http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1161723-dutch-cover-story-interesting-info/

The Dutch Power Unlimited dropped in my mailbox today. Highlights of the 4-page article:

"There is no level cap. You will nevertheless not be able to choose all perks with one character."
I like that. There was not much point playing Fallout beyond 20. Wonder how they will do that with perks, because perks are not infinite.

"Technically speaking, Skyrim is an evolution within The Elder Scrolls, and not a revolution (but everything looks fabulous). The magic of the world that Bethesda has created is nevertheless unequivocally present."
Bethesda are masters of world-shaping. We don't need a state of the art, Crysis-like engine. Remember that it is a non-linear open world game.

"All weapons have different properties, which you can take advantage of by choosing the right perks. Maces ignore a percentage of armor, and axes have bleed damage over time.
Reminds me of World of Warcraft. Adds some diversion to the process of choosing a weapon.

"You can use fast travel to revisit places you have visited earlier."
Fast travel is in again. I would have preferred Morrowind's system, and this makes me reconsider whether I will play the game on my Xbox 360, or my PC (mods). Fast travel had a tremendous negative impact on my experience when I first played Oblivion. As a philosopher, I really disagree with the "It's optional" argument. Fast travel changes the game's narrative dynamics, and the overall immersion.

"Skyrim is approximately as big as Oblivion."
It's not much smaller, so I'm glad. It's a guess by the author, so we shouldn't act too emotional about this.

"Five big cities and more than 130 dungeons."
Can't wait to explore them all. Let's hope they are not all computer generated.

"Low-Fantasy" (Meaning the game does not look as vibrant, vivid and weird as Morrowind did, more like Oblivion) -> "Oblivion was for sure not over-the-top in terms of its style, but Skyrim should be considered low fantasy even more than its predecessor. Much of the locations look realistic, and could easily exist in our own world."
We could have expected this. I've been in Scandinavia several times, and those countries are gorgeous, especially in the northern parts. No need for alien-like environments as in Morrowind.

"The overarching narrative of the Dragons is less prominent than the 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."
This is amazing. The Oblivion Crisis was always on my mind while playing and made me feel like all those side quests I completed were absolutely redundant. This allows for more roleplaying as well.

"Dragons are not rare."
This worries me a bit. The article does not state that dragons are all over the place, but yes, they are not rare either. Consider that the previewer played the game for maybe an hour or so, and encountered 3, maybe 4 dragons to conclude that they are not rare. Might decrease their epicness and uniqueness. Dragon Age did a great job with this.

"Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there." (Once you go to a dungeon, it will remain lvl 5 when you entered it on lvl 5. This does not imply that all dungeons are level-scaled, it just confirms that dungeons don't change difficulties throughout your savegame after you have entered them.)
Confirms that level scaling is more like the Fallout series. Good stuff, but I would have preferred more static lists.

"Even in third person, animations look really good. There has been a lot of progress since Oblivion."
I've heard this before, when they previewed Oblivion. TES is a first-person experience. Once in a while, you take a screenshot of your character, or you take a glimpse of your new armor. I won't be dissapointed by bad third person animations.

"You can read in-game books in 3-D."
Amazing. I love reading books in the game, can't wait to see how this will work.

"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." "
Even more amazing. Which game featured the same kind of mechanism? World of Warcraft allowed you to "preview" your item on your character. But this is much more in-depth. Impressive.

"The Dark Brotherhood is back."
Well, I don't really care. I wouldn't have been dissapointed if it was another assassin faction. Will the Night Mother have moved from Bravil to Skyrim?

"Active blocking."
A neccessity. Play Morrowind, and equip a shield, and question yourself how you were ever able to roll a melee character.

"More traps and puzzles."
Fascinating. Best stuff about dungeon crawling.

"Main Story is approximately 20 hours. Hundreds of hours for other quests."
Bye bye life.

"Every dragon you kill will make you stronger. A piece of his soul will be transferred to yours."
Hmmm... Demon Souls? Hope it won't disrupt the balance of the game.


