New Elder Scrolls Game In 2010?

Paul Oughton, publishing executive for Bethesda, spoke to GamesIndustry about the company's plans for the future, and his comments include some information about the next Elder Scrolls game. Quoting: "'At the moment we've got Fallout 3 for this year and potentially there's a new Elder Scrolls title in 2010,' said Oughton. 'At the moment we're not that interested in the Wii. We're going to stick to PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. We'll continue to pursue three or four titles a year and go for big titles,' he said of the company's publishing plans for the future."

My hopes for the next game:

[kbrasee (1379057)]

1. The chicks don't look like dudes.
2. They get more than 4 voice actors.
3. It doesn't take an Oscuro's Overhaul to make it play the way it should.

Re:

[sammyF70 (1154563)]

On the other hand, at least they made it easy (very relative term here) for things like Oscuro to be made.

I agree that vanilla Oblivion is a pretty boring game, but with the right community mods (those that made the game HARDER, not easier), it is still one of the best games to have ever been published.

... and I'm still waiting for my copy of Fallout3 to automagically appear in my mail :(

Re:

[crossmr (957846)]

I don't pay X amount of money for an engine in the hopes someone else is going to get around to making it a fun game.
it was the first elder scrolls game I bought (didn't play the first two, played morrowwind a bit), and its going to be the last. I actually did complete it, but it was nothing more than a shiny turd. No reviewer had the spine to give it what it was worth (a 60%, I give it a bump from 50% because of the graphics, but the gameplay was pure mediocrity) and the fan boys were too busy going "OMG L

Re:

[afidel (530433)]

I think of Bethesda as the ID of the RPG world, they make nice engines but poor games. Unlike with ID engines it doesn't take buying another title to get a good game though, you just download the fan-made content.

Re:My hopes for the next game:

[Enderandrew (866215)]

I would suggest Bethesda makes ALMOST-great games with flaws. They make huge worlds. They make very polished, quality products. Their games have immense playing time. Yet they always seem to be missing something.

The modding community fills that void, but there are plenty of people who truly love the vanilla titles as they are.

However, I'd never buy a console version where I couldn't install mods.

Re:

[Enderandrew (866215)]

They won't guarantee if the CS will ever ship either. I really hope it does, but the Fallout fans are different from TES fans and Oblivion got re-rated by the ESRB after the fact, based upon a mod released by fans (which in and of itself is stupid). Bethesda is the developer and publisher. They could lose big bucks if the game is yanked from shelves, re-rated, and even causes a law suit based upon some mod a fan releases. And mind you, the Fallout-mods will no doubt be much more mature.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

While I personally think that the re-rating of Oblivion was silly, there's more to it than what you describe. The "topless" skin that the mod used was already in the game. Bethesda shipped it on the DVD. While it was not accessible in-game, the ESRB had already made it clear with "hot coffee" that this did not matter.

Second, Fallout 3 is already rated M. Even if it was full of topless skins its doubtful it would see a re-rating on that basis.

Re:

[JosKarith (757063)]

They so should have give him a huge redguard-style afro.
"Hi babe, I'm Raminus Polus. Bam-chik-a-waw-waw..."

Lightsaber wii game?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Id be happy whacking mud crabs with a stick.

Re:Lightsaber wii game?

[mewshi_nya (1394329)]

so that's what it's called here...

But

[ludomancer (921940)]

It's just going to be Fallout 3 with swords...

Hmm...

[Caboosian (1096069)]

oblivionwithgunswithswords tag?

We can only hope

[Dan667 (564390)]

And they give back Fallout to Brian Fargo and crew.

Fallout 3 is better than 1 and 2

[justinlee37 (993373)]

Have you played it yet? It's quite good.

There are some changes. But if you examine it in an unbiased fashion, they have actually improved several game mechanics from the first two games.

1) You have to get power armor training to wear power armor. This prevents people from making a 1st level character with a high outdoorsman skill and walking to Navarro to get Adv. Power Armor, completely breaking the game. And knowing that it was there, and that you could, made any replay of the game feel totally contrived at that point.

2) Medicine. Changing the mechanic of medicine skills was a Good Thing. In Fallout 2, First Aid/Doctor were much faster in terms of game time. But in terms of player time spent clicking, just slapping "rest until party healed" was faster, so people didn't use those skills much. Now, since Medicine impacts stimpack effectiveness, people will both use the skill AND value it more, regardless of their build.

3)Healing mechanics. Not being able to rest in the wasteland without a bed means finding food, water, or stimpacks to regenerate HP. In Fallout 1/2, you could just use the pipboy to rest a lot, in almost any location, and therefore avoid the need to use stimpacks at all. Ample use of resting in the game often lead to me having huge stockpiles of 200-300 stimpacks simply because I didn't have to use them. They became less of a commodity.

3)Weapon skills. Weapon skill ratings affect both your accuracy in VATS, as well as your damage in real-time and outside of VATS. This means a couple of things; it means that a level 1 character can't use a laser rifle to much effect, in or out of VATS, without a high energy skill. This means that, as with the power armor, you can't break the game by finding a plasma rifle early on. It also means that you can use VATS to get out of playing an FPS, but you can't avoid using VATS to get out of playing an RPG. Somebody with low weapons skills still does poor damage, even if they're a crack shot with the mouse.

