well, if we're just talking a FEW references, the previous games have been pretty good with that.
using things like maps, books, NPC dialog, ect.

One example of this partially happening has always been katanas and wakasashis, which, although most likely not from Akavir (as the invasion was many many hundreds of years ago), they do represent outside influences (even though they are now made locally).

We saw the effect of outside influences in Morrowind, where the odd, tribal, Temple bound Dunmer clashed with the clean cut, Roman-esque, straight forward Imperials. A great visualization was present in Sadrith Mora, with one side a classical castle fortress, surrounded by guards in classic Roman style armor, and the other a labyrinth of twisting mushroom plant towers and guards clad in golden bone armor, wearing the bodies of insects to cover their visages.

The clash brought the world to life. The player realizes that the world isn't just what was visible and visitable; it was much, much larger.

I want there to be as many references as can fit withing the packaging. I just don't want them to dance around in your face going "look, its a reference" unless it is a very specific easter egg, like M'aiq or a fishystick. But more than that I want the tie-ins to add to the game world, due to the contrast while retaining relevance, and not point to the largeness of the culture but rather surround the player with the culture; if that made any sense.

I'm going to bump this with another rant. Geared more towards mechanics that work within the world.
Less humor this time around.

One benefit that I really hope for in Skyrim is that perks really have the importance that is being taken from the impact of different skills. I can see the connection between one handed coordination and two handed coordination, but, the ability to realistically specialize across a wider spectrum in order to compensate for a wider varying class system of previous games. I fear that specifically honed classes may be passed up for more generalized classes, which are almost constricted between the perks and leveling, instead of a...savant approach, to specialties. For instance (and I will use attributes in this example though I know they may have been left out of the new game, also MW is an example out of experience so please dismount from your soapboxes before replying to this part)...and to my point: For instance I could chooses two skills under 5 different attributes in MW and those skills widely varied but as they determined my level I could excel at each and every one to create a truly unique class tailored to many different situations, and even specific situations very well. It was my standard utility class that kicked ass, and still was not involved in power leveling (something which I do hope is gone in Skyrim). With the tighter skill trees this uniqueness might be lost, as specializing in a two handed, one handed, magic, stealth, etc. That process has the potential to degrade the class as you level do to bad perk creation and availability. Unfortunately Fallout is the most recent example of perks, many of which seemed indefinite in their impact other than the titles and how that carries to the "player class". But Oblivion also had perks, and I certainly wish that the magic perks are better than (Illusion specifically) "congratulations, on grinding the first 25 levels, now grind 50 more levels with these slightly more advanced spells that are divided into another level of an integer system imposing on a gradual growth system until you can paralyze something". I may have been disappointed by that. Then there is NV, which I have not played but may have been great; but was also created by another developer. All in all I am on the fence about how the perks will impact the character creation system, and all I can do is hope.

With experience and feedback from these three games, as well as a constant tug from the older crowds, I hope that Beth will be able to sit down and create a truly immersion game. I hope that it has more to offer us, aside from the past experiences, other than the things DA, Fable, or DM offer. With that sentence I mean that I hope things from the past which were functional but not shiny were developed and improved instead of being cut and replaced simply for market stealing and competition. I don't think Beth should compete on the level of those developers. I think they should blow them out of the water because they make a world and mechanic system vast enough so the player can get lost, and define the game for themselves.

Hope you can appreciate what I am saying here.

Yeah, one of the main reasons I liked Cobl so much was that it added so much flavour. I rarely bother taking all the food and clutter I see, but I like seeing it, I like the fact that it exists and that if I wanted that apple pie or whatever, I could have it if I wanted to. I love mods that add more stuff like that, when I saw the sheer amount of food alone that was added by Cobl, I was ecstatic. I almost never had a use for food in Oblivion, but I liked the fact that it was present in the game world, it made the world feel so much more alive.

Now this is the kind of rantings that I'd like to see. Post more plz.

