Skyrim: Elder Scrolls 5

[Darth333]

Originally Posted by mimartin

Warts and all I loved Oblivion and then Morrowind ...

Me too

If either of these are not true.. then it's not an ES game

I just want to make sure it really is an ES game However, I do hope that "Radiant AI" which has apparently now evolve into "Radiant Story" wont be reminiscent of the dumb Oblivion dialogs...

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Yeah, who am I kidding.. I foresee yet another year+ of my life being sacrificed to Bethesda then of course, BioWare will get it's turn (ME3) to have it's way with me

It will be a horrible year indeed, except I will likely not have the time to try more than two of these: I'm interested in playing Deus Ex, DA2, Shogun 2, Witcher 2, TES 5, ME3...I'd probably want to take a look at LA Noire as well and I am sure I am forgetting a few other games ...and I still have to play Fallout New Vegas: it's sitting on my desk as I've had no time to play it yet...the only game I've been able to play in 2010 was ME2.


Anyway, I've already noted down in my agenda that on the 14 and 15th of November I'll be vacationing in Skyrim

[ChAiNz.2da]

G4 just released a 2-part preview of gameplay, redone leveling stats/mechanics, new streaming draw engine, combat, creation kit & Todd Howard interview.

Some serious stuff going down on 11.11.11

http://www.g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/6...ome-to-skyrim/


Part 2 covers town economies, quests, inventory, and dragons.

http://www.g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/6...g-and-dragons/

For those that don't want to read (but you should. REALLY.)

YouTube Video

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Originally Posted by g4tv

The game starts out with you being led to your execution for reasons unknown, and it’s up to you to fill in the blanks.

And thus is the main question is answered.

Moving right moves your head right, since that’s where your weapons and useable items are held. When you bring up your inventory, you’re able to flip and rotate each item using the thumbsticks, which, as Howard says, makes finding a new item, “joyful on a visual level and not just, ‘Oh, this is a plus one.’”

“It’s not just an item with a number. You can look at all the items. They’re all fully modeled in 3D. You can zoom in. How is this thing made? What culture is this from?” Howard demonstrates this by bringing up a highly detailed shield and turning it over in space to show off its leather bindings, etchings, and contours.

As much as it looks superficial, I love this. Something I missed quite a lot in games such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2 was having some background on my items. It seems that the more the graphics advance, the less we have on these terms. Minimum is maximum.

BTW, the menu via D-pad looks to be completely optimized for consoles. Hope this is not a bad thing for PC players.

We run into a woman on the edge of town who makes a comment about a local shopkeeper who was robbed recently. A message appears telling us we now have a miscellaneous objective to talk to the shopkeeper. These types of objectives aren’t as robust as full quests, but they can lead to much more substantial quests depending on the circumstances surrounding them. This is one of the key components of the game’s radiant story system, as it will push you towards quests and locations according to your actions and progress in the game.

Eagerly waiting for a "look for the stray mudcrab" quest...

[ChAiNz.2da]

Originally Posted by Ctrl Alt Del

BTW, the menu via D-pad looks to be completely optimized for consoles. Hope this is not a bad thing for PC players

Same here. Though I am a big fan of my xbox.. Skyrim will be played on both pc/xbox platforms in my house (xbox keeps me honest. No cheats/mods )

PC could always use the arrow directional keys, or good old fashioned TAB / ESC. I'm pretty sure it will be one of the first 10 (non nekkid/bouncy/dangly bits) mods made for the game

[DarthParametric]

Is it just me, or in the wide shots does Howard look like a 15 year old boy when standing next to Sessler?

[Liverandbacon]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Same here. Though I am a big fan of my xbox.. Skyrim will be played on both pc/xbox platforms in my house (xbox keeps me honest. No cheats/mods )

Why would you ever play a Bethesda game without mods? That just sounds like a really unpleasant experience.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Originally Posted by Liverandbacon

Why would you ever play a Bethesda game without mods? That just sounds like a really unpleasant experience.

Because the game(s) can stand on itself and I like to play them (first) on how they were intended to perhaps?

Seriously.. out of the tons of mods on Nexus.. how many are actually 'needed'. The absence of pixel pr0n and one-shot weapons in vanilla aren't necessarily game breaking

[mimartin]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Same here. Though I am a big fan of my xbox.. Skyrim will be played on both pc/xbox platforms in my house (xbox keeps me honest. No cheats/mods )

I will do the same thing. Already did it with Oblivion and Fallout 3. Morrowind is the only game I only bought for the PC and I never played it without mods (That is, if you don’t count Fallout:NV, which I don’t).

