Lachdonin

The actions of the Legion indicate otherwise. They make no hostile moves towards Whiterun, and instead try to win it through diplomacy. Despite their lack of control of the region, they are shown being more than able to opperate in Stormcloak territory even without Whiterun (likely due to control of Falkreath). The evidence indicates that the Empire doesn't NEED Whiterun, whereas the Stormcloaks do. There's just nothing to indicate that the Legion has any military aims on Whiterun. They are perfectly content to let diplomacy deal with the situation, or to at least not have Balgruf support the enemy. Tullius seems to be smart enough to realise that the city isn't important enough to him to justify making another enemy.

Don't compare TES Vampires to any other Vampires. Don't compare TES anything to anything else. It puts its own twist on things and often outright flies in the face of conventional paradigms. Vampires in TES have no real special advantage over mortals. The main advantage to being a Vampire is immortality. Their power comes from knowledge, which is gathered through the ages. Submitting to Bal is one of the easiest ways to achieve immortality in Tamriel. It's not about being more powerful, it's about not getting older. Molag Bal didn't create them to be the perfect killers. He created them as a 'Reward' for his followers, but because he is the God of Slavery and Oppression, tacked on some terms of service that force them to engage in behaviours he finds entertaining. After a few hundred years, you can become pretty powerful, but treating Vamparism in TES as some sort of super-powered undeath like it is in other media is inherently flawed. It's never intended to be that. The same goes for Werewolves. There are some gameplay limitations involved, but these are first and foremost curses and diseases for the entertainment of cruel gods, not gifts to make one stronger.

That's because you're looking at the game wrong. TES gales don't have prevailing themes. They have a combination of varied stories for ypu to engage in, but don't have any consistent or established identity or persona. You're only the Dragonborn if you choose to engage in the adventures that pertain to the Dragonborn's story. It's not like The Witcher where you're Geralt of Rivia no matter what you do. First off, bear in mind that the Engine does not limit anything. Bethesda has absolute control over their engine and can include and modules they want. The Engine doesn't need replacing, simply because they aren't subject to contractual resctrictions that leave them unable to change the system as they see fit. Second, we've talked a lot about a Black Flag style dynamic over on the Bethesda forums, and there are some problems with the idea... The setting, while it does seem to have cannons, is in a very different era, and contains very different ships. The control scheme would be problematic, even if it forced a 3rd person camera (which they REALLY need to stop doing) because of the variable camera. And, well, as much as I loved Black Flag... That style just doesn't really fit with TES. A spinoff with Cyrus, maybe, but not the core games... There's definately potential in a more marine-driven aspect, with Yokuda in a Hammerfell game and Padonya in a Summerset one, but Space Exploration is more TES than an Age of Sail thing.

Because, like any crusade based on ideals, those notions can't drive a military campaign. Ulfric knows he needs to control Whiterun to make any strategic headway. It's not about the ideals, because the ideals are just a rallying call to the disenfranchised and the gullible. Like the Muslim threat to Christianity, the over-taxation in the colonies, the Jews being responsible for the Depression, or the infidels in America, all ideals do is draw recruits. They don't win, or even dictate, wars. The Stormcloak campaign isn't driven by ideals, it's driven by military strategy. It is that need for strategy that drives the attack on Whiterun, that has Ulfric writing for aid from the Bretons even as using 'Skyrim is for the Nords' as his rallying call, that has Ulfric placing loyal Jarls on the hold thrones to ensure he wins the Moot... Strategy drives any successful war, and ignorant, manipulated Ulfric is intelegent enough to realise that.

As much as i dislike Ulfric, and think the Stormcloaks are a bunch of short sighted thugs who don't seem to realise that their actions are doing more harm to their ideals than good, there is a major oversimplification here... Whiterun is one of the largest trade cities in Skyrim, sitting smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest and most travelled trade routes with easy access to 5 Holds. It's a huge strategic location, and a linchpin in trying to secure and supply forces on either side of the battle line. Control of Whiterun is crucial to maintaining a war in the opposing territory, which is why it's such a hotbed for the efforts of both the Empire and the Stormcloaks.

Well, only one of the 3 managed to walk away. And it wasn't the Snake or the Ash-King.

52 mods, 600 hours of Skyrim, and 136 on one save. Admittedly, I'm getting old, and can't play as much as I used to. Life, and all that...

