First I'd like to say that if this has been mentioned before, then I'm sorry. I haven't seen a thread about it, so I thought I could make it.

Persuasion:
Source: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/skyrim-skills/#more-57393
Info: "The speech skill: “There is not a Persuasion wheel. It’s much more simplified. There’s not a mini-game for it.” He declined to describe it until later, however."

Lockpicking:
Source: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/skyrim-skills/#more-57393
Info: "Lockpicking: “There is a minigame, but I hate the word ‘minigame’. There’s also a combat ‘minigame!’” [That latter is irony, don't explode.] “You’ve got to have some interaction, not just a die roll.”"


Horses:
Source: http://www.gamepro.com/article/previews/218905/skyrim-preview-cont/
Info: "Horses help you get around in Oblivion, and since that game’s 2006 debut, a number of games have made horses part of the game (some better than others). “We’d really like to have horses, Howard says. “We want to make sure it’s adding to the gameplay. Horses have come a long way in video games. It’s looking good right now.” To which Peter Hines, Bethesda’s vice president of marketing, cracks, “If no horse, how would we sell you horse armor?” Howard had a quip of his own ready: “We’d still sell it to you—just no horse for it.”"

Dragon mounts:
Source: http://www.gamepro.com/article/previews/218905/skyrim-preview-cont/
Info: "And what about dragons? Can you use them as mounts? “Are we considering it? Yes,” Howard says. “Are we doing it right now? No.”"

Birthsigns:
Source: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2011/04/18/skyrim-character-creation-guide/
Info: "Other decisions, like Birth Sign, have been removed, so players needn't worry about making a game-ruining decision within the first hour."


Battle music:
Source: http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/preview/skyrim-preview-abandon-all-hope-ye-who-expect-to-have-a-life-once-this-dragon-born-epic-arrives/a-20110417182154399032/g-20100727104555695026/p-2
Info: "Naturally, he sees us and dives immediately in our direction. As the music rises in volume and urgency, the dragon roars out a word in the dragon tongue and belches a massive gout of flame directly at us."
Source 2: http://www.g4tv.com/videos/52434/Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-Gameplay-Preview/
Info 2: "Suddenly, strong, deep violin notes pull us from our sightseeing, and focus our attention further up the path where a foolish raider has decided he’s lived a rich and full life, and is now charging at us with his sword unsheathed."

Seasons:
Source: http://www.videogamer.com/pc/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/preview-2974-2.html
Info: "Seasons don't change in the game, however."

And I would still buy it

Thanks for the news. Too bad there`s no seasons, though. I`m not convinced that the lockpicking minigame and battle music will be very good either.

Edit: I also wonder if characters are now on a more stable ground magicka-wise. It would make a big difference in Morrowind and Oblivion if you took The Apprentice or The Atronach sign. There`ll probably be perks for increasing magicka...

I'm fine with all this except the removal of birthsigns. That makes me sad. I always thought it was a pretty cool, unique feature in TES. Most of the time when you're creating your character, you have a general idea of what birthsign you'll benefit from. And realizing you chose the wrong birthsign later on hardly ruins your character. It just makes each playthrough a little more unique. All this does is remove one layer of complexity without any added benefit.

Yeah I knew there were no seasons in the game as well. The fact that there is a forest called Fall Forest pretty much explains it. But would a game like TES be really really cool with seasons? I think so

I'm not very happy about battle music. I've never really liked it. It seems battle music is as before (it starts when the enemy has detected us). I think this pretty much destroys the element of surprise and can sometimes be a pretty silly (big mighty drums start to sound as you fight a tiny little mudcrab!). It can also be annoying if there are lots of encounters like in Oblivion (mudcrabs and wolves everywhere...).
I'd honestly prefer no battle music at all. It would be really really great if Bethesda made battle music togglable in the audio settings, seperate from all the other music. I still want to hear all other music, just not battle music...

I dont really see why they took out birthsigns

Yeah, i have to admit I'm a little disappointed about the no seasons thing... Everything else sounds pretty good though, imo.

