tubbs51 Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Sweet... i've always wanted to put a scar on my character's face... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Garcia Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I think this is the last update at Game Informer... /sadface It's about the new menu system overhaul. Looking at all the items in a cool 3D, rotating manner sounds miles ahead the boring menus of old. Read Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[SM]CJZera Posted January 29, 2011 Share Posted January 29, 2011 Hm, I liked the idea of a changing sky... I wonder what will my Mage's sky look like? Heck, I wonder how will the night sky look like in Skyrim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonshield Posted January 29, 2011 Share Posted January 29, 2011 "Low-Fantasy": Oddly enough, I like crazy sh*t. It technically isn't low fantasy, but I don't want another medieval, Lord of the Rings setting. I like weird stuff that I didn't see coming. I play games to experience stuff you can't get in real life. I've said this before: "If I wanted realistic I'd go outside". I actually relish this. I'm a huge fan of REH's Conan, so this is great for me. Weird is great, but so is the opposite. Maybe there'll be some instances of weird? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rawra Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 (edited) Italian magazine information: -Skyrim size is equal to Oblivion's Cyrodiil -There are 5 major cities, 20 minor cities and 100+ dungeons (but we already know that) -the creation engine is totally new, it's not based on the game bryo -graphics look a lot better than the oblivion and fallout 3 one -there are fishes that jump out of the water -the hud appears only when you fight. you will see the three status bar and the compass (sigh) -the UI is really user freindly but it's not intended to be mouse-used -every weapon has a damage stat and a block stat -it appears that there are no birthsigns -there is a separate control system for the pc -there is a "local map" for every zone of Skyrim -there are 100+ subquests -it will be possibile to play after the main quest -Steam, not gfwl. they're are disappointed with LIVE! -you can't create spells. -there are houses which you can buy -there are many puzzles in the dungeons -cities, dungeons etc will be added to the 3d map as soon as you encounter them -water physics -every town has an economic system -minor cities contains 10+ buildings -75% of the quests are dynamic. even the rewards and the quest giver are randomized -snow is not a texture (I don't get it, why a magazine says that is a texture and the other one says the opposite?) -bandits in the dungeons are alive and not puppet-like -soulgems are also used to regain magicka -"turn undead" spell confirmed -you can set oil on fire -there are birds -there is NO multiplayer -the npcs which give us the main quests are immortal -New confirmed enemies: Undead Dragon Priest, Yeti French magazine information: -dynamic shadows -if a weapon and a shield or two weapons are equiped, you cannot cast any spell -it seems that smithing can only be done in forges (you cannot repair your equipment everywhere like in morrowind or oblivion) -incredible level of detail such as : blood vessels on skin, modelling, animations, clothing -meteorological effects : clouds are gathering in real time around mountain peaks, snow affects textures -Matthew Carofano (artistic director of Skyrim) : Dwemer ruins (we know that already) and a Dunmer city -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 -spells confirmed : Detect Life, Fury (Frenzy?), 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 doesn't exist anymore -AI : NPCs have day and night activities like cooking and brushing the ground in front of their houses. -Dialogues : most uinimportant" 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. - similar to Fallout3 -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. -Archery : when aiming at something, you can hold your breath (consuming stamina) and the action is slowed. -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 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. -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. --------------------- These are posts from the TES forums, and havent been debunked by GStaff or anyone, so I guess they're pretty accurate. No spell creation and no birthsigns sure sucks imo Edited January 30, 2011 by Rawra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tubbs51 Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 If those are real then my mind = BLOWN. The stuff that interests me the most is No spell making... but the other stuff more than makes up for it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[SM]CJZera Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Only thing my mage will be missing is running around with a silver dagger and not using it at all... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Garcia Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 -in Oblivion there was only 1 guy working on the dungeons, this time for Skyrim, 8 devs are working on them. Suddenly I see. A lot of that sound real good, some sounds iffy. It seems like they're implementing a whole lot to add immersion and make the world really feel alive. And that is quite great. After so many hours playing the game, you really do notice how robotic the world actually is. So we can't have conversations with every NPC? That kinds seems like a step back. And I real hope only the main quest NPCs are immortal. I would like the freedom to break a guild or subquest by killing someone. Too many people were immortal in Oblivion. I'm kinda confused and scared about the increased level-scaling. I guess I'll have to tackle quests only after I've gotten to a high level to get the good loot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creed Bratton Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 No spell making? I wonder how long it will take modders to fix that horrible mistake. There is nothing better than spell making. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Special Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 No spell making? I wonder how long it will take modders to fix that horrible mistake. There is nothing better than spell making. I don't care about spellmaking to be honest. Never used it so it shouldn't ruin Skyrim for me. Not a big deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[SM]CJZera Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 No spell making? I wonder how long it will take modders to fix that horrible mistake. There is nothing better than spell making. I hope they change their minds, no spellmaking will equal suckness masive, seriously, spellmaking added a lot of depth and was awesome as hell... Why, oh Bethesda, OH WHY?! Anyone wants to go and piss in their front door as revenge? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Garcia Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 People were breaking the game with it I guess. Making super powerful chameleon spells and the like. I won't really miss it. Kinda makes sense doesn't it though. The Arcane University was in Cyrodill, so it makes sense that we could craft spells there but nowhere else. Unless you could make spells in Morrowind, then disregard what I said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rawra Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Is it even possible to break a game in singleplayer? It's a sandbox SP and if you want to become overpowered with anything you should be able to if it is what fun is for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suihkubad Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Agreed. I want to have that one overpowered character save Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Tequeli Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 So we can't have conversations with every NPC? That kinds seems like a step back. And I real hope only the main quest NPCs are immortal. I would like the freedom to break a guild or subquest by killing someone. Too many people were immortal in Oblivion. It's a better system actually, as it adds life to the cities by adding more NPCs. Oblivion's cities felt a bit dead because they had maybe 30 or so named residents and maybe a dozen guards. With unnamed NPCs you might get a better feeling of fullness by having many NPCs going around, they did the same thing in Fallout 3 and it worked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d0mm2k8 Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 I'm only bothered about the news for this game because it will concern the next Fallout. Dynamic Shadows? YES! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Garcia Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Well in an ideal world, the cities would feel as alive, with no-name NPCs, as the Assassin's Creed games. But I know we won't get that. 20 minor cities to the 5 major cities sounds substantial as sh*t. In a map as big as Oblivion's, that seems like a lot of space being filled up and less wilderness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[SM]CJZera Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Well in an ideal world, the cities would feel as alive, with no-name NPCs, as the Assassin's Creed games. But I know we won't get that. 20 minor cities to the 5 major cities sounds substantial as sh*t. In a map as big as Oblivion's, that seems like a lot of space being filled up and less wilderness. Unless some of the cities are like, inside a cave or just outside the map's boundaries? It might work out if they do it right... Here's hoping it will... And that spells are good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMFF Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 So we can't have conversations with every NPC? That kinds seems like a step back. And I real hope only the main quest NPCs are immortal. I would like the freedom to break a guild or subquest by killing someone. Too many people were immortal in Oblivion. It's a better system actually, as it adds life to the cities by adding more NPCs. Oblivion's cities felt a bit dead because they had maybe 30 or so named residents and maybe a dozen guards. With unnamed NPCs you might get a better feeling of fullness by having many NPCs going around, they did the same thing in Fallout 3 and it worked. I just hope it isn't too much like Fallout where there is 30 people all named (City Name) resident, and they all say the same 2 lines to you in different voices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Garcia Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 (edited) I just hope it isn't too much like Fallout where there is 30 people all named (City Name) resident, and they all say the same 2 lines to you in different voices. Oh, I didn't like that. I know every NPC can't have a dialogue tree, but those f*ckers served no real purpose. It's not even like they did anything to add to the immersion. They just wandered around aimlessly and slept. I hope they added a bunch of new animations for NPCs so they don't just wear a hole in the ground with all the walking. Spanish coverage info copy-pasted from the Beth forums: -they talk about dynamic snow that's you'll see falling on the terrain and accumulate (yes, they said accumulate) -dragons are scary, the earth trembles when they land -it has a lot of dynamic scenery elements: moving plant life (probably in the wind lol), flowers you can pick, animals