209 réponses à ce sujet

[Lunatic Pandora]

I'll start by saying I'm not a fan of "pure" open worlds or MMOs, a game has to have either an amazing story, or enjoyable gameplay. That being said I absolutely hated oblivious level scaling mechanic, no matter how powerful you got so did everything else. Bandits hiding in a random cave with daedra armor? Yeah OK... Anyway, I actually enjoyed skyrim, but by far the coolest thing was; RANDOM DRAGON ATTACKS. could happen anywhere, anytime.

[In Exile]

It's not the "walking" that's the game play. It's what you find while "walking" that is the experience. You also must not be playing any of BGS' games properly at all, as all of my experiences have been discovered because of exploring. That is the whole point of the game, "go where you want and do what you want."

 

New Vegas was empty and boring. Only the main story was somewhat interesting, but the rest of the world took a step back compared to Fallout 3. It's more "scripted" approach was not a benefit in the slightest. Maybe had Obsidian had more time to flesh out the experience, things could have potentially been different.

 

We'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't have thousands of hours of playing Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim because I was walking and didn't find anything to do... GTA is at best a rental because once you complete it, you are done. That's why GTA Online was such a big deal to add in re-playability the series doesn't have, and failed miserably. TES never needed multiplayer because it doesn't suffer from a lack of re-playability.

 

What exactly do you "find" that's useful? There's stuff to kill and holes in the ground to grave-rob, but that's identical gameplay with slightly different settings. I don't see how that's in any way different than the random activities in GTA. 

 

I can go anywhere, which is either a cave or forest, and do anything, which is either empty graves or kill things or both, and that's about it. Sometimes I suppose I could burn villages down and indiscriminately kill people, and then use my massive sums of gold from grave-robbing to just pay off the guards to forgive the crimes of genocide that I committed. I could sneak around to kill things or rob graves, or maybe use magic to kill things or rob graves, but that's it. 

 

What's the gameplay? Where's the content? I don't get it. 

[hellbiter88]

I'll start by saying I'm not a fan of "pure" open worlds or MMOs, a game has to have either an amazing story, or enjoyable gameplay. That being said I absolutely hated oblivious level scaling mechanic, no matter how powerful you got so did everything else. Bandits hiding in a random cave with daedra armor? Yeah OK... Anyway, I actually enjoyed skyrim, but by far the coolest thing was; RANDOM DRAGON ATTACKS. could happen anywhere, anytime.

 

that's hilarious. totally feel you on the level scaling. Skyrim's dragons, though? Very cool, very alarming at first... but after like 100 playthroughs they sort of became the cliff racers of TES series. Annoying as hell and blocking progress. Thank God for mods.

[In Exile]

I certainly hope Fallout 4 is not going to have a voiced protagonist. I can't imagine why Bethesda would want to go that way?

But crazy fools are suddenly put in charge of things all over the world, so anything can happen.

 

And no. Bioware have not found their niche. They had one. But they lost it. One question is if they intend/ want to make the ME2/3 paradigm their new niche? Maybe, since it seemed to have some success. If so, it's goodbye from me.

 

Fallout with VO would be bizarre. Bestheda writes pure garbage dialogue. Voicing it won't make it better - it'll just make the horrible dialogue more in your face, and make it less fun for everyone who likes to play out their head-cannon. 

[Revan Reborn]

I prefer what they're donig with DAI regarding the openness of the world. I agree with the story-related reasons others have stated.

 

Plus, I can't imagine, say, Redcliff and Halamshiral existing in the same sandbox.

I personally see Thedas as one contiguous world. I honestly will not be surprised if BioWare's games become closer to true sandboxes over time.

 

Yeah I understand what you're saying, even if I don't agree with all of it. I actually felt the demos captured the environments rather well, and fully expect to play through those on a 3rd or 4th playthrough. That said, I share your statement about skipping certain content/areas you've already seen. I'm sure there are many areas in inquisition that i'll pass by after my virgin play, but I think that is true with just about any game. And in contrast to that, there are many areas I'm confident that I'll return to frequently. I guess it just depends on the type of player and the type of content that's being presented to that player. It's impossible for Bioware to construct a game that equally appeals to all persons, so they're throwing out as much diversity and as many options as they can, and I respect that.

