I'm not new to the TES series of games. I started playing Daggerfall sometimes in 1998, and as the years went by*, moved on to Morrowind and Oblivion as I updated my computer(s).
Now Daggerfall was ugly and featured mostly randomly-generated** caverns, but it is also the best RPG of the series. The sequels are, although nearly bug-free and graphically superior in every way, merely stunted copies of the original. What I would love, and I believe I proposed this at some forum before Morrowind was released, is to have another game like Daggerfall released. A vast world to explore, more then just a handful of guilds to join and endlessly generated quests to complete. Liked or disliked, the endless caverns and vast world made Daggerfall the most played TES game for me.
Bethesda should concider this. Blu-ray format is just out, which should make a game world like this fully distributable. By minimum you could offer a program that would allow individual players to generate a province or two like this for themselves as add-ons (I believe this is what Diablo 2 does regarding the whole game). Hard drives as large as one terabyte are readily available, so this option would also be truly great.

-Cerre

*) Just in case you wonder, I also lived my REAL life in the last 12 years. TES is kind of an on-off-thingy, but nevertheless I've played the games since 1998.
**) Or were they? After playing for a while, you could easily see that the caverns were made of possibly pre-made sections. I'm sure an even more experienced player then I could easily have found his way even without the in-game automap.

If used correctly random generation can do a lot of great things, it doesn't mean that EVERYTHING has to be randomly generated. There could be randomly generated "islands" and within a randomly generated area also FIXED locations.
There can be different kinda of random generation too:

-Randomly generates all the time:
Deserts for example as they change over time, their basic geometry can shift over time

-Randomly generated on NEW GAME:
Forests could be randomly generated at the start of every new game. That means you can find orientation points but they're different each time you start new.

-Fixed location within a random area:
Something like a town can be set within a large randomly generated area like a desert but remain it's relative position on the world map

-Changing location with NEW GAME:
Some ares like ruins within a randomly generated are could CHANGE it's position with very new game, that means when you play again a ruins position within a forest might have shifted so you have to search it again.

-Randomly generated houses with NEW GAME:
If they'd truly have large cities there could be houses that randomly generate content and NPCs at the start of a new game so every time you start a new game towns and inhabitants can differ

-Full random generation for border zones:
And of course that's the best method to make a areas border, when you enter it it just keeps randomly generating terrain, plants and animals, maybe also some old houses, really broken down ruins and occasionally a random NPC. That way you don't have a hard border zone but there's no REAL content beyond them, bu you can still keep on walking and not hit a invisible wall.


As much as I don't like using that argument but that could add a lot to replay value of the game since you'd actually have different content every time you start anew.

All those ideas are great.

I disagree with your basic premise, that DF was the best RPG of the series
The random generation was a major part of what I disliked about DF
Get a random quest, proceed to a random location, travel around an endless randomly generated dungeon full of random creatures searching for a random quest objective. Tedious and made no sense

I'm sure a random element can be used to some degree, but not as much as DF hopefully

I'm against randomly generated terrain, or cities or whatever. I like having a consistant world that makes sense geographically.

That said, I wouldn't mind having some things randomly generated. Certain dungeons should be randomly generated when you start a new game, but only the ones that don't have to do with quests. Unless it's something like the Labyrinthian or something... I could accept that.

I also don't think randomly generated quests are such a good thing. Deliver X item to Y location isn't really very fun unless the characters and environments you're dealing with are thought out at least a little bit.

Thats my 2 cents, not much more I can say for now I guess.

How does one preclude the other? Dwarf Fortress has randomly generated terrain, climate, geomorphology (tectonic movement, rock layers, volcanism, erosion and so on), deities and pantheons, races, history (down to each single important person for several thousand years worth of it if you so choose) and a ton of other stuff, and it's not only consistent, but awesome.

Random is good. In a city like Wayrest with 100,000 people, your not going to know all of them. Therefore, the game could save memory (I think) by randomly generating people and quests.

Also, randomized dungeons would be very helpful. Most cave systems in Oblivion were a very straightforward and simple thing, but htat could be destroyed through randomization.

And more modular pieces for designing these dungeons. Remember how Morrowind's buildings had meshes for each corner, each junction, each support beam, each balcony and banister? Remember how sometimes entire buildings in Oblivion were just a single mesh? Sure, you can put more detail and individuality into that one building if it's a unique mesh, but you also kill the moddability of the game and the aspirations of many young modders. :facepalm:

I don't think randomly generated exteriors would work well with a construction set if you want to place down a house and ironically the hardest dungeon you have ever seen generates next to it, and it's constantly spitting out monsters.

