Don't expect Skyrim to be like FO NV with shades of gray because BGS were not the ones making it..... the Obsidian guys focus on that aspect in their games and it shows in the writing.

For people who say "why bother fixing unbalanced gameplay mechanics in a singleplayer game?", I prefer games that have some sort of challenge and strategy in them and if there is an obviously overpowered skillset that EVERY CHARACTER CAN USE it blinds us like trying to play tennis with the sun in my eyes. At least 50% of a sandbox game is running around fighting stuff and if the fights are boring it makes me think, "Why the hell did they even put combat in this game?" Turning up the difficulty slider in OB makes the overpowered skills even GREATER as they do not suffer from the penalties applied to others. The thought nags at me until I just can not stand the game anymore. There are others who feel this way as well. I guess the best example would be if someone sold slot machines fixed so that if you pull the lever a certain way it will automatically hit the jackpot every time. Would that not defeat the purpose of a slot machine even if some people would love it? I am playing the slots in private, I do not have to pull the lever that special way, but it makes people like me want to return it for a refund because it is defective in the sense that the machine is not truly random. Bah, why should I bother trying to explain it......

Biggest gripes with an otherwise awesome game for me were;

* Levelling system. I can't tell you how much I hated the fact that everything levelled with me. If I'm a level 2 roaming into the scary enchanted woods of Doom, I want something to kick my ass and make me actually quite anxious when I venture somewhere I shouldn't!

* Caves/Dungeons/Ruins - Whilst they were different and numerous, aesthetically they were very much the same. I want to see moss in certain places, evidence of things/people living there in the past, dank horrible pools of water with traces of dead creatures, mineral veins running through the walls in certain places (which I can pick at!?). Gouges out of the walls where armour and weapon have scraqed the wall. etc. etc.

* A sense of personalism - Customisation of character/weapons/armours/wears etc.

* A second of morality/ethics - If I've done something wrong in the open and people have seen it, I want word to spread. I want people to fear me or run from what I'm doing.

* Psychic guards -
Me: "har har! They won't find me... I'm just a bush.. I'm just a casual bush... nothing but nature here... they'll never find me... I am one with the wind..."
Guard: "no you're not you just stole a dagger and now you're sitting in a corner holding a leaf above your head" "Have at you!"
Well not quite.. hopefully I can disguise myself a little better and the guards won't be able to find me across city if I'm hiding.

Mushroom trees are hardly Bethesda's invention. The "borrowed idea" theory spreads to everything in current existence and still doesn't make fact invalid. All Oblivion did was follow the original lore forsaken by Morrowind and follow the setting patterns of the first two Elder Scrolls games, which Morrowind also seemed to ignore.

Cyrodiil in Oblivion has snow to the north, rainforest/swamplands to the south, and barren plains to the west. It's also changed a bit, but is mostly deciduous forest, as Vvardenfell is still mostly volcanic ashlands.

Oblivion followed the old lore and gets flak for supposedly "breaking it" as a result. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, so why maintain it?

I totally agree, but i don t have any expectation in this sector. This downfall happened because BETHESDA jupped from a PC gaming, to a CONSOLE gaming, Console are more limited, the public have a diferent mind, and so on. Beeing Elitist or not, Skyrim has already announed itself without much imagination compared to other Fantasy games : DRAGON FIGHT, YOUR THE HERO, YOU SAVE THE WORLD. This smell a lot like Gothic, and gothic 3 and 4 are failures.
I am merely curious about Skyrim, certailnly the last chance i ll give to the séries, the sad its, i m probably not the only one that are customers since arena. I bought only Vanilla Oblivion shalved it about 2 month later a absolute guiness for Elder series and went back to MORROWIND, as i wanted a decent gameplay and the GFX in Morrowind where pushed near Oblivion.

Lets hope Beth doesn t blow it but i doubt they wont, The start is already flawed.

BETHESDA AND ALL OTHER DEVELOPERS OF SKYRIM NEED TO SEE THIS

Ok, when Oblivion was announced, I had a bunch of worries, along with a bunch of other people. We put up quite a fight, but eventually we either lost interest or couldn't stand the ravenous [censored] telling us that Oblivion would be perfect. Turns out we were entirely right. Don't get me wrong, I've purchased Oblivion 3 times on XBox 360 (first one broke, third one I bought cause I'm in the Navy now and my brother has all my old XBox stuff) and once for PC. It's a fun game, definitely worth buying and playing. But there's a difference between a good game and a great game, or, in the case of Oblivion, a HUGE difference.

