Daggerfall had the right idea.

[Havoc10K]

I wish there was some way to 'spread-out' the things in Skyrim. In five minutes of walking you can pass like two caves, four ruins and a village. I prefer more of what Daggerfall did: seemingly endless terrain, with things much more spread out. Of course, there'd still be trees and hills and grass and stuff, it wouldn't be as bland as Daggerfall's landscape, but other than that Daggerfall was just about perfect.

 

The navmesh bug would make any attempt to edit the landcsape to such an extent fail, however, so it's just wishful thinking. There's no real point to this post, I guess. Thoughts on this?

Like most, I have to disagree with that.

 

Daggerfall had a lot of space indeed, but compared to the engines used, it could afford that space.

 

What I really miss from Daggerfall is the vast equipment you could have.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v209/Typhonis/inven.jpg

 

If you had enough stuff in your inventory you could make yourself look truly epic, and no one could tell you otherwise.

Weapons, Armor, bracelets, rings, amulets, cloaks AND capes.

 

That is what made the game really epic. If any of the successor games would look that great on your character screen, it would have actually earned the fake game of the year awards Bethesda paid to recieve. Enemies didn't scale, they simply were generated better. Fora game of that year, it looked absolutely gorgeous.

Add to the fact that once you have enough money you could buy a house, a horse AND a cart. Which solved your looting problems by a long shot. In stores you could access your cart and sell from it and buy to it. You could sell your horse and buy a new one.

 

The possibilities the game was giving was absolutely wonderful.

 

But that was in the days where quality was over quantity. Now it's in reverse. So I have given up on getting a really good game that could suck me in for several playthroughs. I mean, I play old games much more often, and only visit the new games every once in a while, I actually haven't played Skyrim much since december.

Just installing some mod to see if and how it works.

[eltucu]

Plus it had boobs from the start :P

 

Now seriously, i think that Beth is catching up with stuff they left in Daggerfall. They're probably going to make a very developed random quest generator for the next TES/Fallout game.

 

STALKER games had these random quests that would stretch the game a lot, probably half the time i spent in that game i was just doing random quests. It was fun (then they added freeplay mode for CoP and removed the random quests, GSC, i wont forgive you for that one)

 

They just have to look at Daggerfall and say "Well, from all of that, what could be done right now?" I'm sure they'll come with some nice ideas. Sadly, it seems that the Radiant Story thing is following the exact same steps as the autoleveling, so they'll need a good 1 or 2 more titles to get it right.

 

Though i do think that they made a step backwards from FO3 autoleveling (FO3 didnt had leveled unique items for example). So i hope they dont get "creative" again with the autoleveling cuz we're going to end with a very unsatisfying TES 6 in that case...

[MilesTeg81]

Yes, Skyrim could use some more free spaces, but it is ok and still a lot better than those neverending walks in df... (df without fasttravel was unplayable)

 

Some quick fixes:

- use a no-fast-travel mod

- use iHUD and disable the locations in the compass

 

Actually, I think playing without enemies, locations in the compass adds vastly to the immersion and makes skyrim a whole new (=better) game.

From my last game sessions I can confirm, that skyrim felt much emptier - just because I didn't knew where to look for the caves.

Imho using the location markers mostly destroys the exploration element from the game.

 

What I am missing now are the npc interactions from the other games: You just have to search your way to a (the right) merchant, or maybe you get the answer by chance from some npc. Why can't I simply ask the guards where I can find blacksmith, trader, market, alchemists etc.

 

I mean, come on Beth, you did this ages ago in df - and it's not like every guard would need a unique voiceover for this......

[Havoc10K]

If bethesda wants improve, they should stop using this engine.

 

I've been thinking about it for a while, but the next TES game should use 2 engines at the same time. Unreal 3 for in-doors locations, and a new landscape engine for out-doors. That would actually force the multi core CPU usage and 64-bit applications. At last, our rigs would have something to work with at full power.

 

I'm looking at Rage outdoors (wasteland) and i'm pretty damn amazed. I tinkered with settings and even on lowest settings it's looking quite awesome.

 

Double Engines would actually use PC rigs to the fullest, but Consoles will be left behind. I don't mind that personally but that would allow for some really awesome work.

