They need to combine the good things from all three games, ditch the things that don't really add to the experience, and then scour forums for what dedicated fans would like to be added to the franchise.

1. IMO: We need factions like Morrowind, in which joining one and advancing through it will make you enemeis with another. Also, Morrowind has more factions to join. The improvement here would be the obvious technology differences between Morrowind and Skyrim, as in all these factions would be voice acted, more dynamic, etc. There would still be standard factions in the game like Morrowind that you join just to join and do duties for, but I'd like to see some factions that don't make you the leader, you just advance, and still other factions you can become the leader of. Or perhaps it boils down to how the player goes through questlines, and that determines if you can become the leader or not.

2. We need attributes/skills back from previous games. Why did mysticism get trashed? Why are there less skills in general and less spells? Why did spell creation from Morrowind get removed? Why did we go from having a helmet, cuirass, right/left pauldron, leggings, right/left gauntlets, boots, shield, under-clothing, over-clothing (like robes), two rings, amulet, belt, that we could wear ALL AT ONCE, to Skyrim's horrible Cuirass/Boots/Gloves/Helmet system? Collecting armor sets in Morrowind was vastly more satisfying than in Skyrim because it was harder to do, becuase there were more pieces. I could also make my character look cooler, by leaving one arm unarmored while the other side of me was, or whatever.

3. I understand why Bethesda did away with Morrowind's dice rolling combat, because new physics allow you to swing a sword and hit, but some sort of RPG mechanic needs to make a return into combat, whether it be in the form of the Oblivion skills that allow you to unlock abilities when you reach certain levels, or bringing back attributes that have a direct influence on combat. TES is an RPG franchise, but its slowly becoming an FPS with swords and magic.

4. There needs to be a delicate balance of leveled enemies and non-leveled enemies. Some enemies need to be leveled, to keep the challenge level up, but I think that EVERY dungeon/ruin/fort/cave/explorable area should start with non-leveled enemies. At level 1, I shouldn't be able to walk around and smack anything to death that I seem fit. Each dungeon should be hand-crafted to contain monsters/NPCs that are a certain level, meaning that you will have a harder time completing that dungeon if you are below their level. After you reach their level and surpass it, I wouldn't mind if they were leveled to keep up with you to keep the challenge there. One of the greatest and most intriguing things about Morrowind was the fact that I could walk into a cave not but one minute from the starting zone and get instant killed by an Ash Zombie. It makes dungeons more challenging if you aren't the right level, but it makes the reward fell all the more rewarding if you manage to actually use your wits to complete that dungeon even though you are clearly outclassed. On this regard, I think that every dungeon should start with mobs that are a specific level, and they only level to KEEP UP with you, mobs don't level DOWN to your level to make every dungeon completely regardless of where you are in the game world. Add an option to your journal, "I will have to return here when my skills are more savvy" to make this more immersive.

4. Skyrim's combat is fun, but we need more things to come back. Morrowind had way more weapon types. Tantos, Katanas, Crossbows, Throwing Stars, Wakizashis, Staffs that were also blunt weapons, Halberds, Spears, etc. Bring all of these things back while keeping the GOOD from Skyrim, like dual wielding, shield bash mechanics, etc. With new physics technology and what not, more weapon types should be greeted, not dismissed. I'm glad the crossbow got added back with Dawnguard, but really? We had a crossbow way back in Morrowind...

5. Keep Skyrims diverse traps and dungeon puzzles, and add more varieties of each.

6. Allow several game preferences to be toggled before you start a game. Examples:

- Give players the ability to toggle regenerative health/fatigue/magicka. Morrowind was so fun because potions for fatigue and the other attributes were so dang necessary. It upped the challenge. Naturally this type of hardcoe playstyle doesn't fit everyone, so allow players to play with regenerative attributes if they so desire. If its toggled off, the game will never generate enchanted loot that makes things regenerate faster, instead it will generate other types of loot.

