Something off with that outdoor scene. The vegetation looks all blurry and noisy as hell.
Supposedly people have already written what the mag contains:
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.
I'm pleased that they ditched the face morphing stuff that they used in Oblivion. They at least resemble people with human like features. Hopefully we won't get anymore people who look like lumps of white dough, or crumpled paper bags with eyebrows drawn on in black marker.
Now please make my day and tell me there's a lot more voice actors! It drove me nuts when you'd ask a beggar something with a frail poverished accent, and then you'd ask him about some quest and he'd respond in a big booming jolly voice.
It drove me nuts when you'd ask a beggar something with a frail poverished accent, and then you'd ask him about some quest and he'd respond in a big booming jolly voice.
When I read about Skyrim, it gives me that 'butterflies in the stomach' feeling which I no longer get when I think about games. I am so excited I think I may explode.
This looks like much more of an upgrade from Oblivion (which I certainly enjoyed) than I even dared to expect. I'm impressed! November can't come quickly enough!
awesome! full size screens. They look great! echoing what Zack said, this is more of an upgrade than I initially expected.
I'm even more surprised by the fact that there hasn't been a bit of info about the game I've been disappointed about at all yet... it's almost too good to be true.. hmm..
I've loved every elder scrolls game before this. Skyrim will be no different. Everything they've said (apart from spears! :P ) has been perfect. The snow thing sounds interesting, would that be the first game to feature dynamic snow (to that extent)?
From what I understand, it just overlays snow onto the textures according to a value determined by the weather system. Nothing too fancy.
EDIT: Upon further reading, it seems they may be taking bump maps and wind direction into account for the texture, which would be fairly cool.
This is looking great! Beth is really stepping it up. It's good to see some actual character modeling as opposed to the create-a-character-with-sliders approach of FO3 and Oblivion.
from Kotaku "Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's new engine is capable of creating actual human faces. And as you can see above, rather attractive ones at that."
Oh so the Engine makes the faces, all this time I thought it was the character artists! That's some primo game journalism there.
Justin: Yeah, I read this part first "Yes, while the limitations of the old Gamebryo engine resulted in Oblivion being full of gnomes with plastic faces" then what you wrote.
Justin: Yeah, I read this part first "Yes, while the limitations of the old Gamebryo engine resulted in Oblivion being full of gnomes with plastic faces" then what you wrote.
Best most informed journalist evar.
Truly.
While listening to the podcast-interview todd went into the subject a bit more, and he speaks of great logical stuff, like how they dont want to oversell radiantstory and explains that it is basically a powerful tool for the designers to build quest-templates with that the system uses,
and how they improved the look of faces by going back and designing it with premade handbuilt facial parts rather than having a system with a million sliders and no artistry.
Some of those environments are just amazing. I love the architecture. Makes me want to put the side project I am working on, on hold, and start working on Skyrim mods and etc.
There were some books that I found interesting, but I always found that they were more of a way to make the world feel more alive. I'd rather they put more effort into the actual gameplay, rather than writing in-game books that a very small minority really reads.
There were some books that I found interesting, but I always found that they were more of a way to make the world feel more alive. I'd rather they put more effort into the actual gameplay, rather than writing in-game books that a very small minority really reads.
Writers put effort into gameplay?
Next thing someone will say that the coders did great work on the artwork, and that the artists should put more work into the soundtrack of the game.
And on a more serious note: books have been an elderscrolls-thing since the first title in the series, calling for their removal is sacrilege.
Next thing someone will say that the coders did great work on the artwork, and that the artists should put more work into the soundtrack of the game.
And on a more serious note: books have been an elderscrolls-thing since the first title in the series, calling for their removal is sacrilege.
No, that is not what I meant at all. What I meant was, I'd rather they (they= bethesda) use the time spent writing in-game books, into the gameplay/visuals.
However, you do raise a valid argument concerning the books being part of Elder Scrolls history. I hadn't thought of that.
Bethesda isn't some amorphous blob that spews out a game every 4th year.
It's a HUGE collection of people working together on different parts of the game. So you can't say you'd "rather they spent time on bla bla bla instead" Because they are already spending as much time as they can ON that exact thing with the resources they have available.
What I mean is, I would personally prefer them taking the resources spent on the writing of the books, and using them on the art side of things. This is just my own opinion, and Eld raised a good point. Not bashing on anyone/anything here, quit taking me for a fool.
What I mean is, I would personally prefer them taking the resources spent on the writing of the books, and using them on the art side of things. This is just my own opinion, and Eld raised a good point. Not bashing on anyone/anything here, quit taking me for a fool.
I know what you're trying to say, but the thing is, the writers are important not only for the books, but for the game story, all the dialogue, etc..
The books also probably leave some room for the world designers to get a bit creative.
There's little point to firing all the writers to gain a few additional artists of a probably already big art team, or as you could say; a few more chefs in the soup kitchen of the game-design department.
I don't know how I feel about that mentioned "magnetism" sort of auto-targeting in melee combat. I haven't played Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood as of yet, but assuming it's very similar to the first two in the Assassin's Creed series, that'd really be kind of a let down...
Pete is throwing down with a casual quest, offering up an unknown reward to any couple adventurous enough to name their 11/11/11-born child “Dovahkiin.” While it may be difficult to play Skyrim from the hospital, just think of how many late nights you’ll have to lull your little Dragonborn with Jeremy Soule’s soothing music.
I don't know how I feel about that mentioned "magnetism" sort of auto-targeting in melee combat. I haven't played Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood as of yet, but assuming it's very similar to the first two in the Assassin's Creed series, that'd really be kind of a let down...
