Skyrim Information V : V

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:08 pm

SKYRIM
Unofficial Information Thread
(http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/286552-skyrim-information/)
(http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/4159-skyrim-information/)
(http://forumplanet.gamespy.com/elder_scrolls_v_skyrim_general_discussion/b67704/20884279/p1/?0)
Release Date: 11.11.11
New Engine: "Creation Engine"
Creation Set (SDK / Construction Set)
DirectX 11 Support (PC)
Requires Steam (PC)

http://www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim/media/
http://www.zaldir.net/Skyrim%20Characters.html
http://www.bethblog.com/index.php/2011/08/24/the-races-and-faces-of-skyrim/
http://www.zaldir.net/Files/Skyrim%20Sources.html

Latest Information (Updated 08.24.2011)
There is no hardcoe mode.
There are no Arenas like it was in Oblivion.
There's no locational damage.
There's no Necromancer faction.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:38 pm

Quests & Dialogue

Radiant Story: Many quests are still completely governed by Bethesda, but the Radiant Story system helps randomize and relate the side quests to players to make the experience as dynamic and reactive as possible. Rather than inundate you with a string of unrelated and mundane tasks, it tailors missions based on who your character is, where you're at, what you've done in the past, and what you're currently doing. Radiant Story is also smart enough to know which caves and dungeons you've already visited and thus conditionalize where, for instance, a kidnapped person is being held to direct you toward a specific place you haven't been to before, populated with a specific level of enemy. Skyrim also tracks your friendships and grudges to generate missions. Do a small favor for a farmer and it may eventually lead to a larger quest. Some NPCs will even agree to be your companion to help you out in specific situations.
Main Questline is approximately 30 hours.
It's possible to play after finishing the Main Quest.
Taverns will play a large role in getting information, gossip and rumors from a town as it's naturally where most people go after working, and you can listen to peoples conversation and learn more about the town and/or Skyrim itself.
People will be more vague or specific when talking to you or giving you quests depending on how much they like you.
There are more ways to complete quests.

General Combat

An overhauled combat-system.
Inter-changeable dual-wielding with both weapons and spells. Dual-wield any combination, even staffs!
Staggering effects and camera shake.
Switching between loadouts on the fly is made easier thanks to a new quick-select menu that allows you to "bookmark" all of your favorite spells, shouts, and weapons for easy access.
There are non-lethal tavern brawls in the game.
There are more weapon and armor types in Skyrim compared to Oblivion.
Special kill animations: Depending on your weapon, the enemy, and the fight conditions, you may execute a devastating finishing move that extinguishes enemies with a stylistic flourish.
Specializing in a particular weapon is often the best way to go, as you can improve your attacking skills with perks. For instance, the sword perk increases your chances of landing critical strikes, the axe perk punishes enemies with bleeding damage after blows, and the mace perk ignores enemy armour.
You can poison your weapon with various types of poison.
There is no decapitation.
There is no locational damage.

Armor

Cuirass and Greaves are combined.
Every Race have a unique set of armor.
Common armor like leather and steel have a more Nordic feel compared to Oblivion and Morrowind.
There are Chain-mail armor in the game.

Melee

'Magnetism' in your attacks draws them more towards enemies rather than allies.
If you hold down the block button, you'll attempt to bash the enemy with your shield.
Timing-based blocking system that requires players to actively raise their shields to take the brunt of the attack instead of simply holding the block button.
When backstabbing characters from the shadows, a dagger deals significantly more damage than any other type of weapon, making it the perfect tool for an assassin.
You can use Power Attacks by holding down the attack button, which staggers enemies, but drains Stamina.
Torches can be used as weapons.
Hand to Hand attacks have a much improved gravity and physicality.
You can not block while dual-wielding.

Archery

Ranged combat has been improved by significantly increasing the damage bows deal.
The draw-time of the bow has been increased, making is slower.

Magic & Spells

5 Magic Schools: Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration & Illusion.
There are over 85 spells to choose from.
Spells needs to be equipped to be cast.
You can dual-wield spells to double the damage at a higher magicka consumption.
Some spells can be learned by reading spell tomes, while others can be bought from merchants.
There's a wide range of different ways to cast similar spells, like setting up a fire trap, sending a fireball or spraying fire in front of you like a flamethrower.
If you cast a frost spell, you'll see the effects on the enemy's skin. If you're wielding the flame spell like a flame thrower, the environment will catch fire for a short while and burn anything that comes into contact with it.
Fire deals the highest amount of damage, lighting/shock deals less damage, but drains the enemy's magicka, while frost deals the least damage, but drains stamina and slows down enemies physically.
Light magic (from staves at least) can stick to walls.

Way of the Voice (Dragon Shouts)
"A long practiced spiritual form of Nordic magic, also known as the Tongues, that is based on their worship of the Wind as a personification of Kynareth. Through the use of the Voice the power of a Nord can be formed into a thu'um, or shout - which has a large variety of applications (anything from sharpening blades to a long range weapon). Master Voices (known simply as Tongues) have legendary, and often unbelievable powers, including talking to people of hundreds of miles away or teleportation. The most powerful masters must even be careful whenever they speak, as their voice can cause great destruction and they are commonly gagged. During the Conquest of Morrowind, the Nordic war chiefs were also Tongues (Derek the Tall, Jorg Helmborg, Hoag Merkiller). They needed no typical siege weapons when attacking a city as they merely used the Voice to break down the city gate and allow their armies to storm in. The future of the Tongues was forever changed by the most powerful Tongue, Jurgen Windcaller, also better known as the Calm. Jurgen converted to a pacifist and refused to use the Voice for any martial purposes. In a confrontation with 17 other tongues he reportedly swallowed the Shouts of the 17 for three days until they lay exhausted, later to become his followers. Today, all Tongues live secluded lives on the highest peaks of Skyrim in tough conditions and contemplation, and have only spoken to announce the destiny of the great Tiber Septim (who later created an Imperial College of the Voice in Markarth, returning the Voice to the art of warfare). Those known as Dovahkiin, Dragonborn, can use a type of magic known as "Dragon Shouts." Dragon shouts are spoken in the Dragon Language, and can manipulate dragons in a variety of unknown ways, as well as performing other kinds of magic, also undocumented."

You will be able to use Dragon Shouts.
There are over 20 different Shouts.
You collect words for these shouts around the world, either from ancient runes or by slaying dragons, and there are three words for each shout. The amount of time you hold down the shout button is how many words come out, and the more words you use, the more powerful the shout becomes.
One shout lets you slow down time, another lets you move stealthily close to an enemy in a mere instant. One shout will even let you summon a dragon!
Shouts has a cooldown time.
Confirmed Dragon Shouts with names in Dragon language: "Yol Toor"- Fire breath, "Iiz Slen" - Ice crystals, "Strun Bah Qo" - Lightning Storm.

