The decline of the Elder Scrolls series

[Turjan]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

 

[Outlander]

If anything is declining, that is the taste of the consumers.

The key to understand the decline.

 

[taxalot]

But then that is not really decline, rather continuity ; I do not remember many quests in Arena or Daggerfall that were something else than "Go there, kill that.". Morrowind was pretty much the exception to the rule.

 

[Kahlis]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

 

[AgentBJ09]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

 

[Turjan]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

Did you never play Morrowind? "The thread of prophecy is severed".

 

[Broseph]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

Did you never play Morrowind? "The thread of prophecy is severed".

That was a good feature. Of course, the message still comes up even after the NPC is no longer useful to you.

 

[JarlFrank]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

Did you never play Morrowind? "The thread of prophecy is severed".

That was a good feature. Of course, the message still comes up even after the NPC is no longer useful to you.

Also, you can kill almost the entire population of Vvardenfell except for those relevant to the prophecy and still be the saviour of the island.

GUYS I SAVED YOU
GUYS?
Oh right I killed all of you, heh.

 

[AgentBJ09]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

Did you never play Morrowind? "The thread of prophecy is severed".

That was a good feature. Of course, the message still comes up even after the NPC is no longer useful to you.

Also, you can kill almost the entire population of Vvardenfell except for those relevant to the prophecy and still be the saviour of the island.

GUYS I SAVED YOU
GUYS?
Oh right I killed all of you, heh.

True, but that was, as TVTropes puts it, Plot Armor. If you did murder those folks, that was a warning to restart at another save because the main plot was dead and the game wasn't able to be finished. (In most instances, anyway.)

What I'm talking about is something I noticed when Dawnguard came out. No option to slaughter critical NPCs, and have the story continue uninterrupted but go another direction. Why didn't you have an option to kill Serana, take her scroll, and then learn by other means what her father was plotting? Or, if you were playing a vampire, just like the Kill the dark Brotherhood quest, have that option instead of trying to join them?

Serana was a critical NPC throughout the DLC, but the truly evil/zealous option, being slaughter any vampire regardless of disposition, was not allowed. At any point.

 

[Xi]

I have an idea! We'll discuss the decline of a gaming franchise every other day for the next couple of years. Who's with me?

 

[hakuroshi]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

Did you never play Morrowind? "The thread of prophecy is severed".

That was a good feature. Of course, the message still comes up even after the NPC is no longer useful to you.

Also, you can kill almost the entire population of Vvardenfell except for those relevant to the prophecy and still be the saviour of the island.

GUYS I SAVED YOU
GUYS?
Oh right I killed all of you, heh.

Interesting thing, that you could kill even those relevant to the prophesy and still finish the main quest. The only problem, that you would not know how, but means to do so would still be available

 

[Commissar Draco]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

Did you never play Morrowind? "The thread of prophecy is severed".

That was a good feature. Of course, the message still comes up even after the NPC is no longer useful to you.

Also, you can kill almost the entire population of Vvardenfell except for those relevant to the prophecy and still be the saviour of the island.

GUYS I SAVED YOU
GUYS?
Oh right I killed all of you, heh.

Interesting thing, that you could kill even those relevant to the prophesy and still finish the main quest. The only problem, that you would not know how, but means to do so would still be available

And this is why Morrowind was truly sand box game. (with decent ans well paced main story)

 

[taxalot]

When freedom of action merely revolves around who you can kill, something is seriously wrong with the way gaming chose to evolve.

 

[Wyrmlord]

But then that is not really decline, rather continuity ; I do not remember many quests in Arena or Daggerfall that were something else than "Go there, kill that.". Morrowind was pretty much the exception to the rule.

Considering Arena never required you to kill a single person, this description is pretty inaccurate.

There is no objective at any point of the game, main quest or side-quest, which specifically asks you to kill someone. You are asked to escort people, find maps, find hidden treasures, hunt for items,.etc but otherwise, no requests to kill someone.

Besides, the game can be ghosted with a Ring of Khajit or a simple Invisibility spell, without a single person killed, so there is not a bit of truth to this claim.

 

[taxalot]

So there were quests to find items in dungeons instead of killing ? Wow, that's complex. They probably busted many neurons for those ideas.

 

[Raapys]

Did any game, ever, do anything more? There are puzzle games, granted, but that kinda goes against the RPG spirit of using your character's stats for problem solving instead of your own. But for RPGs, just about any quest/task can be boiled down to going somewhere, looting/talking to/killing something/someone and returning. It's always a simple principle, no matter how much dialog and flavor you try hide it behind.

