Dark Souls vs. Skyrim - which should I get?

The Game Room
21

I didn’t say you can’t decide what to do next or anything, I compared it to Fable in that respect, though Fable doesn’t sound nearly as hard. When real RPG fans say something’s linear, that means it’s focused more on the end goal, where as a true RPG is focused on the flower you just passed on the road…you’re gonna’ need that to finished the potion you’ve been working on creating this whole time :D. Oh, and that spooky looking cave you see just a little ways away has nothing to do with returning the antique to that villager who got robbed by the bandits you just slaughtered, but you so want to check that cave out…:wink:

That’s an RPG, in fact, I played TES-3 Morrowind for a very long time before I even realized there was a main quest, and even after I found out about it, I really didn’t care all that much about doing it…there was so much else to do. Oh, and if you don’t think TES is difficult…try playing it with the difficulty set to max, it’s not only hard, but impossible to survive without cheating, either that or just roam around inside the towns and never face an enemy more powerfull than a rat, but even a single rat can still kill you, so be carefull. :smiley:

22

You can’t arbitrarily classify a specific subgenre of RPG as “real” because it’s the kind you like. I dislike how much multiplayer is focused on as much, if not more than you, but there are tons of types of RPGs. JRPGs are great, and they’re some of the earliest video game RPGs. As far as RPGs go, Elder Scrolls is and always was a bit of an anomaly as far as RPGs went, and it’s still nowhere near as “focus on the tiny things” as, say, Minecraft is. Elder Scrolls has a very definite game and progression, except Oblivion lacking any real sense of progression due to the atrocious level scaling.

Yes, you CAN play a hell of a lot of Morrowind without even touching the plot, but a lot of the stuff you can do revolves around helping random people out, little sidequests. Even if it’s not THE main goal, it’s still “linear” by your definition, randomly exploring only gets you so far (especially with Oblivion’s dungeon copypasta).

Besides, Dark Souls is very much not about the plot, unlike JRPGs or other blockbuster single player RPGs like Mass Effect, it kind of has a framing story, but most of it is about the journey. Now, Demon’s Souls was both linear and without a story, you had more or less a straight path with few branches to follow, but Dark Souls is all about the explorations, and joining Covenants and seeing what kinds of randomness you can survive through. There’s always that ultimate goal of finishing off the demons, but the same goes for Oblivion and Morrowind. Dark Souls really isn’t a plot based game, the areas and story really stand in for a game that’s really more of a combat/dungeon simulator (with Demon’s Souls I always got the impression that if magic and whatnot REALLY existed, the fuck you style traps and ambushes would pretty much be how people really fortified things).

Edit: And if it’s LITERALLY impossible to survive, that’s just bad game design and the number god hating you. As hard as these games are, they always give you a chance and encourage you to learn from your mistakes. Luck often plays apart, but nowhere near the stat based dickery of max difficulty ES games.

23

Amazing, a game series surviving the multiplayer aspect,…and not sucking? maybe there’s hope for the world yet, maybe the end is not as near as I thought, I stand in utter awe…

TES has, as far as I know, always been impossible on max difficulty, normal is the level it’s intended to be played at, which offers a challenge, but isn’t insane. There is really not a hard, medium, easy, it’s actually a slider that adjusts from (I believe) +100, to -100…0 being normal. While it’s possible to survive minor encounters on +100, I’ve personally traveled between all the towns on foot in Oblivion and fought every creature and bandit using nothing but a sword and cowering behind my sheild. However, if you actually want to advance in the game and do the main storyline or one of the numerous sub-plots in +100 difficulty then you need to have a magic character and greatly enhance your ability to evade…direct combat is not possible, the stupidest things will kill you otherwise.

Oh, and yes, I can clarify TES as a real RPG, seeing as how the other types are merely calling themselves something they’re not…D&D is a real RPG, not the video games the board game, though I’ve never played it, that is where the term RPG came from to begin with (I believe, cite me if I’m wrong), and TES is one of the few that can actually be classified as such. I’m not a Minecraft fan, mostly cause I don’t understand it and the graphics don’t seem to be improving much beyond a severe case of pixelation, but yes, it would most likely fall squarly in the RPG world, so would Sims for that matter…

24

Then you have a wildly disparate view of RPG from the general populace. You can’t arbitrarily define terms as how they SHOULD be, terms are defined as people use them. Admittedly, RPG is a very, very difficult genre to define, and any definition you can give many people will disagree with.

