The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (9 Viewers)
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OP
One of the common complaints leveled at Bethesda’s 2006 epic fantasy RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was the repetitiveness of the generic Western European environments and the lack of the bizarre, alien denizens and cultures that helped to make its predecessor, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, so popular.
With the recent announcement of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, adventurers and heroes of Tamriel will be glad to hear that Skyrim’s design will hearken back to the strangeness of Morrowind’s setting of Vvardenfell. In an interview with the Official Xbox 360 Magazine UK, game director and executive producer Todd Howard acknowledges that Oblivion was designed to be more “refined” and “welcoming,” in the vein of the first two Elder Scrolls games, Arena and Daggerfall. However, Howard goes on to say that “With Skyrim, we’re trying to bring some of that back and walk the line between Morrowind and Oblivion.”
Other features discussed in the interview include the ability for players to “stare at a fork, or an apple, and then look up and see a mountain, and you can then run to the top of that mountain,” Radiant AI for the citizens of Skyrim, which apparently grants them some more independent thought, and a Radiant Storytelling system which tracks a player’s decisions and alters options in the game. The example given by OXM writer Edwin Evans-Thirlwell of a dropped axe being returned to the player by a merchant friend and potential quest-giver sounds impressively dynamic. Oh, and if you kill the merchant, apparently you can still get his quests, but they’ll come from someone else, like his bereaved wife. You sick, sick person.
With the recent announcement of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, adventurers and heroes of Tamriel will be glad to hear that Skyrim’s design will hearken back to the strangeness of Morrowind’s setting of Vvardenfell. In an interview with the Official Xbox 360 Magazine UK, game director and executive producer Todd Howard acknowledges that Oblivion was designed to be more “refined” and “welcoming,” in the vein of the first two Elder Scrolls games, Arena and Daggerfall. However, Howard goes on to say that “With Skyrim, we’re trying to bring some of that back and walk the line between Morrowind and Oblivion.”
Other features discussed in the interview include the ability for players to “stare at a fork, or an apple, and then look up and see a mountain, and you can then run to the top of that mountain,” Radiant AI for the citizens of Skyrim, which apparently grants them some more independent thought, and a Radiant Storytelling system which tracks a player’s decisions and alters options in the game. The example given by OXM writer Edwin Evans-Thirlwell of a dropped axe being returned to the player by a merchant friend and potential quest-giver sounds impressively dynamic. Oh, and if you kill the merchant, apparently you can still get his quests, but they’ll come from someone else, like his bereaved wife. You sick, sick person.
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Yo, some new stuff dropped today, check it out here, and six new screenshots...
http://skyrimguild.com/skyrim-info-explosion-summary/
http://skyrimguild.com/skyrim-info-explosion-summary/
OP
Bethesda Softworks has stated that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was, at one point, going to be developed for next generation consoles; inevitably meaning that the RPG could have indeed been released on the PS4 and Xbox 720.
Todd Howard, game director on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has confirmed that the game was going to be developed for the next console cycle, but those plans were scrapped when the team realized how much they could still do on the current generation of consoles. In an interview with GTTV, he was asked about the immensely improved graphics of the game and how they came about, to which he replied:
When we do an Elder Scrolls, we like to start over, we actually considered, well, maybe we should wait for the next console cycle. But we felt, coming off of Fallout 3, we had this laundry list of things that we knew we could still do on the hardware.
Howard continued:
We pretty much rewrote all the major systems and we find that the amount of detail we’re able to put on the screen now, it’s pretty amazing, more so than we could ever do with Oblivion or Fallout 3.
The fact that Bethesda were considering releasing this game for the next generation of consoles may, at least by a long shot, suggest that a PS4 and Xbox 720 are indeed in development. So, we may not even see a Fallout 4 on the current generation of consoles if that’s the case.
http://n4g.com/news/750870/skyrim-could-have-released-for-the-ps4-xbox-720
Todd Howard, game director on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has confirmed that the game was going to be developed for the next console cycle, but those plans were scrapped when the team realized how much they could still do on the current generation of consoles. In an interview with GTTV, he was asked about the immensely improved graphics of the game and how they came about, to which he replied:
When we do an Elder Scrolls, we like to start over, we actually considered, well, maybe we should wait for the next console cycle. But we felt, coming off of Fallout 3, we had this laundry list of things that we knew we could still do on the hardware.
