The Elder Scrolls V - SKYRIM Megathread

[Asshatclock]

How is the gamesaving thing on the ps3, I heard people had lots of trouble with it, and it would probably be the version I'd buy.

[Thor]

I made a new character with a rule that I'm only allowed to wear or wield items that I made myself (excluding arrows, which I dont think can be made). So far it's been pretty awesome, and I've also always had a tier higher armor than would otherwise be available to me.

[Soup Clock]

Fucking bullshit.  Skyrim came 5 days earlier than I expected.  I was hooked on Battlefield 3, but I couldn't resist popping Skyrim in.

[Thor]

I beat the game.

final boss went down like a bitch

[Thor]

Is there a way to universally turn off the "essential" attribute that keeps enemies from dieing if they're plot related? It pisses me off that I can walk right up to that faggot earl of windhelm and I cant just slap his shit

[GreyClock]

I don't think so. There's also no way to turn of those annoying and repetitive finishing moves, right?

[Sinister Clock]

I don't think so. There's also no way to turn of those annoying and repetitive finishing moves, right?

Ka-blam

[GreyClock]

Ka-blam

Thanks bro, you saved me a lot of grief.

[buttplug]

Is there a way to universally turn off the "essential" attribute that keeps enemies from dieing if they're plot related? It pisses me off that I can walk right up to that horse thief earl of windhelm and I cant just slap his shit

I like how in Morrowind it let you kill them but let you know they were essential to the main quest.

[F U Clock]

It seems lame to complain about this game at all since I am enjoying it so much BUT-

I was walking around yesterday and ran into Talsgar (I think?) the wanderering Bard dude being attacked by a troll. Looked like he was on his last legs, I ran in there and smacked that bitch up. Thinking he might befriend me and give me something/unlock a quest, I blasted him with heal others. Next thing I know, he's drawing his sword and attacking me. Because he... interpreted my healing as an attack? Anyways, couldn't get him to calm down, ended up loading an old save because I'm trying to play role-play this character right. People should not get pissed off at you when you save their life and then heal them mmm'kay.

EDIT: Oh and this made me re-load my save too - I fast traveled to a little mining town I forget the name of that immediately gets attacked by a dragon. It's one of those annoying-ass ones that refuses to land on the ground. It finally does and I'm running around bashing it to bits - all of a sudden the owner of the town runs right in front of me and takes a mace to the back of the skull. Now he and the rest of the town are pissed at me, trying to kill me, meanwhile there's a FUCKING DRAGON behind them blowing fire at their stupid backs. Re-load saaave.

[CranberryClock]

I didn't like it Don't get me wrong, the game has a ton of shit to do, it fits the world just fine, but meh.. its almost like they mixed GTA meets WoW meets Oblivion meets APB(by which you could mess up your game very easily).

I also am very picky about the animations. I don't like how 90% of the animations are choppy as dogshit, and just completely unaligned with the actions. Its almost like there is no middle tween between animation steps, reminds me of Madden

[GreyClock]

Hopefully someone can help me with this as well: long load times. Especially loading the outside world can take up to two maybe three minutes. I hear it's supposed to load a lot faster? I can run the game on high settings no sweat, so I'm not sure what's wrong?

[BoomStick Clock]

the fighting mechanics for dual wielding are wonky as all fuck.

[Slash]

Hopefully someone can help me with this as well: long load times. Especially loading the outside world can take up to two maybe three minutes. I hear it's supposed to load a lot faster? I can run the game on high settings no sweat, so I'm not sure what's wrong?

I have no loading time problems at all.

The game did bug out at the season unending quest and Now it bugs out when i try to enter sovngarde.

[Thor]

So like ALL bethesda games, it's a decent game with lots of content and amazing mod support but its full of bugs and bad design choices

Luckily all the problems well be addressed by modders eventually, but it may take a while. We'll probably be getting 50 naked body mods before we get one that lets you kill the earl of windhelm

the fighting mechanics for dual wielding are wonky as all fuck.

Dual wielding is entirely pointless unless you use the double attack every single time (both attack buttons at the same time). Power attack with two weapons should kill anything in the game in two hits unless your gear sucks

I also am very picky about the animations. I don't like how 90% of the animations are choppy as dogshit, and just completely unaligned with the actions. Its almost like there is no middle tween between animation steps, reminds me of Madden

I was blowing my mind at how good the animation switching between the 8 directional running is, but then I tried it with walking and... ugg. The walking animations seriously look horrible. It was also really annoying to me how if you stand on stairs one of your feet just floats in the air and the other sinks through the stone of the steps. Dark souls could model standing on slopes and stairs correctly, why can't bethsda do it with 20 times their budget?

