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[CoughDrop]

No-nononono-no-NOPE!
First time I played oblivion, I remained level two because I found out how ungodly they fucked up the game balance. I primarily played a stealth character because it was much more engaging than any combat they could throw.
Also I love how your post defending skyrim reads like
"IF YOU LIKE CONVENIENCE THEN YOU ARE MIN MAXER. CONVENIENCE = MIN MAXING GUISE! LIKE TOTALLY"
Think about it, 1/3 skills per screen means you would spend 1/3 extra time in the menu. You would open the skill menu for like 100 times(understatement) per game. Lets say you spend 3 minutes in the menu generally, Now add an extra 1 minute to that and multiply that with 100. Which means you would spend 400 minutes in the menu. That is 100 minutes extra. Pretty streamlined eh?
Not to mention how royally fucked up this type of UI would be with a pointing device. I have a pointing device for a reason. Its not called scrolling device, its known as a pointing device, whose specialty is to point and click on things not scrolling through menu. This is just another decision to show that console is their lead SKU. You really cannot defend that.

Where are you getting these numbers? It takes me under a minute to read up all I really need to on the skills and I would further be only opening it for around 10 seconds (perhaps 20 for the new perk choosing). If anyone playing an ES game needs to spend 3 minutes reading up on something like that for each time they ran into it, they probably wouldn't be playing in the first place.

[PTTG??]

His argument stands with any numbers. Spending less time on a menu because there is less content there is not good streamlining.

[forsaken1111]

His argument stands with any numbers. Spending less time on a menu because there is less content there is not good streamlining.

Information density isn't the only concern in designing a UI though. Information must be readable and presented in an intuitive manner. A solid block of 8 point font text would give you a ton more content but at the cost of usability.

[Virtz]

His argument stands with any numbers. Spending less time on a menu because there is less content there is not good streamlining.

Information density isn't the only concern in designing a UI though. Information must be readable and presented in an intuitive manner. A solid block of 8 point font text would give you a ton more content but at the cost of usability.

You'd get used to the 8 pt. font interface during your playthrough (closest thing to this I found was Darklands' stat screen and that stopped being problematic rather quick). An interface that only ever displays 5 items at a time will remain slow to use forever.

[Draignean]

His argument stands with any numbers. Spending less time on a menu because there is less content there is not good streamlining.

Meh, I enjoy it. They've never managed to get all your skills in one pane, and personally I like the idea of the starsigns. They are content. Even if it takes twice as long to navigate I'll still enjoy it, I've already committed my time to the game, an extra 100 minutes worth of scrolling through pretty blue tech trees is a fine way to relax between dragons and all other manner of gigantic whatnot trying to kill me.

Tis a silly thing to argue over.

Now, the way the giant fell in the debut video... That's something worth nitpicking over considering as that is caused by the base engine, and thus will be difficult to mod.

 

[Virtz]

His argument stands with any numbers. Spending less time on a menu because there is less content there is not good streamlining.

Meh, I enjoy it. They've never managed to get all your skills in one pane, and personally I like the idea of the starsigns. They are content. Even if it takes twice as long to navigate I'll still enjoy it, I've already committed my time to the game, an extra 100 minutes worth of scrolling through pretty blue tech trees is a fine way to relax between dragons and all other manner of gigantic whatnot trying to kill me.

Tis a silly thing to argue over.

I don't enjoy unnecessarily wasting time. And as I said, it could've been made both aesthetic and functional. All it took was someone to figure out a handheld music player's interface ain't a good template for a console/PC interface. This is a completely bone-head move that wastes everyone's time.

[Shadowlord]

I take it none of you gentlemen arguing against the Skyrim skills display have ever played Sword of the Stars? The research screen works just fine. It's laid out on a hollow sphere which you are in the center of, and you spin around and zoom in and out on (to see more techs, or to zoom in close enough to see the names of techs and get details on the one that's selected (if close enough)). You can also double click a tech to zoom all the way in (and select it) or out to a standard zoom if already zoomed in. It works pretty well.

If anything Skyrim's skills display looks inspired by that.

[Jehdin]

Now, the way the giant fell in the debut video... That's something worth nitpicking over considering as that is caused by the base engine, and thus will be difficult to mod.

He fell completely differently in the QuakeCon video. So either the ragdoll is just very random or they fixed it.

[Virtz]

I take it none of you gentlemen arguing against the Skyrim skills display have ever played Sword of the Stars? The research screen works just fine. It's laid out on a hollow sphere which you are in the center of, and you spin around and zoom in and out on (to see more techs, or to zoom in close enough to see the names of techs and get details on the one that's selected (if close enough)). You can also double click a tech to zoom all the way in (and select it) or out to a standard zoom if already zoomed in. It works pretty well.

If anything Skyrim's skills display looks inspired by that.

We're talking about the skill list. Not the perk tree. Or at least I am.

I hate to repeat myself, but if they had the skill list alligned vertically on the left and had the constellation part on the right, it'd still look pretty and you could still zoom in to the perk tree, but it would be much more functional.

[Johuotar]

Woah, I nearly started flamewar with admin intervention and all?!

What I've been thinking now is that the skill ui we've seen might require a bit more time to check but its not such huge problem really. The most important menu is probably inventory which is going to see much more use than skill list. Also, the pic i posted earlier depicts something that can still go through drastic changes. The way inventory was managed bothered me a lot in Oblivion and Im most interested to see how that will be done in skyrim. I've seen one pic about it but they said it was very early version which would see many changes. Im going to believe that for now.

Another thing that bothers me is that in one presentation bandit failed to act when another bandit was shot and killed by sneaking player. The bandit did raise sword but didn't try to find the killer which worries me. I hope that was just work in progress. Still, its improvement to OB where that npc wouldn't have reacted in any way.

[Sordid]

He fell completely differently in the QuakeCon video. So either the ragdoll is just very random or they fixed it.

How's that even possible? It appears to be the exact same footage, the only difference that I can see is this one ragdoll. There's something fishy about this...

[Jehdin]

He fell completely differently in the QuakeCon video. So either the ragdoll is just very random or they fixed it.

How's that even possible? It appears to be the exact same footage, the only difference that I can see is this one ragdoll. There's something fishy about this...

Same demonstration (meaning they follow the same path), newer footage. They have scripted things happening during the demonstration, hence why the dragons always show up in the same place and they always run into the giants and mammoths.

[Sordid]

I suppose, but didn't they claim it was unscripted when the first version of this came out? Or am I misremembering it?

[tompliss]

I remember they claim it too...

But yeah, seems the same.

[Jehdin]

I suppose, but didn't they claim it was unscripted when the first version of this came out? Or am I misremembering it?

I think their claim was that the dragon's actions were unscripted, but I don't honestly remember.

Even at the QuakeCon demo Todd said that they know where the dragons will show up but once they're there they don't know what they'll do. Although, obviously the dragon picking up the giant is a scripted event since it happens in every demo.