» Sun May 01, 2011 7:08 pm
If possible, add the little touches. There are all manner of issues that jolt a person back to "this is a game".
For me, it's that people sleep on beds, not in them. Now, I suspect that's more trouble than it's worth at this stage of TESV's development, based on my own intuitive judgment of what I'd be doing and when in Bethesda's case. But There can be other, smaller touches of... not realism exactly, but "Tamriel realism". Just little things where the fantastic books we get to read talk of people doing something that people in-game are incapable of, or we see people who tell us they have a job, and then they stand around.
So... the "small touches" that are "probably not worth it" on the surface, but collectively could be awesome:
- people sleep under covers. Presumably, the same type of system would allow both flexble banners (adaptive meshes so that the sleeper doesn't clip through the sheets) and multistated items (not sure what else you'd need items that could have multiple appearances depending on what an NPC is doing, but the idea is almost certainly reusable)
- water. There are how many different water mods? And how many people c omplain about the look of each? What gets me is that I've seen a lot of water in my lifetime, and all water is not created equal. Take Houghton Lake in Michigan: you can see approximately 4-5 feet down under ideal conditions. At Palms Book State Park, you can see thirty or more feet down under less than ideal circumstances. Can the water system be altered to allow bodies of water to have different clarity levels?
-weather. People have lots of ideas, but the one that's most missing is wind. Especially on water. Yes, Bethesda, fluid dynamics is a bit excessive, but could we fake it over the next couple of games?
-idiosyncratic NPC behavior. Some NPCs should talk in their sleep. Some should snore. Some should toss and turn, while others sleep like the dead. Makes-Steel-Claws, the Argonian smith, should be an early riser, while his cross-town competitor, Haakon the Wencher, should stay open later, and occasionally conduct business while drunk at 3 AM. Additionally, he should hit on female characters and possibly offer them slightly better prices than male characters.
- Simple bookcase managment. Because HMA is on a mission to collect all the books he can, and usually will be. But chests svck for storing books.
- dust. Just... dust. In old castles. In tombs. In houses you don't visit.
Anyone else have small, insignificant things they'd like to see that would simply help them forget that they are playing a game a bit more? Keep in mind, it really should be "meaningless" in the context of the game. No assigning effects to it, no making the player interact. Whatever it is should just exist just to exist!