Skyrim: First Impressions

If i'm brutally honest, aesthetically not much has changed since Oblivion, the previous Elder Scrolls game. Textures are of a higher resolution as only to be expected of a sequal 4 years down the line and the HDR contrast is through the roof as if to be shouting and screaming "I'm here, i really am here!". The bright blurs of light hiding some of the flaws in the finer details. The textures are of a desaturated nature also, giving the environment a more realistic feel. Many people, like Yahtzee, might complain about the cliché factor of a game reaching for realism with desaturated browns and greys, but with the more viking feel Skyrim has it really fits the theme more than detracts from it.

I had hoped with the years of development and technological improvements the aesthetics would have changed more than this but essentially all that appears to have changed is higher resolution textures, higher poly NPC's and better particle effects, all of which are in my eyes a given by default. Unfortunately the engine doesn't seem to have improved at all beyond that. Decals are still placed in such a way that they appear to float above the surface to which they are applied, and have a kind of exclusion affect when ever particle effects are rendered ontop of them, meaning waterfalls disappear when the player gets close enough to render the high resolution LoD snow textures.

Another issue is with the physics engine, which is still as atrocious as the previous Elder Scrolls game. In Oblivion ragdolls had a habit of vibrating violently when ever they were initiated with such force that caused them to clip into the environment creating massive amounts of noise spam and dust particle effects as the ragdol bones conflicted with certain surfaces. After escaping the dragon in the introduction part of the game i soon discovered when walking through the torture chamber that skeletons some how contained gold coins on their person. After the scene where you sneak past a bear there is a pit of bones. My initial thought was "Jackpot!", until i stepped on a pair of antlers and themurs only to have them perform th same nostalgic "Oblivion spazz out dance" and hit me in the face for 10% of my health meter. Later in the game i encountered the same physics bug whereby stepping onto another pair of antlers at the edge of a crevice launched my avatar 20 feet across an impassable crevice.

Other glitches are also made immediately apparent (noticed on the cart ride to Helgen at the very start) that were also common place in Oblivion, such as a characters clipping through their apparel when performing any animation besides his idle one. This was something i really didn't expect to still find in a current generation, 2011 release title.

Despite my initial disappointments with the engine's predictably average aesthetics, the desaturated environment and consolidated thematic appearence has made the game rather immersive and helped by further gameplay improvements. Class selection has been made a lot simpler, although confusing at first when creating my character when expecting further customisation of abilities such as the allowance of custom, hybrid powers (a-la Oblivion), star signs and race abilities are as simple as it came, making your gameplay role specific and not vague.

Other aspects of the gameplay have been improved such as smithing, one of the most tedious aspects of Warrior gameplay in the previous Elder Scrolls was the need to constantly repair your armour. A potentially potent immersive aspect of RPG gameplay it was in fact the opposite. It being consistantly necassery to take 20-30 repair hammers on a trip to any "dungeon" (more so in Oblivion) and to utilise these after each individual fight. A single Daedra enemy could render your armour from 100% effectiveness to 20% in a single fight. Realistic, perhaps, but fun? Not at all. This seems to have been replaced by the ability to merely improve weapon and armour beyond 100% and removed the capacity for armour and weapons to break/degrade at all. Meaning it is no longer necassery to carry 30 repair hammers and a secondary and tertiary weapon just in case.

On a final note playing through levels 1-10 has thus far been a charm. Oblivion was often difficult in this respect as any class besides warrior was stuck with a low mana pool, limited spells, low resistance to melee combat and archers had no ammo. The consolidation of skills and class perks makes a lot of sense.

Shoot To Kill

Mostly this post is for format testing purposes but i might as well include some actual information.

I cleared up a couple old yet personal posts in order to make way for design related ones. I'm hoping to use this space for more productive, design related and archival means; but converting style sheets at a coding level in order to get an actually nice and unique result without much HTML experience is awkward to say the least. I've often thought of trying to build from scratch but blogger and wordpress force templates down your throat so i guess until i fork out the money to afford a domain this is what i have to compromise with. I've been trying to make this place look nice for the life of me, but getting a header to align to coordinates or page boarders, as opposed to the "post wall", is like trying to knock a moose out with a nerf baseball bat. Likely impossible.

I've read a billion tutorials (well, ok. Like 20) on HTML and whilst i understand the basics nothing actually teaches you how to construct a working page with it. You can find all the base commands but none of the variables to create something other than the exact thing the tutorial you read demonstrates.

Frustration a-side i'm real tired so that probably doesn't help my problem solving capacity, i'm too used to working with aesthetics and theory than practical media like code; that and the software i have been using i've been acquainted with for the better part of a decade. It's no real surprise that even after leaving compulsary, further and/or higher education that one is still required to learn new skills and/or hone existing ones, but sometimes you forget how much of a chor it is on top of lifes other priorities when those skills aren't in so much of a demand that you can consistently put food on the table with them.

I was always taught that being a "jack of all trades" makes you more employable and in many respects that can be true; but when you come out of university with a degree in an ambiguous subject like Graphic Design it can be difficult proving your worth when it covers so many things specialised in by "one class wonders". Why hire a Graphic Designer to animate when you can get an animator, why hire a Graphic Designer to build a website when you can get a Web Designer, why hire a Graphic Designer to draw for you when you can hire an Illustrator?

Under Construction.

I intend to be using this space to create a developer space for Level Design, which will discuss my own work and review others. Hopefully i can grab one of two other Level Designers, of whom i am aware are also constructing their own home space. As i know bugger all about html and require all the help i can get. This default skin just wont do for a (intended) professional blog. :/