how not to fail

[jack254]

in the unlikely act of bethseda veiwing these forums for epic ideas, i feel like i should make a post

 

 

 

how not to fail

 

1: if this game MUST run on oblivions/fallouts engine (cause many would prefer if it didnt) make sure it is updated the same amount that morrowind's engine turned into oblivion's

- this is mostly in reliability, i want no crashes/extreme glitches

- more modability, oblivion had excelent modability, but it would be INSANE if we had enough modability to turn skyrim into a completely different game (an rts, an fps, something cool)

-better weather and other special effects

 

2- no dumbing down

- i want spears,medium armour,crossbows,throwing, enchanting skill,pauldrons, left and right gauntlets,cloths that go underneath possibly a language skill- maybe some new things like a survival skill for using stuff in the wild, or an enchanting skill

-less reliance on leveling (bandits with daedric was moronic, rats being replaced by lich's was retarded too)

-everything should be killable

 

3- better combat

- ai, charecters arent all 5 year old

- the ai should know fear, nothing is more satisfiying than slaying an entire group of people, getting to the last survivor, and watch her crawl away, scramble into a corner , geting onto her knees and then the player gets an option to tell her to give up her stuff/run or dont tell her anything an decapitate her

- hand to hand combat helping with armed combat (kicking while holding a sword for example) or some other clever way to incorporate one style of play into another (like setting your sword on fire)

-dynamic combat/spells, (charging up a fireball for example)

- diversify enemies- would it not be INSANE if spiders could wallwalk, if some enemies snuck up from behind you to murder you, if flying/swiming enemies tried hit and run tactics upon you, if there where spells alowing the player to fly/fly through water to conduct high speed arial combat with swords- mounted combat is needed

 

4: better environments

- realisticish looking water that is affected by weather

- pretty foliage and rocks

 

- changing terrain

due to skyrim most likely being rocks and snow ( giving a pallet of black and white) it would be cool if seasons affected some surfaces (for example, in winter ground a is snow, ground b is snow, and ground c is snow with twigs in, while water X is ice- and in summer ground a is snow, ground b is grass, and ground c is dirt with twigs- and water x is water

-larger landmass- more wilderness (to combat filesize- perhaps the ground could be made as large polygons and then tessellated)

 

- more tilesets- oblivion had around 4 and that made every dungeon look the same

-make the game SCARE the player

 

- make spells pretty

 

 

 

 

5- characters

 

-NO big budget actors, instead get good many "nobodys" (plus- many nobody's can impersonate big actors if you realy wanted them. )

- characters could have small modifiers to change the pitch/speed of their dialogue (so stupid lines like STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM sound slightly different)

- tatoos=win (not realy a fail if they arent included, but morrowind had tattoos and it looked cool/helped the lore)

- high res textures for faces! (remember how bad dremoras where?games main enemy shouldent look like s***)

-fix the seem on the neck

- add morphing to bodies, so we can have fat people :)

- give the dumner their awesome morrowind voices

- animations, make them BETTER, plus it would be really nice if they reflected the opponents skill/health/confidence

- faceposing- better

 

 

6: lore

- racism

- stuff learned from morrowind (daedric is extremely rare, glass weapons are the 3rd best behind ebony and daedric, glass weapons are incredibly rare, stuff about daedra, finding vampires in a tomb at level 10 means run away etc)

- norseify stuff (vikings ftw)

-skyrim= Scotland + Canada (at least how most of us imagine it)

- dark elves should become like they where in morrowind, argonians and khajits hould become more cat/lizard like

- werewolves

- important political/religious stuff like whats illegal/unacceptable

 

7- other stuff that would be nice

 

- hardcore mode like fallout new vegas

- broken limbs (like fallout)

- gore

- perks, but not like fallouts- stuff like the ability to skin animals or to extract snake venom

- armour that does not only offer protection, but adds extra stats like making the player appear richer/fearsome/poor/part of a faction etc

- making LARGE expansion packs of countrys (like tes v: hammerfell, tes v: cyrodil etc)

