TL;DR>Kurt Kuhlmann, former key developer at Bethesda who worked as co-lead designer for Skyrim and also held key roles in Redguard and Oblivion, mostly known for his lore and worldbuilding contributions, left the company shortly after Starfield's release in 2023>he gave two main reasons for his departure: >Bethesda is now a big bureaucratic business that works with multiple studios and now has to deal with Microsoft meddling, and therefore are much harder to deal with now, especially for a veteran like him, who's been with Bethesda since it was a small studio and anyone could walk up to Todd Howard's office and have a talk with him>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer shortly after Skyrim's release, something that he of course ended up having to wait 11 years for due to the developments of Fallout 4, 76, and Starfield, only to be ultimately denied the position at the endAnd for the Elder Scrolls lore fans:>Kuhlmann's vision as TES VI's lead designer was for it to have been an Empire Strikes Back type story where the bad guys (in this case the Thalmor High Elves) ultimately triumph over the heroes at the end. He himself recognizes this probably wouldn't have been a good idea in today's AAA scene, where games take a long time to get sequels and thus would have forced fans to deal with a somber cliffhanger for a long time until the next Elder Scrolls game.
>>730947301Alright.
I like the general vibe of the idea, but how do you make that into a proper RPG with different choices and consequences?
>instead of playing a game where the high elves win, fans get no game at allGrim
>>730948636nothing on the macro level. elder scrolls games haven't had multiple endings since daggerfall after all.
>>730947301>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer... only to be ultimately denied the position at the endTfw when you find out those memes weren't just memes after all.
>>730947301>thalmor>bad guys*yawn
>>730947301>the bad guys ultimately triumph over the heroes at the endIn a TES game, where players often want to keep playing the comfy fantasy simulator?>probably wouldn't have been a good idea in today's AAA scene, where games take a long time to get sequelsYeah..Oblivion had the bad guys winning early and arguably in the end too.
>>730947301>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer>only to be ultimately denied the position at the endThat's so sad. Alexa, play Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac.
>>730948636>proper RPG with different choices and consequencesnot to worry, Skyrim already solved that by simply not having any
>>730949061>lie about stopping the oblivion crisis>lie about their military strength >scared of Talos>hated by literally every other elf raceyeah, they're the bad guys
>>730947301>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer shortly after Skyrim's release, something that he of course ended up having to wait 11 years for due to the developments of Fallout 4, 76, and Starfield, only to be ultimately denied the position at the endkek
actual tldr>toddy boy goes off on too many coke and whore binges with the execs and there is no 2nd in command to tardwrangle the team>faggot writers left still want to do chosen one saves world sloptes6 is dead whether it releases or not
>>730949061ok pissskin
>>730947301>Bethesda is now a big bureaucratic business that works with multiple studios and now has to deal with Microsoft meddling, and therefore are much harder to deal with now, especially for a veteran like himI think other ex-devs mentioned that as well in that interview podcast, and Todd himself said something similar about his current position in the company.>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer shortly after Skyrim's release, [...] only to be ultimately denied the position at the endlmao
I stll think VI will be set in a thalmor-dominated world if only because it easily allows Bethesda to sidestep the player choice in the Skyrim civil war.>who won? doesnt matter, nobody even remembers, the war left the province weak and thalmor invaded
>>730947301>an Empire Strikes Back type story where the bad guys (in this case the Thalmor High Elves) ultimately triumph over the heroes at the endIs he somehow not familiar with the plot of every single TES game?>ArenaOnly one where you actually win, but frankly Arena is barely a TES game.>DaggerfallEven pre-dragonbreak, most of the endings have pretty devastating consequences. Post-DB though, it's genuinely horrendous. The numidium just isn't something that should exist, the only winning move for the agent was to find somewhere to hide the mantella and seal it away. Just don't destroy it (if that's even possible) god knows what kind of ramifications that would have.>MorrowindEven within the game, you're essentially forced to dismantle Dunmer society. The Tribunal - while impure in their motives - have largely been a force for good for the Dunmer. At the least, they kept out the Empire. Now they're gone. Then the Red Year happens as an indirect result of your actions and Vvardenfell is uninhabitable, they get invaded by lizards and the Empire just abandons them. They are at their lowest point right now, even worse than with the blight.>OblivionThe Empire loses its divine protection which was Dagon's goal the entire time. Dagon has no desire to conquer Mundus, he's the god of revolution and change and he accomplished those goals. He ended the septim dynasty and served an absolutely crushing blow to the Empire, arguably causing them to lose the Great War.>SkyrimImpossible to say right now, but the civil war will obviously be won by the Stormcloaks. That's not the main plot though, but reintroducing dragons to Tamriel is undoubtedly going to be seriously bad. Especially since this is the LAST dragonborn and that's gonna make it a lot harder to permanently kill off the resurrected ones. Great that Alduin is gone but he isn't dead, he's just getting a spanking from Akatosh and then he'll be back later to eat the world.
>>730947301>Kuhlmann's vision as TES VI's lead designer was for it to have been an Empire Strikes Back type story where the bad guys (in this case the Thalmor High Elves) ultimately triumph over the heroes at the end. He himself recognizes this probably wouldn't have been a good idea in today's AAA scene, where games take a long time to get sequels and thus would have forced fans to deal with a somber cliffhanger for a long time until the next Elder Scrolls game.So this guy was cancer to begin with, he probably shit cancer into Oblivion and Skyrim as well. This kike deserved to be blue balled by Todd.
>>730947301Starfieldbros are we the problem?
>>730947301>have forced fans to deal with a somber cliffhanger for a long time until the next Elder Scrolls game.the thalmors already bullied the empire and skyrim is weakened by civil war no matter which side won. it's already a somber cliffhanger
>>730950819That was just a leadup to a cliffhanger that would be continued in 2045
>>730947301UNC was fed up with jeets
>guy responsible for the game where Solstheim is retconned into having dozens of dwemer ruins and the guy who says one line at the start of Morrowind is memed into being a saint leavesoh nooooo
>>730952345I thought it was pretty funny how Morrowind's depiction of Solstheim is a miniaturized Skyrim, but Skyrim's depiction of Solstheim is a miniaturized Morrowind
>>730952776Nothing explains why Solstheim is covered in weird pentagon pillars either.
>>730950243I assume he wanted to write a trilogy rather just a story about villains defeating the heroes.Maybe something like >anti-thalmor groups kicking banana elves out of their respective regions (TES5)>The Thalmor Strikes Back™ (TES6)>human races working together to defeat the the banana elves (TES7)
>>730952345He co-wrote the Pocket Guide alongside Kirkbride and is therefore responsible for everything you liked about Morrowind and the setting after Daggerfall
>>730949736>hated by literally every other elf racethalmor aren't a race
>>730947301Thalmor are a terrible villain group so even though I respect this guy I’m happy his vision won’t be in the game. TES needs less grand story not more. The magic is in moments like the painting world or daedric shrines. The main story is always a negative compared to the overall experience.
