The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim : Bacon Workshop

[Xeio]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vga-10-tba-game-2/708369

Hrmmm, so dragons.

Though, I heard it might still be using Gamebryo.

[poxic]

Sigh. Yeah, I'll buy it. I really, really hope it a) will be available for PC, and b) won't require a new box. >.<

(Dragonborn? We already had that. They're all dead now, unless it means something new this time. And I guess they're free to do that -- the Septims are done, but that doesn't mean there can't be a new dragonbornthing going on. Or, y'know, lazy writing mumble garumph.)

/poxic takes her storytelling games a touch too srsly

Edit to add: I hope Skyrim isn't a hellaboring snowscape like the last expansion to Morrowind was. I was hoping rather for a visit southward, like Elsweyr or Valenwood.

//will tone down the geekery now, sorry

[Shivahn]

Edit to add: I hope Skyrim isn't a hellaboring snowscape like the last expansion to Morrowind was. I was hoping rather for a visit southward, like Elsweyr or Valenwood.

//will tone down the geekery now, sorry

Aww, I like Slothsteim! Or however it's spelled. Mostly because of werewolves though so that might just be me.

I am not super keyed into Elder Scrolls lore and geography and such, but I too was hoping for somewhere more south. Still, I am excited, even if I'm not going to buy it any time near its release as I likely will need a new machine and definitely will want to wait for a GotY edition with whatever expansions.

[poxic]

Yeah, I didn't get into the werewolf thing. That was probably a key point of disengagement for me.

Spoiler:

I started that expansion about five times and finally finished it the last time. No desire to do it again. Endless white ground with cloned trees, long find-this-one-particular-tree quests that require crossing half of the continent every time, and characters who don't really seem to give a damn about anything very much. Probably because the developers wanted this to be DONE so they could get on with something new.

That's probably what I was reacting to, more than anything else. I work closely with developers all the time. Everywhere I looked in Solstheim (?), I could see lazy ass-programming. Copying and recolouring the new ingredients, cloning all of the landscape and dungeons, no joy-of-discovery in the storylines or execution. Just grinding out more of what's been done before.

Sorry. I'll spoiler the above for excessive cynicism about what was one of my all-time favourite games (aside from that expansion >.<).

[psion]

Solstheim was a nice change of scenery, but it did get boring really fast, especially if you never picked up lycanthropy.

So, some prophecy says that some evil creatures will awaken once the events of Oblivion end. That seems convenient... Oh look, we also already have a hero to fight said creatures. I wonder who will win in that struggle. I'm aflutter with intrigue.

[Shivahn]

Eh, it was kind of empty as a place. The more I think about it the more I realize that there were only a few things I liked about it. But I liked those a lot, so that's probably why I liked the expansion as a whole.

So, some prophecy says that some evil creatures will awaken once the events of Oblivion end. That seems convenient... Oh look, we also already have a hero to fight said creatures. I wonder who will win in that struggle. I'm aflutter with intrigue.

I don't know if that's a fair criticism of this game's plot in particular. Most games already have somewhat predetermined storylines. It's rare that any game results in protagonist failure.

[psion]

I don't know if that's a fair criticism of this game's plot in particular. Most games already have somewhat predetermined storylines. It's rare that any game results in protagonist failure.

Of course, but in the respect of an open-ended RPG, it's a pretty poor first step to basically say "This new evil thing that came from nowhere for no reason is going to do some bad things, and there's this good guy that will kill said evil thing because he is good." Lazy stuff.

[Amnesiasoft]

Everywhere I looked in Solstheim (?), I could see lazy ass-programming. Copying and recolouring the new ingredients, cloning all of the landscape and dungeons, no joy-of-discovery in the storylines or execution. Just grinding out more of what's been done before.

None of that is programming though, so it's okay!

[Menacing Spike]

Everywhere I looked in Solstheim (?), I could see lazy ass-programming. Copying and recolouring the new ingredients, cloning all of the landscape and dungeons, no joy-of-discovery in the storylines or execution. Just grinding out more of what's been done before.

None of that is programming though, so it's okay!

Yes, but new gameplay is.

[nowfocus]

I don't know if that's a fair criticism of this game's plot in particular. Most games already have somewhat predetermined storylines. It's rare that any game results in protagonist failure.

Of course, but in the respect of an open-ended RPG, it's a pretty poor first step to basically say "This new evil thing that came from nowhere for no reason is going to do some bad things, and there's this good guy that will kill said evil thing because he is good." Lazy stuff.

Agreed.

