Just got the Xbox dashboard update, and man it's sweet. Everything is crisp and clean looking. It's all separated into these groups at the top of the screen (Social, Apps, Music, Video, Games etc.) and then underneath is a big square made of little square of all the options and apps.
They've also added a thing called 'Beacons and Activity' under the Xbox popup menu, it let's you see what games your friends have recently played or who's playing what you're playing. It also let's you send a 'Beacon' which notifies facebook friends that you want to play a certain game.
One of the most amazing things I've seen though is under the Apps tab, listed under 'Coming Soon'... YOUTUBE. We'll finally be getting YouTube! Along with ESPN, SyFy and a bunch of other sweet channels.
The new dashboard looks intimidating and foreign at first but I'm sure it just requires some getting-used to, the new Bing search bar tab can also make things a lot easier. So get that update and have fun. Happy Hunting!
So apparently, according to IGN, Major Nelson said the new Xbox Live update is being postponed? I'm still confused as to how it works and was hoping to try it out today. Sounds badass from what I understand anyways. Happy Hunting.
So as you can see the Blog's name has changed. Not only that but it's main focus isn't Skyrim anymore, but I'll still probably be posting a lot of updates on it. Skyrim hype is sadly over and now I'm going to start transforming this into a regular old blog instead of making a totally new one.
So there we have it, patch 1.2 is going live for PC and Xbox today. But there's a flaw, and you might not want to update at all. First of all... The textures have been fixed about half ass. The dynamic snow still looks like crap, and there's still some ugly textures out there. But worst of all... You know all those sweet resistances you had? (Magic, poison, disease, natures, fire, frost etc.) Well I've got a word to describe them all at the moment. NULLIFIED. Yes that's right. ALL of the resistance factors are GONE. That means, if you're a clothed ou, high resistance Mage, you'd much rather fight a warrior now. And dragons? Prepare to be 1-3 shotted by their frost breath Mr. Nord. So until this is fixed in 1.3, I'd just keep playing how it is, and grind down that pretty disc even more.
Patch 1.2 has been released for PS3 and is coming on Wednesday for Xbox360 and PC. If anyone didn't know, and here's a link to the Patch Notes. Mostly just quick fixes and such. I would assume Magic rebalancing and quest fixes will come in 1.2.1 or even 1.3.
The first 60 hours of this game were definitely some of the best in my gaming history. When the screen faded in after saying "Elder Scrolls V:" I saw the beautiful scenery and character models, then the word "SKYRIM" faded in above it all, I practically crapped my pants. This was it. I was playing Skyrim. I'll break this recap down into a few groups and put in my experiences and thoughts just to set the foundation to see how the game actually turned out, a way to separate trolls, obsessive change-hating fanboys, casuals and PC elitists.
SCENERY/WORLD
The game looks amazing. That's what I want to lay down first. As long as you don't install Skyrim 1.1 onto your HDD the game will look great. And Bethesda shows off this amazing world right off the bat, from the warped wood used to make the cart you're riding on, to the huge, mist-cloaked mountains in the distance, Skyrim's world looks great. The great thing about Skyrim is that it's not all one big snowy tundra, actually there's several distinct, and beautiful 'biomes'. My first impression of the landscape was intense, I ran down the sunny, lush, riverside road to the town of Riverwood, obviously built right on the river. The area around it looked pretty much like this
Now just imagine two giant snowcapped mountains towering on either side and a few elves running around. After exploring this area for about 30 minutes I finally decided to trek up to the famous Bleak Falls Barrow and make my way through there. The only big, big things that I have against the scenery would be some of the ugly textures, even when playing off the disc. Mostly the dynamic snow, I understand why it would look bad but I wish it didn't and I'm hoping that's not what it's supposed to look like. It's not all the snow, just some of it, and if you want to know what it looks like, just take a piece of computer paper and put it on a large rock.
DUNGEONS/CITIES
Dungeons and cities both took massive improvements to the face in Skyrim, the first town, Riverwood was quaint, yet lively and I picked up a couple quests as long as some miscellaneous tasks there just by overhearing a topic and asking about it, or talking to people. Everyone seemed friendly enough. Taverns are much more fun this time around, they're nice and cozy and even have appropriate ambient and real time music, which can be requested by talking to the bard. Another thing about taverns are that they're also very useful for finding stuff to do, I asked the bartender about jobs and he gave me a bounty letter that some of the Jarl (like a local king) had his men drop off. I pocketed it for later and climbed the steep mountain to get to the first dungeon: Bleak Falls Barrow. Dungeons are all handcrafted in Skyrim, and there's lots of them. Each one is unique and extremely fun, with varying loot, rooms, challenges, etc. One thing I love is how at the end of every dungeon there's a big rewards chest with pretty good loot making the whole thing worthwhile if the rest somehow wasn't. Bethesda got dungeons right this time, making claustrophobic, outdoorsy types scramble across the map for another ruin to traverse.
