I"M YAWNING ALREADYOkay, then go play Mercenaries 2 then. :P
Okay, then go play Mercenaries 2 then. :P
yeah but i love all the money i save from just paying for WoW
SO MUCH MONEY
I LIKE TO SWIM IN IT
I like spending $15 on a different game every month. :P
what games cost $15
I often get games that been out a bit of time on the PC.
Often, Gogamer is the place for me to buy something.
And how many of those remain shrink wrapped?
None.
B/c I actually open the box and make sure all the discs and that there's a CD key and all.
The real question should've been, "How many have you put aside and NOT installed?"
To answer that, "Probably at least 30."
Yea you spend way too much on WoW.
I was being sarcas.... ahhh... never mind.
He plays the game and gets the most out of his $15.
No.Man, you just reminded me how much I like milk buns. I'm going to the bakery now.
Does the bread you buy every week come in different flavors?
Do they add like loads of new content per month on WoW?
They add new content in ALL the time in the form of new patches, seasonal events, world events, new dungeons, new pvp arenas.Cool.
However MysterD, you seem to forget WHY people play a Massively Player ONLINE game. I love the social interaction that comes from the game.That's why pretty much most people play MP-based games.
I have met up with my guildmates on MANY occasions and hang out with 3 of them every week. We have all gotten to be very close friends. When I went to Blizzcon I went to a huge bonfire gathering in Long Beach and shared motels rooms and partied all night. I am just about to go to lunch with a gal I met playing WoW. When we do raids in WoW we joke and laugh on voice chat. Often times I laugh so hard at our crap that I have to stop playing for a minute.Cool.
Do your NPC's in Elder Scrolls do all this? Can you interact with them like I can with my WoW friends?NPC's in ES games are AI-controlled bots, not actual human beings -- since these games are SP-based.
I think not.
Massivley Multiplayer games are great but they all just seem to be clones of one another with the same monotonous "grinding" rituals. You're always after the next fix to level-up.
A non-linear MMO with lots of decision making quests where you can finish quests with numerous different results would be cool.Not even that, simply a story-driven MMO would be interesting. Even if it's strictly linear. MMO's in general seem to be the most rushed games ever. Seems pubs/devs just want to pump out as many as they can as fast as possible. So they always come out kinda half-assed and then they just rely on daily/weekly updates to resolve the inevitable issues that arise.
Story-driven MMO = Guild Wars.I still need to try that. NCSoft took off the 14-day trials from the official site as well as the affiliates.
Cool.
That's why pretty much most people play MP-based games.
It's what I like about Guild Wars -- which has no monthly fee.
Cool.
NPC's in ES games are AI-controlled bots, not actual human beings -- since these games are SP-based.
There were rumors in the past that a ES MMO might eventually surface -- but, that was just a rumor. Nothing official. Well, not just yet, anyways.
If this was a reply from someone else, I would have laughed thinking it was deliberate.
If this was a reply from someone else, I would have laughed thinking it was deliberate.
(http://www.aerthyr.net/images/facepalm2.jpg)
Don't look a new Elder Scrolls game in the near future; Howard said there are no current plans for an "Elder Scrolls 5." As far as an Elders Scrolls based MMO, he said in jest, "There's always a chance."
A book blurb on the Waterstone's retail site reads "A novel that takes places forty-five years after the Oblivion Crisis, which is the story of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion game and the expansion pack Shivering Isles. It partly bridges the gap for the next game, which is set 200 years after the Oblivion crisis."
So, assuming "the next game" in Oblivion continuity isn't a ZeniMax Online massively multiplayer online game, this might be a hint at an Elder Scrolls V. Although, to hear Bethesda's Pete Hines tell it, that's the natural conclusion anybody could draw from how well The Elder Scrolls IV sold.
Eurogamer -> NO Class System in Skyrim. (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-07-elder-scrolls-v-class-system-explained)I'm cool with that. In Oblivion I often questioned the presence of the predefined classes since I could just train my character in practically all the abilities but was limited by the class restrictions.
Just to clarify, all of this trailer was captured on Xbox 360. Also, the draw distance is not faked in any way.
The inventory system has also seen design improvements. Once pulled up, the players scrolls left for the map or right for items, and to view skills, you look up -- literally, into the heavens. Classic RPG skill trees have been replaced with constellations, with each representative of a different play-style and depicting a unique progression layout.
And then when expansions hit, you can level while you play those, rather than having the issue of Borderlands where you simply outlevel everything and the game becomes a fucking cakewalk.True.. Although I am suffering with some of the battles in Zombie Island, since I finished the original campaign when I was level 39.. I just hit level 41.
And then when expansions hit, you can level while you play those, rather than having the issue of Borderlands where you simply outlevel everything and the game becomes a fucking cakewalk.
They say you can't have too much of a good thing, but Bethesda certainly put that to the test with its seemingly unending releases of downloadable content for Fallout 3. Project lead Todd Howard said that the developer has learned its lesson, and those who play the studio's next game, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, should expect heartier, less frequent updates.
