There's probably another thread along this line elsewhere, but I didn't readily see it and it can't hurt to bump a new one up for some fresh input.

One thing I'd like to see is a different approach to the game scaling with level. In Oblivion, I found to be rather unexciting and a bit unrealistic. At higher levels, simple creatures like wolves or rats or goblins were rarely seen. Everyone you encountered in caves, etc, had all the best type(and supposedly rare) armor and weapons and to me this took away from the game a bit. Conversely, you couldn't really test your wits and skill against a foe that was vastly superior. I like being able to go on an adventure to places I know ought not only to meet face to face with a minotaur, and to reap the rewards of exceptionally better equipment and loot should I prove able to out-perform it.

Another thing I'd really like to see is the returning of werewolves, specifically with the risk of becoming infected with lycanthropy. Vampirism is fun and all, but becoming a werewolf was always just more enjoyable. The benefits were good, and the side effects, while very problematic if you didn't pay attention to what happened, were also pretty entertaining. I recall in one of the previous Elder Scrolls installments, a full moon caused you to transform into a werewolf and simply lose control of your character, forced to watch as it ran rampant in search of prey(regardless of how much stronger it may have been) and attempt to ravage it. It also made provisions so that no one was aware you were a werewolf unless your transformation to or from wolf was witnessed, turning them hostile. The occasional band of werewolf hunters arriving to attack you was also rather fun.
While I've read about some of the changes to the magic system, I still like the ability to twist or manipulate spells and effects. I agree that it felt too spreadsheeted before, but being able to mix effects and severity gave you some flexibility to prepare for some situations. Plus is was just really freaking cool to fire an immense(though weak) fireball that you could see erupt from miles away.

On the subject of magic, while it sounds like this is already in the works I'll mention it anyway. Environmental effects would be delightful. A fireball in forest should set bushes and trees ablaze. A blizzard spell freezing a river or lake to make it temporarily possible to walk across, etc etc. It would be nice to have the elemental aspect of magic usable for more than merely combat. Using lightning to clear a tree from your path, frost to free lakes, fire to... uhm... hmm... burninate things. Strictly for convenience sake, of course. Maybe melt a frozen lake out from under opponent or something.

Selling stolen items to merchants would be nice, too. It seemed unrealistic to me that if I were to steal the pewter cup(klepto much?) of someone in city A, that the entire region could recognize that pewter cup as belonging to the Earl of Faildor. If it were his prized one of a kind sword of ultimate oblivion, perhaps. At the very least, I should be able to travel to another city to sell my stolen goods. I can see the merchants of the same city hearing of the theft and being on the lookout, but beyond that I don't understand how every single merchant in the entire region could know of and recognize it.

The last thing I'll mention is size. For the love of all things holy, please keep the game immense. I'd rather have weak graphics and the game mammoth in scale, over looking fantastic but a fraction of the size of it's predecessors. Being able to literally explore areas for hours and find non plot-related foes, stories, and dangers to explore is an aspect of the games I've always enjoyed.

Okay, so. I've ranted on plenty long and if you've taken the time to read all this, well... thanks! What things do you want to see new/different in Skyrim? Or what is important to you that they -don't- change? Please, share your thoughts as well!

I'd like to see NPC interaction with other NPCs, I Highly doubt that a pack of wolves stares at a boar without the intention of eating it.
I'd also like to see more NPCs throughout Skyrim, In Oblivion you'd maybe see a Legion guard once out on the trail, Maybe even horse drawn carages?
Also an advance in techology, Not talking about Cars and Guns, maybe Catapults and Ballista.
I also gave much thought to a Druid type Quest or spell type thing. but thats just random things that flow in my head.

OH! and Also some sence of Authority! In Oblivion, you save the world from utter destruction, you gain a good looking type of weak armor. The Arch-Mage took out Necromancy. When you Gain Arch-Mage, you get a clever box and Altars in your room.

Killable children.

