Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim announced

[gmonkey]

Thanks, but I’m still gonna wait. It’s not like I don’t have a huge backlog anyway, and everyone was talking about how Oblivion was much better than Morrowind, too. I don’t really trust the gaming internet.

[Teiman]

(image for no reason whatsoever)

To pull the discussion of archery out of the UI thread, I did some testing after realizing how often I was missing long range shots and…

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/4379/arrowtest.jpg

That shows a noticeable (at long ranges) targeting error of the crosshair. Actual aim is a couple of pixels to the left of the center of the crosshair.

You can see in the left image that I’m clearly targeting its head. In the right shot shows where my arrows land, clearly missing the whole target even if my vertical aim was correct.

This can happend if a game engine use a integer to store angles. Like if the angle is stored as a byte, or a word.

The other cause can be that theres really two angles, the one you are looking at, and the one you are aiming. So maybe one is more precise than the other, or is updated less. So maybe you are not aiming where you think you are aiming.

So here’s a question I’ve been asking myself. Given the staggering sales of Skyrim already and the industry’s propensity for clones, why is basically no one else trying to do this sort of game? Is it just the difficult and cost involved in doing it or what?

Ultima 7 was one of the most formative games for me when I was younger and the Elder Scrolls series (and especially Skyrim) is the only game out there that scratches that itch I’ve had for close to two decades. Bioware games, while you may argue are good in their own right, just aren’t the same open-world games that the Elder Scrolls series is.

The openworld genre is a popular one.

But building a “world” like Skyrim is not trivial, and probably takes a lot of work, testing, debugging… are very complex.

Re: Risen / Two Worlds 2.

Two Worlds 2 have some “shaders” that give better quality than what Skyrim have by default. Stuff like the water in TW2 and how your enhanted weapons light the grass… are impresive, much better than Skyrim. But… who cares? is the design direction, etc… that make Skyrim graphics much better on the end. Also, TW2 have about 1 face for the women models. Probably lack of money to pay moddelers to make more faces :-P .

[TurinTur]

Sorry but despite Risen being a good game, it is not a true open world RPG, and it is downright tiny compared to something like Skyrim. The others are open world, but not nearly as well done/epic as Skyrim.

We never said they were as well done as Skryim, we were only saying that in the last years have surged some “clones”. Of course you can’t call the Gothic series a clone of Elder Scrolls, as the first one was released at the same time of Morrowind.

But yeah, not enough games inspired by Bethesda’s game given their success, and none of the big publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft…)

[triggercut]

The one thing I’ve seen in precious few reviews of Skyrim is just how well-written the game and quests are–especially when compared to Oblivion.

I’m finding the quests to be interesting and really bringing the lore of the game into play far more than any other Elder Scrolls game.

[triggercut]

We never said they were as well done as Skryim, we were only saying that in the last years have surged some “clones”. Of course you can’t call the Gothic series a clone of Elder Scrolls, as the first one was released at the same time of Morrowind.

…which would be years after Daggerfall and Arena, the first two games of the Elder Scrolls series.

[gmonkey]

Ok, I have a few questions about Skyrim:

What are the consequences of doing quests in Skyrim? Do NPCs recognize you as, say, the leader of the Mage’s Guild?

Is there a reputation/fame system? Do NPCs recognize you as, say, the leader of the Mage’s Guild? Do NPCs change behavior if, for example, you assassinate their neighbors?

Do quest lines branch?

Do completed/failed quests enable or disable quests in other quest lines? Are there quest lines that are mutually exclusive?

Are there any quests that don’t involve fighting or killing?

Finally, I assume the game doesn’t have an economy or an ecology.

[Tracy_Baker]

Ok, I have a few questions about Skyrim:

What are the consequences of doing quests in Skyrim? Do NPCs recognize you as, say, the leader of the Mage’s Guild?

Is there a reputation/fame system? Do NPCs recognize you as, say, the leader of the Mage’s Guild? Do NPCs change behavior if, for example, you assassinate their neighbors?

Do quest lines branch?

Do completed/failed quests enable or disable quests in other quest lines? Are there quest lines that are mutually exclusive?

Are there any quests that don’t involve fighting or killing?

Finally, I assume the game doesn’t have an economy or an ecology.

Just get it already.

[Giaddon]

What are the consequences of doing quests in Skyrim? Do NPCs recognize you as, say, the leader of the Mage’s Guild?

They recognize you in incidental dialogue. If you do a lot of good work for a community, individuals may randomly give you trivial gifts (gold, bits of crafting materials, etc.)

Is there a reputation/fame system? Do NPCs recognize you as, say, the leader of the Mage’s Guild? Do NPCs change behavior if, for example, you assassinate their neighbors?

There’s no explicit reputation system, but I believe individual towns have a simple one running under the hood (see earlier comment about gifts and incidental dialogue). The amount of incidental dialogue is huge, both in telling little stories between characters in the various towns, and in response to certain quests / achievements. The criminal system is by hold (Skyrim’s term for a municipal region, the game has 9). If you kill or steal from people who have family, and are caught, they may send a thug or assassin after you, and of course the guards will demand you pay bounty or go to jail.

Do quest lines branch?

Some quests certainly do have multiple outcomes (i.e. you can make a choice), but I’m not far enough in any of the quest lines to say if there’s true branching over multiple quests. Maybe someone with more experience can comment?

Do completed/failed quests enable or disable quests in other quest lines? Are there quest lines that are mutually exclusive?

Yes.

Are there any quests that don’t involve fighting or killing?

Yes.

Finally, I assume the game doesn’t have an economy or an ecology.

