THE ELDER SCROLLS V ANNOUNCED (OFFICIALY)

[Ninjaman09]

Oh man hope it gets delivered soon.

Gonna replay Oblivion this weekend probably. Trying Oblivion XP for the first time, other than that just the standard unofficial bugfix patch and Darn UI.

[Sean_W]

Yeah, Just started play Oblivion again and used AA Super Sampling, Ambient Occlusion and the game looks really nice. the game doesn't look that old at all.

Forcing AA on works now with HDR and the game still owns.

[proliferazor]

magazine has landed! Not sure about the scans rules here but http://www.thenexusforums.com/index....yrim-gi-scans/ .

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by proliferazor

magazine has landed! Not sure about the scans rules here but http://www.thenexusforums.com/index....yrim-gi-scans/ .

I know they're scans and far from conclusive of what the final product will be but...

doesn't look that much better than Oblivion. I mean, I can see improvement in characters, and likely a much more natural and realistic environment. But definitely still has that "Oblivion" feel and... I dunno... "look" to it, know what I mean?

Maybe that's intentional. Wouldn't really be bad, imo. Just not the graphics mammoth I was hoping it'd be. Guess deep down inside, after the hype we had with Oblivion's graphics when it came out, kinda' was hoping for the same. Guess I was hoping this would dethrone Crysis.

Either way, I thoroughly enjoy Oblivion, love the story, the quests, and the visuals. This is sure to only be better. So likely a purchase for me.

[Viral]

Looks about as good as I was expecting.. it still has to run on the same consoles Oblivion ran on remember. Nice improvements though, many of the similarities with Oblivion come from art direction which is a bit of a given.

[Vanzagar]

This part of it sounds like crap:



Stuff like this sounds good in "theory" but rarely pans out... and it looks like they are bringing back the crappy auto leveling monster garbage....

Hard to tell from the grainy pics but the graphics look quite a bit better to me...

[Vanzagar]

Glad to see they'll be supporting first person view by the look of the pics... I hope they took the pics at a low resolution, the size of the hands and weapons in the viewport looks enormous...

I hope this time they make the NPC's appear more life like then cold, lifeless mannequins...

[Vanzagar]

Originally Posted by Redeemed

Guess I was hoping this would dethrone Crysis.

It should coming out, what, 3 years later... the grainy scans make it hard to see but I think the graphics will look better than Crysis...

[mojoman0]

From kotaku

The Next Elder Scrolls Has New Combat & Levelling

By Luke Plunkett, Jan 7, 2011 10:00 PM
The next Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, will be making some big changes to the way the series handles things like combat and levelling-up.

Firstly, combat: according to a piece in the latest issue of Game Informer, you can now dual-wield weapons in the game. To many it will sound like a cheap take on a Halo/Modern Warfare staple, but where in those shooters it's a part-time indulgence, in Skyrim it forms the cornerstone of your approach to the game, as you can allocate which weapon or tool goes in which hand.

So, for example, you can put a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Or two daggers. Or a staff and a shield. Or a shield and a mace. For magic users, a different spell can be cast from each hand, or for a multiplying effect, the same spell can be thrown from both hands.

Another change to the way Skyrim plays compared to its predecessor, Oblivion, is in how you gain new powers and abilities. This game does entirely away with the concept of class creation, Bethesda's thinking being it's a bit naff asking people to predict how they're going to play a game when they haven't played it yet.

Replacing this, then, is an organic system of attribute growth based on use: the more you do something, the better you get at it. While this has long been a staple of RPG games, even dating back to the Quest for Glory series, but in Skyrim it's not just complementing a class structure, it's replacing it. So you won't be cast in stone as a mage if you use lots of magic, you'll just be some adventurer with a higher magic number in their stats.

You level up according to how you progress your most-used skills. "Raising one skill from 34 to 35 is going to level you faster than raising one from 11 to 12", Bethesda's Todd Howard tells Game Informer. If you stick to what you like/do best, you'll level up quickly. Conversely, if you want to take things slowly, you can raise all or most of your skills, as not focusing on one or two in particular will mean a slower rise through the levels.

