No, you got it all wrong.

I deleted that post about Oblivions theme, because I knew it was wrong I was just kidding around.

I still play Oblivion, its a great game.

Its just every now and then I remember something good about Morrowind that wasn't featured in Oblivion and I get all upset.

And a Morrowind/Oblivion hybrid is a great idea. Besides if someone bashes Oblivion wrongly I will defend it. Same with someone bashing Morrowind.

And lastly, I just recently learned some of the points of Oblivions Level scaling that just made me mad. A unique items stats depends on what level you are when you get it. That in everyway is wrong.

How about we get back to the thread before this gets locked?

I would say quality, but both are very important.

I voted quantity, just because it's *obviously* better to have a truckload of [censored] than to have a handful of rose petals.

Now this is a good idea.

With a truckload of [censored], you can grow a whole field of roses.

Bethesda gives us both and I have faith they will set the bar even higher with TES V.

I would say quality is more important, because a lot of something that's bad doesn't make it a good thing, in fact, if something is bad, I'd rather have less of it because I want to get it over with as soon as possible, on the other hand, a small amount of something good is nice. On the other hand, the game still needs to have a certain level of quantity, after all, since we have to pay for the game, we wouldn't want to see everything in just give hours, especially considering that the Elder Scrolls has always made large, open worlds a selling point. Sure, Oblivion and Morrowind may not be nearly as big as Daggerfall in terms of world size, but they're still pretty big compared to most other games on the market, so all things considered, I think what Bethesda needs to do is to find a good balance where they can guarentee a good level of quality while still having enough quantity to ensure that players get their money's worth. I felt that Morrowind found that balance pretty well, the world was fairly varied and interesting to explore, yet I never felt the need to complain that it was too small, I'd say Oblivion did too, actually, while I do have my complaints with its world, since it's really not all that much bigger than Morrowind, I don't think too much emphasis on quanity is the problem, rather, I blame it on design choices, namely Bethesda's decision to go with a generic psuedo-Medieval fantasy world rather than building off the jungle that was described in pre-Oblivion lore, creating a world that, at least I felt, was much less interesting than it could have been. So yes, I'd say that in terms of map size versus detail, Bethesda had the right idea with Morrowind and Oblivion, unless some advancement in technology makes it possible to create a much larger map while still offering at least the same level of variety and detail Morrowind could have had if it were created with modern technology, I don't want Bethesda to try to make the game significantly larger than Oblivion.

In general, I would go for Quality, but it can be misguiding (I didn't vote).

TES games can't be small and short - it just doesn't fit the series. Quantity is very important in that case. We have enough of 12-hours long games on the market already. The feeling of "endlessness" is what makes TES games unique. It's just as important as "freedom" and sanbox-like feeling. Those things somewhat contribute to game's quality.

However, going Daggerfall's way would be too severe for a modern game. ELEMENTS of DF's generic content would be good - random missions, randomized artifact locations etc. - but the world and landscapes should feel unique in some way and characters need depth (that's something which should be worked upon).

What about me?

Fraid not, you like Oblivion too much.

Usually, I'd say Quality>Quantity, but in a game like TES, that's supposed to be a huge, open sandbox world with thousands of possibilities, Quality IS important.

50-50, I say.



Hey, look at this, I don't even need to say anything and I'm cool. :disguise:

(Been away for a while )

No love for the Imperfect, it seems.

Anyway, I think Quality overpowers Quantity. While both work great together, I'd prefer 60% quality and 40% quantity over vice-versa.

I don't like it that much, but I do like it. And what is the criteria for being cool on this forum? although I should know considering I have almost 1200 posts.

Here's the criteria:

If you're a registered member of this forum, then you are not cool.

I have 14,301 and I couldn't begin to tell you. (Although what hamsmagoo says sounds pretty right to me).

Don't forget the extreme dislike for Oblivion, and the assumption that your opinion is better than everyone else's. Oh, and that you NEED to argue if anyone even so much as doubts your opinion just a little bit.

Speak for yourself, I'm cool as hell irl. B)


Hey now. It goes both ways. Don't you forget that.

You just play a nerd on the internet?

Define "Cool".

A little warmer than cold.

I want to be cool! :cryvaultboy:

At the moment I am freezing, so I'm not part of the cool kids.

I believe I'm the only one who's been told I'm cool. B)

But really. We're all nerds. Deal with it. Better yet, embrace it! Being a nerd is awesome! Now let's get back to quality and quantity!

