ELDER SCROLLS V

[Jasper]

I've tried to go back to it a couple times, but having tasted gameplay without annoying scheeeoop noises every time I grab something, I never stay long.

[Cain]

Whenever I get annoyed, I just take it out on a Commona Tong member.

85 starting personality, speechcraft as a major skill and taunt make gameplay so much more enjoyable.

[Jasper]

You'd have to get annoyed pretty often.  I recall there being quite a lot of them.

[Cain]

Well, as far as my current game is going, not so many hanging around Balmora these days.  Hla Oad isn't looking too good either.  Its amazing how many enemies those guys make, merely by being surly pricks with a taste for a bit of the old ultraviolence.

[Disco Pickle]

Skyrim?   

I was really hoping for a Black Marsh or Valenwood setting in this one.

and a fucking dragon.  how original.

on a side note, Sheogorath reminds me of a couple of you spags.  The Shivering Isles was my favorite part of TES IV

[Fredfredly ⊂(◉‿◉)つ]

im still working on morrowind D:

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Take your time, Morrowind is better.

[Jasper]

OR

Give the Nehrim mod a chance.

[Fujikoma]

The levelling system drove me nuts as well... So did the freakish bozmer and their high elf cousins in 4. 3 was MUCH better, but the levelling system there was the same, iirc, wasn't it? along with the skill "medium armor" which lacked a trainer, which made it suck but I supposed balanced what was otherwise a superior armor type...

Then, none of the medium armor in 4. I just like to get really high and explore in 4 (kind of like with Fallout 3), but I have a lot of problems with it. Scaling monsters, good gawd, that's just dumb. your goodies and rewards seem to scale as well, which compels me to hide in a house somewhere and spam skills for weeks on end before taking a break, at which point I forget where I am and just start over because I want max stats. I've heard from several people that the best way to play the game is just to avoid leveling, but this strikes me as cheese. The fruits of my labor should be a reward, not some kind of uber-monster phermone curse.

[Cain]

There is a master trainer for Medium Armour in Morrowind - you just have to use the Construction Set to activate him in game. 

The real problem with Medium Armour is that the best quality armour of that kind in the game is Indoril Armour - meaning you have to take it off anytime you're near an Ordinator.  I believe there are mods which remedy this, but still...

I also think having the Dark Brotherhood assassins go after you so soon (if you have Tribunal installed, or GOTY edition) is somewhat foolish, as it meant my level one Imperial was rocking an insanely high armour rating after pilfering the would-be assassins gear, and made most Balmora-area enemies far too easy.

On the other hand, the constant assassination attempts does mean my character has cornered the trade in selling extremely high quality light armour....

[Fujikoma]

I remember this "feature" well, Cain... I usually murdered the Kajjit in the first town and took his house for my own devilishly occult purposes (training spellcasting abilities), using the bed to rest and coming up stabbing every time one of those jerks would come in to snuff me... LOTS of profit.

One thing 4 didn't have that I missed was the levitation spell... But I found out why when I used enchanted gear to boost my acrobatics as high as I could get it... It has a lot in common with the way they built the maps in fallout 3, find a chink and go over or through the wall, and you find a never-ending sort of dull landscape with the underdeveloped underside of the terrain features showing, it's not just a big, rambling map, going over the wall takes you to a magical world of... Bullshyt. I guess that's just how they had to make it, though.

... On a completely unrelated note, I've found some bizarre things in fallout 3... Did you know that, contrary to any kind of freaking sensible thinking, garden gnomes are one of the best stackable items in the game? I built a ladder up the left hand side of Megaton out of them, then just walked right up there and talked to stockholme... I'm surprised they made him say anything at all, but I was hoping he'd have some kind of easter-egg gear on him... Fat chance.

[Cramulus]

I've been playing the series since Daggerfall - including the obscure spinoff games like Redguard and Battlespire. It's interesting to watch the series evolve. I feel that the gameplay has improved by leaps and bounds in each game, but they've also been moving towards more popular and accessible fantasy, which means being kind of generic.

I've always liked the Elder Scrolls series for their sandbox potential. I love having a reactive universe where you can really make up your own little story for your character and you don't have to play the game's plot. Like my last playthough of Oblivion, I decided my character was a highborn elitist Imperial who hated lower class people. And I played the whole game as a quest to serve the rich and assassinate all the homeless people in the Imperial city. It was a lot of work, and a lot of fun - that's a type of adventure you can't have in a game like Final Fantasy or whatever.

I recently re-beat Morrowind. I think it's the best written game in the series - or at least has the most fascinating setting. In any other fantasy setting, Dark Elves are evil subterranean assassins... in this one, they're kind of like a blend of native american and japanese culture, something totally unique and original. And the religions on the isle of Vvardenfell were so well though out, and the tension between them informed so much of the game's drama - I really loved that aspect of it. The game was so packed with sidequests, many of them were totally arbitrary, it made you feel like there was a LOT going on in the setting.

