Bethesda: Consoles to be Skyrim lead platform, aiming for "Really Accessible"

Basically.....

Fuck them.

BF3 has proven that actually PC centric development is possible for a major AAA title, produce a game that pushes the boundaries of what is possible on both platforms.

Anything less is crap, the age of consolized bullshit is at an end, they want a sale? Make some fucking effort!

[/opinion]

Exactly.
 
I'm crazy drunk right now, I wasn't expecting that comment to go down quite as well as it did :)
 
Basically.....

Fuck them.

BF3 has proven that actually PC centric development is possible for a major AAA title, produce a game that pushes the boundaries of what is possible on both platforms.

Anything less is crap, the age of consolized bullshit is at an end, they want a sale? Make some fucking effort!

[/opinion]

Agreed.

That being said, I'm still buying the PC version of Skyrim on day one. ;)
 
As long as the pc version has:
Custom key assignments
fov adjustment
mouse adjustment
comprehensive graphic settings
16:10 resolution support
Mod support

And doesn't say "Press Start" on the title screen.

Then I'm pretty much ok with it.
 
Having finally reached 30 years of age, I can now do this:

*puts his grumpy old man hat on*

New games suck. They're too easy, too tame, too bland, they cater to the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to a broader market, all the while neutering much of the reason why their predecessors were good games to begin with. They have little to no character. Maybe it's just my failing memory in my old age, but I have difficulty thinking of a single sequel or successor in the past 7-8 years that didn't seriously dumb down the experience using curse words such as "streamlining" or "accessibility."

:p
 
not to intentionally play devil's advocate or anything, but can we all stop hyping how Battlefield 3 will descend from heaven with a golden mouse and keyboard to bring pc gamers to an enlightened age. It looks damn good and hopefully it will live up to the hype, but until then that's all it is: hype. Unless any of you have a time machine and are holding out on us, noone here has played it and can judge if it really will fix all problems with pc gaming.

On topic though, bethesda games are all super mod friendly, and as they claim this one will be no different. Even if they do cock things up in order to make it more console friendly I am certain the mod community will come along to spiff things up. Morrowind, Fallout 3, Oblivion were all just pretty good games at face value, it was mods that made them great.
 
If a game developer company really cares for mass approval they need two type of gameplay in one.

1. a dumb downed version to let casual players enjoy a game without having to worry much about getting the right weapon for the right quests. (casual mode)
2. a version that weapons stats and stuff matter a lot more. (rpg mode)

In each gameplay mode they should have different difficulty levels too.

If a game company can do that. everyone will be happy.
 
Having finally reached 30 years of age, I can now do this:

*puts his grumpy old man hat on*

New games suck. They're too easy, too tame, too bland, they cater to the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to a broader market, all the while neutering much of the reason why their predecessors were good games to begin with. They have little to no character. Maybe it's just my failing memory in my old age, but I have difficulty thinking of a single sequel or successor in the past 7-8 years that didn't seriously dumb down the experience using curse words such as "streamlining" or "accessibility."

:p

Most old games were hard because they would last like all of ten minutes if they weren't and developers had no clue how make a game hard and instead went for frustrating. Very few games actually managed to have difficulty that relied on skill or knowlede and instead required luck or pure pattern memorization neither of which is indicative of great game design.
 
If a game developer company really cares for mass approval they need two type of gameplay in one.

1. a dumb downed version to let casual players enjoy a game without having to worry much about getting the right weapon for the right quests. (casual mode)
2. a version that weapons stats and stuff matter a lot more. (rpg mode)

In each gameplay mode they should have different difficulty levels too.

If a game company can do that. everyone will be happy.

While that is a great idea in the grand scheme of things it simply isn't worth the time or money for developers to do that.
 
Most old games were hard because they would last like all of ten minutes if they weren't and developers had no clue how make a game hard and instead went for frustrating. Very few games actually managed to have difficulty that relied on skill or knowlede and instead required luck or pure pattern memorization neither of which is indicative of great game design.

That's especially true of console games in the 80's and 90's. Not so much true of RPG's on the computer. I remember being harshly violated by Wizardry/Ultima/BaK type games that ended up having a great deal of content.
 
That's especially true of console games in the 80's and 90's. Not so much true of RPG's on the computer. I remember being harshly violated by Wizardry/Ultima/BaK type games that ended up having a great deal of content.

Yeah old cRPGs usually did a good job. Bioware game had some issues, but they've always sucked at difficulty curves and difficulty scaling.
 
Developing a game on a console is not necessarily a bad thing. I remember playing the demo for Batman Arkham Asylum on my xbox and not liking the feel of the game. I was reluctant to try it for the PC but I am glad I did. The control is tons better for the PC. It felt so much better chaining combos with a keyboard and mouse.
As long as Bethesda keeps the PC community in mind while developing Skyrim, I would'nt put too much into this untill we see the finished product.
 
