TES V, New Ideas

[Theori]

I second Elseweyr, and raise you solutions to the big city thing.

First, Elsweyr is supposed to be a desert, no? Ok, so you have an entire desert to roam about in on a camel, giving lots of space to explore and such, and all the sand would make for some interesting game mechanics if they were implemented (sand dunes sliding, hiding under the sand to ambush people, sand storms from which you have to shelter, you have to keep water with you because it's a bloody desert, blah blah blah).

But then you've got this huuuuge sprawling city that's begging to be based off something Arabian-ish. Thievery, small street urchins to do your bidding, precious gems, lots of trade. I mean, look at Assassin's Creed (or Prince of Persia, for that matter), that's Arabian-ish, and that's only based on assassinations (or platforming, in the case of PoP, but Babylon looked pretty huge to me in Two Thrones). Throw in some Aladdin, genies and you've got epic win.

 

[Parallel Streaks]

Eye Spider, you took my idea, spruced it up, dressed it up, and combed it's hair. And for this, I thank you immensely ^^ I thank you all for showing support in this, now that we've seen that gstaff guy patrolling around, we know that Bethesda will listen if we keep this thread alive for long enough to be found. I also have several new ideas, if you'd humor me here.

First of all, better rewards. I mean, "You saved the city, the world, and all that is good, here's a title which nobody uses, a suit of armour a bit worse than the best armour, and no store discounts whatsoever." I mean, call me presumptious, but you could at least get a free pastry for defeating the ultimate evil. Furthermore, how about some three dimensional Villains? Not just the old I wanna destroy everything and laugh at you types? I mean, Dagoth Ur had the advantage because he thought he was upholding his orders and protecting Nerevar.

 

[SX_imer]

It's my opinion that a lot can be done in TES V I agree about the big city idea I was also quite disappointed with the size of the Imperial City. I recently played Overlord and I really liked the idea of building a castle up from nothing. I found the houses in Oblivion quite useless yes you can customize them, but what's the point in having a house in Oblivion when it serves little practical use.

I would like to see a quest in TES V similar to the Stronghold quest in Morrowind in which you have to construct a stronghold but with a lot more stronghold related quests. I found the ending of the main quest in Oblivion quite disappointing, you get a piece of armor and life goes on a usual. Imagine that in TES V, once you finish the main quest you get knighted and become a lord and you get your own castle. Imagine having your own HUGE fortress brimming with life, you have your own guards, you have peasants (or slaves ) working on the farms surrounding your stronghold, you have your own stables, your own servants, you compete with other lords, you go to war, you organize your castle defenses, you host archery competitions, you personally choose your bodyguards. It would be role playing at it's finest and for once you wouldn't be the one getting bossed around by every housewife with a rat infested basement but instead you would be the one assigning orders.

I found some of the quests in Oblivion quite mmorpg like. Go to point B, kill everything in sight, bring person/object X back to point A. I did however like the Shivering Isles quests because they were a lot more colorful and the quirky landscape reminded me a lot of Morrowind.

I would like to see one thing in TES V especially. Fear. I would like to see small groups of enemy's actually run away from me. It struck me kind of odd that a overgrown rat would attack a walking tank carrying a 6 foot sword.

The Vampirism was nice but a vampire questline wouldn't have hurt considering they are so cool.

 

[Parallel Streaks]

I for one want some more, y'know "Good" looking Vampires. The Bethesda Team usually lead that to the Mod Squad, but imagine how much the experts could do to make Vampirism be as good as it could be. I wouldn't like to spend ages customising my character just for him to be turned into a wrinkely pentioner as soon as I get Vampirised. Also, in a book in Oblivion they describe all the different types of Vampires for a short while, why not be one of those Vampires for a while? One Vampire Sect seems to be all you get, the Berne, Aundae, and Quarra questlines were great, albeit a bit short, why can't they do a fully fledged war in the shadows type questline?

 

[Cousin_IT]

Im liking the idea of a desert based TESV so long as it doesnt end up as a fantasy medieval version of Dune (ie a corrupt empire, two fueding factions, a protagonist seeking to restore his/her family & a race of strange desert ppl who he teams up with). A desert environment would allow for some pretty kewl environment effects like the sandstorms (although those were just irritating in Morrowind tbh) with Oases & maybe a central river going across the region. Could be Egyptlike towns/cities following the banks of the river with more arabian/north african influenced cities further out into the desert/mountains.

Fear would be kinda kewl, though it would get a bit dull if everyone just ran away from you like in Fable if u went super evil.

