Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

From wiki (not the most reliable source): "Executive producer Todd Howard has stated that the studio has invested in new talent to significantly improve the characters and animation over previous Bethesda games." I very much hope this is true, although it is incredibly belated.
 
It's really baffling to me how a big developer like Bethesda can go this long with such shitty character animations.
 
Absinthe said:
It's really baffling to me how a big developer like Bethesda can go this long with such shitty character animations.
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This. They really were last gen. I mean, 1 running animations for 3 (potentially 5 with up and down hills) directions is really bad. I hated going into third person in oblivion and fallout 3/NV.

Hopefully that rumour is true!
 
Absinthe said:
It's really baffling to me how a big developer like Bethesda can go this long with such shitty character animations.
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Pete Hines and his marketing department can sell horseshit as finest chocolate. There's your answer.
 
Obvously, this seems to be a purely a speculative piece. I'll reserve judgement for a bit.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PW9_t2BNe0

"Legendary game designer". God what a ****ing joke. The guy was Bethesda's coffee bitch when Daggerfall was made. Richard Garriot, that's a legend. Peter Molyneux, even with all his crazy ideas and failures is an industry legend thanks to Dungeon Keeper. Warren Spector? Tim Cain? Chris Taylor? Chris-****ing-Avellone? Those are industry legends.

Daggerfall obnoxious coffee bitch? Please. The entire VGA "gala" is a ****ing joke.
 
Oh shit. Sid Meier. Damn, I can't count how many nights I've lost to Colonization...
 
Spore was only designed by him up until the last 2-ish years of development, during which EA became a pussy and decided the game needed more "mass appeal", which involved basically amputating any interesting gameplay that wasn't contained entirely within the creature/object creator.

Bad^Hat said:
More conflicting information on the engine.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-12-13-how-new-is-elder-scrolls-v-skyrims-engine

Boy, if this is true, that was some mighty deceptive language they used on them there tweets. Overhauled/updated =/= new.
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Eh, in industry terms they're pretty equivalent. Any "new" engine is just an expansion or revision of an older one; Source still has Quake code in it.
 
Tagaziel said:
Actually, I've never played Morrowind using potions. Every point of every attribute and every skill in every playthrough was achieved without alchemy. Not hitting never bothered me, as if your character has a poor skill, then (surprise, surprise) he will miss a lot. Character skill in an RPG should be the most important element of combat, otherwise, you're creating a shooter/hack'n'slash with minor stat progression. Furthermore, you've never played an actual pen-and-paper RPG, do you? Dice rolls are always affected by modifiers, such as character skill, enemy armour class etc. It's never just a random dice roll.

Second, why have important characters? Why shouldn't the game be structured in a way that doesn't require anyone to be alive in order to complete it?
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I played D&D some years ago, and I wasn't really fond of it. A shit roll is still a shit roll and all the modifiers in the world, excepting god mode, won't help it. It's fine if you're the one rolling the dice, since you have some semblance of control. It's not fine if it's completely out of your hands. True story: I have to restart Fire Emblem games multiple times to get a decent RNG going, so it may just be my own hatred of random numbers on display.

Important characters are fine and work well as a way to frame up the main quest without mucking about with vague clues hidden behind a tree stump under the third rock from the west in a star-shaped cluster of seven stones. Having them be immortal is a different story.
 
JesusToast said:
I played D&D some years ago, and I wasn't really fond of it. A shit roll is still a shit roll and all the modifiers in the world, excepting god mode, won't help it. It's fine if you're the one rolling the dice, since you have some semblance of control. It's not fine if it's completely out of your hands. True story: I have to restart Fire Emblem games multiple times to get a decent RNG going, so it may just be my own hatred of random numbers on display.
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It's your hatred. Dice rolls, the element of randomness, is necessary in any game, as it's ever present in the real world. Combat isn't mathematics. A bee might land on your arm and distract you, making you miss with a rifle. Some tiny rocks under your feet can shift, making you stumble and miss. Something might start itching, making you miss. Dice rolls represent the random nature of everyday life and all the factors you cannot control in combat. Since all combat in games is an abstraction of reality by necessity, dice rolls are essential.

Important characters are fine and work well as a way to frame up the main quest without mucking about with vague clues hidden behind a tree stump under the third rock from the west in a star-shaped cluster of seven stones. Having them be immortal is a different story.
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A good writer can create a story that doesn't need any characters to provide exposition, case in point: Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Arcanum, Wasteland... Making characters unkillable is silly either way, I agree.
 
Rename all classes, put in a new name and you got yourself a new software! LE MAGIC
 
JesusToast said:
I played D&D some years ago, and I wasn't really fond of it. A shit roll is still a shit roll and all the modifiers in the world, excepting god mode, won't help it. It's fine if you're the one rolling the dice, since you have some semblance of control. It's not fine if it's completely out of your hands. True story: I have to restart Fire Emblem games multiple times to get a decent RNG going, so it may just be my own hatred of random numbers on display.
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Think about it like this. If you hit on everything but a 1(auto-miss) that's a 5% chance to miss. If you hit with a sword or bow 95% of the time, you're either fighting something large or are extremely skilled in combat.
 
Acepilotf14 said:
Think about it like this. If you hit on everything but a 1(auto-miss) that's a 5% chance to miss. If you hit with a sword or bow 95% of the time, you're either fighting something large or are extremely skilled in combat.
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With Morrowind's system, it was like everything except a 1 was an auto-miss until you hit a certain skill threshold, which is where my complaint lies. Even with the highest possible starting skill, you'd still fail to hit a mudcrab most of the time on a new game. Meanwhile, spells were all hit, all the time unless the specific enemy had spell absorption/reflection.

