The fans on these forums are only a very small number of all who buy the games. Therefore complains from a small crowd won't change a major part of the game that is likely to please the majority of players, in this case the voice-acting.

What are you all talking about? We're not talking about removing voice acting, just storin it on a seperate disc. you're acting as if they can't change thier minds on a trivial matter such as this. All it takes is to copy the files onto the extra disc.

I'm not talking about that, that's a good idea.

I was talking about what hamsmagoo said.

I'm not using math, I'm using my memory. I know these suggestion threads have been going on since the game came out because I remember making posts on them while still playing Oblivion (which I haven't played at all since around early 2007)

And besides, how are you so sure what their final decision is, and that it's already been made?

I think you're scared that they'll listen and remove voice-acting, and you're trying to shut us up so it doesn't happen.

So, if we're scaring the people that want voice-acting, we know our suggestions are working!

And by the way, Fallout 3 did have much better acting, but there still was hardly anything to do besides the main quest. :sadvaultboy:


Very, very good point. And as I said, the publishers, not the developers, have the final say.

However, a lot of the stuff in Oblivion was due to suggestions on these forums, so they do pay attention. I think it's worth it, even just to vent.

What? I spent over 80 hours playing Fallout 3 before I even started the main quest! (Minus escaping from vault 101). And then add on Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta, Broken Steel, The Pitt, and Operation Anchorage. That's quite a bit to do in my opinion.

I love reading, so ha. Not everything's black & white. I happen to be gray with a little side for the voice acting, but not much.

But, you'd be a good conspiracy theorist.

And that's true, there wasn't much to do after the main quest at all. So that's why TES:V will be better!

I think even Morrowind and Oblivion where a bit too much lacking in quests other than the main quests and guild quests, also. I want to save a farmer, or free a slave. I think Morrowind was better in that respect, but I'd still like it to be improved. I'd like it if every NPC had 1-4 quests each, but would only have a low chance of giving you a quest each day. There should also be a better way of knowing if an NPC has a quest. I don't want to stop and talk to every single NPC I see.

I'd like it if NPC's would have a special "Help Me" kind of greeting whenever they had an available quest. Would make it so much easier to pick up quests. A visible marker would be nice, but I think it could kinda break immersion. What do y'all think?

Oh, and I'd like it if my crosshair would simply stay as a standard crosshair. Or at least give the option. I'd like it if it would only change colour when I look at an NPC/Item. (NPC's should be shown as friendly or not by the crosshair - I often kill friendly NPC's because of it)

Or what about a reason to stop and talk to NPC's on the street. For instance what if you need to ask for directions to find homes and people because they're not explicitly named on your map and there's no green scrying crystal in the compass that's been grafted to your wrist since prison.

I wouldn't want every NPC with a quest to be calling out for help. Especially the more shady quests, like to sabotage a shop. "Hey, you! Help me! I need to screw my friend over!."

Some NPC's calling for help, or even prompting conversation, when appropriate would, of course, make the world seem more alive. Unless it's one of those things where they just repeat the same three things on a loop, and you have to listen to it all the time. Like the preachers in Assassin's Creed, for example.

You mean like "You haven't seen my ring, have you?"


Mhm

Huh? I wasn't talking about the quest compass, lol. While I do agree that it should be gone, I'd like to have to talk to NPC's when I'm finding things, just not every single NPC I see all the time to get quests.


I don't think you quite get it... This NPC wouldn't say this. He would say something more along the line of "Hey, you. Wanna make some quick gold?" And he would only say it if your a shady kinda guy yourself. Anyone else would have to actually start a conversation with him to find out about the quest.



Excuse me mister best friend ever....

I like the way Oblivion handled buyable and upgradable houses, but there is one thing about the system that bothers me. No matter how much money I get, I can only live in the Imperial City by living in a crappy house within the poor district. I would have prefered having two houses for sale in each city, one cheap and small and the other expensive and grand, so I could live where I want to live instead of where I can get a nice house. I would like all the cheap houses to be of the same quality as each other and all of the expensive houses being of the same quality as each other. I understand that, as a large city(and especially the capital of not only Cyrodiil, but all of Tamriel), getting a house in the Imperial City would cost a lot of money, but if I can actually obtain a lot of money, I should be able to buy a nice house in the Imperial City(or the next game's largest metropolis). It would cost more than houses of equal quality in smaller cities, but I wouldn't care. I want to be able to live in a mansion and in the Imperial City(or the next game's largest metropolis) at the same time. In Morrowind, I was disappointed by not being able to honorably obtain a nice house in Vivec and I'm disappointed about not being able to obtain a nice house in the Imperial City in Oblivion.

