Oh my God... this game could single-handedly destroy my GPA next year. I am so fucking excited. I mean, shit, they seem to have cleaned up magic use so that its actually cool; in all of the many times I've played through Oblivion, I have never managed to find a way for a pure mage to match a warrior for playability (though maybe I just haven't found a good mod for it). The only useful magic in vanilla Oblivion was Restoration. And I'm excited for the Dragon Shouts-you can summon a fucking thunderstorm to strike down your enemies, fuck yeah. I only hope that this game isn't too punishing on hardware so my system can handle it, though I guess I could just play it on XBox if it can't.

 

For any Bethesda-developed game there are two givens. [1] It'll murder your system and [2] the console versions will be "Why, God!? Why?"

 

Actually, I played Oblivion and Fallout 3 on 360 and got hooked before I later got them for PC (for mods and because I didn't take a TV with me to college freshmen year), and my system actually handle those two and Fallout NV really well compared to some recent games. Skyrim has new graphics and a new engine, though, so it might be impossible for me to play it outside of low settings. We'll see.

 

Televani Codex, PJ's spell compendium, and Midas Magic are good ones.

 

I installed Supreme Magicka yesterday, and it's immediately made the game more enjoyable. Spell power increased, spell cost increased, magicka regeneration rate twisted to be more of an exponential increase (willpower low - v. slow regeneration; willpower high - v. fast regeneration). It also introduces a few new spells, I believe, as well as making the dustruction target spells travel faster AND allowing for multiple simultaneous cunjurations based on your skill level.

All in all, it seems to balance it rather well.

 

Yeah, it isn't bad. The ones I suggested were mainly for new spells, though midas magic reworks the system I fair bit, if I remember right. There's also... Necronomicon Unleashed, I think it was called, that added a necromancer's guild and a fuckton of black magic spells. Not sure if it ever got off the ground or not, I think it was in beta the last time I was in the forums two or three years ago. There was also a shape-shifting one that was pretty neat, but I can't think of thew name.

 

Sounds awesome, might check out the Necromancer's guild one. I also found a sort-of-overhaul mod which created a Warewolf disease - complete with transformations -, a vampire clan, being able to turn into a Lich and all sorts of other new stuff.

 

I think I know the mod you're talking about. I've always wanted to try it, but it's incompatible with a ton of other mods so I never have. I prefer Fransico's leveled creatures or MMM and then add a lot of quest mods and things like extended cities.

I watched the video again last night and something I really like is that the dragons are supposed to be unscripted. I even saw a mention on some website that they're supposed to be able to attack you in cities.

 

I have been following this religiously for ages and, against my judgement, have become rediculously excited.
I watched the E3 demos and the game looks incredible to play.

Also, they have confirmed that the big cities are walled (or at least seperate cells) which pretty much rules out levitation and unscripted dragon attacks in the major cities.

 

Still, smaller cities can be razed to the ground by fire-breath... Awesome :awesome

 

I am disappoint.

Bethesda have a new engine for Skyrim, but they're still putting the cities in separate cells? After all of the work that modders put into moving the Oblivion cities back into the open world, this is sad news.

 

I'm not sure they are, I seem to remember Howard mentioning that all cities weren't in seperate cells (or something to that effect). I think it was in the most recent gameplay trailer.

 

There are quite a few settlements of varying size but the biggest cities are seperate cells. The smaller ones are open though as can be seen in the E3 demo when they walk into the 'beginning town'.

Edit: The bethesda forums have the most information so I will attempt to find and paste all the info they have collected (FUCKHUGE POST AHEAD):

Most recent:

New Dragon Shouts: "Yol Toor"- Fire breath, "Iiz Slen" - Ice crystals, "Strun Bah Qo" - Lightning Storm. There are two others mentioned, not in the Dragon Language, Slow Time and Whirlwhind Spirit (Move quickly in one direction)

Dragons:
If injured enough, they can't fly
randomly appear
battles are unscripted

Dual weilding:
Weapon and Shield, Weapon and Torch (Yes, Torch as a weapon), Weapon and Weapon, Spell and Weapon, Spell and Spell, Two Handed Weapon

Random Quests:
Were inspired by Fallout 3's random encounters
Didn't like how fake some quests in Oblivion felt, Bethesda wants to make it feel mor real with these

Crafting:
13 different types of ore

Dialogue:
60,000 line of recorded dialogue, more voice actors

The Game World:
Each city has a unique economy, which the player can sabatoge
Guards no longer as powerful as they could end up being as Oblivion
9 seperate bounties, one for each hold, wanted criminal in one place; "Who's that" in another.

