Put the skills from Daggerfall in to TES 5 that would be a cool thing.

Baldurs Gate : Dark Alliance 1&2 has the most mysteriouse tracks ever IMAO. Check it out - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FUMroB4QyQ&feature=PlayList&p=C360FE9B1924F967&index=19

I'd have to say no here, Daggerfall had a interesting skill list but it wasn't necessarily good. Some where OK but definetly not all of them.

What the game needs is NOT a "Put those back in and remove those", it need a comple overhaul.
I mentioned it a while back, the skill need to be sorted by their handling and function. For example, small axes and clubs can be in the same category. But not small and large axes, they handle totaly different so it doesn't make much sense to put those together.
Or alchemy, instead of being meshed up with other magic it should rather be in a similar category as a cooking skill.

I'm still working on a revised skill list but it still need some work, I'll just say it MAY look overly long and complicated and it's NOT that easy to divide as they ones in Morrowind and Oblivion but it makes a lot more sense.

I think I will sig this.

Now back to the underworks with me. :bolt:

Speaking of double posts... whats so bad about consolidating skills?

Having a bunch of tiny skills for every little thing would svck because many of them would end up being completely useless.

The point of having only several skills is to have them all be useful.

On the music once more.

A big probem with typical fantasy music is that it's slow, deep and dragging and tries to make up for that by being BOMBASTIC. But that makes it sound pompous and not driving.

You just hear the LotR "big scene" music everyhwere no matter of it it fits or not.

A little note to "Jeremy Soule" there, man look back at what you did for Secret of Evermore. That music ROCKED, it was never boring or dragging... back to the roots.

^ I find the music in Morrowind and Oblivion to be better in that regard. Funny how I love the soundtrack in these two games, yet his work in other (comparable) games are mostly "meh".

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1k7tv2HPmw.

has anyone ever considered lute music? or something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAiE-txajao? or maybe if you visit a busy town thered be fiddle-style violin music? maybe something like stronghold 2's (love that game btw) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvHVR5bjs78 i know runescape did a pretty good job with their lutists.

Some thoughts on the mercantile system:

1. Get rid of Oblivion's cap on what a merchant can spend per item--it makes no sense--and bring back Morrowind's maximum total daily budget.

2. For items more expensive than what a merchant can spend in a day, there should be an option (for at least some merchants) to sell to them on credit. Example: You have a sword that a smith is willing to pay 6000 for, but he can only spend 1500 a day. Leave the sword with him, come back in four days (without selling him anything during that time) and he gives you the 6000.

3. Expensive items should become cheaper as they become more common. That first Daedric sword the player finds might be worth 20000, but after he's raided enough ruins to retrieve thirty of them and dump them on the market, the price should drop drastically.

4. No matter what, most characters will accumulate vast hoards of cash sooner or later. There should be something meaningful for them to do with all that money. There's always bigger and better real estate, but not everyone's interested in that as an end in itself. Perhaps some side quests which are only triggered if you buy that oversized, overdecorated mansion in the ritziest part of town. . .

What's wrong with consolidating skills? Fable and Fable 2. Railroad character progression vs unique character development.

As long as the skills are useful for some gameplay advantage within the economy, combat, magic, social and navigation systems then I'm fine with more skills.

And while we're talking about skills having multiple weapons types provide multiple weapon type gameplay differences might make them less prone to needing consolidation. Take blunt vs blade in Oblivion: blunt confers minimal differences than using blade except worse end-game weapons. The enhanced staggering effect vs the slower speed is not a good payoff. If blunt was useful vs the undead for instance it might make it a better candidate for having different skills. As it stands in Oblivion, there should have just been a melee skill.

I'll repeat this again, because it bothers me to no end: I'd really like skills/abilities to be able to be raised above maximum, even if there's diminishing returns. It bothers me that my Redguard's adrenaline rush gets less and less useful the more powerful I get, among others. I've also said before that I think racial modifiers to abilities should affect the maximums. This would make those races with the initial bonus to whatever ability the best race to pick instead of all becoming similar in the end (excluding magicka). Why nerf all of the other classes racially but give benefits only to magic use?

I think that Elder Scrolls is a fantasy game and not an economy simulation. Thats why I would rather want to discourage the player from picking up stuff just to sell it. Instead, they should search for the treasure chest in the dungeon and find money / rare magic books / valueable armor, weapons and jewelry in it. Thats way more heroic than collecting all kinds of crap.

Sorry but then you have a very limited view of what a fantasy game is.

TES is a open world SANDBOX RPG, that means it's not limited to the "typical fantasy hero" stuff.
You CAN make your "fortune" as a thief, starting out as a petty thief and slowly working your way up.

Besides, NOT being able to pick up little things does feel horribly fake, i recntly played the demo for "Risen" and you're quite limited to what you can interact with. When there's a bag lying around and i can't pick it up to see if there's anything inside it there is a feeling of "limitation".

As for economy simulation, that's what's missing to make the world more believeable. It doesn't have to be 100% realistic but I'd rahter play ing a game world that at least ries to be somewhat believable instead of one just catering to standard cliche "hero vs force of EVIL" fantasy... sadly, with Oblivion, TES seem to hav slowly gone down that path, I hope they get back to their senses and make TES more unique again in the future.

