The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim is announced

Bethesda has announced the release date of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as November 11, 2011.

TES V: Skyrim

PC Gamer - TES V Skyrim

Does anyone have any information as to what the gameplay / interface will look like? Are they changing game engine?

I understand they have a new engine. There should be a trailer out soon. I get the impression it may work more like Fallout but don't quote me. I am sure we will soon be flooded with plenty of hype.

We'll see about making a new forum for the Elder Scrolls V.

The game won't be released for many months so the hype will probably start soon enough.

From what I have read and seen it is going to use a new engine which means that it won't use the Oblivion engine that Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas use.

I hope that they make a real dialogue system this time and don't get carried with level scaling. As far as I'm concerned the dialogue wheel and the silly level scaling were the two major flaws in Oblivion.

I hated that dialogue reputation wheel. The leveling system did suck. I added a mod that made the fighting more interesting and more gruesome. I love gruesome in my games. I think shilly shalling about death is silly. I don't think it causes nuts to go out and kill people. I think white-washing killing is more apt to because they don't understand the reality of killing.

People should have a choice of course.

I don't think violence is handled that well in games. I agree that it shouldn't be taken lightly but most games offer graphic amounts of violence without consequences. The showers of blood in DAO were a bit preposterous but they did reflect that.

What I find even more annoying is the way romance and sex are depicted in games. We see more and more characters who are open about having a sexual identity that stands out but it's rarely depicted in a satisfactory fashion. I think DAO was rather good in that respect with Leliana and Zevran (especially since both characters could be said to challenge stereotypes) but there is still a certain moral ambiguity whenever sex is breached upon...

It seems ok to have (graphic) violence in games but giving a character a sexual identity is often problematic.

Fallout New Vegas features some perks that allow a player to define a character's sexual orientation, a choice that can be reflected in dialogue options. That is a step in the right direction but it often lacks subtlety. I don't expect the Elder Scrolls V to reflect such roleplaying choices though.

They should make a cross over between Leisure Suit Larry and Elder Scrolls!

What bothered me most about ESIV was the repetition of it all. Most missions are so similar it's annoying. You feel like you're doing the same thing over and over. The closing of portals were always the same. Not to mention NPCs. It's all well and good that everyone has a name, but when they *all* behave the same, it's pretty much counter productive.

And I think they pretty much killed replay value by allowing your character to be anything he/she wanted at the same time. C'mon, you can't be leader of the fighter's guild, Patron of the assassins and Arch-mage in one play through...

I agree about the conversation wheel. It was a bit ridiculous. The first few times, it's cute. But it gets old after a while, specially when you play an agent and conversation is one of your main abilities.... ugh...

I don't know, I rather liked the leveling up. I like much better the concept of "getting better at abilities you use" rather than the D&D type of "all of a sudden I'm better at something". And the same went for the strength, agility, etc, characteristics. The more you use abilities of a certain characteristic, the better the bonus if you invest level up points in it.

One thing I would really like is more decision making and customization. Like if, for example, we could have been the head of the the blades in ESIV. Decide who goes one what assignement, be able to recruit, ect.

Triactus wrote:

And I think they pretty much killed replay value by allowing your character to be anything he/she wanted at the same time. C'mon, you can't be leader of the fighter's guild, Patron of the assassins and Arch-mage in one play through...

Unfortunately I think that's the way Bethesda makes game. Fallout New Vegas works differently (but it was made by Obsidian). In this game you have to make choices so you can't do everything in the same playthrough.

Morrowind you had to make choices and there was some conflict between the Houses and Guilds. I didn't like that 'be anything you want, join anything you want' feature in Oblivion.

Betrayl at Krondor, my first CRPG increased your abilities as you used them. You were able to choose a limited number to train in. I was a total noob to computer games and knew nothing about leveling up but on the whole it was good.

I was fairly happy with the romance in DAO. Sex is a touchy subject and developers have to be careful. With violence they can give you choices as to how much you want.

Oblivion was very generic, caves all looked pretty much the same, also forts and Aylied ruins. Same voices used over and over. No real character in my opinion to the faces of the NPCs. I found a mod "Natural faces" that improved that a little.

I hope they -Bethesda-got some new blood for developing the new game. Ones with still fresh imaginations. Eager to prove themselves who can come up with decent quests. I did like the Thieves Guild quest line and the Dark Brotherhood had a good quest line. I got bored with closing Oblivion gates and started cheating with the random gates. By that time I had a mod that added Runestones that were better than the Sigil stones.

What I want to know is will they allow people to have the Construction Set and make mods? Without mods I would not have played Oblivion as much as I did. Even did a little personal modding myself.