I just hope they get the easy stuff right. Simply put the leveling system in oblivion pretty much ruined the game for me.

[Xeio]

OH THANK THE NINE.

[Menacing Spike]

OH THANK THE NINE.

I'm torn. While it's a good thing, I have grown attached to some of the bugs, such as the stretching, or epileptic corpses stuck in doors, or heads turning in creepy angles, or...
This is part of what made the game so awesome (personal favorite: epic item duping).

http://oblivion.wikia.com/wiki/Bugs
They missed a lot.

[Amnesiasoft]

They've also explicited stated it's not id Tech 5. They also stated it was based on existing technology from Oblivion and Fallout 3. In other words, I think they just mean they added stuff to the engine and are calling it new.

[EmptySet]

I hope Skyrim isn't a hellaboring snowscape like the last expansion to Morrowind was. I was hoping rather for a visit southward, like Elsweyr or Valenwood.

I wanted Elsweyr, too. It seems interesting. There are several different kinds of landscape, so you get a change of scenery, and it has lots of different factions and intrigue. But Bethesda probably don't want to spend money creating assets for all the different types of Khajiit and then have to explain the freaky Lunar Lattice thing. Black Marsh might also have been interesting - maybe we could finally find out what the spork is up with the Hist? - and there have been mutterings that something was going to happen there for the last two games, but apparently that's a no-go as well. I guess Vikings fighting dragons is easier to sell to Joe Random than strange races of beastfolk...

[guale]

I'm really starting to doubt we're going to see any of the more interesting places like Morriwind was. Generic fantasy action/RPG just plain sells and that's what they want. I for one would love Elswyr but I really couldn't see them bothering to make all 8 (9?) different castes of Khajiit which really disappoints me. Black Marsh would also be fantabulous but I also couldn't see them doing it because it's just too exotic and they are worried that their new market, all the casual players, would spend half the game going, "What the hell is that? Where are the dragons?"

Then to add injury to insult it is on Gamebryo AGAIN. Apparently the same version with just enough additions to call it *NEW*. When oh when are they going to give us a real new engine. I understand fully that open areas are tricky and a lot of engines do not handle them well but please, by the time the game has released it will have been over five years with the same one. Some engines can pull that off, some can't. Gamebryo can't.

[SecondTalon]

Are you sure it's Gamebryo?

Maybe they'll have the Akavir invade?

[guale]

Ahh, my apologies. I haven't looked into it much myself but have read from multiple people that it was just a rigged up Gamebryo. Well thanks, this gives me a bit more faith in this game.

[SecondTalon]

Yeah, but at the same time the game has just been announced. I'd wait until at least some gameplay footage shows up.

also I keep wanting to call it the Gamebro engine, which brings to mind the stereotypical college frat boy and notions that something running on the Gamebro engine needs guns with chainsaws on them.

[psion]

Are you sure it's Gamebryo?

Maybe they'll have the Akavir invade?

I'm pretty sure they said Oblivion was a new engine several times, even though it was also a hacked Gamebryo. I wouldn't write off the possibility of it being Gamebryo again just because of a couple Twitter comments from a potentially clueless community manager.

I'm reserving a slimmer of hope that they're not going to focus all of their efforts on the shinies and then open a stale can to fill in all of the content, which is mostly what they did with Oblivion and Fallout 3. I feel like the only reason Bethesda has been successful lately is because no one makes decent RPGs anymore. It's not safe for publishers to pour millions into a project that isn't formulatic and generic. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong and people actually prefer modern RPGs like Oblivion. I guess I'll have to wait a year to find out.

[SecondTalon]

What's a decent RPG? In the past few years, there's been The Witcher, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Two Worlds, the Fable series, Gothic 4 just came out.... I'm just trying to figure out what your metric for Decent versus Not is. Two Worlds was a pretty shitty game, yes, but it had a couple of interesting ideas on inventory management and upgrading equipment and so on. While I haven't beaten it, Dragon Age so far has been pretty good.

But yeah, looking at an Elder Scrolls game and expecting a gripping story is like looking at... I don't know, Grand Theft Auto and expecting a seamless blend of sandbox dicking around and story where the thousands of cops you slaughter and the millions in your bankroll are commented upon by the NPCs in the story clips, and there's never a single mention of your character hurting for money as you have millions of dollars, mostly from running people over or delivering pizzas or what the hell ever. Bethesda is pretty good at setting up a world, pretty.. mediocre at creating an interesting story to run in the middle of it.

