Skyrim Is Getting Kinect Support, Dragon Shouts Included 95
jjp9999 writes "Bethesda announced they're bringing Kinect support to Skyrim. It doesn't sound like this will include motion detection. Rather, it will be around voice commands — tons of voice commands. It supports dragon shouts, trading, navigation, switching weapons, and a whole lot of other features that usually require you to assign hotkeys or to sort through menus. They also gave a brief hint at new content, stating they've 'been hard at work on creating the first set of game add-ons that will be exclusive to the Xbox 360. This additional content will add new quests, locations, features, and much more to the world of Skyrim.'"
Fix bugs first (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of adding new stuff, please fix the bugs first.
Re:Fix bugs first (Score:5, Funny)
Fus Ro MOD +1 Funny (Score:2)
Sheesh, where are my mod points when I need them.
Must have been either the arrow to the knee. Or maybe someone stole their sweet role!
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It isn't that buggy for me. At least in the PC platform. And, definitely no game breaking bugs.
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Christ don't be such a fucking wet blanket. The capacity of some people to bitch when a cool game company adds really cool new features post launch FOR FREE is fucking astounding.
Elder scrolls games are going to have bugs. Lots of them. The size and the scope of the project makes this inevitable. The trick is to kill the real nasty showstoppers and IMO they did a great job with Skyrim. No, more importantly the goal is to make sure the game is FUN.
Ex - Giants launching you in to the sky. Is it a bug? Yes! Is
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I 100% agree with your sentiments about people and bitching about games companies. It's unbelievable how commonly games companies get slagged off for putting significant effort into additional functionality, fixes, and everything else surrounding improving a game, as you say, often, for free.
I do however have to point out one minor point re Skyrim; They certainly did not do a good job of removing the show stoppers. At least on the PS3, the game was simply impossible to play to completion for a good 3-4 m
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I'm more concerned about being stuck with stuff I can't drop (at last there was a bugfix to make these weigh 0), stuff that doesn't trigger the necessary quest triggers to continue, unobtainable trophies due to missing triggers. But as you can read I didn't buy the blessed version of the game.
-Arena, didn't enjoy it, wasn't into the genre back then.
-Daggerfall was even more buggy than Skyrim, lost interest.
-Morrowind (xbox) was playable. Only troubles I experience were near Vicec and during flied.
-Oblivion
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I played all the way through Skyrim on the PC -- dragon quest, companions quest, dark brotherhood, civil war, etc etc. Not one bug. Never crashed, never ran into anything strange.
You, my friend, seem to hunt for problems. Instead of telling everyone AFTER the game is released, you'd probably make a great beta tester. And yes, even though this is the internet, I'm serious.
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Did you buy all the houses? I was unable to buy the house in Windhelm for months after release because a prerequisite was another quest that simply refused to trigger. It's been fixed since though. Other than that, I've been thankful to have experienced none of the showstoppers.
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Re:Fix bugs first (Score:4, Insightful)
I've heard this line before, and it makes a lot of sense as a player. But as a developer, I know that I have a LOT more fun working on new content and features than hunting down and fixing bugs. When I'm working on new content, it's more fun, my progress feels more traceable, I feel more productive, and the result is a new shiny feature. Conversely, when I'm hunting down bugs, it can be tedious, aggravating work, and even when I fix the bug, all of my headaches can be attributed to some stupid error or design flaw made many, many months ago. Essentially, it's easier and more rewarding for me to add features vs fix bugs.
I know this sounds superficial and/or unprofessional, but it no doubt affects how I work. Granted, the projects I work on are much smaller than Skyrim, so it's hard to compare to the mindset of a multimillion dollar project.
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Outsourcing bug fixing from the developers who wrote the code? Do you realize how stupid is that, considering that "debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place" (B. Kernighan), and the only reason why it sometimes succeeds, is that developer recognizes his thought process that produced the bug?
Please, kill all your friends, then yourself.
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Sure, programmers are only human, and I know exactly what you're talking about.
I do the same thing when I work on toy projects at home for fun. Who cares if it leaks a bit of memory or doesn't sanitize inputs, I want to have fun!
On the other hand, at work, I usually self-impose a "two bug maximum". If I exceed two open issues, I stop adding features until the bugs are fixed. It's the only way to stop bugs accumulating or even becoming "features" that can't be easily found or removed. Pretty soon you are for
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On the 360, voice commands only work with Kinect. Also, it lets you put the purple Kinect bar on the box, and it gets even more marketing money from Microsoft.
Unfortunately, most Kinect implementations are mere gimmicks (Star Wars anyone?)
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Oooh voice commands (Score:5, Funny)
Depending on what gets voice commands, you can have a lot of fun by walking up to someone playing this with a Kinect.
"Hi Bob, looks like that giant is geting a bit close... EQUIP FEEBLE DAGGER."
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Well, it can't get much worse than the existing UI in any case.
Re:Oooh voice commands (Score:5, Funny)
From my experience of Kinect's voice recognition, it would go something like this:
You: XBOX EQUIP FEEBLE DAGGER! XBOX EQUIP FEEBLE DAGGER! EQUIP...
Friend: [Punch to the face.]
You: OW!!!
XBox: Are you sure you want to save?
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Slight amendment to that:
You: XBOX EQUIP FEEBLE DAGGER! XBOX EQUIP FEEBLE DAGGER! EQUIP...
You God-dammit CANCEL. NO, CANCEL. FUCKING CANCEL!
Friend: [Punch to the face.]
You: OW!!!
XBox:
What happens when... (Score:5, Funny)
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This is why no one likes RPG fans.