Howard continued:
We pretty much rewrote all the major systems and we find that the amount of detail we’re able to put on the screen now, it’s pretty amazing, more so than we could ever do with Oblivion or Fallout 3.
The fact that Bethesda were considering releasing this game for the next generation of consoles may, at least by a long shot, suggest that a PS4 and Xbox 720 are indeed in development. So, we may not even see a Fallout 4 on the current generation of consoles if that’s the case.
http://n4g.com/news/750870/skyrim-could-have-released-for-the-ps4-xbox-720
OP
Todd Howard Spills All on Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s Game World
Written Friday, April 22, 2011 By Dan Webb
Oblivion may have boasted a large game world, but in that large game world, there was a lot of nothing. Todd Howard, Bethesda Game Studios’ Game Director, has already said that Skyrim will boast 5 cities and that the world is “about the same size as Oblivion,” but what about the rest of it?
“If you were to lay down the map, it’s about the same size as Oblivion,” said Howard” “which I don’t know a lot of people can comprehend that that equal X, but the difference with this one, because we have mountains, we found they channel us in different ways.”
“Theoretically they create less space, but they create more time... you can’t just cut across it, so it ends up feeling bigger,” Howard noted. “If I was to go from here to there and there’s a mountain chain, I know... it tends to get harder if you go up in elevation. So these ice wraiths, these crystal serpent things or those trolls, they’re up there, so you might be like... I’m not going to go through the mountain, I’m going to go this way.”
It’s not just snowy mountains though, far from it, Howard said you can expect a huge variation in environments.
“As far as variation of environments, the one you saw was like our pine forest and our mountains. We have a big grassy tundra, we have a fall forest – there’s some screenshots of that out – we have a volcanic tundra, we have a big glacial area to the north, it’s really icy.”
“Yeah, we have about 6 or 7 and we wanted to make them very different, whereas in Oblivion or even Fallout 3, there are differences, but they’re more subtle.”
Did someone mention cities? Yes, but what about the rest of the world? Are there any towns? In short, yes. In long...
“There are 5, what we call, big cities, and they’re all really, really unique. There’s a couple of shots of them [in the trailer]. Those 5 are really unique,” Howard continued. “Skyrim is broken into 9 holds – a hold is like a county and each county is governed by a Jarl, who’s like a King of that county. 5 of those holds are kind of bigger – they have big cities – while the other 4 have smaller, what we would call, like a town. A little bigger than [what we saw in the demo] but like that. So towns, we have 8 or 9 of those.”
So, to recap, that’s 6 or 7 environment types; 9 counties; 5 big cities; 8 or 9 towns... Okay then, so it’s bloody big!
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is scheduled for a 11th November 2011 release. Been living under a rock this week? Then check out our detailed preview, some new screens, Todd Howard on the new engine & class streamlining, news on whether the horses will make the cut and news on bloody mammoths!!
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/...-on-Elder-Scrolls-V--Skyrim’s-Game-World.html
Written Friday, April 22, 2011 By Dan Webb
Oblivion may have boasted a large game world, but in that large game world, there was a lot of nothing. Todd Howard, Bethesda Game Studios’ Game Director, has already said that Skyrim will boast 5 cities and that the world is “about the same size as Oblivion,” but what about the rest of it?
“If you were to lay down the map, it’s about the same size as Oblivion,” said Howard” “which I don’t know a lot of people can comprehend that that equal X, but the difference with this one, because we have mountains, we found they channel us in different ways.”
“Theoretically they create less space, but they create more time... you can’t just cut across it, so it ends up feeling bigger,” Howard noted. “If I was to go from here to there and there’s a mountain chain, I know... it tends to get harder if you go up in elevation. So these ice wraiths, these crystal serpent things or those trolls, they’re up there, so you might be like... I’m not going to go through the mountain, I’m going to go this way.”
It’s not just snowy mountains though, far from it, Howard said you can expect a huge variation in environments.
