ELDER SCROLLS V: Skyrim
- Thread starter Grapes Of Wrath
- Start date
When The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim arrives in stores this November (likely by way of carrier dragon), it'll assuredly feature many, many hours of content. Nevertheless, gamers will want more, and Bethesda has promised post-launch content to be of the "substantial" variety. The first two pieces of that content will arrive exclusively on Xbox Live Marketplace at least "30 days before it's available anywhere else."
Bethesda revealed the news this morning via press release, which also indicated we'll see more than two "add-on content drops" for Skyrim after the game launches. Given the kind of expansions we've seen for the Fallout titles and Oblivion, we expect the folks at Bethesda have some serious plans in mind for DLC support.
Bethesda revealed the news this morning via press release, which also indicated we'll see more than two "add-on content drops" for Skyrim after the game launches. Given the kind of expansions we've seen for the Fallout titles and Oblivion, we expect the folks at Bethesda have some serious plans in mind for DLC support.
The only question that Matt Carofano smiled at with a resounding “No comment!” was Gyrhjörn’s question about Lycans (Werewolves) being in the game. It was the last question I asked and he had gone above and beyond by that point.
Toney asked: Will there be Daedric Shrine quests?
This question opened a can of worms. Matt said that they have intentionally avoided confirming or denying this. He said that they have NOT really talked about it yet. Since the press demo we played had an Easter Egg of a Daedric reference in it, he sighed and said that since we were aware and asked him on the spot, he’ll go ahead and tell us: YES! There is involvement with “The Prince” and challenges along the way that should satisfy the Daedric fans.
xBUMMx wanted: Clarification on the hand-to-hand matter, lethal or not?
Murder Death Kill, people aren’t just getting knocked out by fists, you can beat them to death in this one.
Ploppy asked about armor degradation being a possibility or gone for good…
Matt said it is a POSSIBILITY, but not a probability. The focus in this area is on Smithing as a skill. You’ll be able to modify items. I’ll elaborate on Smithing soon*
Matt had 2 good questions:
When given the opportunity, will we be given the chance to turn down being the Guildmaster?
The answer is No.
Will being Guildmaster be more rewarding than in Oblivion?
Yes, previously you were done with an area of play once you become a Guildmaster, but in Skyrim you will be able to continue with specific guild gameplay after becoming the head of a guild.
Corby asked: Will dragons be able to utilize every shout that the player can?
Short answer: No. Long answer: The shouts are the language of the dragons. Many dragons for many years have used many different shouts. It is possible to assume that every shout has been used in the past by a dragon, however during the game, the dragons only use certain shouts that make sense for the situations. They are incredibly intelligent AI creatures that use what is appropriate. Some shouts don’t make sense for dragons to use in this game and won’t be used. WE get to learn and use them though. Not all of the shouts are released yet, they are keeping some secret for now…
Brett asked: Can you summon more than ONE creature (at once) with Conjuration?
Conjuration has it’s own skill tree. You start off only able to summon ONE. Eventually you WILL be able summon up to TWO Atronachs or Reanimated Zombies though.
Khalid asked: Where can we safely store our loot?
In our personal houses.
The General asked: Can we dye our armor or clothing?
The answer: No.
Luke asked: Does Skyrim boast an array of underwater content… Also, how many species of underwater critters are there?
Yes, you will be able to explore and interact with an underwater environment. There are “fish and stuff” you can find. There are ingredients to collect and although the underwater section is a small part of the game, you can knock your self out exploring if you like. Matt likes the barnacles.
Ray Johnson, you want to know about the pickpocketing skill? Prepare yourself because I took care of you and I expect your mind to be blown…
The entire pickpocketing skill tree list (Seriously):
Light Fingers (0/5)
Pickpocketing bonus of 20% – Item weight and value reduce pickpocketing odds…
Night Thief
Pickpocketing sleeping people almost always works…
Poisoned
Place poisons in other people’s pockets silently to harm or kill…
Cutpurse
Pickpocketing gold is 50% easier…
Extra Pockets
Carrying capacity is increased by 100…
Keymaster
Pickpocketing keys always works…
Misdirections
You can pickpocket equipped weapons…
Perfect Touch
You can pickpocket equipped items…
Steve asked: From what we’ve seen, dragons behave like animals, but will they use tactics and strategy with the terrain and dragon shouts?
Short: Yes.
Long: Dragons ARE an intelligent race. They provide a nice challenge to the player and it is rewarding to successfully kill them. Dragons use the shouts that suit them and interact with (and are affected by) the situations and environments they are in at the time.
Hey “ThatNeonSquirrel” (SQUIRREL!!)… Can we enchant arrows?
