Well there's actually some shadows now. I'm not sure if there's any self shadowing on those screens though.
The quality of the artwork looks fantastic but I can't help but feel that it's visually taking on a lot of similarities to Oblivion. Not so much in the sense that the titles belong to the same franchise, but just the way characters are lit and how light terminates across the surface of rocks for example.
Well there's actually some shadows now. I'm not sure if there's any self shadowing on those screens though.
The quality of the artwork looks fantastic but I can't help but feel that it's visually taking on a lot of similarities to Oblivion. Not so much in the sense that the titles belong to the same franchise, but just the way characters are lit and how light terminates across the surface of rocks for example.
If you look at the giant in the scans you'll see quite some good signs of self shadowing, and the type of full on outdoors shadowing technique they use is an all or nothing type shadowing.
I think skyrim seems to be taking a bit of a different look myself:
(Also, one thing to note, the pose of the skyrim character is way more natural, which hints that the animations might be way better this time around :P )
That's good that you pointed it out. Some of these images are pretty tough to decipher because of the quality and all the graphics that are overlaid. I think the thing that bothers me in particular is the all or nothing type of shadowing you get quite often in their normal maps. You can get pitch black crevasses and overblown bloom virtually inches apart.
It really does reveal the detail in some of their work, but the thing that bugged me in Oblivion with this type of technique was that certain armors or surfaces were either completely blinding or hidden in darkness depending on the lighting conditions. (I'm looking at you glass armor!)
Part of me hopes that they look at doing a little bit more muted approach to this as they polish up the visuals. Even some sort of post processing color control to keep the values within a certain range would really help.
I'm sure all will be revealed when they start posting some direct screencaps. I'm honestly looking forward to seeing what they do with Skyrim and all the sorts of cultural themes they build into the game like they did with Morrowind. Cyrodiil was a little too regal and cushy if you know what I mean
That's good that you pointed it out. Some of these images are pretty tough to decipher because of the quality and all the graphics that are overlaid. I think the thing that bothers me in particular is the all or nothing type of shadowing you get quite often in their normal maps. You can get pitch black crevasses and overblown bloom virtually inches apart.
It really does reveal the detail in some of their work, but the thing that bugged me in Oblivion with this type of technique was that certain armors or surfaces were either completely blinding or hidden in darkness depending on the lighting conditions. (I'm looking at you glass armor!)
Part of me hopes that they look at doing a little bit more muted approach to this as they polish up the visuals. Even some sort of post processing color control to keep the values within a certain range would really help.
I'm sure all will be revealed when they start posting some direct screencaps. I'm honestly looking forward to seeing what they do with Skyrim and all the sorts of cultural themes they build into the game like they did with Morrowind. Cyrodiil was a little too regal and cushy if you know what I mean
Truly, I expect lots of cold tombs holding ancient atlantean style swords, with wagner'ish poledouris style music.
Also, the civil war in skyrim that goes on too, sounds like it there might be choice of faction involved like in morrowind.
I would enjoy co-op like Borderlands. They did that very well. When you joined someones game you were in their world with the quests they've done being completed and so forth. Also the enemies scaled up in health/difficulty when more people joined. If you happened to join at the same spot or started together then you'd progress through the same quests as them. I think a system like that would work very well in Elder Scrolls.
Remember when in Oblivion you go down the side of a mountain too fast and you end up killing yourself?
Hehehe. happens in real life too!
I just hope the story will be better....
Once I became guild master of the warrior's guild, thieve's guild, magicians guild, etc., I had little incentive to restore the Emperor to power - I was the most powerful person in the country mwhahaha!
I just hope the story will be better....
Once I became guild master of the warrior's guild, thieve's guild, magicians guild, etc., I had little incentive to restore the Emperor to power - I was the most powerful person in the country mwhahaha!
It's not the Magician's Guild and Warrior's Guild! It's the Mage's Guild and Fighter's Guild!
If they aren't adding multiplayer then something that would be near the top of my list is a more robust system where you can craft items. Powering up weapons with gems is nice, but something similar to the alchemy system they had for Oblivion would be sweet.
