Ah, the Infernal City? I am praying to Julianos and Magnus that the book's canonicity has been scrapped and the whole blunder attributed to the influence of Sheogorath.

I am also upset with the further skill reduction, since it means fewer things for me to be awesome at, and what seems to be a decision to forego Oblivion's useful ability of being able to hold a shield, mace, and cast spells all at the same time. One significant improvement over Morrowind was the magic system, and the ability to shoot off spells without having to switch off was a big part of that.

I'm just ignoring it altogether, personally.

I agree about the instant-casting in Oblivion. IMO that was one of the very few areas where Oblivion actually improved on Morrowind (and I played OB first, so that's not just nostalgia speaking). But yeah... I've read some of those "what should TESV be like?" threads on the official Bethesda forums. It's like the devs read them through carefully, and then decided to do the exact opposite.

There are so many contradicting threads on there that no matter what they do someone is going to be screaming.

No, they listen... maybe not to the right crowd, but they do listen.

It all seems to come down to the consoles nowadays when it comes to deciding what to put into a game, and it's no different with Skyrim it seems. What do console players want?

-sPl0s1ons!!1!11!!!11!eleventyone!
-Dragons
-Lotsa blood

Basically anything that prevents the game from being remotely interesting and unique just so they can massage that massive superiority complex that is contracted to all Xbox 360 fanboys (which though I have thankfully managed to avoid).

TES5 is still going to be so much better than most of the dreck that exists today (see Call of Duty, Activision's cash cow interactive motion picture... come on guys, just make the damn movie already), but it still saddens me that such a group who has absolutely no clue about what makes a great game is exercising so much influence over the developers. It's getting to the point where the lines between genres are becoming blurred. If this keeps up, I forsee a second Great Video Game Crash occuring because all the originality was stripped from the market, all in the desire to appeal to as many people as possible.

Really, you don't need to fix what ain't broke, and Morrowind sure wasn't broke. I don't understand why Bethesda is ignoring the fact that Morrowind is STILL selling copies even a decade after release and taking the frapping hint. We LIKE our TES games to be rich, expansive, and customizable; not hacky-slashy dungeon-divey five minutes of fun before the console goes off.

The way I see it, what they did to the levelling was completely unnecessary. All that was needed was to keep it as it was, develop an in-house GCD variant, and done! Instead we get even fewer skills, NO class system whatsoever, and a recycled Fallout perk system (although, I do tend to agree with this one).

If they do to the dragons what they did to the Oblivion Gates, I will chuck my 360 out my bedroom window.

I guess it's all we can hope for that their new "Radiant Story" doesn't end up another cop-out like the last time they tried "Radiant" technology.

OK, rant over.

You're right, of course - but the general consensus was definitely in favour of more depth and complexity, not less. Certainly everyone and his dog hated Oblivion-style level scaling (see this poll, for example), so bringing that back seems frankly perverse.


This. I'm not one of the ultra-fanatical Morrowind fans who thinks everything about that game was absolutely perfect, but I honestly don't believe Oblivion would have sold one less copy if it had MW's depth and complexity. I still remember the massive hype around OB's original release: it was all focussed on the graphics and the (supposedly) advanced AI, not the 'streamlined' skill system or simplified gameplay. And the 'dumbing-down' approach can backfire on developers as well - ever hear of Deus Ex: Invisible War?


I wouldn't necessarily object to the lack of a formal class system, but I don't quite understand how that's going to work in terms of skill development. Will we still have 'favoured' skills that will start off at a higher level, and increase more quickly? Or will everyone start off with all skills at (say) level 5, and only raise them through gameplay?

Ditching the class system is a bit like scoreing pickled tripe off the menu. Very few people ever had the prebuilt classes (I never have) and made their custom ones, but equally well it was nice to know that they were there.


I think (though can't remember the source) that there are still 'tagged skills' but that they don't increase any faster and that all skill increases contribute ot level. But then something else said level was capped to 50 (or at least would increase very slowly beyond it) so who knows. I do worry that the level system will have been even more simplifed though.

