The Elder Scrolls -

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I'm pretty sure when you roll the dice in a tabletop game time doesn't stop, because if it did people who play TTRPGs would be much less likely to be virgins. You seem to also not understand what an RPG is if you think FF games are RPGs at all in any regard. RPG means inhabiting a role and playing as that role. Let's say you are playing as a thief in Morrowind, what can you do? Well, you can lockpick, pickpocket, sneak, etc. If you are playing a thief in FF it just means you get the "steal" command in combat. If you are stealing from someone during combat you aren't a thief, you're a fucking mugger.

If you actually looked up how dice-rolls are used, they were made for turn-based tabletop D&D games. If two guys kept rolling dice at real-time to determine how many attacks they would do, then you'd have a mess of a session where two guys are arguing who rolled first and who hit first, and the session would be mired in chaos.

Again, a real-time first person system means that hit chance should be dictated by your skill as a human with a controller/keyboard & mouse. With this system, YOU are the character. Whether or not you hit the enemy is based on your aim with the controller or the keyboard/mouse. A stats and dice-roll based combat system is designed primarily to compensate for limited control and a total lack of visual cues. It's a layer of abstraction between you and the player character. Your character's aim is not your aim, you could have shit aim in real life, but since you put so much XP on the right stat, your character will hit the enemy nine times out of then. Mixing them both is what makes the design of the Morrowind combat system objectively bad as they are two diametrically opposing systems. It's like mixing oil and water, it doesn't work.

Morrowind just lets you upgrade every skill, which means you're no longer playing a role. It's the same thing as Skyrim, except with a vestigial class system that means nothing in the end. In Final Fantasy, you have characters that are each corralled into a role, and they're forced to work with that throughout the game, and you use each character's strengths to win each fight. So that would make Final Fantasy the better RPG when compared to Morrowind, since people actually PLAY ROLES in the gameplay. One's a heavy melee fighter. Another is a healer. And the player has to use those strengths. Each role is important and plays a part in the overall game, and you have to use them accordingly, which is what an RPG is.

In Morrowind, you don't play a role, you just do whatever the fuck you want, be it stealing from people or killing some random bystander. That's not roleplaying, that's just GTA in a fantasy world. At least Skyrim finally admitted that and got rid of the class system, so they just wound up with a fun action game that everyone tried to copy because people had so much fun with it. Both Skyrim and Oblivion were more akin to action games than RPGs, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, they were more fun and more successful than Morrowind was.

Also, modern-day people see no difference between muggers and thieves, and charge them both with the crime of theft. In the end, muggers are just thieves anyways.

 

[Titos]

If you actually looked up how dice-rolls are used, they were made for turn-based tabletop D&D games. If two guys kept rolling dice at real-time to determine how many attacks they would do, then you'd have a mess of a session where two guys are arguing who rolled first and who hit first, and the session would be mired in chaos.

Again, a real-time first person system means that hit chance should be dictated by your skill as a human with a controller/keyboard & mouse. With this system, YOU are the character. Whether or not you hit the enemy is based on your aim with the controller or the keyboard/mouse. A stats and dice-roll based combat system is designed primarily to compensate for limited control and a total lack of visual cues. It's a layer of abstraction between you and the player character. Your character's aim is not your aim, you could have shit aim in real life, but since you put so much XP on the right stat, your character will hit the enemy nine times out of then. Mixing them both is what makes the design of the Morrowind combat system objectively bad as they are two diametrically opposing systems. It's like mixing oil and water, it doesn't work.

Morrowind just lets you upgrade every skill, which means you're no longer playing a role. It's the same thing as Skyrim, except with a vestigial class system that means nothing in the end. In Final Fantasy, you have characters that are each corralled into a role, and they're forced to work with that throughout the game, and you use each character's strengths to win each fight. So that would make Final Fantasy the better RPG when compared to Morrowind, since people actually PLAY ROLES in the gameplay. One's a heavy melee fighter. Another is a healer. And the player has to use those strengths. In Morrowind, you don't play a role, you just do whatever the fuck you want. That's not roleplaying, that's GTA in a fantasy world. At least Skyrim finally admitted that and got rid of the class system, so they just wound up with a fun action game that everyone tried to copy because people had so much fun with it.

