I would gladly direct you to the lore that says otherwise, but its just about everything and thats too much.
Magic is a quite well understood force in Tamriel. They dont call it magic because they dont understand it, they do because it is in fact magic.
It comes from the sun, wich isnt a flaming ball of gas but a hole in the sky to the realm of Aetherius. And from the stars, wich are smaller holes.
The people of Tamriel have had a long time to study and understand how magic works and what it does, and the results are quite astounding. Like Numidium, for one.

About things backfiring, or presenting a feel of progression, simple.
The Morrowind system of ability to cast spells was perfect.

I heartily agree, on the majority of your points - just want to say that the Contextual cast system has the potential to add a lot to the mage experience.

But it's definitely not a replacement for spellmaking. Rather, Contextual cast gives the player more control over his spells in combat, and Spellmaking gives him more control over what those spells ARE when out of combat. Action elements and RPG elements are not necessarily inversely proportional to each other; one can enrich the other.

We here in the real world don't know everything about "science" now do we? There happens to be a massive device called the Large Hadron Collider that, when it finally performs at full power, could potentially turn everything we know upside-down; it could force us to ENTIRELY throw out our whole "Standard Model" of physics.

The point of Science is that you don't already know everything: it's the journey to understanding. The same goes in Nirn for TES games. Again, we see that there's endless similarities; all that change are really terms and, of course, effects. We might not have fireballs in the real world, but Nirn doesn't have seem to have internal combustion engines, either.


For one, it's just a difference in terms. I already explained that the two can more or less be used interchangeably when it comes to things like this.

As for sliders and menus, those are merely forms of interface; behind it is still code. As a programmer, I know that there's no real difference with what the player sees to interact: you can still code in the same effects. If you've played old-style point-and-click adventure games, (or their new incarnations with the episodes of Monkey Island and Sam & Max) you'll see how you can get wild effects out of what is essentially an overglorified meny system. Make the wrong choice, and things blow up in a way you didn't expect.

In the end, with programming, everything comes down to numbers. It doesn't matter how the choices are presented to the player: after all, a "hold down to charge" is just a clumsier way of implementing a slider. ("slide from no charge to full charge") A menu is just a more streamlined way of having multiple buttons for often mutually-exclusive actions. After all, one menu can let you save and load a game, which otherwise take up two keys for shortcuts on the keyboard.


This is 100% true. Variety and complexity is a staple of RPGs. Remove them, and what you have isn't an RPG: it's an action game with a fantasy setting. I mean, we already see that "fantasy setting" and "RPG" aren't tied to each other. After all, gamesas handles Fallout games, which show us RPGs in a sci-fi post-apoc retro-punk setting.

I REALLY hope its back this time around, I must have spent hours and hours making spells and leveling up to be able to make those spells, But all together i just cant wait for skyrim this word is thrown around alot but skyrim will be TRULY EPIC

Not casting, making spells should backfire as well. The mage who turned the town invisible had issues coming up with his invisiblity spell. We should too. Its not a science when you turn a town invisible by mistake. I all ready know the lore behind the creating of Mundas, in that when the spirits left they ripped holes in the veil. I also know that's where magic energy comes from. I've ready up, I know. But just because cavemen knew how to use fire and how to make fire, doesn't mean they knew everything about it.

There's still a lot of questions magic brings to the table, and it should be imposed on us as well as all the npc. Just because there's a school deticated to teaching how to use it and to learn more about it, that doesn't have to mean they know everything about magic. Morrowind's system was not that great either. Casting failures should happen, but spell creation should also have failures and mishapps.


Youre agruing in circles now. So magic is the science of Nirn, but even our science is scetchy so...what exactly? A menu better represents the scetchyness in creating magic?


But TES is a game where we do everything. We get better at what we do, we activly attack instead of letting the computer do it for us, we hold down the attack button to us a power attack instead of clicking a different attack type and then watching our avatar use a different move, we aim and fire magic instead of lock on targeting...we do everything. If spellmaking could be represented in the game world, that instantly fits better with what TES is trying to do.