"Right now I can say that we'd like to do less DLC but bigger ones -- you know, more substantial," he told AusGamers. "The Fallout 3 pace that we did was very chaotic. We did a lot of them -- we had two overlapping groups -- and we don't know what we're going to make yet, but we'd like them to be closer to an expansion pack feel."
In short, expect huge horse armor collections this time around, in every size, shape and hue imaginable.
NEW Skyrim game-play footage from Comic-Con 2011. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iQ17r9xUwI&feature=player_embedded#at=106)Well, ZeniMax took that down fast.
Well, ZeniMax took that down fast.Bummer - b/c it kicks ass.
For months many of you have asked for details on whether or not there will be Collector’s Edition for Skyrim. At the end of a rousing QuakeCon presentation, game director Todd Howard confirmed its existence.
The limited collector’s edition for The Elder Scrolls® V: Skyrim™ will be available for Xbox 360, PS3, and Games for Windows and can be pre-ordered now through participating retailers in North America, Europe and Australia. Like the regular release of the game, the Collector’s Edition will be available on 11.11.11
In addition to including the highly-anticipated game, this premium version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim also includes:
Alduin Statue: Created in conjunction with the IP Factory, this collector’s only statue stands 12” tall and is made of high quality PVC. Modeled from actual in-game 3D digital files, it showcases Alduin, the World Eater. He stands perched atop one the game’s many dragon walls that teach the player the lethal language of dragons.
‘The Art of Skyrim’ Official Art Book: Featuring over 200 pages of striking, full-color illustrations, sketches and models, this stunning 9 3/8” x 12 1/8” coffee table book showcases the characters, creatures, environments, and weaponry of Skyrim. With a foreword by game director Todd Howard and commentary from Bethesda Game Studios artists, readers will be guided through the game’s iconic visual style.
‘The Making of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ DVD - This documentary DVD contains exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage, including interviews with the Bethesda Game Studios team as they take you from concept to creation and provide insights into the story, gameplay, setting, legacy of the Elder Scrolls franchise, and much more.
The Collector’s Edition will be available through pre-order and it retails for $149.99 (US), €149.99 (Europe), £129.99 (UK), and A$199.99 (Australia). If you’re interested in purchasing, we recommend you pre-order asap, as the it will be available in extremely limited quantities.
No way is that worth 150 bucks.
At least this means I won't have to preorder.
We can confirm today that we're using Steamworks for Skyrim
Well guess what. (https://twitter.com/#!/ElderScrolls/status/103844894413557760)
Not compared to, say, every other TES game.Well yeah, but c'mon nothing compares to Daggerfall or Arena! Keep the floppy in the drive? Nope!
Well yeah, but c'mon nothing compares to Daggerfall or Arena! Keep the floppy in the drive? Nope!
Haha that's an awesome bug :P
Skyrim’s launch is less than three weeks away!! To help you prepare for the game’s release, here’s the recommended and minimum PC requirements.
Recommended Specs
Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
4GB System RAM
6GB free HDD space
DirectX 9 compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or higher; ATI Radeon 4890 or higher).
DirectX compatible sound card
Internet access for Steam activation
Minimum Specs
Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
Processor: Dual Core 2.0GHz or equivalent processor
2GB System RAM
6GB free HDD Space
Direct X 9 compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM
DirectX compatible sound card
Internet access for Steam activation
No love for this game?! It's coming out soo sooooon.
I played through Morrowind a few days ago. Now working through Oblivion as well. This will get me nicely set up to play Skyrim. Unfortunately, I'm certain I won't have time to play it until after Christmas. Oh well.
I'm waiting for reviews, and more importantly problem reports. It is a Bethesda game, after all.
I can personally wait on the game, but Giant Bomb has announced they're going to do a live gameplay marathon like Gamespot did for Oblivion way back when. Even better, they've got Greg running the show as well.
How awesome is that?
I will play this game exactly one year after release.
If you've played previous Elder Scrolls games, glitches and oddities don't come as a surprise. Nevertheless, Skyrim comes in a year graced with multiple quality RPGs that feature tighter combat, fewer bugs, better animations, and so forth. But to be fair, none of those games are endowed with such enormity. Yet The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim doesn't rely on sheer scope to earn its stripes. It isn't just that there's a lot to do: it's that most of it is so good. Whether you're slashing a dragon's wings, raising the dead back to life, or experimenting at the alchemy table, Skyrim performs the most spectacular of enchantments: the one that causes huge chunks of time to vanish before you know it.
The PC crowd should be happy to hear that, assuming you've got a powerful machine, The Elder Scrolls V looks far and away the best. The draw distance can be pushed way back, letting you see clear across enormous spaces, and you benefit from a higher visual quality throughout, as well as dramatically shortened load times, to the point where they barely exist at all.
The only downside of the PC version is the interface, which is elaborately presented and a breeze to use on consoles, but is inefficiently laid out for keyboard and mouse controls. To cut down on time spent in menus with both versions you can assign almost anything – armor, weapons, spells, shouts, pieces of meat – as a favorite. This menu can then quickly be brought up during a fight, pausing the action, so you swiftly adjust to the changing nature of a battle without having to page through the main menu system, though on PC an option to also bind items and spells to number keys would have been appreciated.
