The Elder Scrolls - Ranking Arena to Skyrim

Don't forget getting stuck in the environment (like when mountain climbing), requiring a reload or "tcl" command. That and the glitches that screw up putting things on shelves/tables in a house really annoy me. For example, when returning to the Winterrun house, a Statue of Dibella oddly appears across the room on its side after putting it on a table. I have had to give up on any sort of arranging. This is one a few things Morrowind still does much beter than Skyrim AND Oblivion.
 
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Don't forget getting stuck in the environment (like when mountain climbing), requiring a reload or "tcl" command. That and the glitches that screw up putting things on shelves/tables in a house really annoy me. For example, when returning to the Winterrun house, a Statue of Dibella oddly appears across the room on its side after putting it on a table. I have had to give up on any sort of arranging. This is one a few things Morrowind still does much beter than Skyrim AND Oblivion.

LOL that is quite strange what is going on with your statue of dibella.

As for getting stuck in the terrain, so far this has only happened to me once when inside a dungeon as I jumped behind some rocks in a corner behind a witches' tent. I wasn't exactly stuck in the terrain, so I don't think it was a glitch, but the rocks were too high to jump over and extricate myself from the spot.

In Fallout New Vegas, by contrast, I actually got physically stuck in the terrain several times and often encountered creatures, NPCs or skill magazines that were stuck in the terrain and required use of the TCL command..
 
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Yeah, those are 2 cases.

1. Can move, but can't climb out.
2. Can't move at all, but should be able to climb/move out.

It's the latter I am referring to, that I have experienced a few times. Case 1 I have experienced a bunch of times. The first is Skyrim's version of choice and consequence. Jump carefully or you may have to reload. :p
 
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That makes no sense. All glitches affect the game, more importantly the player's experience while playing the game.

No, they don't affect the game if nothing breaks - i.e., quests not being completable, glitches which unfairly result in the player's death, negatively hampering players in combat, disappearing items, etc. Items randomly being knocked off of a table when entering a room and other similar scenarios is a good example of what I mean; how does this in any way affect the player in a negative way? It doesn't affect the gameplay, dialogue, or any quests, so how is this anything which severely impacts the experience?

As far as your "mountain-climbing" example goes…well, it's not really very realistic (or "immersive") to climb up a completely vertical mountainside. There is about only one scenario where someone can get stuck in the terrain: when the player decides to do something that breaks the laws of physics as applied in the game world. It's not as if you can randomly get stuck while walking or moving through the gameworld in a logical manner. (I know this from experience - I too mountain-climb from time to time, and when I get stuck I have no one to blame but myself. It's not the game's fault when I face the consequences of traveling in an "unrealistic" way ;))

edit: Thrasher: I somehow skipped over your description of organizing your house and having it ruined. I've never been one to overly organize my houses in ES (except for display cases/weapon stands), so I forgot about that angle. I imagine that would get a bit annoying after awhile and affect the experience for those that like to organize their homes.
 
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That and the glitches that screw up putting things on shelves/tables in a house really annoy me. For example, when returning to the Winterrun house, a Statue of Dibella oddly appears across the room on its side after putting it on a table. I have had to give up on any sort of arranging. This is one a few things Morrowind still does much beter than Skyrim AND Oblivion.

You probably annoyed your house-elves! ;)
 
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Of the 3 TES games I have played I would also put Morrowind on top. And then Oblivion and Skyrim might be a tie. Though I haven't completed Skyrim yet.

I actually haven't played Skyrim in the last 2 weeks. Its been to repetetive for me and while Oblivion was similar I found the stories in Oblivion to be better and I found more of my actions to have an effect in Oblivion.
Skyrim seems to promise me that things will change when I do or achieve something but I have yet to notice it.
 
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No, they don't affect the game if nothing breaks - i.e., quests not being completable, glitches which unfairly result in the player's death, negatively hampering players in combat, disappearing items, etc. Items randomly being knocked off of a table when entering a room and other similar scenarios is a good example of what I mean; how does this in any way affect the player in a negative way? It doesn't affect the gameplay, dialogue, or any quests, so how is this anything which severely impacts the experience?

I have also had a quest broken (the one for the wife of the executed guy in solitude). I had to use console commands to complete the quest. So yes, it has glitches that break the game.
 
