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The Skyrim Fan Interview (Marriages, Armor, etc.)

I want to make sweet, sweet love to this game. It's basically everything I've dreamed for in a game.

The best birthday present ever, that's what this is. 11/11/11, believe!
 
WanderingWind said:
I think I speak for sentient beings, and all sentient beings that ever will be, when I say that TES needs to take absolutely no ques from Fable. In fact, if Fable did it, TES should do the opposite, just to be sure.
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I'd rather take the romance system from Fable then that from Bioware, where I have to talk to some poor sod for hours listening about their inane past.
While the Fable games are absolutely aweful they did two things right in Fable 2: the simple romance/marriage system where almost every NPC was an option(but not the idiotic way to gain someone's friendship/trust with silly emotes) and the dog.
 
Well, the game will probably be fine in the end but as a Daggerfall veteran I'm mightily annoyed by how they're constantly taking away features. Yeah yeah yeah, streamlining and removing ways to break the game, yadda yadda. That's not what I loved Elder Scrolls for. I loved them for letting me create all kinds of crazy character concepts and figure out new ways to play.

We're not there yet, but I'm willing to bet that Elder Scrolls VI will have only two types of weapons (1 or 2-handed) and two or possibly three kinds of magic (Restoration, Destruction and maybe Alteration).

Is there anything they've actually ADDED besides more detailed/scripted quests?
 
SiegfriedFM said:
.

Is there anything they've actually ADDED besides more detailed/scripted quests?
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They added the crafting of weapons and armor, and enchanting has returned as a skill. The Dragon shouts are also a new mechanic.
 
SorchaR said:
I'd rather take the romance system from Fable then that from Bioware, where I have to talk to some poor sod for hours listening about their inane past.
While the Fable games are absolutely aweful they did two things right in Fable 2: the simple romance/marriage system where almost every NPC was an option(but not the idiotic way to gain someone's friendship/trust with silly emotes) and the dog.
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Sorry, but the level to which I disagree cannot be expressed in English. The Fable system in which you can marry any of the flavorless NPCs with no dialogue and a series of farts/claps is the worst system of any video game. It ruins even the illusion of character that BioWare offers (and their romance crap is just that) and makes the entire exercise even more embarrassing that it has to be. And standing around listening to characters talk is sort of an RPG staple. Well, it used to be reading, but you get the point.
 
WanderingWind said:
Sorry, but the level to which I disagree cannot be expressed in English. The Fable system in which you can marry any of the flavorless NPCs with no dialogue and a series of farts/claps is the worst system of any video game. It ruins even the illusion of character that BioWare offers (and their romance crap is just that) and makes the entire exercise even more embarrassing that it has to be. And standing around listening to characters talk is sort of an RPG staple. Well, it used to be reading, but you get the point.
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thank you. Praise for Fable 2´s romancing? *shivers*
 
Worried about how much I keep seeing what I can't do and what they took out more than what I'll actually be able to do.

I don't care much for marriages and other useless weirdo shit when there's other more important things being left out. It's still my most wanted game this year though.
 
SiegfriedFM said:
Well, the game will probably be fine in the end but as a Daggerfall veteran I'm mightily annoyed by how they're constantly taking away features. Yeah yeah yeah, streamlining and removing ways to break the game, yadda yadda. That's not what I loved Elder Scrolls for. I loved them for letting me create all kinds of crazy character concepts and figure out new ways to play.
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Same here, and as I said on page one, I like to be able to break the game. In Morrowind, I would speed up character leveling by using mark/recall to swipe expensive items and Ghostgate and make a quick escape. I liked using the levitate spell to hover over Red Mountain or to escape from hapless guards. I liked taking the Scroll of Icarian Flight from the elf near Seyda Neen and using it to hop across the entire map (and usually dying upon collision).

Maybe those things can upset the balance of the game, or "break" it as Bethesda says, but open world games should be about freedom and allowing the player to experiment and do crazy shit. I was hoping to see that element return since it was absent from Oblivion, so it's disappointing to see they're moving in the opposite direction since it's not the most "refined" and directed approach to take.
 
Rapstah said:
He meant Terry Goodkind. That clears up the situation quite nicely.
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Actually he was right!

Apparently Terry Pratchett is an Elder Scrolls fan (basically any PC game with depth or intelligence he says). He played the Vilja companion mod so much that he eventually wrote some lines for her.

Before I start out on a description of the new version, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to a Great Grandmaster in storytelling, Discworld author Terry Pratchett. He has been travelling Cyrodiil with Vilja in tow since the first version of her was released, and he has not only been so kind and brain-stormed over her with me, but has also written more than 100 of the new chatter- and Thieves Guild-entries in ver 3 especially for Vilja. Several of her new features and topics originates from his thoughts on her. Many, many thanks!





A Terry Goodkind game would be a large, bare fantasy world where people sat around in towns sharing Ayn Rand-isms.
 