Quest leveling was bad, but quest randomisation? If done cleverly it could succedd in preventing you from running into quests early while exploring, but it could easily be even mroe of a nightmare than the leveling which is still hanging around like a bad smell.

Still I know I'll buy it one way or another, if only in the hope that they ight have put depth in for those who want it. Then I'll go back to playing Morrowind.

I do not remember the source (or if it was just a post somewhere in the forums, I really hope not ) but I do not think they are using Oblivion style scaling. I think they are aiming for more of a Fallout 3 style.

If I can find the source I'll edit it in.

Ah, OK. I haven't played FO3, so I don't really know what the scaling is like in that game.

The scaling in Fallout is something of a mishmash between Morrowind and Oblivion. The monsters are all leveled (including dungeon encounters, whereas Morrowind only leveled monsters in the overworld), but the minimum levels are now floored (and a couple enemy types are capped) and their equipment sets are static. There is no leveled loot, either, the randomly generated loot is just taken from a catch-all list befitting of the dungeon type (similar to Morrowind's random loot), and most of the big finds are static.

Well the raiders in the game never got more difficult. You might have had problems with them at low levels but at high levels they where hamburger before your might! At low levels there were areas that had enemies called "deathclaws" and they were death no matter what level you are IF they get close. which at low levels they did often if you ran into them. They became more common at higher levels but they did not replace other monsters.

Quick clarification, King Coin is right. NPCs in Fallout 3 were static, as well (in level and equipment sets).

As for not encountering certain enemies in certain areas, Oblivion did this, too through the use of encounter "sets" (for lack of better term). You had an animal set, an undead set, a bandit set, etc, and every set had their level and loot lists scaled to the player. In Fallout, the "set" usage remains largely unaltered, in that it still determines which actors will spawn where, (ghoul set, wasteland monster set, raider set, insect set, etc.) and all the creature sets (and yes, that includes the robots) are level-matched.

The major between the two are these:
-Static NPCs
-The loot lists are no longer scaled

That you can see Deathclaws at Level 1 in the game is simply because it makes more use of static spawns (which Oblivion had almost none).

I was not arguing with what you said, I was describing encounters in Fallout 3 to Helena.

And I wasn't trying to argue back, I was just clarifying.

I've re-formatted the post to make it a bit less argumentative.

I gotta be honest here I hope I'm amazed by this game but my hopes aren't set too high. I set my hopes pretty high for Oblivion and I was let down so I'm hoping that by not having much interest I can avoid disappointment if the game is extremely simple.

Simple gameplay mechanics (and the evidence does rather point that way) wouldn't be so bad if they make the game rich and full of clever and good quests. I found Oblivion, and to an extent Morrowind, could get a bit samey. Go there, get this, kill that, rinse, repeat. While the occasional quest really shone for imagination (the silent pilgrimidge in morrowind, sheogorath's quest in Ob). More of them and lots of juicy lore would make it a good game even if they wreak the level system.

There's no reason, barring lazyness and/or incompetance, that it shouldn't be lore rich and clever. Beth took a pounding over Oblivion and SI was better, they might well have learnt their lesson. If a complex level system turns poepple off a game then it's a pity but they do have to sell the thing.

Saying that I do really hope that there are required skill levels for advancing in guilds (or at least quests which are genuinly too hard to do without the higher skills). Head of the fighters guild at level 8 always seemed silly to me.

Wise man once said "Better to set your hopes low and be pleasantly surprised than to set them high and be let down."

That is why I am trying to look at things from a pessimistic view for this game, I don't want to go the same route as many did when Oblivion was released.

Have to agree with you on this. It was too easy to advance, the quests could be completed in minutes by low level players - and I do want quests that entail some thought, surprises, intrigue. I thought Oblivion had some excellent quests in it - but it had many (duh) quests too.

I liked all the hidden things in both the Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 (that were conspicuously absent in Fallout: New Vegas). That is one of the things I have always loved about Bethesda games is the little easter eggs they hide around to intrigue the player.

In Elder Scrolls I love the Lore and think it makes the game what it is in so many depths - like you said though, I have a fear they are going to try and reinvent the Lore (to match the books they put out last year maybe?)

