The Elder Scrolls is an interesting franchise. It's potential as an immersive role-playing fantasy game is absolutely immense. The newer games, while approachable, have paired certain aspects back and yet, there is something special to these games that sets them apart, even despite their apparent flaws and some jankiness. It is regrettable that the task of realizing the potential is often left to the modding community, but still there's something special about these games goddamnit.
So in this thread, let us write out our hopes and dreams for The Elder Scrolls VI.
So yeah, first of all. the setting. The fans have narrowed down the probable location to Hammerfell, High Rock or both. Out of these two, I would definitely prefer Hammerfell. High Rock is pretty much the Game of Thrones Westeros region (albeit with more French and Celtic influences, rather than British, although they'd totally be voiced with British accents so it's moot) with knights and multiple petty kingdoms and families squabbling and plotting for dominance, so I guess that would be very marketable, but it's also more traditional fantasy and I'd like something more exotic. Hammerfell is no Morrowind or Black Marsh in terms of weirdness, but it is more exotic than High Rock and the last couple of regions. It is basically a fusion of Middle East and (mostly) North Africa and is predominantly populated by fantasy black people. There's also kind of an order who are basically fantasy Jedi complete with magic lightsabers they conjure up with their minds. I assume that last part would feature heavily in marketing. It is an arid region with deserts, but there are more biomes than just deserts, there's also lowlands matching that of the trailer, coastal regions that could have some Pirates of the Caribbean shit going, cold mountains areas and etcetera. They could easily make it more varied than Skyrim in terms of Biomes. So I think Hammerfell would be a bit more fresh and very cool Plus you could track down Nazeem's relatives and kill every single one of them. Who's in the Cloud District now, bitch?
Alright, now for actual desires:
I want everything he said.
And no, Skyrim isn't THAT much better, just a lot less funny. Alternatively, double down on hyper-jank and make the best, most comedic game of all time.
These are some of the things I want. FudgeMuppet runs a series called Things We Want in Skyrim and I find their desires pretty agreeable. A lot of what I just posted is inspired by the channels ideas.
So in this thread, let us write out our hopes and dreams for The Elder Scrolls VI.
So yeah, first of all. the setting. The fans have narrowed down the probable location to Hammerfell, High Rock or both. Out of these two, I would definitely prefer Hammerfell. High Rock is pretty much the Game of Thrones Westeros region (albeit with more French and Celtic influences, rather than British, although they'd totally be voiced with British accents so it's moot) with knights and multiple petty kingdoms and families squabbling and plotting for dominance, so I guess that would be very marketable, but it's also more traditional fantasy and I'd like something more exotic. Hammerfell is no Morrowind or Black Marsh in terms of weirdness, but it is more exotic than High Rock and the last couple of regions. It is basically a fusion of Middle East and (mostly) North Africa and is predominantly populated by fantasy black people. There's also kind of an order who are basically fantasy Jedi complete with magic lightsabers they conjure up with their minds. I assume that last part would feature heavily in marketing. It is an arid region with deserts, but there are more biomes than just deserts, there's also lowlands matching that of the trailer, coastal regions that could have some Pirates of the Caribbean shit going, cold mountains areas and etcetera. They could easily make it more varied than Skyrim in terms of Biomes. So I think Hammerfell would be a bit more fresh and very cool Plus you could track down Nazeem's relatives and kill every single one of them. Who's in the Cloud District now, bitch?
Alright, now for actual desires:
- Emphasize role-playing. This is the single greatest asset of this franchise and they should stop deemphasizing that in favor of surface level thrills. Make your race choice matter, make your choices matter, make your skills and builds matter. Maybe the Mage's guild won't actually recruit some dumb brute who can barely cast a spell and you need meet certain stat requirements before you join? Maybe there are some factions that would be closed to you based on your race choice or at least require you to do extra shit in order to let you join. Maybe some minor quests would only be available to certain races? To further steal this idea from YouTuber FudgeMuppet, imagine an Argonian NPC which would only trust a fellow Argonian with certain information, starting a quest.
- In fact, let's have a crazy awesome thing and enable us to have multiple playthroughs going on at once with multiple characters. Maybe you'd be able to share your XP/ Levels between playthroughs? Maybe even do something radical and enable the player to switch between characters like in GTA 5. It's so goddamn jarring to be an honorable warrior one day and then go killing innocents as some Dark Brotherhood asshole the next, as it is to be THE GRANDMASTER AND SUPREME LEADER OF LITERALLY EVERYTHING by the end of the day. Maybe even integrate that one mod that allows to pick an origin. Let your first character be the Dragonborn type with all the scripted tutorials and the subsequent characters can be anyone from a diverse set of options.
- Have quest-lines with multiple solutions and branching paths. Some options that may only open to you if you have hit certain levels in certain skills. And I don't mean just dialogue.
- Speaking of branching quests. There should either be more guild options or certain guilds/factions should have serious branching. This further emhphasizes role-playing while enriching the game for even those who don't care. Like say, there's a mages guild and their opposing faction is a bunch of evil necromancers. Early on your faction captures either the leader of the enemy group or a high ranking officer. While conversing with them behind the bars or whatever magic shit they're locked in, they try turn you to the dark side and go all "necromancy is the pathway to many abilities some consider... unnatural". That would be the branching point and you can either defect to the evil guys or stay in your lane and someone else busts them out, continuing the story with you running with the good wizards. Both paths would give you pathways different magical powers and if my above idea is approved, you can do both in concurrent playthroughs. Someone may have a skill-set ideal for a certain faction, but have their character misaligned ideologically. Like what if I wanna be a "good" assassin like in AssCreed and not some Sithis-worshipping nutjob who lives someone's evil basement, what if I want to be an unscrupulous criminal and not some Robin Hood noble thief? Multiple quest-lines, branching quest-lines or even ones where you get to create and shape your own faction. All these would do the job.
- Speaking of factions, have it be like New Vegas where depending on your actions you may improve or worsen your standing with those groups.
- Bring back cut skills, spells and add some new ones. Bring back the attributes and birth stones in character creation.
- Speaking of races, just integrate that Races of Skyrim mod.
- Have exploration be facilitated via visual landmarks more than cursors popping up on the compass or on a pre-populated map. More "what's that over there?" less "what's that marker" over there.
- Have a map that's a bit more spaced out than in Skyrim. Bits of empty space here and there are not necessarily a bad thing. Having caves, bandit hideouts and everything within ten steps of each other makes Skyrim feel more like a glorified theme park at times.
- Quest writing and scenarios that are at least as interesting as in Oblivion. Maybe I'm being a bit hasty in my judgement of Skyrim, but so far it feel like a bit of a step down both in terms of what you normally have to do in terms of the flavor fluff around it. I don't think there's gonna be a quest as cool as that Whodunit.
- I'll just post this FudgeMuppet video:
I want everything he said.
- This is a bit difficult but make NPCs feel less like robots. They feel like broken robots at times. TES NPCs are all unique and have their own routines, possessions and often quest/story roles but the other side of the coin is well, this:
And no, Skyrim isn't THAT much better, just a lot less funny. Alternatively, double down on hyper-jank and make the best, most comedic game of all time.
These are some of the things I want. FudgeMuppet runs a series called Things We Want in Skyrim and I find their desires pretty agreeable. A lot of what I just posted is inspired by the channels ideas.
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