AI, NPCs & Creatures
New, updated Radiant AI: You won't find townspeople loitering aimlessly in town squares anymore. Each NPC performs tasks that make sense in their environment. To impart the towns and cities with a greater sense of life, Bethesda has populated them with mills, farms, and mines that give the NPCs believable tasks to occupy their day. The improved Radiant AI technology is also more aware of how a citizen should react to your actions. As you perform tasks for them or terrorize them by ransacking their home, the NPCs develop feelings about you. If you're good friends with a particular NPC and barge into his house during the middle of the night, he may offer you lodging rather than demand you leave the premises. If you swing your weapon near an NPC, knock items off their dinner table, or try to steal something of value, they'll react with an appropriate level of hostility given their prior relationship to you. If you drop an item on the ground near NPCs they will react to that as well, such as a child might try to give you the sword back, two men will fight over it or someone might even try to kill you with it if they dislike you. When NPCs think they see or hear something, they go into an alert state, instead of instantly attacking you. Players with a higher sneak skill will have more time to duck back around the corner or find sanctuary in the shadows.

NPCs

When you approach an NPC, they will engage in dialogue with you, while continuing to do their task or making gestures or pacing around, depending on what their personality is.
If you kill a shop owner, their family member will inherit the shop and will be angry about you, but still give you missions, which could then improve your relation with them.
Main-Quest Givers are Essential.
You can make friends by doing quests for people, thus making them act differently towards you, and they might even join you on an adventure.
Male and female characters will have some different animations, and beast races will have unique animations.
There are NPC Children.
Even minor NPCs have much more complexity and depth compared with Oblivion.
You can persuade various random NPCs to accompany you and they feel like fleshed out, interesting companions.
There are bards in taverns, who plays tunes, and you can pay them to play another tune.
You can hire companions.
You can have animal companions.
NPCs can throw pre-set rocks at you if you are below them.

Creatures & Mounts

Confirmed creatures: zombies, draughr, skeletons, trolls, giants, ice wraiths, giant spiders, dragons, wolves, horses, Elk, mammoth, saber-toothed cats, Centurion Spheres, dogs, Skeevers, boars, rabbits, Horkers, Glow Worms, Bees, Torchbugs, Luna Moths.
Random spawns are scaled (stronger enemies appear at higher levels), but weak enemies aren't written out of the system, just become less common.
A single spawn at lower levels can have enemies spawning in pairs at higher levels.
Stronger enemies exist in the world at the start of the game, but you're usually given enough warning if you don't want to fight anything too strong.
Giants herds mammoths, and travels together in packs, ignoring the player if undisturbed.
You can mount horses, which are more detailed than ever before!
Some insects, like bees, can be killed.

Dragons

Dragons respawns just like other creatures.
There are different kinds of Dragons.
You can not mount & fly dragons.
Some Dragons are scripted, while others appear randomly.
Dragons can pick people up from the ground.
When dragons are critically injured, they can't fly, and will land or crash to the ground.
Dragons leaves scars and marks everywhere: when they crash or land on the ground and when they breath fire upon the environment, etc.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 11:00 am

Plot & Lore (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Fourth_Era)
TES V takes place 2 Centuries (200 years) after Oblivion. The King of Skyrim is dead, which has sparked a civil war. You are the last Dragonborn, a group characterized by their ability to hunt dragons. You are a prisoner. 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, named Esbern (Voiced by Max Von Sydow.) 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.

First Century
4E 0 — End of the Oblivion Crisis
The banishing of Mehrunes Dagon from Tamriel by the Champion of Cyrodiil, Martin Septim, and the avatar of Akatosh ends the Oblivion Crisis. The Septim bloodline ends and the Amulet of Kings is destroyed. The Third Era ends, marking the beginning of the Fourth.
The Fourth Era begins with no Emperor on the throne of Tamriel. High Chancellor Ocato, the Elder Council, and the Blades try to maintain order. The provinces start to take advantage of the Empire's weakened state.
4E ?? — Red Mountain erupts; Vvardenfell is destroyed.
In Vivec's absence, the Ministry of Truth becomes unstable. Vuhon creates an Ingenium that uses at first dozens of dying souls, then a small number of living ones to stabilize the rock. The soul of Sul's wife Ilzheven was among them. In a fight to free her, the Ingenium is destroyed and the rock crashes into Vivec with all the energy it originally had. The impact causes Red Mountain to erupt and destroys the entire island of Vvardenfell, as well as causing massive destruction to the rest of the province.
4E ?? — The Empire Collapses
Black Marsh secedes from the Empire; it is soon followed by Elsweyr.
The Thalmor seize control of the old Aldmeri Dominion (Valenwood and the Summerset Isle).
The Argonians invade and conquer Morrowind after the eruption of Red Mountain.
4E ?? — Titus Mede is crowned the new emperor by conquest.
4E 18 — Prince Attrebus Mede is born.
4E 23 — Anna?g Ho?nart is born.
4E 40s — The Infernal City
Umbriel, a floating city, appears on the coast of Black Marsh, heading toward Morrowind. The city of Lilmoth, Black Marsh, the home of Anna?g, is destroyed in the process.
Third Century
4E 200s — The High King of Skyrim dies.
4E 200s — The Nords of Skyrim engage in a civil war.

Graphics, Sound & Interface
Graphics
Havok Behavior - Havok Behavior is a flexible animation tool that allows the developers to rapidly prototype and preview new animations and blend them together seamlessly with a few mouse clicks and minimal code support. Bethesda is using it to create more nuance in character and creature movement, govern special effects, and even to control how characters struggle to move when trapped in environmental hazards like spider webs. Characters now transition more realistically between walking, jogging and, running, and the increased nuance between animations has allowed Bethesda to better balance the combat in both first- and third-person perspective by adjusting the timing values for swings and blocks depending on your perspective. Perhaps the most impressive use of the Behavior technology is how Bethesda is using it to create the dragon animations. Bethesda has worked meticulously to make sure the beasts look powerful and menacing when banking, flapping their wings, gaining altitude before making another strafing run, and breathing fire on their hapless victims. None of the dragons' actions are scripted, and Behavior helps make the movements look non-mechanical, even when the dragons are speaking/shouting.

