Forums » Elder Scrolls

What if: ES6 is procedurally generated?

    • 558 posts
    April 14, 2018 11:34 PM EDT

    How would you feel if they made Elder Scrolls VI a (mostly) procedurally generated game like Arena and Daggerfall? Would you be dissapointed at not having hand-crafted environments, or would you like the variety that you would get on different playthroughs? 

    I would actually like it, myself. Going back into Skyrim doesn't seem that appealing to me, but, for example, a procedurally generated Skyrim might. It would also increase the scale of the game, which, in the case of TES, is probably a plus.

    What are your thoughts on a procedurally generated ES6?


    This post was edited by Gollum at April 14, 2018 11:39 PM EDT
    • 261 posts
    April 14, 2018 11:47 PM EDT

    I was thinking of this just the other day: what if they remade TES: Arena with procedural content? To quote my older post: Imagine if Bethesda remade Arena, complete with procedurally generated landscapes, quests, towns, etc. But with modern lore, graphics, monsters, and other stuff. I would play that until the end of time!

    • 558 posts
    April 14, 2018 11:51 PM EDT
    Totally. A modern PG TES sounds like it has a lot of potential.
    • 1467 posts
    April 14, 2018 11:54 PM EDT

    You know it'd be quite interesting to have the procedurally generated world be an actual gameplay element. Like the world constantly shifting is an actual part of the game and world because of [BLAH BLAH BLAH]. It'd make for a really interesting mechanic in my opinion. Does that make sense? Not sure if I'm explaining myself well there. 

    • 261 posts
    April 14, 2018 11:56 PM EDT

    Dragonborn1921 said:

    You know it'd be quite interesting to have the procedurally generated world be an actual gameplay element. Like the world constantly shifting is an actual part of the game and world because of [BLAH BLAH BLAH]. It'd make for a really interesting mechanic in my opinion. Does that make sense? Not sure if I'm explaining myself well there. 

     

    When in doubt, blame Akatosh screwing up.

    • 1467 posts
    April 14, 2018 11:56 PM EDT

    I was thinking of this just the other day: what if they remade TES: Arena with procedural content? To quote my older post: Imagine if Bethesda remade Arena, complete with procedurally generated landscapes, quests, towns, etc. But with modern lore, graphics, monsters, and other stuff. I would play that until the end of time!

    I'd love to play Arena, I'd even be able to live with Morrowind level graphics if that's what it took to remake the game. Unfortunately, it's just too old for me to deal with these days, might be different if I'd played it when I was younger, but yeah, would definitely need a remake before I played it.

    • 275 posts
    April 15, 2018 3:06 AM EDT

    I hope not. I pride myself on being able to traverse Skyrim without a map by telling where I am using secondary locations or natural formations.

    • 278 posts
    April 15, 2018 5:30 AM EDT

    Yeah, I feel a lot of the love for TES is in the meticulously handcrafted open worlds. If they swapped that out, especially after the last procedurally generated fiasco - oh, No Man's Sky, you had potential - it would lose a lot of sou. While it is true a larger style world would be awesome, I feel this sort of thing is best shown off in Camelwork's Curating Curious Curiosities videos; there are so many perfectly handcrafted little scenes and scenarios that might be lost in procedural generation. It could be cool, as Deebs said, with a mechanic around procedural generation - maybe a Daedric Realm? But if I'm being honest, procedural generation hasn't been done right since Minecraft. I mean, Daggerfall's map took real life months to cross; people can't devote that amount of time to games, especially people with jobs. Thank god I don't have one of those yet :D Either way, my answer is no; stick to your ideas, it's worked so far, and from what we've seen, in a market ripe for DLC, why would you even buy it if the DLC location might procedurally generate itself for you? I'm against it, but we don't know what Godd Howard thinks. Either way, we shouldn't hope to see TES 6 for quite some time, definitely not at this E3. 

    A second thought; maybe, if it was Hammerfell, we could see the Alik'r shift within a certain radius, like the sands are changing? That could be cool. 

    • 50 posts
    April 15, 2018 9:07 AM EDT

    Wulfhedinn said:

    Yeah, I feel a lot of the love for TES is in the meticulously handcrafted open worlds. If they swapped that out, especially after the last procedurally generated fiasco - oh, No Man's Sky, you had potential - it would lose a lot of sou. While it is true a larger style world would be awesome, I feel this sort of thing is best shown off in Camelwork's Curating Curious Curiosities videos; there are so many perfectly handcrafted little scenes and scenarios that might be lost in procedural generation. It could be cool, as Deebs said, with a mechanic around procedural generation - maybe a Daedric Realm? But if I'm being honest, procedural generation hasn't been done right since Minecraft. I mean, Daggerfall's map took real life months to cross; people can't devote that amount of time to games, especially people with jobs. Thank god I don't have one of those yet :D Either way, my answer is no; stick to your ideas, it's worked so far, and from what we've seen, in a market ripe for DLC, why would you even buy it if the DLC location might procedurally generate itself for you? I'm against it, but we don't know what Godd Howard thinks. Either way, we shouldn't hope to see TES 6 for quite some time, definitely not at this E3. 

