Skyrim - 6Gb HDD Space Explained

[xSamhainx]

Looks pretty good to me. Isnt the rpg crowd reputedly less infatuated w/ graphics anyway?

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Yeah, I also thought so.
At least in its tendency.

 

[GothicGothicness]

Ok, so its what I thought - they could do it easily, but don't? You could write a script to sub-sample all textures into a format appropriate for the relevant platform (of course, making a texture look good on a new low-poly model is probably a bit harder ;-) . I would have thought major studios have a workflow which enables multi-platform deployment… seems like a cop-out. As for games: didn't The Witcher release a hi-res texture pack (i.e. not modders, but CDprojekt?)

I would suspect that they don't want the PC version to look too much better compared to the console version. + It'd take a whole lot of extra testing and such a things, so it is not so cheap and easy as it might appear.

 

[Dhruin]

Looks pretty good to me. Isnt the rpg crowd reputedly less infatuated w/ graphics anyway?

Ha! Please, don't make me laugh so much. It's been about the only topic of conversation for a long time.

 

[Couchpotato]

That depends if the game has worse graphics than Baldur's Gate I wont even bother playing it. That means most indie games. I even went through a period of playing rpgmaker games.

 

[Dhruin]

Roqua's long post

But posters can be disingenuous, right? The post I responded to was "only" posting in the interest of "solid" information, right?

 

[Nerevarine]

Looks pretty good to me. Isnt the rpg crowd reputedly less infatuated w/ graphics anyway?

One would certainly hope so, but it appears not. I certainly can't figure out for the life of me what's to complain about with Skyrim's graphics. Looks pretty great to me.

 

[DeepO]

Not only it has technically solid graphics for this type of game, after seeing few gameplay streams, I´d say it also fares well on the art direction side - feels adequate for the region the game takes place in, gives the game rather distinct identity, is quite rich on details without being "overdesigned" and is pretty much devoid of kitschiness.
And since I didn´t even notice anything cringeworthy VA-wise and I mostly liked ambient sounds and music, I have to say as of now personally I approve the game´s audiovisual qualities .

 

[Nerevarine]

Thank you DeepO, finally a voice of reason!!

 

[Moriendor]

I certainly can't figure out for the life of me what's to complain about with Skyrim's graphics.

What's wrong with Skyrim's graphics is that the engine and the art was created by Bethesda, the most hated AAA RPG developer because they shat all over Fallout. That's what's wrong with it.
Well, and since none of the haterz has played the actual game yet but just looked at screens and videos, the graphics are the main target at the moment.
Just wait until next week.
Once the game is out, the carpet bombing of every tiny little feature will commence. It will be like Oblivion all over again. The haterz will sit down and feverishly try to break the game in all sorts of ways. Every little bug will then be mercilessly posted with a capital letter title and omglolzlookatthisshit screenshits (oops typo) attached.

We're all in for some major deja vu. You'll see...

 

[bjon045]

Some people have been playing the game for 6 days (Xbox360 version) and by all reports the graphics are a step up from Oblivion. Gameplay feedback is certainly mixed though.

 

[DeepO]

Thank you DeepO, finally a voice of reason!!

You´re welcome .

 

[Couchpotato]

What's wrong with Skyrim's graphics is that the engine and the art was created by Bethesda, the most hated AAA RPG developer because they shat all over Fallout. That's what's wrong with it.
Well, and since none of the haterz has played the actual game yet but just looked at screens and videos, the graphics are the main target at the moment.
Just wait until next week.
Once the game is out, the carpet bombing of every tiny little feature will commence. It will be like Oblivion all over again. The haterz will sit down and feverishly try to break the game in all sorts of ways. Every little bug will then be mercilessly posted with a capital letter title and omglolzlookatthisshit screenshits (oops typo) attached.

We're all in for some major deja vu. You'll see…

What do you except every game gets this treatment. Its internet 101 and people being idiots.

 

[sakichop]

I'm reserving judgement until I actually play the game. As long as console gamers like the graphics though that as we all know is all that matters.

 

[CountChocula]

Is being purposefully disingenuous any different than lying? If Spiderweb made the statement to its buying audience that they would be impressed with how their next game looks, you can be pretty certain they aren’t talking about mega-cutting edge anything.

