I was interested to see some of the comments Todd made regarding Oblivion prior to its release (i.e. E3 demo etc), and what has been said about Skyrim.

You be the judge on how well that was done, and what this may mean for Skyrim.

The following are either direct quotes from Todd, or slight paraphrasing
OB:Oblivion was reinvented, started fresh. Set out to create the RPG for the next generation.
SK: A large list of features that we knew we could do but hadnt yet done with previous titles.

OB:Never more excited about a project, working on it for three years
SK: This is the biggest craziest game we have made

OB: Oblivion takes visual to new levels. Several types of texturing on each surface, create unparalleled visuals. Real world physics with true dynamic soft shadows. Modelled more than 9000 objects.
SK: PC Version "Looks way better", Rewrote the graphics engine, Microdetail and macrodetail New animation system

OB: Through your actions you will become a warrior, a mage, a thief, you just play how you like.
SK: Create any character you want and do what you want You are what you play; you define your character by how you play, Skills increase as you use them, and you can pick perks when levelling up

OB: All star cast for the voices of Oblivion including Patrick Stuart. 50 hours of recorded dialogue.
SK: More than 70 voice actors

OB: Procedural creation of forests and environments. Staff spent time at a university geology lab to understand how trees grow, soil erodes and so on and the game creates this for the player. 16 square miles half is covered by procedurally generated forest. Dynamic weather.
SK: Dynamic weather. Artists dont texture things the game does it dynamically.

OB: True kinetic feeling of people fighting with swords All new combat engine that combines melee, defence, and magic in one system Moves are governed by stick direction Special stealth moves that can be done with the bow, New level of stealth game play. Real world physics mean that the arrows dont stick into stone but will stick into wood and flesh
SK: Spells can affect beyond the damage, ie slow them down. dual wield, Can only put a thing in each hand. 3rd person finishing moves Perks for equipment so that they do extra damage. Combine spells Charge spells

OB: Over 200 hand crafted dungeons
SK: 150 dungeons hand crafted

OB: Radiant AI means that NPCs have full lives and schedules, and use the environment to achieve goals. Conversation wheel to bribe, bully etc The game tracks every NPC and how they feel about you. They will detect things in the environment and use them, and interact with other NPCs.
SK: Radiant story governs everything you see. It tracks everything you do then it dynamically changes any part of any quest and give you little objectives. No mention of radiant AI, New dialogue real time system , Dragons have their own AI and you will see them a lot.

OB: Pick ingredients from the plants and mix them with meat and make potions.
SK: Little jobs you can do in the town, cut wood, run a lumber mill


So there is a short list of things told by todd during a demo of oblivion and skyrim. We know what happened with oblivion. Little over a month to find out about skyrim.

At least he didn't say, "You push a button, and something awesome happens."

You know that the micro detail and macro detail was in oblivion too? And FYI oblivion didn't have 200 hand crafted dungeons..

Nice list :tops:
This quote is my favorite:

I hope they improved alot on the A.I.

lol @ OB : over 200 hand-crafted dungeons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMcVZQI6ybw

oh god (confidence in game -50%) you did this to screw with our minds you sick sick human. too many similar qoutes on so called improvements.

Did you read the bit in the openning where i state that these are things Todd said about the games prior to their release?

I can't put much stock in quotes made by one dude on upcoming game titles, no matter who the dude is. At the time, Oblivion was the best thing ever. And now Skyrim is. Some quotes are bound to be similar.

It's fact that Skyrim will be awesome, but of course there will be things everyone will wish they did different, better, etc. I'm just not sure you can really make valid assumptions about the game based off quote comparisons.

He's gotten better at being Steve Jobs, and he's gotten worse at being Peter Molyneux.

That's a good thing. Seems like he's being careful not to overstate anything - as we should all note, he spent many more years on this project after gaining a lot of experience from Fallout 3, he's learned a lot about hyping games since then, and even soon after he announced the game he was careful to say "not sure about that being in yet, I'll get back to you!" on many questions. Even on stuff he knew was almost sure to be in the game.

At the beginning of the year he made it seem like he wasn't even sure there would be horses in the game. It wouldn't be surprising that he only said that because he wasn't 100% sure they would be in the game. We've also seen the spell number go up from 85 to 100 since they started sharing information, because they didn't want it to seem like they were exaggerating in case their plans changed or new restrictions prevented them from adding more.

I think Todd has demonstrated that he learned his lesson from Oblivion and is doing anything he can to avoid setting off the entitled [censored] & grief train - not that we have let up, apparently.