Traveling:
Horses - More detailed then Oblivion, actually handle like horses
Fast Travel - Oblivion and Morrowind style

Skills:
Hand to Hand has been removed

Factions:
Three confirmed so far: Thieves' Guild, College of Winterhold (Mage) and Compainions (Warrior), their storylines are no longer unaware of other events in the world.

More:

More than 150 dungeons, up from 130
There's one Dragon shout called Stormcall, which calls fourth a storm to help defeat your enemies.
Dual-wielding staffs is possible.
The map IS actually a zoomed-out version of the world.
You can catch diseases.

1. - Combat
* An overhauled combat-system.
* Inter-changeable dual-wielding with both weapons and spells. Dual-wield any combination, even dual-shields (Confused Turtle) and staffs!
* Staggering effects and camera shake.
* Switching between loadouts on the fly is made easier thanks to a new quick-select menu that allows you to "bookmark" all of your favorite spells, shouts, and weapons for easy access.
* 'Magnetism' in your attacks draws them more towards enemies rather than allies.

1.1 - Melee/Archery
* Special kill animations: Depending on your weapon, the enemy, and the fight conditions, you may execute a devastating finishing move that extinguishes enemies with a stylistic flourish.
* Ranged combat has been improved by significantly increasing the damage bows deal.
* The draw-time of the bow has been increased, making is slower.
* Shield bash - If you hold down the block button, you'll attempt to bash the enemy with your shield.
* Specializing in a particular weapon is often the best way to go, as you can improve your attacking skills with perks. For instance, the sword perk increases your chances of landing critical strikes, the axe perk punishes enemies with bleeding damage after blows, and the mace perk ignores enemy armour.
* Timing-based blocking system that requires players to actively raise their shields to take the brunt of the attack instead of simply holding the block button.
* When backstabbing characters from the shadows, a dagger deals significantly more damage than any other type of weapon, making it the perfect tool for an assassin.
* Blunt & Blade skills have been replaced by Two-Handed & One-Handed.
* You can use Power Attacks, which uses Stamina and staggers enemies, by holding down the attack button.
* Torches can be used as a weapon.

1.2 - Magic
* Spells needs to be equipped to be cast.
* There are over 85 spells to choose from, each with three different ways to cast.
* You can blast enemies with a flame ball from afar, hold the button down to wield the spell like a flame thrower or place a rune on the ground to create an environmental trap that spontaneously combusts when an enemy steps on it. Each spell has the same amount of flexibility.
* If you cast a frost spell, you'll see the effects on the enemy's skin. If you're wielding the flame spell like a flame thrower, the environment will catch fire for a short while and burn anything that comes into contact with it.
* Fire deals the highest amount of damage, lighting/shock deals less damage, but drains the enemy's magicka, while frost deals the least damage, but drains stamina and slows down enemies physically.
* You can dual-wield spells to double the damage at a higher magicka consumption.

1.3 - Way of the Voice (Dragon Shouts)
* You will be able to use Dragon Shouts.
* There are over 20 different Shouts.
* You collect words for these shouts around the world, either from ancient runes or by slaying dragons, and there are three words for each shout. The amount of time you hold down the shout button is how many words come out, and the more words you use, the more powerful the shout becomes.
* One shout lets you slow down time, another lets you move stealthily close to an enemy in a mere instant. One shout will even let you summon a dragon!
* Shouts has a cooldown time, which is universal, meaning that if you use one shout, every shout will need to cool down.
* Confirmed Dragon Shouts with names in Dragon language: "Yol Toor"- Fire breath, "Iiz Slen" - Ice crystals, "Strun Bah Qo" - Lightning Storm.