“As far as variation of environments, the one you saw was like our pine forest and our mountains. We have a big grassy tundra, we have a fall forest – there’s some screenshots of that out – we have a volcanic tundra, we have a big glacial area to the north, it’s really icy.”
“Yeah, we have about 6 or 7 and we wanted to make them very different, whereas in Oblivion or even Fallout 3, there are differences, but they’re more subtle.”
Did someone mention cities? Yes, but what about the rest of the world? Are there any towns? In short, yes. In long...
“There are 5, what we call, big cities, and they’re all really, really unique. There’s a couple of shots of them [in the trailer]. Those 5 are really unique,” Howard continued. “Skyrim is broken into 9 holds – a hold is like a county and each county is governed by a Jarl, who’s like a King of that county. 5 of those holds are kind of bigger – they have big cities – while the other 4 have smaller, what we would call, like a town. A little bigger than [what we saw in the demo] but like that. So towns, we have 8 or 9 of those.”
So, to recap, that’s 6 or 7 environment types; 9 counties; 5 big cities; 8 or 9 towns... Okay then, so it’s bloody big!
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is scheduled for a 11th November 2011 release. Been living under a rock this week? Then check out our detailed preview, some new screens, Todd Howard on the new engine & class streamlining, news on whether the horses will make the cut and news on bloody mammoths!!
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/...-on-Elder-Scrolls-V--Skyrim’s-Game-World.html
OP
(To be honest, this Dan Webb guy actually is not a very good writer.)
Bethesda: Skyrim Will Have Mammoths; Will Show at E3
Written Thursday, April 21, 2011 By Dan Webb
Creating a living and breathing world is something that’s become a possibility in this day and age of games and as gamers, we expect things like an ecology now – or even the illusion of one – especially after Rockstar did such a fantastic job with Red Dead Redemption. Naturally, the topic of Skyrim’s ecology was brought up last week at Bethesda’s BFG Showcase and Todd Howard, Bethesda Game Studios’ Game Director, said that there will be one and that they have a surprise to show at E3.
“Some of our designers, we have a couple of them that are just in charge of what we call world interaction... or random things,” said Howard.
“This guy setup just making wolves go out in hunting packs, so we have these wolves that go out to hunt and if they kill something... we have mammoths, which you’ll see at E3, and they can hunt a mammoth and kill it, and then they’ll hang out by it for a while,” he continued.
“It’s like their kill... and then they’ll go back on their route. I mean, like honestly, something like that takes 15 minutes for our designers.”
“It’s actually something we didn’t realise people wanted... we give people bows, you give them deers, they want to hunt. We didn’t realise that initially, so we’re trying to add that. It’s a common question... we’re trying to add more.”
An ecology? Mammoths? It’s all sounding too good to be true now... I wonder whether they’ll be woolly... I mean, they must be, Skyrim looks a little chilly at the best of times!
Skyrim has been a hot topic this week, so if you’ve missed out, check out our detailed preview, some new screens, Todd Howard on the new engine & class streamlining and news on whether the horses will make the cut.
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/...yrim-Will-Have-Mammoths;-Will-Show-at-E3.html
Bethesda: Skyrim Will Have Mammoths; Will Show at E3
Written Thursday, April 21, 2011 By Dan Webb
Creating a living and breathing world is something that’s become a possibility in this day and age of games and as gamers, we expect things like an ecology now – or even the illusion of one – especially after Rockstar did such a fantastic job with Red Dead Redemption. Naturally, the topic of Skyrim’s ecology was brought up last week at Bethesda’s BFG Showcase and Todd Howard, Bethesda Game Studios’ Game Director, said that there will be one and that they have a surprise to show at E3.
“Some of our designers, we have a couple of them that are just in charge of what we call world interaction... or random things,” said Howard.
“This guy setup just making wolves go out in hunting packs, so we have these wolves that go out to hunt and if they kill something... we have mammoths, which you’ll see at E3, and they can hunt a mammoth and kill it, and then they’ll hang out by it for a while,” he continued.
“It’s like their kill... and then they’ll go back on their route. I mean, like honestly, something like that takes 15 minutes for our designers.”
