As you might have heard, Zenimax Online Studios is taking a crack at the MMO game. Recently, The Elder Scrolls Online was officially announced and not surprisingly not too many people seemed to be on board with the game. At best, people, myself included wanted a co-op version of Skyrim because I personally feared that the things that I enjoy about The Elder Scrolls series would be lost in a MMO. I like to explore, I want to find some random dungeon or cave to fart around in. Some unique gem out in the middle of nowhere that leads me on a grand adventure that somehow ends with me talking to a god or being suspended thousands of feet into the air.

Safe to say, I was lukewarm about the announcement but I decided to see what it was all about, with the bits of information that was sure to trickle out from the various Game Informer articles and plenty of leaks found on the internet I would not have to wait too long to form an idea.

So what do we know so far? The game is set around a  thousand years before the events in Skyrim. Tamriel has no clear ruler and with recent wars degrading of Imperial presence, Cyrodiil is marked by constant warfare. Three alliances have emerged each containing three of the races we know from the series. The Ebonheart Pact consists of the Norn, Dunmar, and Argonians. Although they hate each other, they forged a pact address the threats posed by their unified enemies. An interesting dynamic set up for this faction, I would love to see how that hate but unified story plays out.

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I’m sure most of you by now have dug yourselves in with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The open-world RPG has been the talk of the town for the past few days with ZeniMax Media capping it off by announcing that the game has garnered roughly $3.5M in sales over a period of 48 hours. My experience with Skyrim has been stellar so far.

It’s the moments that make it magical

For me it’s all about the world and its many quests and tasks. There is so much to do in Skyrim that I don’t have that feeling of being rushed and okay to be distracted. Everything will eventually be completed right!? Even with all the content they packed into the game, each little slice tells a story. Even stopping to read a book containing a short story is food for the soul.

I recall roaming around near the beginner area and stumbling upon a beat-up shack. I investigate only to find a letter by the homeowner describing his eyewitness account of a dragon flying overhead. Reading on, his wife tried to convince them to leave but the man refused stating that it was okay to stay as long as we don’t bother the dragon it won’t bother us. Oh how he was wrong! My heart broke when I stepped outside and off to the side near a fire camp laid two charred bodies. I shed a single tear, although not before I pilfered some gold off the bodies.

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You know, I would consider Rage a sleeper hit if you purchased it on the console, the PC version on the other hand is complete mess. If you haven’t been following, the PC version of Rage is mired by a plethora of technical difficulties. There is extreme texture popping, to the point where turning from side to side the framerate drops while textures loads; this even happens in small areas. There were also some animations issues in the game, where some characters turned a shade of black, while others were glitched up, and there animations stuttered and voiceovers fell out of sync. This effect also translated to your weapons at some points and that a shame because they went out of their way to really highlights those beauties.

Even as they struggle to remedy the situation with as of now, two driver updates for AMD and Nvidia cards that make some improvements, I’m left wondering if it will have an impact at some point later on. I don’t recall reading about the problems in any of the day one reviews, it’s a curious things, I wonder if the issues are flying under the radar.

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Reading all the previews and looking at all the videos, it is easy to tell how gorgeous Skyrim is but this week it really hit home for me as I’ve seen some of the new images being pushed out by various media outlets, detailing one of my favorite mechanics in a RPG, character creation. At QuakeCon, game journalists had the chance to tinker around with character creation before being be dropped head first into the world of Skyrim.

They created very distinct characters including a Bosmer, an Orc, and a Nord. The amount of detail has me itching to give it a go as well. I want to see a Redguard at some point since I always played them in previous Elder Scrolls games; hopefully I can create one that actually looks like me this time around.

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E3 has come and gone and I got the chance to watch a few demos of one of the most anticipated games this year, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. With its new Creation Engine, Radiant Story and artificial intelligence Bethesda has created a very immersive open world. I got a glimpse of the smooth sleek menu system, combat, shouts and dragons. Follow along as I detail what makes me want to move time forward as a RPG fan.

Attention to detail

Opening the demo you notice right away the rich environment of Skyrim. The area I saw was a lush forest with evergreens, mountains in the back and animals scurrying about. Here Todd Howard explained that they are paying a lot of attention to detail. He states “In an open world the player can go anywhere they want and we can’t hide anything.” Everything from flowers, rocks, to mountains are all handcrafted and every nook and cranny gets some TLC. As the dev traveled through the area I saw a fox run across the screen chasing a rabbit from the dirt path and into the bushes. Come to find out that even the animals have scripts that allow them to hunt for food or passively travel to their next breeding grounds: it’s all about the details. The animation system has received a rework so the player’s character runs differently and more realistic. Horses are in the game and they move like real horses with smooth transitions from trotting to sprinting. As you navigate the world with these fluid animations there is a lot to discover. Going downhill we were introduced to Guardian stones which functions similarly to altars in Oblivion as these stones bestow a buff on you that increase the rate you level up certain skills. When you’re in a town the townsfolk all have their own unique duties and when you speak to them it doesn’t zoom in like it did in previous Bethesda games and it provided a genuine feel and it kept you immersed in the world. In town you can take part in the crafts they do such as blacksmithing. They really want to suck you into the world no matter what you choose to do.

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