One of the BIGGEST turnoffs for me in OB, was essential characters that could not be killed.
I think the Morrowind's system worked flawlessly. If you kill someone that impedes your progress in a quest, you get a message. This doesn't only have to work with a main quest character, either.
But this is a sandbox RPG. It just felt fake not being able to kill anyone I wanted. If I want to destroy the possibility of completing the main quest, then so be it. But don't baby sit me through the entire thing by rezzing them afterwards.

There is a problem with that. What if the game's AI decides to kill an important person? Oblivion's AI isn't flawless, and to compensate for the fact that fights may erupt between important NPCs, important NPCs are made essential.

You know what?
I'm not sure anyone has suggested this, but they definitely existed in the ancient world: apartments.

I spend so much money sleeping in taverns at my early levels anyway, that I wouldn't mind paying a weekly or monthly fee to keep my stuff in a small tenement before I can afford a house.

What do you think?

That'd be fun

If it isn't in the game I can just make some for everybod-... ah... right. PC mod no worky with PS3 and XBox360.
:(

It worked for Morrowind. I've never came across any gamebreaking AI bugs that caused an NPC to kill a essential.
And honestly, that's a risk I'm willing to take for freedom of whoever I want to slaughter.
There's a reason why during loading screens one of the most showed "tip" was "Save often! The world of Morrowind is a dangerous place."

Well, that's because Morrowind's artificial people had no intelligence.

But, anyway I don't see an NPC randomly killing an essential NPC as a risk. If, in Oblivion, I had made it to Kvatch only to find that Martin Septim had been done in by some peasant, I'd be like, "coooooool."
Then I'd go do all the other tons of stuff there are to do besides the MQ.
(this hypothetical assumes there was lots of stuff to do in Oblivion besides the main quest)

But, honestly, how often did un-essential NPC"s ever kill each other. The chances are so slim, it isn't a good reason.

Having non killable NPCs just seriously diminishes the gameplay for me. When in Morrowind, when I was around an essential NPC, it was tense, because I knew one slip up and I'd have to run out and rethink things or reload a save game. That's fun for me, it makes me be careful and actually worry about what I do.
In OB, it's like "SUP MARTIN WANNA FIREBALL SANDWICH" and then just...wait. Oh, you're alive.
That's really stupid.

You'd honestly be like "cooooool." if you had to race there so he'd live and it was the first time playing your game?

I'm sorry, but that would seriously make everybody rush through everything to make sure the characters didn't die.

AI: Bandits walking by the side of the road where the queen needed for the quest was traveling? Not my problem. What? She was 30 minutes running-time away? Still not my problem. Who cares if you didn't know that she died and you can never complete the main quest, and you got to the highest level possible before going? You should have walked faster.

Getting my point yet?

The game world is far too big to let everybody die. Somebody you need could die 40 miles away, and you would just get a message on your screen saying "The character necessary to complete this quest has died."

I understand being able to kill most NPCs, but you honestly need some who can't die; especially with AI that lets people travel around, monsters that can wander around, and tons of other unpredictable factors.

Once again, they fixed it in Fallout 3, you could kill some NPCs who were there for the main quest, and they gave you alternative methods to seek things out. You can kill a whole town in the beginning of the game without anybody getting back up.

Well, there could be a script when she dies that makes all the right people know she's dead so that you don't go around looking for her. And of course you get to complete the main quest. Just make a new character.

"But I don't want to start all over! :angry: "

You don't have to! Keep the character who can't complete the main quest, because that character's story can still move forward. And make the new character have completely different skills. If it's a good RPG, unlike Oblivion, different skills will make the experience totally different the second time around, so you're not starting over.

