You're not taking into account the things that are added to the game.
Lots of people in this forum claim that TES series is being simplified, which is wrong in itself. You mainly look on the things that are removed, and because you loved them, you refuse to recognize the fact that they are in fact still there only in another form, OR they aren't there for a reason the devs thought was for the best. If it's gone, it probably couldn't handle the new system and have been cut out. Lame excuses like "Beth implements old features from Morrowind or Oblivion and sees it's not working well in the game, and instead of thinking hard and improving them they decide to axe them." are entirely not true. They actually have meetings on such things. As for game design, concept, quests, new systems, old systems, it's all being discussed. And no, it's not like someone raises his hand and says "How about we cut out attributes? that could be fun!" They actually discuss about it.

Think, for a second, that after 5 years of development, if they decided that the right way is to replace a few things with others, then I think they know a little better than all of you that it won't fit in with the game.

Now, as for all the "Beth lies to us, attributes won't be in the game in any form!" or those that claim "We won't advantages/disadvantages at the beginning of the game! No character will be unique at the beginning!":
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Those are baseless claims that rely on absolutely nothing. I mean, actually think before you post something like that, "Am I actually saying Beth/Todd lies to us? Do I really think it's a good way to promote their game? Maybe if Beth were doing this all for money, they would've kept the fan-friendly systems like attributes/classes and such, instead of nurturing a public rage over these lost things."

I'm talking about simple logic.

hahaha what he said was pretty harsh...

I disagree that people have attributes. If there are, they are expressed through actions, as there is no actual way of testing someone's attributes. There are numerous types of physical fitness. They're measured through body muscle, dexterity, how flex you are, and finally: the mind. The mind has a great effect on our performance, we can work on improving and strengthening the mind through studying, sleeping and eating a healthy diet.
Due to the fact that "Strength" (which is fictional) is divided to lots of categories (and there are more I haven't mentioned), a person who's better in punching (which is body muscle, mass, dexterity, accurate aiming - technique in other words, based on reaction time) in most cases won't be able to become a body-builder, which works on mass and body muscle (in order to increase mass it's harder to focus on dexterity and being flexible) which means they'll have different "Strengths" in two different types of fields of "Strengths".

The same goes to intellect, but let us drop the intellect part and move to, in fact, wisdom. As intellect is merely the amount of knowledge we possess, and is different than wisdom.
There are lots of types of wisdom, as we're all experts in different fields. I'm, for one, am an expert on physical fitness. The reason wisdom can't be measured is because there are people who're good in chess, and are lousy in school (I have a friend who's just like that), while me and my other friends had great grades in school, and we're in chess, just not as good as he is (and we all know chess works on strategic thinking, which is a type of wisdom).
Same goes for intelligence, you can't measure the amount of knowledge you possess, as we're not using our full brain potential, a resource taken from Wikipedia:

By the way, the 10% use of our brain myth is false, pass it on so people won't be infected by it... While it's true we're not using our brain's full potential, and is the reason why things like intelligence in general, or wisdom, or strength in general, do not exist. A strong person is a person who's good in something physical, an intelligent person is a person who's knowledgeable in a certain field, or even several fields.

I gave enough examples, you do the math.

Nothing worse than game design by philosophy; when has anything good ever come of it?

Harvey Smith's "streamlining" experiment with Invisible War resulted in a Deus Ex sequel reviled and disowned by fans. What little good the Fable series had going for it has been washed away by Peter Molyneux's evangelism of simplistic design. Dragon Age has been completely ruined by BiowarEA's mass market ambitions.

I'd give it another iteration before Elder Scrolls is all but unrecognizable, most of the elements beloved by fans consumed by some misguided reductive conceptual directive. I mean If someone had said a few years ago that the next ES game wouldn't have attributes, birthsigns, classes to choose from, spell creation, etc... they would have been laughed off the board. I can already envision the Bethesda Defense Force posts making claims like "Calm down everyone, Elder Scrolls is better without skills", "We didn't need all those types of armor anyway", "Bonuses for different races was racist!" or "Game is much more fun without character levels."

It's also unfair to look at everything thats removed without looking at whats being added or fixed. Theres Defense Forces, but then theres also Blind Haters.

Exactly. There's plenty that's been added.

I tend to laugh at people who goes "Oh woe, what will they remove next time" as it clearly shows they don't know what they're talking about...

By the way I can see why they would remove levels, and I could be totally behind that... if they can figure out a working alternative of course...

