Skyrim story overrated // Fallout 4 writers

TheLizardbones · December 2013

Originally posted by Sovrath
Originally posted by lizardbones

I love the branching storyline idea. The math though, holy cats there would be a lot of development time put into all the different ways things could play out, especially if you have a long running story line or a story line that runs through an entire game.

The only way I can think of doing it is to have points of deviation, limit the branches and always have those branches come back to a same "point" which takes into account certain key elements of those deviated branches.

Yeah, kind of like the Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us from Telltale Games. It's not the story line branching so much as the tone of the experience. Speaking of which *whoosh*

Bloodaxes · December 2013

Originally posted by LittleBoot
But taking two extremes of quest driven games there is a world of difference between the SWTOR system and the Skyrim system. Yes it is all scripted content played by many people, but it is giving players some option as to how and when they play the content that gives some sense of freedom.

I am not arguing that a mmo can do without scripted quests because I think they are entirely necessary, I just think that the on rails implementation in most theme parks is lazy.

I agree.

I still remember fallout 3 to be the most of that surprised me. I was running around doing whatever I wanted and reached some camp filled with super mutants no one asked me to go there I was wandering around exploring the land, anyways I cleared the place and started entering the buildings they where occupying and when I reached the bottom floor I stumbled with a women locked in a cage and asked me to help her friend which was shred to pieces lol.

After mentioning the death of her friend she asks you if you can guide her out to some camp and again no one forces me to help her now I could have gone, but I was surprised on how things started to develop.

I escorted her to the camp and after tanking you for the help you are again left with a choice that more super mutants would come to steal the people in that camp and if I could teach them how to fight and help them or go away and let them die.

----

Now I know many did this quest but not 1 person was led to go there by some other quest you find these stuff by wandering around doing whatever you want and that's why I like bethseda.

CazNeerg · December 2013

Originally posted by LittleBoot

I get the idea, you prefer SWTOR and I prefer Skyrim. I actually also liked SWTOR, but regardless of that it's pointless arguing over tastes.

That's more than a little reductionist. Outside the narrative, Bethesda does pretty much everything better than Obsidian and BioWare. But there are two important elements in a game narrative, and modern Bethesda games fail to do a decent job of either. One is an element important in any narrative; actually having decent writing. While each of their games has a few questlines with good writing, the *average* quality of writing in Bethesda quests is such that a day or two after doing a quest chain, you probably won't even remember much or anything about it. The other is extending interactivity into the narrative itself. The best job I have ever seen of this actually was an Elder Scrolls game, Daggerfall, but after that game they pretty much completely abandoned the concept. Interactivity in a game narrative is the only real reason to bother having one at all. The presentation of a static, unbranching narrative will never be as compelling in a game as it can be in a movie or book, but narratives that make the player feel like he is helping to drive the direction of the story, if well written enough, can be *more* compelling and memorable than any book or movie. Games really do have the potential to be the highest form of narrative presentation, and Bethesda isn't just losing that race, they aren't even attempting to run it.

Originally posted by Jemcrystal
Skyrim has to be the best medieval fantasy game made to date. It's so much fun who needs a story! Still more room for improvement. But that's with where we are on the map of gaming tech these days, usually tripped by the systems they run on not the games themselves. But I feel story has to be about as low and low can get on what is important in a game. If you want a story go read a damn book.

For the type of story Bethesda gives us, I agree, go read a book. It will probably give you a better narrative experience. But that is because Bethesda refuses to deliver the kind of narrative that is actually built for games, instead having you earn glimpses of third rate fantasy writing by completing gameplay objectives.

Nitth · December 2013

Originally posted by klash2def
TBH one of the worst and just cringe worthy stories ever but still good game. second play through i literally ran around doing skyrim shit (mods).. because story isnt that good.
proof is Bethesda's fallout vs Obsidian's fallout. the latter was superior in the story section, the first was better looking (only a tad tbh)
Bethesda knows great gameplay.. but they should hire the writers from bioware (or Obsidian) and do Fallout 4 proper. press 1 if u agree.

*EDIT changed title so people dont get confused on Main Quests / Overall story & writing*

FO:NV was probably the better out of the 2, Story wise idk they both had some memorable moments.

As for skyrm, Was morrowind, oblivion that much better? lol i think not.

CazNeerg · December 2013

Originally posted by Nitth

FO:NV was probably the better out of the 2, Story wise idk they both had some memorable moments.

As for skyrm, Was morrowind, oblivion that much better? lol i think not.

Daggerfall was.

Nitth · December 2013

Originally posted by CazNeerg
Originally posted by Nitth FO:NV was probably the better out of the 2, Story wise idk they both had some memorable moments. As for skyrm, Was morrowind, oblivion that much better? lol i think not.

