I've seen many a topic, and many a poll (everyone loves polls!), on what Skyrim should improve or add to the TES experience. Now I'm wondering, is there anything that you think should or could stay the same?

Consider this: Elder Scrolls titles have had development periods anywhere up to 6 years. That length is important, as it allows the extra time to put a great deal of details into the game, from alchemical plants and trees and rocks, to kitchen clutter, to a variety of weaponry and armor. The greater the variety of all of these, the more believable the world. Some, like the weapons, are critical to a satisfactory gameplay, especially in a game of grand scope. Others, like the various foods and utensils, are important for roleplay, which a significant subset of TES players desire.

In recent years games are, in my opinion, approaching a certain level of visual saturation. Models have become more detailed and have higher poly counts than before, but further improvements in their smoothness and complexity may well be lost in the fast-paced games we play. Textures trail behind slightly, but are nearing photorealism in some games - and any improvements beyond photorealism are pointless. In other words, the 'stuff' developers are putting into their games will look 'good enough' assuming they are skilled at the task.

I believe it is eminently possible for Bethesda, rather than making all their items brand new each game, to create a library of in-game objects (likely at slightly higher detail than is feasible with current hardware, as a future-proofing) and pick and choose from it (reducing detail as needed) for each successive game. It would allow for a much greater emphasis on actually building the world, the characters, and the quests.

Personal tastes will no doubt differ - Glass armor in Oblivion, for instance, garnered a widespread loathing. I can think of very few who would like to see it recycled. Bethesda could always pick and choose select items to update for the next title, while keeping others. Or update and keep at the same time, in order to add a degree of variety.

Though I would be quite satisfied wearing the same old suit of Mithril, myself.

Personally I am of the opinion that for as long as the software supports it every RPG franchise should be a collaboration of the games before it as well as adding its own stuff. Lionhead really frustrated me going from Fable 2 to 3 when the variety of everything took a step back. They could so easily have made minor texture upgrades and more than doubled Fable 3's wardrobe in the process.

This might work in TES. Bring all books forward so that 'libraries' aren't made up of fifty copies of every book. Bring all structures forward for easier level design. Obviously games like TES that change their setting every iteration should have variety, but there are some things for which building from the ground up makes no sense.

Although I'm not expecting any of this for Skyrim as we've a new engine this time.

How would it provide a greater emphasis than meshes built specifically for those purposes. Having a giant library of generic meshes would not improve the development process in the least.

An iron sword is an iron sword. You can argue that a different region will style their iron swords differently, but I can argue that there's more similarities than differences and the differences don't matter because who in their right mind will use an iron sword for any length of time?

Daedric armor comes from the planes of Oblivion, and can be argued to not be prone to geographical or chronological variation.

A basic mushroom will look the same in High Rock as it will in the Black Marsh, even if the latter might have other, more interesting 'shrooms.

Those are just some examples.

Obviously a great many things will be purpose-built for any new game, regardless of whether these things get reused. You can't patch together White Gold Tower from Telvanni architecture.

I feel like since a lot (if not all) of TES's history is already documented and put up on a site, it would be refreshing to see a whole new library of books to read. It wouldn't be disappointing if there were books from past games in Skyrim, but I wouldn't want every book prior to the game included just because I've already read them. :whistling:

As for reusing textures or meshes, it's hard to say-- obviously no one wants a repeat of the same thing, and I can't really see the Bethesda team taking a mesh and texture and then stick it in the game for game-play use. Perhaps they could have recycled meshes during the early stages of making the game, but by now a lot of things are probably scrapped for newer versions of said textures/meshes.

Your third question on the poll bothered me. I think they should reuse items such as forks or cups or apples or other houshold items that are pretty much generic everywhere but you also included plants. I would definitly have prefered foliage to be a seporate question as it should definitly change as we go from region to region between games all of which are very different.

Hmm... I can see your point, but Elder Scrolls games are not made like every year. They have a long development process and because of this the technology that they use changes. Using some of the same meshes and textures wouldn't really make sense. Imagine if we had Morrowind models in Oblivion. Very low poly models, blurry textures it wouldn't fit with all of the stuff they were making for Oblivion anyways. Don't expect the advancement to be any different from Oblivion to Skyrim.

Books are fine with me, that makes enough sense. But architecture would be completely wrong, it would be so annoying to be playing in Skyrim and seeing Bruma houses everywhere. And if they have those big grey walls that every city had in Cyrodiil, I won't even buy the game. There's a style that has to go into games to keep them interesting. If all the same assets are used, it will get boring.

The only thing from your poll that I can say I would definitely like recycled are books. I want new books with each game, but I feel that Bethesda's reusal of old books to compliment new books adds a larger variety overall and makes for a larger, personal, in-game library. I like collecting books, and keeping The Real Barenziah series from Daggerfall, the 2920 series from Morrowind, and the Beggar/Prince/Thief/King series from Oblivion together alongside a Skyrim series is important to me. As I said, it adds variety and leads to a larger library.

I don't think we are going to have to worry about how things are going to look. They have spent so much time on this game, I expect to be blown away by the graphics. As far as recurring books, it only makes sense that some of the same books will be there, but it is 200 years later. I hope here will have been a couple new books written in that time!

Having a library of meshes to choose from will help the developmental process, especially if they'll be changing textures every iteration.

Bitshading is getting to the point where you can put a flat wall, bitshade stones/brick onto it, and you won't be able to tell if it's flat or not unless you look REALLY hard at it. High-poly meshes aren't really neccissary to add depth any more (though they are required for, say, smooth arches and the like. And NPCs. And items worn on said NPCs. But scenery? Not so much.)

This whole thread is a moot point. Technologies change, even Fallout 3 used a different mesh structure than Oblivion did. And with Skyrim having a brand new engine, chances are that changes are going to make it impossible for any of the Oblivion or Morrowind resources to be used. So if they have to start from scratch anyway, why not give an item a unique embellishment for the game?

This is more intended as a future study, for TES games beyond Skyrim. Oblivion and Morrowind resources will look dated in said games, naturally. But as someone who has dabbled briefly in 3D modeling, I know that creating lower-poly objects for use in-game is often harder than creating the more detailed models. The detailed models could be reduced in complexity as needed and still look good in future technological iterations.

And the engine matters not one iota for that. The initial meshes would still be generated by the same 3D modeling programs. Only the importer would change.

PS: One could argue that every thread in this subforum is a moot point - I believe this one is less so than many.

if it is good for the game then I vote yes they should reuse the stuff they can, although Bethesda is one of the best game-makers in the world so im sure they have already thought of this.