Wouldn't it be great if TES V was split into three seperate games with the plot only being wrapped up in the final (third) release?

The first two parts could end on cliffhangers (or just stop) with the level capped until the next game.


Taking Oblivion's story as an example (spoilers):

game one could end with Martin telling you to bring him a Daedric artifact (there wouldn't be any Daedric quests in game one, that's too much content for one game),

game two would halt after the battle of Bruma,

and game three would finally see Mehrunes Dagon banished.


We could have a lot more DLCs too if TES V was split up into three seperate games like this.

Bethesda could release the main games a year apart and since you can't progress with the main story or upgrade your character, there'd be more room for DLCs for all kinds of things (new armour and weapons etc) to keep you busy. It could kind of be hinted (with deep lore) that you need DLC items to get the best experience out of the next game and have them linked to on-line acheivements.

No this is not Half Life 2 ! :stare:

Bioware's games are more popular since they started splitting them up.

So why wouldn't it improve TES aswell?

Because splitting it up to "part" is rather lacking in parts that I do NOT have 100% material right away. It might work for a linear style RPG, but, TES ain't that kind of game.

I'm with you I want one game and then a few expansions.
Then bring on the next TES :hubbahubba:

NO DEFINETLY NOT.

I hate that "episodic" trend of games, sure it works for some like the "telltale games"... games, but only because still each one is a CLOSED STORY in itself and they are released monthly and not with half a year between each episode. And they are not sold at the price for a full game when it's just PART of one.

Honestly selling a game episodic doesn't mean "you get 3 games" it means "you get one third of a game each time and have to pay full price for it".

No. It just wouldn't work for a non-linear game. Even if they broke the story up, nobody would want to buy three iterations of the game world to get the entire story or wait out the long development cycles. It would come off as a cheap ploy to rip off the customer.

For that matter, the idea as described in the first post is the exact description of everything I hate about the industry right now-- games being broken up and having tons of cheap DLC that took 5-minutes to develop but are needed to unlock all the achievements or get the full experience released just to bleed a little more money out of their fans' wallets. When someone drops their 50-60 dollars on a game they should get just what they payed for: one game. Not part of a game that needs another 50 dollars worth of DLC.


And god forbid that ever happens considering how long Valve takes with the Half-Life 2 Episodes.

F*** NO! I'm not paying $180 ($60x3) for a game when all of it's entire story should have been out on release. I don't feel like paying extra money just to see the end of the story. To me that would be like being charged to play a demo version of a game. In a sense I don't feel like paying for commercials.

If there's extra content, new story and if each part was closer to 4.6Gb big then maybe.

I would hate Bethesda if they did that. As would 99% of their fanbase.

Lord of the Rings. I am not sure as long if each part is min 100 hours of game play, then yes.

That would really not fit TES at all, particularly because of the genre. TES are sandbox games. Who wants to play in a box with one third of the sand? The main quest has always taken a backseat to building the world as a whole; what would people even be getting?

And, I don't think I'd ever encourage more DLC's. I'm not getting any that aren't free, or buying any game that leans too heavily on them. Probably the only way I'd consider segmented purchases is if it went toward a more "complete" world. A lot of suggestions (including mine) can be pretty ambitious, and sandbox games are often especially victim to suffering from cost and development time vs content. If they devoted all effort toward the base of the world: huge landmass, functional AI, plentiful interaction options, and so on, and then put out quest-laden expansion packs to fill it in, it could potentially create a superior product that's worth paying extra for. Otherwise, not a chance.

Nope.

My thoughts exactly. HL2 came out in what, 2004? And now it's taken Valve 5 years to just release 2 3-4 hour episodes, and we still haven't got the last one (nor probably will we until 2011 onwards). And the episodes are more tech demos than actual games anyway.

I'd rather just get the game in one big nice slab (HL2) rather than have it overly drawn out in short packs every 2-3 years(episodes)

No. First the full game, and then maybe expansions with a new story. Or like Morrowind's Tribunal expansion, an expansion which takes the main story of the original game one step further and ties up some loose ends.

NO!!!!!!! :brokencomputer: :banghead: :stare: :chaos: :swear: :flame: :nuke:
Anyway if they did Oblivion in three parts like you pointed out then it would lose all those extra side-quests and guilds we love.
You sir are a mad man

no i would not buy it

-1 customer

im not paying for three parts of a sandbox game. gamesas would be turning elder scrolls into fable like that

