The hardcoe mode option in FONV seemed to be quite well-received, so I don't see why they wouldn't implement a similar option in Skyrim... But then again I suppose adding the amount of depth discussed in this thread would be a lot of work... But doable

Quest markers are removing you the chance to get lost , getting lost in MW was the most fun aspect of the game.
NPCs giving general directions is enough .

I always like to place my own landmarks and comments on the map yet it is very helpful to know exactly where i am , at least in regional level, FOW is a must .

I don't mind necessities , carrying food and a thick coat around but the real excitement in exploration is tomb / ruin diving . When there is no level scaling and objects are hand placed you never know what you will find there , a daughter seeking to put her father's spirit to a rest , a useless rusty knife that turns to be Mehrun's razor .
Entering areas with very strong opponents is fun too , you can explore pieces of them as you level always ready to run if an uber creature notices you ; having to eat is just a nuisance that adds nothing to role playing .

Another thing that adds to exploration is chain quests or quests that cannot be solved right away, remember that quest from Arcanum with the Elfish amulet ? you can take that quest on day 2 and it will take several in game months before you will stumble upon it.

What really tickles my exploring nerve is treasure hunting specially when there are no treasure maps and the only source are books AND THERE IS NO POPUP telling me of a quest , i know that it is hard for developers to "hide" their content tho but not everything must be connected to questing , playing an antisocial character should be an option.

I still think it is a bit too easy to navigate when you know exactly where you are, but maybe the game may highlight you the district where you are. Thinking about it, it may also be a basic dialog entrance to ask NPC : where are we? As they could give you direction to a place, or mark it on you map, they may give you a temporary label of your position, this day, at this time. It may also be the normal way to learn villages, castles, forests, pathes names, unless you read a sign about them. Didn't it fell strange to find a mysterious remote ruin and to suddenly know that it was the infamous XXX temple of ancient evil? I would like to mark dungeons myself on my map and to name them my way, until I may ask a local NPC the true name of the place.

I think the whole geographic stuff was too simple and accessible in past TES. The path of exploration may not be opened to every characters, not to every players and it should carry its own challenges.
But it should also have its own rewards, and I agree that major items should be there right from the begining. Going into a ruin may always be a deadly trap and a potential fortune. I found dungeon crawling not very rewarding in Oblivion, because you quickly understood that the levelling will never let you face things bellow or above where you were. My only surprise was entering the dungeon of Umbra at level 4-5. I only had a few seconds to understand my mistake!... But later, it became my favorite challenge : preparing my character to overcome umbra.

Agreed - anything that adds a bit more of a challenge, as well as immersion, usually leads to greater enjoyment (frustration at first, but there's nothing like that feeling of accomplishment when you've completed a difficult task:))

The series' in it's youth also catered to a more niche marketplace where realism was favored over accessibility.

With the current mass of players into the series now since Morrowind and Oblivion, many being casual gamers who just want to quickly get through it, it doesn't seem like adding in a level of unparalleled realism to the point where it's TEDIOUS is unwarranted, and even if the players DID want realism over accessibility, it would still probably not be good to make things too complicated to where it becomes tedious and frustrating playing with it.

Just look at http://www.minecraft.net It started off with about the same level of realism. No map, no compass, you have to create all your tools on your own and build your own protection. If you wanted to know where you were or the direction you were heading, you needed to navigate via the sky and draw your own maps.

Now there's a compass to show your heading even when underground and Notch has pondered the notion of adding a GPS like map to the game, which can already be added via several modifications.

Good point. I voted for most of the changes because they would be neat, but even just what mutmekep said would be much appreciated if implemented in game.

The trouble is, I remember people writing all the same things between Oblivion and Fallout and Bethesda went with exactly the same exploration system for that game. I think Fallout felt different though because the wasteland was inherently more dangerous than Oblivion forests, so there really has never been any indication they'll do things differently... the last three games have shown a gradual shift in game mechanics towards simplicity. Howard is great, but he stretches things a tad in the interview when he says Bethesda tries crazy ideas - talk of vanilla crafting is the single biggest change in Bethesda games for about 10 years ("crafting" in FO was so simplistic it should have been in ES4), so I would be cautious with optimism for other big changes!

My one hope is that, with the success of ES4 and FO they have a large enough and experienced enough team to create the mechanics & assets for all the stuff we've always wanted... *prays on commemorative septim coin*

I agree. He's a cool guy, but he is horrible at PR

Hehe, actually I really like him in interview. He has great taste, so I trust him to produce great games.

I wish its possible to set up a camp.You would have to cut trees to do fire and then you could roast like I dunno a squirrel on fire and eat it.Something like that.

I really think that there is a market for these features and that we do represent the fanbase.

1. People loved hardcoe mode in New Vegas

2. Even more people love Bear Grylls and that stupid show. Survival stuff is cool.

3. This environment is supposed to be an inhospitable, vast wilderness, and nothing is more immersive than making the gameplay fit the role that the environment should be forcing your character to play: someone trying to survive.

