The Future, I had to do it. Options

[canis216]

Well a compass wouldn't be so bad... you know, for when you really get lost. But as Oblivion quest info was given, you almost didn't have a bloody choice as to use it or not, because no one described how to get somewhere--the designers just got lazy (or just couldn't create enough voice-acted dialogue) with providing directions. Thus, immersion is killed. A compass (with those damn arrows) is fine as a backup. It should not be created as a player's primary means of getting around.

Edit: Now I use one of those immersive interface mods that gets rid of the compass. Hallelujah!

This post has been edited by canis216: Jan 12 2008, 10:51 AM

[Gaius Maximus]

I don't really know if TES universe has those, but what I'd like to see would be a real compass, as an item. It could be used for looking around. Of course, nothing too useful, but adds to the realism and would decrease the need to look at the map, as you could follow directions like 'north-east of Odai river' or something like that easier.

[The Metal Mallet]

I was thinking that they could simply combine voice acting with the reading implement they used in Morrowind. For example, you speak with your quest giver, they give you the details about the situation, then, instead of them giving you spoken detailed directions, they simply mention that they'll give you an "outline" that tells you the directions. Personally I'd find it annoying to listen to someone blab on about how to get somewhere. Reading it seems much more realistic.

[Steve]

That carriage and ship idea is really good!
I hope in the next game the map is bigger too! I would love to have a game with two provinces instead of like one!

Also, it would be cool if like you could travel to other continents as well! That would be awesome. And in the next game, I hope you can join the Imperial Army or something. That would be cool and would add some good quests for fighter type people. Being a count would be great but, if I couldn't get that. Being a Lord or something would be cool. Though, I wonder how you could fit it into the game?

[Olen]

A downpowered compass would be best. Outside with a map and real compass you can do exactly the same thing but when the compass points to the one box you're meant to find in a room its silly. Have it point to the town or part of the city but leave you alone from there would be best.

And bring back guild guides - yes it was like email but it was so limited that it was conveniant.

A degree of leveling is required (morrowind did this very well with different regions being differently nasty) but starting out with some of the leveling mods is awful (I just ran into a minator on the road at level one using francescos...). Having different types of ruins at different difficulties was inspired too though a degree less predictability would be nice.

Bigger map and more guilds go without saying. How many factions did morrowind have?

What do people think of mark/recall and the intervantion spells? And levitation? Is it better without them?

[The Metal Mallet]

I found the mythicism school of magic only useful for mark/recall and the intervention spells, and soultrap too. In Oblivion that school seems almost worthless now when it's missing 2 of the three main spells that go with that school.

Mark and recall were so handy, I often had my non magical characters learn them just because I found it to be useful for hording loot and whatnot.

[jack cloudy]

I'd rather have Morrowind's fast travel plus teleportation spells as well. Cause it was more limited.

Levitation, it was nice, but I'd rather have real climbing. (even better if there's a grapling hook.) Cause face it, why did Morrowind have levitation? Cause your character couldn't climb. Of course heavily armoured warriors will prefer to levitate but hey, they're warriors. If they wanted to get to the high places, they should have left all that metal at home.

I think there is some real potential for dungeon design if climbing is reimplemented. Say, the player wants to get up to a balcony or something. So he'll first get onto a table, then throw the grapling hook to a brazier (torch holder.) Using the rope, the player climbs up and stops at an alcove he passes on the way which is just large enough to stand in. The player then releases the grappling hook and throws it across the room to the balcony. Climb (or swing, that would be fun) the rope and presto. If you were forced to levitate everywhere instead, players would just slap on a levitation spell of sufficient magnitude and rise up to the balcony directly. That kind of takes all the fun out of it.

Oh, and rugs hanging on the wall should be easier to climb than a smooth marble wall.

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Jan 13 2008, 10:50 AM

[canis216]

I would totally dig climbing. I'm a bit of a climber in RL, (and Al is a wall-climber!) so I totally would love it. I would climb stuff just for the sake of climbing.

(Actually, while playing Oblivion I think about climbing a lot, because they have all these mountain and hill sides that are impossible to ascend that would be easy for me personally to scramble up.)

[Gaius Maximus]

Climbing would totally rock. Especially if there was grapling hooks, or pickaxes. I would totally make an alpinist character and attempt to scale the Dive Rock...

Oh, I almost forget to mention one thing that I always wanted to see - character height.

How comes my Redguard can't be 5'5 feet tall? How comes my Orc can't be 7 feet tall? I'd like to see an option to alter a character's height. There could be the average height (say, we have... I dunno, 5'7 feet for Redguards) which you could edit by, say... 4 inches. This way, my Redguard could be 6'1 feet tall, or 5'4 feet tall.

This post has been edited by Gaius Maximus: Jan 13 2008, 12:52 PM

[Olen]

Ok another question: where would people like to see it set?

Personally I think a bit more than a decade after Oblivion set in morrowind and black marsh would be awsome. Morrwind is just such a cool region with so many political strains and dunmer. And Argonians are just cool and it would be nice to see a great big forest (which by the time it comes out should be quite feasible). But then my favourite races by a long way are dunmer and argonians.

It would be nice if the vanilla game had a couple of major save the world quests too, a bit like oblivion with NOTN. But with some contact between them.

Just my thoughts though.

[jack cloudy]

I'd say the border regions between Valenwood and Elsweyr.