Correct. It does have what I would call an ambient ecology, in that there are non-hostile creatures you can watch / hunt / hang out with, and animals will attack each other. There’s the spectacle of a basic animal order. But it’s certainly not simulating predation patterns and the effects of predator success/failure on population.

[Ben_Sones]

What are the consequences of doing quests in Skyrim? Do NPCs recognize you as, say, the leader of the Mage’s Guild?

Yes. Well, I don’t know about that position specifically, but you can achieve positions of power and prestige (or infamy), and NPCs will acknowledge it.

Is there a reputation/fame system? Do NPCs recognize you as, say, the leader of the Mage’s Guild? Do NPCs change behavior if, for example, you assassinate their neighbors?

Yes. Edit: I should add–only if they know about it.

Do quest lines branch?

Sometimes.

Do completed/failed quests enable or disable quests in other quest lines? Are there quest lines that are mutually exclusive?

Yes.

Are there any quests that don’t involve fighting or killing?

Yes.

Finally, I assume the game doesn’t have an economy or an ecology.

It has both of those things, to an extent.

Just get it already.

Yes.

[triggercut]

Specifically, one of the first and longest quest lines in the game requires you to make a choice…and neither of those choices is the “right” choice. You have to pick a side, and it is not a “good vs. evil” black and white choice by any means.

[gmonkey]

Thanks y’all.

[W_Wiley]

Has anyone else encountered a bug where once you open a box or body you can’t close it and have to exit the game?

[Teiman]

Has anyone else encountered a bug where once you open a box or body you can’t close it and have to exit the game?

Talking with a friend on steam, I got glitched in a infinite loop conversation with a NPC. I think a very weird problem with tab and shift-tab to open steam. I solved the problem killin the npc with the console.

[Aeon221]

Yeah I agree. It might even be a bigger change than difficulty settings. Even if destruction scaled better it still has a lot of other disadvantages compared to melee or bows. Damage is just one. You still have worse armor, limited mana, and no fatality moves.

What kind of gear do you have? Are you basically on unlimited mana with -% reduction of everything to near zero?

I house ruled myself to no more than -80% gear for a single school, even though I could easily -100% with gear. With the top enchanting perk I can get -80% in two schools so I am working on that. Can’t decide if Illusion or Alteration will get it, because I greatly desire both. Mass paralyze or mass frnzy, decisions decisions. I’m even considering swapping entirely to a build that relies on indirect killing just for the sheer entertainment of it all. Storm or fire atronachs on flying dragons, zombies and atronachs against bosses, frenzy and paralyze and similar against mooks. We’ll see what happens.

Side note for mage lovers, I’m 90% that perks make illusion viable at high levels. If it does, there’s an easy way to abuse sneak better than archers. Use muffle to sneak into a room with the quiet casting perk, then cast mass frenzy, then cast invisibility and walk out. Enemies should now freak out and kill one another without you having to do dick all. Bonus points if you sneak back in and paralyze guys beating up on mages for faster killing.

[extarbags]

Side note for mage lovers, I’m 90% that perks make illusion viable at high levels. If it does, there’s an easy way to abuse sneak better than archers. Use muffle to sneak into a room with the quiet casting perk, then cast mass frenzy, then cast invisibility and walk out. Enemies should now freak out and kill one another without you having to do dick all. Bonus points if you sneak back in and paralyze guys beating up on mages for faster killing.

Ok now that is a cool build for a second playthrough.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I’ve found a few bugs, but nothing major. Sometime when I exit the enchanting screen I get stuck staring at the arcane enchanting station and can’t move or do anything but hit esc and reload. This morning everyone in the gameworld lost their skin, which was super fucking creepy - they have actual skulls under there, it’s beyond horrifying. Especially when they have helmets on and you can only see the giant eyeballs and grinning teeth. shudder

Talking to Felador in the mage guild she was sitting in a chair, and the only option I had putting the cursor on her was to Sit in Chair. I had to wait an hour or two so she’d get up and walk around to talk to her.

But with over 50 hours under my belt, those are the only ones I can remember of note, really, otherwise this is really a very polished and stable release/experience for me so far.

Rolling up a dagger/assasin tonight having beat the game last night, probably use Illusion magic pretty heavily, as I can’t imagine a build where I don’t use SOME magic.

[Teiman]

Another problem of destruction mage, is that your high level spells are AOE, and your companions or other friendly npc’s die. If your companion summon a ice atronach, the atronach will agro on you. I have suffered both :-/

[Aeon221]

Another problem of destruction mage, is that your high level spells are AOE, and your companions or other friendly npc’s die. If your companion summon a ice atronach, the atronach will agro on you. I have suffered both :-/

Uh, use ice magic when you are using a frost atronach. Problem solved. I spam cast ice storm and wall of ice on my frost atronach all the time. He resists and leaves me alone, enemies die.

If your companions use flame or storm atronachs instead, use fire or zing. Atronachs will resist and ignore it.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

Another problem of destruction mage, is that your high level spells are AOE, and your companions or other friendly npc’s die. If your companion summon a ice atronach, the atronach will agro on you. I have suffered both :-/

Great! Your’re building up your Destruction skill faster! :)

[caesarbear]

…which would be years after Daggerfall and Arena, the first two games of the Elder Scrolls series.

Neither of which sold anywhere near as well as Morrowind and thus obviate cloning. Besides, calling Gothic a clone of Elder Scrolls is idiotic. Bethesda’s certainly been making open world experiences for a long time (starting with Terminator) but they aren’t the only ones. Open world RPGs are about as old as RPGs. But yeah, thankfully the trend towards linear cut scene RPGs has reversed.