4481

I didn’t even realize the intro had a branching path the first time I played it. I just followed the one guy I noticed.

Also:

Dark Brotherhood spoiler for start of quest chain

When recruited by the dark brotherhood, you can turn it into a “destroy the dark brotherhood” quest line by attacking their leader.

4482

I know of a quest that you can fail.

Failquest

The beginning of the Thieves Guild quest in Riften requires you to steal something from a vendor’s lockbox in broad daylight and then plant (pickpocket) it onto a patsy. If you get caught during either step, you fail.

4483

Tele

Yeah, you can fail that (which I did) but it doesn’t seem to matter. FWIW…

4484

Sarkus filled it in exactly.

And no, Turin, it doesn’t excuse bad quests, but a branching quest doesn’t exactly equate to a “good” quest either. Usually when someone says “branching” it means “end the quest by doing this, or choose to end it by going here and doing this.” After that, it’s up to the game designers to open or close other quest lines, and indeed that is something that this game does.

And with a game this open, with so many things you can do, where going to fetch something means walking through the most beautifully realized fantasy world ever made since Betrayal At Krondor or Ultima 7, all quests of that nature are automatically given a bump in quality because of it.

You know when “collect 10 bear asses” is something you don’t ever want to see anymore? Well in this game, you don’t just go to the BearHaven Woods where bears are on an infinite respawn timer and collect 10 asses, and for a good 15 levels of the game bears can readily hand you your shit if they suddenly attack you because you didn’t realize they were there. No, bears are not that plentiful, they’re not easy to sneak up to, their hides weigh 2 lbs EACH, and if you just let the quest sit there you’re very likely to go 5 levels without killing 10 bears.

I know where bears are in WoW. In The Witcher I knew where to go to find other shit that popped up the moment you exited and re-entered the area. But in this game, hunting bears means exploration through dense beautiful forests, and that exploration brings with it god knows what other things that grab my attention (and the world is so god damn rich in locations that this happens a LOT). I actually have a bear pelt quest, and it’s been a couple weeks in-game time, I go back to a cavern where I knew there was a den of bears, and they are all still dead. This isn’t WoW treadmill 101.

So if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, and if sticking on a main quest line that doesn’t ask you to grab 10 bear asses but rather challenges you as you level up also doesn’t tickle your fancy, then go buy one of those other games where you run into glowing markers and see numbers pop up as you do ridiculous shit with no repercusion in a world that is literally 1/20th of the size of this one and STILL not as detailed.

This game doesn’t exactly break new ground in any one part of its systems, but taken as a whole, this is a full step evolution in how fantasy RPG systems interact to make the player feel part of something else, instead of making them feel like they’re the center of the universe.

Took me quite a bit of willpower not to click on your spoiler, because as a burgeoning assassin I don’t want to already know how to get into the special club.

4485

There’s a quest for bear pelts? I had to find a dude’s alembic, but that was like fairly easy even though I ignored it for forever.

What I like about quests is that you can easily stumble into them without really any prompting. But if you aren’t an explorer you’ll find a good chunk by just chatting up NPCs.

Also that they’re fairly irrelevant. If I want to sit around nomming ingredients and then go smash up a crypt it’s nbd.

4486

I kept forgetting to go give the bear pelts to the dude, and then I was like why the hell am I carrying so much heavy weight? But there are really no shortage of bear pelts around – I think I only killed like two bears, but if you’re a compulsive fucking kleptomaniac like my character is, you’ll have plenty.

4487

Except if you the only freedom you have is direction of motion and how to kill your enemies, there’s very little to define the experience. Otherwise all you are doing is larping.

4488

Skyrim is not a rogue-like.

4489

Yeah, I forgot about those very early quests. And of course the most obvious branching is choosing a faction for the civil war. They are rare examples-- most quests (and by most I mean 100s versus, like, 10) are completely linear.

That’s the only way to have a game with hundreds of quests. If a player can choose a different path through the game, that’s great for replayability (depth), but not length. Compare that to Alpha Protocol, where two people might be playing completely different games. If you only play through AP once, you’ll miss a ton of content.

4490

Man, I should really go back and play through Alpha Protocol.

4491

I made some sweet bear ass armor the other day. You should see it.

4492

gmonkey, you mentioned that you disliked Oblivion. Did you like Fallout 3 and Morrowind? If you did then Skyrim is worth buying, but if you didn’t then Skyrim won’t be your cup of tea either.

Skyrim is a Bethesda game through and through, but they have learned a lot from their previous games and have made many improvements on it. Obviously a lot of people (including myself) are still in the honeymoon period with the game, but it does truly seem to be a masterpiece in the series.
However, if you are looking for a dialogue heavy, multi-branching, story-driven game like Bioware and Obsidian make them, then this isn’t what you are looking for.

4493

There’s plenty of dialogue and even story in Skyrim. It’s just not branching; you play through each quest from start to finish without making any choices beyond “I’ll do a different quest instead”.

There are exceptions; I just thought of another, where you can either hand over a person to his/her pursuers or help him/her escape (trying to avoid spoilers). Just not many exceptions.

4494

I know which one you’re talking about. I handed her over and got a little more story and a fight. Also an irritating bug where two of the quest duders are stuck at the town entrance apropos of nothing.

What did you pick and do?

4495

I hated Oblivion - hated it. I hated everything about it, except for, well… nothing.

So far, I’ve only put about six hours into Skyrim but I think it’s amazing.

4496

Interesting. She was rather pretty, so I chose a different path. ;)

4497

Er. Forum is lagging with my edits.

Spoiler about that particular quest line

If you don’t rat her out, you get to fight through the dungeon hideout and get to the primary person doing the headhunting and you hear a different side of the story from him. Only after talking peacefully to him did I lead her to a trap. I had a feeling she was lying because of how quickly she turned to violence at the beginning and generally how bitchy she was. I let the Hammerfell equivalent of Sharia law take care of her.

Oh, the cave where I slaughtered my way through was reused as one of the ‘kill bandit leader’ Radiant quests and it was odd when the NPC group was still there at the end.

4498

Isn’t there a spoilers thread for people that might errantly fuck up the spoilers tag?

4499

Sorry about that, QT3 is being laggy for me tonight.

4500

I completed that quest in the same manner, yep.