Elder Scrolls VI: Argonia

[zippypinhead]

It has so little to do with cost/time, it is all 100% to do with becoming mainstream. Bethesda saw the successes of COD games being so mainstream and bringing gaming to the masses, they wanted in on that cash cow so they followed suit. I doubt that many of the dev's wanted it to go that way, but corporations don't pander to the wants of the niche. Which is unfortunate because niche games such as Demon/Dark Souls can do really well. But of course it's much more risky, and risk is not something a company wants to take on when they can just play it safe. Gaming as a whole has become all about the mainstream, all about the casual gamer, fast travel everything and no penalties for fucking up. It's honestly a disaster and sadly the indie market is the only one still innovating. Don't get me wrong there are still some decent AAA game's out there, but TES series is no longer a part of that.

That's a bit more cynical a worldview than I tend to take, personally. But then again, even BethSoft is in this to make money, and a billion dollars is pretty good money.

I definitely understand where you're coming from on the nostalgia thing, but I have re-installed this game time and time again just to give it another run as a different class, different plan of action, and different faction. I enjoy it every single time. The only thing that sucks is the graphic fidelity is pretty bad, but mods can definitely fix that.

For me the RNG system was great, I think it only needed some minor changes, it definitely turned a lot of people off from the game within the first few minutes of trying to play a melee character. However once you leveled it up a little you missed much more rarely, so it became a non-issue for me. I just think they should have started out the miss rate a little lower, say 20% miss rate and maybe some of the hits just do less damage to balance it all out, on top of that the system needed to be explained to the player first. Many of my friends I tried introducing the game to would quit until I had the chance to explain it, then they got it and had a blast.

Fair enough. We're all entitled to our preferences, and your reasoning is sound. Mostly, I nit-pick at Morrowind because I've spent so much time in that world. I criticize out of love. The thing that bothers me most is that so many people who do hold up Morrowind as the "best" of the series just tend to do so from a rose-tinted perspective. For me, each game has its strengths and its weaknesses, and each game takes some getting used to, but for me, once I settle into each game, I have found joy in what they've all offered to me.

About fast travel and "optional" things that is ridiculous. It is not easy to force yourself to not fast travel or use certain markers when they are in your face...

It's been easy enough for me to not use fast travel or quest markers. It's simple: using these sorts of features make the game less enjoyable for me, so I do not use them. Fast travel is easy to not use, and as of Skyrim, active quest markers are easy to untoggle. The point is, I guess I just don't find it all that tempting to use optional features that degrade my overall experience. And in fairness to BethSoft, they have been doing a better job with each game to make these optional features feel more optional. I hope that, with the popularity of the iHUD mod, the next game has a vanilla toggleable HUD. That would be awesome.

Anyways regardless of all of this, the biggest punch in the face for me was the extreme oversimplification of the leveling system, the lack of any skills that actually do much for the type of play you are trying to achieve - since you are stuck picking from a miniscule tree instead of leveling up the abilities you use the most directly. I loved grinding that stuff out and making an extremely well rounded character. Oh well, I know I'm just bitching to nobody because the mainstream eats that shit up and I'm in the miniscule population who actually fell in love with a game for it's unique qualities rather than the ones that it shares with every other AAA out there.

I can't argue with that. I really like the old leveling system, too, and wasn't terribly impressed by the skill tree system, overall. The old system honestly does feel like a more active hand in character development than does the skill tree. But even though I'm not in love with the skill tree, it's not something I can't get over.

 

[Red7227]

I'm playing Oblivion again and its awesome. The leveling and skills and fast travel are all brilliant. I only fast travel from inns or stables, and there are inns all over the place in Oblivion. Sword and shield combat is lacking a little but I'm getting the hang of it, and all the weird little critters and daedra everywhere is so much less boring than the 8,000 wolves in skyrim. I also never realised how much I missed sewers

Having a ball, and about to head off to the Shivering isles to level some more.

