And next, all of the talent anybody cares about leaves the company?

[A Black Falcon]

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site...ewsLang=en

Irrational Games is now "2K Boston". One step on the road to their destruction? They are so awesome, this is really too bad... I know it's supposedly just a name change, but these things... :(

[Great Rumbler]

I'll start being worried when the talent begins leaving.

Or if Bioshock bombs.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, their only chance is if Bioshock sells well. If it doesn't... it's probably pretty much over.

[A Black Falcon]

And now two more companies join the ranks of the imminently doomed...

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071011/20071011006083.html?.v=1

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198263

So how long until Bioware goes the way of Origin and Bullfrog? Only a Will Wright-style unbroken string of successes and ability to work in a company like that could save it, and I'm not going to bet on that given the track record of these things... for every case where it actually works out (Blizzard for instance) there are many, many more where it doesn't. :bummed:

Really, really bad news, obviously. Bioware is one of the very best... it's not surprising though. Bioware and Pandemic, if you recall, were purchased by Elevation Partners a year or two ago, a company then headed by John Riccitiello, an ex EA CEO who is now again CEO of EA. So he bought the companies which he had overseen for a while before going back to EA.

[Great Rumbler]

When was the last time that Maxis made a really great game? It was Simcity 4 and that was 4 1/2 years, and multiple Sims expansions, ago.

Spore's about the only thing they've got left.

[A Black Falcon]

Well, Maxis is pretty much nonexistent aside for Will Wright's team, it seems to me, which is part of why that is -- they don't have other teams making other stuff anymore... and he's been busy on Spore for quite a while now. Before that he made Sims 2, which wasn't as successful as the first game but was probably okay if you liked it... I was never interested in those games so I've never actually played them. That doesn't mean that they're bad games though.

[Great Rumbler]

The Sims is nothing more than a cash-cow that EA has been milking for the past seven years. The first one was pretty good, because it was something new, but since then the whole series has just been driven completely into the ground.

And now the next Simcity game is going to another team.

[Smoke]

The next SimCity is an abortion.

[Great Rumbler]

I could see it being an interesting and fun game...but I can also see it being a complete disaster that's nothing more than a mockery of the franchise.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hmm... From what I've heard it seems like Societies is going to basically be the "Monopoly Kids" of the Sim City world. That does mean that SC4 will have plenty of life left in it anyway. I guess there's a reason they aren't calling it 5. It could be good, but I prefer the slow rise in sheer complexity of Sim City games. I enjoy managing all of that. At the same time, being able to determine the "style" of my city is pretty compelling...

[A Black Falcon]

SimTown II, that is.

Note: I didn't like SimTown. Too simple...

[Dark Jaguar]

Sim Town 2? Yeah, good call.

They could really make sure there's lots to do and a lot of customization, and it could end up a fun game in it's own right. I wouldn't call it Sim City though, as you said, too simple. Weird though, considering the Sim City series has gotten progressively more complecated with each itteration. Actually, I think I read that that was the idea behind this Societies game. They apparently wanted to trim away the barrier to entry for new players. I can understand that so long as they do eventually make a proper Sim City 5.

However, my fire for Spore, while somewhat cooled due to time, still burns the hottest. That game looks to be the ultimate sandbox, and it looks to be extremely complex in it's own right. Hmm, actually to be honest I wonder what - aside from the appearence alterations which we've all seen - people are able to actually customize? I haven't seen how people actually go about setting creature capabilities aside from procedural guesswork based on design, and how one goes about running the towns, civilizations, planets, and galaxies beyond. I sure hope I can alter a lot of stuff there, like say, artistic development and moral.

[A Black Falcon]

And it sounds like I was about right about SimCity Societies. "Plenty of fun buildings, no gameplay depth"? I could describe SimTown that way for sure...

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/simcity-societi...994p1.html

Pros
Plenty of fun buildings and city styles; lots of character; great graphical detail.

Cons

No gameplay depth; beefy system required.

