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Role Playing (Games) Games

Early Look At The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 210

Bethesda plans to launch their newest Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, in November, and they've finally started to take the wraps off the game. A preview at Eurogamer provides some information about the game's combat, the UI, and exploration of the game world. Quoting: "RPGs send you into menus more than almost any other game genre, so it's weird that more thought doesn't go into inventory design, but as I play around with powers, weapons and items to lighten my load it becomes clear that Skyrim is a welcome exception. Its nested menus are accessed almost as smoothly as iPad page swipes, and navigating them is quick and clean. You can set favorites, equip items to either hand, and examine things in detail. More than once during my brief hands-on I have to rotate an object to look for a clue to a puzzle, or read a document, and it's all done without going to a different screen or do anything more complex than wiggling sticks and hitting a face button. It's easy to imagine that a system like this in Oblivion or Fallout could have shaved hours off the average player's actual game-time. As it is, it saves valuable seconds in my hands-on, and seconds are my currency today, so thank you to whomever at Bethesda designed the inventory."
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Early Look At The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

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  • Is its DRM reasonable? If you buy the game, can you play and reinstall it as many times as you want on whatever computer you want, and can you play it without internet connection if single player?

    Thanks.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ZankerH ( 1401751 )
      In all of Bethesda's previous games, the answer to that would be an unambiguous 'yes'. They haven't indicated anything to suggest different for Skyrim.
      • In all of Bethesda's previous games, the answer to that would be an unambiguous 'yes'. They haven't indicated anything to suggest different for Skyrim.

        No, not quite all. While the original Oblivion was fairly unprotected, the Shivering Isles expansion and the GOTY Edition DO contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM. AFAIK, it does not "phone home" like some other titles, but it's there, nevertheless and will prevent use of some drive emulators and utilities like ProcessExplorer.

        • The SecuROM is easily bypassed though. Fallout 3 in particular had SecuROM by you could play the game without the DVD even without a no-dvd crack just by running the game executable instead of the "launcher". You could even use the SecuROM remover and the game still would run correctly. If they keep that style in Skyrim it would be great. Especially if the game is a hit it will be proof that you don't need restrictive DRM systems to be successful.

          SecuROM despite it's large problems is not "DRM", it's co

          • No, SecuROM really is DRM, just like CSS or region encoding on a commercial video DVD. Anything that restricts free, unencumbered use of digital media is Digital Rights Management (some say Digital Restrictions Management).

            SecuROM can be used by the publisher as simple copy protection (by verifying unusual data written to the disc), it can perform date checks and disallow use of the package before a certain date, it can "phone home" to request permission to install, or it can count the number of installa

      • In all of Bethesda's previous games, the answer to that would be an unambiguous 'yes'.

        Fallout 3 came with SecuROM (not the disk check version they claimed it was, even after they got busted for lying about it) and GFWL. So, based on history, 'no.' Their most recent offering was heavily hooked into Steam, so Steamworks seems like it'd be a good bet Skyrim's DRM will be.

        • by arth1 ( 260657 )

          GFWL? Count me out, then. Having to create another e-mail account, Windows Live account, "gamertag", and remember more passwords just to play a game isn't an option for me. If it's not a problem for youse, great.

          • That's one of the reasons I didn't play the Warhammer 40K games up until recently (when they stripped out the Live requirement.)

          • Well, we can hold out some hope since Fallout: NV (not developed, just published by them) dropped GFWL/SecuROM in favor of Steam. While I'm not a particular fan of Steamworks either, it's (by far) the lesser of the evils.
            • No, Steam is the greater of two evils. It removes your rights. Fallout 3 had SecuROM only if you used the launcher, and it was removable with SecuROM removal tool. SecuROM never once got in my way and the game started instantly with no DVD check, whereas Steam was always in my face about Fallout: NV and slower to start up and with annoying ads when you quit. Fallout 3 I can give away and it will work, Fallout NV I can not give away because Steam has removed my consumer rights.

        • You were not required to use GFWL for Fallout 3 and SecuROM was easily bypassed.

          Fallout New Vegas was heavily borgified by Steam but this was developed by Obsidian and only published by Bethesda. Though it does give me a bit of a worry that Skyrim may be corrupted by the dark side too.

      • by Jonner ( 189691 )

        In all of Bethesda's previous games, the answer to that would be an unambiguous 'yes'. They haven't indicated anything to suggest different for Skyrim.

        It would indeed by a shame if Bethesda abandoned all their loyal modding fans by putting restrictive DRM on Skyrim. I never play Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Fallout NV without many mods that improve on the already excellent games.

    • by MrKevvy ( 85565 )

      Already up for pre-order on Steam, and they will probably be using SteamWorks activation for the DVD (when asked about it, Todd Howard's only reply was "We like Steam") so whatever policies Steam applies will hold.
      If it uses SteamWorks it will require an internet connection to activate but can be played offline after this.

    • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      it'll most probably have drm, but you'll get a crack like always - you really think that crackers are going to pass on it?

      same as always, really.

