List of known spells

So we have a list of known mobs, which is great, but what I'd really like to make a list of, is what awesome magic we get to see in Skyrim - Spell time!

As you know, each spell in Skyrim has its own unique animation and look, making it all the more worthwhile to learn it, as opposed to Oblivion, where all the spells looked alike, to the point where I my mouth got dry and my eyes got wet - Or that might just've been from eating raw NaCl, but honestly: who knows?

Let the list begin - I may very well forget some, so if I do, please throw it up in the comments or on the facebook page, and I'll add it to the list.

Destruction

• Fire
• Fireball
• Flamethrower
• Flame Rune (Trap)
• Ice
• Frostbite (Ice version of the Flamethrower)
• Ice Rune
• Lightning
• Lightning Stream

Illusion

• Frenzy / Fury - Sends your enemy into a fit of rage, attacking everyone in sight, even his comrades - Ranged spell.
• Detect Life - Detect life energy, even through walls and in darkness - The spell is active and drains mana as long as you hold down the "cast" button.

Conjuration

• Summon Atronach (So far, only 1 is confirmed)
• Frost Atronach
• Zombie Resurrection - Allows you to resurrect a fallen enemy as a zombie, to fight for you.

Alteration

• (Assumed Spells)
• Water Walking
• Water Breathing

Restoration

• Restore - Heal yourself

Dunno?

• Clairvoyance - Draw a path to your objective

Why you should choose the path of: Magic

One month away from Skyrim - I feel sick from waiting. Some people prefer not to decide whether they're gonna go with Stealth, Melee or Magic and just go with what they kinda "fall into" as they are playing the game.  Those that do prefer deciding beforehand, are probably still having a hard time deciding, since we are no longer "pushed" into a specific combination because of bad game mechanics (I'm talking about you, Oblivion.)

So with that in mind, let us see what benefits we might get from the stand-alone path of Magic.

Spells
It is very hard to find a good game, where they include an awesome magic system. The biotic system in Mass Effect is neat (although it still has more potential,) but it isn't really magic, now is it? Even Bethesda, in my opinion, have always had trouble with this, but it looks like they've definitely remedied that in Skyrim.

Apart from making a very wide array of spells, Bethesda has made a unique animation for each and every spell and mana regenrate a lot faster, so you'll be able to make good use them even before you raise your magicka to brutal heights.

Furthermore, the spells can solve all of your problems and in a lot of different ways, enabling you to pick the technique that speaks most to your nature. See a group of bandits in the distance? Well, you could cast Frenzy and watch them take care of each other - Or you could set a (rune)trap and then taunt them to trigger it with a well placed fireball to the head. Glorious!

In the beginning , you might feel that powerful as a mage, as Todd Howard said, but eventually you will grow as a magician and come to feel very, very powerful! You've surely seen the mind-blowingly cool spells, such as the AoE fire spell, which looks nothing short of brutal.

One of the major perks of the mage's spells is that you don't have to carry around heavy equipment, due to the "bound" magic, which temporarily calls forth either armor or weapons for your convenience. Unlike Oblivion, it seems that we won't be grabbing Daedra equipment, as the picture of a dude with a bound bow suggests. Instead it'll be kind of "Astral" goodies, but none the less, just as lethal. The only thing missing when you use a bound spell is the sound of three light nodes and a woman saying "Because your worth it." - Unfortunately Bethesda didn't take any of my suggestions.

As always you can pay other magicians to learn these spells, or you can learn them through the various spell books throughout Skyrim.

Crafting
A mage's primary crafting skill is Enchanting, allowing you to break down the enchanted weapons you find in order to learn the enchantments they had, and permanently be able to apply that enchantment to everything else! Glorious! Also, when you enchant something it glows with the color that applies to the used enchantment - So if it is fire, then it'll glow red and if it is ice, then it'll glow blue.

