First off it was TOO easy to earn big money because, really, everybody bought your crap, there was no merchant that said "Hey I don't want this, this is a bakery, why should i buy a dagger?".
Then there was no money limit, it just kept re-spawning over and over. If i really milked a shop owner dry for a few days in a row he wouldn't have as much money left to spare since he had to sell something first. He'll he'd likely tell me "Look, my inventory is bursting, I can't buy anything off you right now, come back when I sold some stuff and we can talk". While money can still be unlimited there was no limiting FACTOR in there, every merchant could just summon cash from nowhere.
And there was nothing you really NEEDED to spend money on save for the houses, when you had those you could pretty much forget money.

There are a lot of solutions but many demand something.


PS: In reality most merchants won't just buy your stuff, you could argue that they "trade" but really they're more trying to SELL and not "buy tons of crap".

On the NPC's should creat stuff topic, here is a post of mine from a while back,

"
NPC'S:

I think classes should include what they do for money and how they get food. Every day an NPC spends having not eaten, their health and fatigue go down a bit. the classes would be,


Food Farmer: Produces and harvests his own plants, such as wheat, corn, etc.; as well as cattle pigs etc. iff there is extra food, they sell it. And if they can afford it, they will buy a luxury.

Cash Crops: Harvests and produces cash-crops, like wine or tabaco. a traveling merchant would regularly trade him his crop for money and food. And if they can afford it, they will buy a luxury.

Hunter: most NPC's hunt, and is is the default if something messes up their original script. This would involve tracking down an animal they can easily kill, and killing them. the amount of meat produced is 3x what it would be for the player. If there is extra food, they sell it. And if they can afford it, they will buy a luxury.

Worker: They Get Raw materials and food from traveling merchants, and when the same merchant comes around agin they get the product of the raw material (Animal hide into leather clothes)

Merchant: has the amount if money they are willing to trade, as well as savings in the back. other NPC's go to traders regularly when they have spare cash and need something, so their cash fluctuates. at the end of every day; if the trader has made money then they put the extra in their savings. if they lost money, they replenish their supply.

Traveling merchants: Tie in the the farmers. they have no savings, as they buy in massive amounts. They go from farm stead to farmstead buying and selling food and cash-crops, as well as some luxuries. Their loop starts and ends in a major city, so that they can sell all but food with the merchants their, as well as re-stock.

Rich people: They have massive amounts of money, like millions and millions, hidden in a cell that the player cannot enter. They draw upon that cash through scripts when they go shopping, and they buy not only food, but many luxuries.

Working man: They do their job at a loss of fatigue, or (in the case of the fighter's guild) health. However, they get payed in cash depending on what job(s) they have, and will go buy food from a merchant, and if they can afford it, luxuries.

Beggars: They will sell information to thieves guild members, and if other NPC's have more than 5x what they are asking for, they will get charity. Every $1,000 the player gives to charity is worth 1 fame point, as an incentive to do so. They mostly have low responsibility, and if they see something lying in the street will most likely take it. They only buy food, and store all their money.

Vampires: Don't eat food. however, they will break into houses and feed on other NPC's. Before feeding, they will cast a non-hostile version of Paralyze on their target, to assure that they don't awake with fangs in their neck.

Inn Keeper: a specialized merchant. most will only sell beer, wine, and bread and will only buy from Traveling Merchants. Every Inn NPC pays 5 gold to them every night for sleep, even if there are more customers than beds.

Things common to all classes:

Scavenge; If somebody sees something lying around, they will most likely pick it up. If the item is owned (by the player or another NPC) then they might, depending on the object's value and their responsibility. High responsibility NPC's will pick up Player-owned objects and return them for a monetary reward.

Hunt; If they see a wild animal that they know they can easily best, they will kill it. if they see a non-fighting wild plant, they will harvest it.

Friendship; If a poor NPC has a disposition of 90+ with a Rich NPC, they will most likely get a loan. The loan will be payed of in ten months with no interest, unless the Rich NPC falls on hard times or gets a 70- Disposition towards the other one. In those cases, there will be 5% interest.