However, D&D isn’t really a good marker, D&D isn’t really a game, it’s a system of rules (which often devolve into suggestions) that can be used to assemble a game. Whether the players can get distracted or are on a strict plot depends very heavily on the player, and the GM. Even some “distracted” games have an ultimate goal, with the GM weaving the player’s choice to get distracted and go into a cave into the overall narrative. Comparing TES (or any CRPG) to D&D is a fool’s errand, honestly, since anybody’s experience will differ greatly from another’s as far as things like plot importance, sidequests, distractions, etc. Comparing D&D to the Elder Scroll’s engine and rules would, perhaps, be more apt (not that it helps this discussion at all).

25

Ugh…late night in the office…S…D..MB keeping me…awake :D.

Agreed, RPG’s are hard to define, no dispute, however, any game, even life, has a goal, unless you have a goalless life (not that that would be undesirable :D), still, even a goalless life has a goal, to be goalless.

I define an RPG as anything that’s extremely open, to a point where it’s hard to define the maingame, or at least let you define what your objective is. Fable, for example, can have distractions, but there aren’t enough to make you get lost in them, it’s just an adventure game with some sidequests. TES, on the other hand, can take you off to the point where something that would normally seem mundane in comparison to a quest, becomes the game itself. I’m not saying other people aren’t entitled to an opinion, I just wish that game devs and players would realize there’s a difference to having a temporary distraction, and a distraction that can last for hours on end and possibly never grow old.

I’d imagine the D&D players have more say on whether to follow a distraction than the GM, but really, D&D could never be compared to something that’s been designed like TES, I was just using that as an example, possibly the closest thing to TES, though D&D is closer to life than a video game. Still, I wouldn’t want to play D&D, simply because there’s only a set time and place to play, and with a hectic schedule like mine, I’d never make it to the next session :D, plus I also like the freedom of being able to play something any time I want, getting together with a group just seems silly when I can satisfy my RPG crave with a video game and tell my friends later about my experience…we can even recreate the D&D feel by smoking some hash and downing a few beers (not that I use MJ anymore, but you get my meaning :D).

26

Curious, Crowbar of Irony +3, have you made your decision on which game to get?

(Skyrim, Skyrim, Skyrim, Skyrim…)

:wink:

27

In TES it’s very, very easy to define the main game (well, post-Arena at least, can’t speak for Arena). Sure, you CAN get off track, but the main quest is there, and if you asked any TES fan what the main game was, they’d probably explain the main plot (nereverene, oblivion gates, whatever) nine times out of ten. No argument that you can faff about and wander around, but that’s true of many games. There do exist some very linear RPGs (Final Fantasy XIII, for instance), but most of them you can faff about, whether it’s via grinding, discovering sidequests, or whatever else. You may argue that the side content isn’t AS important as the main content, but that doesn’t define an RPG, which is a Role-Playing Game. What you’re defining is a definitive SUBCLASS of RPG, specifically an Open World Sandbox RPG. There already EXISTS a term for what you’re describing. And I know this probably isn’t your intention, but describing TES as a “true” or “real” RPG to the exclusion of all else comes off as rather pompous. You’re almost on the opposite side of the useless definition of RPG which arbitrarily defines every game as an RPG because “you’re playing a role.”

Yes, there is gray area as to what constitutes an RPG, clearly not everything with “RPG elements” is an RPG, I think most of us can agree that Call of Duty isn’t an RPG despite it having a form of “character progression” (usually billed as an “RPG element”). But it’s been argued fairly that Zelda is an Action/Adventure/RPG. I personally disagree, but a lot of people see it in there. I guess RPG is like porn in a way, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” Though it is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Rant aside, I think you’re being a tad over-exclusionary with your definition of RPG. Your definition narrows the genre down to probably under a dozen games, maybe less, such a narrow definition makes it rather useless, to be honest, for such a common, broad term. There’s a reason that we have terms like CRPG, JRPG, WRPG, Sandbox RPG etc, specifically because RPG is so broad. There’s no reason to elevate just one of the many subgenres to “true” status, to the exclusion of all else. You can say it’s your “favorite type” of RPG, but what you’re doing is saying that Call of Duty isn’t an FPS because it’s not a DOOM clone. The Doom derivation of games, and the more Halo-inspired modern games are both FPS games by almost any definition, we have subgenres for just this reason, no need to make any one more “real” than the other :).

