I think that with the current technology open cities will be easy. Just look at Assassin's Creed! Huge open cities and lots of NPC AI.

for me, this is whats important to me:

believable world/ characters

new features non combat related (fishing, instruments, stuff like that)

better social interaction, talking in real time and generally more natural feel to having a conversation.

jeremy soule

multiple routes for a quest to go.


of course i expect the general stuff as well like improved graphics, animations, combat and just more to it really.

1. cel-shaded graphics
2. astrological significance - impact the story's telling, rather than a 'power' - to the the birthsigns, or drop them and good riddance
3. Oblivion's seven, leveling skills, but four major and three minor
4. A Falmer free Skyrim
5. a clever exposition and mq

If I would delve into details, I wouldn't have a list.

I dunno that I have 5 yet, but I'll edit this post if I think of anything else:

1) While some kind of stat capping might be reasonable, allow characters to push stats past 100 - if you have levelled your character to have permanent 99 or 100 in a stat, then you should still be able to get some kind of benefit from spells, potions, enchantments, altars, etc. Perhaps make it so that the maximum fortification from any one source of effect (spell, potion, enchantment, altar) can only be like 50. So, you could have natural 100 Str, plus 50 from a spell (or multiple spells, but cannot exceed 50 from all spells), plus 50 from a potion, plus 50 from enchantments. Or maybe 50 is too low - perhaps 100 from any source. The exact values could be tweaked a bit, but the point is to allow people to still get additional value from their fortification spells, enchantments, and potions after they reach a high level. Or instead of doing it by source (if that makes characters 'too powerful' or, well, too much wild range in how powerful a character might be so it's hard to design challenges which challenge uber chars without overwhelming less creative players, or players who are trying to play non-magical characters, etc), make a cap at 200 instead of 100, where you can train to 100 naturally, and get the other hundred from any combination of sources (that way, you don't get Morrowind-style demi-god chars with +500 or +1000 points of fortify attribute, but players can still use their magics and potions to fortify a reasonable amount).

2) I don't feel the previous Elder Scrolls games had enough use for some of the specialty spell effects like water breathing, levitate (MW, of course - no Levitate in OB). If you have special types of magic like that, make sure there's cool uses for it - entire underwater dungeons, and just more stuff to explore underwater - OB had lots of water, but not much of interest under the water), for example, or a few cool places you can only get to with flying, if you are going to have levitation. I don't know what spell effects they'll have in TES:V (although the book released awhile ago had levitation, so that at least suggests the possibility of the return of the levitate spell), but whatever specialty spell effects are included, make sure they have some great uses. Heck - let me drag (some types of) enemies underwater with me so I can drown them while I use water breathing to survive (of course, some enemies should breathe water - every argonian, of course, many magic users, some magical creatures, some natural amphibians/fish, etc).

3) Magic super-jumping as a form of fast travel, in Morrowind, was really kind of fun. Please bring that back.

4) More factions, more missions, more story. MW had a lot of story and a lot of missions. OB had a somewhat long and detailed main quest, and the Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, and Fighters Guild quest lines were pretty good (I didn't do the Dark Brotherhood, because I didn't really want to roleplay a murderer, but I suppose if you're into that, the DB storyline is probably about as long and fleshed out as the other guilds, though I don't know from experience). But overall, Oblivion seemed like there wasn't enough to do in each of the towns/cities - each would have maybe 3 to 5 fairly short quests, without that much story. Would be cool if there were more inter-city questlines (that is, arcs of quests which spanned multiple cities, maybe multiple factions).

1. Remain 1st person RPG (No MMO)

2. More guilds/factions/side quests. I want to play this game for years and still have more quests to do.

3. Realistic Leveling. In the real world there are only so many people whose butt I can kick, but there are at least as many who could do the same to me and worse.

4. Unusual... dare I say Fantastic World. Oblivion was a huge dissapointment after playing Morrowind and it's mushroom towers and such. Stay away from the traditional crap.

5. More Voice Actors. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.

(Honorable Mention: A Construction Set that has the capacity to put MY face in the game. I don't want to pay a bunch of money for another program that can do it. The game's 1st person... is it so unusual to want that 1st perosn to look like you?)

