Glad to hear that alchemy is different. I hope it's not just the same magic effects, I'd like it to be separated from magic/enchanting.

The giant camps with mammoths sound interesting. As do the Nord-Elven rivalry.

Shame about the walled cities.

What does he mean by "you get bonuses for attacking guys", when talking about stealth?

You know.. I remember a lot of people being worried about walled cities and because the consoles are so far behind the PC's now that it would water down the PC version as well. Because of this interview he gave us another way to look at it. Sure, there are going to be some negatives that will effect the PC version because they try to keep it as universal as possible due to time constraints but because they already have developed some nice games for the xbox360 and ps3 they are "Already at where we want to be graphically" so they are able to focus on the things that really matter, balance. They are able to work on balancing the game out and actually refine it more because the graphics will come easy at this point. Just a positive way to look at it guys.

Danika

I truly believe Todd made a decision back in December to hold out for E3. The only thing i see holding back mounts and mounted combat is animations and by all rights they seem to have nailed the animations this time around. I honestly believe they will unveil an RDR quality mounting system come E3. {fingers crossed}


This one of the top five biggest gripes about Oblivion and there is no way they overhauled the crime system and left this in. Personally i think the insta knowledge in OB was a side effect of having to chop out most of the AI, for all we know originally, knowledge had to pass from one NPC to the next.

I'd say gameplay matters a lot and in that regard the Xbox 360 in particular is holding multiplatform titles back. If Skyrim was PC-exclusive they'd just be able to do more and expect the average consumer to be able to handle it. It also wouldn't sell well because so much of the market is invested in the current console generation, which has gone on longer than pretty much any prior one and shows no end in sight.

Thanks you, this is new information fpr me.

What, in terms of gameplay, can you do on the PC that you can't do on the Xbox360?

I would have to say in terms of gameplay it would be a RAM or CPU issue. If you toned down your PC graphics to match the xbox 360's exactly you will still have an advantage with RAM and processing power. More enemies to fight at once, more animations at once, more everything at once.

Yes this was confirmed back in January or Feb I believe.

Also some pics of the various types of uncooked meat were included in the GI magazine.

Enemy counts, animation and quantities are not gameplay.

I actually feel honored that Todd recognizes the German fanbase - but I'm German, so what do I know.
And you got that awesome info as well, so I don't see any problem. It's not like they released exclusive information in a magazine that is not available in other countries. You know, like the GI article. >_>

I'm pleased to hear that this is going to be noticeable - I played Morrowind with the LGNPC (Less Generic NPC) series of mods and they added a lot of lore-based dialogue and some quests which highlighted the tensions, both in a historical and a timeline-contemporary sense, between Nord and Dunmer, especially House Redoran.




A damage bonus for an attack from stealth. It was in Oblivion, where you'd see something like "Stealth attack (x6)" or whatever it was (can't recall the exact wording) at the top of the screen when you successfully attacked someone while undetected. It's a staple for rogue type classes in many cRPGs.

Well if anything those all effect gameplay. Anything that effects gameplay is just as important as the gameplay itself

Tell the American interviewers to quit asking about stupid crap like "i wanna be a dragon" and ask real questions. No exactly Todd's fault here.

Personally, I don't mind about walled cities.

Out of all the great new info in this interview, there is only one thing that worries me...

When Todd spoke about the racial faction conflict quests as being "more to provide flavor than something that will lock you in to one side or the other." :unsure2:

I was really hoping for some quest lines that force the PC to make difficult decisions about which faction to join.

I hope that this lack of "locking you in to one side or the other" will be limited to the race conflict faction quests, and there will be other faction quests where the PC experiences consequences from choosing to join one faction or the other, for example, the PC loses out on some unique quests, spells, items or perks you can only get from joining the other faction.

After watching this interview, however, I'm becoming concerned that that may not be the case.

Actual Gameplay would be (not all inclusive);

Exploration
Combat
Crafting
Dialog

While PC hardware can make the gameplay itself better, there's no hard-mechanic that a PC can do, that a Console hasn't demonstrated it can do as well. You know, a PC may be able to put 20 enemies on screen in a single combat encounter, but the Console can still perform the same encounter, with less.


So basically, what Todd means, is probably (Probably because I'm not a Bethesda dev, so always leave room if you're interpreting someone) there was no game mechanic they had on their list, that resulted in "The hardware can't do that".

Thanks. This was a good interview, and Todd gave some interesting and illuminating answers. He didn't give a lot of new info, but elaborated in interesting ways upon content we already knew was in the game.

It was good to hear Todd relate Skyrim's holds to Morrowind's Great Houses. There's been a lot of talk about Skyrim having a richer culture. But the suggestion that the Holds will behave like the Great Houses makes this more concrete.

Also: COOKING! I'm totally going to get my chef on. (I'll turn my character's house into a 3 Michelin star restaurant )

I hope the Cooking is like... Useful, not just a distraction. I made a pretty epic post back in I think '08 or '09, coming off Fallout 3, because of the Chem system. So I'm hoping "Food" functions a lot like that. A lot of MMORPG's got food right, so I'm hoping for something along those lines, don't know if you're familiar with that though.

I sympathise with the desire for useful cooking. But I'd be happy with a fun distraction, where I can play around with different ingredients, and perhaps a few different cooking methods. :shrug:

Hate on elves?

I'm loving Skyrim more and more!!!!!!

Sad news on the seperate cells though.

But the rest of the info was gold. I wonder how the eye will look, sounds like a nice style to go with. Hopefully the all seeing won't take up the middle of the screen like Oblivion.

Sounds like Skyrim is full of style and substance.

I know! I am actually quite interested in the possibility of slavery of the elves too. Not because I dislike the elves.. on the contrary I play elves just as equally as any other race in Tamriel. The reason behind my interest in this is because it is always the Argonian and Khajiit who get the short end of the stick. They are always the slaves. I would like to see the Dunmer turned into slaves as sort of a poetic justice for the slavery in Morrowind. I would like to see the Altmer enslaved in Skyrim because it would be fun to see them knocked down a peg or two since they always think themselves to be above other races. Bosmer.. well... adoring fan, Glathir, Fargoth, need I say more? . No, in all honesty it would add an interesting level to the story. I mean if you see a Khajiit or Argonian in shackles you kinda don't even pay any heed to it anymore. But if you saw an elf in chains you would most definitely stop and investigate. Besides.. someone has to do that grunt work for the Nords while they fight their civil war. Just sayin it is highly possible in my opinion.

How do I get this to load?

Pretty cool, I expected the cities to have seperate cells anyways so this isn't a let down for me.

As it was in Morrowind. You weren't really locked-out of any quests or choices based on your race, but many people felt differently about you. For example, I play an Imperial most of the time, and despite a high personality, Ashlanders usually started in the 20-30 on disposition.