- Allow more map toggles before you start a new game. A lot of people liked Morrowind's style of finding quest objectives. NPCs often gave you their best description of a place, or if they knew the exact location they marked it on the map. Keep quest markers and pointers in-game for the people who want it, but add more alternatives. If you toggle it off, your character's position on his map doesn't show (because they don't have GPS in TES, they would have to know where they were already) and have NPCs give wordy descriptions, or hand-written notes, or mark it on your map. No quest markers for the people who don't want it. Instead, if you know you are in White Run (for example) and an NPC marks a northern dungeon on your map, then you have to find it based on where you think you are leaving White Run, etc. Of course this would all be on a toggle. Casual players could choose to just have quest pointers tell them where to go. Build your quests from the ground up with this design in mind. You can make things hard to find if you always give the option to the casuals to use quest markers.

- Allow fast-travel to be a toggle as well. If its on, it works like Skyrim. If its off, you travel like you did in Morrowind, by using the best fast-travel methods (mage guild teleporters, silt striders, boats, etc) and then walked to where you have to go. This both appeases casuals and hardcoes.

- Please beef up the dialogue of NCPs. If its too expensive to find extensive, professional voice acting, involve the community! Invite community members who would be willing to volunteer to do voice work into the fray. Send them the lines you want voiced with detail descriptions of how to voice it, then have them send it back to you. Use the best of the submissions. There are probably hundreds of people who would be willing to sell their voices for free! We need more dialogue in the TES games, we need more NPCs that we can emotionally care about. I found it so hard to care about any of the NPCs in Skyrim.

- Give the playable character more dialogue options as well. Oblivion was perhaps the worse. Only being able to say one word and get the response was horrible! Dawnguard is probably the best example right now. The dialogue choices you have with Serana were fantastic (and I was sad I couldn't marry her). But for the love of god, let my PC say FULL sentences, tell NPCs about MYSELF, and in general have WAY more things to say than just a few words. In this way, the PC can feel more attached to characters as part of quest lines and feel more involved in the questing process itself.

- Add more dungeons and ruins and explorable areas that aren't tied to quests at all, but must be found through pure exploration or rumors from citizens. If a citizen says he thinks there's an abandoned fort somewhere, it doesn't trigger a quest. You can decide to go looking and reap the treasures for yourself if you find it. But in this, buff up the amount of "clues" you find in these places. Notes from people who met their fateful end in this ruin, etc. Those are nice little lore items to find and are very fun indeed!

- Going along with the above point, all dungeons should have leveled loot containers and non-leveled loot containers. Morrowind was fun if you pulled off a dungeon that was WAY beyond you and ended up with glorifying loot as a reward. I think you should do loot like I suggested you do NPCs. Each dungeon starts with loot for preexisting levels. If you surpass that level, the loot levels up with you, but if you are below the level (and likewise below the level of the creatures defending it) you get rewarded with loot that is really good. Leveling is both a good thing and a curse, for it keeps the challenge, but it also takes away some of the reward/mystery from dungeon running.

This is my wordy 2cents for the next TES game. Agree or disagree, I think the main premise should be to take what worked in ALL THREE GAMES, and expand those features by adding new ones to work in accordance with it. Perks from Skyrim were fine too, btw, now that I remember.

Playing Dead Island recently it's clear that one thing the next TES should make sure to improve in the next installment is the UI, specifically in terms of switching between weapons. Bethesda should really try and implement something like the weapon wheel in DI. It could be set up where holding down the ready/yield key - let's say F - brings up a wheel of eight or ten weapons/shields/torches/etc and selecting an item with either the left or right mouse button would equip that item to the corresponding hand (same as how it already works in the Skyrim menu). The same thing could be done with spells- say by holding down the R key.

Of course you are correct about AC3 & Red dead.. But in some regard tes can be a little too diverse with not enough focus on each area.. They should either maintain the diversity and put more effort in refining it or reduce the diversity a bit to achieve perfection in more important things that are used constantly in the game.. Mass Effect did this while still maintaining the ability for each person to experience the game in a unique way.. I think Mass Effect had/has way more potential than it provided so imagine what they could do with tes if they followed similar guidelines..

