The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Catch-All

New info? http://www.gamersmint.com/tes-skyrim...

For the lazy, here’s the new info in bullet-point format:

“There is no level cap. You will nevertheless not be able to choose all perks with one character.”
“Technically speaking, Skyrim is an evolution within The Elder Scrolls, and not a revolution (but everything looks fabulous). The magic of the world that Bethesda has created is nevertheless unequivocally present.”
“All weapons have different properties, which you can take advantage of by choosing the right perks. Maces ignore a percentage of armor, and axes have bleed damage over time.”
“You can use fast travel to revisit places you have visited earlier.”
“Skyrim is approximately as big as Oblivion.”
“Five big cities and more than 130 dungeons.”
“Low-Fantasy”
“The overarching narrative of the Dragons is less prominent than the Oblivion Gates were in Oblivion, which does not give you the feeling that you are doing ‘useless’ quests when you lay aside the Main Quest.”
“Dragons are not rare.”
“Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there.”
“Even in third person, animations look really good. There has been a lot of progress since Oblivion.”
“You can read in-game books in 3-D.”
“Every item has a 3D-preview in the Flash based inventory, which you can twist, turn, rotate, etc. Sometimes you will solve puzzles by analyzing these 3D-previews. Not only armor and weapons can be explored in great detail, also small rings and herbs can be investigated from all possible angles. Every single item in the game can be previewed in the inventory screen.”
“The Dark Brotherhood is back.”
“Active blocking makes melee more fun to play.”
“More traps and puzzles.”
“Main Story is approximately 20 hours. Hundreds of hours for other quests.”
“Every dragon you kill will make you stronger. A piece of his soul will be transferred to yours.”

Here’s some key points derived from an interview in the Mag with Todd Howard

“There are special animations for sneak kills with daggers.” (The way it is written in Dutch does not imply that there are no special animations for other weapons btw…)
“We primarily look at how we can improve facial expressions and animations, graphics-wise.”
“The game won’t support Kinect. It takes too much memory.”
“We are working at pop-up issues, and we want to make sure that the graphics of the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 are alike. All three will look just as good, aside from the higher resolution and the anti-aliasing of the PC of course.”
“It is not yet possible to combine forms of magic. It is difficult. Frost magic makes an enemy move slower, and fire does damage over time, and the fire remains on the ground for additional damage. If we would allow the player to use fire magic in one hand, and frost magic in the other, it becomes much more complex. Maybe we will implement this though, but for the time being, ‘No’.
“Someone modded Oblivion by changing the physics of shooting an arrow. It made you shoot slower and you almost had to remain stationary to shoot, which increased the arrow’s impact. We liked this mod so much, that we implemented it in Skyrim by default.”

I like that they're removing the level cap since it's a pretty arbitrary limitation and usually one of the first things to get modded out by the players (followed by a mod to balance the game for infinity levels).

Back in Daggerfall, when you leveled up it would give you a little encouraging blurb about how you're getting stronger and faster, about how great you feel, about the boundless potential you see spread out before you... till you get to a certain level. As you approach that point your enthusiasm begins to die down. The messages become less about how awesome you are and more about your place in the world. Finally they get a little bit depressing, stuff like, "there will always be someone better" and "it's just a matter of time before you stumble and the younger generation takes up your role." Sure they were hard levels, but that little bit of narration made it feel like the natural course of a hero-ing career. If I'd hit a level cap at that point I would have been ready for it; after all, the game's been warning me that my potential is limited and I'm approaching that limit, after which it's all downhill. ...I need a pub.

“Low-Fantasy”

I have trouble reconciling this with the idea that you can scream to make dragons appear.

LobsterMobster wrote:
“Low-Fantasy”

I have trouble reconciling this with the idea that you can scream to make dragons appear.

And the fact that they said Dragons will not be rare. Dragons at all kind of says a little more than ''Low Fantasy''

Is it wrong that I read the preview and got excited? I haven't really gotten into any of the Elder Scrolls games since Arena, but this sounds like they've tweaked the basic formula just enough to hit all of my buttons.

It'll probably still pay to wait for the inevitable mods, but still...

“Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there.”

Read: "We're still insistent on the game auto-leveling mobs to the player, because we hate fun."

I'm a little trepidatious about the active blocking system, since that by nature makes the game more of an "Action game with RPG elements" than an RPG. It takes away the numbers too much.

Minarchist wrote:
“Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there.”

Read: "We're still insistent on the game auto-leveling mobs to the player, because we hate fun."

This-ish. Preview sounds fine, but what's the big deal with allowing you to visit dungeons overtly difficult and handing your ass back to you when you fail at beating them with your level 1 sword?

Feeank wrote:
Minarchist wrote:
“Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there.”

Read: "We're still insistent on the game auto-leveling mobs to the player, because we hate fun."

This-ish. Preview sounds fine, but what's the big deal with allowing you to visit dungeons overtly difficult and handing your ass back to you when you fail at beating them with your level 1 sword?

It ruins our narcissistic worldview that life should always be just challenging enough to make us self-satisfied but not so challenging that we might actually fail and have to confront our limitations, allow the world to change us, or expand the borders of our personal island universes. And stuff.

