I think some devs use six as a crutch. Same with moviemakers and writers. It's easy to sell with it. I am against ity being put in just to have it so they can say "buy our game! BOOBIES!" However if it improves the game, either by adding to the immersion or deepening the plot, go ahead.

It dosen't have to be character six scenes either. Read "The wolf Queen" if you can find it in either Oblivion or Morrowind, or read the Daggerfall unedited "real barenziah." There is six related to youth and politics, but it's not in-your-face, marketing for 13 year olds.

six is not completely unnecessary. Gratuitous sixual content is unnecessary.
However, complex sixual themes represented in a mature light (note: actual maturity, not just six for the hell of it or six outside the realm of art and taste) can work wonders in making a believable world. Dialogue and conversation and NPC reactions as displayed via quests that have sixual connotations or hints (such as the naked Nords in Morrowind, or the cheating spouses in Bloodmoon), objects like Boethia's Pillow Book, factions like how Dibellas' cults and worshippers SHOULD have been in Oblivion, etc, etc.

The same thing can be said for gore, drug use, and all the other things that the ESRB flags as apporopriate for an M rated game. They are not completely unnecessary, but there is gratuitous and stupid implementation, and then there is sensible, credence- and believability-building, contributing-to-the-overall-player-experience implementation. Rich, complex, emotionally gripping skooma dens and skooma addicts, instead of just a merchant who sells "DRUGS!" or some tacky "lol, these guys are all stoners!" implemetation. Well-placed dungeon gore/horrors that actually enhances the mood and builds the suspense and player sense of of heightened awareness and creepiness, instead of a "SPAM DEAD BODIES EVERYWHERE!" or "CUT SOME GUY AND WATCH HIS ARMS FALL OFF!" or "BLOOD SPURTS EVERYWHERE!" implemetation. Use in moderation. Oblivion had a crapload of visually dead and dark things, visual gore. Heck, look at all the world objects for the Deadlands, the necromancer lairs, all of that. And yet they spammed it so much and screwed up the overall mood so much that it still felt nonthreatening and "blah" despite all the gory and dark content.

And, as others have said, make the game as it is and then worry about rating, don't design the game around the rating.

Then go watch a Conan movie...and though Arena was also partially based on such productions, present TES games should not pursue the path since it would address only hardcoe Sword&Sorcery fans...what am I writing, I'm a hardcoe S&S fan! BRING IT ON!!:D

I completely agree. I just disagree with the people saying...man...i hope there's boobs....cuz.....that would......be good......for........IMMERSION! yes thats the ticket! Come on, you're not fooling anyone

This thread comes into mind: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=973142

I'd like to aim for a rating of M.

Not because I think nudity or ludicrous amounts of gore is necessary to the next installment in the series, but because it will filter out the number of console kiddies who can buy the game. Which means Bethesda can return to weaving complex worlds of intrigue targeted at intelligent players.

Of course, if I had a choice, nudity would be great if it's done tastefully like in Daggerfall. But even that's too much for Bethesda. They're too well-known in the game industry now to pull off something that controversial in this day and age with the ESRB and Soccer Moms running around.

They got away with nvde zombies in both Morrowind and Oblivion (notwithstanding the fact that they were pretty decayed).

T for teen. Morrowind was Teen, and it felt pretty gritty at times - moreso than OB. I mean, check out that Suran dancing girl house. How'd that get past the ESRB?

no, nudity is silly and useless. It adds nothing except for sad people.

I really don't care if it's T or M as long as it's interesting, isn't filled with handholding, and restores to the series the RPG elements/skills/choices and whatnot Oblivion (and to a lesser extent, Morrowind) cut.


Or so you've said. Multiple times.

It can be artistic, but I don't think that particular facet of 'artsy' is the audience Bethesda is aiming for. And it isn't something I'm really looking for in an Elder Scrolls game, anyway. So, in other words, yeah, I don't think it would add much to the game.

What I want to see Bethesda do, is make a dark and gritty game (think Morrowind, then add an extra shovel full of grit for good measure). Make it realistic, make the political powers struggle for control, have society crumbling around you (hell, after the events of Oblivion, it looks like thats what will start to happen). If that makes it a mature game, so be it.


Ultimately, I think there is a point here. Nudity can be done artisticly, and in some cases, it may be warrented (Dibella's cults. You cant have a cult dedicated to erotic instructions, and then put everyone in clothes), but no matter what, some people will still flock to the game screaming "boobies!" :rolleyes:

Well, while obviously it's better to just "make the game, and don't worry about ratings", game companies don't work this way. MOST game companies have a specific rating that they are aiming for, and they want it to match up with their TARGET AUDIENCE. I think the best bet is they will aim to make the game T for Teen, though I would like a Mature rating, again, not for blood or nudity or six (all of which can be modded in, and I've seen Bethesda's "nvde" textures, modders can do it way better). I'd like to see a mature setting for much the same reason as others, to create a more realistic world. Oblivion was great but it was too colorful and shiny, by that standard though I don't want the next game to be all pale hues of brown and gray, but I want a game that doesn't set it's dungeons to the same standards of glistening beauty as it does it's majestic forests. Still that's a style choice, but to reflect a "darker" world, you need racism, aggression... all of that.

