Now we descend into Oblivion ... (pt 3)

[ZargonX]

See, I can still go back and play Wiz 7 over and over again, even if just to build a better party each time.

[yin26]

Originally posted by Sirian
Was it really?

Sure, for its day.

And in the end, weren't the party members in U4 really just combat props? Almost like items or pieces of equipment that you add to your main char.

I guess that methodology just appeals to me more.

In the end, all the Ultima 4 chars were uberchars, too.

I think you also make the point that it took longer to get them to that point. This is perhaps where OB is a bit off pace, thus the levelling mod, which I will try.

Oh, and Iolo was the bard, actually, but I'm sure you got to use him as an archer a good bit.

Wow, good memory!

You mean like the Avatar? From the Ultima series?

Yeah, I caught this point myself as I posted the U9 screenshot. I think, in fact, that OB is a bit of a U9 rehash for me in some ways. That's not a bad thing, mind you, but variety being the spice of life and all...

Even in Ultima IV, which was fairly decently balanced, you had to level up to pick up party members. Your Avatar (well, not YET the Avatar, but would be by the time you could get the whole party together) would be topped out at high level when you bring on that last party member.

I had forgotten that bit about needing to level up first. I like it! I recall now wandering around "lonely" and vulnerable...the addition of people to your party not only signalled you were "worthy" of some friends, but it also signalled that you were gearing up for bigger and bigger show downs (as opposed, say, to getting this same message by maxing out your block skill).

Controlling a turn-based party always meant a LOT of micromanagement. Ever play some of the old SSI tactical combat games? Wizardry, for instance. There was nothing at all to that game except for endless (and ultimately meaningless) turn-based combat.

Micromanagement by itself isn't bad. Pointless or "one right choice" micro, however, is a pain. At the other end is and FPS approach where you square off one on one (unless you walk into something worse) and just kind of key mash. OB isn't quite that far, but I don't see trading micro for key mash as an easy decision.

Didn't you spend too many hours of your life issuing move and attack orders for fights you were going to blow away, no contest? It was by far the best game going in its day, but I cringe just looking at that dungeon pic, and NOT because of the graphics!

Sure. If there's one truth about games it's that there is no such thing as perfection. Could I go back now and enjoy U4? I doubt it (O.K., I know that nostalgic feeling would last all of 2 minutes.). What is that saying?: "You can never step in the same river twice." So much of enjoying a computer game --especially for old gamers like you and me, Sirian-- is about managing expectations. I understand that OB could never hope to recapture that awe and wonderment we felt way back in the day (regardless of how much micro and crappy graphics there were).

[Sirian]

Managing expectations is part of it -- it's more than possible to "price yourself out of the market" to where no game could measure up -- but there is also something about the game itself creating magic.

I tried, I sincerely did, to "turn off" the part of me that min/maxes the skills and stat increases in OB, and I failed miserably. I simply can't do it. I'm too well aware of the programming, and it is too painful to try to ignore.

Even so, there are still ways to make things harder, not even counting the difficulty slider. Choose a nonoptimal race for your intended character, and a weak Birth Sign. That's a start. Choose not to use certain skills, such as avoiding using Healing spells (you can find beds and rest for an hour, and otherwise rely on potions) or not to use any summoning spells, or not to use Sneaking.

You don't HAVE to be an uberchar. You can choose to be something less by not engaging all of the skills. You can also choose to play a stock character class instead of customizing, or even play whatever Baurus recommends for your class.

There is also starting a different character for each guild path. You then end up playing through the quests at lower level than you do if you work all the paths simultaneously. You can start in different cities (just quick travel there) and get a wholly different flavor on the local quests by doing them at lower levels, and get a different flavor on quests you did early with another char by saving them for later.

There are ways to get more out of the game. The question is whether you are enjoying the core gameplay enough to add your own variants.

Not unlike Ultima IV, which played somewhat differently depending on which character class you chose to play as your soon-to-be Avatar (or ended up with, if you did not understand how to control the questioning process at game launch). U4 was harder if you went with the Shepherd, especially having to start out at Magincia.


- Sirian

[bipolarbear]

OMG I had a chance to watch some pot head play Oblivion on a 360 this weekend. That game is ****ing addiciting. I've never seen someone resist the social pressure to share god d*mn machine so vigorously.

I really like what thye've done with the combat, but it seems to focus a lot on summoning as opposed to Morrowind. TO me that actually makes a lot of sense if we were to place this in the real world.

