Alright last night I gave you the rundown of my history with the Elder Scrolls so now let us turn out eyes to the future. All of my information is based on what I’ve read in GameInformer’s article (from the looks there’s probably more there than I’ve seen so I may fail to mention something) and what I can glean from the gameplay trailer released a week or two ago (when I mention things from the trailer I may provide timestamps, your best bet will be to use the previous link to find them). So if you happen to have more information feel free to let me know.
Let’s start with the basic premise. Two hundred years have passed since the end of Oblivion. The Empire is in pretty sorry shape, and the Elder Scrolls predict the return of dragons into the world, the events of the previous games apparently being signs pointing towards it. Apparently most of the fuss is about a big nasty guy by the name of Alduin, the World Eater. Wait... didn’t WoW just do something similar to that with Cataclysm? Nice, Bethesda. Anyway, giving them the benefit of the doubt and moving on. Skyrim is apparently on the brink of civil war and as usual your character is destined for greatness and in prison at the start of the game. Tamriel really has a great parole system; they let someone out of prison and they go save the world. You supposedly are the last of the dragonborn (the same line as the Emperor and Martin from Oblivion) a group that expelled dragons long ago (of course it’s a bloodline but you can be any race, how will that work out?). You can learn the dragon’s language and then use it in “dragon shouts” that have a myriad of affects. As an aside- I have no idea how these will work in game, but the way they’re presented in the gameplay trailer (around 1:07) is freaking AWESOME!
On the gameplay front there looks like a lot of new stuff. First up is the leveling system. They’re removing the class system and major and minor skill setup. Instead you’ll level up based on how many skills you’ve leveled up out of the whole and more value will be assigned to higher level skills. For example: Blade is at 37 and Destruction is at 12. You raise each one, but the Blade level will contribute more towards your next level than the level in Destruction. It kind of reminds me of Runescape. You leveled your various skills and then your level was calculated out of those levels. If we’re lucky perhaps Skyrim will put more weight in general behind combat skills and less behind less combat ready skills (so in leveling Blade and Speechcraft each from 37 to 38 you would get more value from the Blade skill) since I see a point to those skills, but in the end the game is about fighting and skills that don’t help you with that aren’t doing much for you in the end (you can’t slay dragons with Speechcraft and Mercantilism and I somehow don’t see diplomacy as an option). They’re also adding some new leveling options, allowing you to pick between an upgrade to health, stamina, or magicka each level (in addition to a health upgrade each level) and added a list of perks to choose from.
It also looks like they’ve pulled the spellcrafting feature from the game as in the GameInformer article they were able to give a specific number of spells that will be available (85) to “dedicated collectors.” Of course, it also looks like they could be going the way of Fable III and allowing you to have one spell equipped to each hand. GameInformer also mentions combining spells. Whether that means using two spells at once for fancy effects (like the AoE fire spell shown in the trailer) or just using them in conjunction with each other, I can’t tell you. I have also not heard anything about enchanting, so it’s unclear what they’ll do with that. What I’d like to see would be something resembling the sigil stones from Oblivion. Give us the various enchantments and just let us choose where to put them. Not sure if it would be an improvement, but it might be an interesting way of doing things.
Combat seems to be getting a bit of an upgrade as well. They’ve confirmed the addition of two weapon fighting along with the above mentioned two spells at once (though I’m a little worried that we’ll go back to Morrowind’s “magic or weapon” system rather than keep with Oblivion’s system which let you have a weapon out and still cast spells). Also, it looks like they may have added stealth kills finally. Around 1:32 of the gameplay trailer it looks like we see a player character grabbing another and slitting their neck. One of my biggest annoyances when playing stealth is sneak attacking someone and having them turn around and start attack me. Hopefully this means they’ll be putting an end to that.