There's not really much information about Deathdogs and Gargoyles, so we can't really say for sure... We just really don't know how they're made, or where they come from. They may both be Daedric entities granted as a boon from Molag Bal, or something engineered by the Volkhair themselves. They seem to be guard-animals for the Volkhair though, so i would imagine they could function during the daylight... otherwise they aren't very good at keeping guard.

Harumph! We do not sling mud, wipper snapper. We sling fluid saturated earth! But anyway... Despite superficial resemblances to Mummies and even Zombies, Draugr are their own breed of creature. It's not exactly clear what animates them, though they aren't nocturnal by any stretch. The best explanations I've seen are that they are Nords too stubborn to die, are guardians of Tombs, or are cursed servants of the Dragon Cult. Maybe all three. But they don't have any established links or weaknesses to Aetherial energies (Like Vampires) nor are they typically associated with Necromancy (like Mummies and Zombies). Various types of spirits, Vampires and Liches are far more suited to being vulnerable to sunlight (or rather Aetherial Energies). Draugr are something else entirely.

Nah, heavy armor made of steel and iron are very easy to move Exactly. Regardless of the type of armour you're wearing, you're looking at between 30 and 60lbs. The difference in encumberance comes from how the material moves, and how it's carried. More pliable armours, like soft-Leather and Maille, are actually harder to move in pound for pound because if the way they distribute weight. Whereas Plate is partially self-supporting, 'softer' armours rest entirely on the body and limbs, requiring greater effort to move them. This is part of the reason why plate became so popular regardless of where it was developed (it was developed independently in India, China, Japan and Europe). So, the weight thing has never made much sense. A suit of Leather armour (sufficient to protect you, mind you. Most leather is useless for Armour and isn't going to stop squat. Parts of the world with access to heavier hides, particularly elephant, made more use if leather than, say, Europe and Asia) weighs about the same as a suit of Plate. The Pate is just far more protective. In a highly simplified sense, there are 7 types of armour. Cloth- Yes, cloth. Cloth armour was in fact the Armour of choice for the poor, and formed part of the armouring of wealthier individuals typically as a padded undergarment over which useful armour was worn. It typically consisted of layers of padded or quilted cloth sewn on top of a leather jerken and... Well... It sucked. It offered minor benefits against impacts, as it was padded, and could protect you against glancing hits, but it was easy to cut, easy to pierce, and any killing blow was going to hit harder than a few layers if flax and hay could absorb. It was cheap, though, and some protection was better than none. It was commonly worn under a linked set of metal bars that were intended to give better protection to the arms, particularly. Leather- once boiled leather remains pliable and, if thick enough, can offer minor protection against cutting. It was more commonly used by craftsmen and butchers to ward against accedental injury. Unless extremely thick, it's basically useless against piercing and it's soft, pliable nature makes it poor against impact. Hardened Leather- you can submerged leather in boiling oil or water to harden it, forming plates which can mimic proper plate armour, but are far les durable. They are resistant to cutting, piercing and Blunt force, but tend to crack and split easily, making them not particularly useful in a fight. They were very good for decoration, though. Scale Armours- both as hardened leather and metal scales, they basically offer good protection against cuts and, because of a more rigid overlapping structure, blunt force, but are very vulnerable to piercing. It's also not really the bet for protracted use, as the links tend to be easily cut and you regularly lose scales. Maille/Mail- improperly called Chain Mail, Maille is made by interlocking rings of metal, typically iron and steel, forming a flexable coat of metal that is almost impervious to cutting, resistant to piercing, but offers no real protection against force. In fact, broken bones were very common with maille, because it didn't even stop the impact of swords. Brigandine/splint- various sorts of armour consisting if overlapping metal plates, typically riveted to a leather or cloth coat. This is what is commonly misinterpreted as studded leather (which never existed) and basically offered the same protection as later plate, but was mkre difficult to move in. In this category is also the Lorica Segmentatta, a type of Roman Plate typically associated with the Legions, which was something of an emergency development during high-loss periods when they couldn't make Maille fast enough. And finally you have Plate. It's highly resistant to impact and Piercing, almost impervious to cutting, and in later generations was so heavily articulated that it could cover virtually every joint in 4mm of tempered steel. It was so protective that it required the development of highly specialised weapons just to crack, and only fell out of use when firearms rendered it financially unfeasible. The image of a knight being hoisted onto his horse by a crane was a Victorian fabrication, and medieval plate armour in Europe, India, China and Japan was highly mobile, allowed for almost full range of motion and weighed less than modern military Kit. There are some variations to this, of course. We have limited evidence of wooden armours, both from Europe and the Americas, and bamboo armour from parts of Asia. In Japan, there was also a variation of the cloth Gambeson which was made of silk, and offered considerably more protection (though was absurdly expencive and limited exclusively to the Samurai). China also did use layered paper armour, though the protective characteristics are debatable. Korean and Mongol records indicate it was garbage, and the Chinese say it was better than steel. I've never seen any practical tests done with it to say one way or another. Some areas, such as India and parts of Africa made wider use of Leather, due to access to Eyre supplies of heavier hides (most leather used in Europe was useless for armour. Only the shoulders of an adult cow or bull offered a thick enough hide, and it wasn't common to slaughter adult animals). People in the south Pacific used shark and Ray skin as armour, sometimes covered with shells, and there is limited evidence of stone armours being used in Africa. Bone was also sometimes used to make scaled armour, and examples survive from central Africa, Mesoamerica and Greece. Anyway... Representing the actual qualities and capabilities of different types of armour just isn't possible in a simplistic Light-Medium-Heavy dynamic. You could carve it up into 7 skills, but that wouldn't be overly functional either as wearing different tyes of armour isn't that different. It's just moving with extra weight, more of an endurance thing than any special skill. There's also the specialised problem in TES that there are Plate armours in the Light category where they don't belong. It's just easier to totally merge the skills and make Armour about various types of passive damage mitigation. Then you can dedicate the blank skill-spot to strict mobility, allowing people to mix and match as they please in a more diverse and more realistic model.

