Skyrim

Ya know, I’ve put a lot of time into Skyrim. Some might call it too much time and I wouldn’t disagree. There is something about Skyrim that urges me to keep replaying it like Morrowind. This time around, I recorded it. So far I have about 460+ hours between the TES5 and TES5 Special Edition.

This is a top 10 game for me. What I really aim for is to start a conversation about TES in general. There was a thread that popped up earlier today that inspired me to do this.

I’ll post a new video every so often and probably say something related to TES that happened in the video whether it be lore, gameplay, design or something else TES related. I’m sure there will be many comparisons to games and gripes about Bethesda making the game the way they did but what Bethesda game would be complete without some bitching, right?

to be clear the videos I’m posting are playthroughs. With each post I’ll focus on something that struck me about the game

1st off TES has always been a bug ridden game but I can’t believe the cart physics bug hasn’t been taken care of!

2nd: starting a new character in a TES game has always been a well planned affair for me. I recall in Morrowind, my first character. After speaking with the imperial guard I choose a beast race. After deliberating and looking at the racial bonuses I choose an Argonian because of the disease resistance. Sounds dumb, but that’s because it is. I didn’t know anything about the game other than it was an RPG from a first person perspective.

I went on to talk to Socucius Ergalla to pick my class and birthsign. At the end of the day I struggled to pick a class since there were so many to choose from! I refused to answer his questions because that would be taking the easy way out (little did I know just how customizeable classes actually were). Since my character was a bipedal lizard, I pictured a godzilla-like life for him. Not battling gigantic monsters or shooting fire from the diaphragm but one of strength and power. The life of a Battlemage! That decision took about 15 minutes of going back and forth between class descriptions.

Of course, the next step was to pick a birth sign. I didn’t understand the birth sign at first. Every birthsign seemed to be plauged with attributes which made little sense to me. There was one birthsign however that made sense from the moment I read it: The Shadow. Becoming invisible for 60 seconds just made total sense! Who wouldn’t want to do that? The other reason The Shadow made the grade was because of the radio show, The Shadow, that I used to listen to with my grandfather. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” How could I turn that down?

Up to this point I’ve probably spent about 30-40 minutes creating a character. I had no knowledge of how the game worked and I still put that much time into it. Subsequent character builds would take less time but the attention to detail never diminished.

Contrast this to Skyrim. Granted, I know much more about TES now than I ever did then but the attention to detail vanished during character creation. Bethesda stripped one of the more memorable moments out of the game! All the player had to do in Skyrim during character creation was to get the aesthetics down. Lower the chin, bring the eyes closer together, pop in a bit of five o’clock shadow, pick the right hair-do and decide on what color of dirt lies on your face. Oh, don’t forget naming the character, nice of Bethesda to leave that “feature” in.

Color me dissapointed! At least that was the feeling of the day after making my first Skyrim character. “WTF is this?” I thought as I headed to the chopping block, not giving one shit about the dragon that just landed on the tower. Where are the primary skills (secondary was taken out in Oblivion so I didn’t question that.)? How come I couldn’t pick my birth sign? I was not a happy camper to say the least and let the salt flow during the tutorial in Helgen.

Once I got out of Helgen, I felt that familiar sense of freedom that TES imparts after the tutorial. A sense of calm ensued. I followed the soldier to the guardian stones and about shit myself! I was about to pick my “birth sign” by touching a stone. Ridiculous! I begrudgingly picked the mage stone and went about playing the game with a chip on my shoulder for a very long time. I never started the main quest and played for about 70-80 hours until I called it quits. Despite not having a specific moment to define my character, I wound up naturally just being a mage. It was quite fluid and really lent it’s hand well to the series. I never complained about it ever again.

In total, I think I spent all of 3 minutes in character creation.

Character creation in Morrowind was a ritual; a rite of passage. Only, when you did it correctly, you feel like the game was coming together. In Skyrim, it was more of a passing glace. Since you almost never look at your character, it really didn’t matter at all! You played the game and naturally fell into a magic, stealth or combat based character. Both worked very well at the end of the day. The largest difference between the two games is that in Skyrim, each time I stopped playing the game for a longer period of time, I would come back and make a new character. Start fresh. I had totally forgotten what I was doing, where I was going and what motivations I had. However, given a similar situation but with Morrowind, I kept playing that stupid Argonian. I always remembered what I set out to do with him. I didn’t make another character until most of my attributes were capped.

I love Skyrim. I loved Morrowind!

Bethesda, do the world a favor and help us to love our character again.

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Didn't like Skyrim. Didn't love Morrowind. Absolutely enamored by Oblivion. Strange how that works.