Wind will whip up the surface of bodies of water.
Dynamic Shadows.
Snow falls dynamically, painting the ground texture with snow.
Believable water physics.
Faces and models are improved.
Draw Distance is greatly increased, allowing for little to no grid pattern or low resolution distant land.
SpeedTree is not used: they've created their own platform that allows artists to build whatever kind of trees they want and to dictate how they animate. Artists can alter the weight of the branches to adjust how much they move in the wind, which is an effective way of, for instance, actualizing the danger of traversing steep mountain passes with howling winds violently shaking branches.

Sound

Jeremy Soule is composing the music.
Voice Actors: Max Von Sydow (Esbern, the blade), Brandon Ellison (General), Anthony De Longis (Mercer Frey), Rob Locke (Commoner / Additional Voices), Lani Minella (Dark Elf / Night Mother / Nocturne), Wes Johnson (Unknown).
There are about 70 Voice Actors.
Approximately 60.000 lines of voiced dialogue.
Your character will shout, laugh and make combat grunts.

Interface

In first-person, the HUD comes and goes when needed.
Third-person have been improved.
When opening the menu, instead of returning you to the last page you visited as it did in Oblivion, you are now presented with a simple compass interface that offers four options. (Right: Inventory | Left: Magical Items | Down: Map & Quests | Up: Skills)
Instead of relegating players to looking at an item's name and stat attributes, each possession is a tangible three dimensional item with it's own unique qualities.
Mapping: Anything from your spell library or item inventory can be "bookmarked" to the favorites menu with the press of a button. How many items appear on that menu is up to each player.
The map is a zoomed out version of the game world.

Environment

Skyrim hosts very unique landscapes and dungeons.
There are 5 major cities: Solitude, Riften, Whiterun, Windhelm and Markarth. (Windhelm being the largest.)
There are 8 or 9 smaller towns.
There are more than 130 dungeons, ranging from 15 minutes to 2 hours long.
There are over 100 points of interest across Skyrim. (including Giant camps, Necromancer lairs & Altars to different gods (Aedra and Daedra))
The areal is approximately the size of Oblivion's Cyrodiil, but the rugged landscape makes the world bigger, as you will need to go over or around mountains to get anywhere.
Traps and puzzles are used to make dungeons more interesting.
Fish jumps out of the water, and when swimming, you can even catch fish.
Birds flies in the air above you.
Every town has it's own Economic System. If you destroy a city's means of income, they'll need to buy from another nearby city, and prices in the city will go up or some products will not be available in that city at all.
Every big settlement has it's own unique culture & architecture.
Dwemer ruins are scattered across Skyrim.
High Hrothgar has 7000 steps.
Some locations will have enemies that are too strong for you, and you will have to come back when you are more powerful, while some places will have weaker enemies.
You can knock oil lamps to the ground or set fire to oil, which will then cause the ground to burn, and deal fire damage.
Butterflies will fly around flowers which can be picked for alchemical purposes.
The major cities are in their own cells, so to enter, a loading screen will appear.
There are hidden caves, hidden ships and secrets in the water.
The higher you climb, the more severe the weather gets.
There are rivers inside dungeons.
Some buildings can be destroyed, but are rare.
Flora: Nirnroots

Character

There is a soft level-cap at 50, but you can still level-up after this. (Highest possible level is mathematically estimated to around 75)
There are only 3 attributes: Health, Magicka and Stamina.
When leveling up, you can pick stamina-, health- or magic boosts.
Leveling is faster than in previous games.
You can Sprint, which drains your Stamina.
Backwards running speed has been reduced since Oblivion.
Sprinting while wearing heavy armor drains Stamina faster.
Your speed is governed by your stamina attribute and your equipment. Racial speed is the same, so a khajiit will initially run at the same speed as an Orc.
Wood Elf (Bosmer) has a "Animal Allies" Racial Ability.
Wood Elf (Bosmer) are immune to most types of poison.

Character Generation

In-depth character customization that allows to change your character physique, give them a beard, and other more detailed changes to your characters body.
There are no Classes.
There are no Major/Minor Skills.
There are no Birth Signs.
You can apply face-paint to your character, and there is a myriad of different types.
There are over 50 beards to apply to your character.
You can add 'laugh lines' to your character.
There are dozens of sliders for customization.
Your settings are remembered when switching between races.

Race

There is 10 playable races: Imperial, Nord, Redguard, Dark Elf (Dunmer), High Elf (Altmer), Wood Elf (Bosmer), Orc, Khajiit, Argonian and Breton.
There are also a few unplayable races.
Argonians have 'Hist' power, which increases health regeneration.

Skills

There are 18 skills.
Warrior-type Skills: Smithing, Heavy Armor, Block, Two-handed, One-Handed and Archery.
Mage-type Skills: Enchanting, Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration and Illusion.
Thief-type Skills: Alchemy, Light Armor, Speech, Sneak, Lockpicking and Pickpocketing.
The higher a skill is, the more it will contribute to leveling up when increased, making it smarter to focus on a smaller range of skills.
The Enchanting Skill allows you to disenchant items with magical properties, destroying the item in the process. This will teach how to enchant another time with the magical properties of the item you disenchanted

Perks

You gain a perk point every level.
There's a total of around 280 Perks (Including Ranks).
Perks will among other things decrease the sound of your footsteps, Disarm enemies and give you access to Unique Special Moves.
You can choose not to spend perk points each level, and instead hold onto them.

Factions
For more detailed info about factions, check out http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1204720-factions-of-skyrim-unofficial-guide/.

Thieves Guild
College of Winterhold
Companions
Dark Brotherhood
Riverwood Tavern Warrior Clan
Stormcloaks
The Shield-Brothers
There's no Necromancer Faction present.

Misc Features

There's two types of Fast-Travel: Morrowind-style & Oblivion-style. Both costs money.
There is no Multiplayer.
There is no hardcoe-mode like in Fallout: New Vegas.
Soul Gems can be used like in previous TES games to trap souls.
You can buy properties.
Lock picking is still a mini-game, but has been improved.
There are six different stages to crafting items. The first two are: Refining crude ore and Assembling materials.
There's 13 different types of ore, which are used for crafting.
More realistic alchemy labs.
In addition to alchemy ingredients there are also reagents.
There's a separate bounty for each of the 9 holds.
You can catch diseases.
After killing an NPC, you can sleep in their bed.
There will be less, but bigger (Expansion-like) DLCs compared to Fallout 3 & Oblivion.
There is a "sort" of Karma system in the game, but it's not governed by numbers. Instead, people will react to what you do, and you will have to base how bad you are on that, and not numbers.
Only possible to have relationships with certain NPCs - and "in some cases" marriage.
Aurora Borealis is confirmed.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:20 pm

Sweet number 5! Thanks Zaldir!