I'd much rather save up money and learn to have some badass Daedric Bouncer kick the crap out of someone than risk getting myself hurt. I just hope they don't take that too far in the next installment, making it into a new kind of Pokemon .

The communication is much cooler though. The lips still aren't perfect but they are nearly spot on, and now I can't wait for the next GTA.

[El_Cid]

Ok i'm back to try to convince all those having fun with the game just how awful a step it really is in the TES series ok no - sorry that was a poor joke(poked at myself!).

In my defence some good points have been bought up due to my moaning

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

The Oblivion gate was pure FPS, i felt like i was playing an adrenaline action game

Uh... just about every RPG has its combat heavy parts, where dialog is out the window and you just fight. The Oblivion areas aren't supposed to be a place you can do anything else... because, well, you aren't going to be talking to demons.

Well what i was meaning was that this has become the focus of the game, much more than any other TES game imho, and explains pretty much everything.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

OB has become all about the main quest

You are nuts. There is so much to do in this game, the main quest hasn't even factored into my ideas, unless I'm in the general area as a main quest mission. Then I might take of it... or not.

I just don't see, at all, how Oblivion is more 'shallow' than Morrowind.

I may be nuts - and if i was a crazy locked in some asylum, your remarks could hurt
But i would argue that compared to the other TES games there is in fact less to do in Oblivion outside of the mainquest. Not just less in terms of places to visit(towns) or guilds to join, but less to roleplay - much less.

At least in Daggerfall, and to a lesser extent Morrowind; if you wanted to say role play a bard(picks that example out of many from the air) - you had many more skills to choose to add your particular custom build to create your character...and you know role play it.

You would have decisions to make over which skills you could afford to give up and leave very weak. In OB much of that is taken away - and following that much of the role play potential.
Ok you can choose to be a mighty warrior(the easiest to play-one that most people will end up with) or a thief or a wizard. I think that is about the limit of roleplay in OB?

Previously you could for example in Daggerfall play a linguist specialist(one of the hardest chars to play) if you so wanted.
In both Morrowind+Daggerfall if you created a warrior - he would generally be pretty bad at magic(unless of course you decided to go with a battlemage build - which is now the default warrior build in OB).

Having less stats only gives the player less choice for the role playing part of what 'rpg' means imho. This is why OB IS shallow compared to the earlier games - you have less role play choice. But that is fine if you go back to my first reply to yours above. ie OB isn’t about rpg anymore - much less so than the previous games.

Originally posted by yin26

I don't care for the FPS aspect of combat if the trade off is I have to go through the entire game as a single, uber character.

With reference to your points on party based rpg vs the lone hero, i don’t have a problem with the lone hero approach IF it doesn't mean i end up at what i've quoted you above on. Daggerfall didn't do it(unless you 'cheated' with the exploits, but that was a decision you as the player could make), and even Morrowind, which was a game i learnt to 'anti-power' play to enjoy it; did it much less than OB. And many of the older games mentioned at least gave you the 'uber character' as a reward for many hours of play. In OB+MW(lesser) its like you are born that way from the start. That whole shift that took place in MW was the wrong way to go imho, at least if you want to make a really addictive game that when it rewards the player actually makes you feel like you accomplished something. All that just doesn't happen in OB for me.

Originally posted by ZargonX

I think the main problem I've had with the game after playing it for a good long while is that it gets, well, pretty boring. Most of the tasks are pretty repetitive, and even the main storyline moves along at a pretty plodding pace through the portion of the game I am in. Sure, there are lots of quests to find, but they've all just started to blur together. This game could've used a few more writers to try and spice things up, I think..

And this has been the criticism levelled at the TES games from the start. You would hope that they had worked out how to best fix this by now. But i agree - OB is a bore to play, in that all i need to do is go somewhere and whack something, and i don't even have the luxury anymore of being able to use my imagination and roleplay the char like i can in Daggerfall, with all the cutbacks there just is so much less to play with - why cant i have a medium armour(even if stats wise it makes sense to use light or heavy) if i want to? maybe my rogue likes medium armour types as he isn’t a warrior(heavy) or a thief(light)? choice is a good thing. But no throw out players rpg choice for...erm i don’t know what.

