Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/06/february-cover-revealedesv-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim.aspx

The Game Informer magazine today revealed it's cover. More stuff to come, including a 14 page preview of Skyrim once the magazine ships. That info will soon be all over the internetz too.

After several hours of translation (not using the fancy tool they provided) I come to this conclusion:

The lyrics of the trailer song (and game theme) read:
(Edit: More precisely, only the first part is the lyrics for the theme. The second half is seemingly part of the same song, but not heared.)

Dragonborn, dragonborn,
By his honour is sworn,
To keep evil forever at bay.
And the fiercest foes rout,
When they hear thriumph's shout!
Dragonborn for your blessing we pray.


And the scrolls have fortold,
Of black wings in the cold,
That, when brothers wage war, come unfurled:
Alduin, bane of kings,
Ancient shadow unbound,
with a hunger to swallow the world.

To elaborate: Alduin is another name of Akatosh, god of time; the one who was (next to Talos; Tiber Septim himself) the god of the Septim empire, and an avatar of which Martin Septim turned into to save the world. Normally a good guy. But he seems to be the antagonist in Skyrim: It's long known that the Nords fear Alduin.

Spec wrote:After several hours of translation (not using the fancy tool they provided) I come to this conclusion:

The lyrics of the trailer song (and game theme) read:
(Edit: More precisely, only the first part is the lyrics for the theme. The second half is seemingly part of the same song, but not heared.)

Dragonborn, dragonborn,
By his honour is sworn,
To keep evil forever at bay.
And the fiercest foes rout,
When they hear thriumph's shout!
Dragonborn for your blessing we pray.


And the scrolls have fortold,
Of black wings in the cold,
That, when brothers wage war, come unfurled:
Alduin, bane of kings,
Ancient shadow unbound,
with a hunger to swallow the world.

To elaborate: Alduin is another name of Akatosh, god of time; the one who was (next to Talos; Tiber Septim himself) the god of the Septim empire, and an avatar of which Martin Septim turned into to save the world. Normally a good guy. But he seems to be the antagonist in Skyrim: It's long known that the Nords fear Alduin.

Maybe some corrupted god like in Dragon age?

Well, Akatosh isn't really corrupted. His role as world-eater isn't exactly new. The Aedra and Daedra aren't exactly good guys / bad guys. Akatosh was once tricked into helping to create the world, and now that he's free of the empire, he pretty much can destroy it as he wishes - though obviously, he'll somehow be stopped. Probably not with a direct confrontation, I assume.

They have a new, uber cool combat system.

You now have two hands. You can chose a spell or weapon for each hand. Yaaay, duel wielding. I mean, who needs two handed weapons (which appear on none of the now released screenshots) anyway?

I had hoped they learned from Oblivion. Sadly, they did. It sold well.

They even went to remove more skills and kept a stupid levelling system.

Does this mean I can equip two, very OP spells at once?

Seems so.

Blergh. Yesterday I was all hyped and translated strange dragon language stuff without using their translation program just so I'd be even more hyped, and today I doubt the game will even be worth buying. I seriously heared nothing good about it so far.

Seems too early to judge, and the two hand system is somewhat similar to the neverwinter nights system (if I remember correctly), which might mean they've taken other things from them? Which I would certainly consider positive.

I've seen the screenshot of the skill system. It reminded me of Jedi Knight 2's skill system. Which was not exactly up to RPG standards... I mean the RPG standards of the times of Baldurs Gate-ish RPGs...

Spec wrote:I've seen the screenshot of the skill system. It reminded me of Jedi Knight 2's skill system. Which was not exactly up to RPG standards... I mean the RPG standards of the times of Baldurs Gate-ish RPGs...

Where :O??

*cough* Oh, nowhere.

Spec wrote:*cough* Oh, nowhere.