Improvement: If an Innkeeper, Food Farmer, or Traveling merchant save up 1000+ gold, they will move into the closest abandoned farmstead, and become a cash-crop Farmer. If a Cash crop farmer or Merchant saves up 10000+ gold, they will instantly get 1 million in 'savings' and become a rich person. A Begger or hunter who has saved up 500 gold will become a Food Farmer or Innkeep depending on which institution is closer (an abandoned Inn or an abandoned house)

Deprovment: If a npc don't have enough food to survive two more days, they will either join the thieves guild or church depending on their responsibility.

It's called role play.

I should be able to hire peasants if I can't buy slaves, and I should be able to designate tasks for them, such as farming my fields, tending my animals, keeping my rent paid, mining my mine (and actually making my mine bigger day by day), working on my house when I designate exactly what I want, working on my forge to make weapons, working on my mill to make bread, working on my printing press to make newspapers. Each peasant should have certain skill levels to begin with, let's say none, and then as they perform each task they become more skilled, say a peasant is told to start blacksmithing, I pay him 20g per week to do this, he's not very good and he makes rubbish quality items, then I pay for some training, or he gets better on his own, he now costs 40g per week and makes slightly better stuff, same with bread and so on, when I'm paying him 500g per week he'd better damn well be a legendary blacksmith and be producing legendary stuff.

Stephen.

Not to mention it would further be mixing the two series together.


As for the time slowing down issue, why not just introduce a spell that stops or slows time. You could then add it as an enchantment if you have enough money or high enough skill in enchant. I think that fits more into the world of ES than taking a gameplay mechanic that was in FO3 and putting it into ES 5

Now, that sounds like it'd be fun and all. But that sounds a lot more like modder's work than Bethesda's work.

And trust me, if you suggest something enough times, somebody will stroll along and pick up the idea. You've just got to polite about it.

Or you could learn to mod yourself if you haven't already.


I have so many skill ideas it isn't funny. And I'm going to end up disappointing myself if I hope for all of them.

Slowing down time was one of them, and that'd be Mysticism or Alteration (depending on if it's an AoE or a complete slow-down of time).

But this complexity is kinda off the mark for the TES series, don't you think? It's only so much stuff they can include in the games, and since the start the TES mainly been about exploring the game world and side quests, not about farming or making newspapers. I think your suggestions are more suitable for Harvest Moon or something.

I think the idea of roleplaying goes a little bit to far since people want to be able to do anything they can imagine when that is impossible to do in a console or computer rpg.

Construction Set is Bethesda's way of saying "Do what you want."

And it's amazing (Construction Set, that is), very few other games hand people the tools to make their own game if they felt like it.

With scripting, and third-party tools... you could prettymuch do anything you set your mind to. :nod:

I say, people should start sorting out what they want for TES: V, not only to make suggestions for it, but also so maybe they can make it for themselves (and others) if it isn't in there. Which is why I've started working on Blender, NifSkope, and Oblivion's Construction Set, and because my characters needed things for detail.

This isn't complex, it's less than 5mb worth of data to tell the npc's what to do and to be able to use the equipment myself.

Stephen.

Well of course there is modding but even then you still have limitations.

Im not talking abot Bethesda having too little resources or the players system not having enough power, Im talking about that TES will eventually forget the point in exploring a huge universen nothin like other rpgs. If Bethesda focus too much on playing a farmor, lumber jack, innkeeper, street sweeper and mant "ordinary" jobs, then the game will endin with a svcker plot, and boring guilds and quest, even lesser varity of creatures and so on, because people rather want to do normal things in the game.

Here's an idea.

There is a limited supply of gold in the game, offset only by the rate or production at the imperial (or perhaps not, thanks to the events of the book) mint. As you buy and sell from a merchant, they gain or lose currency. They won't take everything you give them and they also should not give you all of their money (as that would be suicidal to a business). Some places should not accept ANY of your goods (it'd be like going to Wal-Mart and trying to sell your guns). As you accrue wealth, others lose it. It would be possible to gather almost all of the currency in the game (with exception to the mint production and the small income that comes from surrounding provinces when travelers and caravans arrive to trade goods.) Of course, this would also be unwise (and virtually impossible without creating a character specifically attuned to this task, although it would be something to do if you got bored with the game) as it would cause the economy to collapse, as traders would have no currency to trade with to get items, so merchants would have practically no stock, eventually all going out of business as they lose their last bit of money to purchase food.