Also Giantbomb is doing their live stream of Skyrim now, Greg Kasavin is hosting. (http://www.giantbomb.com/chat/)
The Bottom Line
While we have not finished this game yet, and cannot comment on other areas of this game, we do have some striking initial impressions. Our initial impression is that this game runs better on, and has a better gameplay experience with, the GeForce GTX 580 and GeForce GTX 580 SLI. We had no mouse lag, smooth performance, faster performance, no bugs in sight as of yet. We were also able to use SLI thanks to NVIDIA releasing a Beta driver one day before Skyrim launched with full SLI support in the game.
We have harped over this before, but this game shows once again that AMD's driver support is biting it in the butt on a new game release. With not even an ETA on a new CAP for Skyrim to support CrossFireX, and no performance driver in sight, it is rather depressing for AMD GPU owners. We keep seeing this with new game launches these past few months. Rage, Deus Ex: Missing Link, even Battlefield 3 had better and working performance and SLI drivers from NVIDIA on game day launch, while AMD support was lacking.
With CrossFireX and SLI being based on profile support AMD cannot afford to lag this far behind on new game launches. NVIDIA simply has more support out of the gate for SLI in new games it seems. Gamers don't like to wait. When a new big title like this is released and unlocked at a certain time on a certain date, gamers are lined up waiting to play it right then and there. It matters that performance and Dual-GPU acceleration is supported when the game launches, and not days after.
First impressions are everything, and with this game, first impressions tell us that GTX 580 gameplay experience is just better. We look forward to testing Skyrim more and finding out how performance and mainstream video cards compare as well as an in-depth look at image quality. Hopefully with some new AMD drivers as well. Stay tuned.
I love the game but the UI is retarded: it was made for the gamepad. PC players get shafted yet again.
I tried playing with my X360 pad and the UI and menus work "as expected" as opposed to the clunky, inefficient format they lobbed at keyboard+mouse users. It really feels like a lazy port of the interface rather than making one that actually works. Also, a lot of options missing from the settings: graphics, controls, etc.
Took me a while before I realized how to set up hotkeys for weapons/items. It's retarded.
I still haven't worked out how to hotkey - please share your wisdom!Basically, you have to first open your inventory and "Favourite" the items you want to hotkey (by default the "change POV" key is F, which also happens to be the "Favourite" key in the inventory [that's not mentioned anywhere in the game and it's not teh same as the "Favourites" key [default Q], which is only used to bring up your Fav list in the game], if you changed it the game will still tell you to press F to Fav an item but you have to press the key you set to "change POV"). Anyway, once you've set your favs close the inventory and press Q (fav key) and highlight your item of choice then press a number key to match.
If you install the game to the 360's HDD, some textures will never get sharp as you approach them.Looks like Beth and Id have been hanging out too much. :P
Exactly? What's the significance of Nov 11, 2012?
Nothing.. was kidding...
I am so tempted to buy this now, but I have like 30 games on my plate.
Why oh why did I watch the fucking QL for this. I want this game so bad I could do <something outrageous>. It looks so much better than Oblivion. Like... a lot better. But I have no PC, I can't really spend time playing games because of the work I have to do and the dog, the PS3 version requires a fucking shitload of HDD, and my 360 just redringed today.
Fuck me.
Hahahaha, oh man this snippet from the Giantbomb quicklook is amazing and hilarious, definitely watch it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTgUm8VEWiU)
Bethesda Working on Big Ol' Skyrim Patch, But No Timetable
If that texture issue is bothering you that much, it's gonna be a waiting game.
By Patrick Klepek | Nov. 15, 2011
When Bethesda will get around to making the poor buffalo as bad ass as Skyrim's horse?
There’s probably an argument to be made that we cut Bethesda Game Studios a little too much slack about the issues that plague the launch of every one of its products, but the games are just so damn good, so...we overlook it.
This is why I’ve put 25 hours into Skyrim and don’t seem to care about a fairly serious texture issue!
That said, Bethesda has publicly admitted there are plenty of kinks to work out. Pete Hines, the company’s VP of marketing and public relations, told his Twitter followers that a patch is coming.
“We are continuing to work on an update for all platforms to address issues any bugs and [performance] issues we can,” he said. “We will fix as much as we can for your platform. I don't know if it will fix ‘your’ bug. Takes a while to test/fix/regress. Hang in there.”
At the moment, there is “no word yet on when it’s coming out,” but as the company is still actively monitoring submissions from the community, it’s possible your issue could still be flagged and included in an upcoming patch.
If you were expecting that patch in the next 24 hours, however, that may prove too optimistic.
Since I'm not playing it on PC (I know, this is weird to me also), I can't really speak to that... but I gotta say that I love the way they did it on the consoles. A far better and more graceful interface than any that have come before it.I've tried playing with the gamepad on PC and it definitely works well with the interface (4 basic directions and A to select, B to cancel), it's simple.
