Sounds like an MMO then, with all the bad things about an MMO and none of the good things.

One of the reasons why I became interested in the TES series to begin with, was because it was a first person RPG that only let you control one character, you, and explore a huge 3D world. Instead of other games at the time that were either isometric like Ultima VIII or forced you to micromanage the inventory of multiple people cause they aren't capable to do it themselves, like Eye of the Beholder.

So no, transforming TES into an isometric game series would be bad and for me a huge step back.

Also, Arena and Daggerfall are two huge games that offer extremely large game world with large cities, much larger than Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, yet they aren't isometric.

If only skyrim didn't look like someone crapped on my screen...then maybe your point would make sense. They obviously spent the least amount of time on graphics.

I agree with this totally. The cities are a joke and the game is incredibly shallow. I could only imagine a larger, more better Imperial City for Oblivion. That would have been cool.

I wouldn't even play it as I loathe isometric gameplay.

Planescape : Torment looks so cheesy. I'd have to say...NO!

I hope the Lady of Pain pays you a visit when you go to sleep for what you just said.

Thanks

the only way to make more content is to sacrifice the quality of it

...and Skyrim has plenty of quality content?

Completely false. Attitudes like this are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Now if you were to say "The only way to make more content in the same amount of time with the same amount of people is to sacrifice the quality of it" then maybe it might be true.

I agree with you for the most part, artists don't program and programmers don't art. But pulling resources from one aspect can certainly improve content in ways of story.

Graphic/sound/whatever artists make art, they don't program they don't script they don't QA.

Writers write stories and quest lines but must also work closely with Content Developers when it comes to technical feasibility, unless they'll write a grand epic that cannot be implemented with the time and resources available to the content developers. These resources include sounds, music, voice, props, 3d models, textures, etc. Content devs are often given a quest to implement and they'll have to make it happen with those things I mentioned without any additional requests for resources and sometimes they'll just have to negotiate a story change.

If less time and resources were spent on making the game such an artistic masterpiece, stories and quests could more frequently be written and implemented without compromises due to lack of those artistic resources. If theres no voice to implement then the conversations and story twists/turns/variations could be increased dramatically. Just like in oblivion you couldn't write a dragon into the storyline cause they didn't have dragons implemented. Etc etc.

I would still vote no, I wouldn't want a 2d isometric skyrim.

There's already 2D games with bad graphics that have a huge world to explore and a lot of content (dwarf fortress etc.) so anyone interested go play those, Skyrim is a 3D game.

Fix'd.

I'd rather have 1/10 of the content than have a game that has absolutely [censored] gameplay. Gameplay is the majority of time spent in a game.

That's just my opinion of course. Here's the thing though, if you want 2D graphics and no voice acting, those games currently exist for you. You can go and play them.

For the rest of us, devs are pushing out games that many people want to play.

I never enjoyed isometric game play nearly as much as full 3D immersion. To go isometric with this series would be a huge step backwards. I love being immersed in a fully realized game world where I can look around in all directions and feel like I'm actually there. It is the future. Isometric is the past. Let's continue to move forward.

Trust me, back when it was released it was basically a hidden gem. No one gave it attention, including myself, I had the impression it would be just a mediocre game, certainly not as good as Baldur's Gate. Turns out it was better than Baldur's Gate (at least for me) and nowadays it's pretty popular.

This is one the funniest posts I've read in recent memory. So you've devised a strategy to achieve this goal that has eluded the entire team at Bethesda?
Uh- huh.

When you say "they" I assume you're referring to Bethesda, and not the industry in general (although that would make it even funnier).

Stockport makes valid points. And while it might not be as simple as "each team needs to do awesome", it is a proper counter to the argument that "A game can't be good at everything".

Khamsin: The problem with older games is that there is no more dev support. Daggerfall was a great game back in 95 or whatever, imagine a Skyrim game in 2011 like that!

I have to agree with Plato on this one. Spending a chunk of time on the graphics is rather pointless. No matter how hard Beth trries to get good graphics, there will always be bad textures or some niggling issues. With a modern 2d graphic, there usually isn't many things to go wrong. IMO, what I picture in my mind is far grander than what any artist could deliver unto me.

Mind you, my opinion is coming from a person who enjoys literature and still has an active imagination as an advlt, so I don't need graphics to visualize things for me.(mercy on those who do)

TL;DR

2D and Skyrim do not belong in the same sentence.

and outdated graphics are also known as bad graphics COMPARED to graphics nowadays, what's your point smart ass?

Oh I agree, a game can be good at everything. What I'm seeing here is not that the game doesn't have rich content, but that it could have far more. And in that case "time and money" are excellent reasons for a game not having more content considering the millions of dollars and years spent making the game.
Unless he's arguing that they could have done far more with the budget and time they had. In that case my previous post stands.

maybe but i love fp its what immerses me in games and i love beth for having hundreds of items i can pick up n twizzle, thats what has drawn me in to mw ob fo and now skyrim, its the fp item twizzling, that and making up my own storys and appearance for characters, in beautifull detailed and open worlds.

Welcome to the world of TOMORRRRRRRRROW!