I've already clearly stated how much space voiced dialogue takes up. Compare that to anything else. I don't think there's anything that takes up more than 1gb in Oblivion. And that's likely the landscape or something immensly important like that. Voiced dialogue is a novelty, and it quickly wears off. Morrowind was so much more immersive because I didn't have constant annoying voices hammering away at me. Dunmer voices, although awesome, would have been annoying to hear every time I spoke to someone. It's the same with every voice.

Text also leaves a lot to the imagination. I get a feel for each character because of it. And the "you don't have to imagine" argument is invalid. What if Bethesda get more awful voice actors? You can't guarantee they wont. I get what I want to get with text. It also gives mixed feelings about certain characters. The lack of voice acting in Vivec gives him mixed views. Some see him as a pure benevolent being, and some see him as an evil mad god. This kind of stuff create blurred morality, which was one of the best things about Morrowind, and one of the best tools is in any Developers arsonal.

I think it is worth the cost, it adds to make the world come alive, and minimizes suspension of disbelief.

You don't need me to give examples of everything, it is obvious.

Everything is information, information is data, a disk can hold limited data, everything adds to fill up that limit, and everything in that limited amount of data, which is not quests, could have been, i.e. Everything limits the amount of space for quests.

Everything takes time, development time is limited, everything adds to fill up that limit, and anything of that limited amount of time, which is not spend on quests, could have been, i.e. Everything limits the amount of time spend on quests.

Everything costs money, developers have a limited budget, any amount of that limited budget which is not spend on quests development, could have been, i.e. Everything limits the money spend on quest design.

I personally loved all three systems for their own reasons:

Daggerfall: the randomization wasn't nearly as deep as Morrowind or Oblivion. But at the same time it meant that I could spend my character's entire life in one town just doing quests for the local guild.

Morrowind: The journal system was very precise in where it wanted us to go, and though we spent hours looking for locations sometimes, the sense of exploration really gave the game a strong sense of adventure.

Oblivion: A lot of people hated the quest marker. And though it is the complete opposite reason for why I loved Morrowind, I found the map marker a godsend considering NPCs could be anywhere. As for the quests in general, I felt Oblivion's quest lines were a lot more engaging than the rest of the series.

To sum it up, I wish they had a system that supports all three of them.

Randomized guild quests depending on the rank (These quests wouldn't be for advancing your character through the guild, but simply a way to earn money and something to do), a sense of exploration surrounding the quest and a little bit of having to try and find some dungeons or lost locations and missing people, and of course the quests that aren't randomized would keep the same level of engagement.

I think morrowind is an immensely bad example, not only did they not use full voiced dialog, making it less natural, they also have copy pasted page after page, for every citizen, making it essentially even harder to imagine that they somehow said exactly same thing word for word, but in a completely different voice.



what if bethesda makes bad graphics, you can't garantee they wont, maybe we should not have that at all. *gasp* what if they have bad writing!

No risk No reward.



I thought it was his actions which blurred his morality, they could have made him have a emotionless voice like Dr. Manhattan from the watchmen.

Have you ever actually looked at the dialogues in Morrowind? There's around 50 generic greetings, and around 20 greetings for each city. Not to mention the various guild greetings, quest greetings, and greetings for being the Nerevarine (though there was a bug, there where quite a few greetings). And if we take Tribunal/Bloodmoon on board, we have tons more!



I completely agree with you. Let's get rid of the uneeded realism, and get into what makes an RPG a great RPG. More quests, more lore, more content in general. Heck, perhaps we'd even have enough room for your voice acting, then.

Didn't expect me to actually agree with you on that one, did you? I'm all for not settings higher standards of graphics, but I'm not gonna bother arguing about it.



Have you ever played an Elder Scrolls game? Forget that. Have you ever played a Bethesda game? Good writing is one of thier good points. It's one of those things they do better than most. Also, your point is completely invalid there, as bad writing would then make the voice acting awful.

Impressive, I still get the exact same page when asking different people about their job, and they have the same job, or about the same rumor, it's like it is rehearsed.



Well I've read enough of your posts to know where you stand, I was hoping you wouldn't agree though, I'm really not much of a graphics [censored] myself, but I do appreciate art style, and the ability to see the world instead of reading it. Fallout 3 or Oblivion level of graphical detail is fine with me, even morrowind level, but then there better be some kind of awesome something else.



That I did not expect from you.

I think my point still stands. Good voice acting can save bad writing, of course awful voice acting + awful writing, well lets just not go there.

Gonna ignore the voice acting debate for now and just answer the original question. B)

My ideal system for guilds in TESV is something like this...

1. Each major guild should have at least one rival/competitor, with the possible exception of the Thieves Guild.

2. In general, advancement in a guild should come from a combination of meeting skill requirements, completing tasks and contracts, and guild reputation (being on good terms with higher-ups).

3. Guilds should have unique story lines that are essential to those seeking advancement, but completing these quests alone should not be enough to get one very far up in the ranks, and as the player gets closer to the end of the quest line, he/she must earn the respect needed to finish them. Again, this comes from a combination of reputation, skill requirements, and completing tasks/contracts (these would mostly be generated randomly).

