One reason it’s noticeable: they increased the voice actors but also increased the number of characters that are useful to talk to. I suppose that’s a good problem to have.
Anyone from Morrowind? Curious to see if Bethesda got the Dunmer right in this game.
Reemul
4723
I imagine all the Nords are Razgon, hence I can give them and him a good beating knowing its a worthy cause.
Hi Raz!!!
Razgon
4724
You bastard! You are just still mad from when we vikings invaded your country! ;-)
Or when what passed for a nubile babe in Oblivion was voiced by an obviously post-menopausal voice actress. That used to drive me nuts.
WarrenD
4726
My Grandparents on my dad’s side were both from Ireland and I’ve always been proud of my Irish heritage, but I recently saw a tv show about the Vikings coming to Ireland way back when and raping and pillaging and such.
It’s no wonder I seem to be able to role-play my character so easy in Skyrim. ;-)
kerzain
4727
Wearing Elf armored helms is like wearing a golden basketball on your head.
Kunikos
4728
Haha. Yeah, I can’t wait to move up to Scaled.
Aeon221
4729
No. There are loads of mudcrabs, but no one bothers to complain. Also I haven’t been called a fetcher or a muthsera. So clearly they are wrong.
rei
4731
Max Von Syndow’s character has a line that’s suddenly voiced by another voice actor that sounds nothing like him.
kerzain
4732
No problem seeing and locking on to an ore vein from 500 yards, in shitty weather conditions.
Can’t see trip wires or pressure plates from fucking three feet away, until my head is caved in and my body engulfed in flames.
Hey fellow Qt3ers, I could really use some assistance here. I’m soliciting advice for whether I should get this game, so I hope I have the right thread of the many available Skyim threads available to me. Let me explain – no, there is no time, let me sum up:
The main thing holding me back from jumping right into this is that I don’t really care for fantasy. I’m no fan of the Lord of the Rings or Dungeons and Dragons, I just don’t get anything out of the whole genre. I have really enjoyed Bethesda’s Fallout games, and that combined with my understanding (if I’m wrong about this, please tell me) that this game leans more nordic rather than the traditional elves & fireballs & Baldur’s Gate stuff. And that would appeal to me.
I have been reading reviews and they do tell me a lot of the basics, but they all approach the game as if you’ve played and enjoyed the other Elder Scrolls games. And I’ve played a little of a few of them but didn’t get into them. So I guess what I’d like to know is first, anyone else jumping headlong into Skyrim without much background? And second, any veterans feel like Skyrim might be a decent place to jump in if you didn’t play much of the earlier games?
More than a few lines.
No problem at all. Partly because of the in-game-book text they like so much there’s a fair amount of background lore out there about the gods and history and all of that, but both Oblivion and Skyrim set you down in medias res and leave you to be as interested (or uninterested) in the worldbuilding as you want. The main plot(s) is/are laid out to you with (for Bethesda) pretty good scripted storytelling.
kerzain
4735
You needn’t have played the earlier games to enjoy Skyrim. There are a few books and a couple random quests (very basic affairs with no impact at all on the over all game) that fill in some whatever-happened-to-this-guy type information, but you really aren’t missing anything by not memorizing all the infos about older games.
As for the real issue here, your dislike toward typical fantasy tropes:
The game has lots of magic (spells, items, quests). Lots of undead. Lots of dragons and giants, and lots of other weird fantasy creatures, or monstrous versions of regular creatures. . Yes, the game is Nordic (in the sense that the setting is more or less Nordic inspired), but it isn’t really. Although you might be able to play through the game as a simple sword wielder, completely ignoring magic, and potions, and enchanting, and leaving magic weapons in chests, never bother to unlock dragon fights and shouts etc, the game would just suck. For the most part, even the basic warrior types end up being magical beings in one fashion or another.
While the game isn’t drowning in Elfy elves, or Orcy orcs, they’re both there, with unique cultures of their own. But you really won’t be able to enjoy the game unless you can tolerate lots of dungeon exploring, fighting things like giant spiders, wights, vampires, robots and blind mutants – and equipping your character with supernatural weapons and powers.
I think you can jump into an Elder Scrolls game at any point. There are some basic game mechanics that can seem weird if you haven’t played before, but the plus is that you can pretty much learn how it works as you go. It’s not prohibitively expensive to just experiment with everything. (And by “game mechanics,” I mean the basics of enchanting items/using and filling soul gems, and how alchemy works, and how leveling works).
As for the setting: it is definitely a fantasy game, but it tends to focus more on politics and war than on just magic and the standard elves/dwarves/orcs stories. More than most games I’ve tried that were set in a fantasy world, it tries to build a somewhat realistic world where magic, dragons, elves and the like exist; instead of relying on the magic itself to be the main attraction. In Skyrim, the main focus of the story is on a war and your place in it, not just a simple “collect the magic amulet” quest.
If I were to compare it to any existing fantasy setting, I’d say it’s closest to the Game of Thrones “universe,” but with more magic. (And my only exposure to Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire is from the first 2 episodes of the HBO series).
Lh_owon
4737
Skooma’s a hell of a drug.
What an amazing game, but how did Bethesda miss hot-swapping weapon loadouts on thd d-pad? I know I will basically never use my bow or magic just because it breaks the imersion too much to always be in the menu.
That said, Skyrim seems almost faultless otherwise. Truly a masterpiece.
TurinTur
4739
In Fallout 3 you explored the world, fought against enemies, recovered loot, talk to people in towns, traded, stoled, crafted some weapons, entered in dark sewers and metro stations, leveled up several times, and did quests with whatever each npc needed.
In Skyrim you will explore the world, fight against enemies, recover loot, talk to people in town, trade, steal, craft some weapons, enter in dark dungeons and ruins, level up several times and do quests with whatever quests each npc needs.
It’s the same shit, seriously. It never ocurred to me that fantasy would be a problem. I mean, the game is 100% fantasy… and at the same time it’s game where the fantasy is unobtrusive in the player experience, maybe because is not a plot centric game but “do whatever you want when you want” game. Do you really care if you fight against a bandit or a raider? A super mutant or a troll? Sci-fi is another kind of fantasy.
Strollen
4740
Pogue, FWIW I am also completely jaded/bored/burned out with the whole fantasy setting. I use to like it but I went to see LOTR more out of a sense of obligation to my nerd roots than because I was excited about.
Which is why I like a game like Fallout or the rare adventure space game way more than yet another in the endless series of games involving, kings, evil wizards, dragons and orcs.
That said Skyrim is the best of the bunch in the genre. It combines the best of fallout with some of best features of other RPGs to make a great game period. In truth, I wish I was killing robots or super mutants rather trolls and dragon. The politics involved presidents or drug lords, rather than Kings. But all that stuff and the less than stellar interface are more than compensated by another wise superlative game.
There are game genres that don’t appeal to me and/or I suck at (sport games) but I try when they get rave reviews. For the same reason I’ll enjoy a great country and western song, a chick flick like Bridesmaid, or a abstract art by Picasso. Great art is great because it appeals to a wide audience and affects them.
If you buy Skyrim and don’t like than I can safely say you don’t need to spend money on others in the genre.
