The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Catch-All

So I have to have Hearthfire to get the Special Edition free? Guess I'll look for it on sale in 9 days then...hmm. Hopefully that time will revive the mod thread to "what mods you gotta have...and work with Special Edition"...

Roo wrote:

So I have to have Hearthfire to get the Special Edition free? Guess I'll look for it on sale in 9 days then...hmm. Hopefully that time will revive the mod thread to "what mods you gotta have...and work with Special Edition"...

It goes on sale often enough, and will likely be on sale next week.

https://isthereanydeal.com/#/page:ga...

I keep hearing this complaint and it just confuses me.

beanman101283 wrote:

Don't expect The Elder Scrolls VI any time soon
http://kotaku.com/todd-howard-says-e...

I don't care, I'll wait as long as I have to!!!!!

I'm a huge Skyrim fan (2000 hours, straight down the modding rabbit hole after about 30 hours) but this news of the Skyrim HD doesnt do much for PC fans I think. The majority of us have had the game looking similar to what it offers for many years now. I guess that is why it is free for PC users as Bethesda suspects that if they stick a price on it fan backlash and poor (pc) sales will ensure.
To be honest while I love Skyrim and liked fallout 3 (and will pick up fallout 4 in the summer sale) I am less than impressed with Bethesda and its parent Zenimax as a company. Part of that is the paid modding fiasco (that will return for sure) but for the most part i find that Bethesda is an inherently conservative company overly driven by the need for a financial return on its products. Yes, all companies need to make money to pay salaries and investors however I find the difference between bethesda/zenimax and a company like CDprojekt pretty wide.
Zenimax is run by lawyers and owned by private equity investment firms, CD projekt is run by gamers and partly owned by senior staff in the company. The outreach to the community, the DLC quality, the openness of the development cycle and the quality of the production values in their games all point to CDprojekt coming from a place of love for the product. Make a great game, be open with the community,it will sell, we can pay our salaries. Zenimax suffers in comparison.
Of course I am looking forward to ES VI, but if Zenimax draws out its production time to focus on the ES Online (which is has for a while) I think they might miss the boat and see companies like CDprojekt move into the ES open world format and steal their thunder.

I think they are giving it away for free is for modding. PC would never buy it because that would be silly. The modding scene would get split which is bad. So they give it away for free. Now everyone is on the same version.

Brownypoints wrote:

Bethesda is an inherently conservative company overly driven by the need for a financial return on its products. Yes, all companies need to make money to pay salaries and investors however I find the difference between bethesda/zenimax and a company like CDprojekt pretty wide.

I'll never really understand this sentiment that people have that Bethesda are lazy or conservative. They release RPGs of immense scope with years of development behind each one, and consistently don't rest on their laurels in terms of mechanics and game design. They drop the ball with things sure, but conservative is the last word I'd use to describe their output.

I get being cynical about developers, and publishers in particular, even if I tend to be a lot more forgiving of mistakes by the former in most cases, but to then turn around and pretend like CD Projekt are in any way different or any less concerned with the bottom line is a blatant blind spot.

And that's always the comparison lately too, Bethesda v. CD Projekt. I just don't see the rivalry myself.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I think they are giving it away for free is for modding. PC would never buy it because that would be silly. The modding scene would get split which is bad. So they give it away for free. Now everyone is on the same version.

The remaster and/or backwards comparability of Skyrim was a popular request from console players and new threads popped up every day on the official forums asking about it, so yes, it's definitely mostly a console thing.

Redwing wrote:

And that's always the comparison lately too, Bethesda v. CD Projekt. I just don't see the rivalry myself.

I don't really understand the comparison either, any more than I understood the comparison between Morrowind and Fable back in the day. Two entirely different types of games outside of having the obligatory RPG label. While Witcher 3 might have open world elements, your character is Geralt and you are playing through Geralt's story rather than creating your own character with its own background and put in a world where that character's stories can be created rather than already existing. Story-based vs. sandbox.

If I were going to compare CD Projekt with another gaming company based on current games, I'd probably choose Bioware and not Bethesda as being the closest comparison.

Oh i think Bioware and CDprojekt get compared an awful lot online. DA Inquisition and Witcher 3 comparisons abound. I dont think Bethesda's ES and the Witcher are similar games in totality but I do think some comparisons can be made. I was more thinking about the discussion above about technical prowess with regards to showing cities (whiterun vs Novigrad). I don't think bethesda is lazy as such but I do think they are behind the eightball when it comes to questing/writing/ engines running their games.

Brownypoints wrote:

I don't think bethesda is lazy as such but I do think they are behind the eightball when it comes to questing/writing/ engines running their games.

That's a reasonable thing to say, although it's a completely different claim to the one you made earlier. I personally think they've improved the quality of their writing, in Fallout 4 in particular, but they've always been better at world building, concepts and atmosphere rather than dialogue. I also suspect one reason Elder Scrolls VI is going to take a long time is they're finally going to overhaul the old engine they've been using since Morrowind, so hopefully we'll see some of that occasional jankiness disappear.

