Skyrim - Three Hours of Skyrim Previews

Dhruin

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Last week Bethsoft held a press event where journalists got to play Skyrim for three hours, and a slew of previews have now been released (all X360, by the way). None of the articles reveal much and most of the journalists seemed determined to run off in a random direction, leading to a number of hunting anecdotes but not much insight into the quality of quests. Here are the ones we've spotted so far.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has two short parts up, starting with The Bad Vegetarian:
I was barely out of character creation (I was playing a female Khajiit, partially because I find the see in the dark racial ability incredibly useful but mostly because I own a female cat) when I saw him. Well, I heard his dog first and thought ‘oh, a dog! How cute!’ Then I saw the dog’s owner, a poacher. I saw his bow raised aloft. I saw the hand released. I saw the arrow fly. I saw the arrow thwack into the side of an already-fleeing fox. And I saw myself, before I entirely knew what I was doing, plunge a knife into Poacher’s back.
Why did I do that, I asked myself, already knowing the answer. I did it because I am a lily-livered, animal rights-supporting vegetarian, and my first experience of this wonderful world being someone being a bit of a dick to an animal was rather distressing. On the other hand, I was impressed that the game featured NPC poachers and animals who were frightened of NPC poachers. Still, this was going to be my world, and I wasn’t go to stand for that kind of thing. It was in my power to make it a better place, and so I would. Take that, poacher. No more poaching for you, poacher. Yes, I was aware of the irony of being a murderer in order to prevent murder. But this appeared to be the only way I could stop him. So, I felt bad about my dark deed, but good that the world was down one rotter.
Part Two is titled Zombie Torturer.
VG247:
Heading through the undergrowth I switch to third-person to get a feel for how this more alien viewpoint fits the game. It’s a view that I return to several times over the period of the three hours, in order to see how those who like their action viewed from above and behind will be served. Happily, the sense of connection with the environment is much improved over Oblivion’s feeling of gliding steps and floaty jumps, though I still can’t imagine wanting to play the entire game this way.
IGN:
While chasing a deer near a river bank, I noticed dragonflies buzzing around my head. I tried to snatch them out of the air, failed, and realized the deer had sprinted entirely out of view. In a nearby waterfall fish jumped from bottom to top, and by standing on a rock in the midst of the rapids I was able to pluck one out. I let the moving water carry me downstream, where I found the deer again, killed it, and watched its corpse float along with the current, bumping into rocks along the way.

You may think this type of thing is pointless, but for me it's the perfect example of why I'm so drawn to Elder Scrolls games. Skyrim feels like a real place, from the way the wind kicks up snow from the edges of rocky cliffs to the way the surface of ponds ripples under a light rain. It's packed with structured content, but also filled with plenty more reasons to explore.
CVG:
The talent trees themselves are represented by gorgeous, swirling constellations in the heavens above Skyrim. Proficiencies are unlocked by lighting different stars within them, and they're shaded according to ability - red for physical combat, blue for magic and green for social and crafting skills.

They're also structured in such a way that cunningly prompts the player to explore their character's potential by offering the chance to specialise in different weapons in a certain class. If you're fond of your two-handed hammer, for example, the corresponding constellation will offer you the chance to expand your two-handed repertoire to include edged weapons, such as swords and battle-axes.
Destructoid:
I asked Alvor the blacksmith if he had any work for me to do, and he offered to teach me the smithing sy...More information.
 
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I haven't read any of the previews posted here (only skimmed through a few), but do these all pertain to the 360 version?

I notice that the Eurogamer article commented "In some ways, the game doesn't look that dramatic a graphical leap forwards from Oblivion", so I'm thinking they were restricted to a 360 preview only.
 
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Those articles remind me a lot of the hands-on Oblivion previews when every journalist told us a tale of their adventures and no two stories ever seemed to be the same. To me that's what's truly unique about TES. No other open world game really offers that amount of freedom where you can have dozens of people playing the same game and each one ends up coming up with a unique experience of their own character and what they did first and where they headed first and so on.
That's RPG goodness at its finest and if Skyrim doesn't have any flaws on the level of "Scalinggate" then it ought to be a strong contender for RPG and game of the year awards by the dozen.

Bring it on! :)
 
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My god what is Bethesday's marketing budget now?

I remember when they were small....

Is marketing like 50% of their budget now?
 
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I haven't read any of the previews posted here (only skimmed through a few), but do these all pertain to the 360 version?

Unfortunately Yes ~ there has never been a preview or video released for the PC ver yet, other than Todd Howard commenting several times that the PC ver looks much better but refuses to show us.

25 days til release and all Bethesda keeps showing off is the damned XBox 360 ver as-well-as previewing the same content from the video during E3 and still not even a measly screenshot for the PC ver.


Its driving me nuts too! I mean its like yeah I know it'll look better, and be far superior to that of the console versions, especially once the player mods take off,{which usually take a few months before the really good ones appear} but come on, why no PC love!?
 
