Get off your high horse. I'm a console gamer (used to be a PC gamer) and I don't prefer games to be "simplistic." I can't stand the mentality that PC gamers are somehow better and more intelligent than console gamers.

I wouldn't think it'll go too mainstream. I mean as a game company, of course Bethesda wants to sell as many games as possible. But I think that from Morrowind, and including Oblivion, that they set down a precedent for themselves as to how the games are created and played. I think that it will be mainstream as far as the marketing campaign, but as far as gameplay goes, they definitely won't forget the hardcoe fan base that they have created ever since their masterpiece Morrowind. I don't think that they'll let themselves fall below the high standards that they have set for themselves.

Either way, the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be mind-blowing and simply amazing.

Hell, wasn't New Vegas, an awesomely deep game that was definitely not "casual-friendly" Bethesda's best selling RPG to date? ("Bethesda's" in the sense that it was published by them)

Also obligatory "Console gamers are not all simplistic idiots, PC really devoted fan," comment.

I actually hope they take it a step back to morrowind, gameplay-wise. Oblivion was too simplified. IN MY OPINION.

The mind hopes no, but the heart says yes.

I don't understand what this argument is about... Bethesda's objective is to make the game good so that people like it. I'm a little perturbed by this focus on the idea of "mainstreaming" because 1) it seems mainstream to think that mainstream is bad, and 2) it completely ignores why developers create games to begin with: because they enjoy them.

When it comes to RPG's mainstreaming is bad. An RPG is supposed to be challenging, not easy.

I'm not voting. I disagree that streamlining the game means catering it towards the mainstream. Even some people that love RPGs like myself do not mind changes that in my opinion enhance the game.

For example, the "swing 20 times and miss most times" thing when starting the game was just plain clunky and changing that was not watering it down for the mainstream at all.

I think this whole mainstream/casual vs. hardcoe thing is mostly merely people trying to find a way to label changes they don't like, to be honest.

If by mainstream you mean by selling out just to make more money and forgeting about the fans that been there since Arena or Daggerfall...i hope not. I just hope they don't try and pass off Skyrim as a whole game, when in fact it is a bit more improved Oblivion. They should maybe look at what they did right and worked great with Morrowind and add the few that were good with Oblivion and maybe add a few things that would make it it's own game.

Which is the point. Mainstream generally means popular. Not easy. I think there is some confuse with the term here. :/

Oh, for crying out loud...

You know what? Yes. Yes, Skyrim will be more mainstream and consolized than Oblivion. They will make it more mainstream and consolized by having loads of new factions, tonnes of new, talented, well-directed voice actors, genuinely better AI, a deeper role-playing experience, better, more intelligent writing, no level scaling, lots of neat minor features like boats and farming, a bigger skill list, and all the spells from Morrowind that got taken out of Oblivion back. It will be console exclusive so nobody has to worry about it being dumbed down for those PC kiddies who just play Counter-Strike all day and are too dumb to figure out complex concepts, and Bethesda will become the greatest trolls in the history of humankind.

You are not special. There is no secret niche of RPG-appreciators, whose RPGs must be defended at all costs from the evil mainstream. Get over yourselves.

I'm really hoping it doesn't, or else it will go down the path of Halo Reach...

QFT

Mainstream in video games is much different than what it generally means. Ask most gamers and they will tell you than main stream means making it easier for the general gamer. If you don't call it "main stream" it's going to be called "dumbed down".

How is doing this "mainstream"? You don't see half of these concepts in games now. There are different types of rpgs and if they all went "mainstream", they would essentially all be the same with a different story.

So? "Mainstream" is a meaningless word. All it actually means is popular. RPGs with all of those things are, typically, popular (so long as they have the thing that really defines the difference between a mainstream and a non-mainstream game: a solid marketing campaign).

There's this idea that, essentially, Bethesda can sell more of a game by making the game worse, and that only we, the long-lost secret order of RPG-appreciators (or they, possibly, as there's a marked tendency to restrict long-long secret order of RPG-appreciators membership to the glorious PC gaming master race) can truly appreciate good games. It's pathetically ridiculous to anyone who thinks about this for more than five seconds. Yes, success is not necessarily correlated with quality. No, that does not mean your game has to be of poor quality to succeed.

Fallout New Vegas is a fine example of a game that caters extensively to the things the secret order of RPG-appreciators claim to love, at the expense of accessibility (i.e., being incredibly buggy). Yet it's sold phenomenally well, and is unquestionably mainstream. Morrowind had all of the things I mentioned above. It sold phenomenally well, and is unquestionably mainstream.

Ordinary people are, in fact, capable of liking good things.

I agree completely. I was just attempting to be more diplomatic in saying it.