On a side note I want to see vallenwood, black marsh & elesweyr in the next game combined or in a 3 part release kinda like mass effect 1-3 where your character continues the story except with the capacity to travel back and forth at any time.. But I'd rather thy be in the same game.

If they scale up the game to lore standards, it would be interesting. 1 city from Valenwood, 1 city from Elsweyr, and 1 city from Black Marsh. I'd like to see a city's ecosystem explored more.

Attributes only limited character diversity.
Becuase it was a skill designed solely for spells that the developers couldn't deicde where to put in other schools, they found places in Skyrim.
Becuase having 3 skills that all do one thing each isn't any more or less complex then one skill that has three branches in it, it's just more clutter. We have less skills becuase each skill does more
Morrowind:1+1+1= 3
Skyrim:3=3

There are also significantly less spells in Skyrim becuase of the way the perk system works. In past Elder Scrolls games there were like 10 variations of the same spell, with the sole difference being how much damage they did. With Skyrim's perk system they were able to merge all those spells into one spell, and give you perks to upgrade that spell. One spell in Skyrim has the ability to become like 10 different spell based on perks.
According to Todd Howard its becuase the spell creation system was too spreadsheety, and took the magic out of magic.
1. less peices means better graphics, and less strain on the game so the game can show more NPCs at one time.
2. with the introduction of the dual enchant system, each piece now has the ability to have the enchatments of two items from past games. Every peice of armor in skyrim now has the power of two item from Morrowind, we have less items overall becuase each item does more.

As I've seen from tech demos of next-gen games, both rigid and cloth physics can be applied to next-gen characters, so the graphics won't be a problem for the next Elder Scrolls. All the different clothing types will be able to layer on top of eachother without clipping.

It's plain the writing staff of Morrowind read Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth before making that game. The entire staff at Bethesda should have them assigned as required reading before making another TES game.

Having the items not clip really doesnt solve the problem of "more armor = less NPCs"

Nor does it remove the fact that with dual enchanting, having more wearable items would only unbalance the game.

Ummm, no. It was possible to max out all attributes in Morrowind, not sure about Oblivion because I never played a "power character" in that game. Like it or not, attributes were a fundamental part of the TES style of RPG, and their removal in Skyrim makes the game more of an Fantasy Adventure FPS. If Bethesda is going that route, they should openly proclaim it.

And second of all, most people are in general agreement that player diversity in the TES games shouldn't be, "you can just be everything you want." In fact, those kinds of builds in Morrowind were frowned upon by the majority of the community. Its an RPG, not Call of Duty.


In your opinion. Mysticism was widely used in both Morrowind and Oblivion (I always took it as a major skill in both games). While some mysticism spells may have been merged, about half of them were cut from Morrowind to Skyrim.


And by this you mean that because of Skyrim's more FPS-centric mechanics, there was no use for Morrowind's short blade, long blade, blunt, two hand, spear skills? Or Oblivion's Blade/Blunt dichotomy? You can try to spin it how you want. Less skills = less diverse classes and more generalized generic characters that feel more like a hack n' slash title than anything else. I'll give props to the perks, that was a good idea, everything else was a step backwards.


Yes and the previous system was better for player management, and offered more choices about how you wanted to tackle problems. This part of Skyrim wasn't what upset me. The blatant removal of literally tens of spells from Morrowind to Skyrim is what upsets me. The lack of spell creation, and the excess restrictions on enchantment, as well as the reduced amount of armor types.


And do you agree? Did you ever feel like you were filling out a spreadsheet when creating spells? I didn't. In fact, I enjoyed custom tailoring spells to fit my class, knowing full well how much magicka I could use and how long it would last me. I had custom spells for all sorts of common situations I ran into when adventuring in Morrowind, and to a lesser extent Oblivion. I don't see how it took the magic out of magic when the primary method of acquiring spells is to walk up to an NPC and somehow insta-purchase them.

1. Advancing game technology means a lot of developers brag about increased polygon count, that should equate to more armor pieces, not less. TES was never about graphics anyways, until Skyrim anyways. Gameplay > graphics.

2. And yet Morrowind's enchantment system was fairly balanced. Constant effect enchantments were far harder to get than charge enchantments, and for good reason.

