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Gothic 3 bandit/mage and orc/druid playthroughs by Absinthe82, which accomplish both of two opposing quests.
Nonlinear faction start, player evolution main quest, and faction agenda side quests by Tyrion1.
Supply and demand economy, crime, merchant characters by Rhekarid.
From a thread on the Bethesda boards.
Crni Vuk: No fighting Zombies anymore PLEASE! We got enough of them … seriously. If they are just with you to give fire support I will not care about them. Give Characters – Voice *Dont let them sound all the same. Boring – Comments *They should have opinions about your actions and express them! – Personality *Good characters might not like and follow you if youre doing bad things. – Realistic movement *Why should females walk/act like males … – Optic *If it is possible to give them weapons and armor they should use it and it should be possible to see that as player. (- Maybe own quests you can do with them)More inteligent, more comments, own oppinions, own unique apearance and personalities. People should remember them. No one says that you (the player) has to fall in love to them even when I would think it is a nice adition but at least they should start conversations with you when something happens they either really like or disslike. Maybe a comment from time to time like the first time you use a Power Armor or when they blow up some head from hard enemies.)
bronzepoem: I won’t hear the funny argument between teammates… Most importment, they should be interactive with whale the environment. Talking with other teammates,with NPCs, have their opinion on a quest or a affair. A benemoth may be discriminated by some unfair NPC, of course he have his approach to deal with such things. A native teammate will be surpirised on high-tech item. Also a hooligans teammate must like some corruption citys, and he won’t like protagonists behave too honourous. That is fallout style, which ten year old game could give us.
Vainglorious: I agree. The vast majority of characters in Morrowind and Oblivion simply regurgitated the same generic topics, although quest-givers usually had interesting stuff to say. The number of truly unique and memorable characters was fairly small, though, compared to the original Fallout games… or at least, that’s the way it seemed from my point of view. Sure, in F1 and F2, there were generic townspeople. But of those NPCs you could talk to, almost all of them had memorable, distinct, and unique personalities, and they didn’t share any generic dialog with each other. Even bartenders and mechanics had interesting personalities. Also significantly, the companions had personalities and back stories. Sulik was my favorite… he had a funky accent, a gnarly ‘tude, a cool back story, and a unique way of phrasing sentences. That is for me one of the biggest indicators that Fallout had more memorable characters than Morrowind/Oblivion: I can easily remember Sulik, the village Elder, Tandy, Myron, Marcus, Cassidy, First Citizen Lynette… but I can barely remember any NPCs from Oblivion, or even Morrowind, which I am playing as we speak. I really hope they give a lot of the NPCs in F3 unique and memorable dialog and personalities. No more foot-long dialog menus with the same thirty topics, to which fifty other NPCs will give you the exact same response.
Daigoro: Not only is this the loss of multiple, intruiging party members, and the depth that their interection added, but it also nerfs Charisma in a major way. Eliminating the limitation for NPCs based on CH is reducing the potence of CH. That’s neutering it.
Since I’m not doing stats yet, number of teammates depends on whether you’ve earned them, whether they’ll work together (a new unpopular one could make all the old ones leave, eg Adoring Fan), whether you keep them happy (eg, some might have care or feeding requirements), whether you avoid attacking them or getting into situations where they become (or are forced to become) aggressive to you, whether they stay alive against the enemies you fight (need to make enemies with multiple attacks target friends too, and all enemies target you if you attack in around, otherwise your buddies), and whether they accept your alignment (this will do the most to limit powerful sentient friends). With all these limitations, why use a stat roll against a number that only reflects min-maxing at the start of the game, or grinding up skill levels with boring repetition of non-plot-advancing actions? Anything that changes the game from role-playing to stat management should be avoided. I’ve been able to do a lot by linking health to stealth, that avoids having to program in levels, dexterity, and thief-skill percentage tables.
Maia: I really hope that there is on-the-fly Hold/follow me command for the NPCs. Every game that lacked it just drove me up the wall. I still have nightmares
about (temporary) followers in MW, the Gothics and even Fallouts that would attack something totally out of our league or annihilate my PC with area spells/weapons.
Done.
dagoth jeff: There should be no limit to companions. In such a trashed world, we’ll need something to make us feel less alone. Of course, having such an option early on would ruin the overall gaming experience, and mood settings.
The hunting buddy is in there early now just for testing. Once I write his intro, he’ll move somewhere else.
