New Todd interview from German site Part 2 : V - Skyrim

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:59 am

Well even the "big" ones for me weren't that big. So 30+ for the rest hopefully means some real detail.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:46 am

No, about half are small dungeons (10-30 mins) and from there they move to close to 2 hours. That doesn't mean half are 15 mins and half are 1-2 hours. It's likely much more diverse considering his explanation

I'm sure it also depends a great deal on the difficulty setting and other factors.

After installing improved balance mods like OOO/MMM/Frans/FCOM/DukePatrick's, even the smallest dungeons in Oblivion can take me hours to clear because I die so many times and have to keep reloading.

I imagine it will be similar for Skyrim at the proper difficulty setting, and the "epic" dungeons should take several hours to clear.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:30 pm

The typical Zelda dungeon lasts about an hour. So about 50 of those? Lots of gameplay is to be had.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:05 pm

I'm sure it also depends a great deal on the difficulty setting and other factors.

After installing mods like OOO/MMM/Frans/FCOM/DukePatrick's, even the smallest dungeons in Oblivion can take me hours to clear because I die so many times and have to keep reloading.

I imagine it will be similar for Skyrim at the proper difficulty setting, and the "epic" dungeons should take several hours to clear.

I'm sure the 10-30 minutes are more like the bandit caves/daedric ruins in Morrowind and the 1-2 hours are more like the Dwemer or Sixth House dungeons

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 11:44 am

I'm sure the 10-30 minutes are more like the bandit caves/daedric ruins in Morrowind and the 1-2 hours are more like the Dwemer or Sixth House dungeons

The bandit caves can take me hours to get through.

Basically I die several times in almost every combat encounter in Oblivion. (also character build is a sort of "glass cannon" - mage/archer build with no armor and Apprentice birthsign, 100% weakness to magic)

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 11:22 pm

No loading city gates FTW
:intergalactic:

Uh, listen again, Todd said no loading for Next-gen.

He said that the cities will load when you get near the walls, but you won't click on a gate and get hit by a big loading screen, just a small "loading..." popup text in the corner of your screen as the city is loaded in

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:51 pm

The typical Zelda dungeon lasts about an hour. So about 50 of those? Lots of gameplay is to be had.

Exactly what I was thinking. That's 50 hours of gameplay right there in your example. I can't remember the exact number of planned dungeons that was given, but I'm pretty sure it was over 100. So 50% of that will be well over 50 hours of gameplay in the "long, epic" dungeons alone. The ~15-30 minute ones would add between an extra 12.5-25 hours, assuming a flat number of 50 (again, it will almost certainly be more).

If nothing else, we can gain from these rough estimates that (if nobody guessed already) Skyrim certainly won't be lacking in dungeon content, especially with the expanded team working on the dungeons.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:27 am

I'm a little confused, he only mentioned rabbits when he was talking about meat, could that mean that the meat is in the game but they don't appear in the wild? Kind of like how beef was an ingredient in Oblivion but there were no cows in the actual game at all.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 2:02 pm

He said that the cities will load when you get near the walls, but you won't click on a gate and get hit by a big loading screen, just a small "loading..." popup text in the corner of your screen as the city is loaded in

He was describing possibilities for next gen. Listen closely.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 12:31 pm

He said that the cities will load when you get near the walls, but you won't click on a gate and get hit by a big loading screen, just a small "loading..." popup text in the corner of your screen as the city is loaded in

You're really stretching his words.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 3:48 pm

He said that the cities will load when you get near the walls, but you won't click on a gate and get hit by a big loading screen, just a small "loading..." popup text in the corner of your screen as the city is loaded in

Direct quote from the interview

so our bigger cities, still have walls, that load you, so that if, if, you know, we were on a next-gen system, that might be something you wouldn’t have to do, memory-wise, you know, to section that off.

here's the quote that came afterwords, the part you were talking about

But at the end, the experience is kind of the same. You would be just walking smoothly into that city, as opposed to clicking the door, waiting for the load, and then going in. I don't know how, amm, I don't really dwell on these things, to be honest, like what we, we can do this, and we can't do this.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:43 am

Direct quote from the interview

here's the quote that came afterwords, the part you were talking about

I'm kinda confused

Whatever, I'll just wait for the open cites mod if they can't do it :disguise:

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:55 pm

Direct quote from the interview

here's the quote that came afterwords, the part you were talking about

I think you're taking his quotes too literally.

