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Althalus
Village Dweller
Joined: 01 Nov 2001
Posts: 10
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| What would you change for next tes game? |
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I did a quick check and as far as I could see the last post of this kind was over 6months ago so I hope I'm not annoying anybody. So with 6 more months of reflection under everybodies belts....
Assuming their is another tes game what would you change, improve apon from the current game?
This isn't a whinge thread..I'm enjoying morrowind, this entertainment product is entertainng me...so mission accomplised. Just what would you personally like to see added, removed, improved?
Presonally I'd like to see
1) Music droped and for them to concentrate on their sound engine and working on their "soundscapes" or whatever you want to call it to immerse you in the world more.
2)More ambient elements to the gameworld. Flocking birds, glowing fireflies at night, bands in taverns, travelers on the road etc.
3) Not so many "terrain corridors". Get rid of the heightmapped terrain in favour of something else.
4) It felt kinda pointless to be, for e.g, arch-mage...its meaningless.
5) Not so aggressive, non-suicidal, more naturally behaving critters. Why do they all attack on sight like crazed phsycho maniacs filled with bloodlust and pursue you to the end of the world? Its scary.
6) Better npcs. Its seems impracticle to do this by hand like say gothic does it if I'm not delusional, so they'll have to come up with some sort of automated system or set of rules to govern npcs rather than specifcally handcrafting each npcs schedule?
7) More natural population. I just noticed the other day (yeah, I'm slow) that there aren't actually any children or old people. There aren't any couples or families. No unfit people, fat people, short people, tall people etc.
For the type of game morrowinds trying to be...its scary just how incomplete morrowind really is once you really look at it. Is moving morrowind "to the next level" going to be practicle, didn't morrowind take 5 years or something? I guess the next game is going to have to rely on some automated systems (virtual life? virtual ecosystem? more simulated systems?) where you don't have to specifically handcraft everybit of content, or will they just have to brute force it like they're doing now?
Does anybody know how well morrowind is actually doing? Are bethseda all cashed up to tackle their next big, insanely high content level rpg? If that indeed is what they are going to do. |
Fri Jan 17, 2003 7:33 am |
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Guybrush Threepwood
High Emperor
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 500
Location: Oklahoma |
I'd like to see the animal life act like real animal life....bigger critters hunting little critters.... Gothic and DD were able to pull this off quite well. Graphics aren't everything...I found both Gothic and DD to be quite innovative despite average graphics. I just think they focused too much on the graphics in MW.....and not much else. I also would like to see some easier way of repairing stuff....carrying those stupid heavy hammers or tongs is a pain....it seems I never had enough str to go around cause I was carrying pointless stuff....and the constant loading sequences! I have alot more power than the reccomended specs too....but still...constant loading just to move a few inches. Another thing that would be nice is if the stupid weapons didn't block my vision when using them....the hammers and axes particularly. Woulda also been nice if acrobatics was more useful...end of rant.
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"What are you gonna do? Release the dogs?! Or the bees?! Or dogs with bees in their mouth so that when they bark they shoot bees at you?" - Homer Simpson |
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Fri Jan 17, 2003 12:33 pm |
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cfmdobbie
High Emperor
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 1859
Location: London, England |
1. Personally I like the music. A bit more variation would be nice though - there's just not enough in the game currently.
2. Ambients elements yes - I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person in all of Vvardenfell that ever wanders the roads. Fireflies and things would be cool.
4. Yeah, there needs to be some majesty in being the leader of a guild.
6. This would really improve the game world. However, it's a lot of work. It may even be so much work that it's better to lose a percentage of sales than to put the effort into it! Don't underestimate the complexity of an AI system on this scale.
7. The no children thing I think has to stay. While it isn't believable, the media outrage with having a game where children are hunted down and slaughtered just isn't worth it. The rest though is true.
I would personally love to see a better AI system, with realistically behaving NPCs, a proper food-chain of animals etc. That would be nice, and I'd let all else slide if they managed it... but as I said it requires a lot of effort and may not be worthwhile.
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Charlie Dobbie
=Member of The Nonflamers' Guild=
=Moderator of the Morrowind/Oblivion Forums= |
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Fri Jan 17, 2003 2:25 pm |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
Although I think all your points are good (some, as you point out, may not be completely practical), I think #4 was kinda the backbreaker for me. I've spent a lot of time with MW (which tells me that it's not a bad game at all), but I just can't get sucked in like I had hoped. There's just no motivation to do anything. There's no difference story-wise or character-wise between killing a nix-hound as part of a quest versus killing a nix-hound while wandering the outback. Perhaps I'm just too old-school, but I really need some kind of reward for completing a quest that I can't get by not completing the quest. Getting $200 from the spymaster really doesn't cut it when I can make thousands with alchemy. I guess I'm stuck in the "do quest, get experience" rut, but that keeps me playing RPGs.
