I'm humbled to hear that my work has helped inspire people to check out the older games again. *Please consider supporting the channel...* PATREON ► www.patreon.com/IndigoGaming BECOME A TH-cam MEMBER ► th-cam.com/channels/TRohxutThBffdcP3H6O0Zg.htmljoin Get The Elder Scrolls series on GOG with my affiliate code ► indigogaming.link/ElderScrolls
Please, chill on the clickbait. This is not a documentary. Half the people clicking this probably think its the Elder Scrolls 6 making of documentary that is being awaited after the fallout 76 one by another channel that i, and probably most people, forget the name of because they just saw it for the exclusive bethesda interview access...
this is an interesting take on video games in general. and the way companies have coped with the industry boom... I say why not add both ways of gameplay? beat the game the streamlined way then a bartender in a random small settlement appears where you can engage in dialogue that strips you of everything and plays , "hardcore", from that point on. and plz make compass toggle -able!
This is a great documentary, but people need to remember that this is your own opinion on this subject and should not form fake facts without trying it to see how it plays.
I had a bad drug habit (coke) back when Daggerfall was released back in 1990's. I quit cold turkey and played video games non stop. Daggerfall was my go to escapism for 2 more years. Its over 20 years later and i love games and i'm clean still ... but games now a days dont reach for the stars , they seem to want to only reach into our wallets now. Your vid is really informative, amazing work. *I miss the glory days when games were made with passion for fun.*
May I suggest the Divinity Original Sin series? They seem to have been made with much care and love for the projects. It shows with many nuances of the game. They are deep RPGs with fantastically intricate combat, fleshed out stories, and lots of exploration.
@@Indigo_Gaming I would say that that could be a point against Daggerfall's world: The banks. There are just too many of them! Normally I would imagine that the smaller kingdoms in the Illiac bay would be self-sufficient and not be trade centers like Daggerfall, Sentinel or Wayrest. Also I would imagine that the smaller kingdoms would not be too pleased with the power that banks can accumulate, especially given that centralized banking does not benefit smaller kingdoms when compared to larger ones.
@@Indigo_Gaming I never tried it in my own games (started with Morrowind), but isn't that what they probably tried to bring back in Skyrim, wanted levels differing from Hold to Hold? Though I never felt good about playing the criminal type myself and thus never explored that system, I still felt that this "wanted level" system was amongst the things I could actually "believe in" in the game of Skyrim (if that wanted star wasn't so easy to get rid of again). BTW thanks for a very detailed and informing history of the TES series, you really caught the important points and ups and downs of the different games.
@@Indigo_Gaming I watched your whole video. You my friend need to make games. Weapons like maces are cool but a FLAIL ! Now thats harder to make id imagine. I loved Morrowind and Oblivion and Skyrim. I even play ESO. ( love how hudge eso is ) but the combat is not as fun as skyrim it seems. Skyrim online forced to play first person with more team play would be amazing. Just some ideas.
@@franciscoriquelme8701 I think that there should be many more banks with varying spheres of influence correlating with their wealth and political ties. AFAIK, medieval banks ranged from small, village payday loan and pawn shop type deals all the way up to huge banks with the wealth required to bankroll armies, so I think that having something more like that would make more sense. Like, you default on a small loan with the local payday loan place and you might have to watch your back while in town because they might send out some thugs to rough you up for their money (but probably won't actually kill you over it) but they may not be powerful enough to actually influence the local Lord or mayor to make you a criminal, but then if you screw over one of the large provincial banks, then not only will there be wanted posters out for you, but other banks in nearby regions won't do business with you, either, due to your reputation proceeding you.
It’s so ironic that the games lost complexity as computers became more powerful. Edit: from a time management perspective it makes sense given that more man hours have to be put into level design and modeling etc. less time for quest manufacturing 👩🏭🤷♂️
Sad thing is that these games were never meant to take advantage of PC/Mac hardware, but sell to the X Box crowd. Plus it makes more business sense to do as little actual development as you can get away with. The bottom line of any business is not to make a customer happy but to make as much money as cheaply as you can.
doesnt seem so weird to me tbh, allot of the more limited technology, like using single screens with basic animastion and a large mass of text means you can add allot of complexity to the games, where newer games want to implement the worlds seamlessly into the experience with animations and features, this way of making games will always mean less complexity due to the complicated nature of the systems. Its the same way that dungeons and dragons which has the most simple technology i.e a bit of paper and your imagination, is the most diverse, detailed, and user custom experience available. i think when you think of it that way it expresses why games are less in scope. same reason a movie that takes 3 years is an hour and a half but a book of equivalent time can be a few weeks long but more complex.
While I agree the complexities of... actually many long standing rpg franchises, but Elder Scrolls specifically, have been streamlined and dumbed down. I think the industry itself became so big it changed how they develop games. You have to sell so many units and unfortunately games like ES back in the game have to appeal to a more general audience. I loved Morrowind. First one I played. Get to Skyrim and Fallout 4, just kinda fell off. Skyrim was big and I prefer it over 4, but yeah. It was lacking real depth.
Tami Lambert well apparently cyberpunk 2077 will be everything in one, i’m very sceptical, you cant kill main characters but i guess that makes sense, also i think Bethesda is better at making the kind of rpg type games, very few games come close, so i can see why its annoying to have the games dumbed down.
Part of the reason (I think) is because some don't have powerful computers and companies want to make the game accessible. An example I can think of is how Sims 3 had open world etc and a lot of players reported bad performance, while it wasn't as bad for people with better PCs - so for sims 4 they did load in instances instead of open world.
@@kidneystonermusic trust me if you just install a few mods, like the code patch and better combat, and just get over the fact that there is no fast travel or compass it is by far the best elder scrolls game I have played. And is in my opinion even better than stuff like Kotor.
That kind of attitude is what we're missing with modern Bethesda. You could see that it was "do or die" with Morrowind, but as you see, the Skyrim logo is behind him, those days were already long passed in 2011. They have in-house gyms, cafeterias, hundreds of staff and billions of dollars now.
@Cato the Elder That maybe so, but they are running business after all. If they can maximize profits with as little effort as possible, then it makes sense for them to go that way. It sucks for us fans, though.
Haha ES 6 will be even further dumbed down. Two Skills, Fighting and Magic. Probably Todd: "We had to cut sneaking and archery, it was too much. Now with Swords and Magic Staves, players have a more streamlined experience. Oh and no more classes, you're a magic fighter, with magic and swords. Instead of heavy or light armor, much too complicated, everyone has robes. Some robes grant more protection than others in a linear progression! Instead of caves having curving tunnels, everything is now just a straight line to the finish, with online markers holding the players hand every step of the way. Immersion? Money doesn't want that...I mean...People don't want that, they want hack and slash and pew pew in a game!"
@@ALGORITHMTICKLER Unlock glass dagger now, free loot box with a higher chance to get it every 8 hours! Only $5.99 to unlock more than iron and steel weapons and armor! Winter sale! Want the ability to sneak and wield a bow? Archer expansion pack out now for $14.99!!!
"What could Bethesda possibly do now that would impress audiences more than the content the fans are creating themselves?" The most powerful sentence in the video
Get absorbed by Microsoft. So they can make good games that don't need a fan base with dedicated modders to fix the darn things. Hopefully they dump Todd and his "it just all works" BS.
@I lost my faith in humanity and i want you to die Yeah that's reasonable. Definitely better than no mods and a bad game. But Imo Bethesda or any other contemporary game developer can't possibly do the multitude of things that modders have done for Skyrim.
It's not though, for one since you can't play as an Orc in Daggerfall. That said, all of the races play the same in Daggerfall, even moreso than in Skyrim. There are no racial skill bonuses like there are in Skyrim, although there are passive abilities which have been more or less consistent since Arena(Argonian water breathing, Nord frost resistance, etc.). If anything, Skyrim makes playing as one race mechanically more different than in Daggerfall, if only slightly.
I do agree with you, the point really wasn't the races at all. At high levels, and with the Dragon born DLC, effectively there is no difference between the races. Any race can obtain anything with time spent. And the idea of being able to just have your character be the best at everything, is where Skyrim really did not feel at all like an RPG. I've tried playing it as a farm simulator, or even a hunting simulator. I even had a mod were I started off as a blacksmith and worked my way from rags to riches. During that time, I actually felt more akin to what it was like in Daggerfall, and having that felt sensation of an actual RPG simply by completely ignoring the story and not becoming the dragonborn. I would say for Skyrim, the only difference between the races is when you start fresh, and play on Legendary difficulty. This cannot be simply done on normal or hard (it can but it is pretty much overly powered if you just rest constantly to always have an Orc's racial buff up for instance. Nord's Frost reduction is already high to not be scared of mages that use it, etc) Because it is only there you feel the power of their racial features until you hit about level 30-40 depending on how you're building your character. This level frame obviously will vary depending on what race you play, and if you dip into enchanting early in the game. From a certain point onward however, you may as well be any race.
@@orbindry1121 I see what you're saying, and I agree that character progression through professions is different in Skyrim, but that's not really in your first comment at all. Daggerfall makes character progression feel more grounded because its factions are less unique. There's tons of different knightly orders in Daggerfall, plus the Fighters Guild, while Skyrim has the Companions and that's it. So when you progress in the Companions, it makes you a bigger deal than reaching the top of a knightly order or the Fighters Guild since there's no competition. It's similar to what you feel with being the Dragonborn. There's not enough competition because the scale is so different, which makes the LDB feel too powerful. That said, your first comment made it seem like Daggerfall did races with more depth than Skyrim, when it doesn't. Even if Skyrim's races only affect the start of the game, Daggerfall's basically don't ever affect it from start to finish.
Thank god for mods! Character creation overhaul and random alternate start have added infinite replayability to skyrim for me. Races play very different than vanilla.
@@orbindry1121 This is the beauty of Skyrim though, in my opinion. You can get what you want out of it, especially with mods, but even without them. You can decide to work as a blacksmith to become rich, there doesn't need to be a mechanic in the game to force you to do so. You can decide to delve heavily into rp complete with relationships and children, or you can go slay that dragon that keeps flying overhead and won't land. You can decide to only become the head of the thieves guild, or you can say screw it and be the head of literally everything. Definitely not saying Skyrim is perfect, many of these things aren't as good as they probably could be, but as I said the beauty of it is in how you can play it a hundred different ways, you can play it however you want.
From the Daggerfall manual: *"People who play role-playing games need more than some pretty graphics and nonstop action to whet their claymores: they want depth and character and wit and drama. They want the thickest, most involving novel that they've ever read translated to their 15" screen, with themselves as the hero."* Oh man, I wonder what some of the original TES creators think about the new dumbed down series.
Yep, I lost it with Skyrim. Oblivion was a hiccup, but with skyrim, I just lost all hope. Even though I'd rather play Skyrim than Oblivion. My fav. tes game would be a mix between morrowind and daggerfall with added mechanics and stuff... so yeah, TES and FO franchises are a joke now.
Honestly I think they just forgot to implement survival in the freezing environment of Skyrim. The best example of this is the “clear skies” shout. You use it to get past a bitter cold barrier. That’s it. It was clearly implemented to be an alternative to having to use a potion or something to not die. You never use it again however unless you want to take a screenshot (which by the way you could just go into the command menu and just change the weather)
Yeah the cooking system, weather effects and setting just scream "survival". I'm thinking it was cut down significantly, either for time/scope purposes or it didn't test well with casual audiences.
@@Indigo_Gaming Don't forget, a lot of what I would call "cut content", was done due to limitations of console hardware. Same goes for the Fallout series too. Also, I love your work, Sir! Every video is a masterpiece!
@@Indigo_Gaming or maybe too many survival games were coming out at the time and didn't want to "turn TES into the latest fad", but yeah, more likely time constraints
Knowing that my preferred method of climbing mountains in Skyrim was not only intended to do, but had mechanics for in Daggerfall has me shook. I want climbing to return to the elder scrolls!
I want a nice decent remake of daggerfall, maybe keeping the game mechanics similar. Like I nice mash of Daggerfall and Morrowind. I loved the level of detail and freedom it had, I can do with a smaller map because as said it adds more detail and life rather than repeats. That with the freedom of Daggerfall would be S tier.
Zelda: Breath of the wild have surprisingly strong and free climbing system. You can climb literally any wall or slope, except for the dungeons, which are puzzle based.
@@ShaneStapler even the starting stamina is enough to climb most walls and slopes, and you can level it up. You can also prepare a bunch of stamina restoring dishes and stamina stops being an issue at all.
@@anselravenhart4753 They are because the game tell us they are but to be a High Elf has literally no diference in-game between playing as an Orc or anything else besides a little stat boost and useless magic abilities.
To the guy who put this video out years ago: this is probably my 20th time watching it. It is good, it stays good; if anything it keeps getting BETTER. Everything is perfect, from the editing and music, the background gameplay and featured images that relate to the script, the pacing, the presentation, everything. You have made one of the greatest documentaries I’ve ever watched and I just want you to know that
I always think of a Software, Etc. employee I knew, back in a city I grew up in. His name was Theo, and his taste in video games was so horrible, I would use his recommendations to figure out which games NOT to buy. One of his strongest recommendations was Beatdown from 1999.
Still remember: I had just recently acquired a PS1 and had absolutely zero sources of information about which games are good. And when I came to the store, the employe told me: "This one is good. Shooting aliens, and stuff". It was Blasto.
I was shocked when I compared the production values on this to your sub count, 42K, christ, there are people with millions of subs who don't put this much shine in. Incredible work.
He dosent play the stupid youtube system and instead make quality content the problem is youtube prefer stupid content with consistent uploads around 10 min instead of inspired content with depth
All of his videos have the same superb level of quality. Something that I feel is lacking in this day and age of "instant gratification". All content creators should aspire to reach this level of workmanship.
I hope Fallout 76 slaps Bethesda in the face and makes them realize that they have to make TES 6 *really* damn good. I want the game to be great but Bethesda's track record has not been good as of late.
@@scythe321 the comment at the mid end of the video about TES6 / skyrim being a platform for the mod community to create and produce on for fans is sadly the most likely and true part of the whole video and i wouldnt be suprised if it isnt proven as such when todd howard/ bethesda and obsidian fail to give us a follow up to skyrim that isnt just a 3d texture / VR rehash of it
@@simonpierson2669 Yeah very true, even DLC (like Dragonborn) really just serves as an "asset" trove for modders to build something bigger. I don't have a problem with this formula but Bethesda have taken it too far. Skyrim had great towns like Riften, Solitude, Windhelm etc but in Fallout 4 they went with the "build your own shit lol" approach and gave us Diamond City and (at an absolute stretch) Goodneighbour.
DUDE. being able to LIE YOUR WAY OUT OF COURT would be so much fun in Skyrim. even if it was a mostly dialogue based thing, at least it would give the speechcraft specialists a place to shine! on the other hand. I get the feeling skyrim 'lawyers' are purely theoretical as most conflicts are resolved with fists or swords before they ever get to a court room.
How would lying in court not be a doalogue based thing? Could you lie in court in any other way besides it being dialogue choices? Would it be a mini game of jumping on platforms? Haha, of course lying would be a dialogue based mechsnic...
probably by forging evidence or just breaking into whoever's office and taking the case files with the evidence. shit like that. Or just bribing them. paying 1000 gold to get rid of my criminal record just sucks you into the game right?@@frauleinhohenzollern
I mean, in Arena Guards attack on sight because you are a known outlaw with Jagar Tharn in power, Morrowind the Tribunal and Dunmer in general are already wary of outlanders and Oblivion no true court can be passed with the Death of Uriel Septim only having recently occured, and Skyrim is in civil war. The only place you can be put on trial is in Daggerfall, where the current conflict isn't exactly that demanding of political interference, only that a ghost of it's dead king is haunting the capital at night
It’s unfortunate because KISS has improved so much software it’s ridiculous. Video games like this were unfortunate collateral damage. It shouldn’t have been KISS but inevitably someone made a business case for it to be. Eventually we will find a balance.
Ain't nothing wrong with Fallout 4. I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Fallout 3/NV. I'm a hopeless romantic. I love romance RPGs like Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Witcher. It's very cool that you can romance companions in Fallout 4.
i dont get, what that person is doing there, except incoherent mumbling and destroying games we loved... if they need him hired, he should work on some fps shooters, not rpgs... sigh
Todd Howard: we removed everything unnecessary also Todd Howard: *adds cooking system that barely has any effect, tons of of repetitive quests with no meaning and shouts that do exactly the same as most spells*
The cooking system is useful IF you have the DLCs and memorize certain recipes, but ultimately it was just unnecessary. They could've just expanded upon so many other things.
Well for the shouts, i guess it's just an easier way to give characters spells because learning spells has stat requirements that is unreachable for some builds, but for shouts you'll eventually come across the word wall and kill enough dragons to unlock them all. So for mage builds the shouts are ~90% redundant but for non-magic builds it can be the only way to access high level spells
@@lcmiracle 98% of all shouts are useless you get a good enough enchantment on any weapon. Skyrim stopped being a challenge when i added a high frost damage enchantment to my elven war axe, I killed everyone from low level bandits to alduin.
Quote "Given the same tools the developers at Bethesda use, the modding community seems to be able to pinpoint our desires more accurately than the creators themselves." Is just so good. Like When the sun hits that ridge just right.
I will be very concise one the matter: TESVI simply need CHOICES. I think it's absurd how you can be almost a god on Earth in skyrim and still feel, even in the late sections of the game, so irrelevant to the world around you.
what i hate the most in skyrim is that you can be he leader of every faction in the game in one playthrough, like what if the companions gave you a mission to destroy the dark brotherhood, nd if you still wnted to be part of them, they would eventualy discover and try to kill you, the wizards scholl should have more importance like, when dragon return from the history, why would no one care to ask questions to wizards ? all thos faction exist as if only the player cares about them, at least the thieves guild has some importance in riften
The writing is godawful. The quests in Morrowind are memorable and often humorous. I can't remember a single quest from Skyrim outside of a few Daedric quests after playing 120 hours of it.
ualaelinlive The only quest from Oblivion I remember is the dark brotherhood murder mystery dinner party. The only one I remember from Skyrim is the talking dog. Bethesda really, really sucks at writing and dialogue.
This is extremely depressing. It’s a bittersweet feeling because remembering all these games brings back a lot of nostalgia but will we ever get those feelings back with new games?
