Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Announced for release on 11/11/11.

Parmenides said:
Remember that you just heard the same voice actor over and over again saying the same things.
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It was also severely over-compressed and resulted in far fewer lines of dialogue than would have been possible otherwise.

The trade-offs that were made to voice every character were gargantuan. Give me text-only.
 
Tudz said:
When a game presents me with a wall of text I tend to ignore it and move on.
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Dude, why are you playing RPG games? :eek:

I'd personally like text-only compared to bad voice acting, or just give an option for either or both.
 
I'm not one to jump on the naysayer bandwagon by any means, but from the handful of crummy screens I've seen and reduced gameplay elements I've read about so far, this game screams console taint. I think we can come to the conclusion that there will be nothing revolutionary technically or gameplay-wise at this point. Also, the statement that Skyrim is only about as big as Tamriel world-space is a disappointment and yet another indication of console limitation.

This considered, Elder Scrolls has always been about story, atmosphere and exporation for me -- if they provide this with a nice bump in graphical goodness (they've already stated the engine can produce shadows on all objects, which was a late removal/deficiency in Oblivion), I'll be happy.

Now, on to more important things...

1) Will there be mounted combat? :) (anyone remember the panty-wasted nerd tantrums over at Elder Scrolls forum on this topic in Oblivion ? God, I wish I could dig up some of those ridiculous posts LOL)

2) Will I be able to pay $10 for a set of horse armor? My credit card is locked and loaded... :rolleyes:
 
harmattan said:
I'm not one to jump on the naysayer bandwagon by any means, but from the handful of crummy screens I've seen and reduced gameplay elements I've read about so far, this game screams console taint. I think we can come to the conclusion that there will be nothing revolutionary technically or gameplay-wise at this point. Also, the statement that Skyrim is only about as big as Tamriel world-space is a disappointment and yet another indication of console limitation.
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Really ? So Radiant Story isn't a worthwhile mention ? Or the dual wielding, for either weapons or spells ?
Also, what are these games you've been playing that are so revolutionary technically or gameplay-wise ? This last question is a rhetorical question btw. There are no revolutionary games out there now and for quite some time...
 
Count me in in the group that prefers voice acting to text.

I loved Morrowind, but despite all its flaws, I prefer having voice overs. Obviously, books and such, should always be text only, without narration. But dialogue between characters, should ALWAYS have voice overs, in this day and age.
 
Silus said:
Really ? So Radiant Story isn't a worthwhile mention ? Or the dual wielding, for either weapons or spells ?
Also, what are these games you've been playing that are so revolutionary technically or gameplay-wise ? This last question is a rhetorical question btw. There are no revolutionary games out there now and for quite some time...
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Oblivion was revolutionary from a graphics and content perspective: Skyrim will, by all indications not be the same leap forward. Dual weapon wielding is invariably a tired bone thrown to fans in sequels: nice, but nothing that makes or breaks a game. Radiant story sounds interesting and is a good step towards making a more "real" world, but more of an evolution (didn't Fable 2 have something like this?)

And what about mounted combat and horse armor, godammit? Not a word from Bethesda on this!
 
harmattan said:
Oblivion was revolutionary from a graphics and content perspective: Skyrim will, by all indications not be the same leap forward. Dual weapon wielding is invariably a tired bone thrown to fans in sequels: nice, but nothing that makes or breaks a game. Radiant story sounds interesting and is a good step towards making a more "real" world, but more of an evolution (didn't Fable 2 have something like this?)
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Graphically Oblivion was not revolutionary in any way. It had all the problems that the people criticizing Skyrim screenshots already mentioned. Glowing characters, soup textures, bad animations, etc. It was a good game, because it had solid gameplay. It had NOTHING to do with graphics. Oblivion punished even powerful PCs, because it has too much on screen and a very long view distance, that murdered anything at the time, but it wasn't because it had the best graphics.

harmattan said:
And what about mounted combat and horse armor, godammit? Not a word from Bethesda on this!
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Which means it's a possibility. I would definitely like to see mounted combat appear in Skyrim, especially with dragons in the game. It would be awesome to be on a horse, while firing arrows at a flying dragon!
 