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Is this based on having played Skyrim? I'm quite surprised.

of course. Oblivion #1, my favorite TES game of all. Then Morrowind which was good, just not as much. Then Arena (though this was a long time ago so might be forgetting the bad parts). Then it would be Daggerfall, but I do remember the incredibly long dungeons where I spent like 10 minutes only trying to find the exit. And Skyrim. Not liking it at all.
 
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of course. Oblivion #1, my favorite TES game of all. Then Morrowind which was good, just not as much. Then Arena (though this was a long time ago so might be forgetting the bad parts). Then it would be Daggerfall, but I do remember the incredibly long dungeons where I spent like 10 minutes only trying to find the exit. And Skyrim. Not liking it at all.

Which aspects of Skyrim do you wish were more like Oblivion?
 
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I have also had a quest broken (the one for the wife of the executed guy in solitude). I had to use console commands to complete the quest. So yes, it has glitches that break the game.

I wouldn't quite call a very minor quest being broken "game-breaking" ;). But yes, those are the type of bugs that I deem serious in nature, and they should absolutely be fixed.

My whole point though is not that Skyrim is completely bug-free or not in need of a bit more patching, but that in my experience it has been impressively stable given it's size and scope. I haven't had a single CTD or any stuttering issues (which are incredibly annoying if they pop up in combat) in 90+ hours of gameplay, and it seems that only a few minor quests have the possibility of becoming broken; this is why I find statements such as: "…some of the nastiest bugs this side of Fallout New Vegas holds the game back from a technical perspective" completely over-exaggerated and blows the technical issues of the game completely out of proportion. I guess when the main issues are stable and the game runs smoothly, I have a higher tolerance than others for the minor issues - so long as the game's scope and enjoyability make up for the little flaws.
 
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and it seems that only a few minor quests have the possibility of becoming broken;

It may seem so to you, but it´s just not true ;).
Companions and Thieves Guild questlines, for example, are really buggy and can be easily rendered unfinishable without console antics (I, for example, needed console for both in my playthrough and there were other bugs I had "resolve" via, in one case extensive, reloading).
Main quest has a serious conflict with the Imperials/Stormcloaks quests.
And don´t even get me started on the "unusual gems" quest (one of these gems deviously forgot to appear in my game).
 
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I have experienced a lot of crashes to the desktop myself, but my game is saved frequently and it isn't a huge problem. Sometimes, I take it as a sign that it's time for me to quit for the night ;) I've also experienced some strange oddities like stolen horses flying away from me when I dismount. Again, not really a big deal. No broken quests for me. As I said, all these games were pretty buggy upon initial release. Other than that, the game runs completely smooth for me with no stuttering whatsoever on max settings and it is absolutely breathtaking. At times, I take a moment to just admire the work that was put into it. I can tell you that I enjoy Skyrim in a buggy state much, much more than Oblivion in a bug-free state (I would say the same thing about New Vegas compared to F3 too).
 
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Oblivion has always been much more unstable for me, even years after the release date, with patches and unofficial patches etc.

If I understand correctly there is some sort of memory leak problem with Oblivion that causes it to CTD after a certain number of hours playing.

I have played several hundred hours of Oblivion, quite a bit of that was the vanilla version of the game, which would crash on a regular basis, at least once each gaming session. During the past couple of years, however, I played a heavily modded version of Oblivion which would crash even more frequently, probably every couple of hours of playing.

In contrast, Skyrim has only crashed on me about 10-12 times over the course of 250 hours. And each time it has crashed, the program simply closed instantly and I was able to restart the game within a matter of seconds. Oblivion's crashes resulted in a lot more waiting around to reload the game.
 
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Both Oblivion and Skyrim didn't crash much on me - Skyrim 3x in 270 hours, clean CDTs which left no traces. I played Morrowind w/expansions for 1 1/2 years, but I don't remember any greater crashes, either. Same for Daggerfall, just that I played if for 7 months straight, and I remember many, many reloads due to bugs. Very few crashes here, too. Arena, on the other hand, didn't crash on me at all.

Arena ... it had me sitting on the edge of the chair crapping my pants in fear of the liches. As simple as the main storyline was - I still wish they had implemented some of the best bits of Arena in later games (the spell that let you build your own dungeon by destroying walls, for example), yet I see how it would have rendered later games unplayable.
 
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