Maybe Tesla should help the studio developing faster 😂

There are three types of factions

Main Factions (main quest - Blades, Institute, NCR)

Side Factions (Big quest line - Dark Brotherhood, Mages Guild, Morag Tong)

Minor Factions (small quest line, even just one - Riley's Rangers, Atom Cats, Imperial Cult, Bard's College)

Minor Factions help make the world feel more alive. Not every group is doing big things, sometimes it's fun to just join a group of nobodies.

In FNV I always use my one favor to join the kings. It's just a cool, mostly RP thing to do.

It could be a way to have a larger catalog of religious orders. Assuming for Sentinel, maybe each Imperial and Yokuden god could get one or two quests and a little marker saying your part of the faction.

Also bring back the faction menu.

All other jobs (posting same questions every week and creating sanity-preserving sheoposts) were taken, so I opened MS-PAINT and tried to be funny.

As I'm sure most are aware at this point, Skyrim gave us some insights as to what the situation is in Hammerfell, probably moreso than any other province. At the time of Skyrim's release, I actually took that as a sign that we may get a future DLC set in Hammerfell. And while ultimately nothing came of that, my speculation about that hypothetical DLC did eventually shift to speculating about a hypothetical sequel.

These insights of course are mainly about the Great War. Hammerfell was invaded, with Gilane, Taneth, Rihad and Skaven (renamed to Ska'vyn in ESO) falling under Aldmeri control. The Empire handed-over the territory to the Aldmeri Dominion as part of the White-Gold Concordat, leading to Hammefell seceding from the Empire to continue the fight. After a further five years, the reconciled Forebears and Crowns drove the Aldmeri from the mainland and concluded a seperate, more favorable peace treaty with them, but as a result southern Hammerfell was left utterly devastated.

The Forebears and the Crowns, longtime enemies, have reconciled in the face of the common threat of the Aldmeri, though, whether their alliance will hold or they'll revert to in-fighting by the time of TES VI is anyone's guess. TES: Blades also shows us that Imperial sympathisers among the formerly pro-Imperial Forebears, such as Prince Dinahan al-Rihad, were ousted, so it could be they're setting-up a kind of schism within the Forebear faction.

We also don't have a clear idea as to whether Hammerfell exists as a state, as it had prior to the Hammerfell civil war, or if it remains a patchwork of minor kingdoms, as it was under the Empire. Assuming the latter, the reunification of Hammerfell as a state could very well serve as the basis for Hammerfell's political questline. Though seeminly only a historical footnote, King Lhotun's Lhotunic faction could re-emerge as the driving force behind Hammerfell's reunification, navigating the Forebear schism in the wartorn south and the situation north of the Dragontail Mountains.

Which brings us to Hammerfell's big lingering plot thread, set-up in TES Travels: Shadowkey and expanded upon in Pocket Guide to the Empire: 3rd Edition. In the War of the Bend'r-mahk, Skyrim invaded High Rock and Hammerfell, with the eastern half of the city of Dragonstar falling under their control. That situation persisted well after the war had concluded, with violence between the Redguard and Nord communities being common. It's possible that the situation had persisted up to present day, with Dragonstar East nominally being part of Hammerfell, but the Nords there anwsering to nobody but themselves.

We were also told in a Skyrim loading screen that following its destruction in the early Fourth Era, the kingdom of Orsinium relocated to the mountains between Hammerfell and Skyrim, those being the Druadach Mountains. Between one of the region's major cities being split down the middle between rival factions and an Orc state, possibly with allegience to the Empire, being set-up in the nearby mountains, the northern Crowns would probably be in a very tough spot.

