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Hello!!!!! Oh boy oh boy, TES 5! Bet that ones comin out in like...2012?

Anyways, here's a suggestion for something that does not influence gameplay:

How about making a trophy case as in Fable 1 in your house? Maybe instead of monsters, hang up some swords. Also, wouldn't it be nice if you have some armor........how do you say it in english..... armor "statues" where you can hang up your armor on?
Or say: Weapon racks, where you can see your stored weapons. Heck, maybe even let's you see per weapon how many monsters you killed with it during your adventures?

Just saying like: Give your accomplishments some visual looks, instead of just having to see in your journal on how many people you have slain. Make it that you can see your heroic / villain deeds in your house.

This is one of the best suggestions I have heard since I first signed onto this forum a few months ago. I whole heartedly agree and I hope gamesas takes this suggestion to heart and implements it immediately.

Stephen.

GO POSTAL!

Have a postal service, you can apply for a job with them. They have couriers running mail all over the country, some of the couriers go 'postal' sometimes and new vacancies open up, sometimes regular npc's apply for the job sometimes you do. You get the job and go to the central filing office where all the mail is sorted, you choose a town from a list and you are given all the mail for that town, you then go to each address listed and drop off the mail in person to each npc who answers the door, sometimes the npc is down the pub or off working somewhere and you have to either track them down or wait until the next day to deliver their mail. Once you've delivered all the mail for that city you go to that city's central filing office and choose another town from the list and the process continues. If you kill everyone on the delivery list you can't open their mail, but if you deliver it then kill them they will have opened their letters and parcels and you collect the contents, of course there will be some quite personal letters which will make you feel bad about killing the recipients, and random npc generation would need implementing so you don't run out of npc's to go 'postal' on.

Stephen.

EDIT: Also, you'd occasionally get a few packages for places outside the town you chose, like farmhouses and such.

I appreciate what you are trying to achive but I would really not like to see this in the game. I think the same effect could be achieved by allowing the player to name their horse and stick a couple of items on it. Or just have more named horses. I loved Shadowmare, even if I knocked it out all the time to use as storage for my collection of silver cups and spoons.


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Ok now some other suggestions:

Simple things:
-The inventory system was a pain because I usually had like, I don't know, a 100 keys to scroll through in the item screen. There should be some way to simplfiy or futher sub-divided the inventory screen that would allow me to more easily find the things I need without a needless reminder of how many keys I have obtained since I started playing 60 hours ago.

Armour
-Oblivion just offered so much, everywhere except in terms of armor and weapon variety. Adding 4 or 5 different types of armor to the roster would enable deeper customization. There could also be variants on existing armor offered. Like mail shirts that cover more or less of the wearers legs. That way if I want to go with a draqed chainmail look (Huscarl) I could. The only armor in Oblivion that had that feature was Leather, which offered bracers and gloves. And colours man, simple things like the shade of an armor could do so much for the love that I would feel for TESV. I think this was often said before but for good characters (before the NOTN plugin) there was no high level armor and Daedric just looked evil.

Spellmaking
-My favorite part of Oblivion, I would not do more than tweek this feature in some direction or another to balance with whatever new features are put in the game.

Enchantments
-Unlike spellmaking this was frustratingly limited. It was often just not worth the time and effort to fill soul gems to make items that were plainly inferior to their quest reward counterparts. Making novelty items gave this some legs (100% cameleon!) but it should have had more practical application. It's as simple as allowing for multiple properties on a garment. This could be balanced with a point system similar to the one that governed spellmaking to balance it.

Necromancy
-I've read many posts on this subject and I think they make a valid point. This should be in the game. Here is my idea of how to intergrate it. The basics, your character roams around with some zombies or skeletons, that's easy enough to do. What I think would really make it a hook would be to have your own Necromacer's Cave/Dungeon/Tower. You fill this with creatures that you make. You personally raise or collect that parts to make all of them. Why this is fun, because your dungeon will become a symbol of evil and will be a scar upon the land. It will attract looter and hero parties. Your creatures and yourself much protect your beloved domain from intruders! Like alchemy you could collect things like "argonian hearts" and "venison" as parts in some really weird creatures. That could be part of the fun, discovering recipies to make some truly bizzarr mismash creatures.

