Thats excacly what they did with the dwemer ruins in Morrowind, and what oblivion failed at. :sadvaultboy:

crafting would be interesting, especially if spell effects made a difference; for example using a spell on plants to reduce growth time.

i want to be able to forge my own swords that would be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet or even better being able to make it and customize it for example

A iron blade but a glass butt or somthing like that

That's because canonically, Dwemer actually lived in Morrowind. They never lived in Cyrodill. They only lived in Morrowind and Hammerfell. The Ayleid ruins were decent, but those were meant to be the catacombs of much larger cities so they didn't seem as homey as the Dwemer ones did.

If the next game takes place in Skyrim as I am hoping, there is a possibility we'll see some Falmer ruins. We learn a little of the extinct Snow Elves in Bloodmoon, but I'd love to find out more.

This made some good mods, but I am just now coming around to the idea of Bethseda developing it. Certainly they have a starting concept, as seen with Fallout 3. But the fear I have towards crafting is how far it will go. I might sould like a scared old person right now, but I feel that bethseda going to far to fast could result in a disappointment on par with the level scaling in OB.
:huh: Anyone with me on this?

Here is a simple idea, though:
Crafting allows people to make items including Armor, Weapons, and Clothing (and meals).
Each item to be crafted is broken down into different parts.
- Weapons would generally have 2 parts, unless expandable: A knife might have a hilt and a blade, 2 parts; a spear, 2-3, including a pole, tip, and handles; a simple staff might only be 1 part.
- Armor might have up to 3, including at least main surface and attachment; possibly a crest.
- I do not have any concepts for clothing, lets just say it could go up to 4 for the sake of a later point.

The plans to make anything, using more or less parts, would function along the lines of schematics in Fallout, rather than a crafting skill level. My argument to this comes from personal experience in the kitchen. If instructions tell you how to make good cookies, you are most likely to make good cookies; unless your impatient or just dosn't care, but that is beside my point.

Crafting level would come into play with the quality and trimmings of the product.
- Quality is pretty straight forward, sorta like madness and amber armor from SI, but dependent on the crafting skill level.
- Trimmings would be, possibly, a second material that could be added to the primary component, either mixed, or laced onto.
---- As an example, I am thinking of Ebony with Glass, This could be some Obsidian type material, or an ebony blade core with glass shell/edge. The effect of either would include a medium weight blade with the attack of glass and a degradation, again, between the two. Note that this might not create a superior blade to ebony or glass of the same quality, just a new variant. This could also work with the creating of Daedric material.

-Tangent here, on note of the Dwemer. Is there any lore regarding the Dwemer weapon and armor material. Perhaps it is bronze or bold infused with some entity? It might help explain the technology of the Nimidium, ie did they really just try to make themselvs skin and end up failing. Just thinking out loud here.

In any case new daedra infused materials might be good at this point in the tes world. Although I don't just want to push this idea out of ignorance. If there is lore against this then let it not be.

Now to look at the number of parts. This would be minor in the quality of the item, most of that having to do with materials used and the quality thereof. The main purpose of more complex pieces would be to hold a decent enchantment value. Where quality materials affect base enchantments.
:nerd: In math terms of x^y: for enchantment, x is the material and y is the parts; for damage/strength x is the parts and y is the material. So 3 parts iron or 2 parts steel would be a close race, with 1 part ebony/glass would be better than either in either field.

This would have to include pelts, cloth, ingots, refining, bones, unique materials from unique creatures (materials that could be used for more than just crafting, as to incur choice) a good use of wood other then never ending fires. Hopefully including pelts, leathers and recourses unique and natural to the land where TES V is set. Also possible a skill of harvesting.

simple enough

I found the "schematics" type of crafting in FO3 to be little more than a bad attempt at finding a use for "clutter". First, you really didn't have a way to make anything "normal" in the "scrounge" culture where you were dumped; just find a few ways to put junk together into something less "junky". Second, it was "gimmicky" in the extreme. Third, the use of skills to "unlock" abilities and "perks" meant that you couldn't even attempt to make an item unless your skill was one point higher, and then at that one point higher you could never fail at it. Bethesda should really consider looking at Morrowind Crafting for "survival" ideas, especially if TES V ends up in the wilderness of Skyrim.

FO 3 is different: they made it similiar to FO 1 and 2. You won't be seeing the same elements in TES5. But I agree, at least the spell system of TES4 was similiar, thus crappy: get that one point in skill to unlock spells which never fail after that.

