Skyrim

[Dainas]

I'm liking it allot so far. For some reason when you start the game the graphics are assss, but then it improves as they start to use more advanced shadowing and such. Even though the world for what it is, is pretty.. I'm not a fan of the Skyrim landscape. After Fallout 3 was hoping Bethesda would go back to color vision and Skyrim is just as bleak and grey as the wasteland some times. Also Skyrim is as blah and derivative as one could get fantasy wise in Tamriel, most of its Lore is LOTOR copypasta and we already have many many MMOs and games like Dragon Age already doing those bleak nordish landscapes already.

Say what you will about Oblivion, no matter how much you hated it there were times one had to gawk happily over the colorful vistas.

[Andrew LB]

^^^ If you think Skyrim doesn't have amazingly beautiful vistas, you must have only played a few hours. The views in the eastern and western highlands are utterly amazing. Combine it with the massive ancient ruins (I need to avoid spoilers here) the scenery at times is just breathtaking. The frequent use of really well done waterfalls and streams frequently makes me stop and admire the view.

My one complaint about the water is in a few spots, the water flow in larger rivers isn't always downstream but at an angle.

[Mungri]

I'm liking it allot so far. For some reason when you start the game the graphics are assss, but then it improves as they start to use more advanced shadowing and such. Even though the world for what it is, is pretty.. I'm not a fan of the Skyrim landscape. After Fallout 3 was hoping Bethesda would go back to color vision and Skyrim is just as bleak and grey as the wasteland some times. Also Skyrim is as blah and derivative as one could get fantasy wise in Tamriel, most of its Lore is LOTOR copypasta and we already have many many MMOs and games like Dragon Age already doing those bleak nordish landscapes already.

Say what you will about Oblivion, no matter how much you hated it there were times one had to gawk happily over the colorful vistas.

I would imagine based on this that you never played any of the ES games before Oblivion?

Skyrim looks and feels much closer to Morrowind than any other fantasy / lore setting, and for a lot of people this was one of, if not the best PC RPG they had ever played (it was only my second to Baldurs Gate).

TES is in no way comparable to MMOs or any of the poor Lotro games that have been made before - None of those even come close to matching the standards in this genre that were set by Morrowind.

Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but for the majority of fans of this series that started playing well before Oblivion (according to how many complaints, opinions and requests were made on the official forums about Oblivion), people who actually preferred the direction that Oblivion had taken over the previous game were very few and rare to find.

no matter how much you hated it there were times one had to gawk happily over the colorful vistas.

Oblivion had, and still has via mods very amazing graphics and is a beautiful game. That doesnt mean that it was an improvement over its predecessor, which hardly anyone felt. Just about everything that people didnt like about Oblivion was a gameplay problem - graphics arent what make TES games good.

You have to remember that there have now been a total of 5 Elder Scrolls games, and in the exception of judging by graphics, Oblivion was widely considered to be the worst out of them all, and the number of complaints that Bethesda had on their forums were second to no other game.

[Dainas]

Actually I played/modded/worshiped morrowind very extensively long before Oblivion came out. Were talking since PC release. Also played allot of Arena and Daggerfall once dos box starting being more friendly. Also as flawed as Oblivion was, still only took a handful of mods turned it into one of the greatest single player timesinks ever. Allot of the very things that make Skyrim immersive and the gameplay more satisfying that you just don't see in other games, are there because Bethesda's developers pay very close attention to how people modded oblivion. I've played Skyrim allot so far and had seen all its best vistas, I don't have any glaring complaints about the visuals besides some clunky polys and animations and need to go ini diving... and the menu smack a bit too much of codemasters/console arrgh in places.


I will not take back my comments as to the region Skyrim having way too much other rpg Deja vu close up. I've played Dragon Age Origins 1 and 2 to say that what Skyrim is hands down the superior RPG, they both share too much visually for my liking. Still can say I love Skyrim and its fav TES game barebones by far.

