I'd love for the undead to be effected by fire. I want vampires to shy away from it, and zombies to catch on fire really easily. I hate having 30 torches that I just don't use because I have a ring of light for 50 feet.

So this came to me awhile ago and i dont know if it is possible but..... I read somewhere when oblivion came out that a huge part of the game disc was devoted to the voice acting. so here is my idea; for elder scrolls 5 have it come with two disc the one wud be like the game of the year additional content disc but it would have all the voice acting on it so u could install that to your xbox/ps3. maybe that would open enough space on the game disc to to have levitation back, like in morrowindi. and fewer load screens! i cant tell u how annoyed i get when i have to watch a load screen when i fast travel to a town and then watch another one once i get there cause its night time and i have to wait til the shops open!!!! errrrrrr!!! and maybe we could bring back being able to summon more than on creature at a time. Anywho i could go off for hours about where i thought the game missed the mark. but i'll spare u all my ranting!!

SO THATS MY IDEA TWO DISC ONE WITH ALL THE VOICE ACTING THAT U INSTALL TO YOUR HARD DRIVE BEFORE U FIRST PLAY AND THE OTHER FULL OF THE GAME ITSELF.

i have no idea if this is possible?????? i cant see y it wouldn't be if i can install all the expansions to my hard drive y not just the voice actin??

would love some feedback

On ps3 you install everything anyway.

My input on the "Guild Restrictions" don't have them based on your STATS or on your CLASS but on a "Initiation Test" you have to pass under certain conditions, if you fail the test you will be rejected but you can take the test again after a while (not instantly after failing), you will also be judged on how well you did (if you just barely made it you will be a "low class" member getting smaller paycuts and minor jobs) AND cross faction jobs can be taken into account as well like acting as a battle-mage for both factions together.

AND I'd also say that the factions in themselves don't act unified throughout the land, there is no ONE "The Fighters Guild" but different branch offices who act in their territory and don't like to see others intrude on theirs including other fighters guild offices. Within the different territories it could vary how closely they work together with others (In some the fighters guild will not work at all with mages, in some they will be partners and in another the fighters may even work together with a mob of the thieves guild).
Like that you don't even need to make many more factions, the same are just extended and have different associations with each other.


EDIT:
Also there can be:
-Open memberships: You're openly a member of one or more guilds (Can't join opposing ones under this)
-Cross memberships: You are a member of 2 acting as a middle man of both (Only works when they work together to begin with)
-Secret membership: You're secretly a member of one or more (You need to cleverly balance which jobs to take and try not to get revealed, doesn't work for some like the legion)
-Infiltration: You join one as a mole/double agent (You're secretly a member of one you actually work for but openly one of the one you infiltrate)
-Freelance: You're not a full member at all but do some minor jobs

No one will read this because there's like 8,000 replies and the games probably already finished anyway but one of the major things that was missing from the series so far has been fear of water.

What I mean is that if you go up to a massive amount of space that you can't breathe in and you can't see the bottom of then you should be a little nervous when you think about jumping into it. There should be very real and very frightening reasons why some bodies of water should be avoided or swam through with the utmost care.

In that scene from Lord of the rings where they're trying to open that big stone door and they're right next to the lake at night and suddenly they hear something VERY large shift in the water behind them they were scared as hell. I want to feel that kind of fear. I want to see a ripple in that water that makes me think twice about even getting close to the shore. Hiding from cougars in the shallow waters should be a terrifying suggestion knowing full well that I can't see what's really in that deep black water.

Also, infinite randomized freelance jobs for every guild, every faction, every territory and every royal family so the fun doesn't ever have to really stop, just get somewhat repetitive after a LONG time. Please please please also carry the random encounters over from fallout 3!!!! That was easily the most enjoyable thing for me. That and I want to be able to have many followers (up to 9 maybe?) at once. It makes the game a lot more fun at times and it's nice to fill your home with characters that are questing with you. It feels more realistic for someone with such lofty goals as "save the entire world" to have people who follow him and help him with various tasks or if you're evil it gives you minions to boss around.

EPICNESS PLEASE TES PUT THIS IN THE DAMN NEW GAME AND ONE LAST THING.......SKYRIM!!!!!!!!!