Oh yeah, spell system really needs improvedment.

I playd Risen, and in Risen is spell-casting only usable through study at a Monestary, and learning different spells require skill points to use at trainers. The player really feel that he is a mage apprentice. I'd like too see this in TES too, instead of Mages guild just signing up and teaching spells to every random person who happen to stop by, it could be more fun if the player actually has to study the art of magic, and then later when he has studied enough, he could go on with the more "hardcoe" tasks.

There are a few interesting Ayleid ruins.

From my understanding, the IC should be a mix of old Ayleid architecture (the entire IC city, with White-Gold Tower, was built by the Ayleids, then taken over by the Human races after the Ayleids were overthrown) and later Mannish architecture.

The IC was lacking in many other respects, most notably the lack of vertical construction - multi-story buildings, high-rises, etc. It was a very sparse, very stark, barren, very "recent" looking city. Not something that hundreds of generations of people lived, worked, loved, laughed, and died in. There is no beautification on smaller scales (one or two statues isn't my idea of cozy), none of it looked lived-in. I could go on and on and on. Basically, many of the locations (not all, but many) felt extremely trimmed-down and sterile. I didn't really notice how intense this was until I started using mods such as Bananasplit's Better Cities. Then you see what the cities should have been.

Anyway, the Romans had stone forts, too. In fact, I didn't really feel as if the IC architecture was very Romanesque at all.

one thing I must complement the devs of Oblivion on, (one thing only), is the autosave feature was vastly improved from when they did Morrowind. I have been playing Morrowind a bit today and it is by far the best rpg I have ever played, (Ultima7 being a close second), the autosave feature in Morrowind has cost me hundreds of hours of gameplay in the past and about 5 hours today...

Stephen.

I really wanted an IC that embodied this mood:


Tears for what could have been, mechanics limitations aside.
Bethesda, if you don't use Umbra, I'll [censored] about it for years to come on these forums.

How so? You mean how MW's Autosave corrupts save games?

Some of the things that I forgot to put in my "What Fallout 3 improved on" post from #154:

When overencumbered, be limited to walking, instead of being immobile. This could possibly drain fatigue, with more weight resulting in a faster fatigue decrease.

Easier movement of objects with the grab key
Fallout 3 made movement of dead NPCs and objects faster than Oblivion.

A better stealth system
Fallout 3's stealth system was similar to Oblivion's, but you couldn't be completely invisible, or 100% chameleon. There was also more status on your stealth, instead of "lit eye" and "un-lit eye" there is:
[hidden] - No one is aware of your presence, friend and foe alike
[detected] - A non-hostile NPC or creature is aware of you
[caution] - You have alerted an enemy/enemies and they are searching for you
[danger] - The enemy has noticed you and is attacking

(This one is from Morrowind and Fallout 3)
Merchants shouldn't have a set gold amount, it increases/decreases as you buy/sell items.

It should also fluctuate when you're gone. Surely, you're not their only customer

yes and no...

What I meant is that morrowind only autosaved when you rest, this means that I can travel an entire continent ten times over and complete all the quests and if I forget to save, or if I don't rest, then I get killed, I lose all the progress I made, I then load up my last save or autosave which happens to be right back at the beginning of the game or near enough so that I feel overwhelmed at the fact that I have to do everything again just to catch up to where I was and that is going to take anywhere from an hour to a day, or up to a year if I can't be bothered doing all that again.

The transition from this to Oblivion's autosave funtionality was astoundingly simple yet profoundly satisfying. I admit it was a little overkill with Oblivion's method but it was very satisfactory, everywhere I went, whether I was walking through a door or travelling across country, I was saved to the last minute.

Stephen.

I've read about accounts from medieval writers from central Europe concerning the city of Rome, which was at the time mostly ruins. Rome was revered as an idea, an ancient empire, and later in time a center for Christianity. The stories written about it claimed that there were statues that talked, magical mirrors, and all manner of fantastical architecture, as well as relics and treasure. In truth, most everything had been sacked and burned by barbarians, and what was left were shattered pillars and herds of sheep. Of course, the talking statues and most everything else described never existed.