But money talks LOUDLY. Anyone physically able, and fit for the position would surely offer themselves up for hire (if asked.) Perhaps you saved someone’s life, and he feels the need to offer himself up as your bodyguard in return.
You initially won’t have any money, and tagalongs will either require: (1) coins for food, gear maintenance, and hazard pay; or vice versa, for the player to get coins as a mercenary, and handle it when he gets stiffed because of payer death or hate or dishonesty; (2) interest in where you’re going or a sense of duty or obligation, or (3) happens to be going there too, met either by coincidence or from talking to other NPCs. There should be a big pilgrimage to Windhelm for the Feast of the Dead for weeks before the appropriate day, and then a return back, both of which flood the roads with travelers. (A person can be a pilgrim to the Feast of the Dead.)
My point is, ONE isn’t very satisfactory. Two or three wouldn’t be. Why not cook up randomly generated no-name mercs-for-hire in infinite supply? We all know that when someone is rich, they’re powerful. If you got the cash, you should be able to surround yourself with hired guns. If you’re saving the world, that should make you “important.”
To preserve any sense of game balance (leads to challenge leads to accomplishment leads to fun), quantity of follower must be inverse to quality (eg, conscripts have few HP, and no silver or magical weapons to hit undead or magical creatures).
At least in Morrowind (and I fear I’d use that phrase often) you can Command any NPC into following you. If you’re powerful enough, you could have many NPC’s under your spell. As far as hiring goes, there’s only one merc. And you can find a little tagalong help here and there on quests. As far as pets go, it’s useless in vanilla Morrowind. Little critters.
Dungeons & Dragons based your maximum number of henchmen on your Charisma. This was always acceptable to me. And their henchmen didn’t stop at just ONE. I think at 25 (god-like) you could have up to 50. Sure, 50’s a lot – but let’s put it in terms of average mortal man – ten to twenty. Isn’t that better than one? And pets in D&D were a dime a dozen. If you had the cash, you could buy guard dogs, war horses, anything. Buy a dozen chickens if you want to. (But ask your DM first if he’ll give you XP for killing those.)
No XP, no leveling. With appropriate buffs, not sure its needed. We’ll see how long this lasts.
Pets in Fallout would CERTAINLY add to the atmosphere. You’re creeping up a dark alley with your faithful dog, and suddenly he growls at something. You don’t know what’s up ahead, but now you’re ready for anything. He charges up ahead for the attack, and surprise! You’re attacked from behind, by another creepy something. Pets would mean a lot in a world like this. Without pets, there really is no one else you can really trust.
I like this. 
princess_stomper: Each has to have a script on them to give specific instructions – first of all to stop them getting stuck behind the furniture (Grumpy’s “warping”), then to tell them to copy the player in any of their actions (e.g. levitating, water breathing), or whether to move aside if they’re in the way, and then to give options on combat style.
Most of this is abstracted away by text, which only occasionally reports what companions are doing.
Then you get to what you really need from a companion. To really make it worthwhile, you need personality as well as functionality. Oblivion touched on this with Mazoga the Orc but that was quite a brief if memorable encounter. The really good companions – of the likes of the aforementioned Emma ‘n’ Grumpy/Qarl/Kateri mods – have a simply staggering amount of work behind them, requiring far more resources than Bethesda are likely to allocate to something like this. Example: Kateri’s Julan companion mod for Morrowind had two thousand lines of dialogue. That’s just one companion. Now start talking about six, and you see why they might not be so willing to incorporate such a feature.
dagoth jeff: You don’t need thousands of lines to present a player with a viable party member. Who cares that he/she doesn’t comment on the weather? If you can give out a few commands (stay/follow/fight with melee/fight with missiles) and access their inventory, isn’t that enough?
princess_stomper: The more scripts that you throw in, the more processing power is required, which restricts the number of people who can enjoy the game. In order to please you, they’d have to pee off everyone else, effectively speaking. Plus, even though you might want to have half a dozen meat shields in tow, in practice they get in the way, get stuck behind the furniture, get lost, and all sorts … really and honestly you’re better off with just one detailed companion who is actually any use.
