Preview The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Previews

[DragoFireheart]

Skyway is deteriorating.

- Either you're being sarcastic or your sarcasm meter is broken. Need some help calibrating it?

 

[Morbus]

150 dungeons, more or less? Are they serious? Oh I'm weeping, alright. Especially when I compare it to the amount of dungeons in Daggerfall. How many were there? 150.000? And I'm sure I visited more than 150 in Daggerfall. And despite their randomness, they were much more immersive than those of Morrowwind or Oblivion. Oh those wraiths...

It's weird, isn't it? How a 15 or more year old game can be more immerse than a modern one with graphics and all that. You won't believe it until you try it.

The miracles of videogaming.

Then again, anything is more immersive than pretty much everything Bethesda makes nowadays...

 

[Carrion]

I really liked most of the dungeons in Morrowind, even though way too many quests sent you into one. Bandits were usually hiding in small caves wtih access to water and decent lighting, vampires were mostly in dark caves or tombs and so on. Even the smallest dungeons usually had some little detail that made them stand out from the others. Most importantly, it usually made sense and followed a certain logic. With all this Radiant assrape you can throw all of that out of the window. Expect to see a group of low-level bandits happily hiding in pitch-black caves full of bloodthirsty monsters and dozens of unopened chests of loot. Oh wait, we already had that in Oblivion.

What I don't get is this: If you've got a huge, open game world, why does every quest have to take place in a linear dungeon? I might actually be interested if the game had 15 large, unique dungeons and a bunch of smaller caves, with most quests taking place outdoors or inside cities. A simple "get item X to NPC Y" quest becomes much more interesting if you have to go to a well-guarded house in the center of a city instead of some random imp cave somewhere, because the former immediately offers more choice (stealth, violence, maybe even diplomacy) even if the quest itself was simple as shit. That's why some of the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivion were actually pretty fun compared to the shitfest that was the rest of the game.

 

[DraQ]

I really liked most of the dungeons in Morrowind, even though way too many quests sent you into one. Bandits were usually hiding in small caves wtih access to water and decent lighting, vampires were mostly in dark caves or tombs and so on. Even the smallest dungeons usually had some little detail that made them stand out from the others. Most importantly, it usually made sense and followed a certain logic.

Well, 'most' might be stretching it since 'most' dungeons were just tiny caves and tombs scattered around the world, and while some (usually quest related) were pretty awesome, they could use some scale and confusion of their Daggerfall predecessors (then again, many dungeons in Daggerfall were cemeteries with single two room tombs).

Still, I really liked stuff like Forge of Hilbongard or Urshilaku Burial Caverns and dungeons in general were given sense in gameworld context.

What I don't get is this: If you've got a huge, open game world, why does every quest have to take place in a linear dungeon? I might actually be interested if the game had 15 large, unique dungeons and a bunch of smaller caves, with most quests taking place outdoors or inside cities. A simple "get item X to NPC Y" quest becomes much more interesting if you have to go to a well-guarded house in the center of a city instead of some random imp cave somewhere, because the former immediately offers more choice (stealth, violence, maybe even diplomacy) even if the quest itself was simple as shit. That's why some of the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivion were actually pretty fun compared to the shitfest that was the rest of the game.

This. To add insult to injury even those potentially interesting quests were butchered in oblivious, by failure to include any reasonable security to be bypassed and failure to add alternative routes (which is lame, as merely making windows alternative entry points, adding balconies and allowing player to do some rooftop hopping would help immensely - oh right, walled-in cities in separate cells.

 

[FaChoi]

Have some gameplay footage shown today from IGN.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Full Video Demo Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I've only watched the first part so far and want to smash my own head in, I knew it would be like oblivion with guns but I didn't expect it to seem so similar.

 

[Luzur]

This. To add insult to injury even those potentially interesting quests were butchered in oblivious, by failure to include any reasonable security to be bypassed and failure to add alternative routes (which is lame, as merely making windows alternative entry points, adding balconies and allowing player to do some rooftop hopping would help immensely - oh right, walled-in cities in separate cells.

but..but that would force people to think!!! think of the consollers!!

