Yeah, on some meta level at least, in Oblivion, the journal type UI interface for spells suggested that as you learn new spells you are recording them in your personal spell book.

I don't think we've seen any UI for the spells other than the list of all the things you can equip in your left or right hand, correct? I hope there is a way to view all of the spells you have learned in greater detail.

Yeah, in Morrowind it was a Two hander, in Obliv it was a one hander (not sure if it was in other TES games), there fore it does change its form. It would be pretty sweet if it morphed to your prefered style. Mayber even change its appearrance based on your race?

This sounds promising. Let's hope we get more info on this.

I am pretty sure this was probably just a badly stated reference to the use of dragon souls. As Todd has mentioned in every preview, dragon souls can be used to activate new dragon words (or "spells") or power up ones you already know the first word for. Probably the editor just saw a mention of using souls to activate spells, probably from badly written notes that used the word "create" and didn't make it clear enough, and then added gem after soul to coincide with existing knowledge about Elder Scrolls games. There is no way that Todd mentioned this only to G4 after Bethesda has repeatedly denied spell creation and emphasized that spells are now more unique and better scaled, with more complicated effects, so creation is not reasonable. Considering said passage is disorganized and the concept mentioned bears similarity to the dragon soul system, I am going to suggest that there is no basis for reading into this.

Additionally, I'm just going to remind us that gaming press is pretty marginal a lot of the time. I don't trust it if it's not coming from a source like Destructoid where they will be honest/silly if they aren't sure about the details, willing to reply to comments to their articles, and generally don't just make [censored] that sounds good up when they don't know what they are talking about. And don't even get me started on G4, which, like most gaming television, is produced and hosted by people who could care less about games if it wasn't their job. Their lack of genuine interest and overacted use of excitement and puns make me nauseous. Hell, in the G4 video the commentator asks if you can use a dragon priest's soul to unlock the word when he clearly was not a dragon... anyone who had done even a minute's worth of research on the game before hosting a preview for it would know better than to ask such a stupid question. If he had even given the slightest rat's ass about just knowing his [censored] for the first showing of gameplay footage, he could have done a 10 minute google session and been able to do a better job.

So yeah, I don't believe anything about spell creation until I hear it from, at the very least, IGN and a Bethesda staff Twitter.

Quote from end of article: "When we approach the fallen dragon, the corpse begins to glow. Because the player character is known as “dragon born,” he is capable of “devouring” the souls of dragons. Bethesda has yet to reveal exactly what this will factor into the game..."

That's so not true. I don't know where this guy got the information for his article, but this has been explained only in every single demo and preview of the game. He clearly does not know what he is talking about when it comes to the magic system.

No they referred to capturing dragon souls much later in the interview if you read the ending. If there was any slip up, it was the interviewer misinterpreting what enchantments are

I dunno about this, seems kinda shaky ground to confirm custom spells on. They could've easily made a mistake and misinterepreted creating enchtantments for spellcrafting.

Ninjaed!^

That is a pretty elaborate set of circumstances. So you think that the dev who was running this demo didn't find a soul gem, as described in the article?

Remember this is not some special exclusive demo made by Bethesda for G4 to announce soul gems and spell creation.

This is the G4 reporter's blow-by-blow description of the 45-minute Park City demo.

IMO it's completely within the realm of possibility that whichever dev was running the demo found a soul gem, explained what it was briefly and continued on with the demo. The dev wasn't trying to make a big deal out of spell creation, etc., it's just what was encountered during the course of the demo with no fanfare.

By all rights, shouldn't it morph the player into the blades prefured style? I know that probably wouldn't be the best from a gameplay standpoint - with player characters shifting rapidly from one archtype to another unwillingly - but it is a sword that takes over the user, and not the other way around right?

It'd be cool if at first it gave you a +15 to Two handed weapons, but then as time went on that'd start to decrease. To recharge it you'd have to kill someone. And then after say 50 killings the sword would give you a perk that increased the one handed bonus to +30, but it drains faster so that you'd have to kill more people to keep that bonus. And finally after say 100 killings you get a +40 to one handed, but you have to almost kill a person every day or it will dip really low, and you also can't let go of the blade and it always has to stay selected.

And if you try to resist and not kill anyone, it starts to drain your stats.