Also, modern-day people see no difference between muggers and thieves, and charge them both with stealing things. In the end, muggers are just thieves anyways.

Can you provide an argument as to why other than you don't like not having immediate feedback for everything? Would it be better for you if a big "MISS" text popped up every time you missed a swing? It's an RPG not an action game and the RPG systems are what should be first and foremost. It sounds like you just want a game where the only stats are HP, damage, and MP because that's exactly what happens when you remove any element of chance from RPG games. Just look at the new Fallout games like 4 where you can just coast by getting easy as fuck headshots and your skills meaning jack shit. A thief is specifically someone who steals using stealth, some gyppo pickpocketing you is not the same as them initiating combat with you then taking your wallet while shitty synth horns play in the background.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Can you provide an argument as to why other than you don't like not having immediate feedback for everything? Would it be better for you if a big "MISS" text popped up every time you missed a swing? It's an RPG not an action game and the RPG systems are what should be first and foremost. It sounds like you just want a game where the only stats are HP, damage, and MP because that's exactly what happens when you remove any element of chance from RPG games. Just look at the new Fallout games like 4 where you can just coast by getting easy as fuck headshots and your skills meaning jack shit. A thief is specifically someone who steals using stealth, some gyppo pickpocketing you is not the same as them initiating combat with you then taking your wallet while shitty synth horns play in the background.

Morrowind is not even a good RPG, since there's no role to be played. You just come up with whatever role you have in mind, which is no different from Skyrim or Oblivion. It's closer to an action game with RPG stats. And yes, it is a bad game because the combat is shit. Forget it being a bad RPG, it's a bad game in total, because it combines two diametrically-opposed systems into one messy load of garbage.

Again, a real-time first person system means that hit chance is dictated by your skill as a human with a controller/keyboard & mouse. With this system, YOU are the character. Whether or not you hit the enemy is based on your aim with the controller or the keyboard/mouse. A stats and dice-roll based combat system is designed primarily to compensate for limited control and a total lack of visual cues. It's a layer of abstraction between you and the player character. Your character's aim is not your aim, you could have shit aim in real life, but since you put so much XP on the right stat, your character will hit the enemy nine times out of then. Mixing them both is what makes the design of the Morrowind combat system objectively bad as they are two diametrically opposing systems. It's like mixing oil and water, it doesn't work.

And again, Final Fantasy XIII and Mass Effect 2 still rely on you playing a role to make the game work. With the latter, you pick the roles. You choose the role of a soldier? You'll be solving all your problems with a gun. You choose to be a biotic? You'll mostly use biotic powers to solve your problems. Final Fantasy gives you characters that each have a role and each play to their strengths, be it healer, melee specialist, or DPS. Each character plays a role, and each role fits into a grander scheme within the game. That's what a ROLE-PLAYING GAME is supposed to be. You pick a role, or you are given a role, and you have to stick with it and compensate for it for your entire playthrough.

Fallout 4 is an action game with RPG stats. Same with Fallout 3, Oblivion, New Vegas, and Skyrim. Every game Bethesda came out with after Morrowind went full-on action game, focusing on real-time combat and using RPG stats to enhance the gameplay. The only thing they use the dice-roll for is for critical hits, or for VATS in Fallout, both of which work fine. But again, this doesn't make Morrowind a good RPG, or a good game. It's a shit RPG because you don't have any roles, and it's a shit game because, aside from the fact that the graphics look like shit even for its time, it tries to mix two diametrically-opposed systems into one, which just creates a mess that you have to grind out of, further shattering any role-playing immersion one might get from the experience.

And again, thieves and muggers are seen as the same by the law: persons guilty of the crime of theft or attempted theft, which means they're the same.