On the topic of the economy. We have talked many times, in great detail, about a virtual simulated economy before and the benefits on gameplay. I'd like to just mention some of those again. An economy driven by actual trade and movement of currency would be a rather simple thing to do with radiant AI and use of needs and wants lists. A person gets hungry and buys food from a vendor. That vendor constantly has a script checking his store inventory. Below a certain number, the owner seeks out source outside the town (or inside if it was, say, a baker. Essentially, the source must be a producer, not a middleman, unless it was a pawnshop or something) to buy more goods from. Caravans constantly travel from town to town picking up excess goods from stores and producers and moving them about. The beauty of this system is that it can be influenced by the player AND the game. One could kill all the members of a caravan to stop it from reaching a town low on food. Eventually everyone in the town will begin to starve and may hunt or kill for food. Anger will rise (an easy AI setting which rises as needs and wants go unfulfilled) and riots may start. Alternatively, a randomly spawned group of bandits may do the same thing, all requiring no script at all, just radiant AI and set tasks.

OMG!! I have just found about a team of people who developed an awesome graphic engine for fantasy games!! oo:

Well, those guys call their embryonic game an FPS, but seriously it could turn out into an amazing RPG.

They have long been looking for some major company willing to purchase their team and engine and I think that Bethesda should seriously consider the idea to use what they have done so far to make TES-V :poke:

If you have never heard of offset-software (that's the name of this team) you should definitely check this out: http://www.projectoffset.com/media/video4.html

The video is quite old, and I wonder how come no major company has noticed these guys so far?!?

I really would love to see that troll-orc in a TES game.... :hehe:

Bethesda can just label me "The Modder who'll add the "Normal Things'" but either way. I'm going to bed.

After I learn animation, (I'm already getting good at modeling really fast), and then scripting, the next game should be a breeze to make how other people wish it was.

The thing with more mundane options, I think, is to start with adding them without the player specifically in mind, and add them with the world in mind instead. Don't add farms just so the player can be a farmer. TES games tend to have a pretty awful economy, if you can even call it that. If they take steps to improve it with stuff like supply and demand, farmers will need to exist outside of town to create a certain amount of food per month or so. Aside from realism, it boosts roleplay options (acting as a merchant by impacting prices and availability, cut off food to starve the town, buy crates of it to give to your faction and win brownie points). Because it already exists in the game, it's easy to let the player do it too; just give them access to the same features the NPC's are using. There's a mod that makes plants vanish when you pick them, so I can't imagine it's terribly difficult to plant a seed and create one either. The "produces every month" ability is already there. Better economy improves gameplay for everyone, and relatively minimal side effort (the ability to plant a seed, presumably in designated viable soil) gives a farming option to players who want it.

The biggest issue would be improved NPC AI (instead of grain just "appearing," take existing wheat crops, deliver them to a granary, turn it into flour there), but like a better economy, I'd like to think that advanced AI is something that's beneficial to all players, not just niche ones, and something to hope for in the next game regardless. When it's established as a functional thing, taking the next step to player interactivity is simple. Obtain wheat, dump it in mill, obtain flour. It's just letting the player use the same object the NPC's are using.

Of course it's complex. Not only does it require some major NPC behavior, but it also requires a lot of meshes, textures, animations and so on.


There's quite a lot of work in changing a FPS engine into a RPG engine. The quest system, dialogue system and AI system require large amounts of work. The graphic part is just a tiny part of the whole picture.

Project Offset is, as far as I know, a multiplayer action game. Kinda like Unreal Tournament, but in a fantasy setting and not with guns. There isn't any kind of RPG foundation in it.


Lots of people noticed them, there were news about it all around the internet back when they first showed Project Offset back in 2005. And Intel even went so far so they bought Offset Software back in 2008. But Project Offset have yet to be released, and they pretty much only showed tech demos and not much gameplay at all.

I hate VATS, and it has no place in a fantasy RPG. The only reason why I used VATS in F3 was you COULDNT hit anything if you DIDNT use VATS. Which is just another thing I hated about F3.

Sure the graphics might take up space, but if those items are already in the game as they should be then it's a simple matter to add a bit of code that lets you put A into it press a button or wait a while and out comes B. This would also work wonders with alchemy sets. I've been wanting to use all those useless little tools that were in Oblivion but haven't been able to.

Most of the npc behavior and meshes textures and animations already exist within Oblivion, I've seen farmers using scythes and forks and so forth, so why not add the feature of building your own house somewhere you choose and have them work for you, there's even blacksmith npc's in Oblivion, it's all there, why not use it?