Often times you'll see people call the removal of broken or annoying elements "dumbing down" games. For example in Everquest there used to be very slow regeneration of HP/mana/endurance even while out of combat. They made it so say a warrior wouldn't have to sit for twenty minutes (no exaggeration) to get their endurance back after death, making regeneration take no more than three minutes real time while out of combat, and the Holy Order of hardcoe RPGs blasted the change... because everyone knows sitting doing nothing for ages is fun and challenging.

if they all went mainstream they would essentially be DnD clones. Oh wait they almost all are already. all these stats, lvling, exp is so damn cliche. Every rpg does it. That's mainstream. Rarely is there an exception. I'm not saying it can't be good to DnD it up. but come on, the volume of DnD cloning rpgs is staggering. Tes is not really any different tbh. It's always been fairly main stream in the rpg world.

I've gotten kind of tired about trying to be diplomatic about this, honestly, but maybe another appeal to reason couldn't hurt:

It is true that there's been a trend of trying to make games more simplistic, which is a mistake on the part of those responsible. If New Vegas and Morrowind prove anything, it's that the myth of the idiot mainstream who can't handle anything more complex than Call of Duty is utter nonsense. Hell, my little brother is about as much of a mainstream, console-only gamer as they come, a teenager who can play nothing but the most recent popular FPS online on a console for days on end, and he still really enjoys stuff like, say, Fall From Heaven or Baldur's Gate II. There is a broad market out there for deep, complex RPGs. The mainstream can, in fact, appreciate the same qualities you do. They just need a good marketing campaign to draw their attention, a user-friendly structure and interface to help them get to grips with all the cool stuff they can do, and some high production values to wash it all down.

The idea that the mainstream is stupid and can't handle complex games isn't just mistaken, it's dangerous. Even lamenting the stupidity of the mainstream and calling for developers to not be tempted by it just reinforces the erroneous idea that the only way to achieve success is to make overly simplistic games. If you don't like the "dumbing down" of games, then whining about stupid console gamers/casual gamers/mainstream gamers can only ever serve to defeat your own cause. The only way you are going to get your deep, complex and challenging games is if you make it clear that a game can be deep, complex, challenging, and mainstream.

EDIT: Hell, you want evidence that you're not helping? You can't even agree on what "dumbing down" is. Back when Fallout 3 was in development, making it first person was "dumbing down to appeal to mainstream casual console gamers." Over on the Deus Ex Human Revolution forums at this very moment, making it not first person is "dumbing down to appeal to mainstream casual console gamers." For Fallout 3, a UI that emphasized player technical skill was "dumbing down." For Starcraft II, a UI that assisted players who had less technical skill was "dumbing down." The whole thing is full of so much self-contradictory nonsense and harping on the smallest details that actual trends (like the reduction in game content due to rising development costs and the legitimate removal of interesting features in Oblivion) gets lost in the noise.

I voted no cuz it would be almost impossible to make it more mainstream then oblivion and i have a little faith in Bethesda :biggrin: . But if they would here's my take on it.
You start in a room with a nord wearing a potato sack as underwear and a horned helmet.
There you can choose from 2 weapons, an axe and a staff. Choosing the axe make you a warrior while the staff make you a frost mage.
Then you exit the room and have to run trough a huge corridor and have to kill 2 skeletons and a zombie. You can use a mount or just fast travel to the end of it.
At the end of the corridor you exit on a cliff. You are surrounded by snow and there's a huge dragon in front of you.
Next you have to either hit the dragon in the leg with the axe or throw a frost bolt in one of his eyes with your staff depending an the choice you made before. The dragon dies and everyone screams Do-vah-kiin! Do-vah-kiin! while uriel septim together with akatosh holding hands come down from the sky, give you a new golden loincloth and then when they are about to declare you the champion of Tamriel but the game crashes to desktop and you can't enter again cause the internet went down and the DRM won't let you.

I think it has everything a mainstream game of today has, replay value, common looking armors, simple hack and slash combat mechanics, a way for the casual players to not waste too much time, bugs and a good DRM. I mean who needs a storyline, immersion, diversity and all those other stuffs. That's just for hardcoe players.

How is any of this mainstream? Who do you think likes this?

if fallout 3 is any example I think skyrim will be AWESOME.

sure it will not be super complex, but it won't be lame either.

Well nobody and that's pretty much the point. Mainstream games have been going down a really bad path lately with early bug filled releases, ordinary stories , simplified combat and armor systems and such. I think its cause they are trying to make them appeal to the more casual players since they represent a much bigger group of buyers.

I hope Skyrim makes deep RPGs mainstream.

Or mainstream RPGs deep.