And while your original character focuses on factions (because there are TONS of factions to keep you busy for hours), your new character can do the MQ. What are the odds that the queen will die two times in a row in that same way? Pretty low if they tested the game properly.

And, yes, by the way I would be like, "coooool." I love when my characters fail epicly and unexpectedly. I feel that RPG's are about making a story. You're not trying to beat anything. A broken main quest isn't "game over" if it's a good RPG, a broken main quest just steers the story in a new direction.

Because there's SO MUCH else to do besides the main quest. Let me emphasize that again.

The main quest being ruined through no fault of the player is ridiculous. No, an Elder Scrolls game is not to be completed, but who wouldn't be angry about being five hours into the game and being told "So and so are dead. You have failed to fulfill the prophecy." when they didn't do anything to harm that person? Also, for those other quests:

1. The travelling merchant who was robbed and needed your help was killed by monsters on the road.
2. The quest giver with a lower responsibility stole an apple and was mercilessly beaten to death by guards.
3. You steal an apple and as a guard comes to arrest you, you resist arrest. The leader of the Fighters' Guild has a high disposition towards you, comes to your aid, and gets slaughtered. The guards accidentally hit quest givers and all people with a high disposition towards you come to your aid. Several quest givers die in the process, just for simply stealing an apple(why have stealing in a game if its consequences are that major?).
4. Mythic Dawn agents come after you and quest givers, who help you, get slaughtered.
5. The emperor gets killed by a rat before a Mythic Dawn member can assassinate him.

Things can and do go go wrong with an actual AI system(which Morrowind lacked). That's why Bethesda had to dumb down their original system. Perhaps the essentials are even a leftover from that. I was walking near Chorrol recently and noticed the dead body of a local skill trainer who hunts everyday. A bandit killed him. There was nothing I could do, because he was already dead. In Fallout 3, caravans aren't essential, and while roaming, they(easily the best merchants in the game) may die when you can't do anything to save them. For this reason, I try to avoid exploring areas along their routes, which isn't fun. There are travellers in Oblivion(actual travellers) and their deaths, which have nothing to do with my actions, can be a pain.

Hmmm... Maybe some sort of "knockout" system. When 0 Health is reached, the character (or even the player) is knocked out, and cannot move. (Perhaps some fancy, dimly-lit screen effects would be nice.)
If someone reeeeally wants to kill somebody, and has the time to do it, they could perform a coup-de-grace to bring the character's health lower than 0. At one point, the character will actually die. Allies and the player might have more "essential" quality to them, allowing them more negative Health before they die.

Eventually after enough rest, the character will come-to.

Wimpy stunted-scamps and wolves, and random peasants would have very little "essential" quality. But heroes and mighty villans will have more. A "divine intervention" of sorts. But obviously, the gods can't save everyone.

NO!


I already told you who wouldn't be angry: ME!
And I'm not the only one

Then don't avoid exploring on caravan routes.

Just let a few caravaners die and live with it. It's not like there aren't other merchants in the game.

If you want everything to go perfect the first time around, then buy an adventure game. And let me have my deep RPG in its dynamic world where things can and do go wrong.

You say "can and do go wrong" like it's a bad thing. That's how I know we'll never agree on this one. We should probably just move on.

1. Fallout 3 caravans are the best merchants in the game, by far.
2. I don't want everything to be perfect, but if I suffer any consequence, it should be as a result of my actions, not some design oversight that punishes me for taking my time and not rushing to do every quest.
3. Is Morrowind an adventure game because NPCs don't die in that game through no fault of my own?
4. Things going wrong is what I want(and for the record, I have always almost exclusively played RPGs, and no RPG has ever punished me for not doing anything, not even the "hardcoe" ones, not even Daggerfall and Morrowind), but only if they go wrong as a consequence of my actions.

There is actually a pretty simple solution to this. Make it so that there are essential NPC's who can't die... but make it so that they can die by the PC's hands.

So that way, they won't die on the road, they'll just fight the guards until the problem is solved or they get knocked down(unconscious), but as soon as you start hacking, they will die.

Adds to the realism a bit so that you can kill a town, but makes it so that you won't have to restart after 10 hours because some quest giver far away died by a mudcrab.