“It’s actually something we didn’t realise people wanted... we give people bows, you give them deers, they want to hunt. We didn’t realise that initially, so we’re trying to add that. It’s a common question... we’re trying to add more.”
An ecology? Mammoths? It’s all sounding too good to be true now... I wonder whether they’ll be woolly... I mean, they must be, Skyrim looks a little chilly at the best of times!
Skyrim has been a hot topic this week, so if you’ve missed out, check out our detailed preview, some new screens, Todd Howard on the new engine & class streamlining and news on whether the horses will make the cut.
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/...yrim-Will-Have-Mammoths;-Will-Show-at-E3.html
OP
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim New Details Revealed: Levelling, World Size And More
Posted in News on 20th April, 2011 by Rashid Sayed
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is shaping up to be a very solid game with the level of anticipation increasing as we approach the game’s release in November. Today we bring you a number of new details on the gameplay, the visuals, the shout system and more below.
There has been a lot of talk about how the visuals will churn out on the three platforms with many claiming that the PC version will have the best visuals. But the studio is aiming to minimize visual differences between consoles and PC.
Bethesda’s game director Todd Howard says:
“All of our art’s really high-res. There are little things we do with all of our games on PC and the PC texture sizes are going to be as big as you can make them and you can pump the resolution up obviously.”
“But most of that… What we want at the end of the day is that the game looks the same. The benefit you get is when you’re playing a PC game you’re playing this far away [demonstrates a short distance], when you’re at home on your console you’re usually sitting about six feet away so the game looks the same.”
He also talks about the players ability to shout in the game:
“Originally we allowed you to combine shouts but was really confusing so now the game does it for you. There’s about 2 dozen in the game, though there are three words each for these so there’s 60-plus words to collect.”
He also talks in depth about the skill system and how he want it to move away from excel spread sheets like feel:
“Now, every skill affects your levelling. Skill has become like our XP. The higher the skill, the more it pushes you to levelling so you want to use your higher skills and the nice thing is if you’re playing the game for a while.”
“With the skill tree, I wanted to get away from Excel-like spread sheets so I had this idea that if you look to your right, over your shoulder, you’d see your weapons, and then you’d look to the left and see your magic and then you look to the starts to see who I am and that was the genesis of it. The previous Elder Scroll games have always had birth signs and we liked all that stuff so it’s like it’s all coming together. Then one of our artists, Mark Tier, knocked it out the park visually.”
He then talks about the miscellaneous quests that the player will undertake in the game:
“With things that we like to call miscellaneous quests where you go into a town, you want to make friends it’ll generate a little quest that seems simple and it’ll go through the radiant story system. With a bigger quest, we may not know who it’ll choose. We want someone your enemies with and we don’t know why – who’s the closest person that hates the player, let’s make them fill in that role.”
Apparently there will be no level cap and the levelling will be faster:
“There’s no level cap. There’s probably some mathematical level cap but like Oblivion it kind of just works itself out naturally. We do balance this game – the levelling is faster. In Oblivion and Fallout we’ve kind of seen them as 1-25 games where as this 1-50.”
“We’ve just sped it up. It won’t take you longer. There are so many perks – and the power comes from these perks – so we wanted to get it going faster. The more you play, though, the more it slows down. I’d guess the mathematical cap is about 70.”
“The levelling system is very much like Fallout 3’s We pushed it too much in Oblivion – it was like a rollercoaster of pain because the world levelled faster than you. There’s a few tweaks as we want to telegraph to the play that they’re approaching a tough area, like going up the mountains. We’d like to do more than that.”
The world of Skrim will be as big as Oblivion:
“The world is about the same size as Oblivion but the difference is because we have mountains they channel us in different ways. They create less space but they take more time to get across because you can’t just cut across them so it ends up feeling bigger.”
“There are five what we call big cities and they’re all really unique. If you’ve seen the trailer you’ll have seen a couple of them in there. On top of that, Skyrim is broken into nine holds, and a hold is like a county and each one is governed.”
