One great thing that i liked with oblivion,morrowind and then skyrim was that i could simply Go anywhere. The problem was- i couldn't do anything (and it's become more obvious since skyrim) I just read the first four books of 'a song of ice and fire' and i realise that Elder scrolls could learn some things from it.. or more importantly real life. Or even their own lore.


When i look at say.. Skyrim, i see how simple people made it. There are some big faults in the WORLD of skyrim.

Firstly the functions of the world. The civil war is a campaign of fort taking. Each side has an infinite supply of troops and each city has an infinite supply of food. villages and farmland don't get destroyed, women don't get [censored] and children don't die or become orphaned. War is seen as a boring "hero walks into a fort and kills x number of troops. you look at the towns of skyrim and notice how tiny they are and how untownlike they are. There is less than a mile of farmland in all of skyrim. There are no child begars. Only one brothel. Nobody has any friends to talk with. There are no schools yet all can read, Nobody writes,Everyone is a bandit. Hunters don't bring in their kills and nor do fishermen. It simply doesn't FUNCTION! You look at the fantasy elements and more strange movements (assasins etc) and they don't do well either. There are No khajiit in the thieves guild, The dark brotherhood members don't have any contracts for themselves. There are no enchanting services, No use of mages in warfare, no enchanted household objects, No magic tricks. When you look at swords and armour- Most of them look impractical. Even a nord wouldn't wear only a leather skirt- The torso is completely exposed to the elements and the swords! What use are the paldrons that do not look protective and only add weight? Why some of the weapons shaped so stupidly? The use of materials tends to be wrong too. Ebony isn't better than iron because its heavy and black. Ebony is better than iron because it is harder. Because ebony is harder it can be made slimer and sharper in swords without risking durability. That is why ebony would better. Secondly it IS heavier so the smiths would need to avoid using excess amounts. Ebony would make an appalling bow.


Secondly - The plots are silly and ill considered. Take the thieves guild quest-line. There is a moment where you walk into a HUGE room with a companion and YOU get shot by a woman despite the archer wanting you alive and the swordsman dead. She says that she couldn't make the shot.. yet all she had to do was wait till the swordsman was in view. What's even worse is that... instead of taking another shot from far away (invisible) at the swordsman. She walks right up to the swordsman (rather than shooting him) and tells him that fighting him with a sword is a death-wish (he doesn't swing is sword at her then) and then she goes invisible (and leaves, not retreating to a good shooting place). WHO WROTE THIS CRAP?


Lastly- I can't do what i want to do or what i should do.

I can climb trees. I can climb cliffs. I can climb loose stone walls. I can climb fences. I can Vault things. I can climb rocks. I can grab onto ledges and i can kick off walls. I probably couldn't do any of this in heavy armour- But i could still do it. Why can't i do it in a game that lets me walk everywhere? I think that i would be more inclined to dodge (or counter attack) than to block.. All these are reasons why there should be a skill (or two) revolving around These feats.
Break a wooden chest or door with a hard item (a mace perhaps?). Why would you bother with lockpicks when you have a mace or a fireball or an unlock spell or a nearby statue to use as a battering ram?
Throw things. Perhaps rocks at pesky climbers. Perhaps books at illiterate peasants? Perhaps knives at angry fat men or javalins if i had the arm. Perhaps bandits at bandits if i had a magic strength booster.
i could command enemies to yield or fight with ferocity so that the enemy might flee. you would be able to order people if they were at my mercy, would you not? Surely having a good personality would yeild leadership rewards, yes? Why can't i take items from stores at swordpoint? Or steal what they had in the shop (oblivion and morrowind were good in this regard- skyrim was ridiculous with it's invisible chests outside the map filled with improbably goods)
I should be able to kick people and grab people and elbow people and... you get the idea. Point is.. the player should NEVER be constrained by game mechanics that are missing. It's a world.. how are you going to live in it when you can't always take the most sensible course of action? I can understand not being able to code everything possible (everything above is perfectly possible and should be implemented) but at the very least there should be dialogue options to get out of trouble (why can't i tell the justicars that i am not a heretic and do not worship talos?)


But anyway- I think bethesda need a team of people who ask "why" and "how" and "this would mean.." rather than just "lets.." . What are the properties of this new material and how would it be used in comparison to others? How would a mage deal with this situation? how would a theif? How would a warrior? If the farms are this big then how do they feed the cities? Where do all these bandits and soldiers come from? what does this character do for fun? why is this character here and what is he being rewarded with? Are there enough common folk? If this object isn't magical then should we assume that it doesn't do anything magical (like a dress turning into a suit because a man picked it up?) would a character be able to wear more rings if he wore gloves rather than gauntlets? what could people do with conjuration? What about alteration? how about sneak? Enchant? What kind of magics could we invent to stop levitation being used in the wrong area?

As wonderful as it would be for all that to be in any game it actually is NOT feasible. Maybe while it could be possible given an insanely big enough and talented design team, very large budget and as much time as they need, it could probably be done. They would need an insanely comprehensive and absolutely amazing game engine and it would have to be made for only the highest range of PCs available today as a base too. However the graphics would be out of date by the time such a product was released and the amount of time spent making the game would probably put them in debt by the time the game was released and the profit from sales would probably not be worth the investment. It is just not feasible for all those things to be in one game at least not in a usable sense.

If all that was in one game though it would probably be an end all be all type of game. Just need periodical graphic updates and content drops and you have a game you never will get bored of.

This.

How about putting a million dollars in the box while they're at it, as an incentive to pay the $9.99 purchase price?

I'd like all of that. I don't have ANY rational hope that I'll get more than a TINY sliver of it, but I certainly have a realistic expectation of getting at least that sliver. How much of a sliver we get depends on the developers, and more importantly the accountants and managers who decide not only how much of that they can afford to develop, but how much of it they need to in order to make us buy it.

Incidentally, in Skyrim we didn't get enough of the particular sliver that I was hoping for, and I still haven't bought it (nor will I, as long as it's a Steam game).

Dude, its just a game, when was the last time a game ever perfectly recreated real life?

I think we'll get there eventually. Hell, look how far things have come. Just enjoy the ride