I especially like the fact that we can come up with our own back stories. I think it's a good writing exercise.

I don't care that much about the Chosen One role. Both Morrowind and Skyrim make it clear that you aren't destined to do anything. You can straight up tell Dagoth Ur that you're not Nerevar reincarnate, or that you don't know. If you tell Paarthurnax it's your destiny to defeat Alduin, he tells you to question it. Miraak was Dragonborn, too, supposedly "destined" to defeat Alduin, and we see what came of that. If anything, I'd like them to emphasize the "destiny is meaningless" theme, like we're announced as the mythical chosen one who's supposed to behave and do things a certain way, and then characters react when we aren't what they expected.

The world-ending threat or metaphysical calamity doesn't have to be immediately apparent, though, I'll agree to that. (note that it wasn't in Skyrim - it wasn't really until you met Esbern that the looming threat of Alduin became apparent). And with the Aldmeri Dominion as the antagonists, it doesn't have to be. I like the idea of unraveling a conspiracy, myself - the early part of the questline could then be done in a semi-nonlinear way, as you piece together clues and do seemingly unrelated things until it's all revealed how everything is connected.

I can agree that and over reliance on, or a misrepresentation of, the Prophecy dynamic can be a problem. I think Oblivion was by far the worst example of that, because they spell out the entire plot in the first 15 minutes (right down to foretelling the whole Akatosh-Avatar. Admittedly, it's said in allegory, but "In your face i behold the sun's companion. The dawn of Akatosh's bright glory may banish the coming darkness" doesn't leave much to interpretation when you know the plot) because it basically tells you the entire thing is resolved from square one.

Skyrim and Morrowind make it less clear (though Skyrim seems to go out of its way to downplay the uncertainty). It's less that you are destined to win, and more that the confrontation is as far as the prophecy goes. The Nerevarine will face the Sharmat. The Dragonborn will face Alduin. The prophecy sets the stage and drives the final encounter, but it's important to not outright say "The prophecy says you save us all".

Less "You will bring balance to the force" and more "Two son's of Baal will battle atop the City of Swords".

It's not so much the fact that i dislike the chosen one/apocalypse type of story. But having every main quest revolve around it makes it seem less dire and more samey. For me it just feels rehashed and the story essentially known.

Imagine for a second that TES 6 revolves around a mundane/political questline. That would provide the game with new and exciting dynamics. Then in TES 7 we are the chosen one, facing off against this mysterious ancient god, as foretold in prophecy. The questline of TES7 will be all the more exciting, by the mere fact that it has been longer since we faced a world ending threat in TES. TES 6 would be good in driving forward the politics of the world, while focusing the story on an event which is much less important/groundbreaking/end of the world.

It's part of the setting though. The Mundus is an unnatural cancer at the heart of reality that exists for no reason other than to constantly throw existential challenges at people to force their ascension.

That's not to say it can't have internal political struggles. It does. We've seen them in every game save Oblivion (where all the Counts were unusually peacefull). But taking out the existential threat is stripping away the entire reason Heroes exist in TES to begin with. At that point, it might as well just be a TES Adventures game.

Doesn't mean every game has to revolve around these chosen one stories. for instance, the Great War could have been a really interesting TES5 (barring the fact that it would have been set in Cyrodill again). We could have helped the empire reconquer the imperial city, not a world ending threat, but exciting enough. Therefore when we moved onto Skyrim, the chosen one story would be less worn out and more exciting.

Most people are not aware of the strange metaphysical lore surrounding TES. As long as we have a large open world, and the option to create our own character. The main quest can be anything it wants. I just think that spreading out chosen one/ apocalypse stories, with mundane ones, will make the world ending threat more interesting. Mundane quests can be exciting as well, from the Great War, to a story revolving around political intrigue.

Yes, but does it have to be part of every story we tell? I don't think that's necessary. Hurricanes are a part of the setting of Florida, earthquakes of California. But we can tell many stories about the people who live in those states without bringing hurricanes or earthquakes into it. There must be many stories, interesting stories, happening all the time around Tamriel that don't involve gods and prophesies.

It's thinking like that which got us Nords worshipping the Imperial Pantheon and barely even recognising the names of their own gods.

Of course there are. We've seen at least 9 of them over the last 2 games (well, some involved gods... But it is a world where gods are prominent in almost all aspects)/ And there should be more in future games.

But there's a difference between exploring the myriad of stories that stretch across Tamriel, and making one of them the MAIN story. Included? Absolutely. We need more interactions like the Civil War, but fleshed out and with a little intrigue... But the Main Stories are something else entirely...

