Skyrim from Like/Hate

[Anzekay]

For me, the only reason I enjoy Bethesda games is the sheer size of the world and amount of stuff there is to do. I've always loved single player games with huge long campaigns (side quests, exploration, etc included).

But in terms of production quality and polish? Yeah Bethesda don't deal with that shit, yo, that's for studios like Valve and Blizzard to worry about.

I'm with Greg though- in as much as I have loved every Bethesda game, I don't think they deserve the GOTY that they always seem to get. Especially in some years when games that I think are far more deserving have been released as well. Having ambition is good and all, but ambition does not a GOTY make. I really just think that the amount of fun people have playing this game is what generates the hype and the big reviews about how awesome it is. Anyone trying to critically review the game though, isn't going to sound as impressed though.

[Jarka]

For me, the only reason I enjoy Bethesda games is the sheer size of the world and amount of stuff there is to do. I've always loved single player games with huge long campaigns (side quests, exploration, etc included).

But in terms of production quality and polish? Yeah Bethesda don't deal with that shit, yo, that's for studios like Valve and Blizzard to worry about.

I'm with Greg though- in as much as I have loved every Bethesda game, I don't think they deserve the GOTY that they always seem to get. Especially in some years when games that I think are far more deserving have been released as well. Having ambition is good and all, but ambition does not a GOTY make. I really just think that the amount of fun people have playing this game is what generates the hype and the big reviews about how awesome it is. Anyone trying to critically review the game though, isn't going to sound as impressed though.

// insert long rant about how GOTY is a meaningless term because it is used way too generically. Of the three most credible awards (GDC, International Game Developers Association, and BAFTA), Bethesda has won GOTY a grand total of once (for Fallout 3 from GDC). Also, Spike VGAs needs to just change into a purely promotional show and just nix the awards (well, keep like, "HYPE AWARD" and shit like that, but they really need to stop pretending they mean anything).

Otherwise, I largely agree. I love love love Bethesda's games, and they are usually fantastically fun and amongst the best titles of the year. Never, however, have I ever been like, "THIS IS THE BEST GAME OF THE YEAR HANDS DOWN NO CONTEST" like a lot of people seem to do. I seem to have the same amount of hangups with their games as with any other good release of that year. And holy shit do they need to just spend an extra 3-6 months bugtesting before their releases. They don't need to become Valve by any means, but just a little more effort in that department, plz plz.

[Anzekay]

Yeah, to clarify, I did mean GOTY by various sites, mags, etc rather than actually offical big name awards.

[Jonathan Meer]

Critics have raved about Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Metacritic has each either at the top or near the top for their generation.

[Anzekay]

Yeah, for being fun.

And let's be honest here, most game journalism (at least until recently- somewhat) is largely shitty anyway.

[Super Buu]

I think a lot of the fun of Bethesda's games actually result from their being terrible. Most of the times people talk about the fun times, it's about the hilarious bugs like people being mad and unkillable, then being able to start conversations with them where they seem to be totally unaware you were fighting. Like how you can put pots on people's heads and they don't give a fuck. Like how you can glitch and fly around being a god, that kind of thing. So it doesn't surprise me that people enjoy the games, it just boggles my mind that reviewers rate them highly while marking down other games for needing more time and polish despite them being essentially fun, just like Bethesda's games.

[John Doe]

Bastion is the game of the year. I await for more fantastic shit from Supergiant Games.

[Jonathan Meer]

Yeah, for being fun.

And let's be honest here, most game journalism (at least until recently- somewhat) is largely shitty anyway.

Fun is the whole point of the enterprise. The whole point. Graphics feed into it, storyline feeds into it, gameplay feeds into it, but it all comes down to fun. Buggy-as-fuck games can be retarded amounts of fun. Technically perfect games can be dull as shit.

