The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim!

IT HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED! (and I will spare you some scrolling by not including all the exclamation points I could cram onto the end of that sentence.)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is officially announced and hyping up this fan girl exponentially! The exploits of Raven the Azura-following, claymore-wielding, not-quite-like-the-other-mercenaries, most-surprising-Imperial-you-will-ever-meet, shall weave a new tale once more.

I must admit (proudly) that just a week before I heard about TESV being announced, I was talking with my husband about how the next TES Bethesda makes has to go back towards a more Morrowind-esqu feel. That the best place would be to go to Skyrim or, potentially, Elsweyr. Don't get me wrong, I think Oblivion was an excellent story and stuck to the history and culture the game has developed, but I must admit that the lack of individuality for the towns (and dungeon/caves) in Oblivion compared to Morrowind was dull after a while. I understand that Oblivion took place in the heart of the Imperial Empire, but I would have loved to see a rogue Telvanni looking to make his tower, an Ashlander strayed from his tribe on a quest, or some deeper personalities built into the city (needless to say, Bruma was my favorite town, and I felt Leyawiin had a nice distinction of it's own). And can I just get this off my chest: WHERE THE HELL IS CAIUS COSADES?! That is one character that I EXPECTED to see in Oblivion (you know, the whole I'm-being-recalled-to-the-Imperial-City-because-of-the-Emperor's-failing-health, good-luck-with-the-Nereverine-thing"?)

OK. Back to my original statement. Skyrim is the best place to get back to those Morrowind roots. The culture of the Nords is deep like the Ashlanders, but not as isolated. So it is malleable to the Imperial law, but can still retain Nordic sentimentality (kinda like Bruma). Oh, and can we say werewolves? Perhaps more dealings with Hircine (thought I wouldn't expect that)? I would bet more on Ysmir being important to the story than Hircine. And speaking of Ysmir...


Dragons!


That's right, those appear to be dragons in that trailer! My first thoughts on seeing them immediately went to one of the dragon mods I have seen for Morrowind. I can only imagine/hope/speculate/fantasize that there *may* be flying dragon mounts. Now, that may mean going back to Morrowind's use of loading their visual appearances, in that, what you see is where you can go. With Oblivion (from my understanding--and I could be wrong), levitation would not work because of how they developed the visuals in relation to loading cells. You could stand outside the Imperial City and look at it, but it was not physically there. It was only a picture. You had to go into the city through a loading door to actually see the inside. Whereas, you could see the floating moon in Vivic or the top of Red Mountain and you could walk up and into it, as the loading cells were outside and loaded an area up. If they bring flying/levitating back into the game (and let's just say this now, what the hell kind of a wizard can't fly?) they would have to resort to the old loading abilities (fine by me!) or develop a new way of interacting with visuals. But that's just my speculation on the whole dragon affair.

To put it enthusiastically: I am enormously excited for this game!!!!! And even if the proposed 11/11/11 release date is pushed back, I would be happy to see a solid, well written, well thought, and fully fleshed out game, even if that meant giving it another year.