» Mon May 16, 2011 11:34 am I've been playing Elderscrolls games since Daggerfall and thought I'd throw in my two cents of what I'm hoping the devs will be able to improve upon. I've developed a few games myself, so I'm aware of how difficult and frustrating getting something right can be, but if anyone can do it, Bethesda can
1) Player/NPC jumping - This was something that was sorely lacking in Morrowind and Oblivion and was extremely exploitable. The fact that you could jump up on a rock and NPCs couldn't also made it a bit unrealistic. A cougar or an assassin is dexterous enough to be able to follow you up a couple of boulders and keep attacking you. I think to have this implemented with a sort of climbing system would be great so the heavier warriors might not be as agile but can still climb to reach you. If this can't be done, I hope the AI can be altered so that they will realize that they can't hit you and take cover or lay an ambush for when you get down. Ideally the NPC would lose tracking so you can then sneak around if you like, or leave completely if you succeed in getting away.
2) Random quests - Out of all the ES games I've played I think Morrowind was my favorite. The sheer amount of exploration was incredible. One thing Oblivion lacked was repetitiveness in the quests - after the 4th playthrough it got to be a pain to try to get access to the spellmaker by doing the same mage guild quests over again. The new random quests have amazing potential to bring back the excitement like Daggerfall. What I am suggesting is that in addition to having unique items stashed around the world (where Daedric Helm can always be found in xxx dungeon), on occassion initiating a random quest will remove that item and place on an NPC or dungeon, which you will need to retrieve. I hope we will be able to implement random quest scripts in the editor as well - with the community's talented mod-makers and writers this could make each playthrough truly unique - imagine instead of 20 stock quests and 20 random quest templates you have 20 stock quests and 100 random quest templates!
3) Scavenger type quests/items - Similar to the Propylon quest in Morrowind, but it doesn't even need to be via a questgiver. It doesn't even need to have a reward, but can be fun to collect. In Morrowind I had a collection of Grand Soul gems of every Dagoth, as well as all the Dwemer Scarab Plans, I could find. Vanila Oblivion didn't have as much in that department from what I recall.
4) Armor and Weapon stands and mannequins - I think most of us enjoy going out an collecting weapons and armors and all around designing our house/castle in our own way (if you can't tell, I'm a completionist
). In Morrowind and Oblivion I collected every possible weapon and armor (with mannequin mods) to display in my house - along with jewels, dwemer items, soul gems, etc... With physics it can sometimes be a chore to display and place items exactly the way you want, so I am hoping that the devs have a way where we can buy or craft display cases/mannequins so we can show off our stuff. I can't recall if there is a skinning type skill, but if there was a way to behead an animal to display it on your wall (think Ace Ventura's second movie) that would appeal to a lot of people I think. If the player can't do it, have him hire a taxodermist or drag the corpse to one (now I'm getting a little crazy)!5) Realistic potion drinking - Not sure if this is something the Devs will want to implement, but for both NPCs and players potion drinking shouldn't be instantaneous - you should need to have at least one hand free and have the action (and animation) take a few seconds. This would remove the constant pausing and drinking a few potions in mid battle while swinging a sledgehammer. NPCs did it too, so this should apply to everyone. When an NPC flees they are defenseless anyway - have them drink then! Or have them hide behind their shield while drinking - if you want to get creative having a player/NPC bash during this time has a chance to break the potion (dropping or shattering) based on the attacker's combat skill and the defender's armor/blocking skill.
6) Time quests - While I think the vast majority of quests shouldn't be timed, there should be consequences for taking too much time. In Oblivion for example, if you waited too long in delivering the necklace, then eventually you should start to be attacked by Dagon's minions periodically as they would have tracked you down. Eventually the attacks would get stronger and stronger, forcing you to continue on with the quest. Maybe this was a bad example being the main quest (if you want to ignore it you should be able to) as TES should be open-ended, but for specific quests there should be something pushing you to continue and not leave it when it makes sense that any logical person wouldn't wait too long (if it were real life). NPC's son is sick and needs you to get xxx herb in 1 week or he will die... but don't worry, you can wait 2 months and he will still be waiting for you.
These are just a few ideas I had that I am hoping we'll see in Skyrim. I remember getting excited like this before Oblivion and am really looking forward to this game!