I've tried playing with the gamepad on PC and it definitely works well with the interface (4 basic directions and A to select, B to cancel), it's simple.
However, the UI still lacks some basic interface elements that were present in previous games. For example, to check my active effects I pop open the menu, select Magic, scroll down to Active Effects and select it. As illustrated in the link I posted earlier, Active Effects are critical to the gameplay and should be accessed more readily, especially temporary effects which in Oblivion and Morrowind were actually displayed in the HUD. Something as simple as that I shouldn't have to navigate through a whole menu for.
Also, what happened to the character display in the inventory?! That was useful! Why did they take that out?
Yeah! That's exactly what happened to me. At first I thought one or two people were just concerned but when everyone in town is telling me I look sick I realized something must be wrong. I had to check online to figure out how to check for active effects and diseases. Turns out I had Ataxia and my lockpicking and sneaking skills were -25% effective and I'm a stealth bastard! hehe
I had some people in a couple towns telling me I looked sick. I assumed it was something minor and didn't worry about it (had no idea how to check my current buffs/debuffs). After 4-5 hours of play like this, I looked it up on the web, found out how to find my debuffs, and realized it was Rockjoint (-25% effectiveness with melee weapons)! And I'm a full on melee character, no spells, very little bows.
Zooming out with the mouse-wheel happens with the weapons out or not. You can also push the "Perspective" key to jump in and out of 3rd-person.
Zooming with the gamepad is done by clicking in the right-stick and adjusting the zoom level with the left stick. I discovered that by accident.
What I meant was, you can have separate zoom settings for each mode (weapons drawn/weapons sheathed). By default I seem to be down by the bottom of the screen with weapons out, and I'm like one mousewheel click from first person when they're sheathed. So I zoomed in a little for when they're drawn, and out a little for when they're sheathed.Ah, I see. Well then, carry on. :P
FYI, there's a patch as of today, but it changes nothing and adds DRM. Sort of. It makes the exe only run if Steam is running. Until now, you could just run TESV.EXE and you didn't have to have Steam running. Now you do.
That's awesome! Wish I could check that out. Goddamn lack of PC.
There's no way that's feasible. I'm sure it was just something they did for reference or for fun.
Yeah. Reapply charged soul stones to them in your item menu. On PC, just select the item and press T.
Unrelenting Force on a House Filled With Weapons. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oogzjlyKbMY)Holy processing power! You could feel the weight of those weapons the way that framerate was chugging! Still awesome ;D
The latest update for Skyrim is rolling out on PlayStation 3. Our ETA for PC and 360 is Wednesday
UPDATE 1.2 NOTES (all platforms unless specified)
Improved occasional performance issues resulting from long term play (PlayStation 3)
Fixed issue where textures would not properly upgrade when installed to drive (Xbox 360)
Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz (PC)
Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away
Fixed occasional issue where a guest would arrive to the player's wedding dead
Dragon corpses now clean up properly
Fixed rare issue where dragons would not attack
Fixed rare NPC sleeping animation bug
Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely
Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory
Fixed rare issue with renaming enchanted weapons and armor
Fixed rare issue with dragons not properly giving souls after death
ESC button can now be used to exit menus (PC)
Fixed occasional mouse sensitivity issues (PC)
General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls (PC)
After releasing the 1.2 update, we will continue to monitor forums, blogs, etc. for issues you are reporting, and we will keep you updated on further updates to improve your gameplay experience.
Gamers rejoicing over Bethesda's recent patch release for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim may want to hold off downloading it for now.
Numerous users have reported that some of the problems that plagued the game pre-patch still haven't been fixed, such as the frame rate issues for the PlayStation 3 version. A running thread on the official Bethesda forums is keeping a tally on all the bugs that are either new or still haven't been fixed.
One interesting, if not humorous, bug that popped up due to the patch are dragons with erratic flight patterns (see below). Another widespread bug being reported is the game no longer recognizing magic resistances.
Keep in mind these issues aren't affecting everyone, so expect varying results. Patch v1.2 was released yesterday for PlayStation 3 and should arrive on Xbox 360 and PC sometime today. We reached out to Bethesda for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
Updated 12/6: While the 1.2 update fixed the long-term play issues for most PS3 users, we are aware that is not the case for some. We’ve been reaching out to a number of those users to collect save games, so we can take a look at their specific issues. Right now we know it’s not one thing, but a combination of smaller ones that some folks are seeing, but others are not. Some seem to be the PS3 autosaving in the background (you can turn that off), some may be SPU AI updates, and some may relate to dynamic system memory allocation. These fixes are not in the current 1.3 update that is in final testing, but will be in future ones. We understand how frustrating it can be when your game is having issues, and we thank all of you for your continued feedback and patience. Rest assured we take your gameplay experience seriously and will continue working on this until it’s resolved.
Skyrim Tweak Guide is up! (http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide)Nice job, Nvidia!
