Skyrimmmmmmm!!

[Brush guy]

One day to go! Who's picking this up on launch day?

[Haggis]

I'll need to get a better PC first. Then I'll probably pick it up when everyone else has already played it, like I did with Oblivion.

[HaydenWCE]

I actually still need to get into the Elder Scrolls series; I've been ordered to do so by two of my closest friends (both of whom I probably won't be seeing for about a week, now that 'Skyrim''s been released ). So my experiencing of Skyrim' will be quite a way away yet, as I am certainly going to be playing 'Morrowind' and 'Oblivion' from start to finish before I even touch 'Skyrim'.

[Augustus]

I will be picking it up tomorrow. though other than the playthrough time I get this weekend, I might not really get a chance to do much until December.
And of course I'll have Batman by that time too.

Too bad you need to upgrade Haggis, at least the requirements are pretty reasonable. I can't believe the thing's only 6 GB.

[Haggis]

Too bad you need to upgrade Haggis, at least the requirements are pretty reasonable. I can't believe the thing's only 6 GB.

Yeah, I still have a single-core processor, that's my main problem with most of the newer games. And the size of the game apparently has something to do with the compression technique Bethesda used. Pretty impressive, since games like that tend to be huge.

[Artemius the Great]

Dagerfall is the best though it's really Buggerfall

[Augustus]

Well, Skyrim was actually sold out everywhere for PC on launch day, but I did manage to get my hands on it on Monday (normally, I'd just get it from Steam or something, but I really wanted a case to go next to Morrowind and Oblivion). Steam informs me that I've put 19 hours in, but I'm really enjoying it. It's definitely an improvement on Oblivion, as it feels more real and alive. There's more of a Morrowind feel to it. Personally, I think it looks gorgeous as it is (it's not on the level of the Witcher 2, but I think any complaints from reviews are invalid, particularly as the artistic style is varied and done well, though I'll certainly be applying some graphical improvement mods in the coming months).

The new levelling system makes much more sense, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with the headache of figuring out what to level in order to maximize attributes anymore. The lack of level scaling is also great. Sneaking and archery is working much better for me than before (so much so that I regret playing as a Nord, and wish I'd switched to Dark Elf or Argonian) and duel wielding is fun.

Dungeons and caves feel much more unique, the bigger quests have all been quite well done. But what I'm really happy about is hovering the mouse over an cave or fort icon will tell you if you've been there and cleared it, which was perhaps by biggest issue with Oblivion as I could never remember if I'd been inside something or simply discovered it.

Also, very impressed with the compression technique they used. These 20gb games are going to fill up my hard drive far too fast...it's nice to see a AAA game with less than 10gb.

[Fearless Flying Monkey]

I pre-ordered from Amazon so got it on launch day. God is that game very ugly without mods though. It's very consolized, with it's woefully bad interface on PC and it's extremely poor textures. That aside though it's a very fun game to play. Sadly in my opinion it still doesn't have Morrowind's pure sense of wonder and perfection. An despite what Augustus says there is scaling. Each dungeon is scaled dependant on the level you are when you enter it. Therefore for instance as a level 30 something I now encounter almost entirely Draugr Deathlords in dungeons rather than ordinary Draugrs. They use a lot more magic and have more powerful skills/weapons etc. The levelling system works well, and makes it more necessary to play through more than one playthrough. However, it doesn't stop every quest being completable without having certain pre-requistes. For example in Morrowind, you coudln't do the Mage's Guild questline without first having at least two skills in a magic displine a certain level. Skyrim doesn't do this, I think it should. And Augustus, I have a sense that it's mores that they've used poor quality textures and are running on an engine that's at least 5 years old that's not been updated all that much from Oblivion; over the compression techniques they have. Disc space isn't the issue it once was in PC's, considering you can get reasonable 1TB hard-drives for £40. I hate what consoles have done to this era's games.

[Augustus]

Sorry, my mistake about the level scaling. I didn't realize until a few hours later that the dungeons had changed. Still, I'm fine with that. Things should get harder, but wolves and rats shouldn't suddenly become tougher.

Oh, undoubtedly the textures and the engine (which has been changed, even if it's stil based on Gamebryo) contribute to its small space, but the thing is even smaller than Fallout 3 or New Vegas. I'm not really having a problem with the graphics though. If a mountain side or leaves on a branch are right in front of me they look pretty bad, but other than that I have no qualms with it (of course, this is coming from the guy who was graphically satisifed with KOTOR graphics and never really asked for much more). I'm glad it at least looks better than my heavily modded version of Oblivion in most places. No terrible pop-ins either, except for the sails on the windmills.