Guild
The guild that applies to the mage, is the College of Winterhold! Located in.... Winterhold! Good guess, grasshopper!
The college of Winterhold is solely a mage's guild (You can join no matter what, so don't worry,) but the possibility that  you can go and grab the title of headmaster, like you could with all of the guilds in Oblivion, has only been hinted at, but not completely confirmed. Personally, it sounds to me as if you can.

Why magic will be more entertaining!

Previously, being a magician has been dull - seriously!! In Oblivion, I tried to get some great RP experiences, so I decided to make a High Elf mage, just for the story telling. Needless to say, it quickly got boring to a point where I read my first non-mandatory book (The Templar Legacy.)

Why has it been so dull and joyless? I'm guessing it's partly because of the animations. They were all the same, you see. Apart from Fire, Lighting and Frost, which were slightly different, all other spell made the character raise his hand above his head and emit a shining light.

Magic is supposed to make you feel powerful, altering the fabrics of reality as well as destroying huge beasts with minimal effort. Like in most other RPG's, magic-users should be the guys dealing maximum damage, firing off great big fireballs with their fingers and creating storms by mere chanting, but still they would have to stay in the back of the group, 'cause a gnome with a feather-duster could take them down if it came in close. I am not saying that we should be THAT physically weak in The Elder Scrolls, I am merely saying that we should be able to feel like real powerful, badass spellweavers.

Alas, I finally think we can. Looking at the footage from various Skyrim demonstrations (1,) I have to say that the spells really are looking up. Not only does each spell feature unique animation art, but they also look powerful. Just seeing that fireball getting thrown out there, gets me more excited than the first time I watched Pokemon! You know, I caught the very first episode that aired in Denmark, by coincidence (fame.)

We can also actually DO things with our magic this time. We can lay traps, shoot of bolts and balls, create a wave of flames around us and furthermore, other spells than the destructive ones are useful too. Hats off, I never really figured out what the hell Frenzy was for in Oblivion, but in Skyrim, we have been given a splendid demonstration.

Todd Howard, or lets call him by his real name; God has given us an example at E3. 2 Marauders were standing guard at Bleak Falls Barrow and he used frenzy on one of them, from a distance mind you. Suddenly, the victim went Chuck Norris on his co-guards ass. Now if that doesn't make you feel powerful, I don't know what does!

A good, stealthy life

All in favor of sneaking in there and taking out all the guys with a few well placed arrows in their soon-to-be not so pretty nor complete skulls, raise your hand!

Is your hand raised? Mine sure is! My first play through Oblivion, I based my character completely on stealth, 'cause I thought that the system was the coolest I had ever seen in an RPG, which I still stand by today. Stealth games are great - Just think about Splinter Cell!

Still, it can always get better! In Skyrim they turn great into awesome on many points, but one has got to get high over the new stealth gameplay. If you've played Fallout 3, or New Vegas for that matter, you'll recognize these three stages of stealth:

• Hidden: Duh, you are hidden! No one sees you!
• Caution: Enemies are aware of your presence, but have not yet located you.
• Danger: You've been spotted and are most likely to get stabbed

I marvelled over this simple, yet entertaining system. If you did so too, then you'll be happy to know that it also exists in Skyrim! But there are more to it, my hairy friends! Once you reach the "Caution" phase, an eye on your screen will begin to open. The closer your enemies are to spotting you, the more the eye will open. This gives you time to adjust your movements, in case you wish to stay hidden. We are totally gonna go ninja on their ASSES!

But wait! There is more! Weapons! We all know that the classic RPG weapons for stealth-types are daggers, as well as bow and arrow. They got the ranged part right in Oblivion, which has even been improves. It takes longer to sting your bow in this game, but arrows damage a lot more, so now we can get the one-hit kills we deserve. That is the point of stealth after all.

Distracting a patron

Still, the melee thing didn't quite come across in Oblivion. It was actually more favorable to use a bigger weapon, given that it provided more damage. Again, Bethesda corrects their gruesome mistake. This time around, daggers will gain a much greater damage bonus, making it the most lucrative weapon of choice for us sneaky-types. There might even be a back-stab animation, but that is just speculation.

