You can control the magnitude of the spell.
You can control the duration of the spell.
You can control the effect of the spell.
You can control the combining of spell effects.
You can even cast "trap" spells.

That sounds like the EXACT same thing as Spellmaking to me.

From what I've seen so far, I think Skyrim will be better than Oblivion. At least for me. Will it be a better experience than Morrowind was for me? Don't know. Morrowind is perhaps a tough one to best in some aspects. I see the devs have a looming deadline to get things finished and pushing up the release date too many times probably won't help much either. So, hopefully some of the additional things people hope for can be added to some major expansions for Skyrim in the future.


I'm not going on about athletics and acrobatics being taken out, but more so the latter part of your statement hear. Game developers using artificial gimmicks to give the illusion of a bigger or harder game is exactly what angers me/ where perhaps most of my complaints (when I do) come from. Perhaps BGS isn't overly guilty of this, but we certainly don't need people to start pitching statements like that and start getting people to become complacent with them.

If any dev company wants to make a bigger world, then actually make it bigger. Don't use enraging artificial constructs to give the illusion of more freedom.

Thankfully, sounds like BGS may not have made a much bigger world than Cyrodiil, but at least they are packing it full of content. Seemingly more than Oblivion had, thus far.

They are not the same EXACT thing.

1. You can control the magnitude of the spell.

No, you can charge up a spell, increasing it's magnitude, however, you have NO control over the actual magnitude of the spell. (Spellmaking let's you define whatever magnitude you want.)

2. You can control the duration of the spell.

Sorta, but with spellmaking, you can fire n' forget a spell, here you have to keep casting it to keep the duration going.

3. You can control the effect of the spell.

I assume you mean range. That's true, but, it does have disadvantages, for example, trying to cast a trap, and targeted version at the same time, might be a bit hard to get used to, or charging one, and trapping with another, etc,. This isn't the case with spellmaking, which you let's define exactly what you want to happen.

4. You can control the combining of spell effects.

Up to two, assuming each spell has one effect. With spellmaking you could combine numerous effects at once, which is NOT possible with the new system.

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All that said, I like the new casting system, I don't like the loss of spellmaking. (I think they could coexist, if the CS can do it, then there is no reason the game shouldn't be able to as well.)

People always say that the "complainers" are a minorty, but that is not my experience. There are many, many pissed people out there who don't visit the forums.

Among my friends, there are about 5 which are interested in a new Elder Scrolls game, and I frequently fill them in with new information I learn in this forum. Not one of them is overall happy with the changes. They feel the character system will be incredibly shallow, 2 already said they won't get Skyrim (at least not right away). It breaks my heart a bit when I see my friends turn their back on my favourite game series, but I have a hard time defending Bethesda.
Oh, and they aren't even avid gamers. They are casuals.

Me and two of my best friends are moderate fans of the series(I'm by far the most hardcoe of the group, having played MOrrowind and Oblivion extensively), and we're all preordering the game, and love most of what's being done. heck, we're all staying in one house that night just so we can all attend the midnight release and try out the game together
I have another great friend who's also preordering it, and doing the same with a group of his friends. and we all love what we're hearing

and we ALL find the complaints on this forum to be ridiculous half the time. so my experience says that "whiners" are indeed the minority

Aside from the fact that cost and development time are TWO things, if those were the key points, they would be doing Pong XVIII, not a TES game.



Problem for Todd is that the customers don't. And if he doesn't understand that, he needs to take some marketing classes.

You should stop taking everything that comes from Bethesda as infallible, holy writ.

And my experience, no, my training as a scientist say that personal anecdotes couldn't be less suitable to establish something as fact. Especially in cases such as this: You are bound to associate yourself with people whose tastes overlap to a significant degree with yours - otherwise, what are you folks doing together? So the probability that a whole lot of your buddies agree with you is pretty high regardless of whether it's the quality of the latest TES game or the question whether the moon is made of cheese.

It says precious little about the overall frequency of people disagreeing with you.

