What do you think of when you hear of a new RPG game in the works? Without knowing anything about it? Do dungeons, giant rats, leveling system come to mind? How about swordsman, archers and magic? An epic good vs. evil plot? Most of us here in this forum would probably agree with those statements. But what are we looking for in an roleplay game? Is it really a world filled with magic users and swordsman? Are we looking to find ourselves in a land that has a sensationally epoch shattering dilemma? Perhaps we are! But I would argue that what we are really looking for is an escape from reality.

Does it make sense to you that in many rpg worlds it seems like most of the population are involved in dungeon looting and then either buying or selling that loot? Or how about most of the population having the ability to cast "magic", sort of defeating it's general meaning as being magical (even if not understood). Would you play a game where most of the npcs in the world live outside of large cities in farmland, have never cast a single fireball or have ever been in a dungeon (especially filled with wild creatures that are all interested in killing you)? Would you play a game where others around you felt relatively normal in their environment and were not being assailed by gates from hell, an apocalypse or a great and mysterious evil? I think you would.

What are we looking for in a game? I believe it's an escape, a well told story that puts us in a believable world that seems so much bigger than what we see. One great thing about Tolkien's books were they gave you the feeling that there was so much more than what you were being told, there was a giant world out there and most of it undiscovered by Middle-Earthians! They made you feel like those who were powerful really were powerful (Like the fact there were only 5 Wizards in all of Middle-Earth, and they were all several thousand years old), that most of the kingdoms did not house glorious magic wielding servants, nobles or even kings! It just felt like a place that really was. Those who had power usually were very old, elves and the like or other spiritual and higher creatures. It left much to the imagination.

To the point I am trying to make... in TES it seems to me that the world can at times be hardly believable, and it is not easy to get immersed. Especially with the layout of some of the normal peoples. It seems everybody lives in cities and towns, but where are all the farmers? Where is the food coming from in Cyrodiil? And what is the purposeful layout of many of the towns that they actually have? In the past before our modern era towns were usually a place of trade, judicial and community gatherings and worship. Most of the population worked on vineyards and farms growing things for the one local noble family. Slavery in some form was common, and unlike today it was not frowned upon with prejudice.

I think that you could make a very good rpg, even traditional rpg where there is not a high level of technology and still make a believable world to walk around in where the normal populace are doing mundane and ordinary things. And yet you can have a protagonist who will eventually get involved in greater affairs. I would like to see realistic jobs and environments like fisherman (a very popular occupation in a non-technological setting) and farming. I would like to see some kind of social structure like a trade network that causes people to travel, not goblins or orcs or dungeon looting. Even a setting where two nations are at war would provide a good backdrop for social networking.

In good movies and games the hero often has a special power or ability that is also subtle in it's execution. The problem I see with many rpgs is the way they tell that story, the story of the hero. Often times you are overpowered, and in a way to make that balanced they 'raise the bar' for all normal population so they too have powerful abilities. But think about some of the best stories ever told, Star Wars used protagonists that could use a special power called 'the force' that few could use. But it did not make them super-beings. They still died when shot, and they could not use it in a way that would dominate all combat situations, usually just small ones. Frodo had his innocence and humility, not being consumed with thoughts of possible grandeur or glory. He succeeded because he could not be properly tempted by the power of the ring, being almost devoid of the desire to have the power it offered. And most importantly these heros were not alone. They were helped in someway by companionship.

In Mass Effect 1 and 2 without giving away spoilers I will just say that you are an agent with special abilities to escape normal law, and you had access to great resources since you worked for the government. But the environment around you still felt like a normal place, and you had powerful friends but when moving around I didn't feel like I was too powerful, or that I had the potential to be too powerful (like take on every guard in a city, or kill whoever I wanted and other feelings of grandeur), I just felt normalized I would say. I would really like to see a TES title pull that off well. Where you are in a world and there is a great story taking place but you are not destined to be immortal or a god, or everybody else in the populace is either selling loot to you or out pillaging it, or is a vampire or in the midst of a giant dilemma and your the only guy who can solve it. I would like to feel powerful, but for the right reasons. I want to feel special for the right reasons. Not because I'm level 100, but because I am good with a blade or my arrow. I want to be special because after showing my loyalty to the king and accomplishing many difficult tasks I am the chief of his army and I have great friends in high places and resources. When I cast magic I want it to feel like magic.

I imagine a world where people reflect a natural environment that they live in, and I am born into that world with no pretense that I ought to become something any greater than my origins. But in fact do because of what I am accomplishing.

I hope I explained things halfway decent... the feeling I am trying to get across is difficult for me to communicate, perhaps somebody else can read what I have here and interpret or offer their own ideas

Too long, didnt read.

While I would like to see more farms and industry (mines, pottey makers ect) I didn't get the impression that all the npc's were adventurerers or dungeon divers. And just because a npc can fling a basic fireball spell doesnt mean s/he has any meaningful magical ability. I liken it to musical ability, I can play a couple of songs on the piano that I memorized. It doesn't make me a musician or mean I could compete with one. I don't recall any random city dwellers using any high level magic (like invis or somthing)

No way I could read that whole giant wall of text, but...



I do miss the plantations from Morrowind. It made the world feel a bit more believable to have a few larger farms producing enough food to actually support the local population. With Oblivion's larger cities, you're left wondering how these people managed to eat with only the tiny plots of farmland scattered about.

they use magic to conjure up food then eat it.

Middle Earthlings?

I agree with everything you said. A lot of your points didn't have much of a connection to your other points, but I'll talk about what I did glean.

There does need to be more stuff to do outside of fighting; a reason to stay in the cities. Right now the only reason anyone goes to a city is to sell their loot or look for quests. If there were everyday sort of jobs, you would need to stay in the city. But how do you do work in a game? You don't want it to be realistically boring, because it's a game. And what's the point of working? For money? When was the last time you actually needed to buy something cheap that you didn't have enough money for? Money needs to be harder to come by than it currently is, and there has to be a use for it. I suggest realism needs; need to buy food and eat it and the need to buy a bed in an inn or boarding house and sleep in it. And if you feel that any type of 'work' would be boring in a game, regardless of how it's implemented, there is still always hunting for food and sleeping in a forest, or dungeon-diving and selling your loot.

And I do not like being overpowered, like in Morrowind by level 30+ish. But I do not like not improving at all, like in Oblivion where if you were level 30+ish, so was everything else. Having less of a curve would allow for keeping Morrowind's levelling system but not being overwhelmingly powerful so early.
What I'd prefer to that, however, is to have a much less stat oriented system. I say forget about hitpoints and damage points. If combat was reaslistic, that is to say that everything dies in one or two hits, you would never feel 'overpowered' because you would always be a second away from death if you weren't careful. A headshot is an instant kill, a chest shot causes massive blood loss (indicated by your 'health bar'), a arms and legs cause slow blood loss, but cause you to move slower or swing your weapon slower/with less accuracy.
I have to go, so in a nutshell, my system works as such: the higher your weapon skill, the faster you swing your weapon and the more accuracy it has. There is basically an invisible reticle around your crosshair, and when you attack, your attack can go anywhere in the crosshair. As the weapon skill increases the reticle shrinks.
The point of this system is to avoid being hit, by blocking or dodging, rather than absorbing blows.
The higher your block skill, the faster your shield comes up to block, and the less fatigue it requires. The higher your dodge skill, the faster you get out of the way and the less fatigue it requires. There would be a drastic difference between full datigue and no fatigue; no fatigue you would be extremely slow and sluggish.

It's slightly more player-skill based, but not too much, and I prefer the scales tipped a bit in favor of the player anyway.