Well im sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense. Batman isnt even an rpg...its an action game with maybe a few open-world elements. And of course your Skyrim character is a reflection of yourself. If you feel absolutely no motivation to do anything or make any decisions...well then thatd be that you just arent interested in that kind of game. Don't say Skyrim is a bad game...say you just like Arkham City better. 

I agree with ThatGuy. In Arkham City you're Batman. Just like in Devil May Cry you're Dante. Or, in Metal Gear you're Solid Snake... usually. In Skyrim, you're you. Just like in any other rpg or mmo. Your choice. Your quest. You decide. Don't want to be a douche assassin? Don't join the Dark Brotherhood. Smith armor and become the most badass blacksmith this side of the Pale. In Arkham, I can't decide that I want to be a dick and murder a town for their flowers. I'm Batman, I'm here to save the day. In Skyrim, I'm the hero. The urgency you experience is the urgency you get by role playing as you in that world. I may not feel the need to save the world from dragons today because I feel a more pressing need to find out who crossed my thieves guild. That's my urgency today. As Batman, my urgency is to stop whoever is wrecking Gotham's shet, and I have 10 hours to do it. well, endless hours if you want to think in a literal sense, because I can stop playing whenever I want.

They're different games, telling different types of stories. And, yes, you play roles in both games, but the extent that your personel story is written out is very different.

Are you saying that Skyrim doesn't give you the option to become a Batman-esque character? Couldn't you simply roleplay a vigilante who only helps the good? Who forgoes the use of cowardly magic and fights bare-knuckle style, stalks the streets at night enacting justice?

It seems not that Skyrim fails at role-playing, just that you'd rather roleplay as Batman, and like the convenience of a game where Batman has already been pre-rolled for you. But to say that a game that only offers your specific role-playing character to play as is a better RPG, is a misinterpretation of the genre entirely. Obviously a game laboriously constructed around one single character is going to have more depth involved with his actions and storyline. But what if I don't want to play as Batman!?

Any choices you believe you are offered in Arkham are meaningless when you consider the game is a singular experience, and not an RPG in the slightest. Sorry bro.

As a huge Batman fan, I also kind of felt like Arkham City did a better job at roleplaying than Skyrim. But that's mostly due to Skyrim's severe lack of a "no" option.

In Skyrim, I mostly felt compelled to complete quests becuase it was in my quest log. For example, I found myself in Markarth after a hangover, and on my way out a guy asked me for help with a haunted house. I went with him, and then some evil voice said we had to kill each other to get out. I was sitting there saying, "Okay, let's stay calm and find another way out," but the guy went all batshit crazy, and then I was like, "well, now you gotta die." Then the evil voice told me to bring him some guy as a sacrifice, and I couldn't say no. It was more like, "I'll do it later." 20-30 hours later, some priest found himself in a cage, and I got a mace.

The thing is, is that Skyrim doesn't present your choices very well. That doesn't mean that there aren't choices. I didn't have to bring that priest to the haunted house, but I wanted to. Just becuase I hide behind the fact that it was part of my quest log (and I really like clearing out my quest log) doesn't change outcome. I broke an innocent man to clear my quest log. What does that say about me?

That's when I stopped liking my Skyrim character. He started out as a Breton with the desire to help those who couldn't help themselves, and save all of Skyrim from the dragon threat. Somewhere along the line, he turned into a ruthless power hungry battlemage who would stop at nothing in his quest for supreme power.

That's not the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be like Batman.

Arkham City does a superb job of making me feel like Batman. Dropping from a gargoyle, taking out an bad guy, then zipping back to another cover spot while the other bad guys lose their shit is just as  exhilarating as walking into a room with 20 guys and beating them senseless with counter strikes, criticals, and batarangs, all without getting a scratch on the Dark Knight.

I like being Batman better than being my Breton in Skyrim. That doesn't mean that Arkham City is a better roleplaying game.

In Arkham City, I discovered that I could do all the things Batman could do, and nothing more. In Skyrim, I discovered that, in a world where I could do anything, I wanted to do everything. That doesn't mean I had to. I could have just been a mage who froze his enemies in their tracks. I could have just been a beggar thief who pickpocketed his way to riches. I could have been a knight who fought for his realm, a healer that did no harm, but kept his companions alive so that they could do harm, or a necromancer fueled by the revelry of death.

I became all of those things. And that is why Skyrim is the better roleplaying game.

I agree with Matt to some extent. His argument is not “I would rather be Batman than a character I made myself”; his argument is that Batman is a character who is proactive and responds to an ever-changing environment, while your character in Skyrim, no matter how you choose to play him, is a pawn who accepts whatever he is told, living in a world where even the most urgent quest can be put on hold for months on end.