NPCS/AI/ANIMATION
Elder Scroll games rely heavily on NPCs and AI, and in Skyrim, they got it right, for the most part anyway. Yes, NPCs are a lot better than in Oblivion but they aren't perfect. I love the diverse dialogue Bethesda put into this game, NPCs will converse with each other and call each other by name, and the conversations actually make sense and responses are relevant and don't feel awkward to listen in on, so no more of this
The character models look so much better than Oblivion and the new animations are a lot less awkward too. Plus, I've met a lot more memorable and likeable characters in my travels, many of which you'll find later on in the game somewhere else, if you meet them in a dungeon or in the wilderness. The only real flaws with the NPCs are the usual, repetitive dialogue, getting stuck, doing stupid and pointless things, etc. Nothing game-breaking or unbearable but mostly just annoying. Even the repetitive dialogue isn't that bad with far better voice acting and more voice actors. All with cool accents of course. A lot of you have probably already heard of the 'basket glitch' and many people think this is a huge flaw in Bethesda's part, but to me it actually is impressive. It shows how realistic they got the AI to be in terms of vision. If they can't see it, they don't know it happened which is a step up from all the psychics in Oblivion. As far as what they hear goes, that's a whole new story. I don't like how I can sheathe and unsheathe my dagger behind a guy's back and have the loud "SHIIIIICCCKKK" echo through the dungeon and he won't even notice. But gods forbid I cast my silent Detect Life spell from across the room and the SEARCH. IS. ON.
QUESTS/RADIANT STORY/THINGS TO DO/SETTING
Skyrim is a grim place, unlike Cyrodiil where even if the outcome of an event was gruesome and dark, it didn't really hit you like it does in Skyrim. There are a lot of things to do, and see now because of Radiant Story, and most of them are disturbing, and most of them also involve the concept "This was going to be fun and nice and happy... BUT THEN DEAAATTHHH!!!". Don't get me wrong, I've seen my fair share of happy endings here but sometimes even quests can be like a depression bomb, but more drawn out. Still, it's not all like that. Quests and events are very entertaining and could keep me going forever. And there's no way you'll run out, and if you run out of quests then you've had to have put a lot of hours in because right now I've got like 20 (Quests! Not Misc. events, actual plotted Quests!) sitting in my journal from just doing random stuff like talking to people, exploring conversations and dungeons etc. And just like with the World, it's not all "Vikings and Barbarians and Warriors rahh!". There's some pretty messed up plot twists and interesting stories going on here.
Pretty much my first 60 hours were outstanding, but not quite flawless. Random glitches, sometimes funky textures are among a few things that offset the glory of the game. I'm not going to really make any final decisions about these trivial things until the game is completely patched and running the way it should. And even then I know there will be some minor f*ck ups. But, in a sentence I'd say Skyrim lived up to the hype (for me anyway) and I'm glad I got it, no regrets!
I'm going to do a series of Skyrim reviews (recaps, whatever you want to call them) that will come up as I pass certain time marks on certain playthroughs. I.e - I'll do a review at 60 hour increments on 2 playthroughs, the first will be my 'casual playthrough' where I'll play the game as the 'average' gamer would, such as: Fast Traveling, not paying much attention to when I sleep/eat skipping through repetitive conversation, etc. My second playthrough will be a hardcore RP Dead is Dead playthrough which I'll post on my other, abandoned blog. So as for now, I'll get my 60 hour playthrough recap up in a couple minutes.
Damn I haven't posted in a bit... The game so good. Thieves Guild was awesome, and it actually took some work to finish off. Just did that today.
