Some skills have been cut, one of which is mysticism.
Good. There are too many schools of magic.
Creatures who may get in the way of your sword include: yetis, large spiders, and of course, the prerequisite dragons.
Boring, boring, potentially awesome. God I hope they do dragon fights in a similar way to Shadow of the Colossus.
...
Yeah, I know, fat chance. But I can dream.
the emphasis by the dev team this time around was improving combat and the feel of weaponry in your hands.
I so hope that means "weapons do damage if they come into contact with enemy" rather than the current "weapons do damage if crosshair is aimed at enemy".
If you drop a sword in the street, it may just dissapear, someone could find it and give it back to you, or it will cause a series of actions to happen where a couple people fight over who gets to keep the found sword.
Bah, that's nothing new. Oblivion has that feature too. Like if two NPCs want to use a broom and there's only one in the area, they'll fight to the death for it. *yawn* Next!
more variation in caves and underground stuff.
Well obviously. Would be pretty difficult to have
less variation, given that in Oblivion the dungeons consisted of the same room copypasted over and over and connected by the same stretch of corridor.
there is an option for no HUD.
Oh good, hudless games are so much more immersive. Trespasser was crap through and through but I still enjoyed it. Wouldn't have with a hud.
On Conversations: Conversations aren’t done in a zoomed in static shot anymore.Start a conversation with some and they will act like someone would in real life, looking at you occasionally and walking around a bit and also continue doing a task if they were doing one while talking.
So it's going to feel even more awkward? Oh golly.
Dual-wielding: you have two hands now in combat and you can wield anything to both hands. You may assign a dagger on left hand and use a mace with right hand. The choice as they say is yours.
Sounds cool, but how exactly am I going to control that? Say I fight with two swords. Do I have extra controls for attacking and blocking with the left hand and extra controls for attacking and blocking with the right hand? I don't have that many buttons on my mouse. I'm guessing they're designing this primarily for consoles and the attack and block functions will be assigned to the two pairs of left and right shoulder triggers on the gamepad. I just hope they come up with an intelligent way to control it on the PC as well.
Duel: You may duel any NPC on the streets western style.
Say what? The guards won't object to that? And does that mean there are going to be guns? Flintlocks might be kinda cool. It's 200 years later, so heck, why not.
Level-scaling: It is coming back
FUCK YOU, BETHSOFT“Radiant storytelling” or Level Scaling 2.0: “The game eventually logs a huge storehouse of knowledge about how you’ve played, and subsequently tailors content to your capabilities and experiences. Entering a city, a young woman might approach you and beg you to save her daughter from kidnappers. The game will look at the nearby dungeons you’ve explored, automatically set the mission in a place you’ve never visited, and designate opponents that are appropriately matched to your strengths and weaknesses.”
That's interesting. To me that says generated quests are coming back, which could be cool, as long as this kind of thing is kept only in this area and story-related quests are completely static, including kinds and levels of enemies.
Fast-Travel: As you probably expect, you can instantly travel to previous locations with a tap of the button
Boooo-riiiing.
Dynamic Shadows
How's that new? Didn't they make a big deal out of having soft dynamic shadows in the Oblivion previews?
Updated Engine Snow falls dynamically (not as a basic texture on the ground)
Trees and branches move independently with the wind
Water flows
Translation: Your computer can't handle it.
very unique landscapes! Also unique dungeons! In other words, lots of uniqueness!
Hopefully that means Bethsoft is going to return to the Morrowind method of building everything by hand rather than letting a computer generate it. Because that makes everything look the same. And like crap.
Kids
Killable?
Dialog will pop up when you approach an enemy
Whaaaat.
When I approach an enemy, the only thing I want to pop up are his
guts.
cooking/farming/mining/woodcutting/blacksmithing
Because I totally play an epic fantasy game in which I'm the offspring of a dragon so that I can till some fields. Hell yes.
Game’s out on November 11.
Yeah, right.