New Elder Scrolls?

[Steve Waltz]

I'm betting that we'll see Fallout 4 AND another Elder Scrolls game before we see Half-Life 3.

I?m betting that we?ll see the second coming of Jesus Christ before before we see Half-Life 3.

Bethesda Game Studios doesn't do bug testing, that is the job of Bethesda Softworks, the publishing company.

Bwthesda Softworks does all the bug testing for games made by Bethesda Game Studios, Id, Arkane, Machine Games, Zenimax Online, and Tango Gameworks.

Then they fail at their job in every way. Or should I say, the publisher's want to push the game out before the bugs are for the most part patched out shows how messed up it is. Now I understand not getting every possible bug, but the games have had so many making them unplayable that it's rather pathetic.

Well, Softworks finds the bugs, but it?s Game Studios that is supposed to fix them. If you find a bug in a game after the release, it?s more than likely that Bethesda Softworks already found the bug and already put it in the bug database. Again, these guys do nothing but comb through the game ALL DAY to find these things, so you?d better believe that they?d find it before you would. The problem still lies with Bethesda Game Studios and fixing the bug. The thing is that it might have been too complex, or there?s not enough time to fix by the release date, or it?s one of those annoying ?Seen once? bugs and it incredibly difficult to reproduce, so they left the bug in the game without fixing it and they?ll start working on fixing the bug after the game?s release when they have more hands.

So, the blame on whether a bug is in a game is situational. If the bug wasn?t found by Softworks, than it?s their fault for not finding it. But, if Softworks found it and put it in the database, than it?s Bethesda Game Studio?s fault for not fixing it. Removing bugs from a video game is a shared effort.

 

[Recusant]

The games will likely make huge time lapses again and again, keeping players less involved in the overarching history or Tamriel, and putting me off.

I'm a little confused here- what are you basing this off of? Granted, the time jump was unprecedented in the mainline series so far, but that doesn't necessarily indicate a larger trend. I'd never heard before that Oblivion was supposed to end the series, though it doesn't in the least surprise me (do you have an official cite, though?), given what it was supposed to do (and didn't); sealing off Nirn from Oblivion would've fundamentally changed the world by eliminating daedric interaction altogether and wiping out one of the lore's unique elements. One extinguished bloodline and a succession (and secession) crisis hardly warrants declaring the end of an Era, however, so more drastic changes had to be made. Thus the leaps that contradicted standing lore and pulled new elements out of nowhere- and here's where I find the problem with your analysis.

Basing it off of solely Oblivion and Skyrim is a mistake. Even ignoring the spinoffs, that's two out of five games- less than half. As a full series veteran, I can tell you that we have seen nine of the nine provinces in full (as I noted in an above post, check out Arena- it's free!), though not in the great detail each could achieve if focused on. Arena set the stage AND the rules of how the world works; an easy way to change them, and not creatively stifle yourself and your successors, is to shake up the political landscape by leaping ahead two hundred years. It's enough time to make some big changes without losing all the background that's been established. Two hundred years can see ancient ruins discovered, cities destroyed and new ones built, nations and dynasties rising and falling, new and old threats emerging... the list goes on and on. Though I often found myself disappointed with what we got- Dragons! (no, not the Daggerfall ones. No, not the Tsaesci. No, not the sea serpents) and elf Nazis! (Seriously, look at their outfits)- but a radical shifting of the framework was necessary to avoid stagnation- especially if, as you suggest, the series was meant to conclude with Oblivion.

This is especially true when you consider how much can now be done to explore previously untouched regions of the world: we've never seen Akavir, Pyandonea, Atmora, Thras, or what's left of Yokuda. Who's to say what's been happening there in this time frame? As Morrowind brought us a lore-shift from Lefay to Kirkbride, so Skyrim brought one from him to, well, whoever's doing it now. I think you're being a little overbleak.

 

[SmugFrog]

I?m betting that we?ll see the second coming of Jesus Christ before before we see Half-Life 3.

That made my day and I laughed out loud. Then I realized it's probably true.

 

[Prince of Ales]

It says right at the start:

Argonia was announced back in September this year at EGX 2014.

Only the thing is, no it wasn't. That's the really weird thing about the article. It's not written like a hoax claiming to have super secret leaked info. It's written like it's just reiterating common knowledge, only the things it's stating are obviously wrong.

 

[Fappy]

I'm skeptical. For one, I really don't see Black Marsh as being the next featured province. I really don't think the technology is there to properly do it justice in the traditional open-world TES sense. I could be wrong though. Who knows how they've improved their engine since Skyrim...

