Sunday, June 10th 2018
Bethesda Announces "The Elder Scrolls VI"
At long last! Bethesda announced that the next major entry to the "The Elder Scrolls" franchise is in pre-production. There's no episodic title attached to this game, other than "The Elder Scrolls VI," yet. The teaser trailer reveals a ginormous rocky landscape by the sea, which could be High Rock or Hammerfell. The studio revealed absolutely no other details so far.
The reveal trailer follows.
42 Comments on Bethesda Announces "The Elder Scrolls VI"
Beyond that, Skyrim's story sucked. Graphics sucked. Voice acting sucked. Still, it was an ok game and I played it a lot. The last good story in TES was Morrowind. Probably because you had to read it. Bethesda's biggest problem is they can't tell a story. Skyrim was so predictable it wasn't funny. I was amped for Fallout 4 and they blew that as well. TES was my favorite series until the Witcher series came about when I discovered it by accident for $5. Best $5 I ever spent.
CDPR is an example of what a developer/publisher/game seller should be. Make a good product and they will come. Make a good product and the dollars will come. Currently, Activision and EA have their heads so far up their rectums they can watch their own hearts turning to stone.
See what I did there?
Edit: Also, if they don't throw out that POS Gamebryo/Creation Engine...there is no way I am buying this game until it is half price.
It all comes down to the modding community. Because they leave so many things that basically have to be improved on, the modding community is naturally more active. And fans of the game tend to know better what fans want than a large dev team ever could. Or at least - there's a more direct line for communicating what is needed and making it happen. This results in a game that can be better tailored to a wide range of people and the niche groups just as well. With the mods out there now, it can be basically anything you want it to be, whether that be just a better game or another game. When it comes to both appearance and gameplay, two modded Skyrims can pretty much be completely different games. And I don't know that this would happen if Bethesda wasn't screwing so much up. All of this depth and diversity started with a high demand to make a half-baked game more finished and polished... ...and then it just kept going until modders managed to essentially make several completely new games based on the original.
Whether you agree with it or not, this makes for the sort of game that would be hard to imagine coming from any dev team in a vacuum. It makes it very unique. I personally think Beth really needs to get a lot together - the people playing your game shouldn't have to roll out all of your patches for game-breaking bugs for you. That looks bad. But still... ...some things do work out nicely in the end. I'll just say they owe a lot to the modding community that supports them. And if those people aren't getting paid, they should be.
A few people mentioned graphics... ...I think in an exploration-based game, graphics are much more important to immersion than they would be in a game that was more about the action or puzzle-solving. I'd even argue that story is less critical. Who plays TES for the story anyway? I think I did Skyrim's main questline once. And it took forever because I kept getting distracted. The idea is to create an atmosphere that draws you in. A vague story is good. It creates a mystique that implores the player to see the world for themselves and use their own judgement to make it what it is. I think TES generally does a good job here. Skyrim is not the prettiest game, but the actual atmosphere does have a way of keeping you playing. It just has this look and feel to it that makes you wanna see more. And no matter how long you play, you never feel like you've truly grasped everything.
I WOULD like to see them improve on that and bring the graphics up to a respectable level for the release time this time around. No way around that really.
The lore is almost better for all of its vague, convoluted, contradictory nonsense. It gives the world this nascent, shifting quality, like taking part in a famous legend... not as it actually happened but as it exists in peoples minds. No two people tell the story the same - and it can vary greatly depending on where you're hearing it. As you go about picking up pieces of the lore, new additions can change how you see old ones in interesting ways. In the meantime you may have forgotten some things that have now been replaced and its left you with a different perspective. It's almost less like a story and more like a strange dream. I'm not sure if this is intentional or just incompetent, but I think leaving things up to forced interpretation works in their favor. As with any legend, the story is whatever you want it to be and can change depending on what you choose to believe from a reference point that is unique to your personal experience. It makes the world seem more alive - more a part of you. It's just more personal... ...kind of the backdrop to the story you want rather than its own encapsulated thing. Keeps things more interesting than a more concrete, point a to point b storyline. If you wish it to be that, you'll wind up disappointed. I don't think it's meant to be that, and I really pray they don't try to make it that, like they did with Fallout.
Now, do I think they meant for it to be that way? Naw. I think they probably have a hard time keeping track of their own lore with how long the series has been running and how many people have contributed. I do think they at least know by now that it bolsters them, though. If they're smart, they'll never tie up their lore and fix all of the inconsistencies. I know for me, the jacked up lore still keeps me playing, in a really weird way. I know it doesn't always make sense, but somehow I like it that way?
