Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Monte Carlo]

Many thanks Tale.

 

Edit: & Bokishi you kinda snuck up on me there you big fat slithering intergalactic crime lord.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Monte Carlo

[Tigranes]

Unlocked my Steam copy.

 

Quick Impressions: I've played about two hours, which was enough to do the as-ever-boring introductory sequence (thankfully nowhere near as long and overdramatic as Oblivion), stumble on Riverwood, and do a couple of other things. The trademark TES experience is there, and so far it really does feel like an odd blend of Morrowind and Oblivion. Dialogue is still a mixture of OK and random nonsense, but more towards the former now. The game is far, far too easy - I started on 'Master' difficulty (highest) and all I have to do is swing my sword or run backwards and cast spells. Really need the Skyrim editor if only to hike up enemy HP/attack by x per cent, and even better if running back speed can be lowered. Still, the world looks large and generally makes you want to explore; the Nordic vibe is there; you can use workbenches, grindstones, tan hides, and such and such; and stories/quests/rumours are so far given fairly sensibly. We'll see.

 

UI is retarded. Worse than Alpha Protocol, Oblivion, or whatever. Far worse. UI Art style is horrendous too - icons on the world map, for instance, stand out like some sort of iPhone shortcut. You can mark weapons and spells as 'favourite' but then you press Q while in the world, time stops, then you choose the favourites you want to equip from a list and click. i.e. Skyrim's favourites menu is as much a hassle as other games' full inventory menu. The worst thing is the skills menu. You know how they designed it like a series of star signs? Well, (1) there's no way to see all your skills in one screen. (2) you can't use your left/right keys to scroll the various skills, you have to lean with your mouse. (3) there's no way to see even all the perks avaialble for a given skill in one screen. The minute you click on one skill you zoom in to this hyper-zoomed-in-ground-angle view of the skill map, where you have to keep flying around - and it's really easy to spill into a different star tree, too. It's just **** in every conceivable way.

 

PC Controls are generally fine. Everyone should get on the .ini as soon as they get the game and turn off VSync and mouse acceleration for best results.

 

Engine is clearly not much different from Oblivion as far as user experience goes. What TES was always good at - fast loading - is still there; people do look significantly better, lighting has been improved, although some stupid looking faces still exist. But it's still very dated, and the environment textures are horrible. I think either there's a big bug, or they really had to chop and burn things to fit old consoles / 1 DVD. In a single small tower you will see inner walls that have decent textures and ground textures; but the intermediate wooden floors and the outer walls might have textures that really, seriously, look like they're from ten years ago. The game still looks better than Oblivion, especially because of the much improved art design - although so far ti doesn't have the immediately strange yet cohesive attraction Morrowind had. But the weird clash of terrible and decent textures is really weird. Observe:

 

The typical kind of picture you might get in the hype. Looks pretty good.

 

The default Dunmer look. Faces and people are significantly improved.

 

Though not always perfect, but then, lighting does that to people.

 

Legion feel.

 

Vistas look impressive unless you look too far / in the wrong place. Same as Oblivion.

 

Snowy rocks close-up look horrible.

 

The outer walls of a tower. Except I'm not contriving to get this shot, I've just reached the open roof of a tower and everywhere around me the game is screaming party like it's 1999.

 

(And of course, Ultra graphics, and with further ini tweaks to get more shadows. Max LOD distance. Unfortunately no option for textures, yet.)

[Monte Carlo]

Tigs, that's all very well but are there mudcrabs FFS?

[Oner]

Tigs, that's all very well but are there mudcrabs FFS?

Don't you mean tunnels?

[Tigranes]

I've only found wolves (one of which gave me rock-herpes or whatnot), deer, bandits, a bear, and totally cool looking spiders.

 

BTW, as you can see in the third screenshot, the compass & markers are even more annoying now, with huge Apple icons for places to go spinning. .ini lets you disable it all, as you can see, which totally changes the experience for the better.

 

I have some work to do but I'll probably end up playing it a fair bit tonight, I'll stay on here so ask me if you want to know anything or want any screens. Keep in mind I'm still in the starting areas.

[LadyCrimson]

Tigs, someone posted that the game has an out-of-game extra options bits, like FNV had, and that just setting to Ultra didn't automatically increase some of those to max. Did you mess with those?