I am probably most excited for this game because it promises something that has yet to be fulfilled, yet something that was tantalizingly close in the tundra of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. All I wanted to do was run off into the wilderness in the backdrop environment and explore even more, trying to make my way subsisting on what was in my path. That vast, empty, beautiful wilderness exists in this game and I want to play in that sandbox the way it was meant to be played in.

Survival elements increase immersion. If presented correctly, they can lead to compelling gameplay, just like in Fallout and in MGS3. There's no reason not to include them, and compelling reasons to do so.

Arena and DF were accessible enough so as a teenager not speaking english correctly I could plenty enjoy them. I never fell they were too complexe, simply more ambitious in their desire to introduce the player in an alternate reality. I'm very sorry that while technological limits that prevented devs of early TES to fullfill their ambitions is now accessible, current TES team is producing simplest mechanics.

I think any gameplay element has to be balanced to provide a good and renewed challenge. I don't want survival to be introduced in a way that will distract me too much from the feeling of adventure, turning the game into micromanagement. But I think that it's pleasant to feel, in advance, that something will be hard to manage and to prepare yourself to face it. I think it is fun to pass through a hard time to finally succeed and get your candy.

Oblivion only featured a single gameplay challenge : combat. It was a broken, intrusive, mandatory challenge that you could never really avoid. There were no alternatives to combat challenge. You couldn't play a scholar searching for ancient knowledges. You couldn't play a bard, looking for interesting tales, carrying informations and secrets. You couldn't be a spy, sneaking in politicians and mercants business...

With this thread, I'm just emphasize one of the possible alternative gameplay path a player may fully, legitimally choose in a vast wild open world as a TES one.

Yep. I think it's a mistake to imagine survival gameplay thinking about oblivion with more routine tasks to do. A game emphasing survival would have been completely different than oblivion.
As you I'm still waiting a CRPG to make me feel immersed in an hostile environment. It's something I hope from TES each time a new one is about to be released. i hope it will be better done this time.

There is a dimension that is lacking in the poll, and which naturally combine with the survival exploration gameplay : encumbrance.
My idea of survival is to push the player to prepare his explorations, to think about them, gather infos, and take all what he will need in his trip : food, drink, bedroll, maps, ropes, torches, potions... but also his weapons, amunitions, armor, clothes... With merely infinite inventory as in Oblivion, there is not much choice to do, and you can be pretty prepared for everything, anytime. My point of view would be in favor of a more limited inventory, considering location of the equipement (bags, pouches, backpacks...) and their size. Preparing an adventure would require the player to choose : if he doesn't take food, he will have to hunt. If he doesn't take drinks, he'll have to find drinkable water... No torches, he will have to craft some or use wizardry... All this means a bit of strategy and management, a bit of challenge.

Personally I would rather just have fast travel that can be turned on or off because if I had to get water, food, and everything else like you say I can't see myself having the time to ever finish the game. I can remember once when I restarted Oblivion I decided to see what it was like to walk everywhere instead of using the fast travel system. Well I think I got about half way to my first destination and finally gave in to using fast travel, it was going to take for ever to get there especially with bandits, etc interupting your journey. I never tried walking anywhere again unless I had to, it made the game drag way to much. Skyrim won't be the only game I am playing when it comes out and if it is to tedious like you are describing I can not see myself and probably a lot of others ever finishing the game.

But I think that vastness was one of TES main historical feature. If you say that you don't want a big game and not to invest yourself too much in it, may be it is because you are not aiming the good kind of game. I would be sad if TES lost their specificity to become something like any other game : a 15 hours twitch fest corridor.

* Fast travel - Should be like in fallout 3, you cant go somewhere unless you found the place, this goes for the cities (in oblivion all cities were unlocked when you exited the sewers).
* Players should place landmarks themself on their maps - Yes, but they can't teleport to them, they're just there to show you where to go.
* NPC should give directions to follow, not marks on your map - I checked this, NPCs should give you directions and you should listen to them, also it wouldn't be bad to add a tab in the journal that shows all previous conversations, so if you're the person that skips the conversations, you won't suffer any consequences.
* For mysterious places, NPC should give general directions - Agreed.
* The player will have to keep track of his position himself using landmarks, signs and navigation - Yes, that would be great, if an npc tells you to look for the pointy cliff above the lake to find the Witch of the wilds or whatever, you should take that into account

* The character has to eat, drink and sleep to survive - Yes (in hardcoe, because some players probably don't like having to eat, drink and sleep), but to give us a warning of course when our character is too hungry or dehidrated, it doesn't have to be text on screen but maybe a sound, to make it more rp. And no, I don't mean our character say 'I'm hungry!!'.

