sea's (Mostly Technical) Skyrim Initial Impressions

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Jesus fucking Christ, it's just sad to read. I didn't even know that the got so bad.

 

[Mastermind]

He talks about factions not guilds

You could join any guild and joining one didn't do anything to your progression in another apart AFAIR from not being able to become a guild master in every one.

With three houses it was linear too. They had their linear lines of linear quests with a single outcome that inevitably promoted you. Other houses weren't reacting to what you did at all. All they did is not accepting you if you've just joined 1 faction already.

So I don't really know what sea is talking about.

Incidentally, you don't know what you're talking about either.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Odirniran_(quest)
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Telv ... _Odirniran
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Ondr ... s_Slanders
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Evid ... Corruption
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowindine ... 7s_Support
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowinderi ... s_Slanders
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Disguise
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Epony_Trade
Then there's the quests to slaughter the owners of the other two great houses' strongholds.

In the immortal words of random morrowind NPC: Stop. Talking.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Confirmed it: Morag Tong can give you quests to take out the head of the Imperial Legion, and one of the Telvanni Mage-Lords.


Though in Therana's case, she can end up dead thanks to a number of different quests.

One of them being the Mages Guild, where the Arch-Mage says 'eh, why not go kill those annoying Telvanni'.



Thieves Guild quests have one that might piss off the Telvanni, and have their own 'bribe these FG leaders, or convince them through debate to side with us...or kill them'. So the Thieve's Guild and Fighter's Guild are the most interconnected.

 

[MetalCraze]

Shut the fuck up Skyway. One path of the fighters' guild questline involved slaughtering the entire leadership of the Thieves' Guild. No interfaction conflicts my ass.

So where's the conflict exactly? Do Thieves ever respond? Being in a fighter guild also doesn't stop you from being in a thieves' guild. For a conflicting factions accepting you into both seems retarded.
Because there's no conflict but you can LARP there is.

You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, like usual. Go back to your 19th KOTOR playthrough and leave TES to people who aren't terminally retarded.

Actually TES is more friendly to people who are terminally retarded. Maybe that's why you are so upset about me pointing out its flaws?

Incidentally, you don't know what you're talking about either.

Incidentally you are just a dumb fanboy. You can do those linear quests killing dudes from other houses all you want but besides those quests there's no shitstorm coming your way or your faction's way from other factions whatsoever. You just do your sweet generic "kill X" quests and that's it.

 

[Angelo85]

The pirate ship finally arrived on my computer as well.

First impression: WTF there are no Character attributes at all? On level up you decide between increasing Mana, Health or Stamina. Then you can allocate a point into one of your skill trees (every skill has a tree with perks associated with it). That's it.
I hope strength, agility etc. are still in but invisible and linked to certain skills. e.g. you level up your one handed weapons skill which 'behind the scenes' increases strength. So you deal more damage with two handed weapons as well.
Or it doesn't matter and you increase damage with two handed weapons solely by increasing that skill. Not sure yet.

Roleplaying wise I had to decide at the beginning to follow person from faction A or person from faction B. Reading the LPs there doesn't seem to be any real difference. Both persons leave your side at the same time with a hint to visit the nearest town (in both cases the same one) because they have a relative living there.
Oh and the other choice I had was to deliver a love letter basically either from person A or person B. The outcome there is which person is 'unlocked' as companion.

The game feels like a hack 'n slash to me so far.

 

[sea]

So you just persuaded undead and bandits in linear tight corridors in dungeons into dying and also used rat diplomacy on a dragon so it died all by himself?

Yeah, just like I talked my way through all those Super Mutants in Fallout, or how I used diplomacy in Icewind Dale to get past all the combat.

You've played only for a few hours and you talk like you did quests for a lot of factions? Sounds plausible and not like butthurt fanboy excuses

I watched bits and pieces of a 12-hour live stream. The guy had opportunities arise and disappear as he made certain decisions. Choosing to join one faction basically cuts you off from those who are opposed to it (unless there is a way to switch sides). I've seen the roots of that in my own game so far after exploring a couple of towns and being offered membership for a number of causes already, which NPCs themselves telegraph will have longer-term effects. And as the post above says, they seem pretty significant. Do I think this shit is revolutionary? No, but it's a big improvement over Oblivion and - gasp - actually pretty good even by the standards of other RPGs.

