Sacred Haven of Debauchery

Vissy, want some seeds?

The boys are playing and roleplaying , though until I find some decent Olympic armor, I have to walk around naked, unlike that long-haired, pretentious trash with a death-wish, a scar on the cheek and two blades, wearing an "elfish nickname" that half the members of any RP forum have.

I see you still want to say something, so I'll make a shout into the void, at least for Vissy: roleplaying in the TES games is minimal for the following reasons.

1) An unsuitable system for it. To be able to play the game and complete it, a character must be able to fight or use combat magic. If we take Fallout, for example, perhaps every fan of it has played through the game several times with very different characters, both combat and non-combat. I personally played through as a diplomat with a crowd of armed companions, as well as a lone pacifist without a single kill. These are extreme options, but there are many others—thief, scientist, doctor, gambler, traveler, etc., depending on the playstyle and the skills leveled. Because the game allows you to enjoy roleplaying a certain role. In TES, fights are forced upon you, and there's nothing you can do about it. I've seen a Morrowind speedrun where only one and a half people die, and then Dagoth Ur, but that's not gameplay. You can wander through other people's houses and open chests for as long as you like, but when it comes down to actually completing the game, characters who can't fight will suck. Especially in Oblivion.

2) The primitiveness of the role-playing component. Almost everything present among characteristics, skills, and spells is aimed at brawling. Even playing around with alchemy. Intelligence here affects not the number and quality of dialogue options, nor the ability to perform actions unavailable to a dim-witted character, but the mana pool. In Fallout, in the best traditions of Black Isle and the third game, all dialogues in the game are rewritten for low intelligence, with rare exceptions. A smart character can convince an NPC in dialogues to do something, can win against a scorpion and get citizenship, can choose special perks, and all the while they are given more skill points, which they can invest in combat skills if they wish. None of this exists in TES; everything there boils down to the efficiency of crushing the enemy. And intelligence is just one characteristic, and there are significantly more of them.

3) Primitive plot and side quests. The possibility of roleplaying implies the possibility of choice. In TES, there is insignificantly little choice, and what exists mostly boils down to the banal "get money/get item." Kill or not kill an NPC. That's it. Not to mention the incredibly rigid rails of the main quest.

4) Complete lack of dialogues. I've seen fanatical Scroll-jerks who mentioned the TES conversation system as an original and fascinating find in game dev—it is not. An encyclopedia instead of dialogues is pathetic, it's unplayable, it testifies to the lack of ideas or the impotence of the game designers, it kills the conversational component of roleplaying at the root, and it completely deprives the game of memorable NPCs, because all NPCs are dummies with faces and names generated in an editor. An encyclopedia is bad, very bad. It's simply a disgrace. "Speechcraft" in TES is a joke.

5) A dead world. There is nothing to do in the world of TES. Yes, you can walk through identical grey-brown or green wastelands, explore copy-pasted dungeons with two skeletons, a ghost, and an inkwell in a chest. What else? Level up speechcraft? Leave the character running into a wall overnight to level athletics? Collect plants and brew potions? Yes, alchemy can be decent. I liked alchemy. Anything else?.. Steal yarn and candlesticks from every house and then dump them in a cave-shelter? Other than walking around the world, there is nothing to do. Look for cool weapons? All these are just ways to spend game time; real opportunities for roleplaying any role prepared by the player for a new game are few and far between.

And if any of you decide to answer, since you were interested, then please do not, while ignoring all these points, cling to the last point and scream "you have no imagination" without providing any options; that would be very stupid.

I won't write essays about Icewind, as I have enough sense to see its flaws and not try to justify them, but I state with full responsibility that there is even more roleplaying in it than in TES. There are branching and interesting dialogues; party generation provides the opportunity to invent any story and method of destroying monsters; the presence of alignment—doesn't matter to me, but some like to roleplay alignment rather than a character; the presence of Choice in quests, and not as primitive as what I described above, and even more diverse than in BioWare games. And I can repeat—I wrote nowhere that the roleplaying there is magnificent, but a comparison with TES is not in the latter's favor.

If you decide for once to answer normally, Vis, instead of your usual ignoring of long posts and throwing out a couple of phrases like "so what-trollercoster-I don't care", then please, answer the points in this post. If you agree, say you agree; if not—explain why not.

And I ask to officially note this time that I am speaking in a completely serious tone, without expressively voiced dislike for anything, or "trash-talking" that causes discomfort to some. Exclusively bare and impartial facts. A bit of negativity only in the fourth point, but no one will reproach me for being dishonest there or making something up.