[fanboi]

Todd Howard hyped us up into thinking we would be playing something revolutionary.......instead we just got Oblivion 2.0..........He gets me every time. /sigh And the game wouldn't have had to be delayed to put in these features if they had put just 1/5 of their marketing budget into hiring more people to actually release a legit finished product.

It isn't Oblivion 2.0.... no way near that turd.

[Odrion]

It's a cool thing they're doing, no doubt, but the critiques were in relation to what this add on adds to the game and if it fixes the problem some people had with it, so it's something beyond the HATERS strawman.

Really? Because it sounds a whole lot like "Should've been in the game in the first place!" Or "You should give me more than just this!"

Maybe it's a "Rock the Casbah" sort of thing. You hear a group of people discussing about what mounted combat does to the game, I hear a paternity ward.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

alright, throw "backhanded compliments" somewhere in that post

Yeah, well... Deal with it.
There isn't any clause stating that I need to love the game to be happy about this update, to comment it or to ask some feedback about how well it works.

[Alextended]

Do enemies and allies get to (effectively) use the feature too? If not it's not really something that will make me go back even just to check it out, it's just a slight convenience for people who for some reason are still hooked on the game, or have yet to play through.

If so, too bad there aren't any events that end with large mounted skirmishes, since they don't mention editing quests.

I agree with the Oblivion 2.0 comments. At first I was impressed but the more I played the more of the same issues showed.

Actually I haven't even finished the main story stuff of Skyrim yet, which I did for Oblivion. But it was probably shorter, not better.

I replayed Gothic 2 & Risen recently, maybe they're not as large (and both have their own issues too, especially Risen) but with their budget & profit Bethesda should have topped them in content density and the quality of quests and the world design etc.

[RoadHazard]

Haha, all the haters... Skyrim a terrible game? Should have had this from the start? Come on. Skyrim has 100x more content than 99.9% of all other games, and a pretty amazing variety of stuff to do, and you complain that this specific feature wasn't there from day one? Well... Is the game perfect? No, and no such ambitious title ever will be. But Skyrim is pretty damn great, and them giving us new features for free is hardly anything to whine about.

[Vampire Baseball]

Damn this sounds so cool. I just hope they add armor to your horse so it wont die as fast. I wouldn't mind it as DLC.

[TheExorzist]

Because it's tragically dull by any standard? Dungeons being pretty doesn't mean to have a good design. And yes, caves, ruins and dungeons look pretty in Skyrim, but the interaction with them is essentially all the same: walk through them, kill (mostly) autoscaled enemies and loot (definitely) autoscaled loot. When I explore a dungeon in a RPG or action adventure I want to feel like Indiana Jones in the Cursed Temple or something like that. I want to be concerned about my safety, I want to find unique stuff, I want to be challenged and then rewarded. In Skyrim, like in oblivion and in many other half-assed action RPGs, there aren't secrets to find, (relevant) puzzles to solve, decent platforming or (meaningful) traps to avoid. I know, I know, there are traps in the game... But they are virtually harmless and even when they somehow harm you, the game has some awful health regen, which makes the effort pointless. Now, here comes the problem with it: exploring ins't rewarding, the combat isn't fun and the loot... it's the same (as it's randomly generated and scaled to your level) all across the world. So yeah, dungeons are awful. I don't expect any game to have a dungeon design comparable to Zelda or Legend of Grimrock, but jeez, they could at least make some effort. I know someone would be tempted to dismiss these things as trivial flaws, but in fact they make the whole world exploration pointless.

It's funny, one would think that by now people would have realized that you can't make loot in a Bethesda game as rewarding as in Diablo. The loot has to be scaled, otherwise the game would be broken. Every one who player any TES game and doesn't realize that is stupid.

That said I might add that the dungeon design is amazing. It's so amazing, i even continued exploring them when i was already overpowered beyond the game limits.

[patapuf]

It's funny, one would think that by now people would have realized that you can't make loot in a Bethesda game as rewarding as in Diablo. The loot has to be scaled, otherwise the game would be broken. Every one who player any TES game and doesn't realize that is stupid. That said I might add that the dungeon design is amazing. It's so amazing, i even continued exploring them when i was already overpowered beyond the game limits.

