Ok people, the friendly people at Bethesda inform us that if they cannot do something new and fresh with the franchise they're going to put old yeller to rest. Now c'mon people, last time I made a TES thread we got a Bethesda employee sitting up and taking notice, so let's stop with the Criticism and start with the ideas. Please don't say MMORPG, they've already rejected that potential train wreck of an idea. I personally think that setting TES in a proper City would be a nice move, not a small wheel like the Imperial city, but one that's, y'know, large? I also think that playing up the Choices again would be awesome, and maybe returning most of the Skills they took out of Morrowind. I miss spears, they were the light of my life in Morrowind, and I long for them to be returned, along with Unarmored, Mages are on their proverbial arses when it came to Oblivion. Perhaps something in the Nord homeland this time? Or better yet, you could be selected by another Daedric Lord to be taken to his/her realm, or perhaps one of the Nine Divines, or you could even be giving the task of slaying Lorkhan the travellor, who has been wrenched from History and brought back to the World, where he would wish to wreak havoc. I don't know, they're just ideas, I'd quite like something set in Dragonspine, or Elsweyr, anything is possible!

A bard class, were you can sing songs and rock out on a lute! 'and she's buyyyying a stairway, to heaven!'

Aaah, Elsweyr, the famous country that started oput as a bad pun :D

Actually, I'd like them to recreate Morrowind in a modern game engine. Oblivion was a big disappointment for most parts. OK, you could recreate your own face almost to the last follicle, but almost everything else was either completely removed or dumbed down to an almost insulting level.

Gah, no more Morrowind.
It was great then, but never will be again.

Right, the main issue is sorting out Radiant AI. It don't work.

Removing some of the mumorpurger that I've noticed tends to infiltrate Morrowind a tad? 'Go here and collect 5 plants, go there and collect 7 mud, etc etc'. More interesting quests is what I guess I'm getting at. And a less generic setting. Morrowind had a cool Eastern vibe going (and some crazy-ass mushroom villages). Oblivion seemed a lot more generic. 'Hey look, I'm in Minas Tirith' etc etc. Maybe go for something more interestinug (a pseudo-ancient China feel perhaps?)

I think that they should do something with the Argonians. Perhaps the Eye of Argonia? The Black Marsh has a LOT of opportunity, with the trees, different variety of Argonians, and a potential for a lot within the swamp water itself. Not to mention, it would inevitably be Beautiful....
I really want to find out more about the argonians; they are my favorite race and I'd hate to see them never be more than a bunch of generic lizard men.

I'm thinking a number of things. Firstly, revamping the engine to make the action sequences more realistic, like self created moves perhaps? Also, maybe something with the nords because if i remember correctly, the npc's were hinting at a battle or dispute between the nords of the north (if i remember correctly)

However, my dream for TES would be for them to take the Legend of Drizzt books, and kind of create a world much like Menzoberranzan, for those who know what im talking about. I believe just there would be a huge number of different possibilities. Also, maybe making an mmorpg would not be such a bad idea with this idea because of the wide variety of things one can do. And in order to do such a task fully you WOULD DEFINETLY NEED TO CHANGE THE FIGHTING ENGINE TO BE MORE REALISTIC WITH INTRICATE FIGHTING SYSTEMS. Email with any questions or comments: tnb2tnt@aim.com

IF anywhere it'll be in the summerset isles. There's no marketability in beast countries or bosmer forests

Dubiousduke:
IF anywhere it'll be in the summerset isles. There's no marketability in beast countries or bosmer forests

*gasps* Um... Gurrella warefare? How would that NOT be good in a TES game?
...
What about the Twin Lamps? There's a LOT of potential there...

I dunno whats left to do that hasnt already been done in one of TES or their expansion packs & wouldnt conflict with the backstory. I like the idea of one set entirely in a city, but thats really been done to some extent in TESIII: Tribunal. Argonians (The Black Marsh) or Khajit (Elsweyr) could be kewl as a location setting, but theyd really just be extentions of environments already visited in previous installments. TBH the only province of Tamril that could be origional in visiting would be Valenwood; as I imagine Wood Elves living in Ewoklike treehouse communities. But here theres no real scope for backstory & gameplay that'll stay inline with the previous installments.

But tbh, I think now would be a good time to end the series. So far the franchise has all been based during different stages of the rule or Uril Septim. Now hes dead, maybe its a good place to end the story.