It really depends on the GM, with some GMs you can hear the train a mile away, when everything you want to do is found to have some reason it’s impossible. In some other campaigns, the GM is SO DAMN GOOD at improvising, you’ll never know you moved off the rails. It may seem like you’re focusing on some mundane sidequest to the exclusion of everything important, but the GM just adapts to it, rolls with the punches, and makes it part of the main story easily. This is very qualitatively different from any CRPG, since there’s always a delineation between there being a plot quest and not (even if it’s not necessarily immediately obvious). The exception, of course, being the cases where there is no main quest.

28

Wow, you can really argue your side, Jragon, much props, you’re not letting me off easy on this. :slight_smile:

You are most likely correct that I’m merely stating that Sandbox RPG’s are a favorite…however, though my kind would be overwhelmed by popular demand, I have spoken with personally and have seen others take the same stand that I’m currently holdin. Not that it means much, that’s like saying to a blind man that the sky’s purple, when all his life people have told him it’s blue, there’s no way in hell he’ll believe you nor care (strange analogy I know, doesn’t fit well either :dubious:). I guess what I’m saying is I’m not totally alone in this, maybe that takes the edge off my seeming arrogant, not trying to be at all, this is just a discussion. My position on this is that while some games (even CoD as you pointed out), have RPG elements, hell for that matter, the only game I can think of off hand that has no RPG element would be a card game…oh, wait, no, that still has some mild RPG to it. The opposite would be true then, you could say that TES is an FPS: I can go first person, shoot a bow, or even cast a fireball, and hurray, it’s an FPS, it would also fit into hack-&-slash too for that matter, get a hord of zombies together, start mowing them down and it will soon feel like one at least. However, would you go around calling TES a hack-&-slash game? Or an FPS? Or a strategy game? Or how about a puzzle game? Maybe it’s a simulator? No, you’d have to say it’s an RPG, even though it has all those elements, you cannot classify it as such. So my question is, why call something an RPG that’s not, though it has lots of RPG stuff going on, I would argue that unless it has all the elements of an RPG…every last one,… then it cannot be called an RPG, or at least not a “real” RPG (again, not trying to be arrogant here). :slight_smile:

About Morrowind, I seriously did not know there was a mainquest, I’m not kidding, being new to the TES world and all and not knowing what the game was about on any level, I just assumed there was no mainquest. It was nearly a year after playing it that I found an article online or something that was discussing the mainquest and that’s when I realized that the census officer in the beginning was the start of it. True, there’s no making the same mistake with Oblivion, even a new TES player would know that going to Weynon Priory is the next step in the maingame, but even a new player may not realize that he/she could simply teleport to Chorrol and get on with it, they may make the journey on foot and wind up exploring even freakin’ cave along the way, extending that leg of the game by many hours instead of a couple minutes. This is nearly, if not completely, impossible in a Zelda game, or Fable, hell, it’d be hard to have that same experience in that one Farcry game, and don’t get me started on GTA. Those games seem open, and sure the maingame’s long, but after a few minutes of fooling around in the world and having the cops chase you from one side to the other and killing a few bystanders, it gets pretty boring and the only real fun part is the maingame. TES is the exact opposite, the maingame often seems like one long quest, and half the time it’s actually not as fun as the rest of the quests, in Morrowind it seemed like more of a chore, and Oblivion’s isn’t much better. I’m not saying they’re not fun, it’s just that the devs do such a good job at making it seem more intense that often it’s nice to jump off and do something else and just let it sit for a while, like a difficult teen refusing to do what they should and instead sticking their finger to the world like “whatcha’ gonna’ do about it” (okay, another strange analogy, where are these coming from, I’m not rebellious :dubious:).

:slight_smile:

29

Dark souls is incredible.

