Elder Scrolls V - Page 6

The cover story of March's OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) UK is Skyrim. There are 10 pages about Skyrim with an additional interview with Todd Howard, Bruce Nesmith (with the help of Matt Carofano). The article covers all the key points such as combat, Radiant Story, skills and the world. For an eager fan who has read the forums and other magazines such as gameinformer, there isn't a great deal of brand new information about key features of the game but it is an excellent preview and I highly recommend it.

I'll try to keep this topic brief and mention things I haven't read elsewhere.

Info

There is a perk that will lower the sound of your footsteps.
Perk for Axe that enables deeper cuts, which means prolonged bleeding. You can hit someone once and they will eventually bleed out.
Eventual perk upgrade for Maces that will allow you to hit for full damage, ignoring armor stats.
The article mentions placing runes on the floor (that we know already) but in particular talks about 'lob a frost rune down and if an enemy wanders over it, shards of ice will be launched through its body'
Telekinesis is an available spell.
'No more agility to build up so don't have to keep jumping around to level up' (I assume they mean no longer skills like acrobatics and athletes but they use the word agility)
When you kill a dragon you're able to absorb its soul which will make you learn a new dragon shout.
There is a dragon shout called 'Unrelenting Force' which pushes anything standing directly in front of you backwards.
Dragon shouts have cooldown periods after each shout performed. Individual shouts will have their own cooldown time.
In the northern parts of Solitude is the Bard's College. The city is a busy port and there's event similar to bonfire night that has the burning of an effigy of King Olaf.
Windhelm is the largest city. It has a palace that should look spectacular. This is also apparently the hangout for the Imperial Guards who monitor the path to Morrowind.
Bleak Falls Barrows is a dungeon, with ancient Nord catacombs which features rivers, tree roots coming through the ceiling and light coming through odd cracks.
120 Dungeons and they claim that 'no two areas will be alike'.
Just to re-confirm this fact straight from Todd Howard. Oblivion had 1 dungeon designer with artists doing the rest. Skyrim has 8 dungeon designers.
Whole world is hand-crafted. Oblivion had some generated landscapes and there is NONE of that anymore used in Skyrim.
The Shivering isles expansion inspired the team that unique, hand-crafted cities, where no two buildings look the same, was the way to go.
Example of a 'Radiant Story'. OXM UK recieved a quest to go to Bleak Falls Barrow and retrieve a golden dragon claw antique and take it back to shopkeeper Lucan. If you killed Lucan, the quest would change to his friend Camilla instead.
The Snow. Has been a lot of confusion about this. OXM UK says that snowfall is dynamic. Instead of a texture with a bit of white added, landscapes realistically get dusted with snow landing in appropiate nooks and crannies.
There are one-off puzzles in certain dungeons.
Example of new AI: 'Wolves have a den. Few times a day they go out and do a patrol and hunt in a pack. If they kill something then they'll hang out there. If you go outside and they're on patrol they will come after you. If they've killed something they will guard that and not chase you down as they want to look after it.


Dragon Shouts

The fact about the 'absorb soul of dragons to learn new shouts' has caused a little bit of confusion.

The dragon shout phases, of up to three words, can be found inscribed on the walls of ancient Nord dungeons. When uttered by the Dragonborn (the player) the words invoke powerful magic powers. For many of the shouts you can learn more phases which in turn will allow you to unleash a lengthier or more powerful version of the shout by holding the shout button down.
This appears to be the main way of learning shouts, by finding the word inscriptions. However the OXM article also mentions that you can learn new shouts in the process of absorbing dragon souls. The article doesn't mention anything else about this, maybe not all dragons give shouts, we don't know yet.


Key Map Locations visible on page 34
Solitude
Markarth
Dawnstar
Winter Hold
Windhelm
Whiterun
Riften
Falkreath


edit - These map locations may very well be outdated as OXM have used the old skyrim map with a new colour scheme.

Confirmed Skills
Alchemy
Illusion
Conjuration
Destruction
Restoration
Alteration
Enchanting


New Screenshots
Page 31 - We see a dragon on top of snow covered ruins. There is a huge backdrop behind it showing off mountains, new clouds and fog. Draw distance looks great.
Page 34 - There is a picture of the skyrim worldmap which lists the locations listed above. On 2nd look they've used the same map as the one on the UESP wiki, so it may be outdated.
Page 38 - A player appears to be wearing Elven armor and dualwielding a sword and staff. The staff is able to cast light along a corrider. (Was in gameinformer but bigger shot here and addition info)
Page 39 - 2 new screenshots here, we see a hooded stealth character performing a stealth execution (Assassin's Creed style, blade to the chest up close). We see a new dungeon called the 'Hall of Stories' which features a locked door and a puzzle to open it. Stonework looks fantastic with spider webbing across the walls.