Menu's are the bain in rpg's existance. A neccesarry evil. That's why hot keys were made, because menu's are horribly evil. Something older rpgs had to do in order for the game type to even be plausable. I'm not arguing to get rid of variety and compelxity, never ever once did I say that. I'd much rather have the menu burned, and a spellmaking interface that the player uses in real time in the game world. It should look and feel like you made that spell, instead of sending a request form into the mages guild with a menu, and it pumps out exactly what you asked for every time with no chance of the abomination of a spell backfireing.

Xarnac here, the biggest advocate of spell making. There's no reason to not have spell making. Yeah, I know, Im a broken record.

You're right though. I didn't use it too much in Oblivion, only when there was a situation that I needed something a little extra to be able to get through. But the argument that it destroys the illusion of magic is really just asinine. If the only way they could add a spellmaking system was to completely copy Oblivion's style, then they should just go ahead and do it. If it destroys the illusion for some, then they shouldn't use it.

But if they could get a better system, I'm all for it.

Spellmaking is an important part of the game and should be in. Just don't know enough about the new system to know if there could be potential conflicts in how spells now work to allow the breadth of spellmaking as we had in previous games. If adding spellmaking causes more problems than it's worth then I guess I could do without. Though they should have thought of that before they redid spell combat. Spellmaking is way beyond spears in importance to gameplay and see how much crap Bethesda got from players because spears were out of OB. If players were that passionate about spears then Beth should have known they were going to stir up the hornets nest with this, if spellmaking is out.

I find spell making as essential and important as any other crafting system, smithing, enchanting etc. perhaps even more important. It allows an unprecedented mount of customization, fun creativity, role-playing possibilities and on and on. Im seriously going back to previous titles if its not in. Its really that important to me.

I remember they almost scrapped the old magic system for ob and went with one that would have resulted in no spell maker... I knew this time it was very likely the spells would simply get too complex and effects heavy that a spell maker would likely never be made.

But that puts a big burden on the devs to actualy make the spells powerful and epic. No bleeping summon liche for 15 seconds bleep this time.

Oh and unlike with mw and ob if they bleep something up they better bleeping fix it in a patch asap.

So catastrophic mistakes mean it's not science? I guess you never studied the space race, then. Or space travel in general, now that even in NASA, 17 astronauts have lost their lives in accidents that also destroyed their spacecraft; it remains accepted as a simple fact that even in NASA's safest spacecraft, there's around a 1% chance that strapping in, you're not coming home alive. And then there's the Russian program, which attempted to test Moon-capable rockets... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_%28rocket%29.

Or even in other scientific subjects: nuclear development has resulted in numerous issues of radiological leakage, from the 1940s incidents with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core, or the massive over-power demonstrated in most http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Castle#Test_execution, where Castle Bravo wound up being 2.5 times as powerful as predicted: instead of a relatively contained nuclear blast, it yielded history's second-most-powerful detonation and released catastrophic amounts of contamination. Or if we want to talk about towns, how about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime test inadvertently and unexpectedly caused blackouts in Hawaii, hundreds of miles away?


Again, no one knows everything about real-world science. We teach what we do know, and experiment to find out what we don't know.


No, I'm not, and I'd appreciate if you'd stay away from trying to derail things with irrelevant non-sequitors like this. Your argument was that spellmaking, somehow, only makes sense if absolutely everything is known about the workings of magic. We humans on Earth don't know everything about ANY subject... And that doesn't stop us from making things in detail, now does it? Your other argument is that a system that is clumsy (i.e, "hold down button to chage spell to imprecise level") is also required in order for the system to reflect this, when as I also explained, input method is irrelevant: in the end it still yields a distinct number.


