# Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim



## Epona (Dec 12, 2010)

Finally, fucking finally, finally, finally!

Announced by a short trailer at the VGAs.

Release date 11th Nov 2011.

I am in tears of joy.

   

ETA: Just trying to find a link for the trailer online, will come back and post it but the main ES page appears to have gone down, can't think why...


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## Epona (Dec 12, 2010)

Trailer here, unfortunately you have to sit through an advert first.

Bethesda main page still down, presumably they're uploading the new one right now.


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## Stigmata (Dec 12, 2010)

Dragons in TES lore are mental, associated with the god of time and the manipulation of timelines.

Nords are cool as well, they have a system of magic that revolves around shouting loudly.

If they include these two concepts in the game, i'll be a happy camper.


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## Epona (Dec 12, 2010)

I hope they haven't jumped on the streamlining (aka "dumbing down") bandwagon.  I mean moreso than they did for Oblivion, which was still a great game, but It Wasn't Morrowind iykwim.  Still, I clutched onto the OH's arm and burst into tears when Todd Howard came onto the stage surrounded by all those robed figures.  I can't wait


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## Stigmata (Dec 12, 2010)

Haha, the new rendition of Jeremy Soule's theme is pretty stirring, I have to admit.


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## Epona (Dec 12, 2010)

Stigmata said:


> Haha, the new rendition of Jeremy Soule's theme is pretty stirring, I have to admit.


 
I love that theme, and yes the new version did sound good and atmospheric


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## tommers (Dec 12, 2010)

Fucking brilliant.  Get in.


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## tommers (Dec 12, 2010)

I want it now.  Can we get it now?


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## Stigmata (Dec 14, 2010)

Here's the relief from the trailer, suitably embiggened for your viewing pleasure. Fans of Morrowind should note Akulakhan just to the right of the main dragon, plus various other bits of significant symbolism here and there.


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## Crispy (Dec 15, 2010)

WANT.
But also  because unless i go out and buy a whole new PC, I'll be playing this on xbox360, which just won't feel right.
I still get all misty eyed for morrisons. Lol autocorrect. Morrowind. I haven't been so absorbed into another world since. Oblivion was just too bland, setting-wise.
Oh and no more auto-levelling baddies please!


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## Random (Dec 15, 2010)

Oblivion versus Morrowind 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





I don't see why this will be reversin the evolution


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## tommers (Dec 15, 2010)

I'm not sure that's entirely fair.


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## Crispy (Dec 15, 2010)

The thing that worries me is that this is a ps360pc release, which means it has to run on a HD-less 360, whichnmeans massive compromises when it comes to world complexity etc..


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## Epona (Dec 16, 2010)

Random said:


> Oblivion versus Morrowind
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
That is overly harsh, and completely inaccurate, since Oblivion didn't feature cutscenes (maybe one at the end of the main quest, I can't recall), and you didn't even have to do the main quest - and that image on the right (nor the one on the left for that matter) does not in any way represent any open world game.  

Oblivion was not Morrowind, not by a long chalk, but it is still in my top 10 of the last decade, I'm playing it now in anaglyph 3D, which has added a whole other dimension to the game (ha, see what I did there?  )  If Skyrim is at least as good as Oblivion it will make my top 10.  

And given that I am lucky to get even 1 game a year that appeals to me, anyone with criticism before we've even seen any screenshots can fuck right off - I have been looking forward to this for ages, which is not something I can say that often.


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## tommers (Dec 16, 2010)

Yeah!  I'm with her!


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## Dandred (Dec 16, 2010)

Random said:


> Oblivion versus Morrowind
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
The "*FPS map design*" in big letters at the top of the diagram gives you 100% fail.

Morrowind, Oblivion and the upcoming Skyrim are RPG's 

I can't believe no one else noticed


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## Cid (Dec 16, 2010)

I did actually, and was going to post something sarky but forgot. Having said that it would apply quite well to Bioware's stuff.


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## tommers (Dec 16, 2010)

Cid said:


> I did actually, and was going to post something sarky but forgot. Having said that it would apply quite well to Bioware's stuff.



careful!  

*ducks*


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## Random (Dec 18, 2010)

Dandred said:


> The "*FPS map design*" in big letters at the top of the diagram gives you 100% fail.
> 
> Morrowind, Oblivion and the upcoming Skyrim are RPG's
> 
> I can't believe no one else noticed


 The analogy still applies, however. The chances of a wonderful immersive sandbox like Morrowind in TES V are small.


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## Crispy (Jan 7, 2011)

First screenshots and information in this month's Game Informer. American mag  Scans are just now coming online - but shitty quality so far.

This is 200 years after Oblivion. The 4th era of Tamriel

http://s384.photobucket.com/albums/...lenuts/?action=view&current=1294437818940.jpg


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## Crispy (Jan 7, 2011)

Aw man, level scaling is still in  although changed in some way?
_Will have to wait and see - this is deal breaking for me. Glass-armoured bandits? No thanks._

Skills and leveling are much simplified - No more strength, wisdom, agility etc. just health/magicka/fatigue. no maj/min skills, no classes
_I like. I always end up choosing some maj/min skill that I never use and kick myself for_

Levelup lets you choose new perks
_I like. Choosing to upgrade a stat by a number = boring. Choosing a cool new skill = fun._

"Two hands" system. Spell1 + Spell2 - Spell1 + Spell1 for stronger - Spell and Weapon - Shield and Weapon - Weapon and Weapon. etc.
_Sounds good. Switching from magic to fighting is such a pain in the ass normally._

The key thing I don't know yet is: Are cities in the world or are they hidden by loading screens? They had fucking better fucking be fucking in the fucking world


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## Crispy (Jan 8, 2011)

Ah. fantastic summary here:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=418068


> Recap of info courtesy of ShadowPampers
> 
> 
> Ok, here is my recap of the info, hope it helps. This is not all the info, however.
> ...


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## Stigmata (Jan 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Aw man, level scaling is still in  although changed in some way?





> Mysticism is gone.
> 18 skills, down from 21 on Oblivion, and 27 on Morrowind.



Bad



> Enchanting: This skill makes a return.





> more variation in caves and underground stuff





> Quests are much more dynamic now



Good

The rest is just meh. Not too exciting. And this:



> You are gonna be trying to stop the wicked dragon god



annoys the lore nerd in me. Alduin isn't evil, he's just a force of nature. A Shiva-type figure.


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## Crispy (Jan 8, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> annoys the lore nerd in me. Alduin isn't evil, he's just a force of nature. A Shiva-type figure.


 
I think this is just the magazine exaggerating. The Lore in TES has always been top notch and smart. I wouldn't be surprised if the relationships between gods, mortals and dragons turn out to be interesting, with multiple conflicting "truths"

But the gameplay descriptions sound... consoley.


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## Stigmata (Jan 8, 2011)

Yes, if you end up bouncing around waving swords the size of diving boards a la _Fable_, I won't be too happy.


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## Crispy (Jan 8, 2011)

From reading TES threads on other sites, it always seems like the right amount of complexity for a TES game is the complexity if the first game in the series that you played 
But  also - theres nothing in this coverage that suggest other than Bethesda are continuing in the same direction they took morrowind -> oblivion


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## tommers (Jan 8, 2011)

I'm going to withhold judgement.  The reduction in skills is bad and not picking a character class makes me feel a bit naked.  But this is Bethesda and the "radiant storytelling" sounds good.

No more attributes too.... what the fuck?  It's like Tunnels and Trolls never happened.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 8, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> bouncing around waving swords the size of diving boards


 
putting the j into rpg


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## Epona (Jan 8, 2011)

It looks as though Thu'um is in - apparently you'll be able to learn up to 20 shouts.  No further info than that at present.

I like the idea of being able to use both hands in combat with dual wield weapons/weapon + spell/weapon + shield (including shield bash)/spell + spell.  Being able to combine melee and magic in combat was terrible in MW and improved in OB (and you won't hear me say that sort of thing often!) and this sounds even better.  Finishing moves made me ho and hum a bit, I'm not a fan if it locks the camera or characters.  Archery improved.

My heart sank when I heard that attributes and classes were gone, but reading more about it I'm feeling more optimistic, it sounds as if they've made levelling more natural rather than picking major and minor skills at the start.  Perks - depends what they are and how they are implemented, I'm on the fence about this one.  I'm a bit dubious about the trimming down of the skills list though, I'd rather see more skills than yet another reduction.

But we're getting crafting - woodcutting, farming, ability to forge your own weapons.  And enchanting is back.  I'm liking the sound of this very much!