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I see where you are coming from.
Here is the thing...
Many things, complexity in character creation, complexity in leveling up, skill system, battle system and it's famous dice rolling behind the scenes, where you could miss 9 out of 10 attacks because of bad luck - all those are archaic mechanics. Give me 30-40 minutes character creation and sign my refund... I want to play the stupid game, I want to get lost in the stupid world building my stupid house and discovering I need a stupid children room to adopt children, because I feel bad, when I walk in any town and an orphan ask me "are you my mommy"...
I don't care about how simple the game is. Actually I appreciate the simplicity. It gives me more time to play the game. I don't want to fiddle with menus and stats and speed sheets etc. I play Eve online for fiddling with spread sheet data. I love the streamlined approach. I level up, press 2 buttons and I am back in the action...

I always play argonian... Can't picture myself any other race in Skyrim. IDK, I just love the lizard...

I can help but go full stealth and abuse the hell out of dagger critical strikes x 15 damage. Paired with the marked for death shout and I one hit kill almost everything.

I liked Oblivion, too. Although it was always missing something. The presentation of the game was offsetting coming from Morrowind. I remember seeing my first Dunmer and was like, "Why is this guy sonic the hedgehog blue and speaks like a Altmer. The world is upside down!" After playing a bit I overlooked it. Great game for sure. The character creation was quite good too despite having chopped secondary skills entirely and many types of weapon skills.

CRPG games are being revitalized! I don't believe dice rolls are as archaic as you think. This is a topic I'd love to elaborate on since so many people hate it. I hated it too when I first played the game however by the time I realized I messed up that stupid Argonian, I invested quite a few hours into the game and didn't want to start over. I visited trainers and bettered the skills I neglected to make major or minors. End of the day it worked out fine.

I did too! That's one of the reasons I really loved Skyrim. Elaboration on this point later.

You filthy swit! What was it that made you go Argonian?

@psycho_666 I'd really like to answer each item in your list but I'm at work. Expect an essay to ensue by midnight tonight lol. Good insights and these are frequent complaints I hear about the game.

It's how the game was made to be played! At some point, I wish Bethesda would really just get a whole new game engine so they could take full advantage of a stealth character. The sneaking in all the games seems a bit lop-sided. Although, it's a minor thing in the scheme of things. How did you find the sneaking in Skyrim? It's probably the best of all the games thus far but still lags behind actual stealth games IMO.

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Archaic in the context of the game. An RPG like Skyrim in today's videogame world should not have a random chance of something, that is supposed to be based on stats. If i miss i want it to be because i build my character wrong. Not because of a random chance 7 times in a row.
Full disclosure - Skyrim is my first TES game, and i will not play the others because i don't feel like learning all the rules and systems, I am forced to know in order to enjoy the world...

Proud to be...

In Skyrim - the healing ability and archery skill...
And looks... I mean look at that:

How am i expected to play something else?

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I would have loved the gameplay of Morrowind in a world like Oblivion. I want the old school stats and skills, and while I liked the world of Morrowind the lush nature was one of the best things about Oblivion.

Skyrim is nice but they went too far in making it a game primarily designed for consoles. One factor that makes me never going into Skyrim again is all the mods I would need to improve the game. Whatever their next TES title will be, I'm sure it will be just the same.

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Their lusty maids.

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Of that I have no doubt. This will be a topic I look further into for a future post here. The quick version is this:

While many aspects of the game have been cut out since the beginning of TES (i.e. climbing skill, random attributes at character creation, etc.) Skyrim still stands as a great game even though some of the depth has been ditched. I blame it more on the journal and quest systems since Oblivion more than any other aspect of the game. I'm about to say something controversial and I'm sure @psycho_666 will disagree with me here, but the wiki style of dialogue, wiki style journal written from the characters perspective and compass have really altered the game in a way that just evacuates the "depth". More on this in a future post so stay tuned!

EDIT: I just realized I made a huge error. What I meant to say is the following:

the lack of a wiki style of dialogue, wiki style journal written from the characters perspective and the addition of the compass (with pointers) have really altered the game in a way that just evacuates the "depth".

There was a shack in Skyrim with an NPC named 'lucky' something or other. A tree fell on his shack and killed him. There is a statue of Dibella in the shack along with a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid near his corpse. I always took it that he was waxing the dragon and died while doing it though it's circumstantial at best lol. Still, was funny discovery!

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If i understand properly - you are wrong. I don't disagree.
AFAIK in Morowind you were told "to the west of this village there is a orange tree, south from that tree there is a cave. Go there". No quest markers. And yes, I think that is a good way of doing quests in a game like that. You don't need a quest marker for that.

I never heard it be called that way...

Trying to make a Skyrim innuendo! lol

EDIT: I just realized I made a huge error. What I meant to say is the following:

the lack of a wiki style of dialogue, wiki style journal written from the characters perspective and the addition of the compass (with pointers) have really altered the game in a way that just evacuates the "depth".

And I'm here enjoying this thread despite never playing a TES game other than 5 minutes of Skyrim. I find it interesting to here peoples thoughts on Morrowind and Skyrim and from what I gathered from where fans stand, Morrowind is like the complex RPG (based on tabletop RPGs) with a well-written narrative and world-building that treats the player character as if they are a part of it whereas Skyrim is like the insanely fun to mod game but vanilla wise, it is dumb-down to appeal to the masses, has some unpolished areas, and reminds you that you are playing a video game.

