Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[G-Flex]

The SNES Final Fantasy games had more real content than Fallout/Oblivion. By Real Content, I mean things that aren't just there for the sake of graphics.

[citation needed]

seriously, if you call content the same sprites over and over again in different colors then each smuggler differently armed via the random levelled item list should count as a different creature and tracked separately as 'content'

You realize he was referring to content except that which is graphical, right? It hardly matters that they use the same sprite if they're in different locations with different dialogue and that sort of thing. The sprite is pretty incidental.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Total amount of content also has exactly jack shit to do with processing power.

While that is true, I fail to see why you point it out. Nobody said that it did.

You opposed the premise that it didn't.

Eh, amount of content doesn't have much to do with processing power. It does, however, have everything to do with budget and a little bit to do with user accessibility.

I beg to differ. More polygons and higher res textures = more processing power needed. That's kinda why newer games made for newer computers generally look better than older games made for older computers.

[Glowcat]

You opposed the premise that it didn't.

Total amount of content does not necessarily impact processing demands, but the amount of content that must be loaded at once and updated certainly does add more work. There is also content that must constantly be taken care of, such as AI packages or background scripts.

[Vertigon]

But on a lighter note, you know those scroll that let you jump really high? First time I used one I launched myself into Red Mountain's lava pool up top. Unbelievably precise.

Haha, yeah... the first time I used one of those, I was way up in the air when it hit me, I didn't have any sort of slowfall spell or anything. I missed some water by like a foot :I

You can just use another one to boost your acrobatics again for the landing. The problem with the scrolls is that the jump takes longer than the spell duration, so you have to use a second one to land safely. But since you only get three, it's a bit of a waste. Then again, it's not like they're terribly useful anyway, so hey, why not. I usually just kept them around as trophies.
Amusingly, the runes on the scroll translate to:

from the earth to the aether
and back

*snicker*
Yeah, actually reading spell scrolls. That's another thing you can't do in Oblivion.

Yeah, I realized that after I died. I spent the majority of the flight/fall panicking instead.

[Sordid]

Total amount of content also has exactly jack shit to do with processing power.

While that is true, I fail to see why you point it out. Nobody said that it did.

You opposed the premise that it didn't.

Eh, amount of content doesn't have much to do with processing power. It does, however, have everything to do with budget and a little bit to do with user accessibility.

I beg to differ. More polygons and higher res textures = more processing power needed. That's kinda why newer games made for newer computers generally look better than older games made for older computers.

You know what, I'm not going to defend that, I think it's perfectly clear and self-explanatory. If you really understood that to mean total content, rather than content on-screen at the moment, then you're an idiot and not worth talking to at all. I suspect you understood it just fine, though, and are just picking a fight. Which I have no interest in either. Good day to you.

[Shadowlord]

... Okay then. I can really feel the love in this thread!

[Sir Pseudonymous]

You know what, I'm not going to defend that, I think it's perfectly clear and self-explanatory. If you really understood that to mean total content, rather than content on-screen at the moment, then you're an idiot and not worth talking to at all. I suspect you understood it just fine, though, and are just picking a fight. Which I have no interest in either. Good day to you.

I went back and double checked, and that was indeed ultimately a response to "the cynic in me suspects the level scaling is toned down because there's less variety [== total content] in the game," to which your response amounted to "of course there'll be less variety [== total content], they're improving the graphics, so they need to get more performance somewhere if it'll run on outdated GPUs!" Which is both a nonsequitor and demonstrably wrong.

On the other hand, the curmudgeon inside me wouldn't be surprised that the reason they toned down level scaling is because there's less variety in areas (in terms of content or intended to level) to begin with, or some other extenuating circumstance. That's ridiculously speculative and probably wrong, of course.

Actually I wouldn't be surprised either, and I don't think you're wrong. They're promising MOAR of everything, better graphics, more detailed models, higher res textures.... but the thing still has to run on a six years old sucksbox, so they must've cut something to free up the space and processing power for that. A new and more efficient engine would account for some of that improvement, but there's only so much you can do with the same old hardware. Oblivion came out five years ago, that's a huge amount of time in the world of the PC. Back then multi-core processors were new and expensive and Nvidia had just launched their 7 series. In the meantime, four GPU generations have come and gone and the fifth is the latest and greatest thing. We now have computers an order of magnitude more powerful than what we had to run Oblivion (and indeed it was unplayable for me at the time, whereas now it barely registers on my CPU usage-o-meter even with a bunch of graphics-enhancing mods), but Skyrim's going to have to run on the same old hector its daddy was made for. That really, really worries me.

