Skyrim - The Elder Scrolls V

[Maniacal]

The Thieves guild isn't really that evil. What they do may not always be morally right, but it isn't evil.

 

[Gelion]

How does the game compare to the previous Elder Scroll games? I'm thinking about buying the Legendary Edition, but I do not want another pretty signle track train ride of Oblivion.

 

[cybrxkhan]

How does the game compare to the previous Elder Scroll games? I'm thinking about buying the Legendary Edition, but I do not want another pretty signle track train ride of Oblivion.

Depends on what you like and don't like as an Elder Scrolls fan and what you liked and didn't liked about Oblivion.

For some Skyrim is dumbed down, for others its streamlined - although I will say some of the commonly cited "dumbed down" features already existed heavily in Morrowind, such as repetitive fetch quests.

In terms of exploration and presenting a unique world, it's much better than Oblivion. While the setting is undeniably European, it's not generic, in my opinion - it's very, very clearly influenced by Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian culture and mythos (which, in a way, makes it much closer to Tolkien than every other cliched-filled fantasy), though with its own twists and turns. The landscape and dungeons are much more unique, and I'd say of all the ES games, Skyrim has the best dungeons - each dungeon is unique and handcrafted in its own way, and some are just beautiful wallpaper material. There's also much more interesting and random things to find in the wilderness, too, compared to Oblivion, and the random encounter system helps. It's not as alien as Morrowind, but it's still leagues beyond Oblivion.

Quests and writing is hit and miss, some are pretty cool and many are bleh - though this is like Oblivion and Morrowind as well (self-proclaimed Morrowind fans often conveniently forget that Morrowind had crap tons of fetch quests and NPCs that spouted the same infodumps). The main quest starts off good in my opinion but it could be much better in the end (though Morrowind's main quest is still the best). NPCs also have more personality in a way due to more unique dialogue, but the problem is that after playing 100 hours you realize they're just saying the same "unique" dialogue over and over. Whether that's an improvement over Oblivion's mudcrab and "I've heard others say the same" dialogue is rather subjective - in one way it is still much more unique, and with some imagination you can see how different NPCs are, but in another way it makes them, ironically, more robotic than Oblivion's NPCs because at least with Oblivion's NPCs you never knew what sort of silly conversations they had.

Gameplay I can't really comment much on, since I'm not a min-maxer. I definitely liked the streamlined levelling system,a s it makes you focus on improving skills rather than min-maxing to get the right stats. It could be a bit more complex than it currently stands, but I still think it's an improvement over Oblivion and Morrowind. Combat is also better, though again I'm not one who cares too much about gameply - others have said combat, though improved, still sucks.


That's all I can really say. Objectively speaking, Morrowind and Skyrim are both better games than Oblivion (though for some unusual, unexplainable reason I still find Oblivion more fun), and Morrowind and Skyrim both are better than each other in different ways. The issue comes as to whether you like the better parts of Morrowind over the better parts of Skyrim, and vice versa.

 

[Gelion]

Wow, thank you for the post! I don't think I've read such a long answer in a while!

I love Norse myths and legends, so I think from that point of view it will be more enjoyable. Morrowind was both sufficiently alien and unwelcoming to be interesting to explore and hard to settle in. So I think the setting will be fun.

I'm now closer to buying the game, but I still have a few questions on some gameplay elements.

I'm currently slowly crawling through Oblivion (for the first time) and finding it to be very console like. Hell, I can't even hit escape to return to my game in the menu, I have to click the mouse. Not to mention the quick menu and selling items to vendors. What about Skyrim in that sense, is it a better compromise between a PC and a console?

The so-called conversations and the dialogues you can have in Oblivion are not very "mature". IIRC in Morrowind you could get more out of NPCs in terms of what they think about politics and their views on life rather than the extremely interesting "X sells great apples/tomatoes" of Oblivion. Has this aspect been improved?

What about the linearity of quests? Are there multiple ways of solving quests (not that it was much different in Morrowind)?

Lastly, what about the physics engine? I know throwing items around can hit NPCs and count as an assault, but, in general, is item placing better than in Oblivion? Also, is item-crafting any fun? (or, say, can a character survive in the world by crafting everything by himself?)

 

[GAGA Extrem]

How does the game compare to the previous Elder Scroll games? I'm thinking about buying the Legendary Edition, but I do not want another pretty signle track train ride of Oblivion.

I'd agree that Morrowing and Skyrim are to different to be really compareable.

Personally, I really like Skyrim. The setting is nice, the game looks fantastic with some mods installed and is highly immersive. Sound is okay, music is good (but a bit repetetive).

Gameplaywise I actually like the changes they did. Levelling feels a lot more natural than in Morrowing or Oblivion where I always had to try to get certain skills up to maximize my stat gain. The perk system is a decent replacement for the whole stats system and allows you to build a lot of characters that are actually quite different gameplaywise. Esp. mages have a ton of cool options for specializing.

