Skyrim presets, streaming updates and Sauron’s blog

I’ll begin at the last of those. Recently I came across Sauron’s blog, which is/was an entertaining diary of the evil lighthouse from the first days (well, before the first days, actually) all the way to the arrival of the Numenoreans. Unfortunately, the blog (around five years old) appears to have suddenly died, as the eagle-eyed Mr. Llama pointed out in the comments to the last post. There’s still a twitter feed (http://twitter.com/#!/SauronsBlog) so hopefully it’ll just be a technical issue and Sauron will return to http://www.sauronsblog.com/. If it does return I’ll provide a heads-up here.

Bit disappointing to find a witty blog only for it to disappear shortly thereafter. Still, Sauron does have a habit of coming back.

In happier news, the presets for Skyrim’s races have been revealed. There are 20 for each of the 10 races (half male, half female). People have mixed views about the Dunmer, but the Argonians and Khajiit have been very well-received and the races generally are a substantial step up from Oblivion. I’ll link to a UESP forum thread (I can recommend the forum, incidentally) with links to the full pictures, but I’ll just post a sample of each race/gender here to avoid an overly long loading time.

http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=24249

As you can see in the picture above, eyes can vary (and can be blind), there’s a wide variety of face paint and scars can be added. In-game character customisation (like in Fallout 3) appears unlikely, but may be added later. Individual races do get specific bonuses (Argonians can still breathe underwater, for example) some of which are passive and others of which are activated.

Luke Skyrimer (on the official forum) made a very nice comparison picture (below), showing how much the faces have evolved from Morrowind and Oblivion to Skyrim.

However, there’s some potentially bad news too. The 11/11/11 release date is set in stone, with Bethesda offering streaming quick fixes to any bugs identified. I’m sure the firm will seek to eliminate any serious bugs prior to release, but this does sound like putting a release date ahead of actually getting the game sorted. Big bugs can sometimes be worked around (the pit stop and research bugs in F1 2010 were both substantial but could be gotten around mostly), so hopefully this won’t disadvantage people (like me) who don’t have an internet connection for their console.

There may also be some release date DLC, which is a pet hate of mine. If it’s ready for the release date, it should be part of the game. It’s like a surcharge for spoons when you buy a cutlery set.

Those grumbles aside, Skyrim looks fantastic and promises a better levelling system, greater customisation and an even more in-depth game than Oblivion.

To kill the time between now and the release date I’ll be getting Chris Wooding’s The Iron Jackal (Tales of the Ketty Jay), which is out in October, and may make a start with volumes 4-6 of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Thaddeus