As we know in every (Most) TES game we had diseases. In morrowind it was more noticable with the blight and the disease that turns you into a mindless zombie, in Oblivion it had so little effect and it didn't ever really bother me, I could always Fast Travel to the local city (Or the furthest one) pray in front of the shrine and get cured easily, and it didn't get me thinking about it, didn't effect my gameplay AT ALL. I'm afraid the same will happen in Skyrim, hopefuly not, since we don't know much about the game, but what I'm hoping to see, as it is a brutal, frozen, full of disease carrying beasts wilderness, is that disease actually get to you and effect your gameplay, not too hard though, but if you neglect it and leave it be it should get worse.
Beyond that, Bethesda said that you can see scars on skins and effects on the skin of character and NPCs, so if you're badly sick then it would be cool (and logical) to see your skin getting a little pale.
Besides that, I think you should get a disease every two seconds and it should infect you only if you're exposed to the cold too much or through direct contact with some ugly wild creature or zombie.

P.S: Hopefuly they won't be bringing back the disease system they had in Oblivion, I was extremely disappointed with it.

EDIT: I would LOVE to see other NPCs sick as well, and the effects on them, so if they are sick they'll have to take care of themselves, sleep more often, even during the day and stop their regular actions regarding their proffesion. would be cool.

i agree.it would add to the ruff survival feeling of the game.also i think that if one dosnt act soon,some diseases should be perminent and can only be cured through a special side quest.(like oblivions vamparism.)but after that quest,if you somehow catch the disease again.youll have the knowledge of what you need to do to cure it no matter how long you have it.also i think some diseases should eventually kill you

I was going to make this thread! Yay! You beat me to it.

I loved all the crazy stuff you could catch in Morrowind. It made me feel like "Oh [censored], I better go find a cure and fast! Look at all my crappy stats!" In Oblivion the penalty was a total [censored]. That's right, come at me Skyrim!

Yeah, plus think about it, Skyrim is a tough environment, should be hard to survive in its wilderness, not too hard ofcourse, not everyone will like it, but it should be a factor.

How about fits of coughing that leave you exposed or sometimes you faint and you wake up and a large chunk of your money is missing you were robbed. but my character wont have to worry about that sort of thing because im going to be a werewolf or vampire.

bump

Some diseases should kill you eventually(Rare ones)and most diseases should make you sneeze and cough a bit.It makes sneaking harder because they hear the sneezing and coughing(Metal gear?!).

I agree. There wa only one bad disease in OB, namely the Astral Vapors(Stunted magica, weakness to magic 25% and dmg magica 15pts on self). It crippels any magicusing characters, but since i play warrior-mage hybrid even that had only a minor effect on my character. Proper diseasases that make you vulnerable due to lowered health, magica, Astral Vapors, or something similar would be great.

Agreed. In Oblivion diseases were just an irritation - nothing more. I'd like the effects of the diseases to be visible on your character, rather than only having them affect your stats.

Most diseases should have more of an effect, and they should be a bit more difficult to take care of. In both Morrowind and Oblivion, Cure Disease potions were too plentiful, and Cure Disease spells too easy to get, that it really made diseases more of a nuisance than anything. Get diseased, just drink a potion or cast an easy restoration spell, and you're all better. I'd like to see diseases that really take something out of your character, and that curing isn't as simple as using a potion that's in abundance.. where unless you're lucky enough to have a cure disease potion, or be a really really good at restoration, you'd need to actually travel to a town or city to get it taken care of. You could also have multiple tiers of diseases.. some are weak and easier to handle, but others are stronger and more difficult.

In addition, some diseases should be very difficult to detect.. like Sanies Lupinus and Porphyric Hemophilia are supposed to have very weak symptoms, almost unnoticeable, until full-on lycanthropy or vampirism hits. It really felt lame how easy it was to manage those diseases. Facing werewolves or vampires never gave a serious threat to you being infected, because a 2 second trip into your inventory makes it all better for a disease that takes 3 days to incubate. You can't "accidentally" become a werewolf or vampire. Getting an on-screen alert, and a prominent display in your inventory, it was really difficult to miss anything (Morrowind made it even easier for you by color-coding bad effects as red, compared to the light-blue good effects, and had it on your HUD as well as inventory). There was a time in Oblivion where I was trying to become a vampire, and I accidentally cured myself. It should be much, much harder to take care of such diseases, not so easy that you can accidentally cure it without trying.

Hopefully, and I say hopefully forlornly, the perks system may make restoration less all encompassing. You want to cure rarer diseases, sure, take a perk for it, but miss out on a combat or destruction bonus. Don't see why the school of restoration shouldn't be very powerful, IF you specialise in it.

If they make diseases more than just "oh no I have scale rot -10 intelligence...wait I'm a warrior, oh well" i will be happy.

Maybe if diseases had effects that actual affected gameplay like you lose 50% more health when damage, have regeneration reduced by 75% and burn fatigue and magicka at 50-75% increased rate with 45% less disease and magic resist as a baseline I might actually consider bringing a few cure disease potions with me.

Add to those more specialized effects like 38% reduced speed 20% chance to miss, burden 40% and other various effects varying on disease for more specilaized character builds and I might deem diseases worth my attention

I like the idea of being able to see the symptomes of the diseases on your character.

Also a chance of hypothermia would be quite realistic in the northern area's.

A cool idea for a quest would be to have a certain companion and during that quest (could be even useful in the main quest) you get attached to that person, then you discover he's infected with a critical disease, which means he'll die soon unless you find a cure. adds lots of dramatic effects to the whole idea of a NPC companion, besides that, if you get attached to him and he dies, it'll actually make you feel sad for him.

Would LOVE to see something like that in Skyrim, not that I'm saying to implement my idea, only something similar.