The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim

[EddieA]

The list of achievements has been revealed.

[Bob]

It's funny that Imperials are better at looting than everyone else.  Hey, you missed some coins hidden in his socks.  No thanks are necessary, it's what I do...finding extra coins.  I also speak on behalf of the Emperor, and can notarize documents. 

Skyrim is racist? Cancelling preorder.

[Turtle]

I like them taking Perks and stuff from the Fallout series. Er, did they have perks before?

[CeeKay]

I like them taking Perks and stuff from the Fallout series. Er, did they have perks before?

I remember star signs that gave you bonuses (all hail The Tower!) and racial perks, plus as you advanced in a skill you'd be able to do certain things, but it looks like they're going a bit more in depth with that this time around.

[metallicorphan]

I am replaying Oblivion at the moment,and there are also ..er...Magic Wells(i dunno what they are called)and you gain some perk for a few minutes when you draw the magic from the well

[metallicorphan]

sometimes i really really hate Major Nelson

majornelson
The package that arrived in today's mail. Don't be surprised if I don't resurface until January http://t.co/G6zY35fy
14 hours ago

[CeeKay]

sometimes i really really hate Major Nelson

majornelson
The package that arrived in today's mail. Don't be surprised if I don't resurface until January http://t.co/G6zY35fy
14 hours ago

yep, someone else posted a pic of their copy yesterday too, but that is a good thing.....

it means next to no chance of a LAST MINUTE DELAY LIKE WHAT HAPPENED WITH OBLIVION!!! 

[Knightshade Dragon]

I got my copy too.  Day 1 review?  No....day BEFORE review.  Yep. 

[USMC Kato]

I got my copy too.  Day 1 review?  No....day BEFORE review.  Yep. 

 

Have fun Ron

[metallicorphan]

I got my copy too.  Day 1 review?  No....day BEFORE review.  Yep. 

cool....

what platform Ron?

[kathode]

This concept art trailer is pretty cool.  Great music too - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zYcuyiMa-QY

[Knightshade Dragon]

I got my copy too.  Day 1 review?  No....day BEFORE review.  Yep. 

cool....

what platform Ron?

360.  I'm buying it for the PC myself. 

[Dreamshadow]

Looking forward to your review.  Can't wait to play this on the 360.

[Hetz]

The whole beginning of the game has leaked onto Youtube. Don't watch unless you want to be majorly spoiled. I've got to say, looking at video, it doesn't look much different from Oblivion, gameplay wise. Animations are still not that great. Oh well. The game still looks incredible, but you would think that Bethesda could have hired some decent animators with all the money they raked in from Oblivion. Maybe I'm just spoiled from games like Batman and Uncharted now which have incredible animation.

[Hetz]

Here are the two videos, if you want to see for yourself....but be warned....MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TlyIsGI0WE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3UCCJYU59A

[hepcat]

Here are the two videos, if you want to see for yourself....but be warned....MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TlyIsGI0WE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3UCCJYU59A

taken down, unfortunately.

[Hetz]

The videos have been reposted here:

http://kotaku.com/the-elder-scrolls/

There has been quite a bit of backlash over this video so far. I admit, I have not been following this game as much as the other ones....but have they made this game out to be a vastly improved gameplay experience or something with incredible animation? It looks pretty good to me, but I thought Oblivion looked fine. It honestly looks like a somewhat upgraded Oblivion, which is fine with me in the end. It really seems like some people are PISSED though.

I'm not pissed, but I am a tad disappointed, since I really wished they would have done something about the animation system in the last few years, besides adding "finishing moves".

[TiLT]

Bethesda has a few... issues... that they struggle to overcome with every game they release. One of them is animation, but I almost never care about that since I have no interest in playing their games in third person.

