Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim announced

Teiman · 2011-08-07T13:45:10.000Z

The combat seems very varied:

1h + shield
2 x 1h
2h
1h + staff
Spells wen you have mana
Shouts!, uses ‘words’ that have cooldown, different shouts seems to use different words, so you may have the “summon a enormeous storm” disabled, but the “invoque wind” is ready
Staves with spell charges
Bows, bows with different ammo (arrows with spells)
Scrolls (this why the game is called SCROLLS )

Spells and shouts seems differents things.

Wen preparing a spell you use your hands. You can use one hand, or two hands, seems spells have two versions, normal or charged. It also seems that you can combine two charged spells in a magic ball.

So there are more combinations:

spellcasting hand + 1h
spellcasting hand + shield (?)
2 spellcasting hands

If after all this potential complexity, if the players devolve combat into RLLRLRLRLLRLRLRLRLRLRRLRLRLRLRRLRLRLRLRLRRL, I am tempted to blame the player.

quarryman · 2011-08-07T13:58:26.000Z

Anyone else notice the really long load time at about 18:30? Was hoping they’d improve on that over Oblivion. Slow load times on Oblivion really took from the immersion for me. On the plus side, the demo was on the xbox 360 so hopefully it’s a lot better on the PC.

Joe_M · 2011-08-07T14:05:16.000Z

Have we seen any footage of archery yet? I think I’ll be playing with bows if the mechanics are anything like Arcania/Gothic 4.

Teiman: there are always players who ignore the fun they could be having in favor of doing the bare minimum to get through a game.

Scotch_Lufkin · 2011-08-07T14:06:44.000Z

quarryman:

Anyone else notice the really long load time at about 18:30? Was hoping they’d improve on that over Oblivion. Slow load times on Oblivion really took from the immersion for me. On the plus side, the demo was on the xbox 360 so hopefully it’s a lot better on the PC.

Stuff like load times/optimization generally comes LAST in the development cycle - they should clean a lot of that up leading up to release. In theory.

Dave_Markell · 2011-08-07T14:08:18.000Z

Joe M.:

Have we seen any footage of archery yet?

There are some sneak attacks via bow in the cave in that video, so yes. It wasn’t particularly interesting, though.

quarryman · 2011-08-07T15:05:00.000Z

Here’s the vid on dailymotion (it probably won’t get taken down).

dailymotion.com/video/xkefdc_1_news

i had to remove the “www” from the start of that as I don’t have enough posts to post links yet :(

Teiman · 2011-08-07T15:12:24.000Z

11:33, some GUI godness

Scotch_Lufkin · 2011-08-07T15:31:59.000Z

My God. It’s full of stars.

quarryman · 2011-08-07T15:36:13.000Z

I actually don’t really like the skill map thing. It doesn’t seem possible to see your entire skill overview in one go, it looks like there’s a whole lot of panning involved. I could be wrong, but it looks a bit of “wow” factor over function.

Scotch_Lufkin · 2011-08-07T16:00:35.000Z

quarryman:

I actually don’t really like the skill map thing. It doesn’t seem possible to see your entire skill overview in one go, it looks like there’s a whole lot of panning involved. I could be wrong, but it looks a bit of “wow” factor over function.

I think I see what you mean, but I guess I don’t see that will be a problem. You are the one picking your own skills, so you should be well aware of what feats/perks you’ve picked up, right? I’d rather they try something new than use flat text menus.

Blips · 2011-08-07T16:17:01.000Z

People in that convention annoy me greatly. They (the developers) can’t even improve the AI so that it recognizes when a friend is killed, and yet they get nothing but applause when they show off how you can rotate 3D models in the inventory menu.

Scotch_Lufkin · 2011-08-07T16:44:51.000Z

Blips:

People in that convention annoy me greatly. They (the developers) can’t even improve the AI so that it recognizes when a friend is killed, and yet they get nothing but applause when they show off how you can rotate 3D models in the inventory menu.

I don’t know what you’re talking about - they all seemed to be fine, upstanding fans of tea!

Ben_Sones · 2011-08-07T16:54:34.000Z

Blips:

People in that convention annoy me greatly. They (the developers) can’t even improve the AI so that it recognizes when a friend is killed, and yet they get nothing but applause when they show off how you can rotate 3D models in the inventory menu.

There were two points in that demo where nearby enemies had the opportunity to notice that their friends were being attacked, and in both instances, they did. One was in the cavern, where the player shoots at the two guys next to the campfire with a bow. When the first guy is killed, the second guy goes into an “alerted” stance, but he doesn’t attack the player because he doesn’t know where the player is (the UI clearly indicates that you are hidden, which makes sense, since they are demoing stealth).

The second instance was a bit later, fighting skeletons. And in that instance, the player’s attack on two skeletons alerts two or three more, who come rushing into the fight from down the hall.

Short version: the AI seems fine.

Blips · 2011-08-07T16:59:40.000Z

Ben Sones:

There were two points in that demo where nearby enemies had the opportunity to notice that their friends were being attacked, and in both instances, they did. One was in the cavern, where the player shoots at the two guys next to the campfire with a bow. When the first guy is killed, the second guy goes into an “alerted” stance, but he doesn’t attack the player because he doesn’t know where the player is (the UI clearly indicates that you are hidden, which makes sense, since they are demoing stealth).

The second instance was a bit later, fighting skeletons. And in that instance, the player’s attack on two skeletons alerts two or three more, who come rushing into the fight from down the hall.

Short version: the AI seems fine.

If that’s the case then consider my frustration at ease. It could have been due to the terrible resolution of the dailymotion video, but when in the cavern the 2nd guy looked as if he just stood completely still waiting for that 2nd arrow to arrive.

Dave_Markell · 2011-08-07T17:37:04.000Z

That’s exactly right–but again, it’s due to the aforementioned stealth of the PC, not poor AI.

Sir_Digby · 2011-08-07T18:13:59.000Z

Dave Markell:

That’s exactly right–but again, it’s due to the aforementioned stealth of the PC, not poor AI.

I thought shooting your bow would break stealth; huh, considering that, yeah, seems they behaved at least better than in Oblivion.

Staff_Sergeant · 2011-08-07T18:30:03.000Z

Teiman:

Scrolls (this why the game is called SCROLLS )

Pretty sure the game is named after the legendary documents used by the Empire/Emperor/Monks to predict the future. Scrolls are in general pretty useless.

Phydeaux · 2011-08-07T18:33:20.000Z

quarryman:

Here’s the vid on dailymotion (it probably won’t get taken down).

dailymotion.com/video/xkefdc_1_news

i had to remove the “www” from the start of that as I don’t have enough posts to post links yet :(

It got taken down. :D

Omniscia · 2011-08-07T19:04:10.000Z

Teiman:

Scrolls (this why the game is called SCROLLS )

Someone didn’t play Arena.

Teiman · 2011-08-07T19:09:22.000Z

Staff Sergeant:

Pretty sure the game is named after the legendary documents used by the Empire/Emperor/Monks to predict the future. Scrolls are in general pretty useless.

Is a joke