This message was brought to you by: Andrew Thomas Ridgway the very high Roman living it up killing the selucids at the battle of Magnesia!!

I liked the emperor's voice in Daggerfall the best. And Ocato. Both of them weren't big name actors, and still aren't. And I would like to have no load screens and just have the entire game load in the beginning like in uhm.... uh.... Dragon Age Origins I think? Or Uncharted? Or uh..... oh someone help me out here. The games that do all the loading in the beginning so that there are no load screens at all during game play.

I wish they would get more voice actors at least 4 per race. I mean then it would be less old I did not notice it alot but I knew somthing was wrongish. So I hope that happens.

>Quests: I recently played FNV and I realized how many interesting quests with multiple paths Obsidian was able to add into the game. If TESV has the same quantity with great writing and multiple paths, I'll be happy. Also, branching or multi-path mainquest for increased replayability. Longer mainquest if possible.

>Locations: Varied, VERY varied, not those 5 boring copy-pasta dungeons in TESIV. Map just a little bigger than Oblivion but with more locations, 200-300. Also, lots of hidden places like caves, sewers and that sort of stuff.

>Gameplay: Fast-paced combat, improved and dynamic magic system, re-work on the stealth system, crafting, and a bunch of new interesting surprises and features. Lots of loot and cool ways to customize our character, improved RPG mechanics to deliver a hardcoe RPG. Perks and locational damage would be nice too, and ability to dismember body parts.

>Story and writing: Please, work harder when writing the game, I want a much more interesting mainquest. And I want a mature writing.

>NPCs: Lots of them, and lots of dialogue too, and interesting backgrounds and quests for each one.

>Graphics: Improved animations and facial animation, better lighting effects, better models, better textures.

There are more that I can't think of. But anyway, Bethesda please make a gigantic and incredible game.

Just to add on some things generally missing from water; no current, no depth, no pressure, no weight, no darkness, no danger (once you can handle slaughterfish you're set). Rivers tend to be 1-5 foot deep, really long puddles. I've seen swimming pools larger and deeper than some of the lakes in Oblivion, though this is as much an issue of scale, which is worth repeating anyway. Water with a current, and equipment with weight, would make drowning and exploration genuinely dangerous. Darkness would do the same, as well as enhancing realism, atmosphere, and discovery; Morrowind was lousy with sunken ships, almost all of them pointless and full of garbage. Imagine working through a jagged, pitch-black abyss following your light source, and coming across a wrecked pirate ship promising treasure. That would be a discovery worth remembering...especially if you got there knowing those depths held creatures hiding just outside the range of your light capable of swallowing you whole. On that note, also worth repeating alongside better scale, real darkness please. Morrowind is packed with torches and lamps and equipment with light effects. Oblivion lacks the lamps but compensate with even more torches. I have played these games a lot, and have NEVER used ANY of those items. Just once I'd like to need one because it's actually dark, instead of if I feel forced to make my own atmosphere.

On the note of random faction quests, it's stuff I've gone over before in detail, but just to briefly repeat it: these quests have more obvious benefits for longevity and filling out faction content, but a less immediate benefit is that they also grant a lot of potential for actually being able to DO something with high faction rank. If NPC's can do these random jobs, that means the higher-ups can assign members to them, record who does well, promote/demote them, allocate resources to things like equipment, payment, and so on. While it's ridiculous how easily you can become the leader of any group, let alone all of them, I find it just as annoying that doing so means you magically lose all faction responsibility and never have to do anything again after picking up your final paycheck. I don't want to check a loot chest as Master of the Fighter's Guild whenever I happen to wander into town and think about it. I want to run the guild. Randomized quests not only give the player lots to actively do, but can be easily given to the AI as well, opening up command options for just about any faction.

These threads seem HUGE, so I'm not sure if Bethesda will come through and read them at all... but nevertheless I will share a little bit with the dear hope that someone in design reads my post. And while I'm no genius game designer or critic, I feel that my ideas may influence the development of TES V in a beneficial manner. If nothing else, skim the post and notice the bolded or italicized type, if it intrigues you read more.

I loved Morrowind, felt like Oblivion was a step backwards rather than a step forwards.

What the world wants: Morrowind+

I want to see a real next-gen TES game.

