It's also possible to play Doom as an armor-phobic pugilist. It's just that the game wouldn't care. Just like Skyrim won't care about your peaceful exploits, because for the game you are defined by the quests you did, the guilds you belong to and the bounty on your head.
Also, instant travel public transport is pointless. Somehow they always make you take sleeping pills and you can't spot any interesting places along the main roads.

Exactly, being a Farmer in an RPG would only actual roleplaying (as opposed to LARPing) if the game had a proper hunger mechanic, if the farming enabled you to produce food, while other classes would have to pay for it or something.

I could make a game which is just a 3D walking simulator, I could walk around the maps looking at the lovely scenery, but it has no mechanics. That's an extreme example of exactly what Skyrim is, people might say "you can do anything", well sure, you can pretend to be anything, but unless you are doing something in a game which is supported by the game mechanics, it's just make-believe LARPing.

People who like Skyrim are those who are educated that failure doesn't exist, they don't want the chances of failing a quest, they want the scaling so they can go beat up anything in the world from lvl 1. They want to be ego-patted. If you actually introduced them to a real cRPG where your character/s can die just as easily as enemies, where it's possible to fail content and have it locked out forever, they would probably whine and complain like children.

The reason is that RPG's used to be made for people with P&P experience, now they are made for every average dumbfuck.

I never ignored it, I have told you before that its no problem at all if you just make it possible to flee from encounters or not make monsters follow the player to kingdom come, like in MM6-8. You can go everywhere you want, do all the quests you want that dont involve fighting. Then there are more solutions from grvipers post. But apparently your mind shield blocked those, good for you.

I did not twist anything, I quoted your full post. You love DRM if done properly, I think thats pretty clear. I hate DRM in all forms, just like QTEs or level scaling. I do not attack people for disagreeing, I attack people for provoking me or attacking me. If you look into the thread where you said these things its pretty obvious you were just there to troll. And now that you are kinda saying that you didnt mean those things its the only other conclusion.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/rpgs_leveling_up_and_enemy_scaling/page7

The basic fact is that scaling is a disincentive to real exploration. In Gothic or Fallout you could venture into more dangerous areas, and you could get killed, or you could find some gear or loot which makes it worthwhile, it's all about the risk. The more you scale that kind of experience, the less the risk of getting killed is, and the less the chance that what you find will be spectacular. In scaled games player never need to fear any combat encounters.

I suspect that what Bethsoft fanboys call "exploration" is not the traditional cRPG definition, as in the mechanics of exploration. They just mean "looking at the pretty scenery graphics while walking around".

Exactly, what is the point of exploration if rpg-wise everything is the same? Only lookin at the scenery remains.

Actually I spent alot of time just doing that in Morrowind, but in Skyrim even the scenery looks the same, almost everywhere this greyish blurry mess.

You call it "not caring", I call it flexibility as other games don't even allow me to do so. I just get the roles the devs defined in the first place. And I'd like to hear which other games have done it better.

For role playing, sure. But the easiest solution lies in your hands - don't do it. Fast travel is just an option, nobody forces you to use it.
No interesting spots to discover along the roads? I'd agree on that somewhat in Oblivion, but not in Skyrim. And again, I'd like to hear which other RPGs done it better, as exploring is a strong point in TES games, at least in my book.
And you pretty much ducked what you need to consider the transport system as "good". :p

Yes it is just pretending, unless I implement such mechanics with mods. But again, not even possible to that extend doing so in other games (both, the pretending and the mods). And more options that you can but don't have to do, isn't a bad thing for an RPG.

And I told you that a run or die approach isn't open world as you're not "accessing the world" - you're just trying (and probably most of the time, failing and reloading) skipping content not intended for your current lvl. Not to mention the roadblocks at cokepoints which are fairly standard stuff by games with that approach. But hey, you didn't even found those lvl-walls in the Gothic series, so your chance of finding them in any game are.... pretty slim.

Apparently. Just like you failing to point out solutions as a common practice. You claim it to be, therefor it is.

Maybe I'm to goddamn stupid to see them, but at least I try....
- quests and gameplay built around "go there, kill shit" - name me the games that don't rely on 90% fetch / kill quests. Area scaling sure doesn't change that, never has.
- public transp... nope. Bodyguards? Nope. Making money in towns? Nope.
Must be a post further back then.... this one? Nooooo. Sorry, I give up - please enlighten me. Or don't, as you usually do.

2. answer and there are high-lvl mobs in the world with phat loot, both in Morrowind and Skyrim, reachable for lvl 1 chars. You just have to know where. Pointed out time and time again. You want to pull a jamotide on me by ignoring arguments again and again?

Scaling waters that down the more scaling is introduced, and Morrowind's scaling is so small it's barely noticeable, so that isn't really a good argument.

And missing out content is is a stable of good cRPG's, because then you can replay later and get new experiences. Unless you're a completionist who only wants to get %100 of all content in first playthrough.