>>730952345even if he wasn't one of the guys behind the PGE, he'd still be the last OG TES writer Bethesda had, so yeah his departure is still a tragedy unless you're a big emil fan
>>730947301>loremasterPathetic title. Has nothing even to do with video games and it's not even a real job. At least a janitor contributes to the development by making it so devs don't have to waste time cleaning the office. What does a loremaster do? Literally nothing except write crappy books that no one has ever read that affect literally no aspect of the game and are routinely ignored by the real creatives on the team.
>>730954060>literally just reading the headlineHe was a lead designer
>>730948636I'm not sure, but I imagine it would've involved choosing between killing your family member or nuking hammerfell.
>>730947301>he trusted ToddDidd he think the memes were false?
>>730954040I don't really have a problem with the main stories, only that they feel like a departure (unwoven) with all the side-quests. I wish there was 4x as much main quest, and about double the amount of side quest lengths. Completing a number of side quests to make it necessary for the main quest to advance. And changes in the story reflect changes in the world, that take place seasonally.
>>730947301>He himself recognizes this probably wouldn't have been a good idea in today's AAA scene, where games take a long time to get sequels and thus would have forced fans to deal with a somber cliffhanger for a long time until the next Elder Scrolls game.i don't know, given game development time i feel like if they built it more as a PS6-era "live service" title in the sense of it being a platform for them to release stories over that console generation's life cycle they could very easily tell two or three games worth of stories. there's no reason not to do this, it will take 30 years for them to do an Elder Scrolls 7. bring back expansion packs as a concept.
>>730947301My read on Kuhlmann is that he has George Lucas syndrome. He's a lorebeard that has all these cool, quirky ideas for the worldbuilding, but he's kind of crap at writing how that actually plays out in scenes and he's not great at coordinating a team. If you look at his credits on UESP, it doesn't mention any specific quests he worked on; it's all books and inscriptions. I don't know where this originates from, but I believe it's confirmed he wrote Knights of the Nine in Oblivion and the Minutemen in FO4 which are arguably the most boring faction quests in their respective games. Basically, he's a dude that you'd love to have onboard as design/lore consultant but maybe isn't the best suited for the director's chair.
>>730954040>Thalmor are a terrible villain groupHeavy agree with this part, but not your Oblivion dickriding. Oblivion is the worst nu-TES and I want very little of what it does to be emulated. Painting world was cheap lolsorandumb schlock and it's easy to make up random shit when you don't care about worldbuilding
>>730947301Why should I care about this ex-Bethesda dev's diary? Move on dude
>>730956316He was replaced by Alan Nanes, who isn't much better. Nanes wrote entire Riften and Thieves Guild, including the bullshit with selling Dragonborn's soul to Nocturnal instead of robbing her again like in previous games, Mercer somehow being unkillable without Nocturnal's help and Maven being completely untouchable (in a game that lets us kill the Emperor and a council member).Other things written by Nanes:>Stealing Independence (Fallout 3)>Oasis and Harold>Broken Steel>BoS questline in Fallout 4 (yeah, nuking the Institute instead of preserving the few good bits)>Nuka World>Cait and McCready>Starfield companions>Crimson Fleet>Neon (teletubbie dancers and Bayu aka Maven 2.0)
>>730947301>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer shortly after Skyrim's release, something that he of course ended up having to wait 11 years for due to the developments of Fallout 4, 76, and Starfield, only to be ultimately denied the position at the end.Elicits a lmao sweet little lies amirite response from the drooling retard babies but Todd hasn’t been entirely in charge since M$ bought Zenimax. The poo leading M$ told Phil to stock the pool with LGBT, immigrants and women. Then he decreed that the story cannot have the racist empire winning because it would be a win for Trump or whatever, even if the ultra cool Thalmor chads ultimately lose in 2038’s ES7.
>>730956316>Acts like the big man behind the whole thing and was about to be given a nepo promotion into a head position.>Literally didn't do jack shit.Typical.
>>730956669>E33 before E33 was cool
>>730947301TL;DR>bethesda is a shit company now>all talented workers have fled>it's over
>>730947301>Empire Strikes Back type story where the bad guys (in this case the Thalmor High Elves) ultimately triumph over the heroes at the endpeople are tired of subversive cynical stories we have enough bad guys winning irl
>>730958149He wasn't making quests proper but he was a gameplay and sandbox systems autist. Ship builder in Starfield was his work. He tried to include carriage rides in Skyrim but couldn't make it before the deadline. He still released it as a mod, which was picked up and finished by some modder.Another thing for which it's difficult to give him credit is maintaining the integrity of a setting. He was the guy responsible for TES having so many books with conflicting claims written by unreliable narrators. He's a historian and he knows that most historical texts are pure propaganda. He thought that propaganda and largely embellished myths make a fictional universe more believable, and he was right about that.
>>730958674Sure sure totally not some dumb labor anyone else could have performed and he's totally this secret backbone, the shadow-director in fact!
>>730959123You'll see the effects when TES 6 comes out. Another reason he had to go was the insane pressure coming from ESO secondaries to incorporate all of ESO's fanfic-tier writing into the lore. ESO was the game that went directly against Kuhlmann's principle that almost everything you read in the books is pure wewuzing bullshit.
>>730949675Yet people are still talking about the civil war and In My Time Of Need moreso than any choice in Oblivion or Morrowind.
>>730950243>the civil war will obviously be won by the Stormcloaks
>>730958380Empire Strikes Back wasn't a "subversive cynical story", it just had a cliffhanger ending. Kurt just wanted to write The Thalmor Strikes Back and The Return Of The Last Dragonborn.
>>730959409Practically fucking nobody from the Skyrim team is on VI.
>>730959850>Kurt just wanted to write The Thalmor Strikes BackBut they already wrote that. It's called Skyrim. There's no need for another 15 years of Thalmor build-up.
>man who has nothing to do with anything says a thingyeah they do that
Every time Todd's adversaries open their mouths, Todd is further vindicated. Truly an untouchable man.
>>730958674Those skills don't necessarily translate well to project lead which is more about people management. Just evidently from Starfield, there were certainly communication problems between systems and quest design.
>>730959956Why are newfags in this thread pretending like this dude hasn't been involved with TES since at least Morrowind? Why is it always some weird newfag revisionism?
>>730956669Random magic shit is what makes a setting fun. I could have brought up the guy falling out of the sky in Morrowind to make the same point but the painting is more substantial. Complimenting one quest is hardly dickriding. My point is that the small moments add up to create a larger and more substantial experience in the end compared to what the main quests usually accomplish. But I do think the Dragonborn stuff in Skyrim is done pretty well it’s just the civil war part that doesn’t live up to expectations.
>>730948636>proper RPG with different choices and consequences>elder scrollsanon?
>>730959850doesn't really work if you have to wait 20 years for the next game on the off chance we won't nuke ourselves in the meantime
>>730948636you make a big final fight with only 5 npcs as soldiers taking over a 10 building capital city
Bethesda has written themselves in rhe corner. The only way forward is to make prequels like Redguard. Fuck, a Redguard remake would be a great idea. Much better than making TES 6 Hammerfell. Pirates need to become cool again.
>>730959910>There's no need for another 15 years of Thalmor build-up.Well yeah, he also said his idea wouldn't work anyway because of that. Nobody was expecting Bethesda to become a company that only releases post-apocalyptic loot shooters and occasionally ports Skyrim to new consoles.