Though the world-generator slowly grinds to a halt if its run for too long. (learned that the hard way)

Anyway, yes, random generation can do wonders if well designed.

I don't think a Daggerfall-style game can replace a Morrowind-style game or vice versa. They really both have serious advantages that are exclusive to each other.

I would love to see a Daggerfall type game, with heavy randomization again, this time done without insane bugs and game imbalances and updated graphics and everything. I long for the days when I had to do like 6 quests to advance in a guild, not just one or two, and I couldn't memorize what to do and where to go once I'd done them once.

I"m in favour of randomly generated areas that are natural in origin - wilderness, caves, etc. But cities need to be crafted and built by people, because that's what they're supposed to be in the game. Have the important places built by hand, but there's no reason not to have massive areas of random, wild, wilderness in between. Miles of coastline, dark, dank forests. Mountain ranges etc.

Making future games randomly generated would be a terrible idea. Daggerfall was big, and probably never could have been so big if it was not all randomly generated, but I'm not sure I'd actually say the size of this was a good thing. Let's face it, while the game was still good, the randomly generated locations (and worse, quests, being able to have an endless supply of quests only sounds good before you realize that EVERY randomly generated quest is EXACTLY THE SAME THING, with only different locations, people, and items chosen to put in it.) Morrowind may have been smaller than Daggerfall, but I found exploring its world much more satisfactory, precisely because it wasn't randomly generated, so Bethesda could design each location with care and put in things that make them unique. I'd rather explore a smaller world that's interesting to explore than one that has far more places to explore, but I don't want to explore them all because most of them are mind-numbingly dull. Never mind the bugs, it's a Bethesda game, those are inevitable, the biggest problem with Daggerfall was probably its reliance on randomly generated environments.

There have been instances where randomly generated environments DO work well, however, none of these games were named "The Elder Scrolls", I found Diablo's use of randomy generated environments alright, but in this case, my attention is on killing monsters and hopefully finding nice loot rather than exploring interesting locations. The civilization series tends to be able to randomly generate a map as well, however, since the map represents an entire world, it is obviously not nearly as detailed as the Elder Scrolls series.



Having not played it, I can't judge it, but I have my doubts on how "awesome" it can be, and even if that game does it well, that doesn't mean everyone who attempts it can, or that it would work well in the Elder Scrolls series. The Elder Scrolls puts much emphasis on exploration, so Bethesda needs to ensure that the locations are as unique and interesting as possible, and you can't do that if they're all randomly generated for you.



Calling that "replay value" is a little too optimistic I'd say. It isn't enough to ensure that replaying the game will offer a different experience (whether through giving the player choices that will actually change the gameplay experience, creating multiple endings to encourage players to play the game multiple times to see all of them, or take the lazy approach and just make everything randomly generated so that it seems like the world is different each time, though in reality the game just rearranged it randomly.) for a game to boast replay value, it needs to actually make players WANT to replay it. Otherwise, any attempts to create the illusion that the game has more content amount to nothing. Randomly generated content will not add reply value to a game that lacks it from the start.

Randomly generated content is A-OK in my books. Just mix in some non-random things and it would be great.

The other thing about random generation: it screw up all future lore. If Arena hadn't been randomly generated then, hell, we'd have a map of all of tamriel. Now, Arenanites bicker over wich dongeon goes in which province.

I don't like random generation at all, not even if it's only generated once before the game is shipped. I like hand-created dungeons with hand-placed monsters and hand-placed items. I like towns with hand-placed buildings and people, even if that means the towns are smaller than they could be. I like hand-made terrain with hand placed lakes and trees and rocks and creatures. I like it when my game is made by the hands of a group of people, not generated by a set of algorithms.

Edit: Typo

That's a good point. You get much more customization and more variety and amazing features if you do things by hand instead of random generation.

There was one pond that I found at the bottom of a hill, and my character had just enough speed and acrobatics to make it into the water. About 10 feet from hitting the water I was whizzing by rocks and I kept hoping that I wouldn't hit any of them because I hadn't thought of saving. Turns out, that I hit the water, and I swam around in circles a few times before surfacing and looking around... there were flowers around the whole thing, and it was just beautiful and I was thinking "Wow... this is amazing."

Oblivion's got some really good scenery that I'd hate to see go away due to random generation.

However, if some things were randomly generated, like for small repeating quests like if you need to go to a far-away island, or if there's a cave called "Evershift Cave" then it makes sense.

But having unique landscapes and not being able to share their findings with other people would be... devastating to the game, really.

Not only that, but player-made creations would become obsolete if one player has a flat grassland where the other has a towering mountain.

