Let's talk Skyrim! (Gameplay footage inside.)

Actually the real kicker is that 360 users are now reporting the severe framerate issues as well.

Those of us which have been playing Bethesda's Gamebryo games since Morrowind have been beating this drum for a long time now as the issue is fundamentally tied to how Bethesda uses memory in Gamebryo.

It's the worst that it has ever been with the PS3 version of Skyrim or rather it occurred earlier than it ever has before and to a more severe degree. Somewhere between the new game and the aging console hardware the issue began to manifest mere days after release.

The time between the PS3 users reporting the problem and the 360 users only now reporting the problem is due to 256mb of dedicated system memory (PS3) versus 512mb of shared memory (360).

Even on PC the issue is there just waiting to happen but because of the 2/4/8/whatever GBs of RAM it'll likely never be nearly as severe as what happens on consoles.

Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim all have this same issue to some extent regardless of platform but only now did it occur in a game-breaking manner very soon after release.

edit: I should note that there's also a memory leak which is exacerbating this problem as well and that exists on all platforms so even tossing gigs of RAM at it on PC won't be enough to keep it at bay forever without someone plugging that hole.
 
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Coming up on 95hrs on my save file for PS3. Still having a blast!

One dragon soul didn't absorb. Maybe because I had to quickly deal with a nasty Frost Troll at the same time, dragon died first.

Framerate issue happens very noticeably after a 3-5hr marathon play, and in a big city with lots of NPCs roaming. One hard freeze because of it.

Zero dragons flying backwards. No texture issues. No resistance issues, I put up my shield to block a dragon breath and I hardly take any damage at all (Elemental shield Perk, 60% resist necklace).

Come to think of it, no real bugs happened to me besides not being able to add/remove/or read books from a bookshelf in my house. I just reloaded the save file from entering the house and it worked again.
 
It has less to do with time and save file size than it does with changes made in the game world. The more time that you put in and the larger your save file the more likely you are to have changed more things.

If you walk into a room and knock everything over then their engine saves that off as changes made, any NPC that you kill, any item which you move or loot, and so forth. Every single little change is noted and saved and then loaded in a *.DIFF manner as Sawyer was saying in his writings about his work with New Vegas.

It's how Bethesda uses the Gamebryo engine and it's why waiting in-game for hours/days or using the console to purge cell buffers helps stave-off the slowdown but the issue should be tackled on Bethesda's end and in an intelligent garbage collecting way rather than requiring users to be proactive and/or alter their playstyle.

There's a guy on the official support forums who has been doing extensive testing and trying to peg-down exactly what happens when the memory leak(s) occur and the basic conclusion is that:

PS3: offloads to virtual memory and the HDD eventually can't keep-up and thus the severe slowdown occurs (256mb of dedicated system memory fills then off-loads to the HDD so it tends to slowdown rather than freeze)

360: can switch to some type of low-memory mode which results in lowering texture resolution and then it eventually freezes (512mb of shared memory fighting itself as to what is allocated to system and what is allocated to video)

PC: fills any memory and pagefile but eventually dumps-out and crashes to desktop (if you have a pagefile which is a locked size then it'll happen sooner)

Now with 1.2 both the PS3 and 360 are far more likely to freeze and the PC is far more likely to CTD.
 
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Can't wait to get this game for Christmas. Haven't played any of the other Elder's Scrolls games, but after playing my friend's copy of it, I need it.
 
[quote name='Jodou']The shadow issue I've only observed in my house in Whiterun, so I'm not sure what to make of it. The texture issue is a result of Bethesda's incompetent move to limit memory cache to 2 gigs when clearly the cell buffer can't handle it. When this starts happening, a CTD is right around the corner. And the final issue is because once again Bethesda can't seem to test their own patches and broke all resistances. No, dragons are not supposed to be that hard but in all actuality it does add a level of challenge to the game right now. Even on master difficulty, the game is a joke.[/QUOTE]
I don't really have any magic resistances on my armor, so it's probably not that. Though I think I figured out why the game was so difficult, in that I spent a lot of time levelling up non-combat skills (smithing, speech, alchemy, enchanting) and leveled up globally very quickly (I gained a bunch of levels just from smithing for an hour or two). Now enemies are scaled to that level but my combat skills aren't high enough.

Or something.