There is a huge difference between voicing opinions, and childish whining and complaining. People complain about how "spell making" isnt in the game, but they dont state why they think it should be in the game, or they dont even consider if tis even possible for it to be in the game. They just say "i want!" and they expect it to happen, and when it doesnt, they call bethesda "stupid, or dumb". Thats what gets on my nerves the most. Maybe if they knew a thing or two about gaming, they would be more reasonable

Wrong - because aside from the points mentioned by another poster, without Spellmaking as a skill, anyone can do that.

The threads that complain about other people complaining never end on a good note .

way to fantastically fail at getting my point. in fact, your first and last sentences basically sum it up, with the added detriment of making it personal

It takes quite a bit of gall to make such a post when all around you, people are providing actualy reasons why they think it should be in the game.


As for knowing a thing or two about gaming, nice try.

Actually that statement is the catch. Just because the game shares a series title doesn't mean the game will have everything the old games have, they will change, whether its good or bad is up to the people. Blindly assuming its going to be the same is ignorant. Oh and cost more often than not dictates the development time.

Funny. I haven't seen you talk against the notion that only a tiny minority crticises the game - which would be the logical stance to have if I had indeed summed up your point. Instead, I've seen you call crticisims an insult.

And my training as a scientist agrees with you! Hence the "my experience" part. Entirely subjective.
However, if you read these forums and then take a look at all the overwhelming impressions Skyrim has left on the press, you might think that this forum is the only place where people are complaining. I just wanted to give an example that this is not the case.

You're proving my point, unfortunately. No, blindly assuming it's going to be "the same" is not ignorant, it's what Bethesda suggests by publishing it under the TES main line brand.
That's why I suggested some marketing classes - this is how branding works to begin with, it generates expectations.

I just did, in the post you previously quoted. And I was specifically referring to criticism against every single thing that comes out, and judging it to be a fault of the game, without finding any merit in anything new at all. And notice that I said that HALF of the criticism is ridiculous. plenty of the other half is perfectly valid, and I agree with quite a bit of it(for example, the lack of foreign weapons in Oblivion got old way too fast, and I want to see that back in skyrim if I have to do it myself)
and the criticism I call an insult is usually the criticism that says "so and so has happened because Bethesda is lazy, inadequate, etc."

THe "your experience" part was the only thing I was responding to. I think criticism is welcome, especially good criticism. But around here, it seems to be the exact opposite of the press-almost all complaints. especially lately, with all the complaints about the same stuff reiterated over and over again. To be honest, I agree with some of the criticism, but I'm rapidly tiring of all the threads on the same subjects. Particularly greaves and spellmaking

If that's truly the case then we should never of had Daggerfall/Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim, we should just of had arena 2,3,4,5. The games changed, things were added and things were lost.

I'm going to sleep

Do you not understand that you only have two hands and holding down, or tapping a button cant go through all of the different variables?

Well, once everyone has formed their opinion on things, they don't tend to get into lengthy discussions about the subject anymore.
I remember when it was confirmed that there are no attributes, we still had very long and reasonable discussions about how attributes are not redundant and have a lot of potential. But as time went on, people started to think of this as an "us vs them" thing. Complainers complaining, optimists complaining about complainers complaining, complainers complaining about optimists complaining about them, etc.
There has always been constructive criticism around here, but people mainly focused on the few individuals that didn't provide explanations for their opinions, and the constructive posts drowned in an ocean of flames.
And that is the order of (forum) things. :sadvaultboy:

Your comment needs a bit of rework.

First off, calling the world what it is supposed to be does not mean they are actually making the world. You are going to have to have some level of continuity. Levitate exists in TES. It will not exist in SR. Mysticism exists in TES. It was deconstructed in SR for no good reason. These and many of the other cuts are serious world breaking cuts.

You have a minor, yet seriously flawed, point about game mechanics. The major cut is attributes. It is an obviously superior mechanic to perks or tech trees when it comes to defining base character value. While this is not game world changing it is GAME changing as it means a serious devolution of character.