I don't like the 130 dungeons, I wish there were fewer and more detailed and individual.

I know they say they are "unique dungeons" but how unique can you make something if there are 130 of them.


Fast travel isn't really an issue for me. Usually I don't agree with the "don't like it don't use it argument" but I do with fast travel because it doesn't affect balance, only convenience vs. immersion. If you don't like it you can only use fast travel to go between cities and towns, maybe roadside inns.

First New Vegas playthrough lasted 160+ hours.

Haven't even finished the main quest of Oblivion and it's in the hundreds of hours.

Considering the massive number of "Radiant Story" quests, (and the 130 dungeons) I'm expecting the first playthough should last at least 200 hrs for Skyrim.

Thanks for all the info!


I too was hoping for a much larger gameworld. I hope this at least means the landscape is detailed and diverse for its size.



I'm going to assume this is an error or misunderstanding by the article's author, as it makes no sense to me for any definition of "low-fantasy".



That's a nice detail.



Almost any level scaling is too much for my liking, but this seems like a decent compromise.



I'm not sure I trust journalists who think Oblivion was a low-fantasy setting, but this is promising.



How would this work? Are there any screenshots demonstrating this?



This sounds good.



Hooray!



Doesn't bother me at all, since previous TES games have had theoretically infinite durations and MQs that could be ignored.

Ok. This is how the game starts:

Spoiler Warning

Sounds awesome except the mapsize bit. Dislike

Boots of blinding speed, so not really. It's all about smart design and variety.

I don't mind the size issue, personally. As long as there is still a strong sense of Nord culture, impending doom due to the prophecy, less generic NPC personalities (especially more variation from race to race, especially for the Dunmer, many of whom are no doubt immigrants from Morrowind following its destruction,) and a powerful story, I'm sure a rugged, mountainous terrain about the size of Oblivion will suffice for lots of hidden nooks and crannies. The lore describes Skyrim is highly vertical. That means that two dimensional size isn't all that matters. There's lots of room for things being up high, down low in valleys, hidden in crevices, halfway up mountains, etc. The mountains, to be lore-accurate, will need to be much TALLER than those in Oblivion, even if the world is the same size. That has an exponential effect in terms of total volume for content placement... hopefully.



WOW. Okay, that is definitely the kind of dark, fatalistic, gritty way I would hope a game like this would set the tone for the rest of its content. Pleasantly surprised with that.

Holy crap!

does it say that you are nursed back to health from an arrow wound in the head by a friendly golem :facepalm:

Me too, I can't believe people hear really thought the game was going to be larger, I was worried it might be slightly smaller like FO3, but now I am happy to hear it as big as OB, which was very large to me(I walked everywere for like the first 100 hours). Plue with the mountainous terrain it may be harder to go in a straight line everywhere, which always makes thing feel smaller than having to go a roundabout route.

I don't know anything about the writing except that Bethesda has never been the best at it. Certainly not Bioshock, or heck I thought even New Vegas was better written. I don't know about combat, but this is the third TES they've promised good combat in and they failed to deliver in that last two (though Oblivion was an improvement), and as for the art that just doesn't blow me away. Deus Ex 3 looks like an awesome updated Blade Runner, RAGE eye meltingly detailed, even Fable 2 and 3 were often fairy tale inspired gorgeous; so far Skryim has looked solid but nothing I'd just like to stare in awe at as I did in Crysis a few times.

Why not add it here in spoiler tags for those who want to know?

I have to edit the translation for the beginning of the game:

Wait, what? HUh?

It's in the first post now, just like some other small bits. There's also an interview with Todd Howard, which I will skim for additional info.

Just wanna say that size proportions doesn't mean very much in the TES games. Just look at Daggerfall
The major reason I dislike that Skyrim will be about the same size as Oblivion is because Oblivion felt soooo cramped up. And with Skyrim having 130 dungeons...
I just don't wanna find a big ruin or cave every 30 seconds. It's kind of unrealistic... and I think it makes finding dungeons more of a habit... everywhere everywhere

I at least hope them to be unique... :confused:


I believe the biggest issue isn't about Oblivion's fast travel system being optional or not. I believe the biggest issue is that we don't got Morrowind's fast travel system. At least that's how it's like for me :confused:

Oblivion had over 200 dungeons just so you know.

Wow, now this sounds exciting! Maybe you are involved in the civil war.



what do you think it means?

Remember that Skyrim is probably going to be more vertical than Oblivion, so the map size is probably fine.

I'm getting a Conan, Hyborian, feel from the game so far, so the low fantasy doesn't bother me at all. I can live without big mushrooms this time around.

GI has said that skyrim will be darker and grittier then oblivion, which is some good news.

"Dungeons are locked at their level once you have been there"
Okay, I know I'm gonna get a LOT of hate for this comment, but here goes nothing:
This is bad. The problem with MW was that if you invested some time to lvl up your character everything became easy. Dagoth Ur, Umbra you name it. The lvl scaling in OB was a bit extreme especially with the equipment so don't bring that back either. But please give us some really challenging dungeons and encounters in addition to the dragons. Of course a bandit would not be much trouble at higher lvls, but the different types of dungeons should have a range of lvls it went between. A bandit cave could be from lvl 1-10, a daedra hideout from lvl 30-45, all with bosses at rather high lvls for their type or something like that. Make the rubble type of enemy easier than OB, but give us some really challenging respawning boss-lvl enemies. Also give us the "You are to weak to fight them, give up" feeling from the early lvls in MW, and a "Holy sh*t, that was challenging!!!!!" type of enemies for the later lvls.

Some other small translation errors:

It doesn't state "unique dungeons," just "dungeons." It also states that there are "numerous other kinds of locations to explore," aside dungeons.

To click or not to click...

...although that choice was taken away from me when I quoted your post, and saw the spoiler because the spoiler code doesn't work in the editor. :facepalm:

Ooh, Brotherhood is back! =)

Good info, thank you for sharing! :happy: It's more info. to speculate, rejoice, or fret over, lol!

That's good. There are some pretty mindblowing and amazing places in this world. It certainly doesn't limit the visuals to "boring".

And Skyrim is dominated by men, so a "real-world" approach seems appropriate. Morrowind was mer-dominated territory, an outlandish feel seems more appropriate there. Would have been a shame to warp Skyrim into Shivering Isles 2.0 just for the sake of producing something strange-looking...



Edit: Nevermind, about 60 people beat me to it

Remember, Skyrim is "man" territory, so it's the one province that looks the closest to Earth.