Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

[Arthmoor]

I would expect that Skyrim will handle quad-cores better than FO3/NV since there's no reason for them to regress back to 1997 :PToo many people think that Oblivion had all the time in the world to be as good as it could and assume it turned out the way it did because Bethesda is just plain stupid. I have news for those people. Bethesda isn't the stupid one.

[Dallen68]

It is well known that Bethesda left off a lot of stuff it intended because they were running out of time on contracts and other stuff. Under the circumstances, I think they did a pretty good job. If it had been perfect, there'd be nothing for you modders to do. Yay imperfections!

[Thomas Kaira]

AND they had to delay Oblivion because Microsoft refused to let them test the game on the 360 until one month before release. I'm pretty sure that a bunch of the technical stuff that was done in Oblivion Bethesda did not want to do, but had to to keep the game smooth on the consoles (like closed cities).Fallout 3 redressed those issues somewhat, but I still think Bethesda should think about investing in a bit more manpower for PC versions of their games soon, in order to give back what people paid for their rigs that are ten times better than the consoles. Bethesda really isn't doing all they can do with Skyrim in terms of the PC version. Consoles, yes, Skyrim pushes them to the limit, but that's really not saying much.But I digress, Skyrim still looks damn good for a DX9 game.

[Arthmoor]

Actually it was slightly longer than a month. Microsoft released the specs in something like May of 2005, Oblivion had been scheduled for a November 2005 release but because of the mad scramble that ensued, it slipped back to March 2006.There is actually some snips of evidence that the fully intended to have open cities in Oblivion. I've deleted some stray rocks and bushes the devs missed behind the walls, and relocated some of the leftover trees in Cheydinhal. In most cases, the city walls themselves had numerous gaps, and weren't completely aligned with their closed counterparts, which suggested a somewhat rushed addition of the material to the game.Clearly they know what they're up against after 5 years. They won't make the same old mistakes this time. They'll make all new ones But seriously, yes, it's probably about as far as you can take DX9 games. Easily comparable to Witcher 2 on the visuals, based on the fact that we've been told that PC will have higher res textures. Plus we have been told that DX11 is supported, though not heavily used, so whatever that brings us for performance will help.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

There is actually some snips of evidence that the fully intended to have open cities in Oblivion. I've deleted some stray rocks and bushes the devs missed behind the walls' date=' and relocated some of the leftover trees in Cheydinhal. In most cases, the city walls themselves had numerous gaps, and weren't completely aligned with their closed counterparts, which suggested a somewhat rushed addition of the material to the game.[/quote']The biggest evidence for open cities is the Kvatch gate mesh, it's an animated portcullis.

[Arthmoor]

I might agree with you on that one if it had been placed near the main gate. It was instead placed at the inner keep, which isn't an unexpected thing to do in a militarized fort city like Kvatch.The fact that they placed full scale chapels in all the exterior spaces and only removed the ones in Anvil could be seen as evidence too. Must have been a serious pain to have to update all that AI and scripting though for outdoor stuff.

[prettyfly]

I would have liked to see what they actually cut from the game. Maybe they have a beta copy of the Oblivion esm lying around from before when this whole mad rush thing started up?

[Sigurð Stormhand]

I might agree with you on that one if it had been placed near the main gate. It was instead placed at the inner keep' date=' which isn't an unexpected thing to do in a militarized fort city like Kvatch.

The fact that they placed full scale chapels in all the exterior spaces and only removed the ones in Anvil could be seen as evidence too. Must have been a serious pain to have to update all that AI and scripting though for outdoor stuff.[/quote']The main gate is animated, "Kvatchcastleportcullis01.nif", it even has "teeth" on the bottom, seriously, hook it up to another activator and watch it go up and down, just don't try to walk under it.

[Arthmoor]

I'd gladly hand over $50 to see a copy of Oblivion as it existed in April of 2005, before they got blindsided. Dynamic shadows, full scale radiant AI, awesome lighting, open cities, and if you've seen the E3 trailers there were even some differences in demo dialogue that was later cut.Main gate, as in the front gate you enter into from the outside. I'm aware that the portcullis gate inside the city near the castle is animated.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Main gate' date=' as in the front gate you enter into from the outside. I'm aware that the portcullis gate inside the city near the castle is animated.[/quote']Correct, the entry gate to the city, i.e. the Load Door, is actually an animated Activator, it even exists as an activator.Also, I too want Oblivion circe 2005.

