I am "not buying" his explanation.

#1 We don't know whether there is no need to persuade people, just that there is no minigame. Also, removing a feature that was influenced by another removed feature (personality) is not really a good solution, is it? That's like removing health because you won't be able to take damage anymore.

#2 Yes, luck affected everything. In the new system, I wont' have the option to chose something that affects everything. Even if you didn't care about luck, why remove something instead of fixing it?

#3 That's an interesting assumption, but we (sadly) have no indication for that. Besides, they would have to balance that as well. If I chose an agile body, would I be weaker with melee weapons? What's the downside for mages?

#4 All perks are tied to skills. Where would you put perks that affect your running speed and jumping capabilites, with athletics and acrobatics gone?

We'd already heard about that new system though. I was hoping to hear they'd done away with the oblivion/morrowind personality-less topic type things and gone for a New Vegas approach, which, surely it was in the demo but these articles are all pretty poor on details. I've read four with no mention of whether its like:

Golden Dragon Claw
Theft
Rumours

or

'Some hoker stole your dragon claw? I can get it for you.'
'I'll get your dragon claw back. For a price' etc

People seem to be forgetting about perks and are just crying over no attributes. I am certain there will be perks to increase total encumberance(like strength) increase movement speed ( like speed) I liked the fallout perk which gave 10% movement speed more than oblivions way of getting faster was by running for absolutley ages.

THis magicka/stamina/health choice per level may lead me to reconsider my sword/magic character. A shame.

Pete clarified on twitter that attributes are tied into perks, health, magicka, and stamina now.

Curious to know how your speed increases

#1 Have they said they've removed speechcraft? If not that's the thing you would want to focus on to replace personality.

#2 Well apparently Bethesda felt a need to remove it. Luck is when something good happens to you or someone else. It doesn't make since to raise your "luck" attribute so you can get luckier. Luck is something noone can control, it breaks immersion because when you sit down and think about it how do you get luckier? Most people in RPGs that feature luck agree that luck is too broad to be usefull.

#3 Yes they would have to balance that well. I'm not gonna make up some system that would work well, because that's Bethesda's job (If they're even gonna do body types.).

#4 Since I don't know the list of skills in the game I can't really discern where they would go, If I had a confirmed list I could probably explain where they could go.

Is it just me or does it seem like Beth is going for a lot of flash this time? And I don't mean graphics.

-Gone is the 2D paper-like map. Instead there's a fully 3D map that you can zoom around this way and that and look at all the little stuff.

-Every time you raise a skill, it's accompanied with a fanfare and announcements about the skill-up and how it affects your level progression.

-Rather than just presenting the skills to you, each skill gets it's own shiny picture that's listed horizontally.

-Rather than a list of items, each one gets it's own fully rendered and interactive picture.

Is anyone else worried about how all this will affect the ease and rapid access of information? Instead, we're going to be bogged down sorting through pictures and images, zooming and panning camera views, etc?

Perks.

There are no attributes, but I'm very sure that the speed and athletics can be increased by perks, like in Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

OH MY GOD that Orc looks fantastic. The Khajiit looks good too, pretty much same as always though.

Notice the chipped fang on the Orc!

He also seems to be wearing a never before seen suit of armor, too.

I didn't liked the removal of attributes in the beginning, but I'm more acceptable now.
Attributes didn't really added to much in TES games anyway, there were no clear attribute checks like in Fallout, like you need X strength to open this door or you need X intelligence to understand what this person said. They only contributed to main stats like health, magicka and stamina, while the rest of them only contributed to skills. Higher strength means higher damage, that's the same as a higher weapon skill. Higher speed means you're faster, that's the same as a higher athletics skill. Higher personality means better diplomacy, that's the same as a bonus on speechcraft.

As for the lack of athletics and acrobatics, I'm unsure, but I can see the positive side. I was afraid with no major skills, you would level up way too fast just by running around and jumping, this fixes it. The article also says that the removed skills will return in the form of perks, so hopefully the dodge skill, and higher jumps will be in Skyrim still.

I wouldn't be surprised if races would have some differing static attributes, like Khajiit would be faster than a Nord, but a Nord could do higher damage with melee weapons.

I think this was confirmed in another article

A couple of things I noticed in that Orc screenshot:

• Non-symmetrical eyes (The Orc's right eye seems to be wounded/scarred/crusted over)
  
• Facial Tatoos
  
• Chipped tooth

Looks like there are ALLOT more options for customizing characters!

EDIT: Additionally, check out the background in the Khajiit screenshot - Morrowind style lamps/candles. Let's hope we can carry/wield them once again, I wasn't much of a fan of Oblivion's universal style of torch.

So apparently, while we're still fighting with swords and axes and bows and arrows, someone has perfected the art of 3D GPS navigation? Interesting...

Great Article I love hearing about the Zombified Nords. I'm not worried about the Attributes being removed and it's about time that they removed Athletics and Acrobatics especially under this system where they will lead to abuse or leveling up randomly. Attributes isn't a big deal and it's a good thing that they are gone I'll explain why.

Strength- Strength basically deals with Weapon Damage and Encumberence. Weapon Damage can be just focused on the Weapon Skills instead of the attribute. Encumberence well I'm guessing they'll have a base encumberence that you can raise over time with Perks or it'll be catagorized in with either Health or Stamina.

Intelligence- The Magicka Stat will deal with how many points you have so INT isn't needed.

Willpower- Stamina Basically replaces this and Magicka will probably deal with the Magic Regeneration.

Endurance- Health is basically going to be the same thing as Endurance so again it isn't needed.

Agility- Bow damage will be focused with Archery so Agility isn't needed. Stagger will probably be catagorized with Stamina.

Speed- They'll be a default run speed amount like Fallout 3 and with Athletics gone it isn't needed. You might be able to run faster with Perks, Possible Dragon Shout or Armor effects.

Personallity- The Speechcraft skill or it's equal will replace this with no problems, same goes for merchantile. Illusion will be catagorized with the other magic spells.

Luck- Useless attribute in Oblivion all it affected was higher chances at the arena.

So as you can see they had to get rid of Attributes in order to use this system. Basically Health replaces Endurance, Magicka replaces Intelligence, and Stamina replaces Willpower. Speed is at a set amount, Personallity is gone and probably will be focused on The Speechcraft skill or it's equilitent, The Radiant Story replaces luck, and the Weapon Skills replace Strength/Agillity

That could be, there's so many articles in such a short time, I'm still reading

The reason why attributes made sense: You could train in different weapon skills and become stronger overall. So picking up another weapon than the one you are skilled in won't leave you helpless. When training Alteration, I would also improve my Destruction, etc.
Perks are the opposite to this. They are specialized bonuses. Thus, skillbound perks can never replace attributes. It just doesn't work.

Also, almost every useful enchanted item came with an attribute bonus. All those are gone now.
Of course, you could say "well, instead of adding 20 Speed, why not just add faster running speed directly?".
I reply, add what to what?
If there is no (visible) variable that tells you how fast you can run, how will I know how much better I get?
If it says "+20% running speed", why replace it with Speed in the first place?

There is no reason to remove attributes. Replacing them with perks is insufficient and removes content from the game.

I'm wondering who's the statue in the background of the Khajiit picture. I'm hoping it's Shor/Lorkhan.

Makes it seem not so bad, but i'd still be interested in some mods to bring em back.

"Every item is receiving a 3D model; you can examine each in your inventory. While this is a nice visual touch, it servers a grander purpose: Bethesda can use item design for quests."

From the gamepro article. I think it's a massive pro if you actually have to examine certain items to see what they're used (or useful) for.

As for the demands of all this extra 'flash' - wouldn't one of these articles have mentioned slow loading times for the menu?

It sounds like theyve taken much of the traditional role playing mechanics out of the game to make it simpler. Im guessing it will play just like Fallout 3, but with swords and magic, instead of.. oh hell Im half expecting to see guns in the game.

I keep trying to be cautious, but its not working. I AM EXCITE :drool:

I don't think Removing Attributes removes content from the game rather it simplifies it and makes it easier to use. How does it make sense to have the strength attribute when the Weapon Skill does the same thing. Same goes for Agility why would we need it when we have the Archery skill that does the same thing and Stamina can deal with the Staggering part of Agility.

The Elder Scrolls 5

it will not feel like an ES-Game
it will not feel like an RPG

if you don't expect these two points you will be happy with an OpenWorldAction-game