So, I got my Game Informer in the mail the other day, and they had a good sized spread on Skyrim. It all looked nice, but there's something that's worrying me, and I couldn't think what it was until now.
I didn't see any stats.
Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Willpower, etc. All absent, with no talk towards then at all. They went over the magic system, the skills and leveling. They mentioned how you'll get more Health, Fatigue, and Magicka when you level, but nothing on allocation of stat points. They talked about pages for your Inventory, your Skills, Schools of magic, and fast travel, but no character sheet. A scouring of the interweb provides no mention of stats.
This has me a little worried that they're jumping on the oversimplification bandwagon. Now, it's true that Oblivion's leveling and whatnot could use some streamlining. I mean, if you wanted to properly level a character, then you had to make sure to pick skills that would be useless to you. The system was broken, but not beyond repair.
Has anyone here heard anything to this?

More new info.

Quote :

The French edition of the official PlayStation Magazine has provided a wealth of new information regarding Bethesda's upcoming RPG "Skyrim." Here's a rundown of the newly announced features, with some descriptions to explain what they all mean.



* Unlike the previous games where melee combat were free-for-alls prone to friendly fire, "Skyrim" will feature a context-sensitive melee system described as "Magnetism" in the French PSN, where your melee attacks will automatically target foes instead of slashing everything in your path. This is somewhat similar to the autotargeting system in "Assassin's Creed Brotherhood."

* Unique weapons will possess hidden effects that you will only discover upon using the weapon.

* Players will be unable to block attacks if they are wielding a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other. Only players who wield two handed weapons or a sword and shield can perform blocks.

* The "Spell Shield" ability will see a return in "Skyrim."

* Taverns will serve as important locations in the game. Players will be able to overhear conversations, collect rumors, begin quests, acquire information and much more.

* Players can stalk non-player characters and chart their routines, and break and enter into their homes when they aren't around.

* The information quest givers provide you will depend upon their disposition towards you. Friendly NPCs will provide you with more information while hostile or distrusting characters will provide you with a lot less.

* A dungeon described as "Bleak Falls Barrow" is inhabited by Draugr--undead Nord warriors. Players can expect to encounter a ghostly dragon priest and fight a giant Frostbite Spider. The dungeon has been described by Bethesda as "terrifying."

* The quest to Bleak Falls Barrow is provided to you by a shopkeeper named Lucan who wants you to retrieve his priceless Draconic family heirloom--a golden claw.

* "Skyrim" will see the inclusion of new area-of-effect spells such as "Ice Trap," which is triggered when an enemy walks over it; "Circle of Protection," an area-of-effect spell which pushes enemies in your vicinity away; and "Fury" which causes enemies to fight amongst themselves.

* With a strong emphasis on melee combat, "Skyrim" will feature the addition of finishing moves, one of which has been described as "plunging your sword into the enemy's chest."

* As a game that's more or less an open sandbox, players will be able to perform free-form activities like cooking, woodcutting, mining, and blacksmithing.

* One of the new "Dragon Shout" abilities slows down time, and is similar to Bullet Time.

* One of the first cities the player visits is called Riverwood, and is decried as "a smattering of timber buildings, including a sawmill."

* The new "Radiant Story" feature of Skyrim--which generates side-quests based on player actions--is inspired by the random encounters in the Fallout series.

* "Skyrim" contains exhaustive environmental effects, such as the effects of wind on water and the creation of waves. The game will also contain meteorological effects, with clouds clustering around mountaintops and so forth.

* It will be possible to raise all skills to the maximum 100 points but it isn't possible to get every perk in a single playthrough.

* With regards to the story, the death of the King of Skyrim has caused a civil war to break out in the country.

* Dragon encounters will not be scripted events. These Dragons may attack towns and cities during its travels, which may cause it to be set ablaze.

* Every large settlement in the land of Skyrim will be unique. The city of Marketh Side is set into a cliffside, with buildings teetering on the edge. Haarfingar is said to be home to the largest trading port in Skyrim. One of the cities in Skyrim is even said to be heavily inspired by the Dunmer architecture of Morrowind.

* Bethesda intends to bring back a sense of eccentricity into the world of Vvardenfell, as each Nord faction will have its own customs and styles instead of being carbon copies.

* The economy of "Skyrim" will be better developed than the one in previous games. If you destroy a city's means of income (for instance, by razing their crops), its inhabitants will have to purchase crops from a nearby city, thereby raising prices.

* Archers will be able to hold their breath--an action which consumes stamina--while aiming in order to increase their accuracy. This ability is similar to the sniping abilities in games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and the Call of Duty series.

* Wounded dragons have a chance of crashing into the ground.

* It is possible to cut dialogue short by simply walking away from a speaking NPC.

* Dragon Shouts are assigned to the R3 button on the PS3 gamepad.

* Most NPCs will not have a complete set of dialogue, with only "important" characters having substantial dialogue.