1) More voice actors! I can't stress this enough. Listening to the same voices wherever you go gets boring and ruins immersion.

2) Leveling system similar to Fallout 3. I don't want to have to run into a corner behind an innkeeper to level up my sneak.

3) Jeremy Soule soundtrack. Please don't let anyone else do it.

4) More armor variety.

5) Can't think of a fifth.

1) a more gritty world

2) variation in terrain

3) MW style fast travel

4) MW weapon variety

5) better stealth system

Just off the top of my head, I would say:

1. Construction Set is a must.
2. Incorperate what Oblivion modders did to improve that games mechanics and play. Things like spell delete, additional hotkeys, menu escape and other things that I, personally, can't play without. Maybe some unique landmarks or landscapes and better player houses. Look at the top Oblivion mods and offer a small stipend to those modders whose work should go into your next game. See how they did the Realistic Health, Realistic Fatigue, Levelling, Sneak, world-levelling, etc. and incorperate what was most popular. Find out why mods like OOO and MMM and COBL were so popular and do something like that. Look at how players love them sixy clothing and put some PG-rated sixiness in the game, as well.
3. Bring back Levitation and Teleportation, especially if they take away fast travel. But really, if you don't like fast travel, then simply don't use it. Don't vote to take it away from everyone, because guys like me appreciate it sometimes, especially when we want to squeeze in 20 minutes of gameplay during a hectic day and don't want to spend that roaming a wilderness to get to the dungeon we want to go back to.
4. Each weapon should be classed more like Morrowind, with different animations for each. What the heck, give us spears, crossbows, throwing knives and polearms to while your at it.
5. OK, this relates to the main quest. Make it dependant upon what faction(s) you are a part of and add in the ability to join ONE of the NPC factions like Bandits, Necromancers or Imperial Guard. Therefore, if you complete the quest and are in the bandit faction, it turns out a bit different than if you were part of the necromancer or imperial guard factions.
6. (Because I'm a rebel that doesn't follow rules) Keep it traditional fantasy with ogres, mintotaurs and the like. I never enjoyed fighting Morrowind's monsters. Look to myths and legends for more beasties like manticores, wyverns, griffons, hydras, nagas, basilisks, etc.

These are just off the top of my head. I am sure a thousand more will come bubbling up from my subconscious. In short, Bethesda...WE WANT IT ALL! I'm sure you can deliver everything to us, can't you?

I like the direction the suggestions so far are taking in general.

What's Important to ME:

1. Character design. From faces to clothing to mounts to weapons, a character should look and act like the player designed it, right down to the stances and animation style. Give us the freedom and tools to do so, please. Think Champions Online, only better. This ties in with #2.

2. Daggerfall-like customization. I would like to create my own spells, armor, weapons, clothing, and class. Even if it's as simple as giving the awesome look of an ebony dagger a set of glass stats through my character's crafting skill, I'd like to outfit my character without sacrificing freedom of expression. The Daggerfall balance system of spell points vs. spell power and positive traits vs. negative traits worked well because the character was mine and unique. Options. More please!

3. I know it's not very easy, but randomized dungeons, items and NPC faces would be amazingly awesome. I know this would bloat the save files, but keeping them static once discovered would be important for immersion's sake. Replayability is key.

4. Relationships. I want to have someone to come home to. If my significant other is up to it, I would certainly enjoy the companionship on the road. Even better, I'd like to be considered as a couple wherever we go if we've been together for some time and have others ask me where my SO is when I show up alone. Lovemaking would be nice and can be simple and effective as a cut-scene of silhouettes in front of a fire. Do not skimp on possibilities or at least leave something in the CS to allow modders to fulfill requests for more options.

5. Give consoles the heave-ho for TES:V.* You undercut Oblivion's UI and game depth by catering to those button-mashers. Consider making a discrete ES title and throw them that. Battlespire 2 or Arena 2 for the XBox 360, PS3, wii, and PC. Only eight buttons, an internet connection and a heap of testosterone required. Hell, I'd even buy it for the hand-to-hand wii or Kinect action.