* Terrain nature affects movement - Hell yeah! If you're running downhill, you're obviously going to be faster, and please, in Oblivion when we would go down hill in high speed our character would tend to loose footing, which is...bad? And, if you're climbing uphill, you will be considerably slower.
* Weather affects movement - If you're in the middle of a snowstorm, you will move slower and you may get knocked down, if its raining, the terrain can be slippery.
* River flow affects movement - If the river is flowing to the north, you can't go opposite direction while inside the river and you will move very fast which can be dangerous.
* Cold weather or water cause frost damages to unprotected characters - Yeah, maybe to include a temperature meter or something, you can survive maybe 5 minutes in very cold conditions before you start loosing temperature which leads to taking damage, increasing fatigue if you're not dressed properly.
* Some plants may hurt you and even poison you - Yeah, but it won't be such a great factor for me because I rarely use plants for any needs, alchemic or other.
* You should be more exposed to diseases - Yes.
* Some rocks, ice, branches may fall - That wouldn't be bad, it would add to the immersion. And also, it would be great if there would be bandits ambushing you and setting fires and throwing rocks at you and gold nuggets and stuff.
* On frozen or moisty surfaces characters may fall - Yes, depending on agility.
* Bad food or water may poison you - I checked this as I meant something like REALLY BAD food, like mort flesh or rat meat, or goblin liver or something.
* Monsters and NPC should ambush you - In quests, yes. Random encounters? If it can be done, throw it at me. It would really be great if you're just walking through the forest, minding your own business and you get surrounded by some random bandit archers.
* Monsters and NPC should are dangerous enough - Fallout-like system, creatures, enemies and npcs don't level up with you. If its a super mutant, its a super mutant, the only thing that matters is you can kill it easier at higher levels because youre more skilled.
* I want to run as fast on a snowy mountain than on a solid road - One word, no.

I'm all for less hand-holding and more realism. No magic self-marking maps, no NPCs who know exactly where to send you to get to the ancient forgotten ruin, etc. I also would love to see more purely environmental hazards. For any D&D nerds, the Frostburn book comes to mind, with all its rules about traversing frozen environments. Dangers you might find in Skyrim environments:

Fissures/chasms that might be partially covered with snow.
Dangerous overhangs of snow/ice that might crumble away if you try to walk on them.
Rockslides.
Deadfalls (when snow/ice overhangs on cliffs above you fall off, potentially crushing you and/or blocking off a passage)
Blizzards (poor visibility frost damage -i.e. hypothermia)
Snow blindness

Etc.

Do you think that the noises from an hungry stomach may give a negative modifier to stealthy characters?

But more seriously, off course, there should be signals to warn the player that it may be a good time to have a lunch, then that the character is starting to get hungry, then that he feel a bit weak... Said simply, the player should not discover his character thirst in the middle of a fight, nor have him falling from hypoglycemia when he was about to enter the gobelins cave. The idea is more to push the player to set a camp before entering the ruin, or stop to hunt a deer before continuing his travel.

I think a good balance would be to have such events or hazards visible, at least if the player pays attention to his environment. It would be more realistic to be sometime completely surprised, but as some people said it, it would be frustrating to be penalized or have to reload because of something completely out of the scope of your gaming control. So I would like to have small clues that may warn the player of such dangers, so he may react, avoid them or play with them in combat. Maybe it could be a good application of a survival skill or perk : to have clearer signs of environmental hazards.

Lol, on Oblivion, when I was traveling in the northern regions of Cyrodiil, I wore fur armor, to pretend like I would freeze otherwise. Great thread, I definitely like eating, drinking and sleeping to survive, no marking on maps, and having weather affect us.

I think you hit the right point : in Oblivion you could at best pretend you were playing a role. In PnP RPG, role playing itself is the core of gameplay and where you are challenged. I don't want the game to feature infinite options and elements if they are only cosmetic or just here "to pretend" you play with them. I want to feel that you have to manage what all what you see, all what happen, and that it's in your way to handle this that your playing skill will be tested. Right now, it's only true with combat. In Oblivion you do not "pretend" you are fighting the monsters and that your character got wounded if you don't dodge them. The game is enforcing this on you. you have to react and manage it. The idea is to have the environment being as important and meaningfull that combat mechanic. It's not just pretty landscapes to admire and clothes to turn your character into a doll.

I selected most options, but there were a few mods in Oblivion that took care of most of the ones I picked options (I think some of them were Real Hunger and Real Fatigue - I think RF also took into account the slope you were on [move slower uphill, use more fatigue trying to sprint uphill, etc.]).

I really like the idea mentioned in this thread about NPC's lying to you, or just not knowing the truth. It adds a whole new dynamic to the game, asking yourself "Can I trust them enough to accept this information?", which is missing from many games where it would work great.

It may be really fun in time limited quests to discover too late that the NPC you asked your direction made a mistake or lied to you. It would also be a way to trap the PC by sending him into an ambush instead of the dungeon he was looking for. If the game keep NPC marks on your map, it would be interesting to have various marks for a same place until you find it for real, not with a single spot on your map, but with a cloud of points corresponding to each NPC indications. I suppose it would not be pretty nor very radable, but after all, if you ask 10 person to draw on your map the location of a same place, there is a natural risk of confusion.

To push it a little more, let say the first NPC places his mark (with a bad level navigation skill). If the next NPC you ask about the same place is of a different level of profeciency than the first, he may give you another option, another mark. But if he has the same skill/knowledge of the place, he may simply watch you mark and say it looks ok for him. This way, you may have 2-5 marks for a same place, up to you to consider whose NPC was probably the best skilled/informed/intentionned.