The article also describes how the game starts:

Spoiler Warning


I don't know what to think about this beginning. It does not allow for much roleplaying. We should know some more details before speculating about this.


There's also an interview with Todd Howard in the article. These are the highlights of that interview:

"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...)
This is just a neccessity.

"We primarily look at how we can improve facial expressions and animations, graphics-wise."
That's good, because the facial animations in Oblivion are awful.

"The game won't support Kinect. It takes too much memory."
I just buried my Zelda sword in my backyard. Too bad.

"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'.
This one is confusing. The way it is stated in Dutch might imply that it is impossible to combine different spells, because of the extra animations. This might also imply that there will be no spells with more than one effect. Not sure myself either. Would like someone of Bethesda to interpret this for us.

"Someone modded Oblivion by changing the physics of shooting an arrow. It made you shoot slower and you almost had to remain stationary to shoot, which increased the arrow's impact. We liked this mod so much, that we implemented it in Skyrim by default."
Amazing. Modders are what makes this series even more epic than it already is.

Well guys, I'm sure the main quest will be longer than 20 hours if you hunt all dragons down. Or roleplay.
Roleplay is good for you!

This is the same as FO3, as has been described previously:

I didn't see a single bummer on that list. Thanks Goalie8.

There are a few things that I'm iffy about (common dragons, "low" fantasy), but there is nothing here that warrants the sort of knee-jerk "omg ruined" reaction that we (the fans) have whenever new info comes out. A lot of it is very subjective, so I'll wait to actually play the game to make judgments on its quality.

20 hours of main quest is a lot of time. Combined with side quests and factions, I'm sure Skyrim will last at least as long as Oblivion. When you add mods into the mix, its sure to be around till the next decade.

Particularly interested in seeing how the beginning works out. Sounds juicy.

I hope those 130 dungeons don't regenerate like in Oblivion and kill one of the few remaining reasons for me to explore.

Edit: yes I know that they are locked in level, but those scaled enemies and loot may respawn. I don't want that.

So it's a good thing right?

I agree. Anyone who is going to yell out "omg ruined" before a game even comes out isn't really a fan. They are a really devoted fan/fangirl of a specific game and rage whenever something about it is changed.

I'm really concerned about the return of level scaling. I wish it could be disabled almost entirely. =/
The rest sounds good, although only 20 hours of main quest is a little disappointing. Mass Effect 2 was around 20-30 and was really really short.

I'm hoping for a completed dungeon marker. I don't want to keep stepping into dungeons I've already completed.

Not much optimism on in this thread is there? Skyrim should be full of blood and snow, and it seems like they're going to deliver. I'm a little bummed about the length of the main quest, but if that's the length they needed to make it awesome I'd rather have it short and sweet.

Reposting my updated happy/sad list, because it explains what I'm happy/sad about.
_______________________________________

Happy list :

- "You can read in-game books in 3-D."
- "More traps and puzzles." I'm very happy about this. Especially puzzles. Puzzles equals
- "Dragons are less prominent than 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."
- "Frost magic makes an enemy move slower, and fire does damage over time, and the fire remains on the ground for additional damage." I'm very happy if this means flammable environment (things will actually burn!)

- "Someone modded Oblivion by changing the physics of shooting an arrow. It made you shoot slower and you almost had to remain stationary to shoot, which increased the arrow's impact. We liked this mod so much, that we implemented it in Skyrim by default." This sounds promising. I'm happy!
-----------------------------

Sad list :

- "Skyrim is approximately as big as Oblivion." (Very very sad. I was hoping for a bigger world, where dungeons and locations were spread between greater distances. I don't like a cramped up world. And with big mountains and longer view distance I think it would be weird to almost be able to look over the entire world from a single spot... )
- "Five big cities and more than 130 unique dungeons." (I'm sad because if the world size is the same as in Oblivion and there are 130 dungeons... the world will be really cramped up. I'm very sad of this )

- "You can use fast travel to revisit places you have visited earlier." (I'm very very sad here too . Should have been a Morrowind transportation system as a base; and Oblivion fast travel implemented as an option as well... so that people can choose. And people really want to choose.)
- "Main Story is approximately 20 hours." (I'm kind of sad here. I was hoping for a longer main quest. I don't remember how long Oblivion's was though. But... well I was hoping for more (but then again, the main quest shouldn't stretch out just to make it longer. The most important thing is, of course, that it's an awesome story). Kind of sad here, but maybe kind of happy if the main quest is good :unsure:

- "Dragons are not rare." (This can be very vague. But I'm kind of sad, but perhaps not. I don't wanna see dragons too much. I would be hoping that maybe in 5-8 hours of gameplay during the middle of the game, I see 1-2 dragons max.

Well,yeah,mods are to rescue the game again it seems like.

I wonder if they released a game engine and a CS would it have a better income/effort ratio? =D

Mass Effect is a linear RPG, there wasn't really anything else to do BUT the main quest. I know there are sidequests, but not as many as any Elder Scrolls game.

This is what gstaff said about books...

"Just to be clear... no glasses required ?

You'll simply have a more 3D look at the book where the pages turn... rather than it just being a flat image."

Didn't the pages turn in oblivion?

Nothing about any of this information worries me. All it tells me is that they are going to make use of Skyrim's verticality to spread content out. The world doesn't just have to be massive in two dimensions to not feel cramped. There's a whole third dimension of height.

The only thing that disappointed me at all about this was the statement that we can't fire two spell effects at the same time. I know they said it in the context of not being able to fire one from each hand, but it would seem to imply (unless I misunderstand) that we cannot combine spell effects in custom spells either. Unless the secondary effects (slowing, continual damage) that they talked about are somehow removed or we choose between them when we combine effects to create spells. So I am curious as to whether spell creation is even in at all this time. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Overall it sounds good to me, though. As long as they bring the lore, story, atmosphere, and Nord culture, I'll be more than happy.

What they probably meant by "low" fantasy is that we won't get an alien world like Vvardenfell was. With a bestiary being a mixed between animals we have on Earth and common fantasy monsters like the ice trolls. That's pretty much what I was expecting and that's how I saw Skyrim to be like since it existed.

20 hours is pretty much how long Oblivion was. Morrowind would be about 20 hours as well if you remove the forced walking time between locations that don't have transportation.
So yep, that's great as well.

130 dungeons is about the same as Oblivion. Though hopefully there won't be too many of those near roads. In Oblivion, you could get around 3-4 dungeons on the road between 2 cities that are already close to each other.


Thanks for the article!





That would be a big failure.
The number of successful modding teams in Bethesda modding history are few. Very few.
The rest all shatter with disinterest at some point during the development.

How come some dutch magazine I have never heard of was given this info and not gameinformer, can someone provide a link to the story

Haha so they liked Duke Patricks mod enough to try to implement it in the core game... That's awesome! I'm worried about the low fantasy and quick travel (it was pretty vague admittedly) but I'm over all really hyped for this.

No. Making a game is hard work, much harder than modding one. If Bethesda released only the engine and let modders go to town we'd likely never see any results.

Two additions to the main post:

"Technically speaking, Skyrim is an evolution within The Elder Scrolls, and not a revolution (but everything looks fabulous). The magic of the world that Bethesda has created is nevertheless unequivocally present."

"All weapons have different properties, which you can take advantage of by choosing the right perks. Maces ignore a percentage of armor, and axes have bleed damage over time.

This. Quests and other activities outside of the main quest pale in comparison between mass effect and tes...

I should make this clear:
The main quest in itself doesn't really matter to me... it will only be an slight Indicator for the overall-storytelling in Skyrim.
Well, Storytelling is still considered an important Element to any RPGs... so it's not a franchise only thing.
... and it's very important for immersion.

"Skyrim is approximately as big as Oblivion."

Best news this week. I'm so happy. No more Smallowind or Smallout 3. :celebration:

Oblivion had over 200 dungeons.