Anyways, still love all the random shit to find in this game. Apparently, if you follow foxes, they'll lead you to undiscovered places or nearby secrets. Also, I managed to break the game's quest logic by (Markarth first visit spoilers)
saving the woman who was supposed to be murdered. First time I went in, the guy killed her. I was displeased, so I reloaded, sprinted to him, and stabbed him in the back before he could finish his animation. Now she's alive, but the quest talks about witnessing a murder. The one I prevented. Take that, game!
 
[quote name='JustYourAverageJoe']Also, I managed to break the game's quest logic by (Markarth first visit spoilers)
saving the woman who was supposed to be murdered. First time I went in, the guy killed her. I was displeased, so I reloaded, sprinted to him, and stabbed him in the back before he could finish his animation. Now she's alive, but the quest talks about witnessing a murder. The one I prevented. Take that, game!
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, reloading can be a pretty big problem even with regards to enemy AI since it doesn't always clear the buffer properly. I had one quest bug so badly that had I not been able to find a save that loaded properly, I wouldn't have been able to continue since entering the city would crash me every time. Sounds like that was a similar case of a quest step not being reset.
 
Update to the update on the 1.3 update:

Updated 12/6: While the 1.2 update fixed the long-term play issues for most PS3 users, we are aware that is not the case for some. We’ve been reaching out to a number of those users to collect save games, so we can take a look at their specific issues. Right now we know it’s not one thing, but a combination of smaller ones that some folks are seeing, but others are not. Some seem to be the PS3 autosaving in the background (you can turn that off), some may be SPU AI updates, and some may relate to dynamic system memory allocation. These fixes are not in the current 1.3 update that is in final testing, but will be in future ones. We understand how frustrating it can be when your game is having issues, and we thank all of you for your continued feedback and patience. Rest assured we take your gameplay experience seriously and will continue working on this until it’s resolved.
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Also, PC users are now reporting the crippling framerate issues which makes zero sense from a poor memory utilization in the Gamebryo engine perspective but complete sense from an also contains a memory leak perspective.

So now every platform has been known to come to a 0 frames per second screeching halt...fun.
 
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[quote name='JustYourAverageJoe'] Also, I managed to break the game's quest logic by (Markarth first visit spoilers)
saving the woman who was supposed to be murdered. First time I went in, the guy killed her. I was displeased, so I reloaded, sprinted to him, and stabbed him in the back before he could finish his animation. Now she's alive, but the quest talks about witnessing a murder. The one I prevented. Take that, game!
[/QUOTE]
Ha. I just made it there last night and
I had just entered the inn and saw her body go flying across the bar. I didn't realize what happened until I went outside and heard the black lady asking about me witnessing the murder. I didn't see anything except the bitch go flying. I reloaded and FUS DO RAH'd the guy who tried to kill her, but that pissed off everyone in the bar and I had about 5 guards in attack mode. I loaded up my previous save and left her dead.
 
I haven't experienced any crippling frame rate issues but here is something they better fix. My game crashes to the desktop randomly about every 2 or so hours of gametime. It could be way earlier as well and it's completely random.

Also allow us to fucking Alu Tab without problems. I mean it's 2011. :bomb: I had to ctrl alt delete out of Skyrim today because I could not Tab back into the game after an Alt Tab.

I know the game is massive, and I expect that there will be bugs, but things like Alt Tab is inexcusable.

Oh well Skyrim is still so amazing.
 
CTDs are a symptom of the memory leak and it's all tied into the way that Bethesda uses Gamebryo.

PS3 typically chugs along but will eventually freeze.
360 typically lowers details but will eventually freeze.
PC typically crashes to desktop.

All three platforms have seen an increase in freezing/crashing with the 1.2 update.
 
Does anyone else feel kind of peeved about all of these problems? I felt that leading up to release, one of the major selling points that they talked about was the new engine, but all we got was an updated version of an outdated engine :/.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still absolutely loving the game and have put in around 40 hours, 25 of which being from release weekend, and that number will only go up after I finish my finals tomorrow. Still, my save (PS3) does experience slowdown, and a few quests have been a bit buggy (primarily the civil war quests on the imperial side). I hope that these get fixed soon because all I want to do is play skyrim! Now that the DLC skins for arkham city are out though, maybe I'll play through that again on NG+ with a new costume and let Bethesda patch the game a few more times.

I think it's safe to say that this will be the last Elder Scrolls game of the generation, so here's to hoping that when the next game for the ps4/720 arrive, Bethesda will build a new engine from the ground up.
 
