• The Elder Scrolls Megathread XX: Might as well be XXX
    3,795 replies, posted
See, writing is never an issue if you never do the main quests. I've played Skyrim for a decently hefty time just like i have fallout 4, but there are still places i haven't been. I constantly find new stuff, regardless of how long the game has been out. Plus modding just takes that feeling and amplifies it by 10.
I sometimes get that with Skyrim/Oblivion/Fallout 3/NV if I do replay them, where I can find something I might not have known about, but not Fallout 4. Fallout 4 is so lacking in content that I already feel like I've done everything.
I actually didn't like Apocrypha that much. Sure, it was a visual treat compared to basically all of Skyrim but the dungeons felt [i]so[/i] samey. There's like six of them with four to six rooms each and I can't remember which books have which dungeons or which rewards. By the time I got to the third Black Book I was sick of going through the places.
[video]https://youtu.be/QYC7CBuMBOg[/video] [video]https://youtu.be/Wyx0Jis-b0Q[/video] [editline]14th March 2018[/editline] [sp]Serana performing the Black Sacrament killed me[/sp]
Still relevant: [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi51-wjcwp8[/media] As long as this man has a job at bethesda their writing will be an open faced trashfire Also reminder that the FOUR "story and quest leads" under him on both titles did not communicate with each other [I]at all [/I]during development
[QUOTE=_charon;53201446]Fuck you I love Apocrypha I'd kill for more creative Apocrypha dungeons gimme some of that shit in Creation Club[/QUOTE] Sure the it's an amazing looking place and the extending corridors and atmosphere are amazing but I just hate Seekers too much, getting pulled out of the book gets rather annoying.
I think I've satisfied my disapointment of TES games and bethesda's direction with tabletop rollplaying. Someone should really work out a pen'n paper way to play TES with buddies. That's the roots of TES and a whole other bunch of big RPG series; groups of nerds wanting to put their D&D settings onto a computer. I think in general big AAA dudes like Bethesda should be trying to bring that kind of experience to the computer, rather than trying to make a more... arcade(?) kind of experience.
Skyrim was on the cusp of interesting writing for me. A lot of stories feel barebones or shallow but there's just enough to keep you interested, same with 3 if we're talking Beth as a whole. 4 just completely fell flat on it's face for me, I enjoyed my first 10~ hours but it had nothing to do with the story, just exploring the top left quadrant of the world. But once I realized there's not much of anything different in the other quadrants I can never get past the first 1 of a new playthrough, at least with Skyrim I can get at least 5 hours in before getting bored but that's because of my own fault with mods. 4 just lacks any depth beyond "visual story telling" which consists of either : skeleton propped in a none dead position, a teddy bear propped in a human like position, or terminals that all run the lines of "man lifes great what can possibly go wrong! Dated October 20th 2077" . Instead of creating new interesting places with interesting people, they just made shooting gallerys with different themes. One of the other ways of visually storytelling they kind of written themselves out of was the storytelling with the randomized loot list. You could of easily had unique weapons with nice back stories and reasons for being there but they got rid of it in favor of 2+ adjectived weapons/armor that all look the same. It feels like you're playing a game like Destiny but just the single player. All I really hope for TES6 is just having some depth, whether it's character building, world building or story telling I just want to feel like they took the time to detail something instead of just going"we randomized some of it and left the rest up to you"
For bethesda to change it's quality in storytelling, it needs internal team changes for internal team changes, their next game from that team, that is done in the exact way that team did FO4, needs to fucking fall flat on its face. Then they'll look at themselves and their decisions from then on will determine if they float or sink. But if their next project is just like FO4, and sells just as much, nothing will majorly change unless if there are other internal factors that are at play. After all companies follow the most $, and if doing it the way they have been keeps making them that money, they won't change.
I think part of TES's strength is in its damn fine art direction. Other RPGs I've played often fall into a wierd "we could have drawn a straight roof but maked it kinky because it's a fantasy game". Like, Kindgoms of Amalur just looks like a half-baked stylised world seemingly just for the sake of it. Skyrim, Morrowind, even Oblivion is inspired and shows it off.
