Let me preface this by saying: I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan. Have been ever since I was a kid. In no way do I think any group of people should be alienated from enjoying an Elder Scrolls game, nor from reasonably influencing the development of future titles.

That said, I have noticed some deep-set biases around here, biases that seem to stem from a dislike for the kind of game Oblivion turned out to be. And, I also think there are some strange expectations for what kind of game Skyrim will become as well. I think it's worth addressing - mainly because, regardless of what our individual opinions are, we're all here for the same reason, and we all deserve to coexist without having our thoughts or feelings on the future of the franchise bashed by our detractors.

So, I think it's safe to say that most of Bethesda's hardcoe audience got on board with Morrowind. They picked up some fans with their earlier games, but the bulk of their "adoring fans" were picked up when Morrowind hit. Then, for Oblivion, Bethesda changed the formula, "fixed" the things that were keeping the average gamer from being interested. And suddenly, The Elder Scrolls became a mainstream franchise. Now there are tons of new fans on board the Bethesda train, fans that are fans because of the things Oblivion did right. Except the old fans don't like these new fans much. They don't like them because these new fans represent the changes Bethesda made to their favorite franchise, the changes that the old fans see as a "dumbing down" of the core experience. The old fans want THEIR game, not EVERYONE's game, and these new fans are responsible for nixing that. So now you've got the old fans upset at the new fans for something they didn't directly cause. And you've also got the same old fans wondering when Bethesda is going to "learn their lesson" and go back to making games the way they used to, before these "destructive" new fans hopped on board.

Except, there is no lesson to learn. There is no "better place" to go back to. All Bethesda sees is tons of fans, mainstream popularity, and the successful new game that made it all possible.

What I'm trying to say is: temper your expectations. Skyrim is going to be an amazing game, I'm sure of it, and there are many ways they can approach difficulty balance to ensure it'll be an enjoyable experience for all their fans. That said, Skyrim is not going to be Morrowind 2.0 - not if their goal is more of what Oblivion earned them (money and mainstream appeal). If you couldn't get some sort of fun out of Oblivion, if you're honestly waiting for another game just like Morrowind, then you're sticking around waiting for something that's not going to happen. At least not from Bethesda.

I really would like to have intelligent discussions on which aspects of Morrowind made it a better game, and why they would apply in Skyrim (seamless cities, for example). I think those kinds of discussions are worthwhile. But every time someone tries, it devolves into an overwhelming wave of "Morrowind was better, Oblivion was dumbed-down, you're an idiot for liking it" without any open-mindedness or honest debate on specific design decisions that were made. That's what bothers me: if we can't have honest discussion without making it personal, then there's nothing to be discussed. It's just a group of people with an opinion attacking the credibility of those who disagree. And if that's all that group is capable of, then, when it comes to Skyrim, I sincerely hope their opinions aren't considered by anyone that matters.

That's all I have to say on the matter. I hope it can be discussed reasonably instead of turning into another foodfight, but I guess we'll have to see. Thanks for reading.

Level scaling needs to be fixed in Oblivion and I'm very confident it will be, especially with the way they did New Vegas.

More variety in weapons and armor (more materials, more looks) I'm hopefull on this but not as confident as I am on the level scaling fix. Everyone would appreciate more weapon and armor types.

Combat system, as far as 'hit roles' vs 'the fps feel' I'm 100% sure this is not going to change from Oblivion, and honestly I think I can deal with this.

More variety in dungeons and exploring, one of the major complaints with oblivion so I'm confident this will be addressed.

Thats all I can think of for now, but I'll watch this thread.

Your own deep-set biases are also obvious, and I won't bother getting involved, but I do have to note that you probably shouldn't put "temper your expectations" right next to your absolute certainty that a game we know nothing about will be amazing.

I think Oblivion is a fine game, and Morrowind was fantastic! Different beasts! Skyrim will be awesome no matter how they make it! Thank you Bethesda!

See this is the kind of delusion that allows companies like Bethesda to get cocky and slip up, giving us a horrible game.

These discussions have been had, I think. But one individual is usually enough to tear them apart. :shrug:

So, I think (and after recent posts I feel this is neccessary to say: this is my opinion. not a law of nature.) that Oblivion had less of everything I enjoyed about Morrowind. But it also improved a lot of things that, in retrospect, were terrible about Morrowind. That argument has been made sind Oblivion's release, and I don't feel the need to list every aspect right now - there are certainly people here who can phrase it way better.

That being said, I have the confidence in Bethesda that they will learn from Oblivion as they learned from Morrowind. I don't think Skyrim will be an extrapolation of Oblivion, but a combination of the best of TES I, II, III and IV, with a lot of new stuff we have never dared to imagine before.