[quote name='Sir_Fragalot']Also allow us to fucking Alu Tab without problems. I mean it's 2011. :bomb: I had to ctrl alt delete out of Skyrim today because I could not Tab back into the game after an Alt Tab.[/QUOTE]
It's stupid, but you need to alt-tab TWICE to get back in.
 
1.3 Patch notes

Update 1.3 for Skyrim is now available on Steam and is being submitted to Sony and Microsoft. As soon as we have more information on the update hitting PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, we’ll let everyone know. Below are the release notes for the update:
Update 1.3 Notes (all platforms unless specified)

  • General stability improvements
  • Optimize performance for Core 2 Duo CPUs (PC)
  • Fixed Radiant Story incorrectly filling certain roles
  • Fixed magic resistances not calculating properly
  • Fixed issue with placing books on bookshelves inside player purchased homes
  • Fixed dragon animation issues with saving and loading
  • Fixed Y-look input to scale correctly with framerate
We’re also planning on rolling out support for 4-Gigabyte Tuning (Large Address Aware) next week for our PC users. Stay tuned!
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Ug...I don't even know why I'm posting this but here goes:

PS3 tips to try

As we continue to work on updates for PS3 (as well as Xbox 360 and PC), here are some helpful pointers that can help the game's performance.

Turn off auto saves. This can cause temporary stuttering since the PS3 saves these files in the background. This is most noticeable with large saves when fast traveling to a new area or entering a new area that auto saves.

Clear space on your hard drive. Skyrim makes heavy use of the hard drive, and freeing up space on here seems to help many people. Hard drive speeds also differ in PS3 models. Some users have reported increase performance by upgrading their drives.

Waiting for time to pass. Many things are running in the world depending on what quests you've done or places you have visited. Using Wait or Rest options, passing time will clear up some of these. It depends how long you wait, it may take up to 30 days for some items. Saving, resetting, and loading after this will have the largest effect.
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We’re receiving positive feedback from folks that are clearing hard drive space. We’re looking into this further, but if having at least 2 GB of free space will help the system memory work with the PlayStation 3 hard drive more effectively. If you can free up more space than that, it’s possible you’ll have better results.

In addition, the PS3’s Safe Mode* feature includes options that can help with memory fragmentation.

Restore File System. Attempts to repair all areas on the hard disk drive where files can be saved. Corrupted data may be erased, which can help performance.

If you choose not to enter Safe Mode, you can manually delete corrupted saves within the XMB menu. Go to Games>Saved Game Utility. Within the menu, delete any corrupted save files. These files can be created from Skyrim and other games when a game doesn’t save properly (shutting down the console before an autosave completes, etc).

Rebuild Database. Will help with memory fragmentation on the PS3 HDD. Note: Using Rebuild Database will erase messages, playlists, changes made on [Information] screens, trimming information for pictures in [Photo], video thumbnails, video playback history and video resume information. The content that is erased will not be recoverable.

*Sony does not recommend using the options in Safe Mode unless you are experiencing issues with the PlayStation 3. Some of these options could result in loss of data.
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None of that works as I've done it all (multiple times in some cases). It may have a slight lessening effect for a short period of time but the severe slowdown will come back.

Also, disabling autosaves will reduce the likelihood that your game will freeze/crash but that holds true across all three platforms.
 
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[quote name='Stoic Person Eater']Ha. I just made it there last night and
I had just entered the inn and saw her body go flying across the bar. I didn't realize what happened until I went outside and heard the black lady asking about me witnessing the murder. I didn't see anything except the bitch go flying. I reloaded and FUS DO RAH'd the guy who tried to kill her, but that pissed off everyone in the bar and I had about 5 guards in attack mode. I loaded up my previous save and left her dead.
[/QUOTE]

I went in and killed the guy and while I didn't see any issues initally, the whole city ended up hating me as I have mentioned in the past. Obviously I think you are supposed to witness the murder, and I wonder if NOT witnessing it could heavily damage the quest...or in my case, the entire city (arg).
 
[quote name='Thekrakrabbit']
I went in and killed the guy and while I didn't see any issues initally, the whole city ended up hating me as I have mentioned in the past. Obviously I think you are supposed to witness the murder, and I wonder if NOT witnessing it could heavily damage the quest...or in my case, the entire city (arg).
[/QUOTE]
After finish that specific quest line my game started chugging.Frame rate at single digits on 360.36 hours in mostly exploring and killing bandits.Also, encountered another annoying bug where one of the NPCs forgets who you are.Now,I got to find another NPC to pay to teach me more on one handed combat.
No worries, a big chunk of the city will be gone by the time you finish that quest-line...maybe.There are other options in that dialogue tree.
 
