Ok, we're all pretty sure that it's going to be announced in 2010, because of the trademark. So lets make a small chart:

2006- Work started on the game
2007- No info released
2008- No info released
2009- No info released
2010- Announcement

Look at http://i40.tinypic.com/bj7993.png. Assuming that's what actually happened, then it throws any pattern right out the window because they've already spent ~5 years on it. And to stick with the pattern, they would have to not only announce it before E3 this year, but show it at E3 then release it later this year. Sure, they could easily not follow the pattern, nothing's stopping them. But it seems rather odd that they would wait this long to announce it then. Fallout 3, a game completely different from TES, only took them 2 years work of "Development with no info released." What could be taking them so long? Ok, maybe they want it to be really really good. But then there's the biggest elephant in the room. The quote in the first post in this topic, from Todd Howard himself. Not only did he say they've been making the new game since Fallout 3 was finished, but that the whole time has been spend re-doing their engine. If they've been working on it since 2006, what on earth was he talking about?

It just doesn't add up for me. It could happen, but like I said, I like using facts for my speculation. And all the facts point to 2008 being the starting date. But sure, it could happen. Nobody here is trying to be right, they're only trying to further speculate when this game we want to bad will be coming out.

Also, one has to consider the fact that Pete Hines said that they're working on multiple projects. Who knows, they could have been working on TESV since 2006, and the game that they started working on in 2008 was actually a completely different game. Maybe Fallout 4?

But luckily we can all agree on one thing. Bethesda has to announce it in the summer or else their trademark will expire. That may be the only thing we know for sure.

http://i40.tinypic.com/bj7993.png.

The problem with that chart is that assumes the time table for the development of TES V is roughly the same as the time table for the development of Bethesda's other games. I can understand the intuitive appeal behind that assumption, but it's important to keep in mind that it is an assumption.

True, but I'd say it's a pretty good assumption. After all, I wouldn't expect their development timeline to be much different than their past 3 games. But the fact that it is an assumption is why I listed 3 possibilities for when it will be released, instead of just one. There aren't more possibilities listed because I didn't want to make a huge chart. When it's announced, I'll adjust the chart to reflect it, and we'll have a better estimate as to when it will be released.

But this is the first time they had a different game in between the previous TES game. There was no game in between Morrowind and Oblivion. Fallout 3 was in between Oblivion and TESV, so your chart could be completely wrong based on this. But, you never know with Bethesda

You've also got to factor in the fact that they spent a long time re-working parts of their system.

I think I just realized something about the 1000+ posts in this discussion. We all speculate great things, and were all smart people, but isn't this thread kind of a waste of time? I mean, ES5 will be announced when its announced, and knowing the date...or the hour dosen't make it happen any sooner.
Its kind of ilke what Uriel Septim said: "I'm fortunate to know the hour of my passing."
But is he? Is he really?
As for me, I think I'm going to stop reading here. I'll be back when a teaser is up, so we can all speculate that to shreds.
Good Day.

I think I just realized something about the 1000+ posts in this discussion. We all speculate great things, and were all smart people, but isn't this thread kind of a waste of time? I mean, ES5 will be announced when its announced, and knowing the date...or the hour dosen't make it happen any sooner.
Its kind of ilke what Uriel Septim said: "I'm fortunate to know the hour of my passing."
But is he? Is he really?
As for me, I think I'm going to stop reading here. I'll be back when a teaser is up, so we can all speculate that to shreds.
Good Day.

I just find it fun to speculate and to find evidence for when it should be announced and/or released. If I didn't find it fun, I wouldn't be doing it.

Yeah, the only thing is i know the development time for a TES game is going to be longer then FO3. TES games are much bigger.

Yes, and Fallout 3 was announced 1 year and 2 months after Oblivion was released. Fallout 3 was released over 1 year and 2 months ago, so they are spending more time on ESV than Fallout 3.

I made a post in the previous thread highlighting the legal requirements of showing proof that not only do you still intend to use a trademark when you file for an extension, but also proof that you have been working with it since the trademark was registered. This prevents people from holding a trademark purely to prevent someone else from using it, perhaps with intent to sell it on to interested parties. If you're not using it, you don't get to keep it.


With a game, that would presumably mean proof of development. As of 2006, concept art for Fallout 3 would no longer be needed, and so it makes sense for in-house artists to be moved on to the next project. There is a chance that only artwork was produced and shown as proof of development throughout 2007 and 2008 as well, but for such a big company there's a reasonable chance they moved more members over to Skyrim as Fallout 3 got nearer to completion.


How does this theory hold up: (and it's only a theory ) Work on the new engine apparently only began in 2008, but supposing Bethesda knew they wanted to spend a year evolving their engine back in 2007 (which they most likely did), and supposing they had a good idea of the advancements they wanted the engine to have (also likely), would it then be possible to get started on creating resources like meshes and textures, monsters, NPCs etc before the engine was revamped, with the intention of being used by the new engine?


Obviously the world could only be built when the engine was completed, but couldn't the resources required for constructing that world be worked on beforehand, and even alongside? The whole Bethesda team won't have been working on the engine overhaul. Only the coders. What would the rest of the team have been doing?


There's some a lot of food for thought. Those are my thoughts. Throw yours back at me.

I agree. I believe Todd's comment about working on the next game wasn't a start date but rather a date that marked when the full team began working on the next game.

Another thing that makes it seem unlikely that they've been working on it since Oblivion's release is this:

The following is how long each game took to develop. I may be off one or two months but this is fairly accurate:

Morrowind: Developed for 4 years 4 months, announced after 2 years 2 months
Oblivion: Developed for 3 years 10 months, announced after 2 years 4 months
Fallout 3: Developed for 4 years 3 months, shown in Game Informer after 2 years 11 months
TESV (March 2006- Oblivion's release): Developed for 4 years (As of March 2010)
TESV (March 27 2007- Shivering Isles released) Developed for 3 years (As of March 2010)
TESV (October 15, 2007- Last DLC released) Developed for 2 years 5 months (As of April 2010)
TESV (October 2008): Developed for 1 year 5 months (As of April 2010)

So if Bethesda was working on it since Oblivion's release, then TESV will be AMAZING, because unless they release it in 4 months it will have had a longer development time than Morrowind. I do think, however, that it's much more likely that they've been working on it since October 2007. But any date before then is just too much development time without an announcement for me to believe it.

Looks good.

What looks good? :huh:

Your reasoning? ....

I see what your saying. What I was suggesting is that they could have been laying the groundwork while their engine was being rebuilt. The devs didn't have anything to do until that part was done. The writing for a TES game can be very time consuming due to the number of quests. There's a lot of things they could have been doing even if the engine wasn't ready.

Exactly. They could easily create concept art and write most of the lore without thinking about the engine. After all, somebody here mentioned that Todd said that he wanted the game to have a greater atmosphere.

Also, it is likely that bethesda is withholding an announcement on purpose. They probably feel ashamed about showing stuff at E3 and then cutting it from the final build of Oblivion. So this time they might announce Skyrim prior to E3 and show something close to the final build at E3. And they may very well release it this year. If the game is any good, it will be very easy for them to build hype in 3 months. They certainly won't release the game in the 1st quarter of 2011 because lots of amazing RPGs are already scheduled for release at that time. There is also Fable III coming out on Christmas but I don't think that's a problem since the two franchises are very different.