The gamebyro engine for it self might not be bad, but I feel the way how Bethesda is using it makes it somewhat ... outdated. I have played Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim and thinking about it, over the years only very little has really changed between those games.
Sure, the visuals got better, some of the textures and they got finally the "faces" to look decent in Skyrim, not perfect, but better then what they had in Oblivion and Fallout 3. But a lot of things still havn't been touched. Like how the game still cant render more then 5 people on your screan simultaniously before the engine decides that its time to die
Yes, I was exagerating somewhat, its just simply hilarious because when you play for example Oblivion or Skyrim those games try contstantly to convey the idea of epicness and a heroe facing this huge obstacles, like demonic invasion and wars ... with 10 people fighting on your screen (Kvatch anyone?) or the Civil war in Skyrim, that for some reason feels like its not even there. Lets place 12 NPCs on one side and 10 on the other and call it a "civil war". That's what I am talking about. And here neither Oblivion nor Skyrim improved anything compard to Morrowind, except that they at least didnt tried to make Morrowind in to something it never was. Thing is, its not even bad if the game "can't" do it, there are ways how you can create big battles without the player realising that its just a facade.
Though, I hope that you remember that engines are not only about visuals. You see, Todd Howard never became tired of talking about what Oblivion can do outside of rendering pretty textures, Radiant AI? More like Marketing Buzz Words.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbx6-KQoRg
For me, engines are definitely not only visuals. I know most gamers dont think like that though, because what you hear about are usually the visuals. But yeah, its not. Engines contain a lot of stuff that is not tied to the quality of rendering and visuals, which I am sure you know.
Not to mention what Bethesda has been doing even before Morrowind was to remove gameplay from the game, simplyfing the game mechanics up to a point where they became more and more meaningless. One might say that it actually improved the game, yes, it did, it made it more about "action" rather then anyting else, I mean yeah why would you need a skill about "languages" right? it doesnt kill anything!. But I am not sure if that is the best kind of approach for a role playing game where you make it all so meaningless that it becomes a hack-and-slay adventure. Particularly when there are examples that it can be done better, like in Gothic night of the Rave, where learning and improving the ancient language gave you some benefit. It's about choices I guess and the team behind Oblivion/Skyrim hates this idea for some reason. Just dont block the player from a certain path! Allow them to do everything, when ever they want, regardless what they want! Except for killing some NPCs that are important for the story!
Skyrim is a fun game, so was Oblivion, no doubts about that. But I dont see improvements in the gameplay at all, just that they decided, hey! we cant do proper RPG mechanics, so lets go and focus on action instead! But sell it as the bestest RPG game of all time! And this is what you get in Oblivion and Skyrim then. More "badass" enemies dont come in the form of a real challange, no they just have more health and their spells/attacks do more damage. That's it. hell Doom requierd more tactical thinking sometimes ... I am not saying that Bethesda has suddenly to follow some hardcore pen and paper mechanic here, but seriously, playing a Wizard in pretty much any Bethesda game feels like wielding a flame thrower or bazooka in a shooter.
Most bugs likely have little to do with the engine. If you've ever worked with the GECK or Creation kit, you can make all kinds of "bugs" just by doing it wrong.
Except that bugs that have been pressent in previous games have been still around in their current games. Seriously, looking in to the mod community of Oblivion/Skyrim, Bethesda is throwing very little support at them, and their track record of bug fixing isnt that great either. They do a lot of modifications to their own engine going from Oblivion to Skyrim, but it still seems like they dont spend enough time on testing their games. I am not saying Bethesda is the only company to blame here, but their games do get a hell lot of fixes by the community. I blame it somewhat on the principles that Todd Howard follows, of which he explained to us in the forum when we used to post on the Bethesda forum once they started to work on Fallout 3. You know they tend to go directly from the brain storming to the "programming phase", adding just what they believe is "fun" and "awesome!". I can imagine how that one works. I know such people, and I hate to work with them, becaues it creates all sorts of issues in the long run. I am not saying it has to be like that, its just what I believe. But still. You can avoid a hell lot of issues, like bugs and errors in your story if you take this 3-4 extra months to actually make concept phase about the story for example. But some people simply dont work like that. It certainly isnt bad with a shooter that has a very simple story. But RPGs I think require a different approach. But as said, that's just my opinion.
but if you're talking about dialogue and quests that has... you guessed it, nothing to do with the engine. Morrowind's NPCs did basically nothing, they were human-shaped blobs of repeating text. Oblivion's NPCs moved and interacted with each other, many of which had their own schedules, traveling throughout the world on certain days and at certain times and also by interacting with objects in the environment. Skyrim improved upon this.
So you want to tell me that NPC pathing, structures, improvements to the AI scripts etc. are not part of an engine? Also do we talk about the same Radiant AI that Bethesda loved to talk so much about?
Seriously, this has become a runing gag for Oblivion ...
I was a huge fan of Bethesda and I loved a lot of their games. But things changed a lot of after Oblivion for me, because I seriously bought in to their hype machine and I followed their development and principles over the years, the shift from previous Elder Scrolls games to Morrowind and from Morrowind to Oblivion (and Fallout 3 which was done by more or less the same people).
It's almost like it was a sequel to a series of similar games coincidentally made by the same team of people
Yes, I fear as well as long Howard is in charge over the Elder Scrolls project, we will never see a proper RPG by Bethesda.
Oh, by the way. Still like you Korin :p
