Because most fans, like you OP, are so [censored] annoying that it'd drive him insane.

And then instead of TES VI, we'd have Howard in a padded room.

Reading the OP alone, I can't but laugh. All those questions can't be answered in an objective way, mainle beacuse they are "negatively rigged from the beginning". Obviously, the only choice would be something like "GOD I'M SO SORRY FOR EVERYTHING". Op doesn't like the game, I get It, no one has to like It. But why should one of the most involved persons in Its developement answer such stupid questions involving his opinion alone?

Because he's smart.

But I can answer those questions for you. Because there is a little thing called budget, and they need to worry about profits. If they had 10 years and an unlimited budget to develop Skyrim, it would be the best game of all time. Then the company would go broke.

Some people cry that Skyrim isn't more like Morrowind or Daggerfall. Myself, I'm amazed that this day and age Beth is still making gargantuan games that are so true to the originals instead of more traditional and cheaper to produce RPGs.

Ok i dont quite agree; "trolls" could ruin it for everyone, But they can get banned, or maybe they wont even be on if someone turns up, this seems a poor excuse.
this shouldnt stop game developers reading the forum. or even answering a few threads.

And if they really were devoted to making the game better; wouldnt the best way be to listening to the fans? or even at the least take a day out to read the forum?
or replying to peoples concerns about their choices of game mechanics?

Cause it just seems to me if no one gets an answer to anything from the makers of this game then the volume of irrate, ticked off consumers/ or "trolls" as you put it, is going to rocket, thus making this forum utterly useless.

And, unlike the stupidly biased Oblivion presentation, all you saw in the Skyrim 20 min demo was absolutely as It's in the game. Of course, you could have thought whatever you want of that you didn't saw. The only real difference is giants attacking you if you get too close, and that's not something I'm gonna whine about.

And to OP, if you really want to do something, don't buy TES VI, sell your game at gamestop and convince more people to do so. Seriously, if you keep buying, everything else doesen't matter for the company, they're not your friends, you're just a client: believing otherwise is delusional, and the guy who comes after Todd will try to sell as much, if not more; not catter to a smaller, more niche target public. By the way, is needless to say so, but you won't succed.

Well, there should be an easier way to express our ideas.
I firmly agree with that.
We are the patrons.

And they, better than anyone else, know that the community have good ideas and solutions to given problems most of the times.
We've proven that with the nexus.

So, think again community, how we could express our ideas?
Making awesome mods, that, by definition, will get their attention?
Creating [SUGGESTION] topics (with [SUGGESTION] in the title and a poll (Did you like the idea - YES, NO?)) with the problem and an idea. When the community likes the idea, we will vote YES. And it'd also get their attention.


We are totally mature and able to do such things. And they know that, with our help, it's possible to make better games. They already seek inspiration in mods. They've said already in interviews about amazing mods, amazing ideas that they didn't think at the moment.

The sense of entitlement is amazing, this isn't some shady company doing a bait and switch on people, there may be problems with the game, but the idea that the game is so bad as to make you "owed" something implies TRULY fraudulent practice, and this doesn't even begin to approach that.

Buying a video game you are dissapointed in isn't the same as buying a truck with faulty breaks, or a TV with manufacturing defect. Unless you want the industry more regulated in terms of what they are allowed to produce, there really is no reason to expect this kind of transparency from an entertainment company product.

It's an entertainment product guys, unless it's physically broken no one owes you a damn explanation about anything, just don't buy the next one if you consider it a faulty product, and caveat emptor!

You aren't owed explanations of the game any more than you might be owed explanations of a book or movie you ended up not liking.

I was jumping around in YouTube from one related music video to the next, in hopes of finding something that tingles my nostalgia senses. I eventually found a track called Little Lies from Fleetwood Mac. Why am I telling this? While clicking on various videos of that one (i wanted to find a HD version) every single one had top comments like: 200 ending, infinite quests, radiant AI or Todd_Howard_Theme-Song.avi. All with at least 100 or sometimes close to 500 thumbs up in a matter of days after posting them.

You know things don't look good when your own fans and customers start to say such things and get agreed on it by masses.

