Skyrim patch 1.5

dragoniguana wrote:

The list is here: http://nexus404.com/Blog/2010/11/05/the-top-six-reasons-fallout-3-is-better-than-fallout-new-vegas-after-playing-both-i-discover-six-reasons-that-fallout-new-vegas-just-cant-surpass-fallout-3-yet/

That is the list that made me want to punch something.

Hahah... I love it. That may be one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

I particularly like this statement in one of the user comments:

"I guess the biggest problem with Fallout New Vegas is the fact that you get to choose your enemies. Which is an interesting concept but goes against the purpose of the game–to shoot things."

These people are why we can't have nice things. They want to shut off their brains and just run around shooting things for no reason. Choosing your enemies? That involves thinking, and time I have to spend thinking is time I don't get to spend shooting things. Speech options? Why would I want speech options? I can't blow people's heads off with words!

This is a parody, but I wonder if it might actually be the future of gaming:

Great link and great video guys!

I'm afraid there is a ring of truth to the fact that some people are simply too lazy to think or to read. Sometimes I wonder how lucky we are to get some decent games despite all the trolls who only care about beating games as fast as possible and skip anything that remotely looks like dialogue or a plot.

At least they provide some laughter and entertainment .

Yeah. See, it's when I go into school, and some kids are talking about Skyrim, and another kid comes up and goes "Skyrim? Dude, that game is so boring. I just wandered around for five minutes then killed some little kid HAHAHAHA", that I realize how horrible people are with video games. At least there will always be us, the people who actually understand the purpose of an RPG, eh?

We may be a dying breed but we won't go down without a fight.

And then I log on Facebook and see some popular girl saying how she's such a gamer because she's spending the night playing Spyro.

Kill me now.

It doesn't bother me if people play Spyro or whatever. It's when they buy RPGs and complain that they aren't Spyro or CoD or whatever else it is they might play.

I'm by no means a hardcore gamer, and I enjoy casual games for what they are. Spent a good bit of time with Jetpack Joyride on my phone. But I would never buy New Vegas or Skyrim and then complain that it lacks jetpacks, which is essentially what a lot of players do with RPGs.

Doesn't bother me either. What bothers me is when chicks like that claim to be nerds or geeks or gamers or whatever.

Also, Jetpack Joyride is, indeed, quite the quality iOS game.

If she's feeling good about being geeky in her own way then I can't see no harm in that.

That being said I think it's a good thing that more girls are playing videogames nowadays. I have many female friends and only a few ever play videogames and the ones who play are much younger.

Most women my age tend to look down on someone who is into videogames. At best they may see it as quirky but it's not something that they find enticing.

I'm a woman, but I think my geek cred is pretty solid.

I love it that everyone plays video games, don't get me wrong. One of the biggest things to ever make me smile was walking through a video game store, and seeing two little girls looking at some Disney game, completely enthralled. I just don't like popular chicks like that girl claiming they're something they're not. Meh, call it the whinings of a ranty dude.

I did say most women my age, if anything I'd like some of my female friends to be less dismissive about videogames.

In any case I think I understand and somehow relate to what Dragoniguana is saying but there may be a silver lining that you're missing. If a popular girl wants to be known as a gamer it means that playing videogames is popular.

Long gone are the days when gamers were treated like lepers by girls who wouldn't give them the time of the day.

They still won't give us the time of day though... I have yet to meet a single girl who I would consider to be even mildly serious about video games. *sigh*

Things are not set in stone and sometimes the geek gets the cheerleader.

Well, here's one thing to consider. The girl who's playing Spyro today might start playing Skyrim tomorrow. We all had our first RPG.

The problem is that once you start playing RPGs, every other genre feels lacking.

Really? I love RPGs, they're my favorite genre, but I don't feel that way. With sanbox games or puzzle games and such, I love all of those.

However, when something feels like it should have been an RPG (for example, Rage), and isn't, it just kind of feels... Off.

I enjoy other genres from time to time, but none of them can draw me in like a good RPG.

That's true. I must have sunk in over 600 hours in RPGs, all told. And I've only been really gaming for about five years or so

I personally started with Warriors of The Eternal Sun on Genesis when I was like 9, it was an insta-hook. I remember how the music of the wrecked town and the Elven Catacombs creeped me out when I was a kid. Order of The Griffon on TurboGrafx was time well spent too. Hell, I still play WoTES, I'm cooking up another game right now, and I'm 2/3 done.

Back to Skyrim... ASUS were nice enough to pack some games with my dead P4's video card. Morrowind was one of them. Curious, I tried it out... MIND BLOWN. Even when Oblivion was released, I ignored it for over a year. I had my plate full with Morrowind, Bloodmoon and Tribunal.

The only enjoyable part of Oblivion? Shivering Isles. The Dark Brother was enjoyable as well, I still fondly recall the quest where you basically murder an entire family. What an absolute freaking CLASSIC! But other than that? Meh, Ob was weak. The Oblivion gates were horrible... I felt like I was grinding in an old school RPG. Hell, Two Worlds, who is considered a poor man's Oblivion manages to be superior to Ob itself! TW is how Ob should have been! The Skill system in TW was superb, the sheer variety of equipment, and I dig the magic system, too.