You can always travel through time ... Morrowind has been completed by a third Party , Players can now have access to the whole kingdom of morrowind -> www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/ Morrowind can be upgaded to have graphics like oblivion -> wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Morrowind_graphics_guide
Nah it's not about recapturing the feeling. Video game design philosophy has shifted in a big way since then. Nobody wants to push the envelope anymore
Classics of this current era in gaming will still be a thing. Fromsoft has a good track record for games that age pretty well, I think Breath of the Wild will be a favorite amongst the Zelda franchise for many, Subnautica is a good example with the console port being successful. When you have franchises like Fifa or CoD that capitalize on selling a hotter, fresher take every year or two, or "games as a service" that milk players at every opportunity they can muster, they aren't making games that are intended to age well. I can definitely understand why you might feel that the idea of a modern classic is unlikely, but there are good games being made and so long as there's a market there, they will still be made.
Dude... My attention span on analysis videos has become so short i didn't believe i'd last 10 minutes of your video. after 1h and 20mins i felt disappointed it ended. Your voice is pleasant to listen to, points good, writing engaging, pacing well done, progression easy to follow, editing fitting and overall well done, so on. In other words this video was stellar! It would feel weird if it came from TV because more conventional media doesn't accept videogames yet, but it deserves it more than just about 90 of the programs there. I'm utterly blown away. You my dude are amazing.
Any traditional broadcast medium would have spread the content of this video over at least twice the run-time with tons of annoying filler and repetition. Good riddance to TV.
What Howard doesn’t understand is that there aren’t any superfluous features in an RPG because even one player might love that detail for their character. Having the option adds to a game world even if I refuse the option.
What players don't understand is that development costs money and making a feature for just one player means that other things are not getting done that would be used by many players.
@@dontanton7775 Bethesda is a AAA studio, smaller game developers have done more for RPGs with less resources. They are also cutting content that they previously utilised. It obviously isn't just meant for 1 player, its about having choice, something majority of players enjoy when playing RPGs. As consumers, we have a right to critique, so devs can improve their products. Otherwise they will keep getting away disasters like Fallout 76. People being overcharged for a half baked projects and micro transactions.
@@warprecautions631 Sure, it's not mutual exclusive. But they already overextend what they can do. That is why it takes longer and longer to make a game and they get more and more expensive to make. They were already at their limit. The initial comment I replied to basically said "There is no superfluous feature". And with that mindset you will never finish a game. You will end up where Chris Roberts endet up with Star Citizen. A released game is better than an ambitious vision that never makes it to market. 9 women don't make a baby in 1 month. And that is what players don't understand. They think capabilities and capacities are endless. They are not.
@@warprecautions631 We also have to take into account audience scale. A single indie developer is typically aiming for sales numbers in the thousands or possibly even hundreds. This, in turn, gives them more freedom to create a more genre specific game that fans of said genre can really sink their teeth into. Meanwhile, a AAA developer like Bethesda, is looking to reach an audience of millions, most of whom don't have much experience with RPGs. So the question is more about whether Bethesda should downscale their ease of access in favor of a more expansive and varied RPG, or if they should expand their accessibility at the cost of losing much of their more diverse and large scale RPG elements.
"This lead to Oblivion to become the most unintentionally comical game" - I can only recommend you all to look up Bacon_'s Oblivion videos. That stuff is a whole genre of comedy in its own right.
I've seen many video essays, this one is by far the most impressive. The production value, the research, the script, everything is top notch. Bravo sir
If you like video essays you should watch Lindsay Ellis' series on the Hobbit, I feel bad even calling it a video essay as it's more of a documentary of the film's production and problems with the script/studio/cast etc
You know it hit me at the end where he said we maybe need to look somewhere else for the rpg we want. i fucking hate it because im so adjusted to the lore of TES that i read so much about it. But how does someone create the same magick/energie without copying it or using butchered material..?
“You cannot fail, you cannot be trapped, you cannot be lost.” This describes modern RPG design, including modern TTRPGs like D&D Fifth Edition. It has led to many of us going back to the past for content.
@Andrea De Luca That's a shame, but hey maybe the yinyang opinion on the elder scrolls it's fanbase provides is why we have so many great modders. So many fall in love with the series that once they've played the next game enough to see the flaws clearly, it's that same love that gives them the drive to eliminate those flaws the best they can. Has Bethesda taken this for granted lately? Yes, but I argue that with the elder scrolls it hasn't extended past the creation club. Even with the the mistakes they've been making, I still think they love making these games. So I still have faith that the next game, just like the last game, will be a flawed gem worth Loving.
I really don't like Todd's and Emil's idea of removing things because they are redundant. I love them as game developers, but this is a pretty bad philosophy. Redundancy helps for role-playing. A thief can pick a lock, a mage can use a spell and a warrior can bash the door open. By the time Skyrim comes around, EVERYONE is skilled in lock-picking because that is the only solution. Where is the role-playing? I love Skyrim. It introduced me to the franchise and is my favorite game purely as a game. But it is my least favorite game in the franchise as an RPG.
Yeah, we end up with ES games that remove a lot of the interesting features. What's left is also streamlined and simplified. As a result we end up with games that are lot less memorable.
It's weird they say they want to get rid of those things when at the same time they added "useless" immersion factors such as sitting on a bench or chipping wood, probably inspired from Gothic if we are honest.
Ironic that they don't want redundancy and yet most skills like charisma in Skyrim and Fallout 4 is pointless and not add much to gameplay. Most spells, guilds, side quest (Even main quest), and gameplay style in Skyrim felt redundant. Only mods make them FEEL that they are needed. I don't actually play FO4 but what do you actually get when finishing any of the main quest, really?
theUSpopulation Lockpicking in Oblivion can be done at any level so why are you only nagging about Skyrim when Oblivion came up with the idea that anyone can lockpick a chest or door at any level regardless of the lock's difficulty.
I personally use lost grimoire, adds an open lock spell which I love the mechanic of (one cast per lock level, you have to have a high enough skill, but all one spell), a mod that I can't remember to bash a door with a battleaxe or warhammer, and a mod to bust doors with unrelenting force. There's no problem with mods fixing a game in my opinion, it just lets you make a game to your taste. Some people like the simplicity of one skill to pop locks, I'm sure, but if you don't, mods are there for you.
22:15 “we spread ourselves thin, we started doing a lot of games and they just weren’t good enough they weren’t the kind of games we should have been making at the time ” to me it kinda sounds like Bethesda is doing the same thing today with their games.
@@bokrugthewaterserpent3012 Right, because off the top of my head recent deep well crafted games AAA games aren't a thing like Persona 5, Fire Emblem, BotW, RDR2, Outer Worlds, Sekiro or Cyberpunk. Too bad no one can make anything decent in AAA anymore cuz that's not ever funded!
Lol, well I'm glad you enjoyed the video, despite my strong criticisms of Skyrim. I always say, if you enjoy entertainment, don't feel bad for enjoying it!
@@TheDarkblue57 Except when you're making a fucking Role-Playing Game! Because when you make it more complex, it makes the world feel more alive and thus better in that regard for immersion!!
This feels like a triple-A documentary production - well done, Indigo! My first venture into Tamriel was through Morrowind - and it completely blew my mind! That feeling of being lost in the Vvardenfel wasteland, hindered by diseases from skeevers and mentally tortured by cliffracer screeches... having to levitate inside a cave to find an enchanted Daedric bow... it was priceless! These experiences have yet to be surpassed, or replicated. But despite all of that, I totally understand the marketing decisions the company made. I just hope that Bethesda can still create something that's huge and challenging in the future.
Yeah I really connected with the quote from Ken Rolston (lead designer for Morrowind and Oblivion) that I used at the beginning of the Oblivion chapter of this video. You literally described it in your comment, you want that bow, that's your story. And I think that's what The Elder Scrolls should be about: YOUR story.
Yep, he is at the end of the day. A man that fundamentally doesn't want to make classic Eldar Scrolls games. He originally made the most different game in the series, and action adventure game. And over the years has tried going back to that and lo and behold, Skyrim is an action adventure game.
Try Daggerfall Unity then. www.dfworkshop.net/. It's a remake of Daggerfall that uses the original files on Unity, better graphics. Not 100% complete, but it's getting there.
I back daggerfall unity, it got mods that increase view distance ridiculously which makes it look more real than Skyrim imo, and there's high res texture packs.
@@trevorpearce4532 Yea same I'm still looking forward to es6 but Bethesda lost my trust. For example when Rockstar releases I don't even need to see a trailer to know it'll be a masterpiece
@@ZTheLastViking I an't buying Elder Scrolls 6 until I know that it support modding, I jsut love modding my games so much that it is almost a requirement at this point for me. Even if the game is an 11/10 I still wnat modding, I just love being part of this self developed community that gets to express their vision onto an interactive canvas.
@@CertifiedSunset I play on Playstation so I'm not modding personally but what would TH-cam gaming be without mods. I play the games as they are and watch them progress to their best potential on TH-cam
@@Indigo_Gaming that is true, however I always come back to this video annually as you can tell the passion you have for the series...it also inspired me to play Morrowind like 2 years back so I love it and once again,you did an amazing job.
Best video ever! Your documentary is a work of art. I'm 48 years old and gamer since Atari 2600 and the Pong games and also, I'm addicted to rpg and open worlds. You did so thorough and extremely detailed analysis of the specific merchandise, that describes accurately the pathogens of the industry as a whole. Very well done, bravo!
right there with you buddy. 40 yrs old. Gamer since atari 2600. Im craving that open world rpg that I cant just get completely lost in. Its been years and years since I have felt it and I hope one day to feel that way again!
As Todd was speaking about cutting down features for the upcoming Elder Scrolls games and the camera focused on the Nerevar in the back, I think I could see a tear in his eye as Todd was talking XD 56:55
I’m only 10 minutes into this video. And HOLY SHIT I would be so hype if they implemented features that they used to have! Speaking different enemies languages to make them non lethal?? Climbing walls to enter buildings threw the second story? Economic class systems?? Yes yes yes someone send this video to the devs at Bethesda please
@@ericshuff3152 I hear ya. It's a shame the fans have to fix and improve their games like that. I first played Morrowind with 80+ mods. Unfortunately it's kinda a prerequisite for elder scrolls games.
@@kato1kalin I hear ya. In a way thats kinda shitty by Bethesda cuz its the community keeping their games relevant and alive for free. Not sure if people who mod the game get any compensation but they honestly should cuz I’ve heard some of the stuff they do is crazzzyyyy
@@ericshuff3152 F@#k Bethesda. They got caught stealing free mods and reselling them on creation club without crediting or compensation to the author. They literally stabbed their community in the back. Their scum. On top of starvation wages, mass layoffs and general shit bag moves. But yes I feel for your sentiment. Sorry for the rant but that company is scum these days.
I absolutely adore Morrowind to this day. My friends and I played the hell out of it when it was new. I still remember finding that skooma den and telling my buddies about slaughtering the whole group. Oblivion and Skyrim were prettier, but practically held your hand and demanded you think inside the box.
I try it recently and I absolutely love the journal system and lack of quest marker. It’s more immersive imo considering the medieval fantasy setting. Also it demands that you pay more attention to your environment instead of constantly checking your map.
Finally, a comment talking about Morrowind! I think Arena and Daggerfall was wonderful, but Morrowind was 100% custom made, and an incredible game. Just one word. Skooma. Try it.
Well it turns out fans of the series like the stream lining and simplistic gameplay because they keep buying Skyrim and are perfectly content replaying the game for over a decade now, whereas TES fans got tired of morrowind in about 3 years and stopped oblivion right when skyrim released. Fans THINK they want complex gameplay, but they really dont.
I started elder scrolls with oblivion years ago and I love it. I like Skyrim as well but I love everything about oblivion from the cheesy graphics to the music it’s just wonderful. I also bought morrowind and am going to start learning to play it tomorrow. I think I’ll love that to
@@BoleDaPole I wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion, but that shouldn't matter to ya :P I do want more complex gameplay. I found it in Daggerfall. I downloaded tons of mods for it into Skyrim, Fallout 3, NV, 4, Valheim, & Halo. I enjoyed all of them way more because they allowed me to feel more engaged in what I'm doing without the game feeling like a monotonous task. It, for me, is almost always better. Provided it's not a mod that completely breaks the balancing of the game, lol. Simple gameplay philosophy (that Todd focuses on) can be great, but only if done well. I'd consider Skyrim as almost the antithesis of simplicity done well. Everything is structured and put together with...well what feels like an unorganized goal. Almost nothing you do, despite being Dragonborn, has an impact. The level scaling system actively works against the player, and forces a couple character types instead of actually letting you be what you want to be. Skyrim is a perfect game for people who wanna chill. But those of us like myself prefer systems that make sense, are expansive (not overly restrictive), and make us feel engaged. In which case, if anyone's like me, for the love of god go play Daggerfall Unity. It's free, and you'll love the depth of the mechanics. Mechanics that're meticulously made with a vision.
I haven't played Daggerfall in over a decade. My "holy crap!" Moment was when I made a spell to make my horse and cart fly and was able go all over the map 30' off the ground. Blew me away.
My holy crap moment was installing a 1 Gigabyte game when that was nearly the whole of my Harddrive. In 1996, I'm just saying it was a true "Holy Noley, this game is huge" moment. No other game has given me that surprise since.
So Robert Altman took Weaver's stock(who gave it to save the company) took money from investors and then effectively fired the creator of Bethesda(Weaver) and then made himself the boss. It sounds to me like the current CEO of Zenimax pulled of a corporate takeover of Bethesda. And it was at that point the culture of Bethesda changed from being about the players and the game. To one about making money and only about making money. His fingerprints are all over Fallout 76.
Roughly speaking, yes, that seems to be the case. You can look at all the articles and such about the lawsuits between Weaver and Altman, and in the end, Weaver DID hand Altman the "keys to the castle", but yes, Altman does seem to have essentially stolen the empire and as we've seen with their ridiculous lawsuits and aggressiveness in the industry, it didn't stop there.
@@tom.m Lmfao 🤣 Jesus Christ, you fossil. I'm 23 now. Lmao hahaha 😂 . I can't imagine how you must feel. Skyrim was my first fantasy game. Prior to that I HATED fantasy. But this game broke that, and I will forever remember that change. Skyrim forever. :)
56:31 - 57:10 This right here shows one of the big problems with the approach to Skyrim. What Todd Howard doesn't understand is that there IS no superfluous in a good RPG, you're supposed to have all those options to make your character into whatever you want it to be. But he and Bethesda is only interested in cutting away everything that makes an Elder Scrolls game INTO an Elder Scrolls game, so they can do the minimal work for maximum profit to be milked once the game is out.
Considering Todd has stated he thinks TES 6 needs to be a game people can play for at least a decade, after looking at Skyrim... ehh I'm cautiously optimistic. Starfield will tell.
you're just wrong, having a whole shitload of meaningless options is not desirable to anyone, it's entirely possible to go overboard. did morrowind have too many options? i'd say it was pretty close to the sweet spot, so skyrim didn't necessarily need to have options like spell creation, mysticism, acrobatics, or the two-tier skill system removed. they might have been overzealous in labeling mechanics as superfluous and culling them. but does that mean the principle is wrong, that there's no such thing as superfluous mechanics in an RPG? obviously not, since games with an excessive number of mechanics usually don't do well. when games do have an overwhelming amount of complexity, it's usually isolated to one or two core systems, such that it might have a steep learning curve but once you've been playing for a day or two, it all feels very intuitive. monster hunter world is a really good example. at first glance the equipment system seems really overwhelming, it's hard to tell what anything on the screen means. it's not obvious to someone who's never played the game before. there are just too many elements and too many stats for someone to intuitively figure it out. but that's the only part of the game that's like that, and the game doesn't try to do anything else. the only systems in that game are traversing levels, killing monsters, and using their loot to grow your unique character and build him/her to your unique playstyle, so you can go out and kill more monsters. because the game has a very narrow focus it can afford to have a very complex equipment system and combat mechanics. an elder scrolls game absolutely shouldn't have an equipment system that complex, because elder scrolls games have way a way broader scope. they try to encompass everything. the intention is to immerse you in another world. that was literally bethesda's slogan at the time the earliest elder scrolls games were being developed: "live another life in another world." it wouldn't feel like a real life in a real world if the world was a linear tunnel where you only talk to the NPCs essential to the story and you only go in the direction the plot needs you to go. the real world has a shit ton of mechanics, it's all over the map, and elder scrolls' world is even more complex than the real world since it has magic and real gods and multiple planes of existence and so on. to make that world feel real it has to emulate many different things. you have to be able to talk to anyone... to pick up objects, to eat food, to explore in any direction. just giving a small amount of depth in all these areas is already overwhelming for most players. most people can only focus on so much. if blacksmithing was as complicated in elder scrolls as monster hunter world's system is, most players would avoid it, because they'd be overloaded with information. in daggerfall, morrowind, and oblivion, players have to pick a few mechanics that they want to go relatively deep into. it's too much to learn it all in one go. skyrim has a bit of a different philosophy, where your character isn't limited the same way. you can be a jack of all trades in skyrim, or not. the game wants you to do a bit of everything, which is why it has dual wielding for example. systems like mysticism were removed because players couldn't remember what was part of mysticism versus illusion or alteration. that was unnecessary complexity. systems like acrobatics were removed not because they were too complex but because in previous games they caused bugs and broke immersion. because oblivion's movement and jumping had to allow for a really huge range of variation, the animations and the algorithms that calculate movement had to be really simple, causing movement to feel weightless and airy and jumping to feel like floating. if they were animated properly and had algorithms that mimicked real-world movement, then they'd look ridiculous when you performed them at 150% speed due to your high acrobatics skill. skyrim dodged this issue entirely by removing acrobatics, and for the few effects that do restrict movement, it didn't just plug a new number into the same equation, it uses entirely different algorithms for slow-walking and faster running, even different animations and camera values. this is getting long so i'll just cut it off there, but i could definitely go on. behind every system removed in skyrim, there's a pretty good justification. do those changes detract from the game for some players? of course. but do they make the game more accessible and therefore more profitable? absolutely. and for hardcore players who want to re-insert that level of complexity into their game, bethesda did you the favor of making the game extremely moddable, and there are thousands upon thousands of mods that reimplement features from oblivion and earlier games, as well as implement new features that represent improvements relative to all the games in the series.
