Elder Scrolls V Skyrim

[The Entity]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Scars, tats and decals will be options as well.

Decals as on shields or clothes or something? Like a coat of arms or some symbol?

 

[Spartan Rex]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Decals as on shields or clothes or something? Like a coat of arms or some symbol?

Shields and armor.

 

[RJMacReady16]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Oh nice. Not liking the "fantasy lite" and the 20 hr main quest though.

 

[The Entity]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Shields and armor.

Sweet!!! This is gonna be awesome!!!

Oh nice. Not liking the "fantasy lite" and the 20 hr main quest though.

20 hrs, too long or too short?

I'm usually spending the most time with sidequests and guilds anyway. At least I did so in Morrowind and Oblivion, so I'm happy to see those are still plenty. I read somewhere that the total number of quests is 100+ hours.

 

[BadMoon]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Sweet!!! This is gonna be awesome!!!



20 hrs, too long or too short?

I'm usually spending the most time with sidequests and guilds anyway. At least I did so in Morrowind and Oblivion, so I'm happy to see those are still plenty. I read somewhere that the total number of quests is 100+ hours.

I barely touched the main quest in Oblivion during my first 30 hours of play. So much fun! Can't wait for this!

I played Oblivion off and on for an entire year!

 

[The Entity]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

I barely touched the main quest in Oblivion during my first 30 hours of play. So much fun! Can't wait for this!

I played Oblivion off and on for an entire year!

I did practically the same! I have made numerous characters and always did the sidequests and guilds first before starting on the mainquest. Because otherwise there would be Oblivion gates everywhere and they often were at inconvenient locations

 

[wofford29]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

I have no idea how long the main quest for Oblivion was supposed to be. I logged 114 hours and only completed 12% of it and never finished it. I'm sure this will be the same.

 

[intothevoid]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

I logged some 250 hrs on Oblivion before finishing it... And left a lot unfinished side quests

 

[krec9]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

spend a few years playing Oblivion completed all quests cant wait for the new one

 