The ability to join the guards or a faction in a war.
That probably happens, actually. But I would LOVE to see it.
LOVE

Spell making
More dialogue with everyone
More armor, weapons, clothes, items in general.

I would like some leveled dungeons, and other dungeons that are not leveled. Certain areas that are leveled, but with the vast majority of the wilderness to be unleveled. I would also, dearly, like to see a return to the cities being in the proper world. Having the separate city cells was annoying.

I am glad to see in one of the screenshots on the website reveal a return to your magic skills affecting whether or not your spell will cast, instead of being automatic. It was really annoying trying to get your skills up to a certain point in order to cast a spell.

Don't start.......in case you didn't know, and Im sure you do. thats not look kindly on the Forums

I'd love to see Bethesda produce a game that doesn't require people like me with a 1 year old computer to need to go buy another new one just to play the game with decent graphics. Sadly, I'm not expecting them to meet that expectation. Other than that, I'd like to see a more in-depth roleplaying system where conversations with NPC's are more than "go get me 5 wallflowers" dressed up in a conversation. I'd also like to see more than one voice actor being used for every NPC of a single race. I got REALLY tired of hearing every bloody Nord female talking with Linda Carter's voice.

Old Falmer ruins and artefacts, like how Morrowind had the Dwemer and Oblivion had the Ayleids

Quests that evolve with time, and a more open style writing format adopted for the story and dialoge.

I'd like to be able to get into houses using windows.

And I'd like to be able to deactivate the (all?) active quest so I can get rid of that compass arrow when I just want to be messing around in the game world.

edit: oh, and weather controlling magic.

I'd love to see werewolves and selling inconspicuous loot to any vendor too.

I probably would have agreed on the immense size > detail until maybe a month ago when I started playing Daggerfall, the game world is ridiculously big and completely devoid of detail, having a world like that makes it incredibly boring to explore and little more than a novelty because after a couple of minutes of aimless wandering and not finding any dungeons you'll just resort to the fast travel and the entire world will seem like little more than a novelty :/

Anyway. A world twice as big as Oblivion's would be perfect.

-Make removing and adding skills moddable in the editor. Also adding new weapon animations possible.

-More visual variety in weapons; Instead of just iron longsword, there could be a couple of different variations of it.

-Armor in pieces like Morrowind.

-SPEARS!

-Seamlessly enterable houses in cities, so you could assassinate someone through their window.

-Store system that's not crap like in Oblivion. How many of you actually bought equipment? All the magic ones are absurdly expensive and they only start selling items a couple of levels after enemies start using them. Maybe a couple of vendor-only sets of armor and weapons that are better than the stuff you find.

Also, the Ability to get rid of Spells, I have so many spells that I actually don't need anymore.

Spears (Halberds), Crossbows, Thrown Weapons.
"Decoy" Spells, Poison-able weapons that you can use and no on will know its you.
Race Type Armour.
More focus on Stealth like players.

Better dialogue (writing quality, choices, voice acting).

Jessica Alba nekkid

In Skyrim Soul Gems like MW.IE you could see what or who is captured in it.

To start things off I'll bring up one of my biggest wishes. Dynamic Birthsigns. I know it may not sound important but let me explain.

In Oblivion I loved the idea of Birthsigns, they made you unique, they gave you cool powers but sooner or later I realised that the birthsigns were only a fraction of what they could be. As I got further into the game I realised that birthsigns were underpowered and a huge waste of potential. They weren't important anymore because you could do everything a birthsign could do and better with practice. Why even have a birthsign if it will be forgotten.

So I thought of this: Birth Sign Evolution. With every level up your birthsign will increase in power some way and for every ten levels you recieve a perk exclusive to your birthsign. This would dramaticaly increase a characters uniqueness and power at the same time. Fans of this great series like me do not want a weak, unimpressive character. We want our characters to feel powerful and original and I hope you guys at Bethesda do too and I believe this is a sure way of doing it. Not only would it be down right awesome it would add huge replay value and it would give fans like me a high I won't come off of for months.

