Moja

As for mods via DLC, that really depends on Microsoft/Sony, not on Bethesda. It might happen eventually but I wouldn't count on it for any time this year, and likely not even before the next gen consoles are launched. As for sreamlining... An example of good streamlining is removing explicit classes in Skyrim in favor of free-form leveling through the skills you actually use. An example of potentially bad streamlining is replacing 8 attributes with 3 if there's no way for the player to customize the variables originally controlled by attributes: the difference between max magicka and magicka regen, for instance. Maybe it's controlled by a perk or some cumulative count of your skill levels or whatever, but it removes the player another degree from personal custimization, which is bad. For flying dragons, you can use dragon shouts to take it down

Huh? I doubt that anyone would hateyou for that. But considering that this is (primary) a modding site, and skyrim is part of a series with a VERY strong modding community. Most are going to get even this game on PC so they can mod it. Oblivion with and without mods are pretty much 2 completely different games. If you ever hear any hate against consoles it is likely directed to the trend among developers to "streamline" games (read: dumb down) by focusing on the consoles first and foremost. The most recent example would be dragon age 2. But even most console players didn't like it. We don't hate you! If anything you have our pity for all the modded content you'll be missing... I only had Morrowind for console and it was fine though. Oblivion imo needed a lot more mods to make it work well. I think with Skyrim you'll still get good value playing the vanilla.

Not enough! I want to triple wield staves with my tail as a khajiit/argonian!!

Uhm.... If you watch actual gameplay footage, that alone is enough to tone down some of the claims of the article. Revolutionary AI isn't some guy standing still with sword drawn, staring stupidly at his companion who just got hit by an arrow. Much like Radiant AI of Oblivion, Radiant Story is going to be a great asset for modders, but I'm skeptical of how well Bethesda itself will do. It sounds too much like the old promises of Fable... I really hope the info about multiple fighting styles based on race/weight/etc. is true though... That's something I've wanted in TES games for ages: characters who are competent with weapons, with a bit more finesse than 5 year olds swinging sticks... Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised when the game comes out ^^

It's not difficult per se. Just extremely time consuming...

1) Depends on the thief... If he's some cold hearted killer I'm going to treat him differently than if he's an orphan stealing potions to heal his sick grandmother =P Need more info ^^

This is just speculation, but I would bet there are several factions for each Nordic "House" of Skyrim, since the country is in civil war.

Well if they had a platforming system in, then by all means acrobatics should be included. However they don't, so from my perspective it's reasonable to remove a mechanic that encourages you to jump everywhere you go instead of walking. And btw acrobatics wasn't only used to cheat. It was used to get to places that you otherwise couldn't (thief). Its proper place, imo, is as a platforming skill, ranging from the basics of climbing and hanging, to advanced maneuvers like swinging from pole to pole, wall jumping, and wall running. Considering Skyrim has zero platforming elements, acrobatics doesn't make much sense. Maybe one day....

I don't mind the removal of athletics and acrobatics due to the way they were levelled, since it encouraged weird situations like jumping everywhere you went. What I do mind is condensing 8 attributes into 3 IF there's no way to get the same level of customization elsewhere. Todd always uses the example of intelligence = magicka. Well that's great, but how do I differentiate between increasing my magicka pool vs increasing my regeneration? How do I speed up my rate of attack vs increasing the damage of each hit? How do I run faster or jump higher? It CAN all be done by perks, but my guess is it won't. And even if it is, it's much less clean than keeping attributes. I wouldn't mind if attributes were hidden, and levelled behind the scenes through skill use, with no direct user contact at all. But perks are too blunt an instrument for such fine degrees of customization.

You can create new worldspaces but they have to be linked by access points (doors, for example). This means that each worldspace has to be sealed off, and that's obviously a problem if it consists of a giant plain. Mountain passes and forests give opportunity for separating each space though, if necessary.

They could easily go through a loading screen through the top of the city... Maybe the city loads in all directions. Or they just might attack small towns/settlements which are open, and avoid the big cities. Or it could be a scripted event. Or they are clever enough to use doors! :O

The major cities in Skyrim will NOT be open. This comes directly from an interview with Todd where he was talking about what Bethesda could have done if they waited for a next-gen console.

Well if you consider how the character screen looks in Oblivion, where you can rotate your character 360 degrees, I'd think it would be the same thing. Hopefully they'll add Z axis rotation too, but it shouldn't require extra models or textures.

I would expect the menu to use the same model as the game... I have a hard time seeing Bethesda needlessly doing double work on item modeling.

o_O Would you need more space than Cyrodil? I imagine it would be possible to close off separate world spaces via mountain passes and/or impassable forests too, if necessary. Or even invisible walls over rivers. It's not pretty but it could be functional :) @OP: if you can assemble a team that is big enough and competent enough to make this feasible, I'll be happy to contribute for cities and quest creation.

