Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[entrerix]

if i were ten years old again i would be screaming and running in circles cause i would want that dragon statue SOOOOOO bad

 

now i just KINDA want it.... not enough to pay for it though.

 

still, im glad they made it, I'm sure its going to make some kids (and some adults too?) very very happy.

[Bokishi]

Leaked game manual

 

http://imgur.com/a/RFee1

[WDeranged]

I read through it a few days ago and I might be mistaken and/or drunk but I can't seem to see an option to disable quest markers on the compass

 

Hmm, looks like they haven't scanned all the pages, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Edited October 15, 2011 by WDeranged

[Bokishi]

I wonder if whoever has that manual has the real game as well

[Undecaf]

I read through it a few days ago and I might be mistaken and/or drunk but I can't seem to see an option to disable quest markers on the compass

 

Hmm, looks like they haven't scanned all the pages, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

 

I haven't inspected the scans yet (just took a quick glance), but I thought it was about adjusting the HUD opacity. That you just make the compass transparent, and propably everything else too. Or alternatively about merely making quests inactive, so that the compass doesn't follow them. I could be wrong, though, but that's how I understood it.

Edited October 16, 2011 by Undecaf

[WDeranged]

Pete Hines has clarified it a bit, you can apparently disable the markers completely or change the HUD opacity to completely remove the compass, though I'd imagine that'd remove everything else...oh well, as long as I don't have to be led around Skyrim by the nose I'll be happy.

 

*edit*

 

New screenshots coming today also

Edited October 17, 2011 by WDeranged

[Lexx]

Thing is, if you don't want to run around aimless all the time, you will need the compass. Take Oblivion as example, where you just don't get good information about where exactly your target is, so you need to use the compass to actually find the place / person you are searching for. No clue if Skyrim will make that better... but Fallout 3 had the same problem. Hell, even New Vegas suffered from it in a lot cases. Other non-Bethesda games have exactly the same problem. You get so little or just bad information, that a quest compass is a blessing, not a curse.

Edited October 17, 2011 by Lexx

[WDeranged]

I mod out the compass quest marker in Oblivion and Fallout, this still leaves the marker on the maps which I can quickly check, it feels so much better than forever pushing towards a red blip on the HUD and you end up letting yourself get way more distracted on the way to your target.

 

I totally agree that no quest markers at all would be terrible, they only got away with it in Morrowind because most of the time you got actual directions from NPCs.

[Tigranes]

There's a massive difference in the way you play between map markers & HUD markers, as Deranged says. Oblivion improves considerably without the latter because you then feel like you're walking around the world as opposed to cutting through it like some sort of laser beam.

 

(Or there's the DX:HR way, where the hud marker is so terrible you need to use the map anyway.)

[MechanicalLemon]

New screenshots

[Gfted1]

Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: 3-hour hands-on leaves us wanting more

 

Here's something to ponder: is there any point in reporting on a three-hour preview of Skyrim?

 

Oh sure, by the end we can report on some of the gameplay mechanics, the menu layouts, the beautiful presentation and a whole host of monsters we had to fight through. We can even offer snippets of the story and details about a couple of characters.

 

But what we can't do is present our readership with a full picture. We can't put them in the mind-set of being swallowed by the incredible world that Skyrim contains, or becoming immersed in its truly epic storyline.

 

This is because three-hours of playing time on Skyrim equates to being allowed to watch the opening cut-scene of most other games. It's a drop in the ocean -and a miniscule one at that. In that time, while we managed to juggle magic and weapons, navigate a dungeon, join a clique of warriors and sort out the trouble facing a romantic triangle, we know we've barely scratched Skyrim's gargantuan surface.

 

PRISON BREAK

Here's what we did learn, though; players will begin the game as a prisoner - much the same way as they did in Oblivion. Character creation starts in a dingy dungeon cell, the narrow confines of which are laughably at odds with the massive scale of options available to the player in deciding what their avatar will look like.

 

All of the races from Oblivion are present and correct from Argonians to Wood Elves, and the levels of customisation could tax hours from the player's life - depending on how exacting they are in how they want their characters to look.

 

Body-type, sex, eyes, brows, hair, warpaint - you name it. It's all available for tweaking here, or players can go with pre-sets. We created a Redguard female with partially shaved white hair called Tehanu (because well, why not?), and then we were out the door and into the sprawling world of Skyrim.

 

How the player lands up in the northern territory of Tamriel was unclear at the demo; we were told that the section of play on offer comes three hours or so after the beginning of the game. It's also unclear whether, by that time, players would have access to the mass of equipment our character was endowed with, which included iron armour, a few robes, a sword and shield, and a bow complimented by a quiver full of arrows.

