Skyrim

[Unkindled]

1. You don't have to believe me, go look for yourself and find one actual stormcloak that talks like Rolff. When I say "real" stormcloak, I mean literally, there is no stormcloak soldier saying anything about forced mass racial exodus. At all.

2. Your point about Brunwulf is supporting my argument because it proves there's a reason for the segregation besides racism. It puts the blame on the citizens, dunmer nord and argonian alike. Not ulfric, and not the stormcloaks. Even if you actually buy Brunwulfs biased bull and think its only the nords, that still puts the blame on the culture and the citizens. Even the imperials can't do anything about that. Why would they when they couldn't and don't even try to dissuade racism in cyrodiil? Example, count and countess of leyawiin. Another, cheydinhall's religiously intolerant imperials.

 

[Veleda.980]

Isn't the whole point of the Stormcloaks to rid Skyrim of races except for Nords? That seems pretty racist to me.
Not to mention Brunwulf says the reason why he can't let the Argonians into the city is because the Nord population would hurt them.

So if Brunwulf has a good reason to keep them separate, you don't think Ulfric had one, too?

There is a xenophobic streak to the Nords in general, which is why caravans are kept out in all cities, and all Nords (not just Stormcloaks as some people assume) will use the battle cry "Skyrim is for the Nords!" However the empire is literally built on the idea that Cyrodiils are divinely appointed to rule the continent and no one else is fit to rule themselves. So, you know. There's some irony in opposing the Stormcloaks on that basis. Nords are meritocratic. If you prove yourself, they'll accept you no matter who you are.

The idea that the Stormcloaks are going to unleash pogroms is one of those things that feels true to some people, until they actually try to produce evidence and can only come up with suppositions and rumor- which is the classic definition of prejudice. There's some irony there, too.

 

[Sana_mia]

And Helgen Reborn was great. I loved rebuilding that town and meeting all these unique characters.
That's why I was recommending Falskaar: it's sort of like Helgen Reborn content-wise, but on a much bigger scale.

If you have all the DLC and stuff try this one: Legacy of the Dragonborn It's basically a museum, except that you get to hoard stuff, once you hit about a hundred items it starts a quest-chain.
The voice acting on the museum curator is so good, that at first I thought the author just recycled lines from the game itself.
And it nicely combines dozens of item mods.

 

[EmperorZorn]

If you have all the DLC and stuff try this one: Legacy of the Dragonborn It's basically a museum, except that you get to hoard stuff, once you hit about a hundred items it starts a quest-chain.
The voice acting on the museum curator is so good, that at first I thought the author just recycled lines from the game itself.
And it nicely combines dozens of item mods.

Thank you so much for sharing this ~*

I'm down with a cold, so I actually have some time to cause some mischief in the world of Skyrim once again.
Will definately give Legacy of the Dragonborn a shot ! Thanks again.

 

[octavian123]

You guys should definitely keep an eye on this

http://tesrenewal.com/skywind-faq

and

http://www.moddb.com/mods/enderal

Both are Total Conversions made by huge teams of extremely talented TES veterans.

 

[Unkindled]

Some screens

 

[Unkindled]

And gifs

 

[Aaden]

In that first screen... err... did he just shield bash that guy's head off? :huh:

 

[Unkindled]

@aaden
Na, he cut it off with the axe. Here's all three:

 

[freakie1one]

Yea that's true, though I don't think it'll take away from the enjoyment. Witcher's great in story, but not as good as dragon age's character interaction. And both of those games are nothing in the category of exploration, roleplay and freedom like Skyrim. So they all have things that let me enjoy them on their own merit.

My major complaint with Skyrim is that there is only an illusion of lots of content and things to do when in reality most everything you do in that game is meaningless and/or shallow. Story: shallow. Objectives: meaningless and shallow. Exploration: shallow. Monster design: shallow. Weapon/Armor design: shallow. Dialogue: shallow. Combat: shallow. I could keep going but I think I've made my point. I just feel like the entire TES series was developed by amateurs that keep making the same mistakes in every game they release. I love a good sandbox game as long as it's well designed and not just a bunch of cliches in a (not so) pretty package.

I apologize in advance for the negativity but its been grating on my nerves for some time now (people keep saying how great Skyrim and TES series is). I realize there are different strokes for different folks and all that jazz but after playing several TES games (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim) they've been some of the biggest let-downs as far as RPGs go.

 

[Unkindled]

All I know is the game's kept me entertained for over 3000 hours, and I find something new every playthrough even now. No other game for me can claim that and be single player. The missions are generally not very deep, no, but then, there's so much land, so many books, locations and stories, that one can't expect it to be. Making my own story and roleplaying works fine for me, personally. Which is why the elderscrolls is my favorite series, and why Skyrim is my favorite between Morrowind Oblivion and Skyrim.

 

[freakie1one]

All I know is the game's kept me entertained for over 3000 hours, and I find something new every playthrough even now. No other game for me can claim that and be single player. The missions are generally not very deep, no, but then, there's so much land, so many books, locations and stories, that one can't expect it to be. Making my own story and roleplaying works fine for me, personally. Which is why the elderscrolls is my favorite series, and why Skyrim is my favorite between Morrowind Oblivion and Skyrim.

