» Fri Dec 09, 2011 6:33 pm I'm about to subject you all to a rather severe wall of text, given my experiences thus far in Skyrim, under the premise that the developers might read these boards for useful information. But since you clicked on the link, too, you will suffer as well. You have been warned, so cast your wards now, and be aware: My wall of text has been perked to stagger you.
First, a little story. What was it like when Whack first clicked NEW GAME? I spent maybe thirty seconds, drinking in the scenery and the looks of my new home. And I'm on a cart. I kid you not, the second I noticed it was a cart, I heard the voice of that Monty Python guy from that movie. You know the one I mean. "I don't want to go on the cart!" Anyway, it took me maybe thirty seconds to realize I wasn't watching a scripted movie and that I could look around. Yey. And I've got company, don't I? One imperial, two Stormcloaks, whatever they are, and some damned horse thief. I've only got the vaguest idea, but I got the gist of it when it was mentioned that Sovereigngaard awaits. Yes, I'm butchering that spelling. Probably. Yadda yadda yadda, horse thief eats arrows, no-name dude gets the forced weight loss program, and the axeman spends the last instant of his life wondering if his childhood dream of forging armor from asbestos would have been a good career move. Before long I've escaped with the imperial helping, and I let him run off while I decide to scamper around the countryside gathering herbs. I made a merchant, you see. The idea was to make and sell potions and work up alchemy and speechcraft. I racked up my first death maybe fifteen minutes later when some bear took offense to my berry-gathering prowess and decided to body-slam my furry Khadjiit [censored] off a cliff.
[img]http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn77/Whackjob_photos/GTFO.jpg[/img]
It was kind of like this, only much more body hair on both involved.
It's been a week or so now, and I've got a better feel for the game, so now I think is a good time to go over some points, with the idea of giving the developers feedback for patches and future games. Not that I expect them to see this specific post out of the myriad of others, but eh. Better to post it and have it not be seen, than to not post it and gripe later.
1.) Magic. For the love of Azura, Bethesda! What happened here? A tiny handful of prefab spells? That's it? One of the reasons I loved Oblivion was I could make any bloody spell I wanted, provided I had the ability and mana reserves to cast it. Alas, there will be no casting of "Die in a fire" with 1 fire damage per second for 60 seconds plus 60 seconds of paralysis. There will be no casting of "Deep sea drowning electrode" with 1 electric damage per second plus -500 burden. All my dreams of amusing spells are gone. Look, I know that the focus is heavy on the console side of the house these days, but did you really have to lobotomize one of the best things this series had going for it? Ok, that being said, I did like the perk trees for magic. No complaints there. But I'm this incensed about what you did to Magic in Skyrim:
(╯°□°）╯︵ [img]http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn77/Whackjob_photos/Gif/myparkingsvcks.gif[/img]
Sometimes a fliptable just isn't enough.
2.) Combat. I remember the first time I hit a bandit with a mace and got a "fatality" animation. Totally smashed that guy's face in. Nice. No complaints here, really. Not for melee combat. Unlike the magician side of the house, you've expanded and improved on this system, rather than gutting it and replacing it with a cardboard cutout, hoping fervently nobody will give it too much scrutiny.
3.) Quests. I've put hours and hours in since the game came out, and I'm pretty sure I've barely scratched the surface here. There is no lack for something worthwhile to do. Instead I have to perform some kind of mental triage. "Sounds fun to do, but I've got like fifteen other things on my plate." There's enough variety to keep me going.
4.) Scenery: Pretty much perfect. I'm seeing weird shadow effects, but I'm chalking that up to my graphics card or system first.
5.) World environment / planning: Also pretty much perfect. I can walk over ground I've walked dozens of times before, and still stumble across something new. I could probably spend more than a year just wandering around, and still find new things daily.
6.) Story: Perfect. Nothing to really elaborate on, here. Stories within stories within stories.
7.) Replayability: Pretty good. I've got a pretty severe case of alt-itis, so I'm constantly deleting and making new characters, and even doing this, I'm only moderately bored with the initial escape mission. I've had a multitude of characters, now, all of whom played vastly different and were each amusingly viable. First, my little merchant / alchemist. A female khadjiit merchant called "Snowtail". Even though I deleted the character when I had around 60 alchemy, I had enough cash on me to outfit my companion with top of the line gear and had a well appointed home. Then I deleted her. Oddly enough, this was my first character, and I had no idea that the Khadjiit were roving merchants in Skyrim. Eh. Second character was the one I learned to blacksmith with. A breton male called "Whelm". Heavy armor, shield, mace. High point: Climbing on top of a dragon's head and clubbing it like it was the last seal pup in the world. Wonderful. Deleted him. Third character was a classing destruction mage, a female breton with the inexplicable name of "Eumanides". Got runes, placed runes, learned to love runes. Nothing like sneaking through a bandit fortress, putting a fire rune on a wall, then shooting it with an arrow to cause nearby bandits to walk over to examine the arrow. Ka-boom. Deleted her. There's been fifteen or thirty characters since then, and my latest is a melee cloth wearer breton by the name of Aureanna. It was originally just a test character, but it's turned into a longer project. I initially just wanted to see if putting points in one-handed improved the damage of bound sword. It does. Hrm, well well. No shield, just a spell in one hand and the sword in another. Nothing like walking around in normal street clothes, being accosted by bandits, and buffing yourself to beyond heavy armor defense and suddenly sprouting a macabre glowing etheral blade, and putting every living thing nearby to the sword. Even that little fox over there that was trying to dig up a mouse it thought it heard. And I ripped the wings off a butterfly that might have been a witness.
So, to wrap up this post, I think Bethesda did a fine job, and the only thing that I'd really consider a really bad move on their part would be the dumbing down of the magic system. Everything was near-perfect, save that one irritating exception. I'll be honest here. I'm incensed enough about that one thing that I decided to go ahead and unleash my Amazing Invulnerable Levitating Cat Head Army to hunt for the poor sod who suggested that course of action. They'll get you eventually. They're mobile, they're relentless, and they pause only briefly to bat at low flying objects.
[img]http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn77/Whackjob_photos/Gif/catburnt.gif[/img]
They crave no earthly catnip.
