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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

The Elder Scrolls IV Formally Announced 54

Posted by Zonk from the single-player-mmog dept.
war3rd writes "Bethesda Softworks recently announced the development of the next game in The Elder Scrolls Series, (and follow-up to the game Morrowind) Oblivion. The next issue of Game Informer will have a 12 page spread with all the details and tons of screenshots."
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The Elder Scrolls IV Formally Announced More

The Elder Scrolls IV Formally Announced

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  • Already played it.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cephyn ( 461066 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @06:53PM (#10303201) Homepage
    TES:Oblivion -- thats the "world" in between the dungeon polygons in Daggerfall right?

    • Nope, that's TES: The Void(tm).

      Of course, I for one hope never again to clip into the void from oblivion, but then this is a bethesda developed game...

      • Hey, now, I only once ended up outside the playable game space in Morrowind (Tribunal, actually), and that was because I managed to jam myself in behind a big pile of rocks Real Good Now and get stuck underneath them. Say what you want about Arena or Daggerfall, but Bethesda released a solid game in Morrowind.

        • I hit a few bugs in Morrowind, especially pre-patch - for instance there was an early bug in TES:Morrowind where if you fell off the large bridge near the start of the game (one of the first missions you'd get) you could fall into a crack and no longer move (or was it you fall forever... I may be mixing the problem up with one I hit in Gothic, which I was playing at the same time). I couldn't repeat after the first patch but maybe didn't try hard enough. Also, if I played for a really long time (say, 6-8
          • The fall-through-floors bug in Morrowind is insanely bad if you have a low-end graphics card for some reason. I get it constantly. However, they put a fix in for it originally. If it happens, and you get stuck somepalce (or getting stuck in a table, which also happens a good deal for me), open the console and type "fixme". It can take a couple times if you're stuck really good (like if you try to jump between the tops of the giant tree mushrooms and get stuck inside the trunk of one), but it'll get you back
            • I've played both daggerfall and morrowind for hundreds of hours each, and I'd agree that morrowind is a lot more stable and recoverable than daggerfall when it comes to void excursions. As one parent noted, the lower res screens have it more. I think that's because there aren't enough pixels to step on between tiles, so eventually you'll end up stepping on "nothing". Morrowind's void fortunately wraps around, where daggerfall was an infinite one.

              Both GTA3 and Vice City on the PS2 have the same problem with

  • Elder scrolls. A great series (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2004 @06:58PM (#10303249)
    The elder scroll series (particularly the first two) are amazing RPG's. There is so much depth that they are unreal. You can literally play for months just doing side missions with out even touching the main plot. The ability to join guilds in Daggerfall was one of the coolest features. Of course the one rather annoying thing is that bethesda seems to have problems ironing out bugs before a release, but hey...you can't get everything you want. ;) I have always wished that someone would do a remake of daggerfall with like the quake 2 engine. If you are reading this bethesda...release the source!!
    • Of course the one rather annoying thing is that bethesda seems to have problems ironing out bugs before a release

      Not mention after. A friend and I bought Battlespire because it had multiplayer, boy was that fun sometimes. For instance someone would find a good weapon and give it the other, who would now be in possesion of a pair of boots.
      Bethesda have become much better at fixing bugs though.
    • A random quest generator does not count as "depth." Arena, Daggerfall & Morrowind were horribly buggy (it took them *how* long to get their games up to playable standards?), their graphics engines were awful (laggy, clipping all over the place; Morrowind was certainly pretty, if not fast), and plots nonexistent. Deliver one letter from one king to another king? Kill a big bad guy? This is a "plot"?

      I own all three games, and feel like a sucker for keeping on buying them. I thought that morrowind w

      • Re:Elder scrolls. A great series (cue laughter) (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        A plot doesn't count as depth either. While the bethesda games relied on the player to progress the plot they had much more depth in terms of historical and cultural backgrounds, mythology and world detail than any of the games you've mentioned. I'm a fan of all of them, but they're are distinctly different.

        While the BlackIsle-era RPGs are very, very well done, they are ultimately limiting in their progression and prefer to progress the player through an intriguing story (which is not bad). However, don

      • Re:Elder scrolls. A great series (cue laughter) (Score:5, Insightful)

        by obeythefist ( 719316 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @11:44PM (#10305329) Journal
        Let's look at what we're saying here, though. The whole big issue.

        There are two basic polarities for game design. Only two! And this is more than just for RPG's. There is the closed, tight, event and trigger driven storyline. Then there is the open ended methodology, where the player is left to decide what things to do and which places to go.

