The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I just realized this game isn't running on Gamebyro.

Yes.

To hype up people more about Skyrim, here's a summary of the region.

I still stand by saying Oblivion being incredibly uninspired, but then I remember Shivering Isles, which was an awesome representation of TES' true nature of being generally messed up as hell. Hopefully they'll follow up with what they did there and portray Skyrim accurately.

tl;dr: SNOW AND BLOOD. SNOW AND BLOOD.

I saw that news too, I'm incredibly chuffed seeing as the Gamebryo engine is awful... hilarious at times but awful.

I popped in Oblivion a few days ago to get in the mood, and I lol'd so much at the dialogue between the guards and civilians.

Guard: Good day
Civilian: Hello
Guard: Mudcrabs are horrible creatures
Civilian: Mudcrabs are horrible creatures
Guard: I don't want to talk right now
Civilain: Goodbye
Guard: Goodbye

I like the fact they're adding the perk system in place of the old system, and I like the intuitive class system. What I don't particularly like is the fact it seems to have less skills than Oblivion.

Though I'm still looking forward to it, and mega pleased they dropped Gamebryo.

Things we need moar

-> Spear (WTF was this removed)
-> Staff as a viable melee weapon
-> Speechcraft and Barter a little more useful, New Vegas did well with the Barter skill (usually called Merchantile in TES)
-> Retooled Armor Properties (One of the redundant skills that should be removed, in Lieu of a balanced pro-con to each armor class, rather than a skill oriented with their use)

Firstly, combat: according to a piece in the latest issue of Game Informer, you can now dual-wield weapons in the game. To many it will sound like a cheap take on a Halo/Modern Warfare staple, but where in those shooters it's a part-time indulgence, in Skyrim it forms the cornerstone of your approach to the game, as you can allocate which weapon or tool goes in which hand.

So, for example, you can put a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Or two daggers. Or a staff and a shield. Or a shield and a mace. For magic users, a different spell can be cast from each hand, or for a multiplying effect, the same spell can be thrown from both hands.

In this thread: Apparently Oblivion sucked.

I think I'm really harsh on Oblivion (Games in general actually) but I don't think Oblivion sucks by any stretch. Had it not followed The greatest *** game of all time as it's successor, it probably would have fared a little better. I've played Oblivion and Morrowind a lot lately, and rather than some pretentious argument like "It was the golden age of PC gaming" I can simply explain why Morrowind was so much better than Oblivion.

Deep, rewarding exploration.

The contrast between Morrowind's world exploration, and the rewards for seeing what lies over the next ridge (Cliff Racers not withstanding) made the game so much more compelling. Combine that with the totally alien feeling of Vvardenfell, and rewards didn't just come from "Sweet loot dawgs" But just seeing the world.

Oblivion on the other hand, looked so, well, bland. The environment was just much less inspired, though I still really like the Alyied Ruins.

By bland, I mean Generic. The world just doesn't really "Pop" Like Morrowind's did. Meadows, some mountains and a ton of trees. There were a few places of true beauty though, along the Gold Road for example, and Around the Priory Somewhere southwest of Chorrol.

Radiant AI

The Radiant AI technology introduced in Oblivion went a long way toward making the NPCs act in realistic ways. If you followed a citizen through his daily activities, you would likely witness him or her eating breakfast, setting out to work the land, stopping by the pub for a pint after work, and then returning home to hit the sack.

In reality, the technology driving NPC behavior wasn't overly sophisticated. Bethesda could only assign five or six types of tasks to the townspeople, and there wasn't a lot of nuance to their actions. In Skyrim, the characters have much more defined individual personalities.

You won't find townspeople loitering aimlessly in town squares anymore. Each denizen performs tasks that make sense in their environment. To impart the towns and cities with a greater sense of life, Bethesda has populated them with mills, farms, and mines that give the NPCs believable tasks to occupy their day. In the forest village we visited during the demo, most of the citizens were hard at work chopping wood, running logs through the mill, and carrying goods through the town.