Actually yours was a massive complaint also levelled at Daggerfall - the missions+people all seeming the same. So with MW they moved onto the linear scripted missions(as they have continued in OB) - which also has its faults, especially if you want to replay the game. I think the most satisfactory way of handling this would be to meet half way. Have the key quest(s) as a nicely scripted story, maybe some of the guild quests also to bring the world some personality, but then have a whole bunch of random generated stuff(with lots of variety) to keep the player guessing. In fact I've just kinda described Daggerfall, with a whole load more scripted quests

Originally posted by Sirian
Seriously. Lonely? I really don't get that. We now have voice-acted AIs who have semi-coherent lives and respond somewhat to player's actions, with facial expressions that actually convey something, and quests with some creativity behind them, and you're lonely just because your "party" doesn't come with six names on the combat automatons?

100%(or near enough) voice acted NPC’s is imo a wrong step to make with a TES game. TES games were meant to be repayable (“ooh I’ll try a wizard/rogue this time”) and since Daggerfall have been losing this aspect of their design. Still for an E3 show it certainly adds to the hype factor (“wow, and the NPC’s all have dialogue….like watching a movie!”). Nice idea but imho in a supposedly ‘open ended’ game just actually becomes a burden on the players nerves. Not to mention the problem this adds to people wanting to Mod the game – extra quests, how much hard-drive space do I have for more voice acting(probably poor amateur quality if any)? So apart from the buzz created at trade shows I can’t see its real in game benefits. After the first time you just try to click past them all the time.

So I think they should have saved resources for like erm rpg elements(like stats/choices/equipment…even better card performance?) and kept the greetings/farewells like they had in Morrowind. It adds enough flavour without getting in the way of re-playability.

Originally posted by Sirian
You can't go home again. Memories are colored by the emotions you felt at the time, but going back with what you know now would be a tragedy. You'd spoil all your great memories with observations about just how raw things really were back there.

But I can and I am(I'm playing Daggerfall and Modded MW over OB) And to be frank all the graphics in the world cant hide the rawness of the gameplay/lack of depth compared to the previous two titles imo.
Right now the revelation that OB is actually LESS rather than more, compared to Daggerfall+MW is why its no longer on my PC. Even all the mods I could throw at it to add stuff BACK into the game were to no avail, this was my Mod list for OB:

815-No persistant enchantment glow fix
980-Blue lagoon water
Callstead3.0a
DaggerfallBooks
FathisFix
FirstEditionGuidetotheEmpire
Francesco's Leveled creatures-items mod
Francesco's optional dungeon chest loot
Francesco's optional leveled Arena
GuildOwnership1.2
HTS(Hunger/Thirst/Sleep)
Level_Rates_Modified_x3
MagesGuildQuestFix
MD_Saddle_bagsv2
MM_NoMoreAnnoyingMesages-Lite
No psychic guards v1.2
OL_MyBrumaFireplacefix
persuasioncompatible1.8
ReducedbackwardsSpeed

I found mods like Obscuro’s to amplify some of the things I wasn’t liking about OB(mainly the action game over rpg), so I was trying mods to bring back some realism/difficulty and challenge. Anyway I felt that a small miracle and lots of time was what was needed before the modding community could rescue the series for me.

Originally posted by Sirian
Somebody said they feel rushed. I'm just the opposite. I know there are almost no time triggers in the program independent of player action. Things only happen when the player sets them in motion by tripping a trigger or setting a flag. Not only can everything wait, but it WILL ALL WAIT on me, at my pleasure. One of the pitfalls of open-ended design.

Logically, the player can’t(?) save the world by simply never going anywhere near Kvatch. The events that happen there and set other things in motion will never trigger if you never even go there.

Well unless you use the console and type “set timescale to 15” I found the days pass really fast, this was meant to be because the whole physical size of the world seems very small. Ok they added the horse back in as it was a fun feature in Daggerfall, but at least I had a game world the size of great Britain to ride through(which I do in each province). In OB you have a tiny world in comparison, so they had to make the days zip by as you can ride across the whole map in real time in 15mins. The default time setting makes me feel rushed, and emphasises the action/adrenalin part of this game to me.

And I really wish I could never go to kvatch, but as there are so few towns to visit and do stuff in, its just another town it would be nice to have back to normal. But yeah if I ever play OB again I’ll stay away from the main plot completely as this is where I can see the marketing behind the game the most. Still how much enthusiasm will you have going through the exact same guild missions in the exact same order for like the 10th time?

Originally posted by Sirian
Managing expectations is part of it -- it's more than possible to "price yourself out of the market" to where no game could measure up -- but there is also something about the game itself creating magic.