One thing that's inexcusable is that god awful recycled engine. Many of the games flaws grow on you, but that, and all the bugs aren't so charming. No denying the games have always been clunky as hell. And often just... unfinished.
That's my two cents. Bethesda kinda sucks, but perhaps by some cosmic coincidence the weaknesses of TES are part of what make it an endearing series, for me at least. Bethesda are not what made the last Elder Scrolls good, and most of what they did do right wasn't intentional. They're either brilliant or very lucky. They definitely have a lot of work to do and a lot to answer to. But somehow I feel like it'll all work out.
Or maybe it'll be a steaming pile and everyone will finally get sick of their shit :p
And as far as story goes, I was saying I think that although TES doesn't have what most people would consider a functional story in a traditional sense, it just happens to add to the allure of the world that they've built up. It may not always fit together, but all of the little details and seemingly contradictory things that would normally hold a story back just don't in this case. They get away with that. Doesn't mean a game with no story or a garbage story really stands a chance in my book. It doesn't.
I'm generally more in favor of the balanced approach. I don't want a game with bad anything. Doesn't matter if it's graphics, story, or gameplay. Sometimes one of those things can be terrible and the rest makes up for it, but I'd rather all of them be solid and have reasonable compromises on all fronts. This is what I'd like to see Bethesda do with TES. Dunno if they can pull it off, but it'd sure be nice.
I hear what you're saying. To me, graphics are kind of on a different level from story and gameplay. You expect a current AAA game to be up to the current graphical standards. That's less something that a game stands out for and more a minimum requirement. Past that, it's just not as important as the actual meat of the game. Without that you just have fluff, which is just kind of a mean trick that gets played on the player.
Another example (that no longer applies to me and hasn't for year) is WoW. Certainly not played for its graphics, but the game experience that is addictive to people.
Anyways, I am looking forward to this release. I'll probably wait a month or two after its release to play it to allow for patching. I find doing this makes games more enjoyable.
I think I also read that they can't move to a different engine because of the moddability.
On the other hand, they sure as hell must know it inside out after all those years, and so with some friggin effort should be able to rework it into at least half decent shape.
But then again, it's Bethesda we're talking about, with Toad Howard the pathological liar on top of the foodchain.
Sorry *ahem* The 64 bit engine definitely helped... ...it made things much more stable ime. Though since the game was originally 32 bit, it doesn't really take advantage of half of what 64 bit allows for. A natively 64 bit TES game built around a better-honed 64-bit engine would be significantly better than what we've seen. It would have a lot of potential. And they could probably fix a lot of the problems with the engine. I mean... if they wanted to...Haaaa, yeah. They're a very ambitious bunch. So much so that they spend years honing all of these little things and packing-in all of these really grand ideas... ...at the expense of things that are fundamentally more important sometimes. And then after years of work, they finish two thirds of what they set out to... ...with not even enough time to take all of the scraps out of the game. Always has to be bigger... and have this... and that, and OOOO!!! OOOO!!! YES THIIISSS! SOO SWEET. Awww yeah this is gonna be epic!
It's always like "Okay onto the next thing!" before they even fully establish what they're already working on. For a group that puts out games so slowly, they move too fast. They can be so meticulous, and yet sometimes it's like they just don't think things through. They don't plan shit.
They basically operate like an ADHD college kid hopped up on too much amphetamine. Super passionate, super dedicated, but blissfully unaware of the limitations of reality... ...or what the paper they started yesterday morning was supposed to cover. It's now the length of a small book, nobody knows what it's trying to say, and it meets about half of the requirements for the assignment. But man, does it have everything. Just a glorious, meticulous, and painstakingly assembled smattering of THINGS and STUFF that are really, truly quite amazing... ...and will ultimately get a C+.
Like... just think about what Skyrim would've been like if they took all of that time and manpower that got poured into all the unfinished stuff left buried and devoted it to... anything else. Maybe the engine wouldn't be so bad or the game so bugged if they would stop writing checks their asses couldn't cash instead of spending time, people, and resources on trying to bring, to vivid, fully-realized life, every single interesting idea that somebody over there gets. ;)Nah, too many different models to generate with khajiits ranging in form and size from being housecat-like to sabercat-like, to skeletal/humanoid, to being more like mammoths. I would like to see more khajiit lore too though... ...or at least a greater presence. Maybe some khajiit weapons/armor.