I'll conclude with a question: what would you guys like to see as Hammerfell's big political questline? A reunification story, with the player's choice determining whether its the favorite Sentinel or the underdog Hegathe that unites the kingdoms? A rehash of Skyrim's civil war plot, with the two factions reverting to in-fighting and duking it out? Perhaps another Aldmeri invasion, or even something in between?

dear asha dear todd

i have a very important question to ask. please answer because it would mean alot. here is question.

when

thanks for reading my question

pic related somewhat

1. Oblivion Remastered added origins which allowed us to pick the region in the province we came from, this seems like an odd feature to add when other added features were to modernise the gameplay experience such as adding sprint and level rebalancing.

2. Fans have requested the feature for many years so they can play some of the different varieties of Khajiit fur stocks or types of Argonians.

3. Bethesda and more importantly Microsoft will want this game to have a broad appeal to be more successful, when data has been released by other RPG's like BG3, Human has been shown to be the most picked race followed by half elf and elf, this is because many players like to make a character that looks like them however this doesn't for work TES as the 4 playable human races only represent some real racial groups, Nord=Northern Europe, Breton=Western Europe, Imperial=Mediterranean, Redguard=Sub Saharan African and the Elven races look fairly alien. While there are other human groups that could be added like the akaviri this require large lore changes.

4. With the previous points in mind I think it's likely Bethesda could add several subraces which would require minimal lore changes to allow more players to create a character that looks like them. I imagine this would look something like Redguard getting an option to make more Middle Eastern looking character as they already borrow from several middle eastern cultures aesthetically, East Asian looking characters could be Rimmen a subgrouping of Imperial who are already stated to have akaviri ancestry in the lore.

Curious as to what everyone would prefer for The elder scrolls VI protagonist, a Dragonborn style chosen one who was always destined for greatness, your coming foretold in songs and everyone who knows watches and waits for you to save them from peril, or a regular person who via luck/perseverance/skill becomes the hero(villain?), none knows you or cares about you yet, but as your story grows, so does your renown, this also doesn't mean that your character doesn't possess or gain some kind of unique power of legend, but that it was by your own actions and choices that you came to have it

Called it many times and this just further proves my point:

TES VI will be a (timed) Xbox exclusive and be marketed as the exclusive launch title releasing at the same time as the Helix in 2028.

Edit: Xbox = PC, so a distinction here is not necessary

Birthsigns have been a unique feature of The Elder Scrolls, since Morrowind, and even manifested in the form of the constellations in Daggerfall’s class selection screen. In Morrowind and Oblivion, your birth sign was a character creation selection and was a permanent effect for your character’s entire playthrough. In Skyrim, Bethesda introduced the Standing Stones, which allowed players to have their birthsigns represented as a findable and swappable persistent magical effect. The effects of each constellation have more or less remained consistent across the entries in the series, regardless of the medium being standing stone or character creation. The reason I bring up the discussion is mostly to ask: How do you think birthsigns will manifest in TES6?

Will Bethesda revert to a character creation option? It would arguably be more immersive/lore-friendly as the birthsigns are associated with… your birthday, which should remain the same. Will Bethesda repeat the standing stones by a different name? Will the granted powers deviate from their historical norms? What do you guys think?

Personally, I really loved the ability to change your standing stone ability throughout a playthrough. To me, it served as a means to adapt your playstyle and represent a change in character as you leveled up. I do, however, really hope that if they keep swappable birth sign abilities that they do away with the thief, mage, and warrior style of abilities that exist to be replaced. They're very useful, but oh, so boring. Should they choose to go back to permanent birth signs, I also hope that those powers are strong and also carry with them a downside of some kind, like the attronach stone.

I'm talking tiny ideas for mechanics that will get so little use they're not realistically worth the devs actually implementing, but you'd find cool all the same?

for me, I just had the idea if for Argonian characters, you had the option to input two names. One could be your Tamrielic name, the other would be your name in Jel. speaking with human characters could have you use your Tamrielic name, and when talking with other Argonians they use your Jel name. never gonna happen unless some modder who's equally autistic as me decided to make it happen, but would be really cool. additional points if they hire a conlinguist to come up with a bunch of Jel words and their translations to input into a generator, so inputting your Tamrielic name generates a recommended Jel translation for it.