 

Ironically the best open world game I've ever played was Minecraft--the simplest and yet most complex game I've ever seen. No quest, no true objective whatsoever, just pure endless environment with virtually endless replayability. No open world game with a plot can grant that kind of freedom, and some devs try to hard to emulate that sort of environment. A good semi-open world, with an array of choices and sites that can change depending on your choices, and evolve based on your actions--with a solid plotline that keeps you engaged is exactly what I'm looking for in Inquisition. But that's just me.

When I'm referring to re-playability, I'm speaking in regards to the same playthrough. The fact you have to do multiple playthrough really underlines how static the content becomes once you complete it. This is why, while open world sounds good at first, given BioWare's approach, I'm not so sure that is something they can pull off effectively. Any of The Elder Scrolls titles with mods from the community is really the ultimate experience for me. The game is also changing and evolving because the community is always adding to it.

 

I believe DAI will be a success. I just believe because of the type of developer BioWare is, going bigger is not something that will necessarily be a benefit to their games. I think their best reference to learn from will be the other studios who make open world RPGs and see how they continue to tackle these issues between a living, breathing open world and a compelling story.

 

*sigh* So much for that franchise... damn... I hope that's not true.  Fallout was one of the few open-world games out there that let us properly roleplay.  Well, the Obsidian version at least...  If they go that route, TES is sure to follow.

Having a voiced protagonist isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would only view it as bad if BGS took the BioWare approach by making the experience linear and taking the choices out of your hands. If BGS only adds VO for main and side quests for appropriate situations, but still allows us to explore and approach the world the way we want, I don't see that being a detriment. I believe the silent protagonist of Skyrim took away from the main story significantly. It is such an antiquated and archaic way of telling a story.

[Jester]

 That's the point. Fallout NV was a buggy, incomplete mess that Obsidian (like KotOR II) did not finish.

Well, I'll politely disagree. 

Falllout: NV is a game that's infinitely better than Fallout 3 - in terms of map design, NPCs (I can't remember a single person from F3, same problem as with Skyrim) and most importantly - the story and faithfullness to Fallout lore. Fallout 3 raped the world's lore (and timeline) and left it bloodied, humiliated and barely breathing in the middle of the room for everyone to see. Simply unforgivable.

While New Vegas was possibly bugged at release, my current Steam version with all DLCs (no mods) has no bugs, apart from crashing on me a few times.

And, while I wouldn't normally have mentioned it - DLCs for New Vegas are actually good - and they tie into the main story of the game, expanding upon the characters and past events, while those in F3 were just random missions in a new setting.

 

As to KotOR II, it unfortunately required to be slightly modded - Restored Content mod improved the ending and several other issues that the game had with the unfinished storyline. After that, it has superior (compared with predecessor) atmosphere, characters, storyline, dialogues and most of all - discussions with Kreia about the nature of the Force and Light/Dark Side dichotomy. KotOR II actually managed to be something more than a regular game, while KotOR I, while a very good game was only your typical heroic experience, with a solid twist in the middle. 

[Icy Magebane]

Having a voiced protagonist isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would only view it as bad if BGS took the BioWare approach by making the experience linear and taking the choices out of your hands. If BGS only adds VO for main and side quests for appropriate situations, but still allows us to explore and approach the world the way we want, I don't see that being a detriment. I believe the silent protagonist of Skyrim took away from the main story significantly. It is such an antiquated and archaic way of telling a story.

I don't want to derail your topic with a discussion about voiced protagonists, so I'll simply say that I disagree and leave it at that.

[Revan Reborn]

I certainly hope Fallout 4 is not going to have a voiced protagonist. I can't imagine why Bethesda would want to go that way?

But crazy fools are suddenly put in charge of things all over the world, so anything can happen.