 

[Titos]

Morrowind is not even a good RPG, since there's no role to be played. You just come up with whatever role you have in mind, which is no different from Skyrim or Oblivion. It's closer to an action game with RPG stats. And yes, it is a bad game because the combat is shit. Forget it being a bad RPG, it's a bad game in total, because it combines two diametrically-opposed systems into one messy load of garbage.

Again, a real-time first person system means that hit chance is dictated by your skill as a human with a controller/keyboard & mouse. With this system, YOU are the character. Whether or not you hit the enemy is based on your aim with the controller or the keyboard/mouse. A stats and dice-roll based combat system is designed primarily to compensate for limited control and a total lack of visual cues. It's a layer of abstraction between you and the player character. Your character's aim is not your aim, you could have shit aim in real life, but since you put so much XP on the right stat, your character will hit the enemy nine times out of then. Mixing them both is what makes the design of the Morrowind combat system objectively bad as they are two diametrically opposing systems. It's like mixing oil and water, it doesn't work.

And again, Final Fantasy XIII and Mass Effect 2 still rely on you playing a role to make the game work. With the latter, you pick the roles. You choose the role of a soldier? You'll be solving all your problems with a gun. You choose to be a biotic? You'll mostly use biotic powers to solve your problems. Final Fantasy gives you characters that each have a role and each play to their strengths, be it healer, melee specialist, or DPS. Each character plays a role, and each role fits into a grander scheme within the game. That's what a ROLE-PLAYING GAME is supposed to be. You pick a role, or you are given a role, and you have to stick with it and compensate for it throughout the game.

Fallout 4 is an action game with RPG stats. Same with Fallout 3, Oblivion, New Vegas, and Skyrim. Every game Bethesda came out with after Morrowind went full-on action game, focusing on real-time combat and using RPG stats to enhance the gameplay. But again, this doesn't make Morrowind a good RPG, or a good game. It's a shit RPG because you don't have any roles, and it's a shit game because, aside from the fact that the graphics look like shit even for its time, it tries to mix two diametrically-opposed systems into one, which just creates a mess that you have to grind out of.

And again, thieves and muggers are seen as the same by the law: persons guilty of the crime of theft or attempted theft, which means they're the same.

You mean like D&D, which is basically the bedrock for all RPGs? What the fuck makes something an RPG in your mind, do you have to be a spiky haired teen boy with a giant sword and be the chosen one? The whole point of an RPG is you have choices. If it was just being given a role then fucking Call of Duty is an RPG and so is Battlefield. After all in Battlefield you play as a class which has a role which I guess means it's an RPG, in Ninja Gaiden you play the role of a warrior so I guess that's an RPG too, hell fucking chess is an RPG as well I guess since you play the role of a tactician.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

You mean like D&D, which is basically the bedrock for all RPGs? What the fuck makes something an RPG in your mind, do you have to be a spiky haired teen boy with a giant sword and be the chosen one? The whole point of an RPG is you have choices. If it was just being given a role then fucking Call of Duty is an RPG and so is Battlefield. After all in Battlefield you play as a class which has a role which I guess means it's an RPG, in Ninja Gaiden you play the role of a warrior so I guess that's an RPG too, hell fucking chess is an RPG as well I guess since you play the role of a tactician.

You play a role. That's what makes an RPG. It's called a ROLE-PLAYING GAME for a reason. Morrowind has no roles for you to play, you just upgrade whatever skill you have and play whatever role comes to mind, that's not role-playing, that's GTA in fantasy-land. The classic RPG would be KOTOR, because it fully abides by the system of D&D and the class you're in is the role you play as. You don't have a thief who learns how to be a master swordsman, or a melee-fighter who becomes a master magician, you have to pick a role, and your party members have roles, and you each have to cover for each other's weaknesses and use your strengths to get the job done. THAT is what an RPG is.

CoD and Battlefield don't have multiple roles, so they don't qualify as RPGs. But Morrowind IS a bad RPG because it doesn't even abide by the role-playing aspect outside of the player imagining a role, which is no different from Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4, and every action game with stats that Bethesda rolled out ever since 2006. If we are to judge Morrowind by the standards of D&D, then yes, it's a poor RPG because you're not corralled into a role you choose, you just upgrade whatever skill you wish and do whatever you want, which makes it fantasy GTA, just like Skyrim and Oblivion.

