Preview Skyrim Preview Extravaganza

[Jaesun]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Giant Bomb have <a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/news/skyrim-is-looking-like-the-elder-scrolls-evolved/3048/">a video of game-play as well as preview of their impressions of Skyrim</a>:</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>Just to state it upfront, Skyrim still looks very much like the Elder Scrolls games you know and love. Bethesda has been talking all kinds of game lately about working with a new engine and improving its dialogue system and stuff like that--and yes, the graphics and dialogue look noticeably better, among many other obvious improvements--but the fundamental look, sound, and feel of Skyrim will be unmistakably familiar to anyone who spent a few (or a few hundred) hours traipsing around the world of Oblivion.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>Rock, Paper Shotgun think there are 20 reasons you should believe in all the hype <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/20-best-things-about-skyrim/ ">to be excited about Skyrim</a>:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, there&rsquo;s an awful lot more than 20 reasons to be helplessly nerding out about the next Elder Scrolls game, but a nice round number is a good place to start, right? Let me be clear: I love Morrowind, quite like Oblivion and really didn&rsquo;t get on with Fallout 3. I am what you might call a doubter. Nonetheless, I am impossibly excited about Skyrim, having recently been shown an hour of it (and listened to a bonus hour of lead dev Todd Howard answering questions about it). Here are just a few reasons why&hellip;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>1. Killing a dragon involves knocking the enormous thing out of the sky, with a combination of arrows, magic and whatever else you can think of.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>You can <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/20-best-things-about-skyrim/ ">read the entire article here</a>. You don't want to miss out on 2 to 20!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>And lastly Rock, Paper Shotgun want to <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/skyrim-skills/">clarify Skyrim&rsquo;s Levelling/Skills System for you</a>:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The re-thought Elder Scrolls levelling, skill, attribute and perk system in Skyrim is already proving divisive (as witnessed in comments on the last post), but I fear at least part of the reason for that is it&rsquo;s not been explained terribly well as yet. And, to be honest, that&rsquo;s partially because there&rsquo;s only so much of it I can explain until I&rsquo;ve had proper hands-on time and experienced it rather than been told &lsquo;it&rsquo;s better this way&rsquo;. I like the sound of it, because I always thought Oblivion&rsquo;s system was fussier and more opaque than it needed be (in terms of what it actually achieved), but I certainly don&rsquo;t want a reduction in depth any more than the next Morrowind nut. For now though, here&rsquo;s all the quotes on the subject I&rsquo;ve got from Bethesda&rsquo;s Todd Howard, which hopefully clear things up a little more &ndash; plus offer some extra detail on how the stealth and persuasion mechanics work:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Every skill affects your levelling. Every time I get a skill raise there&rsquo;s a level bar that moves. The higher the skill the more it pushes you to levelling, so you want to use your higher skills.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I find most people, no matter what character they want to make, they use the best thing that you give them. I find when I play you&rsquo;re best off focusing on something, particularly when it comes to the perk tree, but it&rsquo;s so easy to mix styles up [he also references the dual-wielding as adding to this].&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Be sure to <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/skyrim-skills/">read the whole article on this fascinating subject here</a>.</p>
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<p><em>Thanks to Pegultagol and Jaedar&nbsp;</em></p>
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[Metro]

“The levelling system is very much like Fallout 3. There were definitely moments in Oblivion were it was a rollercoaster of pain because the world levelled faster than you.”

An example of perks, for the bow and arrow: “one to zoom in, one that also slows down time when you zoom in. Perks also have ranks; maybe there’s two levels of the zoom.” Other perks on-show included being able to bypass armour with maces, and causing heavy bleeding with one-handed weapons.

...

The speech skill: “There is not a Persuasion wheel. It’s much more simplified. There’s not a mini-game for it.” He declined to describe it until later, however.

Lockpicking: “There is a minigame, but I hate the word ‘minigame’. There’s also a combat ‘minigame!’” [That latter is irony, don't explode.] “You’ve got to have some interaction, not just a die roll.”

...

“There are three main stats: magicka, health, stamina. In Oblivion you have 8 attributes and 21 skills. Now it’s 18 skills and 3 attributes. What we found was those attributes actually did something else. e.g. intelligence affected magicka. They all trickled down to some other stat.

