VaranisArano wrote: »

Its not actually true that the TES games have freedom of choice and consequences in the way you suggest.

As The Elder Scrolls series has gotten more complex, it generally doesn't let you side with the designated villains. The most you can do is ignore the main quest.

Daggerfall was the last time you could outright hand victory to a villain (and then the Dragonbreak nixed your choice by going with ALL the choices.)

Morrowind doesnt let you side with House Dagoth. The Devs originally considered it, but it got cut.

Oblivion doesn't let you side with the Mythic Dawn. You can't side with Mannimarco in overthrowing the Mages Guild.

Skyrim doesn't let you side with Alduin. You can pick the victor of the Civil War and take over the Volkihars (but even there, you have to kill Harkon), but you can't team up with Miraak.

Thing is, true freedom to join the enemy takes a lot of development time, effort, and money to design and voice act what's effectively an alternate questline. The more complex the game and the faster the release schedule, the less likely you are to get those choices. That's why we havent had that complete freedom even in the recent single player games.

ESO, like the most recent TES games, doesnt give you complete freedom to side with whoever you want.

I agree with you that even in other TES games you didn't have complete control over everything. But storylines had paths, and options and differences that could be made. There's nothing like that in ESO.

Computer RPGs - even the best of the best - are always limited in terms of how their narratives are structured. There are limits intrinsic to the medium itself. Code has to be programmed, and can only allow for finite scenarios and parameters. Because of this, computer RPGs can never mimic a good tabletop RPG session, but the best of them try as much as possible to do so. I only see this changing if and when highly sophisticated artificial intelligence is put in charge of a computer RPG.

When developing a proper RPG, storytelling is paramount regardless of the medium we are talking about. As someone who has GM'd for years, party cohesion and narrative cohesion are significant considerations when setting up a campaign. That necessarily means limiting options so we can actually tell a good story together. There can't be infinite options, even in the most flexible of cooperative storytelling media. I expect much less flexibility when the inherent limitations of computer programming are involved. The long and the short of it is that all good storytellers to some extent force a narrative because otherwise the story lacks direction entirely.

ESO is not at the top rung of storytelling as far as RPGs are concerned, but it also isn't at the bottom. While the stories are fairly linear, the storytelling and lore is top notch. Where this game lacks is in branching dialogue options that help define your character and - in most quests - lack of player choice. But this is not atypical of the computer RPG medium by a long shot. Having played another so-called MMORPG within the last year, ESO is head and shoulders above that sorry excuse for an RPG.

I don't know where I was going with this. I suppose I'll end in that it is important to hold realistic expectations and recognize the importance of a driving narrative when it comes to designing any RPG in any medium.

not in eso