The only difference? Those games look better and play better than Morrowind.

If having choices makes it an RPG, then Halo is an RPG, because I can choose to be a good soldier who follows orders, or I can choose to slaughter the soldiers on my own side to loot their corpses for guns and ammo that I would use against the enemy. GTA would count as an RPG because you can choose to shoot cops and run over hookers. Skyrim would be a good RPG, because you can choose to do whatever you want in there, be it reviving the Thieves' Guild or becoming a vampire lord.

See where your train of thought leads?

And again, gameplay-wise, Morrowind is terrible. As I said before, a real-time first person system means that hit chance is dictated by your skill as a human with a controller/keyboard & mouse. With this system, YOU are the character. Whether or not you hit the enemy is based on your aim with the controller or the keyboard/mouse. A stats and dice-roll based combat system is designed primarily to compensate for limited control and a total lack of visual cues. It's a layer of abstraction between you and the player character. Your character's aim is not your aim, you could have shit aim in real life, but since you put so much XP on the right stat, your character will hit the enemy nine times out of then. Mixing them both is what makes the design of the Morrowind combat system objectively bad as they are two diametrically opposing systems. It's like mixing oil and water, it doesn't work.

 

[Titos]

You play a role. That's what makes an RPG. It's called a ROLE-PLAYING GAME for a reason. Morrowind has no roles for you to play, you just upgrade whatever skill you have and play whatever role comes to mind, that's not role-playing, that's GTA in fantasy-land. The classic RPG would be KOTOR, because it fully abides by the system of D&D and the class you're in is the role you play as. You don't have a thief who learns how to be a master swordsman, or a melee-fighter who becomes a master magician, you have to pick a role, and your party members have roles, and you each have to cover for each other's weaknesses and use your strengths to get the job done. THAT is what an RPG is.

CoD and Battlefield don't have multiple roles, so they don't qualify as RPGs. But Morrowind IS a bad RPG because it doesn't even abide by the role-playing aspect outside of the player imagining a role, which is no different from Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4, and every action game with stats that Bethesda rolled out ever since 2006. If we are to judge Morrowind by the standards of D&D, then yes, it's a poor RPG because you're not corralled into a role you choose, you just upgrade whatever skill you wish and do whatever you want, which makes it fantasy GTA, just like Skyrim and Oblivion.

The only difference? Those games look better and play better than Morrowind.

And again, gameplay-wise, Morrowind is terrible. As I said before, a real-time first person system means that hit chance is dictated by your skill as a human with a controller/keyboard & mouse. With this system, YOU are the character. Whether or not you hit the enemy is based on your aim with the controller or the keyboard/mouse. A stats and dice-roll based combat system is designed primarily to compensate for limited control and a total lack of visual cues. It's a layer of abstraction between you and the player character. Your character's aim is not your aim, you could have shit aim in real life, but since you put so much XP on the right stat, your character will hit the enemy nine times out of then. Mixing them both is what makes the design of the Morrowind combat system objectively bad as they are two diametrically opposing systems. It's like mixing oil and water, it doesn't work.

You seem to be completely oblivious as to what an RPG actually is and think it's all about combat. A game where you can side with a bunch of different groups depending upon your choices, completely circumvent scenarios depending upon your skills, being able to play in completely different ways dependent upon those skills are core things that an RPG should allow you to do like morrowind does. Having a Bad guy/Good guy meter doesn't make something an RPG nor does numbers increasing. How exactly does a character in Battlefield being mainly focused on healing make it any different than a J"RPG" character being a healer? It doesn't at all because the healer in the J"RPG" doesn't do anything special outside of combat to distinguish them as a healer. So how the fuck are they filling a role outside of combat? An RPG is a game where you can play the game you want in a way that is fitting to your role.

