Episodic gaming. *shudder*. We all hate to love it *points at Half-Life 2* but maybe this could be a good idea for Bethesda to look into. Here's my idea.

The Chronicles of Tamriel
Mods like "Tamriel Rebuilt" and "Morroblivion" are generally very popular due to people wanting to paly in the rest of Tamriel rather than being confined to just a few areas. Bethesda could take advantage of this by episodically making a huge game that develops into a playable Tamriel. It could be along the lines of this:

Episode One - Valenwood & Elsweyr


Episode Two - Black Marsh & Mainland Morrowind


Episode Three - Skyrim & High Rock


Episode Four - Hammerfell & Summerset Isle


Episode Five - Vvardenfell & Cyrodiil


Episode Six - Massive content addition - requires all previous episodes. Adds a new main quest that will see you travelling all across Tamriel. New areas and quests in each previous areas. Could have some really cool features such as finding an old Frostcrag Spire, or having people reminice (did I spell that right?) about the respective heroes of each game (or maybe include these features in the original episodes)

Each episode includes a main quest. Notice that (almost) every pair of locations are next to each other for easy transportation, but there are loads of travel links (teleportation, silt striders, boats, levitation, NO FAST TRAVEL! >:[ )

Also, it should be noted that these are NOT seperate games; it works like the Morrowind and Oblivion Data Files system. This game would be great for modding, and Bethesda can really get it right this time. They know for sure what the community does and doesn't like.

So, whaddaya think?

That's probably what they plan on doing, or what they want to be able to do, even if technology, budget, and, with the amount of time it will take to produce such a game, world politics, don't let them. Although they have already done something that has a similar idea, and that is Arena.

:vomits: No. No episodic gaming. Curse you, Dreamfall! I'm still waiting for the end of the cliffhanger. >:(

Also, a no to the idea in general. I don't trust Bethesda would do each province justice. Heck, they didn't make even one Province, Cyrodiil, exciting and unique. If they have to split their resources to work on a zillion little landmasses for each province, then they'll be reduced to the equivalent size of a college campus with a population of twenty.

This probably belongs in the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1054161

Not to be a complete jerk (i screw up all the time) here is where you went wrong buddy. NO ONE and i mean NO ONE is going to want to play chronicles of Tameriel that has not played TES before! Imagine all of the trouble of searching for support for your chorniclized game :spotted owl: Bethy if your reading this stick to your normal awesomeness and make TESV whenever you feel like it because nobody's wants an
Un-Bethesda-Ized tes game. (its not even possible with todd there) .

It sounds like it would be nice, but it's things like that that compelled Bethesda to create the construction set in the first place. Beth knew that it couldn't do everything in the time that the fans (us) want it, so they give us the "Do it Yourself" option. It could work if Beth wanted to re-open the TES: Adventures and TES: Legends series, but outside of that, I'd keep it with the veteran community moddifiers and ambitious upstart modders to attempt and have fun with. Beth's views are nice, but there are times where the fan-base can do it just as well or better (I.E. Tamriel Rebuilt, better bodies [for Morrowind], the [unfortunately illegal] Morroblivion)

I wouldn't like an episodic format. Bethesda doesn't have as mcuh time time nor freedom to play around with new engine technology, gameplay elements, and general other revolutionary concepts with an episodic format. I mean, they could (like Valve did - the original intended model to continue HL2, "Aftermath", looked awful), but what would be the point?

I'd rather have several games, each devoted to a separate province, each distinct from the other not only in setting but also from different engine features and skill systems, than sit around waiting for Bethesda to throw us a new location with new quests. Not saying this is the way it has to be, but open-ended RPGs just aren't the proper genre to handle this sort of thing.

Arena wasn't an episodic game at all, though, it was one full game that let you visit every province. And it should be noted that it wasn't nearly as detailed as Morrowind and Oblivion, even taking into account how technology has advanced since then, I don't think Bethesda could pull off the same thing within a reasonable development time frame while keeping a level of detail that would be satisfactory to modern gamers.

But anyway, I don't like the idea. Aside from the fact that I'm not such a big fan of episodic content (I like to buy my games as a complete package that offers all the intended content, with maybe a few expansions to act as addons, I don't want them divided into multiple small pieces.), it might well take as long to create episodes as some full games take to develop. Keep in mind that, while the core mechanics and engine would be already completed, Bethesda would still need to create the content for each individual province from scratch, this includes not only new quests, dialog, locations, characters and such, but lots of new models and textures, since there's no way say... Skyrim and Argonia could be believably created using all the same assets. If Bethesda were to design each province with the care and attention to detail given to full games, it would be more worthwhile to just make full games. And if Bethesda were to go that route, unless they learned a lesson from Valve with Half-Life 2's episodic content by incorperating technological updates into each new episode, by the time it was all done, the engine would be horribly outdated, and by that time, players may in fact have lost interest in the game (Yes, I know this hasn't happened with Morrowind or Oblivion, but for that we have the modding community to thank, and I don't think modeling a business strategy around the assumption that your game will keep people interested far longer than most games is the best idea.) Ultimately, I think it would be better for Bethesda to just focus on new games.

In short, episodic media should stay on TV, it just isn't a good idea for video games.