 

[DDuckworth]

Zippypinhead you have described me perfectly: Cynical hahaha it's something very true about me but I've never thought about summing myself up that way.

Otherwise great arguments and I'm glad it didn't just digress into some flamewar. I've never paid a ton of attention to the mod scene because I think a game should be great vanilla, and having to fix it for the developers is kinda just wrong. Not saying I can't utilize them to make myself enjoy them more, but I'd rather judge the game for what it is rather than what it could be. Time is a factor as well, I don't have a ton of time to go mod hunting or testing out certain mods to see if I like them. I use to mod morrowind heavily but I always chose ones that left it fairly vanilla, like adding mannequins to put armor sets on or ownership of houses.

The whole toggle thing is kind of a "yeah that works for you but not others" in my mind. It's the fact that the majority of people playing (since most are new to the franchise) would never even know that questing without those was possible, therefore if anything they should be toggle on, or at least options you pick at the start of the game. For you or I as individuals, yes of course we can ignore them, but I want others to experience the joy of finding things on their own.

Red, have you considered trying Morrowind? If you like Oblivion and can get past the graphical issues (or just mod the graphics, there are some great ones out there) I think you'd really enjoy it. There are two expansions that are a lot of fun as well!

 

[Red7227]

Red, have you considered trying Morrowind? If you like Oblivion and can get past the graphical issues (or just mod the graphics, there are some great ones out there) I think you'd really enjoy it. There are two expansions that are a lot of fun as well!

I played it for years. I tried again a year or two ago and just can't get past the familiarity with everything and the broken character development. If the total conversion mod to the Skyrim engine is ever completed I will certainly play that, but I've been to Seyda Neen to many times to ever want to play it again.

These are from when I played it 8ish years ago.

 

[zippypinhead]

So many mods for Oblivion. It was beautiful and rather pornographic with the right mods. Chainbeasts and Tortured Soul were two I very much liked.

:lol: I was just looking through my mod lists for Morrowind and Oblivion before reading this, and the first thing that popped into my head was, "damn, I'm a virtual pervert!"

Ever since virtual sexy times came up, I've been thinking about it. It has occurred to me that every open-world BethSoft game since Oblivion has been M-rated, and other big franchises that make RPGs that cater to adult audiences, like The Witcher, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect, have included sex dynamics in their games. Given that nudity and sex mods are practically the first major mods to show up for Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, and other RPGs have already blazed the trail officially, I wonder how likely it is for future franchise entries of ES or FO to add that component?

I suspect they won't. Bethesda's more about burnt corpses and decapitations than jiggly bits, but I'd sure be interested to see how they would handle it.

 

[Red7227]

Yeah, a nice body is the first thing I load and then I fiddle with other things. I'm not too excited about the various sex mods, though things like chainbeasts are cute - I'm more into depravity than actual sex.

If you have ever seen Malukah and her covers for various songs, this is her playing Skyrim. Its worth it just for the squeaks and sqeals.

 

[Howlin]

Morrowind was by far my favorite, while Skyrims has a great combat system in place its magic is lacking to a large degree. I miss the spell creation system from Morrowind, and while the perma spell cast was op and somewhat game breaking, to get to that point to a little bit of planing. Skyrim was fun on a game mechanics level, while Oblivion had quest that made you think a bit more then killing the same mobs over and over again, but Morrowind had me at loading.

 

[DivSavel]

I am very excited!

I've been playing TES since Morrowind, which is my favorite game of all time. Morrowind has the greatest story and general layout of the last three TES games. I need to get my Arena and Daggerfall copies working because I feel like a traitor to my favorite game series for not playing them through at least once!

Oblivion was pretty awesome, and did have Shivering Isles, the greatest expansion pack I've ever played. But I feel like Morrowind and Skyrim both surpassed it. The Elder Scrolls is amazing in its scope, lore, everything right down to the architecture. If you were bored of playing TES in Cyrodiil and Skyrim, you should definitely play Morrowind. The game is a lot better in terms of diversity, whereas the human races have boring cities/lands to explore in comparison. Not saying either game is boring, of course. I've logged way too many hours into each game to say that.

