Skyrim - Sneak Peak @ E3

Well, as much as I criticise Oblivion, one can't really blame them to not have delivered a playable game. But its true, that on the PC at least, that tinkertoy called TES Construction Cet is for quite a few people the greatest part of the package, and both players and Bethsoft profit enormously from that. I wish I still had time to mod myself. Had so much fun in the MW days.

I still remember your Scripting for Dummies! I too had more time in those days and I can honestly say I spent many more hours in the construction set than in the actual game. For me the construction set really became the game and it all started because a friend and I were on IM and going 'My god the people in this game are fugly!' :lol:

Oblivion I modded for very little. It was a combination of having less time and the game itself just didn't speak to me. Truthfully I think it was mostly the latter. I definitely noticed a lot of the 'regulars' from the Morrowind modding community didn't come back or modded much more sparingly for Oblivion, but on the other hand it also attracted new modders.

Hopefully Skyrim has similarly robust modding tools even though it's using a new engine. I'm a little concerned in that area since they've point blank said consoles are 90% of their sales and I question how much effort they will put in making tools that 1%* of the users will use. (*I'd say only about 10% or less of the 10% of people playing on the PC will actually create mods)
 
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I was very impressed with Oblivion from watching the videos and seeing high scores. Purchased Collectors edition Day 1. This game looks even more impressive and I will most likely be purchasing it the same way...however I hope they take out the level scaling. That was the one major flaw for me in Oblivion. I spent quite a few hours playing Oblivion and the dungeons soon all started to look the same...count that as the second flaw. Overall I was pleased with my purchase. This is my last hope for a good first person RPG...don't see any others on the horizon.
 
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Yeah, but with a mod that turns those off, there is no hand holding then.

But then you´re often screwed because the game usually doesn´t offer enough information on directions in some other manner.


Whenever I finally get around to giving Oblivion another chance, I'm definitely going to mod out the compass and quest markers. I did that with Fallout 3 and it worked out great.

If I have to choose between having my hand held at every step, or face the possibility of not being able to find something, I'll choose the latter without hesitation.
 
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Absolutely one of the primary reasons I love the Elder Scrolls series. There is no hand holding, highlighted objects, or glowing trails everywhere telling you exactly what to do, what you can interact with and where to go.

There's a glowing trail in Skyrim that leads you to your next objective.
 
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This is my last hope for a good first person RPG…don't see any others on the horizon.

Have you played Risen and Divinity 2? Larian Studios and Piranha Bytes both have new RPG's in development.
 
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There's a glowing trail in Skyrim that leads you to your next objective.

Only if you use the spell Clairvoyance. It's not always "on" like in Fable 3...
 
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Only if you use the spell Clairvoyance. It's not always "on" like in Fable 3…

Sure. In isolation, you could see it like that. Just like you didn't have to read the popups in Oblivion that "suggested" what you should do or use the quest compass.

But combined with other statements and design decisions that were made for Oblivion, I see a developer who doesn't think their customers is capable of using their brains, and I have no doubt the entire game will be designed from that perspective.
For instance, this quote regarding puzzles:
[Puzzles] are also a lot cooler after you've figured them out than when you are in the middle of one. We do have some, but they tend to be simpler in nature to keep them fun instead of frustrating.
Nothing that could "confuse", "frustrate" or make the "average person" (as Bethesda puts it) feel stupid goes into the game.

They could be making an ambitious game with depth and then add "helpers" on top (like Risen does for instance), but they are obviously designing this game ground-up for someone who doesn't like figuring anything out on their own.
 
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Sure. In isolation, you could see it like that. Just like you didn't have to read the popups in Oblivion that "suggested" what you should do or use the quest compass.

You have to
A) Buy the Clairvoyance spell.
B) Use it

It's the less pervasive from of hand holding I have seen and it require a direct usage of a gameplay element to use it (a magic spell). Cry over the compass please. The Clairvoyance spell is how hand holding should be done in a game, optional and integrated as opposed to UI based.

As for dev thinking players are dumb. Well the majority of them are looking at the question asked in gaming forums these days.
 
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It's the less pervasive from of hand holding I have seen and it require a direct usage of a gameplay element to use it (a magic spell). Cry over the compass please. The Clairvoyance spell is how hand holding should be done in a game, optional and integrated as opposed to UI based.

I'm not opposed to optional hand-holding at all. I certainly wouldn't have minded an optional feature in Morrowind that helped you find quest objectives. But it's obvious Bethesda wants to make the game plainly simpler rather than more complex but with optional handholding.
The quest compass is still in and I've seen no mention that it's possible to turn it off. Attributes are cut. They don't want to "frustrate" the average gamer with puzzles. They felt that it was necessary to add even more (optional) hand holding.

