First impression of Skyrim

[Mouse]

I saw a mudcrab today. Disgusting creature.

[Irishredneck]

I was roaming after dark and a vamp was threatening a lady' date=' so naturally I rush over to help........turns out they were both vamps

 

So I killed them both and looted the bodies....

[/quote']

 

I like the way you play! That's exactly what I would have done.

[Mordyn]

Can't wait to play it ^^

 

BTW, are npcs really less ugly this time, as they advertised it?

[TheBatDad1989]

Can't wait to play it ^^

 

BTW' date=' are npcs really less ugly this time, as they advertised it?

[/quote']

 

been playing all day, and I have to say that this is definately there most stable game I've played...

love the new shadows and the lighting is nice. and the amount of content is insane... I spent hours just exploring the wilderness

brilliant game so far!!!

[D_KNIGHT_PEN]

I just got it this morning and i see a lot of things that loverslab can do with this. I mean in the game we don't even have to worry about making a mod to add dogs or companions. I'm about to hit the game up and see how it runs.

[Mordyn]

I just got it this morning and i see a lot of things that loverslab can do with this. I mean in the game we don't even have to worry about making a mod to add dogs or companions. I'm about to hit the game up and see how it runs.

Like what, for example?

 

[gregathit]

I hate to spoil anything but there are a TON of great moments for sex be it consensual or rape. The game is much more gritty and dark feeling than oblivion ever was, while at the same time being absolutely gorgeous graphics wise. The people for the most part could use just a little bit of beautifying. Not over the top anime type stuff just not quite so "used" looking...

 

I am sure others will argue but this game was worth the wait and every penny I spent. I played for over 7 hours straight last night and quite only because I was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion.

[Jerbsinator]

Shit I want this game so badly it's pure torture. I'm going to have to wait at least a month though because as of right now LOZ: Skyward Sword is my priority and I can't afford two games right now. It's going to be torture. Good thing though is maybe some of the major bugs will be gone by the time I get it. I should have never watched that IGN livestream, it got me so excited. Oblivion looks like shit in every way compared to Skyrim.

[Mordyn]

I hate to spoil anything but there are a TON of great moments for sex be it consensual or rape. The game is much more gritty and dark feeling than oblivion ever was' date=' while at the same time being absolutely gorgeous graphics wise. The people for the most part could use just a little bit of beautifying. Not over the top anime type stuff just not quite so "used" looking...

 

I am sure others will argue but this game was worth the wait and every penny I spent. I played for over 7 hours straight last night and quite only because I was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion.

[/quote']

Interesting...

It's more and more difficult to wait a little before playing that game (had a motherboard problem , waiting for its replacement, and no possibility of hardware challenging games in my old pc)

Well, I'll play some portal 2 then, always been a fan of the first opus, and never played the second ^^

[Guest Loogie]

My first impressions after half an hour of play (so literally first impressions):

 

Good:

- Faces look much more realistic. Liked the ability to choose types of facial features in character creation.

- Either Emilio got a lot better at writing dialog since Fallout 3, or they actually brought on someone who can write.

 

Bad:

- The default female bodies are absurdly flat-chested.

- The menus, especially the inventory menu, is a massive step backward from Oblivion and Fallout's Pipboy style to the point that it makes the game barely playable for me.

[Med111]

I hate to spoil anything but there are a TON of great moments for sex be it consensual or rape. The game is much more gritty and dark feeling than oblivion ever was' date=' while at the same time being absolutely gorgeous graphics wise. The people for the most part could use just a little bit of beautifying. Not over the top anime type stuff just not quite so "used" looking...

[/quote']

 

Better keep all "beautifying" mods away from Skyrim, as they always make characters cuter or just too good. IMO Bethesda did GREAT job with character design this time. Characters don't look older, just adult (unlike all chocolate elves and such). I've never created so good looking character in unmodded game ever before.

 

 

 

 

I noticed some sexual themes in dialogues, as you did greg. For example:

I've met rather busy Dibella worshipper (you know what does that mean ) and a woman, which got enslaved by bandits and used as their sex slave, when she was young.

Too bad player character is still almost genderless, nobodys showing interest or saying anything even slightly sex related to PC.

 

Do any of you have any problems with combat? I'm playing stealthy character, using bow and dual daggers, and some fights are for me extremely hard. Especially when game forces me to fight boss using melee weapon.

 

@Loogie - Look at female chests again, I wouldn't call them flat Or maybe we have different categories in this matter.

[Guest Loogie]

@Loogie - Look at female chests again' date=' I wouldn't call them flat Or maybe we have different categories in this matter.

