Author Topic: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge  (Read 306192 times)

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #60 on: February 18, 2014, 10:09:31 AM »
...
I would absolutely prefer a regular Elder Scrolls game. A co-op gameplay mode would be great as collaborating on delving into a dungeon or taking down a big boss with a friend could be fun, but is ultimately unnecessary to my enjoyment of the game. And I don't need to do that running around with a bunch of people who are likely to take me out of the atmosphere of the game.
...
Sort of this.  If I were consulted -- and the sad fact of the universe is that I rarely am -- I'd have much preferred a Skyrim 2.0 with tighter gameplay and a few other tweaks and a robust co-op.  My wife has gotten really into Skyrim, which is almost enough to make me want to pick it up again.  Except, there's no way we could play it together anyway.

Also, what's with Elder Scrolls (side note, Skyrim is my only experience with the series) never continuing/completing plotlines?  [POSSIBLY SPOILERS for an old game:]  If memory serves, the political state at the end of Skyrim is still pretty up for grabs.  Why not make a game where you actually resolve that and/or change the world a bit? 


P.S.:  the in-game social aspect of Skyrim is actually my wife's biggest issue with it.  It's odd what the game does and doesn't keep track of.  You can be THE Archmage, but then go to a town a few miles away, and everyone treats you like some rube off the street. 

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #61 on: February 18, 2014, 10:36:27 AM »
Also, what's with Elder Scrolls (side note, Skyrim is my only experience with the series) never continuing/completing plotlines?  [POSSIBLY SPOILERS for an old game:]  If memory serves, the political state at the end of Skyrim is still pretty up for grabs.  Why not make a game where you actually resolve that and/or change the world a bit? 
Eerr, you "change the world a bit". You either help the righteous Stormcloak rebellion succeed, or help the dirty Imperials that wanted to execute you crush it. Earls fall and rise by your hand.

You can also ressurect the Blades Order, or chop off the millennia-old head of the graybeards, rebuild the thieve's guild, destroy and rebuild the assassin's guild, and a bunch of other important world aspects, like liberating/enslaving small towns, and so on.

Sure, perhaps you would like to crown yourself emperor, but then what? You sit on your throne everyday receiving dignataries, checking taxes income and passing laws? Wouldn't be much of an action RPG then. :lmao

Also, there'll be a lot more dragon skeletons scattered across the landscape when all is said and done. :p

P.S.:  the in-game social aspect of Skyrim is actually my wife's biggest issue with it.  It's odd what the game does and doesn't keep track of.  You can be THE Archmage, but then go to a town a few miles away, and everyone treats you like some rube off the street.
It was kinda random for me. Some times they treated me as if I was  indeed some rube of the street. But other times they praised one of my character's many deeds.

I specially enjoyed when some random dude tried to mug me in the street, and then I could reply "Dude, like, I'm the head of the thieve's guild, show me some respect!", and the bandit was all "Oh, sorry, didn't recognize you", which kinda makes sense when you consider I was under full daedric plate. :P

Point is, coding limitation. Random civilians can't comment in all your deeds, so they probably pick something at random.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #62 on: February 18, 2014, 10:43:05 AM »
The guards comment on your deeds. Listen to them a bit--they'll say stuff related to your skills and race (or vampirism, werewolf status, etc) , too. The big issue is that they will just as likely spout the line unlocked by joining the Companions as completing it.

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #63 on: February 18, 2014, 11:11:53 AM »
The guards comment on your deeds. Listen to them a bit--they'll say stuff related to your skills and race (or vampirism, werewolf status, etc) , too. The big issue is that they will just as likely spout the line unlocked by joining the Companions as completing it.
There's a mod for that.  That same mod also reduces the number of adventure-related knee injuries in Skyrim.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #64 on: February 18, 2014, 11:13:35 AM »
You also have to consider that there isn't internet or newspapers in Skyrim, and that your character acomplishes extreme things in a matter of days.

Guard 1: Hey, you heard of Billy the new archmage?
Guard 2: Wait, wasn't Billy the newest recruit of the Mage's guild that joined last Tuesday?
Guard 1: Oh, you're right, I must've misheard the name of the new archmage. No way Billy the aprentice would've become archmage in less than a week, right?
Guard 2:Yeah, look, he's coming towards us right now, let's make fun of him!

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #65 on: February 18, 2014, 11:18:45 AM »
Point is, coding limitation. Random civilians can't comment in all your deeds, so they probably pick something at random.
It would only be a "limitation" if the devs painted themselves into a corner.  Most NPCs already keep track of one of your series of deeds that they care about, adding a couple more that they would care about to a lesser extent (like, oh, single-handedly dictating the entire political landscape of Skyrim, or saving the world from being devoured by a dragon, for a couple examples) doesn't have to be that big of a deal.

Oh, and then there's the really bizarre stuff like various women being totally ready to marry you just because you did some minor, decent thing for them.

Offline brujon

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #66 on: February 18, 2014, 11:47:26 AM »
One game that did the tracking-of-you-doing-stuff really well is Fable. In Fable the things you did really did have a major impact on what the NPC's had to say about you n' stuff.

