TES V: Skyrim

I always thought that this should be great for every kind of game, not just RPGs...
But either way, games do require suspension of disbelief.
More so in older games, than newer ones. I guess that in the old days, it was easier.

That's from where, in my opinion, all those discussions derive from...
In Morrowind, you had to use your imagination for a lot of the things that were supposed to happen on screen, as opposed to newer games like Skyrim...

 

Did anyone else notice you can dual wield bound weapon spells? You can even have different weapons in each hand, i.e. an axe in one hand and a sword in the other. Pretty badass.

 

Does a bound weapon use the skill of the weapon you're creating? In other words, if I create a conjured sword, is it using Conjuration or One-handed as the skill to determine the attack power?

 

I'd guess conjuration would be how good the weapon is.
one handed would be damage

 

That makes sense, hope it works that way.

 

If you want powerful weapons, enchanting is the way to go.

 

Yeah I know, I'm just focusing my perks on Destruction, Sneak, Pickpocket, Lockpicking and Alchemy for the moment. From disenchanting/enchanting my skill is around 65 I believe, I just don't have any perks in it.

 

How does one go about skipping a quest stage through the command console? My brother ran into a rather serious glitch in a quest and I think it would be fixable by setting the quest stage to the next one, but I've tried following the instructions I found on the google machine to no avail.

 

I dont think you can skip a stage you can only complete the main quest
what does he have to do to complete the stage ?

 

It is rather easy

setstage ms01 100 etc..


I had to do that last night ran into some serious bugs. It was in the "no one escapes from cidhna mine" quest.

It is because I ruined all the games plans I think. There is a glitch in it where you can get a whole bunch of money as well.

Spoiler

Right before the quest starts you go to Talos shrine and a bunch of guards attack you. I killed them all then left the area. I came back and a new batch was there. I believe the corpse is refilled with 800 gold each time as well. Anyway I killed them all. Then I killed all the guards in the city. Then I went to the keep b/c I figured I had a license to create mayhem. I dropped all my gear at a house previously b/c I did not want to lose it if I went to jail. So I submit to being arrested, but the cidhna mine quest no longer works right. Parts worked, but others didn't.

Unfortunately I had saved over my old saves trying to figure out what to do. In the end I used setstage,

Spoiler

but it locked me out of the mine with the guards so I could just walk out of prison if I wanted Anyway I had to skip ahead in the quest while being in a different sport to finish it.

 

I tried that command; maybe I wasn't getting the quest ID or stage right. I'll find out which quest it is and see if anybody else had the problem.

It involves a guy you talk to through a peephole in a door and after the conversation he's supposed to open the door but he doesn't. We tried noclipping through the door but if you go to talk to him he just stands there like a statue.

 

Tried setstage and nothing. Perhaps we are doing something wrong but I followed the online instructions to the best of my ability. If anyone has any experience with setstage, could you please explain the process?

Tried "unlock" and we still couldn't open the door. So we noclipped through the door and like I said the guy just stands there like a statue if you go to talk to him. I think my bro is effed.

 

I'm curious as to what you mean by this. Are you suggesting there's more to do in Morrowind if you remove combat from both games? Also, what constitutes roleplaying for you? I mean we don't have to look far to see that people are easily going as far as construing narratives for their own characters and playing to personally set limitations / powers. That seems like roleplaying to me, anyway.

And I think the combat feels pretty good now -- the level scaling feels correct, and after having played a bit the class balance feels right too. Thiefs and mages are decidedly glass cannons until you start putting points into warrior based perks. Combat being central to the game, I'd also rather have my adventures have a sense of danger to them while not being outright impossible. That said, while it does start out somewhat challenging, you're pretty much in full control of how easy that challenge becomes.

On a slight tangent, in terms of settings it feels like there is plenty to explore in Skyrim, but the difference, particularly versus Oblivion, is every place of exploration tends to have a purpose apart from the odd bandit dwelling -- and often even those are supported by some kind of backstory that can be discerned through journals or books. I think it's great, personally, but I also get the sense that they spread themselves thin in trying to give nearly every place meaning.

 

How about using the console to set the quest to a *previous* stage, and then re-play it up until the point where it wonks out? Maybe that helps.

 

That makes me smile. I spent so many hours playing that. Even recently replayed it in dosbox. Still as good as I remember. And I was still good at the 4 square sidestep combat.

I can't wait for that. Just seeing that video makes me hard.

Yeah I've been waiting on that project for years now. That's the main reason I haven't played TES: Daggerfall again in the past 3-4 years.

I sooooo cannot wait for it. The later TES games can't even come close to touching how good Daggerfall is. Sure they have better graphics. And better AI. But fall far short in character developement and simulation aspects, although Morrowind at least tried to preserve a fair bit of it.

When Morrowind came out I forgave it for being so small with gobs of freedom and options that existed in the previous game missing due to them making a modern engine. But they had always talked about how modular it was and how the engine would allow them to "add on" to the world and expand the world. So I always figured it was the base. And all the past TES goodies would eventually be rolled into it with the next game.

And then the Oblivion turd landed wetly in my lap, and I could only stare with horrid disbelief at the travesty of a program that dared to take the name of TES. /sigh.

