I heard about 4 months ago that the new ES will be an mmo.rabakill
I hope that's just a rumour with no substance, because one of the things I like about the ES series is the 'solo' gameplay and no need to play online. There are far too many MMOs as it is, in my view, and every month we seem to here about another one biting the dust.
The time seems ripe for another ES game, anyway, considering Oblivion was released four years ago. 2011 sounds about right to me for another outing in Tamriel. One can only hope that will be the case - and that Bethesda have learned from past mistakes. Most of all, I hope they have taken a good hard look at some of the mods that have been released for Oblivion over the years, and try to integrate some of those ideas into the next game.
Bethesda did a great job with Fallout 3 in terms of engine/quest/voice refinements, but I hope they've made further improvements for the next ES game. Certainly AI could be further improved to include more passive 'behaviours', ie, NPCs seen to be doing a wider variety of different jobs. Animation is another area that needs refinements, particularly swimming and jumping, but it would also be great to see your character climbing ladders, etc.
Another thing is attention to small details. For example, when I played Just Cause 2 some of the little things that struck me in that game were seeing that your character looked wet after being in water, or had frost form on their clothing when in icy mountains. Also, seeing a lot of 'traffic' on the roads, even if it was randomly generated, helped to make the world feel more alive. I know that was a third person 'action' title, but even so I believe lessons can be learned from other games. Another example would be seeing both a bow and sword and shield equipped on your character in Gothic 4 (judging by the demo). Small details like that can help with immersion.
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