30

The problem is you’re arguing a bit from pick and choose definitions, “TES is an RPG so therefore it has all the elements of an RPG so therefore any game without these elements I’ve defined are not RPGs.” As it stands, we have nothing other than your word that these nebulous qualities are what defines an RPG. Widely used terms need to be unifying, not exclusive, exclusive terms are meant to whittle down broad terms (in general).

There are a set of games that MOST people would probably agree are RPGs, some that are ambiguous, and some that are definitely not, but share some elements that are reminiscent of the genre. The definition of RPG needs to:

  1. Be broad enough to encompass what most people would call an RPG.
  2. Include potentially any number of the ambiguous, debatable examples, or at least present a definition to which we could see why somebody may argue that the ambiguous examples may or may not fit.
  3. Be exclusive enough to weed out anything that is not obviously of that genre, BUT will be inclusive enough to “touch” the game’s elements that may be derived from the genre.

Clearly not an easy feat. However, what you’re doing is ignoring part 1 and saying “Well, my definition at least fits TES so that’s my definition, even if it excludes all else.” The fact that you put The Sims in RPG is part of a sign that something is wrong, most people would say The Sims is a simulation game, and definitively not an RPG. In fact, the genre you’re defining is actually “Sandbox.” This includes Sims, Minecraft, Oblivion*, and others quite readily, as well as excluding Final Fantasy and Fable**.

  • Actually, TES falls under “debatably sandbox”, but I think most would put it in there.
    ** Which is debatably sandbox, but I don’t see it.
31

QFT.

I actually picked up the strategy guide for this one. It’s a giant hard back book and looks/feels like a text book. Well worth the $25.

32

Okay, we’re getting to the real crux of it all. The issue is that RPG does stand for Role Playing Game. By this definition anything is an RPG, especially something where you’re playing a specific character. The term ‘role play’ is the problem maybe. TES, WoW Online, FFXI, LotR Online, AoC, RoM, D&D Online, etc., these need to be in a catagory all their own and not defined by simply saying they’re a type of RPG (i.e. ‘sandbox’). I realize TES is the only one of those that’s not an MMO, but it kinda’ fits in when comparing scale and freedom. That’s it, why aren’t they called ‘Free’ games…oh, then people would think they’re free, right :D. Games like TES should be set aside, that may be where I stand on this, devs should not be allowed to throw together a lazy piece of crap (Fable), and call it something that shares the same genre as a game like TES…they aren’t the same, you can’t hold them next to each other and say that…it’s blashemous, and disrespectful to devs who do know how to make a big game. It just feels like such a terrible thing, I think I’d be happier if they were more disconnected, people buying Fable games need to know they’re getting an adventure game, they aren’t buying an equivalent to TES, it’s so far removed as to be shocking. :wink:

Sims is more a simulator, I agree, but that even makes Fable look sad, I can get more gameplay out of it, that’s for sure (though I don’t like nor play Sims, so that’s not entirely true, of course, the last Sims game that came out looked interesting, so there’s that). I guess what I’m saying is let’s call Fable what it is, an adventure game with sidequests that I can run through and beat in about a day (or at least 2 and 3 I could, 1 might take two days to beat and do 90% of the extra stuff). Hell, in 1, you could actually die (I think, maybe you just get warped back somewhere though, can’t remember), in 2 and 3 you can run about willy nilly and the worst that will happen is you lose some orbs, woopty friggan doo :smack:.

Okay, so yes, by the definition of RPG, all these glorified adventure games are RPG’s, that doesn’t mean I have to like it, they should be recognized as such and the devs shunned for trying to be such cheapskates and come out with a game that barely fits into a genre that also happens to include something that is so much more. It’s like they’re sitting on the shelf and saying “look at me, you liked Morrowind…you liked Oblivion…you might like me too, even though I suck” (using denis Leary’s voice too, or at least right now in my head they are :D).

Opposing counsel? Your statement?

:slight_smile:

33

That’s like saying Hitler wasn’t a person because he was a bad one. There are plenty of really, really crappy Mario clones for the NES, but I wouldn’t call them not platformers because of it. You can’t just exclude something because it’s BAD. Whether you like it or not, Fable is an Action Adventure RPG. It’s a little lighter on the RPG than some games, imo, but it still fits the RPG genre.

