as hyped for this game i am- does it not strike you that this will be fallout+magic+ vikings+ viking snow world+mammoths and dragons?

can we have some unique twists? like nord culture not just be inspired by vikings- but mongolians,imperial influence, dwemer influence, aylied influence,dumner influence- throw in some strange groups like canibal tribals living in the mountains and strange cults.


why should we be limeted to werewolves when the lore permits werebears, wereboars and other crazy werecreatures (add hybrids-who wants to be manbearpig? cmon you guys im super serial!)


why must we have regular vampires? skyrims lore said that there is a vampire clan that live under frozen lakes and that the vampires can travel through the ice without breaking it! they can pull you under without you knowing of their presence ( i imagine them to get wet and have the drowned effect when they get to the surface- that would be epic)


mammoths are cool, but why copy and paste? could bethesda please do something to make mammoths be different? like giving them (an) extra tusk(s) or trunk(s). maybe make them have more legs, or change the shape of the tusks, or an extra set of eyes- or something crazy!

could mammoths be mounts?

could clanfears be mounts?

could dragons be mounts? that would be very cliche- but could other flying mounts be present?

will there be slavery- can i get slaves

there are armies of undead! why cant i make an army of undead?

there are castles- can i have a castle? can i populate my castle with weird stuff? can i put a mammoth's head in the main hall, f dwemer centurions on each side, and glowing mushrooms making 50% of the light?


i can farm- but can i farm GLOWING MUSHROOMS? i want fields of glowing mushrooms!

i can cut down trees- but will there ever be trees that dont like being cut? :ninja:

why giant spiders? getting rid of them because of the minority with arachnophobia isnt stupid- its MORONIC- but why just spiders? hasnt this been done before a million and a half times? could we add some more legs? or make them more terrifying than any giant spider by adding odd features such as more mandibles,horns,spikes etc? would it noy be epic if they had an effect that allowed them to walk on walls?

why cant we have fields of oddly coloured flowers? or mushroom trees as you approach the morrowind border- maybe make eastern skyrim the scariest place in any rpg that would be suicidal to adventure!


will there be strange beasts like the things we had in morrowind? alits,guars and the other thing where much more unique than sprigans and minotaurs

speaking of minotaurs- why do they not charge with their horns? why arent there any bulls? why (other than the animal destroying me) cant i have an epic bull mount?

armour made of chitin and similar materials like druegh hide, indoril and netch leather is awsome- can we have moar?

i long for a colovian fur helm!

why do i find dreugh (or whatever that crab- tentacle thing in morrowind was) so sixy? can we have them with tentacles this time though? oblivion's version was stupid

why are there not legions of mudcrabs?
why are there no fishys? are there fish sticks?

are imperials going to be like the british- or italians? speaking of which whats with all the bad accents? why do high elves sound american? is it because they are arrogant and have no sense of humour? :chaos:

why arent khajits furry?

why cant i get tattoos? morrowind had tattoos?


if i can choose my beard- can i choose my eyebrows


why are there never any funny jokes?


why is there never any holidays? i heard khajits have a sheogorath day and all they do is get high on skooma

fallout+magic+ vikings+ viking snow world+mammoths and dragons sounds pretty cool to me :rofl:

Actually, you have some interesting ideas here - I'm not sure I completely follow all of them, but sure, some really unique factions, characters, places with an entirely different type of art direction sounds excellent.

One of the things that I imagine is difficult is developing a specific palette for the game, not only with respect to the art direction, but creating a story and corresponding world with its own cohesive tone and atmosphere, something that feels in concert with the previous games and all the canon, but stands completely on its own. I enjoyed Shivering Isles, but if it were not a DLC but an area of Cyrodiil, for example, IMO it would have felt a bit out of place with its over the top fantasy tone.

At this point in time, I imagine much of the heavy lifting is already complete. I'm fairly certain the main quest and most of the side quests are written. The palette and tone for the game was established with concept art perhaps a couple of years ago and they are not going to throw in some new faction inspired by the Mongols, for example, if they haven't already planned for it.

Devs will likely spend quite a bit of time refining the individual elements, the animations, mechanics, game balance, recording and mixing dialogue, etc., but I don't think there are many new significant elements they will be adding anymore.