AI
-Really unleash the AI this time. Oblivion had so many cool things implied but never fulfilled. I know that the AI system created was amazing and it had to be restricted but let it fly. I want Goblin Totems to work and really work. I want to concern myself with other charcters looting a dungeon if we're both in it at the same time (the adventurer character). Why not add a few more roaming characters like yourself. They won't do quests, at least not real ones but they could be in dungeons in the forest and they could have huge inventories and special weapons. Why not tiny parties of roaming looters, who actually loot and sell? And sell to you!

Leveling
-I can't even begin to suggest how you might ammend this system. It just took so long to make a good character, sometimes robbing me of my fun. It was a lot of work to devote several hours to developing a character in a controlled fashion before I could take him out and kill some goblins.


Argonians
I should be able to replace every character in the game with an Argonian, especially the Orcs, foul smelling apes!

@goddreaming - That is a silly idea tbh, Postal service? erm no thank you.

Anyway i personally have ALOT of things i would like to see, taking inspiration from the past TES games as well as other RPG titles i have played over the years.

Bring Back Dwarves - now we know that they DO exist in TES lore, so making them a character choice would be a great addition, and give them scottish accents, it just fits the dwarf perfectly.. Id love to interact with, and play as a dwarf character and im sure im not alone, and as dwarves are known to be miners of sorts, have an entire city built into a mountain range, rather than the generic castle, housing and outer wall set up.

Sneaking/detection revamp - Although i didnt mind "the eye" method in Oblivion, i think it would be easier to also add a bar at the bottom of the screen along with health, fatigue ect.. much like in THIEF series, a small light bar which darkens the more concealed you are. Light = not concealed at all, Black = 100% concealed.. and use the eye simply as originally used in oblivion, to determine whether you have been seen or can be seen ect.. IN ADDITION to this id also like to see the detection methods revamped, for example, if i am seen by a guard committing a crime and i run out of a house and into another or whatever then hide, that they CANNOT follow me if they didnt see me go that way, one example is the brotherhood quest where you have to kill the dark elf in the cell from the start, when in the imperial sewer if your caught it doesnt matter how many doors you run through and corners you hide in, they seem to know EXACTLY where you are =/ That needs to be changed so that if im chased but i can hide before the guard gets into the same room then he stops pursuit and has a look around rather than instantly running at you swinging.

Larger Variety of Weapons - I know its hard to add more weapons but i mean types, you have your steel, iron, glass, ect.. but they are all same types, claymore, dagger ect.. what about having more UNIQUE shaped items that are much rarer to find, like sufferthorn ect.. maybe lower level goblins using bone shards as wepons, actually allowing the scythe to be used as a weapon, shovels ect.. jsut any object that in reality could be used to hurt somebody, in game too

More settlements - There were a TON of dungeons and only a handfull of settlements outside the city's, id love to see more of the independent governed settlements with more interesting, quirky, wierd NPCs..

Trade Route - Allow a trade route, that goes from city to city, restocking and resupplying shops whenever they arrive and moving on between them, either at random or set course, have them stop to sell (like markets) during the day between citys at smaller settlements and have the carvan heavily guarded by troops (quest anyone) so that bandit raids are taken care of or not) and allow more quest ideas (carvan guard or bandit quests) defend or attack and loot caravans.

Better NPC interaction - i loved how the NPC in oblivion went around each day different days doign certain things, be it working, walking, eating sleeping ect, but a bit more depth to the NPC day to day chores would be great little addition jsut to add to realism, for example, if their home is broken into and items taken then they would maybe go drown their sorrows in local bar and if you follow you would hear them talk about how valuable, or precious items were stolen and nobody is caught, add mroe emotion too, like crying and anger, if an NPC disposition is really low, have barely any topic subjects AND have them threaten you ect, or if they like you, have them being really nice.. Id also (though not needed) like to see a relationship idea added, much like in FABLE series, you can get into a relationship and have a spouse (i know the kids thing is a no go and i accept that) but just to have that option would be fun, and could be interesting when asking your spouse to follow you and moving them into a new home and maybe being caught with another woman/man ect.. jsut the little things and extra realism which makes it more fun and adds a new element to the game.

