Elder Scrolls V!!!

[MageRage]

I for it personal...
Also I heard somthing about "Dragons"... anybody else????

[endboss]

I don't like reduction in skills from an aesthetic point of view, but I can see how it could work. Instead of Blade and wtf-Blunt we could get a one-handed and two-handed skill. One-handed could also cover block, or block could be merged into the armor skills (after all shields were either light or heavy). Speechcraft is kind of useless in these games. You either bribe or charm people and there isn't much RPGing to be done in dialog. If they don't expand mercantile somehow it is pretty useless as well. The personality attribute could cover all the character and shop interactions. Acrobatics and athletics could be merged with no great loss. We know they got rid of mysticism - which makes sense as its effects could easily be rolled into the other magic schools (most likely alteration).

[BlueSky]

No opinion yet....
but will probably buy and play, no matter what kind of game it turns out to be.

[Tenser]

Err, I am utterly confused by people obsessed with the number and kind of skills.

And about different medieval weapons:

Yes [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhknaG9ifbs"]warhammers[/url], battle axes and maces are pretty much exactly the same kind of weapon. The only difference between them is the form of the head of the weapon. But they are always unbalanced, they are swung and thus develop a very high impact in a very small area, thus being able to penetrate even plate armor. I once read in a book that warhammers have been very popular in the 15. century, and the YouTube link shows nicely why.

Clubs however are very different from axe, warhammer and mace, as they arent unbalanced. Their weight is mostly evenly distributed, resulting in a very clumsy weapon. The impact point is also not especially focussed, but distributed on a line, more like a sword. All in all a very ineffective weapon, in comparison quite useless against anyone in decent padding (which, contradictionary to popular belief, is worn under any chain and under any plate armor).

Flails and Morning stars are improvements of the ordinary club, but too ineffective against plate armor. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flail_%28weapon%29"]Flails are mostly twohanded weapons really.[/url] Morning stars where quite popular for a while, around the time of the crusades, but against plate armor they are pretty pointless.

Halberds are mostly spears. Like those, they are balanced.

Swords are balanced in a special way. The center of mass of a sword of quality is on the blade, about 2 cm from the guard. Such a sword can be swung almost effordly and perform most complicated maneuvers at high speed. This makes swords so popular, but it also results in them having rather little impact, which is a problem especially against plate armor.

Swords come in different versions. Curved swords aka scimitars are most effective against unarmored or only lightly armored opponents. Thats why Japanese swords are practically always curved. Iron was rare in Japan, so nobody used metal armor.

The most effective sword against an unarmored opponent would however be the rapier, as this is an extremely fast weapon. The reason the Japanese didnt thought of that was that the developed a weapon one could use from horseback.

Straight swords are a little bit slower, but develop more impact. Thats why medieval swords are often straight. This was however not enough once knights started wearing plate armor. This lead to german fencing techniques focussing on hitting the gaps in the armor. However, very good plate armor, such as the famous armor of King Henry VIII, pretty much doesnt have such gaps.

Plate armor made shields superflous. Especially italian plate armor is unbalanced - the left side is substantly heavier and more protective than the right side, thus serving as a shield. German designs where kept equally balanced instead, but the germans developed the famous fluted armor, resulting in armor as light as battle armor, but as resistant as tournament armor.

This made the useage of twohanded weapons possible, which resulted in the design of the twohanded greatsword, a very flexible weapon of excellent range that can be used in many different ways, including like a spear, and can develop very high impact.

Besides, contrary to popular belief, plate armor wasnt made useless by guns. Warfare itself changed. Instead of a rich elite of knights fighting on the battlefield the mass of the population was now fighting there, and they simply couldnt afford expensive plate armors. It wasnt until about the end of the 18. century that guns became so strong that plate armor was rendered useless against it. IIRC there is a famous piece of plate armor somewhere on display that protected someone named Prince Eugen from a gunshot, long after the end of the "dark ages".

Realistic combat based on what we know of medieval weapons and armor would however be very restricting. Everyone would just wear the finest maximillian fluted armor and the best twohanded swords, as these are simply the climax of medieval warfare knowledge.

So assuming we would have a realistic set of skills for weapon useage, that would probably be:

Fist, Knife, Club
Spear
Flail, Morning Star
Battle Axe, Warhammer, Mace
Scimitar, Sword
Greatsword
Rapier

[endboss]

I'm not sure what side you were arguing for, but I enjoyed reading your analysis.

[BlueSky]

I just read something the other day........ can't remember where...... but Todd Howard mentioned how they were going in a new direction with the art style. I'm hoping it's a return to Morrowind-style "uniqueness" instead of a Dragon Age 2 kind of thing. I really need to find time to listen to the new podcast and see what they said.

