I'd swallow this shit argument but I'm sure PLENTY of people looked up Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 after playing Fallout 3. Just because a market doesn't like a niche game this site proclaims as being amazing doesn't suddenly makes rpg-lite games like Skyrim suddenly bad.

RPGs of the cRPG style like Fallout 1 / PS:T / ToEE are relatively niche. You'll never see games of that style become as popular as mainstream games like Skyrim or MW3. The popularity of a game or lack of doesn't speak of the games quality.

I'm not making any argument. I'm wondering if the the stuff people think is so amazing would seem as amazing if, say, Planescape Redux came out with a Skyrim level of production and accesibility and sandbox, the people who claim Skyrim is the best the genre has ever had to offer. I come across these people on a regular basis, and they are not aware of the developments in the history of the genre. They only have games like KOTOR, or Mass Effect, or Fable, or Final Fantasy to compare, and those don't demonstrate an eight of what the genre has to offer.

 

[MetalCraze]

Actually when the game is popular it means that the game is a piece of a dumbed down shit.

That's how it is - most people either hate games (that's why they play Skyrim and MW3) or are just too stupid to play good ones (zomg 2D graphics! zomg what do I press here?! this gaem suxx!!)

I mean if one is tasked with finding the water chip there gotta be a motherfucking quest compass showing its location half a world away and deep underground. Because apparently until you, the Chosen One, came people didn't have quest compass nano-tech built into their head due to the brain taking too much space - otherwise why not go and retrieve it yourself? - so only you can now save them.

 

[someone else]

Congrats!

 

[Wyrmlord]

Didn't Patrick the Celt tell you straight away that the water chip was in Necropolis and mark it on your map?

Didn't the first underground ghoul to not attack you tell you straight away that the water chip was on the ladder down from the water generator in the north of the town?

Bad example. Instead of compass, you had two people who gave you directions.

Discovering through sheer trial and error, endless exploration, and endless experimentation in Skyrim, that if you kill a giant, cut off its toe, harvest away some wheat in various farms, and then grind together giant's toes and wheat bushels, then you can produce a super mega potion - now that takes effort.

 

[Roguey]

I'm wondering if the the stuff people think is so amazing would seem as amazing if, say, Planescape Redux came out with a Skyrim level of production and accesibility and sandbox, the people who claim Skyrim is the best the genre has ever had to offer.

Once you add all those hypotheticals it becomes an entirely different thing.

 

[DragoFireheart]

God, some of the butthurt I'm seeing is fucking hilarious. What's pathetic is the Elder Scrolls games as a whole haven't changed all that much.

 

[Wyrmlord]

What's pathetic is the Elder Scrolls games as a whole haven't changed all that much.

Today, I played Morrowind for 15 minutes, laughed, and went back to Skyrim.

Why play the exact same game but only with a much much slower pace? No reason. No reason at all. The funny thing about Moronwinders is that they made a mass migration to the Codex after their anger about Oblivion...despite Oblivion being the same game. They can deny it all they want, but it's true. Some of them even complain about one word dialogue system in Oblivion, despite the same system being in Morrowind.

 

[DragoFireheart]

What's pathetic is the Elder Scrolls games as a whole haven't changed all that much.

Today, I played Morrowind for 15 minutes, laughed, and went back to Skyrim.

Why play the exact same game but only with a much much slower pace? No reason. No reason at all. The funny thing about Moronwinders is that they made a mass migration to the Codex after their anger about Oblivion...despite Oblivion being the same game. They can deny it all they want, but it's true. Some of them even complain about one word dialogue system in Oblivion, despite the same system being in Morrowind.

In their defense Oblivion is shit in comparison, but yeah, the pacing in Morrowind was shit. It was slightly better in Oblivion but the game was shit due to bad VA, level-scaled horse shit, and a retarded quest design.

Skyrim was the game we should have gotten after Morrowind.

 

[Satan]

the rpg genre has been buried the day skyrim was released. goodnight, my sweetie

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

But there's always next thursday to look forward to.

 

[Wyrmlord]

the rpg genre has been buried the day skyrim was released. goodnight, my sweetie

It's really not a big deal if you don't consider Skyrim a RPG. I don't. But it's a fun game. There. Was that so hard?

By the way, have you seen Lands of Lore? Anvil of Dawn? Eye of the Beholder? Those action RPGs are far more superficial, unchallenging, and monodimensional than many recent games. What do you think - that genre died in 1991, because of Lands of Lore?

 

[Tel Velothi]

10M units of brainless retards.

 

[MetalCraze]

Bad example. Instead of compass, you had two people who gave you directions.

And that's the whole point. People were also giving you directions in Morrowind and it worked. And you still had to look for stuff. You just knew its location.

Or do you mean they should've given you some pretentiously-written riddle?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

650m in revenue, and not a single fuck was given.

 

[Heresiarch]

I was typing a wall of text to explain why Skyrim is good and an incline and deserve the sales, but then realized in the Codex you're either with the bros or against the bros, and hater's gonna hate, etc.

