Skyrim - The Elder Scrolls V

[Gelion]

Wow, you guys really write a lot. Then again I could type entire pages on Morrowind before...

...

It's funny how I've read Stormcloak vs. Empire arguments on other forums, and they'll go on and on for pages with the exact same sort of vitriol and high blood pressure you'll see with real life political debates. If anything, even though the Civil War questline itself is bleh to an extent (it's more repetitive and less epic than it should be (which is sad given that modders have found evidence in the code and Construction Kit that the Civil War was originally going to be much more complex and epic, arguably making it as detailed as the main quest)), it shows, in my opinion, how well Bethesda did making sure the Stormcloaks and Empire were neither clear-cut good guys.

This is really a good sign. I remember having those debates for Dagoth Ur vs. Tribunal or Empire vs Dunmer. Really fun stuff.

If your PC can't handle it, you can always buy a cheap GPU. I upgraded my integrated GPU to a $30 GPU just so I could play Skyrim, and while it wasn't that impressive an upgrade - about 15 fps - the game is still playable and enjoyable (I never understood why some gamers claim that anything under 30 fps is "unplayable" - heck, when I first got Oblivion I didn't even realize I was at ~10 fps until after 200 hours of playing). There's also a number of mods that increase performance, and now I average at around 20 fps. I'm pretty sure if you buy a better GPU, and if your PC can handle it (I bought the best GPU my really low-end PC can handle), you can probably make it work.

Right now it is a question of upgrading everything from graphics card to something better than 100GB of hard drive. I'm better off buying a new computer, I think. However if I won't get enough money by the summer I might just upgrade the graphics card. My current one runs everything badly from Morrowind and Oblivion to Anno2070 (but it runs them!)

It is. But its like a sunday without sprinkles.
Btw, my most beloved mod is actually quite simple: Bigger trees. Sounds trivial, but the feeling you get when walking through a big boreal forest is awesome. Its a whole new expierence of the game world. :3

Somehow I see how this could make sense I'll look into that mod once I get Legendary!

They are not really random. They are premade, but randomly chosen.

Oh man, so are they random or not so random? I really wish Bethesda added some randomness into quests and NPC interaction. Maybe next game?

...

I don't want type an equally long post, but I've read everything you posted. I think I have a mixed response to what you said. I never played Assassin's Creed games, but I watched them being played. I do love them and want to try them as soon as I get a new computer and a little more free time. They are great games, but they are new games with as little stats as possible. Morrowind and to some expent Oblivion are older generation RPGs where limited physics model meant that you had to rely on stats more (D&D stats as someone mentioned). Oblivion was not only bad because it was dumbed down in terms of options and content (ex. 5 joinable guilds to over 10 in Morrowind), but it also half way between a stat based game and a physics based game. Skyrim and AC series are new games. While they are fun, I think it is simply a question of what type of game you prefer. I, for example, like to rely on my knowledge of the lore and game mechanics to get me through, not on my reflexes. Skyrim offers a mix of both, but this mix was previously reserved for more arcade like games. Its is not by accident that Oblivion was known as "FPS with a sword". I'd turn your analogy with the parents against you and say: Morrowind was the more demanding type of game where your character started out at 0 without any knowledge of the world and had to learn to surivive (through many deaths). In Oblivion (and presumably Skyrim) you could roleplay a demi-god almost from the start. The reason is that Oblivion choice-based system failed is that the developpers only had one (maybe 3) ways your character could develop. It wasn't a problem of choice, but a problem of bad design. I'm really glad if Skyrim fixes that "linarity of everything" problem.

BB with some more later

 

[civ_king]

*snip*


Right now it is a question of upgrading everything from graphics card to something better than 100GB of hard drive. I'm better off buying a new computer, I think. However if I won't get enough money by the summer I might just upgrade the graphics card. My current one runs everything badly from Morrowind and Oblivion to Anno2070 (but it runs them!)