The books they put out last year did not seem to gel at all with Lore, and that was an offense to me as they supposedly occurred just 50 years after the Oblivion crisis - and this story is supposed to take place 200 years after it. If they are throwing out the Lore, then it will no longer be Elder Scrolls-worthy, just a game put out by the same developers.

The AI does sound better with this new game engine, but I am nervous that (the new game engine) will be problematic. I have the worst feeling it is the same engine that Feargus (and crew) were building right at the time Interplay pulled the rug out from under Black Isles. The coincidence that Bethesda just worked with Feargus (and crew) on Fallout: New Vegas and suddenly popped up with a "Hand built by the developers and others" game engine - my fear is that it is the same engine.

That thought does make me nervous, especially in light of the wreck Obsidion made of Fallout: New Vegas, the DLC, and the Patches - all overloaded with game ending glitches.

Like you, I hope for the best and have my fingers and toes crossed that my five year wait for TESV was worth it - but have a certain amount of skepticism about it. From what we've been given to go on so far, I haven't found excitement building in me yet. Dragons that either we ride or they attack - it's played. Killing and eating Wooly Mammoth's or riding them - whatever. I never had that as any criteria for a game that I desired to play yet. So I hope in the next months they can come up with something a lot better to entice me than they have so far.

That said, I have pre-ordered the game for both the 360 and PC, so if I do get disappointed - it will be doubly so.

Well, I cried during the trailer (still do each time I see it) and cried while reserving it.... So I guess you could say I'm excited

I played Fallout 3 a little bit, not enough to judge whether it was good or bad, but I liked how it was. So the skill point thing I guess I'll just have to wait and see how they work out.

The only thing I dislike is the fact that you have to fight giant spiders I'm really arachnophobic so...

GAAAAH!!!! You mean bigger than the Daedric spiders with women's heads? GAAAAH !!!!!

I'd say it was women's heads and torsos. Let's face it, in addition to various other changes since Morrowind, Oblivion made the upper body differences between males and females far more discernable.

Yes I could tolerate the spider daedra by focusing on their face and torsos... but these... they're huge and hairy and so gross They're completely realistic looking -gag- They've even got the nasty spider mouths and eyes!!

GAAAAH!!! OMG, I will be like Cleo and the Zombie playing if spiders are going to attack me!

(Who is Cleo and the Zombie?) Watch this vid:


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


*

Lol!! I'm just going to have Wrothken fight them off for me I'll read a book or something. I just hope they don't make noises That would be even worse

Like a hissing noise, or maybe their eight feet will make a squishy noise when they step like Squidworthy on SpongeBob. GAAAAH! I can't stand spiders, the bigger they are the more I freak out. What if all you carry is a dagger? Oh, or if they burst out with hundreds of babies that chase you like the Daedric ones do sometimes - GAAAAH !!!

I'm looking forward to this, the use of the shouts could prove to be extremely interesting in ways to mix up the combat and even non-combat sections. Though I think using shouting as a persausion skill should be implemented anyway. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T WANT TO TELL ME? I AM WEARING A FULL SUIT OF THE ARMOUR OF HELL AND WAVING A CLAYMORE IN YOUR FACE!"...Ahem...anyway.

The loss of classes saddens me a little, I know a lot of people make their own, me included, but it was always fun to play through in the style and manner of a set class. Playing Morrowind as a monk and imagining my character slowly loosing his faith as he slowly realised his destiny was awesome!

Finally i'd like to see the skills get a little bit of a revamp in how they're earnt. Getting 4 different types of power attack really annoyed me in Oblivion. I'd rather get unique skills to use in combat, and I think it'd be more awesome if you got some based on multiple skills. For example, 50 and 50 in blocking and axes would get you a shield breaker attack, your skills with both items teach you how to try and hook the enemies shield and tear it away, perhaps even a greater chance of success based on your strength! 100/100 in shortblade and sneak lets you perform a silent throat cut on enemies if you're close range and they don't have a decent armor rating....

Anyway, my 2 cents.