You can enchant bows, which affect the arrows shot from them, so even though you can’t enchant the individual arrows, you should have the enchanted range attack that most people want. I hope that’s ok. Pete and the Bethesda team are sorry they can’t respond to everything, it’s crunch time for them.
Jadis232 asked if we can use finisher moves wielding MAGIC like we can with melee weapons…
No, we don’t have special magic finisher moves, but you can combo using magic to deal damage and finishing with a weapon.
Ward… Any love for the lefties?!
Much love for the lefties! We at NerdTrek love nerds, we love weirdos, we really love nerdy weirdos!! You CAN wield a weapon in your left hand and a shield in your right, but the opposite is default as usual. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out the lefty wielding on 11-11-11, but you must be deliberate in your choice.
*Smithing elaboration: Caleb, you’re getting the entire Smithing skill tree:
Steel Smithing
Create Steel armor and weapons at forges. Improve by double.
Arcane Blacksmith
Improve magical weapons and armor.
Dwarven Smithing
Create Dwarven armor and weapons at forges. Improve by double.
Elven Smithing
Create Elven armor and weapons at forges. Improve by double.
Orcish Smithing
Create Orcish armor and weapons at forges. Improve by double.
Advanced Armors
Create scaled and plate armor at forges. Improve by double.
Glass Smithing
Create glass armor and weapons at forges. Improve by double.
Daedric Smithing
Create Daedric armor and weapons at forges. Improve by double.
Ebony Smithing
Create Ebony armor and weapons at forges. Improve by double.
Dragon Smithing
Create Dragon armor and weapons at forges. Improve by double.
You can collect dragon bone and other parts to make really powerful armor and weapons using this skill, it sounds amazing. Matt was pumped about it and I trust his judgment.
Rexx, the team does not have plans to release a Skyrim soundtrack, however I told them “Rexx will buy one if you release it,” not to mention many other people that will buy it. It should be easy to put together some music and upload it to iTunes AT LEAST, so I asked them to. The guys were extremely polite and said they would consider it. Cross your fingers!
Sarah Donner, come with me if you want to… know the answer to your questions…
Applying upgrades, as in smithing weapons and armor to be improved will not change the appearance. Enchanting them will make them glow but you’re not looking at customization of appearance.
Why did they remove spell-making?
Because… The team worked really hard on creating unique spells. The magic system has been completely revamped and MUCH improved. They want us to focus on our immersion into the world of Skyrim. Matt is confident that you will have a great time using magic in this game.
Mike, your question about marriage ended up yielding some fantastic feedback!
There are hundreds of people that you CAN marry, if they want to marry you. They can become your companion. Having a companion offers awesome perks. Your wife can fight by your side, helping you attack or defend. She can carry stuff for you increasing your inventory capacity. She can cook for you once a day increasing your health. There are many “Lovers’ bonuses” available. Possibly the BEST thing: you can delegate tasks and send your followers to do things for you, such as attack, collect food, buy weapons, and more… Unfortunately for you there are no “brown-chicken brown-cow” relationship animations.
Sabre asked: Will the persuasion system be revamped?
Answer: ”Elements of it will be better.”
Michael asked. Can we play instruments for money?!
No, but you can go to a tavern and pay for a NPC to play an instrument for you. Further, you can tip them to play special requested songs for you! I seriously doubt it’s in the game, but I expect characters to be hanging out in the back of a tavern while someone yells “Free Bird!” (shoot, I’ll do it from my couch, even if my wife asks me why I’m yelling “Free Bird!” at Skyrim for what must seem like no reason to her…)
Ricardo asks: Will we be able to sail or at least board ships?
Nope.
How about being able to use portable bedrolls to sleep in the wilderness?
You can sleep in the woods but there are no portable bedrolls. Part of the game’s experience is finding a bed to get fully rested. Sleeping like a camping trip is possible, but it will yield less benefits compared to sleeping at home and/or in bed. Possibly with your in-game spouse?
Khalid Yassin asks: Will there be . . . Bananas?
No joke, the Devs gave it some serious consideration. The team debated many foods, however the age old topic of appropriate climate and environment kept coming up… It is way too cold in Skyrim to grow something tropical like a banana. Some Devs would really want to include a food item and others would fiercely debate how unrealistic it would be to include that piece of food. The attention to detail is phenomenal.
1 Factions:
4 confirmed playable guilds. Likely more factions (quest based) to follow.
The College of Winterhold (mages guild)
The Companions (fighters guild)
The Thieves' Guild
The Dark Brotherhood
Confirmed non playable faction:
Necromancers
Factions not confirmed as either playable or non playable:
Riverwood Tavern Warrior Clan
Stormcloaks
The Shield-Brother
2. Character development
a. Skills
There are 18 skills in Skyrim.