Montalban wrote:
Feeank wrote:
Minarchist wrote:
“Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there.”

Read: "We're still insistent on the game auto-leveling mobs to the player, because we hate fun."

This-ish. Preview sounds fine, but what's the big deal with allowing you to visit dungeons overtly difficult and handing your ass back to you when you fail at beating them with your level 1 sword?

It ruins our narcissistic worldview that life should always be just challenging enough to make us self-satisfied but not so challenging that we might actually fail and have to confront our limitations, allow the world to change us, or expand the borders of our personal island universes. And stuff.

Now I'm depressed : (

Montalban wrote:
Feeank wrote:
Minarchist wrote:
“Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there.”

Read: "We're still insistent on the game auto-leveling mobs to the player, because we hate fun."

This-ish. Preview sounds fine, but what's the big deal with allowing you to visit dungeons overtly difficult and handing your ass back to you when you fail at beating them with your level 1 sword?

It ruins our narcissistic worldview that life should always be just challenging enough to make us self-satisfied but not so challenging that we might actually fail and have to confront our limitations, allow the world to change us, or expand the borders of our personal island universes. And stuff.

Who's narcissistic worldview? You and ... Quintin? I could see Quintin.

Talking about my narcissism only validates it.

Now that I've been quoted four posts in a row, it really bothers me that I used the present participle verb form in my post. I guess it's too late to replace "on the game auto-leveling" to "that the game auto-levels", isn't it?

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Talking about my narcissism only validates it. :mrgreen:

I'd give you a high five but in my world only I can give myself high fives because of how awesome I am.

Well, I can't really see myself getting too excited for this to be honest, despite completely finishing everything in Morrowind and sinking tons of hours into Oblivion. This could be a favorite series for me if they only:

1. Replaced the huge number of generic dungeons with a small number of unique, hand-crafted dungeons.
2. Beefed up interactions with key NPC's (and I'm perfectly OK if this came at the expense of the hundreds of identically-voiced peasants walking around who don't say anything useful).
3. And of course, removed or drastically toned down the auto-leveling. I need a real sense of progression and accomplishment in my RPG's.

gewy wrote:

Well, I can't really see myself getting too excited for this to be honest, despite completely finishing everything in Morrowind and sinking tons of hours into Oblivion. This could be a favorite series for me if they only:

1. Replaced the huge number of generic dungeons with a small number of unique, hand-crafted dungeons.
2. Beefed up interactions with key NPC's (and I'm perfectly OK if this came at the expense of the hundreds of identically-voiced peasants walking around who don't say anything useful).
3. And of course, removed or drastically toned down the auto-leveling. I need a real sense of progression and accomplishment in my RPG's.

That's pretty much what they're saying they're gonna do. Here's hoping.

Minarchist wrote:

Now that I've been quoted four posts in a row, it really bothers me that I used the present participle verb form in my post. I guess it's too late to replace "on the game auto-leveling" to "that the game auto-levels", isn't it?

No, you had the grammar right the first time. They don't insist THAT the game auto-levels: nobody's disputing the fact that auto-leveling is present in the game, so they don't need to insist that it does. They insist ON it auto-leveling because they feel it's a better design decision, and some players disagree.

Montalban wrote:
Feeank wrote:
Minarchist wrote:
“Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there.”

Read: "We're still insistent on the game auto-leveling mobs to the player, because we hate fun."

This-ish. Preview sounds fine, but what's the big deal with allowing you to visit dungeons overtly difficult and handing your ass back to you when you fail at beating them with your level 1 sword?

It ruins our narcissistic worldview that life should always be just challenging enough to make us self-satisfied but not so challenging that we might actually fail and have to confront our limitations, allow the world to change us, or expand the borders of our personal island universes. And stuff.

Hot sauce! That's a great quote. If my sig wasn't already full of me nationalistically (well, that's what auto-correct suggested) linking to my own mods this would be it.

The great thing about this whole issue (as least for PC users): if they are indeed telling the truth about the mod tools, and the mod tools are as powerful as they are for Fallout 3/Oblivion/New Vegas, mod makers can easily strip this feature out of the game world. Like a laser on a tumor, with three-five hours of work in the GECK/equivalent... *poof* gone. Assuming it's not hard coded. With Fallout 3/New Vegas, it takes the effort of modifying about four hundred different leveled lists (lists that spawn creatures/items based on what level you are, instead of where you are) and it's gone, barely more than a bad scent left in the breeze.

gewy wrote:

Well, I can't really see myself getting too excited for this to be honest, despite completely finishing everything in Morrowind and sinking tons of hours into Oblivion. This could be a favorite series for me if they only:

1. Replaced the huge number of generic dungeons with a small number of unique, hand-crafted dungeons.
2. Beefed up interactions with key NPC's (and I'm perfectly OK if this came at the expense of the hundreds of identically-voiced peasants walking around who don't say anything useful).
3. And of course, removed or drastically toned down the auto-leveling. I need a real sense of progression and accomplishment in my RPG's.

