merging them allowed Bethesda to create much nicer looking armor than if they were seperate. No, look isn't everything, but to sacrifice ONE enchanting slot for better looking armor across the board is more than worth it.

Seems to have it in for the folks in marketing, that's for sure. I'd say he should take his anger to the streets. Mobilize and organize! Long live the revolution! Long live Karl Marx! Free armor pieces for all! Occupy Bethesda without skin diseases or sixual assault!

Meanwhile, I'm still going to be playing Skyrim.

Yeah, this a forum, take your critiques and thoughts elsewhere!

There were no scotsman during the roman empire

They were known as the picts, the scottish wouldn't migrate from Ireland till 100 years after Roma fell...

The gauls were naked, (at least some in the religious sects) but on the whole they wore clothes. The naked guys were generally religious fanatics who drugged themselves so they were numb allowing them to not feel pain. Good intimidation tactic!

Naked guys were mostly during antiquity (before 200ad) by the late roman period celts and germans generally wore heavier armor going into the Medieval era and the Dark Ages.

Regardless of the reasons, a contributing factor IS console limitation.

The average computer has 4GB of dedicated RAM and 1GB of dedicated VRAM, along with 2-4 core CPUs, The modern gaming computer is vastly more powerful then the current consoles, which have a measly 512MB of memory for the whole system. PS3 has a 3.2GHz 6 cell processor which is rarely coded for because its time consuming and difficult. And the 360 has an outdated 3.2GHz tri-core processor.

Realistically, all Sony and Microsoft need to do is release consoles with upgraded hardware, but as long as the current consoles are still making money, they won't do anything about it.

Current consoles are what, 5-6 years old? That is ANCIENT in computer terms. Just looks at the issues RAGE was having with console hardware. Consoles are showing their age badly. I believe that Skyrim will be the last, nearly the last, quality game we will see on consoles.

I actually like the merge, it makes armor look more like a complete set, all tied together.

and I thought I was easy to please.
O___O

@Mercedonis
Yes, I was referring to the area in general. But thank you for clarifying. I am still fairly certain about entire clans painting themselves blue and charging backed towards the legions. It might have been Brittinia I was thinking of.

But the point is the same, cold climate and nacked guys ran around at one point in time.

It still doesn't matter. It's the developers' choice to go ahead and cut the armor slots for a bit faster rendering performance. They choose the slightly better graphics over the slightly better customization. I am not and never was arguing that the current consoles were not outdated, I'm arguing that it still doesn't matter. Oblivion had more armor slots than Skyrim on the same hardware. Morrowind had even more on far weaker hardware. Daggerfall have even more on even more weaker hardware. It's not an inherent limitation of any console, it's Bethesda choice to prioritize certain graphical improvement over maintenance, at least, of the same gameplay options and as I said, and it is fact, even when jumping to new hardware (Daggerfall to Morrowind transition, Morrowind to Oblivion transition), they STILL cut the armor slots, the town sizes, the NPC amounts, etc. It's Bethesda choice to further prioritize graphics over content, not any piece of hardware's and if history repeats itself, TES VI on the next-gen consoles won't go back to a high armor slot amount.

That statistic has been declining for years across several game transitions despite hardware transitions. This is simply what Bethesda do... what much of the industry do. The solution is not to sacrifice more and more game quality to try and stem the inevitable fact that consoles, overall, as with all hardware, cannot keep up to the latest hardware in graphical rendering techniques, so just let the hardware fall behind on graphical settings a tiny bit more, don't irrevocably (fact, post-Daggerfall, Bethesda have never added more, in terms of quantity of in-game objects, buildings, NPCs, etc., to render at any given time in a successive game despite better hardware) mar game design. The consoles do not force such "compromise", the developers do. They do anything to squeeze even just a bit more out of hardware, even encroaching upon game design. They shouldn't do that and it's not the hardware's fault that developers don't see the fallacy of this.

Graphics are an essential part of the game design, dont tell it like it isnt.

The only shame here is that they didnt use an actual new engine for the game, i guess that fell onto the managements decision ultimately, of course there's no longer an excuse if they continue to do so for the next generation of consoles.