There was also a bit of information about interfaces and conversations, but I’ll leave that for you to look into; it didn’t seem important enough for me to comment on. For the most part the game looks great and if they can actually pull it off what they’re going for it’ll no doubt give Bethesda another Game of the Year under their belt. Here’s hoping.
Wolfgang out.
Let’s start with the basic premise. Two hundred years have passed since the end of Oblivion. The Empire is in pretty sorry shape, and the Elder Scrolls predict the return of dragons into the world, the events of the previous games apparently being signs pointing towards it. Apparently most of the fuss is about a big nasty guy by the name of Alduin, the World Eater. Wait... didn’t WoW just do something similar to that with Cataclysm? Nice, Bethesda. Anyway, giving them the benefit of the doubt and moving on. Skyrim is apparently on the brink of civil war and as usual your character is destined for greatness and in prison at the start of the game. Tamriel really has a great parole system; they let someone out of prison and they go save the world. You supposedly are the last of the dragonborn (the same line as the Emperor and Martin from Oblivion) a group that expelled dragons long ago (of course it’s a bloodline but you can be any race, how will that work out?). You can learn the dragon’s language and then use it in “dragon shouts” that have a myriad of affects. As an aside- I have no idea how these will work in game, but the way they’re presented in the gameplay trailer (around 1:07) is freaking AWESOME!
On the gameplay front there looks like a lot of new stuff. First up is the leveling system. They’re removing the class system and major and minor skill setup. Instead you’ll level up based on how many skills you’ve leveled up out of the whole and more value will be assigned to higher level skills. For example: Blade is at 37 and Destruction is at 12. You raise each one, but the Blade level will contribute more towards your next level than the level in Destruction. It kind of reminds me of Runescape. You leveled your various skills and then your level was calculated out of those levels. If we’re lucky perhaps Skyrim will put more weight in general behind combat skills and less behind less combat ready skills (so in leveling Blade and Speechcraft each from 37 to 38 you would get more value from the Blade skill) since I see a point to those skills, but in the end the game is about fighting and skills that don’t help you with that aren’t doing much for you in the end (you can’t slay dragons with Speechcraft and Mercantilism and I somehow don’t see diplomacy as an option). They’re also adding some new leveling options, allowing you to pick between an upgrade to health, stamina, or magicka each level (in addition to a health upgrade each level) and added a list of perks to choose from.
It also looks like they’ve pulled the spellcrafting feature from the game as in the GameInformer article they were able to give a specific number of spells that will be available (85) to “dedicated collectors.” Of course, it also looks like they could be going the way of Fable III and allowing you to have one spell equipped to each hand. GameInformer also mentions combining spells. Whether that means using two spells at once for fancy effects (like the AoE fire spell shown in the trailer) or just using them in conjunction with each other, I can’t tell you. I have also not heard anything about enchanting, so it’s unclear what they’ll do with that. What I’d like to see would be something resembling the sigil stones from Oblivion. Give us the various enchantments and just let us choose where to put them. Not sure if it would be an improvement, but it might be an interesting way of doing things.
Combat seems to be getting a bit of an upgrade as well. They’ve confirmed the addition of two weapon fighting along with the above mentioned two spells at once (though I’m a little worried that we’ll go back to Morrowind’s “magic or weapon” system rather than keep with Oblivion’s system which let you have a weapon out and still cast spells). Also, it looks like they may have added stealth kills finally. Around 1:32 of the gameplay trailer it looks like we see a player character grabbing another and slitting their neck. One of my biggest annoyances when playing stealth is sneak attacking someone and having them turn around and start attack me. Hopefully this means they’ll be putting an end to that.
There was also a bit of information about interfaces and conversations, but I’ll leave that for you to look into; it didn’t seem important enough for me to comment on. For the most part the game looks great and if they can actually pull it off what they’re going for it’ll no doubt give Bethesda another Game of the Year under their belt. Here’s hoping.
Wolfgang out.
“Tragedy is when I cut my finger.
Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
-Mel Brooks
Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
-Mel Brooks
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