I have finally put my finger on what is bugging me about Skyrim
One of the biggest things that helps me immerse myself in any given game is an idea of who I am in relationship to the world around me. Dragon Age: Origins, for example, had six different origins possible for your character… you could be a human noble, a human (or elven) mage (but the story was essentially identical), an elf living with his tribe in the forest, a city elf living with his family in the ghetto, a casteless (think untouchable caste) dwarf, or a dwarf from one of the most noble houses in the Noble Quarter of the city. In the first 10 minutes, the game explains your relationship to your friends, your relationship to your family, and even your family’s relationship to the bigger world.
You were shown that you were part of a web of relationships that involved rivals, both friendly and unfriendly, before you even got to the world-shaping events that would define the last 98% of the game. You saw exactly how you fit in your world. (Indeed, the first time that I played Dragon Age, I played as a Casteless Dwarf and saw the intrigues of the Nobility through that light… and saw that there were certain folks up there that I really liked and certain folks up there that I really didn’t. When I played through again as a Dwarven Noble, I saw the intruigues *COMPLETELY* differently. Indeed, they were so topsy-turvy, I couldn’t believe that this was able to happen at the same time as what I saw from Dusttown… but, nope, that was the gift of a different perspective.)
Furthermore, as the game continues, you are regularly given three different ways to respond in any given conversation (way back when, I termed them “Saint, Jester, or Grouch”, James K called them “Friendly, Snarky and Angry”) and once you find yourself moving with the flow of any given conversation, you can feel yourself falling into a particular persona. You may be a Casteless Dwarf moved to make the world a better place, you may be a Human Noble who cracks wise whenever (WHENEVER) the opportunity arises, you may be an Elven Mage overflowing with resentment. You have a full and realized idea of your character to the point where you even find yourself saying “oh, my character wouldn’t do that” when given a particular option.
Fallout 3 goes even deeper into the idea of the origin story. You’re shown the moment of your birth, followed by some moments as a toddler, and, before the story OFFICIALLY starts rolling, you are taken to your 10th Birthday Party. You get a handful of gifts: a poem from one of the spinsters in the Vault, a comic book from your best friend in the Vault, and your very own Pip-Boy 3000! As you get each of these gifts, you are given different kinds of possible responses… what kind of person are you? Are you going to graciously thank the spinster for her poem or are you going to ask her where the real present is? Will you strengthen your friendship with your best friend or mock her for her sentimentality. Are you going to be delighted with your Pip-Boy 3000 or are you going to resent that you don’t have a Pip-Boy 4000 like the one the jerky kid at your birthday party mentioned *HE* got when *HE* turned 10?
As time goes on and you have more interactions with more people, you can get more and more and more of an idea of who you are in relationship to these people (and, if you listen to the radio, you even get regular updates from Three-Dog explaining the latest news and what people are saying about this brash new person wandering the wasteland changing things… either for the better or for the worse). On top of hearing snippets of gossip from passers-by, the media itself comes out and says “this person here is saving the wasteland” (or “this person here is destroying the wasteland”) and, as many options as you have before you, you can’t argue with the DJ.
Skyrim, however… doesn’t have this. Your opening moments have you waking up on a cart. The cart is taking you (and a handful of other folks) to a place where your heads will be chopped off by soldiers (this is interrupted by a corker of a dragon attack). The game then begins. Who are you? What is your relationship to these other people? If given an opportunity to join the Assassin’s Guild, would you? If given an opportunity to kill innocent people for the sake of some otherworldy demon, would you? Strangely enough, when I asked these questions, I found myself wondering “well… why *WOULDN’T* I?”
In Dragon Age, I knew who I was and why I wouldn’t take a particular option before me. In Fallout 3, I knew exactly who I was and why I wouldn’t take a particular option before me.
In Skyrim, I kept finding myself shrugging and saying “why not?”
I mean, I could go through and play Fallout 3 a second time and the second time would feel entirely different from the first… it would feel like a different character entirely was going through the story. Dragon Age: Origins? Heck, they make it *EXPLICIT* that the Casteless Dwarf and the Elven Mage come from 100% different backgrounds.
If I went back to play Skyrim a second time… I don’t think it would feel that different.
With Skyrim I end up creating the characterisation myself. I mostly do this by having each playthrough focus on a subset of the quests.
By you’re right, Dragon Age: Origins and Fallout 3 do this better.