[Deleted472477User]

in the unlikely act of bethseda veiwing these forums for epic ideas, i feel like i should make a post

 

 

 

how not to fail

 

1: if this game MUST run on oblivions/fallouts engine (cause many would prefer if it didnt) make sure it is updated the same amount that morrowind's engine turned into oblivion's

- this is mostly in reliability, i want no crashes/extreme glitches

- more modability, oblivion had excelent modability, but it would be INSANE if we had enough modability to turn skyrim into a completely different game (an rts, an fps, something cool)

-better weather and other special effects

 

 

 

2- no dumbing down

- i want spears,medium armour,crossbows,throwing, enchanting skill,pauldrons, left and right gauntlets,cloths that go underneath possibly a language skill- maybe some new things like a survival skill for using stuff in the wild, or an enchanting skill

-less reliance on leveling (bandits with daedric was moronic, rats being replaced by lich's was retarded too)

-everything should be killable

 

3- better combat

- ai, charecters arent all 5 year old

- the ai should know fear, nothing is more satisfiying than slaying an entire group of people, getting to the last survivor, and watch her crawl away, scramble into a corner , geting onto her knees and then the player gets an option to tell her to give up her stuff/run or dont tell her anything an decapitate her

- hand to hand combat helping with armed combat (kicking while holding a sword for example) or some other clever way to incorporate one style of play into another (like setting your sword on fire)

-dynamic combat/spells, (charging up a fireball for example)

- diversify enemies- would it not be INSANE if spiders could wallwalk, if some enemies snuck up from behind you to murder you, if flying/swiming enemies tried hit and run tactics upon you, if there where spells alowing the player to fly/fly through water to conduct high speed arial combat with swords- mounted combat is needed

 

4: better environments

- realisticish looking water that is affected by weather

- pretty foliage and rocks

 

- changing terrain

due to skyrim most likely being rocks and snow ( giving a pallet of black and white) it would be cool if seasons affected some surfaces (for example, in winter ground a is snow, ground b is snow, and ground c is snow with twigs in, while water X is ice- and in summer ground a is snow, ground b is grass, and ground c is dirt with twigs- and water x is water

-larger landmass- more wilderness (to combat filesize- perhaps the ground could be made as large polygons and then tessellated)

 

- more tilesets- oblivion had around 4 and that made every dungeon look the same

-make the game SCARE the player

 

- make spells pretty

 

 

 

 

5- characters

 

-NO big budget actors, instead get good many "nobodys" (plus- many nobody's can impersonate big actors if you realy wanted them. )

- characters could have small modifiers to change the pitch/speed of their dialogue (so stupid lines like STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM sound slightly different)

- tatoos=win (not realy a fail if they arent included, but morrowind had tattoos and it looked cool/helped the lore)

- high res textures for faces! (remember how bad dremoras where?games main enemy shouldent look like s***)

-fix the seem on the neck

- add morphing to bodies, so we can have fat people :)

- give the dumner their awesome morrowind voices

- animations, make them BETTER, plus it would be really nice if they reflected the opponents skill/health/confidence

- faceposing- better

 

 

6: lore

- racism

- stuff learned from morrowind (daedric is extremely rare, glass weapons are the 3rd best behind ebony and daedric, glass weapons are incredibly rare, stuff about daedra, finding vampires in a tomb at level 10 means run away etc)

- norseify stuff (vikings ftw)

-skyrim= Scotland + Canada (at least how most of us imagine it)

- dark elves should become like they where in morrowind, argonians and khajits hould become more cat/lizard like

- werewolves

- important political/religious stuff like whats illegal/unacceptable

 

7- other stuff that would be nice

 

- hardcore mode like fallout new vegas

- broken limbs (like fallout)

- gore

- perks, but not like fallouts- stuff like the ability to skin animals or to extract snake venom

- armour that does not only offer protection, but adds extra stats like making the player appear richer/fearsome/poor/part of a faction etc

- making LARGE expansion packs of countrys (like tes v: hammerfell, tes v: cyrodil etc)

 

 

1. I agree with the first statement of Part One. I would also like fewer glitches/crashes/etc. I do like moddability, but I don't feel a need to be able to convert it to an entirely different sort of game. If I want RTS or FPS, I'll play those instead. I'm more of an RPG person though. Better weather--yes, this.

