I thought I would be closer to the majority with, "changes have me worried" choice, but I wasn't even close. I know this is Bethesda we are talking about and like a lot of you guys I have never loved and respected a gaming company more than Todd Howard and Company, but there is a wave going through the gaming industry of appealing to the money masses and abandoning RPG principles to do it. I have found myself being drawn to companies like Bohemia Interactive and CDPROJEKT due to their ability to stick with the core audience and sort-of create the masses by doing so. I'm sure neither of those two companies make the bucks like others, but they make a living, and they make great games.

I sorta hope that this statement gets through to someone that is listening.

If I'm wrong and Skyrim is great, then I will be doubly pumped and proud of Bethesda.

Wow...

Warning, may have ranting. May poke fun out of those who want their game remade. Dares to embrace the new.

Yes, I am an optimist. I'm not getting up from a circle of fellow optimists, making a confession and starting my twelve steps to recovery.I like being an optimist.

I've played computer games for three decades, so I'm not one of these tea bagging fps-junkie kids that Beth is apparently catering for. I played 1st ed. D and D, Runequest, Traveller, back in the day, and Call of Cthulu, Stormbringer, WFRP, Role master, hell, even Paranoia later so I know what defines an rpg and a crpg ( and that definition seems to be getting narrower, oh no! Change is coming, build a stockade around my genre, and act all elite when any attempt is made to appeal to,oh the horror, new gamers ).

And do you know what. I like what I am hearing, most of it anyway. Stuff like armour slots is just details, you can't stick 20 slots on a character and say the game is more complex, it is the same game with more armour slots. Less armour slots is not dumbing down, it is the same game with less armour slots, in fact rpgs started with armour class, slots is being spoiled imho. Think about it for a second, less slots is less enchanting which is a harder game.

Initial classes? You hear a lot about advantages and disadvantages. Daggerfall had disadantages if you wanted them, but since then thin and few on the ground. In OB Altmer, and three of the birthsigns, had disadvantages, classes only boosted.

Spellmaking. Tricky one. See why people are upset, but I play mages, and I can see the improvement to the game that the different methods of casting will bring.

Anyway, I am glad they are trying something new, rather than pandering to the cries of entitlement from those wonderful enough to be able to sit on their arses and play computer games which have more numbers. If a game from the past is so wonderful, go play it, but don't expect it to be remade. That would make life a bit duller.

Anyway, I am going to play this game, with my unique endgame character, without having to deliberately gimp the build to get a challenge, while still being allowed to pick a few locks with a fighter, and able to change spell on the fly, and select a bunch of perks that define my character, rather than a class which is there to be ignored.

Well this is/could be remedied by being able to withhold perk points and not spending right away. In MW/OB you had no choice after the character selection screen but in Skyrim, with the option to hold off from spending perk points, players that are on the fence between two archetypes have the opportunity to continue leveling up the skills and playing between the two styles without spending a perk point.

If you start to have second thoughts about spending your first perk point due to a hasty and uneducated decision, it's not too late to change paths but you'll still be denied that one perk point you threw away. The punishment and back-lash from making a mistake in Skyrim is less severe than in Morrowind or Oblivion, where one mistake equated to game restart.

If in the middle of the game, you suddenly decide you want to be a mage but you've spent a good majority of your perk points in melee combat, you're pretty much f*cked.

Oh, yeah, I won't name names, but a few have made posts about 'dumbing down', and saying Beth is destroying the franchise pandering to a larger audience, and I have seen posts from the same people demanding more perks, and perk re speccing. So the game should be more hardcoe, but the one defining factor of character progression, the one thing that makes your character build unique, and means constant choice and consequence, should be speyed? I'm puzzled, to say the very least.

I'm not pleased with combat and finishers. I hope that cuirass and greaves haven't been combined.

I am optimistic, though. Everything else looks great, and Beth has never made a bad game, IMO.

I think Skyrim has the potential to be the best ES game yet.

I guess I'm a sycophant.

I'm fairly positive towards Skyrim and will have to play it before I can make an educated estimation on how good the game really is.

But I will play it...probably to death like all the others.

This type of game is so rare and I won't sit on the fence only because this or that. It has to be played and then we will know how good it is...

I voted optimism...unlike my interactions with the real world, which tend to the structured reality of cynical pessimism...but that is not really relevant.

Having said that though, I know that the game on release will most probably be full of bugs, and will need patching..a lot...still optimistic.

A part of me wishes that I was playing the series for the first time though...I think the design philosophy is aimed more at the first-timer, and I, for one, would love to experience that "WOW" factor that the game will have for the newby.

This time I am also in the position of being able to properly support a PC version of the game, so I am really looking forward to seeing what the modding scene are going to do..

I dont really have any expectations as far as the game goes at this point, other than the bugs, and I think that is a good place to be in personally...I am just looking forward to getting into a TES game that I have never seen before.

I don't know why people complain about fast travel....its 100% optional....oh and may I add it actually can be helpful sometimes.
not only does it get you from Point A to Point B but I cant remember how many times I have gotten stuck on a Rock, or glitched on a map without saving like 1-3 hours before hand, so I just Fast Travel to get unstuck instead of reloading a old save from 1-3 hours earlier.