Meaning you do a single possible quest they offer and then you get the option to take one of them with you. And that's all to it.
"Help people out enough" "consequences"

Actually in this case I chose to help one NPC over another and then I could ask him to follow me, while the other one hates my guts. Presumably I'd get the other guy as a follower if I completed the other quest in his favour (I mean I didn't test it, but it's pretty obvious in hindsight). Furthermore there was no "oh hey I'll help you out if you help me", so the consequences of those decisions feel more natural and spontaneous than a preset reward, even if it kind of is, technically.

There were no interfaction conflicts in Morrowind. You could only join one out of three available and that's it. I know you haven't played it but at least try to pretend like you did.

I'm not going to dignify this shit with a response.

Which are all "bring X to Y" and don't give you any XP. Are you still level 1 then?

"It's not a quest if it doesn't give you XP." Skyway, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Jaesun]

sea, Skyways is a dumbfuck (when discussing cRPG's). It would be like discussing anything with Masterdumbfuck or Volo. Just fyi.

TheMoreYouKnow.jpg

 

[sea]

sea, Skyways is a dumbfuck (when discussing cRPG's). It would be like discussing anything with Masterdumbfuck or Volo. Just fyi.

TheMoreYouKnow.jpg

I know. I find it strangely therapeutic, like screaming at a wall.

Streamlined morrowind maybe yes, but theres really some character development at least, it seems you really have to specialize at something, like 2h weapons + heavy armor and forge and cant be master of all like in oblivion, but then again i dont know how many feats points you get in the end.

As dumb as the perks-only system sounds on paper, it is actually set up rather well. Perks basically serve the same function as attributes (i.e. perk to increase damage with two-handed swords), but because of the level 50 cap and the fact that many perks have substantial upgrades or give unique abilities, you will end up with a character who is either very good at one or two things in particular (looks to me like you can max about about 2 trees at most), or a character who is a jack of all trades but master of nothing. Considering how hard some high-level enemies are it looks like you might even find yourself screwed if you just spend your points everywhere.

It's also worth noting that you can theoretically grind out all the skills to 100 with enough time, but considering how integral the perks system is to actually defining your character this isn't really as bad as it sounds. For example, I can get 100 in Destruction magic, but the spells will use a fuck-ton of mana and will be 100% weaker than a specialist's.

 

[Stinger]

Are you going to write a full review for gamebanshee, sea?

A lot of these comments are pretty surprising, I mean Skyrim is actually good? It just doesn't make sense considering all the dev comments in the lead up to the release.

Or is this just another Mass Effect 2 "Good for what it is" thing?

 

[MetalCraze]

Yeah, just like I talked my way through all those Super Mutants in Fallout, or how I used diplomacy in Icewind Dale to get past all the combat.

But this game isn't about combat, it's about higher materias!?

I watched bits and pieces of a 12-hour live stream. The guy had opportunities arise and disappear as he made certain decisions. Choosing to join one faction basically cuts you off from those who are opposed to it (unless there is a way to switch sides). I've seen the roots of that in my own game so far after exploring a couple of towns and being offered membership for a number of causes already, which NPCs themselves telegraph will have longer-term effects.

So you just guess? In your previous post it sounded like a fact. Why the sudden flip flop?

Actually in this case I chose to help one NPC over another and then I could ask him to follow me, while the other one hates my guts.

By "hating my guts" you mean him saying "I hate you!!1" but as soon as you press the talk button he talks like he did before without any problems? Choices and consequences biatch.

Presumably I'd get the other guy as a follower if I completed the other quest in his favour (I mean I didn't test it, but it's pretty obvious in hindsight).

So presumably you lose nothing and you gain everything either way? Choices and consequences biatch.

Furthermore there was no "oh hey I'll help you out if you help me", so the consequences of those decisions feel more natural and spontaneous than a preset reward, even if it kind of is, technically.

As we know all other games tell you what your reward is for doing the quest but Skyrim truly innovates!

