Please, oh please, keep TES a single player game.

I honestly couldn't care less if they added multiplayer, provided they got an external studio to do it so that it never materially impacted the progress on the main game. I mean, GTA Online has made over half a billion in revenue, so if they decided to make kind of thing on the side then more power to them. Just as long as the core BGS team, who have a very specific pipeline, don't waste their time on it.

Which, interestingly, brings me to an nice tidbit of information: namely, that BGS has actually been quietly ramping up their hiring lately. They have nearly 20 open jobs (only one of which is for mobile development) and of course many of those roles could be for 1 spot or 10 (you don't re-post the same role 10 times if there's 10 vacancies). And they've been like this all year, in terms of vacancies. By contrast, for most of last year it was rarely above 5 and the turnaround rate was much slower (most studios and business do this just to keep an ambient level of CVs coming in, even if they're not actually looking to fill any roles). When you have 20 jobs on higher rotation, however, you know they're actually serious about hiring.

So when you factor in the 40-50 at Montreal, the current 20 or so, and (as a guestimate) another 10 over the past 6 months, it's quite likely that BGS will be close to 180 personnel soon - perhaps even more if they keep hiring past their current openings. Considering they were at 100 for Skyrim and barely changed for Fallout, that's kind of exciting. Plus the job postings tend to suggest it's still one project - which also makes sense given there's still only one game director and they've gone out of their way to make the Montreal studio specifically BGS, rather than just any other non-BGS Bethesda studio.

The only reason why I would ever support multiplayer is because it might force Bethesda to support their games for longer than 12 months.

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/home

This information caught my eye as well a couple of months back when I was looking at the job applications, very interesting indeed.


Does it mean that BGS is expanding their team size to be able to get more people working on one project at a time and thus shortening the release cycle? Or does it mean that they want to add a new IP to the mix while keeping the release cycle as it is?


Or does it mean something else entirely, or nothing at all?


Too many questions as usual. I have a feeling E3 will tell us something. Not necessarily revealing TES 6 but some information about other projects that might give us a hint of when to expect the game.


Only 5 weeks until E3. I am certain an indirect hint will be dropped intentionally or unintentionally and this piece of information will give us some kind of a more accurate timeframe.

Most game companies don't even have support after 6 months, yes even games with multiplayer. Do you really think multiplayer will force them to support the game for years to come? 12 months is a good time to end support for a game to focus on other projects. At most the only support would be server support.

Yeah, they need a new one. Someone with new ideas, and an awareness broader than lord of the rings. Maybe Chris Avellone.

Not saying their current guy needs to be fired, but Howard just makes the same damn game every five years. Annoying as hell.

Huh-whaaaaaa? Have you played TES at all? It most certainly is not 'The same damn game every five years'. Especially not when compared to Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, Dark Souls, Mass Effect, Halo or god forbid Mario.

Similar, yes, but that's to be expected out of games in the same genres and the same 2 series. But they most certainly aren't the same.

You know what I mean: similar. And not in the oh, this is vaguely familiar vein; more in the wait, Fallout with guns? Or is it Lord of the Rings with Nukes? similar.

No, I do not know what you mean. If there is anything consistent about Bethesda's game it is that they are not consistent. Bethesda takes enormous risks, changing basic, fundamental game mechanics with each game. Quite a few people think the games are not similar enough.

While I do think some parts of the game are repetitive. (FO4's survival mode frankly subverts it entirely), I frankly wouldn't trust anyone else to direct the series as a whole and maintain some semblance of integrity. Hell, I'm confident we'd be further down the LotR's rabbit hole then what Oblivion gave us, frankly.

Pseron, my apologies. I thought the previous five BGS games fundamentally the same dish. I see renaming the same game makes them truly different. An Attribute here, a perk tree there - some rummaging through random clutter. Consistently inconsistent? Yeah, let's agree there and part ways.

I bet there is a lot of people who wish oblivion was morrowind 2.0 or skyrim: oblivion 2.0 or morrowind 3.0

Fallout always had guns...

Todd Howard only was involved with TES from Morrowind on

Uh, what. Todd has been with Bethesda since the first Elder Scrolls game.


And as someone who played each Fallout game and each numbered Elder Scrolls game this is waaaaaaaaaaay inaccurate. There is a lot of notable changes from gameplay to writing wise.

To be clear, he joined Bethesda near the end of Arena's development, then became game director with Redguard.

According to http://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Todd_Howardhe was responsible for "Additional Design" in Daggerfall, became Project Lead for Redguard, and Executive Producer with the release of Bloodmoon

Morrowind, Oblivion, F3, Skyrim, F4: 5 BGS games.


Fallout with cheese; Oblivion with guns. You know what I mean.


Saving the world, a terrible rpg rule set, and their buggy game engine join forces to bring you lifeless npcs and worlds that can't make sense of themselves.


At last, some competition:
https://www.kingdomcomerpg.com


Their even brewing beer for the collector's edition. Where's my Flin?

