One day I guess there will emerge a combination of RPG and RTS, but as many have said already, for the player to be able to play quest threads in almost any order there needs to be some stability to the gaming world, and it would also be extremely hard to handle all possible developments of the world, risking spending time on refining that instead of creating a playable game, and that's what we want, right?

I frankly like that the dragons are rather easy kills, even though it's not very realistic. If dragons would kill me dead every time they showed up it would take too much time and effort away from the actual game play: the quests. Sometimes I've even considered the dragons the cliff racers of Skyrim (a la "Oh no, not again!"), but of course with the benefit of dragon souls and hence dragon shouts, that are very useful.

There don't have to be drastic changes in the game world to make some visible changes according to the player's actions...

The dragons flying around Skyrim during as long as the main quest is active should honestly be twice as many as they are now, and much more agressive towards towns and villages. After the main quest is over, it only makes sense they'd become much rarer, like half as many as now, and not hostile...
Being a member of the dark brotherhood should have an impact on the other ppl, something like a special intimidation option similar to the bribe thieves guild members get.
Finishing the civil war questline should have much more profound results than simply different guard apparel and a couple extra NPC lines, period. No need for something drastic - just adding A LOT more NPC lines and making it so that I automatically get some status similar to that of a thane across all Skyrim - since I am the one who was the right hand of Tullius/Ulfric in the war...

All these can be accomplished with minimal effort and consist mostly of more dialogue variety and options... and no, don't tell me they can't put resousres into such trivial things, because they did put special dialogue for things like having Azura's Star and putting perks into speech, WHICH IS THE DEFINITION OF TRIVIAL! (actually, it's the definition of stupid, because the NPCs have no way of knowing all these stuff in the first place...)

Oh, and we do certainly need a proper faction reputation system as well... we kinda have it with orc tribes and a couple other things, it should have been for sure been expanded to the Forsworn, Vigil of Stendar, Silver Hand and Vampires...

And one final thing: in a game that took 3 years to finish, that has sophisticated graphics, voice acting, LINEAR quests (yes, they're many but they're all linear, apart from some small side quests which shouldn't have any effect in the world anyway) and a sizable budget, it's not the player's role to tell the story. It's the game's. The player has to CRAFT it, and the game should translate the actions into effects. Again, NOT ALL OF THEM - yeah, the world should still be the same after I help an old lady in some faraway hut in the forest or kill a couple travelers in the tundra, but when I save the [censored] world from a homisidal phsychopath immortal dragon, the game HAS TO SHOW SOME DEFINITE SIGNS THAT SOMETHING CHANGED IN THE WORLD!!!
Bottomline: it's not minecraft. I expect the game to be able to do some basic things by itself. I expect a semi-dynamic world, that responds accordingly to the big things I do, and not to stupid things like putting a perk to sneak and finishing some stupid sidequest...

Actually it is just lack of time and bad planning. With one more month, they could have recorded more dialog to be used according to the Dovahkiin's accomplishments. There are 5 main events, becoming Legate/Stormblade, Thane, Archmage, Harbringer and defeating Alduin. (Thief guildmaster and Listener are known only to faction members and not the world at large)

Instead of every person magically knowing I have X amount of sneak level and call me a sneak thief, I rather they have bland "hello's" and "hi's" until one of the event points are met.

That's crazy talk!

Exactly. There is only so many resources that can go into one game. I'm sure they thought of these things but just didn't have the time or manpower to get them done. Either that or they had more important things to focus on. Probably a combination of both.

I'm personally hoping they add members to the team and add even more detailed depth for the next TES game.

Pretty much. It's very difficult to get too in depth with "world" reactions to everyathing a player does in an open world game.

No, it really is not.
It really is not that hard to record a line for NPC's to say after a major quest.
It also cannot be that difficult to remove the essential flags of NPC's after their quest.

And as for people telling me I should go join the College of Winterhold when Im archmage or that people in the Companions treat me as the new guy when I am their leader, well. That is just sloppy.

People assume that quests should have a drastic effect, but I think it doesn't have to be so. For example, in Oblivion, when the MQ ends, guards will start talking about how the Empire is in for some deep crap, and the Fighters Guild's members will begin to address you as the "Master" once you managed to become the Master

As such, the "consequences" should not be so big. A simple "people now speak of the current news" will do. The problematic welcome for the newest Thief directed at the Guild Master is one of those flaws

im not really a tech minded person, so could someone answer a simel question for me? (not that one) couldnt they split the game ino more than one disk and have disk 2+ be the sorta fluff like this (not saying fluff is bad, i want recognition too) but has to be installed on the hard drive, like an expansion disk or something? that was prompted by an earlier post that said it was the disk size and i was just sorta wondering. im sure if they had more time they could have fit somethign this simple on the disk.

side-note: im getting sick of people saying to use your imagination, if we were going to be totally and utterlly dependant on ourselves why would we get the game? sure we would have to use it on some things, i know, but on things like this and other big stuff it is just stupid to say the game should not cover it, please sell your copy since you can clearly be just interested swinging a tailet paper tube at a cat because you can imagine the cat is a dragon and the tube is a sword

For one, someone at first page claims Skyrim has not even utilized the full space of a DVD (Skyrim is normally 5GB, so I assume XBOX360's DVD is a Dual Layer 9.8 GB DVD)

So, they definitely have the space to do so.