[Thomas Kaira]

Unless Arthmoor did any major tinkering for OCC, I think all of the city gates have animated counterparts hidden away somewhere.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Unless Arthmoor did any major tinkering for OCC' date=' I think all of the city gates have animated counterparts hidden away somewhere.[/quote']That would be the "working gates" resource, it's quite old and a bit flawed as well, notably when it comes to the Bruma Gate. Making an assumption here, haven't played OCC.

[Arthmoor]

Oh, yes. So it is. How long has this been here like this that nobody noticed? I'd say that's pretty good evidence as well that the cities were always planned to be open.What exactly is flawed about the working gates resource? I think it does just fine considering.

[Thomas Kaira]

Pete Hines confirms regenerating health.Booooooooooooooooooo!! :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

[Arthmoor]

Use the wait menu for 1 hour in Oblivion. BAM. Fully healed. I fail to see the problem.

[Thomas Kaira]

Because I'm pretty sure that was a bug. Health was only advertised to be returned to you if you rest, which I take it means actually resting. In a bed. Not to mention that "feature" was mysteriously absent from Fallout 3. That I feel is evidence enough to consider it an exploit, and that Bethesda did not intend for us to do that.

[Arthmoor]

Then mod it out. Honestly, I don't see the issue. Fallout 3 != Oblivion, so comparing why one did and one didn't regenerate seems silly to me. Frankly I would have been perfectly happy with slow health regen in Oblivion too, because it sounds like the Skyrim version won't be fast enough to counteract combat damage.

[Thomas Kaira]

The issue is the presence of it. Fully auto-regenerating health is about as cliche as you can get in game mechanics (no matter the speed), and developers really need to stop doing it because it's getting REALLY old. It dumbs the game down if used too generously, removes challenge, and is the very symbol of lack of creativity as far as game design goes nowadays. Auto-regenerating health has no place in TES games, because these games ARE creative. They deserve more than being branded with such a de-meriting feature.

[Arthmoor]

Yet nobody seems to mind regenerating mana. In fact, mana regenerates so ridiculously fast one doesn't need to carry mana potions.I don't think this has anything to do with creativity actually. I think it's more a question of they decided to do this because it's unrealistic that you might get cut and then stand around bleeding forever and never heal UNLESS you sleep, which is just dumb.I could see making it so that if you drop below a certain level of health you stop regenerating, unless you're a Nord, who should legitimately have such power. I base this on the Blood of the North birthsign, which strongly implies those in the north (Nords) can regenerate health.So.... we're in Skyrim, yes? Maybe this is a manifestation of that ability? Might actually be lore-accurate even. All the same, I have zero problem with regenerating health slowly over time. Oblivion did it poorly by having it happen during fast travel/waiting. I don't remember off hand, but Morrowind might well have had regeneration as well. Been too long on Arena and Daggerfall so I couldn't tell you if those had it.A sign of reduced creativity? Ok, sure, that means every game designer in the last 20 years is a clueless uncreative moron then because countless non-TES games allow for health regeneration over time.

[Thomas Kaira]

Nope, Skyrim will not use GFWL.It's going to be published under the Games for Windows badge on PC, but they are not going to use GFWL.Still no word on what DRM they will be using, though. Hopefully not Steamworks (it would be very sad to see Bethesda feeding the Blob).EDIT: Scratch that. It's Steamworks. :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

[Hana]

That bit of info seems a little too important to just twitter out in one sentence.

[Thomas Kaira]

Then how about this?Scroll down a bit, you'll get all the confirmation you need from GStaff himself.Also, there is a fairly good reason info like this would be introduced quietly. This is going to generate a major rift in the PC community over the title.

[Kayle]

Only because people are too busy sitting on their high horses to use steam.

[Thomas Kaira]

Then allow me to state that my high horse is about Valve monopolizing the PC game distribution market.That means Antitrust, which will mean HUGE losses for them, both monetary and publicity. And that's even if they win the suit.And I don't even want to think about what would happen if Valve gets branded with an Antitrust accusation.

[Arthmoor]

Fuck. News like this makes it awfully tempting to cancel my pre-order and just walk away in utter disappointment.