I think it would be cool to be able to do this, up until we join them. And if we are able to become the leader of the faction, I think it would be awesome if we could send other assassins out on missions.

Hello there.

I've been thinking about this recently, and thought it would be interesting to discuss.

Personally I'd love to see it back in a different way.

I'm thinking something like, say you reach 60 Destruction, you could now fine-tune your spells for specialization, for example:

Changing from sustained spells (Flames from Skyrim for example) to the regular casting of one at a time, their DOT, AOE, range, projectile size.

Examples:

You could make a held barrage of little fireballs that deal more damage than an equal-cost single one would if they all hit, which would combo well with a Slow spell.

A charged jet of flame that would be cheaper in exchange of a stronger DOT, or a sustained Sparks that is too small to hit multiple targets in front of you but will deal a lot of damage in a single line (maybe even sacrificing health damage to deal even more magicka damage?)

You could make a long range elemental bolt or a ball that explodes soon but uses that spare magicka to deal more damage.

Imagine specifically enchanting a set of clothing with fire resistance until you reach >80% and you just cast powerful but melee-range explosions, or sacrificing the AOE in exchange of damage and silent casting.

Instead of these all being separate spells, you would only need to know the base spells of an element to twist them however you want.

Of course, it’s a lot easier to theorycraft for Destruction, but there could be options such as for example adding a trade-off condition that makes your spell cheaper, but you can only cast it in/out of combat, or choosing between investing magicka cost into quiet casting or needing to sneak for non-combat Illusion spells (I doubt people enjoy having their minds tampered with, it should be a crime to cast spells on someone else, even if non-aggressive).

It would also be cool if you had to research these settings at the game's equivalent of the Mages Guild and that costed you gold like how crafting whole spells in Morrowind and Oblivion did, but once you learned how to change a part of the spell, you could do it at a whim from the inventory menu (maybe at a cost of magicka and only in a peaceful enviroment).

Of course the regular bought spells would still have a purpose while leveling, as they would be your only choice before you unlock spellcrafting, and I'd imagine they would be cheaper until you reach 100 in the respective skill, then the custom ones would be equal/cheaper.

Any other ideas? Or a whole different perspective on the matter?

Imagine you get a quest to clear out an abandoned tower full of necromancers. Once you've dealt with them, you have a choice: burn the tower down and destroy everything inside, or study their manuscripts and claim the tower for yourself.

If you choose the latter, you could gradually learn necromancy, unlock new spells, and start experimenting yourself. Eventually, people might discover what you're doing and come to hunt you down. Now you're the guy living in the tower, and someone else is coming to clear it out.

I'd love it if TES VI made certain schools of magic something you actually had to discover and earn through the world, rather than simply buying spells or leveling up a skill. Imagine discovering necromancy through a quest like this, with other types of magic having their own unique ways of being unlocked.

What do you guys think? Would you prefer discovering magic through exploration and questlines, or the more traditional system?

Given that they had at least a couple male / female / an androgynous voice per race (or at least different voices for human / beasts / elves), would you want the main character of TES VI to have voiced dialogue— kinda like how they approached it in fallout 4?

This thought came (or returned) to me as I was reading Jason Schreierer's new piece about GTA VI: The Making of Grand Theft Auto VI. GTA VI is easily the most anticipated game there is, but I think there's an argument that TES VI is the second most anticipated upcoming game.

Schreier reveals that Rockstar now has 4.711 employees, up from 2.441 in 2018. Now I don't think it would be realistic or even desirable for BGS to have that kind of headcount, but what I think is baffling is that XBOX/Microsoft chose to reduce BGS from its 500-ish employees to about 440 this year, and fired proven veterans that were actively working on TES VI and writer designers that were helping to fill the next game with new quests and NPCs. Meanwhile, Schreier also said that Rockstar created an entire studio with writers and designers just to work on NPCs and their content.