In addition, the scaling effect of your level on enemies is a lot more subtle. Unlike Oblivion, you can actually do 5 levelups via alchemy and still defeat the monsters that are running around (since your damage depends more on the gear/spells you get and you can invest the perks from level up in something non-alchemy).

The quests range from "meh" to "nice" and are mostly "okay". They did their best to get as much out of their engine as they could, but don't expect great innovation everywhere. The questhub system is, however, a good addition to give you some random quests to make the game less repetetive when you start over again.

The game has its flaws. Main story isn't all that great (although I enjoyed it more than Morrowing and Oblivion), the civil war quest is nowhere as cool as it should be and there are still a few glitches here and there (although nothing serious). I must admit I still miss the levitation and leap spells from Morrowing, but, oh well...

Overall I'd highly recommend picking up Skyrim. But don't forget to get all the cool mods to make the game even better.

edit:

I'm currently slowly crawling through Oblivion (for the first time) and finding it to be very console like. Hell, I can't even hit escape to return to my game in the menu, I have to click the mouse. Not to mention the quick menu and selling items to vendors. What about Skyrim in that sense, is it a better compromise between a PC and a console?

The original Skyrim is (unfortunately) a bit consol-ish. The standard menu is bad. BUT: There are fantastic mods out there that give you a fully PC-optimized UI. Some allow you even to bind items and spells to dynamic hotkeys.

The so-called conversations and the dialogues you can have in Oblivion are not very "mature". IIRC in Morrowind you could get more out of NPCs in terms of what they think about politics and their views on life rather than the extremely interesting "X sells great apples/tomatoes" of Oblivion. Has this aspect been improved?

Yes, vastely. There can still be weired or inappropriate PC talk sometimes, but it is WAY, WAY, WAY better than oblivion. In general NPC are a bit less chatty and more focused on the player. A thing I like a bard playing songs. Not perfecetly handled, but a really cool idea. They even have a song about you.
There is also a mod called "interesting NPCs" that adds like 150 new NPCs with full voiceover dialog. Includes some really cool ones.

What about the linearity of quests? Are there multiple ways of solving quests (not that it was much different in Morrowind)?

As mentioned above you will get different random quests from hub-quest NPCs (iirc there is one per town?), so at least you will experience a few different ones. You will sometimes run into choises, but in general quests are rather linear. One example: A men begs you to find his wife that was kidnapped by bandits, but turns out she is actually the bandit leader. You can kill her, leave her alone and tell her husband that she is dead or just take a bribe and never return to the worried men. Does not really matter for the outcome, but gives you some room to roleplay.

Lastly, what about the physics engine? I know throwing items around can hit NPCs and count as an assault, but, in general, is item placing better than in Oblivion? Also, is item-crafting any fun? (or, say, can a character survive in the world by crafting everything by himself?)

Physics are better than oblivion, yes. Placing is a bit easier and there are certain mods that prevent flipping items by running into them or reduce the influence of force you have on items/characters. There is some cool stuff like letting 100 cheesewheels roll down a hill, or use traps to hinder/kill enemies. There are also better options for showing off items in your home (mannequins you can equip, weapon stands and panels). The heartfire addon allows you to build a house yourself (by gathering material and doing smithing/carpentry), there are also user made mods that allow you to build your own house.
Itemcrafting can be fun, there is certainly a lot you can make. You can make the most important stuff yourself, but it is not really needed. There are also certain mods that add survival elements to the game, for example with "Frostfall", you need thick clothes to protect yourself from snow and ice, firewood to make campfires to get warm and tents to survive the night in the wild. Swimming in ice cold water is not recommended without good protection.

Btw, if you want to start playing wait and let us make a modlist. The game experience will be much better with the right mods.

 

[Gelion]

Overall I'd highly recommend picking up Skyrim. But don't forget to get all the cool mods to make the game even better.

Heh

Well that is the whole thing. Is the game good enough without mods? There are a few mods I won't play Morrowind without, some of them are:
Books Rotate (putting books on shelves is a must),
Give your Orders (seems natural to have),
Healers (healers now heal!),
Better Bodies groucho and Better Heads,
Nerevar Armour (nice historical background addition),
Morrowind Comes Alive (random NPCs, a big loss from Daggerfall),
various expanded cities (sometimes)
and a mannequin mod.

I can play Morrowind without these mods. I only really need 2: Books Rotate and Morrowind Comes Alive to make the game more interactive. Thats it! How does Skyrim look without mods?

I'm not much into graphics, but I must say what I see on Youtube and Google Images is pretty amazing. I'm looking forward to try the new leveling system. Stat-based RPGs are fun to play, but I can't make an opinion about the new system without trying it. It could be fun. I'd say I'll add another plus to Skyrim and try it just to experience the novelty.

EDIT:

The original Skyrim is (unfortunately) a bit consol-ish. The standard menu is bad. BUT: There are fantastic mods out there that give you a fully PC-optimized UI. Some allow you even to bind items and spells to dynamic hotkeys.

