Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Revealed

[pibbur]

> Unicorns suck

Yepp. That's why they're extinct.

 

[bkrueger]

> Unicorns suck

Yepp. That's why they're extinct.

I'm not sure if the virgins on this board understand, what you want to say with that. But you are right, some sexual techniques are not useful for reproduction.

 

[bemushroomed]

He's playing with words.

Uh, no he isnt. He's even saying its an internal engine, and how is the Gamebryo a NEW engine? In previous interviews they've stated that they're working on a completely new engine too for quite a while.

 

[Brother None]

Uh, no he isnt. He's even saying its an internal engine, and how is the Gamebryo a NEW engine? In previous interviews they've stated that they're working on a completely new engine too for quite a while.

There's a link to an interview in this thread in which Todd Howard says the engine is based on Fallout 3's tech.

Bethesda tends to toy with words and they're not being very clear here. I hope this means they reworked back up from base Gamebryo like the transition to Oblivion, but I fear Dhruin might be right and it might just be a heavily reworked Fallout 3 engine. That would be bad.

 

[bemushroomed]

Here's an interview where they're saying they're working on a completely new engine:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1112464p1.html

"The studio's new engine built for its upcoming title is more beneficial to creating huge, open-world games, such as Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, while id Tech 5 is better for more contained environments. "

Gamebryo is not their engine.. a modified version of an engine can't be called "a new engine", they didnt say FO3 used a new engine, as an example.. they said it was a modified version of Oblivion/gamebryo-engine even in early interviews.

They could be lying, but i doubt it. Wouldnt mind it being Gamebryo though, not at all.. i play TES mostly for the mods and to do mods.. This could be a major step back for modding if its not Gamebryo I really love NifSkope for example, and that program took the fans years to develop. It'll mean years of, probably, a quite dead modding community.

 

[Dwagginz]

BethBlog (i.e. Bethesda) tweeted today that it's an all new engine they're using for this game, so it won't be Gamebryo or Gamebryo-based.

It doesn't mean modding is taking a step back as such, just that they'll have to adapt to a new format. For all we know, they could be using a similar system to Oblivion/Fallout 3 with .bsa files.

 

[JDR13]

I think a lot more information regarding things like the graphics engine, etc. will be revealed over the next few days. Bethesda has had a tendency to be somewhat ambiguous with things in the past, so I don't think anything should be taken for granted at this point.

 

[bemushroomed]

It doesn't mean modding is taking a step back as such, just that they'll have to adapt to a new format. For all we know, they could be using a similar system to Oblivion/Fallout 3 with .bsa files.

well they wont be using the .nif format if they're going away from Gamebryo, and that's the biggest blow, not the lack of .bsa's (which is just a way to archive the files, not that important). To reverse engineer new tools and mesh importers/exporters can take years before we have good ones.

 

[azarhal]

well they wont be using the .nif format if they're going away from Gamebryo, and that's the biggest blow, not the lack of .bsa's (which is just a way to archive the files, not that important). To reverse engineer new tools and mesh importers/exporters can take years before we have good ones.

The .nif format actually caused problems for them and the modding community (construction set limitation because of the license), an internal engine would actually give them the opportunity to release their own plugins (if they use an house format) or they could use open format with existing support already.

Well, hopefully they haven't licensed a bunch of obscure stuff into their engine...

 

[Zloth]

Well, all new engine or heavily modified engine, don't expect too much. It has to work on the XBox 360 still, which will be six years old by that time. If we're lucky, they will find ways to add on fancy new DirectX 11 features. Maybe they can make it more stereoscopic 3D friendly, too.

Hehe, 11/11/11... plus delay time. Or "polish" time if another Call of Duty comes out then.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Hehe, 11/11/11… plus delay time. Or "polish" time if another Call of Duty comes out then.

Interesting. Because 11/11 is traditionally the date when Karneval begins here.

 

[jhwisner]

Ah man I've been looking forward to one of the games taking place during an Akaviri invasion. They've been hinting at it since Morrowind and definately set the ground work in Oblivion. I mean the last Akaviri invasion had attempted to enter Cyrodil through the mountains from Skyrim - that was heavily featured in part of the main plot. They also made a point of featuring the influence of the Tsaesci (vampiric serpent race) on the Blades and the Imperial tradition; for example the blades armor and much of the importance of the dragon symbolism come from the time where the Tsaesci had conquered much of the continent.

The clearest evidence that this installment is about an invasion from Akavir (by one or more of the four distinct Akaviri races/empires) is that the symbol chosen for the game is the symbol the Elder Scrolls games have always used for Akavir. People mistake that as just a symbol of the dragon, Talos, or Akatosh because it is so prevelant in Imperial regalia; this prevelance is because of the influence of Akaviri conquerers though and it is actually the symbol used by one or more of the Akaviri empires as well. It is referred to officially as the "akaviri sigil" or "akaviri banner." It's all over Blades-related items since they styled all their weapons, armor, and traditions after the snake people of Akavir.