        This is really more like an axis than two seperate directions. Many storyline driven games will include set "choose-your-own-adventure" decisions that branch off into slightly different pathways. Many open-ended games will have a plot that the player can choose to follow if they want to. Many simulators include scenarios that steer the direction of play.

        You can't bag a game because it sits on one or other end of the "open-closed" gameplay axis! Some people will like an open-ended game. Other people like to be led through the story.
      • I agree, but the scrolls were different for trying to make a whole world for you to explore rather then a tight plot for you to follow. I liked both for good reasons, but elder scrolls suffers from becoming boring.

        The main problem for me has been the world looking too similar. In daggerfall you had just a couple city styles, snowy, desert, normal, volcanic ect. The dungeons were the same pieces slapped together differently.

        Morrowind fixed this somewhat, but the whole world still looked dark and dreary. Bu

    • Elder scrolls. A mediocre series (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Elder Scrolls series is plagued with high-concept, badly-executed games. Daggerfall was great... in theory. In reality, it was a buggy nightmare on the level of Ultima IX. Morrowind sounds nice... in theory. In reality it's an FPS sans 'S', Myst with fed-ex quests. A scenery-viewing game with intermittent dialogue. Zzzz.

      I think traditional CRPGs have it right in focusing on item, inventory and stat management, and combat rules, rather than trying to crowbar a "role playing" (something which you c
  • Judging from the screens, all taken from an Xbox2 dev kit, this is going to be a very attractive game. If it's half as engrossing as Morrowind, I'm still slated to lose about 100 hours of my life to it, too. DAMN YOU, ELDER SCROLLS! DAMN YOU IN ADVANCE!
    • Guess you didn't do all the quests, heh. I must have about 350 hours into that, and I still can't find the NPCs for a couple minor quests. Of course, I also got bored and used the jail trick to max my character six ways from sunday to the point that I can kill just about anything in the game barefisted.

  • Enjoyable games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mathness ( 145187 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @07:47PM (#10303777) Homepage
    What I like most about their games, are the detailed and different worlds they create. Morrowind so far have been the best, the overall theme is excellent made. Even common stuff is interresting like, say, the red dust winds. It wasn't as smooth running as Gothic when traveling large distances, but then I didn't have the fastest computer back then.

    That being said, their games also suffers from the typical mistakes. Monsters practically everywhere, all bend on attacking you, and spawning after some time have pasted. It rather distracts from the game play* and the experience of the world. Increasing the world significant in the next game, and vary the monster a lot (more variation in missions and more real NPCs is probably to huge a task, to even ask them to do) would make the game even better. Monsters shouldn't lurk right outside heavy fortified forts, and rats/tiny creature should be clever enough not to mess with full plate armour (even less be able to damage with those ridicilus tiny teeth and claws).

    Will I buy this game when it is released? I will in all likelyhood, I liked their previous games, and will probably like this one too. When this type of game is so far apart in releases, you can hardly resist. And for the love of gawd, make a Linux/Mac release :)

    * Let's be honest here, like most computer "RPG" games, they are often just hack'n'slash thinly disguised. Esp. after you have cleared a few level and missions, it rarely differs, online or not.

    P.S. The best 3D "RPG" is still Ultima Underworld 1+2 :D
    • Monsters practically everywhere, all bend on attacking you, and spawning after some time have pasted.

      If you find such attacks tedious, you might enjoy a game which automates much of that process: Progress Quest [progressquest.com]. Windows only, but after rolling up your character, you can even minimize to the system tray and you'll keep progressing.
  • I'd like if they would at least try and implement some kind of party system. I always felt kind of lonely ambling through mountains and swamps and dungeons all on my own in Morrowind and daggerfall, although maybe that's just because I mostly play jrpg's.

  • Scans of the screenshots (Score:5, Informative)

    by wan-fu ( 746576 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @07:58PM (#10303900)
    Here's a Coral Cache link [nyud.net] to some guy who scanned a bunch of the screenshots.
    • Based on the screenshots of the mag there, it looks like the long grass will be the most stunning visual enhancement they want to show off.

      Also, if you read some of the article off those photos, you will see that players can either move on foot or ride on horseback (oh man! That would be so sweet), and the combat is supposed to look realistic too (Braveheart style, not just some red dust flying out like in Morrowind).

      If my PC doesn't meet the specs, I will upgrade it for this very purpose.
      • Oooh, horseback:) I remember the valient attempts to make mods for Morrowind that would let you do this. They ranged from unplayable to not very good, unfortunately. Especially with the sheer SIZE of the world in Morrowind (and the slow walking speed of low leveled characters), it really needed an alternate form of transport besides the NPC-based safe travel network and just walking for hours on end.
        • Not that there is anything wrong with running around. It just gets boring after a while.

