Skyrim Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Crispy said:

Are you of the opinion that Fallout 3 advanced their RPG skills, even in the slightest?

If so, does it add at all to your enthusiasm or belief in Skyrim's potential?

Personally I think there will be some pleasant surprises along the storyline, interaction and even lore fronts, simply because of the massive amount of criticism Oblivion suffered from. Even Todd can see that he can't just shovel raw shit without sweetening it up somewhat.

I wish they'd bring LeFay back.

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I don't think they have learnt from Fallout 3 but I do think that they could have learnt from New Vegas. It sold better than Fallout 3 even though it wasn't dumbed down for mainstream audience (no insult intended for anyone). Only few who liked FO3 dislike New Vegas, most of them are happy with the new game thinking it indeed is a improvement while old Fallout fans are satisfied as well and there are others who joined the Fallout fans with New Vegas game. Therefore Bethesda may no longer think it's necessary to make new game as much easy and mainstream as it could be. Of course they could have learnt nothing. The time will show.

Zloth said:

The music in these games has been extremely good. Unlike the Final Fantasy games, they haven't dropped to the level of signing on some pop-artist to sing some piece of drivvel at us.

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In Final Fantasy's defense, that series' music composition has always been well varied within each game and in the series as a whole. There's always music that fits the many cut-scenes, the overworld, the towns, the battle screens, etc.

Now the music in both Morrowind and Oblivion is very "samey" - it's like some selection from "Generic Themes" plays throughout. Now it's EXCELLENT music, I'm not actually complaining about that - I actually love the opening theme from Morrowind - but the music from Morrowind and Oblivion are interchangeable. So is all the music that plays throughout.

Final Fantasy's music is MUCH more dynamic and definitely experimental - you could see that even going back to the 16 bit titles like FF V and VI.

I'm currently playing FF 13 and at the 15th hour or so and I'm feeling the same about the music as I am about the game: it seemed a bit repetetive and dull at first but there's actually a substance and nuance to both that I'm starting to notice and really appreciate.

Now I agree with you about the silly pop diva song - not necessary in FFVIII, not necessary in FFXIII - but lets' be grateful that "piece of drivel" isn't sung throughout the entire game!

DArtagnan said:

I think Bethesda are doing some great things in terms of the open world structure, and I really enjoy the total freedom in how to approach so many things.

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I´m probably just flinging semantics here, but what I basically meant is that level scaling is part of world structure. Loot and enemies are part of the world. And more rigid level scaling gets, less opened this part of the world is, instead it´s being locked to your character.
Of course it´s separable, but when you do it while discussing/evaluating "openworldness", you´re separating in my opinion a substantial part of the subject.

Wow, Max Von Sydow. Very cool.

Sorry if this has been mentioned, I haven't read the entire thread, but is this going to be a tradtional RPG along the lines of Morrowind, Oblivion ect? I heard there are going to be large scale battles with hundreds of characters at once. It makes me wonder if it's going to be a RTS game sort of... which would be bad. I want me some old skool RPGing.

And do play as this dragon born hero guy, I would assume already very powerful and rich... because that would be bad too? I like it when you start with nothing and have to build yourself up.

Another thing I was wondering, if it's set in Skyrim the terrain is going to be rather samey, that is... white, because it'll be snowy. That would be boring to me. I thought Oblivion was a great game but the terrain was all the same and it was boring. Morrowind was way better with the variety of terrain.

And dragons... really? Not some kind of ancient undead gods or demons or something, but... dragons.

human_male said:

Sorry if this has been mentioned, I haven't read the entire thread, but is this going to be a tradtional RPG along the lines of Morrowind, Oblivion ect? I heard there are going to be large scale battles with hundreds of characters at once. It makes me wonder if it's going to be a RTS game sort of… which would be bad. I want me some old skool RPGing.

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There will be a lot of info coming in the next month, so stay tuned, but I'd be very surprised if it broke the Elder Scrolls mold and became an RTS. I'm assuming it'll be an RPG in the vein of Morrowind and Oblivion. I think gamers would have Todd Howard's head on a platter if it were anything else.

And do play as this dragon born hero guy, I would assume already very powerful and rich… because that would be bad too? I like it when you start with nothing and have to build yourself up.

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Nah, you'll start weak. Remember in Morrowind, you were born as some type of special savior being, too, but you started unknown and weak. They wouldn't start you out powerful and rich ... where do you level up from there?

Another thing I was wondering, if it's set in Skyrim the terrain is going to be rather samey, that is… white, because it'll be snowy. That would be boring to me. I thought Oblivion was a great game but the terrain was all the same and it was boring. Morrowind was way better with the variety of terrain.

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I think we'll just have to wait and see on this one. I agree that Oblivion was very samey in its environments. Skyrim might be the same. Somehow I doubt it, though. I mean, has any developer ever made a game completely set in a snowy, arctic terrain? And even in Skyrim, there must be low-lying areas and seaside towns that are not covered in snow... But we'll see.

Skyrim is supposed to be the most vertically rugged region of Tamriel, mostly filled with cold mountains and valleys and one relatively small well inhabitable flat area in the west which has more-or-less normal vegetation. The amount of snowy areas in-game will likely depend on how Bethesda will choose to proportionate the landscape and whether they´ll include the whole region at all.
I think that with some imagination, will not to overuse procedural generation and inclusion of suitable means of travel, it could end up being a fun region to explore.

We also don´t even know for sure whether the dragon born dude is actually a pc and similarly we don´t know if connotations with teaser´s dragon won´t be purely symbolic. It´s quite possible it points towards Akaviri invasion and that wouldn´t necessarily need to include literal dragons.