For once, i don't know or have a mod that fixes that :P
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #67 on: February 18, 2014, 11:54:01 AM »
Thou shall not complain about having been hit by an arrow in the knee!

Point is, coding limitation. Random civilians can't comment in all your deeds, so they probably pick something at random.
It would only be a "limitation" if the devs painted themselves into a corner.  Most NPCs already keep track of one of your series of deeds that they care about, adding a couple more that they would care about to a lesser extent (like, oh, single-handedly dictating the entire political landscape of Skyrim, or saving the world from being devoured by a dragon, for a couple examples) doesn't have to be that big of a deal.

Oh, and then there's the really bizarre stuff like various women being totally ready to marry you just because you did some minor, decent thing for them.
You just answered your own question.You are the dragonborn/archmage/guildmaster/savior of the world, your suit alone is probably worth more than that person's whole life earnings. You know important people and live a life of adventure and emotion. You have fame, riches and power. If you also prove you're a nice guy up close, I would say it's only natural for most single women to readily accept your marriage proposal.  :P

It's not like you have much of competition. Not a lot of proper suitors in the world in the gray-brown world of Skyrim where life is cheap and bandits and numerous monsters lurk around every corner.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #68 on: February 18, 2014, 12:10:58 PM »
I think the larger limitation is that nobody wants to record all those audio clips for every race/gender combo in the game.  Just... a kind of stupid waste of resources to add a little atmosphere, when you already have the omnipresent guards acknowledging you.

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #69 on: February 18, 2014, 12:16:25 PM »
I think the larger limitation is that nobody wants to record all those audio clips for every race/gender combo in the game.  Just... a kind of stupid waste of resources to add a little atmosphere, when you already have the omnipresent guards acknowledging you.
The guards aren't omnipresent.  After becoming Thane of Whiterun and killing several bands of bandits in that area, I went to Markath and was forced to endure guards taunting me about my sweet roll being stolen.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #70 on: February 18, 2014, 12:21:14 PM »
I think the larger limitation is that nobody wants to record all those audio clips for every race/gender combo in the game.  Just... a kind of stupid waste of resources to add a little atmosphere, when you already have the omnipresent guards acknowledging you.
The guards aren't omnipresent.  After becoming Thane of Whiterun and killing several bands of bandits in that area, I went to Markath and was forced to endure guards taunting me about my sweet roll being stolen.

That's more of a problem with the random selection than the presence of guards. : |

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #71 on: February 18, 2014, 12:33:03 PM »
I think the larger limitation is that nobody wants to record all those audio clips for every race/gender combo in the game.  Just... a kind of stupid waste of resources to add a little atmosphere, when you already have the omnipresent guards acknowledging you.
The guards aren't omnipresent.  After becoming Thane of Whiterun and killing several bands of bandits in that area, I went to Markath and was forced to endure guards taunting me about my sweet roll being stolen.

The developers didn't add tags that would restrict what the guards would say to you. They set up flags that would cause new dialogues to show up (becoming a member of the Companions triggers them noting your new membership), but later flags don't disable earlier ones (becoming the Harbinger doesn't untrigger the original flag).

It may be annoying, but look at how much dialogue they recorded for those random lines. They don't have the manpower it would take to edit those flags, and they don't want to invest in that department for future instalments. Editing those flags would take considerable time.
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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #72 on: February 18, 2014, 12:42:21 PM »
One game that did the tracking-of-you-doing-stuff really well is Fable. In Fable the things you did really did have a major impact on what the NPC's had to say about you n' stuff.

For once, i don't know or have a mod that fixes that :P

lol, I remember in Fable once I got my attractiveness and reputation up pretty high all it took was simply talking to a single woman (or man) to get a heart over her head and start asking about a wedding ring.

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #73 on: February 18, 2014, 12:48:15 PM »
I think the larger limitation is that nobody wants to record all those audio clips for every race/gender combo in the game.  Just... a kind of stupid waste of resources to add a little atmosphere, when you already have the omnipresent guards acknowledging you.
The guards aren't omnipresent.  After becoming Thane of Whiterun and killing several bands of bandits in that area, I went to Markath and was forced to endure guards taunting me about my sweet roll being stolen.

The developers didn't add tags that would restrict what the guards would say to you. They set up flags that would cause new dialogues to show up (becoming a member of the Companions triggers them noting your new membership), but later flags don't disable earlier ones (becoming the Harbinger doesn't untrigger the original flag).

It may be annoying, but look at how much dialogue they recorded for those random lines. They don't have the manpower it would take to edit those flags, and they don't want to invest in that department for future instalments. Editing those flags would take considerable time.
Compared to developing the game as a whole?  There's actually a mod that changes the guard dialogue so that you don't hear the stupid sweet roll comments in a particular hold once you're Thane, and for a game series that's supposed to be about immersive gameplay it's pretty damn lazy.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #74 on: February 18, 2014, 12:55:00 PM »
I think the larger limitation is that nobody wants to record all those audio clips for every race/gender combo in the game.  Just... a kind of stupid waste of resources to add a little atmosphere, when you already have the omnipresent guards acknowledging you.
The guards aren't omnipresent.  After becoming Thane of Whiterun and killing several bands of bandits in that area, I went to Markath and was forced to endure guards taunting me about my sweet roll being stolen.

