Dungeon Master Forum

t0nedude wrote:Comparing Bethesda games (post-morrowind) to DM et al is an insult to DM IMO.

Is a "Gaming News and Chat" forum intended to compare new games to DM ? or maybe it is just talking about and (why not) ranting on them ?
Skyrim's difficulty is really well balanced : several places/enemies are just impossible to survive from when you're at low levels.
Oh and Skyrim doesn't seem to become "nothing special"... http://www.spike.com/events/video-game- ... f-the-year

EDIT : ok i've missed the post copied from the other thread. Anyway, comparing Skyrim to a *non existing* DM 3 is... weird. Grimrock is DM 3.

Yeah, I'm not really sure why one would compare Skyrim to DM. Totally different games, set 30 years apart in their production quality and scope.

Let's be honest: DM looks crap by today's terms. And Skyrim set out to make a "cinematic" experience for the player, largely at the expense of depth from what I can tell. Nothing wrong with that, but it's unfair to compare that sort of game with a more detailed RPG of yesteryear.

The guy at work is <i>still</i> playing Skyrim and excited for a fantasy setting, and getting in to all the tropes. So even if it doens't have as much depth for a hardened player (not sure, still not played the copy I bought yet) it's certainly good enough to hook in someone who otherwise wouldn't have bothered with fantasy and kept them going for over a month now!

I got Skyrim for my BDay yesterday, but I'll leave off starting it till after Christmas, since I also asked for Portal 2 so presumably I'll be getting that for Christmas and I want to play that first since it's gonna take me siginificantly less time to complete than Skyrim .

Usually the kids didn't like having birthday too close to Christmas because then they got "all at once" (i.e. less in total) but, yeah, I can see the advantages.

(my birthday is in June so all the fun is relatively equally distributed throughout the year... and so are the 'mehs' caused by wrong and useless presents like clothes and other rubbish)

Anyway, lucky you and have a good time playing all these games!

@Ameena: FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINALLY! Woohoo!

linflas wrote:

t0nedude wrote:Comparing Bethesda games (post-morrowind) to DM et al is an insult to DM IMO.

Is a "Gaming News and Chat" forum intended to compare new games to DM ? or maybe it is just talking about and (why not) ranting on them ?
Skyrim's difficulty is really well balanced : several places/enemies are just impossible to survive from when you're at low levels.
Oh and Skyrim doesn't seem to become "nothing special"... http://www.spike.com/events/video-game- ... f-the-year

EDIT : ok i've missed the post copied from the other thread. Anyway, comparing Skyrim to a *non existing* DM 3 is... weird. Grimrock is DM 3.

Hi Linflas,

I respect your opinions, but linking to a 'Game of the Year' nomination for Skyrim doesn't mean toffee. As an analogy, take xfactor (yes the shitty reality programme on tv). I'm sure they'll have a Christmas no. 1 this year, does it mean the song will stand up to something by The Beatles, Elvis etc or any other legendary artist? Does it heck as like. You throw enough money at something it makes things happen. Big money + Big tech (which will be obsolete in 6 months time) = pull the wool over alot of people's eyes, by then it doesn't matter; they've made their money. Most things in this day and age is about making money, not necessarily about what's good, and the path of least resistance to acheive that money.

And don't think I intend to denigrate console users; consoles have their place. I love snes/megadrive and alot of their games, but the quality of software on my platform of choice (PC) is being affected by consoles now and I can't help but feel a little annoyed.

My 2p

Tony.

That's totally OT but what if I tell you I don't like X-Factor as well but I respect people who participate ? I don't care if the guy or the girl who wins will stay after, i like the show where amateurs can sing better than original artists. I don't know for other countries, but in France some artists coming from those shows have great careers now.
Back to the subject : you didn't like Oblivion, haven't even tried Skyrim. I don't have predictive powers but because of its hugeness and the modders community, i can bet on Skyrim's (not Uncharted 3 or COD Modern Warwhatever) to be something that will last for long.
And for the money, well... it's how it has always worked in videogames industry. The difference nowadays is the amount of money you've put into (and maybe will gain).

Because Gambit hasn't bought Skyim yet I will continue digging and digging again that topic !

So here's some mods you must be known about, only those ones below make Skyrim finally enjoyable :
- SkyUI : definitely a must-have if you want an fast and intuitive interface which needs SKSE, a scripting mod.
- XCE Character enhancement, self explanatory...
- All-in-french (eeek ?! read french ?) : all textures with writing have been changed. I guess this one exists for many other languages.
And that's all ! you don't need anything more !

At the moment, I'm completing the "Horn of Jurgen Windcaller" quest and it's probably one of the most immersive experience I've ever had in a game. There are even nice puzzles into !
Come on Matt, buy it !!!!

