While I don't have a citation handy, I have been following the previews and discussions about Skyrim pretty closely.

I'm almost certain it was mentioned in an earlier article at GI that the HUD is toggle-able on and off.

Hmm I think you got it wrong, I believe it was already confirmed that there will be a option to turn the hud on/off

Did you not read any of that? The first thing that pops up before you get to the menus is a compass.

Yeah, I agree. Some people think that if we have physical representations of health that it's going to be a cheap FPS. It's actually more realistic though. I can imagine if I'm severely wounded hearing ragged short breaths, heart beating, and maybe some blood splatters on the screen or something..
Would be cool. :hubbahubba:

The quest markers will still be there but not like Oblivion.For that I am glad, I hated having something right in my face telling me where I must go. I lost any sense of exploration because of that.

But, for those whining about walking in circles forever, whine no more! I will bet that the pin point quest marker is still there. You just have to access the map to see it. Which may be an inconvenience for you, but it is wonderful for me. No intrusive compass telling me where the quest is and where every single location in the world is. I will finally have the exploration that I missed since Morrowind(assuming everything goes as I expect)

"The menu is a compass" means that it's a four point thing where pushing uo, down, left, and right, on it open up the menus... Not an actual compass that tells you North south west east...

Edit: nvm

This supposed to be a relief? Even though I loathe Morrowind-style directions, at least Morrowind had a mini-map that functioned as a north-south-east-west compass. Without a HUD, how will I know what direction I'm walking in... let alone how to find a quest target?

I hope there is no HUD period. It makes me feel like I'm actual there.

I could care less about the quest compass but my bigger issue is the Health bar.

I think it's a joke if it's not on the screen and we have to rely on the main menu to see the health bar. :brokencomputer: :brokencomputer: :brokencomputer: :brokencomputer: :brokencomputer:

You ever go camping irl? You pull out a map and a cumpus, figure out which way to go and then look for a landmark of some kind and then put the tools away and head for said landmark, or use it as a guide in which way you want to go.. It'll be fine without something holding your hand the whole way. And once again, it'll probably be toggleable.

I can see it now.....




Call of Duty: Medieval Warfare




That would crack me up.

I'm trying to play a game, not go camping... plus I'd bring some type of GPS system or keep the compass open and in front of me at all times if I were to go camping. Note that I wouldn't survive a camping trip.

Fixed. :teehee:

i think people are reading to much into this. its hardly the first game to have a hud free view. health bars might show up for a few seconds after taking damage or using restore potions but then quickly disappear. the compass might appear briefly if you hit a certain hotkey and then disappear again. if they do it this way it will be very nice since i enjoyed that in the other games that used that method. if the quest markers are still in i hope they only give you the general area. ive been playing dragon knight saga which does not have a quest marker at all. important info is on the map and that is only the most important info for the main quest. most of the sidequests you have to read the clues and hunt for them. its alot more fun doing it that way than oblivions hand holding.

A big part of the game is the exploration/camping. And I don't know if the dwelmer came up with a satilite based possitioning system. They were pretty crafty buggers though, so who knows. Pressing a button or two to pull out a map and cumpus isn't going to hurt anyone.

Yes, because adding ingame reactions to health levels makes a game Modern Warfare. That cracks me up.

It's a well known fact that if an FPS uses a mechanic, any RPG that uses it turns completely into an FPS. Perks in Skyrim will already cause shotguns and rocket launchers to rain from the sky no matter what the devs try to do to stop it, just think of the damage health/sanity effects might cause!

Hmm, depending on the time of day, you could use the sun or moons. You could use landmarks, like the big mountain to the left, crooked tree near the river, etc. Lastly, you can use a map. Pretty much the way you would in real life. I prefer the Morrowind way of doing things in this respect. Having a "quest" marker is the hallmark of a FPS, not an RPG.

Besides, who knows what you might find in addition to that lost friend...

