The Simplification of the Series, when do you give up?

[Mauin]

Its hard to give an example of lack of something, but I'll try. Dawnguard for example. Sarina? I hope I spelled that right, hides in the crypt to keep her father away from the elder scroll, and then when you wake her up the first thing she does is head back to his castle with it. It's just not believable.

Yeah, that seemed odd, but that wasn't really lore, just a strange decision on Serana's part.

It wasn't even a strange decision on Serana's part. If you listen to the dialogue between Serana and Valerica in the Soul Cairn, it seems as though Valerica forced Serana into going into that crypt; Serana really didn't have a choice. She was told to go, and followed like an obedient child. She wasn't asked if it was the best course of action: she was just shoved in there and left for who knows how long.

As for going back to her father, where else would she have gone? Serana really didn't have anywhere else to go, especially if she truly wanted her family to "be a family again" as she said to her mother.

As for the topic, I don't care if the games are simplified. They've each got their good points and I'm not going to let any bad stop me. The "simplification" as its so 'nicely' put isn't even a bad thing. There have been so many improvements that it just doesn't matter. Each game is a new game, and they improve upon the world. I love the freedom I'm given and that's that. Ygern said it best.

I don't understand why people have to complain about something that isn't even a problem. If you don't like it, then go play a different game and keep your complaints to yourself. Simple as that.

[House of the Wolf]

Dawnguard definitely got me excited for Skyrim, again, when it first released, which is why it'll probably remain my favorite DLC for this game--nostalgia, and what not. The whole mood/aesthetics, plus that "cool" factor when you first transform into a Vampire Lord come to mind whenever I initially remember it.

[KryptonianBlood]

Sigh, I disliked the story elements in skyrim. That's my opinion. This thread was never suppose to derail like this. Most of you like the lore. That's fine too. This thread is about would make you stop playing the elder scrolls series. I love the series, but any series can go bad. Some have gameplay changes that ruin it, for some is the plot like for me, for others its a mix of both, or a total change in direction.

Now I know most of us are not fanboys that will defend a game no matter what simply because of its title, so i'm asking what is the breaking point?

1. Would you still play if they added force auto-aim?

2. What if they removed books?

3. What if they made made Elder Scrolls 6:Valenwood, and its a desert, and most of the elves are constantly eating berries?

4. What if they removed sneaking, daggers, locking-picking, and archery?

5. What if they just started ignoring previous lore completely?

6 and you get the point. this is not a who has the biggest sword contest. If you would play even if the next game was a replica of Halo, only changing master chief to an altmer, and you refuse to suggest that you could dislike any ES game.....well that's fine. You don't have to post. no one is judging you.

[Musicman247]

This just seems like a lot of silly questions and asking people to hate on something that hasn't and probably will never happen. I don't really see the point in this thread.

[Br3admax]

1. Would you still play if they added force auto-aim?
Uh, maybe. No game in existence does this so really, okay.
2. What if they removed books?
Books are minor. I enjoy them and would miss them, but they are not what makes ES.
3. What if they made made Elder Scrolls 6:Valenwood, and its a desert, and most of the elves are constantly eating berries?
Wut?
4. What if they removed sneaking, daggers, locking-picking, and archery?
????????
5. What if they just started ignoring previous lore completely?
Maybe, but each game has to stand on it's own.
6 and you get the point.

this is not a who has the biggest sword contest. If you would play even if the next game was a replica of Halo, only changing master chief to an altmer, and you refuse to suggest that you could dislike any ES game.....well that's fine. You don't have to post. no one is judging you.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand you. Even the op is just one big FU to Skyrim. Skyrim is a beautiful game that not only gave plenty of unneeded shout-outs to us long term fans, but it also brought in a new crowd of people. We can all find the beauty in it somewhere, if you hard enough. If they made another Main Quest like Skyrim's, do you know what I would do? I would stand outside in the freezing November cold to buy that too. Skyrim is a wonderful game, if you don't like it fine. Your loss, not mine.

This just seems like a lot of silly questions and asking people to hate on something that hasn't and probably will never happen. I don't really see the point in this thread.