[EdenMaster]

EA's novel new approach to the SimCity franchise does away with all the minutia of urban planning and instead invites players to create a city with some real personality. You'll be able to create anything from a grimy factory town to an Orwellian police state to a fairytale land with gingerbread houses and chocolate bunny statues. The emphasis here is on the character of a city. It's less about the reality of urban development and more about creatively defining a city's culture.

On the plus side, the result is unlike any city builder to date. The building choices are wildly diverse, and players can create "themed" towns like never before. Unfortunately, SimCity Societies veers a little too casual, lacking any real depth or gameplay for gamers to sink their teeth into. If you're looking for a predictable toy sandbox allowing you to craft a variety of different towns, the title delivers. But if you're looking for something meaty -- a real game with tough decisions and unexpected surprises -- this isn't the game for you.

Translation: EA is lobotomizing one of the oldest and most revered video game franchises in history.

I sure hope this isn't what I should be expecting for SimCity 5...hopefully they have another, <i>competent</i> team on that one.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well I'm pretty sure they had to get a different team because the old team is still working on Spore. After that I think we can expect them on 5 if they ever want to return to the franchise that started it all.

To be honest I've got mixed opinions on Societies. On the one hand, I never did like hearing how it'll take out all the depth. I still think making an "easy mode" and allowing people to actually go in depth would have been better. On the other hand, I did love the customization aspect. If they make a 5, it should be a lot more like 4 just with added customization. At any rate, we've still got Sim City 4 there. It's just a shame they stopped updating that game, in fact they stopped pretty quickly there.

[Great Rumbler]

So it's basically an update the Simcity Construction Set?

[A Black Falcon]

Translation: EA is lobotomizing one of the oldest and most revered video game franchises in history.

Well, it isn't a numbered sequel but a spinoff, so that could explain it... I mean, Maxis made alot of "Sim" branded games in the early and mid '90s, and they were not all either deep or good. Of course, that was part of why the company broke down and got bought by EA, but it's true... sure they made SimCity and SimCity 2000, and other good Sim games like SimEarth, SimAnt, SimFarm (never played that one so I'm not actually sure if it's good), SimTower (loved that game... quite simple, but fun.), but then there were SimCopter, Streets of SimCity (driving game, and probably the lowest-scored SimProduct ever), SimTown, etc... too many of those things (and brand dilution, probably) was why EA got ahold of Maxis, really. I understand that this game is different -- it's on consoles too, right?, and EA isn't publishing Sim games THAT often -- but even so, it does seem like a step back. Why does this game really need to exist, anyway?

[Great Rumbler]

I'm pretty sure it's PC only.

[A Black Falcon]

Really? Major publishers don't MAKE PC only games these days, it seems... they all get ported somewhere. Unless the game's a total failure I doubt that this'll be an exception...

[Dark Jaguar]

Aren't Crysis, Sim City Societies, and all those Guild Wars games PC exclusive?

So yeah ABF, here's the thing. This isn't new. I wouldn't jump to a conclusion of it being the entire replacement for the series. I think this is more of an off-shoot project. I myself won't be getting it, but it may make a good gift for casual gamers and the younger gamers that have trouble with more complex simulation games (such as me when I was a kid... couldn't build a city to save it's resident's lives...). I don't think it's terrible and I think there's an audience for it. I'm just not it. Another thing to consider is being able to make a city "any way you want" basically means they have to defy what actually works in the real world to allow that sort of freedom. The real world more or less requires most cities to be pretty much identical. You just can't have a city that's nothing but amusement parks but this is really not a simulation game so much as a customization sandbox. That's cool but it isn't what I'm into.

Really though, as I said this isn't new. Remember Sim Town? That was another, much older, simplification of Sim City. Again, also meant for the younger or more casual crowd. Didn't do too well actually, because back then I don't think there was much of a casual PC gaming crowd like there is today. There have always been simpler more accessible games competing with the more complex games. In the the case of simulations, I much prefer great complexity I can get lost in, so long as there's some good tutorials. Anyway, at the very least to make the distinction a little clear they should just have named it Sim Societies. Drop "city" out of there and it's roll as another spinoff becomes clear. Eh, oh well. It doesn't have a 5, and it's a totally different team, so that at least leaves an opening for another one later on. As it stands SC4 is my personal favorite in the series though.

