This isn't really something to be taken too seriously, as I am sure they already have their own idea. It would be nice to see something similar, though. Of course this is all personal opinion. I wrote this on my guild website, and was told I should share it here.

I am very hopeful and they sort of stick with how the previous ES games have it, but I kind of hope they limit each player to just specializing in 1 thing. I have a list of my idea, which may or may not be in the game. Keep in mind, this isn't a suggestion to make this a better Elder Scrolls game, but rather a better MMO.

Perhaps we don't have to limit everyone from being able to do just 1 thing, but rather that they choose to specialize in 1 of them. Someone who specializes in the trade would be allowed to craft for a bit cheaper on the materials, and possibly reduce the time required or the chance of failure. Anyone can be a miner, but the actual miner will find more, and be able to use more of the ore to make ingots than those who aren't specialized.

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Miner - The people who can literally mine ore in the mines. They also will be able to mine gems, and possibly collect sand. This profession also can refine the ore they mine into ingots, or refine the sand to make it purer for those who craft glass.

Hunter/Tanner/Skinner - These people are the ones that can skin animal hides. They also have the ability to tan the hides and furs they skin. They can harvest claws and teeth, and possibly ivory.(I feel there needs to be more use out of this profession. I am still looking for ideas on to make Hunter/Skinner/Tanner more appealing... might just mesh it in with others. Anyone can skin a hide... but only Blacksmith, whether armorer or weaponsmith, could tan and prep it for weapons and armor.)

Blacksmith - Armorer - These people can take the ingots and fashion all sorts of armors. If you want Iron, you just need Iron ingots, if you want steel, you need Iron ingots and Coal. If you want leather armor pieces, you need tanned hides. You also need molds for certain pieces. Possibly jewels for shiny looks.

Blacksmith - Weaponsmith - These people of course craft the weapons. They use much of the same ingredients as the Armorer. Their focus is weapons. They also need leather for grips. Possibly jewels for shiny looks too.

Jeweler - Self explanatory. These people take the precious metals that are mined, and gems to make jewelry, like necklaces, rings, and crowns.

Enchanter - Enchanters will enchant crafted or blank items with enchantments. The main source to do enchanting will most likely be gold, and lots of it. Perhaps with large amounts of gold, also use magical beast parts like hearts, frost salts, fire salts... but mostly stuff anyone would pickup just from adventuring.

Herbalist - These people know plants, and can gather them without destroying the plant. I thought a small private garden would be nice, if they ever do housing. Of course it would have to be instanced away from the main areas. Allow them to plant so many plants in their own garden, which they must upkeep if they wish to keep harvesting them. They also can make basic salves and wraps and consumables that help in minor ways.

Alchemist - They will be the ones that can take ingredients from adventuring, like daedric hearts, frost salts, etc... and plant ingredients from herbalists to make potions. These potions will have greater effect than the minor things herbalists can make. They should also be able to make grenades.


I am hopeful something like this comes up, and everyone is limited to 1, because it sure would make for a great in-game economy if there were all these avenues you had. Sure any one person can make alts to do all of them, but that would take a LOT of time. It encourages people to interact and trade with each other, and will allow for a decent way to just earn gold by doing something menial.

I understand there also may be some lore limitations. Especially among Bosmer, and the Green Pact. If anyone has any ideas to add to this, feel free. I am completely open to suggestion. Maybe another profession that I didn't think of.

I really hope we are allowed to do two things, and the ability to forget them at any point to learn another one or two.

The purpose for the limitation is to spur trade, or even cooperation within a guild. It could help maintain an in-game economy.

Sure the overall idea seems more sandboxy, but I feel it is a neat idea if nothing else.

The thing is, ES has always been about freedom, if we don't have the ability to get more then one profession or forget a Profession, we are forced and limited, and that's definitely a bad thing for an Elder Scrolls Game

Mhm interesting topic

Ok... I'll be a little clearer in the OP. The idea isn't something suggested to make an effective Elder Scrolls game, but rather an effective MMO. That's what this game is going to be, an MMO with the Elder Scrolls setting and lore. It's not The Elder Scrolls 6.

There is a lot of things that just can't be done mechanically in an MMO that you can do in the other Elder Scrolls games, which focus on 1 protagonist. Everyone is going to be a protagonist in this game, and then there will be PVP and balance mechanics. We can't just let everyone become a level 50, master of all skills, otherwise nothing would be difficult.

Come on, you can do anything in EVE and trade is the most developed of all the MMO, internal aliance cooperation also.
Limitations will kill idea of crafting, trade and aliance cooperation.

In my opinion, of course.

You do realize that in Eve, you are practically a commander in chief of your own corporation and can buy and use hundreds of ships? Mechanically wise, it works in Eve, because technically your player character is not the one putting forth the physical labor. Of course you can do everything in Eve, because the setting allows for it.

