Gotta keep that quote somewhere. Sums it up perfectly, and it looks like there's going to be need of it.

There are a lot of games that prevent you from saving while in combat or while something is coming to kill you and has detected you (ie. Mass Effect) why not just do that?

Oblivion is already like that, you cant save during combat.

a "checkpoint" would just occur at pretty much every time an auto save would occur
so I suggest, never saving, and playing using the auto save only =D

An approach some mods use is to work with the current save system and just punish the player for dieing (Such as the loss of $ or exp as the OP suggested. The mod I use temporarily reduces most stats for an in-game day.) Those who don't want to be hindered can opt to reload.

Checkpoints would defeat the purpose of having an open world Game. If you want to fear dying Start a mission and Don't save until you complete it. For me I'm gonna Save anytime I want.

so why do you want to take away the safety net from those of us that don't want to fall and crack our neck, maybe not all of us are in it for the adrenaline

Since they seem to be taking some cues from Bioshock 2, It wouldn't surprise me much if they added something similar to the vita-chambers into the game. That would entirely remove the fear of death and I sincerely hope they do not do that.

Bioshock 2 had the least fear of death of any game I have played, If you die, just respawn nearby at half health and some EVE, other than that you lose nothing but a bit of time walking back to where you were, with enemies still as damaged as they were when you died. :yuck:

Why not have the person loose a % of their money or maybe even armor so that dying actually costs you but also theres the fact that when you die you die and have to reload so...

Wanna fear death?


Everytime you die delete the character and restart.

Most people(me included) aren't hardcoe enough to do that.

They need to make an ULTRA hardcoe Mode for this.

Maybe if it was like Mincecraft where you die and loose all of your items and then u have to run back and retrieve the items within 15 minutes or they disappear.

You might not have to take it away completely. It could be a game setting that gets saved with your character, so you can't change it without starting a new character. Options to restrict when and where you can save... only when sleeping, or whenever inside an inn, or whenever inside of town, or when not in a dungeon, or when not in combat, etc.

Fast travel just needs a bit of an overhaul than actual restrictions like that, though.

well, if you guys want a penalty for death... bethesda could make an option that kills off your character permanently if you die...

an option, of course... so you can choose to have only one chance, or have the normal "you died - load a previous save?" choice.

that way, everyone should be happy... or, most people, atleast.

You want fear? Play Amnesia.

Fear isn't about knowing that your HP total might hit zero and force you to reload. It isn't even that your HP might hit zero and force you back to a checkpoint. It's about psychology -- tension, powerlessness, ignorance, and presentation.

1) Tension: It's easier to scare someone when you establish a sense of safety and then force them out of it. Or worse, shatter it and reveal it for an illusion. But scares start to wear off after a while. Eventually, you have to establish normalcy again.

2) Powerlessness: One key difference between a sense of heroism and fear -- knowing that if whatever is out there finds you, there isn't a damn thing you can do but hope you can outrun it. Whether it's a vastly stronger mortal foe, or something that can't be killed at all, just knowing you're in huge trouble if you encounter something raises the tension a great deal. Of course, if you get killed a lot, it becomes a chore. Amnesia is good about changing things on load if you die too often to keep irritation from ruining fear; that wouldn't really work for TES, and at any rate, you should spend at least as much time feeling heroic as fearful.

3) Ignorance: Your imagination can conjure things much more horrible than the nastiest monster model -- suggestion and darkness goes a long way. And your mind can conjure fear quite well out of nothing. Establish that there are things to fear. Put someone in deep darkness, where those things could be anywhere, where every shadow could be hiding something lying in wait. That is fear. Amnesia is great because, while light might make you feel safer, it also exposes you to enemies. You're always torn between returning to the dark, and staying in the light where at least you can see your doom approaching.

4) Presentation: Sound is key. Sound is what you rely on in the dark, and there's a lot of opportunity to use background noises to create a vaguely disturbing soundscape. It's even better when you aren't always sure whether a sound is background noise, or something you should be worried about. Another thing they did well in Amnesia (that might not translate as well to an Elder Scrolls game) is modeling your character's mental state as though he was there and simulating it for you -- seeing monstrosities, supernatural disturbances, or even being in darkness for too long cause you to start experiencing the effects of fear and panic. At first, your screen gets blurry and you start hearing strange sounds or -- maybe -- voices? footsteps?. Your character's breathing starts to come in desperate pants, his hands start to visibly shake, and eventually he falls on the ground and can barely even crawl. You start to panic along with him -- it's quite effective.

At any rate, I hope some of the BGS devs played it, so they could see if there are any ideas there they could draw from.

The Daggerfall manual had something interesting to say about this. I'm sure it's ok to post this in it's entirety, as Daggerfall is now free:

The "Replay the Save Game" Strategy

Most computer gamers use the save game to maximise their playing ability. Any time something goes wrong, they return to a saved game and replay it until they get it right. The final history of their game looks like an endless streak of lucky breaks and perfect choices.

Role-playing is not about playing a perfect game. It is about building a character and creating a story. Bethesda Softworks has worked very hard to make The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall a game that does not require players to replay their mistakes. All adversity can be overcome, excepting only the character's actual death. In fact, you will never see some of the most interesting aspects of the game unless you play through your mistakes.

If your character dies, she gets locked in a dungeon, or some other truly catastrophic event takes place, by all means return to your last saved game and replay it. However, if your character is caught pickpocketing, if a quest goes wrong, or some other mundane mishap occurs, let it play out. You may be surprised by what happens next.

since the game is on steam and assuming its using the cloud feature what if steam charged you 10 cents everytime you saved your game.

Yeah it could be fun, and I empathize with the OP, but it could also svck.

Where would the checkpoints be? Everytime you enter a new cell? Auto save already does that and a lot of people hate it, especially if they don’t back up their saves on their own. Imagine if they couldn’t!

Or, if I died fighting some dragon boss, and had to start all over from my cabin (or wherever) and hoof it all the way back up to some mountain cave, possibly over and over again, how lame would that be?

I do not understand this ping-pong of hot debates.

The suggestions that I offered adds an optional hard core character that could optionally add any type of handicap a player might want to add, for instance consequences for dying and no fast travel and so on...

The main game can have instant reload feature, but the hard core characters can optionally add consequences for dying to make one fear one.

This. I loved trying things in Oblivion that I knew would get me killed, but the hilarity/fun/whatever factor would be worth it, especially since I could just save. Seriously, who DIDN'T try (Minor spoilers)
attacking Sheogorath at least once?
(end spoilers)

And who didn't try frenzying entire towns and sitting back and watching the mayhem? Half the fun of sandbox games is seeing what kind of cool stuff you can do. If you happen to mess up something important in the process, you can just reload the save that (if you were smart) you made right before trying it.

Yeah Oblivion really didn't have that fear of Dying unless you screwed up with the Leveling of your character or fought Umbra and didn't bother to use Disintegration on her Armor or Sword.

Simple remove level scaling COMPLETELY.

Totally agree. I like it when you feel mortal. Adds a little excitement to an encounter. If we just walked thru everything it might as well be a movie

Saving doesnt neccessarily ruin the experience.

FONV. Saved my game in a railyard filled with deathclaws. Deleted the rest of my saves. I was undetected but there was just so manyof them that whatevr route i took they would find me. Any move id make theyd come charging! I took all my drugs i had on me and read every mag. Used my best ammo to take out the first couple deathclaws then i Booked it to the nearest indoor place which happened to be filled with fire ants. It was awsum because everytime i loaded it (musta been like 50 times)i was scared [censored]less