Official TESA TESV Speculation and Info Thread

[syscrusher]

Can't post image as I'm at college but I've seen a picture from game informer at the magicka level-up screen, and the race in the top right says Dark Elf

So no race-specific characters

That would almost certainly mean you are not stuck with a given gender, either. It sounds like the rumor I read was completely bogus. I will rest easy.

[Mysterious Mr. Bear]

I would cry if they limited race- creating a thousand characters has been one of the biggest charms of oblivion. Personally it wouldn't effect me if they limited gender, as I only play males (feels weird playing a woman character for some reason 0_o) but It would still annoy the heck out of me- It's limiting to female players and guys that play female characters!

Thankfully beth isn't that silly

Has anyone else been keeping up with GI web articals? I've been reading them religiously. Seems like some of the changes they are making could be litterally awsome beyond words, but I am a bit worried about the game being.. xboxed, if you get my meaning They seem to take alot of things from the community too (deadly reflex features ahoy ) I'm torn between admiration of a game developer that listens to and learns from it's community, and a game developer that is blatently taking features designed and implimented by it's community and charging us for them (see Vegas, espcially hardcore mode!)

[Meo]

From the Dutch magazine 'Power Unlimited'

- "There is no level cap. You will nevertheless not be able to choose all perks with one character."

- "Technically speaking, Skyrim is an evolution within The Elder Scrolls, and not a revolution (but everything looks fabulous). The magic of the world that Bethesda has created is nevertheless unequivocally present."

- "All weapons have different properties, which you can take advantage of by choosing the right perks. Maces ignore a percentage of armor, and axes have bleed damage over time.

- "You can use fast travel to revisit places you have visited earlier."

- "Skyrim is approximately as big as Oblivion."

- "Five big cities and more than 130 dungeons."

- "Low-Fantasy" (Meaning the game does not look as vibrant, vivid and weird as Morrowind did, more like Oblivion) -> "Oblivion was for sure not over-the-top in terms of its style, but Skyrim should be considered low fantasy even more than its predecessor. Much of the locations look realistic, and could easily exist in our own world."

- "The overarching narrative of the Dragons is less prominent than the Oblivion Gates were in Oblivion, which does not give you the feeling that you are doing 'useless' quests when you lay aside the Main Quest."

- "Dragons are not rare."

- "Dungeons will be locked at their level once you have been there."

- "Even in third person, animations look really good. There has been a lot of progress since Oblivion."

- "You can read in-game books in 3-D."

- "Every item has a 3D-preview in the Flash based inventory, which you can twist, turn, rotate, etc. Sometimes you will solve puzzles by analyzing these 3D-previews. Not only armor and weapons can be explored in great detail, also small rings and herbs can be investigated from all possible angles. Every single item in the game can be previewed in the inventory screen."

- "The Dark Brotherhood is back."

- "Active blocking makes melee more fun to play."

- "More traps and puzzles."

- "Main Story is approximately 20 hours. Hundreds of hours for other quests."

- "Every dragon you kill will make you stronger. A piece of his soul will be transferred to yours."

- There's also an interview with Todd Howard in the article. These are the highlights of that interview:

- "There are special animations for sneak kills with daggers."

"We primarily look at how we can improve facial expressions and animations, graphics-wise."

"The game won't support Kinect. It takes too much memory."

"It is not yet possible to combine forms of magic. It is difficult. Frost magic makes an enemy move slower, and fire does damage over time, and the fire remains on the ground for additional damage. If we would allow the player to use fire magic in one hand, and frost magic in the other, it becomes much more complex. Maybe we will implement this though, but for the time being, 'No'."

"Someone modded Oblivion by changing the physics of shooting an arrow. It made you shoot slower and you almost had to remain stationary to shoot, which increased the arrow's impact. We liked this mod so much, that we implemented it in Skyrim by default."

[Arthmoor]

For anyone who wants proper confirmation of all 10 races: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/26/the-art-of-skyrim.aspx

[the-manta]

@Meo: some awesome info in that post. Nice to hear about the animations- no more moonwalking NPCs and no more slashing your victims across the backside when sneak killing

[StarX]

From the Dutch magazine 'Power Unlimited'

Woohoo! Power Unlimited FTW! Now I can read up on Skyrim in Dutch. I should pick up a copy tomorrow.

