I am obviously firmly in the "Morrowind" camp- although I think a lot of that is "situational" for me. I have (and loved playing) Daggerfall- even on an old 486 that had to load every city from the CD whenever I went through the gate.

So, Morrowind on a decent PC was a revelation- and it is kind of one of those "first love" things. No matter what, Oblivion would have been hard-pressed to measure up. The fact that Bethesda (in my opinion) dumbed down some of the better aspects of the Elder Scrolls series only made it worse. I do not hate Oblivion- I have enjoyed playing it- and will do so again, when my budget for a graphics card allows (or if I buy the xBox version).

As to Skyrim- the point of this thread- I have very low expectations. I will not be rushing out to pre-order or buy (as I did Oblivion). I may wait 2 or 3 years. And even then, it may be an xBox version purchase. This is one of those cases where I really hope to be wrong- but fear that I am not.

You know, I'm actually holding out some hope for Skyrim, however misguided it may turn out to be. Morrowind, and Daggerfall (which I played after Morrowind), I loved. Loved. Oblivion, well I was looking forward to it like no game I'd ever looked forward to. In truth, I've never been a huge gamer, only about 25 games played properly in 37 years.

Then Oblivion came out, and I despised it. Where was the role playing? Where were the choices? Somebody earlier mentioned it being like GTA 3. Well, yeah. I agree with that. A huge, sandbox adventure game. Albeit one with the biggest immersion breaker ever:


Cue battle music
"Wait, who's attacking me? Oh, bandits."
"Grr! Kill! Fool"
"Hold on. Guys, wait!"
"What?"
"Why are you attacking me?"
"We need the money."
"You're wearing a full suit of glass armour. Carrying a daedric weapon."
"So?"
"Look, I know this merchant, she'll give you a good price. You could buy a mansion. Hell, you could buy a title. You could be NOBILITY!"
"Nobility? Ooh, I like the sound of that..."


After the disappointment of Oblivion, Stargel suggested I play the original Fallout games. Terrific. Choices galore. You want to fight? Talk your way out of trouble? Whatever you wanted, could be done. Then Beth got the rights, and made Fallout 3.

I was dreading it.

And yet... a lot of the things I hated about Oblivion, they - not fixed exactly - but improved immensely. It wasn't bad, in fact I actually really enjoyed it. It didn't have the depth of the originals (I'm not sure any RPG will ever manage that again), but it was a good game, and much improved from Oblivion. So... I just feel like there is some hope here. I've never powergamed (correct phrase?). That was one of the things that really bugged me about Oblivion. Why? Why should my cloth wearing mage have to attempt to level up skills in endurance? No roleplaying reason whatsoever. The perks I though worked well in Fallout 3, and meant I didn't have to worry about that. I could specialise in skills that were appropriate, and not curse the boar that was kicking the **** out of me, because I wasn't a heavy amour wearing, blade wielding warrior.

I'll reserve judgement of course, but I will be getting it, if only to see if they've learned from the past lessons. Most of what I've heard - which isn't a lot to be honest, I don't want to get sucked in by hype again - sounds fairly promising.

We shall see

I am completely sucked in by the hype and wildly optimistic. Also admittedly too inexperienced with any other games to know what’s wrong with Oblivion. So I’ll be singing made-up songs to the tune of the Skyrim trailer music until I start looking for a skinny little box under the Christmas tree. Or for my birthday if my relentless hinting fails. Bitter rant possibly to follow, but first I’ll be looking at the sunrise over the icy mountains and thinking that although I’m standing in fresh woolly mammoth dung, at least my feet are warm.

Well, as long as I can be a sneaky looking Assassin with perks to support it I will play it. We'll see how it works afterwards, I won't judge the book by its cover on this one.

Luckily for me I have a very open mind when it comes to games. So I honestly don't mind when rpgs have more action than usual. Because of this I was able to enjoy both Morrowind and Oblivion and I reckon I'll love Skyrim as well.
I really don't see why that would be such a big deal.
Seriously, games are alot more fun if you don't build up your own rules of how the game should be.

Who even said anything about the amount of action in the game? All the Elder Scrolls games seem fairly action-heavy to me.


It's not really such a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but for some reason it really, really gets on my nerves. In the first ES game, Arena, there was a good reason for your character to start off in prison - it was part of the story. But now Bethesda seem to have decided that they have to start every single one of their games that way, even where it makes absolutely no sense - look at Oblivion, where no one inside the prison seems to recognise you or have the faintest idea what you're doing there. It's also exasperating from a roleplaying perspective, since it limits your character's background to two basic choices: 'ex-con' or 'wrongfully accused'. That's not so bad for one game, but three in a row is just getting ridiculous.


