Hi everyone, I went to the Eurogamer convention today and just got back home. Well as you can imagine the first thing I did was go to the Skyrim booth, while waiting I did too some of the staff for Bethesda, they told me that the current build they were showing was the promotion build and is the June edition, so as you can imagine there would be a lot of bugs so I'm going to start with the bad first...
1: Screen tearing (I think that's been fixed in the newer builds)
2: One player had the trouble of low frame rate, this lasted for roughly 8 seconds and then sorted itself
3: The loading screen is a little too long for comfort for me, but I'm sure this will be fixed and I'm sure PC users won't experience this
4: There was an issue with an invisible door where you could see the door handles floating but nothing else.
5: Heading far south I did notice an extreme issue with the water where it sort of connected with the land, I at first thought I was stepping on ground and then fell in water. (can't explain any better)
6: The textures were in my opinion not great, on close inspection the textures like the wall, items and everything were really really flat.
7: The LOD was pretty poor, I was perhaps 12 ft away and all of a sudden a treasure chest just appeared.
8: (This I blame on the TV, the resolution, contrast and brightness were terrible. Everything was jagged, the LOD was pix-elated and the dungeons were really bright, I know this is due to the TV because a: They told me that they are not on 1080p or 720p but rather 480p! also the TV's were terrible, barely even HD, and the brightness was set too high.
Ok now onto the actual gameplay, now my first playthrough didn't go too well I played an Orc, I went through to Riverwood and I heard the old lady scream out about the dragons as heard in the Skyrim Demo, the only difference was that the voices had changed. I then went through into a bar, being daytime still only the owners were inside, I was greeted by a funny argument between the husband and wife, the wife was moaning about having low stocks about a certain ingredient to which the husband was ignoring her and in the end said "yes I know" and she replied "so you don't have potatoes in your ears" I then spoke to the husband and asked about any rumours to which he replied that a certain somebody (can't remember the name) is searching for the Dark Brotherhood.
After leaving the bar I went outside and headed north again and on my way I killed a few wolves and bandits, finally I stumbled upon guards escorting a stormcloak prisoner and when I went upto the prisoner I had the option to set him free or set him free and give him items. I decided to set him free to which the three guards responded by attacking me and the prisoner, I have to say it was an impossible match! They killed the prisoner in less than 10 seconds and almost got me but thank Sithis a wolf came out of no where an began attacking the guards while I tried to escape, I then tried to run away but the guards quickly killed the wolf and began pursuing me yet again, almost dying I decided to use my heal spell and to my shock one of the guards yelled out "we can't win this" and began to flee only to return yet again.
Finally managing to escape thanks to more wolves and a horse I found and stole I came across a man sitting outside a cave calling for help, when I went up to him he told me that him and his partner were trying too collect bear pelts but had a little trouble. I decided to enter the cave and the first thing I came across was a Spriggan (and they look amazing, so dark and evil looking) the spriggan attacked me with bees and seemed to have some sort of camouflage power where it would turn invisible and reappear again. Finally being able to kill it I continued on however I then got attacked by a bear, an oh my god they're tough! I died twice from the same bear, I was able to kill bandits, a pack of wolves and a spriggan but the bear was the only thing able to kill me. Getting pissed off I went outside one the game loaded up again and decided to kill the man that sent me in there, expecting a battle I held down the attack trigger to find that my character had done an instant finisher, the move was something I never saw, basically my character shoved his sword into the NPCs guts and then quickly pulled the sword back out. Then my 20 minutes were up.
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Time for my second and much more improved playthrough;
This time I played as a Nord (couldn't be asked to waste time with character Gen again)
The nords power is a battlecry which makes all enemies fear you and temporarily runaway. Playing this time I headed south towards Falkreath, One thing is that you cannot cut through like in Oblivon, I actually had to do a lot of jumping and taking a lot of turns to get to my destination. While walking on a road I passed by a Dark Elf who said, "out my way I'm on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Azure" this caught my attention and I stopped running and went back to him and asked him where the shrine was, he responded by saying the far North East and that he will mark it on my map. When I looked on my map I saw that it was straight east from Windhelm, seeing that it was too far away I continued my original journey, I made it too Falkreath and on a cultural level it was a slightly bigger version to Riverwood, the same building designs and that. Entering the town I walked passed a woman who said "Dont judge us stranger, the war has take a lot from us" I then decided too wait until night time and enter a bar again, this time there were more people inside drinking and talking.