SorchaR said:
I'd rather take the romance system from Fable then that from Bioware, where I have to talk to some poor sod for hours listening about their inane past.
While the Fable games are absolutely aweful they did two things right in Fable 2: the simple romance/marriage system where almost every NPC was an option(but not the idiotic way to gain someone's friendship/trust with silly emotes) and the dog.
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You mean the system where you chose your bride simply on biggest breasts and skimpiest outfit?
 
9) Can we have some specifics about the PC version of the game? How will it's UI be different? Will there be a 64-bit executable?

Todd: 64-bit specific exe? Not at this time. As far as UI, it visually looks the same across the platforms, but the controls are entirely different. There’s also a lot of “power user” stuff we do with the keyboard from how favorites work, to quick saves, and more that is similar to what we’ve done before in that area. We’re packing a lot of info on the screen and the whole interface is much less ‘look at giant fonts!’ than, say, Oblivion. The PC version also gets higher res textures, larger render modes, and a bunch of other effects you can scale up if your machine is a beast. Last but most important, is the Creation Kit we’ll be releasing for the PC. Modding the game and making it your own is very important to us and our fans, so we’re going to keep doing whatever we can in that area.
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Release some PC screenshots Todd
 
Snuggler said:
Same here, and as I said on page one, I like to be able to break the game. In Morrowind, I would speed up character leveling by using mark/recall to swipe expensive items and Ghostgate and make a quick escape. I liked using the levitate spell to hover over Red Mountain or to escape from hapless guards. I liked taking the Scroll of Icarian Flight from the elf near Seyda Neen and using it to across the entire map (and usually dying upon collision).

Maybe those things can upset the balance of the game, or "break" it as Bethesda says, but open world games should be about freedom and allowing the player to experiment and do crazy shit. I was hoping to see that element return since it was absent from Oblivion, so it's disappointing to see they're moving in the opposite direction since it's not the most "refined" and directed approach to take.
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Plus, removing features to ensure your gamers don't "break the experience" in a single player game is like a company instituting draconian DRM to try to stymie pirates. It doesn't work and it just makes them try harder and crow harder when they win.

DennisK4 said:
Release some PC screenshots Todd
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You are such a graphics whore.
 
Between this and Dark Souls, my entire year is gone. Now all I need to know is the gameplay confirmation. Give me free-customization over combat, and we're golden. Rolling with a Tiger-man, just for the interesting racial prejudice I'll percieve.

Once the prejudice gets too high, I want to be able to burn down villages. Skyrim!
 
Confidence Man said:
With a proper interface you wouldn't have to scroll.
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I was trying to come up with a way of straight up insulting the interface without being overly hostile but this works as well.
 
Howard said they couldn't add them in the Oblivion or Fallout because of the engine...but have they confirmed whether or not ladders will be added in Skyrim?

My purchase depends on this.

Not really.
 
the upperbody + lowerbody and greaves + boots merge is really lame, hope they still kept the slots for Mods.
 
3) Is armor handled like in Oblivion (with each body part being welded together) or in Morrowind (with each body part separate)? Will you be able to wear both clothes and armor at the same time?
Matt: The armor system is very similar to Oblivion’s. The main difference is that the upper and lower body armors, the cuirass and greaves, have been combined into one piece. This helps create armor styles that have the look we needed for Skyrim. In most of the Nordic designs we created, the upper armor would completely cover the lower armor, making it unnecessary. We get much better visual results combining those pieces, and it renders a lot faster too, so we can put more people on screen, so that was an easy tradeoff for us. We can also make a lot more armors now, so the number and variation types are more than we’ve ever had.
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This i can understand, afterall if ti means having more types of armors and more dense population, it's a fair trade off.
But this:
Mark and recall is one where it’s a lot of fun, but like levitation, was removed so we could design better gameplay spaces and scenarios. We were really limited in Morrowind because the player could recall or levitate out of many situations and break them. There was a lot of good gameplay and level design work that we just couldn’t do and now we can. Back then it seemed like many good ideas we had were shot down when another designer would say “oh yeah, I just levitate or recall away.” So we got rid of them.
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Is bullshit.
One of the good and unique things about Morrowind was the possibility to lockpick in and kill Vivec in a fist fight, not the cheapass fantasy story or the whatever scripted events they may have came up with.
-

But overall, i'm very excited about it.
 
Mark and recall is one where it’s a lot of fun, but like levitation, was removed so we could design better gameplay spaces and scenarios. We were really limited in Morrowind because the player could recall or levitate out of many situations and break them. There was a lot of good gameplay and level design work that we just couldn’t do and now we can. Back then it seemed like many good ideas we had were shot down when another designer would say “oh yeah, I just levitate or recall away.” So we got rid of them.
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but that is why those spells were awesome
 
They are saying all the right things about this game. Every interview I read I become more and more convinced that this is going to be game of the forever. Going dark elf battle-wizard clad in rare heavy armor , a spell in each hand, with a 2 handed claymore just in case he need to stab something. God the wait for this game is so hard I already have everything planned out -.-
 
Consolized UI again - yey...