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

out of the tons of mods on Nexus.. how many are actually 'needed'.

36?

I loved Fallout 3 and especially Oblivion on the 360, but I can seriously say some face mods were needed. I believe I have between 50 and 75 mods loaded for Oblivion on the PC. If I were to go home and play Oblivion right now I’m pretty sure I’m setting down at the PC and not the 360.

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

The absence of pixel pr0n and one-shot weapons in vanilla aren't necessarily game breaking

True, but better looking heads/faces that have a lower poly count and streamlined GUIs/inventory management is nice. Not everyone that likes mods does so for the reasons provided above.

EDIT: Speaking of game-breaking, many mods are there to fix errors that exist in the vanilla game.

[Primogen]

Plus, a lot of mods can breathe new life into a game. To take a non-RPG as an example, I have a decent sized collection of Total Conversion mods for Homeworld 2 on my computer at the moment.

[Darth333]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

(xbox keeps me honest. No cheats/mods )

And then you hit a bug like the animation bug in Oblivion and you're screwed

Couldn't play a TES game without mods... but yeah...to find nice and tasteful body/armor/clothing mods you have to browse through tons of mods featuring girls with breasts the size of huge watermelons running around in microscopic bikinis...

[Liverandbacon]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Because the game(s) can stand on itself and I like to play them (first) on how they were intended to perhaps?

Seriously.. out of the tons of mods on Nexus.. how many are actually 'needed'. The absence of pixel pr0n and one-shot weapons in vanilla aren't necessarily game breaking

Sure it's not game breaking, but it's like the difference between MREs and proper meals. Sure, you can survive perfectly well with one, and might even be happy with it if you'd never had the other, but the other is an infinitely superior option.

In fact, if you're playing before Bethesda's released a ton of patches, there are a bunch of mods that actually do fix game-breaking problems. Then there are tons of others that make the game way better in gameplay, graphics, and pretty much everything else. I see no reason to even touch Oblivion or Fallout 3 without some mods installed, and I'm someone who's almost always in favor of a vanilla first run with games. I do wish that it was easier to sift through all the one-shot weapon and pr0n mods on the Nexus to find the actual good content though, some good mods just get buried under the garbage.

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by Liverandbacon

I do wish that it was easier to sift through all the one-shot weapon and pr0n mods on the Nexus to find the actual good content though, some good mods just get buried under the garbage.

This.

[Primogen]

Pron mods ARE good content. Amirite?

T&A aside, I generally just sift through the Top Ten mods and work my way out from the mods the top ten mods require. Finding Compilation mod sets works pretty well, too.

[stoffe]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Because the game(s) can stand on itself and I like to play them (first) on how they were intended to perhaps?

Seriously.. out of the tons of mods on Nexus.. how many are actually 'needed'. The absence of pixel pr0n and one-shot weapons in vanilla aren't necessarily game breaking

Morrowind was completely unplayable without mods. I bought it when it was first released but uninstalled after little more than an hour and sold it. Bought the GotY version a few years later again, installed a bunch of 3rd party mods (among them the crucial Better Heads/Bodies/Armor mods) and had lots of fun playing it.

Being able to mod games to better suit your preferences is one of the main reasons I prefer gaming on the PC. Not only does it enhance the game experience itself, modding can be rather fun on its own. Bioware's recent trend of complete disinterest in allowing/supporting modding for their games is rather annoying; I hope Bethesda won't follow suit and will continue to release modding tools for their games.

[Q]

Originally Posted by stoffe

Morrowind was completely unplayable without mods.

Agreed.

So was Obliv... wait, nope, it was still unplayable.

[DarthParametric]

Originally Posted by stoffe

Bioware's recent trend of complete disinterest in allowing/supporting modding for their games is rather annoying; I hope Bethesda won't follow suit and will continue to release modding tools for their games.

Well they've stated a number of times that a toolset will be released for it, so it seems it will continue for the moment at least. Although I don't have an overly great fondness for Bethesda's products, a little love for the PC crowd in these console-centric times is a rare and praiseworthy event, so I have to tip my hat to them for that.