[Mungri]

If its just the graphics that bother you then, simply wait for mods that improve that.

- I had a longer post here, but the current version of opera I'm using is failing constantly while posting. I'm going to reinstall it, or change to chrome if that doesnt fix it

[Tao~]

My HORSE KILLED a DRAGON !!! WTF

A random dragon (second) breathing frost swooped over us, and engaged into conflict with a nearby mammoth - believe it or not the mammoth was pwning the poor guy and I started launching arrows too - and then to my surprise my horse joins in ... and I'm pretty sure she (7 year old mare IIRC) got the killing shot. I guess I need to start recording this game on fraps - that was epic funny - the mammoth and the horse fighting the dragon.

[LexDiamonds]

Anyone know of a way to increase the Depth of Field via a console or .ini command? IE- make it so your forward first person view is more "curved" vs. 2d and flat...

Really liking the game thus far.. Lvl 6 and having a gay olde time doing everything but the main quest.. hehe. Still a personal toss up between Witcher2 and Skyrim IMHO.

[El Mano]

I thought you mike like this:
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Skyrim has 3xplayers than MW3 right now.

[Morphling]

I don't have suficient words to describe this game Just AWSOME!!!

[Kallenator]

Play time: 7 hours, Lvl 12
8aa|16af|Ultra@1920*1200

The more I am playing it the more I am forgiving the game of the sloppiness from Bethesda.

Cons and pros so far compared to Oblivion and with strings to other RPG's of similar sort.

+ Magic and spell casting, much more fun. Even though it's a bit too powerful in the start.
+ Perks, more interesting than simple leveling and grinding to improve your character.
+ Nature graphics are vastly improved, trees and foliage actually look natural. Especially the mists and mountains in the far.
+ Water looks great.
+ Several more individual voices, even though the same ones have repeated them selves a lot already. Its much more diverse now.
+ Interaction with bots, no more locked straight into another face.
+ The artwork, it's so damn good! Makes the large cities much more interesting, even though they still feel a little dead.
+ Dungeons, much more difference between them!
+ All facial and body textures, insane improvement, very satisfied! Thumbs up for the female Nords with a great rack! ^^
+ Combat has a better feel to it!

+/- Textures, some are great others are terrible.
+/- Tessellation? I think this alone would have made most surfaces look a lot more interesting when you move closer.
+/- Animations, most have been improved, but bots slide down stairs and makes often very abrupt weird turns, dragons fly on rails and the death finish moves looks like they have been dug up before year 2000.
+/- Lighting, some of it is very very nice, like shadows through a roof properly interacting with the moving environment. Other lights shine through objects, like lamps on tables and creates very little contrasts. Caves especially, I almost remember Oblivion to better in this department. :S
+/- Voice acting continuity and voice acting quality. Could have done with a bit more omph here and there! Not all bad though. But topping Patrick Stewart, Sean bean and Terrance Stamp is hard.

- The menus are complete Shi*. Navigating them with the mouse is slow and cumbersome. They also look boring and are bland, Oblivion and Morrowind menu's was so much more fitting.
- Star sign perk tree, as bad as it gets, very little overview and slow to use.
- No intro? The way you are put into this game feels as little epic as is possible.
- The main map is terrible and has no place in such a game in the way it's represented.
- Unable to parry with a one hand weapon and dual wielding.

Some of these negatives and positives draws you into the game and makes you forget that you are actually sitting in front of a pc, others slaps you right in the face and tells you exactly where you are.

(***Getting updated as I play along!***)

[Chickenfeed]

Im loving the game so far. Things feel more alive and lived in than Oblivion ever did and their own in house engine is a breathe of fresh air over game byro and its many quirks.

I like the revised skill and perk system as it allows for more flexibility. I really hated always worrying about trying to min max each level before so its a pleasent change. They clearly learned from FO3 ( which i loved and played much more than Oblivion ) Im going for a stealthy dual wielding archer wood elf. The archery is so much more satisfying in this as well and the odd fatailty move is a nice touch.

