Here you go. If anyone has anymore questions that aren't listed here, post down below, I will try to answer them and update this information if it is something that I can answer/left out. Feel free to discuss the information of Skyrim here so that the forum doesn't get cluttered with repetitious threads. I reposted it here because the old thread had dropped off the first page and had gotten off topic though several helpful pieces of information were added. If any more information is released through twitter or other means, feel free to post it here so we can add it to the compilation.

Features of Skyrim:

Combat- The combat system has once again been overhauled. Now you may choose what you place in each hand, whether it be a sword and shield, dagger and sword, two swords or even a weapon in one hand and a spell in another. Assaulting with your shield is now apart of melee combat, being able to shield bash them to stagger them to give yourself an advantage in combat. The back-peddling speed when in combat has been slowed that you can no longer continuosly string alone an npc or creature in combat. Two-handed weapons ARE still in the game, that did not change. Spells can now be dedicated to a certain hand meaning you can fight with your left hand aflame while your right hand is charged with lightning. Ranged combat has been improved by increasing the damage bows deal significantly, so much so that it is possible for one to one shot an npc from stealth but also so the draw time of your bow has been increased. Ranged combat shouldn't be able to be abused from stealth like in Oblivion due to the fact that NPCs are FAR more intelligent than any TES game ever and possibly any game to date, we shall see.

Improved Radiant AI- The AI for Skyrim is a vast improvement over that of Oblivion. The AI will now react to you killing people. If you kill a shopkeeper they will react in a proper way to it. Also it is said that if you drop a sword on the ground near NPCs they will react to that as well, such as a child might try to give you the sword back or two men will fight over it. Also if you say, level your a few schools of magic to a high level, you may be challenged by a mage on the street that just might have been passing by in a western style duel. This event would not happen if you decided to have raised blade instead of Alteration. Even leveling skills has an effect on how the world changes around you. NPCs will dodge spells. When you approach an enemy, they will engage in dialogue with you from a far while continuing to do their task or making gestures or pacing around, depending on what their personality is. This is the replacement for what the NPCs do in Oblivion where the enemy would run up to you and then begin the zoomed in dialogue. The game world truly feels more real due to the fact that NPCs will talk to you from a distance if required and will continue smithing or washing dishes while talking to you and may even make cursory glances over their shoulder at you while talking for realism unparalleled. Also, the one thing that many people will be happy to know, Bethesda has confirmed that they have added many times the amount of dialogue that was in Oblivion and has hired MANY more voice actors to play NPCs. /rejoice all.

Environment- The environment is that of a mountainous range area close to that of Alaska. The north coast is icy and cold with glaciers, snow, etc. In the middle of Skyrim is a massive tundra (with several different environments in that one area) where you can see the mountains at the edge.- (Thanks to Reach and Riveon) There are numerous ruins spread through Skrim. Each of the dungeons and ruins are completely customized and unique, no one part of one dungeon will look like another. This area is also said to be inhabited by the usual wolves and other creatures but also trolls, Sabertoothed tigers and Mammoths. Also there will be giant spider(s) in Skyrim as well. The draw distances have been greatly increased allowing for little to no grid pattern or low resolution distance land. Also it has been stated that wherever you can see you can go in Skyrim.

Plot- The plot is that you are possibly the last Dragonborn, a group characterized by their ability to hunt dragons. The Septim line was a prominent Dragonborn line protected by the Dragonguards which eventually became the blades. After the death of the Septim line, the Blades were hunted down and killed one by one and now are almost completely gone. The return of the dragons was foretold in the Elder Scrolls and was ushered in by the destruction of the Staff of Chaos, the creation of the Numidium, the events at Red Mountain and the Oblivion Crisis. There is a blade you come across that will train and guide you through the game. The last event to unfold before the dragons return was the people of Skyrim turning against each other which is happening at the beginning of the game. Dragons start to appear in greater and greater numbers as the game goes on and will eventually culminate with Alduin possibly coming into the world, but we have no idea yet.