Radiant questing - not sure how I feel about this.  I kill a questgiver and his daughter might give me the same quest anyway - could be good, but it could ultimately mean that there are no real consequences (in terms of quests) for killing an NPC.  Also placing quests in a random dungeon that you haven't visited - again it could be good, but it could also mean that the quests are more generic, if they can take place anywhere and the location doesn't really matter.  Also wonder what this means for modding, if any location can potentially be a quest location in the vanilla game.  Different quests will also be offered depending upon your skills and play style.

Level scaling - I imagine that it's tied in with the Radiant questing rather than having every enemy scale with you resulting in ridiculously powerful rats and marauders with daedric gear at level 25, the developers are aware of how unpopular that was in OB - the game will populate a quest location dynamically based upon a log of your play style, skills etc. so that it is tailored to the player.  So that doing a quest as a level 1 warrior would be a different experience than doing the same quest as a level 20 mage.  This could be a good thing for those intending to play the game many times with different characters, but it all depends upon how it's implemented.

Option to turn off the HUD in first player mode - YES!

Fast travel in - BOO (but I am able to restrain myself and not use it, not so good for those without any self restraint!)

Unlike Vvardenfell and Cyrodil, Skyrim will have children amongst its population.

No zoom in when entering dialogue.

Looks as if the cities may be open, but this is not confirmed for certain.

Graphics and effects and all that looks good, dynamic water that flows, snow that builds up during a blizzard then melts etc. more customisation in the appearance of your character, more facial differences between NPCs, better facial expressions.

Overall, I'm feeling optimistic


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## tommers (Jan 8, 2011)

Epona said:


> Radiant questing - not sure how I feel about this.  I kill a questgiver and his daughter might give me the same quest anyway


 
Yeah, i thought that sounded odd.  "You killed my dad!  Anyway, there's some rats need clearing out of our warehouse.  Can you sort it out?"


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## golightly (Jan 8, 2011)

Epona said:


> Still, I clutched onto the OH's arm and burst into tears when Todd Howard came onto the stage surrounded by all those robed figures.



Now you're starting to scare me.


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## Epona (Jan 8, 2011)

For those concerned about level scaling, this has been posted by the Bethesda employed admin on the official forums:




			
				Official Bethesda person said:
			
		

> Since people are asking, wanted to briefly touch on level scaling. All our games have had some amount of randomness/levelling based on player level. Skyrim's is similar to Fallout 3's, not Oblivion's.
> 
> Hope that addresses some concerns, and we hope you're enjoying the GI cover story.
> 
> Have a great night


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## Stigmata (Jan 9, 2011)

That's true now I think about it. Wilderness animal encounters and the like were levelled in Morrowind. Once you were past level 30 or so you'd see Ogrims wandering the Grazelands.

I'm not fussed about the lack of classes. They were a hangover from the game's D&D roots and never really fit with the open world ethos of the series. Surely everyone who's played Morrowind or Oblivion for a bit customises their own class anyway?


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## Epona (Jan 9, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> That's true now I think about it. Wilderness animal encounters and the like were levelled in Morrowind. Once you were past level 30 or so you'd see Ogrims wandering the Grazelands.



Very true, you had more frequent encounters with higher level beasties when you had a higher character level in Morrowind - such as Ogrims, and more Golden Saints around at higher levels too.  The main issue with Oblivion was that at level 30 you had to whack a bandit over and over before he even flinched because the way he was scaled was to give him loads of health - and when he did finally go down you could loot ridiculous gear off his body.  

It is something of a relief to have it confirmed that it will be FO3 style level scaling, which wasn't so noticeable - at level 1 in a particular location you'd encounter 3 feral ghouls, at level 20 in the same location you'd meet 3 feral ghouls and a glowing one or ghoul reaver (based on % chance) - not particularly intrusive, definitely not as intrusive as Oblivion's "lets make goblins harder to kill at level 20 than at level 1 by giving them a million extra health points, this will fuck up all those players who levelled up alchemy and lockpicking instead of combat skills" approach.*



Stigmata said:


> I'm not fussed about the lack of classes. They were a hangover from the game's D&D roots and never really fit with the open world ethos of the series. Surely everyone who's played Morrowind or Oblivion for a bit customises their own class anyway?


 
Yeah I think I picked a class the first time I loaded up Morrowind, about 20 minutes in decided it wasn't the way I wanted to play it, and restarted with a custom class.

*At least that's what I recall from vanilla games, I've not played either game in its original form for years - Creatures X for Morrowind and Martigens Monster Mod for Oblivion are definitely the way to go - and I'd recommend both to anyone who felt the variety, scaling, and AI behaviour of any hostile encounter in either game to be lacking - both mods completely change the respective games for the better.


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## Stigmata (Feb 24, 2011)

Epic trailer is epic


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## Dandred (Feb 25, 2011)

*Wrong Thread I know but.....*

Anybody playing the total conversion mod for Oblivion call  Nehrim? It's in German but has English subtitles. 

Really enjoyable maybe even better than Oblivion its self!


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## Crispy (Feb 25, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> Epic trailer is epic


 
Lubvskukhhygdu si o

*breath*

Ok I can type now. WANT.


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## Cid (Feb 25, 2011)

Ooh... Looks like Dwemer ruins are back.


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## Random (Feb 25, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> Epic trailer is epic


 
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. Will never be able to run it, though. I can only do Fallout on low graphics


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## Crispy (Feb 25, 2011)

I'll be playing on xbox360, unless a grand's worth of PC mysteriously appears in my home. Which is a shame, this is glorious master race gaming at its best


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## golightly (Feb 25, 2011)

My new pc is skyrim-ready.


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## Dandred (Feb 25, 2011)

I might just need a new graphics card but I'll see, nothing made me play anything less than 1900x1200 for about 3 years now 

Still only at 3.3 on my quad as well


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## Random (Feb 25, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I'll be playing on xbox360, unless a grand's worth of PC mysteriously appears in my home. Which is a shame, this is glorious master race gaming at its best


 Are you saying that the Nords are hideously white?


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## Stigmata (Feb 25, 2011)

Random said:


> Are you saying that the Nords are hideously white?


 
Play as a Redguard.


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## Random (Feb 25, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> Play as a Redguard.


 That's what my first proper Morrowind character was. Could not be beat.


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## Crispy (Feb 25, 2011)




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## Random (Feb 25, 2011)

It's funny because it's true


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 25, 2011)

pc gaming isn't dead

just dead expensive  (or slightly retro)


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## Epona (Feb 25, 2011)

Seeing the new trailer has re-ignited my enthusiasm (I really shouldn't hang around the Bethsoft forums, all the ridiculous "I Want" threads* can get really depressing after a while).  The landscapes and environments look so much more interesting than those in Oblivion, something that is so important (to me, at least!) in an open world game.

* as in "I Want.... to have a retinue of personal dremora slaves/rideable dragons/be able to see my own feet when I look down/guns/TES to be more like Fable/the moon on a stick"


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## Cid (Feb 26, 2011)

Landscape/environment is what keeps people going back to Morrowind, you're among friends here. At the moment it looks a bit northern high fantasy, but handled well. We shall see. Shout looks promising, fighting class moving more to Diablo barbarian (ok, not doing ES lore justice) than hack and slash.


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## Stigmata (Feb 26, 2011)

I've always felt, from reading the in-game material about the Nords and Skyrim, that the place should have a kind of a Himalayan vibe. Inaccessible monasteries, weird gods, lots of chanting etc. I hope it's not just vikings vs dragons (although put like that it sounds pretty awesome)


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## Epona (Feb 26, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> I've always felt, from reading the in-game material about the Nords and Skyrim, that the place should have a kind of a Himalayan vibe. Inaccessible monasteries, weird gods, lots of chanting etc. I hope it's not just vikings vs dragons (although put like that it sounds pretty awesome)


 
If it's Vikings vs. Dragons, I will still play it, it will likely be an enjoyable romp albeit through Western/Northern European medieval based fantasy clichés, it could still be a good game, but I want it to be a great game.  Making it more culturally interesting and less familiar is the factor that could put it on the same level as Morrowind - which was as good as it was largely because you found yourself in a very alien and unfamiliar culture and environment (Oblivion could mostly have taken place in rural Surrey where I grew up, there was nothing there that made me feel I were in a different world), Morrowind was unique on that level and a breath of fresh air, ideally Skyrim should NOT be a game about Vikings!


