I don’t understand why The Elder Scrolls series has so much goodwill, there are many better, more interesting RPGs out there. The sandbox factor has the depth of a puddle as well.
This is what turned me into an ES fan. I played Daggerfall when it came out, but didn’t really get it (was a kid). When Morrowind came out, I was old enough to really get into it. One-shotting an entire city with a custom spell was fun as hell.
Can’t speak for the older ones because… well, they’re not before my time, I was an avid PC gamer back then, but I somehow missed them (no Internet yet, and maybe they weren’t sold where I live?)… but Morrowind was great. Janky and broken as all fuck, but great. Fantastic setting, great magic system where you could make your own spells, terrible but useable skill system, no handholding whatsoever (the game doesn’t give a flying fuck if you don’t know what a “foyada” is even if such knowledge is essential to find your way around, and that’s great, modern games almost play themselves, so what even is the point of playing, then?), and you could wear mismatched pauldrons. Haven’t found a game that topped that yet. Way too many cliff racers, sure, but still, it was a fantastic game.
Then Bethesda got downhill from there. Modders saved TES IV and V and Bethesda’s Fallouts, but not even them could do anything for Starfield.
Correction: I have been playing HackNet! My bad, i misread your post. Clearly we need more names for cool games. I /am/ now looking at NetHack though :)
I haven’t played that many fantasy action-ish RPGs lately, but I always thought that Gothic II was way more engaging than Oblivion or Morrowind. More compact world (which to me means less filler), also janky and just a hand full of voice actors, but a lot more personality IMO. Not a perfect game by any means though.
I’ve been meaning to play Kingdom Come 2 because it seems to be cut from a similar cloth, including giving NPCs things to do when you’re not around. For the exploration factor there’s some great RPGs without the action mechanics out there, I liked Wasteland 2 and Caves of Qod. My over all favorites have been Mass Effect 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 (2.0), but those are probably too far removed from what TES is doing.
I loved Oblivion. I used to appreciate players being into the lore, the little corners of the game. But then Starfield came out with so many defenders. It made me realize the sheer number of players that are just… I dunno. “Shills” doesn’t feel like the right word, but I do not understand why they go to such lengths to worship BGS.
The only explanation I have is that it’s mostly people who never tried something else/never found something else they liked in the genre. And people who are really into TES games seem to also be heavily into modding them, so there’s that.
I don’t understand why The Elder Scrolls series has so much goodwill, there are many better, more interesting RPGs out there. The sandbox factor has the depth of a puddle as well.
Morrowind for it’s time is very deep. And VERY broken. Half the fun is how unreasonably broken the entire game is.
The sandbox isn’t just in the scope of what your allowed to do. But how easily you can do things you arnt allowed to do.
This is what turned me into an ES fan. I played Daggerfall when it came out, but didn’t really get it (was a kid). When Morrowind came out, I was old enough to really get into it. One-shotting an entire city with a custom spell was fun as hell.
Can’t speak for the older ones because… well, they’re not before my time, I was an avid PC gamer back then, but I somehow missed them (no Internet yet, and maybe they weren’t sold where I live?)… but Morrowind was great. Janky and broken as all fuck, but great. Fantastic setting, great magic system where you could make your own spells, terrible but useable skill system, no handholding whatsoever (the game doesn’t give a flying fuck if you don’t know what a “foyada” is even if such knowledge is essential to find your way around, and that’s great, modern games almost play themselves, so what even is the point of playing, then?), and you could wear mismatched pauldrons. Haven’t found a game that topped that yet. Way too many cliff racers, sure, but still, it was a fantastic game.
Then Bethesda got downhill from there. Modders saved TES IV and V and Bethesda’s Fallouts, but not even them could do anything for Starfield.
Out of curiosity, what alternatives in the genre would you recommend?
(sits in the corner wearing a sign that reads “Ask me about Nethack”)
Played it for the first time recently! Unfortunately it seems to have some stability problems, it doesn’t launch saves for me so I’m on hiatus
That is strange. Which version are you playing? 5.0 was recently released, it may have bugs but I don’t think that’s one of them?
What platform are you playing on? At the moment the main way to play it on Linux distributions is to compile it yourself.
Correction: I have been playing HackNet! My bad, i misread your post. Clearly we need more names for cool games. I /am/ now looking at NetHack though :)
Nethack is very different, I expect, but great. You can even play it on public servers like alt.org and Hardfought
I haven’t played that many fantasy action-ish RPGs lately, but I always thought that Gothic II was way more engaging than Oblivion or Morrowind. More compact world (which to me means less filler), also janky and just a hand full of voice actors, but a lot more personality IMO. Not a perfect game by any means though.
I’ve been meaning to play Kingdom Come 2 because it seems to be cut from a similar cloth, including giving NPCs things to do when you’re not around. For the exploration factor there’s some great RPGs without the action mechanics out there, I liked Wasteland 2 and Caves of Qod. My over all favorites have been Mass Effect 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 (2.0), but those are probably too far removed from what TES is doing.
Nostalgia is huge with them.
I loved Oblivion. I used to appreciate players being into the lore, the little corners of the game. But then Starfield came out with so many defenders. It made me realize the sheer number of players that are just… I dunno. “Shills” doesn’t feel like the right word, but I do not understand why they go to such lengths to worship BGS.
The only explanation I have is that it’s mostly people who never tried something else/never found something else they liked in the genre. And people who are really into TES games seem to also be heavily into modding them, so there’s that.