The Elder Scrolls V, Anyone?

Originally posted by maddy21
Good thing it comes out only in November, will give me enough time to upgrade my PC

Gives me time to upgrade to an HD TV.

Yeah I'm a consoler, and I have a sucktastic tele. Never really had much reason to upgrade before now.

reply to post by SaturnFX


I don't care what anybody says, Video games are an art.

reply to post by HolyandClean


Some are, some aren't. Just like movies.

Originally posted by Nosred
reply to post by HolyandClean

 

Some are, some aren't. Just like movies.

Yea, well their is a big debate about that.

reply to post by HolyandClean


No there's a debate about whether video games are art period. I think some are but not all, just like film and music.

Originally posted by Nosred
reply to post by HolyandClean

 

No there's a debate about whether video games are art period. I think some are but not all, just like film and music.

Gaming offers a platform that allows either for expression and interactivity unmatched by any medium so far.

Now, some use that to create pieces of art, and some use that to make a buck off crap.

As gaming becomes more and more popular, more and more crap comes out to capture quick sales...still, some companys push quality over making a quick buck.

Always fun to listen to stubborn old gamers talk about old games and the depth of story verses new games and the favor towards short shooters and stock 3d models...they have a point to an extent, I just laugh when they downplay things like fallout 3/NV...not because its bad, but because its slightly different than 1-2...get over it and enjoy the new art

There is already debate about if your allowed to ride a dragon, it will somehow ruin the game...argument, nords don't do well with dragons...enemys, so it would be like "yoda riding count dooku"

On the flip side though, the main character (you) is dragonborn...and..its a dragon, weeeee

reply to post by SaturnFX


I'm a fan of the original Fallout games but I still liked New Vegas, FO3 was the game I had a problem with, mostly because of the mind-numbingly stupid dialogue and poor gameplay. Edit: And because Bethesda s*** all over the canon.

There are a lot of modern games I consider art; Bioshock, Portal, Half-Life 2, etc. Just not things like Call of Duty and Halo.

I have high hopes for this game but I had high hopes for Oblivion and Fallout 3 too, and those turned out to be disappointments. In a lot of the interviews I've read it seems like they've fixed several of the things I disliked in Oblivion, so as long as Bethesda isn't talking out of its ass then this will at least be better than Oblivion.

Originally posted by Nosred
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

I'm a fan of the original Fallout games but I still liked New Vegas, FO3 was the game I had a problem with, mostly because of the mind-numbingly stupid dialogue and poor gameplay. Edit: And because Bethesda s*** all over the canon.

There are a lot of modern games I consider art; Bioshock, Portal, Half-Life 2, etc. Just not things like Call of Duty and Halo.

I have high hopes for this game but I had high hopes for Oblivion and Fallout 3 too, and those turned out to be disappointments. In a lot of the interviews I've read it seems like they've fixed several of the things I disliked in Oblivion, so as long as Bethesda isn't talking out of its ass then this will at least be better than Oblivion.

edit on 30-6-2011 by Nosred because: (no reason given)

edit on 30-6-2011 by Nosred because: (no reason given)

Whereas morrowind never captured my interest...I purchaed morrowind when it first came out and it was like...meh, platform game.
Perhaps it was the slow start plotline (that I don't even remember) or something, not sure...but for some reason it just wasn't up to par with my tastes for the time.

Maybe I wrote it off as just a sub standard knockoff of GTA meets medieval land..but not as personal or something..

Oblivion however knocked my socks off...and I was sort of expecting another meh game...the graphics looked nice,

The plot also was decent...basically a alternate world opening up portals to try and take over the whole mess

I didn't like how it sort of forced you to save the day...good or evil, you will help out Martin, you cannot kill him, period..along with no real crowd reaction (wearing necromancers robes with a staff made of a head on a pike and people are like "wow, look at the muscles on you" or some crap.

So, crowd reaction and a bit more freelance path choosing should be worked on...and I suspect it will be considering beth has taken with FONV (where you have a choice of multiple different endings

I am a crap evil player mind you...I simply feel too bad for the poor pixels and always end up taking the good choice, however, I do play neutral pretty well also (dammit, pay me! armors expensive)...

