Are you seeing anything beyond those which I'm missing? If not, then I'm not oversimplifying it
What you are missing is that the second one is part of the first one..
How can I be missing that when I pointed it out myself? It was right before the line you quoted. I colored it this time for you, so you can't miss it:
As far as "freedoms" (in regards to this particular topic) go, I believe we can summarize them as:
1) Multiple ways to advance a quest, which includes makings sure there isn't a set order in which to approach a quest.
2) The ability to kill any NPC without breaking the game.
Of the two, the latter has the most significant impact on production. The two are certainly linked, but the latter extends beyond the first in other ways. Are you seeing anything beyond those which I'm missing? If not, then I'm not oversimplifying it (although I do try and describe them in ways that are simple just for the benefit of the post).
..and these are all factors that another game with day & night schedules had to deal with (Skyrim). However, Bethesda prevented many problems by not allowing players to kill critical NPCs
Please tell me that this is an aprils fools' joke, none of those factors have any meaningful impact in that game, in fact, I think that you can become the mega ultra archmage knowing only like 3 novice spells. Morrowind? I'll give you that, but Skyrim? That has to be one of the worst examples of player agency I can think of.
Also Bethesda games are buggy as hell, is an awful counterexample in every possible way
Your obvious dislike for Bethesda games aside, you said
"..factors like spells, information gathered, factions, previous quest results and a lot of other things that aren't just an alive/dead check are going to make the implementation of elaborate schedules hard.". I merely pointed out another game that tackled this same challenge. How you can debate those elements don't exist in Skyrim is beyond me.
Also, I was not arguing against your claim that it was "hard", only that Bethesda made things easier on themselves by making sure players couldn't accidentally kill critical quest NPCs (unless, of course, their deaths were part of the quest). Again, Larian Studios chose to take the more difficult path instead, and in the end it cost the game a major feature that at least some of us were looking forward to. Would you prefer I not express my disappointment in the hopes that a similar mistake isn't repeated the next time around?