>>730960374A redguard remake would be cool, that game had soul but unbelievably ass to play
>>730960374What corner, at any time Bethesda can decide that the Thalmor had a schism and are now fighting amongst themselves.
>>730960130he's not involved any more, so who fucking cares what his plans were
>>730960684gottem
>>730960374You do very little pirating in Redguard thoughever. Sure it has the vibe, people dress like pirates and fight with sabers and the Restless League has ships but you spend the actual game just jogging around Stros M'Kai. That's why, if Bethesda was actually competent, they would make TES6's big standout mechanic equivalent to F4's settlement building and Starfield's spaceship shenanigans be the building, maintaining and piloting of your own ship around the Bay, Black Flag style. Why, I dread the loading screens just thinking about it.
>>730960374>Bethesda has written themselves in rhe cornerThey can just dragon break the shit out of Skyrim.
>>730959910You gotta have in mind that he almost certainly came up with the concept like 17 years ago (his best buddy Kirkbride was already writing fanfics with a Thalmor victory in mind then), he had no idea that in the future TES VI would end up releasing 15-20 years after Skyrim or that the average AAA release in general would take 7 years to make
>>730948636The Daggerfall endings permanently scared Bethesda away from anything called choices or consequences.
>>730960050It's part of his complaints in the article. When the company was 110 or so people, their real manager was Todd and the guys credited as designers were free to tinker with their little projects and collaborate with other departments without any red tape involved. Then Todd was pulled away to manage other studios under Zenimax, while BGS ballooned in size and a bunch of senior wagies were forced to stop making sidequests and Minecraft systems, and were promoted beyond their competence.Kurt wanted to remain that guy who makes his boat building system, brainstorms wacky lore ideas with Kirkbride and occasionally has people come to him for guidance on writing quests. Doesn't work when everyone is looking for a real manager.
i hope the thalmor get offscreened because they're such a boring enemy force
>>730960130>since at least MorrowindHe was Redguard's co-lead alongside Kirkbride, with Todd directing.
>>730957051>Crimson FleetThat was at least the one thing I liked from Starfield.No moaning about how the fleet is misunderstood or has good intentions. Everyone is an unapologetic sociopath who freely admits it, and you have ample opportunity to fuck over the other pirates for a better share of the loot at the end.
>>730960374They can still tell a good story if they finally make the empire collapse but collapsing is something only reserved for west coast Fallout factions.
>>730961019Right, "at least". My point was that he's been around for a long fucking time. Also I lose my chronology sometimes because there was commentary about Kirkblade? getting in trouble for working on Morrowind during Redguard development or something.
>>730947301>>Kuhlmann's vision as TES VI's lead designer was for it to have been an Empire Strikes Back type story where the bad guys (in this case the Thalmor High Elves) ultimately triumph over the heroes at the end.That sounds fucking horrible. Why is everyone at Bethesda such a fucking garbage writer? Nobody cares about your gay little movie plot.
>>730960649It makes no sense for Thalmor to have a schism at this time. They're a political and religious faction that took power less than 200 years ago. That's barely a lifetime for a mer. It took almost 400 years for Roman Empire to have a schism, 700 years for Nicaean Christianity to have a schism and so on. That's dozens of lifetimes. Elves who resurrected the Thalmor movement are probably still the ones running it.
>>730961108>if they finally make the empire collapseNot gonna happen. Why? Because if there was a PERFECT opportunity for the Empire to die, after what Wulf said, it was Oblivion. The game literally ends with the Septim bloodline dying off, with Skyrim introducing a 200 year timeskip. They decided to write in Mede the warlord who reinstates the Empire, then decided to let the player side with it during the civil war. That screams "we want the discount Romans to stay".
>>730961019>world art>Todd Howardchess master, artist, visionary, writer, gamer, salesman, family man, filmmaker, avid fan of ice hockey
>>730947301>the jewish allegory ultimately triumph over the heroes at the endWe already have that shit irl. Nobody wants that in their fantasy games.
>>730961108Even if the Empire "dies" in any of the future TES games, the player will revive it by the end of the main questline (with fallout's settlement building gimmick).
>>730961406Writers across the industry can't read the room for shit. The common Joe is more powerless and helpless than at any point post-WW2, and they all have to barge into escapist fantasies and impose their mature bad endings, villains who can't be defeated, the metaplot being so dire that there's no point even trying to fix it.
>>730961275It would make a lot of sense for the Aldmeri Dominion to have a schism between the Thalmor and some non-Thalmor Altmer group though. Remember, the Thalmor are not "normal" Altmer. they're one of the many radical new movements that appeared up in the Summerset Isles in the Third Era as a result of the Altmer having an identity crisis over being subjugated by the Empire. You could easily have a plotline wherein traditional Altmer noblemen who disagree with the Thalmor's grand genocide plan and forced cultural changes and seek to reinstate the King of Alinor or whatever.
>>730957051>wrote the shittiest parts of skyrim>everything else is coolWhat a weird mix.
>>730960136>I could have brought up the guy falling out of the sky in Morrowind to make the same pointNo you couldn't, the falling guy is intentionally silly but he's not random bullshit. A new player wouldn't understand what his journal is talking about at first, but his journal actually does relate to the setting - it introduces and reinforces things the player will experience later in the game, and the falling guy's backstory makes perfect sense.Contrast that with the painting world, which exists in its own self-contained vacuum, it doesn't follow any of the TES setting's rules, it doesn't relate to anything else, it essentially exists outside of the game's setting. Its entire premise is an asspull and that's why it's lazy and cheap.That's the difference between constructing a joke that and lolrandumb humor with no context. TES certainly needs more of the former and less of the latter.
>>730961871The old nobility is probably in on it or killed off. Thalmor are the remake of 2e Thalmor at least ideologically if not doctrinally. Like fascist larping as Romans.
>>730961919Well, the first half of the Thieves Guild is rather cool. It just falls apart the second Karliah is introduced. Garre- I mean Mercer did nothing wrong.
>>730961871>It would make a lot of sense for the Aldmeri Dominion to have a schism between the Thalmor and some non-Thalmor Altmer group though.It's described in books that can be found as early as Helgen keep during the intro. Waves of Altmer refugees, one situation where they were taking their last stand against the Thalmor inside of some keep on Summerset.Just this week Julian LeFay's family agreed to publish Julian's notes from a tabletop campaign set in Summerset that they played during Daggerfall's development. Summerset was in the grasp of nobility, they kept tight control over everything and threatened to murder any king who'd try to limit their power. A little bit of it carried over to Skyrim, with depictions of Thalmor purging the barons and murdering everyone associated with their courts.
>>730947301>Elves are the bad guyYIKES! I don't want to be on the curse side my guy.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQWvreNK_ug
>>730947301>would have forced fans to deal with a somber cliffhanger for a long time until the next Elder Scrolls gameThat literally would make it that much more poignant, they totally should do it.
>>730947301>Wait 11 years for a position Todd promised you only to be denied at the endI believe it.
