Well it definitely looks like Atmosphere, NPC's, and Interaction are the winners so far. Some people wanted Art Direction, but I guess that's sort of what Atmosphere has to do with. Fortunately Fallout 3 was better in all 3 categories (though NPC's could definitely still use work).

You don't think beggars can be well spoken?

Sound design and interactivity, although NPC is also a top priority (I didn't notice it). I would LOVE if the game had the NPC and sound detail of Half Life 2 (hell, even Half Life 1. The detail has always been insane). NPCs need to FEEL alive. The expressions in Half Life 2 are beyond anything I've seen in any game thus far. When you're playing the game, those characters don't feel like..characters. They feel like actual people. Their interactions with the world as just as realistic. Like in Half Life 2: Episode 2, when Eli asks Alex for some tea. It was such a simple act, yet the animations used to carry out getting the tea, giving it to Eli (with thanks and loving expressions exchanged), and then him holding it for several seconds and he speaks, looks at the cup with a sort of melancholy and serious look on his face, then sets it aside on the table. It's a very mundane sounding act, yet those characters doing that made them all the more believable. Each expression is so carefully chosen for the situation ( a wink, a fast blink with head pulled back, a squinting of the eyes and lowering of the brows) that one might believe they had a freaking committee assigned to every scene to decide just what each character expressed.

Ambient sound is also important. Once again with Half Life, in Half Life 2 the sounds of the city are all around you. Breen-casts going on everywhere (on every TV), the sound of alarms of the distance, the pvssyr of Combine radios, the low wooing noises of the tripod walkers, the sighing of the suppressed citizens, and the chat of NPCs to one another as they talk of what will become of them. Each feature of the world is captured in sound and animation that, even years after its release when the graphical limits have been pushed much greater (but the game still looks amazing because of the great detail and animation quality), that the world is no less for it and is as believable as if I was there myself.

People constantly go on about fine detail in graphics, like how detailed and realistic a rock texture on a wall is, and how great its light maps look, but I think what REALLY makes a great game world is the quality and believability of the characters and the sounds of the world. The extra ambiance that a slight raise of the brow or the quiet hum of a helicopter in the background adds so much immersion into the game that it's almost impossible to describe without simply getting the listener to play Half Life 2 for themselves.

As you can see, I love Half Life.

I agree with everything Orzon said. I love listening to the lightning storms and sounds in STALKER and everything Orzon mentioned about HL2. It was a great game.

Todd Howard said in an interview with G4 some time ago that they wanted to make NPCs much more natural than Fallout 3's NPCs for their next project. So that one is definitely going to be one of their priorities.

I'm a pretty big svcker for the Environment. It just melts me sometimes. It makes me feel like I'm really living there.

I love frost fall

1: NPCs
2:Atmosphere

i would say Interactivity, but to a truely awesome level, i think it would take WAAAAY too long to make, and i really wanna play something new in 3 years at most.

The graphics for oblivion were good for an open world game but the faces and the physics just weren't satisfying, I hope they improve the graphics and the sound in TES V.

First priority is better detail and animations for npcs and such, second is lighting. I just kind of assumed everything else would happenm anyways, so...

Awesome.

I want them all but first would be NPCs (more dialogue definitely) and second is a toss-up between atmosphere and detail. I'm good with the atmosphere Oblivion has unless I run into a long rainy spell so I could live without much improvement there to get lots of minor details.

This poll needs an option called "Smoothness".

Sound design in gamesas games is usually not the greatest. F3's a shining example of that, forcing you to use ALchemy if you have an enthusiast set-up.

It's one of the most important, yet un-noticed aspects of full game design.

Transition: When everything feels as seperate as it does with Oblivion, things need to be improved. The threat of Oblivion wasn't much when the city near the gate didn't seem different. Loading times makes me not want to visit every house.

NPCs: When people are as dull as they as in Oblivion, the threat of Oblivion didn't feel like much. "Oh no we're gonna die. See ya"

The world and NPCs need to blend into 1 big mass.

I think atmosphere is critical in defining the world - where are our holidays? The seasons? The varied weather? I'm tired right now so I'm not going to elaborate.

I'm sort of expecting seasons if the setting is Skyrim, it'd be an unique way of adding variety. Watching the snow settle over the land, or you know, go to bed then wake up to the change.

1st: detail- and i don't neccesarily mean graphics i simply mean the ability for the environment to work in harmony eg. fireball's set fire to trees burning branches fall off and start small fire to the grass. also i liked walking the beutiful landscapes of cyrodiil and and the shivering isles.

2nd:atmosphere i would like to see a advanced climate system and more realistic clouds and weather to make walking in skyrim-hopefully skyrim-a nice experience

as you can tell i like to traverse the landscapes of oblivion, morrowind and shivering isles

For me, gameplay is absolutely paramount. I don't care to look at a pretty statue if it doesn't do anything. The only thing that would concern me in the graphics department is for the game to run as smooth as possible, so the stuttering or choppy frame rates don't interfere with my gameplay.

Interactivity and Atmosphere, though I'm also interested in seeing more advanced AI. But graphics as a whole I couldn't care less if they didn't get any better then a modded morrowind.

I was afraid to choose anyone of them.

Anyone of those things can really be annoying and impede gameplay if they become too developed or too emphasized in the gameplay mechanics.

However, a healthy blend of all these qualities would make for an excellent game.

(* I just wanted to note that music is extremely important in a game.)

I think sound design is more important than the poll seems to indicate. It really helps with immersion, but it's something you don't generally think about.

For example, in the games if you whal through a puddle it sounds different than if you are walking on a rock. You don't tend to think about that but if it sounded the same I think it would make a big difference.

I voted detail as most important, and because of immersion and because that adds to exploring. But I voted sound as second most important.

now that I think of it I think theyre all just as equally important, the sounds of raindrops (I hope theyre gonna have wet textures/shaders like in STALKER). Puddles, birds chirping (I live in Auckland NZ and even in the city rural areas you step out side and you can hear the pvssyr of alot of birds chirping, and pigeons hooting). in Oblivion you step out side and you can hear maybe one bird chirping every so often in a place like tamriel I would expect the world to be full of wildlife and lots of noises. I want to hear wolves howling at night, Owls hooting, things crawling around on the ground, and the bristle of daily life. The sound in oblivion feels very empty and its all drowned out by the loud music.