For the -nth Skyrim-related thread, let me ask you this...

[IamLEAM1983]

If you're familiar with the less-than-licit sources of information regarding the finished product, have any of them affected your interest in the game?

Just to be clear, I haven't seen any unauthorized info and I'm not prepared to give out links concerning where that info is available for perusal. I know where it is, I know it exists, but I'm not prepared to dig any deeper. I've got my pre-order waiting and, having buddies in the industry, I can respect Bethsoft's desire to try and keep everything as tight-lipped as possible.

That said; if you *have* seen or heard some of the leaks on YouTube (not unavailable) or elsewhere, have any of them affected your eagerness to play the game?

I have to say that from as far back as the Quakecon demo, I felt that the combat system was a little too stiff for my liking. It replicated a lot of the problems Oblivion's combat had, in that it was practically impossible to comfortably face more than one foe at a time. It's generally easier to juke around with a mouse and keyboard, but gamepad users are probably going to *****, if they haven't gotten used to Oblivion's or the last two Fallouts' control schemes.

I might be mistaken, but it also seems as though there's a single PC voice pack per gender. I can understand why they'd streamline the sound design and trim some of the fat, but I'll be a little saddened by the fact that my Argonian archer is going to have the same voice as my Imperial warrior.

In any case, my pre-order remains in place and I'm counting down in feverish anticipation. How about you?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

The radiant quest system is, surprise surprise, allegedly not that great. Who would have thought?

Absolutely not surprised. I'm fairly sure it involves the game picking a location out of a handful of presets, a few quest conditions out of a limited handful of available scenarios and, in some cases, a McGuffin that repeats often enough. Like the Golden Claw for the similarly-titled mission, but with an arbitrarily different puzzle and puzzle piece.

Here's to hoping that some of the DLC that's bound to follow will fix that issue. It just seems like it's some sort of padding mechanism they've put in place on the off chance that absolute die-hard fans obsessed with hundred-percenting the game never actually reach the point where no more content is available.

Which is rather silly, seeing as I'm sure Skyrim comes with a level cap.

 

[OpticalJunction]

I've purposely avoided the official information and leaks and what not, I want the game to be a complete surprise.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

About the voice thing, to my understanding you choose from like 6 voices when you make your character. So your Argonian will only sound like your Imperial if you want him to.

Anyhow, my pre-order is in place and its staying but heres a few things:

1) The graphics look bad. Like, really bad. Muddy and just generally not nice to look at. For a game with a lot of snow, the snow sure looks shitty, and it doesnt look like we will be getting any footprints.

2) Melee combat looks incredibly clumsy.

3) The radiant quest system is, surprise surprise, allegedly not that great. Who would have thought.

Pre-order also in place. My thoughts.

1. Graphics look nice. The consoles versions are apparently not as good as PC (kind of obvious)

2. Looks quite similar to Oblivion, with multiple weapons multiple spells and finishers. Since I liked Oblivions combat well...thats sprinkling awesome on top of more awesome.

3. Havent heard anything

Despite all of the problems people talk about. I wont notice them. I noticed the bad voice acting and things in Oblivion for about...20 minutes, then for the other 500 hours I didnt notice it at all. I can block that stuff out, and obivion is still one of my favourite games regardless. If your picky and notice that stuff..well..sucks to be you.

 

[Right Hook]

Honestly I am incredibly excited for this game, got my pre-order and am not really worried about what others are saying at the moment. It feels like people are just trying to find the smallest things to complain about, if this were any other game, would you even have these criticisms? I can tell you right now, it is not going to be perfect, there is no such thing but it will be really amazing, there is almost no denying that at this point.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I personaly have tried to seek info, but not found much that I haven't allready seen, or been able to cross reference sources to explain validity! (Some times you can find the same piece of 'news' copied and pasted on different sites! Does't mean its true!)

I personally like to read as many bad reviews or see as many gripes about something as I can before I buy it! Especially if I know its something I will like anyway! I already know if they just re-released Oblivion with a differen mission set and story line I will like it enough to lose a fair few hours after work and on my time off to warrant the money spent! All I am doing by reading the bad reviews and gripes is managing my expectations for the game, and knowing what is bad before hand!

The fact that when people release gripes about something, they tend to over react anyway, so if you are expecting a particular part or aspect of a game to be really awful, and you get there/use it and you think its actually not that bad, then you enjoy the whole experience alot more.

