Oh, come on, Bethesda!, Closed cities AGAIN? Options

[Thomas Kaira]

May I ask exactly why? Oblivion could take open cities in perfect stride. The only reason the cities got closed at all was because BethSoft panicked about the console support.

Granted, they did have an excuse then, as they only received the Xbox 360 to do actual testing over the last three months of dev. time, but here... not so much. The current excuse is that the consoles can't handle what they are doing. Trouble is, the industry always manages to surprise us with exactly what those consoles CAN handle.

So long as the NPC count in the cities goes up by at least twice what we got in Oblivion, I will be understanding and shall complain no more. If not... well... then I will KNOW you are just being lazy. I want to see progress in making these games the best they can be, I don't want Skyrim to simply be Oblivion HD.

Source

In other news:

- Alchemy is becoming a stealth skill. (Approve! Approve!)

- There will be no minigames involved with the crafting skills (Thank you!)

- Giants, Draugr, and other creatures will receive a bit of culture from the AI engine (Looking forward to this.)

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: May 3 2011, 07:07 PM

[Destri Melarg]

All right, yes, I'm throwing a 'Mourning Morrowind Tantrum'. I'm not buying the 'making up for Infernal City' idea, though - the timeline and setting for Skyrim must have been decided long before TIC was released. Frankly, the impression I get is that the devs are fed up of hearing Morrowind fans compare Oblivion unfavourably to MW and wish they'd all just shut up. I'm not going to accuse them of deliberately blowing up Morrowind to piss off the fans, but either way it seems spectacularly mean-spirited of them.

I’m sure the setting was decided, but the timeline may not have been. From what I’ve seen the game could have just as easily been set a few years after the events of TIC (or even after the Oblivion Crisis). The idea that the devs somehow blew up Morrowind in a fit of spite is indeed mean-spirited, and is a take that I never even considered (I wouldn’t put it past them though).

You're missing my point somewhat. What's important is not that the game gave my character particular attributes, but that it allowed me to set them up that way before I'd even taken a step in the gameworld. I want a character with a pre-existing background and skillset, not a blank slate.

I can understand what you're saying. I think the difference lies in the two games. What I was saying is that initial attributes and skill levels were attainable by any race/gender chosen. However, I do realize that skills were far more relevant in Morrowind which makes opening skillsets an important consideration. In Morrowind starting off with Long Blade at 35 as opposed to Long Blade at 10 (or 15) was the difference between killing or being killed by the first mudcrab that crossed your path! By Oblivion a low Blade (no distinction between daggers and claymores thankyouverymuch) skill only meant that it took slightly longer to kill something. Applying Oblivion's lack of skillset considerations to someone who professes to love (and play) Morrowind more wasn't fair on my part, so I apologize if it seemed like I missed your point. I do maintain that any pre-existing background given to your character was more a function of your imagination than any mechanism within the game.



This post has been edited by Destri Melarg: Jun 30 2011, 05:33 AM