[Artisanix]

If that's a Dutch magazine why it has an English name then? ;D

[StarX]

Because it would be called "Onbeperkte Kracht ". And no one in Holland would ever buy a game mag with that name!

EDIT: Where's your cool avatar, mate?

[Artisanix]

Kracht alone sounds far more ominous and menacing than the whole current ynglish name, me thinks ;]

ps

just forgot to set it ;p

[StarX]

Got the Power Unlimited today! Woohoo!

And far more important: Trollf finally has his awesome avatar!

And yeah "kracht" sounds a bit Nordic doesn't it?

[Meo]

Im worried that with the new map menu, it will be difficult to add other provinces. Or it could be easier. We really need to see this new interface.

[ub3rman123]

There's also the fact that they once again designed the UI with the Xbox as a priority. Hello, size 48 font!

[Si-Shen]

My brother noted that he is hoping that there will be more "attack" animations this time around, rather then the same 2 EVERY time you attack with your weapon.

Something like what was done in Two Worlds, where each weapon has a few animations, not two that repeat.

[Mysterious Mr. Bear]

I'm hoping that if they are not allowing combining of spells, they leave it open for the community to add.

Infact scrap that- no system hardcaps whatsover! theres no point in them- as you can see, by the end of Oblivions run almost every hardcapp was worked around and it had been turned into a completly new game....

[Meo]

One thing that has not been discussed, rings and amulets. I expect to be able to put more than two rings and one amulet.

[Si-Shen]

More then 2 Meo? but we only have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs, how could we possibly clutter them up with things like rings! It would be cool to have MORE then 2 but at the same time they would have to ton down the magic enchantments on them. That has always been a thing about most RPGs that got me, however the amulets never did, after all, we have one neck.

What might be cool is belts or something of the like that one could enchant as well.

[syscrusher]

One thing that has not been discussed, rings and amulets. I expect to be able to put more than two rings and one amulet.

I can see the logic of only one amulet, in that the magic might conflict. And I can see a game-balance reason to limit the number of rings, not letting you wear one on every finger and thumb and toe. But I agree that more than two rings is reasonable. In our TES IV environment, my wife and I have it set up to allow up to two rings on each hand, which seemed reasonably balanced to us. Perhaps Bethesda could offer that as an INI setting in Skyrim.

Syscrusher

[Mysterious Mr. Bear]

They shoud introduce a system where your enchantment strength is goverrend by the size of the object you enchant- de-balancing problem solved!

[jaggedbubbles]

One thing that has not been discussed, rings and amulets. I expect to be able to put more than two rings and one amulet.

That never really bothered me that much. I think I've just come to expect it in fantasy games - IIRC, the Diablo games had similar equipment slots.

[Si-Shen]

Don't suppose we know if there will be ice in the game eh? It woiuld be interesting, and fun, to run across frozen ponds (and slip and fall)

[syscrusher]

Don't suppose we know if there will be ice in the game eh? It woiuld be interesting, and fun, to run across frozen ponds (and slip and fall)

An interesting thought -- Given the right choice of Havok material in Blender, I'll bet this could be emulated within Oblivion by substituting a very-low-friction solid material in place of trying to have actual frozen water.

[Meo]

Screenshots from GameReactor. I would bet those were made on the xbox360, i expect higher resolution textures for the pc version. The last pic is my favorite, after starring at the blonde for a few minutes, pay attention to the little details in the background.

[the-manta]

the characters look so awesome! That random bar-dwelling blonde looks like a real person, not just a the random schmoes or hideous abominations we met in Cyrodiil and The Capital Wasteland (outfits also look good). That said, people will still make body/beauty mods, no matter how well Beth does . The room she is in also looks quite spectacular, as you say- little details! The shadows, the cheese, the way the barfly's outfit does not look unrealistically stretched at the armpit, despite his pose, the shadows again. Breathtaking.

[Si-Shen]

Right now I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the Beth studios...

[Mysterious Mr. Bear]

I really hope that fireball, ice spike, and lightning bolt are actually 3 differnt spells this time, not just the same thing with slightly differnt visuals/ resistances...