Source.

Please tell me the gist of that is that the NPCs that you fight with aren't eejits anymore.

Don't know about that. I just gather that you can't count on the running backpedal strategy anymore.

November cannot come fast enough.

...

Wow.

Holy *bleep*.

If Bethesda doesn't *bleep* this up it could be awesome.

Anyone else here the Morrowind tune? It's had a bit of a makeover, but I'm pretty sure it's from Morrowind.

It's the main theme of the series, isn't it? It was in Oblivion, too.

I don't know about that, but I didn't hear it in Oblivion anywhere. =/

I'm probably going to be buying this game on launch day. I'm so excited

I can't say I will. If it's as phenomenally buggy as the last three Bethesda games that I won't be buying it, no matter how nice it looks. The only reason I'm keeping half an eye on this one is the new engine they supposedly have, otherwise I'm not wasting my money.

I think they just keep the same basic tune, then alter it to fit the game more.
Morrowind's theme sounded forlorn. Here.
Oblivion's sounded like a buildup to a fight. Sort of one of those "a storm is brewing" type songs. Here.
Skyrim's sounds, very fittingly, like a war song sung around a Viking (read as Nord) beer hall. Here.

A while back on Reddit, I watched a vid where someone had mixed together the Oblivion and Skyrim themes. Messed incredibly well because they're so similar.

And now here's a vid I found of all 3 mixed together!
Sweet.

Azira wrote:

I can't say I will. If it's as phenomenally buggy as the last three Bethesda games that I won't be buying it, no matter how nice it looks. The only reason I'm keeping half an eye on this one is the new engine they supposedly have, otherwise I'm not wasting my money.

But the bugs in Oblivion were hilarious! There were some that broke quests or otherwise screwed you over, sure, but there were also ones like the Chameleon Suit.

Agreed. A game can be as fun for its glitches as its gameplay. Ocarina of Time, ftw.
Of course, game breakers are another matter.

The new Radiant Story program does have me a bit wary, so I'll be sure to keep an eye on the reviews. It looks awesome, but the more complex things get, the worse they could break down.

No they weren't.

My Morrowind / Oblivion / Fallout 3 experience on several different PCs consists of:

CRASH CRASH CRASH FREEZE CRASH CRASH FREEZE REBOOT CRASH CRASH CRASH

Occasional console commands to move quests forward, get unstuck from stupid climbing expeditions and disappearing NPCs.

Fun times. You don't buy those games on anything but a PC.

I have the PS3 version of Oblivion...

*Points and laughs*
I'm sorry.

*Goes off to play with Construction Set*

Turtle

this game looks fun but i don't think i have time ever great game that comes out this year

Azira wrote:

No they weren't.

My Morrowind / Oblivion / Fallout 3 experience on several different PCs consists of:

CRASH CRASH CRASH FREEZE CRASH CRASH FREEZE REBOOT CRASH CRASH CRASH

Occasional console commands to move quests forward, get unstuck from stupid climbing expeditions and disappearing NPCs.

Fun times. You don't buy those games on anything but a PC.

Doesn't describe my experience with it on the PS3 either.

*Points and Laughs*

Az.

That's okay.

I made my own house with my own lighting and my own teleportation system and my own armour and my own enchantments and my own spells and my own NPCs.

Oh sorry, that's only for the PC version. I'd share my creations but you can't play them anyway.

I'll just sit over here with my game that works out of the box and doesn't require 11 hours of modding to make it playable.


Also, you just described Little Big Planet.

...I just came in my pants.

CobaltMonkey wrote:

I'll just sit over here with my game that works out of the box and doesn't require 11 hours of modding to make it playable.


Also, you just described Little Big Planet.

Uh... don't know where you got that from, because it's not true. =/

Morrowind didn't work on the Xbox either. If there was only the console to "reset actors" than I could have actually progressed through the main questline. There was a bug in the GotY edition where the Orc in the Balmora Mages Guild would fall into the floor so you couldn't talk to her. In the PC version you just said "ra" and she'd pop back to her proper spot, while in the Xbox version the only thing you could do is start a new game and hope it didn't happen again.



Idk. My dad installs everything here on the computers. He's been pulling them apart and putting them back together for 25+ years, manages to get every other application he's installed to work, fixes every computer problem thrown his way (from small family requests to international company "why isn't X working?" - it's nice there hasn't been a call at 5 in the morning in a while), so maybe I'm just convinced that the last three or so Bethesda games we've bought have just been made with *bleep*y engines.

I've heard numerous complaints about issues for all versions of the games (having spent quite a bit of time at the Bethesda forums, I saw a lot of good stuff but a lot of bad as well).

Also, having played LBP and used the CS/GECK, I don't seem many similarities between the two and actually find LBP constrictive in what you can do with it. Maybe that's a reason I don't like it? I don't see the resemblances either. >.<



I'm sorry, but Bethesda has earned such a bad reputation in my eyes that the few "I didn't have any problems" stories don't really mean much compared the my numerous bad experiences and my friends' bad experiences, not to mention the several reappearing problems that keep popping up.

