SKYRIM: Let's kill some Dragons!

[Chardok]

I've been playing for about two or three hours now,total, and....they...re used a lot (read: a LOT) of assets from....Fallout 3, looks like. Seriously. Rocks, plants, even some items. I know it sounds nitpicky, but there is, as STRAK mentioned, the fallout lockpicking game, fallout sound effects, ambient noise, (footfalls, jumping sounds, equipment rattle) And maybe they're even Oblivion stuff; I don't remember enough about Oblivion to comment. It was a little bit weird to be going through the first cave thingo and notice literally the same rock formations/textures/walls/etc. I'd seen in countless wasteland environs literally hundreds of times before. Why did I notice these things? Maybe I just want to hate everything. Or I'm insane.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, I suppose; I did, after all sink over 200 hours into F3, and a little over 100 in FO:NV; but I'm am a little bit tired of seeing and hearing the same old, same old. And for those reasons, I've been really challenged to sink more time into SKRM since the midnight release. I don't feel like the story is drawing me in, and I'm not "Pulled in" by the world, either, despite the fact that it's arguably prettier overall and probably more interesting than any of the previous games.

Also, anyone who says this isn't Gamebryo is a liar and an idiot.





EDIT_____

One thing I wanted to add that seemed semi-relevent/not really: While playing SKRIM last night, I felt myself wanting to put Dead Island back in. Just saying.

[Executor32]

I had issues with the city guard in Markarth:
Spoiler

During the quest to determine who is behind the Forsworn attack that occurs right when you first enter the city, I followed all the leads and went to report back to the questgiver at the Temple of Talos. When I enter, there's 4 corrupt guards standing around his dead body, and they pin it on me and cart me off to the mines. I meet the Forsworn King Jackass there, help him escape, and let him and his posse deal with the guards since they ignore me entirely. After the escape, I go back to loot all the guards' steel arrows. Once I'm finished with that (150+ arrows FTW), I decide to go back to the Temple of Talos and see if whatshisname had any good loot.

When I enter, there's the same 4 guards standing around his corpse, and the same thing happens again. Not wanting to potentially get stuck in the mines permanently because of a bugged quest, I resist this time. Unfortunately, every time I kill one some other asshole comes along and joins the fracas, so my only option is to run like hell, steal a horse, and get the fuck out of Dodge. I now have a 4000 gold bounty, and even after waiting a day the guards still attack me on sight. To give them some more time to cool off, I decide to go kill the dragon at the Dragonsomethingorother Crater. This is fun. because after dealing with a bounty hunter (already?), I misjudged where exactly the marker was so I ended up looking down on the dragon from the cliff way the fuck above it.

I fire off a bunch of my new steel arrows at it, and it takes off and starts making passes at me with its ice breath (yay, Nord frost resistance!). Eventually it goes down on top of the cliff in front of me, slides off the edge, and crashes into the crater below. It's still kicking, so I finish it off, then hike my ass down to the carcass. That task done, I head back to Markarth to see if the guards have cooled off. They have; now they just cart me off to the mines for 7 days. Once I'm out, I finally get to go check whatshisname's body unmolested. He has a key to his house, 100-some gold, and nothing else of value. FFFFFFFFUUUUUUU

[Stark]

You think that's bad? I stopped playing because my idiot NPC pulled his bow out when I shot an elk (ps the arrow bounced off and the animal took a good 30s to react to losing 10% health). This means the only indicator I had that an entire town had been psychically informed of my location and to kill me was when they beat me to death in silence for killing a chicken.

Meanwhile if you axe a man in the face they're happy to let you off with a warning. Its a laugh that shit that's been refined over 3 games is still broken.

And Chads, on 360 (which looks like dogshit) you can see that heaps of the textures are hell similar to Oblivion textures, especially the snow stuff and all the 'ruined fort' stuff that is ubiquitous.

[Tanasinn]

The reused assets thing is no surprise. That could be recognized in the first gameplay footage released.

Not that that makes things any better.

[charlemagne]

when they beat me to death in silence for killing a chicken.

Same thing happened to me I caved in and got it, too. It does run pretty good in all medium settings on my ancient computer. But that's about the only plus until now. Menus are terrible, story so far was meh and being KOS because I punched a chicken made me say "fuck this" out loud and quit the game

[Zixinus]

My experiences:

The bloom can be a bit annoying, or rather, the sensitivity is way, way dialled up. Especially while fighting dragons, you can end up blind.

Finding the greybeards is ridiculous though. I have fought two dragons just by trying to find a way up to the waypoint. Even got one of my horses killed.

Oh, and the horse's coding sort of makes them supernatural mountain climbers, because they can walk up pretty hefty slopes from time to time.

[Chardok]

Have any of you gotten a chance to try out crafting proper? It seems unnecessarily...dense(?) for a game like that where any weapon you find in random ruin #10596 is going to be better than anything you will ever craft ever and there doesn't appear to even be an aesthetic reason to do it, even. Disappointing.

[Stark]

In a game built around wasting time, it's good that the crafting enables you to waste ever more time. It's just a shame that they clearly took MMO inspiration around the crafting interface, but not all those important mechanics.