Silus said:
Graphically Oblivion was not revolutionary in any way. It had all the problems that the people criticizing Skyrim screenshots already mentioned. Glowing characters, soup textures, bad animations, etc. It was a good game, because it had solid gameplay. It had NOTHING to do with graphics. Oblivion punished even powerful PCs, because it has too much on screen and a very long view distance, that murdered anything at the time, but it wasn't because it had the best graphics.
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I may be getting senile in my old age, but I don't remember any game being close to Oblivion in terms of graphics in 2006. Maybe GOW, but apples and oranges...
 
Silus said:
Graphically Oblivion was not revolutionary in any way. It had all the problems that the people criticizing Skyrim screenshots already mentioned. Glowing characters, soup textures, bad animations, etc. It was a good game, because it had solid gameplay. It had NOTHING to do with graphics. Oblivion punished even powerful PCs, because it has too much on screen and a very long view distance, that murdered anything at the time, but it wasn't because it had the best graphics
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Skyrim is being released in the year 2011. Oblivion was released in 2006. Oblivion graphics in 2011 will receive complaints and criticism. Oblivion graphics in 2006 was indeed revolutionary. While I agree that game play is primary, to say that Oblivion is wasn't revolutionary because people complain should graphics not improve much in a 5+ year span is ridiculous.
 
RamonGTP said:
Skyrim is being released in the year 2011. Oblivion was released in 2006. Oblivion graphics in 2011 will receive complaints and criticism. Oblivion graphics in 2006 was indeed revolutionary. While I agree that game play is primary, to say that Oblivion is wasn't revolutionary because people complain should graphics not improve much in a 5+ year span is ridiculous.
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And that wasn't what I meant to say. Those complaints arrived just after Oblivion was released. Just look for "soup textures" or "Oblivion animations" and you'll see the light.
Oblivion was NOT revolutionary graphically back in 2006, although some of the hype tried to make it revolutionary. As it was discussed at the time, Bethesda had to remove some graphical options, in order to make the game playable. Had it been released with those options, maybe it would've been revolutionary in 2006, but it didn't happen.
 
harmattan said:
I may be getting senile in my old age, but I don't remember any game being close to Oblivion in terms of graphics in 2006. Maybe GOW, but apples and oranges...
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Why Apples and oranges ? We are talking about graphical fidelity here. Also, people are criticizing Skyrim now, for not looking like Crysis (which is also apples to oranges given how different they both are in terms of genre).
 
Disposed said:
2 words

VOICE ACTING.

It wasnt the greatest but it sure beat the hell out of reading a novels worth of text just to play for a few hours. I know a lot of people complain about oblivions voice acting but at least it had it...
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Voice acting made Oblivion technically superior to Morrowind? I actually enjoyed the wiki style text walls in Morrowind. Voice acting can be fine when it is done properly, but I don't think that constitutes gameplay superiority. Morrowind simply had more options for gamplay than Oblivion.
 
Silus said:
Why Apples and oranges ? We are talking about graphical fidelity here. Also, people are criticizing Skyrim now, for not looking like Crysis (which is also apples to oranges given how different they both are in terms of genre).
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Apples and oranges because I wouldn't compare an open-world RPG with mulitple instances with what is essentially a scripted corridor shooter with some more spacious (largely non-interactive) areas. The comparison between Oblivion and Crysis is, on the otherhand, a bit more apt.
 
limitedaccess said:
What more game play options were there in in Morrowind?
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More spells, actual real factions, proper enchanting and spellmaking, more varied monsters, actual handcrafted landscapes and dungeons, quite a bit more lore, medium armor, mark and recall, non generic setting, massive caves and dungoens that didn't just plop you out at the entrance once you were done, levitation/z axis exploration.

Stuff like that.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Voice acting made Oblivion technically superior to Morrowind? I actually enjoyed the wiki style text walls in Morrowind. Voice acting can be fine when it is done properly, but I don't think that constitutes gameplay superiority. Morrowind simply had more options for gamplay than Oblivion.
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Voice acting goes a long way for immersion in the story. Having to essentially pause the story for you to read a wall of text beaks immersion for many if not most. In this day and age with the high resolutions and everyone wanting minimalist uis its just too straining to read that wall of text. Try playing morrowind at 1920x1200 and come back talking about how awesome that wall of text is.

There is a reason voice acting is a standard these days and its not bedside people don't want it. Trust me if the devs thought they could release an rpg without it they would. But they knorr the backlash would be so great that they are beyer off with shitty voice acting than none at all.
 