That's more than enough. Here's a very useful resource I found when buying a laptop. It has desktop GPUs listed too, so in the page I'm linking just click the restrict button to desktops. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

Apparently the most coveted position for everyone is: Concept Artist! Considering I already have a basic knowledge of how scripting languages work, I wonder if it's worth learning the syntax of the languages in Oblivion and Fallout for modding in Skyrim... hm...

Good Luck using skills that don't exist!

Sure you can use it eventually to find content you wouldn't otherwise know about. But in the first playthrough of the game? The "magic compass of omniscience" is too much already for me personally ;).

Basically don't cheat? o_O Do people actually use those on the first playthrough? That's... sad...

In reality, attributes alone really didn't affect that much, and you needed to gain lose 20-40 points in some to even see any noticeable difference. Everything you just said, all it was actually controlled by other factors which only referenced attributes to get a base value... and even then... Attack speed was determined solely by weapon. Run speed was affected primarily by athletics skill with speed stat being primarily just a base. How high you jump was determined solely by acrobatics skill. Carry weight was strength based; but was almost always just an annoyance unless you increased the multipliers or boosted strength beyond normal limits. Magicka Regen rate was pretty much fixed or was not particularly affected by attributes. Magicka pool was determined by a magicka multiplier value which was hidden from you that merely used a "intellect" stat as a base for the multiplier but capped rather quickly based on race and was easier to augment with fortify spells/abilities/enchantments. Everything you just mentioned could be changed without any change to stats from some established base, and actually if that base remains constant those things can be easier to balance from a programming standpoint and allow for more meaningful ways of increasing those values; weapon skill, athletics, acrobatics, level/backpack items, level/magic skills, level/magic skills, respectively in addition to perks. Having carry weight separate from combat damage also means less chance of things becoming bugged when one is increased far beyond normal ranges. Acrobatics is gone. Athletics is gone. I know in Morrowind, attack speed was modified by attributes, maybe not in Oblivion. And maybe I'm just remembering from mods I was using, but I thought willpower influenced magicka regen rate. I just think there should be a difference between fighting styles. Swinging a sword very fast with small hits, vs slow, big hits. And a mage with 100 magicka and 20 regen/sec plays very differently from a mage with 500 magicka and 5 regen/sec. Yes you can add this retroactively if it's not in the vanilla game, but why sacrifice so much in the base build just because "mods will fix it"? I honestly don't care about the stats themselves, but if the degree of customization they represent is removed, then that's an issue.

That's essentially it... Think about how many times you started up Morrowind or Oblivion and chose a class just because it had major skills which were for a particular stat, or made a custom class just so that you would have a major skill or two in all stats. Think about how your next step was often to rank up skills which were not major skills but were needed for combat (eg going through most of the arena at level 1-4 with a light armor bladed emphesis when your major skills are heavy armor/blunt). Think about how badly you'd be getting beaten down by level 5 if you didn't, and all the extra skill spamming with spells, lockpicks, alchemy, speechcraft or hours spend pointlessly swimming around/jumping just to gain that extra 1-2 points needed to level or at level, get that +5 to an attribute. Loss of overt attributes means less micromanaging of levels and probably making the skills you do raise have a more direct effect. Sure, some people like micromanaging, planning out exactly how many times to raise a certain skill per level to maximize their overall gain in the least bit of time, treating everything in between as merely 'unimportant training' and who don't actually start playing the game until their stats are maxed, all their skills are above 80, and they've spent 40 hours of playtime rarely ever leaving a room (just like life). But, that sort of play doesn't make it fun. What makes it fun is the smooth progression in strength as your character develops facing one new challenge after another. Instead of removing attributes they could make them auto-level based on skill use, as was done in one variant of Kobus Character Advancement System mod (one I found indispensible to avoid this necessary powergaming). I'm worried that without attributes, there are a lot of things about your character that you can't control. How fast do you attack? How fast do you run? How high do you jump? How much can you carry? How fast does your magicka regenerate, and how big is your magicka pool?

If you have a good enough system, definitely get it for the PC. Why would you give up the ability to custom tailor the game to your preferences, and dramatically extend playable content and enhance the game quality? Personally I'm getting the PC version for the mods (and plan to do some modding of my own). I will be playing with a controller though. Best of both worlds imo :)

The interview was about exploring an alien culture/world in Morrowind vs a familiar one in Oblivion. That's not why Morrowind was better. It was the static world and the fact that things could actually kill you if you wandered into the wrong area, as opposed to everything levelling up with you and inundating the world with the rarest items.

Just because a skill has the same name doesn't mean it has to keep the same functionality. Rather than increasing jump height, leveling acrobatics could allow new moves (such as those listed). Moot point I suppose.