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 1:21 pm

Zaldir's back. Thanks again.
Argonians have 'Hist' power, increases health regeneration.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:57 am

Sometimes I wish it was like the Nexus here as well... 3591 posts - all in one thread.

And yes, those racial powers needs to be added, thanks for reminding me!

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 11:24 am

Anyone remember the article where you could learn about some of the racial powers/attributes? (There is way too much to keep track of for poor little me.^^)

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 8:10 pm

Good job

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 11:43 pm

Anyone remember the article where you could learn about some of the racial powers/attributes? (There is way too much to keep track of for poor little me.^^)

No idea about the others, but Argonian power confirmed by the author in the comments on http://www.gamesradar.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-hands-on-preview/.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 6:47 pm

And some more in http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-11-return-of-the-dragons/719544.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 9:13 am

About the dragon shouts cool down. I dont believe the cooldown is universal. I remember seeing Todd in the demo use different shouts one after another

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 3:43 pm

There are over 85 spells to choose from, each with three different ways to cast.
You can blast enemies with a flame ball from afar, hold the button down to wield the spell like a flame thrower or place a rune on the ground to create an environmental trap that spontaneously combusts when an enemy steps on it. Each spell has the same amount of flexibility.

From watching the videos, I'm pretty sure that there is not one fire spell that has three different ways of casting, rather there are three different fire spells; one flame thrower, one fireball, and one rune trap. In the QuakeCon demo, Todd switched between his flamethrower and fireball spells. He learned the fireball spell from a tome that he picked up and said that holding down the button would charge up a larger fireball and releasing the button would send it towards your target. Could you link me to a source where this is discussed?

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:19 am

That was what was said in the early articles, but I have now changed it.

(I haven't watched the video from QuakeCon yet, still waiting for the HD version...^^)

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 11:16 am

There is no hardcoe mode.
There are no Arenas like it was in Oblivion.
There's no locational damage.
There's no Necromancer faction.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 8:22 pm

The crafting sounds much more robust than I first anticipated. "12 or so" materials to mine/smelt/craft into new weapons, armors and upgrades. Everything you can wield/wear, you can make and upgrade. Disenchanting has been confirmed for Enchanting which allows the player to breakdown enchantments and learn them for future use. Alchemy sounds like it has been unchanged for the most part -- potions and poisons. Cooking will happen around cooking fires found throughout the world. A list of recipes and ingredients needed will pop up and you can cook stuff for a more potent boost than if you had consumed the ingredients on their own.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:04 am

Excellent.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 11:25 pm

I guess theres some new stuff to add like no arena or hardcoe mode which was a disappointment

And he wont answer the werewolf or beast children which I think means they are in.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:04 pm

Pete just confirmed Fast travel from map does NOT cost money

http://twitter.com/#!/DCDeacon/status/106166116266676224

No. Fast travel does not cost using map. Only if you want a ride somewhere.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:01 pm

Sir, I would like to thank you on behalf of being awesome. Again, thanks for posting concentrated information.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 8:28 pm

For combat you should add that you cannot block while dual wielding. As that was confirmed a while back.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 8:44 am

For combat you should add that you cannot block while dual wielding. As that was confirmed a while back.

Source Please? I'm pretty sure I heard it the other way around.

Also does anyone know if mounted combat has been confirmed/denied?

» Fri Aug 26, 2011 12:25 am

Source Please? I'm pretty sure I heard it the other way around.

Also does anyone know if mounted combat has been confirmed/denied?

No mounted combat - I think this was in one of Todd's interviews after E3.

As for the dual wield / block, that was confirmed via Pete's twitter and one or two other sources (perhaps the Facebook quakecon interview?)

If you have a one-handed sword or two-handed sword, you can use your empty hand (or shield) to block using attack button for that hand.

If you have two one-handed weapons equipped, you can only use the other attack button to attack with the other weapon.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 6:01 pm

No mounted combat - I think this was in one of Todd's interviews after E3.

It was the GameSpot demo/interview during E3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6jsKTtp2rI

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:13 am

Here is a complete transcript of the interview:

Spoiler

Episode 148 of Bulletproof Radio.

PH = Pete Hines
OD = Option Disabled
BL = Bob Lobblaw
SV = Steel Valor

OD: Tell us a little bit about what we can expect in Skyrim?

PH: As you said, Skyrim is the sequel to Oblivion, it's been five years since we put out an Elder Scrolls game. So it is the next in a long line of big, "go anywhere you want, do anything you want," epic role playing games. You get to create whatever kind of character you'd like and we give you a big fantasy sandbox to go and play in. And it's all about - the kind of vibe we were going for is kind of - Nordic, barbarian warriors fighting dragons in the snow and mountains.

OD: Now when you say "Nordic," SteelValor perks up immediately.

PH: I know he does, that's just for him. [laughs] This game, honestly is really more of a tribute to him than anything else.

SV: It's true, because I've been begging for your games since - Morrowind won GOTY, I believe.

PH: We won GOTY in 2006 for Oblivion and it's also a bit of a follow up for FO3 which was GOTY in 2008 and it's also a "go where you want, do whatever you want game and so we learned a lot of things from that game as well that we've taken and instituted in Skyrim.

BL: It's really hard to believe that you actually went on the record and said that the game is for Steel because now, not only does he tell us about his family lineage every show, but now --

OD: -- going back to Charlemagne --

SV: It's gonna be my ringtone [laughs]

OD: Well, tell us what you can about what has happened since Oblivion. You mentioned dragons and Nordic people, what's going on there with the story?

PH: Skyrim takes place 200 years after the events in Oblivion.. so I hope I'm not spoiling anything for follks who haven't finished Oblivion or are going back to play it. If you haven't finished Oblivion, you might want to turn down your radio for a second.

Obviously, the line of emperors ends at the end of Oblivion when Martin Septim sacrifices himself to save Tamriel from the threat of Oblivion. 200 years has passed, the Empire has kind of fallen off. Skyrim takes place in the province of Skyrim, which is the northernmost province in Tamriel and it tells the story of the prophesied return of Alduin, who is the one who is said will come back and eat the world.

While dragons have been talked about in all the Elder Scrolls games, they've never actually been in any of the official Elder Scrolls games. They were in Redguard, but that was kind of an off-shoot. So, the dragons are back and it has to do with the one Dragonborn, who happens to be you, who is said to be the one who can return and save Tamriel from the threat of Alduin and the dragons.It doesn't continue the exact storyline of Oblivion and what was going on in that game, it's part of the overarching story of what's going on in the world of the Elder Scrolls.

