The decline of the Elder Scrolls series

[Wyrmlord]

I felt that Morrowind's atmosphere was superior to Daggerfall's. Call me a sucker for weird and whimsical creature designs, architecture and terrain, but in 2002 it felt very fresh to me. Also, Daggerfall had a gigantic pile of useless skills, and a relatively limited selection of "best" skills (and items, for that matter).

As I have played Daggerfall, I have found immense use for every single skill. There is no useless skill in the game.

For example, when I was playing a thief/assassin style Argonian, I disabled spellcasting in outdoor light so as to gain other major advantages. That meant I could not use Levitation to run from the cops. What did I do? Well, my Climbing and Jumping skill was so high that I climbed onto the first building I could find, and leaped from rooftop to rooftop. This gave me a quick get away, which is necessary because you can not fast travel when the cops are on your tail.

What other skills? Daedric has been incredibly useful as well. I gave my character Critical Weakness to Frost and Fire to gain other major advantages. AOE spells don't work as effectively on Daedra, who can resist them. That means Fire and Frost Daedra can kill me quickly. But speaking Daedric was the only thing that ensured my survival against these difficult high level enemies.

Pickpocketing and Lockpicking are also great. If you are walking around the city at 5 AM before the stores open, you pick the locks on one of them, and get that 100,000 GP Daedric Cuirass for free. And if the store already is open, you steal the stuff using Pickpocket. Expensive items that you have to really save for, you get in an instant.

Even the Streetwise and Etiquette skills are useful. With a high enough value of these skills, you get the location of a particular place instantly, saving you the time of travelling through the city finding the place. Plus, if you are a highly notorious person known to have massacred dozens of cops, then ordinarily, people don't speak to you at all and give no response. A good Personality and a decent Streetwise skill really save you in these instances.

 

[Luzur]

imagine an Elder Scrolls game comprised of the good parts from Arena, Daggerfall, Redguard, Battlespire and Morrowind.

heck maybe even sprinkle some Skyrim on top of it.

 

[General Maxson]

imagine an Elder Scrolls game compared of the good parts from Arena, Daggerfall, Redguard, Battlespire and Morrowind.

heck maybe even sprinkle some Skyrim on top of it.

You mean comprised of?

 

[Luzur]

imagine an Elder Scrolls game compared of the good parts from Arena, Daggerfall, Redguard, Battlespire and Morrowind.

heck maybe even sprinkle some Skyrim on top of it.

You mean comprised of?

move along, nothing to see here.

 

[theSavant]

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Oblivion and Skyrim. Exactly what is the point of an open world game that is designed so that you just jump from quest marker to quest marker? You can play Skyrim by staring at the magical compass at the top of the screen if you want to.

The flaw is in the design itself. The whole game consists of quests which hunt you from one side of the map to the other side of the map. This is the only way to progress in the game. Needless to say that quick-travel gets your best friend. Once people have seen enough of the environment (after 1 hour), the open world becomes useless. Quick-Travel & Quest Markers are the only things which are used afterwards.

And this is also how games like NWN or Dragon Age evolved. They realized that people don't spend a lot of time in the open world and then the open world gets obsolete. As a consequence they replaced open world with modular "battle arenas" only, which can be accessed by clicking on a cheap 2D map. The modules look mostly boring and shitty but they bring you straight to the action.

I favor neither the first nor the second solution. It's actually one of the reasons I prefer linear RPGs more, such as e.g. Dark Messiah of M&M.

 

[aleph]

It's actually one of the reasons I prefer linear RPGs more

Joined: Oct 3, 2012

 

[Xavier0889]

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Oblivion and Skyrim. Exactly what is the point of an open world game that is designed so that you just jump from quest marker to quest marker? You can play Skyrim by staring at the magical compass at the top of the screen if you want to.

The flaw is in the design itself. The whole game consists of quests which hunt you from one side of the map to the other side of the map. This is the only way to progress in the game. Needless to say that quick-travel gets your best friend. Once people have seen enough of the environment (after 1 hour), the open world becomes useless. Quick-Travel & Quest Markers are the only things which are used afterwards.

And this is also how games like NWN or Dragon Age evolved. They realized that people don't spend a lot of time in the open world and then the open world gets obsolete. As a consequence they replaced open world with modular "battle arenas" only, which can be accessed by clicking on a cheap 2D map. The modules look mostly boring and shitty but they bring you straight to the action.