Here is a example (spoiler alert!): Early on in Skyrim, you get a quest to find a fugitive. When you find her, she says, "Actually, I didn’t do anything wrong! They’re trying to kill me! Go kill them instead!” So you go off to kill the thieves who are chasing her. When you find their leader, he says, “Actually, she is a criminal! We don’t want to kill her; we just want to bring her to justice!” So you can either kill the leader of the thieves (and get 500 gold from the fugitive), or turn over the fugitive (and get 500 gold from the thieves). Which decision is right? Who do you trust? You are given no information beyond a he-said, she-said quest. No matter what you choose, you never find out what the right decision was.

So what role do you get to play here? Are you the chivalrous hero who dispatches hordes of thieves to save an innocent woman? Are you the courageous law-abiding citizen who turns in a wanted criminal to bring her to justice? Or are you, in both cases, a gullible dupe who believes whatever story he most recently heard? That’s not role-playing; that’s choosing two tracks on the same railroad.

As far as immersion, he is also correct that there’s not a feeling of urgency. “Open world” doesn’t have to mean that everything freezes until you actually show up for a quest. Someone once asked, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” But in Skyrim, that’s a non-issue, because the tree doesn’t even fall until you get there. If you’re supposed to watch the tree fall, then it will wait patiently while you roam around towns, explore barrows, and clear out thieves’ dens. Then, when you get around to the tree quest, it will dutifully fall when you show up. There is no sense that things are happening, or that events will progress without you there. I would love to show up to a town and find it in flames, with the inhabitants saying, “Where were you?? You were supposed to be here weeks ago!”

Seriously, this has got to be one of the worst comparisons. As for the RPG element, Skyrim has Batman beat by VERY much. Don't get me wrong, Batman: Arhkam City is an excellent game, but it's not an RPG and is no where near as big of a game as Skyrim.

The point is not how big the game is; the point is how the game conveys a sense of a real, living, breathing world with actions that have consequences. So far, I can’t see any consequences in Skyrim.

Some people need directed play. Arkham City's better for you. In Skyrim you make your own fun, so you have to be the sort of person who enjoys doing that, because the quests are not the best part of the game. You don't even have to do any of the quests in Skyrim, and you are perfectly free to never do the ones that annoy you for whatever reason - which if you're the sort of person who can't bear to miss a single sidequest is understandably anathema. (Though Skyrim won't let you drop a quest once you get it, which I consider an implementation defect).

There is no morality system in Skyrim, but there are certainly consequences, personal relationships, and faction relationships - people will remember whether you helped or opposed them. You may be surprised to find someone has sent assassins after you if you annoy them sufficiently or the entire village attacks you on sight.

In Batman: AC you are roleplaying Batman - I would never think of changing up his character, even if the game let you. So it's more focused. In Skyrim you are roleplaying whoever you want - I've got a couple characters who behave completely different from each other; mix up your playing style and your ethics and it's quite a different game!

Neither of those is right, it's just what you like. The most telling comment here is perhaps Andy Bates with 'No matter what you choose, you never find out what the right decision was.'  It's whatever decision I made, obviously.

 

Now, I'm playing, and loving, both games right now. And while I see Matt's point, I can't really jump on board with it. I don't think it comes down to a question of definition, as the editor's note suggests, I think instead the culprit is a little more insidious. I see both games as role playing. It gives me great joy to step into the boots of The Batman, and play using his already established identity, morals, ethics, and Modus operandi...however I also get great joy from developing my own in Skyrim. It comes down to a question of...

 

wait for it...

Imagination. If you have the imagination to step into the boots of a Khjiit and develop your own sense of how you do things, then if anything, being Batman is kind of stifling.

Truth be told, I'm more of a "Punisher" man myself and I hate letting the crooks live. But, I defer to the character I'm playing.

If Matt's character is, as he puts it a "slack-jawed douche" that just does as he is told, then I would suggest it is not a lack of the game, or the in game character, and I will leave it there for you to draw your own conclusion.

Well, Bates, who exactly is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to leave a quest and go pick flowers and catch butterflies?? Bethesda doesn't put a time limit on questing... but if they did then people would complain there's no time to go explore. If you want to run off and do whatever you want to do and abandon the quest for a few weeks thats completely your decision. So if its your decision don't complain about it. FREEDOM to do what you want is not a bad thing. If you want to go from quest to quest without stopping then by all means go for it and the storyline won't feel as staggered.