[CranberryClock]

I hate to be biased, but I really wish gaming companies would follow the steps of Blizzard and Infinity Ward. The reason I say this is if you look at the model animation ID's they dont do full model animations. They do regional action animations for different meshed limbs.

Example:

Grab a copy of WoW model Viewer, and then rip into the game files for WoW, you can view almost all the animations for a single skeleton rig. Mind you there are still a crap ton of animations that are not in there because they are sub-compacted in .ani files, or deep deep in the MPQ file and the ripped wont fully pull it all.

The animation sequences are built in doing IF, OR, XOR, WHILE at the same time, thus you can dance and jump and it will transition. Having this adds to the game.. where when you have something like Madden or Skyrim, an action happens it means jump to Keyframe X and it attempts to do a basic motion tween using a Shaped Distortion, thus making them look like retards.

[Thor]

Its because they're still using that piece of shit engine Gamebryo. Ever notice that there are no ladders in Elder Scrolls OR fallout games? It's because gamebryo is such a piece of shit that they're impossible. They should switch over to ID Tech 5 already, they have the license to use it

[CranberryClock]

Its because they're still using that piece of shit engine Gamebryo. Ever notice that there are no ladders in Elder Scrolls OR fallout games? It's because gamebryo is such a piece of shit that they're impossible. They should switch over to ID Tech 5 already, they have the license to use it

Swapping engines isn't as easy as it sounds, you dont just drop a new engine into the game and it upgrades everything.

Most games, commercial that is, take 1-3 years to make from start to finish. Because of rapid prototyping and using premade engines, they are able to come out in about 1.3-1.5 as a standard release. But when they make sequels, you want to use alot of the same assets you used prior without having to reinvent the wheel, so your stuck on the same engine.

Its the same reason why CoD looks good but still feels the same, its not because it has tight controls, its because its on the same engine that the 1st one was. It was easier to rapidly develop and make the game using less money because of the fact that most of the assets were already generated.

Swapping over to iDtech5 from GameBroyo is equivalent to making a movie in flash, making awesome models, next after you did it I want you to make a sequal in 3dSM, but obviously I want it to have the same feel. I also want everything to be 2D not 3D so make sure you light it correctly.

It may not sound the same, but you have to look at now they are starting from scratch, building new tools, new custom scripts, going through the training, developing new modules, and they still have to pay out of pocket for the engine, where the Broyo engine is easier and can import the old assets and they can modify what they need. Sounds like $$$ which is what it almost always boils down to.

[Thor]

But they've been using the same broken engine for 10 years now. Sticking to what you know is one thing, but this is ridiculous. Even SOURCE isn't as old

edit: I suppose on the other hand Gamebryo has the advantage of being very easy to mod, so that way the fans can fix some of bethesdas constant fuckups.

[CranberryClock]

But they've been using the same broken engine for 10 years now. Sticking to what you know is one thing, but this is ridiculous. Even SOURCE isn't as old

edit: I suppose on the other hand Gamebryo has the advantage of being very easy to mod, so that way the fans can fix some of bethesdas constant fuckups.

The engine is far from broken, and the Source engine is a re-invention of an older engine, they just upped it. Valve created there own engine where Besthesda is still locked in to most likely a contract to continue using Gamebroyo until the lease is up.

Its a design choice, training choice and workflow choice. Simple things that are not included in GameBroyo for example would be jumping. The lack of physics engine forcing the flow of the HavoK or another engine to be used is a 'choice' by the developer. You have to look at alot of factors for people making decisions on games, if it worked once it will work again and don't fix what isn't broke.

They knew they could use the same old engine, they knew the engine was still worthy and could hold up to its name. If I am not mistaken RIFT used the Gamebroyo engine at one point... it might still and look how tight that game works. Mind you its major flaw is the .x factor of animation fractures. I already pointed out that animations in that engine is horrid but thats because of the way that .ani's are started and loaded, they are on fly vs preload like many other games. Thats a design choice, because loading other modules takes precedance over loading ani/cache's.

Theres always going to be issues with engines, heres an example. Duke Nukem Forever took FOREVER to come out. Most people hated it because the game ran on such an old ass graphics engine. That means the engine couldn't do alot. Not going to lie, I was impressed. I was salty about the game, but if you know anything about gaming engines and learn that, that game, runs off the same engine as Unreal 2, you will shit bricks! The amount of modifications needed to make that engine do 90% of what was done is nothing short of amazing. Althought the engine could not handle more than 3 baddies on screen at one time, or that smoke caused graphic lag, or animation's were hardlock repeats of key frames.... thats still impressive considering the old system was a 2D psuedo 3D doom style flat panel engine and they turned it into a qausi 3D voxel engine.