I'm happy they're working on the next installment. One of my regs is going to be batshit pissed about the announcement, though! He was hoping it would be set in Akavir. He was pretty much convinced it would be because of their Roman numeral introduction schtick.

Obl(iv)ion = TES: IV (Pans out from IV to show OBLIVION)
Sk(y)rim = TES: V (The V panned out into a Y)
Aki(vi)r =TES: VI

edit: Doing more searching I can't find anything about Argonia on the official site or anything like that. Rumors y u do dis? ;-;

 

[WizofAus]

Being an older gamer I've played all the 'TES' games and have enjoyed them all, including TESO.

Each time there have been so many improvements, and the hours spent playing these open world fantasy games is testament to their brilliance.

I look forward to anything in the series and am not really fussed about the setting.

 

[inkydoo]

Like many others, Morrowind (GOTY edition) was my first introduction to TES, and is still probably my favorite. Huge world (Oblivion felt tiny in comparison) with varied geography; Slowly unfolding storyline that I actually foung compelling both right off the bat and until the last minute (the main story quest especially, but also the expansions). I also like the magic and enchanting system better, especially compared to skyrim (I don't want to spend hours collecting ore in order to make bars in order to make daggers in order to get slight gains in smithing, plus there are plenty of better weapons and to a less extent armor lying around in the world).

I liked Oblivion too (especially Shivering Isles), but it felt so small compared to Morrowind. Skyrim brings back the larger world, but I've found myself losing interest. People say Skyrim allows for a much more open, personalized experience, but the story line eventually reaches a chokepoint where you have limited options, and that's where I got bored. Your petty civil war, while interesting, doesn't compel me the way the potential for the destruction or enslavement of the world (whether by Dagoth Ur, Mehrunes Dagon or Alduin or Mitaak) does.

My big question, though, is how do I get my hands on Daggerfall? It seems to regularly be highly rated by long-time TES players, and it would be fascinating to play it while waiting for either of the TES or Fallout sequels. Is it still sold "new" somewhere (maybe steam?) or would I have to find a used copy?

 

[WizofAus]

Try this

http://www.elderscrolls.com/daggerfall/

 

[DP667]

Folks if you want to play Daggerfall I need to warn you. the world is huge that's not even an exaggeration. If you think Morrowind was large you're gonna go mad trying to navigate in Daggerfall. Still a fun game though!

 

[Deleted member 21657]

Whaaat? I had no idea that they were already working on Elder Scroll VI! I figured that since ESO just came out, we'd have to wait quite a while for anything new. :drool: Very exciting news.. and hopefully by then I'll have a more capable laptop!
I must admit.. I've only ever played Skyrim. I got on the bandwagon late.. I know, but I absolutely love the game! The gameplay, the graphics, everything is just amazing. I've been really wanting to go back and play the older installments but am afraid that my experience may be tainted by the drool-worthy prettyness of Skyrim (although I've heard Oblivion is pretty great if you can get past the shitty leveling system.)

 

[Red7227]

Whaaat? I had no idea that they were already working on Elder Scroll VI! I figured that since ESO just came out, we'd have to wait quite a while for anything new. :drool: Very exciting news.. and hopefully by then I'll have a more capable laptop!
I must admit.. I've only ever played Skyrim. I got on the bandwagon late.. I know, but I absolutely love the game! The gameplay, the graphics, everything is just amazing. I've been really wanting to go back and play the older installments but am afraid that my experience may be tainted by the drool-worthy prettyness of Skyrim (although I've heard Oblivion is pretty great if you can get past the shitty leveling system.)

Nope, no ES VI, its just unsubstantiated rumors at the moment.

Oblivion can be really pretty, and just ignore the leveling system unless you plan on playing on the harder difficulties. You need to do something a lot to level in it, which is perfectly reasonable, its only a problem in comparison to the completely broken Morrowind leveling system.