We also enter a menu to trade with an NPC, rather than just dragging objects onto them and dragging gold to select our offer, now don't we? We open the menu to look through our inventory, examine the map, and check our quests. We get a menu for talking to NPCs, too. There've been plenty of games that tried to use "innovation" and used the exact same input method for handling all actions, and claimed it was "immersive." In the end it svcked pretty much every time, as the game wound up having so many cases where the interface used was clunky, unwieldy, and overall un-fun for the game, and it dragged the game down as a result.


But you DID just say that menus are "evil," which appears to contradict this statement.

I'd rather have mundane looking visual magic effects and spell making than Fable 3-esque looking magic and no spell creation. I may be in the minority but I just dont care about extremely flashy visuals. Not to mention, from the trailer, it doesnt even look like magic is that much better, visually.

Edit: I also dont understand Todd's whole "less spreadsheet" argument. That's why most vets and myself play RPGs. Because streamlined linear games without stats, customization and SPREADSHEETS are too boring. It seems like they are trying to placate newer gamers, or people who mistakenly bought Oblivion because they thought it was a FPS. You can argue that they simply cant put in spell creation because its too complex to implement, which I say BS. I guarantee if spell making isn't in, there will be a spell making Mod within a few months of release (which wont help a lot of us, since we're on consoles).

The thing is that only npc's have been able to get catastrophic mistakes to happen. With a menu, the player's home made spells are always as we want them, no mistakes, an exact down to the letter science. Magic should not be that exact for the player, but then make up for that by includeing mistakes made by npc's. We should be able to mess up and spells should blow up in our face. You can argue magic is the science of Tamriel all you want, and that science isn't exact here either...but with the menu the spells we make are 100% as we want them with nothing strange happening and nothing ever go's wrong. That's not magic, that's why the menu should go.


Why are you even showing me these in the first place, to show science isn't exact and that magic in Tamriel is like science on earth in that it as well isn't exact? That's all fine an dandy, but spellmaking for us the player is always 100% exact with no mistakes. Thats not what magic or science should be. It shouldn't be a menu that comes off more as a request form. Spells should be made in real time with no menu involved.


Again, the player seems to know everything about magic when they're making spells so that nothing ever blows up in the player's face, or backfires, or just plane doesn't work. That's not what science or magic should be.


I'm saying the player, us, seems to know everything there is to know about spellmaking with the menu and sliders. As long as the character knows the spell and is a specific level, us as the player could twist, mix, match, or play doctor with all the spells with very few guidlines. All of the home made spells work, none of them backfire, and to top everything off you can see stuff you shouldn't even be able too. Spells that are to powerfull tell you what you have to do in order to use that spell. Its like the player knows everything there is to know about spellmaking for no real reason.


And I hate the trade menu's as well. I hate all of em. I avoid using menu's at all cost. They are a neccesary evil that rpg's use so that they're plausable. Never have I used a menu and had fun. At least the games that try to stear clear of menu's are trying. Its not an easy thing, but its not impossible either. For trading I'd much rather pick out the times I want and then walk up to the cashire and start bartering by sugesting how much gold I'd pay.

I'd much rather have the game be a 3d helmet thing that svcks you in, so that you can avoid menu's entirely, but the tech isn't and may never be there for that, so menu's have to do. However, if they can be avoided, for the love of the nine they should be.


How is that contraditory? Variaty can't be in a game if it isn't in a menu form? If you physically combined spells by shooting them into a special piece of paper, and then using that paper to help your body channel the magicka into the two effects, even though you're using one arm, takes nothing away from the variaty the menu gives. Taking the menu, turning around and representing everything in game doesn't take away the varaity, it makes you feel like you're actually doing the task. A menu feels like you're filling out a request form. Combining spells in real time right before your eyes with the chance of them blowing up or not working makes you feel like you're actually making spells. Menu does not by any means equal more customizable features.

I want spellmaking in...but not by use of menu. Menu's take away from the magic of spellmaking. I'd much rather just make magic myself, instead of filling out a form.