Look, here’s how I see it, at one point games sort of took concepts from D&D. More specifically, experience and leveling systems, because older computers and game systems couldn’t really handle D&D (hell, even modern systems can’t without allowing a human GM), so we got things like Dragon Quest, probably the earliest (significant/popular) electronic based iteration of the modern RPG*. Eventually we got more “western” games (Fallout, Gold Box) which had different systems and sort of returned closer to a D&D style, even if the mechanics were different. However, they still kept the same sorts of mechanics.

So an RPG is a game about getting experience points right? Well… here’s the problem, if we allow that, then half of every modern day game is an RPG, yet it’s still a genre that people can define and use as a term that’s specific. So clearly somewhere along the line something happened that tells us that there is some quality of “RPG-ness” that encompasses, but is not solely defined by RPGs.

Now, the rest is almost pure opinion, but I’d say a big part of “RPG-ness” has to do with player skill. Pretty much every game I can think of that is classified as an RPG isn’t wholly defined by player skill. Some RPGs are definitely more reliant on some sort of skill than others (mostly action RPGs), but most of them have the snag that there’s some number-based thing that makes success exceedingly difficult if it’s not at the right amount. This means that no matter how good you are at the game, it’s going to range from difficult to impossible to succeed without your level, equipment, stats, whatever being high enough. Contrast to Super Mario or Call of Duty where even if in some cases you may have to do something to unlock an item or get some small aid (better aim, better gun, bigger water tank, whatever), as soon as you have it it can be utilized to its full extent and player skill wholly determines success. Contrast this to Morrowind where unless you resort to extreme cheese, being woefully overclassed by an enemy is liable to get you killed pretty quickly, no matter how much of a 1337 M4573r you are at the game.

There are some other things, RPGs usually have a persistent character, compared to other decidedly not-RPG stat based games (say, an RTS like WCIII), where the character’s stats are irrelevant between map and map or scenario and scenario.

Fable is an RPG by this definition, which I personally think works rather well, but Fable is definitely rather heavy on the action-adventure genre. It’s an Action Adventure RPG (which I think is how many stores classify it), though the RPG elements are lighter. Likewise, Morrowind is an Action Adventure Sandbox RPG, since it has more to do. However, since the terms are a bit gradient, it has a lot more “RPG” elements, since stats are a bigger deal. Note that RPG (nor most any other genre) is mutually exclusive, they all modify each other. The original Deus Ex, for instance, is an FPS RPG (or at least very close), because the character’s skill supersedes your own, if your character can’t use a certain gun, good luck using it yourself. Borderlands is also fairly close to an FPS RPG, since you’ll find it a fool’s errand to beat any enemy a much higher level than you.

I’m not making any argument about a game based on the term “Role-playing game”, since it becomes rather useless. What I’m doing is taking the games archetypal of the genre, and trying to mold a definition around them, not excluding anything because it’s bad or I don’t like it. It’s not like because a bad game exists it’s gonna taint Oblivion. And you know what? If a company wants to advertise a game similar in feel and scope to Oblivion, then it’ll be pretty obvious, they’ll say it has an open world, tons of sidequests, is a sandbox etc. We don’t need to redefine RPG just because some people like TES more than Fable. Besides, most people who are RPG fans know their own tastes pretty well, non core gamers aren’t usually the people playing sprawling RPGs, so the argument that the genre needs to be more specific because of them is rather fruitless. Even IF they play Mass Effect or something and want more like it, they’re more liable to ask their friends or search the internet for something like “games like Mass Effect” instead of “RPGs” since they probably don’t really know the genre anyway.

  • I say modern RPG because the older (probably more faithful to actual D&D) text based ones are closer to what today we’d call “roguelikes.”
34

Of all the threads you wouldn’t expect to get godwined, lol. I think we have strayed too far from the perfect awesomeness that is Dark Souls.

35

Fist of all, no, Hitler was not entirely human ;), many would say he was demonically possessed, thus making him partially not human. Second of all, chill out, bro,:slight_smile: no need to get all worked up :). I could make an argument that you’re trying to impose your idea’s on me :dubious: :D.