Also some of the Akaviri civilizations had powerful leaders who had been able to ascend to a dragon form. While the Tsaesci revered dragons's power they did not worship them but rather coveted their power. They enslaved the red dragons and even went so far as to start eating them as part of an attempt to gain their power (not so misguided as it sounds since they were after-all vampiric).

The Ka Po' Tun (Tiger people - they look like tiger-faced man-beasts) on the other hand had a different relationship with dragons. They revered the dragons as well as their power and sought to ascend and become dragons themselves - though not by eating them. The black dragons fled to their lands and they went to war with the snake people; the result was the supposed extinction of dragons from Akavir and a weakening of both empires. Still at least one Ka Po' Tun managed to assume the form and power of a dragon (reputedly the most powerful ever seen); he was described as a black dragon with flecks of golden-orange scales. Since that war this ascension has been the aspiration of many powerful members of this empire.

Where exactly the dragons have come from is not entirely clear although there are a couple of lore-consistent possibilities. It might make sense that not ALL the dragons went extinct in Akavir. Since red dragons were enslaved and bred they may have been able to repopulate them. It's also possible that the story of their extinction was exaggerated by the tiger people to protect the last remaining black dragons (which could have obviously bred over the centuries since they supposedly died out.) Remember also that many Akavir aspire to become dragons themselves through arcane, spiritual, or some monsterous means.

Maybe the dragons of Tamriel had been hiding and are in league with the one or more of the Akaviri. Also, if dragons did reappear or reveal themselves in Tamriel that would actually cause an Akaviri invasion. The snake people went to war to try to enslave and eat the black dragons after all. Finding out they weren't extinct and that they could have an edge over their long time rivals (the Tiger-Dragon empire as it is called) it would make sense that they would invade Tamriel again simply because there were dragons there.

I don't think the plot is going to be quite as simple as "dragons attack, oh noes!" like some people seem to be getting it. Yes there is a dragon in the intro and it is obviously important that they are not quite as extinct or near exctinct as people thought. At the same time the symbol chosen to represent this game (on the elder scrolls website as well as the end of the trailer) is not just a dragon symbol nor is it just the symbol of Akatosh. It is the Akaviri war banner - and they have invaded Skyrim in the past and were eventually defeated. That fits with the whole defeat was merely a delay reference - as well as a lot of the references in Oblivion.

Heck they even went so far as to mention in Oblivion that the Nevarine had gone to Akavir and was not heard from again. Do you not think someone as ridiculously powerful as the Nevarine may have given the Akaviri empires reason to pay attention to Tamriel once again?

 

[guenthar]

The virgin part is about your character being able to have sex in the game.

 

[figment]

I just dont see that they could have developed a complete engine inhouse since Oblivion was released. They admit not using idtech 5 so I agree with Brother None and that its an evolution on what was used for Fallout 3 enough that they consider it a new 'engine'.

With the amount of effort put into the TES:CS/GECK I'm sure they can still use that even if they switched engines since it really has a reasonably clean separation from the graphics engine for most data structures. While its not perfect I would prefer it to them using that to something they never release.

Anyway what I hope new engine means is not graphics but the combat and gameplay engine which is something they have to do inhouse anyway. I dont know anyone that really has liked the leveling scheme they implemented so if I were them I'd keep the graphics (with obvious improvements) and redo the combat and general gameplay mechanisms. If they do that I'd probably agree that it really was a new engine.

Edit: Nick Breckon says its a new graphics engine after all and not an iteration on Gamebyro. I still think that they can leverage the CS as is and probably wouldn't change much.

 

[Nathanyl]

Perhaps it just assumed that anyone playing Ultima 7 would most likely be a virgin?

Kay

Actually the Avatar was able to have sex in U7

 

[Alistair]

Time for an Elder Scrolls forum

 

[Shryke]

Worthless cinematic trailers

Goddamnit, if you're not going to show us gameplay, don't bother. I freaking hate these cinematic trailers.

 

[guenthar]

The article that Brother None talks about where Todd Howard says they are using Fallout 3 tech doesn't even say that they are using the Gamebryo engine and "Fallout 3 tech could mean anything. The Gamebryo engine is only one small part of what is in the previous games and it takes far more then a graphics engine to make a game so "Fallout 3 tech" could mean everything except the graphics engine which would make sense with everything else that has been said so far.

 

[spiraling69]

Interesting. Because 11/11 is traditionally the date when Karneval begins here.

yeah, its great news, but the thought that its a full year away blows. I'm in no hurry to be another year older to play this...

 

[pibbur]

I'm not sure if the virgins on this board understand, what you want to say with that. But you are right, some sexual techniques are not useful for reproduction.

Eh..............