I assume they're going to include a toolset because mods are very important for games nowadays. That is really obvious when looking at games like Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. It's also a major selling point for the PC version.

I liked the Grey Fox quests and the Dark Brotherhood as well but most of the game was indeed rather generic. Shivering Isles was absolutely great though.

Yeah, I never finished Shivering. But up to where I was, I rather liked it. I liked the wacky atmosphere of the game. I still have my game. I think I'll play it a couple weeks before ESV goes out to stores...

And do anyone know if they continue with the timeline of the story?

ESV takes place 200 years after Oblivion. There is no king and the player needs to deal with civil war as well as some Dragon King returned to destroy the world. So it would seem that it continues the timeline.

I wonder if they fixed the lip-sync problem Since it is a new engine maybe they did.

My expectations are low storywise, it's always the same old thing: save the world blah blah blah...

The strength of the Elder Scrolls series is definitely not to be found in the main quests as they are rather lame.

I hope that you're not thrown into the story like in Oblivion, but rather, you enter your life in a seamless, ordinary fashion and live it the way you choose but you notice the change in the world around you, and at some point you may choose to do something. (I'm kind of thinking of how Guild Wars 2 is going to be)

I'm hoping the leveling system is improved, since you leveled too slowly and I had barely leveled once I had played through the main plot and all the guilds, which kind of bummed be out since the only way for me to fight those high level monsters was either to cheat my way up or get a mod, I decided to do the latter. But now I think, and I realize how lucky we were that the game could take it, and that we weren't forced to use that crappy leveling system or to use cheats to make the game exciting.

As for romance, I hope they've got something a bit more than in DAO (like more choices, who are a mix of significant and non significant people), and I'd really love it if they don't make the gay characters (if there will be any) stereotyped and/or promiscous, like Zevran in DAO (Dairren was one of very few HBT people in DAO who wasn't stereotyped, although I did not like the fact that he died, and so brutally).

Also, if there is a certain person that you personally like, you should be able to romance him or her no matter what gender your character is. Hopefully it will be moddable if the unfortunate occurs, that's how my human male rouge met his hubby Alistair.

Bethesda seems to love starting TES games with a prison of some sort so don't be surprised if TES V starts in a similar fashion. It would be nice if the start was a little more natural, a normal person who becomes a hero would be a nice change.

I, too, don't hold out much hope for a really good story. I liked Morrowind but felt that Oblivion lacked any real story. That 'you must get the Amulet to Jauffre right away' line and then being told you can explore as you like really annoyed me. I would like it if the story gradually leads you to the main quests. I won't hold my breath though.

On the subject of Skyrim, I'm not going to pay too much attention to the hype. Oblivion was the most disappointing gaming experience I've ever had. While I think Bethesda have learned a few lessons since then, I'm still not expecting much. The main quest sounds like its going to be a retread of Oblivion, which is sad, since Oblivion's main quest was its greatest weakness IMO.

I'm sure it will be very pretty, though. Whether it will have substance is my concern.

Carabas wrote:

What I find even more annoying is the way romance and sex are depicted in games. We see more and more characters who are open about having a sexual identity that stands out but it's rarely depicted in a satisfactory fashion. I think DAO was rather good in that respect with Leliana and Zevran (especially since both characters could be said to challenge stereotypes) but there is still a certain moral ambiguity whenever sex is breached upon...

I think one of the strengths of the romances in DAO was that sex was not portrayed as the final objective of the relationship. In most games, the romance leads up to a sex scene, which effectively ends the romance quest line. This is a really unhealthy and immature way to view both sex and relationships. The sex is just presented as a reward for going through the romance, after which, there is nothing left to do.

In DAO, the sex scenes were available part way through the romance (or almost immediately in Zevran's case), then the relationship continued to develop. This was the most mature portrayal of relationships and sex I've seen in an RPG.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have the Witcher, where all the women Geralt sleeps with are turned into collectors cards he can carry around in his pack like tropies.

Carabas wrote:

It seems ok to have (graphic) violence in games but giving a character a sexual identity is often problematic.

This is one thing I don't understand at all. It's okay to make a game where the protagonist goes around slaughtering people with a giant sword, so long as he does so in a very heterosexual manner. People's priorities are really messed up, sometimes.

It will probably look incredibly good. Judging by the screens that we have been shown so far it looks amazing. I agree with Kana that substance is the problem here.

Kana wrote:

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have the Witcher, where all the women Geralt sleeps with are turned into collectors cards he can carry around in his pack like tropies.

I must confess that I found this part of the game hilarious. It doesn't bring anything most of the time but it is a lot of fun and totally NOT politically correct. That is extremely refreshing in this day and age.

