We all see it, we all endure it and in some cases the game makers think that 100 hours is forever, then they add a few tidbits and they think they are saved, which is nice, but in this dat on internet ad almost instant fame through Tik Tube and Youtok these maker get a nasty surprise. Now I don’t want to do this, but the same goes for plenty of RPG games. When I play an RPG I look around in places and admire the views they bring, but I realise that not everyone is like that ad one of the first ‘adjustments’ were made by me in early 2014. My mind loved Oblivion and I thought that adding Skyrim to this might be an excellent way to make 400 hours into 2000 hours. But the mind didn’t stop there so as I ‘designed’ this new setting we got Elsweijr and Valenwood to the mix. In my mind there was a unbalanced settings there (I don’t want to call it a civil war, as this is a setting for Skyrim) But this setting gave me a few ideas into Creating New Kvatch. Not a simple mission, because a city is the work of a lifetime and this was done through labour force, so as you create solutions to missions you were rewarded with a few slaves (call them unpaid labor),which gives you the burden of creating housing, produce local hands (for farming) and the need to upstage it all, this stage he’d three stages and you had to find books. You could find the common books on building a town (brick and iron), or you could find rare books on Dwemer metallurgy (which gives you the Dwemer doors) and you could find advanced books on Whitestone mining. So, you might find a book von moonstone mining and from there the moonstone doors were created and you could find Daedric books, as such there were paths, but there was a catch, you get ONE option, so whilst there is a need to find the books, the choice selected is matching your selection and there is no cheating here. These books are rare to find and you could be playing for 300 hours finding one of the rare books. But the town that was created would make you a council member and whilst you complete missions that give you more and more slaves (volunteer miners) and you need to advance some of them to be overseers or even chief smiths because these are the people that get you the doors. And there is the need for more and directed more. A simple setting that you get by finding quarries and there are a few in the land. And these quarries will get you the stones you need to complete the towns, so whilst Stone might be readily available, White stone that gets you an Ayleid look are not early achieved. So while you are ‘involved by getting the doors and entrance created, the rest is automatically done and when you have an pretty workforce the city comes alive in a few years. It will have all the niceties of smiths, grocers, herbalists and whilst you do not need to do anything for that, they only stay if the city has a clear chance. Now consider Cyrodiill 9 times the size, Skyrim roughly the same size and there would be Valenwood and Skyrim and now we get the other side. You get one dark brother hood, one fighters guild, one mages guild (which would always be in cyrodiill) and one thieves guild. So consider that some say that Skyrim is about 37 square kilometer, Cyrodiill is about 450 square kilometer and now we add Valenwood and Elsweijr masking them an adjusted 200 square kilometer. Now consider the setting of an RPG with 700 square kilometer challenge and that will keep people busy for years. Because that is the setting we need to realise. Funds are drying up and people can only afford 1-3 games a year. Wouldn’t you want to do everything to make YOUR game the one they chose? And the time of creating viral content on YouTube is almost over. And you can remain in denial all you want (especially if you see yourself as the content creator) but as I see it, RPG’s have a decent chance in all this and we start seeing people with writers block, they need a stage where they can shine and whilst there is a winning team (Bethesda made a massive hit with Skyrim and whilst it was created for the PS3 and Xbox360, it kept people happy for over two generations, which is quite the achievement and now they face the amazing Horizon games and both of them are making quite the splash, so consider that you could try to make something that surpasses it all, or you could set a new frontier and the idea of combining Oblivion, Skyrim and the Valenwood and Elsweijr (optionally after the next installment is added) that is one gaming side that will find a massive appeal in the elder scrolls fans. And as I see it time is running out, because whatever Horizon 3 brings will decide the taste of gamers for some time. And whilst we see all these fake AI’s telling us that 2026 is the biggest year in gaming so far with 5%-6% YoY growth, it is mere speculations, and they are decent speculations, but no one saw the oil setting and that price, or the impact of Bitcoin miners, hardware us getting more expensive data s getting more expensive and that comes before the prices of food and drink and that will cost. Wallop in the next two years. Things will not remain the same and you either get ahead of the curve or you fall behind. Bethesda has the setting that they have the IP to make it work and whilst there would be some redesign, there is a chance that they could pull it off and make millions of gamers happy at the same time, because whatever they do could impact all Skyrim and all Oblivion players and that is one hell of an audience. But the truth is that they are no longer alone in this field and consider the question If you could only afford one game in the next 2 months, would that be Elder Scrolls VII, or Horizon III? And how will that impact your gaming and that is before the Harry Potter fans come out and go nuts over Hogwarts legacy 2? Yes some will be able to afford them all, but that group is shrinking fast, much faster than these so called analysts are seeing and whilst they are staking up the reasons for the why, the real deal is that funds are depleting and that is a hard pill to swallow.
So you have a great day and consider the question that will be on the front of your mind soon enough. GTA6, Elder Scrolls VII, Fallout 5, Hogwarts legacy 2 or Horizon 3 and you could only afford one, which one would you pick? I wonder if that is what Sony saw when they decided to abolish physical games? I actually don’t know but there is more behind their reasoning.
Time for my brekkie.
