» Mon May 14, 2012 8:40 am
vampirism is a tough call for tes games.
traditional model.
its an ancient curse where u get stronger the more u feed. the more u feed, the more "vampire" u look. the more "vampire" you look, the more the people fear you. you end up turning into a gray cowl-esque figure where ur fame and bounty outweighs anything u could actually do. u could steal an apple from a crate but being a vampire, ur hunted to death for it.
from a game perspective, the traditional model is hard to implement. if u become stronger the more u feed, what happens when u dont feed? do u get cured? that doesnt fit in with lore at all. do u get weaker? well that just puts u back to human levels. do u get weaker than human levels? that makes doing quests requiring people to cooperate with u impossible. a fed vampire does not look like a vampire and u dont want the player unable to complete the mq. and if u do implement this somehow, the risk of turning into something weaker-than-human means u have to provide rewards that are over-the-top amazing. vampirism then becomes a feast-or-famine style game-state and creates a god character earlier than most devs want it. god characters r fine at the end. they arent fine 4 days into a game
oblivion model
u want to keep the blood svcking aspect of vampirism. u also want to keep the look of a vampire. but making it balanced is tough. oblivion took an interesting look into it. they eliminated the weaker-than-human state to remove the "god character 4 days into the game" aspect of it due to risk/reward relationships. this was a good move. but they also made u stronger the less u fed. feeding became taboo for a vampire. it made u weaker but able to do the quests and act "normal"
problem was, what was the downside to being a fed vampire? there were none. u didnt take sun damage but u kept your stat boosts (+5 points to a ton of stats). the only weakness was a 20% weakness to fire dmg which was mildly annoying at best. and when u needed to kill something difficult, u simply let vampirism take its hold, get A LOT stronger (+20 pts for each stat affected) and dominate things. then simply feed and be back to "normal"
my hopes for skyrim
first off, i will become a vampire. i do this for lore reasons. i play a corrupted high elf. i wont go into it but u get the idea...
? number 1 hope is that they have a way of making any vampire "normal" enough to function in the game (similar to the fed state in oblivion). but i hope that they remove the state bonus' that come with it OR make it harder to feed. it was entirely too easy to maintain the fed state. there were countless places to feed easily. guild members is fine. they shouldnt care. but around towns, the random people sleeping outside were hidden away from the guards, almost asking to be fed upon. i realize that this is there to accommodate for more casual players wanting to be vampires but come on. dont make it TOO easy...
? i do hope vampire lore is a bit more in-depth and involved in things. its an ancient curse. i want the people of skyrim to act accordingly, not just hate me for looking a bit wrinkly. a separate gray cowl-esque bounty on my full vampire form would be preferred.
? clan-specific powers is a must for me. if not done by bethesda, i fully expect a mod to do it, or at least some dlc. skyrim vampires are distinctly different from other vampires in other lands. dont just give me stat boosts/night vision and call it a day