Bethesda, on the other hand, was replying to graphics-enthusiasts (what I call graphics whores). They didn’t state that the graphics-whores would be impressed by how good their low-res graphics will look, they said, “you’ll be impressed with how it looks.” Being a non-graphics-whore I can only surmise that people who highly value graphics are only impressed by the best graphics using the best graphics technology and options. And anyone accepting these common sense implications can only infer Bethesda was purposefully avoiding stating that the game does not have high-res graphics.

It seems you agree with corporations being purposefully disingenuous when they can be completely truthful. Bethesda could have completely, honestly, and directly answered the flurry of complaints. They could have said, while still sticking to the retarded principles of market speech, “Due to [reasonable reason adults can understand and which makes perfect sense about console limitations or some shit] whatever this game is called is shipping with low-res graphics only. We spent a lot of time on powerful mod tools, blah, audience releases fancy mods shortly after launch. But (or the recent staple ‘having said that’) we think people will be really impressed by how great the graphics do look. Yadda yadda yadda.”

This doesn't make any sense. Even graphics whores are going to be massively impressed with Skyrim.

I've watched some of the streams with very crappy low res flash transcoding and I was blown away by everything I saw.

What Pete Hines said about the PC version however, was that "It will melt your face off!"

I hope he is right about that. We'll have to wait until the release date to find out.

Some people have been playing the game for 6 days (Xbox360 version) and by all reports the graphics are a step up from Oblivion. Gameplay feedback is certainly mixed though.

I've seen nothing but glowing praise from those pirates. The gameplay is solid.

Not only it has technically solid graphics for this type of game, after seeing few gameplay streams, I´d say it also fares well on the art direction side - feels adequate for the region the game takes place in, gives the game rather distinct identity, is quite rich on details without being "overdesigned" and is pretty much devoid of kitschiness.
And since I didn´t even notice anything cringeworthy VA-wise and I mostly liked ambient sounds and music, I have to say as of now personally I approve the game´s audiovisual qualities .

Completely agree. Talk about art direction, good lord, they certainly weren't exaggerating when they hyped up the "hand-crafted" aspect. There is at least one gorgeously designed dwemer dungeon that contains probably 20 or 30 hours of content just inside that one location. And there are supposed to be something like 150 dungeons in total and 320 total locations including points of interest.

As for the voice acting, there is one voice actor who sounds like Schwarzeneggar but all of the other hundreds of NPCs sound fantastic. The dialogue, storytelling and voice acting across the board is a massive step up from Morrowind and Oblivion.

The factions have some kind of soul now, they feel like believable groups of people who band together for various reasons, as opposed to a generic "Fighter's Guild" or "Mage's Guild" from Morrowind and Oblivion. Even the Thieves' Guild is a much more interesting faction, a more realistic portrayal of a group of thieves who are each engaging characters in their own right.

And there are a hell of a lot of minor factions in the game. As for the civil war, it is also very well done and somewhat reminiscent of Fallout New Vegas in the way all the other factions are impacted by the fighting between the Rebels and the Empire.

 

[JDR13]

Some people have been playing the game for 6 days (Xbox360 version) and by all reports the graphics are a step up from Oblivion. Gameplay feedback is certainly mixed though.

Well I would certainly expect the graphics to be a step up from a 5 year-old game.

So how have people already been playing the Xbox version for 6 days? I assume it's been pirated in some way, but is it the full game?

 

[CountChocula]

Well I would certainly expect the graphics to be a step up from a 5 year-old game.

So how have people already been playing the Xbox version for 6 days? I assume it's been pirated in some way, but is it the full game?

One of the journalists who received a review copy hacked his Xbox disc and pirated the game. Really poor taste.

 

[JDR13]

One of the journalists who received a review copy hacked his Xbox disc and pirated the game. Really poor taste.

I'm impressed that a journalists had the technical know-how to do that.

I'd be willing to bet that he won't be reviewing anymore games though.

 

[vurt]

 

[qpqpqp]

Omfg. I'm not sure to whom some of you are replying at this point. I'm certainly not crying in my cheerios over here. I'm a pretty hardcore straight up rpg guy and I like good games with good worlds and storytelling. I just chimed in because some people seemed under the impression that bsoft had actually invented a new, fantastically superior compression method and waited until we cried console textures to mention it! ;