I think fallout New Vegas showed wonderfully that there is no need to scale the loot in a bethesda game. Sure, you loose some freedom of movement at the beginning of the game, on the other hand the wild and dungeons actually feel like something dangerous could be in them. It even has unique weapons! there is also gothic, risen, stalker ect.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

It's funny, one would think that by now people would have realized that you can't make loot in a Bethesda game as rewarding as in Diablo. The loot has to be scaled, otherwise the game would be broken. Every one who player any TES game and doesn't realize that is stupid.

Well, actually Diablo wasn't the model of loot system I was thinking about. AT ALL.
In fact, i don't even think that a Diablo-like loot would be any better.
I was thinking more about something like Gothic/Risen/Ultima, etc.

Oh, and thank you for implying that I'm stupid, but when you claim that an autoscaled loot system is a necessity for this game I think you are completely wrong, as those games I listed clearly proved in the past.
Quite the opposite. It's exactly cause of its open world nature that autoscaled loot becomes even a worse offender, draining any joy out of the environment exploration.

That said I might add that the dungeon design is amazing.

No, it's not. It just doesn't work in terms of game mechanics. It really doesn't matter if you have low standards about it and you don't care about an obvious flaw.
It's not even bad, it just doesn't exist. There isn't any "design" in those dungeons, as there isn't any gameplay involved. You enter the cave and follow the path slaying everything. in terms of player involvement is as bare as it can be.

[Alextended]

It's funny, one would think that by now people would have realized that you can't make loot in a Bethesda game as rewarding as in Diablo.

It's funny how you seem to have come across this complaint before but still don't understand it's got nothing to do with Diablo lootwhoring and everything to do with expecting unique hand placed challenges and rewards that will make exploration worthwhile and not end with every cave and dungeon feeling the exact same as the last one which in the end means they're not worth exploring at all since most of the time anything you find in there you could also find with a random encounter outside.

Shit, people don't even expect everything to end in a unique manner, just to be useful in some way. If the game was more challenging in every way, from the enemies to health regaining to the amounts of money available and required for actually useful things, to whatever else then almost every item would be basically resource gathering and with certain item types only available in dungeons or caves you'd definitely want to go through them even when quests didn't ask you to as they'd be both dangerous and rewarding even if not every one of them had unique loot and encounters (although more still should have that too). Fallout 3 took a step in the right direction with even the same weapons you already had being useful to find to repair your own with. So every weapon was a potential resource in more ways than one depending on your situation. Though it had flaws, that was a good concept.

Btw, Diablo's loot is also mostly scaled iirc. Otherwise based on luck you'd find a good weapon in the first dungeon and never change it throughout the game. But people obviously constantly change their equipment in the Diablo games as they find better things or sell the old things for useful gold for other items. And do need to change them for the challenges ahead. Not speaking of Diablo 3 as I haven't played it. Edit: duh, Diablo also has stat requirements for weapons so even if you do find something amazing early on you probably can't use it yet. But now I'm even more confident it's also scaled since I don't remember encountering equipment I couldn't use all that often while playing through the games. Perhaps that will happen if you play co-op with high level characters through areas and difficulties you couldn't normally. But anyway, clearly Diablo isn't about exploration and role playing...

But seriously, for all the complaints against "haters" (lol) it's this kind of complete bullshit and apparent ignorance (seriously, go try some of the suggested games, even if you don't like them because of their own issues or your tastes you'll see how some things can be done differently and successfully instead of only think of Diablo when someone mentions useful loot) used against their arguments that make the discussions heated and long, not that some people mention things they don't like or hope to see.

[Odrion]

Yeah, well... Deal with it.

Well sure! You can keep bitching. It only makes what I said all the more humorously tragic.

It's funny, one would think that by now people would have realized that you can't make loot in a Bethesda game as rewarding as in Diablo.

It's a tough thing to do. Diablo 3 even failed at that.

[patapuf]

Well sure! You can keep bitching. It only makes what I said all the more humorously tragic. It's a tough thing to do. Diablo 3 even failed at that.

Diablo 3 has perfected scaled loot, however scaled loot is the very thing people here are complaining about, its bad for exploration which isn't important for diablo but it is for skyrim.

