Skyrim - Interview @ AusGamers

Atari vs Intellivision vs Commodore.....Commodore wins.

NES vs DOS....NES wins for about half a heartbeat until Dos gets better EGA games then VGA then SVGA ect.

I'm not even going to go into Amiga. Amiga beat the holy stuffing out of everyone. Still wish I had an Amiga back then.

I'm curious to know if Todd would describe the 200+ dungeons in Oblivion the same way, "all different". Because really it was like 4 dungeons with their bits rearranged in different ways.

Majnun said:

I'm curious to know if Todd would describe the 200+ dungeons in Oblivion the same way, "all different". Because really it was like 4 dungeons with their bits rearranged in different ways.

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Well, I don't kbow if tgere is a way to create that amount of content without usibg some kind of dungeon lego system. Its also a bit of a trademark of the series. I would say the dungeibs have come a long way since Daggerfall, regarding individuality. What I'd like to see: about 10 unique dungeons, and a slightly more varied crop of templates to build the rest from.

Majnun said:

I'm curious to know if Todd would describe the 200+ dungeons in Oblivion the same way, "all different". Because really it was like 4 dungeons with their bits rearranged in different ways.

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Actually, he said much the same thing about dungeons in both Morrowind and Oblivion.

"Designed by hand" with objects "hand-placed" - and some such. I remember that specifically, because I've been excited two times about the same thing, only to be pretty disappointed.

However, Fallout 3 was much better in this way, except - of course - for the samey visuals. But that's natural given the setting, and I'm hoping they've learned something from that experience.

I agree about the visuals, but the many subway tunnels felt much more varied than the many Ayleid ruins. I think they learned a bit about mixing it up better and I'm hoping that we do get better variety. Remember one of the early dungeons near the imperial city was a cave complex the led to an Ayleid ruin deep underground? That's what I'd like to see, except expanded.

Well, I for one am looking forward to this game. It looks a hell of a lot better then any other games comming out in the near future, certainly better then looking then Risen 2.

Hell, I will be happy if I can sink 80+ hours into it, not many games get that much time from me nowadays.

The best thing about the subway tunnels IMHO was the fact they were geographically consistent, and could be used as alternate routes in many occasions. I'd love the same thing with dungeons, but it tends to only happen in a few cases (unless I'm doing the world building )

Yep, I love dungeons that interconnect. It'd be good if we had something like that. 11/11/11 can't get here soon enough. I've got the time off scheduled and am ready to lose myself to Tamriel again. I wouldn't mind something along the lines of the lost steps mod too. Someone added portal stones to several Ayleid ruins and other locations that were unmapped. Once you noted where each one went, you could travel instantaneously almost anywhere. The trick was, you covered most of the land when finding the various "steps".

crpgnut said:

Remember one of the early dungeons near the imperial city was a cave complex the led to an Ayleid ruin deep underground?

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It was not only near the Imperial City, it was also the cave closest to the start.
And the first Ayleid ruin player comes onto (Vilverin) was, iirc, also more elaborate than most of the others.
On a slightly similar note, one of the first quests in Morrowind, Fargoth´hiding place, and that falling wizard event gave an impression the game was more dynamic than it really was.
Loading upfront ftw.

Speaking of Oblivion´s dungeons, not all of them were dull (well, besides the level scaling catastrophe) cut´n´paste , but when you have to trudge through 10 boring ones to experience 1 decent one, that´s a problem.
That they have 8 designers for them in Skyrim instead of Oblivion´s 2, along with
one of the previews´ claim dungeons in Skyrim are supposed to be smaller, might result in better overall quality, theoretically.
Skyrim´s dungeons abso-fucking-lutely need to be interesting this time anyway, otherwise the whole radiant story element will fall on its head really fast.

I had enough fun with Oblivion to log 600 hours in the game, so I'm not too worried. I played vanilla over 150 hours and then modded games for the rest. It has to be the single best gaming investment I've ever made. I imagine Skyrim will do just fine, at least for my tastes. There are going to be folks who don't like the game, no matter what Bethesda does. I enjoyed Bethesda's dungeons. The problem was that there were so many that it was bound to get repetitious after awhile. This will likely happen again. It should take longer though, because we have 8 devs on dungeons instead of one or two. Same thing with the voices. Even 70 voices will get repetitious in something the size of a TES game. That's okay. They've done the best they could to address the issue and I give them kudos for improving things.

Of course, I'm a fanboy

skavenhorde said:

I'm not even going to go into Amiga. Amiga beat the holy stuffing out of everyone.

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As far as I remember, Amiga was unable to close the gap on Neo-Geo. So that would be everyone.

ChienAboyeur said:

As far as I remember, Amiga was unable to close the gap on Neo-Geo. So that would be everyone.

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I had an Amiga, still have one actually. I believe that Amiga was one of the best at the time (golden year 1980-90 I think, no expert on that), but got behind due to bad upper management decisions. The hardware design basically stagnated, and when improvements came it was too late.

Still many amiga games I have fond memories of, nowadays amiga is well emulated (winuae.net).

crpgnut said:

There are going to be folks who don't like the game, no matter what Bethesda does.

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I wish it were as simple for me as just liking or not liking what they do. I can see the potential in their games and areas where if they would just spend a little more effort would make the game exceptional, imho of course.

