I'm am making this thread in the hopes that Bethesta one day truly listens to the requests of it's followers. Oblivion was a fantastic game. However, it had a lot of problems on top of an already unstable engine (I hate Gamebryo). Then they released 2 patches and never looked back. I am addressing these things in an effort to help Bethesta, hopefully, make the perfect open-ended fantasy RPG. Also, bit of a fair warning. There's a wall-o-text coming, but there's a 'tldr' at the bottom. Now with the formalities aside, this thread is for *you* the community. I have great respect for you all, and the things that you've helped make for Oblivion. If it wasn't for all of you, Oblivion would have had a *much* shorter life and I would have stopped playing a long time ago. That being said, I personally felt that Bethesta gave us (though out-standing) half of a game. Let me explain... I have *never* seen modders, for a commercial game, go out of their way to make an actual script extender. Although this is to be commended, had Bethesta given us more tools to work with, rather than the horrible, God-awful Construction Set Editor. A script extender would have been unnecessary. Let me give you another example, The Unofficial Oblivion Patch. If you're not familiar with this mod, let me give you the over-view. 18,000 bugs, 70,000 placement errors... This was after the (only) two patches that Bethesta gave us. Even after all those bug fixes, when I exit out of Oblivion it'll sometime crash for no good reason. I suppose the game crashing on exiting is the best time for a crash, but still... I know how this might sound, I'm not trying to give Oblivion or Bethesta a bad name. I'm simply giving my reasoning for making such a thread. I would just really like to see Bethesta consider what the modding community has done. We are the reason why their games stay alive so long. With all that being said, I would really like to here the things you have to all say. About Bethesta and Oblivion, and what you would like to see in the next installation of this wonderful series. Let me start by listing off some things that *I* would like to see in TES V. 1. Soft-physics and Jiggle bones: For clothing and anything else you can think of (yes, breasts). Havoc I *know* supports this feature. You might be saying "that would be way too resource-heavy". First, computers are a lot more powerful than they were 4 years ago. Second, it would only be a feature for those who really want to use it. 2. Better NPC interaction: In a huge, open-ending role-playing game, where does the most amount of immersion come from? The NPC's, the towns-people, the characters! I want to be able to make friends, or lovers with the people that I can talk to. For example, you talk about some personal things to a particular NPC, and he/she grows to like you (through dialog, not a stupid "persuasion gauge"). You go out of town for a good while, then you come back. That NPC sees you, and immediately walks/runs over to you and begins to talk to you telling you how happy they are to see you. 3.Less static towns: This kinda goes under NPC interaction, but it's a little bit different. I'm so sick of seeing the same characters in the same cells *all the time*! Don't get me wrong, is was awesome that Bethesta gave every NPC a schedule. The fact that shop keepers would lock up and go to their homes at night is wonderful. But, why aren't the city streets filled with people, especially the Imperial City? The streets should be filled with the sounds of city life, shouting, laughing, arguing, and bartering! This goes for interiors as well. The clattering of glasses, and banging of chairs and tables. The tall-tales of a war veteran, the sound of someone playing the piano or guitar. These would add tendentiously to the experience of playing an open-ended RPG! 4. Better combat system: Oblivion's combat system is leaps and bounds over Morrowind.The fact that you would slash at point-blank rage at an enemy and miss, DROVE ME MAD! Also, Oblivion made magic in combat a lot better.But think of how much more immersive the combat in Oblivion would be if you could shield-bash, kick, light your sword on fire with a spell, etc... 5. Support for multiple body models: Aside from height and weight (which are fixed, and never change), everyone looks physically the exact same. I want to see different body builds, and different cup sizes! 6. First-person viewable body: Many games are still guilty for this, and I *do not* understand it. This is 2010, I am sick of being a pair of floating arms! Why isn't this standard in FPSs? Is there something I just don't know? Is there an actual reason for this?! While I'm on the subject of cameras, I'd like consistency also. Try this, go into first-person and draw your sword. Your character is holding the sword up where you can clearly see it. Now go into third person. You're character is actually holding the sword at his/her side down by the hips. This is small, I know. It's also very preventable. 7. Better stealth-based game play: This is for all the thieves out there. I personally feel that the 'sneak' feature in Oblivion is pretty lackluster. Anyone who's played Thief knows what real stealth-based game play is. Using lighting to your advantage, distracting guards with sounds and putting out lit torches. Of course I'm not suggesting that they need to go that far, but at least make lighting an important feature. Also disguising! 8. Bosses: This was honestly one of the biggest let-downs in Oblivion for me. TES V needs to have show-downs between you and a big'ol baddie. 9. Better interactions with physics: With the introduction of the Havoc physics engine, Bethesta implemented a "Grab" feature. It's very simple and, well lets face it, useless. The ability to rotate and throw objects or even grab NPCs would help to really make you feel apart of the world! 10. Loot system: There aren't a whole lot of types of weapons and armor in vanilla Oblivion. You got your steel, then Iron, then Leather, then blah blah blah...Too soon in Oblivion do you see all the types of gear that it has to offer. With the exception of quest-based gear, which brings be to my next plea. 11. Non-leveled quest items: When playing Oblivion for the first time I quickly found out that gear you get from quests scales based on your current level. What does that mean? The item you get from a quest is going to be more powerful if you do it when you're a higher level. Why is that bad? A lot of reasons... Mainly it greatly discourages players from even wanting to get items from quests, because they want to hold off and wait till they're a higher level. In return the items will be better. Thank God Quazzy went and made Quest Award Leveler! This wonderful mod makes quest-based items scale up to your current level! 12. Coop/Client-based multiplayer: There maybe some that will disagree, yet I think a small multiplayer feature would greatly benefit TES V. I wouldn't want a full on MMO, but a 2-4 player coop would amazing! I hope throughout this seemly never ending post, I've nodded a few heads. These requests were mealy off the top of my head, I'll add more as time goes on. Now enough of my rambling, I want to hear what you all have to say!' tldr; Bethsoft gave us half a game, list what you want in TES V.