If you want to learn a little bit more about what takes place between the time of Oblivion and Skyrim, you should read the two novels, the first novel that came out, the Infernal City and the Lord of Souls, the second novel which is scheduled to come out next month, I believe. And both of those novels take place in the intervening time, they don't follow the exact storyline but they tell a bit of the story in between. We like for every Elder Scrolls game to stand on its own. So you don't have to play any of our previous games to come in and know exactly what's going on in this one.

OD: That's a good thing, too, because when I played Oblivion, I had no idea what the Elder Scrolls were, even though I've played many PC games, so I like that aspect of things.

BL: I know you guys have had a lot of games, you've had a lot of success and I know you're talking about the protagonist in this game. What are some of the characteristics that you find resonate the most with the game players, that they connect with the protagonist, whether specific attributes or character flaws or abilities that you find that people connect to more than others?

PH: One of the things that we are very careful about with the Elder Scrolls is that we are very careful to never define "you." That is, we're never going to put too much of a wrapping around who you are or what you've done or what kind of character you're playing. because we want that to be all about you and we want you're choices, your actions to define your experience in the world. We talk about TES games being massively single-player games. And the reason is that it's like an MMO in that it's this big massive world and there's all these characters that you can go and talk to. But unlike an MMO everything revolves around you and what you do.

We want ultimately the story of a game like Skyrim to be your story. If you want to play the main quest, go ahead. There's 25 hours, you know, plus or minus, of stuff you can do just playing the main quest. And then there's all these factions you can join. And then there's all these miscellaneous and side quests. And then there are 100-some dungeons -- 150 -- I don't even remember what the number is anymore, I've lost track. All those things are up to you. If you want to play the game for 30 hours picking flowers and making potions, go ahead. If that's what you want your story to be, go ahead. We don't want to define who you are or what you have to be in this game.

And I really think that freedom is something that has resonated with people. That they get to be who they want in the game and we don't do it for them. I think that's really key and I think people enjoy sort of pushing the boundaries of, what does "go where I want" really mean? And I think the more they see that and play that the more they're like "Wow, I really CAN do whatever I want."

OD: One of the hallmarks of your game is having an avid fan base, obviously, and we've gone to your forums and checked out some of the questions and this one comes straight from the forums. Apparently it's one that they say has never been answered and maybe we can get an answer out of you now. Is there going to be a survival or hardcoe mode in Skyrim, in other words is there an option for us to be forced to eat, drink sleep in order to stay alive, kind of like in Fallout New Vegas.

PH: We do not currently have anything like that planned. As of right now, no. And I appreciate there's probably folks out there who would like that, otherwise they wouldn't be asking. But I think folks need to appreciate that with a game as massive as this is. And let me state this unequivocally, it is the most ridiculously huge game we have ever undertaken -- that adding a new mode that now changes a whole bunch of things that you have to test and and worry about is not something that we felt we could take on and do justice to. It is simply so huge as it is that it is a yeoman's work to get it done as it's currently designed.

BL: One of the other questions and it seems that it gets repeated over and over again. At first we weren't sure we wanted to ask it, but it's been asked so many times that we have to throw it out there. Will there be Arenas? Can you say yes or no, unequivocally.

PH: We don't have really the Arena like it was designed in Oblivion. There isn't like a big gladiator thing. That was kind of a specific thing to Oblivion. So -- lots of other stuff to do.

OD: Oh yeah. Tell us a little bit about your interaction with fans. Because it seems like you're actually pretty proactive with it, putting stuff out there on Twitter.

PH: I try to be. If I'm being honest, one of the things that as this company has grown over the years and as my role has evolved and changed somewhat, the hardcoe fans could tell you about the days way back in 99 and 2000 when I was always on the forums every day, talking to folks and I do enjoy that interaction, and you know, my time is just not such that I can wade into the forums. You guys have been on there and you knwo that it is not something to be undertaken lightly.

And so, I like the fact that via twitter I can try and help clarify -- if anything I get more questions than I could possibly [answer] I don't think folks understand number one that if I try and answer them all it's simply all I would do and I notice that when I do answer questions, all it gets me is more questions.

And the other problem is that we try and walk a very careful line. So many people ask about spoilers and they fail to appreciate that we try very hard to have there be lots of things that you find out once you get into the game, so that you don't know about everything going in. For us that's a buzzkill -- that nothing you come across or stumble across is a surprise because absolutely everybody has asked us about everything. I don't like avoiding answers, I don't like having to evade questions.

OD: It's easier just to give the answer but at the same time you're trying to protect the integrity of the game.

PH: Exactly, it ends up where people then know everything but then the game just isn't -- trust me when I tell you it's never as fun. We found this with Morrowind and ever since MOrrowind we started pulling back more and more on how much we reveal or talk about because we want there to be a lot of discovery when you're playing the game that hasn't been revealed in a hundred press interviews or podcasts like this one.

BL: And one of things that's funny is, sometimes fans get upset because you won't answer the question and then when you answer the question they get upset because it's a spoiler - it's a fine line that you have to walk --

OD: -- that's a fine line between love and hate right there.

PH: Exactly, so I try to clarify things that have come out, more than anything, like little nuances that we have shown folks or I know press guys have seen or probably have written about or at least know about, to clarify little things, but I try as best I can to avoid stuff and sometimes I don't answer questions even when I could give a simple "No" just because I don't want to spoil it for folks whether or not stuff is in the game that they may or may not know about.

OD: If you don't mind, we've got a couple more questions that have been submitted to us. Of course some people found out that they were going to be able to interact - of course we are the only interactive gaming and technology radio show.

Can you actually alter character's appearances such as hair, face paint or facial hair later in the game after exiting the character creation menu?

PH: We have a ton of of stuff that you can do when you create your character. You guys have probably seen some of the character stuff we've put out. I will give you a nice little tease for your audience and for all of our TES fans listening, which is that Todd Howard came up with this genius idea for some screenshots to put out that we are gonna be putting out very soon and are absolutely awesome. So if you are into characters and races and what they can look like, you definitely want to stay tuned to Elderscrolls.com and the Elder Council on Facebook because we have some really cool stuff coming up really soon.

However, to answer the actual question, once you create your character, no -- there is no further modifying it afterward. So be sure you're really into that face paint, those scars you picked, the hairstyle you want, once you pick it, you pick it.

SV: Do you really want that blonde ponytail I think is what you're getting at

PH: That's what I'm saying, do you really want that dark eyeshadow on your male Nord because you may come to regret it.

