Time for ideas on TES VI

[Lord Garon]

 

(edited for brevity)

 

@Lord Garon. I have two things firstly show me any other game that has even nearing 500 non combat npc's who have the breadth of realism that radiant AI offers. Not just pre scripted little things. To include more would require an even more massive system or game world requirement.

 

Secondly Cicero as bad morality is a poor choice. As in all actuallity if you happen to discover. He is actually the ONLY one doing the "right" thing as all hell breaks loose around him.

 

Also most of the flaws you mention are fixed in UFO and Skyrim overhaul and Frostfall mods respectively. I simply am mentioning this if the issues you raised still ail you, but I do agree they should have been addressed during the games development. Instead of leaving us to fend for ourselves. Not to say many talented people have risen up to the challenge in our community.

 

P.S. I have been modding for Mount & Blade since its Inception Beta build. And python while nice unless implemented well will be more restrictive and hard er to pick up then papyrus.

 

Hey, its my "wish" list. I'll also say that Skyrim is one of the most impressive games I've ever played. I understand the effort involved in development and I also realize my preferences may not be in the majority; its just my 2 cents worth. But if many, even some, of the ideas in this thread WERE implemented, the awesome mod community could go from "fixing" things to really "expanding" the game. I hate Cicero and the whole DB. Its personal, so we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

 

I also understand that developers are not going to give away their coding secrets. But if modders had more transparent and lower-level access to the API's, data structures, and libraries available to them, (or could create new ones!), as well as having real documentation on the script laguage itself... well, I think there would be a quantum leap in scripting, hence mod, quality and ability. Consider sharing a Python module with other modders, the ability to REALLY cooperate on a large mod, and the universe of programming help and experience available. I don't think there is a comparison to be made between Ruby, say, and Papyrus. Abstraction levels would take some getting used to, I agree, but an object oriented language is meant for just that. Power comes at a price. Again, just my 2 cents.

[MasterAub]

Lot's of good ideas...

The one I pick is SIZE...A bigger world and a so much better way to travel.

 

TRAVEL must be an adventure on it's own and as such we should be able to:

1 - toggle of fast travel

2 - be able to travel on water and manoeuvering boats

3 - be able to see thing in and on the water

4 - be able to fight other ships

5 - be able to travel by air

6 - be able to do real climing, make climing a mountain a conscious choice and an exploit to be remembered with skills to learn.

7 - Carriage needs to be much cooler as well, with bandit's attack etc...

8 - Eventuality player should risk catching sickness as you travel in infested areas etc...

 

That's is for now...

 

Take care guys and gals

Edited June 20, 2013 by MasterAub

[ElvenHeroine]

 

If you are to change or make anything new there needs to be two things you need to keep in mind.

 

1) The game as is.

 

However, it is important to realize just how big this world scope environment out to be. What we are given as a supposed open world environment is rather laughably small. The only only laughably smaller would be what Bandai considers to be a full scale worldwide arena with its DBZ games. Now that is even more pathetic. What I recommend is a world large enough to encompass so much that it makes the Arena world look tiny. And Arena is freaking HUGE. (Yes I have played Arena)

 

You are absolutely right about the size of the "map". It is pitifully small. Even if the map included all of Tamriel, it would still be small. In some future game, we need a continent, instead of an island. I've been thinking a lot lately, about America before Columbus as a game setting. If such a thing were going to be started, I would want the entire Mississippi Watershed for my stomping grounds. Crazy, I know. It would take a separate hard drive array just to hold the environment. That's without any people. Don't know what it would take, storage wise, to populate it. The first game to require one of the 300DVD changers just to run. lol. I suppose we could start with just Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, then add as needed. But that, of course, would get us back here, argu.......discussing which states to add next.

 

 

They could just start off with two holds, Falkreath (since Helgen is in Falkreath) and Whiterun and just add in the others as needed. The could make each hold as large or extremely close if not more than the size they put in for the entire province. Since there are nine holds in Skyrim, that would overall increase Skyrim size by 9 times, which is decent. And don't even start if off the manner that they did. Just put in a minor cinematic opening up the player to the environment and world slightly (detailing events or the world in some manner) then just allow the player to choose his or her player in a sort of Oblivion manner as confronted by a fellow cell-mate and then with a bit of play with the player to make him assume with the sound and lack of interaction to make him or her feel that he or she is going to die, you go to sleep. You are awoken by the voice of Mara, which then proceeds to the "Start Another Life" mod, where you can choose your salvation by choosing who you would be. Then the story is unfold. They can limit it to roles specific in Whiterun and Falkreath, then expand. They could perhaps even call the game "Elder Scrolls V" and call the first edition "Skyrim," in which they are add-ons presented as you advance in the world. It is quite limited, but with a huge enough environment in two holds that it doesn't seem quite bothersome with the lack of story. There is another side-stories and side-quests and an easy enough modding environment that you can do tons with the expanse of the modding community to keep you entertained until their next release, expanding Skyrim with two more holds (probably Morthal and the Reach). This would allow even more latter.

 

Of course I would perhaps even just change the entire world, adding more races, more lore, more culture and just setting the world up that you can change it by the actions you make. Perhaps even just start off in a single hold and advance from that hold into other holds with new dlcs. So you start off with Whiterun Hold and you advance to Falkreath, Hjallmarch, Haafingar, The Reach, Eastmarch, Winterhold, The Pale, and The Rift. So that makes eight dlcs and then you can add in

 

The reason why I would even just start off with just Whiterun is that they can spend all of their effort that they would take in doing two "Skyrims" into just one hold that is the size of Skyrim but with so much content like Witcher 2, Witcher 1, and Kingdoms of Amalur and other such games including Dragon Dogma. There is so much you can do outside of the field of combat and inside the field of combat. If it is simply just in Whiterun and you get to choose your initial status, perhaps start off as either a Nobleman (like say a member of the Battle-born Family or the Grey-Manes), a commoner like a merchant or a guard, or say a member of the Companions in which there are four stories or possible major questlines available, the first which is partially available as the Dragonborn in which you visit the Greybeards and the second three which one you actually start off with that is quite lengthly and involves simply what is in the hold and is sort of half done intentionally to allow you to explore outside of the semi-linear major quest-lines that full of cinematics like the opening of Skyrim with the Dragon Attacks, except with greater AI and greater immersion with the cinematics that it feels like playing the Witcher 2, but better.

 

:Edited:

 

So you could conclude with Skyrim, ESV with the last of the Nine Holds, the adventure to Solsteim which should be as large as a hold (which of course is as large as what they put into skyrim). Then with each additional game you can adventure into or start off in each new province or re-adventure into Morrowind or Cyrodiil. Thereby, tying each province together into a massive Elder Scrolls expands from V to XIII. Of course it might be easier to just start off Elderscrolls remade outside of its continuim so that it isn't so confusing of V being the start. Anyways, it allows in each expanse to improve the engine, the graphics, and the gameplay as well as other features without needing to recreate everything from scratch.

 

So maybe a good idea is to still call it the Elder Scrolls, but refer to this as the new Elder Scrolls I and others as Pre-I. Of course, since Skyrim is already done with. It might be wise to start off as The Elder Scrolls Adventures, a new title, thereby a new start for a large expansive world that features what the hardcore gamers want. An easy to mod environment that starts off big in a small area of the entire world. So like the hold of Whiterun as large as what was put into Skyrim like I had said and you expand in that single game to the entirety of that province. So that puts like eight expansions in each game and ties each game together with improvements to better graphics, gameflow, engine, gameplay ect... with each new game in the environment you are already accustomed, it just allows you a new territory to explore like Bruma for instance.

 

And you can like charge the game at 59.99 and each addition or expansion as 29.99. And they can even make DLCs from the most popular mods that both they like and a good number of people like (say anything brought up on their own site which allows people who had played the game to vote and like) and if it shares a certain quota, it will be put into the DLC at 1.99 to 5.99 depending on the extent of content of course it has to be more than a single article of clothing like say improved AI better than the programers had allowed could be set at 2.99. A new world as larger as what they had made or larger could be 5.99. A whole dozen of new armors that fit male and female characters or are scripted without errors for a single sex (given an algorithm and message prevents its use by the other) are sold for 1.99. The profits for such are made at 50% for the contributor(s) like say you guys who make the mods and the other 50% is for Bethesda. Of course you can download the stuff for free, but the established DLC is set to work in everything in the world to prevent any errors or future errors as well as allow mod immersion over the DLC. So it can be easier to avoid the problems of two mods not working together. It is also officially part of the game and the lore with the possibility of new books and stories in said books featuring the information made in said DLCs. So you have more books and content along with the content you could have downloaded. Of course, if it is just a DLC about a book or a set of books, then that can be made free as any mod put into a DLC in which the modder wants no payment for his or her work. You just also get nothing additional that Bethesda could make alongside the mod in the DLC to offer more to the gamers than just a mod that people want to play.

 

@OP You are missing a few mod references that could be updated. For instance the enemies not yielding has been adressed with a mod. But all in all a good wholesome thread. I would simply suggest updating it if the post limitations allow. Also a few of your isint's became isent's. But I digress.

 

@Lord Garon. I have two things firstly show me any other game that has even nearing 500 non combat npc's who have the breadth of realism that radiant AI offers. Not just pre scripted little things. To include more would require an even more massive system or game world requirement.

 

Secondly Cicero as bad morality is a poor choice. As in all actuallity if you happen to discover. He is actually the ONLY one doing the "right" thing as all hell breaks loose around him.

 

Also most of the flaws you mention are fixed in UFO and Skyrim overhaul and Frostfall mods respectively. I simply am mentioning this if the issues you raised still ail you, but I do agree they should have been addressed during the games development. Instead of leaving us to fend for ourselves. Not to say many talented people have risen up to the challenge in our community.

 

P.S. I have been modding for Mount & Blade since its Inception Beta build. And python while nice unless implemented well will be more restrictive and hard er to pick up then papyrus.

 

LOL! You sure it is 500? I mean, that is kind of pathetic if our technology is really that primitive. Maybe we need to rethink how the AI should work. I mean it should be no different in format than this:

 

http://sheepridge.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=fef38cb4de345ab1&skin=iframe-voice

 

just with voices scripted into the game (voice actors) and with a set of choices. As for making them do work. You are not going to see 500 NPCs doing entirely different activities nor would you see 500 characters in an a visible range of the game either. Most of them would be clones doing much of the same activities with only a few characters being entirely different. You only need a few characters to stand apart from the rest and have the majority of characters simply walking around, do some work, chat, go the market, leave market, and on one day of the week go to the temple to pray. It is not as difficult as you put it. I mean technology we had in Arena could do that. Maybe wait till the next engine comes out, but if it is really that difficult then maybe someone should invest their time improving that quality of our technology rather than the pointless stuff like graphics at this point of time, especially.

Edited June 23, 2013 by ElvenHeroine

[Femaiden]

" The Zombies in Oblivion were Creepy and way better, yet the Draugr in Skyrim looks like a Downgrade of a poor excuse of a Zombie."

 

 

technically, if you want to split hairs..the draugr are mummies, not zombies...

[Femaiden]

also I thought I should say..

 

everyone seems to complain about the game settings getting smaller and smaller as the series progresses...

 

what they don't realize is the smaller environments have a greater amount of detail and content

 

so yeah..arena and daggerfall were huge in scope but had very little immersive details.

I never played arena but I played daggerfall and the dungeons were randomly generated. the world was set up with provinces and cities that you fast travel to and when you do a dungeon you just tell it to generate a dungeon and fast travel there which gets old after a while.

in skyrim, every dungeon is unique and handcrafted and most take 1-2+ hours to complete

 

morrowind had a huge game setting as well maybe not as big as daggerfall but way more detailed...but although morrowind has a bigger play area, most of the dungeons were small, short and reused cookie cutter rooms...I also hated the lack of fast travel...

 

oblivion = cyrodiil may be smaller than morrowind but there was still like 450 locations to visit..and there was more detail. ... however it is still plagued by the "cookie cutter dungeon" there's about 400 dungeons but it feels more like 50 dungeons played 8 times. still 50 handcrafted dungeons is pretty good.

 

I have completed 112 dungeons so far in skyrim and most of those were in the "miscellaneous" quests tab and every one of them was unique. the nordic towers and battlements look cookie cutter but that could be explained away by the nord architecture.

 

 

my point is that just because the setting is smaller doesn't mean the game is smaller.

[ManleySteele]

 

 

If you are to change or make anything new there needs to be two things you need to keep in mind.

 

1) The game as is.

 

However, it is important to realize just how big this world scope environment out to be. What we are given as a supposed open world environment is rather laughably small. The only only laughably smaller would be what Bandai considers to be a full scale worldwide arena with its DBZ games. Now that is even more pathetic. What I recommend is a world large enough to encompass so much that it makes the Arena world look tiny. And Arena is freaking HUGE. (Yes I have played Arena)

 

You are absolutely right about the size of the "map". It is pitifully small. Even if the map included all of Tamriel, it would still be small. In some future game, we need a continent, instead of an island. I've been thinking a lot lately, about America before Columbus as a game setting. If such a thing were going to be started, I would want the entire Mississippi Watershed for my stomping grounds. Crazy, I know. It would take a separate hard drive array just to hold the environment. That's without any people. Don't know what it would take, storage wise, to populate it. The first game to require one of the 300DVD changers just to run. lol. I suppose we could start with just Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, then add as needed. But that, of course, would get us back here, argu.......discussing which states to add next.

 

 

They could just start off with two holds, Falkreath (since Helgen is in Falkreath) and Whiterun and just add in the others as needed. The could make each hold as large or extremely close if not more than the size they put in for the entire province. Since there are nine holds in Skyrim, that would overall increase Skyrim size by 9 times, which is decent. And don't even start if off the manner that they did. Just put in a minor cinematic opening up the player to the environment and world slightly (detailing events or the world in some manner) then just allow the player to choose his or her player in a sort of Oblivion manner as confronted by a fellow cell-mate and then with a bit of play with the player to make him assume with the sound and lack of interaction to make him or her feel that he or she is going to die, you go to sleep. You are awoken by the voice of Mara, which then proceeds to the "Start Another Life" mod, where you can choose your salvation by choosing who you would be. Then the story is unfold. They can limit it to roles specific in Whiterun and Falkreath, then expand. They could perhaps even call the game "Elder Scrolls V" and call the first edition "Skyrim," in which they are add-ons presented as you advance in the world. It is quite limited, but with a huge enough environment in two holds that it doesn't seem quite bothersome with the lack of story. There is another side-stories and side-quests and an easy enough modding environment that you can do tons with the expanse of the modding community to keep you entertained until their next release, expanding Skyrim with two more holds (probably Morthal and the Reach). This would allow even more latter.

 

Of course I would perhaps even just change the entire world, adding more races, more lore, more culture and just setting the world up that you can change it by the actions you make. Perhaps even just start off in a single hold and advance from that hold into other holds with new dlcs. So you start off with Whiterun Hold and you advance to Falkreath, Hjallmarch, Haafingar, The Reach, Eastmarch, Winterhold, The Pale, and The Rift. So that makes eight dlcs and then you can add in

 

The reason why I would even just start off with just Whiterun is that they can spend all of their effort that they would take in doing two "Skyrims" into just one hold that is the size of Skyrim but with so much content like Witcher 2, Witcher 1, and Kingdoms of Amalur and other such games including Dragon Dogma. There is so much you can do outside of the field of combat and inside the field of combat. If it is simply just in Whiterun and you get to choose your initial status, perhaps start off as either a Nobleman (like say a member of the Battle-born Family or the Grey-Manes), a commoner like a merchant or a guard, or say a member of the Companions in which there are four stories or possible major questlines available, the first which is partially available as the Dragonborn in which you visit the Greybeards and the second three which one you actually start off with that is quite lengthly and involves simply what is in the hold and is sort of half done intentionally to allow you to explore outside of the semi-linear major quest-lines that full of cinematics like the opening of Skyrim with the Dragon Attacks, except with greater AI and greater immersion with the cinematics that it feels like playing the Witcher 2, but better.

 

:Edited:

 

So you could conclude with Skyrim, ESV with the last of the Nine Holds, the adventure to Solsteim which should be as large as a hold (which of course is as large as what they put into skyrim). Then with each additional game you can adventure into or start off in each new province or re-adventure into Morrowind or Cyrodiil. Thereby, tying each province together into a massive Elder Scrolls expands from V to XIII. Of course it might be easier to just start off Elderscrolls remade outside of its continuim so that it isn't so confusing of V being the start. Anyways, it allows in each expanse to improve the engine, the graphics, and the gameplay as well as other features without needing to recreate everything from scratch.

 

So maybe a good idea is to still call it the Elder Scrolls, but refer to this as the new Elder Scrolls I and others as Pre-I. Of course, since Skyrim is already done with. It might be wise to start off as The Elder Scrolls Adventures, a new title, thereby a new start for a large expansive world that features what the hardcore gamers want. An easy to mod environment that starts off big in a small area of the entire world. So like the hold of Whiterun as large as what was put into Skyrim like I had said and you expand in that single game to the entirety of that province. So that puts like eight expansions in each game and ties each game together with improvements to better graphics, gameflow, engine, gameplay ect... with each new game in the environment you are already accustomed, it just allows you a new territory to explore like Bruma for instance.

 

And you can like charge the game at 59.99 and each addition or expansion as 29.99. And they can even make DLCs from the most popular mods that both they like and a good number of people like (say anything brought up on their own site which allows people who had played the game to vote and like) and if it shares a certain quota, it will be put into the DLC at 1.99 to 5.99 depending on the extent of content of course it has to be more than a single article of clothing like say improved AI better than the programers had allowed could be set at 2.99. A new world as larger as what they had made or larger could be 5.99. A whole dozen of new armors that fit male and female characters or are scripted without errors for a single sex (given an algorithm and message prevents its use by the other) are sold for 1.99. The profits for such are made at 50% for the contributor(s) like say you guys who make the mods and the other 50% is for Bethesda. Of course you can download the stuff for free, but the established DLC is set to work in everything in the world to prevent any errors or future errors as well as allow mod immersion over the DLC. So it can be easier to avoid the problems of two mods not working together. It is also officially part of the game and the lore with the possibility of new books and stories in said books featuring the information made in said DLCs. So you have more books and content along with the content you could have downloaded. Of course, if it is just a DLC about a book or a set of books, then that can be made free as any mod put into a DLC in which the modder wants no payment for his or her work. You just also get nothing additional that Bethesda could make alongside the mod in the DLC to offer more to the gamers than just a mod that people want to play.

 

 

 

Good, constructive ideas. I didn't really follow the pay model but, I'm a simple man who likes simple problems. I have always thought that the choices made at the start of the game should have far-reaching consequences. I play a mod now that does some of that, but mostly it requires self discipline on my part. I see a lot of people who want a mod to disable fast travel, as if the game requires them to fast travel because the ability is there. What I don't get is there are mods to disable fast travel. Why don't they just use them and STFU? Is it because they want to limit everyone else to their narrow view? I don't know and I don't care. I don't use a lot of things in Skyrim, but I don't want the world changed to make it impossible. If it weren't for the open-minded world made for us by Bethesda, the mods couldn't be so diverse. I really like your idea about making each hold the size of Skyrim. I might want to one-up you and make each hold the size of Tamriel, but that would limit a lot of players on older machines. That's not a good thing. I built this computer just to play Skyrim. I want it to be relevant, at least for a few years. lol. I have bought the last case I'll ever need about a dozen times, the last motherboard I'll ever need, too many times to count, etc., etc., etc. I would like an elder scrolls engine that takes advantage of modern machinery. I still can't see any reason why there is no 64 bit Skyrim, other than corporate inertia. Even if it had a few warts and blemishes to start, the gaming community would support the effort. In my own, not very humble opinion, the problem for a bigger world is almost totally a question of being storage bound. I have a 3 terabyte drive. It was cheap. There are bigger ones available. Problem solved. Of course that would mean they wouldn't be able to sell it as a download, the single most asinine business model for a game that has ever been tried. Whoever thought that would work in the long run (cough) ^Microsoft(cough) was an idiot. Eventually, if they want to advance the scope of games, they are going to have to sell them on a medium that has some storage space. If the present knotheads don't get it, someone else will. I can't wait. Well, I guess I've whined enough about the status quo. Let the good times roll.

[kleinstaff]

lets be honest most of us would love to see the next ES made soley for pc

so we don't have to go thru the agony of having a dumbed down UI and dumbdowne quests

 

no disrespect for any console users but lets be honest you haven(y played Skyrim untill you played it on a pc and modded

[ManleySteele]

@kleinstaff. I'm with you. Not going to happen, but I'm onboard 100% with that sentiment.

[Femaiden]

I hope they make a fallout 4...

[daventry]

Bethesda hasent announced a Game yet, thats strange