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We've jokingly told people that – come 11/11/11 – Skyrim is going to devour the remainder of our mortal years. We're afraid, though, that we may have meant it without, you know, meaning to. See, in addition to the harrowing prospect of “unlimited dragons,” Bethesda's latest biggie-sized slice of role-playing nirvana is coming packed with a never-ending supply of procedurally generated quests.
“The vibe of the game is that it’s something that you can play forever,” Elder Scrolls mastermind Todd Howard told Wired.
In short, the game's Radiant Quest system will be able to put together an endless supply of quests based on numerous factors like location, nearby characters, and your status with factions like The Thieves Guild or The Dark Brotherhood.
Granted, the format for these procedural quests sounds like a fairly rote “Kill X number of monsters” or “Collect X number of disgusting giant spider legs without attempting to crush your monitor with a shoe” type of affair. However, Howard also added that these quests will purposefully send you off the beaten path, so you'll likely discover more than just a roving herd of twitchy, eight-legged murder machines.
In that respect, he noted, Skyrim's inherited a healthy dose of Fallout 3's exploratory DNA, which is pretty much the cherry atop a sundae the size of Mt. Everest for us. Speaking of, want to know something else Skyrim-related that feels absolutely endless? The remaining 24-hour wait until we can friggin' play it. Arrrrrghgghghg.
Comments are closed on this article
burchett
November 10, 2011 at 12:07pm
I cant believe this...So your telling me you have nothing else more rewarding transpiring in your life that you would continue playing a video game--long after you have exhausted its creative content--by playing through bland randomly generated quest scenarios--as to object (kill dragon and rescue princess), subject (dragon/princess) and reward (pile of gold), when there is so much more you could be doing with your life. Its so pathetic! Should I be laughing or crying?
burchett
November 10, 2011 at 12:07pm
I cant believe this...So your telling me you have nothing else more rewarding transpiring in your life that you would continue playing a video game--long after you have exhausted its creative content--by playing through bland randomly generated quest scenarios--as to object (kill dragon and rescue princess), subject (dragon/princess) and reward (pile of gold), when there is so much more you could be doing with your life. Its so pathetic! Should I be laughing or crying?
burchett
November 10, 2011 at 12:07pm
I cant believe this...So your telling me you have nothing else more rewarding transpiring in your life that you would continue playing a video game--long after you have exhausted its creative content--by playing through bland randomly generated quest scenarios--as to object (kill dragon and rescue princess), subject (dragon/princess) and reward (pile of gold), when there is so much more you could be doing with your life. Its so pathetic! Should I be laughing or crying?
bling581
November 10, 2011 at 10:48am
I believe it. I bought Oblivion during Steam's July 4th sale and I still haven't finished my first character with 60+ play hours and counting. When you factor in playing as other classes or adding mods like the Oblivion overhaul and the Elder Scrolls series easily offers some of the best replay value of any game I know.
Keith E. Whisman
November 10, 2011 at 10:24am
Your bound to run into a brick wall eventually and wont be able to play it like when we move from 320bit to 640 bit computing there are going to be compatibility issues so you are going to have to maintain a dinosaur computer for as long as you intend to play. Forever is such a long time I'm sure the printed data cube storage standards of the future willl probably pose some problems.
Mlongrie
November 10, 2011 at 6:30am
Somebody needs to develop a method of living without ever having to sleep.
h e x e n
November 10, 2011 at 3:44am
So Nathan, what are you going to play as?
I'm ready for another epic fantasy game as well. Take me back to swords and magic!
Gezzer
November 10, 2011 at 12:43am
Oh just great!
It's not like my time's being sucked away everytime I turn around. I don't have enough time in the day to play all the RPGs I currently have. H@ll I'm just finishing up Fallout 3 GoTY for pete's sake. Then there's Fallout Las Vegas and Witcher two still to do. Plus I'm half way threw Gothic 4, Two Worlds two, Divinty two, and Risen.
Curse you Bethesda and you need to consume my life. I guess I'll give up sleeping, does that make you happy?
Just one thing..... never stop.
Gezzer
November 10, 2011 at 12:49am
I guess I should add. I'm one of those people.
You know. Have to explore everything, do everything, find everything. You'll never see me posting a speed run video to uTube. Who completes an RPG in under 90 minutes anyway?!? That's just not right!
silverblack
November 10, 2011 at 12:38am
You know what else had endless quests, TES II: Daggerfall. You would ask people in town about work. They'd give a random name and location where a quest giver sprite would appear. Quest ranged from kill rats in house to go to this dungeon and complete this objective. Dungeon locations were random, you had to fast travel everywhere, and the dungeons themselves were randomly generated. You could spend hours traveling the left side of these mazes, return back to your horse to drop off loot, turn right and find your objective in the first room. Ah good times.
The last two games, being designed to allow you to walk between locations, makes it difficult to drop random locations in the predefined world. Although, Oblivian Gates were pretty good for random dungeons at least.