Cousin_IT:

But tbh, I think now would be a good time to end the series. So far the franchise has all been based during different stages of the rule or Uril Septim. Now hes dead, maybe its a good place to end the story.

I agree, and now they could possibly get the proper copyright material, and possibly work with forgotten realms to get this Legend of Drizzt RPG Done!! It would seriously be amazing

I want to se a TES game focused around leadership, not just running around on your own being awesome. A game were you have a group of followers that stick around throughout the game and instead of joining other guilds you form your own. Everything from a rag-tag group of theives to the rulers of an empire!

I have a few ideas. But I just started playing Oblivion (and rarely played Morrowind), so I'm sorry if I make a mistake or looked over something already present in the games:
1) Architecture should change drastically between cities.
2) If the AI's good enough, it should focus less on you running around aimlessly and more of defending your empire's interests. With this, you should be able to create your own business, join an army (be part of/ control a squad), or be allowed to be the garrison commander of a frontier fort and defend it from enemies (but only having to be present when there's a battle).
3) Have the ability to hire mercenaries or have fellow adventurers. Also, allow for larger battles (not HUGE battles, but at least have you and a few allies versus a dozen enemies)
4) Introduce more of the Tolkien/ mythical species (Dwarves, giants, etc.)
5) Have more classes, such as priests/priestesses who worship a god who gives them specific traits
6) More weapons. I want to see spears, halberds, crossbows, and some time of firearm. Maybe even flaxes.
7) Maybe try a new continent?

I'm just getting into this series. I don't want it to die until we have another game nearly as good as Morrowind. Oblivions not bad, its just that people really seemed to have like Morrowind better.

Hang aboot.

What's "Dragonspine"? Sure aint on Tamriel, and I don't recall it being in Akavir or the other continents.

sammyfreak:
I want to se a TES game focused around leadership, not just running around on your own being awesome. A game were you have a group of followers that stick around throughout the game and instead of joining other guilds you form your own. Everything from a rag-tag group of theives to the rulers of an empire!

Sorry for listing an idea you already posted. I guess I accidently skipped over your post before I started mine.

I'll be happy if I can just look through a freakin' window.

As for the setting, I'd like to see a place where children actually exist.

Razzle Bathbone:
I'll be happy if I can just look through a freakin' window.

As for the setting, I'd like to see a place where children actually exist.

What are these mythical children you speak of? Surely you must jest.

Kogarian:

I'm just getting into this series. I don't want it to die until we have another game nearly as good as Morrowind. Oblivions not bad, its just that people really seemed to have like Morrowind better.

What about Battlespire, Arena and Daggerfall? (were there more?)
I personally think they SHOULD make more spinoffs, at least until they get the main game back on track. they have so much intellectual proporty invested in this game, it would be hard to have to learn a new mythology for a new world...

(If anyone hurts there eye or face on the forums, please let me know...)

Erana:

Kogarian:

I'm just getting into this series. I don't want it to die until we have another game nearly as good as Morrowind. Oblivions not bad, its just that people really seemed to have like Morrowind better.

What about Battlespire, Arena and Daggerfall? (were there more?)
I personally think they SHOULD make more spinoffs, at least until they get the main game back on track. they have so much intellectual proporty invested in this game, it would be hard to have to learn a new mythology for a new world...

(If anyone hurts there eye or face on the forums, please let me know...)

I never actually played any of those, so I wasn't sure what their story was like. But if they can make a good game off of them, then I'm all for it.

The one thing I would say for them to change is to get rid of the level scaling. That completely turned me off to Oblivion. I was so disappointed when I was able to become the champion of the arena at level 2. Level scaling made the whole game either too easy or incredibly frustrating (if you leveled a character non-combat related, like a thief).

Razzle Bathbone:
As for the setting, I'd like to see a place where children actually exist.

They can't do this. Most countries currently have serious laws in place, laws which state that if children appear in a position of violence in a video game our legal system will come down on you like a planet of bricks.

I personally believe they should make the game they promised, Oblivion lacked so much, and was consolised beyond measure, a true immersive world is needed where your actions actually mean something, your given choice not guided down a one way line. Most of the elements from Morrowind need to be retained so we can actually role play.