I'm still at it too . I haven't got very far with the Main Quest so far - been told to go see the Greybeards but not done it yet - been working on guild quests, exploring, and other miscellaneous stuff, since going by what the previous games have been like, I reckon the further you get in the Main quest, the more dragons start attacking stuff and probably they'll be stronger dragons too.
Since you mention the interface, that's probably one of the things I'm not so keen on with Skyrim - the way the inventory is laid out. I preferred the way it was done in Morrowind, though even that didn't have the ability to move stuff around and arrange your inventory how you wanted it. But at least it moved your equipped stuff to the front of the list (which, in case you've not played it, was all done with icons and no text - info on an item, including its name, came up when you moused over it), rather than just having it all mixed together.
But on the whole, I'm really liking Skyrim so far. My armour skill is shit 'cause I've sneak attacked maybe 90% or more of everything I've killed so far - it's more like one of the Thief games than previous Elder Scrolls, for me .

linflas wrote:Come on Matt, buy it !!!!

LOL! If I buy it, I will never speak to my girlfriend again! (Or rather, she will never speak to me again!)

GF ? I bought Settlers 7 and Sims 3 to my girlfirend and deal ! I can play Skyrim as long as she has her Sims growing

My GF is not a gamer and doesn't understand games, or why I still play/consume/want-to-create them

yes, Gambit, it's because she has not yet played the right kind of game. Sims is for the closet voyeur.. or the person who likes to dabble in the lives of others (ie setting someone up with a date, or suggesting activies, etc) which is not to say someone who meddles.. meddlers typically don't want others to succeed.. dabblers do If she has that tendancy, play a few rounds WITH her to sort of show her the ropes and she'll be hooked otherwise there are other games.. my ex didn't play games either, but get her in front of mario kart and watch out.. or one of those pet games.. stuff like that. games which are not competitive..

As to Skyrim.. dude.. it's got a definite addicting aspect to it.. and now with that new interface (Thank you linflas!!) it's going to be more awesome. Just wish the puzzles were a bit more involved and that the helper AI knew not to jump in front of my MON powered fireballs.

cowsmanaut wrote:Just wish ... that the helper AI knew not to jump in front of my MON powered fireballs.

I have the exact opposite behaviour with my current companion, Aranea Ienith. She's a great destruction wizard but couldn't she wait for my enemy to be away from me before firing storms when I'm fighting with my orc storm of frost ???!!

I don't bother with companions myself - the only time I've had someone with me is where they've joined me as part of a quest, in which case they leave after it's done. I prefer to solo everything - then everything is done by my own work so I'm getting as many skill-ups as I can, plus I don't have some random idiot following me around, getting in my way, and charging into battle while I'm trying to empty a whole room via sneak attacks .
Still having fun with the game - still not done any more of the Main Quest yet (current quest is still "Go and see the Greybeards") as there's still so many more zillions of things that need doing .

Actually I played solo too from the beginning for the same reasons you mention. Most of companions you meet are fighters/archers i.e. may die quickly. Aranea stays alive because I took her melee weapon and I gave her an Ice staff as unique weapon. Now she casts quite well according to the situation : flame atronach, ice spike and lightning bolt.
But my solo feeling won again yesterday : I've asked her to leave me. I think I could take another companion if he/she has healing spells.

Quick question to Skyrim players: what is the group interaction like? When you mentioned companions it put me in mind of henchmen in NWN...any similar banter/personalities/etc? Or is it just someone who follows you around and kills stuff?

As mentioned, I haven't taken a proper companion with me, but as I understand it you can give them commands to do stuff (Wait here, go there, pick up this item, let me look at your inventory, etc) and they also serve as extra baggage space since you can access their inventory as well as your own. If you come across a quest that requires you to take a quest NPC with you, your companion will wait or bugger off or something, but rejoin you after the quest NPC leaves. So I've read, anyway. Since I've been soloing the whole game sneak attacking probably over 90% of all the mobs I've met, I don't want someone else coming along to try and hog some of the glory (or get me killed by pulling an entire room ) .

It's currently on offer on Steam, with 33% off, so I'm finally downloading it....!

@Cows: I'll never convince my GF to try gaming, she's just not of that persuasion. It's actually pretty annoying, I don't think she really understand me at all!

Meh, I don't think it's critical. It's important that / if you understand each other in other ways / things and have other things / hobbies / interests in common / to talk about. My GF doesn't play games either and she doesn't understand why I waste my time with them (well, I spend one or two hours a week playing oldies-but-goldies and that's all, so it's actually much less than she spends with other things that I might coin "useless waste of time" but I don't of course) and I don't think it's a problem. (*)

(*) On the other hand she hasn't married me yet, so who knows.

Aah, sorry, I didn't mean that "it's annoying" and "she doesn't understand me" were connected.
It's sometimes annoying that the most significant person in my life has zero interest in my interests (gaming being one of them).
As for not understanding me, that's a more general issue... and not for discussion here really. I shouldn't have mentioned it.

Anyway, I have 20% to go on the Skyrim download....!

Ameena wrote:as I understand it you can give them commands to do stuff (Wait here, go there, pick up this item, let me look at your inventory, etc) and they also serve as extra baggage space since you can access their inventory

Ah okay, so they are there as combat help, no real characterisation? I suppose that allows the designers to build a bigger world and to include more characters.

