From IGN's article:

The best bit is what happens when you hit the up direction to choose Skills. At this point you look to the stars and your perk trees appear as constellations. The lines in the stars show you routes of progression between specialisms, and the stars themselves represent the variations you unlock.

I think if I saw that today, I'd cry. That is just awesome. Awesome.

However, I've not played Fallout, so I'm wondering about the perk system, for which reference has been made to Fallout's system. How does it work in Fallout? For example, do I have a number of perks to pick from? Does choosing one, eliminate the others? Are some perks simply unavailable to me because of character creation choices.

I know it could be different, but one article compares it to Fallout's system.

~ Dani ~

in fallout it's different to TES because you have skill levels that are increased by the player choosing which skills to increase. When you level up a list of perks are available to choose, now the perks have certain requirments, for example *certain perk* needs the player to have 50 sneak. If the player does not have 50 points in the sneak skill, then this perk will not be available. Choosing one does not eliminate others. (i suppose the first bit isn't actually much different from TES in relative to this question)

I can't really comment on how Skyrim's perk system will work, but in Fallout's: Yes you have a number of perks you can choose from, one per level. Sometimes choosing one may make another unavailable, but only if they contradict eachother. There were no races in Fallout so they were all available, that may change in Skyrim.

Right - I understand all of this is based on Fallout. I've not seen or heard any specific details regarding Skyrim's perk system, just some generalizations.

So, skills that contradict: if you pick archery as a skill, then all the "large blade and hammer" (whatever they're calling it in Skyrim) skills will be closed to you? Kind of locks a player into a skill set.

~ Dani ~

TBH i don't think it would be like that, i'm not sure how they will do it, because the perks will be insanely different from fallout to skyrim

I suppose the perks will act as a substitute for the class and attribute system. Although, it still remains to be seen as to how perks will be implemented but I think it's ascertained that they will be vastly different from those in Fallout. Since, perks in Fallout were more akin to augmentations (for lack of a better word.)

Not seeing it that way. Based on the Eurogamer article I read...

"That's pretty cool, but the best bit is what happens when you hit the up direction to choose Skills. At this point you look to the stars and your perk trees appear as constellations. The lines in the stars show you routes of progression between specialisms, and the stars themselves represent the variations you unlock. "

This sounds like nothing more than using the term perk to create "Fallout follow-on hype" about what seems to work like nothing more than common garden-variety skill trees. The stars are the perks, which in games like Diablo II are called "skills," but they've got to call them perks in TES because there's already something taking up the name "skills."

And D&D had feats other games have talents, name does not matter, just the fact that the system will be much deeper than before and make replaying the game more meaningful.

Yup. That, and that the whole "tree" scheme doesn't appear to be set up in "Take A, and you can't take B" fashion.

Lets say i dont agree.

This have to be one of the most pointless, useless, annoying skill menu design in a very very very long time.
When you want to show information you show it like this:

[SKILL] [###]
[SKILL] [###]
(etc)

Not:

[SKILL ###] [SKILL ###] [SKILL ###]

It adds nothing to the game, it take up way to much place and the only reason its there is that its meant to look nice. Atleast add the option of having a organized real menu / skill / stats screen instead of that mess. Its like the devs was sitting around a table throwing ideas about the UI to each other and the first question they asked was "how can we make it look pretty" not "How can we give the player the information in a good and organized way?"