I think most of the feeling from those dream sequences comes from you reading about it and using your imagination to fill in the gaps.

The only other way I can see it being successful is if they make the sequence linear and cinematic in nature and also be part of the main story.

It might be interesting to go in a completely different art direction - such as having still scenes (drawn/painted) like in Trine, the Mark of Kri, or Majesty, with the dream being narrated.

i would like to see more epic quests, where there are many bosses able to be fought such as giants and dragons and stuff but that will probably not happen

Giants and Dragons are nearly extinct. Dragons are considered sacred creatures, not evil. Its unlikely anyone but a foolish 'evil' character would attempt, and fail miserably.

Speaking of dreams....I'd like more lucid dream quests.

Remember in Oblivion when you had to go to the dream world to rescue a mage?

What if, in the next game, your mind could be attacked by psychics and other enemies in your sleep, and you had to fight your way out of a nightmare? This would make sleeping a more random experience. Make it a low chance, 20% or so, every time you level up. There could be random dungeons/dreamscapes, with differing enemy types.

There could even be a counter attack. If your Mysticism skill is high enough, you could then go into the attacker's mind and torment him, or even drive him completely insane or kill him.

I wish for co-op, at least 2 player. I can only imagine the amount of fun I could have in a open world sandbox rpg.

One thing I hope for is that the game becomes less level bound again. In Morrowind it was possible to get good stuff early if you knew where to look for it and if you had luck or played it strategic enough. I remember I was lucky once to acquire a Daedric longsword once while at level 7 because I managed to defeat a Dremora.

While this means you can have good gear early on it also feels rewarding if you CAN get some stuff though effort rather than blunt leveling.

I agree with this. I also want to see level-scaling removed completely. When I level up, I want to feel rewarded, and not with the next set of armor in a linear group becoming available, just so I can keep up with the new enemies introduced to the game. There should be no level-scaling in TES V. There should be dungeons and areas with weak creatures, others with stronger creatures, and those creatures should never change. One's level should actually mean something in TES V.

Agreed. The hand-placed loot in Morrowind was also oodles of fun - I felt like it rewarded me for exploring every nook and cranny of a cave, and looking around carefully to spot hidden alcoves. Shivering Isles had this done in The Howling Halls. The downside is that special items will be in the same place every game... buuuuut, I think it could be possible to have a few (three to five, at the least) "starting" positions for really important things like artifacts or special/unique equipment, or stashes of loot, that are set (randomly generated?) at the start of each new game. That would keep things nice and fresh.

I'd like some more believable empty camp sites. Better statics to indicate worn/torn tent fabrics, strewn bones/items if it's an indication of some violence/disturbance, etc. And it doesn't make sense to have almost every campfire, candle, and light source on all the time. It just depends on the location. I guess I'm just asking for more realism with static and item placements. To me, it's the little things that matter.

When playing Oblivion for the second time, i already knew where to find Umbra. So, at a low level i tried to kill her by locating myself in spots where she couldn't touch me (on top of a broken pillar). But it was taking forever to hurt her, so i decided to make her follow me to the Arcane University in the Imperial City so the mages could kill her and i could take her armor and the mighty sword Umbra. Bingo!, they killed her without a problem and now i have an excellent armor and sword at level 2.

Now, my point is that it is very easy to kill any kind of enemy even at the beginning of the game IF you know how to take advantage of your surroundings. And that destroy the feeling of immersion and realism because the NPCs acts like total idiots. Instead of realizing that they cannot touch you and leave or find a hiding place, they keep trying to kill you no matter what.

Regarding the leveling up bound to enemies i agreed with you. Its annoying to never feel superior to your enemies even if you spend hours increasing your abilities and skills. There should be weaker enemies ans stronger ones. But the main problem, as i said before, is that you can kill anything at any level if you take advantage of your surroundings. Like getting on top of a rock or special places where you can't be touch.
The devs really need to improve the AI of the NPCs.

It's an example of poor AI. Umbra (the NPC) shouldn't have kept following you if you backed away. She should have defended her position, rather than pursuing the attack. I agree, NPCs were not very smart. Hostile NPCs shouldn't attack on-sight all the time. They should talk to your character, try to extort, bully, or even be friendly/neutral (if your character is perceived as being powerful enough to defeat the NPC), or even run away and hide, or lure you into traps.

Some enemies ought to be stealthy, rather than just rushing at you. Some might use illusion, others may use the shadows. Stealth becomes important with characters like vampires. I definitely think the AI should be updated to allow NPCs to use stealth intelligently.

In addition, we've all said this one before but I don't care, battle music needs to activate only AFTER the first blow is struck. This would allow a stealthed, or simply unnoticed foe, to be able to strike first...or for cliffracers to not follow you around for an hour without attacking you and have the trumpets blaring the whole time.

As a thought on stealth, and enemies using it, the chameleon effect might be useful there. As in, the model becoming faded, gradually going from opaque to invisible. If the player had some kind of skill/stat related to "awareness" (probably the Tracking skills, in regards to my own set), the visibility would change according to awareness, NPC stealth skills, and proximity. A skilled assassin could press still against the wall and be mostly transparent. In a dark cave, nearly invisible. Improved AI would let stealth-based attackers automatically seek shadows or cover, and keep still when you're looking at them, preferring to move in from behind. As a graphical aside, maybe leaving stealth mode would cause them to rapidly "solidify" instead of instantly, making it less jarring than them simply popping into existence for those with low awareness. Some good AI would allow for things like NPC's making use of camouflage or being aware of footstep volume. Behaviors like this would be nice for both enemies and allied sneaks.