- General stability improvements
- Optimize performance for Core 2 Duo CPUs (PC)
- Fixed Radiant Story incorrectly filling certain roles
- Fixed magic resistances not calculating properly
- Fixed issue with placing books on bookshelves inside player purchased homes
- Fixed dragon animation issues with saving and loading
- Fixed Y-look input to scale correctly with framerate
Patch 1.3 is out on Steam. It's being submitted to Sony and Microsoft, so should be out soon on those platforms.Also worth noting in that post is the will address the 4GB LAA issue in an update next week for Skyrim PC.
http://www.bethblog.com/2011/12/07/skyrim-update-1-3-now-on-steam/
I got the Xbox version as an early Christmas present and restarted. I've logged 45 hours on it, and have had very few issues. Why? I'm playing offline with no patches (not even the day 1 patch, which seemed to be a good patch overall, from what I've heard) I also don't have it installed to the hard drive (to avoid the texture quality issue that 1.2 fixed).
. . .
hahah there is a difficulty slider?
hahah there is a difficulty slider?
Actually I guess it's not that I can't become Thane. I can't get a housecarl. I think I was named thane when I was told I could buy a house, and was also told to come back and see the Jarl after I had bought it. I missed that part and didn't come back until later.Well, I became a Thane of Whiterun after taking down my first dragon and Lydia was assigned as my housecarl automatically.
W7, you playing on PC? Might be a way to console yourself the housecarl or set some value or other?
Update 12/15: The update is now up on Xbox LIVE. [Yay!] The PS3 update is in the hands of Sony and we’ll let you know when it’s live. For PC players, the Large Address Aware update is currently in testing. More to come soon.http://www.bethblog.com/2011/12/07/skyrim-update-1-3-now-on-steam/
http://www.bethblog.com/2011/12/07/skyrim-update-1-3-now-on-steam/
Alrighty. This is looking better for grabbing early next year, sometime.
I humbly submit the following for your consideration:There's something profoundly disturbing about that :P
http://youtu.be/Bifmj1O3D24
At this point the gaming subforum might as well just contain this thread alone.
Heh, I remember back when enemies could hurt me. It seems so long ago.
Did you pump difficulty all the way up?
Howard revealed the results of the Game Jam to a packed crowd during his keynote speech at the annual conference of gaming executives. He cautioned the crowd that the features we would see in the video were just experiments. Would they be released as future downloadable content for Skyrim? “I don’t know,” he said, again being cautious but voluntarily introducing the possibility that players of the RPG might see these features in the game for real at some point.
Here is some of what was listed in the extensive video reel:
Seasonal Foliage
Flow-based water shader
Spears
Kill Cams for Magic and Ranged Combat
Stealth Enhancements
Guards can relight darkened areas
Paralysis runes
Dungeon enhancements : handing structures and moving platforms
Water currents in dungeons
Dark dungeons
New commands for followers: Combat style, etc.
Set favorite equipment settings for followers
Adopt a child
Build your own home
…with a skeleton butler
Spell combinations: Use flame and raise zombie to create a fire zombie
Goblins
High-level Draugrs
“Waygates” for fast travel
Epic mounts (flaming death horse)
Mounted combat
Dragon mounts
“Soul bug” familiar
Kinect voice-activated shouts
Screen space ambient occlusion
Enhanced underwater visuals
Snow surface
Fat giants
Ice and Fire arrows
Werebear
Lycanthropy skill tree
Vampire Feeding
Become a flying vampire lord
Vampire Imp Minions
Mudcrab animation tweaks
Giant mudcrab enemy
DICE: Bethesda ‘Game Jam’ Brainstorms a Bevy of New Skyrim Features (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/02/dice-bethesda-game-jam/)
Amazing stuff if it were implemented in some way!
Top 10 hilarious physics fails in Skyrim (http://gamingbolt.com/top-10-hilarious-physics-fails-in-skyrim).
The dead dragon thing just sounds like a physics/clipping issue. Dragon skeleton clips into the ground and acts weird. The other one doesn't sound like a bug... there are random dragons that aren't related to quests or anything else, and they often attack towns and such. They aren't generally that powerful. Guards will take them out given some time, and if you're nearby when they do, you'll still get the soul.
I assume you're playing 360? My experience on PS3 I think was 2 minor bugs and 2 crashes in 120+ hours, though think I've said that here already. I was impressed.
I hated Oblivion's menu system, but don't remember how it was on console. I like Skyrim's, though. And it's funny, you say that chests aren't organized by types... and I honestly can't remember. My instinct was to say, "Wait, it isn't like that," but the more I thought about it the more I thought you were right. I guess it just didn't bug me. And I'm pretty sure stuff alphabetizes right, I don't remember ever struggling to find anything.
How did the spellcasting work in Oblivion? I can't seem to recall. You could cast without having an open hand? Regardless, I don't see the problem. It seems balanced just fine to me. You want to be a warrior, be a warrior. You want to do both, don't go with giant-ass two-handed weapons. If you're able to do everything at once, you never have to choose and it sort of removes some of the uniqueness of whatever character you're playing. I'm a bit sad that you can basically do every quest in the game without having to specialize, even. It would be nice if you had to choose a little bit more. To be drafted into the fancy mage academy they ask you to prove you can cast something, but you don't have to know hardly a fucking thing. One weak spell, whoopee. It sort of cheapens things a tad. One of my only complaints, honestly, and not because it's outright bad... it just cheapens what might feel a bit more special in other circumstances. I didn't feel like a great mage because even though I was focusing on magic, the magic I needed to know was practically nothing. I subsequently started focusing on stealth stuff I think because of that.
