Elder Scrolls General Discussion & Speculation

I think that's a cool idea with the character romances being tied to one per guild. Preferably one each of both genders per guild. And if the Companions are there, even Nick would get another werewolf boyfriend! I'd be interested in what they've got for mage, bard, thieves and the Dark Brotherhood.

I'm iffy on expanding the home base/crafting thing, because I didn't really love that aspect of Fallout 4. I was annoyed how it ate up a lot of the DLC, pretty much. The DLC for Fallout 4 was a big step down from past games, imo. Maybe it's just me. I felt like the settlement building was a little ambitious and ate up resources that could have been used for making new places, etc. But the Hearthfire houses, the size that they were, I think were good.

I think it would be cool, but at the same time, I remember Fable died right after the decided to do that. lol And now Reaver will never love me, which is a real bummer. I guess they could always just go back in time if it doesn't work out.

Technology in the Elder Scrolls has always been magical, but people have been going backwards, to put it simply Nirn has been devolving. 
The Dwemer simply out of hubris went another route, and look at where they all ended up! They ended up getting turned into the "divine skin" of the Numidium!
I...might be a tad of an expert when it comes to the elder scrolls lore.

It's just how it is! It's why the Thalmor want to undo Mundus to gain back their immortality. The deeper you go into the elder scrolls lore the more insane things become. 

And no, no cavemen The races basically just "Popped" out, some took longer of course but there was never a "caveman" phase. 

My main character is Calowen Bright-hair; he's a wood elf in the game, but of course I had to Marty Stu the hell out of him, and it's actually revealed that he's (spoiler if you want to read my multi-chapter fic about him and the Thieves Guild; I know, self-plug, lame-o, but it's kind of a big spoiler if any poor soul actually DOES decide to read it)
. He isn't the Dragonborn; in fact, I always headcanon that my character is not the Dragonborn because I think that storyline is stupid, although tbh I've never even finished it

Anyway, Cal's about 28 year's old and roamed Skyrim with his mother until she settled down with his step-father, a Nord, in Winterhold. Both she and his step-father died when he was about 12, so he had to grow up pretty fast. He makes his living as a thief, and the fact that he's a fucking amazing archer doesn't hurt, either. He has incredibly good luck, considering how foolhardy he can be (a fact he freely acknowledges, but I think he also likes to boast about it), and has come close to dying more than once, but somehow he always manages to survive. He enjoys the challenge more than the reward, so that thieving is almost more of a hobby than a means to an end. He's incredibly friendly, leaves a string of broken hearts in his wake (that might be a slight embellishment on his part), but has only been in love once (not that he can easily admit it; in fact, he won't). 

Past lover is Ulfric Stormcloak, High King of Skyrim (there's a history there, good luck getting him to talk about it). Spoiler alert though, he later meets Brynjolf, the leader of the Thieves Guild, and the rest is history His best friend is Vex, who started off hating him and claims to still hate him because she's Vex. He's also close friends with Sapphire and Niruin.

Here's the little nerd himself though I'm sure I've shared it a million times

Well to answer the rest, my favorite romances so far are Ulfric, Brynjolf, and Ahtar. Yeah, all modded, sorry. I did marry Vilkas my first playthrough, and he was pretty sweet. I think I'm drawn to the leaders (I'm a bit turned off that Brynjolf says he doesn't want to become the leader of the Guild; I think that's bullshit and only written that way so that the player can become Guild Leader instead; it's clearly written all over Brynjolf's personality and bearing that he's the de facto leader). Being a leader makes them very plot-important, and I think that helps spark my interest. And I have to be honest, the fact that Ulfric and Brynjolf have unique voices amidst a sea of reused voices really helps them to stand out. Plus both are about as attractive as a male character can get in vanilla Skyrim. I don't need my LIs to be attractive, but it helps if they don't look like they've been slapped repeatedly with the ugly stick.

Going forward, I hope TES learns from this and creates more characters with unique voices, especially romance options. Half the Thieves Guild have unique voices, and hence unique personalities, yet none of them is romanceable. That's a bit ridiculous. I also think we need a khajiit lover as an option.

What they should keep from Skyrim: the music, the atmosphere, the gorgeous scenery, the archery, the crafting (though this could be improved). What they should change: Most other classes (I can't bear playing anything but archer, and I've tried; it's too clunky and blah), the romance stuff I mentioned, the overall writing of the main quest, although I'm perfectly fine just playing in Skyrim's world; I don't need a main quest at all. 

They do need to take a look at what mods are most popular. I know they like to say they offer a "unique spin" on traditional fantasy races, but let's face it, NO ONE likes playing as a butt ugly son of a bitch lmao  I think they already tried to improve appearance in TES Online, but I haven't played it. Also more variety; I love mods that add sheep, chickens, goats, pigs, etc. as well as many different coat patterns for horses, saddle types, more armor/clothing, etc. Usually I roll my eyes at fanboys screaming "IMMERSION!!!" but it really is important for a game like Skyrim. I would also like to see a little more variety in terms of interiors of inns, shops, etc.

So long as TES remains open to modders, though, I think the experience will always be a good one. Fuck BioWare, seriously. Bethesda's really cool to modders, gotta give credit where credit is due.

