Bay 12 Games Forum

Yeah, it wasn't ideal. I just wish they'd given the leveling system a proper rework rather than stripping so much of it out. Particularly since it's still possible to gimp yourself in Skyrim, although thankfully much less easy to do while doing things properly like in Oblivion.

Above all, I miss the Speed stat. Not that it took much investment, it ran up on its own most times, but I liked that it had a real effect in gameplay. Zip along the dungeon, hop about, Errol Flynn them to death with your short sword. In Skyrim, you run and jump as good in the beginning as you ever will. Good game, massive improvements overall, but... Kitty wanty jump, kitty wanty abuse furniture in sword fight. : <

, and don't even get me started on the 'procedurally generated' caves and dungeons.

Err, they weren't proc-genned. They were built in the editor. It's been ten years, of course, but I can't remember if proc-genned dungeons were part of the buzz. However, I think (emphasis on think) that they did use an automatic generation program of sorts to plop down trees and rocks in the forests during development. Which I'm ready to believe, because some parts of the woods felt a lot more hand crafted and pleasant, while others didn't really look... Foresty enough.
That's one thing they did for Skyrim in response to the abundant boring little caves, though, putting more people on dungeon building duty. I thought most of the dungeons in Ob was alright, at least the ones fleshed out and decorated a bit. The random caves quickly knocked together by a stressed intern is not something I miss, though.

Say what you will about Oblivion and Morrowind, though. At least there were attributes.

I don't know exactly what it is, but Bethesda games nowadays have either all skills or all attributes. Never both. Maybe it's part of their "making RPGs for both RPG players and non-RPG players, because that won't have any drawbacks at all" scheme, or maybe the astronomical budgets they work with means that they are so tight on the margins that they are forced to remove anything that might offend any potential dumb-dumbs and lose sales. It's "streamlined", perhaps, but streamlining isn't just a good thing (although you'd think it is by how idolised that term seems to have become), not all the time. Would someone who'd think of it as a deal-breaker even buy a nerdy game for losers with dragons and Thor and hobbits an' shit?

That's my pet peeve for the day, overall. Simplification for its own sake. Cutting stuff out, not necessarily replacing it with something, taking a system and boiling it back down to its simplest form. Just because that's what you do. Either to "reach a bigger market" or for its own sake, so you can say you've done it. Because it's a good thing by itself, apparently.
I'm still horribly disappointed of what Hearts of Iron 4 became. HoI3 got away from the usual tired WW2-themed Europa Universalis thing, and the emphasis on production efficiency and managing your armies' chain of command is something you just don't see very often, a pleasant little oddity that gave it a bit of bite and identity. It was stimulating, and captured the right spirit along with the excellent visual design. But no, grind it all off, boil it down, back to form. Just put the same old men to walk around on a map again. It might be a case of the Morrowind Effect for me, though. They do something different, and I build the expectation that that's what it's supposed to be like from now.

That's not to say that all streamlining is bad. I'm part of the crowd who thinks the talent-trees in World of Warcraft got better after they were boiled down. Yes, there was less choice, but the old system was just an exorcise in finding a few specking guides and picked the one that made people moan at you the least. It's when someone goes "complex BAAAD remove now!" or sandpapers off half of the game because the group testing department found that a newborn lamb couldn't figure the it out at a glance that I begin to grumble.

Damn I look sexy in these boots.
The rest of me actually looks okay for a change, too. WTF. Maybe I'm hallucinating.

Boots are love. Boots are life. If I could get away with it, I'd have a huge pair of 17th century riding boots.

Today's WTF (well, mild 'Oh, dear'); I see the rat poison fairy has visited the courtyard. The poor buggers likes to curl up and die in the passageway out to the street, where they're difficult to see. Nearly trod on one last night. Scooped him up in a paper bag and gave him a Christian burial in the bio-bin. I'd like to think it's a kind gesture as well as sanitary, maybe the rats will put in a good word for me. It happens now and then, but the rats seems to soldier on anyway.

But still, why have locks at all, then? But I suppose that is what I liked about the lockpicking spells. Seems like a decent common ground. One button, done, if you don't want to do the minigame. That's something, at least, you're still doing something in-game to open the lock.

It was just a time sink, though. Even without the skeleton key you basically had infinite lockpicks after early-game.

That's what I felt, too, after a while. Well, after you got over the threshold of being careful with the few lockpicks you had. It always sort of felt as if you were feeding the chests with lockpicks in return for the loot (five septims, one glazed clay jug, a roll of cloth and maybe some calipers if you've been good). I still like it better than just a skill or stat check, though. Some reinforcement that you are actually picking a lock, even if it's gotten ridiculously easy. If it's short and snacky, I don't mind a little time sink.

That said, Oblivion had an alternative, opening it with alteration magic (effectively a standard skill check, but it's at least a bit better). I wish more games would do that sometimes.

I went to fight Kematu. Forgetting for a moment that he's an unfair pile of dicks, I used my crappy unenchanted war axe and didn't even try to open with Unrelenting Force. I got killed in short order.

Skyrim.

Remember; keep on pushing, and one day, you will be the unfair pile of dicks. The mobs will live in fear of you, like a force of nature! A dealer in cheese spam ruin and death!

But yes, Kematu is a pain, him and his pals. Thanks to him, a tiny part of my (admittadly very happy) memories of Skyrim will forever be dedicated to getting thrased around the cave by him. Come back after a few levels and shove a priceless extra-dimensional artefact up his arse.

I might. I can't really think of any clear reason not to, some day. But it's not a goal, on my part. If it happens, it happens. I'd take the chance.

Birth rates and population tallies tend to get pretty hysterical, though. I mean, there's a reason why most Western families with children have two; it's a managable number. Pregnancies are difficult, and raising a child is, while probably one of the most rewarding things you can do, also quite a task at times. People are having fewer, more managable children because it's an option. You don't have to keep making ten or so babbys in the hope that at least a few will make it into adulthood. And you're not dependant on having loads of children for a decent elderly life, or on having someone to work your land when you are too old to, and so on and so on. Even the foreign, baby-making hordes would likely have less children if that was as viable as in the West.

Honestly, the only unethical part of baby-having I can think of is having more children than you can provide for or having children you don't have any intention to care for. Having or not having babies don't seem too much like a moral choice in itself, altough that is partly because I don't think the entire yerpan race is quite so ill-fated and hopelessly resigned to doom as one would think at times. Birth rates haven't gone down because the people of yerp and the West has gone decadent, soft and forgotten how to fuck. They've gone down because you do not need to count on half or so of them dying before they reach adulthood, and your future and survival don't depend on them in the way it did. What that means for the future is a different matter, but the cause is not moral degeneracy.

In brief, I'm pretty positive towards having children of my own, but I don't feel like I'm a soldier that is abandoning his duty as long as he hasn't gotten a few pounds of his own into circulation. _{And honestly, it rather depend on who'd want me to be their children's father.}

It's alright. I go to political threads to comfort-cry, mostly. Maybe share some notes and impressions from my point of view that might interest other Bay dwellers. But mostly to cry. It's impotent grief.

...Hold me, while I weep for ze fatherland...