I feel that we all have our own particular perspectives; I think for many Oblivion was a step in a different direction, not necessarily bad, but lacking in the qualities that made Morrowind exceptional.

They must focus on the story and lore in order to create an appropriate atmosphere. I'm one of those who feel that Morrowind was much better than Oblivion, but not in most technical aspects. Most "hardcoe" fans will not complain if combat is more dynamic or if AI is improved. However, they (we) will complain if they cut the number of skills/armours/weapons again or if they dumb the story down. Level scaling must not be as ever-present as in Oblivion, too. Landscapes cannot be as bland, dialogues cannot be as short etc. Variety, lore richness and uniqueness are the key words here.

QFT, I for one don't mind the changes in combat, sure it isn't as reminiscent of D&D, but it didn't really detract from the game expierience like scaling did.

On the bright side, if they [censored] up scaling again I play PC so some kind soul will fix it with a mod for me.

This is the kind of post that derails topics. Discuss the opening post, do not attack and attempt to demean other posters, it will end intears and people having time away from the forums.

Also, I do not want this to turn into another Oblivion vs Morrowind debate. If you want that there is a topic in TES General Discussion.

Thanks guys.

The only aspect I wouldn't be comfortable with returning is hit rolls, but based on design decisions made in Oblivion and Fallout 3 (well, there was VATS, but...), I don't expect it to. I prefer a visceral feel to combat over there being a chance a swing doesn't actually connect.


Are they? And what would they be? Do me a favor and enlighten me. I wouldn't want my biases to be so blantantly obvious next time. Otherwise, people might think I have an opinion.

Look, I didn't say having preferences was a bad thing - I just said, if you're going to share, be open enough to consider what the opposing side thinks and why they prefer it. Being snarky isn't the same as proving a point.

I am fairly sure they make the best game they can each time and since it's their life career they try very hard to please as many folks as they can to ensure they continue to be successful. No smart developer or publisher gets set out to give us a horrible game, that ends careers and companies.

I have faith that once again they will give us the best they have to offer and I hope it is a success because each extra dollar they earn can then go toward the next game they make. I love their games and while I may wish they had done this or that in a game I don't think I come anywhere near having the experience or knowledge to out guess the devs about what works and what does not or what sells and what does not. I would hate for them to make a game exactly to my liking because it might not sell and others might disagree so with that in mind, I hope for the best, expect the worse and hope they make a game I and most other fans will enjoy.

Thus far I have not seen a "horrible" game from Bethesda and they have growing sells with each game so they are doing something right even if I don't always think so.

Companies get lazy all the time and start relying on the name of a product to sell it rather than the merits of it individually, there are multiple examples of this happening, Bethesda hasn't yet done this and if we remain critical they probably never will.

The key things that the improved engine may address is an increase in the number of NPCs on the screen at one time. This may increase the settlement size and give us grander villages and, at least one, epic city.

I'm also expecting to see some improvements in customization over Oblivion. While Oblivion was incredible for face customization, since then additions to the RPG genre have set the bar a bit higher in terms of accessory options that might be applied to the characters. This might also get us to the body types question - where is my option to create a fat cat?

-As a sub-point there was much discussion on the forums over the past four years regarding the number of armour choices. I suspect there will be an improvement in that, if not going back to the individual pieces of armour system from Morrowind.

In a similar vein, based on the amount of forum threads covering the topic of more weapon types (or the re-reinstatement of old ones), I expect that there will be a slightly expanded armoury.

I'm expecting big improvements in the open-world concept, including NP caravans, warparties and more roaming NPCs in general. Included in this, it might be possible to create a type of simulated (simplified) ecosystem. (Red Dead Redemption did a good job of predator-prey relationships between wildlife, so that's perfectly achievable). This is could be an extension of the factions AI, already present in Oblivion. (and we did see this kind of thing happen from time-to-time).

Also, I suspect better animations will be a key component. I'm wondering if Beth has been looking at the Assassins Creed franchise, which really sets a very high bar for animation and environmental interactivity. Skyrim is different type of game and doesn't need that level of acrobatics and climbing or killing animations, but we've seen that it can be done.


... oh, and a greatly enhanced number of clutter items.

For me, I dont expect the world. I expect a more alien culture than Cyrodiil, but obviously as humans in a cold land, it should be familiar too. I expect a wide variety of Northern landscapes. If there are seasons, it could even have the stunning wildflowers grow. Or just out all the time if no season. Fortunately, people do seem to like more weapons, as New Vegas showed. So I'm *relatively* confident that Spears will return. I dont htink they're reach would be all that unbalancing. I would also like to see more magic brought into being. A Mark/Recall type spell that would say, only bring you to the very inside of the dungeon when teleporting out. This would be for purposes primarily fleeing from fights (id love to have harder fights, not just stronger fights.) and also as a nice little flavor. Mysticism has that problem of having onyl a few reallygood, really expensive poewrs. And soul trap.

