[Megan Stabler]

Personally, I'd like to see Morrowind's journal make comeback. It felt far more immersive to have a journal you would write in, than just a menu. I honestly don't see people's problem with it. Options->Quests, and you'd have a more practical journal, like Oblivion, Tribunal and after, at least.

EDIT:


Niether did an island with a volcano that makes the whole place one big black smokey wasteland, sound like a good setting for a game, but we saw how that turned out?

You need to stop thinking about Oblivion. Skyrim will NOT look like Bruma (If Bethesda has any intelligence) Southern Skyrim will be full of life and have lots of unique plants, whereas northern Skyrim will be an icey dangerous place to be, full of blizzards and winds.

Personally, I'd like to see the ability to have land textures change, due to weather. Southern being usually not snow filled, but there would be some snow when it snows occasionally.

Anyways, Don't use past games as a solid reference to what Skyrim will be like. They changed the original intentions of both Oblivion and Morrowind, I don't see why they don't do it here? (In a good way though, unlike Oblivion <_<)

I'm picturing Solstheim as well, not just Bruma. Also, Skyrim's architecture is represented in Bruma. Solstheim isn't really an appealing place to look at either. Vvardenfell is interesting. I like Vvardfenfell's and the Shivering Isles' uniqueness. Hopefully, Bethesda will be as creative with Skyrim as they were with Vvardenfell and the Shivering Isles.

[Heather Kush]

Rediculous meaning realistic, right? Isn't exploration ment to be incredibly difficult, when we're talking about landmasses of entire provinces? Back in 1996 when Daggerfall's landscape was generated, they didn't have Speedtree and similair software. Spend a moment to imagine a big, (even 10% of TES2 is big enough), landscape, generated by a program that mimics land erosion and formation 1:1, with some hand created content and locations like cities, with great fast travel system like TES3's. You can't ask for a better gameworld for a sandbox CRPG. In TES3 everything is hand placed, giving you exactly one playthrough which was surprising: your first. In TES4 it's more random again, but it's still boring. Mix of random and handplaced is suggested ages ago, and there are great posts, even topics about it lying around.
If you want restricted areas, less land mass and more plot/dialogue/choices/roleplaying, Witcher, Dragon Age and such are games for that. But when TES is about open and free world, shouldn't it be done right, or not at all?
Realistic world means you can implement seasons, Daedra summoning days, calendar, holidays, all that was cut when we moved to close quarter worlds and rediculous time scaling.

No, exploration isn't supposed to be difficult(or tedious, as it was in Daggerfall) in a game. I think people have forgotten what games are. They are not hiking through boring terrain sims, they are games. I like being able to go out into the wilderness in Morrowind and Oblivion and find new locations in a short amount of time. In Daggerfall, exploration isn't fun. There is nothing to explore, literally nothing to explore. Getting to new areas is tedious, nothing has anything special about it, and the capital of Daggerfall looks like every other city in the game. Oblivion is hand-crafted and more interesting than Daggerfall. Daggerfall has great role-playing elements and I want those back, but huge worlds meant to bore us all for the illusion of being large do not belong in games. There is nothing interesting to do in Daggerfall. Everything looks the same, I can't explore, and every quest is the same. Why have a huge world just to have a huge world? Also, I don't care how advanced random generation gets, it's still boring, repetitive random generation.

[Tiff Clark]

Also, I don't care how advanced random generation gets, it's still boring, repetitive random generation.

I find it unlikely that you would be able to tell the difference between well-generated land and Oblivion. Generally, almost any part of Cyrodiil that's not a city, dungeon, or other "object of interest" is just rocks and trees, and those are not placed with any particular realism in mind. I've been in the woods before, I don't recall it being saturated with huge boulders just randomly laying around everywhere I went. I'm not suggesting randomized areas to replace hand-made things, but as a way to supplement areas that don't need or benefit from hand-placement. Are you really memorizing the empty wilderness to the point that you'll notice and for some reason hate it when an area that had 7 trees and 5 rocks before has 8 trees and 4 rocks when you start a new game?

The faulty exploration in Daggerfall isn't really a matter of it being randomly generated; you can make flat, empty nothingness by hand, too. The game doesn't "need" to be that gigantic, since I don't think technology is at the point that it could be effectively filled. However, I do think that it needs to be larger than the overworld provided in Morrowind and Oblivion, in order for TES to utilize its full potential. To really create a character and roleplay them in a sandbox world, the world itself needs to be a living thing; not just empty wilderness. You need to be able to DO things in that world, let the character interact with it. Those are the toys within the sandbox, while the base material is the sand, but you need a balance of each.