I tried, I sincerely did, to "turn off" the part of me that min/maxes the skills and stat increases in OB, and I failed miserably. I simply can't do it. I'm too well aware of the programming, and it is too painful to try to ignore.

Even so, there are still ways to make things harder, not even counting the difficulty slider. Choose a nonoptimal race for your intended character, and a weak Birth Sign. That's a start. Choose not to use certain skills, such as avoiding using Healing spells (you can find beds and rest for an hour, and otherwise rely on potions) or not to use any summoning spells, or not to use Sneaking.

You don't HAVE to be an uberchar. You can choose to be something less by not engaging all of the skills. You can also choose to play a stock character class instead of customizing, or even play whatever Baurus recommends for your class.

Well all I was hoping was that the guys at Bethesda would build on what they had achieved with their early games, that doesn’t seem too much to expect? But first with MW and now with OB we can see they keep taking stuff out in place of visuals/voice acting.
And it wasn’t very fun in MW to have to ‘anti-power’ play all the time, in OB its just got even harder. What is it with designers these days – do they think we are all a bunch of impatient ‘I want it all now’ people. Especially in an rpg where like the whole idea is you start out barely tough enough to wipe your own behind, and the fun is the slow and gradual progression to near godliness? That’s what they have been about since oh……DnD and all that.

Lol when I play OB I can just hear an early meeting in which Tod Howard is playing Halo2,

“look if we could just set a TES game in a world like this, man we would hit the big time – the kids would love it!”

“What about our loyal rpg fans Todd, we would have to cutback on some of things they like probably?” says a loyal member of the team

“Did you listen to what I just said doofus” replies Todd sharply, “ I’m talking Big Time,like movie stars - hey! We could get that star trek guy to voice over Uriel Septum – that would be awesome!”

RIP TES

This is the crux for me. As technology has got better i hoped games would give me more choices, better graphics and sounds are bonus's compared to actual game content/gameplay. When i think back to how programmers+designers pushed the envelope of technology in the 80's + 90's, i cant help but be saddened when a game like OB turns up on my desk and its not actually, really, objectively as good as what preceded it - except for a voice over by Patrik stewert and graphics that kill 80% of graphics cards.

I really, really, really wish all the games designers who want to make movies, would like just leave games design and go and do that instead maybe? Or more accurately the guys from the movies that have moved into the games industry(talking money/influence etc). Don’t these people remember the 90’s when we had the wonderfull thing called FMV? Sure out of the hundreds of examples of why games designers and movie people don’t mix well you could find a few good examples. But overall I think FMV is a good indicator of the dangers the direction of games are mostly going these days, especially with next gen technologies.

This would solve the problem i've been following in the games industry, and the reason why in part OB is what it is - like just about everything else these days, nearly. Oh and those that are left after this purge – would you treat me like a semi-intelligent human being again, we don’t all wear baseball caps on backwards and like stomp around the place looking to put a cap in someone’s arse – while maybe chewing gum and slurring our speech?
Or if that is too contentious, how about maybe I can handle challenge, even maybe losing once in a while, and don’t need the hand holding. We might be more like you than you think

Thanks for you patience, i'm done and will leave those who like OB to get on with it

But i'll also hold the torch for people like me that know deep down it should have, and could have been so much(and not unreasonably) more.

[Jon Miller]

you seem to just be upset that there are less skill options...

which doesn't seem like that big of deal to me, and definitely doesn't mean that there is less RP

I am RPing a good character for example, which means I don't do every quest I see, and that I don't always do the quests in the obvious way (I am playing a theifcatcher, which means I am mostly interested in 'law' quests)

in MW I RPed a character who didn't beleive in using magic (I ended up making him OK to use alchemy and enchants though because otherwise it was too hard)

JM

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
you seem to just be upset that there are less skill options...

Indeed... that seems to be a very nice one sentance encapsulation of his viewpoint.

I think the problem is, El Cid, that as technology increases, games get more expensive to make and thus, developers attempt to bring in more people to purchase the game than previously did. In bringing the game more to the mainstream, they lose the 'grognards' as it was. Maybe 5% of people played a 'linguist specialist' in prior TES games, but eliminating that in bringing the series to the mainstream is not going to make the grognards happy.

There is plenty of roleplaying to be had, just not some silly choices that few people took advantage of.

[snoopy369]

But what is roleplaying, really, other than making the silly choices?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by snoopy369
But what is roleplaying, really, other than making the silly choices?

Roleplaying is playing a role, obvious . Every RPG has constrained your skill choice. Oblivion still has more skills than plenty of other RPGs on the market.