Warrior-type Skills: Smithing, Heavy Armor, Block, Two-handed, One-Handed and Archery.
Mage-type Skills: Enchanting, Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration and Illusion.
Thief-type Skills: Alchemy, Light Armor, Speech, Sneak, Lockpicking and Pickpocketing
b. There are no classes, attributes, or major or minor skills. You do not pick skills in the beginning of the game. You just level up as you play.
c. Health, Magicka, and Stamina are the stats that the player chooses to level up after each increased level
d. Perks. You define and separate your character by choosing gameplay abilities at every level up. These abilities are called perks. You gain a perk point at every level up spend, however, you do not necessarily have to spend this perk point immediately. There are 280 perks in the game (including ranks of perks). The mathematical cap has been calculated as being 75, therefore you can choose 75 perks (out of 280) in the end. However, it has been said that leveling past 50 is excruciatingly difficult.
3. Gameplay:
a. General:
Magnetism draws melee weapons towards enemies to lessen the chance of hitting allies and companions
You can dual wield one handed weapons. You can use 2 magical staves if you wish. You cannot block while dual wielding, however, you can block if holding a torch alongside your one handed weapon. Now word on whether or not you can dual wield shields.
No decapitation or limb severing
No localization of damage (a hit to the head is the same as a hit to the chest)
There are special kill animations that can be inflicted on enemies. These animations vary dependent upon your weapon and the enemy being fought. Some animations pull the into 3rd person mode.
There's a button dedicated to sprinting that quickly drains stamina.
There is now regenerative health in addition to resting, sleeping, potions, and magic. The health regen takes ridiculously long and does not replace other forms.
b. Archery:
Bows deal significantly more damage than in Oblivion or Morrowind, you can kill many enemies in one or two shots. As consequence of this change, the arrow economy has changed drastically. Arrows are now more rare and you will not see character hauling around 600 + arrows.
Draw time of an arrow has been significantly increased. It takes much longer to shoot an arrow.
A confirmed Archery perk is to slow time when aiming for a shot.
If an enemy gets too close for comfort, you can punch the enemy in the face with the bow.
C. Melee:
Backpeddling speed severely reduced
staggers and sways with each step and each weapon blow
There are non lethal bar fights that one can take part in in local tavern
Power attacks activate by holding down the attack button (shield bash, spinning flurry, heavy slash charge)
Daggers do very high damage from behind while sneaking (sometimes triggering a throat slash or back stab animation)
D. Magic:
5 Magic Schools: Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration & Illusion.
There are over 85 spells to choose from.
You can dual-wield spells or use two different spells, one on either hand
Some spells can be learned by reading spell tomes, while others can be bought from merchants.
There's a wide range of different ways to cast similar spells, like setting up a fire trap, sending a fireball or spraying fire in front of you like a flamethrower.
If you cast a frost spell, you'll see the effects on the enemy's skin. If you're wielding the flame spell like a flame thrower, the environment will catch fire for a short while and burn anything that comes into contact with it.
Fire deals the highest amount of damage, lighting/shock deals less damage, but drains the enemy's magicka, while frost deals the least damage, but drains stamina and slows down enemies physically.
Light magic (from staves at least) can stick to walls.
There is NO spell creation. I repeat: NO SPELL CREATION IN SKYRIM!!!!
E. Dragon shouts:
Extremely powerful unlockable effects that the character (Dovahkiin)has access to.
You learn a new shout by first discovering a dragon word in the dragon language on a word wall within a dragon temple. You must find all three words to a phrase to have the chance to unlock the shout. Additionally, shouts can only be unlocked once the player purchases the shouts with dragon souls -- which the player obtains by slaying a dragon.
Known Dragon Shouts:
Fire Breath
Slow Time
Quick Sprint
Teleportation
Storm Call
Summon Dragon
Force Push
Animal Aid (bewitch animals into fighting for you)
"Ice Crystals"
There are over 20 different shouts and each one has a different cooldown time
F. Armor and Weapons
No Weapon or Armor degeneration
Significantly more unique items than in Oblivion
Each race has a special set of armor (more than simply Elven armor and Orcish armor this time)
Greaves and Cuirass combined into one set
4. Races and Character creation.
All ten races return. Breton, Nord, Redguard, Imperial, Bosmer, Altmer, Orsimer, Dunmer, Khajiit, and Argonian.
Confirmed Racial Ability Bonuses
Bosmer: Poison immunity
Argonian: Underwater breathing, Health regen bonus (called "hist healing")
Khajiit: Bonus to hand to hand combat due to their claws
Nord: "Berserker" most likely the ability to temporarily increase strength, damage done, and resistance to weaponry.
More than fifty beards to add to male characters.