For example, an active economy. Even in the most basic gameplay sense I think this would be beneficial; instead of grinding for money, notice that minotaur horns are in high demand and take a relevant job from the fighter's guild. It allows for many more roleplay options with characters as well. You can influence supply and demand, watch settlements prosper or suffer with that influence. Merchant caravans give extra employment for mercenaries, and live, nonscripted bandit attacks instead of a single event that you trigger at your leisure and which never happens again. Stockpile deerhide, then arrange an accident for the local hunter's lodge that's not traced to you and rake in a fortune. Hear about an incoming attack and work to boost the local economy, and watch the garrison be stocked with healthier, better-equipped soldiers.

Stuff like this would require more space. Farms, larger roads, hidden bandit camps. If the engine improves enough for "real" battles instead of the 12-man battle for Bruma, we'll need larger cities to contain those people, larger fields for them to battle on. Randomly generated wilderness lets you much more easily create that space, and keeps it varied for the different-every-time effect that comes with non-scripted events. You don't have to replace hand-placed anything with it. Say a certain chunk of land in Oblivion has ten "things" in it, aside from the wilderness. Using the same "random grid forest" example from before, any of those zones could have a chance of containing something, or be designated to always contain something. Is the game really going to suffer because the dead body with a mysterious note on it is laying under this tree over here instead of that tree over there? I doubt it.

Randomness can also apply to quests without making the hand-made ones suffer. In the Fighter's Guild we apparently walk in, go through the storyline while taking every single job they have (sorry, other members), then finish it, and nobody has any reason to ever go there again. It makes no sense. Factions like that can benefit from smaller randomly-generated jobs (protect this farmhouse, clear out this cave, punch that guy who shorted me a nickel, etc.) and still have a storyline. People always recommend you go to the Fighter's Guild to make some money doing odd jobs. I'd like to actually DO that for once if I want to be a member without doing the storyline, or save the storyline for later, or continue being an active member after I finish it. Those random jobs would fit nicely with random areas, spawning encounters in various unoccupied zones with various factors in the quest itself so it's almost never the same thing in the same area. Even directions wouldn't be too hard; zones could easily be designated as being in the "northeast" part of the forest, or west of static landmarks like cities or roadside inns, or even a certain direction from a random area of note you've already been to (north of the ruins of Nowhere that you discovered).

Random vs hand-placed isn't some good vs evil argument, there are pros and cons to each, and I think for TES to be the best it can it needs to be able to utilize or avoid those pros and cons as necessary, instead of rejecting a system outright.

[BlackaneseB]

No, exploration isn't supposed to be difficult(or tedious, as it was in Daggerfall) in a game. I think people have forgotten what games are. They are not hiking through boring terrain sims, they are games. I like being able to go out into the wilderness in Morrowind and Oblivion and find new locations in a short amount of time. In Daggerfall, exploration isn't fun. There is nothing to explore, literally nothing to explore. Getting to new areas is tedious, nothing has anything special about it, and the capital of Daggerfall looks like every other city in the game. Oblivion is hand-crafted and more interesting than Daggerfall. Daggerfall has great role-playing elements and I want those back, but huge worlds meant to bore us all for the illusion of being large do not belong in games. There is nothing interesting to do in Daggerfall. Everything looks the same, I can't explore, and every quest is the same. Why have a huge world just to have a huge world? Also, I don't care how advanced random generation gets, it's still boring, repetitive random generation.

I agree with you to some extent. I never played DF but it sounds incredible. Possibly because I'm expecting Oblivion's landscape multiplied X 100. I know it wasn't that and I'm sure that my way of playing wouldn't work with DF (I explore every last dungeon) but anyway... Oblivion was too crowded. There were too many dungeons/mines/ruins There's no reason to have two forts within site of each other. Have bigger forts with a meaning for their location rather than 100 small pointless forts.

[Vahpie]

Randomised land is terrible for modern games. Just imagine the blow the modding community will recieve. Every modder starts in the cs, creating a city, or house, or something. Modders won't carry on into scripting without that experience. We wont have our current modders forever. And scripting would be basically all they could do.

Any mod that adds some sort of building somewhere would conflict with the saved landmass for each game. It's impossible to add any good content.