My method also gives me a heads up on certain pitfalls of a game too, eg. Knowing not to start the final mission on Fallout 3, or to keep playing FFXIII until you get to the plains, (Although that bit only felt good as the rest of the game was so linear and restricting!! The plains on their own I didn't feel saved the game as a whole...)

The only problem with this method however is when you find they wern't exaggerating, and you find a part of a game incredibly bad or annoying! Not only do you get the regular feeling of being cheated, or the spoiled-gameplay rot, but you also get self anger for not believing the hype in the first place!

The most recent example of all this I have for Skyrim is the aforementioned gripe about graphics in this thread. This is not the first niggle I have heard about Skyrims graphics. I'm not sure what the people who write the comments expect, but I personally play alot of older games on my Laptop (As it is old and shitty itself.) Recently I bought and played Neverwinter nights, and later or, KOTOR2. I enjoyed both games immensely, and still get hours of fun from them playing with different characters. Both of them have awful bland graphics if you compare them to modern games, however I know they were good at the time for this size of game. In comparison I also like some games just for the graphics/realism, eg Farcry 2, which I love mostly for feeling like I am in Africa! From the comments I have heard I am not expecting Skyrim to be on Farcry's standards, and therefore won't be dissapointed, however I also know that I will get the same immersion from it that I did with NWN and KOTOR2 with vastly improved graphics, so I will be impressed!

Insight/rant/lecture over!

Looking forward now to losing plenty of time in Skyrim, excentuated by bad reviews, and angry rants! Thank you internets!

 

[Alphonse_Lamperouge]

i watched part of 3 hours of game play that was leaked (couldn't resist) and overall im pretty impressed. its not the second coming of Jesus, as the majority of the gaming community seems to think. it has flaws, like the ai and pathfinding are rather poor (a Mammoth isnt quite so intimidating when its caught on a rock/tree) and the combat lacks weight. but the storytelling and setting was way above and beyond what i was expecting. the world looks beautiful, maybe not Crysis beautiful, but enough that crossing a ridge and surveying a valley is breathtaking. for any game, that is quite an achievement. and the RPG leveling seem great, im sure i will play through many many characters. so pumped for the 11th!

 

[CobraX]

I saw something about a cool new little bit in the game that is not supposed to be public knowledge yet that looks super cool.

My only worries with the game are:

1)I really hope it's well written as writing and dialogue tends to be hit or miss with Bethesda

2)Melee Combat looks stiff and awkward (Thank god I play a Archery and Daggers for stealth kills type of character, so that will barely affect me)

3)I hope the game world is at least as big as Oblivion`s, if not bigger. As of right now I don`t believe the`ve said how big Skyrim is gonna be.

 

[Zeh Don]

A few things I can note:

1. The graphics on the console version are more akin to Fallout 3.
The textures are fairly low resolution - most likely to aid in the steaming of the world - and it lacks a lot of the finer details. The PC version, however, is actually quite crisp. It's not the best looking game ever made, but it's a noticeable improvement from Oblivion and even Fallout 3, which I thought looked terrible on consoles and great on the PC.
It's worth noting that Skyrim also has a larger number of subtle effects in play that elevate the experience as opposed to simply bumping up the texture resolution. The snow is a good example. The real water ripples are another. The wafts of mist over mountain peaks is really quite breathtaking. Something else that's worth noting is that the game is simply drawing more on screen. Longer draw distance, more NPCs, more everything. Again, this isn't cutting edge tech, but it's still nice.

2. The voice acting is par for the course.
It's nothing amazing; again, more akin to Fallout 3 than Oblivion. A little less cheese, a little more grit. The writing is good, but nothing amazing. The voices are also quite varied, though it doesn't take too long before they begin to repeat. A step up from Oblivion, I'd say.

3. Quests are more of the same.
For all their talk of better, bigger, more - from what I've seen - the quests are more of the same. Oblivion has some really excellent quests, but it also had a metric fuck tonne of shit ones that were little more than fetch quests. It's hard to tell from what I've seen which ones are Radiant and which ones aren't, but the game does seem to send you to more places than Oblivion did.
In Oblivion, I hated exploring - because every time I found something cool, I knew I was fucking up a quest that I'd have to do later. This doesn't appear to be the case in Skyrim, or at least it has a better tolerance for it. You can still jump into quests half way through, but it seems to happen a lot less.
On a side note here, the finishing moves are also pretty rare; once or twice a dungeon. This isn't like VATS, where you'll be watching it more often than not. I hope the modding guys add the option to either keep it first person, or take them out though. They're nice - but jumping to a third person camera is jarring as FUCK.