4) Weapon conditions. First, repairing weapons gives a lot more use to out of the repair skill. It also seems more realistic than having weapons and armor that never degrade, despite years of use (Fallout 1/2). Secondly, this makes weapons more of a commodity than they were in the first games -- since you have to constantly acquire weapons to repair your own, it creates more financial expenses for your character (which is good because it makes bottlecaps more of a commodity).

5) Stealing mechanics. In Fallout 3, you can't rob a vendor of their shop inventory without killing that vendor first (as in Oblivion). This may seem unrealistic, and it is, but it is important to maintaining game balance (and thereby fun/replayability). In Fallout 1/2, you could often eliminate scarcity for your character simply by buying something at a store (say San Francisco), then stealing all of your bottlecaps back from the shopkeep, and then repeating over and over until you had more armor, weapons, medical supplies, and ammo than you could possibly carry. Combined with the possibility of scoring free Adv. Power Armor in the early stages of Fallout 2, this made the game unenjoyable rather quickly once you knew about these locations and how you could exploit them.

Fallout 3 may be different, but I think it's better. I bought my copy to support Bethesda, and I sincerely hope they release expansions and/or Fallout 4.

It's going to be TES:Monopoly

[Carbon016 (1129067)]

Stop right there, subprime scum!

PAY $200
GO TO JAIL
RESIST ARREST

A cry from an Elder Scrolls fan - level scaling

[Cougem (734635)]

Please please PLEASE don't implement level scaling.


It was the downfall of Oblivion, to me. It was a lovely game, and honestly even the repetitive voice acting I could live through, but having to get a 3rd party mod just so the game seemed worth playing? I leveled up once, and suddenly all the wolves in the forrest turned into sabretooth tigers and I was unable to leave the town without a horse.
Sad.

Re:feat. oblivion engine

[by Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they'll use more than 4 voice actors this time.

Re:feat. oblivion engine

[Hojima (1228978)]

Even though I'm a big fan of the Elder Scrolls series, the voice actors weren't the only bone I had to pick. The team had a large dynamic engine that they could have taken more advantage of and didn't. Although the fighting was improved, it didn't feel very interactive (nor expansive). The way that could be improved is to integrate the classes a bit more. They gave you the feature to fight as a mage/fighter/rouge, but the system didn't demand nor support integration very much. Alchemy was the only skill that was really useful throughout all the classes, but a warrior never really had a great need to cast a fireball when his fighting was so much more effective. A wizard never really needed to sneak when invisibility was much more convenient. They should have made monsters that are more immune to certain tactics. For instance, a mage comes upon a vampire that has extraordinary hearing. Rather than casting a spell, you'll have to depend on your sneaking abilities to approach him. You cast a freezing spell that is useless on him and must throw a (potions should have been throwable) exploding potion to knock him back since fire is also useless, then you pull out your sword with copious amounts of poison on it to subdue him (your skill with a sword does not matter since the poison is so effective). Also, the physics engine could have more juice squeezed out of it. There should have been gravity gun telekinesis and the ability to pick things up and throw them. Imagine being ambushed by some nut in a bar and throwing a chair at him to knock him back for a stronger attack. Man that would have improved the game a lot.

If I was making an Elder Scrolls game

[bonch (38532)]

I would have it be about a son that Barenziah had who nobody knew about, which has been theorized before based on her past storyline. He should come back trying to claim the throne now that the Emperor is dead. Barenziah was always my favorite character from the lore, and it would be cool to have various factions trying to take over now that the Empire's in shambles, with Barenziah's son being the primary one. Given the history of the Empire and its leader, he would have a right to be pissed.

I don't know

Re:They really will be the ELDER scrolls

[maglor_83 (856254)]

14 years. Plenty of older series going round.

Re:

[Forrest Kyle (955623)]

I'm currently playing Super Mario Galaxy. That's an amazingly good game from a series that dates back almost 25 years. I don't care if companies keep making games from awesome series, as long as new series come out as well from time to time.

Re:Jeez Late news, TES:EMPIRE trailer is available

[distantbody (852269)]

Oh, and apparently the voice acting is still melodramatic and kinky. Some more information [moviecodec.com]

Re:Jeez Late news, TES:EMPIRE trailer is available

[dafrazzman (1246706)]

The trailer [youtube.com] and the NAME have been out for a few months, I've seen some screenshots before but I can't find them now, but the best I could find was this [imageshack.us] MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Looks like that trailer got leaked pretty early [youtube.com]. A whole year before the official trailer was released? Nice work pirates!

Nice picture, too. I'm somewhat surprised that the only screenshot Bethesda has is of a mountain. Not to mention that it's hosted on imageshack. I guess they're really getting overloaded on the server.

Merry Christmas and TYCLO

Video is Warhammer, NOT Elder Scrolls

[IBBoard (1128019)]

I wondered why there weren't any comments - it's because it's a fake video. I was a bit suspicious as soon as the map showed an area named "Empire", which isn't overly Elder Scrolls-like, but then the first character appeared and he's a Warhammer Warrior Priest! Here [youtube.com] is the original Warhammer video.

Someone needs to mod the parent down as "-1 fake"

(Yes, I know it might be obvious to others, but not everyone will have seen the Warhammer video)

Re:

[RuBLed (995686)]

it's 3 feet tall on a small number of stalks that outlines your feet.