Some of my favorite mods: Ethereal Elven Overhaul, Posh Ponies, Convenient Horses, Sounds of Skyrim, The "Sexy" Town series (texture upgrade of cities), My Home Is Your Home, Friendly Brynjolf (marriage mod), Obedient Ulfric (ditto), Ahtar The Executioner (double ditto), Bigger Trees (I won't list all my environment mods, there are too many, but I love Bigger Trees), Alternate Start (great if you don't like being the Dragonborn), Hair mods: ApacchiSkyHair, KS Hairdos, Superior Lore Friendly Hair, Better Males, Fine Face Texture for Men, Human Eyes for Elves (you'd think this comes with EEO but it doesn't), High Quality Eyes, Xenius Character Enhancement (WARNING: I think this is the one that changes the look of many major NPCs, usually for the better, but it might beautify men you prefer to be rugged), Better Females by Bella, Quality World Map, and geez I'll stop there!

I'm hoping they don't go the settlement-building simulator route of FO4. I want focus put on questlines and the worldbuilding of the setting, not "Let's see if I can have a better house than the adventurer next door!"

Also, give us an Argonian wife option. In general, I would be up for the whole "less marriage options but more content for each of them." I also feel that way for followers, though I think it could get away with having more follower options than FO4 due to the bigger size of the sandbox. So instead of the tons and tons of Skyrim followers there were, there could be around 15-16 options, with most of the marriage options being among that group plus w/e non-follower marriage options they want to add for RP's sake but even they shouldn't just be random people in the world but rather important quest-giving characters with their own story. And if people want to marry a random nobody so bad, they can just make a mod for it.
Then, of course, DLC content can add to whatever stuff there is for the followers. Hopefully, though, if they want to imitate Bioware, they won't do a cruddy job of it or sacrifice the freedom you get from a game like Skyrim.

In terms of the setting, I want something more interesting than Skyrim. I want to go to a country with weirder shit going on! Maybe where the Bosmer are from since they're often cannibals. Alternatively, we can go to Elsweyr and party with the cats!

Maybe, if we go to Valenwood, the followers can be something like this:
female Bosmer necromancer (since we know necromancy is frowned upon there )
male Bosmer warrior-type
maybe another Bosmer because it's Valenwood so there's gonna be a lot
A Hollow follower
female Imperial knight/warrior
male Khajiit archer/rogue type
female Khajiit bard (except not annoying like a certain Skyrim bard follower )
a couple Altmer due to the expansion of the Aldmeri Dominion into Valenwood
male Redguard (Alteration) mage
female Argonian warrior-type
male or female Orc nightblade
male Dunmer thief-type
another mage
pet/animal follower (please?)

Also, it'd be cool if there were some rare occasions where some of these characters could interact, just to show they know of eachother and have a dynamic. Like in FO4 kinda. Bonus points if there's a lot of cute interaction with the pet/animal follower. In general, more dialogue from followers beyond taking orders, battle-cries, and the occasional commentary on-the-go.
And if your PC is married/in a relationship, I think your follower should have a point in the plot where they're like, reacting to that because your character basically has a life, a family, and they're putting all that on the line to go on this whole quest to defeat the whatever. They don't have to talk about the spouse specifically, just reference the fact that the PC has a life to go back to and might leave some family grieving.

I really wanted an orc husbando but they were all too "small name" for me; I gotta have that plot important husbando. Man I was so in love with that orc with the bad attitude from the Dawnguard DLC. Take me, angry orc dude!

I'm pretty much a hardcore Skyrim addict - I think about eight characters I've put a lot of time into, plus a few more I've planned out but haven't had time to actually play. I can and will yammer about them all day, but to keep it short my main is Qa'Zinn, a Khajiit warrior with a focus on blacksmith work, married to Derkeethus and trying to live a quiet life in Whiterun with his husband and kids. I try to mix it up and play different races, marry different people. (But I pretty much always play gay guys, I mean c'mon.)

I go almost exclusively orc. I only started playing with Morrowind and did Orc ladies for both Morrowind and Oblivion (since there were no romances in those games, I didn't mind playing as a lady).

In Skyrim, I swapped to an orc guy. Two-handed melee/archery build. He was the Harbinger of the Companions and went through the whole Dawnguard questline (siding with them). He also did the Imperial side of the Civil War questline. (I created two alts for the other guilds -- one for the Mage Guild and one for the Thief/Brotherhood Guilds). He's a big old hairy, bearded (ginger), blue-eyed orc hunk married to Ghorbash and raising two little orphan girls in Lakeview Manor.

Since Bethesda took the games, we've been in one elf kingdom (Morrowind) and two human ones (Cyrodil and Skyrim). It's time for either Black Marsh or Elsweyr for the next game. I'd be down for either of those. Valenwood would be my distant third choice.

And I agree with gaycaravaggio that I'd rather they avoid that whole community building aspect of Fallout4. But I do kind of hope that they go with the follower approach from that game. I don't need 35 different generic Nord followers with similar/same dialogue. I'd rather they give us just 6-10 well developed ones instead. And I really REALLY want a romanceable orc in that group.