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Indeed... that seems to be a very nice one sentance encapsulation of his viewpoint.

edit....

I'll use this as it fits nicely with this bit i picked up from the GDC:

"The Games Industry is dead.Now, when i say dead i don't mean totally dead, i mean brain dead. The product is going out the door, money is coming in.But what's up here? Nothing. There's no creativity, there's no creative life in this industry at all. It's just a dead creature. We put food in, sh*t comes out." - GDC Founder.

This probably sums up my gut feeling more as a whole, but equally it applies to why i've given up on Oblivion and am back playing the previous games. And its happening all over games for me, so yeah i get a bit miffed when my choice of game purchases shrinks from like the struggleing 4 per year(a Civ game, a EUII game, a 'best of indie' game, and an TES game) to like three.
I used to not be able to buy all the games i wanted to play - now its a struggle to find one. but yeah if thats progress, well who am i to step in the way? who are we all? i'm no grognard - but i must not be part of the movie/games industry demographic?

Its should be a sad day when a TES fan finds himself bearing his soul on a games forum, especialy when the future had looked so bright, and the potential was there for all to see.

Oh well darn i better get on with making my games so people like me actualy have some product they want to put their money into, rather than mistakingly(lesson learn't here, no more TES for me) feeding the tepid, unispired, gloss that most games have become

lol i am a sour-puss over Oblivion aren't I! Thanks for the intelligent discussion guys, i couldn't have got it on the TES fourms for sure. And i'm glad some people are getting their kicks out of OB, i'll just have to move on to new pastures(or old ones most likely). I may get back to OB, once the modders have had a good while at it

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well, I'd reconsider refering to yourself as a grognard . Though in the tradtional setting (of military games) there are enough grognards that they can churn out some games.

RPGs were popular, then (I guess) "crashed" until Fallout and BG came out. Fallout was very in depth and I enjoyed it immensely, but, even though it gained a ton of awards, was only bought by a small niche. BG had a lot of skills, but just about ALL were related to combat. If you were a bard, you get bard songs to help in combat. Now you did have some personality scores, but everything else was so you could fight.

The tons of skills, including linguist or what-have-you, is always going to be a niche game skill. Games that are going for the mainstream usually will not include it because it becomes superflous and few will use such a thing, but it'll take a lot of code to include it.

Who knows, perhaps there will be enough grognards that 'million skill' games can develop, but I don't see a movement for it. Maybe because adding more and more 'depth' (if you want to call it that) to RPGs costs far more than making grognard wargames. Though, if you want to do it, I'll buy it (well, as long is it isn't too damn complicated ).

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Well, I'd reconsider refering to yourself as a grognard . Though in the tradtional setting (of military games) there are enough grognards that they can churn out some games.

RPGs were popular, then (I guess) "crashed" until Fallout and BG came out. Fallout was very in depth and I enjoyed it immensely, but, even though it gained a ton of awards, was only bought by a small niche. BG had a lot of skills, but just about ALL were related to combat. If you were a bard, you get bard songs to help in combat. Now you did have some personality scores, but everything else was so you could fight.

The tons of skills, including linguist or what-have-you, is always going to be a niche game skill. Games that are going for the mainstream usually will not include it because it becomes superflous and few will use such a thing, but it'll take a lot of code to include it.

Who knows, perhaps there will be enough grognards that 'million skill' games can develop, but I don't see a movement for it. Maybe because adding more and more 'depth' (if you want to call it that) to RPGs costs far more than making grognard wargames. Though, if you want to do it, I'll buy it (well, as long is it isn't too damn complicated ).

Games will always be about fighting. An RPG with more than just fighting is an extra, but the main goal will remain fighting. I don't think anyone would want a game in which linguist skills would totally dominate the game

I disagree a bit on BG. The main goal of the game is - of course - fighting, then exploring a dungeon, and again fighting some more monsters. But on the other hand it was equally possible to barter, steal from houses and screw up things that influenced quests that the player would get into later on in the game.

In my opinion, having a wide open game is fantastic, but if that is taken too far, it gets boring again. Breaking into random homes is fun for a while, impressing people with your speechcraft skills is fun too, but after a while repetitiveness starts to kick in as there's no involvement. I think that if in Oblivion there was a better and bigger main story, with more sidequests or semi-related but optional sidequest to the main quest, then there would actually be more immersion!