      I think a much larger problem with the game is going to be targeting 360 as well. think about it, how much memory do you have to spare on xbox 360 for behind the scenes rpg world and ui decisions? and how you could throw an extra gigabyte for that on a pc. well, that and the fact that the edge preview of it sucked, I mean, it was a glowing preview, but focused on e

  • by Coolhand2120 ( 1001761 ) on Friday August 05, 2011 @05:49AM (#36995180)
    Stick!? Face button!? What are these foreign things you speak of!? My TES uses a moue and keyboard. I hope there's no port drama.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Morrowind, horribly crippled on the PC with regards to loading, although this was fixed when the PC only expansions arrived which suddenly realized PC's had more then 32mb of ram available and a speedy HD. Before: Loading every other step After: No loads ever.

      Oblivion, OH MY GOD CAN THAT TEXT BE ANY LARGER and an inventory system from hell.

      Consolitus has struck heavily in the realms of the elder scrolls. Luckily so far the games have been very modifiable meaning paying customers could fix the game unpaid bu

      • RAM isn't a loading limitation....bad game design is. There are PS1 and PS2 games that don't have loading screens in game, because they are dynamically streaming assets from disc as needed. One example is EQOA on the PS2, unless you directly teleport/coach/recall home between locations, you will never see a loading screen past game start. You could run from Fayspires to Freeport to Qeynos and then swim to Odus., and NEVER see a load screen, something the PC version of EQ at the time couldn't claim even t

        • by Danse ( 1026 )

          RAM isn't a loading limitation....bad game design is. There are PS1 and PS2 games that don't have loading screens in game, because they are dynamically streaming assets from disc as needed. One example is EQOA on the PS2, unless you directly teleport/coach/recall home between locations, you will never see a loading screen past game start. You could run from Fayspires to Freeport to Qeynos and then swim to Odus., and NEVER see a load screen, something the PC version of EQ at the time couldn't claim even though it was running on machines with more RAM.

          Ridiculous. There's a difference in the size and amount of graphical assets used in games today than those in games when the XBox 360 was released, and PC graphics capabilities today far exceed the consoles. The XBox has a tiny amount of RAM compared to your average gaming PC, and it's a hindrance to development of games with large amounts of detail in their environment. That's why we get details popping in and out as you move around the world. There's no room to store that many things in RAM at once.

          • That was the OPS point I believe... bad game design is inclusive of being able to determine RAM capacity and loading enough information to deal with it, dump what you don't need anymore and load in new content. Oblivion almost got this right with the chunk loading, but it still needed work. Fallout 3 was a little better, but it was still not quite there.

            EQ was designed to load in one zone at a time. You can tell this by their zone lines being specifically designed to force you into a tunnel. EQOA was sp

            • by Danse ( 1026 )
              If you can accept a much lower amount of detail in the console version than the PC version, then sure. Unfortunately the consoles end up being the development target and the level of detail that could be displayed on PCs is often not even pursued. So we end up with muddy, low-res textures and models, low LOD on most objects, and a fairly hard limit on the number of objects that can be displayed or the distance that can be rendered. Yes, they could possibly overcome these things, but most publishers don't
              • Sure, but that all still falls under game design. I agree with you... but the problem isn't with PCs. It's with the people making the game and deciding how they are going to handle situations, how much time they spend on graphic assets, and all those other things.

        • by Danse ( 1026 )

          Without the additional numbers from the consoles, there might not be any more Elder Scrolls games, because RPG's are a niche market, even more so than they used to be. Publishers look at sales numbers and think, why should we make a game that will sell less than a million when we can do another "16 million shades of brown military shooter of the week" and have lots more sales.

          Because the market can only support so many of those and you get massively diminishing returns being Brown Shooter #20 this year. There is pent up demand for games like the Elder Scrolls series because we don't get too many like it. If they're going to release on the PC, they should put at least a modicum of effort into ensuring that the interface is decent for PC users.

        • Limited dev time? A UI fix for Oblivion was available like the next day after the release.

          TweakUI? Was called something like that.

    • Keyboard movement sucked in 1983 when too many C64/Atari/Apple/IBM PC gamers, after spending too much money on their hardware, didn't spend any money to get a joystick. Keyboard movement sucks in 2011 too, keyboards were designed for text entry not game control. Yes they have lots of buttons so you can have "I" be inventory or "M"
      be map, but that's just bad UI design, relying on lots of buttons rather than designing a UI that doesn't need lots of buttons but has the same functionality. A keyboard based UI

      • by Zencyde ( 850968 )
        I've know some FPS players that want to ironically beat you with sticks.
  • by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Friday August 05, 2011 @05:58AM (#36995208) Homepage

    One thing that bugs me about Bethesda is that they almost never ramp up the excitement. Sure there are plenty of interesting story lines, but I can probably count on half a hand the moments where something really exciting happened—a situation that made me go "oh shit!" and freak out a little about how I was going to survive. Not every quest line needs to have an awesome climax, but they could definitely use a lot more.

    And make magic a first-class citizen, please. I'd love to use it heavily for offense/defense, but it was weak as hell in Oblivion compared to just wildly swinging a sword around. I really like being able to get creative about things, like walking on water while shooting enemies with my bow as they try to swim toward me. Other times I just want to be a little more Rambo and run in throwing fireballs looking badass. But in Oblivion the fireballs look and act like you're just throwing candles. There's nothing badass about them.

