So obviously Skyrim doesn't give the player the same level of skill choices you'd have in older Elder Scrolls titles, and its worldspace obviously won't be on the same scale as Arena or Daggerfall.

So when I say "retro", what I'm talking about, is the whole feel of the game.

Think about it. Skyrim is the quintessential Conan the Barbarian-style high fantasy/Norse saga setting, and, IMO, is the perfect opportunity to play on the tropes you'd see all the time in RPGs and other fantasy games from the 80's and early 90's.

I'm taking cleavagey tavern wenches, bare-chested barbarian heroes carrying giant battleaxes, evil goatee'd wizards, and cleavagey wenches (who don't work in taverns) being held hostage by daedra worshippers intent on sacrificing said wench to Molag Bal, and sunken, non-Euclidean temples to Hermaeus Mora.

While we're at it, get whoever did the art for Arena to do some special cover art for the Skyrim collector's edition. (If Capcom can do a http://old-wizard.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/megaman9promoart.JPG for Mega Man 9, why can't Beth do one for Skyrim?)

Give me 80's RPG sensibilities or give me hell!

"and its worldspace obviously won't be on the same scale as Arena or Daggerfall."

Are you talking physical scale or figurative scale?

then it's to the realm of oblivion for you bro, In the tour of bethesda the mainscreen and in the gameinformer screens the skill menu, where both rather futuristic almost like a certain assasin game (in wich you are actually a 21th century dude who sleeps), so you will probably get the realm of oblivion

Actual scale. Daggerfall was bigger than Great Britain, and it's fair to say Skyrim won't be. It's just not feasable on modern tech.

If Bethesda wants to make what you're suggesting, which is essentially a completely different series (unless you haven't been paying attention to it since Daggerfall), they can make a new series for it. No reason to ruin a perfectly good series in order to make what could also be a perfectly good series if it was, you know, a whole new series.

And I disagree on the assumptions you've made about Skyrim's choices. We don't know nearly enough about it yet to say that. Fewer skills means less of a certain kind of choice, but that does not mean there will be fewer choices in general. We don't even know what the majority of the skills are now, they could have actually expanded on, say, weapon skills for all we know. As for it's worldspace, I'd rather have a large map with a lot of details than a mind-blowingly enormous map that has huge swatches of relatively empty space everywhere.

Wow, did you ever miss the point. Take a look at Daggerfall and Arena. They have exactly the Conan-esque/1st edition D&D feel I'm talking about. I'm suggesting they return to their aesthetic roots. Skyrim is the perfect setting for it. And Todd Howard has actually said he's been inspired by Conan. I'm just suggesting/hoping it's not just a mere nod, and more of a general art direction.



I never said there will be fewer choices in general. I specifically said skill choices. And it's not an assumption. There literally are less skill choices than the older games.

The setting/feel/story is too rugged/dark/grim to make a retro cover imo. Even on the collector's edition.

After after Daggerfall, there was Morrowind. And after Morrowind, there was Oblivion. And after that, Shivering Isles. They all had different aesthetics, and Skyrim should have it's own aesthetics as well, not that of Daggerfall, Arena, or any kind of standard generic fantasy.



Yes, you're right, I didn't see that you said skills specifically. But I still don't see how this is a detriment, for reasons I've already mentioned. It will only become a detriment when we see the full skill list and see for ourselves what they've done with it (assuming what they've done is dumb it down).

Really? I'm gonna pin this one on our differing individual tastes, because I think Skyrim's grimdark setting is the perfect place for that kind of thing.



Never said it was a detriment. Just that huge amounts of choice are a typically retro RPG hallmark, and I only mentioned it to get it out of the way so I could talk about the atmosphere of the game.

While I don't dislike your ideas, like Antibody said, I don't think they really belong in TES, especially after Daggerfall. I would like them in to a lesser extent, however.

You seem to be forgetting perks, which I think will give the game a wide amount of options and HUGE replayability.

True, true. But I don't know much about these perks, since I'm waiting for them to show up on the wiki.
However, I expect them to be pretty similar to the Fallout 3 perks, which most of the time, just add bonuses to skill points under certain conditions. Or, they'll be like the Journeyman/etc perks in Oblivion.

Skyrim. An area in a unique game world, yet entirely different from the other locations of past games. And you want them to fill it with clichés and cleavage? Please, no.

I agree with the OP on aesthetics - there's definitely a Frank Frazetta, Conan, 80s feel there, which I for one absolutely love. The popular, modern, original, totally not cliché aesthetics of most fantasy nowadays are so desperate to be original and totally not cliché that they're usually insufferably dull or just plain goofy looking. Skyrim isn't.

I'd argue that it's much more sword & sorcery than high fantasy, but then the distinctions are pretty vague at the best of times.