Stephen.

Maybe you should petition Bethesda for a pen and paper or tabletop Elder Scrolls game if you're gonna get that into it.

Seriously, what's wrong with having a million things to do in one game? I put up this suggestion because I think it is a great idea and all I get is people telling me how stupid it is. I'm not joking, put all this in the game (my ideas about letting you build and cut wood and using stuff and peasants) and people will enjoy this game for years to come. I'm not suggesting you remove anything to put this in, I'm saying put this in as well, it's not much and I'd rather gamesas do it than a modder, then it gets done right the first time (sorry modders you do a great job but I want this stuff included in the game).

Stephen.

Because it will take away from the main game. You say that Bethesda shouldn't take away things to add what you want. But as I've said before, Bethesda isn't some big company with an unlimited budget and unlimited time. They need to focus on making the game that we all love first, and then worry about adding big new stuff. To add what you want, Bethesda will have to take away or hurt the potential quality of other, more important things. Your suggestions aren't stupid, but they're unrealistic. You've said you want more than one province. That isn't possible to do unless Bethesda either doubles the development time or sacrifices the quality of both provinces. You want all of this stuff that the player can do. Bethesda can't make this a TES game and a Sims game, they can't allow you to have a job and a family and a farm and a business without cutting back on the qualities of the game that make it a TES game. You need to understand that certain things just aren't realistic suggestions. You can suggest them all you like, but people are going to criticize you for them because they aren't realistic and aren't something that Bethesda can do without sacrificing other things in the game.

At the very least Bethesda (if they're even reading right now or in recent times) can pick out specific ideas. As far as I'm concerned people can suggest just about whatever they wish. Sure, making sure it is feasible is a bonus because it makes it more likely (by a percentage so small I'm sure it doesn't exist) that your idea may be expanded on or spark some interest. I'm sure every suggestion lets them take away something, whether it be feedback on why people didn't like certain mechanics (like the quest compass or level scaling) and what people generally want to see in the future (like dual wielding).

Suggestions don't exist purely in a vacuum and as they are made they allow the devs to see what we're thinking and what we like or dislike. So even if the specific suggestion may not be considered, the idea behind it can still be sound (in the topic at hand: expanded personal options in regards to estate and crafting options). At the very least a dev might think "Hmm...we could add mercenaries to hire in, in case you need a hand. Or maybe the player could own a dog!"

My only concern is, will there even be a elder scrolls 5. I think the game is fine overall and i love it the way it is. The only change i would like to see is more power when you are the guild masters. Like if someone were to mess with me i want to send the whole guild to defend me. You go through all that trouble to become the archmage and can only have 1 follower thats only an apprentice.

Also, i puffer elder scrolls over fallout and they should be different games. I seen a few post of people talking about flying cars and making the time line 200 years from now. A new vibe in the time line won't kill them but maybe they could do something like mix the old and the new together. Mages fighting cowboys seems interesting. They could name the next game "The Elder Scrolls Falls Out"

Finally, the change from morrowing to oblivion was great. And the change from oblivion to the next should be even greater.

I said it in the very quote you quoted, I am saying add this too but don't take away from the main game, it will not take that much effort to put this stuff in and it will not detract from the main game, it will add to it. You mention that it will detract from the quality of the game, what is quality but that which we enjoy? This isn't adding a sims game to the tes game, it's making tes more like it should be, like Morrowind tried to be, like Ultima was.

Stephen.

My only hope is that Bethesda doesn't pull an Oblivion and get rid of Skyrim's mountainous terrain like they got rid of Cyrodiil's jungles.

Speaking of which, I really want to see an upgrade in how mountains look in TESV. I remember exploring the mountains in northern Cyrodiil and just seeing these huge lumps with no features at all. I want to see jagged peaks, sheer cliffs, flat areas where necessary and hard to climb slopes with sharp rocks scattered about. You know, like real mountains...



"it will not take that much effort to put this stuff in"

EVERYTHING takes effort. When people "It doesn't take that much effort" when talking about game development, it makes me laugh out loud. Everything, no matter how small, takes time and effort to make. Everything you listed isn't necessary. It would be nice to have, sure, but it's not vital to people enjoying the game.

Anyway, fighting over it is pointless, Bethesda will consider whatever suggestions they want, it's not up to any of us to decide.