@@0FFICERPROBLEM without mods skyrim wont even be a thing a year or two later Pretty sure tes 6 would be saved by mods only, given it's valenwood? Christ, that'll be just boring elvish fantasy copy just like oblivion and skyrim which copies from old fantasy tropes
25:35 It is telling that despite not having played it seriously since before going to university, the Morrowind version of the ES theme still brings tears to my eyes. Games like that are not made anymore.
@@mainaccount3087 Skyrim is quote on quote ' fine' its the Fallout 76 that killed it for me. Pretty much done with them. Atleast i did not bought it. But i saw other channels and revieuws. Etc. Do research before buying. Basicaly. If it were good i would still not buy it. Not a fan of 'online'.
@@BiomechanicalBrick Nah, ya gotta go to the mansion with the Orcs, talk to the scamp...Probably a long walk though, better take a silt...I mean fast travel....
My 30th time watching this as a sleep aid. Your voice is audible honey. The praise of old-school Bethesda games and subtle bashing of modern games is relaxing.
1:00:00 " It seems that in the minds of many regulars, the series has already peaked -- and that is one mountain Todd Howard's team hasn't been able to climb " JESUS, PUT OUT THE FIRE, HOLY SHIT
DaggerFall sounds more ambitious than most of today's RPGS. Ive heard it's nearly impossible to remake in today's standards. But the people who pull is off, would be Gaming LEGENDS
Well someone has remade it in Unity. Which supports mods and is open source. Which means people have upgrade alot of the assets. Added better skybox better grass. Fixed bugs. Upscaled terrain.
I think the trick is to embrace the creed that "nothing must be in the game". HD graphics? Get rid of it. Voice acting? Nonsense! Balanced gameplay? No no no. Make it big, pixelated, full of text and completely breakable. Playing as a barbarian? Forget joining the mage faction. Playing as a foreigner? No room for you among the militant racist faction. It can be done, it just takes balls. or ovaries. Whatever gives folks the guts to say "fuck the rules".
@@meh_cromancer Skyrim's combat is WAY more fun and new player oriented than Morrowind. Sure it is not realistic, but at that point what the heck are your expectations for a video game. Skywind will be almost perfect if the community developers work the engine right.
@@matthewnewton6737 what? I'm saying skyrim's combat is garbage but skywind is still going to be awesome because it's miles better than morrowind's. Reading comprehension bud.
man finding this video 3 years later, i really enjoyed this video and totally agree with your opinion on everything, thanks for reminding me of all the got TES memories i’ve made over the years ❤️
I hope you got a kick out of this little video I quickly threw together. Not sure if you've heard of this obscure series, I'll try to cover something more mainstream next time.
I will reiterate: this list of docu-series is just so cathartic and nostalgic for oldies like myself. It's just after 1:00AM CST and I'm whipping together icing for Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head whilst the dough is proofing. Bitter-black chocolate coffee, cinnamon rolls, and background Indigo narrating early on a Sunday morning is *just* gorgeous. Keep up Indigo; you work is fantastic. That certain deathlessness to your documentaries bring me back listening once or twice a month.
OMG... finally someone who can understand me and with whom I can share my pain regarding The Elder Scrolls. I agree with everything you said in this video.
Watching this video for the second time and I have to say I really admire the amount of effort, research and detail in this. You don't see that often on TH-cam.
That's because Minecraft is more important than anything in the world according to TH-cam view times hahahahahahahaha this video is great...also...we're doomed.
Wonderful documentary. You’ve actually given me some deeper insight into the decline of my interest in gaming in recent years. I’ve been growing older and for a while I’ve just attributed my distance from games to just be a part of that, but I’m starting to realize that it’s this accessibility-craze that’s been ruining them for me. It’s what ruined World of Warcraft for me and various other games I used to so easily immerse myself in. In growing older, I’ve certainly gotten wiser and thus am wanting of deeper mental challenges and symbolisms in my games. That coupled with the blanket solution of over-accessibility, I find myself either playing lower budget niche titles, or just finding those challenges in external endeavors. In a way it’s a blessing, I suppose. I am however, fascinated by the complexity of old-school immersive sims and still long for a modern AAA title to don that moniker faithfully.
I agree, i am struggling with the same stuff. pc-gaming is my hobby, but the games...the games just dont support me here. Everything seems to follow certain, clear visions from modern devs. but making all games the same. nobody takes risks. And so many ideas from 25 years ago just never came, despite the fact the rising power of machines provides everyone with much more. But nah, its more important to have "de graxis". Still no total war-game in multiplayer where every unit is played by a player. no massive daggerfalls in multiplayer. no fps-melee-games with real, badass controls, game-mechanics reduced to "press x"...modern games just tend to feel empty, like products. not like 30 guys putting together code for an unrestricted vision. i now prefer the jank of old so much, that it transformed in to a feature for me - and i argue, thats a bad thing, because most modern games or guided, curated. i hope for something that will rarely appear anymore.
"I can't say that Todd has done anything other than really well for the franchise. That being said, the game he's making is not the game I would have made." -Julian LeFay This quote really resonates with me. I really want to play that game, I wish that game exists. It sadden me that Julian doesn't seem to be interested in making a game, he could certainly crowdfund it, or maybe even find a publisher. Now granted, a game isn't guaranteed to be good just because one man is working on it, and even the best team can make a horrible game, but I would certainly play it. It's also sad that there doesn't seem to be any interests from anyone to make a Daggerfall-like game, or at least I'm not aware of any game like it.
This was the most interesting thing in my interview with him. You could tell that he probably has some great ideas technologically how to improve the game, but got more than a bit burned with his experience at Bethesda. We pretty much saw eye to eye on what the original games were about: making a world that you could explore and discover, rather than be told what to do.
to Indigo Gaming, I admire your ability to do comprehensive research but some of this stuff that you complain about isn't true. The complaint isn't that comprehensive or that complex. This is more like a Fable situation where every feature complained about not being in the game is actually in the game. This critique is more driven by nostalgia. Also games are improving in content but people are just complaining about them being multiplayer. Console companies got rid of online-only so this isn't anything to worry about. The quote on the other hand is really unsubstantial. Todd Howard is a game director not a game designer. He doesn't really have the role people say he does at e3 demos.
It just makes me sad that so few developers these days care more about maximizing profits as opposed to creating something truly great. Everything is just shallow, soulless corporate crap. It's especially true of western developers, with the exception of CDPR at least we have Kojima, Miyazaki and Yoko Taro in Japan to name a few. And we have Chode Howard, nameless EA person, nameless Activision person, nameless Ubisoft guy etc. Just a bunch of spineless money-grubbing corporate shit.
"This is the biggest and most ambitious video I've made to date." And this is the best video/ documentary on a game or game franchise I've seen ever. I myself am a huge fan of the series, and my first introduction to it, like many, was Skyrim. And me being a huge fan of older games like gauntlet or any N64 title, I wanted to see how the other games faired. My next ES title I played was Oblivion, and then Morrowind, going backwards as that's the order I got them in. And my experience with each of them differed greatly, from the sprawling open forests and snowy mountains of Skyrim, to the more desolate and baron plains of Morrowind, I always had a different experience. The difference in Gameplay, looks, and player interaction with the world was insane to me. Things I couldn't do in Skyrim and Oblivion were now achievable in Morrowind! I remember Morrowind being extremely difficult compared to the others though, with the way combat works. (Also I hated the Cliffracers! Just walking from one town to the next got me killed every time! Thank the Divines for Saint Jiub.)
yes morrowind is great but small, my 2nd fav game of all time (after witcher 3 it took the mantle) but morrowind was my 2nd RPG i played and i remember every minute of it (my 1st was Might and Magic 7 , what a great game too) the quest to kill them dudes at the inn (in balmora) at very early level was my bane i spent along time (i didnt level at all for it) figuring out how to beat them , it was insane fun and then when when i beat them , i still remember that feeling. and the amount of times them clif racers made me jump xD and stealing op gear at start but then realising that npc is dead for the whole game and u needed stores to make money , its the little things that all add up to a fantastic experiance, everything you do now is tailored and it sucks
In 2006 when Oblivion came out I read an article from the guy behind Kingdom come: Deliverance about how he was blown away by Oblivion. But then he went back and played the older ones and found out that the game was a pretty big step back in a lot of gameplay aspects. I was an really interesting read for me.
Oblivion had really awful dungeon exploration. That's the one thing I remember about it the most and couldn't stand about it. I remember a good dungeon on Morrowind could give you an incredibly piece of armor or weapon. Such as the Skullcrusher hammer. Not Oblivion. You'd work your tail off to get to the end of a very difficult dungeon, just to get a chest with 50 gold pieces and some healing potions. On Morrowind if you managed to earn an entire set of Glass, Ebony or Daedric armor, you felt extremely unique and people always made you feel powerful and important because of it. However because of the enemy's leveling up with you on Oblivion, everyone had the best armor, despite the fact that it should be incredibly rare. It was very immersion breaking.
Agreed and I certainly prefer Morrowind these days but people forget how impressive Oblivion's visuals and world (with features like radiant AI) were at the time. Undeniably lots of features were stripped out but I also think people forget how many were still there compared to Skyrim: attributes, custom classes, custom spells, useful effect chains, overpowered but fun effects like Reflect Spell and Chameleon, super speed (& skooma!), item durability, etc. And I still think it had the most unique and interesting side quests, even if it also had a load of crap ones. Skyrim may have improved the main quest but overall it lacks the standouts that Oblivion had; they're all consistently mediocre. Oblivion's best quests still gave its world a sense of character (even though it's not within 100 miles of Morrowind); it didn't quite feel like the whole world revolved around you, even if they were moving in that direction. (P.S. I'm not hating on Skyrim. I still enjoyed it and put hundreds of hours into it. But I definitely feel it has the least unique selling points to draw me back.)
As someone's main (and possibly favorite) TES game is Skyrim, I wanted to thank you when you said: "Your favorite Elder Scrolls game may be one I wouldn't give a second glance at, and that's okay." You aren't trying to make people feel bad for having a difference of opinion. It's honestly nice to hear someone who isn't trying to talk down to people whose favorite TES game isn't their own. I also want to add that I do agree with many of your criticisms of the newer games, and while I have some disagreements, you handle your critique in a very respectful manner.
Man, what you said at the end, about everyone having their own idea of the perfect Elder Scrolls game, honestly hit me hard and made me think. If I had to put mind into words, I'd say it falls into a weird mixture of how you described Daggerfall, with aspects of Morrowind and Oblivion. I love the idea of Daggerfall's character creation, and the freedom it offers is something I've always wanted to experience for myself. Morrowind has a sense of adventure that isn't matched in any other game I've played, but it lacks something that Oblivion has. That, as you described, 'kinetic' feel, with combat being the biggest improvement. It's hard to say exactly, but hopefully I got the point across. Anyway, I know this is an old video, but I'm glad it auto-played when I was distracted and couldn't get to my phone in time to stop it. Great video here, and while I've only experienced Morrowind and on, I'm happy someone was able to put into words the feelings I've had about the degradation of this series. The best I can ever get is "Just because it looks good, doesn't mean it's better." Thank you for this video.
Supposedly the guy who made this video plus a couple of the original devs from Arena and Daggerfall are working on building an old school RPG in a modern engine... might be the perfect mixture you talk about, we’ll see!
Blizard fan so far it seems it’s still in preproduction, you can check out their TH-cam channel OnceLost Games where they’ve done a couple of videos and Q&As about it
I'm surprised more don't enjoy Skyrim. Nothing has captured the immense depth and adventure of Morrowind as you noted, but the atmosphere in Skyrim is also unmatched in the series. Smaller world but still more than big enough to explore for a long time. I spent 200 hours on it and still had plenty more to see. My Dad spent 2000 hours on it(!) How big do people need their games to be? There is a lot to love in Skyrim. I think it's more a case of disappointment given the potential. The real fall-off in vision was when they traded it all for a cash-grab MMO.
Tbh I think that's why Skyrim sold like it did. Until Skyrim I just never cared for TES, and when I first saw the trailer it gave off the mighty badass fantasy vibe similar to Monster Hunter. I think the problem is that the original core audience felt a bit neglected and had false expectations. The only RPGs I play are Skyrim and Pokemon, which is a jrpg. Skyrim was...not exactly what I expected it to be for better and for worse.
@topple I've been noticing a trend in RPG games. In the Pokemon community there are people who think Pokemon has just been the same thing for 20 years and that it needs a oddyssey or breath of the wild make over. I have a few gripes, but the other half and and think they're still good. My point is that there will always be a disconnect between long time fans and new fans such as myself.
I think they have kept the feel of the original, especially the feel of Daggerfal. I remember when the original Elder Scrolls was released and I wasn't all that interested. It seemed OK, and it really sucked in one of the guys in my Army unit in the barracks we lived in. However, when Daggerfall was released, I was absolutely blown away. The game was so expansive and the possibilities seemed endless. What I like most about the Elder Scrolls series is that my character is not tied down to what the developers see as the lead character. I can develop my character in almost limitless ways and take my character in the direction I want to go. In Elder Scrolls games, the main story is almost secondary, or in the background. You dont have to follow it, and it makes for a great, time consuming, in-depth experience. It has pretty much been that way in every TES game. The game is about freedom, choices and exploration and I think both the old games and the new games have captured that feeling.
This video reminds me of the first time a played a TES game (Skyrim). After finishing it I tried the other games and loved them. The elder scrolls is now one of my favorite video game series. Thank you for making this video, it was super fun to watch
I discovered the franchise with oblivion, then skyrim, morrowind and daggerfall. Oblivion is probably THE game i played the most in my life. When I played skyrim, I felt like it was an all around improvement over oblivion. Better graphic, control, combat, magic, everything. But after a while I did notice that all of my characters seemed to feel similar and bland, because in skyrim, you're the best at everything, no matter who is your character. Then I've decided to to try morrowind. At first, I was a bit repulsed bit the oldish and clunky mechanics and controls. But after delving in it for a while, I realized how much more there is to this game. With weapon types and different attacks that actually mattered, I felt like I could really create a character of my own that wasn't this bland, saves-the-day-and-does-it-all guy. I was hooked by how descriptive the game was. instead of having an arrow telling you to go this way, you have a character telling to follow the north road, turn right after the big boulder and follow the river up to the cave entrance. It felt a lot more immersive than than its successors. Later I tried Daggerfall and was astonished by its sheer scale. The map was gigantic, the cities were huge and full of people and houses and merchants and everything. For the first time in the elder scrolls I actually got lost in a city. Cities are supposed to be big, and its easy to get lost in a real city. Yet, the times it happened in TES are in the oldest installment I've played yet. There's this joke going around aabout taking two and a half eternities to make a skyrim character that looks perfect. but in daggerfall, i spent that time making a character that FELT perfect. To me, the older titles are hard to get in because of the clunkier mechanics, but feel a lot deeper, as the new ones feel natural and intuitive, but up feeling bland and unsavory. I'm not saying any of those are bad, to me they're all fantastic. They just don't scratch the same itch.
ultimately the issue is that Elder Scrolls is an RPG- But RPGs are not hte most popular video game- most gamers- particularly younger ones- don't have the attention span to handle normal pace of an RPG. Skyrim is less a pure RPG rather it is a platformer/action with RPG elements. Skyrim is more about powerfantasy
@@MrChickennugget360 How is Skyrim more about power fantasy? Everything scales with you, the sense of progression is often so minute there's hardly any difference in difficulty between level 1 and level 10; I feel just as challenged fighting my first dragon as I do fighting one 10 levels later. In Morrowind you became a god, dude. You can fly around cities raining fireballs down on the townsfolk just for yucks. You can murder another demi god just to test your abilities because _anything but_ a demi god is no longer a challenge for you. You can stroll around with an army of 12 atronachs at your back at all times, and watch with amusement as they basically just blow up anything that dares threaten you, never having to lift a finger. The most important note of all is that you earned every ounce of that power and it feels really, _really_ good. If people wanted a power fantasy Skyrim was probably the worst place in the series to look.
@@TrickZ_Retz there's eventually going to be auto-generated dungeons, auto generated combat, skills, classes and soon enough we won't have to play this shitty rendition of recycled beautiful creativity destroyed by watered down mechanics just for money, elderscrollsFortNightCraft 8
Perfect middle ground ? The gameplay was even for that time not good at all. It was simple in every way, could be very easily exploited and was dull. It had nothing from modern combat or old ones. It was a mix from both to just have some.
100% agree. Morrowind is one of my all time favorite games by far. It hit the sweet spot, between old school and modern rpgs and that sweet spot will never be hit again. That’s what you get in 2003-2004. That’s around the time most of the deep complexity left rpgs. And Morrowind was built in the middle of the transition.
KISS is for Software Development. Not for Features. KISS is a away to develop software (go the easy route, don't write fancy code, wirte working code) This cannot be applied to features. Features can't be kept simple. And Storytelling ist especially not suitable for KISS. That dude on the stage talking about KISS was just a giant moron not knowing what the heck he was talking about...
@@NineSun001 I also feel like a game is more of a sandbox and having tools to play with is fine. The player can streamline his own experience. And majority will, they will choose warrior get a sword and will chop away with pleasure for the first playthrough and later will go in more depth with the different mechanics. If they are scared people find attributes to hard, have a auto allocate option.
Plus, as other commenters have been pointing out, KISS is hardly an appropriate approach to RPG's, since at its core, it's meant to be a sprawling, intricate system of expressing character individuality. Dumbing down RPG's can be a recipe for disaster, and it's no less than disgraceful that the dev's from Bethesda or Zenimax never really address this constant knife-edge of an issue. Of course, simplifying and streamlining is a must for any sort of development process. However, if you fail to properly delineate what should and shouldn't be cut from development, you put yourself at a great risk of butchering the genre. My only hope now is that any frustration generated from fans can be redirected into supporting movements such as third-party modders, indie dev's, and others who connect with their audience so much better than Bethesda could.
@@affluenzashot @Nico Sänger KISS is one of the central concepts of storytelling as well. Never heard of Chekhov's gun? People like to shit on Skyrim. But Daggerfall was mess with a lot of its elements inconsequential from a gameplay, character development or story. Its nice that you have 4 yeasons, but what is the point of this if the effect on game is barely visible, if visible at all? More numbers don't make a better RPG. p'n'p RPGs have noticed that quite a while ago.