>>730961924The falling guy is much lazier and equally rule breaking. Both are examples of the writers compromising the rules of the setting to make a joke.While in morrowind the idiot guy just accidentally made a super Op spell, the paintbrush in oblivion is a pseudo daedric artifact which at least kind of explains its properties.It’s fair to critique both of these on equal grounds but it takes some seriously thick rose tinted glasses to think one of them is much better than the other.
>>730947301>Microsoft meddlingEvery time, this site needs to call Microsoft out more and stop trying to defend Xbox. Every time an Xrat comes out of the woodworks, I'm going to assume it's a paid jeet shill now.
>>730966360>Microsoft meddlingMicrosoft isn't meddling enough. They let Todd and the boys do whatever they wanted for years with Starfield with no supervision and are keeping Fallout and TES abandoned for years when they have the numbers and the authority to force Bethesda to either sit down and actually make more than one game a decade, or pull a New Vegas and share the IPs with other more talented teams that would get some spin-off going that wasn't Blades/Castles mobile shit.
>>730947301What the fuck does Todd do all day now? I know he took Major in English alongside Avellone, and I heard the stories when the dev team was small enough to fit into a room. But now? Does he just sit in his office, get his picture taken occasionally and collect a seven figure salary? What would he even make if he decided to start from scratch with a new company like Raphael.
>>730964283Would be okay with that if games didn't take 15+ years to make now
>>730952850look up basalt pillars
>>730967430>Microsoft isn't meddling enoughMicrosoft taints everything they touch, kill yourself. Glad Valve is finally about to put an end to their shitty Xbox once and for all. Microsoft doesn't know how to make games, they need to give their studios and IPs, step away from hardware, and step away from game development and publishing. It's time.
>>730968292>"Microsoft taints everything they touch">Bethesda burns to the ground on their ownWhat did he mean by this.
>>730968426Bethesda was shit, Microsoft enshittification is 10 times worse. Every studio good or bad under Microsoft gets worse. Stop defending them, you worthless jeet. There's a reason their Xbox won't exist very long during 10th generation. It's a real question if their publishing era is even going to last before they're force to drop everything and I mean everything.
>>730968669>Stop defending themWhen did that happen. You sound very angry.
>>730959123Shut the fuck up and fix my roof laborcuck. You’re not smart enough to understand the real workplace.
>>730967454They're dragging him arond to manage everything under Zenimax, from nuDoom to Indiana Jonestein. He's the executive producer, meaning it's up to him to review what studio leads are doing, greenlight or bin a gorillion requests, negotiate any deals with third parties and contractors. Console certifications, the rights to make licensed games, remasters made by chink/jeet studios, meetings with celebrities to butter them up into voice acting. He has to attend some of these personally, the rest lands on his desk and waits for a response.
>>730947301>type story where the bad guys (in this case the Thalmor High Elves) ultimately triumph over the heroesSick of this shit. Just make them a faction that are reasonable and not simply irredeemably evil.
>>730969702>hurr durr morally greythey're Elf Supremacists you fucking retard
>>730969804>race supremaciststhat is reasonably morally grey thosimilar to how commies and muslims are ideology supremacists. not evil, just objectively retarded.
Empire strikes back slop. No wonder Todd kicked his fucking ass out. Based Todd.
>>730968426>>730967430If Microsoft had it their way they would boot Phil and focus solely on more Blades/Castles and ESO to be made by Bethesda and they would still fail at making it worthwhile for whatever target audience they make those games for. You can tell Microsoft if shit just by them buying a company like Bethesda when they were well past their peak. It's poo on top of poo. Targeted for Poos.
>>730947301Probably for the best. Hopefully Microsoft takes TES away from Todd and gives it to a GOOD studio like MachineGames. Hell even Obsidian would do a better job and Obsidian is trash these days. Nothing Todd's team has done has ever been good. The last good Gamebryo engine game (which is still what is used today in Starfield, they just purchased the complete rights to the engine in 2011 which provided them the source code and rights to rename it) was Morrowind, a game Todd had nothing creatively to do with.
>>730971157>GOOD studio>MachineGamesTheir last good game came out 11 years ago.
>>730967454>Todd>makeI guess you've never listened to ANY interviews from the creators of The Elder Scrolls before. Todd has no part of the creative process or developer process. He's just a little man who walks around the office in high heals shoulder surfing and micromanaging people. Making them change things late in development and telling people their ideas about fixing subpar things or longstanding issues are stupid.
>>730971157Microsoft needs to allow all of their studios to go independent, give them their IPs, sell their own IPs, stop making Xbox hardware, and let Valve take over PC gaming entirely. Just stop getting involved in anything gaming, they suck.
>>730949061High Elves make the swarthoid seethe due to there aryan excellence.
>>730968669>>730968292>>730966360cry me a river, snoyboy. Go back play your garbage moviegames like goy of war
>>730972530>playing a Bethesda game on console>at all
>>730972530I want Sony to do the same though, both Microsoft Gaming and Sony Interactive Entertainment are a plague to gaming stagnating it. It'll be better if both Microsoft and Sony leave gaming, Valve and Nintendo already showed us the final forms of a console. Xbox and PlayStation no longer need to exist. Outdated pieces of shits.
>>730950243>but reintroducing dragons to Tamriel is undoubtedly going to be seriously badTo be fair we do know that dragons aren't necessarily bad "anymore" so it's more like a new race is introduced>The stormcloak partLmao
>>730952850Those are legit real shit that happen with volcanic activity even IRL
Newfags are one thing, I know a sucker is born every minute and all that, but I'm legitimately impressed that some of you guys have been able to maintain interest in TESshit for so many years despite its utter mediocrity.
>>730947301I believe in Todd, if he says the guy is useless and a detriment than good riddance.
>>730972715>playing a Bethesda game>at allGrim
>>730965432>The falling guy is much lazier and equally rule breakingAnon you can absolutely just go ahead and get some stat boost spells or some crap and jump to your death in the established spell creation system the game has or even with some pre made ones
>>730973675>playing videogames>on /v/ - Video Gamesishygddt
So do they just rename or delete the Imperials if the Empire is done
>>730973779Experials
>>730973775>Todd game>gameThat's a stretch. I only play real videogames like Fretless, Mini Mini Golf Golf, and EYE Divine Cybermancy.
>>730960136>it’s just the civil war part that doesn’t live up to expectationsMods fix this. Depending on what you mean. I modded it so there's actually random skirmishes occurring across the map with decent troop numbers. In vanilla you wouldn't even know there's a conflict happening.
>>730948636you have to visit every single location in the entire gae and defeat the occupying forces if you give up the bad guuys win
>>730973948>EYEMan, that game was trash. Held up by memes I guess.
>>730947301>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer shortly after Skyrim's release, something that he of course ended up having to wait 11 years for due to the developments of Fallout 4, 76, and Starfield, only to be ultimately denied the position at the endYOU MEAN THE TODD LIED?!
Skyrim was trash lol
>>730974180>EYE>trash>but Todd-slop is GREATHmm, I see. Carry on then.
>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer... only to be ultimately denied the position at the end"I'm sorry Todd, but it's Troontown. You're too white and cisgender to have any lead position. The best I can give you is coffee boy."