Also, I found the qusts in Oblivion to be a lil too unambiguous (least the ones I did) morally. My favourite quest/mission in Morrowind was the one you got from the captain of the guard at the fort outside Balmora. He simply says I know the dark elves in the social club (I forget its name) are criminals, but I cant prove it, & I dont care how you do it but will you kill them for me & ill give you a big pile of gold & a kewl ring. I preferred that way of presenting it, whereas in Oblivion most quests had you gather the proof to justify your actions before going about killing/arresting anyone (Dark Brotherhood excepted, but they just do what their guildmaster tells them...till you become guildmaster that is :-( ).
Infact thats something, I find (as has been said) when you reach the top of the various guilds, things just seem to stop. The idea of being able to give orders to people & lead the guild(s) in a meaningfull way would be awsome.

Oh, & being the desert in this post assassins creed age the Dark Brotherhood have to be there somewhere, though hopefully there wouldnt be any rooftop platforming & long dialogue cutscenes

But all this aside, the most important thing imo is that it sticks to the lore as closely as can. Although that said, with Uriel dead; perhaps this opens up a whole new oppertunity for Tamril lore that isnt so much constrained by the backstory. Perhaps it could be several years/decades in the future & the empire has begun to fracture as confidence in the Elder Council (I never completed the main quest so dunno quite how it ends) is being lost or something. Your, for whatever reason, caught up in this & I guess either fight for the Council, against the empire, or just get on with life as best as can.

 

[Kogarian]

...Thanks for reading this far, what do you guys think?

I think you should work in videogame design. Help create gameplay and storylines. You've stated many great ideas.

 

[Surggical_Scar]

@ Race Discrimination: 'Bite the curb, Bosmer.'

@ Eye-Spider: Hey, Ankh-Morpork! XD

OT:

I really hope they hive TES a kick up the arse in the culture department, as it feels like the society is lingering around the late Dark Ages, and can't quite be arsed to wander into the Renaissance. Hell, it'd be good enough vehicle to introduce new items, factions and locations, if the world has begun to focus on invention, instead of conquest.

I'm not demanding Steampunk (although that would make me crem my pants in no uncertain terms), but I'd like to see the people of TES actually using their Int for creativity, instead of Magika. At the moment, it feels like the citizens have just realised that rocks really aren't edible. Can anyone say Craftsmen's Guild?

Brining back some of the complexity and accessibility of Morrowind is a must. I understand the Mages Guild was strict in Oblivion, but it took all the flavour out of adventuring as a barbarian, only to assist some wimpy cloth-wearing sissies so I can make a half-decent battleaxe.

Unarmoured skils, polearms, crossbows, these were all good ideas! There was no need to dumb it down.

Frankly, if TES:V is going to meet our expectations, Bethesda should take a look at the mods made by the community and work from there. After all, the fans tend to only change what needs changing to make a more pleasant gaming experience.

Oh, and one more thing. A plot I'll actually get involved with. Oblivion felt like I'd walked into the middle of a cheap J.R.R. Tolkien knock-off.

 

[Andy Chalk]

My big three complaints with the Elder Scrolls games have been covered, but I'll pile on for emphasis.

- Hire more than three voice actors. Or hire three voice actors who can do multiple voices.

- Fix the character leveling system. It's broken. It was gimpy in Daggerfall, flawed in Morrowind and completely buggered in Oblivion. I should never have to assign most of my primary skills to abilities completely unrelated to my chosen class simply so I can properly control the pace at which I level and avoid being completely screwed by the time I hit level ten. This is a major sticking point for me, and while I understand and appreciate what Bethesda is trying to do with the skill system, the unavoidable conclusion is that it simply doesn't work.

- Adjust the scale of the game. Either make the entire game take place in a single, massive city or settlement (similar to Eye Spider's idea) or make the game world ridiculously huge so when you travel across the country, it actually feels like you traveled across the country. I shouldn't be able to take a five-minute walk from the capital city of Cyrodiil to the very northern-most boundaries of the nation, and then turn around and still see it. It takes me longer to walk to the irrigation pond behind my house, and while I realize that rendering such a massive world is an inherently risky proposition on its own (see Daggerfall) I'd rather have that than the continued pretense than this jumbo parking lot-sized patch of geography is supposed to be the greatest nation in Tamriel.

 

[murd3r1ne]

Reading through and something i wanted to add was that in oblivion i loved the idea of going to war as it were against the enemy but collecting allies from around the land (Big oblivion gate mission), what i expected from the mission though was a huge battle, kind of like the old battle fought over a field, adding to previous suggestions it would be good if you fought vast numbers while being the leader, a massive good vs evil battle LOTR eat your heart out.