He basically said it in the comment. No game-ruining decision within the first hour. What kind of player you are is decided through your actions over a longer time, not some static decision at the start of the game.

Yes, and I like this. I did like the birthsigns, but when I picked the wrong one, it wasn't cool. So, it's a welcome change.

i can understand seasons are hard to implement, also in a far northern country like Skyrim you would not see alot of difference (except for winter )

But birthsigns are basically perks that are chosen when you create your character. So I don't see why there's a greater risk that you'll ruin your game while you're creating your character than the first few times you level up and pick your first perks then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHGyKIUjs3s

This should be the battle music every time, no matter how small the mudcrab.

but birthsigns dont really determine that much, I guess they were kinda useless too

Skyrim is a lot like Scandinavia in terms of weather I think, kind of. In a far northern country, seasons make immense differences. I know because I live there.
I also watched a nature video on Siberia before, where you saw all seasons. It was immense differences as well.

With dynamic snow seasons would be much easier to do for Bethesda. All the need to do as well is to change AI a bit through some scripts. And some sort of blend-shader to change how leaf-textures look during autumn. And add a colour grading for each season. And of course how often different weather types occur for each season. It's not something overly hard. The hardest thing (dynamic snow) is already done.

The biggest problem except for all that is time. How are time going to pass so we get to see seasons without having to play extremely long? Time can be reduced in certain ways. Shorten timescale, shorten number of days, add for more frequent weather changes so we experience them more often, etc etc. How many days a month has has previously changed in TES games. The calender has not been precise before. So in order to make something as cool as seasons to get in the game, it would be worth to throw away a few calender days that we would otherwise never notice or care about, I think.

That sounds like a lot of work. I just like to assume that Tamriel doesn't have a tilted axis. Problem solved.

yea nevermind i dont know what im talking about

I think we can just shorten the number of days to 15-20 days instead of 30. Throw away some unimportant days. The calender doesn't really matter anyway without seasons.
Unless we have holidays of course. But then we have to decide to simply not throw away the holiday days and just the unimportant ones. How many days there are in the TES calender isn't very important. It has changed between previous games.

Indeed, Seasons would be such a nice touch.
I don't think it is an overly difficult feature either, but they would have to assign people to program it, leaving equally or more important features unattended.

Does anybody know of a game where seasons change? How's it done?

[quote name='hlvr' timestamp='1303395860' post='17511910']
First I'd like to say that if this has been mentioned before, then I'm sorry. I haven't seen a thread about it, so I thought I could make it.

[
Dragon mounts:
Source: http://www.gamepro.com/article/previews/218905/skyrim-preview-cont/
Info: "And what about dragons? Can you use them as mounts? “Are we considering it? Yes,” Howard says. “Are we doing it right now? No.”"

Please do not do this.

I'm not disapointed to learn that birthsigns are out, after all the birthsigns that boosted your attributes don't mean anything now that attributes are out and those that gave you greater powers can be replaced by perks (a sneak perk could give you the shadow's greater power).

And you got to like what pete said about horse armour :biggrin:

I'm surprised at no birthsigns given the new focus on "looking to the heavens" to see your destiny. I thought that birthsigns would play into this nicely.

No birthsigns and no seasons. Fail.

I haven't seen a game like that.

It's one thing that seasons would be really nice for an open-world exploration game (where you spend a lot of time) with beautiful nature like Skyrim.
But it's another thing that they would also be able to show it off in marketing and say "full, real-time, dynamic seasons!" or something like that. I have never heard of a game with full seasons like that. It would be something extra Bethesda could show off.

I think it's too late for seasons now though. And they got this forest called Fall Forest...
Can't hurt to hope though. Oh well, it actually can, we can get disappointed in vain

Perhaps for TES 6? A really good weather mod can also simulate seasons, as we got dynamic snow. Correct colour palettes for the lighting would be good then. A Natural Environments for Skyrim perhaps, hm? I think that is our best hope

TES can never fail! :tes:

I read somewhere that the stars in the "heavens" you're looking at in your skill menu represent the birthsigns visually.

I don't like this. The birthsign you're born under should affect your characteristics. Not the other way around.