A thief in an RPG should be able to embody a thief, they should be able to pickpocket, disable alarms, sneak, eavesdrop, and lockpick all of which you can't do as a thief in J"RPGs". A warrior should be able to do well in combat but also intimidate people, be better at understanding weapons and using them, not just get better numbers in combat that's not roleplaying that's just a tactics game with classes. A mage should know alchemy, should be able to enchant shit, should be able to use magic to trick people, not just cast 7 minute long animations in combat. Even more if J"RPG"s are Role Playing Games they're pretty fucking shit at it since they intentionally make their character bland as fuck but somehow just have them stand there mute with no player input 99% of the time while others are having their character have a bespoke backstory but give the player a ton of control as to how the character behaves storywise.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

You seem to be completely oblivious as to what an RPG actually is and think it's all about combat. A game where you can side with a bunch of different groups depending upon your choices, completely circumvent scenarios depending upon your skills, being able to play in completely different ways dependent upon those skills are core things that an RPG should allow you to do like morrowind does. Having a Bad guy/Good guy meter doesn't make something an RPG nor does numbers increasing. How exactly does a character in Battlefield being mainly focused on healing make it any different than a J"RPG" character being a healer? It doesn't at all because the healer in the J"RPG" doesn't do anything special outside of combat to distinguish them as a healer. So how the fuck are they filling a role outside of combat? An RPG is a game where you can play the game you want in a way that is fitting to your role.

A thief in an RPG should be able to embody a thief, they should be able to pickpocket, disable alarms, sneak, eavesdrop, and lockpick all of which you can't do as a thief in J"RPGs". A warrior should be able to do well in combat but also intimidate people, be better at understanding weapons and using them, not just get better numbers in combat that's not roleplaying that's just a tactics game with classes. A mage should know alchemy, should be able to enchant shit, should be able to use magic to trick people, not just cast 7 minute long animations in combat. Even more if J"RPG"s are Role Playing Games they're pretty fucking shit at it since they intentionally make their character bland as fuck but somehow just have them stand there mute with no player input 99% of the time while others are having their character have a bespoke backstory but give the player a ton of control as to how the character behaves storywise.
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Yeah, no. There are action games and games of all stripes can give you choices on good or evil, that doesn't make them role-playing games. Starcraft 2 lets you choose which upgrades to use and even which side to choose in some areas, that doesn't make it an RPG. Similarly, there are role-playing games where you are corralled into one ending for the whole game, where all your choices lead to the same end, or where you barely have any choices at all and they still count as role-playing games, like Paper Mario. Heck, you classify Morrowind as an RPG, and no matter your choices, the end will always be the same-Azura praises you for destroying the Numidium. So much for choices mattering, eh? You can be a saint or an irredeemable shit, and the ending of the game ends up the same.

The core of what makes a role-playing game is the fact that you have multiple ROLES to play. One guy plays as the thief, good for sneaking around and opening doors and chests. Another guy plays the role of a paladin, good for soaking up damage and whaling on the enemy up-close. Another chooses to be a marksman, nailing targets from afar, and another chooses to be a sorcerer, using healing magic on the team or blanketing the enemy with fireballs or lighting storms. Each person has his strengths and weaknesses, and the whole team compensates for each other's strengths or weaknesses to make for a balanced team that gets the job done.

Like say, KOTOR. The Mandalorian party member is a good melee specialist who can wear heavy armor. You have a retired Jedi in your party who excels as a spellcaster, and another party member who's an assassin droid excels at long-range combat. You have a thief who gets by opening locks and sneaking past people, and a droid that excels at using computers and repairing things. Your character can choose in the beginning to be a soldier, a scoundrel, or a scout, and later, can choose between a Jedi Guardian, (meathead melee combat type) a Jedi Consular, (spellcaster type) or a Jedi Sentinel (somewhere in between Guardian or Consular, with some extra skills). You pick your roles for your character, then you choose the right party members who have the right roles for the job. You each play your roles and play to your strengths while compensating for your weaknesses with teamwork. THAT is a role-playing game.