 

[Surggical_Scar]

Yes, yes and furthermore, yes.

The beggars are a case and point in Oblivion. Did something happen with the audio files, or did they really think we wouldn't realise that they all say 'Thank You Kind Sir' in the same, infuriating manner?

I liked the proposition earlier on about linking skills directly to stats, as I now can't use Alchemy, Security (in fact, with the new system, I don't need it at all) and several other otherwise useful skills.

Oh, that and the fact that some magic skills levels up at a snail's pace compared to others. Restoration, I'm looking at you. Be ashamed, you little bastard.

Rambling on further, combat could do with some more expansion. It seems a bit dull for Mages, Warriors and Assassins all to use the same attack styles. Why can't we see some Brawling and Martial Arts? Fencing and Blade Katas? Couple it with specific benefits for each style, and combat would become less of a chore, and a bit more fun.

Well, seeing as no-one else is posting, I'll just extend this post with my banal prattling.

Making skills such as Mercantile more useful would be nice. I mean, the perks are nice, but they don't really represent that premise that your character is now a shrewd entrepreur, really. Instead of investing in a business, why not build one?

I guess this builds off' the endgame appeal of the Guilds, but it's quite one-dimensional to find that your character's sole source of income is derived from dungeon-crawling and murder. Open a tavern, a stable, a smithy, something to show that your character can interact with the world beyond the tip of a sword.

What else...what else?

In regards to the setting, I doubt TES will get out of the countryside, although expansions to cities to make them...well...cities, is really a must. You shouldn't be able to wipe out the population of the etire town in a matter of minutes without some sort of missile. Elswyr and Black Mash would be interesting, perhaps difficult terrains to pull off, as they don't have the variety of the other settings. In Oblivion, we had swamps, grasslands, coastal tundra and dense forests.

In Black Marsh? Marsh. In Elswyr? Sand. It'd get a bit samey.

Perhaps drawing in some of the other Daedric Princes, Shivering Isles-style, would be interesting. Hermaeus Mora's plane of Oblivion, anyone? Then we can get Lovecraftian on your asses.

I jest, but really, let's mix it up a little. Why not go hopping all over the place? Say, a series of quests are set in a city in Elswyr, a few in Black Marsh, but with a central 'hub' location for general exploration? You could access them in the same way we did it in Morrowind, ships and so on. That way, we can have our cake and eat eat, whilst the game designers go off and have a heart attack from exxhaustion.

Mwahaha...

 

[SX_imer]

Rambling on further, combat could do with some more expansion. It seems a bit dull for Mages, Warriors and Assassins all to use the same attack styles. Why can't we see some Brawling and Martial Arts? Fencing and Blade Katas? Couple it with specific benefits for each style, and combat would become less of a chore, and a bit more fun.

I agree, they could implement something like the Jade Empire fighting system where you learn different fighting styles and maybe add some wicked combos. That would actually make the third person view useful.

 

[Surggical_Scar]

Indeed.

I'd also like to see Hand-To-Hand improved. Compensate for our lack of range with some more effective attacks, instead of some paltry fatigue damage.

Can you say...HADOUKEN!

 

[Parallel Streaks]

I have GOT to stop blinking, because I miss like five posts. I like all of your ideas, especially those of Eye Spider, even though everybody gives him credit when he was expanding on my first post But it's all howdy doody because I just want Bethesda to know that we don't want TES to die yet, it's been a major part of my development, from those Golden moments in Daggerfall to destroying the Heart of Lorkhan in Morrowind. For some reason when I think of good ideas for TES I either think of the City idea, or a massive flotilla of Ships in the Sea of Ghosts or somewhere similiar, where you could use a boat to travel to the other Nations, or stay there and make Money as a Smuggler, or pirate. Perhaps even extend the Dwemer Artifacts that people have recovered, such as Dwemer Propellors on ships to make them travel with great speeds. Or, like said before, an Airship. I'm not talking a whole fleet, maybe one unique one which you can obtain at the end of the game. Or you could become a Politician, twisting and snaking your way to the Council, or a Knight, or anything! Choices choices motherf***ing choices!!

 

[Parallel Streaks]

Furthermore, I think introducing the Akavir to the rest of the Provinces would be a good move, I love the idea of being able to play a Monkey-Man, or even a Tsaesi, or however you spell it ^^

 

[dazirius]

I have a couple of ideas that may be worth voicing. Please excuse the interjections of my ramblomatic, it seems to be stuck on jabber at the moment, but here goes.

