Game size:
I had a few more thoughts on game size again. Since I already had a few thoughts a while back I'll just http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1032326&view=findpost&p=14977249

But I've been thinking about the actual size of the map, in the old thread I mentioned "It should take about one week in game time to fast travel from one end of the map to the other if you follow the main roads and take regular breaks". Basically walking normal speed (Not running), stopping every night and taking breaks amounting to 8 hours of rest and only following the save main roads without going cross country or taking side paths, that would take about a week to cross the map.

I did a little bit of math, this would amount to walking about 100km (~63 miles) with a regular walking speed of 6km/h (~3.75 mi/h), however you also have to keep in mind that the streets wouldn't be straight but wind through the country, go uphill and downhill and have zones that take more time to cross so my idea on total size was about 60 x 50 km in size (37.5 x 31.24 mi) which IS still a reasonable size seeing games like "Just Cause" and "FUEL".

However it doesn't have to be that big really. As mentioned in the old post, if you take one of the islands from "GTA: SanAndreas" the area would feel about right for a "region". This is mainly based on the northernmost desert part of SA because it doesn't feel too large and inflated but also not too small and like it was just squeezed in there.
So take a climate region (like the swampland, mountains, golden coast... in Oblivion) and make it about that size, that way they are not ridiculously huge but also don't feel as cramped together as they did in Oblivion sometimes.
Plus the bigger they are the more it allows a transition zone in between and, what actually is important, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sceneryporm. I remember that one fake screenshot of TESV with the mountain in the background, that wouldn't necessarily serve much a purpose but it looks more convincing.
Such things are important too but need to be done right, if I remember the cheese melt mountains in Oblivion they weren't really convincing at all.


So in conclusion, what would I say. Of course I'd say "bigger is better" since it simply allows for more but I know it can get hard fast.
My recommendation for size, something between 20 x 15 km and the mentioned 60 x 50 km, drastically different numbers but both still somewhat reasonable.
As for the design problems I'd again go with the mentioned "Unique Landscapes" method, roughly design the complete area, roughly place the areas, determine their size and the total area. Then split into teams, each taking on a unique area and designing it. Then put the pieces together and "blend the edges".

I agree with you only on the overall scale of the world, not the playable area itself. Compared to Oblivion's 4x4 square miles approximately 6x6 km^2, even 20x15 km sounds overly ambitious. However, if the overal scale of the world were kept at 60x50, then the actual "playable" area might only be 20 or so square miles of that area, and the player might be able to fast travel between important cities and their outlying villages. That way, the game wouldn't be constrained to so small a scale, allowing for Bethesda to go crazy with their climates. The problem with Oblivion's environments seeming too generic came from the fact that you could see so far: in order to make the world look "normal," they had to sort of blend everything together nicely: Morrowind has very unnatural climate patterns on a larger scale compared to Oblivion, even though it makes the game seem to encompass a larger area.

Splitting the world into multiple regions would allow future expansions to add in other areas between the smaller regions. You would normally do lots of quests in one region, and then maybe catch a caravan going into another region in order to go somewhere else safely (it makes the most sense: otherwise you'd probably die). This way, the world would seem larger (you might have to wait a few months of ingame time until a caravan leaves), and would give you an incentive to stay in one place for a long period of time. It might also help the introduction of seasons, or at least larger time scales for the game.

Should there be face paint for camoflauge?

Personally I think the game world should be around 200km squared. On bethesdas' standards this is not overly ambitious particularly with umbra.

Maybe an option to smear some mud on, or something? Sounds complicated to add in, though.

Well i did NOT mean zoning the game, i definitely mean keeping it in one big open world.
But imagine this, there's talk of a large canyon in the game but then when the game comes out the canyon is a whole of 10 meters wide... doesn't feel great really. Or they attempt to make it somewhat more realistically sized and suddenly the canyon covers 1/3rd of the whole map. THERE having a bigger total map pays off.

What i meant before with regions and splitting the designers into teams was that they take the TOTAL area of the game, decide "you design there, you design that part..." and then in the end put together what they designed into ONE world again.

On the topic of climate, you could realistically put a permafrost ares next to a jungle, the only difference it needs would be mountain ranges, hight and bordering areas.

I think that TESV should have The Chronicles of Riddike II style fighting, as well as Oblivion's style incorperated into it's fighting.
It would be awesome....... :toughninja:

Indeed. It had always felt weird when talking about them.

I think it would be neat if the designers also named the armor appropriately, such as the difference between pauldrons and spaulders, with spaulders being smaller and exposing the arm holes of the cuirass (leaving a distinct weak spot), while pauldrons are larger and cover the whole shoulder and hole. Chain shirts would be appropriately called hauberks. Instead of "mail boots" one would have chausses.

It would be just a bit more of that smooth TES fluff. Tasty fluffy fluff.

I'm down with that, and some peanut butter.


What do you mean by Chronicles of Riddike II?
If the story order is
Escape From Butcher Bay (& Assault on The Dark Athena)
Pitch Black
Dark Fury
The Chronicles of Riddike

Or do you mean regular people movies, so it's just Chronicles of Riddike?

Jobs? Id like to go fishing like in Zelda Twilight Princess, and sell the fish for septims.

Who says it's Oblivion you need to compare it to? Compare to Daggerfall and 20x15 sounds good, but still too small.
Same with roleplaying elements. Skills, amount of guilds, everything. Dont compare to Oblivion, and then be satisfied if you have the same amount or a tiny bit more.

Haven't played Farcry 2 or any other recent game that's supposed to be big, indluding Just cause an Fuel mentioend, but seems to me upping the size wouldn't be a problem today.