A worse issue they have is that they somehow manage to make any voice actor sound bored and uninspired, no matter how good that actor is. They managed to blunder their way through Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson and Sean Bean, great actors all, without getting a good performance out of any of them. Only Malcolm McDowell (of all the well-known actors) managed to pull off a respectable performance for them that I can recall, but that's partly because he always sounds the same anyway. I really don't understand how they do it. There must be something about the process they put their actors through that takes away their inspiration, but without an insider's view of the process it's impossible to tell what that could be.

Another issue is the level scaling, but that has been covered in depth already, so no need to retread that ground.

All in all though, these things don't matter all that much because (apart from the level scaling) none of these issues are central to the games' designs. You can play Oblivion for hundreds of hours without ever hearing Sean Bean's voice, and you can do the same with Liam Neeson in Fallout 3 (apart from the very beginning). The animation is hardly an issue for those who play in first person.

[CeeKay]

Bethesda has a few... issues... that they struggle to overcome with every game they release.

and that whole checkpoint save system......

* CeeKay ducks

[Destructor]

Well, as I'm grabbing the PC version, any and all issues with things like level scaling (I thought Skyrim used the Fallout version of it, which means that mobs have level caps on both the low and high end) will be no doubt solved once modders get to it.

But I'm getting this at launch no matter what issues it might have. Bethesda's games are always worth 100+ hours of gameplay on the first playthrough. And WELL worth revisiting again later once the modders have fixed any issues that should've been looked at beforehand.

[Turtle]

PC version for me as well. Should be the first game to really test my new video card.

Also, I suspected they wouldn't be able to get that much better than "upgraded Oblivion" considering they're still aiming for the same generation of consoles. They're only so many techniques and tricks you can use to make things look and run better, but eventually you still hit that same technical wall.

Can't wait until the next gen consoles, where hopefully they jump to 1GB or 2GB of memory so developers can do really interesting stuff.

[kathode]

Granted I haven't seen the videos, but I can't believe anyone would seriously think it looks like just a moderately upgraded Oblivion, visually at least.  In general what I would guess most people are really saying is more like "It looks only slightly better than my years-old memories of Oblivion."   Ron would be the person to ask either way, considering he's playing right now.

[PR_GMR]

Granted I haven't seen the videos, but I can't believe anyone would seriously think it looks like just a moderately upgraded Oblivion, visually at least.  In general what I would guess most people are really saying is more like "It looks only slightly better than my years-old memories of Oblivion."  Ron would be the person to ask either way, considering he's playing right now.

Didn't you work there? Don't you get a complementary version of 'Skyrim' or something?  

[Soulchilde]

Grabbing for PC this time around.  Did 360 for Oblivion and want to try PC this time around.  Can't wait

[PR_GMR]

Grabbing for PC this time around.  Did 360 for Oblivion and want to try PC this time around.  Can't wait

Yeah, I'm picking up the PC version too. For all the possible modding down the road.

[hepcat]

Same.  I was going to go 360 like I did with Oblivion but I've got a rig that can handle it this time around.

[Destructor]

Granted I haven't seen the videos, but I can't believe anyone would seriously think it looks like just a moderately upgraded Oblivion, visually at least.  In general what I would guess most people are really saying is more like "It looks only slightly better than my years-old memories of Oblivion."   Ron would be the person to ask either way, considering he's playing right now.

Exactly. The graphic detail (at the very least, the character models) is drastically improved over what Oblivion had. I'm outright shocked just how good it looks considering that Oblivion was on the same console generation.

[metallicorphan]

Granted I haven't seen the videos, but I can't believe anyone would seriously think it looks like just a moderately upgraded Oblivion, visually at least.  In general what I would guess most people are really saying is more like "It looks only slightly better than my years-old memories of Oblivion."   Ron would be the person to ask either way, considering he's playing right now.

Exactly. The graphic detail (at the very least, the character models) is drastically improved over what Oblivion had. I'm outright shocked just how good it looks considering that Oblivion was on the same console generation.

and hopefully the range of voices for the characters as well 

[kathode]

Didn't you work there? Don't you get a complementary version of 'Skyrim' or something?  

