That's not unrealistic, that's your character's history. You don't start the game as an infant. You start it as someone who's been living there for years, working, adventuring, etc. Classes, major and minor skills, are all a reflection of this history. There's definitely some problems with TES character development/creation, but the existence of classes isn't one of them.

There was a lot lost in the transition between Daggerfall and Morrowind. There's no question about that. But what Morrowind did was craft a large, interesting, intimate, handcrafted experience. It excelled at this. Oblivion, despite what some would claim, is Morrowind 2.0. The design appraoch is almost identical. But they utterly ruined the illusion through stupid decisions, while simultaneously removing other features just as they did between Daggerfall and Morrowind.

It would be totally silly to suggest that these changes were at all on a similar scale.

If it had been, Beth wouldn't need to claim that this time, they are doing things the right way again and not bloody randomise landscape and dungeons from a few elements.

As I recall, randomized landscapes were the product of some sort of landscape simulator designed to provide more realistic environments. The fact that this completely failed does not mean that it wasn't the goal.

That means they didn't even check what they had done. If that's not a sign of lacking care, then I don't know.

Games in general have been getting more simplistic since the Dreamcast really.

For pretty simple reasons, IMO. Products must be accessible to people of the lowest common interest and ability levels within the target demographic. Target demographic gets bigger (i.e., criteria defining the target demographic gets less specific)...lowest common denominators get lower. :shrug: The trick is finding the sweet spot wherein you keep the largest number of customers. At that point it's just a matter of collecting data and basic calculus. That's why "niche" products will often take more risks and be more innovative...they weren't tailored specifically to sell the most units possible.

Not only that, but games have to be able to be beaten by the lowest common denominator as well. I remember when being able to easily beat a game wasn't mandatory. I remember plenty of games from back in the day I could never and most likely will never beat.

I miss those days. Sure, there's been some hard-ass games made in the past ten years that I'll probably never beat, but really, that's because of lack of interest in most of them. With enough time, I could dominate them all. Can't say that about most games older than the Dreamcast that've given me considerable trouble.

Such as?

Which one? Games of recent years that I could beat if I was interested enough, or games of old I'll never crush no matter how much I play them?

For the former, examples would be any number of the really combat-heavy titles, like God of War, Ninja Gaiden, Resident Evil 4 & 5, Devil May Cry, BioShock, I think they're all great, but not enough fun to dedicate enough of my energy to, and so I svck at them.

For the latter, best example is Diablo. Never did get the hang of that, despite all the people around me helping. Tried picking it up last year, same situation. Kind of embarrassing really, it's such an epic nerd game.

Basically, they don't allow levitation because there are different cells.(that's because there are placeholders because of different cells.)

My logic works differently.

And the problem could have been solved by actually trying to do a decent job on the placeholders as well as using invisible walls/ceilings

I wasn't saying that it wasn't bad, I said the design philosophy was the same for Oblivion as it was in Morrowind. My point was simply that equating the simplification from Daggerfall to Morrowind to the simplification from Morrowind to Oblivion is disingenuous.

But what if I levitate in wilderness then float over the city. How will it work?

invisible domed ceiling over the city is the easiest way to deal with this. Combined with a strong push force on the top of the center of the dome that literally pushes you away from the inside of the [visible] wall would make an excellent implementation all-around.

Pretty much every game has a way of keeping the player from going in certain areas, as I mentioned, even Oblivion did (they just didn't implement this feature for the cities instead being lazy)

Change cells once you past the boundary maybe?

Well, those games aren't open world games. Can you sacrifice immersion like that? I much prefer current implementation.(you made me make this comment, I don't believe it.)


If you can make the transition like that without breaking outside world and inside world consistency, that's open already. I don't mind a loading bar(how long can it take?).

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/morrowind/MGE-this_is_not_real.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/morrowind/Morrowind2009/sc04/Morrowind-MGE-Crysis.jpg

I mean just show the landscape inside the city (no NPCs or items), and when you decend past a certain point you hit a loading screen as if you went through the door.

Doesn't really matter anyways, the game was designed in a way that makes cities "inside" cells, and the only way to really fix that is to make them part of the "outside" cell. I think some mods have done that. (or at least attempted to)

I use open city mods for Oblivion. They work.
http://i.imgur.com/rBRUU.jpg

Yeah, an open door means a lot.

- There's already invisible walls in Oblivion even without doing it
- It would allow for levitation to be used, it'd just keep you from entering the city in improper methods

Plus, as I mentioned earlier, the use of wall guards would allow for immersion to be kept, by slanting the invisible walls/pushing you towards a gaurd when you try to hop the visible wall (and the guards have spawn doors at regular intervals keeping you from killing them).

Are they doing the same walled city thing for Skyrim?

I've been spoiled by The Witcher 2 cities now. There are loading screens when you enter/exit buildings, but you can still hear people on the outside.... or even see people inside a building with the "infravision" potion. And NPCs open doors to change areas! hmy:

Interiors are still interiors here.(still maybe they can open some shops for a change) Only a few cities are walled, the big ones. So there will be a mix.

Can you tell me how open The Witcher 2 is? I'm very interested if it can provide "Look somewhere over the horizon, get there without loading" type of play with vast open areas. Is there free roaming?

The first chapter is the extent of my experience with the open areas, it's not a huge open area like in Oblivion but there is a lot more detail condensed into it. There are caves and stuff where you enter seamlessly from the bright sunny forest into the dark winding passages, with no loading screen.

No, The game is divided into chapters with different locations, so you can't go back to where you were when you changed chapter. And you're not really free to go as you like as you're locked in to the pathways of the chaper location. So for example, you can't go thru bushes and explore the forest as you like and you can't jump up a mountain where you like but follow a specific path.

It's like the first Witcher, Neverwinter Nights or Jade Empire.