There's no rule that exploration must be forgiving or easy, Gothic never "blocked" you in a linear way, it was just harder if you ventured into more dangerous areas. You can say that it "blocked" you if you like, but the reality is just your character wasn't high enough, or you aren't good enough at cRPG's. There's no argument that a game world should "scale to your level" because you value hiking simulators more than real cRPGs.

Oh yes, you did quote my full post, after forcing me to point out that you have twisted it. Anyhow, good, now you're using the thread where you've said it's terrible I have different preferences than you and called me childish on the basis of me telling you everything is a matter of opinion. It's also nice that in that very thread, you are actively attacking other people who disagree with you on regular basis. Fantastic, we're getting somewhere here. So, why are you attacking people who disagree with you?

Ah, the glorious swampweed XP.

It's "not caring" because if the game mechanics don't support it, the game doesn't care. Ridiculous excuse, a game can only be judged as it's base game. Bethesda releases mod tools because they make bad games, so they can try and cover it up by letting modders do their work for them. This isn't even worth a response. You simply want RPGs to be easy so you can explore them in peace. In reality in most games this would just result in a logical breakdown of the world-building when supposedly dangerous areas aren't dangerous at all, and the player realizes this. This applies to all RPGs which are easy, even ones without scaling. In Baldur's Gate a lot of believability in the plot is lost early on when the assassins try to kill you outside the Inn, the encounter is easy and you don't fear for the life of your character. That is exactly what happens to game with lots of scaling, nothing is believable, and whatever lore and world-building crumbles under the weight of how the game actually plays. Skyrim is nothing but a plastic and fake environment. Easy. Use a level-cap, restrict the amount of xp that is given. Or like Fallout or Arcanum did, make getting enough xp for leveling a long process, so the player spends longer times while at the same level. Fallout never had any problem with exploration, you could go straight to Necropolis right after the Rat Cave. You problems you speak of are skewed by your opinions on recent TES games, which used continuous worlds, not Fallout which is a series of town maps separated and linked by a fast travel map. Your only argument is basically "Exploration without scaling is too hard", to which I would say "Exploration in RPGs is about taking the risk of going into a higher lvl area for higher lvl content". I can't say much because your idea of exploration is completionism, like mowing down the fog-of-war like a lawnmower on an RTS map so you can tell yourself you've "looked everywhere". Traditional view of cRPG exploration is taking a big risk.

Do you still need steam for the anthology?

But exploration does not also mean "being constantly pushed towards stronger enemies. Meet invisible barriers".

I like exploring partly because of pretty sceneries, yes, but mostly because of narratives. I like the freedom to go where I want, do where I want and see what I want - not just according to the grand plan a game designer have laid out that I should follow (you may not do so, but expect to be punished for it).


How I see it:

I do not like that quest and loot may become irrelevant because I happened to stay a little too long in one place, and therefore level up above the mobs for that quest, it becomes boring. I like to complete all quests in a game, at my leisure, in my own pace and in my own order also. If I would like to do the thieves guild quests before the companion quests, then I should be allowed to do so, and not be punished for it by making the companions irrelevant do to getting to much XP and level on the thieves quest.

If I see a interesting mountain and ruins in the distance, then I want to go explore it. I want to go spelunking in caves. I want to rob those tombes. And I want to do it when I want to do it, not when a designer have decided that I should be able to do it. I want sometimes to be distracted from the main storyline an interesting narrative (verbal or visual) when I spot it, not when I am lead to it. When I enter a cave / ruin I want it to be fun to explore, no matter at what point in game time I enter that cave / ruin, and I want the loot I find to be meaningful to me then.

That is how I see exploring.

That's not RPG exploration, it's a generalized word you call "exploration", like saying "role playing is about playing a role", it's reducing it to meaninglessness within it's context of a cRPG.

If you "explore" for cosmetic reasons, to see pretty scenery, it's exploration. If you explore because of the poverty of your current equipment and consumables, and want more to increase your chances of survival and progression in the game, that's Exploration. Think of it like big and little letter.

Which part of (both, the pretending and the mods) wasn't clear? I can do that all without mods, in vanilla. Yes I can do it even better with mods, but they're not necessary to do so. Yes it is just pretending but I still haven't seen even one other game mentioned that allows that.
You may consider this pretending as not worth it for you, not supported by game mechanics and therefor not benefiting your play style or enhancing your role playing. It does work for others and given the success of Skyrim, rather well.

Sure. After all, it's my opinion that area-scaling would restrict the numbers of approaches you can do in Skyrim (which quests / guilds / none of it) too much. I didn't claim area scaling not working in Fallout, Arcanum or other games nor that level scaling would have improved it - which the other way around is, what some of you guys think automagically would apply for Skyrim.

Wrong. My point (which you keep missing) is, that this is entirely possible in Morrowind as well as in Skyrim. Straight out of Helgen with a lvl 1 or 2 char, I could pinpoint you to a location where a Draugr Deathlord (lvl 30) spawns with likely a ebony weapon (usually lvl 27+) in his hands. Even WITH the level scaling implemented in Skyrim. It's all there, you just have to know where to look for it, as in any other game with area scaling.