...

Perks “come from levelling up character rather than skills. Pick a perk when you level. It’s like a standard skill tree but they have requirements, not just the one below it. You see a perk you like and say I’m going to start using my sword more because I want that perk.”

Horrible. Didn't think it was possible to dumb down Oblivion. I'll bet Torchlight 2 has a deeper character progression system.

 

[deus101]

spears?

 

[Yeesh]

We're more than halfway through April already? Damn, less than 7 months left to bitch about Skyrim before anybody's even played it. Where does the time go?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Horrible. Didn't think it was possible to dumb down Oblivion. I'll bet Torchlight 2 has a deeper character progression system.

Gotta follow the trends Bioware is setting. Now that stats are out how the hell do you distinguish different races? Dick size?

That said, character progression is going to hinge on exactly how well their perk system is done. It could work out if Bethesda became competent all of the sudden. The stats before WERE pretty bland and meaningless.

4. The menus are pure sex, basically. The crisp, floating text, tiered menus and full 3D renderings of every inventory item is light years ahead of the fugly boxes and fuzzy, endless lists of Oblivion and Fallout 3. Seriously: these may be the best-looking in-game menus in history.

FUCK YES PRETTY MENUS! 4TH BEST FEATURE IN NEXT GEN GAMING!

 

[Metro]

We're more than halfway through April already? Damn, less than 7 months left to bitch about Skyrim before anybody's even played it. Where does the time go?

So we shouldn't rely on the developer's description of game mechanics?

That said, character progression is going to hinge on exactly how well their perk system is done. It could work out if Bethesda became competent all of the sudden. The stats before WERE pretty bland and meaningless.

The analogy to FO3 is my biggest concern.

 

[I.C. Wiener]

Jesus. Pokemon has more stats than this.

However I don't mind the persuasion wheel change (though I probably won't play this for several years, if ever). That minigame was fucking stupid. If they mean by "simplified" make it more like FNV where it's straightforward I'm all for a little "streamlining". Knowing bethesda though, it will probably be every conversation has the same three dialog choices in a ME-esque wheel (except this one is a triangle): "Give me a quest"/"random chitchat"/"goodbye".

 

[Black]

Skyrim still looks very much like the Elder Scrolls games you know and love

Oh, goodie.

working with a new engine

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

 

[Roguey]

That RPS article reads like a damn press release.
HYYYYYYYYYYYYYPE
HYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYPE
(i haven't actually played it but)
BETHESDA YOU ARE THE BEST LOVER EVER FUCK ALL THOSE SPREEDSHEET NUMBER LOSERS YOU'VE VISCERALLY STREAMLINED MY HEART

 

[Befuddled Halfling]

We’re down from 8 attributes and 21 skills to 3 attributes and 18 skills, which will probably cause gasps of horror in some camp...The attributes ... are distilled to Health, Magicka and Stamina. “What we found was those [old] attributes actually did something else. For instance, Intelligence just affected Magicka. They all trickled down to some other stat.” Again- this will cause gasps of horror

Who's camp? And what's the technical difference between a 'fuck it, who seriously was under any illusion?' -gasp and a 'gasp of horror'?

 

[.Sigurd]

spears?

No. Todd said in an interview for the guys of GameInformer that there's no spears in the game because "is too difficult to make an animation for them".

 

[Yeesh]

We're more than halfway through April already? Damn, less than 7 months left to bitch about Skyrim before anybody's even played it. Where does the time go?

So we shouldn't rely on the developer's description of game mechanics?

Rely on it for what? To judge the game? I don't think that would be a very good way for a reviewer to approach it.

 

[Excidium]

spears?

No. Todd said in an interview for the guys of GameInformer that there's no spears in the game because "is too difficult to make an animation for them".

Which is the most retarded excuse ever made, how is it any harder than animating any other weapon?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

You can't say bad things about a game unless you have finished it 7 times guys.

spears?

No. Todd said in an interview for the guys of GameInformer that there's no spears in the game because "is too difficult to make an animation for them".

Which is the most retarded excuse ever made, how is it any harder than animating any other weapon?

They would have to make 2 animation sets rather than 1. 100% increase in content.

 

[Metro]

We're more than halfway through April already? Damn, less than 7 months left to bitch about Skyrim before anybody's even played it. Where does the time go?