Ok, time for yammer pt.2... Sorry about the eyes, by the way. This was formulated over more than 7 pages of discussion on the Bethesda Forums. Condensing it into one post is... Long. Here's the biggest issue with how armour skills work in TES. They don't have a significant impact on how you play. They offer you protection, but don't overly change the skills you think to use, the way you approach a situation or the mechanics you employ in combat. They are basically just an aesthetic variation that determines what you are going to wear. They both impair your stealth to a degree, but the primary influence there is your Sneak skill (as it should be). They shouldn't impact your physique or your speed or your ability to dodge, those are variables that should be primarily linked to Athletics (more on that later). Its not even significantly different wearing different types of armour, and traditionally 'Lighter' armour can in fact restrict you more than heavier (Maille is typically classed as a Medium armour in games, but is the most restrictive type of armour historically). All armour does is offer passive protection against hits that manage to get through your active defenses. It is a passive defensive system divided more by the techniquest used to make the Armour than by how much it weighs. And that Passive element is important here. The traditional thinking on the subject is that each 'Class' should have their own type of armour. Mages, Rogues and Warriors. This is because, logically, everyone should have access to some passive defenses incase they DO get hit. The problem here is... This dynamic typically functions in a system where characters are given flat restrictions on what they can wear. Mages can't wear Medium or Heavy, Rogues can't wear Heavy, that sort of system. In TES, we don't have those restrictions. You can wear whatever you please. So without those flat restrictions, we just end up with multiple skills, once again, doing the exact same thing. Offering passive damage mitigation. And that Damage is overly simplified because of the arbitrary divisions. As I said above, because of the lack of consistency in the Armours within a class and the reliance on weight, you can't represent HOW each armour behaves. You can't have Leather be vulnerable to piercing attacks, or Maille offer minimal protection against Blunt. And because you can't use diverse damage types represented by the armouring techniques, it limits what you can do with weapons. You can't differentiate between a Broadsword and a Rapier unless you have a mechanism for dealing with Cutting and Piercing, for instance. Now, in the real world, Plate is just better than everything else. Leather armour (Soft, Hardened or Scaled, doesn't matter) is going to weigh about the same as an equal covering of Plate, and offer far less protection, and the articulation of Plate means that any extra pliability in Leather is more of a protection liability than a mobility benefit. But, as I said elsewhere, we dont have magic to contend with in the real world, so you can mitigate this imbalance by making Magicl protection inversely related to Physical. So Leather is good against Mages, Plate is good against physical harm, and everything else runs the gamut in in between. So, by amalgamating all the Armour into a single skill you can better represent what each type is good for. This means that you are never directly hampered by your choice in armour (you can just change outfits) but adds a more strategic element to your armour choice (trying to predict the opponents you''ll have to contend with). And, by doing this, you also get to expand weapon ranges by diversifying damage types. Pierce, Cut and Blunt actually figs quite well beside Fire, Frost and Lightning,elegantly balancing out the Physical and Magical damage types. But this really just eliminates a single superficial choice without addressing the wider issue of homogeneous defensive options. In fact, it just makes that problem more obvious (though not functionally worse) because you now only have one Skill. And that skill simply governs flat mitigation. Armour protect you when you get hit. End of story. That's what it does, that's what it's there for... But how about not getting hit? This is where paridigms, defenses, varied gameplay and meaningful choices and combinations come in. In TES (and generally in Fantasy) we have 3 core paradigms of identity. The Warrior, the Thief and the Mage. Taken in isolation, all 3 are very distinct approaches and identities, and the overwhelming majority of 'Classes' are a combination of these 3 core ideas. Paladins and Clerics are Warrior-Mages, Duelests and Rangers are Warrior-Theives, Night Blades and Illusionists are Theif-Mages. But the key here is that each core Paradigm contains the ability to function in total isolation, while allowing combinations between them. So, Armour becomes a part of the Warrior Paradigm. It's about mitigating incomming damage and surviving through endurance. Taking hits and keeping going. This is supplemented by a secondary, active mitigation mechanic in Blocks and Parries, but the basic idea behind the Warrior Defensive Approach is mitigating incomming damage. For the Thief, it's about avoidance. Either by being undetected (Sneak) or actively avoiding attacks (a sorely needed Dodge mechanic, most appropriately governed by a returned -and changed- Athletics) the Thief approach to defense is simply not to get hit. Then the Mage approach is, functionally, a hybrid of the other two, but relying in their magical forces to do so. Shields, Wards, teleportation, becommign etherial... They utilise active abilities, Spells, to both mitigate (or, well, outright prevent) damage and to avoid their enemeies attacks, but are limited by their magical reserves. Without that, they're kinda screwed. Now, dividing things up like this has some advantages. First, you can have a more pure expression of the ideas that typically get hybridized by the normal Light-Medium-Heavy dynamic. Suddenly, not only is an Unarmoured approach viable, but you have a few different ways to do it. But you also have the ability to express far more variation between the concepts. No longer do you NEED to wear Light Armour to be agile. If you wanted, you could do it in Heavier armour, with a little more work. You can have Dodge-Based characters supplemented with teleportation magic, Heavily armoured warriors further augmented by protection spells, Flying mages incased in steel etc. And that's on top of the diversity in armour and weapons that the system affords.