Thats a shame. I was hoping they'd make more effort... I guess us PC gamers just have to get used to the new trend. Or create our own companies
I'd count that as a "-", but its good that it can be corrected with mods.

Yes, vastely. There can still be weired or inappropriate PC talk sometimes, but it is WAY, WAY, WAY better than oblivion. In general NPC are a bit less chatty and more focused on the player. A thing I like a bard playing songs. Not perfecetly handled, but a really cool idea. They even have a song about you.
There is also a mod called "interesting NPCs" that adds like 150 new NPCs with full voiceover dialog. Includes some really cool ones.

Awesome! I heard the bard song on Youtube once. To hear that NPCs are smarter in the rest of the game is definitely a big plus!

As mentioned above you will get different random quests from hub-quest NPCs (iirc there is one per town?), so at least you will experience a few different ones. You will sometimes run into choises, but in general quests are rather linear. One example: A men begs you to find his wife that was kidnapped by bandits, but turns out she is actually the bandit leader. You can kill her, leave her alone and tell her husband that she is dead or just take a bribe and never return to the worried men. Does not really matter for the outcome, but gives you some room to roleplay.

Random quests! Awesome, just like Daggerfall!

As far as items, I'm really impressed, although installing mods to make the physics run better are not really appealing to me. Still I'd say that its a "pass" and I love the idea to be able to craft your own house up (must be time consuming though). I checked and the prices of DLCs (which are included in the Legendary edition anyway) are quite reasonable. No more 100 of DLCs for a dollar. Nice change!

Btw, if you want to start playing wait and let us make a modlist. The game experience will be much better with the right mods.

That sounds like a fun idea! I personally doubt that I will start playing before summer (work and studies stuff like that), but a list of mods is always fun! We could even make them for Morrowind and Oblivion.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I'm currently slowly crawling through Oblivion (for the first time) and finding it to be very console like. Hell, I can't even hit escape to return to my game in the menu, I have to click the mouse. Not to mention the quick menu and selling items to vendors. What about Skyrim in that sense, is it a better compromise between a PC and a console?

Skyrim's UI is... well, people say it's bad. Personally myself, I don't care - I didn't mind Oblivion's console-based UI (though I thought you could hit escape to return to the game... I just played Oblivion yesterday and I swear I did that, or maybe it was return (no mods, btw)). Since I don't care much about the UI (and frankly I'm pretty used to it) I'm probably not the best one to ask about this.

I will say, however, that one thing that irks me about Skyrim is that you can't change hotkeys - at least in Oblivion you could do that. It really annoyed me when I started Skyrim and I was used to Oblivion's hotkeys. There's mods that changes that, though me myself, again, I sort of didn't mind at the end of the day (and ended up changing Oblivion and Morrowind hotkeys to suit Skyrim's hotkeys), though I understand why it might bother other players.

The so-called conversations and the dialogues you can have in Oblivion are not very "mature". IIRC in Morrowind you could get more out of NPCs in terms of what they think about politics and their views on life rather than the extremely interesting "X sells great apples/tomatoes" of Oblivion. Has this aspect been improved?

I actually think that sort of thing is mature. You don't expect everyone - or even most people - in real life to start spurting random socio-political discussions at the drop of a hat. Normal conversation about nothing is realistic.

However on a serious note Skyrim is an improvement over Oblivion, and perhaps even an improvement over Morrowind - whereas in Morrowind you basically got infodumps that most people in a group said, even if interesting and insightful (like almost every Dunmer talking about how they're xenophobic or love slavery) - in Skyrim each person, if they are given unique dialogue, sometimes gives you a lot of insight into their personal view and sometimes bigger situations as well. The Civil War is one example, for instance, where you'll find people talking about why they support either side - or neither, and it helped me gain a fuller understanding of both sides, their pros and cons, and the depth of the situation (although I still firmly stand by the Empire - screw the Stormcloaks! )

What about the linearity of quests? Are there multiple ways of solving quests (not that it was much different in Morrowind)?

There are some quests with multiple ways of ending them, though not too many, and often may of these non-linear quests are more like "choose option A or B". One side quest, for instance, has you figure whether you want to turn in a Redguard woman being hunted down by Redguard mercenaries or whether you kill the mercenaries and essentially help her - there's reasons why you might choose either, and the quest writer did a pretty good job of setting up reasons why you might go one way or another (I turned her in in my first playthrough, though, the mercenaries' cse convinced me).

However those sorts of quests aren't too many, and the ones with more than a binary choice are even rarer (though they exist). Frankly though, come to think of it, I can't help but notice how many of Skyrim's quests have a binary choice. Heck, the two main questlines - the Alduin/Dragonborn questline as well as the Civil War questline - are dominated by a binary choice. Civil War questline is pretty straightup: join the rebellion or the Empire, and liberate or reunify Skyrim!

