» Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:39 am Anyway, I was thinking I would be more excited about expansions if they were episodes in a larger story instead (the Walking Dead used this concept successfully). The most obvious possible example would be the following:
Episode 1 - Rise of the DragonBorn who defeats Alduin and liberates Skyrim from the Empire
Episode 4 - Skyrim and the Empire unite to defeat the Thalmor
The challenge with taking an episodic approach is that it flies in the face of the choices that you made in the earlier episode. For example, how do you deal with the story in Episode 4 if you sided with the Empire over Ulfric? You can't just ignore it. I think there are ways to handle this, though. If the empire wins, then you move straight into Episode 4 with a united Empire. If Ulfric wins, you must first convince Ulfric to work with the Empire against an even greater threat. Then, after that is done, you follow the same story path when fighting the Thalmor. You can also show additional differences in Episode 4. Maybe certain merchants won't work with you (or will work with you) depending on what choices you made in Episode 1. Maybe a NPC will help you get pass the dark canyon, but only if you sided with the Empire. Maybe your wife won't be killed if you sided with the Dawn Guard in Episode 2. So instead of having major branches in the story in Episode 4, you instead introduce some small mini-quests based on the choices that they made.
But the bottom line is that instead of having a complete story in Episode 1, you instead have a completion of a smaller story arc in Episode 1, but the bigger story requires all of the episodes to complete. I think it would mean more money for Bethesda, and it would generate more fan excitement for each DLC episode as it is released.