Not that I'm expecting anything to change some of the muddy textures. Some textures don't look too bad/pretty good imo, but there's still a lot of the close-up blur stuff. Even on weapons you're holding.

 

Edit: and no matter the screen/vid, I still don't like the artwork of the trees. I seem to in the minority tho...some poeple think they look like a photo, which makes me LOL.

Edited November 10, 2011 by LadyCrimson

[Gorgon]

Well you killed the butterflies in my stomach

[LadyCrimson]

Here is a short "Ultra settings" 1080 vid someone posted of the starter town area I think. Still not "actual HD" in full screen (it's YT) but looks fine non-full screen/gives an idea.

 

Edited November 10, 2011 by LadyCrimson

[Tigranes]

I've enabled all the ini tweaks I could find online, and ones I know from fiddling with Oblivion/F3/FNV back in the day. I could increase LOD & Shadows even further to insane numbers, but I doubt that'll do much beyond program instability.

 

Mind you, I like the game thus far, and I'm usually bad about making that come across. Most of the time it looks like the video LC posted - also see screens below. But the low-textures can't be ignored because they come out at you time to time, without even looking for them.

 

Skyrim looks best when you're in town walking around, looking at the people. There it really beats Oblivion.

 

Vistas are also good in areas - same logic as Oblivion, the short-distance and long-distance view is great, middle is not as it gets caught between two modes. You can also see the Quick Use menu there.

 

I should also mention I have yet to check out a proper dungeon, which I'm quite excited about.

[Syraxis]

Unlocked my Steam copy.

 

Quick Impressions: I've played about two hours, which was enough to do the as-ever-boring introductory sequence (thankfully nowhere near as long and overdramatic as Oblivion), stumble on Riverwood, and do a couple of other things. The trademark TES experience is there, and so far it really does feel like an odd blend of Morrowind and Oblivion. Dialogue is still a mixture of OK and random nonsense, but more towards the former now.

 

Do townspeople make any comments about dreadful creatures?

 

How's the radiant AI this time around? Do people actually do things or is it like Oblivion where they just walk around eventually stop to stare at walls for a few in-game hours?

 

How is dialogue between NPCs? More believable or more nonsense like Oblivion?

 

UI is retarded. Worse than Alpha Protocol, Oblivion, or whatever. Far worse. UI Art style is horrendous too - icons on the world map, for instance, stand out like some sort of iPhone shortcut. You can mark weapons and spells as 'favourite' but then you press Q while in the world, time stops, then you choose the favourites you want to equip from a list and click. i.e. Skyrim's favourites menu is as much a hassle as other games' full inventory menu. The worst thing is the skills menu. You know how they designed it like a series of star signs? Well, (1) there's no way to see all your skills in one screen. (2) you can't use your left/right keys to scroll the various skills, you have to lean with your mouse. (3) there's no way to see even all the perks avaialble for a given skill in one screen. The minute you click on one skill you zoom in to this hyper-zoomed-in-ground-angle view of the skill map, where you have to keep flying around - and it's really easy to spill into a different star tree, too. It's just **** in every conceivable way.

 

That sounds bad

Christ; one would think bethesda would learn to make a seperate UI for PC versions after all time.

[Starwars]

I've done some running around and am definitely finding it a superior experience to Oblivion, though I agree with most of what Tigranes said.

 

I think the Bleak Falls place has been shown in demos (haven't followed it too closely), but I definitely enjoyed going through that at least..

 

There are also other, smaller touches, that are really nice on the first playthrough at least. Like I had some bounty on me, fairly low. Talked with a guard and he was like "hey... wait a minute, I recognize you! You're wanted!". Had a few different options, paying the fine, going to jail and so forth. Tried the option basically saying "Come on... You don't want to do this either." Not sure if this made use of the Speech skill or not but the guard was like "Yeah... you've only got a low bounty. I'll let it slide this time." Felt much more natural than the "Stop criminal scum!" version in Oblivion.

 

How is dialogue between NPCs? More believable or more nonsense like Oblivion?

 

Not great but a lot more belivable. I don't believe I've heard any "randomly generated" convos though like in Oblivion. The ones I've heard are specific to quests or locations and those sound good enough.