@@colombodoesstuff7653 Well...no. KISS isn't really "central concept" of storytelling. It's sometimes a tool to fix your storytelling when the writer loses one of the four pillars of composition: clean, objective, focused, and simple. But most writers would never use the term "KISS", as "keep it simple" is very subjective when it comes to plots and stories, it really doesn't mean anything. Should the quests be morally straightforward? Should the quests be all "go here get this thing and bring it back to me"? Does it mean I should remove the puzzle in the dungeon? Those all make the quests more "simple". Also you're not using Chekhov's gun right. The theory behind it is that everything in your story should contribute in some way or another, not make everything as straight forward and easy to understand. Do you have pages and pages of in depth lore about the religion and politics of the world. That might the story really complex but if it conveys a sense of realism and depth to the audience, it contributed to the story and therefore accomplished its goal. Also its not universal in good storytelling either, Ernest Hemingway had really superfluous characters at the start of his stories all the time. Though he did state that readers would always attach symbolism or some other type of meaning when there was none. By the way, the video wasn't about how shitty Skyrim is and how great Daggerfall was. It was about the differences in the direction of the games. While Daggerfall was a very buggy and unfocused mess in a lot of ways and Skyrim is way easier for anyone to have a good time with and feels more deliberate in its construction. It sorely lacks the one thing Daggerfall has heaps of: Ambition.
This is such an incredible video. You put so much work into this. This is probably the best elder scrolls documentary out there. I learned so much about the history of the series and the game trajectory. Thank you for creating this.
It's really unfortunate to see Todd become the way he is now. You can tell, he's a decent person. Dude worked so hard, to build something really special. Now, look at what Bethesda has become. I wish he'd put passion over profit, the way they used to. Oblivion is my favorite game of all time, and the jump from it to Skyrim was baffling to me. It felt like all the love was stripped away, even at that point. Charm and humor were scarce in Skyrim, and it kind of depressed me. As opposed to Oblivion with all the hilarious grunts and overacted dialogue. That's not counting everything AFTER Skyrim. Hoo boy.
I don't think he has the control over the series as much as he is depicted.. ultimately, he answers to executive shareholders, not so much the fans, and the big boy there is a lawyer who sued the founder out of the door.. If anything, Todd's best credit is pushing for modding support in Morrowind. The TESIII Construction Kit was the most powerful thing in 2003, and he knew that the effect was to give the series future to the fans.. That he continues to support modding (even sketchily at times), shows a certain level of integrity in his core
obliv is my favourite too even though i was introduced with skrumm, i miss dumb shit like the jarring zoom whenever you talk to someone, its a lot less fun when i'm stopped by a courier and a dragon burns me to death while i'm stuck in dialogue that the game considers urgent -yes that really happened-
That Julian LeFay Quote at 48:00 from your interview with him cuts to my heart every time, because it's the words of a man who saw his masterpiece deteriorate from his dream over continuous iterations of the franchise.
Yeah I even cut out some parts of that interview. Julian has held up well but he is frustrated at spearheading one of the greatest game series of all time but not being around to see it hit massive mainstream popularity.
A big part is that he rarely get recognized as the man who spearheaded the series. Hell I personally wouldn't have known about Daggerfall and Julian, if it wasn't for you and Razorfist. So thank you for your amazing and great work.
It's why I cover topics like this with the focus and narrative I do, rather than chase popular content. I'd rather bring interesting topics and important conversations to the table, than just re-iterate some gaming news a thousand other channels have reacted to already.
This was easily one of the most in-depth and thought provoking videos I've seen in a long time. Kudos to you my good man, your love for what you do clearly shows!
That comment by Todd Howard says it all “whats the worst that could happen, we could go out of business. Okay then let’s go all in” talking about Morrowind. So yeah now that they have a lot of money and less risk of losing the business, you can tell they aren’t putting in 100% effort or care about taking things out to make the future games more casual. Which yeah you may not go out of business but you sure are losing a lot of the fans that the made you get that business in the first place.
So sad they don't risk anymore. Even sadder that they r paying much more attention to other games than this masterpiece series. I'm so scared of what TES VI can became. Looking at the cuts on awesome things they've done throughout the years and at some senseless things they've added, I don't know what to think they are going to present us but, I really need some answers and a new adventure.
If they keep losing them, they WILL go out of business. Just like BioWare is about to. If the next two Bethesda games bomb too, they're screwed. And they're apparently using the same engine AGAIN for both of their next games, so it's definitely possible.
@Hakageryuu Shareholders couldn't give 2 shits about quality. You don't ax the leads of the largest RPG in history because of one shit entry. They're still making them money. If you want the company to change then stop buying the games. Pirate anything you can, it's the only way they get the message.
@@CommanderTato : And how. Buying expanded storage is bullshit, and otherwise, the rest of the stuff is averaging 10-20 dollars in Crowns. No wonder Fallout 76 got it's Atomic Shop set up the way it was.
@@Chibi1986 If TESO never existed we would be playing this year or 2018 TES 6 Thanks to greedyness of zenimax the owner of bethesda the next tes is getting delayed incredibly long. Just look at what happened with warcraft, after 3 they dumped singleplayer games and moved to mmorpg. Bethesda didnt care anymore about a good singleplayer experience, they have become parasites, just look at the evolution of horse armor: creation club...
It's crazy how strong the nostalgia is... It almost hurts. It's like watching the movie trailer for return of the king, I'd watch it over and over waiting for it to come out, and that music gets me too. God I hate how fast time moves. Its like every time I wake up another week has gone by and I just want it all to slow down so I can catch my breath but it only goes by faster the harder I try to slow it all down.
Honestly Skyrim being more simplified opposed to the rest of the franchise wasn't a bad thing for me personally since it got me into the franchise, I used to almost solely play sports games as a kid and I think starting off with a title such as Morrowind would be way too much for me lol. Skyrim was a good entry for players new to the series or big (fantasy) RPGs in general and although I can understand people being critical of the game since they're watching the franchise they grew up with change heavily from what it was, I still think it gets a bit too much stick.
That's Exactly the problem most of these people have, they're betraying the fan base that initially popularized it and heavily profited off of to dumb it down for the likes of people like you, basically a completely different demographic, at the expense of extreme mediocrity with content akin to running virtual errands and chores at the chance at even more of that big green paper and in the process becoming a sad shell of it former self. Basically think of it as if ea decided that 2k or Madden or fifa would make a great rpg and changed half the mechanics you were used to and added all these intricate elements and unnecessary long and drawn out sequences and story just just to get to short and somehow dissapointing half court games that were buried underneath all of that excruciating content. I'm willing to guess that maybe perhaps some people might not be too happy.
@@Kam-rx5tx I know that, thats why I said for ME personally. Im not saying its a good thing for the franchise, I'm just saying it helped me get into RPGs and eventually appreciate the more deeper layered ones like the ones they used to make.
It's a fact that TES are losing it's RPG characteristics. If you compare Skyrim with Morrowind the difference between them is just to much, Skyrim is a much more simple game and Oblivion is a mid point of them in a lot aspects. But the thing is the quality of game overall is decreasing for some reasons and the most important, at least for me, is the quality of the quests, characters and immersion and the world build. I'm not gonna talk about all of them just mentioning some things. Skyrim from all these aspects is a downgrade compare to Oblivion and Morrowind, the quests are shit, no discussion, they are bad, uninspired and boring, including the main quest, with rare exceptions. I don't think I have to talk about characters, I can barely remember them besides Miraak. Now the world of Oblivion is a little boring, the camps with animals are inspired, Skyrim and Morrowind have it better, but dude one thing that disappoint me was freaking Solitude one the most horrible designes e ever. Cities overall are dumb in Skyrim, completely boring, with the same layout with nothing to see. Vicec City had a gaint Rock above it, later was Imperial City. In Oblivion I can tell in what city we are just by seeing one little wall. The magic sistem is better no doubt, because it's so simple with so Little variety that it's impossible to mess up with. Anyway, Skyrim is a good game, because Bethesda is aiming for more people I guess, trying to simplify too much and losing a lot too. A good game, but an horrible TES game.
Wilson Property of Jesus it’s a horrible game for you. Don’t speak for others. I haven’t played 4-5 previous titles and I am not planning to play a game from the 90’s you may look at the story and think it’s good but gameplay wise even with all those mechanics it’s probably like any other 90’s game. Dumb AI, loud asss music in your ears, it’s 2D and it’s ugly. Yes no thanks to you for being a zoomer. Bitch asss don’t speak for others. Skyrim is the best Tes game FOR ME FOR ME FOOR MEEE. see what I did there I mean you might have bad eyesight so I used capslock. you guys keep complaining about the downgrade and yes it must suck but if you look at Skyrim and compare it with other games today I would say it’s doing ok. But yeah we all have our preference and again don’t speak for other even your friends might dislike it if you just walk in “we had like to go to your party” even though they might hate that person.
20:00 This is factually incorrect. Pirates of the Caribbean game wasn't created by Bethesda, they were a publisher. The game was made by a russian developer Akella.
I had never played any Elder Scrolls games before Morrowind but I must say I'm impressed with the attention to detail and amount of content Daggerfall had. Why can't we have something like that made nowadays?
@@peacefusion not sure what you're saying about Skyrim, the Special Edition is only 12GB which is small by modern standards. One could create a game which had the same level of details as Daggerfall, with modern graphics, but with less repetitive content.
@@benrobinson375Not with higher quality assets and certainly not with the consoles of 2011, some models of ps3 only had like 20 or 40 gigs of storage. The only reason Skyrim even became 12 gigs and not over 20-30 gigs is because Bethesda were stupidly good at compression
Try the Skyggerfall mod for Skyrim its Daggerfall in the skyrim engine, there is also a version remade on the unity engine with more modern features like mouse aiming.
I'm humbled to hear that my work has helped inspire people to check out the older games again. *Please consider supporting the channel...*
PATREON ► www.patreon.com/IndigoGaming
BECOME A TH-cam MEMBER ► th-cam.com/channels/TRohxutThBffdcP3H6O0Zg.htmljoin
Get The Elder Scrolls series on GOG with my affiliate code ► indigogaming.link/ElderScrolls
Please, chill on the clickbait. This is not a documentary. Half the people clicking this probably think its the Elder Scrolls 6 making of documentary that is being awaited after the fallout 76 one by another channel that i, and probably most people, forget the name of because they just saw it for the exclusive bethesda interview access...
this is an interesting take on video games in general. and the way companies have coped with the industry boom... I say why not add both ways of gameplay? beat the game the streamlined way then a bartender in a random small settlement appears where you can engage in dialogue that strips you of everything and plays , "hardcore", from that point on. and plz make compass toggle -able!
This is a great documentary, but people need to remember that this is your own opinion on this subject and should not form fake facts without trying it to see how it plays.
it is a documentary and knew exacly what i was clicking for.
Moron... The title explains exactly what The video is, a documentary, history and analysis on The Elder Scrolls...
I had a bad drug habit (coke) back when Daggerfall was released back in 1990's.
I quit cold turkey and played video games non stop. Daggerfall was my go to escapism for 2 more years.
Its over 20 years later and i love games and i'm clean still ... but games now a days dont reach for the stars , they seem to want to only reach into our wallets now.
Your vid is really informative, amazing work. *I miss the glory days when games were made with passion for fun.*
That's an amazing story. Great to hear how games changed people's lives for the better, especially at low points like that.
Thanks man. Yeah. Best 2 years + of non stop gaming. It almost became a problem itself... lol
Good luck have fun. ")
@@Diarmuhnd games are a drug in themselves when you really think about it.
@@somewhataddicted7685 very true ; especially now with the triple AAA's charing for everything , even red dots.
May I suggest the Divinity Original Sin series? They seem to have been made with much care and love for the projects. It shows with many nuances of the game. They are deep RPGs with fantastically intricate combat, fleshed out stories, and lots of exploration.
The ability in Daggerfall to commit mortgage fraud is amazing
Being wanted in 11 regions is the best feeling.
@@Indigo_Gaming I would say that that could be a point against Daggerfall's world: The banks. There are just too many of them! Normally I would imagine that the smaller kingdoms in the Illiac bay would be self-sufficient and not be trade centers like Daggerfall, Sentinel or Wayrest. Also I would imagine that the smaller kingdoms would not be too pleased with the power that banks can accumulate, especially given that centralized banking does not benefit smaller kingdoms when compared to larger ones.
@@Indigo_Gaming I never tried it in my own games (started with Morrowind), but isn't that what they probably tried to bring back in Skyrim, wanted levels differing from Hold to Hold? Though I never felt good about playing the criminal type myself and thus never explored that system, I still felt that this "wanted level" system was amongst the things I could actually "believe in" in the game of Skyrim (if that wanted star wasn't so easy to get rid of again).
BTW thanks for a very detailed and informing history of the TES series, you really caught the important points and ups and downs of the different games.
@@Indigo_Gaming I watched your whole video. You my friend need to make games. Weapons like maces are cool but a FLAIL ! Now thats harder to make id imagine. I loved Morrowind and Oblivion and Skyrim. I even play ESO. ( love how hudge eso is ) but the combat is not as fun as skyrim it seems. Skyrim online forced to play first person with more team play would be amazing. Just some ideas.
@@franciscoriquelme8701 I think that there should be many more banks with varying spheres of influence correlating with their wealth and political ties. AFAIK, medieval banks ranged from small, village payday loan and pawn shop type deals all the way up to huge banks with the wealth required to bankroll armies, so I think that having something more like that would make more sense. Like, you default on a small loan with the local payday loan place and you might have to watch your back while in town because they might send out some thugs to rough you up for their money (but probably won't actually kill you over it) but they may not be powerful enough to actually influence the local Lord or mayor to make you a criminal, but then if you screw over one of the large provincial banks, then not only will there be wanted posters out for you, but other banks in nearby regions won't do business with you, either, due to your reputation proceeding you.
It’s so ironic that the games lost complexity as computers became more powerful.
Edit: from a time management perspective it makes sense given that more man hours have to be put into level design and modeling etc. less time for quest manufacturing 👩🏭🤷♂️
Sad thing is that these games were never meant to take advantage of PC/Mac hardware, but sell to the X Box crowd. Plus it makes more business sense to do as little actual development as you can get away with. The bottom line of any business is not to make a customer happy but to make as much money as cheaply as you can.
doesnt seem so weird to me tbh, allot of the more limited technology, like using single screens with basic animastion and a large mass of text means you can add allot of complexity to the games, where newer games want to implement the worlds seamlessly into the experience with animations and features, this way of making games will always mean less complexity due to the complicated nature of the systems. Its the same way that dungeons and dragons which has the most simple technology i.e a bit of paper and your imagination, is the most diverse, detailed, and user custom experience available. i think when you think of it that way it expresses why games are less in scope. same reason a movie that takes 3 years is an hour and a half but a book of equivalent time can be a few weeks long but more complex.
While I agree the complexities of... actually many long standing rpg franchises, but Elder Scrolls specifically, have been streamlined and dumbed down. I think the industry itself became so big it changed how they develop games. You have to sell so many units and unfortunately games like ES back in the game have to appeal to a more general audience. I loved Morrowind. First one I played. Get to Skyrim and Fallout 4, just kinda fell off. Skyrim was big and I prefer it over 4, but yeah. It was lacking real depth.
Tami Lambert well apparently cyberpunk 2077 will be everything in one, i’m very sceptical, you cant kill main characters but i guess that makes sense, also i think Bethesda is better at making the kind of rpg type games, very few games come close, so i can see why its annoying to have the games dumbed down.
Part of the reason (I think) is because some don't have powerful computers and companies want to make the game accessible. An example I can think of is how Sims 3 had open world etc and a lot of players reported bad performance, while it wasn't as bad for people with better PCs - so for sims 4 they did load in instances instead of open world.
As someone who has only played Oblivion and Skyrim, I'm DYING for that Daggerfall spellcrafting system.
I find your lack of Morrowind disturbing
@@Jishy2415 i tried it a few months ago. I couldn't do it. Too archaic in 2021. Thats my fault for waiting 50 years to play it
@@kidneystonermusic trust me if you just install a few mods, like the code patch and better combat, and just get over the fact that there is no fast travel or compass it is by far the best elder scrolls game I have played. And is in my opinion even better than stuff like Kotor.
@@Jishy2415 does it have mods on the xbox?
@@kidneystonermusic no only sse
"What's the worst that could happen? We go out of business? Well let's go all out; THIS is the game" - Todd Howard, WHERE DID YOU GO?!? COME BAAACKK!
That kind of attitude is what we're missing with modern Bethesda. You could see that it was "do or die" with Morrowind, but as you see, the Skyrim logo is behind him, those days were already long passed in 2011. They have in-house gyms, cafeterias, hundreds of staff and billions of dollars now.
@@Indigo_Gaming That's not really a bad thing though, kind of a success story really.
@@Indigo_Gaming Well, the money still comes from their own works, right? Would it be a sin to live a comfortable life with your own success...
@@fajarn7052 Of course not. But it seems like, with all of these resources, they'd be able to make games with _so much more_ depth, not woefully less.
@Cato the Elder That maybe so, but they are running business after all. If they can maximize profits with as little effort as possible, then it makes sense for them to go that way. It sucks for us fans, though.
ES 6:
Fighting Skill
Magic Skill
Armour Skill
Crafting Skill
Henry Cooper And a 5 dollar pay wall every 10 levels.
You forgot the speech skill, though there will be no speech checks.
Armir is gonna be a whole dlc by itself
Haha ES 6 will be even further dumbed down. Two Skills, Fighting and Magic.
Probably Todd: "We had to cut sneaking and archery, it was too much. Now with Swords and Magic Staves, players have a more streamlined experience. Oh and no more classes, you're a magic fighter, with magic and swords. Instead of heavy or light armor, much too complicated, everyone has robes. Some robes grant more protection than others in a linear progression! Instead of caves having curving tunnels, everything is now just a straight line to the finish, with online markers holding the players hand every step of the way. Immersion? Money doesn't want that...I mean...People don't want that, they want hack and slash and pew pew in a game!"
@@ALGORITHMTICKLER Unlock glass dagger now, free loot box with a higher chance to get it every 8 hours!
Only $5.99 to unlock more than iron and steel weapons and armor! Winter sale!
Want the ability to sneak and wield a bow? Archer expansion pack out now for $14.99!!!
"What could Bethesda possibly do now that would impress audiences more than the content the fans are creating themselves?"
The most powerful sentence in the video
I totally agree
Get absorbed by Microsoft. So they can make good games that don't need a fan base with dedicated modders to fix the darn things. Hopefully they dump Todd and his "it just all works" BS.
