Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

[Dwip]

BG1's graphics don't hold up all that well, but BG2 has a vastly better engine that holds up quite well even now. BG1 is also definitely a "first game" with all that implies - lots less polish than you might hope for.Too, part of me is looking at those games from the perspective of having been there - Baldur's Gate was like the most amazing thing anyone had ever seen in 1998. So, you know. Nostalgia FTW. But I think the story and the gameplay hold up very well, especially once you hit BG2 and the writers really start earning their paychecks.Re: KOTOR, yeah, although any possible robe nitpicks are nullified by the fact that I'm leaping around fighting dudes with a god damned lightsaber. Both games are astonishingly good at that part of things.

By "full" I really meant people and number of houses' date=' etc. Balmora occupies what, 4 cells, but it has as much stuff, or more, than any Oblivion town. Oblivion gave a somewhat greater feeling of scale, but given that the province itself was bigger this was a largely false impression. The scale between Oblivion and Morrowind is really about 1:1, I would say.[/quote']Hard to gauge this. For one thing, cells in Morrowind and Oblivion aren't the same size (I'm not sure what the ratio is, but there is a difference, and Morrowind's are larger). Too, and Todd Howard has talked about this for Skyrim, a lot of the scale in Morrowind is achieved through breaking up the terrain. In Oblivion I can just get on the road and go to Cheydinhal, but in Morrowind the Vivec->Molag Mar trek or what have you is pretty damn long.The one thing Morrowind inarguably did better than Oblivion is use of urban terrain, though. Lots more houses, of a size you might expect people to be living in, rather than the paupers in mansions thing Oblivion had going on, and the fact that you've got miles of wall with palatial mansions and vast gardens. Nobody actually does this in reality. It's too expensive.

Your opertunity to interact and influence the world in Oblivion is much more limited' date=' but the visual style and the fact that people (appear to) actually do stuff places greater strain on modders. For example, I can't really just have a made stand in front of a sink and say "I'm doing the washing" because you expect her to actually pick up the brush and scrub. Problem is, who's going to create that animation.[/quote']Not sure I believe that first bit. Not a whole lot actually happens to the world in Morrowind in any physical sense, other than you can kill some pretty important people. Oblivion at least levels part of the IC/Kvatch. OTOH, great house politics in Morrowind. As far as the technical details, that's one of the biggest things I'm noticing on my Morrowind replay - Morrowind NPCs are BORING without AI schedules. I mean, yeah, there's as many people in Balmora as there are in Chorrol, but I never see half the ones in Balmora because they're in a house all day, and there's only two guys standing around in the streets, so the cities feel more barren. Also has a big impact on the sorts of quests you can do - almost every single quest in Morrowind is some variation on a fetch quest, and you never see anyone go anywhere or do anything, whereas in Oblivion you can have NPCs travel places under their own power and actually do things. I've got any number of quests in AFK_Weye that I don't think I could even do in Morrowind, and now that I say that I don't know that there are ANY of AFK_Weye's quests that are possible in Morrowind.Which, yeah, the lack of a scrubbing (and fishing pole casting and broom sweeping and...) animation is annoying, but that's only part of it.My hope for Skyrim? The ability to throw more NPCs on screen without the game having a heart attack.

[Arthmoor]

Wow. I leave you two alone for a few hours and look what happens :PYes, re: KOTOR, I probably need to dig up the copy I know is here somewhere and actually play it with as much as everyone raves about it. I'm not really sure why I didn't since the opportunity was available. Although I think in part because someone said something about too may arcade-like sequences and I hate that in RPGs. I'm not playing an action game people. Though it could be argued Oblivion is one, but hey.I'm willing to bet a good many of my own village quests wouldn't be feasible in Morrowind either.The main reason Oblivion feels so empty is because the XBox thing caught them totally off guard and I'm certain that means they chopped out a hell of a lot of NPCs in the wilderness. All those bandit camps? I'll bet many of them were intended for other purposes besides cannon fodder and they just couldn't spare the AI cycles. I'll bet this won't be as much of an issue in Skyrim.Personally I thought BG1 was a better game than BG2, but they're both excellent quality. If retro graphics don't bother you too much, I'd recommend checking out another game in a similar vein called Avadon. Definite BG style feel, retro RPG all the way, and it hooked me so hard with the demo I paid them the $20 for the full version and am loving every minute of it. Be prepared to be reminded of all the meat & potatoes we no longer get in today's games though. Damn, it's almost disgusting how shallow most AAA titles are by comparison.

