[9] The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

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http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vg...scrolls/708369

Aggiornamenti a cura di [quell'allegro nerd di]Sephiroth1984:

PARTE I

• First Elder Scrolls V Skyrim Details
• First Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Details Leaked
• Una delle prime video-anteprime

Altri dettagli da Destructoid:

Spoiler:

• Il gioco è ambientato 200 anni dopo Oblivion nel Regno montuoso di Skyrim, a nord di Cyrodil e durante una guerra civile, pare tra due fratelli che nel conflitto hanno causato la nascita del terribile drago Alduin;
• Il giocatore interpreta Dragonborne, un combattente capace di battersi contro i draghi e addestrato per essere l’ultimo “Blade”;
• 10 diverse razze giocabili;
• Combattimenti più dinamici con mosse finali, attacchi unici per arma e la possibilità di forgiare armi, forse anche attacchi a due armi;
• 18 abilità e diversi perk da conquistare e scegliere;
• Gli NPC saranno maggiormente reattivi, potranno muoversi durante una conversazione e reagiranno anche nei confronti degli oggetti lasciati dal giocatore (potranno aiutare a raccoglierli o lotteranno per prenderseli, ad esempio);
• Quest generate in maniera random e perfezionate in base allo stile e alle abilità del giocatore, calcolate raccogliendo i dati di gioco;
• 5 enormi città piene di attività da intraprendere come forgiare armi, coltivare la terra, allevare gli animali, raccogliere minerali, tagliare legna e cucinare, le città potrebbero anche subire gli attacchi devastanti dei draghi;
• 5 scuole diverse di magia: distruzione, alterazione, evocazione, cura e illusione;
• Il motore grafico su cui è basato il gioco è completamente nuovo e comporta molte evoluzioni all’ambientazione. Tra queste un comportamento dinamico della neve, delle ombre, degli alberi e dell’acqua, con effetti multipli come quello del vento su quest’ultima, ad esempio;
• Tra i nemici confermati ci sono zombie, scheletri, troll, giganti, mostri di ghiaccio, ragni giganti, draghi, lupi e felini di varia tipologia, per quanto riguarda le creature varie;
• Migliorata la visuale in terza persona;
• Le accelerazioni possono essere effettuate spendendo un po’ di stamina.

Altri dettagli:

• Il regno di Skyrim ha recentemente perso il suo re, ed infuria una guerra civile tra chi vuole la secessione dall’impero e chi invece vuole rimanerne parte.
• Un certo Esbern, una delle poche blades sopravvissute, sarà il mentore del nostro eroe. Ha studiato a fondo le profezie e sa che il mondo di Tamriel è in grave pericolo. Il personaggio sarà doppiato da nientepopòdimeno che Max Von Sydow!!!
• Inoltre si prospetta un grandissima vastità di dungeon, in quanto “Skyrim è piena di pericolanti rovine e antiche città”.

Qualcosina sul combattimento:

“Ogni arma e incantesimo potrà essere equipaggiato in ogni mano in qualunque momento, proponedo così pressochè illimitati stili di combattimento. Impugna due stesse armi, o una daga (pugnale) in una e una mazza nell’altra , combatti difensivamento con uno scudo nella mano sinistra e una scoppiettante palla di elettricità nella destra. Combina un incantesimo differente in ogni mano, o uno stesso incantesimo in entrambe, creando effetti devastanti. La scelta è tua”. Poi dice anche altre cose, ad esempio riguardo ad un nuovo “menù rapido per selezionare le tue armi/incantesimi/ecc. preferiti”. sembra poi non esserci alcuna classe , definita come una “restrinzione”. “Sei il modo in cui giochi”, detto dallo stesso Howard. Ma col tempo una classe si formerà in quanto “usa armi a una mano, e la tua abilità con esse aumenterà, lancia incantesimi di illusione e la tua abilità in quella scuola di magia aumenterà”. ” In Oblivion”, dice Howard,” giocavi per un po’ e poi il gioco ti chiedeva: quale sarà la tua classe? e quello era un modo efficace di dire:” quali skills sono importanti per me?”; e una volta passato quel punto quelle skills erano le uniche che condizionavano il livellamento” ma in Skyrim pare che ogni skill (anche le secondarie) daranno un aiuto al livellamento anche se “più la skill sarà di alto livello, più aiuterà il livellamento”. In questo seguito il “level cap” è 50, nel senso che sarà possibile avanzare ancora, ma molto lentamente.

Tradotta anche parte dell'’anteprima di Game Informer:

Si parla di Radiant AI e le sue nuove applicazioni:

“TES V ha un nuovo rimarcabile approccio nel modo di raccontare la storia in un rpg. In Oblivion, la tecnologia Radiant AI di Bethesda permetteva agli NPCs di avere una propria routine quotidiana. “Radiant story” applica lo stesso principio all’esperienza molto più ampia del personaggio che interagisce con con il mondo in ogni singolo momento. In breve, il “Radiant story” permette una totale reazione del mondo alle azioni del personaggio, dal piu piccolo dettaglio al punto più importante della quest…”

Menù e inventari:

” Raramente i menù sono divertenti, ma non hanno bisogno di essere ingombranti come lo erano in Oblivion. Per rispondere alla necessità di un miglioramento, il team è tornato alla lavagna per creare un interfaccia governabile con semplicità. Se faranno bene il loro lavoro, utilizzare i menù sarà facile, mentre sarà anche offerta abbondanza di contenuti per coloro che desiderano approfondire la loro comprensione del mondo di gioco.”In Itunes, quando guardi tutta la tua musica, la sfogli, e vedi tutte le cover e le informazioni. Diventa tangibile, anche pensando che è tutto virtuale. E’ questo quello che mi piace.” spiega Howard. ” Uno dei nostri obbiettivi era, ‘se Apple facesse un gioco fantasy, come sarebbe esteriormente?’ Sarebbe ottimo poter “scorrere” un sacco di dati velocemente, e su questo stiamo lavorando.” Premi il tasto appropriato, e un menu a quattro punti, stile bussola, apparirà davanti ai tuoi occhi. Skills, inventario, mappa e magie sono le 4 sottosezioni presenti. Premi su per le skill, e la visuale si sposterà sul cielo sopra di te, dove costellazioni e stelle brillano su Skyrim. “I cieli ti stanno mostrando cosa sei” dice Howard ” e diventa un divertente modo di guardare le tue skills.” Ogni costellazione è una di queste skills, divise tra aere del cielo che rappresentano combattimento, magia, e capacità furtive. Ogni “perk” che selezioni illumina un altra stella nella costellazione. Premi destra nel menu-bussola, e raggiungerai il tuo inventario. Armi e armature sono ben organizzate, e ognuna di esse puo essere selezionata come preferita per una selezione rapida. I libri appaiono come oggetti in tre dimensioni che apri per leggere. Tutti gli altri oggetti hanno uno spazio a loro destinato. Tutto nell’inventario ha una dettagliata, zoomabile immagine tridimensionale, che si apre quando selezioni l’oggetto, dandoti molte utili informazioni su cosa stai trasportando con te. Premi sinistra dal menu a bussola e aprirai la tua selezione di incantesimi sempre organizzati ecc. Come le armi anche gli incantesimi possono essere equipaggiati in entrambe le mani per creare potenti combinazioni.

Nuove notizie circa il personaggio che impersoneremo, un Dragonborn:

Il titolo di dragonborn ha un grande valore per il gameplay. Come forse ultimo dragonborn sopravvissuto, il tuo personaggio avrà la capacità di imparare e applicare il potere dei draghi tramite il mistico linguaggio in cui comunicano. Il personaggio potrà imparare delle abilità chiamate “dragon shouts” (urlo del drago, o qualcosa del genere ) durante il suo viaggio per il mondo. Assorbendo le anime dei draghi, la tua capacità di imparare nuovi “shouts” aumenterà. “Ci sono queste parole di potere, e se impari a pronunciarle in modo corretto, avranno un effetto potente” spiega Howard ” Ci sono altre persone nel mondo che possono usare i “dragon shouts”, ma sono molto rare. Sono come un’ antica conoscenza. Usate più nel passato. Ma la tua abilità di assorbire le anime dei draghi e “usare” gli “shouts” è antica.” Ci sono oltre 20 unici “shouts” nel gioco, e ogniuno è formato da tre parole di potere. Queste sono acquisite in molti modi, nel tuo viaggio per il mondo. Con ogni nuova parola, lo “shout” che produci crescerà di intensità e potere. “Sono tutti traducibili (dal draconic all’ Inglese ) come ‘potenti parole divine’” precisa Howard. Gli “shouts” hanno effetti molto vari: uno fa fuggire i nemici da te impauriti dalla potenza del tuo urlo, un altro rallenta il tempo… alcune parole di potere sono sussurrate, per aiutare un approccio stealth, come quello che ti manda istantaneamente da un posto ad un altro. Uno in particolare pronuncia il nome di un dragon vivente, e la bestia è costretta a venire in tuo aiuto e aiutarti combattendo al tuo fianco nelle battaglie.”