I know that gamesas understands that a construction set is key to continuing fan loyalty. Downloadable content, however, is not. The expansions that you gave us with MW were exactly where its at, not Oblivion's half an hour of content (or less, usually) for 6 bucks. DLC that is hard-coded to be impossible to implement without purchase should be given for free with apologies for not having it ready by release. Horse armor didn't have to go down like that. It's important to everyone that this practice ends.

- Nasotha

* - Stopping a trend can be just as cool as starting one, in my opinion. Consoles are too limited and limiting. Value is king and Daggerfall and Morrowind had it in spades, right out of the box. The Elder Scrolls Construction Set and its huge community of unpaid game developers kept Oblivion a strong seller on the PC by adding value that a console can't offer.

The one important thing to me is to have a story deeper than what Oblivion and Fallout were. Morrowind was a challenge even on easy, whereas these other games were not. I would like to be able to play it for 300 plus hours like I did with Morrowind.

There are already pages and pages of suggestions which I rank highly for what I want in TESV, such as immersive lore, better politics and factions, larger cities more villages and more people etc, so I will put a couple things I think are important that aren't topping the list.

-Better rogue player style options- a new speechcraft/persuasion system would be great as well as a better application of speechcraft. Having a high speechcraft should allow you to seize opportunities in dialogue that leave you with a clear advantage towards achieving a goal, ie. skipping a step in a questline that a low speechcraft player might have to complete. Stealth and most of all AI reaction to player stealth should be more engaging than it was in oblivion. *I also think non-lethal methods of subduing characters are important.*

I also think the option should be given to us for enhanced realism, ie. need to sleep and eat among other things. The need to eat feels especially important to me because the existance of steady expense creates the need for income. I always have a ton of money and should have more to spend it on than repairs and recharging.

I'm just saying the basics(not anything in detail):
.Keep all the stuff that made morrowind and oblivion great.
.Improve AI I want to see a living breathing world in tes 5.
.Improve distant lod,view distance,make us able to see ruins miles away and please let us see all the grass on our screen instead of seeing grass popping up.
.Give us deadly reflex like combat.
.Balance the size of the world and how detailed it is basicly people want a mix between morrowinds detailed landscape and oblivions bigger world.
.Give us the cool shadows you showed in oblivion trailer but left out of the game.

1.) A soundtrack by Jeremy Soule with more variety than that of TES IV
2.) More voice actors, and possibly a way to assure the same person doesn't end up conversing with each other?
3.) A better inventory system, e.g. a way to keep all scrolls in a scrollbook or something.
4.) More interesting/immersive environments
5.) A way to personalize your weaponry. (Designs on swords?)

I don't have a top 5, so I'm just going to list some things I'd be fond of:

Let me train 10 times. Seriously, if I have the money, let me train.

I want more world-interaction. Traveling caravans that you can help protect or raid yourself. Traders with items you can only find with them, who travel from city to city. Sure, you have to explore or you'd never find where you need to go. But right now it's an annoying walk from point A to point B, and my illusion-users just spam a 10 second invisibility... which is essentially a "notarget" cheat.

Voice acting. Hire people off the street to talk into a mic for some minutes if you have to.

Roleplayable classes. Since most people create their own classes to optimize efficiency, make things more viable. Help make warriors less boring. Give rogues, thieves, and assassins more options (because those options run out on Oblivion). Give mages more things to do.

Character creation should be a lot more involved. Take some hints from Saints Row 2.

Clothing! Lots of it. Self-explanatory. I like having my characters feel like my own.

And other stuff.

Agreed, doing a route with a caravan for some money would be great, but I'd like it to be different to the caravans in F3, for example having an unlimited amount so if a particular seller gets killed another one comes in and fills the route.

Exactly.

But not just a one man and his horse caravan, a small group of say four with a wagon (acting as a small portable shop?) traveling. They should be at risk from anything and at you should be able to have access anytime.

I know five was the maximum but I'd also like NPC's to camp if they take a long journey and the ability for the player to set up a camp.

MOST IMPORTANT
1.) Unique Items and treasure/relic placement - Random loot should almost be non-existence. I don’t care if it ruins replay-ability, make it crazy difficult to get to if you don’t want me to have it at an earlier level.

2.) Good story – less self-explanatory but I’d say hire a great writer to team up with the current writers you have now.