          By the way, in Morrowind, all you need is the boots of blinding speed and a bit of magic resistance and you can sometimes run from one side of the island to the other in a matter of minutes.
          Mix that with some long-lasting levitation and you don't have to worry about obstacles either.
          • My prefered method was boots with Jump 100, Slowfall 1, and Water Walking (Since you couldn't jump if you landed in water)

            I called them Boots of Flubber.
            • Ha! that's awesome, I'll have to try that. The boots of blinding speed come about as part of an actual mission even a rookie could do. You don't have to make them. I'm sure the boots of flubber would cost a fortune!
              • Well with summon golden saint, and the guy in mournhold that sells an unlimited number of grand soul gems. Money is no object.

                Also I typically enchanted them myself by using uber-alchemy to get my int up into the ten-thousands.
    • Almost same shots on different server [doupe.cz].

  • Console only (Score:3, Informative)

    by obeythefist ( 719316 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @09:00PM (#10304383) Journal
    The worst part is, it looks like this will be a console exclusive release (of course). Presumably only for XBox-2, as it doesn't seem to be in Sony's arena.

    We might be lucky and get a console port however (the PC's of the time will undoubtedly be at least as powerful as XBox2). Hopefully PC gamers won't need to buy a gamepad to play the game.

    • Re:Console only (Score:3, Informative)

      by Grave ( 8234 )
      According to the Game Informer article, it will be for PS3, XBOX 2, and PC.
    • As mentioned by previous answers, it's for PC too.

      However, this brings up the question again, for which system it is developed first, and how the port is going to be made. While I loved Morrowind, the interface was awful. Obviously a straight console port. For instance, to cast a spell, you had to go to the menu screen, select the spell you wanted to cast by scrolling down, down, down, and clicking, then go back to the main screen, press R to select spellcasting, and then click to fire the spell. Absolute

      • Well, you could also set up quick keys for cycling through your spells, just like you use your mousewheel to cycle through your weapons. And then you could launch the spell by using your spell button, just like the attack button for your weapon. So, your whole complaint is no more. Yes, I played the game on the PC, not the Xbox, and finished it. I did not think it was console-ish at all, only flawed in some aspects, though not seriously IMHO.

        And I actually liked the inteface. It allowed you to rearrange a

      • Re:Console only (Score:3, Informative)

        by Ayaress ( 662020 )
        Morrowind wasn't a straight console port. It was out for the PC a very long time before it was on the Xbox. As for assignable shortcut keys: press F1 (I think, might be F2 or 3, I'd have to check), then you can put any useable or equippable item on the number keys FPS-style.
  • I hardly ever buy magazines from bookstores, but I think I'll go pick this one up.

    I loved Morrowind, and this is just gonna be even better. Hopefully theyll be able to balance the game better as well, there were alot of cheap ways to level up.

    I also find it very annoying when my (Xbox) friends say they can't wait for Morrowind 2. (But can you really blame them? :P )

    • Yes, I can. The Xbox package had "The Elderscrolls III" just as prominently as the PC version, so I see no good reason for any Morrowind player not to realize that it's not the beginning of a series, but the latest installment in one.
  • I have already recieved and read the article in Game Informer last Saturday. It looks incredible. It also says that the game is in production for X box 2 and Playstation 3. Thus looking as good as is does.
  • ...for waiting until people finally finished Morrowind.
  • Anybody else wish they were focusing on their shiny new Fallout rights instead of this? I do...sigh.
    • They've been working on TES4 for a long time. There was already talk about it on the elderscrolls.com message board a good 6 months ago when I first started following it off and on, and probably before that. They only picked up Fallout 3 a couple months ago, and they didn't get the nearly finished game Black Isle had made, so they're starting from scratch on it.
      • I understand. I don't mean to say they shouldn't be making TES4. I just wish they didn't have to.

        Also, point and laugh at Troika.
  • Well, looks like I better get ready to lose TONS of sleep and productivity.

    I'm still playing Morrowind, and I'll probably be playing it until Oblivion comes out...

  • Could someone please post a link to the Elder Scrolls web page after the Flash intro? They neglected to include a "bypass intro" link on that page.
  • Why can't I shake the feeling that this is really a Slashvertisement for Game Informer's upcoming issue?

  • Morrowind just didn't do it for me. I like the open-endedness, and I don't mind not having specific goals, but the world just didn't pull me in. Sure, there was lots to do. You could go clear out dungeons, join and advance in guilds, aimlessly explore, but I never really got the feeling that this was a living, breathing world. Virtually all the wildlife creatures you encountered would attack you (by essentially making a beeline right at you once you got within a certain range), townpeople would have no rea

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