I finished up the Dark Brotherhood stuff last night on my archer.

At one point the majority of Solitude wasn't even rendering and I could just walk right through stone walls and the mountainside and well everything.

I'm just going to chalk that up to me being an awesome Time and Space Bending Assassin though.
 
Yeah, if floor textures don't load you will fall through the world. Had that happen a few times in caves, but usually it's just walls that go missing in houses for me.
 
Did a few side quests, killed a couple of dragons, then took the LONG way back to Solitude and bought the rest of the stuff for that house last night. Went ahead and moved Camilla in. She seems happy. Also fought my first Ancient Dragon. He wasted no time in landing right by me and chomping down. He got replaced by a Frost Dragon when the game restarted.
 
958504_460s_v1.jpg
 
[quote name='mrx001']After finish that specific quest line my game started chugging.Frame rate at single digits on 360.36 hours in mostly exploring and killing bandits.Also, encountered another annoying bug where one of the NPCs forgets who you are.Now,I got to find another NPC to pay to teach me more on one handed combat.
No worries, a big chunk of the city will be gone by the time you finish that quest-line...maybe.There are other options in that dialogue tree.
[/QUOTE]

Well, seeing as how I made a new character hopefully when I go back through the Markarth corruption/jail break quest line everything works out. I think maybe saving the woman who was supposed to be murdered may have thrown things off for me for some reason.
 
[quote name='Fell Open Ian']I finished up the Dark Brotherhood stuff last night on my archer.

At one point the majority of Solitude wasn't even rendering and I could just walk right through stone walls and the mountainside and well everything.

I'm just going to chalk that up to me being an awesome Time and Space Bending Assassin though.[/QUOTE]
That just fucking happened to me, also I found a guy with a head, hands and legs but an invisible body :lol:
 
[quote name='Sir_Fragalot']That just fucking happened to me, also I found a guy with a head, hands and legs but an invisible body :lol:[/QUOTE]

The body parts on the mannequins in the Solitude house turn invisible when equipped with armor. Not good when trying to display stuff I'm fond of.
 
Anyone know when the next round of patching is coming out. Sunday I was faced with 7 crashes to the desktop. What's sad is it took Techland less time to fix Dead Island than it did Bethesda to make Skyrim playable without constant crashing :bomb:

This is the worst PC Launch Game I bought all year in terms of bugs. Even Dead Island fixed most of it in a week to two weeks and well was still playable after day one without crashing for me, or random graphical stuff.

The game is fucking awesome, the bugs are not.
 
1.3 should be going live on PS3 and 360 any day now.

As for 1.4, or rather whatever they deem the fabled comprehensive patch, it won't be until 'after the Holidays'.

That's why a lot of players are so damned upset. Yes people, of course, deserve to spend the holidays with their families but Bethesda did select the 11/11/11 release date and because of it needed a day 1 patch and then compounded issues by also not properly testing 1.2 only to need to fix the 1.2 issues with an incremental update in 1.3.

1.4 might be the comprehensive update or it might not be but between the console memory issues, the memory leak(s), and the PC version crashing constantly it should be all-hands-on-deck at Bethesda instead of "See ya next year!".
 
[quote name='Fell Open Ian']

1.4 might be the comprehensive update or it might not be but between the console memory issues, the memory leak(s), and the PC version crashing constantly it should be all-hands-on-deck at Bethesda instead of "See ya next year!".[/QUOTE]
Well it should be all hands on deck. I mean yeah I get it's the holidays but the game is full of bugs and is almost unplayable sometimes. I mean seriously to only allow 2 GB of ram on the PC version in 2011 and then not even care to fix it until the holidays are over is just sickening.

I wanna know who thought that would be a good idea. :lol:
 
The official LAA *.EXE has also been shifting around from last week to this week depending on when you read the blog entry and which update to the update on the update you regard as gospel.

It's now officially in testing.

http://www.bethblog.com/2011/12/07/skyrim-update-1-3-now-on-steam/

Update 12/13: Wanted to let folks know that the 1.3 updates for Xbox 360 and PS3 are in the hands of Microsoft & Sony, respectively. As soon as we know they’re live, we’ll let everyone know. For PC players, the Large Address Aware update is currently in testing. More to come soon.
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I'm using this clusterfuck as an excuse to catch-up on my backlog :p
 
[quote name='Sir_Fragalot']I wanna know who thought that would be a good idea. :lol:[/QUOTE]
the guy crunching the sales numbers and realizing that he's still selling a lot of product and perhaps winning the GOTY despite gamebreaking bugs.
 
