Preview Skyrim Preview

[Mastermind]

What's the point of even posting this shit anyway? That's not a preview, it's a (shitty) recap of info that's already been known for ages.

 

[Arcanoix]

You’re nobody – a prisoner rotting in a cell for some unnamed crime. That’s true at the start of every main Elder Scrolls game.

How Original.

But this time it’s a cell in Skyrim, the freezing Nordic nation between Oblivion’s sunny Cyrodiil and the weird Dark Elf land of Morrowind.

Great. Let's show how evil and barbaric white nordic people are.

You’re released. Why, we don’t know yet. But you’re released into a nation that’s tearing itself apart. It’s a land governed by nine holds, regions that are traditionally each controlled by a single ruling family. But the system hasn’t lasted – many holds are now governed by elected councils, some have been overthrown, and they’re on the brink of war with each other. And as the conflict reaches crisis point, the dragons show up.

Why is it always a dragon?

That’s the setting for the fifth game in Bethesda’s open-ended RPG series The Elder Scrolls. It uses a new engine, a new combat system, a whole new kind of magic, and an awful lot of snow.

It uses a modified, licensed version of Gamebryo. Or rather a sold, modifiable version of Gamebryo. It's still Gamebryo, which means it's trash to me.

When the Dragonborns die out 200 years later, it’s not the demons of Oblivion that break through – it’s actual dragons. They’re already ravaging the world, and they’re nothing compared to what’s next. Alduin, the biggest and baddest of the long-lost species, is coming. The Elder Scrolls foretold it, and only a Dragonborn can stop it.

Last I heard the dragons first appeared in OBLIBION, you know, as the Avatar of Akatosh? Whatever.

Dragon Shouts are three-word phrases, uttered in the dragon tongue, which function as powerful spells. For them to work, you first need to defeat a dragon and take its soul: that gives you the potential to learn its shout. But the words themselves don’t come easily: they’re written in the dragon’s own language on the walls of crumbling ruins all over Skyrim. The dragon’s soul gives you the ability to spot power words among the scratchy ancient glyphs.

How about this shout: GRIMDARKGRITTY! NOW CASTING SPELL: ITZ.

There are more than twenty shouts to learn, from one that’s effectively ‘Force Push’, to one you whisper to teleport yourself silently toward an enemy.

They're modified spells. OOOO, CALLING THEM DRAGON SHOUTS MUST MEAN SOMETHING OMG!

In story terms, obviously, that means any world-saving is going to have to be done by you – once you’re done arsing around with sidequests and guilds. In game terms, it means you have access to a whole new kind of magic the Elder Scrolls games haven’t given us before.

TEH CHOSEN ONE WIELDZ ANCIENT MAGICZ!?

Dragon Shouts are three-word phrases, uttered in the dragon tongue, which function as powerful spells.

No - they ARE spells. Spells you get after killing a dragon...

So bows in Skyrim are balanced like sniper rifles – or more appropriately, like the Huntsman for Team Fortress 2’s Sniper class.

Why does everybody want to be like an FPS all of a sudden?

Skyrim’s [skill] system is much simpler and more forgiving. You pick nothing, you just get better at whatever you do. All of it counts towards levelling you up, so you’ll progress at a similar rate whatever you spend your time doing. And you don’t have to guess what’s going to be useful or suitable for your play style: you just try everything and stick at what you like.

So anybody can play? In other words - mash the A button to win.

The series has always toyed with this learn-by-doing system, but it’s previously hedged its bets slightly: each game couples it with some form of intentional player choice, which is the tradition in RPGs. Skyrim’s only nod to that is a choice of whether to boost your health, magicka or stamina when you level – the three basic resources you need to survive, cast spells and fight.

Streamlining at it's finest, ladies and gentiles...

Making your character-level reflect your power is important, because like all Bethesda’s open-world RPGs, Skyrim adjusts some of its content to your current level. If you hated that in Oblivion, don’t worry. There it was widespread and heavy handed, which sometimes felt artificial. Bethesda say Skyrim’s scaling will be used more like Fallout 3’s.

In other words if you're not the right level for content yet, don't worry, just complete a main step in the storyline and you'll instantly level to the appropriate range. WOO!

You level around twice as quickly as in Oblivion, and each time you do, you can choose a single unique improvement to your character.

Radiant AI is still in, and supposedly improved, and Radiant Story is there to configure exactly how quests interact with the characters governed by it. But it’s not meant to generate the whole game’s plot – the main quest and even most elements of the side quests are hand-written, prescripted stuff. It’ll just be tweaked to make it more interesting for you.

Right. Instead of kill this or that, it'll be kill this - rip this things guts out - etc. It'll just be random.

The more tangible improvement with Skyrim’s characters is how they look and talk – as you’ll see in the screenshots, the tragic epidemic of Puffy Monkey Face is over at last.

About fucking time. Now go back and update the rest of your faces in the other games. I can't stand it!!