I think finding random components and saving them for all sorts of little crafting projects would add quite a bit more depth to the game.
Not sure where you got that from. Sure there've been discussions for it but to say a majority is...I think...pushing it. So many people play the Elder Scrolls series for that experience of crafting their character, becoming part of the world, really getting immersed in that experience. Multiplayer would effectively take a large portion of that feeling away.
Granted, I think Bethesda could do a good job with a multiplayer game, but I certainly wouldn't want it to be part of their standard continuation of the Elder Scrolls series. I don't play an Elder Scrolls game so I can worry about other people. I think they could do a great MMO, but I also think implementing multiplayer could screw up a LOT of the lore if they tried to implement it at all as a direct continuation of the series/story. "The Hero of Kvatch and his buddy Jimmy restored peace to the realm of Cyrodiil." ...really? And if you played it alone then...lore just sort of...doesn't matter?
Let's just put it this way. If I see a single "lol" in my Elder Scrolls game, I may just have to nail my hand to the wall.
If they aren't adding multiplayer then something that would be near the top of my list is a more robust system where you can craft items. Powering up weapons with gems is nice, but something similar to the alchemy system they had for Oblivion would be sweet.
I think finding random components and saving them for all sorts of little crafting projects would add quite a bit more depth to the game.
In that game informer article it mentioned something about being able to smelt weapons in the town if you don't feel like adventuring. I hope that's some sort of a crafting system though and not some crappy little mini-game. They made it sound more like it's a mini-game though.
I don't know if it means anything, but in one of the Bethesda podcasts the level designers talk about being huge fans of Minecraft. I hope that game had some influence on them That would be awesome.
In that game informer article it mentioned something about being able to smelt weapons in the town if you don't feel like adventuring. I hope that's some sort of a crafting system though and not some crappy little mini-game. They made it sound more like it's a mini-game though.
Well in one of the screenshots you can clearly see "Enchanting" as a skill - and I THINK you can see a part of the word "Smithing" or something of the sort next to it. (At least, there didn't used to exist a skill starting with "sm" so I assume that's what it is.) Hopefully they replaced things like speechcraft with crafting skills. Would be pretty sweet.
Well in one of the screenshots you can clearly see "Enchanting" as a skill - and I THINK you can see a part of the word "Smithing" or something of the sort next to it. (At least, there didn't used to exist a skill starting with "sm" so I assume that's what it is.) Hopefully they replaced things like speechcraft with crafting skills. Would be pretty sweet.
I did see that enchanting skill and that excited me. Sounds like they'll be expanding the gem enchants into a full profession type thing. I didn't notice that Sm---- skill but smithing is also my first guess at what it would be. Smithing would make finding those ores and such in the mines much more interesting. The only thing I did with the ore I found in Oblivion was sell it because I never found any other use for it.
I did see that enchanting skill and that excited me. Sounds like they'll be expanding the gem enchants into a full profession type thing. I didn't notice that Sm---- skill but smithing is also my first guess at what it would be. Smithing would make finding those ores and such in the mines much more interesting. The only thing I did with the ore I found in Oblivion was sell it because I never found any other use for it.
Yeah the silver/gold stuff in Oblivion didn't have a use, it was pretty worthless to even bother picking up beyond Lvl like...1, it didn't even sell for more than like 25g if you got a good price on it.
But yeah, my bet is they scrapped some old useless skills - things perhaps like speechcraft, possibly mercantile, we know they scrapped mysticism, and they probably reorganized/combined some combat skills to adjust to the dual wield combat system. With those extra skill spaces, they probably put in crafting/gathering sort of things. Probably not a ton, maybe 4 or so. Smithing, woodcutting/carpentry, mining, enchanting - possibly cooking? Not going to make any detailed predictions but that's what I'm getting a feel for based on the pieces we do have.
I'd REALLY like to be able to mine my own ores and craft my own weapons. Gathering for and making my own potions/poisons was a great experience in Oblivion!