I found a bard and asked him to sing me a song too which he went to a corner and began to chant a tale of some ancient hero, From the crowd two people got up to listen too him and once he finished he received a round of applause. I then spoke to him and asked him about his background and he told me about how he studied at the Bard's college and then I got a quest update sending me to the Bard's college.
Getting bored of talking I decided to attack the cleaner, Many drew their swords, others flee'd, I managed to hold my own until 6 guards came in and began to attack. Having little room to fight I went outside and ran into any building, upon entering I noticed that I was in the Jarls house (I think, I read it on the corner of my eye, it looked royal enough and there was a throne) Being outmatched I sheathed my weapon and the guards gathered around me and the dialogue opened up giving me the options to resist arrest or oblige and go prison. Wanting to see what a prison looked like I accepted.
Too my disappointment prisons are no different to Oblvion, the only different I could see was that a guard kept on coming in too check up on me. Breaking my only lockpick I decided to just wait on the bed for my time.
Coming out I decided to leave the town and continue ahead, I came across a novice Necromancer who resurrect a dead Imperial woman, the dead Imperial was easy to kill and upon death she disintegrated into an ash pile, the Necromancer attacked me with an Ice spell to which I responded with a fire spell broken ruin with three Orcs outside defending. I dispatched with them easily, Weakening one Orc he cried mercy and attempted to flee.
After killing all the Orcs I entered through the building and killed many more Orcs. Unfortunally that was the end of my 20 minutes.
Misc:
1: While playing it began to rain, rain still goes through walls, so that excuse about it being a shout is now debunked.
2: While waiting for my second turn somebody actually found an underwater cave!
3: Another person was able to find the entrance too the Dark Brotherhood hideout, she couldn't get in because she didn't know the password.
4: On my first playthrough I did not notice getting any bounty what so ever.
5: Looking through the game options I saw the game was set to Novice, below that was Acolyte and below that was Adept (not sure if order is accurate)
6: Only had 3 starting spells, healing, fire plus the power from each race.
7: The loading screen stated that Imperial still have the Emperor's voice power
8: (may have read wrong) The loading screen stated that worship of Talos is now forbidden in the empire (doesn't make sense seeing as he was an emperor, but that's what I read)
8a: Following the above I did come across a statue of Talos outside, next to the statue was a dead worshiper so maybe the guards killed him for worshiping.
9: I never heard the same voice twice on my 40 minute playthrough, the voice acting was much better to Oblivion's in my opinion but I did miss the distinct voices I've come too know
9a: The dark elf who was on a pilgrimage to Azura's shrine seemed to have a posh, sophisticated voice, this worried me because I was hoping every Dunmer would be raspy.
10: I used the racial power as a nord, the affects were similar to Fus ro duh bit with a different scream
11: To show you how old the build was, there was no music what so ever
12: I'm 100 percent sure many of the ugly grahpics were due to the TV, like I said it wasn't even true HD
13: Also the gameplay was soooo amazing that I didn't care about the graphics at all.
14: Still had trouble fighting in 3rd person
15: Jumping animation is improved but still not perfect
16: The swimming animation was terrible, it kinda looked worse than Oblvions to be honest
17: I managed to dual wield the fire spell without a perk
18: The last perk for destruction was to use all destructive spells at half the magicka cost
19: There is a decap perk for two handed as well.
20: I asked about the PC version and the staff responded by saying they had yet to see it
21: I asked about the return of Maiq but they didn't know either.
22: Combat is much more improved, you have to play it to feel and see the difference from Oblivion
23: Enemies did stagger
24: One of the staff did say that there is ONE dragon in the current build, hidden and impossible to reach in 20 minutes
