To be honest, Beth really need to higher back Obsidian for the next fallout game and zenimax needs to not actually screw obsidian like the they did with NV, but both studios need to be working to gether on it. Let Bethesda design the world, then Have obsidian do the story and characters Besides, Obsidian is comprised of the original Fallout creators.

more rpg-like and oriented towards psychological conflict. but not as big, definitely. and possibly unfinished, like they did for TSL. and mod-unfriendly.

To sum it up, somethings would be better, other would be worse.

I'd rather keep the true free-roaming despite that we'd get really well made quests and characters.

The only game I remember playing from Obsidian was Planescape: Torment.

They would have turned skyrim into a much smaller set of vastly longer and more intricate quests, filled with "damned if you do, damned if you don't" choices and very complex NPC's.

People seem to forget that especially those who know nothing of Bethesda those that jumped on board for Skyrim.
Most of the original dev team of Fallout 1 and 2 work at Obsidion now.
Bethesda doing the world and Obsidion doing the characters and story might be better.
I still think Bethesda should focus on The Elder Scrolls.

Pros:

Better Characters

Possibly deeper mechanics. (Obsidian tends to work second gen, building on what exists, like a mod team, so this is only an IF)

Better Writing

More options within existing content.


Cons:

Ugly (Aesthetically)

Roughly 1/3 the size in terms of scale and content.

Poor optimization.

Even more bugs. The PS3 version is Barely playable, if Obsidian developed Skyrim, PS3 users would have their entire city blocks explode from the bugs.

Poor Level design.


Overall, Obsidian Skyrim would be an ugly mess on both a technical and aesthetic level. Design and character would shine through the murk and enrapture a few dedicated souls.

As for Fallout, while I wouldn't be against the idea, if I had to choose between Obsidian or Bethesda making Fallout games, I'm going with Bethesda. While Fallout 3's characters and writing weren't really as well developed in Fallout 3 as they were in New Vegas, the backpedaling Obsidian did on Bethesda's amazing world design and attention to detail to tell contextual stories left me wanting in New Vegas.

While I have no doubt Bethesda will be developing Fallout 4, I very much hope they took notes from Obsidian's New Vegas. Bethesda's Fallout 3 was a great game, but not a great Fallout game when compared to the series as a whole. The Fallout series has always been more about re-building and shaping society, rather than exploration. That said, I'd like to see Bethesda at least hire on some former Obsidian/Interplay writers.

I believe Bethesda should stick to their TES formula. Exploration is a big part of TES experience, and while I wish Bethesda would have focused on certain things more in Skyrim, I still enjoy it for what it is, with over 400 hours played since release.

Bugs. Lots of bugs.

while the world is important, story should always come first. just saying.

Had Skyrim been developed by Obsidian, it would have been a much better game all around. T Quests, writing, and NPC interaction would be astronomically improved, everything would be better balanced, roleplaying mechanics would be deeper... Exploration might take a hit, but there'd be much more meaningful content, so it'd be more than a fair trade-off imo.

The exploration is where I get all the fun in TES games tho, I have out way more in Skyrim than in NV and I've yet to even do any if the quest in that game yet I will get around to it but I ecpmired that world until I got tired of it so exploration is very important for me: New Vegas does not have the longevity of any Elder Scrolls game.

I think if Bethesda created the world but hired people from Obsidian to fill it and write quests and dialogue, they would rule. Bethesda are really good at creating open worlds - they can't write to save their lives and they seem to be getting worse at it.

Skyrim is like a film with amazing sets but they cobbled the script together during a tea break.

Actually it's sort of like a Hollywood blockbuster - looks really good, seems really epic, but when you watch it there's no depth to it, the script is terrible and it leaves you feeling dissatisfied.

A better rpg , a good sandbox.
Personally I enjoyed "vanilla" New Vegas more than "vanilla" Skyrim.

New Vegas facilitated RP. Skyrim, the fans tell me, is all about your imagination - i.e, imagining why your character is doing things they wouldn't do because the game insists they either do them or do nothing.

This is so true...

Some key people at Obsidian worked for Black Isle back when masterpieces like Fallout and Planescape were created.

The real problem of Obsidian is resource management.