1. Actually yes. As you leveled up your skills you got constant bonuses to your attributes, and becuase all of your major/minor skills were tied to 3 of the 8 attibues, you got constant high bonuses to those attributes. This resulted in you maxing out your primary 3 attribtes by level 20-30. After that, the next 40 levels were constant upgrades to all other attributes. This resulted in all level 70 characters, even without power gaming, getting 100's in thier 3 main attributes, and 60-70 in all thier others, and becuase of the way attributes work, this meant characters were largly similar. In Oblivion the difference between 70INT, and 100INT was 60 magicka, this is the cost of 3 mid level spell, or maybe 2 high level spells. The difference bewteen a mage who focused on INT, and a warrior who was forced to level INT, was 2-3 spells. Not that large of a difference, the same is true of all other attributes as well.

Past Elder Scrolls games had a pyramidal leveling system, where the higher level you got, the more similar your characters became. The most diversety your character ever had, was at level 1. With the removal of attributes in Skyrim, they effectivly flipped the pyramidal leveling system upside down, now you become MORE diverse as you level up, insted of less.

2. Actually that was Todd Howard's opinion, not my own.

3. No, not at all. By that I mean, when you can have one skill that has three branches, one for each of the weapon types, combing skills means nothing in lost becuase the same divserity in skills still exists, it just takes up less space on the screen. There is no loss of skills, period.
Morrowind:1+1+1=3
Skyrim:3=3
3=3

4. Opinion, one I dissagree with. Having a large spell list full of redunant and useless spells only made the spell system cluttered, and nearly impossible to use at high levels. Skyrims is far more usefull becuase now I dont have the 100+ novice, and adept, spells that I would never use filling up by spell list, and insted, I have a smaller over all spell list, full of far more usefull spells.

5. Yes, I did fell like it was a spreedsheet. Spell making was the equivalent of taking all the spell effects, and putting them in some orginized series of boxes that you could just reach into and pick out what you wanted.
5.1 Increased plogygon count means each piece is better looking, not that there are more. Your understanding of polygon count and how it relates to number of items appears to be off.
5.2 And Skyrims is now equally so, but now we have more NPCs on the screen, and things actually look half-decent.

I would like more attributes, more quest branches with different consequences, more npc awareness of what's happening, less repetitive dialogue lines. And a faction reputation system, all visible for the player with numbers. And please let me disable shadows completely. They look bad and I can only set them on low, I want an "off" option.

Next-gen hardware solves the problem.
It's a little thing called "gameplay balancing."

The "next" gen is 4 year old computers being sold as consoles, instead of 9 year old computers being sold as consoles. The next-gen is not some magical golden age that will sweep away all the problems from the current, nor will it make simple facts become false. The simple fact is, that no matter what current hardware gen it is, less total armor pieces = more NPCs, and more total armor pieces = less NPCs, and the next gen isn't going to be this mega-change that alters the paradigm of how many NPCs Bethesda can put in one area.

Unless you seriously nerf enchantment level, you cant really "gameplay balance" adding more.

whoops double post

Sorry still haven't updated my suggestions- post. Goes through game elements, role playing and character creation, nothing to do with settings, lore or plot. It's in the Sig. Suggest you read it, it's been given a long time and an endless number of forum threads. There were so few things improved from TES4 to TES5 that almost every aspect I mention are still valid.

I hang here less and less every year. Merry X-mas people!

If that were true, we'd still be playing with 8-bit graphics. New hardware allows more things to be drawn on-screen. The limited NPCs are because we were dealing with 7-year old hardware and 512MB of RAM. Bring that up to today's standards and you can have way more NPCs walking around than ever. http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/images/19841-5-1342277327.jpg

That 512MB of ram is exceeding 8gig in the next Xbox from what I have read so it will be interesting to see what it is capable of handling..
Regarding the whole amour piece issue, maybe they should work on making different armor types fit together properly before worrying about how many pieces there are, or don't allow completely different types to be used together as they wouldn't in reality, but allow multiple enchantment slots to be added via skill or purchase as soul gems that become visible on your armor piece.
Also, in reality you would typically wear something under armor regardless so they should factor that in.. And additional enchanted rings, piercings, necklaces etc..

