Hunterzyph on 22/3/2003 at 22:36

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Having resolved certain CTD issues I had with Morrowind I've once again fallen head over heels as I did nearly a year ago the first time around and now I am speculating on TES4 as I'm sure much of the community has over the last year.

When I picked up Tribunal two weeks back I somehow expected something more in the way of exploration and finding myself trapped within the confines of a city (a very large city at that) that showed me that I was still situated at Ebonheart on the world map, I sighed. I realize of course it was necessary but I felt

So getting back on topic on with TES4 I'm wondering whether Bethesda should spend another 2-3 years working on a brand new game when they could simply polish the visuals and integrity of the existing game engine. Boost the texture sizes, throw in some DX9 features, up the polys. Of course this depends on the flexibility of the engine but I strongly believe Bethesda would benefit greatly from releasing a game early-mid 2004 rather than 2006.

I've considered some alternatives for Bethesda, like focusing their efforts entirely on making expansions every 3 months, or maybe even a monthly massively singleplayer online updated roleplaying game (MMSOURPG :cheeky: ). But I'd rather they unfold the entire realm at once, otherwise you'll just hear people saying "bah, I've already beaten this part, I don't want to wait another two weeks!).

While hardcore RPG types will always yell "gameplay over visuals", I believe Bethesda pushed the high graphics envelope because they knew it would boost immersion and thus boost gameplay in the end-run, so I could understand if Bethesda didn't take the path of simply augmenting the existing engine, and I'm sure many of you would comment and point out that the Morrowind engine has fundamental weaknesses (higher resolution = higher fps...say wha?!).

So, how do you feel about it? Has someone already touched upon some of what I'm proposing in another post (and thus adding nothing new), or do I have some valid requests/wishes? Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.

kathode on 24/3/2003 at 02:56

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You'll probably see Bethesda stick with NetImmerse for future projects, at least for the time being. For one, they're now basically THE flagship franchise for NDL (the company that makes NetImmerse) and thus have a pretty good relationship. Also, NDL is committed to competeing on the same level as the "big 2" engines (doom, unreal), and is always adding features to try and stay on top of things. If you keep up with industry news, you know that the new version of NetImmerse is now "Gamebryo" and adds a ton of tools for shader effects and the like. Plus, it's just what the programmers know now that they've used it for Morrowind. Switching engines would require learning an entirely new system of doing things, and can have disasterous effects on a product schedule (Daikatana, Duke Nukem Forever).

As to smiley's post, I want to say a lot but can't. Just keep in mind Todd Howard's recent statement in an RPGDot interview:How much you wanna bet he's not talking about another expansion? ;)

JoJangles on 24/3/2003 at 06:07

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What the hell....

first off, Bethseda shouldn't try making a new game engine, they should just get liscensing from croteam at (www.serioussam.com)

Secondly, if they were too cheap to get the totally tuco-sized awesome engine, they should put something called a 'Level of Detail Bias Engine' in their current build. Ya know, so the game can actually process itself in this century(yes, the game has trouble processing itself, besides your computer, it's that bad.)

Where was I...

Oh yes, give me dragons.

muhtadi on 24/3/2003 at 15:17

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I got your answer right (http://12.145.63.45/~uesp/dagger/dfdragon.shtml) here! Also, don't forget there's a dragon statue in Ebonheart.

As for TES4, I think the devs should stick to the NetImmerse engine since that's what they know best. Like kathode said, they can just upgrade the current Morrowind code to GameBryo instead of licensing a new engine and relearning a lot of stuff.

I like the current Morrowind tech they're using and I won't be surprised if TES4 doesn't look too different from Morrowind either.