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Is it just me or does anyone else hope that after playing any of the two Fallouts that Bethesda has learned a few more tricks in terms of designing. I think if you view a lot of pre-Skyrim TES V: Wishlists on other forums you'll realize that they did a pretty good job updating their games with new additions/features missing in Oblivion. I remember seeing something all the way back in '08 asking for a more Dynamic environment. One of the suggestions were Caravans, and FNV got that down pretty well, also they did a great job on Factions.

[Bear in mind I only bought Fallout: New Vegas]

Anyone else thinking that this game will take a few tips from those games, Like with Oblivion's landscapes, you had mountains that were pretty crappy, then in FNV you have wonderfully crafted mountains with many passes and slopes/steeps, I.E. Black-mountain and the one that led to Jacob'stown. Also Oblivion had all these random rocks that were a half-ass excuse for a hill, meanwhile in New Vegas hills were varied; either gradually sloping or steep, you even had canyons, gulches and all sorts of terrains, I mean yes it was all desert. But in Oblivion i felt like the whole map was flat, with a few raised pieces here and there, In New Vegas the Mojave had all sorts of physical land masses that will hopefully pass on to this game.

Quests were definitely more open in FNV then they were in TES IV. Where as we all know how a quest would end in Oblivion, did anyone else catch how the quests in NV all had different endings to them. So in a way it kept the game fresh, and it also allowed the PC more freedom as to how they were done. Why waste your time recruiting the brother-hood when you can blow up the base and be done with them? Even the main quest had multiple "branches" in the story that let you always try something else. This is what I think MUST be transferred over to Skyrim, or else I will seriously doubt Bethseda's professionally.

Factions were a great way to spice up the game's story. It allowed the game to be viewed/played from different perspectives and I will be [&@%!] beyond belief I always have to choose only one Kingdom to join to win this Civil War in Skyrim. And not only on a grand big scale level but the game also worked with small scale towns and minor factions it helped add more variety and for all you Role players i bet this only helped your experience in defining your character. I liked knowing I could take over Good springs and still be with the NCR. It allowed the game to break away from the "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM" system of law and allowed more freedom with choices and more importantly CRIME.

All in all these are only a few of the things I found to be a major improvement/ addition they added in the Fallouts that would be wonderful to add in Skyrim. I really hope that what these things mean is that Bethseda has had their fun experimenting and have really come along since Oblivion and I hope to see this come to pass in Skyrim.

So did I miss any, or what are your thoughts, Should the Fallouts new additions be added into/influence Skyrim in some way?

You that Bethesda didn't make New Vegas, right?

They made Fallout 3 and judging by the massive amount of similarities there are between the two Im betting my odds are good about half of what I said. Black Isles has been bought out by Bethseda, hence the nice little logo on the box art saying who published it. They could get any member on that team to help them make Skyrim,

Its like if a family get their cousins/uncles to help them out with yard work, they're not the same group but they are all connected and can be called in at any time.

I think, to be honest, Bethesda will have learned more from what people didn't like in Oblivion than Fallout 3. TES is a different series - and they probably took Fallout 3 criticisms with a pinch of salt. If there's one thing you can say about Bethesda, they learn their lessons.

I'm sure they will incorporate something similar to the factions in new vegas. It also seems like they really like the leveling that they came up with in fallout, and will have something pretty similar. Another thing they did was figure out how to have many different voice actors in the fallouts, and obviously that will be incorporated as well.

I really liked in Fallout how the the NCR could completely hate you, but if you wore their armor, most of them wouldn't know any better. I hate how everyone knew who I was in Oblivion, despite completely hiding my face in Imperial Guard armor or something. It's like they mesmerized every single guard's face (ignoring the fact they are literally clones).

They also only hire Imperials.

To be fair Oblivion was made in 2006, while NV was made in 2010 so Obsidian had more to work with than Bethesda, and while most of the landscape in Cyrodiil was bland, if you have ever visited the Shivering Isles then you will have realised that Bethesda did a great job on the scenery, given what they had to work with.

I will give you that I loved the environment that the SI had, I especially liked how all of Mania was raised and over looked Dementia. Also the way they made the rocks into large Monoliths(?) rather than those weird hill rocks was very impressive and The multiple islands/ lakes that made up Dementia was a nice touch, so who knows maybe Bethseda doesnt need the help after all

I think the deal was that most of the enviroment in oblivion was just randomly generated, and now Howard said their method is to hand-craft the entire enviroment

I don't think it's all hand-crafted as another interview has mentioned improvements to the random generation, but it may be that random generation will be more a supporting tool than a key element, for example for making sure the right types of scenery are placed convincingly in different parts of the world, then someone can skim past tweak any odd-looking bits.

While they weren't directly making New Vegas I think that they are big fans of their own work, and I doubt they'll have ignored New Vegas, so I'm hopeful for a lot more moral choice in quests and when dealing with different factions in the civil war. Even Fallout 3 did have a few quests with some nice decisions to be made, though each of its quests were a lot more linear than New Vegas which went option crazy, which was great.

I think though that the one thing I want most for them to learn from New Vegas are some new, robust methods of preventing bugs! Fallout 3 was pretty buggy as well, and of course Oblivion had its bugs as well, but New Vegas really outshone them both on sheer quantity of faults, as nearly every quest has 10 or more bugs associated with it that you have to watch out for! So I'm hoping they, or the new Radiant story engine, have some good new methods for designing quests in such a way as to prevent bugs. Some of the main bugs have always been assuming that a non-essential character won't be killed, which I hope they won't make the same mistake on for Skyrim! Other simple things like an NPC having to be in a particular area but their AI not actually compelling them to go there, those kind of tiny errors that break the game need to be squashed or prevented from happening to begin with. Even having people work on quests in pairs, or at least with someone going over the whole thing to check it could make a big difference. Though if the ability to add mods does make an appearance, then we can at least rest assured that an unofficial patch will fix everything.

One of the things I loved about New Vegas was that the "dungeons" had a heap more variety, some of the generic surface buildings were a bit too similar, but the vaults were all unique and interesting (if a bit dour since none of them worked as planned), and even things like caves had a bunch of variety as some were overgrown with cave plants, some had red or yellow rock rather than rather than simply grey. I think we won't have to worry too much on it though as there are 8 people I think doing dungeons rather than 1 poor soul doing his best to fill the massive number of dungeons in Oblivion!

Anybody else notice how good Fallout NV looked compared to Fallout 3 (even on console)? I'm hoping Skyrim will have the same kind of jump. I'd hate it if I go and pay 60 euro for Skyrim and it turns out that all the wonderful artwork of a landscape isn't amazing because it's on console