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## Dandred (Feb 26, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> pc gaming isn't dead
> 
> just dead expensive  (or slightly retro)


 
PC gaming has always been expensive, if anything PC gaming has become a hell of a lot cheaper. Five years ago you had to upgrade nearly every year, I haven't upgraded in over three years and I can still play all the most recent games lat 1900x1200. 

Consoles are now dominant, they are the ones that setting  the limit to graphics horse power, and as Skrim is being released for console as well as P.C.  I doubt that the graphics are going to be_ radically _different from something like fallout 3.


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## Crispy (Feb 26, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> I've always felt, from reading the in-game material about the Nords and Skyrim, that the place should have a kind of a Himalayan vibe. Inaccessible monasteries, weird gods, lots of chanting etc. I hope it's not just vikings vs dragons (although put like that it sounds pretty awesome)


 
Climbing 6 thousand steps to talk with mysterious monks about a thousand year old prophecy doesn't sound particularly Viking. 

The look is strong though, judging by the trailer. Already looks like it has more character than cyrodil.

This is a greet year for gaming! Deus ex, portal 2, TES 5. I may actually buy more than a couple of video games this year


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## Stigmata (Feb 26, 2011)

I know, I thought i'd gone off modern games but this year... might have to test the limits of my PC.


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## tommers (Feb 26, 2011)

oh my.


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## Epona (Feb 27, 2011)

Stigmata said:


> I know, I thought i'd gone off modern games but this year... might have to test the limits of my PC.



Well this year the game I'm looking forward to second to Skyrim is The Witcher 2 - everything I've heard about it sounds and looks fantastic, and I loved the first game - if you like "chapter" style RPGs but would prefer something very different to the classical style of Dragon Age you might find it worth a go.  I'm also going to get DA 2 and ME 3 this year, but I just can't get excited about them the way I am about Skyrim and The Witcher 2.



tommers said:


> oh my.


 
Indeed!   I'm looking forward to it, I'm going to be inconsolable if it doesn't deliver the goods.


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## steddyeddy (Feb 27, 2011)

Dam looks like a new pc is top of the list now.

Loved the first 2 and fallout 3. Sounds as though this is gonna beat all but morrowind.


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## golightly (Feb 27, 2011)

Epona said:


> Well this year the game I'm looking forward to second to Skyrim is The Witcher 2 - everything I've heard about it sounds and looks fantastic, and I loved the first game



I really enjoyed The Witcher at first but then lost my motivation.  I think I played it too soon after DA:O.  I'll give it another play in a while, but there's so much stuff coming out lately that's piquing my interest that I don't know what to play next.


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## tommers (Feb 27, 2011)

I have just started the Witcher too, but I don't have any enthusiasm for it and I'm still in the tutorial


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## golightly (Feb 27, 2011)

It is good when you get into it, and I will have another go at it.


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## Epona (Feb 27, 2011)

tommers said:


> I have just started the Witcher too, but I don't have any enthusiasm for it and I'm still in the tutorial


 
The tutorial is not so good and the "timed clicks" nature of combat to chain combat moves together can be tricky until you get used to it, but if you have the patience to stick it out until you get to the first proper village and start out on your own it is IMO well worth it - one of the best stories ever told in a computer game, and certainly has some of the most morally ambiguous and far-reaching choices 

ETA: Make sure you are playing the Enhanced Edition - the initial release had some bugs and the Polish->English translation was dire, it was all sorted out for the EE though.


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## Garek (Mar 2, 2011)

I am extremely excited about this. I love the look of the setting, the cold, northern areas. It just looks AWESOME.

I am unfortunately another person who couldn't get over Oblivions levelling system  I juts found it broke the illusion. The other thing which annoyed me was what was the point, the drive the go into, for example, Elven ruins? It seems like a nice idea that to get cool Elven stuff you had to raid those ruins. But why bother when Stinky the level 30 bandit would have it all, dressed to the nines in something that would make even Liberace blush.

So I just hope, I really, really hope, that this game is the game I wanted Oblivion to be. 

And by does it look pretty. 

I have just ordered a Cyberpower Infinity Game Cube with an Nvidia 560, so I hopefully be able to run it at full settings.


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## Cid (Apr 20, 2011)

There's an article up at G4TV including an interview with Todd Howard... The all-pervasive influence of skill trees seems to have made its way to Bethesda (you have perk trees linked to each skill). Radiant AI sounds like it could be really, really good and the shouts sound very promising. He also briefly mentions that they'll have full draw distance, I'm struggling to see how they'll manage that on the 360 with all the graphics improvements, but hopefully it will mean mid spec PCs can run it with that feature... Also weather and general environment stuff sounds like it could be great. Still looking a bit Norse in the latest pics, but in a really well realised way. And look, NPCs have dogs:


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## Crispy (Apr 20, 2011)

My hype levels are maintained. 11.11.11 is a long way away, but at least it'll be cold then. Can't justify Portal 2 right now with all this sun!


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## tommers (Apr 20, 2011)

7 months. How the fuck am I going to wait 7 months?


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## Citizen66 (Apr 23, 2011)

Looking forward to this although it might be an xbox purchase as my pc almost certainly won't run it.

Played oblivion for hours and hours, didn't even touch the main quest. Played until I got turned into a vampire and could only move around at night; desperately searching for obscure herbs that could cure me. It became a bit of an acquired taste at that point, another game caught my eye and I didn't go back to it. Silly really, because I had untouched dlc for it too.


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## Random (Apr 24, 2011)

Just wrote my first ever letter to a newspaper as one of the culture critics foolishly asserted that Vivec was a Cyrodilic place name.


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## tommers (Apr 24, 2011)

What an idiot. Sheesh.


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## Random (Apr 24, 2011)

my thoughts exactly


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## tommers (May 9, 2011)

I've been reading some stuff about Skyrim and one thing that confuses me is that they've gotten rid of all the attributes.  So no more Strength, Agility, Speed etc etc.

Quite apart from offending my old school RPG sensibilities, how the fuck is that going to work?  Does everybody run at the same speed?  Carry the same amount of stuff?  Hit with the same force? 

And I can see screenshots showing hit points / magicka etc etc.... what determines those?

I feel a bit weird if there are no attribute scores.  They're the bedrock man!


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## Garek (May 9, 2011)

Bit worried about their statement regarding "parity of performance". Looks like the PC version ain't going to be as pretty as it could be


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## Crispy (May 9, 2011)

tommers said:


> I've been reading some stuff about Skyrim and one thing that confuses me is that they've gotten rid of all the attributes.  So no more Strength, Agility, Speed etc etc.
> 
> Quite apart from offending my old school RPG sensibilities, how the fuck is that going to work?  Does everybody run at the same speed?  Carry the same amount of stuff?  Hit with the same force?
> 
> ...


 
The explanation goes like this:

When actually playing the game, you don't care about some abstract number, you care about "how fast can I run?" "how powerful is my fireball spell?" "how easy is it to hide?" - the answer to those questions used to be "well it depends on your Speed and Athletics stats. It depends on your Intelligence and Destruction stats. It depends on your Agility and Stealth stats" - Why use two stats for each ability, when you could just have one?

AFAIK, they will just have three "attributes" - health, magicka, stamina. Everything else is based on skills/abilities, with no intermediary attributes to muddy the waters. When you level up, you gain +1 health and +1 to your choice of health, stamina or magicka. You also get to choose perks for your most-used abilities (this hasn't been clearly detailed yet, but it'll be something like: You reached level 8. The three most common abilities you used since level 7 were long blade, lock pick and destruction. Would you like a special parry move, a greater chance of blocking blows with your shield, or faster recharge on lightning spells?)


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## tommers (May 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> "well it depends on your Speed and Athletics stats.



Both of which are being dropped. 

I can see that skills and perks are going to determine a lot of this - I imagine you'll be given some choices when you create your character - I just prefer more detail, not less.  Attributes give a starting character more "flesh".  I'll wait and see how it's going to work but part of the appeal of these games is playing a character, not just an identikit "human" or "dark elf" or whatever.


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## Crispy (May 9, 2011)

One of my biggest frustrations with TES games (and any other RPGs where you 'roll' a character to start with) is that you can't possibly predict how you're going to play the game. You might make a super magic user, start playing, put 10 hours in and then realise that actually, axes are more fun. Trying to make your pre-made magic guy into an axe-wielder would be a waste of time. Not only is his Axe skill low, but so is his Strength and Agility, and I won't get the right bonuses at level-up cos I chose the wrong Major skills etc.