I see two levels at which change can be made; change to the core engine, and change to the attidude/organisation of the whole project.

Firstly and I personally believe least revolutionary but nonetheless neccessary, the interface and movement system need overhaulling. If it had to go exclusively third person, I don't mind, but make it more like Prince of Persia/Assassin's Creed. If it could be done, I would suggest licensing the free-running system used in the latter as I think it's awesome and could be tweaked to make you seem less superhero by tethering it to your agility level. I loved the way that by adding the free-running system to Assassin's Creed, further avenues were opened. Instead of just being able to climb walls, a la Tomb Raider, there are some great evasive techniques like leaping through a market stall etc.

OK. That aside, I'll get on to what I think is the good stuff.

1. a Semi-fectoid:
Everybody and their dog have decent internet connections these days (hyperbole alert) and it seems that people are not averse to paying small monthly fees for added value.

2. a Personal Opinion
I love realistic interaction with NPCs. This is a fairly big sticking point for me and by the time a game has jarred me back out to reality for the third time due to repetitive dialogue I get a little upset.

3. a Possible Solution
Progressive content. When the game is released it has all the interactions and dialogue of a fully fledged release. The twist is that you pay a small ($5? £2.50?) monthly fee to play. That money isn't immediately syphoned off into profit for the game publishers shareholders, nor indeed is it all used to pay server costs as there is not an online version of the game in any MMORPG sense. Instead, the money goes to asset creators, 3d modellers, artists, writers and voice talent.
Instead of large bugfix patches and highly infrequent add-on packs, every week/two weeks/month (but it must be <= 1 month imho) new lines of dialogue are added for old characters, new characters are created, new quests are integrated and new areas/buildings/developments are built and placed.
If the engine is strong enough to handle a construction kit, it ought to be good enough to have a team of professional content creators slipping in the odd extra thing here and there every few days/weeks/months.
Also, there could be a high level of community involvement as ideas/scripts/quests could be submitted by the modding community for inclusion into the main game stream.

4. a Problem
If I were to install a game @ around 4GB or somesuch and find that a month later it was hogging more like 8GB I'd be a little concerned.

5. a Solution (I think)
For additions to the cityscape, the size should be pretty negligable, a few .x files or something for the models and some compressed textures. For new lines of dialogue, simply forget the old ones. There's loads of time to download new lines of dialogue (or redownload the old ones) while I'm doing some other quest or just not shopping in that particular shop.

So, guess which of these two ideas I'm most proud of...

 

[Aberforths Patronus]

I want Shurikens back, so I can make an awesome Assassin class. Have some super nasty poisons too, that you need an excellent score in Alchemy to get. Combine the awesome poison and the Shuriken for some beasty OHKO's with the Assassin that is of high level ^.^

 

[freetogoodhome]

Wow eye spider that idea is amazing. Another idea I'd like to see is people knowing you. For example I'm the head of the fighters guild and the arena grand champion. Bandits should not rush me one on one swinging their axe around like they've been taking skooma for the past hour. They should recognise what I'm good in and try to neutralise that skill. If I'm an incredibly quick character they should try and slow me down. If I'm known to be good with a blade then they should ataack me from further away.

 

[Wormthong]

im thinking maybe its a good idea to make some changes to the whole story i would for instance love to see how TES would end up in 1000 years or so (maybe include some small firearms but nothing realy big so it dusnt end up a shooter)what i would also like to see is some more water interaction lets say we take eye spiders idea and put it in the golden age
where you can own a ship become a captain and stuff like that and for once (and this is realy important and probably possible in 2 to 3 years)i would like to have a microfone and just speak to npc's and dont say its not possible becouse there are already alot of chat bots on the internet witch dont use speach but can "understand" what is being said to them
in the chat combine that with a speach recognition system and ur done
furthermore i totaly love the desert and the big city idea (that may be just becouse i dont like swamps meadows forests and things like that exept when its a city in a forrest that always works out quite nice in fantasy books)and add some wind effects when i walk in a forrest i want to hear the wind and see the trees move(this may be a little bit much to ask but i played crysis so im sorry if im being overley confident of the extreme fast change in graphix)and just generaly work on the sounds anyway becouse if i cut someone i want to hear some leather armor tear apart not just the sam old "cling" wherever you hit if in oblivion the creatures didnt scream if they got hit i would have thought they blocked it

anywayz please dont take this seriously its 0:45 here and i just needed something to do so just pick out the parts that are usefull and disgard the rest
(i dont know anything about how things in the pc world will be in 2 to 3 years so i may have very very much overestemated a few things so dont blame me i just play games i know nothing about the tecnical details)