And an AWFULL excuse to be able to kill dragons.

So a bit like the matrix
without reading the article this is all I can feel
:sick:

By now I have sorted a few things out and here is my personal prediction for the game so far:

gameworld: very good (With all the envoirment stuff: Sound great! Yay!)
gameplay: good (Fast travel, "Bullet Time" Stuff, "Perks" and such, that does not bother me at all... the game can still be good.)
combat: good (It'll be a very action oriented game.)
rpg-elements: less (The whole classical rpg stuff had been cut out... I like that classical stuff, so I'm a bit sad.)
quests: less (Well, quests hand crafted and spec. tailored for the situation may be better...)
story / lore: medium - good (kill dragons and fight the time god Alduin... well, if done right, it could be epic!)

i dont see how that is flame-worthy, the first part is blunt, but entirely true.

the second part is pretty much opinion so i cant comment there

How is it a gimmick?

Forget every other use of "bullet time" in other games and movies.

Why isn't it feasible for someone to magically slow down the world around them for short periods of time? After all it is a fantasy game, in a world created by Bethesda. They are just simply expanding and continuing established lore.

I quite like the idea of a simpler levelling system where you do actually just improve at those things you do. generally I think it looks quite good, although obviously it didn't live up to my immense built up vision of what I imagined tes 5 would be like, and I do hope (and also do actually have a bit of faith) that the level scaling will be better. I know as soon as I get it I'll think it's the most amazing thing ever created for at least the first couple of weeks, if my reaction to any other tes game is anything to go by.

I love the new stuff!

I don't understand why people are so upset about the "bullet time"/ slow down Dragon Shout. Dragon shouts are not skills. They are 20 super powered/unique abilities that are probably limited to once per day or long cooldowns to balance them. I think these DS are awesome! They add even more variety on top of all the cool abilities I will have as a mage!

Quite frankly, I cant wait to find out what the other Dragon Shouts do. It seems like we get one for defeating a dragon, so I think it will be cool to have to beat something that uses it against you before you get to use it yourself. So far the article confimed, a line of sight teleport for stealth users, a push back force scream thing, and dragon assist shout. Thats only 4 of 20!

I agree, and didn't it say that you were a dragonborn also? I think the dragon shouts are great!

Perks, cooldown.
Single player MMO anyone ?
Only lacking feature is skilltree... hummm Dragon shouts ?

It seems to me that there isn't any really good reason - as yet - to be sceptical about Skyrim. I agree that the focus of the GI article is somewhat regrettable. Too much on the combat, very little on quest design, what subtleties there might be in the main story, faction storylines, the conversation system (is it still the wiki style?), etc. You might argue that the mere fact that GI didn't talk about these things is evidence that they haven't improved from Oblivion. But there are plenty of less pessimistic explanations for why those things weren't discussed. The other things like fast travel, a few more skills removed, etc. don't strike me as huge problems - for instance, even though there's no Mysticism skill, we know that the (previously) Mysticism skills are still around; not to mention that the perks will hopefully make skills deeper and more interesting (the case for this has been made persuasively by rabish12, Arilias, and AlduinReborn in this thread http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1156340-a-little-rant-on-18-skills/ probably the most sensible and clear-headed discussion yet on the overhauled levelling and skill system). Conversely, the crafting options don't strike me as huge benefits.

To my mind, perhaps the most noteworthy things to take away from the article, and which give me greatest hope, are the more varied environments. A major aspect of TES gameplay is the exploration element, so it's nice to see that get some better attention than it did in Oblivion.

So I'm still cautiously optimistic, but I think it's best to reserve judgment until we know about the cornerstone features of any good RPG - quest design, story line, guilds/factions, dialogue & conversation, lore.

i am veeeery excited about randomly generated quests, sounds like roleplaying gold to moi

YES!

It feels like Bethesda is going for a slightly tighter, more focused game that has incredible potential in terms of replay value, from elements such as these quests, perks, etc. If they can nail it (and I think they will at least get close), the results could be brilliant.

Anyone knows if they got rid of attributes like strength and endurance and the like? I read somewhere you only get to improve health, magicka or stamina at level up, so are all stats gone? I hope they implemented something like those leveling mods from Oblivion, and attributes increase automatically, otherwise its kind of a big issue.

yeah im pretty sure attributes have been cut, and seeing how popular GCD was on morrowind, i am guessing they have somewhat gone down that path for classes

We don't know if they got rid of any primary attributes. The article doesn't say that you only improve health, magicka, or stamina at level up - it just says that you have the option to choose which of those you want to increase.

Excitedly disappointed is how I'd put it.

So far, it just seems like a dumbed down Oblivion mixed with Fallout 3 and subpar graphics (let's hope those screenshots were from the console version). It has some MUCH NEEDED improvements here and there (which is why I'm still somewhat excited), but overall with skills being cut, story being very cookie-cutter so far, and mechanics we don't need (perks per level and bullet time), I might just save this for when it sells for $20 on Steam.

I hope what we see of it at E3 will change my mind though.

Well, GCD didn't remove attributes, just made them increase according to your level skill right? They were still there and still affected the player character. Its kind of extreme to fix the problems with the previous leveling system by removing stats, in my opinion.

Indeed. Chief among them is that Game Informer itself authored the article and is catering its contents to their clientele, which is likely to have less of an interest in the non-combat options of the game than those amassed here. Oh, sure, they will have tried to be expansive in the amount of information they gave, but for the average player, combat and how it plays out is their main consideration.

I dont have the mag yet, will pick it up in store once it gets there.

Everything i have read on the forums thus far is very impressive. Combat was repetitive and boring sometimes in obliv and morrow. I like this hand customization stuff!

As far as the 18 skills, if handled right, great! some skills were redundant/pointless in the previous games. Morrowind: Short blade and long blade (ect) that imo was bad. true in real life there are diffrent techniques, but this is a game, if 1 min i want to use a short and the next a long, i shouldnt be penalized. In oblivion, speech and merchantile should have been the same, same with jumping and running.

So far im impressed

Ah, yes. Knew I was forgetting something: my reaction to the article!

I'm surprised by a good many of the features (random quests and dragon shouts, for example), mostly in a good way. Some seem limiting (I can still hope that there's more to the dragons than just being big baddies), while others seem quite promising (including, surprisingly, the skill system with its variable specializations). It sounds less to me like a continuation on any theme, as some were thinking it would be to Oblivion as Oblivion was to Morrowind, and more of a curveball that attempts to take the series in a slightly different direction altogether. I am excited to see more in the months to come.

I've actually lost interest in the game, now that we have this info.

i am extremely worried...

18 skills? i suppose i can get over that as long as we get the large variety of weapons and armor like we had in morrowind - spears, crossbows, dai-katanas, maybe some imported armor like bonemold and the like?

i can get over mysticism being removed as long as all the spells from its school are put into the other schools... we NEED soul trapping and all those spells such as life detect, good for thieves... or spell absorption, good for those born under the atronach, etc...

but dragons being regular threats, attacking towns? that worries me... i explained the situation in another thread.

the title of dragonborn being handed out to dragon hunters? i thought it was exclusive to the royal blood of alessia's descendants and the like?

im worried about quite a few things... but the dual-wielding sounds really awesome, im curious if we can finally have left-handed warriors - example: weapon in left hand, shield in the right hand

...also, just out of curiosity, would we be able to have a shield in each hand? that would probably be useless, but it'd be kinda funny.

What info?

In reference to the GI article on Skyrim...some people received the magazine today.

Ahh.. *searches on google for screens* >>