The ideas should be bullet pointed, but the explinations and alternative suggestions need to be well writen short paragraphs

NPC SECTION DEFINATLY OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS OR IMPROVEMENTS

Save the World, “Oh look! It’s Jonny Whatshisname”

Regardless of whether you are a prisoner, the Thieves Guild-Master, Legate in the Legion, or bloody king of Tamriel, no one seems to really recognize you. Out of the countless NPC’s in the game world, the only ones who occasionally reference your rank or title are the guards (you know, the people who suffered terrible knee accidents?). When the player reaches the rank of Arch-Mage or Companion Harbinger, it would be nice if citizens of Skyrim actually responded so. Not only that, but if the player were to go on a massacre in city X and then go to city Y, no one seems to respond to the fact that you are a mass murderer. Kill your wife? Who cares! Raid a village? They had it coming! Little things like this just seem to make the game fell, in a way, static.
After completing some daring task for an NPC, they should feel grateful towards the player; offer them gifts occasionally, if they own a store; grant them a discount. While this is already implemented for some NPCs, there are others that seem to suffer short term memory loss and forget all about how the player saved Mr. X’s farm or rescued Mrs. Y’s son. As stated above, if they could be made to actually register what the player has done for them, it would help improve the game’s atmosphere by vast amounts.
Another area of improvement is the lack of environmental recognition. NPCs will attend you wedding, but no one seems to care or comment on the death of a friend or relative. Having the game host a funeral or ceremony at the local temple or crypt for the deceased (a generic speech with no mention of names or anything) is a feature that I’m sure many players would find add a new level of life to the game.
If NPCs were made to respond differently to your character depending on his guild affiliations, criminal record, or even just the quest that he/she has done, the game world will, to a degree, feel more alive and dynamic.

I sent them an email, got a robot that redirected me to the forums..but I like the forums

I have a feeling you could heavily clean up the text above for punchier effect and still deliver the message, Again, you're taking up too much text pointing out what they're probably painfully aware as of now. Address the solutions, the big leaps or baby steps you would take to mitigate or completely solve the problem. Don't waste their time elaborating on the current state of affairs, as that will probably lead to them coming to a full stop on their reading. Remember, in what ways other than plain dialogue could the gameworld acknowledge your newly earned position? That is the question you need to answer.

Your right, I really need to address the solutions better and cut out much of the repetitive mentioning of the issues. And what do you mean in your first line?

After reading, Im going to redo much of what I had already in a more bullet-list type of set up. It will make typing easier and most of the fact could then be cut out. There will be a paragraph regarding the issue, followed by a bullet list of suggestions.

Do try to be briefier. Remember there's a strong chance the devs have a more in depth knowledge of the current game than you. Concentrate on what you have to offer. Approach your letter with the mindset of someone who's sending out a resumé, not that of one writing a College essay, if you don't mind my frankness. Picture Todd sitting at his desk, going through 200 resumés. You have to catch his attention and you can achieve this via a number of ways: use clean typography, catchy stand out tiltles, to-the-point paragraphs and bullet lists; and creative, fresh ideas.

I think for something more brief, or a single-issue problem/solution that's true.

However, this is much bigger than that.... Pres_Eden is going back to people that created something, to tell them (in effect) what is wrong with their creation and how it should be improved, even though Pres_Eden had no part in the creation.
That delicate situation is the briarheart of editing: You have to convince someone that their baby is not perfect, which is difficult enough for someone to take; in addition you have to bring them along to your way of thinking to believe that you have the solution to make their baby better. You really have to step outside yourself to do that; it can't be about what Pres_Eden and everybody on the forum "wants," it has to be about what is good for the game, what will move the game forward (even though our "wants" and betterment of the game intersect in our minds). That's why I suggest purging the subjectivity, and why (if I were a developer at Bethesda) I would glaze over at seeing a longish paragraph about explanations, no matter how well it had been written.

Problem-solution trees; conflict-possible resolution; and so on. IMO they would just want the raw materials; explanations could be summarized as an afterthought....or they could just look in on us here!

For example, I "want" to be able to DO SOMETHING with those 53 dragon souls I'm lugging around, but I wouldn't ask Pres_Eden to write about that, because that's more of a "What do you want for DLC"-type thing. My "want" doesn't move the game forward in an objective way, .... although new DLC for that would be awesome for me!

It's a fine line and easy to step over, and I don't envy Pres_Eden, especially now that there's no turning back! lol

Hi KateyK! Glad to see you're around.

Excellent point. I remember Todd Howard alluding to the whole fans providing solutions scenario by stating the obvious: They have a bird's eye view of the entire game, while the player only gets to see the scenery. I now believe that a logical diagram, for example, would be the most concise and therefore punchier way to present the OP's solutions.

Thanks for the adive everyone! It's actually helping alot in this writing task. I have taken the idea of the use of bullets and briefer points to redo the NPC section;

Save the World, “Oh look! It’s Jonny Whatshisname”

Regardless of whether you are a prisoner, the Thieves Guild-Master, Legate in the Legion, or bloody king of Tamriel, no one seems to really recognize you. Out of the countless NPC’s in the game world, the only ones who occasionally reference your rank or title are the guards (you know, the people who suffered terrible knee accidents?). When the player reaches the rank of Arch-Mage or Companion Harbinger, it would be nice if citizens of Skyrim actually responded so. Not only that, but if the player were to go on a massacre in city X and then go to city Y, no one seems to respond to the fact that you are a mass murderer. Kill your wife? Who cares! Raid a village? They had it coming! Little things like this just seem to make the game fell, in a way, static.