We have seen a bit of dragon action in the game and there will be more:
“The system can time how long it’s been since you last saw a dragon, what your level is and whether it’s time to bring one in. There are, obviously, specific ones as well. Also, all the dragons talk as when they’re breathing fire, they’re speaking. And there are some that speak in English as well. But I don’t want to spoil it anymore than that.”
He also talks about a bug in Oblivion and how they are making sure that such game breaking bugs wont be in Skyrim:
“There’s actually a bug in Oblivion where there’s this one door that has an animation timer and depending on when you open it if you then play for 500 hours that door will no longer open and that breaks the game. How do you plan for that? We found the best way is to test for things, though, so we try and take every variable and let it run for 500 hours.”
He then talks about the Gamebryo Engine:
“We used Gamebryo for a long time, it’s not an engine but a renderer, but with Fallout 3 and Oblivion we were doing a lot of our graphics work but not all of it. Now we do all of it. The freedom that allows us is when we want to change something it happens like that.”
We are very excited about Elder Scrolls V and what it brings to the table later this year. Stay tuned with GamingBolt for more news and updates.
http://gamingbolt.com/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-new-details-revealed-levelling-world-size-and-more
Posted in News on 20th April, 2011 by Rashid Sayed
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is shaping up to be a very solid game with the level of anticipation increasing as we approach the game’s release in November. Today we bring you a number of new details on the gameplay, the visuals, the shout system and more below.
There has been a lot of talk about how the visuals will churn out on the three platforms with many claiming that the PC version will have the best visuals. But the studio is aiming to minimize visual differences between consoles and PC.
Bethesda’s game director Todd Howard says:
“All of our art’s really high-res. There are little things we do with all of our games on PC and the PC texture sizes are going to be as big as you can make them and you can pump the resolution up obviously.”
“But most of that… What we want at the end of the day is that the game looks the same. The benefit you get is when you’re playing a PC game you’re playing this far away [demonstrates a short distance], when you’re at home on your console you’re usually sitting about six feet away so the game looks the same.”
He also talks about the players ability to shout in the game:
“Originally we allowed you to combine shouts but was really confusing so now the game does it for you. There’s about 2 dozen in the game, though there are three words each for these so there’s 60-plus words to collect.”
He also talks in depth about the skill system and how he want it to move away from excel spread sheets like feel:
“Now, every skill affects your levelling. Skill has become like our XP. The higher the skill, the more it pushes you to levelling so you want to use your higher skills and the nice thing is if you’re playing the game for a while.”
“With the skill tree, I wanted to get away from Excel-like spread sheets so I had this idea that if you look to your right, over your shoulder, you’d see your weapons, and then you’d look to the left and see your magic and then you look to the starts to see who I am and that was the genesis of it. The previous Elder Scroll games have always had birth signs and we liked all that stuff so it’s like it’s all coming together. Then one of our artists, Mark Tier, knocked it out the park visually.”
He then talks about the miscellaneous quests that the player will undertake in the game:
“With things that we like to call miscellaneous quests where you go into a town, you want to make friends it’ll generate a little quest that seems simple and it’ll go through the radiant story system. With a bigger quest, we may not know who it’ll choose. We want someone your enemies with and we don’t know why – who’s the closest person that hates the player, let’s make them fill in that role.”
Apparently there will be no level cap and the levelling will be faster:
“There’s no level cap. There’s probably some mathematical level cap but like Oblivion it kind of just works itself out naturally. We do balance this game – the levelling is faster. In Oblivion and Fallout we’ve kind of seen them as 1-25 games where as this 1-50.”
“We’ve just sped it up. It won’t take you longer. There are so many perks – and the power comes from these perks – so we wanted to get it going faster. The more you play, though, the more it slows down. I’d guess the mathematical cap is about 70.”
“The levelling system is very much like Fallout 3’s We pushed it too much in Oblivion – it was like a rollercoaster of pain because the world levelled faster than you. There’s a few tweaks as we want to telegraph to the play that they’re approaching a tough area, like going up the mountains. We’d like to do more than that.”
The world of Skrim will be as big as Oblivion:
“The world is about the same size as Oblivion but the difference is because we have mountains they channel us in different ways. They create less space but they take more time to get across because you can’t just cut across them so it ends up feeling bigger.”