I'd much prefer a character system that gives you a blank slate to start with and lets you sketch lightly with all skills until you find a play style that clicks. I must have started 6 or so games of Morrowind, each time realising that I had the 'wrong' major and minor skills, until eventually I found the 'perfect' setup that let me level up efficiently. What's the fun in that? I'm saving the world and getting into character, not playing a mathematical stats game! Although I can understand an attraction to spreadsheets


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## Garek (May 9, 2011)

I think Crispy that is exactly what they are going for


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## Crispy (May 9, 2011)

I know 
Excitement!
I only really have time for one game like this every 5 years or so. I am very much looking forward to it.


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## Garek (May 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I know
> Excitement!
> I only really have time for one game like this every 5 years or so. I am very much looking forward to it.


 
Ah. I did write that with the feeling I was missing something. Oh well


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## Corax (May 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> One of my biggest frustrations with TES games (and any other RPGs where you 'roll' a character to start with) is that you can't possibly predict how you're going to play the game. You might make a super magic user, start playing, put 10 hours in and then realise that actually, axes are more fun. Trying to make your pre-made magic guy into an axe-wielder would be a waste of time. Not only is his Axe skill low, but so is his Strength and Agility, and I won't get the right bonuses at level-up cos I chose the wrong Major skills etc.
> 
> I'd much prefer a character system that gives you a blank slate to start with and lets you sketch lightly with all skills until you find a play style that clicks. I must have started 6 or so games of Morrowind, each time realising that I had the 'wrong' major and minor skills, until eventually I found the 'perfect' setup that let me level up efficiently. What's the fun in that? I'm saving the world and getting into character, not playing a mathematical stats game! Although I can understand an attraction to spreadsheets


 
The obvious answer is to include childhood in the game, where you educate and train your character.

That's right - _Elder Scrolls VI: The Sims_!!!1!ONE!


----------



## Crispy (May 9, 2011)

Corax said:


> The obvious answer is to include childhood in the game, where you educate and train your character.


 
Are you aware of how Fallout 3 starts?


----------



## tommers (May 9, 2011)

you start by being led to your execution!

I am also very excited.  I may well be eating my words in 6 month's time...


----------



## tommers (May 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Are you aware of how Fallout 3 starts?



I remember setting my SPECIAL scores!


----------



## Corax (May 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Are you aware of how Fallout 3 starts?


 
Nope.  Is it like The Sims?


----------



## Crispy (May 9, 2011)

Corax said:


> Nope.  Is it like The Sims?


 
It begins with being born.  (skip to 04:50),
but soon falls into the stats trap


----------



## tommers (May 9, 2011)

I'm ignoring that Crispy.

From you of all people.


----------



## Corax (May 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> It begins with being born.  (skip to 04:50),
> but soon falls into the stats trap




It doesn't look like there's any way to buy furniture though.


----------



## Epona (May 9, 2011)

In case anyone hasn't seen it, this Eurogamer Preview (based on a presentation of gameplay demo rather than actually having their hands on a working beta copy or anything like that!) is by far the best article I've seen about the game so far.  Not sure I can wait the next 6 months without my head exploding though!


----------



## Random (May 10, 2011)

Epona said:


> In case anyone hasn't seen it, this Eurogamer Preview (based on a presentation of gameplay demo rather than actually having their hands on a working beta copy or anything like that!) is by far the best article I've seen about the game so far.  Not sure I can wait the next 6 months without my head exploding though!


 
That looks totally amazing. My expectations are sky-high. Will it need a new computer to play it, though? My current one only just manages to wheeze it's way through Fallout 3.


----------



## Crispy (May 10, 2011)

Seeing as both games were targeted for xbox360 and ps3 and share a lot of the same tech, then the same computer should wheeze through skyrim like it wheezed through fallout 3.


----------



## Random (May 10, 2011)

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

On a similar note:

I am getting used to the fact that I won't be able to justify buying a new mac this autumn just so I can play Skyrim on it. However, I might be able to stretch to a cheap PC. I can think of several other uses I could put a little windows box to. I am totally out of the loop when it comes to this sort of thing though. How cheap could I get a gaming box that'll handle skyrim at decent settings? Happy to self-build.

The alternative is playing on xbox, and missing out on all the mods.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Jun 1, 2011)

dunno  decent ones start  around £700  i think   you might be able to cut that proce a bit  by taling to the bods in comp forum but that's as likly to start an argument


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

Really, that much? Xbox is 5 years old - surely a PC of comparable power is cheap as chips these days...


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> On a similar note:
> 
> I am getting used to the fact that I won't be able to justify buying a new mac this autumn just so I can play Skyrim on it. However, I might be able to stretch to a cheap PC. I can think of several other uses I could put a little windows box to. I am totally out of the loop when it comes to this sort of thing though. How cheap could I get a gaming box that'll handle skyrim at decent settings? Happy to self-build.



They haven't released any specs yet. Nothing too fancy I think. 3GHz/4MB and a sub-£100 graphics card?



> The alternative is playing on xbox


 
lol fuck that.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

I will revisit the topic in November


----------



## Cid (Jun 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Really, that much? Xbox is 5 years old - surely a PC of comparable power is cheap as chips these days...


 
Do you need monitor etc? plus a legit copy of windows isn't cheap.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Jun 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Really, that much? Xbox is 5 years old - surely a PC of comparable power is cheap as chips these days...



i was quoting a decent computer  that will able to handle current games  if you want proper budget then  yeah  you can probably go lower but i have no idea how that would affect game handling.  i'm guesing a £500 one could  probably handle  it   if  not  be  that great


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

Cid said:


> Do you need monitor etc? plus a legit copy of windows isn't cheap.


 
Just the box, I have everything else.
Legit windows?


----------



## Cid (Jun 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Just the box, I have everything else.
> Legit windows?


 
Bored so had a quick look round scan...	

LN29524
	Asus M4A78LT-M LE, AMD 760G, S AM3, DDR3 1800(OC), SATA 3Gb/s, SATA RAID, MicroATX, Onboard Graphics		 £34.98	 £41.98	

LN34189
	1TB Hitachi 0F10383 Deskstar 7K1000.C, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8ms		 £32.68	 £39.22	

LN34240
	AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black, Deneb Core, S AM3, 3.2GHz, 8MB Cache, HT 3600MHz, 125W, Retail		 £72.95	 £87.54	

LN35269
	Tsunami Gaming Manager, Black, Mid Tower Case w/o PSU		 £15.95	 £19.14	

LN35844
	1GB Asus GT 430, 40nm, 1600MHz GDDR3, GPU 700MHz, 96 Cores, D-Sub/ Dual Link DVI-I/ HDMI		 £44.43	 £53.32	

LN36265
	620W Antec HCG-620 High Current Gamer, 80 PLUS Bronze, 88% Eff', EPS 12V, 135mm Quiet Fan ATX12V 2.3	

LN39293
	Samsung SH-S222AB/BEBE 22x DVD±R, 12x DVD±R, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black, OEM		 £12.22	 £14.66	

LN37263
	4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Classic, PC3-16000 (2000), Non-ECC, Unbuffered, CAS 9-10-9-27, 1.65V		 £40.16	 £48.19

Net Total
Carriage
VAT
£295.03
£13.98
£61.81
Total £370.82

Notes: No idea about the case, but prob fine. You could save a little cash on the CPU but not much, could also go for a cheaper PSU but Antec are a known quantity and poor PSUs can fuck up. Might save a bit on the HD but that's pretty good value (actually the one I meant to put was a Samsung, but Scan don't seem to have them in stock). The RAM is Corsair's cheapest DDR3 I think, you'd have to check compatibility with the motherboard (which you might also be able to spend slightly less on but, again, Asus are reputable). The GPU is possibly a bit budget as well... 

The good thing about PCs is you can probably get some free second hand bits, I'll prob upgrade mine before Skyrim comes out and it has some decent stuff.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

I can scavenge a case & PSU from work I think, ditto hard drive (doesn't need to be a big one) and dvd drive. SHould be able to get the price below 300, easy. Food for thought  Cheers, cid!


----------



## Garek (Jun 1, 2011)

I am worried about all the talk of "parity of performance". ie. if you own a PC you ain't going to get nowt special because God forbid it should look better than on an archaic console.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

It's a money thing. More sales on consoles = spend less money on the PC version.

Don't worry, TES VI will be on the next generation and will look like raw sex dipped in liquid platinum.

Looks like walled cities are still in, cos levitation's been definitively ruled out


----------



## Garek (Jun 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> It's a money thing. More sales on consoles = spend less money on the PC version.
> 
> Don't worry, TES VI will be on the next generation and will look like raw sex dipped in liquid platinum.