*snip*

I have a Radeon 6850 (or 6870) and it runs Skyrim at max specs at 1680x1050 other than anti-aliasing quite nicely.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Right now it is a question of upgrading everything from graphics card to something better than 100GB of hard drive. I'm better off buying a new computer, I think. However if I won't get enough money by the summer I might just upgrade the graphics card. My current one runs everything badly from Morrowind and Oblivion to Anno2070 (but it runs them!)

Ah, okay. Then yeah you probably should get a new computer then, there's no why your computer will handle Skyrim. My suggestion is still to buy a cheaper PC and then plug in a cheap GPU - you'll end up saving money that way; in other words, don't buy the PC for the GPU.

Currently I'm using a Radeon 6450 (one of the best GPUs my PC's power system can handle). On various other forums and places people said Skyrim would run horribly on a Radeon 6450. I never knew why people thought 15 fps was horrible. Not as good as 30 fps? Definitely. Playable and enjoyable? Of course. And with a few performance mods I can get my fps up to 20-25 and even occasionally 30, and this is with a lot of mods. And that all only cost me $30 for the GPU and ~$300 for the PC, which is way cheaper than buying something twice as much.

Oh man, so are they random or not so random? I really wish Bethesda added some randomness into quests and NPC interaction. Maybe next game?

They're random to me. It's not like they can program the game to make completely new quests, if that's what "random" means.

But it's basically the way the "random" quests worked in Daggerfall - they're generic things like "kill the bandit leader in so and so place" or "find out what this mysterious source of dragon shout power thingy is here" or "help the college of winterhold find an important book". They're not random in that they're completely new, but rather they're pulled randomly from a large pool of potential random quests.

There is also randomness in terms of random encounters. When walking on the road you might come across different things each time. They're not random in that they're completely new, but rather they're pulled randomly from a large pool of potential random counters. One day you might be going down a road, and you might come across a thief who tries to mug you (rather stupidly, because you're that guy with Daedric armor who just beat the crap out of a dragon (one of the dialogue choices even hints at this)). THe next day you might come across some suspicious looking Imperial Legionnaires who ask for toll money, who turn out to be bandits that killed the real legionnaires (whose bodies are nearby) and just put on a disguise. Yet another day and you might come across a skooma dealer.


So is it true randomness? If by randomness you mean 100% newly generated on the spot, then no. But if by randomness you mean something new every time, then yeah. Well, at least for the first 100 hours. After about 100 hours you'll have seen most of them.

Although occasionally you'll get surprised. I've got about 220 hours under my belt, and now and then Skyrim still gives something new to me.

 

[coanda]

There is also randomness in terms of random encounters. When walking on the road you might come across different things each time.

And sometimes you come across several items of interest at once... my personal favorite was when I stepped out of a dwemer ruin and ran into two giants, two dragons, a bear, and a handful of humans (I think they were bandits? Maybe legionaries; I don't recall) all engaged in an epic free-for-all. While I was personally rooting for the bear, in the end it was the giants that went the distance.

I can safely say that I have never before or since come across anything like that in Skyrim.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

The giants are awesome. And they can send any payload to low earth orbit at low cost!

And yes, there is always place for surprises in Skyrim. I have played the game since it was released but some days ago i just found a creature i never saw before (a rare kind of sparrigan or wathever it is called)

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Yeah, the random encounters really spice up the journey and make you NOT want to use autotravel (like in Oblivion). The first time I saw the ghost of the headless horseman was awesome!

 

[civvver]

You can build a machine that'll run skyrim at max for like $600 excluding the os. 15 fps is horrible. I don't think I could go back to playing games at that rate. 30 is where you start to not notice the stuttering so much, that's why it's kind of the cutoff for benchmarks. The difference between 15 and 30 is huge and very obvious, the difference between 30 and 60 is noticeable if they're side by side but very subtle otherwise.