4. Randomly generated tasks should help the player to gain reputation as well as provide a bit of money and experience. Doing these tasks may also lead to future quests from the people you meet while on the job; i.e. say your task is to find a rare magic book for the Mages Guild library, you may forge a connection with the librarian which will open up a new quest or access to privileged information.

5. Randomly generated tasks become more difficult/complex/dangerous as the player advances in the guild.

6. Each guild should have its own benefits and drawbacks. e.g. being a member of the Morag Tong would give less infamy and more leniency from guards than being in the Dark Brotherhood, but being in the Dark Brotherhood offers better rewards.

7. Some guild ideas:
- Fighters Guild / private mercenary company (a la Blackwater)
- Mages Guild / Necromancers guild
- Dark Brotherhood / Morag Tong (or equivalent)
- Thieves Guild
- Some sort of political equivalent to Great Houses . . . e.g. Clans?
- Guilds for activities (assuming activities are incorporated into the game; see http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1099525-tes-v-ideas-and-suggestions-169/page__st__40__p__16084697&#entry16084697 for a rundown of my ideas for activities) -- Blacksmiths Guild, Fishermans Guild, Alchemists Guild, etc. Access to these would be based on skill levels and forging relationships with the right NPCs. Once a member, one gains access to certain benefits (a shopkeeper in each guild, materials relevant to each guild, maybe a special perk that assist the player in the relevant activity).

:thumbsup:

Yes, because it's a moot argument by now, anyway.

And I like everything you suggest and I would add to that more real responsibilities when you become a guild leader that hurt the guild and your reputation if you ignore them for too long, or handle them inadequately.

^ Great addition; I can't believe I didn't think of that! Yeah I hated how in Oblivion you could literally never walk into the guild HQ again after becoming Grandmaster, and with no consequences apart from missing out on a few hundred coins per month, or ten free ingredients. There should be a management system for guild leaders, with rewards and responsibility. You should be able to appoint a manager/assistant to take care of these responsibilities if that's not your cup of tea, but at the cost of some of the reward. e.g. Fighters guild leaders should be able to accept/promote new members based on a list of applicants and their notable achievements with the guild. They should also be able to assign duties to a limited extent, and maybe even have a say in guild uniforms or policies.

And on the subject of guild leaders, it should be VERY difficult and time consuming to earn those positions. Guilds should have a board of leaders or chairpersons, and you should earn a spot on that board after completing the guild quest line, gaining good reputation in the guild, and meetin skill and task requirements. However, from there you should have to serve the guild as a chairperson for some time before you can become the true leader of the guild.

Think of it this way: in any major company there are a handful of VPs and such, as well as department managers and administrators and presidents. There are CEOs and chairmen and COOs and presidents, who are above those high ranking VPs and admins. The player should be able to become a manager or VP after a good deal of work, but to take those last steps to become the CEO / executive president / owner / chairman should require even more work, dedication, time, and a bit of luck.

Also you should be able to join the Imperial Legion, like in Morrowind (assuming they are present in Skyrim). And there should be factions for Lycanthropes and Vampires. Basically just about any faction in the game should be joinable, and for those few that aren't, you should at least be able to interact with them in some personal way. I hated for example that you couldn't get the armor of the Imperial Palace guards. Even if you can't join such a small faction you should still be able to get their equipment or infiltrate their HQ.

A voice of reason in this insanity. :drool:

Total amount of data alone in Oblivion.

AI, physics, game engine, graphics engine, and several different other parts all combined: 7.19 MB
Voice: 1709.35 MB
Textures, models, music and sound effects: 2136.05 MB
All the other stuff (quests, NPCs, game data): 235.92 MB

That's seven times more space for voice alone than for AI, physics, game engine, graphics engine, and the actual game content (quests and NPCs and landscape) combined.

Or, to put it another way, without voice acting the game would have space for eight times as much playable content. Maybe a bit less if you'd include additional models and textures (but you wouldn't have to, really).

I have an idea they can use more three disc's to install one for all the quests one for voice acting and one for all the content,npcs,graphics,ai and stuff.

Great idea. Now Microsoft and Sony have to produce a version of XBox360 and PS3 which can hold three (or at least two) discs at once, and it will be a viable alternative too.

Oh I forgot that but can they make all three install the game and use one to run it some how?

I'd like a link to the source, I can't see it myself because I don't play on pc. Is this compressed data or could it be lesser in other games?

do you also have the distribution of time and money?

How much will you have if you sacrificed all the others except for (quests, NPCs, game data): 235.92 MB.

EDIT: just answer me in the voice acting thread, no need to derail this one any further.

That's straight from the file sizes of the PC version, most recent patch.



Money: No.

Time: All the voice files are all 64 kbps cbr MP3 files, in other words: There's over 60 hours of voice acting shipped with the game. Even with a ten-to-one ration of recording time to result time (which would be extremly good) and four hours of voice recording per day (which not everyone can even manage), that's something like seven to eight man-months of recording.

I'll answer in the voice thread.