Una lunga descrizione del gioco ad opera dell’autore dell’anteprima:

Solo pochi momenti passati ad osservare TES V in azione, vi lasceranno senza fiato. Qualsiasi visuale stiate utilizzando,che sia la prima persona (HUD-free) o la migliorata terza persona, il mondo di Skyrim è meticolosamente dettagliato. Il nuovo rendering engine offre ineguagliabile fedeltà per un gdr-open world. Ogni oggetto nel mondo produce una perfetta ombra. Alberi e cespugli si muovono col vento, e l’acqua scorre in rapide correnti, dando un senso di energia e vita al mondo anche quando non ci sono creature vicine. Una incredibile distanza visiva permette al giocatore di guardare dalla cima di una montagna per una vastissima distanza, e tutto quello che puoi vedere – dalle basse valli alle alte e distanti montagni nevose – è attraversabile. La neve cade in modo naturale su pietre e cespugli, non come una texture, ma cadendo esattamente come sarebbe su tale oggetto data la sua forma e le sue dimensioni. L’ impostazione (ambientale) di Skyrim è un ambiente duro e selvaggio, che si estende a nord di Cyrodiil, la verdeggiante nazione centrale dove si svolgeva la storia di Oblivion. Dove Oblivion si concentrava su selve idilliache e città imperiali, Skyrim ha montagne innevate, maestose tundre e rovine cadenti. “E’ un ambiente veramente rude” spiega il game director Todd Howard. “E’ l’aspetto principale di Skyrim. E’ più brutale. E’ il luogo di nascita dei primi uomini che popolavano Tamriel. La culla degli uomini. Vedi queste città che sembrano davvero antiche, che sono lì da centinaia di anni. Per niente “rinascimento fatato” come era Oblivion. Sono un grande fan di Conan, quindi tutto ciò mi piace molto.” Terra di nascita dell’umanità, Skyrim è una imponente e potente nazione, con molti territori elevati da esplorare. “E’ qualcosa di buono per noi, specialmente dopo Fallout, fare qualcosa di veramente bello, con paesaggi e piante,” dice Howard ” La costa settentrionale è molto ghiacciata, e ci sono questi ghiacciai e molta neve, e poi c’è un area chiamata “the Reach” , che è rocciosa e scoscesa, a sud-ovest di Skyrim. C’è una tundra, con questa grande area aperta nel mezzo, da cui vedi anche le montagne marginali. All’ interno di questo posto ci sono sei o sette ambienti differenti.” Tigri dai denti a sciabola, pelosi mammuth, e alci vagano negli stessi territori selvaggi popolati da giganti, trolls del ghiaccio, e terrificanti spettri simili a serpenti che fluttuano seguendo le correnti di aria fredda. Cinque possenti città punteggiano il paesaggio, offrendo rifugio dall’aspro e duro ambiente. Persino le aree sotterranee sono piene di varianti, da cave ghiacciate a cripte dimenticate. “C’è un unicità nel territorio ottima per i tipi di giochi che ci piace fare.” ci dice Howard.

Vita ordinaria e interazioni con il mondo di gioco:

Villaggi e città sono importanti come lo sono sempre stati nel mondo di Elder Scrolls, ma in Skyrim Bethesda ha alterato il modo in cui i giocatori sperimenteranno l’interazione con gli NPCs e ha incrementato il numero di attività che possono essere “scoperte” in questi bastioni di civiltà. Per coloro che hanno giocato Oblivion o Fallout 3, le vostre più immediate preoccupazioni riguardo ai dialoghi con gli ncp possono essere sepolte. Le conversazioni non si svolgeranno in una parte zoomata della visuale in prima persona, e bethesda ha “reclutato” di gran lunga più attori. Avvicinati ad un npc, e una opzione di conversazione apparirà. Mentre loro ti parlano, l’ Ai che controlla il personaggio lo muoverà, a volte ti guarderà, per poi girarsi per continuare quello che stava facendo mentre sta ancora parlando, magari continuando a tagliare legna, o badando ad altro. Le conversazioni secondarie che puoi ascoltare ti forniranno anche informazioni senza bisogno di iniziare il dialogo. Potrebbero menzionare un oggetto perso, o una situazione inusuale, e questi dettagli verranno automaticamente annotati nel tuo diario, offrendo nuove strade di esplorazione, ad esemprio cercare di persuaderli. Il tuo eroe può anche compiere molte altre azioni in una città, che aiutano a far sembrare il mondo più genuino. Andare alla forgia e creare nuove armi dal rosso metallo rovente. Mescolare strane sostanze alchemiche per creare pozioni o veleni. Incantare oggetti con nuovi effetti magici. Oppure cimentarsi nell’estrazione mineraria, nel tagliare la legna, o persino nel cucinare. Le città sono piene di attività quando stai cercando una pausa dalle tue avventure a stretto contatto con la morte ).

Sito pieno di info interessanti e di un'ottima panoramica su quali potrebbero essere le zone di interesse sulla mappa:

http://www.thedragonborn.com/

Ecco la mappa basata sul quadro che hanno negli studios:

Spoiler:

Pezzo molto interessante sul livellamento:

Spoiler:

"Skyrim’s is similar to Fallout 3′s, not Oblivion’s”.

Similar to Fallout 3? Let’s take a look at what that means, exactly:

Sleign: All items have the same set stats, and all non-human enemies have the same HP and stats across all levels. Quest rewards are always the same… NPCs are scaled in their equipment.
Random spawns out in the world are scaled (stronger enemies appear at higher levels), but weak enemies aren’t written out of the system, just become less common. Unlike Oblivion where imps and boars become impossible to find at higher levels, a single spawn at lower levels can have enemies spawning in pairs at higher levels.
After you enter an enclosed area, all enemies will be set to your level there for the rest of the game. You can’t keep coming back to the same ruin to get better stuff as you level.
Stronger enemies exist in the world at the start of the game. You’re usually given enough warning if you don’t want to fight anything too strong. The Fallout system was created from Oblivion’s but Fallout was a testing ground for tweaking level-scaling from too easy from almost no level-scaling (Morrowind) to too much level-scaling (Oblivion).
I’ve played almost 100 hours of Fallout 3 and can confirm that the level scaling is excellent. You’ll feel challenged at low levels, at times challenged and at times powerful at mid-levels, and mostly powerful at high levels unless facing groups of tough enemies, like a gang of Enclave soldiers backed up by a Deathclaw. Unlike Oblivion where you often felt less powerful as you leveled up, Fallout 3 feels like a journey to greater power with every level. And isn’t that why we play RPGs?
I look forward to seeing how Bethesda improve on this already solid system in TES V: Skyrim.

15 Things You Must Know About Elder Scrolls V

Anteprima di Dedicated to Gamers

Il Rilievo di Alduin

Spoiler:

Gameinformer have updated their Skyrim Hub with Alduin’s Wall, an interactive panorama of the sculpted stone wall seen in the game’s first trailer. Below is a transcript of the information on the wall followed by some brief reflections on what we’ve learned. It gives key details of the lead-up to Skyrim’s story.

Devastation



Thousands of years ago, lost in the uncounted centuries that came before recorded history, the dragons ravaged the countryside, waging war against humankind and driving them before their might. The humans could not stand against such a force. Some of these humans would come to worship the dragons, but all feared them. For the first of three times, we see depicted Alduin, the World Eater. This awesome and terrifying creature will one day return to devour Tamriel. That day has come.

Alduin's Defeat



This cryptic image tells of Alduin’s fall to humanity’s engenuity and bravery, but more than that is not known. This piece of the puzzle would be incredibly important to understand for someone new who might hope to defeat the dragons once again. Who are the individuals standing against Alduin? How did they expel the dreaded beast from the world? Perhaps the re-emergent Dragonborn will recover the answers.

Unfortunately, there is not much info on the Dragonborn to draw upon in TES Lore, except that it was a title mostly used in reference to Tiber Septim, a famous Nord general now worshipped as one of the Nine Divines. This thread suggests that Mankor Camoran may have been Dragonborn, due to his ability to wear the Amulet of Kings.

The Staff of Chaos (TES Arena)



The prophecy of Alduin’s Wall depicts several events that would preface the return of Alduin after his expulsion from the world. The first is the shattering of the Staff of Chaos, an event depicted in The Elder Scrolls: Arena. The Staff was an incredibly powerful relic that could open gateways to other worlds and obliterate living beings. Imperial Battlemage Jagar Tharn used the Staff of Chaos to imprison Emperor Uriel Septim VII within the realm of Oblivion, after which he broke the staff into pieces to assure the artifact could never be used against him. Arena’s hero reassembled those pieces and defeated Jagar Tharn.

Numidium (TES II Daggerfall)



The return of Numidium is another part of the prophecy heralding the return of Alduin. The massive brass golem called Numidium was reassembled during the events of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. The branching choices that determined who would control Numidium resulted in the Warp in the West, a strange occurrence that paradoxically allowed all choices to happen simultaneously, dramatically altering the world.

The Red Mountain (TES III Morrowind)



The mountain once known as Vvaardenfell served a central role in the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. In that installment, the villain Dagoth Ur maintained his stronghold within, until the hero of that game infiltrated the Red Mountain and destroyed him.

The Oblivion Gates (TES IV Oblivion)



The death of Emperor Uriel Septim VII at the beginning of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion allowed Alduin’s return. A previously unknown heir named Martin Septim, along with the help of Oblivion’s hero, were able to shut the gates once again, but Martin was lost in the process. The end of the Septim dynasty of emperors also brought the end of Tamriel’s third era.

The Sons of Skyrim (TES V Skyrim)



With the Fourth Era begun, the sons of Skyrim “spill their own blood”, as described by the Blade named Esbern within the recent trailer. This final terrible event heralds Alduin’s ultimate arrival. As The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim begins, the high king of Skyrim has been murdered. Many within the northern country wish to secede from the crumbling empire, which has been on the decline for 200 years since the fall of the Septim Dynasty. Other Skyrim citizens insist the Empire is still worth fighting for. Conflict between the two sides seem inevitable.

The Throat of the World



A great mountain rises above the tundra and forests of Skyrim. The Throat of the World houses High Hrothgar, the home of the Greybeards, who will play a key part in the Dragonborn’s story. 7,000 steps must be climbed to reach the remote retreat. Here on Alduin’s Wall, we see the mountain cleft in two, symbolizing the way Skyrim is tearing itself apart as the game begins.

Hope



The prophecy depicted on Alduin’s Wall is dire, but it is not without hope. A single individual, gifted with the same incredible powers held by the dragons themselves, may rise to fight against Alduin and assure the world’s survival. The Akaviri armor worn by the Blades in this image originates from another continent beyond Tamriel. The Blades shown in the image bow before the Dragonborn. They’ve protected the line of the Dragonborn for generations in anticipation of this moment, when a Dragonborn would rise to face Alduin upon his return. 200 years ago with the closing of the Oblivion gates, the line of Dragonborn heirs was lost with the last of the Septims. As Skryim begins, a lone prisoner begins to learn that he may hold a similar power…

The Story Clues

The panel Alduin’s Defeat suggests that a chunk of Skyrim’s story will be dedicated to tracking how Alduin was defeated first time around, knowledge that has now been lost.

Who are the individuals standing against Alduin? How did they expel the dreaded beast from the world? Perhaps the re-emergent Dragonborn will recover the answers.

It’s also fascinating to see how key events in previous TES games have formed part of the prophecy of Alduin’s return: the shattering of the Staff of Chaos (Arena), the return of Numidium (Daggerfall), the death of Dagoth Ur (Morrowind), the death of Uriel Septim VII (Oblivion) and the “sons of Skyrim” spilling their own blood.

The game will be set against a backdrop of brewing civil war between Imperialists and Separatists. Once again, you’ll start your journey as a prisoner, a precedent also set by Arena, Morrowind and Oblivion
Do you see any story clues that I’ve missed? Also, let me know in the comments if you have a correction or addition for this post and it will be promptly updated.