 

[cybrxkhan]

You can build a machine that'll run skyrim at max for like $600 excluding the os. 15 fps is horrible. I don't think I could go back to playing games at that rate. 30 is where you start to not notice the stuttering so much, that's why it's kind of the cutoff for benchmarks. The difference between 15 and 30 is huge and very obvious, the difference between 30 and 60 is noticeable if they're side by side but very subtle otherwise.

It's noticeable, but I've always been fine with 15 fps. WHat I don't get is why people absolutely claim there is no way you can play on 15 fps. I can play on 15 fps. Heck, I can play on 10 fps. I don't mean like I wait for the stuttering to stop or anything like that, I mean like I can play normally and react to things in real time and not be bothered by lagging, if at all (as in my actual playing experience is more or less the same at 15 fps as it is at 30 fps).

Not that I'm harping on you or anything, but it's just something that's baffled me, particularly when it came from the PC elitist crowd. 15 fps is playable. It is enjoyable. Is it worse than 30 fps or 60 fps? Definitely, that's undeniable. But is it so terrible that I would rather not play the game? No. I know what it's like to play through games running real slow and laggy, and 15 fps is not slow and laggy in comparison. I've been a PC gamer since I began playing with video games (never played consoles when I was growing up because I didn't have any), but I've always been stuck with integrated graphics until very recently when I bought my low-end GPU. Heck, I managed 400+ hours of Oblivion on probably 10 fps without realizing it and I never thought it was slow, but maybe I've been too spoiled by living off integrated GPUs for most of my life it makes it harder for me to appreciate the differences in graphics.

 

[civvver]

You're definitely reacting slower at 15 fps, you probably just don't realize it in a single player game. I used to play wow on a laptop that topped out around 15 fps, in raids it was more like 10. I didn't realize how bad my reactions were until I got a new pc and my damage in raids went up considerably because I could mash my buttons that much more smoothly. Anyway to each his own, I just don't get how with pcs so cheap these days anyone would put up with playing that low. My pc is going on 3 years old, cost me $900 to build and I will most likely have it another 3-4 years based on the progression of video game hardware demands. It's an upfront investment sure but it comes out to less than $150 a year. We're in a really weird place that I don't remember ever happening in my lifetime as a gamer where hardware is far out pacing games. It used to be a 2 year old pc would run new games on lowered settings and a 5 year old pc couldn't run the newest games at all. Not anymore, cpus are so fast, the brand new ivybridges of the world today are only like 10-15% faster than the original core i5s and i7s of 4 years ago.

 

[civ_king]

You're definitely reacting slower at 15 fps, you probably just don't realize it in a single player game. I used to play wow on a laptop that topped out around 15 fps, in raids it was more like 10. I didn't realize how bad my reactions were until I got a new pc and my damage in raids went up considerably because I could mash my buttons that much more smoothly. Anyway to each his own, I just don't get how with pcs so cheap these days anyone would put up with playing that low. My pc is going on 3 years old, cost me $900 to build and I will most likely have it another 3-4 years based on the progression of video game hardware demands. It's an upfront investment sure but it comes out to less than $150 a year. We're in a really weird place that I don't remember ever happening in my lifetime as a gamer where hardware is far out pacing games. It used to be a 2 year old pc would run new games on lowered settings and a 5 year old pc couldn't run the newest games at all. Not anymore, cpus are so fast, the brand new ivybridges of the world today are only like 10-15% faster than the original core i5s and i7s of 4 years ago.

Just wait until the new consoles are out, it's going to speed back up a bit.