So we shouldn't rely on the developer's description of game mechanics?

Rely on it for what?

For what we can expect said mechanics to be? It's overkill to contend you can't see how something will play out until you actually play through the game. If they did a remake of Citizen Kane starring Cedric the Entertainer I could probably tell you what to expect. The explanations given by Todd Howard are highly suggestive that character customization/progression will be the same as FO3.

 

[Silellak]

6. For a dragon, combat is debate. When it’s breathing fire at you, it’s talking at you in power-words, or Shouts. Your part in the discussion is to Shout back…

RPS cannot into writing. I don't even get what point they're trying to make here.

17. There’s a real in-game economy. If, for any reason, you decide to destroy a local lumber mill, you’ll find it results in a shortage of wooden objects such as arrows in nearby shops. You probably shouldn’t destroy the lumber mill, then.

Oh, cool. No game has ever claimed to do this and then failed to deliver, so I'm confident it will work exactly like this.

 

[villain of the story]

spears?

No. Todd said in an interview for the guys of GameInformer that there's no spears in the game because "is too difficult to make an animation for them".

Even if for nothing else, things like these remind you that Bethesda Softworks is led by a herd of utter morons. They can't do mounted combat, can't do spears, one has gotta be amazed that they can do anything at all.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

17. There’s a real in-game economy. If, for any reason, you decide to destroy a local lumber mill, you’ll find it results in a shortage of wooden objects such as arrows in nearby shops. You probably shouldn’t destroy the lumber mill, then.

Oh, cool. No game has ever claimed to do this and then failed to deliver, so I'm confident it will work exactly like this.

As if it mattered. Its impossible to reach level 10 in a TES game and not have enough gold to make King Midas envious.

 

[poocolator]

17. There’s a real in-game economy. If, for any reason, you decide to destroy a local lumber mill, you’ll find it results in a shortage of wooden objects such as arrows in nearby shops. You probably shouldn’t destroy the lumber mill, then.

Oh, cool. No game has ever claimed to do this and then failed to deliver, so I'm confident it will work exactly like this.

If anything, it'll probably be one or two scripted quests.

 

[Excidium]

spears?

No. Todd said in an interview for the guys of GameInformer that there's no spears in the game because "is too difficult to make an animation for them".

Even if for nothing else, things like these remind you that Bethesda Softworks is led by a herd of utter morons. They can't do mounted combat, can't do spears, one has gotta be amazed that they can do anything at all.

Don't forget the ladders.

 

[Yeesh]

For what we can expect said mechanics to be? It's overkill to contend you can't see how something will play out until you actually play through the game. If they did a remake of Citizen Kane starring Cedric the Entertainer I could probably tell you what to expect. The explanations given by Todd Howard are highly suggestive that character customization/progression will be the same as FO3.

Based solely on the fact that you quoted this: "The levelling system is very much like Fallout 3", I think your analysis seems spot on. But can you really say you couldn't imagine they could possibly dumb down one game to the level of another, more recent game developed by the same company? Eh, don't mind me, I'm just nitpicking.

Sure you can go ahead and predict how things will be based on pre-release info. But think: Why is it that if a reviewer doesn't actually take the time to learn and play the game, we boo and disregard his opinion? If strong feelings about a game based on specs and interviews are worthy and valid in the arena of intelligent gaming discourse, then why do we demand such a higher standard of interaction with the product from people we look to for ratings? Could it be because... if you haven't played the game you can't possibly know if it's any good? Or is there a more subtle reason that's not actually about the validity of the review? Like we give a shit about professional responsibility instead of results, or something like that?

Or am I just wrong, and we do applaud reviewers who just say, "It's shit. Didn't play it"? That's probably the answer anyway.

 

[WalterKinde]

We have been through this before well ok for me twice, once with Oblivion then Fallout 3.
The reviewers once again gush about the game and come release day half the things they are gushing about gets removed/changed.
It happens most of the time with every triple AAA rpg title and considering how far away Skyrim release date is i wont believe the hype.

 

[Coyote]

Howard sort of copped to the generic feel of many of Oblivion's dungeons during the demo, and mentioned that while the lesser points of interest in Skyrim will still be built out of toolkits containing generic artwork, the team has effectively quadrupled the size of its level design staff in order to give each of those locations a more intelligently handcrafted feel.

