Skyrim is probably the most accessible TES yet. Everyone and their grandmothers can pick up and play it, and master it. The series sold masses of copies, it's been incredibly successful. Unfortunately, as many would agree, this has come at the cost of complexity and interest to many of the more hardcoe fans. So now that Bethesda basically has every second person alive buying their franchise, maybe the next game will not feel the need to extend this accessibility any further to children under 4, and they can focus on making it more complex. Do you think Bethesda will be changing their priorities now they don't have the need to expand their player base, as it's already huge? If they continue to simplify the games for the mass audience, will this improve sales or perhaps decrease them with some long term fans no longer buying due to the removal of beloved features? Share your thoughts here. I sure don't want to hear, with the next game "We felt the levelling system was kinda redundant, so we just got it out, now you just choose what you want to play and play it, and you can switch any time, and do everything from the start." Don't get me wrong, there's a lot I love in Skyrim, but the removal of a lot of features in order to make the game more straightforward and simplified is not one of them.

Skyrim sold something like seven million copies, and plenty of those sales were from "casual" gamers. These are the gamers that are used to six hour campaigns that funnel you from corridor to corridor killing hordes of enemies. Most of my friends are "casual" gamers. I remember back when Oblivion released, the consensus among my friends was that Oblivion was fun, but most of them gave up after ten or so hours because they couldn't figure out how to beat it and got overwhelmed by the choices and possibilities the game presented. They also thought that the combat wasn't that great, and that alone ruined the game for most of them.

Now Skyrim has released, and a few of my friends got the game. I've been hearing the same things they said about Oblivion: the game is too overwhelming, and the combat svcks. I really think that the Elder Scrolls series is going to be further "streamlined" in subsequent entries. I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda were to entirely drop the Gamebryo engine and use a more advanced engine like id Tech 5. I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda were to focus less on the RPG elements of the game and more on the combat mechanics. The actions gamers of this generation think that a town with only twenty unique inhabitants is stupid: they'd rather see a larger city, even if most of the inhabitants are generic filler NPCs.

If Bethesda is really going to appeal to the mainstream gamer, I would imagine the series becoming something like Assassin's Creed, but with a customizable character and loot drops. To be honest, I wouldn't mind a game like that set in the Elder Scrolls world. I just wish Bethesda would make up their damned minds about what they want to do with the series. As it stands, Skyrim is a game that will disappoint both hardcoe RPGers and casual gamers. RPGers will be disappointed because the game has shallow RPG elements and lackluster character development. Casual gamers will be disappointed by the subpar combat and animation, and will likely be overwhelmed by the size of the game.

I'm definitely curious as to what The Elder Scrolls VI will turn out like. Maybe Bethesda will reinvent the series like other developers are doing, and just call it "The Elder Scrolls". Anything can happen.

No, I think it will at least stay where it's at or go a little bit more mainstream. Bethesda is catering to a new, broader demographic. Old crpg gamers are the minority. Most people who play games nowadays want action/adventure. Daggerfall and Morrowind are not very action/adventure packed, especially Daggerfall.
So I hate to say it, but Bethesda is heading down a path I do not like. At least we have our treasures of old.

The series took a wrong turn with Oblivion and it's probably irreversible in this day and age. The suits will always ask for more and more sales and Todd Howard is exactly the man they need.

I really do not get why people complain about having too many options.

A big budget, successful game from a company who manages to stay afloat has to cater to a large audience. You can't have a good looking, huge budget game that caters to a minority audience. If you want a niche game then buy some low budget indie stuff.

Just sayin'...

If you're an incredibly rich production company, making a game that doesn't appeal to the lowest common denominator so much as it does to a still fairly large group who prefer more complex games should not be a problem. What happened to when games were made as an art form rather than just to be financially successful? And why should that be limited only to small companies? Don't large ones ever have ambition? I tell you if I owned a game company, even if I had to do mass appeal easily digestable games for a bit to gain money, when I had enough to do it properly, I would be making my next game with concern only as to it's quality, and not to it's mass-marketability, since I already have loads of money and a fanbase that can adapt to more complex games. Why is it that amateur and proffesional need be antonyms?

It really is the opposite of complaining about too many options.