So that should be pretty simple. Weapons and Sneaking. That's all that there is to stealth, right? WRONG!! If you just thought that, then you are not a true ninja! There is in fact a crafting skill for all the major play styles, which includes Magic, Melee and Stealth.

The skill belonging to stealth is Alchemy, which will be a lot more interesting in Skyrim. I don't exactly know how, but Todd Howard said so. He also mentioned that it has something to do with the different climates, which probably means that if you want some of the "good" poison, you will have to travel all over to get the right ingredients. 

Frost Trap

I've also noticed that there are stealth-friendly spells! Like fire, frost and lightning. You can use them to place traps on the ground, that explodes when your enemies step on them. There are also detect life spells again and then there are what i suppose is a "frenzy" spell. Todd used it in the E3 demo, to get rid of two guards. He tossed the spell at one of them and he suddenly went nuts on the other one, thus eliminating 50% of the enemy pool. Huzzah! After such a trick, one may casually string ones bow and offer the remaining guard a poisoned arrow to one of his respective organs. 

I suppose that my cynical nature reveals my excitement for this function.

Small details, big difference - Part I

As of Western RPG's, it has always been the small details, which add up to the big, and in The Elder Scrolls' case, often awesome picture. In the following article, I will show you what little details I've caught a glimpse of, which I personally think is very "def." (meaning cool.)

1. Holes and cracks in the roofs and ceilings of dungeons and ruins

Look at the detail!

2. Bats - In the E3 demo, we saw bats appearing, or more like fleeing, when the Dragonborn proceeded through Bleak Falls Barrow

Looks like we found the batcave!

3. When you summon a creature, it will enter out of a sort of Void / Portal thingy. In the demo, I got a short glimps of a Frost Atronach being summoned

Right now the Atronach is kinda crumbled together, and when it is out of the void, it stands up fully in a stunningly realistic motion.

Skills & Perks

Ah, the glorious skill systems of The Elder Scrolls - They change with every game, you know. Yet, they always seem to manage to keep the feeling of freedom around, like a fresh breath of air. In Morrowind, there were 28 skills. In Oblivion, 21. In Skyrim, we will see 18 skills.

There are some skills from the previous games, lets take the example: Oblivion, that have been removed. You won't be getting to upgrading your hand-to-hand abilities, for that has been cut off <-- That doesn't mean that you can't fight hand to hand, but there are no skill for it.

Mysticism has also been cut, but you will still be enjoying spells form this school! They have merely been transferred over into other magic schools.

Then we have Acrobatics and Athletics, which were axed for obvious reasons. Don't quite get? Feel no shame, neither did the other retar.... Guys. The developers thought that there wasn't much choice in athletics and acrobatics. You know, who makes a character who doesn't run or jump? So now we have a fixed jumping height and running speed, along with the ability to sprint.

This time around, you won't pick a Specialization or any Major, as well as Minor skills. Every skill well make you progress towards the next level, of which there are 50 by the way.

If any of you have played Fallout 3, or New Vegas, you'll instantly recognize the word: Perk. In Fallout, you got to pick a new perk, everytime you levelled up, and Skyrim will be no different. Skyrim will have 280 perks to choose from and given that there are 50 levels to progress through, we're going to be missing out on 230 perks per character we make.

The perk/skill system is as following: When you level, you pick a perk. If you want to upgrade, say your fire magic, then you pick Magic --> Destruction School --> Fire Magic.


In the fricken huge embedded picture, I show a map over the 15 confirmed skills (meaning that we're missing 3) as well as the way they branch out and known perks (which means perks that I know.) Keep in mind that it isn't completely finalized, since we don't know any more, as of yet.

*EDIT
I missed the magic school: Illusion.
I added Illusion

As a final detail, I'd like to mention that the skill / perk menu isn't a boring scroll-like scrren menu anymore, but you actually look to the heavens and then the star constellations are the skill trees. When you pick a perk or level up a skill, the corresponding star will appear brighter in-game. Boner!!