The massive modability make Bethesda RPG's so much more awesome than other RPG's, even if they meet the unique standard of it.

Randomised land worked well in Daggerfall, beause it didn't have that level of modability.

TESV will be out for consoles, and a console couldn't handle all the saved landmass data, it would be far too much.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a randomised landmass setting (I feel your pain - I want so many of the things that where good from Morrowind), as long as it doesn't interfere with other aspects of the game.

EDIT:

Oblivion was too crowded.

:rofl:

[Danel]

Kind of vague. How so? I'm not talking randomizing everything, but that if there's an area that's always a forest, introducing random elements lets the player explore it more than once, always finding new and/or unexpected things, instead of losing all sense of mystery for every replay after the first.

Perhaps they do what they did with Oblivion gates. They would make 70-100 caves, and each entrance (30-50 in the gameworld) would lead to a different one. The entrances to the caves would always be the same, but the interiors would change. The generator used at the beggining of the game to deside wich cave goes in what cave spot, what dungeongoes in what dungeon spot, and what ruin goes in what ruin spot would make sure that all the Artifacts found a home (Each cave would have a spot were every artifact could be, but the game would limit them to 1 artifaxt max per cave and only 1 copy of every artifact)

[no_excuse]

Perhaps they do what they did with Oblivion gates. They would make 70-100 caves, and each entrance (30-50 in the gameworld) would lead to a different one. The entrances to the caves would always be the same, but the interiors would change. The generator used at the beggining of the game to deside wich cave goes in what cave spot, what dungeongoes in what dungeon spot, and what ruin goes in what ruin spot would make sure that all the Artifacts found a home (Each cave would have a spot were every artifact could be, but the game would limit them to 1 artifaxt max per cave and only 1 copy of every artifact)

Randomised interiors are fine n dandy, I said that before myself, but exteriors would just ruin TES's modability.

[RAww DInsaww]

Randomised land is terrible for modern games. Just imagine the blow the modding community will recieve. Every modder starts in the cs, creating a city, or house, or something. Modders won't carry on into scripting without that experience. We wont have our current modders forever. And scripting would be basically all they could do.

Any mod that adds some sort of building somewhere would conflict with the saved landmass for each game. It's impossible to add any good content.

But the "zones" thing removes that. As for it conflicting with existing saves, that has always been an issue, with many significant mods recommending that you start a new game. Even that will likely be temporary, considering programs like Wrye Mash/Bash. I really don't see why it has to have any negative impact on modding at all.

[Brad Johnson]

I would love some kind of economy.

I hate straggling for money all the time, selling random crap to make a buck. It would be great if instead I could buy and trade stuff based off of some kind of in demand system to make more money (or open a shop, Inn, rent out houses or something) which would make being a merchant appealing.

I don't mind struggling for money sometimes (it's realistic) but why can't I work my way up to riches through hard work in business?

Also, again, Werewolves. Everybody loves those. :clap: :clap:

[Wanda Maximoff]

I would really like it if TES V had the same type of map that Oblivion did. I liked how it felt like a real, drawn map, and not the brown and black blob in the shape of Vvardenfell Morrowind had. The one thing I did like about Morrowind's map is that it slowly revealed itself as you explored it, and only the parts you had walked through were visible. It would be great if that feature could somehow be incorporated into a map like Oblivion's.

[Emilie M]

snip

Do you still think that it has to be one or the other.

Create a static base level or shell of a landmass, then randomly generate another landmass above that. Cities, settlements, shrines, and ruins would have an area designator that the randomized land connects to. Heck you don't even need a base landmass, all you need is a specific boarder around static areas then mesh the randomly generated to that. Camps could even float along the Z axis

Edit: I just found out something fun about the quote function. And completely re-hashed some points

[Conor Byrne]

I would really like it if TES V had the same type of map that Oblivion did. I liked how it felt like a real, drawn map, and not the brown and black blob in the shape of Vvardenfell Morrowind had. The one thing I did like about Morrowind's map is that it slowly revealed itself as you explored it, and only the parts you had walked through were visible. It would be great if that feature could somehow be incorporated into a map like Oblivion's.

I agree with that, when I first started playing Morrowind, I wanted to find all of the land and fill out the whole map.


Boy was that awesome without fast travel!