Historically, the only reason not to wear plate armour is cost. Beyond a fleet of ships, or a castle, there wasn't much that was more expensive in the Medieval Period. In fact, because of its riveted structure and articulation later plate armours were far less restrictive than, say, Leather or Mail. All other forms of armour are part of gradual process of developing techniques and economy. Mail almost entirely replaced Leather, and was almost entirely replaced by Plate, simply because the new technology was better. It was like the change from vacuum tubes to transistors. Not to mention that, the weight scaling isn't that dramatic. Wearing enough leather to protect you in any reasonable way is still going to come out between 30 and 50 pounds. The issue with how it's typically handled in Fantasy is... Well, because it tends to arbitrarily divide the Armour based on fictitious weight-classes or totally wrong protection-vs-restriction values, you end up with an inability to represent the advantages each type of armour represents. Each type of armouring technology behaves in a particular way, offering protection against certain types of damage, with Plate basically covering every angle at once. At the same time, no matter what type of armour you use, they follow the same encumberance rules... The more you wear, the more they restrict movement. So a full, head to toe covering of Leather is going to impair you the same as a full plate harness. Now, as I said, in the real world there is no reason beyond cost to not go for Plate. It's simply more resistant to cuts, piercing and Blunt force than the alternatives. Yes, boiled (hardened) leathter is decent against blunt impact, and Maille was virtually impervious to cutting, but nothing offered the full protection of a solid sheet of tempered steel. But, in the real world, you only had to contend with physical sources of harm, since.. well... Magic doesn't exist. The presence of Magic in Fantasy allows you to make other armours relevant in a world with easy access to plate armours. Basically, the more metal you wear, the more vulnerable you are to Magic, eliminating the flat superiority of Plate as an armour. But by keeping the Light-Medium-Heavy divide, you basically create a situation where you need to maintain competitive equilibrium between them or you risk totally invallidating options. You can't make Light protect you from Magic, Heavy protect you from Physical attacks, and Medium do both, because it creates an obvious choice and heavily impairs the other two. So to keep them ballanced, games resort to simplistic AC models for protection, and tack superficial mobility bonuses onto 'lighter' types of armour, instead of being able to represent that range of techniques that go into the Armour it's self, and what they are designed to protect against. And, to make the issue worse, it just makes 2-3 defensive paradigms that function exactly the same. Yeah. I would like to see that, but not for heavy armor users.We absolutely should see a dodge feature for heavier armours. And lighter armours. And no armour. The only thing that should impair dodging (not rolls, rolls are incredibly stupid) is total encumberance, which again shouldn't be based on an arbitrary weight class.