Perhaps Vyper could be convinced to create a No Spider mod for Syrim, like this one he made for Oblivion?

I will probably do it myself, but I doubt I will get Skyrim right away. I'd rather wait for the GOTY edition a year later, and get it all patched and with its addons.

Ewww!!! That is my worst fear- spiders making noise Or bursting! Bleh!!




That would be amazing...but my computer is a POS and wouldn't be able to handle Skyrim

I know it will be hard for anyone that (quasi) knows me to believe - but it took me almost FIVE minutes to figure out what that meant, ROFL !!! (and I have a POS PC myself, ROFL !!

I get chills when I watch the trailer. No tears though lol.

I hate spiders too, but I hope to roast those them with a flamethrower spell while yelling "BUUUURRRN!" (continuous fire spells are going to be included)

WOO HOO !!! Now instead of burning my allies in quick bursts I can torch the living crap out of them with my bad aim !!! WOO HOO !!!

Just make sure you don't start a forest fire in the process, or torch one of the Nord villages, or somehow set fire to the snow (which I'm sure our kitty is capable of). I know of your devious ways.

EDIT: It seems by some amazing quirk of fate, every new page save #2 starts with a post made by me. Whodathunkit?

I call conspiracy.

ROFL!!! If Bethesda makes it burnable, I will come, lol.

That is one thing I liked about Fallout 3 - haven't been able to recreate it in New Vegas yet - blowing up cars.

Picture this: A group of raiders up on a highway bridge camped, using cars as barracades - or the car barracade going into The Pitt - You don't shoot at them because you are at a low level and there are so many of them ... but you can use a silenced 22 and shoot at any car far enough from you not to blow yourself up. A chain reaction begins and the fireworks is on as the cars blow up with satisfying BOOOM !!!! sounds and engulfing the area in fire for quite a few days.

It was one of the HUGE things I loved about Fallout 3, crossing the bridge behind Liberty Prime ... AWESOME !!!!!!


I have shot myself to death in New Vegas trying to blow up a vehicle and not been able to get a single one to blow. Anyone else have any better luck than me there?

I was trying it last night actually. A group of Deathclaws were hanging out next to a truck. No way I could take them all out before I got my innards ripped from my body. But hey, I had a crummy SMG with tons of bullets to spare! Only problem, THE TRUCK WOULDN'T EXPLODE!!! I don't know what gives but New Vegas doesn't really have nukable cars. Or at least they're harder to blow that FO3's. Maybe it was intentional though. I mean, it was kinda annoying how easy and often it was for cars to explode on you. Useful against an enemy, horrible when it happens to you.

I loved it once I realized what was happening - got real good at sneaking and never went anywhere without that silenced 22 to blow a clean path through a bad area. When the Enclave was released and was swarming DC proper I got blown up a few times by their helicopters zooming in from above and shooting those piles of cars that bordered the burroughs.

So far, these are my favourite things:
new map
bigger cities
dueling in the streets
cooking, mining, forging and farming
dragon shouts
dual wielding!
better weather physics
better graphics
children
NPC's are more realistic
and more!!!

I remember there was a drive in movie theater in FO3 that had raiders in it. there were cars all over the place. I threw 1 grenade and the whole place went up! Body parts were flying everywhere!

And I remember plenty of times where I heard the first little explosion from a nearby car sending me into a panic!

I know which one you are talking about - (movie theatre) - it was up on a hill with a cement wall type around it - I did the same thing - AWESOME !!! Then realized Dogmeat was caught in the ruckus and had to reload a previous save, lol.

Just felt like throwing this in here, pardon me if i'm a bit late with this but PCGamer has some screens from the game!
I immediately Harry Partridged.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/11/first-sc...rolls-v-skyrim/

Now a few things to note here, the Nordic Zombie Skeletons. Could we be seeing the return of the Draugr?
Similarily there was a little shocker for me when on the skill page I noticed "Enchanting" at the side, along with what seems to be Smithing. I knew crafting was coming in but whole new skills?
Considering, if I remember correctly, there are only going to be 18 skill variants in the game it makes me panic a little about what has been cut, we saw the idiocy of classing axes as "blunt" weapons on Oblivion. Are we now just going to have a "Melee" skill?
Finally.