It's not a question of 'rules'. Like everyone else, I happen to enjoy certain things in games and dislike other things - your criteria may be different from mine, but I'm sure you still have them. So far it appears that Skyrim has few of the things I like in games, and many of the things I dislike, which is why I'm not optimistic about it.

I'm with you, Helena. I've never played the other ES games (well, I tried Morrowind on the Xbox 360 - backwards compatibility, yeah, riight), but having to go through the tutorial dungeon every single time I want to start a new character really gets old. Like about the second time. The first time it was great, because it gave me the chance to learn the controls and how the game plays. But after that, it was just BOOORING. And being on the Xbox, I had no opportunity to go with an alternate start mod. Ugh. That was the thing I hated about Oblivion, how it shoehorned you into the MQ. Yeah, sure, you could ignore it if you wanted, but principled person that I am, I just couldn't ignore the disaster hanging over Cyrodiil or the old man's request.

It would have been nice to have Beth come up with something a bit more creative than "you're stuck in a jail cell, now figure out where to go from here."

It wouldn't even need to be especially creative. Just start with, say, your character arriving by carriage in a big city, and they could be absolutely anyone - including a recently-released or escaped prisoner. They could even go the Daggerfall route and let you choose certain things about your background (e.g. faction relationships), giving the impression that your character has a pre-existing connection to the gameworld.

As for Oblivion's long tutorial, I kept a savegame from just before leaving the dungeon so that I could skip it on future playthroughs (not that I ever really played much after the first game). Even Morrowind's relatively brief tutorial got so tiresome that I ended up installing a 'quick start' mod to skip it.

I actually like what I've seen so far of Skyrim, but then that's me. I haven't played Morrowind that much, and have yet to get Daggerfall to work. Oblivion was the first elder scrolls game I played and also the first game I played in which you were free to do practically what you wanted, and I was blown away by that. Simply the fact that I could ride horses was a big wow for me. But then I never tried to look closer.

haute ecole rider: You asked for enlightment, and I'll see what I can do. I live in Sweden, Stockholm, and until two years ago I didn't see much snow in the winter. There is only these last two winters that have brought loads of snow. Now I can't speak for the northern part of the country, but in the rest of Sweden there isn't any glaciers and now in the summer there ain't any snow. In the southern parts it only used to rain in the winter. Sure it's not much sun in the winter, but I've never found that to be a problem. I run a lot in the forests and there is some great variety(terrain and wildlife). I've seen elk cows running out in front of me on the path two times and that in itself I find wonderful. When you stop to look at your surroundings, you're blown away by how beautiful it is(I am at least). Sweden's got many more lakes than mountains. Fields are common. I love the mountains and the forests, but there is so much more that can't be described with mere words.

As for the people, I've heard some say that we aren't very welcoming, if you say hi to someone on the street you often don't get an answer, which is true. But I've also heard people say that if you get to know swedes and are invited into their home, or only get to know us, swedes can be very loyal, which I'd like to believe is true. Of course there are different people as in all countries, but I think that actually the nords at Thirsk could be a good example of the real people of the north. As I've seen them anyways. They might be hostile at first since they've got bad impresions from imperials, but when you gain their trust you find a really warm community. And I think the buildings look a lot like the longhouses the wikings used to build. I wished at first that the game took place in Elsweyr, birthplace of the khajiits', but now I'm overjoyed that they chose Skyrim. Because well, I love the terrain and Elsweyr to me seems like a much less hospitable place because I don't like heat. It is in the end a question of preference.

Back to the real subject then. I'm not bothered by closed cities or the removal of attributes. If they didn't have closed cities the game would probably be much more demanding on the computer, and I can't afford to buy a new computer. As for the removal of attributes, well you are going to be weaker and less acustomed to talking to people when you've been in prison. It's only appropriate that your skills reflect that. As for the prison thing, I've actually began thinking of a new fanfic that will take place in Skyrim in which the main character has been framed for murder only because the nord nobility(or something) are pissed on that persons foster mother. Otherwise I'm a hundred percent certain that someone creates a mod to change that. As for classes I think it's better without them because then you don't have to choose who you are right at the start, you can make it up as you go along and discover the world.

I've got high hopes for this game, I'll admit that, and I think a lot of them are coming true. Simply the fact that I'll not be stuck in one place talking when people are attacking(As in Weynon priory) is a huge plus for me. I also like that I'll be able to put pretty much what I want in each hand. And then the graphics seem awesome, though I'm not completely sure of that until I get to see elves, khajiits and argonians in action. Anyways, as it looks right now I'll be buying the game when it comes out if our computer can handle it.

But then again, all of this is just my opinion, and I do like it when games are visually attractive.

If I didn't want a character to start in prison, I just played the game and didn't start my story until I got where ever I wanted to start at. That's a very simple solution.

