Skyrim Details (not so much rumors anymore)
Yeah, Game Informer's got an article with a code cover. One huge advertisement for the plot side of things, which is cool if you're into that, but if you were trying to guess what I was interested in from the last thousand posts I've made about the Elder Scrolls games, it's the mechanics. NeoGAF, source of many things false, abusive, and sometimes true and cutting edge about games was the sourc...
Yeah, Game Informer's got an article with a code cover. One huge advertisement for the plot side of things, which is cool if you're into that, but if you were trying to guess what I was interested in from the last thousand posts I've made about the Elder Scrolls games, it's the mechanics.
NeoGAF, source of many things false, abusive, and sometimes true and cutting edge about games was the source of a few posts with some very specific details about the upcoming Elder Scrolls V. These were reposted on the much more genial Quarter to Three, and passed on from there to me via a friend of mine.
The highlights:
I'm happy to say that one of my earlier suggestions about skill-based leveling may be implemented. Rather than major and minor skill foci (focuses? whatever), every skill leveled means you move one step closer toward leveling your character. That level increases base survival stats, and something that may be like Fallout's perk system, which sounds juicy. Skills, too, have been pared down from Morrowind and Oblivion. I guess it's a slow process figuring out what's less useful.
For combat it seems that players can now decide how you use weapons, shields, and spellcasting. If you want to have weapons in both hands, one hand with a weapon and one for spellcasting, or whatever else, these change what tools you have available during a fight. I really like this, but my natural desire to break things has me wondering if this means you'll be able to have two shields, or if having both hands open will improve spellcasting.
Quest beginnings might be more dynamic, where you run into people who were affected in some way by your actions before who act as triggers for new incidents; and it seems like people pop in to replace people who have died, though they have long memories. The example given in both sources quoted from the source linked at the bottom talk about a shopkeeper inheriting the shop from the previous owner, a man you murder. This person will still give you a quest that the original owner was supposed to give out, although she'll be angry at you... doesn't sound like much of a consequence for murder to me.
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Source
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Edited Update: Various Sources point to an official forum post stating that Fallout 3's scaling system will be the model for Skyrim, not Oblivion's system.
I'll keep posting new tidbits I find here if anyone's interested, although I'm betting some of the intrepid webcrawlers out there have already learned more than I have. :)
One of the biggest potential improvements, something I've been hoping to see ANYWHERE, is that the dynamic quest system acts as the director might in the Left 4 Dead series. You learn about new places you haven't seen through quests that are sprung on you through the course of play, and it keeps track of your playing style and adjusts what it does to fit you. Very neat, although potentially this cuts players out if they wind up unknowingly playing too similarly: what if my particular way of playing means I won't see as much content as I would otherwise? How much would I have to adjust my style to see more of what the game has to offer?