Merging armor is no good imo. It takes away from variation and player choice. I want to have at least 2 different armor types.. 3 would be way better if they are balanced properly.Ah, but you see, the divided skills in fact take away more choice than they offer. They limit damage forms, homogenize defensive approaches, and impose on other Skills. Armour should be about Mitigation, that's all. And having 2-3 Mitigation skills with only superficial differences isn't really adding to variety. It's just the difference between Vanilla, French Vanilla, and Original Vanilla. Admitedly, this is part of a much wider vision. Once I have a keyboard in hand, I'll try to make it clear... Like most things in Dark Souls, I found it to be rubbish. Not TES rubbish, but pretty darn close.

Oh,it gets mire complicated... And then (at least I think) it becomes so miraculously simple when everything comes together... I just couldn't stand typing any more on a 14cm touchscreen. As for the Wheel... It's so versatile and easy to expand, and offers so many nuances that are just cumbersome to pull off with a menu system... Yes, Bethesda's weird obsession with 4 options leaves a bad impression, but the Dialogue Wheel has the potential to turn TES and Fallout conversation into... Well, conversation, instead of awkward exposition delivery.

I agree, but I think the traditional Armour Classes are holding that dynamic back. Artistically, mechanically and conceptually, is a problematic dynamic based on old gameplay and lack of basic understanding, and I personally beleive it's a major contributor to the relatively bland and one dimensional combat in TES games. Of course, there are a few other factors that need to be addressed in conjunction with armour to move forward on the issue, so just merging Armour skills doesn't solve anything. I'll yammer a bit more about the issue, as I see it, in the other thread, where I think it's more appropriate... http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/970114-time-for-ideas-on-tes-vi/page-20&do=findComment&comment=31938285

Weeeelll... After doing som reading in voice modulation and copying... I actually think if Bethesda were crafty (frankly, no one is even trying it right now...) They could make voice PC's as much under the players control as their physical appearance... Tweak a few audio variables and you can generate some pretty diverse voices out of a single actor. But I agree, the system would be more out of place without a voiced PC. Which is why I was thinking about it as a future potential of the Wheel interface, rather than a particular advantage it offers now. Regarding the Armour issue from the other thread... Here's the issues as I see them. First, visually. The scale used is based entirely on weight, not on pliability, armour behaviour or even construction. You end up with an awkward scale of gear on both ends that ultimately end in Plate armours (Glass and Ebony). But the issue here is... These two armours are constructed, articulated and behave the same way. It doesn't matter if a suit of plate is made of Aluminium or Steel, all the material effects is the weight, look and durability. Which brings us to problem 2... Because of this disconnect between types of armour, and their 'class', we get a severely limited defensive model. You can't represent the strengths and weaknesses of particular techniques of armouring, because those types of armour exist on both sides of the equation. Making Glass suffer from the same weaknesses as Leather would be silly. So instead, all we get is a flat Armour Value, instead of being able to highlight particular forms of damage and attack. This impacts weapons as well, making everything simply do Damage, instead of allowing for variables like Slashing and Blunt. And then you have the mobility issue. Mobility, regardless of the armour used, is a factor of weight and coverage. The more you wear, the more it impairs your movement. Some types of armour are designed to mitigate this (such as Plate, which actually impairs you less than probably any other type). As it stands, the system used makes Light Armour impair you less than Heavy Armour, despite the logical issues that presents because of the above. But this is further an issue because... Well, that movement effect is insignificant at best. And your movement shouldn't be governed that extensively by what you're wearing. Someone who knows how to wear plate isn't going to be handicapped in Leather either, as all armour basically follows the same rules. So, the divided Armour skills limit the representation of armour behaviour, damage types, movement behaviour and, in the end doesn't offer any meaningful elements to character identity or behaviour. They both do the sake thing, mitigate flat damage, and restrict movement to different degrees in an effort to make them relevant. Like Axe, Blade and Blunt in Morrowind, they are basically an aesthetic choice and cutting the distinction while making movement impairment entirel Weight related would probably add more definition than we get now. But that wouldn't actually fix comhat... To do that, we'd need to take a harder look at paradigms, gameplay elements, and what constitutes good skill design... But, more on that later, I'm getting tired of writing an essay on my phone.

