Dutch cover story: Interesting Info

Post » Tue May 10, 2011 12:50 am

Not sure how I feel about that start. :confused:
Hopefully it's not as roleplay restricting as I fear it to be...
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Devils Cheek
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 1:29 pm

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.


Have you ever read any of the books in game? Oblivion had really good side quests as well. Morrowind's main quest was also really good. It's been too long since I played Daggerfall but it left me a really good impressiona as well. bethesda's writing was never bad, and their artwork was (in Morrowind at least), unparalleled. Anyway, Bethesda have always been the best at one thing, wich you completely overlooked (besides the fact we don't know how vertical and rugged the terrain will be). The depth and complexity of the open worlds in the TES, plus the unique lore made all the difference in the world. If you like games as childish and shallow as Fable I can't really understand what you actually like in TES games. There is absolutely nothing about crysis that really wow-ed me personaly, expect the moment I went "wow, look how ridiculous choping down trees by shooting them is". It did have good graphics though, true, but that is just one factor.
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Nicole Coucopoulos
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 1:25 pm

Thanks for that, the start of the game sounds great. I'm also not bothered by the size of the map. Cyrodil was big enough for me, just add variation and we're ready to go
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Amanda Furtado
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 1:43 pm

From the interview with Todd Howard, in the same article:

"There are special animations for sneak kills with daggers." (The way it is written in Dutch does not imply that there are no special animations for other weapons btw...)

"We primarily look at how we can improve facial expressions and animations, graphics-wise."

"The game won't support Kinect. It takes too much memory."

"It is not yet possible to combine forms of magic. It is difficult. Frost magic makes an enemy move slower, and fire does damage over time, and the fire remains on the ground for additional damage. If we would allow the player to use fire magic in one hand, and frost magic in the other, it becomes much more complex. Maybe we will implement this though, but for the time being, 'No'."
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Kayla Oatney
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 11:46 am

I hope this is what they mean by "same size as Oblivion."

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8366/40135698.jpg

Just with better usage of the available terrain.
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Jason White
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 1:18 pm

What is active blocking?
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Robert Jr
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 3:43 pm

What is active blocking?

The mechanic used in OB :obliviongate:
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Lauren Denman
 
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Post » Tue May 10, 2011 12:44 am

Not sure how I feel about that start. :confused:
Hopefully it's not as roleplay restricting as I fear it to be...


That's what i'm afraid of.

This coming from someone who didn't want to be known as a courier in Fallout: New Vegas because it gave my character a predetermined past. I know that wasn't as bad as it could be but still.
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Lifee Mccaslin
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 9:06 pm

"It is not yet possible to combine forms of magic. It is difficult. Frost magic makes an enemy move slower, and fire does damage over time, and the fire remains on the ground for additional damage. If we would allow the player to use fire magic in one hand, and frost magic in the other, it becomes much more complex. Maybe we will implement this though, but for the time being, 'No'."

I thought you could combine different spells in each hand? Is Todd saying that's not possible?
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Hot
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 10:31 am

"You can use fast travel to revisit places you have visited earlier."

Damn, just like in Oblivion, despite all the protest against fast travel they just had to include it, and I bet Bethesda designed the world around it, meaning we will get no traveling services, less immersion, less realistic landscapes and more chaotic creature distribution... fantastic... just fantastic...

"Skyrim is approximately as big as Oblivion."

Oblivion was scaled to be tiny, and packed with things, you could stand in the same spot at sea level height and see maybe 3 old ruins, 2 caves, a village and the main road, not very realistic, Nocturnal forbid you stand on a hill, then things get crazy.

"Five big cities and more than 130 unique dungeons."

That is fine, more-so if the place was not so tiny, will be the same or worse than Oblivion.

"Low-Fantasy" (Meaning the game does not look as vibrant, vivid and weird as Morrowind did, more like Oblivion)

That′s fine too, Morrowind was a strange place, Skyrim is another thing so it may even be more realistic for it to be a bit toned down compared to Morrowind.

"Dragon stories (rumors of Dragons) are less prominent than all those Oblivion Gates were in Oblivion, which does not give you the feeling that you are doing 'useless' quests when you lay aside the Main Quest."

Nice.

"Dragons are not rare."

Oh... so you let rumors of dragons be few, but have the landscape so packed and tiny that you could have 5 dragons flying about with a NPC standing there within sight claiming only to have seen one dragon once in his life.

"Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there."

Mixed feelings here, I can′t judge it yet, but it kinda sounds nice.

"Even in third person, animations look really good. There has been a lot of progress since Oblivion."

Animation is nice but I′d rather see them implement a realistic travel system than work on animations, seeing how they felt the need to put fast travel it seems Betheda has been short on time with the game.

"You can read in-game books in 3-D."

More animation that could have been time better spent on the removal of fast travel for a better system.

"Every item has a 3D-preview in the Flash based inventory, which you can twist, turn, rotate, etc. Sometimes you will solve puzzles by anolyzing these 3D-previews. Not only armor and weapons can be explored in great detail, also small rings and herbs can be investigated from all possible angles. Every single item in the game can be previewed in the inventory screen."
Ok, that actually sounds like time well spent, I like puzzles and such.

"The Dark Brotherhood is back."
Oki.

"Active blocking."

Mmmm good.

"More traps and puzzles."
Very nice.

"Main Story is approximately 20 hours."

D: Oh my... 5 years to make 20 hours of main story ? Not 100, 80 or even 60 hours but only 20...

Way too much time spent on animation and graphics, could have spent time better on longer quests and on removing fast travel for a better system.

Sorry if I′m sounding like a grouch, I may be reasonable or I may be annoyed beyond rational thought with fast travel making a return and the main quest being so short, gonna have to find out after I sleep on it.
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lolli
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 11:44 pm

I thought you could combine different spells in each hand? Is Todd saying that's not possible?



Im kinda confused by that too.
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Tiffany Holmes
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 4:27 pm

Oh mother-

Same size as Oblivion, that tiny map? Sure Just Cause 2 was too big by far. But every other open world game is now bigger than Oblivion. GTA4 was 11 kilometers and was a single city. Heck the latest Assassin's Creed was twice Oblivion's size and was built in one year



No. Oblivion map is bigger than San Andreas, which is bigger than GTA4. Take a look at this... http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/large-video-game-worlds2.jpg
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Mariaa EM.
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 7:25 pm

Why are people worried about the map being cramped? Oblivion has over 200 dungeons while skyrim will have around 130. If the map is roughly the same size then it will be LESS cramped because there is around 70 fewer dungeons.
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adam holden
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 9:41 pm

From the interview with Todd Howard, in the same article:

"It is not yet possible to combine forms of magic. It is difficult. Frost magic makes an enemy move slower, and fire does damage over time, and the fire remains on the ground for additional damage. If we would allow the player to use fire magic in one hand, and frost magic in the other, it becomes much more complex. Maybe we will implement this though, but for the time being, 'No'."


Does that sound like I think it sounds like? Flammable environmnets? Things will now burn? :D :flamethrower: :flamethrower:
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Sammygirl
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 8:41 pm

Does that sound like I think it sounds like? Flammable environmnets? Things will now burn? :D :flamethrower: :flamethrower:

Sounds like it.
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[ becca ]
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 10:07 pm

"Dragon stories (rumors of Dragons) are less prominent".....what does this mean? What is a dragon story?
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Sammi Jones
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 11:24 pm

I will enjoy the role-playing aspect more if the PC has a deeper stake in Skyrim's main quest. For example, a stake in which side wins the civil war, etc., NPCs that have close ties to the PC, or perhaps an NPC who helps you in the intro.

I didn't care two [censored] about the Blade who helped me escape from prison in Oblivion. Actually he didn't care about the PC either and only helped him to escape inadvertently. The only NPC in Oblivion that actually generated some kind of emotional response was Glarthir in the Paranoia quest, as the dialogue and voice acting was so well done that he managed to infect me with his paranoid conspiracy theory.
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Marina Leigh
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 1:34 pm

The only thing that concerns me is...



What I HOPE this means, is that it's just very Earth-like aesthetically, but that there is still a more distinct and un-earthly sense of lore and culture in the game. If it means the NPCs feel as generic, familiarly western, and earthly as they did in Cyrodiil, I will be very disappointed. Reserving judgment until I see the NPCs interacting, of course.


No problems with "low fantasy". High fantasy means we have 13 year old anorexic anime girls with swords twice as long as their height with pokemon pets following close by. And defying physics is more normal than abiding by physical laws.
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Alan Cutler
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 11:21 pm

I hope when they say "no combination of magic" that they just mean you can't have contradictory effects together, like said frost and fire. I'll be extremely disappointed if I can't combine things like frost and paralysis and such into the same spell. That's what made Morrowind, Daggerfall and Arena so much fun to play a spellcaster, the mixing and matching of different effects to make different spells.
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Tai Scott
 
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Post » Tue May 10, 2011 1:16 am

Well, Skyrim being as big as Oblivion is the biggest bummer for me. I really hated Oblivions size. It felt like I was walking around in a fishbowl.
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Vincent Joe
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 4:34 pm

I thought you could combine different spells in each hand? Is Todd saying that's not possible?



Earlier in the article, the author states that it is possible to have the same magic in both hands, and that you can have magic in the one hand, and a weapon in the other. But combining spells is not in the game, atleast, not yet, according to Howard.

Personally, from the way it is written in Dutch, I think it implies that spells can only have one effect (no more fire damage and frost damage in one spell, for example). I am not entirely sure though, because it is not specifically mentioned.
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Wanda Maximoff
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 7:42 pm

Oblivion had over 200 dungeons just so you know.

Does that count the Oblivion gates?
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mishionary
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 3:22 pm

Earlier in the article, the author states that it is possible to have the same magic in both hands, and that you can have magic in the one hand, and a weapon in the other. But combining spells is not in the game, atleast, not yet, according to Howard.

All my interest in the Mage class just faded away.
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Alyesha Neufeld
 
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Post » Tue May 10, 2011 1:59 am

No problems with "low fantasy". High fantasy means we have 13 year old anorexic anime girls with swords twice as long as their height with pokemon pets following close by. And defying physics is more normal than abiding by physical laws.

That doesn't mean that at all. High Fantasy means Morrowind. There's so much wrong with this post I can't even begin to describe it. F--
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amhain
 
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Post » Mon May 09, 2011 3:32 pm

"Dragon stories (rumors of Dragons) are less prominent".....what does this mean? What is a dragon story?


What it means is that in Oblivion, those gates were all over the place, which rendered the Main Quest so much more important than all the "side stuff." In Skyrim, it's more subtle, people hint at dragons, but there's no big metanarrative of doom that might bother you.
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Karine laverre
 
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