Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Rasix]

RK47's world really is a better place to live than the one I currently reside.

[rk47]

For Teleku from Potatoland

[Paelos]

I finished up the main story of Dragonborn after purchasing it in the Steam Sale. It's a really well done expansion. I loved the idea of adding a whole new island that goes back to your Morrowind nostalgia. The architecture and music really fits, and the island is very big. I haven't explored even half of it, and I've still put in at least 20 hours at this point. You can also tame and ride dragons, and visit the realm of the Daedric Lord of Forbidden Knowledge. The story flows well, but I think the antagonist is a bit meh. The fun is in the exploration more than anything.

[Teleku]

The fun is in the exploration more than anything.

Welcome to the entire Elder Scrolls Franchise.   

[Ingmar]

To be honest the Dragonborn island felt a little small to me.

[Paelos]

In comparison to the main map, yeah. In comparison to other expansion things from the past? I think it was pretty cool and varied.

[Lantyssa]

Wasn't there a mod pack for this that included several improvements?  Maybe it was over in the what are you playing thread.  Since I own it properly, I'm thinking I need to mod it up.

[Phred]

In comparison to the main map, yeah. In comparison to other expansion things from the past? I think it was pretty cool and varied.

It seemed quite a bit larger than the previous version of the island that shipped with Morrowind.
It was the same island wasn't it? Or is my memory playing tricks.

[Paelos]

It was added in Bloodmoon, yes.

[ghost]

Does the story line on this pick up and get somewhat compelling?  I'm trudging through the first part of this now and am not feeling it so far (I'm level 12).  If not I may put it down and play something else for a bit.

[Rasix]

It's a better story than Morrowind or Oblivion, but it still really isn't that good.  It's not a reason to play, the world is.

[Paelos]

The main story (as usual in most TES games) kind of sucks. I actually like the story in the expansions better than the main, and I love the story in the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guild better than both of those.

[Reg]

Yeah. I wonder why it always seems to work out like that with Bethesda games?  If they could provide an amazing main story along with their amazing world they'd have everything.

[Merusk]

The main story blew large, meaty chunks.  After making it to Whitebridge I discovered I was playing for the side quests, not the story. I accidentally finished the game thinking I was on a side quest until I got someone calling me the Dragonborn.  I figured "Meh, I'm level 45, may as well finish this out."

End dragon was a wuss.

[Ingmar]

The reason the main stories are never very compelling in Bethesda RPGs is because they aren't any good at characterization. There are no characters you really care about, because the characters have no depth to them, and you don't really have any opportunity to carve out a personality for your own character, at least not one that's particularly reflected in the game world or how people react to you. It's further exacerbated by the fact that you meet 23 guys with the same voice actor, so that also really hurts any one character's chance to seem unique or interesting.

They're great at world building and area design, so the exploration aspects are awesome, but you can't make people care about a story unless they care about the characters.

There are a couple places where they managed to give you characters that were interesting enough to care about, and not surprisingly they're spots where the characters have unique voice actors and enough screen time to actually give you some inkling of what they're about beyond a superficial level - Dawnguard, because of Serana, the Thieves' Guild quest line, and the Dark Brotherhood quest line. Pretty much these are the ones you'll see people praising anywhere Skyrim is being discussed.

[Teleku]

Yeah, seriously, for all the effort they put into their games, I cannot fathom why they don't spend the money to at least quadruple the voice actors.  It can't be that much more fucking expensive, and it has a massive impact on the game.

[Khaldun]

I sort of liked the ruler of Whiterun as a character and got a bit interested in seeing how his fate played out. But really, open-world games almost have to have weak main plots because they have to stay open to such a wide range of choices on the player's part. If you had a very strong story, you'd have to constrain choices to a significant degree or you'd have to really do something that almost no one has, which is write a strong story that also has a great many multiple outcomes and branching points.

But the Elder Scrolls games definitely could have much stronger *characters*, that much I'd agree with, just for the sake of atmosphere.

[Rasix]

Yeah, seriously, for all the effort they put into their games, I cannot fathom why they don't spend the money to at least quadrupedal the voice actors.  It can't be that much more fucking expensive, and it has a massive impact on the game.

I don't see how horses would help here.

[Ingmar]

Maybe if we gave them some kind of armor?

[Kail]

But the Elder Scrolls games definitely could have much stronger *characters*, that much I'd agree with, just for the sake of atmosphere.

I dunno, it's really hard these days to establish characters without scripted cutscenes, which TES has been stingy with because they're super resource intensive to make and they tend to conflict with the open nature of the games.  I'd love to see some deeper, more interesting characters, but not at the expense of constraining what the player can do.  If you want to go down that road, there are already plenty of other games that do the whole scripted content thing fairly well, while there are very, very few that do open worlds as deep as Bethesda.

[ghost]

I played the ever living hell out of the newest Fallout titles.  Skyrim is awfully similar, so far, even to the point where I feel like I'm playing the same game.  I actually enjoyed the campy storylines in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas.  Hell, I even enjoyed the story in Mass Effect and Dragon Age.  Maybe, for me, it's the massive, massive world for exploration that I just don't have time to explore.  I find that when you can't cut a big chunk off of things in 30 minutes to an hour the game definitely loses something in the overall context of what you're trying to do. 