Particularly since the games take so long, particularly since we're slowly working through provinces with vastly different cultures and beliefs, the Main Story, and the world-ending threat that it focuses on, is the core showcase of the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of the provinces culture. If you had a game set in Hammerfell, that focused entirely on the political intrigue between the Forbears and the Crowns, with the Thalmor pulling the strings, you miss out on the vastness of the Yokudan mythology and spirituality, of a huge chunk of their culture and beliefs and history.

You can't showcase the cultural, spiritual and ideological identity of the races of Tamriel through purely mundane, political means. So you either relegate it to the sidelines, or your go in, full force, and try to blow up the world with it. Part of what made Morrowind so awesome was that it's main story was almost entirely about the Dunmer, their history, their origins, the nature of their gods... It still had a threat to all of Tamriel, but it highlighted the Dunmer in a way the politics of the Great Houses could never accomplish, because it went right to their soul.

Every province has the grounds for monumental, world-ending threats, and you can't look at things like Satakal, The Ansei, the Ouze, Lorkhaj, Sithis, Numidium, The Void Nights, Adamantia etc. and just say "eh, we'll get to them later" simply because apocalypses are 'played out'. Later will take a century. Particularly when you can do it all at once.

Zurin Arctus doesn't seem to think so.

I mean, with that said, the last game that didn't explicitly have any wacky prophecy business (I.E You're the fortold hero of such and such to do that one thing) was Daggerfall. The game that featured the soulless corpse of Maybe!Zurin or Maybe!Wulfharth, the latter of which is an effective demigod, trying to get his soul back and subsequently activating a giant robot that completely shatters time. TES at its heart has always been kind of over the top.

Its not the larger then life antagonists that bother me. If anything, I like them, because they give us a larger or different look into the insight of the metaphysical universe. Its how these problems are approached (Skyrim) is where everything falls flat, and it makes up a trite plot of the Chosen One defeating the Dark Lord. Had Skyrim actually incorporated the Civil War into its main quest akin to New Vegas, nearly all of its problems would have been alleviated, because the civil war, that thing that was built up to be a major part of the game, would have been center stage with the story along with the dragons. The "mundane" would have existed with the fantastic, and would otherwise work.

fantasy is saturated with prophecies/ chosen ones/ evil god/ world ending threat. I suppose that is partly why i enjoy GOT so much.

If we imagine for a second that the civil war was the main quest for Skyrim and the dragons never returned. They could really play into the politics/morally grey areas of the issue etc. Meanwhile with the threat of the Thalmor looming large. I don't know about you guys, but conflict and adversity against a mortal opponent regarding a morally grey issue, is much easier to get people emotionally invested in. Just think of how invested people get with real world politics, where for the most part, there is no bad guy, just differing opinions.

dragon threat in Skyrim

1. must defeat evil dragons.

2. The Dragonborn is the only one

civil war

1. We stormcloaks are fighting for freedom from Thalmor puppets. Freedom to worship.

2 We Imperials need Skyrim to help keep us strong, stronger united. White gold concordat only signed in order to save us from defeat.

3. etc etc

The civil war has a less clear god and bad side, but the outcome could have an enormous impact on Tamriel, yet the story is mundane and could potentially deal with the cultural, religious and social parts of the Nord race. If it was the focus of the Main quest.

The prophecy, apocalypse war style of storyline is popular because its same like real life, see how the world now? how bible predict Armageddon? how Islamic predict the Malhamah war? How the jews waiting for their messiah?

This sort of storyline give 'grand' feeling to the developer and players. The politic storyline doest suit to be main storyline, in can be side quest. or added dlc quest or even mod

When tes 6 came out in the future, of course i will be playing the main quest for the 1st play through. But for 2nd time playing probably not. Its a sand box game, same like skyrim, there is nothing wrong when the main story doesn't progress if player doesn't 'trigger' the quest giver. I want to do other quest, i want to do side quest, dlc quest or just play as normal npc (social crafting job) without worrying world be ending. Nothing break roleplaying here, what break roleplaying and mood is repetitive play. forced main quest. But thats not the case, skyrim is fine, setting like skyrim is fine. This is not a problem, lets fix other area.

I really hope TES 6 give a start like life another life mod, or random start. Bored play as prisoner, hate to be forced to play tutorial start. I want something like this

I would like to see some of Fallout 4's innovations add to the next Elder Scrolls such as a more elaborate armor layering system where if we want we can put Dadric Armor parts with what ever. Further and more so, it would be cool if we could for example: rearrange weapons into what ever concoction we want. Like being able to make the blade of a sword, glass with a steel hand guard and a Dadric hilt with a glass pommel...