[Spartan Rex]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

From a French player in the Bethesda Forums:
Playstation Official Mag in France (although I'm a PC player),
-dynamic shadows
-if a weapon and a shield or two weapons are equiped, you cannot cast any spell (quite logical indeed)
-it seems that smithing can only be done in forges (you cannot repair your equipment everywhere like in morrowind or oblivion)
-new screenshot (i think so) with the PC facing the camera in a cave, wearing an elven armor, a sword in his right hand, and a kind of torch or light staff in his left hand.
-incredible level of detail such as : blood vessels on skin, modelling, animations, clothings (not sure what "clothing" means here))
-meteorological effects : clouds are gathering in real time around mountain peaks (sounds pretty cool), snow affects textures (so again pretty much confirmed that this isn't 3d accumulating snow but I'm fine with that anyway).
-a major inspiration for snowy landscapes seems to be artists like Brom and Frazetta.
-Matthew Carofano (artistic director of Skyrim) : Dwemer ruins (we know that already) and a Dunmer city!!! (yeah you heard me : Dunmer :celebration: ) ;
-again from M. Carifano : "after Oblivion where every place looked alike, in Skyrim you'll find once agin the excentricity of Vvardenfell. Here every Nord Clan has its own colors, its own identity."
-For consoles : the "block" action is performed by pressing both trigger buttons at the same time. Each separatly correspond to the action of what you equipped in one hand or the other.
-80 spells among which some are entirely new (the journalist might have picked a rounded off number since I remember GI said 85 or so?)
-spells confirmed : Detect Life, Fury (force ennemies to fight between them), Circle of Protection (hurl ennemies outside a magic circle), Snow trap (triggers only when an ennemy walks on it), Lightnings, Fireballs.
-Concerning finishing moves we'll see stuffs like : Axe blade planted in the neck, dagger in the chest.
-Concerning skills : Athletics (they surely meant Acrobatics) doesn't exist anymore (to prevent the player boosting this only by jumping on stand)
-AI : NPCs have day and night activities like cooking and brushing the ground in front of their houses.
-dialogues : most "inimportant" NPC like simple villagers won't have any dialogue tree (instead they'll directly comment on rumors or on what they're doing) ; only important NPCs will actually exchange dialogue with you, you CAN cut short the dialogue simply by walking away.
-Every city and town is bound to some particular resources meaning if you burn their mill or mine, you affect their economy and they'll be forced to buy flour or mineral somewhere else and when you'll want to buy these resources here again it will be more expensive. (good thing for evil characters and maybe desctructible environnement?)
-the Dragon Shout key on PS3 is R3 (don't ask me more since I'm a PC player)
-archery : when aiming at something, you can hold your breath (consuming stamina) and the action is slowed.
-Dark Brotherhood mentionned as might be in (the reason beeing that the devs had a lot of fun developping it in Oblivion)
-Dragons can be unpredictible in their behaviour, they will fly in the air, crawl on the land, they can crash when wounded.
-On the favorite menu: "Cliking on a key, the screen freeze and a list of weapons or 'favorite' spells is shown next to each hand".
-Todd Howard Interview :
-"a cause-consequence tree for each mission",
-each mission will be a bit different from the same mission played by another player who has done other quests. Also can be different depending on which mission you did before.
-If you meet a Giant on the road he might totally not attack you unless you attack him.
-it seems he says that when most NPCs give you a quest, they'll give you precise directions or accompany you to the road showing you which direction to take to go on on you quest.
-the player should be excited when discovering a new place, or overhearing rumors spoken by NPCs between them.
-the testers mark the most beautiful landscape, so they should have things like temples, stuff that will entice the player to go and check by himself.
-in Oblivion there was only 1 guy working on the dungeons, this time for Skyrim, 8 devs are working on them.
-120 dungeons (again might be another round off number, cause we already heard 130+)
-Speaking of jobs : woodcutting, weaponsmithing, sells stuffs you made to the forge or to the mill...
-he insists on the importance of activities they thought apparently useless before Skyrim, but they found that was surprinsingly important for immersion after implementing them into Skyrim.

Overall, the journalists seem pretty enthusiast and optimistic with the game and they can't wait to play it in November.
Personnaly I'm very excited with most news about Skyrim, except the fact we don't get much news on the UI for the PC version (I'm a bit scared if it's the same Apple thingy), and I hate the fact w'ell get Oblivion style fast-travel again (here also hoping they'll include travel services as well to please everybody). Anyway, I'm not here to start another war and on the other side I'm so releaved that the magic quest markers seem to be gone once and for all (at least according to what I read in the french mag).


PS: Sorry for synthax and grammatics, I'm not a native english speaker. :wink_smile:

 

[isculpt]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Me excited.

 

[Spartan Rex]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Game Informer:
In a game as large as the open world RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, comprehensive menus are a necessary evil. Though they may not be pretty, players need a way to easily manage items, review skills, and map out directions to their next dungeon crawls. The menus in Oblivion functioned, but they were essentially a cumbersome medieval equivalent to Excel documents. For the sequel, Bethesda is striving for a friendlier user interface.

Rather than refine the pre-existing menu system from Oblivion or Fallout 3, Bethesda decided to toss them on the scrap heap and develop a new, streamlined interface. Searching for inspiration, the team kept coming back to Apple, and for good reason. Over the last decade the company has revolutionized how consumers interact with software and hardware moreso than any other tech outfit.

”You know in iTunes when you look at all your music you get to flip through it and look at the covers and it becomes tangible?” game director Todd Howard asks. “One of our goals was 'What if Apple made a fantasy game? How would this look?' It's very good at getting through lots of data quickly, which is always a struggle with our stuff.”

Like in Oblivion, pressing the B or circle button opens up the menu system. Instead of returning you to the last page you visited as it did in Oblivion, Bethesda now presents you with a simple compass interface that offers four options.