2. - AI
* New, updated Radiant AI: You won't find townspeople loitering aimlessly in town squares anymore. Each NPC performs tasks that make sense in their environment. To impart the towns and cities with a greater sense of life, Bethesda has populated them with mills, farms, and mines that give the NPCs believable tasks to occupy their day. The improved Radiant AI technology is also more aware of how a citizen should react to your actions. As you perform tasks for them or terrorize them by ransacking their home, the NPCs develop feelings about you. If you're good friends with a particular NPC and barge into his house during the middle of the night, he may offer you lodging rather than demand you leave the premises. If you swing your weapon near an NPC, knock items off their dinner table, or try to steal something of value, they'll react with an appropriate level of hostility given their prior relationship to you.
* If you drop an item on the ground near NPCs they will react to that as well, such as a child might try to give you the sword back, two men will fight over it or someone might even try to kill you with it if they dislike you.
* when NPCs think they see or hear something, they go into an alert state, instead of instantly attacking you. Players with a higher sneak skill will have more time to duck back around the corner or find sanctuary in the shadows.
* When you approach an NPC, they will engage in dialogue with you, while continuing to do their task or making gestures or pacing around, depending on what their personality is.
* If you kill a shop owner, their family member will inherit the shop and will be angry about you, but still give you missions, which could then improve your relation with them.



3. - Environment
* Skyrim hosts very unique landscapes and dungeons.
* 5 major cities: Solitude, Riften, Whiterun, Windhelm, and Markarth.
* Eight or Nine smaller towns.
* More than 130 dungeons, ranging from 15 minutes long to about 1-2 hours.
* Approximately the size of Cyrodiil in areal, but the rugged landscape makes the world bigger, as you will need to go either over a mountain or around it to get to places instead of just straight forward - this makes it feel bigger.
* In the northern parts of the county Solitude is the Bard's College, a busy port town.
* Windhelm is the largest city. It has a palace that looks spectacular. This is also the hangout for the Imperial Guards who monitor the path to Morrowind.
* Traps and puzzles are used to make dungeons more interesting.
* Fish jumps out of the water.
* Birds flies in the air above you.
* Every town has it's own Economic System. If you destroy a city's means of income, they'll need to buy from another nearby city, and prices in the city will go up or some products will not be available in that city at all.
* Every big settlement has it's own unique culture & architecture.
* Dwemer ruins are scattered across Skyrim.
* High Hrothgar WILL have 7000 steps.
* There exists a carriage system that will take you to major locations.
* Some locations will have enemies that are too strong for your level, and you will have to come back when you are more powerful, and vice versa.
* You can knock oil lamps to the ground, which will then cause fire damage and you can try to catch your enemies on spikes. These are some of the effects
* Butterflies will fly around beautiful new flowers which can be picked for alchemical purposes.
* The major cities are not open.
* Over 100 points of interest across Skyrim. (including Giant camps, Necromancer lairs & Altars to different gods (Aedra and Daedra))
* There are hidden caves, hidden ships and secrets in the water.
* The higher you climb, the more severe the weather gets.
* There are rivers inside dungeons.



4. - Plot
TES V takes place 2 Centuries (200 years) after Oblivion. The King of Skyrim is dead, which has sparked a civil war. You are the last Dragonborn, a group characterized by their ability to hunt dragons. You are a prisoner. The Septim line was a prominent Dragonborn line protected by the Dragonguards which eventually became the blades. After the death of the Septim line, the Blades were hunted down and killed one by one and now are almost completely gone. The return of the dragons was foretold in the Elder Scrolls and was ushered in by the destruction of the Staff of Chaos, the creation of the Numidium, the events at Red Mountain and the Oblivion Crisis. There is a blade you come across, named Esbern (Voiced by Max Von Sydow.) that will train and guide you through the game. The last event to unfold before the dragons return was the people of Skyrim turning against each other which is happening at the beginning of the game. Dragons start to appear in greater and greater numbers as the game goes on and will eventually culminate with Alduin possibly coming into the world.

