The Elder Scrolls 5: Could it be good?

[Imbecile]

I'm not speaking about all other writing - Megaton is like a one big piece of writing poo - from the very idea and right down to the extremely dumb quest.
Not mentioning the whole plot *omg presidant iz a computar!*
Improvement? Hahaha.
.

Jaysus. I think most "retarded fanboys" at the Codex acknowledge that the writing in Fallout 3 wasn't its strong suit. Maybe it was better than Oblivion's, maybe it was worse, but I think everyone can agree that it was patchy at best.

Apart from the dodgy dialogue though, the atmosphere was better, the quests (apart form the main quest) more interesting, with far better C&C.
Levelling was much improved. Yes, there was some levelling, but then there tends to be in most RPGs, and it wasn't the debacle that Oblivions was.
The faces were generally better, with much less bloom and the game as a whole ran much more smoothly. There were stat checks in dialogue. Implemented badly, no doubt, but its existence is good news for those non combat stats, and maybe they'll make a better job of it in future games (though personally I doubt it)

Regardless, TES5 could be a good game. Is it likely to be one? Well put it this way - I'm doubting that you'll enjoy it much

 

[Helioth]

Nope, it'll suck just as much as Oblivion, have 5(thousand) new graphical features, if not more, expand on some vaguely interesting but irrelevant 'elder scrolls literature'
(you know, like the gibberish at the start of the other games)
and have a bigger hype machine than any predecessor,
so the fans can delude themselves,
yet again,
into thinking they're enjoying themselves
when every single interaction in the game is a check to... see if you're still breathing.

 

[Relayer71]

The writing in Fallout 3 is not better on quality, only in quantity. In that the NPC speak longer lines. That's all.

There isn't a single memorable sentence in that shitgame. I fail to see how it is better than Oblivion.

I agree. I found myself wincing a LOT more in Fallout 3.

The dialogue in Oblivion is pretty bad in that it is utterly simplistic. No matter which character you speak to it manages to sound as if the dialogue was written by some 14 year old of average intelligence.

In Fallout 3 it manages to sound as if it was written by a 14 year old with Tourettes and Special Education level intelligence.

And really, spoken dialogue goes a long way to make each game even worse.

I don't normally mind simplistic writing, hell I'm a fan of old school JRPGs. But when you have voice acting that is even worse than the material? It's laughable. The repetetion of voices hurt Oblivion but in Fallout 3 most of the actors sound as if they're performing for a 1st Grade class which is even worse.

The characters just sound SO lifeless and one dimensional. The party dialogue in Wizardry 8 during combat had a lot more personality than all the dialogue in Fallout 3.

 

[Relayer71]

When you visit cities in Daggerfall, you don't feel like it is just a world specifically made so that you, the player, can interact with it. It is more of a feeling that is a city with its own business which will keep going on, whether or not you are there.

And this is where Bethesda has dropped the ball every time since.

It's not that they're the only ones guilty of this, but the scale of their games just exposes this weakness even more. The Imperial city in Oblivion was a horribly bland experience.

They could have at least faked the sense of immersion with some background pedestrian noises like in Baldur's Gate II which made the cities seem a bit more alive.

 

[MetalCraze]

And the city in BG2 looked huge, while in Bethesda games "cities" look smaller than villages. In "improved" F3 too.

 

[Crispy]

And the city in BG2 looked huge

If there were some way to play BG2 in FP then it wouldn't seem so "huge".

while in Bethesda games "cities" look smaller than villages. In "improved" F3 too.

The only city in Fallout 3 is Washington D.C., and it takes up maybe 1/4 of the entire map. Are you referring to Rivet City, perhaps? You realize that's just a boat, right? Or Megaton? That's not meant to be a city.

I agree that Oblivion's towns and Imperial City probably should have been larger, but there is a point where it gets too much. I was not a huge fan of Daggerfall's overly boring towns, but I did appreciate their somewhat more believable nature from a layout standpoint.

