The past months we have learned quite a bit about the details of Skyrim; perks, levelling, skills, AI and game mechanisms have all been covered quite a lot. Let's take a moment and go over some of the most important details of the game.
Perks
There are more than 280 perks in Skyrim, of which you will only be able to pick 75 in one game. This means that if you want to test all the perks in the game, you will have to play the game four times. Now, that's replayability! But let's not get ahead of ourselves here; we also have to remember that this number includes perk ranks as well, and some perks have as many as five ranks.
Perks are linked with skills, and to be able to master certain perks you will also have to master the skill the perk is associated with. So, to pick the latest perk in the speechcraft tree, you will have to be a master of speechcrafting. There are 18 different perk trees, all associated with their own skill.
Skills
Skyrim features 18 skills so we know that at least three skills from Oblivion are gone, and these are Acrobatics, Athletics and mercantile. With Acrobatics and Athletics gone, it seems your standard jump height and running/swimming speed will be set in stone. Mercantile on the other hand, hasn't really been removed, but has been merged with Speechcraft. Weapon skills like Blunt and Blade have been converted to One-handed and Two-handed, while armorer have had it's name changed to smithing. Skills still progress like they do in previous Elder Scrolls games, as you use them.
Skills are divided into three categories; thief, warrior and mage. These categories don't really do anything as far as we know and are mostly guidelines for the player. Skill categories are as follows:
Thief: Alchemy, Light Armor, Speech, Sneak, Lockpicking and Pickpocketing.
Warrior: Smithing, Heavy Armor, Block, Two-handed, One-Handed and Archery.
Mage: Enchanting, Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration and Illusion.
As you can see, the thief has no direct combat skills, and thus, playing a "pure" thief in Skyrim won't work very well as you will have to use a weapon or spell at some point.
Levelling
There is no scripted limit to how high you can level, so in theory you could become level 1000 and be almighty! But there is a mathematical limit, which is at around 75, when there are no more skills to progress. You level up by advancing your skills, and the higher the skill, the more it contributes to a level-up. It works pretty much like in previous Elder Scrolls games, except that you no longer need to rest to level-up.
A.I.
Yet again Bethesda seem to be attempting a more realistic approach to the A.I, giving every NPC their own tasks and schedules. So far, from what we have gathered from the videos, the A.I in the game seems very believable, but we won't know for sure until release. The game uses the same Radiant A.I. system as in Oblivion but it appears to have been significantly updated.
Townspeople won't be loitering around aimlessly in the towns in Skyrim and they will always have a task to do, like chopping wood, sawing, smithing or farming. Relationships between the player and NPCs have also been improved, and a friend of the player will, for instance, offer you lodging instead of demanding you to leave if you barge into their house in the middle of the night. They will also not kill you over a stolen apple...
Another very unique thing about the A.I in Skyrim is when you drop an item, NPCs will react to this if they see it. If a boy sees that you drop it, they might come up to you and try to give it back, while two men might start a fight over the item, all based on what kind of item you dropped.
It's not just the NPCs that have had their A.I improved - creatures also act more believable. The way creatures operate during a fight is based on how many they are, how strong they are or how strong you are compared to them. For instance, a pack of wolves will try to circle around you instead of barging head on against you. Relations between creatures also exist on a higher level than before. The giants and the mammoths travel together in packs, ignoring the player if left undisturbed. However, if you start a fight with one of them, you better come prepared, as they will all try to smash you to pieces.
Combat
Combat in Skyrim has been majorly overhauled from it's predecessors. Combat physics have been improved, making it seem more realistic, combat A.I have been improved, making the enemy and allies smarter. Dual wielding has been talked about a lot, and it seems you can dual wield almost anything, and you can even use your torch as a weapon. Combat also features 'magnetism', which makes your attacks less likely to hit allies, which should make companions much more feasible than before.
Sound
We do not know much about the sound system in Skyrim. But what we do know, is that it will feature a horde of voice actors! According to Bethesda, Skyrim features over 70 voice actors, more than 4 times the amount of voice actors in oblivion (including Shivering Isles). Among the cast of voice actors there are a few Academy Award nominees, including Christopher Plummer ('The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', 'The Insider'), Max Von Sydow ('The Exorcist', 'Minority Report'), and Joan Allen ('The Contender', 'The Bourne Ultimatum').
There are approximately 60,000 lines of spoken dialogue in Skyrim, which is about 15,000 more than in Fallout 3.
And as always, Jeremy Soule will be composing the music.
Character generation
When first creating your character, you are presented with a bunch of sliders which changes different aspects of your appearance. You can change the size of your nose, the shape of your ears and even how fat or muscular you are. Now, that's the visuals, and then I guess you want to know about the other aspects of Character Generation... Well, there are none. In previous Elder Scrolls games, you were able to pick a class , choose which skills were your major ones and pick a birth sign. All of that has been removed, so you define your character as you play, and all skill advancements contribute to a level-up.