Il Rilievo di Alduin (in italiano)

Approfondimento sul Lore di TES e sulla storia di Alduin per chi vuole capire meglio alcuni eventi pre-Skyrim:

• The Seven Fights of the Aldudagga
• Fight One: The Eating-birth of Dagon
• Fight Two: How Herkel the Fool Became a Clever Man
• The Five Songs of King Wulfarth

Intervista a Todd Howard divisa in in tre parti:

Road To Skyrim: The Todd Howard Interview

Spoiler:

• Video 1: Todd Howard tells the story of how he got into the industry, recalls his earliest gaming habits, and offers advice for those looking to follow in his footsteps.
• Video 2: Learn about the evolution of the Elder Scrolls series and the lessons of the past that led the team to the creation of Skyrim.
• Video 3: Todd Howard reveals his favorite games of this generation, his thoughts on current trends in the gaming industry, and his perception of the difference between eastern and western role-playing games. He also discusses his impressions of Kinect, Move, and 3D technology, and whether we'll ever see an Elder Scrolls game on mobile phones

.

Dettagli più interessanti che vengono fuori dall'intervista:

Spoiler:

• Dragons use dragon shouts to make fire, make ice, make wind, slow time, and so on. They do not ‘breathe fire’ like traditional dragons. This means that when fighting toe to toe with dragons, you are likely to be dueling dragon shouts.
• One of the cities in the game is built into the side of a mountain, created long ago by the Dwemer (Dwarves) and now inhabited by Skyrim’s modern-day citizens.
• Todd lists some of the games he’s been most impressed with recently as the Rockstar games (GTA and Red Dead Redemption), Portal and Heavy Rain.
• He says that the challenges for growth in the gaming industry are becoming less about graphics and more about making NPCs more human. This line of thought reflects the amount of effort Bethesda have put into what they’re calling ‘Radiant Story’, where NPCs react more dynamically to your character and your actions.
• Todd stated that he did not have any plans to try to ‘port’ Skyrim to devices like the iPhone or iPad because of a philosophy that you should not make things for one platform that could be better on another platform. He’s said that though they are investigating options for these kinds of platforms, they will create a gaming experience tailored to work best on that platform.

Anterpima di GameInformer che va dal motore grafico ai dettagli della Radiant IA/Story:

Spoiler:

The Technology Behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Xbox 360 launched in November 2005 with a handful of titles, but it wasn’t until The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion released in the following March that gamers truly understood the power of next-generation consoles. The vast and impressively detailed open world of Oblivion won over critics and gamers alike with cutting edge graphics, high dynamic range lighting, and the innovative Radiant AI technology that endowed non-player characters with decision-making abilities and daily routines. Taken in combination, these technologies created a fantasy setting that felt more alive and vibrant than any role-playing predecessor.

In the five years since Bethesda last visited Tamriel, the studio honed its chops with the post-apocalyptic hit Fallout 3. Many of Fallout's technological refinements carry over to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but Bethesda Studios has also developed and contracted a suite of technological tools that allow the team to reach far beyond anything they've done before.

Creation Engine

Though Skyrim's Nordic setting is a more rugged environment than the Renaissance festival feel of Oblivion's Cyrodiil, the new setting isn't lacking in breathtaking views. To create a diverse country filled with steep mountain passes and dense forests, babbling brooks and violent waterfalls, glacier coastlines and snowy tundras, Bethesda went back to the drawing board and rewrote every major system powering the gameplay experience. The result is the newly dubbed Creation Engine and Kit.

“The big things for us were to draw a lot of stuff in the distance so we have a really sophisticated level of detail, more so than what we've had in the past for how things stream in and how detail gets added to them as they get closer to the camera,” explains Bethesda Studios creative director Todd Howard.

Draw distances are great for creating those postcard-worthy landscapes, but the players eyes aren't always fixed on the horizon. To give the immediate surrounding a more believable look and feel, Bethesda increased the emphasis on the play between light and shadow on the entire world.“Because our worlds are so big all of the lighting has to be dynamic,” Howard says. “That's something we had a little bit of in the past with shadowing, but not on everything. Now we have it on everything. It just makes the whole thing a lot more believable when you're there.”

A lot of the environments are dominated by the untamed wilderness, which look great thanks to Bethesda's overhauled foliage system. In previous games the team licensed the SpeedTree middleware to render the forests. For Skyrim, they've created their own platform that allows artists to build whatever kind of trees they want and to dictate how they animate. Artists can alter the weight of the branches to adjust how much they move in the wind, which is an effective way of, for instance, actualizing the danger of traversing steep mountain passes with howling winds violently shaking branches.

Given its northern location and extreme elevations, Skyrim's climate is more prone to snowfall than Cyrodiil. To create realistic precipitation effects, Bethesda originally tried to use shaders and adjust their opacity and rim lighting, but once the artists built the models and populated the world the snow appeared to fall too evenly. To work around this problem, they built a new precipitation system that allows artists to define how much snow will hit particular objects. The program scans the geography, then calculates where the snow should fall to make sure it accumulates properly on the trees, rocks, and bushes.

Bethesda has another ten months before Skyrim releases, but thanks to the Creation Engine the world already looks much more stunning than its predecessors. The non-player characters also seem to be more intelligent thanks to alterations the team made to the Radiant AI technology.

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.

Havok Behavior

The expansive Oblivion and Fallout 3 settings created a wonderful sense of place, but the robotic and unrealistic character animations sometimes betrayed the sense of immersion the environments imparted. Aware of the disconnect, Bethesda has enlisted Havok's new Behavior technology to endow Skyrim's characters and creatures with a proper sense of movement.

“We looked at a bunch of [animation solutions], and this is about the tippy-top state-of-the-art stuff out there,” Howard says. “I think we're the first real big game to use it.”

Havok Behavior is a flexible animation tool that allows the developers to rapidly prototype and preview new animations and blend them together seamlessly with a few mouse clicks and minimal code support. Bethesda is using it to create more nuance in character and creature movement, govern special effects, and even to control how characters struggle to move when trapped in environmental hazards like spider webs. Characters now transition more realistically between walking, jogging, and running, and the increased nuance between animations has allowed Bethesda to better balance the combat in both first- and third-person perspective by adjusting the timing values for swings and blocks depending on your perspective. “We definitely have made a significant jump in how it plays [in third person perspective],” Howard proclaims.

The increased animation fidelity and diversity has enabled Bethesda to ditch the awkward dialogue camera perspective that paused the game and presented you with an extreme closeup of the person with whom you were speaking. Now camera stays in the same perspective used during combat and exploration, and players are free to look around while engaging in conversation. Rather than drop their activities to give you their undivided attention, the NPCs continue to go about their business while in discussion. For instance, a barkeep may continue to clean cups while talking, and even move from behind the counter to a seat. A mill worker chopping wood may engage in conversation without turning away from his duties, only occasionally glancing toward you during the exchange.

Perhaps the most impressive use of the Behavior technology is how Bethesda is using it to create the dragon animations. Bethesda has worked meticulously to make sure the beasts look powerful and menacing when banking, flapping their wings, gaining altitude before making another strafing run, and breathing fire on their hapless victims. None of the dragons' actions are scripted, and Behavior helps make the movements look non-mechanical, even when the dragons are speaking/shouting.

With all this technology at its fingertips, surely Bethesda could put players on the back of a woolly mammoth or a fire-breathing dragon, right? When we ask, for the first time during our visit Howard clams up. “We're not talking about mounts yet,” he says coyly.

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.

La Tecnologia di Skyrim

Nuove info da GameInformer su come i Draghi useranno gli "Shouts":

Spoiler:

Skyrim’s Dragon Shouts



Many aspects of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will feel familiar to longtime fans. The exploration of a vast open world, first-person combat, and interacting systems of melee, magic, and stealth are all tent pole ideas within the franchise. However, Skyrim introduces something new into the gameplay mix: dragon shouts. This special new set of powers stand apart from the existing magic system, offering a broad range of powerful effects. The ability to attain these abilities is unique to your hero in the world, and the path to attaining them is a quest in itself within the larger tale that unfolds over the course of the game. Dragon shouts give the player the same overwhelming might that drives the resurgent dragon population, and the same source of power that launched the last line of emperors.

“It’s in the lore,” declares game director Todd Howard. “It was like the classic barbarian battle cry. I’m not sure if it showed up in a book in Daggerfall, but it’s definitely mentioned in this pocket guide to the empire that we did for Redguard. It was the idea that the Nords had these battle cries, and they would shout at their enemies.” As the team at Bethesda began to design The Elder Scrolls V, they latched onto this little piece of mythology, and the way it could tie back to the dragons – powerful creatures that had been absent from the world for thousands of years.

Quickly, elements of the fiction began to fall into place around the dragon shouts, much of which was already firmly entrenched from previous games. The dragonborn are a unique group of mortals, gifted by the gods with the same power as the dragons. To be trained in the art of the dragon shouts, also called the Voice, dragonborn individuals travel to Skyrim in order to climb a great mountain called the Throat of the World. At its peak they reach High Hrothgar, where an ancient sect of powerful Voice users named the Greybeards train them in their art.

“In the lore, Tiber Septim was the first main emperor. He could shout. His way of the Voice was unmatched,” Howard explains. “He is the original guy who walks the seven thousand steps and talks to the Greybeards. And the idea is, at that time, that they were so powerful they had to have all the villages flee for miles. This little kid is walking up this snowy mountain, and all these people are packed up and they’re walking down and away. Because they know the kid is going up to talk to these guys, and when they talk there’s going to be avalanches.”

The ability to use the dragon language already exists in the fiction, called “Thu’um.” The concept roughly translates as “The Voice.”

Tiber Septim would use the dragon shouts to lead his troops into battle and unite Tamriel under one empire. Hundreds of years later, the Septim line has died out, and no other dragonborn have been seen for many years. That is, until the hero of Skyrim arrives on the scene. “There are other people in the world who can use the dragon shouts, but it’s very rare. It’s like arcane knowledge. It used to be done more in the past,” Howard explains. “The Greybeards know it. But your ability to absorb the dragon souls and do the shouts on the level that you can is beyond them.”

In the game, players will guide their hero to learn ever more powerful dragon shouts, and then use these arcane powers to supplement other combat and magic skills. Upon defeating a dragon, Skyrim’s hero absorbs the soul of the fallen creature, which fuels his ability to learn a new shout. Later, players can search out long lost walls covered in dragon script. Upon these walls, individual runes stand out to the hero because he or she is dragonborn. “There are these words of power, and if you learn how to say them right, they have a powerful effect,” Howard says.

