I think this could warrant more discussion without taking over the Beyond Skyrim thread, which discusses what we want from the next game as opposed to when we want it.

What worries me is that Bethesda has been working on Fallout 4 since Fallout 3 and heavily since Skyrim, but they don't show any indication that they've worked on The Elder Scrolls VI since Skyrim. Fallout 4 had four full years of development since Skyrim, so say The Elder Scrolls VI has just as many years of development, but with the stages Fallout 4 had before Skyrim compacted into another year, we could end up with another five years. This adds up to nine years in total.

Obviously we want The Elder Scrolls VI to be of top quality, so we're willing to wait, but many of us are already growing impatient and the idea of waiting not only as long as we have since Skyrim over again, but more so, is awful. We want a good game but we want it soon.

I still stand by them having a bigger team to help along development, even just fifty more employees could thrust development forward. Other than that, I don't think there's much they can do to speed up development and still have a great game.

As someone said in the previous thread, I also think that The Elder Scrolls fans have the short straw in waiting. In the last seven years, we've had three Fallout games. In the last nine years, we've had two Elder Scrolls games. And before you bombard me with a long argument on how good Elder Scrolls Online is, consider that it is different. Good or not, Elder Scrolls Online is very different to other Elder Scrolls games in that it's an MMO, meaning that it has a different play style to fit with other MMOs and the world is full of other players. Can you really say that is the same as New Vegas, which people actively compare to Fallout 3 and previous Fallout games due to similarities, just because it wasn't developed by Bethesda?

I don't wish to complain, but the waiting has been more rough for Elder Scrolls fans who haven't had a traditional fix in between games and waiting is only going to become harder and more aggravating.

Bethesda could:

? Have other companies work on spin offs of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls akin to New Vegas. Failures may happen, but it shouldn't impede on the base Bethesda series. This will give us things to do in between when we want something new from Tamriel.

? Increase their team. I know people argue against this, but an increase in the team can do no damage if it's about fifty people. A close nit community may give us a more heartfelt game, but fifty or so more people will still have Bethesda being a small company, just with enough people to speed up game development.

? Make one big expansion pack with that being it. I don't know about everyone else, but I'd rather have them work on the next game as oppose to Knights of the Nine or that pit in Fallout 3 or Dawnguard. Yes, they're interesting and great fun, but with the modding community being accepted by them and support coming to consoles, I think that could easily give us a few 'expansion packs'. However, I am very fond of the add ons we get like Shivering Isles. The big ones. This idea is very controversial, I know. I just really want Bethesda games quicker.

I, personally, don't want them focusing on apps or anything either. Yes, good for marketing, but full focus on the games should give them to us a little faster. And I'm against the idea of a new IP with the waits we're currently getting.

Edit: Forgot to add 'Part 2' in the title.

Just to point out, till it's reveal there was no inidication BGS had been working on Fallout 4 either.

They also told us not to watch for 'TESV any time soon' about six months before Skyrim's reveal.

I'm fine with them taking their time, it gives them more opportunity to make more innovations. I'm more concerned as to whether or not the game will grant any resolution or closure to the currently foreshadowed threats. I do not relish the prospect of waiting a decade to face and defeat the Thalmor should Bethesda decide to sideline them for something less climactic and save them for TES VII.

In case anybody's interested here is part one: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1530538-no-new-elder-scrolls-announcements-for-a-%E2%80%9Cvery-long-time/

When Fallout 3 was released people screamed that they abandoned TES, when Skyrim was released people screamed that they abandoned Fallout.

I mean seriously, Fallout 4 has yet to be released, then we will spend at least 2 years with the patching and the DLC, just have some patience, go play other games or previous TES games the wait will be over before you know it.

We don't know how exactly Bethesda works, I personally have little knowledge on how their whole system works. Sure you can say that a simple thing like increasing the team size can "help" but solutions are never that simple in any business, how will it affect the current team? Will working get impersonal? Can you keep tabs on what everyone is doing? Is moral up? Are there problems between team members? Against the lead of the project?

Remember Bethesda knows how their team operates they have experience in this field.

I'm not naive enough to scream that they've abandoned The Elder Scrolls, I just don't like the huge increase in waiting.


Yeah, fair point there. But my favourite thing in The Elder Scrolls is exploring and having this huge world to explore with all of the details and role playing elements for realism and immersion. I can easily jump from one side of Vvardenfell to the other or rage at Cliff Racers. I can easily throw the Adoring Fan from Dive Rock using different methods or have more fun with Whodunit? and Purification. I can easily explore the graphically enhanced world of Skyrim again and continue to level my character. I just want something new along with that. It just gets tiresome sometimes and games like Fable aren't The Elder Scrolls.