6. - Graphics & Effects
* Dynamic Shadows.
* Snow falls dynamically.
* Water Physics.
* Improved Faces & Models.
* Draw Distance greatly increased, allowing for little to no grid pattern or low resolution distant land.
* No more SpeedTree: they've created their own platform that allows artists to build whatever kind of trees they want and to dictate how they animate. Artists can alter the weight of the branches to adjust how much they move in the wind, which is an effective way of, for instance, actualizing the danger of traversing steep mountain passes with howling winds violently shaking branches.
* Havok Behavior - Havok Behavior is a flexible animation tool that allows the developers to rapidly prototype and preview new animations and blend them together seamlessly with a few mouse clicks and minimal code support. Bethesda is using it to create more nuance in character and creature movement, govern special effects, and even to control how characters struggle to move when trapped in environmental hazards like spider webs. Characters now transition more realistically between walking, jogging and, running, and the increased nuance between animations has allowed Bethesda to better balance the combat in both first- and third-person perspective by adjusting the timing values for swings and blocks depending on your perspective. Perhaps the most impressive use of the Behavior technology is how Bethesda is using it to create the dragon animations. Bethesda has worked meticulously to make sure the beasts look powerful and menacing when banking, flapping their wings, gaining altitude before making another strafing run, and breathing fire on their hapless victims. None of the dragons' actions are scripted, and Behavior helps make the movements look non-mechanical, even when the dragons are speaking/shouting.
* Wind will whip up the surface of bodies of water.



7. - Sound
* Jeremy Soule is back.
* Max Von Sydow will be voice-acting Esbern (The Blade).
* Lots of voice actors compared to Oblivion and Fallout 3
* There are a few more famous actors than only Max Von Sydow.



8. - Creatures
* Confirmed creatures: zombies, draughr, skeletons, trolls, giants, ice wraiths, giant spiders, dragons, wolves, horses, Elk, mammoth, saber-toothed cats, Centurion Spheres, dogs, Skeevers, boars, rabbits.
* Random spawns are scaled (stronger enemies appear at higher levels), but weak enemies aren't written out of the system, just become less common.
* A single spawn at lower levels can have enemies spawning in pairs at higher levels.
* Stronger enemies exist in the world at the start of the game, but you're usually given enough warning if you don't want to fight anything too strong.

8.1 - Dragons
* There are different kinds of Dragons.
* You can not fly dragons.
* Some Dragons are scripted, while others appear randomly.
* Dragons can pick people up from the ground.
* When dragons are critically injured, they can't fly, and will land or crash to the ground.



9. - Character, Leveling, Stats & Skills
* 10 playable races to choose from.
* In-depth character customization that allows to change your character physique, give them a beard, and other more detailed changes to your characters body.
* No More Class Selection - Your class is now determined by which skills you choose to progress and what weapons/spells you choose to use.
* There are 18 skills, down from 21.
* 4 skills are removed: Mysticism, Hand-to-Hand, Acrobatics & Athletics.
* Armorer is replaced by Smithing.
* No Major/Minor Skills to choose from, so every skill increase will contribute to a level-up.
* No Birth Signs.
* Advancing a skill from 30-31 will contribute more to a level-up than advancing a skill from 10-11, making it better to focus on a smaller range of skills.
* You gain a perk every level.
* When leveling up, you can pick stamina-, health- or magic boosts.
* There's a soft level-cap at 50, but you can still level-up after this, but you'll gain no perks. (Highest possible level is estimated to around 75)
* Leveling is faster than in previous games.
* 5 Magic Schools: Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration & Illusion.
* There's a total of around 280 Perks (Including Ranks).
* Perks will, among other things, decrease the sound of your footsteps, Disarm enemies, give you access to Unique Special Moves.
* You can Sprint, which drains Stamina.
* Backwards running speed has been reduced, and you can no longer outrun NPCs while running backwards.
* There are three Archetypes: The Warrior, The Mage & The Thief. (You will not choose these, they are merely there for categorizing.)
* Each Archetype have a crafting-skill. The Warrior: Smithing, The Mage: Enchanting, The Thief: Alchemy.
* There are only 3 attributes: Health, Magicka and Stamina



10. - Interface
* HUD-free first-person view. The HUD comes and goes when needed.
* Improved third-person view.
* When opening the menu, instead of returning you to the last page you visited as it did in Oblivion, you are now presented with a simple compass interface that offers four options. (Right: Inventory | Left: Magical Items | Down: Map & Quests | Up: Skills)
* Instead of relegating players to looking at an item's name and stat attributes, each possession is a tangible three dimensional item with it's own unique qualities.
* Mapping: Anything from your spell library or item inventory can be "bookmarked" to the favorites menu with the press of a button. How many items appear on that menu is up to each player.
* The map is a zoomed out version of the game world.