[hatten]

I thought you complained about having abbreviations in the title in some other thread SecondTalon. =p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls for those that don't know what TES is and don't have flash installed (OP's link requires flash >_>)

[Goldstein]

I'm glad they're back to The Elder Scrolls, I was hoping they'd continue with that rather than making weird forays into cherished gameworlds that they can't possibly hope to live up to. I'm more into stories that are written by the player, and I didn't really enjoy the prefab dungeons used in Oblivion, but I can't expect them to go back to Morrowind's style either because it's content that they can't justify financially, so I'm curious as to what TESV's selling point will be. I'd like to think they've continued tinkering with the RadiantAI idea, or have some intention to make this one more of an adventure game, because as big as Cyrodiil was, it felt much smaller.

And yeah, the levelling system. Come on now.

[pseudoidiot]

But yeah, looking at an Elder Scrolls game and expecting a gripping story is like looking at... I don't know, Grand Theft Auto and expecting a seamless blend of sandbox dicking around and story where the thousands of cops you slaughter and the millions in your bankroll are commented upon by the NPCs in the story clips, and there's never a single mention of your character hurting for money as you have millions of dollars, mostly from running people over or delivering pizzas or what the hell ever. Bethesda is pretty good at setting up a world, pretty.. mediocre at creating an interesting story to run in the middle of it.

Made me think of this.

[SecondTalon]

I thought you complained about having abbreviations in the title in some other thread SexyTalon. =p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls for those that don't know what TES is and don't have flash installed (OP's link requires flash >_>)

I do. Of course, just because I do doesn't mean I'm immune to the autoexpansion of abbreviations in my head.

I didn't even realize it was abbreviated until Pseudoidiot pointed it out via a report. Thanks, Pseudo! Also.. *swoon*

[Xeio]

Made me think of this.

I love that bioware do the dialog in hell and heaven.

[Vaniver]

Hm. I too was hoping for Elsweyr; I too expect this will be Gamebryo; I too plan to buy it regardless.

[SirBryghtside]

As a Morrowind fanboy, I am impossibly hyped for this game.

It's all shaping up to be epic. Bethesda really listen to their fans, so I bet that their next offering will be almost perfection.

And then they can go to Summerset Isle and achieve perfect perfection. AWESOME.

[SecondTalon]

That's.. half of what I'm afraid of. They listened too closely to the fans for Oblivion, and took out the Morrowind approach of "And.. you're here! Go talk to this guy, I guess. Whatever." of Main Story and the Quest approach of "Go to this crypt. It's to the west, more or less. Maybe a little south." when talking about a crypt right outside of town or six miles away and replaced it with a giant hand holding "You need to go talk to This Man at This Place located on This Road and to help, we're putting a marker on his goddamn head that you can see anywhere in the game world, even if the guy happens to be at the bottom of a hidden dungeon and you shouldn't even be aware there's a guy there in the first place, since the quest was just to Investigate The Ruins"

So.. yeah, listening to the fans sometimes makes the game.... kinda silly.

[SirBryghtside]

That's.. half of what I'm afraid of. They listened too closely to the fans for Oblivion, and took out the Morrowind approach of "And.. you're here! Go talk to this guy, I guess. Whatever." of Main Story and the Quest approach of "Go to this crypt. It's to the west, more or less. Maybe a little south." when talking about a crypt right outside of town or six miles away and replaced it with a giant hand holding "You need to go talk to This Man at This Place located on This Road and to help, we're putting a marker on his goddamn head that you can see anywhere in the game world, even if the guy happens to be at the bottom of a hidden dungeon and you shouldn't even be aware there's a guy there in the first place, since the quest was just to Investigate The Ruins"

So.. yeah, listening to the fans sometimes makes the game.... kinda silly.

Good point, but they've listened to the fans twice (four times if you count the previous two) now.

We've got to have said something right

Edit: And at least they'll have good VA this time round.

Hopefully

[mosc]

The leveling system is the thing I can't compromise on. I found oblivion virtually unplayable just because so much stuff was tied to my character's level. There was no sense of atmosphere in the world. Places to stay away from, things to be intimidated by. Similarly nothing to romp through later feeling overpowered. As such, there was no sense of empowerment and development. It was an RPG that played like an adventure game. In an adventure game, the grappling hook gives you another combat move and lets you access a couple new areas but it essentially doesn't change anything in terms of difficulty.

