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Old 06-24-2016, 12:09 AM
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Default Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

Bethesda is releasing Skyrim: Special Edition on October 28th, for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.


Apparently, it will have improved graphics, which is a no-brainer. What sounds appealing, though, is that console users will be able to use mods with this version.

Yes! Now that is what I've been waiting for!


As much as I love Skyrim, there are a lot of ways that it could be improved, and I've always been a bit jealous of those who play it on the PC, since there are apparently so many mods out there that can be used to improve the game.



I'm guessing that the Special Edition will basically just be a remastering of the game, with improved graphics. Hopefully, Bethesda will fix the remaining bugs as well (one of the frustrating things about Skyrim is that even the Legendary Edition has quite a few bugs, some of which can be game-breaking if you're playing on a console).


If I were playing it on PC, it probably wouldn't be worth paying for Skyrim all over again, since I doubt the Special Edition will add much that isn't already available to PC users. Bethesda seems to realize that; it's my understanding that PC users who already own Skyrim will be able to download the Special Edition for free.

I'm not about to go and buy a PC just so that I can play Skyrim with better graphics, bug fixes, and mods that improve the game in various ways. On the other hand, I've heard that it's possible to get the game to work on a Mac, and I've been tempted to see if I could do it.

But since the Special Edition will allow console users to use mods, that's no longer an issue, I suppose.



So, with that in mind, here are some ways that I think Skyrim can be and should be improved. I doubt that the Special Edition will make any of these fixes, but hopefully, there will be mods available that do.


Friendship, Reputation, etc.:
Okay, maybe this seems weird, but one thing that bugs me about Skyrim is that it's way too easy to make friends. I mean, you walk into town, some random person asks you to deliver some spices to a shop that's just across the street -- and after you do this trivial thing, the person is so impressed and grateful that they're now willing to follow you into life-and-death situations? Really?

Admittedly, for some characters, it makes sense that the "Favor Quests" earn you a loyal Follower who is willing to follow you in Draugr-infested ruins, risking life and limb in the process. But for most potential Followers, it does not.

Consider Mjoll the Lioness, for example. Her Favor Quest requires you to go into a Dwarven ruin that nearly got her killed, risking life and limb to retrieve an item of great personal importance. When you succeed, she's so impressed that she immediately volunteers to be your Follower, because she wants to learn from you. That makes sense.

That someone volunteers to be your Follower because you delivered a letter across town ... doesn't make sense.



I don't want to reinstate the mini-game from Oblivion that allows you to build Reputation Points with various characters. Still, it seems like it would be easy enough to incorporate reputation into the game.

For instance, you could earn "Friendship Points" with guards and city dwellers each time you help defend the city from Vampire/Bandit/Dragon attacks. Similarly, you could earn "Friendship Points" with guards by doing the Jarl's "Kill some local bandits for me" quests.

Of course, getting caught picking pockets, stealing stuff, or killing innocents would earn you negative Friendship Points.


Once your friendship level with a character is high enough, there could be dialog options which allow you to get to know the character better, and further boost your reputation with him/her. (Kind of like how dialog options in Knights of the Old Republic and the Dragon Age games allow you gradually form strong friendships with characters.)

Once your friendship level with a character is high enough, you should then be able to give that person gifts, which would further boost your reputation with him/her. And here's a thought: they should equip those gifts, if appropriate.

If, for example, I give Mjoll the Lioness a nifty set of enchanted, legendary-quality ebony armor, she should get rid of that crappy banded iron armor and equip the ebony.


Anyway, if a particular NPC is going to risk life and limb on your behalf, there should be a good reason for it -- because (s)he thinks you've proved yourself to be a really decent person who has earned that kind of loyalty, for instance.


Arms, Armor, and Smithing:
Another big thing that bugs me about Vanilla Skyrim is the lack of diversity in arms and armor. Also, why isn't armor customizable?

I've played a bit of The Elder Scrolls Online, and I think it's handled much better in that game. I'd prefer that you learn different styles -- Nordic, Orcish, Dunmer, etc. So, for instance, once your Smithing skill is high enough that you can make arms and armor with Orichalcum, you should be able to make it in whatever style you like. In other words, why does every piece of armor in Skyrim that's made with Orichalcum look the same? Why on Nirn is it that everyone who fashions a helmet from Dwarven metal deliberately shapes it to look like the stylized face of a Dwarven warrior?