[Darknessbear]

Nevermind -_-

Cool free stuff

[TheExorzist]

I think fallout New Vegas showed wonderfully that there is no need to scale the loot in a bethesda game. Sure, you loose some freedom of movement at the beginning of the game, on the other hand the wild and dungeons actually feel like something dangerous could be in them. It even has unique weapons! while only a hybrid, STALKER shows this wonderfully as well

New Vegas has only one real city and badically no dungeons... How can you even compare?

[NBtoaster]

It's funny, one would think that by now people would have realized that you can't make loot in a Bethesda game as rewarding as in Diablo. The loot has to be scaled, otherwise the game would be broken. Every one who player any TES game and doesn't realize that is stupid.

They had 100% unscaled loot in Fallout 3.

[Blue Ninja]

Yeah, for those who don't see the vid these are some of the things created some of which have already been implemented. -Seasonal foliage -Flow based water shader -Spears as weapons with a new animation system -Kill cams for ranged combat (follow the arrow!) and magic -New stealth options like water arrows and assassinations -Guards relight areas -Paralysis runes -Moving platforms and hanging structures in dungeons -Water current in dungeons -Dark dungeons, requiring you to light your path as you progress -New companion options like switching combat style, getting them to train and even craft for you -List favorite followers in the game's menu -Build your own home from scratch -Adopt children -Combine magic to create new attacks -Goblin enemies -'Way Gate' fast travel -Epic mounts like a flaming horse -Mounted combat on horses -Dragon mounts -'Soul bug' familiar -Kinect-enabled 'shouts' -Enhanced water effects -Footprints in the snow -Verlet surfaces for non-rigid objects ... ... Like fat giants! -Ice and fire arrows -Werebears! -Lycanthropy-specific (werewolf) skill tree -Become a flying Vampire Lord -New Vampire imp minions -New Mudcrab animations -Giant Mudcrab enemy

Fixed. They added more than just the two you highlighted. :lol

I'm still waiting for Mudcrab God, though.

[RoadHazard]

dungeons actually feel like something dangerous could be in them.

There is a ton of shit in Skyrim that will absolutely wreck you if you go there too early. Not everything scales to your level as it did in Oblivion. But yes, loot does, and if there was a good solution to that (in a game as wide-open as Skyrim) which didn't break the game I wouldn't complain.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

Well sure! You can keep bitching. It only makes what I said all the more humorously tragic..

No, it makes it completely pointless.
I didn't bitch about this additional feature at any point of my previous posts. Quite the opposite, I said I'm glad for it.

If you can't manage the fact that despise this I still don't like the game, it's just your problem, and in all honestly nothing I'm willing to be bothered with.

[Gravijah]

definitely gonna jump back into skyrim once the expansion/dlc/whatever comes out. i just hope it doesn't kill ps3 performance again!

[patapuf]

New Vegas has only one real city and badically no dungeons... How can you even compare?

uh new vegas had a lot of dungeons? it wasn't as big as skyrim of course but there were few dungeons that weren't worth exploring. The complete opposite of skyrim. The number of questhubs has nothing to do with loot-scaling btw. and New Vegas had quite a few quest hubs (at least one for each faction and there were more) they just weren't as big as vegas (or most skyrim cities)

There is a ton of shit in Skyrim that will absolutely wreck you if you go there too early. Not everything scales to your level as it did in Oblivion. But yes, loot does, and if there was a good solution to that (in a game as wide-open as Skyrim) which didn't break the game I wouldn't complain.

but it's not actually hard to do, you just have to live with the fact that there will be some areas that are too hostile for low level characters. Gothic, Risen, New Vegas and others do this well, so could skyrim.

[StalkerUKCG]

-Seasonal foliage -Spears as weapons with a new animation system -Guards relight areas -Moving platforms and hanging structures in dungeons -Water current in dungeons -Build your own home from scratch -Combine magic to create new attacks -Goblin enemies -Epic mounts like a flaming horse -Footprints in the snow -Verlet surfaces for non-rigid objects ... ... Like fat giants! -Ice and fire arrows -Werebears! -Lycanthropy-specific (werewolf) skill tree -Become a flying Vampire Lord

Left in the ones id like to see make it to the final game, Werebear could be modified into the Lycanthropy tree, Vampire could get its own tree with the full transformation at the end.