Argonians have the option to be feathered
Hundreds of facial tattoo options
Creation is controlled with sliders (weight, age, facial features, muscle mass, ect)
Height is determined by your chosen race, not by any slider.
All Race pics:
Faces of Skyrim
Terrible leaked image of char creation screen
5. Geography:
Distinct geographical regions and styles: Volcanic regions, Tundra, Snow/Ice, Pine Forest, Fall Forest, Marsh, Canyon, Glaciers.
5 Major Cities: (all on the map)
Many smaller townships (Riverwood shown in the E3 and Pax demo is one of these smaller townships)
New information tidbits:
Vampires confirmed
Marriage and gay marriage
You can catch salmon and other fish with your bare hands in rivers and streams
You can set butterflies on fire
70+ voice actors in Skyrim (compared to Oblivion's 14 or so) -- Among them is the great and respected actor, Max Von Sydow.
Your character shouts, grunts, and laughs during battle
4 confirmed playable guilds. Likely more factions (quest based) to follow.
The College of Winterhold (mages guild)
The Companions (fighters guild)
The Thieves' Guild
The Dark Brotherhood
Confirmed non playable faction:
Necromancers
Factions not confirmed as either playable or non playable:
Riverwood Tavern Warrior Clan
Stormcloaks
The Shield-Brother
2. Character development
a. Skills
There are 18 skills in Skyrim.
Warrior-type Skills: Smithing, Heavy Armor, Block, Two-handed, One-Handed and Archery.
Mage-type Skills: Enchanting, Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration and Illusion.
Thief-type Skills: Alchemy, Light Armor, Speech, Sneak, Lockpicking and Pickpocketing
b. There are no classes, attributes, or major or minor skills. You do not pick skills in the beginning of the game. You just level up as you play.
c. Health, Magicka, and Stamina are the stats that the player chooses to level up after each increased level
d. Perks. You define and separate your character by choosing gameplay abilities at every level up. These abilities are called perks. You gain a perk point at every level up spend, however, you do not necessarily have to spend this perk point immediately. There are 280 perks in the game (including ranks of perks). The mathematical cap has been calculated as being 75, therefore you can choose 75 perks (out of 280) in the end. However, it has been said that leveling past 50 is excruciatingly difficult.
3. Gameplay:
a. General:
Magnetism draws melee weapons towards enemies to lessen the chance of hitting allies and companions
You can dual wield one handed weapons. You can use 2 magical staves if you wish. You cannot block while dual wielding, however, you can block if holding a torch alongside your one handed weapon. Now word on whether or not you can dual wield shields.
No decapitation or limb severing
No localization of damage (a hit to the head is the same as a hit to the chest)
There are special kill animations that can be inflicted on enemies. These animations vary dependent upon your weapon and the enemy being fought. Some animations pull the into 3rd person mode.
There's a button dedicated to sprinting that quickly drains stamina.
There is now regenerative health in addition to resting, sleeping, potions, and magic. The health regen takes ridiculously long and does not replace other forms.
b. Archery:
Bows deal significantly more damage than in Oblivion or Morrowind, you can kill many enemies in one or two shots. As consequence of this change, the arrow economy has changed drastically. Arrows are now more rare and you will not see character hauling around 600 + arrows.
Draw time of an arrow has been significantly increased. It takes much longer to shoot an arrow.
A confirmed Archery perk is to slow time when aiming for a shot.
If an enemy gets too close for comfort, you can punch the enemy in the face with the bow.
C. Melee:
Backpeddling speed severely reduced
staggers and sways with each step and each weapon blow
There are non lethal bar fights that one can take part in in local tavern
Power attacks activate by holding down the attack button (shield bash, spinning flurry, heavy slash charge)
Daggers do very high damage from behind while sneaking (sometimes triggering a throat slash or back stab animation)
D. Magic:
5 Magic Schools: Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration & Illusion.
There are over 85 spells to choose from.
You can dual-wield spells or use two different spells, one on either hand
Some spells can be learned by reading spell tomes, while others can be bought from merchants.
There's a wide range of different ways to cast similar spells, like setting up a fire trap, sending a fireball or spraying fire in front of you like a flamethrower.
If you cast a frost spell, you'll see the effects on the enemy's skin. If you're wielding the flame spell like a flame thrower, the environment will catch fire for a short while and burn anything that comes into contact with it.
Fire deals the highest amount of damage, lighting/shock deals less damage, but drains the enemy's magicka, while frost deals the least damage, but drains stamina and slows down enemies physically.
Light magic (from staves at least) can stick to walls.
There is NO spell creation. I repeat: NO SPELL CREATION IN SKYRIM!!!!
E. Dragon shouts:
Extremely powerful unlockable effects that the character (Dovahkiin)has access to.