While It's true that some of their projects suffered from being time constrained (the worst example being Kotor 2) this is, unfortunately, a standard practice in the industry. Key dates are usually set (or changed) by marketing or, even worse, by "beancounters" so that results will go into a certain fiscal year; this is usually done to even cash flows and give investors the impression of stability.

A good management should be able to set priorities and divide the game into "compartments" so that any late, imposed changes in the schedule doesn't affect the overall quality of the product.

• Quests would be deeper and more involved: less "fetch my %RANDOMITEM from %RANDOMDUNGEON" and more actual meaningful choices in how you solve them (no being forced to join the College of Winterhold as part of the main quest).
  
• Factions and the relationships between them would be more developed: no joining the College as a warrior, no joining the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood at the same time, the Thalmor would be a joinable faction.
  
• There would be consequences of and responses to your actions: no marching into the Blue Palace wearing Stormcloak gear unless you're looking for a fight, NPCs would love or hate you depending on your standing with the various factions, some quests would get closed off depending on your choices in other quests.
  
• Arrows would be craftable.

but...

• Exploration would take a big hit; there would be invisible walls, unclimable mountains, and high level beasties all over the place to "encourage" you to do things in the right order.
  
• The world would become even more "player-focused" with NPCs having no lives of their own and instead standing around 24/7 waiting for you to interact with them. (think about the Brotherhood Elder in F:NV who never gets up from behind his desk and the shops that never close for the night)
  
• Many locations would be little more than bland filler with a lot less of those cute little moments where you find a bear standing over a dead hunter or discover that something terrible happened to some dude while he was reading "The Lusty Argonian Maid".
  
• The game would have an ending.

I don't know that the game would necessarily have an ending. Obsidian was planning to do post-game play for New Vegas, but they didn't have enough time to do it properly, so they left it out.

I'd say Skyrim does this a hell of a lot with its legions of scripted events - e.g,. market in markarth is open at 4am just because the player has gone there for the first time and needs to be given a quest they're not allowed to say no to. Player needs to see companions killing a giant and even if they say they don't want to join it still goes in their quest log. Ad infinitum.
Or e.g. the Dark Brotherhood and thieves guild members never seem to go to bed.

This.... Fo N.V. was superior than Fallout3

I wouldnt have anyone else do elderscrolls... but beth could have learned somthing from Obsidian. They picked up the ball and improved Fallout in every aspect that FO3 was lacking. Story, charecterization, RPG elements, and location significance...

i would be extatic to hear Obsidian was making FO4 but that aint gonna happen.

Obsidian made New Vegas in JUST OVER A YEAR. If they had the same amount of time to make Skyrim like Bethesda it WOULD BE THE BEST [censored] GAME EVER MADE. PERIOD!!

True, but I think Obsidian would make it even worse. It's scary how few NPCs in F:NV have any sort of schedule. Skyrim's NPCs mostly do have them, outside of the annoying scripted events.

Much buggier. But Obsidian having the best writer team in the industry, I'd add excellent story.

If Obsidian made Skyrim they would have removed all those brilliant Radiant Quests and instead wrote in many horrible, hand made quests with good writing and consequences for your choices. Then they would have balanced the game so that you don't get the pleasure of bumping difficulty up to master because you don't need to.

MayI remind everyone that Obsidian only had about a year to make New Vegas because of Bethesda's ridiculous deadlines? Hence why it was buggy on release.

Skyrim had 5 years and in no way accomplished 5x as much, in part due to 11.11.11, alsobecause of Bethesda's awful writing and complete disregard for balance. Additionally, Obsidian endeavoured to fix many bugs while Skyrim is still suffering from file bloating, atomic nirnroots, never disappearing weapons, Louis Letrush armies... I could go on.

Bethesda creates good gameworlds but almost everything else is severely lacking. If Obsidian had made the quests, we wouldn't be stuck with invincible maven black-briars and being told to keep your nose clean when you've saved the world, thane of every hold etc. The Quests would have a little something called consequences and would be fulfilling.

Right now, Slyrim is a mile wide and a foot deep.

I JUST WANT FALLOUT 4… I'M TIRED OF ALL THIS MAGIC AND VAMPIRES.