I must be in the minority here, because since my last post I've had 0 bugs. I play on PS3 with PS+ auto updating so I think I have v1.2? And overall I'd seen only minor bugs and a freeze. Up to 110hrs of gameplay and I still have so many quests I want to do!
 
[quote name='kainzero']the guy crunching the sales numbers and realizing that he's still selling a lot of product and perhaps winning the GOTY despite gamebreaking bugs.[/QUOTE]
What's sad is Skyrim could win GOTY and it's still unplayble for a lot of people when it gets that award. Like I mean it's a great game, but to give a game GOTY that crashes for me and many other people when it feels like... :roll:

I am gonna wait till they fix it to play it again. I am tired of the crashing, freezing, etc.
 
That meme has already ran its course IMO. You can't browse anything Skyrim related without half of the comment box spamming it. The funniest one I've read was dropping it on the tail end of the Dark Sacrament chant. It fits perfectly.
 
i find skyrim humor hilarious but while browsing skyrim humor videos on youtube, i had no idea how much oblivion porn existed.
that's just... odd.
 
I asked these questions the other day in a Skyrim deal thread and was hoping someone here could answer them for me.

Is the file size of your game save directly related to played time? Or is it how much you've done in game as far as things like leveling and exploring goes?

Also is played time still accumulated when the game is paused? I could swear I haven't played as much as my played time says I have lol
 
As for playtime while paused I have no idea. (sorry)

The way that save filesize works in Bethesda's Gamebryo games is that the filesize grows as you make changes to the world.

In a nutshell the game is flagging any and all changes that you've made and loading them in a fashion akin to *.DIFF files.

If you run around discovering locations and shouting baubles off of tables then you are more likely to see a larger save filesize and hence more likely to experience the framerate issues.

Playtime and save filesize only correlate with the framerate issues because they are indicators of the player having made many changes to the game world. Despite what many sites are reporting as fact, there is no hard-set number for either hours or filesize as they relate to the framerate issues.
 
[quote name='Fell Open Ian']As for playtime while paused I have no idea. (sorry)

The way that save filesize works in Bethesda's Gamebryo games is that the filesize grows as you make changes to the world.

In a nutshell the game is flagging any and all changes that you've made and loading them in a fashion akin to *.DIFF files.

If you run around discovering locations and shouting baubles off of tables then you are more likely to see a larger save filesize and hence more likely to experience the framerate issues.

Playtime and save filesize only correlate with the framerate issues because they are indicators of the player having made many changes to the game world. Despite what many sites are reporting as fact, there is no hard-set number for either hours or filesize as they relate to the framerate issues.[/QUOTE]

Awesome thanks for the info, that gives me a much better understanding of how the save game file size works. I'm actually going to test out the whole paused game/time played thing so I'll edit my post after I do for anyone else who is interested in knowing.

Edit: I can confirm that it does add to your time played total while you have the game paused
 
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Well, I'm still waiting for more patches/DLC before I get the game myself, but having played a fair bit of a friend's game, I can say...

A lot better than Oblivion.

Still kinda has that "I am not actually a character in this world" feeling of previous Bethesda games.

Holy shit, the pathfinding in this game is worse than Starcraft's dragoons Jesus Christ.

First-person "cinematic kills"? Alright, cool. SUDDENLY THIRD-PERSON CINEMATIC KILLS JESUS WHAT IS HAPPEN GOD?

Holy shit, is that a sea lion? Oh my god, get over here you adorable fuckING HORSECOCKS GET AWAY.

Finally, a sprint button.

The "main sidequest" in Markarth is never getting done. fuck whoever designed that shit. I hope I have a save from before I started it. Y'all bitches in that town are lucky I haven't unlocked storm call yet.
 
[quote name='The Crotch']Well, I'm still waiting for more patches/DLC before I get the game myself, but having played a fair bit of a friend's game, I can say...

A lot better than Oblivion.

Still kinda has that "I am not actually a character in this world" feeling of previous Bethesda games.

Holy shit, the pathfinding in this game is worse than Starcraft's dragoons Jesus Christ.

First-person "cinematic kills"? Alright, cool. SUDDENLY THIRD-PERSON CINEMATIC KILLS JESUS WHAT IS HAPPEN GOD?

Holy shit, is that a sea lion? Oh my god, get over here you adorable fuckING HORSECOCKS GET AWAY.