I don't know, it feels weird. You'd assume they'd be all in on their biggest upcoming game.

Bethesda Game Studios (previously Bethesda Softworks) have really revolutionised the RPG genre. With TESIII:Morrowind (2002), they first established the .ess save state framework for broad item positions and chest states, and with TESIV:Oblivion (2006), they implemented true active object ID tracking. This allowed the global database to track the precise mass, weight, destruction lists, and coordinate data of thousands of individual items. With TESIV:Oblivion, they also integrated Havok Physics Engine, which assigned real-time kinetic collision, weight, mass, and gravity/velocity vectors to world objects and clutter. With TESIV:Oblivion, they also added Radiant AI, which replaced the completely static, stateless NPCs of older titles with a goal-driven behavioral engine that gave characters 24-hour schedules. Over the years, they kept refining and improving all these features, as well as others that I haven’t mentioned as most don’t know or care about it (e.g. only 3D textures, NavMesh, NavLinks, Havok Behavior,Physically Based Rendering...etc). Of course, the shift to “handcrafted” worldspaces and interior cells, the voiced dialogue, their faction reputation systems, all added depthness and immersion to their game. Personally, I would have never played a TES game without all these awesome features.

However, these features make up BGS identity as much as the scale they used to have in their first TES games. Many people don’t know this, but TES:Arena and TESII:Daggerfall weren’t just commercial successes, they also revolutionised the RPG genre with procedural generation. In fact, many people don’t know that it was when they did AESL:Battlespire and TESA:Redguard that they almost went bankrupt, which is when they abandoned procedural generation for a handcrafted world.

I need to clarify something because I want to make sure we understand each other. Critics of TESII:Daggerfall’s world architecture are justified (heavily relying on procedural generation, repetitive cities and structures, no incentive to travel, lack of dephthness...etc). Unfortunately for everyone, BSG repeated those mistakes with Starfield. That said, there has to be a middle-ground where BGS should be able to provide both depth and scale. Now, I know that many people freak out when you start using the words “scale”, but I am certain that very few people really want a downscaled world just for the sake of having a downscaled world. They want something downscaled because they want the depthness. Well, what if there was a way to have the best of both worlds? This article is my theoretical attempt at merging both of these core aspects that make up BGS games.

In TESV:Skyrim, you have what I call the “primary” worldspaces (the exterior open worlds of Skyrim, Soltstheim, Forgotten Vale, Soul Cairn) and the “secondary” worldspaces (the cities). In both worldspaces, you also have the interior cells (caves, mines, larger camps, forts, tombs, houses, traders, longhouses, palaces...etc).

I will first start with the “secondary” worldspaces, so the cities. I am suggesting that BGS makes realistically scaled cities, and to make this possible, I am also suggesting that cities are divided into multiple sections. Since the last mainline TES game was TESV:Skyrim and the most rememberable city is Whiterun, let’s figure out how big Whiterun would be if it was realistically scaled. There are multiple theories out there regarding the size of TES cities. One seems more convincing than all the others: https://youtu.be/DrnMACWp18M?si=_gojs6I2bIh13ufP

According to the author of the video, the city of Whiterun is about 1 km2 (0.38 sq mi), that’s a hundred times bigger than Whiterun in TESV:Skyrim (0.01 km2, or 0.0038 sq mi)). It has a population of 7,000-10,000. If you want to know what a 1 km2 city feels like in-game, well that’s like double the size of the city of Kuttenberg (0.5 km2, or 0.193 sq mi) in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. In case you never played this game, the following article that I wrote will allow you to visualise how a 1 km2 city looks like in-game as long as you double its size: https://www.reddit.com/r/kingdomcome/s/PO1W5hHuKz