The trouble is that we’re not agreeing here on what good companions are. Let’s think about two mods here that I’ve played: (1) One had dozens of companions, each of which had various point-and-click options in which to increase that companion’s disposition towards you and move the relationship up to the next level. It was all fiddling with menus, with just information about classes and types – there was no reaction, no individualisation and no personality. This mod was one person’s idea of a role-playing style that left me absolutely cold. I had zero interest in playing anything like this, because all I was doing was pushing buttons. There was no sense of engaging properly in a conversation. This is exactly what a lot of people are looking for. (2) Then there is another mod, in which there is one companion for your character to build a relationship with. It took one person one full year to write. The mods with companions of that type are mods where the companion is the centre and focus of that mod – not just casual strangers with whom the player may or may not approach to join their party. As far as I know, most games only have one companion of this type. I know my friend goes on about KOTOR, but she only ever mentions one character. I don’t know of any adventure RPGs that have multitudes of fully fledged companions – only of the depth-free variety that left me cold with the other mod.
You dont neccessarily need to have a different MQ for each race, but different stroy routes would be great. If an item is in a “Dunmer Only” Night club and you’re an orc, you might have to go in swinging an axe or sneak in.Not being allowed to stay the night in an Inn owned by an Anti-Argonian person might force you to ask for room and board at someone’s house, and they might require a favor like vandalizing a neighbor’s property which forces you down yet another path. Or you might opt to camp in the surrounding woods, at which point you meet a small band of fellow outcast beastfolk who want you to help them terrorize the town.
Being whisked away to start the game in a slave camp isnt a terrible idea, infact all the above ar ok ideas, as long as eventually you end up on the same MQ, in the same yet unique story line.
The whole point of this type of “dynamic plot” is REPLAYABILITY. If you ever play Arcanum (an awesome RPG) you will understand the value of REPLAYABILITY. Going through a game and having the anticipation of different experiences depending on who you are and the choices you make each time is a huge advantage.
I understand that a lot of people like to RP and so, playing through the same Oblivion over and over is ok with them, but not everyone loves RPing. AND even for RPers, the garuntee of different experiences should be something to look forward to.
Every time I play through the game, I would love the experience to be unique. Objectively unique.
I can remember when I played arcanum the 3rd time, as soon as I got to Tarant I went straight to my favorite pub, and I was screamed at and told to get the [censored] out. you know what was different? that 3rd time I decided to be a half-orc. I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever experienced in a video game. (although this could (and should) be avoidable/negotialbe by simply working hard to have high charisma and personality traits.
Also, dragon, the Oblivion construction set and the “plugin” concept proved that differing plot lines doesnt take up lots of space on a CD. You’re not really creating NEW material. just different story lnes, different dialogue, etc.
For there to be different tracks, each track must in some way advance the main plot, close the scene in one of several different ways. Scene ends when thing restored or thing destroyed or thing given or thing tossed in the sea or thing kept; however it got there, stolen from living person, looted from corpse, stolen from nightstand, bought, bartered, given as reward for favor; but how it was retrieved and how it was disposed of determines some thing about the environment, politics, factions rep, quests available. Similar considerations for non-fetch quests.
Some things you do should be relatively fatal to the main or many side quests: for example, if you kill a child of a certain race, no-one of that race will talk with you to give you a quest, instead they’ll actively hunt you down you until you’re dead. Even attacking a child of a certain race should make everyone in that race aggressive towards you.
I sure hope there will be many easter eggs to seek out in the wilderness. I enjoy exploring the wilderness also. It’s one of the things I love about non-linear video games. I see that mountain off in the distance, and I can go climb it. Leviticus
Include the example code that lets you see other rooms, esp. while in the overland.
For Skyrim if they have it there, I would like the npc’s to have a greater sense of hospitality. If the winters can kill or harm, they could take greater concern for their fellow man on the road. The Eskimos were supposed to let a traveler snuggle with their wives in the night for warmth, kindness of that sort. Also just knocking on the door and asking for a place to rest should be an option, you need to heal sometime and you might have a chance to return the favor. At times when you have a home you could let people in to have a nap or offer them care. It can increase your disposition with the people you help, and give you a good reputation. Shades
Check for consistency with Viking rules for hospitality. Greeks were very big on this. The rules would be strictly followed in isolated halls, well-regarded in villages, usual practice (especially for your factions) in towns, and apply only to your factions in cities. “The player has a number called faction reputation.”
Another thing I would like to see is the apprentice-master relationship. Yes, keep the guilds, but they are not the only ones who teach certain skills. What about the great [insert name] who single handedly defeated the dark lord, and now lives up in the mountains as a hermit? What about the traveling swordsman who wants to find some student worthy of learning his technique? Gormanilius
Read the “magic posts” in the TES V suggestion thread.