How do you learn new armor styles? Well, the obvious way would be from an experienced Smith. For instance, a Smith who fashions weapons and armor for the Imperial Army should be able to teach you the Imperial style. An Orcish smith should be able to teach you the Orcish style, etc.

Another obvious way to learn a weapon/armor style is to find some examples of that style and disassemble them to learn how they were made.


Speaking of which, why can't I melt down weapons and armor to recover some of the metal? Here's a thought: I've just gone through a dungeon and picked up a bunch of crappy iron weapons and armor pieces; why can't I melt it down into iron ingots that I can actually use, instead of selling it to a merchant for a measly handful of septims?


Reforming the Companions, College of Winterhold, etc:
The Dragonborn will eventually become the Archmage of the College of Winterhold, and the Harbinger of the Companions, among other things. These positions are meaningless in the game, but wouldn't it be neat if you could actually do something with those positions?

Consider the Companions. Most of them prattle on endlessly about "honor," but none of them seem to really care about it. Aela the Huntress and Skjor make no pretense that they care one whit about honor, for instance: they just like killing stuff.

If you take quests from Vilkas or Farkas, they'll cheerfully tell you that it's about the money, not honor.

And let's not forget that some of the Companions' quests are pretty danged unsavory. For instance, you might be asked to threaten a merchant into paying protection money. For most of the Companions, "honor" seems to mean, "I'll do anything you ask, so long as the money's good."


So, once you get to be Harbinger, wouldn't it be nice if you had the option of trying to re-shape the Companions into the honorable organization that they pretend to be?



Maybe you could do something similar for the College of Winterhold.

Yes, the Nords of Skyrim are prejudiced against Mages. The problem is that the Mages of Winterhold are pretty arrogant themselves, and tend to reinforce the Nords' negative beliefs.

As such, wouldn't it be neat if the Archmage could set into play some schemes to rebuild the College's reputation. Maybe the College could help rebuild Winterhold. Maybe that could invite citizens for occasional tours of the College. That sort of thing.


Random Stuff:
Wouldn't it be great if you could remind Esbern and Delphine that they serve the Dragonborn, not the other way around.


By the time you've reached a high level, you've likely got literally millions of septims squirreled away. Why can't I use that to build a really nice house -- one with adequate room to store all the armor, weapons, and other junk that I've collected in my travels?


Similarly, wouldn't it be nice if you could re-build Helgen? It's not like money would be an issue, and it would be a fun long-term project.


Wouldn't it be nice if Skyrim had actual seasons? It can't always be Winter in Windhelm; it can't always be Autumn in Riften. It'd be neat to see the seasons change during the course of a year.




Anyhow, there's plenty of other changes I'd make, given the option. Hopefully, with the Special Edition, that will be possible.
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  #2  
Old 06-24-2016, 12:11 AM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

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Old 06-24-2016, 01:32 AM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

Mods are the big things. At one point I was running about 30 of them, from one had to have a third party scripting program and redid the UI to a tiny one that just fixed the broken wolf howling in Dawnguard. Assuming that they get done in a similar fashion, you should be able to get some armor variants and the ability to actually craft some of the pre-existing ones like Imperial variants.

Sadly, my biggest gripe with the game was the thing that was hardest to deal with, all the linear quests and dungeons, and as you sort of mention, the fact that the game expects your character to join all four guilds and become leader etc... Ok, my other biggest gripe was just how insufferable Delphine is.

A lot of what you are asking for would be available if PC mods are usable or get replicated. I am reasonably certain there were ones to add seasons and there were a lot of ones dealing with reputation and such. My favorite of those is one that disables the autostart of Brynjolf trying to recruit you until and unless you actually, you know, STEAL SOMETHING.

A mod that led you melt down weapons would be a bit overpowered since you could then turn around and reuse the materials to level up the smithing skill. High level materials make expensive weapons and the amount of value you create determines skill gain. (This is why the Dwarven smithing perk was so necessary as with a bit of effort you could get tons of the ingots by smelting the junk from dungeons)

I did like the crafting in ESO, pity the game was so unbalanced in the actual play.
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Old 06-24-2016, 09:04 AM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

Having payed it on both console and PC, the mods (while often messy) do make for a more enjoyable game.

I think a new iteration of Elder Scrolls would be even better, one where they can try to use some of the lessons learned in Fallout 4 to create an extended end-game that is more about building and managing a community as a small-time baron.

I would love to be able to try to create better houses for the people I have gathered so much reputation with, stimulate trade which in turn attracts raiders that need to be fought off, hire and equip retainers to guard the place, build a mansion/castle, etc.