I'm more than ready to admit that Bethesda's recent output does not fit that mold. Quite frankly, every Elder Scrolls or Fallout game they came out with from 2006 onwards was just one variation or another of a real-time action game with some RPG stats and attributes on the side, but in the end, they're more akin to real-time action games than actual RPGs like KOTOR or Mass Effect, especially when you just have one type of character who masters everything in the end, anyways. And there's nothing wrong with that. Oblivion and Skyrim might not have as much RPG DNA as KOTOR or Final Fantasy would, but they're still great action games, and the RPG mechanics enhance them as games, they're tons of fun to play, and the fact that other game studios have been copying the Skyrim formula shows that as an action game, it's got plenty of value. They might not pass as RPGs, but as action games, they're very fun.

Morrowind fails at being an action game and being a role-playing game. On the RPG department, you have no roles to play outside of what you imagine, which makes it no different from Skyrim or Oblivion or even Fallout 4. You just level up whatever skill you want and do whatever you want. That's not role-playing, that's Fantasy GTA. As an action game, Morrowind's bad mix of real-time and dice-roll combat make the gameplay a mess, especially in the early hours where combat is a joke, and guess what, just like with anything, FIRST IMPRESSIONS MATTER. This is why Skyrim stuck in a dragon attack at the first hour of the game, and why Fallout 4 stuck in a Deathclaw and power armor, you need to hook players in. And most players at the time back in 2002 just took one look at Morrowind's shit gameplay and graphics, and tossed it away to go back and play Halo or Smash Bros. Melee.

As an action game, it fails, because the combat and action are crap, and as a D&D-style RPG, it fails, because there's no roles to play and no party mechanics to mix up the roles. Couple that with a mediocre story and crap graphics even for early 2000s standards, and yes, that makes Morrowind an objectively mediocre game.

If you play as a thief in an RPG, you should stay a thief. Not turn into a meathead warrior who later bonks a god in the face for 5 seconds with a hammer, killing them. A warrior should stay a warrior, not turn into a mage who blankets the battlefield in lighting storms. If you just have a Swiss Army Knife character who masters everything, then congratulations, that's not an RPG. That's an action game with upgradeable skills which uses RPG stats to track your progress. Especially if it's got real-time combat.

 

[gaystoner]

I'm not reading what you faggots are slap fighting about.

But I find it hysterical we're going on 10 years of Skyrim which eventually got lauded as 'mile wide inch deep' "Open World" experience yet its hard to think of a game that has even come close in terms of replayability/lengthy game files. I'd argue the only games that come close are GTA V (2013) and RDR2 (201. You have the online openworld games like No Mans Sky/Arc but its hard to compare those to a single player game imo.

 

[Vault Boy]

I'm not reading what you faggots are slap fighting about.

But I find it hysterical we're going on 10 years of Skyrim which eventually got lauded as 'mile wide inch deep' "Open World" experience yet its hard to think of a game that has even come close in terms of replayability/lengthy game files. I'd argue the only games that come close are GTA V (2013) and RDR2 (201. You have the online openworld games like No Mans Sky/Arc but its hard to compare those to a single player game imo.

I blame the slap fights on the lack of new Elder Scrolls content outside of the MMO expansions.

It's been 10 years since Skyrim, and Starfield doesn't arrive until next year, so who knows when VI gets released.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I'm not reading what you faggots are slap fighting about.

But I find it hysterical we're going on 10 years of Skyrim which eventually got lauded as 'mile wide inch deep' "Open World" experience yet its hard to think of a game that has even come close in terms of replayability/lengthy game files. I'd argue the only games that come close are GTA V (2013) and RDR2 (201. You have the online openworld games like No Mans Sky/Arc but its hard to compare those to a single player game imo.

Exactly. Skyrim was such a fun game that damn near everyone uses it as a model for an open-world game. Morrowind fans keep accusing it of being a mile wide and an inch deep, and yet, Todd Howard wouldn't be re-releasing the damn game unless he knew that there's a long line of people who will pay for it.

I blame the slap fights on the lack of new Elder Scrolls content outside of the MMO expansions.

It's been 10 years since Skyrim, and Starfield doesn't arrive until next year, so who knows when VI gets released.

Who knows if there even is a TES: VI.