I'll also remind everyone that Morrowind's Vivec City was very disappointing since it was nearly empty. I spent a lot of time running around its purposeless corridors and walkways wondering why in the hell they went to the lengths they did to make it so large if it were to wind up nearly a ghost town. Bethesda intended to populate it far more than they did though, as evidenced by many design docs and marketing pics advertising it as so (not a first there). This illustrates how RPG design is always a balancing act between content, playability, and budget. Large, complicated cities are great, such as with the Witcher, but when you've got many of them to include, something's going to get left out.

Lastly, I'll agree with the sentiment that sometimes just the abstract of a large city is the best way to handle it. I doubt that BSW will ever go that way, however.

 

[The One True Gamer]

Nope, it'll suck just as much as Oblivion, have 5(thousand) new graphical features, if not more, expand on some vaguely interesting but irrelevant 'elder scrolls literature'
(you know, like the gibberish at the start of the other games)
and have a bigger hype machine than any predecessor,
so the fans can delude themselves,
yet again,
into thinking they're enjoying themselves
when every single interaction in the game is a check to... see if you're still breathing.

Oh my god please do not tell me you actually just said that

Please do not tell me you are so utterly brain damaged as to have claimed that people can be tricked into thinking they are having fun when they are not

I think you must have failed the breathing checks quite a bit if you actually believe what you said

---

I concede the point that shitty voice acting is a huge problem. For my part, one of the biggest.

 

[MetalCraze]

If there were some way to play BG2 in FP then it wouldn't seem so "huge".

Yes - in fact it will seem very huge. I hope you'll understand why this argument of yours is dumb.

The only city in Fallout 3 is Washington D.C., and it takes up maybe 1/4 of the entire map

Which is small.

Are you referring to Rivet City, perhaps? You realize that's just a boat, right? Or Megaton? That's not meant to be a city.

What was it meant to be then? Oh let me guess - a bunch of houses built in the crater of the unexploded bomb which is another improvement? Where is my cake?

Large, complicated cities are great, such as with the Witcher

Hahahahaha

 

[Darth Roxor]

And the city in BG2 looked huge

If there were some way to play BG2 in FP then it wouldn't seem so "huge".

So now we are using bad design choices to excuse bad design effects?

Makes sense to me

Plus, play the Thief games (even though they're not RPGs) which are in FP and tell me their cities feel small. Especially the level in Thief 2 where you navigate through rooftops to Angelwatch.

Moreover, Gothics are in TPP which isn't that much different from FPP and their cities also seem bigger and more alive than the Imperial City.

So excuse moi, your argument is misinformed.

 

[DraQ]

When you visit cities in Daggerfall, you don't feel like it is just a world specifically made so that you, the player, can interact with it. It is more of a feeling that is a city with its own business which will keep going on, whether or not you are there.

And this is where Bethesda has dropped the ball every time since.

It's not that they're the only ones guilty of this, but the scale of their games just exposes this weakness even more. The Imperial city in Oblivion was a horribly bland experience.

They could have at least faked the sense of immersion with some background pedestrian noises like in Baldur's Gate II which made the cities seem a bit more alive.

They should have made almost entire game area The Imperial City, surrounded by lake Rumare and a handful of islands providing some wilderness.

Downscaling was already stretching it in MW, in Ob, where it was about an order of magnitude more profound it was just ridiculous. The way the awesome IC decribed in the lore was blanded down to the extreme didn't help either.

 

[Noceur]

I wouldn't mind if they filled their cities with extras that you can't have dialogue with either. People actually working and stuff.

I agree about the Imperial City as well. They should've made it huge, scrapped that insanely boring main quest of theirs and made one that took place in the city and surrounding suburbs and farms/fields. Hell, they even have their precious dungeons what with all the sewers and such.

 

[Crispy]

What was it meant to be then? Oh let me guess - a bunch of houses built in the crater of the unexploded bomb which is another improvement? Where is my cake?

Skyway, I never claimed Megaton was any improvement. I claimed Fallout 3 as a whole is an improvement over Oblivion.

Megaton is an interesting layout, and I think its size is perfect for what it's supposed to be -- a quirky little cult-like town built out of a small crater. It could have been done so much better, but again we're back to my point of BSW not having the creative writing staff it needs to have done that.

So now we are using bad design choices to excuse bad design effects?

I assume by choices you mean that Bethesda should have used iso for all their games like BioWare did for the BG's? That would have negated the effects of their cities seeming small? Well, when you put it that way, I guess you're right.