I'm sorry, but as a next-gen game, TES IV fell really, really short. I realize that TES IV was released near the beginning of the Xbox 360 cycle, but as a PC game there is no excuse.
Marginally improved graphics, Morrowind mechanics minus some, and horses, which looked really really bad, and couldn't be fought from. (I'm still waiting on dragons....)

I feel the need to direct my friends at Bethesda to a few games I think they could learn a lot from.
1. Dragon Age: Origins
Why?
Because they did something really well. You don't need high polygon counts or fancy effects to make a game look good, and it allows the engine to support many, many more characters and enemies on screen at once. I read somewhere, that you guys were happy about the number of characters in the battle outside of Bruma... that battle was pathetic...

2. Red Dead Redemption
Why?
Bethesda, your animations svck. I feel like I need to have an intervention for you guys. It worked for Morrowind, but Morrowind is old. Euphoria is the future. If not Euphoria, than just spend more time making a reactive alive world with better animation AI and work.

3. Gothic II
Why?
Because Gothic II knew what RPG meant. And if any of you played the game you know what I mean. Things like player choice, character development, the plot, your interactions with other characters, and just the whole game-world should all be interconnected, co-dependent, reflexively reactive, and immersive. I want to keep this concise but I want to explain what I mean. In order to get (and use effectively) a suit of heavy armor, your character had to join a specific faction, and rise through the ranks of that faction, and get specific training from a specific trainer that you wouldn't have access to if your weren't in that faction... and joining that faction might mean that you can't join certain others, or at some point in that faction's quests you make a choice to give up other options. If you want to be a mage you have to join and work your way through a monastery. That means you can't be a knight... but it also means you have access to stuff knights don't. It means you have a certain prestige among the people, and this changes the way they interact with you. It means you get robes that you couldn't get otherwise, and these robes let people know who you are and what your station is. I guess in a very quantitative way you might label what I want in a TES game as economics (as in choice under scarcity), and a social identity.

Economics (choice under scarcity): You can choose something, but then you don't get to choose something else. What does this do? It makes what you did choose more important, meaningful, and special for your particular character. If you become the head of the Telvanni, you sure as hell can't become head of the mage's guild. It also makes the larger gaming world more reactive and immersive as your decisions carry over large distances since they are intricately connected to not just your character, but to how your character can interact with the gaming environment and society as a whole.

Side Bar: Something unique about the TES games which has always made them so special, is that you don't see everything in one play through. Hell, many players miss tons of things added in the game. I know that as development costs rise, it's tempting to cut corners and "only include what's necessary or functional for all players", but this is a mistake, and it hurts the quality of your game. Your engines have always been designed such that after the base work is done your designers can make the world, design the places, and fill it with characters almost like building with legos. By building the correct next-gen simulation-engine, your base costs rise with complexity of technology and software, but your expansive world-design costs stay about the same, meaning that there is NO reason to cut corners or normalize the experience for your players. Also, your fan-base is growing, the population of gamers is growing. You sold over 3 million Oblivion units worldwide (just for the Xbox 360). Expect that number to be much larger for your next game, and if you need to, hell, raise the price.


Social Identity: In this game-world there exists a living and breathing society of humans (and khajits and argonians and elves and orcs), um... well... sentient creatures. And in this world you have a place. Maybe you are a mysterious wanderer belonging to no faction. Maybe you joined the mages guild and are a local chapter head. Maybe you are an aristocrat or politician and work for the local governor. Who knows. But in real life, and in a game society, people have roles and positions and titles. And these things are a huge part of defining who that person (or role-played character) is.

To have the characters of the world react to you differently based on "who you are" and "what you do" would go a long way to improving the depth and immersiveness of the game. Only, hide the technical mechanics of it. Don't make them unfathomable or mysterious, but make it seem real. Get rid of the like bars. Get rid of the faction meters. Get rid of the horrid persuasion mini-games. Make their interactions dependent on how their personality meshes with your character's personality, how they feel about what your character does, or how he acts (their knowledge of you dependent on what they hear (rumors), what you tell them, what you are wearing, etc.), or what position he holds (or what position he is pretending to hold) (impressions are an important part of interaction), or what he says. Well, people are shallow, maybe some people are prejudiced against your race... Make the interactions with people reactive to everything that makes your character.