 

Whatever the case, by that stage of the game, they'll hopefully have gotten to grips with Skyrim's interface. Players can switch between first and third person perspectives by clicking in the right thumbstick, and by holding it in and pulling back on the left stick, you can set your third person view from any distance you please.

 

Pulling the right trigger puts your character into a fighting stance, and the triggers themselves wield whatever the player's assigned to them - be it weapon, shield or magic. The X-button puts your weapons away, Y is jump and B brings up a four-option menu where players can access the game's map, magical abilities, the levelling up section and inventory.

 

It may seem a little strange to heap praise on a menu layout but given the amount of content the player needs to be able to access easily and quickly, the job Bethesda have done here is sublime.

 

Toggling between inventory sections is swift and intuitive and players are easily able to find their weapons of choice and assign them to a trigger (or two, if the weapon is a two-handed affair).

 

You can also 'hotkey' weapons, spells, defensive items - anything really - by tagging them in the menu with the Y button and then switching between them in the heat of battle quickly by flicking up and down on the D-Pad.

 

GOOD SAMARITANS

Kill enough enemies and beasties and you get to level up, and it's here that Skyrim's next trump card comes into play. The player's talent tree is geared towards favouring your individual playing style. To that end it bestows skill levels on certain talent trees based on what weapons, armour and magical attacks the player uses, and also what crafting and social abilities they employ the most.

 

If you fancy ploughing through the game with a two-handed battle hammer, battering enemies on their noggins, the game raises your character's heavy weapons ability, enabling you to raise the overall damage of your attacks.

 

If hurling fireballs is more your speed, you can raise the burn-damage or unlock the ability to wield magic with both hands.

 

The talent trees themselves are represented by gorgeous, swirling constellations in the heavens above Skyrim. Proficiencies are unlocked by lighting different stars within them, and they're shaded according to ability - red for physical combat, blue for magic and green for social and crafting skills.

 

They're also structured in such a way that cunningly prompts the player to explore their character's potential by offering the chance to specialise in different weapons in a certain class. If you're fond of your two-handed hammer, for example, the corresponding constellation will offer you the chance to expand your two-handed repertoire to include edged weapons, such as swords and battle-axes.

 

If that sounds like a lot to take in, don't worry; the control system makes navigating around it all incredibly easy. Switching up attacks, levelling a character and navigating Skyrim's woodland landscape and snow-covered mountain ranges soon becomes second-nature. This allows players the space to concentrate quest-based activities or encounters with the game's multitude of NPCs.

 

One of the first settlements we came across in our hands-on time was a picturesque town called Riverwood and in the short time we spent there we managed to get into enough trouble to significantly level up our character.

 

One of the first characters we met in the town was a spiteful little snob called Sven. He wanted us to help him win over his love interest Camilla, by handing her a rather venomous letter he'd forged in his rival suitor's hand-writing. Being the noble the folk we are, we told Camilla of the plot, who then told us to look in on the wronged party - a wood elf archer called Faendael.

 

Not only did our good deed for the day give us a warm fuzzy feeling, it enabled us to recruit Faendael as an ally, which came in very handy when we ventured into the hills around Riverwood to retrieve a Golden Claw artefact, stolen from Camilla's brother Lucen by bandits.

 

Between embarking on the quest and returning to Riverwood victorious, we had to make our way through the subterranean caverns of the nearby Bleak Falls Sanctum. As things progressed we found that the Golden Claw was in fact a key which unlocked a tomb deep with the mountain, and that the bandits who hoped to capitalise on this were the least of our worries.

 

In short order, we were set upon by a giant Frostbite Spider and a small horde of Draugr - that's sword and spell wielding skeletons to you. By the end of our quest, we'd pocketed a fair few gold pieces, weapons, armour and even some mystic runes relating to the Dovahkiin - the race of Dragon-born humans of which the player's character is a member.

 

We'd also covered a tiny amount of Skyrim's absolutely huge in-game map. Once again, players can fast-travel to any location they've visited, and only the main areas of interest are highlighted to begin with - smaller locations need to be uncovered first hand.

 

Still, the presentation of Skyrim doesn't make this a chore in any way. The pinewood forests, glittering rivers and towering snow-capped peaks of the environment look utterly gorgeous, and the heart-tugging score which breezes in and out of the soundtrack as the player makes their way through Skyrim is beautiful.