FO3...well, I totally fell in love with that game (was my first fallout game)...but the concept...post nuke underground society and a fresh faced nieve barely adult is kicked into a wasteland of backstabbers...the attempt to try and make an area that isn't craptastic around DC, etc.

Beth also can do no wrong considering they purposefully make their games to be highly moddable, so even a half done game has incredible potential considering they cater towards the modding community verses make everything a pain.
Most of us modders were screaming for them to simply make a much more complex AI system for ES4 so we could make some highly complex and personal companions, enemys, and overall quests. the "hive mind" problem of Oblivion made truely personal behavioral patters for an individual was a limitation that frustrated people whom wanted to make companions that mirrored some of the more iconic people we know of for a companion (dammit, I want conan to act differently than legolas!)...but it was pushed quite hard for what it was.

ok, perhaps we simply see different things. I see it as a modding dreamworld, whereas your focused in on a continuation of a fantasy story, and that might be why I see gold and you see dirt...I do love strong storylines, such as things like KOTOR (original), Baldur's gate, etc..(Bioware made some impressive titles)...and the more recent stuff like mass effect, dead space, etc...good storys, too linear and unmoddable.
Obsidian tends to ruin stuff, however, obsidian took over FO and did the NV package, beth forced them to focus on the open endedness of the world and so it turned out pretty damn good (except the beginning wasn't really compelling...was hard to start out).

meh, I could go on, but I think enough of my geek has been shown.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Plot's overrated in games, I wouldn't really say Fallout 1 or 2 had good plots. What really matters is dialogue and writing, both of which were terrible in Fallout 3. The linearity of Bethesda games just kills me, and if you don't believe me that FO3 is linear just try going to Rivet City as soon as you leave the Vault. The first two Fallout games gave you a vague end goal with no idea how to achieve it or where to look, you just got the closest town marked on your map and you had to go from there.

Personally I hate it when games like Oblivion start off with "OMG the world's gonna end and you're the only one who can save it", then you spend the next three hours picking flowers, but that's just me. Fallout 3 I wasn't really drawn into the plot like I was with New Vegas. Alright my Dad left the Vault now why are you kicking me out? Why do I even care about finding him or purifying the water? You can purify water with just a little bit of soil and a glass, and the purifier is built downstream. New Vegas on the other hand I've just been shot and had something stolen from me, now right away I want to know why I was shot and what I had stolen from me which makes me want to track Benny down. Then all the stuff with the Powder Gangers happens and by that point I'm hooked.

My biggest problem with FO3 though was how Bethesda treated the canon. There was no FEV in any of the Vaults, Vault-Tec was not part of the FEV experiment. The Vaults were subtle social experiments not, "Let's pump drugs into the air" kind of things and also having that many Vaults in one city is ridiculous, only a hundred something vaults were built in all of North America it's ridiculous to have five or six vaults built in just one city.

Honestly the only thing Bethesda got right about FO3 was the music, which I'll admit they did a good job with the soundtrack even if it did get a little repetitive at times.



Edit: Also about the mods, relying on your fan base to fix the problems in your game that shouldn't have been their in the first place is not something a game developer should be commended for. If you're going to release a half-assed game and expect your modders to fix it then you deserve to go out of business.

How funny, I just got through playing Oblivion with my cousin.

Originally posted by Nosred
Personally I hate it when games like Oblivion start off with "OMG the world's gonna end and you're the only one who can save it", then you spend the next three hours picking flowers, but that's just me.

lol...ok, thats an amusing visual.
True, hellgates are opening up everywhere, entire cities are being torched, the king is dead, drama drama drama, but you know...sometimes you must take a break and pick the flowers..it just makes sense!

Saving the world can wait...there is some good fungus that can be collected in that cave over there!

Fallout 3 I wasn't really drawn into the plot like I was with New Vegas. Alright my Dad left the Vault now why are you kicking me out? Why do I even care about finding him or purifying the water? You can purify water with just a little bit of soil and a glass, and the purifier is built downstream. New Vegas on the other hand I've just been shot and had something stolen from me, now right away I want to know why I was shot and what I had stolen from me which makes me want to track Benny down. Then all the stuff with the Powder Gangers happens and by that point I'm hooked.