Although the textures are a little bland in areas i quite like the art style as a whol and the distant vistas and fog layden mountains look gorgeous and compell you to explore them. Ive raised the fov, doubled water reflection resolution, enabled follage self shadowing and disabled vsync and things are puring along nicely. Still getting used to the ui but im using a 360 controll and my main complaint here is vertical sensitivity is way high to the point of being insane. Im going to poke around some of the cvars and see if i can lower this.

If this manages to keep a hold of me as long as FO3 did its an easy 9/10 for me and my personal game of the year with Bf3 trailing in second :-)

[Tao~]

I think the Perk system should not have minimum level requirement , only the prerequisite needed for each level like Witcher 2.

Skyrim - almost 7 hours done. I've played Witcher 2 and DEHR before this , and this is how I'd compare them :

Witcher 2 is all about the storyline - everything else is built around it.
DEHR has a storyline - but main component is the gameplay experience - sneaking, augmentations etc.
Skyrim's is all about scale - HUGE exploration area, a LARGE number of (unrelated/meaningless) quests, a LOT of NPC/environment interactions - it simulates life - its about immersion into the fantasy world.

All three are very good. Skyrim is still growing on me.

[Mungri]

Anyone know of a way to increase the Depth of Field via a console or .ini command? IE- make it so your forward first person view is more "curved" vs. 2d and flat...

Really liking the game thus far.. Lvl 6 and having a gay olde time doing everything but the main quest.. hehe. Still a personal toss up between Witcher2 and Skyrim IMHO.

Press the ` (tilde) key just like in Oblivion, and enter FOV XX to set a custom field of view.

The default is at 60 and is pretty terrible, I like to have mine set to 90. Going over 100 makes it a lot more curved if thats what you are looking for.

[Philip_J_Fry]

definitely need strategy guide for this game. its actually quite small, only 5740MB according to steam, for such a massive game... imagine RAGE's mega texture apply to this game. will prolly be like 1TB? heh

[Gamekiller]

The tilde key will also disable your Skyrim Steam achievements if you care about that sort of thing. At least that's what I've read on the Bethesda forums.

[zanzabar]

i found a good fix in the config

change bDoDepthOfField=1 to bDoDepthOfField=0 in SkyrimPrefs.ini, it now holds well over 60fps and looks way better, it also stopped lagging when u look at the sky then back to a building.

The tilde key will also disable your Skyrim Steam achievements if you care about that sort of thing. At least that's what I've read on the Bethesda forums.

u can set console commands as launch options in every other bethesda game and it keeps achievements so if u really care do it that way

[Mungri]

Is PC gaming dead?



I think not

[tet5uo]

Hopefully this shows the retarded publishers that there is still money to be made from us PC gamers. And if they make us good games we'll buy them.

[Mungri]

Hopefully this shows the retarded publishers that there is still money to be made from us PC gamers. And if they make us good games we'll buy them.

I would hope so. Almost all of the RPGs Ive played since Baldurs Gate 1 / 2, Morrowind and Guild Wars have been dissapointments (gothic 1-3 and the Sacred games were great, but unpopular, I personally couldnt enjoy Oblivion).

All the recent games in this genre have been unbelievably over rated and dumbed down, and lacking what RPG fans enjoy about these games.

[NEOAethyr]

My copy was crashing when I'de try to start the game, couldn't figure it out, thought maybe it was that I had an old physx driver or something.
Ended up being something so stupid..., my sound playback quality was set to 192k, needs set to 44.1k 16bit otherwise it'll crash every time ^^, just a heads up.
I'm gonna play it in a min.

[Mungri]

Oh yea, you need to change your sound to 16 bit 48k hz at the most otherwise there will be lots of crackling and sound errors.