Fallout 4 saw a few steps in this direction, but I think the mechanics need more work. It would give the game tremendous moddability and replay value, I think.
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Old 06-24-2016, 08:11 PM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ymir's blood View Post
Assuming that they get done in a similar fashion, you should be able to get some armor variants and the ability to actually craft some of the pre-existing ones like Imperial variants.
A wider variety of craftable/usable armors would make the game considerably more fun and immersive, in my opinion. An ability to customize your armor (as you can in ESO) would be especially welcome.

Quote:
Sadly, my biggest gripe with the game was the thing that was hardest to deal with, all the linear quests and dungeons, and as you sort of mention, the fact that the game expects your character to join all four guilds and become leader etc...
I hear you. One nice thing about Oblivion was that there were often multiple ways to resolve a particular questline; not so with Skyrim. And if I'm going to become Archmage or Harbinger of the Companions, then those titles should involve the ability to do something. Otherwise, they're utterly worthless; it's kind of insulting that after you've done all the work to earn the title, you're given no opportunity to actually use it.

Quote:
Ok, my other biggest gripe was just how insufferable Delphine is.
Yeah, I love Paarthurnax; he's one of the very best characters in the game. I think I'd pay good money for a mod that would allow me to tell Delphine (and to a lesser extent, Esbern) exactly where they can stick their hypocrisy and bigotry.


Quote:
I am reasonably certain there were ones to add seasons and there were a lot of ones dealing with reputation and such. My favorite of those is one that disables the autostart of Brynjolf trying to recruit you until and unless you actually, you know, STEAL SOMETHING.
I hadn't thought of that, but that is an excellent idea. I like to play good characters, and so, though I've played Skyrim several times, I've never joined the Thieves Guild, and I've destroyed the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary on every play-through.

I might have joined the Thieves Guild, just to see what it's like, but I've never been able to get past the introductory quest. I am not going to frame the perfectly nice Brand Shei for a crime he didn't commit. So stop trying to recruit me!

As such, I wish you had the ability to refuse quests and not have them cluttering up your menu. I am NOT going to join the Thieves Guild, and I most definitely am never going to betray and murder a friend in order to join Boethiah's little cult.

Speaking of such, a questline that allows you to infiltrate and cripple the Thieves Guild (as you can the Dark Brotherhood) would be most welcome. It would be especially welcome if it culminated in the Dragonborn sending the despicable Maven Blackbriar to jail or simply killing her. [Every so often, I like to raid Blackbriar Hall and kill all the thugs that hang out there. Not because there's any necessity to do so, but because I imagine it weakens Maven Blackbriar's power, and pisses her off to boot.]

Quote:
A mod that led you melt down weapons would be a bit overpowered since you could then turn around and reuse the materials to level up the smithing skill. High level materials make expensive weapons and the amount of value you create determines skill gain. (This is why the Dwarven smithing perk was so necessary as with a bit of effort you could get tons of the ingots by smelting the junk from dungeons)
That's probably true; Smithing is an easy skill to level up as it is. If you've got the carrying capacity (or don't mind being overburdened), you can come out of a Dwarven ruin with easily enough metal to craft a dozen or more sets of Dwarven armor. If practically every dungeon was a source of enough iron or steel to craft dozens of sets of armor, your Smithing skill would go up PDQ.

I do like the idea of taking apart armors to learn different armor styles, though, kind of like how you must destroy an enchanted item to learn the enchantment.

Quote:
I did like the crafting in ESO, pity the game was so unbalanced in the actual play.
I felt the same way. I wanted to like ESO, but didn't enjoy the gameplay. I liked the crafting and especially the ability to customize your armor, though. (That having been said, why did you have to discover or be awarded the ability to mix paints/dyes of different colors? That's just stupid. You mean that the Player Character has figured out how to mix blue and yellow to make green, but is too stupid to figure out that if she wants a bluish-green shade, she has to use less yellow and more blue?)



Quote:
Originally Posted by Vivisectus
I think a new iteration of Elder Scrolls would be even better, one where they can try to use some of the lessons learned in Fallout 4 to create an extended end-game that is more about building and managing a community as a small-time baron.
I imagine that Bethesda is working on The Elder Scrolls VI as we speak, but Skyrim is going to be a tough act to follow. I don't mind if they take their time to get it right; an improved version of Skyrim will tide me over until then. (Let's hope that they take the time to beta-test TES:VI before it's finally released. When it was released, Skyrim was an awfully buggy game, and it still has quite a few bugs that frustrate console users.)