The way I see it you can still use mystical threat to tell grey stories with no clear good guy, and without a chosen one ( and similarly it is perfectly possible to write a story with no magic, mysticism and make it a black and white type story). I will say that Bethesda doesn't have the best track record in that, I would argue that the last time where that really worked was either Morrowind or Daggerfall, but that is not a reason to go let's be a game of thrones under another name, and to be honest I feel like that type of plot might not really work all that well in an open world game.

Using Hammerfell example let's say the mystical threat would be dijiins/Daedra ( or someother mystical force). You can still have various grey fractions that disagree on what should be done, Good Redguards who ally with the Dijiins/Daedra against the Thalmor, which pits them against other redguard fractions. You can have orcs who are not allies of the mystical threat but see it as an occasion to build their own Kingdom. You can have a dilemma whether to ally with Thalmor who are still questionable but who can offer a serious help against the mystical threat.

I know, i was more trying to point out that you do not need a mystical threat to make a good story. Anyway this conversation is going to keep going round in circles, so time to move topic.

I believe they will build upon the Fallout 4 customisation system. I believe Lachdonin discussed a really good system a few weeks ago, although i can't recall exactly how it worked.

Well, it's not a stretch that they would return to this kind of armor system (they did it with Morrowind). IIRC, the only reason they gave for doing the combined torso/leg armor in Skyrim was so they could free up memory to allow more NPCs and other things on screen at the same time. Whether this is true or not, the fact that they moved to this with Fallout4 is promising. About your weapons idea, I'm not sure we should be able to mix and match different parts made of different materials in a weapon. Why mess up an ebony sword by putting a crappy steel cross guard on it? That said I would love to have a system where you could forge multiple parts from a material, with each part behaving and having a different function in combat. For example: if you are able to forge ebony and want to make a sword, you would have four or five different blades you can forge, a few different hilts and cross guards, maybe even be able to add an exquisite gem on the pommel and/or somewhere on the cross guard.

Yeah with the example I put forth in the post you quoted, I proposed that you could forge several different style blades of each material type. So you'd have a generic category (ebony sword) and from there you could put a standard western longsword blade, a thin saber blade, perhaps a falchion or scimitar style, and possibly even an Akaviri katana style. From there you could slap on different hilts, guards and pommels.

I'm worried about TES6, because skyrim was such a huge, all around dissapointment to me. A crushing and absolute dissapointment which has left me feeling apathetic about the series in general. Tbh, reading this thread and seeing some of the same usernames from the pre-release of oblivion and skyrim makes me realise how much I miss this community, and the ahem shall we say, hope, that it generally has (even some of the grumpy old-timers ; P).

Basically, I'm back in the game if they put spell making back in, and make the exploration less samey. I know that sounds like a crude thing to say, but I think the overall quality of the exploration really dipped with skyrim - eventually it just seemed like an endless procession of bandit camps and draugr caves, with self-same bosses and 'artifacts' with copy+pasted skins that levelled to you

So yeah, give me some good old morrowind-esque exploration, and some spell making, and I'm in

One of the things I hope they do is to have a Cyrodiil focused expansion at some point that brings back the culture of the Colovians and the Nibenese. I am still a bit salty over how Oblivion did away with anything being uniquely Cyrodilic.

Don't give up just yet. Skyrim may have been a bit of a miscue but I feel like with the new generation of technology and a better understanding of what worked in Skyrim and what didn't, I fully believe the next TES *can* be awesome. If the game set is set in Hammerfell, isn't the southeastern area supposed to be strongly influenced by Colovian culture?

That is exactly how I felt about Oblivion. Skyrim, for all its many faults, actually renewed my faith in the series. To each his own, I guess.

If The Elder Scrolls VI takes place in a alien world like The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind does, maybe Black Mars? And Bethesda Game Studios adds back the armor and weapons degradation system and also brings back the separate armor pieces that The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has.

I think then my interest in The Elder Scrolls video games will renew again and get me very happy to play them again.

Or they could do the DLC on Stirk Island, off the coast of Cyrodiil.

Had to look that one up but yeah that could work too!

I think it is best handled in a DLC though. We've already been to Cyrodiil and retreading that ground shouldn't happen anytime soon, in my opinion. But I did really like the stuff they did between Bloodmoon and Dragonborn for the island of Solstheim, so Stirk would probably be a good place to have some reintroduction of Imperial cultural identity.