Skyrim - How could it possibly go wrong?

Skyrim is just around the corner and personally I’m looking forward to getting a good amount of time in the shoes of my muscular Nord Warrior. I’m very wary though that the Elder Scrolls series has had its bad points at times too. I love Morrowind for its large, diverse open world but I found Oblivion's world to be rather bland. From what we have seen of Skyrim the environment looks fantastic.

Of course for any game with the scope of the Elder Scrolls so many things can go wrong. Let’s look at some of the bad features from previous games and hope that Bethesda doesn’t repeat them. Of course we can’t pass judgement until we final get the released product in our hands.

Dungeons

As I’ve mentioned above the Oblivion gameworld was a bit bland - I know Morrowind has preset shrines, tombs and caves but they all felt like their own little adventure. In Oblivion though these features were too similar and made us feel like we were repeating certain tasks or revisiting areas even if we had never been there before.

Of course there were a few epic areas to explore that really felt like their own systems but I couldn’t help but notice that certain rooms replicated themselves too many times. Towards the end of my games I completely skip caves and dungeons as I didn’t feel the need to explore them anymore. I really hope that Bethesda don’t make the same mistake in Skyrim and give each area and individual feel. Morrowind had its own uniqueness within each cave system and this was created intentionally to keep you adventuring off the beaten track. I remember exploring labyrinth paths in search of glory and stumbling upon riches, artefacts and interesting plot devices. It all lead to a fulfilling game that made you want to explore the next door you came across.

Levelling System

While the scaling in Fallout 3 worked quite well Bethesda’s attempt in Oblivion didn’t quite have the same effect. At times it broke the game and required you to play it on a meta level. Personally I didn’t suffer too much due to my character builds but I saw many players start again as changed the characters by assigning skills they would never use as primary ones. This was due to the increase in level and therefore enemies brought about by the improvement of your primary skills. The higher your level the harder the enemies became.

It was only creatures either, as you progressed NPC’s levelled up too wearing strong armour and making each fight more tedious then the last. Unfortunately it also took away from the feeling of being a hero as the world around you got strong with each level of progression you obtained. In fact every single person became just as capable of saving the world as the player – which of course was a shame.

Following on from this was the random loot found on your wandering adventures. Fortunately or not these Oblivion item system levelled with you too and mean that completely a dungeon early on found you much less riches then if you went on level grinds for experience first.

Bethesda have previously announced that the game will not level around you but will have certain enemies of a set difficulty through all parts of the game. I hope this is true as the tension of running from something 5 times stronger then you means you feel a progression during the game when you finally come back to claim the same monsters head.

Mounts

Before Oblivion the biggest request from the Elder Scrolls fanbase was the inclusions of dual wielding and mounted combat. Strangely Bethesda missed a tick and didn’t include either in their final game. While the exclusion of dual wielding wasn’t that much of a problem the inclusion of horse riding without mounted combat was a pretty terrible decision.

I loved riding horses when I first picked up my copy of Oblivion but only for the novelty which quickly diminished. I must say it was a chore to keep dismounting in order to kill the next pesky Goblin that jumped through the bushes. As enemies were common when traversing the landscape this task became more and more of a bore. The whole point of the horses was to give players a way to get about quicker but the inclusion of fast travel means these really are the most pointless inclusion to the Oblivion world. And I haven’t even mentioned the Horse Armour DLC either.

Lets hope that Bethesda have got them right this time. All I want to do is swing my longsword in a satisfying, easy to use way and you will have solved this issue for me.

Flying Beasts

We all know how bad the Cliff Racers were in Morrowind; no singular word can describe the utter terror that fell over us as another creature attacked us. Whenever the combat music changed we looked to the skies first even though they were the only flying enemies on offer. What makes it worse is that these were as common as Zubat’s in the Pokemon Cave systems. Wherever you go these hellish creatures will find you; no mountain is high enough and no cave system deep enough.

These are the single worst enemy in any game, ever. There was a good reason why they were excluded from Oblivion and there was even a mod to remove them from Morrowind on the PC. If Skyrim has something similar then we will be looking at the blue skies all over again. I’m hoping the Bethesda have noted how darn obnoxious these creatures were.

Social World

The world around us in Oblivion was well constructed but did not feel very lived in. Some NPC’s walked around on the same paths everyday or spoke to the same people about the same things. We all know that a game of this size requires a few standard progress/direction work but we want the world to feel like it needs saving. In Oblivion I sometimes wondered if the world would be better without most of the population in it.

From what I’ve seen though the Skyrim system is a lot more dynamic and the subtle changes to the inhabitants should mean the whole world should feel more active. NPC’s go about their day in a much more creative manner from completing their work, talking and acting on choice and consequence sequences to immerse the player.