[lucile]

-Soul gems with names on them. In Morrowind, I hunted creatures souls. I had trophies of creatures adorned throughout my house. I had the souls of all the ash vampires sitting on my desk. I also trapped the wretched soul of Almanexia in Azura's star as a trophy. And with black soul gems, I will love beth forever.
-Necromancy, look at how to prepare a corpse. Allow us to do everything in that plus some other new things. Like construct flesh golems.
-All the skills from Morrowind, no more skill merging.
-Enchanting. This I want dearly. I also would love the enchanting of scrolls and such. I quirky little thing I though up with would be able to enchant ANYTHING and use it as a scroll. A copy of your favorite book, a skull, a piece of Ebony, etc. Plus, who would expect to have some instadeath spell enchanted into a copy of ABC's for Barbarians. I would also like to see scrolls/magic items that are not always used up after one use. Like some things will just vanish but some might have a charge. Like you have 3 uses of a scroll before you have to wait for it to charge again. I also want to see recharging items back again, ala Morrowind.
-Morrowind Dunmer, not pansy Oblivion dunmer.
-The ability to make golems.
-More factions and more consequences for joining them.
-More factions
-Have disposition more like Morrowind.
-Bring back the Daedra from Morrowind
-The ability to knock out people with your fists or a blunt weapon.
-Less black and white, more gray.
-Morrowind fast travel
-Make any house your home kinda like in Morrowind, but make it so purchasable houses are better and have some special quirk to them

Just some little things off the top of my head

[OnlyDumazzapplyhere]

-All the skills from Morrowind, no more skill merging.

Our luck they'll do away with skills altogether and just have 'magick', 'combat' and 'stealth'.

[Alina loves Alexandra]

I would greatly enjoy more spells that aren't necessarily combat oriented. More spells like levitation, charm, paralyze, that sort of thing.
Pretty much everything is accomplishable with the current spells, but different effects to get there is always a good thing.
A few examples off the top of my head:

?a blinding spell; the NPC in a combat situation knows you're there but can't see you so he just thrashes about. In a non-combat situation they freak out and kneel on the ground or thrash about. (accomplishes more or less what invisibility accomplishes with a more entertaining effect)

?a binding spell; the NPC gets his legs and arms bound so he falls to the ground in a heap. He can still look at you and scream and swear at you but he can't do anything. (accomplishes more or less what paralysis accomplishes with a more entertaining effect)

?a pain spell; doesn't actually injure the NPC, it just drains their fatigue. The NPC experiences some intense pain, and when it's over he'll get up and submit to you or run away or get madder.?(accomplishes more or less what command or intimidate accomplishes with a more entertaining effect)
?
levitate other or telekinesis on other; lifts NPC into the air and they can freak out. Then you can drop them or let them down gently or whatever you desire.

?push; basically just knocks the NPC over with minimal or no damage. Would be useful and/or funny as an area effect for a low magicka cost.

These are just off the top of my head, I don't know how practical these are, but I basically want to be able to show off my powers and cow people without them either dying directly from my hilarious prank, or getting pissed off at me and attacking me so I have to kill them.?
(these spells and others wouldn't cause the NPC to attack you (unless you were already in a combat situation), just perhaps lower or raise (to represent being pissed off or cowed and intimidated, respectively) their disposition towards you, and perhaps lower or raise the bystanders' dispositions towards you (depending on if they thought that was bullying and just plain mean or funny and impressive))

also different animations for different spells

[TWITTER.COM]

what about passwall?

:rofl:

[Joe Alvarado]

and perhaps lower or raise the bystanders' dispositions towards you (depending on if they thought that was bullying and just plain mean or funny and impressive))

Do-able with a skill comparison and NPC relations/disposition to victim vs NPC relations/dispositions to player.

But if this had any big positive effect on dispositions I'd shout fable. Pranksters and wise cracks easily develop bad reputations.

Perhaps if hate and respect could legitimately be set up between NPC's, messing with the town [censored] bag-leader would make commoners happy but the power leeching nobility hate you while messing with the town drunk would make more noble people despise you and...gritty people, happy.

[Devin Sluis]

-All the skills from Morrowind, no more skill merging.

Why have only those when you can have more? Morrowind cut some good skills, and having Morrowind skillset does not satisfy me.
---

what about passwall?

I even have an idea for the comeback of Passwall. A very demanding spell your mage can only learn on high levels, which gives you a couple of seconds of moving with collision off. You are blinded when you move through solid ground, object or wall, and you instantly die if the spell wears off while you are inside.