Everything you do should echo through eternity and all that jazz. Focus on the simple things, like characters with a personality, emotion, but I can't stress this more, we need choice. I want to choose to kill Martin, I want to choose to find this secret cult and join them, I want to choose to become a simple hunter living on the borders of Black Marsh selling troll fat for a living and converse with the people in town and become part of a community. I want to become a character not a mindless axe swinging bastard. This is a role playing game is it not?

Cryodil lacked any sense of a living, breathing world, it just, well it just lacked in everything, I have forever been downloading mods to complete the world I was promised and never got. I want to feel that excitement when I saw that first teaser trailer and waited that extra week for my collectors edition pre-order to arrive all over again. If it wasn't Delte and his Immersion mod list over on the TES Forums I would of hung up my Oblivion coat long ago.

Also a nice decent map wouldn't go amiss, ahhh I had the Morrowind map placed upon the wall next to my pc so I could actually look for things, and to find my way to some barren cave near Dagon Fel. Those were the days. Not this poxy fast travel would you like to go here instantly compass pointing hand holding thang. Adventuring in Morrowind was always great when you found that sodding mine door after an hour of bad directions and human error of just not looking properly, then once inside you get devastated by a bunch of level 40 vampires and you ran tail between your legs to come back once you were stronger, for revenge. Achievement. With Morrowind I felt I achieved something. God, I both love this game and hate it, like a cheating spouse. Also I wanted my moneys worth of Picard! Not some silly tutorial dungeon I had to play through, I could of easily despatched that assassin. But no I was forced into that story once again, and I'm going in circles. I can't stop ranting. I should sleep.

honestly as much as people complained about oblivion the combat really made a mage class usable as your main combat choice where in morrowind the magic was more for playing around. i'd like to see the expansiveness of morrowind come back with the combat and some of the other speeding up factors of oblivion, i can't really suggest a story simply because the main quest and humor in bethesda's games are beyond what i'm capable of suggesting, but the biggest suggestion on the elder scroll forums seems to be making a game centered around the argonian homeland. i think it'd be neat to have the other races at a disatvantage for once.

i would HATE a elder scrolls mmorpg it would just ruin the experience, however making it two player though really difficult might be fun if they did it from the ground up with the intent of making it a two player game where your fates are intertwined, though it would make the whole "random past" a little difficult to pull, i think doing a bethesda game where it was made for two guys would be nice, it would lend some credibility to the support magic that seems to be fairly useless most of the time. like maybe make it impossible to heal yourself, only your partner can heal you so you have to work together. and you could take shifts sleeping so one little scrib won't wake you up. i'm kinda tired of being a lone hero, if i'm gonna be an outcast at least let one of my friends tag along. actually thats not a bad idea for a story, you wind up in jail after witnessing a murder of a high official by some all powerful being and being framed for it. you and your friend could pick classes based on what you need to escape, i supose they could make you split the major and minor skills between the two of you so neither one of you is overpowered, but that might be irritating even if it's an interesting concept.

one thing i love about bethesda is that they read their own message boards and pay attention to what their fans want and what they are doing with mods. so suggesting things is always good with these guys.

split screen probably wouldn't work for this concept so it'd have to be online co-op or system link. but that'd make it difficult to actually get your friend together to play everytime you wanted to... it might be possible to work out some kind of drop in/drop out system, but maybe just choose two player or one player and have seperate characters, i mean it's not often you only play an elder scrolls game one way, you almost always play again and again to see different abilities and story arks. of course if they did it kinda like champions of norrath where you save the character itself and can take your character into two player games but always have to start over at the begining unless you have a save with that particular player.

i dunno i'm mostly just rambling ideas here, but as i said bethesda actually listens to it's fans so if they like even one of those ideas i don't doubt they'll consider it.

For dear heaven's sake, let it be less of a hack&slash-fest than Oblivion was. How did we go from Morrowind to Diablo-wind?

Second, for Christ's sake, give me locational damage. If I just nailed a monster straight in the head without it blocking, I'm fully expecting it to die promptly, preferably with its head falling off. I am NOT expecting it to need about 7 hits like that.

Third, take some notes from other games. Ok, so I'm in the thieves guild and have acrobatics up to 3459 points. So why the hell can't I climb a wall, go in through a window and loot the place cat-robber style? (Think Assassin's Creed, gief rooftops.)