But I've noticed, that with Skyrim there's a lot more 'casuals' and whenever I see people talking about it, they're always going on about "OMFG WUTS UR LEVEL!?!? WUTS UR ____ LEVEL AT!?! HAS U DUN DIS KWEST YET!?! I HAS!!!!". This is where I get annoyed and also mad that Skyrim is so popular. All of the CoD fans and whatnot who don't even know what Morrowind is, constantly try to compare their characters to eachother. Sure let them play it their way, they paid for the game fair and square, but this leaves me to wonder, how many people are playing the game, to play the game? I've logged near 50 hours since last Monday and my Smithing is 100, sneak is 92, and those are my highest skills. I'm only level 35 and NO. I haven't finished the Companion quest line. NO. I haven't even stepped foot in the College of Winterhold. NO. I haven't beaten the main story. Am I going to rush to do these so I can brag about what I have and haven't done? Nope, I'm going to take my time and if I get distracted, then whatever. I'm going to enjoy the game for what it is, and not just use it as some sort of prestige thing. I'm not going to be that guy.. "Pfft, I've had Skyrim for 3 days and I'm max level!" Because, bear with me on this one.... I don't care. Have fun with the game your way, and don't put others down because you went Runescape berserk and grinded all of your skills.
With that said, I want to say, I'm not trying to rant, I'm just feeling pretty hipster, and wishing this game was as popular as Oblivion was, because it's hard to talk lore with someone who "thinks the Oblivion Crisis would make a great Elder Scrolls game".
Been lacking in posts because this game is so awesome, I can't stop playing! Thieves Guild is a LOT better and more violent this time around. Also, great rewards [:
Bringing back one of the worst features from Oblivion... LEVELED ITEMS!! Hooray! Now we all have to wait till level 50 if we want the strongest of the strong unique armours and weapons! Looks like I'll go back to randomly exploring and completing quests and save the Thieves Guild for later. Ugh.
Finally got Skyrim today! Played it off the HDD first and took a look around, yes I can see that some items have... Well.. terrible texture, but in general the game looks sick. I then tried it off the disc, same thing, some textures were beautiful, others were painful. So, it doesn't matter. Play it either way, hopefully Bethesda will fix this!
Sucks I gotta hold on off on Skyrim. This is the second time Gamestop has screwed me over like this.... It's like my New Vegas collector's Edition all over again...
I still haven't gotten my game yet (thanks a lot Gamestop) but in the time I could have been playing this weekend, I thought about the game instead (best I could do). I pulled together a list of rules for the ultimate immersion experience:
1-For every 36 hours in game time, you must sleep at least 8 of them.
2- You must eat at least 1 piece of food every 4 hours, and 1 meal (3 or more pieces) every 24.
3-You must drink at least every 2.5 hours
4-No compass (if you can turn it off)
5-No in game map (only because it is very GPS-esque)*
6-You must bathe by submersing yourself in some body of water at least every other day (suggested to remove armour and weapons and drop them at the shore)
7-Avoid swimming in armour as much as possible, try to find ways across the body of water without getting too wet. If the situation requires you swim to the bottom of the lake/river, remove armour/weapons and leave them at the shore, because they'll be ruined if you get them wet. One weapon and some clothing is okay to bring with.
8- NO BACKTRACKING SAVES, unless the game is affected with a bug or glitch.
9-NO FAST TRAVEL
10-DEAD. IS. DEAD.
There you have it, 10 rules to make the game harder and more realistic. Of course you'll probably want to play this way later on, instead of as your first game. If you can think of anything else, please comment on this post.
*For some people this might make the game difficult, but I suggest printing out a copy of a somewhat detailed Skyrim map, using the map that the game came with (if you have it) or drawing up one of your own, based on what you've seen and heard. If these options are for whatever reason, near impossible the in-game map can be used.
Also, one thing I'm going to do when I do this playthrough is keep a regular composition notebook by me, and take notes of conversations, directions, descriptions. Pretty much I'll keep my own adventuring journal. Drawing sketches of monsters and noting their weaknesses, making small maps to help me find quest locations, writing names, places, etc.
I'm going to start off by saying: I don't have Skyrim yet. I'm supposed (let's see if I can trust Gamestop here) to get my copy tomorrow. But so far I've been all over the Bethesda forums, Youtube and other random places. I've seen a lot of flaming about this game, bad textures, bad UI, FPS problems, etc. etc. First, there are 3 main things about Skyrim (one for each system) that really bring quality down:
Xbox360: The Texture Bug, this bug is apparently pretty bad among Slim users, it messes up texture scaling and causes them not to load when playing off of the HDD, my suggestion is to: Play off the disc, or if you've got a big enough USB drive, install it there. Bethesda is working on it. If you have an older Xbox, you should be okay, my father has the game and said it's amazing and he uses an older Pro version. Also, do NOT clear Skyrim's cache, the game pretty much relies 80% on cached data. PC: While not really a bug, a lot of PC users are complaining about a really sh*tty UI, often saying it's worse than Borderland's. Apparently the mouse is laggy and hard to use. I haven't seen it and I obviously haven't used it but it sounds pretty awful, making you rely on WSAD to navigate. All I can say is, wait a couple days/weeks for a mod, or a patch. PS3: This is the one I've actually heard the very least about, the only info I've got states that some users have major lag problems. No solutions or advice, but I suggest you start here.