More monsters and mobs is always cool, Arrows would be great with some variation (craftable and enchantable bow enchants still work the same) so you could have ice bow with fire arrows.

and the rest are for immersion

[TheExorzist]

Well, actually Diablo wasn't the model of loot system I was thinking about. AT ALL. In fact, i don't even think that a Diablo-like loot would be any better. I was thinking more about something like Gothic/Risen/Ultima, etc.

yeah, because those are open world games like the ones from Bethesda... Please...

Oh, and thank you for implying that I'm stupid, but when you claim that an autoscaled loot system is a necessity for this game I think you are completely wrong, as those games I listed clearly proved in the past. Quite the opposite. It's exactly cause of its open world nature that autoscaled loot becomes even a worse offender, draining any joy out of the environment exploration.

Well, the way I see it it's all about what you expect of the game. As for me, I like to be realistic. In a game like TES where you can do so much stuff, be whoever you want and go whereever you want, there is just no way Bethesda can make it work for everyone. So they HAVE to scale it. Period. You can't make a game like this, not scale it and then expect every player to get the same enjoyment out of it. It just doesn't work - and Bethesda is very well aware of that. That's why they didn't cut the scaling despite all the moaning of the gamers after Oblivion. It baffels me how some people still don't get it.

No, it's not. It just doesn't work in terms of game mechanics. It really doesn't matter if you have low standards about it and you don't care about an obvious flaw. It's not even bad, it just doesn't exist. There isn't any "design" in those dungeons, as there isn't any gameplay involved. You enter the cave and follow the path slaying everything. in terms of player involvement is as bare as it can be.

yeah, cool story.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

yeah, because those are open world games like the ones from Bethesda... Please...

Uh, yes, they are?

[patapuf]

Well, the way I see it it's all about what you expect of the game. As for me, I like to be realistic. In a game like TES where you can do so much stuff, be whoever you want and go whereever you want, there is just no way Bethesda can make it work for everyone. So they HAVE to scale it. Period. You can't make a game like this, not scale it and then expect every player to get the same enjoyment out of it. It just doesn't work - and Bethesda is very well aware of that. That's why they didn't cut the scaling despite all the moaning of the gamers after Oblivion. It baffels me how some people still don't get it.

which mechanics in skyrim wouldn't be possible/as enjoyable without scaled loot?

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

which mechanics in skyrim wouldn't be possible/as enjoyable without scaled loot?

No one, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Alextended]

Uh, yes, they are?

Lol. I'm done, it's clearly going nowhere with that kind of shit.

It's too bad people can't at least agree to disagree instead of throw that bullshit around to pretend they actually have solid arguments. I mean shit, from pretending Diablo is what the "haters" want to saying those games aren't RPGs of the same type just because you can point to the things they do differently or their size, what else are we going to read here? After also seeing some of the issues are acknowledged yet people defend Bethesda saying they apparently CANNOT be fixed, ever, I don't even want to find out, as it's one thing to like things the way they are and a whole other thing to so fiercely defend things that you agree aren't good, on top of dragging the discussion on and on only to then say it's the "haters"' fault the thread is going in circles.

[Odrion]

No, it makes it completely pointless. I didn't bitch about this additional feature at any point of my previous posts. Quite the opposite, I said I'm glad for it. If you can't manage the fact that despise this I still don't like the game, it's just your problem, and in all honestly nothing I'm willing to be bothered with.

So you somehow felt angered that my observation of the shit people posted here wasn't accurate about you, and yet was still about you.

It is still about you. Because you

*...use the news to remind everyone that they think the game sucks*

And writing a backhanded compliment beforehand doesn't excuse you from wiping your ass across this thread.

Anyways it's funny that a pretty cool act by Bethesda is met in return with quite a lot of vitriol. Because hey, why not just take a huge dump in this thread? It has "Skyrim" on the title, so it is obviously begging for your unique and incredible opinion that this game and/or the company is terrible. That'll make them think twice about doing something noteworthy.