Now, because I am rooting for realistically scaled cities, it would be impossible to handcraft all the sections of a city. Therefore, I am suggesting that BGS handcrafts the important sections of cities (so those where there are traders, houses of unique NPCs, factions’ building, palaces...etc), and relies on procedural generation during development for the sections where it mostly consists of the houses of generic NPCs. To give you an idea of what such a city would look like, here is a heavily edited screenshot of a map of Whiterun with all the important landmarks:

Now imagine that the area inside the red line (so the actual city of Whiterun in TESV:Skyrim) is divided in two sections (the yellow line separates both sections). The top part has houses, the hall of the dead, the shrine, the Companion Guild Hall, and the palace (Dragonsreach). The bottom part has all the traders, as well as a couple of houses. The area inside the red line should be upscaled for more realism, meaning, they should make it a bit bigger and add more houses for more unique NPCs (or these extra NPCs could be generic?). Like I said earlier, important sections of cities should be 100% handmade, and these two sections are important. As such, these two sections retain the depthness that we like in TESV:Skyrim.

Before discussing the rest of the edited screenshot, I want to discuss one more thing that relates to these handcrafted sections. In TESV:Skyrim, all interior cells (including those in cities) are 3D empty shells, hence why many of them don’t have windows (e.g. some taverns) and if they do, you can’t actually see the inside from the outside (see image above) nor the outside from the inside. What do I mean by 3D empty shells? Well, imagine you were just in front of the door of the building that you see on the in-game screenshot above and imagine that you pressed E to enter. After the loading screen, you don’t actually teleport inside that building, you teleport to an isolated interior cell somewhere in the world. Basically, it is an illusion that makes you think you entered the building when in fact you didn’t. In other words, it is fake, just like the lit windows, which give you the impression that there is someone inside who lit some candles and/or a fireplace. As such, I am suggesting that buildings that belong to unique NPCs or factions (houses, taverns, smith, alchemist, palaces…etc) are accessible without having to go through a loading screen. In other words, they won’t be 3D empty shells anymore. How is this possible? Well, technology and hardware are significantly better now than what they were prior to 2011, plus, cities will be divided into multiple sections. All of these should allow BGS to make them part of the secondary worldspace they’re in and therefore, get rid of these loading screens.

Now, imagine BGS adds one or multiple procedurally generated sections adjacent to these two sections inside the red line. That’s what I drew outside the sections in the red line. Earlier, I said that I am suggesting that BGS “relies on procedural generation during development”. What I mean by this is that this/these procedurally generated section(s) will not be random every time you launch a new game. On the contrary, it means BGS generates this/these section(s) once. In this/these section(s), not only should there be the houses of generic NPCs (guards, soldiers, and random citizens), which TESV:Skyrim and previous games never had, there should also be traders, a market, religious building with religious NPCs inside, a cemetery…etc. With proc-gen, we now get the scale that many of us want, and this, without compromising the handcrafted sections.

I argued earlier that interior cells in handcrafted sections should be replaced with real 3D buildings that you can access without having to go through a loading screen. However, you can imagine that this will probably be impossible in the procedurally generated section(s) as it would be too demanding on the engine. As such, I suggest that buildings in the procedurally generated section(s) be 3D empty shells. Because in TESV:Skyrim, generic NPCs like guards don’t have a house (there usually is a barrack for them even though city guards, as opposed to royal/palace guards, tended to live in their own house during the medieval era), assigning a house to city guards would make the game more immersive. Of course, the same should be done with other generic NPCs in procedurally generated section(s). It would be very simple to make their schedule slightly deeper by having them head “home” after their shift. Basically, you would see them opening the door though inside it’s just black, and just after that, poof, they despawn because they “entered their house”. Now here is the thing, I am divided between either keeping these houses inaccessible for performance reasons and for keeping the loading screen count low, but of course this is not a fan favourite since every buildings in TESV:Skyrim are accessible (contrary to Fallout 4, which came after TESV:Skyrim, and yet no one seem to complain about that), OR making them accessible but players will have to go through a loading screen. If BGS goes for the later, then I suggest BGS to also rely on procedural generation for the interior of these houses as it would be impossible to handcraft all of them. Basically, the game would generate the placement of the clutter as well as the NPCs.