They're writing dialog better, in the sense of delivered lines sounding more like things people would actually say, but they're doing it much worse in the sense of two-way communication.

FO4's entire response system is basically "Yes/yes/yes/snarky yes".

Brownypoints wrote:

Of course I am looking forward to ES VI, but if Zenimax draws out its production time to focus on the ES Online (which is has for a while) I think they might miss the boat and see companies like CDprojekt move into the ES open world format and steal their thunder.

Er...don't completely separate and independent teams work on both ESO and the single player ES games?

Malor wrote:

They're writing dialog better, in the sense of delivered lines sounding more like things people would actually say, but they're doing it much worse in the sense of two-way communication.

FO4's entire response system is basically "Yes/yes/yes/snarky yes".

I disagree, but I've already been over that in the Fallout thread and won't subject everyone to it here as well!

Veloxi wrote:
Brownypoints wrote:

Of course I am looking forward to ES VI, but if Zenimax draws out its production time to focus on the ES Online (which is has for a while) I think they might miss the boat and see companies like CDprojekt move into the ES open world format and steal their thunder.

Er...don't completely separate and independent teams work on both ESO and the single player ES games?

Yes. ESO is developed by Zenimax Online Studios, whereas Bethesda Softworks makes the original Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3/4. They're headquartered near one another, but they are separate entities.

Brownypoints wrote:

Oh i think Bioware and CDprojekt get compared an awful lot online. DA Inquisition and Witcher 3 comparisons abound. I dont think Bethesda's ES and the Witcher are similar games in totality but I do think some comparisons can be made. I was more thinking about the discussion above about technical prowess with regards to showing cities (whiterun vs Novigrad). I don't think bethesda is lazy as such but I do think they are behind the eightball when it comes to questing/writing/ engines running their games.

I happen to like Bethesda's writing in their Fallout games. Their quests are usually quirky and fun. I think they have a lot of good writing in Skyrim as well, though I didn't care for a couple of the questlines and found most of them too short compared to Oblivion.

However, to compare the writing to Witcher 3 or even to many Bioware games is still kind of an apple and orange comparison. It is much, much, MUCH easier to write extensively and in-depth for a known protagonist such as Geralt or Commander Shepard or even "the Warder" than to have to try to make sure your writing accounts for any possible type of character a player can choose to make. Geralt has an entire series of books written on him from what I understand. The Witcher writers know just about everything about the guy and can use that to their advantage when writing quests. Bethesda can't do that.

Nor would I want them to. I absolutely do NOT want Bethesda to turn into a CD Projekt/Bioware clone with pre-designed characters regardless of the quality of the stories. I'd rather just play games from those companies when I'm in the mood for that sort of thing and feel happy that when I want to go back and play in my sandbox, Bethesda will still be waiting.

As for engine, Bethesda had to make sure that their engine was able to do all of the things they needed it to do for the type of games they make. For example, a player must be able to interact with every object. Even now, most games don't offer this level of world interaction. I have a feeling they're still planning to update it for the next Elder Scrolls game though.

I don't view Bethesda as being behind at all. No other companies offer the type of game experience they offer when it comes to sandbox and world building. They are still very unique in this way.

I'm hoping Bethesda is waiting for next-gen not just for bigger worlds, but more complicated branching stories, quests, and interactions. I want a world that is truly changed by my actions, tough choices that actually matter, and true emergent gameplay.

While I agree that I don't want the next ES game to be another TW3 or Dragon Age, I do hope that they take a few lessons from TW3 while keeping the focus on exploration, personalized character building, and sheer adventure. But Skyrim (and Oblivion) both have a problem of dissonance in them where, on the one hand, they have the huge history and backstory filled with wonders and heroic tales but, on the other, there's only like 10 NPCs in the whole game (exaggerating a little). For all the stuff that supposedly goes on in Skyrim and Oblivion, it sure felt *empty* while TW3 always felt like there was something going on offscreen.

tboon wrote:

While I agree that I don't want the next ES game to be another TW3 or Dragon Age, I do hope that they take a few lessons from TW3 while keeping the focus on exploration, personalized character building, and sheer adventure. But Skyrim (and Oblivion) both have a problem of dissonance in them where, on the one hand, they have the huge history and backstory filled with wonders and heroic tales but, on the other, there's only like 10 NPCs in the whole game (exaggerating a little). For all the stuff that supposedly goes on in Skyrim and Oblivion, it sure felt *empty* while TW3 always felt like there was something going on offscreen.

That's where having the whole world loaded at once (or at least having the NPCs following their scripting even when their bodies aren't loaded) would come into play. How I'd like ESVI to work is something akin to how in Mount & Blade the overland map has all the lords, merchants, bandits, etc. running around changing the world themselves while you do your thing. ESVI probably won't take place during a war like Skyrim did, so the potential changes wouldn't be the same, but you could at least run into pitched battles already in progress, and maybe have NPCs guards or adventurers take care of whatever you were sent to kill before you even get there.