I'm about to the point where I think I'm just going to ignore all future Bethesda games just like I do with Bioware, a dead company to me.

I think had they just not used the TES nomenclature, and just called the latest game Skyrim, much like Battlespire (An Elder Scrolls Legend) or Redguard (An Elder Scrolls Adventure) I may have been able to get into it. Those are not expected to actually be TES games/simulations but self contained games of a much more limited scope. And that's exactly what Skyrim is. It's not a real TES game (in my mind) but a hugely limited experience set within the Elder Scrolls world.

I still would have hated Oblivion even if it had that done that, but I might actually have liked Skyrim. As it was, everytime I went to do something, I was struck in the face with a 10 ton hammer that represented just how incredibly limited Skyrim is.

I understand "why" they did it. But I still hate them for it. I know the simulation market is so small as to be unprofitable for modern day AAA budgets and thus it's better to target the wider gaming audience which has a much more limited attention span requiring constant pats on the back and words of encouragement that you, the player, are doing FANTASTIC. But that doesn't make it any less of an abomination for those of us that like a good fantasy simulation and the ability to let loose our imaginations and go on adventures of our own creation because the engine allows you to do whatever you want.

As far as I'm concerned Morrowind was the last TES game.

Regards,
SB

 

What, specifically, does Morrowind offer that Skyrim does not?

 

Frank already threw out a short list. To pretend that Skyrim has even a fraction of available character options as Morrowind is either being deliberately argumentative or demonstrates that one never played it. And I'm fairly sure you played it.

But sure lets start off with a generic "pool" stats compared to the more comprehensive stat system in Morrowind. For instant gratification, the ability to be more easily understood by those with less intelligence, and perhaps less frustrating to those with a lack of patience/attention it's great. But every single freaking race is now a virtual twin of every single freaking other race other than a resist and a racial ability. Yes, they are all naturally the same strength, run the same speed, jump the same height, just as hardy as each other...blah blah blah. Yay, Generic for the win.

For those that want have a specific type of hero in mind that they want to roleplay or to represent them in the game/simulation it's severly lacking. The fact that Stamina also affects carry weight isn't intuitive in the least. So everyone with X level of Stamina is the same as a person with X level of Strengh, Y level of Agility, and Z level of speed?

Perhaps I want to play a slow and plodding heavily muscled Knight. Oh wait. NM. Can't do that. EVERYONE moves at the same gdamn speed in Skyrim. EVERYONE has the same gdamn jump height. Which brings me to skills.

No athletics? You mean people in these worlds might not have trained to be a long distance runner? After all sprinting is the only thing "trainable" via Stamina. But that only affects sprint duration since everyone sprints at the same gdamn speed. In the world of Skyrim, EVERYONE is Usein Bolt.

How about merchantile versus speechcraft. A good merchant isn't necessarily a very good speaker. But no, in Skyrim that same merchant running the General Store is also an extraordinary speech writer, diplomat, wooer of women, and whatever else is lumped in there.

Oh hell, and lets eliminate medium armor. It's far far too confusing to players. Oh and blocking as well. Because well EVERYONE is a master at blocking with a shield.

Oh and spears as well. Because those just don't exist in fantasy settings...at all. And yes, no one ever fights hand to hand or unarmored. Sure none of those may have been widely used or incredibly effective, but again in a fantasy simulation to not have them is incredibly lacking.

Spellcrafting? Oh wait, it's not even there. Instead replaced by dualwielding or to put it another way a clunky way to craft spells except your only limited to 2 without the ability to modify any part of them. Smaller pool of possible enchants and less interesting to boot. Less potential types of potions. Less schools of magic, some of the spells being relocated but others just missing entirely.

Birthsigns. Oh how tedious it must be be for short attention span gamers and "I win button" gamers to be tied to something that was set at birth of your character potentially 2 decades before you join him in the virtual world. Much easier to keep the attention spam (snaps fingers), eyes back here your attention was wandering player... As I was saying much easier to keep their interest if you can just change those types of affects willy nilly depending on the whim of the player. I'm sure Samson would have loved not to be tied to the weakness of losing his hair, or Achilles to that damn heel of his.

[edit: adding in} Speaking of which you can't even have a weakness for your character. WTF? Yay for more generic bland sameness as other games.

Geez, one could almost go and on and on and on and on about the way this game is lacking as a TES game.

It did have one notable decent advancement. Perks. But again. The comment of mine in a previous post about 1 step forward and a leap of hundreds of steps backwards. One fantastic addition does not in the least make up for all the subractions to the franchise.

As a small, tightly encompassed, and limited game like Battlespire and Redguard it would have been fantastic. As a TES game, it fails horribly.

And yes, you can certainly argue all of the above is useless and meaningless. Well of course. Just like in Fable you don't even really have visible health/stamina/magic stats. But just like that isn't Fable. Or Fable isn't Skyrim. So is Skyrim not a TES game, IMO, and in the minds of many original TES fans.

Call it, An Elder Scrolls Adventure: Skyrim, and I would have been behind it 100% of the way. But call it TES V: Skyrim, and there are expectations that need to be met, but aren't even remotely close to being met.

Regards,
SB

 

A few hundred hours of reading and no map markers to follow!