The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Quote from Pericolos0

Are you sure you are playing Skyrim lol, have you even looked at the characters and textures?. Seriously though the art in this game is very bad, but from a technical point of view I think it's well constructed .

They aren't going for a pretty fantasy art style, but instead a darker, dirtier and more realistic medieval look which works perfectly.

Not to say there are no ugly places or some bad designs or rendering preblems... http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/59695 ... 951189FF2/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/59582 ... D9B23229B/

But overall the game looks good.

The only thing visually about this game that really bothers me at all is how the edges of water where it meets land looks kinda crappy at a distance, no smoothing to it at all, while it looks just fine close up. However, overall I think the game looks great. I especially love how the shadows that don't need up update much, like sun shadows, will blockily animate to get to the point where they need to go (I have Shadows set to low, my PC's terribad anymore... just within this single fall it went from "Perfectly alright" to "Fuck not even LA Noire on MINIMUM"), when time changes, and then sit at the point where they don't need to move again, calculate at the highest quality, and then sit static until the sun moves again. It looks great in effect.

They really need some new art direction for their characters. At this point I doubt that it's their character artists but rather that someone at Bethesda actually thinks that these characters look good.

Anyway no matter, game is fucking amazing. Easily my GOTY (sry Deus Ex)

imagine if the actual inagme stuff looked as nice as the loading screen objects.

i wonder if there's some broken code somewhere that is forcing console-sized textures for the pc, ala rage.

I think the environments look absolutely fine, although it wouldn’t kill to deviate from the desaturated, low-fantasy every now and then. The main problem graphically is the humanoid characters, animation and buggy scripted sections (so all scripted sections).

I was going to balance this with talk about how it improved on Oblivion and even I, a sceptic, really enjoyed it once I got into the open world. But I’ve just done five attempts to go to the mountain with the Greybeards (or w/e) only to have it crash so I'll do that when I'm less jaded.

It's easy to criticise them for single aspects of the game but i can't even comprehend what it must mean to script a game of this proportion and do all the artwork and optimizing for it. I don't think they have a development team twenty times bigger then your average action game yet they squeeze so much more content in.

Yeah, everybody is criticising all the little aspects, but it is an amazing game overall. My GOTY too, I'm enjoying this one far more than Oblivion and almost as much as Morrowind.

it's more a case of death by a thousand cuts. the characters really are pretty bad but i guess that has a lot to do with how little the artists can really control things - the characters all seem to be made from the same creator that the pllayer uses so i guess it's hard to really push things one way or the other. the custom creatures (the giants for instance) actually seem pretty cool, but i haven't actually gotten very close to them yet

just did the horn of blahblah quest, oh my gods the dungeon is fantastic. i fall more in love with the game the more i play it.

Quote from Rick_D

it's more a case of death by a thousand cuts. the characters really are pretty bad but i guess that has a lot to do with how little the artists can really control things - the characters all seem to be made from the same creator that the pllayer uses so i guess it's hard to really push things one way or the other. the custom creatures (the giants for instance) actually seem pretty cool, but i haven't actually gotten very close to them yet

I think the characters look fine, haven't had a problem with them. Some of the voices though, especially a few tough guys I met that talk like little boys is annoying.

But even Fallout had the problem; "Welcome to the vampire club friends, how about I take off your coat and we have a cup of tea together." Bethesda really needs more creepy and dark voice acting to fit some of their characters.

I thought this was one of the nicer looking areas in the game so far.

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anything looks good approaching thumbnail size.

and yes, some places are tied together very nicely, but then you go wandering around on the mountains and it's just shit.

i really wish they would have added something to their snow/moss blend textures, just give them normal maps, or some actual surface detail so it's not just pure white.

anyway, here's 2006:

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they have made some huge improvements, they tie their meshes into their terrain much better now, they have put in a lot more interesting ground detail, the distant landscapes have some great cloud atmospherics, the lighting is better, they polished a lot of things. i like the game, i like the visual style and i am not saying it's the worst looking game ever made; i just really was hoping for something that really blew my mind instead of just making me go "hmph, looks ok"

Me and my crew:

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This game has nice skies.

apparently i played 34 hours out of 48 hours this weekend.

what the fuck.

Around 30 hours for me :G

Also, this is totally me:

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Must sell stuff, to buy stuff!

Quote from Steppenwolf

It's easy to criticise them for single aspects of the game but i can't even comprehend what it must mean to script a game of this proportion and do all the artwork and optimizing for it. I don't think they have a development team twenty times bigger then your average action game yet they squeeze so much more content in.

I'm not saying it's a bad game, of course. But every script more complicated than populating an area with some bandits is ropey, and everyone in Skyrim is bipolar and with each sentence oscillates between calling you the new Jesus and a great big fucker.

Anyway, everytime I play a WRPG I try to play as a thief and get annoyed by stealth mechanics so this time I decided I'd just get a big magic axe and stick it in people, which works surprisingly well. Managed to forage together a bunch of materials to make a full improved armour set and take down a few pieces of big wildlife and another dragon (though I got stuck in the Mammoth and hacked my way out like he was an invisible Shub Niggurath). Saved it last night outside of the dungeon with the Horn of Jeff and looking forward to getting home.

Quote from Mazy

Also, this is totally me:[Blocked Image: http://penny-arcade.smugmug.com/photos/i-PPTPkRk/0/L/i-PPTPkRk-XL.jpg]

Must sell stuff, to buy stuff!

I always go by weight to worth ratio.

That said my storage crates are already overflowing with loot that's actualy worth something.

This is gonna be like Morrowind where i had a house full with hundreds of precious weapons, armor sets and jewelry in the end.