 

Such is the spell Bethesda's new game weaves that we were highly reluctant to put down the control pad by the end. And even though three hours proved enough to provide the information you're reading here, it still felt mercilessly brief. Come November, it may be worth booking some time off work if you plan to explore the northern lands of Tamriel properly.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I'm not the type to criticize a moderator's actions, but from a publication's pov, I can see them not liking you just copy pasting the entire article and basically taking away possible traffic. Then again, it's a fairly useless preview that you linked for anyone that has followed Skyrim so far.

 

P.S. : This is the worst batch of screenshots they have released so far. I guess since they're so close to release they don't even care enough to doctor them, but they're aliased as all hell!

[Gfted1]

Thats why I link the article directly, so our more observant members can peruse the site if interested.

[Morgoth]

Just can't get into the graphics of Skyrim. It's a vast step back from Fallout 3. Did they by any chance had a different (worse) art director on that?

[mkreku]

P.S. : This is the worst batch of screenshots they have released so far.

 

Not really.

[WorstUsernameEver]

P.S. : This is the worst batch of screenshots they have released so far.

 

Not really.

 

That screenshot has been on the net for months, I'm guessing they repackaged it with this batch though. Still, check the other ones, there are issues of fairly visible jaggies, bad textures and generally just awkward camera positioning that highlights the graphical flaws (plus I presume that's the Xbox 360 version).

[HoonDing]

I mod out the compass quest marker in Oblivion and Fallout, this still leaves the marker on the maps which I can quickly check, it feels so much better than forever pushing towards a red blip on the HUD and you end up letting yourself get way more distracted on the way to your target.

 

I totally agree that no quest markers at all would be terrible, they only got away with it in Morrowind because most of the time you got actual directions from NPCs.

People forget Morrowind came with a very detailed map that showed every location in the game, all the way down to bandit caves.

[entrerix]

man, looking at that map reminds of how BIG morrowind felt. i don't care how big it actually was, but that game made you feel like you were in a huge world full of crazy places to explore more than any other game i've ever played.

[WDeranged]

I feel lucky that I've only played Morrowind once, so much left for me to do and see, it's more akin to reading an excellent book, there's such a sense of place and history though as a game I think it quickly falls apart, within 30 hours I was a demigod with enough money to keep Dagoth Ur in shiny gold masks for an eternity, I restarted with a list of mods the length of my arm and all was well

 

I agree about the new screenshots being a bit shoddy, bad angles show up the low poly geometry and the lack of filtering makes everything overly sharp, that picture of Solitude on the hill is pretty breathtaking though.

 

*edit*

 

Dunno where this is from but I just found it on TES forums, not sure if it's a PC shot or a composite piece.

 

Edited October 17, 2011 by WDeranged

[WorstUsernameEver]

One of the thing I always appreciated about Bethesda is that they always do great skyboxes. Obsidian should learn from them, Fallout: New Vegas skyboxes are kind of... meh, with the exception of Lonesome Road's (mostly because they nailed the color palette, which ironically, reminds a lot of Fallout 3 but "oranger").

[Starwars]

Was Fallout 3's skybox better? I haven't played it in a while but I remember I was disappointed in that after Oblivion which in my mind had a much better skybox (might be making things up here but that was the way I remembered it).

[WDeranged]

Oblivion had way more variety in the skybox as it had weather patterns and such, Fallout 3 probably does have better looking ones but they're almost static.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Was Fallout 3's skybox better? I haven't played it in a while but I remember I was disappointed in that after Oblivion which in my mind had a much better skybox (might be making things up here but that was the way I remembered it).

 

Fallout 3's skyboxes had less variety and were less impressive than Oblivion and Morrowind's, yes, but they generally blended better with the color palette. In Fallout: New Vegas they wanted, legitimately to do blue skies, but you end noticing the alpha transitions and the low-res textures much more. I might just be influenced by having tried a lot of weather mods, though.

 

EDIT: Also, for some reason, Obsidz choose to go with flat-looking grainy clouds. I've never lived or been to the Mojave, and I admit I haven't done much research on its weather patterns, let alone have any data on common cloud formations there but, I'd imagine, even if towering clouds or more interesting skies aren't as common, going for more interesting skyboxes as an artistic choice would have been something I'd have endorsed.

Edited October 17, 2011 by WorstUsernameEver

[entrerix]

i want this game now. kthanx bye.

[HoonDing]

I wonder how the lore explains Aurora Borealis, considering for instance the sun and stars are holes in the fabric of Mundus, through which Aetherius shines through.

 

Also, the skies in Shivering Isles were magnificent.