I'm going to be honest, the more i look into Kingdom Come, the less i'm interested in it. Nevermind the fact that it's not even Fantasy (it's a historical RPG, so a rather niche genre anyway) but it's already showing some major shortcommings of gameplay and an inability of its mechanics to handle many of the teams promises. In particular, anyone whose watched their combat model with more than 1 opponent should notice how absurdly unbalanced it is.

I honestly doubt it's going to offer any competition at all. The lack of any magic or monsters is going to limit appeal from the Fantasy crowed, the awkward combat is going to limit its appeal to a general audience, and it's lack of major studio is going to limit its advertising presence. I expect it to be popular with the Chivalry and Mount and Blade crowd, which will be enough to sustain it, but it's not going to be 30+ million copies popular.

Plus... for a game that claims to be a realistic medieval fantasy, anyone else notice it looks like [censored]e? I mean, for all the effort they put into trying to use HEMA combat, they couldn't actually do some research on what medieval forests, roads and fields look like? At least they got the thickness of the thatch right...

Anyway... If you really think that Bethesda's games have all been the same thing, i don't know what you constitute as different. The combat and interaction mechanics have changed significantly, the basic interface bears almost no resemblance from one game to the next, the world-design shifts radically from one game to another...

The original Witcher died and rose again. Why y' all so forgiving of BGS, but skeptical of an unreleased upstart? Where's the same skeptisism with BGS? At the very least Lachdonin, admit a little that BGS have animation issues and broken promises in their closets.


For the record, I do play Morrowind almost vanilla. I'm just not interested in 2016 Fords, when I can drive and work an 87. I could mod, if I wanted those bells and whistles. I just have to laugh when BGS release a Morrowind 6.0 in two years, while new companies are building on their IPs' once-hallowed ground.


I'm not antagonizing anyone.

Have... You read my other posts? Bethesda's games are FULL of problems. They have a penchant for coming up with good ideas, and then tripping over themselves and delivering the sloppiest possible execution of those ideas (examples not being limited to Fallout 4's Dialogue Wheel, Skyrim's Perks, Oblivion's Radiant AI). Their animations have been well behind the curve for 15 years, their texture work is sub-par, their Dialogue has always been garbage...

But they're definitely not the same game. And that's the point here. The similarities between Bethesda's games are almost superficial, especially when compared to similarities between titles in... pretty much every other franchise out there.

As for Kingdom Come... I was initially really excited. But everything i've seen through it's development has tempered that excitement with questions and outright disappointment. At this point, it might as well just be Chivalry 2. What started as a realistic, gritty fantasy has become a medieval RPG. Upstart or no, it's not even remotely close enough in terms of Genre to TES to offer any real competition, or interest on my part any-more.

Because you're not saying anything that no one hasn't already heard before, especially in this type of thread. That horse has been dead for months. As opposed to pointing out things that most people (sort of) acknowledge, how about sharing with us changes you'd like to see to the series?


As for the whole to be released upstart bit...that's way in the YMMV territory. For instance, I frankly don't care about for no better reason then lack of interest.

Off the top of my head:

1. Underwater combat.


2. More detailed quest journal.


3. Arena.


4. Back to cuirass + greaves.


5. Spears and throwing knives.


6. Children that don't all look the same.

First off, http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/509199713966248809/0F5AF3EEE1F945B23893C1B6E78DDB45573C988D/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside%7C268:268&composite-to=*,*%7C268:268&background-color=black time. Welcome to the forums Malengine.

Why do people want that so much? Not only is fighting under water a nightmare in any sense of realism, but it strips away any real sense of fear about the water. It's poorly used, true, but knowing that going into the murk and having no way to defend yourself is a great emotional and suspense tool that can't be discounted.

At best, Underwater combat should be cripplingly difficult, with limited actions and heavily diminished power. Good luck trying to use a 2-handed weapon, or a mace, under the water.

Yes, but optionally. I don't care what Skyrim calls, it, that wasn't a journal at all. it was a Quest Log. Which is fine. As a player, you need some way to track quests. It can serve double duty for optional tracking.

The Journal, on the other hand, should be a secondary, entirely optional game element. It should be something you carry, rather than a dedicated menu. We've already seen it coded in the past in mods.

Eh, i can take it or leave it. I though the Arena in Oblivion was the single worst questline in the franchise, and the entire concept is to shallow to really have much use. I've never understood the popularity of the whole thing. If time can be devoted to making it work, without sacrificing other things, then sure... I'd rather that time be spent on other things, but at least it wouldn't come at a loss. But otherwise, i'm glad they didn't waste effort on it with Skyrim, because clearly they were pushing their limits as it was.

Better ways to handle it. Fallout 4's armour model, with a few tweaks, can offer more potential options than we've ever had, without forcing any unnecessary increase in gear-management.

Changes need to be made to make them relevant. As it is, weapons aren't different enough to give anything but an aesthetic value to more types. This ties into the Combat discussion, but for spears and throwing weapons (i'd like to see knives, stars and darts all make a come back) to return, there need to be significant changes to how you actively control combat, the types of damage that can be done, and how protections work.

Once the foundation is there, they can return, but as it stands now, it would be a superficial addition.

Absolutely. But that ties into character customization as a whole.