Hey guys and gals,

I've been thinking about some questions I'd like to ask Bethesda, but am pretty sure they wouldn't respond and that would leave me at a loss. We sit here every day thinking of cool ideas we would all love to see added into the game, but have no idea how long it would take for any one idea to be implemented into the game in a way that would make it functional, contributive, effective, and useful. Thus, we sit here every day adding more and more ideas which, in just 8 months, can never be implemented. Are we wasting our time? Will they record our ideas for the next game, or all these great ideas just LOST to time and space? We have no idea if anything we say is actually making any difference at all. That is starting to eat at me because I, along with many others, spend a lot of time on these forums contributing to the best of our ability every productive and useful idea we can think of hoping it will make some difference. WILL IT ?

So here are the questions I would ask:

1. How long does it take to generate one quest? Quest usually involve the story itself, the assets needed to drive the story (objects, tools, items), the people you interact with, the places you go to for exploration, and connecting all of these pieces into a vehicle that works for any kind of player at basically any level in the game? So does it take 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months?

2. When would Bethesda stop adding new content? .... When in these last 8 months would they begin to focus less on adding new content and move on toward just playtesting everything else out while not adding in any new features that could break the current game? 3 months out, 2 months out, 1 month out? Or right up to the last week?

3. 'Programming in' New Systems: How Long Does That Take? How long would it take to program in a Hard-Core Mode or to alter the Jail System to make it a real place with people, locations, interactions, alliances, enemies (with influence on the outside even after you are let free)? These are advanced systems and would require a lot of work? Can someone who's a programmer elaborate more on just how long something like this would take to implement, and why? If you're not an expert, please refrain from guessing, and if you must guess, please indicate you are guessing so we know. I'd like an expert anolysis on this only, but I know some of you will have some guesses too.

4. When would Audio Production end in the development cycle? 4 months out? 2 months? Right up to the end?

5. When would new monsters stop getting added? Will they continue to create new and varied dragon races right up until the end, or do you think they have already finished adding them? Will they be adding in any new monsters at this point? New monsters require tons of assets, including programming, audio, animation cycles, textures, graphics, dialogue (sometimes), habitats, A.I., and quests using them. I doubt 8 months is enough time to add wholly new monsters into the game, but yet I continue every day to see new threads beginning here asking what monsters we want to see in the game. I think it sounds impossible at this point to expect any more new monsters. Programmers: what are your "EXPERT" understandings on this issue, please?

6. When would they stop working on perfecting the textures for the game? Will they notice a texture doesn't look very good and, after consulting the team polishing the rendering engine for the consoles who announce "we've squeezed an extra 20% more power from our engine through these optimizations, so you can upgrade some of the textures if you want with no troubles ...." and then they will go back and fix half a dozen textures they weren't able to upgrade due to the engine's prior performance not allowing for this? Or do they just create textures a long time ago and never update them again?

I can't think of any other questions but I know there are other things relating to this topic I wanted to add that I just can remember right now. So what are YOUR questions regarding Bethesda's Timeline of Completion? And let's try to leave the detailed answers to the professionals who visit these forums and if you are taking a guess, please indicate that is ONLY a guess. Thank you.

My main point is this: Can any of our suggestions at this point actually help Skyrim become better?

Or do we bruise and rub our fingers to the bones typing away for no reason? If we can't make a difference, then I guess I only want to visit these forums looking for links to the latest OXM postings and such. Cause otherwise, what's the point?

At most, they have about 4 months left to make the game.

Yep, so no. They have reached the stage of bugtesting now. Adding new things would mean the whole game needs to be tested again (save maybe textures, etc.).

Late edit:

On FO:NV's hardcoe mode:
"This feature was implemented as an option due to the popularity of the Fallout 3 Wanderer Edition Mod"

So as long as they know our wishes in advance (basically before doing anything), they can use them to some extent. Considering the many mods made (and used), they probably have implemented a number of them.

I can't really speak to Skyrim but if you take Hunted: Demon's Forge as an example, a lot of people pointed out they wished it had split screen co-op in the previews and comments. That ending up making all the difference. inXile took notice and implemented split screen.

Generally suggestions will only make a difference if enough people want it. And that means more than just us more vocal fans here at the official forums. Though, this is a good enough place to get the fire started

The good thing about this is, unlike Oblivion, what we see is what we'll get. Well, that can be bad too.

I don't know about you but I'm having a bit of fun reading/discussing ideas people have for the game regardless of whether or not they are good or bad ideas or if they will be implemented or not, and to me if it's fun then time is not wasted.

how do you figure? the game probably won't go gold until maybe a week before Halloween, and QA doesn't all happen at the end of development - it happens throughout the entire development cycle of a game.

