Why are my options "Great", "good", and "major disappointment"?

I for one love the look of the graphics and such. The Conan-esque art direction makes a lot more sense than generic Vikings or Medieval playgrounds to me. Looking good :celebration:

But PCs can.

How can a true Elderscrolls fan complain about graphics? When have the graphics of a TES game ever been good?
Lets face it, graphics are not Bethesda's strong point. And after seeing some screenshots, I have to say they are better than I expected.

I was happy with Oblivions graphics (although time has not been good to them) and I for one am shocked Bethesda could make these.
So what if its not Crysis? If I wanted to play that I wouldn't buy Elderscrolls games...

I CANT BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT :rofl:

no sir. no it doesnt.
let me break it down for you, the pc renders the game better for a reason, it is HARDWARE, which is EXPENSIVE. if consoles were not around HARDWARE WOULD BE CHEAPER!
if hardware was CHEAPER then you would have no reason to play skyrim on a ps3 or an xbox.

those companies [except microsoft] would stick to the handheld games industry and maybe make motion-control peripherals .
the world would be a better place without micro$cam and the xbox. they should have stuck to pc...console bandwagon was just a money ploy and everyone knows it.
nintendo and sony can stay..but they need to get with the program and leave the hardcoe games in the hands of the pc devs or make the consoles with a real operating system.
and hell, more games would have controller support on the pc and they would be made more casual/child friendly.
everything would be cheaper and the world would be a better place.

now, care to talk about windows so i can go on another rant about how linux pwns all?

Not on conosle. Consoles have hit the ceiling with graphics. Nothings going to come out on Xbox or PS3 doing the same stuff Skyrim is doing and look better. If the PC version looks no better than these screen shots then its already poor looking by PC standards. But we havent seen the PC version so I'm holding out hope for it.
The only things I can think of to challenge it are: Crysis 2 (not doing near the amount of background task and items in memory that Skyrim is) and RAGE (which wont even have dynamic lighting)
I think its pretty interesting in 2011. We have a tech arms race much like 2005 and 06. Different Engines trying to look better having very different approaches but instead of maxing out what hardware can do like we did in 05 and 06 we are trying to optimize and squeeze every last drop of detail from hardware that belongs in 05. I think Skyrim, RAGE, And Crysis 2 show some pretty stunning results in this regard. We are near the end of the console life cycle so this process is only natural.

I dont care about graphics.

Gamemechanics, Lore, Culture, RPG elements, that is what i care about.

^this^

uuum, the graphics have always been "omg thats so good" for both morrowind and oblivion when they were released, and daggerfall was one of the first games to use a mouse to aim (verification please?)
TES games have always been innovative in some aspect, im just waiting to see what skyrim brings to the table.

I agree with you 10 fold

yeah ,we dont need super perfect graphics as long as they look as great as the one we got from the magazines.

When Oblivion was being developed the consoles weren't even out yet. They actually didn't have the opportunity to test it on a console until around 6 months before the release. This time they know what they're dealing with.

The graphics were better than what i was excepting.

Excellent, but i′ll need to wait till i see some gameplay.

Long games are outdated, this will probably be as big as Oblivion if not smaller, with proportionally worse graphics.

When the first screens of Oblivion came out they looked incredible, these don't, get over it. Now what I do like is the new art design. It looks much more visceral than Oblivion. Hopefully it'll stay solid for the whole game.

Always innovative in some way, but not graphics.

Sure they did recieve awards for graphics, doesn't actually mean they were good. How many awards at this point are just handed out?


And to clarify, im not saying at the games release people say the graphics are bad. They are usually good, but not the "omg thats so good" you describe or people seem to be expecting.

Daggerfall had immese requirements at the time for its huge 3D open world. It was the first game of its kind because of the tech used. Morrowind was the first true 3D open ended world like that, and was one of the first games to take advantage of DX9's programmable pixel shaders creating the effect it has on water. Not to mention the AI, textures, Truform ( a early version of tessellation),large game world, thousands of individual items. Oblivion fully used every aspect of DX9, from the HDR lighting, huge open world with massive draw distance, even more items in memory, advanced shaders, Massive amounts of geometry and an AI routine that was and still is incredibly complex.
The Elder Scrolls have always been technical benchmarks and nothing short of incredible when it comes to the engine and what they are doing. Having all of that tech really really helps immerse the player and give the fuel for exploration. Its not the only thing. But graphics impact a game like TES just as much as anything else.

exactly, im hoping skyrim will at least attempt to use dx 10 - 11 and other modern features, in fact, those features will be considered commonplace when it releases in 2011/12

Yes, the stills looks great.

The stills in Oblivion also looked great. Walking trough the wilderness of Cyrodiil was at times magic with some good texture mods.

However, what the magazine scans don't show and what was the main concern for Oblivion is animation. People walked like robots and creatures magically floated when they turned around to face you. Fallout's animations were better, but still repetetive enough so you started to get tired of them.

Also, I hope there's actually waves forming in the ocean this time.

Graphics look great. Anyone who says otherwise is wasted, stupid, or [censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored] [censored].

I think it all looks amazing, and I am very, very excited. I also think a lot of people sound like little whiners.

:rofl: at all the doom and gloom in this thread. "Skyrim will be one of the worst looking games on release" ? Are you ******* kidding me?


The game will looks freaking amazing. I just got done playing modded oblivion on my PC, it looks stunning. Skyrim will blow it out of the water Vanilla. Then later down the line, modded, it will keep up for years to come. Especilla if bethesda adds in some PC centric graphical goodies as optional. Such as Battlefield BC2, AvP, Metro 2033, Mirrors Edge, Crysis 2, GTA IV, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Two Worlds II, ect have.

Such as dx10/11 features, enhanced physics, volumetric effects, high resolution base textures, ect.

I have faith Skyrim will be a jaw dropping game just as GI said it was when they saw it in motion.

+1 interwebz

Graphics look good, but I will need to see more before I have a real opinion. Honestly the graphics look as expected, but the gameplay looks revamped and that's what really matters, not if you can see the individual beads of sweat dripping from an orc's brow after a fight. Man would that be cool though...

You cant release a DX9 only game in late 2011. I hope they dont anyway. Steam surveys show most people can use DX10 anyway, that number will only increase this year and DX11's install base is growing at a insanely fast race. People say this element of PC is dead but the sales figures for both ATi and Nvidia show otherwise. DX11 Radeons and Geforce products are selling very very well.

Bethesda's games usually look terrible in screens. Fallout 3 is the best example and I'm hoping it's true here too.