As for your helping person A and helping person B comparison...people will give you their side of the story and you decide whichever person to help is right for you (and oftentimes they don't both give you the same reward and they are on different factions, so it depends which faction you want to support). Or you can choose neither provided you don't have OCD about having uncompleted quests in your quest log. There's nothing wrong with that. Anyways, Bates, perhaps you rented the game for a few days because you really dont sound like you know the game at all. 

Yeah, I pretty much agree with almost all the commenters who replied here. The decision making/character role play is all up to the player.

First time I played through Skyrim was as a thief/assassin who relied on stealth and very "dark" moral choices to become a powerful character. He didn't bother smithing items--just relied on what he could find in the world, steal from towns or murder and steal off NPC corpses. He snuck through dungeons and towns like a phantom, taking what he wanted and murdering as much as possible from the shadows.

Now, playing though Skyrim a second time, my character shuns the Thieves Guild and Assassin's Guild. (Actually it would be cool to have a mod made where this type of character can exterminate these two guilds for the good citizens of Skyrim!) He's a two-handed hammer wielding, daedric armor wearing badass who is actually a good-guy hero. He will always help out NPC's in need, and has never used stealth to take out the bad guys. He charges headlong into dungeons, scattering or freezing enemies with a dragon shout, starts swinging with a magical hammer that does 234 points of damage with one swing, and then revels in the cutscenes of "killshots". He's a Nord, so he chose to side with the Stormcloaks and wipe out the Imperial puppets of the Thalmor--Skyrim for the Nords! All the armor and weapons he uses now are stuff he's crafted himself.

I'm still having fun playing this character, but I already plan my third character to be a female magic-using elf who will probably side with the Imperials. She will shun the Companions, maybe get involved with the Theives Guild but mainly concentrate on the Mage's Guild quests and the Bard's College quests--two quest lines my other two characters did not do because they did not fit into my concept of their style.

So the point is, if you want to feel connected to your character, set the goals/story of that character yourself, instead of having the game do it for you. As Doc Steele pointed out above, this requires imagination--your imagination!

I love the freedom I have to decide first what/who my character will be and then set mini-goals in the game to achieve those concepts. For example, to get Daedric Armor for my Nord warrior required some very specific things I needed to do--increasing smithing, finding daedric hearts and ebony ingots or the gold to purchase those WITHOUT stealing, etc. were engaging pursuits and a lot of fun.

So if you are tired of your Khajit character, the fault lies with you, and your imagination. Put some thought into your character, and decide some ground rules before playing and then try to stick to those rules. But remember--you have the FREEDOM to break those rules if you want to, or if circumstances lead you to some hard decisions! Ain't  that just like life? This is the very definition of a true RPG game!

Sure, Skyrim has some confusing plot lines (in the opening scene, why the hell would the guards who just tried to cut my head off actually go out of their way to help me escape a dragon???), and a few too many bugs (broken quests--some need console commands to fix), but it's easily the best on the market today in terms of freedom of play.

I kept waiting for you to explain how Batman: AC was a better RPG than Skyrim, but it seems you never intended to... Was the title just a trick to get views or something?  Serious question.

If you think Batman was the better game, then that's fine, because that's your opinion.  However, when you get specific and attempt to make an argument, at least bring up some points and compare both games in the same specific way, not speak so broadly about how you thought one was better than the other.

Wow this is crazy role playing game can be interperated in many different ways. Skyrim and all of the tes games are from the old table top rpg mold. The GM (game master) in table top games makes the world the other players play a role in that world. That is the classic role playing game and more of the american style. Western games from that extentiion let you do what you want when you want. Pause when you want, talk to whoever you want, when you want, kill who you want ect.

Seems like the authuor of the peice preferes the more japanese style of game design. You can only do what I want you to do when I want you to do it. You can only be this character the way it's made to be played.This is my world, play your role and enjoy the story ive crafted for you.

 Also the point about which is more relevant katy perry or nirvana is full of holes. If your a 16 year old girl katy perry resonates with you more than nirvana ever will. Who is to say that nirvanas music is better or worse?(cant be by sales because you said that does not matter) (cant be by critical acclaim because that does not matter either) Only other choices are musical skill and how it resonates with the listener.

If going by pure musical skill jazz musicians are far more talented than nirvana could ever be. Without jazz their would be no nirvana or cord progressions. Zepplen is much, much the same. Many of their ideas are jazz based.

(I lived the 90's and own every nirvana cd) The only difference between katy perry and nirvana is that they are different styles of music suited for different people. Just like skyrim and batman are different styles with rpg elements directed at the player in different ways. Just because it's not the style of rpg you preffer that does not make it less.

