You know - playing as a mage i feel like "unfinished".
I really miss all the non-combat magic. In Skyrim you are more of a Battlemage rather then Wizard.
Where all the non-combat spells gone?
Levitate? what about freefall? what happend to jump spell? Open/Close Locks spell? Cats Eye's and Light spell that last for longer then a silly 60sec. Elementa Ressist Buffs.
I remember from P'n'P rpgs that my biggest passion for magic was not that i can blow up a whole village but that i can do common actions... but with magic, and enhanced. My fellow fried trying to light up a campfire or a torch in the middle of rain, and i just shot my fingers and kazaam - theres the light. Conjuring magical horse, walk on water, breath in water, lift objects with my magic, control the wather - summon blizzard, rain, sunny sky - just for the heck of it, because i can. Place magical forcefiel, make animals not run away from me...
sorry, been day dreaming again.
The point is - Skyrim lacks the "ambient" spells. Magic that doesnt benefits them directly in combat or game. Just make couple of things easier. Theres literaly one such spell in Skyrim. its that ore transmutation spell. I rarely use it - but i am very glad i can. Skyrim wizards looks more like a character from first person shooter and spells more like guns.
Argh, when the hell they finaly launch moddding tools??? >.<
My guess sometime after the first DLC. I'll be surprised if that isn't the case. It's no longer like morrowind was, where it shipped with it on a second disk. Oblivion had it available for download on launch. Fallout 3 was the first to not release it on launch but to wait until Christmas to increase their DLC sales.
I'm guessing the same is true here. A DLC will release around Christmas with a fair bit of reporter yankery, and then around 2 weeks later sometime either just before January or in January the Dev Kit will be released.
As far as magic goes, I'd say I agree with most of it. It needs more utility spells. But a lot of those seem to have been rolled into shouts and are excluded because, duplicating features, 1 thing can do what another thing can do. THE HORROR.