 

[JarlFrank]

There are puzzle games, granted, but that kinda goes against the RPG spirit of using your character's stats for problem solving instead of your own.

I don't mind when RPGs go against this "RPG spirit" once in a while. Puzzles in dungeons are awesome, and not everything should just boil down to simple stat checks cause that's boring.

 

[Mastermind]

We got fewer skills but their depth increased (except for spellcasting).

But their depth didn't increase enough to offset all the cut skills, so effectively we got a lot less stuff. And far less spells and spell effects. And less cool item enchanting. And generally, a lot less features.

They didn't increase enough to offset the dumbing down of magic, but it's more than enough to offset all the cut skills, since most of them were barely used or didn't really do much of anything to begin with. The number of skills is the least of the elder scrolls games' problem.

 

[Mastermind]

Did any game, ever, do anything more? There are puzzle games, granted, but that kinda goes against the RPG spirit of using your character's stats for problem solving instead of your own.

How does playing a game go against the spirit of RPGAMES? An RPG should have as much of both as humanly possible and solid design will make use of both.

 

[Mastermind]

I disagree with the last part. The speech skills were very useful in Daggerfall if you played a charismatic/non-combat character;

Which has what to do with depth? The language skills are all one trick ponies. That's textbook lack of depth.

 

[Mastermind]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

Did you never play Morrowind? "The thread of prophecy is severed".

That was a good feature. Of course, the message still comes up even after the NPC is no longer useful to you.

Also, you can kill almost the entire population of Vvardenfell except for those relevant to the prophecy and still be the saviour of the island.

GUYS I SAVED YOU
GUYS?
Oh right I killed all of you, heh.

Pretty sure you can kill all of them, period. You just have to take a huge hit to your health to finish the MQ.

 

[AgentBJ09]

I disagree with the last part. The speech skills were very useful in Daggerfall if you played a charismatic/non-combat character;

Which has what to do with depth? The language skills are all one trick ponies. That's textbook lack of depth.

Choice is the better word, because that allows non-combat options versus something like Skyrim which is almost always hack and slash as the solution. They only feel like one-trick ponies because the related perks, IE quests from monsters, were cut.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

I disagree with the last part. The speech skills were very useful in Daggerfall if you played a charismatic/non-combat character;

Which has what to do with depth? The language skills are all one trick ponies. That's textbook lack of depth.

Choice is the better word, because that allows non-combat options versus something like Skyrim which is almost always hack and slash as the solution. They only feel like one-trick ponies because the related perks, IE quests from monsters, were cut.

I never really got to Daggerfall in such a scale I did to other games, nor would I in that aspect, but how would the "linguist/speechcraft" character play? Just waltz all the way through those randomly-generated kilometers of dungeons with passive mobs just standing there to loot the "boss chest"?

 

[JarlFrank]

I think we're just doomed at this point because Todd Howard thinks the extent of player interaction in RPGs is "do I kill this person or not-kill them."

I thought it was more like "do I kill this person now or do I kill them later?"

But in most cases now they're essential until Bethesda wants you to kill them!

That raises an interesting point, though: What about critical NPCs that can be killed? What if that branched the game, or a quest? It happens in Deus Ex when you save Paul or let him die. And in Dragon Age if you let Logain into the Wardens. And I believe Fallout: New Vegas has a lot of these kinds of quest branches.

Did you never play Morrowind? "The thread of prophecy is severed".

That was a good feature. Of course, the message still comes up even after the NPC is no longer useful to you.

Also, you can kill almost the entire population of Vvardenfell except for those relevant to the prophecy and still be the saviour of the island.

GUYS I SAVED YOU
GUYS?
Oh right I killed all of you, heh.

Pretty sure you can kill all of them, period. You just have to take a huge hit to your health to finish the MQ.

As far as I know, Yagrum Bagarn, the last Dwemer, has to survive, but other than him everyone can die.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Hmm.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Yagrum_Bagarn

Spoiler

It should be noted that Yagrum Bargarn is entirely essential to all parts of the Main Quest, even back-path characters, because if he is killed at any time during the Main Quest, it will anger Divayth Fyr to the point that he will attack you and will also make it impossible to repair Wraithguard if you happen to kill Vivec.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Wraithguard

Spoiler

You can beat the game without Wraithguard—it is just more difficult, since you will lose health continuously (50-125 damage/sec with 0% Resist Magicka) while using Keening or Sunder.

I wonder if you can calm Divvy. But yeah, it seems you can kill them all as long as you can take the HP hit. You don't really need the mittens, just bulky resistances.