Developing a game on a console is not necessarily a bad thing. I remember playing the demo for Batman Arkham Asylum on my xbox and not liking the feel of the game. I was reluctant to try it for the PC but I am glad I did. The control is tons better for the PC. It felt so much better chaining combos with a keyboard and mouse.
As long as Bethesda keeps the PC community in mind while developing Skyrim, I would'nt put too much into this untill we see the finished product.

That was great on PC, I think "This is developed on the console" is translated to is "This game is buggy, badly optimized, and will get zero support on pc". Not saying this is the truth but it has happened enough to think that when we hear it.
 
I think the problem is the phrase "accessible" it denotes every single negative connation that you can come up with, and those have been posted ad nauseum already in this thread and others.

It's a dirty word, and I blame consolitis. That's the primary culprit here.
 
oblivion sucked because it wasnt an rpg. it was GTA4 with swords. this game looks to be even worse.
 
oblivion sucked because it wasnt an rpg. it was GTA4 with swords. this game looks to be even worse.

:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:

Seriously, this is a troll post if there ever was one. Oblivion was nothing more than a straight up extension of what every other Elder Scrolls game has been about, only with a much more (at the time) advanced graphic engine. Skyrim appears to be headed in that same direction.

Calling it GTA4 with swords is definitely an insult to this series.
 
The console part is nothing surprising, but the "really accessible" part has me worried.

Actually, accessible shouldn't be bad. The inventory system is supposed to be accessible, and it sounds kind of interesting. You sort of flip through things in 3d. It has potential at least. The leveling system isn't quite so full of nonsense like with Oblivion and Morrowind (+1 vs. +5 anyone?), so in that respect accessible isn't such a bad idea either.

But yeah, the general philosophy of console first still has me concerned. They don't even show effort in making sure the PC version will have any TLC.

From the Gamespot inetrview just on, it sounds that they've scrapped a lot of the player customisation when it comes to star sign, class, abilities, etc. You just level up abilities as you use them and unlock new ones along the way.

Doesn't upset me terribly.

Yeah, not too concerning there.

They will make up for that with hitpoint bloat!

It wouldn't be Elder Scrolls, without waving swords like feather dusters, chip chip chipping away at the hitpoint bar. You have hitpoints, they have hitpoints. We just sit around and drink health potions.

Hopefully there will be some sort of hardcore-ish mode for those who want rough combat so that I don't have to wait for mods to fix things.
 
Not horribly surprising news, but I'm not all that concerned with which platform gets the lead.

I'm more concerned that Bethesda properly implements multicore support.. If I see half of my cores idle and half fully loaded come Nov. 11, I will be pissed.
 
I am surprised that people are surprised. I assumed this from the start, what do you think oblivion was?
 
Well, obviously there wont be a problem with it being buggy. Since they are taking less time for the PC. I mean, look at the latest Fallout.
 
Well, obviously there wont be a problem with it being buggy. Since they are taking less time for the PC. I mean, look at the latest Fallout.


The fact that they aren't using the Gamebryo engine any more should go a long ways on that front.
 
Source

Here's the article in case anyone else is having trouble getting it to load:

Bethesda: Consoles to be the lead platform for Skyrim, aim to make it “really accessible”In an interview with CVG, Bethesda’s Craig Lafferty said that Skyrim has been developed with consoles as the lead target.The lead producer on Skyrim said: “We use the consoles as our lead SKU… So we develop towards the consoles and then porting to PC is usually not too bad actually .

”The above comments are likely to cause PC gamers a bit of grief, and the next thing on Craig Lafferty’s mind was unlikely to appease them.“We wanted to take it and make it really accessible,” the producer said.“… We still have the complexity behind the scenes, but we wanted to make it so that you could pick up the controller and play and it was easy; the average person could get into it…We knew we wanted to make the user interface a little bit more open and available … get away from the stats and things like that.”Hopefully this doesn’t mean we will be getting a dumbed down version of the RPG, but rather a slicker and more streamlined game. Simplifying RPG’s usually equates to commercial success, but also causes a split in your core audience, as we saw with Dragon Age 2. Bethesda will have to make sure they don’t alienate its established fan base in its quest to please the “average person”.The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim releases on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 11.

Thoughts?

Wow so I can expect no AA and blurry textures for the PC version? GREAT!
 
I would have preferred silt striders, propylon indexes, mark/recall, and mage guild teleporters. You either had to fast travel (which breaks immersion) or hoof it (often boring) in Oblivion.