Daggerfall was.

That was 15 years ago. Everything in that era was 'better'.

koboldfodder · December 2013

The days of game developers being the end-all of content creation are long dead. Modders are better than developers. They create better products, and make the game better. The reason is they have time that the developers do not, and they also have access to the same equipment.

The only are that is lagging behind in terms of modders VS game developers is the voice acting, which takes premium talent....but there are a few SKyrim mods that have high quality voice acting.

Anyone who buys a Bethesda product for a console is simply ignorant. Whatever you want, textures or gameplay mods or total over hauls or new music and better quests...it's all there and it's all done by people not associated with Bethesda.

Modders actually have to fix the patches Bethesda puts out that supposedly fixes the game...lol. If you actually think that original, vanilla Skyrim is a good or finished product....try it on a PC capable of handling a bunch of mods. It will literally take you two seconds before you realize that you have been missing out.

gambe1 · December 2013

Story is not that great i agree. But in case of Fallout, that game has probably the best lore of all games made so far. Just visiting Fallout Vault keeps me engaged for hours.

I love a good story and that's probably why Dragon Age Origins is one of my favourite games of all times. But Fallout and TES are different. They are more focused on exploration , and through that exploration you learn everyting about the world.

Sevenstar61 · December 2013

Originally posted by funyahns
Most of the Bioware writers are long gone from a long time ago. Oh, and they never wrote AAA blockbuster movie quality material. They had some good stuff, maybe great for video games but hardly anything that you would consider academy award winning. They mostly gave you the choice to save the orphanage or bar the doors and set it on fire.

The Skyrim story is garbage. The game itself is fun just for all the stuff you can do in it.

Drew Karpyshyn's Darth Bane it's worth AAA movie. One of my favorite SW books, only second to Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. I also enjoyed his most recent books Revan and Annihilation.

Of course Drew is not with BioWare anymore, he went independent path. Too bad

Joseph_Kerr · December 2013

Dont all these companies just hire writers for specific projects in the same way they hire voice actors and such? I cant imagine video game companies keeping writers and voice actors on staff year round. Its probably a shared talent pool.

Classicstar · December 2013

First of all compare games made by bioware vs Bethesda is rediculous there both two totally different game styles.

Skyrim is about freedom-huge openworld, exploring, adventure and mods 1000+ hours easy on pc if you like mods.

Baldurs gate or dragon age origin is follow path and story fight bosses at end of map.

Skyrim is bugged and have its flawes yes, but 16 million sold copys seems to me something they did very well.

How many baldur's gate-dragon age and massive effect combined 8 million if there lucky?

Oblivion and skyrim combined 22million.

Still many even play and modding morrowind lol.

Rockniss · December 2013

I was so sidetracked everywhere I went in Skyrim - I didnt read the story I was living it day in and day out. A completely scripted story just doesnt work.
Here was the script, your captured with Ralof of Riverwood, a dragon comes and saves you from getting your head cut off, you escape to find out your dragonborn and the rest is up to you.

klash2def · December 2013

Originally posted by CazNeerg

Originally posted by winter

Really Bioware?? Have you played the piece of crap stories Bioware did in ME3 and DA2, sorry but just no EAoware can't pull off a decent story to save their lives these days. Obsidian might be alittle better these days but they still managed to Kill the Neverwinter 2 story where they thought it would be cool simply to have you and your party buried under a ton of rock and killed in the end no matter what you did (short of being evil) never to be seen in the realms again. The crappy sketch ending with poor voice over in that one was just the slap in the face. Obsidians Kotor 2 ending was just about as bad. (theres a reason theres no Kotor 3 or NW3 as Obsidians basically killed off the IP in their attempts.) SO in comparison to the examples I've given from both those companies Skyrim by Bethesda is golden

Did the ending of ME3 suck? Sure, but up until that few minutes ME3 is a strong contender for the best written, most moving RPG narrative, ever. And DA2 wasn't quite up to the normal BW standard, but it still had a better story than any Bethesda game. They just released too early and as a result did a half-assed job on everything other than the story. NW2 had an expansion, where you played the same character as from the main campaign, and ran into some of the others from it. Obsidian was forced by LucasArts to release KotOR 2 before it was done, so that isn't a writing problem.

Originally posted by mari3k

You are right, story of skyrim was bad, but that game was not about story.

Skyrim is more about sandbox, and you can't make a sandbox game with great story.

Well lets see what koshima brings with new MGS, when someone can do it, then this guy.

It's a single player RPG in the 21st century. If it isn't about story, they're doing it wrong.

Originally posted by Gravarg
I didn't like Skyrim's main storyline either, but that's why I only played through it once. The thing that made Skyrim so great was that you could completely ignore anything you didn't want to do. Well, at least after the first part you can skip anything.