 

And no. Bioware have not found their niche. They had one. But they lost it. One question is if they intend/ want to make the ME2/3 paradigm their new niche? Maybe, since it seemed to have some success. If so, it's goodbye from me.

Probably because the only aspect their games have really failed are by telling a compelling main story with characters that matter? It makes a lot of sense if you think about it. As far as who would make the call? That would be Todd Howard, who has been in charge of BGS since Redguard all the way through Skyrim.

 

Yes, and it's just snowy forest and mountains.

 

 

Fid you actually followed what the developpers are saying ?

Forests; Tundras; Mountains; Swamps; Hot springs; Oceans; Cities; Ruins; The list can go on and on. There is a lot more variety in terms of the environments in Skyrim than you give credit. How long did you play the game?

 

I'll start by saying I'm not a fan of "pure" open worlds or MMOs, a game has to have either an amazing story, or enjoyable gameplay. That being said I absolutely hated oblivious level scaling mechanic, no matter how powerful you got so did everything else. Bandits hiding in a random cave with daedra armor? Yeah OK... Anyway, I actually enjoyed skyrim, but by far the coolest thing was; RANDOM DRAGON ATTACKS. could happen anywhere, anytime.

Oblivion is the game you are referring to. Even Todd Howard admitted the level scaling and gear scaling were terrible and they would never repeat those mistakes again. Keeping to his word, Fallout 3 and Skyrim did not suffer from the blatant and overt level/gear scaling that Oblivion did.

 

Dragon attacks were just Skyrim's version of Oblivion gates. Random encounters meant to keep things interesting. I actually enjoyed both, but found dragon fights to be more engaging as going into oblivion gates to close them became monotonous after a while.

[bEVEsthda]

Having a voiced protagonist isn't necessarily a bad thing. 

 

I disagree. A voiced protagonist is always a bad thing in a roleplaying game. It becomes a different kind of game. No matter how some people want to stop, or declare pointless, any discussion of what roleplaying or rpg is, it doesn't change that. It's something different.

[In Exile]

I disagree. A voiced protagonist is always a bad thing in a roleplaying game. It becomes a different kind of game. No matter how some people want to stop, or declare pointless, any discussion of what roleplaying or rpg is, it doesn't change that. It's something different.

Let's not derail the topic. It is interesting to talk about open-world. 

[The Night Haunter]

A true Open World DA game could be amazing, or it could wind up losing its focus (traditionally Open World games have been much less focused than games like DA). Honestly I don't think they should go all the way to a full open world, DAI seems like a nice middleground.

[Giantdeathrobot]

Fallout New Vegas married open world and a story-driven experience (unlike Fallout 3 which had a decent open world but a crap story), and it did it really well, but the open world was less open that in normal Bethesda games. Several parts of the game were filled with stuff like Deathclaws, Super Mutants, Cazadores, Giant Radscorpions and other nasties that would kill your low level character in very short order. There were possible shortcuts if you knew them, but for your first time playing the game you had to follow the plotted line until you reached New Vegas itself, and started gaining the power and weapons to be able to explore anywhere.

 

And you know what? I loved that. Running away from a single Deathclaw early game, only to come back at level 30 and pop their collective heads open with explosive .50 bullets was incredibly satisfying. It's the kind of experience you just don't get with level scaling, and it's why I vastly prefer a fixed level range, or least a soft scaling like Origins did. Of course, die hard open world fans were dissapointed with New Vegas denying them parts of the map until they (gasp!) leveled in a RPG. Me, I think that's good design and I love that Bioware went that way.

 

But anyway, Inquisition is not open world, it's just like many RPGs; you have levels accessible by a map. Those levels are just much larger than before and less linear. You couldn't have a Bioware style RPG in an unrestricted open world.