I suppose I just had high expectations for all three games and none delivered. Before Morrowind was released I remember seeing screenshots of it and being blown away by the small things like the reflections on water. At the time it was new technology and impressive. Then I play the game and everything is completely cliche and generic; hell, many of the cities/towns were an actual I-shit-you-not perfect grid. I had never seen such laziness in game design before I played that game. Then there's the combat in Morrowind which was basically just going up to an enemy and if they had a bigger number (higher level) you did next to zero damage. So you could literally hit a monster hundreds of times with your sword before you killed it. It was absurd.

Then comes Oblivion and boy oh boy was the hype train strong pre-release. They promised "Radiant AI" and demonstrated it in several videos, saying how intelligent NPCs were going to be. Of course post release they didn't add any of the Radiant AI because it broke their game so they just scrapped it altogether. They also promised interesting and clever traps which were never implemented. The traps they did have were a joke that you could see from a mile away and basically pointless. And the dreaded Oblivion gates which were basically just generic copy-and-paste clones of each other. Many of the caverns/caves to explore were also clones of each other with the same basic/generic layout with nothing to find, see or do.

It's just frustrating that the TES games have so much potential that is basically wasted due to being horribly implemented/designed. The games feel like they were designed for a toddler or something. Everything is overly simplistic and almost nothing functions in a logical way (punching dragons to death is just absurd even in a fantasy setting). At least the Witcher games treat you like you're an adult and they don't insult your intelligence while playing.

So far the most enjoyment I've received from Skyrim is watching videos such as this that make jokes about how ridiculous most things are in Skyrim. I enjoy watching these more than actually playing the game itself:

 

[Unkindled]

That's how rpgs are. This isn't a realistic game, or there'd be no such thing as leveling up, and it'd be like call of duty or something. Maybe more accurately like dishonored. I can shoot people in the head and they won't die in Fallout. Realism isn't what it's about, so if people expect that from an rpg, they'll be disappointed.

It's not poorly designed, it's a matter of time and money. It already takes years and years to make what we see here. The rest is filled in with mods. Uh, better ones than in that video, usually, unless those are your kind of thing.

But anyway, I think a lot of these quirks actually add to the game. It's not really meant to be taken that seriously. Especially not in Oblivion.

 

[freakie1one]

That's how rpgs are. This isn't a realistic game, or there'd be no such thing as leveling up, and it'd be like call of duty or something. Maybe more accurately like dishonored. I can shoot people in the head and they won't die in Fallout. Realism isn't what it's about, so if people expect that from an rpg, they'll be disappointed.

It's not poorly designed, it's a matter of time and money. It already takes years and years to make what we see here. The rest is filled in with mods. Uh, better ones than in that video, usually, unless those are your kind of thing.

But anyway, I think a lot of these quirks actually add to the game. It's not really meant to be taken that seriously. Especially not in Oblivion.

I suppose we just have different tastes and opinions about what is/isn't poorly designed. Sadly, it did take years for the developers to create the mediocre content in the TES games; most mods vastly improve what the devs did because it was of such low quality to begin with. Creating a perfect grid layout for cities/towns is nothing but laziness. It's a great example of what I mean when I say the games were designed very "amateurish". If people saw this happening in TW3 they'd be raising hell about it.

Also, RPGs don't have to be totally realistic in order to treat the players like fully functioning adults instead of simpletons. A large portion of gamers nowadays are adults and I appreciate games that target an adult audience without dumbing everything down.

 

[Unkindled]

Well, there were a lot of things in the game that were oversimplified, but I'm not so easily offended, personally. I find that a bit over dramatic. People expect too much from a game with the largest amount of play area ever, plus the most content in said playing area. Game's not gonna play seamlessly like dishonored, which only works so well because the game's so linear. (In comparison to Skyrim, anyway.)

 

[Unkindled]

Also, I'm not really sure what you mean by a perfect grid layout. None of the cities look symmetrical at all. In fact, I can't think of many, if any locations in game that are. The locations were hand crafted, unlike in Oblivion and Morrowind.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

I'll just say this on the grid-layout, for Morrowind anyway, being of house Hlaalu and all. The cities and towns controlled by Hlaalu whether actuallybased on laziness or actual intent are supposed to be grid-like as they build it that way.

 

[Unkindled]

There's no doubt Morrowind and Oblivion were like that, but Skyrim, not at all. Not even in Dwarven ruins.

 

[volsung]

Don't know if this is OT or not since criticizing TES may help the OP...

Anyway. Played Oblivion some years ago. It was fun. But a TERRIBLE RPG. Completely inconsequential and, after a few hours, repetitive. How can an RPG NOT respond to the player's decisions? I might as well "role play" NBA Jam and imagine conflicts in between matches.

About realism, it is absolutely necessary. Not real world realism, but a consistent, believable world. In Fallout people actually die from shooting them in the eyes (maybe not Fallout 3, another TES). In IE games a critical shot (ie to the head, etc) blows a person to shreds, so do traps (fail vs petrification? ).

In any case, people play games for different reasons. Some may be fun because we can fool around, flick fireballs and wave a sword like a feather duster. Others are fun because they provide challenges, strong narrative, etc. To each his own.

 

[PrincessCiri]

So I was playing Skyrim today and joined the Dark Brotherhood.
I don't know if I was just oblivious to this in my recent playthroughs, but Cicero has been acting extra weird this time. He is dancing really strangely next to the Night Mother's Coffin. I was wondering if he is doing this for anyone else? This is a video I took of it on my phone....
[video=youtube;-fpO74KinQE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fpO74KinQE&list=UUn3BRfhJvPxDTARJ5XN0VMQ[/video]

Is it me or is he doing the robot?!?!