Lastly, what about the physics engine? I know throwing items around can hit NPCs and count as an assault, but, in general, is item placing better than in Oblivion? Also, is item-crafting any fun? (or, say, can a character survive in the world by crafting everything by himself?)

I dunno if item placing is better than Oblivion, I never really paid attention.

As for item crafting, it's a bit of a chore, but then again it was also a chore in Oblivion and Morrowind. Skyrim, however, has streamlined it so it's much, much easier to know what you want to do. I mean, Oblivion and Morrowind's alchemy system was absolute hell - Skyrim makes it much, much simpler to take care of.

Heh

Well that is the whole thing. Is the game good enough without mods? There are a few mods I won't play Morrowind without, some of them are:
Books Rotate (putting books on shelves is a must),
Give your Orders (seems natural to have),
Healers (healers now heal!),
Better Bodies groucho and Better Heads,
Nerevar Armour (nice historical background addition),
Morrowind Comes Alive (random NPCs, a big loss from Daggerfall),
various expanded cities (sometimes)
and a mannequin mod.

I can play Morrowind without these mods. I only really need 2: Books Rotate and Morrowind Comes Alive to make the game more interactive. Thats it! How does Skyrim look without mods?

I'm not much into graphics, but I must say what I see on Youtube and Google Images is pretty amazing. I'm looking forward to try the new leveling system. Stat-based RPGs are fun to play, but I can't make an opinion about the new system without trying it. It could be fun. I'd say I'll add another plus to Skyrim and try it just to experience the novelty.

You don't need Skyrim mods to enjoy it - heck, I played probably 100 hours before I started using mods. But I will say I'm the kind of person that's happy playing vanilla versions of games and don't like mods that change things too much.

There's probably a few essential mods out there you can try that don't change the core gameplay too much and will still let you experience vanilla before you can make a better assessment of what you like. There's several mods that adds people to cities and travellers in the roads sort of like Morrowind Comes Alive (I use one of them, forgot which).

But otherwise yeah, it's a good idea to try vanilla for a long, long time before you know what you want. Then you can look at what sort of stuff you want to improve for things like followers and graphics and difficulty settings.

 

[Gelion]

Skyrim's UI is... well, people say it's bad. Personally myself, I don't care - I didn't mind Oblivion's console-based UI (though I thought you could hit escape to return to the game... I just played Oblivion yesterday and I swear I did that, or maybe it was return (no mods, btw)). Since I don't care much about the UI (and frankly I'm pretty used to it) I'm probably not the best one to ask about this.

You can hit escape from the main menu. You cannot hit escape from any of the sub-menus and it is really annoying because you have to learn when to click what for the same function.

I will say, however, that one thing that irks me about Skyrim is that you can't change hotkeys - at least in Oblivion you could do that. It really annoyed me when I started Skyrim and I was used to Oblivion's hotkeys. There's mods that changes that, though me myself, again, I sort of didn't mind at the end of the day (and ended up changing Oblivion and Morrowind hotkeys to suit Skyrim's hotkeys), though I understand why it might bother other players.

That is a big problem. I, as most people, have a long history of playing computer games on PC and would think that the developpers would at least listen to the people that got them their first money.

I actually think that sort of thing is mature. You don't expect everyone - or even most people - in real life to start spurting random socio-political discussions at the drop of a hat. Normal conversation about nothing is realistic.

Yes and no. In a way small talk is natural, but when you think about it you do not know how long your character converses with an NPC. In Oblivion I had the impression that the NPCs talk very little because if they said anything meaningful they'd be either arrested by the Empire or killed by the Dark Brotherhood (you'd expect that from a game where selling stolen items to a vendor is forbidden by code). I liked Morrowind's direct coversations more.

However on a serious note Skyrim is an improvement over Oblivion, and perhaps even an improvement over Morrowind - whereas in Morrowind you basically got infodumps that most people in a group said, even if interesting and insightful (like almost every Dunmer talking about how they're xenophobic or love slavery) - in Skyrim each person, if they are given unique dialogue, sometimes gives you a lot of insight into their personal view and sometimes bigger situations as well. The Civil War is one example, for instance, where you'll find people talking about why they support either side - or neither, and it helped me gain a fuller understanding of both sides, their pros and cons, and the depth of the situation (although I still firmly stand by the Empire - screw the Stormcloaks! )

Empire FTW! (Unless its the Star Wars Empire, in which case I'd just join the Hutts or something ) Actually some of my best moments in Morrowind were spent in Gnisis and other villages as a young (low-level) recruit trying to help folks in need. Hell, the armour I was given by the Legion really helped me at low levels and going to Gnisis after the first few quests in Balmora became a norm for most of my characters.

As for Skyrim, its a big plus, but I guess I'll have to see it in person to really appreciate it.
I don't know, I kind of liked Morrowind "entries" in the journal. It felt that my character is really taking notes rather than making a XX-century "to-do" list.