Valenwood = Cause I'm a Bosmer junkie. (Especially some of the females. Gosh, they're just cute!) Ok, and I like their culture, the walking cities, stuff like that.
Elsweyr = Cause the Khajiit are quite interesting themselves and can be really crazy if on the moonsugar. Oh, and cause they're constantly at war with the Bosmer so there is plenty of conflict.

If not there, I'd say Summerset though I fear it would be a tad too inhospitable for non-Altmer.

Black Marsh would be interesting as well, but it is by far the most inhospitable region of Tamriel. Only Red Mountain comes close. (Before Dagoth Ur gets whacked, and even then only because of all the baddies swarming it.)

[Gaius Maximus]

What I'd want would be Skyrim/High Rock/Hammerfell border. As for the time... well, maybe some 50 years into the Fourth Era.

[jack cloudy]

Heh, it looks like we can't agree here. There is only one answer to this.

MAKE IT ALL OF TAM.........BZZZT, WRONG ANSWER.

Nope, it's this:
A DIFFERENT GAME FOR EACH OF US!

Nah, never mind all that. I guess I'm fine with every province, but I still prefer the more exotic ones.

[Lord Revan]

You know, the compass in Oblivion is pretty much a clone Jack Sparrow's.

[Olen]

Only sort of, when it was pointing to one house or one chest (or worse one person) then yes and when you hadn't been told where to go yes. But when it just points to one cave or town then its fine. If you know where that is it just assumes you're character can read a map.

They could give a better map and let you do it yourself (morrowind's paper map was genius) but that leads to the whole PC/player skills issue.

Which makes me think - better paper map, oblivions was a bit rubbish.

And a better hand to hand system would be nice. No fight ever stays at arms length just punching, though it could be very hard to implement a better one so I'll let them off.

This post has been edited by Olen: Jan 15 2008, 12:49 AM

[Agent Griff]

The next Elder Scrolls game should have more politics. Oblivion was severely lacking in that department and it showed. The devs at first envisioned a way to add politics to the game, through the dead Count of Kvatch (the player was supposed to take his place) but in the end they cut it, saying that it drew the player away from the main point of fighting the Daedra. I don't think I've ever heard something more idiotic in my life, but it seems that the efforts Bethesda made to mainstream the game crippled it entirely when it came to politics.

We should have politics in TES V! Something like the Great Houses in Morrowind but better and more involved. Bethesda should also reintroduce miscellaneous quests that are randomized, but only after a certain point like, for example, in Morrowind where you got to a high rank in a Great House and got to own your own manor-house. In your position as noble you could possibly have conflicts with other nobles, hire the Dark Brotherhood to kill them, have to fight off DB attempts on your own life. You could also solve disputes on your estate between your subjects. You could have a quest in which you have to deliver 2 000 gold pieces to your liege lord in a set number of days and you can choose how you go about doing it: either abuse your subjects so they fork out the gold and much more, which stays in your pocket, or collect the gold in a lawful way and discover that you subjects don't quite have enough gold, so you have to add some gold from your own pockets.

If you abuse the peasants and give your liege the ill-gotten gold, your subjects will hate you and it will, as a consequence, make attempts at your life far more frequent (the people don't give a crap if they have assassins running around trying to kill you) yet your liege will be thankful and could possibly give you favours when you ask it of him.

If you gather the gold lawfully and add some from your own pockets the peasants will be glad and they will protect you in case of attempts on your life, making your experience as lord a much safer one. It will take more time however since some peasants may require a few extra days to gather all the money so the lord will be visibly pissed off with you.

Choices equal consequences, right? These examples were really something though about on the spot and it isn't hard to come up with them. Why don't try your own, see if you can beat Beth at their own game?

[Gaius Maximus]

I was always thinking of this since I've played Joan of Arc... Alright, here I go.

Maybe there would be an option for armed conflicts to start. In that case, the player, given that he/she is in the position fit to lead an army, would recieve a spell, called 'Leader's Sight', before every battle. The game would then switch to RTS mode, and it would be then possible to command armies. After the battle would end, the spell effect would automatically turn off, and the spell itself would be automatically removed from the spell list until next battle.

I've seen it tried, and it qorked. With some work, I believe it could be very interesting... Of course, it would make it RPG/RTS, but who really cares, as long as it's only for battles that could never even occur in the first place if it is chosen so?

What to do you all think of that?

[Steve]

Hey, that's a good idea!

You know, when I first played Oblivion's main quest. I actually thought I would become the Count of Kvatch. It just fit you know?
You get the ring and stuff... It was almost perfect?

Those would be cool to have in quests the paying thing. I'm someone who hates to fight in dungeons.... caves... etc.
And I felt they didn't have enough non-fighting quests. You know?
It would be nice if you could use your mind more in the game to figure stuff out. Sometimes you had too but not enough!

The army idea sounds good! But I don't know if Bethesda would make a game like that. It just doesn't seem so... Elder Scrollish.... lol
Though I think it is a good idea!

[Agent Griff]

Well, the army idea could fit in with the politics system. It would help with the open-ended aspect of the game since you would have a choice in who to blackmail politically, who to attack outright etc.

You could, for example, choose if you want to stay on the political side of things (as a diplomat or negotiator) or on the strong-man side of things (kind of like a paid mercenary which leads his troops on the field of battle first then uses his men and his military achievements to influence his political position). All in all it would make for an interesting experience, though I don't think Bethseda would go down that way. It would make for an odd hybrid game kind of like the Spellforce games (those games are more RTS than RPG however).

[Jamie Charlton]

I think that the entire world shouldn't pause when you talk to someone. and there should be more than like 5 voice actors.