Over time, players will build a vast arsenal of shouts: over 20 complete shouts in all, each with multiple words that must be gathered from different places around the world. “There are three words for each shout, and there are three levels to them. The amount of time you hold down the shout button is how many words come out,” Howard continues. “It becomes a bit of a collection mechanic – to collect all the words.”


Creating the language behind the dragon shouts

Bethesda games have always had a strong internal consistency. Dragonborn and the shouts they employ stand at the center of the Skyrim game experience, so there needed to be a rich background to make the system feel authentic. The answer lay in the creation of a language – the ancient tongue spoken and written by the dragons. The mammoth task of tackling such a project fell largely on senior designer Emil Pagliarulo.

“The first thing I worked on when I came to Bethesda was the Bloodmoon expansion to Morrowind,” Pagliarulo tells us. “And back then, I started really entrenching myself in all this Viking culture stuff. One of the things I listened to back then that I was able to find again recently was a reading of Beowulf in Old English. That was always my inspiration. What would an epic sound like? So I knew what I wanted it to sound like.”

But where to start? In the case of Skyrim, Pagliarulo had a distinct goal in mind. He knew there would be these scattered walls across Skyrim from which the dragonborn would learn the shouts. Here was a chance to create a whole new branch of mythology and legend for the world of Tamriel, writ large upon the ancient ruins of the land for players to discover. The team also wanted to have the language work into other elements of the game, including as a song that could be integrated into the main Elder Scrolls musical theme – the music that gamers would eventually hear in Skyrim’s teaser trailer.

“It had to rhyme in English and the dragon language. It had to tell this epic story,” Pagliarulo explains about the challenge of creating the stanzas that would populate the Skyrim theme. “But I also knew we wanted to use it for the game. It was sort of interesting, because we knew we wanted to have this language as a game device, because we have these gameplay mechanics built around it. So, you’re not developing it as an actual language. It’s much more word based or hieroglyphic based.”

Almost immediately, the challenges of creating a new language began to appear. How do you handle past, present, and future tense? Do verbs conjugate? What is the alphabet like? All of these were issues that needed to be addressed if the language was going to be useable in the game. “We started off making specific rules for the way words would work together,” Pagliarulo says. “So the way you would do ‘king’ would be the word for ‘son’ and the word for ‘leader,’ except you take off this one letter. And then we realized that it had started to collapse under its own weight. The more rules we wanted to keep track of, and the more complex it became, we knew the more complicated it would be for the designers to use, and the more mistakes we would make. So we really tried to keep it much more simple.”

The language concept that emerged abandoned tense, conjugation, and even upper and lower case letters, preferring that the context imply those ideas. For instance, in the translation of Game Informer’s back cover, the word “fundein” translates to “unfurled,” but it could mean either unfurl or unfurled, depending on where the word is used. Similarly, the word “prodah” could mean either foretell or foretold.

“Once we established the baseline, and the designers started using it, I was glad we kept it simple,” Pagliarulo says. “Because, boy, can it get out from under you. You’ll be like, ‘I need a word for “thunder,” I’ll do this.’ And you’ll realize you already have a word for that, and it was spelled differently. Then you have to go back through and fix all those instances. It’s a remarkable lesson in why the word ‘dear’ [or ‘deer’] means so many things in English.”

Not everything had to be such a tremendous challenge. Because Bethesda was designing the dragon language from scratch, they could shape the way it sounded to the vibe they wanted to express in the game. “You can choose the words for a concept that sound the best. The ones that feel more epic. The ones that roll together well,” Pagliarulo declares. “Like the word ‘dovahkiin.’ ‘Dova’ means dragon. ‘Kiin’ means child. So we did a lot of that. We played with the words. How did it all flow together?”

The sound of the dragon language when you hear it spoken or sung has a vaguely Germanic or Scandinavian sound to it. It’s a harsh but oddly beautiful sound that feels right at home in the rugged landscape of Skyrim. And you’ll hear it in plenty of places. Not only do the dragons and the Greybeards recall this long-dead language, but many other creatures in the world do as well. Included among them are the undead draugr, ancient Nord warriors who will call out in dragon language from their skeletal frames, threatening to pull you down to join them.


The secret to the written language of the dragons, and some of the specific dragon shouts that will appear in the final game

Beyond crafting the spoken language of the dragons, Pagliarulo and the rest of the developers at Bethesda needed one final important element to make their new language shine: a written alphabet.

“The idea was, how would the dragons write or scratch this language in the stone or on the ground? Everything is done with the three talons. You’ll always see combinations of one to three scratches, and sometimes the dot, which is like the dewclaw,” Todd Howard explains. With that concept in mind, someone had to make the idea into a reality: concept artist Adam Adamowicz. “One of our concept artists [Adamowicz] had the task of making a font. Make unique symbols for these letters that sound like this, using this scheme. He was literally like, ‘What?’ I think he sat there and stared at his monitor for an hour. And we came back, and he’d say, ‘I still don’t…say it again?’” Howard laughs.

Working together with Adamowicz, a final runic alphabet emerged. “It doesn’t coincide directly with the alphabet we use in English. There are 34 unique characters within the language,” Pagliarulo says. Some Roman alphabet letters don’t exist, like the letter "c". In other instances, a single runic character represents multiple Roman letters, including many double vowels like “aa” or “ei.” For ease of use in implementing the language into the game, the final font was designed to work in word processors like Microsoft Word. Many of the number keys on a traditional keyboard are co-opted within the font to include the additional dragon characters.



Take a look at the individual runes in the written dragon language. Can you see how each character could be written by a creature with three front talons and a dewclaw? Even the shape of the letters echoes claw marks.

After months of work, the dragon language began to take shape and be implemented into the game. Even now, the designers at Bethesda continue to add new words to support the in-game existence of the dragonborn and dragon shouts. An entire internal wiki at Bethesda contains an evolving vocabulary list of words and phrases used in the game – any new uses of the dragon language have to be checked back against this list for consistency.

In the game, the final result of all the hard work is exhilarating, and even more so when you know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Every ancient wall you encounter carries an ancient legend. Every creature that cries out in dragon is saying an actual translatable thing to you. And perhaps most importantly, every dragon shout you acquire carries real meaning behind it. One power used in the game acts like a sort of invisible push of staggering power. Spoken in the game, your hero will intone the three words for the full shout: “Fus, Ro, Dah!” Translated into English, “Fus” means force, “Ro” means balance, and “Dah” means push.

After collecting more than 60 individual words that form up into over 20 complete shouts, Skyrim’s hero will be a force to be reckoned with, especially considering that these dragon-based abilities will be layered on top of his normal leveled-up abilities in combat, traditional magic, and stealth. He’ll be able to slow down time around him with one shout, or use a special whispered dragon shout to stealthily move close to an enemy in a mere instant. And while they’re cagey about the details, Bethesda says that one shout will let a player summon an actual dragon, calling him by name to fight.

The new dragon shout system, and the language that supports it prove one thing without a doubt. Bethesda is crafting one of the most intricate video game worlds ever made. Layered on top of over 15 years of previous Elder Scrolls games, the land of Tamriel has a depth of fiction you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else but in the most elaborate and well-loved fantasy novels. Many players may dive into the world of Skyrim this coming November and perceive the magic of the dragons and their shouts as a mere afterthought. You know better.

Do you want to learn more about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim? Visit our game hub to tour Bethesda Game Studios, learn the history of the Elder Scrolls series, explore the new game engine’s capabilities, and more. Just click on the banner image below.

I Dragon Shouts (tradotto in Italiano)

Uno dei primi brani ufficiali composti da Soule per Skyrim

Skyrim sarà supportato da un Toolset

L'intero Podcast di GameInformer con Todd Howard:

Spoiler:

TODD HOWARD Game Informer Podcast:

4:30 Are there going to be spears in the game?

"There are not spears in the classic spear sense. I am sorry. There currently are not."

"Something like spears is really cool, but with where we're putting our time with the other weapons, it just didn't make the cut."

5:00 Are there any other kind of hints you can give us about the directions of like the types of weapons people are going to be able to play with?

"The main thing that I can say is that, they go back to, we had X weapon types in Daggerfall, then X weapon types in Morrowind, and Oblivion had its own, and Skyrim had its own. And any time there's something that we stop doing whether that's spears, having a skill for that, or crossbows and things like that, we tend to each time start over. And we want to find weapon types with this game that really yield gameplay. So those skills are separate.

There's a two-handed weapon skill, there's a one-handed weapon skill, and there's an archery skill. Because those really are playstyles. I'm going to use a one handed weapon and then either cast magic with my other hand, or I'm going to use a shield, or I'm going to use a two-handed weapon, where it's going to fill both those slots, obviously (two-handed.)

Within each of these skills, there are perks. They're perks, but they're not like Fallout, in that each skill has its own perk tree.

Take one handed for instance. You have a one handed skill, and then you can perk that. There's a skill tree underneath one handed. And within that there are separate perk areas for maces, and then axes, and then swords. So as opposed to having say an axe skill, that is a part of the perk tree within one handed. It gives us a better balance. You can say "Well I like one handed stuff," and then you can start specializing as you raise that skill."

8:40 Are you able to be a werewolf in Skyrim?

"We're fans of that stuff as well, and we're currently messing with all that. I don't want to commit to, 'here are the things you can change into and what they're like right now.' Not because we're not doing it, or not attempting to. I just don't know honestly where that's going to end up and how deep we're going to get into that.

We will try things, and if we don't feel it's helping the game, there are other areas we'd like to spend our time on in the game."

10:38 People are curious about mounts. Are we going to see a return to mounts?

"Something we're messing with, and we don't know where it's going to end up. There were things with the Oblivion horses. We liked having them. They weren't the greatest implementation of horses. And now you see things come out like Red Dead. There are more horses in games, and we feel like just the basic implementation we did in Oblivion isn't going to be good enough. We are currently attempting things with that, and I don't know where it's going to end up."

10:45 When you were looking at the Oblivion mounts, What were the things that stood out as being kind of problems for you that you wouldn't put into Skyrim unless you could fix?

"Mostly I would say controls and the feel that you are not in some sort of battlefield jeep. You are riding an animal. Just the feeling of doing it. But a world without them feels a little weird. We definitely want to have them. We don't know yet what you're going to be able to do with them and to what level."

12:55 Are you going to be able to craft spells, potions, and other items?