[QUOTE=ClarkWasHere;53202806]For bethesda to change it's quality in storytelling, it needs internal team changes for internal team changes, their next game from that team, that is done in the exact way that team did FO4, needs to fucking fall flat on its face. Then they'll look at themselves and their decisions from then on will determine if they float or sink. But if their next project is just like FO4, and sells just as much, nothing will majorly change unless if there are other internal factors that are at play. After all companies follow the most $, and if doing it the way they have been keeps making them that money, they won't change.[/QUOTE] The open world genre, specifically the medieval (fantasy or not) open world genre has been swept by far more specialized devs that have stormed straight past any of Bethesda's previous achievements. Whereas once they practically dominated that corner of the market and thus their shortcomings were ultimately forgiven/ignored for their content, the current market has simply moved on from their formula and it really shows. Fallout is still a niche they've got a handle on, but how do the teams that work on Elder Scrolls with their numerous glaring shortcomings and lack of quality control even compete with some of the medieval fantasy RPGs that have come out today? They know full well the next Elder Scrolls they release is immediately going to be compared to the likes of The Witcher 3, Kingdom Come Deliverance, and so on; excellent games in their own right that innovated where Bethesda would not or could not. I would take a bet that they're feeling the pressure and are uneasily riding the coat-tails of their previous success with Skyrim trying desperately to innovate, only they've cornered themselves with their distinct (and remarkably stubborn, even toxic at times) modding community that would become uprooted if Bethesda mixed up their engine too much or even changed it completely.
[QUOTE=ntzu;53202846]The open world genre, specifically the medieval (fantasy or not) open world genre has been swept by far more specialized devs that have stormed straight past any of Bethesda's previous achievements. Whereas once they practically dominated that corner of the market and thus their shortcomings were ultimately forgiven/ignored for their content, the current market has simply moved on from their formula and it really shows. Fallout is still a niche they've got a handle on, but how do the teams that work on Elder Scrolls with their numerous glaring shortcomings and lack of quality control even compete with some of the medieval fantasy RPGs that have come out today? They know full well the next Elder Scrolls they release is immediately going to be compared to the likes of The Witcher 3, Kingdom Come Deliverance, and so on; excellent games in their own right that innovated where Bethesda would not or could not. I would take a bet that they're feeling the pressure and are uneasily riding the coat-tails of their previous success with Skyrim trying desperately to innovate, only they've cornered themselves with their distinct (and remarkably stubborn, even toxic at times) modding community that would likely become immensely upset if Bethesda mixed up their engine too much or even changed it completely.[/QUOTE] IIRC Todd Howard said that Elder Scrolls would not be the next game BGS makes after FO4. If I recall his words correctly, "The technology just isn't there yet". Most likely means that they could be doing what they promised and their newer games won't be on the Creation Engine (supposedly only two games would be on Creation). A new engine may make it easier for Beth to play catch-up with the rest of the open world market. The issue is that their current engine provides some uniqueness in the form of some of it's features in comparison to the rest of the open world genre. For example, moving a spoon in a building is (when everything goes right) 100% persistent, and picking it up removes it from the world almost permanently, unless it's designed to respawn. Killing people has actual consequences on the world (not necessarily the story mind you, but the absence of a character can speak volumes if done right [sp]which bethesda doesn't take advantage of most of the time :/[/sp]). Persistence is not necessarily a feature that is imperative for open world games to have, but the persistence that Bethesda game studio's games provide gives it a lot more immersion the player can have, and that's typically what BGS wants from what I've seen. And, I'm going to be honest, as a part of the modding community and mod making community myself, fuck us, we're too small of a community within a community of mod users. If they made sweeping changes, it would only be because it's a bout damn time, and a whiny mod community shouldn't stop em. We don't really affect more than 10% of the players (until FO4 i guess). I want to see the engine change dramatically to the point where the systems are just not the same, but are just as modable. Us modders are adaptable, otherwise we'd not bother learning how to mod in the first place. And I'm sure that, while bethesda PR likes to tout the modding focus of their game, it's really just a by-product of their development process of teams making ESPs then merging them together to make ESMs for their games. If I were to depict a perfect scenario of the successful, innovative, new game from BGS, it would be a game that has the same modability as FO4 Creation Engine or even more, while also being completely different beast to make mods for, just as story depth of at least Mass Effect 1 or 2, combat that's a midway between the depth to something like Dark Souls and Skyrim, and with the unique parts of the BethBryo engine we (actually) all love, like the persistence i mentioned.
