The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

[ungoliant]

I just hope its not linear like gothic 4 was compaired to gothic 3 which was an open world.

 

my 3 year old cousin wouldn't be stupid enough to make TES linear.

[7upMan]

There's linearity, and there's linearity. Compare The Witcher and some brainless Call of Duty game. Both in their way are linear (at least if you compare The Witcher with Morrowind/Oblivion/Two Worlds), but while Witcher still leaves the player a lot of freedom, CoD severely restricts the gameplay.

 

What I'm saying is, some linearity can improve gameplay by compacting it (as opposed to wandering around in the world looking for story elements), while too much linearity kills any feeling of openness.

 

 

[Komag]

that list pic, of the interface, looks sci-fi like Star Trek!

[stumpy]

well gothic 3 is on the lines of go here,

 

choices

side with orcs kill rebels and mages and do quests.

side with rebels kill orcs and do quests.

side with druids kill orcs and do quests.

side with paladins kill orcs and do quests.

side with hishassabin kill rebels and mages do quests.

side with mages kill orcs do quests.

side option collect all 12 fire chalices.

while here you can pick up multiple quests and do them in any order.

monsters in this game will respawn after a while so you can max out your characture.

 

while gothic 4 is on the lines of go here kill monster.

get next quest. (which is usually a monster killing quest.)

while here you're limited to picking up a maximum of 4 quests at a time, and they have to be done in order.

once monsters are dead no respawns.

 

gothic 1 and 2 are on the lines of gothic 3 but with different factions and you can't side with the orcs.

 

so gothic 3 is a rpg and gothic 4 is a fps.

[Ladro]

The graphics and the new features are really awesome, i like it :-)

 

But the graphics for the menus and all the gui, it's terrible, it's hypermoderne, not fantasy! :-(

[Sonosuke]

I hope Jeremy Soule is still on board and makes the music for the game.

[jaxa]

One thing I'm hopeful about is that the focus on dragons will bring significant enhancements to combat that will also trickle down to the ground-based enemies. More complicated battle animations (born from the ability for flying enemies to swoop down at you and other aerial maneuvers), greater variability of "target" spell appearance and function (due to the variability of the fireballs that dragons will be using), etc. I'm thinking that levitate will be brought back, which will make exploring a lot more fun like it was back in Morrowind (go to Vivec Temple, grab your bargain levitate for 5c, offer it at the shrine, hit recall or just launch out, and you got a whole new game). Since dragons are the big bad in this game I'm guessing that fighting them won't be monotonous and annoying like the universally despised silt striders were. Unless you're in the nest or something.

Edited April 18, 2011 by jaxa

[STiFU]

I am expecting a better game than Oblivion. Compared to Morrowind (which I loved the shit out of), Oblivion doesn't really count as an RPG and I guess the dev team has learned its lesson. In my opinion, an RPG is supposed to be complex, giving the player options to optimize his character to the finest degree. Otherwise it's just an action-adventure / hack-and-slay with role-playing elements à la Diablo.

[Diego]

I'm disturbed with these definitions of RPG.. distribute points? improve character? What I remember as being an RPG is when people sat around a table and ROLE PLAY their characters, with funny voices and all. All the rest, including point distribution, was a limitation of the media, pen and paper with some dice.

[Fidcal]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/20-best-things-about-skyrim

[stumpy]

no acrobatics, so they wont allow you to jump as high as a tree, but you can chop the tree down, cut it into logs and sell them to the local lumber mill for cash.

well am a lumberjack and am okay, I sleep all night and I work all day...

[SiyahParsomen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9eGtyqz4gY

[Bikerdude]

HAHAHAH Fucking awesome... I wonder how many other games have evoked fans to the point of creating little gems like this... The bit about "the crap in between, was so true.."

 

 

nb. did anyone hear the word 'sweet' at the end...

[SiyahParsomen]

new video is out!

 

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

[jdude]

new video is out!

 

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

 

I laughed when I saw "Halo 4, will initiate a trilogy." Didn't they say the last Halo was going to be the final one?

 

On the topic of the game, I'm a little disappointed at the draw distance, but I think it will likely look much better on the PC (crosses fingers). Other than that it looks really good.

[Fidcal]

Thanks - very good video. Really gives a good idea of the look and feel of playing the game (pity EM will never do this with Thief. I much prefer this openness and anticipation rather than secrecy.)

 

Slight reservation about the first/third person which they (deliberately?) were ambiguous about. But I think the player has no control and during some (most?) sequences it switches to third. Strangely I always rode horse in third in Oblivion and played the rest in first.

