I am just wondering like everybody else, how the game mechanics work and other such things. And yes since there is a lot of official info about the game, I still cant see the right answers from Todd and from other developers. What I am afraid of is; Skyrim will be a game less sandbox and it may be possible that Skyrim will no longer be a succesor of Morrowind.. And it shifts from sandbox to more theme park in my mind. With actually very few good things (like those animations and sabotaging etc.) these features seem arent enough, and they emphasize in every interview on these so much that it gives me the feeling that bethesda no longer cares about RP, and their skyrim more like an action-based console game.. What I am thinking is; Skyrim might be a failure as a new game in Elder Scrolls Sequance, not about its graphics or animations or anything visual, but I am talking about the "idea" of a sandbox and its progress..

These are my ideas about the game as an elder scrolls fan and a hardcoe RPGer, as a man living a game rather than playing it.. (and in that case a man who believes in no other game companies but bethesda).

Skyrim is a sandbox game, have no fear.

I'm not sure exactly what it is that you're asking there, Valn.

Did I miss something?

How did you came to this conclusion?
According to todd skyrim will feel more like a combination of morrowind and fallout.
Skyrim will bring so much more then other RPG, friendship, romance, a way to sabotage the economy and much more. so in many aspects it will be easier to live the game (at least from what i understood.
I hope its not a thread about the loss of attributes.

Yeah I to hope it is a true sand box rpg without being to much of a sand box it's self, lots of stuff but it's all the same old sand with the odd bit of variety that ends up being a turd... Not something I think will happen, be honest even tho ppl say thy don't mix I think Beth learnt alot about rpg game by making fallout. Which contrasts nicky against tes with out being to different mechanically. I have faith! :tes:

What?! Jump The Gun Much? No Fishy Stick for you!

Indeed , given that you will no longer be able to break quests by using mark/recall and levitation the sandbox feeling is severely reduced . Options will be limited so the weak aspects of the game are masked .You start as a dragonborn and there is nothing sandbox in that .

You get unique shouts
You get to destroy the economy.
You get to hunt deer.
You get to kill dragons.
Yo get to fish.
You get to have relationships with NPCs.
You get to dual wield different types of weapons.
The map itself is in 3d.
There are tons of dungeons as they said themself.
You can work as a NPC and just forget the storyline.
You can be anything.

So how isn't it a sandbox game.
Do you think fighting is not sandbox material.
Go ahead and use the illusion spell on foes and go about your business.

I don't quite understand why lessening rpg elements has any bearing on the sandbox aspect. You can have a fairly linear rpg, and a sandbox adventure game with no rpg elements. It's a question of the world, and the free form nature of accepting and doing quests that makes it a sandbox, not character progression. And before anyone says anything about there being only one way to do quests, I mean you can accept a quest, then either do it when you want,or not at all. Sandbox enough for most people.

While I think Skyrim will be a sandbox game, those arguments does not make a game sandbox

Well I am sure after all these experience Bethesda is quite a master of sandbox, and I hope they will give me tons of freedom to live the game without playing main quest.. Maybe I am expecting too much reality, to give you the "complete" freedom which lacks in bot fallout 3 and oblivion.. This is not about going anywhere you want and killing anything on sight. This is more like to start and live your own life with all its elements, much more choices, companions and "real friendships or enemies" which should be just more than giving you two more dialog boxes. But for that kind of "Tamriel Simulation" we should have to wait till Bethesda realeses 8. or 9. game from elder scrolls..

The trouble is any time something not related to combat is introduced, you see loads of posts saying "gimmick", "fluff", "features that don't add anything to the game" etc. etc. Take away any customisation option that impinges on combat, again an uproar. It seems to me adding role play options gets Beth grief, there is always a chance that the companion, hobbies, and marriage aspects do add to the game, but no one wants to know because they dared to mess with the armour.

My thoughts exactly

Oblivion had sandbox severely cut with level checks on quests and quest related locked doors.

I believe that Skyrim is still what I consider a 'sandbox' game. To me, that simply means I can travel in any direction I want and do things in the order I want. If I want to stop and explore a dungeon that has nothing at all to do with a quest that I have I can do so. That to me is a sandbox game as opposed to something like Dungeon Siege 3 where you simply continue to travel from point A to point B and can only access things once you have the quest to go there.

I don't think Bethesda has given up that aspect yet, though I understand what you mean by a 'themepark' game, where despite the wide-open world, you get to walk from 'attraction' to 'attraction' with little to nothing in between.

Well the only level checks were the Daedric quests, and I think it's perfectly reasonable for a Daedric prince not to want to bother with someone they don't feel is powerful enough to be worthy of their attention. In fact, being able to complete the main quest at really low levels is too much sandbox, at the expense of role playing imho.