    A second thought; maybe, if it was Hammerfell, we could see the Alik'r shift within a certain radius, like the sands are changing? That could be cool. 

     

    Yeah whilst I think it could work at least if part of the game were procedurally generated (maybe dungeons / caves etc) I wouldn't like it if it was like Daggerfall where the whole thing was procedurally generated. One of the drawbacks to Skyrim and especially Oblivion was that the dungeons and caves where too 'samey' and lots of content was re-used. Also I agree - it would make the game too long most do not have the time to invest in such a game as I work and have other commitments. I just would never finish it and I would probably loose interest fast. 200 hours is the most I've spent in a single player offline RPG although I'd hate to think how much I've spent in ESO.

     

     


    This post was edited by Teekus at April 15, 2018 9:09 AM EDT
    • 70 posts
    April 15, 2018 11:32 AM EDT

     If anything i would want it so that you have the choice when you make a character for a Handcrafted world like skyrim or a randomly generated world.

    I would also like to control the level of Randomness with a menu at the start of a game, if you want Random npcs in towns Random Dungeons and so on ^^ 

    Imagine you would get a seed for the Map giving you the option to play multiple Characters in the same "Universe", so you could find youre old characters from already finished playthroughs on the same seed living just enjoying theyre retirement in this world :D would be great for connected characters. 

    Or doing challenges with a friend both use the same seed, now who finishes the Mages Guild first? :D


    This post was edited by Vezrabuto at April 15, 2018 11:40 AM EDT
    • 558 posts
    April 15, 2018 12:04 PM EDT

    Dragonborn1921 said:

    You know it'd be quite interesting to have the procedurally generated world be an actual gameplay element. Like the world constantly shifting is an actual part of the game and world because of [BLAH BLAH BLAH]. It'd make for a really interesting mechanic in my opinion. Does that make sense? Not sure if I'm explaining myself well there. 

    Yes, Vaermina's realm, Quagmire, is a perfect fit for procedural generation. I actually doubt that Quagmire would be possible without it.

    • 558 posts
    April 15, 2018 12:05 PM EDT

    Vezrabuto said:

     Imagine you would get a seed for the Map giving you the option to play multiple Characters in the same "Universe", so you could find youre old characters from already finished playthroughs on the same seed living just enjoying theyre retirement in this world :D would be great for connected characters. 

    Or doing challenges with a friend both use the same seed, now who finishes the Mages Guild first? :D

    That is pretty interesting. It would be a cool addition, even it it isn't what I had in mind, personally.

    • 62 posts
    April 15, 2018 10:15 PM EDT

    Dragonborn1921 said:

    You know it'd be quite interesting to have the procedurally generated world be an actual gameplay element. Like the world constantly shifting is an actual part of the game and world because of [BLAH BLAH BLAH]. It'd make for a really interesting mechanic in my opinion. Does that make sense? Not sure if I'm explaining myself well there. 

     

    Honestly, that would be the most interesting way to go about it. I seriously doubt they'd undo several games worth of worldbuilding and established lore/geology for nostalgic gimmick, and frankly I wouldn't want them to. Especially since, even with the current technology, they would either have to limit the diversity of landscape to the point of it seeming boring and repetitive despite it being "different every time!" (like No Man's Sky) or there'd be a level of potential patchworky weirdness to it that would probably kill the emersion (a la Minecraft).

     

    That being said, if for some fantastic reason the next game took place largely in a place that's supposed to be an intriguing patchwork of ever changing landscape like the Myriad Realms of Revelry or Quagmire...then it would be a really interesting take on how they're described in the lore. I'd hardly get excited over slightly different shaped hills on my second playthrough and definitely wouldn't prefer it over established topography, but if there was a bunch of variety and weird shit happened like there being lava flowing down icebergs and shit, then I'd love to see that happen in some of the kookier pockets of Oblivion.

    • 743 posts
    April 19, 2018 11:59 AM EDT

    I hope not, the handcrafted worlds are what make TES so immersive. Can you imagine going through Cyyrodiil in Oblivion, only to get lost looking for the Imperial City? I don't want Minecraft in my Elder Scrolls 6, lol. 

    • 558 posts
    April 19, 2018 2:24 PM EDT
    I'm going to play Arena again and see how I feel about the PG. It was pretty impersonal and uninteresting, but it had so much potential. They could add more real NPC's, NPC's with memory, more real locations, better wilderness.

    Apparently Daggerfall uses PG well, but I never get past the tutorial level, so I wouldn't know.

    I do like the idea of adding a PG Quagmire in ES6, if nothing else.
    • 558 posts
    April 20, 2018 10:58 AM EDT
    I tried to play Arena again. Those graphic are terrible. I had to turn it off because of the headache. It isn't too bad in a dungeon, but above ground it is horrendous.