I personally would like to see The Elder Scrolls VI take place in both Hammerfell *and* High Rock. (I know it's a pipe dream, but still).

If it could have a main quest that would span two provinces, imagine what could take place. And as it will be on the next gen, I'm sure it'd be capable of such a feat.

I'd also like:

No compass, and to find where you are going from NPC's, exploration and the such.

Better combat. Less ethereal.

Even more dynamic NPC's and better design so they look less weird and non emotive.

Less fetch and carry quests, and make side quests much deeper and engaging.

Magic system - much better magic system where you can make your own spells again, greater amount of spells on offer.

Guilds and Factions - please make these more interesting, less easy to get into and raise through the ranks, and how about some healthy rivalry and disdain between some of them? IE you can join one but not another etc

Proper classes back but you can build on them as you wish.

Better marriage system.

Bigger towns and cities.

That should do it!

Well first off, the claim you make about 8-bit graphics blatantly untrue.

Secondly, the next gen of consoles wont run off of todays standards, they run off of 3-4 years ago standards.

Those are very very bad, and very very baseless rumors.

Expect maybe 2 gigs of ram in the next Xbox...... half of what PCs in the last 3-4 years use on avarage.

When were the next-gen consoles officially announced? You seem to know so much about them. You talk about baseless rumors yet you are one who believes them.

Ok, kid, if you havent been paying attention to anything happening in the gaming world this past year, this conversation is going to be difficult. I suggest you spend all of 5 mintues looking up thing on one of the o[censored]less search engines before running back here and yelling "HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY ARE MAKING NEXT GEN SYSTEMS".

Please look up the term, "official," then reply again.

I really, REALLY hope they don't try to combine multiple provinces into one game. Skyrim, being set in one province and revolving primarily around one people (the Nords) was able to create a semblence of a culture for the province, based on our old Viking cultures. If we spread it out over two or three provinces, we have to create multiple cultures, and they will be diluted and therefore less interesting.

Now, to continue the story I began a few posts back. Like I said, given the volume of information, I wish I could give it its own topic. That way, those who are less interested in my vision for a Summerset game could just not click on it. However, the moderator I asked clearly stated that it was here or nowhere. At least I'm chopping it up into subsections so that it doesn't become too unwieldy.

ELDER SCROLLS DOMINION - Plot Synopsis - Part 2 of 3

You now have access to most of the vast open world of Summerset. You can go to the Rangers, or just wander about doing quests or making money through crafting, but you can also continue the New Stormcloaks' questline, which will involve frequent travel between the mainland and the Stormcloaks' base on Firsthold. It is the largest side questline in the game, and consists of various things: returning to the shipyard and stealing tools and materials, raiding an armory, and aiding the citizens of the town (most of whom prefer Hodlin's compassionate rule to the harsh Thalmor overlords they chased out). When you finish, you can choose between two rewards: Hodlin will give you training that will increase your melee fighting prowess by 15%. Or, Yadbaam can give you training that will make your dual wielding as effective as single-wielding (normally, dual-wielded weapions are only 75% as effective as single-wielded ones. You are also offered formal membership in the New Stormcloaks. You can only join one faction, and only five factions will offer you membership. Joining the NS will give you a 30% boost in experience in all fighting-related skills, allowing them to level up much faster. This stacks with other similar bonuses.

There are a number of non-faction related quests, large and small, throughout Summerset. Bryn has done as he said, you will have no infamy among the elves and other residents (save what you bring on yourself through crime); you can wander at will. One option that will be noted: you can find Bedrel, the elderly Nord who engineered your escape, in a hidden cavern a short ways from Kingshaven, the port where you arrive. He reveals himself as the last surviving member of the Companions, a Skyrim-based warrior's guild who fought bitterly against the Thalmor invaders for the past century and a half. He states that he was wounded in the escape and does not expect to last much longer. He offers you the opportunity to carry on the Companions' legacy by becoming a werewolf like him: you will be faster, fiercer, stronger. If you decline, you can change your mind later; he will remain alive until you say yes. If you accept, he dies moments after you harvest his blood, but you add the werewolf transform to your abilities.