 
Yep. The cruel taint of money. Actually it is interesting how much the indie scene is now charging ahead because of this. 

I hope it does look good and I hope the game is good. Really do. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be as big a (personal) dissapointment as Oblivion was.

Hopefully there will at least be some nods to the PC and not give us a crappy pad based menu system.


----------



## Epona (Jun 6, 2011)

New gameplay demo  from Spike TV.

There will probably be a better picture quality version up on Game Trailers at some point today (check the E3 coverage page)


----------



## Crispy (Jun 6, 2011)

EDIT: I just knew epona would beat me to it


----------



## Epona (Jun 6, 2011)

HD version now up on Game Trailers:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-elder-scrolls/714852


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 6, 2011)

hmmm, looks like Scotland


----------



## Crispy (Jun 6, 2011)

Long-range terrain doesn't look that hot - the long grass stops pretty close to the camera.
PC version to fix this, naturally 

However, the animation and art design looks spot on. It's elder scrolls and it doesn't look shit. I will buy it.


----------



## tommers (Jun 6, 2011)

I actually clapped when he jumped onto the dragon's head and killed it.  

Looks good though.  I liked the running up the tower to fight bit, mainly cos there didn't appear to be any loading screen.


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 6, 2011)

I like the streams to guide you out of some dungeons, I'm always blundering around looking for the exit and faffing around with my map


----------



## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

tommers said:


> I actually clapped when he jumped onto the dragon's head and killed it.
> 
> Looks good though.  I liked the running up the tower to fight bit, mainly cos there didn't appear to be any loading screen.


 
That won't be the norm. All other information points to loading screens for interiors. And loading screens to enter the five largest cities as well


----------



## tommers (Jun 7, 2011)

Are you sure? I thought I read somewhere they were trying to make it 'seamless' between outside and inside?  I might have just made that up though.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

Not a single screenshot so far of a view in or out of a window. I'd be amazed if they could pull it off on consoles, tbh. The RAM just isn't there. Next generation of consoles, or if it was PC only today, then they could do it.


----------



## Epona (Jun 7, 2011)

Today's 2 part interview for G4TV can be found on this YouTube user's channel - part 1 is already up, part 2 is being uploaded now.

Loads more information including a look at the map, perk system, inventory, and a horse (being ridden) which looks great!


----------



## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

No info yet on how shouts are limited. How often can they be used? What's to stop me spamming the mega-storm shout every time I see a mud crab? (filthy creature)


----------



## Stigmata (Jun 7, 2011)

Only 3 factions?


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2011)

Dark brotherhood is also confirmed.


----------



## Epona (Jun 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> No info yet on how shouts are limited. How often can they be used? What's to stop me spamming the mega-storm shout every time I see a mud crab? (filthy creature)



AFAIK there is a long cooldown - so no you won't be able to spam shouts - not sure how long the cooldown is mind you, but from what I've heard so far they will be more like major powers from MW/OB than something you can use every few minutes.



Stigmata said:


> Only 3 factions?


 
No, those are the 3 *main* factions - College of Winterhold (replaces Mage Guild), The Colleagues (replaces Fighters Guild), and the Thieves Guild (I can't recall if that has a different name).  Don't forget that Skyrim is set 200 years after Oblivion and a lot has happened (according to the book set after OB which at the moment we assume to be canon) - Red Mountain has erupted and Morrowind taken over by the Argonians with Dunmer refugees fleeing over the northern border to Skyrim, the Empire has suffered a major setback following the Oblivion Crisis and is in pieces so the Imperial based guilds that we know from previous games are gone.

Todd Howard said in the interview that these were the 3 main factions and he couldn't say anything further than that yet about other factions, iirc.


----------



## Cid (Jun 8, 2011)

Epona said:


> Today's 2 part interview for G4TV can be found on this YouTube user's channel - part 1 is already up, part 2 is being uploaded now.
> 
> Loads more information including a look at the map, perk system, inventory, and a horse (being ridden) which looks great!


 
Blocked...


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2011)

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/53441/The-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-E3-Gameplay-Demo/


----------



## Cid (Jun 8, 2011)

Hnghh...

<wanders off to change underwear>


----------



## Stigmata (Jun 8, 2011)

Epona said:


> No, those are the 3 *main* factions - College of Winterhold (replaces Mage Guild), The Colleagues (replaces Fighters Guild), and the Thieves Guild (I can't recall if that has a different name).  Don't forget that Skyrim is set 200 years after Oblivion and a lot has happened (according to the book set after OB which at the moment we assume to be canon) - Red Mountain has erupted and Morrowind taken over by the Argonians with Dunmer refugees fleeing over the northern border to Skyrim, the Empire has suffered a major setback following the Oblivion Crisis and is in pieces so the Imperial based guilds that we know from previous games are gone.
> 
> Todd Howard said in the interview that these were the 3 main factions and he couldn't say anything further than that yet about other factions, iirc.



Ok good. Of course i'm hoping for the equivalent of Morrowind's religious cults and great houses.


----------



## Cid (Jun 8, 2011)

The interviewers change half way through that video...


----------



## tommers (Jun 9, 2011)

How long now?

5 months?

Fuck.


----------



## Corax (Jun 9, 2011)

I never got very far with Oblivion, because I couldn't get to grips with combat on a keyboard, and then my PC died.

I got it on the XBox 2nd hand a couple of weeks ago, and it's making me really look forward to Skyrim.  Games like this take me forever because I sneak everywhere, open everything , talk to everyone, etc.  I'm still only level 2 after 21 days passed lol.


----------



## Stigmata (Jul 12, 2011)




----------



## ChrisFilter (Jul 12, 2011)

All this parity of performance thing is making me less excited. Consoles are too old now. I want eye candy! And we know developers can do super-whizzo PC graphics AND console-level graphics because they did it with Crysis 2 and are doing it with Battlefield 3. Battlefield 3, FarCry 3, etc are being developed with PC as the primary platform.. the same should be done for Skyrim.


----------



## Random (Jul 13, 2011)

Epona said:


> Red Mountain has erupted and Morrowind taken over by the Argonians with Dunmer refugees fleeing over the northern border to Skyrim


 Great, so I killed Dagon for nothing  Payback for all that slavery, I suppose...


----------



## Cid (Aug 5, 2011)

The collectors addition has been announced!!!








Alduin Statue: Created in conjunction with the IP Factory, this collector’s only statue stands 12” tall and is made of high quality PVC. Modeled from actual in-game 3D digital files, it showcases Alduin, the World Eater. He stands perched atop one the game’s many dragon walls that teach the player the lethal language of dragons.

The Art of Skyrim’ Official Art Book: Featuring over 200 pages of striking, full-color illustrations, sketches and models, this stunning 9 3/8” x 12 1/8” coffee table book showcases the characters, creatures, environments, and weaponry of Skyrim. With a foreword by game director Todd Howard and commentary from Bethesda Game Studios artists, readers will be guided through the game’s iconic visual style.

The Making of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ DVD This documentary DVD contains exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage, including interviews with the Bethesda Game Studios team as they take you from concept to creation and provide insights into the story, gameplay, setting, legacy of the Elder Scrolls franchise, and much more.

All yours for only £129.99!!!

Yes, that's right folks, just £129.99 for a 12" plastic statue, a few DVDs and a book of pictures!


----------



## bmd (Aug 10, 2011)

It's high quality plastic Cid. HIGH QUALITY.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 10, 2011)

i've paid more.


----------



## tommers (Aug 10, 2011)

I'm not sure you're a good measure shippy.


----------



## Dandred (Aug 12, 2011)

tommers said:


> I'm not sure you're a good measure shippy.


lol


----------



## Epona (Aug 12, 2011)

All collectors editions are overpriced tat. This was the first game where you noticed?

I mean seriously, I ran out of space to display or store this sort of shit 20 years ago. I'm interested in the game itself, and I'll buy the game, probably digital download, and probably on a preorder so that I can get most of the game downloaded so I can activate and play it right on the moment it's released, but however much of a TES fan I am I will never buy a collectors edition. Not enough money, not enough space to display the tat.

It could be made from highest quality PVC or solid platinum for all I care - where there are people stupid enough to buy this shit, it will be marketed.

And that's coming from one of the biggest TES fans on Urban.


----------



## tommers (Aug 12, 2011)

Thanks Dandred.  I got a trophy for that.  Not sure what it's made of.  I think it's a virtual trophy.  Made of electrons or something.


