» Sat May 28, 2011 2:39 pm This is basically a short list of things I'd like to see in Skyrim. Nothing complicated, nothing fancy, just small stuff that would make me incredibly happy for little work, (Or what I can only assume would be little work) on the developers side. I've loved every game Bethesda has made, and this is my little chance to throw my two cents in. Some of it may seem like "Morrowind did this better than Oblivion", but I feel it's necessary to point these things out.
Number One: I would like to see different mounts other than horses. This has no doubt been brought up in other forums all over the net, and I'm worried about it, because in every interview I've read, and the podcast I heard, their obviously working pretty hard on getting the horses better, but why not add some spice to it? Skyrim is a cold, snowy place, so maybe you could add a wooly haired Yak-like creature to ride around on. (Not literally a Yak, but something like it). I don't expect a bunch of different mounts, and I really don't expect to ride dragons, but SOMEthing different would be greatly appreciated.
Number Two: This was brought up in another post I saw on here. I was really disappointed in the fact that the only forms of lighting in Oblivion were torches and light spells. You guys totally had it right in Morrowind. If there was an area in my house that I didn't think was well lit enough, I had many choices to make it better, different kinds of candles and lamps (and even different colors!), and I could put them wherever I wanted. Perfect. However, in Oblivion, when I really needed those lights, I just had to deal with it. Pleeeeease bring back the movable lighting. And it doesn't have to be complicated! You don't have to go through the trouble of animating it so that you can see the player holding the lamp in front of him, swaying about while he walks with it. If it's just a general inventory item that I can't literally use, but that I can set down to add more light to the surrounding area, I'd be satisfied.
Number Three: I love having houses in Bethesda's games. However, having a house was much more fun in Morrowind than it was in Oblivion, because of one thing. Decorating. In Morrowind, I would always take this one fellows Hlaalu house, and the bottom floor had three bookshelves. I filled these with one of each helmet I could find (they all looked awesome), as well as random things I found that just looked cool. Every time I'd come back from adventuring, I could look along the wall at my sweet collection and smile. Not so in Oblivion. There was nothing at all to display in that game. The only thing I found that came close, were the Ayleid statues (which didn't look like statues at all, but more like incredibly inconvenient lamps that didn't give off light). This was fixed in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, where I could display lunch boxes, toy cars and trucks, and even garden gnomes. In fact, I had so much stuff to display, I didn't have room to put them all up! And I loved that that's all they were good for, they didn't need to have any use. It was so frustrating in Oblivion to spend an hour going through a dungeon, and you finally get to the last room, and lo and behold there is a treasure chest with...20 gold and a lockpick. I couldn't help but think, instead, why couldn't they just put something simple there? Like a small statue of an old warrior or deity, or an ancient mask made by a long dead civilization, or a decorative chalice, or a unique helmet that you can't wear because it's so old, but you can take it with you. Got **** just something to make my house look nicer! I'm not the only one who likes doing this stuff by the way. All of my friends did the same thing in Morrowind, knowing that no one else would see their collection of interesting looking junk but themselves, but it was still fun to do. So yeah, overall, just add some items that are mainly for displaying. Please.
Lastly, this is where I complain a bit and waggle my finger. What frustrated me the most in Oblivion, was that while I was walking around in the wilderness, while it was really beautiful, it couldn't have felt more 'normal'. As a resident of southern Texas, I can literally walk into the woods behind my house and find all the wild animals in that game. Deer, Wild pigs, (we don't have wolves, but we have coyotes), you get the point. When playing Morrowind, you get the full sense of what a purely fantasy world it is. Rather than real creatures, you would see Alit, Guars, Cliffracers, Kagouti, etc. all of which never existed in real life. The developers really had to stretch their imaginations to make those new creatures. In Oblivion though, it felt much more like a 'medieval' setting, rather than a 'medieval fantasy' setting. I'm not saying you shouldn't have real animals in there, I'm saying you should think outside the box and make up some new, never-before-seen creatures like in Morrowind, rather than just animating the animals you saw on your last camping trip.
So that about covers it all. Hopefully I didn't sound too harsh on some of that, but these things in the past have frustrated me, and I had to unload my brain. My only hope is that some creature designer or item designer at Bethesda will read this and think, "You know, that wouldn't be that hard. We could do that." Or they might just think I'm a rude really devoted fan. You guys are the best game company in the world right now, in my eyes, and I know Skyrim is going to knock down all competition this year. The only other thing I can think of to say is this. More fantasy, less realism.