On one hand I'm grateful for Skyrim and even if I could go back in time and reverse the decision to pre-order it, I wouldn't. The game is good, I love the T-shirt and the poster was a fine solution to cover that ugly scratch mark on the wall my fatso cat did once. On the other hand, with this techonology the game could be even better. Not talking about console porting and the like, more platforms equals more money. No, what bothers me is the restrictions I have to face in an open world RPG.

When an NPC pop ups and asks my protector-of-the-underdogs character to help him lure innocent oprhans with a cockney accent and I click "GTFO you sick bastard!" not only I can't rat out the guy to the local guards or pick the lock on his door, retrieve a piece of paper from the house which contains a death list (Glarthir from Oblivion, anyone?) and then rat him out but I apparently can't even decline because the quest then gets added to my quest list and if I happen to get anywhere near the cockney oprhans the Radiant Bullsh*t activates itself, the guy appears then thanks me for helping him to get some underaged slaves for his sweatshop or whatever.

Or the fact that bandits in ragged fur clothes and with a [censored] iron sword routinly decide to attack my hero in full dragon scale armor, armed with glass daggers, all smithed to legendary and shining with enchants. Srsly? They must be really desperate AND stupid to attack the Dragonborn all the time instead of some random wandering guard, merchant or adventurer which all seem like a much easier and logical prey to their unlawful ways. It's an bother to get off my horse just to one-shot each and every of them.

No to mention no one really reacting to anything in the world. Oh, I'm the Dragonborn? And Thane of Whiterun? Yet the guards call me lizard or Argonian and laugh at me about someone stealing my sweetrolls after saving the day and their arses in the process? I half-expect an Ordinator popping up every now and then to remind me that "We're watching you, scum!". There was a civil war? Oh, well. Life goes on as usual. Emperor murdered? Same.

So I can understand some of the ranting here. The game is still good but these kinds of things deduct from the overall experience. The whole "cleared out" dungeon mechanic could get a change too. After I managed to clear out everything (and there isn't a whole mass of dungeons) what else to do? Ride around the planes and murder cougars, bandits, giants and the occasional dragon or two? At least the bandits caves could respawn, seeing as the previous owners died it's a great oppurtinity for another wrong-doer gang to move in. Just small thing that would make the game feel less dull after you played it through once.

I have to chime in, I guess.

Here it goes:
I asked a similar albeit contextually different question on another thread. Upon reflecting, I have to say there's a number of trivial explanations that nonetheless ring true: Both Pete andTodd are on desreved Christmas vacations. Also, bear in mind it's Pete who handles PR. If you've checked his tweets you'll notice he now acts as the putative answering machine and he's done a good job at it, as sales figures show.

Now, a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but I do see criticism on the rise, as, more than a month past release, the golden dust of hype finally settles down and the reality of what the game really is emerges crystal clear.

I would be interesting to learn, from a dev' perspective not a PR perspective, the reason behind some design decisions and to provide direct feedback on how to correct and improve them. I'm not 100% sure Todd will be getting the feedback.

Some sort of podcast, with live questions, would be a nice way to provide that.

Because they don't care. They already have your money.

30 th of Trollfall to be precise.

Because he has more sense than to listen to you and others moan about the thousands of things you dont like about the game.
Why not quit complaining...wait until the CS is released...and do something creative and constructive to improve the game in the ways you want it to be.

I think Todd Howard and the folks at Bethesda did a great job.
In fact that is the verdict of most players of the game....and the professional critics such as Gamespot etc.

My question would be:

Why are you wasting your time here instead of making more content for us?

I see your point.
What about those who, like me, don't have the time, knowledge or inbclination to mod the game?
That's why I pay Beth, you know, so they perform the job I myself am not able or willing to do.
Don't we get a chance to influence Todd, to swereve a tinsy bit the direction Beth will take for DLC or TES VI?