You learn a new shout by first discovering a dragon word in the dragon language on a word wall within a dragon temple. You must find all three words to a phrase to have the chance to unlock the shout. Additionally, shouts can only be unlocked once the player purchases the shouts with dragon souls -- which the player obtains by slaying a dragon.
Known Dragon Shouts:
Fire Breath
Slow Time
Quick Sprint
Teleportation
Storm Call
Summon Dragon
Force Push
Animal Aid (bewitch animals into fighting for you)
"Ice Crystals"
There are over 20 different shouts and each one has a different cooldown time
F. Armor and Weapons
No Weapon or Armor degeneration
Significantly more unique items than in Oblivion
Each race has a special set of armor (more than simply Elven armor and Orcish armor this time)
Greaves and Cuirass combined into one set
4. Races and Character creation.
All ten races return. Breton, Nord, Redguard, Imperial, Bosmer, Altmer, Orsimer, Dunmer, Khajiit, and Argonian.
Confirmed Racial Ability Bonuses
Bosmer: Poison immunity
Argonian: Underwater breathing, Health regen bonus (called "hist healing")
Khajiit: Bonus to hand to hand combat due to their claws
Nord: "Berserker" most likely the ability to temporarily increase strength, damage done, and resistance to weaponry.
More than fifty beards to add to male characters.
Argonians have the option to be feathered
Hundreds of facial tattoo options
Creation is controlled with sliders (weight, age, facial features, muscle mass, ect)
Height is determined by your chosen race, not by any slider.
All Race pics:
Faces of Skyrim
Terrible leaked image of char creation screen
5. Geography:
Distinct geographical regions and styles: Volcanic regions, Tundra, Snow/Ice, Pine Forest, Fall Forest, Marsh, Canyon, Glaciers.
5 Major Cities: (all on the map)
Many smaller townships (Riverwood shown in the E3 and Pax demo is one of these smaller townships)
New information tidbits:
Vampires confirmed
Marriage and gay marriage
You can catch salmon and other fish with your bare hands in rivers and streams
You can set butterflies on fire
70+ voice actors in Skyrim (compared to Oblivion's 14 or so) -- Among them is the great and respected actor, Max Von Sydow.
Your character shouts, grunts, and laughs during battle
Well all, I spent two days at PAX and played the demo twice and spent a decent amount of time watching others play.
My first playthrough (after standing in line for 2 1/2 hours) was atrocious. Was too amped, forgot to go to the setting screen and spent my time spinning in circles too often because RS was waaaaaay too sensitive.
I did encounter (and die at the hands of) a Wisp. They are now aetherial looking females rather than glowy orbs. Killed me handily all the same, but prettier to look at.
One of the load screens mentions a hagraven: vicious half female/half bird baddies.
btw...load screens are just gorgeous, imo.
I did pick some flowers as my wife back home would want me to do so. Turns out Thistle gives resist frost when ingested. Ha!
I spent no time with the character creator. First demo I was a redguard and second an altmer. Not playing as a Nord till Skyrim is MINE!
Demo 2 went MUCH better. Changed the settings from the get go and had an enjoyable 15-20 minutes. Didn't die this time. Yay me!
Headed toward Riften. Not sure if this is known but Matt Carofano noted at the public demo that Riften houses the Thieves Guild.
Anyhoo, on my travels I encountered a fairly large structure that was gated and locked. No guards or anything. It appeared it may be a keep but even approaching the door gave me no info. Weird.
Furtheron, got ambushed by 4 bandits and took them down with the dual wield sword-mace combo. Nice!
After ransacking their bodies (nothing of note) beyond standard bandit garb/weaponry. I did find a spell tome for a fire spell.
Continued my march toward Riften and discovered a dungeon called Haeram's (spelling?) Shame. Cool name, imo. Shortly inside a Vampire Thrall started peppering me with arrows. I took him out, this time with some upgraded steel weapons I had previously secured from dead bandits. Scouring the vamp's lookout post and found a nice mace that did extra fire damage. Found some more lockpicks too and was already to try my lockpicking on a nearby chest when time was called.
Sigh.
Other things I noticed:
Stamina is kinda important now. You run, your stamina gets drained in a hurry. You use a shield- same thing. LB is now for sprint (or burst). I found that I was using my speed in relative bursts and then really taking advantage of sprint against archers. Hold down LB, close very quickly and chop em up with weapons of your choosing. It doesn't appear feasible now to run everywhere and expect to be in top form if you get ambushed. Your blows will not land as solidly, as I understand things so far.
Lockpicking appears exactly as FO3. Excellent change, imo.
Argonians regenerate health faster than normal as their special attribute.
Nords have Battlecry as their special. I assume this is some sort of frenzy.
Breton are much more resistant to magika.
Witnessed another player collect a shout for Animal Allegiance.
