I honestly hope Skyrim will be a pure singleplayer, but there is one thing from multiplayer games I have never experienced in Oblivion - to be fear of death.

Once on one (RP focused) persistent server of Neverwinter Nights, I undertook a hazardous voyage to one of dungeons far from a city. I have got seriously wounded and was sneaking back. I had no healing potions left and all my applicable spells were used up. It was night, the city was far away and I didn't know the region well. I heard howling of werewolves from near forest, I found a clawed tree... Damn that was horrifying. And mostly because I knew that I can not save the game, I can not even pause it. I just had to continue playing or log out (but it would tell me that I died after logging in).

When you die, it is not over of course, you will respawn. But you will loose some valuable amount of experience and all money. I know it can not be implemented in that way in a singleplayer game. It would be also pretty lame if you were not able to stop the game whenever you want to. But if there were some way how to evoke that fear, it would be great.

There were sometimes public events on that server - lots of PCs and NPCs on one place and everyone played quite responsible - more realistic. In Oblivion it would be like: "Hey, save it and try what happen if you shoot that king to the head!" (Almost) no one would ever try it if it was irreversible.

The ability to save-and-load makes everything possible - you can break any lock or beat any creature - just by trying it again and again and again... Sure you do not have to do that - it is your singleplayer game and it is just up to you how you play it. But, at least for me, it is sometimes hard to resist. And what can you do if you die? You have to load and try it again.

I just want, you know; "Do or do not. There is no try."

Yes. I would really like to do away with the current quick save system and create "checkpoints", and if you die, you wake up to the soothing voice of Max von Sydow in a cottage or something, just recovered from your injuries.

I understand what you mean but it's a double edged sword. Being able to quit and reload is also a good thing. See, I remember back when I played an MMO (Dark Age of Camelot) and I was always the risky person who always wanted to pull before the group was fully healed and I kept getting pissed off at the "wussyness" of the general MMO-player who was so afraid of dying.

I like taking risks.

Agreed! It would be great if they implemented some equivalent to XP penalty when dying in Skyrim, so we can avoid the reload-fest. It would get more exciting to play, in my opinion.

Yes it would be nice to be fear of dieing without making it too tedious or not fun. I forget how Two Worlds has done it. At least they make it fluffy when you die, you are ressurected again.

After 20 years of playing, you know when you die, you just reload, so it's no big deal. At least in Diablo II you worry about dieing because you loose money. I guess with save when ever
you want when you want, you really can't implement how you die, since all we would do is reload to a previous saved point.

I am not willing to give up save anywhere, when I want, when I want just so I can be fearfull of dieing. All I know is I would be pissed, if I finally got my Artifact and lost it just because I
died.

What would be good suggestions of trying to make us fearfull of dieing, but not make us load a previous saved game. Also save when you want, anywhere you want, STILL has to be
left in the game.

Checkpoints??? Gods save us! No! Not in a hundred years. I want to be able to save and exit, or just save anywhere and any time I please. I have alive outside gaming, and if someone needs me to come over to another room and do something, or just chat. or even go out and don't come back for the evening, I want to be able to live my PC any time I chose, and don't loose anything. Even being unable to save during combat is annoying, checkpoints are a nightmare.

You are not taking any risk if there is nothing to loose.
You would be risking, if the death really meant something.

Great point. A lot of games have basically become trial and error affairs nowadays. I guess that is what happens when you are allowed to save anywhere. I myself have always been more a fan of realistic games with less save opportunities. Not that saving a game is realistic, but even playing FO3:NV, I found that I was saving constantly, because I didn't want to lose my items, and it was just easier. Like you said, that way I can try to mess with that Frost Atronach and see if I can take him. If not, no big loss, just reboot and keep all my stuff.

I remember playing an old PC game called Operation Flashpoint (before Codies ruined the series with the latest crapfest). I remember one mission in particular where I had to assault a large town filled with troops. It was a very long and drawn out battle(with no save points), and I lost all but one of my men, but I managed to survive. Just as we were heading to the extraction point, an enemy tank came along and blew my legs off and killed my ally. I hid behind a building until it left and ended up having to crawl like 2 miles (literally) to the extraction point, but I did it because I didn't want to have restart the entire mission. That is the kind of tension I want to see in games again. Where you are actually nervous about being killed because it can have some consequence. Not just "oh well, let me reload and try it again in 5 seconds".