The developers didn't add tags that would restrict what the guards would say to you. They set up flags that would cause new dialogues to show up (becoming a member of the Companions triggers them noting your new membership), but later flags don't disable earlier ones (becoming the Harbinger doesn't untrigger the original flag).

It may be annoying, but look at how much dialogue they recorded for those random lines. They don't have the manpower it would take to edit those flags, and they don't want to invest in that department for future instalments. Editing those flags would take considerable time.
Compared to developing the game as a whole?  There's actually a mod that changes the guard dialogue so that you don't hear the stupid sweet roll comments in a particular hold once you're Thane, and for a game series that's supposed to be about immersive gameplay it's pretty damn lazy.

Given the number of bugs they had to deal with? And the bugs fixing bugs spawned?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #75 on: February 18, 2014, 01:14:33 PM »
Indeed, you can always polish a program more. But eventually you have to release it to the public. There will be flaws, that may be corrected by others later on that have the extra free time for it, but the original developers of Skyrim had a deadline to meet. Some things will always slip trough the cracks.

Offline Sinfire Titan

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #76 on: February 18, 2014, 01:19:40 PM »
Indeed, you can always polish a program more. But eventually you have to release it to the public. There will be flaws, that may be corrected by others later on that have the extra free time for it, but the original developers of Skyrim had a deadline to meet. Some things will always slip trough the cracks.

And a minor annoyance like random guards not showing proper respect to the Archmage/Harbinger/Whatever is not very high on Bethesda's list of things to worry about.
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Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #77 on: February 18, 2014, 01:56:47 PM »
@Oscelamo

My feeling was that the political conflict was not resolved in any real fashion.  But, maybe I just missed something.  It's been a long time, so maybe I'm just forgetting stuff.  I remember the peace conference, but that didn't seem to feel like any lasting end to the conflict.

The rest of your examples kind of prove my point.  You resurrect some order you've never heard of, and never will hear from again, you affect the leader of some other order, whose existence you find out about like 10 minutes before you do that.  You rebuild this guild or that guild, which, apart from the quests to achieve that end, does what exactly? 

What there really should be is a Skyrim 2 that either picks up your character exploits from Skyrim 1 Mass Effect-style or lets you select a backstory.  Or, at the very least, there needs to be some mention of the Blades Order, et al. in the next Elder Scrolls entry, which I substantially doubt.  Being the Archmage doesn't really affect the player's experience.  You get a cool house, that's about it.  The path to get there is totally cool, but in a game that seemed to tout its gameworld and NPC aspects, it's odd that you don't get to do much with them once you acquire some role.

I'm not sure how I'd go about implementing all of that, maybe just late game questlines or something.  Or, a sequel, as noted above.  Or, a less atomized management of the IP, which I think is a real issue with Elder Scrolls, at least from what I've gathered.  But, the game seemed like it wanted to set itself apart in this regard, but it went through fairly standard (which isn't to say unenjoyable) quest lines to get you to various social positions, and then it was just off to the next set of fairly standard RPG questlines.  And, it probably doesn't help that it was all bookended by bog standard main questlines.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #78 on: February 18, 2014, 02:04:30 PM »
@Oscelamo

My feeling was that the political conflict was not resolved in any real fashion.  But, maybe I just missed something.  It's been a long time, so maybe I'm just forgetting stuff.  I remember the peace conference, but that didn't seem to feel like any lasting end to the conflict.

That only happens if you put off dealing with the civil war in favour of doing the main quest. If you pick a side, you can resolve it by helping your side along until they win.

Quote
What there really should be is a Skyrim 2 that either picks up your character exploits from Skyrim 1 Mass Effect-style or lets you select a backstory.  Or, at the very least, there needs to be some mention of the Blades Order, et al. in the next Elder Scrolls entry, which I substantially doubt.  Being the Archmage doesn't really affect the player's experience.  You get a cool house, that's about it.  The path to get there is totally cool, but in a game that seemed to tout its gameworld and NPC aspects, it's odd that you don't get to do much with them once you acquire some role.

The Blades were in at least two of the previous Elder Scrolls games, you know. :/

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: Videogame Discussion II: Snake's Revenge
« Reply #79 on: February 18, 2014, 02:09:40 PM »
Indeed, you can always polish a program more. But eventually you have to release it to the public. There will be flaws, that may be corrected by others later on that have the extra free time for it, but the original developers of Skyrim had a deadline to meet. Some things will always slip trough the cracks.

It's kind of hard to sustain that argument when Skyrim uses the same engine Fallout does, and the game-breaking bugs stem from the way their engine handles things - which means some of those bugs go all the way back to Fallout 3.

Given they did not have to code the game FROM SCRATCH again, you'd think they'd dedicate SOME time to, y'know, fixing what they know would STILL be broken in the next game.

Granted, with the kind of community Bethesda games get, and their main attention being on PC consumers, I can see how that's not high on their priority list either...
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