[In Exile]

Fallout New Vegas married open world and a story-driven experience (unlike Fallout 3 which had a decent open world but a crap story), and it did it really well, but the open world was less open that in normal Bethesda games. Several parts of the game were filled with stuff like Deathclaws, Super Mutants, Cazadores, Giant Radscorpions and other nasties that would kill your low level character in very short order. There were possible shortcuts if you knew them, but for your first time playing the game you had to follow the plotted line until you reached New Vegas itself, and started gaining the power and weapons to be able to explore anywhere.

 

And you know what? I loved that. Running away from a single Deathclaw early game, only to come back at level 30 and pop their collective heads open with explosive .50 bullets was incredibly satisfying. It's the kind of experience you just don't get with level scaling, and it's why I vastly prefer a fixed level range, or least a soft scaling like Origins did. Of course, die hard open world fans were dissapointed with New Vegas denying them parts of the map until they (gasp!) leveled in a RPG. Me, I think that's good design and I love that Bioware went that way.

 

But anyway, Inquisition is not open world, it's just like many RPGs; you have levels accessible by a map. Those levels are just much larger than before and less linear. You couldn't have a Bioware style RPG in an unrestricted open world.

 

The other problem with an open-world game is that there's no real sense of scale. Everything is pathetically tiny. 

[Revan Reborn]

What exactly do you "find" that's useful? There's stuff to kill and holes in the ground to grave-rob, but that's identical gameplay with slightly different settings. I don't see how that's in any way different than the random activities in GTA. 

 

I can go anywhere, which is either a cave or forest, and do anything, which is either empty graves or kill things or both, and that's about it. Sometimes I suppose I could burn villages down and indiscriminately kill people, and then use my massive sums of gold from grave-robbing to just pay off the guards to forgive the crimes of genocide that I committed. I could sneak around to kill things or rob graves, or maybe use magic to kill things or rob graves, but that's it. 

 

What's the gameplay? Where's the content? I don't get it. 

It's the Radiant AI system, that I mentioned earlier, that changes it from just being another redundant encounter. Unlike most open world games, BGS games are actually unpredictable, and it's in large part because of the NPC behavior. You will never come across the same encounter or experience twice. Walking along the same road five times will in almost all cases lead to five different experiences.

 

Whether it's a Dark Brotherhood assassin, vampires, followers of Miraak, dragons, Stormcloaks and Imperial guards,, even wildlife, what you can encounter is almost limitless. I'm just referring to potential combat encounters. I have played Skyrim well over a thousand hours, and I can load up the game right now and guarantee you I will find something or experience something I never did before. Very few games have that level of fidelity or dynamism at their core. Morrowind is another great example. Oblivion is to a lesser extent due to the terrible level and gear scaling.

 

Skyrim is what you make it. If all you want to do is the grave-robbing murderer, then that is the lifestyle you will solely experience. Just looking at the various archetypes of warrior, mage, and rogue, there is so much freedom and customization in how you approach each situation. I'm just talking about the base game and haven't even brought up the thriving modding community, which adds even more content.

 

I suppose the difference between us is how we perceive the experience and what we are looking for in the game.

 

that's hilarious. totally feel you on the level scaling. Skyrim's dragons, though? Very cool, very alarming at first... but after like 100 playthroughs they sort of became the cliff racers of TES series. Annoying as hell and blocking progress. Thank God for mods.

Unless thirty dragons were spawning on top of your head when coming out of a cave, they will never rival cliff racers...

 

Dragons became a little tedious, but not nearly as much as Oblivion gates.

 

Fallout with VO would be bizarre. Bestheda writes pure garbage dialogue. Voicing it won't make it better - it'll just make the horrible dialogue more in your face, and make it less fun for everyone who likes to play out their head-cannon. 

Their dialogue may come across as "pure garbage" because they largely don't dedicate the same level of detail or care to telling a main story and characters like BioWare. BGS is much more concerned with creating a real world, so they focus more on culture, places, environments, and the various things that inhabit them. It's a very different way to write a game, but clearly it has served BGS very well. Seeing BioWare games and CDPR, I think BGS recognizes having a better story with VO is the direction RPGs seem to be going. It would be a given they would likely take the dialogue more seriously as they never had to in the past.