Same thoughts here.....
One playthrough of DA was enough for me...no interest in going back..
dl'ed the demo on Xbox for DA II and now with the news of Skyrim...
Well lets just say I probably won't be in the market for DA II

[TAKR86]

Thanks for a very interesting and thorough analysis Tenser. My study of history has never lead to any thorough analysis of weapons and their evolution, as I have always looked at war from a cultural or social perspective, but it is always nice to read something informative about this subject.

When I criticised the merging of axes and blunt weapons, I thought of it in terms of the impact and since an axe has a blade, it just didn't fit my understanding of what kind of impact it would do compared to say a mace.

In regards to the effectiveness of armor in terms of defending against guns; I too know of an armor in the Tøjhus Museum in Copenhagen (perhaps worn by Christian IV - 1577-1648) that seems to have protected it's wearer from a bullet, it has sort of dent where a bullet seems to have hit it, but not penetrating to the actual body of the wearer. This seems to support your claim.

Evolution in warfare seems to me a very important way of looking at the use of weapons through history. Fx the widespread use of the pike - a cheap and simple weapon to use - made it easier for peasants to participate in warfare and to do so in a very effective way, as it countered the traditional heavy cavalry fighting of the Middle Ages. This was a hard lesson to learn for some of the danish kings campaigning in the 15th and 16th century, as they often clinged to the heavy cavalry head-on-charge.

To Lemmus what you describe is true, but a very ideal-typical way of warfare. There are countless of examples through history, that shows how light armoured infantry took on and defeated heavy infantry. In antiquity heavy infantry could and often was taken out by: 1. attacks from throwing spears and 2. attacking the heavy infantry from the weak points (the rear and the left and right sides of the formation - basically anywhere they could take them by suprise). The pitched battle is a somewhat theoretical concept sometimes (not always!) contradicted by historical evidence (if you need any feel free to ask , which shows commanders using cunning tactics and versatile use of their forces.

Back to the game; now that I think about it (my thoughts about this and many other games change sometimes -fickle as I can be ), I guess it doesn't really matter if there are 27 or 19 skills. What made Morowind a great game was the complex society, history and theology. All of which we were in some way or the other placed within. It wasn't necesarily choices (of which there aren't many) or skills that made it a truly immersive experience, but the overall complex world we were placed within. If Bethesda can create that again, I think they will have gone a long way towards creating a game I will thoroughly enjoy.

[werebeargoddess]

Honestly, I can't wait. I found out about it I think around the time it got announced. Ive seen the trailer, and the graphics look great.

As far as Morrowind and Oblivion go, while I definitely prefer Morrowind to Oblivion, I still like Oblivion. I've never modded it either, and for some reason I don't have the same issues with Oblivion as so many others seem to have (though, I have yet to actually complete a playthrough of Oblivion, all of my previous attempts stopped for one reason or another)

[Fljotsdale]

The Elder Scrolls, at least in my opinion, is about freedom and exploration. So, Oblivion was an Elder Scrolls game since it stuck to this formula. However, the world surrounding it, you know - the thing that you actually want to have freedom in and go exploring - fell far short, making it a very weak entry in the series.

Now I'm not faulting you for not liking Morrowind. I personally didn't like Daggerfall that much - never even finished it. I also found Battlespire to be very fun, and count Redguard as one of my favorite games of all time, when a ton of people hate both and can't get over the faults in those games. I'm just saying it is just frankly wrong to call Morrowind and Oblivion the same game.

I like Oblivion. Yeah, sure, I'm rather bored with it now, but I've had a hell of a lot of fun! I also loved Daggerfall to bits. The only real difficulty I had with it it were the dungeon maps... very difficult to trace your way around them until you got used to the format, and even then I hated those 'maps'... bleahh. On the other hand, I was terrified when monsters snuck up behind me or dodged out round corners - cool! :laugh:

As for Battlespire - yes, I liked it, but found it hard initially with equipping your char and stuff, and you had to be very careful to make her capable of dealing with some pretty tough opponents very early on.

And yeah - I loved every last little bit of Redguard!

And I really find it hard to wait for Skyrim!

[Fljotsdale]

I hope it is better than Oblivion - Oblivion was the RPG equivalent of Playboy... sure it looks Hot to start with, but once the eyes have glazed over (admittedly that takes a long time of going Wow, Ewww, Neat!)... you realise there is only one good Article (Dark Bortherhood), the Editorial sucks (main quest), it is the same 5 models (erm.. the same 5 faces and voice actors and conversations) and you feel dirty when you think of how long you spent on it (unsatisfying Level system) and you feel dirty when you go back years later to find the pages stuck together (Never in an open world has there been so little new to do each time you play it!) Then you browse round the internet and see a lot of 'do it yourself stuff' that is like so much better! (Windfall, thing with the Archeology Guild etc).