Hopefully the money gained by this game in the first place, should allow them the resources they need to do so.

Ultimately its up to people who really dont care about games that much, its just another media to profit from, shame for the developers though.

Who said that it isn't? I'm simply saying that they need to maintain, at least, game design with better hardware instead of decreasing it. Considering newer hardware and/or better optimization techniques, there is no way in which graphics would get worse than those of a previous title simply by, at least, maintaining what the previous title had. Graphics are not so essential to game design that cutting out features to even further improve it (when plainly improving it should be enough) is irrational, is what I'm saying... and again, even despite the literal console generation jump from Morrowind to Oblivion, they cut more. This is the crux of my argument. They're cutting features for even more graphical improvement when better hardware and optimization techniques should provide enough adequate progression with the old features, anyway. I'm criticizing just how important the industry seems to value graphical progression that they resort to scarring features and the game's literal design for even more.

The merged armor works with this game. It wouldn't have worked on Oblivion or Morrowind, but it's not a problem in Skyrim. Getting the best gear in Skyrim is about crafting, alchemy, and enchanting. Having less pieces of armor works better.

considering NPC's are pointless in Skyrim, I want my pants back

No Problem

If you like Naked Celts running around you should get the Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome total war. The most historically accurate mod I have ever seen in a game, actually gives proper perspective on "barbarians" and that's coming from a guy that studied roman history at the american university in rome for 2 years lol

You will also get a new found respect for Bethesda's support for modding versus Activision/Creative Assembly's modding support

I wish I had the CK equivalent for the total war series, support has only gotten worse with Empire and Shogun total war; Now you can't even change the Map! Sigh.

bethesda is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. bethesda would have been hammered by console users if the game didnt look comparable to RDD or Just Cause or the Uncharted games but they figured that PS3/360 owners outnumbered the PC gamers that would complain about a watered down console port. i blame bethesda for stuff like poor writing, completely nonreactive world, balance issues. but limited number of NPCs, poor textures etc. thats pretty much the fault of microsoft and sony because they insist on pushing their systems for far longer than they should have been. you can only do so much with these systems before you have to start making sacrifices.

i also think that there are a large number of console gamers out there who just dont get it that their systems are 6 years old now and are very outdated. my friend popped over and i was playing BF3. i finished my round since i was in the middle of a good firefight and after he watched he actually asked my "why it didnt look nearly that good on his xbox". i aksed him if he was serious and he was bewidlered by the difference in quality. he barely knows how to turn a computer on so consoles are his only real connection to the gaming world. i think i accidentally made a convert to PC gaming cause he wants me to build him a computer.

Better hardware doesnt mean much if the engine cant utilise it, unfortunately every industry will focus on the looks when it gets big enough, whether for legitimate reasons or not (more often).

Simply a fact of life.

Preference, Bro preference. I know my 360 is six years old, but it's still giving me the same amount of entertainment as it did year one. I will never be a PC gamer for several reasons, but that is for a other topic.

Console Owner:

No. I know how old my console is. I can also say that graphics have progressively improved over the years for consoles. The reason new consoles have not arrived on the market is real simple. Developers have not exceeded the capabilities of the current ones. And as someone else has mentioned, even a game developed specifically for "gaming PCs" would be designed with a mid-range performing system in mind. The idea is to reach as many consumers as possible -- not the small percentage that spend thousands on their rigs.


Another fact -- consoles are a task specific computing device and STANDARDIZED. Programming to standard hardware is better than attempting to make something work on everything.

If it weren't for consoles, I don't think many companies in this day and age would survive.

The gamers with such little common sense about hardware progression likely don't have the ambition or knowledgeable background to make any kind of valid backlash against a slightly weaker hardware draw distance and Skyrim already doesn't and never will graphically compare to linear, extremely well-optimized exclusives like Uncharted no matter what Bethesda does while still retaining some semblance of TES theme. As for sales... Call of Duty surely makes a lot of sacrifices to run at 60 fps and still sells despite being graphically behind-the-times... even really crappy ports (see, unsurprisingly, consistently poor Call of Duty porting jobs to the PS3, very sub-HD exclusives like Halo 3, or popular, despite great, sub-HD inferiority, PS3 versions of GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, which, at least by PS3 version standards, is definitely surpassed by Skyrim, graphically) that don't look very good yet still still sell well. Look at PC games like Minecraft. It doesn't look pretty, it's definitely underwhelming for a lot of more devoted players, and it's beloved. Then there's World of Warcraft.

