Hi everbody,
Just bought the last Playstation Official Mag in France (although I'm a PC player), gonna try to give you all the new elements I could gather from it :

-dynamic shadows
-if a weapon and a shield or two weapons are equiped, you cannot cast any spell (quite logical indeed)
-it seems that smithing can only be done in forges (you cannot repair your equipment everywhere like in morrowind or oblivion)
-new screenshot (i think so) with the PC facing the camera in a cave, wearing an elven armor, a sword in his right hand, and a kind of torch or light staff in his left hand.
-incredible level of detail such as : blood vessels on skin, modelling, animations, clothings (not sure what "clothing" means here))
-meteorological effects : clouds are gathering in real time around mountain peaks (sounds pretty cool), snow affects textures (so again pretty much confirmed that this isn't 3d accumulating snow but I'm fine with that anyway).
-a major inspiration for snowy landscapes seems to be artists like Brom and Frazetta.
-Matthew Carofano (artistic director of Skyrim) : Dwemer ruins (we know that already) and a Dunmer city!!! (yeah you heard me : Dunmer :celebration: ) ;
-again from M. Carifano : "after Oblivion where every place looked alike, in Skyrim you'll find once agin the excentricity of Vvardenfell. Here every Nord Clan has its own colors, its own identity."
-For consoles : the "block" action is performed by pressing both trigger buttons at the same time. Each separatly correspond to the action of what you equipped in one hand or the other.
-80 spells among which some are entirely new (the journalist might have picked a rounded off number since I remember GI said 85 or so?)
-spells confirmed : Detect Life, Fury (force ennemies to fight between them), Circle of Protection (hurl ennemies outside a magic circle), Snow trap (triggers only when an ennemy walks on it), Lightnings, Fireballs.
-Concerning finishing moves we'll see stuffs like : Axe blade planted in the neck, dagger in the chest.
-Concerning skills : Athletics (they surely meant Acrobatics) doesn't exist anymore (to prevent the player boosting this only by jumping on stand)
-AI : NPCs have day and night activities like cooking and brushing the ground in front of their houses.
-dialogues : most "inimportant" NPC like simple villagers won't have any dialogue tree (instead they'll directly comment on rumors or on what they're doing) ; only important NPCs will actually exchange dialogue with you, you CAN cut short the dialogue simply by walking away.
-Every city and town is bound to some particular resources meaning if you burn their mill or mine, you affect their economy and they'll be forced to buy flour or mineral somewhere else and when you'll want to buy these resources here again it will be more expensive. (good thing for evil characters and maybe desctructible environnement?)
-the Dragon Shout key on PS3 is R3 (don't ask me more since I'm a PC player)
-archery : when aiming at something, you can hold your breath (consuming stamina) and the action is slowed.
-Dark Brotherhood mentionned as might be in (the reason beeing that the devs had a lot of fun developping it in Oblivion)
-Dragons can be unpredictible in their behaviour, they will fly in the air, crawl on the land, they can crash when wounded.
-On the favorite menu: "Cliking on a key, the screen freeze and a list of weapons or 'favorite' spells is shown next to each hand".
-Todd Howard Interview :
-"a cause-consequence tree for each mission",
-each mission will be a bit different from the same mission played by another player who has done other quests. Also can be different depending on which mission you did before.
-If you meet a Giant on the road he might totally not attack you unless you attack him.
-it seems he says that when most NPCs give you a quest, they'll give you precise directions or accompany you to the road showing you which direction to take to go on on you quest.
-the player should be excited when discovering a new place, or overhearing rumors spoken by NPCs between them.
-the testers mark the most beautiful landscape, so they should have things like temples, stuff that will entice the player to go and check by himself.
-in Oblivion there was only 1 guy working on the dungeons, this time for Skyrim, 8 devs are working on them.
-120 dungeons (again might be another round off number, cause we already heard 130+)
-Speaking of jobs : woodcutting, weaponsmithing, sells stuffs you made to the forge or to the mill...
-he insists on the importance of activities they thought apparently useless before Skyrim, but they found that was surprinsingly important for immersion after implementing them into Skyrim.