I've always hated the blurred vision and the red tint to the outside of the screen in FPS games, doesn't feel right to me. When you're shot, cut, stabbed, or hit with a blunt object you don't usually have any blurring of vision until you lose enough blood or if you're hit in the head. An arrow in the leg isn't going to make my vision blurred and red tinted. But this isn't a matter of realisim, it's a game lol. I would rather have the hud back and a combination of oblivion and morrowind's quest systems. A map marker to the general location of the quest and then you have to use the directions of the npcs to find the exact objective. But I guess it would be a cool thing to have the hud optional for people that don't like it.

lol true

If you think about it though, its different than Modern Warfare. In that game you heal after taking damage. There's no limping, your screen just gets red and its harder to aim. In TES the effects of damage would last longer, cause hp doesn't regenerat at that rate. After a while, the bood on your screen could fade away, but your body would still limp, and the occational blood could splater onto the screen reminding yourself that you are infact dying. I'd like that better than just a bar. But once again, the ability to switch should be available cause Im sure someone disagree's with me. I just feel that it would be infact scarier if you saw yourself slowly dying, instead of watching a red bar go down.

If you got shot by an arrow in the foot, you would be reaching down to rip it out or break most of it off so you continue fighting. You'd be in a lot of pain, and you'd be closing your eyes a lot due to that. The blur due to a lot of damage and red tint is about as close to that as you could get I think.

Do you have a source for that?



Do you have a source for that?

I've read all the GI Hub updates too and I can't remember them saying anything like that.



I did, but it looks like you didn't read it well enough. I already explained it in my first post, but Celden also explained it:





It worked perfectly fine in Far Cry 2. A quick press of the button pulled up a map and compass that was actually in your character's hand and not some menu. If this is similar to what they're trying to do with Skyrim, I'm all for it.

Indeed, some thinking is supposed to be more rewarding than following a magical imaginary arrow pointing you toward your objective through the wilderness...


A lot more believable, that is. This would benefit immersion greatly.

@ antibody a direct quote would serve you better.

* It doesn't take a lot of blur to make a game highly annoying. Among the first "special effects" people turn off to make it playable. And even the slightest damage would have to show up as blur to catch our attention.
* How would limping work in Oblivion? We don't even have head bob. Oh yeah, just switch to 3rd person.
* Bloody clothes? In Oblivion we don't even see our character. Oh yeah, just switch to 3rd person.

On screen blood is also problematic. It works when you get a hit and you auto heal, like some modern yet dumbed down shooters. Where in the pipeline is blood added? Before or after postprocessing? How about nighteye effect? Do you still see red blood? And then there is magicka and fatigue pool. How would those be shown? Lots of conflicts here.

"Call of Duty: Norse/Medieval Warfare"?
Jupp, I'm *really* getting bad vibes here. I want role playing, not a realism based 1st person shooter with magic replacing guns (with endless ammo). Many of the features we consider "RPG'ish" are removed, and now we instead have insta-travel, regenerative magicka, no failures/fumbles or flukes, and minigames demanding player skill rather than character skill replacing character based chance rolls. In role playing pretty much everything has an accompanied cost, something you *want* to consider the impact of. In Oblivion everything was a free ride.

Now, I love Oblivion as a game, but it's not my idea of a good *role playing system*, despite all the lore. It's heading more and more toward the "action game with a magic system designed to be exploited". Several of the old classic adventure games (Leisure Suit Larry, Monkey Island etc) did the same mistake on going "more action based". Even classic pure turn based tactical games like UFO Enemy Unknown spinoffs "went realtime based" and lost all the charm the original had. It failed then, and it will fail for TES. Hell, even VATS (pause for input) does traditional roleplaying much better than click&spam "combat".

Oh well... Guess I'm all alone on this one... I'd like important bits shown on a hud, because I'm used to having a real character sheet in front of me and a notebook for calculations. Even FO3 pretty much svcks when it comes to menu responsiveness. So having these attributes shown on the character screen only isn't acceptable.

I'm fine with a HUD free view as long as freaking blood doesn't splatter all over my screen. I think it's pretty important to be able to see what's killing you when you are close to death <_< That feature is one of my biggest problems with games that remove the health bar. It is far more distracting than a little red bar in the corner.