The article was obviously contrairian for page hits and I don't fault you guys for that. But to say that one is more rpg than another because it's easier for you to wrap your head around the latter is nonsense. Fact : you didn't like skyrim as much as the other tes games. Fact : it can't be that you changed or your taste are different it has to be the games fault for not being rpg enough. Fact table top rpg's like rift were around long before final fantasy.

Batman is based on a more focused narrative because they have batman to rely on. If skyrim was called elder scrolls conan adventures things would be different. This is my first post been lurking for a long time.

 

Very interesting comments. That made me think about this single question “How could Skyrim could be better/innovative/immersive and really interesting place to be”. (Off topic but I think interesting)

1. Consequences, consequences, consequences.
2. no clearly good –no clearly bad.
3. no/less scripting events.

 What I would like, is Skyrim with more dragonian AI. Or in other words, a world with only/more fuzzy logic in it. Not black or white, but grey. The kind of AI that could make you think twice to enter a city (you would rather be better off in the countryside alone). Because you never know what could happen in a city. You could talk/kill/give money/help someone that could trigger a significant change (short term-long term like the butterfly effect) in the overall fuzzy equation that could affect the whole city (or other cities too as the matter of fact). Your own life would be always in danger. Every criminal could kill/backstab you just to take your money when you fell short in the fuzzy equation (alone/dark/well dressed/no guards etc..=try to kill you) so you should watch your step (what about a kill-the end option). And you could never guess what you will find in a city/place due to the consequences of your previous actions in some other place. 

So I imagine a game with layers (local/province/state) of weight parameters in a fuzzy equation, that create a fragile balance where everything can change in long term.

Could this be really a standalone game? No. But there could be some kind of mod/DLC for Skyrim where Bestheda could experiment (I believe they want to) with those things. 

So “Grab this last DLC and relive the Skyrim adventure like you never before. You think that you mastered everything? You killed every dragon? You discovered every dungeon?  Try this new DLC that rewrites the world and try to survive. How long can you stay alive? What choices would you make this time? Now, with new quests (e.g. some general goals that could or could not accomplish) and places. Watch out, because every step could be your last!”.

Gotta agree with you, Matt.

Yes, is a matter of taste as many have implied, but my take on this matter is that everytime I ask/read someone recomending these open-worlded games, the bite is always: You can do whatever you like.

Like what? killing and stealing burning everyone on sight? Why on earth would I want to do that? I know I can choose not to... But if I do that, I'm choosing not to explore around 50% of the game, just because I don't see the videogame me as an evil person.

In the other hand, Arkham City doesn't give you the freedom to "do", but you have the freedom to tackle this adventure the way you like... the way you take the role of The Batman.

This rant made me laugh. You have a good point here, sir! 

Literally applying this traditional interpretation of RPG to Skyrim seems slightly redundant to me.  Open-world games in the Bethesda vein have more presence on the games market than they used to.  When RPG was used in its original sense, I imagine games like the Final Fantasy Series, Baldur’s Gate etc. defined it.  So I guess with preconceptions about setting/size/stats/upgradable aspects and/or character development in mind, RPG was the best description for the stuff Bethesda started to make, even though it began to ask questions about how non-linear your path through a game could be.

 

They just have different agendas.  I think it’s hard to disagree with your statement that (paraphrased) “In AC you assume a” (predefined) “role and follow a story in it to a much greater extent than Skyrim”.  But the distinction there is that the role exists and you fill the shoes. The Witcher 2 slays in this respect – meaningful decisions and character development etc.  But this detail in the story is more fleshed out because it is narrower, obviously.  I think it must be hard to develop quests with meaningful choices in a Skyrim game model, because the breadth of race/class/play style is so broad that it would be difficult to make appropriate choices available for all of the character possibilities players use – “I’m a Khajiit so I am an ostracized stranger, but I have found my place in Skyrim with the Thieves...where is my choice”.  When you are limited to one dude, their motivations are clearer, even if the choices are polar – (destroy/save this place or person) – the character has some fundamental aspects.  It’s like in Deus Ex, the Adam character was (sortof) plausibly able to argue the case for whichever ending you picked, because they had written a character would might think that way, rather than leaving it to the player to define the individual.

 

So I guess I agree, but only when the argument is based on the use of RPG in a traditional sense.  Skyrim is certainly much more open world than AC. But I do agree that sometimes the choice of “do the quest or don’t” is as far as many of the branches in Skyrim’s quests go.

They probably could’ve made an incredibly rich consequence-laden experience more like Mass Effect if they hadn’t developed the volume of sidequests which they did.  But I guess they thought people wanted that many sidequests.

Definitely a thought-provoking article.