 

There was a minor annoyance though. In the first time there is a "smithing tutorial" where a blacksmith shows you how to smith. Trouble is, there is also a child nearby. So when you walk back and forth between the forge, the tanning station and so forth, you'll hear their greeting barks like a million times. But yeah, very minor annoyance compared to the comments in Oblivion.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Starwars

[Tigranes]

I didn't get that problem while doing the smithing, Starwars - the child spoke, but appropriately intermittently. Maybe because she stood just outside, by chance. The physics are still crazy though, I walked into a little wagon and then it kept bouncing around in that small forge every time I tried to move - and each time it kept taking away half my health! It hurt me more than any enemy thus far

 

Hard to say about Radiant AI. Everything's been very good so far but I haven't really tested it enough I feel.

[Syraxis]

Hard to say about Radiant AI. Everything's been very good so far but I haven't really tested it enough I feel.

 

Thanks for the quick response, and to starwars as well.

[LadyCrimson]

Thanks for all the info, Tig...much better than the "reviews" from players on the Beth fora, harhar.

 

I'm still convinced the game has a good shot of capturing my attention....maybe not as much as FNV did (not sure that's even possible, lol) but much more than the others I've tried since then. So still eager to start playing it myself!

[pmp10]

So how is the 'new' engine?

Any changes regarding world separation, uncrossable mountains, lack of windows and time stops during conversations or mini-games?

IIRC something was supposed to change.

[HoonDing]

50 minutes.

 

EDIT: it's actually hilarious after FO:NV to again meet Roman LARPers. Those guys (and gals) are so dead.

Edited November 10, 2011 by virumor

[Tigranes]

When you open a door indoors, the door only opens a crack then you load a new level. But as usual for Bethesda, loading is extremely fast. Same old window-tricks.

 

I haven't explored much yet but there are a lot of mountains, as befits Skyrim, and as befits Gamebryo your character jumps like a retarded monkey so some are uncrossable. Just how much remains to be seen.

 

Time doesn't stop during convos and you can press tab to exit a convo at any given time - in which case they'll simply finish the line they were saying before. It makes it a bit more seamless. The lockpicking mini-game is a lot faster/simpler now, but I'm not sure if time stops - hard to say as the minigame UI takes up half the screen. I'll try and test this.

 

Engine is most definitely not 'new' as far as the end user is concerned. The most noticeable improvement is the character models/faces, really.

[Syraxis]

@ Tigranes: Is that soldier in your recent image post from the empire?

 

Looks like something from Caesar's Legion, if so I wonder what made Bethy change them from generic medieval to roman-esque .

Edited November 10, 2011 by Syraxis

[HoonDing]

This is a video of Skyrim on PC completely maxed:

[Tigranes]

Yes, they're the Empire folks who're looking to execute some Nords + You. I'm hoping to see some Imperial architecture somewhere.

[Starwars]

Yeah, you can really, really tell that it's built upon the same kind of building blocks as Oblivion/Fallout 3. It does feel a lot... better overall though. Don't really think it warranted the name-change to Creation engine though.

 

Something I was surprised by is that I ran into an invisible wall where it looked like I would be able to pass. It was a minor issue since it didn't block me off (could walk around it quickly) but was a bit surprised since it was obvious that I would've been able to jump over it. I wonder if we'll see more invisibile walls due to the mountainous areas.

 

The mountains do look nice though I must say. They feel fairly majestic as you look up on them.

[WDeranged]

I unlocked early through a VPN and have been playing a few hours, I'm mostly impressed and glad to be back in Tamriel but yeah there's issues, pretty bad slowdowns on my GTX 580 and that interface plain sucks, patches, drivers, tweaks and mods will be the solution as usual.

 

As soon as I got out of the starter dungeon I saw the obvious path ahead and swiftly went off road, found myself besieged by bandits after stealing their stuff and eventually dived into a cottage

with a cool hidden dungeon that took me an hour

, I'm now finally dragging my overencumbered arse to Riverwood and I have to say I've enjoyed every moment of it.

 

These slowdowns need fixing though, Ultra is way out of bounds for now.

[LadyCrimson]

These slowdowns need fixing though, Ultra is way out of bounds for now.

Anyone tested/looked to see if the game utilizes more than one CPU effectively?

[HoonDing]

The guy from Tweakguides has a GTX 580 and runs the game silk smooth on Ultra. Maybe wait for his tweak guide?

[Tigranes]

Ultra runs fine for me, but I'm starting to wonder whether it's my machine being weird that produces those superbad textures. Suped up GTX570.