 

Well, I'll politely disagree. 

Falllout: NV is a game that's infinitely better than Fallout 3 - in terms of map design, NPCs (I can't remember a single person from F3, same problem as with Skyrim) and most importantly - the story and faithfullness to Fallout lore. Fallout 3 raped the world's lore (and timeline) and left it bloodied, humiliated and barely breathing in the middle of the room for everyone to see. Simply unforgivable.

While New Vegas was possibly bugged at release, my current Steam version with all DLCs (no mods) has no bugs, apart from crashing on me a few times.

And, while I wouldn't normally have mentioned it - DLCs for New Vegas are actually good - and they tie into the main story of the game, expanding upon the characters and past events, while those in F3 were just random missions in a new setting.

 

As to KotOR II, it unfortunately required to be slightly modded - Restored Content mod improved the ending and several other issues that the game had with the unfinished storyline. After that, it has superior (compared with predecessor) atmosphere, characters, storyline, dialogues and most of all - discussions with Kreia about the nature of the Force and Light/Dark Side dichotomy. KotOR II actually managed to be something more than a regular game, while KotOR I, while a very good game was only your typical heroic experience, with a solid twist in the middle. 

Three-Dog, Liberty Prime, Cicero and Sheogorath don't come to mind? Those were just more of the absurd, memorable characters.

 

Fallout NV had a better story than Fallout 3. However, it's map design was infinitely worse than Fallout 3. Outside of the strip, most of the environment came across as uninspiring and largely undeveloped. Washington, D.C. was definitely a much better location to have a game. Ah I see, you are looking at Fallout and Fallout 2 to judge Fallout 3 and Fallout NV. To compare Interplay/Black Isle to BGS/Obsidian is silly. The games have little in common as 3 and NV are clearly made from the BGS game philosophy.

 

The reason you clearly prefer NV is because many developers from Obsidian came from Black Isle, who made Fallout and Fallout 2, so they have a better understanding of the subject matter. As independent entities, however, Fallout NV was plagued with lots of bugs and was far from a finished product.

 

I'll actually agree with you that KotOR II was better than KotOR I (I don't even need the restoration mod for it to be clearly better). This assertion is somewhat irrelevant though as KotOR I was developed by BioWare and not BGS. Either way, the one parallel that can be made is Obsidian always releases incomplete products, for some strange reason. Either way, BGS is the master when it comes to developing living, breathing worlds. New Vegas had a better story, but fell flat in a lot of other aspects that gave Fallout 3 must more re-playability, regardless of the fact BGS was retconning canon from Fallout 1 and 2.

[Lebanese Dude]

The other problem with an open-world game is that there's no real sense of scale. Everything is pathetically tiny.

Not if you walk everywhere

[In Exile]

It's the Radiant AI system, that I mentioned earlier, that changes it from just being another redundant encounter. Unlike most open world games, BGS games are actually unpredictable, and it's in large part because of the NPC behavior. You will never come across the same encounter or experience twice. Walking along the same road five times will in almost all cases lead to five different experiences.

 

Whether it's a Dark Brotherhood assassin, vampires, followers of Miraak, dragons, Stormcloaks and Imperial guards,, even wildlife, what you can encounter is almost limitless. I'm just referring to potential combat encounters. I have played Skyrim well over a thousand hours, and I can load up the game right now and guarantee you I will find something or experience something I never did before. Very few games have that level of fidelity or dynamism at their core. Morrowind is another great example. Oblivion is to a lesser extent due to the terrible level and gear scaling.

 

Skyrim is what you make it. If all you want to do is the grave-robbing murderer, then that is the lifestyle you will solely experience. Just looking at the various archetypes of warrior, mage, and rogue, there is so much freedom and customization in how you approach each situation. I'm just talking about the base game and haven't even brought up the thriving modding community, which adds even more content.

 

There's nothing "realistic" or living about the different skins that enemies will have. Yes, you see different stuff... but that stuff isn't interest. Stormcloaks are just mooks. As are imperials. As are bandits. As are dragons. Killing a stormcloak isn't different from killing an imperial. The gameplay is the same. There's no deep or sophisticated interaction with them - you're either killing them or not.