>>730969804>racial supremacy is le bad!
>>730972530This is a PC thread, consolecuck.
>>730969804Them being elf supremacists isn't nearly as bad as them being expansionist. If Tes6 saw them cooling down on the war and merely occupying ideologically relevant places in tamriel they'd make for a more interesting if belligerent faction.
>>730974639No, different anon, Bethshit is bad, but EYE is bad too.
>>730947301All that and no fucking source URL.
>>730959421There is no C&C in Skyrim, both Civil War sides play exactly the same and the lore implies they will both fall to the Thalmor either way, making your choice pointless.
>>730975985...yet people are still talking about the civil war and In My Time Of Need moreso than any choice in Oblivion or Morrowind.>who you side with for the Battle of Hoover Dam doesn't matter because the consequence is only seen in the epilogueWhatever you say fren.
>>730947301>I quit because I didn't get to use my idea>also it was a stupid idea..wat
>>730947301Welp, so I guess the Empire victory isn't canon in Skyrim. What do we call the Imperials now?
>>730947301>>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer>he of course ended up having to wait 11 years [..] only to be ultimately denied the position at the endYou see that executive position? You can climb to it.
>>730969542I feel kind of bad for him then, though he still pulled a dick move with Kulhmann.
>>730948636It would have been like TESV>you can side with either the based Hammerfell warriors or the Imperial chuds! Get it? It's an inversion of Skyrim, because the locals are black!
>>730948636>>730949061why not make it multiple endings where you can help the thalmor take over or fight them etc
>>730976834There is zero chance TES will ever let you side with "the bad guys". Especially ones that are Nazi themed.Bethesda makes the new Wolfenstein games.
>>730947301>Kurt KuhlmannThis is the very same guy who implemented the imperial pantheon cause players would be confused, gutting the nordic pantheon.
>>730977104no that was bruce nesmith
>>730949061They're jewish
>>730950243>Dagon's goal the entire timeDon't forget its payback for the dragon turning him into a daedra
>>730947301>Empire Strikes Back type storyNo, it should've just be the empire absolutely collapses then every provinces have border skirmishes to expand, so we can get quests for factions to invade another territory, sort of warring states period.
>>730947301>Todd lied to him about being lead designerYou can't make this shit up
Are all decent game designers destined to leave all big franchises and work on nothingburger indie game garbage because of bureaucracy in these companies? It seems that’s what happens to all devs nowadays that have any talent, rather than doing a Gaben and making a company that’s not bloated and driven by a machine rather than ingenuity and heart. Literally why do all these game devs do loser small company shit rather than make a company that’s for workers, by workers, no admin/HR/data entry/paper work BS
Kuhlmann being promised the lead designer position and it being ripped away and given to Emil is so shitty. Must’ve been a total pain to wait over a decade to make his next dream game and the leaders of the studio had no interest in actually making it.We all joked about Skyrim 2 a decade ago, but that would’ve been infinitely better than the game we’re going to end up with
>>730949061They deposed the Altmer royalty and genocided their own people, see "The Night of the Green Fire".
Bethesda should just develop their game engine and never make another game again. Just license out the IPs to to other developers like Warhammer. They're already halfway there with the paid mod shit.Would make Microsoft way more money, and we might actually get some good games out of it. Everyone knows that TESVI will fail utterly.
>>730947301>He himself recognizes this probably wouldn't have been a good idea in today's AAA sceneI think it could work but only in a spinoff title like TES Redguard. I don't think the current general audience cares enough about TES lore and they just play the games for open world fantasy simulator.
>>730978870Why does /v/ insist on saying that they're jews when that shit is the most obvious Night of the Long Knives reference ever
>>730976953All the more reason to drop this trash studio forever.
>>730978870I liked that one Altmer Imperial commander you meet in the Rift and tells you about witnessing the Night of the Green Fire firsthand while in Sentinel. Based high elf bro fighting against the Thalmor for the good of the Empire and its people.
>>730978567Seriously what kind of dirt does emil have on todd, that hacks keeps failing upwards
>>730978408For some reason, old big name developers who worked on popular games from the past are always unable to create another great, lightning in a bottle type game again. It's been a pretty common trend of seeing some game director that helped make something awesome in the past show up with a new company and big plans, only for it to never lead anywhere. Or at least, lead to an underwhelming game.
>>730979206An Altmer was in charge of the Empire until he was murdered by the ThalmorRIP Ocato, The Eternal Champion
>>730979264>he didn't enjoy The Callisto Protocol
>>730960191That's why he's hesitant about the idea. These games took eons to make now. They could accidentally created Half-Life 3 tier hype with all the unrealistic imaginary expectations thanks to the cliffhanger, had they done that when TES6 is being hyped enough already.
https://youtu.be/uSlgKy-9cf0
>>730978902Microsoft should let all of their studios go independent, stop making hardware, and leave gaming. This is the only good suggestion, nothing else is acceptable since Microsoft's been shitting up gaming since they took it seriously years ago. They're the main culprit as to why Bethesda is so shit today and I mean before the acquisition. Microsoft is bad for gaming.
Oh boy! I can't wait to explore an old crypt and kill sand draugrs
>>730950243Aren't elves winning every game anyway since each time a tower is destroyed or deactivated?
>>730979957I also can't wait to use Redguard sword singing as an Argonian that functions identically as Skyrim shouting.
>>730979957Theyre called sandniggers, anon. Sand niggers.
>>730980013
>>730980187>not in this decadeHeh, little did he know we wouldn't be getting ANY game in that decade
>>730979957I can't wait for there to be 0 quest for breton cuisine, its not like they're the top chef in tamriel or anything.
>>730980187>TES is the story of the fall of man>after III the dark elves lost their gods, vvardenfell erupts, and argonians steal half their land.>IV humans end an invasion of demons>V humans fight of a god dragon with their reincarnated hero>VI humans fight off nazi elves>uhhh akshually Bethesda will have the nazi elves win!Kirkbride is a fucking retard
>>730980657>>uhhh akshually Bethesda will have the nazi elves win!I mean, the OP interview confirms that they literally were and the only reason they didn't is because of modern video game dev cycles pushing the game 20 years into the future
My only expectation for TES6 is that it will somehow be even shittier than I ever could have thought it would be.
>>730980820That was never Bethesda's plan. That was a lore employee's plan. An employee that thought he was a shoe-in for a promotion while Todd and Emil laughed behind his back.He wrote background lore books to explain whatever cool shit Todd put out to appease the lore nerds Meanwhile he prayed Todd would take his ideas seriously in the next entry.