One of my biggest problems with the game is that it doesn't really offer you any long-term projects. Furthermore, by the time you've completed most of the questlines, you've got literally millions of septims lying around, and there's nothing you can spend them on.

So yeah, I'd love the opportunity to engage in a long-term project like rebuilding Helgen and perhaps serving as the rebuilt community's baron. (Or maybe not; I might prefer to oversee the rebuilding of the community, while leaving the day-to-day running of the city to a trusted advisor.)

Or, if Helgen is now considered to be an unsuitable place to live, there are plenty of places in Skyrim where you could set up and build a brand-new community. With all the money you've amassed, the Dragonborn could easily afford the project. And building a city from scratch would be a time-consuming, long-term project, so it would give you something fun to do when you aren't busy saving the world from dragons/vampires/Miraak.


Quote:
I would love to be able to try to create better houses for the people I have gathered so much reputation with, stimulate trade which in turn attracts raiders that need to be fought off, hire and equip retainers to guard the place, build a mansion/castle, etc.

Fallout 4 saw a few steps in this direction, but I think the mechanics need more work. It would give the game tremendous moddability and replay value, I think.
I absolutely agree.
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Old 07-02-2016, 08:34 PM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

Quote:
As such, I wish you had the ability to refuse quests and not have them cluttering up your menu. I am NOT going to join the Thieves Guild, and I most definitely am never going to betray and murder a friend in order to join Boethiah's little cult.
The same mod author that made the Thieves Guild start optional also did a mod that affected pretty much every quest in the basic game and IIRC Dawnguard. (Never saw if Dragonborn got the same treatment.) Basically, if you don't give some assent to the questgiver, it won't show up in your journal, though you would have the option to do it later, though you might have to do some legwork. A lot of times, the quests that start without a quest giver, like many of the Daedric ones, the mod just gave you a map marker instead.

Like you, I refused to to do Boethiah's quest and before the mod, discovered you could avoid the cultist by never entering an outdoor cell while at level 30, I'd powerlevel crafting or something to just skip that level so the game couldn't spawn the cultist.
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Old 07-03-2016, 05:54 PM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

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Old 07-04-2016, 11:26 AM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

What I'm hoping is that some clever person(s) will construct a mod that allows you to have a real impact on Skyrim. That is, one of the most frustrating things about the game is that nothing you do really has much of an effect -- not on the game world, and not even on the behavior of NPCs. This has been mentioned before, of course, but still ...


So, you've killed scores of dragons, single-handedly won the Civil War, and defeated the Ebony Knight. Yet the Companions insist that they've never heard of you. Really? Shouldn't they be seeking you out at this point, not the other way around? And I swear, if somebody calls me a "Whelp" one more time ...

And after you become Harbinger, can you actually do anything with that authority? No, you can't. Does anyone outside the Companions recognize your achievement? Other than one random guard comment, no they don't. Guards still sneeringly ask if you fetch the Companions' mead, rather than treating you with the respect that the Harbinger should command. Heck, for the most part, even the Companions don't treat you with a great deal of respect after you become Harbinger. Vilkas, Farkas, and Aela still treat you like some raw recruit and send you on missions, if you let them.



What's the only real change that comes with winning the Civil War? You can now buy a house in Windhelm -- big deal. Okay, so a few Jarls are replaced, and conquered cities are now guarded by soldiers instead of Hold Guards -- soldiers who have exactly the same voices and behaviors as did the guards they replaced. Otherwise, nothing at all changes. Imperial-aligned citizens continue to complain about Ulfric as if he's still alive and waging war, even after he has been dead for months or even years of in-game time.



Become Archmage of the College of Winterhold, and what do you gain from it? Some nifty-looking robes (though by that time, your Enchanting skill is almost-certainly high-enough that you can make much better robes if you want), and a nice place to stay. (Though again, you've almost-certainly got several houses by that point.)

Can you do anything with the power and authority that should accompany the position of Archmage? No, you can't. (Granted, becoming Archmage is really easy, as is becoming Harbinger of the Companions; if you're going to have the position and the authority that comes with it, it seems like you should have to go through a bit more, so that it seems like you've truly earned the position and authority.) Does anyone really recognize your achievement? Not really, except that Nirya becomes a sycophantic toady. At least Tolfdir and Urag are nice-enough to occasionally thank you for the good that you've done. Can you work to mend the College's reputation or perhaps help rebuild Winterhold? No, you can't.