In oblivion, I tried my hardest to play a "bandit" for awhile...had double crowded roads, mmm, some keeps and safe houses here and there, then me and my companions would swoop down on groups of people to rob and pillage.
Had also increased imperial guards on the roads, so it was risky (they were leveled with me, so they hurt)...but naa, couldn't get a proper feel for it....
Stuff like that, going off the beaten track and carving a very different existance would be welcome...again, you need advanced AI for such things to be moddable and therefore passable.

My biggest problem with FO3 though was how Bethesda treated the canon. There was no FEV in any of the Vaults, Vault-Tec was not part of the FEV experiment. The Vaults were subtle social experiments not, "Let's pump drugs into the air" kind of things and also having that many Vaults in one city is ridiculous, only a hundred something vaults were built in all of North America it's ridiculous to have five or six vaults built in just one city.

each vault had a specific experiment associated with it. and from what I read, there were a bunch of em, however, most were not populated fully when the bombs went off (due to repeated false alarms before the actual attack).
Now, having a ton of vaults in the DC area does make sense...just logically, however, ya, in the desert outside of Vegas...not sure...however again, it is vegas.

Honestly the only thing Bethesda got right about FO3 was the music, which I'll admit they did a good job with the soundtrack even if it did get a little repetitive at times.

edit on 30-6-2011 by Nosred because: (no reason given)

the music, the graphics, and several sub-plots rocked.
also vault 101 was fantastic I thought, the living in it for a little bit, the return after the main quest, and Liberty Prime is the most epic robot ever!

Edit: Also about the mods, relying on your fan base to fix the problems in your game that shouldn't have been their in the first place is not something a game developer should be commended for. If you're going to release a half-assed game and expect your modders to fix it then you deserve to go out of business.

edit on 30-6-2011 by Nosred because: (no reason given)

Naa, thats not mods, thats fixes, and I agree, that stuff needs to be addressed asap from the devs...and often it is.

I am talking about mods...real mods. that is what makes a game go from replayable to loss of social life endless and awesome.
I am fully on board with how they create their file system...no matter how great a game is created by a company, it will always be a pale experience compared to what the modding community makes of it once its released....
In Oblivion, I had countless mods, I was able to cross over into Elsweyr, went to Khajit citys, went into a cave that lead down the very long road into the underdark, fighting mind flayers, drows, etc.

Then of course there is the many additions, skins, graphic enhancements, etc...and lets not forget midas's magic spells of aurum.


Now, some things I do hope they do with Skyrim:
1) work tirelessly on making a brilliant AI system that can be dynamic or static dependingly...but for each character (especially city dweller) to have a randomly generated personality core relevant to its station, but unique enough to where no two are exactly alike...

2) expansions not have portals...I want expansions to actually expand the land. I think they sort of backed themselves into a corner by hitting skyrim frankly. The only thing they can really do is hammerfell next door, unless they decide to redo the older games (morrowind, cyrodil)...but ya, instead of new games, or weird expansion packs to different dimensions...just keep expanding the border

3) Allow for in game options to tweak monster spawns and frequency...I don't want to wait for someone to mod in this...sometimes I want to go on a killing spree, so destroy countless normal creatures everywhere, other times, I want a sparse area, but when I do meet something, its big and mean and nasty

4) A easier to use SDK for quest and companion AI making. I think the best oblivion mod I had for concept was the fact that you could "hire" anyone...from a random thief, to a imperial guard (if you were friends)..so it became a bit like a dungeons and dragons feel, a ragtag group of mishmashed non-heros working together...but the hive mind killed any real personality.
Companions make the game..even though I tend to do quests alone, I rarely wander around alone (will have them camp at the enterence to whatever quest I am on while I go do my thing...or maybe just bring 1 in with me)


5) Multiplayer (laughs...one can dream)

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by Nosred
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

I'm a fan of the original Fallout games but I still liked New Vegas, FO3 was the game I had a problem with, mostly because of the mind-numbingly stupid dialogue and poor gameplay. Edit: And because Bethesda s*** all over the canon.

There are a lot of modern games I consider art; Bioshock, Portal, Half-Life 2, etc. Just not things like Call of Duty and Halo.

