First, I would never be critical of a production company that does amazing work and has always made games that were incredible; however, I think it is ok to point out an area where I think they made a huge mistake: hidden objects.

In Morrowind, a few times I stumbled upon a hidden helm or artifact just by overly exploring and looking for really nothing. Looking items up on the internet, I found a list of awesome hidden items throughout the gameworld. It tooks weeks of playing to accumulate them all, and it was really fun. Even knowing what I was looking for and where it was was a challenge in some cases. I think Oblivion messed this up in a bad way. Gone was the labor intensive searching and research in finding these items. I want them back. Much like Chicken Fries, I think hidden artifacts without waypointers is something I want in my world.

Yes, the Oblivion leveled loot system ruined this, pretty much. Bethesda should just hide all the things in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Tamrielic_Lore randomly around Skyrim.

Screw "hidden" items!


I want INVISIBLE ITEMS!

I want to walk into the middle of a seemingly empty room and then can't run any further because there is a random giant invisible statue right in from of me! I want the best weapons and armor in the game to be invisible and placed randomly on the ground somewhere out in the open world and I have to trip over it randomly walking to find it!

I WANT INVISIBLE STUFF :goodjob:

agreed and good chance this shall be

Man... Boots of blinding speed, that was crazy. And Scrolls of Icarian Flight. Oblivion was pretty dulled down, most items felt very random and leveled, all for the sake of "balancing" I guess.

I would love more details and unique stuff in Skyrim.

Oblivion had a few hidden items that put Morrowinds to shame, though they had them in very small numbers. I mean, can anyone say Hatred's Soul?

Yep, I want my "artifacts and relics" back to. And I want them to have unique look. I although want the head of Scourge back - the most awesome find ever, I love Telvanni bars

there was a bunch of hidden stuff in oblivion, they were just really hard to find, and I loved fin gleam
I played through it about 7 times and I only found 2 until I started looking for them

The problem with Fin Gleam was that it looked exactly like any other glass helm... unique items should look unique. Another example is the Amelion armor... just standard ebony in a different color.

Yea it was disappointing to find underwater chests or hidden chests you had to jump to on forts and find nothing but a piece of gold, some yarn and a broom...maybe a gem. I remember finding a firebite sword in the Seyda Neen area in Morrowind hidden in a tree stump. Simple treasures like that make a game much more enjoyable. And then there's the epic finds like the daedric longbow or pieces of armor tucked away. The landscape of Skyrim provides great opportunities for hiding stuff (small window caves, rock piles etc.) No matter what I'm excited cause with the recent updates on GI I can confidently say Bethesda is going for things we don't expect that will be groundbreaking.

Hatred's Soul was good but still leveled and not really special in any other sense than the fact that it was... Really good

I'd love to see more items like the boots of blinding speed. Some items with a real sense of uniqueness as opposed to "Well, this is kinda badass, I guess."

Oblivion had a few things you could find. Even then they weren't unique in anyway. In Oblivion at some point i just walked by every dungeon, they weren't worth the time because there was nothing unique to find. In Morrowind you never knew if you would find something cool or not, I had trouble not going into dungeons for this reason.

Yeah, Skyrim does need to take a hint.

True, they could've used a unique model to go along with their power in Oblivion.



Bet you were disappointed when you ignored Vindasel hmm? :shifty:

Mage character. Nope, not disapointed one bit!
Even when i made a warrior character and got it at like level 4, I broke it and didn't have the skill or the money to repair it...

Oblivions unique weapons all felt dumbed down and leveled to me, Morrowinds unique weapons was great I loved the Staff of Magnus and the weapons and armor did all look the same almost just with different colors, unique weaapons should have a unique stats,look and they should feel unique not just oh I got another sword or different color ebony armor...

How'd you get it at level 4 on a warrior character? Umbra would've been a big pain in the ass unless you did the typical thing where you only pick the skills you don't use often and leave all your major skills as minors. Umbra is a pretty evil fight until level 10. They made her base stats insanely high but her scaling was bad.



Can people stop using the phrase "dumbed down" when they obviously don't even know what it means...

Didn't they say they hand-built every cave and dungeon in Skyrim? I think that shows promise of well hidden items. But you guys are right. I do hope that they make them more unique. And I pray to god they're not leveled, though they probably will be.

I think this is really the situation when the actual number of artists working on a game come into play. It's not a design decision to repeat textures and models, it's a time/budget constaint to find the middle ground between what is really necessary and what isn't. Hopefully with a bigger budget this time and a larger art department, there'll be an extra amount of unique looking gear, as well as additional worldbuilders designing unique locations with interesting treasures to be found. We can probably expect more variety this time, but not enough to please everyone, I guess. That is truly impossible. =)

I too want more quantity of hidden objects.
Oblivion had a few far and beetween and sorely obsolete by system design.

I just want that part to be more like D&D.
hell, in D&D my character found a sword that was supposed to be only for lvl 16 characters, although he was like level 3. it doesn't break the gameplay at all. just makes it cooler

With over 100 people on their development team, I can't imagine why anyone would doubt this game will be complete and glorious. I mean, they have showed us so much already and with so many people working on the game, it's bound to truly blow us away with the amount of content they are going to give us.

Agreed.

I don’t remember what it was called but after playing MW for months, I found an ancestral tomb that I hadnt found before. It was all routine until at the end I found a staircase. It went down…and down and down and down and down, until it opened up into an enormous cave contained an equally enormous maze. “Well, I’ll be damned…” Then THAT led into an underwater lake with a boat in the middle, which was the tomb of some long lost warrior. High above that in a hidden notch on the caves ceiling was a bunch of treasure and a deadric helm, only the second one that I had ever found.

It was [censored] epic. I loved Oblivion, but I never found anything like that, and that’s the sort of thing that’s keeps you exploring.

edit: Im sure you guys know the place Im talking about. :goodjob:

after playing Fallout 3, I think BGS is back on track

I do think that deadric should be harder to find though, although there was a reason it was common in oblivion, they were under attack by dremora that use deadric armor/weapons