Now, take the inverse of that. What if Fallout 3 and Oblivion were done in iso? That solves the problem of their "cities" seeming small, doesn't it?

:alternateuniverse:

 

[Darth Roxor]

I assume by choices you mean that Bethesda should have used iso for all their games like BioWare did for the BG's? That would have negated the effects of their cities seeming small? Well, when you put it that way, I guess you're right.

Nope. Weren't Bethesda saying how that first person perspective thingy is 'what they do best' and it's a proven cash cow for them? Well, apparently they aren't and they're inept at FPP as much as iso. FPP is not a bad design choice, but apparently it's a bad design choice for the latest Bethesda since they can't do shit with it. But then, if that's what 'they do best' I suppose every design choice might be a potential bad design choice, so I don't even wanna know how their cities would look in iso.

Now, take the inverse of that. What if Fallout 3 and Oblivion were done in iso? That solves the problem of their "cities" seeming small, doesn't it?

:alternateuniverse:

According to you, yes, since suddenly taking BG to FPP would make the big city small, so thus, through an analogy, taking a 'small' in fpp city into iso would suddenly make it a lot bigger.

 

[MetalCraze]

Because 3-storey building that seems small in FPP will suddenly seem huge from the bird's eye view.

Skyway, I never claimed Megaton was any improvement. I claimed Fallout 3 as a whole is an improvement over Oblivion.

Yes what you claim is that while everything is shit in Fallout 3 when you put it together the amount of shit becomes so huge that it surpasses Oblivion.

 

[DraQ]

FPP is not a bad design choice, but apparently it's a bad design choice for the latest Bethesda since they can't do shit with it.

This. Morrowind and Daggerfall would be unimaginable in iso. Oblibians would look and play about the same, as it doesn't play to the strengths of it's presentation method. Of course this would mean it would fail horribly in commercial aspect too, as without it's immershun, shadurz and bloom it would be just another horribly shitty and bland game trying to combine RPGish and action mechanics and failing horribly at both.

 

[Crispy]

According to you, yes, since suddenly taking BG to FPP would make the big city small, so thus, through an analogy, taking a 'small' in fpp city into iso would suddenly make it a lot bigger.

Okay, by inverting my inversion you got me there, but I'll submit that my point was that size is a relative thing and that both Baldur's Gate and Athkatla may have "seemed" bigger than for example Imperial City because of perspective.

It would have taken longer to fully explore IC through iso click-and-walk, I believe. You also wouldn't have always been able to see its outer walls, so it would've "felt" bigger.

Small point, though. Not really germaine to the discussion.

Yes what you claim is that while everything is shit in Fallout 3 when you put it together the amount of shit becomes so huge that it surpasses Oblivion.

No, that is what you claim. I like Fallout 3. I don't think everything in it is shit. However, I do see it for what it's worth -- it's a Bethesda MkII game that happens to be post-apoc, is not a deserving sequel to two of my favorite CRPG's ever, yet it's an improvement in many ways over Todd's and Pete's first effort. I.E., there's hope.

 

[MetalCraze]

So when will you stop being a fanboy and tell me where is exactly the mythical improvements over Oblivion in Fallout3?
All I hear is you repeating:
I like Fallout 3! It is improvement over Oblivion! No this feature is worse and that feature is worse and this feature is worse too but overall it is better than Oblivion! And there is hope!

Hope for what? For TESV being as shitty as Oblivion with guns added?

While ignoring that after Fallout3 they've released three even shittier expansions but that fact is ignored and there is hope.

 

[Relayer71]

But it has little to do with PHYSICAL size.

Yes, the size does count but it's more about the sense of being in a city: bustling streets filled with activity, lots of people, noise, traffic, events taking place.

In Oblivion the Imperial city streets are pretty empty. You'll see a handful of people walking and chatting but nothing that makes you feel like you're in a big city, much less the capitol. You didn't even have street vendors which were in Morrowind. And except for the inns/taverns, you didn't really find people anywhere else, the shops were always empty.

And everything was so quiet.

