Preface[]
A few months ago, I made a blog post and comments claiming that I believed the Elder Scrolls series was being drastically dumbed down to appeal to casual gamers, with Skyrim being the most dumbed down/casualised of the series. I used to believe in the "casual gamer conspiracy" for the TES series.
But I was wrong.
Why I was wrong[]
Yesterday, while perusing youtube, I came accross a video called "Why the Elder Scrolls Isn't Dumbing Down", by user Jingles1215. I thought to myself "Hey, I always say I look at both sides of an argument." So I watched it. And he changed my mind. Not entirely, since I still think there are aspects of the TES series that are dumbed down, but nowhere near how much I previously thought.
His video is a response to a video called "The Elder Scrolls: The Dumbing Down." by user Samyouonline. In it, Samyouonline states several reasons why he believes Oblivion and Skyrim were drastically dumbed down from Morrowind. In reponse, Jingles challenged several of Samyou's points:
1) You can't fail: Important quest characters cannot die as they did in Morrowind. Samyou claims this is because casual gamers didn't want any consequences for going on killing sprees and accidentaly killing plot characters, or P-Cs as I call them.
Jingles' response: With a dymanic and radiant A.I system that was brought in for Oblivion and Skyrim, if P-Cs could die, what if said P-C was killed by a random bandit/creature while you were away in another area? You would fail the quest because of something you would have no way to control. It wasn't due to some "Elder Scrolls casual gamer conspiracy", but to make the new radiant system work. Plus, in Oblivion, once a plot character has no more quests associated, they became killable. Most of them, anyways.
Jingles gives an example: he used a mod to make all essential Skyrim characters killable. During the quest to meet Delphine at Kynesgrove, she was killed on route by a Sprigan. Now this is no problem for PC users who can just resurrect her, but console users would be unable to complete the Main Quest at this point, due to no fault of their own. Going off on random killing sprees is one thing, but this was entirely out of the players' hands. In Morrowind everyone was killabe, but no one moved around much. No danger of them dying. With Radiant AI, this is no longer viable.
2) No consequences for Faction Membership: In Morrowind, Samyou says there were real consequences for faction membership which are absent in Oblivion and Skyrim. Samyou claims that faction membership in Oblivion and Skyrim has no consequences because casual gamers don't want any consequences for joining factions other than a disposition boost.
Jingles's response: In Morrowind, there were no consequences either! Other than members liking you more and enemy guilds hating you, you had nothing to worry about. You could still join the rival factions! You could make a character who could join the Imperial Legion, Tribunal Temple, and House Telvanni: three factions practically at war with one another, without consequence. Would joining any faction bar you from others? Nope. Your character can join almost EVERY faction. The ONLY time joining a faction bars you from another in Morrowind is the Great Houses. You can ony join one of the three. So much for the lauded "Morrowind faction system", which is exactly like the Oblivion and Skyrim ones when it comes to joining.
3) Quest and Journal system: In Morrowind, there were no quest markers at all, meaning you had to get directions, which greatly added to the immersion.
Jingles's response: While he agrees that the quest markers from Oblivion and Skyrim are immersion breaking sometimes, he points out that Morrowind had a terrible flaw: directions given were sometimes, well, WRONG, or at least very vague. He uses the exmple of Neminda of the House Redoran quests, who often gave you very, very vague directions, in some cases flat out wrong, requiring you either Google where you're supposed to go, or wander for hours searching for a location. And, in Morrowind, the locations wouldn't always be added to your map like in Oblivion and Skyrim, even if the NPC flat out told you where it was, again requiring lots of aimless wandering. Quest markers aren't part of the "casual gamer conspiracy", it's fixing Morrowind's flawed direction system.
4) Reduced NPC conversations: In Morrowind, most dialogue wasn't voiced, but written. NPCs had usually dozens of conversation options, and Samyou said that this gave Morrowind lots of depth over Oblivion and Skyrim since they had voiced conversations, but with drastically less dialogue options.
Jingles' response: While Oblivion and Skyrim do have reduced NPC dialogue, the dialogue in Morrowind wasn't unique at all. NPCs all said the EXACT SAME THINGS! Apart from quest information or their backgrounds, asking about almost any topic gets you the exact same answer. Word for word, exactly the same text from every NPC. "Copy-pasted", Jingles says, and he's right. While it's more extensive in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim have many more unique and memorable NPCs, because in Morrowind, they all say the same things, with few exceptions. While this does occasionally happen in Oblivion as well, it's to a much smaller extent. It's not "dumbing down" to change the dialogue, it's making it more unique. Quality over quantity is not "casualising".
In conclusion[]
While I do believe that there are some aspects in which the TES series is being dumbed down, i.e attributes being removed and puzzles being downright insultingly easy, in these points I disagree. As Jingles points out, many of these complaints are made from behind the "goggles of nostalgia". There isn't going to be a "Morrowind II" unless Modders make it. The series is always moving in new directions, and changes aren't necessarily due to a "Elder Scrolls casual gamer conspiracy"! Remember folks, the team that made Morrowind didn't make Oblivion. The Oblivion team didn't make Skyrim. It's different people each time, and different people have different methods and priorities.
If you want, go watch these videos if you've got the time. It's always good to see both sides of an argument.
Samyou's video is "The Elder Scrolls: The Dumbing Down" and is 32 minutes long.
Jingles' video is "Why the Elder Scrolls Isn't Dumbing Down" and is 22 minutes long. He also made a second one in response to some comments he got on his first video, and its's 46 minutes long. This second one is more a rant, however, as he isn't following a script like the first video.
Note that Jingles doesn't disagree with all of Samyou's points, but he does with most. Hopefully, if you do believe in the "Elder Scrolls casual gamer conspiracy", it'll shed some new light. I do still believe the series is being dumbed down, but only a little.
And of course, no, I don't hate Morrowind or Skyrim, I love the TES series. I really wish I didn't have to add this all the time, but make any criticism and you get lots of "DURR HURR, why u hate Skyrim for?!?!?!" comments, or similar ones.