It's hard to just ignore the tutorial when you still have to play all the way through it (barring mods, but that's exactly why I said I'd wait for a mod). It's especially hard when it's a fundamental part of the story, as in Oblivion. Oblivion's prison sequence provides the entire setup for the game's plot; you can't just discard it unless you want to ignore the whole of the main quest.

Which after beating it a few times, is exactly what I did

Rumor has it that now Bethesda has chosen to merge together the Cuirass and Greaves armor pieces into a single generic "Armor" piece.

Anyone else think this is a horrible idea? I understand pauldrons, but greaves? Uh-uh.

Bethesda really seems to be falling into stride with over-streamlining their games to the point that it has a destructive effect on the end result. Just look at Oblivion and how they changed the skills, two of them were completely broken because of them being "streamlined."

Bethesda, please, stop fixing what isn't goddamn broke!

Perhaps I'm passing judgement early, but so far, this is where the evidence points, and if this gets confirmed in the fan interview, I expect no less than a massive ragefest on the forums from people who think this ruins the ability to customize your character's appearance (like the barbarian who wears no shirt, or the thief who goes without greaves to maintain the mobility of his legs).

But you never know, if this gets confirmed, perhaps the community will get mad enough that Bethesda will decide to retract this idea. One can dream.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Jun 12 2011, 07:01 AM

What? I hope the rumors are just rumors, BioWare did this with Dragon Age and it was guddamn MISTAKE THAT EVERYBODY SHOULD NOT REPEAT!

If this gets confirmed, Bethesda would lose fans. Lots of fans.

I really hope not

Is that a joke? That's one of the things people on forums comlain about the most. I didn't direct that at you in particular.

From my point of view, it isn't an increase in action that's the problem, it's the direction towards combat.

Let's say, just for the sake of it, you've decided to roleplay a diplomat. You increase your speechcraft, with the aim of talking your way out of trouble. An increase in action would put you in the position where you have to use that skill more frequently. A direction towards combat means that skill becomes useless, as you have to fight - whether by sword, use of magick etc.

See the difference? The Elder Scrolls series has always prided itself on letting you create any character type you wanted, yet the increase in direction towards events where you have no option but to fight limits the approaches you can take - which for those of us who don't just want to create warriors or battlemages is a problem.

Now, to address a point you made earlier in the thread:



Well, the problem is how it's marketed. Oblivion (and Skyrim I assume) are not marketed as Action/ Adventure games - unlike say GTA. They're marketed as Role Playing Games, with every connotation that comes with that. So it's hardly surprising that game players who want an RPG get frustrated when they're forced to play the game as an Action/ Adventure, and can't roleplay as they'd like, because the game has become much more combat based.

Now, for me? I'm not really expecting an RPG this time, I'm expecting a huge action/adventure game, and I doubt I'll be disappointed by those criteria. Oblivion I was, as I was expecting an RPG, and I didn't really get one. I've grown to like Oblivion, but on the terms of an adventure game, and not an RPG - which was how it was heavily marketed.

That's my opinion on the matter anyway

As per the discussion about starting in prison every game, it is an Elderscrolls tradition. Kinda like how its a tradition for them to remove skills and features from every game with the goal of eventually presenting a completely gutted FPS with a large world so they can call it an RPG. Sure there are now perks but only as a subtitute for the classes and attributes that they removed.

I know you didn't; my point was, why even bother raising the subject in a thread where no one else has mentioned it?


There probably will be, but I'm sure there'll be an equally massive backlash from the people who think Bethesda can do no wrong. *sigh* There's a reason why I'm staying away from the official Skyrim forums. People over here may disagree over Skyrim, but at least we can still have a relatively civil discussion about it.

Someone on the TV Tropes Wiki once commented that if Bethesda keep 'streamlining' their games, eventually the gameworld will consist of nothing but a single room containing a large red button, and the only skill will be 'Button Pressing'. OK, so it was a joke, but come the release of TESVI I can quite easily see Bethesda deciding to abandon that 'skill' nonsense altogether. Heck, they've already got rid of linear skill progression and many of the other RPG elements - why not just go the whole hog and turn the games into action-adventures? I'm sure they'd still sell like hot cakes, sad though it may be.


What gets me about the 'tradition' argument is that it's not even true. Daggerfall didn't start off in a prison, just a random cave where you were shipwrecked (which happened to look like a dungeon). Two games in a row do not a tradition make - and as you point out, even if it were a tradition, that's still not a good argument for keeping it in. All the ES games so far have been poorly voice-acted and horrendously bugged, but I don't see anyone clamouring for more of those things in Skyrim on the basis that they're 'traditional'.

This post has been edited by Helena: Jun 13 2011, 06:21 PM

Fair enough.