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Those articles remind me a lot of the hands-on Oblivion previews when every journalist told us a tale of their adventures and no two stories ever seemed to be the same. To me that's what's truly unique about TES. No other open world game really offers that amount of freedom where you can have dozens of people playing the same game and each one ends up coming up with a unique experience of their own character and what they did first and where they headed first and so on.

Well put. At first, I was disappointed that these previews really didn't have any substance - in terms of having anything that is specific or relevant - but the real strength of The Elder Scrolls is in exactly what these previews inadvertently displayed: Each player's journey is defined by their freedom and becomes entirely unique compared to another player's experience (within the limits of reason, of course). Some might complain about a lack of dialogue quality, memorable characters, a striking storyline, ect., and that's completely understandable; I've always greatly enjoyed RPG's that place a major emphasis on these elements, and I typically prefer such things compared to an open-world. However, an open-world game with an atmosphere that comes with an invitation to simply explore can create its own stories, and Bethesda pulls this off very successfully. So long as the player is willing to invest some imagination into the experience, The Elder Scrolls is a blank canvas waiting for the player to fill with their own tale, and that is why I am looking forward to playing Skyrim, warts and all.
 
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Wonder why the Watch never gets a preview? Must be a PC bias!! :)
 
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Well put. At first, I was disappointed that these previews really didn't have any substance - in terms of having anything that is specific or relevant - but the real strength of The Elder Scrolls is in exactly what these previews inadvertently displayed: Each player's journey is defined by their freedom and becomes entirely unique compared to another player's experience (within the limits of reason, of course). Some might complain about a lack of dialogue quality, memorable characters, a striking storyline, ect., and that's completely understandable; I've always greatly enjoyed RPG's that place a major emphasis on these elements, and I typically prefer such things compared to an open-world. However, an open-world game with an atmosphere that comes with an invitation to simply explore can create its own stories, and Bethesda pulls this off very successfully. So long as the player is willing to invest some imagination into the experience, The Elder Scrolls is a blank canvas waiting for the player to fill with their own tale, and that is why I am looking forward to playing Skyrim, warts and all.

Nerevarine (great nickname btw ^^), I couldn't find better words. Thank you very much, because you reminded me why I love the TES series: it's not about the story, the characters, etc. as you pointed out, but much more like "how about being this? Or doing that? And if I go there, what happens?". In a certain way, it's the opposite of a 'true' RPG, like Torment, or The Witcher (just to stay in the ARPG genre), where you follow the story of an already defined character: but I admit that I've always enjoyed this type of approach :).
And now I'm curious again about Skyrim, and I'll try to enjoy it as I did in the past with Morrowind and OB despite their flaws.
Also, the big plus of the series is modding, which is a sort of meta-game, and I'm sure that even this time we'll have some beatiful story-driven mods by the community ;).
 
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And so the hype has begun. It hasn't been as bad as Oblivion so far, but the next three weeks are going to get ugly..
 
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My god what is Bethesday's marketing budget now?

I remember when they were small….

Is marketing like 50% of their budget now?

Flights aside, it doesn't cost that much to set up a bunch of X360s in one room somewhere. Standard demo practise and most publishers do the same.
 
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Unfortunately Yes ~ there has never been a preview or video released for the PC ver yet


PC Gamer did a quite detailed review based on their experience playing the game on a desktop i7-980x with 7200RPM HDD and NVIDIA GTX 470 at 1680x1050 resolution. (Dec 2011 PCGamer)
 
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11.11. The day when German carnival begins.

Then I'll laugh about Bethesda (indirectly) presenting not many PC previews.
 
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TheBadVegetarian said:
I was barely out of character creation (I was playing a female Khajiit, partially because I find the see in the dark racial ability incredibly useful but mostly because I own a female cat) when I saw him. Well, I heard his dog first and thought ‘oh, a dog! How cute!’ Then I saw the dog’s owner, a poacher. I saw his bow raised aloft. I saw the hand released. I saw the arrow fly. I saw the arrow thwack into the side of an already-fleeing fox. And I saw myself, before I entirely knew what I was doing, plunge a knife into Poacher’s back.

Why did I do that, I asked myself

That is one spooky furry.
 
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"Scalinggate"

Haha! I like that one. Kudos to yourself though and Nerev' for eloquently expressing the joys to be found in Bethesda's open world experiences. I'll try to keep a lid on my own enthusiasm for now, but the next few weeks on the Watch are going to be very interesting. :)
 
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And so the hype has begun. It hasn't been as bad as Oblivion so far, but the next three weeks are going to get ugly..
Exactly my thoughts. I'm ashamed their hype still works on me as it'll only lead to disappointment.
 
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I got a kick out of this guy's timeline:

3:57 PM – I’m off to face the dragon outside of Whiterun.

4:02 PM – I find the dragon. He kills me.

4:06 PM – I die to the dragon.

4:09 PM – I die to the dragon.

4:14 PM – I die to the dragon. Demo’s over.

Nice to see that you're not going to easily kill a dragon within 3 hours of starting the game. One guy did kill a small dragon in the demo, by getting it to follow him to an area where the dragon couldn't turn around :) He used tactics to win a battle that he had no chance of winning otherwise.
 
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