Well, both the trailer and setting seem to point toward a mainstreamed action rpg.
I mean, had they chosen a province like Argonia for this episode, there would have been more hope for something more original than a northern europe medieval fantasy setting.

Anyway... my hopes for a deep rpg game these days are fairly low.
You could find that kind of PC games years ago, when PCs were mostly in the hands of advlts and so there was more space for games catering to more mature tastes.
Today, the market is mostly children or teenagers gamers, and the gaming industry naturally targets them as their public.

Of course, I still hope that in TES V there will be some adjustments and we'll have a better game, with good rpg's features complementing the action features. I'm just not that optimistic about it.
Oh well, I don't think Bethesda will cry because I won't buy Skyrim, just as they didn't cry when I didn't buy Oblivion.

There was a great anology for the differences between MW and OB in another thread, and since nobody has mentioned it yet I will shamelessly plagiarise it.

Morrowind was like one of those birthday cakes with the thick icing that nobody particularly likes, but it's bearable because of the absolutely delicious sponge underneath. This sponge is the best cake sponge of its generation. It blew the sponge of other, lesser cakes (even those with better icing) out of the water. However, some people couldn't get past the sub par icing on the MW cake and so they never experienced the mind blowing sponge. It was for these people that Oblivion was made.

Oblivion had the gosh darned prettiest icing of the time, and upon biting into it one was transported to a creamy, soft and sweet heaven. This icing drew in the people who care exclusively about icing, but the fans of the MW cake - while appreciating the new icing - found the sponge to be stale and somewhat shallow.

Obviously the icing represents the surface features like the graphics and the combat system while the sponge represents more cerebral features such as lore, presence of fantasy and story. Now I'm not saying that icing-appreciators didn't notice that Oblivion's sponge wasn't great or vice versa, but we clearly need Morrowind's sponge and Oblivion's icing in the next TES instalment. Hopefully having dabbled in both of these aspects BGS has now found a happy medium. FO3 certainly seems to have taken a promising step in the right direction.

I was merely joking my good man.
Of course Skyrim will be it's own game. Well I hope so at least.

My thought exactly! :brokencomputer:
Two biggest dissapointments this year.

Oblivion was pretty mainstream so i think they should go back towards morrowind style a bit

I really hope they make this game more like Daggerfall. Its like a band. They release a new album, completely different to the style they usually play and the release more albums like that one. They lose their original member base. Not good.

I hope you are right. Bethesdas fan base for this series is firmly in the non-MMO, Kinect/MOVE hating hardcoe market. More polish is good, less depth is not. Each game since daggerfall has been more accessible and yet shallower than the last. I don't see why Betehsda can't provide both. Or even release a cut down, action rpg version for the rpg lite-crowd and release a slick daggerfall/ morrowind like bona-fide elder scrolls title for their converts.

One point for any Bethesda admins out there: make the console command window available on Xbox/PS3. There WILL be bugs and this is often the simplest way of solving them. It's also great fun to mess about with!

What the hell does "mainstream" even mean?

It's hard to say at the moment. Ask this question once we start hearing about what's in the game. I can say that I hope Skyrim isn't main streamed and it's more RPG, along the lines of Morrowind and Daggerfall.

Until we know more about the game there really isn't any reason to vote in the poll so I'm holding back my vote until further evidences shows one way or another.

I would like the poll to be different, kinda like have an option that says "I think/hope it won't be as mainstream as Oblivion was."

Since Oblivion was actually very mainstream compared to the previous games, I really doubt that Bethesda would make this even more mainstream. Sure, they want it to sell as much as possible, so don't expect a giant leap in the opposite direction either, but I think the devs must have realized that they maybe dumbed Oblivion down just a little too much.

i think with SI & FO3, they are regressing back to their old ways (in a good way). Even with the dragons, one has to think back and realize what they implemented that has been done before but made original (skeletons)

No, seriously. "Mainstream" just means popular, but for this poll it seems to have a... I was going to say subtle, but I'm not sure why, because it's not remotely true... a blatant connotation of, "stupid, because I'm smarter than everyone else, hurf durf." The premise of the poll is flawed.

I'm pretty sure she's just lampooning the fact that so many threads have people expressing a desire for all things Morrowind in the game, and not stating what she actually thinks will happen...

I really really really hope not

It's pretty much mainstream already. It will happen over time to most game companies as they grow and since bethessda has had enormous success sine morrowind, it's almost suspected to happen.