I'm confident I will be very happy with the final result. And I don't think it will be limited in scope to fallout+magic+ vikings+ viking snow world+mammoths and dragons. Personally, I hope it will be darker and more gritty than the previous games, taking into account the civil war backdrop and harsh terrain.

Cannibal tribals wouldn't be all that unique. That'd be like the american appetite side missions in Red Dead Redemption. I will take whatever Bethesda gives us with extreme and utter excitement and happiness. I about crapped myself when I found out this one had already been in production for 3 years, and was coming this November! I've played oblivion so much that I've done just about everything there is to do in that game multiple times. I'm ready for Skyrim!!

I'd like everything to be a lot more abstract like Morrowind was, I hear. In fact, even more abstract than Morrowind. This pertains to how the creatures look and act, how the landscape looks, the story mission, etc. Just because Skyrim seems to have typical themes like dragons, it doesn't mean it has to be standard. With the genre it's so open, anything can be possible to include standard elements like dragons but then through something enacted, the whole landscape could change into abstraction like Morrowind. For specification, something was cast over Skyrim by some entity to abstract all the creatures and landscape once one has advanced far enough into the storyline. Or perhaps it's just the nature of Skyrim, that the landscape and creatures could fluctuate between abstract and normal for an unknown reason. Nothing has to be 'set in stone.'

I would settle for the "unique" items to actually be unique in appearance.
Nothing was more annoying than going through the hundreds of generic caves, without any real reward(just some silly avarage looking sword with boosted stats).

You would just end up looking like every average chump you came across.

This...a thousand times...
Give us unique weapons and armor as rewards for exploring the world.
I am the freakin′ dragonborn...let me show it to others! xD

I'm hoping there is nothing "visible" from fallout manages to get into TES EVER!

Judging by mister Howards interview - he is very big on "familiar" in games and "a bit" afraid of going to high fantasy. And when I say "a bit" I really mean quite a lot. And what else you would expect from the guy who mostly plays sports games? Being to imaginative is obviously a big no - no in Bethesda these days, so I don't expect anything to exotic.

I play fantasy RPGs because they're unique, and because they take me to places the likes of which I'll never see.

MW did that very well, presenting several totally different and unique landscapes with creatures which I never would have imagined, much less found, while making it all "believable". There were even functioning plantations, workers in the fields, mines extracting valuable ore, and "eggmines" collecting and shipping the eggs of "ant-like" kwama to the mainland, as well as a variety of boats, Silt Strider caravans, and "for hire" forms of magical transportation to give the world a "credible" feeling. There were people just being people, organizations that competed (Mages Guild versus House Telvanni, Thieves Guild versus Commona Tong), opposed religions (two totally different pantheons, along with an earlier Ashlander "version" of the one), and regional sub-groups (three Great Houses represented on the island, plus the Ashlander tribes). It felt like you could live there.

OB took me to some forest similar to what I can see in the Pocono Mountains about an hour's drive North of me. Aside from the ruins and some strange but "standard fantasy" creatures, playing it wasn't much more of an "escape" than I can do in my car. With the severe shortage of "working" farms (except for the nicely done agricultural area outside Skingrad), mines which were nothing more than Goblin dens, and a curious lack of wagons, carriages, boats, or other means of public transportation, it didn't even feel like a "functional" fantasy world. It felt familiar in a way, but "wrong" and incomplete, and it seemed like the aftermath of some great disaster or war that left nothing but the shattered remains of a culture, not the heart of a vast and still-thriving Empire just past its peak. Now I'm hearing that Skyrim will be like Norse/Viking territory, like the Poconos in the winter, and probably as dysfuntional as Cyrodiil or worse. How mundane and boring; I'm getting depressed already.

The non-sensical, incoherent ramblings of either a madman or a genius--I can't tell which one!

