Wasn't worried until I read the French update.

Now I feel that Bethesda is trying to turn Skyrim into an action type game to appeal to a wider variety of gamer.

This does not please me.

Wrong.

Making the means to an end simpler does not always effect depth. All it does is make that depth easier to access. Which is what needs to be done. It's called "improvement".

Yep.

Bingo. Another good word to use is "accessibility". For example a lot of people were initially complaining that Heroes of Stalingrad's soft realism mode and other things (which weren't even going to get implemented into realism mode) were dumbing the game down and making it simpler. When really it was just making some things just more natural and easy to do and makes logical sense in a development keen on progression. Making things accessible is a great thing for all windows really. You can please the harder crowd by making sure you tend to their needs, then making them slightly more adaptable for new players. Draws in more sales, makes Developers happy, and then we get another wonderful game.

Honestly, I'm pretty much assuming this game will be action RPG until proven otherwise (Oblivion was generic Tolkien because Todd like Tolkien at the itme, now he likes Conan which is all about action.) Also what grows annoying is the menu isn't only console-ported anymore, but console-oriented

What do you mean by action RPG? TES has always been about incorporating first person shooter mechanics into a roleplaying game style. How will it be any more action-oriented this time? Isn't the only place action would dominate combat? And how will combat being action-oriented (which it's always been) prevent the game from having depth everywhere else?

When did the definition of constellation become birth-sign. Not once did GI say the word birth-sign in ANY of it's coverage. Just because birth signs are represented by constellations doesn't automatically make all constellations birth signs.

By Action-RPG, I mean basically hack and slash with a few choices that have moral consequences along the way.

When have TES games ever had the kinds of moral choices and consequences that games like Bioware RPGs (which I love and are among my favorite games of all time; don't get me wrong) offer players? Oblivion and Morrowind certainly didn't offer them. In fact that was one of my chief disappointments with Morrowind as my first game in the TES series.

Simplifying things does not alway lead to the destruction of immersion and depth. Think of the game as a beaker with some kind of mixture in it - this is the spirit of the game, the one thing that ties it all together and determines the game's character, the more additional stuff you pour in the harder it will be to identify that first primal mixture. When one makes an argument one doesn't just start spouting tons of unrelated nonsense because it's obvious it will dilute the main point - same thing with games.

I'm not quite sure how we define an RPG anymore. The way I see it, Arena, Daggerfall, and Oblivion were all "action" RPGs. At their core, everything usually involved combat or delving into some dungeon to accomplish something. Morrowind kind of lampshaded this a bit with its more story-driven quests: things such as using landmarks to find the Cavern of the Incarnate and gathering information about the Sixth House from informants, I'd call it an "adventure" RPG.

In feel I don't think Skyrim's going to feel any different from the other TES games. I just hope that most of the action is still player-driven. Setting oil on fire is cool, but if every other dungeon is going to have oil spills, I may as well quit using fire spells altogether. That's my concern - too many special interactive objects will lessen the player's importance.

You're right, not all constellations are birth signs. But all birth signs are constellations. However, the thief, the warrior, and the mage ARE birth signs in TES. So what's your point?

This is what the game informer says:
"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."
So perhaps birthsigns are still in the same way they've always been. Just under a new system. The article wasn't specific.
I'll quote myself here and you seemed to have overlooked this in my post; "I'm not entirely sure how the birth sign system would work this time around." Everything I wrote was an assumption. I never presented anything as fact.

Don't forget the fringe once it reminded me of the Ashlands.



Why can't Bethesda improve the combat as well as choice and moral consequences? There might not be much info about actions and consequenses so far, but that's because most of our information has come from magazines. What do you think the average Game Informer reader cares more about; odds and ends about the consequences of your actions, or the awsome new combat mechanics?

Moreover, one of the magazines (I think it was the French one) mentioned something about how if you burnt down the mill or mine in a town, it would have a negative impact on the economy and force the citizens to import goods from other places. How's that for consequences? :biggrin:

I don't imagine one would decide to focus on making a hack-and-slash game to appeal to action gamers, then make their big reveal of the game include only plot information and nothing about gameplay, then make their second one a coded message that you have to solve and gives more plot information.

I think Bethesda is just going to make Skyrim nothing more than just a test on the new engine and stuff. The next game TES: VI [insert Provence name here] will hopefully and most likely be a TRUE and REAL Elder Scrolls game.

This, imo. So far they've been focusing on lore, the world, the atmosphere, the UI, etc. One feature - ONE - was on combat. And it wasn't the first thing they wanted us to know about the game. The first thing they wanted us to know was that it was steeped in lore and that they created a language for the game.

I am always open to being wrong. But so far, to me at least, it sounds like they are adding depth, not taking it away. They're just making it easier for us to see it, in my opinion.

Honestly, that's what I considered the case was with Oblivion.

This doesn't make any logical sense at all

I like what you're saying here.

What I particularly like, from what I've read so far, is that you will play the game in a more naturally evolutionary way - rather than being forced to make up your mind from the offset what you want to be good at you will make you will decide yourself as the gameplay progresses. This for me is a revolution in the TES series and something to be really excited about.

The open-world RPG with 18 skills, 100+ side quests, new dynamic quests, roughly 130 dungeons, ten redesigned races, new combat mechanics, and a story centered on well established TES lore, in development for just four months shy of six years by the time it comes out...

... is just a test run in your opinion?

Have you completely given up on the fact that this game could still be good and are just saying, "well better luck next time"? Because that's what it seems like.

Well, it seems like there has been a rather vocal cloud of pessimism spreading around that is trying to find any sketchy info possible to bash and give up hope on the game TEN MONTHS before it's even released.

It's not even out yet and people are already considering it not a true Elder Scrolls? I just wish Bethesda made a remake of Arena for their next elder scrolls so that some elder scrolls fans remember how different the first, original Elder Scrolls was from what they have in mind.

The way they go about in Skyrim shows good prospects. I'm pretty certain it will have flaws, but I like much of the direction. (I loved spellmaking, so I'm obviously not very happy with that decision, but I can't know the result until I see the whole new system) Can't say for sure before we play it though. The only thing we can say for sure is that it will be a true Elder Scrolls game even if people don't like the result.

This is one of the dumbest things I've heard on these forums.

Here's an example of what I'm getting at.

"There are no classes in Skyrim." People hear this and, perhaps understandably, become fearful and angry. It sounds like something that we used to have has been removed from the game.

But then we hear about the perks system. Unlike in Oblivion, where we received perks related to skills as they leveled up, now leveling any and all skills contributes to overall level, and leveling earns us the right to select perks. We can select combat, stealth, or magic perks. They aren't tied to skills as prerequisites. This means we can be focused on combat skills, but take some stealth perks. Or play as a mag, but take some combat perks. There are multiple perks per skill in the game, so there are a lot. We can take the same perks more than once and have them stack apparently, too.

Then we also hear that we are rewarded for specializing. We have the freedom to be a jack of all trades, but doing so will make it harder to level, and MUCH harder to level upon reaching the soft level cap (level 50.) Yet we still also have the potential to keep leveling if we work hard at it, and specializing will make it a bit easier.

So we end up with much more freedom and variation from one character to the next. We end up actually having more options available for character development, more freedom to develop naturally as we play, and more ways to add nuances to our character without being restricted by a preset class or birthsign. I have a feeling a lot of the game is going to feel that way. Things that seem like they've been "taken out" may merely be enhanced and rearranged in my opinion.

Again, I could be wrong.