[Jonathan Meer]

I think a lot of the fun of Bethesda's games actually result from their being terrible. Most of the times people talk about the fun times, it's about the hilarious bugs like people being mad and unkillable, then being able to start conversations with them where they seem to be totally unaware you were fighting. Like how you can put pots on people's heads and they don't give a fuck. Like how you can glitch and fly around being a god, that kind of thing. So it doesn't surprise me that people enjoy the games, it just boggles my mind that reviewers rate them highly while marking down other games for needing more time and polish despite them being essentially fun, just like Bethesda's games.

As before, because of ambition. Considering how many things the Elder Scrolls games let you DO, it's not surprising that they come with their set of bugs. We have a right to expect a game to be reasonably free of bugs, but we scale that expectation according to the complexity of the game. We would expect, for example, a casino-style game to be completely free of bugs, as the gameplay is extremely simple.

Bethesda frequently releases games with some of the most complex gameplay around. When they plan their games, and sketch out what they want to include, their list is longer than anyone else's.

One of the elements you mentioned as annoying is the fact that NPCs don't respond to items being placed on them (such as buckets over a person's head, or bananas stacked up on their back as they sleep). This annoyance is a direct outflow from the simple fact that Skyrim does include the ability to manipulate items in an external world that act and react relatively normally. How many other games have this? How many other games carry it to the same extent, with hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of items in the game world, from forks stacked up on a china cabinet to a daedra lord's mace.

We expect a certain amount of polish from all game producers. That amount of polish is usually enough to cover the entire game. Bethesda simply makes a bigger game than anyone else, and the amount of polish we reasonably expect isn't sufficient to cover the whole damn thing. If you want your games technically perfect, then don't play Skyrim. I, for one, am able to appreciate it as a genuine achievement in spite of its technical flaws.

[Anzekay]

I don't care how ambitious or expansive or complex a game is, I except it to be as polished and QA'd as it can be. Releasing games with as many bugs as Bethesda games have is nothing short of sloppy, and there is nothing you can say that will change that. Fact of the matter is, Bethesda just chooses to go for a quicker release rather than polishing their game. Obviously it works for them, but I for one can't help but be massively disapointed in them every single time. Hell, they've made like 5 games of this scale now, you'd think they would've refined their production methods to allow for more effective QA and bugfixing.

And aside from being able to pick up just about every object, I disagree that Bethesda games have some of the most complex gameplay around. By comparison to a great deal of other RPGs, the leveling and combat system of Fallout3/NV and Morrowind/oblivion/skyrim is child's play.

Obviously this doesn't stop me buying and enjoying the games, but it does stop me considering it to be the best game of the year, and it does frustrate me that Bethesda seems so determined to have bullshit crappy QA processes.

[Jonathan Meer]

I don't care how ambitious or expansive or complex a game is, I except it to be as polished and QA'd as it can be. Releasing games with as many bugs as Bethesda games have is nothing short of sloppy, and there is nothing you can say that will change that. Fact of the matter is, Bethesda just chooses to go for a quicker release rather than polishing their game. Obviously it works for them, but I for one can't help but be massively disapointed in them every single time. Hell, they've made like 5 games of this scale now, you'd think they would've refined their production methods to allow for more effective QA and bugfixing.

You have no evidence that Bethesda actually skimps on their testing process. As I've argued, Bethesda games are far more complex than most other video games (and may indeed be the most complex video games, in terms of programming, structure and content that there are).

The testing phase must necessarily be limited by cost. Considering the scope of a typical Bethesda game, even the most involved and intensive testing process would let a number of bugs through, including some that are fairly obvious.

If this makes you QQ, then just wait a year or two. The community, which has unlimited resources and is not constrained by budget, will release an unofficial patch that will cover all of the major bugs, and thousands of minor ones that you probably would never have noticed. If instead you're like me and don't run screaming the moment some graphical oddity appears in the game world, you can enjoy it for what it is: an achievement and a damn fun game.

And aside from being able to pick up just about every object, I disagree that Bethesda games have some of the most complex gameplay around. By comparison to a great deal of other RPGs, the leveling and combat system of Fallout3/NV and Morrowind/oblivion/skyrim is child's play.