I believe some of the screenshots I've mentioned are in the gameinformer, however different quality/size in OXM UK. The page 31 shot I believe in gameinformer was covered in text and colour tinted. In OXM UK it is a clear ingame screenshot.

It does appear all the screenshots we have seen so far have been from the xbox build.

I'll have another look through but I believe I've covered most of the brand new info. Enjoy.

Originally Posted by reaper

Comparison:

QUOTE]


The last pic screams GOTY 2011.

The 1st pic makes me wonder if remove clothes will still be an option..

So Gamereactor is finally in stores here in Norway and we Norwegians too can see the splendor of Skyrim. I guess we got it so late because we can just look out the window, but let's see what's new:

There's a screenshot I think is new showing a wide river with woods on either side, some small islets in the river, and mountains shrouded in fog in the background. The river appears to end in a waterfall, but you can't see it clearly. This screen is quite awesome, actually -- it's a beautiful landscape... still, the water isn't top notch, but it's better than in previous screenshots, and the trees look kinda fuzzy. Well, maybe not, they're not bad.... (edit: It's not the picture featured in Gameinformer... that picture was just plain bad)

You've all seen the cover I guess, it's the usual nord warrior seen in other European mags. On the first page of the skyrim article inside the magazine is the same guy standing on a rock with a dagger in one hand and a sword in the other. It's pretty dark, most of the pic is almost black, and there's a dragon's tail stretching from the center of the picture and up behind his back. It's not a screenshot btw.

Todd says they're not giving us multiplayer, because they'd rather focus on shaping the best possible singleplayer experience.

The rest is just the same info we've gotten elsewhere, but even though there's no new info, some people might be interested in hearing the info from a new source, in new words.

According to the article:
'Shouts' are always longer sentences which are divided into smaller parts. The more of the sentence you get to pronounce, the more powerful is the effect of the activated ability.

Dragons.... can appear anywhere in the world. Some times you might see a dragon in the horizon, other times you might find find a dragon in a remote cave, nothing is predetermined.

Different enemies get better [as you level] at different speeds, and different areas have different level ceilings.

[Skyrim] is markedly different from competing games, where we get to see neon-sparkling armours and swords that could be mistaken for jewelry.

[Todd Howard tells about how good Oblivion felt after you came out of the starting dungeon. He went back and played it and walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere then....] "... then I saw one of the NPCs in our game and I froze in terror. What is this thing doing in our game !? What is Jay Leno doing in our game !? We are of course aware that some thing must be changed."

The surroundings are detailed down to microscopic level with dynamic snow, an updated physics engine and living light effects. What strikes me the most about Skyrim is how the game really lures you into believing that you're part of a breathing, organic world. The figures look like living creatuers that continue to live their lives even when the player is not interacting with them. For example: every little community works as a eco-system with inhabitants that do fishing, baking and smithing.... it's a sound goodbye to Bethesda's regular dolls and stiff robot personalities.

[In answer to what Todd thought about the claim that Beth's games had been dumbed down to cater to casual gamers...] "Oblivion's greatest strength, I think, was first and foremost that we had managed to create a game that also appealed to people who did not love roleplaying games. Or at least didn't know they loved RPGs... Skyrim continues this tradition and will be a game for both casual players and hardcore RPG zealots. This is a game for them both."

... the perks can be anything from advanced magic combinations to running [I guess sprinting?] while attacking at the same time.

... you can for instance use a one-handed weapon in both hands to increase damage...

[about Radiant story] If you kill an NPC in a display of blind violence, it might just be that this NPC had a brother. The Radiant Storytelling will then function in the way that it will make this brother come to claim vengeance for the murder. Maybe he'll gather his other brothers to come find you?

Radiant Story also decides the difficulty of the game. If it so happens that everything comes natural to you and the game isn't challenging enough for you, the game might place the kidnapped daughter in a creepier cave than if you'd been a worse player. Given that there is such a quest -- I don't know.

Violence is fun, as long as it's virtual. Bethesda agrees. To such an extent that they've baked in different finishing moves for almost every weapon and every enemy in the game. The attack has no specific purpose or function except for looking cool. Finishing moves will not occur every time you kill someone, only if the enemy's health is reduced to a point where all that's needed to kill him is an extra brutal death blow.

... [3rd person perspective] has gotten a deserved update in the form of smoother animations and less stiff joints.



Also, there's this:
While describing a dragon attack, the writer of the article says: ".... a scream that made the ground tremble, set the sky in motion (not sure what he means by this) and made the snow fall from the ruins above. Fire came."
The part about the snow falling because of the trembling caught my eye. Hope it's what it sounds like.


All of this was translated by me, so I can guarantee you that the original meaning of the text written in Norwegian is intact.

Originally Posted by reaper

Video interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Xn0GbweAE