I'm not going to dignify this shit with a response.

But you have no problem coming up with bullshit excuses up there

"It's not a quest if it doesn't give you XP." Skyway, ladies and gentlemen.

No it means that you have no choice but to choose combat quests if you want to be more than level 1 in the game no matter your strawman here. As well as more interesting quests than FedExing items from point A to point B.

 

[Technoviking]

By puzzles Peter means "if you are 15 years old and you are retarded you can call them puzzles"

Just out of curiosity, what kind of puzzles would you like to see in an RPG like this? I only ask seeing as I am a big fan of puzzles.

In my opinion, putting some of the harder puzzles from games such as 'The 7th Guest' or 'The 11th Hour' into the Elder Scrolls series would make little sense, unless they were optional. Challenging puzzles simply tend to frustrate most people. I've seen a couple of puzzles in Skyrim so far (from watching streams), one involved a 'Golden Claw' and the other one had 'Three rocks with signs on them'. In all cases it took the players an interesting amount of effort to solve these puzzles. This was in spite of both puzzles being quite generic and the solution being right in front of them.

That being said, they actually seemed to be having fun solving these puzzles.

This is the thing. A game developer has to be extremely careful with any progression inhibiting puzzle they implement. Adding puzzles of any kind is already treading a very thin line. The fact that these 'generic gamers' from the streams I watched not only managed to solve their puzzles, but also enjoyed their success, seems to indicate Bethesda actually did a decent job of implementing said puzzles.

If a game developer wants to implement more challenging puzzles (in a game like Skyrim), they need to make them optional with incentives. An example of game series that have tried to do this were the Spellforce series, and as I recall they did a decent enough job of it.

So yeah, what exactly would you expect in a game like Skyrim? I honestly can't think of a single RPG with challenging puzzles, but then again, I'm a 30 year old fart whose memory of old video games is far from perfect.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

No worse then Two Worlds 2.

 

[Surf Solar]

I hate to say it, but I am actually quite enjoying it. The Atmosphere is very well done, the music is good (yes there are some reused and remixed Morrowind tracks), it is actually quite difficult at times and the dungeons are fun. I had some pretty cool boss fight in some Tomb against a Druegar (?) - needed to take all my ressources to cut that fucker down, he casted some sort of mirror image spell, and all three "clones" attacked with different spells. Felt really nice, and I usually loath combat like this. The crafting is also nice.

Haven't encountered a single Dragon (except of Alduin at the start) so far, so can't tell much about them. The quests are rather derp, but a bit better than the FO3/Oblivion ones - I've noticed (and failed some) persuasion checks. It's a pretty neat Action Adventure I think. Well, uh atleast I'm honest, right.. Right?

 

[sea]

Are you going to write a full review for gamebanshee, sea?

A lot of these comments are pretty surprising, I mean Skyrim is actually good? It just doesn't make sense considering all the dev comments in the lead up to the release.

No, someone else is covering it (Steven Carter I think), but I am contributing a bit to the walkthrough with random stuff I find.

As for whether it's good... well, aside from UI and technical issues, unlike Oblivion and Fallout 3 it actually seems to be a well-made and well-thought-out game. It's not the greatest RPG ever as I said, but if you like the Elder Scrolls stuff, or the ideal behind it (huge open-ended world with tons of freedom in building character), this is a pretty good entry in the series and is certainly fun to play. But ultimately everyone has their own preferences, so I can only say that it most of its design choices are objectively good and an improvement over prior Bethesda games, and while there are problems, they aren't nearly as visible or jarring as those in other Bethesda games (again, speaking objectively/from a design standpoint).

 

[Technoviking]

I had some pretty cool boss fight in some Tomb against a Druegar

An interesting tidbit, 'Draugr' actually means 'Ghost' in Icelandic. (the modern day spelling being 'Draugur')


... if 'Draugr' is what you were referring to. :>

 

[MetalCraze]

Are you going to write a full review for gamebanshee, sea?

A lot of these comments are pretty surprising, I mean Skyrim is actually good? It just doesn't make sense considering all the dev comments in the lead up to the release.

Or is this just another Mass Effect 2 "Good for what it is" thing?