[ChAiNz.2da]

hehehe.. well aware of the fix mods and such, and don't get me wrong I DO so love my mods (very much), but I've yet to run in to any game breaking elements that weren't, albeit eventually in some cases, fixed by later patch releases.

Granted, you'd have to wait a seriously long time for Morrowind (like stoffe I bought the GotY edition) and the animation bug got fixed in Oblivion after the 2nd (or 3rd?) patch.. but they were "fixed".

What I'm getting at is that the mods aren't necessarily "needed" for gameplay. If that was the case, you'd see serious product recalls on an unplayable game and massive detrimental publicity (beyond the standard hater rage )

I actually have Morrowind for xbox and it runs (slowly because I run it on xbox360's backwards compatibility) without any of the quirks that the pc version suffered. However yes, on my pc.. my Morrowind/Oblivion/Fallout worlds are absolutely gorgeous with the plethora of beauty & streamlining mods I add. Frankly, Darn's UI mods are an absolute MUST for me when on pc

Debating "enjoyable" though is as bad as discussing politics .. hehe. I guess I should say in-my-case, I've enjoyed Beth games both un-modded and modded to the gills.

And gawdz yes.. I would love a "hide trash mods" button on Nexus

[Liverandbacon]

Originally Posted by DarthParametric

Well they've stated a number of times that a toolset will be released for it, so it seems it will continue for the moment at least. Although I don't have an overly great fondness for Bethesda's products, a little love for the PC crowd in these console-centric times is a rare and praiseworthy event, so I have to tip my hat to them for that.

Also, they said in an interview that they looked at some of the best gameplay mods for Oblivion for ideas on what people would like changed for Skyrim. Instead of a vague 'x should be harder/easier' or 'x should be changed', looking at which mods get used gives them a rather specific idea of exactly how much harder/easier people want things to be, and what specific changes should be made.

I think that Bethesda would be unlikely to eliminate what amounts to a free R&D department, or at the very least a free testing ground for ideas which might be suitable for a sequel, just because they couldn't be bothered to keep mod support.

The customers win because they can modify the product and get a better one as a result. Bethesda wins because many possible changes for a sequel have a way to be tested for response without any financial consequences.

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Debating "enjoyable" though is as bad as discussing politics .. hehe. I guess I should say in-my-case, I've enjoyed Beth games both un-modded and modded to the gills.

[stoffe]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Granted, you'd have to wait a seriously long time for Morrowind (like stoffe I bought the GotY edition) and the animation bug got fixed in Oblivion after the 2nd (or 3rd?) patch.. but they were "fixed".

What I'm getting at is that the mods aren't necessarily "needed" for gameplay. If that was the case, you'd see serious product recalls on an unplayable game and massive detrimental publicity

Morrowind's biggest defect was that the character models were so horrible that extended exposure to them made your eyes bleed. No official patches for that, but thankfully the Better Heads/Bodies mods remedied that nicely.

(That, and the fact that the first release version of the game crashed as soon as you attempted to exit the first building you ended up in after exiting the prison ship, unless you used a crack to remove the copy protection. )

[mimartin]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

I would love a "hide trash mods" button on Nexus

Depends on who gets to define what trash is, but that is completely new argument.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Originally Posted by Liverandbacon

I'm SO stealing this

Originally Posted by stoffe

Morrowind's biggest defect was that the character models were so horrible that extended exposure to them made your eyes bleed. No official patches for that, but thankfully the Better Heads/Bodies mods remedied that nicely.

(That, and the fact that the first release version of the game crashed as soon as you attempted to exit the first building you ended up in after exiting the prison ship unless you used a crack to remove the copy protection. )

True & True. I was a late bloomer to Morrowind so luckily GotY is what you had to buy if you wanted the game at all. Glad I dodged that bullet

And yeah, Morrowind's models were (and still are) pretty craptacular.. but weren't they ground-breaking at the time of release? I can only imagine the gawdz awful frame rates you'd get with high poly given the pc speeds at that time. I remember first playing you'd have to reduce your fog of war to about seeing 5 feet in front of you just to walk And woe to the person who went swimming to dodge the damn cliff racers (shudder).. nothing like getting nipped in arse by the slaughterfish frenzy.. hehe I DO thank the stars for mods that remedied that mess

Originally Posted by mimartin

Depends on who gets to define what trash is, but that is completely new argument.

Definitely. First link I hit on Nexus is the top 100. Although it only lists 25.. you can usually catch the top-end mods before surfing for 2 hours trying to find what you want.