Pressing right takes you to the inventory. The interface is a clean cascading menu system that separates items by type. Here players can browse through weapons, armor, and other items they gather during their travel. Instead of relegating players to looking at an item’s name and stat attributes, each possession is a tangible three dimensional item with its own unique qualities. Thousands of items are fully rendered, and players can zoom in on or rotate each one. You can even get an up close view of the flowers and roots you pick for alchemy. “It becomes an interesting time sink,” Howard says. “You can look at and explore every single thing you pick up.”

Pressing left from the compass gives players access to the full list of magical items, complete with breakdowns of how the spells operate. As we mentioned in the Building Better Combat story, the world of Skyrim features over 85 spells, many of which can be used in a variety of ways.

In Oblivion, players could map eight items from their inventory onto the D-pad for easy access. Given the new two-handed approach to combat in Skyrim, Bethesda didn’t want to limit players to eight items. Instead, pressing up on the D-pad pauses the action and pulls up a favorites menu. Anything from your spell library or item inventory can be “bookmarked” to the favorites menu with the press of a button. How many items appear on that menu is up to each player. Bethesda isn’t placing a cap on the number of favorite items, so theoretically you could muck it up with every single item you own. Though you can choose how many items appear, you can’t determine the order; items and spells are listed alphabetically.

Pressing down in the compass menu pulls the camera perspective backward to reveal a huge topographical map of Skyrim. Here players can zoom around to explore the mountain peaks, valley streams, and snowy tundras that populate the northern lands. Pulling the camera as far away as possible gives you a great respect for the size of the game world. From the map view players can manage quest icons, plan their travel route, or access fast travel.

Finally, pressing up in the compass menu turns your gaze up toward the heavens. In previous games, astrology played a large role in character creation. Though Skyrim abandons the class structure in favor of a "you are what you play" philosophy, Bethesda is preserving the player’s ties to star signs.

Three prominent nebulae dominate the Skyrim heavens – the thief, the warrior, and the mage. Each of these represents one of the three master skill sets. Each nebula houses six constellations, each of which represents a skill. As in Oblivion, every player starts out with the ability to use all 18 skills – any player can use a two-handed weapon, try alchemy, or cast a destruction spell (provided you find or purchase one). As you use these skills in Skyrim, they will level up and contribute to driving your character's overall level higher.

Every time players rank up their overall level, they can choose a supplemental perk ability for one of the 18 skills. For instance, if you fight most of your battles with a mace, you may want to choose the perk that allows you to ignore armor while using the weapon. As in Fallout 3, several of the perks have their own leveling system as well, allowing you to choose them multiple times. Once you choose a perk, it lights up the corresponding star in the constellation, making it visible when looking up to the heavens while interacting in the world.

“When you glance to the sky after you’ve played the game for a while, what you’re seeing in the sky is different than what somebody else is seeing based on the constellations,” Howard says.

 

[Spartan Rex]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

From GI podcast, “Ask Todd Howard About Skyrim”
Compiled by Zeopard

280 perks!!!
Two Handed Skill
One Handed Skill
Archery
The various Magic skills

"Within each of those skills each skill has a perk tree." For example under one handed there are separate perks for maces, axes, and swords. Instead of say axe skill, there is a tree under perks. You start specializing as you raise the skill.

Spears "didn't make the cut right now."

Crafting:
Lots of crafting within each disciplines.

Smithing, enchanting, alchemy. Alchemy is in the stealth category "the most magical of the stealth skills."

Many other things that are not skill based that you can craft. They will talk more about it later. It's all in game but will go through a few changes, so not getting too specific.

Spellcrafting:
Plusses and minuses. They have ideas that they like that they would like to solve. They don't like that the previous system in spell creation was very spell-sheety. Difference in how the spells actually act. Mentions the very different ways a fire spells to be used.