Bounty for burning a chicken is 5 gold. LOL. Saw the game note this as hold-specific, i.e. Whiterun.
Horses come to your defense. Provided a funny moment in the public demo.
Enchanting altars have a skull surrounded by a bunch of candles. Kinda spooky.
Encountered a hunter. He would sell you pelts or meat. Made sense.
You can "pick" butterflies and bees.
Saw a signpost at an intersection for a town(?) called Helgen.
There are ice wolves.
I swam in a river. Swimming remains an unremarkable experience, ala OB.
Found a Hunting Bow in some loot. Did not note its stats.
***I saw no were-creatures.***
I play in 3rd person and was very happy with its presentation, but I was always happy with OB 3rd person.
Watched another player approach Whiterun. The guard house is away from the city. Just thought this was a nice touch.
In the public demo, Todd finally showed the mini-puzzle game associated with the Golden Claw item. You spin the claw around and it is marked with three animal totems. At the locked wall/door you are confronted with 3 rings that need to be aligned correctly for the lock to be disengaged. Looking at the claw gives you the answer. Like the animation for lockpicking, it is appropriately olden looking. When you'd turn a ring you'd get this loud, stone-on-stone grinding sound.
The game felt like TES. I had a suspicion that it might feel a little like FO3 in the way it behaved but I felt none of that with controller in hand. This is TES, folks.
To wrap-up: Pete Hines is really nice. He remembered me from Day One and asked if the demo was just as good the second time around. Best part of public demo was Todd mocking the audience member who cried out for him to demonstrate 3rd person jumping (which does look appropriate now, btw). For those who have not played FO3, jumping looked idiotic in 3rd person.
Oh, and Todd told us at the public demo that the game is "almost done." I wonder if September 1st is a target date of some sort- but that is just me musing/interpreting and nothing more.
If there are other things you'd like to confirm or want clarification, please ask. I'll do my best to remember tomorrow.
This is a great game, folks. Didn't want to leave. Could've easily stood there all day entranced.
[Edited numerous times as memory starts churning through everything I saw.]
My first playthrough (after standing in line for 2 1/2 hours) was atrocious. Was too amped, forgot to go to the setting screen and spent my time spinning in circles too often because RS was waaaaaay too sensitive.
I did encounter (and die at the hands of) a Wisp. They are now aetherial looking females rather than glowy orbs. Killed me handily all the same, but prettier to look at.
One of the load screens mentions a hagraven: vicious half female/half bird baddies.
btw...load screens are just gorgeous, imo.
I did pick some flowers as my wife back home would want me to do so. Turns out Thistle gives resist frost when ingested. Ha!
I spent no time with the character creator. First demo I was a redguard and second an altmer. Not playing as a Nord till Skyrim is MINE!
Demo 2 went MUCH better. Changed the settings from the get go and had an enjoyable 15-20 minutes. Didn't die this time. Yay me!
Headed toward Riften. Not sure if this is known but Matt Carofano noted at the public demo that Riften houses the Thieves Guild.
Anyhoo, on my travels I encountered a fairly large structure that was gated and locked. No guards or anything. It appeared it may be a keep but even approaching the door gave me no info. Weird.
Furtheron, got ambushed by 4 bandits and took them down with the dual wield sword-mace combo. Nice!
After ransacking their bodies (nothing of note) beyond standard bandit garb/weaponry. I did find a spell tome for a fire spell.
Continued my march toward Riften and discovered a dungeon called Haeram's (spelling?) Shame. Cool name, imo. Shortly inside a Vampire Thrall started peppering me with arrows. I took him out, this time with some upgraded steel weapons I had previously secured from dead bandits. Scouring the vamp's lookout post and found a nice mace that did extra fire damage. Found some more lockpicks too and was already to try my lockpicking on a nearby chest when time was called.
Sigh.
Other things I noticed:
Stamina is kinda important now. You run, your stamina gets drained in a hurry. You use a shield- same thing. LB is now for sprint (or burst). I found that I was using my speed in relative bursts and then really taking advantage of sprint against archers. Hold down LB, close very quickly and chop em up with weapons of your choosing. It doesn't appear feasible now to run everywhere and expect to be in top form if you get ambushed. Your blows will not land as solidly, as I understand things so far.
Lockpicking appears exactly as FO3. Excellent change, imo.
Argonians regenerate health faster than normal as their special attribute.
Nords have Battlecry as their special. I assume this is some sort of frenzy.
Breton are much more resistant to magika.
Witnessed another player collect a shout for Animal Allegiance.
Bounty for burning a chicken is 5 gold. LOL. Saw the game note this as hold-specific, i.e. Whiterun.
Horses come to your defense. Provided a funny moment in the public demo.