 

[sgc_meltdown]

This. To add insult to injury even those potentially interesting quests were butchered in oblivious, by failure to include any reasonable security to be bypassed and failure to add alternative routes (which is lame, as merely making windows alternative entry points, adding balconies and allowing player to do some rooftop hopping would help immensely - oh right, walled-in cities in separate cells.

but..but that would force people to think!!! think of the consollers!!

bullshit there is a lot of thinking involved with hardcore oblivion roleplayers

 

[Bloom]

I want it like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUfxnDAA ... re=related

 

[Coyote]

I haven't been following Skyrim news. Is this picture new? I'm no graphics whore, but it seems like it's of much lower quality than the screens I've seen.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Looks like. Besides, it's an Xbox game, what would you expect? Better graphics than Oblivion? Consoles can't do better graphics.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic6dKnv3WdU
  pause the video @ 3:26 mark, look in the upper left hand corner it reads "you have contracted rock joint"

In fact I'd wager that screenshot was taken from that video. Seems it's exactly the same.

 

[Turjan]

From all these previews, I get the feeling that dragons are somewhat like Skyrim's cliffracers, just even more annoying.

 

[Luzur]

This. To add insult to injury even those potentially interesting quests were butchered in oblivious, by failure to include any reasonable security to be bypassed and failure to add alternative routes (which is lame, as merely making windows alternative entry points, adding balconies and allowing player to do some rooftop hopping would help immensely - oh right, walled-in cities in separate cells.

but..but that would force people to think!!! think of the consollers!!

bullshit there is a lot of thinking involved with hardcore oblivion roleplayers

mind = blown

 

[SuicideBunny]

Part 2

"look at our unique dungeon corridor with an exit right at the objective that you can't use to enter because that would be like skipping content and that is bad."

Part 3

that looked somewhat ok for a next-gen open world shooter with health regen.

 

[Dogar]

I actually think it looks kinda decent, combat aside. The music that played while the PC was on horseback was pretty good imo, and the world design looks almost as good as PB's stuff.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

look at our unique dungeon corridor with an exit right at the objective that you can't use to enter because that would be like skipping content and that is bad

tbh I'm not a big fan of trekking my way back through empty dungeons, and as FO3 demonstrated, being able to choose between skipping stuff and doing stuff doesn't do much for gameplay at all.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

tbh I'm not a big fan of trekking my way back through empty dungeons, and as FO3 demonstrated, being able to choose between skipping stuff and doing stuff doesn't do much for gameplay at all.

you sound like you're new to rpg games so here is protip: there are almost unlimited ways you can roleplay why you're skipping stuff or doing stuff so the story of the game is different every time

that is what professionals call emergent narrative

 

[Toffeli]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/104769- ... title.html

Thank the seven new gods and the old gods beyond count.

 

[SuicideBunny]

tbh I'm not a big fan of trekking my way back through empty dungeons, and as FO3 demonstrated, being able to choose between skipping stuff and doing stuff doesn't do much for gameplay at all.

there are ways to do it right, like the repairable elevator in vault 22, which also happened not to be one longass corridor. not to mention that more than half that corridor will have respawned and not be empty by the time you reach the end.

 

[sea]

I haven't been following Skyrim news. Is this picture new? I'm no graphics whore, but it seems like it's of much lower quality than the screens I've seen.

Furries? I guess this is what Bethesda meant by giving console players the "mod experience".

 

[DraQ]

Perfect reaction face.



Do it.

 

[Jim Cojones]

*There are at least 150 dungeons, Bethesda's Pete Hines has revealed.

They also revealed FO3 had over 200 endings. Bethesda cannot into maths.

There was about that many endings if you count "but there's a nigger guy instead of latino woman on the final art" or "Ron Perlman says you had a positive karma, not a negative one" as different endings. Following this logic, TES5 will have 150 dungeons, but only if you count any interior area, including houses in towns, as dungeons.

 

[Metro]

That can't be an accurate screenshot -- that looks like it's only slightly more polished than Gothic 2.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

how many times do I have to tell you jerks that the fine people at bethesda have made the game look and feel similar to oblivion so as to make players feel comfortable like they're entering a familiar epic world of unlimited possibilities just like the oblivion elder's scrolls

consistent commitment to quality from year to year like this is hard to find in today's entertainment industry