These retards fap all over every single new "RPG" while dissing previous ones even if a year ago they were jizzing all over them. FO3 was also a good game once, "Bethesda is improving" (c). And now look how it's suddenly bad and inferior out of the blue.

DAO was voted Codex's GOTY 2009. And now it's shit, Gaider is dumb ololo, Bioware sucks so much.

Mass Effect was a great game too. And then when ME2 came ME suddenly started to suck.

Skyrim - same shit, different day. They even cut out character creation down to a point that you can choose only a face and a haircut (and nothing else) - but suddenly it's a superior game showing that Beth is doing a good job.

sea, Skyways is a dumbfuck (when discussing cRPG's). It would be like discussing anything with Masterdumbfuck or Volo. Just fyi.

TheMoreYouKnow.jpg

Yes every gentlemen here is so much more educated in RPGs than me. Choosing DAO as a best RPG of 2009 while completely ignoring Risen, which is want it or not - a sequel to Gothic and also Divinity 2 - only to shit all over DAO the very next year.

What do I know about RPGs compared to the majority of the 'Dex that voted for DAO and was ready to tear me a new one when I attacked it (only to repeat what I've said a year later)

 

[Raapys]

Yeah, kinda odd this change. If you want Codex opinion on a game now, simply look at what everyone else is saying about it. If they love it, chances are codex does too. So maybe we're not that far off from the targeted audience after all.

 

[villain of the story]

Played a couple hours without crashes or apparent bugs. The game is clunky. Writing very juvenile. I knew beforehand that attributes were gone but I still had a WTF! moment when I levelled up.

For the first time, I feel that Bethesda has nailed creating your avatar right. Except for the clunkiness of the interface, of course.

Perks are shit. Most of them are COD Multiplayer type of stuff. Boring. They are either overpowered or are trivial. I was hoping they would have dropped the use-based skill level bullshit.

I find it hard to call this an RPG. As much RPG as Diablo-meets-CODMP, perhaps. I rather call it an action adventure game with unlockables. That's how it feels. No attributes to govern game events, FTS.

Definitely better than Oblivion, though. At least the game doesn't fill me with that sense of dreadful soul-leeching emptiness that creeps in a couple minutes after I start playing Oblivion.

All that stuff about mutually exclusive quests sounds interesting but otherwise, I found it utterly forgettable for now. I'll probably play it throughly someday.

 

[dr. one]

I mean Skyrim is actually good?

There may even be a possibility it´s great, actually.

Character system is surprisingly effective, level scaling is not an issue, dungeons are not copy paste (though the few I´ve been to were very linear, hopefully not all are like that), world design is more-or-less amazing, general art direction is tasteful, weather effects mostly top notch, old and new books all around, combat is quite dynamic, crafting is Gothic+, the world feels sufficiently lively, general vibe is fitting for the region, there seem to be some C&C here and there, loading times are short, dragons don´t suck, shouts work well as additional rewards for exploration, your character is inserted into the gameworld in a lot more fitting manner for this type of game (no direct agenda right from the start)...

UI certainly has issues, voice acting certainly isn´t stellar (but not really cringeworthy either, I´d say it´s average), quest log is pretty much terrible, AI is prone to "defects", there are those low-res textures and sucking shadows.

Overall it seems like a very good sandbox to me so far and definitely a lot better game than Oblivion or Fallout 3.
That´s what I´ve gathered after about 10 hours of playing, at least. The above outlook may, no doubt, change later .

 

[sgc_meltdown]

It's a pretty neat Action Adventure I think. Well, uh atleast I'm honest, right.. Right?

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... 13#1820013

I look forward to your announcement that What Remains is going to be an elder scrolls total conversion mod for the fallout engine
What Remains: Hammerfell

 

[Metro]

I'm getting a 'good for $20 hack-n-slash dungeon crawler' type of vibe here.

 

[MetalCraze]

Blind fanboys and the usual flip-floppers tend to be very vocal about why x is awesome while a few reasonable people won't really want to go in every thread to argue against these hype-driven sheeple, and it has been a long while since the Codex was flooded with their ilk, particularly among the worst of 2010 and 2011 newfags, the same who later bash y for KKK and pretend to be elitist just to fit in.