The leveling and combat system is only one facet of Skyrim's complexity. I'm referring to the actions and reactions of the NPCs, the graphical design, the audio design (with environmental noise, with ambient music in caves and dungeons, with dynamically generated musical themes to accentuate certain experiences such as stepping up to a cliffside), the sheer hand-crafted detail of every house in every city across 16 square miles, to name a few. Name one other game that comes close to this scope.

You can't. There aren't any.

[Anzekay]

Then be more specific; gameplay relates to the systems that are used to actually play the game. Not the environment or the musical acompanyment; those are elements that enhance the overall experience of play, rather than actually being the gameplay itself. Gameplay governs what it is you are doing, how those things function, and what their effect on the game's world they have.

In which case, the gameplay in Skyrim is still pretty simple compared to a lot of other games out there. Obviously, this is not a bad thing-the game is still tons of fun!

But, if you were referring to everything that you say you were, then don't blame me for interpreting what you said by the term you used.

[Super Buu]

I'm referring to the actions and reactions of the NPCs

the 10 years since morrowind sure has allowed for some amazing advancements in character behaviour

Conversation flowcharts are not hard to program. Or "you attack me, I attack you" behaviour. And it's all well and good to have a bunch of objects in the game, but it's not like they do anything. I can't use a fork as an impromptu lockpick, or a chair as a makeshift shield. That'd be ambitious - physics engines and movable objects ain't. Call them forks and chairs, they're still just 3d models that you can move around.

I won't ever argue that the games have a lot of 'depth' in that there's an incredible amount of shit to do, but quantity =/= complexity. I do get what you're saying - there's a whole ton of shit in the games and it would take longer to do properly. I guess I'd rather they did less stuff and made it higher quality than aiming for a million quests and items that have little variation.

[Jonathan Meer]

Then be more specific; gameplay relates to the systems that are used to actually play the game. Not the environment or the musical acompanyment; those are elements that enhance the overall experience of play, rather than actually being the gameplay itself. Gameplay governs what it is you are doing, how those things function, and what their effect on the game's world they have.

By 'gameplay' I meant 'user experience.' As in, what happens when you play the game. As a catch-all term.

But, if you were referring to everything that you say you were, then don't blame me for interpreting what you said by the term you used.

I'm not blaming you. I'm clarifying my use of the word.

[Anzekay]

Well, you're probably right in saying that Skyrim is one of the most complicated games in regard to the sheer number of variabes involved in the 'user experience'. But I can't really say that it is paticularly complex when it comes to actual straight game design. It's a very straightforward game, and while there is a lot of little nuances that add to the experience that you don't tend to notice without looking at it critically (regardless of whether this nuances are applied in an effective manner or not), I certainly think there are games out there with far more complex systems behind the player experience.

Skyrim's power lies in that it is a sandbox game. It gives you a big, expansive and populated world and a vague goal, then lets you have at it. There are games out there, though, that have a much more directed, and complex, approach to implimenting the player experience. To name a few, games such as Deus Ex (the original), Baldur's Gate 2, Half-Life (all incarnations). To a lesser degree, Portal and Portal 2, but both of them are so short that it's hard to really call them overly complex.

EDIT: Anyway I think that's enough on this topic from me, tis taking over the thread!

[Jonathan Meer]

the 10 years since morrowind sure has allowed for some amazing advancements in character behaviour

This sort of attitude annoys me. 'Because this aspect of the game isn't 100% like real life, it's bullshit. You can't present this aspect of the game as groundbreaking because it's still gamey.'

But what we already have is pretty damn significant. Some NPCs will fight you if they see you commit a crime. Some NPCs will run in terror, depending on the crime. There's special dialogue for either case. Injustices you inflict on one character may be referenced by that character's friend ('You've got some nerve coming in here. What you did to [X] was despicable').