Still haven’t (needed to) put any magic in game, in the form of spells. Can probably shout health. Probably need to put a hoarseness factor in, which regenerates like HP, and different types of shouts wear your throat at different rates. Or, have a cooldown period after any shout (n number of turns), where if you shout again, n increases. Since most shouts are (so far) binary effects, the shout would have to fail in addition to increasing the cooldown period. Either way, need some feedback to user when it’s okay to shout again.
Competitors for Quests need to brought in TES V. Since Skyrim is in Turmoil, there could be a bounty hunter type system asking you to track down – for example- a Necromancer terrorizing local inhabitants. But if you don’t get the bounty quick, another Bounty Hunter may take the kill and you fail the quest. If you wanted to bring Choices and Consequences into this, a bounty might revolve around a political target, but when you arrive, it seems like he is the victim of a political purge and you may get several options with what to do with him.A. Sorry, But I need the money *NPC’s name*. I’ll have to kill you.
B. Come on, hand yourself in to the authorities, they will find you anyway. -Requires Speechcraft Check.
C. Hmm, you seem to be the victim of a purge and a decent guy. My principles won’t allow me to kill you. I will take my leave.
D. This is wrong. Come on I’ll help you escape. (Truth) – Requires Speechcraft Check
E. This is wrong. Come on I’ll help you escape. (Lie)- Requires Speechcraft Check
F. I just like the killing part hahaha. – For the Psychos amongst us.Its badly written but you get the idea. The “good” options will probably disgrace you as a Bounty Hunter but you may gain reputation with certain groups for your actions. Whereas the more selfish options will increase your Bounty Hunter Rep but make certain groups despise you and even try to kill you. This could make for a fluid political setting. Tyrion1
“The player has a number called faction reputation.” Increase for quests succeeded, enemies attacked, enemies killed, enemies robbed (when donated to faction), people recruited to faction, property donated to faction. Decrease for faction members attacked, faction members killed, faction members robbed (when they catch you), quests failed, property stolen (as opposed to shared) from faction houses, property destroyed from faction houses.
The Map treasure loot in daggerfall was a great idea though (parchment that adds another dungeon location to map), would have been nice to see that in oblivion/morrowind. kaervek66
Excerpt from a post by Tyrion1 to the Bethesda TES:V suggestion thread, and responses.
If the next game is to be in Skyrim, Bethesda has a great opportunity to use the existing lore to create a fantastic dark political atmosphere (check Shades’ thread “The story you would like to see” for an example.) As well as create some wonderfully unique creatures e.g Were-Bears and the Volikar vampire clan that could make TES V really stand out from other generic CRPGS (e.g NWN 2 Original Campaign and Oblivion.)
2. Choices and Consequences- Choices and Consequences are one of THE defining aspects of a CRPG. Yet both Oblivion and Morrowind almost left these out completely. Instead of multi-branching quests with several way to solve them, we were left with simple “Yes” and “No” choices. Gee Whiz. However, in Oblivion choosing No didn’t even matter anymore, since the quest NPC would still request you do it even after you decline. The biggest failure in both game were the main quests. Both had only one ending, and both both were utterly linear. The plots weren’t particularly good either, just simple “Save the World” nonsense. What Bethesda should do is take some inspiration from Planescape:Torment. That game had a great plot (a personal one, no save the world rubbish), memorable characters and a ton of choices and consequences. PS:T had as many as 8 ways to solve a Quest! Compare that with OB and MW and that puts them to shame. Despite its crappy combat and graphics, I will still go back to P:ST in five years for those reasons, whilst Oblivion with its shallow plot, lack of CnC and generic setting will be long forgotten.
I agree with most of what you said but I especially agree with point #1. Lets see some politics! Some war! Some strategic concerns!
Yeah, the black and white good/evil system always got me a little mad. I’d like to see a better storyline, kind of like a “religion VS. politics”, in which no matter what the player decides to to do, their choice might be party evil or partly good; they just have to weigh out the concequences themselves.
3.) Good vs Evil.
I like a good vs evil plot myself, but OB was way over the top on this score. The defining line between the two shouldn’t be so clear cut, and please don’t forget that even good decisions can still lead to bad consequences.4.) Politics, or motivation.
I didn’t really feel that there was any motivation when going from one place to another in Oblivion. Things seemed to simply happen, from one point to the next. This just doesn’t cut it in my opinion, and indeed many others in this thread.