 

 

And the next TES game better have as much equips as Daggerfall and Morrowind.

[Mansh00ter]

Why should they make a ton of content when they know modders will?

 

And I don't know of a single AAA title that uses two separate engines. In fact I think it would be a bad idea, for a multitude of reasons. You don't need two separate engines for one game, just a single good one.

[BlackCompany]

Skyrim has vast amounts of "Unique" content? Where? After more than 100 hours in the game, I've just found a zillion copies of the same damned weapons. Even their enchanted items are so generic that they never feel special. Magic in Bethesda games stops feeling like magic after about the first 10 hours. Once you realize damned near everyone else has the same "magic" and the same "magical gear" you start to ask yourself "Just how magical is this stuff?" Unique? Hardly.

 

Now, for the time issue, I use Dynamic Time - Standalone. Really, really helps immersion. The mod lets you set up different time scales for Indoor/Outdoor, as well as for Indoor Combat/Outdoor combat. Right now, I use 60:1 for Outdoor, and 2:1 for Outdoor combat. Indoors I use 2:1, and 1:1 combat.

 

Set up like this, I spent 5 hours trekking from Riverwood to Bleak Falls Barrow (stopped to look about me twice or thrice, just kinda hiking my way up, not at a full run, admittedly.) Then it took me 5 minutes to defeat the bandits out front of the place and only 2hrs in game time to run the whole dungeon. Then it took me several hours to reach Riverwood again - I was back around a (very dark) nightfall.

 

Contrast this with vanilla. In vanilla, it was 3 hours from Riverwood to the Barrow, roughly. Once inside, it took another 3 hours to navigate the dungeon. So...this one tomb...this single interior world cell...is the same size as the distance between the town and this mountaintop? I hardly think so.

 

Bethesda needs to get a handle on time in their games. In a game where the player can go anywhere, any time...time is key to emphasizing certain things. For instance, imagine a quest line where you are told that someone needs to research an artifact you found, and they will meet you no more than one week from now. As opposed to 'Fast travel to next location and they are magically there just because you are.' Where there are no invisible borders to steer you, time can be the best way to immerse you in a quest. Bethesda should make better use of time in their games, in a dynamic fashion.

[BlackCompany]

Why should they make a ton of content when they know modders will?

 

And I don't know of a single AAA title that uses two separate engines. In fact I think it would be a bad idea, for a multitude of reasons. You don't need two separate engines for one game, just a single good one.

 

 

I agree. In fact, I had a thought about how Bethesda games seem consistently unfinished. (For instance, check the Skyrim ESM file and you see numerous references to an 'Arena.' As far as I know (and I might be wrong here) there is no Oblivion-style arena in Skyrim. But it looks as if Bethesda intended otherwise, at one point.

 

Anyway...it seems to me Bethesda is always struggling to get to know a new engine between games. I wonder why they don't just take the Id route (IDTech 5) and get themselves a heavy-duty engine that will be viable for the next several years. Something with graphics and physics that won't feel outdated when the game is released. This way, they could make three or four large games on the engine, and have some time to get to know the engine before trying to release an incomplete game.

[Havoc10K]

You know when you stop knowing what is what when you become a Bethesda worker who approved single handed staff weapons.

 

Seriously Bethesda, I want a two handed dagger next, and a helmet for my butt !

[Korodic]

im upset. None of you mentioned the epicness of morrowind? You guys high? :P

 

that had politics, religion, demi-gods, diseases, diversity, and a drug trade. Not to mention every rare item in the game was actually really hard to get/come by and was worth a ton of cash. Mournhold was also pretty cool. The game was large, spaced out, and it had a far better system than fast travel. I PREFER to travel by boat/siltstrider it made my time meaningful and gave challenge. Don't even get me started on how legitly terrified Im was of red mountain, I avoided it like the plague.

[AgentGrady]

I myself was trying to make some mods that bring some the features of Daggerfall to Skyrim but nobody seemed to take much interest.

 

I got to making a mod that made some creatures resistant to certain weapon materials like in Daggerfall but it started crashing,

 

I made a post about it on tes adventures http://tesadventures.com/forum/index.php?topic=4056.0