Four times zero is still zero. But seriously, this sounds like a step in the right direction.

Melee combat in Skyrim looks largely unchanged from Oblivion, in that you sort of bluntly hack at your opponent when you attack, though you will get scripted execution animations from time to time depending on how the fight is going. Blocking and bashing with shields also looks pretty familiar.

That's pretty much what I expected. Still, somewhat disappointing to hear that they hired the people from Arkane only to end up with the same combat system. Dark Messiah-style combat would have been a major incline.

(Edit: Apparently they are implementing some environmental hazards, which is a small step forward.)

You can put specific words together to form really powerful magical effects like a massive force push or a brief time slowdown, and you'll be able to stack subsequent related words together into more powerful shouts.

In other words, Bethesda downloaded one of the spell packs for Oblivion, categorized the new spell effects as dragon shouts, and called it a day. Still, if you ignore the derpy lore justification for these powers and just think of them as new spells, it's a bit of an incline since (a) having more types of spell effects to work with is a good thing, and (b) having to explore the world to find new spells is always funner than just buying them in a shop.

On the other hand, it's pretty hard to ignore the derpy lore justification.

I bet you want to know about level scaling, right? Relax: it's like Fallout 3's, not like Oblivion's. That means enemies won't constantly level up with you throughout the game; instead, they'll operate at a fixed level based on when you encounter them on your own leveling progression.

Eh, I would have preferred hand-placed encounters with no level scaling, but I suppose this is the best we can expect.

3. While the game’s pretty much the same size of Oblivion in terms of land mass, the inclusion of huge mountains – all of which you can climb to the top of, as well as often venturing within – means Skyrim has significantly more world to explore than its predecessor. “They create more time because you can’t just cut across them,” says Todd Howard.

Sounds good. Morrowind had a smaller landmass than Oblivion, but it always felt larger due to its structure, so hopefully this will feel even larger.

4. The menus are pure sex, basically. The crisp, floating text, tiered menus and full 3D renderings of every inventory item is light years ahead of the fugly boxes and fuzzy, endless lists of Oblivion and Fallout 3. Seriously: these may be the best-looking in-game menus in history.

...

19. The skills/perks system is presented as a vast, twinkling star field populated by stellar patterns in the shape of this world’s various gods. The idea is your character looks to the very heavens for inspiration and power, rather than to some out of game list of stats. As you pick a perk the chart slowly lights up. “You’re creating this custom constellation just drawn for you.” It’s epic, strange and beautiful, and it makes character-tailoring visually part of the game rather than a bunch of statistics strewn across the menu screen.

I wish that they'd include an option for those of us who prefer function over form. However pretty the menus may be, it'll be tiresome to scroll through them for the hundredth time instead of being able to instantly access the information you want. The previous article did mention that some items would require you to be able to see them in detail to solve puzzles, which may be a plus (depending on how it's implemented), but I'd rather have a Fallout-style skill screen and a Morrowind-style inventory where such visualizations appeared when you held your mouse over an item or right-clicked on it over the unwieldy system we see in the skill menu screenshot.

6. For a dragon, combat is debate. When it’s breathing fire at you, it’s talking at you in power-words, or Shouts. Your part in the discussion is to Shout back…

What. What is this even trying to say, and why is it a reason I should be excited about Skyrim?

8. Conversations with NPCs no longer involves an awkward zoom-in to their strange faces, a fixed perspective and an ugly text box. Now, it’s clean, sharp text floating directly onto the screen, and you’re free to look around as you please. Much of the incidental conversation, such as back stories, can be had while going for a stroll with a character as they chat away ambiently, rather than standing there clicking through text from a static position because you’re worried about missing something.

This is good (albeit minor, since it's a mostly cosmetic). It always felt unnatural and took the oomph out of certain scenes when an NPC would run up to you and start talking, causing the world to freeze around him.

9. The skill and attribute system has been rethought to make it more streamlined yet offer much more varied character builds. We’re down from 8 attributes and 21 skills to 3 attributes and 18 skills, which will probably cause gasps of horror in some camps, but actually the aim is to make character builds even more diverse while getting rid of redundant levelling. -snip-

I wonder how many more times we'll have to stomach hearing the reduction of skills and attributes listed as a positive before the game comes out. Adding quality to the implementation of existing skills/attributes is always good, but it is not inextricably connected to reducing the quantity of skills/attributes. So praising the one doesn't mean you have to praise the other.