@@ancientgamer3645 Yeah releasing less buggy games is good, but if Microsoft doesn't allow modding on future Bethesda games I'm going to lose it.
@@LabGoats I'm sure if that happens, people will find a way
@I lost my faith in humanity and i want you to die Yeah that's reasonable. Definitely better than no mods and a bad game. But Imo Bethesda or any other contemporary game developer can't possibly do the multitude of things that modders have done for Skyrim.
"How is playing an Orc different from playing a High Elf?" - that is not a question in Skyrim. But it is a question you can ask in Daggerfall.
It's not though, for one since you can't play as an Orc in Daggerfall. That said, all of the races play the same in Daggerfall, even moreso than in Skyrim. There are no racial skill bonuses like there are in Skyrim, although there are passive abilities which have been more or less consistent since Arena(Argonian water breathing, Nord frost resistance, etc.). If anything, Skyrim makes playing as one race mechanically more different than in Daggerfall, if only slightly.
I do agree with you, the point really wasn't the races at all. At high levels, and with the Dragon born DLC, effectively there is no difference between the races. Any race can obtain anything with time spent. And the idea of being able to just have your character be the best at everything, is where Skyrim really did not feel at all like an RPG. I've tried playing it as a farm simulator, or even a hunting simulator. I even had a mod were I started off as a blacksmith and worked my way from rags to riches. During that time, I actually felt more akin to what it was like in Daggerfall, and having that felt sensation of an actual RPG simply by completely ignoring the story and not becoming the dragonborn. I would say for Skyrim, the only difference between the races is when you start fresh, and play on Legendary difficulty. This cannot be simply done on normal or hard (it can but it is pretty much overly powered if you just rest constantly to always have an Orc's racial buff up for instance. Nord's Frost reduction is already high to not be scared of mages that use it, etc) Because it is only there you feel the power of their racial features until you hit about level 30-40 depending on how you're building your character. This level frame obviously will vary depending on what race you play, and if you dip into enchanting early in the game. From a certain point onward however, you may as well be any race.
@@orbindry1121 I see what you're saying, and I agree that character progression through professions is different in Skyrim, but that's not really in your first comment at all. Daggerfall makes character progression feel more grounded because its factions are less unique. There's tons of different knightly orders in Daggerfall, plus the Fighters Guild, while Skyrim has the Companions and that's it. So when you progress in the Companions, it makes you a bigger deal than reaching the top of a knightly order or the Fighters Guild since there's no competition. It's similar to what you feel with being the Dragonborn. There's not enough competition because the scale is so different, which makes the LDB feel too powerful. That said, your first comment made it seem like Daggerfall did races with more depth than Skyrim, when it doesn't. Even if Skyrim's races only affect the start of the game, Daggerfall's basically don't ever affect it from start to finish.
Thank god for mods! Character creation overhaul and random alternate start have added infinite replayability to skyrim for me. Races play very different than vanilla.
@@orbindry1121 This is the beauty of Skyrim though, in my opinion. You can get what you want out of it, especially with mods, but even without them. You can decide to work as a blacksmith to become rich, there doesn't need to be a mechanic in the game to force you to do so. You can decide to delve heavily into rp complete with relationships and children, or you can go slay that dragon that keeps flying overhead and won't land. You can decide to only become the head of the thieves guild, or you can say screw it and be the head of literally everything. Definitely not saying Skyrim is perfect, many of these things aren't as good as they probably could be, but as I said the beauty of it is in how you can play it a hundred different ways, you can play it however you want.
From the Daggerfall manual:
*"People who play role-playing games need more than some pretty graphics and nonstop action to whet their claymores: they want depth and character and wit and drama. They want the thickest, most involving novel that they've ever read translated to their 15" screen, with themselves as the hero."*
Oh man, I wonder what some of the original TES creators think about the new dumbed down series.
Yep, I lost it with Skyrim. Oblivion was a hiccup, but with skyrim, I just lost all hope. Even though I'd rather play Skyrim than Oblivion. My fav. tes game would be a mix between morrowind and daggerfall with added mechanics and stuff... so yeah, TES and FO franchises are a joke now.
If only publishers and developers still follow that principle today.. :(
And not only that, they want to write it as they go...
I wouldn't mind if they wrote it as they go, if they'd at least pay attention to what they already wrote.
Yet strangely, Skyrim feels way more immersive for more players than the privious titles. Go figure.
The Elder Scroll 6 will be about base building + horse armor DLC.
- Todd Horward
Don't forget creation engine!
You misspelled his name dude,
It's "Fraud Coward". 👌
I'm all for the base building, but the horse armor? Depends how shiny lol
I dont want base building in my rpg!!!!!!!!!!!! unless its kenshi style lol
It just works!
Skyrim... not only sells more copies than any other RPG ever.... *Has been released more than any RPG ever*
So Good Its Been Re-released Seven Times
And it's one of the worst alongside Oblivion lol
@@sephyrartcore9523 haha fck u witcher casual boi.
dont think so. ever heard of final fantasy?
@@bigpoppa9721 Which one? That's kind of a loaded question lol
Honestly I think they just forgot to implement survival in the freezing environment of Skyrim. The best example of this is the “clear skies” shout. You use it to get past a bitter cold barrier. That’s it. It was clearly implemented to be an alternative to having to use a potion or something to not die. You never use it again however unless you want to take a screenshot (which by the way you could just go into the command menu and just change the weather)
Yeah the cooking system, weather effects and setting just scream "survival". I'm thinking it was cut down significantly, either for time/scope purposes or it didn't test well with casual audiences.
@@Indigo_Gaming Don't forget, a lot of what I would call "cut content", was done due to limitations of console hardware. Same goes for the Fallout series too.
Also, I love your work, Sir! Every video is a masterpiece!
Seriously, the cooking system feels pointless in a game where you can stop time and chug an inventory worth of hp.
@@Indigo_Gaming or maybe too many survival games were coming out at the time and didn't want to "turn TES into the latest fad", but yeah, more likely time constraints
Lol a company with hundreds of employers and years of development doesnt just forget. Pls.
"While Skyrim aimed for the foothills and hit its target, Daggerfall had its eyes dead set on the stars"
Beautiful
"...And it missed every single star and exploded in dead space"
Really? It seemed outright fanboyish to me. You have a low bar for what constitutes 'beautiful'.
@@matthew-dq8vk those things are not exclusive and beauty is the most subjective thing you can imagine so naff off
This quote.
@@wallegg1499 dead space is much higher than a foothill.
Knowing that my preferred method of climbing mountains in Skyrim was not only intended to do, but had mechanics for in Daggerfall has me shook. I want climbing to return to the elder scrolls!
I want a nice decent remake of daggerfall, maybe keeping the game mechanics similar. Like I nice mash of Daggerfall and Morrowind. I loved the level of detail and freedom it had, I can do with a smaller map because as said it adds more detail and life rather than repeats. That with the freedom of Daggerfall would be S tier.
Not gona happen, only if they make cities open again then maybe levitate comes back too.
Zelda: Breath of the wild have surprisingly strong and free climbing system. You can climb literally any wall or slope, except for the dungeons, which are puzzle based.
@@InsidiousOne unless you run out of stamina after approximately 2 seconds of climbing
@@ShaneStapler even the starting stamina is enough to climb most walls and slopes, and you can level it up. You can also prepare a bunch of stamina restoring dishes and stamina stops being an issue at all.
"How are the races diffrend? How is playing an orc differend than playing a high elf?"
I often asked myself these questions while playing...
Thalmor are bastards in the lore. That's the difference.
@@anselravenhart4753 They are because the game tell us they are but to be a High Elf has literally no diference in-game between playing as an Orc or anything else besides a little stat boost and useless magic abilities.
@@Leinarth_ Yes, I know. I was making a joke about Thalmor being assholes.
@@anselravenhart4753 My bad, sorry =(
@@Leinarth_ It's ok. Now you know for sure that the Thalmor are assholes.
To the guy who put this video out years ago: this is probably my 20th time watching it. It is good, it stays good; if anything it keeps getting BETTER. Everything is perfect, from the editing and music, the background gameplay and featured images that relate to the script, the pacing, the presentation, everything. You have made one of the greatest documentaries I’ve ever watched and I just want you to know that
Have you even witnessed Tiger King documentary? It actually was on TV and has won awards.
@@BoleDaPole LMAO
@@BoleDaPole damn bro you’re username really describes u as a person
@@BoleDaPole *tightens belt on pants-on-head
TIGER KING
The vid says old game good and quirky new game bad and not good
20 years ago when game store employees were chaotic neutral.
I always think of a Software, Etc. employee I knew, back in a city I grew up in. His name was Theo, and his taste in video games was so horrible, I would use his recommendations to figure out which games NOT to buy. One of his strongest recommendations was Beatdown from 1999.
@@Indigo_Gaming was armond white his real namr? Lol
Still remember: I had just recently acquired a PS1 and had absolutely zero sources of information about which games are good. And when I came to the store, the employe told me: "This one is good. Shooting aliens, and stuff". It was Blasto.
@@InsidiousOne LOL!
I was shocked when I compared the production values on this to your sub count, 42K, christ, there are people with millions of subs who don't put this much shine in. Incredible work.
Because when you 'keep it simple and stupid' it appeals to a broader audience :I
He dosent play the stupid youtube system and instead make quality content the problem is youtube prefer stupid content with consistent uploads around 10 min instead of inspired content with depth
This is what he brings up at the end: mass appeal requires dumbed down content
All of his videos have the same superb level of quality. Something that I feel is lacking in this day and age of "instant gratification". All content creators should aspire to reach this level of workmanship.
I have a feeling he will be getting more, it slotted into my recommended list with all these videos talking about Bethesda and Fallout 76.
I hope Fallout 76 slaps Bethesda in the face and makes them realize that they have to make TES 6 *really* damn good. I want the game to be great but Bethesda's track record has not been good as of late.
Sadly I'm expecting Skyrim 2: Less Content Boogaloo
@@scythe321 the comment at the mid end of the video about TES6 / skyrim being a platform for the mod community to create and produce on for fans is sadly the most likely and true part of the whole video and i wouldnt be suprised if it isnt proven as such when todd howard/ bethesda and obsidian fail to give us a follow up to skyrim that isnt just a 3d texture / VR rehash of it
@@simonpierson2669 Yeah very true, even DLC (like Dragonborn) really just serves as an "asset" trove for modders to build something bigger. I don't have a problem with this formula but Bethesda have taken it too far. Skyrim had great towns like Riften, Solitude, Windhelm etc but in Fallout 4 they went with the "build your own shit lol" approach and gave us Diamond City and (at an absolute stretch) Goodneighbour.
@@scythe321 I'm expecting a Horizon Zero Dawn/Ark ripoff? :P
They need to go back to the start, what made their games great. No idea wtf they are playing at thesedays.
DUDE. being able to LIE YOUR WAY OUT OF COURT would be so much fun in Skyrim. even if it was a mostly dialogue based thing, at least it would give the speechcraft specialists a place to shine!
on the other hand. I get the feeling skyrim 'lawyers' are purely theoretical as most conflicts are resolved with fists or swords before they ever get to a court room.
How would lying in court not be a doalogue based thing? Could you lie in court in any other way besides it being dialogue choices? Would it be a mini game of jumping on platforms? Haha, of course lying would be a dialogue based mechsnic...
probably by forging evidence or just breaking into whoever's office and taking the case files with the evidence. shit like that.
Or just bribing them. paying 1000 gold to get rid of my criminal record just sucks you into the game right?@@frauleinhohenzollern
@@frauleinhohenzollern In a much less coherently designed game… probably.
I mean, in Arena Guards attack on sight because you are a known outlaw with Jagar Tharn in power, Morrowind the Tribunal and Dunmer in general are already wary of outlanders and Oblivion no true court can be passed with the Death of Uriel Septim only having recently occured, and Skyrim is in civil war. The only place you can be put on trial is in Daggerfall, where the current conflict isn't exactly that demanding of political interference, only that a ghost of it's dead king is haunting the capital at night
Are you donald trump?
"Keep it simple, stupid." killed fallout 4.
Exaclty, but it works and shows how stupid most people really are.
I want to never see that system again in a bethesda game
It’s unfortunate because KISS has improved so much software it’s ridiculous.
Video games like this were unfortunate collateral damage. It shouldn’t have been KISS but inevitably someone made a business case for it to be. Eventually we will find a balance.
Ain't nothing wrong with Fallout 4. I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Fallout 3/NV. I'm a hopeless romantic. I love romance RPGs like Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Witcher. It's very cool that you can romance companions in Fallout 4.
i dont get, what that person is doing there, except incoherent mumbling and destroying games we loved... if they need him hired, he should work on some fps shooters, not rpgs... sigh
Todd Howard: we removed everything unnecessary
also Todd Howard: *adds cooking system that barely has any effect, tons of of repetitive quests with no meaning and shouts that do exactly the same as most spells*
I got rid of the joy and depth... enjoy! - Todd Howard
The cooking system is useful IF you have the DLCs and memorize certain recipes, but ultimately it was just unnecessary. They could've just expanded upon so many other things.
and only having 5 spells per magic school
Well for the shouts, i guess it's just an easier way to give characters spells because learning spells has stat requirements that is unreachable for some builds, but for shouts you'll eventually come across the word wall and kill enough dragons to unlock them all. So for mage builds the shouts are ~90% redundant but for non-magic builds it can be the only way to access high level spells
@@lcmiracle 98% of all shouts are useless you get a good enough enchantment on any weapon.
Skyrim stopped being a challenge when i added a high frost damage enchantment to my elven war axe,
I killed everyone from low level bandits to alduin.
"Perhaps we'll have look for our ideal role playing game *ELSWEYR* ."
I caught that too. Indigo has not addressed this yet! Come on, where's the statement!
Hasiumcreeper
**laughing**
Ian Gallagher Come on, where's the
I can neither confirm or deny this accusation.
This is what i got from that sentence: It will be Elder Scrolls 6: Elsweyr and will have all the rpg elements that were in Daggerfall.
Quote "Given the same tools the developers at Bethesda use, the modding community seems to be able to pinpoint our desires more accurately than the creators themselves."
Is just so good.
Like When the sun hits that ridge just right.
Those hills sing 🤌
I really hope you're making an emperors new groove reference 🙏 like look at my profile pic xD
The thing is, the moding community has much more development ressources behind it
Yea but mods aren't Canon so anything Bethesda releases is 100x better
@@BoleDaPole they should pick the best mod every month and canonize it, kinda like Pope is doing
I will be very concise one the matter: TESVI simply need CHOICES.
I think it's absurd how you can be almost a god on Earth in skyrim and still feel, even in the late sections of the game, so irrelevant to the world around you.
what i hate the most in skyrim is that you can be he leader of every faction in the game in one playthrough, like what if the companions gave you a mission to destroy the dark brotherhood, nd if you still wnted to be part of them, they would eventualy discover and try to kill you, the wizards scholl should have more importance like, when dragon return from the history, why would no one care to ask questions to wizards ? all thos faction exist as if only the player cares about them, at least the thieves guild has some importance in riften
It won't. Bethesda has forgotten how to make real RPGs, nor do they even care to.
The writing is godawful. The quests in Morrowind are memorable and often humorous. I can't remember a single quest from Skyrim outside of a few Daedric quests after playing 120 hours of it.
ualaelinlive The only quest from Oblivion I remember is the dark brotherhood murder mystery dinner party. The only one I remember from Skyrim is the talking dog.
Bethesda really, really sucks at writing and dialogue.
IlMasso22 Choices and impact. As in your choices actually mean something, not “all roads lead to Rome”...or all quests lead to Alduin...
This is extremely depressing. It’s a bittersweet feeling because remembering all these games brings back a lot of nostalgia but will we ever get those feelings back with new games?
You can always travel through time ...
Morrowind has been completed by a third Party ,
Players can now have access to the whole kingdom of morrowind
-> www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/
Morrowind can be upgaded to have graphics like oblivion
-> wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Morrowind_graphics_guide
Nah it's not about recapturing the feeling. Video game design philosophy has shifted in a big way since then.
Nobody wants to push the envelope anymore
Classics of this current era in gaming will still be a thing. Fromsoft has a good track record for games that age pretty well, I think Breath of the Wild will be a favorite amongst the Zelda franchise for many, Subnautica is a good example with the console port being successful.
When you have franchises like Fifa or CoD that capitalize on selling a hotter, fresher take every year or two, or "games as a service" that milk players at every opportunity they can muster, they aren't making games that are intended to age well. I can definitely understand why you might feel that the idea of a modern classic is unlikely, but there are good games being made and so long as there's a market there, they will still be made.
I love u
I got that feeling with Divinity Original Sin II. You should try it.
Dude... My attention span on analysis videos has become so short i didn't believe i'd last 10 minutes of your video. after 1h and 20mins i felt disappointed it ended. Your voice is pleasant to listen to, points good, writing engaging, pacing well done, progression easy to follow, editing fitting and overall well done, so on. In other words this video was stellar! It would feel weird if it came from TV because more conventional media doesn't accept videogames yet, but it deserves it more than just about 90 of the programs there. I'm utterly blown away. You my dude are amazing.
Jay P tfw you recognize your profile picture
Every other analysis video - 'HEY GUYS WHATS UP' ... .Annnnd I'm done
Any traditional broadcast medium would have spread the content of this video over at least twice the run-time with tons of annoying filler and repetition. Good riddance to TV.
What Howard doesn’t understand is that there aren’t any superfluous features in an RPG because even one player might love that detail for their character. Having the option adds to a game world even if I refuse the option.
Words of wisdom
What players don't understand is that development costs money and making a feature for just one player means that other things are not getting done that would be used by many players.
@@dontanton7775 Bethesda is a AAA studio, smaller game developers have done more for RPGs with less resources. They are also cutting content that they previously utilised. It obviously isn't just meant for 1 player, its about having choice, something majority of players enjoy when playing RPGs. As consumers, we have a right to critique, so devs can improve their products. Otherwise they will keep getting away disasters like Fallout 76. People being overcharged for a half baked projects and micro transactions.
@@warprecautions631 Sure, it's not mutual exclusive. But they already overextend what they can do. That is why it takes longer and longer to make a game and they get more and more expensive to make. They were already at their limit. The initial comment I replied to basically said "There is no superfluous feature". And with that mindset you will never finish a game. You will end up where Chris Roberts endet up with Star Citizen. A released game is better than an ambitious vision that never makes it to market. 9 women don't make a baby in 1 month. And that is what players don't understand. They think capabilities and capacities are endless. They are not.