*nods in agreement

[KryptonianBlood]

1. Would you still play if they added force auto-aim?
Uh, maybe. No game in existence does this so really, okay.
2. What if they removed books?
Books are minor. I enjoy them and would miss them, but they are not what makes ES.
3. What if they made made Elder Scrolls 6:Valenwood, and its a desert, and most of the elves are constantly eating berries?
Wut?
4. What if they removed sneaking, daggers, locking-picking, and archery?
????????
5. What if they just started ignoring previous lore completely?
Maybe, but each game has to stand on it's own.
6 and you get the point.

this is not a who has the biggest sword contest. If you would play even if the next game was a replica of Halo, only changing master chief to an altmer, and you refuse to suggest that you could dislike any ES game.....well that's fine. You don't have to post. no one is judging you.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand you. Even the op is just one big FU to Skyrim. Skyrim is a beautiful game that not only gave plenty of unneeded shout-outs to us long term fans, but it also brought in a new crowd of people. We can all find the beauty in it somewhere, if you hard enough. If they made another Main Quest like Skyrim's, do you know what I would do? I would stand outside in the freezing November cold to buy that too. Skyrim is a wonderful game, if you don't like it fine. Your loss, not mine.

This just seems like a lot of silly questions and asking people to hate on something that hasn't and probably will never happen. I don't really see the point in this thread.

*nods in agreement

The questions are simply examples. Quoting the MM does not mean anything and his remark is the exact kind of negativity in this thread I am trying to avoid and am already dealing with that via PM with others. now if you don't want to discuss the topic, which its obvious you don't br3id please post somewhere else. This is elder scrolls general, not specifically about skyrim, and this thread is not about skyrim, it was just derailed into that, namely by posters like you, who would rather argue that my opinion is wrong rather than stay on topic. if you cannot stay on topic your posts will be reported. Thank you in advance. -Krypt

[Musicman247]

I don't think I would ever not play a new Elder Scrolls game.

[Br3admax]

I don't think Musicman became an admin by being negative, and he certainly didn't think he became that way through personal attacks. Also, I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure threads made for flaming are against the rules. This thread is about the simplification of the series to the point where you would give up. Adding in hypothetical features that are not even hinted at happening in CoD is not doing that. As such, you are being off topic in the topic you set. Just saying.

But to answer your question, never. This is the Elder Scrolls, and to say making it into to Halo would make me quit playing it is sort of mute. It wouldn't be ES then.

[Musicman247]

Just to expand on what I said, there are many different kinds of games within the ES family. Most are RPGs, but there have also been Action games as well as handheld games and now an MMO. TES games have changed genres before and I wouldn't rule out them doing it again. I'd play an Elder Scrolls FPS or platformer, but I would hope that the RPG series would come back as it always has.

[House of the Wolf]

Borderlands 2 is proof that you can successfully blend RPG elements with a FPS, so I can't imagine it not being successful for Bethesda.

[Avron the S'wit]

I'm going to suggest we stick to talking about things that already exist in the series, and leave anything that doesn't where it belongs...unspoken about. Thanks.

Personally, even with the simplification of the series (which is inevitable as video games reach a wider audience and appeal), I still think it's well done. I am a fangirl of the series and always enjoy seeing new lands, hearing about new lore and having old lore expanded upon, and experiencing new things. I have not yet hit the point of no return, and suspect I won't unless they do a major lore retcon that would make it super unbelievable for me.

[Taters]

To say that simplification is a bad thing kind of misses the point, I think. Look at computers: 30 years ago, you needed a lot of detailed knowledge, and quite a bit of time and effort to accomplish things on a computer. Now, with GUIs and shared programming, most computers are so simple that anybody could use them. Does that make them bad? Does something have to be deep, difficult and obscure just to earn merit?

To answer the question of the title, I'm not sure I'd ever "give up". I think every ES game is worth our consideration. If we don't like it, does it mean we'll abandon the series for something else? No. There are plenty of people on here who think ES peaked with Morrowind, but they're still here, and most, if not all, of them have played Oblivion and Skyrim, and await the next game just as eagerly.