 

[orao]

So now it's even less of an RPG... (No character building, no stats!)
Even more casual... (inspired by apple wtf?? pick to boost health or mana?? that's it????? that's on pure retardation level)
Rehash of a rehash of a plot, ANCIENT EVIL HAS AWOKEN YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE

Well there's only one conclusion...
GAME OF THE YEAR ALL YEARS MINUS ONE BILLION YEARS TO 2011 AD AND BEYOND!!!!!!!1211135456

 

[Spectacle]

I wonder what RPG features they're going to cut in TES 6? At this rate the next Call of Duty game will soon be more of an RPG than TES....

 

[Gord]

A cool system for the dragon shouts would be if you find different "words" with certain powers that you can then combine to form new shouts with different outcomes.
A bit like the rune magic in Ultima.

 

[Elhoim]

Jaesun. I have a slightly offtopic comment. Please don't use just italics to quote what the reviewer/developer/whatever said. Because, in this case, is a Azraelian big wall of text, and is kinda difficult to read it when is all in oblique font.

Why don't you write the text as a quote instead? I think that it would help with the readability.

Thanks.

Manly hugs and brofist.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

A cool system for the dragon shouts would be if you find different "words" with certain powers that you can then combine to form new shouts with different outcomes.
A bit like the rune magic in Ultima.

How could they do that? Most of their new fans wouldn't be able to work it out. Anger would ensue. Memories of Caius Cosades would resurface...learning how to equip the ring. How welcoming would you think that would be for all the new fans?

 

[Mastermind]

So now it's even less of an RPG... (No character building, no stats!)

What do you mean no character building? And even if there are no stats, there are perks. It's an even trade-off at worst and the best TES character system since daggerfall if the stats are still in.

 

[TrustNo1]

To be fair, it is not like they pull the dragons completely out of their ass. Alduin and the eating of the world has been mentioned in lore before.

Actually, according to the lore buffs, Alduin and Akatosh is in some way the same enitity. Two aspects of the same God.

 

[Andhaira]

You did not start out in a jail cell in Morrowind.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

You did not start out in a jail cell in Morrowind.

A gaol ship. Made all the difference.

 

[The Gentleman Loser]

Something about this seems familiar:

Also, I can't help but read most of this press release as:
"We feel in 2006 we half-assed our work with Oblivion, but this year we are proud to announce that Skyrim will be ALL ASS, ALL THE TIME."

At least I'll be able to try and mod the hell out of it to make up the difference.

 

[Nael]

You did not start out in a jail cell in Morrowind.

A gaol ship. Made all the difference.

You didn't start out in a jail in Daggerfall. You were shipwrecked and crawled into some cave which was the starting dungeon. But no jail.

 

[DragoFireheart]

SOTY (Shit of the Year) is Skyrimjob confirmed?

 

[Micmu]

They fixed "level scaling" by ripping stats right off.
This is typical batshitsda fashion (if it doesn't work, remove it rather than fix it).

CAN YOU DISCUSS THIS SHIT IN GENERAL GAMING NOW!?
Or does it have "C&C" and is like totally RPG!!!11

 

[Luzur]

You did not start out in a jail cell in Morrowind.

A gaol ship. Made all the difference.

only TES you didnt start in a cell where Daggerfall.

 

[Commissar Draco]

IRC only Dragons in TES where those extinct ones from Akavir and Akatosh. Well the Skyrim is so that's not even worth of anymore. Elder Scrolls died with Morrowind. RIP.

 

[.Sigurd]

Dragons still exist, but most of them are disguised as normal people, also I never heard about the Akavir dragons being extinct.

 

[Arcanoix]

You did not start out in a jail cell in Morrowind.

You started on a ship after being broke out of jail. Same damn thing.

 

[The Gentleman Loser]

I know you start out as a prisoner in Morrowind and Oblivion, but I never played Arena. Did you start out as one there?

(As for Daggerfall, yeah. I know about the "Sent on a mission/Shipwrecked" beginning.)

Actually, since I'm asking about Arena... is it worth playing? I know it's freeware now.

 

[sser]

Go read some old Oblivion previews. Same old tune.

 

[A user named cat]

This dragon shouting nonsense sounds pretty blah. Why hasn't another RPG come along that utilizes the magic system from Treasure of the Rudras? It'd be perfect on PC, having a keyboard and all. Why not make spell systems actually... you know, fun?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEXDpn7oBkY&t=0m10s

 

[LittleJoe]

I hope they don't overdo it with the dragons.
By the time you get to dragon # 50 it could get pretty boring.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

You did not start out in a jail cell in Morrowind.

A gaol ship. Made all the difference.

only TES you didnt start in a cell where Daggerfall.

Why do you lie?

 

[dragonfk]

You did not start out in a jail cell in Morrowind.

A gaol ship. Made all the difference.

only TES you didnt start in a cell where Daggerfall.

Lore FAIL!