Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

[Conner]

Let us know what response you get from those prayers, maybe it'll help us with the decision too.

[Hana]

Snagged me a copy of GI today. I thought newsprint quality magazines went out in the 80's. Slightly disappointed.More to come once I've perused it a bit.

[Conner]

Don't forget that GameInformer is a magazine made exclusively for GameStop customers, it's not really intended to be based on a deep budget paid for by a combination of subscriptions and advertisements nearly so much as a means of getting GameStop customers to come back in for new games.

[Arthmoor]

Well I'm heading off to go get mine but given that GI is a big budget magazine snagging big budget titles for coverage, it's disappointing already to hear it may be little more than a rag with colored print :/

[Arthmoor]

I'm beginning to see why people end up having to rely on magazine scans and stolen copies of the artwork and shit. California is supposed to be a hotspot for tech and gaming and all that, and NOT A SINGLE ONE of the Gamestop stores in this area (I hit 6 of them) have a single copy of the February issue available. Two of the stores don't even have January issues and one store told me with a straight face that they'd never even heard of the magazine!So let this be my big FUCK YOU GAMESTOP post or something. You guys can go eat shit and die for stringing people along like this. The magazine has been in circulation for 10 days and you guys don't even have it? To hell with you.Also, seriously, there's a such thing as PC games. You don't need to be openly insulting and hostile to the PC gaming community by shoving all your PC games onto one tiny little rack in the back corner of the store. Plus it might help to stock stuff that was actually released in 2010 and not 2008. Good lord people.

[Conner]

I don't think I'd go quite as far as "a rag with colored print", but it's not exactly a glossy photojournal of computer gaming either. And their primary focus is very significantly console gaming too, btw. Had less than a successful hunt, eh? *ducking*They handle PC games almost as lovingly in the magazine too. Let's face it, GameStop is totally intended to be a console gaming store and only carries PC games at all because there's still a bit of demand among their customers, but most folks who want PC games (or anything related to them) go to stores that carry PC games, not GameStop.

[Dallen68]

PCgamer.com has some articles on it. Of note, the class system has been eliminated,

[prettyfly]

On the note of PC games being pushed to the back of the store, I went to about twenty gaming stores in Sydney while I was on Holidays, and while there was more copies of Oblivion GOTY for consoles than I could count, I couldn't find a single copy for PC :headbang:

[Arthmoor]

Which is precisely the point I was making. They make a huge publicity drop over the GI magazine, then the stores don't even have them or have 2 month old issues. Plus Skyrim is a PC title, not a console title. I don't care if you can also get it on console, Bethesda knows damn well their base is PC gamers and repeatedly this gets proven with polls on their forums. Usually only 30% at most play on some console system with the other 70% on PC.So yeah. I am beyond a bit pissed off about this, especially since I'm not living in a backwater village somewhere with one store and a stop sign. I'm living in Southern California. You'd think one out of 6 Gamestop stores would understand. So I guess I'll just have to settle for the GI website and go from there.Also, yes, what few issues of GI they did have sitting out were really piss poor in quality. No glossy covers, barely 30 pages worth of content, and jammed full of ads for all kinds of shit. I fail to see how they get anyone to pay the subscription fee for it. The thing looks like something a buddy of mine used to do in his garage 20 years ago. It didn't even have that intoxicating color magazine smell

[Hana]

That really sucks, Arthmoor. Unbelievable even. I wasn't kidding about the poor quality.Stay tuned, I'm working on a full detailed review of what I see here. Not as good as having it in person, but not chock full of rumors or speculation. The cold hard facts coming up. (It's a really really long post,lol)

[prettyfly]

I actually doubt that the majority of users is made up of PC players anymore. It may have been the case in Oblivion's early days, but nowadays the majority of the people interested in the games are console players. The Bethesda forums are of course biased towards PC gamers (in fact, I would say they are dominated by PC gamers), because, if you don't use mods and are a casual player (particularly the case with console players), why would you want to use those forums? Why would you even know that they exist?Bethesda do recognize though that the PC section of the community is the most devoted and the most dedicated part of their community who provide the bulk of the feedback, so they do their best to please them (while ensuring the game stays mainstream).

[Conner]

Like I said, it's not what it should be, but it's not exactly a xeroxed group of pages stapled together in some kid's basement either. (Keep in mind that it's given at a discount to customers too and being a subscriber of it gets you a discount on games at GameStop as well.)You mean the previous post about what's in the article wasn't the fact list? :lol:I partially agree with prettyfly, forum polls are skewed by the fact that casual and console players probably mostly wouldn't bother with the forums in the first place, but I am sure that Bethesda knows their customer demographics, especially when it comes down to which version of the game was purchased: console vs. PC.

