Why one guy doesn’t believe Skyrim is cold.

Brendan Keogh at GameRanx has penned an editorial in which he discusses how, in at least one key way, Skyrim failed to provide a sense of immersion:

I was told that Skyrim was a harsh, desolate region, whose terrifying weather chiseled the toughest men and women in all of Tamriel. But then I walk its mountains and cities and I see adults and children alike strolling through a blizzard in sleeveless attire, not even flinching. My character swims in arctic conditions and doesn?t even gasp. I?ve come across bandit camps that are bedrolls completely exposed to the elements beside a campfire that couldn?t possibly be burning without an unhealthy dose of napalm. There is a whole heap of snow in Skyrim but there is no cold.

It sounds nitpicky, to be sure, but the lack of coldness is the only challenge I face in believing in Skyrim as a real, diegetic, internally consistent place. Everything is so intrinsically connected?politically, geographically, historically?to make the province feel consistent and real that to overlook the element that makes Skyrim and its Nords so infamously tough?the fact it is cold?seems like a massive oversight.

Having not yet played Skyrim for myself, I can’t speak to this…but what happens in the game when, whilst standing in the middle of a supposedly frozen plain, you doff all your armour and stand around in your skivvies? Do you take damage from the bitter cold, as was the case in Serpent Isle when you sent an ill-equipped party too far into the northern lands of that ill-fated island?

Oh…wait:

Skyrim needed to show the hardships its weather forces on its people. Not just a blizzard, but a blizzard that affects people. It didn?t have to be much. It just needed NPCs to shiver when they are standing still during a snowfall. Have a bandit camping in the woods wear something with sleeves and sleep on something warmer than an old bedroll. Make me believe that this is a harsh, frozen land and not just a temperate one with snow sprites circling the player?s camera.

I suppose that answers that, then?

IGN: Seven ways to expand Skyrim.

IGN has penned an editorial detailing seven ways they feel Skyrim could be enhanced and expanded by Bethesda. This one was my favourite:

3. Prepare for Takeoff

“Can you fly a dragon?” It was one of the first questions that popped into my head following Skyrim’s initial announcement. If it were actually implemented, it would probably create some serious performance issues, but the payoff would be worth it. Odahviing could be called in not only to fight, but to soar to the top of the Throat of the World. You could burn cities, giant camps and battle other dragons in mid-air. It’d be like using the world map, only astride a scaly world-eating monstrosity. Maybe you could even forget about Odahviing. You’re Dragonborn, maybe you should just be able to transform and fly around on your own.

Bethesda did pretty good at the New York Video Game Critics Circle Awards.

Skyrim, of course, took the top honour, the “Big Apple Award for Best Game”.

Is AI-driven storytelling the future in gaming?

GameSpy asks the question, particularly in regard to Skyrim’s admittedly quite cool-sounding Radiant AI.

Within the Radiant AI system, Bethesda’s encoded the idea of a quest which the player can pick up at inns throughout the province. One of its formulae is: “{NPC} has been captured, and is being held at {Location}.” Those variables are decided by the game on the fly. This would be an easy source of the infinite gameplay that Bethesda advertised, but Skyrim takes it a step further: To add meaning — and perhaps drama — the system determines which NPC should be captured by examining your character’s history and picking an NPC that you’ve actually had a relationship with in the past. Maybe an old companion, or a shop owner you’ve sold surplus gear to. An NPC, that is, the player knows and might care about. Secondly, the system picks a nearby location that the player hasn’t explored yet. Compare this to a random NPC in a random dungeon, and we have the beginnings of a procedurally generated adventure that might actually mean something to every player, different as their adventures may actually be.

Honestly, I don’t know if I’d be a fan of games built too heavily on this model. The idea of dynamically-generated side quests and whatnot certainly has a measure of appeal, and the potential for a world that offers an essentially limitless opportunity to explore its every recess and perform errands for its every citizen is enough to make every old-school RPG grognard salivate and more.

But a whole — or a substantial portion — of a game’s main narrative being procedurally generated would be…I don’t really know. One almost gets the impression that it would seem emptier by comparison.

Portal 2, in Skyrim?

Well…maybe. Valve released a small mod for the game, entitled Fall of the Space Core, Volume 1, which featured one of the personality spheres from Portal 2. The mod also, however, embedded a bit of metadata in the game which included an allusion to an as-yet unrealized quest of some sort.

As usual, Valve are doing things incrementally and mysteriously. But really, does anyone doubt that they’re not trying to find a way to bring their puzzle game into the Skyrim engine?

The Great Battle of Skyrim, indeed!

Someone give this guy a medal:

Todd Howard’s DICE 2012 keynote address!

He teases out some interesting possiblities where added content is concerned. Spears? Okay, well, that’s kind of lame. Dragon mounts? That’s rather more interesting!

GameBanshee has what is purportedly a full list of everything Mr. Howard talks about. Hit them up!

Skyrim players average about 75 hours of game time.

Which I suppose is quite a lot, but doesn’t sound like all that much for a game of this scale.