Finally a gameplay trailer.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... me-Hotness
If that doesn't cause the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end...go find a soul.
Looks...unbelievable. No more crappy gamebryo engine. Actual dynamic combat. Damn.

Way back when Oblivion came out, I was hoping the next TES would take place in Skyrim. Got my wish. Apparently I can control Bethesda with my brain. You're all welcome.

Also, I improved the trailer:
http://tinyurl.com/4bmz463

MinisterofDOOM wrote:Apparently I can control Bethesda with my brain. You're all welcome.

http://tinyurl.com/4bmz463

Cool, now work your magic on Gearbox so Duke Nukem doesn't suck large steel balls.

Saw the trailer for this yesterday and

I just pulled a Lonley Island and "jizzed in my pants"! I cannot wait for this game.

I played the first Oblivion that came out on current gen consoles, but never got into it. This, however, looks amazing. Reminds me a lot of WoTLK, with the vikings and all. Just might pick this up

***QUASI-NSFW***
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9eGtyqz4gY[/youtube]

***QUASI-NSFW***
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That last scene gets me every time.

Who got this

Best Buy and the NEX didn't have it and there is no way the s*** base connection is going to download 15 terrabytes worth of data before I grow old and die so...no.

I did. It's not playing very nicely with my Radeon...I can't get a playable framerate on Ultra, which I have more than enough horsepower for. After this and Rage I'm really starting to wish I'd gotten a GeForce 560 instead.

Skyrim itself is great, though. The levelling/skills/perks system is HUGELY refined from the horrendous mess of min-maxing madness of earlier games. Melee combat actually works, and feels much more fluid and natural. You can now dual-wield, including using both a spell and a weapon at the same time. The dialog/interaction system no longer uses the idiot pause/zoom weirdness, and feels much more natural.

I'm liking it a lot more than Oblivion already, and I'm only a few hours in. It's not as weird as Morrowind but it's certainly far less bland than Oblivion.

Edit:
Got Ultra settings working. It's definitely a driver problem. Whenever the framerate craps out, I just have to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and return to the game. Wham...capped 60 fps. A little tedious, but it's worth it. Character models look MUCH better on Ultra than on High.

I got it over the weekend. I've never played any of the previous Elder Scrolls games, but since I'm a big fan of what Bethesda did with Fallout, I figured I'd give it a shot. So far I'm loving it.

Pros:
The most gorgeous in-game set and environment design I've ever seen in a game. Ever. Really. Like skeet skeet skeet beautiful.
Nice power balance
Great harmony between being able to play to have fun and read books to learn tons of history about the world
Adds "intuitive" elements to quest plots. You have to think like your character in order to progress (ie golden claw quest).

Cons:
I wish there was more opportunity to actually role-play your character. Dialogue options seem very bracketed and on-a-rail.

This is by far the best elder scrolls game yet. The combat isnt as boring as it used to be. So far so good!

Played for 10 hours straight yesterday. It will consume my life.
The world is f*** massive. Get a horse and just go riding through it, it's gorgeous in it's freezing glory.

So...does anyone remember when Bethesda promised us a revolutionary GUI, since Oblivion's was so heavily lambasted? Yeah. Well guess what, Bethesda? YOU FAILED. Not only is it COMPLETELY unrevolutionary, it still sucks.

I don't see what's so hard about this. Diablo got it right FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. Stop fixing what isn't broken.

Simple rules for GUI design:

Lists suck.
Tiered lists suck more.
Walls of text are inherently hard to read.
Judicious use of symbols in place of words can make information more recognizable at-a-glance.
The edges of the screen are not where you should be placing visual focus.
Allow the user to decide how to sort things.

The map is terrible. Overly-restricted zoom, weird navigation, and needless 3D. Give me a nice colorized 3D map like World of Warcraft or the color map mod for Oblivion.

It's IMPOSSIBLE to do anything in Skyrim's menus quickly, efficiently, or simply. Everything requires sifting through multiple tiers of something, or scrolling through multiple categories of something else. It's even worse on a PC where you end up using both hotkeys AND onscreen buttons. To quit Alchemy, I press tab, but then I have to click "yes". WHY? And you can highlight one item with the scroll wheel, then click on a completely different item. There's also some real vagueness in the clicks...many times in dialog I click on one option but another ends up being selected. I don't get it.

This is not hard to get right. It's been done right many, many, many, many, MANY times. Why can't Bethesda do it?

