I wasn't aware we were blessed with the presence of a Bethesda developer, whose first-hand experience in the creation of the game could lend us such helpful, sourceless comments.

@ Bethy:

You couldn't choose attributes except for two, which got an underwhelming 5 point bonus. Everything else came from race.

Your class was the major and minor skills. All these received were bonuses and faster progression rates, all obtainable in Skyrim through simply playing the game and through the Guardian stones.

A birthsign, like I said, is really nothing but a perk. Sometimes with a weakness. You must take perks into account.

All Skyrim did was push character development into the game itself, rather than lump it all into the first five minutes. It is no less complex for that, merely quicker to get into. I stand by my reasoning that perks will present more complexity than attributes did in previous games. With that, Skyrim becomes more complex. But don't take my word for it, wait for the game to come out.

I'll meet you halfway on the issue of classes. I've always felt that classes were they to represent what our player was trained in. If my character was a Mage it made sense that he would be much more talented with spells than with a blade. I like that we are able to be "dynamic" with our skills and change our character over time. I'll be interested in seeing how Beth deals with the training aspect or just leaves it out completely.

We haven't really seen much about the perks and exactly how much it changes our character so being the pessimist I am I'll be putting that in the loss category until we get more info. If most perks are like "Adds 20% damage with bladed weapons" then I'll be justified in my doubts.

Expect failure and you won't be disappointed, if success happens then you'll be all the more happy.

I disagree.
Removing it allows for spells to be unique.

Spell creation>combining a spell to both hands and feet for that matter.


That makes no sense at all, more like the other way around.

Xarnac is morrowind's all-time greatest fan. Just ignore him, everything he says revolves around how any change from morrowind is horrible

Complexity is not in and of itself a positive thing unless it has significance. People disagree with me on this, but I think the fact that the new system by design makes for more unique characters negates any advantages the prior one had, which in my opinion is approximately dike.

Well... Yeah. Spears, by design, can't be pointless...

PS: I sincerely apologize for the pun.

Actually it was Daggerfall. Try again. Ive played and done everything in every TES game. Anything less than Oblivion will be unacceptable.

I meant unique in visual effect.
Instead of a different coloured glow, we can now actually have cool effects.

just read http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1163948-why-no-spell-making-is-a-good-thing/page__p__17107133__fromsearch__1#entry17107133

Gameplay>Visuals

Dont like spell creation, dont use it. Removing it dumbs down the series.

I will never accuse them of being lazy. I will accuse them of selling out the lofty ambitions of morrowind and daggerfall for a more mainstream (profitable) game. And to be more exact, my argument is that by removing features they are shooting themselves in the foot. You think its more accessible to not create a character beforehand... I understand that. But why no spellmaking or levitation or spears or pauldrons or werewolves?

Ok this is devolving into nothing but loud yelps being tossed in each other's direction. Few of you guys are making any actual arguments, just merely stating your opinions with no supporting evidence. I think a moderator should lock this thread.

I'm the exact opposite. Spell Creation was worthless. I don't think taking it out "dumbs down" the series one bit.

I was attacking your claim that there was no reason to remove it. Being "greater" than something is not proof of this, not when it is the opposite of the direction Bethesda is taking. Given the system they chose to utilize (which has me excited about magic again!) there are plenty of good reasons for its removal.


I know, but he's fun :wub:

I think Xarnac lives in some sort of Bat Cave (Grump Cave?). He plays Daggerfall all day on huge triple monitors with a maxed out gaming rig, and has an alert system designed to go off whenever someone posts anything about attributes or perks.

That's when he dons the Grumpsuit and his Grump utility belt, hops into his Grumpmobile and rides off to the offending thread.

Ok, ill give it another crack:

Xarnac is daggerfall's all-time greatest fan. Just ignore him, everything he says revolves around how any change from daggerfall is horrible

Clearly you didn't read the link.
And you should, that thread was made back in February and I was 100% right.
I mention how both visual and good gameplay come out of this.
We now have a flame thrower spell, and a fireball spell, instead of just a yellow ball that has to be a yellow ball so that people can edit it.
And it would be pointless to be able to change these fireball and flame thrower spell as there will likely be weaker and stronger versions available.

What's the point in axes? They're just slightly different to swords. Same with maces for that matter. And shortswords and daggers? Again, just sort of different to swords. Get rid of all of them.

Yeah, I dont want all made-up spell combinations to look like reddish orange smoke balls like in OB. The idea of spell creation appeals to me, but I have to admit, it has to look cool to me.

Complexity in an RPG supposed to be its bread and butter

The more choices you remove the closer you get to fable, the antithesis of the RPG


Balancing those choices, creating your character, making that character work, leveling that character up the way you want has been in every real RPG on pen and paper or rpg until the streamlining started

Removing spell creation dumbs down the game. Some of us have imaginations and get everything out of our TES experience, obviously others dont. Removing spell creation removes variety, customization, RP potential and gameplay opportunities.

Give me an example of a very imaginative spell you made please.

Personally I loathed spell creation, I felt like it cheapened the spells that were already in the game and so on my "serious" playthroughs I intentionally never used it. What's the point of buying any spells from the NPCs at all, when you can easily make better and more efficient ones with little effort? There's really no motivation to buy spells, beyond getting your first spell of each "type", simply so you can craft better ones later. That is what I call "dumbing down", and I'm glad that Todd agrees and wants to make magic feel more like magic and less like an excel spreadsheet.

@ Bethy

Like Mr. Baggins said, the perk trees, the guardian stones, the in-depth physical character design, the higher variety of armor/weapons (the ore), makes character creation more complex

They're a business. I'd be suprised if Betheada didn't go mainstream after the huge success of Oblivion. Or MW for that matter. But that doesn't mean they'll turn into Treyarch or IW and hand you a stinking pile of copy/paste doo doo every year, the team at Betheada still put forth effort and dedication into their games, and for that I'm confident that it won't turn out as streamlined as many others think.

On the subject of Werewolves, they never said that they're out, they said that it's something they're messing with. Just like what they said about riding horses....I'd be suprised if werewolves were not in..

To be honest the 'one handed' and 'two handed' division of weapon skills makes more sense to me than blade and blunt. Having daggers, swords and maces in one skill and claymores, warhammers and two handed axes in the other makes more sense to me than having the same skill for daggers and claymores.