"We do have crafting within each discipline now. We do have smithing, enchanting is back as a skill, and then alchemy we're sort of treating as - it doesn't matter that much anymore (stealth/magic/combat categories) - but it's sort of in our stealth category now. We have a blended skill list, so alchemy is sort of the most magical of the stealth skills. And then we have lots of other things that are NOT skill based that you can craft, like cooking and things like that.

There is a lot of that, and more emphasis on it this time around."

13:50 One thing that when I was down to see you guys at the studio was stuff related to how spells would interact with each other and that kind of thing. And I would suspect that the results of your experimentation on that would have an affect on whether you have anything like spellcrafting, right?

"Yeah, spellcrafting is a real wildcard. Something that we've done a lot. And there are pluses and minuses to it. We'd like to find... we have some ideas that we really like on how to solve that, and I don't know where that's going to go. But the thing that we DON'T like about the previous systems that we've done, is it becomes very "spread-sheety." It takes the magic out of magic. You got to see the game, but your listeners haven't. There's a bigger emphasis on how the magic physically acts. Just a spell like fire; there are different spells for how the fire moves. Like putting down a rune that explodes when you walk over it. Or fire you can spray that lingers on the ground, like you're spraying a wall, and you can spray the ceiling. Or fire that travels like a flamethrower out of your hands. Or a fireball that you charge up and throw and it explodes at a distance. So our main goal is to make magic feel like this arcane powerful thing. And once it goes into a spreadsheet in the game where you can just say I want something at this distance and this power, it removes the illusion of like how this stuff actually works. So we have some ideas of ways around that, but we don't know where those are going to go yet. We do have the benefit of, we're really, really happy with how the magic plays in the game, both visually and mechanically. And then being able to do it with both hands. There are opportunities there for combinations and things you can do without getting into the spreadsheet aspect of it. Which I do know some people like, but it does take away from the impact of the spells that you're finding and mechanically how they work."

16:12 Within the one-handed skill tree you've got these different perks for maces, and axes, and swords and so on. Within the magic system is it kind of similar, is it by school that you're perking up, or is it individually like I've got fire spells, and I'm going to perk fire spells?

"Well there's the school Destruction, so that covers like a category of spells, and then within Destruction there are perks for fire based spells. So people see we've removed Mysticism, but that's just a label right? Those spells go into other skills. And then it gets deeper within those skills. The easy thing for us is to just add more skills. That's actually easier. Because in the old games there was just a skill and a number, there wasn't really a progression. We really want you to feel that you're getting better in this particular skill. And perks are the main way we do that now. And I think the game right now has like 280 perks if you include the ranks. So even a character that raises all their skills to 100, and they're playing and they're level 50, they've only gotten to pick 50 perks. They're very different characters. And a lot of the power is in the perks as opposed to the raw number of the skill. There's still some power in the raw number of the skill, just not as much as there used to be. All that stuff has been moved into the perks."

17:53 How are races different from one another?

"So the main decision you make in the beginning is what race you're going to be. You no longer pick class. You basically pick what you're going to look like, and obviously the race is a big part of that. And that comes with certain skill increases. So certain races have certain skills that are higher to start with, and then they also have either spells - depending on what race you pick - and/or racial abilities."

19:15 On the lack of class and the new leveling system:

"You just play, and your skills go up as you play, and the higher the skill the more it affects your leveling. It's a really, really nice, elegant system that sort of balances itself. People would play and the general pattern would be, they played for like three hours and then, 'oh, I picked the wrong skills, I'm going to start over.' They weren't necessarily upset about that, but to us it's 'is there a way we can solve that? Is there a way we can make this better' And we think this is it."

20:36 Facial creation:

"There's an all new face system we did. On the one hand you have less control than you had in Oblivion, but what you're doing looks cool. Our joke was Oblivion would have been better if the Random button was renamed the Ugly button on the face creator. So we've redone that completely with really, really nice results. Something simple like a nose, we have a lot of prebuilt shapes you can pick from, and then you can adjust the size and position of that, as opposed to lots of fiddly sliders. It lets us hand craft a lot of options that you can mess with. If you just start messing around, you're not going to end up with something that looks bad."

21:49 What are the dragons going to be like in the game?

"If you're a fan of fantasy you see a lot with dragons. They've been a part of classic fantasy that we've never done. So we wanted to do them in a way that they were part of the world, and put them on screen, and fight them in a way that you conjure up in your head when you read fantasy that you haven't really seen in a game. And that's what we're trying to pull off, that they are these fierce beasts. They do become these kinds of boss fights, like a mix between a Big Daddy and a Helicopter in half life 2. These things that you see coming and you're like, 'Oh. Oh NO.' They are really difficult to kill."

23:15 Are they the enemies you end up fearing the most?

"Definitely. Oh yeah."

"We had a lot of back up plans for them when we were developing the game. Because when you deal with a creature that big and its AI and how powerful it is. You know, how much can it fly, can it land, will it be able to do this? We made a little team of people to work on dragons and put some of our best people on it. They worked on it for two years. They really came out like... We got to go past the list we had and then more. We're ecstatic with how they came out. They can dive bomb and breathe fire down a street. They can get on the ground and march around now. They can pretty much go anywhere. So we can call them and do random encounters. When they come, they generally now just work. We can throw multiples of them in a scene. They just, you know you just... like... when I get bored in the game I just summon dragons now and they can terrorize the town. It's always cool.

There are multiple types of them. As far as riding them, I would not expect that. It's not something I see happening. It's kind of not how we're approaching them, first of all."

24:42 Jumping up on one of their backs might not get the best results.

"No."

25:10 Companion characters. That was a really fun and really cool part in Fallout. What's going on with that?

"We are approaching it in a different way. I would not expect the deep personalities and uniqueness with a low number of companions. We are aiming for a much, much higher number of companions that you can hire or they become your friends and they come with you. The general direction is to make it a bit more dynamic, and have more people that you can decide to have come with you. And in that we sacrifice them having a lot of depth or personality or individual stories. And there still will be some like that. But that's kind of the direction we're headed right now. We don't know the exact number of NPCs in the world that could become your companion, but we're hoping it's a big number."

27:15 Radiant Story:

"We want to be careful to not oversell it. It's a tool that we use to make quests. We started the game by making them all very, very random/dynamic. You do see the holes in that. It doesn't tell a good story. Good stories are still told by good writers and we do most of our quests that way. Radiant Tool is the tool you use to make any quest. And you can make all of the roles in that quest, you can hand craft all of those roles, or you can take any part of the quest and conditionalize it. So what it allows us to do is to take parts of a quest or an activity, and conditionalize it, without having to hand script conditions.

Example: You come to town and there's a guy who has a child that's been kidnaped, and they're in a dungeon nearby. We can write that as a quest template, fill out the roles saying it's a guy in town who likes you, who has a child, and then the role for the location is a dungeon that fits this. We can pick a dungeon that you haven't been to for some reason that's nearby. You walk into town and the game just says 'Oh, there's a guy in town who likes you. We're going to kidnap his kid who you might have met, and put him in this dungeon for some reason you didn't go to. And that dungeon happens to be a higher level dungeon and so we think you could use a challenge right now. And the reward is going to be this other thing that your character can use.' Doing that before was impossible. But we have that opportunity right now, and so tend to be using it. The more dynamic quests tend to be like little favor things that people ask you to do, not full blown quests. But if you were to play a quest, it's very hard for you to tell. It's going to seem very hand-written. You'd really have to compare notes with friends to figure out the parts that that particular quest decided to make dynamic. Because some quests have no dynamic elements, and some quests have more."

"When we're going to send you to do something, we can tailor that, a bit to the things you've done."

30:43 Will we see factions?

"We're doing factions. That's definitely something we're going to be talking about later. Not because we don't know, but because we decided that's a good thing to talk about later."

"Different than what we've done before in what they are. But definitely we're going to have them."

31:25 Are there some that are returning, or it's all new ones?

"There are some that are returning, yes."

31:35 11.11.11. How committed are you to this number?

"We actually tend not to announce release dates until later in the process. We're very confident about it. There's still a lot to do in the game. But we wouldn't have announced it if we weren't really confident."

32:42 Why do characters always start as a prisoner?

"It started that way in arena. We did it again in Morrowind, then Oblivion. It's sort of become a tradition. We like this idea that there's a little bit of conflict in the beginning with you being a prisoner, and we never say why. So you immediately in your head tell a story of why you're in prison to yourself. I kind of like that about it. It's part tradition, and part it lets you in your head tell a quick little story to yourself."

34:10 What aspects of Skyrim are going to appeal to a gamer who wasn't a fan of previous TES games but was a fan of Fallout?

"If you really, really don't like Oblivion, I don't know that this is suddenly going to switch you over. One of the things that Fallout 3 does well is there's a certain tone of the world, there's a certain uniqueness to it, it has style. Oblivion, for what it is, can be very kind of classic, traditional fantasy. There's not a lot of unique style to the world. Whereas Skyrim I definitely think has a unique style. We got better at that, and we push it, like what is the culture of these people? So it has its own flavor. It's definitely grittier. It's lower tech. The world's lived in. The ruins feel ancient and thousands of years old. We're also careful in Skyrim of the various ages of, 'when was this built?' Where Oblivion everything can feel like everything in this town was built on the same day. There's a more unique and a better flavor to the province of Skyrim and the game Skyrim than we had in Oblivion and Cyrodiil."

36:18 Is Skyrim going to have multiple endings?

"I don't really want to answer the ending of the game questions, yet. So I'm going to pass on that question."

37:07 How expansive will Skyrim be? Is Skyrim sort of a comparable geography to Oblivion?

"As far as actual landmass, it's ABOUT the size of Oblivion. It's different in that a good portion of it is mountainous. And mountains you can't just walk across. So they kind of inflate your game space. If you have this large mountain, getting up and through that and around that, and then the dungeons that are on mountains, you spend more time there. When you're walking around it, to us it feels a bit bigger because of the mountains. We were really pushing to have it not just be this big snowy mountain game, so that we do have a lot of different regions. They all have a really unique look while still being a part of that province."

38:33 Is there any particular ESRB rating that you guys are aiming for.

"We never aim for a specific rating. I'm sure it'll be M. But we never aim for a specific rating. I would be surprised if we did not get an M. Our assumption is we're getting an M, so we are doing the content that we think is appropriate for Skyrim. There is more violence to the combat just in how it looks. Not like Fallout violence where it gets really over the top. It's more a realistic level of violence for what it is with guys with swords and axes and those sorts of things."