That is part of what makes the narrative so terrible in Bethesda games though. The narrative structure should look like a tree, with the main story being a solid trunk that runs through the game in a linear fashion, but side content branching off, with player choices allowing a feeling of real impact as you move out the branches and choose mutually exclusive paths. The narrative in most Bethesda games is more like a bundle of sticks. Remove any one, or several of them, and it has no impact on any of the rest.

Originally posted by LittleBoot

I agree, SWTOR was worse than a B movie- but this is by design; a lot of exposition is needed in a game where the story is broken into many chapters with lengthy periods of action and side quests in between (and where a variety of responses must lead seamlessly onto the next unchanging chunk of dialogue). It was hugely cliched though, to the point where you knew the next lines before anyone spoke them.

Let's be real here; most of the story in TOR was better than anything in the prequel movies, and most of what you'll find in the books. It was not only appropriate to the Star Wars setting, it was some of the highest quality ever made in that setting. We're talking about a setting that revolves around space magic, space knights and cowboys, and sound in space. It was never going to be fine literature.

Originally posted by LittleBoot

But taking two extremes of quest driven games there is a world of difference between the SWTOR system and the Skyrim system. Yes it is all scripted content played by many people, but it is giving players some option as to how and when they play the content that gives some sense of freedom.

I am not arguing that a mmo can do without scripted quests because I think they are entirely necessary, I just think that the on rails implementation in most theme parks is lazy.

TOR gives more sense of *narrative* freedom than most Bethesda games. Does Bethesda let you choose whether to use a fireball or a sword? Whether to sneak past some enemies or fight them? Whether to focus on the main quest, or do all the side content first? Sure, but as soon as you reach an actual narrative interaction, all the choices disappear, and the story plays out exactly one way, without even "flavor" variation. Skyrim had what, two places where you could actually make a narrative choice? Maybe three? That is pitiful for a modern RPG.

This is all im saying CazNeerg

CazNeerg · December 2013

Originally posted by gambe1
Story is not that great i agree. But in case of Fallout, that game has probably the best lore of all games made so far. Just visiting Fallout Vault keeps me engaged for hours.

I love a good story and that's probably why Dragon Age Origins is one of my favourite games of all times. But Fallout and TES are different. They are more focused on exploration , and through that exploration you learn everyting about the world.

Please don't call it Fallout. New Vegas was a Fallout game. "Fallout 3" was a post-apocalyptic Elder Scrolls game.

Originally posted by Rockniss
I was so sidetracked everywhere I went in Skyrim - I didnt read the story I was living it day in and day out. A completely scripted story just doesnt work. Here was the script, your captured with Ralof of Riverwood, a dragon comes and saves you from getting your head cut off, you escape to find out your dragonborn and the rest is up to you.

"The rest is up to you?" Seriously? The narrative content in Skyrim is just as scripted as in a BioWare/Obsidian game. It just features fewer connections between the narrative threads in the different quests, a larger geographical area the quests are spread out into, and *fewer* choices. The only thing that is "up to you" is whether you bother with a given quest chain. If you do decide to do the Thieves' Guild quests, they play out one way. Fighter's Guild? One way. Mage's Guild? One way. Hell, there are only a couple of points where pursuing a quest chain even prevents you from pursuing another with the same character, and one of those you have to buy an expansion to get.

The difference between Bethesda and BioWare/Obsidian, narratively speaking, is that BW/Obsidian give you a story that focuses on a specific character, and allows the player to help define who that character is, with all of the content being things it would make sense for that character to encounter (and devote time to) while in the process of pursuing the primary narrative, while Bethesda gives you a soulless, voiceless avatar, hangs a collection of stats on it, and drops a bunch of completely unrelated plot driven quest lines into the game world for you to pursue or not pursue, with absolutely no logical reason given why the character you are playing would bother to pursue any of them. Fans call Bethesda's approach "Freedom," when what it really is is just lack of focus, consistency, or quality. Which I guess to somebody with ADD might feel like the same thing.

hyukming · December 2013

Well, hate to mention, I've just seen a picture which said imperfection is beautiful. I think Skyrim has done a great job, even the storyline.

asmkm22 · December 2013

OP must be new to the ES series. If you just go by the main quest for pretty much any game other than Arena, they're all fairly quick. You don't play ES for that. The last game that had a "complicated" storyline was Daggerfall, and only then because it had two branches that you had to complete.

MmoFluff · December 2013

I found the story to be just fine.

Then again i buy TES/FALLOUT to have a wonderful world full of possibilities where i can be and do as i feel like rather than to follow the story and actually enjoy it as a standard rpg.

Solar_Prophet · December 2013

Don't mention Bioware. It's clear as day from the craptastic writing in both Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 (though much better than DA2) that Drew Karpyshyn was the only real writing talent at that company. As soon as he left, the writing went directly to shit.