The thing is though, that Morrowind and Oblivion will actually allow you to do a large amount of stuff without ever having to fight a single enemy (except for the beginning of Oblivion). Morrowind’s Mages Guild I believe would allow you to become Archmage without fighting or anything, just playing along, so would you define that element as adventure…even though the only adventure would be going out and picking daisy’s? I’m just saying that comparing Fable to TES is like the apple and orange comparison, there needs to be more of a distinction. Either remove the Fable type adventure games from the genre and only refer to them as adventure games, or create another genre that tailors more to what TES is, and while they would still technically be RPG, they’d be in another catagory that fits them better. My issue will always remain as long as the two are presented as simply RPG, I’ve never read the back of the box of either game and seen a distinction between them, if Fable wants to sit on the same shelf and try to appeal to those who like the more “sandbox” style (for lack of a better description), then it needs to say clearly that it will not live up to expectations. Not all of us have the money to blow $60+ on a game that’s only gonna’ last a few hours, I’d rent a movie instead. If I’m gonna’ spend that kind of cash I want a game that will last for months on end, there should at least be a price difference, since TES devs worked a hundred times harder than the Fable slackers. Yes, I realize that one would simply ask google whether Fable lived up to TES, but that still means that you’d have to search for the dope on it when there should be a clear indication on the front or back that says “this is not a good game but we’re still going to charge you a shit load of money for it” (I realize that’s over the top, no one would buy it even if they like that style, but you get my point).

Whew, this argument is taking a toll, but it’s a good one, and though we may never come to an agreement, we might settle on a stalemate at some point. Try not to get too worked up about it, friend, I think we’re just coming from different sides, and I personally wish there were more devs making giant games like TES, but instead it seems to me like the designers just want to shit on a disk and call it a game, hell, even some of my favorite game series from the past (like Zelda) have succomb to the pressure of just getting it done and out there, and only a few, like Bethsoft, are spending more and more time to make their game all it can be. If they’d just keep the game in development for a few more years and make it really good, push the status quo and all that, I think there would be more games from all genres and sub-genres that would make their fans super happy, in fact, they’d get more die-hard fans like the ones that Bethsoft has…I’ve never heard of a die-hard Lionhead fan (they may exist, I’ve just never heard of them is all).

:slight_smile:

36

Sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as angry or anything, I’m perfectly calm and normal, I promise :). Also, I’d say it’s silly to insinuate Hitler wasn’t human, it screams of No True Scotsman (like the rest of your not an RPG argument, to be honest :)), but I’m not gonna derail this thread further into religion and WWII :p.

Yes, I would classify that part of the game as adventure. If there was a game entirely like that, I’d say it was an adventure game. I think you hate Fable a little too much, I mean, Fable II/III weren’t the best, but you’re giving them a bit much ire. And I used to be a diehard Lionhead fan back when Black & White II was around the corner and The Movies was new. But there are plenty of good games in a similar vein to Fable. And they’re both very different on the back of the box, in fact, here’s the blurb on the back of the Fable I Xbox box:

“Imagine a world where every choice and action determines what you become. Where you evolve in real time based on every little thing you do. Introducing Fable, an RPG action adventure unlike any you’ve ever dreamed of.”

For comparison, here’s part of the Steam blurb for Morrowind:

“An epic, open-ended single-player RPG, Morrowind allows you to create and play any kind of character imaginable. You can choose to follow the main storyline and find the source of the evil blight that plagues the land, or set off on your own to explore strange locations and develop your character based on their actions throughout the game. Featuring stunning 3D graphics, open-ended gameplay, and an incredible level of detail and interactivity, Morrowind offers a gameplay experience like no other.”

They’re both rather clearly different marketing targets. Morrowind bills itself on exploration and open-endedness, Fable bills itself as a game primarily about choice and consequences. They are both still RPGs, but the store isn’t going to have a separate section for every subgenre imaginable, it’s ultimately up to the consumer to know what they like, your argument may hold if this were the early 90’s where you bought a McDonald’s platformer because it looked cool and you couldn’t find any information on it, but that’s not the case nowadays.