[/quote']

 

I only really looked while changing armor, and the underwear body looked like a bra was hanging off a man's chest. Though I will admit I was pressed for time, so maybe I got a bad look.

 

 

[sora3]

Well, since I'm not one to start another "Here's my impressions" thread, I'll post what I've seen in here.

 

Starting the game had me a bit apprehensive. After all, this is Bethesda we're talking about and hype does kill or enhance a game. Sceptical, I started the tutorial. And after doing so, I ended up with a massive CTD and BSOD. Not a good start. So turning off the usual suspects that I thought (given how Creation Engine is just another name for Gamebyro v3.0), it ran a lot more stable so I was able to get going.

 

So far, I've spent about 5 hours in and this is the low down I can see from the PC point of view (remember, the sneak preview I had posted before was on the Xbox360).

 

GOOD

- The environment quite literally shits over Oblivion in terms of scope and the size of it. I did really feel drawn into the world and being part of that. Previously, Oblivion had the impression of a flat world so kudos for Bethesda in listening to that complaint.

 

- The game runs pretty stable for a console port. Apart from the two crashes which were not related to the game, I sunk in hours to figure out what is best.

 

- Definitely a step up in terms of difficulty. I had little to no trouble with the bandits overall but when confronted with a black and pissed off bear, that was probably the scariest moment in my gaming life. The game does reward you in taking it easy but it can be a sadistic bastard if you piss off the more harder stuff. Heck, the dryads were just as hard to take down with a constant stream of fire and a sword that seemed to be made from clay.

 

- Finishing moves are awesome. Just make sure you watch them in 3rd person instead of 1st person.

 

- The dialogue is a step up too. There are some generic responses but overall, the responses feel more alive and better too in the immersion tactic.

 

BAD

- As it was said before, animation, animation and animation. Apart from running straight and as well as casting in general, the animations do feel a bit stiff. It's worse when you can jump off a rock ledge and land with no problems. The swinging of the sword/axes/staff just feel so crap. I do hope animation mods do fix this issue ASAP.

 

- Textures were okay on some of the objects such as trees, grass and general plant life. But it felt really low res on the rocks and the mountains in general. When viewed afar, it's not bad but up close and I was wishing for a high-res texture pack. Same thing for the clothes. You can easily see it on the robes and normal clothes so definitely need improvement there.

 

- Combat definitely feels more natural to fight with a bow and arrow. The same applies to magic. But the general melee fighting just feels pathetic. I can't feel if the sword is connecting and doing any damage. It's only when I look at the enemy bar that I know something is happening.

 

- The menu system is quite horrible for a keyboard and mouse and it really needs fixing. I had to remember that this was similar to Fallout 3 where Tab is to get in and out of menus. Esc shows quest (who the fuck puts quests in a pause menu?!) and other stats. The skills/perks menu is very very clunky and unrefined. And the favourites is useful if you remember where the ruddy Q key is. Hard to do that during a fight when switching from magic to sword.

 

Overall, I do think Skyrim is a great game but it just needs that polish to be a truly great game. I think Bethesda deliberately didn't finish on some aspects of the game to allow modders that choice in fixing that problem. I seriously hope that the mod tools would be easier to use than Oblivion's CS but I'm not holding my breath for that.

[Kelsirion]

Posted this in the Steam thread but posting some of my obeservations here:

 

1) At least some of the console commmands and codes from Oblivion seem to work. player.additem f 1000 gives you 1000 gold for example. I have not tried some of the other codes, but it seems hopeful that scripts may be able to be ported much easier now. At least that is my hope.

 

2) I agree that many animations look like crap. I have no idea who decided females in third person need to look like an ape while walking/running - but its pretty bad.

 

3) The favorite idea sounds great, but is a major pain switching spells and items in battle. Luckily time suspends when you hit Tab to open your inventory, but trying to fast switch is a major pain.

 

4) Graphics and immersion are awesome. This is really how they should have been doing some of the previous games. Environment matters. Go into a barrows and set fire to the oil puddles on the floor and the entire room explodes into flame. Pull a troll into a grassy meadow and set fire to the grass and it can affect the troll. It makes you think about tactics more.

 

So far I am impressed. It still needs lots of work and has tons of room for improvement, but is an excellent updated base game and engine.

[HanPL]

Well I could sum up my impression with this :

 

 

Since for now I realy realy enjoy the game I will only write the "bad " things I noticed.