Want some delicious irony?

They would bitch about KotOR which had quests like the one where one of the sith masters wanted you to eliminated the other one. And you could either go through with it or warn the other one. But there's more. When both of them came to that final meeting and started to go on about how "my pupil stands with me" - "no he stands with me". And then you get an option "I'm sorry guys but I actually want to kill both of you" - and the result is that the whole academy starts to trying to kill you (which also denies some quests from being completed like Carth's one). And this is perfectly plausible and logical. Thus KotOR is considered shit.

And let's take Skyrim. An elf asks you to deliver a love letter to a chick. You do that. You get a dialogue option for him to follow you which he can't refuse. Now you deliver a letter and the dude willingly becomes your slave and is ready to die for you just because you walked 10m to deliver the letter. And this is a "neat consequences, great quest design, deep interactions with NPCs".

This is so fucked up it makes me think I'm one of the few people here who actually knows something about RPGs. Or rather people who fap all over Skyrim ITT are complete retards.


Another delicious irony is that when Oblivion came out and apologists like sea were saying "it has C&C too - you can either accept the quest or do it later" in all seriouseness - they were laughed at and called dumbfucks. Now when fanboys like sea say "Skyrim has C&C - you can do a quest or don't do a quest" - it's actually a well educated opinion that matters a lot and you are a dumbfuck if you think otherwise.

 

[Drakron]

Skyrim - same shit, different day. They even cut out character creation down to a point that you can choose only a face and a haircut (and nothing else) - but suddenly it's a superior game showing that Beth is doing a good job.

To start, we had many games without a class system and ones were your character generation was exactly that.

That is not a problem as long there is something to build on top on what we start as.

TES system had a lot of problems that lead to exploitation, Oblivion ended up as the most broken up due to everything levels to you so that meant the system worked OPPOSITE, you were rewarded for NOT leveling up and that meant you picked as major skills the ones you did not intended to use and so you had a easier time that people that attempted to use the system as intended.

A clean slate was long overdue and as this might not be what I would have done, at least its something that can be build upon in the future and it seems to be working, a "skill raises by use" cannot be easily be coupled with a class system and clearly it was not working before.

Also you select race and each race have their skills bonus ... pick Bosmer and you are better with a bow that if you picked Altmer.

And let's take Skyrim. An elf asks you to deliver a love letter to a chick. You do that. You get a dialogue option for him to follow you which he can't refuse. Now you deliver a letter and the dude willingly becomes your slave and is ready to die for you just because you walked 10m to deliver the letter. And this is a "neat consequences, great quest design, deep interactions with NPCs".

Oh? and what quest are you talking about?

You mean Riverwood that is a Nord, Sven that asks you to deliver a latter that was supposed to be from Faendal, a "Elf" and you can do that or say the truth to Camilla were at that point she will direct you to Faendal who will give you a reward and apparently opens up as a follower, Sven does it too if you do what he asks.

Wait ... does that mean ... gasp, a CHOICE with a CONSEQUENCE?

And yes, its a minor one but its there, Bosmer hunter or Nord Bard ... one or the other.

 

[MetalCraze]

Except you can become like that with every race after a level or two. In Skyrim a character that puts all points into mana and magic still easily wins a fist fight with a character that is all fighter. And a figher character has no problems healing himself with magic and shooting fire.

In Morrowind skills mattered, you could only have so many that would actually develop fast while the rest will develop incredibly slow making them next to useless.

Here a basic character can do everything right away.

You also had zodiac signs granting you special abilities but they are not in Skyrim.

Quests fucking suck too. Only two types "kill X", "deliver X".
You are not seem to be getting XP for quests, only for combat (meaning skills develop there but FedEx means nothing)
Dungeons fucking suck as well - a tight linear corridor nothing more.
Game world is small.
Health regens fast, Mana regens uberfast.
Combat is about twitching Left Majestic Button as fast as possible.
You are forced to follow a quest compass.

So what's so good about it that I can't see? WHAT?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/im ... 065772.jpg
IT BEGINS