Actually I can agree with most of that - Morrowind, while being totally exotic felt "credible" like a world one can live in. While Oblivion, even with it's "noting to unusual" approach and moving NPCs felt incomplete and stale - the very thought of it being the heart and soul of a mighty multicultural Empire just does not fit in 1 mediocre city and 6 extended villages, that lack even basic transportation... Everything seamed "less" - my favorite example is Mages Guild - that offered a traveling services in Morrowind and had good connection between it's halls, which made if feel unified, and in Cydaiil mages obviously travel on horses and don't remember how to teleport... The thought of Skrim being as bland is the one that worries me the most. I do hope it woun't be so, but I worry still.

i agree with a lot of things in this rant... but so little has been released... how do you know that this won't happen? i wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of this stuff in the game

dwemer influence I think will be in the game, many hints about that has been seen weird and scary creatures like in Morrowind I think will be in the game, but not that much exposed in the world as in Morrowind.
Sabre-tooth tigers sounds awesome, more awesome than the creatures in Morrowind (my opinion). I think skyrim will have alot of unique details in it, and i hope the characters will be deeper overall, since todd mention in the interview that he likes games where you can connect more with the characters or something? I think the new snow systemt sounds unique. The more handplaced nature, even branches on trees, and how the trees looks more varied than in Oblivion. I hope they add more small details like handplaced hard to find items in weird places. I loved that in Morrowind!. remember in a tomb I found a steel battle axe stuck high up in one of the walls xD things like that.

All the now and moving branches stuff is great of course, but it does not add anything to the gameplay it self - postcards are gorgeous, but not much fun after you tool a good look at it once or twice. And all the "uniqueness" we heard about so far mostly relates to the "postcards".
Oh, and I'll have daedra over prehistorical animals any day. the thought of going around poking the wildlife that in normal world is supposed to mostly be peaceful or stay away form me is just... Gah! Daedra are at last part of the lore and culture of the land and are sentient so it's always curious to know what they have been doing in the region to begin with.

There are some good suggestions and there and some pretty surreal ones.

I think the idea is to make the world feel unique without being deliberately bizarre. Like adding a second trunk to the mammoths, I think that's just being "different" for the sake of it. That there are live mammoths walking around Skyrim is already unique enough.

I think the best non-Tolkien fantasy worlds (pretty much anything coming after) play on our existing perceptions of mythology and then add a new twist of some sort. Rarely do I find a completely "original" creations appealing or believable. Something started absolutely from scatch is the result of the deliberate imaginings of an artist or two. Compare with real mythology that has grown organically in human cultures over thousands and even millions of years. That gives it an authenticity. Let's use it, but freshen it up a little (where it actually improves stuff).

So the series that where traditionally very high fantasy, had their own lore and morphology not based on any existing earth myths, exotic places and concepts (just look at Morowind where people herd Netches, assassin is an honorable profession and gods are alive and have palaces) should go low fantasy, discard half of it's lore, develop some earth like animals with historical under text and that'll be it? Oh, and add dragons so that Tolkien fans may be happy. And that'll be a good thing? Sorry, but I have to seriously disagree with you.
I red all the myths that human history had to offer, visited a historical animals exhibition and find Tolkien like stuff to be rather bland and boring - how many times can we eat the same stew until we get sick of it? Uniqueness is why I love TES, and if it gets any more bland or stays on the same level that Oblivion was I'm going to choke.

I'd agree that generic fantasy worlds are boring. And yes, sadly, Oblivion came into that category.

However, to use the Morrowind example, I don't think the world was as original as you're making out. Morrowind itself is pretty much volcanic wasteland. People complain Oblivion is forest and Skyrim snow, but Morrowind's landscape wasn't all that alien either. What's more, the kind of barren landscape in Morrowind probably had more to do with graphics constraints than anything else. As soon as it was possible to make big convincing forests, TES did. I sincerely doubt we'll ever see a landscape as empty as Morrowind's was again.

The Imperials in Morrowind were blatantly inspired by the Romans (and hey, it worked, which is what my original point is).

Besides, how far do you want to take originality? You could set TES the standard of not using conventional weapons. "Pfft, swords and bows are for less original fantasy games." Seriously, it's a matter of degree. Yes, Oblivion was too generic. But TES has always borrowed from conventional mythology, always will. They do elves, with a twist. Dwavres, with a twist. Orcs, with a twist. This is exactly my point - this is what works.

Skyrim also has volcanic tundras
With that said, you don't need jungles and deserts to have a good fantasy world.

And seriously, people should stop thinking that Skyrim is Cyrodiil in winter. Skyrim is more then that and looking at the map from "Road to Skyrim", it is more then people hoped it would be.
Seriously, most stuff people complain about is nothing more then wrong conclusions they came up themselves with.

Actually with the screens I have seen and some of the descriptions I am hearing, I am excited.