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=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Fri Jan 17, 2003 3:02 pm |
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Lintra
Elf Friend
Joined: 23 Apr 2002
Posts: 9448
Location: Bermuda, the triangle place with SANDY BEACHES |
#4 really got to me too. When I made Grand Master of the Fighter's Guild I lit a up a really good cuban went for a walk and relish in my accomplishment. I went back to the game expecting to have my great feat aknowledged by the populous, or at least the fighters guild. I figured, a monthly stipend, maybe even a villa somewhere.
Instead I got butkus. Okay, not quite 100% schmutz, but close. What a let down. It was at that point I decided I would light speed through the main story line just to say I'd done it, but the magic was gone.
Upon reflection, #5 would be a really "nice to have".
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Fri Jan 17, 2003 3:53 pm |
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Srikandi
Noble Knight
Joined: 04 Dec 2001
Posts: 222
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Music: I'd like it to be more sensitive to what you're doing. Different by region, indoors/outdoors, time of day etc.
NPC variety: this is an interesting one. MW already contains quite a lot of "ugly" NPCs -- and folks immediately rushed to "fix" this by retexturing the faces. Now there are several mods you can get to make everyone look like a model. Personally I'm with you -- variety is the key. I think that MW already does better than most other games here though, the problem being that there are so MANY NPCs that the faces do still repeat.
I agree that more complex AI is the direction TES (and other games) should be going in -- not pre-scripting everyone individually, but letting them wander about on their own, interact when they meet, and introducing enough randomness to convey the illusion of individuality. I'd also like to see a return to random terrain/dungeons as in Daggerfall, but with a much more sophisticated random generator, so that there's more diversity AND more naturalness. Rather than just randomly arranging the same tiles, I'd like to see random geometry and textures. If this could actually be done convincingly, you could in fact have an infinite world. But that perhaps is an unrealizable dream... |
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Fri Jan 17, 2003 8:22 pm |
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rawhead
Village Dweller
Joined: 09 Nov 2002
Posts: 11
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Stop being so "PC" about the no children thing. its a VIDEO GAME for crist sake.
Besides that, i would make the fighting alot more evenly matched, it dosent make much sence that a level 55 CHA. can take out like 50 NPCS, without haveing to heal or rest.
All the other suggestions were very good tho. |
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Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:02 am |
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Dybbuk
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 30 Nov 2002
Posts: 121
Location: Sweden |
Definatly the NPC AI. Anything closely resembling Gothic would be a big improvement, NPCs in Morrowind are like living statues atm.
More complexed combat would be nice aswell, again, more similiar to Gothic where you make combinations of weapon moves.
The magic system could also be improved, I really liked the way they did it in Arx Fatalis where you entered magic mode and then made gestures with the mouse representing different runes to make up a spell.
Ofc, as mentioned above, more complexed AI would require imense work for a game like Morrowind. |
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Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:15 am |
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Srikandi
Noble Knight
Joined: 04 Dec 2001
Posts: 222
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No! No gesture recognition! I couldn't make it work in Black & White, couldn't make it work in Arx, and can't make it work on my PDA. Yes I have really bad handwriting, but the whole advantage of computers is that isn't supposed to matter!
I agree that the idea is cool, though  |
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Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:18 am |
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States |
I would prefer if they worked on the Artificial Intelligence. Someone needs to get inventive in this area. In fact, i am beginning to wonder if anyone ever will, and that makes me debate with myself as to whether i should resurrect my old programming project Mists of Angra-Mord again. If nobody is going to do it, maybe i should do it. Otherwise we may never see it. |
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Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:24 am |
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Srikandi
Noble Knight
Joined: 04 Dec 2001
Posts: 222
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It's actually precisely a game like Morrowind that makes (real) AI most cost-effective. What Gothic has for its NPCs isn't AI; it's relatively detailed individual scripts. A given NPC is told to do certain things at certain times of day, and will always do the same things at the same times. "Real" AI would involve a completely general set of rules which would have NPCs doing different things depending on what circumstances they were in. For instance, behaving differently depending on the weather, how close they were to another NPC, whether they had heard of a certain event that had transpired in the game world, whether they had any money or anything to sell, whether they were hungry, thirsty, tired, etc. etc. Add some more conditioning parameters relative to NPC characteristics such as race, age, gender, area of residence, social status etc., and you can have a fully general system that can be applied to any number of NPCs from ten to a thousand, and still have them all behaving believably differently if they're in different environments. This is obviously going to be more cost-effective the more NPCs there are; with a small number, the individual script is going to be a much cheaper way to go.