Enchanting altars have a skull surrounded by a bunch of candles. Kinda spooky.
Encountered a hunter. He would sell you pelts or meat. Made sense.
You can "pick" butterflies and bees.
Saw a signpost at an intersection for a town(?) called Helgen.
There are ice wolves.
I swam in a river. Swimming remains an unremarkable experience, ala OB.
Found a Hunting Bow in some loot. Did not note its stats.
***I saw no were-creatures.***
I play in 3rd person and was very happy with its presentation, but I was always happy with OB 3rd person.
Watched another player approach Whiterun. The guard house is away from the city. Just thought this was a nice touch.
In the public demo, Todd finally showed the mini-puzzle game associated with the Golden Claw item. You spin the claw around and it is marked with three animal totems. At the locked wall/door you are confronted with 3 rings that need to be aligned correctly for the lock to be disengaged. Looking at the claw gives you the answer. Like the animation for lockpicking, it is appropriately olden looking. When you'd turn a ring you'd get this loud, stone-on-stone grinding sound.
The game felt like TES. I had a suspicion that it might feel a little like FO3 in the way it behaved but I felt none of that with controller in hand. This is TES, folks.
To wrap-up: Pete Hines is really nice. He remembered me from Day One and asked if the demo was just as good the second time around. Best part of public demo was Todd mocking the audience member who cried out for him to demonstrate 3rd person jumping (which does look appropriate now, btw). For those who have not played FO3, jumping looked idiotic in 3rd person.
Oh, and Todd told us at the public demo that the game is "almost done." I wonder if September 1st is a target date of some sort- but that is just me musing/interpreting and nothing more.
If there are other things you'd like to confirm or want clarification, please ask. I'll do my best to remember tomorrow.
This is a great game, folks. Didn't want to leave. Could've easily stood there all day entranced.
[Edited numerous times as memory starts churning through everything I saw.]
Ok, so let me first start off by saying that at PAX today I tried to do as much stuff as possible for all you guys so let me get into it.
First off, I got to talk to Pete Hines before I was up to play and he was such a nice guy! Also, for this demo I used an argonian and they look great. So as I started I went towards the birthstones that were in the todd howard walkthrough. I decided to take a hop in the river and use my underwater breathing to catch some salmon. *NOTE* I also noticed butterflies on a nearby bush and collected there wings as alchemy ingredients. I headed to the town, but got a little bored so I pulled out my sword and flame combo and started slaughtering some locals... (I'm so bad...) This wasn't too challenging as I picked some easy looking people and no guards were near by. *NOTE* Fatigue management is more difficult due to the sprint feature. It drains it fast so use it sparingly. Due to fear and time, I decided to leave the town and head into the mountains. I grabbed some mushrooms off a stump and some floweres on the way up and then I came across a small cabin. I went to the fire to try and cook my salmon, but there were 2 burned bodies there and that seemed more interesting. I went inside the cabin to look for clues as to who did this and found a note on the table reading something like "We heard rumors about the dragons but didn't believe it until we saw one recently." So basically they were torched. I took this oppurtunity to rest in the bed (which was not owned
) and travel at night. *NOTE* At night everything looks great. The moonlight adds a cool atmosphere. Anyways, I decided follow a small creek by the cabin to see where it led and on the way I caught some dragonflies (lots of bugs). I was then promptly attacked by a patrol of bandits. *NOTE* The AI is much improved in this game. A mage was walking towards me with a shield spell and using a frost spell to deal damage while 2 melee units flanked me. I was close to death so I opened the menu and popped some health potions, as well as a swift foot potion and a strength potion which increased speed and damage respectively. Unfortunately my demo was coming to an end so I quickly climbed to the highest point a jumped off to my death before they came to shut me down.
Equipment: So after creating my character, I was put into the same location as the todd howard demo and we are told we don't have any items equipped. I opted for the light armor which was all "Hide." As for weapons, I tried out all sorts so let me cover those.
-Bow & Arrow: WOW the bow is good! Feels alot more responsive and has a very satisfying *thud* to it when it hits it's mark. Only got to shoot wolves and a bunny with it but it felt great.
-Dual melee: I went with the sword and mace combo and I have to say I am highly unimpressed with the dual wielding. Something didn't feel right to me and using one weapon felt way more effective and practical. I did not look at the one handed melee perks so I can't say now if it will be improved by perks however my guess is there will be a dual wielding attack speed perk at the very least.
-2 handed: Used a claymore and I gotta say I love it. It was slow, but packed a punch with a great sense of impact when you hit people. Also, the killing blow was awesome, you spear the guy and lift his whole body up before throwing him back down and pulling the sword out.
