First impressions - TTLG Forums

Dresden on 14/11/2011 at 16:35

Just wait until you get to the Thieves Guild and hear a thief with Garrett's voice talking about his career. The nostalgia hits you like a train.

So far I'm really loving this game. The amount of detail and work that went into the outdoor world alone is mind blowing. I've done a few dungeons and they're pretty varied. They even have their own NPC conversations a lot of the time. I kind of wish that health, stamina, and magika increased depending on what skills you're using but I guess that would lead back to obsessive types doing their minmaxing.

The interface is okay. I like the clean look of it and how it's easy to sort things out but hard coded binds for it is definitely a bone headed move. Also, shortcuts don't seem to work for dual wielding which slows down combat a lot for me.

Schwaa2 on 14/11/2011 at 18:37

Quote Posted by Dia

I don't think the Collector's Edition contains extra missions; at least, not that I know of. It does have the Alduin dragon statue (which I'm having the devil of a time getting to perch on his stand properly), the 'cloth' map (still pretty impressive though it doesn't feel like any cloth I know of), and 'The Making Of ...' dvd disc (which I haven't had time to watch yet since I'm still easing myself into the game). I'm not sorry I spent the seriously extra money though.

Well, not entirely sorry.

I just don't think I have enough testosterone to keep wrestling with that damned dragon.

:(

You're wrestling the dragons? I find magic spells and arrows to be much easier.

wonderfield on 14/11/2011 at 19:07

Quote Posted by Koki

Why would I want to put up with Thief community?

It seems as though there's a greater percentage of 'bad apples' in the Thief community than you see from other game communities, but there are good folk too.

Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall

You will make creamcheese...

It's kind of surprising that you can't literally make cream cheese in this game considering you can do damn near everything else. Then again, the giants seem to have a pretty good handle on their mammoth cheese.

Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett

Enjoying it thus far, but the first little things that bugged me were the UI (no surprise there) and the fact that the audio is low.

I'm still kind of curious about this bit. Low volume isn't necessarily a problem, as it could be the result of a very specific direction taken to allow for ample headroom in the mixer or evidence of low levels of dynamics compression. Then again, it could very well just be a bug.

I'd like to believe, though, that it's intentional, and that could be a good thing. Either way, the audio in Skyrim is excellent. Seems as though there's been a real focus in the past two or three years to improve audio quality from many developers, and that's welcome.

Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett

Another thing that bugged me was the mouse movement, but considering changing mouseacceleration to 0 or 1 didn't make much difference, I ended up just dealing with the mouse movement. I read about adding some yaw and pitch lines to the ini, which I did but I'm not sure how much that really helped.

It may help slightly. The real issue, though, is that the vertical sensitivity actually scales with the frame rate. At ~60 Hz, it appears to be normal, but deviate from 60 Hz in either direction and it starts going out of whack.

I'm pretty sure what they've done for the 'Creation Engine' is make a list of the worst things you could possibly do with respect to input and then just...did that list.

Koki on 14/11/2011 at 19:36

Quote Posted by Dresden

So far I'm really loving this game. The amount of detail and work that went into the outdoor world alone is mind blowing.

Nah, it's the random events that are impressive.

After playing for an hour or two, I restarted as a different race that fits my playstyle better. Right off the tutorial I stumbled upon a Bandit camp that I swear wasn't there before. One of them had a map of secret "treasure" near Riverside. After spending a night in Anise's shack I met two Deadera hunters or whatever the fuck you call it standing over a dead body of a vampire. A random dead body of a treasure hunter in the middle of nowhere net me a note where to find a magical dagger.

Plus there are hunters everywhere sometimes getting attacked by animals or guys on fire.

sNeaksieGarrett on 14/11/2011 at 20:43

Quote Posted by wonderfield

I'd like to believe, though, that it's intentional, and that could be a good thing. Either way, the audio in Skyrim is excellent. Seems as though there's been a real focus in the past two or three years to improve audio quality from many developers, and that's welcome.

Could be intentional, yeah. Though I was having a hard time hearing NPCs, despite the volume slider being all the way to the right. I agree though, the audio is great. I heard some Morrowind-esque music and smiled.