[A Black Falcon]

Crysis? Currently, but it it doesn't eventually get ported somewhere I'd be surprised... though presumably the original developer wouldn't do it. Crytek didn't do any of the console Far Cry games, just the original PC title; Ubisoft, the publisher, who had the IP rights, did all of that stuff.

As for Guild Wars... well, yeah, online-only games is the main exception to that. Those are usually not ported.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well there's Final Fantasy XI, but that's from a series that has it's roots in consoles anyway so they sort of had to make a console release. Must be tough constantly releasing patches and expansions for a game across 3 different systems. From what I played though the PC version was clearly second fiddle and suffered for it. The interface, particularly the mouse driven part and the menu system, is meant for a controller. It was pretty painful to navigate. Of course nowadays every single MMO copies WOW for their interface. Can't blame them. It is the best.

[Great Rumbler]

Stalker is still PC only.

[A Black Falcon]

Stalker is still PC only.

Obviously it didn't sell well enough for its publisher to decide to port it? :)

It's European-developed like Crysis, and the PC market is a lot stronger in Europe than the US; a significant percentage of PC-exclusive games are developed in Europe these days... American-developed PC exclusives are the ones that have faded the most. And yes, of course some exceptions can be found... but overall? I think it's blatantly, blatantly obvious that the PC market overall is a long way from where it was in 2000... not counting those online games (MMOs, etc) and European titles the PC market is almost completely dead, and that's really sad.

Here's one example of many...
Disciples I: 1999, developed in Canada
Disciples II: 2002, developed in Canada
Disciples III: 2007-8, developed in Russia

[Dark Jaguar]

Ya know a Bioshock style FPS and the objectives from PD, coupled with Shenmue level item interaction and NPC conversation trees, oh and clever puzzle oriented levels ala Portal would make for a totally awesome game, like a first person RPG adventure puzzle game.

[Great Rumbler]

Obviously it didn't sell well enough for its publisher to decide to port it?

All reports said it sold really well.

[A Black Falcon]

Meh, then it's one of the rare exceptions. Doesn't change the main point.

[Great Rumbler]

Neverwinter Nights.

[hephaestus]

*doesn't care about thread*

So honestly, who actually knows any gay Jewish women?

[A Black Falcon]

Neverwinter Nights.

Oh come on GR, we all know that I'm talking about the overall market, not saying absolutely that there were no US or Canadian-developed PC titles after 2001... overall I think that there's little doubt that, since 2002-2003, the PC industry has moved hard into (mostly lower-budget) European-developed titles or online-only games. Since 2002, there has been a long string of major changes -- Blizzard went into MMOs and hasn't released anything other than WoW since 2003's addon to 2002's Warcraft III (though SC2 next year will change that, the MMO thing has clearly changed the company). Interplay/Black Isle abandoned computer games after 2002's Icewind Dale II and then pretty much died in 2004; Black Isle's successor Obsidian has so far made one console RPG, one PC RPG, and is working on a console RPG and perhaps another unknown title. Bioware went into console games and hasn't published a PC-only title since 2002 either, though like Blizzard they are working on one in Dragon Age their obvious corporate focus is on Mass Effect (console game) and they're also getting into MMOs and handheld games. Troika went out of business probably because they didn't make that same shift into either MMOs or console games that all of their competitors in the PC RPG industry did. Bethesda got into console ports too with 2001's TESIII: Morrowind. Epic's gone hard into console games in the past few years, as Gears of War proves; it's not just engine licenses anymore... etc, etc, the list goes on. Part of the problem is lengthening game development cycles, of course, so teams don't make as many games as they used to, but consolization and the MMO focus are a huge part of it... even Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires series) is going console with Halo Wars!

Of course, Interplay, Bethesda, etc. had made console games before 2002. The difference is that those games were mostly not PC ports. The PC and console titles were separate, and any console games that did exist were ported later on by external companies (think WC2/Diablo for the PSX and SC for the N64 from Blizzard; Blizzard's probably the one company that actually backed away from console development last gen... though they did work on SC: Ghost for years, it was console-exclusive and never came out anyway.). That's a dramatic difference from how things are now.

