Elder Scrolls: Tamriel : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 8:53 pm

Just wondering if you guys think Bethesda would ever consider making an Elder Scrolls that encompassed all of Tamriel. They already have Skyrim, Morrowind, and Cyrodil modelled. They would just have to update the graphics to the current generation, and add different quests to them. Also if you guys do think this will happen, when do you think it will happen?

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:19 pm

And it would either have a development cycle of 20 years, or you'd be able to trek across Cyrodiil in five minutes.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 2:54 pm

Highly doubtful, unless they made an MMO. So in light of that, I don't think it would happen, nor would I want it to. That would be way too massive for a single player game, I already put in several hundred hours into Bethesda games. If a game were that large, no one would ever be able to finish it.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 3:02 pm

My thought was that they were running out of Countries to use, so they're going to have to do this, create a new continent, or create a new series. I like this idea to be honest, and it shouldn't take them 20 years if they became successful enough and had a big enough dev team. Though debugging would be a biotch lol

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 9:00 am

Didn't they already do that in TES: Arena?

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:30 pm

Didn't they already do that in TES: Arena?

Did they? My first TES was morrowind...

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 9:48 pm

Did they? My first TES was morrowind...

Haven't played it myself but, http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/564545-the-elder-scrolls-arena/57458193.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 1:09 pm

Haven't played it myself but, http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/564545-the-elder-scrolls-arena/57458193.

So I guess to make my post politically correct I'd have to change the title to "Arena remake"

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 3:06 pm

Didn't they already do that in TES: Arena?

yes they did, but the world terrain was randomly generated.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 11:15 am

No. Bad idea.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 1:51 pm

My thought was that they were running out of Countries to use, so they're going to have to do this, create a new continent, or create a new series. I like this idea to be honest, and it shouldn't take them 20 years if they became successful enough and had a big enough dev team. Though debugging would be a biotch lol

We still have a ton of provinces to explore. Summerset Isles, Valenwood, Black Marsh, and Elsweyr. Basically the entire south. High Rock and Hammerfell can both be revisited in 3D. It takes Bethesda 4-5 years to make a TES game, so that's at least 15 years before we need to worry about running out. And there's other continents in lore that haven't been explored. Akavir for example.

The games are plenty big as it is. If they took any longer to make them, or made them any bigger, they'd just lose money.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:49 pm

We still have a ton of provinces to explore. Summerset Isles, Valenwood, Black Marsh, and Elsweyr. Basically the entire south. High Rock and Hammerfell can both be revisited in 3D. It takes Bethesda 4-5 years to make a TES game, so that's at least 15 years before we need to worry about running out. And there's other continents in lore that haven't been explored. Akavir for example.

The games are plenty big as it is. If they took any longer to make them, or made them any bigger, they'd just lose money.

Obviously, your much more knowlegable about this than me, and have put me to shame (not being sarcastic) I also figured some places would be lame like Valenwood would be like oblivion, endless forests, and the black marsh would be one big swamp.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 9:00 pm

If they developed some incredible random map, character and quest generation algorithms then there might be a chance. They could generate everything once, then work from there, but it'd still require a great deal of work. Significantly less work than if they developed it the same way as they did their other games.
I highly doubt they'd do any of this, though, as it's not their style. It's likely they'll never make such a game, but stranger things have happened.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 12:57 pm

If they developed some incredible random map, character and quest generation algorithms then there might be a chance. They could generate everything once, then work from there, but it'd still require a great deal of work. Significantly less work than if they developed it the same way as they did their other games.
I highly doubt they'd do any of this, though, as it's not their style. It's likely they'll never make such a game, but stranger things have happened.

I admit, I posted this without thinking it through, and now that I look back on it, I realize it was kind of a dumb post.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 1:12 pm

I also figured some places would be lame like Valenwood would be like oblivion, endless forests, and the black marsh would be one big swamp.

If you're going to make preemptive generalizations like that, Skyrim's just mountains and snow and not worth exploring.

Yet they managed to make that province more unique and varied than Oblivion, maybe even Morrowind.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 8:13 am

Keep in mind that we haven't seen nearly all of Morrowind, either.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 7:48 pm

Hmm. I don't think it's going to happen, nor would I wish it too. I like the unique feel you can get from immersion into each province : not sure that if they tried to do so much, they could pull that off. Smaller landmass, but better done, that's the thing. And there's still enough to explore for foreseeable future games. ^_^

I'd like more open provinces, though. Someone suggested it in the Skyrim section once : roads, commerce, rumours and politics, the feel that the zone you're exploring is only part of a greater continent, even if you can't actually go there.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 9:24 am

Wrong section btw.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 8:57 pm

If they developed some incredible random map, character and quest generation algorithms then there might be a chance. They could generate everything once, then work from there, but it'd still require a great deal of work. Significantly less work than if they developed it the same way as they did their other games.
I highly doubt they'd do any of this, though, as it's not their style. It's likely they'll never make such a game, but stranger things have happened.

As far as I know Oblivion had randomly generated terrain and Skyrim doesn't. Now I dunno about you, but I think Skyrim is a hell of a lot more interesting to explore than Cyrodiil.

If all of Tamriel was randomly generated terrain I don't think I would even see 1% of it before getting bored.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:05 am

As far as I know Oblivion had randomly generated terrain and Skyrim doesn't. Now I dunno about you, but I think Skyrim is a hell of a lot more interesting to explore than Cyrodiil.

If all of Tamriel was randomly generated terrain I don't think I would even see 1% of it before getting bored.

Huh? Oblivion didn't have randomly generated terrain. Arena and Daggerfall did.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 7:08 pm

If you're going to make preemptive generalizations like that, Skyrim's just mountains and snow and not worth exploring.

Yet they managed to make that province more unique and varied than Oblivion, maybe even Morrowind.

Yeah, but mountains are cooler and a lot more spectacular than swamps and forests

Just my opinion

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 11:20 am

Huh? Oblivion didn't have randomly generated terrain. Arena and Daggerfall did.

Maybe he meant that Oblivion had wilderness-templates, or something - like, each bit was not unique, but could be found elsewhere ? *confused about technology*

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 2:04 pm

Huh? Oblivion didn't have randomly generated terrain. Arena and Daggerfall did.

Maybe that's not the right term? Either way, Skyrim has a hand-crafted landscape while they took shortcuts when creating the landscapes in Oblivion.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:13 am

Maybe that's not the right term? Either way, Skyrim has a hand-crafted landscape while they took shortcuts when creating the landscapes in Oblivion.

I think you meant what LostInSpace said, where they basically pasted together pre-made templates Lego-style to create dungeons. And yeah, if that's the case, I agree. Skyrim's environments are infinitely more interesting than Oblivion's.

I thought you meant like in Arena and Daggerfall, where a dungeon or wilderness cell is randomly generated as soon as you entered it, meaning that most dungeons won't be the same and probably won't even be in the same place from character to character.

» Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:53 pm

Maybe if they did an RTS or perhaps an MMO, but I don't see it happening in the current breed of Elder Scrolls games.