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Geoff Speare
United States
Bedford
Massachusetts
tee hee, that tickles!!!
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So, Skyrim is going to be good, and almost certainly great. However, there are some things from previous Elder Scrolls games that it could do to improve on.
1) Level Scaling. Oblivion was really not good at this -- as you got more powerful, so did the bad guys. Depending on what skills you leveled, the bad guys might even get powerful faster!
Oblivion tried to make it so you can go anywhere at any time. Games like this shouldn't work that way. There should be more dangerous and less dangerous areas. Morrowind did this (with level scaling mixed in more subtly). Hopefully Skyrim goes back in this direction.
2) Leveling. In Oblivion, you only leveled up if your chosen skills improved. You could stay level 1 the whole game by playing "against class". This did not make a lot of sense. From what I've heard they have changed this so that you level based on whatever skills you improve.
3) Dungeon Architecture. Oblivion had a ton of dungeons, but they all followed a few patterns using a small number of pre-made pieces. It didn't take long to learn those pieces, and then the dungeons mostly looked the same.
4) Back up and Shoot. I saw a preview that pointed out that "run backward and shoot" was a key strategy in Elder Scrolls games. I certainly did a lot of it! The preview mentioned that they had done something to make that harder, but I don't know what it is.
5) Jump up and Down to Level. Your skills in Oblivion increased through use, which makes sense. However, since there was no context to how/when you used them, you could level by using them constantly in irrelevant ways (like jumping constantly while you ran). What bugged me in particular was that casting tiny little spells constantly counted more than casting big spells once in a while.
I'm guessing they can't totally fix this, but they should be able to do something to make it better.
6) Seamless Town/World Interface. I understand why Oblivion towns had to load and exist separately, but it was a sacrifice that made the world less fun. Hopefully this is not the case in Skyrim.
7) Bring Flight Back!. In Morrowind you could (if you tried hard enough) fly. I have fond memories of making aerial assaults on some of the buildings in the main plotline. Oblivion removed this (I think mainly because of how the towns were separate zones). Skyrim has flying dragons...I want to be up there too!
8) Better AI. Bethesda talked up their AI prior to Oblivion, but it really was nothing special. People did move around, and once or twice I met someone who had wandered really far from their town, but for the most part it had no effect on gameplay.
All this said...I'm ready to spend a LOT of time playing this game. One more week!
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