If the current screenshots are any indication at all, I can't really see how the OP could be doubted; look at the character armour design and the list of confirmed enemies so far.

I can barely say Im an 80s baby so it svcks I cant share in your nostalgia... but I am very pleased with the theme skyrim is looking to hold. Oblivion was far too bland. It was like walking around the forest preserve by my house.... ohh neat... a deer.

I wouldn't mind a more subdued 80's theme. Naked Nords will be (better be) everywhere, so there's your bare-chested barbarians withe battleaxes. And who can say no to wenches?! I think all the ideas Jara came up with could easily be implemented without making the game campy. I personally wouldn't like the game to focus on such things, but I'd love to see an array of quests and interactions that play off of such things. A retro poster would be super cool too, not that I'd personally care either way.

Yay cleavagey wenches!

So by a "retro" RPG you mean making use of "traditional" fantasy cliches? If so, I honestly don't agree, I want my Elder Scrolls to try to set itself apart from tired old fantasy cliches, not go out of its way to do them. I want Skyrim to capture the same feeling of exploring a strange world unlike anything I'm familiar with that Morrowind gave me when I first played it, and the absence of which is one of my biggest complaints regarding Oblivion. Obviously, I'm not saying Skyrim should look like Morrowind, that would make no sense as it's a different province, just that I want Bethesda to try to capture the same feel of exploring a strange world that is different from our own, because a world that is different from our own is exactly what Nirn is.

If I want a "retro RPG" from Bethesda, I'll play Fallout 3, especially since the retro aesthetics of Fallout are based on '50s science fiction, which by now is old enough that you can turn to it to inspiration and look original, I wouldn't feel the same for ripping off Conan.

As long as the world is alien and unique, I wouldn't mind them taking 80s fantasy cliches as one source of inspiration, just as long as it's not the only inspiration. What's important is to take those cliches and twist them into something unique.

I found Oblivion too obviously LOTR-inspired, the setting was a letdown. If Skyrim is just a cheap Conan knock-off I will be equally disappointed. Will play it for hours anyway though, I am weak...

Maybe not have the retro feel "everywhere" but it would be cool if there was some out of town tavern somewhere in the corners of Skyrim way out in nowhere, that had exactly the setting you describe Just one tavern like that can′t hurt now can it ?

I'm a total fantasy f-boy, so I hope you're right.

Less skills is farther dumping down but reducing replayability means that they can sell stupid dlcs .

The whole fantasy setting so far sounds very cheesy , i mean dragons?!?!
of course Beth's writing was always cheesy

It always amuses me when people refer to Daggerfall's "scale". 99.99999% of Daggerfall is worthless empty space. Cities, towns and dungeons are tiny islands on a vast ocean of useless terrain.

I think Daggerfall is the quintessential proof that more does not always equal better.

Personal opinion, but Conan? Please give us something more interesting. Fantasy fiction has so many much more interesting milieus. Just read some of Moorcocks eternal champion series for a sense of other-worldliness contrasting against the mundane, or Fritz Lieber for a mixture of epic adventure and humour. Conan and similar 'high' fantasy seems simplistic to my tastes, and riddled with cliches.Yes the Nords in part are based on vikings, with their axes and beserkers, but they have civilisation, trade, culture, literature and history. Don't sell them short.

I disagree. That dark tone, rugged, grim vibe is great for retro. Especially when concerned with inspiration from Robert E. Howard. But then to do a good retro style art piece, or something, you'd have to get a painter that has a style similar to Frank Frazetta, the quintessential Conan artist. And the best candidate for that I think is either Brom, or Derrell K. Sweet.

Having said that though, I so far like where they are going already, and don't feel that they need to change art direction or anything. Even if Tod was inspired by Conan--and I hope if he's read Conan, he's talking the original Howard stories and not the comics of the movies--I'd prefer to see his take on it than try to emulate what has been done.

Though it does feel like the genre of Sword and Sorcery--not to be confused with High Fantasy--is nearly dead, and has been for probably 30 years or more.

Not to disagree with you, as I don't. Just a point of interest. The Norse very much had a rich culture themselves, and spread it far and wide.

Having said that, heh I agree completely with you about cliches in fantasy. But more Sword and Sorcery--well in high fantasy too--as Conan, though I love those stories, has very thin characters, very two dimensional, something Howard was known for. Though he did paint his worlds vividly.

I am very curious how they are going to portray the Nords, especially in their own country. I do want to see them being very rugged, and rough, with that sort of Viking mentality of "I will kill you, and if you kill me first, then I will die a warrior's death, and my name will be sung in tales!" I'd mention Valhalla, but to be honest I have no clue what the Nords believe in. I doubt they subscribe to the Nine Divines. I'm rambling now. I'll stop. heh.

Cheers.