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Disposed said:
Voice acting goes a long way for immersion in the story. Having to essentially pause the story for you to read a wall of text beaks immersion for many if not most. In this day and age with the high resolutions and everyone wanting minimalist uis its just too straining to read that wall of text. Try playing morrowind at 1920x1200 and come back talking about how awesome that wall of text is.

There is a reason voice acting is a standard these days and its not bedside people don't want it. Trust me if the devs thought they could release an rpg without it they would. But they knorr the backlash would be so great that they are beyer off with shitty voice acting than none at all.
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I still play it from time to time, the text doesn't bother me. The wiki keyword system is something I wish more games would use, especially the codex in DA. It doesn't need to replace voice acting, but most RPG's do make you read at least a little bit. Even games like Mass Effect 2.

Voice acting is fine in games, I have nothing against the idea. I don't think it automatically makes any game with it better than any game without, though.
 
I'm typically not a big fan of having to sit and read through books on video games. Part of the reason, I suppose, is that I typically like to have a few drinks while I'm gaming.

The flip side is that I almost always read the dialogue if subtitles are available; the voice actors are usually too slow and I usually don't have the patience to listen to them.
 
Disposed said:
In this day and age with the high resolutions and everyone wanting minimalist uis its just too straining to read that wall of text.
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Quake 3 featured scalable bitmap font rendering way back in 1999. Today, you can get scalable, hardware-accelerated, vector font rendering (with ClearType) in any Direct3D app.
 
I thought the graphics were good but the characters looked awful. The mod community showed how good the game could look. I just hope that the voice acting will involve more than one voice per gender/race - and it was soooo very bad in Oblivion. I hate to think what ME or DA would have been like if was had been as bad.
 
Youn said:
Dude, why are you playing RPG games? :eek:

I'd personally like text-only compared to bad voice acting, or just give an option for either or both.
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I like story and roleplaying, not reading huge slabs of text, thats what I do for work, not fun :p When I was younger I used to play text only RPG games and I'd still skip text if they gave me a massive wall of text (unless I had to read it for a quest hint).
 
phide said:
Quake 3 featured scalable bitmap font rendering way back in 1999. Today, you can get scalable, hardware-accelerated, vector font rendering (with ClearType) in any Direct3D app.
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Don't matter. Unless they plan on making the text box take 3/4 of the screen its a pain in the ass to read. Subtitles can work but the old morrowind style of dialog is a bad idea in 2011.
 
Tudz said:
I like story and roleplaying, not reading huge slabs of text, thats what I do for work, not fun :p When I was younger I used to play text only RPG games and I'd still skip text if they gave me a massive wall of text (unless I had to read it for a quest hint).
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You played for the story and roleplaying...yet you tended to skip what makes up a large portion of both?

I'm not saying it's wrong-to each their own-I'm just saying I sense a contradiction.

Me is confused.

I have a friend and girlfriend that both do this with games though. Too many times I've made fun of or commented on something an npc had texted (get it, they're not speaking) and neither of them will know what the fuck I'm talking about. I can also easily enjoy watching others play certain games; but when it comes down to watching him skip 6 long lines of text without even a second glance at what anyone had told him to do, I just can't take it. Mah woman, though, will actually slow down when I'm watching and let me enjoy...and after interpretting that any which way you like, you can understand that that's why I'm with her :D
 
Fading Phoenix said:
You played for the story and roleplaying...yet you tended to skip what makes up a large portion of both?

I'm not saying it's wrong-to each their own-I'm just saying I sense a contradiction.

Me is confused.
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Simply, I dont like reading large slabs of text in games. That doesn't mean I dont like story and roleplaying, I just dont like it when they are presented as large slabs of text. Obviously when I played the text-based roleplaying game I spent the entire time reading, enter a room, read the description, a monster shows up, its a red name shown as text with a short description and you type "attack monster" and text appears saying "Blah blah attacks monster with a gesture calling down a crackling bolt of lightning from above". But the game was smart about it and rarely presented large slabs of text like often appears when chatting to people in Morrowind.

