Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The next Elder Scrolls

Here's a list of things which will undoubtedly improve the quality of the next Elder Scrolls RPG.
While both Morrowind and Oblivion were fantastic games, I think there's room for constructive criticism for how Bethesda can improve them. So here we go.

-Mix it up more with the cities: more like was done in Morrowind. Give each city a more distinct feel: using both building styles, layout, and very importantly geography. Make towns set upon towering cliffs. Have an underwater town for an amphibious race.

-Which brings me to the next point: you need to include characters and species which the player can come across and say WOW as they are amazed, terrified, and intrigued by the appearances, behaviour, and language/dialect. This means making them not available as player-characters. Which worked fine in Morrowind, but really wasn't touched in Oblivion. The ancient character (Who I think was somewhat slug-like) in an underground section of Morrowind was a great example of this. New amazing characters, both good and bad, are a key feature of fantasy stories. Perhaps the most important feature.

-Don't let the player travel over the country/land at the click of a button. At least not until the later stages of the game. Encourage the player to discover the land, without giving them the chance to teleport through the game like a mystic magician on crack.

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