Graphics- Skyrim features True shadows, more hyper-realistic faces on NPCs and more distinction between the races. The normal creatures that you are used to have been updated graphically and look much more appealing (especially Trolls). There will be HDR and many other environmental effects that are at the cutting edge of gaming now and including greatly updated water effects. Dynamic snow, a first to my knowledge in gaming, in which snow truly falls from the sky and lands on objects and builds up. So in theory if it snows heavily enough you may have to wade through snow or even have mountain passes blocked by avalanches.

Creatures- So far it has been shown that we will have wolves, trolls, giant spiders and of course dragons. There are also Saber-toothed tigers, Mammoths, giants, Ice Wraiths, giant spiders and possibly werewolves. The most shocking creature of all is monstrous and unimaginable....Children!

New leveling system and Stat system- You no longer choose between Major and Minor skills anymore. Now there are 18 skills you can choose to level from but you now level from skill in a different way. You no move along to another level by leveling skills like before but the lower the level the less it attributes to the leveling process, for example, by leveling your Destruction from 9-10, it will give less to leveling than say leveling Destruction from 30-31. You gain perks as you get skill levels that give you bonuses like those in Oblivion, Daggerfall and Fallout. Each star in the sky of the menu is a perk. There may be a perk tree taking the form of constellations that will allow you to easily keep track of your perks. (perks information thanks to Orzorn.) Known skills are Smithing, Alchemy, Destruction, Alteration, Illusion, Conjuration, Restoration and Enchanting. You will be able to mine, farm, cook and cut wood but it has not been confirmed that these are skills are or just things you are able to do. Bethesda has said that they have given you things to actually do in towns so that the world feels even more real and immersive. You can smith your own weapons using ore you have mined or grow your own ingredients for Alchemy.

Level Scaling- Okay, this is the biggest thing I see. Level-scaling has been in every TES game in some respect. The level-scaling is more like Fallout's level-scaling meaning that this TES game will be similar to Daggerfall in most respects.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Content is explanation of Fallout Level-scaling. So please no more "OMG HE MADE EVERYTHING UP!" posts<<<<<<<<<<<<
All items have the same set stats, and all non-human enemies have the same HP and stats across all levels. Quest rewards are always the same. This makes it so it better than Oblivion's Level-scaling. NPCs are scaled in their equipment.

Random spawns out in the world are scaled (stronger enemies appear at higher levels), but weak enemies aren't written out of the system, just become less common. Unlike Oblivion where imps and boars become impossible to find at higher levels, A single spawn at lower levels can have enemies spawning in pairs at higher levels.
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After you enter an enclosed area, all enemies will be set to your level there for the rest of the game. You cant keep coming back to the same ruin to get better stuff as you level (especially since enemies usually don't respawn).

Stronger enemies exist in the world at the start of the game. You're usually given enough warning if you don't want to fight anything too strong. The fallout system was created from Oblivion's but Fallout was a testing ground for tweaking level-scaling from too easy from no level-scaling (Morrowind) to too much level-scaling (Oblivion).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>End of Fallout level-scaling explanation<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Finishing Moves- Finishing moves are visual effects that happen when killing an npc or creature. These finishing moves are unique to each weapon and to each creature. This means that killing a bear with a long sword will look different than killing a troll with a long sword but also killing a bear with a mace will look different than killing it with a longsword. Thus it makes killing creatures and npcs even more exciting and gets rid of the repetition. It hasn't been confirmed that spells will have finishing moves but I can say it is almost certain to have finishing moves for spells.