If you don't like the way the series is headed, that's fine, but it seems to me you're really struggling to get us all to agree with you. Why?

[Unionhack]

I still think the 'series being oversimplified' argument is really being taken overboard, and it seems a lot of people on that side of the argument to believe their opinion is stone-cold fact despite the presence of people who disagree with them. I heavily disagree with this.

I find the lore to be fantastic, and Skyrim does an amazing job of establishing moral grey areas.

Such as the decision between Imperials and Stormcloaks; people could go on for hours arguing over which is the good guys and which is bad, when the fact of the matter is that they're both right and wrong and you have to choose with the one you agree with more.

Let's also not forget

Spoiler:

the choice between Paarthurnax or the allegiance of the Blades.

The choice you make boils down to whether or not you think a person who did horrible things can be forgiven after they've tried to repent. The question at its core is really deep if you ask me.

[p-sto]

Actually I would say moral grey areas is likely one of the places that Skyrim has degraded the most. The thing that killed the replay value of Skyrim for me was constantly trying to think of something for my character to do and justify their actions.

[Avron the S'wit]

Let's also not forget

Spoiler:

the choice between Paarthurnax or the allegiance of the Blades.

The choice you make boils down to whether or not you think a person who did horrible things can be forgiven after they've tried to repent. The question at its core is really deep if you ask me.

That's an excellent point. The series does a pretty good job in almost every game of really introducing you to deeper meanings and questions, but they aren't always necessarily obvious at the surface level. I think in some cases they are (Morrowind comes to mind) and in others they're not (Oblivion for me), but if you analyze things and get yourself deeply dug into the enlivenment, they present themselves, and it makes for much more meaningful storytelling.

I think that's always the catch. Great stories aren't always great on the surface: it's when you really feel the empathy of the world around you and the characters within it that you find yourself getting emotionally tangled with them and discovering new, deeper themes. TES does pretty well with this in my opinion.

[udubdawgs]

when? well, i'm a console guy. and, i will now not auto-buy the next tes game. that's really saying something, for me.

do i give up on tes, in general? heck, no, lol. it's got a great framework that mod's can build upon. however, if that framework begins to suffer, then, i may stop buying the games in the future.

and, i hate the mouse and keyboard...

[Avron the S'wit]

You could always hook up a controller to the PC. Then you have the ease of a controller and access to mods.

[udubdawgs]

You could always hook up a controller to the PC. Then you have the ease of a controller and access to mods.

oh, i definitely will be doing that. it's a given, lol.

what's funny is that i grew up playing descent and using all my digits to control about 50 keys, lol.

i find the disconnect unbelievable, however.

[Unionhack]

Actually I would say moral grey areas is likely one of the places that Skyrim has degraded the most. The thing that killed the replay value of Skyrim for me was constantly trying to think of something for my character to do and justify their actions.

In Oblivion, the Mages/Thieves/Fighters guilds were all 'good guy' guilds without a doubt, and then you have the Dark Brotherhood which was the 'bad guy' guild. It's all so very cut-and-dry, and while I did enjoy the factions in Oblivion, I felt like Skyrim made it more complex when it came to the possible motivations for your character's actions.

In Skyrim, the Stormcloaks are fighting for religious freedom and for their own homeland/culture, but one could also say they are rascist and that Ulfric is tyrannical. On the other hand, the Imperials fight to restore order and to bring the empire together again, but one could also say that they lack the power to hold the province, and that they can be heartless, uncaring tyrants in their current state.

No matter what side you choose, there's always going to be people in the factions that represent the best and worst the factions have to offer. In the Imperials, you have those people that openly state that they 'fight for a better Empire', while on the other hand you have those 'can't wait to kill another one of Ulfric's boys' guys. In the meantime with the Stormcloaks, you have those guys who wish to 'worship what they please' and to 'be free from the Empire', and then you have those 'all nords are better than everyone else and everyone else needs to leave Skyrim'.

It's like in real life. Not everyone in a High School marching band will have a positive attitude, and not everyone supporting a charity cause will be doing it for the right reasons; some genuinely want to help people, others just want the badge of donating to charity to make themselves look good. I feel like Skyrim took it a step forward from all Fighter's Guild Members being mercenaries at heart and all Mages' guild members being bookish study-driven people in Oblivion, that made the guilds seem white or black instead of grey.