One thing I've noticed it that it appears like sometimes the battle music does not play, so an enemy will come up and attack me but I don't hear the accompanying soundtrack. At first I thought it was a stylistic design decision, but I'm pretty sure there's a bug there.

Kaleid on 14/11/2011 at 22:19

Quote Posted by wonderfield

But still closing doors doesn't lower audio levels from rooms, features which the first Thief already had and that came out in 1998.

Hanse on 14/11/2011 at 23:08

Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett

I heard some Morrowind-esque music and smiled.

Not just Morrowind-esque, I'm sure that some of the ambient music that plays in Whiterun (among other places) is pulled directly from Morrowind. It sounds identical to me (I listen to the Morrowind soundtrack regularly, because I love it). If they altered it at all, it was so minor that I can't detect it.

Steam tells me that I've played 32 hours of Skyrim so far, which isn't a lot of an Elder Scrolls game, but seems like a lot for a game that just came out 3 days ago. ;) Despite the maddeningly frustrating UI navigation with a keyboard and mouse, I'm loving it. (Whoever thought up the constellation skill tree navigation should be killed slowly and painfully. It's definitely a case of form over function.) It definitely ranks way above Oblivion for me, but is still below Morrowind. But then, Morrowind is in my top ten games of all time, and it would take a lot to overtake it.

The physics are still irritating beyond belief, and I say that as one of "those people" who always enjoyed setting up my house the way I want it. I made the mistake of trying out a spell scroll in my house. It was just a spell that was meant to apply a buff, yet it apparently created a shockwave that sent debris flying everywhere, including stuff on the second floor. And trying to put things back is an exercise in frustration. I may need to move to another town and buy a new house. ;)

Dia on 14/11/2011 at 23:16

Quote Posted by Schwaa2

You're wrestling the dragons? I find magic spells and arrows to be much easier.

:laff:

I'm at the point where if I weren't afraid to break the damned thing and I thought it might get the blasted dragon to perch properly, I just might start shooting arrows at it. Right now it's sitting on the top shelf of my PC hutch taunting me, and no matter how many dragons I slay in this game, the conquest of that particular dragon still eludes me.

Otherwise, Skyrim is so very awesome. As Brethren stated, the possibilities for exploration are astounding and I find myself going off the beaten path more often than not. And as Koki said, the random events are seriously impressive as well. Whenever I've died and reloaded something different happens and it's usually quite interesting; like the giant that was being attacked by bandits and wolves simultaneously after I bought it on a mountain pass and had to reload (I actually fell off the mountain, much to my dismay).

My horse is seriously impressive as well: it really is a warhorse and attacks any enemies after I've dismounted to fight them myself, which totally blows me away every time! I seem to have misplaced him during the last dragon-fight, though. :( He was a good horse.

wonderfield on 15/11/2011 at 02:13

Quote Posted by Kaleid

But still closing doors doesn't lower audio levels from rooms, features which the first Thief already had and that came out in 1998.

Audio always gets a small slice of the CPU pie. It's gotten smaller over the years, too, for the most part. For Thief, that functionality was necessary for gameplay reasons, but it's pretty easily expendable in Skyrim.

You have to admit, too, that door occlusion was pretty iffy in the Dark Engine, especially since doors spend more time disappearing than they do working properly in the first two games. There's no blending between the open or closed states, and it just drops the level of the 'submix' as opposed to doing proper filtering.

Firefreak on 15/11/2011 at 08:11

Quote Posted by Hanse

... I may need to move to another town and buy a new house. ;)

Now that paragraph made me laugh, thanks :)
"But kind Sir, you're the savior of our people, godsend and honored for eternity in this town - Why would you leave?"

"I, uh... would need some cleaning personnel"

or

"That house does not fulfill decree 126, Amendment D, regulations for domestic safety, issued by the Mages School after the incident in 3E..." :p

As for the audio - apart from the missing occlusion by doors, I'm still amazed how remote sounds are muffled and still considered when going through the tunnels of dungeons. Other (Earlier) games faded them out way sooner.

Also, having projectiles (both arrows and magic shots) handled as proper objects with whoosh sounds as they pass by drastically increases the in-there feeling for me. Dodging ice pellets and hearing them shatter behind me (5.1 audio) never felt so real.

(Also, despite somewhat on topic, that doors manufacturer got reported :) )