First of all, every single Fable was a disappointment as Peter Molyneux over-exaggerates everything. The game was never what he claimed it to be. There was nothing ever really complex about Fable either. In fact, when the first one came out, I was just disappointed in how poorly it compared to Morrowind.

Secondly, we need to be careful with the term "simplifying." What BGS is doing is "refining" their games and removing useless components that add nothing to the player experience. A perfect example is the removal of mysticism (or whichever school of magic it was). There was no point in having a school dedicated to this particular aspect of magic, so it was removed and the skills were moved into the other schools. By getting rid of unnecessary clutter, they can make a better quality game that makes more sense. It also allows BGS to make more content that is of high quality that does add to the experience.

Thirdly, most of the armor and weapons in Mass Effect 1 were pointless and took up space. While it was nice to have a progression curve of sorts, playing through the game twice gave the player the best spectre armor and weapons, and everything else was useless. I think Mass Effect 2 took a nicer and more practical approach.

Hopefully they don't radically overhaul the Bretons, no in all seriousness I'd be really disappointed if Skyrim was just like every other RPG out there. We don't need the game to act like Fable or Mass Effect. Skyrim needs to be unique and it needs to be good which I think it will be.

Life is full of clutter. What would a city be without tens of thousands of objects to fill it? What self-respecting store has an inventory of five goods? What sort of galaxy-saving, citadel sanctioned hero only has a handful of weapons to choose from? Sterilizing a game for simplicities sake kills off depth that makes it feel that much more alive.

Remove core content

Look what happened to Sims 3. :shakehead:

Especially since Sims 1 and 2 had the charm and heart which made them fun and enjoyable. Sims 3 seems to be missing that, which resulted in a disappointing and boring gameplay.

You're cool. :cookie:

He has a handful of the "best" weapons/armor to choose from. He is a spectre after all. Again this isn't simplifying, this is refining the game to be of better quality. Why do you think BGS took out so many of the weapons in Morrowind? They were ultimately useless and were doing nothing for the game. BGS wants to have weapons that make sense, work well with the game, and not just in there for the sake of having a lot. Quality >>>> Quantity. This has always been the case, and this will never change. If BioWare just blindly followed what the fans wanted, we would have Morrowind 3.0 with lots of weapons, lots of armor, all these supposed "quality" features, but most would be useless and they wouldn't have depth.

Oversimplification can be a killer. I have an excellent and relative example too. Recently, Civilization 5 was released and much to the chagrin of loyal Civ fans, its promises of 'streamlining' ate away at many of the amazing factors that made the previous installment, Civ4, so great, leaving only a hollow shell of a game which, whilst very pretty in art decoration and innovative in some ways for the series, was but a husk of the previous Civilization games. Fans were outraged and dissapointed, with many simply going back to Civ4. The series, once one of the most reputable of the gaming world, lost a lot of respect and prestige.

Now, that example provides an unfortunate reminder of the risks involved in simplifying the experience to appeal to a broader base. "Streamlining" and appealing to the "mainstream". That said, I have zero fear that the same will happen with Skyrim. We know Bethesda, and have seen how much they love their flagship series and how much dedicate and effort they put into it. They know what's right for The Elder Scrolls; I trust them and am not worried in the least bit



Thank you for the excellent link; it has been bookmarked. (See what I did there? Noun turning into a verb?)

The worst possible thing Bethesda can do to Skyrim?

Strip out chunks of the game, package them up as "DLC" and sell us access codes to the content we already have.

This.

The worst thing they can do to skyrim is to make it linear, as most of nowadays games suffer greatly from that.

Now linear doesn't neceserly mean bad BUT in TES's case it will surely do

There is also a lower limit, though, I would think. It's nice that Quality > Quantity, but it is possible for quantity to get too low. Than you lose any sense of variety and it's all the same. For example, if they spent all their time trying to make really high quality one handed swords and ended up cutting out axes, maces, bows, etc. Sure, you have some really nice swords that fight very well, but that's it? That would not be good.

yeh it would svck if Ubisoft make TES

Oh man dlc...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM_V1P1ud1s&feature=related

This is thrown around way too much. The two are never mutually exclusive.



That's all well and good for something like a linear first person shooter, but the games we are talking about are supposed to be representations of living, breathing worlds. Having 300 different weapons, 270 of which you'll never use, does nothing to harm gameplay. Borderlands had a near infinite number of weapons, and its gunplay was great. They simplified the hell out of everything else though, which is why it gets very boring very fast. Why refine a game if all you're doing is sterilizing what should be a dirty, messy, populated word? Gameplay is not served well by a universe that feels empty.

As for Shepard's choice in arms and armor, I find it hard to believe that in a galaxy-spanning civilization, there were only about 10 "amazing" guns to pick from on the market. In-fact, in ME1, the M8 rifle is pretty generic and standard issue.



You're quite welcome.

That's why the development team increases so they can maintain quality while increasing quantity though.

People may think the game is getting smaller. But really it's quite the opposite, as it grows in other ways. It all depends on perception and what one is talking about.

