Skyrim - Sneak Peak @ E3

[aries100]

Virumor at the Obsidian forums points to E3 video coverage for Skyrim on Youtube via Spike TV. The video shown features a character going to a nordic ruin high in the mountains - and a very beautifull journey this is. Todd Howard is being interviewed by Spike TV on TESV: Skyrim. He talks about a sneak peak for Skyrim as well as gameplay, and a game

where you can be who you want and do whatever you want...and you can play in third person...

He continues to talk about dragons, dragons shouts and how the player has to find out why the dragons are back; he also talks about their new Radiant Story System, the factions in the game, and much much more.
More information.

 

[Daroou]

Thanks! Suggest you use this video link instead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9hJMxw126A

 

[Thrasher]

Nice video!

Here's a fullscreen version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTURc3Fv8Xs

 

[guenthar]

I guess he doesn't know the difference between a guild and a faction or he did it on purpose just to avoid the question. (if it is the former then I guess he is an idiot)

 

[Khalus]

Holy crap…best thing to ever happen to this series….proper 3rd person gameplay!

Looks pretty damn good on the 360, but just image what this will look like on a beefy PC running DX11, Tesselation, and mods…..lots of mods!!!!

 

[azarhal]

Looks good...Except for the crappy HUD text in the middle of the screen.

 

[Saxon1974]

Love the look of the giants with their lumbering gait. I have always found Giants more interesting than Dragons so I would have prefered Giants be a bigger focus than Dragons but I guess thats the rage these days.

Would have liked to see some other aspects of the game other than combat but it looks pretty good. The AI doesn't look much improved though....

Still not happy there is only 3 atributes now though so well see how this turns out.

 

[Thrasher]

It does just look like a graphical upgrade to Oblivion. I hope for significant game play upgrades.

 

[Khalus]

It does just look like a graphical upgrade to Oblivion. I hope for significant game play upgrades.

Keep in mind we're looking at the XBox 360 version. Sure it may have an all new engine, but that does little on a 6yr old console still running ancient dx9 software.

Just wait until the PC ver videos start to surface, most likely with DX10 and hopefully DX11 w/ Tesselation options. That alone will make it 50x better looking, then of course after launch, the player mods will bump that ratio to 100x better than consoles.

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

Only 3 attributes? That blows. Looks pretty enough, though. but that's the way so many of these things go these days, isn't it?

But I know I'll be buying this one eventually, probably quickly. Unlike some folks, I enjoyed Oblivion. I hope they don't dumb things down too far. You really could create characters that could vary a good bit in their style of play in Oblivion, and that was a large part of the appeal for me.

 

[Kefka]

Keep in mind we're looking at the XBox 360 version. Sure it may have an all new engine, but that does little on a 6yr old console still running ancient dx9 software.

Just wait until the PC ver videos start to surface, most likely with DX10 and hopefully DX11 w/ Tesselation options. That alone will make it 50x better looking, then of course after launch, the player mods will bump that ratio to 100x better than consoles.

Tellsalation will not be used, DX11 will only be used for improvements in engine efficacy so the game runs better. PC version will not look significantly different out of the box(of course mods and ini changes go along ways…).

 

[jhwisner]

Gametrailers has an HD version up here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-elder-scrolls/714852

Animations look far better than in bethesda's Gamebryo based games - suppose the switch in animation tools helped with that a bit. I am hoping the PC version includes more detailed textures though - otherwise it does look rather stunning in comparison to their previous games. I also like the idea of water in caves being one way to find your way out in some cases. Heck I like there actually being non-static water in caves and elsewhere.

PC version will not look significantly different out of the box(of course mods and ini changes go along ways…).

Eh, biggest potential for improvement over the 360 images would be dependent on textures that ship in the PC version.

The dragons themselves look both awesome and somewhat unfinished at the same time. Transition between animations and actions needs work - hopefully in the next what… 5 months rather than with a mod. Right now it's kind of odd because you can basically see the AI's decision process in action because of the lack of transition between the animations. Interesting insight for a preview video but hopefully not how it will look in the final product - each animated action is rather smooth though they are currently strung together by jerky shifts in the model.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Still no jump action performed in this show case, could have enhanced the demonstration of game engine fluidity and animation.

No mini map because preview build maybe or they are confident enough the environment looks enough different to remove the mini map.

Still the same feeling of overpowered PC maintained: giant stands ground against PC to be dispatched by dragon that is not able to dispatch PC.