[NBtoaster]

Well, the way I see it it's all about what you expect of the game. As for me, I like to be realistic. In a game like TES where you can do so much stuff, be whoever you want and go whereever you want, there is just no way Bethesda can make it work for everyone. So they HAVE to scale it. Period. You can't make a game like this, not scale it and then expect every player to get the same enjoyment out of it. It just doesn't work - and Bethesda is very well aware of that. That's why they didn't cut the scaling despite all the moaning of the gamers after Oblivion. It baffels me how some people still don't get it.

Again they had a near perfect formula regarding scaled content with Fallout 3 (which was just as open as Skyrim, and very accessable), and I am disappointed they went back to scaled loot with Skyrim.

Though I dont think it ruins the game. Smithing and other rewards like Dragon Shouts mitigate some damage scaling does to exploration.

[Ledsen]

yeah, because those are open world games like the ones from Bethesda... Please... .

Uhm, Gothic and Risen are the exact same type of game as Beth games, so yes?

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

Uhm, Gothic and Risen are the exact same type of game as Beth games, so yes?

Same goes for Ultima, by the way.

[TheExorzist]

Uhm, Gothic and Risen are the exact same type of game as Beth games, so yes?

No, they aren't. You can't go anywhere you want from the beginning of the game. It's more like a couple of open world areas connected to each other.

I'll comment on the rest when I'm home. Writing on phone in a thread like this is annoying.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

No, they aren't. You can't go anywhere you want from the beginning of the game. It's more like a couple of open world areas connected to each other.

No, you're completely wrong.
You can't do it just cause you would most likely die, but the world is potentially open to exploration from the start, from most of its extension.
Beside, the fact that some more specific areas have some extra pre-requirements to be reached is actually something that adds value to exploration and makes it even more meaningful, not the opposite.

It's the "Metroidvania" principle: having that specific item or being finally able to beat that specific "gatekeeper" creature to access some area/treasure previously out of your reach is FUN, it makes the player more involved with the exploration of the environment.

[Refreshment.01]

I want to give voice orders to my companions on PC Bethesda. Also from he game JAM video the new water shader and seasonal changes.

[nintendoman58]

It's not even bad, it just doesn't exist. There isn't any "design" in those dungeons, as there isn't any gameplay involved. You enter the cave and follow the path slaying everything. in terms of player involvement is as bare as it can be.

Uh no not really. Some dungeons aren't really linear as I found myself getting lost in some of them with their massive designs. Some of them actually require you to think and look around to find out where you're supposed to go next.

[ScreenSplitter]

Makes sense I guess. Still waiting from everything from the Game Jam video that's not useless Kinect features I can't use.

[TheExorzist]

No, you're completely wrong. You can't do it just cause you would most likely die, but the world is potentially open to exploration from the start, from most of its extension. Beside, the fact that some more specific areas have some extra pre-requirements to be reached is actually something that adds value to exploration and makes it even more meaningful, not the opposite.

No, just no. I played Gothic and I know how the world is built in this game - and it's not open world. There are a couple of boxed areas that are connected to each other by a more or less narrow passage. It's probably true that you can travel between these areas from the start but its no use because not only are you to weak but you also can't just sneak by enemies. You'll be dead before you know it. Compare that to Skyrim where you can travel to every city right when the game starts. It doesn't have boxed areas but only one big world. And that is an extreme difference. Thanks to the design Piranha Bytes could always know where the player is with which level. Thats why they don't have to scale anything. Bethesda on the other hand... How they are supposed to know where you are at any given point? After 5 hours you could be in either Rifton or Solitude, one in Western and one in Eastern Skyrim. You could be Scorcerer, Warrior, Archer... Whatever. At that point you could have already leveled or not. How are they supposed to know that? It's impossible. They have to scale. If they don't, some player will start 100 quests only to realize they can't do them because they are to weak - or later make quests they are way to overpowered for. Sound like a great game... That I don't want to play.