[Hana]

Hana's Detailed Review of GI Cover StoryI'm using my first post that quoted the guy over at Beth on the "facts" he announced (in italics) and responding to them. It was easier to organize that way.The World:-5 Major CitiesConfirmed. It's hard to read the little faded out piece of the map but looks like Winterun is one, Roflen or Rofien another.-The game takes place 2 centuries after OblivionMmhmm. Where the King of Skyrim has recently died, setting up the Nordic civil war.-Dynamic Shadows-Snow falls dynamically (not as a basic texture on the ground)-Trees and branches move independently with the wind.-Water flows in swift currents-Huge draw distances!Yep, pretty much what it says. Lots of waterfalls in the pics too. But yeah, no more LOD or ugrids or VWD or whatever you want to call it.Rendered objects look a hell of a lot more detailed and better. Normal maps FTW. However, buildings and especially interiors look very similar to Ob today. Barrels, stools, bar counters, wall shelves, very similar to Ob. Definitely not a huge difference there. I do see some new clutter. I don't see any blinding Ayleid ruins either. Hopefully they've figured out HDR.-very unique landscapes! Also unique dungeons! In other words, lots of uniqueness!The landscape looks awesome. Everything you see, mountains/valleys, is able to be explored. And there is lots of colour in the trees and grass. In one distant shot of a city I can see smoke coming from the chimneys, and ships in the lake around it. Too bad that dragon is heading over there to rape and pillage.The northern region is full of ice, glaciers and snow. In the west it's more mountainous, rocky. Plus there's a region of tundra in the middle with six or seven different environments. Skyrim is filled with ancient cities and crumbling ruins. Underground areas include icy caves and long lost crypts.Oh, and there's a picture of a town built into the side of a mountain.The Greybeards are alive and well in High Hrothgar, at the top of a mountain. You as the hero must climb 7,000 steps (yes you read that right) to get to them to be trained.- presumeably open cities (as dragons can attack)Not confirmed, not discounted either. Can't tell in the picture.UI;-Hud-free first-person view and improved third-person perspectiveYou heard it right. When you hit the menu button (I hope it's still tab, I'm so used to it) four points overlay on your screen, not taking you entirely out of immersion. Go to the top point and you get skills menu Your character actually looks up at the sky at the constellations. Each lit star is a perk you've selected.Go to the right point and access your inventory. Books appear as 3D objects that you open and read. Inventory icons are 3D images that you can zoom or rotate around, full of detail when you select them.To the left is your magic menu. 85 spells, wow.And if you go to the bottom point, your character actually looks downward to the ground and the screen pans up and Skyrim's map appears. And yes, yes, there is fast travel. Weapons and Combat.-2-handed weapons and dual wielding confirmed.It doesn't actually say there are 2-handed weapons available but there is a picture of a dude with a claymore strapped to his back so pretty safe to assume.Dual wielding is a unique 2 hands/various options deal. Wield 2 weapons (same or different), wield a weapon in one hand and enable a spell in the other, enable spells in both hands (same or different). Sounds pretty cool. The best thing is, you can change them mid-battle!-Finishing moves, unique to each weapon and enemy you fight.Yep, and this sounds pretty cool.-5 Magic Schools Destruction Alteration Conjuration Restoration Illusion. (Alchemy Enchant (now added) are not magic schools (?) )Yes, mysticism has been removed, deemed redundant. There's a total of 85 magic spells.Assaulting with your shield is now a part of melee combat, being able to shield bash them to stagger them to give yourself an advantage in combat.Ala Deadly Reflex. Yes, but remember NPC's also have the same moves!Ranged combat has been improved by increasing the damage bows deal significantly, so much so that it is possible for one to one shot an npc from stealth but also so the draw time of your bow has been increased. Ranged combat shouldn't be able to be abused from stealth like in Oblivion due to the fact that NPCs are FAR more intelligent than any TES game ever and possibly any game to date, we shall see.So let's break down the bad grammar in this quote. Yes, ranged combat = bows and arrows. The actual write-up says "dominated by", so possibly something else as well? Yes, bows are more powerful ( I dunno, I've had some pretty powerful bows in Ob) but take longer to draw. Great for stealth kills but would suck in an open battle. One shot kills FTW. I'm not sure where this guy got the last line from but there is nothing in the article to indicate NPC's are more intuitive to stealth. -Sprint is added !Am I the only one that runs everywhere anyway? I'm not sure what this is going to add for me.-You can't run backwards as fast as you do forward.Who runs backwards anyway? I may backpedal a few steps in defense but run? Fine.Skills and Leveling;-A variation of level scaling.-18 skills.-Perk picking at every level-upI have no idea what level scaling is so I'll try to sum this up in my own words. First of all - no more classes, because apparently people who played Ob don't know what they want to be after a half an hour of the tutorial. So instead you get all 18 skills, and whenever you use a skill you gain experience in it (sound familiar anyone?). As any skill increases it contributes to your overall level stat. As that skill grows the more it contributes to leveling. So in effect, you could concentrate on one skill and level fairly quickly. The more skills you advance, the longer it will take to level. Make sense? Nope, me neither. Leveling, of course, gains you health, magicka, and stamina (what was wrong with fatigue?). Then come the "perks" (ala Fallout 3). You get to choose what perk you want (i.e. increase the damage of your dagger during stealth hits), whereas in Ob those perks were kind of hidden in the background. The gist of this is to mold your character in a unique way with literally hundreds of choices, catering to the custom classes of Ob. More on that uniqueness later.They say you should actually level faster, up to and beyond level 50, but after that the leveling slows way down.As I noted in another post: Dragon Shouts.The ability to cause great harm to dragons by uttering a single draconic word. Power word kill, anyone? There are over 20 dragon shouts to learn and there are very few people in the world that have this ability. How do you learn them? By absorbing dragon souls, of course. As you gain more words, each word you utter has more power. Sounds pretty cool. Oh but wait, the dragons use them too!Characters and NPC interaction;-Radiant AINothing new. AI is AI. They eat, sleep, walk, cut wood, sweep. Apparently now they can do all this while they talk to you and each other. I wonder if they can go to the bathroom yet.