(And adding perks isn't the same as improving the skill and attribute system, in any case. It's a new feature, not an improvement of an old one.)

17. There’s a real in-game economy. If, for any reason, you decide to destroy a local lumber mill, you’ll find it results in a shortage of wooden objects such as arrows in nearby shops. You probably shouldn’t destroy the lumber mill, then. Alternatively, you could chop some wood for the lumber mill, which will earn you a bit of cash.

As I've said before, they said almost the exact same thing about Oblivion. It sounds nice, but I have no reason to believe that it's true (or if it is true, that it's not just a one-time gimmick). Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

As an aside, this is exactly the sort of thing that a gaming journalist ought to point out - or at least try to address in an interview - if he had any integrity or desire to actually inform his readers (like, you know, a journalist) rather than simply rewriting the latest press releases in his own style.

You’ve got to have some interaction, not just a die roll.

No. Plenty of games have had just plain die rolls when using skills, and guess what: unlike minigames, they don't become tiresome chores after 50th usage. Also, unlike your past implementation of minigames (as opposed to, say, Alpha Protocol's), they don't trivialize investment in certain skills.

Overall, I feel about the same way towards Skyrim as I did before reading these articles. There are some small inclines (only a few, though; some of the things I commented on were things we already knew), but confirmation that the combat will play out like Oblivion's pretty much counteracts whatever positive feeling they generated.

 

[Metro]

Sure you can go ahead and predict how things will be based on pre-release info. But think: Why is it that if a reviewer doesn't actually take the time to learn and play the game, we boo and disregard his opinion? If strong feelings about a game based on specs and interviews are worthy and valid in the arena of intelligent gaming discourse, then why do we demand such a higher standard of interaction with the product from people we look to for ratings? Could it be because... if you haven't played the game you can't possibly know if it's any good? Or is there a more subtle reason that's not actually about the validity of the review? Like we give a shit about professional responsibility instead of results, or something like that?

That's par for the course for everything these days from video games to sports to politics. Everyone prognosticates and gives opinions on things long before they happen/develop. I certainly don't demand any higher standard from a reviewer -- or a layman -- giving their impressions on an early build or initial designs especially when they point to the philosophy of the developer and come straight from the horse's mouth. Bethesda is putting this information out there, they want the publicity, so I don't see how it is irresponsible to give impressions on it. If they didn't want people weighing in on it then they'd just keep it all in-house until a 'critique worthy' synopsis of game mechanics were suitable for publication.

Hell, no one has played a speculative Call of Duty 5 yet but I sure as hell could tell you I have no interest in playing it. I suppose you could make a distinction between claiming something is a 'bad game' and one personally doesn't like something but, really, that should go without saying here. Is Oblivion a 'bad game?' It sold a bajillion copies and the majority of the gaming world loves it but most people here can't stand it.

Edit: And just to clarify, my opinions are solely based on Howard's direct quotations and nothing any of the reviewers said.

I bet you want to know about level scaling, right? Relax: it's like Fallout 3's, not like Oblivion's. That means enemies won't constantly level up with you throughout the game; instead, they'll operate at a fixed level based on when you encounter them on your own leveling progression.

Eh, I would have preferred hand-placed encounters with no level scaling, but I suppose this is the best we can expect.

Doesn't really make a difference. To me the whole problem with level scaling is that there should be areas/enemies that will kick your ass such that you can't do stupid things like win the game at level one or two.

 

[Rivmusique]

Bethesda was showing Skyrim on the 360

Oh my.

Also, third-person! Bethesda has been including an optional third-person camera in its RPGs for a while, but in the past that view was so poorly implemented it was next to useless. Not so anymore. Now the camera movement has been properly adjusted to make it easy to see your surroundings in third-person, and the proper animation blending has been applied to your player character to make his or her movements not look terrible. Howard did assure us that Skyrim is still primarily a first-person game

Oh fuck yeah, something that was always complete shit has received a ton of focus to make it "not look terrible" Time well spent Bethesda!