As for the Europe thing, it is partially explained by the fact that Europe has a long history of PC game development -- in the '80s, computers were the main gaming platform there for the most part, not the NES or SMS, for instance, and now in some European countries (particularly Germany) PC gaming dominates. It's just that with the massive dropoff in quantity of US-developed PC games, the ratio of European to North American PC games seen in the Northa American market has, I believe, changed dramatically in the last few years. The main exception to this is, as I said, online-only games, where the US and South Korea (another PC-only market of course, and heavily focused towards online games) are responsible for most of the most popular titles. This is, of course, not an absolute or anything, though, so sure there will be a few major PC exclusives from the US and Canada... just not many, outside of casual games of course.

Neverwinter Nights? Well, it does have a single-player campaign, but the focus of the game was clearly on the multiplayer mode, not the mediocre-at-best single player side of things. It had a much more prominent online mode than any previous Bioware game, a fact that wouldn't have been a problem if there'd actually been a good single-player campaign to go along with it, but there wasn't. Sure it wasn't a MMO or online-only, but it was online and an RPG... and it was also the worst RPG released by Bioware or Interplay/Black Isle since before Fallout 1. NWN1's really in the middle ground between online RPGs and single-player ones, and isn't as good as dedicated games on either side from everything I've seen of it, though of course I don't own the game.

Now, I know that NWN2 came out last year, and was good (I have it), improving on NWN1 in a bunch of ways (most importantly, the single player campaign has real parties again and is actually done decently). The NWN2 expansion came out this year, and was even better according to reviews (I don't have it yet), and they are PC-only RPGs from Obsidian. NWN2 is one of or perhaps the only such game of any significance to come out in the last five years... Vampire: Bloodlines maybe, but that's half FPS. And while NWN2 is less dumbed down than NWN1, for sure, it's nothing like the Infinity Engine or Fallout titles...

[Great Rumbler]

The point is, you always making sweeping generalizations about things. I point out two major examples of games that haven't been ported to consoles and with no plans to have that happen.

Then there's Blizzard that hasn't made any console games in years. And The Witcher, Tabula Rosa, Civilization 4, and so on.

[A Black Falcon]

Oh come on, are you honestly going to say that the PC gaming industry is in as good shape now, overall quality and volume of titles wise, as it was in 2000? No way. Absolutely no way. Even so, the examples you came up with kind of prove my point, though, which, I would say, shows that I have a point here...

I was thinking of making exceptions saying that strategy games and FPSes are still common on the PC (virtually all the other genres outside of MMOs died out at retail years ago, excepting casual games), but I realized that most all such titles are also either European or are console ports or are simultaneously released on consoles, so though that was true until a few years ago I don't know if it is anymore...

The Witcher: European(German)-developed RPG. Primary market is Europe.
Tabula Rasa: MMO. The main genre US/Canadian developers support on the PC.
Civ IV: exception I guess, though as a strategy game it's in one of the most popular PC gaming genres and it's part of a long-running series.
Blizzard: I talked about Blizzard in my last post. Look at it again. "They went into MMOs" was my essential point.

Oh yeah, and do you know what Firaxis is working on now? Yeah, just like Ensemble, a console game. It will be Firaxis's first ever console-exclusive title.

The last developer in North America that made only high-budget PC-exclusive single-player RPGs was Troika Studios, who as I said in my last post went out of business two years ago. That pretty much sums up the situation. There are a few tiny web-distribution-only PC RPG developers out there, such as Spiderweb Software (look them up if you haven't before), but they don't exactly get games in stores... strategy games are in better shape than that, but are just as clearly far down from where they were in the '90s. FPSes are doing fine of course, because they're now shipping simultaneously on consoles... and the rest of the genres are pretty much totally gone. Wargames are only developed and sold by a few online-distribution-only (or maybe Europe-and-online?) publishers. Mech sims and space sims are totally dead. PC-only or even PC-first racing games still exist, but are rare. Just looking at the variety of games you would find on random PC Gamer demo discs from like 1997 or something and the "variety" of games released in the average month this year is pretty depressing...

