Hellshade

5 Reasons Skyrim Will Change Gaming 1. You Are What You Do. In real life, you become what you do most often. If you want to be a musician, then you need to practice hard at it and for a long time. Simply saying "I'm a musician" doesn't make you one. In Skyrim, things are much the same way. You are what you do. If you want to be a sword wielding badass who shoots gouts of flames out of the other hand, then you start with a crappy sword and a low level fire spell and you practice it on every badguy (or goodguy) that you happen to meet. You don't choose to be a "spellsword" from a menu selection of pre-determined classes and then only get better in what that narrow class definition allows. Skyrim brings the possibility that at any moment, we can begin to change who we are. If we choose to become a musician in real life and work at it every day, it doesn't preclude us from also becoming pilot someday. In Skyrim, if I suddenly wish to branch out from being a fireball slinging, sword swinging hero, I can begin to focus on other areas and add that to my skill set. For instance I could decide that since I have a sword in one hand and use a fire spell in my other hand, I don't have enough protection during combat. I could start wearing light or heavy armors to absorb the incoming blows or I could focus on increasing my skill in Conjuration magic so that I can summon an ally to my side to help take down enemies faster. It opens the possibility that I might not have the skills I need to successfully deal with every encounter I might have, but I have the option of teaching myself new tricks so that I can always come back later and kick ass using my new abilities. With Skyrim, the days of "I'm a mage so I can only learn, do and use certain things" are over. If I want to shoot lighting bolts from behind a shield while my undead minions charge my opponents, I can teach myself to do that. And if later on I want to learn how to sneak and shoot a bow so I can assassinate people and creatures from a distance without using up my magic, I can do that to. It's all about what I want to spend my time learning instead of being about one uninformed choice that I make at the start of the game that limits my potential. Skyrims "you are what you do" system means I have nearly unlimited options on how I react to the world around me. If I see an NPC sneak up on someone and assassinate them with a dagger, I can teach myself to do that, even though I'm currently a plate armor, battleaxe wielding warrior. I don't have to start a whole new character. Make no mistake: "You are what you do" is the next evolution in player advancement systems for RPGs. 2. Less is More. Bruce Lee once famously said "Becoming a better fighter is about learning the basics and then stripping away all of the non-essentials." In other words, how do you reduce every movement to only exactly the minimum you need to do in order to accomplish your goal of winning. That way you save time and energy on your strikes and defenses. Skyrim has adopted this approach by making Less is More in at least two very important areas. The first area where Less is More is in the statistics system. Instead of having Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, etc..Skyrim trims it down to only the essentials. Why even have an Intelligence score if the only purpose for it really is to raise the amount of Magicka (Mana) that your character has? It's redundant. Just raise the Magicka score directly and be done with it. It means less stats for the players to look at and more time spent actually in the game playing. What a concept. The second area where Less is More in Skyrim is in the User Interface. Bethesda (that's the company that makes the Elder Scrolls series of which Skyrim is the latest installment) has figured out a genius idea. What's the point of creating a beautiful world if it's going to be covered up by a huge, intrustive, immersion breaking interface? So now your health, stamina and magicka bars will only show up if they aren't full. In other words, at the start of a fresh fight or whenever you are just walking around, you won't have three huge red, green and blue colored lines on your screen at all times, distracting you from your view of the world. Until you get hit, your health bar is invisible. It only shows up when you actually need it...meaning when you've taken damage. If you don't see it, then you must be full health. The same with stamin and magicka. Until the resources start being depleted, there is no reason for them to be displayed on your screen, distracting you from the incredible world vistas before you. The User Interface improvements also extend to the inventory system, where you can store "Favorites" of items you switch between regularly without having to open your inventory every time to find and equipmen them and also to looting objects and corpses where if they don't have anything inside, it tells you they are 'empty' rather than making you waste your time searching them. The net result of all of this is more time spent in the game world and less time spent playing "the menu game". Less interface is More playtime. Awesome. 