Geat post. I somewhat agree on your original point, although I felt Morrowind did that to a good extent if you consider the reclusive nature of Dunmer and the fact that Vvardenfell was an island. In Oblivion, I expected much more, but was largely dissapointed. Keep in mind however that Skyrim is a geographicaly remote area, with a strong and distinc culture (unlike the multiucultural Cyrodil), and is also quite hostile and impervious to Mer influence. Also, with the state of the empire being what it is, I expect trade, travelling and cultural exchanges to have decreased dramaticaly. So to not have much news and influences from the other provinces would make some sense. Your banana plantations would probably be destroyed by wars or financial collapse and the few shipments would get intercepted by bandits, dragons or who knows what other monstrosity. I am optimistic that Beth will get the right ballance on this though, they are generally very good at this sort of thing. By the way, I believe even people who don't know the lore can apreciate this level of detail, even if they don't realise it straight away. In fact, few fans realise the complexity and level of detail for example Morrowind had, but most would agree that the world "felt" great for some reason.

As to your second point. It is the same for classes as it is, I imagine, with magic. We will never have the degree of freedom we had in Morrowind because Beth are looking to ballance combat, and that means a lot more control and a lot less freedom. Take levitation for example. The way I understand the "new" system, they are trying to move away from the generalist paradigm of the previous games where you could end up being a master in everything, and force the player to make meaningfull choices when leveling up, by introducing something similar to the "oportunity cost" concept in economics. That means more or less than when you choose something, you're missing out on something else - wich isn't an entirely unrealistic idea. I never felt entirely happy with the fact that my character would eventually end up having 100s in all his skills. I just can't imagine a wizard that dedicated all his time to mastering the arts of magic would also be the best swordfighter, armorer, martial arts guru...It also adds so much replayability to the game, simply because you can't explore every potential aspect of your character in one playthrough.

Perks are a great way to make a character more customisable along the way, as opposed to having to make major decisions when creating your character (major/minor skills, birthsigns...). They also make the leveling experience much more rewarding. Personaly, I won't make up my mind on the new system untill we know all the details (including perks etc), but for the time being I am cautiously optimistic.

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O_o

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Okay...

Beautiful reference there :foodndrink:

Yes I agree.


And from that I have another tangent.
I realized that Beth has their own game to make, which is partially why I avoided specifics except for comparison. I want to put out my own words of caution, though, before we get more new systems that happen to be broken. In the end all of my suggestions and rants can be boiled down to balance*. Something that, realistically, no one here can dictate or comment on except in terms of the past, because we do not receive comprehensive information about the development process. And rightly so. Lastly, and again on a slightly different tack, these subjects surface mostly after a good amount of hype has consumed many related sub-topics. I hope everyone can cut down on the hype they feed into conversations.

* and that is largely subjective because by the term I mean both balance between game world v game story as well as balaced-ish skill/class systems and again with economy...
Its a transcendental term with me.
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Its what I do. :toughninja:

Hold on a second there,

I guess you didn't notice that in ESIV there is beef, but no cows. There's cheese but few milk herds (only sheep). There's glassware, but no glassmakers. Furniture, but no woodworkers. Candles but not a single candlemaker. The list goes on. It's pretty clear that the majority of things in Cyrodiil are either imported or repurposed (e.g. the Imperial City is just a refurbished Ayleid ruin). This gives me the impression that Imperials are genuinely lazy people. This is why they have the bureaucratic nexus of the empire; lazy, lazy, lazy. They couldn't even come up with a name for the capital of the entire bloody empire. Seriously: what's the Imperial City's name? The Imperial City. The only shepherd I saw in the game was Argonian. The smiths? Redguards, Argonians, Dunmer, Orcs and Nords - even a Bosmer apprentice. The two great vintners of Skingrad are Breton and Redguard. It's almost like the Imperials talked themselves out of every hard working job there is. I don't mean to sound like a racist, but the Imperial culture is heavily burdened by bureaucratic laziness. Either bureaucrats or guards. You know that people who do guard work are not the most ambitious people. And thier race specific power? Get this: absorb fatigue! What! They're worse than those shiftless Khajiit, at least those cats can dig hard labour.

/fictional racism

It's pretty obvious that there are imports, even if they are simple design oversights or time sensitive omissions. But who knows, this could all be actually intended subtext.