There is an explanation for this, that I believe somewhat -- the rise of MMOs is at least partially responsible for this. The more people put into one game, the less they buy other games... when you're putting so much money into one game, paying a monthly fee, etc, it's much less likely that you will also buy and play a bunch of other stuff. I don't doubt that this is part of it... because overall the amount of money in PC gaming isn't decreasing, when online sales and fees are included; it's just retail sales that keep falling.

[Dark Jaguar]

"No way" isn't a very good argument...

Yeah a lot more stuff is being ported, but I'd say that's a good thing. More people can play the games, more sales for the companies. I don't see a downside. Plus I've been playing a lot of really high quality PC games lately, so yeah I'd say PC games are as good, maybe better, in quality than in the past.

[A Black Falcon]

The downside is obvious: when a game is simultaneously developed for PC and consoles, or developed first for consoles and then later ported to the PC, it gets dumbed down in comparsion to what it would have been like had it been a PC-first title. This is pretty much universally true in every genre that has been popular on the PC except stuff like platformers and puzzle games. It's certainly true for all simulation games, all strategy games, many FPSes, all FPS-RPG hybrids, adventure games, RPGs, racing games, etc...

[Dark Jaguar]

This is what you've been saying for a while but I still disagree. I mean is Bioshock "dumbed down" System Shock? GR's got both, let's ask him.

Mr. GR, how many licks to the center of is Bioshock dumbed down form of System Shock?

[Great Rumbler]

Mr. GR, how many licks to the center of is Bioshock dumbed down form of System Shock?

System Shock 2, the one that I've played, had more RPG elements. For example, you could play as three different "types" of characters and gain abilities in several different realms like electronics, psyonics, and brute strength. Bioshock boiled that down to giving you the choice of which plasmids to acquire and build-up.

And you also had to deal with weapons that would deteriorate with use and lots of inventory management, which made it more of a survival-horror game rather than a horror shooter. Both have a hacking system that, while different, are based partially on chance and partially on your characters hacking ability.

I'd say that Bioshock was a bit more straightforward than SS2. Maybe you could say that it's dumbed-down, but both have individual qualities that make them great. SS2 was more about crafting an atmosphere of extreme, isolated dread and having you constantly search for more supplies to keep you going, whereas Bioshock was more about perfecting a moody, art-deco world that's slowly falling apart and presenting an intelligent story.

[Dark Jaguar]

I see then.

Still, for the most part I don't see ABF's complaints as bearing much truth to them. There IS the matter of simplifying user interfaces and in that way making things more accessible, plus the matter of games now having a lot more focus on a good "tutorial" opening to them to allow people to get a handle on the game before getting into the deeper stuff. I wouldn't call that dumbing down though, but rather what they SHOULD do.

[A Black Falcon]

Looking Glass Studios-style-FPS-before-and-after comparisons:

System Shock 1 or 2 vs. Bioshock -- I've only played part of SS2 and not the others, but just based on what I know about Bioshock I'd have said something along the lines of what GR did -- it's much more FPS and much less RPG than SS2, and thus less deep and complex. "It's really an FPS" is what you hear about Bioshock, and that's not something people really said about the System Shock games... and the same development team made SS2 and Bioshock, so that's not the reason.

Thief 1 or 2 vs. 3 -- again I've only played the first two PC games, not the third console game, but the opinion from the Thief community was pretty united in that the game was substantially less complex than the older games, had smaller, more broken up levels, etc. Thief was a fantastic game on the PC... I'd have to play it to say how well the third one held up, but there's no doubt that it wasn't as complex and deep.

Deus Ex 1 vs. 2 -- same as the above two. Community's reaction was the same as Thief except probably worse because Deus Ex 2 was released before Thief 3 so expectations were probably higher, and the letdown when it ended up being so consolized was more. Deus Ex 2 has a pretty bad reputation in some PC gaming circles as a result, I think, while the first one is remembered as great...