It's the "Metroidvania" principle: having that specific item or being finally able to beat that specific "gatekeeper" creature to access some area/treasure previously out of your reach is FUN, it makes the player more involved with the exploration of the environment.

if i wanted this kind of gameplay, i'd be playing action adventures, not role playing games.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

Uh no not really. Some dungeons aren't really linear as I found myself getting lost in some of them with their massive designs. Some of them actually require you to think and look around to find out where you're supposed to go next.

I would like to see a Youtube video of one of these complex, involving, thought inducing dungeons, as surely i can't remember even just one of them.

And it's not like I'm talking after visiting a couple of them. I explored dozens of ruins, caves, temples and even the biggest ones, those linked with the main quest, are just linear.
Sure, here and there the path forks, but in the end you always come back on the main path few meters ahead.

Beside, that's not even what I'm talking about when I say there's no design involved. I'm talking about how there's simply no interaction in those dungeons.

You don't have to figure out anything, you just walk through them. There aren't traps worth noting, there aren't unique fights, there aren't hidden secrets.
I can remember only ONE relevant exception, in the same dungeon where you get the Spirit Form shout, where you need to exploit one of your shouts to access the final area.
It was nice, it actually gave me hope for the rest of the game. I said to myself "Well, they are learning, let's see if this improves through the game"... But in the end the game didn't deliver, and that was confirmed like an unique circumstance.

Now, compare this with any dungeon from Zelda, Ultima VII (and believe me, dungeons weren't really its strength), Ultima Underworld 1 or 2, Arx Fatalis, Eye of The Beholder, Lands of Lore, Legend of Grimrock, Might & Magic 6, etc, where every few steps there was something hidden to discover, a puzzle to solve, a trap to avoid and so on.

[Weemanply109]

Shit. I just uninstalled this game and an interesting update gets released.

Oh, well.

[Alextended]

No, just no. I played Gothic and I know how the world is built in this game - and it's not open world. There are a couple of boxed areas that are connected to each other by a more or less narrow passage. It's probably true that you can travel between these areas from the start but its no use because not only are you to weak but you also can't just sneak by enemies. You'll be dead before you know it. Compare that to Skyrim where you can travel to every city right when the game starts. It doesn't have boxed areas but only one big world. And that is an extreme difference. Thanks to the design Piranha Bytes could always know where the player is with which level. Thats why they don't have to scale anything. Bethesda on the other hand... How they are supposed to know where you are at any given point? After 5 hours you could be in either Rifton or Solitude, one in Western and one in Eastern Skyrim. You could be Scorcerer, Warrior, Archer... Whatever. At that point you could have already leveled or not. How are they supposed to know that? It's impossible. They have to scale. If they don't, some player will start 100 quests only to realize they can't do them because they are to weak - or later make quests they are way to overpowered for. Sound like a great game... That I don't want to play. if i wanted this kind of gameplay, i'd be playing action adventures, not role playing games.

Here's what some boxes look like, guyz. Yeah, Gothic II, not Gothic (actually, here you go, I guess), whatever, same style of gameplay in both. And you can see that it's not just art as they're used to pinpoint the location of items and stuff on that site. Also, faulting Gothic games for being even older and on different types of engines so not having everything in seamless lush 3D is silly to say the least anyway (just as I'd be silly to fault Skyrim's use of loading for the majority of indoors/dungeon bits, which are also seamless in the Gothic games), but eh, I shouldn't expect better, I guess, then I'd never be disappointed.

And having actual game structure while still allowing exploration within the areas and rewarding that with the completion of quests and challenges and unique findings allowing access to more of the game in that manner is hardly a flaw.

And hey, let's pretend nobody stressed that Bethesda should be able to have more and more open content as they do as well as this quality of hand crafted structure per area/dungeon/quest line without necessarily compromising your ability to travel much (beyond special progress, for example if you're meant to stop some malevolent demon in his own hellish realm in a quest line then of course you shouldn't be able to do that at level 1-10 like you possibly could in Oblivion, how is allowing that to happen good design, and how are Gothic and other games like it not RPGs just because they don't allow that to happen, when all that does is give importance to your character's development and the chosen journey to that end instead of marginalize its importance and make everything of no consequence?), considering the vast difference in sales/budgets involved here. Hell, just earlier it was pointed out as a positive that there are in fact the occasional not heavily scaled enemies that could own you early and be pushovers later in Skyrim, though the rewards remain scaled (and crappy). But when other games do similar and far better it's a bad thing...