It seems I speak for most of Bethesda's fanbase when I say I would not like this at all. I can't say I approve of the idea of episodic content in games to begin with, if I buy a game for the price of a full game, then I want the full experience that was intended, I want to get the entire story and all the content. While of course I like expansions or sequels, these continue the story, or begin a new story in the same world, possibly using the same characters, but the original game should wrap up its own internal story satisfactorily and leave players feeling that they got their moneys worth, expansions and sequels should be something fans can buy if they want more of it, or, in the case of sequels, something someone new to the franchise could buy and get into even without playing the earlier games (which would be quite difficult if the game is "part two" of a story an earlier game left unfinished.) And if the game really can't wrap itself up, and must use sequels to complete its story, those sequels should be complete games on their own. Even though I've played both Half-Life 2 episodes so far (it helps that they tend to be sold in packages that come with other games as well, like with the Orange Box.) I don't like how Valve has decided to divide the story that happens after you complete Half Life 2 into episodes instead of just giving us a full game, you might argue that this allows Valve to release new games more quickly, but that also makes each individual "episode" less satisfying, and while after the cliffhanger that ended Half-Life 2 players may weant to play the next installment quickly, but then the next installment ends with another cliffhanger, and then you have to wait again, before it's resolved, and this isn't just a wait of a week, even for such small installments as these "episodes", it still takes a couple years or so to complete, so you're still waiting awhile to get more of the game. I'd rather wait for the time it takes to make a full game and be done with it, plus, it's been five years and Valve still hasn't finished all the Half-Life 2 episodes, if they went for a full length sequel, it may well be finished by now and we'd already knew how it ends.

And allowing Bethesda to do more downloadable content is hardly an advantage, in fact, it's a disadvantage, I never liked the idea of downloadable content to begin with, really, I mean, sure, some extra items or a quest a couple hours in length is nice to have, but is it really worth paying extra for? I'd say no, it isn't, and back in the days of Morrowind, Bethesda was able to offer addons for free, sure, none of them were anything impressive, and they are easily surpassed in quality by player mad mods (of course, so are Oblivion'd official plugins.) but they were free, if you wanted them, you didn't have to pay extra, but then suddenly the idea of making small addons to the game like this, but charging for it, comes along, and everyone is doing it. I'm of course quite happy to pay for expansions or full games, but I'm not paying extra for downloadable content, the only cases when I ever get buyable mods is if they come bundled with the addition of the game I perchase. But their existence in itself I can tolerate as long as it does not detract from the game, the problem is if the game depends too much on them, and feels incomplete without them, I don't want to pay full price for a game, and then find that I'm missing out on the full experience because I didn't pay extra to perchase the downloadable content, so I definately wouldn't be happt with anything that let Bethesda focus more on downloadable content.

And yes, while linear games might be able to get away with episodic content, I don't see how a wide open sandbox would allow it, the only way to do it, really, would be to have certain areas of the game artificially closed off using either visible and invisible barriers, and if Bethesda wanted to go for a cliffhanger, that simply couldn't work if the game didn't have a definite ending, after all, a cliffhanger generally means leaving a major character in a dangerous situation with the outcome kept uncertain until the story is concluded, and while it might be possible to have that between quests in the game, you can't very well do it if you can continue to play after the main quest. After all, it's hard to keep playing when your character is litterally hanging from a cliff with a sheer drop down to a lake of lava five hundred meters below.

So yes, basically, I'm against episodic content in the Elder Scrolls.

I think that Robynah's account has been hacked by a troll.

I can honestly say, I would be rather displeased with that.

No.

I want a game, and I want it now. I don't want one third of a game at full-game price.

And what if Bethesda tanks after the second game? What if they decide they want to pursue a different IP for a while, and fans are left hanging for several years?

I've seen both happen with other devs/publishers.

It's a crappy business model for consumers. Maybe authors can get away with it in their books. Movies can barely get away with it, as long as production is grinding away so audiences don't have to wait for years between movies (like in the original Star Wars movies). But in video games? If production has to grind away like that, they either barf out small, unsatisfying games, or they might as well have waited a few months and packaged everything together.

And, frankly, TES traditionally (sans TESIV) isn't MQ-focused. It's non-linear, it's about exploration, side quests, factions, and exploring a game world. Chopping the world up into thirds just wouldn't work.

It seems you have to be British to tell

No.

An absolute (but considerate) no. I understand where you are coming from, but it's just not going to ever work with TES. I think of it like this. The type of RPG you are thinking of can be represented as a compound sentence Ex: Jack went to the store while Jill cooked dinner. What you want to do is separate the two into: "Jack went to the store. Jill cooked dinner." TES (in this situation) would be: "As Jack left for the store, Jill started to cook dinner." If it were separated into "As Jack left for the store." and "Jill started to cook dinner." One sentence "Jill started to cook dinner." would be complete, but the other "As Jack left for the store." would be an incomplete fragment. If TES were broken into small episodes, they would feel uncompleted, and the break in gameplay would destroy immersion.

Vote: No

I want them to put all their focus on one game, making it as good as possible. If they have to worry about storyline continuity for something 2 games/episodes later, it can be a distraction, and potentially make them leave out good gameplay ideas just to save for later.

EDIT
This would also make patching the game and fixing bugs a problem. How can they do that, when they are busy making the next game. And you can kiss DLC goodbye.