Although Morrowind got away with a T Rating and managed to have racism, slavery, and even vulgarity (although words like "N'Wah" were made up, they are still vulgar in the world of TES.)

And Muatra.

I say mature; not for the sake of violence and nudity but because I don't believe that TES should shy away from grown up issues and deep if controverial game mechanics simply to acquire a larger audience. I believe that some videogames should be made with mature advlts as the target audience instead of spoiled teeny-boppers.

I think we understand your position, but you need to stop making generalizations that people who might not mind a touch of nudity or whatever in their game are somehow "sad" or "pathetic".

I am, however suprising it may seem, largely in agreement with Thatoneguy here, and believe it should rate M for all the same reasons. I will go the step farther and say that there is no logical moral or propriety argument that can be well made for not allowing something as ubiquitous as exposed bums. . . and, for my part, I feel that some of the aspects present in the games should have more follow through. These things add to immersion, verisimilitude and plausible depth. Magameto went on at length about how such things as six should be absent in the game because a game could never adequately relate the complexity of a real relationship. . . in saying this he managed to conviently overlook the perpetual and ubiquitous nature of "casual" six (which of course, can also bind a type of relationship), yet he also conviently bypassed the fact that NONE of the relationships in the games are capable of rendering all of the complexity they would in real life. If actual interactions were as shallow as many of those in the game, you would be convinced that everyone around you was severely mentally retarded. A great deal of the "relationship" factor is dependent upon the imagination of the players. I have an in game "friendship" with my mage apprentice. Not because he communicates well. By normal "real world" standards. . . he is clearly mentally challanged, as his dialogue is WOEFULLY limited. He also does idiot things like run to assist me in battle with foes far beyond his caliber. . . which forces me to defend his idiot self, along with mounting my own defense. Yet the fact that I do this at all is evidence of our having a friendly relationship. . .taking my apprentice with me into Oblivion gates, or hidden shrines as part of the educational process. . . all of this is primarily, my imagination tacking addenda onto the games existing features. And until in game AI becomes FAR more advanced, all in game relationships, friendly, antipathetical, sixual, professional or other will be imperfect, less complex than real world counterparts, and requisite of some player expansion. That doesn't mean the games should just stop trying for verisimilitude altogether, and take out the food, the beds, the houses, the stables, the inns, shops, and everything else in the game that does not directly involve monsters, lightning bolts, and Daedric claymores. All that to say, it would behoove the game and its players for "mature" content, sixual and other, to be included in the games, so long as it is not done in a way so blatantly tacky as to be no more than a flashy gimick for attention.

Morrowind had "exotic dancers" and cannibal devil-worshipping cults. To be honest, I think it should have been rated higher than a Teen, but then having seen how successfully the 6th Harry Potter film sensitively handled topics a little more mature than its rating, I can see why it wasn't restricted. The references were, after all, oblique.

Oblivion was the one that sat ill at ease with its rating - too mature for a Teen, but not quite sophisticated enough for a Mature rating in the full sense. Shivering Isles and Fallout 3, by contrast, earn theirs deservedly without being too OTT about it. I think this is where the magic mark lies. Sure, I wouldn't expect Fallout's swearing in TES V, but I would expect the level of complexity they had in Shivering Isles. The one thing missing in all of the games, though, is a tasteful fade-to-black romantic scene such as those we've had in Morrowind mods for years that have implied the natural lives together of characters without ever being crass or explicit. By that, of course, I also think we should have Bioware-style "relationships" - if we are having our characters live in that world, it seems jarringly unnatural that they should do so alone.

They shouldn't "aim?" Just develop the game they want to make and see where it ends up?

Among other things, I think we often confuse the measurements of ratings boards with reality. . . in reality, teens are a group nearly as diverse as full advlts, and in terms of the neurology and biology and especially the psychology, some people are pretty much done with adolecence by 16. . .and some people are still struggling through it at 25. Most 13 year olds would not be shocked by the Oblivion content. . . some of them are probably less squeamish than I am, or many others here. I think the features that made Fall out Mature would sit well in the next ES. . . as to the nudity. . . DOA3 had its share of that, and it was rated teen.

Instead of working towards a predetermined rating I think they should just create whatever they like and THEN let other people rate the games. Seems fitting to me.

There's other things Bethesda should attempt in order to darken the mood of the next game. I want it to be like Daggerfall again, where you're just some nobody among hundreds of thousands of [procedurally generated] other nobodies. You aren't special, and you can totally botch a quest or piss a guild off. There will be attempts made on your life, and nobody will take pity on you. You will be at the mercy of the higher powers - the nobles and the kings and queens of the kingdoms, who will manipulate you like their pawn for their own deeds. You can trust nobody in this world, and quests fall second priority to your own survival in this harsh unforgiving world.


The Real Barenziah expanded my vocabulary by teaching me a new word. Turgid.

I`d go for an M-rating!

That is actually what Bethesda say they do. They might have a rough idea of what it will turn out like, but they make the game and other people rate it, rather than saying "we're going for x rating here".

Yeah, aiming for a rating I think would restrict your creativity. Just make the game and whatever rating you get you get.

P.S. princess_stomper. Glad to see you switched back to the cute bunny avatar!