The Elder Scrolls, what does the Future hold?

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Parallel Streaks

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I, like many of my fellow Gamers, am a fan of The Elder Scrolls. And, due to an Elder scrolls game usual development time, we probably won't see one until they've milked Oblivion as much as possible with minimalistic expansion packs and merchandise. And I would just like to enquire as to what YOU think will happen with The Elder Scrolls? An MMORPG, just a better game, or will it be in a futuristic world full of talking Penguin People? The last one isn't likely, I grant you, but you don't know with those wacky Bethesda employees, I mean, they invented Sheogorath, the wacky old codger. I personally hope they add more customisability, such as cloaks, and hats...and cloaks. I personally enjoy making my character as awesome as I can, but I'd like to hear YOUR opinion about it.
 

Private Custard

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They should stop f*cking around and just make a game with the same level of customisation and freedom as Morrowind. Oblivion was like Morrowind but with most of the good bits removed, it was a total let-down. Oblivion wasn't a terrible game, but for a hardcore Morrowind fan it was almost coma-inducingly dull, linear and spoon-fed.

The future of TES is rosy, as long as they don't go for style over substance. I could list all the things that I think they did wrong with Oblivion........but it'd make this post a hell of a lot longer!!
 

Private Custard

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Actually, sod it, I'm wound up now so I have to expand!! I'll copy and paste from 2 posts I made on the official forums.

I want:

1) More items, especially candles and lamps to decorate my house.

2) Some way to place items where I want them without worrying that the Havok physics engine is going to fling them all over the place if I look at them funny.

3) Skills. Longblade, shortblade, axe, spear etc etc etc... I hate the dumbing down of Oblivion, it spread to every aspect of the game and should have been sub-titled 'My First RPG'

4) All houses should be available to live in, without worrying about re-spawning crates etc... It's one of the things that made Morrowind brilliant, the ability to choose your own house.

5) New artifacts and special weapons, not just rip-offs from Morrowind. Oblivion stole, amongst other things, Azuras Star, Necromancers Amulet, Umbra......and on and on and on...

6) More spells. Again Oblivion failed on a massive scale. We want the fun spells, Jump, slowfall, levitate, mark, recall etc etc

7) The ability to wear clothes under armour and robes over the top, or just mix and match. Another of Oblivions fail points.

8) More unique dungeons and caves. So many of Oblivions caves were copy and paste jobs, crates were always found on the raised bits in the corners surrounded by stalagtites and stalagmites.

9) No more scaled levelling. To make it so you can take over the world as a level 1 character renders the entire levelling system null and void, meaning the game isn't full RPG. Remember in Morrowind when you accidentally made it to red mountain as a level 5 character and suddenly got worried for your safety?!

10) More easter eggs, things like Indiana Jones's note, the mudcrab merchant, the message in a bottle.............fishy sticks!! Things that make you want to go out and explore. Oblivion never offered much in the way of special items, and when it awarded them to you, it quite often wanted you to give them away to complete quests (garridans tears, artifacts etc..)

11) Armour - By the time you reach level 20+ in Oblivion, pretty much every bandit is wearing full elven, glass, and laughably, Daedric armour. What makes certain armours special is their exclusivity, I don't want 50 sets of Daedric in my storage chests!!

12) Draw distance - Yes Oblivion had good draw distance, but it didn't half make the world look small. If you're going to give a good draw distance, at least make places look far away.

13) Voice acting - Four words "Thank you kind sir" !! The voice acting was an epic fail. Martin was about as exciting as a coma and the rest of the population comprised of probably less than 15 different voices. The one ray of light was Sheogorath...............although I'm pretty certain the Sheogorath that speaks to you on the shrine quest is not the fake Scottish accented Sheogorath in SI!

14) AI - Just one example of laziness is the infinite arrows trick. Stand out the back of the Chorrol fighters guild when the Orc is doing his archery practice. Just keep taking his arrows off the target.............he'll never ask for them back!

15) Oblivion - If you can be bothered, try doing all the Oblivion gates, you'll soon realise that there are probably less than 10 individual 'Oblivions'. They repeated so often that I could guid a friend around them over voice chat!! This complaint could probably be lumped in with the repeating caves complaint I have.