All I want to say is, Bethsoft is like the empire, while the haters like Skyway are like the stormcloaks.

 

[Excidium]

All I want to say is, Bethsoft is like the empire, while the haters like Skyway are like the stormcloaks.

Skyrim belongs to the nords!

 

[Raapys]

the rpg genre has been buried the day skyrim was released. goodnight, my sweetie

It's really not a big deal if you don't consider Skyrim a RPG. I don't. But it's a fun game. There. Was that so hard?

Actually, it's pretty bad as a game too. Combat is completely forgettable, as are quests and the story, exploration is unrewarding and repetitive after the first couple of dungeons, magic is more uninteresting than ever even if the physics makes it look fancier, NPCs are boring as ever, dialog is laughable, character skills and such are easily the worst in the series, items are uninteresting, gameplay is still the same Oblivion-style follow quest compass/point of interest, etc....Yeah, I'm not really feeling the 'fun' here. Decent atmosphere, but that's pretty much it. And it's not enough alone to turn a poor game into a fun one, considering they took out most of what made the series good in the first place. The reason Morrowind was still decent was because it wasn't all dumbed down yet, and it had tons of mods that gave back much of the stuff the original had lost from Daggerfall. But this is just Oblivion with a new coat of paint and even less features and customization .

Then again, there are two vastly different kinds of people playing the games. There's the people who just want to run around and hack stuff, and there's the people who appreciated the series because of the unsurpassed(if largely unfinished) feature-set which Daggerfall introduced. A finished, polished and even more feature-rich Daggerfall is still my idea of a perfect TES game, but unfortunately they're going in the complete opposite direction.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Bad example. Instead of compass, you had two people who gave you directions.

And that's the whole point. People were also giving you directions in Morrowind and it worked. And you still had to look for stuff. You just knew its location.

Or do you mean they should've given you some pretentiously-written riddle?

Eh? It's immaterial. Both are just following directions handed over to you directly. One is an interface compass, other is in-game text or speech.

Either way, Skyrim's compass only shows you the location of the end area to be reached in the dungeon. The actual path always tends to be very indirect in dungeons. There are many trick levers that don't work, while the real lever is hidden elsewhere. There is no compass to help you in such situations. Certain fake paths have obstacles that kill you, while the real path requires some observation to find. It's not some 100% handholder game, as - say - lower difficulty HR was.

 

[Wyrmlord]

the rpg genre has been buried the day skyrim was released. goodnight, my sweetie

It's really not a big deal if you don't consider Skyrim a RPG. I don't. But it's a fun game. There. Was that so hard?

Actually, it's pretty bad as a game too. Combat is completely forgettable, as are quests and the story, exploration is unrewarding and repetitive after the first couple of dungeons, magic is more uninteresting than ever even if the physics makes it look fancier, NPCs are boring as ever, dialog is laughable, character skills and such are easily the worst in the series, items are uninteresting, gameplay is still the same Oblivion-style follow quest compass/point of interest, etc....Yeah, I'm not really feeling the 'fun' here. Decent atmosphere, but that's pretty much it. And it's not enough alone to turn a poor game into a fun one, considering they took out most of what made the series good in the first place. The reason Morrowind was still decent was because it wasn't all dumbed down yet, and it had tons of mods that gave back much of the stuff the original had lost from Daggerfall. But this is just Oblivion with a new coat of paint and even less features and customization .

How many recent mainstream games are genuinely difficult on the highest difficulty? Human Revolution wasn't. Crysis 2 wasn't.

But Skyrim? There are some challenging fights here that will break even the best builds.

Fighting the Dragon Priest Nakhiir, two Elder Dragons, and three Draugr Scourge Overlords on the top of Skuldafn? Fighting Knevel the Tongue, a Draugr Scourge, and a Frost Atronach? Fighting any Ancient Dragon? Fighting Potema's Draugr in her chamber? Fighting half a dozen Chitin insects in a deep Falmer cave?

Several of these fights require you to use every resource at your disposal. Fighting Alduin required me to forge and enchant rings and necklaces with the highest possible fire resistance. My cousin playing the game used Spellbreaker Shield to fight Ancient Dragons and even that was inadequate to stomach all the fire they breathed. To not powergame in Skyrim can often mean to underachieve and make oneself lose.

The last Elder Scrolls that was like this was....early level Daggerfall. Fights in Oblivion were embarrassingly easy, especially the one with Mankar Cameron.

 

[Raapys]

But is making a game difficult really an achievement when it consists of simply giving enemies more hp and damage? To me that's always felt kinda cheap. I mean, I could make a mod that gave every creature 90345834958439% more hp and kill you in a single hit, but I'd hardly call it the mod of the year. If on the other hand I made a mod which made enemies actually fight better, *that* would be an achievement.

 

[Zergian]

Bad example. Instead of compass, you had two people who gave you directions.