[nowfocus]

The leveling system is the thing I can't compromise on. I found oblivion virtually unplayable just because so much stuff was tied to my character's level. There was no sense of atmosphere in the world. Places to stay away from, things to be intimidated by. Similarly nothing to romp through later feeling overpowered. As such, there was no sense of empowerment and development. It was an RPG that played like an adventure game. In an adventure game, the grappling hook gives you another combat move and lets you access a couple new areas but it essentially doesn't change anything in terms of difficulty.

Not to mention constantly worrying about whether you're doing the quest at the right time to get that unique item, picking the skills you plan to use as minor skills so you don't level up too fast, the whole stat-multiplier thing. It was really just a nightmare up and down.

[Xeio]

I kinda liked it, even my original playthrough I picked main skills and had no real problems with the difficulty.

I did hear lots of people say the first mission was impossible after a few levels, but I guess it's good I did that one first (and shortly thereafter deviated from the story for 100 or so hours... <_<)

Granted, to that extent Fallout 3 did much better.

[SirBryghtside]

I kinda liked it, even my original playthrough I picked main skills and had no real problems with the difficulty.

I did hear lots of people say the first mission was impossible after a few levels, but I guess it's good I did that one first (and shortly thereafter deviated from the story for 100 or so hours... <_<)

Granted, to that extent Fallout 3 did much better.

I haven't actually finished the story yet :O

I'm trying to do it now, though

[Magnanimous]

Oh my gods, yes.

Oblivion is amazing once you threw in a few of the cooler mods. But the standard release is... eh. I have no idea how anyone could like that leveling system.

[Shivahn]

Oh my gods, yes.

Oblivion is amazing once you threw in a few of the cooler mods. But the standard release is... eh. I have no idea how anyone could like that leveling system.

Because it's fun to be a well rounded character who gets repeatedly one shotted by the spider daedra who are about ten levels too strong for you.

[EmptySet]

And at least they'll have good VA this time round.

Hopefully

Yeah, you'll be able to really hear the loathing in people's voices when they talk about how much they dislike mud snowcrabs.


Also, the scaling system in Oblivion was ridiculous. I'm pretty sure Bethesda realise that, though, and it won't be quite so bad in the next game.

[guale]

Oh my gods, yes.

Oblivion is amazing once you threw in a few of the cooler mods. But the standard release is... eh. I have no idea how anyone could like that leveling system.

Because it's fun to be a well rounded character who gets repeatedly one shotted by the spider daedra who are about ten levels too strong for you.

What's really fun is to be that character, get one shotted a few times, then figure out some amazing new strategy, take out the Spider Deadra without a scratch then go get his treasure.

[Levi]

NONONO! I'm not done with Oblivion yet! I dunno if I'll finish it before Skyrim comes out or not. Actually, I guess I will, since I'll have all summer. Yay! Something new to play when I'm done with Oblivion!

Also, that rock dragon is the cat's pajamas. I have been wanting one of those to be in some commercial work since I was like five. Earth dragons that actually spit out earth!

[Shivahn]

Oh my gods, yes.

Oblivion is amazing once you threw in a few of the cooler mods. But the standard release is... eh. I have no idea how anyone could like that leveling system.

Because it's fun to be a well rounded character who gets repeatedly one shotted by the spider daedra who are about ten levels too strong for you.

What's really fun is to be that character, get one shotted a few times, then figure out some amazing new strategy, take out the Spider Deadra without a scratch then go get his treasure.

There is no treasure. They spawn as random enemies near gates.

And there is no strategy. Your skills are too low to deal proper damage, you can't cast powerful spells. In the process of becoming a jack of new trades, you've become worse than NPCs at everything. The best you can do is turn invisible and run away.

True story.

[Vaniver]

I did hear lots of people say the first mission was impossible after a few levels, but I guess it's good I did that one first (and shortly thereafter deviated from the story for 100 or so hours... <_<)

Yeah, if you do it first the guards are actually able to help (i.e. almost complete it themselves), and you can progress reasonably. If you wait, the guards get chewed alive and it's pretty dang tough.

I abandoned my first Oblivion char because of the monster leveling, and because the treasure was allocated so poorly. I spent most of my time closing gates (i.e. getting enchantments) and exploring Ayleid ruins (i.e. getting... those stones and not much else), and then realized I was woefully undergeared and I ought to fight some bandits. Who generally killed me, because they had comparable stats and better gear. Other chars did better, for various reasons.

So, I really enjoy the end of the trailer- I wonder if the music is going to be more operatic (or at least more vocal) this time around? Checking out the Oblivion Trailer, I also note that their trailers have gotten a lot better in 4 years. The Morrowind Trailer, while I love the theme music, isn't that good either.