Mine was working at 24 bit 96k, but only with disabling all the X fi features including crystalizer which made everything too quiet. Dropping it down to 16 bit 48k allows me to run the X fi crystalizer at full without any errors, which massively boosts the sound my headphones can output (with crystalizer I have my headphones around 75% and hear every great, with all the X fi stuff turned off I can barely make out what NPCs are saying at full headphone volume).

[LexDiamonds]

Very fun game thusfar, but I have to voice my dissapointment over the inventory/quest interface.... I heard all the pre-release gripes and thought I would decide myself. In a word.. its just not very good.

1. Ideally, there should be a way to assign quickslots to what BOTH hands represent, not just one at a time. Dual casting the same spell is awesome, but becomes a real pain when trying to switch in healing and melee weapons too.. Anyone have a elegant solution for this? Yes, I know 1-8 can be hotkeyed.

2. There should be a small popup showing a picture of the item and brief stats when mousing over something in the favorites menu. Heck.. in general I find the inventory to be hugely uninspired. Whatever happened to having a brief description of the item? I like checking out my loot!

3. I wish you could arrange the order of how things show up in the favorites menu.

4. The miscelaneous quest screen is just flat out terrible. I mean really- A one liner explanation with no city of origin, no quest giver name, etc. Fail.


With 16 hours played, I still havent gotten fluidity with the inventory. Re-speccing on the fly should be seemless, but it is clunky at best.

I played Elder Scrolls Arena when it first came out, and am a diehard RPG fan in general so of course I am loving the game. Just wish devs would take some more time on the PC interface, graphics be damned.

[NEOAethyr]

So far I noticed that jumping everywhere doesn't increase your jump lv, nor can you increase your speed lv by running all over the place.
At least so far I haven't seen a single increase from those 2 .
That bums me out a little.

One other thing I noticed, you can't kill every single person in the game, there's several peeps you plain can't kill, they just take a knee for a bit and they came right back after you.
They never fixed the bed prob from oblivion, say for ex. you killed everyone in town, stole everything too, yet the beds you find you can't sleep in because you're trespassing (owner is dead though) :\.
Some peeps you kill come back after you reload up the game, for ex I got a few pair of keys for some house's from peeps I killed more then once.

I do like the new lock picking setup in the game.
I don't like having to manually switch between my 2 handed sword and healing magic...

My audio goes to shiz after I've been playing for a while, not sure why.
After that the graphic go nuts once in a great while.

[Mungri]

Acrobatics and Athletics were taken out. The total number of skills was condensed down to 18 - 6 Warrior skills, 6 Mage skills, and 6 Thief skills.

You cant kill quest important NPCs, just like you couldnt in Oblivion (the reason for this is actually because the AI can pick fights with each other and kill mission important NPCs without you being anywhere near).

See post #96 on how to fix the audio. My graphics have started flickering too, I find that saving and reloading fixes it for me.

The UI needs a huge overhaul for the PC, though it does work well on a 360 controller. If you prefer to play with a KB / Mouse, Bethesda simply didnt cater for you in Skyrim

I really want to play some more, but I've just had pneumonia followed up by an opportunistic flu and cant play games atm without feeling too sick

1. Ideally, there should be a way to assign quickslots to what BOTH hands represent, not just one at a time. Dual casting the same spell is awesome, but becomes a real pain when trying to switch in healing and melee weapons too.. Anyone have a elegant solution for this? Yes, I know 1-8 can be hotkeyed.

I havnt tried this myself, but another player said that you can assign a secondary function to each hand with the left and right buttons on the D Pad if you use a 360 controller by selecting them in the favorites menu and pressing the left / right buttons. You should then be able to swap each hand between two functions, although that still isnt an awful lot.

[LexDiamonds]

Hooking a xbox controller up to my PC is about as foreign of a concept as hooking jumper cables to my testicles... do not want. Only console in my house is a original NES...