Bioware's current writers are on the same level of Chris 'Let's Retcon!' Metzen. Though to be fair Chris is decent insofar as creating an overall story arc, it's the details, dialogue, and characterization he continually fails at.

Obsidian's writers are actually pretty good. Despite the huge amount of bugs and gameplay flaws, Alpha Protocol was very well written, as was Fallout NV. I'd pick them over Bioware any day of the week.

CazNeerg · December 2013

Originally posted by asmkm22

OP must be new to the ES series. If you just go by the main quest for pretty much any game other than Arena, they're all fairly quick. You don't play ES for that. The last game that had a "complicated" storyline was Daggerfall, and only then because it had two branches that you had to complete.

And Daggerfall was the most consistently awesome game in the entire series. Arguably the last true RPG the company put out.

Originally posted by MmoFluff

I found the story to be just fine.

Then again i buy TES/FALLOUT to have a wonderful world full of possibilities where i can be and do as i feel like rather than to follow the story and actually enjoy it as a standard rpg.

And that is exactly Bethesda's primary target market, people who while they might have an opinion on story quality if pressed, don't really *care* about the story quality, instead prioritizing it below pretty much every other aspect of the game.

Originally posted by Solar_Prophet

Don't mention Bioware. It's clear as day from the craptastic writing in both Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 (though much better than DA2) that Drew Karpyshyn was the only real writing talent at that company. As soon as he left, the writing went directly to shit.

Bioware's current writers are on the same level of Chris 'Let's Retcon!' Metzen. Though to be fair Chris is decent insofar as creating an overall story arc, it's the details, dialogue, and characterization he continually fails at.

Obsidian's writers are actually pretty good. Despite the huge amount of bugs and gameplay flaws, Alpha Protocol was very well written, as was Fallout NV. I'd pick them over Bioware any day of the week.

Please, explain where (other than the last ten minutes of ME3, where you are clearly correct) the "craptastic" writing has been? I actually agree that Obsidian's output, when they are allowed to actually finish a game before releasing it, has an average quality level higher than BioWare's, but that doesn't mean BioWare's is bad. DA2, while it's non-narrative elements were grossly, insultingly unfinished when it released, still had a better story than pretty much any RPG not made by devs from BioWare or Obsidian (except for the Witcher series). And Mass Effect 3, until that ending, was a magnificent, epic piece of work. They just shouldn't have had Mac Walters in charge of the ending, they should have used whoever wrote the Quarian/Geth content, or Tuchanka. One bad writer in a position of authority does not equate to an entire company full of terrible writers.

I do miss the days though, however brief they were, when both BioWare and Bethesda were capable of releasing complete games that were awesome in every respect, rather than the path both companies now follow, where they pick one or two things to do really well, and barely expend enough effort to hit average quality on the rest.

asmkm22 · December 2013

[quote] Originally posted by CazNeerg

And Daggerfall was the most consistently awesome game in the entire series. Arguably the last true RPG the company put out.

Morrowind was just as good. Less landmass, but more meaningful quests. The problem with Daggerfall was that everything except for the main quest was pretty bland (and randomly generated). What Morrowind did was bring an actual game world alive, not to mention open up the world to TES modding.

CazNeerg · December 2013

Originally posted by asmkm22
Morrowind was just as good. Less landmass, but more meaningful quests. The problem with Daggerfall was that everything except for the main quest was pretty bland (and randomly generated). What Morrowind did was bring an actual game world alive, not to mention open up the world to TES modding.

Morrowind was good at different things than Daggerfall. Morrowind did a better job of making you feel like you were in a living world, but Daggerfall did a better job (at least in the main quest) of giving the impression that you actually had choices that mattered within the world.

aspekx · December 2013

i have never finished an ES main storyline. which is why i love those games, i don't have to.

Margulis · December 2013

One of the funniest things I've seen is a few "what is the best game story you've ever played" threads around and some people post Skyrim. Sad really.

CazNeerg · December 2013

Originally posted by aspekx
i have never finished an ES main storyline. which is why i love those games, i don't have to.

Which is different from other games how? You can always choose not to finish a game.

TheMaahes · December 2013

Originally posted by klash2def
Bethesda + Bioware or Obsidian Writers = success.. IP wont matter.. i was just pointing out FO4 needs writers other than the people from Bethesda's Skyrim team if they are going to do the game.. Skyrim's story isnt that great.

(which by now we are all pretty sure its Bethesda who is doing FO4 being they brought the fallout license)

Are you trying to play Fantasy Football with Game Development companies?

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Skyrim story overrated // Fallout 4 writers

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Skyrim story overrated // Fallout 4 writers

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