And that's the whole point. People were also giving you directions in Morrowind and it worked. And you still had to look for stuff. You just knew its location.

Or do you mean they should've given you some pretentiously-written riddle?

Eh? It's immaterial. Both are just following directions handed over to you directly. One is an interface compass, other is in-game text or speech.

Either way, Skyrim's compass only shows you the location of the end area to be reached in the dungeon. The actual path always tends to be very indirect in dungeons. There are many trick levers that don't work, while the real lever is hidden elsewhere. There is no compass to help you in such situations. Certain fake paths have obstacles that kill you, while the real path requires some observation to find. It's not some 100% handholder game, as - say - lower difficulty HR was.

Disregarding your last paragraph, with written directions you focus more on the environment. There's a different, better feel and atmosphere. Maybe quest compass isn't as bad as automap in Diablo, where if I use it I end up paying almost no attention to anything else, but it still makes a noticeable difference to me.

 

[villain of the story]

The funny thing about Moronwinders is that they made a mass migration to the Codex after their anger about Oblivion...despite Oblivion being the same game. They can deny it all they want, but it's true. Some of them even complain about one word dialogue system in Oblivion, despite the same system being in Morrowind.

Today, I expanded a Wormload the chocolate jew post, laughed, and went back to the collapse button.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

the rpg genre has been buried the day skyrim was released. goodnight, my sweetie

It's really not a big deal if you don't consider Skyrim a RPG. I don't. But it's a fun game. There. Was that so hard?

Actually, it's pretty bad as a game too. Combat is completely forgettable, as are quests and the story, exploration is unrewarding and repetitive after the first couple of dungeons, magic is more uninteresting than ever even if the physics makes it look fancier, NPCs are boring as ever, dialog is laughable, character skills and such are easily the worst in the series, items are uninteresting, gameplay is still the same Oblivion-style follow quest compass/point of interest, etc....Yeah, I'm not really feeling the 'fun' here. Decent atmosphere, but that's pretty much it. And it's not enough alone to turn a poor game into a fun one, considering they took out most of what made the series good in the first place. The reason Morrowind was still decent was because it wasn't all dumbed down yet, and it had tons of mods that gave back much of the stuff the original had lost from Daggerfall. But this is just Oblivion with a new coat of paint and even less features and customization .

Then again, there are two vastly different kinds of people playing the games. There's the people who just want to run around and hack stuff, and there's the people who appreciated the series because of the unsurpassed(if largely unfinished) feature-set which Daggerfall introduced. A finished, polished and even more feature-rich Daggerfall is still my idea of a perfect TES game, but unfortunately they're going in the complete opposite direction.

Bethesda is never going to make another Daggerfall. They may, however, eventually incline into something like a first-person Gothic 2, and that would be a good thing in its own right. Now, Skyrim is inferior to Gothic 2 in almost every way, but it is an improvement over the previous Bethsoft games, so maybe the next one will actually be good? Who knows, but it is a small optimistic accent in a world of banal shit.

For the record, I agree with most of your criticisms, except for the character system, which is way more functional than the retarded mess in Oblivion. Now, if they only managed to embrace the fact that their game is essentially a hack and slash with some exploration, and limit themselves to combat skills, it could be ok. No reason to have a Speech skill that contributes to little aside from buying/selling shit.

 

[Zergian]

Bethesda is never going to make another Daggerfall.

All they need is huge, labyrinthian dungeons and a non-linear main-quest. Why not have such dungeons as optional, somewhere to be found in the wilderness, by the dozens, housing quest items from optional quests? And why not have a non-linear, interesting main-quest? Besides those and the indescribably superb music that Daggerfall had, and that Arena also had, what is there lacking in Morrowind etc.? The whole thing should be easier for Bethesda to pull off than another Gothic 2, imo.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Bethesda is never going to make another Daggerfall.

All they need is huge, labyrinthian dungeons and a non-linear main-quest. Why not have such dungeons as optional, somewhere to be found in the wilderness, by the dozens, housing quest items from optional quests? And why not have a non-linear, interesting main-quest? Besides those and the indescribably superb music that Daggerfall had, and that Arena also had, what is there lacking in Morrowind etc.? The whole thing should be easier for Bethesda to pull off than another Gothic 2, imo.

Well, judging from Skyrim's dungeons and MQ, "huge" and "non-linear" are definitely not what they were aiming for. I think they want to have "cool" dungeons, which amounts to a linear path with lots of graphical bells and whistles strewn along the way. It's surprisingly effective, judging from how many Codexers liked them, so I wouldn't expect anything significantly better from them.

MQ has been retarded in every post-Morrowind game, it won't improve unless they suddenly fire their entire writing staff.

 

[Raapys]

Don't need to fire the writing staff, just need to fire next-gen-Todd and bring back Julian Lefay.

Then again, it's kinda hard to say how much power even Todd has when it comes to design and story decisions these days. Suppose the marketing department dictates most of it, or at the very least the general direction.