If Skyrim had a slightly worse draw distance and/or less aggressive FXAA for at least, in this case, an armor slot, I doubt many people would really care. So long as the game is advertised well and said to look great, despite not technically being that great (again, sub-HD and/or poorly ported games that people still claim look great... the placebo effect, console gamers that don't have a clue about the hardware also don't know the difference between 1024x600 resolutions and 1280x720 resolutions or 1280x720 and 1980x1080 resolutions), it will sell great. Following Oblivion and, especially, the huge success that was Fallout 3, Skyrim was guaranteed an inherently large following. Then there are many of us who do realize what's underneath the chassis of our consoles or at least realize certain types of games are more demanding than others and/or that our hardware is older. Personally, I, a primarily PlayStation gamer, practically know the PS3's hardware frontwards and backwards as well as some basic foundations of its API.

PC gamers are like gods with all the tools and script to use at liesure, and they still have problems with glitches that are minor at best.(I'm talkking ONLY about the MINOR ones) Try it on a console. I see a lot of posts saying consoles have ruined the game & they dont even have to deal with some of the nightmares that console players do. It would be nice to reset all the perks and pick what u want after the fact.glitch a quest? I dont like my armor? work around it with a COMMAND. console players dont have the luxury. maybe its a more challenging game that way. they dont need a 1000 more NPC's cuz they cant manipulate the game in that fashion. while it seems there are many more console gamers than PC'rs. I dont't know if thats a fact but if it is then I can tell you there might not have been another ES without them if it was exclusive to PC.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me or if we're even on the same page.

eh............they've pretty much hit a wall. personally i think that red dead was the best looking console game and that game came out over a year ago. my 4 year old computer which would be considered mid-range today ran crysis just fine on the highest settings except for DX10 stuff since i didnt have a DX10 card. they had to severely nerf the crysis engine to get it to run on consoles. the reason they arent making new consoles is because they are trying to push these as long as they can for maximum profits. they lose money for the first couple years on console sales so they can sell them for cheaper than a similar PC but at some point it actually turns upside down and you end up paying far more for consoles when you consider the technology they are using than an equivalent PC. they just have you cornered into a cage. the only thing i could do with my xbox was add a better HDD i cant change the CPU or the graphics chip and it svcks balls.

as for how they develop it there are developers like DICE, Reality Pump, THQ and ProjektCD that developed around the PC and then scaled back for the consoles and they are still turning huge profits. its purely a design decision and as i mentioned i think bethesda took a calculated risk and figured there were more potential console gamers that would complain vs PC players that complain. if i was in there shoes and my job was to make a game but more importantly to make money for my company i might have made the same decision myself. i love my xbox for forza and my friends PS3 for dark souls but im fully aware that they are really holding back gaming now. especially considerign developers have even said so.

as for easier to program for a standardize platform clearly that doesnt make any difference cause all the platforms are getting bugs irregardless and some of them unique to a particular system like PS3s large save file issue.

@scrimmage. i believe that console gamers and PC gamers are pretty much joined at the hip. console gamers bring in the extra money that developers need to make games which are getting increasingly expensive to make, at least for AAA titles. meanwhile every console that comes out is built by PC parts manufacturers and the technology is based on technological advances made in the years in between consoles. whether one side likes it or not they are both essential to each other.

as for number of PC gamers its generally figured from what ive read that xbox and PC are pretty close to even (people forget that STEAM doesnt report its numbers and over half of game sales are digital now) and PS3 is in third place. last article i saw didnt even mention wii so they must have fallen off the map which is funny cause they still have the most console units sold world wide.......i guess that no ones playing them anymore. i havent used mine since a couple of years ago and that was for new years.

H
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