I was watching “…why Skyrim?” by Razbuten on sloptube this aft and it’s so weird that it finally took Starfield for people to realise. Like Fallout 76 wasn’t enough, only now are negative things people were first saying about Skyrim in 2012 finally bleeding into mainstream consciousness. It’s so wild, like wow they ruined the magic system? The game has worse writing than a PS1 era Mega Man X game??? Skyrim is just shitty Game of Thrones?? Welcome to thirteen years ago!!
Bethesda hasn’t made a really good game since 2002, but it’ll probably be years before that realisation sinks in.
Maybe we really do need an
emoji.
Until then I’m gonna keep saying it: “enjoyment is subjective”.
The thing is, everything that everyone is mad at Starfield for can also be applied to every Bethesda developed game going back to at least Skyrim and probably back to Oblivion too
So watching everyone realise that Skyrim has a boring world, dogshit quests in both writing and design, combat design that sucks from any approach, stealth or melee or magic, classes have been removed, and the main story is awful… definitely a big
moment.
I have not heard arguments for enjoying Skyrim that don’t involve modding the game so much it stops being Skyrim either. When people mod New Vegas, they’re usually adding shiny graphics or tweaks to bullet travel, not gutting the entire magic system or replacing the game’s entire main story.
There are games I can accept just aren’t for me, liks I don’t get along with the way movement works in Read Dead Redemption or how momentum builds in Super Mario Bros 3, but Skyrim…
I enjoyed vanilla Skyrim when it came out, and I enjoy it now, I don’t really see why I’d need to, or even how I would “argue for enjoying” it. I like the quests and the combat design and the levelling system. I also know many people who feel similarly. It’s not a super duper amazing game, but it’s fun.
I don’t really care that much, I just think declaring “this media is objectively bad for these subjective reasons” is a very silly take.
Well grats, if you do I’m not gonna stop you or like, call you unserious or whatever. The “objectivity/subjectivity” thing is such a red herring though, this post is more about general consensus turning to match views that were deeply unpopular a decade ago.
Where did I say “objectively bad”, people always do this but pls point out where I said “my view is objective fact and unassailable”?
These are objective statements. At no point in fact did you ever say or even hint these were opinions, I can only find objective statements declaring an absolute truth. The word “realise” alone implies people are coming to believe a certain truth.
Maybe we’re just talking across dialects and crossing wires, so if that’s not what you meant, then sure that’s fine and apologies for the misunderstanding. But with your wording, that’s how it comes across to me.
I read a very different meaning from the phrase “Watching Gmers slowly realise Skyrim is dogshit has been an experience" than I would "Watching Gmers slowly agree with me that Skyrim is dogshit has been an experience”, for example.
EDIT: If we had an emoji called “opinions” I could’ve avoided this silly argument, QED it should exist.
Is this the bit where you want me to preface every opinion I say with “IN MY OPINION” or “SUBJECTIVELY SPEAKING” instead of just taking it as red that views are subjective? Also coming out to defend a 40-million selling game by saying you don’t care and basically demanding that a discussion not happen (“I dont feel the need to argue”, which if u dont then dont) or only happen with specific qualifiers is pretty funny.
I knew you were gonna bug me about “realise”, the reason I use that is because, as in the OP, the public opinion seems to be turning quite suddenly, people are realising they don’t actually think it’s good, lol.
This is basically all nitpicking yeah. People mostly do this when they dislike what someone says, I find. Something that’s worthy to note is that I had long considered Skyrim to be a “lost cause”, in that everyone enjoys it and I just hate the fucker. So it was quite a surprise to see people suddenly turning around and start beating the game up for the same things every Bethesda game since Oblivion has done. Funny…
90% of the time when people say “IN MY OPINION” what they’re doing is signally that they don’t hold the opinion they’re about to express so strongly that they’d be willing to get into a heated debate/argument over it. They’re basically conceding you permission to disagree.
That’s morphed into people expecting that declaration for everything so they don’t feel disrespected by disagreement.
Which is super weird cause it only seems to apply in certain circumstances, usually media criticism. If I say “Jack Black was always an annoying asshole.” No one smugly tells me I should have instead said "it is in my humble opinion that Jack Black has always been an asshole.’ They just make the very easy mental connection. If a statement is either inherently an opinion based on its nature there is no need to preface it, it’s a waste of time.
I think it’s more a matter of gaging how popular your take is going to be with those in your immediate surroundings. Everyone here is probably going to agree with you assessment of Jack Black.
Yeah, Idk why people assume they have to have that “permission”. Obviously I am hip to the idea people like Skyrim…
The fact that it’s opinion is implied unless they specifically say “objectively” or similar (and even then, that word might actually be intended as hyperbole!). Art criticism by definition is opinion-based regardless of how it is phrased, and you shouldn’t have to state it unless you’re a YouTuber trying to stave off hundreds of angry :gamer: comments.
It is frequently taught in English and public speaking courses that phrases like “I think” and “in my opinion” undermine your persuasiveness without significantly changing the meaning of a sentence, and I would have to agree.
People online are terrified of any sort of assertive statement
That’s why you assert your dominance
Gets into T posing position
I’m sorry, but I simply never interpret sentences this way. If you make a statement about reality, I assume you’re declaring it as truth. Maybe that’s just a me problem. (None of the preceding sentences are opinion but are actual fact.)
I did specify this is about criticism. Not everything anyone ever says.
She’s literally just doing art criticism, not declaring herself a perfect and all-knowing arbiter.
I’m only saying that’s not how I interpreted it. People happily declare these things universal truths all the time.
It is perfectly okay to state an opinion objectively. The fact that you figured out that that these cannot be genuinely factual statements shows you are capable of parsing context cues. It’s not necessary to preface an opinion with the fact that it’s an opinion.
this needs to be taught (even) more. It is genuinely hard to figure this out without any guidance especially when you have a hard time picking up on social cues because of autism or similar
Sure. But I also don’t think this is a social cue, it’s a grammatical cue.
It’s objectively bad because I feel like it.
It sucks ass to live in a world where dark souls games are popular and elder scrolls games are not. Less sweaty gamer shit please
Gamers be like “weh why do I miss melee attacks in morrowind! Fix pls!!!” unironically
Hell yeah now that’s the good stuff
Starfield doesn’t have 100% overlap of criticism with Skyrim (easy example: Skyrim has horses!) and certainly not Oblivion
To be clear: Fuck Skyrim, it’s an overrated piece of shit game and the only thing good about it is the modding support, but I strongly believe Starfield is even worse.
Yeah tbf Starfield has its own special problems like planets as little instances and no mooncars. A lot of the same applies though, bad writing copypasted dungeons lifeless characters stripped back mechanics…
I remember seeing footage of Starfield for the first time. I don’t keep up games so I genuinely thought it was some leaked beta footage but then I realized it was set to launch like a year or so later lol
Skyrim has horses???