>Okay Kurt, you did a great job and have been with me all the way since Daggerfall. Once we get Fallout 76 and Starfield out of the way I’ll let you take a crack at lead designer for TES 6>11 years later >lol you actually thought I would make you a lead designer you piece of shit? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ahhh that’s rich. You can write a couple of the lore books I guess. You should be thankful you still have a job at all
>>730980657>>after III the dark elves lost their gods, vvardenfell erupts, and argonians steal half their land.The same dark elves who are ideologically and culturally closer to men than to the other mer. By the way, the Thalmor canonically suported your beloved lizards' during their invasion of Morrowind as a way to weaken the Empire kek>>IV humans end an invasion of demons...while also having their Empire collapse and their holy bloodline end>>V humans fight of a god dragon with their reincarnated hero...while being reduced to 3 squabbling provinces >>730981165Kuhlmann was literally the one who co-wrote the foundations of the Elded Scrolls setting, shitting on him while worshipping some businessman whose greatest creative contribution to the franchise was the worst Morrowind faction questline is just comedic kek
>>730980820>modern video game dev cycles pushing the game 20 years into the futureI don't even buy this though. I think there was at one point in time, Todd thought he could take Bethesda into 5 new other directions with space games and other genres and never have to make an elder scrolls again. They fucked up so bad not jumping on another sequel when their series hit peak popularity. Every time someone's check in on them the past 15 years about how ES6 is coming along, they literally have done nothing (maybe a year into development by now)
>>730981483Todd genuinely, unironically thought Starfield would be a hit. He thought people would ease up on their asking for TES6 because they'd be busy playing Starfield for years like they did Skyrim and Fallout 4, instead of forgetting about the game three weeks after release, shitting on its DLC and getting genuinely worried about TES6 being over before its development even begins.
>>730981413>Kuhlmann was literally the one who co-wrote the foundations of the Elded Scrolls settingMate, Todd does not give a fuck about the lore in any of his games. He puts out what he thinks is cool like fighting dragons or giant robots shooting Nazis in power armour.You can love the guy who wrote the background lore all you want, but it has zero impact on what he makes. Todd said it himself, he only cares about making fun games.
>wastes 10 years (1/8th of your life) by dangling a position over your head >it was just a lie Nothing personel, Kurt
>>730981293truth is todd actually promised 8 different people the lead design position over those 11 years
>The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 2>The Elder Scrolls VI: Skyrim 2jk....jkThe Elder Scrolls VI: Thalmor openly control all of Tamriel. DLC: Expeditions to other continents. Technological level on par with transition from medieval to renaissance.The Elder Scrolls VII: Dwemer ReturnThe Dwemer return as the technological level is on par with the renaissance/post renaissance. Guns.
It's impressive how nobody can actually read.
>>730953607Simple arc, would have worked. Would have also taken 15 years to finish at Bethesda's pace.Even the opportunity of importing characters and having something resembling continuity. Probably beyond their skill desu
Man. I was 16 when Skyrim first came out...
>>730982352I’m turning 30 this year bro…
>>730947301>retard execs ruin everythingyes, same as it ever was.The future is indie games, this is objective fact, no amount of money is worth dealing with these jewish retards
>>730982071Zoomers can't focus their eyes long enough to read
>>730978567They gave it to Alan Nanes not Emil.
>>730981413>Kuhlmann was literally the one who co-wrote the foundations of the Elder Scrolls settingTodd himself said that, if a new gameplay idea (or limitation) and any lore stuff from previous games conflict with each other for any reason, the lore will always be ignored ("unreliable narrator" and other funny tricks).They don't really care about "the foundations of the Elder Scrolls setting", just like how they don't give a shit about Fallout's goofy lore. If Starfield ever gets a sequel (probably in 2087), the first thing they will do is to add playable aliens just because that is one the most popular mods on Nexus at the moment (the star wars mod).
>>730982352I was 18 when Oblivion came out, bro.............
>>730983434How's the wife and kids, anon?
>>730961275Very good point. But retards here will not get it. Empires and cults only fall into a schism when the founders are gone, it rarely happens otherwise.
>>730979213I'm pretty sure they're just friends and people will buy their games no matter how shit the writing is, so there's no reason for Todd to fire his buddy.
>>730969702>>730969898>>730974745>>730975462>Just make them a faction that are reasonable and not simply irredeemably evil.Moron, you can't bargain with, or reason with the Thalmor. They're literal endgame objective is to unmake the human god, Talos, then unmake the pillars of reality, and then destroy the planet itself so that the Mer (Elves) can return to their immortal, spirit bodies that allowed them to live side by side with their gods. The Thalmor literally HATE humanity and want to WIPE them out of existence. There's nothing morally grey about it, and I'm sick of midwits like you thinking that every villain has to be morally complex, or have a sad backstory. Sometimes, evil is simply EVIL.This isn't headcanon either. Landfall / The Coda literally shows you what happen if the Thalmor succeed in their plans: the dumbasses accidentally wipe themselves and the entire altmer race out of existence, AND they kickstart the apocalypse that kills off 97% of all life -- daedra and aedra included
>>730983959Dragons rarely attack towns. I doubt Todd Howard cares about real world parallelism when deciding how to make his next blockbuster game where you get to kill the nazi elves.
>>730982734I seriously don't get being a Bethesdrone, especially in current year. It is markedly apparent that Todd and the other people at Bethesda do not give a shit about the games they make, from their lore to their mechanics and everything that isn't just gay surface-level graphics shilling. Why the fuck are these dorks even remotely interested in their games anymore? Even when they made garbage like Morrowind, it was garbage that at least had some semblance of passion put into it. This is just tripe of the highest order and Bethesdrones still wait to eat this shit like the losers that hate watch the Fallout show even though Fallout as a franchise has been fucked since Fallout 3 or losers unironically waiting for ES6.
>>730984267I'm with you on the "it's fine for the Thalmor to be evil, not everything needs to be "le grey like my Game of Thrones!" " but>This isn't headcanon either>Landfall>C0DAlol
>>730984552>lolOne of the few good things TSO did is make it canon
>>730984552Whether you like it or not, Kirkbride is an extremely important figure in the history of the Elder Scrolls franchise who also participated in the writing and planning of the 4th era setting seen in the Umbriel novels and TES V
>thalmor>bad guysI HATE the demiurgeI HATE this gay faggot prisonI WILL kill myselfI DO NOT consent to being reincarnated
>>730984645They're nazis chud.No one cares about what some diary page said in the living quarters of Mr fuckfaces home in Solitude. Or whatever Captain Cuckbride posted on Twitter.
>>730960050>Those skills don't necessarily translate well to project leadhilariously, todd seems to be the perfect example of the inverse of that.He seemed competent enough as a project lead on morrowind, but has always been dogshit when it came to actually designing anything about the game.he could make sure people worked together and stayed on course, but was always clueless about the specifics.
>>730984552>le grey like my Game of ThronesTo be fair, the Game of Thrones has a lot of black and white characters. No one will deny for example, that the Mountain is evil for example. Same with Tywin, Roose Bolton, the Mad King, Walder Frey, Cersei Lannister etc.
>>730984803kirkbride is believes that the thalmor should be absolutely evil beyond question and giving them any forgiving qualities is doing a generic boring tolkien fantasy trope tho
>>730984894keep me posted boss
>>730984894He also thinks that the Thalmor should win because he wants TES to be the first setting where the elves are on the rise and humans in decline, thus subverting another Tolkien trope
>>730982734>the first thing they will do is to add playable aliens just because that is one the most popular mods on Nexus at the moment (the star wars mod).They won't be doing that because Emil is one spiteful motherfucker and he absolutely wants everybody who didn't like the "grounded NASApunk" setting to eat shit.