----------



## Cid (Aug 12, 2011)

Epona said:


> All collectors editions are overpriced tat. This was the first game where you noticed?
> 
> I mean seriously, I ran out of space to display or store this sort of shit 20 years ago. I'm interested in the game itself, and I'll buy the game, probably digital download, and probably on a preorder so that I can get most of the game downloaded so I can activate and play it right on the moment it's released, but however much of a TES fan I am I will never buy a collectors edition. Not enough money, not enough space to display the tat.
> 
> ...



No, but the Oblivion collector's edition wasn't much more expensive than the standard one - this is going to be around £100 more. Which is quite a lot.

Will probably get the digital download too, who wants more fucking DVD cases these days? It's not long now, exciting - need to start saving for PC upgrades.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 12, 2011)

Any word on whether this is going to be vaguely playable on a console this time around? Oblivion is a hellish piece of crap on my xbox, and no mods to redeem it D:

I'm getting closer and closer to dual-booting my macbook pro and/or imac with windows, but haven't quite made the jump yet. If I don't, console it is, but I shan't bother if the experience is going to be the same as Oblivion.

(Incidentally, it's SW:TOR that's teasing me the most re: dual-booting. I know someone who's beta testing at the moment and he's loving it. I'll get the chance to have a play next week when I see him, but ...... ngh, want.)


----------



## Cid (Aug 15, 2011)

Comparison of faces between Morrowind, oblivion and Skyrim.

http://kotaku.com/5830789/skyrim-youve-come-a-long-way-baby


----------



## agricola (Aug 15, 2011)

Mod fun:

http://kotaku.com/5826818/oblivion-is-made-better-when-burger-king-punches-men-with-a-fish


----------



## Cid (Aug 31, 2011)

Daggerfall is available for free download (runs on a DOS emulator) if anyone wants to brush up on their lore.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/daggerfall/


----------



## tommers (Aug 31, 2011)

http://savygamer.co.uk/category/deals/360/

Buy 2 games from Tesco and get £15 off.


----------



## tommers (Sep 5, 2011)

People have been given an hour to play with it.  Lots of accounts on the net.

2 months, 6 days.


----------



## Cid (Sep 6, 2011)

Oh dear lord...






7 foot high

Impressive marketing it must be said, but Deus Ex has clinched the 'marketing of the year' for me.


----------



## Stigmata (Sep 7, 2011)

^Pretty stupid, as the player character won't look like that for 99% of players. They should have made a dragon instead.


----------



## Cid (Sep 7, 2011)

Who'll buy them anyway? they must cost a fortune. I mean I'm assuming they're not actually bronze, but still.


----------



## Random (Sep 7, 2011)

Surely they're to put in game shops?


----------



## Cid (Sep 7, 2011)

No!

Er... yes. You're probably right, and I probably misread the fuckbake update from Bethesda.


----------



## Stigmata (Sep 7, 2011)

They put Brotherhood of Steel statues in game shops when Fallout 3 came out. Which at least makes sense, that's a more iconic image.


----------



## Corax (Sep 7, 2011)

Random said:


> Surely they're to put in game shops?


Oh! That makes more sense! I thought they'd created an Elder Scrolls version ofQin Shi Huang's terracotta army for some reason!


----------



## tommers (Sep 13, 2011)

There's 20 mins of somebody (presumably todd howard or one of his minions) playing Skyrim on RockPaperShotgun.

(and probably on other websites.)

Lots is the same as previous videos but some new stuff.  Inventory looks cool.

Still bothered about no classes or stats.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 13, 2011)

tommers said:


> Still bothered about no classes or stats.


I like this


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 13, 2011)

Me too. I'll definitely be getting this game (I might even go for it at release day price instead of waiting for it to come down like normal) and I can't say the lack of stats bothers me at all tbh.


----------



## tommers (Sep 13, 2011)

That's why I'm worried.  Especially crispy,  I thought he was one of the good guys


----------



## tommers (Sep 13, 2011)

I played a bit of 2 worlds. No classes there and really basic stats that you increase when you level up.

Rubbish. You end up being alright at lots but not great at anything.  Specialisation makes for a more inventive and rewarding game.

So ner.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 13, 2011)

looks like this may be a must buy.   i did like morrowind.

this looks a bit  more adventury  than fallout 3  which i found  to be  ok  but  a little lacking


----------



## Crispy (Sep 13, 2011)

tommers said:


> That's why I'm worried. Especially crispy, I thought he was one of the good guys


I started typing away then realised we did this months ago 
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim.265392/page-3#post-9824769


----------



## Crispy (Sep 13, 2011)

tommers said:


> I played a bit of 2 worlds. No classes there and really basic stats that you increase when you level up.
> 
> Rubbish. You end up being alright at lots but not great at anything. Specialisation makes for a more inventive and rewarding game.
> 
> So ner.



I think specialising in Skyrim will actually be _more_ rewarding than in previous TES games, because of the perks. Previously, being really good at something just meant a higher number when you did that something. Now, being really good at Axes means you can unlock unique actions and skills that actually give you more combat options and look really cool.

I'm also very glad that major/minor distinctions are being ditched. They provided an easy way to game the leveling system, whilst locking you into a character class before you'd even set foot in the world and sampled the options.


----------



## tommers (Sep 13, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I started typing away then realised we did this months ago
> http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim.265392/page-3#post-9824769


 


I know.  It's _still_ bothering me. 

I am still very very excited mind.


----------



## Dooby (Sep 13, 2011)

I didn't ever click on this thread coz I always thought it was a discussion about elder scrolls Vs skyrim .
But it's a bloody new Elder Scrolls!  Am veh excited!


----------



## tommers (Sep 13, 2011)

I've already decided I'm going to be a blacksmith and wander the lands doing menial tasks for a pittance.

I also wrote a big long reply but we both know you're wrong, so what's the point of rehashing old ground? 

You don't end up specialising.  That was the basic thrust of it.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 13, 2011)

The standing stones that give you an instant and permanent buff are a bit much even for me, though.


----------



## tommers (Sep 13, 2011)

Yeah, I thought that too.  That's kind of their way of doing it.  Seems a bit pointless.  I want to pick my own advantages, not some package.


----------



## Cid (Sep 13, 2011)

Can I just state that people who used classes in Morrowind or Oblivion are tools and lame.


----------



## Cid (Sep 13, 2011)

Crispy said:


> The standing stones that give you an instant and permanent buff are a bit much even for me, though.



They had them in Oblivion didn't they? Something similar anyway.

e2a: Ah, permanent this time.


----------



## Cid (Sep 13, 2011)

tommers said:


> Yeah, I thought that too. That's kind of their way of doing it. Seems a bit pointless. I want to pick my own advantages, not some package.



Says the class user.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 13, 2011)

Cid said:


> Can I just state that people who used classes in Morrowind or Oblivion are tools and lame.


You mean the preset ones? "Palladin" "Bard" etc?
As opposed to rolling your own?
Which requires a detailed knowledge of the EXP and leveling system, and a pre-knowledge of how the game is to play and what you find enjoyable.


----------



## Dooby (Sep 13, 2011)

I'll be so over excited I expect to create several games with different main character classes and wake up at nights fretting I've done the right thing. I bought an Xbox 360 just to play Oblivion. *runs off to frantically check skyrim is on xbox*


----------



## Cid (Sep 13, 2011)

I should stress that that wasn't a serious point, I probably played for a few hours on a pre-set before customising one.


----------



## Dooby (Sep 13, 2011)

Crispy said:


> You mean the preset ones? "Palladin" "Bard" etc?
> As opposed to rolling your own?
> Which requires a detailed knowledge of the EXP and leveling system, and a pre-knowledge of how the game is to play and what you find enjoyable.



I always always end up playing a tank with maxed strength and endurance. I laugh in the face of clever tactics. I like to hit things.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 13, 2011)

Dooby said:


> I'll be so over excited I expect to create several games with different main character classes and wake up at nights fretting I've done the right thing. I bought an Xbox 360 just to play Oblivion. *runs off to frantically check skyrim is on xbox*


It's on xbox.
I got Oblivion on Xbox, but the horrible leveling system meant I never got anywhere with it. Am wary of making the same mistake again, but don't have a PC with the chops to run it >_<


----------



## Dooby (Sep 13, 2011)

Crispy said:


> It's on xbox.
> I got Oblivion on Xbox, but the horrible leveling system meant I never got anywhere with it. Am wary of making the same mistake again, but don't have a PC with the chops to run it >_<



I got Oblivion when it came out but my old PC couldn't handle it even with a new graphics card and had to send it back. Got an xbox coz I don't want a PC in the house, they're too big and ugly.  (I might be wanking on about RPGs like a proper nerd but I'm still a right girlie, clearly)


----------



## revol68 (Sep 13, 2011)

I hope all those demos are on xbox cos the texture pop in is a fucking disgrace, it's one thing that really spoils the immersion yet so many game designers seem to think it's grand to let it slide, like Crysis which was wanked over for having great visuals and yet it had some of the worst texture pop in I've encountered this side of GTA IV on the xbox.

