Do you think Bethesda will do down the road?

46.63%

I really don't think they could streamline TES anymore.

Maces will be the next weapons to go, same as Skyrim removed Short Swords.

Why Maces? cause very few people use them.

Yea, I think they should stop doing this and they will, not sure if TES 6 but some day. The market will probably force them in the end, the general public will become more and more bored with the easy johndoeproof inflation of games and will start asking for more depth, more stats, more dialogue, real consequences for their choices, decent AI. The only way to set a trend is the competition to release a game that actually does compete TES. At the moment, the Gothic series is dead and Witcher didn't sell too well.

And one handed and two handed will become melee combat.

Games won't get deep an complex until someone releases a game that is deep adn complex that sells well.

After SKyrim's amazing sales...expect to see a lot more RPGs coming in the next few years....just like how after CoD:MW sold well we got alot of generic FPS games.

The market? Haha the market is doing well my firend, it's the average relevant customer whose standards have sunk. I don't see a studio that can provide a better and more complex open world rpg. BioWare themselves have recently said they would copy from Skyrim, so Bethesda is pretty much the trend leader right now. The Witcher is a PC only, we'll see when they release on consoles if they can keep the quality across platforms.

There's always more room for streamlining. The problem is that Beth did a mediocre streamlining. If elements are loved by the fans why cut it? I guess they played the parent role again; giving us something that they think is "for our own good".

Hah! People of the 21st century are too dumbed-down to want something complex and thought-provoking and deep, unfortunately. I presume future TES games will be basically first-person shooters but with swords and explosion magic.



Yep.

Just a guess, but I'd say not to get too attached to Smithing and it's little love triangle with Alchemy and Enchanting.

Small Guns and Big Guns will be combined into Guns. O.O

Games wont be as deep and complex as they were until game companies find a way around the hardware limitations of disk based gaming.

The simple FACT is that due to the advent of better graphics and better sound there is less and less room on the standard DVD to put in deep and complex features.

If you want games to get back to as deep a they were either
1. Get over the fact your gonna need to swap out like 3-4 DVD's
2. Get tremendously good internet speeds of over 5MB/s
3. Everyone gets Blu-Ray

I agree the disk limitation is a valid issue especially in Oblivion where they started full voiced dialogue, but some things that have been cut or neglected in Skyrim don't require disk space and the Skyrim single dvd is not full, there was more space if they really needed it.

TES VI: Summerset Isles announced!

Bethesda Softworks has, to the joy of countless fans from all over the world, finally unveiled their latest project. We bring you the first information about this new ambitious game. (Please refer to our earlier article http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page for information about the TES series.)

Taking the leap

"One of the things that always bothered us about the series was the complexity. Options lead to inequality and our games would be better off without that. So what could we do about this problem? Doesn't an RPG require choices? The solution we found is both satisfying and innovative. We have taken the leap."
- Todd Howard, executive producer

Todd Howard claims that despite continued attempts to fix the problem the TES series are still too complex. Players are flooded with choices and consequences of actions they could not even remember having done. "What we needed was what I call a 'player profile'. We know that many of our older fans like to roleplay, and we have given them just that in a new but more rewarding fashion." claims Todd.

The executive producer proudly showed us something revolutionary called 'player-profiling'. This new technique anolysed the feedback Bethesda was given about earlier games, and thus produced a 'player profile'. These profiles showed what characters the average fan wanted to roleplay. Bethesda Softworks acted accordingly and thus in TES VI everyone will be roleplaying the same characters. "I just wanted to clarify that this does not include apperance. Players can still choose a race and gender. In fact we have more customization options than ever including chest hair. Instead we have streamlined the game by merging more skills together to create three distinct characters that players will be able to roleplay. This way players will not be intimidated by the amount of choices. Skyrim was already a step in the right direction as it removed classes which were limiting. Classes simply caused confusion, I mean who wants to play a nightblade? (laughs)" - Todd Howard

These 'player profiles' are the reason why there will be no more skills in TES VI. Instead players will level automatically at various fixed points during the storyline. After leveling-up they will then be able to put points in one of the 3 attributes (Combat, Magic and Stealth). Putting points in one of the attributes will ,however, lower the other two which makes 'dual-classing' nearly impossible. " 'player-profiling' Showed that the majority of our fans wanted to play as either a warrior, a mage or a thief. They do not want to play as a battlemage so we decided not to annoy them with needless additional options." - Todd Howard.