running around, rapid waters with fish jumping out of them -they praise the immersion that Beth achieved through stuff like AI, graphics, dynamic environments, interface -map the size of Cyrodiil with 5, and I quote, "really big" citties, 24-25 smaller settlements and about 120 dungeons. -they refer to frost rats as "skeevers", they also mention "dragon priests" -combat is way more tactical -cities will be more alive thanks to the AI -they talk about while talking to people a dragon might attack and you'll see them running for cover and guards running to their posts Article also includes a new image with one dragon at the top of a pillar (not the one from the GI article!). My personal opinion: dragons look effing awesome! -they talk about potion/poison making and enchanting (crafting basically) as if you'll only be able to do it in towns. -they talk about combat and they say combine everything and experiment to see it's results (they speak of this in general terms, not referring to spell combos specifically so don't get your hopes up just yet), they also mention equipping the same spell twice and using both hands at the same time to cast it. -the unique moves of each weapon and unique special FX of each spell make combat spectacular and vibrant -game world adapts to your playing style There's also a pretty awesome artwork of a viking dude standing on top of a rock with a weapon in each hand (dagger and sword) looking very menacing. It looks like he's standing next to a mammoth or at least something that has two horns, the creature can't be seen only the horn things and it looks like it's fallen judgind by the position of the horns/tusks as if the dude killed it (he looks pretty roughed up). Edited January 30, 2011 by Don Garcia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Garcia Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Someone over at the Beth forums kindly transcribed the very recent podcast with Todd Howard. Info barrage commence: TODD HOWARD Game Informer Podcast: Are there going to be spears in the game? "There are not spears in the classic spear sense. I am sorry. There currently are not." "Something like spears is really cool, but with where we're putting our time with the other weapons, it just didn't make the cut." Are there any other kind of hints you can give us about the directions of like the types of weapons people are going to be able to play with? "The main thing that I can say is that, they go back to, we had X weapon types in Daggerfall, then X weapon types in Morrowind, and Oblivion had its own, and Skyrim had its own. And any time there's something that we stop doing whether that's spears, having a skill for that, or crossbows and things like that, we tend to each time start over. And we want to find weapon types with this game that really yield gameplay. So those skills are separate. There's a two-handed weapon skill, there's a one-handed weapon skill, and there's an archery skill. Because those really are playstyles. I'm going to use a one handed weapon and then either cast magic with my other hand, or I'm going to use a shield, or I'm going to use a two-handed weapon, where it's going to fill both those slots, obviously (two-handed.) Within each of these skills, there are perks. They're perks, but they're not like Fallout, in that each skill has its own perk tree. Take one handed for instance. You have a one handed skill, and then you can perk that. There's a skill tree underneath one handed. And within that there are separate perk areas for maces, and then axes, and then swords. So as opposed to having say an axe skill, that is a part of the perk tree within one handed. It gives us a better balance. You can say "Well I like one handed stuff," and then you can start specializing as you raise that skill." Are you able to be a werewolf in Skyrim? "We're fans of that stuff as well, and we're currently messing with all that. I don't want to commit to, 'here are the things you can change into and what they're like right now.' Not because we're not doing it, or not attempting to. I just don't know honestly where that's going to end up and how deep we're going to get into that. We will try things, and if we don't feel it's helping the game, there are other areas we'd like to spend our time on in the game." People are curious about mounts. Are we going to see a return to mounts? "Something we're messing with, and we don't know where it's going to end up. There were things with the Oblivion horses. We liked having them. They weren't the greatest implementation of horses. And now you see things come out like Red Dead. There are more horses in games, and we feel like just the basic implementation we did in Oblivion isn't going to be good enough. We are currently attempting things with that, and I don't know where it's going to end up." When you were looking at the Oblivion mounts, What were the things that stood out as being kind of problems for you that you wouldn't put into Skyrim unless you could fix? "Mostly I would say controls and the feel that you are not in some sort of battlefield jeep. You are riding an animal. Just the feeling of doing it. But a world without them feels a little weird. We definitely want to have them. We don't know yet what you're going to be able to do with them and to what level." Are you going to be able to craft spells, potions, and other items? "We do have crafting within each discipline now. We do have smithing, enchanting is back as a skill, and then alchemy we're sort of treating as - it doesn't matter that much anymore (stealth/magic/combat categories) - but it's sort of in our stealth category now. We have a blended skill list, so alchemy is sort of the most magical of the stealth skills. And then we have lots of other things that are NOT