More Factions - Allow mroe factions, keep the likes of mages guilds, thieves guilds ect, but include others, like ALLOW people to join smaller independant guilds and build them up (vampire hunter guild ect) allow the ability to freely join and be a member of necromancers or bandit groups, ect

Real Estate - Again taking the idea from FABLE, allow users to not only buy just ONE house from each city, but ANY house from each city (assuming they can afford it) then when activating the main door after purchase, allow the option to increase, decrease rent ect.. Move tenants to another property so you can own THAT house or leave it be.. The more you own the more money you make, the higher the rent the more the occupier hates you and wont barely speak to you, again tie it into emotion, have them seem depressed or upset as rent increases to show they arent happy and cant afford it, or if decreased show them happy, much higher disposition and watch them fill their homes with more expensive items over time. Do the same with shops, keep it the same as it was oblivion, and have it so that your mercantile skill has to be at a certain level before entering real estate or shop investments.

Ageing, ect - Over time as years pass in game ageing takes holdm you begin to look old, hair starts to whiten and if youve absorbed ALOT of damage and been in ALOT of melee combat over the years, have scarring on the face, all of which can effect disposition, heavy scarring can mean some people may like it or people hate it and fear you ect

Disposition - More depth please, it was ok i guess but having it displayed simply by a number 1-100 was a bit meh, why not have FACTORS like Fear, Respect, Notoriety, Fondness and then assign each factor a number between 1-100, so an NPC can FEAR you and RESPECT you but HATE you ect, so lower/higher disposition on each factor determines available speech, information and stuff.. like this :

Fear *Disposition bar* Bravery - (will determine wether they cower before you or stand up to you)
Disrespect *disp. Bar* Respect - (wil ldetermine the tone in which you are spoken to and if they will lie or whatever)
Dislike *Disposition Bar* Like - (would dtermine how well you are liked ect)

you see where im going?

Dwarves as you're envisioning them do not exist in TES lore. There is a race called Dwarves but they were not short, stout miners who dug dirt all day - they were average size elves who were on the forefront of technological, scientific and metaphysical discovery, great magecrafts and enchanters. The only commonality they share with traditional dwarves is that they have beards and their structures were mostly underground (though they also employed towers). They're also all gone save one.

KharN6 -

If you ever played Morrowind, it would be obvious to you that Dwarves (Dwemer) in TES aren't the depressing stereotypical "stocky guys with Scottish accents" as in most of the LoTR ripoff fantasy out there. They are (or were, since all but one were destroyed long ago) actually "Deep Elves" in TES lore, another "mer" species akin to the Altmer, Dunmer, and Bosmer. Their fortresses and ruins are scattered across Morrowind, and were SUPPOSED to have been present in Cyrodiil as well, but weren't included in the game Oblivion. I, for one, DON'T want to see the typical boring LoTR high-fantasy or "Snow White" style Dwarves, especially in groups of seven.....

I agree that weapon and armor variety suffered in Oblivion from previous TES games, and that the distinct "progression" of armor and weapon stats all but forced you to "upgrade", and made it difficult to use what suited the character type.

Trade, NPC behavior, etc., needs some improvement and more depth, but what you suggest would be a monumental undertaking in terms of programming, which most players wouldn't care a hill of beans about. Having buildings change ownership and occupancy based on player whims would mean relocating quests, changing dialog, and all sorts of "side effects", and I don't even want to think about how many other problems that would introduce. Real Estate is beyond the scope of an "adventure" game, and as with "Postal Worker" ideas, I really hope that something like this isn't introduced in more than "trivial" form, although just "a touch" of it could be amusing.

Disposition has always been "limited" in the games as a way of defining one's relationship with those around you, and a two-part system might be better than the one current stat. Using one for "like/dislike" and another for "respect/distrust" would open up a lot of possibilities, where you could be "friendly" with some NPCs, but they might for instance consider you "a good chat, but bad business", or "I don't agree with you, but I've got to respect what you've done". Going to three or more stats just complicates the required dialog possibilities beyond what's "affordable" in terms of development time and the expenses for "voicing" all of the potential responses. Given Morrowind-style text dialog, it's probably possible, but we're not likely to see a return to text-based dialog or 10-15 topics of conversation on many NPCs, no matter how many of us want the expanded possibilities which would require it.