Fair enough with what's comfortable for them, but I'm sure a few more employees won't change much at all. There's one hundred people at least, which is already at the amount where quite a few of them probably hardly know each other anyway. And spin offs or not focusing on loads of add ons or apps won't affect the team dynamic.

There's been talk about Fallout 4 set in Boston for at least a year and a half. Speculations about Bethesda employees travelling around Boston, and doing research on old Musket-type guns, also turned out to be true. AFAIK Skyrim "flew under the radar" a lot more than Fallout 4 has done...

But it was never confirmed one way or the other. We had one guys word that he'd seen some Bethesda guys in Boston, while is words has been proven good. There was no real way of nowing till the reveal.

And had he not spotted those guys scouting, we still would've had zero indications before the reveal.

Something that I always thought would be a cool idea, is if BGS would hire something like 20 - 50 of their favorite/the "most successful" modders and give them an internship opportunity to consolidate things being worked on by the team and add additional depth while the actual developers are still creating content.

Sort of like, having a team of maybe 10 modder interns to work on a "civil war" questline in order to give it additional content, after the developers have stopped/run out of time to work on it. They could also help out with bug testing and work purely as an auxiliary team.

I'm sure there are potential problems with this but I'll let you guys tell me about that.

I'm expecting ZeniMax Media Inc., Bethesda Softworks, and Bethesda Game Studios to release The Elder Scrolls VI for sale in either 2018 or 2019. All of 2016 belongs to Fallout 4 and possibly 6 months of 2017 to the whole entire year of 2017.

That actually sounds quite interesting.

Yeah well we knew that, full production on TESVI probably hasn't even started yet although the general story and artwork is most likely done. The team will be fully focused on getting Fallout 4 out and done.

I said it before, but yeah, this could just be grasping at straws:

Michael Kirkbride has been absent from his reddit account (which he seemed to be posting on fairly regularly, before about 4 months ago). This could mean that he's pulling away from the TES community for the time being so that he can focus on writing new material for TES VI.

I just thought it's an interesting thought.

Although in all likelihood, they've probably been writing stuff for quite some time. I wonder when they chose the location. Perhaps close to the beginning of the year or maybe even earlier.

I'm not surprised.

This is post I made yesterday showing how not surprised I am.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1530488-tes-vi-location-and-setting-speculation-26/page-2#entry24271100

...as there is plenty of time between now and then, all I have to say is Bethesda has lots of time to work out how Spellmaking is manged.

I think we're going to have to simply wait and see what BGS does. They all know that TES fans want new singleplayer RPG experiences, and it seems that Pete Hines is trying hard to avoid saying that there won't ever be another one. That hints at the idea that they might be open to the possibility of a new traditional TES game at some point in the future. Right now, I'm simply unconvinced that BGS' next after Fallout 4 is TES VI because it has now been iterated at least three times that BGS may do a new IP sometime after Fallout 4, possibly in place of TES VI. I don't know if there would be that much talk over a new IP if they weren't working on a new IP.

Haven't all of these things literally been directed at Fallout Shelter and the TES Legends thing, though?

Everything you write is eminently fair and reasonable.

You've touched on a subtle point. Consider: GTA5 had over 1k developers. Yeah, that's A LOT. But they turned out an awesome product that was no less complex than a TES game.

For Bethesda to say "we want to keep our teams small for better quality control" is not a valid explanation for team size. It suggests limitations in management skill.

That's a damn good idea.

Well if the story and artwork is done, that's already quite a lot accomplished. To me, that's good news.

It would be a very surprising decision, if they do indeed walk away from further single player TES games in favor of a new IP. To abandon a known super successful product line in favor of something unproven.........that would be an awfully risky proposition.

They haven't abandoned it. They apparently still think ESO is a gigantic success, even after the console disaster :-/

how was the console version a disaster? I am just curious, since from what i read the PC version is doing pretty well.. then again, i suppose most western Console users were never really into MMOs in the first place..

They promised a staggered launch across timezones, in order to prevent any issues. In reality, it was opened up for everyone at the exact same time, causing massive logon issues (any issues that MAY have been on PC were far less), stability for the first weeks was horrible, and even though patches were claimed to be in the size of a few hundred mbs people repeatdly have to download 10+ gb patches...

thats been a launch issue with almost every MMO though regardless of platform.. heck, even WoW was not immune to these issues until the figured out how to prevent it during Cataclysm's launch (the Vanilla, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King expansions all suffered those same issues, as did some of vanilla's larger content updates).. I wouldn't call standard launch issues that almost every MMO has suffered from to an extent a "disaster".. maybe its just that console gamers are likely not used to experiencing it and as reacted by blowing it out of proportion..