Finally, a sprint button.

The "main sidequest" in Markarth is never getting done. fuck whoever designed that shit. I hope I have a save from before I started it. Y'all bitches in that town are lucky I haven't unlocked storm call yet.[/QUOTE]

....this post...?
 
@kainzero

I fucking hate Twitter for making everyone preface shit with @name.

But, really, that's all I got. Anything I have to say I've already said about Oblivion or Fallout or something.
 
[quote name='The Crotch']The "main sidequest" in Markarth is never getting done. fuck whoever designed that shit. I hope I have a save from before I started it. Y'all bitches in that town are lucky I haven't unlocked storm call yet.[/QUOTE]
Dude, what is it about this quest. All my friends either hated this for RP reasons or because it's so buggy. I blew through it no problem, but it's consistently a hot topic everywhere I go. So strange.
 
"RP" reasons for me, I guess.

The games gives you two options: surrender to the guards, go to prison, find Madanach or whoever the fuck, and break out. OR you can fight the guards, break in to the prison, and find Madanach.

Except no, if you opt for the latter - the one that makes sense, as far as I'm concerned, since I can easily beat large numbers of guards, and my character is fairly dependent on his weapons and armour in a fight - the quest breaks. You kill the guards that attack you, you fight your way to the prison, you kill the guards there, and... nothing. You can't interact with the doors. You can't interact with the little pull-chain things that would normally open them. You can't, like, go up to the jarl and tell him, "Hey. Massive conspiracy going on with your guards and the rebel army threatening your town. Look in to that shit, yo." It's just... done, unless you surrender.

So I say, no. fuck you, quest.

EDIT: Maybe I could noclip through the door, but the quest would probably stay broken, anyway.
 
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I look at broken quests/scripting as an excuse to slaughter everyone involved. And Divines help them if it happens outside of a town as Shadowmere does not quit.

There's a particular quest where, while it didn't bug-out, you are tasked with killing one person on a ship. I slip in, do my dirt, and slip out. Well I guess that someone spotted one of my followers and the next thing I know there's Shadowmere on the deck of the ship tanking all of the crew at once.

I actually jumped in the water and swam to shore so that I could sneak plink arrows to grind archery as two of the crew were apparently unkillable NPCs. I eventually got bored and left.

I love that horse...I mean it even generated a penis some time in the 200 years since Oblivion. That's one hell of a beast.
 
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Christ, I had forgotten all about the HALT! HALT! HAHAHALHALHHALT! And that every single corpse looked the same in that game.

And that thievery was utterly fucked...

But man, fuck it, you could climb in that game. How badass was that?
 
oh daggerfall... who needs lockpicking when you can cast open door?!

and you could make your own spells. what the hell happened to the spellmaker in skyrim?
this?
Interviewer: One thing that when I was down to see you guys at the studio was stuff related to how spells would interact with each other and that kind of thing. And I would suspect that the results of your experimentation on that would have an affect on whether you have anything like spellcrafting, right?

Todd: “Yeah, spellcrafting is a real wildcard. Something that we’ve done a lot. And there are pluses and minuses to it. We’d like to find… we have some ideas that we really like on how to solve that, and I don’t know where that’s going to go. But the thing that we DON’T like about the previous systems that we’ve done, is it becomes very “spread-sheety.” It takes the magic out of magic. You got to see the game, but your listeners haven’t. There’s a bigger emphasis on how the magic physically acts. Just a spell like fire; there are different spells for how the fire moves. Like putting down a rune that explodes when you walk over it. Or fire you can spray that lingers on the ground, like you’re spraying a wall, and you can spray the ceiling. Or fire that travels like a flamethrower out of your hands. Or a fireball that you charge up and throw and it explodes at a distance. So our main goal is to make magic feel like this arcane powerful thing. And once it goes into a spreadsheet in the game where you can just say I want something at this distance and this power, it removes the illusion of like how this stuff actually works. So we have some ideas of ways around that, but we don’t know where those are going to go yet. We do have the benefit of, we’re really, really happy with how the magic plays in the game, both visually and mechanically. And then being able to do it with both hands. There are opportunities there for combinations and things you can do without getting into the spreadsheet aspect of it. Which I do know some people like, but it does take away from the impact of the spells that you’re finding and mechanically how they work.”
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man it was cool making spells with stupid effects like fire damage + healing. lol

the only time i ever used climbing in daggerfall is to climb over the wall in the town so i could level up climbing!
 
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