BL: --do you really want that chin squirrel like SteelValor

SV: Hey back off my chin squirrel [laughs]

OD: Stemming off of that is there going to be -- are you planning on releasing a character generator before the game to kind of bide people's time and build a teaser for

PH: No, but if you want to wrap your head around some of the possibilities of things, stay tuned for Todd's Great Idea, that will certainly show off a lot of what is possible. But releasing something that allows you to create the character outside of the game and then pull it in, or even trying to pull off what we do in the game in some kind of web-based utility is just not something we've got the time to do, so no.

BL: We've another question that just keeps coming up over and over again. Beast children? Beast race?

PH: You know what, on that one, I'm gonna say, let them wait. They'll find out one way or another when they play the game.

OD: Yes! we have a bell for that very purpose. Oh boy and that may be a little bit gold for some of our listeners, but that's OK, they'll figure it out.

BL: He's doing you a favor guys, but the lack of spoilers when you actually get in the game.

OD: Let's talk a little bit about the game itself. They were asking about beast children for some reason, but what about the monsters? How many monsters -- different types do you think we're gonna see?

PH: Is a lot a number?

OD: Is that more than a breadbox, is that more than 50? More than 5? Less than 2000?

PH: More than 5, less than 500. We do a lot of different variations on stuff, so a skeleton or a draugr, there isn't just one type and you'll come across different types of those. There are some really cool new creatures that you'll face that you haven't seen or fought before. I think you've probably -- hopefully you saw -- we put out a screenshot of the Ice Wraith very early on, which is just a super cool new creature that you're gonna face that's specific to Skyrim. There are some other ones that you're gonna see.

I'm toeing a little bit of a line here also just because we have cover stories coming out in a bunch of magazines around the world, like any time now. And so I'm also loathe to steal thunder from those guys who have the scoop on some cool new stuff and stuff they got to play and I don't want to be revealing details that they kind of wanted first shot at. But there are a ton, they are really awesome. The dragons clearly are the ones that have gotten a lot of attention, but we've also shown things like giants and mammoths which are also super cool, not necessarily hostile to you, so you can decide whether you want to take on the challenge of beatin' down a mammoth. But there's a lot of cool stuff and it's very varied.

And then all the NPCs - I think that gets overlooked often when you're talking about opponents - but one of the things we've done with this combat system and having dual wielding and magic and weapon combos and all of that is that all of those are now options for NPCs that you're gonna face. It's not just going to be either a magic caster or a guy with a sword and shield, that it will be folks who will mix and match and that makes combat and enemies much more varied as well.

OD: How many dungeons and caves are we looking at here? I"m gonna put you down again for a number anywhere between 5 and 500, the more specific you can get --

PH: How about this for a number. I'm gonna say that there are -- the size of the space is about the same as Oblivion, but there is just a ton more content within that same space than ever before.

OD: Oh wow, so you have about the same kind of explorable area there --- Did I lose you?

PH: No, I'm still here. It is probably several times larger than Fallout 3 in terms of the number of quests, I want to say, like the number of quests, well just miscellaneous, freeform quests all told there's about 6 or 7 times as many in Skyrim than in Fallout 3.

And the number of dungeons is somewhere in the hundred - something, I don't even remember what the last number was I saw. But there are just a ton of them and they are some of the best gameplay in the game because we have so many more level designers working on dungeons than we did on Fallout 3 or Oblivion. So I think folks are really gonna enjoy the variety and the challenges that they're gonna see in dungeons.

OD: I got a question, what kind of star power can we expect in the audio? Who is actually doing voice overs.

PH: An excellent question and one that we are going to answer very, very soon. I think I just saw a draft of the press release come across my desk the other day and that announcement is forthcoming soon.

OD: Pete, we weren't supposed to talk about that. I thought I was under an NDA for that.

PH: [Laughs] Linda Carter has already talked about the fact that she is working on the game again. We love Linda and use here as often as we can, so it's probably safe to mention her. You probably recognize the voice of Max von Sydow in the teaser trailer and the full trailer that we put out. He is involved in the game, but there are some other really great names that you will be impressed with. And the total VO cast for this game is significantly bigger than any game we've worked on in the past. So whereas in Oblivion the number of voice actors was somewhere in the teens, on Skyrim it's in the 70s. So we spent a lot of time - we had three studios working around the clock for a couple of months, just to get all the VO recording done. So it is well worth your time to give it a listen.

BL: You're listening to Bulletproof Radio and we are talking to Pete Hines, the man, the myth and the legend, and he is talking all about Skyrim. Now Pete, one of the other questions that resonates with the community is mod tools. PC and Xbox, or just PC, or maybe no mod tools at all?

PH: Definitely PC, so we are putting out what is called the Creation Kit. Our new engine is called the Creation Engine, the mod tools we are putting out are the Creation Kit. And as with our previous game, they are the tools we use to build the game and put the content in the game, you will be able to use on the PC to mod to your heart's content. We love our mod community and the stuff that they do and want to continue to support them.

If we could make them available for Xbox and PS3, we definitely would, but those consoles quite honestly just don't work that way right now in terms of being able to use the kind of tools we do on PC and then put that content on Xbox.

SV: I have a question about music. Oblivion and Morrowind have been known for their phenomenal soundtracks. I'm wondering if with Skyrim being a Norse mythology kind of game, are you going to employ any Viking Metal such as Tier, Corporal [unintelligible], Eisengaard, etc.

PH: Are those bands? I'm going to assume those are awesome bands that I'm simply not yet aware of. I think what I'm going to do is let you set your own soundtrack to the game. You hop your iPod....put on whatever music you feel and it will be better than the humble offerings we include with the game.

SV: I'll send you a link.

OD: We had some questions about combat and I'm not going to go into too many specifics here, but what kind of combat changes are we gonna see, or is it going to be the same kind of combat as we had in Oblivion. There was one question specifically about doing damage to other people around you.

PH: Damage around you like, friendly fire kind of thing?

SV: Locational damage.

PH: Locational damage we don't do. So, we don't distinguish between arms and legs and torso and heads and so forth. Our game is complicated enough as it is without trying to calaculate all that stuff....Yeah there is friendly fire, so be careful with your bows and arrows and magic spells so you don't zap the wrong guy. And generally speaking you'll find that companions, allies or guards, things of that nature, will be a little bit lenient, so a wayward mace strike that accidentally conks them, will not have them attacking you right away, but if you keep it up they're going to assume you're going after them and that will be your problem to deal with.