Enchanting and magic in general, id love to see more return. A combination of Morrowind and Oblivion-style traps I think would be GREAT. Traps have always felt a bit horrificly destructive or amusingly pointless (Door paralyzes when you set off the trap, door doesnt open, so theres no actual penalty from this.) NO sanctuary. That spell should go the way of passwall.

I want to see Levitation back, I think that was one of the more active wishes. Included in this, obviously, is world-integrated cities. Now while I would love these things immensely, it would require a signficantly different way of prossessing teh game. If youve used the no-walls mods, you notice the game laaags as it tries to do more than minimal AI for all the NPCs. This needs to be addressed before we can have places that look nice and work well, and I do not know what would help us get past that hurdle. All I know is, the invisible walls and such just kinda..feel like an insult? Its not a big deal but..Yeah.

The map. While I would ADORE an overhead screenshot map like morrowind, what i woudl really like is map note markers. In MW, I stamp one down after each dungeon zone to say what was in it.

Artifacts, Unique Equipment should come back too. I dont think it should be as far as morrowind (That damn nord with the steel warhammer on the way to one of the pilgramages..Ugh.) But someting along those lines just for more variety.

So yeah, my stuff is mostly consigned to style elements, and what i felt was more..fantastic about Morrowind. And spears. Since the region takes place near Morrowind, I think even Bonemold armor might make a re-appearance..! And the goblins in Oblivion have the cured netch leader hide armor!

But here it is, in a nutshell: I am 100% certain that what Bethesda is coming out with is going to be AMAZING. If my things arent in there, sure i'll be bummed -- until i figure out how to put them in with the construction set XD

Oh, right. As it exists near morrowind...the border of which is quite high mountain... I must qualify one thing I dont want in the game. Just no. Even if you bring back levitation, no. Just..dear god no. PLEASE ;_; We all know of what I speak, the hell that is in morrowind, but dare not speaks its name. I can still hear them on cold nights.

A few things would be stuff that serves no purpose except pretty. Remember the funeral barge in morrowind? I saw that and was like.."Oh hell yes." I am slightly concerned that it'll end up being lots of caves and miens..and while these are fine places, they can get kinda..boring. Not that they have to, mind you! I could easily see a soft, shimmer blue sheet covering the walls in ice, soaked with incandescent mother-of-pearl. Giant monsters are always a plus, especially when theres *absolutely no explination* why try to explain something silly? It can just be silly. I love that mod that makes wild Silt Striders XDXDXD

really, im already playing this game in my mind, and the only way it could go bad for me is if it were an MMO. While I wouldnt mind such a game, it should be wholly seperate from the numerical series. But thankfully, the teaser did indeed suggested we'd get to reprise our role as Nameless Hero Only other thing i can think of really is a shorter tutorial dungeon. It just feels too long; but bethesda's already aware of that of course. That auto-main save it makes in Fallout right before you leave was fantastic.

In every sequel of every game made in the last decade or two, a subsection of "fans" have always declared it dumbed down and absolutely horrible. It's been happening every since the buzzwords "dumbed down" became an internet meme. It wouldn't matter if Skyrim required you to solve a complex differential calculus problem just to get past the title screen, and then required you to click six billion ultra-fast moving blips on the screen in order to get on a horse. People will still call that "dumbed down" compared to Oblivion. They'll say that the nearly-impossible blip-clicking is for "dumb console players" who just have "reflexes" but no "brains". They'll say the calculus problem is a "dumb minigame" for people who "don't know how to roleplay". There's really nothing Skyrim could possibly do that would stop it from being declared dumbed down.

Part of the problem is that the most vocal "dumb down" forum folks are teenagers, who actually were a lot dumber back when the game they considered "smart" was put out, and now that they're a little older, it seems that everything new is dumb, when in fact it's probably that they themselves are just slightly less dumb. (Slightly.) Part of the problem is that everyone wants to feel like they're cooler than the new kids, so everyone has to insist that the older version of something is way better than the newer version of something so as to belittle the experience of newer people. This happens with music, movies, games, books, fashion, art... people will try to prove their fandom is more valid than someone else's no matter the medium.

Im just hoping they take what was good about the other games, improve on those things keep the game deep and fresh and supprise us with some good stuff

Can I add you to my friends list?

Fact remains, Oblivion -was- dumbed down. Not saying everything about it was bad, but you can't tell me Oblivion was a harder game to beat than Morrowind.

Lockpicking mini game should remain btw, just remembered that.

