TES V: Skyrim Announced!

[Ethric]

Oh dear. The reviews I read sounded good, but reviewers nowadays are all bought and sold xbox'ers I guess.

1 ring, a loin cloth and a daft helmet, from the TV ads... what did morrowind have; 2 rings, a necklace, 2 gloves, 2 shoulderpads, boots, pants, shirt, and armour on top of that...

Oh, and do I win something?

I hope they've learned from their mistakes in Oblivion and simplified the game mechanics, so that I don't have to think as much.

[TheUndeadKing]

Oh, and do I win something?

I hope they've learned from their mistakes in Oblivion and simplified the game mechanics, so that I don't have to think as much.

Damnit, I still can't swing my sword using a wiimote, so no, you get nothing! You lose! Good day, Sir!

[Ethric]

[Ethric]

Tested this a bit... egads, the UI is dreadful. I deem it too annoying to play until someone mods it.

But I guess the console kids are as happy as pigs in shait. Well, except for wii-users

[Metathron]

Tested this a bit... egads, the UI is dreadful. I deem it too annoying to play until someone mods it.

How does it compare to Oblivion's?

[Asmodis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIiaaDkeyk

K, it's more of a glitch than poor AI alone but still, that's almost as bad as Morrowind's AI was.

[Ethric]

Tested this a bit... egads, the UI is dreadful. I deem it too annoying to play until someone mods it.

How does it compare to Oblivion's?

Far, far worse. I faintly recall being irked by Oblivions UI being clunkier than Morrowinds, but the leap from Oblivion to Skyrim is worse by a factor of ten. It boggles the mind why they do this, as I'm sure it could be made more streamlined and effective, even for consoles. The first taste is in the character generation, where the shifting between jaw/nose/chin etc. is extremely tedious, and some sort of bug makes you have to go back and forth even more to register changes. Meanwhile, the character you try to customize is constantly squirming around, giving you a hard time getting it right (for those who care about that sort of thing).

Then you get into the game, and realize there is practically no mouse support in the UI, except for the wheel (which equates to a console controllers up/down buttons, I suppose). You can't click stuff, but have to scroll up and down between way to many categories of stuff, then click enter, and so forth, and, well, it truly makes a statement to anyone whose preferred gaming medium is a PC that YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE, OUTSIDER!

This, at least, is the impression I'm left with. I am not a patient man, and if there are things I missed in my fairly rapid closing of the game in disgust that make it less awful I'll happily be corrected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIiaaDkeyk

K, it's more of a glitch than poor AI alone but still, that's almost as bad as Morrowind's AI was.

The commentary by the guy who was evidently masturbating at the time was rather disturbing, but the clip itself is quite damning

[Asmodis]

The commentary by the guy who was evidently masturbating at the time was rather disturbing, but the clip itself is quite damning

Well, there's also always this little gem, although the trick itself is pretty old news already by now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccBQZVpVvAE

[Ethric]

That's... hilarious

But still, as far as game design goes:

[Angelspit]

Is it pronounced "skee - rim" or "sky - rim" ?

[Kalah]

Well, there's also always this little gem, although the trick itself is pretty old news already by now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccBQZVpVvAE

[TheUndeadKing]

While funny and very stupid (because the AI doesn't react to being blind or being disturbed/harassed), i think that is pretty cool because it's very rare in games that you can actually block an AI's vision completely by using movable objects. Most of the time they are programmed to see through these kind of objects.

[Ethric]

On the UI:

http://syncaine.com/2011/11/14/a-child- ... nto-a-bar/

Conclusion of article:

"Whoever designed the UI for Skyrim should be fired, tossed out of the office through a window, and run over when they hit the ground. Then whoever approved this UI should be sent next. And the guy responsible for him as well. How you produce such an amazing RPG, and then attempt to ruin it with such a UI is honestly beyond me. The scale of evil now goes: child rapists, Hitler, Skyrim UI designer, murders, everyone else.

I can only hope that the UI can be heavily modded, and all of the suck can be edited out. Until then, I’ll be gaming like a fiend and cursing the UI designer at the same time."

So good game, except the UI, which is the product of satans stepmother. Seems about right...

[Kalah]

Most of the time they are programmed to see through these kind of objects.

Which is kind of logical when you think about it; if somebody placed a bucket on my head, I'd take it off. And if you cannot do that technically in the game, at least you can reproduce the effects. This is just sloppy workmanship.

[Ethric]

And that's why the AI seeing through it is indeed the better solution: if you add the option of blocking view in this way, you must also add them taking it off/shooting you in the face for placing buckets on their heads. Implied X-ray vision is better than mindless bucketheads, IMO. It all seems rather half baked...

[TheUndeadKing]

I don't get why you guys insist on "AI seeing through movable objects" being the better solution. X-Ray vision wouldn't make it any less lazy or sloppy, either.

[Ethric]

Because "X-ray" can be rationalized as people actually paying attention to things going on around them, while placing buckets on peoples head without them reacting is an obvious flaw.

[TheUndeadKing]

Yeah, it can be rationalized, no doubt about that, but it looks stupid nevertheless. Getting caught and possibly killed by an NPC who has a large cauldron on his head is just as silly as brainless bucketheads who don't react to being disturbed. Yeah, it's the commonly accepted (read: safest) approach, but come on, can't they at least show some effort to raise the bar for once?

[Ethric]

Looks like they did try, and failed IMO. Not that I'm saying it's easy, because to prevent the bucket-trick you'd have to program NPC's to go hostile if you try to bucket them or similar, and then they'd probably be so twitchy they'd attack you just for bumping into them. Though I suppose, hostility only if they're hit with an objet you are actively holding? Could work, maye someone will mod that.

[TheUndeadKing]

In Deus Ex (which came out back in 2000) the NPCs reacted to you when you threw/dropped movable objects onto them. They even attacked you if you continuously harassed them (they were usually very tolerant though), so it shouldn't be something that hard to implement. The only hard part is throwing the bucket off their heads. Maybe a simple upwards hand animation and some kind of invisible pushing force placed on top of their heads would do the trick, I dunno.