I have one point to make - compared to Oblivion, Skyrim's demo hardly lied at all. Sure, I doubt the appearance of both dragons was an accident, sure, they altered the endboss of Bleak Falls Barrow (probably to avoid showing the Dragon Tablet). The only thing that was in the demo that was not in the game was the Alpha Wolf (maybe it was for an Alpha Build? )

Also maybe it was me avoiding the hype deliberately, but I never heard Todd even mention radiant AI, just radiant Story, so the AI in this game basically wasn't a selling point like it was for Oblivion, therefore I had no expectation for a massive improvement (and it *is* better than Oblivion's or FO3's). I'll admit Story probably was overhyped, but until the CK comes out there's no way to confirm if it does what they said it does (from the word go I interpreted it as "Daggefall Quest Generator") My main problem with Radiant Story is that I just don't understand why, when its there to generate the generic quests, the questlines still ended up short despite technically more time being available for them.

Everything else in the demo barring cinematic changes (Dragon Priest boss, two dragons to fight, the animation at the end etc.) was pretty much what was in the game.

And they should perform the job you pay to do the way you want them to do it....??

Are you serious?

Perhaps he doesn't want to? Wheeeeee.

The plain fact is that the majority of developers stay away from forums (official or otherwise) because it would simply end up as a place to hurl abuse at them. Their job is to work on games development and not to answer the demands of a bunch of whining self-opinionated kids. Obviously, a lot of the community (probably the majority) do not fall into this category, but as usual, there are enough immature and demanding children out there to ruin it for the rest.

By the way, only an immature and demanding child will be offended by this, so if you are not one of them, don't be offended because I'm not talking about you. Of course if you are one of them, then we'll know by your response and frankly I don't care what you think.


Stannie

I guess you somehow failed to notice the ?influence, swerve a tinsy bit? part.
My point: taking the time and bother to come here and discuss what we don't like about the game is an attempt to influence how DLC or TES VI will turn out.
As for those claiming we don't have any sort of influence whatsoever, if you've watched the Making of Oblivion doc, you'll think twice before saying that outloud. I don't presume this or that individual opinion will be decisive, but i'd be willing to bet if a trend emerges from the Forum, devs will at least consider it.

The ofren pointed out 'Don't like it, Mod it' is a bad piece of universal advice. Not only because of what I already said, but also, like Todd has pointed out, Devs alone have all the information required to make choices.
We provide feedback.
They make the game.

True,they may communicate,but Bioware creates its games to THEIR liking,no matter what the fanbase wants.
In latest games,they have completely went their own fantasy way with both DA and Mass Effect,making radical changes to how THEY envision it,be it for the better or worse of the end result.
Beth on the other hand does listen to its fans,TO A CERTAIN EXTENT.
If you dont believe that,try and add up all of the features Skyrim has that were on the TESV wishlist back in Oblivion days.
You'll be busy a while.
And people seem to keep forgetting this isnt an 8bit game no more.
They amount of work that crawls into creating this is astronomous.
So if you lot think you can do a better job,go right ahead,amaze us.

_{"Hi honey I'm home!"
"Hi Todd sweetie! How was your day at the office?"
"Great, had Skyrim discussion #5.000.000 and it was loadsa fun!"
"That's great honey. Say, the Johnsons called and invited us over for dinner tonight. Wanna go?"
"No way snookums, I'm going on the forums tonight and have Skyrim discussion 5.000.001! I can't wait!"
"Oh that's swell sugar. Maybe later in bed we can discuss Skyrim some more?"
"Yay! Skyrim!"}

I sincerely hope Devs are more mature than what you're implying.
Getting all defensive is no display of maturiy.

Have you ever complained a dish you paid for was rather blamd only for the Chef to storm out of the kitchen and tell you ?So if you lot think you can do a better job,go right ahead,amaze us.?

How would you react? Would you come back?

We provide feedback. They make the game. Sure, it's their call. But i'm persuaded they do read these forums regularly.Why else would Beth pay from its own money to implement and maintian these forums?

I think this is a likely reason

If I were Todd Howard, I wouldn't want anything to do with the reckless petulance around here.

edit: lol @ mouth-breathing fans

Maybe a list of questions could be submitted to a mod, then picked at their discretion say, half a dozen, we vote on here and that is given to Todd, maybe once a week/fortnight.