I really don't get the Oblivion 1.5 feeling at all, though. They fixed so much and streamlined so much, improved so much of the character interaction... feels like a legit sequel to me. I guess part of that is I don't really think they SHOULD change the formula too much. They can tweak, but the open world, general progression, and great combat are more or less what people want now, I think. Wouldn't mind seeing them deepen some elements, but on the whole I was thrilled with what we got.
Well, clipping issues with dead physics objects tend to make them move over and over again in weird ways, that's all I was suggesting about the dead dragon. I've had similar things happen, albeit less fantastic than you describe.I think a lot of this has to do w/ Multi-platforming - and trying to get the games running across both console and PC platforms so all versions turn out quite well.
I imagine also that Bethesda having a new engine is sort of a misnomer. They build all their engines from a variety of pieces of middleware as I understand it, so even if it's new and repurposed I'd bet it's a lot of the same. It definitely didn't feel like a huge technical leap, but they've said their focus was to release more than one game per console cycle going forward. Though it's funny, I didn't realize it, but Skyrim actually took a year longer from Oblivion than Oblivion took from Morrowind. But Morrowind didn't really even look very good in a lot of ways when it was new, and we seem to have hit something of a tech plateau in gaming over the last few years. Used to be my PCs would get outdated fairly quickly without significant upgrades. Lately every game seems to hit it just about the same and it's been that way for a while despite my PC being really old now. For instance, even though Skyrim is a fair bit prettier than Alan Wake, both seem to tax the PC about equally.
They have absolutely no business expanding this game until they fix the massive bugs. I now have a hopelessly broken quest, with a 1-lb book forever stuck in my inventory, plus a 7-lb bow also stuck there with no idea what quest it belongs to. My guess is that when I finally stumble into the mission that needs it, the owner will behave just like the Arcanum's guy, and completely ignore the fact that I already have what he wants, with no way at all to change that.Very similar issue happened to me with Red Eagle's sword.. Had it in my inventory and couldn't get rid of it. For some reason the game reset the quest and it assumed that I didn't complete it. Went to the cavern where I can complete the quest by placing the sword in its place, I ended up with 2 more duplicates instead, each one weighing 12 units. Eventually, after several save/loads the game allowed to drop them. Not sure exactly how I solved the problem.
After playing 2 full days crash free, late last night was a major frustration. Luckily, I've stuck to my 10-slot save rotation, where I make sure always to keep several saves from varied locations, and before I enter anywhere like a dungeon. I was in this one dungeon trying to solve a puzzle with those rotating pillars, except they weren't rotating. I scoured the caverns for the better part of an hour trying to find the solution. Eventually, I gave in to my suspicion that it was bugged, and found out I was right. The game had crashed on me there once with what felt like memory-leak issues, and that may be part of the bug-triggering mechanism--I don't really know. But it's a documented bug, and the only way to work around it is to try again, from a save from before you entered the dungeon. This is not a simple little side show either. There is a word of power at the end of the excursion, so if I had trusted too much and overwritten all my earlier saves, I'd be fucked. Re-entering the dungeon and doing it all again solved it.
I don't want to hear jack-shit about kill animations, Bethesda. Fix the game first.
I have yet to do a single thing in Skyrim in the proper order. I'm constantly showing up to some dude's castle that I've never seen before, only to hand over a mystical item that I'd mentally scratched off as garbage hours ago, and then sit and listen to the story be retroactively explained to me:http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-personality-flaws-skyrim-forces-you-to-deal-with/
King: Wanderer! Thank the gods you've come! The prophecy told us that a mighty warrior would arise, worthy of wielding Fjalnir, the God-axe, and slaying the evil Demon Prince Synraith. We believe you to be that warrior. What say you, traveler? Will you accept this task?
Me: Yea, verily I shall accept thine task and vanq- wait, Synraith? Fiery dude in a floating city? Cape made out of screeching souls? Ahhh, shit. I already killed that guy.
King: You ... already slew the Demon Prince, the Knife in the Dark, the Void at the Heart of All Men, whose identity you did not learn until just now?
Me: Yup. I saw that castle floating up in the sky, and I wanted to know if I could jump up the rocks to get in the back way. It took a lot of reloads, but I finally managed to hop on up in there.
King: You "hopped on up" into the Abyssal Palace?
Me: Yeeeep, yep yep yep. Just squat-jumped on in there and looted the place. Then I killed that Sydney guy-
King: Synraith, Demon Prince of the Abyss.
Me: -yeah him. I ganked that guy. Mostly just to see if I could. Plus he looked like kind of a dick.
King: Indeed, the Foulest of the Foul was "kind of a dick." But you vanquished him without the aid of sacred Fjalnir, the God-axe?
