A New Elder Scrolls Options

[1234king]

IM TIRED AND TIRED OF TRYING TO FIND NEWS ON A NEW ES GAME. IS THERE ANYONE WHO KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT ANOTHER ES!???

[mplantinga]

I'm a little worried about the prospect of a new ES game. I've seen very convincing arguments from old-school ES fans, which fit with my experience of Morrowind and Oblivion, that the state of "story" in the ES games is declining, i.e. the older the game, the better the story. Now, if you want to make a hack n' slash action RPG, lack of story is okay; after all, in an aRPG, you only need just enough story to link on kill to the next. But if you're going to call a game a true RPG, you need to have story. Without story, you may have G, but no RP. One of the things I really enjoyed about Morrowind was the depth of the setting, the significance of the lore, and the value that these provided to the gameplay. In Oblivion, I found some aspects of the combat more enjoyable, and there were some fairly creative quests (mostly DB and Thieves guild), but I didn't really feel that the story had anywhere near as much depth as Morrowind. I was also very disappointed in the incredibly limited things the NPCs had to say; I realize that a lot of the NPC dialog in Morrowind was repetitive, but at least people had things to say.

I suppose my biggest criticism of Oblivion is that Bethesda put too much focus "immersion", i.e. better graphics, better sound, object physics, spoken dialog, and not enough focus on story. I understand that these things are expected from a "modern" game, but the real joy of an RPG comes from story, not pretty pictures. The reviews I've read for Fallout 3 seem to be in the same direction, suggesting that Bethesda and I simply do not see eye to eye on what makes a good RPG.

I suppose the clearest sign of my feelings about Oblivion is that I have not purchased the expansion. I spent many hours in the game (hundreds, I'm sure), but by the time the expansion came out, I had lost interest.

I'm sure that if they make TES V, I will buy it, but I don't believe it will even live up to the standards set by Oblivion, which were already much lower than those of Morrowind.