Oh yes, and Looking Glass DID make console games. They just weren't ports of their PC games.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/company/2025.html
http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/company/12900.html

In RPGs, of course, for Bioware, contrasting Baldur's Gate I/II(though perhaps not NWN... maybe, I'm not sure) to KotOR is a quite effective defense of the point, or for Black Isle/Obsidian, Torment/IWD I/II/Fallout 2 to console-centric KotOR II and then PC NWN2, which made steps back in the direction of complexity.

And I know I've talked at length before about some of the changes that were made to the Elder Scrolls series between the second and third games, when the series went console.

Strategy games and normal FPSes have mostly been less affected, but as I said in the last couple of years even strategy and FPS developers have moved in console-gaming directions...

[EdenMaster]

Well, it isn't a numbered sequel but a spinoff, so that could explain it... I mean, Maxis made alot of "Sim" branded games in the early and mid '90s, and they were not all either deep or good. Of course, that was part of why the company broke down and got bought by EA, but it's true... sure they made SimCity and SimCity 2000, and other good Sim games like SimEarth, SimAnt, SimFarm (never played that one so I'm not actually sure if it's good), SimTower (loved that game... quite simple, but fun.), but then there were SimCopter, Streets of SimCity (driving game, and probably the lowest-scored SimProduct ever), SimTown, etc... too many of those things (and brand dilution, probably) was why EA got ahold of Maxis, really. I understand that this game is different -- it's on consoles too, right?, and EA isn't publishing Sim games THAT often -- but even so, it does seem like a step back. Why does this game really need to exist, anyway?

Ahh...SimFarm. That was a good game. I had a lot of fun with that one. SimTower too.

[Great Rumbler]

And I know I've talked at length before about some of the changes that were made to the Elder Scrolls series between the second and third games, when the series went console.

And going by what you said, most of them were good changes.

System Shock 1 or 2 vs. Bioshock -- I've only played part of SS2 and not the others, but just based on what I know about Bioshock I'd have said something along the lines of what GR did -- it's much more FPS and much less RPG than SS2, and thus less deep and complex. "It's really an FPS" is what you hear about Bioshock, and that's not something people really said about the System Shock games... and the same development team made SS2 and Bioshock, so that's not the reason.

SS2 has some RPG elements, but it's still more or less a shooter. Yes, there is management of resoures [health, amunition, and weaponry], but you can get that in Resident Evil. The purpose of that is, as I said, to lift up the feeling of dread present in the game.

Also, the ability to use different types of characters doesn't really affect the game all that much. You can run-and-gun, you can hack a bunch of stuff, or you can run-and-gun but with magic. But if with the other types, you're still doing a lot of the same things.

Bioshock is different, but it's not THAT different when you get right down to it.

[A Black Falcon]

Well yeah, Bioshock does seem to have come off better than Thief 3 or Deus Ex 2, but at least some of the same things do seem to have happened to it.

And going by what you said, most of them were good changes.

Some were improvements (in Morrowind), some weren't... some of the things that were made worse were improved in Oblivion, others I'm sure weren't...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well some of the simplification just comes from the move to 3D, such as the much smaller towns than Daggerfall you mention.

I will say this though. For all the detail they put into Oblivion, there is a palpable lack of KIDS. I mean seriously if there's one mod I'd ask for from the fan community it would be populating the town with playful scamps and so on, but of course there would be no voices, or *shudder* fan voices. Also I don't seem to notice any outhouses or any means of disposing of one's waste. I'm left to assume they use a pile of clothes down the hallway. I don't know who's jacket that is but they ain't wearing it no more...

Then there's the console only (so far, but I don't TRUST Bioware with "exclusive" any more :D) Mass Effect which by all accounts is a VERY deep and complex experience.

<img src="http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20071119.jpg">

Only apparently they didn't do too good a job with the tutorial aspect of it... Oh well, as much as I think good tutorials are something every good game should have, I'm the sort that can enjoy muddling through a system and working it out without one.

[Great Rumbler]

Some were improvements (in Morrowind), some weren't... some of the things that were made worse were improved in Oblivion, others I'm sure weren't...

Care to elaborate?