I was often afraid of dying in Morrowind. When I was out in the wilderness with no potions left, all my gear broken and no flora and fauna around to make news potions from I felt as if death was certain. Being chased by cliff racers with my healthbar almost being empty, and then just in time finding a cave. Barely making it through the cave, finding new gear and a few potions. Then I would continue my journey and by luck find a new hidden settlement somewhere to restock.

I feared death because if I wouldnt be able to make it through it then I might never be able to do it even if I reload 100 times. This was a better experience then in any MMO.

lol Bethesda should pull a "Witcher 2" and have dying nuke your save files.

Would not add anything to my experience with the game and it seems to have quite a few major disadvantages.

I do not approve of this.

Well, there could of course be a save fle for exiting the game. Evertime you quit, you save, so you can't cheat death but still can leave when you wish to.

I agree, checkpoints are the devil and should not be implemented in an Elder Scolls RPG. I do like the idea of respawning but maybe that would open up pandora's box on the lore to explain why it is done because no other TES game used respawning after death.

i HATE checkpoints.............id rather have them go from the other direction. resident evil had an awesome save system where you could save whenever you wanted provided you were by a typewriter but you only had so many ribbons to save with. if we could find random "save gems/tokens" in loot that were fairly rare or really expensive to buy at stores and had to use them to save the game but allow us to save anywhere we want that would be a perfect system. in the end though it depends on how stable the game is. if its as unstable as fallout new vegas was at release then i just want the save anywhere anytime system...........but if its stable and isnt going to crash whenever i go into a shop menu then by all means make saving cost something.

It's definitely not going to be for everyone. There would be a LOT of p!ssed off casual gamers out there with that kind of a system. Beth would have to make it an optional mode, similar to the hardcoe mode in FO:NV. I would for one would welcome the challenge. Maybe they could limit saves to certain "safe" areas such as cities, or maybe go the RD:R route and have campfires/basecamps. That way it's at least enough of an inconvenience where you aren't saving every 30 seconds when wandering in the wilderness...

Most modern MMORPGs shy away from this kind of thing because the fact is it doesn't enhance the experience for most players. People with jobs/families/etc and many who do not simply do not usually like losing real life time over a video game death system.

I don't want to fear dying in a video game any more than it sets me back to my last save. Check points to avoid unrecoverable saved games is a good idea, though, and there's nothing wrong with options for people that want this kind of thing.

I forgot who said this, but it was a game developer. It went something like "Most gamers like challenge, but they do not like outright losing."

Also, people throw around "casual" and "mainstream" so much that they are almost pointless terms now, seldom used in any accurate description of demographics.

I like my RPGs best when I cannot load any savegames after dying. And I'll try to play Skyrim this way too; I just hope it's balanced around that and gives me a chance to prepare myself by training a lot before accepting dangerous quests, instead of levelling everything so it's always so much of a challenge that I'll have to run.

I'll just take the voluntary save where you want/ when you want approach that's been in the series for nearly 17 years, thanks.

Yea checkpoints would be a huge pain in the ass. Besides, where the hell would they point checkpoints in an open world game? Every 100 steps? It's nonsense anyway.

In that case you'll be able to save and exit before the risky event and get back to the game immediately, if you get killed - alt+tab out of the game, shut it down through ctrl+alt+delete and start again. The same as having a normal save, but with more hassle. So not much point in doing that this way.

They could make quick save, but only when you are not in combat. Like it was in Mass Effect or Dragon Age for example

On death you may no longer earn any Live achievements for Skyrim on that save.... lol

Checkpoints/save points would of course be beds or the opening to a dungeon.

I understand what you mean and yes, that would be awesome in a way. BUT it has too many drawbacks and I think it's too hard too implement that fear of dying without screwing the game up and destroying the freedom that TES is.

Oh that's simple. When entering a city, when using an inn, when entering a dungeon/cave, etc.