• Have NPCs recite different idle pvssyr based on the player rank or position
  
• A kill counter for innocent civilians could allow for NPCs to not only recognize the past crime of the player, but react to them. Children could run away while advlts could comment on the “killer” look in your eye. Guards could even follow you around within the city to be sure you aren’t causing problems.
  
• If your good and have helped many people, children may comment on how excited they are to be near you or even follow you around. Wives could flirt with you and men could envy you (or vice versa).
  
• Funerals should be held in the local temple or outside of the crypt for anyone who has recently passed. Services could involve generic speeches followed by random comments from the crowed (he/she was my best friend, I’ll miss him/her)
  
• If you kill someone, their spouse (if there was one) should hate you and even not give you quests.
  
• NPCs could ask how a guild that you’re a part of is doing
  
• …Or even wonder aloud if they should join
  
• Comments could even be passed from NPC to NPC that they hope their bandit relative wasn’t at a fort you raided.

In my opinion, the interaction between NPCs and other NPCs or the player themselves is what helps to breathe life into the otherwise amazing world created. A few simple changes like the ones above would not only make the player feel as though he means something in the world, but that his actions carry an effect on everyone, from a widow of the man you killed, to the Child you rescued.

Hit a wall. I need some tips on ways to improve the marriage system in the game. Ideas?

How about sending letters to a spouse?

Divorce possible, jealousy and being able to have children.

WIFE SECTION!

How Are You…My Love?
Let’s face it; the marriage system in the game is certainly lacking any real depth. Once you get married, the only real change to the game is that your spouse adds the phrase “my love” to the end of each sentence. This gets quite old (not to mention annoying) in a short amount of time. The general lack of any real features is what makes the marriage option seem like a gimmick…a tacked on feature to please a small amount of players. But a few key improvements to the system could easily elevate the feature to a more useful and beneficial status.

• Firstly, the addition of marry-able characters for the beast races is a must as many players use such races.
  
• The ability to remarry after the death of a loved one
  
• Your wife/husband should comment on your actions/current quests/etc.
  
• An adoption feature like that depicted in Game Jam would be a nice touch.
  
• Your spouse should periodically want to go with you on an adventure or want gifts.
  
• They should get you gifts once in a while.
  
• Radiant quests involving it would help add some life to the relationship
  
• …they got kidnapped by bandits who left note on door
  
• …their relative is in trouble or needs money

The ability to marry an NPC is a nice featue that adds a player connection to the game. He/she is no longer the only one in the world and now they need to consider the needs of a wife/ husband as well. Even the needs of a child if such a feature is added

This is where we must part our ways, I'm affraid. The way to improve it is to ditch it altogether, as I don't think there's a verosimile place for romantic commitment in Skyrim. You pilgrim the war ridden land in search of someone or something to kill, loot or otherwise incapacitate and your encounters with potential romantic mates are necessarily brief and shallow. What would this lead to? sixual entaglement, probably, casual six, likely, courtship, I highly doubt it. And what does marriage bring to the table, what does it add to the game? Very little and very unconvincingly so, in my opinion. Now, if a romantic relationship would loom out of your adventures with Lydia and then she'd be captured and held captive and you'd have to choose bewteen your duties as a Dragonborn and the love for her, now there's some interesting quest material right there.

I'm going to take a break for today. Hopefully the tips an suggestions to what to add will pile up while I'm gone.

i have to actualy say that in my opinion there are some glitches that should be left in the game simply cuz they are freaking hilarious. i would be very sad indeed if i woke up tomorrow and was forced to download the update/patch and all my louis letrush clones were gone D:

If I'm honest, I agree with the folks who have said that this is likely not to get you anywhere.

So on a purely helpful (hopefully) note: if you want this to carry weight, you need to make it more than a list of suggestions. The forum is full of them already. You need to flesh out the suggestions, and show why Beth NEED to do this.

So, for example, your first point makes it clear why beast races should be marriable. (However, I think the devs are probably well aware of this... there may well be some particular reason why they werent included. Likewise, the lack of re-marrying. But anyway).
But your other points are more kind of "what about this?" The devs will have had tons of ideas as they built the game, but most are going to be dropped as they go along. So you need to be making more of a case as to why it makes sense to do what you're suggesting, other than it's just an idea you think is good.

Didn't they say there were NPC's like that?

edit: Bethesda wont listen anyways. a good deal of others have attempted to.

Ok, this has gone on a little long.

OP, you seem very well-intentioned, but do you honestly think that a whole team of award-winning developers didn't think these things through when they were making the game?

go for it u may never know who it might affect

edit:

on marriage don't forget to add making out and laughing and maybe hugging come on you are married for all that is holy XD

also nagging and yelling if you are away for too much time and stuff like that

just make the companion/spouse system more alive

also u should not be able to get married unless the NPC actually gets to know you and LIKE you

ARE YOU LOST? This is a consistent Lydia greets me with when i enter my house in whiterun... WTF