I haven't played a TES game mainly because I didn't have a PC to run it (I do now), didn't want to play on consoles, and also the fact I do not want to jump dive into a game that will absorb 100s of hours from me. Warframe is already fulfilling that role and there are other games I need to play. Maybe some offbeat day I will try out the series to see the hubba. Hopefully the combat in Morrowind doesn't put me off whatsoever or find workarounds to it.

I'd have to agree, that seems to be the sentiment from the fans of the series. The game is dumbed down to help others get into it but not enough to turn me off to the series entirely. Skyrim is that middle ground, in my opinion. Much lighter on the RPG elements and heavier on the action. I can't believe they still have books in the game (which I actually read, btw. Some of them are okay!)

What keeps the game together for me is the lore and it's presentation. I remember Vivec in Morrowind. You meet him late in the game IIRC. Up to that point you learn about him through books, poems, NPC conversations and learn he is part of the Tribunal - a religious organization where he is one of the three "gods" (demi god would be most accurate but them Dunmer take it a step further!) When you actually encounter him you realize he is quite understated compared to what you have heard and read. The same goes for Skyrim.

The one point of presentation that took a dive though was the pacing. Bethesda didn't take their time to build up a drama to the dragons and the dragonborne. They introduced that into the game very early on and you barely have to finish two or three plot line quests to discover most of it. The pacing was just horrible.

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When you have one of the most successful games of all time that still has a modding community and a remastered version, I'd imagine there would be books about it. I mean, Halo has books about their games.

That sounds like an awesome game experience. I'd imagine you learn about the character on your own and the game doesn't force you to know him, am I correct?

That's definitely one critique on what I heard about the game being that it is presented in a dramatic "You have no time to waste" mentality when the game gives you all the time in the world. I believe Morrowind actually takes account into the player having free time and some NPCs don't rush you to do something. I'm going by what video I've watched a long time ago which is this:

The one thing, that put Skyrim from an overall good game to great game imho, was a plot point i will not spoil in case somebody wants to play skyrim - Paarthurnax. I got it spoiled for me, and I keep hating the fact, that i did not had that reveal in game... I did not expect the things with him to be the way they are, but they are.

Oh dear lord, the main story line is so bad... So really really bad... There are some sparks of brilliant creativity, but Skyrim i treat the same way as Minecraft... Do whatever you want. Don't constraint yourself to the narrative of the main story.

He said

There are lore books inside the game, that i, at one point tried to collect and failed miserably, cause i wasn't a thief and that is, ironically enough, locking a lot of doors in my path...

In morowind you basically kill god... If i am not mistaken.

Here is the thing...
For all the flak Skyrim is getting, it's still one of the most immersive games i have ever played.
I walk around in the forest, there is a woman, running towards me, help me, my brother is locked here, i'll show you on the map. Please, save him. There you go, quest...
On the path to that place I find a bunch of guards fighting a dragon, who have attacked them. After i beat the dragon, his loot have a guard uniform. Why? Because he ate the f@ker...
I fall off a cliff and find a cave. Inside the cave there are stuff. The entire cave is leaking and dripping from the roof. After i climb back up, it appears the cave is under a small pond, that is leaking ad dripping inside the cave...
I'm doing a quest "go there" type, when i walk near a shrine of Talos, and i am attacked by imperial guards, because they were thinking I was worshiping the forbidden 9-th god... They were properly making an ambush for Talos worshipers.
Not to mention the dark brotherhood terrifies me... Oh god, i am still in fearful awe of the dark motherf@king brotherhood...
If i had to fiddle with stats and menus and stuff for 10 minutes every level up and had to find a bed to sleep in order for the level up stats increases to take effect - this would not be at all as immersive and smooth experience as it is.

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I remeber tuning my levelups. It was fun.

TBH. I played Oblivion and Morrowind, but I always cheated. The furthest i ever went into a game with out cheating was like 2 hours and that was with oblivion.

Cheating made the game fun for me.

But then made it boring, because i had everything and i was super powerfull.

I shall give skyrim a chance one day. And i wont cheat.

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Isn't that one dragon character that overcame his evil nature that his kindred normally follow and you have a choice of killing him or not?

I mis-read @fruitbrut comment about books. Thanks for clarifying

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That's him alright...
When i got it spoiled for me - my jaw was on the f@king floor... IDK why it surprised me that much, but it did...

I'ts pointless in Skyrim. You can change the difficulty at any time. It all depends on how easy or difficult you want the battles to be.
Example: After i take my favorite bow in the entire game, I always adjust the difficulty so i am unable to one shot an enemy even with a critical.. One shot an enemy and all challenge is out the door. If the enemy survives he may be able to find your hiding spot and then the things get interesting.