With older titles the level of interaction that you had with the world and the depth of the world was actually greater. Skyrim expanded the immersive options (Chop wood, eat, sleep, be merry, etc), but lacks world interaction and character customization.

They limited the number of guilds. They limited the spells. They limited the spell effects. They limited leveling. They limited weapon selection.

The ways you can influence the world has gone down, while the ability of the world to draw you in has gone up... funnily enough. This doesn't really seem Necessary either... and unlike prior posts, I personally think that Beth has been experimenting with what formula works for years. It has struck me that they are constantly tweaking the character building as a way to decide which method works. Look at other titles, Zelda for example: Same bloody weapons and such for 20 years running. Beth has had differing everything each iteration. They perfected Immersion with Skyrim. Lets hope they start making the world deeper at this point with TES 6

I disagree, go figure. I think Bethesda really hit their groove with Skyrim's gameplay. For the past three entries, they've been figuring out their priorities for the game-- the number of quests and NPCs has shrunk, but quests have become much more meaningful and interesting, in general, than Daggerfall's "go to X and do Y" fill-in-the-blank missions and literal copy-paste NPCs. The number of skills has gone down, but that's allowed them to focus on what's left and create a more balanced, enjoyable system, and the perks system adds to that as well. The world has become smaller, but anyone who would try to argue that Daggerfall's dungeons are better-designed than Skyrim's is flat-out lying. And the games have so much more personality now! Everything in Daggerfall's bestiary looked like it came straight out of the DnD monster manual, because creativity only spreads so far (just look at what happens when somebody gets over-ambitious on a modding project), but Skyrim's beasts, even its goats and elk, have a style all their own.

The old games had no depth. Zero. All they had was breadth, and they required the player to make-believe that there was anything beneath the surface. Starting with Morrowind, and more and more with every successive game, the perimeter has been reigned in, but the extra mileage has gone toward fleshing out what remains. It's not a bad way to go, in my book.

I will never understand why people say modern ES games are more simple. Morrowind is just as simple and easy as Skyrim is.

Did you even read what you typed before posting it?

Here, this is one of many reasons Morrowind is harder, but the only reason that needs to be stated to prove you wrong.


Skyrim - Your hand is held as you are guided to a point on the map by a magical arrow. You can complete every quest in the game without reading a single word.

Morrowind - No magical arrow. No hand holding. And good luck playing the game without good reading comprehension skills =]

You can turn those off.

Point is, Morrowind isn't hard in that respect. It's just as easy to follow directions than it is to follow an arrow.

Yes kiddo, you can turn them off.

And then be left with the vague description of "Retrieve my staff" as your only means of finishing the quest.
That doesn't make it hard. It just makes it stupid.
Had Skyrim quests provided enough information to complete them using my own brain power, your point might be valid.
But they don't so it's moot.


You have obviously never played Morrowind....

If I had an arrow to point to the dwenmer puzzle box, I would have never came to these forums. That said, I agree, they have a new focus, and I hate it, but there's nothing I can do about it.

TBH, the only real differences between morrowind and Skyrim in a general sense are quest markers, magic creation and ammount of stuff to do. And It's the second one the one that clripples most people. Anything else is just a matter of tastes and/or nostalgia, and Skyrim has several things that make for It.

EDIT: The dwemer puzzle box was one of the first quest, right? It wasn't hard to find... Although directions instead of markers are a good idea.

Morrowind was my first Elder Scrolls game and was my favorite before Skyrim came out. Please stop writing anybody who disagrees with you off as "not a Morrowind player". It's rude and it clearly exposes your prejudice.

Did you not read my post? How is following an arrow any easier than following directions? I agree, I'd rather have NPCs give more details about quests, but it's certainly not "more complex" that way.

I searched the entire dungeon for that damned thing and it was right when you came in, though you had to do a little levitating to get it. Hard to find? no, but you weren't led directly to it by some marker.