I haven’t played the other games, only Skyrim. I like the existential angst of Skyrim. Why not kill everyone? Why not break into everything and steal everything? WHY NOT, INDEED.
(It’s very early and I have not yet had coffee.)
I have an answer to this. I think it requires playing Fallout 3, though.
I might just have to take that bullet.
Don’t buy it before Saturday.
I heard a rumor.
Yet you 1000 pointed Skyrim, so it could not be that bad. Is it more a replayablility issue?
Please don’t get me wrong: the 1000 pointing is high praise indeed.
I’m just comparing the A- to the A at this point.
Okay here’s my thing with Fallout 3: I tried briefly to play through as a Black Widow. I was going to take what I wanted, when I wanted and the only thing that kept me from levelling a town I didn’t like was that I wanted to be sure I had some lackeys I could use later.
My feeling with a lot of these games is that their characterization gives you the illusion of characterization but in reality they don’t (save Dragon Age). The plots really do unfold very similarly except for a small handful of possible twists. This makes sense for the bulk of the games because you want the players to experience EVERYthing you make, not just some of it. It’s better to have a game that takes 200 hours to finish rather than 75 hours that you hope they play 3 times over.
Now contrast that with Saints Row 2 which I am playing through now. I really DO feel like I understand my character. However all I can edit about the game is her clothing, her looks, and her car. Well, and what weapons she uses. My wife gave me a hard time because she looked over at the game one night and said “She doesn’t like look like she runs a gang. She looks like a CEO.”
Yep. Nailed it, hon. That’s what I want. I want her to look like her shirt is professionally laundered, that her guns are nickel plated, and that while she may undersell the competition on Narcotics, she also respects the power of having Beethoven’s 5th blaring on the radio as she races towards a shootout at another gang’s HQ. That’s ~who~ she is.
Now I may play though part if it again just to see if having someone who looks and (acts) more gangy changes my feel for the game, or if it’s just the same old same old. Dunno.
All that said, I totally agree that Dragon Age Origins gives the best “here is your character!” opening and maintains it. I confess I spoiled myself in that I looked up possible outcomes and I admit that the hoop jumping for RP outcomes was a little annoying. Take hooking up with Alister. If you’re not the right origin and you don’t pick the ~one~ dialogue option at the right time, you fail to make the hook up. Or you do but only briefly. I think that’s one of the great limitations of computer RPG’s that as a table top gamer I tend to see as glaring.
It’s also why I am more curious about The Old Republic MMO though I still suspect that it won’t last as long as people think: They’ve got a (as I hear) a solid story line going on. But it’s group play, and end game that really sustain games long term these days. Too much solo play and when another good CRPG comes out, the numbers will take a hit.
I admit to having had a soft spot in my heart for Leliana, myself. (Luckily, my tactic of “KEEP GIVING HER STUFF” worked.)
The tension is always between having a tight leash on the script (and thus giving a much tighter/more directed narrative) and merely having events set up for the player to stumble across them like so many dominoes. (Actually, if the 360 point system/PS3 trophy system does anything spectacularly well, it tells the player “be sure to check out this other thing over here”).
While I do have some interst in the Old Republic MMO, the only one I am thinking of playing is the Mechwarrior online. Though I have a hard time seeing how they would do character growth in that one.
??!?!?!?!
Time to do some digging.
If you have not found it yet:
http://mwomercs.com/
I am told (because I was looking into it myself) that the main story quests are great. Plus you get to shock twilek slaves when they sass you. (blatent reference to E.D. Kain’s Forbes blog) However, the side story quests (that you have to do to get to the main story quests) are the usual “kill 10 of these and collect 5 of these” quests that MMOs have. Also, the combat is clunky and is missing many aspects of modern MMOs. I’m told that it’s much like playing the original WOW before all of the refinements, improvements, and evolution that the game did.
Also, they recently did an update which severely nerfed the slice (mining) ability so in-game cash is going to be something that needs budgeting again.
Speaking of Fallout 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCy3g-YEWzg
This is an abstract of the presentation I did last year at a Tech in Teaching conference.
Aw, man! Now you have to write a guest post!
It’s not that inspired and there are better commenters out there in the abstract. If I had time I’ve thought about submitting a “what’s wrong with educational policy” post a few times but never have the time to write it/ belief that anyone gives a rat’s ass what I have to say about educational policy as a right of center social moderate republican public school teacher.