Anyway, it'd be neat if they put in random stuff to find. Oblivion was sorely lacking in that respect.
 
JesusToast said:
With Morrowind's system, it was like everything except a 1 was an auto-miss until you hit a certain skill threshold, which is where my complaint lies. Even with the highest possible starting skill, you'd still fail to hit a mudcrab most of the time on a new game. Meanwhile, spells were all hit, all the time unless the specific enemy had spell absorption/reflection.

Anyway, it'd be neat if they put in random stuff to find. Oblivion was sorely lacking in that respect.
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I'm kinda hoping that the Climbing Skill actually came back in some sort of shape and form. I want to climb higher, steeper mountains and more natural cave systems with deeper wider more dark areas
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/12/c...lls-v-skyrim-will-use-an-entirely-new-engine/

Entirely new engine, not an updated Gamebryo. Yay.

PC Gamer speculation said:
Since Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax now owns id Software, the second most popular theory was that Skyrim might use id Tech 5, the engine developed for their next game Rage. Apparently not – “all new” suggests this is one developed specifically for Skyrim, or at least not seen in other games yet.
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here's the tweet from befo'
 
Any information for or against the engine being Tech5 is speculation. Tech5 itself is "all-new". And I don't have a lot of faith in Bethesda's programming team, so I hope that they use Carmack's engine.
 
The one thing I liked about them using Gamebryo was that it was pretty much guaranteed the games would be extremely mod friendly. I hope that will continue with the new engine. Other than that, good riddance to Gamebryo.
 
BabyHeadCrab said:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/12/c...lls-v-skyrim-will-use-an-entirely-new-engine/

Entirely new engine, not an updated Gamebryo. Yay.



here's the tweet from befo'
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Same tweet other sites have used to "confirm" it's on a new engine. It's still not 100% certain whether it's no longer on gamebryo, or whether he just used some cunningly deceptive language to make people think it's not. Sounds paranoid, I know, but I'm not trusting anything that isn't an unequivocal "it's not on gamebryo." **** that engine.

Also from the article - "The controversy around Gamebryo can be summarised as: good at trees, crap at faces." While this is basically true, didn't they use some other software to render the trees and make them sway in the wind and crap? Presumably you could achieve the same on just about any other engine.
 
That would be SpeedTree, something found in many modern games, like Far Cry 2 and Borderlands (and obviously Fallout 3/NV as well). And they use Havok for physics...

It's just occurred to me that basically every aspect of Gamebryo that isn't made of middleware is a) mod-friendly and b) otherwise terrible.
 
If it doesn't look as good as Mafia II I'll be pissed. They've made enough money and have limitless time to do what they need to do.
 
Stigmata said:
Any information for or against the engine being Tech5 is speculation. Tech5 itself is "all-new". And I don't have a lot of faith in Bethesda's programming team, so I hope that they use Carmack's engine.
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Maybe they asked Carmack for help and he accidently coded the whole game in a few days 'ala Doom for iPhone in. :p
 
"Um, so here's the thing guys... Don't be mad, but last night when I was coding your new animation system, I accidentally took all your jobs."
 
Anyone know how many months before release they showed the first screenshots of Fallout 3 or Oblivion?

EDIT:

First F3 screens were 1 year, 3 months before release date.
First NV screens were 7 months before release date.

So I have no clue when we'll see anything...
 
StardogChampion said:
Anyone know how many months before release they showed the first screenshots of Fallout 3 or Oblivion?

EDIT:

First F3 screens were 1 year, 3 months before release date.
First NV screens were 7 months before release date.

So I have no clue when we'll see anything...
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I would imagine in about a half a months time when Game Informer release their mag
 
Yep, Bethesda has confirmed new info/screenshots etc in the next issue of GI.
 
GI has released the cover art :D

cov214front.jpg


http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...r-revealedesv-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim.aspx

Also confirmed 20 screenshots of the game! Cant wait to see what it looks like...
 
I wish I did :(

I couldnt find any store that sells GI, so I'll just wait for some scans. This forum forbids posting them here, correct?
 
I usually get mine about halfway through the previous.

^GI is owned by Gamestop, so they have them there.
 
Disappointment that the "new" engine is just a revamped Gamebryo in 3...
 
Subscribers usually get the mag around the 10th. I'm a little excited. :>
 
Cinematic Screenshots, calling it now!
 
Update about the cover: the back cover has been translated by some users

DOVahKiiN DOVahKiiN
NaaL OK ZIN LOS VahRiiN
Wah DeiN VOKUL MahFAERaaK ahST VaaL
ahRK FIN NOROK PaaL GRaaN
FOD NUST HON ZINDRO ZaaN
DOVahKiiN Fah HIN KOGaaN MU DRaaL

ahRK FIN KEL LOST PODRah
DO VED ViiNG KO FIN KRah
TOL FOD ZeyMah WIN KeiN MeyZ FUNDeiN
ALDUIN FeyN DO JUN
KRUZiiD VOKUN STaaDNAU
VOTH aaN BahLOK Wah DiiVON FIN LeiN


Dragonborn Dragonborn
By his honor is sworn
To keep evil forever at bay
And the fiercest foes rout
When they hear triumph’s shout
Dragonborn for hunger blessing we pray

And the scrolls have fortold
Of black wings in the cold
That when brothers wage war come unfurled
Alduin, bane of kings
Ancient shadow unbound
With a hunger to swallow the world
Click to expand...
 
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