Better yet is if the NPC can learn from their experiences, and thus change their reactions over the course of the game... doable, but figuring out a way to do it that actually contributes to gameplay is the issue there!
Morrowind already has more AI than it usually gets credit for. It's most evident in the dialogue/disposition system, which takes into account a large number of factors. But it also shows up when you attack an NPC or lead a monster into town. Different NPCs will respond differently in these situations. |
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Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:47 am |
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soltys
Magister of the Light
Joined: 12 Jan 2002
Posts: 386
Location: Poland, Warsaw |
Good ideas, and some more:
I don't know about your opinion on alchemy interface, but I think it could be improved a lot. Sure, it works nice at the beginning, when one knows nothing and has nothing. But later in the game, with sometimes hundreds of fully identified ingredients, it's very time consuming and irritating to hover them with mouse (to get their descripiton), get one type into "make" window, slide and hover again, and again, and again ....
I think, that system based on potions' effect (if you have needed ingredients and know enough about them) would be better. So: you have good ingredients - you can let's say choose restore fatigue potion. Ingredients needed for it are showed in "pre-make" window. Then you can move them into "make" window if you wish
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Mon Jan 20, 2003 2:13 am |
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Guardian Defender
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 06 Dec 2001
Posts: 122
Location: USA |
Ambience is a big thing for me. I think the weather system in morrowind is good...but not enough...so it rains, big deal.. I want it to snow and see it build...i want it to hail and see me losing health unless i get under something (depending on strength). I also want the roads to close if there were snowstorms. So that merchants cant get through. That could lead to interesting sub quests..I love the idea above about fire flies. I need the npcs to recognize me as a person that has things other than a name, quest and few questions to him. these are the things I would like.
The NPC thing can be done with logic easily enough... like If...then... im not surd how detailed this can get but thats the easiest kind of AI you can have. So its like If itime is between 9:00 and 10:00 (checks randomly for each npc..so some will check it at 930 and some will check it at 945 so its not a mass of people walking home at EXACTLY 9:00) then gome home enter lock door and sleep till so so..... That is the easiest thing that can be set to ANY npc..
I would love to see a food chain....BUt i would love the return of those horses. it feels good to ride around and shoot things with your arrows. This could also give some interesting quests and could open up races. Also i really like the idea of languages. I know that people have their own language...they should make it so that some people dont understand others because of the language they speak....so you will have to get a translator or a dictionary....who knows maybe there are books that teach a little of each language... haha....just my 2,000,000,000 points....Sorry for the longetivity....I know Im a dreamer but...maybe one day!!!!
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Never let something that makes you smile pass you by. Unless of course killing people makes you smile or something weird like that. Then dont listen to this! |
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Mon Jan 20, 2003 2:36 am |
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Kabduhl
City Guard
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 127
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BALANCE!
I would like to see the game balanced in terms of combat. It is just too easy to kill everything in the game.
---> tone down enchanting ...
---> tone down spellmaking ...
****with these two skills you can create world shattering items or spells = not good
---> make any training after skill level 50 cost 10 times as much as it currently does.
I find it quite simple to reach levels in excess of 50 in Morrowind yet there is ZERO gameplay challenge that can match a level 50 character. And when I mean simple I mean just adventuring and exploring, using minimal training and just playing the game. This is unacceptable especially in a game that is so open to continued play and open adventuring. They need to seriously make sure they provide challenge and excitement at all 'reasonable' levels of gameplay. (I personally would have liked to see areas of Vvardenfell that provided challenge to characters up to lvl 70) . |
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Sat Feb 01, 2003 11:15 pm |
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Guardian Defender
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 06 Dec 2001
Posts: 122
Location: USA |
that is a good point. I agree. Kabduhl brings up a good point. It did get very boring after lvl 30 or so because you were so powerful.
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Never let something that makes you smile pass you by. Unless of course killing people makes you smile or something weird like that. Then dont listen to this! |
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Sun Feb 02, 2003 3:41 am |
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