Whats games have you been playing of late? Exclusive Beta Edition.

[Jacen]

I think they need to just give up on skating the edge of new technology and spend the time making CONTENT instead.

Drop the voice acting and the cutting edge graphics and all that bull and make more STUFF.

Warning! Long-winded "Elder Scrolls rant you probably have heard a few hundred times before" to follow:

Yeah, voice acting is really a double edged sword. If done well it really is a great addition to a game, on the other hand it obviously limits the amount of content NPCs can have. It would be nice if they could do a combo system? I wouldn't mind it if some of the NPC's had spoken dialogue while others had unspoken text lines. That is a lot better than the same guy (and using the same vocal tone) voicing 25 different people. Very jarring.

On the other hand, they would need to give the text itself some flavor. Morrowind was horrible for this, basically the unimportant NPC's were all the same, just conversational rolodex's, where is the nearest shop? guild? etc. No life or personality beyond that.

It would be awesome if they could integrate the conversational wheel from Mass Effect, and maybe just plain text for random NPCs. Or hire MORE talented voice actors that can do different voices and skip hiring a famous Hollywood star to do only one part.

Other areas I'd like to see improvement in for future TES games:

-The standard game should have SOME leveled enemies, and SOME static enemies. It sucks that you have to run a mod to get this effect. The game should be challenging and stay challenging as you level up, but the player should also feel that they are becoming stronger. And no bandits in freakin' enchanted Daedric plate. Also, in the beginning of the game, there should be areas that if you go into them, you will get pwned. Coming back later in a game to an area where you were formerly getting destroyed, and then kicking ass is a great feeling of reward in a game.

- Melee combat and magical combat needs to be tweaked to be more fun and strategic. Apparently some people play these games peacefully, no idea how, but I'm guessing most people spend most of their time fighting to advance in the game. Oblivion was much better than Morrowind in this regard but the system still has far to go. I would like to see more combat moves, more blocking concepts, finishers, more spell options, perhaps adding more complexity to how magic attacks and magic shielding works?

Maybe adding a Fallout 3 VATS style system to complement the live action would work well?

Another huge weakness to the combat system is any time there are more people than yourself fighting foes/monsters what have you. The combat at that point just becomes super wacky and stupid looking. The group battles are very lame looking. That, and it's almost impossible not to hit your friends while in the mix.

- Better loot system. I think one thing that this game series has always sucked at is loot progression. It needs to take a page from Diablo 2, where more is better. Simply put, there are not enough levels of item quality in the TES games. Basically, it usually goes like this; you get the shitty iron sword, then the steel sword, then you might luck out and get a glass one, next thing you know you got the ebony sword, then the daedric, then you are done with weapons cuz their isn't anything better than that. It would be more fun if you were constantly running into variations of power in items. It would be more fun if you felt like you were constantly getting better equipment in the game instead of every once in awhile. Bottom line; the idea of the different materials is cool but they should add in more levels of variance. Ebony Plate: Mark I through X would be a start.

- Make the game fun and playable in third person mode. Make it an actual usable feature and not just a tacked on option.

- Stop dumbing down the game. Enchanting and Spell making were horribly simplified in Oblivion. A cheap brass ring should not be able to hold the enchantment to cast the constant effect shield spell for 60 pts, you should have to find the ultra rare black diamond ring or some shit to get that effect. Bring back some of the old skills. More books! Leave in all the books from all the games. More lore is good, for those that want it. Those that don't can ignore the books.

-Magic...bring back levitate, and mark and recall. Add in more types of attacks beyond the same old boring fire, frost, and shock. How about wind? water? more status effect type attacks? I should be able to hit somebody up with a level 2 earthquake then fry them with a level 3 Gnosis laser beam. More variety and more combos is the key here.

- Optimize the game for both PCs and Consoles. Don't fuck over one system and reward the other. The user interface of Oblivion was so shitty on the PC, a clear console port. A must have mod is the Darnified UI. Again, modders should not have to mod in BASIC FEATURES.

- Continue to increase the immersion factor with small touches, little details. . One thing that IS great about these games is the lived in feel of the dwellings. I love all the junk and useless crap everywhere, it adds to the feel of a lived in world. Continue and improve with that. Seek to make the NPC's more aware of what is going on around them. I.E., If I break into a dudes house and bust him out of bed to talk to him, he should say something about this, call the guards, attack me, anything !