Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

[Kayle]

We can't. That's a Bethesda fix. But Oblivion is the only game that I've noticed the short pickup distance in. So I know it isn't a Havok issue.

[Arthmoor]

Oh, holy crap, this article is glorious. Dynamic lighting on everything? Shadows? Oh man, Kayle, you're right. November can't come fast enough!That screenshot from Hana's link is apparently from in-game too, and even with GI's crap thumbnail it looks awesome.And they wrote their own custom tree system? Wow. They must have really hated Speedtree.As for Havok, why not use the nVidia PhysX system instead?Now all we need to know is do we get open cities?

[Kayle]

I don't think nVidia's PhysX system is as flexible and easily interfaced with as Havok.

[Dallen68]

Isn't nVidias thing meant for this one g-card most of us don't have?

[Tommy]

Creation Engine, Radiant AI, Radiant Story.... these a big words... As far as I "know" there was only one "guy" that ever had a Creation Engine, and he was not a game developer. Well actually maybe he was.... :)Sorry but I'm just a natural born sceptic when it comes to developers talking in glowing terms about their own game... If you think back what Oblivion all "could" when it was still unreleased and what it actually did once it was released.... some difference. I don't know all the details anymore, so I say "some difference"... There is a reason why Artificial Intelligence is called artificial.Having said that, I think the concept of Radiant Story sounds very cool to me, as does the 3D UI. Graphical coolness is the bare minimum to expect and that all sounds and looks pretty darn good. In a way this is the easiest part to implement (of all the difficult parts). Just require lots of hardware and make use of all the latest DX11 gadgetry, not a big deal IMHO. They did that with Crysis - what - almost 3 years ago? Didn't matter if nobody could run the game at full details back then. Even today it is a stretch, so I say Good graphics is fine, but the real beef is beyond graphics and nude skin of course.In that vein, what I would find cool is to have bodies in all forms, sizes and ages. It's ridiculous (and boring) that every male young or old is ripped like Sylvester and Arnold, and every woman has a body of a Victoria Secret model.I think I can do without any kids. What could they add in terms of gameplay other than you finding their lost pet or lost mom, or they giving you tips about certain things? Maybe you could cook them some lunch meal thanks to the glorious new Radiant AI? Teach the boy how to use bow and arrows? Yeah, then what. Could you adopt an orphan? Find him/her a babysitter (an Eija) for the times when you're away adventuring? But the whole aspect of murdering or otherwise mistreating kids (or not) is something that if I was a game developer, I'd not want to get into... so I guess kids basically cannot be more than another form of eye candy or distraction like the cooking/ smithing etc. activities.Hey, I'm not negative at all about Sykrim. Just a bit sceptic how well it will live up to the hype. Usually hype is bad because it inevitably leads to disappointment. No game was ever as good as originally claimed and announced.... or was there? Cannot think of one but feel free to refresh me!

[Hana]

True Tommy, big shiny words. Which is why I can't wait for real in-game trailers to prove their worth.That picture in the link is one of the first pics in the magazine article to grab your attention of awesomeness. Looks a HELL of a lot better in that little digital format. I'm wondering if they'll do one a week as teasers.Is it wrong to wish away an entire year just to get a game?

[Arthmoor]

That screenshot does offer some hint about cities btw. That's Markath Side, in western Skyrim. It appears to exist in multiple tiers from what I can see in the shot and that hints at it being an open city. Though even if it's closed, it's still way better than anything we got in Cyrodiil.

[prettyfly]

Ye gods, weren't the vanilla cities terrible looking on the outside...The graphics do seem to be really similar to the graphics of Uncharted 2 (in fact, the environment design in that environment is similar as well). Which is a good thing, because Uncharted was somewhat groundbreaking in what it achieved on a limited system like the PS3.As for hype, well, I know the radiant stuff had to be by and large cut from Oblivion because of all the issues it was causing, but still, they've had four years to improve it. The quests like the ones in FO3 and NV also kinda demonstrated the ability of a game to be quite flexible with the quests, even though it was a long way off radiant, so this time, who knows? (Bethesda does)I do agree though that too much hype on this game will be a bad thing, because it is still going to have its limits (for instance the people imagining open houses are going to be disappointed).