He doesn't like spreadsheets, but he says they are basing the UI on a hypothetical situation of Apple making a game a

h yes....Apple making a game, we have dismissed that claim

Spell making was a fairly unique feature. . . and, to my mind, one of immense consequence to any mage leaning player. Removing it limits the player. It limits his/her ability to create innovative spells obviously, but it also lessens them. It suggests that other mages in Tameriel are not only more powerful and skilled in magic than our mage, but are also far greater than the player mage can ever become, for they can creates spells, weave them, alter and enhance them, whilst the player mage cannot. It also takes away the sense of being uniquely skilled. There is no spell you can command that is not already in the game, no spell that other mages don't already have. . . and what is more, for all their talents, the devs have not shown themselves to be as innovative at spell making as many a player left to mix the available options. Some of the best spells available through sales and discovery in Oblivion, like Wizards's Fury and Fingers of The Mountain, are as nothing compared with spells that a master of destruction could create. And there were some special spells that I had to create for other reasons as well. The were essential in keeping idiot companions from ruin. A spell that both made them invisible so we could sneak about AND charmed them into docility so they wouldn't attack things that overmatched them, breaking the invisibility spell in the process.

Since when does a menu mean that? You entirely ignored what I said about point-and-click adventures. They're little more than a graphical menu, and you can get TONS of massive negative things. And you've obviously never touched the crafting system of just about any MMO, where a single click can destroy a priceless item.

Heck, you haven't even really played Morrowind; you select spells off a menu: "chance to cast" was a collumn there, no? Obviously not a 100% chance for everything, so your claim here, on the other hand, is 100% baseless and invalid.

Worse yet for your argument... You've never even really truly played Oblivion, have you? Otherwise you'd know that alchemy is based on a system, and based on lack of knowledge. And in Morrowind, you could fail to make a potion. Again, your argument that "menu = always succeed" is entirely baseless.


Since when does "spellmaking = 100% success rate?" Again, you never played Morrowind. Spellmaker-produced spells tended to cost MORE, and, as a result, have LESS chance of success than circinate (pre-made) spells.

Or heck, let's talk about Oblivion and Morrowind's alchemy again. (see above)


Since when was this? in Oblivion the flip side was that spellmaking was crippled to be almost useless. And in Morrowind, again, you tended to have worse chances of success with spells.


That's incorrect: the player knows everything about spells because it's all in the manual. This is where that whole "role-playing" element comes in.


Realism isn't immersive. Real-life has all sorts of annoying things that get in the way, like how humans, unless they're like Lance Armstrong, can't move quickly for long periods of time.

Similarly, realistic input is NOT ideal: using a real gun, for instance, takes vastly more skill than picking up a controller and pressing the fire button. Crafting is actually tedious work IRL: that's why people get paid to do work! If manual work was as simple & fun as it was with controllers or keyboards+mice, we wouldn't have paid jobs in those fields.

Games have abstractions for a REASON. And that reason is to eliminate the tedium and boredom of complex, endless repetition from a game. This is why "immersive" motion-sensitive gaming devices don't really take off too much: Kinect and Move haven't been barn-burners that threatened traditional input in the slightest sense: everyone still prefers the controller, even if we HAVE advanced to the point where Kinect and Move could very well intelligently process input for AAA games like Halo and Killzone titles.


You're making assumptions about Skyrim that aren't proven, and likely not even so. Plus, by nature, if you don't have the menu, you have to make do with a couple buttons and key-combos... Which DRASTICALLY reduces the amount of variety. So it basically becomes:

• Press fire, frost, and shock keys in combination to pick which element(s) you want.
  
• Click and hold down button to charge up spell!
  
• Watch the high-definition graphics effects

I somehow doubt that this somehow can be compared to the complexity of spellmaking. And similarly, you've just stated above that you HATE menus for everything... Given that I've demonstrated that on-the-fly key combos and "hold the button" options can't match the variety of input that a menu can, this does make your statements pretty contradictory, even if you're unaware of that being so.