No unrealistic enemy leveling: Having enemies level with the player is a mistake. Gothic II got this right. Certain areas/quests/creatures are just too difficult for a character before he reaches a certain level, or is skilled enough, or has good enough equipment. What does this do? It gives the game world a consistency, such that the world seems to persist beyond the player playing the game. It also gives a player the sense of accomplishment and gaining power. Perhaps the player explored into a very dangerous region and got his ass handed to him. He decides to leave it well enough alone. Later, he comes back after having adventured elsewhere as a much more powerful character, now he takes on the enemies with a challenge and comes away victorious. This is much more meaningful and rewarding than constantly fighting leveled battles your character is automatically supposed to be able to win every time, and gives the player a real sense of accomplishment and advancement of skill/power.

5. Gothic III
Why?
Where Gothic II was an excellent example of a concentrated RPG game-world-reactive experience, Gothic III get's something else right in the "large-scale" game world reactivity.

Always more to do: Let's get epic! In Gothic III you could change the very scape of the land by conquering towns and villages for certain factions... I even believe Morrowind included this once... (quarreling between the great houses). Where does this belong? At the end of the game.

So, you've quested your way up the ranks to the head of a faction... and now there is nothing left to do...

This is not where the game should end, but where the game should get epic. If you allow the player to become the leader of something, then allow the player to be a leader. Hell, if you have the resources, turn it into a pseudo-RTS. Let the player tell his underlings to do stuff, set faction policy, strike deals with other factions, go to war, set up a trade network, I don't know. Have issues arise that need solving. Let the player exercise this leadership role which you have allowed him to toil so long and hard for.

6. Morrowind
Why?
Lot's and lot's of reasons.

Richly historical, non-traditional, varied, "hand-crafted", and inventive architecture, society, environment, and game world.

Bring back:
1. Greater faction and societal variety
2. Stronghold building: Being able to build your own stronghold was one of the coolest and most rewarding parts of the house quest-lines. Sure, buying a stronghold or house is sorta cool, and filling it with junk... but building your own, now that's awesome. And there is a particular opportunity here made possible by TES's awesome modding tools. What if players were not just able to build strongholds, but with the money and influence and correct procedures (buying land, getting permits, hiring construction companies, getting the resources, hiring workers/guards, or "borrowing" faction units), could design and build anything (within reason). Shops, homes, castles, whatever... What if you included a subset of the TES construction set IN THE GAME. The player can buy certain sets of land (or inherit them as some level of faction leader), and then talk to an architect which will take the player into a small subset of the TES construction set which allows the player to design his very own building "in game". The game then calculates the required resources, the cost, the construction time required, etc. The player gets these things together, and gets them to the spot, then the game actually builds it in a Morrowind strong hold fashion. The workers are seen working around, and in certain set times the walls go up, or the rooms get fleshed out, etc. I mean, maybe this is too complex... but at least include some sort of stronghold building into the game.

6. Mass Effect, Alpha Protocol, Deus Ex
Why?
Choice and consequence: The immersive sim. Harvey Smith and Warren Spector, while they were designing Deus Ex, labeled their design philosophy as the "immersive sim".
"Harvey Smith: I want to be able to fully explore and interact with an environment in as immersive, self-expressive way possible. If something occurs to me in the game world, I want to be empowered to try it. And I want the results of the action, even if they are not always what I expected, to be interesting and plausible."

This is a design philosophy to live by, and its potential in an open world like TES is astounding.

Why?
Choice and consequence: Game-world reactivity
The things these games did great was make the player's decisions in the game world have repercussions and affect the game-world in many interesting and plausible ways.

What not to do: Make the big game changing decisions obvious.

What to do: make the big game changing decisions part of "playing the story", subtle and simply an extension of the player's seamless experience inside this simulated world you have created.

My thoughts exactly, I just posted talking about this.

What you guys want is a simulation that can generate quests, not random quests.

A smarter AI
Randomly Generated generic names (If GSC can do it Beth can) rather than Hedge witch, Bandit, Necromancer etc. have thing like (just examples ) Johnny Two-socks, Lilly Dale just things like that nothing to complex it would just add more uniqueness to the world imo
Travelling Merchants (probably been said before)

just a couple for now

I also think they need more aquatic creatures, not just mobs upon mobs of slaughterfish, more things like the dreugh. And occasionally, I think they should have some creatures that you have to be at least like level 40 to hope to kill.