I'd say that if you actually care about being cool, then your chances are probably pretty slim.

---

Anyway, I think that Quality and Quantity both have a BIG impact on TES.

Imagine a land where you can wander almost endlessly, do a few things, and get one or two unique items. But it severely lacks quality in meaningful stories, characters, and lore. That would be a game based on Quantity.

Imagine a land where you can travel for about only a few miles, and it's full of thousands of quests, characters, stories, lore, etc. The graphics are incredible and non-tasking, and there are tons of new systems and tools. That would be a game based on Quality.

Now, you're severely limited in size in a purely Quality-based game, which could lead to trouble if you want to be an adventurer. "I will climb over this hill! ... Again!!", but then picture trying to have a serious roleplay in a land with little-to-none quality concerning characters, quests, and lore, even if it is big. The essence of the past 2 TES games has been to find a balance between Quantity and Quality, however in more recent years Quantity doesn't have to be sacrificed to give better Quality.

Landscaping in the CS takes a lot of time, but it's fairly simple. You can lift and lower terrain by just dragging the mouse up and down. I've made cliff-side cities, barren deserts (although I don't have the right textures for it ), port towns, etc. with the CS. But it takes an obnoxiously long amount of time. You have to round out corners so cliffs don't look so jagged, you have to make the mountains feel more like mountains by adding "noise" on your own, you have to shape the shoreline to look like it does. As much as I'd love to believe Cyrodiil was entirely generated, it wasn't. You really can't get all of what they did through random generation, and editing the landscape takes a lot of time.

THEN COME THE TREES.

Every tree has to be added, every single one. As far as I know there's no "add trees" button and you happily skip amongst a forest, it takes time to place down every single tree, every rock, every little plant that needs to be in there. That is tasking. From experience I can tell you I've resorted to just copy-and-pasting trees and lowering them into the ground later.

People will play games regardless of where they take place. They don't have to be familiar. One of the most economically successful games of all time (WoW) has areas that look NOTHING like Earth. Some games you play as a Wrench-Weilding Cat-looking guy with his little robotic pal running around helping people in places that look nothing like Earth. It looking like Earth has nothing to do with them "Streamlining". It's clearly explained the Morrowind is very odd because of that mountain border they've got, they're excluded from the rest of the world.

As for why it wasn't as unique as Morrowind... how exactly to people expect a place that's describe as being non-alien (Morrowind's the only one like that), to be alien and unique? You probably aren't going to be finding giant insects and pterodactyls in Skyrim. Giant Yeti looking things? Probably. Ogres? Probably. Huge furry and/or blubbery monsters? Probably. Thinks that look like seals? Probably. Nix-Hounds? Not really.

To survive annually in a place that's got very cold winters they will need 1 of two things. Fur or Blubber. There aren't going to be too many reptiles, insects, and stuff like that. Sea monsters are a great possibility.

Back on track towards the Original Post, Oblivion and Morrowind are relatively the same size anyway. So they weren't trying to create a larger world, it's just they tried to do so much with the engine/mechanics in such a little amount of time.

Also, they just didn't differentiate much in Cyrodiil. The places in Morrowind felt unique because you had islands with Telvanni towers, swamps, ashlands, etc. In Cyrodiil, you had less extreme changes. Which is why it probably felt less unique. It was also probably a big jump to go from Mushroom trees and Ashlands to regular trees and grass. They wouldn't add any unique foliage to Cyrodiil because it isn't supposed to be all that unique land-scape wise. They were supposed to have some tropical jungles, canopy tunnels, and rivers. Creating tropical jungles would create a lot of problems, namely because creating tons of trees and bushes means that the frame-rate, processing and other things will suffer. You also couldn't move through a jungle since you can't climb/duck under stuff. So they probably compromised and made Cyrodiil the way it is.

Skyrim is supposed to be unique in its own way. More likely than not it's going to resemble Scandinavia or something, we can't expect a huge foreign-looking province because it isn't supposed to have anything that foreign (landscape-wise) in it. Maybe creatures, maybe culture, maybe some unique plants. But look at http://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/pgtte_v3_skyrim.jpg concept art of Skyrim. It clearly isn't going to be all that different than what we're used to in real-life. It's going to be unique, but probably not in appearance.

And thus ends my super-long and nobody-wants-to-read post. :mellow: