I thought I'd post this thread after watching a fair bit of Skyrim's videos and looking at the art. It seems to me that the region will be very mountainous and hilly which could obstruct the player's view. For me view distance played a large part in Oblivion and I spent most of my time modifying the game so that it looked as good as possible while still retaining a distance at which I could see things realistically appearing. I was wondering what kind of thoughts others had in terms of the Elder Scrolls games and how they feel an engine performs or affects their time in the game.

I always hate seeing object pop into view. Modern games spoil me with their fancy graphics. Maybe a few hours of nethack will make me not care about graphics again.

Graphics have never really had a huge impact on my gaming, however what I see does. So for me I try to maximize the amount of objects within my vision regardless of their level of detail. I looked up nethack and would agree that ASCII graphics are fairly humbling. Dwarf fortress was an interesting experience for me to say the least.

I have to confess that without good graphics I am not likely to finish a game. I know this is cheap, and I don't really understand it, but guess thats just how it goes. I'm stoked that Todd mentioned awhile back that they have increased draw distances and worked on popping issues.

I prefer not to be able to notice many objects popping into view. Oblivion seemed to handle this fine for my taste until my character became too fast for it through leveling up and enchanted armor.

I prefer to run through TES games at break neck speeds, or jump through them in the case of Morrowind, but I can tolerate slow background and object load times far better than reduced FPS. THAT svckS!!!!

Well I loved Morrowind even though you couldn't see very far away because of the fog (comp won't run MGE and I first played it on Xbox). Would not really bother me if draw distance in Skyrim was comparable to Oblivion but I know it will be much better!

I grew up with text games and then games like Might and Magic 1 where you walked down a corridor and combats just started with no warning, the first thing you see is the combat screen with a crappy image of the monster. So whatever I get is gravy IMO. Still does anyone here actually expect a bad draw distance in this day and age?

I have played games for so long I dont realy care. But I must say when standing around nibbling on a ding dong and watching the sky.. it realy helps to see far. Makes it just feel much more nifty,

I'm a bit worried not about draw range but the transition from low-mid-high texturing. Objects popping into view or into a higher texture does bother me and the picture with the lake if you look across to the grass you will see the grass there is a lower texture. I hope for the PC they make these distances fully adjustable so that in when the game first comes out I can enjoy it and 3 years later when all the DLC and expansions are released I can buy them together and run maxed out on a graphics card 3 generations from today's.

I play Oblivion at max settings and it still looks wonderful to me. Just earlier today, I had finished the Caught in the Hunt quest and was heading back to the boat to Bravil and I looked up and could see the Imperial City, despite how extremely far away it is. I'm not concerned about this, personally.

Yeah, that's the way it is for me. I hate seeing things pop into view, but I don't mind low res textures and stuff.

Dwarf Fortress is one of the best things I've ever played. :thumbsup:

It won't be as bad as Oblivion.

View distance doesn't affect immersion for me... heck, some of the Silent Hill games are easily among the most immersive games I've played

The last one, absolutely. There's nothing I hate more graphically in Oblivion than enormous ruins suddenly popping into existence in the middle of a valley that was empty just a moment ago. If I can't see the ruin, I shouldn't be able to see the valley. If I can see the valley, I should be able to see the ruin too. I don't really care that much how they deal with it, just so long as they deal with it.

Fortunately the popping and lower draw distance looks to be reduced in Skyrim. Look at these Skyrim/Oblivion comparison shots of distant objects.
http://download2.zenimax.com/akqacms/files/tes/screenshots/LakeMountains_wLegal.jpg Skyrim
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c209/dev_akm/oblivion/oto/noise/QTP3_BT2048_KMd_01.jpg Oblivion

it really does depend, how far you can see is now determined by the weather, if its a clear sunny day you be able to tree and landscape way off in the distance, if its raining or snowing your not gonna be able to see all that far.

OB has very very very bad and wolf appear out of nowhere and disappear again if you cross the distance line, I saw it with my character pretty close up (wasn't there before), I backed away to be able to get in a few more shots with my bow before it reaches me.. And it disappeared. DAMMIT! No more of that thank you, if my arrow flies further than I can see it's bad.

I think the dynamic cloud/fog particle system along with the new gradient view distance alleviates any immersion problems from previous games.

Looking at the screenshots it seems they've found a balance between Morrowind's pea soup fog and Oblivion's OMFGICANSEEITALL fishbowl world, it's pretty cool to see the Imperial city from all over the land but it got old after the first 20 hours.

I played Morrowind for the first time recently, using MGE to push back the fog a little bit was really cool, you could see a good distance but still keep the mystery, Vvardenfell feels like a huge place simply because you can't see or get to it all.

Fallout 3 struck a decent balance, I'm not worried about Skyrim's view distance.

As PC gamer I maxed View Distance in Morrowind and Oblivion as well as enhance view with graphic improvement mods.
But I don't care much about graphic it modable and changeable, gameplay, dialogues and quests, design almost have nothing with graphic they must be well done first instead of graphic, but according to screens Skyrim looks awesome now, distance view in vanila Skyrim almost at the same level as in moded Oblivion, rocky landscapes looks very natural, thats fog at mountains make them look really good and I think hide graphical flaws as well, according to trailer there will be more weather effects like drifting snow at edges, water was also improved only animated texture on river was strange but thats can be moded simply.

My sense of immersion is weak, I'm not even sure what the big deal that people keep talking about is. :tongue:


That said, I'm not a big fan of close range pop-in. Unfortunately, I tend to get stuck with it, because my graphics card is also weak, so my "view distance" settings for various things in OB/FO3/FO:NV are all quite low.

(Like, the zoom-in when you go to aim in the Fallout games, can bring an enemy who's marked on my compass, into view.)


Yeah, I'd like a higher view range. But it has nothing to do with "immersion", it has to do with actually seeing the game the way it's intended / objects at farther away than 50 yards.

If I can shoot it with a bow or a spell, it should be visible. I'd like not to see things pop up in the distance, the longer view distance the better.

Same here. Zork and Wizardry come to mind. Gaming today kicks ass and I just :shrug: when there's pop in because, frankly, I'm just happy to have what I have.

Graphics aren't a huge part of my gaming experience. They're nice to have but it doesn't bother me if they're not the best. However view distance I do need, otherwise how do I plan attacks, or pick people off with arrows?

Was the view distance for Oblivion really bad on consoles or something? On PC with max settings, it's really good, especially for the time. Enemies certainly never popped out of no where for me, I could see them from a mile away.