I hope someone puts out a GUI mod for Skyrim soon. I'm sick of wading through lists. If I wanted to look at a wall of text, I'd go play Zork. But I'm not playing ZORK I'M PLAYING GORRAM SKYRIM. THIRTY ONE YEARS LATER. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:The map is terrible. Overly-restricted zoom, weird navigation, and needless 3D. Give me a nice colorized 3D map like World of Warcraft or the color map mod for Oblivion.

It's IMPOSSIBLE to do anything in Skyrim's menus quickly, efficiently, or simply. Everything requires sifting through multiple tiers of something, or scrolling through multiple categories of something else. It's even worse on a PC where you end up using both hotkeys AND onscreen buttons. To quit Alchemy, I press tab, but then I have to click "yes". WHY? And you can highlight one item with the scroll wheel, then click on a completely different item. There's also some real vagueness in the clicks...many times in dialog I click on one option but another ends up being selected. I don't get it.

THIS

I thought I was the only one. The first time I leveled and went to the skills menu, I actually thought it was a mini-game.

Everything you said is spot-on 100% pure troof, MoD.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:If I wanted to look at a wall of text, I'd go play Zork.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

What I don't get is that the Fallout 3 menu, conversation & leveling system is absolutely t!ts. Why couldn't they base theirs on that instead?

So yesterday I was just walking along the plains when suddenly A F*CKING MAMMOTH FELL OUT OF THE SKY AND DIED. Free Mammoth tusks FTW??????????

"Achievement Unlocked:

Heart of Gold"

Thankfully, the modding community is already stepping up to fix the GUI. I understand the counter argument that the GUI was designed for consoles, but it's still a horrible mess irregardless of your preferred input device. Even the GUI devs understand the mess and are working with the mod community to improve it, but higher ups are locking some data features out, namely source files (understandably so). The menu is scaleform/flash, and even before the new creation kit toolset, I'm seeing some GUI mods being put out. Should be only a matter of time now.

As for my thoughts on the game...I love it! TES games feel like the open world is hand crafted instead of copy pasted (I'm looking at you Fallout 3), and Skyrim is no exception. Multiple times I've paused to watch the scenery because it's breath taking. I like the new NPC interactions, but the animations seem more limited than I expected.

I like the new perk system. It gives a wide variety to game play. People complain about the reduced ability count, but I'll take more customization over useless abilities any day.

MOD, if you're on PC, modify your ini files http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=145 It'll make the map a bit more bearable. I just wish seeing the roads was a possibility. Planning my overland marches has been painful

My favorite improvement over Oblivion? Most of the dungeons aren't crafted out of one template. Makes exploring a lot more rewarding. That and the world has a soul now. s*** happens when you are out and about all the time. A thief being chased by a hunter, a skooma smuggling caravan which I robbed, some redguards looking for some whore...I love it.
I thought it was hard to stay on track in Oblivion. I'm level 45 and only got to where dragons start appearing.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:So yesterday I was just walking along the plains when suddenly A F*CKING MAMMOTH FELL OUT OF THE SKY AND DIED. Free Mammoth tusks FTW??????????

Maybe he used one of tarhiels scrolls

ScorchedNX2K wrote:My favorite improvement over Oblivion? Most of the dungeons aren't crafted out of one template. Makes exploring a lot more rewarding. That and the world has a soul now. s*** happens when you are out and about all the time. A thief being chased by a hunter, a skooma smuggling caravan which I robbed, some redguards looking for some whore...I love it.
I thought it was hard to stay on track in Oblivion. I'm level 45 and only got to where dragons start appearing.

I've put in a couple hundred hours in Oblivion, favorite was the Dark Brotherhood. Reading posts like yours makes me wanna buy Skyrim sooner that I anticipated. *starts looking for sale prices*

Oh lawd...

(Most likely NSFW)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIxlF86usAE[/youtube]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fus-ro-dah

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOxVjbGvUpI[/youtube]

^ LOL....

This one is pretty funny too...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip7QZPw04Ks[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt5aUdij ... r_embedded[/youtube]

These Fus Ro Dah vids are geeking me out. I have a lvl 40 Wood Elf. One of my favorite things to do is Fus Ro Dah that little twit in Whiterun who talks sh*t every time you see her.

twit - "I'm not scared of anyone! Not even my elders."
Me - "Oh yea? (saves game) BOOM B*TCH!!"

I am waiting to get this game for my PC. I've read a few reviews that it glitches, but since I already have it on order, I might as well try it out, anyway. If it f*** up, I'll just buy it for my 360. I shall give my review!