Someone mentioned this already, so I'll just reinforce it. If I'm a master bloody swordsman, why do I only have 4 moves at my disposal? I should be a veritable sword-whirlwind-thingy by now. And I wanna look flashy while kicking ass. Something along the lines of "look, I'm a ninja, I can frontflip all around this dude while poking him with a sword in the voonerables (Terry Pratchett pun)".

I'll reinforce this as well - NO bloody level scaling. I'm the hero, why can every guard whoop my ass all the way across Tamriel? And for that matter, why aren't THEY saving the world if they're so kick-ass? (Edit: Yes, I know this was fixed with various mods, but it shouldn't need to be fixed in the first place. Letting your fans do your job for you is bad decision-making.)
More edit: For that matter, why am I perfectly capable of slaying anything in my path even at level one? You'd think that some hellishly evil monster might be a bit (or a lot) tougher than I am, so I'd probably have to steer clear for the time being.

How about giving us something to do asides from quests? Like, say, an archery competition?

Don't use the excuse of having many dungeons to make a game bigger. I don't want to go through 20,000 dungeons just to find the one that has something good in it. 10 hellishly hard and innovative-ish dungeons would be much, much better in my opinion. But make sure there's something nice in it for me at the end of it.

Scale the quest types or something; why am I, the renowned hero, being sent to fetch something for someone? I'd stab the first motherf***er that told me to fetch something when they know I'm busy saving the world.

End rant, I hope I've made some good points people can agree with, I'll probably think of even more later.

Either they need to really scale down; heavily reduce the number of locations and NPCs and craft everything in fine detail (which they've been usually strong on with the landscape, good to mediocre with dungeons / caves etc. and often very poor with the NPCs and especially poor with the variety of quests) and make the game incredibly immersive and detailed in all respects.

Or they need to scale up. Go back to daggerfall with a /massive/ playable area, silly numbers of dungeons to explore (and similarly silly numbers of variations of items to collect) vast numbers of NPCs, and huge scope for varying playstyles (be a mushroom farmer if you want...).

Morrowind and Oblivion tried to be both, and thus failed by not being immersive enough, and not being as open to different playstyles as they might have been.

Personally, I would much prefer a 'sandbox' style Elder Scrolls. Where exploration is more than just dungeon crawling and hacky slashy, but where there are a whole variety of options of items, tools, locaions etc. available to the player who can use them in improvised ways as they wish.

location damage, larger variety places to visit instead of what oblivion did with major cities and only a few towns, add a few more towns if possible make the world less quiet. More people around would be nice you know people out hunting, not just pre-determined bandits. I know thats a lot of ask for, but thats what would make it better in my opinion. Think oblivions scale not to big not to small and add more towns, people and interactivity in.

Oh and get rid of level scaling and add real economy.

Firstly, I will agree with some of the above posters to nix the level scaling. Actually, just linking the HP, MP to your core skills would do away with levels alltogether and give a more 'realistic' approach to the whole deal.
I would like to see more people and children. I hate running though a capitol city and there are like 40 people. Also, WAY larger cities. I liked the fast travel in the capitol and that should be kept simply for ease of navigation, but a capitol city that I can run a full circle around in a couple of min is way too small. If the cities are to be instanced, that should be possible. Also, while in the cities, make all the buildings true to scale and all part of the main city instance. This would mean no loads when entering a house, being able to look into a window to see if anyone was home, seeing lights though the windows, etc. Todays tech should make that easy enough to do.
Guards that are not magically sentient and apparently linked to a hive mind. If you steal something in city A, you should not automatically be wanted in city B unless the crime was pretty big. If you murder a person in city A, yeah you should be eventually wanted in city B, but only after a mail rider makes it there to post up your wanted poster. While that's at it, Bounty hunters should be after you also. After all, the fighter's guild is always hiring!
You could be a hunter, or be hunted by one.
Making all the races actually usefull would be great also. I love the concept of playing a sentient lizard that can breath underwater, but would rather play nearly any other race for the stats. Oh, and please make the race's have minor bonuses that are always on! Why would a cat person have to cast an inherant spell to see in the dark? WTF!?
No cap on magic power would be great. I hated hitting that limit in Oblivion. I felt that it was ridiculously low.