An example of this would be the Atronach Birthsign from Oblivion. I loved it. I loved it. That birthsign made the game so much more challenging and fun but sooner or later I felt unsatisfied because I realised how far it could go and how limited it was. In Oblivion the Birthsign granted a bonus of 150 points toward magicka, no magic regeneration and a 50% chance to absorb spells which was great, it really was but sooner or later it becomes stagnant and stagnant is not good. It remains the same throughout the entire game and loses its flare because anyone can boost there magicka and anyone can absorb spells and as enemies become tougher you need more power to face them. The birthsign can supply that power in a way that only a birthsign can. If birthsigns had evolutions a sign such as Atronach could increase the effectivness of spells by a small amount every level up and every ten levels a perk could be chosen to do things like increase the percentage of spell absorbtion(possibly to 100%) and/or supply another huge boost in magicka capacity. Another perk would be the ability to learn how to use the spells that your character has absorbed. The end result would be terrifiying. A character that can absorb any spell thrown at him/her and throw it back ten times worse with no visible drain on his/her magicka supply. Theres so many ways this can go, it'd be a sensation.

I would really like to see birthsign evolutions in Skyrim it could make things so much more solid. Thanks for all the great games Bethesda keep it up, your games are a part of my life.

If caught while sneeking (whether from attacking or the enemy sees you) you should be able to restealth if you avoid them long enough.

My second wish would have to be increased realism in battle, which I hope Bethesda already has this covered. Still I'll rant. One of the things I didn't like about Oblivion was that you could hit somebody right in the head with an axe and nothing would happen. The opponent would keep fighting like you love tapped em' even if he staggered. I think that if you hit an opponents body hard enough in a certain place that they should be affected by that wound for the entire fight and that body part becomes a weakness that can be exploited. I also think that hitting someone while they are staggered should automaticly be a critical or outright killing blow. This would work well with the 'two hands' approach being used for Skyrim because you could punch somebody in the face, stagger him and immediatly hit him with the sword in your other hand and take them out with a kick ass animation, of course Hand to Hand and Blade skills would have to be up pretty high to take somebody out that easy.

The same can be said for destruction magic used in conjunction with weapons. If you set somebody on fire with a flamethrower spell not only should they stagger they should run around screaming because they are on fire (not charge at you to trying to hit you like in Oblivion), leaving you a perfect opening to take them out. Same with lightning. Electricity causes spasms so if hit with a strong enough lightning spell an enemy should actually fall to the ground or something. Or frost, the magazine mentioned ice spikes and thats better than what we had in Oblivion but it would be cool to freeze someone with an ice beam and shatter them with a weapon or shield. Another element of battle that is not taken into account is bleeding. If an attack gets through armor bleeding should take effect along with the drop in health and drain fatigue at varying rates so if an enemy has lots of cuts but his health is still pretty high it won't matter because he should colapse to his knees sooner or later, giving you the oportunity to do an execution animation (That would be cool). Hand to Hand combat could be really good now that Bethesdas using the two hands approach. Punches drain fatigue as well as cause damage so it would be good if you could hold both hand to hand buttons to grab an enemy and depending on which directional button is held a different move could be performed ie. throw to the ground, headlock, break neck.