But it's not all bad! I've also seen and heard a lot of positive feedback. I've seen some awesome videos/screenshots. Characters look amazing, scenery is amazing, so never fear, Bethesda will get everything right on track soon enough.
So there's still this crappy texture bug and that's obviously not good news. But, Bethesda acknowledges and is working on the problem. My biggest advice is to: Play the game straight off the disc, get a feel for how the game looks and feels, examine scenery and make note of any graphical messes. Next, quit to dashboard and install the game onto your HDD, start it back up and see if anything has changed. Sadly there are huge chances that they will look lower than average. If they don't, then you're one lucky person and you don't need to worry at all. I they do, uninstall the game, and if you have an 8g or larger USB drive, try installing the game there, I've heard that works. If you don't, it would seem like you're going to have to play off the disc until Skyrim 1.2, don't get confused, there's already a patch out there. Here's some stuff to put some of you at ease... Skyrim 1.1 Texture Scaling
So apparently there's a 'confirmed' bug (as well as possibly a confirmed patch on release day) that has to do with the textures and rendering in the game. So, the story is that, if you install Skyrim on your HDD (xbox360) rather than play it off the disk the textures will be noticeably... Worse. But you still get the benefits of faster loading and such. This has a lot of people confused. Many thinking the same thing: "Isn't it the other way around?" The answer is no. As the story goes, it is when the game is installed on the HDD and not off the disk. This creates a pretty largescale problem among Xbox players (such as myself). On one hand, you get faster loading and rendering and better fps, while sacrificing the hi-res textures. On the other hand you get slower load times, possibly some spots of bad fps and a damn loud whirring sound but with better textures and graphics. There is hope, however. Rumor has it there is a day 1 patch starting Skyrim off as 1.1 that will supposedly fix this problem. So anyone who is getting the game on midnight, you might want to wait before installing the game onto your HDD, or if you do, prepare to uninstall and re-install it after the patch on Friday morning. To my knowledge this isn't legitimately confirmed by Bethesda and has originated on Gamefaqs forums by people with early releases (pirates? Or are they actually reviewers...? Hmm.) so don't panic right away. 2 days, 3 hours, 39 minutes and 27 seconds left.
Sorry for not posting very often these past few days, I've decided to go pretty much dark until Saturday (when my order is coming in) I have discovered that there is, supposedly a patch for the first day and has already been released to the reviewers. Not sure what the patch is for. But speaking of patches, Oblivion has had some recently, adding red banners with the Akaviri symbol on it, and changing the look of some items (such as skooma). 3 more days everyone!
Friday, November 4, 2011
Just remembered that this template doesn't allow for pictures, going to change it then. Here's a link to my picture.
I photoshopped a couple pictures and used the Text tool to make this tribute to Skyrim today in school, feel free to post links to any tributes you may have done. I'll probably have more than this by Friday. Here's for copyright's sake.
Looks like GAME in the UK isn't taking any preorders, and they're even cancelling existing ones! Gamestop isn't taking any orders either. I preordered from Gamestop and was told that if you have an existing order you'll be fine.
A lot of new info these past few days, from Werewolves to Perks, we know a lot about the new release from Bethesda, The Elder Scrolls Skyrim. With just 7 days, 4 hours, 15 minutes and 32 seconds left to go, that's still plenty of time to start examining the perks and thinking about what kind of character you want to play.
After seeing panic in the posts and comments of Skyrim fans across the internet about low graphics, I decided to come on here and say: This is an Xbox 360 screenshot, this is what the game is more than likely going to look like on release, for consoles anyway, however it's been said that there may not be a noticeable difference between consoles and PC, which I doubt to be honest. But nevertheless the graphics should not be any worse than that screenshot (not saying it's bad). So as of now, have no fear. Skyrim should live up to what is expected and maybe then some? Oh yeah and Steam is fixed or whatever.. I don't game on PC, too temped to mod.
Skyrim's release is just around the corner, so that means a lot of people will be doing all kinds of videos and blogs about it. So I've decided to keep an adventurer's journal of all the things I see and do in Skyrim, possibly prompting some people to purchase, or not to purchase the game. You can find a lot of great forum threads here.