Woh, last time I go to sleep and then College, looks like I've started a sort of movement for irate Fanboys. Viva La Revolution! What do we want? "Our Spears Back!"... Ok, enough of the bad jokes, time for my view:

First of all, if a game like Crysis is possible in this day and age, what with the fact that it looks like a cross between the Garden of Eden and Burning Man, we could easily raise the Standards for TES V, such as, as I originally suggested, a massive city. Something along the lines of three Mournholds put together, albeit it wasn't massive but it was a damn sight bigger than the Imprerial City.

Secondly, I think that different Heights and Weights could be a great improvement, it wouldn't have to be complicated, just a two little bars on the customisation screen, much like the Age one in Oblivion. Maybe put a cap on for Certain Races, like the maximum for a Wood Elf would be about the average for an Imperial? It would be incredibly easy to program it in, plus that means that I could make my Tall Dark Elf character.

Continuing from my last sentence, return the Grey Dark Elves! I don't want my awesome Warlock character looking like a member of the freaking blue man group! I wouldn't be so irate if the Colour Bar let you be freaking Grey, but no, it goes Blue, Dark Blue, Ridiculously Black. No middle ground, is there?

Also, now I'm officially engaging in my rant, let me just say that a little depth would be appreciated in the Story Line, it's just : Rescue Generic Heir who doesn't know he's Heir, take him back to the base to find the damn object you need him to use is gone, kill lots of nameless minions, infiltrate Secret Cult, watch the Object that's nearly in your grasp disappear with the Leader, do a lot of pointless stuff, blah blah blah get ingrediants for Gourmless Heir, Go to Leader's Realm, kill him, get thing, get to the near end and get attacked by a damn great red git, then said Heir tops himself to save himself. Have you noticed your character didn't get much choice? I would have killed for the chance to say "Screw you Sean Bean, I'm outta here" or at least say snippy little sarcastic comments every now and then. So, yeah, please give us the Creative Story Lines that Bloodmoon, Tribunal, and Morrowind brought us, and no, I didn't mean to say them in reverse chronological order. ((By the way, to that guy earlier, The Dragonspine Mountains are the home to the Orcs))

Speaking of which, I still think a story set in Elsweyr, which I now see as the bad pun it really is, would be awesome. Your hero riding through the desert and some sort of Camelesque creature, joining bandits or villages, going to the Big City, anything is possible! Also, please oh please set it in Black Marsh if you reject Elsweyr, the Beast Races ((Well, the scary animal creature with strangely normal feet, as I call them in Oblivion)) are seriously played down, imagine, starting as some sort of Slave at an imperial Garrisson, seeing them getting slaughtered by crazed Argonian Revolutionists, who're planning on resurrecting some sort of big scary Lizard to kill everything, you either A.) Respect them and join them or B.) Seek revenge, simple as that isn't it?

Well, I'm gonna cry by the door until my new Morrowind Disk arrives, never play fetch with your dog, and throw your favourite game by accident. The scars never go away.

I've only played Oblivion, but anyway.

Better voice acting, or none at all.

At character creation, don't bother with the ability to let us adjust the wrinklyness of our skin on the face when the wrinklyness below the neck stays the same. It's really odd when NPCs have a 90 year old's face on a 20 year old's body.

As other people have said, no level scaling, or only partial level scaling where enemies have minimum and/or maximum levels (i.e the arena champion's level is at least 20, or bandits can't go beyond level 10.)

NPCs I could give a darn about.

NEVER freeze my character again. I could have easily saved Urinal (or whatever the pike his name was, see my above point) from that assassin if I wasn't rooted in place.

Now I know this point will start a flamefest and probably get me banned, but I found that the NPCs lack of discrimination rather...off. Racism (or perhaps speciesism) and mysogyny/msyandry exist in the real world. I'm not saying it's good (in fact I feel discrimination in any form is disgusting), but it's there, so why not have it in the game world? Television, film and literature do it all the time, whether it be sexist characters in soap operas or the racial tension between Dwarves and Trolls in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Besides, having your starting stats defined by your race and gender is a form of stereotyping in itself, so why not go the whole way?

If anyone out there's played Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, then they'll understand that discrimination in games CAN exist without gloryfying it. In fact, some of the most interesting things in that game were only possible because Troika didn't piss around the bush (sleeping with the owner of a men-only club to allow my female character access still ranks as one of my most favourite moments for some reason).

Just to let you know, if you had played the other TES games, you would care about Uriel.