Alright, this is based off of a post that I made in "Official: Beyond Skyrim" thread, but never got much recognition. I figured that, with a bit of extra information and reformatting it could warrant it's own topic.

Now, the whole reason for this thread is to discuss how depth does not equal less sales and how it can actually benefit them.

Contrary to popular belief, Humans are intelligent creatures, and even further, Casual Gamers enjoy depth. As a matter of fact, when a gamer can think about a game more and master it that way, they will feel much more rewarded than by just simply playing the game, and that will hook you a new customer. The most common issue where depth turns people off is in a lack of clarity. Let's look at a game like Baldur's Gate. If any of you remember it, it follows an older DnD rule set and as such had a die based damage calculation system. A sword's damage can say 2d6 on it for example. What does that mean though? Essentially it just meant that the weapon can do 2-12 damage with a given strike. The former type of complexity is bad and will turn gamers away, while the later tells you the same information in a more accessible and simple fashion. If one can find a way to convey depth in a similar fashion such as the example above, games no longer have to be simplified despite being simplified.

Let's begin to look at the Elder Scrolls series now by starting off with the life blood of Tamriel, the NPCs. It's necessary to make the NPCs feel like people, and a good way to do that is by allowing dialogue with everyone. Oblivion allowed the player to converse with most of the NPCs in the game, and with all of them came a disposition towards the player. While many of the NPCs might have repeated some stuff, they could still be activated to initiate dialogue, thus adding to the feeling that you are in a game world. Skyrim's issue lies within the fact that most of the NPCs, upon activation, will give you one line of dialogue and not even bring up any options. In a way, it's like going to a museum and pressing one of the virtual tour guide buttons. It is just a voice speaking to you as opposed to a human who can answer questions and such. On the topic of asking questions, the Guards are about as useless as wet socks. Personally having experience in the field of Public Safety(Albeit a student Public Safety officer at a college) giving directions can be a huge part of the job, which apparently none of the guards found in the province of Skyrim would be able to do.

While I do not have many qualms about the combat in Skyrim, I do think that locational damage could have been a great thing for not only immersion, but for strategy too; however, weapons are a different story. There are too few weapon types in the game, namely thanks to the presence of Short swords and only two silver weapons appearing in Skyrim. While the lack of weapons might be due to a lack of development time, I think that the disappearance of weapon types definitely takes a toll on the game. The lack of short swords, in my eyes, is unforgivable; it takes out an entire weapon class that many used in the previous games. There is no reason that they could have not been included, if not at release then most definitely with a DLC. The lack of silver weapons is understandable to an extent, but only thanks to the fact that any creature can be damaged by any weapon. This is one of the times where the removal of a feature might be praised however. Nothing svcked more than having your only magical weapon break halfway through a dungeon and having to fight ghosts and such without it. But Skyrim fixes that problem, and as a matter of fact, the two silver weapons do actually have a damage bonus to undead. The question is, why could there not be more silver weapons? To think that weapon variety would turn players away is foolish. I know for a fact that players love when they can obtain cool weapons though one way or another, some even role playing with a certain type. Personally, I see no reason that missing weapon types, such as the ones absent since Morrowind, would affect sales any way but positively.

While Skyrim's perk system took class creation and character development into an interesting direction, I cannot help but feel that it is also severly dumbed down, much more than it needed to. First off, more skills would never hurt any one, and as a matter of fact would add a lot of replayability to the game. While Attributes add more to customization, a few of them were certainly useless. Let's face it, luck was useless to an extent, strength and endurance could easily be wrapped into one, the same with Intelligence and Willpower, and Speed and Agility could be as well. Now which would look less daunting, a list of 8 or a list of 4 or 5 that do the same thing. I know, this is actually dumbing it down a bit, but all of the core features of the attributes would be there. The standing stones, while a great idea for an incentive to go and explore, should not have replaced the birth signs. I truly believe that they can easily both fit into the game, perhaps with birth signs giving a passive that cannot be changed and standing stones providing a daily power that can be changed. And important thing in a game is to make the player's character feel unique and special to them, and with more depth this would definitely strengthen the bond between creator and created.

One of the biggest debates back in the days of Oblivion was about the amount of armor slots on the character. While I do think that more armor slots should be assigned to the characters, there are understandable reasons they are not. There is a good chance that we might not ever get the same customization that Morrowind allowed, sadly, but all is not lost. While this is more of a proposal than a statement about depth, I think that a "dressing room" sort of feature would benefit the game greatly. With this feature the player would be allowed to customize their armor and clothes. Essentially, you would enter a mode where you can toggle aspects of the armor, such as left pauldron, right pauldron, both pauldrons and no chest piece, no pauldrons, no upper body armor, right glove, left glove, and pants or a gladiatorial skirt type thing (Such as what many of the Skyrim armors consist of). If you would go back to the part about making a player feel more attached to their character, it definitely makes them want to adventure more with them, thus a hooking another customer.

The ability to become a creature of the night, such as a Lycanthrope or Vampire has never actually been done extensively outside of the Elder Scrolls series. While the Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim certainly added on to the the Vampire scene, it did take away from one aspect of vampirism that added to it's depth in Skyrim, which was when people would attack you on sight at stage 4 vampirism. However, it managed to maintain it's negatives, such as a vampire's powers being dramatically stunted in the sunlight. To me, that adds depth and consequence, furthering my opportunity to strategize and attempt to "beat" the game. While many some might find it difficult, the alternative is to feed and maintain a healthy supply of blood to only face minimum drawbacks. The same cannot be said for werewolves unfortunately, as any sense of depth has been ripped from them. They have very little drawbacks, if any, and seem much more like an out of context power up button. There is no need to feed, and no need to stay away from civilization at night for the fear of turning. While randomly transforming can be quite bothersome, a message or another on screen cue to allow the player to know that they turn soon would be more than enough to make sure it is not troublesome. The need to feed should be included as well, and with respawning bandits and guards should be no problem to find food at all. While the responsibility might seem daunting, I can assure you that the players who chose the path of these night creatures will definitely find it rewarding to be one.

While Skyrim might be very mountainous, the game is very flat. With levitation still missing from Morrowind, and underwater exploration and combat taken out from Oblivion, the player is restricted to only land in Skyrim, and so are the developers when it comes to making content. You can't tell me that finding Fin Gleam in Oblivion was not awesome the first time you found it. Stuff like this is absent in the most recent Elder Scrolls game, and to be honest it is disappointing. I do not see the need to justify why a more interesting, explorable, and rewarding world would bring in more people to play the game. The creatures of Skyrim also need to be more varied and fun to fight. Not only do they feel repetitive, they all die the same. Have more resistances and weaknesses for the enemies to truly have unforgettable experiences.

Things like a lack of Spellcrafting, lack of shops, lack of dialogue, and the likes might not have destroyed Skyrim, namely because the game on it's own is very good. But imaging Skyrim with all of the depth of the earlier games. Even small things, such as holding candle sticks in Morrowind and making 100% invisibility clothing in Oblivion to mess around with, added so much more feeling to the game, a feeling that Skyrim lacks. There are so many people that are no where near being a "hardcoe" gamer that absolutely loved Oblivion. also bear in mind that with each game the fanbase grows, regardless of what happens with the game.

Add your own thoughts, criticisms, and concerns. So please, discuss, because I know I did not cover everything, and keep this thread alive, for the betterment of the Elder Scrolls Series.