I've played the first small part and made it to Riverwood, just to get a feel for the game, mechanics, and ambience.

I thought this was supposed to be the pinnacle of modern RPG games, but I'm not wowed.

The graphics are so-so, even on maximum -- they look a few years old, not current gen. I've had quite a few weird glitches already: items vanishing, people flickering on and off, etc. And even in the first few minutes of the game, several characters kept repeating their basic voice loops. I notice there's a high-res free DLC available -- I'll give that a go and see if things improve.)

I also think the interface sucks a fair bit. There's a vast amount of wasted space, and uncertain functionality. The article I posted about this before was certainly on the money when it comes to the UI. I guess I need to read some sort of manual too, because it's not clear how to switch from melee wepaons to magic without using the clunky menu system... surely there's keyboard shortcuts for all this stuff? Is there an online manual, or one downloaded with the game?

I'll try and get into it over the coming weeks, but first impressions haven't made me want to stay in there for any length of time.... shame really, I thought it was gonna be awesome. I guess I need to give it some time...

I got the same feeling at the beginning about visuals : blocky shadows and pale colors.
You should install the few MODS I've mentioned above, they will improve your gameplay and for visuals, if you have a 1Gb graphics card, try the high-res pack.
Press "Q" for favorites menu (i guess you have a QWERTY keyboard), then you can assign keys 1 to 8.

Yeah, you can set hotkeys for weapon/spell setups like you can in the previous couple of games. I'm not fussed about graphics, though I'm not overly keen on the way the inventory system works - there's no way to arrange stuff the way you want, it's all just in an alphabetical list which you can't move around. You couldn't do this in Morrowind either (can't remember how it was in Oblivion) but at least it automatically put all your equipped stuff at the front of your inventory so it was together. Still, I think I'm just over 90 hours of play-time now and I'm still having fun - sooooo many quests to do, random places to explore, etc. It's good fun .

Blimey, I just discovered Skyrim Nexus and the Mod Manager. I could be here for some time!

The ENB Series Graphics enhancement + Confident ENB lighting profiles look like they make a massive difference to the visuals. Once the High-res graphics DLC has finished downloading, I'll check those out too. I'm also super impressed with the SkyUI mod -- that seems to solve all the gripes I have with the interface. Amazing that you can mod games to such a degree these days!

the mod community for bethesda has consistently improved their games within months of their release. One of the primary reasons I think they allow for it to this day. They've tended to hire so-so graphics teams and programmers that put together a huge game with a lot of story and abilities.. then better artists and programmers come in, play the game, and make mods that fix the game for free.. I just wish they would hire some of these people and have it released correctly the first time around I mean people are rewriting code that makes the game run faster and look better.. decrease loading times, add better lighting and make it capable of handling more detail. Why couldn't their team of professionals do that in the first place? why do we need to wait months for some actually skilled animator to come in and add what they were too lazy to add? That's been my rant, and the reason I get the PC version each time, despite having played oblivion and skyrim on ps3.. I end up turning around and getting it for pc after so i can get a better experience.. :S

if not for the fact they put a lot of good story work and open world design into the game.. most of the initial work builds that solid base.. the game would probably be ignored. It's the solid foundation that shows it's potential and excites people to improve upon it.

As for getting women into games.. one often has to find the false idea that computers are not for girls, when in fact, computers and females go all the way back to WWII. The first "computers" WERE women.. the reason that we have programming language and computers in our own homes is BECAUSE OF women like Grace Hopper. So it's just as bad as the idea that men can't cook, yet cooking and men go back to the stone age.. Fight the root preconceptions first.. then work on the notion that games provide nothing useful.. bring the understanding that it's interactive entertainment made by and industry which makes anually more than the TV and movie industry combined. That there is a variety of experiences available in game format which can provide just entertainment or even teach skills or enhance your problem solving abilities. Puzzles are good for our brains, and sometimes a little escapism a day can be a healing tool for a stressed mind.. and a lot cheaper than a vacation.

Speaking of woman and games and mods and skyrim, here's the mod that might have stopped Ameena needing to choose Portal 2 verus Skyrim for which game to play first

http://www.nerdist.com/2012/02/portal-i ... es-skyrim/

@Beo: Cute! What a mashup. (That video clearly demonstrates why the default UI sucks, see how far he had to scroll through that list -- really bad design!) I love that new Creation kit, it's stuff like that (and the future mod support in Grimrock) which has killed off my enthusiasm for continuing old-school work on my DM/RTC/DSB game. Did you follow the link to getting the Dovacore helmet -- it looks hilarious!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQaMeH23 ... e=youtu.be

@Cows: Re: Mods -- yeah, it's pretty incredible what's out there and it certainly seems like bethesda have got a bit lazy. Who can blame them though? If there's that many talented people out there willing to "finish" the production of their game for free, why would they bother doing it properly themselves? It's both a depressing view of the complexity and cost of making AAA games and yet an exciting advert for the talent still bashing stuff out in their bedrooms.

Re: Getting my GF into games: I agree with everything you said. I'll try once more to convince her but somehow I think it'll fall on deaf ears.