Just finished watching a three hour stream recording. Werewolves, vampires, and dragons oh my. Werewolves aren't a plugin, they look to be part of the game. I guess a mistranslated quote, or the devs were lying. The transformation seems to be at will, and it looks pretty good. Can't say for sure if the player can be one or not, though. Haven't seen any vamp stuff yet.

Love the crafting system. I had my doubts, but it seems pretty damn cool. Wildlife is fucking everywhere. Guy who was playing made an Argonian, and it looks good. Only other thing worth mentioning is the new lockpicking minigame. It's... Better. More realistic, and the actual skill level seems to be at least as important as being good at the game. Lower level locks turned on the first or second try, while another guy spent twenty minutes trying to pick a master lock. Loot is worth it, though.

 

It seems that cannibalism is in game, too.

Looks like I can play a bloodthirsty, savage orc, that eats his fallen enemies.

Also, Skyrim goes gold.

 

Can't. Fucking. Wait. Please let me be able to become a werewolf, that would be awesome. Though it begs the question how the damage you do as one would be calculated, and if it would actually be worth doing.... Hmmm.

 

SPOILERS

Can't wait to play a Werewolf. Here's a video someone put up where the player becomes one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84W-ftv4VUs

Also, some info from a thread where I found the video.

 

So someone school me on builds given the racial bonuses on the previous page. As a consequence of playing Demons Souls (and having to reroll multiple times due to poor choices), I'm very leery of picking/making a bad character. The amount of choices available drives me up the wall in Elder Scrolls games; I feel very ambivalent and unable to make decisions and I end up spending an hour or two on the character creation screen when it should really only take 10 minutes.

In Oblivion I think I went with a Breton mage and a Dunmer bow/sneak char. I never completed Oblivion and it's been quite awhile so I don't know if they were good builds or not. I'm just glad Skyrim doesn't have signs like in Oblivion character creation.

So what do you guys think would be the best races for a pure Mage, Warrior, Bow, Spell/Sword, Spell/Bow, etc.

 

Couldn't help myself and watched some of the leaked video. I am genuinely going to spend more time smithing than I do on most other games all together.

For levelling you are taken to the 'perk' screen and told to update either magic, health or stamina. After that you can pick a perk but can save up perk points if you wish.

 

Taking a quick look at the Skyrim races via the wiki, this is how I would play it. Other options are entirely possible, unless otherwise stated. Even then you have a chance, but you'd need to be really damn good to pull it off.

Altmer/High Elf - Mage, Spellsword (leaning towards magic), Assassin (relying on illusion magic)

Argonian - Thief, Assassin, Mage, Spellsword (fairly even mix)

Bosmer/Wood Elf - Thief, Assassin, Archer (best)

Breton - Mage. (Not really good at anything else. They tend to be fragile as hell, too. Glass cannon, but not much boom at low levels.) Usually deepest mana pool.

Dunmer/Dark Elf - Mage, Spellsword(Fairly even mix, better at destruction then others), Thief, Assassin, Archer (if you really want, but it's mostly pointless to be an archer with a Dunmer.

Imperial - Warrior(heavy armor, one handed), Spellsword(Leans toward melee for offensive, but gets a nice restoration boost to help you keep fighting).

Kahjit - Thief, Assassin, Warrior, Archer. Not very good at magic, but they can use it.

Nord - Warrior(light armor, weapon is your choice), Berserker, they can do spellsword if you want but they're not great at it.

Orc - Warrior(heavy armor, weapon is your choice), Berserker, I'd keep them away from anything magic-like. They get a bonus in enchanting, though.

Redguard - Warrior(one handed, armor is whatever), Spellsword(fairly balanced).

It's all guidelines, though. Apparently, race has no effect on 'starting attributes' aside from health/magic/fatigue. Dunno if that's true or not. Also worth noting that they all have the same movement speed, apparently.

This. Also worth noting that every time you get a skill up, you're level progress bar goes up a little bit.

 

It would just feel wrong to play as anything else other than a Nord. I guess I'll do my first playthrough as that race, and then switch to something else.

 

It's got to be either Orc or Nord for me, something big and smashy is generally how I do my first play through's.

 

The higher your skill in that kind of armor, the less it hurts your efficiency. So if you master light armor, then light armor will only weaken your spells by 5%.

And frankly, armor can be benificial enough to be worth using despite the costs. Particularly once you get some sigil stones. I once managed to enchant a suit of heavy armor to grant max protection (85%), 25% protection from fire and frost, and to absorb 100% of magic cast on me.

 

What requirements?

 

It seems that most people plan on picking race to compliment their fighting/playing style - this does make sense. However one of my favourite things about Morrowind (wasn't nearly as prevalent in Oblivion) was how people would address/treat you based on your race.

I'll likely go with Khajiit to start (I'll play through a few times with dif races, no doubt), and like the previous versions, whatever type of combat I develop (be it magic, melee, ranged) I'll probably be plowing through enemies by the end. I'm not sure you need THAT much of racial advantage to play effectively and think the roleplaying aspect of the race is more important.

 

I want a Khajiit werewolf. May, or may not, name it Catdog.

 

I just learned that I still remember all the lyrics to the Catdog theme song. I didn't need to know that about myself.

 

Might go with a Bosmer archer/thief/assassin type char the first time around.

Out of the 3 main playstyles (sneak, combat, magic), what would you guys think is the easiest, or would be the best for someone with low TES skill level for the first playthrough? Combat? I know when I first started playing Oblivion I picked a pure mage as a first char and I was getting my ass kicked for awhile.