-Sword & Magic:My personal favorite, this was almost OP at level one. I easily dispatched of 3 bandits who attacked me at night. I was using a flamethrower like spell and as they closed in one or 2 hits was all it took to drop them.
-Dual magic: Really good, massive flamethrower took people down before they could touch me, did I mention how good the magic looks?
-Sword and shield: I am a newb at blocking and I used this for like 3 seconds and stopped. Not much to say here.
Perks: So I was on a time limit, so I only looked at some of the perks. Some of them had multiple levels a la fallout, but here are some examples...
-Chance to stagger greatly increased when dual wielding magic
-Critical hit chance increased with bows (I can't remember if this had multiple levels but it started out at 10%)
-Silent footsteps while sneaking
SORRY I CAN'T REMEMBER MORE IT WAS SO OVERWHELMING D:
Closing Comments: So as much as this feels like a new game, it still feels like it's predecessors. Strange and new but definitely familiar. The back peddling speed did seem slow, but not completly unreasonable to use in combat. If you like any of the elder scrolls game, I know you will like this game. To sum it up... amazing.
First off, I got to talk to Pete Hines before I was up to play and he was such a nice guy! Also, for this demo I used an argonian and they look great. So as I started I went towards the birthstones that were in the todd howard walkthrough. I decided to take a hop in the river and use my underwater breathing to catch some salmon. *NOTE* I also noticed butterflies on a nearby bush and collected there wings as alchemy ingredients. I headed to the town, but got a little bored so I pulled out my sword and flame combo and started slaughtering some locals... (I'm so bad...) This wasn't too challenging as I picked some easy looking people and no guards were near by. *NOTE* Fatigue management is more difficult due to the sprint feature. It drains it fast so use it sparingly. Due to fear and time, I decided to leave the town and head into the mountains. I grabbed some mushrooms off a stump and some floweres on the way up and then I came across a small cabin. I went to the fire to try and cook my salmon, but there were 2 burned bodies there and that seemed more interesting. I went inside the cabin to look for clues as to who did this and found a note on the table reading something like "We heard rumors about the dragons but didn't believe it until we saw one recently." So basically they were torched. I took this oppurtunity to rest in the bed (which was not owned
) and travel at night. *NOTE* At night everything looks great. The moonlight adds a cool atmosphere. Anyways, I decided follow a small creek by the cabin to see where it led and on the way I caught some dragonflies (lots of bugs). I was then promptly attacked by a patrol of bandits. *NOTE* The AI is much improved in this game. A mage was walking towards me with a shield spell and using a frost spell to deal damage while 2 melee units flanked me. I was close to death so I opened the menu and popped some health potions, as well as a swift foot potion and a strength potion which increased speed and damage respectively. Unfortunately my demo was coming to an end so I quickly climbed to the highest point a jumped off to my death before they came to shut me down.Equipment: So after creating my character, I was put into the same location as the todd howard demo and we are told we don't have any items equipped. I opted for the light armor which was all "Hide." As for weapons, I tried out all sorts so let me cover those.
-Bow & Arrow: WOW the bow is good! Feels alot more responsive and has a very satisfying *thud* to it when it hits it's mark. Only got to shoot wolves and a bunny with it but it felt great.
-Dual melee: I went with the sword and mace combo and I have to say I am highly unimpressed with the dual wielding. Something didn't feel right to me and using one weapon felt way more effective and practical. I did not look at the one handed melee perks so I can't say now if it will be improved by perks however my guess is there will be a dual wielding attack speed perk at the very least.
-2 handed: Used a claymore and I gotta say I love it. It was slow, but packed a punch with a great sense of impact when you hit people. Also, the killing blow was awesome, you spear the guy and lift his whole body up before throwing him back down and pulling the sword out.
-Sword & Magic:My personal favorite, this was almost OP at level one. I easily dispatched of 3 bandits who attacked me at night. I was using a flamethrower like spell and as they closed in one or 2 hits was all it took to drop them.
-Dual magic: Really good, massive flamethrower took people down before they could touch me, did I mention how good the magic looks?
-Sword and shield: I am a newb at blocking and I used this for like 3 seconds and stopped. Not much to say here.
Perks: So I was on a time limit, so I only looked at some of the perks. Some of them had multiple levels a la fallout, but here are some examples...
-Chance to stagger greatly increased when dual wielding magic
-Critical hit chance increased with bows (I can't remember if this had multiple levels but it started out at 10%)
-Silent footsteps while sneaking
SORRY I CAN'T REMEMBER MORE IT WAS SO OVERWHELMING D:
Closing Comments: So as much as this feels like a new game, it still feels like it's predecessors. Strange and new but definitely familiar. The back peddling speed did seem slow, but not completly unreasonable to use in combat. If you like any of the elder scrolls game, I know you will like this game. To sum it up... amazing.