 

*Agree with animations

This kinda reminds me Mass effect 2 where female shepard had the same animations as male one and most of the cutscenes etc was looking ridiculous

In Skyrim..well just look at Lydia and her "walking style "

 

*WTF is with those giants and their nuke rocket hit

 

*"Paranormal Activity " in Skyrim aka things flying across the rooms without any reason (plates etc )

 

*Agree with Loogie...female chests looks kinda flat.. (But this is probably problem only few people will notice...at least the one who where using DMRA/Manga bodies )

 

And..well that would be all I think.

[Siouliusn]

Well, after +- two hours of game I must say this game is great and still has the potential to be even greater thanks to those mod.

Also many things implemented now in vanilla seems to be inspired by obli mods xD

(Chargeable spells, launching lighting at your enemies screaming

!!! xD *priceless* )

[Redfuzzy]

Its really good. Playing my Dunmer and damn she's flat chested. Seriously. Great body but really small chest. Looking at the other NPC and it seems to be universal a universal chest problem.

 

I did see a mudcrab right off the bat. At the village listening to the Stormcloak talk to his sister and spotted movement across the stream. Didn't believe it at first, so took a closer look and the crab was a mudcrab. Did the mudcrab thing of instantly attacking me.

 

I have to agree with the menu. The keybinds are all different, customizing the character realies on the arrow keys, and the inventory system feels clumsy. It took me minutes to get the sword in the right hand, spell in the left. Probably my fault, but I've been trained by playing Bethesda games to use the left mouse click for everything. That and I'm hoarding food for no reason. Damn New Vegas hard core mode.

[galgat]

I like it, so far, the characters are pretty messy looking, and shaping a good looking character is sort of troublesome, but so far it looks nice, I am having to play in a some what lower res than i want to. My system plays it alright, but not at max res or settings.

 

found some tweaks that help,

 

when characters are nude they have these really dirty looking under clothes on..

 

I am worried as to if Beth will let us have a Tes5 editor or not.. I have yet to see that. Has anyone else found it ?

[ragindude]

They said the tools wouldn't be out on day 1.

[calranthe]

Just hit my 20th hour, got a nice little house to hoard things in and many many items of fun, had three crashes and wife has had two, all in all pretty stable.

 

Loving the magic system and pretty much everything else about skyrim, the interface well all I can do is give the same advice I gave my friends when they moved from windows xp to windows 7, do not try to tweak it to be xp, give it awhile, get use to it and you may just realise there is reason behind the changes, after 20 hours of skyrim I just logged on my oblivion game and found myself wishing for the skyrim interface..

 

Maybe that is just me.

 

I plan to play through the game unmodded for atleast 100-200 hours to me that will only be 2-3 weeks before even thinking of modding it, I want to enjoy the work of art bethesda have put together here, yes it is not perfect but bloody hell it is fun!

 

Now i understand what my wife was raving about when she got to test a pre release version a month or so ago while on holiday (no it wasn't a pirated version, she just has some very nice friends. grr she still owes me for that!)

[Mouse]

I have had no crashes whatsoever, but I have had loads of fun. Latest was when I was crossing a river on a tree that had fallen across the aforementioned river. There was a bandit that was gazing at the roaring waters below, and was blocking my path. So, before he noticed me, I gave him a push with my axe. His yell made me smile... until I recalled that I should have pickpocketed him BEFORE kicking his sorry ass to feed the slaughterfish and mudcrabs.

 

Edit: I have to love Whirlwind Sprint shout. can get me across smaller chasms fast and easy .

[marrow12]

I have to say I was skeptical but I am enjoying this more than oblivion(using a 360 pc controller though) Imo the animations are a lot better, I don't see how people see them as stiff at all, the third person is also very functional, just about everything I do in first I can do in third person, seems you can play the game in it's entirety in third person also..Lydia is hawt...too bad that damn gang of Red guard mercenaries took her out..now to wait for a race mod similar to the "coreans" to be implimented so I can walk around as the hot anime chick of my dreams again.

[Presto]

Loving it to no end. Not really sure I feel comfortable with the new leveling system but just like anything it'll take time to get used to, I just feel like my character isn't getting stronger per level.

 

I spent my first 10 hours playing in two different cities and I didn't go outside the city limits or into a cave until the 11th hour. I know this game will have endless amounts of gameplay but that is just stunning to me. I play and beat most games in that time and I have only scratched a small fraction of the surface at this point.

 

A few bugs/oddities that I noticed though:

- chased down a deer that quickly ran away from me. It jumped into a nearby lake and I thought I would have no problem catching up to it if it was swimming slowly. Turns out that it was running under the lake on the lake floor and was gone in a flash. I've noticed this happening a few times already.