They want magic to treat magic as something that feels more like magic and less like a spreadsheet when you make a spell. They are very happy with how magic is in the game right now... and they feel the spreedsheet creation system takes away the feel of it, but they understand some people like it.

Perks:
In destruction for example there are fire perks, etc.

On less skills:
Adding more is actually easier for them to do than they are doing now. Confirmed you can only pick 50/280 perks when raising all skills to max.

Races:
Some races start with some skills higher or default spells/racial abilities. He doesn't want to get into what all those are but that's how it work, choosing race/appearance is the main first choice.

He's very happy with the leveling system. Thought the NPC randomly asking your class after 30-45 minutes when you complete the first part didn't add anything and would be just fine without that question, so they feel they have a better system now.


All new face system.

On the one hand "you have less control than in Oblivion but it looks better." They should have renamed the random button on Oblivion "the ugly button" he joked.

For example there are pre-built noses and you can change size/position somewhat.

Dragons:
Lots of questions at once. ><
They are going for if you're a fan of fantasy you see a lot with dragons, and something they've never done. One appeared in Redguard but it wasn't done to the level they'd want to see. They wanted to do them in a way that they are in the world, put them on screen and how you fight them how you imagine for fantasy. Boss fights "mix between big daddy and helicopter in half life too." "They are really difficult." They are the main, do you fear them the most? Yes, definitely, that's the intent.

They had many backup plans for them. When you deal with creature that big, can it do this or that fly/land/etc they made a team of people who worked on it for two years and they went past their list and did more. They are very happy, they can dive bomb, breath fire down a street, march around, they can "go anywhere." Call them, do random encounters with them, etc. They can "just work" in game, there can be more than one at once.

Multiple types of dragons. He is laughing and says he doesn't see dragon riding happening.

Companion characters:
Approching them in a different way. Don't expect the deep personality and a few. They are aiming for having a larger number of potential. Make it more dynamic, but they are still working on it. In that they sacrifice them having a lot of depth/personality/individual stories. There will be some, but they want a larger choice. They don't know the exact number of NPCs in the world that can be companions, but "it's a big number."

They considered letting anyone be companion but decided not to.

With radiant story/tools they can do what they want, but they want the right balance so it plays right and doesn't confuse the player. They don't want companions to feel worthless.

Why Radiant Story is cool question:
They don't want to oversell it. It's a tool they use to make quests. They started the game by making them all very random/dynamic. Random totally doesn't tell a good story. They do most quest lines with writing. Radiant story is the tool they use to make them. you can hand craft the rolls or conditionalize parts of q uest. Let's them take parts of quest/activity and conditionalize it without hand scripting it.

Example:
Common quest come to town and guy has a child that's kidnapped in nearby dungeon. They can write as quest template. Role: Guy with child.
Dungeon: Nearby unvisited.
Okay so you go in town and game says that this guy with a kid has his kid kidnapped so they randomize the dungeon nearby that you didn't visit and random loot that is good for your character. They could not do this before.

Says you'd have to compare notes with friends to see which parts quest made dynamic. Some quests have more dynamic parts, some with none at all. They don't want it to seem random at all when you play. They can tailor quests a bit to the things you've done.

Factions:
Yes absolutely. They will be talking about it later. They decided to save this discussion for later. Different from before. Some returning factions.

Release date:
They feel very good about release date. They tend to not release dates, but they feel confident of this. VERY confident, even if there's lots to finish developing.

Why always start in prison:
Started in Arena, did again in Morrowind/Oblivion.

Reasons:
1.) Tradition
2.) They like the idea that there's a little bit of conflict with you being prisoner, and they never say why. They want you to tell yourself a story of why you are in prison when you start. Todd likes this. Example if good guy, they have wrong person, etc lets you tell quick little story for yourself.