You've just saved the freaking world from Alduin, and does anyone even take notice? Except for Paarthurnax, not really. Aside from one guard comment and a couple of comments from the Graybeards, Esbern, and Delphine, no one even takes notice of the fact.



So, you're strolling through the wilderness wearing full Daedric armor, looking like you've just stepped right out of someone's worst nightmare -- or you're literally wearing the bones and scales of dragons that you've slain as armor. And some random bandit thinks it's a good idea to try to mug this individual? Or you run across a Thalmor patrol and they decide that it's a good idea to pick a fight with this individual? Really? I mean, the Thalmor are arrogant, to be sure, but there's a big difference between arrogance and stupidity.

[My favorite example of this happened once when I was wandering the wilderness north of Whiterun. I happened near a bandit encampment and half a dozen or so Bandits rushed out to try to kill me. The Dragonborn wiped them out in seconds, but while this was going on, an Ancient Dragon flew overhead and decided to join in the fight. The dragon was quickly disposed of, but while I was polishing off the dragon, a Thalmor wilderness patrol came along. The first two rushed at the Dragonborn, and as luck would have it, I scored a critical hit on each of them. The first was beheaded on the first strike, and my very next strike beheaded the next one as well.

There's one Thalmor left at this point. He has seen me wipe out an entire Bandit encampment in seconds. Then he saw me kill an Ancient Dragon in even less time than it took to kill the Bandits. And then he saw me kill both of his companions with a single hit each.

Does he run? Does he try to make peace and hope I'm in a good mood? No. Instead, he ran toward me while screaming about how pitiful I was, and how I stood no chance against "Elven superiority." I decided that I was doing the Altmer race a big favor by removing him from the gene pool.]



Anyway, as much as I love Skyrim, the game often feels as if it's only half-finished. It's like the game designers spent all of their time working out what the quests would be, but forgot to put any time into considering how the Dragonborn's actions would affect the people and politics of Skyrim.




Another thing I'd like to see re-done in Skyrim is the stealth system. By that, I mean that (like Oblivion before it), stealth is handled poorly in Skyrim. Of course, I'm talking about how you can literally shoot a Bandit with an arrow, and he'll look around for about 10 seconds, then go back to what he was doing. If he doesn't find you, he'll comment that "It must have been the wind" and stop searching for you -- even as the arrow is still sticking out of his body.

Perhaps the best game I've seen regarding how stealth is handled is Batman: Arkham Asylum. Bad Guys will investigate strange noises, but they will alert their friends when they see or hear something suspicious. Similarly, they'll sound an alert if they discover that one of their comrades has suddenly gone missing. What's more, they're usually smart-enough to stick together; half the challenge of the Arkham Asylum games is trying to figure out how to separate the bad guys so that you can take them on individually -- or figuring out how you can take down multiple bad guys at the same time.

And once the Bad Guys know that Batman is in the room with them, they will not stop searching for him. Heck, half the fun of the game comes from watching/listening to the Bad Guys gradually losing their composure as Batman picks them off one-by-one. By the time there are only 2 or 3 left, they're so terrified that they'll shoot at any random noise or movement.



Anyway, just some thoughts. I'm looking forward to seeing what mods will be available for me to explore and play with, come October.
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Old 07-04-2016, 02:04 PM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

Well, to play devil's advocate a bit… you're talking about a lot of potential content in an already pretty large game. The generic guards already have quite a lot of recorded lines, and even that's not enough to keep them from becoming stale pretty quickly. I use a mod that drastically reduces the distance those lines trigger, you basically have to push against them, and it makes wandering a town much more bearable. Lasting effects on the game world are really great, and very much overlooked in a lot of modern RPGs, but it was easier back when everything was text. It's not hard to see why already huge, big budget games don't prioritize that kind of thing.
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Old 07-04-2016, 05:49 PM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

I think a lot of it just laziness on the part of Bethesda. They admitted to removing levitation after Morrowind because it was just sooo hard designing dungeons when players weren't limited in their movement. Then after Oblivion, they removed Acrobatics and we end up with completely linear dungeons instead of the genuinely fun sprawls of earlier games.

They want to make the world dynamic so they rely on scripted events because that's easier to code, but the scripted events only work if you approach in exactly the manner and direction that the devs thought you would, the end result being immersion breaking when you suddenly see the puppet strings.

They want to make the world big so they don't have any restrictions on faction membership because now you can do all four guild questlines so each one can be smaller, but then they don't bother to code how this stuff interacts. Each questline just dead ends with you supposedly in charge but they don't bother to do much past that. The radiant quests were a step in the right direction but only before you reach the top and they tended to break pretty frequently at any rate.

