V The Elder Scrolls

[Erkki]

And the media blackout for this game has been working so far. I know very little about the game. So 12 hours of GB playing this game is absolutely not on my list.

Yeah, on the other hand I might decide not to watch it to leave more things for surprise. I haven't learned a lot about it either, except this thread and watching that video with Todd Howard and reading what some guy ate in it.

[Orv]

j50u0zUeCmU

[Sno]

That was surprisingly entertaining.

[Erkki]

That was surprisingly entertaining.

'twas!

[Forbin]

RE: Gaming ruts

A gaming rut can easily be solved by consuming other media. A good book always recharges my brain.

[Roderick]

In a left field move, gaming shops in the Netherlands have started selling Skyrim today, three days before the official launch. I have it here in my hands for XBox 360 and will play it the coming hours.

First impression: it has the lousiest cover of the year. It's a sleet of black with some 'book' detailing on the side and a remarkably weak logo. Nothing pops, it looks just really unfinished and unexciting. Probably everything the game is not, so, odd they went for this.

As a sidenote, when I popped in the disc just now I found Batman: Arkham City was still in. I removed it saying 'fuck off, Batman' and when I realised what I just said I smiled.

[Erkki]

A new trailer

fn0N294NFy0

Sounds like there's a war between Skyrim and The Empire or something like that in addition to the dragon problem.

[Orv]

I don't know if you're watching Nick, but these Skyrim podcasts are really great. They're a lot like that Oblivion anniversary cast that you guys did, looking into the devs heads, which is something I always enjoy.

[Sno]

I don't know if you're watching Nick, but these Skyrim podcasts are really great. They're a lot like that Oblivion anniversary cast that you guys did, looking into the devs heads, which is something I always enjoy.

I just listened to those myself, i really enjoyed them.

[Brannigan]

Unnnnnngh so tempted to take the plunge on this. My history with the past few bethesda games is "Looks like the perfect game for me!" but ends up not clicking for some reason. But I have been in an rpg sort of mood...plus dragons and vikings!

[Laxan]

Well in that case...

[Brannigan]

Well now that Guitarwizard has approved...

[Gwardinen]

Yeah IGN are known for their low scores, hard-hitting critique and daring use of the whole review scale.

Disclaimer: I hope this isn't necessary, but the above statement was not made in seriousness.

[Thyroid]

One thing that's been irritating about Skyrim's reviews is the fact that reviewers haven't had lots of time to play it. Everyone seems in awe of the world's potential and is giving high thumbs up in response. I know that they have to publish reviews early to get the hits, but I wonder how much of that joy is hype and immediate afterglow. The review from RPS lists all the things the reviewer hasn't done yet.

Especially irritating (of the ones I read) is Joystiq's review:

Speaking of chores: What should be thrilling fights in Skyrim are often weighed down by the same clunky melee system Oblivion suffered from. In fact, even the word "system" is pretty generous considering we're just talking about hammering on the right trigger. While Skyrim has expanded the series in almost every conceivable direction, its mindless melee still feels rooted in the past. Having a lightning bolt in your left hand helps, make no mistake, but it's no substitute for real variety in the swordplay.

[...]Depth in Skyrim is often sacrificed for scope. Most every individual system in the game has been explored more fully in other games, but there are just so many of them and so much flexibility, it's tough to get too perturbed.

That expanse comes at a price, however, in the form of frequent, 5-10 second long load times. It's not typically too much of a distraction, but when you're on a quest taking you in and out of several buildings in a row it can wear on you. But considering that you can ride from one end of Skyrim to the other without a single pause, the occasional interior loading is a relatively minor inconvenience.

Sadly, I can't extend the same pass to the game's wholly unsurprising yet still pretty disappointing technical problems. I don't mind a little jank in a world this big, but five hard freezes, a mask that made my face disappear for much of the game and an entire dungeon where I inexplicably had unlimited magic? It's too much. Will it all be smoothed out eventually? Sure. (A day-one patch has already been deployed.) But is it a frequent distraction from what should be the ultimate immersive experience? You bet.

Granted, he provides counter-points for each of his arguments, but why would he give it a full score afterwards? He used the phrase "frequent distraction", and the word "chores". Doesn't that warrant something?

[Erkki]

Hm... Why is it that my Steam client has no idea whatsoever about Skyrim. Even if I search anonymously on store.steampowered.com, nothing shows up. The game is on Steam for most people, right?