It's in the game, yes, but it's awkward and unreliable. It also leaves you unnecessarily exposed, particularly if the NPC doesn't stop attacking you. I was thinking less in regards to full on conversation, and more like quick-snap dialogue. Threats, insults, apologies, that sort of thing. Depending on the AI reaction, you could bark a warning to a bunch of bandits, and weaker enemies may run or surrender. The notion also first well with a more natural disposition system, being able to quickly interact with people in minor ways without having to enter a full conversation with them. Saying hello as you pass, apologizing if you bump into them, insulting Nazeem as you walk by. Take the imagineation out of the RP, and make it a functioning game-system which opens opportunities for you.

So something like, in Oblivion, being able to call on the Fighters Guild or Mages Guild to help in the Battle of Bruma? I could definately dig that. On thing that I have become increasingly positive towards is the Dialogue Wheel. I was absolutely certain that it would ruin Fallout 4, and while it does.have some problems (caused more by Bethesda's choices than the system its self) it may be the best system we have ever had in TES. It is easily expanded (This is already used to a limited extent with Companions, though exemplified in Dragon Age:Inquisition) uses simple button-click interface, easily facilitates categorical divisions but most importantly... It facilitates movement throughout the conversation. This last point, I think, can't be stressed enough. While it's not used to the best effect in Fallout 4, the system they use already shows the ability to freely disengage from conversation without having to use a set dialogue option (IE Goodbye) but also the ability to move about (to a limite degree) during a conversation. This opens up a bunch of new opportunities, from disposition reactions, to pre-fight positioning, to (potentially, if I can figure out the controller issue) in-combat dialogue (imagine being able to to actually apologize instead of relying on that silly 'put your weapon away' dynamic). To acomplish the same range with the traditional Menu system requires either a huge interface (that can display up to 10 dialogue options at once) an inordinate amount of commands (IE button pressing) or an absurdly convoluted control scheme. Yes, the Wheel has a lower tolerance for options, it's still well beyond the average number of dialogue options available, and higher than the most options I've ever seen (it can easily be expanded to 16 choices without excessive branching and bloat). It's use by Bethesda is somewhat sloppy, and it's hampered by poor writing decisions, but it could he the best thing to happen to the joint series. IF it's developed.

There's no reason to make Belt a seperate item. It's just a pointless equipable slot that doesn't add anything to armour and it's not a prominent element in most attire. Part of the problem with Morrowind's equipment was, sure, you had lots of slots, but you HAD to manage it all. It wasn't an element for those who wanted to engage in that level of aesthetic variation, it was a mandatory part of wearing armour. It was also prone to some silly overpowered exploits (waaaay too many enchantable parts) and absurd visuals. Of coruse, I've realised that I'm pretty radicall when it comes to some things. I actually think the dialogue wheel has the potential to the best system we've ever has for dialogue, and think the Light-Medium-Heavy armour concept is total garbage and should be scrapped in favour of a single Armour skill...