Here's a quick question: where do you want TES: VI to take place? My money's on the Summerset Isles/Alinor. It's a great way to go back to the game's fantasy roots, and having them be the center of a second war between the Thalmor and the Empire could be great.

 

[Kujo Jotaro]

Been replaying skyrim again for who knows what number of times, finally bothered to actually read the books and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of writing in them. Most of them would be no more than the length of a word document if you cared to convert them to that format, yet many of them are rather charming and really add some depth to the world.

Its funny the first time I played skyrim was on a crt tv on the xbox 360, could not read a thing and pretty much just fucked around and did no quests. Now 10ish years later I'm still playing it and enjoying fucking around, doing quests, reading lore, etc. As much as people love to hate on todd for releasing it on every piece of hardware imaginable its more of a testament to the quality of the game than it is to greed that they could even release it so many time with success.
Really hoping the next elderscrolls can live up the hype, even if it only lives up to a fraction of what skyrim has been I would be happy with it.

 

[Vault Boy]

Here's a quick question: where do you want TES: VI to take place? My money's on the Summerset Isles/Alinor. It's a great way to go back to the game's fantasy roots, and having them be the center of a second war between the Thalmor and the Empire could be great.

I'm leaning towards Hammerfell since they went out of their way to have Alik'r warriors appear in a sidequest.

If it's set there, I can see the Empire and the Thalmor fighting to gain a foothold for the next great war.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Been replaying skyrim again for who knows what number of times, finally bothered to actually read the books and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of writing in them. Most of them would be no more than the length of a word document if you cared to convert them to that format, yet many of them are rather charming and really add some depth to the world.

Its funny the first time I played skyrim was on a crt tv on the xbox 360, could not read a thing and pretty much just fucked around and did no quests. Now 10ish years later I'm still playing it and enjoying fucking around, doing quests, reading lore, etc. As much as people love to hate on todd for releasing it on every piece of hardware imaginable its more of a testament to the quality of the game than it is to greed that they could even release it so many time with success.
Really hoping the next elderscrolls can live up the hype, even if it only lives up to a fraction of what skyrim has been I would be happy with it.

I was playing it again tonight. This time, I was rolling as a Thalmor character.

The fact that Bethesda can get greedy enough to release Skyrim on every platform conceivable goes to show how good Skyrim truly was as a game. Less of an RPG, sure, but as an enjoyable action/fantasy game with RPG elements, it hits the ball right out of the park.

I'm leaning towards Hammerfell since they went out of their way to have Alik'r warriors appear in a sidequest.

If it's set there, I can see the Empire and the Thalmor fighting to gain a foothold for the next great war.

That would be nice too, especially if we see how the Redguards react to both sides. They have good reason to hate both the Empire and the Thalmor.

 

[gaystoner]

Exactly. Skyrim was such a fun game that damn near everyone uses it as a model for an open-world game. Morrowind fans keep accusing it of being a mile wide and an inch deep, and yet, Todd Howard wouldn't be re-releasing the damn game unless he knew that there's a long line of people who will pay for it.


Who knows if there even is a TES: VI.

Here's a quick question: where do you want TES: VI to take place? My money's on the Summerset Isles/Alinor. It's a great way to go back to the game's fantasy roots, and having them be the center of a second war between the Thalmor and the Empire could be great.

Whats sad is compared to Cyberpunk2077...Skyrim is like an ocean of content and personal encounters.

As far as VI... ES and each plotline all have something to do with Daedric Princes taking over. They also show the Psijic Order for the first time. There is also that plot with a 'dragon faction' having their own motive and make an attempt to become a planet. The most interesting to me is definitely the idea of 'planets' harboring power/beings beyond the Daedric Princes.

Going full sperg..With Starfield being the next game...I want to say VI will involve the planets/celestial bodies that surround nirn. Would be pretty cool if they finally fleshed out the origin of the world with Lorkhan. throw in the Dwemer potentially 'disappearing in time' and the plot could revolve around the creation of the sentience of Nirn and all that.

