first thoughts

[linglingbingo]

Well mixed feelings so far, 18 hours played and not sure what i think, still that restricted view from both 1st and 3rd person , combat though much better with kill moves and video footage sorry still feels too hack and slash not enough control, was hoping it was more like assassins creed which in may option has much better movement and control and why cant we fight on horse back ? and why does my horse fight annoying ! lol , i sound like a right moaner !

 

But we,ve waited 6 years for this and i love the games and bethesda, value for money no better company, but still graphic crashes im suffering anytime there is a lighting storm and in afew dungeons ive had some bad graphic glitches.

 

Alright got that out my system, lol , ive only played 18 hours and may be jumping the gun on afew issues, over all its looking good 18 hours speaks for itself, lol.

 

Im interested in what you guys first thoughts are ?

[elvinkun]

I think the game itself if pretty much what I though it will be.... Very good. The UI is really bad, but i got used to it... Now just that freaking lazy mouse. Still can't look up and down fast. And no solution.

[bben46]

Only about 6 hours playing so far. And most of that trying to figure out the UI.

The good stuff:

The scenery is gorgeous. I was blown away. :biggrin:

The water is just amazing, By far the best I have seen, even with mods, in any other game. :yes:

The people look good, but dirtier than I would like - (this is already being addressed in mods)

Forts look like forts, and not just a tower used to mark the location of an underground cave system with cut stone walls.

The towns and villages are great, very medieval and look like the designers actually went and looked at real medieval towns first. :thumbsup:

You can actually walk the battlements of the towns and fire down at attackers outside.

The armor and clothing are very detailed - right down to the leather strips used to tie them together.

It has chickens. :tongue:

 

 

The bad:

 

As many problems as the Oblivion UI had right out of the box, after playing Skyrim for 6 hours I realize that it can get worse - MUCH worse. Beth saddled us PC players with a poor imitation of a console UI. :mad: I want the Oblivion UI back, even with it's problems it was far superior to this. I have great hopes for a mod to do something with this.

The Default control for PC is a game pad http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f351/charonn0/ohgeez-1.gifWith only a minimal amount of accommodation for those (90%) who use a keyboard/mouse on PC. After Bethsoft PROMISED that Skyrim for PC wouldn't just be another cheap quickie console port. Except for the better graphics - That's exactly what I see. I'm sure the intent was to make the Console and PC 'Look' the same - but why. :psyduck:

 

The inventory is a mess. I find it difficult to find what I am looking for and use or equip it properly with the gamepad centric type setup. Tab to Open screen, select items, select weapons, Picking weapons from the left side, then tab to close the screen, tab to reopen the screen, selecting magic, it appears on the right side. - Looks like another opportunity for a mod here.

 

Favorites - a good idea - poorly implemented. Awkward to use what should have been a simple concept. Use Q to open favorites and then use click to select favorites, then press number key while clicked to assign that favorite to it - often doesn't work. Then - press number to equip - often brings up previous selection instead of the one you assigned, press again and it brings up proper stuff- usually. :rolleyes:

 

Dual wielding - great - but ... it was not very intuitive to use as the right mouse button controlled my left arm, and vice versa ( Easy to change though :thumbsup:)

 

I have yet to get a spell to cast properly. I equip a spell in my right hand and click - I see the fire in the hand, the hand moves and no spell is cast. (Learned this is a bug and I MUST use only the left hand to cast spells until somebody fixes it.) :whistling:

 

I haven't seen many creatures yet, But the wolves look really cartoonish. (I foresee a mod for this). The 'Skeevers' (AKA giant rats) are a little better, but still need a mod. The one Giant I encountered, looked a little undefined. But I didn't really get a good look before he swatted me over the center field wall. :wacko:

 

Killing a chicken gets the same penalty as killing a person everyone attacks and tries to kill you. Wouldn't it make more sense for an angry farmer to demand payment instead of death for the loss of a chicken? :pinch:

 

When you change a key - the UI doesn't change the name of the key. I swapped the use (E) with the jump (space) to make it more like the Oblivion Keys I was used to, and even though the change works, the game still says 'press E to open container' when I really need to press space.

 

Overall, besides the lame UI, I have been enjoying the game so far. I haven't been able to do much yet as I seem to spend most of my time trying to get the UI to do what I want - That may be more me than the game though. :blush:

[Iv000]

After ~7 hours of playing, I can say that it exceeded my expectations.

The environments are absolutely face melting.

The combat is a lot better then what I expected. (The magic is sooo fun!)

The quest design is amazing, I have never seen quests done in such a creative way.

The game is really well optimized. Although there are some FPS slowdowns in towns with a lot of people (Especially Markath).

The sound and dialogue quality is outstanding.

I seem to be lucky, since I have not encountered any of the major bugs people are talking about. Ragdoll physics are too strong though, but that's easy to fix. And I can't seem to rotate items in my inventory.

The only minus is that the UI is a bit messy, the mouse isn't working for most of the UI. I'm hoping to see a mod that makes all of the UI in real time, pressing Q and swapping weapons, drinking potions in mid combat is over powered.

 

I'm extremely satisfied with the game, the game is worth a lot more then just 60$. It's a masterpiece.

[Marthos]

 

I want the Oblivion UI back, even with it's problems it was far superior to this.

 

The inventory is a mess. I find it difficult to find what I am looking for and use or equip it properly with the gamepad centric type setup.

 

 

Agreed.

 

I'm thoroughly enjoying the game (will enjoy it more when AMD sort out some decent x-fire profiles for it) and think that Beth has done a great job in many areas and have given us a fantastic platform for future modding.

 

But that UI is terrible, especially when you get a lot of stuff in your inventory, I'd also be happier to have the Oblivion version back.

 

One other thing I've noticed is with spellcasting, I'm a spell healer and a bow is my main weapon, but to cast a healing spell I have to unequip the bow, cast the spell and then re-equip the bow, where as in Oblivion you just hit C and carried on perforating your enemy, is it possible to reasign casting spells to something other than the mouse button ?

[JimboUK]

For me....

 

Pros....

 

The scenery is fantastic, there are some wonky textures here and there but they don't detract from the overall picture.

The combat is a huge improvement over Oblivion.

The quests so far have been good.

The NPCs are a lot more interesting.

The dialogue is far better than the bland dialogue we had in Oblivion.

For me the game is a lot more stable.

The dungeons are far better, they don't have the copy/paste or the empty feeling they did in Oblivion.

The water is amazing, not only does it look great but the current also effects your character. I went to run across the top of a waterfall and was swept over.

 

Cons...

 

The UI is appalling, it's one of the worst I've ever used.

There's something wrong with the mouse, it's ridiculously slow. My mouse lets me adjust the DPI on the fly so I used that to get around it.

Left mouse button for the right hand, right for the left hand, well done whoever came up with that gem.

The inventory is garbage.

Not really sure about the new levelling system, one perk per level doesn't feel enough.

 

Overall I'm enjoying it, Bethesda do seemed to have listened to a lot of the criticism they got over Oblivion (fanboys take note, complaining does work.)