They made the world big, but did so by making it shallow. However, I've always felt that a lot of the blame has to fall on whoever decided to go with the gimmick release date that probably prevented the devs from having enough time to do better.
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  #11  
Old 09-12-2016, 09:39 PM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

Aaaaaand they've just announced that PS4 users won't have access to mods after all. Apparently, Sony is to blame.


Well, screw that. I ain't buying the game all over again just to see it in higher definition.

I've been wondering about getting an Xbox One for some time, and now I'm thinking that maybe I should.

As I see it, there are some pros, even though I'm not a big-time gamer and so it's hard to justify the cost. First, I really want to see & play Skyrim in high(er) definition, and more importantly, with mods. I love Skyrim to death, but I've played it through enough times to have pretty-much memorized the game -- I want to see what the mod developers have done with it.

As a bonus, I seem to remember reading that the newest Xbox systems will play 4K videos. Am I remembering that right? If so, it'd probably be cheaper and/or more practical to buy an Xbox One than a dedicated 4K video player.



Oooorrrr, for the price of an Xbox One, I could probably buy a decent gaming computer. I wouldn't need to buy a monitor, since I could just plug it into the television and use it for gaming. There are already a zillion or so Skyrim mods available for PC.

Another plus to going this route is that -- eventually -- they're going to finish Skywind and Skyblivion. I've never played Morrowind, but I'd like to, especially on a modern game engine with voice acting, good graphics, etc. And I would love to see Oblivion (especially with slightly more ... intelligent ... NPC dialog) on the Skyrim game engine.



Thoughts?
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  #12  
Old 09-13-2016, 12:27 AM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

The only thought I have right now is how disappointed yet unsurprised I am that mods aren't coming to PS4. I expect XBox to go the same way. If I were you I'd get the PC. This won't be the only console disappointment that will happen, that's almost a given.

But yeah Morrowind is easily the best Elder Scrolls title, IMO. One of the things that makes it great, and I hope this is preserved in the updated versions, is that some of the races look less human. The Argonians looked much more reptile like in the original, they had a different gait than a humanoid, and were just...better looking. Morrowind itself looked more like a more alien place, not so "pretend this doesn't look like Europe".

IIRC there was some sort of issue with the fan reskins..or remakes..not sure what to call them. I think Bethesda was reluctant to release some of the code. I wonder whatever became of that..
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  #13  
Old 10-08-2016, 07:43 AM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

The latest word is that Sony has caved to the pressure, and that the PS4 version of Skyrim: Special Edition will be playable with mods after all. Apparently, Sony got a lot of angry comments from fans.

Of course, I don't expect that the PS4 (or Xbox) will support the sorts of large-scale mods that you can get on the PC. Still, I can't really justify buying a new console or PC just to so I can play Skyrim in high def and with mods. So, for now I'll have to be satisfied with the PS4 version. Still, I probably will get a gaming PC at some point, especially when/if Skywind and Skyblivion are finally released.
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Old 12-13-2016, 04:47 PM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

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Old 12-14-2016, 07:18 PM
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Default Re: Well, It Looks Like I'm Going to Have to buy Skyrim ... Again

My favorite example of this:

My character was wandering across the tundra near Whiterun when a dragon swooped down to attack. I was chasing the dragon across the tundra, shooting arrows at it, and we got too close to a bandit camp. So, a bunch of bandits swarmed out. Did they do the rational thing and help me take down the dragon? Of course not -- they attacked the Dovahkiin.

So, I plowed through half a dozen or so bandits in a matter of seconds. The dragon landed, and I took it out as well. So I'm standing there, looting the half-dozen bandits and the dragon when a Thalmor patrol happens by. So, they start shouting some nonsense about "Elven Superiority" and how "You don't stand a chance against us!". I rolled a critical hit on the first one and beheaded him with the first strike; as luck would have it, I did exactly the same for the second Thalmor. The third guy had a bow and wasn't inclined to close to melee range, so I chased him down and did to him what I'd done to the other two.

So here I am: in the space of maybe a minute, I've slain an Ancient Dragon, an entire camp full of bandits, and a Thalmor patrol. While I'm standing there, surrounded by all the bodies and having taken hardly a scratch in return ... a Thief runs up and tells me that if I don't hand over all my money, he'll gut me like a fish.

I was tempted to hand him my money, just for the sheer audacity he displayed.
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