I wish!  I didn't work on Skyrim at all though, so I wasn't expecting it

[Destructor]

and hopefully the range of voices for the characters as well 

They've also said there's a lot more generic voice actors, so it won't be two people being the voices for an entire race (one male, one female).

[Zinfan]

I had the PC version on pre-order with Amazon but just canceled it.  I can't decide which version I want so I'll wait a week or so and see how the 360 version stacks up against the PC.  My PC can be problematical at times so the ease that comes with the 360 setup plus playing on the 47" tv with surround sound could be a better experience for me.  I have UC3 and Batman along with Forza to play while I figure this out.

[TiLT]

and hopefully the range of voices for the characters as well 

They've also said there's a lot more generic voice actors, so it won't be two people being the voices for an entire race (one male, one female).

Up to and including Fallout New Vegas (in which I assume Bethesda had a large hand in the voice acting department), they haven't been able to do this properly. New Vegas actually got pretty bad because each faction had a limited few actors for it. If you ever visited the NCR base in the very southwest corner of the map, you'll have noticed how there's just one voice actor for every male character there.

[Destructor]

First off, they've done from a dozen voices with Oblivion to 'over 70' with Skyrim. I do think they have the clone issue solved with this game.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/03/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-trailer-examines-the-sounds-of-skyrim-advocates-warm-mead/
This interview/preview with the sound/music of the game shows that even Todd realized that the clone problem was a serious problem, and wanted it solved with Skyrim.

I had the PC version on pre-order with Amazon but just canceled it.  I can't decide which version I want so I'll wait a week or so and see how the 360 version stacks up against the PC.  My PC can be problematical at times so the ease that comes with the 360 setup plus playing on the 47" tv with surround sound could be a better experience for me.  I have UC3 and Batman along with Forza to play while I figure this out.

I also read (I could've sworn on PC Gamer's site, but I can't find it) that the PC version will have higher resolution textures, different (smaller) font, more graphic features you can turn on and off, and of course, mod support. That said - the console versions (all the previews AFAIK have been on the 360) look fantastic.

[metallicorphan]

Day One Patch

Bethesda representatives confirmed to Game Informer this afternoon that a patch update will be available upon Skyrim's release this Friday, November 11. The patch will be for all platforms.

and this part i have heard before

In a recent interview with Wired.com, Bethesda director Todd Howard says that downloadable content for Skyrim is already in the works and plans to release “substantial” pieces sometime after the game's launch..

“We’re not going to be doing a lot of it," Howard told Wired. "Our high-level thinking is that there’ll be not as many [pieces of DLC], but they’ll be bigger and more substantial. The goal overall is not necessarily to put out more content, but to make the game better.”

“We’ll start hitting on everything after vacation,” he said when asked about a release window. “We’ll take a break [after the game launches], see what consumers think of the game, then see which direction we want to go.”

[Destructor]

Modders (on the PC version) > Anything that Bethesda has ever put out in the past (and for free, too).

But it doesn't surprise me that they're planning DLC in the slightest.

[CeeKay]

looks like console players in the Netherregions can play already: http://kotaku.com/5857428/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-on-sale-now-in-the-netherlands

[Purge]

'Rim jobs in the Netherregions? I'm sticking to the PC thread, methinks.

[Turtle]

Have they confirmed mod tools this time? I think I remember reading yes, but my memory has been crap as of late.

[kathode]

Have they confirmed mod tools this time? I think I remember reading yes, but my memory has been crap as of late.

Yep, it's confirmed.

New video!  Music is great-
http://www.elderscrolls.com/community/reaching-new-heights-world-skyrim-0/

[Crusis]

Is it Friday yet?!?

I watched the unboxing of the collector's edition on IGN. I don't think the pictures have done it justice. That figure that comes with it is freaking massive. My wife was giving the evil eye as I gave a running commentary about how awesome it would look in the house.