If we could travel all of Tamriel

[Spacemunkey79]

 

I do however feel they might go with more than 1 province in the next TES game, like Hammerfell and High Rock.

 

I for one hope not. If they have any hope of recovering the cultural depth and interest of Morrowind, the last thing Bethesda needs to do is split their attention between two provinces. Not only would it be a design disaster, it would diminish the mythic significance of at least one of the races in question. It's just a bard idea.

 

They will never go back to what made Morrowind awesome, we will be lucky if Skyrim is the extent of the streamlining. I also do not believe that a AAA developer with years between games shouldn't be capable of covering more than one province.

[Lachdonin]

 

They will never go back to what made Morrowind awesome, we will be lucky if Skyrim is the extent of the streamlining. I also do not believe that a AAA developer with years between games shouldn't be capable of covering more than one province.

 

I for one fully embrace the Skyrim Streamlining. In fact, i wish they'd take it further. Get rid of those nonsense Armour skills, full endorsement of Fallout's wheel dialogue (rather than the half-assed trial run they have now) and better implementation of radiant quests.

 

But none of the streamlining has anything to do with what i'm talking about. It's the world building, cultural design and mythology that forms the setting, not the mechanics behind it. Morrowind's mechanics are bordering on garbage, and it's skills cluttered and superficial. But they aren't what made Morrowind great. In fact, Morrowind was great in SPITE of them.

 

Dividing attention between 2 provinces instantly splits the work on the cultures and settings involved. We don't need more races boiled down to the idiotic depiction of the Imperials we got from Oblivion (Morrowind may have had garbage mechanics, but Oblivion was a garbage game...). We don't need the Bretons turned into a one dimensional Mageocratic nation, or the Redguard turned into Arabs-in-Tamriel. And that's most likely what we'd get out of dual provinces.

 

As for how long they take... Yes, they're a AAA developer, but they're minuscule compared to other studios. Their status as a AAA developer doesn't make their employees even remotely able to accomplish the work of the average 3x larger teams in the same timeframe. They're smaller, and produce games of the same rough size, so it's logical that they take longer to do it. Saying they should be able to do MORE work on top of that is just silly.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Lachdonin

[TheSpaceShuttleChallenger]

If I was a naive idealist, I'd say yes I'd love an Elder Scrolls game that spans all of Tamriel's map.

But I'm not. I'm a modder and designer and I know how long it takes to make even a tiny fraction of Tamriel's world with the quality and detail that I expect after Skyrim. Also, I've played TES:O. I've seen what happens when developers try to take a quantity-over-quality approach to high fantasy games, it's not pretty. The Elder Scrolls universe depends on the depth and complexity of its world, and it needs detailed development all around to sell the depth of its universe, so I would much rather that Bethesda focusing on getting one province or region done <I>well</i> than trying to do everything in a mediocre manner.

As for the suggestion that Bethesda fork over the map of Tamriel to fans with the expectation that we finish the game for them--no. Let's think about what that would entail. It would essentially be Bethesda selling a game that isn't finished, with the expectation that several studios' worth of amateur modders will show up and start acting like a professional labour force to finish the game without being paid to do so--after we've already bought it. So, no. No because it's unethical and no because it's not gonna happen.

I would necessarily be against Bethesda expanding their ranks (dare I dream: maybe hiring up accomplished modders) to take on bigger projects, dare I say, even having separate, dedicated teams for Elder Scrolls and Fallout so that they can produce bigger, better games more quickly. But there's a tough balance to strike between manpower and creative cohesion, rapid production and creative burnout, cost of labour and retail prices. Bethesda has built their business model in a way that works for them and work for me, so I'm not going to demand that they change something that isn't broken because I'm thirsty for more provinces.

[iXenite]

I think it would be great. I personally do not mind ESO or its graphics, and have often thought about a main entry TES game with the same sense of scale that ESO has. Skyrim feels so small in comparison to the size of the maps in ESO. I mention graphics because they would likely need to be scaled down to reach the goal of creating an entire continent. It would need zones like ESO as well, most likely.