Hello - just noticed that thanks to IGN's liberal reporting, there is now a lot of people believing the "special surprise" coming on tuesday is a PC exclusive benefit. It MIGHT be yes.... But please keep in mind Pete's statement never actually confirmed that it is a PC/CK exclusive surprise. What Pete said was:

"For our Skyrim PC fans, the Creation Kit is on track for release on Tuesday. And, we also have a special surprise with it."

Ergo, the special surprise may just be something alongside the launch of the Creation Kit, not something specifically tied to it. And if that is the case, the surprise reveal would probably be the first DLC annoucement.



So yeah.... I totally hope it's some wonderful PC enhancement too - but just hold back on the wild anticipation because Pete never actually confirmed that is the case and his statement can be interpreted many ways.

I would love DX11, but my instincts tells me that ain't happening. Consider that PC gamers make up only ~15% of the market share for Bethesda's games.... To revisit the game engine, overhaul it, and recreate thousands of assets just to appease such a small demographic when their time and resources are already limited to getting DLC out quickly.... It just seems unlikely.

I sure hope I am wrong, but my professional instincts point towards the special surprise being a DLC annoucement.

I am pretty sure its been discovered that its a high resolution texture pack. Also, the textures were likely created in higher resolution and scaled back originally. The textures were probably withheld until the game was stabilized in the mass market.

Since it gets released along with the CK instead of 1.4, I'm sure the money is on it been a PC exclusive.

Interesting...

Releasing pre-existing textures could be it, I suppose. The fundamental issue is that Bethesda just don't have the time to recreate new assets for 15% of their gaming demographic.... But you are right: Textures are made high-resolution and scaled back for the consoles ... so logically it COULD be that as it doesn't actually interfere with the DLC creation process.

Interestingly, polygonal counts are also reduced for console hardware limitations, so Bethesda could theoretically include better meshes. (The originals).




Gosh, if it actually IS a PC-exclusive benefit I will be stoked and suitable surprised.

Rumours are the mother of all fubars.

Dude's probably having a kid, or getting married or something equally mundane and wants us to be all excited about it for him.

It's been pretty much confirmed a high resolution texture pack due to records in Steam's content registry.

I'll wait and see before I get my hopes up on anything. It's all just speculation until they actually announce it.

I'm pretty confused by all the love for the PC version and I find it hard to believe they had a texture update planned from the outset. We know some form of DX11 might be implemented because they said so in an interview, but texture pack? Seems they are following Crytek on this like with Crysis 2.

i hope the "special suprise" is a working main quest

I assume by liberal reporting, you mean IGN's habit of taking license to print whatever gets the most traffic.

There are several threads in the mod section here, one with a link to a page from Steam's content registry, revealing the kitsch surprise as a hi-res texture pack. DLC is not even on the horizon for consoles, I bet.

If this happens ... to BGS. Better late than never.

I'm keeping my expectations low just in case, but the texture pack theory seems plausible.

In a day where most people have at least a GTX 260 or better, a full-res texture pack would be sweet. Should have done this from the start.

Multi. Platform. Release.

The game took 5 years, using a lot of resources they already had so that's hardly a good excuse.

they are probably releasing the texture pack now because the finally optimized the pc version with patch 1.4. just think about what would have happend when they released it from the start. Even on my system it would have become unplayable.

The textures used in the game were originally much better quality. When doing artwork, sometimes they are 4096px.
Basically, they ran a batch process to reduce all textures for the consoles. Modifying by hand any in optimization efforts.

Basically, the number one complaint is probably the blurry textures for the PC version. One person claims they were even upscaled versions of the already compressed console version, which is pretty shocking.

Anyway, it makes sense that it is a texture pack due to demand and how easy it is to do. It takes very little time on their part to select all of the original source textures they used in the game and run a resize batch process on them.


The game was ported quickly due to time constraints. Because of performance issues early on, and because the textures had already been reduced and optimized (make this texture large, and this one small), it provides insight in the reason they just left the console versions in the game.

It also makes sense to make them available for those who want them at this point in time. I've said it before, they should have used a double DVD for the retail Skyrim, giving more room to fit the higher textures.

I doubt they will give 'massive huge ridiculous you need $800 video card' versions, or different size versions (2048px versions and 4096px versions of the packs). But it would be nice. I like to do my own optimizing, and would like the larger ones for my future PC, a few years down the line.

As I have said since the game launched, the textures in the game are fantastic, but they are really blurry and low res. This is basically one of the most disappointing things for me about Skyrim, shallow as it might seem, I just feel like the game is damaging my vision and making me need glasses. So, I would be very grateful for the texture pack, and [not really in this thread] a lot of you have some entitlement issues you need to work out. You bought the game, they don't have to give you better graphics packs. If you were my kid, I would turn the car around, no ice cream for you.

Heh.I dont think its DLC announcment.I have been asking pete on twitter some stuff about DLC he just said And to others Patch and creation kit is the things they are working on,Dlc plans can wait D:
but who knows,they sure have some secrets...

I wonder what HD-Textures they will bring in. Do you think EVERYTHING will be overhauled or only certain parts of the graphics like landscape textures?

It is the ONLY excuse. Really.

Because if Skyrim is a PC only game then those textures would be the default.

But because it is not, Bethesda does not want their xbox version to look too badly dated in comparison and hence, no high-def on release. They need to rake in the money on console first.

ah yes that first dlc that only xbox can play for an entire month because microsoft says that even though we handed them our money for their operating system, we just simply didn't give it to them on our knees begging for an out dated console. how dare we build our own console while paying them for an overpriced cd? our gods must build it for us and restrict everything we do on it! then we can have the magical and fun "timed release" that sell out developers hand to greedy corporations for a pat on the head.

I hear this said a lot, but the game took 3 years to make, not 5. According to BGS, anyway. They were pretty busy with Fallout, for a while there. It's not like they just made Oblivion and then Skyrim.

I sense ALOT of dissapointment when the surprise is not gonna be textures related.

I could be wrong, but the optimizations made so far effect the CPU and memory management - they help in the few areas of the game where you're CPU limited. High res textures tax your GPU, so those optimizations won't really help. I'm guessing if they intentionally withheld the high res textures, it was so that they'd have something to help usher in the Steam Workshop. Not that I'd complain, I was planning on checking out the workshop anyway, and high res textures would be a nice surprise.