There are some quests with multiple ways of ending them, though not too many, and often may of these non-linear quests are more like "choose option A or B". One side quest, for instance, has you figure whether you want to turn in a Redguard woman being hunted down by Redguard mercenaries or whether you kill the mercenaries and essentially help her - there's reasons why you might choose either, and the quest writer did a pretty good job of setting up reasons why you might go one way or another (I turned her in in my first playthrough, though, the mercenaries' cse convinced me).

However those sorts of quests aren't too many, and the ones with more than a binary choice are even rarer (though they exist). Frankly though, come to think of it, I can't help but notice how many of Skyrim's quests have a binary choice. Heck, the two main questlines - the Alduin/Dragonborn questline as well as the Civil War questline - are dominated by a binary choice. Civil War questline is pretty straightup: join the rebellion or the Empire, and liberate or reunify Skyrim!

I guess that it should qualify as "good enough". In most situations you are nearly forced to make a descision once you are sufficiently involved. I guess quests do make you involved and force you to make descision. Sounds realistic to me.

As for item crafting, it's a bit of a chore, but then again it was also a chore in Oblivion and Morrowind. Skyrim, however, has streamlined it so it's much, much easier to know what you want to do. I mean, Oblivion and Morrowind's alchemy system was absolute hell - Skyrim makes it much, much simpler to take care of.

I love that part in MMORPGs most so it sounds like it will be a fun feature. Alchemy is kind of hard to judge, I like the interface of Oblivion more (believe it or not), but the mechanics was better in Morrowind, not to forget the uber-powerfull portions. Exploit, yes, but a fun one!

You don't need Skyrim mods to enjoy it - heck, I played probably 100 hours before I started using mods. But I will say I'm the kind of person that's happy playing vanilla versions of games and don't like mods that change things too much.

There's probably a few essential mods out there you can try that don't change the core gameplay too much and will still let you experience vanilla before you can make a better assessment of what you like. There's several mods that adds people to cities and travellers in the roads sort of like Morrowind Comes Alive (I use one of them, forgot which).

But otherwise yeah, it's a good idea to try vanilla for a long, long time before you know what you want. Then you can look at what sort of stuff you want to improve for things like followers and graphics and difficulty settings.

Yes, I think agree with you 100%! Its the same way it worked for me in Morrowind. I learned the game inside out before trying a first mod and I now have a collection I use nearly always. I was just worried that the game is not playable without them as Oblivion seems to me now (barely playable actually), but it doesn't look to be the case.

Ok, folks, in summer I'll join you! (provided my computer can run it)

 

[cybrxkhan]

One other note - Skyrim definitely is going back to the Morrowind thing where you really have to think about things before you act, particularly with the Civil War questline. Yes, you can just take what some random dude says at face value and automatically assume "lololol Empire is evilz must kill oppressive elf-loving tyrants" or "lolololol Stormcloaks are racist pricks must destroy them all", but if you read into things a bit more deeply you start to realize how grey everything is. It makes it much closer to Morrowind where there's no pure good and evil - it's a pity, though, that in Skyrim this is relegated mostly to the Civil War questline instead of the main questline, unlike in Morrowind where there's grey even in the main questline. In Skyrim Alduin is at least 99% evil.

It's funny how I've read Stormcloak vs. Empire arguments on other forums, and they'll go on and on for pages with the exact same sort of vitriol and high blood pressure you'll see with real life political debates. If anything, even though the Civil War questline itself is bleh to an extent (it's more repetitive and less epic than it should be (which is sad given that modders have found evidence in the code and Construction Kit that the Civil War was originally going to be much more complex and epic, arguably making it as detailed as the main quest)), it shows, in my opinion, how well Bethesda did making sure the Stormcloaks and Empire were neither clear-cut good guys.

So my whole point here is that if anything, the Civil War does hark back to the days of less black-and-whiteness with Morrowind. Many side quests also sort of do the same (such as the one with the Redguards and mercenaries I mentioned above). Unfortunately, it's only really the Civil War (and some smaller mini-questlines) that get the full treatment. Fortunately, though, it's way better than Oblivion. Even though Oblivion's main questline was a tad bit deeper if you go deep into the lore, that's only really if you go deep, deep, deep into the lore. In Skyrim, you can understand the depth right off the bat within the first hour of the game if you pay enough attention to what everyone's saying.

Ok, folks, in summer I'll join you! (provided my computer can run it)

If your PC can't handle it, you can always buy a cheap GPU. I upgraded my integrated GPU to a $30 GPU just so I could play Skyrim, and while it wasn't that impressive an upgrade - about 15 fps - the game is still playable and enjoyable (I never understood why some gamers claim that anything under 30 fps is "unplayable" - heck, when I first got Oblivion I didn't even realize I was at ~10 fps until after 200 hours of playing). There's also a number of mods that increase performance, and now I average at around 20 fps. I'm pretty sure if you buy a better GPU, and if your PC can handle it (I bought the best GPU my really low-end PC can handle), you can probably make it work.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Well that is the whole thing. Is the game good enough without mods?