I think less of "Vikings", and more of Conan the Barbarian. The landscape is very appropriate to the culture of Skyrim: rugged, tough wilderness, huge mountains, volcanos, large caverns, ruins, and "massive cities". In fact I would love to also see a massive underground city as well.

Different is nice, but it needs to feel like it fits, not just be different to be different. Things need to feel like they belong, and there is a raison d'etre

I am looking forward to the game, and am digging the Conan feel.

Storm

BECAUSE.

In favor of uniqueness, tho, you're right. I mean Siltsrider. That's the sort of things I like. Good thing there was SI to balance a bit Cyrodiil.

I expect twists, tho. That glimpse of a troll, that screenshot architecture, the certainty of Dwemer ruins, Lore-wise, Jsashe... And so, and so.

Imperials are inspired by romans, but there was grand total of one imperial town. There was a legion presents but it was balanced by House Redoran as a more exotic military institution.
Volcanic wasteland while dominated the center of the island and spotted some interesting flora and fauna, was not the only region - Sheogorth and Telvani with it's giants mashrooms, grazelands with it's reach soils and muck plants, the plains around Vos overheated by the sun, but not quite a dessert - Sheogorath and Telvani was my favorite of course, but all in all the diversity of landscapes in Morrowind was much grater, and in some places you so that you are not in Kansas anymore very clearly. And I think that it's the approach that should be encouraged, not the "let's make it more familiar" one. With technological advancement the land should look more exotic not less. Si expansion was interesting, and that's what I want to see more of.
Snow may be ok, it's a climate, but how is it done? Is it familiar trees that we see here on earth, prehistorical animals that we so in museum and other quite unoriginal stuff, or do we get new plants, different and exotic trees, some beasts that we would never thought of? Strange creatures that feel at home in the climate?
Look at the lore, read about Black Marsh for example, it's nothing if not exotic, Summerset Islands are full of magic to bursting, even Valenwood has it's own unique features that you woun't see anywhere. Originally Imperial city was supposed to be in a jungle, you know? But they discarded that piece of lore to make it more familiar. The triad port that was supposed to be full of different cultures and exotic things form all over the empire turned in to bland medieval looking thing.
Yes the game has elves and orcs, and dwemer - who are dark elves, just another grate house of Morrowind it has no dwarfs btw. But it althou has Argonians and Kajit. Elements of classical fantasy may be used, but enough of things that are unique to TES should make it in to games to make the "twist" be a seriously noticeable thing.
TES lore makes for much more exotic story than Bethesda presented in the last games - Morrowind may not have gone all out because of the limitations of their time, but why did Oblivion went even more "familiar" instead of continuing the line of original settings? Even against the lore already in games? That is something I disprove of a great deal. TES is a high fantasy series and it should remain so, progressively going more exotic, not less.

See... fallout was TES with guns.. and TES is fallout with with magic... Beth can't do anything right

Who sad anything about Fallout? I'm afraid of "generic vague Nordic themed RPG" Fallout never was one

I'm just saying on the fallout 3 forums, people were saying it was just gonna be TES wiht guns, just like people are not saying it's gonna be Fallout with magic... Oh and i love the nordic settings, but I hope for some of the uniqueness Morrowind brought.. like some partsof the tundra having twisted kinds of creatures and stuff.... I love my some viking settings.. but I was really disapointed in the "realistic" feel Oblivion was going for

I want a balance. So I actually do want real trees and animals in Skyrim, mixed with some stranger creatures that at least take their inspiration from real life. Because that's inevitable. I think once you've established that no creation is going to be purely, totally original or plucked out of thin-air, you can work with what's there in a deliberate way to create something a little more unusual. I'm skeptical about coming up with something as alien looking as possible, but I'd certainly like some interesting twists.



I agree Oblivion dissapointed in that way. I liked the forests for what they were - they're the best wilderness to come out of a game IMO - but they didn't belong in Cyrodiil.



I suppose it's a matter of taste. There are a lot of people here who really like the unique lore and style, and I accept that. I think it's something that should be retained, but my personal preference is for Skyrim to be an at least partly familiar landscape. I'll be happy if it also throws up some surprises but I don't personally want to feel like I've just landed on a bizarre alien planet. I'd leave that to the sceince-fiction genre. Maybe TES attracts people more of that crowd than traditional fantasy?