Can't count how many times I gave up and just made my own

[mimartin]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Definitely. First link I hit on Nexus is the top 100. Although it only lists 25.. you can usually catch the top-end mods before surfing for 2 hours trying to find what you want.

Top 100 takes you to the Top 25 in the last two weeks. From there you can access Most endorsed files in the last two weeks, Most endorsed recently added files, most endorced files of all-time, Most endorsed files (non-adult) and of course, Most endorsed Files (adult only). The first two are 25, but the last three are 100. So if you want no porn and no (that I see) one hit kill weapon, use the Most Endorsed Files (non-adult).

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Can't count how many times I gave up and just made my own

The talentless like me just have to search and hope.

Although I got most of the mods I use for both Oblivion and Morrowind from suggestions from members here. I’m still eternity grateful to Rhett and Achilles for telling about the mod getting rid of attacking Cliff Racers. Tried playing once without the mod just to see what it was like. I quickly turned reactivated the mod after a couple encounters. I can’t imagine playing the entire game with them. Besides the body and face mods,the make Cliff Racers not hostile unless attacked and the Delay Dark Brotherhood mods are essential to playing Morrowind GotY.

[Liverandbacon]

Originally Posted by mimartin

Top 100 takes you to the Top 25 in the last two weeks. From there you can access Most endorsed files in the last two weeks, Most endorsed recently added files, most endorced files of all-time, Most endorsed files (non-adult) and of course, Most endorsed Files (adult only). The first two are 25, but the last three are 100. So if you want no porn and no (that I see) one hit kill weapon, use the Most Endorsed Files (non-adult).

Though some mods that aren't porn at all (as far as I can see) somehow get classed as 'adult'. Like that one mod that I can't bear Little Lamplight without, and brings Fallout back to the grand old days where if a kid tried to steal from you, you could reverse pickpocket a grenade into their inventory (at least that's what I did to get through the Den in Fallout 2 un-robbed, without becoming universally vilified).

Originally Posted by mimartin

Although I got most of the mods I use for both Oblivion and Morrowind from suggestions from members here.

Speaking of which, I know this is a bit off topic (might be better as a message), but if anyone here has New Vegas, I'd really appreciate some recommendations of good mods.

[mimartin]

Yeah, never got how mods got classified as adult on Nexus. I guess if you are a modder and you want more people to see your mod you classify it adult.

I’ll admit I have a few from the adult category, other than the set body mod I would personally not classify any of them adult. The set body mod is great for using armor designed for the different body types. Easier than switching out bodies every time you want to try a different armor.

[Mav]

I will leave this here...

[DarthParametric]

You aren't going to see mods happen on the 360 (well not for legal users anyway). Maybe the PS3 is a possibility, as I recall UT had the provision for mods, but even then I can't see it being a sanctioned distribution through official channels. The console overlords are very big on tight control over content, and user-generated mods are a nightmare in that regard.

As far as the DX9 thing goes, they made that pretty clear from the outset. That's a legacy of it being a console game first and foremost and them just porting it across to PC (as is the case with most games these days, sadly). Of course even if it were PC exclusive there still probably wouldn't be a whole lot of mileage in developing heavy use of DX11 shaders, what with the reasonably low level of DX11-capable hardware take-up amongst the gaming populace (the March 2011 Steam stats put it at under 6% for the ~75% of their userbase that run Vista/7).

[Liverandbacon]

Originally Posted by Mav

I will leave this here...

I thought that Microsoft doesn't like letting large files get downloaded to an Xbox unless they make some money off of it. Unless they suddenly had a change of heart, I could only see mods coming to Xbox if Bethesda sold them for $. That would be a scummy thing to do, and would cause a sharp drop in people willing to make mods.

Business aside, the technical part would be a nightmare. There's so much that mod users need to do with load orders and mod compatibility in Bethesda's games, that wouldn't be practical to do on an Xbox. Often the mods that are most worthwhile have a ton of incompatibilities, and I can see a lot of gamers getting frustrated. Expecting the mod creators to fix that would be unfair, since a lot of the problems are easily self-fixable on a PC, and they weren't the ones who chose to put mods on consoles.

