I mean the tutorial can be seen as the most important part of the game cause if it socks nobody is gonna play the rest
this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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Hence, they brought in Patrick Stewart.
It's also ostensibly the root of the main plot, hence his character should leave an impression.
Oblivion's start was so much more memorable than Skyrim's. Getting taught the basics by escaping prison and then immediately being served the full open world after that was magnificent.
The best start is in Morrowind, where you're released from prison and fill out paperwork!
Followed by "Go to Balmora and visit someone. Balmora is north of us."
That's one of the best things about Morrowind vs. the later games (and I'm not even joking this time). It makes you explore the world, not just warp to quest objectives. It has fast travel, but it makes you earn it and think about how to use it effectively.
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As opposed to Skyrim where you learn the basics by escaping a fucking dragon, guards(because you’re a prisoner), and a creature as well(I think it’s a bear?). And then immediately served the full open world.
Buddy, like what you like and all but Skyrim’s tutorial sequence is at least the same and arguably better.
I definitely see your point, and I had to think about why I found the Skyrim tutorial so much less memorable. And I think, to me, it's that it's the tutorial, so you just know that the dragon isn't going to kill you. Similarly, you know that the prison guards and assassins in Oblivion won't kill you, but you don't know that about the emperor. And unlike the dudes that ride with you on the carriage during the opening scene of Skyrim, I've got at least the faintest connection to Oblivion's emperor dude. Like, I really couldn't have cared less when it was said that Ulfrik, the rebel leader, was on the carriage, too. I don't know anything about the rebellion, so if the guy would've been executed right then and there, I just couldn't have cared.
You put to words how I felt about it. I couldn't have given less a shit about these people, I don't know them nor their troubles and dilemmas about their country.
"Choose who you're gonna side with!" brother I know nothing about either of your organizations, me going with you isn't me siding with your whole organization, I just want to get the fuck out of here.
I remember my first playthrough similarly - I joined the Stormcloaks thinking the rebels are usually the good guy underdogs... that was before they started spouting their racist ayrean views, lost all sympathy for the cause at that point and made that storyline less enjoyable.
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Skyrim makes an attempt to keep you on the main quest, sending you to that little town/tavern in the valley, trying to push you to Whiterun and some intro sidequests.
Oblivion just dumps you out of the sewer pipe with Kvatch being a faint background thought, smack dab in the center of the open map.
Followed by linking up with that wet noodle Martin.
Who you know for a fact will die because he is voiced by Sean Bean.
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And then Morrowind actually tells you to stop doing the mainquest and sandbox for a while.
Instantly ruined by the ability to teleport to the main city
To ANY city.
Fortunately, I discovered that an hour or two in, so I still got some free roam in!
I played Oblivion for 10+ hours. Game was fantastic, I was hooked. I complained to my friend who had recommended me the game about how much walking there was. He explained fast travel.
To this day it's still a running joke: "You can fast travel?!?"
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And his character has been a thing in all previous games.
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This brought to mind the Mr. Plinkett TNG mistakes video. Many times the mark on the floor indicating where the actors should stand is visible in the HD remasters, and at one point he said something along the lines of "Patrick Stewart's a consummate professional, always hits his mark."
This is great! Thank you for sharing it
It was amazing to me how I never noticed a single one of these when watching them in SD back in the day. They did great work for shooting on such a tight schedule!
I've now watched in HD like a hundred times, and I've still never noticed most of these. Random shapes in the background on a set full of doodads and gadgets? Give me a break. Those hands with the flute, though, I'll never unsee, lol.
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Now, play Starfield and try to wrap your head around the fact that both of these titles were made by the same company.
Starefield
I can't even put my finger on the difference. Like... They play the same. They feel the same, mechanically and performatively. And yet Starfield is boring; I have no desire to ever install it again. But I still play Skyrim and Fallout 4/New Vegas. They haven't exactly improved in what they offer, and I don't really go crazy with mods so it's not like rose tinted glasses due to being able to change the game.