More over, I agree with you about the guilds, but what you did not mention is member management. You should have to make judgment on which guild members are strong enough to handle a certain missions, and you should be able to recruit new members (and of course, you should be able to send as many members as you want, and maybe you could even go).

Here's another idea on fast travel.
Fast traveling is only possible along roads, you wouldn't necessarily have to be standing on a road to use fast travel but probably at least be near one.
When the game begins you only have a very basic map that only shows the main roads, possibly even start out with just a "topographic" map that shows no roads at all, as you explore you uncover a more detailed map that also shows side roads eventually giving you more and more fast travel "locations". Pretty much the more is explored the closer you can get to your target locations with fast travel, but if it's far off in the wild with no roads leading to it you can only get as close as the nearest path, you have to walk the rest of the way.

Traveling itself could look like this, you click on the spot you want to travel to and it highlights the path you'd walk on the map, when you confirm "travel there" you see your character walk that way on the map, not in real time of course but accelerated, including possible rest stops every few hours (those could simply be marked as dots, not the character waiting there). Like this you could "jump out" along the way like when you noticed you selected the wrong location, simply click "abort" and you stop where you currently are on the map.


However as mentioned before the should make fast travel less necessary. The problem is that they scattered missions out so far, and no it's not the fault of fast travel that they are scattered out so much, it's the missions being scattered out that makes fast travel necessary. In Morrowind you already had the same problem, almost no mission was set nearby, they where all scattered out too far only there you mostly HAD to walk, so fast travel was not a cause it was a consequence.
They could solve this by having the map more district based, every town has a surrounding district, missions you get are mostly set within that area. Ones set far away should be WORTH it.

This idea is pretty good. I was thinking along the same lines. In DA:O, traveling from place to place is displayed by blood splatches on a map. This isn't exactly what TES V should do, but the central mechanic is nice.

Say your character is on a road. You can pull up a map and plot a "course". Then, click go, and your party will travel along the roads with the graphic being a map display with some sort of marker for your party. It might also display the time/date changing as you travel. It might also display the weather... with inclement weather or rougher terrain making your party slower in crossing the terrain. There might be "random encounters" or the like where you are pulled from the "travel screen", to deal with an ambush of bandits or wolves or something. Of course, your party may spot these threats before hand (depending on their skill sets), allowing you to pull out before actually being ambushed, etc. If you have selected any "realism mode" options like requiring food or water or sleep, your party will stop and make camp at certain points, and eat or drink, or refill bottles at water sources, etc. If you have horses for all your party characters you might move faster (or if you are using the horses as pack mules you might move the same pace but be able to carry more).

I think this system should be used in conjunction with traditional Morrowind-esque fast travel options... such as caravans, boats, magical teleportation, etc.

These forms of transportation would use a similar mechanic as the one described above, but would be much faster (or over water in the case of boats). However, you cannot "stop traveling or pull out" as easily, and you are locked into their pre-set route unless you hire them specifically for your case.



I don't quite agree here. I think mission design should be plausible and interesting. Remember you can accumulate a lot of quests, but you don't necessarily have to do them all at once. So you might accrue quests for a certain area, and only when you finally travel to that area will you do them all at once.

Yea instead of blood splotches it should just be a line that slowly fills that path as you walk along it.


Yea, "Events" could simply be displayed as dots on your map and a short description what happened there like "rest stop, 6 hours", "Encounter, opponent defeated/had to retreat" etc.
You should not die during encounters but it could vary your condition at the end of the trip.


Yes those should still be there as well, they can be faster and of course more "relaxing", walking is taxing, riding a horse a bit less so but you can't really "relax" while riding, being transported in a carriage you can lean back and even sleep on the way.

Getting off a boat would only hardly be possible but for most others you could ask to be dropped off along the way.



Well it doesn't really make sense that some missions are spaced THAT far if you take the full scale of the environment into account, Cyrodiil is supposed to be huge, the little island the imperial city is on alone is around 50km wide in real size. A trip from one end to the other in real size would take weeks.

