If they developed their game engine in-house, I'm willing to bet that was done mostly prior to Fallout 3, as part of the pre-production.

wow so fallout 3 must have been a side project... something they made while taking a break from skyrim right?

This and also you are forgetting that they had had a bomb dropped on them ,.... both playstation and xbox, or more to the point sony and microsoft both announced the new systems releases so they went back to get it regraded or whatever you want to call it for those systems and did a great job of it in my estimation.

BTW it was actually 70 people from the release of oblivion until the release of fallout since fallout it is actually a few more then 100 and its been stated that the game is actually finished except the voice acting so now they have a yr to play it and look hard for those little bugs that seem to irritate all the same people time and again with any game,... never got a bethesda game yet that had bugs of any kind that took away from my personal game play.

This. Meaning they have had like 2 1/2 years on just the game, with 100 people lol. Why is this topic still alive? Its coming!

11/11/11

Or 63 >_>

Bethesda has a huge amount of manpower and many different development teams, one of the reasons they have 4 major games in development right now, have you ever been to their website ?

Bethesda has had people working on this new engine for years they say and the fallout nv was sent to a new acquisition company who had done the original fallout's, so does that make you feel cozier about the release date ?

I don't know what planet you live on.... but its actually pretty rare for AAA games to miss release dates (And a date such as... "Sometime in 2010" is not an official release date). In fact, I have a hard time thinking of any major games in the last two years or so which had a firm release date and missed it. Far more games get released to early compared to the amount that get delayed. Fallout New Vegas was a great example.....

If Bethesda announced a release date almost a year ahead of time, I'm willing to bet they are pretty certain of it. All signs point to the game being well under way, if not nearing end stages of development. So, while stuff does happen and there is no certainty in game development, I would be shocked if the game missed 11/11/11.

how in the world do you know how far along they are?
if you have seen it then tell use where, but if you haven't then its kinda unjustified
there is a much larger group working on this one, I think Tod said around 95
and really they test while they are making the game
and hey they reached the announcement deadline

Keep in mind that they've been working on this game since immediately after Oblivion was released.

The game has been on (pre-)production since Oblivion. The long 2 years without any announcement was to make sure they would announce when they had most of the things done, a date set and everything going well according to the plans.

Don't worry, the game WILL launch on 11/11/11, mark my words. And it will be less buggy then any other Bethesda game, I am sure that with the new engine the game will run much smoother and with less problems. Almost 5 years was put into making this game, I doubt they will screw this up.

Judging by the recent Beth podcast, it sounds like they started working on Skyrim shortly after Oblivion. I assume they started working on the engine, and concepts first. Once the engine for Skyrim was ready to use, I imagine they began work on Skyrim. Fallout 3 probably used quite a bit of the employee of BSG, but there were still people working on Skyrim during that time.

I also assume the reason they didn't announce Skyrim earlier was because they wanted to really up the hype of Skyrim before the release. If they announced it two years prior to the release, I'm sure they'd have a lot of inpatient fans busting down their door(not literally at least I hope there aren't any fans that crazy haha)
Another possible reason for delaying announcement might have been to make sure their new engine was complete, bugs and kinks worked out, and that they believed they could actually meet the deadline. There were probably a few different reasons for delaying announcement.
Another possible reason, correct me if any of this statement is far-fetched, but when they worked on Oblivion, they strived to have Oblivion come out the day the 360 came out. From what I've read they weren't finished with it by that time and had to push back the release date a few months later and even had to simplify certain aspects of the game(radiant ai for one). I would say that for Skyrim, they didn't want any pressure from fans, or the media until they knew they could pull it off and pull it off well.

I have faith that they can pull the release date off without any problems. Todd said there is a lot to show. Feb's Game Informer is supposed to have elder scrolls covering 12 pages(whether or not the pages are 100% dedicated to Skyrim I don't know) but 12 pages is quite a bit, even with pictures. Before I heard that Beth began work on Skyrim shortly after Oblivion, when I thought they might have only been working on Skyrim for 3 years(including the new engine, all the concept work, all the planning, and then the developing) I too was worried about release date, and quality. But as of now I have high hopes, and fairly high expectations(although reasonable expectations) Elder Scrolls is their baby they won't hurt their baby.

You might be confusing Bethesda Softworks the publisher with Bethesda Game Studios the developer. It's the publishing arm which is advertising those 4 games (Brink, Hunted: The Demon Forge, Rage and Skyrim... If memory serves). BGS has typically only worked on two at a time at most.

Yeah, that about says it all.

Look though, if Todd is to be believed, one of the main reasons they waited so long to announce it was so that they could say with some certainty their release date upon announcement. So I'm confident.

... They're hiring voice actors as we speak. If they're THAT far along, then they're close to finishing this game. That means most of the next year will be left to tests, polishing and production.

Bethesda doesn't screw around with release dates. They know what they're doing when they wait more than two years to inform us about the game. Knowing them, they've been working on Elder Scrolls V since they released Fallout 3. So it's not as if this is just some stupid ego move of theirs going on. This game is happening come 11/11/11.

Except with Oblivion, whose release date was pushed back several months. Also Morrowind. Also Arena. Daggerfall met its release target, but... well, we all know how that turned out.

I don't think the game's going to fail to meet the release because Bethesda hasn't thought it through like the OP does. I just think it's going to fail to meet the release because Bethesda is notorious for missed release dates.

I, on the other hand, think it is going to make the release date because 1), they have been working on it since Oblivion, 2) they have the biggest team working on it they've ever had for a game, 3) they never usually give definite dates and 4) from all indications they've given, they're very far ahead in the game developing process.

Woh... I sure am glad you posted this topic. I was so sure it was going to come out on 11/11/11 but your amazing display of evidence, logic, and reasoning completely changed my opinion.

Thank you so much, you saved me from a world of heartache. :touched:

I'm quite confident that if I were to open a portal to Beth HQ when everyone is asleep; I'd be able to play through almost an entire game at this moment

Check the Bethesda Podcast; Todd Howard says that the game has been in development since after Oblivion was released.

You are being sarcastic, right? I am telling you folks, Beth has been working on it for 5 years, they have a big team now and the game must be 100% done in terms of content. Now it's just time for recording voices and polishing the game. The game will release in 11/11/11 and it will blow our minds.

Fallout 3 was released in 10-2008. The last 6 months of the game is mostly QA, most of the graphics people and story people and dialog people and scripters were done long before it starts the QA phase. They will keep a small crew of those folks to fix the issues QA has, some people will devote time here and there to finish up or revamp quests, but all the heavy lifting is done probably by the first part of 2008, even sooner for some folks, like those who design the landscape or some of the textures.

To sum up, based on the above, Skyrim has been in partial or full production for about 3 years now. It has probably been in development for even longer.



Great minds think alike.

From someone who often takes the skeptic road, in this case I will veer another direction and say that I'm not too worried about it. :thumbsup:

I may be wrong, but I was pretty sure that Oblivion was supposed to be on the 360 launch menu, because I remember debating between COD2 and Oblivion on what to buy first.

Anyways, I think it's impossible to say, but I've got faith in Bethesda.

You're not wrong. The original release was scheduled for November 2005 and the game was pushed back. As I've already said in this thread, Bethesda has a tendency to miss release dates.

You best pick me up on the way.



Indeed they do.


If I was a betting woman I'd wager you that this one will come out on time.

Someone aint too familiar with TES, eh?