@@warprecautions631 We also have to take into account audience scale. A single indie developer is typically aiming for sales numbers in the thousands or possibly even hundreds. This, in turn, gives them more freedom to create a more genre specific game that fans of said genre can really sink their teeth into. Meanwhile, a AAA developer like Bethesda, is looking to reach an audience of millions, most of whom don't have much experience with RPGs. So the question is more about whether Bethesda should downscale their ease of access in favor of a more expansive and varied RPG, or if they should expand their accessibility at the cost of losing much of their more diverse and large scale RPG elements.
You don't see many Khajiit in Skyrim. They must have gone Elsweyr.
*throws empty skooma bottle
@@armchairgravy5148 that's racist
they must be in gulags
@Balton Plays Minecraft Low quality shitpost spam.
@Riff Raff uno reverse card - *no u.*
"This lead to Oblivion to become the most unintentionally comical game" - I can only recommend you all to look up Bacon_'s Oblivion videos. That stuff is a whole genre of comedy in its own right.
I've been better
Also willburgur with a little amount of meme mods
@@ualaelinlive I hope things get better.
I don't know you and I don't care to know you.
@@Metalton95 then pay with your blood!
I've seen many video essays, this one is by far the most impressive. The production value, the research, the script, everything is top notch. Bravo sir
I don't think this is a video essay, it's more in line with a documentary.
@@MagicGonads Thanks for this, Indigo :)
If you like video essays you should watch Lindsay Ellis' series on the Hobbit, I feel bad even calling it a video essay as it's more of a documentary of the film's production and problems with the script/studio/cast etc
You know it hit me at the end where he said we maybe need to look somewhere else for the rpg we want. i fucking hate it because im so adjusted to the lore of TES that i read so much about it. But how does someone create the same magick/energie without copying it or using butchered material..?
"reaserch"
“You cannot fail, you cannot be trapped, you cannot be lost.” This describes modern RPG design, including modern TTRPGs like D&D Fifth Edition. It has led to many of us going back to the past for content.
*tries to play 3rd edition, gets lost and drowns in the ocean cuz I dont know how to use Sexton*
not really tho. skyrim is very easy to get lost in but not in a good way its just annoying.
@@sirspongadoodle It sucks to find people who feel so down on Skyrim. I hope es6 can captivate you at least as much as Skyrim captivates me.
@Andrea De Luca That's a shame, but hey maybe the yinyang opinion on the elder scrolls it's fanbase provides is why we have so many great modders. So many fall in love with the series that once they've played the next game enough to see the flaws clearly, it's that same love that gives them the drive to eliminate those flaws the best they can.
Has Bethesda taken this for granted lately? Yes, but I argue that with the elder scrolls it hasn't extended past the creation club. Even with the the mistakes they've been making, I still think they love making these games. So I still have faith that the next game, just like the last game, will be a flawed gem worth Loving.
@Andrea De Luca That aside, what's your favorite RPG?
I really don't like Todd's and Emil's idea of removing things because they are redundant. I love them as game developers, but this is a pretty bad philosophy. Redundancy helps for role-playing. A thief can pick a lock, a mage can use a spell and a warrior can bash the door open.
By the time Skyrim comes around, EVERYONE is skilled in lock-picking because that is the only solution. Where is the role-playing?
I love Skyrim. It introduced me to the franchise and is my favorite game purely as a game. But it is my least favorite game in the franchise as an RPG.
Yeah, we end up with ES games that remove a lot of the interesting features. What's left is also streamlined and simplified. As a result we end up with games that are lot less memorable.
It's weird they say they want to get rid of those things when at the same time they added "useless" immersion factors such as sitting on a bench or chipping wood, probably inspired from Gothic if we are honest.
Ironic that they don't want redundancy and yet most skills like charisma in Skyrim and Fallout 4 is pointless and not add much to gameplay. Most spells, guilds, side quest (Even main quest), and gameplay style in Skyrim felt redundant. Only mods make them FEEL that they are needed. I don't actually play FO4 but what do you actually get when finishing any of the main quest, really?
theUSpopulation Lockpicking in Oblivion can be done at any level so why are you only nagging about Skyrim when Oblivion came up with the idea that anyone can lockpick a chest or door at any level regardless of the lock's difficulty.
I personally use lost grimoire, adds an open lock spell which I love the mechanic of (one cast per lock level, you have to have a high enough skill, but all one spell), a mod that I can't remember to bash a door with a battleaxe or warhammer, and a mod to bust doors with unrelenting force. There's no problem with mods fixing a game in my opinion, it just lets you make a game to your taste. Some people like the simplicity of one skill to pop locks, I'm sure, but if you don't, mods are there for you.
Todd Howard loved Redguard. That explains that.
@Balton Plays Minecraft random=\=funny, zoomer
@@GodsTodd
It does sometimes
Well.. he also loved oblivion, so...
@@aX0n777 no.
@@GodsTodd he loved morrowind too. yes.
22:15 “we spread ourselves thin, we started doing a lot of games and they just weren’t good enough they weren’t the kind of games we should have been making at the time ” to me it kinda sounds like Bethesda is doing the same thing today with their games.
Yeah, we'd be lucky if thst would truly be the case - we could have a "second morrowind" if that's so. I doubt it though
Good comparison.
@@bokrugthewaterserpent3012 Right, because off the top of my head recent deep well crafted games AAA games aren't a thing like Persona 5, Fire Emblem, BotW, RDR2, Outer Worlds, Sekiro or Cyberpunk.
Too bad no one can make anything decent in AAA anymore cuz that's not ever funded!
Sgt Death78 could be a good thing, game studios usually make their best work when they’re on the verge of collapse
The Elder scrolls 6 will be a masterpiece.
Skyrim is my favorite of the series because i'm a little bitch and i like getting held by the hand.
Great video btw.
Lol, well I'm glad you enjoyed the video, despite my strong criticisms of Skyrim. I always say, if you enjoy entertainment, don't feel bad for enjoying it!
@@Indigo_Gaming my dude still replying to comments 3 years later, nice 👌
No like bein grab by da pusi?
"Keep it simple, Stupid" design philosophy is the antithesis of a true RPG.
Thats why Emil Doltiarulo is the worst game designer in history.
It’s brilliant game design even if it is shallow.
@@TheDarkblue57 Except when you're making a fucking Role-Playing Game! Because when you make it more complex, it makes the world feel more alive and thus better in that regard for immersion!!
@@shadysam7161 Emil Pagliarulo
@@BirdLips2 I call him Emil Doltiarulo for a very good reason;
"Dolt" means a stupid person, you see. And Emil is really, *really* , stupid.
This feels like a triple-A documentary production - well done, Indigo!
My first venture into Tamriel was through Morrowind - and it completely blew my mind! That feeling of being lost in the Vvardenfel wasteland, hindered by diseases from skeevers and mentally tortured by cliffracer screeches... having to levitate inside a cave to find an enchanted Daedric bow... it was priceless!
These experiences have yet to be surpassed, or replicated. But despite all of that, I totally understand the marketing decisions the company made. I just hope that Bethesda can still create something that's huge and challenging in the future.
Yeah I really connected with the quote from Ken Rolston (lead designer for Morrowind and Oblivion) that I used at the beginning of the Oblivion chapter of this video. You literally described it in your comment, you want that bow, that's your story. And I think that's what The Elder Scrolls should be about: YOUR story.
Speaking of a magnum opus...congratulations Indigo on a well done video.
Thanks man! Yeah it was a beast, but I'm happy to have finally slayed it.
NerdSlayer is my shit!!!
Indigo Gaming there’s no way I could ever put that much work into something haha. You earned yourself a happy sub! 😊
Todd Howard's first game as PL being Redguard actually makes a lot of sense
Yep, he is at the end of the day. A man that fundamentally doesn't want to make classic Eldar Scrolls games. He originally made the most different game in the series, and action adventure game. And over the years has tried going back to that and lo and behold, Skyrim is an action adventure game.
I would kill for a modern rpg with daggerfall's scale and deep systems
Just play Daggerfall, it's free en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Files.
they should just update graphics and leave everything else alone.
Try Daggerfall Unity then. www.dfworkshop.net/. It's a remake of Daggerfall that uses the original files on Unity, better graphics. Not 100% complete, but it's getting there.
Google "Daggerfall Unity". It's being remade.
I back daggerfall unity, it got mods that increase view distance ridiculously which makes it look more real than Skyrim imo, and there's high res texture packs.
1 hour and 18 minutes talking about one of my favourite game series?
... imma just go get my popcorn.
That's exactly what I did lol
Shannon Briggs? Champ!
Yea cuz you lookin like a shhnack
I think fallout 76 says a lot about where Bethesda is heading
Don't pre order lol
I ain't buying es6 till I see youtubers review
@@trevorpearce4532 Yea same I'm still looking forward to es6 but Bethesda lost my trust. For example when Rockstar releases I don't even need to see a trailer to know it'll be a masterpiece
@@ZTheLastViking I an't buying Elder Scrolls 6 until I know that it support modding, I jsut love modding my games so much that it is almost a requirement at this point for me. Even if the game is an 11/10 I still wnat modding, I just love being part of this self developed community that gets to express their vision onto an interactive canvas.
@@CertifiedSunset I play on Playstation so I'm not modding personally but what would TH-cam gaming be without mods.
I play the games as they are and watch them progress to their best potential on TH-cam
All fallout 76 does is show that they sucl at making online games
This is still the best Elder scrolls video on TH-cam even 4 years later.
It's sad that this video isn't horribly out of date yet. 2018 was the same year TES6 was announced.
@@Indigo_Gaming that is true, however I always come back to this video annually as you can tell the passion you have for the series...it also inspired me to play Morrowind like 2 years back so I love it and once again,you did an amazing job.
Glad you enjoyed so much. Thanks for watching!
Best video ever! Your documentary is a work of art. I'm 48 years old and gamer since Atari 2600 and the Pong games and also, I'm addicted to rpg and open worlds. You did so thorough and extremely detailed analysis of the specific merchandise, that describes accurately the pathogens of the industry as a whole. Very well done, bravo!
right there with you buddy. 40 yrs old. Gamer since atari 2600. Im craving that open world rpg that I cant just get completely lost in. Its been years and years since I have felt it and I hope one day to feel that way again!
As Todd was speaking about cutting down features for the upcoming Elder Scrolls games
and the camera focused on the Nerevar in the back,
I think I could see a tear in his eye as Todd was talking XD 56:55
White Eagle someone make this a meme 😂
Sweet Nerevar :,(
I’m only 10 minutes into this video. And HOLY SHIT I would be so hype if they implemented features that they used to have! Speaking different enemies languages to make them non lethal?? Climbing walls to enter buildings threw the second story? Economic class systems?? Yes yes yes someone send this video to the devs at Bethesda please
Dude, do you not know about mods?
@@kato1kalin I just play the games as they come out man
@@ericshuff3152 I hear ya. It's a shame the fans have to fix and improve their games like that. I first played Morrowind with 80+ mods. Unfortunately it's kinda a prerequisite for elder scrolls games.
@@kato1kalin I hear ya. In a way thats kinda shitty by Bethesda cuz its the community keeping their games relevant and alive for free. Not sure if people who mod the game get any compensation but they honestly should cuz I’ve heard some of the stuff they do is crazzzyyyy
@@ericshuff3152 F@#k Bethesda. They got caught stealing free mods and reselling them on creation club without crediting or compensation to the author. They literally stabbed their community in the back. Their scum. On top of starvation wages, mass layoffs and general shit bag moves.
But yes I feel for your sentiment. Sorry for the rant but that company is scum these days.
I absolutely adore Morrowind to this day. My friends and I played the hell out of it when it was new. I still remember finding that skooma den and telling my buddies about slaughtering the whole group. Oblivion and Skyrim were prettier, but practically held your hand and demanded you think inside the box.
I try it recently and I absolutely love the journal system and lack of quest marker. It’s more immersive imo considering the medieval fantasy setting. Also it demands that you pay more attention to your environment instead of constantly checking your map.
Finally, a comment talking about Morrowind! I think Arena and Daggerfall was wonderful, but Morrowind was 100% custom made, and an incredible game. Just one word. Skooma. Try it.
Well it turns out fans of the series like the stream lining and simplistic gameplay because they keep buying Skyrim and are perfectly content replaying the game for over a decade now, whereas TES fans got tired of morrowind in about 3 years and stopped oblivion right when skyrim released.
Fans THINK they want complex gameplay, but they really dont.
I started elder scrolls with oblivion years ago and I love it. I like Skyrim as well but I love everything about oblivion from the cheesy graphics to the music it’s just wonderful. I also bought morrowind and am going to start learning to play it tomorrow. I think I’ll love that to
@@BoleDaPole I wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion, but that shouldn't matter to ya :P
I do want more complex gameplay. I found it in Daggerfall. I downloaded tons of mods for it into Skyrim, Fallout 3, NV, 4, Valheim, & Halo. I enjoyed all of them way more because they allowed me to feel more engaged in what I'm doing without the game feeling like a monotonous task. It, for me, is almost always better. Provided it's not a mod that completely breaks the balancing of the game, lol.
Simple gameplay philosophy (that Todd focuses on) can be great, but only if done well. I'd consider Skyrim as almost the antithesis of simplicity done well. Everything is structured and put together with...well what feels like an unorganized goal. Almost nothing you do, despite being Dragonborn, has an impact. The level scaling system actively works against the player, and forces a couple character types instead of actually letting you be what you want to be.
Skyrim is a perfect game for people who wanna chill. But those of us like myself prefer systems that make sense, are expansive (not overly restrictive), and make us feel engaged. In which case, if anyone's like me, for the love of god go play Daggerfall Unity. It's free, and you'll love the depth of the mechanics. Mechanics that're meticulously made with a vision.
I haven't played Daggerfall in over a decade. My "holy crap!" Moment was when I made a spell to make my horse and cart fly and was able go all over the map 30' off the ground. Blew me away.
My holy crap moment was installing a 1 Gigabyte game when that was nearly the whole of my Harddrive. In 1996, I'm just saying it was a true "Holy Noley, this game is huge" moment. No other game has given me that surprise since.
So Robert Altman took Weaver's stock(who gave it to save the company) took money from investors and then effectively fired the creator of Bethesda(Weaver) and then made himself the boss. It sounds to me like the current CEO of Zenimax pulled of a corporate takeover of Bethesda. And it was at that point the culture of Bethesda changed from being about the players and the game. To one about making money and only about making money. His fingerprints are all over Fallout 76.
Roughly speaking, yes, that seems to be the case. You can look at all the articles and such about the lawsuits between Weaver and Altman, and in the end, Weaver DID hand Altman the "keys to the castle", but yes, Altman does seem to have essentially stolen the empire and as we've seen with their ridiculous lawsuits and aggressiveness in the industry, it didn't stop there.
@@Indigo_Gaming Robert Altman is basically just Jagar Tharn
@@flamesthephoenix3665 yeah he's fucking cancer, is what I concluded from that story
So it’s not all Todd’s fault?
@@2yoyoyo1Unplugged yeah I started balming Todd as well. But I guess he deserves half the blame. Lol he's a guy with two faces. He deceived us!!n
I'm definitely a masochist: I'm watching this film for the second time, just for it to break my heart again.
Same here.
Me too. Also in case I die before TES 6..
I don't know why, but this comment is so funny🤣
@Heebus Chrikey what the fuck are you on about
@Heebus Chrikey Comparing the hammer & sickle to the swastika is rediculous. Mostly only Americans equate the two. Good ol' McCarthyism.
As someone who was introduced to TES: Skyrim as a 12 year old, this series has a special place in my heart.
As someone who was introduced to TES: Daggerfall as a 10 year old, this comment makes me feel old as fuck. 😂
@@tom.m Lmfao 🤣
Jesus Christ, you fossil. I'm 23 now. Lmao hahaha 😂 . I can't imagine how you must feel.
Skyrim was my first fantasy game. Prior to that I HATED fantasy. But this game broke that, and I will forever remember that change. Skyrim forever. :)
That first feeling you got in Oblivion when you were greeted by: "You can not go beyond this point"
Yeah that feeling is called "disappointment".
I was pissed dude, was literally the only game I played in 2006 that didnt auto-generate an endless world
56:31 - 57:10
This right here shows one of the big problems with the approach to Skyrim. What Todd Howard doesn't understand is that there IS no superfluous in a good RPG, you're supposed to have all those options to make your character into whatever you want it to be. But he and Bethesda is only interested in cutting away everything that makes an Elder Scrolls game INTO an Elder Scrolls game, so they can do the minimal work for maximum profit to be milked once the game is out.
Considering Todd has stated he thinks TES 6 needs to be a game people can play for at least a decade, after looking at Skyrim... ehh I'm cautiously optimistic.