I don't think that's the case with Skyrim.
Regarding your comment about ME2,you are wrong.
There are shops in ME2,and many of them actually.
Don't you remember Shepard promoting shops in the citadel for discounts ?
"This is commander Shepard and that's my favourite shop on the Citadel"
And I liked the fact they removed all those "guns" and "armor",because let's face it: Different armor and guns at ME1 didn't even had their own meshes and textures.
You would only see different names with differents stats,but on your hand it would always be the same sniper rifle model as always.
They had to make either over the hundred of 3d models or just give the player 1 assault rifle,pistol,1 grenade launcher etc..
The only change that was bad at ME2 was that the game featured too much corridor shooting.

One thing to consider is BGS never goes into their next installment thinking "what was our previous game lacking and what should we add?" When they start a new game, they go all the way back to the drawing board, completely rebuilding everything up from scratch. Part of the reason each TES game is so different yet great in their own ways is because of this method BGS uses. These aren't just stereotypical sequels like CoD or Halo. These games are fundamentally different and BGS changes how they approach each and every one. Options and selections are good, but only if they actually add to the experience in my opinion. Ultimately, everyone is going to gravitate towards the best items anyways, and everything else will just be pure clutter. Ultimately BGS just needs to find a medium, and it seems that Skyrim will have more armor selection than Oblivion did by just what they have already shown us.

I think that's where we differ. I my opinion, variety is an experience in itself. Which is why I keep calling the refinement process sterilization. I find the trend disheartening.

Another thing to consider is the NPC armory. Why are they limited to the same 5 weapons as well? They come from different planets, cities, cultures, and associations, but they all use the same 5 guns. I recall ME2 having a bit of dialogue addressing this, but I think it's the wrong way to go about things.

Skyrim's bandits should come at me with the most diverse array of makeshift weaponry known to man. I may know the one weapon I want to use, but why let my choice limit theirs?

The fear of them making it boring, repetitive and cheesy. The eye and ear candy I know they will deliver, the rest... we′ll just have to wait and see.

The worst possible thing they could do is give us a spikey-haired hero with big eyes and a giant sword that no human could possibly wield. Then make him spend all day racing giant chickens.

I think that one of the worst things that COULD happen is the lack of voice actors like in oblivion. Yeah the Patric Stewart and Sean Bean was pretty cool but I would have sacrificed their price for a larger amount of Lower profile voice actors. Another thing would be cities that don't "regenerate" after dragon attacks. I don't want to loose quest givers and have ghost towns and I don't want to see broken buildings weeks after the disaster when the cities looks so cool, Kavtch the 2nd would be for me, game breaking.
I think we all know that the game isn't going to be "Dumbed Down" adding in a more complex combat system and the introduction of Trade skills to name a couple.
Someone above spoke about Black Powder Weapons- HELL NO! IMO The idea of Guns in Fantasy Steal the magic away from it, and with Magic why on earth would you make a gun, its unreliable less diverse, and for those not so magically gifted a bow is a lot cooler (Crossbows would be cool as well though) . Also Musketeers are LAME and if I wanted to Play guns I'd hop on Bad Company 2.
As for culture Each Town looks vastly different and there will be bards from what I've seen so far, Vastly Superior to that of Oblivion where the deepest it went was statues with stories, building models and that meeting Tree in Chorrol.
Which leads me to: What Has Been Confirmed That I Don't Really Like The Sound Of. Firstly, Being able to fast travel from the main map. In an article about the menus, it stated that you can in fact zoom out and inspect different parts of the map, which sound quite cool, but it did mention fast traveling in the map section. Hmm more oblivion style fast travel , I think that Morrowind style fast travel was great but I hated oblivions, and yes people say you don't have to use it but you always end up using it. And finally level locking on dungeons. When I'm level 30 and and I've Cleared Most Dungeons in the game I'm gonna to want to go back and visit old ones but it wont be worth while unless they creatures and loot are level 5.

Those all too common little interactive cutscenes where you have to press certain buttons on command to succeed

After the nightmare that was Fallout: New Vegas (yes i know this was Obsidian and not Bethesda) the worst possible thing that could be done is to release the game without making sure it works! I spent numerous hours on at least 4 different characters, only to have them ruined because Obsidian released a game that was completely broken. Personally this is what will make or break the game for me, whether or not Skyrim works. The amount of glitches, bugs, invisible walls, and how man times I get stuck on the terrain. Im hoping Bethesda has the smarts to make sure the game works correctly BEFORE they release it, and then release patches to fix minor issues. Thats what patches should be there for, there to fix minor problems, not to debug and fix the entire game. However Im pretty confident in Bethesda's development team, im sure that there won't be any major holes or at least no game breaking elements.

BGS never releases broken games first of all. That's just bad for business. While I will agree New Vegas did have some glitches that should have been ironed out, it didn't exactly ruin the game. It would have been one thing if you couldn't actually complete the game, but overall the only thing I really saw were the occasional rad scorpions walking under the terrain.

agreed in full