For those of you just tuning in: I wrote twenty posts of Elder Scrolls retrospective, then turned around and asked people to prompt even more of it. Some of these questions expand on points I’d brought up before; some ask me to predict where the franchise is going. There are plenty of both kinds. Expect these twice a week until we’re across the finish line.<\/p>\n
Mr Guy asked:<\/strong><\/p>\n
If you were the design lead for the next game, what are the top 5 things you'd add, remove, or change?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My own biases are going to be kept at arm’s length from my answer. If Bethesda gave me the role of lead designer I’d aim for their identified market and respect their core methods–I’d settle for pruning away outright dysfunctional elements while leaving controversial evolutions, like unkillable NPCs, intact.<\/p>\n
My list would run down like this:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
- Assuming I could find a workaround to the technical obstacles, I’d work on implementing flying mounts and magics. I maintain that’s the next killer app for TES games–it adds a literal new dimension to the open world, speaks to a common empowerment fantasy, and looks fantastic in trailers and screenshots. It’ll serve as a rallying point for journalistic and fan coverage the same way dragons centered coverage of Skyrim<\/em>.<\/li>\n
- I’d add events to gathering places like inns and taverns–say a dozen very minor scripted events apiece, plus a half-dozen slightly more involved events, plus a few more dozen radiant happenstances not tied to location. These wouldn’t happen incredibly often; maybe every third time the player enters a tavern for the first time that day. Taverns are narratively places to unwind, catch some drama, and have interesting conversations with semi-drunk strangers–but in practice, beyond your first visit, they’re socially dead and bankrupt of amusement. The only reason to go there is if you need to find an NPC for a quest and they’re not at home. I’m always disappointed there aren’t more reasons to go out on the town in RPGs, and this would be a good place to start experimenting.<\/li>\n
- Not in the game, but in reality, I would add signs over every dialogue writer’s computer asking: How is the player going to feel about this conversation and what can they IMMEDIATELY do about it? <\/em>The first time I catch someone writing an NPC who’s an abusive threatening jerk that can’t be verbally or physically rebuffed, that writer gets transferred to close-captioning ogre belches.<\/li>\n
- Very early in development I would set up a team to brainstorm ideas for new, technologically feasible avenues of noncombat magic that unlock within combat magic tracks <\/em>as mastery increases (see my thoughts on what’s probably going to happen with magic below). Some thoughts: being able to look through walls, jam all doors for monsters and NPCs in an area while the spell button is held down, teleport short distances Dishonored<\/em> style, make NPCs walk to selected points and stand there for a moment. The game is past the point where you can afford to specialize in things besides fighting, but it’s intrinsic to an immersive, rewarding fantasy experience to provide distinctions between sorcerers and howitzers…especially when they turn out not to be very good howitzers.<\/li>\n
- I would add a more involved and widespread system of diagetic fast-travel that there is incentive to use as well as <\/em>the standard click-the-map method. I understand the player needs to be able to click a map point and teleport instantly, but there’s a nice frisson of immersion that comes from heading down to the caravan depot or whatever that’s worth preserving. Perhaps taking rides gives “leads” on whatever radiant quests (bandits, hauntings, etc) that’s happening around your destination.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
James asked:<\/strong><\/p>\n
Do you think that Bethesda will continue [removing limits on player behavior], removing things like mana restrictions on high class spells? or similar decisions<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yes and no. They will absolutely continue consolidating mechanics, but it’s going to go further than that.<\/p>\n
To be honest–I don’t think we’re going to have skills next time around.<\/p>\n
I think the days of having a half-dozen kinds of magic to specialize in are as dead as the days of having a half-dozen kinds of weapons to specialize in. Oh, you certainly can <\/em>favor axes or swords in Skyrim<\/em>, but only as offshoots of your One Handed and Two Handed disciplines. In previous entries skills existed to define what your character could and could not do, which was basically the same as defining who your character was. Bethesda’s current target audience doesn’t care as strongly about that; they feel no satisfaction in narrowing their build that compensates for the frustration of gear and spells and factions becoming inaccessible. This is in large part because most non-hardcore RPG nerds have no interest in creating a dozen characters to experience content a dozen different ways if they can create one supercharacter and experience everything the first time. Bearing this in mind, ask yourself honestly–what’s the point in having a wall between Restoration and Destruction? Because it “make sense?” It’s a fantastical gameworld structured to deliver exploration-based power fantasies. What “makes sense” is what works best for the player.<\/p>\n
My earnest, rock-solid, definitely-not-going-to-date-this-series prediction is that by TES 6 you’re going to open your character sheet to see something on the order of Magic, Stealth, and Weapons. Each will have a tree letting you buy perks\/specialties, because people like those little choices and it’ll help make the character feel unique–but at the core of the experience a character who is proficient in Magic will be able to do all the magic stuff, no problem. Nobody will be left out of anything even related to their character build.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John asked:<\/strong><\/p>\n
A silly question: why are people so worked up about spears?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You know, people gave a lot of reasons for this one, but I think a big part of it boils down to: spears used <\/em>to be in the game. They used to define a playable race. Now they’re gone, nothing’s replacing them, and it’s symbolic of the overall streamlining process the series has been going through since Daggerfall <\/em>where something can get cut just because it’s not iconic or essential to the experience.<\/p>\n
Dragmire asked:<\/strong><\/p>\n
How much do you think the happenings in Skyrim will affect the next game? Do you think dragons will be said to have traveled around the world so they show up in all the sequels?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Here we come around to another one of my “Skyrim<\/em> changed everything” predictions. I think we’re going to see more direct continuity next time than we have before–we certainly won’t get a direct sequel, and I doubt it’ll have dragons, but either the Thalmor are the villains next time around or modern Bethesda is even worse about setting up bullies you can’t take down<\/em> than I thought they were.<\/p>\n
CONTINUED FRIDAY<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For those of you just tuning in: I wrote twenty posts of Elder Scrolls retrospective, then turned around and asked people to prompt even more of it. Some of these questions expand on points I’d brought up before; some ask me to predict where the franchise is going. There are plenty of both kinds. Expect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elder-scrolls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}