Me: Totally. It wasn't even a thing. I just hid on top of a bookshelf where he couldn't reach me and shot him with arrows. Then I waited until he forgot I was shooting him, and did it all again to get the sneak damage bonus. Took a while, but he died all the same.
King: Forsooth! Thine heroic deeds are ... well, that sounds kind of fucked up, actually. Never thought I'd feel bad for He Who Devours. So you have no need of our sacred totem weapon?
Me: What, the gold dealy, with the shiny bits? Nah, I already stole that out of the display case four hours ago, before I knew who you were. I gave it to Sven, but he Quantum Leaped out of the game with that shit.
King: Huh. So. I guess ... the bards will ... sing of your tale now?
Me: Oh yeah? Sweet, let's hear it.
Bard: The hero came with eyes aflame / his tasks already done / the land was rescued all the same / but 'tis kind of a shitty song.
Me: Word.
You can buy Robert's book, Everything is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead, or follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Or you could do none of those things, because you're currently playing Skyrim until your eyes bleed, stopping only to read more about Skyrim before returning to Skyrim.
Some of those are spectacular. Thanks for the link.They are incredible! I've got them set up as a wallpaper slideshow on my desktop. I'm am amazed and ecstatic that I'm finally beginning to see the age where real-time graphics are coming on par with pre-rendered CG footage. We're not quite there yet but we're getting close; close enough that these shots are already better than any of the digitally generated wallpapers (i.e. Digital Blasphemy, etc.) I used to have on in the last decade.
Man, I hadn't looked at those screens until now. Amazing.Oh yeah, phenomenal stuff! He makes new ones fairly regularly too.
Not that I'm justifying this, but wasn't this the case with Fallout as well? It's really not all that surprising, although it does suck.
Fixed issue with nirnroot lighting not properly cleaning up
This trailer seems to confirm some of the previous tidbits of news and teasers that have come out since news first broke about the first highly-anticipated add-on for Skyrim such as "Kinect shouts," seasonal foliage, mounted combat and the addition of vampires to the gameplay. Of course, we'll only know for sure when Dawnguard gets its public premiere at next week's E3 and Bethesda decides to set a release date for it.
Visit DawnguardBeta.ElderScrolls.com to apply. The process should only take a couple minutes, but make sure to fill out all the information accurately. Applicants need a registered account on our official forums and you’ll want to make sure your forum email address is updated.
We will be selecting applicants in about a week. Players accepted into the beta will receive an Xbox LIVE code to redeem Dawnguard. The beta is the full version (complete with Xbox LIVE achievements) and those participating will not have to purchase the content.
Update 1.7 (all platforms unless specified)
BUG FIXES
General memory and stability optimizations
Fixed crash related to new water shaders
Fixed rare crash related to dragon landings
Fixed logic error with loading screens from add-ons (Xbox 360)
Using vampiric grip and swimming no longer prevents swimming animation from playing afterwards
Improved recognition with Kinect voice commands (Xbox 360)
Kinect-enabled dragon language shouts for French, German, Italian and Spanish work properly (Xbox 360)
Fixed issue with Dawnguard Kinect-enabled dragon shouts for French, German, Italian and Spanish (Xbox 360)
So, mostly Kinect and Dawnguard stuff, neither of which I have. I'll continue to ignore the game for now.
8 issues fixed, 1200 to go . . .
We are not satisfied yet with Dawnguard’s performance on the PS3. We would like for everyone to have a chance to play Dawnguard, but we aren’t going to release it for PS3 knowing that some people’s experience in Skyrim will be worse. We do everything we can to have our content available to all; from our free updates, to user mods, to paid DLC. We’re as disappointed as our fans when that isn’t the case, but we’ll continue to push for that reality.
In The Elder Scrolls lore, Hearthfire is the name of the month on the Tamrielic calendar that corresponds to the 30-day period we know as September. It's also a name Zenimax Media trademarked in May for use in a game. Yes, it appears Hearthfire will be the next DLC adventure for TES V, and it could bring the zombie apocalypse to Skyrim.
VentureBeat tracked down the Hearthfire trademark Zenimax submitted to the USPTO on May 24. If it is, in fact, the name of the next DLC pack for Skyrim, it brings some interesting undead possibilities.
Thanks to the ridiculously thorough fansite, The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, we learn that there is an interesting holiday during the month of Hearthfire. It's called Tales and Tallows, and it's the day necromancy is celebrated by the Mages Guild. From Elder Scrolls Pages:
Tales and Tallows -- No other holiday divides the people of Tamriel like the 3rd of Hearth Fire. A few of the oldest, more superstitious men and women do not speak all day long for fear that the evil spirits of the dead will enter their bodies. Most citizens enjoy the holiday, calling it Tales and Tallows, but even the most lighthearted avoid dark streets, for everyone knows the dead do walk tonight. Only the Mages Guild completely thrives on this day. In celebration of the oldest magical science, necromancy, all magical items are half price today.
Personally, I say bring on the zombie apocalypse! After fighting handfuls of Draugr in tombs across Skyrim, I think it would be a blast to battle against waves of zombies in the villages and cities. Bethesda refused to comment, but this sounds like the real deal. Are you ready for World War Z in Skyrim?