I'd love to see randomly generated wilderness. But id rather see an interesting beautiful handmade world like Risen.

think best thing to keep at random generate are non quest related npc's citesens and travlers and merchants
or dungeon non epic loots maby some flora but for trees they only random generate at beginning of a new game afther that they stick to their position
interiors of caves in the way next time you visit the room were you went last time colapsed and a other room opened by that and maby initrios of mages or cused ruins/temples as i dont see why a normal dungeon got be difrent next time if no 1 built to it as aslong as non magic releated it cant change itself:P
or in case of ice dungeons if its skyrim they can melt and reform next time you visit
and maby in some city's they can destroi houses and built new 1s but that are overtime changes as they still need to have time for the npcs to built their new house other then that i dunno what is good to be random generated

sorry for my bad spelling btw

Random and hand-placed content need not, and should not, be exclusive. The mix of the two can be far more effective than either.

By using hand-placed "core" buildings, mountains, and roads, then using "procedurally generated" filler to create expanses of the "routine" things in between, hand-tweaked afterwards, you get both quality and quantity. The quality of the individual hand-made items which get randomly placed can partially obscure the fact that they weren't actually "put" there by hand, and using enough different "subtle" variants keeps it from looking like either a production line or a checkerboard. For instance: you define a group of housing, with shops at the corners. The shops are hand-placed, but the rows of nameless and faceless houses between them are randomly dropped into their final spots from a list of 5 or 6 "shells", each with one of 5 or 6 "sets" of windows, doors, and shutters, and each with its own garden, fence, and/or yard from a small list, or total lack thereof. The number of possible combinations is huge, so there will be minimal repeats, but someone doesn't have to sit there and individually hand-place 50-200 common houses in a "city". The city looks like a city, not a village, with no more "work" than it took to create an Oblivion "city" that's only the size of a village. It also makes sense, unlike some purely random DF locations.

Random bandits and loot are good, especially mixed with static bandits and loot. Having some of it respawn at a random time instead of guaranteed in 3 days, and others once-and-done, means that you don't have the counter-incentive that killed exploration in OB because everything respawned every 3 days. If you go back again, you may find something new and you may not, but it typically won't be as good as the first time around. You CAN go back, but it doesn't REWARD "farming" the same locations.

The system of "purely random" spawns, as in Daggerfall, has its limitations, as I was sharply reminded when I played a small Daggerfall intro mod to MW some time back. Unless you get lucky, there's no guarantee that you'll find the items you need to complete certain tasks (getting past an Imp can be difficult when you never find a silver weapon of any sort, much less one that you can use effectively). Your game not only can, but WILL, vary sharply in playability and difficulty each time. A few hand-placed touches amid chaos can preserve a certain min and max level of difficulty, while still keeping the game fresh with each playthrough.

A few randomly generated or randomly "adjusted" quests amid other "designed" ones allows for a few repeats before becoming obviously meaningless. Where "all static" quests are labor intensive to develop and quickly run out, and repeating "all random" quests rapidly reveal their inherent meaninless and artificial origins, the mix of the two gives you a longer total set of quests with less overall development work, without feeling repetitive.

Sometimes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I agree with randomly generated border zones instead of an invisible wall.

Might work for other things too as long as it makes common sense for the feel of the world.

I just think that generated terrain willl add replayability. I just hated that whenever I wanted to start a new character, I always new where to find Azuras Shrine, and always new where to find most of the Ayleid Statue. It could be nice to experience new locations with every character.

I really dislike randomly generated stuff as we had in Daggerfall, as that is horribly immersion-breaking. It makes sense to find (mostly) the same people in each town, as they live there. Having a handful of NPCs being randomly generated might work, as that would make it even more real. But I really dislike randomly genereated quests. I don't want to be told "Go to X and find Y for me, please" by a Fighters Guild guy in one town, just to travel to the next town and have that FG-guy say the exact same words only with a different dungeon and different item.

Uh.. That screams "Oblivion".

Not quite. It made me think of the Daggerfall mummy wrapping quest right away. Those quests have no personality, it's really just X and Y and that's it.

The http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:A_Rat_Problem is noticeably more complex than the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Exterminator_(Fighters).

All games in the series have boring fed-ex quests, though, but I think Oblivion have more unique good quests than any other TES game.

That said, I would gladly see the return of the random quests for the next TES game. Just simple tiny quests that basically just raises the reputation a bit and give the game a longer life when the "real" guild quests are done.

I would also like to see more wildlife, cities and NPCs to be randomly generated to some extent, which would allow for noticeably larger game without spending that much on development time. But of course main buildings and main NPCs and so on should all be handmade. The random stuff is just fillers to make the world more "alive".