39:38 Is there a HUD, and if not how will the health system work?

"There is a HUD. It comes and goes as needed. There is a small compass bar at the top that right now is always there for direction. Your magicka, your health, and your stamina, or other things, come up when they need to. If you're just walking around the world and you're full health, your health bar isn't on the screen. As soon as someone hits you and your health drops, it pops up."

41:02 Will there be an X64 version for PC players? High resolution textures (will they have to be modded in?) Do you have a dedicated group for the PC version?

"We work on it together. The main thing for people to know is our background is PC games. The game is authored here on PCs. That's what we work on. A lot of the team is playing the game on PC all day. We do want the platforms to each have a really, really high level of fidelity. I personally play a lot on the Xbox. It tends to be my preferred platform. We do a lot of graphics development still FIRST on the Xbox, just because it's smoother. And then a lot of that stuff does go over to the PC. We tend to do as much as we can as the project goes on, because we want to support as wide a range as possible. We also tend to do that stuff late, because right now we want to work on the main game and how it plays and getting the graphics fast everywhere, and then as the project gets closer to release we start supporting all those other things. You'll definitely be able to run the PC on a much higher resolution. All of our games that we've done so far - Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout - the PC versions have higher res textures they ship with by default. A lot of times you don't notice that, because when you play a console game you're sitting six to ten feet away from the screen. Whereas on the PC, you're sitting a foot, two feet away from the screen. Those kinds of differences in texture resolution, you don't notice unless you're looking at two screenshots on a computer and flipping between them. We are gonna support that stuff. I can't say how far. But the same thing with the interface. We do a lot of PC interface stuff. There are uniquenesses [sic] to how we handle it on the PC."

43:45 Your philosophy towards achievements and trophies. What do you think about those systems and how do you want them to work in Skyrim?

"We love them. We definitely do them with all of our games. Our general approach is to have a mix. If you look at the mix in Fallout 3 between specific quests, and leveling or collection, that kind of balance was pretty good. We have to do it differently this time because we have a lot more quests. We like to have a balance of specific quests that are important, or quest lines, and then just general gameplay stuff."

44:52 Is there any chance that you guys are gonna do Kinect support, Move support, 3D, etc.?

"I don't think that's gonna happen. 3D I would be surprised. Both Kinect and Move. They're fairly new systems as of last year. There might be something that we end up doing that we think fits, but at this point it would surprise me, because we do want to keep our focus on the main game."

46:02 MAJOR spoiler (But one that is incredibly cool imo. Wish I hadn't heard it. But since I did... it is awesome imo.)

Spoiler:

When you start off with your character he doesn't know that he's dragonborn.

"Correct."

"He does find out. There's an event that happens with a dragon, where you find out you're dragonborn. I think for anybody listening, it won't matter, 'cause they know."

"The greybeards, the guys who live up on the throat of the world, who are the masters of the voice, they find out about this fairly quickly, and they shout your name. They shout Dovahkiin to the wind, and it kind of rumbles through the world. The mountains shake when they call you. And you think 'what was that,' and someone says 'that was the greybeards calling you. To walk the 7,000 steps up the throat of the world to meet them.'"

"I have been promised 7,000 steps, and I am going to count them. Our world artists are amazing. We have just an amazing team, and they put so much detail in the world, so they didn't blink when I said 'it MUST HAVE 7,000 steps. When you look at all the stuff we have in the world, 7,000 steps obviously is not that hard."

49:14 Explain how the leveling system works, particularly in relation to the maximum level. What your philosophy is toward that, how long can you level in the game, when does it become basically impossible to level, etc.

"We don't code in a maximum level. There is a theoretical maximum depending on what your skills are. The one change we've made is that you level faster. We've sort of balanced Oblivion and Fallout 3 in some respects to like a 1 - 35, 1 - 30, so if people play for a long time that's the kind of high level with creatures and whatever. This one is balanced like 1 - 50, but that isn't longer in gameplay. You do level faster, a lot faster, especially in the beginning of the game. Because of the power in the perks, we wanted to be giving them out at a higher rate. The actual maximum depending on your particular character how it works out might be 75. I don't really know. I'm just saying we don't code in the maximum level. It will end up whatever it ends up."

"(Perks being more fun) It's the thing you're always shooting for. Even 1 - 50 it slows down a lot as you play. If you assume there's 200 hours of content, you can sort of figure out, 'how often do I get to level?' We think we can balance that with the perks. That's what happened. We did the perks, and we figured out quickly, 'oh, to make these work, we need to be leveling faster.' And it is more fun."

Il Podcast di Todd Howard (tradotto in italiano)

• Riassunti in inglese delle info più interessanti dichiarate nel Podcast
• Riassunto in italiano delle info più interessanti dichiarate nel Podcast

Dettagli sul Sistema di Combattimento:

Spoiler:

Skyrim: Building Better Combat



In game development, the visual improvements, non-player character AI tweaks, and new storytelling philosophies are all for naught if the base activity the player performs the most frequently is uninteresting or unrefined. In the case of an action role-playing game like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, those activities are swinging swords, shooting arrows, or casting spells at the myriad bloodthirsty enemies rushing toward you in foreboding dungeons of Tamriel. Aware of the combat shortcomings and exploits players used in Oblivion, the developers at Bethesda Studios went back to the drawing board to forge a new direction for Skyrim.

“We wanted to make it more tactile in your hands,” game director Todd Howard says. “I think if you look at our previous stuff I sometimes equate it to fighting with chopsticks – you sit there and swing them in front of yourself.”

Bethesda’s solution is a new two-handed combat system that allows players to equip any weapon or spell to either one of their character’s free hands. This flexible platform opens up countless play styles – dual wielding, two-handed weapons, the classic sword and shield combo, ranged weapons, or even equipping two different spells. Switching between loadouts on the fly is made easier thanks to a new quick-select menu that allows you to “bookmark” all of your favorite spells, shouts, and weapons for easy access.

Taking Up The Blade

Repetition can be a game developer's worst enemy. As players move through the world slashing at enemies thousands of times, the gravity of the action dissipates to the point where it becomes as thoughtless an exercise as flipping a light switch. With Skyrim's combat system, Bethesda wants to restore the visceral nature of hand-to-hand combat. The first step? Changing the pace of the close quarters battles.

In the early stages of development, Bethesda watched fighting videos to study how people react during melee battles. The team found that most encounters featured more jostling and staggering than was present in past Elder Scrolls titles. Using the Havok Behavior animation system, the team is more accurately mimicking the imbalance prevalent in melee combat by adding staggering affects and camera shake. Don't expect button-mashing marathons where the attacker with a bigger life pool wins the war of attrition. If you're not careful on defense you may get knocked around, losing your balance and leaving yourself exposed for a damaging blow that can turn the tide of the battle. Knowing when to block, when to strike, and when to stand your ground is key to prevailing in combat.

“There's a brutality to [the combat] both in the flavor of the world, and one of you is going to die,” Howard explains. “I think you get very used the idea that enemies are all there for you to mow through, but it doesn't seem like someone's life is going to end. We're trying to get that across.”

Nothing drives this brutality home more than the introduction of special kill animations. Depending on your weapon, the enemy, and the fight conditions, your hero may execute a devastating finishing move that extinguishes enemies with a stylistic flourish. “You end up doing it a lot in the game, and there has to be an energy and a joy to it,” Howard says.

As with Oblivion, players have several options for melee combat. Your warrior can equip swords, shields, maces, axes, or two-handed weapons. Specializing in a particular weapon is the best way to go, as it gives you the opportunity to improve your attacking skills with special perks. For instance, the sword perk increases your chances of landing a critical strike, the axe perk punishes enemies with residual bleeding damage after each blow, and the mace perk ignores armor on your enemies to land more powerful strikes.

A good offense must be accompanied by a good defense. To make defending a less passive activity, Bethesda has switched to a timing based blocking system that requires players to actively raise their shields to take the brunt of the attack. If you hold down the block button, your character will attempt to execute a bash move. If you catch a bandit off guard with the bash while he's attacking, it knocks him back and exposes him to a counter or power attack. Players can block and bash with two-handed weapons as well, but it isn't as effective as the shield. Warriors who prefer the sword-and-shield approach can increase their defensive capabilities with shield perks that give them elemental protection from spells.

Bethesda also smartly changed the pace at which characters backpedal, which removes the strike-and-flee tactic frequently employed in Oblivion. In Skyrim you can't bob and weave like a medieval Muhammad Ali as you could in Oblivion. Players can still dodge attacks from slower enemies like frost trolls, but don’t expect to backpedal out of harms way against charging enemies. If you want to flee, you must turn your back to the enemy and hit the sprint button, leaving you exposed to an attack as you high tail it to safety.

Conjuring Better Spell Casting

Keeping in line with the philosophy of making the combat more tactile, Bethesda took inspiration for its spell casting from an unlikely source in Irrational Games' BioShock. Fighting his way through the city of Rapture, Howard was impressed with how Ken Levine's team visualized the power of the plasmids in your hands. They're adopting a similar approach for Skyrim.

“Before when we had magic, it never felt to us like you were actually doing it,” Howard admits. “It was a separate button, it flew out of your fist, and you could have a shield in your hand or a two handed-weapon – you could do it with anything.”

In Oblivion spells were cast with a face button, which allowed you to equip traditional weapons for melee combat and deftly cast spells between swings. By forcing players to equip a spell with one of their hands, players must make more of a commitment to learning the arcane arts. The ability to equip two different spells on your left and right hand raises the question – can you combine more than one spell? “We're not talking about that,” Howard says with a smile. “We're not sure. We'd like to; it'd be awesome.”

Even if you can't combine spells, magicka students will have no shortage of options, with over 85 spells divided into five schools of magic – destruction, restoration, illusion, alteration, and conjuration. Longtime Elder Scrolls fans may notice that the school of mysticism is absent. That's an intentional move on Bethesda's part. “It always felt like the magical school of mysticism – isn't that redundant?” Howard says. The spells formerly housed under the domain of mysticism have been moved to other schools of magic.

One of the more alluring changes to the spellcasting in Skyrim is how you can employ spells in different ways. For instance, you could blast enemies with a flame ball from afar, hold the button down to wield the spell like a flame thrower, place a rune on the ground to create an environmental trap that spontaneously combusts when an enemy steps on it, or equip the spell with both hands to deliver high damage fireball attacks that drain your magicka reserves quickly. The shock and frost spells give players an equal amount of flexibility.

