I don't know about anyone else, but it kind of bugs me that they told us that they started work on it after Oblivion but only just now announced it and they have enough content already done to reveal a bunch of information about the game next month. I mean, how much do you think they've done? Is all of our input here for naught? I mean, yeah, there has been a TES V suggestions thread for a WHILE before they game was announced, but really a lot more is being suggested now that it's been announced. There are a lot of great and somewhat radical ideas and I really hope they can be included in the final product.

I am pretty sure they have thought of things similar to anything we may suggest.

Maybe they are already included?

they still have a year, and they said they took suggestions from the suggestion thread in the podcast

The chances of them implenting anything mentioned until the game release is pretty much zero. Now they just follow the design document, and if they gonna keep adding suggestions it will just delay the game forever. I for one do not want Skyrim to turn into a Duke Nukem Forever just because they gonna add a new feature every week.

The main impact of our input was our response to Oblivion. Not our current suggestions for Skyrim.

We've been speculating and posting suggestions for V since Oblivion was released. They DO read the forums, and I'm sure we'll see some of the communities input make it into the game.

Just don't expect the devs to see every good idea on the forums as something that has to be in the game.

Personally I just wish there was a "Future TES games" section on the forums where we could have discussed and suggested instead of in a cramped little thread.

I didn't say they didn't. But honestly, only the hardcoe TES fans probably voiced themselves in that thread. Now that they've announced it, there are a lot more regular guys in the forums coming up with ideas. Not to mention it's a lot easier coming up with suggestions when you have a definite idea of what you are suggesting for.

What podcast? I'm eager to get my hands on it now

I think by now they are mostly done with all the major ideas and features, they may add little things that we suggest, just don't expect any big change.

Yeah, pretty much.

Well, actually it depends on the type of suggestion. I see the "Make the combat system like ____________" type suggestions and shake my head. This would require a fundamental change in the code, which they are not going to do this far in the development.

Now, if it's something like "add a dead body named after me!", that could happen.

No matter what we say, it's their game, and they're gonna do it their way. Sure, they'll take some ideas they like, but I'm pretty sure it's all planned out by now. I've got a feeling that Todd Howard's already had a vision of this game in mind for a while now. At this point, it's pretty silly to ask for any big new features. To say something like "We better be able to ride dragons!", is pointless now. Whether or not we will, who knows! The point is, they're not gonna add something that big now.

You are assuming that Bethesda cannot make games on their own and need the guidance of their fans if they even hope to create one. They are a game developer you know?


That's absolutely ridiculous to say, Bethesda has made significant changes to games in response to fan criticism.

Unless it's a small change - something that can be made without upsetting the game balance - or something that's already planned/been implemented...no, basically. But if some of the things we're suggesting already exist in the game (hardcoe mode is a good example, if it exists) then there's a chance they might tweak according to what their hardcoe fans think.

You have to remember, they're thinking about more people than just us. Every decision they make will potentially impact the experience for everyone, so it's not just our opinion they're considering. So, yeah, in terms of affecting the outcome of the final game, our speculation is mostly ineffectual.

But that's OK - I like speculating regardless. It's fun to predict what might be in the final game, and see how our predictions change based on what information they've released. I enjoy it.

quite frankly our input is kinda stupid, we think this game should be the absolute best in everything and totally revolutionize graphics and customization, so those astronomical requests will probably be ignored, but I bet the game will still be awesome

This is my view on it to, we may get a few small pieces of goodies that we ask for, but don't expect some of the big ones on release. Still I say keep posting your wildest ideas because we can see these things in expansions and what not. If you think expansions don't expand on the core engine as well, then you have never modded Bloodmoon on the stock Morrowind Construction Set. It added multiple weather types and a few major tweaks with the werewolves that would crash the construction set. We can see these major changes, but like BoSStealthAgent said, they are done with the major stuff for the release version, you just have to post them on and hope that they are added in later. Then agian, you can always mod them in on a PC.

And what are the chances of that happening? Any criticism worth addressing will have to have a large amount of users backing it, rather than a few thousand people with their scattered ideas and suggestions. The only way Bethesda would address any criticism from the latter would be if one of those scattered thoughts was reporting a game-breaking bug.

I'm sure they took at least a few suggestions into account when it was still in pre-production between Oblivion and Fallout 3's release, but not after they started actual development. Bethesda is currently listening to what we have to say about Skyrim at the moment, but any actual suggestions for the game will almost certainly be in vain.

I don't think they respect me personally for suggestions concerning their next game that I've made since their last TES game came out, but I think the sway of the population of the suggestions thread has been noticed.

I like to look at it so that while they may not be able to use our input for their current game they may be able to do that for the next one, so the way I look at it we are not influencing TES: V, but TES: VI

I never expected our input since the announcement to have any impact.

I sleep with confident in the developers AND on the great modders here. No worries.
If the ideas here coincide with their development plan I believe they at least discuss this, but I doubt any major ideas/changes from the forum will have an impact.

That's a factor in why I've been here since Oblivion came out. I wanted to affect some of what they'd think of for TES V.

^
This, in before the chestnut horse has already bolted.

The suggestions thread is a dumping ground to keep people from making hundreds of pointless threads. Game developers are in a position to turn their own ideas into products, they don't need a bunch of forumites to tell them what to do.

They might look at the threads to see what direction the wind is blowing, to support one developer's opinion against another, but they're never going to directly implement anything in the thread that they hadn't already planned on.

I've heard Cliffy B on a podcast specifically say they (developers in genreal) throw out suggestion letters without reading them, for one thing - they don't want to have somebody coming to them hat in hand begging for a cut because an idea they submitted seems to have gotten implemented - if they never read them, they can always dismiss such claims. I don't know what gamesas's policy is specifically, but I think allot of people overestimate the importance or value of their input.

If anything, I would imagine that the mod scene has been more informative to them - popular mods show what the players want badly enough to make for themselves, that probably caries more weight than a thread half-full of unimplementable ideas. If you look at Obsidian's New Vegas - it is pretty much the officialization of several of FO3's most popular mods.

Thats my two cents.