[lamaros]

It's not just characters they suck at, it's narratives generally. They have very little nuance and have a lot of structural issues.

Those in the know (stormwaltz?), do these companies ever hire editors on the creative side? Or is the just a general role that is part of the workflow of the various writers and creative heads? I'd imagine a good structural editor would be able to bring a lot - though perhaps not enough to be worth the cost. Then again, given the amount they pay for everything else in these games...

[CmdrSlack]

Yeah, seriously, for all the effort they put into their games, I cannot fathom why they don't spend the money to at least quadrupedal the voice actors.  It can't be that much more fucking expensive, and it has a massive impact on the game.

I don't see how horses would help here.

"Wilbur, come in the room."

[Teleku]

Assholes.   

Though damn, that was a hell of a typo....

[Nayr]

I agree on the voice actors thing.

The voice talent they have in Skyrim is nice, but I kinda laugh to myself when seeing Ralof and Hod both talking to Gerdur and having the same voice. They should have given Hod the Farkas voice. They should at least have arranged it so there weren't multiple instances of the same voice in one town.


Also on Skyrim's story: It's starting to look more and more like siding with the Stormcloaks is a good idea.

Anybody who has ever read the Nu-Mantia Intercept and the Altmeri Commentary on Talos would have a pretty good understanding of the Thalmor's motives behind the Great War and the ban on Talos Worship.

Long story short, mundus is stabilized by seven towers, each tied to a powerful stone. The towers are supposedly what keeps the mortal world and oblivion separated. Some examples are Red Mountain and the Heart of Lorkhan from Morrowins, and the White-Gold Tower and the Amulet of Kings from Oblivion. And if all the towers are deactivated, I would assume "hell on earth" to be an appropriate metaphor for what would happen.

What the Thalmor want: When Lorkhan tricked the divines into creating Nirn, the gods known as the Aldmer were trapped within, and the Altmer/High Elves descend from them. And they believe that being trapped in mundus is the only thing keeping them from having the power and immortality of their ancestors. So the Thalmor's plan is to deactivate all of the towers, believing that it will grant them what they feel Lorkhan robbed them of.

And the Thalmor believe, according to the Commentary, that removing Talos from the Divinity, and the complete genocide of the human race(Imperials, Nords, Bretons) are a part of accomplishing that.

But where they might be wrong: Mankar Camoran's notion that Lorkhan was a Daedric Prince and Tamriel is his plane of Oblivion is not without evidence according to Michael Kirkbride, and if Camoran is right, then all of the lore everyone believes is false(Including the Altmer's god-ancestry) and deactivating the towers could have a completely unforeseen effect.

One possibility to consider is that the towers are what keeps Lorkhan "dead" or "inert" as it were(right now, he's stuck babysitting Sovngarde and being called Shor by the Nords). And undoing the towers frees him and returns him to power over the realm. And what he would do in that case is probably not good.

[Rendakor]

Rather than have 5-10 people each doing voice acting for a ton of characters, I'd rather have a few really important characters voiced in an interesting manner and the rest of the garbage NPCs silent. Fully voiced shopkeepers is not a selling point for me.

[Mrbloodworth]

Rather than have 5-10 people each doing voice acting for a ton of characters, I'd rather have a few really important characters voiced in an interesting manner and the rest of the garbage NPCs silent. Fully voiced shopkeepers is not a selling point for me.

F- all that. Fully voiced is best.

[Kitsune]

Agreed.  I think Skyrim does a good job of balancing the scales between voice acting for main characters while still providing voices for less important NPCs.  I also use the Interesting NPCs mod to add additional voice-acted NPCs to the world to spice things up a bit.  Some of the volunteer voice actors are green and don't do a good job at it, but most of them are at least competent.  I consider it to be an overall gain to install the mod.

[Nayr]

Well, almost a week ago, when I was playing Skyrim. I had an... unusual circumstance with two bears during a fight and thought I'd get a pic of it.

[DeathInABottle]

I've been playing obsessively for the past two weeks - I only just picked it up during the Steam sale - and I have to echo some of the other criticisms here: repeating the voice actors ruins my immersion.  Especially that guy who voices the General in Castle in the Sky.  Ugh.

[Nayr]

I've been playing obsessively for the past two weeks - I only just picked it up during the Steam sale - and I have to echo some of the other criticisms here: repeating the voice actors ruins my immersion.  Especially that guy who voices the General in Castle in the Sky.  Ugh.

Jim Cummings is a voice acting legend. He's had well over a hundred roles in his lifetime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cummings

The General in Castle in the Sky is minor comparing to being the voice of Pooh and Tigger from Winnie the Pooh for the last two decades. Or Razoul in Aladdin.

Not to mention he was Patriarch in Mass Effect 2.

[DeathInABottle]

Yeah, I imdb'd him.  I'm fine with his work as a voice actor, but he reprises the absurd voice from that General role - and it really is absurd - for a couple of parts in Skyrim.  As I said, it's immersion-ruining.

[Mrbloodworth]

So is looking to the left or right of your screen.

[Ingmar]

So is looking to the left or right of your screen.

 

[Nayr]

Yeah, I imdb'd him.  I'm fine with his work as a voice actor, but he reprises the absurd voice from that General role - and it really is absurd - for a couple of parts in Skyrim.  As I said, it's immersion-ruining.

It's just a deeper version of his normal voice. Not that big a deal.