Then you must be running vanilla. I suppose I could get 60+ FPS in Balmora if I didn't play with graphics packs and the fog was still hovering ten feet in front of me. Fact of the matter is though, a ten year old game like Morrowind should be able to get perfect FPS everywhere, distant land or no distant land. The fact that it doesn't is indicative of the fact that its graphics engine was coded exceedingly poorly, something very few people should disagree with.



I swear the Internet causes illiteracy.

This despite the fact that there do exist other games out there that manage to be massive and detailed at the same time. Games like Assassin's Creed, although every time somebody tries to draw that comparison someone else on these forums shoots it down because "The Elder Scrolls isn't supposed to be 'that type of game.'"

I don't think the next game should feature featureless houses as in Daggerfall, no. But neither do I think Daggerfall's cities were all that bad for a game in 1995. They certainly conveyed a sense of size and grandeur that neither of its sequels have managed to capture. And since you brought it up, no, I don't think it would be a bad idea if Bethesda paid a little less attention to shiny graphics for the sake of building better settlements. Sorry, but lots and lots of bloom on every surface like in the Imperial City doesn't excite me as much as a realistic city would.

No. I'm runnig GOTY and I've used a lot of mods that affect Balmora. Still my fps is around 35 at an average. And you do realise that Morrowind came out 2002 not 1999 as you seem to think. You should really buy a new computer.

Nice listing, Nottheking!

They should up the size drasticly for some towns not so much for others and some none at all but we need some massive cities.And also all of them should have some kind of story related to the town the events in the city ties to other places.Things of that sort I felt in past games they were to small n did not offer enough.

lol you brought this thread back from the dead. But, I disagree about the massive cities. I felt many of the towns were a perfect size so that you know who lived where and ect. In the imperial city in the living districts I felt like there was too many houses to remember who lived where, which took away some of it's personal feel that oblivion gave in say Anvil. Although maybe beth could pull off a large city with the charm of the smaller towns.

Population is what bothered me. There were almost no people in Bruma.

Are you kidding? I would like crowded cities. In morrowind/oblivion the cities felt so empty. I want large cities that I am unfamiliar with. Maybe have dangerous areas and rich areas inside the city. I hope TESV has good cities full of pointless NPC's, not just important ones. Kinda like the NPC's in fallout 3 that you couldn't talk to, except more of them.

Population didn't bother me, I know its a model. Its not even a concern, looking forward to TESV. I'd just like to see it accomplish some lofty feats of worldbuilding.

Well it's a mixed bag for me in that case. I really enjoyed being able to talk to each character it feels much more personal. Even when i hear each voice 100 times it still immerses me much more to be able to talk to each one with a individual name. It felt more realistic than clicking and nothing.

Have you played Assasins Creed? Theres your answer. 1000s of NPCs, in a fully detailed city. No cells or loadings times in or out of the citys. You can just walk out the front gate and ride away. So theres absolutely no excuse for the tiny little settlements we saw in Oblivion.

Oblivion has to load(and unload) a LOT more information than just randomly generated wandering AIs with static referenced 3d representation.
Do you know much about programming, in particular the low down memory management aspects?

I don't know much about programming, but it sure seems clear that Assassin's Creed does it better.

The difference in the possibilities for cities in Assassin's Creed and TES are MASSIVE.

Cities in AC have hundreds upon hundreds of people. But you can only talk with a few of them. Bethesda needs to give dialogue to each and every NPC in the game, and I don't think anybody would like to see hundreds of NPCs with generic dialogue.

Cities in AC have hundreds of buildings. But only a few of them actually have interiors. Bethesda needs to make an interior for nearly every building.

Now, that's not to say say Bethesda shouldn't make bigger cities. But saying that "Assassin's Creed did it, so TES should be able to as well" is just ridiculous.

Cities need to be much bigger and have a much larger population.
I want to see beggars EVERYWHERE.
The streets should be so populated you would have a hard time coming to the other side.

Now that would be realistic

Hundreds of buildings without interiors wouldn't be.

No it wouldn't.

Why do games have to be realistic in every way, just to be realistic? People are saying they want realism in video games much more oftenly then they used to.

I think they couldn't get the city spaces to work with that concept of the city. I've got my own concept of Leyawiin based on theirs, though I need to update the screenshots.

http://anticlere.webs.com/leyawiin.htm

I would love to see hundreds of NPCs with generic dialogue. Just write the basic dialogue per class of person and location, and randomize which information specifics they would know. Kind of like Daggerfall's, you can ask any npc where the nearest Benevolence of Mara is in the region, but not everyone knows. So you ask someone else. If you ask in the wrong tone, they might not tell you.