Simple things:
-The inventory system was a pain because I usually had like, I don't know, a 100 keys to scroll through in the item screen. There should be some way to simplfiy or futher sub-divided the inventory screen that would allow me to more easily find the things I need without a needless reminder of how many keys I have obtained since I started playing 60 hours ago.



oh no! no! not the keys!
i had like 500 :L
i agree with this guy 100%

Many of the suggestions i have have most likely been said before, but anyway,

There should definately be climbing of some sort. Not to the level of assassins creed where you can climb every single thing, but more than just a few scripted instances too. This could help thief characters a lot, say you want to sneak into a castle. Walking in the front door doesn't make much sense, so climb the outer wall and go in a window, which brings me to my second point.

Window acess. most windows should function like a door, except that it would incur a bounty, and obviously upset the residents of whever you climbed into.

Armor; First off there should be more types of armor, period. Secondly, for each type of armor, there should be around three or more types of it, they would all obviously be of the same material, but they would have asthetic differences, such as designs or shape.

Also, the face creation in Oblivion had a lot of options, but many of the races still looked all too similar. Sure, they might have different sized noses or lips, but for the most part, you couldn't tell most Imperials apart.

Combat should be more fluid. It should feel like I'm actually hitting the person with a heavy club, not just some stick that bounces off of them. There should also be changes to what you can block with what. It should be near impossible to block a battle axe with a dagger, but if you're skilled enough you should be able to parry it. The ability to bash someone with your shield would also be good, and perhaps have a short stun effect.

Also , one small thing, i would like it if i could see my legs/body when i look down. That would actually make me feel like im there. When i pick up items, maybe it could actually show my hands/arms holding it. And when i move, i want it to feel like my head is bobbing, especially when im sprinting or crouching.

So, I've been playing a bunch of games recently, and I've thought so many times "That would be so amazing in TES!" so, here they are:

More Realistic NPCs
I don't necessarily mean: "Look, it's that person that I saw three days ago! You tripped over my brother's shoe from Bravil, I thought I recognized you from somewhere, you gave my grandma flowers, that was very nice of you. I remember when you walked down an alleyway, and then walked back out in ten seconds. Mind if I follow you since you beat the whole main que... er, I mean you defeated the world-threatening problem?"

What I mean is NPCs that have a unique trait or two within their personality, but they're everyday people, it's not quest related. Whenever you saw a unique NPC in TES: IV, you immediately knew they were in some way tied to a quest. I mean, a lady had her dogs follow her around, and there was a grumpy book-selling Orc, but they never actually showed how their actions effected everybody else. Like, if you got to talk to some of the other Orcs and ask them to lighten up (without a quest), it would have been much more interesting than listening to somebody speak and not at all altering what they do. I think many of us would probably like it more if we could do something like influence a servant to stand up to the queen and throw food on her, compared to talking to the queen, getting her angry, and having to end up killing her.

Getting to know a character would be very fun, especially if you could actually have long conversations with many options to use. If you need a certain person for a quest, but she's always at the local tavern drinking, it'd be so much more fun to talk her out of doing it, but having a lot of ways to do so. Like "What would your family think of you?" "Is this the way you want to be remembered?" "Get up you worthless pile of scum." or you throw her glass and start a fight. All of them would result in her leaving the tavern, but they could all have different effects on her disposition towards you.

If NPCs made comments about the areas around them, that'd be better as well. Maybe somebody could just set a marker, so that it triggers a NPC Scared: Cave response like "I don't like the looks of this place, it's dark, and creepy." or "Haha! A cave... oh... what's the noise? ... On second thought... can I wait outside?" It would be better if they'd make those comments without dragging you into dialogue though, and it'd be better if all NPCs did it instead of just certain circumstances (Companions). Maybe if NPCs passed eachother by and actually said "Hello." and addressed eachother by name you'd get less of a "They're all saying the same thing to eachother" vibe. NPCs making their opinions of the environment/people around them/situations would be a lot of fun. You can just picture a character saying "Why did you drag me into this?" as a bunch of daedric cultists holding torches and daggers round the corner.