Starfield will tell.
you're just wrong, having a whole shitload of meaningless options is not desirable to anyone, it's entirely possible to go overboard. did morrowind have too many options? i'd say it was pretty close to the sweet spot, so skyrim didn't necessarily need to have options like spell creation, mysticism, acrobatics, or the two-tier skill system removed. they might have been overzealous in labeling mechanics as superfluous and culling them. but does that mean the principle is wrong, that there's no such thing as superfluous mechanics in an RPG? obviously not, since games with an excessive number of mechanics usually don't do well. when games do have an overwhelming amount of complexity, it's usually isolated to one or two core systems, such that it might have a steep learning curve but once you've been playing for a day or two, it all feels very intuitive.
monster hunter world is a really good example. at first glance the equipment system seems really overwhelming, it's hard to tell what anything on the screen means. it's not obvious to someone who's never played the game before. there are just too many elements and too many stats for someone to intuitively figure it out. but that's the only part of the game that's like that, and the game doesn't try to do anything else. the only systems in that game are traversing levels, killing monsters, and using their loot to grow your unique character and build him/her to your unique playstyle, so you can go out and kill more monsters. because the game has a very narrow focus it can afford to have a very complex equipment system and combat mechanics.
an elder scrolls game absolutely shouldn't have an equipment system that complex, because elder scrolls games have way a way broader scope. they try to encompass everything. the intention is to immerse you in another world. that was literally bethesda's slogan at the time the earliest elder scrolls games were being developed: "live another life in another world." it wouldn't feel like a real life in a real world if the world was a linear tunnel where you only talk to the NPCs essential to the story and you only go in the direction the plot needs you to go. the real world has a shit ton of mechanics, it's all over the map, and elder scrolls' world is even more complex than the real world since it has magic and real gods and multiple planes of existence and so on. to make that world feel real it has to emulate many different things. you have to be able to talk to anyone... to pick up objects, to eat food, to explore in any direction. just giving a small amount of depth in all these areas is already overwhelming for most players. most people can only focus on so much. if blacksmithing was as complicated in elder scrolls as monster hunter world's system is, most players would avoid it, because they'd be overloaded with information.
in daggerfall, morrowind, and oblivion, players have to pick a few mechanics that they want to go relatively deep into. it's too much to learn it all in one go. skyrim has a bit of a different philosophy, where your character isn't limited the same way. you can be a jack of all trades in skyrim, or not. the game wants you to do a bit of everything, which is why it has dual wielding for example. systems like mysticism were removed because players couldn't remember what was part of mysticism versus illusion or alteration. that was unnecessary complexity. systems like acrobatics were removed not because they were too complex but because in previous games they caused bugs and broke immersion. because oblivion's movement and jumping had to allow for a really huge range of variation, the animations and the algorithms that calculate movement had to be really simple, causing movement to feel weightless and airy and jumping to feel like floating. if they were animated properly and had algorithms that mimicked real-world movement, then they'd look ridiculous when you performed them at 150% speed due to your high acrobatics skill. skyrim dodged this issue entirely by removing acrobatics, and for the few effects that do restrict movement, it didn't just plug a new number into the same equation, it uses entirely different algorithms for slow-walking and faster running, even different animations and camera values.
this is getting long so i'll just cut it off there, but i could definitely go on. behind every system removed in skyrim, there's a pretty good justification. do those changes detract from the game for some players? of course. but do they make the game more accessible and therefore more profitable? absolutely. and for hardcore players who want to re-insert that level of complexity into their game, bethesda did you the favor of making the game extremely moddable, and there are thousands upon thousands of mods that reimplement features from oblivion and earlier games, as well as implement new features that represent improvements relative to all the games in the series.
@@ToxicallyMasculinelol Damn... you wrote a novel. But it was a good read!
@@0FFICERPROBLEM without mods skyrim wont even be a thing a year or two later
Pretty sure tes 6 would be saved by mods only, given it's valenwood? Christ, that'll be just boring elvish fantasy copy just like oblivion and skyrim which copies from old fantasy tropes
Toxically Masculine wow this was really level headed and rational, you should make a video about your opinion on this, I’d watch it!
After 55 minutes when M'aiq said "M'aiq is tired now" I felt that
25:35
It is telling that despite not having played it seriously since before going to university, the Morrowind version of the ES theme still brings tears to my eyes. Games like that are not made anymore.
Bethesda's ambition in a Skyrim Quote: "Eyes on the prey, not the horizon."
"Eyes on the wallet, not the stars"
@@mainaccount3087 Skyrim is quote on quote ' fine' its the Fallout 76 that killed it for me. Pretty much done with them. Atleast i did not bought it. But i saw other channels and revieuws. Etc. Do research before buying. Basicaly. If it were good i would still not buy it. Not a fan of 'online'.
@@echoskelet Give it just a few more months... :3
Maybe..But knowing bethesda.. Its has just such cool concept...And they fk it up ..Its so sad.
@@echoskelet I'm pretty concerned about elder scrolls 6 with bethesda's current track record...
"Roses are red,
Skyrim is fun,
you are carrying too much
to be able to run."
**Starts spamming power attack all over**
Poop on you buddy boy
You should unload some of that unwanted gear. Go to Sadri's Used Wares, talk to the Elf.
Skyrim isn't fun*
Fixed
@@BiomechanicalBrick Nah, ya gotta go to the mansion with the Orcs, talk to the scamp...Probably a long walk though, better take a silt...I mean fast travel....
You just made an hour and 20 minutes feel like 5 minutes,was sad when it was done. Well done man :) great video
My 30th time watching this as a sleep aid. Your voice is audible honey. The praise of old-school Bethesda games and subtle bashing of modern games is relaxing.
Wow, glad you enjoy it so much! Would like to revisit the series when I have something more to say about it.
1:00:00 " It seems that in the minds of many regulars, the series has already peaked -- and that is one mountain Todd Howard's team hasn't been able to climb "
JESUS, PUT OUT THE FIRE, HOLY SHIT
DaggerFall sounds more ambitious than most of today's RPGS. Ive heard it's nearly impossible to remake in today's standards. But the people who pull is off, would be Gaming LEGENDS
Well someone has remade it in Unity. Which supports mods and is open source. Which means people have upgrade alot of the assets. Added better skybox better grass. Fixed bugs. Upscaled terrain.
@@samuelgrahame3617 remade it in Unity? The assassin's Creed game?
@@PyrrhicPax unity game engine.
@@PyrrhicPax lmao
I think the trick is to embrace the creed that "nothing must be in the game". HD graphics? Get rid of it. Voice acting? Nonsense! Balanced gameplay? No no no. Make it big, pixelated, full of text and completely breakable. Playing as a barbarian? Forget joining the mage faction. Playing as a foreigner? No room for you among the militant racist faction. It can be done, it just takes balls. or ovaries. Whatever gives folks the guts to say "fuck the rules".
morrowind legit gets me emotional still, such an epic installment in an already epic series
The only thing I hate about it is the combat. It's just so... unsatisfying.
Stellar Ok S’wit.
@@stellar1252 Skywind is going to be the savior. Yeah skyrim's combat is also ass, but it's going to be amazing regardless
@@meh_cromancer Skyrim's combat is WAY more fun and new player oriented than Morrowind. Sure it is not realistic, but at that point what the heck are your expectations for a video game. Skywind will be almost perfect if the community developers work the engine right.
@@matthewnewton6737 what? I'm saying skyrim's combat is garbage but skywind is still going to be awesome because it's miles better than morrowind's. Reading comprehension bud.
man finding this video 3 years later, i really enjoyed this video and totally agree with your opinion on everything, thanks for reminding me of all the got TES memories i’ve made over the years ❤️
I hope you got a kick out of this little video I quickly threw together. Not sure if you've heard of this obscure series, I'll try to cover something more mainstream next time.
Elder Scrolls? Never heard of 'em.
Your "quickly thrown together" is better than the great majority of content on YT.
+MassiveDestructionSP I was kidding, this video took me over 2 months to produce. :D
"Little video," an hour long
+MassiveDestructionSP Absolutely!
so continuing the metephor, for FO76 bethesda aimed for the ground and shot themselves in the foot.
Lol
So that's how the arrow in the knee joke came
U mean they got an arrow to the knee
Indeed
I will reiterate: this list of docu-series is just so cathartic and nostalgic for oldies like myself.
It's just after 1:00AM CST and I'm whipping together icing for Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head whilst the dough is proofing. Bitter-black chocolate coffee, cinnamon rolls, and background Indigo narrating early on a Sunday morning is *just* gorgeous. Keep up Indigo; you work is fantastic. That certain deathlessness to your documentaries bring me back listening once or twice a month.
OMG... finally someone who can understand me and with whom I can share my pain regarding The Elder Scrolls. I agree with everything you said in this video.
Boy with Todd at the helm, it's only a matter of time before you can play the entire game with 1 button.
NoMoreGamer RAID SHADOW LEGENDS HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
Peter Molyneux would like to know your location.
To be fair, Kirby Air Ride is a game that you can play with 1 button, and that game is amazing.
@@Driftingsiax Todd's gonna have to sink to an even lower low then.
@@TheNoMoreGamer a game were you don't play you just see you character doing quest in a tiny town
Watching this video for the second time and I have to say I really admire the amount of effort, research and detail in this. You don't see that often on TH-cam.
That's because Minecraft is more important than anything in the world according to TH-cam view times hahahahahahahaha this video is great...also...we're doomed.
@@voices4dayz469 imma head out
Love this video, but man, does it make me feel depressed about what the future holds for this IP.
The old developers made a new games studio, oncelostgames, thay are making a spiritual sequel to daggerfall.
@@redblueproductions9739 : I know. I've been keeping a close eye on the studio.
Red&Blue Productions thank god I read this comment
After how many years it's been it had better be fucking good. Not stripped back even more like skyrim was.
@@zhain0 theres still isnt a game thats like siyrim
Wonderful documentary. You’ve actually given me some deeper insight into the decline of my interest in gaming in recent years. I’ve been growing older and for a while I’ve just attributed my distance from games to just be a part of that, but I’m starting to realize that it’s this accessibility-craze that’s been ruining them for me. It’s what ruined World of Warcraft for me and various other games I used to so easily immerse myself in. In growing older, I’ve certainly gotten wiser and thus am wanting of deeper mental challenges and symbolisms in my games. That coupled with the blanket solution of over-accessibility, I find myself either playing lower budget niche titles, or just finding those challenges in external endeavors. In a way it’s a blessing, I suppose. I am however, fascinated by the complexity of old-school immersive sims and still long for a modern AAA title to don that moniker faithfully.
I agree, i am struggling with the same stuff. pc-gaming is my hobby, but the games...the games just dont support me here. Everything seems to follow certain, clear visions from modern devs. but making all games the same. nobody takes risks. And so many ideas from 25 years ago just never came, despite the fact the rising power of machines provides everyone with much more. But nah, its more important to have "de graxis". Still no total war-game in multiplayer where every unit is played by a player. no massive daggerfalls in multiplayer. no fps-melee-games with real, badass controls, game-mechanics reduced to "press x"...modern games just tend to feel empty, like products. not like 30 guys putting together code for an unrestricted vision. i now prefer the jank of old so much, that it transformed in to a feature for me - and i argue, thats a bad thing, because most modern games or guided, curated. i hope for something that will rarely appear anymore.
It’s funny, I’ve become the opposite. When I was younger I wanted all this depth, but now I just want to have fun in a game and not think too much.
"I can't say that Todd has done anything other than really well for the franchise. That being said, the game he's making is not the game I would have made." -Julian LeFay
This quote really resonates with me. I really want to play that game, I wish that game exists. It sadden me that Julian doesn't seem to be interested in making a game, he could certainly crowdfund it, or maybe even find a publisher. Now granted, a game isn't guaranteed to be good just because one man is working on it, and even the best team can make a horrible game, but I would certainly play it. It's also sad that there doesn't seem to be any interests from anyone to make a Daggerfall-like game, or at least I'm not aware of any game like it.
This was the most interesting thing in my interview with him. You could tell that he probably has some great ideas technologically how to improve the game, but got more than a bit burned with his experience at Bethesda. We pretty much saw eye to eye on what the original games were about: making a world that you could explore and discover, rather than be told what to do.
Indigo Gaming Is there any possibility he would come back to the gaming industry?
to Indigo Gaming, I admire your ability to do comprehensive research but some of this stuff that you complain about isn't true. The complaint isn't that comprehensive or that complex. This is more like a Fable situation where every feature complained about not being in the game is actually in the game. This critique is more driven by nostalgia.
Also games are improving in content but people are just complaining about them being multiplayer. Console companies got rid of online-only so this isn't anything to worry about.
The quote on the other hand is really unsubstantial. Todd Howard is a game director not a game designer. He doesn't really have the role people say he does at e3 demos.
It's the difference between a Movie Director and a TV Director.
It just makes me sad that so few developers these days care more about maximizing profits as opposed to creating something truly great.
Everything is just shallow, soulless corporate crap.
It's especially true of western developers, with the exception of CDPR at least we have Kojima, Miyazaki and Yoko Taro in Japan to name a few.
And we have Chode Howard, nameless EA person, nameless Activision person, nameless Ubisoft guy etc.
Just a bunch of spineless money-grubbing corporate shit.
"This is the biggest and most ambitious video I've made to date."
And this is the best video/ documentary on a game or game franchise I've seen ever.
I myself am a huge fan of the series, and my first introduction to it, like many, was Skyrim. And me being a huge fan of older games like gauntlet or any N64 title, I wanted to see how the other games faired.
My next ES title I played was Oblivion, and then Morrowind, going backwards as that's the order I got them in. And my experience with each of them differed greatly, from the sprawling open forests and snowy mountains of Skyrim, to the more desolate and baron plains of Morrowind, I always had a different experience. The difference in Gameplay, looks, and player interaction with the world was insane to me. Things I couldn't do in Skyrim and Oblivion were now achievable in Morrowind! I remember Morrowind being extremely difficult compared to the others though, with the way combat works. (Also I hated the Cliffracers! Just walking from one town to the next got me killed every time! Thank the Divines for Saint Jiub.)
yes morrowind is great but small, my 2nd fav game of all time (after witcher 3 it took the mantle) but morrowind was my 2nd RPG i played and i remember every minute of it (my 1st was Might and Magic 7 , what a great game too) the quest to kill them dudes at the inn (in balmora) at very early level was my bane i spent along time (i didnt level at all for it) figuring out how to beat them , it was insane fun and then when when i beat them , i still remember that feeling. and the amount of times them clif racers made me jump xD and stealing op gear at start but then realising that npc is dead for the whole game and u needed stores to make money , its the little things that all add up to a fantastic experiance, everything you do now is tailored and it sucks
In 2006 when Oblivion came out I read an article from the guy behind Kingdom come: Deliverance about how he was blown away by Oblivion. But then he went back and played the older ones and found out that the game was a pretty big step back in a lot of gameplay aspects. I was an really interesting read for me.
Man. So thats why Kingdom Come feels a lot like oblivion. Except better.
Oblivion had really awful dungeon exploration. That's the one thing I remember about it the most and couldn't stand about it. I remember a good dungeon on Morrowind could give you an incredibly piece of armor or weapon. Such as the Skullcrusher hammer.
Not Oblivion. You'd work your tail off to get to the end of a very difficult dungeon, just to get a chest with 50 gold pieces and some healing potions.
On Morrowind if you managed to earn an entire set of Glass, Ebony or Daedric armor, you felt extremely unique and people always made you feel powerful and important because of it.
However because of the enemy's leveling up with you on Oblivion, everyone had the best armor, despite the fact that it should be incredibly rare. It was very immersion breaking.
Agreed and I certainly prefer Morrowind these days but people forget how impressive Oblivion's visuals and world (with features like radiant AI) were at the time. Undeniably lots of features were stripped out but I also think people forget how many were still there compared to Skyrim: attributes, custom classes, custom spells, useful effect chains, overpowered but fun effects like Reflect Spell and Chameleon, super speed (& skooma!), item durability, etc.
And I still think it had the most unique and interesting side quests, even if it also had a load of crap ones. Skyrim may have improved the main quest but overall it lacks the standouts that Oblivion had; they're all consistently mediocre. Oblivion's best quests still gave its world a sense of character (even though it's not within 100 miles of Morrowind); it didn't quite feel like the whole world revolved around you, even if they were moving in that direction.
(P.S. I'm not hating on Skyrim. I still enjoyed it and put hundreds of hours into it. But I definitely feel it has the least unique selling points to draw me back.)
As someone's main (and possibly favorite) TES game is Skyrim, I wanted to thank you when you said:
"Your favorite Elder Scrolls game may be one I wouldn't give a second glance at, and that's okay."
You aren't trying to make people feel bad for having a difference of opinion. It's honestly nice to hear someone who isn't trying to talk down to people whose favorite TES game isn't their own. I also want to add that I do agree with many of your criticisms of the newer games, and while I have some disagreements, you handle your critique in a very respectful manner.
Why did i watch this, its 3 am, man this stuff is addictive
MAN WATCHED DOCUMENTARY AT 3AM (GONE ELDER SCROLLS)
Literally watching it at 3:02am lol.. something luring us to it.
Man, what you said at the end, about everyone having their own idea of the perfect Elder Scrolls game, honestly hit me hard and made me think. If I had to put mind into words, I'd say it falls into a weird mixture of how you described Daggerfall, with aspects of Morrowind and Oblivion. I love the idea of Daggerfall's character creation, and the freedom it offers is something I've always wanted to experience for myself. Morrowind has a sense of adventure that isn't matched in any other game I've played, but it lacks something that Oblivion has. That, as you described, 'kinetic' feel, with combat being the biggest improvement. It's hard to say exactly, but hopefully I got the point across. Anyway, I know this is an old video, but I'm glad it auto-played when I was distracted and couldn't get to my phone in time to stop it. Great video here, and while I've only experienced Morrowind and on, I'm happy someone was able to put into words the feelings I've had about the degradation of this series. The best I can ever get is "Just because it looks good, doesn't mean it's better."
Thank you for this video.
Supposedly the guy who made this video plus a couple of the original devs from Arena and Daggerfall are working on building an old school RPG in a modern engine... might be the perfect mixture you talk about, we’ll see!
Blizard fan so far it seems it’s still in preproduction, you can check out their TH-cam channel OnceLost Games where they’ve done a couple of videos and Q&As about it
@Blizard fan lol no problem. Its about 6PM here and I have nothing better to do haha
Same I feel all we need elder scrolls 6 being is a mix of daggerfall,morrowind and oblivion.
Nothing New just polishing what was great back then.
I'm surprised more don't enjoy Skyrim. Nothing has captured the immense depth and adventure of Morrowind as you noted, but the atmosphere in Skyrim is also unmatched in the series. Smaller world but still more than big enough to explore for a long time. I spent 200 hours on it and still had plenty more to see. My Dad spent 2000 hours on it(!) How big do people need their games to be? There is a lot to love in Skyrim. I think it's more a case of disappointment given the potential. The real fall-off in vision was when they traded it all for a cash-grab MMO.
"with Todd Howard as lead director, the game was no longer a mythical rpg, it was an action adventure game"
*Looks nervously at Fallout 76*
Tbh I think that's why Skyrim sold like it did. Until Skyrim I just never cared for TES, and when I first saw the trailer it gave off the mighty badass fantasy vibe similar to Monster Hunter.
I think the problem is that the original core audience felt a bit neglected and had false expectations. The only RPGs I play are Skyrim and Pokemon, which is a jrpg. Skyrim was...not exactly what I expected it to be for better and for worse.
@topple I've been noticing a trend in RPG games. In the Pokemon community there are people who think Pokemon has just been the same thing for 20 years and that it needs a oddyssey or breath of the wild make over. I have a few gripes, but the other half and and think they're still good. My point is that there will always be a disconnect between long time fans and new fans such as myself.
I think they have kept the feel of the original, especially the feel of Daggerfal. I remember when the original Elder Scrolls was released and I wasn't all that interested. It seemed OK, and it really sucked in one of the guys in my Army unit in the barracks we lived in. However, when Daggerfall was released, I was absolutely blown away. The game was so expansive and the possibilities seemed endless.