The game releases 11.11.11. Obviously it's too late to make a difference (don't disagree, you'll just be wrong. In this stage of development, the game is not going to go through any significant changes. But I still feel the need to point out the terrible shortcomings of Oblivion. If The Elder Scrolls makes it to TES VI, as we all hope it will, if the developers actually read feedback maybe they can gather up the effort to make another game as good as Daggerfall and Morrowind (Arena's good for it's time, but it didn't age well).

First, the NPCs. Ironic that the whenever the developers addressed things like no mounted combat and no crossbows or throwing weapons and no spears, their argument was that they didn't want to half ass anything; that if they were going to do it, they were going to do it right. Ironic then that NPCs were done SO horribly. They had the most ridiculous conversations with each other, their facial expressions were robotic and lifeless, the voice acting was ehhhhhhhhh, and they all said the same things. Radiant AI was also wasted. It was a quest gimmick that didn't have wings outside of that. All the things gamesas did to try and bring life to the NPCs had the opposite effect. The Morrowind NPCs were more convincing and far less ridiculous (as well as more useful).

Second, the stealth/guards. I was glad when I heard one of the developers from the acclaimed Thief series was on board and had plans for the stealth system. But when the game was released... I'm not seeing what he might have done, if anything. Killing people in their own homes was very poorly done. Crime reporting was very poorly done. The whole thing was horrendous. The only way stealth was playable was to learn all the flaws and work the system, but it was very poorly done and playing a stealth character was a chore and not at all natural feeling. Leading the guards on a high tension chase through the town was really fun... until you noticed that they'd chase you halfway across Cyrodil... even though you broke the line of sight 10 minutes ago. And, breaking the line of sight, they still ALWAYS knew where you were.

Magic was decent. It was kind of disappointing in a single player only game that the power of the spell system would be gimped so horribly. I could make some spells in Morrowind that, while they might not be the most practical, were badass as [censored]. I could jump across the entirety of Vvardenfall in a few jumps. In Oblivion you can do damage in a few different ways and hurl objects around harmlessly. The only cool spell was paralyze, but that was cool because of physics. Enchanting items was gimped, spells were gimped, so while the magic system wasn't bad, it wasn't good, and I still prefer the clunky Morrowind magic system, BY FAR. For magic, I'd like to see tiers. Tier 1 is magic with a weapon out. It's quick, it's convenient, it's easy to incorporate into combat. Tier 2 is magic without a weapon equipped. Two handed magic. It's quick, but you're vulnerable. It's a little more powerful than Tier 1. Tier 3 is the height. It's the equivalent of a charged attack with a sword. You hold the casting button down. You have no weapon equipped. It's two handed, full focused magic. This is where things should approach Morrowind territory where some truly powerful things are accomplished. It takes longer to perform, you're vulnerable for longer, but the effects are more powerful. I'd also like to see old magic brought back, levitate, lock, etc... It's kind of annoying to see a company like gamesas relying on modders to complete their game, especially when there are console versions of the game that don't benefit from those mods.

Combat was also decent, but it also had a touch of down syndrome. Weapons attack with pretty much the same speed and do different damage depending on what skill you're good with, and that's pretty much the depth of the weapon types. In Morrowind I could burden someone to the point that they couldn't move (or damage strength, which was more fun cause they were helpless), and then use a spear to attack them from a range they could do nothing about. But Oblivion didn't really make the different weapons feel any different. It was different based on where/when you found them, what you were good with, and what type of weapon artifacts were. If you did a horizontal power attack with a sword, you hada chance to disarm. If you did a horizontal power attack with a hammer, you had a chance to disarm. Christ, is there really such a lack of creativity at gamesas that axes and swords and hammers and daggers hadto be carbon copies of each other? I suppose with what a let down Oblivion was it isn't too surprising but damn. It's hard to imagine that Morrowind came from the same developers.

I dunno, there's so much wrong with Oblivion that it's hard for me to bring all of it up without getting disorganized and sporadic. From the ridiculousness of level-scaling to the retardation of quest-NPCs that were invincible (not everyone who plays TES on every playthrough wants to complete the main quest), there's so SO many things that take what could have been a GREAT game and instead keep it as a slightly above average game in a niche with little competition (which is why it did SO well). I'm really hoping Skyrim isn't more of the same, but at this point it's too late to make a difference. We can only wait until the middle of January and HOPE that they haven't made the same mistakes and have actually put TES back on the right track as the amazing series it should be and used to be. Maybe when I've had time to organize more of my thoughts on the shortcomings of Oblivion I'll post more.

I'm interested in all of your thoughts as well. Try to keep discussion civil, though (not that I set the best example). Discuss.

rambling