Each of the characters in those videos (with the possible exception of Sapphire; not exactly sure what happened there) are storyline-required. If these people die, the storyline ends. By the same token, having them hate you and attack on you sight would have the same effect; you have to talk to these people and have them cooperate with you.

It's an icky scenario, sure. Morrowind solved this by letting you know that the dude you just killed was storyline-centric, and by killing him, the story cannot continue. Oblivion and Skyrim have instead made a very small number of NPCs invulnerable. Neither solution is perfect.

More importantly, in my murderous romps through Skyrim, I haven't found any weirdnesses like that.

Conversation flowcharts are not hard to program. Or "you attack me, I attack you" behaviour. And it's all well and good to have a bunch of objects in the game, but it's not like they do anything. I can't use a fork as an impromptu lockpick, or a chair as a makeshift shield. That'd be ambitious - physics engines and movable objects ain't. Call them forks and chairs, they're still just 3d models that you can move around.

Complex conversation flowcharts, many of which integrate multiple variables (has the player finished X quest yet? Has the player met Y yet? Has the player encountered any dragons yet?), are not trivial.

I can't even imagine how difficult it would be (or performance-intensive) to create a game that allowed such things as using a force as an impromptu lockpick, as an emanative fact about the game, rather than a prescriptive fact about the game. By that I mean this: it's trivial to program a certain class of items to invoke a certain function on a certain mechanism; eg, lockpicks programmed to bring up the lockpicking mini-game on doors. But to program a fork as having specific properties (that it is somewhat pliable, that it conducts electricity, that it weighs 0.05 kilograms), and then to program mechanisms in such a way that they can be manipulated by virtue of those properties, rather than a 'this item does this' way of coding, would be monumental. As in, huge. As in, seriously. You could do that for a very small set of items, but to create a massive world where this sort of item manipulation was robust...no. Too big. I don't see this happening any time soon, without a boon in the third-party licensing world, and huge steps forward in computer processing.

Rose_the_sequel: Well sure, you can manipulate locks by virtue of emanative facts about the fork, but when I burn wood underneath a cauldron, the water doesn't boil. this game is mediocre

I won't ever argue that the games have a lot of 'depth' in that there's an incredible amount of shit to do, but quantity =/= complexity. I do get what you're saying - there's a whole ton of shit in the games and it would take longer to do properly. I guess I'd rather they did less stuff and made it higher quality than aiming for a million quests and items that have little variation.

The quests have a ton of variation. There's a subset of quests that are pretty lame ("Hey, go get me 10 bear pelts." As if I'm ever going to have 10 bear pelts at one time just to bring you so you can give me 200 gold or w/e), but most of the quests are pretty damn big and unique. The story satisfies.

I can understand that approach to gaming; the desire for a smaller, polished masterpiece over the sprawling, rumbly epic. Everyone wants polish. But the other side of the coin is the territory that Bethesda is exploring: the open-world, extremely detailed epic. It's buggy, but it's also one-of-a-kind, and is both fun and astonishing.

[Super Buu]

Good strawman, but I never said Bethesda's games were mediocre or that their complexity was 'trivial' because they're not super-groundbreaking. Just saying that having conversations and movable objects isn't groundbreaking, not in this day and age, and so I can't accept their 'ambition' as an excuse for skimping on the quality control. If this was their first game of this type, fair enough, but it's not. These problems were around in Morrowind, Oblivion, and the Fallouts. The 'core' of the game, the world and the NPCs, haven't really advanced since Morrowind - which was a groundbreaking game for good reason. It's such a shame because there is huge potential.

And yeah, I understand WHY. It's about money, trying to get the next game out, and their games will already sell (and because of how games journalism works, it is guaranteed a high score) so there's little incentive to mess with a formula that a huge number of gamers still enjoy. Just saying: it's a shame.

I 'ppreciate what you're saying, and this has been an interesting exploration of game design, but I think debating it beyond this point would get repetitive.