The only enjoyable part of Skyrim? Meh. I'd rather play KoA. This game made me hate dragons like a billion times more than I ever did. Especially after having one of those scaly vermin landing right in front of me as I am coming out of a cave, having barely survived the Necromancers. Out of HP and MP potions and forced in a fight with an overgrown, overrated lizard. I know I already ranted on that, but just thinking about pisses me off.

Oblivion was a disappointement, and honestly, so is Skyrim. Like I said, I'd rather play KoA. If this is indeed the first game of a franchise, I will preorder every single game of that franchise and play them to death.

I enjoy Skyrim. Right now I am ignoring the Main Quest. It just doesn't interest me. I am doing the mage college quests and wandering around exploring. Since I am working on a mod for the Sky Haven Temple I keep my hand int. I have also been distracted by doing some lines for Better Cities, Oblivion. Once that is updated I will play enough Oblivion using an alternate start just to get a video of my characters.

I have to say that KoA:R has been a really nice surprise and I agree with Skorpinok on all points.

Shivering Isles was great but I couldn't be bothered with the rest of Oblivion. I also agree that Two Worlds despite being like you put it "a poor man's Oblivion" was a real treat. The only thing that I would have changed was the number of wolves in the game. It becomes a bit boring after your first 10,000 wolves killed. That being said it was really fun.

I may not have such strong feelings about Skyrim but right now IMO this game doesn't reach its potential. The story is better than the stupid gates in Oblivion but the dragon crap doesn't bring much to the game. Dragons are too wimpy and having the player face a dragon in the tutorial was a pretty stupid move if you ask me.

It seems that game devs take their ideas from movies when they should focus on characterization and character development instead. A film director doesn't have much time to make a point and tell a story to an audience whereas videogames are more like books in that respect. Either start slow and build up stuff (like Morrowind for instance or Fallout 3) or start in medias res and let the player figure things out (Planescape or Fallout New Vegas) but starting with a bang (or at least trying to like in Skyrim) is not that effective unless you really want to focus on action instead of allowing room for character development.

IMO that's a flaw. There is nothing wrong in having a game that starts slowly and gradually builds up and blossoms into something bigger and exciting. Dropping a dragon during the tutorial is counterproductive. Your character can't die and even if he or she did you wouldn't care that much so it's pointless. There is no thrill, no stakes. You know you can't defeat it yet so you totally get that it is meant as some sort of cheap teaser. All in all there is nothing remotely epic about it.

I love every Elder Scrolls game, and I honestly think that none of them deserve all of the hate they get, nor do I think that Morrowind deserves as much praise as it gets. That's one thing about having started gaming later: I'm not affected by nostalgia at all. Some day I will be, but for now, I can judge older and newer games based on their merits alone, not by how amazing it was at the time or how awesome I thought it was or how blown away I was or how it was so revolutionary.

Nostalgia has no place when I talk about Morrowind, the game is just that damn good. The age or flaws of a game are irrelevant IF the game is a fun experience. I immensely enjoy playing MW, but I did not enjoy Ob nor Skyrim.

Matter of fact, just talking about MW makes me want to dust off the disks and play that timeless classic.

I disagree, we can't ignore the fact that some games represented momentous changes.

I love Fallout 1 (and 2 despite its silliness). I understand some people these days may be turned off by the graphics but I actually like the way the game looks. Some of the reasons for me liking this game may have to do with purely objective things (i.e. it's one of the best CRPG ever made -if not the best) and some are subjective (a hint of nostalgia since that is to this day the most important computer game I have ever played). All in all I can't separate the fact that this game holds a very special meaning to me.

So when I consider Morrowind I have to take into account that 10 years ago we didn't have other games quite like this one. I disliked many things in Morrowind because I compared it to Fallout and they are in very different leagues but I did recognize that Morrowind was a very special landmark in the history of videogames.

Only a few games have impressed me with that feeling. Oblivion or Skyrim never felt that special. I'm not saying that they're bad (well Oblivion is not that good if you ask me), I'm just saying that they aren't as significant (if you get what I mean) as Morrowind.

On its merits Morrowind easily surpasses Oblivion (the setting alone is more than enough to proclaim the superiority of Morrowind). IMO Skyrim is much better than Oblivion but it doesn't bring much originality to the franchise in fact I feel it stops half way and keep up the stupid save the world plot when it could have surpassed its predecessors by giving us a TES game with a decent main quest for a change. That being said if I had to pick one silly main quest I'd rather go with the Nerevarine than with the Dovahkin.

My biggest gripe with Morrowind is that I can't run it on my system (bloody Vista).

People do tend to overlook Morrowind's flaws, though. And it does have them. One of the biggest, for me, is actually something really small, and it is the speed of your character. My character, even when I used the console to get 200 speed, was painfully slow. It makes it a chore for me to explore, rather than a joy.

I agree with that. Last time I played Morrowind, I used a mod which greatly increased walking and running speed.

I would say Morrowind has other flaws, as well. The quest design is very rudimentary. Dungeon-delving fetch quests have been the core of TES from the beginning, but Bethesda has gotten better at disguising their formula with some variation. My last Morrowind playthrough didn't last very long, because I just didn't find the quests engaging anymore.

At the end of the day, I guess I'm just not an Elder Scrolls fan. The focus on random dungeon-delving just doesn't appeal to me. I need a strong narrative to keep me engaged. Morrowind had the benefit of hitting me at a time when I was receptive to what Bethesda had to offer. If I played it for the first time today, I might not view it so favorably.