---
And about the generated land being boring.... The world out there is not hand crafted, and it's not boring. Sure, not every neighborhood has a Grand Canyon or Mount Fuji, and lot of it IS boring, but thats the whole point.
When someone said TES4 is crowded, he just ment that the incredibly small amount of people it had, were packed on even more incredibly small area.

[Nathan Risch]

Blind spell, I liked the boots of blinding speed from morrowind. I'd love it if I could blind someone with a spell and watch as they stumble over objects you put in their way. Or be blinded at critical moments and have to hack and slash and when you recover your sight you'd have to check to make sure you didn't accidentally slay your buddies.

Stephen.

[Kayleigh Mcneil]

But if this had any big positive effect on dispositions I'd shout fable. Pranksters and wise cracks easily develop bad

I've never even played fable, so I don't know how that system works. But I didn't mean pranks so much as a legal way of screwing with people that screw with you. When someone tells me I'm stupid or whatever, right now my only option is punch them in the face or stab them, then I end up arrested, then when I get out nothing has changed, they're still being rude. What I want is to just let them know what's what without anyone dying and for their dialogue to change to a slightly more polite one after. Also, having the same effect if you knock them out in a fist fight, the same way as the 'harmless' spells. Most people wouldn't flip out if there was a fist fight, they would either get the impression that you're a jerk if the person you're beating up is a nice guy, or the inverse of that situation.

[Marquis deVille]

What I want is to just let them know what's what without anyone dying...

The most interesting situation that could arise out of nonlethal damage is a bar fight -- especially with all of those Nords. Though, I think the best improvement in gameplay would be the use of nonlethal damage on an NPC in order to obtain gold or information. Intimidation is a lost art. It would still be reasonable for this use of nonlethal damage to be considered a crime, but perhaps much less severe than attempting to kill someone.

[Pixie]

The most interesting situation that could arise out of nonlethal damage is a bar fight -- especially with all of those Nords. Though, I think the best improvement in gameplay would be the use of nonlethal damage on an NPC in order to obtain gold or information. Intimidation is a lost art. It would still be reasonable for this use of nonlethal damage to be considered a crime, but perhaps much less severe than attempting to kill someone.

You mean like blackmailing or threatning people? I think that would be awesome. TES need to be a little more rough. So many time I just wanted to walk up a beggars face and tell him to GTFO and stop beggin me for [censored], and want him the next day to be scarred of me. Or if I need information from people, I want to be able to threadend them to tell me where to go.

[His Bella]

Why have only those when you can have more? Morrowind cut some good skills, and having Morrowind skillset does not satisfy me.
---


---
And about the generated land being boring.... The world out there is not hand crafted, and it's not boring. Sure, not every neighborhood has a Grand Canyon or Mount Fuji, and lot of it IS boring, but thats the whole point.
When someone said TES4 is crowded, he just ment that the incredibly small amount of people it had, were packed on even more incredibly small area.

Forgot to add the "at least' part, but yeah. I would like to see older skills ala climbing.

I also would like to have a telekinesis spell that can be used offensively. Like a master in mysticism could grab lower leveled enemies and play around with them like toys. Pushing, pulling, etc.

[MISS KEEP UR]

You mean like blackmailing or threatning people? I think that would be awesome. TES need to be a little more rough. So many time I just wanted to walk up a beggars face and tell him to GTFO and stop beggin me for [censored], and want him the next day to be scarred of me. Or if I need information from people, I want to be able to threadend them to tell me where to go.

Gothic series does non lethal combat well. You can beat the crap out of almost anyone, and just earn an enemy, not needing to engage in mortal combat with the whole town and it's guards. Gothic series lacked a meaningful disposition and socail groups, so the word of your deeds did not travel. Beating up too much people should have negative effects on most dispositions, expect the few people who look up to such kind of behaviour.

On Security. The skill should be checked, if you spot traps or not. Disarming traps, physical ones like in TES4, would be fun. On high levels most of the traps could be highlighted for you, unless of course it pitch dark. Less traps, but more lethal ones, and darker dungeons. That makes moving around a bit more interesting (this is a fact, TES4 mods prove it)

[RaeAnne]

@ lambroast

I think I see what you are getting at. All I could see was fable, where you could fart and flex a few times and every person in the game would be ready to marry you.

And like Absinthe82 said, if you abuse too many people, NPC's that do not 'approve' might even be nicer to you, but have lower dispositions.

And dispositions should be much harder to raise. Like a % maximum of the current disposition within whatever time period.