3741

That’s not a technical point, it’s just correct; Cyrodiil is a different province.

3742

and CTD 30 minutes in, still in the intro.

3743

Finally it unlocked. No crash yet, but sound was screwed up. Had to set it to 44khz to make it work correctly.

Also, framerate is quite shitty in the intro (everything maxed). Will have to tweak it up a bit. And x360pad controls seem weird. Cannot put my finger on it. But yesterday I finished Dead Island and that game felt better with a pad.

Game looks pretty great though, for an open world, with some caveats.
Made some screens right after getting out of starting cave:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Paul_cz/screenshots/?tab=public&showdate=1&filter=app_72850

3744

I’m running it on a 4870 at 720p and it’s mostly smooth. I haven’t had any crashes or bugs yet, just a somewhat quiet audio level.

The actual game is a lot of fun. Being a mage feels a lot better than in Oblivion.

edit: The only bad part for me so far is the UI. It feels even worse on PC than Oblivion. edit 2: Nevermind. Apparently there are still hotkeys. You have to first set the item to the “favorite” list and then hit whatever number you want while you’re in the favorite list.

3745

D’oh! Elder Scrolls nerd card…revoked!

I am having a ball. It feels like an incredibly modern game, it’s incredibly fluid and smooth, the fighting feels good and the options are overwhelming. There’s a lot here to like.

Now I’m off to NOT read these threads for a while, so as not to let your guys’ opinions color my own. Happy adventuring!

3746

Jesus, I just spent thirty minutes reading books…I’m so screwed.

3747

Isn’t it just called Northern Oblivion?

3748

Playing this game is like getting a blowjob while you’re riding a roller coaster through a double rainbow on a space station orbiting an exploding star in a distant galaxy at the dawn of time, mere moments after the big bang ejaculated matter and temporal mechanistic continuity throughout the great vast blackness of the void.

3749

Decrypting files . . .

3750

How is 34% treating you? Because that was one percentage point that sucked.

3751

Funny you should say that . . .

3752

Once I get past the horrible UI, there is an awesome game here. My first venture into a dungeon was just as tense, fun, and damn interesting as it should be. I feel like death is always hovering at my shoulder, and the sounds are simply brilliant - enhances the gameplay immensely.

This is morrowind 2!

3753

Now that decryption is over, its on to installing DirectX for the billionth time on my computer. Yay!

3754

Specs: i7 950 CPU, 12gb RAM, GTX 580 gpu with 1536 mb dedicated VRAM.

Running everything smoothly at “Ultra” settings. GPU handling it easily, although I should mention that I keep my gaming office at 65-67 degrees F, so that helps.

I’m loving it, but I did want to throw a few caveats out there. If you’ve gotten used to playing Oblivion with Qarl’s Texture Pack at full, some of the textures in this game are going to be a little undercooked. I have no doubt that folks like Qarl and dev/null will be on the case soon and texture packs will be one of the first things we’ll see.

The vistas are magnificent, but the water could use some work. It looks fine most of the time, but when it hits the shore it kind of breaks immersion. Again, if you’ve been playing with the latest water mods in Oblivion (which allow for natural wave/water “lapping” at shorelines and make use of DX 11 shaders), this feels like a step back…but as with Oblivion, I think we’ll see water being one of the first things the modders hit up.

Those are my quibbles. Now for the goods.

Combat feels a whole lot better. Fatigue and endurance seem to matter a whole lot more than in Oblivion, and require you to make some real tactical decisions at times. The finishing moves are sometimes a little overdone, but they’re neat for what they are. The developers at Bethesda definitely paid attention to some of the better Oblivion combat mods for this.

Character animations still won’t make you forget The Witcher 2, but they’re much improved from Oblivion. Voices are MUCH better, and the interactions seem much less rote and forced. Characters have interesting things to say, and I wanted to talk to folks and hear them out, which is a big change from TES IV.

Leveling seems much saner now than ever before. I love the Guardian Stones thing and how that mechanic works for steering your progress.

I think the main story line has gotten a bit of a short shrift in the reviews I’ve read. This ain’t Tolkein, but so far it seems like an interesting mix of the kind of civil war strife of Witcher 2/SOIAF stuff…with, y’know…dragons.

Read a few things about the FOV. Not sure what it is, but I can tell you it feels like the same FOV as Oblivion, because I can play both in 2-hour bursts and then need 20 minutes away to recover (which is what I’m doing right now, in fact!)

Really, really enjoying this very much so far, about 4 hours in.

3755

If anybody finds out they’re making a manual of some sort available for download that would be nice to know. Unless it’s hidden somewhere I’m not seeing one with the Steam install.

3756

I couldn’t find any included with the STEAM install either. Too bad - it’s brief, contains nothing but control mechanics, but it’s pretty decent/colorful.

3757

I believe you can change the FOV. Here’s the statement I got from the skyrim forum. “open the console with tilde ~ type “fov x” without the quotation marks where x is a number like 90. default is 60-70 or so”

I get a headache as well whenever I view the wrong FOV

3758

I was just about to ask where can I find a god damn manual. I want to know hot to zoom/unzoom camera in 3rd person.

Also, I found most demanding option is shadow quality. When I put everything to the maximum, incl. shadows on ultra, I get 45fps. When leaving everything on maximum, but dropping shadows to high, I get 60fps. So I recommend dropping that if necessary. Running it in ultra smooth 60fps,maxed, in fullHD, with x360pad, just exploring, is…bliss.

3759

Shit, 200+ people at Redmond Gamestop. Quite a roar at midnight. Most energy of any midnight launch I have seen. Congratulations, Bethesda, quality and popularity seem united with this one.

3760

I am not that sure. Vistas are spectacular, true, characters are much better, true, but in lots of places there are muddy textures (and without a second detail texture blended), without any kind of bump and litghtning interaction, with very low quality grass and leaves, etc etc. It does have a very uneven finish.

Even with only a light texture pack, Oblivion could look better in some parts.

Again, not that really matters, and the art/design is better than in Oblivion! … but it’s a bit underwhelming, with this being an AAA release from a big company. I hoped for a bit more of splendeour.