3. Big World. Tiny Details. Bethesda has always created huge open worlds in their Elder Scrolls and now Fallout series of games. Also, MMOs have been creating huge open worlds for a few decades now. But the problem has always been the larger the world, the harder it is to fill it all with intricate, unique details. For those who've ever played Worlds of Warcraft, it's a huge world to explore. But did you ever notice that every single Inn is the same exact model? It's a big world (and a fun one) but the "bigness" comes at the expense of being filled with more of the same. Skyrim has over 150 hand crafted dungeons when it ships and multiple mountains to explore. But what's exciting about that is it's filled with tons of tiny details that make every area you explore truly different. They have modeled every item in the world in full 3D so that you can pick it up, rotate it around and look at it from every angle. That includes the food and other mundane things, not just "cool" stuff like weapons and armor. Every plant and animal is finely detailed. Every NPC face changes expression depending on if you are flirting with them or they are pissed about about to club you with a huge mace. Check out the picture of the Orc wielding the two handed weapon at the begining of this thread. Doesn't he look pissed? And the details aren't all in the graphics. The AI has been crafted to provide details that add to the realism as well. Foxes and wolves will hunt small game. Every character has his own morality code that deeply influences their behavior. Even the monsters have little touches added that give them personality. In one preview video, I saw an undead warrior shaking it's axe in anger at the player as his fellow undead were being roasted alive by a flame spell. He didn't just charge blindly forward and attack. He paused a moment to vent out his hatred in gestures and, I presume, threats or curses. There's another scene where some three eyed yeti like creature meets a player on a small bridge. The creature jumps up and down beating it's chest as if pumping itself up for a fight and bellowing out a challenge to the player. Tiny details like that, adding what I call "attitude to the monsters" fills the big world with a more immersive experience. Big worlds have been done. This big and this detailed in every nook and cranny of the world? No, Skyrim is a game changer here in terms of what will be expected in the future. 4. The Boss Fights Come to You and then They Think about How to Kill You. In traditional gaming, all the way back to the Atari days, you fought your way through the entire level and then at the end of each level was the boss fight. Then at the end of the game, the final boss fight and all of them were scripted or patterned. Even in one of the most popular games on the market today, World of Warcraft, it's the same formula. You fight your way through the dungeon and Boss mobs are at or near the end of each level. When you get to them, you and your guild basically engage in what I call synchronized swimming behaviors where everybody has to do exactly certain moves at specific times in order to beat the bosses pre-programmed - phase 1, phase 2, phase 3 - AI. Skyrim throws that very tired formula out the window with it's dragons. Todd Howard, Lead Creative Designer for Bethesda says dragons in Skyrim are huge boss fights that basically can show up at any time in the open world and attack you. In fact, if the Radient AI story system decides you haven't fought a dragon in awhile, it'll send one to find you. Even if you are in the middle of a town. You don't have to go looking for the boss, they come looking for you. What a unique and totally realistic concept for a game. Why should super powerful beings in a fantasy world coup themselves up inside one tiny room in one dungeon and wait for adventurers to come and find them? The best defense is a good offense. In Skyrim these creatures roam the world freely and if they find something that they don't like or that looks tasty (you qualify on both counts), they attack you no matter if you are prepared or not. And what about when they do find you? Do they run through a script where battling them is the same routine every time? Nope. Dragons have their own hand crafted AI where they will fight to the best of their abilities and react to the situation around them. In one preview scene, a dragon is walking on the ground towards the player, and then the players allied dragon (did you know later in the game you can learn to summon a dragon to your aid....yeah) swoops over it and lets out a scortching blast of flames. The one attacking the player stops, quickly turns it's head lets out a retalatory blast of fire onto your ally. It changed targets on the fly because it saw the other dragon as a real danger or, at the very least, pissed him off enough to make him want to do something about it. No more "phase 1, phase 2, phase 3" mindless bosses. Now the bosses roam the world freely, looking for you and then use their own intelligence to determine the best way to kill you. This includes staying airborn and engulfing you in their dragon breath until you can do enough damage to them to make them fall out of the sky and continue the fight on the ground. If you have very poor ranged fighting capabilities, they aren't going to help you kill them by landing and fighting toe to toe. That's your problem. They are in the fight to win. Eat your heart out Donkey Kong jr. 5. A Sandbox World with Endless Sand. It's true Bethesda has released construction sets with their other open world games. However Skyrim takes this to a new level because the sandbox world you get to mod is already so complete, most of what's going to be added is new content. Bethesda has created a huge world filled with tiny details and players can use the toolset to create new races, weapons, magic items, NPCs, buildings, castles, dungeons, quests and even whole new continents. Not to mention the DLC and possible official expansions that will likely come. Oblivion has, literally, tens of thousands of mods than have been developed for it over the past 6 years. I think that will likely be a drop in the bucket compared to what enthusiastic modders are going to make for Skyrim. If you love the world of Skyrim, mods will make sure you never run out of things to do and if there's anything that you don't like, there will probably be a mod to change it. Skyrim will be the sandox world with endless amounts of sand. When looking at replayability, every game will have to be judged against Skyrim as the new standard. Hellshade

