Already fed up again

[GawainBS]

I restarted Skyrim, played less than 20 hours, and I'm already fed up again with it. It's so terribly bland, boring & shallow. It's pretty, and it's vast, I'll give it that. But all the vastness in the world isn't worth anything if it isn't filled. I just finished The Witcher 2 for the second time and, wow, the difference is huge. Now THAT is an RPG.

Am I the only one here who suffers from this syndrome?

[Myrr Disparo]

I restarted Skyrim, played less than 20 hours, and I'm already fed up again with it. It's so terribly bland, boring & shallow. It's pretty, and it's vast, I'll give it that. But all the vastness in the world isn't worth anything if it isn't filled. I just finished The Witcher 2 for the second time and, wow, the difference is huge. Now THAT is an RPG.

Am I the only one here who suffers from this syndrome?

Hahahah, nope! You aren't, trust me. I personally call it the Bethesda Syndrome. It can cause drowsiness, snoring and extreme boredom. It is usually produced by huge, void expanses of pretty nothingness. Notable triggers are: playing Fallout 3, playing Oblivion, hell, playing any Bethesda game since Morrowind (and, from what I've heard, before it). The only solution is to stay away, keep your money safe.
I think your safest course of action for the time being is to keep buying everything Obsidian. Perhaps InXile, we shall see. And your compatriots (is that a word?) from Larian are pretty good too. But you already knew that, didn't you?

[Bluestorm]

one question is what system are you playing on?

[GawainBS]

PC. Mods can only do so much collateral damage control. I play with a heavily modded set up. (50+)

Well, yes, Obsidian are pretty much my heroes. inXile, that's pretty much the same bunch. Larian are my fellow countrymen. Compatriots, well, I don't work there, or don't form a secret group with them. Alas. ;-)

[galraen]

Without mods it can be rather bland indeed. I can't comment on Witcher 2, The Witcher interface was so bad I never got anywhere with it so never bothered with the sequel. As for Obsidian, LOL, I'd rather have teeth extracted than touch any of their anti-RPGs again!

[GawainBS]

I stated I play with plenty of mods.
You can grumble about buggy Obsidian games all you want, I won't deny they got problems. (Thankfully, I barely ever experienced those), but calling them "anti-RPG" is ill-will and a lie, especially if you compare them to Bethesda games. They're one of the few developers who DO produce RPGs with decent stories, quests and choices. (CD Red is another one, Bioware as well to a certain degree.)

[galraen]

Sorry Gawain, but games that frequently hijak your character and frog march them into ambushes and/or cut scenes force your character into behaving contrary to the role the character is playing and dictate how your character interacts with NPCs is anti-RPG.

Certainly Bethesda wouldn't know a role playing game if it spat in their faces, on that level they and Obsidian are pretty much identical.

The story line comes down to personal opinion and taste, even on that basis I found Obsidian (and Bethesda) sadly lacking. This is where with Betheda there is hope, thanks to third party mods.

The closest Obsidian has come, in my experience, was New Vegas, but even there, although the storyline wasn't too bad, character development lead to identical clones, just like Skyrim.

[GawainBS]

Get over NWN2 already. Even that had decent characters and multiple questpaths.

[galraen]

Actually, although NWN2 was bad, the game that really turned me off Obsidian was KOTOR 2. Not the unfinished nature of it, although that was bad, but the constant hijacking.

Typical example was just before entering the secret base on Telos. I'm in stealth mode, round a corner to get the drop on the badies when wham. Boa-dur initiates a pointless and meaningless dialogue; forces me out of stealth, freezes me in place so instead of me getting the jump on the bad guys, they get the drop on me. All through the game this sort of crap happens. Typical Obsidian ploy of forcing unwanted NPCs on the PC also was infuriating. I took an instant dislike for Kreia, had no intention of taking her with me, but nope, no chioce. Same with slimeball and in NWN2 the chaotic evil psycho dwarf, chaotic evil necromancer etc., etc..

Me and Obsidian are like oil and water, that's the way it goes. Sure I have problems with Bethesda games, but at least in them you can, usually, totally ignore their crappy storylines, which is of course a lot easier once 3rd party mods start to come out; which is why I don't play their games for at least a year after they come out.

Unfortunately so far in Skyrim the in depth mods took a lot longer than a year to come out.

[Dummy]

This seems to go really off topic.