Bethesda’s games are rather unique, but I don’t think they deserve their own genre, they just happen to make RPGs that are really focused on the exploration over the main plot. And not all linear RPGs are short like you’re making them out to be. My current Tales of Vesperia (a JRPG) playthrough is over 65 hours, it would probably be even longer if I cared about getting every item in the game for the Collector’s Book sidequest, or finishing some of the sillier sidequests (I’ve heard figures of up to 120 hours, not including the New Game+ stuff).

Even Fable wasn’t that short for the money, seeing a movie at the Theater is about 9 dollars per person, for 2:30hr at best usually. If you rush Fable you may not quite get the same dollar/hour (and remember, this is BEST CASE movie length), but if you do any side content at all you’re probably getting a better deal (at least by my estimates), which is fair considering part of the price includes the side content. Not to mention buying a movie is usually even more expensive than a theater ticker (since it’s a one time deal). Now you said renting a movie, but that’s not an apt comparison, you could rent Fable as well, and that would definitely be cheaper dollar/hour wise.

Honestly, I haven’t been impressed with Bethesda since after Morrowind. I’m getting Skyrim, but it’s not on my top list like Sonic Generations, Skyward Sword, Assassin’s Creed, and Arkham City are. Oblivion was very, very meh for me. It was nowhere near as captivating as Morrowind, even with mods. I just plain didn’t like Fallout 3, after I got all the bugs sorted out I found it poorly balanced, and the mechanics left a lot to be desired. So maybe we’re also coming from different perspectives. Either way, just because I don’t find them that great, I don’t really see a reason to say they should be kept over there, away from the real person RPGs like Dragon Age, The Witcher II, Mass Effect, Dark Souls, and Tales of Vesperia. They’re just a different approach at making an RPG that since Morrowind I feel has been poorly thought out.

I’m not going to argue that Fable’s team put as much care as they could into their game (god, the bugs), but I don’t find Bethesda to be that much better. They tried to polish Oblivion to hell, and came out with a system that most people either gamed or modded out, the leveling up system alone is known for being rather counter intuitive, and you can become practically invincible in melee if you exploit a really amazing AI confusion tactic known as “moving slightly backwards every time you hit someone.” Not to mention the copy paste dungeons, and the notorious level scaling. I personally think Zelda and Mario games are amazingly well polished and thought through, but it seems you disagree with that too. I think we’re at an impasse as we see completely different strengths in games.

Either way, I just think that it’s silly to say Oblivion is an RPG and Fable isn’t just because of something like hour count or how good it is. Like I said before, just because Call of Duty isn’t a DOOM clone doesn’t make it not an FPS.

37

Glad to see you’re not upset :), but damn, you’re out-doing me in post size…how am I suppose to keep up :eek:, gotta’ step up my game I guess :cool:.

Wow, Morrowind went a little too far saying “stunning 3d graphics” and “an incredible level of detail”…maybe for the size of the world, and true, at the time it was a bit impressive, but that’s going over the top :dubious:.

Okay, so they do define their games differently, and yes, the first Fable does stand out considerably from its predecessors, I actually enjoyed that one. I played it several times actually, then bought the special edition which extended the storyline a whole lot and made it more complete I felt. I did get a good amout gameplay out of it, and found there to be a lot of replay value. Like any game, I eventually wore it out, so when I saw Fable II coming out, I flipped my top, I had to have that game, but was more dissapointed than I’ve ever been before in my life. First they moved the camera way back so it felt more like GTA or something, taking me further from the character…that’s the character, you don’t want to be that disembodied from it, if anything you want to be closer :smack:. That didn’t bother me so much at first, I chalked it up to “their just trying a new style and putting less detail in the world to make the world bigger maybe”. Then I noticed that I didn’t die in battle…WTF! :eek: That didn’t phase me much either, being a previous fan and all I brushed that off my shoulder, again thinking they did that for a good reason, or maybe it’s going to be super hard to survive later in the game and didn’t want people to get too mad ‘cause they keep dying and starting over. However, every time I turned around I noticed just one more thing they skimped on, one after the other. Before I could blink my eyes something else was bad…then I realized, “they added multiplayer, didn’t they…those bastards…they killed kenny!” Not only did the storyline suck, but the gameplay and the world suffered greatly for this tragic mistake…all so a bunch of kids could go swinging into the fray together. That’s not a Mature game…take the M rating off this thing, this is for little kids who didn’t grow up with Atari or one one of those old side scrollers where you die and have to not only start over, but from the first level no less. Fable III, which I bought as well, foolishly clinging to my previous fandom thinking “they fixed it I’m sure, this one will be good, I just know it…”. :frowning: No, :(, it sucked even worse :(, how is that possible…it’s inconceivable :confused:. I guess I could’ve played it safe and just rented, and looking back I wish I had, but at the time I just wanted to believe so hard and was so freakin’ excited hoping it was better…the crowning jewel of my naivety. There, I said it, for all too see, I was stupid.