A right of center social moderate republican public school teacher would be a refreshing bit of perspective.
I was very interested in the video games/learning nexus.
I think it would make for a great post.
video games can desensitize people, giving them some way to “stand down” from the stress of war, and renormalize to general society. (Okay, so I’m defining video game slightly broadly — this is more of a casual game…)
You’re teasing us, Teacher. The more you disparage yourself, the more we want you to write.
I’ve always preferred how the Elder Scrolls handles this – you’re a blank slate who is defined by your own actions. However, it is tough to come up with your back story and character’s personality if you don’t know the lore of the world. In addition, since the new leveling system doesn’t use “classes” but just lets you be a master of whatever the hell you want when you want, there isn’t any mechanical framework to guide you in terms of “profession.”
Being lore knowledgeable makes Skyrim more enjoyable for me in this sense – I’ve got a number of standard characters I play and the current world situation makes them really fun to role-play. There’s Cassius, Mr.Imperial. Basically a paladin of the nine divines and loyal to the Empire. Easy in the previous two games, but now? I’m Mr.Empire but but Talos? And letting Aldmeri walk around like that… grr. And Melphas, he’d be an assassin if the Dark Brotherhood wasn’t the only game in town. But his beloved Morag Tong is back in Vvardenfell, and Vvardenfell is gone. Along with his gods. He’s an angry and bitter man.
So, yeah. Some sort of pre-packaged origin story for new players would have been good, but I don’t know how that could have been implemented without taking away the blank slate, too.
The blank slateness, however, is a little too blank. When I hit the Thieves Guild, I was given an offer to join and I took it. When I hit the Assassin’s Guild, I was given an offer to join and I took it. When I hit the Companions, I was given an offer to join and I took it.
Had I hit a roving band of priests whose job it was to minister to the sick, I would have joined them. As soon as I met my “sick” quota, I would have left. Had I then found a roving band of slavers looking to collect Khajiit to sell to the Elves, I would have done that until I met quota.
Fallout 3, however, had me encounter the slavers and, before I knew it, I had slaughtered all of them. There was even a quest associated with them… and I didn’t care. There was even *AN ACHIEVEMENT* associated with them… and I didn’t care. (I caught it on the next playthrough.)
Why? Because I knew that my character would slaughter the slavers. (“Well then, you and I are a perfect fit. I want to free slaves, and you want to sell them”, he said as Eulogy Jones coughed out a lungful of blood.)
Ya, that’s the whole problem with the series. Nothing affects other paths. Joining the Thieves guild should mean joining the paladins (or other lawful guilds) should be twice as hard, if not impossible.
That’s not exactly a problem with Elder Scrolls.
You join the Assassin’s Guild, you wind up assassinating people you need to advance in the other guilds, so… while you can still join those guilds, you can’t complete them.
mu. still a dumb method. easy to code, but dumb. did they make the kitty mod yet?
Most of the people that *I* killed were definite descriptions rather than names… whether as assassin or companion.
Not a problem with the WHOLE series, just the last two entries. It’s a shame that they got all of the quest and faction stuff done right in Morrowind and then let it lapse as the series became more polished and fun to play.
mu. play ADOM instead.
My favorite thing about this is doing a few jobs for the Thieves Guild solo, then showing up later with Lydia in tow. No one bats an eye. Or acknowledges her existence.
I want to get my Kahjiit sneaky thief through the Dark Brotherhood quests and then go kill every high-ranking jerkwad in both the Stormcloaks and the Imperial army.
I really think this is the result of removing primary skills and the automatic “join this guild” quests you get for just talking to someone. The lack of primary skills and/or classes leaves you open to do anything. Having quests to join every frickin’ faction pop up everywhere pulls you to do everything. This results in people who aren’t so much playing a character in the world of Skyrim as they are just playing the game of Skyrim. It is the natural direction the game pulls you if you aren’t self directed.
Just curious, why are you discussing FO3 over FONV? The latter is superior to the former in regards to plot and characterization. FO3 was by the numbers like Thomas Kinkaide trying to ape Leonardo DaVinci. FONV is finding a forgotten canvas under the Sistine Chapel with “I am Leonardo DaVinci and I drew this for real.”