“There are five what we call big cities and they’re all really unique. If you’ve seen the trailer you’ll have seen a couple of them in there. On top of that, Skyrim is broken into nine holds, and a hold is like a county and each one is governed.”
We have seen a bit of dragon action in the game and there will be more:
“The system can time how long it’s been since you last saw a dragon, what your level is and whether it’s time to bring one in. There are, obviously, specific ones as well. Also, all the dragons talk as when they’re breathing fire, they’re speaking. And there are some that speak in English as well. But I don’t want to spoil it anymore than that.”
He also talks about a bug in Oblivion and how they are making sure that such game breaking bugs wont be in Skyrim:
“There’s actually a bug in Oblivion where there’s this one door that has an animation timer and depending on when you open it if you then play for 500 hours that door will no longer open and that breaks the game. How do you plan for that? We found the best way is to test for things, though, so we try and take every variable and let it run for 500 hours.”
He then talks about the Gamebryo Engine:
“We used Gamebryo for a long time, it’s not an engine but a renderer, but with Fallout 3 and Oblivion we were doing a lot of our graphics work but not all of it. Now we do all of it. The freedom that allows us is when we want to change something it happens like that.”
We are very excited about Elder Scrolls V and what it brings to the table later this year. Stay tuned with GamingBolt for more news and updates.
http://gamingbolt.com/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-new-details-revealed-levelling-world-size-and-more
OP
Couple more Skyrim details:
An intrepid Bethesda forum-goer has posted a summary of a Skyrim preview from German magazine PC Games. Some of the details are even new.
The reported details are minor, but any Skyrim news is good news, right?
The map is 3D, but you can't make notes on it
Some dragons are friendly, at least to the point of holding conversations with the player
Some level of economic simulation is in, with the prices of goods reflecting the state of the world
Blowing wind will whip up the surface of bodies of water
Lockpicking: still a minigame
In addition to the five major cities, there will be eight or nine smaller settlements to visit
You can buy houses again
Children will appear in some form in-game
The report originally had a tidbit about planned Facebook integration, which was shot down by Bethesda marketing guy Pete Hines. Hines did not make any move to deny the rest of the report, so my guess for now is that it's legit. It's legit, see below.
No huge surprises here, though I'm curious how Bethesda is approaching the problem posed by the presence of children in the go-anywhere, do-anything world of The Elder Scrolls. If it were me, I'd probably go with "avenging god immediately lightning bolts your face off" as a solution to anyone who harms a child.
We've reached out to Bethesda for comment and will update this story with any new information. A Bethesda spokesperson has confirmed that the information is legit. Fans rejoice! I know you were all dying to know about lockpicking.
An intrepid Bethesda forum-goer has posted a summary of a Skyrim preview from German magazine PC Games. Some of the details are even new.
The reported details are minor, but any Skyrim news is good news, right?
The map is 3D, but you can't make notes on it
Some dragons are friendly, at least to the point of holding conversations with the player
Some level of economic simulation is in, with the prices of goods reflecting the state of the world
Blowing wind will whip up the surface of bodies of water
Lockpicking: still a minigame
In addition to the five major cities, there will be eight or nine smaller settlements to visit
You can buy houses again
Children will appear in some form in-game
The report originally had a tidbit about planned Facebook integration, which was shot down by Bethesda marketing guy Pete Hines. Hines did not make any move to deny the rest of the report, so my guess for now is that it's legit. It's legit, see below.
No huge surprises here, though I'm curious how Bethesda is approaching the problem posed by the presence of children in the go-anywhere, do-anything world of The Elder Scrolls. If it were me, I'd probably go with "avenging god immediately lightning bolts your face off" as a solution to anyone who harms a child.
We've reached out to Bethesda for comment and will update this story with any new information. A Bethesda spokesperson has confirmed that the information is legit. Fans rejoice! I know you were all dying to know about lockpicking.
OP
New screenshots from PC Magazine here:
http://www.gamenyusu.com/component/...crolls-v-skyrim-new-images-from-pc-gamer.html
http://www.gamenyusu.com/component/...crolls-v-skyrim-new-images-from-pc-gamer.html