Well, at least they're hitting all the trendy monster stuff right now.
Robots? Well, there are Dwemer Automatons. Maybe they'll do a Robot invasion next?Hmmm...Dwemer-made Claptraps, eh....? ;)
Q: What IS Skywind exactly?
A: It is a non-commercial, fan made modification for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that seeks to merge the amazing world of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind with the enhanced graphics and capabilities of Skyrim's engine.
While ownership of both games is required to play, the player only actually plays Skywind using the Skyrim game, and not the older Morrowind game. This means that the user interface, combat, graphics, and system requirements for the Skywind mod are all those of Skyrim, and NOT Morrowind.
TES V: Skywind (http://morroblivion.com/forums/skywind/skywind-development/2817)AWESOME.
Does that sound awesome or what?! Morrowind was the game that started it all for me (special thanks to Pug), so I'd love to see a revival in a contemporary engine.
Why is it whenever I think of Morrowind or Oblivion I really want to play them? (never have before) I still haven't even finished the main quest or half the content in Skyrim. I almost got Oblivion and some of it's DLC last week when it was 50% off on Xbox Live.
Actually I did play a little Morrowind back when it was new. I remember feeling utterly overwhelmed and lost lost, and didn't understand the combat at all.
I hated Morrowind. Somehow, my manager convinced me to get Skyrim. It's still in shrinkwrap.I don't recall dice-rolls on hit/miss in Skyrim (or Morrowind and Oblivion), just dice-rolls for critical hits based on your skill stats. If the weapon physically hits it's a hit, it's just a question of how good a hit it is.
I'll always associate the Elder Scrolls universe with standing right in front of a basic enemy with an axe, looking directly at it, and then swinging and missing 6 out of 10 times.
Maybe if there was an animation of the enemy dodging my attack or my axe somehow not being swung accurately at the beast it would have been better. Or if I simply connected more often. But no, there was no visual difference between a hit and a miss and misses were more common than not. It turned me off right away.
No, X, Morrowind was very much die-roll driven. It was annoying in the early game because you just couldn't hit a fucking thing. Scott gave up way too fast, of course, but that was definitely a legit complaint. The game was awkward as hell.Especially before Level 10.
Morrowind was developed by a very small team for what it was. They had, I think, like a single modeler and single animator, something crazy like that. It's obscenely primitive in a lot of ways because of that, and unfortunately hasn't held up well due to those limitations. And I really really hate that because the content of the game was so good, the world was so unique, the mods were so amazing. I don't think I've ever had a comparable experience with a game before or since. I can't go back and get that same feeling, sadly, but for what it was when it was brand-new.... man. Just amazing.Oblivion was great, but yeah - the world was more generic and traditional fantasy. A lot seemed to be inspired by Rome, BTW.
Oblivion isn't too far from Skyrim, just a bit less... I don't know. A little less alive, a little more standard fantasy, not so good with character interaction and such. Still a great game for what it was, and the Shivering Isles expansion is just fucking fantastic.
That's kind of an odd comparison. I don't think Shivering Isles and Morrowind have anything in common, other than the fact that they're unusual, less standard fantasy. "Whimsical" implies goofy somehow, Morrowind had quite a serious history and a pretty deadpan presentation. It was a well thought-out world, sans the usual castles and dragons and whatever for the most part. Giant mushrooms and weird animals and a harsher landscape. Not always dark, per se, but certainly has its moments.No, it certainly wasn't goofy. It had a serious mood overall but the world was whimsical in the sense that the environments were so fantastical i.e. mushroom huts, giant mushrooms, silt striders, massive tree roots intertwining with architecture. It was all so escapist.
Ugh. Such a great game. I really do miss it.
I will readily admit that I probably didn't give Morrowind a fair chance. After all, I'm one of those people that urges people to get through the first couple of missions in the original Deus Ex.Yeah, if it weren't for Pug's encouragement I would have given up early too.
I don't know though, the (early?) combat in Morrowind is just so bad.
Skyrim 1.9
NEW FEATURES
Legendary difficulty setting
Legendary Skills – Skills of 100 can be made Legendary. This will reset the skill to 15, return its Perks and allow the skill to affect leveling again. This effectively removes the overall level cap.
BethBlog -> Patch 1.9 on PC released; adds Legendary Difficulty & Skills; and a lot of bug-fixes. (http://www.bethblog.com/2013/03/04/now-on-steam-skyrim-1-9-beta-update/)
It's generally pretty good. Hearthfire was a bit limited compared to how nuts they went with things in Fallout 4, but it was a fun thing, and I liked Dawnguard and Dragonborn quite a bit.B/c it's a Bethesda-game & their stuff is very highly-modded, modders might require you owning certain DLC's for certain mods of theirs to function.
If we needed a news reporter we'd definitely hire D.
Very pretty. But it's Bethesda. What elite gear do you need to make it look and move like that?
Skyrim Special Edition owners - Survival Mode is now FREE on the Creation Club.It's free for the first week only, right?
Go grab it.