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tboon wrote:

While I agree that I don't want the next ES game to be another TW3 or Dragon Age, I do hope that they take a few lessons from TW3 while keeping the focus on exploration, personalized character building, and sheer adventure. But Skyrim (and Oblivion) both have a problem of dissonance in them where, on the one hand, they have the huge history and backstory filled with wonders and heroic tales but, on the other, there's only like 10 NPCs in the whole game (exaggerating a little). For all the stuff that supposedly goes on in Skyrim and Oblivion, it sure felt *empty* while TW3 always felt like there was something going on offscreen.

I definitely agree there's more I would like Bethesda to do and that they can learn things from other companies, but I just wouldn't want them to try to imitate these other companies and lose their own uniqueness in the process. For example, I'm very wary about them using a voiced protagonist in the next elder scrolls due to all the limitations it caused in Fallout 4. While I liked the voice work and enjoyed the stories, I do feel it limited a lot of possible conversation options and character types. Considering that Elder Scrolls has many more races to account for (and it's already irritating enough that every male Dunmer NPC sounds exactly the same, as an example) they are going to need to expand their voice actors a very large magnitude to be able to account for every type of character a player wants to make, or severely limit choices.

I would like to see Bethesda expand more on what goes on without our characters always being at the center of it, and show more consequences within the world for the things our characters do. For example, one character did a certain big assassination for the Dark Brotherhood that would seem to have huge consequences for the entire empire, but short of a brief guard comment, no one ever talks about it and nothing ever changes as a result of the action. Everything just goes on as if it never happened.

Voice actors work well for the Fallout series, though it does put more of a limit on how well what you say fits with how you look, maybe they could put in some voice shifting sliders like I've seen some MMOs do recently. Fallout 1 was the only game where you didn't play with a specific backstory (Fallout Tactics too, I suppose). In Fallout 2 you were the 20 year old grandchild of the Vault Dweller and had never left tribal village of Arroyo. Fallout 3 you were the 19 year old child of James and Catherine, and aside from the first few days of it, you spent your entire life in Vault 101.

Edit - My point being that I agree entirely that a voice actor (for dialogue, grunts are okay) would be too limiting for the Elder Scrolls series, because in all ES games, your backstory is only ever "unknown prisoner."

Er...don't completely separate and independent teams work on both ESO and the single player ES games?

Yes in an organisational sense but not in a financial/resources sense. Zenimax the parent has a limited amount of resources (money or loan financing) that they could devote to their subsidiaries' products. So i think it was a bit disingenuous for Bethesda/Zenimax Online studios to claim no connection between the two. . Zenimax Online studios can say truthfully that they are separate and anything they do will not affect the timing of ES IV but if you asked the same question to Zenimax Media the parent company then they couldn't.

Nor would I want them to. I absolutely do NOT want Bethesda to turn into a CD Projekt/Bioware clone with pre-designed characters regardless of the quality of the stories.

Hehe, I actually would much rather CD Projekt moved into Bethesda's territory. I think they would just do a better job - engine,questing,writing,musically. The area that they would probably need to learn from ES is the spread of available build types.

Do we know yet if CDPR's Cyberpunk 2077 has a set Protagonist or character creation? That could be their first go at a non-predetermined main character.

I haven't heard anything but if i had to guess i'd say they will go with some sort of Mass Effect style system - choose gender and set back story.

I decided to stop playing Skyrim for a while, Uninstalled to make some room, kind of a sad moment, first time I have uninstalled Skyrim since launch. However I'm sure in October I'll be back once the mods have adapted to the new HD release,

IMAGE(https://s31.postimg.org/t4f86b1t7/Pasted_image_at_2016_06_17_02_49_PM.png)

This is how it usually goes for me.

Heh, since Daggerfall (the first ES game I played) it's always been the same for me: Battlemage. Sword in one hand, spell in the other. If I can't fry 'em from a distance, I'll slice and dice up close.

Nope! Sneaky Archer! I tried doing a battle mage and it just didn't click. Sneaky Archer is just so me.

To be fair it seems to be a lot of folks. I've a co-worker who will only play a sneaky archer, like, ever.

Battlemage with lots of Conjuration, here.

I've done a different build with each game. Daggerfall was sword and board with heavy armor. Morrowind was a spellsword with light armor. Oblivion was a sneaky archer. Skyrim was a two-handed melee barbarian in a mixture of light and medium armor.

When we eventually get Elder Scrolls VI (anytime now... aaaaaanytiiiiiime now... ) I intend to try a dedicated mage.

I like playing through 3 times, try very different builds. But I always seem to give up on mage builds eventually, Morrowind through Skyrim. So that would be Seriously Heavy Armor 2 Handed, and yeah, Sneaky Archer. Plus alchemist, and opening every container ever. Something about my Elder Scrolls Specific OCD.

I can stop picking flowers any time.

(And yes, I had a time when I played so much that when I went outside - in real life - and spotted a bunch of wildflowers along the road, I had to stop myself...)