Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-96.252.245.207-20130116060134/@comment-24696651-20150330153018

As regards to the post above me (I won't quote it as it's too long for that), I don't believe that the city building thing would work well in TES. It's a role-playing game, not some sort of strategy affair. If Bethesda tried to implement this, it would either take time and resources from the rest of the game, or it would end up being like the villa in AC 2 - something you didn't particularly care about but hey, that money had to go somewhere, right?

Having a map three times the size of Skyrim would be nice, but even if we did have a map that big, it would be better if it was in just one province. It annoys me greatly when cities only have twenty or thirty people in, or when after five minutes' riding I can pass through a hold. I'd rather they expanded one province and flesh it out more; that way, they could have cities of a hundred people, or make each geographical region a world unto its own. An individual province has enough variation to make it an interesting place. For instance, in Elsweyr, there's the desert in the north, the forests in the west, the swamp near the trans-Niben, and the rainforest and jungle in the south. Assuming Bethesda's world designers get it right (and the swamp doesn't end up like Leyawiin, which seemed identical to the rest of Cyrodiil), it could make for an interesting experience when each of these regions is nearly the size of Skyrim.

The main problem with the story, I think, is that it's not so much a story as a series of challenges you are presented with on your road to dominance. If you can find a way to intergrate story into this, then it could make for a great experience, but right now, when Bethesda doesn't do more than give you a few binary choices in the storylines, I think that would be beyond the scope of this game. I'd personally appreciate it if we're given a few story trees in some of the longer questlines, and maybe expand the impact of those questlines beyond a few dialogue options.

The underlying problem with this idea is that it simply isn't an Elder Scrolls game. Bethesda would be at a loss to provide it, and most people play an Elder Scrolls game for discovery and exploration. You're idea for a main quest provides none of those - you simply remain in your chosen spot and make it better, until the game decides you've made that chosen spot good enough for you to continue to the next stage. You can still move out of your chosen spot, I admit, but half of the purpose of the quests is to make you explore the land, and the way you've framed things, exploring the land is a challenge in of itself. Exploration shouldn't be a challenge: the things you encounter should be.

Just my two cents (or pence, I suppose, being British). This being such a long post, I suppose you deserve some sort of special prize if you got this far. The idea could make for a great RP (although that's based on the people playing as much as anything else), but as an Elder Scrolls game, it's too radical a redesign to work.