skill based that you can craft, like cooking and things like that. There is a lot of that, and more emphasis on it this time around." One thing that when I was down to see you guys at the studio was stuff related to how spells would interact with each other and that kind of thing. And I would suspect that the results of your experimentation on that would have an affect on whether you have anything like spellcrafting, right? "Yeah, spellcrafting is a real wildcard. Something that we've done a lot. And there are pluses and minuses to it. We'd like to find... we have some ideas that we really like on how to solve that, and I don't know where that's going to go. But the thing that we DON'T like about the previous systems that we've done, is it becomes very "spread-sheety." It takes the magic out of magic. You got to see the game, but your listeners haven't. There's a bigger emphasis on how the magic physically acts. Just a spell like fire; there are different spells for how the fire moves. Like putting down a rune that explodes when you walk over it. Or fire you can spray that lingers on the ground, like you're spraying a wall, and you can spray the ceiling. Or fire that travels like a flamethrower out of your hands. Or a fireball that you charge up and throw and it explodes at a distance. So our main goal is to make magic feel like this arcane powerful thing. And once it goes into a spreadsheet in the game where you can just say I want something at this distance and this power, it removes the illusion of like how this stuff actually works. So we have some ideas of ways around that, but we don't know where those are going to go yet. We do have the benefit of, we're really, really happy with how the magic plays in the game, both visually and mechanically. And then being able to do it with both hands. There are opportunities there for combinations and things you can do without getting into the spreadsheet aspect of it. Which I do know some people like, but it does take away from the impact of the spells that you're finding and mechanically how they work." Within the one-handed skill tree you've got these different perks for maces, and axes, and swords and so on. Within the magic system is it kind of similar, is it by school that you're perking up, or is it individually like I've got fire spells, and I'm going to perk fire spells? "Well there's the school Destruction, so that covers like a category of spells, and then within Destruction there are perks for fire based spells. So people see we've removed Mysticism, but that's just a label right? Those spells go into other skills. And then it gets deeper within those skills. The easy thing for us is to just add more skills. That's actually easier. Because in the old games there was just a skill and a number, there wasn't really a progression. We really want you to feel that you're getting better in this particular skill. And perks are the main way we do that now. And I think the game right now has like 280 perks if you include the ranks. So even a character that raises all their skills to 100, and they're playing and they're level 50, they've only gotten to pick 50 perks. They're very different characters. And a lot of the power is in the perks as opposed to the raw number of the skill. There's still some power in the raw number of the skill, just not as much as there used to be. All that stuff has been moved into the perks." How are races different from one another? "So the main decision you make in the beginning is what race you're going to be. You no longer pick class. You basically pick what you're going to look like, and obviously the race is a big part of that. And that comes with certain skill increases. So certain races have certain skills that are higher to start with, and then they also have either spells - depending on what race you pick - and/or racial abilities." On the lack of class and the new leveling system: "You just play, and your skills go up as you play, and the higher the skill the more it affects your leveling. It's a really, really nice, elegant system that sort of balances itself. People would play and the general pattern would be, they played for like three hours and then, 'oh, I picked the wrong skills, I'm going to start over.' They weren't necessarily upset about that, but to us it's 'is there a way we can solve that? Is there a way we can make this better' And we think this is it." Facial creation: "There's an all new face system we did. On the one hand you have less control than you had in Oblivion, but what you're doing looks cool. Our joke was Oblivion would have been better if the Random button was renamed the Ugly button on the face creator. So we've redone that completely with really, really nice results. Something simple like a nose, we have a lot of prebuilt shapes you can pick from, and then you can adjust the size and position of that, as opposed to lots of fiddly sliders. It lets us hand craft a lot of options that you can mess with. If you just start messing around, you're not going to end up with something that looks bad." What are the dragons going to be like in the game? "If you're a fan of fantasy you see a lot with dragons. They've been a part of classic fantasy that we've never done. So we wanted to do them in a way that they were part of the world, and put them on screen, and fight them in a way that you conjure up in your head when you read fantasy that you haven't really seen in a game. And that's what we're trying to pull off, that they are these fierce beasts. They do become these kinds of boss fights, like a mix between a Big Daddy and a Helicopter in half life 2. These things that you see coming and you're like, 'Oh. Oh NO.' They are really difficult to kill." Are they the enemies you end up fearing the most? "Definitely. Oh