If and when you head into the forest (which is in the vicinity of the city of Shimmerene), you are soon waylaid by the Rangers. Their leader, Glatho, is very gratified to learn of the survival of the New Stormcloaks. He states that the Rangers would consider it an honor and a pleasure to support them in an action against the Aldmeri. However, there's a a problem: as a part of the purge that you were a victim of, the Thalmor recently cracked down on them, and many of their people are in custody. You find a handful of them in a local prison and set them free, only to find that the bulk of them are en route to Culuma Prison for interrogation and execution. Jo'Rak is happy to take you there, and while you can't get back into the complex the way you previously left it, you are able to slip in through the sewer. Once you find the elves, they reveal that they have a few concealed shivs and makeshift clubs and can still fight. All you have to do is secure the master keys from the main office, and then set them free. They swarm through the prison, and completely retake it, then put all the torturers to death. They promise to see to the destruction of all the torture equipment before abandoning the prison.

Upon your trimuphant return to the Rangers' base, Lairah is also present: it seems that Glatho sent an envoy to Hodlin while you were gone, and a formal alliance between the Stormcloaks and the Rangers has been forged. You are now tasked with further strengthening the new coalition by securing a supply cache from a guild of Khajiit merchants based in the nearby port city of Shimmerene. You can continue the Rangers questline, as before. Completing it gives you the perk of improved stealth, especially in wooded areas, faster climbing, and improved archery. If you join them when given the opportunity, your stealth skills gain experience 30% faster.

When you find the Khajiit, you determine that they have their own issues with their Altmer "protectors". Their leader, Zahraji, is highly amenable to supplying the Ranger/Stormcloak force with food, quality weapons, and other essentials. However, she sadly states that she does not have sufficient supplies herself, and will not be able to convince her superiors in Elsweyr's Anequinian Merchant's Guild to help unless you can do something for them. The best chance is to furnish proof that the Void Nights were a Thalmor plot; that would weaken the southern kingdom's collaborationist government and strengthen the guild. There is a book in the library, in the mage's guild near the Crystal Tower, that has the information you seek.

Zahraji provides you with a set of the robes won by students at the college, so you slip into the school easily enough; no sneaking or violence is required. As you pick up the book, you are immobilized by a grizzled Breton spellcaster named Ermand, who tortures the truth out of you by zapping you with lightning every time you try to lie to him. Once you tell him the truth, Ermand offers to assist you, since he and his fellow Bretons are just as tired of second class citizenship as any other non-Altmer on Summerset. There's just one small problem: while you're welcome to the book, the rumors about it were false. It simply doesn't contain the information the Khajiit require. There may be a scroll that does, but it's buried in one of the planes of Oblivion (possibly Apocrypha, possibly elsewhere). He has the means to send you there, on the condition that you agree to pick up another piece of lore buried there, one that he's been wanting access to for a long time.

Sent into oblivion by the mages, you battle your way through the deadra and obtain both scrolls. Once it's done, they offer you the opportunity to help them again, by seeking lore or useful items in other planes or otherworldly realms. Whether you opt to do their questline or not, Ermand quietly sends one of his underlings to Firsthold to work their mages into the coalition. He also points you to a Dwemer ruin near Cloudrest, which might hold some technology that you can make work. However, they caution you that there are Dunmer destruction mages encamped there. They and the other mages at the college had a bitter split some time ago, so the dark elves now go their own way. Still, they would be useful allies in the upcoming conflict. You can now (or at your leisure) deliver the evidence to the Khajiit, ensuring that your coalition will have the supplies they need.

If you follow their questline to its conclusion (scouring three or four oblivi-planes in the process), the mages offer you enchanting services, for a price. Your personal Enchanting ability in the game is much weaker (all three crafting skills are nerfed compared to Skyrim), so this is very useful. Their best enchantments are expensive, but are about a third more powerful than the best enchantments you can do.The mage's guild is the third organization that offers you membership: they offer to take you on as a student at the college, which grants a 30% level-up bonus in magical skills (as well as a secure set of quarters).