In general I'd like the threat of assassination or a sneak attack to be an actual threat. As it is, enemies can't use stealth, combat involves many hits, and when you're sleeping you rise into a fully awake ready position instantly, fully armed. Yeah, don't mess with the Dark Brotherhood, they'll...charge right at you like any other enemy. With real danger from a sneak attack, and stealthy enemies hiding in dark corners, being targeted for assassination would be an actual threat to your life. Even better: they quietly break into your house and poison your food. For "unusual" enemies, I'd like even more creativity. As they are now, vampires are hardly any different from ordinary human fighters with glowing eyes. Screw that, I want them to be in stealth mode while clinging to the ceiling. I assure you, hearing that a cave might have vampires will be an actual reason to stay away after the first time one of them shrieks and hurtles into you from above, knocking you to the ground as its hidden allies swarm and tear you to pieces.

Just this would be awesome. And it shouldnt be really hard to do. I mean, run some checks, and bingo!

@Rhekarid & Orzorn: Excellent ideas! I agree, NPCs need to be able to use Stealth, too, and it needs to mean something to my/my character's awareness, rather than just seeing an NPC waddling around town in a crouch.

I just can't think of other ways (aside from opacity) to create that effect. Well... The only way I can think of is to make it realistic - shadows are dark, and shaders are used to emulate the human eye's field of focus and things out of focus need to be blurred slightly. Running and even walking would need to increase this effect on the peripheral vision, making it easier for enemies to blend in and sneak up behind you. Maybe enemies could not only blend in with whatever they are next to (color change), but their features and outline would be blurred as well, making it harder to pick them out from their surroundings.

This totally wouldn't work in 3rd person (enemies sneaking up behind you). However, I can see it working in 1st Person - as long as the enemies are smart enough to sneak!

Night Eye, Light, and Detect Life would be even more useful!

Yes!! These kind of things can improve the gameplay a lot. And i like the "awareness" idea. It could be a new skill, but i think i would be better if it?s related to the SNEAK skill. Meaning that if SNEAK is one of you major Skills, then you have better AWARENESS.

Something i would like to see in the next TES game, is the possibility to get robbed in you house while you are sleeping. To get your stuff back, you have to ask around town if somebody have some information about the robbery. In this situation, the skill SPEECHCRAFT comes useful. If you svck at this skill, then you have to paid for the information (like in Oblivion). Once you get the info (the camping site of the robbers), you have to find them and kill them to get your stolen items back. Maybe you have only 2 days before they disappear and the only way to get your things back is to buy them to somebody related to the thieves guild.. But if SNEAK is one of your major skills and you have AWARENESS, then when the robbers enter your home, the sounds they make will wake you up and now you have the possibility to stop them before they succeed in stealing some of your things..

The talk about campsites has led me to the idea that there shouldn't be static campsites that appear on the minimap. instead they should be random so that you can't know while your coming over the next rise whether or not you'll run into a group of bandits except if you hear them talking. if you choose to kill the bandits then the campsite should denigrate over time so that after a month it should be difficult to tell if anyone was there. having the appearance of bandit campsites be somewhat similar to oblivion gates where it's slightly random each playthrough would be nice.

while resting, or sleeping outdoors, there should be a chance that enemies will sneak up on you, same as Arena and Daggerfall, so that if I'm in a resting sequence watching myself twiddle my fingers, or sleeping and having a nice dream, I'll occasionally get woken up by an ogre or a nix hound, or whatever is in the area I'm sleeping in.

Stephen.

i dont think it would be called awareness but perception and it would be a attribute instead of a skill because it isnt something u can learn

One thing I hated in Oblivion was that I had to pay the beggars money for information, couldn't I just threaten him with this enchanted sword I got from the Blades??

My main advice on the matter is:
Look at all the community has done for Oblivion mods,and then try telling me again something cant be done.
A ton of concepts can be made into something great if done correctly.
Take a look at the top mods available today,and you can get an idea of what the community is capable of.
Now u get in that studio and show me what YOU can do!
Make us proud.

Well I would love to see more Guilds and choices such as, You get the option to Go agianst the Mages Guild and join the necromancers or whatever they are called. Also dont make the story so repeatative, That was the only Flaw in Oblivion. You had to enter the Gates like 20 times and got really anoying.

Well in Fallout 3 they kinda fixed it, you could get information based oon your attributes if they are high enough.

Example:

Can you tell me where X is locadet?
[Strenth] You tell me where X is now, or things might get bad!
[Intelligens] It could be for your own safety if you tell me where X is locaded.

In TES V, bring back the werewolves and maybe some other "super" creature. I like the variety and challenge of the "super" creatures.

Second idea, brainstorm!: Random NPCs!
Imagine a world populated with completely random NPCs that changed every time you started a new game. Obviously, the essential NPCs would have to remain the same, but the rest could be generated using a algorithm that would pick from a pool of names, races, voice types, personality and clothes. There would obviously need to be certain fixed parameters within the random algorithm so that you wouldn't end up with a High elf named Burg gro-Kash.
This could give TES a whole new look and feel and if you added traveling NPCs (NPCs that come and go between towns and the game world itself) in addition the the Radiant AI, then Wow! The world would seem real.

That's My Nickel and Two Cents.