SPEC! DONT HIDE THE PRECIOUS FROM US! SHOW NAOW!! :O :O

Pretty sure that'd violate forum rules. And honestly, that stuff is all over the internet. If some evil, ciminal mind would really want to look for those, they'd have an easy time finding them using google. This is discouraged of course.

Spec wrote:Pretty sure that'd violate forum rules. And honestly, that stuff is all over the internet. If some evil, ciminal mind would really want to look for those, they'd have an easy time finding them using google. This is discouraged of course.

What ya talking about? Google only showed me some Elf girl with some the shortage of clothes problems while searching for "skyrim"

Parts of the contents of the Game Informer Article (incomplete):
<SPOILERS INCLUDED>

Bethesda Game Studios had reached the end of an era with Oblivion: The third era of Tamriel, and the first era of Elder Scrolls games.
Now, with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the developers did not only start a new era in their games, jumping 200 years into the future, they also developed completely new ways of playing the game, or so the article says.

The Elder Scrolls tell of the dragon Alduin, the World Eater; who is also known under the name of Akatosh, god of time, and saved the day in Oblivion. Now he's back, to eat the world. He appears to be the main antagonist in Skyrim.

Dragonborn, or, in draconic, "Dovahkiin", are people capable of hunting dragons, and feared by them. It is suggested that the player character might be one of the last few remaining Dovahkiin.

It is known that a man named Esbern, one of the few surviving Blades (formerly protectors of the emperors of the Septim family; a family also known as "dragonborn"), will be a mentor of the player character. He knows a lot about the prophecies that forsee the end of Mundus. He, as the article says, is voiced by Max von Sydow, who was also heared in the trailer.

Greybeards are old men living far away from society, on top of the "Throat of the World", one of the largest mountains of Tamriel, in a place called "High Hrothgar". The player character will be trained by these men, after climbing the 7000 steps to the top of the mountain, at some point in the story.

Skyrim, as we all know, is the country the game takes place in. The king of Skyrim died prior to the start of the game, and his death might be the cause of a civil war between those who wish to stick with the Empire, and those who want a free Skyrim, which will be part of the game's story. As earlier hints (the theme song's second verse) indicate, the fight between the brothers of Skyrim will be the last thing to happen before the World-Eater will return.

Level-wise, the number of skills seems drastically reduced once again, classes are gone, and so might be attributes, and the system is simplified overall. Also, similar to Fallout 3, 'perks' will exist, that the player can chose as he levels up. One of them is said to be a perk that makes blunt weapons ignore armor.

The AI in Skyrim is once again said to be very innovative. Like in Oblivion, the AI is said to be smart enough to have their own day-to-day lives, although a similar system is also said to be in place regarding the story and quests. A few examples given: A magically very gifted player character might be approached by magical NPCs on the streets that a fighter would not have met. The murder of a shopkeeper might make his daugther take up his position in said shop, with lowered disposition towards the player, but possibly the same quest to offer. Or dropping a sword somewhere in a crowded place might result in it perhaps being ignored, perhaps being brought back to the player by a bystander (it is mentioned that his bystander could be a child, which seems to confirm the existance of children in the game world), or perhaps two men would fight over what they found to keep it for themselves. (I wish to note, though, that many such promises have been made for Oblivion already, and not all these things were indeed true). It is also said that some quests may be a bit more randomized/player specified again: A quest of a missing person might be set in not a specific dungeon, but in one that is unknown to the player.

The combat system, in essence, has one new main feature: You can put a weapon, spell or shield to either hand (although 2 handed weapons might still exist), and use them as you wish. It is also promised that fights would be more immersive and focussed on finding a gap in the enemies defense: We'll see whether this comes close to what Mount & Blade has achieved.

One real improvement that I read of seems to be the (optional?) removal of a head-up-display in first person mode. Graphics are said to be awesome, yadda yadda, with the main things being, for example, an increased draw distance and better faces (e.g. beards).