What? Because some of the directions were ridiculously vague and some misleading. And that's the way it should be. I always have trouble finding the Redoran farmer who has mudcrab problems. In Skyrim I wouldn't have that problem because I'd just have to go straight toward the arrow. Same thing applies to the dwemer puzzle box. Sure, I know where it is NOW, but I hardly did at the time. It's makes absolutely no sense for an NPC to say "Find my staff, I lost it somewhere." and the PC just magically knows where it is. You can turn off the compass, but no direction is ever given in the first place because the game assumes you're going to use the compass so doesn't account for the fact that someone might want...You know, actual directions.

All valid points, and probably what is going to happen to the elder scrolls series. I just pray and hope to god that the elder scrolls arent going to become assassins creed. I cant stand assassin's creed, i think they are one of the worst game franchises out there, they pump out the most shallow regurgitated crap game every year, they've become exactly like call of duty. Every assassin's creed game is pretty much a "Module" or "Mod" of the original game, and they can justify charging 70 dollars per game per year when bethesda takes 4 years on a game and charges 60 dollars.
My point being, Skyrim as shallow as it is (Compared to other ES games) is still much more worth the money you pay for it when you look at games like assassins creed and call of duty coming out with at least one a year (sometimes more) and charging 10 dollars more then a game with expontentially more content and replay value. So i can be happy in that regard, but i dont think its going to be long before bethesda goes down the same path as other previously good game developers who sold their souls for money (eg. Blizzard, Bioware). And once that happens, i guess i just have to move on..

Now is the perfect time for Bethesda to make the games more challenging. They've already svcked in all the thirteen year olds and frat boys. What more can they want?

This is how I do it: Look at the map with the arrow on it, then immediately turn off the arrow and don't turn it back on. You get the general location and then you have to find the building/dungeon and particular items on your own. It works out the same.

And no, one shouldn't get lost out in the wilderness for hours. It was boring and tedious.

What you call tedious and boring I call exploration.

The strange thing is that the market for more "niche" style games is probably somewhat larger than suits realise, and fulfilling these niches with quality games is potentially quite profitable. But Bethesada seem to have a Hollywood style mindset these days, in which they place all their eggs in one oversized development basket, get uncomfortable with the sheer scale of investment, and so to ensure they reap rewards huge amounts of money are budgeted for "teh shiney", such as marketing, art direction (which *is* very impressive) and voice actors (which is a complete waste, as it impairs the depth of writing you can otherwise achieve) and not nearly enough is spent on writers, programmers and (of course) QA!

It may yet be that we see a divergence in future if the high-ups realise how to leverage the full potential of the IP they own. Consider that on one hand you can produce a flashy/twitchy Prince-of-Persia-like action adventure set in, say, Elsewyr, for the more action-oriented - a continuation of the "Elder Scrolls Adventures" style if you like (of which we only have "Redguard", so far) - and alongside also a quite different type of game: an epic-rpg in a lore-rich, hostile, alien setting with skill and attributes out the wazoo, and loads and loads of smart (but-unvoiced) dialogue, flexible questing and exploration ... call it "Eye of Argonia" ... for the Morrownauts.

That is _exactly_ what I'd like to see. Since Morrowind, because they continually cut features from the character system, I mainly bought TES games for the lore and setting. I have little hope that they will return to an open-world gamedesign that suits my style, and therefore would rather see them put their effort into a great, but linear, action-adventure in the TES universe. Maybe they could even let another studio do that like they did with FO:NV. And if then, they still find the time to create "Eye of Argonia", I'd be the happiest fan on earth.
They really should make more TES games, and not only concentrate on the big ones every 5 years.

You didn't need levitation. There was an ascending ledge that wound around the lower room and led up to where you needed to go. But yes, I also searched the whole big dungeon before I noticed that there was another room up high near the entrance.

Following descriptions is a bit more satisfactory than following arrows because you learned a bit about the lay of the land this way. Often enough, the descriptions contained landmarks, so you learned something like "first comes this fort, then that lake, then this tower". That way, I had the major thrroughways down pretty quickly. In Oblivion, it took longer, because I had to follow the arrow.

As to the main topic, I don't think we will see any change back to more complicated RPG systems. People seem to like Skyrim, and the game seemed to sell very well. As a developer I would take from this that I did something right. I guess we will see further changes to TES games, but not back to some kind of "modern Morrowind" (at a different location, of course) with lots of factions with complicated interrelations, multi-layered main plot, but better engine, combat and AI.