I don't know about you, but I spent hours clicking through the character creation menus in Oblivion. I tweaked features like nose roundness, chin height, jaw width, eyebrow shape, all that stuff. Eventually I decided that I had designed the most ruggedly handsome Nord face imaginable--the perfect fit for a heroic paladin-type. It wasn't until I picked up my first piece of equipment that I realized that my character would soon have a bulky helmet on and his face would never be seen again. The more one plays an Elder Scrolls game the more they realize that their character's personality is really in their equipment. This is why I decided to make a mod that included a weapon/armor creation system that worked along the same lines as the character creation system. Since I'm not the most experienced modder in the world, I quickly realized this was far beyond my abilities. It's not, however, beyond the abilities of the talented designers at Bethesda.

Wouldn't it be great if you could shape your weapons into whatever form you can imagine? Select a base weapon (ie. silver mace, ebony shortsword, etc) from the interface similar to how you select the race/six of your character. From there you could change a blade's width, thickness, shape, point, etc. just like how you change the shape of your character's face. You could select decals and engravings to place on an axe's edge or a hammer's head in a manner similar to how some games allow for face tattoos. This whole process could be kicked off by sacrificing a weapon to a forge (either through an NPC or as a feature in a player's house), and that weapon's statistics would determine the damage, weight, etc. of the final created weapon. I'm sure a use could also be found for items like gems and gold/silver nuggets.

I imagine creating armor with a system like this would be complicated, but weapons would probably require less effort to implement than the current system for character creation. I feel that this would be a worthwhile addition to the Elder Scrolls series because immersing yourself in your character aesthetically is almost entirely dependent upon what items you have equipped. It just always seemed wrong that Brim, my holy crusader, should be carrying an evil-looking, lava-encrusted, Daedric longsword just because it has the highest stats.

I hope you, Bethesda, consider a mechanic like this for the next Elder Scrolls game. As for Elder Scrolls fans, what do you guys think of this idea?

Please use this topic for any ideas you have http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1056032

That would be hard, but I guess they could probably do it like the board editting was done in Tony Hawk's UnderGround. Only more complex. Alot. More. Complex.
But it would be sweet, and editting the thinkness and shape can also modify the damage it does and health it does, and stuff like that.

I didn't notice those threads until after I posted this. I've already added my suggestion to one of them.



It shouldn't be any harder to implement this system for weapons than the character creation system. Armor is another story, I think. Of course, I gave up quite quickly after trying to mod this into Oblivion, so what do I know.

I wouldn't want the shape/look of the weapon to affect damage. The point of the system is to allow for the player to create a weapon that fits with their character, and if the player is too worried about how that will affect their weapon's statistics then they will be shaping the weapon to maximize those stats rather than making it with character continuity in mind. See what I mean?

That would be neat. TES is all about playing your character and customization and crap. I'm surprised no developer has done this yet.

The most customization we can give our weapons and armor in TES is the name when we enchant them.

As cool as that will be something like that will be alot more for the game to handle and will take alot of time to implement it into the game.

Not really. It isn't that confusing. We've been using character gens in games for years, so something like this wouldn't be unheard of.

It is an interesting thought, like having a facegen-like system for the weaponry... But Bethesda licensed the facegen software from a 3rd party and just tweaked it, so creating a new object-generator from scratch might take some work. Plus, you'd have to program in basic constraints for each and every type: longswords are going to have different base shape attributes than daggers, than axes, than maces, than spears *hint hint Bethesda*, than bows, etc, etc. And each individual type of weapon will probably need its own sub-constraints as well, as the base texture probably won't benefit from being stretched in too many different directions.

I think its a great idea. Could be useful for a blacksmithing skill.

And I hate how any new ideas are just thrown in the TESV suggestion box to be long forgotten about. This isnt just an idea for TESV its for all TES. And Im sure the OP would like the ideas to continue about this rather than having it stuffed in some forgotten page in TESV ideas and Suggestions.

Its happened to me and It pisses me off, Like the mini games ideas I had. It just got chucked in the other thread and I only got 1 reply and then it was forgotten. I know our ideas wont count for much for future TES games, but blatently throwing them in the rubbish as soon as we come up with the ideas angers us. The Beth staff doesnt even look at TESV Ideas and Suggestions.

This forum isnt for Bethesda, is for the comunity, to talk about bethesda games and how WE think they could be improved.

Except, when everyone creates a thread for their ideas, you have the exact same problem of ideas getting buried, just in a different form. There's little difference between ideas becoming lost via the number of new posts in the TES:V Ideas/Suggestions thread and ideas beccoming lost via the number of new ideas threads in TES General.

Agree

Id rather have the latter. And have the general TESV Ideas thread stickied.

What if there were stickied threads for different types of suggestions. Like one pertaining to gameplay, environment, graphics, etc instead of one big suggestion box.

The cumulative speculation thing should also be stickied I think.

And all of this is way off topic from weapon/armor customization thread that should be locked soon anyway.

But it is a great idea, and I quoted you (spoonman) and put it in the suggestion thread. A link is not enough.

Please use the linked topic.