I have high hopes for this game but I had high hopes for Oblivion and Fallout 3 too, and those turned out to be disappointments. In a lot of the interviews I've read it seems like they've fixed several of the things I disliked in Oblivion, so as long as Bethesda isn't talking out of its ass then this will at least be better than Oblivion.

edit on 30-6-2011 by Nosred because: (no reason given)

edit on 30-6-2011 by Nosred because: (no reason given)

Whereas morrowind never captured my interest...I purchaed morrowind when it first came out and it was like...meh, platform game.
Perhaps it was the slow start plotline (that I don't even remember) or something, not sure...but for some reason it just wasn't up to par with my tastes for the time.

Maybe I wrote it off as just a sub standard knockoff of GTA meets medieval land..but not as personal or something..

Oblivion however knocked my socks off...and I was sort of expecting another meh game...the graphics looked nice,

The plot also was decent...basically a alternate world opening up portals to try and take over the whole mess

I didn't like how it sort of forced you to save the day...good or evil, you will help out Martin, you cannot kill him, period..along with no real crowd reaction (wearing necromancers robes with a staff made of a head on a pike and people are like "wow, look at the muscles on you" or some crap.

So, crowd reaction and a bit more freelance path choosing should be worked on...and I suspect it will be considering beth has taken with FONV (where you have a choice of multiple different endings

I am a crap evil player mind you...I simply feel too bad for the poor pixels and always end up taking the good choice, however, I do play neutral pretty well also (dammit, pay me! armors expensive)...

FO3...well, I totally fell in love with that game (was my first fallout game)...but the concept...post nuke underground society and a fresh faced nieve barely adult is kicked into a wasteland of backstabbers...the attempt to try and make an area that isn't craptastic around DC, etc.

Beth also can do no wrong considering they purposefully make their games to be highly moddable, so even a half done game has incredible potential considering they cater towards the modding community verses make everything a pain.
Most of us modders were screaming for them to simply make a much more complex AI system for ES4 so we could make some highly complex and personal companions, enemys, and overall quests. the "hive mind" problem of Oblivion made truely personal behavioral patters for an individual was a limitation that frustrated people whom wanted to make companions that mirrored some of the more iconic people we know of for a companion (dammit, I want conan to act differently than legolas!)...but it was pushed quite hard for what it was.

ok, perhaps we simply see different things. I see it as a modding dreamworld, whereas your focused in on a continuation of a fantasy story, and that might be why I see gold and you see dirt...I do love strong storylines, such as things like KOTOR (original), Baldur's gate, etc..(Bioware made some impressive titles)...and the more recent stuff like mass effect, dead space, etc...good storys, too linear and unmoddable.
Obsidian tends to ruin stuff, however, obsidian took over FO and did the NV package, beth forced them to focus on the open endedness of the world and so it turned out pretty damn good (except the beginning wasn't really compelling...was hard to start out).

meh, I could go on, but I think enough of my geek has been shown.

Yea, see Morrowind is like a book, if you get past the 2001 graphics and the walls of text, it is one of the most complex games ever made, surpassing oblivion in weapons, armor, unique locations and quests. Along with that was an amazing plotline. The themes are very much related to this site including political corruption and conspiricy,secret societys, and corporate scandals as well as an end times like battle deciding the fate of the world. and you cant help be enveloped in the culture of this world, from the swampland shacks to the dwemer towers everything felt different.

absolutely amazing game, oblivion was beautiful but after a bit into the game you could see how dumbed down the game was for sales, and at the same time how little it had grown in terms of scale (anti climactic end battle)

but skyrim looks amazing, i just hope my 360 doesnt get fried in some insane solar flare.

In other news, this mod for Oblivion that's coming out soon looks incredible, better than Skyrim. I hope there's an English translation in the works.

www.youtube.com...

www.rpgitalia.net...

reply to post by stoptheinsanity2012

Originally posted by stoptheinsanity2012
Yea, see Morrowind is like a book, if you get past the 2001 graphics and the walls of text, it is one of the most complex games ever made, surpassing oblivion in weapons, armor, unique locations and quests. Along with that was an amazing plotline. The themes are very much related to this site including political corruption and conspiricy,secret societys, and corporate scandals as well as an end times like battle deciding the fate of the world. and you cant help be enveloped in the culture of this world, from the swampland shacks to the dwemer towers everything felt different.

absolutely amazing game, oblivion was beautiful but after a bit into the game you could see how dumbed down the game was for sales, and at the same time how little it had grown in terms of scale (anti climactic end battle)

In anticipation of Skyrim as well, of course, but I'd say I would agree with you. for me, Morrowind struck the perfect balance between the generic randomness of Daggerfall and the restrictive, smaller-scaled dumbed-downness of Oblivion, which is probably why it's my favourite Elder Scrolls (so far!).