The Dunmer are indeed in the ruin, and they have little real interest in the tech, most of which is broken. However, they refuse to allow you access to the ruin unless you do a few things for them (mostly involving exploration of the ruin itself), and they also have a questline of their own that you can follow in return for vastly increased power in all Destruction spells. Once you complete the required quests, you receive grim news from the head Dunmer: Jo'Rak's boat was ambushed and destroyed by Thalmor, but he escaped and has brought grim news. An invasion fleet is being readied at the Kingshaven shipyard to send an army in and retake Firsthold, and also carry out the punitive decimation of the town for their "collaboration". The Dunmer agree to aid you in an assault on the shipyard, where you reduce all of the (provisioned but empty) ships to matchwood, buying the coalition some much-needed time.

Jo'Rak still lives, but you're confined to the mainland for now. The good news is that you uncovered your own jackpot in the ruin: most of the Dwemer tech is beyond repair, but one item is salvagable: an underwater boat that will allow you to reach any island without risk of attack or detection, once it's restored. The boat is small (it will take three people), but it's safe, since eels only attack things they can actually eat. And, with it you can access previously unavailable locations: Skywatch, the Crystal Tower, and even the Imperial Palace in Alinor. However, it's missing a Dwemer power core. One of the Dunmer knows where the core might be. A delegation of Altmer scholars recently visited, and a certain Altmer scholar and dissident, somewhere in the capital took some tech from it. The Dunmer agree to send envoys to the college, offering a temporary truce with the Bretons so that they can join the Coalition as well.

You find the Altmer scholar, Turenene, easily enough. He does indeed have the item you want, and is willing to consider letting you have it. However, he has his own problems: there is a major figure in the dissident movement in Thalmor custody, a young woman named Tidril. He asks you to rescue her. When you attempt to do so, you run into Bryn again, who explains that you're free to take the young elf: she had actually turned and now supported the Thalmor, and her capture was faked in the hope of getting the dissenters to release an actual spy in exchange for her. Tidril has actually just been debriefed, and the Dominion is poised to use the information in her report to purge the dissenters.

When you return to Turenene with Tidril, he is accompanied by an Imperial named Gravius, who announces himself as a member of the Invisible Hand, the combined remnants of the Blades and the Pentius Oculus. He has been aware of your activities for some time, but was afraid to contact you, since it was he who stayed at your inn and inadvertantly got you into this mess. He explains that the Hand have been operating in secret throughout Tamriel for the past 150 years, ensuring that the flame of resistance never quite goes out. They have a proposition for you: your coalition has a real chance of succeeding where many others attempts have failed, but it is unlikely to succeed without intelligence that Gravius can help you supply. The Hand are willing to help you to get it: no favors this time, they and you are on the same side (and they owe you). This is the opportunity that they have been eagerly awaiting for over a century: the chance to bring down the Aldmeri Dominion once and for all. They won't lie, the months following the Dominion's defeat will be chaotic, and lives will be lost. However, in the end, freedom and equality will be restored to all of Tamriel.

You must now choose whether you are going to serve as a double agent for the Dominion or devote yourself to the Colaition. You side with the Dominion by returning Tidril to the dissidents without saying anything about her true loyalties. You side with the Coalition by telling the truth about her to her erstwhile allies, allowing them to escape the coming purge. Whether the dissidents are preserved or crushed, all of the factions in the coalition still believe you to be with them. Only Bryn will know the truth either way; if the dissendents are taken, you will not get the blame for it. He promises horrific vengeance against you if you talk, but can do nothing as of yet, since the Coalition is entrenched in Firsthold, and they don't have enough ships for an assault on it. This is the point in the game where you make your final decision: will you preserve the Dominion, or bring it down? The choice you make is not reversible.

To be concluded...

The next game could feature six with the wife, domestic fight, divorce, paid six and starting a brothel.

@Oddish
Oh, I wish I wasn't going to Sydney right now, that looks like a good read, I'll tell you what I think of it in a few days.