[Soadreqm]

The SNES Final Fantasy games had more real content than Fallout/Oblivion. By Real Content, I mean things that aren't just there for the sake of graphics.

[citation needed]

seriously, if you call content the same sprites over and over again in different colors then each smuggler differently armed via the random levelled item list should count as a different creature and tracked separately as 'content'

I'm not convinced about this either. The only Final Fantasy game I ever finished was six, and I remember it mostly as an example of how to wring every last drop of juice from old console hardware. The random encounter enemies had all the characterization of a palette swapped cardboard cutouts, and most NPCs only had one or two lines of dialogue. Sure, there was quite a bit of actual content, but it was spread pretty thinly on the overworld map(s), and padded with pointless monster battles everywhere.

[Sordid]

You know what, I'm not going to defend that, I think it's perfectly clear and self-explanatory. If you really understood that to mean total content, rather than content on-screen at the moment, then you're an idiot and not worth talking to at all. I suspect you understood it just fine, though, and are just picking a fight. Which I have no interest in either. Good day to you.

I went back and double checked, and that was indeed ultimately a response to "the cynic in me suspects the level scaling is toned down because there's less variety [== total content] in the game," to which your response amounted to "of course there'll be less variety [== total content], they're improving the graphics, so they need to get more performance somewhere if it'll run on outdated GPUs!" Which is both a nonsequitor and demonstrably wrong.

On the other hand, the curmudgeon inside me wouldn't be surprised that the reason they toned down level scaling is because there's less variety in areas (in terms of content or intended to level) to begin with, or some other extenuating circumstance. That's ridiculously speculative and probably wrong, of course.

Actually I wouldn't be surprised either, and I don't think you're wrong. They're promising MOAR of everything, better graphics, more detailed models, higher res textures.... but the thing still has to run on a six years old sucksbox, so they must've cut something to free up the space and processing power for that. A new and more efficient engine would account for some of that improvement, but there's only so much you can do with the same old hardware. Oblivion came out five years ago, that's a huge amount of time in the world of the PC. Back then multi-core processors were new and expensive and Nvidia had just launched their 7 series. In the meantime, four GPU generations have come and gone and the fifth is the latest and greatest thing. We now have computers an order of magnitude more powerful than what we had to run Oblivion (and indeed it was unplayable for me at the time, whereas now it barely registers on my CPU usage-o-meter even with a bunch of graphics-enhancing mods), but Skyrim's going to have to run on the same old hector its daddy was made for. That really, really worries me.

You fail at reading. Now go away.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Now, the thing is, if that was left on its own, it could be interpreted as a case of misleading formatting. But when, in response to that, G-Flex said "Eh, amount of content doesn't have much to do with processing power," and you disagreed, again going back to the unrelated matter of graphics, it becomes obvious either you're dedicated to persisting a complete nonsequitor (and flaming anyone who calls you out on it), or you realized your mistake and tried to insist that you were just saying something completely unrelated to what you professed to be responding to (and throwing up flames as a smokescreen). Either that or you're just trolling, take your pick.

[Javarock]

You know what, I'm not going to defend that, I think it's perfectly clear and self-explanatory. If you really understood that to mean total content, rather than content on-screen at the moment, then you're an idiot and not worth talking to at all. I suspect you understood it just fine, though, and are just picking a fight. Which I have no interest in either. Good day to you.

I went back and double checked, and that was indeed ultimately a response to "the cynic in me suspects the level scaling is toned down because there's less variety [== total content] in the game," to which your response amounted to "of course there'll be less variety [== total content], they're improving the graphics, so they need to get more performance somewhere if it'll run on outdated GPUs!" Which is both a nonsequitor and demonstrably wrong.

On the other hand, the curmudgeon inside me wouldn't be surprised that the reason they toned down level scaling is because there's less variety in areas (in terms of content or intended to level) to begin with, or some other extenuating circumstance. That's ridiculously speculative and probably wrong, of course.

Actually I wouldn't be surprised either, and I don't think you're wrong. They're promising MOAR of everything, better graphics, more detailed models, higher res textures.... but the thing still has to run on a six years old sucksbox, so they must've cut something to free up the space and processing power for that. A new and more efficient engine would account for some of that improvement, but there's only so much you can do with the same old hardware. Oblivion came out five years ago, that's a huge amount of time in the world of the PC. Back then multi-core processors were new and expensive and Nvidia had just launched their 7 series. In the meantime, four GPU generations have come and gone and the fifth is the latest and greatest thing. We now have computers an order of magnitude more powerful than what we had to run Oblivion (and indeed it was unplayable for me at the time, whereas now it barely registers on my CPU usage-o-meter even with a bunch of graphics-enhancing mods), but Skyrim's going to have to run on the same old hector its daddy was made for. That really, really worries me.