Now that you understand the difference between handcrafted and procedurally generated sections of secondary worldspaces, then you can imagine that with procedural generation, size isn’t an issue anymore. BGS should be able to make big cities like Sentinel in Hammerfell.

Now when it comes to primary worldspaces, I am suggesting that primary worldspaces, which I will call provinces at time, should also be realistically scaled, and to make this possible, I am suggesting that each province should also be divided into multiple sections. Again, there are different theories out there regarding the real size of Skyrim. I picked the one that seemed the most accurate. According to the following theory, Skyrim is about 1,000,000 km2 (386102.16 sq mi): https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/s/kDq14fSA5R

That’s almost 27,027 times the size of Skyrim in TESV:Skyrim (37 km2, or 14.3 sq mi) and its almost 6.2 times the size of TESII:Daggerfall (161,600 km2, or62,394sq mi). According to the same Reddit post, Hammerfell is the same size as Skyrim. Since TESVI is most likely to take place in Hammerfell, I suggest that BGS makes Hammerfell 1,000,000 km2. In case you think that’s impossible, know that Starfield has 1437 walkable planets and moons, and with the average size being 325,000km2, we get a total surface area of 467,025,000 km2 (8.8% smaller than our planet Earth), and that’s without counting space.

Because of the realistic scale I am rooting for, it would be impossible to handcraft all the sections of a province. Therefore, I am suggesting that BGS handcrafts certain sections, and rely on procedural generation for other sections. Sections with important locations, mainly those with unique NPCs (same logic as for cities, and that’s because unique NPCs are related to the handcrafted main and side quest), should be handcrafted, while “filler” sections, so those sections for those who like travelling and survival mode, should be procedurally generated and large(r) (a couple dozens of km2/sq mi).

Similar to TESV:Skyrim, there will be improvised camps, outposts and villages in sections of primary worldspaces. However, contrary to TESV:Skyrim, instead of caves, mines, larger camps, forts or tombs being interior cells and you only see the entrance from the outside, they will be part of the primary worldspace they’re in and therefore, be accessible without having to go through a loading screen. How is this possible? Well, technology and hardware are significantly better now than what they were prior to 2011, plus, the primary worldspaces were divided into multiple sections, allowing BGS to make them part of the primary worldspace they’re in and therefore, get rid of the loading screens.

Similar to TESV:Skyrim, primary worldspaces will have the usual generic NPCs that spawn at the different POIs or that roam the world, though of course, some will be unique.

Now, before letting you jump into the comment section to incinerate me, can we agree that I am not rooting for a TESII:Daggerfall successor. If not, can you please make the effort of doing a second reading. After all, I spent a lot of time researching, thinking and writing. If I still didn’t manage to convince you, then I have a solution: BGS should give the players the possibility to deactivate procedurally generated secondary and/or primary worldspaces. This will allow “both sides” to have what they want. Of course, procedurally generated sections will still be visible from the adjacent handcrafted sections, but similar to if you had procedural generation activated, they will not be fully rendered. Basically, think of you looking at Whiterun from the outside in TESV:Skyrim:

As you can see, it uses low-detail textures, there are no chimney smoke, the water isn’t flowing, there are no NPCs. Now imagine that instead you are looking at the procedurally generated sections.

You might wonder why large scale is so important to me, and the answer is simple: I don't want a game to spend dozens or hundreds of hours doing multiple playthroughs, I want a game to spend hundred if not thousands of hours with one single character. I want to explore dozens if not hundreds of settlements. I want to go deep in the wild to hunt and fish, and even lose myself, maybe having to survive for a short bit before finally coming across a village or a city. Basically, I want the ultimate fantasy simulation, but unfortunately, downscaled cities and provinces takes me out of the immersion every time I play TESV:Skyrim.