-Initiating a conversation between a NPC no longer zooms.True. Now they'll happily half-ignore you while they tend to their shiny new radiant AI. A conversation option will pop up when you go near them.- 10 races to choose from.So it says. Doesn't say what though. And the pics only show Nords.-Character creation improved, body features customizable.As well as facial features redone. NPC's show more emotion and more distinction between races.Looking at these pics, there are definate improvements. I swear they now use Robert's male muscular body because man, these guys are BUILT. Tremendous defined muscle tone, veins popping out. There's one woman, who honestly looks like HGEC body mod, bigger breasts than Ob had. Come on, admit you use it.Skin tone, very hard to tell in these low quality pics, but I don't see any neck seam. Yay.-KidsUh, I don't see anything about kids. I see one small mention of a 'young boy'. So unless it's been confirmed by Beth staff over at BGS (I don't pay attention there), then this is a major jumping to conclusions.-BeardsThere's nothing to confirm this, pics or text. So unless the guy meant Greybeards.... - cooking/farming/mining/woodcutting/blacksmithingApparently, yes. If you're bored of trekking through the wildlife you can hit any of the cities and idle away countless hours in the above activities, also alchemy and enchanting. I couldn't tell you if these are any of the 'skills' but making your own sword does sound really fun. Great for immersive role-playing.-The Hero has a mentor: His name is Esbern and Voiced by Mark Von Sydow (Surviving Blade)Well, he's one of the few surviving Blades. Additional review:Armor and weapons look amazing. The pics of the 'hero' and a couple of other males appear to look like kilts or some type of skirt is in fashion over leather pants. Except for this one guard walking down the street. He doesn't seem to have any pants on at all, just a skirt. Clothing is the same, but different, if you know what I mean. The one pic of the girl in a bar, well she has a little risque top on. This seems to be the norm to flash more skin now. The hero wears a sleeveless fur/leather vest. I guess it's kind of warm up there in snow country. And he has the coolest helmet, looks like bull horns coming out of it (minotaur maybe?). Enemies and Creatures;- Dialog will pop up when you approach an enemy.Unconfirmed. I don't see any mention of this in the article. It does say enemies behave uniquely and not all creatures will be immediately aggro.- confirmed creatures: zombies, skeletons, trolls, giants, ice wraiths, giant spiders, dragons, wolves, horses Elk, mammoth, saber-toothed catsAnd man, are they awesome, even in these low graphic pics. A pic of skellies looks like they have muscle and some cool armor. Ice wraiths have trailing tails and are wispy (they form out of the wind). The dragons trail fire from their nose as they fly by. The dragons are real and you'll apparently encounter many of them throughout the game. They'll appear at the worst times, while you're in battle, or they can ravage the towns. The Daedra were only able to ravage one town.I also see a dog walking down the street. Seems to be a large sheepdog type.Over at gameinformer.com there's an article about sound effects, and the guy shows a dwemer centurion.Quests;The main quest is summed up here.The plot is that you are possibly the last Dragonborn, a group characterized by their ability to hunt dragons. The Septim line was a prominent Dragonborn line protected by the Dragonguards which eventually became the blades. After the death of the Septim line, the Blades were hunted down and killed one by one and now are almost completely gone. The return of the dragons was foretold in the Elder Scrolls and was ushered in by the destruction of the Staff of Chaos, the creation of the Numidium, the events at Red Mountain and the Oblivion Crisis. The last event to unfold before the dragons return was the people of Skyrim turning against each other which is happening at the beginning of the game. Dragons start to appear in greater and greater numbers as the game goes on and will eventually culminate with Alduin possibly coming into the world, but we have no idea yet.And once again you apparently start in prison.Along with the main quest and "faction" storylines (no word on what factions), there is what they call "the Radiant Story". What is this? Well, it's like Radiant AI, in that the NPC's do things and react to certain things that go on around them. Taking this to the interactive world, it's about your character and what you do that creates specifically targeted opportunities for you. It reacts to the player actions. Everything you do is remembered, from who you've met, to where you've been to what skills you have improved. This brings us into dynamic randomly generated quests. If you're character leans toward a mage type, then at some point another mage may want to call you out. If you're a melee type character, well, that same mage won't bother you at all. So the engine is tailoring the game to suit your style of play. The way it's described hints at some type of leveled lists for enemies as well when the game sends you on a quest to some dungeon you've never been to.The point of all this is a real unique experience for every single person who plays the game based on the choices they make. No more my thief is better than your thief! lolAlso, it seems Arthmoor is ahead of the times. Apparently, quests can start automagically just by overhearing NPC's talking about it, or rumors as it were. You can eavesdrop on the townsfolk and discover who stole the Hope diamond! Ok, I made that up, but you can get important info just by standing around having a drink at the bar.And that sums up the article. Like I said, I haven't paid attention over at Beth forums but to me all that is still speculation. I prefer the facts in print. Or game-play trailers would be nice. Sorry, can't reproduce the pics!My thoughts on all this? I'm excited. I really am. I may sound a little cynical here and there but I know I'm going to buy it and play it. I get a feeling it's going to be difficult to mod though with the radiant story, radiant AI, the 3d inventory. I really have to chuckle when I see people talk about 'porting' their mods over. Uh, isn't that against Beth's policy? Plus the fact we have no idea what these meshes and textures are. Should be fun times ahead.And I now have a black ink stain on my hand from leaning on the magazine.