 

Sure, stuff is new, but there's nothing particularly interesting about this "new" content. It's dynamic in that it isn't pre-scripted, but there's nothing to the dynamic content that they give you. 

 

Skyrim doesn't give you variety. Sure, I can create different types of combat playstyles (assuming I don't play long enough to just get 80% of the skills), but all of the quests are identical, no one recognizes any difference in what I do, and there isn't that much difference in terms of the story. 

 

We'll never see eye to eye on this, but as a matter of fact I just don't see that much variety in content.

[Giantdeathrobot]

The other problem with an open-world game is that there's no real sense of scale. Everything is pathetically tiny. 

 

Aye, that's a big advantage of semi-open world like Inquisition does. The game has deserts, snowy mountains, the hinterlands, a lush forest, marshes, and that's not all. Bethesda have less variety as a rule.

 

Morrowind may be the most varied and even then large parts of the map are still grey-brown wasteland, mixed with some lush greenlands in the south and a volcano. The quirky vegetation and architecture still makes it a great world to explore, but still.

 

Oblivion is green forests pretty much all over. Some marshes in the south, plains around Skingrad, some snow north, that's pretty much it.

 

Fallout 3 has grey-brown wasteland with a green tint, and... that's pretty much it. Oh yeah, Washington itself is less brown and more grey. Yay.

 

Fallout New Vegas is desert and more desert. And some differently colored rocks. Zion Canyon and the Divide in the DLCs look awesome however.

 

Skyrim is snow, mountains, snow on mountains, a forest in the south, and the semi-swampy regions around Solitude and Riften. Much of it is grey.

 

That's much less overall variety, which is inevitable when you attempt to cram an entire province or several US States in one level but still.

[Revan Reborn]

A true Open World DA game could be amazing, or it could wind up losing its focus (traditionally Open World games have been much less focused than games like DA). Honestly I don't think they should go all the way to a full open world, DAI seems like a nice middleground.

For me, I only see the sense in going open world if it actually makes sense for your game design. We'll see how DAI translates, but I'm not so necessarily convinced having larger environments will lead to a better experience.

 

Fallout New Vegas married open world and a story-driven experience (unlike Fallout 3 which had a decent open world but a crap story), and it did it really well, but the open world was less open that in normal Bethesda games. Several parts of the game were filled with stuff like Deathclaws, Super Mutants, Cazadores, Giant Radscorpions and other nasties that would kill your low level character in very short order. There were possible shortcuts if you knew them, but for your first time playing the game you had to follow the plotted line until you reached New Vegas itself, and started gaining the power and weapons to be able to explore anywhere.

 

And you know what? I loved that. Running away from a single Deathclaw early game, only to come back at level 30 and pop their collective heads open with explosive .50 bullets was incredibly satisfying. It's the kind of experience you just don't get with level scaling, and it's why I vastly prefer a fixed level range, or least a soft scaling like Origins did. Of course, die hard open world fans were dissapointed with New Vegas denying them parts of the map until they (gasp!) leveled in a RPG. Me, I think that's good design and I love that Bioware went that way.

 

But anyway, Inquisition is not open world, it's just like many RPGs; you have levels accessible by a map. Those levels are just much larger than before and less linear. You couldn't have a Bioware style RPG in an unrestricted open world.

NV story > Fallout 3 story

Fallout 3 environment > NV environment

 

This is the way I personally saw it. There were plenty of examples of getting in over your head quickly in Fallout 3 as well. If you just came out of Vault 101 and decided to go to DC or to Big Town, prepare to get massacred by the onslaught of super mutants.

 

BioWare hasn't gone full open world yet, but it's a possibility it could happen. That largely depends on the reception of DAI. For now, BioWare is taking a rather safe path of going bigger and trying not to affect the story. The question is are they able to fill that space in a way that's compelling and not tedious or worthless?