It is hinted that some new, crafting-like activities might now exist, in specific "mining, woodcutting, cooking, smithing". It is also known that the way NPCs talk to eachother is a lot more smooth, and, importantly, that the player character now seems to be able to move around while talking to someone; at least the NPCs will, and time will now pass during a conversation.

More is known, but I could not get that much more information out of the currently available sources. The Bethesda forums might hold more and more information in the coming days.

[quote="Snake"]

bleh.. there are mods for that in oblivion, and I never downloaded such dirty porno -.-

I agree. Thoses mods *looks at Dealdy Reflex* steal the little Role-playing value to Oblivion, and make it one of those chessy, Japanese action games.


While the combat in Oblivion could be boring at points, I hope they don't expand on the combat too much. This is, afterall, an RPG.

Hmmm, some good points but lower the number of skills?! Why?!
Still I like the random effects, could be cool.

So console gamers can play the game without thinking too much.

Taking that a step further, I expect a general decrease of complexity and quality in favor of amusement for a short amount of time.

Spec wrote:
The AI in Skyrim is once again said to be very innovative. Like in Oblivion, the AI is said to be smart enough to have their own day-to-day lives, although a similar system is also said to be in place regarding the story and quests.

Hah, yeah right. They said the same thing about Oblivion's radiant AI and how wonderful and innovative it would be. The only thing NPCs really did do was having conversations about mudcrabs and stand around doing nothing.

Barca wrote:

Spec wrote:
The AI in Skyrim is once again said to be very innovative. Like in Oblivion, the AI is said to be smart enough to have their own day-to-day lives, although a similar system is also said to be in place regarding the story and quests.

Hah, yeah right. They said the same thing about Oblivion's radiant AI and how wonderful and innovative it would be. The only thing NPCs really did do was having conversations about mudcrabs and stand around doing nothing.

Meanwhile in Oblivion:
NPC1: Look! Its the player, lets start a pointless conversation!
NPC2: Woho yeah!
Player: ...
NPC1:Hello
NPC2:Greetings!
NPC1:*Cough*
NPC2:Goodbye
NPC1:Bye
Player:*Uses Giant Fire ball*

Heh, ya. I'd take that with a very large bag of salt.

Hey guys, a very interesting Q&A from Gameinformer with Todd Howard just came in Gameinformer site itself, check it, its verrrrrrrrrrryy interesting to listen

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2011/02/03/toddhowardse.aspx

Pretty much ruled out spears there for sure :/
I don't like the perk system at all, either. It seems like something for one of these browser based MMORPGs, it should be possible to create a much more fluid, subtle way to simulate skills and dis-/advantages through complex mathematical formulas hidden from the player. We have computers after all, why make a rule system simpler than P&P systems?

Spec wrote:Pretty much ruled out spears there for sure :/
I don't like the perk system at all, either. It seems like something for one of these browser based MMORPGs, it should be possible to create a much more fluid, subtle way to simulate skills and dis-/advantages through complex mathematical formulas hidden from the player. We have computers after all, why make a rule system simpler than P&P systems?

(Lovely that we can hear some OST of Skyrim in begging and end of the podcast <3)
Indeed xD
Well I suppose the "also for Consoles" would be a good excuse, you know 1 click thing -.-
But still the podcast showed many interesting stuffs, like now there will be different.. lets say dungeons from ancient to new, so everything around wont look like it was made in one day for the "Amusement Park".
Also Crafting, interesting what they will do with spell crafting

I really hope they don't take it out. There was rumours about spell creation being completely removed. Some things that defined the series might be out of the game now... Such as talking to random NPCs. It's said that most unimportant ones will now only have one thing to say when you talk to them (probably rumours), and nothing else.

As for the radiant story thing; take a look at the early videos of Oblivion where they talked about radiant AI. It was supposed to be a hell of a lot more complex than it is. While Mount & Blade is a great game, it's quest system isn't exactly entertaining for a long time, and I fear that Skyrim's might end up being like Mount & Blades. On the other hand, Daggerfall also had randomized quests, so we'll see.