Dialogue-
Conversations have evolved greatly over the TES series. Oblivion was the start of the true immersion into the gaming world with their voice over conversations and radiant conversations between villagers allowing for over-hearing information and then using that information to gain quests. In Skyrim the convesations no longer occur in a zoomed-in view of the person speaking to you. When an NPC talks to you they will move about, occasionally looking at you, or turn away to continue a task like woodcuttings or minding a counter. Secondary conversations you overhear also provide info without you ever needing to engage in dialogue. Townspeople might mention a missing item, or comment on an unusual situation and those details will automatically enter your log allowying you to explore those avenues at a later time if you so choose. Also when you walk within range of an enemy npc and they notice you they will begin dialogue with you from afar, making gestures or pacing back and forth as if they were a real person.

Extra Features-

Sprint has been added and drains stamina when used.

Dragon Shouts are abilities give you powerful effects to use in battle. There are shouts such as ones that are a "blink" effect (meaning that you teleport a short distance, like 60 feet or something like, that value is a guesstimate to show that it is a very short distance, not fact) and other combat effects. It's not quite certain how we acquire them other than absorbing dragon souls. It's also not certain if you can use them at will or only in dragon fights.

Random quests have been added in which you can get at random for being in an area at the right time (or wrong time)

Decent sized towns through out Skyrim that are open. Possibly Open Cities (I'd bet my life on it though)

HUD free first-person view and improved third person view. There may be an option to show a HUD but it has not been confirmed yet.

In-depth character customization that allows to change your character physique, give them a beard (possibly women with beards? hmy: That's Nord women for you) and other more detailed changes to your characters body.

Radiant Story in which if you kill a shopkeeper and he gave a quest, his daughter might inherit the shop and if she knows that you killed her father, she may not give you the quest that her father would have given you. If you killed him inside a secluded house and no one discovered you then she won't know you killed him and thus will be willing to give you the quest. All your actions in Skyrim will affect how the game will progress more than any other TES game. The people will truly treat you differently upon how you act.

85 unique spell effects, which is far more than most other TES games. -(Thanks to Raziel for the info)

Speculation- From screen shots of the menu in Skyrim, many have speculated that the attributes have been removed and repurposed elsewhere into the game such as in perks or racials. This cannot of course be confirmed as of this time. They have been instead replaced with straight value increases for Health, Magicka and Stamina for when you level.

Very organized thread. Damn, Skyrim is going to rock so hard!

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1156675-what-we-know-until-now/page__st__40__p__16939552__fromsearch__1#entry16939552

Thank you very much, just trying to keep everyone calm and not have the same old "This game is being dumbed down" arguments from those that don't understand the information.



Thanks! Added the info to the compilation. :celebration:

This is my favorite information thread because it's color-coded, lol.

So when were picking which perk to get dose this mean well see the vault boy? :disguise:

So no confirmation as to the engine? While I know that Skyrim will LOOK better, the bigger issue was how completely broken the engine has been in Bethesda games of late. Way too many glitches, terrible optimization, and just a general lack of keeping with the times. I think just about everyone would be happy to know that it is a new engine, or at the very least get a promise that it is immensely different to the point that it is almost a different engine.

Other than that though, this pretty much fixes all of the issues I had with Oblivion. Focus on combat improvements, more detailed environments (hopefully including the world), and fixed conversation presentation. And also Beards.

Any idea if they will be trying to do more streaming of the environment? One of my biggest issues with Oblivion was the constant loading, especially when I played on 360, where load times were not only frequent, but way too slow. On PC, using mods to open up the world and have as few loads as possible made the game FAR more immersing, and prevented me from having as much time wasted on all of the loading.

Also, as a tech fanatic, if that snow tech works the way you suggested, that alone would make me happy enough with the engine.

Probably not :laugh: I'm expecting a great perk system from this game.



They have confirmed they are no longer using Gamebryo. This new system is mostly likely Id Tech 5 due to Id software now being part of the family. As for how good Skyrim will look, I can almost guarantee it will be one of the best looking games if not so. Most people say that it looks bad but they are looking at a small picture that is not high resolution digital pictures. This will be confirmed if the game is truly the most beautiful game when the 1080p gameplay video comes out. As for the constant loading, it was a limitation of Gamebryo. Gamebryo really held back the games of Bethesda and personally, I think Bethesda did an amazing job on their games with the limitation of Gamebryo. Now that they have their own engine they are more free to do things which they are showing us they are doing in Skyrim.