I really should have taken my own advice and stopped reading, now RPGs are apparently defined by being fully accessible to everyone sandboxes from the start regardless of character strength and build, otherwise they're action adventures, Christ. Oblivion, Grand Theft Auto = RPGs, Gothic 2, Baldur's Gate 2 = action adventures. Winning logic right there. I'll take my advice, now.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

No, just no. I played Gothic and I know how the world is built in this game - and it's not open world. There are a couple of boxed areas that are connected to each other by a more or less narrow passage.

Your memory is fooling you. The world is streamed in one big area. Maybe there are a couple of exceptions loaded apart, but that's it.
It's almost the same for Gothic 2 (where there are two areas, three with the expamsion pack).
And It's the same for Ultima VII, where the whole world is one big, seamless map.

But that's not even the point. The point isn't if the map is all loaded at once or in pieces, the point is that those are open worlds cause you can explore them at full and go back to every area at any given moment.

Compare that to Skyrim where you can travel to every city right when the game starts. It doesn't have boxed areas but only one big world. And that is an extreme difference.

Which, beside being exactly how Ultima works, isn't anything necessarily worth of any praise. "All available now" isn't a great game design at all, if comes at the price of making exploration dull.

Bethesda on the other hand... How they are supposed to know where you are at any given point? After 5 hours you could be in either Rifton or Solitude, one in Western and one in Eastern Skyrim. You could be Scorcerer, Warrior, Archer... Whatever.

Well, first things first, what about putting some proper design into the game instead of turning it in a giant pointless sandbox?
What about being sure that the player has plenty of options at any level range without scaling ALL the content to his level.
Beside, I just talked about this in another thread, so let me quote myself:

Plenty of ways to manage this, as many old games can easily prove. For instance you can have a world where most of the main roads and city hubs all across the landscape are mostly safe, but things become more and more dangerous as you venture deep into more wild areas. Also, a "growth system" not built around the idea of quick and exponential increases of strength helps a lot.

They have to scale. If they don't, some player will start 100 quests only to realize they can't do them because they are to weak

... And that's bad why? That's exactly the problem.Why can't you grasp this point?
The whole "I can do anything and face anyone at any point" is exactly what makes these games dull.

if i wanted this kind of gameplay, i'd be playing action adventures, not role playing games.

Yeah, god forbid games with some structure and balance in it.
Running around for Skyrim's landscape facing mostly autoscaled enemies is so much more intriguing.
Of course, it makes progression pointless and if you exploit the crafting you can top the best loot in the game barely a couple of hours into the game, but there's so much freedom!
Well, enjoy it. Just don't pretend it's the only way to handle these things, cause *factually* it isn't.

[The Albatross]

I'm into this. But really want DLC.
I don't hate Skyrim like the gaf-mind does these days. Glitches aside, I got 100+ hours out of it, and while there were flaws and it got tiresome at the end, the overall experience was great and better than most other games for me this generation.

[Conor 419]

Wont this be fairly OP?

[Captain Tuttle]

Finally a reason to get a horse

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

Wont this be fairly OP?

I doubt it. Beside, it's not like in the game there's any balance to worry about, in the first place.

Anyway, anyone tried this new feature yet? How well it works?

[Felix Lighter]

Between mods and these updates, when I go back to play this game again, expect it to be a completely new experience. I think what would make me the happiest is a mod that adds more enemy variety.

[UrbanRats]

You guys went places, with the discussion. :P

[ii Stryker]

The lack of horse combat and the ability to fast travel I found the horses to be pretty useless.

Hopefully Bethesda incorporates more NPC's riding horseback also so it will make this a worth while addition. I wish they'd add co-op in some form.

[Derrick01]

It isn't Oblivion 2.0.... no way near that turd.

Yeah, it's worse.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

Yeah, it's worse.

Honestly, I wouldn't really go that far.
As much as both titles share a large amount of flaws, Skyrim (barely) improved over every single aspect of the previous game, in my opinion.

[ScreenSplitter]

How is Skyrim suddenly not a good game? Wow, people are pedantic.