3.) Very little Item or Enemy leveling – Geography should determine enemy difficulty. Certain areas will always be easy and safe while others will make short work of you

4.) Excellent/large dialogue trees – Unique characters should be seen or the illusion of unique characters anyway

LEAST IMPORTANT
5.) Better animators – I don’t know if it’s the tech or the people who are screwing this up, but all of Bethesda’s in-house games have had terrible animation.

I imagine it like this: A carriage. Horses and Wheels and all. Several lootable boxes in the back of it. A driver. An archer on the back. Four to Six armed guards walking with it.
You can choose to help wherever you find them (payment based on how long you're with them), or attack them outright.

Helping would random generate bandit enemies during intervals around routes. I imagine full-routes could take 10 to 30 minutes, and you can choose to "opt out" and take your payment for the length of time you stayed with them. Thousands of gold can be netted at the end. Or as low as 20 gold if you leave a minute after being "hired".

Attacking them would of course, easily net a bounty of ~5000+. Although there should be an option with the ability to snipe them all out, to minimalize bounty.

Yes, some should also be carrying specialist items (I wouldn't go as far to say they're as specialist as some in Fallout 3.) But carry specialized loot think like a mini Stonewall Shields, in which they may randomly carry rarer items or forgeries, also the caravan guards should be formidable opponents (not just your average bandit)

1. More enjoyable leveling system. In Oblivion, I found myself getting hit by a goblin for hours just to get that +5 when I level up. It just wasn't fun. If the same system must me utilized, make it flow better.

2. Plenty of fun quests with exciting rewards. There is a point where gold is worthless. A. Make gold harder to get or get creative with the rewards, and B. Don't make me collect 100 tongs. Make me collect 10 statues deep inside Ayleid ruins with plenty os stuff to hit and get hit by.

3. Equipment diversity. I want spears and throwing stars and scythes and more than one top-level armor. Make'em all hard to get, too!

4. Original creatures and environment. I don't want magical white horses with a horns on their heads and humanoid bulls, I want silt-striders! Oblivion lacked originality and creativity. Get TES V an enticingly rich atmosphere.

5. Slightly bigger map, but focus more on depth. Bigger cities, more people, more quests, more options, more freedom, more fun.

6. Training montages.

:rofl: A gold medal, to YOU sir, for the best idea on this thread yet.....

"And anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage (montage)
Even Rocky had a montage (montage)....."

&$#@ Yeah!

No particular order really. They're all essential to a good game IMO.

1. A great storyline, one that is long, lore-expanding, challenging, and takes you all over the game world...As opposed to one that is ignored by all of your characters after you beat it the first time.
2. Freedom to make your character what YOU want. No more prisoner that will not be remembered for being one....What YOU want to be
3. Lots of intricate factions, each with their unique problems and storylines.
4. A better, more natural form of level scaling, or even better, an absence of it.
5. The illusion that you're character is actually living in the world that Bethesda created. The Imperial City as shown in Oblivion, when you consider that it is supposed to be the capital of a glorious and vast empire, is nothing short of a joke.

1. Depth - one of the reasons I loved Morrowind so much was because its story was so well-thought out and interesting, like a book that you couldn't put down. Oblivion's story was okay, but seemed a bit dry to me. I want TES V's story to blow me away like Morrowind's did.
2. Construction Set - I personally am not a modder, but I use them extensively. One of my favorite aspects of Morrowind and Oblivion is the fact that you can change almost anything to suit your style and taste.
3. Text only dialogue - Oblivion's dialogue system was neat at first, but it quickly got old. With Morrowind, I could imagine every individual character's voice while I read their dialogue, like when reading a book. I do wish they had fleshed out the characters a little more with the text dialogue, but if they did this with TES V I think it would be lovely.
4. Lots of quests - Oblivion was disappointing in this area.
5. Immersion - People go on and on about this in the Ideas & Suggestions thread, so I won't bother.

Morrowind was my first ES experience and the thing that always got me was the handcrafted feeling.
I've always played stealth characters and nothing makes a game more enjoyable to me than looking through a bedroom and finding a hidden chest or something underneath an npc's bed.
Or.... a trap door behind some crates, etc. Also, atmosphere is really important because it really immerses the player. So yeah, those are my two cents.