I guess I am always looking for the next 'Ultima 7' which is basically a free form open world populated with unique and interesting inhabitants. I always feel like I have to end up choosing one or the other. Probably the closest to that forumla in recent memory is Fallout: New Vegas, which of course is a Bethesda style engine and world creation with Obsidian writing. To me that game really highlights the shortcomings of Bethesda games and how they can drastically improve with just a bit of effort and some decent writers.

At this point, I think the closest I can hope for something along those lines for Skyrim is a fan created quest mod at some point like the Lost Spires for Oblivion. I don't have much hope for the story and npcs in the vanilla game. I am sure they will give us the usual Bethesda mass produced lobotomized mannequins.

I enjoyed Bethesda's dungeons. The problem was that there were so many that it was bound to get repetitious after awhile. This will likely happen again. It should take longer though, because we have 8 devs on dungeons instead of one or two.

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There were a few dungeons in Oblivion that were quite good and it was apparent a lot of attention was paid to them. Many were just average and forgettable, which I can live with, but to be forced through the same style of barren, desolate, hellish lava landscape a dozen or so times was really too much. Like I said before, in this regard there is nowhere to go but up.

Same thing with the voices. Even 70 voices will get repetitious in something the size of a TES game. That's okay. They've done the best they could to address the issue and I give them kudos for improving things.

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70 has got to be better than a handful, but also quality counts and not just quantity. Direction for voice actors is hugely important and something I think a lot of software development houses overlook. The Euro developers I will excuse a little in this regard since it's not their native language and they likely contract that part out, but there's really no excuse for the US developers.

I'm not a huge fan of EAware of late but I have to give the Devil his due and they usually do pretty well in terms of voice acting. With Morrowind, you really only had the greetings and battlecries/threats/taunts so having a handful of voice actors was no big deal. Oblivion went full voice acting but they didn't add more actors and actually they took some away (Orcs, Wood Elves, Male Dark Elves, Female High Elves and Imperial female voices from Morrowind were all yanked) and I think it really hurt the game immersion so increasing the number of actors who deliver significant amounts of lines can only help.

Motoki said:

I wish it were as simple for me as just liking or not liking what they do. I can see the potential in their games and areas where if they would just spend a little more effort would make the game exceptional, imho of course.

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This is exactly the issue I have with Skyrim! I look at the game and always think if they have done this or that, this would have been the best game I have ever played! This is why I guess I get so frustrated. I really hope they improve thier main quest and populate the world with interesting NPCs.

Motoki said:

At this point, I think the closest I can hope for something along those lines for Skyrim is a fan created quest mod at some point like the Lost Spires for Oblivion. I don't have much hope for the story and npcs in the vanilla game.

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Lost Spires sucks imo, at least as a quest mod it does.
90% of it is running through a series of same-y dungeons, with some story bits between. As far as I remember, it´s completely linear, contains next to none choices and majority of involved characters have very little to say besides quest giving.
Impressive for a mod, but otherwise I wouldn´t say it´s any better than stock Oblivion quests.
Personally I hope for something like Integration: The Stranded Light (for a potential playthrough in 2015 of so) .

DeepO said:

Lost Spires sucks imo, at least as a quest mod it does.
90% of it is running through a series of same-y dungeons, with some story bits between. As far as I remember, it´s completely linear, contains next to none choices and majority of involved characters have very little to say besides quest giving.
Impressive for a mod, but otherwise I wouldn´t say it´s any better than stock Oblivion quests.
Personally I hope for something like Integration: The Stranded Light .

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Sort of agreed. It's okay, not revolutionary, but I guess I kind of liked the idea of archaeology based questing, even if the reality was a bit hacky slashy FedExy. It was also nice to have different voices even if they were rather amateurish.

The stock Bethesda quest thread that popped up after you sold a certain artifact to a store was also one of my favorites so I suppose I, pardon the pun, dig the whole archaeology thing.

I never played Integration - The Stranded Light. I think it was released well after my Oblivion time. I sometimes ponder reinstalling, but then I think about having to tweak the game settings to get it to run halfway decent, find all the different mods from various locations to actually make it playable, merge them with a 3rd party tool, research and make sure they don't conflict etc etc and my head starts to hurt and that thought of reinstalling quickly vanishes.

ChienAboyeur said:

As far as I remember, Amiga was unable to close the gap on Neo-Geo. So that would be everyone.

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The Amiga was launched in 1985, Neo-Geo in 1990. The Amiga did rule the roost for a few years in the late 80's (in terms of graphics).

crpgnut said:

I had enough fun with Oblivion to log 600 hours in the game

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"Holy hardcore, Batman"!

Are you for real?

rune_74 said:

Well, I for one am looking forward to this game. It looks a hell of a lot better then any other games comming out in the near future, certainly better then looking then Risen 2.

Hell, I will be happy if I can sink 80+ hours into it, not many games get that much time from me nowadays.

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I have never heard such Blasphemy before. You sir have offended me And I ask for satisfaction. Pistols or blades your choice. I rather play Risen 2 than any Bethesda game. I play for the story campaign not endless exploring.

Couchpotato said:

I have never heard such Blasphemy before. You sir have offended me And I ask for satisfaction. Pistols or blades your choice. I rather play Risen 2 than any Bethesda game. I play for the story campaign not endless exploring.

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I'm not making things up here, graphically it is far supperior to Risen 2 from what I have seen. Not sure how you can really argue that....although, most european games get free passes here. We have no idea about gameplay yet for either so...