Of course we had to ask if this would not limit the roleplaying options too much. Luckily Pete Hines (Public Relations) assured us that that would not be the case. "You can always imagine that you are playing a battlemage, right? Use some scrolls and pretend you are casting spells. Imagination, isn't that what roleplaying is all about?"

Stay tuned for another exciting installment because next week we will delve deeper into TES VI's combat. Todd already stated that we will get to use combo moves by smashing random buttons fast enough.

I love how exaggerated that post was, gave me a good lol.

We are people of this century too... the ones who enjoy reading fantasy and playing good quality stories in complex video games that don't hold your hand with stupid arrows and three word phrases... it's not us to blame. We are the same people and our IQ is just fine. It's the developers who shift and alter their products to reach an audience that was not into this kind of games. Yes, it has come to this: the developers are catering more to the people who do not like the genre than to the people who not only like playing, but also followed religiously the series and helped them come this far...

Developers are cartering to the larger crowd because they have to to make enough money. Even back before consoles took the storm game devs constantly complained of not being able to recoup money.

The simple fact it is impossible to recoup expenses by catering to the hardcoe. It was like that before Halo made the Xbox popular and it only gets worse every year as dev costs go up.

games HAVE to be made for everyone so series can continue.

Yes, I was indeed exaggerating. This will not happen 'till TES VII.

Nah... by TES VII they'll have everyone playing exactly the same class, as 3 choices is still too much, I mean, what if I start a mage then suddenly realise I don't like it? By removing 3 classes and allowing you to play the Battlethiefmage you can have just the same great experience as ever.

Also, VII starts in Hammerfell, a small province containing only its capital, which is of course composed of seven unique houses. There is a faction to join in addition to the MQ, the Adventurers, who offer two quests. In addition the 13 townsfolk all have their own line and quest, with a unique voice actor each.

I love how when Bethesda simply moves things around and only truly removes like 2 things people act lke its the end of the world.

Obviously. The sanctity of TES is in mortal danger.

But seriously, I doubt the devs are really stupid or anything, and to be perfectly honest, if they chose any one of the really extreme complainers and made exactly the game they demanded, all the others would still be annoyed. I'm not saying what they've made is perfect; far from it. It's a learning process, there is no perfect game that can be made, no best TES. It's all about making the next one an improvement, again and again.

TES VI will fix the things most complained about in Skyrim. There will be other problems, but overall when taken as a sum of its parts it will, hopefully, be good so long as the flaws it will have are not too significant. This is after all how all TES games work. None of their individual features are particularly stunning, but they offer decent or good for so many features in a single game that it just makes the whole game come together.

At least that's how I feel about them

If there is one thing the public do not have it is taste or depth of interest. Really, the main reason we got in-depth RPGs is because computers were an expensive hobby for middle-aged nerds. Now that the proles are allowed on the internet you can expect any large company to go to crap, because they need to satisfy the morons to stay in business.

This is why niche-publishers are always the best publishers. Because the majority is always wrong. I'm sure in 10 years or so Paradox Interactive will start putting out rubbish games and I'll have to restrict myself to playing Matrix games.

What we need to do is to stop expecting the mass-market to produce niche products and instead keep on the lookout for small, dedicated publishers with personal projects. The problem is not commercialization, it is customer focus. Large game publishers make Hondas. Your hardcoe fan of classic games, however, is looking for a Delorian. The problem is that some people at Bethesda want to make her a publisher like EA; and thus she is no longer able to maintain quality status in the niche market she once utterly dominated - the first-person RPG.

The majority cant be "wrong" because wrong implies that actions or thoughts have some sort of intrinsic measurable value, which they do not. Valve of any sort, from moral to basic numbers, is a mental constructed created by humans so we could better label the world around us.

Valve always has and always will be something that exists solely in the opinions of each individual and like how each individual is unique their concepts of Value are also. However much like how each individuals uniqueness makes it impossible for them to be any lesser then anyone else the same applies to their thoughts, including Value.

The majority can never be wrong just like you can never be right and vise-versa, and saying that they are just because they don't agree with you is arrogance of the highest order.

Then... if I can never be right, and you can never be right, and if the majority can never be... Nope, sorry. You lost me.