It's one of those sleepless nights again and I sit here with my iPhone and a burning question....... Did Bethesda have a choice in the changes they made for Skyrim and will have to make in future TES? With games like Kingdoms of Amalur, Dragon Age, and others on the horizon the competition is on.
I've read a lot on these forums concerns about changes in TES, and I began to wonder If Todd and the team had a hard time in deciding to make these changes, if they had a choice. Up until now no one could touch TES but I see that changing. You hear all the interviews and excitement but deep down how do they really feel about having to adapt to the new gaming world.
I think change can be good and competition can only make you better. Only Bethesda can tell us If they felt they had no choice or jumped at the chance for a new direction for TES. I'm ready to adapt to whatever happens because it's TES. There might be things I don't like that were changed or added but I'm thankful that we have another TES on it's way!!
Ok, it's almost time for coffee!

A personal opinion:

Back then it wasn't all about the money. All Bethesda needed was money to continue the company, and everything else was about creating their own world, their own story. Back then when you see Bethesda, you wouldn't think it was a big shot company--and yet you know its name because of its "cult following".

Right now Bethesda isn't a company with a "cult following". It's a big shot company now. And I think as a company (in a corporate view) they need to make money since this is still business--and since they have the capacity to do successful games, they are more inclined to make their game more accessible to public taste than to its "cult followers". That's where I think the change is coming from. Instead of creating its own stories for the public to digest, Bethesda is now reacting to wide public demand and then creating stories from it.

Yup, I'm with the second poster. They've gotta have money now to keep their large team paid. Unfortunately that means streamlining.

I've been waiting to pull this out:

http://www.svatopluk.com/arena/manual/designer.stm

That is Bethesda Game Studios' original plan for The Elder Scrolls.

They haven't strayed from that path at all. As I thought from the moment I got Morrowind, these games have never been about stats - they've always been about a huge open-world and the options that come with it.

So yes, they did have a choice. They always have a choice, people would buy Skyrim regardless of whether it was stat-filled or stat-less. Bethesda make the game they want to make.

And thank God for that.

Thanks for the link, I never got to read that.
After playing Oblivion, this quote makes me lol: "In The Elder Scrolls there is no absolute right or wrong. We have always held that the idea of "good vs. evil" is a bit cliché, however effective it may be for running a story. Things in the real world are rarely black and white."

The changes came about because that's the game they wanted to make. If they wanted to make the changes because the features worked for other companies that is not necessarily bad.

In fact, "not necessarily bad" is the cold bucket of water that needs to be poured on this forum. A lot of people seem to be cavorting about with the idea that any change to the formula is bad and harmful by default. Can someone play the game without a degree in statistics? Yes. Does that mean there's no depth? No. Acessibility=/=shallowness. It just means that people can understand the basics of the controls easily.

The idea of numerical stats was made way back when you couldn't have a real-time representation of actions. Now you can have a nice melding of both, like how when you grind up some bacon and put it in your ground beef. So the reduction of the number of skills could be bad, but unless they add nothing to replace them it is not a bad thing by necessity.

Story is something I will not comment on yet. As much as I like Oblivion, I will be among the first to say how compared to other TES games it is a lot more simple and straightforward. Bad? Individually no. A direction I would like to see the series continue? Also no, but until I know that's what's happening I will be silent.

The problem is, using both TES and Dragon Age as an example, this idea of not actually looking at the games at all. People say that the problem is that it's "not Morrowind" or "not Daggerfall" but they hold new TES games to some version of Daggerfall and Morrowind that did not exist. Daggerfall was buggy and next to unplayable and most of its massive amount of skills did literally nothing. Ambitious and enjoyable though it may have been, a good game it may have been for something from the 90s, if Daggerfall were released today it would be a bad game. Morrowind had a strictly linear main quest just like Oblivion did. The plot itself was more complex, but saying linearity is a new thing is plain untrue. Dragon Age 2's most common criticism is that it isn't Balder's Gate. While there's nothing wrong with disliking these new things, and I in fact like almost all the old things I mentioned, if these people got their out of the clouds they would realize that for everyone but them an updated re-release of the classics would not actually make the new games good. Far better to play and enjoy the classics on their own merits and newer games on their own.

Dig into the lore and read the stories, and you'll see why that quote stands.