[Arthmoor]

Open interiors remains to be seen, I'm not expecting it, but you never know.

[Dallen68]

Actually, pretty much everything remains to be seen. It's one thing to showcase a small thing in a trailer or pre-view or whatever; but sometimes the overall product is not equal to that one small thing. (Oblivion had fantastic looking trailers).Also, I wouldn't say Beth did a "bad" job on Oblivions cities, they just didn't do a "good" job either. Same thing with the AI. But then if they had, we wouldn't need mods, would we? :smile:

[prettyfly]

I doubt the consoles would really have the strength to be able to handle open interiors, though I suppose in Uncharted 2 (a PS3 game) they managed to have open houses with lots of NPC's and objects with physics running on them albeit in a relatively closed environment...so maybe it is possible.

[Arthmoor]

Of course it's possible. The Gothic series has had fully open seamless worldspaces since the beginning and it's gotten better with each successive game. No load doors of any kind. Interiors, dungeons, caves, you name it, it's all in the main worldspace. Only time you ever got a load screen was if you were teleported over long distances.

[Dallen68]

Why don't they just program it so a certain amount of the worldspace is loaded around you. (Say a couple hundred feet in any direction) Then when you walk over <> there, load more/different space? You know, like when your walking on the road in Oblivon. No need to halt the world to load the new tree.

[Hana]

Well, Ob couldn't even do the loading cells around you well. Even on my high-end PC I still get "loading area" messages.Maybe I run too fast.

[Hana]

Do you think the 'Kit' refers to a Construction Set analogue' date=' thus enabling moddability of Skyrim? [/quote']

Yes it does. We've always been impressed with what the community has done with our tools. Like the Elder Scrolls Construction Set for Morrowind and Oblivion' date=' we plan to release Creation Kit so you guys can mod Skyrim.[/quote']Woooooooooot! :biggrin: (wow, need some happy happy smilies here)

[Arthmoor]

See, and people were actually worried we wouldn't get a mod kit. This is Bethesda we're talking about. Known throughout gaming as the most moddable games ever.

[prettyfly]

I have doubts though that this game will prove to be as enormously moddable as Oblivion is. The fact that it is more complicated and will already do a lot of the things that we had modded for in Oblivion will probably reduce the number of mods that will eventually be made (or on the other hand, it might not), in the same way Fallout 3 hasn't spawned the same range of mods that Oblivion has. Though then again, I'm still surprised by the lack of village mods for that game.

[Dallen68]

People mod for things they think the game needs. So if Skyrim has a robust weather system, for example, there'd be no need for All Natural. But then again, "more complicated" does not mean "better executed", so maybe we'll all be fixing minor annoyances. From my perspective, the ES series as a whole has gotten less and less on the "gameplay" elements, and more and more on the "visually aesthetic" elements from the start. I hope that doesn't continue in Skyrim. I mean in Arena and Daggerfall, there was a logical reason that YOU had to be the big hero of the story. In Morrowind, the Nerevarine could have been "any random a--hole Vivec gave the glove to". In Oblivion, there's literally no reason to start the main mission. I mean, you never go to Kvatch and look for Martin, the Oblivion invasion never starts...It would help if it got started at some point regardless of you going there; which paradoxically would give you a reason to go there.