Morrowind was fun... but now looking back at the Vanilla game it is like getting your kicks looking through a mail order catalogue... Ugly models... OOOOh look at the Shiny Shiny Water!"

Yep, the same faces, the same voices, the identical boring conversational gambits in the streets - and wondering WHY they have streets with pavements and roads when there is no traffic, not even the odd horse - but all the same, I liked the quests, mostly (not Fighter's Guild), and it always got to me, as well, that the urgent Main Quest could be left hanging while you played around...

[Fljotsdale]

- How can you possibly classify axes as blunt weapons? .

Totally agree! Stupid definition of a cutting tool.

[Fljotsdale]

I don't like reduction in skills from an aesthetic point of view, but I can see how it could work. Instead of Blade and wtf-Blunt we could get a one-handed and two-handed skill. One-handed could also cover block, or block could be merged into the armor skills (after all shields were either light or heavy). Speechcraft is kind of useless in these games. You either bribe or charm people and there isn't much RPGing to be done in dialog. If they don't expand mercantile somehow it is pretty useless as well. The personality attribute could cover all the character and shop interactions. Acrobatics and athletics could be merged with no great loss. We know they got rid of mysticism - which makes sense as its effects could easily be rolled into the other magic schools (most likely alteration).

I've always thought that Personality/Mercantile could be lumped together as 'Charm' or 'Charisma'.

Edit: Darn. I meant Speechcraft/Mercantile

[Fljotsdale]

Honestly, I can't wait. I found out about it I think around the time it got announced. Ive seen the trailer, and the graphics look great.

As far as Morrowind and Oblivion go, while I definitely prefer Morrowind to Oblivion, I still like Oblivion. I've never modded it either, and for some reason I don't have the same issues with Oblivion as so many others seem to have (though, I have yet to actually complete a playthrough of Oblivion, all of my previous attempts stopped for one reason or another)

I like Oblivion, too. I felt that Morrowind was more immersive, but graphics were dreadful. Oblivion has good graphics, and I do like good graphics. On the other hand, if a game is good, graphics are not really an issue.
I keep stopping and restarting Oblivion, as well, but I have played it all, including most of the minor quests, several time.
The reasons for stopping a char?
I was dissatisfied with the class I created;
I got tired of the name I'd given him/her;
She/he got too good and waltzed it;
I found I couldn't stand the face I'd made;
............ :laugh:

I hope Skyrim has better facial creation graphics.

[werebeargoddess]

I like Oblivion, too. I felt that Morrowind was more immersive, but graphics were dreadful. Oblivion has good graphics, and I do like good graphics. On the other hand, if a game is good, graphics are not really an issue.
I keep stopping and restarting Oblivion, as well, but I have played it all, including most of the minor quests, several time.
The reasons for stopping a char?
I was dissatisfied with the class I created;
I got tired of the name I'd given him/her;
She/he got too good and waltzed it;
I found I couldn't stand the face I'd made;
............ :laugh:

I hope Skyrim has better facial creation graphics.

Yeah, Morrowind's graphics weren't that great, but it never really bugs me because I enjoy the game so much. As far as Oblivion goes, I usually end up losing interest and go play a different game. The one time I did get through most of the main quest, I ended up losing my saves because the computer it was installed on crashed or something, and we lost everything on it.

[galraen]

I find the slagging off of Morrowind's graphics extremely puzzling; presumably people doing so have never played any computer games more that were contemporary with it, let alone ones that pre-dated it. I also presume that they find games like Dragon Age far too ugly to be bearable to look at.

[Fljotsdale]

I find the slagging off of Morrowind's graphics extremely puzzling; presumably people doing so have never played any computer games more that were contemporary with it, let alone ones that pre-dated it. I also presume that they find games like Dragon Age far too ugly to be bearable to look at.

Heheh! :laugh: no, I think Daggerfall was probably my first real game. Graphics looked ok to me at the time... That and Albion.
Loved Albion. Didn't give a fig about the graphics and the 'tabletop' format (which I normally hate, and is why I find it hard to get into a lot of games) and the way the conversations were plastered all over the picture, and the way the characters all moved identically in a line, one behind the other...),.

So I know about graphics on older games. Which is why I love good graphics. :laugh:

Oh, and I've not played Dragon Age, so I dunno.

[Anicsin]

Hmmm I'm looking forward for Skyrim... i hope they won't change the old system too much, and they dig up some things from Morrowind. I loved the last three games, since i couldn't play arena i don't have an opinion about it.
The biggest question for me is the combat system... in the trailer it looked really dynamic, I'm really excited!