And if that didn’t derail these comments, how do you feel about Dragon Age where you are given a choice to have sex with an elf, regardless of your gender and orientation, or suffer lots of social disadvantages? Would this fall under the Skyrim “Why wouldn’t I?”
Can you wait for an answer until Thursday?
I ask because this is an essay.
Yes. Yes, I shall.
Really? I found FO3’s story immediately engaging where FONV was a big pile of “What the F do I do now?”
Truth is spoken here although Teacher left out “Why do I care?”
I believe that I sent FONV back to Gamefly when I realized that, after a few hours, I didn’t care about anything or anyone in the game. I was just ticking off quests to make the numbers go up.
“Because you got shot in the head and you want to find the fella that done it.”
Jeez. When *I* was a kid, we understood that sometimes you just gotta find the fella that done shot you.
Yeah, but the game was unsuccessful in making me care even to that extent. It’s like “meh. Stuff happens”.
It’s like when I got to that one hotel along the way that some gang had taken over. I can’t even tell you why I killed everyone in there. I think someone told me to do it or I was bored and I just decided to slaughter everyone but I couldn’t really tell you why.
Y’know, I just realized that it’s like Crackdown.
Twist endings aside, it’s not like those two were these narrative powerhouses. However, the first put just enough effort to keep me interested (when I wasn’t throwing stuff on the highway to see how much of a cluster**** I could make of that section) in stomping the gangs that I kept it where the second turned into me ticking off mutant stomping and light-based cures as if I was playing the standard MMO.
Final note: I’m not saying that every game has to be Jade Empire where, despite my plans to be a dick to everyone, I found myself unable to get myself to give an inconsequental NPC the wrong medicinal herbs because of my conscience. I can respond to the simpler plotlines of “He wronged you so you’re out for revenge.” Hell, I grew up in the 80s where that was the plot for almost every film produced during that time period.
But, when I can’t even be arsed to hunt down the guy who shot me in the head, then that strikes me as a failing on the game’s part.
Fair enough, but keep in mind that there are other folks out there who say something to the effect of “I saw Fallout 3 as the tutorial for New Vegas.”
Yes, I know. I’m talking to one now. Given how many times I politely sat through that speech, that encourages me just a little bit more to point out that, according to combined platform sales charts, my view is more popular by a ratio of 7.09 million to 5.76 million.
(Actually, it encourages me to say more trolly things for my own amusement but I’ll hold off.)
How did Angry Birds do in comparison?
It’s had 500 million total downloads. I can’t find any hard data on paid copies beyond the first couple months but, if it’s initial paid-to-free ratio has held, that would mean it has sold roughly 194.45 million copies.
Fun fact: The original Infinity Blade seems to have sold 4.6 million copies and Infinity Blade 2 has already sold 1.4 million copies. By way of comparison, Unreal 3 sold 1.21 million copies. Bulletstorm sold 1.31 million copies. The entire Gears of War franchise has sold 17.23 million (in roughly equal parts between the three).
No wonder people are getting jittery that Epic is going to move towards mobile phone development.
So how does Saint’s Row the Third fall into this? If you played the first two, I guess you have the backstory (I believe it’s the same character) but it’s not as if there was that strong a narrative linking the two.
There was a direct link, of a sort, between 1 and 2.
1 ended on a cliffhanger. 2 started letting you know what had happened in the last few months since the cliffhanger happened. (“Everything’s changed! You’ve got to start over from the bottom!”)
3 is just… I have no idea what relationship 3 has to the other two games. 3 is a category unto itself.
Well, I didn’t have the cash for SR3 and I didn’t luck out and get it for Christmas. But I did get SR1 and 2 so I figure, why not get a feel for the game flow?
Yeah, it does seem as though the narrative doesn’t flow, but to be honest I don’t really care too much. I’m liking the idea, having played about 6 hours of SR3, of seeing my girl go from the beginning of SR2 up and into SR3, going from a recovering gang leader to someone so over the top that she decides it’s a good idea to hit the armory for some guns.
There’s also something about characters. Granted there doesn’t seem to be a TON of carry over in characterization (Shaundi goes from dreadlocks to something more like a slicked back corporate look), it’s kind of amusing to think about how the city grew during that time period.
Maybe I’m just odd.
You’re talking to a guy who built characters for his mayors in SimCity. The “Well, why *wouldn’t* I?” question never comes up.
There’s always a why. Sometimes the whys are pretty crazy.