It is. But its like a sunday without sprinkles.
Btw, my most beloved mod is actually quite simple: Bigger trees. Sounds trivial, but the feeling you get when walking through a big boreal forest is awesome. Its a whole new expierence of the game world. :3

How does Skyrim look without mods?

"Okay". If you use the official high-res textures it looks a good (for an RPG).

Stat-based RPGs are fun to play, but I can't make an opinion about the new system without trying it. It could be fun. I'd say I'll add another plus to Skyrim and try it just to experience the novelty.

I missed stats first but have come to the conclusion that meaningful perks have a much bigger impact on the game. Try it. Maybe you come to the same conclusion.

Awesome! I heard the bard song on Youtube once. To hear that NPCs are smarter in the rest of the game is definitely a big plus!

There are actually a few songs. I remember at least 4 different ones.

Random quests! Awesome, just like Daggerfall!

They are not really random. They are premade, but randomly chosen.

 

[sophie]

I agree with much of cybrxkhan has to say about Skyrim. There are a lot of things I really, really like about the game. I am probably one of the foremost proponents of the "streamlining" of the game. One thing I absolutely didn't like about Oblivion was the skillbuilding. In Oblivion if you wanted to be a mage, you couldn't just go be a mage. If you did that you'd either be overwhelmed from the start when they start throwing all these decisions at you in the first 10 minutes that are completely unchangeable, or you'd just go with it, hit a wall at level 10 or so and find that you could no longer progress because you didn't pick the right profession/skills/sign at the start of the game. To be the type of character you want to be you have to print out online guides, and be very particular about which skills you level and when. For those who understood the system, it could be very rewarding, but for the everyday guy who just wants to blow up skeevers with fireballs it chewed you up and spit you out very quickly.

Skyrim fixes this. I think a good comparison for Skyrim and Oblivion would be a hippy parent's child versus a tiger parent's child. The hippy parent understands that nobody knows what they want to do when they graduate college. You're expected to dick around after college gallavanting around Europe and doing other general "stoner comedy" sort of things. This is Skyrim. The low level scaling at the beginning, combined with the stats-backended perk system (generally the perks tell you what they mean rather than what they do, specifically), combined with the touchstones (replacing the set in stone birthsigns of Oblivion) mean that you can dick around for the first 10-15 levels without any real consequences. We know you're going to want to do it all and it's built into the system. The game rewards you for specializing, but doesn't necessarily punish you for not doing it.

By contrast the tiger parent has a vision for their child and they will railroad them into that vision from birth to death. If you stray from that path you will die. The game lets you dick around for about 10 minutes. Then it says "ok NOW WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE? CHOOSE QUICKLY ONCE YOU LEAVE THERE IS NO TURNING BACK". Then it assaults you with masses of excel spreadsheets and numbers (of which you do not understand because you've never played the game before). You pick those, leave the sewers and that's it. You've graduated kindergarten. You will be an engineer. But then you go to high school. You discover have some amazing English teacher Junior year and discover that you really like Literary Criticism and you want to be an English teacher yourself. Tough. That doesn't jive with the plan. At this point in the metaphor you are level 10. You are doing things that have no correspondence to your major skills, and the bears are starting to appear on the map. Prepare to scrap this character and start anew.

Well that was clumsily accomplished but yeah. As you can tell I really didn't like Oblivion. The other thing I really didn't like about Oblivion that I really think they fixed in Skyrim is the questing. Both games essentially have the game broken down into a number of cities with a 8 or 10 generic quests and 2 or 3 interesting quests handcrafted for that city with dungeons dotted in between. What I liked about Skyrim was that it was much easier to really get into the soul of each city. People often say that the cities in Oblivion were generic. Skyrim, by contrast is generally said to have really interesting, diverse cities. Generally they cite the boring architecture, in Oblivion versus the interesting architecture in Skyrim but I don't think this is quite it. I think it comes down to those interesting quests. In Oblivion you really have to dig deeply into the city to find those quests. Oblivion wants to you explore the cities, to really get to know them inside and out, and they reward that with interesting, engaging, and most importantly memorable quests. Skyrim by contrast really wants you to do these quests. Often they throw them at you from the outset. The first time you enter Markarth you see a guy murdered in the streets. The first time you enter Whiterun you 1) see the Redguards asking about the Redguard woman and 2) hear a Greymane arguing with a Battleborn. The first time you enter Solitude you witness a traitor being executed. The first time you enter Riften you are asked to pickpocket someone. Skyrim is proud of its unique quests and wants to use them as a means to immerse yourself in the city. I think this is the fundamental difference between the two games. Skyrim uses quests as a means of immersion, exploration and discovery. You learn about cities through quests. The downside of this, as has been mentioned in a very good series of videos, is that it sort of railroads your character. The dialogue options are not open-ended. Often there is no way to avoid these story lines. It makes roleplaying significantly more difficult. Oblivion, by contrast uses quests as a reward. Oblivion wants you to explore, to investigate, and to ask around. It gives you an open world, some subtle hints, and asks you to choose your own adventure. Look at the difference between joining the Thieves' Guild in Oblivion and Skyrim. In Oblivion you have to track down a beggar, give them money, earn their trust, and then ask them about the Thieves Guild. In Skyrim you enter Riften and are immediately approached by the head of the Thieves Guild. The benefit of this is that Oblivion is entirely a choose-your-own adventure. Once you leave the sewers you can do whatever you want. You go to the cities. You go ask around. And you find the quests that make sense for the character you created. The downside is that if you don't know exactly what you want to do or be you're going to find yourself going down one of the guild questlines (i.e. Go to city. Get contract. Kill skeevers/murder person/steal x item/achieve letter of recommendation). Go to next city. Combined with the drab, same-ey dungeons, you're going to wear yourself out very quickly.