[Zixinus]

Actually, you can craft any equipable item. You can also improve them, both in performance (damage or protection) and value. Can't quite do it with enchanted items, as you need a perk for that. To be it economic though, you may want to try and get the starting resources (ores or skins) yourself or buy them raw (because they're cheaper that way).

Right now, I'm trying to get high enough in Blacksmithing to be able to make Dwemmer stuff. If you focus on the skill well enough (and you can simply by crafting a lot of leather items), you can access to high-quality items and whatnot fairly early.

I also notice that unlike Oblivion, baddies don't magically get higher-grade items as you level up. Bandits still are mostly outfitted with leather, hide, higher varieties with iron or occassionaly steel items.

Enchanting though.... seems to be a bit different thing. You can have buffs that help you regenerate your mana or cheapen the cost of certain schools, but I so far had little luck making them work (I got a 1% increase in mana regeneration instead of the 20% basic). Getting souls for soul gems is a bit tricky though (you can't use it on bandits, undead work, unsure about wild animals).

[Chardok]

The non-scaling enemies (Or maybe scaling lite?) is certainly an improvement. Nothing in oblivion was more ridiculous to me than getting jumped by a highwayman decked out in full ultra-rare Dwemer armor and battleaxe that they coud've only found in a ruin guarded by hordes of vampires and clockwork golems and, uh, if you're that powerful, why do you want my 15 gold lawl?

[Tanasinn]

Scaling lite, if you believe the official reports. The sort found in New Vegas.

[Stark]

The bandit population might be less well-funded, but it's still absurdly huge. Who knew a 15-population town could support entire Moria-like labyrinths of bandits not 20 feet from the gate? :V That's versimilitude!

[Executor32]

Just like Oblivion, only 'creatures' (read: anything that's not a person of some race or another) can have their soul trapped in normal soul gems. In Oblivion, you could make black soul gems that could trap NPC souls, but I have no idea whether those have returned in Skyrim.

Also, sabre cats can fuck right off. Wispmothers, too.

[Tanasinn]

The bandit population might be less well-funded, but it's still absurdly huge. Who knew a 15-population town could support entire Moria-like labyrinths of bandits not 20 feet from the gate? :V That's versimilitude!

That hurts the immersion, sure, but I feel New Vegas - which has fewer raiders compared to, say, Fallout 3 - had another problem in that there's fewer places you can go to have a big brawl with people.

[Chardok]

versimilitude!

Computer?


*beee woop bee*

Define Versimilitude.

[Chardok]

The bandit population might be less well-funded, but it's still absurdly huge. Who knew a 15-population town could support entire Moria-like labyrinths of bandits not 20 feet from the gate? :V That's versimilitude!

That hurts the immersion, sure, but I feel New Vegas - which has fewer raiders compared to, say, Fallout 3 - had another problem in that there's fewer places you can go to have a big brawl with people.

You never got jumped by Caesar's patrols?

[Stark]

It's the part where Beth can't decide if they want a sandbox where you fuck around and kill a lot of dudes, or a grown up and serious world where important things happen in believable ways.

[Executor32]

versimilitude!

Computer?


*beee woop bee*

Define Versimilitude.

It big word mean realism.

[Chardok]

It's the part where Beth can't decide if they want a sandbox where you fuck around and kill a lot of dudes, or a grown up and serious world where important things happen in believable ways.

I heard the Hogwarts Wizard's College whitehall college quest line is full of grown up political intrigue and backstabbing and there's a big wizard fight that straight out of The Sword Of Shannara, which is awesome, right?

[Vendetta]

And Chads, on 360 (which looks like dogshit)

Do you have the game installed?

If you do, delete it from the hard drive. There's a bug in the 360 version that means it forgets to load the high res textures if it's installed. Obviously it's still an old ass engine with xbox textures, but it doesn't look like sloppy ass.

[Stark]

Whoa whoa whoa - guild quests way more interesting than mainline quests?

You surprise me, sir.

[Zixinus]

Oh, and I forgot to mention: there is still a leftover bug from Morrowind. It involves going underwater: if you swim on the surface of the water and look underwater at the right way, you can see what's underwater without the (obviously intended) haze.

Going up the x thousand steps is a bitch. Seriously, there is a spider just as I cross the bridge? Beat that, a bear attacks me. Almost immediately. For a people that can make the sky roar with your title, they sure are tardy with keeping those mythical steps clean.

[Stark]

I think visual things like that are due to the way you're not a person, you're a camera that hovers, so at certain angles the centre of your viewpoint is under the water but your actual camera isn't.

If only the game wasn't based on a7 year old engine, maybe the characters would have bodies. And animation.

[Chardok]

And Chads, on 360 (which looks like dogshit)

Do you have the game installed?

If you do, delete it from the hard drive. There's a bug in the 360 version that means it forgets to load the high res textures if it's installed. Obviously it's still an old ass engine with xbox textures, but it doesn't look like sloppy ass.

Are you fucking serious?


Holy Christwagons, it's true. Goddammit, Bethesda. I guess I'll uninstall tonight so I have less schmear.

[Stark]

Whoa, that's incredible. But no, I didn't have it installed; I just borrowed it for the afternoon. I actually want to install it now to see how terrible it is wihtout the 'high res' textures.