11. - Quests & Dialogue
* Radiant Story: Many quests are still completely governed by Bethesda, but the Radiant Story system helps randomize and relate the side quests to players to make the experience as dynamic and reactive as possible. Rather than inundate you with a string of unrelated and mundane tasks, it tailors missions based on who your character is, where you're at, what you've done in the past, and what you're currently doing. Radiant Story is also smart enough to know which caves and dungeons you've already visited and thus conditionalize where, for instance, a kidnapped person is being held to direct you toward a specific place you haven't been to before, populated with a specific level of enemy. Skyrim also tracks your friendships and grudges to generate missions. Do a small favor for a farmer and it may eventually lead to a larger quest. Some NPCs will even agree to be your companion to help you out in specific situations.
* Main Questline is approximately 20 hours.
* It's possible to play after finishing the Main Quest.
* Taverns will play a large role in getting information, gossip and rumors from a town as it's naturally where most people go after working, and you can listen to peoples conversation and learn more about the town and/or Skyrim itself.
* People will be more vague or specific when talking to you or giving you quests depending on how much they like you.
* Main-Quest Givers are Essential (Not killable)



12. - Misc Features
* NPC Children.
* Beards.
* There's two types of Fast-Travel: Morrowind-style & Oblivion-style.
* Every Race have a unique set of armor.
* There is no Multiplayer.
* You can buy houses.
* You can set oil on fire.
* You can hire companions.
* Nirnroots have made a return.
* There are more weapon and armor types in Skyrim compared to Oblivion.
* Soul Gems can be used like in previous TES games to trap souls.
* You can buy properties.
* Lock picking is still a mini-game.
* There are Chainmail armor in the game.
* There's 13 different types of ore, which are used for crafting.
* There's approximately 60,000 line of recorded dialogue.
* There's a separate bounty for each of the 9 holds.
* Horses are confirmed, and they act more like real horses and are more detailed compared to Oblivion.
* Confirmed Factions: Thieves Guild, College of Winterhold (Mage) and Companions (Warrior). (Their storylines are no longer unaware of other events in the world.)
* You can catch diseases.


Made it a little more readable - Xiph0

 

In some magazine interview I'm pretty sure they confirmed the return of the Dark Brotherhood. And despite the separate-cell major cities, I'm still hopeful for levitation magic. Perhaps it's in vain, but I want my damn aerial combat.

That said, I'm a little disappointed at the removal of birthsigns and that health, magika, and stamina are now the only attributes. I think I'll also miss acrobatics and hand-to-hand as skills.

 

So I wonder what the new skill is-if there were 21 before, 4 were lost, and now there are 18, there has to be at least one new skill (unless something else got split into two skills with no new content). Maybe cooking or some other crafting skill aside from smithing, since that type of thing is apparently doable in Skyrim.

 

I was thinking Fletching, but that would fall into Smithing. Thrown Weapons, maybe?

Arrows are apparently less plentiful than in IV also. I was always an avid archer on both Morrowind and Oblivion...

 

I think they said they brought enchanting back.

 

Oh /fuck/ yes. That's always pissed me off, glad to see it fixed.

 

4 skills have been removed: hand to hand, acrobatics, athletics and mysticism

Confirmed skills are:

Combat:
Smithing - Heavy Armor - Block - TwoHanded - OneHanded - Archery

Magic
Illusion - Conjuration - Destruction - Restoration - Alteration - Enchanting

Stealth:
Light Armor - Sneak - ? - ? - Speechcraft - Alchemy

Speculation is the two other skills will involve speechcraft/mercantile and security.
Also, don't take the above as gospel as it was from a guy on the forums (the way they are grouped might be wrong)