[Dwip]

Why BG1 over BG2?[edit] Re: KOTOR, I don't know that I'd call it arcade. There's a lot of fighting, to be sure, but it's a lot smoother combat and I think less of it than something like DA:O. And PLENTY of cool roleplaying to go with.

[Arthmoor]

BG1 felt like you had more freedom to move around, less linear, etc. BG2 is still a good game though, don't get me wrong.

[Dwip]

Ah, yes. Me, I liked the writing in BG2 a lot more, and it wasn't like Chapter 2 was what you'd call short or anything, so...

[Arthmoor]

G4TV[/url]]... when you loot people in Skyrim' date=' you actually take all of their belongings, clothes included.[/quote']Well there's another stupid idea. When *I* loot bodies, all I'm usually after is the gold, not their life's possessions.

[Dwip]

Considering how much attention that guy seemed to be paying during that whole thing (which is to say, he played like a psychotic 10 y/o), I kind of wonder if he didn't just get the "loot all" button confused with other ways of dragging. It and close are generally the only two buttons on the UI, after all, and considering how nonsensical of an idea it is, well.

That's right! I dragged the two townsfolk in to the stream and away they floated. The developer let me know that if I had stayed with them that they would have kept floating for a very long time' date=' fallen over waterfalls, and more.[/quote']That's pretty rad, however.

There are checkpoints for when you die' date=' but not after every turn so I found myself having to go back through the same parts of the temple a few times before finally getting to new checkpoints.[/quote']Actual checkpoints like we're in m'fing Call of Duty, or is he confused about autosaves? I bet he's confused about autosaves. He seems confused about a lot of things. Not really willing to lend a lot of credibility to the dude (or dudette, the name is inconclusive).

[Morena]

Personally I thought BG1 was a better game than BG2' date=' but they're both excellent quality. If retro graphics don't bother you too much, I'd recommend checking out another game in a similar vein called Avadon. Definite BG style feel, retro RPG all the way, and it hooked me so hard with the demo I paid them the $20 for the full version and am loving every minute of it. Be prepared to be reminded of all the meat & potatoes we no longer get in today's games though. Damn, it's almost disgusting how shallow most AAA titles are by comparison.

I second the recommendation for Avadon. I'm playing the iPad version right now. It's nice to see a game that doesn't condescend to the player. I don't care that it doesn't have flashy graphics or voice acting. This is the kind of game the big studios don't care to make anymore.

[Arthmoor]

I've been tempted to try the Avernum series too, but I don't know how much my tolerance for Ultima 4 grade graphics could hold out.Also, welcome to the forum. I'd pass along a fishy stick or something but we're fresh out

[prettyfly]

I was reading a thread about the possibility of the inclusion of Aylied ruins in Skyrim when a guy who'd only joined several hours earlier that day popped up and basically said 'This thread makes no sense. WTF are Aylied ruins. I haven't heard anything about it in the Skyrim promo material.'When told to play Oblivion, he responds 'What, hell no that game has retarded graphics and a gay soundtrack, and it looks real dumb compared to the badass themes/world of Skyrim.' (with a number of typos).Not exactly inspiring faith in me about newcomers to the community.

[Dwip]

Youth: continuing to be wasted on the young, I suspect.

[AndalayBay]

Youth: continuing to be wasted on the young' date=' I suspect.[/quote'] Which is why I'm here in my mid-40's taking two years off work to do Oblivion modding!

[Arthmoor]

I weep for the future of the franchise when newcomers won't even look at the past games or take 5 minutes to look up what an Ayleid ruin is.That said, I don't think the Ayleids were ever that far north, were they?

[prettyfly]

I don't think they ever went that far north in considerable numbers, but I think a few small outposts scattered along the extreme south would be fine lorewise. Or at least give a nice little link to the neighboring province.

[Morena]

I've been tempted to try the Avernum series too' date=' but I don't know how much my tolerance for Ultima 4 grade graphics could hold out.

Also, welcome to the forum. I'd pass along a fishy stick or something but we're fresh out [/quote']Thanks. :)I see that Spiderweb is remaking the first Avernum game as "Avernum: Escape From the Pit", so it would be best to wait on that one. I guess the original doesn't run very well on modern OSes, so they'll be remaking the whole series with graphics akin to Avadon.