>co-designer>outlets call him 'loremaster'I feel like this is some way to belittle him.
>>730984454They have to be getting paid to shit up the thread with their mental rot.
>>730985256ESO has dedicated loremasters, officially called that way by Zenimax. Complete joke of a position. Two of them resigned as the game was getting more retarded than anyone thought was possible - Tuttle in 2019 and Schick in 2022. Current guy, Zenke, was originally writing for Slashdot. Another case of some libshit from news industry infiltrating game dev.
>>730980347Looking forward to the next TES being released literally 20 years after Skyrim
>>730948636>but how do you make that into a proper RPG with different choices and consequences?since when has bethesda cared about that?
>>730950243theres a difference between losing a pyrrhic victory. Those other games are at least Pyrrhic victories.
>>730986564>difference between losing AND a pyrrhic victory
>>730947301>Todd Howard promised him the position of TES VI's lead designer shortly after Skyrim's release, something that he of course ended up having to wait 11 years for due to the developments of Fallout 4, 76, and Starfield, only to be ultimately denied the position at the endLMAO, really makes you think.
>>730986058Not a single person has batted for Starfield or even Fallout 4 in the entire thread.
>>730957051Doesn't the thieves guild quest in Skyrim make it so that someone with the Skeleton Key has super strength, immortality, and hypnosis because you can use it to "unlock" those things in you?
>>730984267>then unmake the pillars of realityheadcanon
>>730950243>The Tribunal - while impure in their motives - have largely been a force for good for the Dunmer. At the least, they kept out the Empire. Now they're gone.Even if the Nerevarine never showed up, they would still perish. Their power was already waning since they weren't able to overcome Dagoth Ur and take back the heart. Within the next few years Vivec would lose control over the meteor, the Red Year was inevitable. Sotha was murdered by Alma, who was already turning more insane and violent with every passing day. She would probably start genociding everyone in and around Mournhold out of spite. Sure as shit she wouldn't help the victims of the meteor. Then the Ghostfence would fall and corprus would wipe what's left of the province, potentially the whole continent.
>>730947301he was the dream boy...
>>730948636>how do you make that into a proper RPG with different choices and consequences?simple, you don't
>>730986650He gave it to Emil didn't he...
>>730986869Super skills and superhuman moves, newfound aptitude for magic, practically skipping up the grind directly to the level cap. But not immortality. If Ulfric could blow someone up with a single shout, then Dragonborn should still be able to kill Mercer with his voice alone.There's a glaring plot hole in this quest too. Karliah said that Mercer can't be defeated without Nocturnal's aid, but when she revealed the Twilight Sepulcher she admitted that Nocturnal wasn't able to help at all because the key was missing and the conduit through which she influences Nirn was shut closed. If we're supposed to take Karliah and Gallus at face value, then it's just bad writing. It only works if Karliah deliberately lied to trick the DB and Brynjolf into selling their souls to bail out her own ass.
>>730973354By the standards of its beginnings as a D&D setting it is high-brow literature.
>>730960738>thougheverstopped reading, go back
>>730985224>>730982734there's nothing wrong with a humanoid alien-free setting but you actually need the sci fi and writing chops to back it up, which they dont
>>730987486Perchance.
>>730979053same reason people keep calling zionists nazis
>>730986650It's like poetry, it rhymes.
>>730954060Give this man the midwit of the year award. He deserved it.
>>730980657>>after III the dark elves lost their gods, vvardenfell erupts, and argonians steal half their land.The only human-aligned Mer, you mean. The Dunmer become even more dependent on the Empire after the fall of the Tribunal and the Empire completely fails to help them.>>IV humans end an invasion of demons*The Septim Dynasty is ended by an invasion of demons>>V humans fight of a god dragon with their reincarnated heroYeah, if you just ignore the Great War, WGC and ongoing Civil War, everything is going just fine.
>>730947301>tldr>writes a bookGive me the real tldr
They always made subpar games, the only difference was that back then normies hadn't played any games beyond online shooters and sports games.
>>730989764I find it funny that Kirkblade implies the Dunmer eventually end up inheriting human culture as they start fading from the world.
>>730989851He did?
>>730972204>worship Auri-"EL">Aryanhmmmm
>>730989824>Give me the real tldrTodd lied.
>>730950243They specifically wrote the third ending where the stormcloaks and imperials make peace just so they can use it as a way to explain things in the next game. What an s'wit take.
>>730990851Pay more attention. That's not an ending
>>730991376And it is, what?
Wayward Realms or bust
>>730991760No. It's a truce until Alduin is dealt with. The civil war picks back up after the main quest is done
>>730991874The way bethesda does canon is by tip toeing around past games as vaguely as possible. A truce in ES6 will more than likely be a thing for skyrim. Stormcloaks would have greater autonomy, but be fragile and empire is weakened and hated locally. That's how bethesda does all their lore. That is why the truce is the only plausible option, even if it get broken because of gameplay reasons in game.
>>730991874>Truce becomes the canon ending>Alduin is still there in tes 6 >Bethesda realized most players never bothered finishing the main quest >So they made it non-canon.
>>730992126Either that or it just gets glossed over and skyrim falls to some other bullshit in the span between Skyrim and VI.
>>730992684>the span between Skyrim and VI.Fifth era. Alduin not ending the world flipped things upside down. Orsinium dominates and has Tamriel's first space program.
>>730992684>>730992931They should make the Thalmor invent a nuke and just bomb the shit out of the whole continent and restart the lore from before people with no esoteric tastes took over.
>>730978870Always knew they were meant be nazis as if "third aldmeri dominion" was not clear enough
>>730979264They're just old at that point and can't create anything good, look at Ridley Scott
Is it really that hard to make skyrim 2 and mash it with assassin's creed black flag when it doesn't even have to be that great or high graphics to sell a lot
>>730949061Their leadership worship the daedra
>>730947301Played Oblivion before speaking English so no memory of lore there, and Skyrim lore sucks IIRC.Morrowind fans will say the lore was good, and it seems like an older-school level of RPG lore and should rely on lore as a base for RP due to tech limits so has good lore in theory, but never played.
>wants it to be like crappy space moviegood thing he left
>>730995075gms
>>730947301Wasn't Nuka World Kuhlman's "baby" as a design lead? That shit was such a step down from Far Harbor I can understand him being passed over for a lead position.
>>730991773Never ever now that Le Fay has died.
>>730947301anything they could do to not make it another hero's journey that fellates the player at every turn.
>>730984267>so that the Mer (Elves) can return to their immortal, spirit bodies that allowed them to live side by side with their godsSounds pretty good to me. Very morally righteous. Not so great for the other races, but fuck them. You say the elves are evul, i say they just want to go back home again, and all the world is stubbornly standing in their way.
>>730996840you will never be an elf
nice
>>730993312The last duel will always be fucking insane, though. The actual duel was crazy well made.
>>730975985It's about the lore, faggot
F4, F76 and Starfield proved Todd had little to do with the succcess of Bethesdas games. The team that made Morrowind, Oblivion, F3 and Skyrim moved on, he was alone suddenly on the throne and paralyzed by how to make a hit game. It was his pride that got in the way of TES and thats a story as old as time.