16) Too much forest - the landscape had no variety, it was either mountains (with snow sometimes) or forests. Morrowind had Azuras Coast, The Ashlands, Mournhold, Solstheim (North and south), The Bitter Coast etc etc....

There's more, but I think Bethesda should know all this. Bethesda have seen what I did to my Morrowind save on the XBox, I had some contact via e-mail. They stopped talking to me when I told them Oblivion was a fail!!
 

Parallel Streaks

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To be honest I thought that Oblivion differed from Morrowind greatly, but in reflection I was one of the mindless drones who were hypnotised by the pretty Graphics and Sean Bean. Infact, within hours of playing I found a sane part of me was browsing the PlanetElderScrolls archives for kick-ass mods which could somehow remind me of Morrowind, but in the end I found that Oblivion was like the watered down, dolled up version of Morrowind, as you said before, and within a week I was gearing up my Night Elf to go down into good old fashioned Ash Lands and Dwemer Ruins. I don't want another Morrowind, but I more dislike the idea of another Oblivion, set it in another new continent, give us back Medium Armor, Spears, Crossbows, Thrown Weapons, and The Death Penalty for gods' sake!
 

Scypemonk

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Sep 26, 2007
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I thought Oblivion was great, and enjoyed the whole streamlined game. But i soon found it to be limited, and dull, and espcially the scaled leveling was annoying.

My guess is they do might do one in Summerset Isle next, since the NPC's talk about it, like the NPC's in morrowind talked about troubles in Cyrrodil. I deffinetly hope for a complexs one like morrowind.
 

Private Custard

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Successful as Morrowind was, I think Bethesda saw dollar signs flashing before their eyes. All they had to do was simplify it for the ADHD generation.....so they did.

I hope they sort it out for the next installment, but I suspect they wont. Oblivion got far too many rave reviews for them to change their path. The problem is that hardcore Morrowind fans are hugely outnumbered by hardcore Oblivion fans. I may as well jump out of an airlock and scream in space for all the good it'll do asking them to revert back to what was once genius but is now merely 'average'.
 

Jakeb Smith

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<3 Private Custard

I really couldn't have said it better. If Bethesda won't listen to you, they won't listen to anybody. That save was wicked, and on the Xbox too.

Bethesda really have a lot to answer for - they dropped the ball in a big way. Whether they will listen to their fans is another thing entirely though. I really hope they do, I'd hate to see the inanity of Oblivion repeated in TES 5 AND Fallout 3.
 

Easykill

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If they bring out the spears again I will be... content. But now they've introduced a lot of people to RPG's with the dumbed down Oblivion, and I'm hoping they return to a Morrowind feel now that hey have a larger, more manstream market. I admit it though. All I truly want from them is a regurgitation of Morrowind with better graphics and more quests. Basically, what Nintendo's critisized for.
 

Private Custard

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God, I'd forgotten about Fallout 3! So they have a couple of chances to show they still have what it takes. I'd get my scrotum pierced if I thought it would guarantee a gaming experience equal to Morrowind!

I think the word for it is 'Magical'.
 

Lightbulb

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Oct 28, 2007
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The next TES game need to do 3 things, and only 3 things:

1) Make the quantity and quality of the dialogue match the quality of the visuals
2) Not have a BROKEN character creation system
3) Get rid of the idea of a levelled world
 

ComradeJim270

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In TES:V, I want to see a game where exploration feels like it did in Morrowind. No more magic compass, or journal that rips my character away from me by making them figure everything out without my assisstance, no more bland and repetitive dungeons. I also want NPCs that are more likable and more interesting, and a deep and interesting story (like in Morrowind) that doesn't clash with the game's presentation (like in Oblivion). Also, more voice actors. How many voice actors did Morrowind have, not counting main characters? Oblivion? A step in the wrong direction. Mass Effect had plenty of voice actors, no problem, I'm sure Bethesda can do the same. I am optimistic about Radiant AI, it has huge potential, I just hope it is utilized in TES:V.