*Tip
You can zoom out by holding CTRL and either scrolling backwards, or pressing "-"

Combat!

Frost Troll

Combat is one of the most important aspects of The Elder Scrolls, and as you might have expected, it'll also be so for Skyrim.

We've always enjoyed picking up a big weapon and go smashing and hacking our adversaries to bits, whilst we scream evil slurs at our screen. At least that's what I think.

So have we evolved from the Hack'n'Slash experiences we had with the previous titles? We have moved forward, but not too far.

First of all, magic will now be equipped just like any other piece of equipment. It is no longer a different system from melee combat, which means that you'll have to prepare your spells beforehand, which means that being a mage will be so much more engaging.

You have two triggers - Left & Right. You can assign any weapon or spell to each hand, you can even dual-wield. Should you dual-wield the same spell and use both hands simultaneously, you will create a much more powerful version of that spell, be that healing or fireball or whatever...

Surrounded by Draugr

Defending, so you don't die, and attacking, so your adversary does. It's always been pretty simple, but the Bethesda game Studios has been looking to improve on that, and making it more challenging and less dull. How did they do this? Well, they made sure that you can't just hold down the block-button by adding something called "shield bash," which is activated if you do just that. You need to perfect your timing to block. It is so far unclear how you block when not wearing a shield.

Unfortunately, apart from that (and the awesome new blood effects) there is not anymore new additions to melee combat on your side. The Draugr, which are undead who rise from the graves to make you join them down there, have been shown to use tactical movement, where they adjust their position according to each other, and not the mindless, independent movement from the previous games.

After beating up your opponent, you will get the opportunity to perform a finishing move, unique for each weapon and creature, meaning that there will be A LOT.

The magic combat has seen more improvement. First of all, spells feel more like this ancient, powerful arcane power that you possess, which is actually a weapon that you choose to yield, instead of a supplement to use when there is a small distance between you and your enemies.

Di-heal

The spells look at lot more authentic, the fireball looks deadly and wielding it will definitely be a great compensation for having a small you-know-what (penis.) Magic battle will also be more engaging. Your shield spells need the same kind of timing that your physical shield does, and you also need to fire at the right time, should the soon-to-be-dead guy battling you also be using a shield spell.

Using an AoE fire spell

Ranged combat will be a little different. You can no longer run backwards as quickly as in Oblivion, which means that you'll have to turn around and sprint away in order to get some air between you and whatever might be trying to kill you. There are different kinds of Bows (no crossbows, I hear) in form of low-end and high-end bows. The low-end (as seen in the demo in the bottom of this site) are strung more quickly, the high-end a little slower. You prepare your arrows for penetrating the heads of your opponents a lot slower overall, in Skyrim, which means that you'll also do good in preparing some poison.

To wrap it all up, I need to say that combat with various creatures in Skyrim, will be more interesting, giving that they now all have more than just one melee and or ranged attack, like they had in Oblivion (which most can relate to.) The Frost Atronach was shown to possess several abilities. The creatures who doesn't possess several abilities, like wolves, make it for it by attacking strategically in groups.

Frost Atronach in Skyrim

Skyrim has seen some improvements, granted that it's few, I do believe that they will be quite enjoyable.

Spell Tomes

Remember Oblivion? Remember DLC for Oblivion? I do! A thing I loved was the Spell Tomes! Good news! I've just confirmed that they are making a return, although we don't have to pay for it as DLC this time around. 

If you never got to enjoy this feature, let me explain: You prance around the world, humming a tune of your own choice. Suddenly you raid a dungeon or kill a person (preferably innocent) and go for the loot. You find a spell tome! What now? You open it, read the contents and are given the option of learning the spell. In your malicious quest for power, you humbly agree. You now know the given spell and all is well.

Whether it's the exact same system in Skyrim as it was in Oblivion, remains to be seen. But hey, what could be so different about it?