I'm a James Bond fan and I do miss the good old days when Bond would have casual sex with numerous gorgeous ladies, get drunk, chain smoke and still manage to kill the villain in a creative and demeaning manner while cracking a joke. When Bond stopped smoking and started to become (almost) monogamous (something that happened roughly in the late 90s) the character lost much of his appeal.

Besides in the Witcher the main female characters can give Geralt a hard time because of this promiscuity (which is in no way mandatory by the way). The romance in The Witcher is well integrated into the plot (Shianni or Triss, you have to choose).

Kana wrote:

Carabas wrote:

It seems ok to have (graphic) violence in games but giving a character a sexual identity is often problematic.

This is one thing I don't understand at all. It's okay to make a game where the protagonist goes around slaughtering people with a giant sword, so long as he does so in a very heterosexual manner. People's priorities are really messed up, sometimes.

People tend to forget that these are roleplaying games. You can play as a male or a female. You can play a prude or a flirtatious character. You can play a heterosexual character or a homosexual character. It's all about playing a role. I'm straight and I'm confident enough to play a character who is gay (and not as a queen like De Niro did in Stardust). If I play a woman in an RPG it doesn't mean that I'm going to dress up as a woman and sing or that my character is going to be wearing bikini chainmail either.

I liked the romance in DAO. You had choices, it developed as the game went along. In DAO i played both male and female characters. In Oblivion I played female characters partly because of the first person view and partly because it didn't matter.

I don't expect Bethesda to do any thing with romances. If they do have companions and decent dialogue maybe they will but I am not getting my hopes up. Bethesda has a certain formula that has been successful for them. I hope they realize that a lot of the re playability of the game was because of mods.

You're right, that aspect of The Witcher was quite funny. They even poke fun at it in the game. One female NPC you can talk to in Vizima will shoot Geralt down, saying something like, "You think I'll just jump into bed with you?" To which Geralt replies, "It crossed my mind."

It fits very well with the character of Geralt as he was written by Sapkowski. He is kind of like a fantasy version of James Bond. They are both dashing womanizers (Geralt doesn't even limit himself to actual women... they can be dryads, vampires... as long as it's shaped like a woman, he's game). But it works because they are also noble and endearing in their own way.

Turning this back to the Elder Scrolls, I would be very surprised to see anything like romances in Skyrim, and I would be even more surprised to see it done well. Bethesda's games have never been character focused, and they generally have pretty scant character development and interaction. I mean, look at how bare-bones the followers were in Fallout 3. They really existed solely to catch bullets, and you missed absolutely nothing by ignoring them completely. Characterisation just isn't Bethesda's focus, and bad characterisation can make for really even worse romances (just look at Star Wars Episode II).

Here is alink to an interactive map. In this quest you pan over different locations and need to decipher them in order to complete the quest. Skyrim interactive map

I understand that quite a few changes have been made. One is that when dialogue is initiated you no longer zoom in on the NPC.

Old dragons who were supressed and are now returning? An old order having their last stand at a big tower in a snowy place? Sounds to me like a certain game developer has stolen the plot from Guild Wars 2...

Could be, Loren. These games seem to follow a certain forumula. Another game I enjoyed, Prince of Qin, from China had a unique story simply because it was roughly based on history. Quests still followed the same pattern although in unique places. Fighting was good since it used flamboyant oriental moves. Spell casting was nice.

Even the science fiction games follow the forumula just with modernized equipment.

YES! I can't wait!!! From where I stand: Who gives a rat's ass about the main quest? With such a bigass world map, why even bother with guilds? Just freelance! So many places to explore, loot, monsters to kill... that's what made Ob so good to me, just like it did Morrowind. I DESPISE FedEx quests and while freelancing, the only thing I care about is killing monsters, getting rich, owning a bigass house, explore every inch of the map. Too much fun to miss out. Again, I can't WAIT for ESV and I am looking forward to see Skyrim. We saw Morrowind, Cyrodiil, and now Skyrim... wish for ESVI? Summerset Isle!

A radiant Ai, storytelling, Level up 2.o . Supposedly the game keeps tract of what you have done, your experience, abilities, where you have ben and adjust the game to that. Get a quest and the game checks where you have explored and sets it a new place. Caves and ruins are qupposed to be at least somewhat unique. There are randomly generated quests.

Based on what I have read the game sounds very good. I just don't know whether to believe it or not.

The games Bethesda made are not about a great main story or big quests anyway. The great thing is the freedom to explore the world. The rest is not that important.

I just hope they won't use tired stale clichés like they did in Oblivion... This chosen one /prophecy thing is definitely getting too old.