[prettyfly]

Before I read Hana's post, if you look at the behind the scenes in Skyrim they have a large grid map of the game you can have a look at.

[Arthmoor]

Nice read Hana, thanks. Of all the things I'm happiest about, it's that you start as a prisoner again It wouldn't be a TES game if that wasn't the case.Certainly does sound like it's going to be another huge leap forward.Body mods? Nope, I may be one of the last people who still uses the vanilla bodies. Something had to give in terms of graphics back in the day, and they were it. NPCs never have looked all that terrible to me, and TIE improves their faces enough that it hardly matters what their bodies look like.

[Kayle]

I'll admit, I have HGEC and Robert's Male Body installed so that there aren't any seams. Plus, I didn't like that female heros looked like males with a different head.

[prettyfly]

Actually, I don't use any body mods or face mods (maybe I should try TNR).That said the only thing keeping me from using HGEC is that other users of the game would kick up a stink, so I figure why bother?

[Conner]

Nope, I don't use any body mods at all either. :shrug:Anyway, back to the info Hana posted... overall, it sounds like it'll be great so I may have to buy it despite steam or secuROM or WFGL or whatever else they do this time around to make it challenging. I do have to question one thing more than any other that Hana posted up there though:

Too bad that dragon is heading over there to rape and pillage.

Um, what? Dragons rape?

[Hana]

LOL Conner, just a figure of speech. Latest info posted.No more Speedtree!!!!!Havok is doing the new animations.Regarding the new engine: "The result is the newly dubbed Creation Engine and Kit." KIT!

[Conner]

It's a slightly odd figure of speech for a female to elect to use thusly.. most females, generally, take umbrage at the term rape being used lightly. :shrug:Speedtree?

[Kayle]

Mid-level software made for animating and maintaining trees. Kinda like Havok, only instead of physics, it does trees. Really crappy when compared to the new system Skyrim will be using according to that article.And now that I've read the GI article, and all the secondary articles on GI.com. I have to say. November is not coming fast enough.

[Dallen68]

Actually, I hope they replace HAVOK as well, it's bollocks you can't reach the plate thats a foot in front of you.

[Conner]

Ah, see, by not modding, I had no idea what speedtree was. Thanks for enlightening me, Kayle.

Actually' date=' I hope they replace HAVOK as well, it's bollocks you can't reach the plate thats a foot in front of you.[/quote']

Havok is doing the new animations.

It sure doesn't sound like they're replacing Havok, Dallen.

[Kayle]

Havok is the foremost physics engine available in the industry, short of writing their own from scratch, which is not a simple task by any stretch, we'll likely never see the end of Havok in games. And the not reaching a plate a foot in front of you isn't an issue in Havok, it's a settings issue in the Gamebryo->Havok interface.

[Dallen68]

OK, so how do you fix it?