Following on from the previous bit of news on Skyrim, revealed by Todd Howard during an interview with German website Gamewelt, is yet another Todd Howard interview, this time with Norwegian magazine Gamer.no. Thanks to the fine users on the Bethesda Software forums, we have a translation of this interview (part 1, part 2), and a load of info about the dragons we will be encountering in Skyrim.
Dragons
There is an unlimited number of dragons in the game. On top of scripted encounters there will be a limitless supply of random dragon encounters generated throughout the game. “One of our designers actually put in a random event [which] I encountered, where I ended up being chased by three dragons and I thought ‘who the hell did this?’” said Howard.
All of the dragons speak, and this is actually what causes them to spout fire. There are some dragons that can speak the ‘common tongue’ and interact with people. IT has also been hinted that in order to kill a dragon one must take its soul. Howard would not reveal more on these points.
Shouts
Players will be Dragonborn – Bethesda hasn’t revealed too much information on what this means exactly, as they want to save it for when people play the game. We do know that it means the player-character has the soul of a dragon – a gift from the gods. This means that players are capable of slaying dragons and also communicating in their tongue.
Howard says that they still haven’t decided whether or not players will be able to ride dragons.
This also means they have the ability of ‘Dragon shouts’ which can be used as offensive/defensive combat enhancements. There are “about 20’ shouts so far, each with three levels of power. There may be more added before the game is released. The game will automatically combine shouts when possible, to remove confusion, to paraphrase Howard. The shouts will be balanced by cooldowns; a powerful shout means a long cooldown, so one must use them wisely.
Environment and settings
There are nine different regions, each ruled by its Earl. There are five major cities throughout these regions, and Howard promises that each is very unique. There are about eight or nine small towns and villages scattered throughout the regions. There are about seven distinct environments to be explored in Skyrim, including glaciers, tundras, autumnal forests and volcanic terrain. Click through to read more about the environments in Skyrim.
It is possible for players to buy an as yet unspecified number of houses.
Players will be able to kill an entire city of NPCs if they feel so inclined. Howard said that it took months of development planning to make this possible, likely because of the Radiant AI implementation that accommodates the death of key NPCs.
The game world is about the same size as Oblivion, but Howard indicates that because of the mountainous terrain and the natural paths it forms, the actual traversable area is probably less. However, he continues by saying that making progress through this environment is more challenging, so it may indeed seem bigger than Oblivion.
Skills
There are 21 different skills and three core attributes: magic, health, stamina. Howard explains that this simplified attribute levelling system has refined the levelling process and players will no longer have to “detour” through various attributes in order to level their overall prowess. One simply levels magic if they desire better magic skills. As has previously been mentioned, weapon skills are tied to the continued use of weapons.
Howard says that it is up to the player how they combine their various skills and attributes. To unlock the best perks, one will have to invest in particular skills. Howard added that the new system has first and foremost allowed players to change their minds about how they level their character.
Superfluous skills such as ‘athletics’ and ‘acrobatics’ have been removed. Howard explains that these were simply encouraging boring repetitive actions. Likewise, the ability to abuse levelling through actions such as casting ‘unlock door’ 50 times on the same door has also been removed.
Howard said that levelling should happen a bit faster than in Fallout 3 and Oblivion. He said that the mathematical limit to levelling is probably around level 70.
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