I'll re-edit the OP again with another idea: Like everyone can do practically more than one trade, but those who specialize in the trade could get far better results or quicker results in their chosen trade.

You are thinking about real profession - a jobs one could specialize. Not many games have that. New ones are trying to implement something like that with more or less success.
Anybody can mine coal, but someone with profession of a Miner would do it better and faster.
Anybody can craft something, but someone of a Blacksmith profession can do it better and cheaper.
Anyone can be a fighter, but someone who profession of a Fighter will do it better.
...it would be nice...

If it would be like that there would have to be a system that would encourage players in specializing so we would not have Masters of Everything (at least not for a loooooooong time) as there is nothing more discouraging for new or less experienced players than knowledge that there is already someone who had achieved everything there is to achieve.

That's what I just recently added to it. Sure anyone can do anything, but someone who specializes does it better.

Personally I just hope they make crafting something everyone wants to do and all crafts are good enough that they keep the player captivated with it from start to finish. Also that there is no random crap in it like pulling the handle on a slot machine to see your results, like the horrible crafting in Diablo 3 where it was just a place you could go and get rid of all the gold you had. Now I realize D3 is not an MMO but for the love of gaming I hope there is nothing in ESO that resembles the horrid crafting that was in D3.

Also that crafting can be done even on drops to enhance what is already there. High level drops would require a high level crafter in the craft that the item falls into. I want crafting to completely drive the economy so that players are dependant on each other through out the entire game.

That's exactly what I am hoping for. I want to be able to enjoy crafting, but I don't want everything just given to me, and I don't want a stupid slot machine to get ingredients/materials like SWTOR has.

As far as I am concerned most MMO developers make a half assed attempt at crafting like it was in SWTOR, and it seems like they don't even realize that a lot of players want a very robust crafting system that takes a lot of time and effort. I don't mind my crafting skill going up very slowly as long as I am not stuck making a bunch of "filler" items so that I can get to the good stuff at the highest level. All items a crafter makes have to be useable and wanted in the game not just crap that you vendor for a loss in gold.

BTW the more I hear about Eve the more I wish I would have played it a long time ago...though I hate space games ever since I played SWTOR. Now I can't even bring myself to try F2P Star Trek Online and I am a Treckie going back to the original series.

Thought I'd perhaps explain my thoughts on crafting with a little story.

The first time I played EQ2, I ran downstairs to the crafting basemant in Qeynos excited with all of my bits and pieces to make some furniture and some potions. I ended up making some ungodly low quality 4 slot wooden box when the recipe that I was using clearly stated it had 6 slots. I thought that was pretty cool though because I stuffed up in the mini game, hitting the wrong crafting skills at the wrong time. My fault, fair enough I thought. I then proceeded to the chemistry, alchemy room and saw some dead people on the ground, I remember thinking how on earth did they die? They were in the process of running back to their corpse with an xp penalty for their troubles (excellent!). I started out on my potions, making mistakes just like I did with my 6 slot (which became 4 slot) wooden box, I was attempting to make a potion that was 'orange' in skill, quite the challenge but some good potions if I got it right. I didn't. I died due to damage I was taking while crafting, so THAT explained why those dead people were on the ground in the basemant of the crafting room. I absolutely LOVED it and still remember it like it happened yesterday even though it was over 8 years ago back in 2004. In comparison to World of Warcraft, do I remember crafting my 5th menial Copper Gloves? Not a chance.

Sorry for the story but I'd like to remember my crafting experiences in ESO, I really don't want it to be another WoW, SWTOR, LOTRO, [insert almost any modern MMO here]. Make it memorable Zenimax Online and put some thought into it. MMOs should be about long term gameplay NOT catering to instant gratification crowds that want to hit the crafting cap in a day along with having every in game recipe available within a few days of launch. People call it a grind, its only a grind if its not interesting or engaging - that is in the hands of the developers.

Now that you mention it I remember that exact same story, thanks for the memories!

EQ2 crafting was awesome cause you had to do things just right to make it work, timing was everything and if you learned the cues as to when to click at the right time, you could make decent stuff right through the entire process. I think after a while there were too many complaints about potion fails making you die and they changed that though I could be wrong.

Yes, they did end up dumbing down EQ2 crafting, primarily removing the inter-dependency of other trade skills to make subcomponents. However, even with those changes it still remains my favorite crafting system to date. The only problem was having to have nine characters to cover all of the trade skills. My OCD made this a necessity. In DAoC (a highly mediocre crafting system), I was able to achieve LGM in all trade skills with a single character. I'm hoping the ESO leans more toward EQ2 than DAoC but allows me to master more than one trade skill. The time sink remains the same, so I'm not real sure what is gained by capping the number of skills you can master.