Is that a giant I see?

Weapons are now classified as "One Hand," "Two Hand," and "Marksman."

Ah yes, I remember now, and they're using the perks to further stratify them.

It's pretty much the same as Oblivion actually, well more diverse now I think about it. All the weapons there seemed to do the same thing, just with different textures.

I missed Enchant when they removed it for Oblivion and went to the system of having to go to an altar. 'Smithing' is likely just a renaming of 'Armorer'.

I had hoped that they would move back to the Morrowind skillset, not further away from it. One of the things that bothered me about Oblivion was that they took Axe, Spear, Enchant, Medium Armor, etc. and either removed or simplified them. I got over it though, as I am sure I'll get over it again in Skyrim...

The facegen looks like an improvement over Oblivion on the barmaid NPC.

My question is this: Since there seems to be a combination of previous TES games being brought into Skyrim (cliffracers = dragons; armor that is a throwback to the older games; that cyclops looking beast from Daggerfall, etc. ) -

WILL THEY BE OPENING THE BORDERS ???????

I can answer that. No.

Bleah.

You could dream a hopeless dream. though, right? I mean, for all we know they might be planning to create a DLC that could take you into Cyrodiil.

Like, I don't know.. Retrieve the Champion's Relics (Your items in OB can be 'transported' into Skyrim by loading a Save in OB) in the ruins of Cloudruler Temple..
Come to think of it, that might just be a good idea!
...
...
-------------------------

Anyway, I like what I see when I looked up at Skyrim's new interface and graphics. It literally guarantees that we'll have tremendous fun playing this beast.

Or NOT! Who knows.

That is an AWESOME IDEA !!!!!!!

That new journal page printed over the screen - I see people like me who are blind [censored] bats having trouble reading spell lists on a screen like that.

TES has a large enough fan base that would guarantee a lot of $$$ spent on that type of DLC. I think it's a fantastic idea also!

Sounds like a good mod.

Let's talk weapons.

I'm seeing increased speculation on the official Skyrim board that melee weapon skills are being changed from "Blade, Blunt" to "One hand, Two hand." I must say that this is probably one of the stupidest ideas I've ever seen, and will be surely angered if this is actually true.

Does anyone at Bethesda have any idea that wielding a sword is world apart from wielding a hafted weapon? Swords are designed for precision, whereas the hafted (axes, maces, etc) are more akin to brute-force application. This is what makes a knight different from a barbarian. Further combining of the weapon skills as this "One Hand, Two Hand" tosh is an affront to fantasy RPGs in general. I don't want a master-of-all-trades character, I want him to have actual skills and weaknesses! If he can wield a short blade and a war axe with equal skill simply because they require one hand to use... where the hell is the logic to that?! It's like saying that my mastery of the art of watching movies also gives me the skills needed to make one. That is not true at all!

Why can't Bethesda get it through their heads... too much streamlining is BAD. Oblivion is a case-in-point example of this, they removed or "streamlined" too much and resulted in a game that felt watered down. Here's how I would streamline the weapon skills:

-Short Blade
-Long Blade
-Hafted, One Hand
-Hafted, Two Hand

Four skills that make logical sense and add a sense of variety to the creation of your character. This way, axes and spears would at least fit into the streamlined skills, since they are in fact hafted weapons. Morrowind did have a little too much in terms of weapon skills available to you, but Bethesda went way too far with trimming those down in Oblivion, which only had two melee weapon skills, one of which making no sense at all, and removing spears entirely.

By the way, BethSoft... if you are going to improve on mounted combat in Skyrim, BRING THE DAMN SPEARS BACK!!! The main purpose of long-hafted spears and pikes in the medieval battlefield was to defend against a cavalry charge. If we are expected to fight horses without the aid of one of those quintessential medieval weapons, that is going to be a flat-out immersion killer for me. No one in their right mind would try to take down a charging horse-and-rider with a puny long blade... they'd get trampled before they even landed a blow.

I do approve of their changes to Archery, though, so not everything is bad.