I never played Oblivion(I know I am a heretic ) HOWEVER I am a total Fallout 3/New Vegas junkie! I will probably get into this one though just to give it another shot, Jeremy Soule should be brought back! his OST scores are simply beautiful and captivating imho. I grew up with Secret of Evermore and loved the soundtrack in it. He was also the composer for Oblivion, I hope they bring him back!!
But yeah, my bet is they scrapped some old useless skills - things perhaps like speechcraft, possibly mercantile, we know they scrapped mysticism, and they probably reorganized/combined some combat skills to adjust to the dual wield combat system. With those extra skill spaces, they probably put in crafting/gathering sort of things. Probably not a ton, maybe 4 or so. Smithing, woodcutting/carpentry, mining, enchanting - possibly cooking? Not going to make any detailed predictions but that's what I'm getting a feel for based on the pieces we do have.
I'd REALLY like to be able to mine my own ores and craft my own weapons. Gathering for and making my own potions/poisons was a great experience in Oblivion!
Yeah, Alchemy was one of my favorite things in Oblivion. I'd run around for hours just picking plants and then crafting them all into potions to sell/use.
What makes you say Woodcutting/Carpentry for a new skill though? I can't see many uses for that other than making furniture to go into your house which isn't all that interesting. Maybe you'd be able to craft wooden shields, bows and crossbows with it but that doesn't fit under Carpentry.
What makes you say Woodcutting/Carpentry for a new skill though? I can't see many uses for that other than making furniture to go into your house which isn't all that interesting. Maybe you'd be able to craft wooden shields, bows and crossbows with it but that doesn't fit under Carpentry.
Oh nothing major, I don't know what all it could be used for - possibly weapon hafts/hilts/bows, something of that nature? The only reason I mentioned it is because it says in one of the scans "explore the mundane through farming, mining, woodcutting, or even cooking" - and they mention that an NPC might do some woodcutting on the same page. Also I've been playing some FFXIV lately and carpentry is a skill in that...
So yeah, nothing like real solid or concrete made me say it, just tossed it out there as a random possibility. Could be farming instead? That'd be cool - growing your own plants for alchemy and the like.
Oh nothing major, I don't know what all it could be used for - possibly weapon hafts/hilts/bows, something of that nature? The only reason I mentioned it is because it says in one of the scans "explore the mundane through farming, mining, woodcutting, or even cooking" - and they mention that an NPC might do some woodcutting on the same page. Also I've been playing some FFXIV lately and carpentry is a skill in that...
So yeah, nothing like real solid or concrete made me say it, just tossed it out there as a random possibility. Could be farming instead? That'd be cool - growing your own plants for alchemy and the like.
Being able to craft hilts and such would be interesting. I don't expect them to go that deep into the crafting systems though, being able to craft hilts and blades with different professions and combining them. Maybe if it were multiplayer.
Farming would be interesting, especially if you could buy farm houses outside of cities around the wilderness. There didn't seem to be much of a purpose to houses in Oblivion besides having a place to dump extra stuff besides the streets. Being able to have a garden at your house would be nice. You could have a place to grow rare plants for alchemy.
Being able to craft hilts and such would be interesting. I don't expect them to go that deep into the crafting systems though, being able to craft hilts and blades with different professions and combining them. Maybe if it were multiplayer.
Farming would be interesting, especially if you could buy farm houses outside of cities around the wilderness. There didn't seem to be much of a purpose to houses in Oblivion besides having a place to dump extra stuff besides the streets. Being able to have a garden at your house would be nice. You could have a place to grow rare plants for alchemy.
oh man, if there was a mini Harvest moon in my Skyrim that would be hilarious.
I can see a farming sim being pretty fun, get a house, go to the shop and buy some seeds. plant them OH GOD A MONSTER IS ATTACKING OUR VLLAGE
thank you for saving us, farmer warrior man. and look! you crops are ready.
What I would like was the ability to setup up a 'server', so you could have other people join in on your game. In morrowind it was nice to get a house and you could put up your found stuff, but you couldn't really show your 'adventure' room to anyone. A bit of NWN could be nice, so you could coop, just 2-4 people.
It's probably not healthy for me to be this pumped in January for a game that's not out until November. New theme is awesome and immediately brought back memories of Oblivion.
