I had finished Skyrim for the third time and was trying to figure out what to do next. I thought about loading up a bunch of mods and starting a fourth playthrough, maybe taking the Nords side in the Civil War this time, then I thought maybe I would play through Morrowind and Oblivion again first. And that made me start thinking about how much things have or haven’t changed from those games. Now I’m not talking about the game systems themselves. Obviously the graphics are better, the gameplay has been streamlined and the user interface is improved. I’m talking about the game world itself. In Skyrim it has been over 200 years since Martin Septim sacrificed himself at the end of Oblivion but things in Tamriel are remarkably the same. Yes, parts of the Empire have fallen away. Yes, there was a war with the Aldmeri Dominion and the Altmer are now the enemies of the Cyrodillic Empire. But, overall, the world is pretty much the same as it was. You would have thought that something would have changed beyond a few broad strokes of politics, but that seems to be all there is. As someone living in the early 21st century we are used to the relentless advance of progress. Science, technology, society… all these things have improved or otherwise changed even in our lifetimes. The idea of complete stagnation, which seems to be what is happening in Tamriel, seems out-of-place. True, there have been periods of stagnation
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The More Things (Don’t) Change…
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Stories and Worlds
So I finished Mass Effect 3 last week and I immediately went back to playing Skyrim again. I think it is telling that I am done with Mass Effect after what Raptr tells me is around 35 hours (for now anyway) while I am still engrossed by Skyrim even though I am closing in on 200. I think the difference is that Mass Effect told me a story while Skyrim invited me to come live in its world. There was a moment in my first playthrough of Skyrim when I was scrolling through my quest log trying to decide what to do next when I noticed a quest called “Diplomatic Immunity”. I read the description and had to struggle to remember who gave it to me and what it was about before finally remembering “Oh yeah, that’s the main quest!” Skyrim gives you so many things to do and so many opportunities to do them that it seems as if the various storylines have minimal importance. Don’t follow-up on a murder in the streets in Markarth and you will never find out about the secret of Cibala Mine and the history of the Forsworn. Don’t bother investigating a rumor you hear about a child performing the Dark Sacrament and you will never even get involved with the Dark Brotherhood. The world is out there for you to explore and it is up to you to do so. Want to spend all your time clearing out tombs and hunting for Nirnroot
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Skyrim – First Thoughts
Skyrim, the latest game in the Elder Scrolls series, came out last Friday and I’ve spent most of the last few days playing it (to the detriment of my NaNoWriMo output). I feel like I’ve barely put a dent in the game world but already I can tell this game is going to solidly in my top games of all time and may even knock Morrowind off the top of the pile. In best Elder Scrolls tradition, you start Skyrim as a prisoner. It is 200 years after the Oblivion crisis (the plot of the previous game) and the Cryrodillic Empire is falling apart. The northern province of Skyrim has entered open rebellion against the Empire and the Imperial Legion has just captured the leader of the rebellion, one Ulfric Stormcloak. Unfortunately you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were captured by the Legion. One Legionnaire realizes your innocence and protests but his commander orders that you be sent to the headsman along with the rest of the prisoners. Fortunately (for you anyway), just as you find yourself on the chopping block a dragon appears and attacks the town. You and the other prisoners escape as chaos breaks out. As you make your way through the burning village you can join up with either a fellow prisoner (one of the rebels known as the Stormcloaks) or the one Imperial Legionnaire who defended you. (Quick, who wants to tag along with the people who just tried to
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On the Level
So Skyrim, the fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series, is coming out next week. I’m looking forward to it, mainly because Morrowind, the third game in the series, is one of my favorite games of all time, as are Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, both also done by Bethesda. You may notice that I didn’t mention Oblivion, the fourth Elder Scrolls game. That’s because I think Oblivion made a mistake, one that wasn’t in the Fallout and thus I am hoping that won’t show up in Skyrim. That mistake was having the world level along with the player. Everyone wants to feel as if they get better and more powerful as they go through a game. Whether this is an improvement in our skills as a player as we learn the game or the improvements in our character’s skills and equipment, we like our character at the end of the game to be better than they were at the beginning. This is especially true in fantasy games. This goes all the way back to Dungeons and Dragons, the first of the modern role-playing games. We want to see our weak, nearly helpless first-level characters developing into nearly-unstoppable demigods at level 20. This is something expected in fantasy. No one blinks when Aragorn single-handedly slays his way through an orcish army in The Lord of the Rings and it is just expected that Luke, Leia and Han can blast their way through dozens of Stormtroopers in Star Wars, but
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