If I walk up to someone and they give me 500 words worth of their life story or the same thing I just heard from the previous NPC but reworded, I'll get bored after reading 2 lines and skip the rest :p
 
Not saying this game will necessarily be better by any means (Witcher 2) but this is what you get when a game isn't made for 6 year old consoles:

xqIQD.jpg

the-witcher-2_smhft.jpg
 
I've noticed that my brain is sharper at some time than others. When I'm really feeling ADD, i just want to skip text and it's work to read walls of text. BUT I really appreciate what's in those walls of text. Bethseda games have some awesome lore going on. So when my brain doesn't feel so slack, I read everything and also the books I collect. Though I still usually skip the books if it's poetry regardless of how I feel. :D

Politik said:
Not saying this game will necessarily be better by any means (Witcher 2) but this is what you get when a game isn't made for 6 year old consoles:

http://i.imgur.com/xqIQD.jpg[/IMG]
http://static.videogame.it/img/t/the-witcher-2/the-witcher-2_smhft.jpg[/IMG]
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Wow, doesn't dampen my excitement of Skyrim, but The Wither 2 really deserves a pre-order. Especially at their price.
 
Parmenides said:
Wow, doesn't dampen my excitement of Skyrim, but The Wither 2 really deserves a pre-order. Especially at their price.
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Yup, it looks like a serious AAA title. I have a feeling it is going to be quite good. I went with the GOG version for preorder, it gives more money to the devs and nets you the most loot for the cash.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Yup, it looks like a serious AAA title. I have a feeling it is going to be quite good. I went with the GOG version for preorder, it gives more money to the devs and nets you the most loot for the cash.
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Yeah, was planning on doing that.... but then direct2drive has 20% off everything....
 
Ive always wanted to get into this series. Would you all still recommend the first one?
 
I never finished the original witcher, something happened that caused me to lose my saved games file twice. Didn't really feel like playing the game three times, but I will be purchasing sequel. Not to take away from the games amazing look, but keep in mind that the Witcher isn't an open world game.
 
Witcher is a completely different playstyle but at $35 preorder that is the best deal for a pre release game. Non consolized and exclusive for PC. Support the devs, they deserve it. I'll probably get both Skyrim and that but wait for Skyrim to go in sale.
 
I never finished the first Whitcher because it was bugged(messed up textures and vertices), and haven't bother reinstalling it years later.. Necessary to finish the first game for the second? I got about half-way through the first game.
 
Mangudai said:
Ive always wanted to get into this series. Would you all still recommend the first one?
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If your taking about the Witcher, Absolutely. If your talking about Elder Scrolls well their is 1, 2, 3, 4 and now 5 coming.

Oblivion is still a lot of fun with the right mods though. (Get's buggy quick though if you don't use good mods)
 
Mangudai said:
Ive always wanted to get into this series. Would you all still recommend the first one?
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Morrowind definitely, but then you should probably also get some mods too. The morrowind 2009 wordpress is a good guide. Beware of game instability though.
 
Parmenides said:
Morrowind definitely, but then you should probably also get some mods too. The morrowind 2009 wordpress is a good guide. Beware of game instability though.
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I played through Morrowind earlier last year and it was very stable, Oblivion was stable without mods but with mods it's become a little bit of a juggling act.

For first playthroughs I highly recommend just playing through the games in the vanilla form.

I'm hyped for Skyrim though. I'll probably still be playing Oblivion until then and doubt I'll finish more then 1-3 of my other games. :p
 
I don't know if I could ever recommend that someone play oblivion in vanilla form. At the very least pick up OOO (oscuro's oblivion overhaul). That is THE must have mod for a lot of people. I would also highly recommend Qarl's texture pack. There are a bunch of others that I would argue highly enhance the game, but there are already plenty of lists out there.

If you do feel like going with 5+ mods, I'd start to look into OBMM (oblivion mod manager) which allows you to enable/disable mods with 1 click and check for/fix conflicts very easily. That might bring you into the realm of needing to consult google. I'd start with a youtube tutorial on OBMM.
 
sculelos said:
I played through Morrowind earlier last year and it was very stable, Oblivion was stable without mods but with mods it's become a little bit of a juggling act.

For first playthroughs I highly recommend just playing through the games in the vanilla form.

I'm hyped for Skyrim though. I'll probably still be playing Oblivion until then and doubt I'll finish more then 1-3 of my other games. :p
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Actually, yeah, good advice.... except there are just some must have mods that I can't live without ... :p

Purely graphical mods (not MGE) won't be a problem. Actually, MGE with the built in script extender disabled is really stable too.
 
Politik said:
Not saying this game will necessarily be better by any means (Witcher 2) but this is what you get when a game isn't made for 6 year old consoles
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Sorry bro, the [graphics jargon] looks at least [random percentage] worse than [other game].
 
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