>>730997112Todd was already just a marketing mascot and another cog in the middle management machine by the time FO4 came out, according to Kurt and some other ex-devs. His involvement with Starfield was "I want a space game" and taking months to approve/reject ideas from the actual dev team of "his" space game.
>>730997112bro what are you smoking?the team that made morrowind was gutted of its top people by the time they STARTED on oblivion
>>730947301>Empire Strikes Back type story where the bad guys (in this case the Thalmor High Elves) ultimately triumph over the heroes at the end.Honestly a fucking terrible idea because Skyrim set the precedent the hecking Thalmor gestapo are super big bads which is one of the weakest routes the lore could commit to>>730948636That's not how TES works. TES' RPG choices are dictated by doing the content that fits your character and choosing not to do what doesn't.
being captured by thalmor women...
>>730989838Skyrim is still played daily more than some recently released games.
>>730990051this guy knows
>>730981694>he only cares about making fun gamesThen why did he make Starfield
>>730972730Truth.
Maybe the Saudis can save gaming.
>>731001993According to Kurt in that article, he technically didn't. He is just another manager with his own office room.>over time as [Todd] got busier and every part of this larger and larger organization wanted him to do stuff for their project… he would get pulled awayHe also said the Starfield team didn't know what to do half of the time.>there would be people talking to the leads in one studio and getting an answer, and people talking to the leads in the other studio and getting maybe a different answer
>>730948636Here he is
>>730948636>Bethesdaslop>proper RPG with different choices and consequencesGood bait, made me reply.
>>730980829This
>>730969403You are a fucking neet. You never worked a day in your life.
>>730980829I don't know, SURELY it cannot be worse than Starfield?
>>730976476The Cyrods
Reminder Microsoft spent $7.5 billion to acquire Bethesda solely to secure “Starfield”.
>>730948636>proper RPG with different choices and consequences?
>>731004016I didn’t think another fallout game could be worse than 4, then came 76.Didn’t think anything could be worse than 76, then Starfield came out.I’d honestly be shocked if ES6 had any skills/perks or any semblance of rpg elements at all.
>>731007776I do wonder why they don't switch combat over to something like Dark Messiah since they're clearly wanting to make action games rather than RPGs.
>>730987416Mercer was a Nightingale, he alone was superhuman, putting the key who pretty much serves as a "hack" the way the Razor did to Mankar Camoran, put him into a demigod status, until he faced another demigod who was stronger than him, the Daedra he used to serve since Noctunal was weak at that time, and per Clavicus himself, the second strongest entity on tamriel that isn't a dragon and him without barbas.The only daedric prince who is still at his peak power is Sheogorath and Hermaeus Mora, everyone else, even Boethiah since herself who is the most active in tamriel, lost power.
>>730961359The Ted Stryker of gaming
>>730947301TES VI is going to be a bigger disaster than starfield and "people" are still going to buy it, such is life
>>730993348When the people who have to get it done are all low-IQ retards only in it for the work visa, it is infact nearly impossible.
This entire thread reeks of Sharty and /r/fnv
>>731009291And you reek of men's cum.
>>731009397That is your father after sucking kikes to pay for your ISP connection.
>>731007776>returnHow the fuck did skyrim have fiddly character sheets? BG3 is way more in depth by comparison and it's not really that deep either.
>>731010990I mean, you do realize that there are other games in the Elder Scrolls franchise and they did have fiddly character sheets right
>>731010990At no point does that say Skyrim had fiddly character sheets, only that a Skyrim dev said Elder Scrolls wouldn't return to those. As in, TES. As a whole. Implying earlier games, Morrowind and the like.>inb4 pic related isn't fiddlyIt is comparatively.
>>730961082>>730961919Only possible "cool" thing on that list is Cait. Both of you have just ousted yourselves as mouth-breathing retards for thinking the Crimson Fleet was anything except pure, unfiltered gutter trash. >unapologetically sociopathic That's exactly the problem with the CF. They were JUST sociopathic and nothing more. The red they wore may as well have been menstrual blood, because I was surrounded by condescending, gaslighting. extortionist, double-standard-pushing lesbians rather than actual space pirates. There is a gargantuan difference between being a faction that is evil and a faction that is full of cunts. Skyrim at least had the common decency of giving me only one Delphine to deal with, rather than an entire faction's worth.
>>731011125>>731011204That makes sense. I interpreted it wrong.But what I still don't understand is why they don't want to go back, since BG3 was a huge success and clearly showed that even normalfags aren't scared away by higher character and skill customization, at least for a home brewed 5e system. I just want something with more depth than Skyrim.
>>731011794>what I still don't understand is why they don't want to go back, since BG3 was a huge successFor the same reason the next Final Fantasy is gonna be action combat even though Clair Obscur broke every record under the sun.
>>730947301>empire strikes back typeso subversion sequel bait?empire is possibly the most overrated movie ever
>>730948636TES games aren't CYOA books like bioware style RPGs
I NEED THALMOR PUSSY
>>731013160t.
>>730947301>would have forced fans to deal with a somber cliffhanger for a long timeSo?
>>730978408>rather than doing a Gaben and making a company that’s not bloated and driven by a machine rather than ingenuity and heart.The company Gaben created has made ONE original IP since 2007 (I'm not counting dota).Their other biggest releases has just been remaking 10+ year old games on a new engine. Presenting Valve as driven by """ingenuity""" is ridiculous.
>>731013462Given how long Bethesda's production cycles are and the emphasis on making the hero the single greatest at the world in every possible skill and playstyle, having a load of fans bitching about how their unbeatable Mary Sue couldn't save the world would probably be seen as very risky for a company pinning its hopes on a narrative payoff 10+ years into the future.
The Elder Scrolls VI: Return of the Battlespire
>>730950819I think we just need to realize that The Elder Scrolls is a complete waste of time and deserves no real love.Bethesda is a dead company.
>Elder Scrolls is fine>I just need to rest my eyes a little
>>731013754>Given how long Bethesda's production cycles areThey aren't, this only started after the release of Fallout 4. These types of development times are not normal and you should stop acting like they are. This is what we used to call "development hell" and it's not sustainable. Bethesda is genuinely dysfunctional.
>>731014876I'm not acting like they're normal, I'm pointing out that they're interminably long.
>>731014859This but unironically. Why care about Todd and the boys fucking up TES6 when I have Tamriel Rebuilt and maybe Beyond Skyrim by 2037 to keep me interested in the setting?
>>730947301Yeah, yeah, Bethesda sucks, everyone knows. Redguard and Oblivion especially sucked, so who cares what this nerd thinks.
>>731015374Redguard's lvdo.
>>731015374Redguard had soul because of Kuhlmann and Kirkbride's writing, Battlespire is the worst Bethesda game hands down
>>730947301ES doesn't have a loremaster anymore? Oh gpd, who are they going to have write it now? Emil?
>>731015697Didn't he declare Fallout Tactics canon?
>>731016206Still a better written game than Emil's own. Fallout 3 and 4 are fucking nonsense. Complete and utter drivel.
Is this your god, Morrowboomers?
