Im trying to wrap my mind around how large an epic 2 hour dungeon will be. Even the largest dungeons in OB only took 30-45 min to beat. I guess puzzles and stuff will make them feel bigger and longer.

Not quite. There is evidence supporting separate pauldrons.

Especially as he mentioned salmon in cooking.

I think they are saving that for later.{crosses fingers}


He said 50% were small 15 min dungeons and the other 50% will range from 30min all the way up to 1-2hours


Sorry bro, those are still just rocks.

You know they really should make a Robo Todd Howard so that he can do interviews 24/7 and then the real Todd can continue working on the game and update the robo in real time.

Regarding the dungeons, my understanding was that there will only be a few of the "epic dungeons that are 1-2 hrs in length."

However, I think he is talking about a quick runthrough on a lower difficulty setting.

After installing some overhaul mods for Oblivion, when playing on the highest difficulty setting, even very tiny dungeons last many hours for me to beat after dying and reloading many times.

I'm pretty sure that if Skyrim difficulty setting is tweaked just right, I will be dying just as frequently and even the smaller dungeons will last hours, just to make it through the battles with whatever creatures are inside.



I think what Todd meant was that we can pick sides, but it doesn't lock us in to one side or the other for the rest of the game.

I'm still hoping there will be other faction quests that do force the player to make difficult decisions with later consequences (like if you support one side of the civil war, or one guild faction against another, then you miss out on unique quests, items, or spells from the other side, etc.), but after watching this interview, I'm not so sure.

Giants and Mammoths all in one location? That's my first port of call when my character is good enough.

I would not like that at all.

IMHO difficult decisions are what make good RPGs into great ones.

When leveling up, is it easy to choose which skills and perks, or is it a difficult decision because they are all balanced well and in order to get "Perk B" further down the road, you first have to get "Perk A," etc.?

Is it easy to choose which dialogue choices at important stages of the main quest, or is it a difficult choice because there are different consequences?

Is it easy to choose which faction to support in a particular conflict, or is it difficult because the conflict is not so black & white, each side has a valid point of view and there are rewards and consequences for choosing either side?

I just feel that the player shouldn't be locked out of content.

That was one of the things I found could have been implemented slightly better in New Vegas.

You could roleplay a complete Legion fanatic, massacring NCR at every opportunity, but the NCR would still give me quests. (And vice versa.) Maybe it just needed some tweaks to the disguise and reputation features.

In Skyrim, if you can destroy a town's lumbermill and permanently affect a town's economy and merchant goods for the rest of the game, I hope we can see the same sort of world changing impact of the Dovahkiin's actions in other areas.

For example, if you support the Necromancers or the College of Whispers in a faction war against Synod, I hope that there is a point where you have to really decide and can't go back and change sides to join Synod. Also would be great if there are some unique spells or items you get depending on which side you choose. Otherwise, the choice has less meaning for me as a player.

Even in Oblivion, there were some decisions you had to make that lock you out of content. For example, do you give Umbra to Clavicus Vile to get the Masque reward, or do you keep it for yourself, preventing you from completing Hermaeus Mora's quest to get the Oghma Infinium? I love these kinds of choices.

It was a Mass Effect joke. A-hem
Which evidence?

I'm thinking if they use a faction system similar to Fallout 3 then they may be able to pull something off where the town may attack you if you start murdering the citizens or some other crime.

Here's some.

Never played ME by the way, heh.

Hmm, wouldn't really call that solid evidence. We'll just have to wait and see. :blush:

It's not conclusive for sure. But I believe the first quote is especially compelling.

A bit of a let down with the walled cities and therefore loading screens between that. Not a huge let down but a small one. It may turn out to be a bigger let down later, as it would most likely severely hinder the creation of battles in and out cities. A city wouldn't be able to be under siege, and most likely dragons won't be able to come and terrorize bigger cities as well. Not without some huge seamy new spawning area appearing, which I would find pretty unimmerisve.

Still, Bethesda has said that what's so special with their engine is that it draws/renders everything and that in a far distance. Seems like a fail in logic here, not being able to render cities then. Pretty much says to me that the brand-new engine perhaps isn't that great as it otherwise would appear to be.

On a more positive note:
It's really great that jobs/activities aren't mini-games. That would be very awful if so.
I like how the sounds of racial conflicts. It brings depth to the world.
Really like how they've thought more of how creatures are and how they live.
I hope Bethesda has thought more about traps. But please not so many that they get redundant, and please not so you can still live after getting a huge iron-spike through you like in Oblivion. That was ridiculous.

I can't wait for the next Todd interview. I'm dying to find out more info on this gem of a game.

I like the fact that the Nords aren't too friendly with the Dark Elves and I guess by hearing that news, the one Dark Elf Village will be more important.

I don't think it has anything to do with graphics processing for the Creation engine, rather it has more to do with weaker CPUs not being able to handle the AI for so many NPCs in the city walking around.

I'm sure there will be some mods that can remove the walls, as there have been for Oblivion.

I think the "Walled Cities' thing is mostly for the NPC's, not so much the city itself. Dragon's are apparently given very high priority in the engine, so a seamless "Attack" similar to the Vertibirds in Fallout 3, is entirely possible.

cool vid. sounds great!

I tell ya, Skyrim keeps sounding better and better now that the information starts coming. Who cares if cities are in different cells or if there isn't levitation, there will still be so much content that you won't even notice any flaws for the couple of first years of playing this game.

Performance vise, I believe Beth when they say that they got done everything they wanted. Ok, Skyrim might look little better if it was developed for next gen consoles or PC, I admit that, but if Beth says they are happy with it then I'm sure I will be too. And I'm not even into TES for the eye candy and wouldn't mind if they sacrificed little graphics for more content but it seems like we will get both.

I would subscribe to your post except for a few bits.

1. I believe they'll circumvent the different-cell problem. In fact the draw distance apparent paradox would indicatye they have. So I'm confident dragons will be able to swoop down on cities and burn them to the ground. Then again, scortching, perhaps? :biggrin:


2. The question one has to ask is this: Could they actually deliver a detailed open world with entirely open cities on the Xbox360 and PS3? Probably not. I also believe there is still some ambiguity in Todd's words that leaves room for some small hope.

Let's erect a barrage of tweet questions around Pete Hines so he eventually breaks down in exasperation and just sets the record straight on this bloody enigma!
Just one minor problem.

I don't own a Twitter account.

:biggrin:

Skyrim is coming out soon!

We so excited, we so excited!
Fun, fun, fun... :celebration:

'Racism' in Morrowind was more the fact that you were in the land of the Dunmer, and they didn't like outsiders (like you, even if you were a Dunmer)- though it was hinted that Dunmer regarded the Beastmer as 'lesser' somehow (probably to justify enslaving Argonians and Khajiit, which they used to do).

Oblivion actually foreshadowed (perhaps) some of the conflict in Skyrim. Esp. if you played Knights of the Nine, you should get a strong sense of the conflicts between the Cyrodiils and Ayleids. The issues are at least as much about ideology as any notion of race, though: in TES, humans and Altmer (or Aldmer, who came before) have been butting heads since pretty much the dawn of time, largely because of religion. The Empire managed to make everyone get along, but now that it's falling apart...

Please don't be put off by 'racism' in TES. I seriously boubt that Bethesda would ever endorse any kind of racism (never mind those creepy people who get a kick out of it)- it's more about the history of the TES world, and the conflicts that exist in it.