>.>

Okay, way off-topic now. I vote to agree to disagree.

If Skyrim comes out and the first reviews aren't talking about bugs in the game, then I'll consider it. Otherwise, I'll just see Bethesda as a waste of money as I feel I've given them enough chances to make a game that's actually playable.

Creating your own stuff is LBP, and that's what the similarity was. Not to the same degree perhaps, but it was kind of odd to see you complain about that game in another thread, then brag on the same type of thing in this one.

The "11 hours of modding" comment comes from both a friend of mine who is a big computer gamer, and from many comments about it I've read on reddit. Perhaps I mistakenly communicated that it takes that long to get the game up and running, so I will retract that. What I meant to say was that I've had those sources tell me they've spent so much time trying to mod Oblivion, and get all the mods to work together without crashing their game, that they got sick of it before they even started. Whereas I just put the disc in, played what was there and enjoyed it.

I played Morrowind on the X-box and its true that I encountered glitching. Far more than I did in Oblivion, in fact. Heck, I once had all of Blamora's streets become intangible and everyone was walking around down below the world. However, I never needed the console to fix problems. I never encountered a problem that couldn't be solved by reloading from five minutes ago.


But you're right, we are getting off topic a bit. Despite the apparently playful nature of the conversation, this is turning into the old "PC/Console is better!" argument. Let's all just keep our pointing and laughing to ourselves, ok?

CobaltMonkey wrote:

Creating your own stuff is LBP, and that's what the similarity was. Not to the same degree perhaps, but it was kind of odd to see you complain about that game in another thread, then brag on the same type of thing in this one.

It wasn't the creating part that I hate, although I didn't really like it in LBP. It's not the biggest problem I have with the game though, hence the complaining in another thread.

CobaltMonkey wrote:

The "11 hours of modding" comment comes from both a friend of mine who is a big computer gamer, and from many comments about it I've read on reddit. Perhaps I mistakenly communicated that it takes that long to get the game up and running, so I will retract that. What I meant to say was that I've had those sources tell me they've spent so much time trying to mod Oblivion, and get all the mods to work together without crashing their game, that they got sick of it before they even started. Whereas I just put the disc in, played what was there and enjoyed it.

Mods aren't a requirement.

I wish to explain?

If you get mods from individual modders, it can get messy like that. Some modders may want to change the original content that was provided with the game and they can conflict with each other.

Let's say that the Imperial Dragon Armour you receive at the end of the main quest isn't as cool as you'd thought it would be. Now, you go and download a plugin that changes the enchantments on the armour. While you're downloading that plugin, you see another that says "Better Armour Enchantments!!1!!" and you download that one too. Well, when you go to select them which ever plugin you load into the game last is the one you see the effects of in the game. So if you load the "Enchantments!!1!!" one first and then the Imperial Dragon Armour one, when you go to look at your armour you'll see the changes that the latter plugin made, not the first.

Physical and magical changes to items are fairly innocent and don't normally cause the problems. If you start talking about scripts and quests though, that's a different matter. I didn't really get into the scripting stuff because I'd have to take a whole bunch of time to learn how to do it, and if you did something wrong or conflicting it could REALLY mess things up.

Some modders will list compatibility with other mods not made by themselves. This is all fine and dandy, but if something isn't listed you're taking a risk hoping that it will work out fine. Usually, however, someone will make a tool that controls how to load the plugins and lets you know ahead of time if the plugins conflict with each other. There's a few authors out there that have created programs that most informed modders / mod-users to help with these issues.

Then there's people who want to make sure everything works together and you can get some pretty big stuff. Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is one example of modders putting all their work together and making sure they don't conflict with each other and test it. Short description: leveled item scales are increased, more monster varieties, numerous additions to the items and spells departments, more levels to explore, additional questlines, the list goes on.

Me, I was just happy when I could make labeled chests that said "Weapons," "Armour," "Ingredients," etc. My organizational needs were satisfied. I put some fast-travel markers outside of houses because I got tired of running around so much. About the biggest issue with Fallout 3 we had was there weren't enough containers, so I put more into the Ten Penny suite and and the Megaton house.

I actually made a Chimeran virus (in FO3) that I was going to put into the game and I thought it was getting pretty good balance-wise, but the script I was using to dispense the virus kept giving me a needle whenever I clicked on the item, not every ten game days like I wanted, so it didn't get the green light to go in.



So, that explains the possible modding issues you can have if you're using the PC. You don't need the mods though to run the game and I personally only start installing mods after playing the game through modless first.



NOO!!! If they're using a new engine I'm going to have to learn how to play with all this stuff all over again.

SADFACE


^ Now I'm back on Skyrim discussion.