[A Black Falcon]

Care to elaborate?

The scale and size of the overworld in Oblivion is about the same as Morrowind, in dramatic contrast to Daggerfall. That was the most obvious thing I could think of... I'd need to play Oblivion to say more. I know it had critics but I don't remember the specific points.

Well some of the simplification just comes from the move to 3D, such as the much smaller towns than Daggerfall you mention.

Um, DJ, all of the TES games are 3d... in fact, the only one that isn't first-person is TES Adventures: Redguard, and that's not a main-series TES game, as the name suggests... though Morrowind did add a third-person camera option, it wasn't too useful. The first two games are 3d first-person view only games.

[Dark Jaguar]

Um aren't they more like Eye of the Beholder and basically one of those "click here to move exactly one block and here's another automatically generated room with no wall to your left and a chest in front of you" thing? I mean that's still more or less 2D graphics isn't it?

[A Black Falcon]

Um aren't they more like Eye of the Beholder and basically one of those "click here to move exactly one block and here's another automatically generated room with no wall to your left and a chest in front of you" thing? I mean that's still more or less 2D graphics isn't it?

No. Full 3d movement in all of the PC games. You spend a lot of time in the cities or overworld running around, and the first two games have action-style "move the mouse in a swing motion while holding down the button to attack" combat (well, and menus for magic). How would that work with tile-based movement? It wouldn't... Arena absolutely had full 3d movement and 3d graphics. Okay, so it couldn't do diagonal surfaces, so buildings all had flat rooves you couldn't see, and there were no half-levels in building heights so they were either one floor or two, and all building interiors continentwide were all based off of the same models so only the town exteriors were different between regions (these graphical issues were all fixed in Daggerfall), but it was definitely 3d. :)

Also, ratings. Arena was T-rated, Daggerfall M-rated (thanks to the nudity, presumably -- no other game in the series has it...), and Morrowind and Oblivion T-rated. Morrowind went backwards on mature content.

As for the scale part, as Wikipedia says...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_S...Daggerfall

Daggerfall is the largest Elder Scrolls game to date, featuring a game world estimated as being 161,600 square Kilometres (63,125 square miles) with over 15,000 towns, cities, villages, and dungeons for the player's character to explore. According to Todd Howard, Elder Scrolls programmer, the game's sequel, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is 0.01% the size of Daggerfall, but it should be noted most of Daggerfall's terrain was randomly generated. Vvardenfell, the explorable part of the province of Morrowind in the third game has 6 square miles. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has approximately 16 square miles to explore. In Daggerfall, there are 750,000+ non-player characters (NPCs) for the player to interact with, compared to the count of around 1000 NPCs found in Morrowind and Oblivion. It should be pointed out that the geography and the characters in these later games are much more detailed.

An automap was implemented to help players navigate through the lengthy tombs and ancient underground fortresses. Players have to visit approximately 6-8 areas in order to finish the game, although a total of 47 areas are present. A limited array of building blocks were used to construct the towns and dungeons, causing some reviewers to complain about the game's monotony. In 2002, Morrowind, the third game in the series, responded to this issue with a smaller, more detailed world with unique-looking cities and NPCs with greater individuality.

[Great Rumbler]

The scale and size of the overworld in Oblivion is about the same as Morrowind, in dramatic contrast to Daggerfall. That was the most obvious thing I could think of... I'd need to play Oblivion to say more. I know it had critics but I don't remember the specific points.

Like I said: Improvements.

Everything you told me about Daggerfall suggests that I want nothing to do with it's style of world-building. As in, lots and lots of places that look exactly the same because they're randomly generated. I'd take Morrowind/Oblivion's smaller worlds any day of the week. You get more detail, you get more variety, and you get way more personality.

[A Black Falcon]

Did you notice my post right above yours, GR? If not read it.

As for that point though, at least in Arena and Daggerfall and unlike Morrowind you could quick-travel between map locations... that was put back in Oblivion, at least. Not having that in Morrowind is ridiculous. Six square miles may not be THAT much, but trekking across a chunk of it repeatedly is still no fun... and while lots of repetitive areas do get old, is having a pretty small world the best solution to the issue?