 

2. I think we have differing ideas of what 'dumbing down' means. for me it means no pandering to more casual players/console players just to bump up sales, it means no hand-holding in regards to where to go (I loved Morrowind for this, even though it sometimes became a case of Guide Dang It for me and I'd have to ask around/look it up to find something), and I would want quests that actually make me think to get the job done.

 

3. I agree with you on combat.

 

4. I liked the scenery. they got it right.

 

5. Yes YES THIS! A friend of mine said once the Dremora all looked like 'Darth Maul with a skin conditiion'. Dremora are formidable foes and should look the part. All of Number 5, in fact.

 

6. I personally think Daedric should only be obtainable from high level Dremora, or given as a quest reward for a VERY difficult quest. And by found on Dremora I don't mean you kill Random Valkynaz #22, I mean you go up against a mighty Valkynaz as part of a quest chain, and his or her armor is takeable, or the weapon, etc.

 

7. You have some good ideas here too. If I'd already had my coffee, I could go more in depth.

 

I must sound like I harp on about real quests etc. but I've been playing fantasy games since 1982. I started with Dungeons and Dragons, and I remember the sense of accomplishment that came with defeating a truly difficult foe for that first magic sword. I guess I long for that feeling in a computer rpg. bethesda can give that to us, if they choose to.

[Genzel]

2- no dumbing down

- i want spears,medium armour,crossbows,throwing, enchanting skill,pauldrons, left and right gauntlets,cloths that go underneath possibly a language skill- maybe some new things like a survival skill for using stuff in the wild, or an enchanting skill

-less reliance on leveling (bandits with daedric was moronic, rats being replaced by lich's was retarded too)

-everything should be killable

 

- changing terrain

due to skyrim most likely being rocks and snow ( giving a pallet of black and white) it would be cool if seasons affected some surfaces (for example, in winter ground a is snow, ground b is snow, and ground c is snow with twigs in, while water X is ice- and in summer ground a is snow, ground b is grass, and ground c is dirt with twigs- and water x is water

-larger landmass- more wilderness (to combat filesize- perhaps the ground could be made as large polygons and then tessellated)

 

- more tilesets- oblivion had around 4 and that made every dungeon look the same

-make the game SCARE the player

 

6: lore

- racism

- stuff learned from morrowind (daedric is extremely rare, glass weapons are the 3rd best behind ebony and daedric, glass weapons are incredibly rare, stuff about daedra, finding vampires in a tomb at level 10 means run away etc)

- norseify stuff (vikings ftw)

-skyrim= Scotland + Canada (at least how most of us imagine it)

- dark elves should become like they where in morrowind, argonians and khajits hould become more cat/lizard like

- werewolves

- important political/religious stuff like whats illegal/unacceptable

 

Exactly what made Morrowind what it was to many people and why Oblivion wasn't Morrowind. I really hope Bethesda goes back to the basics of what made Morrowind great and not dumb it down.

[JimboUK]

Exactly what made Morrowind what it was to many people and why Oblivion wasn't Morrowind. I really hope Bethesda goes back to the basics of what made Morrowind great and not dumb it down.

 

This^^^.

 

I'll put in my tuppence worth....

 

1. No more dumbing down, the tutorial should not continue throughout the entire game. If a quest involves travelling to a cave I do not need a pop up telling me to enter that cave when I get there. The journal shouldn't resemble a walkthrough either.

 

2. Use mocap. Bethesda have always failed badly when it comes to animations, Oblivion was an huge improvement over Morrowind but they were still awful. Having NPCs goose-stepping about with broom handles where the sun doesn't shine looks bad, it's a real immersion killer.