    • Did you never go into the darker caves where you had to chose between having torch or weapon equipped? I kept running into mobs and almost panic as I had to get my bow out.

    • There WERE mods that made magic more powerful, but it was overpowered ... hugely overpowered. I tried a few and you could pretty much do anything with a fireball.

      I played both an archer/sword-shield fighter type with a bit of magic and an almost-all-magic/sword (or staff, whatever) type. I actually found it easier to be the magic user; that could be because I opted for mostly light armor when I went through the first time, which made melee a bit more challenging as almost any hit really hurt (I dabbled in

  • by Spacejock ( 727523 ) on Friday August 05, 2011 @06:04AM (#36995236)
    I don't care what the previews say, good or bad, my copy is reserved and my kids have ordered theirs too. Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion have all kept me entertained for hundreds of hours, and I doubt Skyrim will be any different.
    • by X3J11 ( 791922 )

      I don't care what the previews say, good or bad, my copy is reserved and my kids have ordered theirs too. Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion have all kept me entertained for hundreds of hours, and I doubt Skyrim will be any different.

      Same here. Although if not for the frequent crashes those hundreds of hours might have been dozens of hours instead. Having to restart the game because it crashed yet again is hardly entertaining.

      Bethesda makes fun games. Bethesda also makes very buggy games. I can only hope Skyrim is better.

      I also really wish they'd take the time to remake some of the older games. Morrowind was massive and there was just so much to do, but frequently borked when attempting to do the most trivial of things (such as equ

      • Bethesda also makes very buggy games.

        I've noticed that to a degree with Fallout 3 GOTY. Never played it before, because I'm not a console gamer and don't generally buy PC games first-run either. My kids (adult/near-adult sons) played it a lot (regular FO3 + DLC and FO New Vegas) on their 360s, and it was always fun to watch, so I was jazzed to buy the GOTY package off of Steam.

        I ran into a problem where the game would freeze. A lot. Seemed to be repeatably related to situation or scene content. There were

  • As far as I can tell, the combat is still dependent on *my* twitch shooter skills as much as *my character's* combat skills. So whatever wonderful story, exploring and interacting experiences are on offer, I'm not going to get to see them.

    Combat doesn't *have* to be turn-based, I've learned to work with Dragon Age, for example. But it *should* be based on my character's abilities tied to my decision making, e.g. I choose to shoot a bow at the orc over there, the character's archery skill determines if I h

    • I played this on the PS3, but then got a 5$ version of GOTY for the PC instead of buying DLC of playstation store

      While it doesn't bug me a whole lot the difference was quite drastic, when shooting bows or spells. I had a though then that the game should allow a 'lock on' for tracking mobs that move about. And I don't mean an aim assist. You should be required to get initial aim on the mob yourself, but then once acquired, the character should, based on their skill, be able to follow it themselves.

      The option

    • by Fjandr ( 66656 )

      I'm still baffled as to why this series is held up as the crown of "hard-core" RPGs, when it's such a hybrid...

      It's because of the amount of choice available in gameplay. The series, on a whole, is very open-ended. Very few others provide anything other than linear play in single-player games. That's the essence of role-playing: being able to do what you want, when you want, without being railroaded down a storyline.

      There are few games that you can spend hundreds of hours actively exploring new things and n

    • There is a lot of character skill in the game still. Oblivion was not very twitchy at all really. You could just madly swing the sword by clicking and it would do damage proportional to your character skill and attributes. If course if you are more twitchy you can time things to swing when the enemy isn't blocking, and you can aim the ranged spells better, but it's not necessary.

      Fallout 3 was even better in this regard. You did not need to "aim" very accurately. Even if you did aim very well the shots

    • by ildon ( 413912 )

      Ok so you don't like Elder Scrolls games. You've had 4 previous versions to figure this out ahead of time.

  • More than once during my brief hands-on I have to rotate an object to look for a clue to a puzzle, or read a document, and it's all done without going to a different screen or do anything more complex than wiggling sticks and hitting a face button. It's easy to imagine that a system like this in Oblivion or Fallout could have shaved hours off the average player's actual game-time.

    Uh, now every time I pick up something I need to visualize it in 3 dimensions and then figure out if something is scrawled on the back of it? This is in a world where you can grab and lift just about everything in the game?

    This is starting to sound like something out of Riven, where somehow the designers confused challenge with tedium (walk up to door, then turn around 180 degrees and click the magic pixel on some object).

  • All I can say is if the inventory system is once again designed for some crappy console on a 320 line screen like Oblivion's was, I'll be waiting to buy this until the PC-mods come out.

    Other games have had that issue, but I never played a game (up to that point) on a PC that was so clearly designed out of the box for a console/gamepad that it made PC play almost painful.

    • Add some mods and it is much better to play on PC than a console where you can't have mods. These games had somewhat similar interfaces even from back in Arena and Daggerfall, which were not meant for consoles. I'd have preferred more keybindings myself instead of all that mouse clicking, but I don't see this caused by being console oriented.

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