User blog comment:Zelron/Helgen Hometown (Dragons bring down my property values!)/@comment-5790858-20121129042643

I've thought of this quite a bit myself, but just being the Thane of Falkreath wouldn't really make you worthy of building your own whole town, especially one that will potentially be much more powerful. Think about it, any low life idiot with an axe can do some odd jobs and fetch the Jarl some mead, but can he build a town? However, a decorated war hero who helped end the Civil War would be much more worthy of building such a town. Whether it's General Tulius, or Ulfric Stormcloak who is left at the end, you're on amazing terms with them. They'd surely be willing to give consent to have you build the town, and they could even help fortify it once you've proven it can be done.

This would also add much more meaning to the war, considering as is nothing seems to change much other after completing it. For the Dragonborn, Helgen is where you meet the two sides of the conflict, and usually choose your alliance, so to be able to go back and rebuild it afterwards would provide so much more depth to the concept. Plus, it'd make choosing the captain of your Guard a very simple choice, either Hadvar or Ralof. This ould also eliminate the hassel of raising enough money to fund guards, as the government would provide you with these to insure the safety of their newfound/regained foothold by the border to Cyrodil. Whether Stormcloak or Imperial, Helgen is a must have position whether for defense or supply point. Having to complete the war first would make rebuiling Helgen fit cleanly into the story, and make it something that will take time and dedication, but not too taxing on your RL time, and will eliminate possibly dealing with the insufferable possible Jarls of Falkreath.

A concept I particularly liked was your idea of choosing residents. Would you choose to go along with the racism of Skyrim and shun the Argonians and Khajit, or would you allow them to live inside with the risk of detering some Nords from wanting to move in? Working out an arrangment with the Khajit caravans to set up shop in the nice warm walls of Helgen could have a lot of potential pros and cons.

This is getting pretty long, but another few ideas:

Choosing whether or not to have Thalmor presence in your town should you side with the Empire. While this would possible get in the way of a future DLC possibly dealing with them, it's still an intersting idea.

Laws: Would you like to outlaw certain things in your city? Have a strict no weapon policy, no Black Briar Mead sold within the city? No Talos worship? Tolerance of Deadra worhip? No magic allowed to be pracited? Corrupt Guards, courtesy of the Silver Blood or Black Briar families?

I think that Bethesda could look to The Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion to get a few ideas, while you weren't really in control, you did feel like you were somewhat in charge.