yeah." "We had a lot of back up plans for them when we were developing the game. Because when you deal with a creature that big and its AI and how powerful it is. You know, how much can it fly, can it land, will it be able to do this? We made a little team of people to work on dragons and put some of our best people on it. They worked on it for two years. They really came out like... We got to go past the list we had and then more. We're ecstatic with how they came out. They can dive bomb and breathe fire down a street. They can get on the ground and march around now. They can pretty much go anywhere. So we can call them and do random encounters. When they come, they generally now just work. You can throw multiples of them in a scene. They just, you know you just... like... when I get bored in the game I just summon dragons now and they can terrorize the town. It's always cool. There are multiple types of them. As far as riding them, I would not expect that. It's not something I see happening. It's kind of not how we're approaching them, first of all." Jumping up on one of their backs might not get the best results. "No." Companion characters. That was a really fun and really cool part in Fallout. What's going on with that? "We are approaching it in a different way. I would not expect the deep personalities and uniqueness with a low number of companions. We are aiming for a much, much higher number of companions that you can hire or they become your friends and they come with you. The general direction is to make it a bit more dynamic, and have more people that you can decide to have come with you. And in that we sacrifice them having a lot of depth or personality or individual stories. And there still will be some like that. But that's kind of the direction we're headed right now. We don't know the exact number of NPCs in the world that could become your companion, but we're hoping it's a big number." Radiant Story: "We want to be careful to not oversell it. It's a tool that we use to make quests. We started the game by making them all very, very random/dynamic. You do see the holes in that. It doesn't tell a good story. Good stories are still told by good writers and we do most of our quests that way. Radiant Tool is the tool you use to make any quest. And you can make all of the roles in that quest, you can hand craft all of those roles, or you can take any part of the quest and conditionalize it. So what it allows us to do is to take parts of a quest or an activity, and conditionalize it, without having to hand script conditions. Example: You come to town and there's a guy who has a child that's been kidnaped, and they're in a dungeon nearby. We can write that as a quest template, fill out the roles saying it's a guy in town who likes you, who has a child, and then the role for the location is a dungeon that fits this. We can pick a dungeon that you haven't been to for some reason that's nearby. You walk into town and the game just says 'Oh, there's a guy in town who likes you. We're going to kidnap his kid who you might have met, and put him in this dungeon for some reason you didn't go to. And that dungeon happens to be a higher level dungeon and so we think you could use a challenge right now. And the reward is going to be this other thing that your character can use.' Doing that before was impossible. But we have that opportunity right now, and so tend to be using it. The more dynamic quests tend to be like little favor things that people ask you to do, not full blown quests. But if you were to play a quest, it's very hard for you to tell. It's going to seem very hand-written. You'd really have to compare notes with friends to figure out the parts that that particular quest decided to make dynamic. Because some quests have no dynamic elements, and some quests have more." "When we're going to send you to do something, we can tailor that, a bit." Will we see factions? "We're doing factions. That's definitely something we're going to be talking about later. Not because we don't know, but because we decided that's a good thing to talk about later." "Different than what we've done before in what they are. But definitely we're going to have them." Are there some that are returning, or it's all new ones? "There are some that are returning, yes." 11.11.11. How committed are you to this number? "We actually tend not to announce release dates until later in the process. We're very confident about it. There's still a lot to do in the game. But we wouldn't have announced it if we weren't really confident." Why do characters always start as a prisoner? "It started that way in arena. We did it again in Morrowind, then Oblivion. It's sort of become a tradition. We like this idea that there's a little bit of conflict in the beginning with you being a prisoner, and we never say why. So you immediately in your head tell a story of why you're in prison to yourself. I kind of like that about it. It's part tradition, and part it lets you in your head tell a quick little story to yourself." What aspects of Skyrim are going to appeal to a gamer who wasn't a fan of previous TES games but was a fan of Fallout? "If you really, really don't like Oblivion, I don't know that this is suddenly going to switch you over. One of the things that Fallout 3 does well is there's a certain tone of the world, there's a certain uniqueness to it, it has style. Oblivion, for what it is, can be very kind of classic, traditional fantasy. There's not a lot of unique style to the world. Whereas Skyrim I definitely think has a unique style. We got better at that, and we push it, like what is the culture of these people? So it has its own flavor. It's definitely grittier. It's lower tech. The world's lived in. The ruins feel ancient and thousands of