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Awww, not Elsewyr? That's disappointing. PLease at least give us possible Kahjiit Love interests this time guys! I like playing Kahjiits and it's kinda jarring that I can't hook up with one.

Well, hopefully we get another neat mechanic like the Shouts of Skyrim incorporated in its place. Because the shouts were super fun to find and use and it really livened up the combat.

Color me reasonably interested, although I'm likely to wait a year after release to get it, so that most of the big bugs are patched out and I'll have a computer that can run the damn thing.

 

[OhNoYouDidnt]

Personely I am hoping for Elsweyr or Hammerfell since those regions sound more interesting to me. I think the next Elder Scrolls will use Hammerfell as a setting since Blackmarsh and Elsweyr are probably a bit to weird to sell to a large audiance.

As Recusant noted, you are in luck: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall takes place in Hammerfall and High Rock, and it is available for free. Why not give it a bash?

 

[newwiseman]

2016 sounds good, Skyrim came out at the end of 2011. But that would have to mean Fallout 4 for 2014-15, and that could be possible if they're already far along development. I wont hold my breath but those have been my favorite series for a significant portion of my life.

Captcha: rocky mountain king

No captcha, no one wants a Fallout Denver...

 

[Yuiiut]

Ooooh, High Rock would be fun to visit-if I remember correctly, it's gothic-inspired villages surrounded by werewolves, vampires etc. Then they've got the whole blood-twin thing going on? It would be fun and interesting to explore some of the more esoteric sides of the lore, like in Morrowind with CHIM. Of course, I'm still holding out for a non-human-dominated region, but if it has to be human, Breton's are the most 'non-generic'. Hammerfall would be ok, I guess, but what makes Elder Scrolls is the weird lore, of which the redguards only have the whole 'atlantis' thing going for them.

My favourite location would be black marsh or elsenor though.
Thanks for the lore update/correction btw

I have great news for you: High Rock and (part of) Hammerfall are visitable- in Daggerfall, which Bethesda is still distributing, free, on their website at http://www.elderscrolls.com/daggerfall/ Give it a whirl; it's a blast. Still my favorite in the series. A working 3D map (the fact that no one else has done this since makes me despair for the industry), a stupidly in-depth character customization system (want to make a class whose primary and secondary skills are all languages? Go for it!), a map 3.5 times the size of the UK (I'm pretty one of the dungeons (if you've played it, you know which one I mean) was larger than the entire overworld map of Oblivion), and all the bugs and weirdness you expect from an Elder Scrolls game (walk into a shop, loiter around until it closes, then just take everything off the shelves, turn around, and sell it back to the merchant)- and it's free! Even if you don't download it, pause a moment and appreciate just how much of game it was, that the largest installation size was four hundred fifty megabytes- in 1996. I'd say I have even better news for you, in that not only do you not have to wait to visit Elsinore, you can do so in real life, since it's not in Tamriel but Denmark, but I suspect you may have meant Elesweyr.

This announcement is pretty clearly fake. A pity; Argonia would be an interesting place to visit- or rather, revisit; you can go there in Arena, also available for free on Bethesda's website. Check them out.

Sadly, my Mac will not let me give it a go-it does sound fun. I do try to not be overly concerned about graphics (I'll happily play Morrowind and Rome: Total War, for example), but some of the screenshots from daggerfall appear just slightly to antiquated for my tastes.
Thanks for the spelling correction btw .

 

[Recusant]

Sadly, my Mac will not let me give it a go-it does sound fun. I do try to not be overly concerned about graphics (I'll happily play Morrowind and Rome: Total War, for example), but some of the screenshots from daggerfall appear just slightly to antiquated for my tastes.

They run through Dosbox; isn't that Mac compatible? I could've sworn I've run it on a Mac before.

And yes, they are old. The graphics are old. But you don't play an Elder Scrolls gave for the visuals, you play it to mess around in a crazily open world; to climb a sheer building face and snipe down at the townsfolk until the number of spawned bowless guards crashes the game (all together now: 'HALTHALTHALTHALTALTALTALTLTLTLT- OUT OF MEMORY'); to strip down to a red cloak and pointy hat, cast levitate on your horse and cart, and fly through the city, leaving piles of items on rooftops as the Naked Santa Claus of Ripmarket; to be a walking armory capable of battling a dozen daedra lords at once and still jumping at the roar of a slaughterfish because they're just that creepy. Let the game absorb you, and the graphics'll cease to matter.

 

[sc1arr1]

I'm almost positive that same image popped up for a hoax around a year ago. I'm also fairly certain we'll get Fallout 4 before we get another Elder Scrolls installment.