What aspects of Skyrim will appeal to a Fallout fan:
If you really really don't like Oblivion he doesn't know that Skyrim is suddenly going to draw in a Fallout fan. One of the things that FO3 does well is the unique tone/style. Oblivion can be classic/traditional fantasy. Not a lot of unique style to the world. Skyrim does have a unique style/culture/flavor, is grittier. Lower tech world than oblivion, everything looks ancient whereas everything in Oblivion looks the same age. More unique/better flavor to province of skyrim.

On geography:
As far as actual land mass "about the size of Oblivion." A good portion is mountainous. You can't walk across them, so mountains make it seem bigger. You spend more time in mountains. When you walk around mountains it feels bigger. Tried to make it not just this big snowy mountain game. They have different regions (5-6) they have unique look. Listed a few specific example.

Is there a rating they are aiming for? They aren't aiming for a rating. He's sure it will be M,but they do not aim for ratings. He would be surprised if it doesn't get an M. They do content they think is appropriate for Skyrim, not for an M. It's not like Fallout violence. More "realistic" for what it is with guys with swords/axes/etc.

There is a HUD. It comes and goes as needed. Small compass bar at top that "right now is always there." Magicka/health/stamina/etc come up when they need to. If you're just walking around the world health isn't there because it doesn't need to be. They want it HUD-less as much as they can but it will be there when it needs to be there.

PC questions:
They work on the versions together. Main thing: their background is PC games. Authored on PCs. Lots of the team is playing on PC all day. They want every platform to have a high level of fidelity. Todd's favorite platform to play on is Xbox. All of the games they have done PC versions have higher resolution textures by default. You don't notice it because you sit further from screen for console games. He can't say how far, but same thing with interface. If reading about interface there are uniqunesses about how they handle it on PC.

Achievements/Trophies:
Have a mix. They are happy with the balance with FO3 but they have to do it differently in Skyrim due to numbers of quests. Important quests, quest lines, general game play stuff level/collect gold/etc. They like to do a mix.

Kinect/Move/3d/anything emerging technologies.
Doubts it. Possible, but almost certainly not. Might be something if they feel it fits, but he doubts it. Want to keep focus on main game.

You as a character do not know you are Dragonborn at the start. He doesn't want to spoil the beginning too much. There's an event with a dragon that happens where you find out you're dragonborn. Says anyone listening probably knows, but they design the game to not spoil it right away anyway. The Greybeards sense this and shout to you from the mountain and you hear it, call you to go up the 7000 steps. He says they were promised 7000 steps "and he will count them." Artists did not blink when he said it must have 7000 steps. He knows people will count. 7000s steps is nothing compared to the other stuff in the game.

How level system works at maximum level, what philosophy is. When does it become impossible to level:
It works like Oblivion, there is no coded maximum level. There is a theoretical maximum depending on your skills. One change they made is that you level faster. Oblivion/FO3 balanced perhaps level 1-30. This one is balanced say 1-50, but it's not longer in game play. You level a LOT faster especially at the start. Because of how they handle perks, they wanted to give them out at a higher rate. They talk about it as a 1-50 game, but the actual maximum may be say 75 or so (at a guess). They don't code the maximum in. They think they can balance level with perks. They did the perks first, and decided leveling must be faster to make the perks more fun.

They have an internal timeline for releasing more information. They feel they can keep getting new information out "at a pretty good rate." It's not too far off until they show it in video form. Todd said "definitely" when they talked about putting up videos on Gameinformer.com eventually.

 

[DinoLast]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="853" height="510" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c9eGtyqz4gY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Biojex]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

fantastic.

 

[The Entity]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

That was brilliant!!!

 

[krec9]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

that was great

 

[speedy485]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Wow, that was seriously hilarious!

 

[Spartan Rex]

Re: Elder Scrolls V

Yeah, that video pretty much sums it up.