I talked a little bit about the combat, but obviously, like I said, with all the different options for dual wielding and weapons and so forth, you're gonna see a lot of varied enemies in terms of the kinds of challenges you're gonna be facing. Using different kinds of spells, combinations of weapons, switching from one to the other, all of that stuff. So, I think folks are gonna really like it. And we wanted it to feel, both through the combat system and through the animation system, we added Kill Moves, I don't know if you guys are aware of that. Kind of like we did with VATS in Fallout, including the ability to get randomly when you go to finish somebody off there's a chance you'll get special kill moves, depending on what kind of weapon you're carrying, what kind of enemy you're fighting, whether - you get a different one for a person, vs a wolf, or a dragon - but we'll cut to different first and third-person animations and camera shots that kind of make the combat feel just more visceral, instead of just big guys wearing armor and whacking on each other.

OD: Speaking of armor, one of the questions that we have from the old school Oblivion is, "Is there going to be horse armor in this game?"

BL: I bought it

PH: I was about to say. That's a running joke. The funniest part about that is when I decided I had my genius idea for an April Fool's joke a couple years ago, where I made all the Oblivion DLC half price except for Horse Armor, which was twice as much. The number of press guys who emailed me to ask me if it was actually true, because they had all bought Horse Armor and verified the price for themselves. I was like see, you son of a guns, you laughed at us and then you went out and bought it. I would say unless I can come up with a really good way to make that a really good joke, probably not horse armor.

OD: You know you can make it like My Little Pony and that would be just epically awesome right there. It would combine two of the best games ever, Elder Scrolls and of course, Barbie Ponycorn Adventures.

PH: Coming together in one unholy alliance.

BL: Unholy for sure.

OD: Yes. And the questions they keep coming in. One of them that we're kind of interested about is whether or not you prefer console or PC as far as playing the game yourself.

PH: Personally, I prefer console, because of my setup at home, I prefer flopping down on a couch. I stare at a PC all day and I prefer having a wireless controller and sitting in my big reclining comfy couch and playing on Xbox. That's my platform of choice. But I do play on PC as well, I play on PC at work, but at home my preference is 360.

OD: I kind of like the 360 myself. That's my wheelhouse as they say. Pete can you stick around for a little bit? I think you mentioned you might be able to stay just for a little while longer, right?

PH: Sure, as long as you need me.

OD: Hey...we've got a new guest host, don't we, guys?

BL: He replaced Bill Roeper.

OD: We can never replace Bill. Alright folks, we'll be right back. You're listening to bulletproof radio.

****

SV: The world's only terrestrial gaming and news call in show. You're listening to bulletproof radio. And you asked for it, so that's a little bit of metal for you right there.

OD: French metal

SV: French metal, that's all you need to know. I love how there are all these people in the chatroom saying all these questions that have been asked before. Yet, we've asked what, ten of the questions that were in the forums that have never been answered before?

PH: Wait a minute, are you trying to tell me that we've done what they've asked and they're not happy? I have to say in the 12 years I've been at Bethesda, this is the first time that has ever happened. That is so weird. I was gonna go to the forums but then I got sidetracked

[jokes about the commercials]

OD: You're a Charlette native, aren't you?

PH: I consider myself a Charlette native, I wasn't born there, but I grew up there.

OD: I'm just north of that in Statesville, NC.

PH: I know it quite well.

[jokes]

OD: For those of you just joining us, we're talking to Pete Hines. He's basically the man behind Bethesda as far as the PR goes, right, you handle all the PR and all the good stuff?

PH: I do. And on the internal stuff that we've done, being BGS, Morrowind, Oblivion, FO3 and now Skyrim, I've always had a specific role in that where I'm the one who generally speaking, does the demos. I just got back from 12 days in Europe doing cover stories and demos and interviews and stuff. So I play a more specific role on those titles, but for all of Bethesda as well.

OD: One of the questions we were asked about is, the biggest challenges that you all have faced as far as developing this game. I know that's kind of a trite question, but give us some examples of one of the biggest hurdles that you've had to do.

PH: The biggest hurdle we have to overcome is always the size of the game in and of itself. It is difficult to appreciate the literal infinite number of things - combinations of things that one can do in the game. And having to go through and account for all of those. Everything that comes up and trying to test a game this huge and tweaking one little number, one little variable and then suddenly finding that it has wreaked havoc in various parts of the game in ways you couldn't possibly contemplate because of this, that or the other.

The amount that a watermelon can roll and that's suddenly causing havoc because watermelons are going rolling off of carts and causing horses to collide with them or carts are now tipping over - who knows? So, just the size of the game and all of the stuff and trying to wrangle that and make it all behave itself is a monumental task.

One that we've gotten better and better at we continue to make these games, but I think it can't be overstated enough - just what a huge task it is for the team to pull all this content together and make it work and make it polished. They do an awesome job, but it's a ton of work.

BL: We have another question that no matter how many times you try to ignore it, it just keeps coming back. You may or may not be able to answer it. Obviously we are spoiler-free. Necromancers - faction and can we use their spells in Skyrim?

PH: Necromancers - yes, there are Necromancers in the game. The four main factions - four main factions? Yeah, four "main" is the right way to phrase that because there are some smaller groups that you can see and come across, but the four main factions that you actually join and have stories and stuff related to them are the Warrior's Guild, the Mage's Guild, the Thieves' Guild and the beloved Dark Brotherhood. There is no Necromancer's Guild. That shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. But they're in the game, they do have spells and they are spells that you can find and use.

OD: Again, since we have this interactive opportunity here to take questions - by the way, we appreciate your candor in this, we appreciate your answering the questions that we throw at you. That's a hard job, I know, but it is kind of your job to answer those questions.

PH: [laughs] Kind of. Other than it being the title of my job...

OD: Somebody was asking about specs for the PC. What is the basemant that we're looking at there as far as what do we have to have in order to run it, do you think?

PH: We aim for Vic20 and anything above that...[laughs] I would say that number one there's a reason we don't give out specs, which is that we are in the process right now where we are trying to finish content and move to a phase where we are just optimizing, bug fixing and balancing and once we get into that you're able to do more testing on the PC and find out what will actually run it.

I would say that if you have a PC that is the equivalent of a 360 - if you're enough of a PC gamer you probably know what that means - then you'll be fine. If you have a really awesome PC or a brand new graphics card that you just bought, we will take full advantage of that thing and you can change all your graphics settings and draw distance out to ridiculous things and it will look and run awesome.

OD: With DX11 and all that?