One wildly unpopular aspect of Oblivion was the fact basic enemies levelled up alongside you, meaning even the most powerful warriors could sometimes be undone by sewer rats or angry crabs. In Skyrim, though, your opponent's levelling is more like that found in Fallout 3.

Continuing Bethesda's work with Fallout 3, each new level you gain in Skyrim will also give you a perk, which you can apply to give you added bonuses relative to how you want to play the game.

The levelling sounds like an interesting experiment, one I like the sounds of since I always hate choosing an "archetype" in a game before I know how I'm going to play it. The combat also sounds like a welcome piece of customisation for the series, but how well they actually work in the game, we'll just have to wait until we get some time with it!

[Zelda_fan]

*sigh*

from the GI article it sounds like Skyrim is going to be awful.

[K007]

Originally Posted by Vanzagar

It should coming out, what, 3 years later... the grainy scans make it hard to see but I think the graphics will look better than Crysis...

That is not going to happen...unless they are working on the next gen consoles....

[Ancient76]

More info:

Ok, here is my recap of the info, hope it helps. This is not all the info, however.

On leveling:
Totally revamped, no more class selection at the start of the game, every skill you level contributes to your overall level. And each time you level you get extra health plus the ability to get either more health, magicka or stamina.
Each level also brings you perks. Cool abilities I guess like in Fallout 3.
Also, the leveling was moved from 1-25 or something like that to 1-50, but 50 is soft-capped, you just advance really slow after that.

On skills:
Mysticism is gone.
18 skills, down from 21 on Oblivion, and 27 on Morrowind.
Tries to accomodate players who want to specialize in a certain proffesion (like mage or thief), while at the same time giving room for players who like to do plenty of everything. They want to keep a special care so that this feels good, not prone to cheating and organic.

On the story and lore:
200 years after Oblivion. Set in Skyrim, a region north of the imperial city, where the Nords live.
The dragons are returning, as it was prophetized. You are gonna be trying to stop the wicked dragon god. You are a dragonborn, a dragon hunter. Your mentor is one of the last blade, voiced by some old dude from Shutter Island and Minority Report.
Also, there is a civil war, since the king is dead.
Enemies include were-yeti's, giant spider, dragons and other cool creatures.

On combat:
They want to make it more dynamic and tactical. You have to assign each hand with a function I think, either magic, 2 weapons, a weapon and a shield, etc.
You can also waste stamina by sprinting, allowing you to get access to tactical postitions.
Emphasis on really improving the combat this time around.
They are also putting care on how each weapon feel on your hand.

Other:
Third person view has been improved
5 massive cities, more variation in caves and underground stuff.

On quests:
Quests are much more dynamic now.
The quests are now more determined by how you build your chracter, individual actions and overall much more dynamic. Examples provided: If you are more of a magic user, some other mage may approach you who may not have had if you were just a melee character. Or if you killed some dude who owned a store that was gonna give you a quest, his sister would inherit the store, but she may resent you before giving you the quest. Also, if you drop a weapon in the street instead of selling it, it may just dissapear, some kid may get it and give it back to you, which would lead to a series of stuff, or some dudes may fight over who gets it.
Also, it said that the quests you are given would be modified by how you have played (I guess like scaling the quests). For example, the location of a rescue mission would be determined by which location you have visited (it will try to give you a dungeon you haven't been in) and I guess also giving you appropiate enemies to your level.

Recap of info courtesy of ShadowPampers


I can add that there is an option for no HUD.


On Conversations: (thanks MrBig)
Conversations aren't done in a zoomed in static shot anymore.
Start a conversation with some and they will act like someone would in real life, looking at you occasionally and walking around a bit and also continue doing a task if they were doing one while talking.

On Weapon smithing:
Go to a forge and carve a new weapon out of red hot metal.