There is no need to take out fast travel for those that like it, but taking out a travel system that worked perfectly fine doesn't make sense either. Both can exist. I don't care about "but it costs dev time!", I care about my enjoyment.

Pretty much this.

I am not to worried about Bethesda screwing up Skyrim, since their last games were also on the consoles, and they were still damn good. Bethesda has a pretty much stellar track record with me on releasing games worth spending my money on.
 
The phrase "Really Accessible" is like the phrase "sensible gun laws". Gun owners/lovers know what I'm talking about.
 
I am surprised that people are surprised. I assumed this from the start, what do you think oblivion was?

No matter what platform it is I think Skyrim looks like a very solid title and the fact that I won't have to upgrade my system to enjoy it to it's maximum doesn't hurt my feelings one bit. Besides it's coming out in like 5 months. I'd rather them just work on polishing the gameplay then adding high resolution textures which I'm sure modders will do in the future anyways.

Meanwhile Oblivion has way more then enough modded content to easily last 5 more months.
 
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Well, obviously there wont be a problem with it being buggy. Since they are taking less time for the PC. I mean, look at the latest Fallout.

You mean New Vegas that Bethesda didn't develop and instead was developed by a company well known for releasing buggy as hell titles?
 
You mean New Vegas that Bethesda didn't develop and instead was developed by a company well known for releasing buggy as hell titles?

Like it matters.

Morrowing was buggy as hell, Oblivion was buggy as hell and Fallout 3 was coding mess too.

We should consider Obsidian to be miracle makers for what they did with Nev Vegas using that shitty engine.

Still I'm impressed to make a game that is more dumbed down (sorry "accesible" or "streamlined") than Oblivion and F3 must have been real challange.
 
just playing the game in morrowind was a good way to screw yourself out of tons of potential for your character because the system behind it was fucking retarded.

oblivion was barely a step up. aww sweet i get to do backflips down a flight of stairs and listen to the sounds of my ankles breaking for half an hour because in this universe, that's how you become increasingly skilled at acrobatics.

fallout 3 finally went with a much less ass backwards and more typical leveling system.
 
Well, while agree that it certainly is possible to put a little more effort into development and make a AAA title for PC, personally, I'm not too concerned.

Honestly, from every vid I've watched, I'm actually rather astounded by the visuals they've managed to create already on console alone. I also like, so far, what I've seen of the gameplay.

The environment, creatures, effects and general detail of all those things look great, and the gameplay looks fun, including the dual-"wielding" of spells, one in each hand, that can even be combined, as well as some of the other gameplay features.

The fact that the game will support modding is, of course, also a plus.

Of course, since PC is coming 2nd for them, I do worry about any possible needed patches, but as long as they do right in that area, then I think it's going to be one hell of a game, and am greatly looking forward to it, day one.
 
Haven't read everything in this thread, but if it's going to be even more "console-ized" then Oblivion, this went from being a preorder/day one purchase to picking it up in the bargain bin a year from its release and hoping someone in the modding community has "fixed" the worst of the porting issues... :rolleyes:
 
The game would be dramatically different and lose its core appeal for me. But it has already been confirmed to support modding and the same tools will provided like the previous games. A significant amount of the game is actually built using the same editor as far as I know.

I really don't care about the specific game play details of Bethesda games, I always end up modding and customizing them anyways, which is the core appeal to me. To me the appeal of the game is that it is a sandbox beyond the limitations of the game world, since you alter the core game world.

As for the actual changes being discussed. If they alter the skill and leveling system, I don't see why that immediately is a bad thing. As far as I know some of the most popular mods changed the skill/leveling, doing things that would be deemed making it more "accessible" (removing the need for instance to micromanage skill rewards to maximize attribute distribution). This suggests to me the player base was not happy with the existing system anyways.

Also for something like fast travel, the mods and self control option to not use it was there, yet as far as I know the minority took advantage of these on the PC. Again this suggests the majority of the player base, even on the PC, is not against ease of travel mechanics.

Just because an individual gamers personally likes something that is changed does not mean the game is ruined for everyone else.

how can they be using same tools on a different engine?
 
"Really Accessible" = completely crappy

Well, there are plenty of other great games coming. I will probably be so far up BF3s butt it won't matter anyway.
 
You mean New Vegas that Bethesda didn't develop and instead was developed by a company well known for releasing buggy as hell titles?

What's ironic is: I had less problems with New Vegas out of the box through now vs. Fallout 3.
 
What's ironic is: I had less problems with New Vegas out of the box through now vs. Fallout 3.

Much fewer bugs for me, too. I'd say Bethesda games are usually a bit more buggy than Obsidian games, at least at release. We have to wait until November to see if that holds true.

