I played Skyrim a few months ago and felt like my soul was getting sucked out. I just kept asking myself “what am I doing? Why am I playing this?”, and stopped after a few hours.
I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I encountered a group of bandits that tried to attack me. I went into the cave they seemed to be operating out of and was greeted by a named NPC called “ulfric the blind” or something. He said something like “[name] is that you?”, and I thought “oh I wonder if I’ll be able to fool this guy into thinking I’m someone he knows. I wonder what could have driven this old man to banditry, or if he and his family have been in the game so long he’s now elderly. Or maybe instead of information about his life he’ll inadvertently reveal some secret that can help me. Regardless I’ll probably have to carefully choose what I say if I want to get the most out of this”.
Then the only dialogue choices were “yeah I’m him [end conversation]” and “he’s dead, you’re next [end conversation]”.
… So you were super disappointed that the very old game which was incredibly complex for its time (and still is in many ways) didn’t get more complicated since, what was it, 2012?
I sometimes play Quake 1, released 1996, from the lens of 1996. I mean I can see the graphics are bad by today’s standards. And it was simple in most ways by today’s standards. But the game was still a huge game changer in every way and looks great if you remember the games that came before it.
Is this supposed to mean that I secretly liked it or else I wouldn’t have played it as long as I did? Would you rather I stopped after 10 minutes so you can say I didn’t give it a fair chance?
If the idea is that Skyrim isn’t good because it’s not your idea of a specific kind of rpg game, I got nothing for ya. It was a great game for so many of us.
What’s good about it then? I don’t mean that as an insult to you or your taste, I am genuinely asking because I’m the sort of person that likes to think about games. I’ve spent hours listening to GDC talks on game design, hours looking at map viewers for some of my favorite games. When I play a new game I take screenshots and make notes about my thoughts while playing it.
From what I saw playing Skyrim there’s basically nothing there in terms of NPC dialogue, very little in terms of environmental storytelling, world design, and worldbuilding, and usually not very much atmosphere or sound design. And that’s on top of the completely vacuous gameplay. If the game did even a single one of these things well I would have considered it to be good, but for me there’s just nothing there.
I am aware that the Elder Scrolls series in general has interesting lore and metaphysics based on Hindu mythology. But it’s my understanding that the person who came up with most of that no longer works at Bethesda. And while I was playing Skyrim even googling some of the things I encountered (such as “why do the draugr attack you”) failed to elicit feelings of intrigue.
I did like the amount of verticality you experience ascending the main mountain though. That was cool map design IMO.
EDIT:
Skyrim isn’t good because it’s not your idea of a specific kind of rpg game
Most of the games that I listed are pretty vastly different from each other, but they all do at least one thing that’s interesting. Skyrim not being “a specific kind” of RPG has nothing to do with it.
So, I could go back and look at screenshots to jog my memory and write up my thoughts/experience, link you to reviews/articles/videos/etc, but I’m a little confused how you can be the type of person who is this into games (about 3 times more into them even when I was most into them in the early aughts), but somehow miss that there was anything good about one of the most popular games ever made. You would’ve needed to stubbornly avoid or dismiss hundreds of data points to have missed all of the good points of this game. It was a cultural phenomenon. I know people who still play it…on Switch for Christ’s sake.
Because I know you could not have missed everything good about the game, but seem to claim to have, I’m gonna have to bow out. You might wanna work on your approach if you want people to feel comfortable sharing their opinion. Besides the overall “what exactly is good about the Beatles?” vibes here, the first sentence and a skim of this comment comes off pretty shitty tbh.
I played Skyrim a few months ago and felt like my soul was getting sucked out. I just kept asking myself “what am I doing? Why am I playing this?”, and stopped after a few hours.
I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I encountered a group of bandits that tried to attack me. I went into the cave they seemed to be operating out of and was greeted by a named NPC called “ulfric the blind” or something. He said something like “[name] is that you?”, and I thought “oh I wonder if I’ll be able to fool this guy into thinking I’m someone he knows. I wonder what could have driven this old man to banditry, or if he and his family have been in the game so long he’s now elderly. Or maybe instead of information about his life he’ll inadvertently reveal some secret that can help me. Regardless I’ll probably have to carefully choose what I say if I want to get the most out of this”.
Then the only dialogue choices were “yeah I’m him [end conversation]” and “he’s dead, you’re next [end conversation]”.
… So you were super disappointed that the very old game which was incredibly complex for its time (and still is in many ways) didn’t get more complicated since, what was it, 2012?
I sometimes play Quake 1, released 1996, from the lens of 1996. I mean I can see the graphics are bad by today’s standards. And it was simple in most ways by today’s standards. But the game was still a huge game changer in every way and looks great if you remember the games that came before it.
Skyrim released in 2011.
New Vegas released in 2010.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines released in 2004
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura released in 2000
Plainscape: Torment released in 1999
Fallout 1 and 2 released in 97 and 98 respectively.
The concept of a good RPG wasn’t invented in the last few years.
The concept of good gameplay and encounter design wasn’t invented in the last few years either.
Also, I laughed at this:
You make it sound like torture but you kept going for hours lol
Is this supposed to mean that I secretly liked it or else I wouldn’t have played it as long as I did? Would you rather I stopped after 10 minutes so you can say I didn’t give it a fair chance?
I mean you’re clearly exaggerating the fuck out of how unenjoyable you found it
If the idea is that Skyrim isn’t good because it’s not your idea of a specific kind of rpg game, I got nothing for ya. It was a great game for so many of us.
What’s good about it then? I don’t mean that as an insult to you or your taste, I am genuinely asking because I’m the sort of person that likes to think about games. I’ve spent hours listening to GDC talks on game design, hours looking at map viewers for some of my favorite games. When I play a new game I take screenshots and make notes about my thoughts while playing it.
From what I saw playing Skyrim there’s basically nothing there in terms of NPC dialogue, very little in terms of environmental storytelling, world design, and worldbuilding, and usually not very much atmosphere or sound design. And that’s on top of the completely vacuous gameplay. If the game did even a single one of these things well I would have considered it to be good, but for me there’s just nothing there.
I am aware that the Elder Scrolls series in general has interesting lore and metaphysics based on Hindu mythology. But it’s my understanding that the person who came up with most of that no longer works at Bethesda. And while I was playing Skyrim even googling some of the things I encountered (such as “why do the draugr attack you”) failed to elicit feelings of intrigue.
I did like the amount of verticality you experience ascending the main mountain though. That was cool map design IMO.
EDIT:
Most of the games that I listed are pretty vastly different from each other, but they all do at least one thing that’s interesting. Skyrim not being “a specific kind” of RPG has nothing to do with it.
So, I could go back and look at screenshots to jog my memory and write up my thoughts/experience, link you to reviews/articles/videos/etc, but I’m a little confused how you can be the type of person who is this into games (about 3 times more into them even when I was most into them in the early aughts), but somehow miss that there was anything good about one of the most popular games ever made. You would’ve needed to stubbornly avoid or dismiss hundreds of data points to have missed all of the good points of this game. It was a cultural phenomenon. I know people who still play it…on Switch for Christ’s sake.
Because I know you could not have missed everything good about the game, but seem to claim to have, I’m gonna have to bow out. You might wanna work on your approach if you want people to feel comfortable sharing their opinion. Besides the overall “what exactly is good about the Beatles?” vibes here, the first sentence and a skim of this comment comes off pretty shitty tbh.
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