I'd prefer slightly more basic graphics with no pop in over awesome graphics that you can't lose yourself in because rocks and grass keep magicing into being.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 13, 2011)

Yep, all footage so far is 360 version.
I'd love to see Bethesda let rip with the power of a modern gaming PC

I'd also like to see some decent plotting and acting, but hey


----------



## revol68 (Sep 13, 2011)

i can manage to get immersed enough I can overcome the acting but pop in is a killer.

Fallout 3 had a pretty decent plot I thought.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 14, 2011)

i'm so glad i got a 2001 style monolith of a computer  for  just these kind of things.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 14, 2011)

actually i still havn't played  fallout vagas.   i have it  but  never got round to it.  the more classic rpgness of ES  is much more  appealing to me


----------



## Random (Sep 14, 2011)

Hopefully there'll be a playable demo out for this, as I want to try before I buy. Am ready to shell out proper money for this, but only if it works on my old computer.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 14, 2011)

i think they confirmed no demo


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 14, 2011)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-14-no-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-demo


----------



## Cid (Sep 14, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> actually i still havn't played fallout vagas. i have it but never got round to it. the more classic rpgness of ES is much more appealing to me



Fallout pissed me off, great game in many ways, but choosing certain playing styles (scientist type in my case) made combat shit and VATS just seemed a bit pointless. There were all of 2 guns I could actually use for most of the game, took explosives which made it a bit more fun, but still. Oh, and the settlements always seemed a bit underwhelming.


----------



## Cid (Sep 14, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i think they confirmed no demo



Yeah, I think for all the shows etc they've basically let people play the full game for an hour.


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## Crispy (Sep 14, 2011)

Impossible to make a demo of a game like this. Pirate it, then buy it if it works ;D


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## tommers (Sep 14, 2011)

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/


----------



## golightly (Sep 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Impossible to make a demo of a game like this. Pirate it, then buy it if it works ;D



There's a demo video on Fileplanet that I'm downloading.  Ok, it's not a demo but at least you will get an idea of how it looks and plays.

 Link


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## Crispy (Sep 17, 2011)

You can watch it on Youtube.
Part 1:


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## revol68 (Sep 17, 2011)

tommers said:


> http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/



skyrim is in that list????


----------



## Random (Sep 20, 2011)

No it's not, and it also seems to say that several games I play happily are above my computers min specs


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## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 20, 2011)

i realised  in my craving to play this  that i still  hadn't played  new vagas  so  this weekend i  gave that a go   and  got totally  hooked on it.  i found it to be  more engaging than fallout 3 and more fun.   it is however buggy as fuck  and  often crashes out on me  to the point where it now won't start  (i'll try rebooting soon).

one of the reasons i liked morrowind better than fallout 3  was  it  felt less desolate  and i'm hoping skyrim feel this way  too  with plenty of  little  towns and villages  and plenty of NPCs  to add charactor.

i'm worried that it will be a hell of a lot of trapsing around carverns  and feeling lost.   i have spent  so much time stuck in bunkers  looking at my pip boy in desperation this weekend.   hopfully that clairvoyance spell is as awesome as it looks


----------



## tommers (Sep 20, 2011)

revol68 said:


> skyrim is in that list????


 
Everyone's a critic.


----------



## Corax (Sep 20, 2011)

By the time I've finished Oblivion this should be down to a sensible price, especially as I've got hooked on ME1 for now.

And I play games _very_ slowly.  I explore every nook and cranny, talk to everyone, creep round corners at a snail's pace, and my survival instinct is far too strong.  I have to keep reminding myself that it doesn't actually _matter_ if I die.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 20, 2011)

i just cheat.   seriously  god mode and debug megapistol for me.   these games arn't  about  the shooting  there are about  the exploring and  the storytelling


----------



## Corax (Sep 20, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i just cheat. seriously god mode and debug megapistol for me. these games arn't about the shooting there are about the exploring and the storytelling


One of the disadvantages of gaming on the XBox.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 23, 2011)

i'm now playing a little oblivion.    it's interesting.    you can see the evolution of bethesta games


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Sep 24, 2011)

bit the bullet and got it on steam.  i hope it is as good as it looks.

i've noticed that even though i don't dislike oblivion it  didn't captivate me in the way fallout new vagas did.  i think  it's possibly  to  do  the fact i found the characters in F:NV to be more entertaining.   with  the exception of the brief but  excellent patrick Stewart cameo  the majority of the  characters feel bland and interchangeable.    i guess  F:NV  had it easier as  the tone of the game gave it  a ton of pop culture short cuts to creating  recognisable, memorable characters.


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## Epona (Sep 25, 2011)

There are some great mods for Oblivion, Shippy - try The Lost Spires, and Kragenir's Death Quest for starters - they both add a lot to the game in terms of interesting characters and quests (and the latter adds tons of text-dialogue and quests to a lot of the NPCs in all the towns and villages, once I'd installed that I found myself actually seeking out the little villages that previously I had passed by, because I knew there would now be interesting people to meet there!) There are also a couple of highly rated mods that add well-written companion NPCs with their own story and quests, if you want some more memorable characters in the game they might be worth a look. Oh and try Belda Elysium as well, I think you might appreciate its humour, I love it - it's a house mod with quests.


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## tommers (Oct 11, 2011)

This is your one month alarm call... this is your one month alarm call... this is your one month alarm call...


----------



## Epona (Oct 14, 2011)

tommers said:


> This is your one month alarm call... this is your one month alarm call... this is your one month alarm call...



I've actually been through a bit of a "meh" spell about it for the last 2 or 3 months - simply because I find it impossible to sustain that high level of excitement for so long, so it's been on the back burner for a while, mentally speaking. I am now all excited again though, and checking steam daily for pre-load information!


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## revol68 (Oct 14, 2011)

I tried to get into Oblivion after loving Fallout 3 but I just couldn't get on with it, mostly I reckon cos I hate all that high fantasy nerd shit.

This one I'm a bit more excited for cos it looks like it's a grittier lower fantasy setting and I really got into Game of Thrones last year, and parts of this remind me of it.


----------



## Crispy (Oct 17, 2011)

Last round of previews before launch, which is *25 days away*

http://www.1up.com/previews/played-skyrim-wrong-felt-so-right?pager.offset=1
http://uk.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/...=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&mode=previews
http://www.gamereactor.eu/previews/8922/The+Elder+Scrolls+V:+Skyrim/
http://pc.ign.com/articles/120/1200474p1.html#.Tpw5AReMNF8.facebook
http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/preview-3214.html
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/17/skyrim-the-bad-vegetarian/ (there are more if you click the skyrim tag)
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/10/skyrim-hands-on/?pid=2165&pageid=39462&viewall=true
http://www.mcvuk.com/retail-biz/recommended/read/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/086579
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-17-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-preview
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2011/10/17/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-preview/
http://www.computerandvideogames.co...kyrim-3-hour-hands-on-leaves-us-wanting-more/
http://www.gamesradar.com/skyrim-preview-secret-of-pinewatch-sanctuary/
http://www.nowgamer.com/features/1095737/skyrim_preview_gameplay_locations_and_quests_revealed.html

Phew!


----------



## ohmyliver (Oct 18, 2011)

can anyone recommend a place to pre-order from? I'd be getting the pc version....


----------



## Epona (Oct 28, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> can anyone recommend a place to pre-order from? I'd be getting the pc version....



Sorry, only just seen this.

If your internet connection can stand the strain, I'd recommend getting it on digital download from Steam - on PC it's a Steamworks game anyway and a retail copy still needs the Steam client and online activation, will unlock at the exact same time, there's no pre-order in game content at all no matter where you order it from, and the only difference is that some retail pre-order versions have a map printed on high quality paper (unless you're referring to the collector's edition, which comes with some other tat) - so might as well go direct to the source and buy it from Steam, unless you're a map fetishist, or have a bad internet connection. They should be allowing preload of 95% of the download for the few days before release, I'll be pre-ordering when they start the preload period.

Less than 2 weeks!!!!