They might want to hold on to their original fan base by making it non-simplistic.

Of course it'll be more mainstream. The majority of Oblivion's sales were on console, and console gamers clearly prefer games like TES to be simplistic, so it doesn't take genius to figure it out.

The better question, for long-term TES fans, is "Will the game still have enough depth for me to enjoy it?". We'll see.

Still, forget about whether it's mainstream or not, I'm still crossing my fingers that it doesn't have multiplayer. Jesus.

Wow, I'm sorry that your deep personal conflicts on whether or not it is ethical to use fast travel in the game prevent you from being happy. I also apologize that this "temptation" is so strong that it actually creates issues for you. I'm also sorry that your lack of self-control is in such a poor state that you can't handle ignoring something like fast travel.

I don't get this topic. Oblivion was as mainstream a success as any game can be. It won best game at the VGA. Skyrim could possibly be more of a mainstream success, but only in that it sells more copies.

Everything mentioned in the OP has already been covered. The smaller map from DF>MW was an inevitability. you cannot possibly have a world as big as DF but as hand detailed as MW. I know which world space I preferred to explore :thumbsup:

streamline/distilling =/= dumbing down.

Firstly, you are generalizing console gamers. I play on a console, and I do not prefer games like TES to be simplistic. Some people don't like looking at their laptop for hours at a time

Anyway, as I have said, SI and FO3 seem to indicate that Bethesda is heading back to their old ways.

You know, I do hope Skyrim goes mainstream because I am what you'd call a casual player. You'll be sorely disappointed if you think otherwise. "Going mainstream" basically means that they are getting better at their craft and as such more and more people are willing to "enjoy" the franchise, as in opposed to grinding mudcrabs and swooning over the "alien" landscape.

I have to agree there. Both of those games, perhaps not in terms of mechanics, but in terms of content are made to appeal more towards mature gamers. and yeah thats good news.

all this dumbing down in mostly nonsense imo.

If bethesda removed all stats and skills from TES5 I wouldn't necessarily say its been dumbed down. for example they took out antiquated dice roll system for missing and blocking based on a stat skill, and placed those into direct controll of the player. this is important. Sure it's crap in the lock picking and dialog system. But doesn't have to be crap. I would rather use my sense of intelligence where ever possible rather than a stat to determine how intelligent I am.

people think RPG ends with DnD :/

All this whining about TES getting dumbed down, going mainstream or anything of the sort is just BS.

First of all, a decline in quantity is inevitable if you want higher quality. Secondly, appealing to more people than just the hardcoe fans is inevitable if you want a higher quality. Bethesda wants to make a quality game, and I don't blame them.

Now about the game being simplistic: Morrowind melee combat being just about spamming the strike button and hoping you come on top is simplistic. Actually having to get into the rythm of combat and dodging and blocking and using powerattacks to get the advantage like in oblivion is a huge improvement. I'd rather have the more varied combat like oblivion than have a thousand different weapons to use like in Morrowind.

Having almost every quest being a simple fetch or kill quest is simplistic. Having varied and more rich quests like in oblivion is not. Oblivion didn't have a lot of quests, but at least (almost) every quest was an experience. You'd never know what to expect, and you'd actually feel like you did something meaningful. If I want to fetch things or kill things I can dive into a random dungeon. I want quests to have some quality beyond that.

Really, the point where oblivion went wrong is the huge amount of enemies levelling and level scaling. If that would've been toned down, or there would be a solution to it, Oblivion would've been better in almost every aspect than morrowind. But once again, it was because of complaints about morrowind. Mainly the point of not having any challenges anymore after level 16. Bethesda tried to fix it but it created as many problems as it solved. Let's just hope they've now taken the time to get it right, and we'll probably have an amazing game to look forward to.

Whenever anyone mentions the word "mainstream" they automatically get turned into the hipster kitteh in my head.

Yes. When making MW, they were close to bankruptcy. But because it was so awesome, a big chunk of the RPG fans bought and played it. That was when they said "Okay, we have a fanbase full of hardocre RPG gamers. Now let's extend our fanbase critically with more of a mainstream and accessible product" and here comes Oblivion. They did that with both of the games (OB and F3), and they have a massive fanbase. So now they can make ANYTHING they want, and it will sell. That's why I believe Skyrim will be better than Oblivion and Morrowind. Skyrim will most likely be the best TES yet.