Skyrim character creation facial screenshots of all the races. If you're curious what the basic 10 races can look like, here ya go:

I read Oblivion had 14 voice actors. Skyrim has 70. They also got rid of the random conversations and now have much more directed ones. Hellshade

Great new 720HD Skyrim video showing lots of new footage of places, especially cities and towns. Truly amazing work. Skyrim montage 720HD (6:20) Hellshade

I was sure I was going to get Battlefield 3 and then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that once Skyrim comes out, I'm probably not ever going to touch it again. 11.11.11 will come around soon enough and I don't think it'd be worth the $60 for just a three week filler. So despite the awesome new Frostbite 2 engine, I'm just going to piddle around with a few games I have. I hear BF3 is excellent though. Let me know your personal opinions please. Hellshade

Then it's settled. February 1st it is. Hellshade

Alaska weeks. Where each day and night is 6 months long. Hellshade

Two weeks. When it's Done. Never. They've scrapped everything and are leapfrogging directly to P5. I suggest finding another obsession until they are ready to announce something. Skyrim. Battlefield 3. Minecraft Ultra Graphics Edition. Something. It helps with the waiting process. Hellshade

Cranberry juice. The control tower told him a joke about an Englishmen and a bulldog just before take-off and it came out through his nose.

IGN brief video synopsis of what was revealed on Gametrailers.com interview. Can't wait to ressurect a chicken from the dead. seriously. http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1210588p1.html Hellshade

Well if you really want to know which mods I'm using, here ya go. Anything unchecked on the left is not currently active. Anything with a green or black box next to it on the right is also not active. I use Oblivion Mod Manager to keep them all straight. I recommend www.tesnexus.com as a great source for mods.

So did I Thread the Needle like a pro or get jacked up like a noob on his first flight? The video knows all! Gratz to those who guessed it right! BH, you were right, I should have made that one. But if you watch the tail of my plane you can see that I second guessed myself on the approach a split second before trying to thread it. That cost me dearly. No time for second guessing up there. Hellshade

I thought she was watching the latest "Hellshades Hit or Miss?" video. The tension and excitement can be overwhelming for some. Hellshade

I have the Lost Spires mod and column5 is correct. It's really great. Hopefully mods of this calibur will make it into Skyrim as well. Hellshade

So did Hellshade get roasted alive in a fiery collision or did lady luck save him once again? See for yourself! Hit or Miss Vol 3 1080HD (0:23) Hit or Miss Vol 4 - Threading the needle! Strapped into a Hurricane Mk II and going head to head against a pair of HE 111's over the waters on the Coast of Dover, can I thread the needle between these two bombers? Can I shoot one down and fly through the debris in the nick of time? Is there any limit to how lucky any one man can be? What do YOU think on this edition of Hit or Miss?

Skyrim dragons vs WWI aircraft. Hmmmm. Now there's a mod I'd love to see. Hellshade

I'm sure the inhabitants of Skyrim will welcome you with open arms, Olham. Look, here come some of your new friends now.

It's rated M for Mature here in the States. Specifically mentions violence, partial nudity (I hope not from the male Orcs *shudders*) and some other non-kiddish stuff. Gore should be good.

11.11.11 sir. Novemeber 11th, 2011. Just about 3 weeks away. I cannot wait. Probably will need to setup an IV tube net to my PC. This is basically the fantasy game I have been waiting to play all of my life. Dragons done right in an open world where you create any kind of character you want in an unlimited adventure. I figure the 150 hand crafted dungeons that it ships with should keep me busy for a little while.