I rather like Skyrim because of its vastness, why would there be a villian behind every rock?
The "dull" quests give it more depth to me aswell.

I dont like the course that bioware went lately, the direction Mass Effect went for example.
But there is the difference between a computer novel and a sandbox "rpg" game i guess

[galraen]

The thing with sandbox games like Oblivion and Skyrim is that it's up to the player to define the role he or she plays. It requires a lot more work by the player than most genuine RPG games that do most of the defining for you. With enough content mods this isn't too difficult, you can bypass vanilla quests if they don't fit the role that you want to play, most of the role playing takes place inside the player's head.

The problem with Skyrim in particular is that the character development is so narrow that it's difficult to avoid ending up with characters that are clones.

The nature of the game means it's very difficult to avoid developing enchant and/or smithing; lockpicking is also virtually impossible to avoid. Because of the way magic was nerfed it's also difficult to avoid expertise in either two handed, one handed or bow. The result is that avoiding ending up with a fighter/mage/rogue type character is extremely difficult. This was less true in Oblivion thanks to the power of magic as well as spells that open locks etc.. It was much easier playing a straight mage or fighter or rogue, mixing the skills to wind up as a F/M/T wasn't almost inevitable.

[Claudius]

I also have chronic 'restart itus' I did beat skyrim though because the MQ doesn't drag on forever. I haven't tried mods.

[GawainBS]

There are virtually no in-game choices that define your character. At most his skills, and as acertained, those end up being the same each playthrough. Sure, I can create an elaborate backstory and yaddayadda, but the gameworld won't give a flying crap about my concocted backstory, which is quite the letdown. Why bother with all the dull vastness and emptiness that is Skyrim, if I could just live that role in my personal fantasy? At least Mass Effect aknowledged that I was Commander Shephard. (As an example.)
It's not about there being a villain behind every rock, there are plenty, but they are meaningless. The mainquest isn't much better. It's all so soulless. There's no "oomph" behind the characters.

[Claudius]

The best of skyrim is that the world feels alive. I loved the first village where the inhabitants seemed soooooo much better conversations and comments than the comical "oh I saw a mudcrub" days of 3 and 4

[EastFrame]

Get over NWN2 already. Even that had decent characters and multiple questpaths.

I really liked NWN2! Despite being bugged to hell and back, it was very well written. In conversations with Sand and Bishop, for example, you actually get a feel for what a Mage or Ranger actually does in the game world, as opposed to being just a collection of statistics. It's that kind of thoughtfulness you just don't get from other developers.

I would also agree that The Witcher2 plays really well. It's a well-made conversion from PC to Console (CDPR obviously have a good console team, unlike BioWare - try DA:O on console, it's the worst game you'll ever play). The Witcher2 looks great on screen and is quite absorbing to play. The let down is in the writing. It barely scratches the surface of the books. Geralt in the game is not Geralt from the novels. The female characters in the novels are deep and complex, in the game they're just manipulative sex objects. I guess that says a lot about the audience the game is made for, eh?

I am disappointed to hear you found Skyrim boring. I was thinking about getting it! I don't mind having to use my imagination, as long as the game produces lots of atmosphere. I guess that's why I enjoyed IWD so much.

The best of skyrim is that the world feels alive. I loved the first village where the inhabitants seemed soooooo much better conversations and comments than the comical "oh I saw a mudcrub" days of 3 and 4

Well, that's covered then!

I normally feel that if a game needs mods, it's a bad game in the first place. Are these add-ons really necessary for Skyrim?

[GawainBS]

The best of skyrim is that the world feels alive. I loved the first village where the inhabitants seemed soooooo much better conversations and comments than the comical "oh I saw a mudcrub" days of 3 and 4

Actually, that's one thing I'd never say about Skyrim. It's dull, it's liveless and it's static. It's just big & pretty. No depth whatsoever. The NPC conversations are nice the first 15 minutes.

I agree on the The Witcher, but not completely on your appreciation of the female characters. The Sorceresses as we meet them in the book, are quite similar to the ones we meet in the game. They're manipulative & powerhungry. Sure, Triss tries to mount Geralt at every opportunity, but she does so in the books too.
However, in the first game, the whole "sexual conquest card thing" is a bit over the top. I do seem to recall that it is more a tongue in cheek thing than a serieus aspect of the game.