 

But yes, this is a must play and I'm looking forward to this whereas I am merely curious about T4 and not over-excited. Funny that.

[jdude]

I'm in the same boat as you Fid. I have a feeling Thief 4 won't be anything like 1 or 2 in which case, I doubt anyone here will be all that into it.

 

BTW, if anyone is interested here's new RAGE gameplay footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4hRlyU-Www

[7upMan]

BTW, if anyone is interested here's new RAGE gameplay footage:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=V4hRlyU-Www

 

Just seen it on another website. In the tunnels, the water splashing out of those tube cracks looks uber-lame. I do hope this will be improved.

[jdude]

Just seen it on another website. In the tunnels, the water splashing out of those tube cracks looks uber-lame. I do hope this will be improved.

 

I thought the interactions with npcs was silly. The player walks up to someone and they spill their heart out.

[jaxa]

Random questing - a lot of Oblivion quests were really dry go to location X, get automatic journal updates indicating "sleuthing" and then slay everything in sight (often including the enemies that would normally be generated in that cave/mine/etc). So I'm not sure how I feel about completely randomized quests. Well, rereading the RPS blurb it seems like it's randomizing minor details like location instead of the whole notion of the quest. So no saving 1000 randomized kids from 1000 randomized parents for leveled gold.

 

Attributes removed - I will have to see this to believe that it works. What is truth is that the attribute system of the previous two games encouraged you to practice efficient leveling, which is boring and tedious. It's not as if you wanted a character that you made to have any less than 100 in all attributes... and in particular, you wanted to get to 100 Endurance fast, which may have influenced your choice of star sign (The Lady, +25 Endurance/Personality).

 

Making the case for the removal of attributes is mostly predicated by the strong skill system:

 

Intelligence: If you're good at alchemy, you mix good potions. If you're good at lock-picking, or take the time to master the mini-game itself, you can open locks.

 

Willpower: Magic skills determine casting costs and effectiveness. Rather than having a willpower attribute to determine mana regeneration, you just lower the casting costs further for spells that you have good skill values for.

 

Endurance: Armor skills determine armor effectiveness.

 

Agility: In Morrowind, affected weapon speed / ability to hit, in Oblivion, marksmanship. Just let it be governed by weapons skills. Block can determine "stagger chance".

 

Luck: I guess they're not doing this but it would be interesting to have luck be a hidden attribute with a value of 1.0 and then alter that transparently using magic or equipment. Permanent increases could come from permanent abilities. Raising luck when you level up doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

Personality: People can like you based on actions and not a number, which is definitely true in Oblivion which has different types of people (nobility and commoners vs. criminals and beggars) like you based on Fame and Infamy balance, not to mention quest outcomes and personal interactions.

 

Speed: It's hard to make a case for Speed removal when Athletics and Acrobatics were cut at the same time. Now that Fatigue is an "attribute", it will probably have to fulfill this function. The real question is how fatigue can be raised and at what rate.

 

Strength: Fatigue for carrying capacity, weapon skills determine weapon damage.

 

Dual spell wielding sounds great if it is the case that the two spells combine to create "new effects".

 

I heard that this game lacks levitation. Too bad, it would have been cool to use considering you have an x/y/z/yaw/pitch/roll (compare to Oblivion's imps that just fly 5 feet above the ground) flying enemy, the dragons.

 

Video

 

Hmm, he dispatched guy #1 with a bow, and then guy #2 just kind of stood there scared.

 

Mammoths and dragons. Awesome.

[7upMan]

It's official: Skyrim will be crap. Several news sites report that according to an interview with Craig Lafferty (Lead-Designer at Bethesda) on Computer and Video Games, the lead development platform will be consoles, not the PC. Also, Bethesda aims to make Skyrim more accessible to a larger user base. By the very definition this means low-res textures and dumbed-down gameplay. Thank goodness I didn't pre-order.

[jdude]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say something unpopular. When I first played Oblivion I played it on the Xbox 360 and still absolutely loved it. Only about 3 years after first finishing it did I get it for the PC. Even if they dumb down the graphics it doesn't matter to me because the gameplay is what made Oblivion a game great, and I doubt those characteristics will be sacrificed because of consoles. They already did those things great on the 360.

[Bikerdude]

I will say this, when ES5 comes out TDM may take a back seat while people start to play it..

[jdude]

I think so too but that's not until 11/11/11

[nbohr1more]

There are some excellent Oblivion Mods yet folks still play TDM...

 

The craving for more TDM will return.