The Havok Behavior technology gives the spells more visual flair than we've seen in past Elder Scrolls games as well. If you cast a frost spell, you'll see the effects on the enemy's skin. If you're wielding the flame spell like a flame thrower, the environment will catch fire for a short while and burn anything that comes into contact with it.

More so than in Oblivion, Skyrim’s new magic system also gives players legitimate benefits to using one attacking spell over the other. Fire deals the highest amount of damage, lighting drains the enemy’s magicka, and frost drains stamina and slows down enemies physically. This gives players more incentive to use particular spells against specific enemies. Why shoot fireballs at a wizard when you can simultaneously drain his heath and magicka with a shock spell? “There’s a gaminess to it that we didn’t really have before,” Howard says.

If you come face to face with another wizard, you’ll want to keep an attacking spell in one hand and improve your defense by equipping a ward spell in the other. Suddenly, magic duels become much more interesting, as you must attack at the opportune time, use the ward as a shield when your opponent is casting spells your way, and manage your magicka level by consuming potions.

Dealing Damage From The Shadows

Magicians and warriors aren’t the only play styles enjoying the benefit of combat enhancements. If you prefer to do your killing from afar with a bow and arrow or assassinating enemies from the shadows, Bethesda has some improvements in store for you as well.

Ranged weapons could be effective in Oblivion once you improved your skill level, but you had to pierce enemies with several arrows to take them down. After playing an Oblivion mod that turned the bow and arrow into a formidable weapon capable of one-hit kills, Bethesda decided to adopt that approach. It now takes a lot longer to get off a shot, but the arrows are much more powerful than before.

As in Oblivion, you can zoom to aim, and the longer you keep the bow drawn the more powerful your shot will be. Unlike Oblivion, the arrows now violently impact enemies with a satisfying thud. To keep players from coasting through the world plucking enemies from afar, Bethesda has significantly altered the arrow economy to make them a valuable but limited option. You won't be rolling into combat stacked with 50 Daedric arrows anymore. Though you don't have much defense when using the bow and arrow, if an enemy gets too close for comfort you can still execute a bash move, which knocks your foe off balance and gives you time to create distance between you and your target.

Stealth basically works the same as it did in Oblivion, but Bethesda has slightly altered what happens once enemies detect your presence. Now when NPCs think they see or heard something, they go into an alert state. Characters with a higher sneak skill will have more time to duck back around the corner or find sanctuary in the shadows. This new system eliminates the sudden attacks that sometimes caught players off guard in Oblivion.

Once you successfully sneak up behind an unsuspecting victim, you can unleash a deadly blow with the dagger, an almost useless weapon in previous Elder Scrolls games that is receiving a major boost in Skyrim. “Now when you sneak up behind guys, the dagger does something like 10x damage,” Howard says. “I don’t know if we’re going to keep that, but you feel like you should be killing the guy if you’ve gotten that close and you have a dagger.”

Though the dagger is still considered a one-handed weapon skill, the perks for the weapon are housed under the stealth banner.

The Dragonborn Prophecy Fulfilled

As the Dragonborn, players can wield the dangerous dragon shouts during battle as well. The shouts may have magical properties, like the ability to slow time or call a dragon to your aid, but they are different than magic in that every character can employ them regardless of their spell casting skills. If you want to learn more about this supplemental power, read our in-depth discussion here.

Binding all of these improvement together into a cohesive system, Bethesda's reinvigorated Elder Scrolls combat looks to be taking a large step forward.

Dettagli sul Sistema di Combattimento (tradotto in italiano)

The Art Of Skyrim

Un utente francese ci riassume le info lette in un'anteprima su una rivista francese:

Spoiler:

Hi everbody,
Just bought the last Playstation Official Mag in France (although I'm a PC player), gonna try to give you all the new elements I could gather from it :

• dynamic shadows
• if a weapon and a shield or two weapons are equiped, you cannot cast any spell (quite logical indeed)
• it seems that smithing can only be done in forges (you cannot repair your equipment everywhere like in morrowind or oblivion)
  
• incredible level of detail such as : blood vessels on skin, modelling, animations, clothings (not sure what "clothing" means here))
• meteorological effects : clouds are gathering in real time around mountain peaks (sounds pretty cool), snow affects textures (so again pretty much confirmed that this isn't 3d accumulating snow but I'm fine with that anyway).
• a major inspiration for snowy landscapes seems to be artists like Brom and Frazetta.

• Matthew Carofano (artistic director of Skyrim) : Dwemer ruins (we know that already) and a Dunmer city!!! (yeah you heard me : Dunmer :celebration: ) ;

• Again from M. Carifano : "after Oblivion where every place looked alike, in Skyrim you'll find once agin the excentricity of Vvardenfell. Here every Nord Clan has its own colors, its own identity."

• For consoles : the "block" action is performed by pressing both trigger buttons at the same time. Each separatly correspond to the action of what you equipped in one hand or the other.

• 80 spells among which some are entirely new (the journalist might have picked a rounded off number since I remember GI said 85 or so?)
• spells confirmed : Detect Life, Fury (force ennemies to fight between them), Circle of Protection (hurl ennemies outside a magic circle), Snow trap (triggers only when an ennemy walks on it), Lightnings, Fireballs.
• Concerning finishing moves we'll see stuffs like : Axe blade planted in the neck, dagger in the chest.
• Concerning skills : Athletics (they surely meant Acrobatics) doesn't exist anymore (to prevent the player boosting this only by jumping on stand)
• AI : NPCs have day and night activities like cooking and brushing the ground in front of their houses.
• dialogues : most "inimportant" NPC like simple villagers won't have any dialogue tree (instead they'll directly comment on rumors or on what they're doing) ; only important NPCs will actually exchange dialogue with you, you can cut short the dialogue only by walking away.
• Every city and town is bound to some particular resources meaning if you burn their mill or mine, you affect their economy and they'll be forced to buy flour or mineral somewhere else and when you'll want to buy these resources here again it will be more expensive. (good thing for evil characters and maybe desctructible environnement?)
• the Dragon Shout key on PS3 is R3 (don't ask me more since I'm a PC player)
• archery : when aiming at something, you can hold your breath (consuming stamina) and the action is slowed.
• Dark Brotherhood mentionned as might be in (the reason beeing that the devs had a lot of fun developping it in Oblivion)
• Dragons can be unpredictible in their behaviour, they will fly in the air, crawl on the land, they can crash when wounded.
• On the favorite menu: "Cliking on a key, the screen freeze and a list of weapons or 'favorite' spells is shown next to each hand".

• Todd Howard Interview : "a cause-consequence tree for each mission", each mission will be a bit different from the same mission played by another player who has done other quests. Also can be different depending on which mission you did before.
• If you meet a Giant on the road he might totally not attack you unless you attack him.
• it seems he says that when most NPCs give you a quest, they'll give you precise directions or accompany you to the road showing you which direction to take to go on on you quest.
• the player should be excited when discovering a new place, or overhearing rumors spoken by NPCs between them.
• the testers mark the most beautiful landscape, so they should have things like temples, stuff that will entice the player to go and check by himself.
• in Oblivion there was only 1 guy working on the dungeons, this time for Skyrim, 8 devs are working on them.
• 120 dungeons (again might be another round off number, cause we already heard 130+)
• Speaking of jobs : woodcutting, weaponsmithing, sells stuffs you made to the forge or to the mill...
• he insists on the importance of activities they thought apparently useless before Skyrim, but they found that was surprinsingly important for immersion after implementing them into Skyrim.

Overall, the journalists seem pretty enthusiast and optimistic with the game and they can't wait to play it in November.
Personnaly I'm very excited with most news about Skyrim, except the fact we don't get much news on the UI for the PC version (I'm a bit scared if it's the same Apple thingy), and I hate the fact w'ell get Oblivion style fast-travel again (here also hoping they'll include travel services as well to please everybody). Anyway, I'm not here to start another war and on the other side I'm so releaved that the magic quest markers seem to be gone once and for all (at least according to what I read in the french mag).
Let's discuss the news now!

L'Interfaccia di Skyrim

http://forum.gamesvillage.it/showthread.php?858409-4-The-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim&p=26910777&viewfull=1#post26910777

[Dark_Angel83]

sui generatori random di quest

quello di Mount And Blade Warband

scherziamo? è una cagata pazzesca privo di ogni logica, molto spesso il marshall mi manda in culo alla mappa perchè si scassa di andarci lui, tipo mentre vuole assediare veluca vuole vedere che succede a jelkala e dintorni.... mentre magari è ancora fermo a menarselo a suno

hanno più logica le missioni dei borgomastri che ti mandano in culo alla mappa per un motivo più serio (figlia rapita)

[Kea BD]

sui generatori random di quest

scherziamo? è una cagata pazzesca privo di ogni logica, molto spesso il marshall mi manda in culo alla mappa perchè si scassa di andarci lui, tipo mentre vuole assediare veluca vuole vedere che succede a jelkala e dintorni.... mentre magari è ancora fermo a menarselo a suno

hanno più logica le missioni dei borgomastri che ti mandano in culo alla mappa per un motivo più serio (figlia rapita)

mica ho detto che è perfetto, specie la quest di cui parli è realizzata malissimo (ma non è l'unica), comunque mi riferivo al nuovo sistema introdotto in Warband che gestisce le poche nuove quest introdotte in Warband, quella per liberare un nobile prigioniero (non la versione data dalle lady, quella è preesistente), quella per cercare un determinato gruppo di banditi che causano guai ad una città o trovare i covi dei briganti, sono davvero troppo poche ma sono gestite un po' meglio se noti, si attivano e vengono date solo se c'è un motivo e non a caso come le precedenti (anche se il respawn dei covi di briganti è troppo rapido quindi pare che sia sempre presente come quest)

[Dark_Angel83]

(anche se il respawn dei covi di briganti è troppo rapido quindi pare che sia sempre presente come quest)

utile per allenare i huscarl e i compagni

sinceramente neanche io mi aspetto miracoli dalla radiant story ma chissà, magari ci stupiranno

e comunque solo una parte delle side quest sono regolate da quel sistema

[Kea BD]

penso che per me andrà bene comunque vada, alla fine sono solo una parte del tutto, l'importante è che sia possibile evitarle senza problemi nel caso non ci piaccia farle o ci si sia rotti (in caso di eccessiva ripetitività), se poi le realizzano discretamente ancora meglio

comunque la tua critica alla quest report to army mi ha dato un ulteriore spinta a mettermi al lavoro per migliorarla, così sto modificando la quest nel mio mod, se funzionerà il marshall chiederà di controllare il centro che ha intenzione di attaccare, se non gli si trova già vicino

[Drago Blu]

Per quanto mi riguarda o c'è un salto di qualità notevole rispetto ad Oblivion o se no scaffale.