You fail at reading. Now go away.

Thats rather rude, Hes entitled to hang out here and make mistakes as we all do...

Alright then... Regarding the topic at hand...

Actually I think all that needs to be said has been said

[poca]

My biggest problem with the lack of contrast is the fact that my enemies will never flee in terror from me.   

That would definitely be cool. In a lot of games, the protagonist ends up being universally hailed as the knight protector of humanity by his allies, while his enemies still treat him like dirt. I don't mean that they should like him, but being taken seriously would be a plus. "Hello. I am the Nerevarine, the Hortator, the Master of the Fighters guild, the Arch-Mage of the Mages Guild, and the Archmagister of the most noble house Telvanni. This is my sword, enchanted with the soul of Almalexia of the Tribunal." "Oh yeah? Well, I'm a smuggler! Prepare to die!" I guess that's pretty hard to do properly, though. You're probably expecting to kill enemies in the game, and that gets kind of awkward if they're trying to run away instead of fighting back.

After the long Adventure mode thread here, I kind of suspected seeing your enemies flee in terror from you aspect would find a sympathetic audience. 

I also had the same reservation you mentioned and should probably have come clean about it earlier. I know that Bethesda games haven't required an actual kill for XP so the only time you would need to chase down lesser enemies is probably only for two reasons: you want something they drop (e.g. arrows or reagents) or just because you want to kill them. In either case, the chase shouldn't last long if they are fleeing but I will agree that if it isn't done right it could get old fast; this is Bethesda we're talking about so it probably won't be done right 

[Bas1lyk]

In other news, there's a Skyrim podcast over on Gameinformer.

If you don't have time to listen to it or can't be bothered or whatever, I've tried to list some of the things Todd Howard said off the top of my head:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-No spears. Just the expected one-handed weapon, two-handed weapon and bow skills. Grouped around playstyles rather than actual styles of combat.
-Something vague about wanting to make Enchanting feel magical rather than something you can statistically gauge. Went on to describe different ways fire magic could be used - as a fireball, a flamethrower, as a kind of fire trap when cast over a rune on the ground, as a wall that can be spread over the ground or ceiling.
-Alchemy described as the most magicky of the stealth skills...
-No confirmation on werewolves/shapeshifting into other animals.
-Horses/mounts should differ from Oblivion in how they feel to be controlled - less like tanks, apparently. Dragons will not be mounts.
-Characters will start out as more or less a blank slate, since character creation will be mostly aesthetic. Choice of race will make certain attributes higher than others to start out with, and grant different racial abilities.
-Less choice when making faces (i.e. pick from different types of features and then tweak them rather than messing with a lot of individual sliders) but they will look better; there was an example of this on the podcast page but the image (originally a female Nord) seems to have been replaced.
-The level of each skill will matter less, with the emphasis placed on perks spent when you level to define your character.
-There will be around 280 perks in the game. Each skill has its own perk tree, which will allow for further specialisation, e.g. one-handed weapons has perks for swords, axes and maces.
-Faster levelling than in Oblivion, because of the perk system. No hard cap on levels - designed for up to level 50, but if planned out beforehand a character could perhaps reach level 75.
-Dragons have special AI that dictates how they act when two or more dragons meet each other (presumably won't happen normally but can be modded to happen). They can attack from the air, dive bombing and breathing fire, or from the ground. There will be variation among the dragons.
-Played down Radiant Story - simply a tool used to tailor parts of random events and quests to each specific character, e.g. rescuing an NPC with a good relationship to the character from a cave they haven't already explored, along with a quest reward to suit the character.
-No real news on differences between console and PC versions. Just that the latter have higher-resolution textures by default, and playable on higher resolutions, which goes without saying.
-From the sounds of it, the player's character will start in a prison once again. They will then discover that they are one of the dragonborn, and be summoned to High Hrothgar by the Greybeards. Nothing else said on the plot for obvious reasons.
-Elements of HUD will go invisible when not needed, e.g. health when not in battle.
-In addition to snow and mountains, expect tundra, volcanic tundra, glaciers and pine forests too.
-Area of the world around the same size of Oblivion, but mountainous terrain should increase the time taken to travel around it.
-Dungeons/caves will look better, as will the architecture of towns (i.e. won't look as if all built at the same time). Think Howard mentioned Skyrim having a more primitive feel to the world.
-Something about there being changes to guilds. Not sure if that just means new ones or how they work. Did say some from previous games would reappear though.

[MasterFancyPants]

So... Does the clear up the no one wants spears question?

[Shadowlord]

I want lances. And halberds. And a trained squad of pikemen would be nice, too.