I run a heavily modded version of Oblivion and it is extremely fun. The mods add things that weren't native to the game like companions, blood spray, decapitations and on and on and on. I run a ridiclous 178 mods so as you can imagine... That said, even with all of the mods, Obivion simply won't hold a candle to Skyrim and with the release of Skyrim only about 3 weeks away, you're better off waiting for that. Skyrim will be incorporating a lot of those mods into the actual game from the start. Companions, archery changes, etc. Also, they will give you enough of the lore for the Elder Scrolls series so that you can easily find your way around and know what's going on. Playing the previous Elder Scroll series really won't be necessary to enjoying Skyrim but if you've got $20 to blow for the Oblivion GOTY Edition and 3 weeks with absolutely nothing to do, it will definately provide some entertainment. By the way, Skyrim will be completely open to mods just like Oblivion was. There are literally tens of thousands of Oblivion mods since it's release in 2006 and I can't see why Skyrim would have any less of a community developed around it. The advantage to the open world, totally single player gameplay is that with the mods, you can craft exactly the kind of world you wish to adventure in, just in case they missed anything you wanted when the game shipped. Here's some videos of Oblivion (heavily modded) in action. Stairway Battle 1080HD (1:04) Vilja NPC Companion 1080HD (2:44)

For those who are thinking about getting Wings of Prey, I found a video someone else did that really does a wonderful job of showing actual footage from the campaign and combining it with a great musical score. I'll post the link below. If you read reviews of the game, it only got an okay score - like around 78- 80, but most of the complaints have since been addressed by the patches so don't be putoff by those. I found it well worth the purchase price myself. Just make sure you save money for P4! And I'll post the answer to last nights Hit or Miss later tonight! Hellshade

Todd Howard says that the controls are very intuitive. The left mouse button controls your left hand, the right button your right hand. So if you have a shield in your left hand and a sword in your right, pressing the left mouse button will raise it up to block and then the right button will swing your sword. You can also bash creatures with your shield so that they are staggered for a few moments, allowing you time to drink a potion or get in some extra free attacks. You can dual wield almost any combination, including spells. So a shield in one hand and a fireball spell in the other. Or, put a fireball spell in each hand and combined them for an even more powerful effect. There are also over 280 Perks to choose from as you level up to help further make your character different and I read that the game is "balanced" up to level 50...as opposed to level 20 in Oblivion - it's predecessor - and has a max level of 70 for those with tremendous stamina to push it that hard. Dragon Age was pretty fun, but this is an entirely different type of game. And in Skyrim, you have the choice of playing in first or third person as you prefer. Here are a few other other articles of information for those interested. Three Hours with Skyrim http://pc.ign.com/ar.../1200474p1.html Dragons in Skyrim Will Hurt You http://pc.ign.com/ar.../1210101p1.html Skyrims Perfect World http://pc.ign.com/ar.../1191758p1.html Skyrim: The RPG for the rest of us http://games.ign.com.../1199206p1.html Which Race will you play in Skyrim http://pc.ign.com/ar.../1196606p1.html "Leaked" 360 manual hints at controls and abilities http://imgur.com/a/RFee1#yTU7B

I just had to re-install mine from Steam and when it did, it was version 1.041 I believe. Here is the yuplay webpage with the rest of the patch updates. Steam Might auto update to 1.045 however I think that is a "beta" patch so you may have to do it manually. http://yuplay.com/se...f+prey&tag=true Hope you guys are enjoying the Barmy game. Hellshade

I haven't had to purchase any updates or patches. It's up to 1.045 now and quite a bit of fun to fly. Indeed the screenshots are pretty amazing and better yet, it runs smooth on high settings even on a mid range rig. Rock solid 60FPS no matter what on my machine at 1920 x 1200 with all game settings maxed. I think it's arond $30 on steam but every few months it goes on sale for around $8. Quite a bargain.

This was a tough one! Check out the brief video to see what happened! Hit or Miss Vol 2 1080HD (0:07) That's a Miss! Two near misses in a row. Can my luck hold out much longer? Let's try a third one. Giving new meaning to "Hot on the Tail" of a BF 109, my Spitfire has made short work of this particular hun. But bracketed in by hostile Hun cannon fire from behind and his burning plane scant feet infront of me, is there any hope of escape? You decide! Hit or Miss for the flying funeral pyre?