 

3. The combat needs a lot of work, not just the lack of any kind of tactics but the lack of variety. Block, block, attack, rinse and repeat gets boring very quickly. On the subject of combat I think it would be a good idea to apply a penalty to magic while a weapon is equipt, as it is any character with high level destruction and high level blade is an unstoppable death dealing machine.

 

4. Better ranged weapons, bring back throwing knives, crossbows, darts and all those things they removed from Oblivion.

 

5. Go back to Morrowinds magic system, let the player have any spell they want at any level, let them suffer the consequences if their gamble doesn't pay off in combat and the spell fails leaving them with little mana.

 

6. Hire some writers. The dialogue in Oblivion was a huge step back from Morrowind, Fallout3 was indescribably bad, so bad that it would take a monumental effort to make it worse. Story and dialogue are a huge part of any decent RPG, strange then that a company who specialise in the genre should not make any effort whatsoever in that area. Hire more voice actors to read that dialogue, compare how many Bioware used for Dragon Age with how many Bethesda used for Oblivion.

 

7. Bring back climbing, the world is in three dimensions, use them.

 

8. Please can we have some decent textures? console textures look bad on a large screen when you're sitting close to it. On the subject of graphics they really need to cut back on the Bloom/HDR, Bethesda aren't the only company guilty of putting these effects on with a shovel but it looks horrible. We I step out into the light I really don't need what looks like a the flash from an atomic bomb in my face, it's nice to be able to see where you're going as well.

 

9. Lets have some conflict between various factions, it worked in Morrowind and it works in New Vegas. Also bring back the minimum requirements for guilds, an Orc with no magic skills whatsoever should not be head of the mages guild, likewise a mage with a glass jaw should not be running the fighters guild.

 

10. Leveled loot and Level scaling, don't do it. It takes away any incentive to explore and makes the world feel too safe.

 

11. Choices, consequences and the possibility of failure.

[maliwan]

Exactly what made Morrowind what it was to many people and why Oblivion wasn't Morrowind. I really hope Bethesda goes back to the basics of what made Morrowind great and not dumb it down.

 

This^^^.

 

I'll put in my tuppence worth....

 

1. No more dumbing down, the tutorial should not continue throughout the entire game. If a quest involves travelling to a cave I do not need a pop up telling me to enter that cave when I get there. The journal shouldn't resemble a walkthrough either.

 

2. Use mocap. Bethesda have always failed badly when it comes to animations, Oblivion was an huge improvement over Morrowind but they were still awful. Having NPCs goose-stepping about with broom handles where the sun doesn't shine looks bad, it's a real immersion killer.

 

3. The combat needs a lot of work, not just the lack of any kind of tactics but the lack of variety. Block, block, attack, rinse and repeat gets boring very quickly. On the subject of combat I think it would be a good idea to apply a penalty to magic while a weapon is equipt, as it is any character with high level destruction and high level blade is an unstoppable death dealing machine.

 

4. Better ranged weapons, bring back throwing knives, crossbows, darts and all those things they removed from Oblivion.

 

5. Go back to Morrowinds magic system, let the player have any spell they want at any level, let them suffer the consequences if their gamble doesn't pay off in combat and the spell fails leaving them with little mana.

 

6. Hire some writers. The dialogue in Oblivion was a huge step back from Morrowind, Fallout3 was indescribably bad, so bad that it would take a monumental effort to make it worse. Story and dialogue are a huge part of any decent RPG, strange then that a company who specialise in the genre should not make any effort whatsoever in that area. Hire more voice actors to read that dialogue, compare how many Bioware used for Dragon Age with how many Bethesda used for Oblivion.

 

7. Bring back climbing, the world is in three dimensions, use them.

 

8. Please can we have some decent textures? console textures look bad on a large screen when you're sitting close to it. On the subject of graphics they really need to cut back on the Bloom/HDR, Bethesda aren't the only company guilty of putting these effects on with a shovel but it looks horrible. We I step out into the light I really don't need what looks like a the flash from an atomic bomb in my face, it's nice to be able to see where you're going as well.

