Morrowind

New demonstration relayed to players via gaming press

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Bethesda Softworks held something called a BFG 2011 press event where they showed off a Skyrim demo to the gaming press. This resulted in a heap of previews being released by a number of gaming sites. A recording of the demo has not been released for viewing by the general public to make up their own minds.

IGN gives a general overview of new and already known features.

You'll still get to pick from one of 10 fantasy races, customize your physical appearance, and select a gender, but after that it's right into the game you go. The eight attribute categories from the previous Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion, have been cut out. Now you only have to worry about your Magicka to cast spells, Health for your hit points, and Stamina, which serves as a limiting factor when pulling off axe slashes and mace bashes in combat.


Gamespot goes into greater detail about the quest and magical combat.

At this point, our character decided to forgo melee weapons altogether and rely solely on his magical abilities. In one hand, he equipped the circle of protection, which warded off the undead foes; in the other, he equipped chain lighting, which blasted foes to pieces. Between how they looked and operated, the magical abilities in Skyrim reminded us of the plasmids in the BioShock series. One of the ways our character could learn new spells was by collecting magical tomes, one of which just happened to be lying nearby. Once the Draugr were defeated, our character studied the tome and mastered the fireball spell, which he then paired up with a one-handed axe.


Gamespot also declared the graphics to be stunning and cutting edge, although they also used the same terminology for Oblivion and Morrowind at the time they were released.

Rock Paper Shotgun gives their preview as 20 bullet points.

14. Modding is fully supported, in the form of the Creation Kit. “We’re really big into the mods on the PC. Hopefully day and date with the game, but there might be some slack there.” Bethesda have also been influenced by a few mods for earlier games – for instance, bows have been tweaked as a result of finding an Oblivion balance mod that did ‘em better.


Kudos to whoever made that mod.

The Escapist are impressed by the graphics.

I took thirteen pages of notes during last week's two hour Skyim demo, but the two words I scribbled near the bottom of the first page probably sum it up better than anything else I wrote: holy s***. Yes, I wrote that in my notes. Bethesda's newest Elder Scrolls game is just that impressive. While that observation was originally prompted just by the game's breathtaking visuals,


Eurogamer uh...

I strongly believe that if you have ever played a western RPG for longer than 10 hours and do not find that concept sexually exciting, you should close your web browser and rethink your life.


Eurogamer's preview also contains some new information.

We do at least find out that you can buy property, and Howard hints that some dragons may not be your enemies.


You can find links to other game previews in this Bethesda blog post.[/quote]

19 comments

  1. Nadimos
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    "That's pretty cool, but the best bit is what happens when you hit the up direction to choose Skills. At this point you look to the stars and your perk trees appear as constellations. The lines in the stars show you routes of progression between specialisms, and the stars themselves represent the variations you unlock."

    nice feature! :]
  2. Jacars
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    Yeah, that could be. I'm not that much of magic user myself, honestly, and my mysticism level in Oblivion was worst of all the skills I think. I mostly mentioned it for example (perhaps not the best possible). And the lore creator will probably create a reason for it's absence. It should be easier than explain a climate of whole province changed. By the way, has there been any confirmation whether the Mages Guild will be in the game? I remember reading that some guilds were out, though I'm not sure if it.
  3. SimpleGlitch
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    I'm sure they can find a way to make the removal of mysticism coincide with the rest of the lore. If you listen to conversations between mages at the arcane university in oblivion the schools of magic are just categories and placement of spells in schools doesn't actually effect they way they are cast. since 200 year have past maybe the mages have decided that mysticism is an "obsolete" method of teaching magic.
  4. Jacars
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    @SimpleGlitch:
    Well, lets hope so. That sounds quite possible considering they are doing it with other skills & schools of magic, and I am okay with it for the most part. The removal of Mysticism, though, is something that conflicts with the lore. It is unacceptable to say "just forget it ever existed". On the other hand, it isn't as bad as Cyrodiil turned into a typical medieval forest from a jungle.
  5. SimpleGlitch
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    @jacars:
    If I had to guess, running speed will be tied in with athletics or a similar skill. Obviously we wont know for sure until the game comes out though, but I'm willing to bet most "hidden stats" like running speed, or how much you can carry, will be controlled by skills or the new perk system.
  6. alividlife
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    Duplicate sorry slow internet =/
  7. alividlife
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    I wonder if they mean more at speed as an attribute than leveling it like a skill lol?

    Anyway, Yeah... I wonder what the DLC will be like. Shivering Isles was just striking DLC, and most of the content I tried I really liked.

    Many of those DLC's needed "patches" and also patches for the tool kits..

    The modding business is no joke.
    I mean... I wanna make a fire world with fire dragons. Awwww yeah!
    lol... Midas Magic for Skyrim.

    (heck they already included MMM, WMK, and FWE within Obsidians FONV! lol acronyms are fun)

    Anyway... Imagine Real Time Settler with Skyrim...
    That's just the beauty of the idea of the Creation Kit and this epic new software.
    I await some more talk on the Creation Kit.
  8. Jacars
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    Guess all this simplification is just a part of the main stream gaming today. Whining won't help anything. The removal of the attributes was quite a shock for me, yeah, but I think I'll like Skyrim nevertheless. As long as it is better than Oblivion. Which it will be.

    And I think the overhaul of the skill/leveling-system is somewhat good thing, at least better than Oblivion's, which felt like dumped down version of Morrowind's. Even though this is more simplified.

    Edit/ Wait, you can't increase even your running speed? ...Are you kidding me? They really fucked everything up. This sucks. I guess I'm not getting this, at least at the release. Maybe later, when there are mods that fix things.
  9. Zaldiir
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    You still have 18 skills to develop, 3 attributes to develop, 280 (!!!) perks to pick and 10 races to choose from, with a highly detailed appearance editor - That's not customization!?

    As well as character customization, you also have a more rich equipment variation than most, if not any other game! More types of armor and weapons than Oblivion!

    That's more customization than any of the other new games out there! (Not counting previous Elder Scrolls games for obvious reasons.)
  10. demonocus
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    this worries me