 

[cybrxkhan]

You're definitely reacting slower at 15 fps, you probably just don't realize it in a single player game. I used to play wow on a laptop that topped out around 15 fps, in raids it was more like 10. I didn't realize how bad my reactions were until I got a new pc and my damage in raids went up considerably because I could mash my buttons that much more smoothly. Anyway to each his own, I just don't get how with pcs so cheap these days anyone would put up with playing that low. My pc is going on 3 years old, cost me $900 to build and I will most likely have it another 3-4 years based on the progression of video game hardware demands. It's an upfront investment sure but it comes out to less than $150 a year. We're in a really weird place that I don't remember ever happening in my lifetime as a gamer where hardware is far out pacing games. It used to be a 2 year old pc would run new games on lowered settings and a 5 year old pc couldn't run the newest games at all. Not anymore, cpus are so fast, the brand new ivybridges of the world today are only like 10-15% faster than the original core i5s and i7s of 4 years ago.

Perhaps. But I never really enjoyed button mashing games that requires uber-fast reactions, and Skyrim (thankfully) isn't one of those games. But maybe I'll find out for myself, since I've been raised on integrated GPUs for so long.

My main point though was that I don't understand why some gamers insist it's horrendous and terrible to the point where it's "unplayable". Is it objectively worse? Sure. But there's no way it's unplayable and unenjoyable. The fact that you played WoW relatively fine (I'm assuming) with 10-15 fps for a while shows that's its definitely playable. I played Oblivion for 200+ hours with probably 10 fps before my new GPU and later Skyrim at 10-15 fps before I installed some performance mod (though I didn't realize it at the time). From what I've seen, 10 fps is definitely playable. Not ideal quality? Sure. But playable and enjoyable. I definitely notice the difference now when I have Oblivion at ~30-40 fps and Skyrim at 20 fps, but it doesn't really ruin my Skyrim experience.

 

[civvver]

Actually I didn't play wow fine I was a middling dps until I got a pc upgrade. Which is fine for casual I guess but not for doing top tier content raids where everyone has to do max dmg. But for single player yeah it doesn't matter.

Anyway we're getting way off topic, just pointing out to the guy who wants to play skyrim we can help him build a cheap machine to run it.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Anyway we're getting way off topic, just pointing out to the guy who wants to play skyrim we can help him build a cheap machine to run it.

True, true. I think its an interesting discussion as to what fps is playable and enjoyable, but sure.


We can definitely agree that a $600 rig is much easier on the wallet in terms of bang for buck compared to those several thousand dollar rigs I've heard about. You don't need that much money to enjoy TES.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

... Not anymore, cpus are so fast, the brand new ivybridges of the world today are only like 10-15% faster than the original core i5s and i7s of 4 years ago.

It is the famous intel Tick-Tock strategy. Ivy-bridge is basically an enhanced sandy-bridge (Tick). Nex generation is going to be a Tock again, an entirelly new architecture so theoretically we´ll see some significant performance improvement. Which will leave software even further behind. It is really a weird situation.

 

[Thrawn]

My main point though was that I don't understand why some gamers insist it's horrendous and terrible to the point where it's "unplayable". Is it objectively worse? Sure. But there's no way it's unplayable and unenjoyable.

I've always felt kind of the same about latency. Living in NZ, it's always seemed pretty amusing to me when americans complain about 200ms latency being unplayable. Here in NZ, 200+ is normal! For sure lower is better, but it's not unplayable.

 

[Arakhor]

By latency, you mean the server ping on multi-player games and the like? I guess living out in the global sticks would do that for you.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

As someone who used to raid in WoW with about half a dozen Australians, believe me when I say that your 200+ latency is not nearly as awesome as you think.

 

[civvver]

There's a reason they added oceanic servers lol

 

[cybrxkhan]

In case anyone is interested, Greenmangaming is selling all their Bethesda titles - including Skyrim and all its DLC - for 50% off. Unfortunately it seems like this can't be used with the 20% off voucher they have.

I'm conflicted as to whether I should buy Dragonborn for 50% off or continue to remain dirt-cheap as I've always been and wait until its 66% or 75% off. Choices, choices, choices.

(Though I probably won't buy Dawnguard ever, I didn't hear too much good about it.)

 

[Arakhor]

Buy Dawnguard if only for the vampire story and Auriel's Bow. It's good for one run-through at least.