By itself, the Clairvoyance spell wouldn't have bothered me, but it's coming from a developer who didn't make their last game accessible to newer players by providing thoughtful aids and optional handholding. They axed a lot of the complexity, removed choices which might lead to bad consequences and basically designed the whole game around the hand-holding tools. Sorry I don't have much faith they'll do it better this time.
 
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For instance, this quote regarding puzzles:

Nothing that could "confuse", "frustrate" or make the "average person" (as Bethesda puts it) feel stupid goes into the game.

They could be making an ambitious game with depth and then add "helpers" on top (like Risen does for instance), but they are obviously designing this game ground-up for someone who doesn't like figuring anything out on their own.

Commercial talking. Developpers can not alienate their customers. They please most of them with words like that: some customers feel they matter to the developper as he tries to please them, as he cares for them and other customers feel superior through the dumbing down argument as they think of themselves as more intelligent than other customers.

Now this little remark:

Developpers are averagely intelligent and advised by business people.
More and more games, even with no internet content, require an internet connection in order to play. This tells that developpers expect their customers to have the Internet. Following, under this constraint imposed by developpers, their words lose meaning. The Internet is a important data base for video games. As players who buy the game are supposed to have the Internet so they can play the game, it is easy for them to use the internet to search for a solution to a puzzle if they are stopped.

This tells a different story: investing on elaborated puzzles costs money and proposing a game with elaborate puzzles to people with the Internet is risky. Very easy and tempting to look for the answer any time a player is blocked.
Developpers lose control over the time of resolution as they must include the very possibility that solving a puzzle will take as much time as an Internet search.
And one thing a developper is prevented from saying: that the players do not play the game as it is intended to. Especially with players who think that anything that has not been forbidden by an explicit game mechanism is a valuable option. If the developper did not want the game to be played that way, then they should have implemented differently.

Why invest on elaborating challenging puzzles when players have a free ressource to look for an answer?
 
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Commercial talking. Developpers can not alienate their customers. They please most of them with words like that: some customers feel they matter to the developper as he tries to please them, as he cares for them and other customers feel superior through the dumbing down argument as they think of themselves as more intelligent than other customers.
I've always wondered: Is there anyone who is really pleased when they read a quote from a developer proclaiming his next game will be more "streamlined, accessible and easier?"
This tells a different story: investing on elaborated puzzles costs money and proposing a game with elaborate puzzles to people with the Internet is risky. Very easy and tempting to look for the answer any time a player is blocked.

I doubt challenging puzzles cost any more to develop. A lot of old games with extremely low budgets are filled with very challenging puzzles. Also, listen to the developer commentaries in Portal 2 and you will see that most puzzles were initially a lot more challenging, but made easier after play-testing. If they employ someone clever who enjoys designing puzzles, I'm sure he can come up with all kinds of stuff. They could even tie it to difficulty levels and have different versions. But easier to just make them trivial I guess when the fans will still buy it.
Developpers lose control over the time of resolution as they must include the very possibility that solving a puzzle will take as much time as an Internet search. Why invest on elaborating challenging puzzles when players have a free ressource to look for an answer?
Players also have the option to cheat and make themselves invulnerable. Walkthroughs are nothing new, before the Internet, they were sold or printed in magazines. Puzzles should be designed for those who enjoy solving them, not for those who look up the solutions.
 
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Easy puzzles costing as much as elaborated puzzles to developp would be surprising as one expects puzzles to follow a pattern that is not random.

Older games did not have to do with the Internet. Today, the answer is readily available from the Internet for free. Secondly, printed walkthroughs were also dependent on publication time, then could come two weeks/one month after release. And lastly, they could be some one shot publications added to video games magazines. Those days can not compare with these days when a solution is just one internet search away.

One could invest quietly in developping elaborated puzzles as the solution was not as readily as to with the Internet.

Cheating with infinite lifes leaves control over the time of the resolution of the game as resolving a game through actions of combat takes time. A boss can take five minutes to resolve when you are invincible and 7 when you are not.

Puzzle games are about finding the solution and puzzles with a readily available solution must equalize the time of their resolution to the time of looking up for the solution.

As to Portal 2, it would be interesting to know the validity of their declarations because for making the game easier, they must have withdrawn elements from every level, doing and undoing with it's costy while shipping the extra elements would have added another level of difficulty.
 
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