I favor neither the first nor the second solution. It's actually one of the reasons I prefer linear RPGs more, such as e.g. Dark Messiah of M&M.

Although I didn't had the funniest moments of my life playing Morrowind (I can't get the hype of TES series, besides being the most Ultima-ish rpgs we have today), the open world was one of the best things this game had. The goal of getting into Balmorra was kinda boring in comparison to exploring the land. Besides, if you quick travelled into that town you missed lots of experience points and equipment. Some NPCs and their quests aren't just as awesome as other rpgs, but it's better than NWN's fedex quests or Dragon Age's fanfiction porn.

 

[Esterhaze]

There are a lot of problems with how gameplay has developed in the series but RPG gameplay was never the strong suit of the games. The main decline has been in the quality of the worlds developed. An open world sandbox game is only as strong as the world itself. So in the end, I think it is a decline in the quality of the writers or whoever is responsible for these things. Long after the gameplay got old in both ES 2 and 3 (which was rather fast, even with out the quest markers), the worlds remained interesting (for different reasons, MW because the background to things was well developed, Daggerfall because of how things were presented (in terms of main quest, characters, the little quirks of how you interacted with the world). The writers in ES 2 and 3 actually seem to have some feel for history, literature and character, and as a result there is a degree of subtlety in the worlds that isn't present in later games (haven't played ES 4 but I think I have enough data points to make this inference).

You start to see the quality of writing decline in Tribunal, which is suprising given the potential of the setup (two gods going insane, plus some politcal skullduggery). Unfortunately Almalexia's insanity is just comepletely dull. The decline really picks up in Bloodmoon (interesting correlation with an increase in voice-acting...) with an incredibly uninspired Main quest, side quest, and cultures (note that this is despite an increased emphasis on multiple pathways in quests). It's like the average age of the writers decreased by 10 years. Actually probably ture to some extent. Skyrim continues in this vein.

 

[Ovg]

I say that skyrim is actually an incline, especially with modders adding all kinds of shit from previous games, removing quest compass and in general making it a little less tardy. People are aware of the decline and they are all fighting it or embracing it in different ways. You get nude mods and you get books based on lore and developer commentary. You get sex mods and more lore in loading screens mods.

In my humble opinion morrowind was a harbinger of the decline. It was starting to move away from dialogue/char skills and to player skills, especially in combat. You just had to step back during enemy atack, step forward and slash. Atmosphere was fucking awesome though.

Arena I don't know enough to comment on.
Dagerfall, I played the shit out of when it was released in potatoland.

An open world sandbox game is only as strong as the world itself. (...) Skyrim continues in this vein.

Well, that is if you play it unmoded. Mods provide all kinds of extra value.

I don't agree with "modders will fix it" attitude, but I believe that it's good that people tend to care about games that are arguably more RPG than others. After all, isn't skyrim more RPG than ME3? Or any other new "Action RPG" game?

 

[Sabriana]

I like Morrowind, and I think it's way, way better than Oblivion could ever be, even with countless mods. My mod-folder for Oblivion is actually much bigger than the game itself. I haven't played Skyrim yet, so I can't comment on it. It's not in the right price-range for me yet.

I've not played Daggerfall in a long, long time, because I can't get it to play on the newer machines that I purchased since its release, but I do remember liking it a lot.

I also agree that the ES series declined after the release of the base game. Tribunal and Bloodmoon were a waste of great opportunities, sadly. Oblivion then went ahead and turned the ES series to garbage. Thank goodness for the modding community and patience, because when it first came out, I checked it out thoroughly, and decided that it was a total waste of my time and my money. So I waited until I could buy it for 10 Euros, including all the DLC and Exp.pack.

Now I want to play Morrowind again, but I had to get another PC (why do they break? Why?), and I just know that the game won't play on it. It played fine on my 2006 machine, but I have a bad feeling that it won't be able to adapt to the 2012, Windows 7 rig I had to get only 2 month ago. Oh the agony

 

[Mastermind]

Morrowing worked on my 64 bit win7 pc.

 

[Regvard]

I like Morrowind, and I think it's way, way better than Oblivion could ever be, even with countless mods. My mod-folder for Oblivion is actually much bigger than the game itself. I haven't played Skyrim yet, so I can't comment on it. It's not in the right price-range for me yet.