Btw, someone mashupped ME3´s teaser with Skyrim´s and it fits quite well.
Both teasers follow similar dramatic principles, it seems :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li5aDU9280c

human_male said:

And dragons… really? Not some kind of ancient undead gods or demons or something, but… dragons.

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We did gods in Morrowind (Dagoth and the Tribunal) and "demons" in Oblivion (Daedra). Also, dragons might not be "They", their existence have never been contested in Tamriel (the Empire was known as the Dragon Empire and they used dragons in their armies in the past - early 3rd Era -).

DeepO said:

Btw, someone mashupped ME3´s teaser with Skyrim´s and it fits quite well.Both teasers follow similar dramatic principles, it seems :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li5aDU9280c

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Dang, to bad that nobody really knows who "they" are for Skyrim...

DeepO said:

Skyrim is supposed to be the most vertically rugged region of Tamriel, mostly filled with cold mountains and valleys

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Inspiration by Divinity 2 ? Or the other way round ?

The music in these games has been extremely good. Unlike the Final Fantasy games, they haven't dropped to the level of signing on some pop-artist to sing some piece of drivel at us.

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FF1-7 has the absolutely best music of any games series on any platform. It has been less good after these though. The music of 6 and 7 has even been featured in lots of concerts all over the world.

GothicGothicness said:

FF1-7 has the absolutely best music of any games series on any platform.

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Highly subjective, to say the least. Most of the FF games did have very high quality music though. FF VI was my personal favorite, but it's far from being the best game soundtrack for me.

Relayer said:

Now the music in both Morrowind and Oblivion is very "samey" - it's like some selection from "Generic Themes" plays throughout. Now it's EXCELLENT music, I'm not actually complaining about that - I actually love the opening theme from Morrowind - but the music from Morrowind and Oblivion are interchangeable. So is all the music that plays throughout.

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And in Bethesda's defense, both games had Jeremy Soule as a composer. FO3 and FO:NV (Again, two titles with Bethesda at the helm in one form or another) had Inon Zur, resulting in two similar soundtracks (Although Inon worked with Mark Morgan, or at least his tracks, to create a classical Fallout theme for certain parts of the game), Fallout 1 and 2 had an interchangeable soundtrack (In fact, I think they might have been pretty much the same soundtrack) and it goes for many games.

The reason being, I presume, is that it creates a certain feel to the game. Mass Effect's soundtracks are similar because it's the same series and universe, and they fit it well. Having a 'samey' soundtrack isn't a bad thing because it helps create the atmosphere, and as such another Soule soundtrack wouldn't go amiss with TES V as it would help create a similar atmosphere.

Is this game being made for current gen consoles?

Yes, it is.

So how long to go now? Are we there yet?

My expectations are so low, nothing shown or told in Gi could possibly disappoint me. Unless they announce a playable Dragon race.

They're actually going to use the Dragon mini-game from Ego Draconis and like ED, your character can polymorph into a dragon

I think they'd have to be bona fide retards to have learnt nothing since Oblivion and just plow on in the direction of that game. I agree with a point Konjad made that they may realise they didn't need to dumb down the game quite as much to attract a wide audience. They showed evidence of some degree of applied learning by the small detail of not having raider equipment scale up in F3 as bandit equipment did in Oblivion. You never saw a raider wearing power armour for example.

Personally I'll really enjoy the game even if it's not that much better than Fallout 3 and Oblivion. I just love that kind of game. But I'd like to see the balance issues addressed (loot and levelling), I'd like to see the scaling issue addressed, I'd personally like to see a New Vegas style Hardcore Mode where you have to eat and sleep and stuff, although in my opinion it's more a role playing mode as it doesn't make the game any harder but I enjoy it on that level. If they have horses again I'd like to see them done as well as the ones in Red Dead Redemption where they were unbelievably likelike, and saddlebags (like in that excellent mod) would be cool to make your horse feel more valuable and important to you. And I'd really like to see an end to the stale dialog system where it pauses and locks on the face of the NPC you're talking to. A system similar to Mass Effect or Dragon Age where you see your character (even if you don't actually deliver the lines) would be great.

Edit: I forgot, I'd really like an option to turn off quest markers. I hate quest markers especially when they point you precicely to the quest target or location. You could turn them off in Arcania Gothic 4, and what was cool was the journal took into account that you might have turned them off and gave you directions. That was the one good thing about that game, but it certainly was a very good thing in my opinion.

The scans from the February issue of GI are all over t3h internetz by now. I won't post links as it might be against the forum rules, but go ahead and have a look for yourselves. The game looks gorgeous (even on the crappy res scans) and most of the changes Bethesda have made to the game are actually for the better, by the sound of it.

"The Elder Scrolls have prophesied the return of the dragons. In fact, the signs that the dragons would be returning were clearly laid out in the predictions. The shattering of the Staff of Chaos, the appearance of Numidium, the volcanic Red Mountain, and the opening of the Oblivion gates all heralded their arrival."


That's pretty funny, Todd. Now tell us how they actually returned.





Oh...

"Skyrim utilizes a new, internally developed engine, rather than the Gamebryo engine used for the previous two instalments in the series.[7][8][9][19] The new engine incorporates some existing technology used in other Bethesda games, such as Oblivion and Fallout 3.[15] Executive producer Todd Howard stated that the studio invested in new talent to significantly improve the characters and animation seen in previous Bethesda games.[20] The features of the new game engine include dynamic snowfall and other in-game representations of wind."

There's many questions answered on the Skyrim Wiki page, and yes the screens look pretty good.