It's currently a very Skyrimmy -31 outside. My current quest is to start my car in the morning. Boring. Roll on November.
Finally got my hands on a game informer and read the story (I didn't read in scans because I respect the exclusivity, as lame as that may be). SOOOO stoked for this now.
Saw GT Noonan's sphere centurion in the sound vid, stoked about fighting those again.
Also, I wanted to give props to Gamestop. Normally I hate everything about gamestop, but I went in to pick up the GI because mine was never delivered, and they just gave it to me.
I said 'I don't need to pay?' and they were like "no way man, you have a subscription'
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Probably the best company in the world to work at
The quality of the artwork looks fantastic but I can't help but feel that it's visually taking on a lot of similarities to Oblivion. Not so much in the sense that the titles belong to the same franchise, but just the way characters are lit and how light terminates across the surface of rocks for example.
If you look at the giant in the scans you'll see quite some good signs of self shadowing, and the type of full on outdoors shadowing technique they use is an all or nothing type shadowing.
I think skyrim seems to be taking a bit of a different look myself:
(Also, one thing to note, the pose of the skyrim character is way more natural, which hints that the animations might be way better this time around :P )
It really does reveal the detail in some of their work, but the thing that bugged me in Oblivion with this type of technique was that certain armors or surfaces were either completely blinding or hidden in darkness depending on the lighting conditions. (I'm looking at you glass armor!)
Part of me hopes that they look at doing a little bit more muted approach to this as they polish up the visuals. Even some sort of post processing color control to keep the values within a certain range would really help.
I'm sure all will be revealed when they start posting some direct screencaps. I'm honestly looking forward to seeing what they do with Skyrim and all the sorts of cultural themes they build into the game like they did with Morrowind. Cyrodiil was a little too regal and cushy if you know what I mean
Epic
None of that shit in the new game hopefully ahahaha
Truly, I expect lots of cold tombs holding ancient atlantean style swords, with wagner'ish poledouris style music.
Also, the civil war in skyrim that goes on too, sounds like it there might be choice of faction involved like in morrowind.
Even an arena event where you can fight people online would be amazing!
Hehehe. happens in real life too!
I just hope the story will be better....
Once I became guild master of the warrior's guild, thieve's guild, magicians guild, etc., I had little incentive to restore the Emperor to power - I was the most powerful person in the country mwhahaha!
It's not the Magician's Guild and Warrior's Guild! It's the Mage's Guild and Fighter's Guild!
I think finding random components and saving them for all sorts of little crafting projects would add quite a bit more depth to the game.
Not sure where you got that from. Sure there've been discussions for it but to say a majority is...I think...pushing it. So many people play the Elder Scrolls series for that experience of crafting their character, becoming part of the world, really getting immersed in that experience. Multiplayer would effectively take a large portion of that feeling away.
Granted, I think Bethesda could do a good job with a multiplayer game, but I certainly wouldn't want it to be part of their standard continuation of the Elder Scrolls series. I don't play an Elder Scrolls game so I can worry about other people. I think they could do a great MMO, but I also think implementing multiplayer could screw up a LOT of the lore if they tried to implement it at all as a direct continuation of the series/story. "The Hero of Kvatch and his buddy Jimmy restored peace to the realm of Cyrodiil." ...really? And if you played it alone then...lore just sort of...doesn't matter?
Let's just put it this way. If I see a single "lol" in my Elder Scrolls game, I may just have to nail my hand to the wall.
In that game informer article it mentioned something about being able to smelt weapons in the town if you don't feel like adventuring. I hope that's some sort of a crafting system though and not some crappy little mini-game. They made it sound more like it's a mini-game though.
Well in one of the screenshots you can clearly see "Enchanting" as a skill - and I THINK you can see a part of the word "Smithing" or something of the sort next to it. (At least, there didn't used to exist a skill starting with "sm" so I assume that's what it is.) Hopefully they replaced things like speechcraft with crafting skills. Would be pretty sweet.