I've not played Daggerfall in a long, long time, because I can't get it to play on the newer machines that I purchased since its release, but I do remember liking it a lot.

I also agree that the ES series declined after the release of the base game. Tribunal and Bloodmoon were a waste of great opportunities, sadly. Oblivion then went ahead and turned the ES series to garbage. Thank goodness for the modding community and patience, because when it first came out, I checked it out thoroughly, and decided that it was a total waste of my time and my money. So I waited until I could buy it for 10 Euros, including all the DLC and Exp.pack.

Now I want to play Morrowind again, but I had to get another PC (why do they break? Why?), and I just know that the game won't play on it. It played fine on my 2006 machine, but I have a bad feeling that it won't be able to adapt to the 2012, Windows 7 rig I had to get only 2 month ago. Oh the agony

I play both Daggerfall (dosbox) and Morrowind fine on my Win 7 machines. You actually need a decent modern gpu to make full use of overhaul 3.0.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Morrowing worked on my 64 bit win7 pc.

 

[Turjan]

I've not played Daggerfall in a long, long time, because I can't get it to play on the newer machines that I purchased since its release, but I do remember liking it a lot.

Now I want to play Morrowind again, but I had to get another PC (why do they break? Why?), and I just know that the game won't play on it. It played fine on my 2006 machine, but I have a bad feeling that it won't be able to adapt to the 2012, Windows 7 rig I had to get only 2 month ago. Oh the agony

I play both Daggerfall (dosbox) and Morrowind fine on my Win 7 machines. You actually need a decent modern gpu to make full use of overhaul 3.0.

Same here. Both run fine on Win7 64bit. To make things easy, use DaggerfallSetup, and don't forget the adjustments mentioned on the page.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Can't wait to see how Skyrim Dragonborn DLC will turn Bloodmoon's awesome multipathed dungeons like Frossel and Bloodskal Barrow into BSB linear crap.

Are you joking? How is a single corridor with a pillar in the middle of it, forcing you to go around it, multilayered?

Considering how Bloodmoon dungeons were essentially Skyrim's with worse graphix (DRAUGR), nothing will change.

 

[Sabriana]

Thanks for the encouragement, I'll try it out asap. And if the DaggerfallSetup works for me, I'll be a happy camper.

Although I might sound stupid, I don't know what "Overhaul 3.0" is. My Morrowind disk is the same one I bought in 2002 (or 2003, I forget). I guess it's a mod, and I will check the mod sections anyway. The new PC is so much bigger, I'm looking forward to trying out the resource heavier mods.

OT, I actually liked that some of the NPC's gave very vague directions, or even completely false directions. The compass is asinine, imo, where is the fun in that? I also liked stumbling over dungeons unexpectedly (without them showing up on some compass way ahead of time), sticking my OC's nose in, and she ended up having her ass handed to her, because her level wasn't nearly where it should have been for that particular area. Stupid level-scaling. I still don't understand why such a game-breaking feature was considered necessary.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with Oblivion and Skyrim. Exactly what is the point of an open world game that is designed so that you just jump from quest marker to quest marker? You can play Skyrim by staring at the magical compass at the top of the screen if you want to.

There is a Skyrim mod that attempts to fix this, actually, by making the quest dialogues and journal entries like Morrowind so that you can play without the quest markers, but I believe it's incomplete and hasn't been updated in a long time. It's a shame, because that alone would make Skyrim enjoyable to me.

Definitely agree with this.

 

[Regvard]

Thanks for the encouragement, I'll try it out asap. And if the DaggerfallSetup works for me, I'll be a happy camper.

Although I might sound stupid, I don't know what "Overhaul 3.0" is. My Morrowind disk is the same one I bought in 2002 (or 2003, I forget). I guess it's a mod, and I will check the mod sections anyway. The new PC is so much bigger, I'm looking forward to trying out the resource heavier mods.

OT, I actually liked that some of the NPC's gave very vague directions, or even completely false directions. The compass is asinine, imo, where is the fun in that? I also liked stumbling over dungeons unexpectedly (without them showing up on some compass way ahead of time), sticking my OC's nose in, and she ended up having her ass handed to her, because her level wasn't nearly where it should have been for that particular area. Stupid level-scaling. I still don't understand why such a game-breaking feature was considered necessary.

It's a pretty good graphics overhaul. Replaces textures, adds shaders etc. I absolutely recommend it.