They needed to at LEAST:

1) Double the size of the people in the capitol.
2) Add a few street merchants.
3) Add more background sounds & noises (a la BG2).
4) Add a few scripted events. Don't they celebrate holidays? Parades? Are there no doomsayers? Loud mouthed disorderly drunks? Don't people "DO" anything besides walk around and "gossip"? Gothic 2 had people actually working.

The atmosphere was just so stale in Oblivion.

I accepted it in Morrowind because of the location. Well that and the lore, sense of exploration, political/social tensions and general ambience made up a bit for the "zombie" (read: lifeless) NPCs.

Still, even the city of Vivec had me in awe when I first visited. In that case it WAS the size but more that the design just felt so unique and fantastical.

 

[Crispy]

Oh, skyway. Do I really have to go over Fallout 3's improvements for you? Like this hasn't already been discussed a million times here and everywhere else?

Here's just a few, ffs:

- The writing is a little better
- The characters are a little better
- The quests are a little better
- The landscape and areas are different, not much better, but interesting.
- The balance of the game is better
- The polish the game received is better

Bethesda got a little more creative with F3 and I think there's a decent chance they'll take it one step further and put more meat into TES V. By then, it should have:

- Better writing, still
- Better characters, hopefully
- Better quests
- Incredible landscape
- Quite balanced gameplay
- High degree of polish

Sounds like a good game to me.

If they try too hard, though, and try to do too much, they'll have lots of technical problems. But that doesn't take away from the fact that improvement is generally cumulative when it comes to games' series. That's not always true, of course, and I've already pointed out that Bethesda is and has been working with a short staff when it comes to writing. Thus the fall of TES. But new writers can be hired. Maybe Todd and Pete are getting a little sick of reading all the complaints (in between sessions of wading nude through their pools of cash) and will step up and put more effort into the next Elder Scrolls. We'll see. I hope so because it's a line of games that deserves to be great again.

Edit: 2nd sentence in above paragraph was probably a Freudian slip. Not sure what I was thinking there. Thanks to skyway for pointing it out.

 

[MetalCraze]

- The writing is a little better

How exactly?
Oh probably:

The president is a computer.
Hey I don't know you but could you just blow that city up for me?
Nice hat calamity jane.
[intelligence] So you are fighting a good fight?
FUCK everywhere

- The characters are a little better

How exactly? They still have no character and voice acting is as terrible as it was.

- The quests are a little better

With the very same majority of *go there bring that/go there kill that*
All with the help of quest-compass.

- The landscape and areas are different, not much better, but interesting.

Everything is grey and copy-pasted and is very close to each other up to a point where you ask "wtf where was that bridge leading? Into that building?"
Oblivion's world is like a work of a genius compared to it.

The balance of the game is better

How? By letting you blow supermutants heads off at early levels?

The polish the game received is better

You mean its constant crashes?

So basically all your arguments "it is a little bit better than in Oblivion" which is kinda "it is a little bit better than shit". What's the difference?

Bethesda got a little more creative with F3

This is the most retarded argument from you I've ever heard. They've taken everything that was done for them already and added moronic stuff like lethal teddy bears and choo-choo guns and you call this creative?

I think there's a decent chance they'll take it one step further and put more meat into TES V. By then, it should have:

- Better writing, still
- Better characters, hopefully
- Better quests
- Incredible landscape
- Quite balanced gameplay
- High degree of polish

If you think that there is only one step to that your taste is incredibly shitty, sorry.

improvement is generally cumulative when it comes to games' series.

Haha and I presume Fallout 3 is a sequel to Oblivion not a failure of a sequel to Fallouts?
And what about the road downhill from Daggerfall? How come your blind fanboism ignores all that?

Maybe Todd and Pete are getting a little sick of reading all the complaints (in between sessions of wading nude through their pools of cash) and will step up and put more effort into the next Elder Scrolls.

Yes - that's why they've made 3 expansions to Fallout 3 that are even worse than Fallout 3.

Stop being a moron please.

 

[Crispy]

Gah. Okay, Skyway you win. I don't have the stamina to continue with you.

You should start your own religion. The Church of Shit.

:tipo'thehat:

 

[Noceur]

Because 3-storey building that seems small in FPP will suddenly seem huge from the bird's eye view.