This is the difficulty of crafting expansive open-world games. You want to create the sense that you are in a lifelike, massive world, but you don't want people to have to be walking around for ages doing nothing (as you would in a real world). Personally I think the Assassin's Creed games, aside from (arguably) the 1st one, probably do the best job accomplishing this of any sandbox game. Go to Venice or Florence in AC2, or Rome in AC:B. They feel like the real city. They're near-life like and immersive. But you're very seldom going to find yourself spending twenty minutes riding a horse to the next goal. Generally you can't go 2 minutes without something happening. You get pickpocketed, a race challenge here, a chapel exploration there. Skyrim is much the same. The world is absolutely massive. Travelling from Whiterun to Riften feels like a real journey. But you aren't just holding forward and waiting for yourself to arrive at the destination. Stuff happens along the way. You meet a Thalmor group escorting a Greycloak. You find a dungeon. You encounter a giant camp. A dragon attacks. Oblivion's map is almost the exact same size as Skyrim, but it feels barren because you don't do anything between the cities. The cities feel like oases because travelling between them boils down to holding the up arrow while fending off the occasional bandit or wolf. This is why it's so hard to not fast travel anywhere in Oblivion. Eventually you can't justify not doing it any more.

Well that turned into quite a long rant. But I think that's why I like Skyrim so much. At any given moment in the game you're going to find something to do, and you can be assured that that something is going to lead you to an interesting locale, or personality, that often is absolutely unique.

 

[uat2d]

Damn, you guys are really into Skyrim

Is Dragonborn a good DLC to get? How does one start that quest?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yeah, dragonborn is good, comparable to shivering isles I'd say. you get attacked by a group of NPCs that trigger the quest, a la tribunal.

what do people around here think about Climates of Tamriel? I've tried it and find it leaves the lighting very similar to vanilla which I dislike, too dim and unsaturated. you really need an ENB with it, but those come with a sizeable decrease in fps - I like Realistic Colors and Real Nights better as it solves that nicely, although the variety of atmospheric weathers is not quite on par with CoT yet.

 

[cybrxkhan]

yeah, dragonborn is good, comparable to shivering isles I'd say. you get attacked by a group of NPCs that trigger the quest, a la tribunal.

what do people around here think about Climates of Tamriel? I've tried it and find it leaves the lighting very similar to vanilla which I dislike, too dim and unsaturated. you really need an ENB with it, but those come with a sizeable decrease in fps - I like Realistic Colors and Real Nights better as it solves that nicely, although the variety of atmospheric weathers is not quite on par with CoT.

Frankly I prefer CoT over Realistic Colors and Real Nights, I don't like my Skyrim saturated and I'm fine with vanilla's color palette. However there's a good number of performance-friendly ENBs, unfortunately I don't nkow any off the top of my head.

Although nowadays I play with Tropical Skyrim.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I have installed CoT + post injector and tweaked it a bit (less bloom, for example). Overall I am quite pleased with the result. And the weather effects are awesome.

I really love the combination of CoT + better dynamic snow where you can basicially see how all those snowbanks slowly build up as a blizzard sweeps over the land. :3

...that reminds me, I need to reinstall my footprints mod!

EDIT:
Here is a nice link that shows the difference between an unmodded Skyrim on "medium" and a modded Skyrim on "Ultra".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyev-0OaL3A

...I gotta get that Whiterun overhaul. The city looks amazing with the bigger trees and all those new plants!

 

[Polycrates]

Awesome post Owen!

Count me in as another one on the "Skyrim is fantastic" train, for many of the same reasons. The world is probably second only to Morrowind in terms of being a huge, magnificent hand-crafted marvel full of individual details and made with thought and care (as opposed to the bland, halfhearted world of Oblivion), and just exploring it is an incredible pleasure. However, it's also much better than either Morrowind or Oblivion at being an actual game - it's far from perfect, but the mechanics of the various things that you can do are mostly pretty decent right out of the box.
I'm also agreed about the streamlining of the skill system working very much in Skyrim's favour - the "organic levelling" thing they've been going for since Daggerfall finally comes close to matching the ideal without encouraging gameyness (too much). And taking perks to specialise "sub-skills" while pruning the number of actual skills was a very good move in my book.