[QUOTE=DiscoInferno;53202829]I think part of TES's strength is in its damn fine art direction. Other RPGs I've played often fall into a wierd "we could have drawn a straight roof but maked it kinky because it's a fantasy game". Like, Kindgoms of Amalur just looks like a half-baked stylised world seemingly just for the sake of it. Skyrim, Morrowind, even Oblivion is inspired and shows it off.[/QUOTE] Except three of the people that made that happen died or retired and it showed in spades in 4, but until they acknowledge a need for getting depth to match wideness I wouldn't expect anything new.
Skyrim is alot like D&D Dungeons and Draugr
Skyrim's more like the worst game of D&D, i'd say it's more like munchkin but that game has more interesting features, most especially kick down the door. But you've got this terrible railroading GM that really wants you to know you're railroaded. The GM throws prophecies and destinies on your face as soon as he possibly can, there's almost always just way to advance a quest, and your only other option to deal with the quests are to leave and let them hang. all the npcs are very loud and explicit with what you need to do, the puzzles are designed for nobody to because either you or the GM is dumb as fuck, dungeons (you could argue exceptions, I'd have counterarguments) are built as levels rather than places people use.
DnD campaigns that are about a more relaxed and railroaded adventure aren't necessarily bad, though.
Apparently Bethesda relocated him to do something else and are replacing him with a new Lead Writer/Designer
He's an ok editor and that's about as far as you can take it.
I actually went back and started playing the current mod build I had and went through most of the content in Beyond Skyrim: Bruma. I'm still amazed at the quality of that mod through and through. I finished what I guess is the closest to a main quest in that mod and I was surprised to see where it went. I guess I was a bit too used to Skyrim's overly safe quest conclusions to expect a seemingly mild decision to end with a character being doomed to a life of torture and torment in a Thalmor prison just for trying to do the right thing.
I don't get why this quote is a meme at all. You can climb the mountain. Albeit on a very specific, linear path, but what were people expecting? Scaling the mountain with climbing gear?
The quote's a meme because it's a perfect example of Todd Howard's very unique way of "lying", which isn't lying as much as gleeful manipulative exaggeration. Yeah, you can climb that mountain. You can't climb all the other mountains though, not without severe fucking around or using exploits like horses ignoring gravity. It's just as manipulative a statement as "infinite quests" - technically true, but setting false expectations.
I'm not aware of any broader connotation associated with it, I just find it pleasing, its a genuinely good quote to sell a game imo
I don't suppose anyone knows how to fix corrupted NIF files do they? Crash fixes is spitting out an error about some NIF files from Immersive Armors being fucked up (no surprise there) and I'm wondering how I can fix this shit so I can get back to playing and not have everything break when a pair of dwarven mage gauntlets shows up on screen. I've looked into that NIF helper thing and tried to download it but Firefox started freaking the fuck out and thought it was malware.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVGzHQ9NTfw You stupid idiot hold it the correct way GOD
https://i.imgur.com/hjfvImN.jpg Crown mounts actually look like they fit in the game for once (how the fuck do I thumb stuff)
i always just go for the biggest collection of the lusty argonian maid
The fix is not using it, especially when there are metric N'wahtonne of alternatives.
Been using that "Official Survival mod" thing Bethesda released. Pretty good, I'm just starting to get bored of having to walk to everywhere/to each city to use carts.
nothing is more annoying than having a character a serial killer that loots towns who is in both the dark bromancehood and the thieves guild and getting a quest where I stop a thief or bring stolen goods to the guards like what the fuck he'd sooner stab them in the face lol
You gotta maintain the illusion that you're a law abiding citizen while you're in the town bro.
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