I suppose if you smoke enough crack, that would be true.

 

[Helioth]

Nope, it'll suck just as much as Oblivion, have 5(thousand) new graphical features, if not more, expand on some vaguely interesting but irrelevant 'elder scrolls literature'
(you know, like the gibberish at the start of the other games)
and have a bigger hype machine than any predecessor,
so the fans can delude themselves,
yet again,
into thinking they're enjoying themselves
when every single interaction in the game is a check to... see if you're still breathing.

Oh my god please do not tell me you actually just said that

Please do not tell me you are so utterly brain damaged as to have claimed that people can be tricked into thinking they are having fun when they are not

I think you must have failed the breathing checks quite a bit if you actually believe what you said

---

I concede the point that shitty voice acting is a huge problem. For my part, one of the biggest.

Huh?

You obviously haven't visited the official oblivion forums, ever.
And/ or weren't around when the trolls visited this one and made x amount of new threads titled something akin to "oblivoin is gd gaem k!?".
And "I have fun without mounted horse combat, parallax lighting and an interesting / substantial quest line... and I especially love the simplistic speech-craft wheel".
Let's be honest, it's a grind, it's time consuming, it doesn't make you go ooh - ahhh, much, if at all.

As to your calling me stupid: perhaps people cannot be directly tricked into thinking they're having fun, but, they forget somewhere along the way that the aim of a game is to please and entertain, so they'll spend 10 to 40 hours looking for... something and give up when it's "finished".

Maybe their standard is so dreadfully low that they really do lap up terms like next gen and revolutionary and quote the babble verbatim until they go giddy with glee, whatever.

In the end: It's a shitty game, and anyone of reasonable intelligence ought to see it for what it is after a couple hours, tops.
I don't see how a distinction (of whether you can trick people like that or not) makes much of a difference, the fans they have are still, almost without exception, "tools".
Even the best mods the community has to offer have a moronic tint, straggling behind the product like an idiot does, their invalid, inbreeding parent.

Bethesda is just not into depth, or good gameplay, or anything much really, apart from selling their customers and pleasing their stock holders.

edit: with exception of some of the 'dark brotherhood' faction quests, what actual soul, what substance did Oblivion have, and when could a roleplay ever enjoy playing it?
Fuck, when could anyone enjoy it? Apart from a treehugger, who'd be happier outside anyway.
Its graphics carried it, and even then, so much more could have been done with them.

 

[The One True Gamer]

I enjoyed Oblivion after I'd installed about seventy different mods; I'm now up to around 115. So that tells you how little I think of vanilla, which was pretty amazingly disasterous. I think it's massively overhyped, overrated, and it both disappoints and annoys me that they moved away from the interesting and original stuff in Morrowind to the generic shitfest that was Oblivion.

But my opinions are just mine. If other people had fun with it, that's their business, and I'm not going to presume to tell them they didn't. I might direct them towards stuff I think is better - in fact I frequently do - but trying to convince someone they didn't have a good time is pretty dumb. And it's just going to breed resentment. If I can direct people towards games that are actually good instead of just pissing them off by being elitist, then I stand a better chance of more games being good in the future.

 

[denizsi]

Lastly, I'll agree with the sentiment that sometimes just the abstract of a large city is the best way to handle it. I doubt that BSW will ever go that way, however.

Exactly. And what's with all this schedules and individual NPCs shit? What terrible way to waste time and resources. It's also terribly limiting the scope and believability, as in Oblivion. I can understand individual and detailed approaches in small locations, like a small village perhaps, but it's so pointless in big places. At least, if you gotta have it, do it procedural. Generate NPCs on the spot, based on predetermined statistics perhaps, like there are x% commoners, y% nobles, %z filthy scum and k% guards in a city, depending on the time of day, and generate persistency, individual schedules and behaviour based on further statistics for NPCs that have been in player's view or proximity for a while, in case the player is some sick fucking pervert, stalking people around, intending to rob or kill or what have you. This is the kind of thing that's only a step away from the model in Daggerfall. They got it so right with Daggerfall, they only needed to improve it. Fucking development team of janitors.

Assassin's Creed seems to have done fairly well on this. There are big cities, with crowds. It usually looks lively enough.