And yes, your scheme could work, as long as the second DVD does not contain any game world data at all (and as such, nothing in it is useable to render the game world), as splitting the game within 2 discs is too immersion-breaking. Imagine fast traveling from Solitude to Riften and you suddenly have to change disc

Only to people who has not experienced working on software developmental projects.

Okay. Maybe I forgot to put in a smiley. Here have one: (or three).

I don't see why it would be so difficult, NPC's in Oblivion recognized my accomplishments and recognized when the threat was over. Where Skyrim everybody still acts like the damned civil war is still raging. I'm not asking every NPC to know exactly when and where I killed so and so, but damn at least recognize when the freaking war is over!

If you did all that on earth, after the big parade in NYC, and your 15 minutes of fame on TV, would anyone care? or would they just go back about their daily lives? Do you really want kids all running up to you and asking you for your autograph? Do you really want stalker fans? Do you really want to climb up to the top of the highest mountain in Tamriel and become "the mad hermit?"

PS: These are Nords. Unlike those living in Cyrodill, they've got a belly full of mead, ale, and whatever alcohol you can put in it.

No its not because Skyrim is an open world and doesn't have linear scripted events..because thats all Skyrim has, is linear scripted events.


a World to explore? right a World to explore that doesnt change?


Time Constraints? hardly, they had time to put in Marriage, random RS events like being challanged by duelist or being asked for help in some backwater town by a mage hopeful on the otherside of skyrim to help him join the Mages college, or have GUARDS and Guards only remark on your skills, some of which make 0 sense on how they found out in the first place, but couldn't be bother to have stuff change up -significantly- after major quests?


A world isn't much of a world if its Static, for all the boasting about how each game is supposed to be different the series still stagnates with Staticness of Morrowind, and atleast in Morrowind and Oblivion people recognized.

Actually it would be vary possible to do "more" with today's technology. Right now most random NPCs just seem to do a quick table lookup on what they want to say and then fire off the comment. Adding something like "Good day Thane" or "Is that the Dragonborn" or to the table would be trivial.

It doesn't seem that complicated -- to me anyway -- to have certain greetings triggered by the completion of a quest or some grand event. At the very least, I'd like my underlings to recognize me as their leader and for people to show a little gratitude to the guy who saved the world from getting eaten . . .

i mean like shivering isles expansion not dragonage: awakening, you did not need the SI disk to play it you only had to install it to the hardrive, and i said they could have fit this on the disk with a bit more time. but (most of) the things i want in could be easily added in the next expansion so i was just wondering (like i said, no a tech-minded person in the slightest)

thinking back i could have figured it out if i would have jsut remembered SI

Fallout New Vegas and Alpha Protocol says hello.

If they had another 3 years they still wouldnt of added that stuff. They wanted to make a good enough game to sell a bunch without having to cater to the needs of the small fanbase that patrols and harasses the forums.

They made a game that would sell.

If all you want is reactions that are that simple, then no, it isn't that difficult to make that happen. But people are looking for more than that, and if you want your decisions to have major impact in an open world game (especially one this large) it is not a simple task.

THE GAME CAN ACCOUNT FOR THE PLAYER COMPLETING THE MISSIONS - THE CORE MAIN STORY QUESTS - THAT THE DEVELOPERS LAYED OUT FOR THE PLAYER TO COMPLETE.

Your point wouldn't be so wrong if Bethesda didn't give us a main quest and some pretty large side quests to complete.

What, was completing the Civil War storyline or the Dragonborn storyline or the Thieves Guild storyline or the Forsworn storyline really so unexpected? Bethesda gave us some pretty deep mission-chains here - did they really not anticipate their customers playing through them?

Not capping them, not giving the player a satisfying conclusion, and not having the world "grow" is lazy storytelling.

What if you completed a dungeon and there wasn't the obligatory chest with a magic item inside of it? What we're talking about is the equivalent of completing a dungeon but getting no loot - where's the emotional payoff for saving the world? Jesus Christ Balgruuf - I saved Whiterun from the Stormcloaks - the least he could have done is attend my wedding. By the time my character got married, I was Thane of all Seven Holds. And the game couldn't care less.

I'm a Thane of every Hold, but I'm also the Archmage, a Nightengale, leader of the Dark Brotherhood, the Dragonborn, and basically everything else that's awesome in the game - and no one has any flipping clue. That's such lazy storytelling.

And you're cutting Bethesda slack because there was no way for them to anticipate the player playing the game they sold to the player in the first place?! Are you stupid or just crazy?

When you join the Companions, the guards get new conversation options. It's little things like that - that's all it would take, and they didn't do it.

If I managed to kill the goddang Satan when he's supposed to destroy Earth, I'd expect people all over the world, be he Russian, American, Indian, African, Asian, all that crap, to bow down to me and take heed of whatever crap I speak

EDIT:
LOL @EtraKurdaj, so true.

Given that Earth girls are just lining up to be groupies for mere bards, I would say, a world savior with the ability to turn iron to gold and as access to tons of stamina potions will be much too busy producing little Dovahkiins (and turning iron to gold) to do much else.

I don't think any of the TES games involve the world changing forms. The NPC's do say little things though, if you want a game where the world is affected by your actions go play the fable series. Then you will realize it isn't that satisfying or necessary. You should play different games instead of playing the hell out of one and complaining about everything it doesn't have. Balance in all things.