Problem is when you drag consoles into the equation, most every computer nowadays can run anything Beth will throw at them, only problem is making it simultaneously compatible with the consoles, as that is the ulterior motive

It should be set partly in Skyrim, partly in Akivir and you have the oppurtunity to betray Tamriel

I don't see how that would work. Akavir is an entirely different continent that is supposed to be around 5000 miles east of Skyrim's closest border. I don't know much about lore, particularly Akaviri lore, but I suppose you could use the Mage's guild teleportation network, though it would probably cost you 5000 gold for each trip (one-way)

I have no real problem with a "small world", but giving us a "postage stamp" and then telling us that "this is a football field" was just wrong. Oblivion could have taken place entirely on the Imperial Island, and that island could have been expanded to nearly the size of the game area we got (with a credible sized Imperial City), which would have matched its size in the older maps. The rest of the Imperial Province could have been given proper treatment in later games (like TES V), rather than taking on the whole thing in one bite and then having problems with the customers trying to swallow it.

As for Mages Guild transport to Akavir, I believe you need a Guild Guide on each end, and the Mages Guild wouldn't exactly be welcome in Akavir. Until Bethesda can do justice to the rest of Tamriel, Akavir can wait, as far as I'm concerned. We don't need another "mini-continent" that you can cross on foot in a little over an in-game day.

Stealth remains the main thing I'd like to see improved (with another level of AI awareness, like in a true stealth game - see sig).

That said, some may not like to hear this, but I've come to the conclusion that combat will always be flawed in Elder Scrolls, so long as speed stats like agility exist.

For a game to hit that sweet spot where the combat feels just right, the pace of the action has to be spot on. It has to be fine-tuned. When you swing a sword, it should feel like you're swinging it at the *right speed*, not too slow or too fast. Unfortunately, because all of agility stats, you're never going to have timing that feels as natural as a dedicated action game.

The same principle could be applied to walking speed, or jumping height. For most of the game, you either walk too slow or you're speed walking like some kind of freak. You either have a useless hop or you're soaring through the air in a leap that would put Michael Jordan to shame.

Do I think such stats should be removed? Not necessarily, but I do think we'll have to live with the fact that combat will always be flawed. You can't hit that sweet spot in timing that feels just right, when said timing is governed by agility stats that constantly change.

Talking about game size, I want the cities of TES V to be atleast the size of Imperial city, and then the capitol city would be about 2-3 times bigger than IC.

In terms of the land, there wasent really anything interesting to see in cyrodill as you walk through the province. They made it perfect with Fallout 3, with old trucks, cars, ruined houses, enclave outpost, boats, radio towers, watertowers and much more, all over the wasteland. It was good that not every locatios was pointed on your map, and that it doesent allways have to be an interior.

Fallout 3 reminds me a little of Morrowind (please, dont turn this into a Fallout vs Oblivion, just because I said that)

Thats true, I do miss having to fight the gusting wind as I press on towards my destination =)

What if we eliminated the system of levels altogether, and just have it be straight skill increases coming from using those skills?

Agreed, in fact a few mods for Oblivion did that and it worked perfectly smooth, it was FAR less gemaplay interrupting than the game suddenly saying "level up, go sleep" and removed a lot of number crunching.
I'm all for that.

In my opinion, no.

Head
Armet ? Barbute ? Bascinet ? Burgonet ? Cervelliere ? Close helm ? Great helm ? Frog mouth ? Hounskull ? Lobster tail pot ? Mail coif ? Nasal helm ? Sallet ? Spangenhelm ? Kettle hat
Visor ? Falling buffe ? Nossel

Neck
Aventail ? Bevor ? Gorget ? Pixane

Torso
Brigandine ? Cuirass ? Culet ? Plackart ? Fauld ? Hauberk ? Codpiece ? Lance rest ? Loin-guard

Arms
Ailette ? Besagew ? Couter ? Gauntlet ? Pauldron ? Rerebrace ? Spaulder ? Vambrace

Legs
Chausses ? Cuisses ? Greave ? Poleyn ? Sabaton ? Schynbald ? Tasset
Tonnlets ? Bases (both used for tournament)

Component pieces
Gousset ? Lam? ? Rondel

i just copied and pasted this off of wikipediea because personally im sick of all leg armor being called "greaves" or "legs" and all gloves being called "gloves" and "gauntlets" and everything else. we need some variety

Okay, I'm new to this forum thing but I've had an idea and I just have to post it. It's about Fast Travel and making it less awkward/more realistic.
You know the doom stones etc.? Imagine something like that, or stonehenge-like things, scattered throughout the world. (Relatively common though, for ease of access.) They will be portals. You find one and you stand in the centre of it and cast some sort of spell. Then it takes you to a corresponding portal stone where you want to go. I think the problem with this is that you'd get to your destination instantly, which is not always very suitable. So, I reckon the amount of time it would take you to travel there normally should pass. However, the portal stone should magically skip this for you.

This means that you would still have to travel a fair bit yourself through the wilderness (and all that that entails) to get to/from the portal stones. Plus, I think you should have to find or learn about the portal stones first, so you are forced to do loads of adventuring early in the game. Maybe. I dunno.

What do you think?

P.S. I got this idea from 'The Ways' and 'Portal Stones' in the Wheel of Time series of books. If you've read those books you may kinda get what I mean better coz you'll see where I'm coming from.

i dont like that because once it would still be instant travel got there all the way to the other side of the continent instead it should just have mark and recall my idea for that though is that instead of having a spell for that you should have stones that you can place in differnt places being able to buy some for an ass load for or just by good luck find one in a boss chest this way you could have very limited fast travel but still fast travel

Seconded. I'd like a number to represent my time & efforts.