The improved Radiant AI technology is also more aware of how a citizen should react to your actions. As you perform tasks for them or terrorize them by ransacking their home, the NPCs develop feelings about you. If you're good friends with a particular NPC and barge into his house during the middle of the night, he may offer you lodging rather than demand you leave the premises. “Your friend would let you eat the apple in his house,” Howard says. If you swing your weapon near an NPC, knock items off their dinner table, or try to steal something of value, they'll react with an appropriate level of hostility given their prior relationship to you.

Radiant Story

Before they started planning missions for Skyrim, Howard and his team reflected on what they liked about their older projects. They kept returning to the randomized encounters in Fallout 3 and Daggerfall. To build off the success of those models and improve the experience so the random encounters feel less forced or arbitrary, Bethesda undertook the ambitious task of constructing a new story management system dubbed Radiant Story. Many quests are still completely governed by Bethesda, but the Radiant Story system helps randomize and relate the side quests to players to make the experience as dynamic and reactive as possible. Rather than inundate you with a string of unrelated and mundane tasks, it tailors missions based on who your character is, where you're at, what you've done in the past, and what you're currently doing.

“Traditionally in an assassination quest, we would pick someone of interest and have you assassinate them,” Howard says. “Now there is a template for an assassination mission and the game can conditionalize all the roles – where it happens, under what conditions does it take place, who wants someone assassinated, and who they want assassinated. All this can be generated based on where the character is, who he's met. They can conditionalize that someone who you've done a quest for before wants someone assassinated, and the target could be someone with whom you've spent a lot of time before.”

The Radiant Story system also helps deal with untimely deaths. Predicting player behavior in an open world is tough, as many often stray from the main quests and get into trouble by murdering quest givers. In Skyrim, if you kill a shop owner who had a few quests to offer if you spend the time to get to know him, his sister may take over the shop and offer the quest that was formerly ascribed to him. The quest logic automatically picks up with pre-recorded voice work because Bethesda already assigned her that contingency role. Tread lightly though, because she's not oblivious to your dastardly actions. She will still recognize you killed her brother and perhaps even try to exact revenge later in the game.

Radiant Story is also smart enough to know which caves and dungeons you've already visited and thus conditionalize where, for instance, a kidnapped person is being held to direct you toward a specific place you haven't been to before, populated with a specific level of enemy. This helps Bethesda avoid repetition and usher the player into areas the team wants you to explore.

The story manager is always watching you, which can leads to strange random encounters as well. If you drop a sword in the middle of town, someone may pick it up and return it to you, or two guys may get into a fight over who gets to take it. If you're really good at a particular skill, like one-handed weapons or destruction spells, a stranger who knows of your reputation may ask for training, challenge you to a duel, or beg you for a favor that will require you to show off your skill.

Skyrim also tracks your friendships and grudges to generate missions. Do a small favor for a farmer and it may eventually lead to a larger quest. Some NPCs will even agree to be your companion to help you out in specific situations.

Radiant Story doesn't limit these new missions to encounters in towns. Like in Fallout 3 and Red Dead Redemption, a lot of random events occur while you're exploring the wilderness as well. "There are a wide variety of these random encounters," says design director Bruce Nesmith. "Many of them are things the player can interact with, some are not. You might save a priest who then tells you about a dungeon where there are people trapped that need saving. You might run across mammoth beset by a pack of wolves."

Some open world games go overboard with these side activities and stray too far from the main storyline. Bethesda is aware of this pitfall and is actively engaged in preventing the feeling of being overwhelmed by the Radiant Story missions.

Skyrim still has several months of development left, but after seeing the technology in action it looks like Bethesda's on track to set a new high bar for open world role-playing games.

I feel like a terrible person for insulting Morrowind (Yes, it's my favorite game of all time but that doesn't make it flawless), but how is Morrowind any better? Dead dirt and dead trees, or giant mushrooms.