Otherwise, I'm glad Skyrim isn't going to be as generic high fantasy as Oblivion. I'm liking the art direction in the tombs and caves.
 
I'm going to get it on release for the 360, play the crap out of it like I did with Oblivion, THEN buy it for the PC and mod the hell out of it for the extra fun.

Why must you guys always rage so badly, even though we know mod support is in and these flaws will be fixed? Just enjoy the game for what it is instead of having all this steam everywhere. We all know it'll be vastly superior to vanilla oblivion, so why can't you just enjoy it and wait for the modders to do their thing? PC was ALWAYS going to be a secondary platform. Morrowind did it, Oblivion did it, why would skyrim be any different?
 
Much fewer bugs for me, too. I'd say Bethesda games are usually a bit more buggy than Obsidian games, at least at release. We have to wait until November to see if that holds true.

Otherwise, I'm glad Skyrim isn't going to be as generic high fantasy as Oblivion. I'm liking the art direction in the tombs and caves.

Finally abandoning the buggy Gamebryo engine makes me feel more a bit confident about how this game's going to be coming out of the box but the fact that it's a Bethesda game in general simply has me bracing for a certain level of bugs and annoyances on day one. It's just the way it is but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
 
I think you guys are blowing this WAAAAAY out of proportion, and here is why.

1. Lead Platform -- if your bread was buttered by the console market, would you come out and say "yeah, the PC version is the one to get, because we are going to make that one badass and then nerf the fuck out of it so you morons can play it on your TVs for $10 more with no mods?" Even if the PC version is the best version they will never come out and say it for fear of alienating the console market. They don't care about alienating the PC market as much because 95% of the people nerd raging about how they won't buy it will be lining up to buy collectors editions at midnight.

2. Really accessible -- along those same lines, would you say "we are trying to make the game as inaccessible as possible. A bunch of numbers that don't mean anything, a leveling and weapon system that no one can understand, and a tutorial you are unlikely to survive." Considering everyone modded the hell out of Oblivion's menus and leveling system, everything I have seen so far from an accessibility stand point seems like a big improvement.

Accessibility doesn't mean EZ Mode. He appears to be referring to their absolutely pure shit menu and skills system in vanilla Oblivion. I for one will be happy not to have to worry about which of my 50 skills I am grinding away at.
 
I think you guys are blowing this WAAAAAY out of proportion, and here is why.

1. Lead Platform -- if your bread was buttered by the console market, would you come out and say "yeah, the PC version is the one to get, because we are going to make that one badass and then nerf the fuck out of it so you morons can play it on your TVs for $10 more with no mods?"

It's not realistic but I'd LOVE to see something like that happen. :D


Even if the PC version is the best version they will never come out and say it for fear of alienating the console market. They don't care about alienating the PC market as much because 95% of the people nerd raging about how they won't buy it will be lining up to buy collectors editions at midnight.

Of course. It's just like the COD hate around here. It's a joke. The things sell like hotcakes across ALL platforms and that includes the PC. Mw3 will be more different.

I can only hope BF3's sales exceed it, at least on the PC.



2. Really accessible -- along those same lines, would you say "we are trying to make the game as inaccessible as possible. A bunch of numbers that don't mean anything, a leveling and weapon system that no one can understand, and a tutorial you are unlikely to survive." Considering everyone modded the hell out of Oblivion's menus and leveling system, everything I have seen so far from an accessibility stand point seems like a big improvement.

There's some things I'm glad they took some of the BS out of. Oblivion's menus, at least vanilla, are cumbersome and terrible. So if "more easy accessible" means going from that to what I'm seeing in Skyrim then that kind of thing I'm in favor of.
 
There's some things I'm glad they took some of the BS out of. Oblivion's menus, at least vanilla, are cumbersome and terrible. So if "more easy accessible" means going from that to what I'm seeing in Skyrim then that kind of thing I'm in favor of.

Oblivion's menus were cumbersome and terrible because they were designed to be accessed with the console controller. I doubt that will change with Skyrim.

The article basically confirms that Skyrim will be the dreaded Dumbed Down Console Port, in all of its glory. It's hard to get excited about it now since Fable will probably have equal-or-greater-than depth when it comes to customisation.


1. Lead Platform -- if your bread was buttered by the console market, would you come out and say "yeah, the PC version is the one to get, because we are going to make that one badass and then nerf the fuck out of it so you morons can play it on your TVs for $10 more with no mods?" Even if the PC version is the best version they will never come out and say it for fear of alienating the console market. They don't care about alienating the PC market as much because 95% of the people nerd raging about how they won't buy it will be lining up to buy collectors editions at midnight.

It's being done with Battlefield 3, and it was done with Metro 2033 and Dragon Age: Origins.
 
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