Ultimately, I think it can go one of three ways: Bethesda neglects fans of deep and complex RPGs, like myself, in favor of sycophantic fanboys, or they do the opposite (which would be foolish from a commercial standpoint), or they realize that it's possible to make a game which appeals to both groups by being deep, but presenting that depth in a way that is easy to swallow for those who may be overwhelmed by it (which is what I hope for).
 

Lord_Ascendant

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The next Elder Scrolls must make their game third-person. First person RPGs are hard to follow (Although Dark Messiah was fun) and set us up with some better spells. I came in expecting 3d Baldur's Gate and got a watered down version of said game. The magic was weak until your last level when you got your Uber-destructive spell that can kill anything in one hit. I always set myself up as a magic user hoping to end up looking like Ming the Merciless but aren't allowed to have awesome-looking armor unless you sacrifice all of your limbs to the armor smith. And bring back the Silt Striders, those were the best things in Morrowwind. They were genuinely weird, I like weird. Anyway, let us hope Elder Scrolls 5 works out well. AND MAKE BLOODY SURE THE DARK BROTHERHOOD IS BACK!
 

Easykill

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Lord_Ascendant said:
The next Elder Scrolls must make their game third-person. First person RPGs are hard to follow
Really? I rather liked it. And you can change to third person mode you know, unless they only programmed that for the 360.
 
Nov 28, 2007
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Easykill said:
Lord_Ascendant said:
The next Elder Scrolls must make their game third-person. First person RPGs are hard to follow
Really? I rather liked it. And you can change to third person mode you know, unless they only programmed that for the 360.
You can do it on the PC version too. The only problem, and this is true with both versions, is that it controls like crap in third person.
 

Akimitsu

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I thought Oblivion was actually a good game. Granted, not as good as Morrowind, but good.

What I would like to see for Oblivion is small-scale multiplayer support. Something like 8 or 16 player multiplayer. Perhaps with difficulty scaling so that the game doesn't become too easy with the added help.

The next thing I would love to see is crafting. I would absolutely love to be able to make weapons, armor, and maybe a few other things too. Make it an intricate system, not just "put items together, hit okay and you're done!"

Also, what could be cool is a reputation system, separate from bounties or how much an individual NPC likes you. How about something that could make you hailed as a hero, or a villain, and be treated appropriately in that town or area?

And another thing I would like to see are more guilds, not necessarily focused around combat. How about a Merchant's guild, with favored skills like speechcraft, mercantile, and armorer? How about this guild has a traveling swap meet that goes from town to town, and you can rent a stall and sell to NPCs that walk up and initiate conversations, and this time THEY buy for a markup!

Also, very important! Separate pauldrons from cuirasses! Give the Beast races their unique gait back! Fix the stock facial textures, and also fix self shadows (the quality for them is sub par, in my opinion). Increase the variation in the environments. Don't put towns in cells that are separate from the rest of the outside game-world. Give us back our Mark and Recall, levitation spells.

Man, what else? Eh, I'll leave it at that.
 

beoweasel

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thebobmaster said:
Easykill said:
Lord_Ascendant said:
The next Elder Scrolls must make their game third-person. First person RPGs are hard to follow
Really? I rather liked it. And you can change to third person mode you know, unless they only programmed that for the 360.
You can do it on the PC version too. The only problem, and this is true with both versions, is that it controls like crap in third person.
I dunno, I thought it controlled fine in the third person. Anyway, Bethesda has said that they'll put better detail and control in the third person for Fallout 3. (F03 is promising targeting and over the shoulder camera for 3rd person perspective)
 

beoweasel

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If there is one thing I'd like them to do for the next Elder Scrolls title, its to improve the beast-races appearance. I was a big fan of the Khajit and Argonians from Morrowind, and I was horrified to see how utterly FUGLY they looked in Oblivion.
 

Altercator

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Jan 15, 2008
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If anything, destructible environments in Elder Scrolls.

Bring down fortresses with your fire ball spells; deform the terrain with your earth spell; send physics crashing on your foes with your tornado spell.