I was most captured by the ancient ruin in one of the screenshots. I very much want to explore that.

Hm, I hope they add rain as well.

Oh well, I made another thread to compile all the information of Skyrim after the behest of someone in the other Got the Magazine threads, where I went into explaining them but it seems that you have quite a bit more info I hadn't added yet and I'll just post the info from the other thread here so people can read the descriptions

Features of Skyrim:

Combat- The combat system has once again been overhauled. Now you may choose what you place in each hand, whether it be a sword and shield, dagger and sword, two swords or even a weapon in one hand and a spell in another. Assaulting with your shield is now apart of melee combat, being able to shield bash them to stagger them to give yourself an advantage in combat. Spells can now be dedicated to a certain hand meaning you can fight with your left hand aflame while your right hand is charged with lightning. Ranged combat has been improved by increasing the damage bows deal significantly, so much so that it is possible for one to one shot an npc from stealth but also so the draw time of your bow has been increased. Ranged combat shouldn't be able to be abused from stealth like in Oblivion due to the fact that NPCs are FAR more intelligent than any TES game ever and possibly any game to date, we shall see.

AI- The AI for Skyrim is a vast improvement over that of Oblivion. The AI will now react to you killing people. If you kill a shopkeeper they will react in a proper way to it. Also it is said that if you drop a sword on the ground near NPCs they will react to that as well, such as a child might try to give you the sword back or two men will fight over it. If anyone has any additional information to add to this please post below.

Environment- The environment is that of a mountainous range area close to that of Alaska. This area is also said to be inhabited by the usual wolves and other creatures but also trolls, Sabertoothed tigers and Mammoths. Also there will be giant spider(s) in Skyrim as well. The draw distances have been greatly increased allowing for little to no grid pattern or low resolution distance land. Also it has been stated that wherever you can see you can go in Skyrim.

Plot- The plot is that you are possibly the last Dragonborn, a group characterized by their ability to hunt dragons. The Septim line was a prominent Dragonborn line protected by the Dragonguards which eventually became the blades. After the death of the Septim line, the Blades were hunted down and killed one by one and now are almost completely gone. The return of the dragons was foretold in the Elder Scrolls and was ushered in by the destruction of the Staff of Chaos, the creation of the Numidium, the events at Red Mountain and the Oblivion Crisis. The last event to unfold before the dragons return was the people of Skyrim turning against each other which is happening at the beginning of the game. Dragons start to appear in greater and greater numbers as the game goes on and will eventually culminate with Alduin possibly coming into the world, but we have no idea yet.

Graphics- Skyrim features True shadows, more realistic faces on NPCs and more distinction between the races. The normal creatures that you are used to have been updated graphically and look much more appealing (especially Trolls). There will be HDR and many other environmental effects that are at the cutting edge of gaming now and including greatly updated water effects.

Creatures- So far it has been shown that we will have wolves, trolls, giant spiders and of course dragons. There is also talk of Saber-toothed tigers, Mammoths, Werewolves and giants. The most shocking creature of all is monstrous and unimaginable....Children!

New leveling system and Stat system- You no longer choose between Major and Minor skills anymore. Now there are 18 skills you can choose to level from but you now level from skill in a different way. You no move along to another level by leveling skills like before but the lower the level the less it attributes to the leveling process, for example, by leveling your Destruction from 9-10, it will give less to leveling than say leveling Destruction from 30-31. I will update this section when I get the names of the 18 skills if they are all revealed and if not I will list the ones that are revealed so far.

Information that may need a source- There are talks of creature level scaling still in Skyrim but we will not know how well they will scale with the new leveling system. There are talks of becoming a werewolf and also becoming a vampire is a very likely thing but it has not been confirmed. I have also yet to confirm that there will be essential NPCs but I'm fairly certain there are though I think they will handle them better on the second go around. It also seems that the HUD may be completely absent while in first-person mode.

That's just stupid. First, they've nothing in common. Second, DA:O is a full, quality RPG with nothing wrong to deserve to be compared with anything, and third, can you cook/farm/mine/woodcut/blacksmith in DA:O?

I meant the magazine. I'm assuming the people with it now are subscribers. Traditionally stores get mags a bit later.

Hopefully the smaller towns will be more varied and interesting, like Morrowind's. Oblivion had 8 cities, but everything outside them, apart from Hackdirt, were muddy wooden huts with three people and no services save the odd inn.

Any word about lock, levitation, jump, slowfall, mark/recall? If it's truly open cities then they have no excuse not to bring those back.

So, dialogue automatically opens whenever you get close to an NPC? So then I suppose you can move around while in dialogue and dialogue occurs in real time? Otherwise, it would be VERY annoying.

And dialogue opening for enemies? That doesn't really make sense, especially when you want to engage in combat.

Features of Skyrim:

Combat- The combat system has once again been overhauled. Now you may choose what you place in each hand, whether it be a sword and shield, dagger and sword, two swords or even a weapon in one hand and a spell in another. Assaulting with your shield is now apart of melee combat, being able to shield bash them to stagger them to give yourself an advantage in combat. Spells can now be dedicated to a certain hand meaning you can fight with your left hand aflame while your right hand is charged with lightning. Ranged combat has been improved by increasing the damage bows deal significantly, so much so that it is possible for one to one shot an npc from stealth but also so the draw time of your bow has been increased. Ranged combat shouldn't be able to be abused from stealth like in Oblivion due to the fact that NPCs are FAR more intelligent than any TES game ever and possibly any game to date, we shall see.

Well, at least we know 3 of them are known by lore to be *MASSIVE* - Solitude, Winterhold and Whiterrun (said to be "the Imperial City of Skyrim", if I remember correctly). I hope they live to it's expectations...

So, dialogue automatically opens whenever you get close to an NPC? So then I suppose you can move around while in dialogue and dialogue occurs in real time? Otherwise, it would be VERY annoying.

And dialogue opening for enemies? That doesn't really make sense, especially when you want to engage in combat.

I was most captured by the ancient ruin in one of the screenshots. I very much want to explore that.

The game eventually logs a huge storehouse of knowledge about how you've played, and subsequently tailors content to your capabilities and experiences. Entering a city, a young woman might approach you and beg you to save her daughter from kidnappers. The game will look at the nearby dungeons you've explored, automatically set the mission in a place you've never visited, and designate opponents that are appropriately matched to your strengths and weaknesses.

"Water flows"

Can I get some clarification on this please? Flowing water would imply that it uses a physics engine to dynamically move across terrain, and that by dropping something large in its path (or lots of small things) you could divert its flow. It implies you could stand in a stream and watch it flow around your legs. Is this true? Does the magazine state that? Or are you looking at a picture of water and guessing that it flows, in the same way streams in Oblivion 'flowed'?

This is a big thing for me if it's real! I just don't want to get my hopes up. Thought this was beyond the current console gen.

This game was kinda in development before Dragon age...so yeah

Entering a city, a young woman might approach you and beg you to save her daughter from kidnappers.