The "bug" here is that someone designed a quest for a sandbox RPG as it if was a linear RPG. This simply doesn't work well. See James Hague's "http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4317/embracing_the_chaos_freedom_as_.php" for an article on how to do those kind of quests right.

IMHO anything that adds diversity to a game is great.

Anything that adds sense of progression to your efforts is great.

Any new place that you can find out that you did not or could not before, is great.

So you can guess my answer.

If you think about it there are already unlockable areas ....... hince the lockpic, and open spells. Can you get into a lock that is very hard at level 1 or even 5? It is possible with the new lockpic thing but it is not very probable. Also it would take you quite a long time to build your alteration up and have enough magicka to even cast a open very hard lock spell. Also on morrowind you cannot enter the Kings Chambers (in Morunhold) because it is barred from the other side. When you make it far enough you can get in there and kill the king hellseth. (by the way he is the one that put the hit on your head for the darkbrotherhood.)

Should they have more unlockable areas through quests ...... no, only 1-5 is apporpriate any more is too much because along the way you have to pick or open locked doors, fight your way thourgh infested caves, and other places.


I would however see it awesome to have puzzles wich open doors, like move this here and turn that there, like in the Knights of the nine quest. It adds intellagence to the game, which I like.

I think it's stupid to have to wait around for the quest to be able to make false papers, instead of just any time at all.

Yeah, TES games have always had doors that are physically locked, and that need to be unlocked with a lockpick or magic or a key.

The problem is places that cannot be opened with a lockpick or magic, because you need a special key that you can only get if you trigger a quest. That kind of thing is just stupid because the only reason for it is to accommodate people who aren't used to RPGs and who don't want to accidentally sell a quest item or something.

The biggest pain in my ass was the arcane university because the only reason that was permanently locked was so that they didn't have to script in reactions to those who don't belong.

To make something accessible and user-friendly is one thing. But to take a long-running hardcoe RPG series and make the latest installment an "RPG for dummies" chock full of bumper gutters and idiot-proofing. Well, that's just not right.

Ehm... You havent sneaked in there have you?

*SPOILER*






Its a skooma place. They go there and take their skooma.




/*SPOILER*

If you want some area restricted, I'd rather have it through consequences, like monsters being high end, or the area being high up (requiring levitation) or deep down (requiring waterbreathing). I like the idea of decease infected areas, but I wouldn't want them closed off, just warning signs and stuff on the way to that area, so you aren't surprise infected.

I have a somewhat different take on this issue, in that I do not oppose 'restricted' areas as such but do oppose restrictions solely to force players to choose from the preset options for a quest.

In the early days of RPGs there were often areas the game simply would not let you reach, barring something really off-the-wall and hard to pull off, until you attained a certain level or item; this sort of restriction I have no problem with, since if you could somehow get there 'ahead of schedule' you would get obliterated, and death penalties in the old games often svcked so it behooved the player to avoid incurring them if at all possible. In Oblivion or Fallout 3 there is essentially no 'death penalty', so there is no real reason to prevent access to a given portion of the map since if you get killed you just reload and go in a different direction for a while.

That said, it would make sense if some areas were off-limits unless one were a member of the appropriate faction, since most groups aren't going to let some nobody into their inner sanctum or secret hideout. That joining one faction might bar being a member of another is also fine, since that provides a consequence to the choice to join a faction in the first place.

What I do not want to see is a repeat of the 'Vault 87 Situation' from Fallout 3, wherein access to the titular Vault is denied until the appropriate point in the Main Quest, and even then you are prevented from using the main entrance to said vault (even if you do manage to reach it, it doesn't open) in order to require you to go through an adjacent area that could otherwise have been bypassed by an enterprising character with lots of medical supplies.

Now, V87 is also a case of over-complex scripting, in that getting in early breaks the MQ and at least three other scripts in the process. If an area must be blocked off due to a quest, it should not also be tied into several additional scripts that may or may not have anything to do with said quest.

this and possibly faction headquarters, but you should still be able to attempt to sneak in

I'm open to it.

I voted all three in the next poll. It depends entirely on what the quests are, and what's blocked off, and to what extent.

If my Orc is denied into a club, he'll just use his hammer to earn his way in. Perhaps, I could fist fight with the guy outside, until his fatigue is gone, and demand my way in. I wouldn't earn a bounty this way, as it's illegal to be racist in most places, I believe, and It's not as if I'm killing him. The people insie won't like me though, and some may start a fight with me.

If there's a plagued city, I should be able to kill the guards outside and make my way inside, or sneak over the walls. Or use a huge fire spell to blow up a section of the wall.

The quest really depend on the quest. For example, no access to inside the Ghostgate in Morrowind would have made sense, in the early part, for fear of the Blight/Corprus spreading, but I should be able to levitate over, or go through an underground cave.

What I don't want to see, though, is unopenable doors and blatant hand holding by not letting me go somewhere and ruining a quest throughout the game.