Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[ezrast]

<Fry face>

Now you're doing it!

[Paelos]

Not sure if making joke regarding an unintended pun or if you misinterpreted my post. <Fry face>

Can't it be both? 

[Hawkbit]

Sounds like Skyrim will be always-on connected?  I have not heard this before, I think. 

http://kotaku.com/5834914/the-skyrim-team-has-a-better-plan-for-squashing-bugs-this-time

[tgr]

That sounds awful.

[Hawkbit]

Also no surprise here, but 360 gets initial DLC first.  :/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112609-Skyrim-DLC-Will-Be-Timed-360-Exclusive

[koro]

Also no surprise here, but 360 gets initial DLC first.  :/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112609-Skyrim-DLC-Will-Be-Timed-360-Exclusive

Oh for fuck's sake.

[Amaron]

I can't really understand the reasoning behind that.   I mean average guy walking into Best Buy isn't even going to know about the DLC thing and will pick up whatever version he wanted.   This is just going to piss people off when the actual DLC comes out and they finally find out about it.

[NowhereMan]

SO with Deus Ex 3 and Space Marine it's looking like FPS designers might finally be starting to take the PC market seriously in terms of actually taking us into account. Meanwhile the RPGs are just shifting into the 'zomg, makes this suitable for consoles, PC nerds will still buy it.' zone. I love me some Bethesda sandbox RPGs but if this is super console oriented I'll probably end up waiting until it's on a decent Steam sale. Which is a shame because dragons are cool.

[tgr]

I just sent bethesda an email detailing that those two moves just put them off my must-buy list, and also put RAGE off the must-buy list pending news of whether or not they're going to be asshats or not.

Now to watch it get completely ignored. Oh well, probably money saved I suppose.

[Tebonas]

Same here, enough other games in the pipeline until they patch out the online part for the Game of the Year edition.

[Sir T]

Well, it looks like I made the right decision in spending my gaming money on Morrowind. This looks like total ass.

[koro]

And continuing the parade of "What? Why are you doing that?", there is no weapon or armor degradation in Skyrim:

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1225036-no-armor-degradation-confirmed/

@DCDeacon Hey Pete, I'm just wondering, do weapons and armor degrade in Skyrim, like with their own health? Also, is there visual damage?

@elderscrollsftw [Pete Hines] No and no.

Admittedly it's not a huge deal in the long run, but it's still kind of puzzling and another notch in my Disappointing Skyrim Design Decisions Belt, alongside the console-game-on-a-PC UI, the loss of attributes, the automatically-regenerating health, and the removal of Spellmaking (the last of which instantly moved Skyrim from still a possible Day One purchase to "I'm going to wait a while and see", erring on the side of "not going to buy it"). Weapon and armor degradation acted as a kind of pacing mechanic: when your gear got busted up, it was a sign that it was time to pack it in and head back to civilization. Investing in Armorer at the opportunity cost of training another more active skill granted you the benefit of being able to stick around out in the wilderness for longer. Sure, Oblivion completely fucked it up by making gear break from a stiff breeze (a problem Morrowind largely didn't have :smugmorrowindfanboy:) while vastly increasing the amount of Armorer you needed to maintain enchanted gear, but all that would've been needed is a change to item health values and how much damage items take from use. More babies out with the bathwater, I guess.

[Paelos]

I'm in favor of armor not degrading. In many cases it was entirely too fast, it made taking armorer almost a necessary evil just to get around, and in general it's a PITA.

[K9]

I'm with the monkey; item degradation was just a tedious mechanic that really added nothing to the game.

Spellmaking on the other hand was fucking sweet, and it will be a shame to see that go.

[Lantyssa]

I expect spell making to be modded back in pretty quickly.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah, my purchasing of this game is going to be pretty much wholly contingent on well supported mods are since I expect within a few months the community will have largely hacked together decent RPG mechanics to go with a fun and interesting world. I'm not going to be buying it on release (probably) simply because if the vanilla mechanics are a sucky RPG then I don't want to 1) Play it and 2) Reward them for sucky mechanics. If the mod making support is strong this is going to see a decent community simply moving on from the other TES games. It sounds like they're aiming for a game that's really more Action/Adventure hack n' slash sandbox than any kind of tradition RPG.

[Paelos]

If Oblivion is any indication, modders will go into BEAST MODE on this thing.

[ajax34i]

No spellmaking is a deal-breaker for me.  I hate having to scroll through innane spell names using their stupid console interface - I always end up making my own spell (same power / effects as theirs) just alphabetized by effect, range, and damage.

