Talova

Seriously? Think for a second: does fallout 3 have an acrobatics or athletics skill? The reason they are taking these skills out is because they are mundane and they imbalance the game, just like the levitation, mark and recall abilities. In Morrowind and Oblivion you could gain an unfair advantage over enemies by jumping onto ledges out of their reach. You might also survive a fall down/climb up a structure you actually had to explore on the inside first, obstructing story progression. And what dignity is there in bewing rewarded for jumping everywhere you go? Or opting to never use fast travel lest you miss out on training time? Or being able to zip away from a scripted monster battle just because you felt like leaving? It just makes designing the story so much less painstaking if you know that all players will be able to "jump that ledge" or "not outrun that boss", and gives the level designers more breathing room.

In Morrowind it was possible to become a "Werepyre": half vamp half werewolf. But I remember that the werewolves were not independent creatures, they were all minions under Lord Hircine's "Blight". Maybe there will be a big side quest where Hircine returns due to the next rising of the Bloodmoon. I can't remember what the time frame was, but maybe the date on which Skyrim takes place coincides with a bloodmoon. Or it could be a quest that only becomes availible after completion of the main storyline. Vamps and werwolves do fight if they encounter each other but they really have no beef with one another other than survival instinct.

Shapeshifting magic (besides lycans) isn't included in ANY of the original lore related to magic. You pick up on these limitations if you read any of the hundreds of books found in Oblivion or Morrowind. You might be able to augment your abilities or actions, but never shapeshift. There are many mods for shapeshifting though.

It really is rediculous that any reporter would not take such an opportunity to ask some really important questions. The trick is that you have to wedge the presenter into a corner, just like any other politician, and adress as many factors as possible at once in a single question. What's the worst anyone can do to you for asking an honest question? For instance, instead of asking: "Mr. Howard, will x equal y?" or: "Will x be included in the game?" ask: "Mr. Howard, did this factor contribute to your design choices for feature x?" or: "Will your changes to feature x affect features a, b and c in this specific way?" or: "Were these your goals involved with the experience portrayed through feature x?" or: "Did factor y or z make you decide to change feature x?" For god's sake, you don't ask the minister of finances: "Will money be spent on education this quarter?" You ask him: "Will THIS SPECIFIC MOTHALUVIN AMOUNT BE SPENT!?"

Male Khajiit, pure mage, light armor, only a dagger otherwise.

But if you look at Xbox360 vs PS3 screenshots and vids for FO3, the textures look better on Xbox. PS3 has the advantage of blu-ray, but in general it's just too hard to program for to get truly optimised results in comparison to Microsoft systems. Loading times are also much longer on console, even when you install the games to your hard drive.

Personally I think the requirements won't be much higher than that of FO3. I mean, look at Crysis 2. The minimum requirements were lower than that of Crysis 1 simply because it was released on the consoles this time, rather than being PC exclusive. My whole question was based around this design choice. Case in point, if your rig can run a game like Crysis 2/ Fallout 3/ Force Unleashed 2, you will be able to run skyrim, because these games test the limits of both consoles.

Oh, pleease hear me out :D Individual Vampire and werewolf quest lines, which were sorely absent from Oblivion :P Also biologically correct beast races, with the elongated ankles. Oh yeah, and tell them to add graphics options for highter resolution bump maps on creature fur, scales and skin, and to add overlays to human skin for better customisation. Good luck, and may the Nine guide your footsteps. Insist on a private beta! ;)

I've spent the last while really racking my brains over the new engine Bethesda is implementing into Skyrim. When we look at the difference in performance between Oblivion and Fallout 3 on equal pc's, it feels strange that a game like FO3 would run better with its higher graphics. So obviously the engine has become more optimised. But Oblivion ran like crap on both consoles. So where did Bethesda optimise (or sacrifice) to make this exponentially intenser game even runnable on the aging console hardware? 'Cos I don't see how it's gong to work.