Personally, I wouldn't mind it being like in AC series. I think it worked pretty well, but its biggest problem was that it was too easy in the way that enemies would patiently wait in line to attack you. Combat was always the weakest element in TES games, so I'm happy that they are trying something different this time around.
the way they described the "magnetism" is weird. If the friendly NPCs get in your way while fighting, why not just fix the problem at its root?
Exactly. Why not just configure the friendly AI to avoid your attack zone? Most modern game engines are capable of doing ray cast checks aren't they? Non-combat NPCs can just head for the nearest unlocked door when a fight breaks out.
My hopes...:
Will there be jigglybones? (animatable hair/capes, chains/rings dangling in weapons)
Will there be sensible body texture layouts? Because robert's body mod did that right, man. If Bethesda makes a good unwrap from the get-go, maybe all modders follow it, and all those body and armour mods will be more compatible.
Yeah, I like to mod :P
edit: welp, am I the only person who has Oblivion running stable on a quad-core win7 with maximum settings and then some?
Maybe some folks just don't get along with their computers.
Replies
Something off with that outdoor scene. The vegetation looks all blurry and noisy as hell.
Supposedly people have already written what the mag contains:
Now please make my day and tell me there's a lot more voice actors! It drove me nuts when you'd ask a beggar something with a frail poverished accent, and then you'd ask him about some quest and he'd respond in a big booming jolly voice.
They felt useful, thats all.
I'm even more surprised by the fact that there hasn't been a bit of info about the game I've been disappointed about at all yet... it's almost too good to be true.. hmm..
This is looking exciting.
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9903/image4337857.jpg
-want that guys helmet
I'm guessing it's just an ordinary iron helmet.
Heh, not in real life. I want the real thing
From what I understand, it just overlays snow onto the textures according to a value determined by the weather system. Nothing too fancy.
EDIT: Upon further reading, it seems they may be taking bump maps and wind direction into account for the texture, which would be fairly cool.
I'm guessing more than before, and since it's their own tools this time around they shouldn't have any issues releasing them.
Oh so the Engine makes the faces, all this time I thought it was the character artists! That's some primo game journalism there.
Best most informed journalist evar.
Truly.
While listening to the podcast-interview todd went into the subject a bit more, and he speaks of great logical stuff, like how they dont want to oversell radiantstory and explains that it is basically a powerful tool for the designers to build quest-templates with that the system uses,
and how they improved the look of faces by going back and designing it with premade handbuilt facial parts rather than having a system with a million sliders and no artistry.
also, random button = ugly button. :P
Also i hope they'll write more books for ingame library, instead of using the same from Morrowind- that was really bothering in Oblvion.
The only reason I'd want a book in a game is if I could load it into my rock-it launcher and take someone's jaw off with it.
I hope this game has a rock-it launcher.
Hahahahaah!
go play quake3
http://img715.imageshack.us/i/dsc00728i.jpg/
You need to flip the picture. It's fuzzy, but it's new. And freakin' awesome. I LOVE the clouds in the mountains, holy shit.
http://i.imgur.com/sXEm6.jpg
\/ - Looks like a nice place for Skooma @_@
Writers put effort into gameplay?
Next thing someone will say that the coders did great work on the artwork, and that the artists should put more work into the soundtrack of the game.
And on a more serious note: books have been an elderscrolls-thing since the first title in the series, calling for their removal is sacrilege.
However, you do raise a valid argument concerning the books being part of Elder Scrolls history. I hadn't thought of that.
It's a HUGE collection of people working together on different parts of the game. So you can't say you'd "rather they spent time on bla bla bla instead" Because they are already spending as much time as they can ON that exact thing with the resources they have available.
*sigh*
What I mean is, I would personally prefer them taking the resources spent on the writing of the books, and using them on the art side of things. This is just my own opinion, and Eld raised a good point. Not bashing on anyone/anything here, quit taking me for a fool.
I know what you're trying to say, but the thing is, the writers are important not only for the books, but for the game story, all the dialogue, etc..
The books also probably leave some room for the world designers to get a bit creative.
There's little point to firing all the writers to gain a few additional artists of a probably already big art team, or as you could say; a few more chefs in the soup kitchen of the game-design department.
that is all I care to say.
I don't know how I feel about that mentioned "magnetism" sort of auto-targeting in melee combat. I haven't played Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood as of yet, but assuming it's very similar to the first two in the Assassin's Creed series, that'd really be kind of a let down...
http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/02/18/ladies-and-gentlemen-start-your-creation-engines/
Personally, I wouldn't mind it being like in AC series. I think it worked pretty well, but its biggest problem was that it was too easy in the way that enemies would patiently wait in line to attack you. Combat was always the weakest element in TES games, so I'm happy that they are trying something different this time around.
I would really enjoy being able to decapitate people.
Exactly. Why not just configure the friendly AI to avoid your attack zone? Most modern game engines are capable of doing ray cast checks aren't they? Non-combat NPCs can just head for the nearest unlocked door when a fight breaks out.
Will there be jigglybones? (animatable hair/capes, chains/rings dangling in weapons)
Will there be sensible body texture layouts? Because robert's body mod did that right, man. If Bethesda makes a good unwrap from the get-go, maybe all modders follow it, and all those body and armour mods will be more compatible.
Yeah, I like to mod :P
edit: welp, am I the only person who has Oblivion running stable on a quad-core win7 with maximum settings and then some?
Maybe some folks just don't get along with their computers.