Anyway to follow on with what Owen is saying, I got back into Skyrim again recently with a bunch of mods, and there's a number that really add to that "go out and explore" aspect - to the point where I spent god-knows-how-many hours just wandering around doing my thing, and got to mid-thirties levels without doing any actual guild/main quests or even having gone to half the areas in the map.

The absolute #1 highly-recommended mod I had was Frostfall - so your character suffers exposure in the rain, the cold or the night. It really accentuates the sense of the cold of the country (it really just *feels* that much colder), and makes trips into the mountains and the snowy north feel like properly tough journeys that you have to prepare for, giving them so much more of a remote feel. The harsh world itself becomes almost as much of an enemy as the enemies themselves. And yeah you can warm up and stay dry with campfires and tents, which is great.
Together with Realistic Needs and Diseases, the need to sleep and stay warm establishes a proper day/night cycle, and taverns actually become the most important buildings in a town for food, fire and bed. I'm normally not into these sorts of mods, but with the harsh frozen land of Skyrim they just add so damn much.
And I used SkyRe as my pick of the balance mods, which makes things a bit harder and encounters more deadly.
There's a few others that really enhance the "frozen north" vibe as well - Immersive Armours adds a lot more very cool shaggy-nordic-themed armours, Winter Is Coming adds furry cloaks and hoods, and Wet and Cold covers people in snowflecks during a snowstorm (amongst other things).



I also really liked Climates of Tamriel - I combined it with Realistic Lighting Overhaul (with moderately darker nights) and Lanterns of Skyrim. But my favourite graphical mod is Skyrim Flora Overhaul, which really increases the groundcover vegetation and adds cool new trees (at the expense of some serious extra graphical overhead).

 

[cybrxkhan]

Reading over Owen's post again - that's a really good point on how Skyrim and Oblivion approach quests differently. That was such a subtle difference I didn't even notice it (after playing at least 220 hours as of right now) until now.

Actually, I don't really like how Skyrim does that. To me it sort of forces me to do quests I don't want to do right away. My Skyrim journal is littered with hundreds of quests and my map is litterred with hundreds of random quest markers I'll never get to. At least in Oblivion if I was sharp I could figure when to stop a conversation topic before I got to starting the quest. I don't mind if I'm seeing interesting events unfold before me, like the events that happen when I first enter a city - that was definitely a good idea - but thinking about it it feels like some of these quests are just shoved down my throat. While Skyrim's method helps me in feeling like the world is alive (at least for the first few hours of gameplay), it also again feels sometimes like quests are shoved down my throat. Maybe for TES VI they'll find a good balance between Oblivion and Skyrim.



Anyhow, to Gelion, and others considering mods, obviously, play vanilla for a long time before figuring out what you want out of mods. There are a couple of essentials, though, small little mods that don't do much to change the game but I started using them early on and they improved my overall experience:

Better Quest Objectives - improves the writing on quest descriptions so you don't know what the heck you're doing and don't wander aimlessly towards the marker (might be outdated, though)
No Compass Location Markers - Like in Oblivion, your compass shows you nearby locations. This mod hides that, so you feel like you're actually exploring.
Reduced Distance NPC Greetings - stops NPCs from engaging in conversations even though you're 50 feet away. Really helps with immersion, seriously.


Other than those (or similar small mods), I'd really suggest suggest starting with no mods. Even no graphics mods (except the official HD textures, maybe), because you'll never know what sort of graphics improvements you're looking for.

 

[Double A]

You CAN turn off specific quest markers.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

In terms of quest design, this has been my biggest complaint about Skyrim almost from day one. It's true in all ES games to some extent but in Skyrim it was especially noticeable. Role playing is almost impossible unless you happen to be role playing a mercenary who does jobs for money. Since most quests have only one or at best 2 ways of completing them, you can't make meaningful decisions about what your character would do. Let me give an example. Without spoiling where it is or what it's all about since I know at least one person in here hasn't played it yet, there is a certain quest line involving werewolves. Your choice when you find out about them is "help the werewolves" or "walk away and have this quest stuck in your quest log for the rest of the game." This is not good design for a game claiming to be an RPG. What if I'm playing a lawful good type who thinks that werewolves are an abomination that have to be destroyed? Where is my option to join the werewolf hunters to exterminate them? This is just one example. I tried to role play a lawful good paladin type of character in this game and quickly found that if I was sticking to that there were a ton of quests that I could not actually complete in the game, especially in terms of the major quest lines.

Again this has always been a problem with ES games dating back at least to Morrowind, which was the first one I played, but in Skyrim it seemed really egregious. I understand that there is limited budget for games and they can only do so much, but maybe spend less time making the graphics pretty (which modders are going to outdo all of your work within 3 months of release anyway) and focus on making the game itself deeper.

 

[Double A]

What if I'm playing a lawful good type

Then you should stop playing your character and roll something else, because lawful good isn't fun.