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Because using the kinect to do all the voice recognition means they don't have to do it themselves?
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Except that the kinect is what is doing the voice recognition. It's not just being used as mic input.
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Except that the kinect is what is doing the voice recognition. It's not just being used as mic input.
So? They created a PC version of the Kinect [amazon.com]. I don't see any reason for them to make content exclusive to a specific system. Besides, I am sure they could just process the mic input themselves instead of having the Kinect do it.
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That's a fair point. I imagine it's mostly a matter of Kinect for Windows not having nearly the install base as Kinect of XBox, so they don't want to spend even the marginal extra effort to support it.
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They were paid to do so. Just like anyone does platform exclusive things.
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Kinect for Windows isn't intended for games, which is part of the reason it's twice the price. It's actually meant for practical applications (natural UI, etc).
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Because Microsoft explicitly forbids it. Says it pretty plainly in the product description everywhere that sells it. So you can be sure there's no way Microsoft will tolerate a Triple-A studio like Bethesda including support in a Windows game.
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Re:Why not PC? (Score:5, Informative)
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5626 [nexusmods.com]
These kinds of mods are exactly why I prefer PC gaming.
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it's called thuumic, it has some similar features for PC.
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Actually no. The Xbox 360's Kinect drivers will not work on Windows, and the code is very likely not cross-compilable. Also, Kinect for Windows is not meant for gaming, it's for actual practical applications. It even says it in the product description [amazon.com]. It also says "this is not a consumer product" and "this is a Kinect development product for Windows, intended for commercial clients and developers". There is no way Microsoft would permit Kinect to be integrated into a game as an advertised feature.
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Or they could just fix the horrible existing UI.
Why is a Kinect needed for this? (On PC) (Score:1)
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PC gamers aren't upset about the lack of voice control. We've had that forever by comparison.
What we ARE upset about is:
"...been hard at work on creating the first set of game add-ons that will be exclusive to the Xbox 360. This additional content will add new quests, locations, features, and much more to the world of Skyrim."
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I'll hit both sides in this case.
The first consideration is that PC Gamers, who already spend a ton of money on the gaming rigs and have a lot more capability than any console's half-decade-old tech, feel now like the game manufacturer is treating them like second-class citizens. PC games that have Console-optimized content, focus on the console development over PC development, generally a perceived lack of respect for the PC gaming population. Literally to the point where, in this case, development of mo
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Motion detection would be a waste (Score:1)
Motion-based commands would be incredibly awkward for a game as complex as Skyrim. The game was not designed with a gesture metaphor in mind. It would just be incredibly tedious and flaky given current technology. Voice command is really where it's at for this game.
Re:Exclusive to xbox? feh! (Score:4, Informative)
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I am also more worried about xbox exclusive content than kinect support. Why xbox only? Why not for ps3 too? What about PC gamers? It makes no sense to me for it to be exclusive for xbox UNLESS it's related directly to kinect, in which case.. uh... yeah, you probably can keep it for yourself. Let's just hope bethesda doesn't shoot itself in the foot with this exclusivity move.
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The simple answer is that they cannot use Kinect for Windows because you aren't allowed to make games with it. It's for actual practical applications as it says in the product description [amazon.com]: "this is not a consumer product" and "this is a Kinect development product for Windows, intended for commercial clients and developers". Even more blunt: "Not for Gaming Use". There is no way Microsoft would permit Kinect to be integrated into a PC game as an advertised feature.
Dual weapon hot key (Score:2)
shouts (Score:1)
Looks pretty cool, though I think they shouldn't have the game character repeat the shout if you already shouted it.
To be honest, I wouldn't be able to remember the shout names. (I always relied on my bow. Yes, I play the archer-thief, don't like hack/slash. :P) I'm sure my 10-year old nephew, who's read the strategy guide and knows the name of all the characters and creatures and quests and artifacts and holds and..... would be able to though, heh.
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In Skyrim, same as all TES games since at least Morrowind, it's kinda hard not to become the master of all trades by mid-game or so - even if you start as a pure mage or pure stealth character, you'll eventually max those skills out and are forced to diversify.
(/me fondly remembers my all-stats-and-skills-at-100 character from Morrowind, who started as a Breton mage, and ended up mostly swinging the heaviest mace in the game by mid-Bloodmoon).
I've got a few ideas (Score:2)
"LYDIA"
"Yes, my thane."
"OFF WITH YOUR CLOTHES"
"I am sworn to carry your burdens."
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I was playing the other night and had a courier come up to me naked O_o. Shortly after that some old woman in Morthal was sweeping her deck naked. Fortunately 'naked' means they both still had their underwear on. I took screenshots though because it was damn funny. Anyway, I married Jordis the Sword-Maiden... Lydia was annoying me too much by standing in doorways, jumping in front of me when I was doing a power attack and therefore dying because I decapitated her, jumping in front of my shouting so she was
Even more quests? (Score:2)
This additional content will add new quest
I'm sorry, I just started the game earlier this week, and I'm having trouble wading through the sheer number of side-quests between me and the big plot quest. I like the compact nature of the world. There's just enough annoying travel between points of interest. Which is not much. It makes for some silly bandit camps literally outside the king's window, but it works. But with this compact nature means that every three steps you get yet another slob with a problem and they want YOU to fix their shit. And it
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Don't worry. My character is level 53 (or maybe 54 now) and I think I've only done about 6 main quests, but lots (and lots!) of side quests. Perhaps I am too easily distracted by catching blue butterflies and collecting blisterwort for my potions.
Yo dawg (Score:2)
We put Kinect in your Skyrim so you can Fus Ro Dah while you Fus Ro Dah.