The lack of environmental storytelling, the lack of emergent gameplay due to the empty worlds, the overall tone of the story where most of the world building is history and politics given to you in dry, long-winded speeches, the feeling that every single sci-fi reference is as vanilla as you can get like it was written by someone who has never actually read/watched anything in the genre they just have secondhand knowledge of it from hearing others talk about it... It all adds up to something very different from everything else they've ever done while still being in the same janky package.
It's actually kind of remarkable, in a not good way. How the hell does this supposedly project of passion have absolutely no feeling to it?
Each successive TES game has relied more on procedural content, levelled lists, and repeated content(radiant).
These serve to reduce workload for Bethesda, they can make a larger game with less resources/staff, but removes artists further from the specific details in the world.
The parts of the world you enjoy are the one made by the creative process, the ones you don't come to expect, and the ones with thoughtful narrative. That's where the challenge, fun, and the humor in games comes from.
Procedural content specifically lacks this. The artist's touch only able to affect the architecture of the algorithm. It's good for stitching elements between the parts touched by the artist to create seemless transitions. But when used as a replacement for hand placing detail, it removes the creative process, thereby killing the source of enjoyment.
Leveled lists are a big annoyance because they remove danger from the world. Skyrim did have some notable exceptions: giants, a couple odd caster npc's, the frost troll on the way to the greybeards, etc... But then you get issues like normal creatures being more dangerous than fucking dragons, which are supposedly uber powerful(?).
Radiant quests waste time for negligible reward. They're bad, uncreative practice imo.
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It's been decades between them. I choose to believe none of the devs and designers (and the synergy they had) that made the games I love still work there.
Well at least designer was still there. The same one who mandated the use of procedural generation to make Oblivion's dungeons and Skyrim's radiant quests.
I blame Todd on that. I blame Todd for a lot of stuff.
Stubbed me toe. Todd did it. No content to watch. Gotta blame Todd. Friends unavailable to play games?
Better believe it's Todd's fault.
A game containing the voice of Patrick Stewart AND a mod with contributions from the legendary Terry Pratchett.
Actually kind of the funniest thing to me about the VA talent for Oblivion is that they got Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean, but they have the least lines of dialogue to any other MQ character in the game.
I bet that's partially because they were expensive.
No doubt. That's also why they continue to have the same 5 in-house VAs. That's the only good thing I can actually say about Starfield: the dude who voices the ~~Annoying~~ Adoring Fan really hammed it up for this one compared to the same character in Oblivion.
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Stole this from somewhere
I'm pretty sure that is from the Ricky Gervais show "Extras". Or maybe I'm confusing it with Ian McKellen in the same show.
It's from American Dad.
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They went to the trouble and presumably significant expense to hire Patrick Stewart to play a character who doesn't live past the tutorial?
Makes sense to spend most money on the tutorial. All players see the tutorial. Fewer players see the side quest characters or final boss.
The cost to have him work longer than the tutorial would probably have been even more significant :)
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May have died in the tutorial, but he was probably one of the most memorable characters in the game. I don't even remember the name or dialog of any of the other characters in the beginning of the game while his performance stands out substantially.
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If you think that's impressive, Jeremy Brett did that on his own!
Brett was approached in February 1982 by Granada Television to play Holmes. The idea was to make a totally authentic and faithful adaptation of the character's best cases. Eventually Brett accepted the role; he wanted to be the best Sherlock Holmes the world had ever seen.[37] He conducted extensive research on the great detective and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, and was very attentive to discrepancies between the scripts he had been given and Conan Doyle's original stories.[38] One of Brett's dearest possessions on the set was his 77-page "Baker Street File" on everything from Holmes' mannerisms to his eating and drinking habits. Brett once explained that "some actors are becomers—they try to become their characters. When it works, the actor is like a sponge, squeezing himself dry to remove his own personality, then absorbing the character's like a liquid".[39] Brett was focused on bringing more passion to the role of Holmes. He introduced Holmes's rather eccentric hand gestures and short violent laughter. He would hurl himself on the ground just to look for a footprint, "he would leap over the furniture or jump onto the parapet of a bridge with no regard for his personal safety."[40]
Not saying that it's better necessarily, but for fans of that adaptation, taking a look at the soviet rendition might be well worth your while
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The things that happen when you don't have the Skyrim and Fallout money yet.
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