Good stuff Goalie8. Thanks for the detailed write-up.



Is that the amazing Duke Patrick's Combat Archery mod?

You're confusing the literary terms with their meaning in video games.

I worry that Dragons will be cluttering the sky like cliffracers were in Morrowind...

I don't think lighting is really a big factor in determining how fantastical something is.

Oblivion's lighting was plain unrealistic. At least we can be almost certain that Skyrim improves here.

Can't vote because there is nothing I dislike.

Anyway, regarding the player start

Yes. Did you?

Super delighted and happy about everything new we learned today.

Especially the map being Oblivion-size. :celebration:

Why is Morrowind considered high fantasy?

Also Im happy with the fact that the dragons wont be super rare. Its different and hopefully works well. Thsts my favorite

Better animations, and puzzles adn traps are also a great thing.

No offense, but speak for yourself. I play exclusively in third person view, I would be extremely disappointed by poor performance in 3rd person. Oblivion is rather unplayable for me without proper 3rd person and animation mods. This is one of the worst areas in Oblivion and is in need of huge improvement in Skyrim.

"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."

Duke Patricks SCA Combat Archery ?

In the other thread someone said active blocking may not be the same as Oblivion, for example it could be more like the deadly combat mod, you just cant hold block passively for ever, you have to time it better with the attack, was this speculation? Can the op say anything more about the blocking?

Edit:Based on the new GI about combat, it is that way, neat.

Don't worry about that. Each soul you collect makes you more powerful. There will be a limit. Also, if you are constantly traveling you will bump into more dragons (as the magazine previewer probably did to witness as much as possible) where as the pace most people play at will be much different because they are not in a rush/have limited time with the game.

Considering how half of the actual map in Oblivion was blocked off by those invisible barriers, the game itself is much smaller than it looks on the map. Fallout 3 was around the same size, but you could go almost anywhere within the map's coverage, not to mention the Metro tunnels I never fully explored. It's as if that game had it's own underworld, really.

Thankfully, Skyrim itself fills in more of the map sqaure than Cyrodiil does, and I'm assuming with all the ancient cities, ruins, caves, mines and whatnot, we may just get an expansive underworld as well.

Funny that you mark an erea as "Spoiler" wille this whole tread is one big Spoil.

Ive took me a subription on Gameinformer because of februari issue of Skirim i couldnt resist it , since i still dont have it and reading this i feel like it was al in vain too do it

Yes, it states that "Active Blocking makes melee more fun to play." That's it though. From that passage, you can conclude that it is not the same as in Oblivion.

Somehow I think they're gonna work it in a way that you can make up a reason why your character is in that situation.

I'm curious to know where you're basing this from.

I believe you are correct. It doesn't make sense for it to be any sort of vision/dream/flash-forward because it's already been confirmed that you are a prisoner.

I'm hoping it has something to do with the civil war.

I think Todd's comments about spell combinations have been misunderstood quite a bit, insofar as spell creation and the casting mechanics we already expect are concerned.

Consider: when you equip a fire spell with a duration of > 0, cast it at an enemy, then equip a frost spell, and cast that at the same enemy, what just happened? An enemy was affected by a fire effect and a frost effect at the same time. Unless Bethesda have implemented a complex "dispel/null" system governing which effects can or can't ever affect a single actor simultaneously, then Todd's comment says nothing about the limitations of spell "equipping" or of spell creation.

Having said that, his example then doesn't make much sense anyway, because unless I'm right about the complex "dispel" system, I fail to see why a combined fire & frost spell using two hands to cast would present a more problematic scenario than simply casting a separate fire, and then frost spell at a single creature.

Hmm...

Some developers have said it takes up to a third of the power...that's 33%...

Sorry, but you're assuming the gaming journalist was aware the "video games vs literature" distinction in the term, which you seem to have invented in these threads.

Never before have I (or anyone else) witnessed your "JRPG vs WRPG" interpretation of high fantasy vs low fantasy. This idea of yours is far, far from standard acceptance in the gaming journalism biz.

I'm not saying you can't make up your own terms, or even that they don't make sense, but I'm sure most writers still adhere to the classic interpretations of low and high fantasy.

This would be ideal - I'm hoping the province has some fairly dangerous (if not outright impassable) mountain formations so that travel paths are less linear like Vvardenfell, lending the game a larger and more expansive feel. One thing which really adds to a game's atmosphere, to me, is the inability to see everything at once: the foggy skies and steep hills in Morrowind kept everything beyond the horizon an utter mystery. Nothing was more disillusioning to me in Oblivion than turning around somewhere in the Jerall Mountains and being able to see the dungeon I just fled from and several neighboring ones.

I'd love to have extensive underground passageways and the like beneath the mountains, which would be a faster means of getting around but equally dangerous.

I have witnessed this high vs low fantasy. I would call JRPGs very very high fantasy, and WRPGs are definitely lower.

I was hoping the variation between weapons and they seem to do just that. Imagine the fun combining different perks and weapons together. This time around you might actually feel that you are that big warhammer swinging skullcrushing orc.

"There is no level cap. You will nevertheless not be able to choose all perks with one character."
"Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there."
These two work together. I would have preferred a level cap and completely static world. Some would say that the fun goes out of the game when you hit the cap, but I've never felt that way, just so long as the game has lots of challenges appropriate for the level cap. Still, it can't possibly be as horrible as Oblivion level scaling.

"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.
Sounds fantastic!

"You can use fast travel to revisit places you have visited earlier."
I can only hope that a Morrowind-style travel network is ALSO in, in which case I don't care much one way or the other about the Oblivion-style option. Otherwise, probably delay buying game until mod is out... and be a little less optimistic about the prospect of the game as a whole, insofar as design decisions like this presumably reflect more hand-holding generally.

"Five big cities and more than 130 dungeons."
Somebody define 'big'... 130 dungeons sounds like fun!

"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."
Morrowind felt alien and realistic at the same time... it was in some strange way cohesive. There seemed to be an economy, cities built around mining, not all mines were full of monsters, there were competing factions, that kind of thing. If they're avoiding 'alien', I hope they at least hit 'realistic'. Oblivion didn't feel that real, even though the setting was closer to our world visually.

"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."
Brilliant. Means that you can have a character concentrating on sidequests without feeling stupid.

"Active blocking."
Expected. Hope the EFFECT of blocking, if the block itself is timed reasonably, is better linked to your 'block' skill. Low block skill = you take a lot of damage.

"More traps and puzzles."
Great! Especially the puzzles. Hope traps are also much more lethal.