 

[Spartan Rex]

Re: Elder Scrolls V







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From Razor UK:
The cover story of March's OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) UK is Skyrim. There are 10 pages about Skyrim with an additional interview with Todd Howard, Bruce Nesmith (with the help of Matt Carofano). The article covers all the key points such as combat, Radiant Story, skills and the world. For an eager fan who has read the forums and other magazines such as gameinformer, there isn't a great deal of brand new information about key features of the game but it is an excellent preview and I highly recommend it.

I'll try to keep this topic brief and mention things I haven't read elsewhere.

Info

There is a perk that will lower the sound of your footsteps.
Perk for Axe that enables deeper cuts, which means prolonged bleeding. You can hit someone once and they will eventually bleed out.
Eventual perk upgrade for Maces that will allow you to hit for full damage, ignoring armor stats.
The article mentions placing runes on the floor (that we know already) but in particular talks about 'lob a frost rune down and if an enemy wanders over it, shards of ice will be launched through its body'
Telekinesis is an available spell.
'No more agility to build up so don't have to keep jumping around to level up' (I assume they mean no longer skills like acrobatics and athletes but they use the word agility)
When you kill a dragon you're able to absorb its soul which will make you learn a new dragon shout.
There is a dragon shout called 'Unrelenting Force' which pushes anything standing directly in front of you backwards.
Dragon shouts have cooldown periods after each shout performed. Individual shouts will have their own cooldown time.
In the northern parts of Solitude is the Bard's College. The city is a busy port and there's event similar to bonfire night that has the burning of an effigy of King Olaf.
Windhelm is the largest city. It has a palace that should look spectacular. This is also apparently the hangout for the Imperial Guards who monitor the path to Morrowind.
Bleak Falls Barrows is a dungeon, with ancient Nord catacombs which features rivers, tree roots coming through the ceiling and light coming through odd cracks.
120 Dungeons and they claim that 'no two areas will be alike'.
Just to re-confirm this fact straight from Todd Howard. Oblivion had 1 dungeon designer with artists doing the rest. Skyrim has 8 dungeon designers.
Whole world is hand-crafted. Oblivion had some generated landscapes and there is NONE of that anymore used in Skyrim.
The Shivering isles expansion inspired the team that unique, hand-crafted cities, where no two buildings look the same, was the way to go.
Example of a 'Radiant Story'. OXM UK recieved a quest to go to Bleak Falls Barrow and retrieve a golden dragon claw antique and take it back to shopkeeper Lucan. If you killed Lucan, the quest would change to his friend Camilla instead.
The Snow. Has been a lot of confusion about this. OXM UK says that snowfall is dynamic. Instead of a texture with a bit of white added, landscapes realistically get dusted with snow landing in appropiate nooks and crannies.
There are one-off puzzles in certain dungeons.
Example of new AI: 'Wolves have a den. Few times a day they go out and do a patrol and hunt in a pack. If they kill something then they'll hang out there. If you go outside and they're on patrol they will come after you. If they've killed something they will guard that and not chase you down as they want to look after it.


Dragon Shouts

The fact about the 'absorb soul of dragons to learn new shouts' has caused a little bit of confusion.

The dragon shout phases, of up to three words, can be found inscribed on the walls of ancient Nord dungeons. When uttered by the Dragonborn (the player) the words invoke powerful magic powers. For many of the shouts you can learn more phases which in turn will allow you to unleash a lengthier or more powerful version of the shout by holding the shout button down.
This appears to be the main way of learning shouts, by finding the word inscriptions. However the OXM article also mentions that you can learn new shouts in the process of absorbing dragon souls. The article doesn't mention anything else about this, maybe not all dragons give shouts, we don't know yet.


Key Map Locations visible on page 34
Solitude
Markarth
Dawnstar
Winter Hold
Windhelm
Whiterun
Riften
Falkreath


edit - These map locations may very well be outdated as OXM have used the old skyrim map with a new colour scheme.

Confirmed Skills
Alchemy
Illusion
Conjuration
Destruction
Restoration
Alteration
Enchanting