So, maybe that account of the Imperial City is in that vein....although it was written in a contemporary setting...and magic in TES certainly could do those things...the sheer size and scale of the way it's described, though, the monks etc, would make a much more interesting city. I was quite disappointed by it in Oblivion, there should have been twice as many NPCs, a slum area larger than 4 shacks on the waterfront, patrols of soldiers marching through, street vendors, etc...I think TES could have broken new ground in the video game world. Cities halfway between Assassin's Creed and Grand Theft Auto 4...much less buildings, but most if not all accessible. We got a very inviting, if somewhat boring and unimpressive cluster of narrow streets and only as many shops and houses as most other in game cities.

They need to change the layout of everything really. The grid system is probably the reason every dungeon and houses etc felt to alike.
Most probably they are very aware of the downsides of their games and what needs to be improved. Probably just as well as we do.
Just hope they will use Euphoria and DMM as middleware That would have been awesome!

Elder Scrolls V should be more similar to Morrowind, with more complex armor(with paldruns etc) skill system (frx medium armor and the spear skill) though the lockpicking should be the same, also it should be easyer to be a freelanse theif (so that you can sell stolen items with a risc of beeing cougth, but while beeing chough selling frx a watermellon should be imposible and a incraved ring would easaly get you gougth). the andvansed comunication of morrowind is also prefereble, + showing the racial bonuses when selecting race. and add reflection tto the water, and maybee even evolve the system by adding poor normal and fine to all materials since the diference in reallety is mostly in the prosesses of making, not materiall. also add real diferences to the diferent armors (frx bow is easyer in ligth, who knows, just make it work you know.... btw morrowind rules oblivion when it comes to caracter creation


Edit: also fix the sorting of the obivion saves for XBOX

ok i read half of it and i agree with it

another cool thing would be able to choose your leather (or glass) holder for your weapon also werid but adding like say cloth around the Hilt (forgot the name so i called it the "butt" of the weapon) it would be a nice little graphic feature

The "core" of the IC was properly "Ayleid" in origin, and only slightly "Romanesque". Unfortunately, the much larger outlying living, working, and breathing parts of the city which should have developed around that ancient Palace core didn't exist in-game. The fringes of the city SHOULD have all-but covered the entire island, and the ring road beyond should have been dotted with smaller settlements, farms (mostly still in use), and old forts, some of them still functional; they shouldn't have ALL been abandoned, even if most of the Legions are stationed elsewhere. The game gave the appearance that almost the entire Empire had already collapsed, and that this was nothing more than the surviving remnants, not just a couple generations past the height of its power.

What distressed me most about the game was that Bethesda utterly trivialized the "Heart of the Empire", and now we'll never see a Cyrodiil the way it should have been presented. All of the possibilities for intrigue, maneuvering, and conflict between the various nobles, guilds, and factions are gone, and this just about sets in stone what the IC and all of Cyrodiil are: "nothing much to write home about". After that, any attempt to put serious "politics" into a setting in Skyrim or some other setting is likely to feel overblown and out of proportion to the importance of the province.

Executions, if you go on a killing spree and get caught then you should get executed as well. But you can try to escape

It defenitly needs bigger/better/more organic citys and towns.The entire city isle should have been dotted with houses and shacks not bandit lairs and goblin caves.A real market place with vendors yelling about shepards pie or whatever and the kind of filth that people generate when living together in a crowded city.There should also be way more racism and not every town should like a littlte noahs arc of tamriel with 2 orcs,2 argonians ,2 khajit etc.A racial quest or even questline would be really immersive and make the races unique.Also ditch the fighters guild or at least call it something else.

I want things that civilisation need to function be included. A living world. I.e. I want farmers to farm, and then walk to market to sell any extra food they may have. Perhaps some fishermen that fish, and then leave the fish out on the side to dry out. I want there to be enough farms to feed a city. I want to see more trade guilds; dyers, cloth makers, butchers, brick makers, furniture makers, the things that would exist in the real world. I want there to be poverty, people throwing slops out of the windows, horse excrement on the streets, filthy puddle ridden back alleys. Different quarters of cities with noticeably different feels. I want to walk round the upper class quarter as a beggar and be frowned upon, or as a rich merchant mugged and harassed in the poor quarter.

Possibly more to come later.

I think the game needs more plots and intrigue. I was disappointed that all of the little things in Oblivion that could have been built upon and fleshed out were left unfinished. The side stories don't even have to be quests, just interesting tidbits. Politics and contests and conflicts should be brought up more, if, for nothing else, only to give the game more depth and humanity.