I just see this becoming a massive headache on both business and technical ends. Bethesda is just spinning their use of outdated tech (1 DX generation behind, no problem. 2 generations behind? Problem.) to be a feature, preventing them from having to do extra work, and letting them blame Microsoft and/or mod creators when mods either don't appear ('It's Microsoft's fault! We said we wanted to! Ignore the fact that words have no value!"), or don't work together nicely ("We can't address that bug, it's likely due to one of your mods; complain to the creator.").

[DarthParametric]

Additionally, many of the best mods for the Gamebryo-based games required the use of a script extender to work in order to allow functionality not present in the vanilla engine. I'm not sure if the same will be true for the new engine (although I suspect it will), but if it is then I can't see that being possible to implement on a console.

[mimartin]

Maybe old news and most of it was covered in ChAiNz links, but I still enjoyed this article from ING. Five Changes from Oblivion to Skyrim

The two things that caught my eye were. 1. Maybe no Horses. 2. Some Dragons speak English. Oh and that Radiant AI thing which I will believe when I see.

[Primogen]

I really hope they don't completely remove horses. I liked having them in Oblivion, even if they handled like a trolley.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Originally Posted by mimartin

Maybe old news and most of it was covered in ChAiNz links, but I still enjoyed this article from ING. Five Changes from Oblivion to Skyrim

The two things that caught my eye were. 1. Maybe no Horses. 2. Some Dragons speak English. Oh and that Radiant AI thing which I will believe when I see.

I'm pumped.

Scrolled through the pic gallery too... Khajiit and Orc look soooo much better and badass-er(?)

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/93395/...033047799.html

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/93395/...033053299.html

[mimartin]

Again no new news, but another article from ING. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: The Basics
I did like ING's subtitle to the article "Want to know more about what's going to suck a hundred hours from your life this fall?"

Not a bad article by CVG. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - The most beautiful game of the generation? I'll believe it when I see it, but the pics look really good so far.

@yeah ChAiNz the Orcs and Khajiits do look better, but my burning question is will it be easier to make a female wood elf look decent, than it was in Oblivion without mods?

[Liverandbacon]

"Essentially this system ensures you don't get locked out of quests if you killed Frank the Butcher's wife while testing that fancy new fire spell. Instead, someone else gets plugged into the quest."

I once read someone saying "I mentioned earlier that 'choice and consequence' is a catch-cry [for many RPG players]. Well, choice and consequence is not an ingredient in a Bethesda game. In your typical Bethesda game, you get to role-play everyone. You get to make every choice, typically without any consequences. And by God does that make their games hugely successful."

This has just gone even further in removing realistic consequences from the player's actions, a move with which your mileage may vary. Personally, I like consequences in RPGs. The cookie-cutter method they discussed using to create quests is worryingly indicative of uninteresting MMO-style 'kill 10 <insert beast>' quests. I hope I'm wrong.

[mimartin]

Seems they are re-releasing Oblivion in June for the PC, 360 and PS3. It will be the 5th Anniversary Edition. The Edition is pretty much the GotY Edition with a few collectibles added, the only thing that caught my eye was the $10.00 off Skyrim and a Skyrim Strategy Guide. So if you don’t have Oblivion and its two expansions packs you may give it a look come June. The list price is $30.00.

I’ll also leave this here for ChAiNz. Xbox News: Bethesda: Skyrim is “too big”

"At last count we had about 120 real caves, and more than 100 common points of interest outside," Howard revealed, speaking to Norwegian site Gamer.no, translated by official site members. "The game is actually too big."

Size isn't everything, of course. As you may recall from our exclusive reveals a couple of months back, Skyrim will marry raw scale to organic nuance at ground level. Towns and dungeons will no longer be block-built affairs, transparently derived from templates, but "hand-crafted". Howard claims Bethesda has placed "every tree, rock, cup and such" individually.

[Primogen]

Wow. That's pretty impressive considering it's hand-work. People harp on about how Daggerfall had an area twice the size of Great Britain, but considering it was all generated flatlands, it wasn't all that impressive.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Originally Posted by mimartin

I’ll also leave this here for ChAiNz. Xbox News: Bethesda: Skyrim is “too big”

Looks at the calendar

5 agonizing months wait... aaaaaargh

[Canderis]

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Looks at the calendar

5 agonizing months wait... aaaaaargh

My thoughts exactly. This will be the best game ever.

[Boba Rhett]

Originally Posted by Canderis

This will be the best game ever.

Aaaaaand you jinxed it. Thanks.

[Prime]

I haven't played any of the others, but the screenies and things make me want to pick this one up when the time comes.