PH: Yeah, so the newer your PC, the better. If you're five years old, you could be in a little trouble, but you know I don't want to cause anybody to run out to Dell and buy a new machine right now - Unless you're using this as an excuse to tell your wife or whatever - by all means tell her I told you you had to, otherwise I would wait and we will put them out just as soon as we can and let everyone know, but we don't like to give false info and we want to make sure we properly define what the min spec is and what the recommended spec is

[jokes]

OD: One of the hallmarks of your games are the game guides. There's a question about whether or not we're going to have a hardcover edition of a game guide. Now is that something that you all handle on Bethesda's side, or do you usually farm that out to someone else?

PH: The answer is sort of both. We are working with Prima again on a strategy guide for Skyrim. I don't think we've actually talked about this at all, so here's another tidbit that everybody can talk about. We are using David Hodgson to write our strategy guide again. He wrote the guides for Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. He is my absolute favorite strategy guide guy, ever. He obsesses over our game like we obssess over our game. And he puts in a Herculean amount of work to write these amazing guides. He's done an amazing job on the Skyrim one. We'd love to do a CE version of the strategy guide like we did for Vegas and Fallout 3. I don't think that's been announced yet, but you would be right to assume that if we can do one, we will.

OD: Feel free to say no comment on this one, but it's another one that comes up. Vampires and Werewolves.

PH: Let them wait.

OD: There you go. You're gonna have to wait for the game.

PH: Stop trying to spoil the whole thing before it comes out. And as I've said before the show, I'm giving that for answers where I could very easily say, "no," but I'm giving that answers because I've reached the point on some of this stuff where I'm just not going to answer even if I could say no - sometimes you just don't want to spoil stuff one way or the other.

BL: Sleepless nights are a good thing when it comes to anticipation.

PH: It's honestly not out of meanness or spite. It's literally just like - can we please have a few things that are not known about the game before it comes out, when it comes to some of the bigger stuff, or even some of the smaller stuff, like are there beast children or not.

OD: What about a crafting system? Is there going to be crafting in this and if so, tell us a little bit about it.

PH: Oh do we have crafting! We got crafting out the wazoo.

OD: Is that a new perk, that you can have it out the wazoo?

PH: I take that back they're gonna run off and quote that. Crafting we have includes a variety of things. There is a Smithing skill in the game. The way Smithing works is, you can find a pickaxe and go mine ore and veins of different types. There's probably a dozen or so different materials that you can mine. And you can mine those things, then take that ore, turn it into ingots or bars. You can then take those bars and use them at a variety of things like a forge, like a workbench and you can do any number of things.

You can create new armor and weapons. You can strengthen, sharpen or improve existing armor and existing weapons. So the Smithing skill, the more perks you pick in the Smithing skill, the more types of materials you can work with to create new armor and weapons.

OD: Can you even go so far as to make "epic" weapons? Can you craft epic stuff?

PH: You can take it the whole route, where you kill a bear, take its hide, take it to a tanning station, skin it, turn it into leather and leather strips, go out with your pickaxe, mine metals, get awesome at Smithing, create some awesome dragon armor, or daedric armor and then take that and go enchant it using your enchanting skill and enchant it using your enchanting skill, then put some awesome enchantment on it, go back and sharpen it , improve with other -- it's ridiculous. So if you're into that, absolutely, you can -- Enchanting is a whole other skill where you can take items and disenchant them to learn the enchantments. You'll then be able to apply those enchantments to other items. Getting better at Enchanting makes you better at using enchanted things, so you get more use out of them. You also pick the perks you get better at enchantments and the enchantments that you can do.

Alchemy is back, you can pick ingredients, make potions, make poisons. There's another crafting thing that we have. You can now cook. You could always find food in previous TES games, find venison off of deer or whatever, but you can now take those food items and when you find certain cookfires in the world, you'll get a list of recipes you can make and each recipe has the ingredients you need. So you go out and find those ingredients, it will tell you which ones you have and which ones you don't and then you can cook food and those cooked foods will give you way better benefits than if you would have just eaten the raw ingredients. So you can eat some vegetables and venison raw and you'll get a little bit of health back, but if you took that stuff and made venison stew with it, you'll get this awesome thing that will restore your stamina and health one point every second for like 720 seconds or whatever it is. So it's almost like a potion in a way. And there's no skill associated with that so you can just cook as one of the things that you do.

So all of these are things that you can spend as much or as little time as you want in the game depending on what you're into and what you want to do.

OD: Where the screenshots that were released that show a pauldrons - was that kind of an example of that kind of thing?

PH: Um-hmm, every type of armor you can wear in the game, you can make. You start off being able to make a few simple kinds of things like leather and armor, but then if you want to get better at it and use better materials, then you need to pick the perks in your perk tree for Smithing that will allow you to work with those materials and then those will be unlocked so the next time you go to a forge, you can work with steel.

OD: You wouldn't want to work with Steel. He's a pain.

PH: In a nod to this game which is really an homage to him

BL: You just made his day.

PH: It must be that soft

SV: Wait and see what happens when you polish me up.

BL: There's been some questions about the AI and some of them say, do the guards know everything? And some are just asking about the A.I. in general. What can you tell us about the AI in Skyrim?

PH: The guards know everything thing - it is true that once you commit a crime, if you're spotted doing it, then it's something that guards know about. It's far too confusing a gameplay mechanic to see guards and have one of them at this gate know what you did and one of them at the other gate not know. It's just a big mess.

One of the things you can do is if you commit a crime, we will tag which people are witnesses to that crime and if you actually go and kill off all the people who were witnesses, we will tell you that the last witness has been eliminated and your bounty or crime sort of gets wiped off. You're no longer accountable for what you did because you removed all the witnesses. So it's kind of a cool, creepy, if you want to be nefarious and knock off people who can finger you..

OD: So you can be a jerk in this?

PH: Oh yeah, we wouldn't create a game where you couldn't -- we got the Dark Brotherhood for goodness sake, it's a shadowy group of people who kill for fun and profit.

OD: And it's an homage to Steel Valor, so it has to be a jerk.

BL: Aw Steel is just the softest guy ever

SV: I'd take a bullet for you, Pete

[discussion of legal matter]

OD: Pete, we'd like to thank you - you spent a lot of time with us this evening, we got a lot of questions answered. When does Skyrim come out, can you tell us the approximate date?

PH: No matter where in the world you are, you will be playing the game on 11-11-11 this year. On your pC, your Xbox and your 360. And we just announced that we will have a hands on for consumers at PAX, so if you are going to PAX, I will be there. I hope you will come by and play Skyrim, play Rage - we will do a special one-time demo of the game on Saturday.

» Thu Aug 25, 2011 12:16 pm

in the information it says there are no birthsigns, however i watched a video were it said there was and it was changeable during the game