If the new engine can manage real time snow that collects and trees where indavidual branches move in the wind(two things that I havent seen in games before ever) I think the world will not only be much large but also loading randomly will be either be gone or almost gone. I believe they made a monster of an engine for this game and that it is capable of some amazing things we dont know about yet...oh and dynamic shadows coming from everything =]

The north coast is icy and cold with glaciers, snow, etc. In the middle of Skyrim is a massive tundra (with several different environments in that one area) where you can see the mountains at the edge, and the Reach has already been posted in that other thread linked in the comments.


And fish.


Has this really been confirmed? If so, then I am really, really happy. :celebrate:


They've slowed down backwards running because it looked ridiculous in combat - so you can't just run backwards from someone charging you.

Edit: Realised half of this has already been posted. Oh well.

@mordeaniis chaos: Brand new engine built by Bethesda team is confirmed, no gamebryo anymore

Also, to anyone saying it will be id Tech 5, you are wrong: Pete Hines said on twitter some hours ago that id Tech is no good for their games.

The open cities thing is coming from how it says dragons will attack cities which would kinda require open cities. Also with the backward running I feel that its amazing they did that. Now you really have to commit to the fight if you get close and no more running backwards throwing fireballs or shooting arrows at them.

Yeah, we should try and just keep everything in one place and not place our egos on this. I'll try to keep that updated and see this too. Where is Open cities confirmed?

I've been out of the loop with Skyrim, so thanks very much for putting this together Sleign. It looks like TES V will be an improvement over oblivion. I just hope it is still as open, modding wise.

I'm glad to see children included. One of my first thoughts in Morrowind was, "This place will be uninhabited soon...no one's having kids to repopulate the place. Hope they have lots of immigrants."

I see. Did they say cities or towns? Sounds optimistic though.
Although in some ways that change is a pity because that was basically my entire combat strategy right there in Oblivion.

Wow, that had to be a pain to type.
Thank you for all the info, have a (fake) cookie. :cookie:

By the looks of it the vanilla game will be enough to where you wouldent need modding to make it better. Im sure there will still be some amazing mods coming out though the modders may need to work on their skills to keep up with the quality of whats already in the game.

Ok. I really hate this. I don't want to be warned if an oppenent is stronger than i am.

I didn't see the twitter info from Pete Hines so that's good to know, it was just an assumption after the acquisition of Id software.



It's not like a message pops up and says "This person is stronger than you." Mainly what that means is that getting to that area became increasingly difficult in where the creatures there were nearly kill you just getting near the entrance of the ruins and then you see an NPC with full Daedric armor while your in steel armor. That sort of thing where it is pretty evident if you attack him that your going to die.

Eh, most people have pretty good intuition; crack it up to that. Or mod it out.

Seems like some of this info has not been confirmed yet.
But it's expected for ideas to get blown out of proportion on the forums.

I suggest everyone read the article for themselves.

Fixed!



The ideas aren't blow out of proportion, some of the things listed are constructed scenarios based on the details and examples they gave in the magazine. Very few of the things where constructed scenarios and most of them I said "Will possibly" and also it is pretty much common sense they will happen with what they revealed.

I too enjoy the colors.

Also anyone have more info on the spell effects?
The only 3 I know about are the 3 basic attack types -flame, frost, lightening.

How many were in oblivion and morrowind?

The real quote is "Dragons are a real and regular threats in the game world. They fly into battle at unexpected times. They ravage towns. They wield awesome power. And you'll have to face them repeatedly in single combat"

It says towns which im assuming there will many of beside the 5 large cities in the game. Once again though I cant stress the fact that if the game can handle real time snow it can handle open cities.