Overall, I'd say Skyrim is less of a jump than we've seen previously - say, Morrowind to Oblivion - and more what people probably wanted Oblivion to be in the first place. Everything seems hell bent on making sure you're immersed and enjoying yourself at all times.

The only thing that's annoying me is that most of the streams up are Xbox 360 versions; I haven't seen a real, solid, in depth look at the PC version, just a five minute vid here and a 30 second clip there. It's definitely, noticeably better than the console versions - but I want to see the UI in use, how many options we have; the shit that makes a PC version a PC version.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

1) The graphics look bad. Like, really bad. Muddy and just generally not nice to look at. For a game with a lot of snow, the snow sure looks shitty, and it doesnt look like we will be getting any footprints.

I'm telling you right now that it's mostly YouTube's and other video hosting sites faults.

There are some areas with weird textures, but we've seen the game and it looks as good as a game can get nowadays.

OT: I've actually been more pumped with all the stuff I've seen.

 

[DalekJaas]

I might be mistaken, but it also seems as though there's a single PC voice pack per gender. I can understand why they'd streamline the sound design and trim some of the fat, but I'll be a little saddened by the fact that my Argonian archer is going to have the same voice as my Imperial warrior.

In the sound trailer it says there are 70 different voice actors for this game which means it is highly unlikely imperials and argonians will sound the same

 

[DalekJaas]

Can someone provide some links to all this leaked footage everyone is talking about so the rest of us can actually see it?

 

[rvbnut]

Once you start playing the game rather than watching videos at poor res, you will be immersed and you will not care about the graphics. The level of detail in the sutble things like snow, rippling water etc is amazing and will acheive what every game should acheive, be immersive.

OT: I've been more excited and eager to play Skyrim with everything that has come out about it.

 

[BLAHwhatever]

Well, you know, that Preview where they revived the chicken? They really had me there.
That was really the point when I said. This is going to be amazing. Nothing will stop me from getting this game. And where I stopped watching previews so I wont spoil too much of the game for me.

Still brutally hyped, can't wait. giev nao

 

[IamLEAM1983]

i watched part of 3 hours of game play that was leaked (couldn't resist) and overall im pretty impressed. its not the second coming of Jesus, as the majority of the gaming community seems to think. it has flaws, like the ai and pathfinding are rather poor (a Mammoth isnt quite so intimidating when its caught on a rock/tree) and the combat lacks weight. but the storytelling and setting was way above and beyond what i was expecting. the world looks beautiful, maybe not Crysis beautiful, but enough that crossing a ridge and surveying a valley is breathtaking. for any game, that is quite an achievement. and the RPG leveling seem great, im sure i will play through many many characters. so pumped for the 11th!

This is one of the reasons why I felt I was walking on eggshells while writing the OP for this thread. I've watched that hefty slice of video material myself and I didn't want to directly reference it - but yes. I noticed those same problems. Janky AI, weird pathfinding, etc.

Overall, what I noticed was that the person playing was either poor at the game or extremely hesitant. I know some people aren't great at navigation (I'm not), but being completely unable to trust the compass for a tagged objective? That's harsh, seriously.

Oh, and did I hallucinate or can you activate two quests at once, now?

As for the character voices, I know they recorded 70 people or so for the game's inhabitants, but if this is like any other Elder Scrolls game, there's a designated Imperial voice actor for the player character; a designated female, a designated male *Nord* and a female, so on and so forth. Granted, the three hours I've seen didn't include character creation, but I would've liked to see that "Voice" slider someone above me mentioned.

Also, I'm curious. One of the uploads involved twenty minutes from the first hour. Has anyone seen the Weight slider, and how does it seem to affect your character? I'm assuming mods will come to the rescue, but I'd like my vanilla Skyrim to have Orcs with beer bellies.

That's just me.

Can someone provide some links to all this leaked footage everyone is talking about so the rest of us can actually see it?

I'd love to, but as the first message explains, we're working off leaked material, and Bethsoft's taken a pretty draconian stance (ba-dum-tish!) on unauthorized material leaking out before the release date.

My one and only piece of advice would be to look around public torrent trackers. No links shall be given, because terms of use and whatnot. Pretty sure I've already said too much.

*slinks away on the Pink Panther theme*

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Ignore this, delete it if at all possible.

 

[Adultism]

Nope, game looks amazing, I will be grabbing it for the PC