I always wondered what was with the beef and no cows. I hope we see some in this game or I will have to learn how to model and texture and do animations. And I always wondered why there was so much stuff that had no source like the candles and other stuff you mentioned. From a technical standpoint because it would have added quite a bit to the game to make candlemakers and woodworkers and such. But gameplay-wise it is irritating.

:lmao: same here. As far as I understand you want a bananas smuggling organisation

Hammering away but you didn't quite get the nail on the head.

This very much relates to a thread I started earlier, but no one bothered respond to.

It's a matter of putting the World before the player. We need to just be a piece of the World, while it moves along, ancient bananas and all. Trade routes, ships coming and going with sailors from all over the World, exotic perfumes and clothing coming to the Skyrim markets. Things that makes us feel like there's a moving, living World out there. Not just a secluded northern country walled off from the rest of the World by a mountain range.

It might put a bit of a stop to trade with a civil war going on and all, but still. It's the principle that matters, and it can be done in other ways than trade.






Mmmm, ancient bananas. :flamethrower: Flame broiled.

It so strange that all these things are imported yet there are no roads into Cyrodiil, and only one port.

The Oblivion manual describes them as shrewd diplomats and traders. The reason they import everything is just that. They are all off buying other goods and bringing them to Cyrodiil, beccause said lazy people on wineries and smithees refused to build them roads or port's for trrading so they all left to get stuff.

It's making it feel less like a game world that exists for the benefit of our player, and more like an actual world that we are visiting.

This is somewhat more difficult because we're continually made into the "savior" character instead of a hero who is really nobody special, and because the storylines have been so linear in the last two games. Granted, DF's storyline was pretty linear right up until the end, but even a small amount of choice is better than none. When you feel like there are plans and machinations going on outside of what you're experiencing, it goes a long way.

Step one, to me, is making sure our character is not the center of the universe.

New to facetiousness?

In this part of the forum, fairly.
That was well constructed.

At the invisible borders, where we cannot pass, it might make sense to see traders coming and going down these roads. You know they are traveling between provinces, and days later they'll return with exotic goods not native to Skyrim.

And to see carts and wagons loaded with cargo traveling down these roads with armed escorts would be a fantastic addition!

In the words of my History teacher Mr. Coffee. What they need is some good old fashioned cultural diffusion lol.

Great Thread by the way and your banana anology is perfect. I have wish many times that we could see more reference to the other countries/provinces around the area besides small dialogue references. I honestly think the next game or somewhere down the road they need to make s multi disk game with all the countries/provinces able to travel too.

I like your idea. Not so much bananas, but that there are things in a province that originated outside said province through trade, migration, etc. Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Especially considering the races seem to be widespread. You'd figure they'd bring more influence with them.

no guns in tameriel ever!

i know what you are trying to do, but this isn't a modern society.

i mean , hell, tamreriel is just one continent!

try importing bananas from a race of tiger-dragons and not end up defeated.

i understand what you are saying, and your idea is what makes tamerie great, just not the exporting and importing of goods.


I don't know what content you are missing, bc bonemold and kuama cuddle (main exports from morrowind, [didn't play arena or daggerfall]), didn't make it to oblivion, so certain tangibles should be in certain areas. (did you know silk was valuable at one time bc it was only produced in china?) valuables don't increase immersion, they just increase the idea of wealth.

the idea of wealth is different in nirn in that wealth manifests itself in power over armies. (not trying to get into economic, just trying to seperate myself from everyday bs.)

look out for chitin armor in skyrim, and wolf and bear armor, but do not look for cultural inclusiveness, unless you have......seen any elves? hahahahahahha

I would only say that items from other areas should be included if the game is not full enough.

i beleive skyrim has enough features and culture to exist as its own entity without other items coming in merely for valuables.

If there are invisible areas, yes this would be preferable. i believe adding preexisting culture to an area that we (morrowind and oblivion and non-players) haven't played yet would be a detriment rather than an advancement.

if invisible walls exist, however, then this system would be better than naught. The diffrences in a a game make it what is is no?