I am a role-player. There is no question about that, I support things that are immersive and that add value to role playing for role playing purposes. Now that you understand that, read this thread in that context.
I like to distinguish between travel, combat, stealth, and city living. I change into regular clothing when I'm wandering around cities. I like to carry as few items as possible with me when i'm fighting, even if that means collecting piles of loot by the door of dungeons. I like to place limits and restrictions on my character that go beyond what the game will allow simply because I like the immersive feel.
I know that asking Bethesda to create the perfect role playing world is not going to happen. Characters need to be able to get away with carrying unreasonable tonnage in order for the game to function. I know this, and I support it. I sometimes have to do it as well to move things around and i'm all for that.
What I would like, though, are a few extra options just for the sake of the role player. Here they are:
- The ability to pack. I would love to be able to carry around a bedroll, some table-wear, and maybe a collapsible stool or something that I can set up in the wilderness. I love stopping at camps in the wilds just so that I can sit, eat, pretend to cook, and get some proper sleep. I would really love to be able to bring something like this along with me so that I can stop and rest without needing to slaughter some nameless "bandits."
- The ability to start a fire would be ... mind blowing.
- Travel. I love to travel without using fast travel, BUT I hate that I have to actually control my character. I've always thought that horses needed an autopilot option. Just stick to the roads, ride to [city], and don't stop for anything unless I take over. That way I can do something else and just watch the screen while my character travels.
- More hotkeys. Changing clothes in Oblivion is something of a pain because of all the different articles that you have to put on and take off. I currently use some keyboard macros to toggle three or four typical items that I always equip when dungeon delving. I would like, however, to be able to do more than just a couple. I need some hotkeys for my weapons, which I use 1-5. If I want to use any spells on a hotkey at all, it means that equipment just doesn't have room. gamesas, please allow us to use more than 8 hotkeys for equipment.
- A sack. Just a simple sack that I could drop by the entrance to a dungeon and place some things in. When I get to the dungeon I can offload some stuff in there because I know I need to be prepared for a fight. While I delve the dungeon I can bring things back to this bag and place them in it. When I leave, I can just grab up the bag and take off. Hey, saddlebags would be the same concept. I already play this "base camp" mentality except that I just pile stuff up on the floor by the door. This isn't always a good idea because it's a pain to gather everything up, some things fall through the floor, and sometimes you don't see that daedric shield in the corner before you leave.
I agree with all of these.
This might not be particularly helpful to the subject at hand, but for a bit of context, I use a mod that provides a tent, a bedroll, a fire and a sack, and it's a wonderful thing. And arguably the best part of it is the sack. It not only serves just as you suggest - I just leave it at the door of a dungeon, with all the stuff I'm not going to need in it - but it's also convenient for separating inventory at any time. I use it specifically to store my empty grand soul gems, so that they're discrete from the rest of my inventory and I can't end up inadvertently filling a nice new empty grand soul gem with a mudcrab soul. When I see a Minotaur Lord or such, I pull one of my empties out of my sack - otherwise it just stays in there, safely empty.
Starting a fire would be nice indeed. I tend to think that that's going to be included, just because they've made a point out of the woodcutting ability. I see little purpose (beyond novelty) to being able to cut wood unless it's to be used for something. Crafting seems a possibility, but building a fire would be even more straightforward, and I can't imagine we'd get the former and not the latter. We'll see.
The horse autopilot thing is something I've considered myself, and that in spite of the fact that I loathe cutscenes and most of the other "movie-ish" qualities of games. I don't see it as that at all - anyone who's ridden a horse should know that it really doesn't require much effort at all to keep a reasonably well-trained horse going on a well-defined road. They're not stupid - they don't just keep going along in a straight line if that requires climbing over rocks and jumping across ditches and such - if there's an obvious path, they'll tend to follow it. I don't see it as too much to expect a TES horse to do the same thing. Maybe for the sake of realism it might be easier to do so with a more willing mount - the equivalent of a paint horse - and harder to do so with a more spirited mount - the equivalent of a black horse. And that would add more depth to the differences between them and more reason, for those so inclined, to pick one over another. Speed could also make a difference - if you let the horse go at its own pace, it'll be more likely to keep to the road. If you make it go faster, you'll have to work more to control it.
'Course, we don't even know yet if mounts are in the game at all, but still....
And more hotkeys is already said to be in the game. We of course don't know that to be the case, but that is what we're being told, and it does make some sense, since, if I've followed it correctly, the game is simply going to be set up so that any key can be bound to any keyable action or item. I don't know if that will include complex functions like swapping entire sets of clothing (and I sort of doubt it), but if nothing else, it should provide enough keys (if you can remember them all) to assign each item of clothing you might want its own key. Again, we'll just have to see.
» Sat Nov 07, 2009 8:56 am 
