this is an rpg. part of tes is looking at dazzling environments! morrowind involved more exploring than any game i have played and i must say that exploring would have been better if it was photorealistic!

my first major grip is TEXTURES!!!!. they are horrible!! http://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy297/b_harrison/skyrim/skyrim_gameplay_shout1.jpg this is a game where you attack your opponents realy CLOSE to you with mellee weapons! being realy close exposes the terrible textures! bethesda needs to sort their textures out! on the helmet you can see how detailed the scratches are- proving its high res. yet it looks so BAD. perhaps bethesda should at least try the cod method!

the cod technique is to slap a additional overlay onto materials. a soldier might have a low res camo uniform texture, but the overlay added seperatly makes all material with the cloth type have a cloth pattern added!
halo does this too, its most noticable when you see that their are scratches everywhere!!

running water would look fine if it wasnt all white and instead used a refraction map!



skyrim needs cloth physics and dx11!! look at the shingles on the roof from the gameplay video!



on the plus side distant shots and fog look awesome

Hi, welcome to the world of 512 megs of ram.

I think Skyrim will be one of the most graphically impressive games of 2011. The only real competitors that come to mind are Crysis 2, The Witcher 2, Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3, and possibly some others.

Crysis is known for its graphics. But honestly...Graphics don't make the game for me.

I raise my glass to you.

1+

One gripe with this post. You're comparing an open world rpg with shooters. It would be nice to add layers and layers.of textures and make everything perfect. The reality is that its hard to make a game as big as skyrim look as great as say, halo. In terms of open world rpgs, skyrim will prolly be top notch, though.

I said perfect as is because it's already the most graphically impressive game of 2011 (except maybe Crysis 2 but can't tell yet). Four words will show why this game is the best looking game of 2011: This is the 360. This is the most graphically impressive 360 game I've seen and I've seen Crysis for the 360 as well. Now imagine the PC version. See, let your fears melt away. /thread.

Graphics add life to the game if skyrim has terrible graphics then immersion levels would be down- We pay for immersion..

The more immersion the more hours of gameplay.

Using Dx11 on pc can't be that hard!

Graphics DO matter, but as I said before ,it′s only the tip of the iceberg of a game, and a REAL gamer understands that, taking in consideration what makes a game worth while, it′s gameplay and replay value. Not everything that gliters is gold...

I completely disagree. Morrowind felt much more expansive and real than Oblivion did even without the graphics of OB. I liked OB very much, don't get me wrong, but a lot of it felt cookie cutter and uninspiring.
Personally I don't care if the graphics of Skyrim are only slightly better than Morrowind, I only care for the immersion that it can invoke.

Also the water isn't white. That was the white water rapids and as you can take from that name, the water is supposed to look white. The actual water you can see throughout the trailer, just look, it looks amazing.



I completely disagree. I don't see how Oblivion didn't feel more expansive or real than Morrowind. Oblivion felt like an actual living world and the graphics and music added to that feeling. Morrowind was great but it did not invoke a feeling of a real, living, breathing world. As for what the guy you were quoting was saying, there was less exploration in Morrowind than in Oblivion. There were far more dungeons in Oblivion and most of them were more expansive as well. None of them looked the same either. If Oblivion's dungeons were cookiecutter then so was Morrowinds.

Times have changed from the time of Morrowind, I got Two Worlds II and I hate the game because the storyline and acting were poor the graphics were the best i've seen though I've uninstalled the game now

I'm fine with average graphics with any game as long the gameplay is solid. I don't buy games for the visuals.

I've watched that gameplay trailer several dozen times. I've yet to be more impressed by a game's graphics.

Everone is looking for better graphics and not enough game value/storyline Bethesda needs to concentrate on both alot. It will the the game of the year for years to come.

Thank you! If I wanted a high polygon count I'd but a blueray, or just go outside! Amirite?!

None of the choices apply for me.

It doesn't need to be graphically impressive, at this point graphics aren't what's going to make any game great or not. Games keep pushing forward graphically, and that's great, but it's more important that what you're doing inside that world of pretty graphics engages you in other ways.

It's not perfect the way it is, but it doesn't need to be better graphically.

The game looks extremely impressive as I saw it in the trailer. I never really understood the NEED for graphics, especially adding cods overlays would be...no.. IMO Bethesda is doing a good job as it is. Remember nothing is perfect.

I like graphics, but they aren't everything. Dragon Age: Origins had mediocre to bad graphics and color palette, but it's one of the best RPG's I've ever played.

The game looks great to me. The only problems I had with Oblivion were the animations, and that is clearly been rectified in Skyrim. So I'm a happy camper.

I'm sure that, being primarily a PS3 (read: console) player, some people may perceive graphics differently from myself based on games played on a platform of greater power, but why are so many people referring to Skyrim as though its graphics are not impressive? The OP of this thread and the people stating "it's a console game" (as an excuse) or "graphics don't matter much" (or any variation of those two statements) confuse me with their words. Who else thought that trailer showed very impressive graphics? How high can some standards of forum members possibly be if Skyrim just looks average to them?

I think they can try, but Crysis 2 with DirectX11 and BF3 look awensome in graphic terms.

I think the history of Crysis is crap, but really good graphics!

Can you elaborate a bit on this? isn't it possible that the XBox emulator used to make the trailer was set at a relatively low res, at least lower than 1080p.

Absolutable. The trailer was more impressive than I thought it would be. It just makes me sad to see people talk about graphics like they are the end all and be all of a game. (not saying the OP was arguing that, after all this is an open discussion thread)
I just feel like many people have gravitated towards gaming as if it is socially acceptable, but they have brought an elitism with them as if graphics mean everything.

1) We know that these scenes were captured on the xbox 360 version of the game, which doesn't support very high AA, and is still running DX9 graphics. This explains a lot actually. Consider that in the final product, you would be seeing this on a TV several feet away - instead of on a high-res computer monitor, a foot and a half away. Given that, and the nature of the game world, I'd say it looks pretty darn good.

2) Todd stated in the podcast that the PC will get higher res textures than the consoles. This makes sense, because the consoles are somewhat RAM limited, while the average PC is sporting at least 2GB of RAM or more. There is also the issue of looking good with your head a lot closer to the screen.

If we get a trailer that was produced from PC footage, THEN we can start making statements about the graphical quality of the game.