years old. We're also careful in Skyrim of the various ages of, 'when was this built?' Where Oblivion everything can feel like everything in this town was built on the same day. There's a more unique and a better flavor to the province of Skyrim and the game Skyrim than we had in Oblivion and Cyrodiil." Is Skyrim going to have multiple endings? "I don't really want to answer the ending of the game questions, yet. So I'm going to pass on that question." How expansive will Skyrim be? Is Skyrim sort of a comparable geography to Oblivion? "As far as actual landmass, it's ABOUT the size of Oblivion. It's different in that a good portion of it is mountainous. And mountains you can't just walk across. So they kind of inflate your game space. If you have this large mountain, getting up and through that and around that, and then the dungeons that are on mountains, you spend more time there. When you're walking around it, to us it feels a bit bigger because of the mountains. We were really pushing to have it not just be this big snowy mountain game, so that we do have a lot of different regions. They all have a really unique look while still being a part of that province." Is there any particular ESRB rating that you guys are aiming for? "We never aim for a specific rating. I'm sure it'll be M. But we never aim for a specific rating. I would be surprised if we did not get an M. Our assumption is we're getting an M, so we are doing the content that we think is appropriate for Skyrim. There is more violence to the combat just in how it looks. Not like Fallout violence where it gets really over the top. It's more a realistic level of violence for what it is with guys with swords and axes and those sorts of things." Is there a HUD, and if not how will the health system work? "There is a HUD. It comes and goes as needed. There is a small compass bar at the top that right now is always there for direction. Your magicka, your health, and your stamina, or other things, come up when they need to. If you're just walking around the world and you're full health, your health bar isn't on the screen. As soon as someone hits you and your health drops, it pops up." Will there be an X64 version for PC players? High resolution textures (will they have to be modded in?) Do you have a dedicated group for the PC version? "We work on it together. The main thing for people to know is our background is PC games. The game is authored here on PCs. That's what we work on. A lot of the team is playing the game on PC all day. We do want the platforms to each have a really, really high level of fidelity. I personally play a lot on the Xbox. It tends to be my preferred platform. We do a lot of graphics development still FIRST on the Xbox, just because it's smoother. And then a lot of that stuff does go over to the PC. We tend to do as much as we can as the project goes on, because we want to support as wide a range as possible. We also tend to do that stuff late, because right now we want to work on the main game and how it plays and getting the graphics fast everywhere, and then as the project gets closer to release we start supporting all those other things. You'll definitely be able to run the PC on a much higher resolution. All of our games that we've done so far - Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout - the PC versions have higher res textures they ship with by default. A lot of times you don't notice that, because when you play a console game you're sitting six to ten feet away from the screen. Whereas on the PC, you're sitting a foot, two feet away from the screen. Those kinds of differences in texture resolution, you don't notice unless you're looking at two screenshots on a computer and flipping between them. We are gonna support that stuff. I can't say how far. But the same thing with the interface. We do a lot of PC interface stuff. There are uniquenesses [sic] to how we handle it on the PC." Your philosophy towards achievements and trophies. What do you think about those systems and how do you want them to work in Skyrim? "We love them. We definitely do them with all of our games. Our general approach is to have a mix. If you look at the mix in Fallout 3 between specific quests, and leveling or collection, that kind of balance was pretty good. We have to do it differently this time because we have a lot more quests. We like to have a balance of specific quests that are important, or quest lines, and then just general gameplay stuff." Is there any chance that you guys are gonna do Kinect support, Move support, 3D, etc.? "I don't think that's gonna happen. 3D I would be surprised. Both Kinect and Move. They're fairly new systems as of last year. There might be something that we end up doing that we think fits, but at this point it would surprise me, because we do want to keep our focus on the main game." Explain how the leveling system works, particularly in relation to the maximum level. What your philosophy is toward that, how long can you level in the game, when does it become basically impossible to level, etc. "We don't code in a maximum level. There is a theoretical maximum depending on what your skills are. The one change we've made is that you level faster. We've sort of balanced Oblivion and Fallout 3 in some respects to like a 1 - 35, 1 - 30, so if people play for a long time that's the kind of high level with creatures and whatever. This one is balanced like 1 - 50, but that isn't longer in gameplay. You do level faster, a lot faster, especially in the beginning of the game. Because of the power in the perks, we wanted to be giving them out at a higher rate. The actual maximum depending on your particular character how it works out might be 75. I don't really know. I'm just saying we don't code in the maximum level. It will end up whatever it ends up." "(Perks being more fun) It's the thing you're always shooting for. Even 1 - 50 it slows down a lot as you play. If you assume there's 200 hours of content, you can sort of figure out, 'how often do I get to level?' We think we can balance that with the perks. That's what happened. We did the perks, and we figured out quickly, 'oh, to make these work, we need to be leveling faster.' And it is more fun." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d0mm2k8 Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 A lot of times you don't notice that, because when you play a console game you're sitting six to ten feet away from the screen. Whereas on the PC, you're sitting a foot, two feet away from the screen. I'm getting sick of this constant presumption that you can't play your PC in exactly the same place you do with consoles. What stops you from linking your PC up to your TV and sitting on the couch? Those kinds of differences in texture resolution, you don't notice unless you're looking at two screenshots on a computer and flipping between them. I'm sorry but with Fallout 3, the difference in visuals is so apparent only a retard wouldn't notice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMFF Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Only part I was iffy about was the companion part. To me, it sounded like he said "Were going with quantity over quality." Not sure about that. In New Vegas, I always have Boone because he is just a bad ass, and his story is awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otter Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 The companion system sounds great. They'll be more expendable this way, and the idea that there could be a ton of them... that's awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Garcia Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 To me, it sounded like he said "Were going with quantity over quality." Ya, hope they fix that. I'm all for more companions, a lot more of them, but I hated how dull they were in Fallout 3. New Vegas gave 'em life and personality and that was a big step-up from 3; one of NV's few. If they find a middle ground between quantity -- quality, I'll be happy as hell. I'm glad they're at least considering companions. Was honestly expecting them to nix that. A lot of the rest of what Todd said amounted to non-answers. And overall, everything he said is subject to change, so eh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JOSEPH X Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Garcia Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 New OXM piece, so new info copy-pasted from the official Beth forums. I tried to clean it up a bit, not a lot of new info it seems but I got some OXM excerpts and newer, higher-res screenshots are available. Check 'em and enjoy the page stretch. 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 you don't have to keep jumping around to level up' (I assume they mean there are 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 events 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 received a quest to go to Bleak Falls Barrow and retrieve a golden dragon claw antique and take it back to shopkeeper Lucan. If you had killed Lucan, the quest would quest giver would change to his friend Camilla instead. * The Snow. There 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 appropriate 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. Key Map Locations visible on page 34 * Solitude * Markarth * Dawnstar * Winter Hold * Windhelm * Whiterun * Riften * Falkreath Bethesda forum member post edit - These map locations may very well be outdated as OXM have used the old Skyrim map with a new colour scheme. Bethesda's Todd Howard has confirmed that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim won't have constantly scaling dynamic difficulty, as seen and moaned at in predecessor Oblivion. "It's similar now to what we did in Fallout 3, where we changed it a lot," he told OXM, in our exclusive interview on-sale this week. While the game will evaluate your hero and assign an appropriate difficulty as you enter individual dungeons, you won't find the entire world levelling up in step with your hero. "We have the ability now to set a dungeon and say that 'this dungeon is this hard.' But that doesn't neccessarily mean that it'll set itself as easy, he warns. "It might be much harder, just because of what it is... it might be much easier because of how we set it." "The other thing it does is save the state of the monsters. So if you come in and it says, okay it's going to be this hard for your character... it won't change its difficulty if you leave." And the Dark Brotherhood are returning. On it, Todd Howard said, "It's a very popular quest line. We like it a lot." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darthYENIK Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 Looks pretty cool. I can't wait to see a before and after picture of a landscape before snow and after. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moth Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 My God, the people don't look like f*cking monkeys. The game looks great, now I just need to find some money to upgrade my ram and video card. Formerly known as The General Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freak2121 Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 My God, the people don't look like f*cking monkeys. The game looks great, now I just need to find some money to upgrade my ram and video card. I know! On the blonde woman you can also see some subtle signs of aging, which is a very nice touch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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