I did see that enchanting skill and that excited me. Sounds like they'll be expanding the gem enchants into a full profession type thing. I didn't notice that Sm---- skill but smithing is also my first guess at what it would be. Smithing would make finding those ores and such in the mines much more interesting. The only thing I did with the ore I found in Oblivion was sell it because I never found any other use for it.
Yeah the silver/gold stuff in Oblivion didn't have a use, it was pretty worthless to even bother picking up beyond Lvl like...1, it didn't even sell for more than like 25g if you got a good price on it.
But yeah, my bet is they scrapped some old useless skills - things perhaps like speechcraft, possibly mercantile, we know they scrapped mysticism, and they probably reorganized/combined some combat skills to adjust to the dual wield combat system. With those extra skill spaces, they probably put in crafting/gathering sort of things. Probably not a ton, maybe 4 or so. Smithing, woodcutting/carpentry, mining, enchanting - possibly cooking? Not going to make any detailed predictions but that's what I'm getting a feel for based on the pieces we do have.
I'd REALLY like to be able to mine my own ores and craft my own weapons. Gathering for and making my own potions/poisons was a great experience in Oblivion!
Yeah, Alchemy was one of my favorite things in Oblivion. I'd run around for hours just picking plants and then crafting them all into potions to sell/use.
What makes you say Woodcutting/Carpentry for a new skill though? I can't see many uses for that other than making furniture to go into your house which isn't all that interesting. Maybe you'd be able to craft wooden shields, bows and crossbows with it but that doesn't fit under Carpentry.
Oh nothing major, I don't know what all it could be used for - possibly weapon hafts/hilts/bows, something of that nature? The only reason I mentioned it is because it says in one of the scans "explore the mundane through farming, mining, woodcutting, or even cooking" - and they mention that an NPC might do some woodcutting on the same page. Also I've been playing some FFXIV lately and carpentry is a skill in that...
So yeah, nothing like real solid or concrete made me say it, just tossed it out there as a random possibility. Could be farming instead? That'd be cool - growing your own plants for alchemy and the like.
Being able to craft hilts and such would be interesting. I don't expect them to go that deep into the crafting systems though, being able to craft hilts and blades with different professions and combining them. Maybe if it were multiplayer.
Farming would be interesting, especially if you could buy farm houses outside of cities around the wilderness. There didn't seem to be much of a purpose to houses in Oblivion besides having a place to dump extra stuff besides the streets. Being able to have a garden at your house would be nice. You could have a place to grow rare plants for alchemy.
oh man, if there was a mini Harvest moon in my Skyrim that would be hilarious.
I can see a farming sim being pretty fun, get a house, go to the shop and buy some seeds. plant them OH GOD A MONSTER IS ATTACKING OUR VLLAGE
thank you for saving us, farmer warrior man. and look! you crops are ready.
Secrets of Alduin's Wall: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/01/12/skyrim-secrets-of-the-wall.aspx
Man oh man. OH MAN! I'll be gaming the shit out of it constantly. Go on quests during the lunchbreak with some co workers. Oh yes. Geek out!
[ame]
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/13/road-to-skyrim-the-todd-howard-interview.aspx
The Sounds of Skyrim:
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/14/the-sounds-of-skyrim.aspx
By all means...
He's our hero!...and Bob Ross.
Fuck yes. Morrowind fanboys will cream their pants when they hear the new theme.
I'm glad that my favourite part of the Morrowind theme (3:02-3:09 in the last video) is back. Now with epic viking choirs :poly142:
I did laugh hard when I saw that.
It's become more like the post daggerfall theme more than just the morrowind theme, it was used in oblivion too (for awesome reasons)
And even the newer skyrim melody heard in the trailer is a variation on it.
It's currently a very Skyrimmy -31 outside. My current quest is to start my car in the morning. Boring. Roll on November.
Saw GT Noonan's sphere centurion in the sound vid, stoked about fighting those again.
Also, I wanted to give props to Gamestop. Normally I hate everything about gamestop, but I went in to pick up the GI because mine was never delivered, and they just gave it to me.
I said 'I don't need to pay?' and they were like "no way man, you have a subscription'
I had to stop myself every time someone posted in this thread because I didn't want to tease myself more that I already have with all those scans...
UGHHHH