[Sheepherder]

Admittedly it's not a huge deal in the long run, but it's still kind of puzzling and another notch in my Disappointing Skyrim Design Decisions Belt, alongside the console-game-on-a-PC UI, the loss of attributes, the automatically-regenerating health, and the removal of Spellmaking (the last of which instantly moved Skyrim from still a possible Day One purchase to "I'm going to wait a while and see", erring on the side of "not going to buy it"). Weapon and armor degradation acted as a kind of pacing mechanic: when your gear got busted up, it was a sign that it was time to pack it in and head back to civilization. Investing in Armorer at the opportunity cost of training another more active skill granted you the benefit of being able to stick around out in the wilderness for longer. Sure, Oblivion completely fucked it up by making gear break from a stiff breeze (a problem Morrowind largely didn't have :smugmorrowindfanboy:) while vastly increasing the amount of Armorer you needed to maintain enchanted gear, but all that would've been needed is a change to item health values and how much damage items take from use. More babies out with the bathwater, I guess.

1. UI is UI.  Expect it to get XML'd to within an inch of it's life within 60 seconds.
2. Attributes.  Had to go.  Or, it had to be the maximum or average of your attribute or skill that determined the number which plugged into the function.
3. Regenerating health.  This is a good-ish idea.  It's actually much easier to balance than the armour shit they pulled in Oblivion.
4. Spellmaking.  This is no longer an Elder Scrolls game, is it?
5. Armorer.  I think I'll actually miss this, even though it was bullshit in Oblivion.

I expect spell making to be modded back in pretty quickly.

Don't.  The spellmaking system itself was baked into Oblivion's engine and was only moddable because the global variables and functions (there was one for spellmaking, and one for enchanting, both to call up the respective menus) were deliberately exposed to the potential modder.  If they've decided to do away with it chances are it's gone completely.

[koro]

http://nerdtrek.com/skyrim-answers-bethesda/

Bunch of Q&A bits, including stuff about Daedric quests (it's looking like there may not be any like we're used to), armor degradation (it's not for-sure gone), and two full perk trees, one for pickpocketing and one for smithing:

[Sky]

Actually, I'm ok with them taking it in a new direction. They apparently can't work with what they've turned Elder Scrolls into, since Fallout was pretty decent (if not as good as New Vegas). Turn it into an action RPG, if it can make it fun again.

[tgr]

More ingame footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSL-r9AIEEU

[Paelos]

Here's my impressions from watching all that.

Combat looks good, much more visceral than in the previous editions of hack and miss we had. I like the two hands system and the spells combining.
The settings and graphics look beautiful. That's going to be the selling point of the game, I can tell.
The inventory and UI system scares the hell out of me. I'd have to see it in practice, but I have a feeling it's going to be total ass and need heavy modding.
The map, however, looks great. I like the zoom out version where you can see the landscape with markers. It's a much more accurate indicator of positions.
The scene with the horse riding looked silly. That's a really oddly fat horse. I call him Stubby.
Overall, I'm still excited about it.

[Ironwood]

More ingame footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSL-r9AIEEU

I'd written this game off.

I really liked the look of most of that.

Dammit.


(also, big Stonekeep vibe.  No idea why.)

[Sky]

Was that a walkthrough with a controller? "Pull both triggers" Yep.  Slo-mo thumbstick look is slo-mo. Inventory gives new meaning to the elder SCROLLs.

I did like the map and 'constellation' skills. Also, I'm a whore for winter and nordic stuff. Quest to chop wood? Fuck yeah!

[luckton]

[Hawkbit]

Good job, mate.  That is the single-most irritating thing I've seen on F13 yet. 

Because games shouldn't evolve, right?  That makes them "retarded". 

[Ironwood]

Without trying to bait you, there is an argument to be made that they devolved.

Just sayin'.

[Paelos]

I don't mind things devolving if it means they could get the simplest of inventory systems correct.

Why do you hate the paper doll, Elder Scrolls? Is there some moral obligation you have where putting in a normal inventory system that people have used for the last 15 years should be replaced by scrolling shit forever?

Oh look, I can do a closeup of that useless piece of vendor trash I picked up! YIPPIE! Look at the textures on that slice of horse meat! Surely this is the next generation of inventory management. 

[palmer_eldritch]

Picture of Downs Syndrome child used to indicate stupidity

If we had a rep function on this forum I would have quietly neg-repped that post.

[luckton]

Without trying to bait you, there is an argument to be made that they devolved.

Just sayin'.

This guy gets it.

[tgr]

Uhm.

Right.

[Ironwood]

Without trying to bait you, there is an argument to be made that they devolved.

Just sayin'.

This guy gets it.

Well, perhaps, but I wasn't defending your way of putting it. 

[KallDrexx]

I don't mind things devolving if it means they could get the simplest of inventory systems correct.

Looked like a fine system to me for a console game.

[Ironwood]

Ooooo, that's fighting talk.