Right there with you. Please, no more getting ambushed on the road by "bandits" wearing glass armor.

hbi2k wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

Now that I've been quoted four posts in a row, it really bothers me that I used the present participle verb form in my post. I guess it's too late to replace "on the game auto-leveling" to "that the game auto-levels", isn't it?

No, you had the grammar right the first time. They don't insist THAT the game auto-levels: nobody's disputing the fact that auto-leveling is present in the game, so they don't need to insist that it does. They insist ON it auto-leveling because they feel it's a better design decision, and some players disagree.

They insist that the game should auto-level.

Anyway, it is too late; hbi2k's nominalization will now live forever in ignominy.

I have no problem with dungeons locking to their level once you've been there. I mean, those are the monsters that live there.

It'd be cool if there was a random chance that you'd stumble across a change of power (say, bigger, badder monsters killing everything and moving in), though I wouldn't want that to happen without the player present. That's always been a problem with the TES games: they have the capacity to make some incredibly complicated, cool things happen, but if the player sees nothing but the aftermath their first reaction is to call it a bug. To the player, an NPC doesn't get assassinated. It fails to spawn.

That seems to be an issue of communicating to the player. Give the players examples earlier in the game of things happening while they're not around, work out the clues you need to give them to work out the missing pieces and how NPCs need to act, and I'm sure players with two or more brain cells will pick up on it. Essentially the half-life approach, not everything is a cut-scene.

I didn't think they did too bad a job with Fallout 3 in terms of making their auto levelling a little less obnoxious. Certainly post broken steel at least.

So long as there is actually interesting things to find in those dungeons this time around i'll give them the benefit of the doubt about the rest for now - by far the biggest problem i had with Oblivion's dungeons is that you fight your way to the end of them only to find a chest full of random levelled crap.

Overall though, I think I'm rather more optimistic about another Elder Scrolls game post-Fallout 3 than I was post-Oblivion.

Scratched wrote:

That seems to be an issue of communicating to the player. Give the players examples earlier in the game of things happening while they're not around, work out the clues you need to give them to work out the missing pieces and how NPCs need to act, and I'm sure players with two or more brain cells will pick up on it. Essentially the half-life approach, not everything is a cut-scene.

Then the question becomes, how does a player know when there WAS a glitch? Which is not to imply that Bethesda games are anything but perfectly stable, of course.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Then the question becomes, how does a player know when there WAS a glitch?

That's a really easy set up for a dig at Bethesda.

Scratched wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Then the question becomes, how does a player know when there WAS a glitch?

That's a really easy set up for a dig at Bethesda.

Shortly after I typed arena.exe

LobsterMobster wrote:

That's always been a problem with the TES games: they have the capacity to make some incredibly complicated, cool things happen, but if the player sees nothing but the aftermath their first reaction is to call it a bug. To the player, an NPC doesn't get assassinated. It fails to spawn.

It's like the Goblin Totem Staffs in Oblivion, if you take one from a dungeon there's a small chance of Goblins spawning and trying to track it (and you) down... but most players to whom that happened probably just stumbled across a pile of goblin corpses that had been disposed of by wandering guards and never made the connection.

wordsmythe wrote:

They insist that the game should auto-level.

That would also be correct.

ruhk wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

That's always been a problem with the TES games: they have the capacity to make some incredibly complicated, cool things happen, but if the player sees nothing but the aftermath their first reaction is to call it a bug. To the player, an NPC doesn't get assassinated. It fails to spawn.

It's like the Goblin Totem Staffs in Oblivion, if you take one from a dungeon there's a small chance of Goblins spawning and trying to track it (and you) down... but most players to whom that happened probably just stumbled across a pile of goblin corpses that had been disposed of by wandering guards and never made the connection.

What the- Is this true? I really didn't know about this... nor did i ever see one or pick one up and if i did i wasn't tracked down by the goblins...

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Right there with you. Please, no more getting ambushed on the road by "bandits" wearing glass armor.

That was my problem with the auto-leveling mosters. It makes sense for them to auto-level a bit, they did it in Morrowind and no one complained. But Bandits wearing Glass and Ebony armour? Robbing people on the road for a few measly drakes? Guys... sell your armour and go buy a mansion. Or set yourselves up as mercenary warlords or something. Banditry is beyond you.

Redwing wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Right there with you. Please, no more getting ambushed on the road by "bandits" wearing glass armor.

That was my problem with the auto-leveling mosters. It makes sense for them to auto-level a bit, they did it in Morrowind and no one complained. But Bandits wearing Glass and Ebony armour? Robbing people on the road for a few measly drakes? Guys... sell your armour and go buy a mansion. Or set yourselves up as mercenary warlords or something. Banditry is beyond you.

"I know I don't need the money, I just like to stay active, and hey, everyone needs a hobby. Also, I'm an utter asshole."

Duoae wrote:

What the- Is this true? I really didn't know about this... nor did i ever see one or pick one up and if i did i wasn't tracked down by the goblins...

Yep. There's a quest involving them, but there are other goblin tribes with totems and goblins randomly appear when you're carrying a totem whether that quest is active or not.