See this thread for more details:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/best-morrowind-mods-2012-edition.77649/

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Can't wait to see how Skyrim Dragonborn DLC will turn Bloodmoon's awesome multipathed dungeons like Frossel and Bloodskal Barrow into BSB linear crap.

Are you joking? How is a single corridor with a pillar in the middle of it, forcing you to go around it, multilayered?

Considering how Bloodmoon dungeons were essentially Skyrim's with worse graphix (DRAUGR), nothing will change.

hm I wonder if that was the joke

 

[octavius]

You start to see the quality of writing decline in Tribunal, which is suprising given the potential of the setup (two gods going insane, plus some politcal skullduggery). Unfortunately Almalexia's insanity is just comepletely dull. The decline really picks up in Bloodmoon (interesting correlation with an increase in voice-acting...) with an incredibly uninspired Main quest, side quest, and cultures (note that this is despite an increased emphasis on multiple pathways in quests). It's like the average age of the writers decreased by 10 years. Actually probably ture to some extent. Skyrim continues in this vein.

Tribunal was not very good. There was no way to role play and you were just forced along a rail roaded track, since it was not possible to question or confront Almalexia.
Bloodmoon OTOH I liked. It had a phenomenal atmosphere and the best snow and cold winternight feel of any game I've played.

 

[Turjan]

Can't wait to see how Skyrim Dragonborn DLC will turn Bloodmoon's awesome multipathed dungeons like Frossel and Bloodskal Barrow into BSB linear crap.

Are you joking? How is a single corridor with a pillar in the middle of it, forcing you to go around it, multilayered?

Considering how Bloodmoon dungeons were essentially Skyrim's with worse graphix (DRAUGR), nothing will change.

hm I wonder if that was the joke

Sure it was. Especially the stuff chosen as images makes it clear that it iwas a joke. Bloodmoon had a few (well, very few) more complicated dungeons.

 

[Turjan]

You start to see the quality of writing decline in Tribunal, which is suprising given the potential of the setup (two gods going insane, plus some politcal skullduggery). Unfortunately Almalexia's insanity is just comepletely dull. The decline really picks up in Bloodmoon (interesting correlation with an increase in voice-acting...) with an incredibly uninspired Main quest, side quest, and cultures (note that this is despite an increased emphasis on multiple pathways in quests). It's like the average age of the writers decreased by 10 years. Actually probably ture to some extent. Skyrim continues in this vein.

Tribunal was not very good. There was no way to role play and you were just forced along a rail roaded track, since it was not possible to question or confront Almalexia.
Bloodmoon OTOH I liked. It had a phenomenal atmosphere and the best snow and cold winternight feel of any game I've played.

Tribunal suffered from the problem that both main quest givers were complete assholes which led to the question: Why again do I put up with this? Which meant that only metagaming pushed me on.

 

[Regvard]

You start to see the quality of writing decline in Tribunal, which is suprising given the potential of the setup (two gods going insane, plus some politcal skullduggery). Unfortunately Almalexia's insanity is just comepletely dull. The decline really picks up in Bloodmoon (interesting correlation with an increase in voice-acting...) with an incredibly uninspired Main quest, side quest, and cultures (note that this is despite an increased emphasis on multiple pathways in quests). It's like the average age of the writers decreased by 10 years. Actually probably ture to some extent. Skyrim continues in this vein.

Tribunal was not very good. There was no way to role play and you were just forced along a rail roaded track, since it was not possible to question or confront Almalexia.
Bloodmoon OTOH I liked. It had a phenomenal atmosphere and the best snow and cold winternight feel of any game I've played.

Tribunal suffered from the problem that both main quest givers were complete assholes which led to the question: Why again do I put up with this? Which meant that only metagaming pushed me on.

They chose Almelexia the Cunt over a true bro like Sotha Sil. No dialog with him, nothing left written, nothing explained and clockwork city is a bunch of fps corridors. Tribunal is like a retarded fan mod.

 

[abnaxus]

Is it actually possible to kill Almalexia immediately after meeting her the first time?

 

[Wyrmlord]

Tribunal's Clockwork City is possibly the laziest endgame in TES history.

Even Skyrim has better and larger climatic locations, such as the Vale where you find the Snow Elf prince.

The first two games in the series - they really pulled off their endgames. Afterwards, there has never been a good endgame in a TES game.