Oblivion era divertente le prime 15 ore di gioco poi la noia più totale ripetuta fino alla morte, per non parlare che quel gioco non ha un cavolo di carisma.

Qui vedo che hanno rinnovato il motore grafico e l'ambientazione è più evocativa e meno anonima rispetto a Oblivion, il che mi fa sperare bene ma sono molto scettico.

[greendrago88]

Per quanto mi riguarda o c'è un salto di qualità notevole rispetto ad Oblivion o se no scaffale.

Oblivion era divertente le prime 15 ore di gioco poi la noia più totale ripetuta fino alla morte, per non parlare che quel gioco non ha un cavolo di carisma.

Qui vedo che hanno rinnovato il motore grafico e l'ambientazione è più evocativa e meno anonima rispetto a Oblivion, il che mi fa sperare bene ma sono molto scettico.

Questione di gusti

La tipologia di Tes essendo praticamente unica nel suo genere o piace o non piace. Come abbiamo detto nei precedenti post Oblivion ha avuto diverse lacune rispetto a Morrowind ma nel suo complesso ha comunque soddisfatto gli amanti della serie regalando centinaia di ore di gameplay.

La domanda fatidica da farti è: ti è piaciuto morrowind?
perchè se la risposta è no di sicuro non ti piacerà neanche Skyrim.
se è si, probabilmente la tipologia di territorio e alcune scelte tecniche si avvicineranno a questo episoio.

[Sephiroth1984]

Per quanto mi riguarda o c'è un salto di qualità notevole rispetto ad Oblivion o se no scaffale.

Oblivion era divertente le prime 15 ore di gioco poi la noia più totale ripetuta fino alla morte, per non parlare che quel gioco non ha un cavolo di carisma.

Qui vedo che hanno rinnovato il motore grafico e l'ambientazione è più evocativa e meno anonima rispetto a Oblivion, il che mi fa sperare bene ma sono molto scettico.

Di miglioramenti a livello proprio di concept ce ne sono un bel pò, ma dobbiamo vedere come il tutto sarà armonizzato, tipo la Radiant Story, o l'eliminazione delle classi, o l'utilità delle Perks, o i Draghi gestiti da una IA dinamica, o lo sfruttamento tattico degli shout, o il livellamento simile a Fallout 3, ecc ecc...perchè sulla carta sembra tutto promettente (come sempre ad ogni annuncio di un TES )...

Personalmente la cosa che più di tutte voglio verificare, e che più di tutte spero "funzioni", è proprio l'IA dinamica dei Draghi ed i combattimenti con essi...se vengono bene quelli posso chiudere un occhio su TANTE altre cose...perchè ormai sono 30 anni che nei GDR ci propinano combattimenti con Draghi alquanto ridicoli e statici...è tempo di fare un salto in avanti...

[Sermor]

La domanda fatidica da farti è: ti è piaciuto morrowind?
perchè se la risposta è no di sicuro non ti piacerà neanche Skyrim.
se è si, probabilmente la tipologia di territorio e alcune scelte tecniche si avvicineranno a questo episoio.

A me è piaciuto Morrowind, tanto da rigiocarlo una seconda volta anche (forse anche una terza, ma non ricordo), pur non essendo un fan del modus operandi made in Bethesda (Avellone forever ! ).

Ma Oblivion mi ha fatto schifo a livelli epici. Dunque, temo che le due cose non siano necessariamente collegate.

Anche perchè a parte Oblivion, e posso anche ricordar male, ma non mi pare che Morrowind abbia scatenato tutte le accese discussioni del successore, e direi che non è un caso.

[alaris]

Personalmente la cosa che più di tutte voglio verificare, e che più di tutte spero "funzioni", è proprio l'IA dinamica dei Draghi ed i combattimenti con essi...se vengono bene quelli posso chiudere un occhio su TANTE altre cose...perchè ormai sono 30 anni che nei GDR ci propinano combattimenti con Draghi alquanto ridicoli e statici...è tempo di fare un salto in avanti...

La tua è proprio una fissazione.................. il combact con i draghi

Per i draghi.....mi piacerebbe poter interagire con loro.....non solo combact.

QUOTE=Sermor;28191164]A me è piaciuto Morrowind, tanto da rigiocarlo una seconda volta anche (forse anche una terza, ma non ricordo), pur non essendo un fan del modus operandi made in Bethesda (Avellone forever ! ).

Ma Oblivion mi ha fatto schifo a livelli epici. Dunque, temo che le due cose non siano necessariamente collegate.

Anche perchè a parte Oblivion, e posso anche ricordar male, ma non mi pare che Morrowind abbia scatenato tutte le accese discussioni del successore, e direi che non è un caso.[/QUOTE]

Ser.....Avevi cominciato bene.......................il secondo paragrafo è una cosa illegibile....e basta ancora adesso dopo 5 anni fai ancora di queste uscite.......noioso

p.s. non sapevo della terza giocata a Morro.....fai domanda per entrare nelle guardie armate della serenissima repubblica

Tornando seri............ha ragione greendrago..........i tes o li odi o li ami.
Pochi post più sopra si diceva che dopo 15 ore Obli annoiava io ho giocato al suddetto circa 700 ore ........mai annoiato neanche un solo secondo.....Come vedi......

p.s. scusate il neretto ho fatto casino

[greendrago88]

La tua è proprio una fissazione.................. il combact con i draghi

Per i draghi.....mi piacerebbe poter interagire con loro.....non solo combact.

QUOTE=Sermor;28191164]A me è piaciuto Morrowind, tanto da rigiocarlo una seconda volta anche (forse anche una terza, ma non ricordo), pur non essendo un fan del modus operandi made in Bethesda (Avellone forever ! ).

Ma Oblivion mi ha fatto schifo a livelli epici. Dunque, temo che le due cose non siano necessariamente collegate.

Anche perchè a parte Oblivion, e posso anche ricordar male, ma non mi pare che Morrowind abbia scatenato tutte le accese discussioni del successore, e direi che non è un caso.

Ricordo che morrowind ebbe le sue polemiche all'uscita.
Cèra chi denunciava una eccessiva libertà che finiva per confondere il giocatore che non sapeva come proseguire la trama.
Cèra chi si lamentava del combat sistem frustrante (es: con le skill basse 5 colpi su 10 erano nulli come se avessi mancato il bersaglio).
E cèra anche chi si è lamentato del comparto grafico eccessivamente pesante per l'epoca.

Questi aspetti infatti sono stati rivisti in Oblivion (combat sistem più action del precedente, semplificazione attraverso i quest marker, fast travel ecc.) per cercare di venire incontro alle lamentele del precedente.

Se non fosse che hanno modificato il leveling sistem rendendolo una pecionata (Oscuro e Francesco's hanno risolto poi il problema) i prodotti sarebbero stati molto simili.

Ritengo personalmente che le meccaniche generali siano similari per entrambi i titoli e, sempre personalmente (come anche alaris) ho speso centinaia di ore per entrambi i titoli innamorandomi del microuniverso creato dalla beth, che siano le lande desolate di morrowind o le verdeggianti colline di oblivion

[Dark_Angel83]

punti di vista, secondo me l'eliminazione della schivata ha reso il gioco troppo action, valorizzando il button bashing in sfavore del combat più ragionato di morrowind

[alaris]

Ricordo che morrowind ebbe le sue polemiche all'uscita.
Cèra chi denunciava una eccessiva libertà che finiva per confondere il giocatore che non sapeva come proseguire la trama.
Cèra chi si lamentava del combat sistem frustrante (es: con le skill basse 5 colpi su 10 erano nulli come se avessi mancato il bersaglio).
E cèra anche chi si è lamentato del comparto grafico eccessivamente pesante per l'epoca.

Questi aspetti infatti sono stati rivisti in Oblivion (combat sistem più action del precedente, semplificazione attraverso i quest marker, fast travel ecc.) per cercare di venire incontro alle lamentele del precedente.

Se non fosse che hanno modificato il leveling sistem rendendolo una pecionata (Oscuro e Francesco's hanno risolto poi il problema) i prodotti sarebbero stati molto simili.

Ritengo personalmente che le meccaniche generali siano similari per entrambi i titoli e, sempre personalmente (come anche alaris) ho speso centinaia di ore per entrambi i titoli innamorandomi del microuniverso creato dalla beth, che siano le lande desolate di morrowind o le verdeggianti colline di oblivion

Il problema è che per ogni tes..................ci devono essere delle polemiche comunque.......a prescindere da ...........dobbiamo abituarci a convivere con la cosa.

Una soluzione ci sarebbe..................dovrebbe essere prodotto da cdproject...............con il marchio polacco non avremmo questo tipo di problemi

Hai detto bene Beth.............crea microuniversi.....riuscendo nell'intento di far immergere il giocatore in una maniera che nessun altro gdr riesce a fare......tutto questo bisogna volerlo,accettarlo e giocarlo come andrebbe giocato....giocato di ruolo nel più puro e vero senso della parola.....sennò ciccia...............vedi

[greendrago88]

punti di vista, secondo me l'eliminazione della schivata ha reso il gioco troppo action, valorizzando il button bashing in sfavore del combat più ragionato di morrowind

Il fatto è che giocare in prima persona comporta necessariamente elementi action.
Trovarsi a circa 3cm dall'avversario e affondare una spadata sul petto con una spada a due mani lunga 2 metri per sentirsi dire "colpo mancato" per 2-3 volte consecutive era decisamente incoerente. (ti assicuro che il button bashing diventava enorme proprio perchè su 10 colpi ne andavano la metà).
Con Obli i colpi andavano a segno sempre ma con un danno diverso a seconda della skill e l'introduzione della parata manuale ha aggiunto parecchia più tattica e realismo negli scontri (ricordo che in morro la parata era assolutamente casuale in relazione a quanto alta fosse la skill block, buono per il ruolismo numerico ma assolutamente inutile per il realismo).

Non tutti i cambiamenti da Morro a Oblivion sono stati negativi, è mancata però quella profondità della trama e quella varietà di ambienti presente nel predecessore.
Hai però perfettamente ragione sul fatto che siano punti di vista, ogni giocatore ha una politi diversa sul definire RPG come tale

[alaris]

Seph.................i draghi:http://www.gamesblog.it/post/28231/m...leria-immagini