More Realistic Quests
Now, I don't mean not asking people to enter somebody else's dreams, or anything like that, what I mean is that when you're doing quests you don't get many different ways to do things. "Kill, Gather, Raise Disposition" are probably the most common types of quests, you aren't allowed to lie and say you cleared out a cavern so you can send a group to their doom. The quests that gave the most lee-way, were probably the Dark-Brotherhood ones, they just wanted somebody dead, you could do it however you wished. But very few quests said "Get me _______." and you're left to figure out how to do so; most of the time there are step-by-step instructions about how to complete a task. So, more open-ended quests and multiple endings to quests could be really good.

Companions
I didn't think it could be pulled off, but a trusty sidekick is actually very fun. I know there are mods for it, and I know that there are a few people who can follow you around, including an annoying one (we shall never speak his name). It could be pulled off very simply, and if they were given their own personalities we could attach ourselves to them instead of thinking of them as emotionless things that follow us around and do damage.

Other Stuff
Now, the TES:III, TES: IV, and Fallout 3 games are already extremely open-ended, I've never had more fun roleplaying in games. However, there were many limitations, so to speak. You couldn't do anything like own a building aside from a house, or anything like a forgery to make your own weapons, besides in Fallout 3, and that was actually very fun. There weren't "side jobs" in TES: IV, and they'd be very simple to make. Also, the addition of more topics to use with every NPC other than "Rumors" would be great. Such as: "Tell me a little about yourself." "Know any good secrets?" "Can you offer me directions?" "Give me your money, or else." or even "Get out of my way." and "Would you like to accompany me?"

More items would be great for the game, and I know this is going to sound strange, but more clothes would be really nice.

(I just thought of something I forgot. Traps! Traps would be amazing for sneaking)

This doesn't really have much to do with open-endedness, your point just made me think of it. I would prefer if a few areas were blocked off for some legit reason until you open it up. Most games employ this in order to make you follow a set path, Bethesda has done away with it completely to help make it less linear, however I think in some cases it can help add to the atmosphere, wondering what's in that region that you can't get to and wondering what it is you're going to have to do to get there. Of course, this should only be done in a very limited sense.

Having impassable areas would be nice to, forests with shrubbary so thick that you must walk around or just have canyon walls be more vivid as opposed to just being really steep slopes.

I changed it, and also I see what you mean.

Canyons and dense shrubbery would have been a lot better than "You cannot go this way. Turn back." or attempting to try walking up 1 degree more than you're able and not being able to continue.

If that's in i want the game to feature sunglasses

OR MAYBE OR MAYBE....

Drowning in a river before you can get across the border? Bandits or legionairres guarding it and you can't get past.

Mud crab racing

Well, you don't want to be threatened with death every time you cross the border. Lol.

But some integration like a wave pushing you back or maybe canyons or maybe bandits guarding a road where there's no other way to exit would work.

How about the ability to give facepalms at the NPC's that annoy you? I would gladly give one to Fargoth, and the Annoying..er Adoring Fan.

There should be bandit raids, where a large group of bandits attack a city. I would also like to see a sea part where you can take your ship and loot other ships that you destroy, this would also add to epic fights between to boats.

Of course, they would first have to add boats as a method of travel again (which they should totally do).

I completely agree.

Man, there are so many of these threads. Do the devs actually read them?

I'm sure they randomly skim them. I would assume that the first several threads of this were the ones of most interest.
They're around, man. Frickin ninjas.
Or as they say in West Virginia: ninjers.

I think vampires should be even more overpowered and yet even more "inconvenient" to play! And I'm totally serious. I want super vampires! Boss-worthy characters.

But there should be vampires that aren't hostile. So, you know, you can hang out with them in sleazy underground taverns and raid the hobos at night, all the while either lamenting the loss of your humanity or reveling in your civilized brutality.