In the main quest, you were preventing the Altmer from recapturing their divine heritage, you were preventing Dagon from breaking his curse, you were trying to uphold a pact that was made between the Empire's first Empress as she was dying, and an insane god who himself was created as a political compromise and altered by a fanatical anti-elvish sect. It should also be mentioned that the current Empire you were fighting for existed because Tiber Septim got his hands on a robot that could break time and bend reality, and he used that to force everyone into joining.

With the Fighters Guild, you were bringing down competition because they were cutting into your profits. You also got into the bussiness of torture.

With the Mages Guild, the Archmage Traven instigated the "war" by banning a perfectly legal, Empire-sanctioned practice. And the reason for the ban was essentially over a grudge between Galerion (who founded the guild) and Mannimarco hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago... and even there, it was Galerion that started the fued. The guild also has a monopoly on magic in the Empire, and is known to protect the identity of vampires.

I do agree that Bethesda is sticking with this idea mostly, but I wonder how many people who worked on Arena still work at BGS? IIRC Todd came in when Arena shipped.

Maybe now they have finally been able to do what they have always wanted with TES but they also had a chance with Oblivion to make some of these changes. One example is the decision to bring marriage into the story. Bioware and games like Fable brought relationships into their games so why didn't Bethesda do this with Oblivion if this is what they really wanted? I'm not for or against this until I see it in the game but my point is this is just one change that I see they could have done before. TES never went down that path until now and I just wondered if they felt it necessary in today's gaming world or always wanted to do this. They can move their story any direction they want but as stated at the end of the letter, they look to the fans to see what they want which made me ask the question for this post. It's a new and bigger gaming world and did Bethesda want things in their games they had not originally wanted but felt they had no choice to reach more people?

Well, times change.Bethesda was once a less known company and less known companies are not as competitive and thus ready to take risks.Bethesda still take risks and they do it on common ground (the TES franchise), which is sometimes a good thing, sometimes not (see Oblivion's crazy level scaling).At least they do something and try not to release the same thing over and over again, as other developers do and we should appreciate them for that, even if they sometimes screw up.It happens, nothing is perfect.
Some people can't accept a game for what it is and start thinking about what could it be - another Morrowind...for example.Morrowind was a strike of genius but we need variety.Oblivion wasn't exactly exotic but that's how the Imperial province was supposed to look.Humans live there, not elves.Remember, Daggerfall wasn't exotic either.I hope that Beth will someday take us to Akavir and shut everyone's mouth.
Yes, Oblivion lacked that 'alien' feeling Morrowind had.It's a shame it did, but it was supposed to be like that.Maybe Tiber Septim (read:the devs) made Cyrodiil more hospitable so that another province would provide the 'rain forest' environment Cyrodiil once had, and look better than rain-forest Cyrodiil.
For a newcomer to the series, Oblivion's main quest would indeed feel linear and straightforward, unlike Morrowind's, who was filled with clever writing.Morrowind's story is some of the best fiction I've come across, no kidding.However, Beth fixed the OB MQ when some devs wrote lore which wasn't included in the game, but it made sense and added a nice twist to Oblivion and made it less black and white, though it was never black and white.I would go off-topic if I get started on that

Some people have been whining (not on these forums though) about Skyrim's lack of attributes and classic RPG stats.A game can still be a RPG without those.In fact, major and minor skills take away some freedom.You start the game as a thief, but you get caught and now you're character thinks that he would be better off as a mage or something.Still, you can't change your major and minor skills without cheating, so how do you role-play that? Bethesda got it right here.Sometimes, change is pretty Major and minor skills don't define a RPG.Freedom of choice does.

Then there are those who complain about console ports too much.Worry less, the PC graphics are always better.Beth doesn't say FU to the TES fanbase and banhammer us with DRM. (...like you know who...)

As a rule in the TESverse, remember that your hero always, always screw up badly.Doesn't matter if he knows it or not.As TES becomes more and more of a monster franchise, your hero screw up harder and harder.No, you don't save the day lulz.And yes, Bethesda makes the games Bethesda would enjoy playing, all while listening to the fanbase and taking risks.

No, I highly doubt that. I think it's just a matter of priorities. I doubt they just didn't add marriage to Oblivion just because they thought it wouldn't reach people. Maybe they did work on it in Oblivion and it just didn't turn out the way they wanted it to?

Bethesda seems to be one of the strongest companies financially and have been around a long time. Todd Howard has said in an interview that he graduated with a finance degree, they have the Radiant AI and Id Software to bring in income, and several developers joining with them. Will TES alone really make or break them?