To be honest, I don't think the current generation consoles can handle open cities in Skyrim, since the level of detail in that game will be so vast. Todd even mentions they're pushing the limits of the current generation, and I think having open cities would exceed that limit.

However, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty damn sure that all 5 major cities (not the 20+ smaller ones) will be seperate cells and you'll have to go through a loading screen to access them.

Which isn't a huge deal, but that does confirm no levitation and the dragon attacks on the seperate celled, walled off cities will be scripted.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 11:34 am

I'm kinda confused

Whatever, I'll just wait for the open cites mod if they can't do it :disguise:

The AI of all the NPC's loaded into one open world is too much for the consoles, as well as for a lot of the lower end PC's CPU's.

That said, I'd imagine since Oblivion could be modded for open cities, Skyrim could be too.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:16 pm

Cities are open, there's just a load screen. I don't see the issue

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:53 pm

Cities are open, there's just a load screen. I don't see the issue

"so our bigger cities, still have walls, that load you"

Sounds like walls to me for the big cities. And I'm positive it's going to be a click to enter again. The reason is that the 360 can't load a lot of stuff to memory before you enter/leave, and when you do enter the other cell it takes a while to load. You really wouldn't want the game to stop and start loading accidentally, so there is going to be the requirement to click to enter/leave the area.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 11:21 pm

You know, more speed would allow you to always put more detail, put more people on the screen, we won’t, we wouldn't have to make as many choices between, how many polygons or memory we would put in the environment vs the people, so our bigger cities, still have walls, that load you, so that if you know, we were on a next-gen system, that might be something you wouldn’t have to do, memory-wise, you know, to section that off.

But at the end, the experience is kind of the same. You would be just walking smoothly into that city, as opposed to clicking the door, waiting for the load, and then going in.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:31 pm

"You would be just walking smoothly into that city, as opposed to clicking the door, waiting for the load, and then going in" - Todd

To me it sounds like it's the same as Oblivion but the next gen will be different. Honestly i'm fine with that. The thing that bothered me about it in Oblivion was the lack of levitation but now i have grown used to not having it around i'm not that fussed. Hopefully the seamlessness of the next gen will allow levitation to make a comeback. As i'm sure it will and if i had to put money on it i'd say in the Summerset Isle.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:19 pm

so glad that we will actually see an animation of our character actually cooking, chopping wood, mining, smithing, making potions etc as i was really worried when i saw the op and it said you just click a button like oblivion, i thought they were all just gonna be the same as the old alchemy. I wouldn't have minded too much if they were mini games but tbh i am just glad we will see some sort of animation, it will add to the immersion for me and i will no doubt spend way too many hours just crafting and doing menial tasks as i like to RP my characters. Fishing would be awesome too!

Seriously great interview that, can't wait for Skyrim now!

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:17 pm

Still nothing on hand to hand combat. I wonder what it will be like with the new Havok Behavior?

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 1:40 pm

Still nothing on hand to hand combat. I wonder what it will be like with the new Havok Behavior?

Pretty sure it is out. Too few people used it, for it "to add anything to gameplay" :tongue:
Wait... I'm sad now.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:42 pm

Pretty sure it is out. Too few people used it, for it "to add anything to gameplay" :tongue:
Wait... I'm sad now.

I can't believe it's out. It has got to be under one-handed combat or something. They wouldn't remove one of the major combat things of the game.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 9:55 pm

Pretty sure it is out. Too few people used it, for it "to add anything to gameplay" :tongue:
Wait... I'm sad now.

I have a hard time believing that, especially considering all the things they could do with Havok Behavior. It would be pretty weird to have nothing equipped in either hand and not be able to throw punches.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 12:55 pm

I have a hard time believing that, especially considering all the things they could do with Havok Behavior. It would be pretty weird to have nothing equipped in either hand and not be able to throw punches.

I meant the skill, you would still be able to punch stuff but no skill increases or anything.

» Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:14 pm

I meant the skill, you would still be able to punch stuff but no skill increases or anything.

Oh ok. I could live with that.