I could go on, but you get my point.

[udubdawgs]

unionhack- and, i could argue that my decisions in skyrim have no meaningful impact on the world around me or the gameplay. without a doubt, less than newvegas or morrowind.

it can't get any more generic or superficial.

[CBR JGWRR]

when? well, i'm a console guy. and, i will now not auto-buy the next tes game. that's really saying something, for me.

do i give up on tes, in general? heck, no, lol. it's got a great framework that mod's can build upon. however, if that framework begins to suffer, then, i may stop buying the games in the future.

and, i hate the mouse and keyboard...

Xbox 360 controller is just plug in and play, don't even have to assign actions to buttons or anything.

[Ygern]

The moral grey areas make it more of a role-playing game, not less in my opinion.

All ES games give you the freedom to wander around and do your own thing - I don't mean that kind of role-playing. I mean, deciding what sort of character you are playing as you come up against people and guilds in the world.

There was very little story-line (even no story-line) to the Guilds in Daggerfall and Morrowind outside of the main quest. I mean, the Morag Tong quests in MW are just "go here, kill X" - so dull that I never did bother to complete them. In a way that gives you the freedom to make up your own story if you want to, but you can be an assassin and a thief and still be the awesome, charismatic hero who destroyed the Blight and that is a little implausible.

Since OBL there's been an effort to add a story arc to the Guilds along with the regular miscellaneous quests. True, some of them work better than others, but I thought that the Assassin Guild storyline in OBL was way better than the equivalent in MW.
And it's even better in Skyrim, because you can ignore the main questline of the guilds if you want to. You can spend countless hours doing the random quests if you just want to do your own thing but be affiliated with that guild. However, being in the Thieves Guild means you choose to be a baddie and that has consequences.

It always bothered me that in Morrowind the only things that mattered for the most part was politicking between the Houses and Guilds. You could be a murderous maniac and people mostly treated you the same way they treated a virtuous Paladin. It makes things more real for me that doing quests for certain Daedric Lords or joining a certain Guild will actually make you a more sinister and fearsome person and the world adapts to reflect that.

In Skyrim I make a concerted effort to do quests according to my character. If I want to be a Dark Maniac I get to play games with the Assassins Guild and take Lydia to the Sacellum of Boethiah. If I am playing a decent person, I avoid quests where you murder people for your own end, even if it means giving up the rewards. It makes my characters much more interesting.

[DwemerInSpace]

I find that interesting, Ygern, because my biggest issue with Skyrim is not having a lot of room to role-play morality. In Morrowind, I can play a pacifist stealth character or a murderous barbarian freely. In Skyrim, no matter how moral my character is, most cool artifacts and rewards seem to require immoral or unnecessary slaughter. By making the missions more thematic and cinematic, I feel like how one beats them has been more laid out for you.

Hell, I might not mind some sort of disposition system like in the... (ready for this?)... Fable titles.

[House of the Wolf]

^ This is true. I remember being kinda [&@%!] that, no matter what, I had to side with Herma Mora.

[udubdawgs]

I find that interesting, Ygern, because my biggest issue with Skyrim is not having a lot of room to role-play morality. In Morrowind, I can play a pacifist stealth character or a murderous barbarian freely. In Skyrim, no matter how moral my character is, most cool artifacts and rewards seem to require immoral or unnecessary slaughter. By making the missions more thematic and cinematic, I feel like how one beats them has been more laid out for you.

Hell, I might not mind some sort of disposition system like in the... (ready for this?)... Fable titles.

your point is a HUGE one and gets to the heart of many of the problems of skyrim. it's like saying the simplistic kotor morality system is deep and meaningful and impacts gameplay. no, no and no.

morrowind gives unbelievable freedom, true freedom, to complete a quest as i deem appropriate. as well, it will impact some aspects of gameplay and the world around me.

i would have loved to have seen build upon the success of morrowind and newvegas and develop and implement a much improved prestige/disposition/faction system.