 

[Kujo Jotaro]

Whats sad is compared to Cyberpunk2077...Skyrim is like an ocean of content and personal encounters.

this, stopped playing Cyberpunk about 8hrs in, I played as a streetkid(or whatever the name was) and finished the mission were the emperor gets killed by his kid. Up until that point it was ok, but the following hour or so after was a real snooze fest which led me to explore the open world for the first time. Not kidding when I say the open world is souless as fuck, literal vacant eyed whores are you're best bet at finding extended dialouge sequences outside of quests and vendors. I think the game would've been better served as a linear campaign, the open world only makes it harder to navigate to the place you want to get to, and 90% of the npc's are there just to be in the way. Really enjoyed the witcher 3 so was very disappointed with Cyberpunk to say the least.

 

[gaystoner]

Just decided to boot up skyrim instead of sleep...god...even though I know the first dungeon with mods for visual/audio upgrades...various 'movement' upgrades. It's pretty amazing how a game from 2011 feels more fun than the little bit I've played of newer games through demos/refund times.

Edit: ive also downloaded an overhaul mod called Enderhal? Which many comments are saying it feels like a complete game. Kind of pumped im able to have my own "e3" moment rn

 

[Super Hans]

I wonder how Bethesda is going to un-fuck themselves from the corner they wrote themselves into with the Civil War plotline. They already did an ass-pull with the Warp in the West to explain Daggerfall's 5(?) mutually exclusive endings all canon. The Red Mountain exploded shortly after Morrowind, making none of that shit matter. Skyrim didn't need a plot device to explain away things that happened in Oblivion, because you had no choices that mattered in that game.

Assuming that they don't just ignore it, I think they're going to do a re-do of Red Mountain and have Snow Throat explode because you killed its heart, Paarthunax. It would also move along the storyline going on in the background, the Towers steadily getting destroyed/inert.

 

[FriendlyPrimarina]

What's weird is that four of us seem to have started Skyrim playthroughs at the same time, independently of one another. Personally I broke my "QoL and cosmetic mods only" rule and am using a mod that might make being a mage actually fun.

On that note, does anyone know where I can find guaranteed greater/grand soul gems just lying around, like in the Archmage's quarters? They don't need to be filled.

 

[X Pac Heat]

People overthink how they're going to handle the Civil War

The constant point in the plotline is that the Empire cannot really support Skyrim anymore, being forced to rely mostly on in local recruits and unwilling to send it's Legions to quell the uprising as they need them in Cyrodil. The other is that Ulfric cannot maintain power and ultimately is not a good leader (even many of his Jarls say that they do not think he will be the great leader many of his diehard supporters think he will be IIRC)

They will not declare a winner, it will simply be said that the tide turned back and forth, with periods of both sides seemingly being close to victory but the fighting never stopped long enough to hold a Moot. The Empire eventually couldn't continue to support the effort and pulled their forces back into Cyrodiil. (Edit: Could even factor in Titus Mede II's assassination into this)

With no Imperial presence at all and no Moot ever held, Skyrim splintered into various Jarls and Warlords vying for control. The Civil War, in essence, never ends and Skyrim devolves into it's past self.

Alternatively, same thing but instead of being a country in a state of constant war, a warlord similar to Titus Mede eventually overtook the rest and took the throne of High King by conquest. While technically independent, he has very stable relations with Cyrodiil. Could possibly leave the implication that he is in fact controlled by the Empire while maintaining an illusion of Skyrim being Independent.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

They could pull a SWTOR and pick an official side. But, seeing as how Ulfric, in the end, was a bad guy, and seeing as how the previous Elder Scrolls games depicted the Empire as good, they'll probably pick the Empire.

That, or I can see them appointing or "recognizing" Jarl Balgruuf as the new High King, marrying Elisif and taking over Skyrim. He's the most iconic of the Jarls, so I can see him becoming king. The Empire "recognizes" Skyrim's freedom from the Empire so as to allow Talos worship, but Balgruuf has Skyrim act as an independent ally of the Empire, so as to not piss off the Imperials and keep the money from trade coming in.