Sure, but we're talking about whether Oblivion was "dumbed down" or not, not whether it was easier. "Dumbed down" is a meaningless phrase. To some people it means a decrease in difficulty. To some people it has something to do with lore. To yet others an increase in technical difficulty constitutes "dumbing down."

If you think Oblivion was too easy, say that. Don't hide it behind a generic pejorative.

And the broken level-scaling in Oblivion meant it was harder to beat than Morrowind. Sometimes.

OP is making assumption that "Morrowind vets" thought Morrowind was perfect game.
It wasn't.

Fighting was bad - you could see your sword go right through a guy, your arrow right through that monster, but you didn't hit them, just because your weapon skill/agility was too low?
- Improved in Oblivion. Still leaves room for improvement.

Finding specific location for a quest was sometimes hard. Some quests had bad instructions, there wasn't any magical arrow that told you "This way, you idiot".
- While improved in Oblivion, now you didn't even have to listen what you were supposed to do. Just walk to the arrow and pick it up, kill it, talk to it or follow it.

View distance was bad in Morrowind. Sure, tech that time would've died if it had to draw more. You were playing in fog all the time.
- Obviously improved in Oblivion.

Dialogues in Morrowind were like reading book and hunting keywords. In long discussion the beginning of the dialogue got cut out so you had to hunt the blue words and topics to continue asking about what was said in the first paragraph.
- Oblivions dialogue consisted of just few topics. Much simpler, but less rich. Improvement, but not perfect.

Take it like this. Morrowind was boat with leaks. Oblivion was boat with leaks that tried to fix them with sugar.


What we "morrowind vets" are talking about is probably what Daggerfall vets were talking about after Morrowind. Daggerfall had mounts, Morrowind didn't. They brought them back in Oblivion.
Were talking about in where Morrowind hits and where Oblivion misses, so that the next game could improve itself. Many people played Oblivion but didn't play Morrowind. Later they tried but couldn't just because they thought they couldn't live without fast traveling and arrow pointing to where you go. Top that with dice rolls when attacking and you see uninstall bar on your screen.

We don't want to play another Oblivion. We want improved TES game. That comes from thinking what was the weak points of Oblivion and thinking how they can be improved. Not by keeping the design flaws, because Oblivion sold more copies.

Okay, i will try to express what i'd rather like to see.

Morrowind style Clothing/Armor system. I think that should be possible, of course it's more complicated then Oblivions system, but hey... They got a big team this time.

Oblivion Style Alchemy. It sorts out the Ingredients that don't share a common spell effect, an that's really helpfull. Also you could use poisons for your weapons, wich was a huge improvement over Morrowind. And because it has already been established in the latest incarnation of the series, i think we can expect it to come back.

Daggerfall style Advantages/Disadvantages. Basically these are just spell effects and a modifier in expierence gain, so it should be feasable.

More guilds with questlines similar to the Oblivion Dark Brotherhood. That Questline was intense. But that's just a wish, i don't know if they have time for that.

Options! For example to turn Questmarkers on and off. The best thing would obviously be to ask a question during the tutorial (Quest Marker on/of), and if you want to be able to change that Option later in the game with your current charakter (for people like me that can't refrain from using such "exploits"). A customisable GUI would also be great. Or at least a decent one for every platform.

Fast travel is another of these things that people don't like about Oblivion, while nobody hated it in Arena or Daggerfall. But i think that is mostly because Arena and Daggerfall were so huge that it took you a week or so to run from one edge of the map to the opposite edge. I would prefer a Fast Travel system similar to Morrowinds. But i don't think that is going to happen, so i hope they have something like boats or siltstriders in addition to the Fast Travel of Arena/Daggerfall/Oblivion. An Option to turn it of would be nice, too (like the example with Questmarkers i gave before).

Of course, all my suggestions mean more work for the developers... So probably it won't happen.



Disclaimer: Of course i don't want these things i mentioned to be EXACTLY like in previous games, and this is just my opinion, no universal truth, and Skyrim should be Skyrim and water is wet. At least most of the time, super hot steam doesn't feel wet of course, neither does ice or a single H2O molecule, so, yeah...

I also appreciate that this thread is not called "What would you want Skyrim to be?" because this ends in "Morrowind" and "Skyrim should be like Skyrim" everytime.

Edit: Gamebraking typo. All other typos are copyrighted by Thrialas Enterprises. If my english is so bad that you don't understand what i was trying to say... i will refrain from posting large posts...

It will be Skyrim. That is all you need to know.

Lets get an Arena fan in here to school all of us young new fans... Oh wait... Nobody likes Arena.

Daggerfall fans can do that.

Also, I like Arena. I don't love it, but I like it.