So many fantasy writers and game designers are intent on digging up JRR Tolkein and trying to reconceptualize his version of fantasy. Which is stupid - fantasy could be anything we can imagine, so why are we stuck on these tired old tropes like Elves and Dwarves and Orcs? I guess the answer is accessibility - it's easier to sell a game when your audience already recognizes what you're trying to describe. So my favorite Fantasy is stuff that gets away from the tropes - and I thought Morrowind did the most commendable job of this, they built something that was squarely outside of Tolkein's vision.

I felt that Oblivion made a lot of great gameplay improvements on Morrowind. I hated the inventory system in Morrowind, I hated that you were constantly going to your menu to find this specific potion or scroll for this specific situation, it took you out of the action all the time.  Oblivion's spells are a bit less interesting but they're more balanced. Mana regen makes gameplay much less stop-and-go. Overall, I thought it was a great game and I had a lot of fun playing it.

So for the next game, I'm a bit disappointed that they picked Skyrim, if only because Nord culture is kind of boring, comparatively. I was hoping for the black marsh or something like that. Although IIRC Nords have their own form of magic which involves standing on a mountain top and shouting as loud as you can, which could be incorporated in a cool way.

I'll be interested in how they work dragons into the story again, they've always been a bit mysterious in Tamriel lore. There haven't been actual dragons in the setting for a long time (in game), but they're a big part of it. You can fight young dragons (dragonlings) in Daggerfall, and in Battlespire you see the aftermath of a giant battle involving Imperial dragon riders. You end up walking through this giant dragon skeleton and find this final note written by the dying rider. He talks about his relationship to the dragon like it's his best friend, it was a sad little piece of lore. So they're intelligent - they're probably going to be something more interesting than, say, the flying firebreathing killbeasts in Dragon Age that only exist as antagonists.

I'm also interested in seeing where the setting's story is going. The Empire is falling, Oblivion ends on a very uncertain note. It's the end of an era - what's next?

[Cramulus]

Also, I totally agree with what you guys are saying about scaling. In Daggerfall and Morrowind, you started off as basically an incompetent unarmed dude in a setting with lots of powerful thing that can eat you. Level 1 and 2 is spent running from everything and avoiding dangerous places until you're tough enough to brave them. There is high level gear built into the setting, if you can find it, you can get it right off the bat.

And then in Oblivion, everything is scaled to your level. Which theoretically makes for better gameplay because you're not getting devoured by ogres as soon as you leave the city, but it detracts from the realism. As soon as you hit level 15 all the enemies you face are carrying rare daedric gear. Where were those guys two weeks ago?

In Morrowind, I loved how daedric shrines were DEADLY. You had to get prepped to go in. And they were always tough. And there was a lot of money to be made if you were smart. There were altars which would summon horrible fucking demons when you took the gemstones set on the table. But if you got prepared with stealth, chameleon, inviz spells, levitation, any number of possible solutions, you might be able to grab the gear and get out of there before you were nuked by a daedra. You definitely didn't get the same tenseness in Oblivion - if you went in at low level, you fought scamps, if you went in at mid level you fought clanfear, and so on.

I thought the setting felt much more alive in morrowind - where you'd be traveling across the country and randomly stumble upon some daedric ruins... and then you'd have to get the fuck out of there because you were scared shitless at the kind of monsters that typically dwell around those things. "Oh shit I am in a bad place right now." In Oblivion they were just another dungeon.

[Cain]

Cram, you really need to read The Malazan Books of the Fallen, btw.  It's so different from generic fantasy (the only real similarities seem to be the Titse races = elves, but even then, they're more like Tolkein's elves, tragic yet insanely powerful immortal beings, than most generic settings.  As for the Jaghut...well, they may look like orcs, but they sure dont act like them).

I may write up a review, since the last book is coming out next month.  Well, the last book of that series anyway, I understand he is contracted to write another, and the co-creator of the Universe has his own series currently ongoing.

Fuji, I preferred Raalen Hlaalo's house.  Mainly as his corpse makes for a great permament container, and he has plenty of shelf space.  And I killed his murderer as a favour to House Hlaalu, so I figure I deserve the joint.  As for the assassins....as a member of the Mages' Guild, a trip to Caldera only costs 8gp.  Taking three sets of full Dark Brotherhood armour to Creeper, who pays full market price for such items, and keeps 5000gp in the store at any one time...oh yeah, now that's what I call a high profit business.

[Fujikoma]

Haha, YEAH! Before I found out about the creeper, selling my goods was usually a long journey fraught with disappointment, frustration and expensive travel fees, but I'd enjoy the depth of the characters I met along the way... With the new TSA guidelines, I don't think I'll be using the Strider any time soon. And the mages guild?! Heavens, you'll be lucky if they don't send your butt straight to Guantanamo because you had a potion in your luggage. Honestly, I don't see how that's supposed to work, considering the mythic dawn usually just conjures their weapons anyway.