I hate so much tab-like interface from Oblivion and they're doing it again in PC version, what a crap.
 
I read updates about Skyrim increasingly with an eye toward my planned initial character (evil thief/archer), so these tidbits jumped out at me:

7) Will we be able to have relationships with the NPCs, romantic or otherwise?

Bruce: Absolutely! You make friends with people by doing things for them. Friends in the game will treat you differently. Some of them will even agree to go with you into dungeons and on adventures. You can even get married. If you own a house, your spouse will move in with you.​

Someone I can befriend, marry and then murder; companions I can lure into the wilderness and slaughter for riches. Excellent.

14) Do you plan to include non lethal ways of defeating opponents??

Todd: Depends on what you mean by “defeat”. We have various stealthy ways of getting past people, and the various poisons and spells allow you to basically render enemies harmless to you, whether that is casting a calm or fear spell, knocking them down, or something else.​

In Oblivion my archer/thief was also an expert in Alchemy and I always had a wicked array of poisons on me. A big chunk of enemies never lived long enough to close distance, collapsing from poison and other secondary damage applied to my arrows. With thigns like rune traps and larger back stabbing bonuses, now in the mix, I'm looking for even more no-direct forms of combat. I hope there's an easier way to poison and then use arrows.

20) Will any sort of karma system be incorporated like there was in Fallout, or will it be the Fame/Infamy system of Oblivion?

Bruce: We don’t provide a numeric score that you can track, but the game knows if you’ve been naughty or nice. We felt that a number really didn’t do your fame justice. Characters in the world will acknowledge the specific things you have done rather than just a generalized reputation. If you are a criminal, they’ll know that too. But if you pay your debt to society, all is forgiven.​

I hope this doesn't mean I'll be known as a criminal even though I'm not getting caught. I really want the entire crime/punishment/fame system to be detailed. Oblivion was drop-dead stupid in this department.
 
KKRT00 said:
Consolized UI again - yey...

I hate so much tab-like interface from Oblivion and they're doing it again in PC version, what a crap.
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Only it's worse since everything is gigantic and the skill tree is the most convoluted mess they could come up with. It makes DA2's skill trees look usable.
 
Linkzg said:
but that is why those spells were awesome
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Yeah, and I can't think of a single example of "good gameplay and level design" from Oblivion directly resulting from not being able to levitate or M&R. I mean I get they couldn't let you levitate over a city wall due to the way the game considered them separate worlds, but that should be all the more reason to do away with cities like that.
 
KKRT00 said:
Consolized UI again - yey...

I hate so much tab-like interface from Oblivion and they're doing it again in PC version, what a crap.
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2 days before it gets modded out, don't fret.

Yeah, and I can't think of a single example of "good gameplay and level design" from Oblivion directly resulting from not being able to levitate or M&R.
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This 100%.
 
Morokh said:
the upperbody + lowerbody and greaves + boots merge is really lame, hope they still kept the slots for Mods.
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It's not greaves/boots, it's cuirass/greaves (aka the chest part and the thigh part).

Overall, I like most of what I hear in this preview. I wonder about the crime & punishment system still; in this interview it sounds like people can't just know everything about your criminal history and instead have to know about specific events. But it's not perfectly clear.

On the other hand, beards.
 
badgenome said:
Oh, man. That hot aging barmaid from that first batch of screenshots will be mine!
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Coax her out one night for a leisurely stroll...



Which reminds me, they said there were going to be a few bigger towns/cities, right? I'm looking forward to haunting some dark alleys and robbing NPCs as they pass by.
 
Wallach said:
It's not greaves/boots, it's cuirass/greaves (aka the chest part and the thigh part).

Overall, I like most of what I hear in this preview. I wonder about the crime & punishment system still; in this interview it sounds like people can't just know everything about your criminal history and instead have to know about specific events. But it's not perfectly clear.

On the other hand, beards.
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No more pants-less streaking hero. :(
 
UrbanRats said:
2 days before it gets modded out, don't fret.
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May not be that simple this time. Oblivion had a simple page layout, this is an entirely different graphical representation. There's no telling if they'll even be able to take that skill section where you're moving around to the different stars and make it into a one-page menu. And now they have the 3D items taking up a huge chunk of the inventory screen, too.
 
But can I marry my armor?

And I hate combining armor parts. I love having mismatched armor in RPGs. When I beat DQ IX my main character wore a silver breastplate, silver gauntlets, a viking helmet and invisible pants.
 
Confidence Man said:
May not be that simple this time. Oblivion had a simple page layout, this is an entirely different graphical representation. There's no telling if they'll even be able to take that skill section where you're moving around to the different stars and make it into a one-page menu. And now they have the 3D items taking up a huge chunk of the inventory screen, too.
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It will have to be a much more involved mod this time. I am sure that will be one of the first things tackled by the competent modders though.
 
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