I will say this though. For all the detail they put into Oblivion, there is a palpable lack of KIDS. I mean seriously if there's one mod I'd ask for from the fan community it would be populating the town with playful scamps and so on, but of course there would be no voices, or *shudder* fan voices. Also I don't seem to notice any outhouses or any means of disposing of one's waste. I'm left to assume they use a pile of clothes down the hallway. I don't know who's jacket that is but they ain't wearing it no more...

This is a good question, I don't remember if Arena or Daggerfall had children in them... my first guess would be no, but I'm not certain.

[Great Rumbler]

Did you notice my post right above yours, GR? If not read it.

As for that point though, at least in Arena and Daggerfall and unlike Morrowind you could quick-travel between map locations... that was put back in Oblivion, at least. Not having that in Morrowind is ridiculous. Six square miles may not be THAT much, but trekking across a chunk of it repeatedly is still no fun... and while lots of repetitive areas do get old, is having a pretty small world the best solution to the issue?

Oblivion and Morrowind are more than big enough for me. I've spent over 150 hours exploring and messing around in Oblivion and probably nearly a 100 doing the same thing in Morrowind, so, no, I think they've figured out the winning formula for world-building. Messing with that by taking out the details and unique touches would be a step back.

[A Black Falcon]

As far as town size goes, I just got the Daggerfall demo working again to remind myself (and manually installed all the files so next time I won't have to find the demo CD it required again... 98MB install and it requires the CD just so it can access the other 50-60MB? That doesn't make sense... oh well.). The larger towns on the demo island are fairly good sized. The main town is roughly 18 by 18 buildings in size, I'd guess, and a few others are no smaller... it's probably not as big as a city in Arena, but it looks a lot more like a real town, with a more natural city layout, sensible size considering the location (in Arena because of its design you just visit larger cities, though there are different sizes (of squares; convenient that they have city walls to make the outside border of the town... :)), but even so some of them seem quite big for cities in a 'medieval' world when in the real middle ages most towns had only a few thousand people living in them at most... Daggerfall's scale seems more accurate if anything, for some towns at least. Daggerfall still uses square city designs, but unlike Arena, some towns don't have walls. In Arena the town and outside are separate areas; in Daggerfall it's all one huge world, obviously loaded as you get nearer to a place (probably easy with the kind of slow walking speed...). In Daggerfall the towns are part of the main world -- you just move seamlessly outside by going through the gate or (for towns without walls) just going out, instead of like in Arena where you had to go to the gate and click on it, whereupon you were outside. Arena's gates are also only one 'block' high, meaning that they're only as high as your character... looks kind of odd really. Daggerfall's look a lot better. Houses/other buildings/dungeons in Daggerfall are still separate areas, though. You get into houses by clicking on the door and being warped into the building, but within a building doors open normally... they obviously are just modelled separately from the outside.

Oh yeah, and I've probably said it before too, but the automap in Daggerfall is great. All stores, temples, and inns on the town maps are color-coded automatically, and as soon as you go in a store its name is added on the automap. You can't quick-travel around town, but to get between towns, or to isolated homesteads, dungeons, small clusters of buildings around an inn, or whatever else, there's a travel window. Time (days on longer trips) passes of course, but like in a Baldur's Gate you are warped to your destination... except here you have the (really slow) alternative option of walking there. Oh yeah, and you can get a horse for faster travel, as well as a cart for it to pull to hold stuff, and can buy houses and ships (which, evidently, aren't too useful, but are present...).

This doesn't mean that I get any less tired of the fact that all the NPCs say the same things, though... it's true in every game in this series. Sure, each time they try to add more, but any time you're dealing with thousands of characters, you're going to have them repeat eachother. In Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind, outside of quest dialogs most of what you do with people is just ask how to get to places... but when you're dealing with so many people it would be simply impossible to write something for all of them. This is why most RPGs don't try for TES's kind of scale... some things just don't work quite right (though better writers than Bethesda has would help). Yet it's that scale that makes the series what it is... it's an interesting problem.