Umm side jobs are also escapes. When do you see yourself farming in real life? Or mining ore? Or playing a lute?(fictional instrument) Or maintaining a vineyard?

While I do think it'd be nice to be able to play a musical instrument, such as that lyre, I'm not so keen on the idea of some musical rock band style mini-game.

Even if it was just a little simple guitar hero kind of thing like Two Worlds II did. I got pretty good at playing the harp on that though.. It would be cooler if you could just randomly play notes though.

I think its great, I'm surprised it hasn't been more of a topic after the video came out. I've been waiting since morrowind to play instruments!

but I'm torn about a mini game. if lockpicking has a mini game, then shouldn't cooking, wood cutting, and music have one too? It just depends on if its good or cheesy, and it'd be hard to make it not be cheesy.

Also everything you do should be tied to a skill! What if playing an instrument had some sort of magical effect, like charm/frenzy? Instruments could be tied to the illusion skill...

I used to farm, I work in a sand molding plant, and I make wine as a side hobby. If I have to do some stupid repetitive task that involves me shoveling or making something over and over again, than it reminds me of work and the game failed to let me have a little time from reality. The fact that I wound up raising 8 million gold by making pies so I could get "Tough Love" was the biggest drag I dealt with in any fantasy game I played.

Sorry guys, combat was in Fable. No more combat.

So were humans. No more humans.

So was the player. No more video games.

Did you seriously just call a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lute a fictional instrument?

And to Caustic, that argument doesn't really work. Does that mean shooters shouldn't exist because there are real soldiers out there who might play it and say "This just reminds me of my life"
Besides, what you should have done in Fable III was buy up a bunch of houses, leave your 360 on over night and voila. Easy as... pie. :lmao:

That lute-playing mofo from the trailer was awesome. So awesome that he doesn't give a flying fuss to the fact that someone just got murdered right in front of his eyes as he proceeds to keep on tweedletwiddledoooo-ing with his lute. Damn, I want him to take my Dovahkiin fellow as his pupil.

Well, The shooters thing isn't completely true. After all, everyone gets to respawn when they die. And I never really did like using houses because the boneheads that move in insisted on smacking everything with a shovel (that's how I liked imagining the house condition going down), so I left it to just the shops and I still had about a mil to go. :\

See, that's your fault not the game. Buying up houses and being a rich-ass landlord was my favorite part of Fable III (and 2 for that matter)

But I do understand you. Nobody likes to grind (well some do) and all I have to say is just like how you didn't do buying up houses in Fable III just don't play the lute in Skyrim. You may not enjoy it, but a lot of us sure will

Again, what you see as repetitive and boring others don't. You may have been a farmer, or owned a vineyard, but others have not and wouldn't mind doing that in a fantasy world. Some people think exploring ruins and learning about Skyrim's lore is pointless, some believe reading books in game is a waste of time, does that mean they should be omitted? I could go on and on with examples of immersive additions to the previous elder scrolls games which served little purpose. Plus these things are pass times, not careers. I doubt someone will make a character ONLY to whack a rock and sell the goods 24/7.

Haha..I'm an idiot.

My logic was that in a world without columbines, machine plows, advanced mining equipment and chainsaws things like farming, woodcutting and mining are going to be a lot more widespread and important. If they have time to throw in a minigame and make it not completely ****ing awful then more power to them. But handcrafted instruments and professional musicians won't be too common if there is real work to be done.

Important to a diverse economy/city absolutely, but music is good for culture and it's confirmed that the game has a bards college, need I say more? This isn't about the NPC's though, this is about the player. Things the player can do to pass the time, or to make a little bit of money. The minigame for playing music doesn't have to be like guitar hero..I don't expect that level of complexity.

two worlds 2 has exactly this............you can play guitars, flutes, drums and i think some other stuff as well. i svck at those music games so i didnt try it for very long but i can see how some people find it fun.

Would be cool if they implemented that kind of mini-game. Would be even better if you could do it in first person view.

Definitely!!! I'm pretty sick of seeing only Lutes and Lyres in the TES games, though. But other stringed, brass and woodwind instruments? Absolutely!! Surely over the past thousands of years, man and mer figured out how to invent the violin or trumpet or flute or piccolo or cello. But then as one person on here pointed out to me, we only see a glimpse of everything in the TES world, as it's almost impossible to represent every "mundane" thing within a video game. But on topic, yes, I would love to see and play instruments; more diverse instruments, like the ones they use in symphonic orchestras. They had many different classical music instruments in the medieval days and I'm sure TES does too; they're just not developed in the games. Would anybody else agree?

(I'm somewhat of a violinist myself, although I dabble in piano, guitar. My forte is drums)



That's completely opinionated. In your opinion, yes playing a lute does not add immersion. In others' opinions, it does. In my opinion, have small chamber ensembles and male choirs would perfectly fit in and add to immersion.

too bad there won't be any kinect support. I could play some clarinet polka for the fine folks of skyrim; Now that would be cool.

So then don't do those things and your problem is solved. You remind me of this guy I used to know who got sick from eating eggs, but every morning he would eat eggs despite the other varieties of food. In a nutshell, if work and side jobs and playing instruments are in the game and you don't want to participate in them, then don't, and you won't feel detracted from the fantasy of the game. This reminds me of those people who don't like fast travel because they can't control their temptation.

Like in Morrowind, we could play some music.

I agree, more important to be able to play fat lute. :goodjob:

Totally. That way you can really be a Bard then.

Well some mini games can be implemented like playing on musical instruments like in Two Worlds 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGvuOBo5rQU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVMDzyZBK4w

I wouldn't use the instruments to play them.

Oh no.

They're simply the perfect tool for bashing one's head in.