Not much to gather how this game will play as a RPG.

 

[jhwisner]

Still the same feeling of overpowered PC maintained: giant stands ground against PC to be dispatched by dragon that is not able to dispatch PC..

Yeah, if they've done this the way they have in past walkthroughs they're using a cheated uber-character. Pete Hines had pointed that out in the last walkthrough he did. I've noticed the player's health does barely move in this video so there's a good chance they're still using a cheated character in these walkthroughs. Kind of makes sense that when you're doing a live event and only have x minutes to show what you want to show you don't want to risk it turning into a game of "Laugh at the developer who can't play their own product without dying over and over."

Still - there isn't much to go on so far that shows the actual difficulty of the game and so it does seem reasonable to wonder how overpowered you'll get and how quickly. Balance has been lacking in pretty much all their open world games to date - partly a consequence of the breadth of choice and the type of games they were. That said, the streamlining of the stats SHOULD allow for better ability to balance the game and continue to challenge the player. Doing so would offer good justification for that change - failing to do so would mean failing to create the first balanced and challenging elder scrolls game despite having the best opportunity to do so.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

I guess I should be thankful for the enginge limitations imposed by consoles at this point, as it may mean that I can still play this with my 6 year old computer (which only had a GPU and memory upgrade). Visually the game looks great, although the video seems to have strong compression artifacts (at least I hope that its that what makes the texture look so blurry). Animations certainly vastly improved. Still, in style and overall impression it is very close to Oblivion. Regardless, if they just manage to inject a bit more soul into the world and lore and story than in Oblivion, I'll be happy.

 

[DArtagnan]

I can't say I'm thankful because they're holding back, and I'm pretty sure they're not doing it for the sake of people with low-end hardware.

However, I can't blame them for going for the money either. It would be a nice gesture if they added a "PC High-end" mode with DX11 and the shiny, but that would require them to really care and invest significant resources for that purpose alone. Actually, I think they might gain some "enthusiast-respect" - whatever that's worth.

The game looks really good, I must say. However, I'm more interested in details. They're talking impressive numbers, for sure, like 150 dungeons and 300 hours of gameplay.

But those are numbers. I want to know how they designed those dungeons, and if those 300 hours of gameplay are full of variety.

If they approach dungeon design and mechanics design like in Oblivion - I'll have to wait for mods to really enjoy it.

That said, it looks like a fantastically immersive game - and I'll be more than happy to pay for such a thing. I can bitch and complain about the actual gameplay - but the engine and world are worth full price.

I never cared for Todd and Co's approach to game design - but modders will fix it up. I just wish that the game, on release, will have enough gameplay meat to be fulfilling.

We'll see.

 

[Tragos]

"X place discovered" is such a bad idea , i hope they do not also add the "you felt a cold blow" shit.
Meh , 2 people talking , you take one down with an arrow and the 2nd stands still waiting for his turn .

Dragon eating a giant was cool and so was finishing move , magic seems interesting .

 

[Arkadia7]

This looks very pretty, but I'm thinking it will look even better on a powerful PC. There is a kind of roughness on some of the visuals. I'm sure there will be more eye candy available to polish it with either mods or Betheseda will include it themselves with higher end graphics options in the PC version.

The other concern for me is I am not a fan of snowy environments, so I was glad to hear there will be other terrain environments too, such as open tundra, and forests, but I'm still thinking there might be one too many snowy areas for my liking. Ideally, I think it would have been great to have some desert environments so you could get both extremes in the game, but oh well, maybe next game.

 

[kalniel]

Felt kind of like more of the same, which is enough for a sale for me, though could be better. The Witcher 2 has spoiled me so now the skyrim environment looks rather flat and sparse - that game was also console technology limited, but I guess skyrim is going to be a lot more open ended, plus the construction set/drop in mods/item count has quite an effect on your ability to pre-bake a lot of stuff.

 

[KnightPT]

Skyrim on the PC can't go wrong. Its impossible. Even if the game ships with anoyances or things that could be vastly improved, a couple of months after you'll have a ton of mods to change most of the things you don't like about it, so basicaly if the community supports the game like in oblivion, you simply can't go wrong.


I still play oblivion. I still try out new mods and i still login sometimes just to wander a little and enjoy the heavily-mod-improved graphics and environment.


You can't go wrong with skyrim, even if it takes a few months more after launch