[Arthmoor]

Well, I just nabbed my copy of the GI issue and I'm duly impressed by what I've read and seen here. I think any doubts I may have had are now gone, except for the clever way open cities haven't been confirmed yet. Open villages perhaps, but cities? Hana already did a great job with her big post, so read it, she's got the details down cold. Trust me when I say though that even her review can't do seeing the actual article justice. So even if you don't want to pay for the subscription, go mooch some time at Gamestop and read it in the store.Also, the stores in malls seem to be better equipped. I didn't even realize Montclair Plaza had one until I saw it when I was there earlier. They have piles of Skyrim issues and the Skyrim issues are of WAY better quality than the older ones on display right next to them. The big downside though is that the Draconic script on the back cover is barely visible. Definitely easier to read with the online scans.Shadows? Check! See village shot. Lighting? Check! See village and tavern shots. Awesome landscapes and draw distances? CHECK! They're making my future mod planning so much easier :PSo yeah, I'm quite happy. Resolve the issue of open cities once and for all and you've got it made. I would like some sort of idea of whether they'll use Steam or not though, there's been zero mention of it.As far as mods, I have every trust that Bethesda's new CS will be as powerful, if not more so, than the GECK. The main reason Fallout 3 didn't see a ton of mods (relatively speaking) is because they never fixed a pretty glaring flaw in the game. Perhaps they couldn't and it was buried deep in Gamebryo. I know all too well the frustration of working around someone else's bugs. As far as I know F:NV didn't trigger the issue so it's taking off better since modding for it isn't as much of a hassle, aside from being infected with Steam.

[Conner]

Yeah, but if everything is super dynamic, it ought to make modding more challenging even if there are still things left out to mod in and there's no glaring bugs to have to fight while modding.

[Arthmoor]

People adapted just fine to Oblivion's changes to the old quest and scripting systems from Morrowind. Assuming Creation Kit isn't too radically different, they'll adapt again.

[Conner]

Well, assuming "Creation Kit" is basically the tool Bethesda's using in-house to make quests and world details, then it shouldn't be too hard to adapt to for modders either, but with things being very dynamic based on your character actions/statements and personal play style, it may not be a tool issue that makes modding a challenge but rather an issue with trying to second guess every possible outcome.

[Arthmoor]

So for anyone who's asked, we have at least 3 solidly confirmed locations: 1 city, 1 village, and 1 monument from the old days. Possibly a second city since the monument is so close to it as to make it virtually required.The one confirmed city is Markath Side. The GI screenshot that's been linked already is from there. According to current maps, that's a large city in western Skyrim.The one confirmed village is Riverwood, which according to maps is a medium sized village or town not far from Whiterun.The confirmed monument of course is High Hrothgar, which is the 7,000 steps bit that's talked about in the article. The second possible city would be Whiterun, which on the maps is more or less at the base of the mountain High Hrothgar is on.Based on the maps I'm looking at, that should mean we're getting a good sized world to play in.If we're getting a whole province, logic dictates at least one city as a harbor. Haafingar, Dawnstar, and Winter Hold all qualify as coastal cities. All of the other major cities on this map are on or very near the border regions, so I'd bet against seeing them. Perhaps some of the smaller dots for villages have grown into cities over the last 200 years.@Conner: Yes. Creation Kit is what the new CS is called. It's pretty much a first that we've had it confirmed this far in advance.

[Dwip]

Things are looking pretty good thus far, although the creators of that town architecture may have played too much SI.My one remaining big query is what they're using for the modeling. Who knows when and if they'll get around to telling us that, but it's probably not going to be .nif.@Conner - Since the radiant story stuff is more of a design issue than a tools issue, I imagine you'll see for Skyrim what you saw for Oblivion - high quality mods by good authors will likely make use of the system (or explain why they aren't), and your middle of the pack/lower quality mods either won't, or won't know how/know it's there.

[Arthmoor]

But I like that architecture :)Maybe you modeler types will get in-built modeling functions with CK since it's no longer a Gamebryo dependent thing. I've seen leaked shots of Bethesda's version of the CS before and it very obviously had .nif editors built in. How sophisticated that was is anyone's guess, but they probably didn't have a license to let that part of the middleware go public. Since CK is entirely their own creation, it seems logical to assume the modeling tools could be licensed as they see fit. Which should include the tree code too since they built their own tree system.I doubt I need to remind anyone what a pain in the ass it's been to get trees for Oblivion. I mean, who has the cash to blow $9,000 on a Speedtree license for personal use?