Now, I could be completely wrong. But this is what seems to be emerging from the news we've gotten so far (most distinctly from the French and Italian magazine details.) Bethesda's philosophy this time seems to be to remove the barrier between us and simply experiencing the game world and living our life in Skyrim. But at the same time, there are clear (in my opinion) signs that they aren't sacrificing depth in this effort. This topic isn't a compilation of details revealed thus far, but rather a discussion about the possible implications those details have for the direction Bethesda are trying to take the game in.

Some examples of this natural, seamless approach they seem to be going for include:

• Rather than a complex UI, we just have four cardinal directions that seamlessly flow into equally seamless sub-categories where everything is easy to navigate and esthetically sleek (a subjective term, but that is their stated goal.)
  
• Rather than creating a class and choosing our strengths from the outset, whatever we pick up and start doing on a whim is what we become good at. The more focused we are, the more specialized and the faster we'll level. The more spread out our focus is, the more versatile we'll be, but the less specialized and powerful we'll be in the long run. Likewise, instead of choosing a birthsign, we choose perks as we level up instead. (The depth and options are retained, but the work and complexity of the selection process are reduced or eliminated.)
  
• Rather than initiating conversations with non-quest NPCs intentionally, it's more like they naturally choose on their own to comment on things going on in their lives, about you, about the world, etc. And NPCs that have more to say (i.e. quest-givers or other essential NPCs) have dialogue trees for added detail where it's needed. (I was concerned about this at first, but as part of an effort to make things more natural and fluid, it makes a kind of sense in my opinion.) Likewise, we can terminate conversations by simply walking away.
  
• NPCs will give precise directions, and will even accompany us to the correct roads and tell us the correct direction to travel in in order to locate quest locations. (Since we can play with no HUD if we want to this time, this means we have a viable alternative to quest markers.)
  
• Rather than having separate attacks for spells and weapons, everything will be mapped to attack 1 and attack 2, one for each hand. Whatever we have on a given hand (a spell, a shield, a weapon, or nothing) can be used to perform its own attack, and using both at the same time allows us to block.

Whereas, on the other hand, some signs that they aren't sacrificing depth or granular detail in the world and its culture include:

• Each Nord clan in Skyrim has its own micro-culture, colors, and esthetics.
  
• There are multiple terrain types and environments in Skyrim.
  
• There is a Dunmer village in Skyrim (owing to the evacuation of Vvardenfell following "The Red Year," no doubt.)
  
• While we can no longer create spells - which I concede is initially very disappointing to me - spells have secondary effects and some allow us to deploy them as area effect "traps" (of sorts) for enemies to walk into. So while customization of spells may be reduced in one respect, their utility has been significantly augmented, and the lack of customization can be overcome by providing a sufficiently large variety of spells. (There may also be lore reasons for this now, since the Mages Guild no longer exists and has been split into two organizations; the College of Whispers, and the Synod.)
  
• There are jobs and/or crafting abilities (I say and/or because we don't yet know whether one can be considered a job or a crafting ability, whether it's a skill, or what) now, apparently including woodcutting and weaponsmithing.
  
• There are more people working on dungeons this time around, and there are fewer total dungeons in number (roughly 90 fewer than Oblivion,) evidently in an effort to make them more unique and varied.
  
• The economy of villages and towns can be impacted by us damaging things like their mills. This will affect prices. Every town has an economy.
  
• Even small villages contain 10+ buildings.
  
• Dwemer ruins return.
  
• Radiant Story (whether one approves of its other potential implications or not) should mean different characters experience at least some quests differently, and in different locations. This will be true of 75% of quests.
  
• Race designs are more distinct and varied, and character creation is more customizable than in the past.
  
• Weapons have separate block and attack stats.
  
• There are little environmental touches like birds, and fish that leap out of the water.
  
• Dungeons now feature numerous puzzles. The 3D rotation/examination of inventory items will play into solving some puzzles.

So - and as I said, I could be completely wrong, as we won't know until the game is in our hands for certain - it appears as though they're trying to give us a game that is much more culturally and and environmentally varied than Oblivion was, and even making it less of a "hand holding" experience than Oblivion arguably was, but while simultaneously making the game accessible, seamless, and intuitive to use so that there is less between us and the experience.

In short, unless I'm totally wrong - which as I keep saying, I could be - this sounds like potentially great game design. What do you think?

EDIT: Updated to also include new information from Italian magazine and other earlier released details.

Yeah.

"Simplification doesn't mean lack of depth"

Actually yeah it does, pretty much by definition. Maybe you mean "removing skills doesn't mean lack of depth", in which case I agree. However, given that Bethesda tried that last time with less than stellar results I'll remain skeptical of their ability to reduce the number of skills (or remove attributes!) while properly increasing skill depth in return.

I've never lost faith in Bethesda making a very deep/rich game worth pouring hundreds of hours into.

But you made some great points here.

The argument about why Oblivion's condensation was so unwarranted is because, for many, they were left with a game world that was less enticing and had less to do than Morrowind. So even if the remaining spells and items in the game were indeed more balanced and practical, you had far less appreciation for it. Much like how there'd be little point in having Morrowind fast travel networks or otherwise telling players who dislike it to just "walk" when you're given an utterly depressing and uneventful landscape.