Overall, the journalists seem pretty enthusiast and optimistic with the game and they can't wait to play it in November.
Personnaly I'm very excited with most news about Skyrim, except the fact we don't get much news on the UI for the PC version (I'm a bit scared if it's the same Apple thingy), and I hate the fact w'ell get Oblivion style fast-travel again (here also hoping they'll include travel services as well to please everybody). Anyway, I'm not here to start another war and on the other side I'm so releaved that the magic quest markers seem to be gone once and for all (at least according to what I read in the french mag).
Let's discuss the news now! :celebration:

PS: Sorry for synthax and grammatics, I'm not a native english speaker. :wink_smile:

Edit: Many thanks to LostInSpace for helping me updating with another translation feedback!

Haha, that would explain a lot.

On a side note: awesome info, and a good effort getting it on here. :goodjob:

Cause conséquence tree. :wub: CAUSE CONSEQUENCE TREE.

Okay kiddo, you've motivated me. :lmao: I've reserved my mag, I'm off right now to buy it and give you a hand translating bits, since you've done most of the work.

*Gets her butt of the chair*

omg ace post! 10/10 OP :goodjob:

Thanks mate for this info! Really keeping my spirits up, I was a bit down because the last GI update...

Cool thanks!!

That's good news.

I hope it means they'll have 8 times more creative ideas, not that they're 8 times larger.

Thanks, a lot of good info. there, and your English is great!

First off: THANKS for giving this information.

Secondly, ALL info in there is great. I liked all of it!

I especially liked "- it seems he says that when most NPCs give you a quest, they'll give you precise directions or accompany you to the road showing you which direction to take to go on on you quest.". This allows us to fully get rid of those pesky and evil quest markers! If NPCs accompany me to the road or something like that, that's cool too! As long as they aren't companions through the whole quest... I prefer to travel alone. But to accompany you for directions, awesome Bethesda!

The only thing that I know of that I'm disappointed and sad about is fast travel. I really hope there is travel services included like in Morrowind. I prefer those a thousand times more...

How'bout both? :nod:

Ha excellent, im interested in visiting the dunmer city.

Some new info in there, thanks. I don't care how friendly those giants are, they're all gonna die.

Mind affecting spell ..... <-- tears of joy.

Fury FTW

Couple of things remind me of Fable II (dialogue, sidequests, jobs).

Choice and consequence tree better not mean "all choices result in the same consequence". I tire of this approach to it. =/

Spells and level of detail seems good.

Very pleased with the new information! I didn't think Bethesda would be going so far with NPC schedules - I really like how the cities in this game have been designed with their own self sufficient economies and places to work. Will give a lot of interesting things for the player to do in town when they aren't adventuring. The main quest is starting to sound quite comprehensive too, perhaps in vein of Daggerfall's branching plot where lots of the quests have multiple outcomes (I.e. Blackmailing Prince Helseth).

Quite keen on NPCs giving directions or accompanying you a ways to the quest destination, as well. Much more natural than instant quest markers, and could allow for some interesting encounters along the way - such as agents from a rival faction attempting to kill your friend before they can tell you the information concerning a lost artifact that they covet.

Really, my only major concern about Skyrim at this point is spells being too unique (like, will we actually be able to implement the Circle of Protection's pushing abilities into custom enchantments, or are many of these completely specialized and unable to be reproduced elsewhere). Everything else seems to be amazing.

Oh, and a Dunmer city? Excellent! Under sun and sky, my Dunmer character shall greet them warmly. :toughninja:

Awesome news, I love every bit of it. And I agree with travel services and add open cities.

excellent update, and one I like the sound of a lot more than some of the others. seems like there are some genuine good ideas here. I wonder if this means quest markers are not always in, that would be superb.

That ability sounds more like a dragon shout than a spell :shrug:

Holy cow!

Great news, really great.

Thanks, a lot pal. :goodjob:

Excellent information and thanks for sharing OP. :celebration:

Nice to see I bring mostly good news for you all!
Gonna get me a beer to celebrate :foodndrink:

I think they're out. Bethesda struck them with the ban hammer once and for all.

If not (for some strange reason), they can easily be modded out by replacing it with a transparent texture. Now that we know we have more precise directions and such, it's all cool

I like most of this new information but I'm bothered by not being able to talk to everyone. Though I guess I'll be okay with it since they at least comment on rumours which is all non quest related npc's were good for anyway. :shrug: Also, Game Informer said 85 Spells and the screenshot you mentioned was in the Skyrim issue of Game Informer.

Also, wow. Only one guy worked on the dungeons in Oblivion? That explains a lot.

The screenshot isn't new.

Thank you, especially after the 'revealing' GI update on UI, nice to find out something new. A stab at working economies, Yes!