It has also been my 21st birthday since my last post which is another reason for the lack of development. For my birthday I got Skyrim on Xbox, and have spent quite some time on this game since then. The game is so rich in content; from the unique songs of the bards to the small side quests spouted from the gossip of an Inn keeper. After only really playing FPS games online recently I forgot how immersive a well created single player campaign can be.
As great as this game is I still think there is much to be improved, I've noticed on various occasions that the game has lagged during certain sequences of events such as an NPC turning into a Werewolf. I think this is more than likely a limitation of the Xbox hardware than the game itself. Graphics aside I have also noticed a number of glitches to do with the gameplay such as auto saves not working, boss health not reducing at all. This goes to show the amount of pressure that publishers put a development team under to release a game. They only manage to sort major problems out and use the phrase "Oh we can patch that" for everything else.
All in all it's a enthralling game and I can't wait to play the DLC that was announced at E3, vampire lords look amazing.
All this gaming aside I have actually taken some development ideas from the game. Seeing how large and rich environments need to be in modern AAA titles I have decided that none of this could be done without proper instancing, all the bushes and shrubs in the planes of tamriel just couldn't be achieved otherwise.
From this I have decided that creating my own renderer is a must, not only for the experience but also for future projects. How can I make cutting edge tech demo's when I'm limited to a few thousand models in a scene?