Months 1-4 = content development
Months 5-7 = beta testing/finalization
Month 8 = disc production/review copies

Well, I think if everyone REALLY hated an idea or something, even now, they could still work on it. Like, for instance, a lot of people complained about the water animation in the trailer. If they haven't already, they might spend some time to tweak it just a bit (although I personally could care less). Also, considering that a lot of people want mounts and there has been a big fan reaction here to the possibility (or lack thereof) of mounts, they might decide to focus more of there remaining time to making that work.

Dont forget DLC, that gives them some more time to add in things the fans want like say werewovles! (I had to!)

It would be interesting to know how long certain things take in game development like how long it takes to create a texture or model or animation or quest,

Well, modders can also develop features. Your battle hisrory idea is really great. Surelly someone will end up modding it.

Essentially, no. We cannot change the game now.
The time to do that would have been years ago, in the Suggestions for TES:V threads in the TES discussion forum, which I posted in avidly, as did many others.
The "core" of the game is done, the mechanics, done, the graphics, done, what they are working on now is more than likely quest, and voice acting. Everything else is probably just polishing.
You remember those videos from the gameinformer coverage we saw? Year old more than likely.

Okay, a lot of you focused only on my main point, and that's fine. But can anyone with some technical knowledge of the industry speak to some of the other questions about programming time for certain things?

Luke Skyrimmer said "1-4 months for Content Development" ... but what do you think that means? What content will be focused on now, do you think? And how are you answering, from some experience and knowledge, or just a guess?

Thanks everyone!

We never made a difference from the start.

None of us know that, because none of us work at Bethesda. They don't let us hear their secrets. And every company is different. That could mean something different to every company in terms of when and how they do things.

Bethesda's software development cycles seem to be a bit longer than most, but if anything, that probably means that we are WAY too late to the game. I would expect that at this point, they are polishing the details and doing game testing to make sure everything works. I seriously doubt new features will be added at this point unless they are either trivial, or extremely popular.

However, it never hurts to post ideas. You just never know when an idea will start a firestorm of support, and find its way in.

Our ideas could allways be turned into DLC or mods.

Thats rubbish.The developers do listen,but just because every idea of ours isn't put in doesn't mean they don't listen. Have you ever thought about it from a dev's view?
You make a game for 50+ million xbox user's,49 million PS3 user's and millions of PC user's,input your ideas ,time ,money,creativity in the game,whilst looking into what fans want,( within reason ) and try and please everyone......You CAN'T,end of story!

Your comment to me is invalid and total rubbish.

*Edit* Also there will be certain things that can be changed,it's not out of the question. There is also DLC.
Games like fifa,call of duty etc are made in a year,every year,so 4-5 months is still enough time to change things if you look at it like that.
I also believe,the way some companies release info,do it in a way as to see what feedback they get....why do you think alot dev's are showing up on this forum at the moment,especially since the trailer release....They are interested in the reaction.....think on people.

What's Deadly Reflex been doing inspiring Skyrim's development then? It wasn't made by their staff you know...

If anything, what's left is those "small" features, that can slightly alter the game, like vampirism and stuff like that. I doubt they'd make any huge gameplay changes.


and BTW, glad to see you're a fan of TES...

First people have been suggesting new things to Elder scrolls V ever sence Oblivion got announced.
Second The game should be done before the announcment, so they are currectly fixing bugs and glitches, mayby adding something very small.
Third They have no time to add anything big to the game, so were currectly suggesting things to The Elder Scrolls VI

EDIT: Were also suggesting things to DLC and other expansions.

Certain things can be changed ,even in the time left,not as in a big over-haul,but things can change. I think it was in the art of skyrim video on the GI website.
They said that because of the tools they have now,things from concept to going in games can happen fast,they can also do patches that change things in a matter of a couple of weeks. And like i said there is DLC too.

I sure hope for their's and our's sakes they get more then one week of game testing in. I don't want another Empire Total War on my hands. (If you don't know what I'm talking about just know that, that game needed almost half a GB of patches before it was even playable.)

If no one posts anything nothing will change...

Whatever BGS is cooking up will be legendary. Mark my words. I'm the people's champ.

Word.
I love talking about Skyrim without even considering whether anything I say makes it into the game. I like to debate with people about what might be in or out, or what should be in or out, but I don't really care how accurate I am until the game comes out.

Truth is:
I know that Bethesda has already made Skyrim. Nothing we say or do here on these forums is going to influence it. The way we influence this game is by buying it, rating it highly, buying DLC, and then by playing the ever-loving crap out of it.

If we want to change the game we download mods. The ES series evolves by watching the mod community. Those mods that have 140,000 unique downloads? You can bet they are in this game. If you want to change the next tes game, download your favorite mod and rate it highly.