Okay, so Oblivion didn’t meet some of the criteria that fans expected, but at least they didn’t go the way of Fable, they actually made some things better and traded off nicely as far as I’m concerned. Frankly I don’t understand the reason for half the complaints, they’re somewhat ridiculous like “no levitation” and "load screens to enter towns. Sometimes I wonder if people are talking about the same Morrowind I remember, they say those towns were open, and they were, but I remember a whole lot of loading screens, and on top of that, just running around in the world would force you to load the next area…the whole game was blocked off in this crazy square grid that had a huge problem with loading. Oh, and don’t try maxing out athletics, you’ll just start running too fast for the game altogether and will end up going about the same speed you would with regular athletics. Also, the game is far more polished than Morrowind, I can’t remember getting stuck on a wall or post even once, but I remember each time it happened in Morrowind, and often I hadn’t saved in a while :D. So technically there isn’t quite as much to do and explore, I may give you that, but it’s soooo hard to compare the two since they’re so big. In-fact, just recently I was playing Oblivion and found a cave I’d never explored, and not just a cut and paste cave mind you, this one was very different, in fact it reminded me a lot of a similar cave in Morrowind, one that I found difficult to navigate due to it’s strange architecture and it’s submersion underwater, Oblivion’s version was much more refined and while it made me reminisce, it did it without the frustration…polished and big ;).

Do not get me wrong, I think the level of attention to detail in modern Zelda and Mario games are very good, I’ve played them with my niece and nephews, but that’s just it, they are gearing more and more towards children (not that I have an issue with that, somebody needs to with all the nasty stuff that gets put out). I’m not talking about gameplay or engineering or whatnot, I’m talking about difficulty (not with Mario…it’s still just as hard or even harder ;)). Zelda taught me how to solve problems, how to figure things out, how to think in a strange and bizarre way…even Ocarina of time did that very well. Now, however, there isn’t much left of it, it’s a shell of its former glory, while maybe difficult in execution of timing and some other stuff, it seemed to me that the last one I played basically told you how to get past the next challenge, but in past games it was just a hint that would sometimes stump you even more. I may be wrong about this since it’s been a while since I played one, but Twilight Princess just seemed too easy…and short…I seem to have a problem with short games :D.

No, CoD is a shooter for sure, I’m not a huge fan of doom mostly cause recent games seem too gory and horror focused, they’ve moved away from the FPS aspect to me, aliens were the rage when the first Doom came out (maybe because of Doom though), and sure they were intense too, but as peoples gore lust grew stronger they felt the need to amp that up a whole lot and increase the scary level. Now instead of feeling like a badass running around slaughtering hordes of creatures, you feel like a wimpy coward that will die if you even see another monster. Also, too bossy for me, a little bossy, like the stuff planned for the dragons in Skyrim, that’s cool, but pure bossy without being LoZ is not cool, man, not cool at all :D.

:slight_smile:

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Seeing that Dark Souls is out now, I got it.

And wait for Skyrim to be discounted on Steam. Yes, it’s the having your cake and eating it at the same time…

39

Traitor :), taking the easy road, I’m happy to wait, thank you ;).

I like supporting Bethsoft, though I don’t know what percentage of the profits they get, they must make more when it’s bought at full price, and pre-ordering I’m sure let’s them know how many loyal fans they have, so that’s what I’ve done…

(Bethsoft, Bethsoft, Bethsoft, Bethsoft…)

:smiley:

40

Just beat the bell tower gargoyles on Dark Souls after about 10 tries. Very satisfying