Could it be just that it's not on Steam in my country or what? I think I saw it there a month or so ago, but I might be wrong.

Maybe I should get a Direct2Drive account...?

[elmuerte]

your country is not good enough for Skyrim

[Erkki]

your country is not good enough for Skyrim

It seems so. I guess I see some reasoning behind it -- many people here still pirate games. I don't know the percentages or anything, but it seems like most do that for PC games.

I searched on google, the steam forums have been offline for a while, but I found some cached posts:

"i am from Lithuania , RAGE , ES V Skyrim, Dirt 3, Fable 3, Dead Rising 2, SSFIV, Lost Planet 2 are locked in my region for no reason. "

Seems to be the same in Estonia -- I'm not seeing those games either (no search results).

[Erkki]

But it's not like the region blocking is better in any way than DRM. Seems worse. Again they have found a way to screw legitimate customers, and meanwhile my search for "skyrim steam" on google already brought up some thepiratepay results so I'm assuming it has been pirated already and this blocking didn't in any way prevent that.

[elmuerte]

Region locking success!

[Gwardinen]

But it's not like the region blocking is better in any way than DRM. Seems worse. Again they have found a way to screw legitimate customers, and meanwhile my search for "skyrim steam" on google already brought up some thepiratepay results so I'm assuming it has been pirated already and this blocking didn't in any way prevent that.

Yeah, the only way I see this region locking affecting piracy is by encouraging people in those countries to pirate the game, since you apparently can't buy it legitimately.

Who actually thinks region locking a digitally distributed copy of a game is a good idea?

[Murdoc]

Havent played much, but so far it's neat, pretty much feels like Oblivion. The same typical terrible looking NPCs and animation, but they realyl did a good job on the main character presets and animation; which is a shame because I want to play it 3rd person, but it just doesn't lend itself to that very well.

Im getting this sound problem in a lot of these games and wondering if anyone can clue me in on it; I cant hear people talking unless I turn left or right... pretty much point my ear to them. This is pretty annoying especially when you get in a conversation and I can't turn my head. Does it have something to do with surround sound or something? I'm on a temp computer so I don't really know how its set up.

[Irishjohn]

Im getting this sound problem in a lot of these games and wondering if anyone can clue me in on it; I cant hear people talking unless I turn left or right... pretty much point my ear to them. This is pretty annoying especially when you get in a conversation and I can't turn my head. Does it have something to do with surround sound or something? I'm on a temp computer so I don't really know how its set up.

I played for twenty minutes last night before bed and I had a similar problem, except I had actual static in place of words (I know for sure because I play with subtitles).

I'm not the only one with the problem and apparently the solution is to change your sound settings to 24-bit 44100 hz? I haven't had a chance to check yet myself.

[Garple]

Am I the only one who thinks "skyrim" sounds like a really complicated, filthy sex move?

[Cigol]

I played for twenty minutes last night before bed and I had a similar problem, except I had actual static in place of words (I know for sure because I play with subtitles).

I'm not the only one with the problem and apparently the solution is to change your sound settings to 24-bit 44100 hz? I haven't had a chance to check yet myself.

I had the problem myself (using an old PCI X-FI) but switching that setting seems to have done the trick. Voices are still quite quiet relative to everything else and they can get cut off like in Fallout 3 (because you moved to far away or something) which can get annoying - but otherwise good to go.

Game is very enjoyable and Oblivion/fallout 3-ish (both good and bad). The only problem is it looks like someone smeared my monitor with a console game. Even with everything on ultra and with several ini tweaks. Not complaining so much because it still manages to look really nice but it's a shame it comes across as more of a port (right down to the clumsy menus) and not the lead platform. The dialogue system is poor too, you don't really feel like there's a narrative to your discussion, just ask questions which happen to be scripted but might not necessarily mean anything to you for example. I'm still very early in the game though (whatever that means) so whatever.

[Murdoc]

Yeah I'll give that a shot, thanks Irish!

Agreed Cigol. I love the world so far despite some of the "this could have been higher res moments. And the game is enjoyable and I know its big and I know this stuff is amazingly hard to do and they do it really well, but they didn't really seem to up their game on some of the stuff that is important to me. Which is fair, but the dialog system, npc interaction, voice acting(at least have the different races sound different, stuff like that) and combat could have used a once over, but whatever, it's still a neat game.

menus are pretty horrible though, it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to get out of looting a corpse the first time.