Since we all love to see everyone's opinions for the next The Elder Scrolls game, do you think Bethesda will choose what to implement by these forums and our decisions on polls?

Tribunal, Bloodmoon, and Shivering Isles all respond to common requests/criticisms of their base games and TES IV itself includes a laundry-list of common TES III requests/criticisms so Bethesda is certainly listening. I don't know how much attention more abstract suggestions get - that is suggestions for TES V rather than responses to their existing games, and I seriously doubt polls are influential since they're not representative. I have seen devs viewing such threads but I imagine the discussion has much more impact than the poll.

I agree with Donner that, the polls might not be of much use to the devs, but if a poster in the suggestion thread presents a good case, or brings up a suggestion the devs themselves finds interesting, it can at the very least, inspire them.

This is why I tried to make my polls as constrained and realistic as possible. Forcing people to prioritize their desires rather than going nuts and selecting everything or just choosing something too vague like "Morrowind or Oblivion!"

Odds are though they'll be looking at reviews/successful mods/etc. far more than the monolithic and downright scary "suggestions" thread.

I read someone else's comment on a similar thread way back in the day and I agreed with them.

They said that Bethesda (all devs IMO) don't listen a WHOLE lot to suggestions before the game is released since they know better and then they tend to be shocked when fans stick to their earlier criticisms. I don't mean to sound pessimistic but that's the way it seems sometimes.

Well, I think if there's a widely spread issue then any good artist responds to it effectively, and bethesda is no different. Although if their big secret progect is TESV then any suggestions they took would probably be from the suggestions threads that no longer exist.

I agree, a pull is useful but what people really feel is what matters, so if you got to make a pull ask why they choose the answer.

God I hope not, if decided by popular vote TES:V will be a point and click game with no voice acting

How dare you dis point and click adventures!!!!! The Longest Journey was epic...oh, it had voice acting .

I believe Bethesda has been watching these forums on occasion, I also believe we may see some of what we asked for in the new Elder Scrolls game. Still I sometimes worry that Bethesda will take what a small percentage of fans believe and treat it as the whole. To quote a Family Guy episode, "20 people phoned in about the David Highpeirce incident, and as we all know, 1 phone call equals a billion people. So 20 billion people were outraged by it!" I am just saying ideas are great and everything, and some may improve upon their own ideas by giving them options they never thought of before, but I still believe Bethesda needs to worry more about their way then what some of the fans want. I am not saying the fans opinions don't matter it is just that they have their own knowhow about how TESV can be done so many people enjoy it. When Bethesda reads through suggestions they are hearing the voice of one and the few who agree (or disagree in some cases) with that one idea, not what every one wants. That is one reason why I think they might treat the good polls (not the pointless and all around comedic ones) just as seriously as the suggestion thread. Polls allow one to look at what the general audience enjoys. Even if a poll has 100% votes for something it doesn't mean they should implement it though because only a fraction of TES fans use this site. Still it means many fans see that as an interesting or better (not the best) option. What they be looking into more then anything is how many times a certain topic is brought up, more then how a hundred people think it should be done. If a topic is repetitively brought up it means that it is a major issue people have with the Elder Scroll series and needs more thought in the next game. If they view it this way instead of the way of reading every suggestion and thinking of it as the whole consumer then the ramblings of one than they can put in positive (we hope) changes into the game instead of ones that are tailored to the few. Now to give the greatest conundrum to what I just wrote. I believe the Elder Scrolls series needs to stay the Elder Scrolls series and not turn into some generic rpg that every kid and their mom can enjoy (not that they should make it a game where no kids and no parents can enjoy either). They need to keep the Elder Scrolls games Elder Scrolls games, and not fall into the trend of stealing successful ideas of other companies and turning out duplicated game mechanisms of other fields on a game series with its own unique history. So to wrap it all up yes Bethesda has gotten ideas from players, will continue to do it, but shouldn't try to change their games so much based on what a few fans say. Honestly changing the game a little based on players ideas is a good thing, but they shouldn't make an entire game based on them and I hope they don't. This seems to have went into a tangent of the threads purpose :blink: oh well.

The fun part of being a game developer is, of course, developing games. If the devs see that people don't like something or really enjoy something they're in a position to figure out how to work on it to make it better. Comments on existing games are also automatically grounded - suggestions for unannounced games don't have that anchor and it's quite possible the idea wouldn't make any sense within the context of the game they're developing.

FO3 didn't have TES IV style level-scaling, it had more varied voice acting, many quests had multiple paths you could take to solve them, locations tended to have more personality and individuality - and all of these were common suggestions and criticisms of TES IV.

Yes, the devs to read and use suggestions as has been mentioned. However, at this point, assuming the process is fairly far along, not sure if any more impact will take place.

I remember back when BG2 was being developed, the devs asked and listened...there was dialogue. It's a bit frustrating when you give ideas to a black hole :shrug:

We have had close to 190 suggestion threads, and many people suggested the same things (more quest outcomes, a political storyline etc...) and with their expanded team, I could only imagine that they listened to these repeated suggestions (or at least the ones they see as feasible and don't contradict their initial visions).

So I guess thats the reason why Big Head was in the Shivering Isles :laugh: