The Elder Scrolls V

[EvilAmericanMan]

According to this rumor, the next Bethesda game will officially be TES V. It will be the chronological sequel to Oblivion, the first direct sequel in the 16 year old franchise. The development is two years in the making as of now, and there is no timetable for anything regarding the game at the moment (such as its announcement). Its running on a heavily modified version of the Fallout 3 engine, which of course was an improved Oblivion engine...so I guess we can expect some of the same bugs and physics oddities all that permeated Oblivion and the two recent Fallouts. They say its a huge jump from the Fallout version.

Note: The information that the Eurogamer writer received was apparently from sitting behind a developer on an airplane. Still, there's always some truth to rumors, even if its just a small amount. I get the feeling this won't be a very active thread since this is just a little bit of news but hell, knowing these forums, who knows what the discussion will end up being until we get concrete news about the game.

 

[Reise]

Kinda strange to assume someone could get so much info from a person without their knowing.

 

[Fedorov]

I REALLY hate the oblivion engine, they should use a new one ASAP. :IS2:

 

[PNV]

I pretty much hate the Gamebryo engine, but analyzing it, the engine isn't that bad. Perhaps it's more suited to rendering empty wastelands, but I thought the environments looked great in Fallout 3. And our graphics preferences aren't dumbed down, nor we are denied the full capabilities of anti-aliasing without having to force it. But the character animations and models (especially the God forsaken heads) were horrible in Oblivion and were barely improved upon in Fallout and New Vegas. I know that the engine is capable of much better considering the great mods that have been released for Fallout. And as mentioned, the physics are very unnatural.

But the engine aside, several things the Elder Scrolls V needs is more choices, paths, and in general, more role-playing. In the case of the Elder Scrolls, a role-playing game shouldn't simply be defined as a game in which you assign assign points to a character and manage an inventory. With creating a character should come creating a unique personality and role, and the game world should be flexible enough to be able to successfully accomodate that character.

The ability to represent your character properly through dialogue was somewhat limited in Morrowind, as that choice was based on who you spoke to, instead of what you spoke. In Oblivion, they reduced the effectiveness of dialogue even further by dumbing down the amount of dialogue in favor of complete, but not individual, voice-overs. The Elder Scrolls V should walk the path of older role-playing games in favor of actual lines as choices instead of topics. Or heck, even Mass Effect's wheel allowed for more flexibility as a character.

With dialogue improved, the Elder Scrolls V would be able to be less linear (as in multiple outcomes to quests not endless world wandering). I was disappointed in Oblivion when I discovered there was absolutely no chance in somehow joining Mankar Camoran, or killing Martin to gain the throne as Emperor. The Necromancers had a large role in the Mages Guild quests, but they should have had their own quest line if you didn't want to be a "good" mage. Daggerfall had six endings for pete's sake. Perhaps they were planning a direct sequel while simultaneously developing Oblivion. In my opinion, they should have kept with the tradition of the previous games and make Elder Scrolls V in one of the other provinces that we haven't seen.

 

[DraKon2k]

I'd LOVE a TES V, but PLEASE on a new next-gen engine and not gamebyro!

 

[Mahnsikir]

Put it back on the TES III engine, at least Morrowind has some charm to it. I'd definitely buy it

Shame if it is a direct sequel to oblivion (aka Oblivion 2), part of the nice thing about TES was indirect effects and references that happened between the games, made it feel like a whole world rather just focusing on one 'storyline'. Hopefully it isn't as cut and dry as "the first direct sequel" suggests and just along the lines of set sometime after the events of oblivion. Who knows though this is just a weak rumour.

 

[Harb]

I wish for a game that's a cross between Morrowind and Daggerfall. I fear it'll be Oblivion 2.

Remove fast travel. I liked the way they used fast travel in Morrowind with Silt Striders/Mages Guilds in various cities/towns rather than the cheap click and travel method in Oblivion that was far less involving.

Better economics. I want banks back, better trade systems, I want demand and supply of goods that make sense from City to City. I want my horse and cart back so I can travel from place to place selling goods. I want to buy and sell properties, not just one house in each major city but the option to buy up large acres of land.

I don't want monsters to level up with me. It's a cheap method of making the game harder and leads to finding unexplained high-level monsters in places they shouldn't be.

Remove other realms. Having to travel to the most boring insipid nonsense of Oblivion almost made me stop playing. I want the plot to stay within the boundaries of Tamriel. I want a plot that is more complicated with political undertones and no black and white options. Something more along the lines of F:NV

I would rather one well made interesting City than 4 or 5 Cities that are nothing more than 10 or so houses and a castle.

So many things they could improve on but I doubt they will.

 

[Fedorov]

the storyline of Oblivion sucks, why does it have to be a direct sequel? =(

 

[EvilAmericanMan]

The ability to represent your character properly through dialogue was somewhat limited in Morrowind, as that choice was based on who you spoke to, instead of what you spoke. In Oblivion, they reduced the effectiveness of dialogue even further by dumbing down the amount of dialogue in favor of complete, but not individual, voice-overs. The Elder Scrolls V should walk the path of older role-playing games in favor of actual lines as choices instead of topics. Or heck, even Mass Effect's wheel allowed for more flexibility as a character.

Yeah one thing you notice with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, is how you can actually talk to people with dialogue. Certain skills, perks, your base stats and even at least one line in NV where you can use your Caesar's Legion rep in a dialogue choice, could also lead to dialogue options. With Oblivion, when talking to someone who is part of a quest/the main plot (i.e. telling Jauffre you have the Amulet of Kings) weren't even dialogue options. They were, 'select this chat option or this one' or, 'choose what order you want to hear these three dialogue options in'. The dialogue was completely on rails. I guess if they copied the ME wheel it would be a bit obvious, but then again, there was a game not too long ago, forget the name..it was about a spy and it didn't do very well but was highly touted. They did a similar thing to the ME dialogue wheel. Bethesda needs to do something new there! I guess it would be best to copy the Fallout 3/NV type by letting you be nice or be a jerk or what have you in most dialogue options.

 

[Reise]

People complain about fast travel and all that, but they forget that pretty much every other game had it.

Morrowind had the mages guild teleporters and the silt striders.

Daggerfall had literal fast travel, basically anywhere you wanted to go.

All I can really ask for is that they end up using a better engine. Gamebryo isn't too bad these days with F3 and NV, but it could still be a lot better. Hopefully they can also bring back some of the other things that are really necessary for the series, like enemies and loot that isn't leveled with you, and less generalized skills.

 

[Zennousha]

****. For a second there (I hawk the TES forums) I missed an announcement. Yeah, this rumour's been going around for awhile. We've speculated that we'll see a VGA annoncement/teaser trailer with a February cover on Game Informer (IE revealed as of January).

As for their TES games, this will again be a rebuilt from the ground up engine. Yes, it'll likely be based off Gamebryo but this will be a severe overhaul.

 

[Alexei]

Doesn't matter if they use the same engine or not, they will manage to make faces even uglier!

 

[Nenjin]

And will they still have busted, poorly balanced or detailed mechanics, where you're a god 15 hours in?

 

[DraKon2k]

Don't see what everyones problem is with Oblivion, I downloaded a savegame to skip the crappy main story and then spent like 100+ on exploring the world and doing sidequests, it was incredibly awesome.

 

[hockeywarrior]

Don't see what everyones problem is with Oblivion, I downloaded a savegame to skip the crappy main story and then spent like 100+ on exploring the world and doing sidequests, it was incredibly awesome.

Same I had a great time in Oblivion. Mods made it even better.

I really hated the engine though -- I'm not happy about them not using a brand new engine for ES5...

 

[SiC-Disaster]

The problem with Oblivion is that as a followup to Morrowind, it was completely lacking in options.
In the end everybody leveled up with you, putting the most expensive armor on even the petty thieves. The story was uninteresting. The world itself a lot smaller than Morrowind was. Overhyped world AI that in the end were quite unsatisfying to most after all the hype.
And then there is the cheap fast-travel, dungeons being pointed out to you instead of having to try to find them on your own, and lots more of such things that seem trivial but on a whole made Oblivion a mediocre game compared to previous TES titles (ive only played morrowind myself, didnt touch the other 2 titles before it so that is the only thing i can testify to).
Other stuff was a sucking inventory system, and other stuff like not being able to put one type of clothing over another one, like you could in Morrowind. For example i had a character in City Guard armour at one point, but i couldnt stand the leg-part. It was simply butt-ugly, so i found a nice skirt and put that on over the body armour. Result = awesomeness.

 

[EvilAmericanMan]

The problem with Oblivion is that as a followup to Morrowind, it was completely lacking in options.
In the end everybody leveled up with you, putting the most expensive armor on even the petty thieves. The story was uninteresting. The world itself a lot smaller than Morrowind was. Overhyped world AI that in the end were quite unsatisfying to most after all the hype.
And then there is the cheap fast-travel, dungeons being pointed out to you instead of having to try to find them on your own, and lots more of such things that seem trivial but on a whole made Oblivion a mediocre game compared to previous TES titles

Well you don't have to use the fast travel (I like it and have played with characters who I would just use the roads instead of fast traveling everywhere to get their athletic skill up). And I know I'd rather not be lost and wandering around everywhere. That's extremely unfun and frustrating.

 

[SiC-Disaster]

See, that is the problem with most people these days.
It's only fun when it is being spoonfed to you. Personally, i loved getting descriptions from NPC's in Morrowind and following them up to find a place on my own, instead of being magically pointed toward them.
"oh hi there, pl0x move here for rare loot, ktxhbai"

Also, the 'you dont have to use fast-travel' is bollocks. It is there and it will be used. And because many people will fast-travel everywhere once it's possible world artists become lazy and dont pay attention to creating interesting environments.
Oblivion had a very uninteresting world.

 

[Harb]

Whilst I loved searching every corner on foot in Morrowind and having a sense of achievement in finding small hidden caves there was one thing that made it annoying

Spoiler!

 

[DraKon2k]

Also, the 'you dont have to use fast-travel' is bollocks. It is there and it will be used. And because many people will fast-travel everywhere once it's possible world artists become lazy and dont pay attention to creating interesting environments.
Oblivion had a very uninteresting world.

Yes I imagine how other people play their SP game must have a huge impact on your experience!