Which is why I'd much prefer it if beth focused on a smaller part of Skyrim, rather than the whole province. Oblivion had 8 "cities" which in reality, were little more than fortified villages, now let's say beth really focused on a small part of skyrim, and instead of 8 little villages, you'd have 2 cities roughly 4 times the size of the oblivion ones (and that's not taking into account the fact that the IC is larger than the other cities, or the increase in content that would most likely be expected). I accept that this will most likely never happen, due to many people's apparent confusion between size and scale, but hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

On the fast travel side of things, I'd prefer it if they went back to morrowinds fast travel, bnut also included a system confined to roads. This would take the form of carts/carriages/wagons etc. These would be available for hire from all cities, and would be drivwen by NPCs. The only player would be able to decide which direction to turn, move about on the cart, and choose to pause the journey at any point, in order to kill those pesky bandits that are following the cart (unless they have a bow/magic, in which case they can dispose of any threats while still moving). The play would be able to stop the journey at any time, and would be charged money based on the distance travelled (it would however, have to be less costly than the insta-travel alternative eg. an insta-travel ride from bruma to Chorrol could cost 100 gold, but the real-time cart would only be 50 or so). If you can't afford to pay up, you recieve a bounty equal to the gold you owe.

What you are describing is the Red Dead Redemption style travel. I don't like it and I don't think it would fit well with TES. I would much prefer a map style long distance travel. The travel won't be too slow and boring, nor too fast and "instant". You can imagine doing the traveling if you want.

It would kind of be like Lord of the Rings style travel... hell, if besides the map the devs added a "traveling montage" I'd be cool with that too.

Oh a little addition, for those that DO want instant travel there could very well be a "skip trip" button that instantly makes you appear again at your target destination. What happened along your trip would still be simulated, it would just do so instantly instead as you travel along the map.

I'd think events like a combat encounter would automatically end fast travel, for you to deal with the encounter. Once you handle the encounter, you can go back to your map and initiate another fast travel to your destination.


Some of the quests like you get in Daggerfall are pretty insane with the distance between the quest item and the quest giver, especially since they're "minor" random quests. But by the same token, sometimes you should need to travel, like when you needed to get the aid of all the major cities to help defend Bruma. That made sense, and you were doing it while taking care of other quests. A quest target should be where it makes sense, not where it's convenient to the player.

I'd also contend on your assertion that it's the "missions being scattered out that makes fast travel necessary." In Oblivion, fast travel is not necessary in the least (the only times I've used it, which were few, were because I was either impatient or lazy; I never used it to get to a quest target, or to go somewhere for the first time). In Morrowind, it's only "necessary" to reach Mournhold and Solstheim.

It should also be possible to avoid encounters by only taking guarder main roads, however traveling that way takes the longest time wise, and if there are more time critical missions it may be more advised to take the faster direct paths sometimes.
Also camping out may be forbidden on main roads but your character needs to rest at times so he can only take inns or make really short rest stops along the way, in the wild and side roads he can camp out.



Yea, sometimes long distances for minor things are actually kinda real, for example there was a fictional but still possible story of a monk having to take a trip of several weeks to fetch a copy of a book. However that was in times when books really where wells of knowledge so this book alone had extreme importance.

But gameplay wise it should really keep long distance trip either for really important missions OR if your destination holds a mission CHAIN rather than just one.



Yea it was a bit over generalized but the meaning is having them so spaced out just makes it overly tedious to travel back and forth all the time so you'd much rather just fast travel most of the times.
Having the missions clustered closer to their origin point has another advantage, exploration. The missions only send you on a relatively short distance, you're more likely to walk to those locations so you're more likely to actually explore the close area more detailed.

Well I really don't mind fast travel but a minor change would be nice for example you get the regular map with no known landmarks at the start or go morrowind style and know absolutely nothing just to add some exploration to it

Yea the map could start off with a simply topographic mad like in Morrowind and get more detailed as you get a good view around and then actually explore would be good.

Though a little something is partly how real that would feel, in Morrowind it was reasonable that the map was raw as it had just been opened a few years prior to colonization and the time before was pretty much quarantined, many of the places there are pretty new so they couldn't be mapped yet. But for Oblivion, the places in Cyrodiil existed for decades, some even for millenniums, it would be reasonable why they are mapped.