 

9. Lets have some conflict between various factions, it worked in Morrowind and it works in New Vegas. Also bring back the minimum requirements for guilds, an Orc with no magic skills whatsoever should not be head of the mages guild, likewise a mage with a glass jaw should not be running the fighters guild.

 

10. Leveled loot and Level scaling, don't do it. It takes away any incentive to explore and makes the world feel too safe.

 

11. Choices, consequences and the possibility of failure.

 

Hey on the writers part.

i really dont get why bethesda need 10 different voices for the same npc line? And why are npcs saying the exact same thing anyway, its totally unimaganitive and lazy.

we need quantity and quality in the dialouge. lets let the player feel like hes in a world of real people, rather than retarted clones.

oh and no more guards spamming "stop right there criminal scum' :tongue:

[CommanderCrazy]

How not to fail?

1 - No steam / internet activation whatsoever

2 - No dumbing down at all. Screw console kiddies.

3 - Variations in the voice acting so people aren't saying the same thing at the start right through the finish

4 - A non definitive ending would be nice (Or keep it like NV, in that it tells you when the final battle will start)

5 - Harsh and unexpected weather effects, like blizzards, to keep the player on their toes

6 - Improved distance textures, or at least the option for this for people with epic PC's

7 - A large choice web with differing endings on the path you take

8 - No leveling (I want to get my ass kicked if I walk into a large camp at level 1. Helps the realism)

9 - A hunger / thirst / sleep system

10 - Absolutely no porting from a console. No getting lazy here Bethesda

11 - Crossbows. Make the game epic yeah?

To finish off, as I'm not really sure if I covered this or not, No internet connection required.

[jack254]

steam is MUCH better than all the other s***, otherwise i agree with you completely.

 

i also want the COMPLETE BADDASS factor without going over the top

[umbrex]

I completely agree with all of the points you have there. Just combine what made morrowind great and oblivion pretty and you have something amazing.

 

Also, when I first tried morrowindm I admittedly felt a bit lost, but learning my way around actually made the game a lot more fun and made me feel...accomplished.

[JimboUK]

I completely agree with all of the points you have there. Just combine what made morrowind great and oblivion pretty and you have something amazing.

 

Also, when I first tried morrowindm I admittedly felt a bit lost, but learning my way around actually made the game a lot more fun and made me feel...accomplished.

 

I think a lot of people were a little lost when they first played Morrowind. There was a thread over on Beths boards where people shared their experiences of first playing Morrowind and a lot of people were confused, many didn't like the game at all for first few hours, those same people went on to love it. Looking back they got the stranger in a strange land feeling spot on, you didn't start the game as the centre of attention, you started as a nobody who didn't matter to those around you. The way you were slowly accepted over time and got to know people was great, you really started to feel part of things. For me Oblivion got it all wrong, they put the player right at the centre of things from the start by throwing the MQ straight in your face, the player became involved in events too quickly. The player could go from prisoner to custodian of the Amulet to finder of the heir all within a day, it felt too rushed. I really hope they get the balance right for Skyrim.

[Karasuman]

One word: Griffons.

 

Seriously though, I agree with a lot of this.

 

-The weather: Why did the weather types actually regress from Morrowind to Oblivion? Morrowind had light ash storms, and not-so-light ash storms. It had snow, and it also had blizzards. It was varied. Oblivion's weather might have looked prettier given more modern shaders etc, but Morrowind's was more advanced as far as variation. I would like to see that fixed, because there's no excuse for a later game to have a less-varied weather system than the game that came before it.

 

-I'd like to be able to create a reasonably attractive female character, should I choose, *without* having to spend 4 hours shifting her face around because the base females are so bad. I understand that not everyone's pretty in the world, and maybe that's why Oblivion was how it was. I get that. And perhaps I'm a perfectionist. Maybe. But it's my understanding, for example, that Bretons are supposed to be tall-ish, lighter-skinned people related at least partially to elves. That being the case, I could never understand then why almost all Breton females in-game appeared short with pudgy faces and monkey lips. A better functioning facegen would be grand.

 

All my other wishlist stuff is already covered by OP, just wanted to expand on a couple things.