[Dallen68]

Wow, a lots happened since I was last here. :surprised: 1. Steam. It looks like pretty much all game manufacturers are going this route, or something simular. It does have the advantage that the player doesn't have to remember to update. On the other hand, I'm not sure I like random employee #187 knowing what I do on my computer. :shrug:2. Armour degredation/repair. I don't think Beth is leaving this off so much for laziness or accomodation as they are because many players forget that it's there. (I have mods to fix this) Plus, even in Oblivion-it's kinda a mute point (unless your using said mods) as a) you can slap on your favourite armour and wear it at 0 condition all day and B) no one needs to wear armour. 3. Ayeleid ruins. I guess it's possible they were that far North. Wasn't that one mission at pale pass about invading the Ayeleid high command-which was in Skyrim?4. Dwemer ruins would make much more sense . They were known to have settlements through out Tamriel; and there absence in Cyrodiil is...strange.

[Arthmoor]

The Pale Pass mission was about Akaviri stuff, not Ayleid stuff.I seem to recall having read somewhere that the Dwemer weren't big fans of the Cyrodiil province for some reason. Maybe because they were enemies of the Ayleids. I'd have to go lore mining to find it again. Just keep in mind that at some point in the past, both of them existed in the same time period so they weren't likely to settle in each others' territories.

[prettyfly]

I still think that one or two small outposts on the extreme south of the map would be good. I mean, these guys were around for a long time, so there's all sorts of reasons why the Ayleids might have had some sort of checkpoint in southern Skyrim.

[Dallen68]

I kinda agree with pretty.

[Arthmoor]

Preliminary lore hunting suggests this wouldn't have been viable since the Nords were firmly entrenched in what is currently Skyrim, and had advanced significantly farther south during the time of the Ayleids. It's unlikely any such ruin could be more than a small tower or something.As far as what's there in Oblivion, Rielle is about as far north as they got. That's directly to the SW of Cloud Ruler Temple, and it's not a huge ruin on the surface at least. I'd say it qualifies as a forward base at best. Sedor is the next closest one, is further south, and is smaller on the outside than Rielle.Assuming Bethesda doesn't retcon and put Ayleid stuff along the southern border, I wouldn't expect to see one until some modder decides to do it themselves.

[Dallen68]

OK. i agree with u

[prettyfly]

I'm looking at Bethsoft right now and I'm seeing all these 'Is Skyrim art?' or 'Is Skyrim more than just a game?' threads loaded with people worshiping Skyrim as if it was some sort of religious effigy. Y'know, I'm sure Skyrim will be an enjoyable game...but seriously. Its going to have its time and its limits just like everything else.

[Dwip]

Happens with every game, really.

[Arthmoor]

Pretty sure the same thing happened with Oblivion. Strangely, I didn't follow its development at all beyond a couple of short magazine previews. Yeah. Paper magazines. Oh, the horror. I remember seeing one video at some point too. The famous one with the annoying dog who barks too much and pisses off its owner, who promptly fireballs the poor thing.This may explain why I wasn't among those who were deeply disappointed in the final product. I have to wonder if Skyrim will leave me with a much less favorable first impression after this ridiculous media blitz over the last 8 months. Beyond the parts I'm already deeply annoyed at anyway.

[Thomas Kaira]

That's why I'm approaching Skyrim with extreme pessimism. I don't want to fall into the trap that these people have thinking Skyrim is some sort of Godsend of the gaming industry, because I guarantee that every single one of those people are in for a VERY rude awakening when they discover just how mortal Skyrim is. Particularly with the release day bugs. Bethesda is famous for them, and I don't think this will ever change. One of the things I am fully expecting to happen is a huge day one patch.Now, of course, we need to leave it up to the reviewers to completely hash things up, because as we all know review scores for games are directly related to how much hype the game has received, and in the case of Skyrim we are talking Halo 2 hype here. Skyrim is the most hyped game this year easily, which guarantees it will disappoint a lot of people when it actually hits shelves. Lots of people take the wrong approach with hype, letting it color their opinion white only for the game to let them down. I try to take the opposite approach, with hype coloring my opinion dark so the game can surprise me. I despise a lot of the features Bethesda is throwing in, but that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to give the game a chance to impress me. I'm one of those guys who does not let a game impress me until I've seen it for myself. Morrowind impressed me. Oblivion, unfortunately, did not (even though I went into Oblivion first). Mostly because Oblivion felt too plain and, dare I say it, too simple.