Yes and no... We play the 'Average Joe' in so far as we engage in those sorts of stories. You are only the 'Average Joe' so long as you don't engage in stories that state otherwise. If you do everything... well, you're a special mother f*****, but that's part of the Role Playing in Role Playing Game. When you engage in one of the pre-set stories, you accept a certain identity that is associated with that story. It's a limitation of the medium, and can't really be avoided... By accepting and engaging in the Main Quest, you are instantly accepting that you are NOT and 'Average Joe'. Its sort of an unspoken contract, but the key to it is that it's not mandatory. We aren't talking Dark Souls, where you're the Chosen Undead whether you like it or not. You're still the Chosen One in Oblivion. One of them, anyway. The PC and Martin are basically 2 heads of the same beast... It's actually kind of scary how the Emperor spells out the entire Main Quest line in one line of dialogue... "In your face I behold the Sun's Companion. The dawn of Akatosh's bright glory may banish the coming darkness" Which roughly translates to 'You do all my Son's work, and he'll turn into a Dragon and banish Mehrunes Dagon'. You are established as a crucial element in the process, a Chosen One alongside Martin. Neither exists without the other. In fact, both Morrowind and Oblivion establish you as Chosen before the game really even starts. Whereas Skyrim doesn't establish your nature until 3 quests in. Where they diverge, however, is Oblivion and Morrowind don't constantly remind you of that nature once it's discovered. They bring it up occasionally, with the Lost Prophesies or Martin's final farewell, but Skyrim constantly reminds you about being Dragonborn. It's better in that they wait longer to announce it, but then they won't let it drop. I've been thinking about the same thing... and i think it would depend on what's going on. Tying the College, Companions, Theives Guild and Brotherhood into Alduin and the Dragons wouldn't make sense, as, frankly, not many people actually know what the score is. In all of Skyrim, there's maybe 20 people who know the worlds about to end, and none of them are affiliated with the main factions. And that's not the type of information you really want to be spreading around too much... tends to make the peasants panic. Now, tying them all into the Civil War quest-line? THAT would have made some sense. In this regard, i think ESO's factions were exceptionally well done, especially the Fighters Guild. They have their own internal story, and the main context is relatively limited in scope and influence to the Guild its self, but it ties into the main story of Molag Bal as a peripheral.

Yeah... even Source has trouble tracking as many free objects as Gamebryo/Creation does. I've yet to see any engine which handles the sheer quantity of fully interactive things on-screen at one time. Static objects is one thing, but 500 cabbages at once? The only other engine i've seen TRY is Source, and it chokes far too easily in the attempt.

There are some problems with seeing your body in first person... For one, it restricts field of view... But mainly, it's a disorientation and animation issue. You basically have 2 models for implementing this. One, is to have totally different animations for First and Third person. This can he tricky, because you need to keep the two sequences as similar as possible, but you can straight up use the same animations without encountering the problem below. Because of that, you basically have to do 2 animation sequences for everything, which is more time consuming. Typically, body parts get cut to save time, because they aren't crucially important to playing. The really the most common approach across the board, and actually seems to be what Far Cry does, despite the extra effort of rendering the body. The other is to simply imbed the camera into the avatar and run off the 3rd person animations. Because you're multi-purposing the animations, you can run into problems. If you take the GTA approach, and just use the animations designed for 3rd person, its technically the most realistic, but can be horribly disorienting. On the other end, if your animations are too First-Person friendly, they can look overly stilted, like in Dying Light. With TES, you also have the issue of its interaction system not meshing with an overly animated sequence. Looting isn't just grabbing cash off a body, and you don't just skin an animal. Not to mention the complications with interacting with all the moveable objects in the world. It would loom even more silly if you just stuck your hand out and never actually touched that basket you're putting over someones head. Also consider that looting is a far more regular thing in TES than in Far Cry. You do it a lot in the beginning, but as the game progresses you care less and less, because it's not an open ended market or equipment system. As things get upgraded, you stop skinning certain animals, and stop looting bodies. As someone whose played a lot of MMOs, I can tell you that those charming animations get really old, really fast (though in MMOs they serve a balance function). I actually thing Kingdom Come is going to become more stupid looking as we see more... Unless it has a unique combat system for every possible weapon configuration, its going to have problems. Using Axes, Maces and Spears is sufficiently different that they won't be able to rely on the same techniques if they go for hyper-realism, and not maintaining that approach pushes them more towards TES in application. The combot we've seen is also very duel-oriented, which makes sense since its modeled after HEMA recreations... But that poses problems in the 'Massive Battles' they want to do, because battlefield fighting is very different. It's far less controlled and far more brutal, and particularly considering the target-locking system they are using, I fully expect some silly, Hollywood nonsense where everyone pairs off into duels instead of it looking like a real battle.

That's actually inferior in every way to what Fallout already does. Using Fallout's system, applied to armour, you can have vastly more options without the need to manage any more equipment slots. And we're talking, like, orders of magnitude more. Like, 160,000 vs 49.

It's a resolution issue with full screen on some systems. Super rare, it seems.

Yeah. One more button press could have expanded it into 12 options per dialogue choice, given room for perk-related dialogue options (to replace the properly defunct skills) along with threats, and more room so you were more able to avoid the whole 'stolen baby' thing. And not doing the whole 'topical' thing would have helped too. It sucked in Morrowind and Oblivion, and it still sucks. You don't need a scroll menu for a decent dialogue system, but you do need full sentances.