Being able to get into every building in a city isn't likely either. But then, Daggerfall let you into almost all buildings, even with hundreds of them. It isn't like the interiors need to be that special, just basic peasant huts where several crowd around in a house.

Also this bullscrap of a third person view of your character makes them need a high roof for every indoor area. Make an over the shoulder camera position be the primary way to play in third person, and allow the free camera when the player toggles it so you can make better buildings.

Yea I like looking up dead threads that catch my eye.You see here's the thing I remembered where the people live and where certain locations are such as the shops and so forth.I would like some bigger cities with more detail than the current ones we play in,don't get me wrong I love all of the towns I just feel they are a little bare boned and small.Not all of the cities should be huge just a select amount.They all should also boast a well thought out backstory,key events people that make a difference and so on and so forth.I am sure Bethesda could pull off a grand city garnder than all of the cities we have visited.

I would love a city that is grand in scope this is a great idea they should flesh out the districts better like you mentioned great idea.

The mod Banasplit Better Cities, adds a crap load of building with no interior, but it enhances immersion and make the cities feel real.

Firstly don't make assumptions about subjects you admit not knowing a lot about.


My point exactly which I will expand upon below


Very nice I particularly like the long courtyard type area with all the arches


Even having meaningful interaction other than bumping in to people and their animations compensating for it (what AC does) is far less taxing for a system to run than storing all the information required to converse with them. As Ac stands all that the computers memor stores is some animation files, and methods to blend them together into a realistic looking whole (so you dont get NPCs jerkily going from their normal walking to omg youve walked in to me anim)

Secondly the information surrounding the player that is regularly required and thus will be stored in memory most of the time (making less space for more meshes texs, collisionboxes etc) just think about what information you have in TES about yourself at all times.
Vital stats like HP and Mana
Skills and Attributes
Available spells
Inventory
Currently equipped items
Journal (which has a surprisingly large amount of information used by scripts in TES)
Running Local Scripts (and stubs of scripts that bail out early because their conditions arent fulfilled but you can only find that out by starting the script and checking its conditions)
Running Global Scripts
AI (technically the majority of this is in scripts but Id like to point out that radiant ai is a very big drain, which is why is was severely cut back from what was teased before release)

Believe me these things are not as insignificant as you may think.

Then I'll straight up say this: Assassin's Creed does cities thousands of times better, and the npcs are more believable even though they don't speak directly to you. Hell, probably because they don't speak to you.

I know it's too much to ask Beth to do a city half as good as AC's, but maybe they could shoot for eight or ten percent as good?

I think youre completely missing the point, assassins creed by design works because it is a linear game with only one role to be played, you are the assassin, who kills specific targets, and must avoid others, whilst all other characters are merely set dressing and potential obstacles to you running down a street.
These are NOT characters, they have no identity they are just puppets walking up and down the game space that disappear as soon as you get so far away from them, they are throwaways because they CAN be throwaways, notice that also there is no requirement for massive characterisation in the other notable characters in the setting because your job is to kill them, thus you get their little snippet of story and are gone, entirely throwaway.

Compare this to oblivion / morrowind / daggerfall
it is a ROLEplaying game where you decide what you want to do with the massive freedom bethesda have given you, you can be a mage, and just go about picking flowers and talking to people to find out about them for example. How do you propose that you have all the possibilities available to you in TES games when you stip out any meaningful interactions you have with anything for the sake of just displaying more crap on the screen?

EDIT: I admit im now just opposing youir argument so i will make some more statmements, I think I agree with you on one level, obviously there was a lot more effort put into the design of urban areas in assassins creed, and its obvious from that link you showed earlier this is of particular interest to you, however the sprawling urban areas are a focus of assassins creed, the original pitch that was given by whichever people formulated the idea likely included the whole parkour element from the get-go seeing as its was thoroughly fleshed out for the game, and that style of gameplay requires a vastly detailed city with interesting architecture.
What im trying to say is that AC does less than TES so it can focus more on what it does, thus magnificent cities which you can climb all over like a bloodthirsty chimp with throwing knives, however TES tries to cover a wide range of possibilities playstles and game elements, so obviously if it focuses on one more either the development costs will increase, or they will have to cut back on other areas, whilst being a consumer of games its hard for me to accept things arent good enough in certain ways, I can also appreciate the bind the developers are in. The games industry is a business after all.

I'm going to add this to the AC towns vs Oblivion towns comparison

1. AC 1 came out after Oblivion there's a 3-4 year difference, which means they have some more advanced tools to make the game with
2. Oblivion has more to do then just being an assassin
3. ACs towns had to be huge because of the free-running aspect (yes I want some style of climbing building in TES 5, whether it be free-running, climbing or using a rope)