So basically it feels like the sword is controling you - and is so powerful it starts to corrupt the user. Its not like I'm against a weapon that changes to match the user, but the Umbra is not the weapon for that. It is far to badass to change for the user, rather it waits for someone who it deams worthy. And even then it should redecorate the user to match itself - not the other way around.

It's one of those it doesn't prove, but it doesn't disprove things. Those that want spell making (me included) will say that the interviewer didn't make a mistake and those who don't mind/care will say he did. Next thing you know there will be tons and tons of debate threads claiming one side is right and the other wrong. I'm calling it. Hope I'm wrong

Hmmm, good point but if it morphed to a shape you should be familiar with, it would make taking you over all the easier!

Yeah I was expecting Umbra to have its own personality after fighting the woman Umbra who kept shouting "Umbra needs SOULSSZZZZZ!"

I was so disappointed. I thought it was going to have a personality and talk to me, possibly influence me to kill, etc.

I think someone made a mod that gives it some more depth and causes you to black out once in a while and go on a killing rampage if you don't feed Umbra enough souls per day.

There is so much that can be done with the Umbra concept. I think it wasn't fully exploited in Oblivion.

I'd love to see other Daedric artifacts with their own personality as well. I think there was a dog statuette that talked to you, but some more interesting, powerful artifacts that have some serious drawbacks when you use them, like they become addictive, or cause other stat penalties, etc.

I'm thinking the journalist sees enchantments as spells. Or maybe the dev was using a staff, which shoots spells, and mentioned soul gems can be used to create new ones and charge them up. Regardless of however it came about, I think this article is confusing enchantment for "custom spells". I hope I'm wrong though.

^ that is what I had in mind, but maybe it should be that coupled with the boost for killing thing. Also, the enchantment on it shouldn't be just soul trap, it should be a unique soul trap that automatically takes the soul and fills the sword up. Sorta strange to me you could kill and take a soul with umbra then use it on a dagger, lol

I agree that he missed the point on enchantments. And I just quoted the ending, which was that he doesn't know what dragon souls do and that hasn't been revealed yet :facepalm: . He talks about dragon shouts earlier and then mentions taking dragon souls at the end, saying there's no information on what you do with them. Which is totally wrong, because you use them for dragon shouts. What I am pointing out is that his grasp on this concept seems highly questionable if he didn't put that together, even though they have said it point blank repeatedly in the previews.

That means whatever he said about soul gems can't be trusted as a precise statement. I'm definitely not saying that they never found a soul gem at one point in the 45 minute demo. If they are in the game to any degree, it's not at all surprising that you'd see one. But I doubt they said much about them, and I really think that "creating" spells could be misinterpreted from creating an enchantment pretty easily too.

While I see what you're saying, I still have to stick by with what I said. Umbra is far to powerful to give a damn what the user used to be. As long as they're special enough to deam worthy - like the Nerevarine, CoC, and Dragonborn or some of the other weilders it's had, the sword really wouldn't have a reason to care. It'll just change you till you fit it's needs.

Its just that powerful.

Yeah, these are the most powerful equipment in the game, created by Daedra Lords I might add. There should be some kind of consequence for using them.


Ok, that makes sense. I guess I was trying to equate it too much with Soul Edge from the Soul Edge/Calibur series. :laugh:

change
We pick up a soul gem here, which can be used to power up encahntments or create new ones
to
We pick up a soul gem here, which can be used to power up enchantments or create new ones
And it’s just like in Morrowind and Oblivion. Guess the journalist misunderstood enchantment for spell.

I understand, and personally I'd like to see a weapon that changes to fight the wielder better too. Its just Umbra isn't that weapon. Rather than it change itself, Umbra would just change you - because its evil and powerful like that.

Personally, if Umbra changed to fit the wielder, I'd feel like I was more powerful than the blade because it seemed to change to my will, when infact its suppose to be the other way around with the Umbra taking away the wielders will and controls them.

Well i think it would be easier for it to change to a weapon you like to use. Because it is a weapon you like to use, you like the +20 1h sword boost from it. Because you like the boost so much, you try harder and harder to keep it up by killing people. You are becoming more and more dependant on the blade to kill people to keep feeding it souls to keep the boost so you can keep killing people to keep feeding it souls to keep getting the boost, etc. I think you can tell it is a dangerous spiral.

Now if i got the Umbra in Oblivion and it was a 2h sword, i would have dropped it in a box because i hated claymores. So a sword with +20 2h sword skill wouldn't mean anything to me if i didn;t like 2 handed swords