» Tue May 17, 2011 5:10 am 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 makes melee more fun to play."
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
This time, the game starts with your execution, approximately 200 years after the events of Oblivion. Luckily, it seems that you are more than a helpless convict.
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.
"We are working at pop-up issues, and we want to make sure that the graphics of the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 are alike. All three will look just as good, aside from the higher resolution and the anti-aliasing of the PC of course."
That's good.
"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.