I'm happy with most of the changes I've been reading about so far. The only thing I'm not sure of is the removal of athletics and acrobatics. Bethesda did that in Fallout 3/New Vegas (yes I know it's Fallout and not TES, but still...) and I didn't like the fact that I could never jump any higher or run faster than any other npc... well, npcs couldn't jump but still. I would love to see enemies in Skyrim having the ability to jump so that they don't have to run around rocks and such to catch you. I'm not too happy with the removal of athletics because with athletics, players were allowed the option of working to increase their character's run speed; this is very helpful with light armor or cloth wearing characters who do not specialize in melee combat. I'm aware of the problem in Oblivion with run speed because of back peddling, but that's a simple fix. Bethesda is already reducing the back peddling speed significantly for Skyrim, so that problem's solved.

What has been added?
Perks: very big +
Finishing moves: cute, but not a big deal
Dual Wield: We'll see how that works out
Better Economy : TBD
Improved level scaling : +
Crafts: minor +. Found such things in Fallout 3 to be bit that much fun to play.
Better AI: TBD but potentially the biggest + of them all ... or not depending on how good it really is.

Now what has been removed:
Attributes - Seems to be a very big -. Actual is TBD
Spell creation - potential big - for mage characters
Weapon types: moderate -
More simplified skills: Big -

In the end we'll have to see what the finished product looks like. I have a hard time escaping the feeling that it is being targeted at 14 year olds even while being improved in many ways. However, I have enjoyed TES games since Daggerfall, so I will buy this one too and give it a fair shot.

Simplified games sell more because more people can play them.
See fable 3, the prime example of "streamlining."

Prepare to face the wrath of the Dragon Dork!
:teehee:

We lose more than we gain. Most stuff is removed to make room for graphics. Its also more profitable to streamline your game, or RPG these days.

Doesn't make them better though. "Simplified" games don't always sell more either. Look at how complicated some of the MMO games are yet they still sell very well. In fact Fable 3 was said to have a poorly developed plot after you obtain the crown. The characters are also said to be forgettable. There are reasons why after all these years, people still play Morrowind and Oblivion. I know that mods have a huge part in contributing to these reasons, but mods are not everything. The immersion and amount of depth involved in these games are what still draws players into them.

Different departments handle different things, also huge funds; game development 101 bro.



WoW=Extremely simplified sales really well

EvE online= extremely not simple; niche game 300k users. Probably the deepest game ever made.

Also fable 3 sold very well.

Your first two sentences make no logical sense. Everything else you state is a good talking point for how/why attributes are so important. All items of personal value can be grouped together into some sort of meta-value. These are attributes. The more aggregate the grouping there is less link to an actual characteristic. Which is why attributes would need to be linked to a skill in order to be complete.

So what? The game is limited by the systems and graphics. If the graphics werent as good, we wouldnt need celled cities and we'd have the deepest TES yet. My whole statement you quoted is a fact.

WoW isn't as simple as you think. Sure it's more simple compared to games such as EvE but it still requires more than half a brain to play well. Players needed to know their class' strengths and weaknesses, their role(s), and learn to adapt to situations out of the ordinary; they also had to know what stats/items worked for them and what didn't. For example, a good paladin player would at least offheal or try to tank and switch to sword and board should the main tank die. In other words, the game still requires a good amount of thinking which separates good players from the bad.

Ok so I tried number 3 today and nothing happaned I put a fireball spell to last for thirty seconds shot it at the floor and it quickly disappeared and not damaging the enemy I'm playing Vanilla oblivion on the 360.I think your confusing number three with a mod because it doesn't work. or does it only work with frost?

Some fixes in orange. You missed alot of major additions but we'll have to see on how good they will be. We can only hope they are perfectly implemented.

Nope, just frost, becasue the way it lingers. It should have worked with other types, but Beth just wasnt going for trap spells in OB.

There are actually going to be more weapon types than Oblivion, and they are going to have different effects, unlike in Morrowind, where every weapon type was basically the same...

As for simplified skills, the whole perk system makes the point moot. Yes there are less skills, but raising those skills and getting perks for them will actually do something other than just increase a number that increases another number...

If that was the case, we would see much better graphics. Seriously, that statement is based on nothing, as you have absolutely no knowledge on what Beth is doing and isn't doing. Or the real reasons they moved those features (that's right, moved, not removed). You're making Beth turn out like a heartless organization who only thinks about money, and I tell you what, if that was the case they would be making shooters, not RPGs.

Kools

We do have better graphics. If they made a game for the current systems that had Morrowind graphics, they could make it as big and deep as Daggerfall. So yes, my statement still stands. Secondly my second part of my statement was about games in general and a route that Beth could easily take and arguably have already started.

While we're at it they should also remove voice acting, that would also instantly make the game deeper... :rolleyes:
(I really shouldn't have said it people would take it seriously and agree with it...)

Seriously what is going to be blamed about the simplifying next time?