Also, for those of you who can't "get passed the 2001 era graphics" (although I still personally think the game is gorgeous), there is now a mod with updated graphics!

I'm a BIT worried about what could be more "dumbing down" in Skyrim, especially in relation to how they are handling the skills and stuff, but if they do that, I'll just play it as a non-Elder-scrolls game, with non-Elder-Scrolls expectations.

I too liked MW over oblivion, with the same complaints about stupefying it to appeal to the savage, barbaric hoards of console users. Oblivion felt hollow compared to Morrowind. Im worried too about TES 5. Im trying to not have any expectations so I wont be disappointed.

I am not looking forward to using that steam trash just to play the game OFFLINE either. Just more freedoms being taken away, little by little.

reply to post by Nosred


I modded oblivion out the wazzu trying to make it something Id enjoy playing. OOO was an absolute necessity (got rid of that "leveled encounters" horse s---), and MMM helped alot too. I think I had over 60 mods running at some point, most small, tweaking those ridiculous things that should have never been into more acceptable versions of themselves. One was an inventory IU mod that darkened the background, and displayed something like 4 or 5 times the items, rather than just 6 (wtf?).

I even spent tens of hours in the editor creating a mod that turned barrels and crates into MW style ones, which could actually contain more than 5 useless types of items or 3 gold coins (if you were lucky). Spent a long time balancing that simple mod too; it really changed the atmosphere, gave the game more life, in the sense that it now made sense that barrels and crates existed; they actually could store meaningful things.

It all ended some years ago when I installed larger textures that really brought out the graphics in a great way. Unfortunately, oblivion was never programmed to handle so much data, and would fill up its allotted 2,000MB of memory, and even with constantly using PCB in the console, the memory leaked, and inevitably crashed the game at an inconvenient time. I even changed the file header and told it to use 3gb instead of 2, which helped, but it always eventually crashed from memory leakages or whatever.

Going back to the original graphics was such an enormous step downwards, that it just wasnt the same anymore.

But yeah, MW was the best. They had gameplay as their core ideology to carry the game, rather than eye candy. And it worked.

/ramble

What i love about the Elder Scrolls series is the lore and it's relevancy towards not just fantasy but science fiction.

I love the fact that Elder Scrolls has the Argonians. They are a playable race of Reptilians, and they may be the closest we have arrived towards seeing the Annunaki within a game. The Elder scrolls series also has the Nordic Race.


What I mean to say is I wish Benthesa would make a Elder Scrolls type game like they did with Fallout, but based upon the sumerian myth possibly make the Argonians the bad guys and eventually continue such series to the miths of Egypt, Grece and Atlantis.

I just started playing Oblivion a couple months ago. This is the first game of the Elder Scrolls series that I have played. I am having a blast so far. I can not wait for Skyrim. I already have it on pre-order. The demos I have seen on youtube look awesome.

reply to post by Hydroman


It looks as though they are returning to their roots but blending in Oblivion too..

Oblivion was fun, but in comparison to previous elder scrolls games it was so very limited.. In comparison to 360 games, its probably one of the biggest however. I look forward to Skyrim.. it looks as though they have done some amazing work with it.

I remember playing Morrowind for the first time on Xbox. The game was so massive that I had no idea where to start.

reply to post by Miraj


One thing that annoy me a little with Oblivion is that when someone dies in the street, they lay there for days. You'd think that there would be someone scripted, like a mortician or undertaker, that would come out and take care of the corpse.

Also, more variety in voice work and dialogue would be nice. I have heard that there will be many more voice actors for Skyrim. Hopefully the dialogue will be different though. I have spoken with many characters who repeat the exact same thing as other characters, word for word.

I can't wait to see a dragon come swooping down from the sky!