Skyrim - Fan Interview @ Bethesda Forums

aries100 · July 6, 2011

Todd Howard, Brusce Nesmith, Matt Carafano, answered questions from fans in this interview put up by Matt Grandstaff at the Bethesda forums. A few samples:
5) Are loot and quest rewards level scaled, like in Oblivion? Will there be any powerful un-scaled items?

Bruce: We’re handling leveling stuff similar to how we did in Fallout 3, but with a few new twists that we hope players won’t even notice. The enemies and loot are based on the “encounter zone” you’re in, so it could be higher or lower level than your current level. We do have a new concept of epic or “special” loot that you can randomly find in many cases, regardless of the zone, and you will still get better stuff in the better zones with your level higher. Same goes for quest rewards. We try to make them appropriate for what you did. Sometimes that is random, sometimes that is a set item. There’s a lot of specific stuff that is very powerful, like the Daedric artifacts.

Another quote:

20) Will any sort of karma system be incorporated like there was in Fallout, or will it be the Fame/Infamy system of Oblivion?
Bruce: We don’t provide a numeric score that you can track, but the game knows if you’ve been naughty or nice. We felt that a number really didn’t do your fame justice. Characters in the world will acknowledge the specific things you have done rather than just a generalized reputation. If you are a criminal, they’ll know that too. But if you pay your debt to society, all is forgiven.

More information.

wolfgrimdark · July 6, 2011

This was a great interview (to me at least) as I learned some fun new stuff (and well some not so fun new stuff). Still the thumbs up out numbered the thumbs down. Really curious to see how the Karma will work out they way they talked about it. Like the ideason the NPC's, some of the scaling sounds like it could work better, and like what was said about the quest branches being a little more focused. Still two-edged sword on much of the stuff they said as it could also be done very poorly. I remain optomistic though.

Thanks for the article - it was a good read.

spiraling69 · July 6, 2011

It was a good interview, at least it has some new info. I'm surprised to hear about spears, as it seems to me that they shouldn't be much of a problem to implement. The funny thing is that I never even realized that they were not in Oblivion, so its not a big issue for me. I'm into swords and magic, but not spears

I've been reading in a few places recently that it's quite possible Skyrim will be delayed till February of 2012. I thought that 11 11 11 was a firm release date, but you never know. I'm so caught up in the hype that I think I'll be truly depressed if that is the case. Does anyone have more info about this?

GhanBuriGhan · July 6, 2011

4) Are the main and faction quests branching or linear? What about side quests?
Bruce: We’ve focused on telling one story well. There are decision points in all the quest lines that can change things, but overall it’s a single story. Because the side quests are smaller stories, they are more likely to have major branches. For example, you can decide to save or betray someone, which changes the whole end of the quest. Overall the quest structure in Skyrim is closer to Oblivion than Fallout 3, in that there are many more quests, but they have fewer branches.

Meh, i had hoped for exactly the opposite. I found the quest structure in FO3 far superior, and I really had hoped they would carry that over to Skyrim.

crpgnut · July 6, 2011

I'm curious about that choice too, GBG. A weakness of Oblivion was that many quests had only one real way to solve them. It killed replayability. Bethesda seems to think that you should only play their game one time through, doing as much as possible. I'd rather play several times, only doing the quests that a particular character would do. My alchemist isn't going to tackle the thieves guild or dark brotherhood quests, for example.

azarhal · July 6, 2011

crpgnut said:
Bethesda seems to think that you should only play their game one time through, doing as much as possible.

Actually, I think you have it backward: Bethesda knows that most of the players who buy their games only play them once and that they want to be able to do as much as possible in their 30 hours playthrough. The QQs in the forums are kind of a give away.

You should see how many of them are happy that cuirass and greave have been merged, because they couldn't miss match armor well in Oblivion.

Skyrim - Fan Interview @ Bethesda Forums

aries100

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wolfgrimdark

Follower of Fenris Wolf

spiraling69

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GhanBuriGhan

Wose extraordinaire

crpgnut

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azarhal

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