Yes, I know and that sounds like streamlining the game to appeal to people that dont even like RPGs. Ive never found a TES game too 'spreadsheety'. I never felt lost in the menus. Hell, I want more depth and stats etc. not less.

The crafting of spells should have a chance of failure and backfireing. Not just casting, I understand Morrowind had casting failure, I played the game. The physical creation of spells should have a chance of failure. Could menu's do that? I guess they could, with numbers upon numbers, and then once you leave the menu suddenly a pop up would come saying that the spell didn't come out right, or suddendly there'd be a random explotion. I'd much rather see it happening infront of me though, cast magic at some enchanted paper and then use the scroll to help channel your magicka into different effects. Magic in my mind shouldn't deal with numbers and units though. It should be trial and error kinda stuff.

Rpg's dont have the word menu in there, it's not needed to make a good one. Menu's were widely used because the games of the past couldn't represent what they were doing in real time. I think with todays tech we could figure a way around many of the menu's.



I'm not so sure about it. I don't even know what you think I think I know about Skyrim, but its pretty much up in the air at this point. But at any rate spell making can be boiled down to its basics, allowing for customation of spell use on the fly it could be handled with out a menu.

Enchanting in real time is something else I want to see. With a station that could be set up anywhere there is a flat area or specific area's in homes that you buy, becoming a dark mage instantly becomes viable. A mage shouldn't have to go to people to have them make your spells, you should be able to do it anywhere you have the proper items. Anyway, you place the item and the soul gem into the station, and they apear in proper area's on the table.

If a menu really is needed, then the menu would come up and you could sellect what you would want for the spell. Anything would be possible, but there's a danger that goes hand in hand with that. Once you select what you want, the menu leaves and you cast the magic at the item. If the spell effects youre trying to combine can combine, and if you're skill is high enough, then the enchanting works. If the effects dont get a long, or if you get over your head, there's both a chance of failing and losing the soul gem with a lesser chance of losing the item, and a smaller chance still of everything blowing up in your face or something strange happening to you and anything around you based on what you're working with.

If you end up making the scroll, it would act like a weapon that helps you cast duel magic effects from one hand and would degrade just like a weapon. Maybe once your skill is so high, a few of that schools spells you make could be committed to memory.

I'd still like a school that deals with combining spell effects, and then casting those duel effects at the same time. It must be hard to pull something like that off, putting a lot of stress on the body. But that probably isn't going to happen. So I'd be happy with a chance of spellmaking failure, instead of just casting failure.

I don't care if it's "spread-sheety" I want it!!

When Todd stated clearly that it won't work this way -> all the argument is invalid. Also how do we put out the problem of spell scaling? Auto-leveling with the player? Is It really an RPG? Isn't an RPG as rich of variables as a Real Life problem is? So linearizing and removing variables will los all the RPG-ness of the game. And most of its fans, the same that work night and day to release unofficial and free patches, mods and anything that made TES memorable.

Continuing down this alley probably BGS will only produce one more episode of TES after Skyrim, which will be a Barbaric hack'n'slash game with 3 classes, lots of weaponry, a handful of skills and extreme graphics. Then the TES brand will fall.

Todd said that we won't be able to combine effects to get unique spells. We can put one spell in one hand and a different spell in another hand and still use them at the same time. Also, slippry slope falacies are pretty much as invalid as everything else around here.

An rpg is where you play a role you come up with on your own. Anything else is fluff to make the game fun and unique. I want spellmaking like everyone else, but I'd rather have it in real game time. Not a menu request forum, but we actually physically make the spells. And a spell getting stronger based on your level takes away from an rpg how? Getting better at destruction all ready makes you more efficient at using a spell. In that same right, a mage would be able to cast a more powerful version of that spell, without going though and making a new spell. I fail to see how spells getting stronger along with getting more efficient take away from an rpg, and make it some first person shooter that everyone seems to think I want.

I seriously doubt it'll be in, which is a great disapointment to me