[In Exile]

 

 

Fallout NV had a better story than Fallout 3. However, it's map design was infinitely worse than Fallout 3. Outside of the strip, most of the environment came across as uninspiring and largely undeveloped. Washington, D.C. was definitely a much better location to have a game. Ah I see, you are looking at Fallout and Fallout 2 to judge Fallout 3 and Fallout NV. To compare Interplay/Black Isle to BGS/Obsidian is silly. The games have little in common as 3 and NV are clearly made from the BGS game philosophy.

 

 

The game world was empty because it was realistic. It's a wasteland. That's the point. In NV, any town or settlement is set up in a logical way, near supplies of water and food. In FO3, there was better content in exploration because there was more stuff to discover every little while, but it made no sense as a living world. That's what I don't get when you use a description like "living" - FO3 is the epitome of a game-y world where the map is designed as a (bad) way of giving the player content at set intervals, with no regard for how a map as designed could actually support life. 

[Dr. Rush]

No, DAI should only take place in the city of Kirkwall. Why doesn't Bioware give us the sequel that we are all asking for???

[In Exile]

Not if you walk everywhere

 

It's small especially if you walk everywhere. I live downtown in a major metropolis, and I walk everywhere. The downtown area where I live likely is as big as the entire Skyrim map. 

[Lebanese Dude]

There's nothing "realistic" or living about the different skins that enemies will have. Yes, you see different stuff... but that stuff isn't interest. Stormcloaks are just mooks. As are imperials. As are bandits. As are dragons. Killing a stormcloak isn't different from killing an imperial. The gameplay is the same. There's no deep or sophisticated interaction with them - you're either killing them or not.
 
Sure, stuff is new, but there's nothing particularly interesting about this "new" content. It's dynamic in that it isn't pre-scripted, but there's nothing to the dynamic content that they give you. 
 
Skyrim doesn't give you variety. Sure, I can create different types of combat playstyles (assuming I don't play long enough to just get 80% of the skills), but all of the quests are identical, no one recognizes any difference in what I do, and there isn't that much difference in terms of the story. 
 
We'll never see eye to eye on this, but as a matter of fact I just don't see that much variety in content.

There is plenty of content. It's just presented with a different approach.

Think of open world RPGs as a box of Legos. You have an instruction set to tell you how to build whatever is inside it.

However you can ignore the guide completely and make your own creations using your imagination.

By buying more Legos (installing mods), you can create some truly amazing creations.

So in a sense, the content is fragmented and it is up to the player to make them fit using their imagination.

[AlexiaRevan]

I'm for it . If only because it make the world 'Alive' and give you a reason to go back to an Area . 

[deuce985]

I think they should. It would show a lot of innovation if Bioware could mold a fun open world and then create an amazing narrative with awesome characters. I can't think of many open games that are like that. Usually they sacrifice one or the other. DAI seems to be trying to do a little of everything and if it's executed right, I think that in itself is innovative compared to what's on the market. The next step will be to integrate full sandbox worlds with their narrative/characters. DAI is a big step for them but I think full sandbox is their natural evolution and where they can really innovate. I simply can't name many sandbox RPGs that have an amazing world to explore with incredible narrative/characters in it. That is my dream RPG and I've yet to play one.

[In Exile]

Think of open world RPGs as a box of Legos. You have an instruction set to tell you how to build whatever is inside it.

However you can ignore the guide completely and make your own creations using your imagination.

 

Except I can't. When I play with my Lego, I can decide that my dragonborn lego piece organizes a third uprising using the power of the guilds in Skyrim to overthrow the imperials, bring down the stormcloaks, and begin his campaign to create a new empire much in the same way that Septim himself did, before eventually asceding to godhood. 

 

In Skyrim, I have to play through the contrived and unreactive civil war plot. 

 

A sandbox is like my lego's come with a bunch of instructions that say "you're only allowed to make believe the following things:..."  - it's the worst of both worlds. It's not reactive or immersive as a story, and there's no real room for imagination.