What I like most about the Elder Scrolls series is that my character is not tied down to what the developers see as the lead character. I can develop my character in almost limitless ways and take my character in the direction I want to go. In Elder Scrolls games, the main story is almost secondary, or in the background. You dont have to follow it, and it makes for a great, time consuming, in-depth experience. It has pretty much been that way in every TES game. The game is about freedom, choices and exploration and I think both the old games and the new games have captured that feeling.
Todd Howard is the Donald Trump of the gaming world...promises you gold, but you get half @ssed crap.
@@ReconCrusader Ha, sorry...couldn't resist the joke
This video reminds me of the first time a played a TES game (Skyrim). After finishing it I tried the other games and loved them. The elder scrolls is now one of my favorite video game series. Thank you for making this video, it was super fun to watch
I discovered the franchise with oblivion, then skyrim, morrowind and daggerfall.
Oblivion is probably THE game i played the most in my life. When I played skyrim, I felt like it was an all around improvement over oblivion. Better graphic, control, combat, magic, everything. But after a while I did notice that all of my characters seemed to feel similar and bland, because in skyrim, you're the best at everything, no matter who is your character.
Then I've decided to to try morrowind. At first, I was a bit repulsed bit the oldish and clunky mechanics and controls. But after delving in it for a while, I realized how much more there is to this game. With weapon types and different attacks that actually mattered, I felt like I could really create a character of my own that wasn't this bland, saves-the-day-and-does-it-all guy. I was hooked by how descriptive the game was. instead of having an arrow telling you to go this way, you have a character telling to follow the north road, turn right after the big boulder and follow the river up to the cave entrance. It felt a lot more immersive than than its successors.
Later I tried Daggerfall and was astonished by its sheer scale. The map was gigantic, the cities were huge and full of people and houses and merchants and everything. For the first time in the elder scrolls I actually got lost in a city. Cities are supposed to be big, and its easy to get lost in a real city. Yet, the times it happened in TES are in the oldest installment I've played yet.
There's this joke going around aabout taking two and a half eternities to make a skyrim character that looks perfect. but in daggerfall, i spent that time making a character that FELT perfect.
To me, the older titles are hard to get in because of the clunkier mechanics, but feel a lot deeper, as the new ones feel natural and intuitive, but up feeling bland and unsavory.
I'm not saying any of those are bad, to me they're all fantastic. They just don't scratch the same itch.
I gotta agree with you. Mainly about what you said about morrowind.
ultimately the issue is that Elder Scrolls is an RPG- But RPGs are not hte most popular video game- most gamers- particularly younger ones- don't have the attention span to handle normal pace of an RPG. Skyrim is less a pure RPG rather it is a platformer/action with RPG elements. Skyrim is more about powerfantasy
Agree, morrowind was the best elderscrolls game for me. despite its flaws.. it was super emercive.. oblivion and skyrim feel boring in comparison.
@@MrChickennugget360 How is Skyrim more about power fantasy? Everything scales with you, the sense of progression is often so minute there's hardly any difference in difficulty between level 1 and level 10; I feel just as challenged fighting my first dragon as I do fighting one 10 levels later. In Morrowind you became a god, dude. You can fly around cities raining fireballs down on the townsfolk just for yucks. You can murder another demi god just to test your abilities because _anything but_ a demi god is no longer a challenge for you. You can stroll around with an army of 12 atronachs at your back at all times, and watch with amusement as they basically just blow up anything that dares threaten you, never having to lift a finger. The most important note of all is that you earned every ounce of that power and it feels really, _really_ good. If people wanted a power fantasy Skyrim was probably the worst place in the series to look.
MrMastadox oblivion is good imo
Morrowind was the perfect middle ground between modern gameplay and oldschool hardcore RPGs.
Loved Morrowind so much.
@@TrickZ_Retz there's eventually going to be auto-generated dungeons, auto generated combat, skills, classes and soon enough we won't have to play this shitty rendition of recycled beautiful creativity destroyed by watered down mechanics just for money, elderscrollsFortNightCraft 8
Perfect middle ground ? The gameplay was even for that time not good at all. It was simple in every way, could be very easily exploited and was dull. It had nothing from modern combat or old ones. It was a mix from both to just have some.
@@TrickZ_Retz ugh i hope with all my heart you are wrong and they go back. my brain however says you are right
100% agree.
Morrowind is one of my all time favorite games by far. It hit the sweet spot, between old school and modern rpgs and that sweet spot will never be hit again. That’s what you get in 2003-2004. That’s around the time most of the deep complexity left rpgs. And Morrowind was built in the middle of the transition.
The Kiss mentality isn't bad, but it can be taken too far. It's supposed to be a fix for too much complexity though, and if it ain't broke.
KISS is for Software Development. Not for Features.
KISS is a away to develop software (go the easy route, don't write fancy code, wirte working code)
This cannot be applied to features. Features can't be kept simple. And Storytelling ist especially not suitable for KISS. That dude on the stage talking about KISS was just a giant moron not knowing what the heck he was talking about...
@@NineSun001 I also feel like a game is more of a sandbox and having tools to play with is fine. The player can streamline his own experience. And majority will, they will choose warrior get a sword and will chop away with pleasure for the first playthrough and later will go in more depth with the different mechanics. If they are scared people find attributes to hard, have a auto allocate option.
Plus, as other commenters have been pointing out, KISS is hardly an appropriate approach to RPG's, since at its core, it's meant to be a sprawling, intricate system of expressing character individuality. Dumbing down RPG's can be a recipe for disaster, and it's no less than disgraceful that the dev's from Bethesda or Zenimax never really address this constant knife-edge of an issue.
Of course, simplifying and streamlining is a must for any sort of development process. However, if you fail to properly delineate what should and shouldn't be cut from development, you put yourself at a great risk of butchering the genre. My only hope now is that any frustration generated from fans can be redirected into supporting movements such as third-party modders, indie dev's, and others who connect with their audience so much better than Bethesda could.
@@affluenzashot @Nico Sänger KISS is one of the central concepts of storytelling as well. Never heard of Chekhov's gun?
People like to shit on Skyrim. But Daggerfall was mess with a lot of its elements inconsequential from a gameplay, character development or story.
Its nice that you have 4 yeasons, but what is the point of this if the effect on game is barely visible, if visible at all? More numbers don't make a better RPG. p'n'p RPGs have noticed that quite a while ago.
@@colombodoesstuff7653 Well...no. KISS isn't really "central concept" of storytelling. It's sometimes a tool to fix your storytelling when the writer loses one of the four pillars of composition: clean, objective, focused, and simple. But most writers would never use the term "KISS", as "keep it simple" is very subjective when it comes to plots and stories, it really doesn't mean anything. Should the quests be morally straightforward? Should the quests be all "go here get this thing and bring it back to me"? Does it mean I should remove the puzzle in the dungeon? Those all make the quests more "simple". Also you're not using Chekhov's gun right. The theory behind it is that everything in your story should contribute in some way or another, not make everything as straight forward and easy to understand. Do you have pages and pages of in depth lore about the religion and politics of the world. That might the story really complex but if it conveys a sense of realism and depth to the audience, it contributed to the story and therefore accomplished its goal. Also its not universal in good storytelling either, Ernest Hemingway had really superfluous characters at the start of his stories all the time. Though he did state that readers would always attach symbolism or some other type of meaning when there was none. By the way, the video wasn't about how shitty Skyrim is and how great Daggerfall was. It was about the differences in the direction of the games. While Daggerfall was a very buggy and unfocused mess in a lot of ways and Skyrim is way easier for anyone to have a good time with and feels more deliberate in its construction. It sorely lacks the one thing Daggerfall has heaps of: Ambition.
This is such an incredible video. You put so much work into this. This is probably the best elder scrolls documentary out there. I learned so much about the history of the series and the game trajectory. Thank you for creating this.
It's really unfortunate to see Todd become the way he is now. You can tell, he's a decent person. Dude worked so hard, to build something really special. Now, look at what Bethesda has become. I wish he'd put passion over profit, the way they used to.
Oblivion is my favorite game of all time, and the jump from it to Skyrim was baffling to me. It felt like all the love was stripped away, even at that point. Charm and humor were scarce in Skyrim, and it kind of depressed me. As opposed to Oblivion with all the hilarious grunts and overacted dialogue.
That's not counting everything AFTER Skyrim. Hoo boy.
I don't think he has the control over the series as much as he is depicted..
ultimately, he answers to executive shareholders, not so much the fans, and the big boy there is a lawyer who sued the founder out of the door..
If anything, Todd's best credit is pushing for modding support in Morrowind. The TESIII Construction Kit was the most powerful thing in 2003, and he knew that the effect was to give the series future to the fans..
That he continues to support modding (even sketchily at times), shows a certain level of integrity in his core
I blame Pete Hines
@Bwa Bwa Yoshi Haha, just like the worst part of Skyrim is the dragons. The main event always sucks.
@@notenoughgarlic is pretty cool until is literally everywhere and you can't run from it or make it faster to end.
obliv is my favourite too even though i was introduced with skrumm, i miss dumb shit like the jarring zoom whenever you talk to someone, its a lot less fun when i'm stopped by a courier and a dragon burns me to death while i'm stuck in dialogue that the game considers urgent -yes that really happened-
That Julian LeFay Quote at 48:00 from your interview with him cuts to my heart every time, because it's the words of a man who saw his masterpiece deteriorate from his dream over continuous iterations of the franchise.
Yeah I even cut out some parts of that interview. Julian has held up well but he is frustrated at spearheading one of the greatest game series of all time but not being around to see it hit massive mainstream popularity.
A big part is that he rarely get recognized as the man who spearheaded the series. Hell I personally wouldn't have known about Daggerfall and Julian, if it wasn't for you and Razorfist. So thank you for your amazing and great work.
It's why I cover topics like this with the focus and narrative I do, rather than chase popular content. I'd rather bring interesting topics and important conversations to the table, than just re-iterate some gaming news a thousand other channels have reacted to already.
This was easily one of the most in-depth and thought provoking videos I've seen in a long time. Kudos to you my good man, your love for what you do clearly shows!
This documentary is a truly masterpiece. I watched it 3 times. Everything is combined so masterfully.
ive watched it 4 times,
That comment by Todd Howard says it all “whats the worst that could happen, we could go out of business. Okay then let’s go all in” talking about Morrowind.
So yeah now that they have a lot of money and less risk of losing the business, you can tell they aren’t putting in 100% effort or care about taking things out to make the future games more casual. Which yeah you may not go out of business but you sure are losing a lot of the fans that the made you get that business in the first place.
So sad they don't risk anymore.
Even sadder that they r paying much more attention to other games than this masterpiece series.
I'm so scared of what TES VI can became. Looking at the cuts on awesome things they've done throughout the years and at some senseless things they've added, I don't know what to think they are going to present us but, I really need some answers and a new adventure.
If they keep losing them, they WILL go out of business. Just like BioWare is about to. If the next two Bethesda games bomb too, they're screwed. And they're apparently using the same engine AGAIN for both of their next games, so it's definitely possible.
@@RyanCreatesThings
Eh, if they need more money they can always re-release Skyrim
They don't even take the risk of making a new engine. They became lazy.
@Hakageryuu Shareholders couldn't give 2 shits about quality. You don't ax the leads of the largest RPG in history because of one shit entry. They're still making them money. If you want the company to change then stop buying the games. Pirate anything you can, it's the only way they get the message.
We don’t talk about TES: Blades...
That's right, we don't.
Online either... i dont consider it a TES game, its just a mircotransaction platform with a wattered down lore.
@@CommanderTato : And how. Buying expanded storage is bullshit, and otherwise, the rest of the stuff is averaging 10-20 dollars in Crowns. No wonder Fallout 76 got it's Atomic Shop set up the way it was.
@@Chibi1986 If TESO never existed we would be playing this year or 2018 TES 6
Thanks to greedyness of zenimax the owner of bethesda the next tes is getting delayed incredibly long.
Just look at what happened with warcraft, after 3 they dumped singleplayer games and moved to mmorpg.
Bethesda didnt care anymore about a good singleplayer experience, they have become parasites, just look at the evolution of horse armor: creation club...
@@CommanderTato : Yeah, I agree, plus Fallout 4 got in the way, and now Starfield is taking up their time.
When you realize its been over 11 years and still haven't delivered that amulet............
SHIT!
Defeating Umaril was more important.
Still deciding whether to kill Paarthanax 11 years later lol
Legerej112 112 Skyrim’s only 7 years old
@@imiggs9160 🙄😐😒
The gates never open if you don't deliver the amulet so.... just never do it.
25:33 that morrowind music, hits me in the feels every time I hear it. NOSTALGIA is a drug
It's crazy how strong the nostalgia is... It almost hurts. It's like watching the movie trailer for return of the king, I'd watch it over and over waiting for it to come out, and that music gets me too. God I hate how fast time moves. Its like every time I wake up another week has gone by and I just want it all to slow down so I can catch my breath but it only goes by faster the harder I try to slow it all down.
Honestly Skyrim being more simplified opposed to the rest of the franchise wasn't a bad thing for me personally since it got me into the franchise, I used to almost solely play sports games as a kid and I think starting off with a title such as Morrowind would be way too much for me lol. Skyrim was a good entry for players new to the series or big (fantasy) RPGs in general and although I can understand people being critical of the game since they're watching the franchise they grew up with change heavily from what it was, I still think it gets a bit too much stick.
That's Exactly the problem most of these people have, they're betraying the fan base that initially popularized it and heavily profited off of to dumb it down for the likes of people like you, basically a completely different demographic, at the expense of extreme mediocrity with content akin to running virtual errands and chores at the chance at even more of that big green paper and in the process becoming a sad shell of it former self. Basically think of it as if ea decided that 2k or Madden or fifa would make a great rpg and changed half the mechanics you were used to and added all these intricate elements and unnecessary long and drawn out sequences and story just just to get to short and somehow dissapointing half court games that were buried underneath all of that excruciating content. I'm willing to guess that maybe perhaps some people might not be too happy.
@@Kam-rx5tx I know that, thats why I said for ME personally. Im not saying its a good thing for the franchise, I'm just saying it helped me get into RPGs and eventually appreciate the more deeper layered ones like the ones they used to make.
@@Djordjevicc my apologies, I totally misunderstood your comment in that case.
It's a fact that TES are losing it's RPG characteristics. If you compare Skyrim with Morrowind the difference between them is just to much, Skyrim is a much more simple game and Oblivion is a mid point of them in a lot aspects. But the thing is the quality of game overall is decreasing for some reasons and the most important, at least for me, is the quality of the quests, characters and immersion and the world build. I'm not gonna talk about all of them just mentioning some things. Skyrim from all these aspects is a downgrade compare to Oblivion and Morrowind, the quests are shit, no discussion, they are bad, uninspired and boring, including the main quest, with rare exceptions. I don't think I have to talk about characters, I can barely remember them besides Miraak. Now the world of Oblivion is a little boring, the camps with animals are inspired, Skyrim and Morrowind have it better, but dude one thing that disappoint me was freaking Solitude one the most horrible designes e ever. Cities overall are dumb in Skyrim, completely boring, with the same layout with nothing to see. Vicec City had a gaint Rock above it, later was Imperial City. In Oblivion I can tell in what city we are just by seeing one little wall. The magic sistem is better no doubt, because it's so simple with so Little variety that it's impossible to mess up with. Anyway, Skyrim is a good game, because Bethesda is aiming for more people I guess, trying to simplify too much and losing a lot too. A good game, but an horrible TES game.
Wilson Property of Jesus it’s a horrible game for you. Don’t speak for others. I haven’t played 4-5 previous titles and I am not planning to play a game from the 90’s you may look at the story and think it’s good but gameplay wise even with all those mechanics it’s probably like any other 90’s game. Dumb AI, loud asss music in your ears, it’s 2D and it’s ugly. Yes no thanks to you for being a zoomer. Bitch asss don’t speak for others. Skyrim is the best Tes game FOR ME FOR ME FOOR MEEE. see what I did there I mean you might have bad eyesight so I used capslock. you guys keep complaining about the downgrade and yes it must suck but if you look at Skyrim and compare it with other games today I would say it’s doing ok. But yeah we all have our preference and again don’t speak for other even your friends might dislike it if you just walk in “we had like to go to your party” even though they might hate that person.
13:53 that would freak me the hell out. God damn, Daggerfall is such an incredible fleshed out game.
20:00 This is factually incorrect. Pirates of the Caribbean game wasn't created by Bethesda, they were a publisher. The game was made by a russian developer Akella.
I think it was more or less a port of their game "Sea Dogs". Or lets say, they took Sea dogs and put skeleton pirates in it.
nerd
Cite your soruces pls
@@TheMetastasia Yeah it was supposed to be the sequel to seadogs 1 initially
I had never played any Elder Scrolls games before Morrowind but I must say I'm impressed with the attention to detail and amount of content Daggerfall had. Why can't we have something like that made nowadays?
cause graphics have changed so much. skyrim barely fit on console dude.
@@peacefusion not sure what you're saying about Skyrim, the Special Edition is only 12GB which is small by modern standards. One could create a game which had the same level of details as Daggerfall, with modern graphics, but with less repetitive content.
@@benrobinson375Not with higher quality assets and certainly not with the consoles of 2011, some models of ps3 only had like 20 or 40 gigs of storage. The only reason Skyrim even became 12 gigs and not over 20-30 gigs is because Bethesda were stupidly good at compression
Try the Skyggerfall mod for Skyrim its Daggerfall in the skyrim engine, there is also a version remade on the unity engine with more modern features like mouse aiming.
@@Retromancer_Rackham was the entirety of Daggerfall reproduced in Skyrim? That's amazing...
"Everyone becomes a magic user hybrid by default." I think this guy missed the stealth archer memo.
Me, a magicless two hand tank who chases dragons until they land 👀👀👀
Wait, what memo?
"It just works."
- That rhetoric right there is what is wrong with games these days.
"it's not a bug, it's a fEaTuRe"
- Todd Coward
"just works" as in "barely works", right?
@@bokrugthewaterserpent3012 LMAO th-cam.com/video/rR4n-0KYeKQ/w-d-xo.html
If bethesda had curency, they would print that on their money.
I don't know why but I find myself coming back to this long video so often but it's definitely impressive doing.