100% agreed with everything you've posted here. I'd like the economy revisited so that I could try my hand at mercantilism as well, Obivion was terrible for this compared to earlier installments. There was no way you could make even the slightest margin of profit by trading between towns or merchants no matter what your personality, speechcraft and mercantile scores were. Way to waste those stats.

And to add to what you've said, because you can pick something up doesn't mean you have to: it's an invitation, not a obligation.

Besides, who wants to be heroic on every character? I hate to mention it two posts in a row, but the Fable series (among others) doesn't give you an option but be heroic on every character. Guess which game has more replay value and variety of replay between Fable 2 and Oblivion?

The Elder Scrolls series goes the distance in letting you be the antithesis of heroic with backstabbing, poisoning, theft, and cold-blooded murder. Even Bioware RPGs are sadly lacking in the free roaming offerings that TES series provide.

BioWare is the epitome of linear RPGs. A whole different beast. Yes, I prefer TES.

TES doens't really have much competition, at least not something that's too comparable. There's just nothing to comparable in terms of open world, free choice and open character design.
There might be the Gothic series but they actually are on a quite different level having harder predefined character paths and no character creation.

I'd actually wish there was more competition on that field, would spawn more POSSIBLY good games and, if not, at least give Beth a kick in the butt to TRY to do better. Like this they pretty much have the monopoly on the field ove opne worls danbox RPGs that are NOT MMOs.

I would like a smaller gameworld but with more 'stuff' in it. Replace acres of empty grassland with little built-up villages etc.

But the large world feel of Oblivion really gave, at lest me, the feeling that there was more to the land than just the civil population. The acres of grassland, forests, mountains and water allowed me to immerse myself in a nother world and feeling like it was another place becasue it was big and not just cities. Why would you wish this to chage?

I posted two longer posts on game size a bit ago so just onna link back to them:
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1032326&view=findpost&p=14977249
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1041304&view=findpost&p=15136679

Those are the main reason why i am for a even bigger game world, imagine actually being able to get LOST in forrests for example. Plus bigger fields make the gameworld more believable again. Larger towns with many settlements can increase diversity in setup and look of towns.

I apologise for not reading both your linked posts, they are far too long for me to read at this time as I'm busy, but I agree with you. The feeling of being lost would really add to the effect of a large world. That's why I alwasy loved walking or riding bewteen towns and cities, but would it be possible? Would it not require such an advancment in gaming tech for this and would it be able to run on systems?

Oh it IS possible and it has been done:

Daggerfall -> biggest landscape YET, randomly generated but about twice the size of great britan - released 1996
Just Cause -> biggest full 3D landscape up to that point with 1025km? - released 2006 (just shortly after Oblivion)
FUEL -> biggest full 3D landscape YET with 14400km? - released mid 2009

They are not exactly good examples of detail but that is really a question of work put into it and NOT the game size itself.
I did mention in the other posts that they should create a rough game are, split it up in sectors, give each sector to a team and then let them design it. In the end they put them together, see which fit and which need to be adapted, smooth out the borders and make them flow over into each other and they have it. It DID work for the Unique Landscapes mod and look waht that tickled out of Oblivions boring landscape, and those where "just" modders.

PS: While the game worlds size does play a role in technology there are a lot of ways to make up for that now, there's better automated level of detail scaling now and, well, best click that UMBRA link in my signature if you don't know it already.
So it's not like the CPU would have to deal with the EVERY detail in the huge world constantly but actually intelligently know which parts need more and which less detail.

Hmm, I can see what you mean, but most of the exsamples did not have as much detail on the landscapes itself, even though they were vast. (although I don't know about Daggerfall.). Also, what would this mean for loading times?

Uhm i DID mention the details bit in the lower part of the post


And as for the loading times, of course it would take a bit to load such a large landscape, that IS a "technical" problem, but as for the load times IN game, i did mention that in an addition to the prevous post

• Allow enchanting and spellmaking to be used without restrictions. Bring enchantment back as a skill, and have both enchanting and spellmaking as open services to the public.

• More apparel slots, including separate pauldrons and gauntlets. Please, Bethesda, if you listen to nothing else, listen to this!

• Add havok-ed capes.

• As ThatOneGuy said before, make the caves to have a more vertical sense. In Oblivion, caves are cut and dry, and shaped like squares and rectangles, with no interesting architecture. Making cave ceilings higher is a start, then add more interesting aspects. Morrowind and Fallout 3 did pretty well in this. Continue to make it better.

I know what you mean about immersing in another world. Yes, a big gameworld definitely helps with that. I spent so many hours walking through Cyrodiil it's not even funny lol. But I felt a lot of the space could have been utilised a little better. Sometimes I wished there were more than just grass and trees. I thought that perhaps reducing the size of the world but putting more stuff in it would help with that.



If they could get away with actually increasing the size of the gameworld AND filling it with more locations, settlements, places to explore etc I would definitely be up for that. I have no idea about the technical limitations, but I just assumed that in order to fit more explorable locations in they'd be forced to reduce the overall size of the gameworld.

There is a lot more. There are mountains and grasslands and swaps. One part of Cyrodiil is diffrent from the other.