Skyrim's taking the series to a much broader scope, with truly living cities that have their own economics and NPCs which can accomplish much without the player's involvement. I definitely believe, in some respects, this could be the most hardcoe installment in the series yet - not because there's more skills, 5 hour dungeons, and Sixth House assassins to look over (sorry guys), but because this time I think it's up the player to do much of the discovering on their own. Especially without the structured class (and possibly attribute) system, I think Skyrim's going to encourage players to experiment much more, and hopefully the game world will be diverse enough to accommodate that.

No. I mean, "simplification doesn't mean lack of depth." Because it doesn't, necessarily. For example, when making access to something rich and depth-filled simpler, which is what it sounds like they're going for in my opinion. But, as I said, I could be completely wrong.

Unless it svcks. I'm sure Molyneaux and co. thought the UI in Fable II/III was super duper fun as well.

Well, the information about city diversity and an apparent death of quest markers in the French article thread have me fairly confident that the game's already far more inviting than Oblivion was. My only real concerns at this point are the spells (so is it effects or abilities?) and the crappy dungeon scaling.

Indeed. Which is why I'm saying this is what they seem to be going for. Not that they will necessarily achieve it LOL. (Although I do believe if anyone can, it's them.)

Uh, actually no, complexity =/= depth. Simplification does not mean lack of depth 'by definition'. Simplification in the complexity department would be a good thing. Complexity is essentially the 'red tape' of the game, the pointless number crunching and menu browsing that players must do to accomplish their goals. Depth is more the number of options open to the player to both personalize their own character, and to play the way they want.

I'm not saying Bethesda is doing it right, but there is a difference.

I have faith in Bethesda. They had this same sort of attitude with Oblivion, and we all know how that turned out. (Great game, but it could have been better.)

A big reason it will be different this time is final hardware. They only had it for 6 months with Oblivion, and they still did pretty good. This time, they have all the tech they need, and they've had it since day one.

I think you should just use the word streamlining. Because simplicification has negative connotations here, even if it is a good thing in this case.

I have to agree. It's hard to qualify exactly, but vanilla Oblivion was so devoid of any cultural depth or interesting verisimilitude-based eccentricities that I pretty much though Bethesda was just...bored with their design. Bland...generic...boring.

Shivering Isles seems to have been a return to Morrowind style thinking about culture and verisimilitude, and Fallout 3 continued that in my mind. Seems like Skyrim will go even further. One of the key takeaways for me in the GI video with Bethesda's lead art guy was when he mentioned that they're asking "Why is this the way it is?" when thinking about the art design. I feel like that question was never once asked in vanilla Oblivion's development. Questions like "What would a female Nord bandit from Skyrim wear?" as opposed to just "Okay, the player is that level, activate Glass Armor in 5...4..3"

They're thinking about economy. They're thinking about functioning mines and farms etc. They're thinking about what an ancient Skyrim wooden door would look and sound like (see Sounds of Skyrim video)

Very positive things in my mind.

Now I just need the same focus and attention to detail given to the ingame books and a decent PC UI and I'm good to go.

I thought about it, but simplification ultimately seemed the more accurate term to me in this context. I don't want to cater to or adapt to bias against a word out of context. I think I've done an at least minimally sufficient job articulating my meaning lol. (Especially since I qualified it by saying I could be completely wrong.) Essentially if people dislike a word in a knee-jerk manner, regardless of the context in which it's used, as far as I'm concerned they can expend the effort to get over it. I'm not going to expend the effort of adapting my use of language just to cater to that.

But I do know what you mean.

Depth and lack of skills are two different things.

and what sounds like a general major increase in all resources, including financial and human.

I'm your typical Oblivion detractor, but most of what I've heard seems like a mix of the Oblivion streamlining as well as a depth that we haven't see before, like crafting, village economies, differing AI behavior. In Oblivion the combination of Blade and Axe and Blunt made little sense because they were all identical, except the perks which occurred rarely, after using the lame "power attack" combined with a direction. This time, tho, the perks directly affect how the weapon functions every time. So I think Skyrim has a lot of potential. If I heard they included mounted combat, weapons which have been dropped, werewolves, and real time boats, I would die happy.

I always regard the word "streamlining" worse than "simplification".

To tell the truth, I'm more concerned about the "features" that are being added, like the special kill animations and dragon shouts. Of course, this might be because I don't expect extremely in-depth character development or interesting dialogue from Bethesda anymore. I'm not even attached to TES lore like so many people here are, so it's not a problem to me. I like well-designed quests with unique rewards, and awesome dungeons with various puzzles.

More is not inherently better, but less is not inherently better, either.

QTF. Nothing necessarily results in anything else. It all depends on the implementation, the context, and the goals behind it.

This.

Oblivion was the best Elder Scrolls game of all time....on paper.

And then when it came to actually executing these ideas, they ran into some hiccups. And they couldn't get all the features in that they wanted.

I believe Skyrim will be better, solely on the fact that Beth has had more experience with the technology they are working with. They know what they are doing now, much more so than they did in Oblivion. The implementation of the ideas they have will be much smoother. This will make a better game.

One word: Minecraft. A game with extremely simple mechanics compared to most games these days, yet its depth is mind-boggling.

Does this mean open cities?

Note: I've edited the initial post in this thread to reflect and comment upon new details included in the Italian magazine article and others, as well.

You're condraticting yourself - there are more but there are fewer?

I like this direction. It almost feels like a return to Morrowind's depth, but using a different approach.

More people working on dungeons, along with fewer dungeons. It's worded oddly, but that's what's been stated.