I think it would be really gritty and brutal if after you throw an oponent down you could press the grab button again to get on top of them and punch them into unconciousness. Grabs could be limited by fatigue so that if an enemies fatigue is high you can't do a grab so you have to wear them down first. It would also be great if there were weapons built for hand to hand which would bring brand new animations for finishers and grappling moves and this way the weapons designed for hand to hand could be enchanted so that every hit looks really cool and does lots of damage (Imagine a lightning enchanted guantlet that allows you to actually shove your arm through an enemies chest as a finisher or grab). Hand to Hand can be so much better than it is, imagine a character whos primary weapons are a bladed claw guantlet and a long sword. That character could destroy his enemies by utterly wiping out their fatigue bar with the guantlet, knocking down their health with a sword and closing in for a finisher by grabbing them by the throat, lifting them off their feet and putting the sword into their gut, that sounds like a brilliant combination of hand to hand and blades. Shields could also work this way as well, if you press the button your shield is assigned to you can use it as a weapon with variations with the d pad button and if you hold it will be used to defend from attacks(Something far fetched but still awesome is the possibility to actually throw your shield like Captain America by holding shield button and up on d pad or something) I think its so great you guys are using two hands approach, you guys have so much potential it's not even funny.

Bow and Arrows there could be some things done for that too, such as shooting multiple arrows at once when enemies are at close range, like a shotgun. That could be devastating, especially if arrows are poisened or enchanted to explode or something. Throwing knives isn't a big deal but it would still be cool, no, actually it would be cool if you could have the option to throw everything including swords. Back to throwing knives it just seems good for a sneak specialist especially if poisen is used and you can throw like four at a time, it would really give that archetype some of that power it is missing as well as improved mobility. Which brings me to defense and dodging. I think if your agility is high enough and you hold the joy stick in a direction to avoid an attack then we should side step or roll. As for defense I think it would really inspire a gritty feeling if two enemies could lock swords in a test of strentgh and endurance. Fatigue would constantly be drained and who ever runs out first loses the test and suffer a critical blow and strentgh determines how fast an enemies fatigue depletes. This could work awesome with a bladed guantley because while swords are locked you could take the advantage strike, dishing out your critical blow early. Another test like this would be one where both combatants strike fast and hard at each others swords causing sparks and some really intense motions. One last thing I'd like to cover about combat is enchanted arms. I think that enchanted arms should be more powerful, to actually make the player feel unstoppable with the particular weapon. Maybe that weapon has unique animations, maybe it has unique enchantments, maybe it actually talks to you and tells you if enemies or dragons are nearby, maybe you can shove it into the ground and blow up everything around you with an explosion of blue fire. Stuff like that. Once again Bethesda thanks for making games that have become a part of my life. Everything I say is with the hope that I can actually improve or contribute to this great series. Thanks.

skyrim has dwemer ruins!!

DWEMER RUINS! because seriously there is nothing on the lore telling that the dwemer had colonys in skyrim... even tought the trailer show us one.. i would hate if this was the only dwemer ruin ever in the game, only accesible through a quest or so... seriously. i love dwemers dungeons, they are the segund most interesting thing of TES lore... I WANT CONFIRMATION THEY ARE IN AND I WANT TO SEE THEM !

That's the thing though, in Oblivion you really didn't get much indication that you had even hit them in the head. You could guess where you hit them based on your distance from the enemy and the arc of your swing, but there was no visible indication that you'd in fact struck them where you wanted to. All you got was the sound of your weapon hitting, and them crying out while seeing their health drop a bit, and maybe they'd stagger from your blow. I want to see armour have visible denting and scratching during a fight, doesn't have to be anything major even. Maybe just have your strike glance off their helmet if you don't hit them square or something, but give some visible sign that I did in fact hit them where I wanted to. The trailer has put some of these fears to rest though with the scene where the skeleton's head gets chopped with the axe. More realistic combat all around would be great though, and I agree with a lot of what you said.

I want to see the armor worn my Almalexia's personal guards return. I don't care how or why but I want it. And Werebeast. And also realistic flora and fuana, not constructs that only exist to kill you.

Amen to that! Sprinting faster than the pursuer, or hiding in a dark spot or behind buildings while the enemy lost eye contact should give you a good chance to escape, there should be no "lock on target" especially for the damn guards.

Climbing
Minimal or no scaling
Actually massive cities

I would like to see crowds in action. Not only large(r than Bruma) scale battles, but also some rituals, celebrations, riots, public executions.