From the latest GI article:

"Finally, pressing up in the compass menu turns your gaze up toward the heavens. [...] Three prominent nebulae dominate the Skyrim heavens – the thief, the warrior, and the mage. Each of these represents one of the three master skill sets. Each nebula houses six constellations, each of which represents a skill."


That'd be neat standing outside in the middle of the night, but what if I wanted to look at my skills and perks while indoors or in a dungeon? Do I still look up at the ceiling and suddenly see the stars? :rolleyes:

You will just see the night sky, as will the map before you be spread out no matter if there is a tomb or a steep cliff in front of you.

Look, what's that behind you?

I think there's something to be said for the simplicity of a menu. It's abstract, and applies to all situations. :goodjob:

Other insteresting thing is the skills menu during the day.

I'm a little disappointed that we don't have birth signs anymore but it doesn't make me think the game will be any less amazing than I did before, I'll just miss them :sadvaultboy:

On topic, it will most likely pan up and you will see the constellations while no matter what time of day or where you are. It isn't supposed to be literally looking at the sky from a real point of view.

Well, I guess so. On the topic, how will we see the map inside as well? I mean the dungeon layout and such. Will it be similar to Morrowind's and Oblivion's map style? Because I'd hate if it was just top down from a great height so I also see the areas I hadn't explored yet. At least it needs a fog of war kind of mechanic.





*mauled by a troll because she was staring at the sky*

" Though Skyrim abandons the class structure in favor of a "you are what you play" philosophy, Bethesda is preserving the player’s ties to star signs."
Too me it looks like birth signs may still be in.

Personally I'd just like it if the background was a windowed overlay or semi-transparent. Don't exactly want to pull up my menu and then become so mesmerized that I completely forget that the whole reason I pulled up the inventory was to reach for an invisibility potion and escape the dragon that's right on top of me.

I think the article refers to the fact that as your character gains perks the starsigns slowly change.

MY EYESSS :shocking:

Hmm, I wonder how close I am to getting that marksman level OH GOD I'M BLIND! :blink:

Either that or they keep it deliberately vague and only provide a drawn bird's eye texture on it.
The inside maps are probably just flat. I hope they look really snazzy and all old and crumpled.

Super optimistic theory inbound!
We haven't been told everything about the game's menu system yet. There's still the matter of the directional compass thingy you summon to navigate the menu proper. Personally I think it wouldn't be too far fetched for the game to include your health, magicka, and fatigue on this display so you can quickly check it without having to go into the full interface. Theoretically, birthsigns/attributes could scroll by here, as well. But I doubt it.

My other theory? The skills screenshot on Gameinformer is just part of the level up prompt, and the player is navigating to choose which skill and subsequent perk they wish to pick. The actual stats menu is far more comprehensive.


Which isn't exactly novel. That's how character creation worked in Arena/Daggerfall if you chose to answer questions to generate your class - stars marking the three primary constellations would become brighter or darker until one was the most visible.

I hate this nebulae idea! It looks horrible and to futuristic. talk about breaking immersion.

Yes, ironic how Bethesda seem to be all "menus aren't immersive, looking around is immersive!", when on the flip side if they happen to botch this system, it would annoy players a lot more than a traditional menu.
Just look at what happened to Fable 3. Teleport to magical room in the middle of a battle, walk up to podium and watch your character drink a potion. That's totally not tedious, no sir.

Hardly, It looks like...stars? Yeah, nothing more immersion breaking than looking at stars. I'm so sick of hearing the buzzword immersion. If somebody doesn't like something that's cool, but it's hardly breaking immersion. I think the fact you're sitting on your couch with a controller would be the biggest immersion breaker.

I like this nebulae idea a lot.
Also, it's not an actual nebulae or an actual night sky.

I guess it's more of an imagination that the player does. I don't think you should compare menus with the real-time game on all occassions. This is one of those occassions.

I see where you're coming from, but it still seems weird to suddenly look at stars while in the middle of a dungeon romp.
At least in Morrowind and Oblivion, all the menus looked fairly similar and unobtrusive. They paused the game, but you could still see a bit of the in-game background around the edges. Right now it seems we have a normal-looking menu (inventory and maybe magic), a zoom-out camera (map) and virtual night sky (skills and perks). And all three look completely different and could theoretically look quite jarring in the middle of gameplay.

Hope that made any sense.

Well, they're doomed if they do, doomed if they don't. People demand change, but people hate adapting to new things.

Well... after reeding about "the simplified menu" "made for our convenience" I'm sure attributes are gone... I can't help but think they deleted them just so it'd fit into some stupid modern system...

Actually couldn't have said it better. We hardcoe TES fans are super hard to please.

This new interface sounds kind of bizonkers. Call me old fashioned but the previous games handled it well enough, though i've never been one to complain about menu screens.

Your still in the menu I think it will be full screen so it's just for show...it's not like you will see your characters astral projection, or anything, ad you gaze at the stars, it's just a novel way of keeping track of stuff. But that said I know what you mean tho the old system was cluttered but I kinda liked the old tymly parchment feel. But I'm sure as soon as I'm in game all will be forgotten and I'll love it. there's lots of things I want MY way but above those is Beth making the game THEIR way which is best for all.

Gstaff just mentioned in another thread that the stars affected by the player is only seen in the menu "sky", not in the gameworld itself, if that helps anyone.