 

- ran up to a stable to see about buying a horse and when I saw it was 1,000 I said forget it and decided to just hop on the horse and steal it instead. First off no one chased after me and I didn't raise a bounty despite doing it in front of two guards and the stable hand. After I ran halfway across the map I let it go to enter a cave. Upon exiting it was still there and after fast traveling I find that the horse follows me wherever I go, as if I own it. I double checked my money and I didn't buy it so now I guess I have a free horse.

 

- A few times where my character turned invisible or people would glide through doors and even be thrown up in the air if an opening door hit them.

 

But that's only the bad, there is just too much good to mention to fit it all here.

[dysfunkshunal]

I disagree about the leveling. It is more or less the same as it was in Oblivion but much easier to understand and allocate your points. I played Oblivion with the XP overhaul mod, which was a vast improvement, but giving XP for some things just seemed ridiculous. Getting XP for reading a book, for example. I don't mind this one at all.

 

This game does have the trademark Bethesda jankiness. I saw a wooly mammoth literally drop out of the sky onto the ground. I saw enemies clip through the ground and the disappear, only to reappear nearby again. But knowing Bethesda, I knew with 100% certainty I would see these things. And, like others have mentioned, the sheer gravitas of this game vastly outshadows those little bugs, keeping them from detracting from this amazing game.

 

Combat is so much better. Dual wield is fucking awesome. And finishing moves look pretty good. Combat doesn't feel clunky at all, like others mentioned. Yes, the AI does stupid shit sometimes, but again, this is Bethesda. It is still a vast improvement over the AI in Oblivion.

 

The voice acting in some parts is god-awful. Like, first Resident Evil bad. I literally laughed out loud over how poorly delivered a line was from an NPC I can't recall. But at least this one has more than 6 people doing voices.

 

I really can't say enough good things about the environment. I am running it on Ultra settings, so I don't know how it looks on lower settings, but the world is GORGEOUS! From things like smoke and mist around the mountain peaks, to the aurora borealis you can see at night sometimes, to the waterfalls and running water. Oh, the water! I've literally never seen water rendered so convincingly in a game ever. This is one of many of the areas that the game truly shines.

 

That first dragon fight when you earn your first shout was nothing short of amazing. There is such a chaotic and intense feel to it. You lose the dragon, and whip your head around trying to find it... tracing it's shadow to locate it. You see the other guards fighting their best and getting incinerated by his fire breath. You see volleys of arrows and spells. And the dragon's movement is so beautiful and graceful (except when it's not). I loved every minute of that battle.

 

I could keep talking, but a lot of the things others have mentioned a bunch already I agree with so I won't go into further detail. Seriously, this game is going to be so much more amazing when the sex mods come out!

 

Oh, I am playing the game with a 360 controller and it works so nice. But I am wondering why this Games for Windows game installed to my Steam client. Does that mean I'm going to have those problems the Steam users has modding Oblivion?

[Warrunner]

Absolutely loving it. Playing it on Ultra, about 20 hours in, and the game is absolutely gorgeous. The character models are great, the item models are great, the environment looks great. Weather effects are really nice...

 

For those who are curious, from what I call tell they more or less took the following mods/parts of mods and made them a built in thing:

 

-Dual-wielding from Deadly Reflex (it plays very, VERY similarly)

-CM Companions (There's dozens if you look, and their AI/UI is very similar)

-MMM's Crafting System

 

The whole thing feels like an intense refinement of previous versions of the game. Quests feel more natural, for instance. Items, when placed, don't bounce around illogically. Existent items in the environment aren't floating in place over top of counters any more. The combat moves feel generally better. The world feels more alive, far more real; there's an obvious economy amongst the npcs now, and a functioning ecology.

 

This last point about the world particularly is interesting: I was stalking deer to kill for meat and leather early in the game and a pair of wolves leaped out of a bush to attack it. They chased it for a bit and then killed it, then a few seconds later a poacher shot the wolves and looted their skins, before heading off to the nearest town to sell them.

 

The skill system is different, certainly, but it works out pretty well. No stats is a little jarring, but the heavy customization from the perks I think is a good replacement.

 

For the main lore: I haven't progressed very far in the main quest, but there's many, many references to events in the previous games so far, and I've seen nothing you could classify as lore-raping so far.

 

It should also be noted that the voice acting is far, far better then its been in any other Bethesda game.

 

The UI is a bit of a pita, I won't deny, but I am not sure where people are getting this idea that it doesn't work at all with a mouse. Its a little less responsive then I'd like, but it DOES work.

 

All in all, seems like a friggan great game so far.