I was originally going to post my own angry opinion about things here, but then I realized this was probably something worth gathering information about semi-professionally. I think Bethesda and their "traditional, hardcoe, PC gaming fans" (or whichever subset of the fanbase thinks Skyrim will get "dumbed down") have an unclear picture of what it is the rest of The Elder Scrolls fanbase actually wants. This survey is for self-identified console, casual, or "mainstream" gamers only, please.

For Question 5, selecting a feature as "Optional" means that the player would have the option of enabling it when creating a new character, while selecting a feature as "Not Optional" means you would like that feature to be built into the game.

EDIT: Since apparently there was some confusion: The title is sarcastic. I consider myself a console gamer and first played Morrowind on an Xbox.

Console gamers that played and enjoyed Oblivion are obviously going to want more of everything, just like everyone else.

Judging by your title I see you don't like console players or casuals. I don't like casuals, they find most good games confusing and most boring and repetitive games amusing, however I am a console player and I think that this game needs to exceed Morrowind and not go mainstream like Oblivion. I want several factions, I want an in depth and long main story, I want a larger variety of skills, I want all kinds of weapons and armor, I want fast travel and essential NPCs to be optional.

....game is less than a year away, little if nothing listed can be changed in that time frame significantly. in addition we have no idea WHAT Skyrim's gameplay/options are....so really. do you really need to make a poll about things already being discussed in other threads? thats my question really. nothing more.

I think the problem you're going to see in this thread is people not reading the post before voting
good luck, though

I just want to point out to everyone voting on the massive number of factions that their quest lines will suffer if there are more factions. Imo, Morrowind factions weren't very good b/c all the missions were repetitive. Go here kill this. Go here fetch this. Buy me 10 of item X and come back. These quests weren't very good. Contrast that with Oblivion's and the quests were much better. I did, however, like how some of the factions clashed with each other (both were ones you could join, ie. thieves guild at war with fighters guild).

Hey man, I am a console gamer and I personally consider myself VERY hardcoe. I have all of the achievements for Oblivion and I have beaten Morrowind, Daggerfall and Arena.

I have over 40 games for the Xbox 360 and more than 50 games for the PC. I used to play PC but now I play the Xbox because I like having a big screen, I like talking to my friends over live, I like having no cheats for Oblivion calling my name, and I like using the controller AND I like not having to upgrade my set up every year.

I don't see how you could possibly think that console gamers are all casual gamers or even that most console gamers that will play Skyrim are casual. I am not casual. I am just as hardcoe as any PC gamer on these forums. You know Seti18? Patriarch rank on the forums? He uses a PS3 to play Oblivion. Console gamers are not casual.

yeah so the game is already made by almost all developer cycles they are in crunch right not squashing bugs an polishing additional content wont really be happening

Fallout: New Vegas showed how a good, deep and hardcoe RPG like the classics can be well received by the mainstream. If I am right, it sold 4+ million copies. Bethesda should really take that as an example.

I play console, but I'd hardly call myself casual or "mainstream". I've been playing since Morrowind. Anywho, as to factions, If there are more then they better have a good, in-depth story like in Oblivion, if not I'm fine with 4 or 5. I want Morrowind style enemy scaling. No item scaling. An unusual and exotic main quest (and all quests for that matter). And everything you listed as optional. And I want levitation, mark/recall spells to make a return. And buy-able houses and build able ones.

I was being sarcastic. I played Morrowind on an Xbox and loved it.

You are precisely the the kind of person I would like to see vote.

It's about preconceptions and myths about casual and console gamers and what do they really want in games such as TES5.

i reckon hardcoes will vote anyway

Then I will vote!

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/5674/pcgamingmasterrace.jpg

This needed to be linked for accuracy.

I REALLY don't want to see fast travel in here. It's too tempting. You feel like you lag behind everybody else if you don't use it yet I want to enjoy Skyrim's landscape.

Setting should be unique/unusual

Enemy scaling, I chose MW since ti seemed OK to me. Ideally, I'd want wandering monsters to rn the gambit from a rat to a pack of asassins that kill me in one WTF second. With that I don't really want scaling with regard to placed enemy, but I want to walk into an area and go "gee that was easy" or "Holy crap, I'd better comback in a month ".

Treasure should be in accordance with monster difficulty.

Options, there were too many so I just went with Mark and Recall and Levitation, oh MW"s fast travel was fine.

Haha, so true. <3 Yahtzee

What qualifies as casual?

The huge open world RPGs that are set in the TES world are not what mainstream gamers want. Period. And the few that will play it will be blown away by the possibilities such a huge world opens up.
I know it. It's what happened to me with Morrowind.

"Dirty console gaming peasants" was my first title choice, actually.

good games need money.
more casual and console gamers = more money.
more casual and console friendly games* = better games.


*friendly, is not less content

everything thats not "hardcoe"?

imo it doesn't mean anything really. Well nothing that specific. I imagine most gamers fall into it as a category. :shrug:

You won't find any mainstream/casual gamers on a gaming forum you silly.

I find the positive reception of hardcoe mode in FoNV interesting though it would be fun to rewind, call it 'enhanced RPG mode' and see if the situation changed

Good luck with the poll, I have not voted.

Edit:
Definition of casual: I would say anyone who plays games for less than a couple of hours per session, maybe not the best metric to use but at least it is quantifiable And yes, this does mean you can hardcoe Peggle and Bejewled