For example, actions you refused to do earlier in the game would impact later situations. Coming too late for a mission would make things harder/easier/different etc... That kind of stuff

[Nostromo]

No offense, El_Cid, but your post reminded me a bit of a rant by one of the guys at Oldmanmurrays. He complained that you couldn't play an effeminate gay sailor in Ultima online.

CRPG's will always be restrictive, compared to pen and paper RPG's. El_Cid, if you have time to waste, I suggest you try one of them critters!

[Imran Siddiqui]

In my opinion, having a wide open game is fantastic, but if that is taken too far, it gets boring again. Breaking into random homes is fun for a while, impressing people with your speechcraft skills is fun too, but after a while repetitiveness starts to kick in as there's no involvement. I think that if in Oblivion there was a better and bigger main story, with more sidequests or semi-related but optional sidequest to the main quest, then there would actually be more immersion!

I agree with this, but the one thing I've looked at with Bethesda's RPGs (at least Morrowind and Oblivion) is that they are as much an 'experiment' as they are a game. Their main goal seems to be open endedness and then fit the game around that. Even if it would be more fun to kind of make the main storyline more important (and more central, and less avoidable), they may indeed nix the idea for open endedness sake.

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Well, I'd reconsider refering to yourself as a grognard . Though in the tradtional setting (of military games) there are enough grognards that they can churn out some games.

well maybe i'm a quasi-grognard then? I have a hard time with those military sims(i remember not liking Sid's Gettysburg for example - too 'primitive' and difficult to play?). A game like EU2 pushes me to my limit of bean counting and abstract thought processes.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
RPGs were popular, then (I guess) "crashed" until Fallout and BG came out. Fallout was very in depth and I enjoyed it immensely, but, even though it gained a ton of awards, was only bought by a small niche. BG had a lot of skills, but just about ALL were related to combat. If you were a bard, you get bard songs to help in combat. Now you did have some personality scores, but everything else was so you could fight.

The tons of skills, including linguist or what-have-you, is always going to be a niche game skill. Games that are going for the mainstream usually will not include it because it becomes superflous and few will use such a thing, but it'll take a lot of code to include it.

Who knows, perhaps there will be enough grognards that 'million skill' games can develop, but I don't see a movement for it. Maybe because adding more and more 'depth' (if you want to call it that) to RPGs costs far more than making grognard wargames. Though, if you want to do it, I'll buy it (well, as long is it isn't too damn complicated ).

Well i would bet my house that the costs in a game like Oblivion are all to do with graphics+voice acting - adding some lines of code to extend the game skills/stats/equipement database has a very small development footprint compared to those for sure. I think the reason it has happened this way is due to what you were saying previously about 'mainstreaming'.

Due to the costs involved(because of graphics+voice acting?) they have to make mainstream games to get as many people to buy it as possible. This all links in to the convergence of the games+movie industries. I guess what it says about society is that by big buisness the 'mainstream' market is considered pretty stupid, thus we get a 'dumbing' down of the products it produces because someone has decided 'we' can't handle a little complexity?

I think most of us don't really want this to happen to all games and its the same for me, thus my grief with OB.

Originally posted by Nostromo
No offense, El_Cid, but your post reminded me a bit of a rant by one of the guys at Oldmanmurrays. He complained that you couldn't play an effeminate gay sailor in Ultima online.
CRPG's will always be restrictive, compared to pen and paper RPG's. El_Cid, if you have time to waste, I suggest you try one of them critters!

yeah that just isn't fair! to be sure that is a character class i always wanted to play in a TES game too - but i get your point, its impossible to please all the people all of the time Still what is annoying with TES is that it started out promising alot and has kinda ended up going backwards in its core strengths imho?

And i did try DnD a few months back, after like a break of 12 years........man does it take time to get anything done, i dont know if i have the time or patience for it these days!

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I agree with this, but the one thing I've looked at with Bethesda's RPGs (at least Morrowind and Oblivion) is that they are as much an 'experiment' as they are a game. Their main goal seems to be open endedness and then fit the game around that. Even if it would be more fun to kind of make the main storyline more important (and more central, and less avoidable), they may indeed nix the idea for open endedness sake.

I suspect this may well be the direction TESV will take the series in, if we go on the progression of the series. I will predict for you know that unless there is a massive change in the direction the games industry is going in general; then TESV will indeed become a more liniar and scripted game with a stronger and more coherent story line.

The down side will be that you will only get to choose from three character types at game start(A warrior, a thief and a wizard) and the skills and stats will be reduced much further. Could i possibly be right? time will tell