Not true. If I put conjuration as a major instead of restoration, I could level up restoration and it would be just as powerful as if I had picked it in the first place. I don't need to restart. With Skyrim, one wrong perk, and I pretty much have to reload or restart because I can't make up for that one perk. And one perk is going to be a lot more important than a couple potential level ups in the long run.



Exactly. But yet people keep parroting this shtick that Skyrim is somehow going to be more liberating than the other games. Which is just plain stupid.

Lol, good one.

Fighter perks then mage does not equal ruined character.
It equals not the best fighter, not the best mage, but a bit of both, with total mastery of one area traded for more options in dealing with a situation. Of course if you have put 40 perks into warrior skills, then want to change path, you have only 10 perks less for magic. You won't be as good as someone with 40 perks in magic, and neither should you be. You can still put 5 perks apiece into 2 magic skills, and have a few more options to add to your already by now very good combat skills.
To say not being able to be as good at magic as a mage, when you are already a skilled warrior, is limiting your options is a joke of a comment. You can specialise in one thing, or another, or be more than half as good in two areas (half the perks, still 100 skill), be a bit of all three archetypes, or anything in between. This gives you options that matter. Being able to master everything gives you two options, master everything and have a generic, ultimately classless character, or role play limits, which is essentially the same as deliberately gimping your character compared to what the game allows.
And you can say anything limits your options, not riding dragons, not being able to have a permanently summoned undead army, not having guns because it spoils the Grenadier you wanted to role play. All limiting options, and I say good, that makes me happy, options have to have limits, or it gets nonsensical.

It most certainly does if you want to go from pure fighter to pure mage. Not just from fighter to fighter/mage hybrid.

I think most of the stuff looks great, of course i was hoping for spears, crossbows, greaves.
But I'm optimistic. And the orc's are looking better than ever, ugly, but cool. Not like the neon-green pigs/turds from Oblivion.

Let me get this straight, you want going from a pure fighter, with all the skills of a fighter, to a 'pure' mage, with all the magic skills of a character who has been a mage all along, to be an option?
What if I want extra health, and more health, and more magicka, and more stamina every level, after all the choice of just one is limiting my options. Obviously this is a ridiculous thing to say, to have to make the choice is a desirable part of your character's progression. I have taken health and stamina all along, reaped the benefits, will continue to reap them, I can't really complain if I now want to be a mage, but my magicka is low. My options have not been limited, I took one option over another. This kind of choice driven progression is exactly why I am optimistic about the game.

I am not either optimistic or pessimistic since it is just a game to spend my leisure time if i don't like gamer reviews i will not buy it. The changes so far are just bad and Bethesda is contributing to the general decline of gaming trying to build a combat focused game when there are other much better combat focusing games out there . Of course it is their product and they decide how to do it.
I have read some of the interviews here and there and all of them are PR horsecrap with developers speaking a lot without saying anything pretty much proving that there are a lot of game aspects developers themselves don't particularly like .
I dislike everything FO3 and i laugh with the mentality that since it sell good they must use FO3 mechanics in a different game, i am here just for TES and i like to play TES games (all but the last one) FO3 influences are just out of TES climate and so are Bioware's influences with companions and romances . Streamlining games over and over again will drive developers into making shallow products for ii-phones people will play while riding a bus or a train and from what we know already about Skyrim it will be a step to that direction.
I guess they are trying to make a jack of trades thing something between aRPG and cRPG but if you want to play a cRPG The Witcher is unsurpassed and if you are into aRPGs Diablo 3 will be out soon so save your money .

If you take the time to realize what side I am on on this particular issue, may be you'll realize that you and I are on the same page. Going out of your way to be against me isn't really a good idea considering the fact that I brought that up because I don't like how people are saying that Skyrim somehow allows more freedom in your character than the past games.

Oh, I wouldn't go against anyone for the sake of it. Sorry if it seems that way. I will go against ideas and posts, and anyone is welcome to refute mine. I do understand why people are upset about many things, but it seems many people will judge on a trend for 'dumbing down' in the industry in general, or claim the whole game is rubbish because of one detail close to their hearts. Understandable, but not necessarily accurate. I am trying to look at the whole, from the little information we have, and am just as guilty as the doom merchants of assumption, I will freely admit.

Well. This poll certainly encourages morale-boosting.
Of course Skyrim's going to be great.
We had problems with every game in TES, we loved them, they're some of the best games across history. Nothing to worry about. This is Bethesda.

well you got a point with the decap part but i must say that its better you can't attack on mount because in oblivion it was freeking hard to kill stuff from ur horse so i think that it's better they took it out!

I didn't even know that you could engage in mounted combat in Oblivion. How did you manage that? Was it a mod?

I guess I'd have to say pessimistic. Always expect the worse, but hope for the best. Never disappointed.

no it isn't a mod i'm sure because i did it on xbox 360
the only attack on horse is left swing - right swing that's all!

Cautiously optimistic.