Edit to add: If you particularly want a retail version, Game pre-orders apparently will be with a courier ready to be delivered on release day - they have by all accounts been e-mailing their customers to reassure them because of previous delivery debacles. I don't know if that will work out though, I've never pre-ordered a physical copy of a game so don't have any experience in order to advise.


----------



## Bingo (Oct 28, 2011)

whats best way to get it on xbox?


----------



## ChrisFilter (Oct 28, 2011)

Bingo said:


> whats best way to get it on xbox?



Buy a PC.

Actually, that's not true. The studio have been depressingly limited and developed for the 360, not the PC. Weak. They should have followed DICE's lead and developed for the far superior platform and scaled it back. I'm annoyed at the very thought. God knows Oblivion was ugly enough.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 30, 2011)

Just pre-ordered this. Not sure I've ever actually paid the release price for a game before.


----------



## revol68 (Oct 30, 2011)

still no fucking PC footage out yet, instead we are all meant to be impressed with the XBox graphics despite them having shitty texture pop in all the fucking time.

seriously getting fucked off with the xbox holding game tech back.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 1, 2011)

The xbox360 version has leaked and is now widely available on torrents. If I had a chipped console, I'd be on it. Don't want to risk the chipping process going wrong this close to launch though.


----------



## Corax (Nov 1, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Buy a PC.


Apart from graphics (the odd bit of pop up etc doesn't bother me unduly), what's the advantage of playing games like this on the PC?

I'm asking because it may help me in deciding what PC specs I need (which I'm _struggling_ with). The machine I built last time was well up to gaming at the time, but I never did because I couldn't get the damn controller (Wingman I think) to work properly. That PC's dead and I'm about to replace it, so maybe I'll give it another go this time. I do have a 360 though, so I guess it depends on how much of an advantage it would be to have a rig capable of a bit of gaming.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 1, 2011)

Corax said:


> Apart from graphics (the odd bit of pop up etc doesn't bother me unduly), what's the advantage of playing games like this on the PC?
> 
> I'm asking because it may help me in deciding what PC specs I need (which I'm _struggling_ with). The machine I built last time was well up to gaming at the time, but I never did because I couldn't get the damn controller (Wingman I think) to work properly. That PC's dead and I'm about to replace it, so maybe I'll give it another go this time. I do have a 360 though, so I guess it depends on how much of an advantage it would be to have a rig capable of a bit of gaming.



In the short-term, graphics and control system. In the long-term.. mods, mods, mods! Just Google 'Oblivion mods' to see what's available for the previous TES incarnation.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 1, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> In the short-term, graphics and control system. In the long-term.. mods, mods, mods! Just Google 'Oblivion mods' to see what's available for the previous TES incarnation.



I racked up something like 120 hours on the xbox version of Oblivion. Anything that stretched it out would probably have done for my social life for about a year.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 1, 2011)

Am hoping this is gonna drop in price a bit after release in time to buy it for myself for xmas (YES I'M THAT SAD OK). Which is a brilliant plan as I'll save money by then not going out or seeing anyone until the new year. Will likely develop DVT and rickets too, but that's not important.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 4, 2011)

Epona said:


> Sorry, only just seen this.
> 
> Edit to add: If you particularly want a retail version, Game pre-orders apparently will be with a courier ready to be delivered on release day - they have by all accounts been e-mailing their customers to reassure them because of previous delivery debacles. I don't know if that will work out though, I've never pre-ordered a physical copy of a game so don't have any experience in order to advise.



Thanks for the tip, went with Game, as it was only 30 quid for the game (fiver cheaper than steam I think), and sadly I do want a map.  Although it might lead to it being blue-tacked up on the wall behind the monitor, and massive amounts of derision from the wife... hey ho...


----------



## Epona (Nov 7, 2011)

Less than 4 full days now, Steam unlock looks like it will be at 00:01 GMT on 11/11/11 (although the goalposts for PC version unlock time have moved a few times over the last couple of weeks as Steam try to match Bethesda's demands, Bethesda wanted rolling local-time midnight PC release in each time-zone to match midnight release events for console versions around the world and Steam basically went WTF? and then got confused about the time zones in Europe, so it's been back and forth a bit!)  I am conflicted between being really excited for this game, and dreading that I will not love it the way I hope I will.  If that makes any sense.


----------



## tommers (Nov 7, 2011)

I am the same.

We'll have to wait and see, it's not like there are no other good games to fall back on.


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 7, 2011)

Despite having a hyper mega power bastard PC... I might buy an Xbox or PS3 to play this on.


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## Crispy (Nov 7, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Despite having a hyper mega power bastard PC... I might buy an Xbox or PS3 to play this on.


Why?


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 7, 2011)

there are gameplay videos out... which appears to be from a dodgy xbox version of it....
http://www.product-reviews.net/2011/11/06/skyrim-walkthrough-guide-six-hours-of-non-stop-gameplay/
interface looks much slicker than ES IV and Fallout III, graphics look improved


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Why?



I dunno, really. Feels like a game you can sit back on the sofa with. Plus, my PC room is quite cold. That's fine for high action games like BF3, but for long, slow games like TES the comfort factor kicks in.

Plus, I've been thinking about getting a PS3 to act as a media server in the lounge anyway.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 7, 2011)

Hmm. That's got me thinking. I might just move the PC into the lounge. It's a bit big and boxy, but that's not the end of the world. Wife acceptance factor might be an issue though.

Would mean surround sound, 37" screen and comfort.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 7, 2011)

Wife acceptance factor for a game that you can spend 500 hours on has to be pretty low to start with


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 7, 2011)

Very true. But I tend to work my gaming around her anyway. We'll watch something on telly until 10pm. She'll head to bed to watch something on the telly in there or read a book, and my hour of fun begins 

It does make perfect sense to have the PC in there. Plus, I have a wireless Xbox pad for the PC ready for Skyrim. It just depends how well I can handle a mouse on the arm rest of the sofa.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 7, 2011)

I've decided I have to get this after discussing with someone last night how excited we are about 11.11.11. Have recently pissed away 350 quid on a pointless plumber debacle, I can justify 40 quid (xbox) on something that'll make me REALLY HAPPY. And stop me ever leaving the house again, thereby saving money..


----------



## Epona (Nov 7, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Hmm. That's got me thinking. I might just move the PC into the lounge. It's a bit big and boxy, but that's not the end of the world. Wife acceptance factor might be an issue though.
> 
> Would mean surround sound, 37" screen and comfort.



 Thankfully spousal acceptance is not an issue for me as we both use our PCs a lot - the PC area is pretty much the focal point of our sitting room, with the HDTV on the wall between our monitors so either of us can use it if we want a bigger display for anything (and we watch most of our TV either streamed or downloaded via our PCs and displayed on the TV) and is visible from the sofas should we want to lounge around in comfort.  Neither of us would want our PCs relegated to the spare bedroom!  The traditional glow of the hearth has been replaced by the glow of multiple display screens.  Although it would be nice to have a hearth too, that's the only drawback of post-war flats!


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## Crispy (Nov 7, 2011)

I have to say, the timing of my new TV purchase and the release of Skyrim are not _entirely_ coincidental


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 7, 2011)

We've just had a fairly chunky PPI claim come in, and happily my wife came to the conclusion that a new TV might be a good use of some of the funds. Who am I to argue?


----------



## bmd (Nov 8, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Very true. But I tend to work my gaming around her anyway. We'll watch something on telly until 10pm. She'll head to bed to watch something on the telly in there or read a book, and my hour of fun begins



Do you remember when she headed to bed and your hour of fun began, with her? Not having a go just made me smile. I'm pretty lucky in that my gf has an iPad 2 that she plays loads of games on and watches iPlayer etc on. So I can game any time I want really. Perfect girlfriend! Buy her an iPad, get her addicted to Puzzle Quest and game away to your heart's content. 

Have to say that I'm concentrating on Dark Souls with a bit of COD 3 singleplayer in between. Oh and Hasbro Family Game night 4... Once I get into this I'll be lost to it.


----------



## Garek (Nov 8, 2011)

Epona said:


> I am conflicted between being really excited for this game, and dreading that I will not love it the way I hope I will. If that makes any sense.



I am worried it will be like Oblivion  A game I want to love, but just too flawed to do so. Once that curtain fell away I could no longer see the wizard, just a flawed old man.

Especially since I love the Witcher 2 (so far, still in Flotsam).


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 8, 2011)

Bob Marley's Dad said:


> Do you remember when she headed to bed and your hour of fun began, with her? Not having a go just made me smile. I'm pretty lucky in that my gf has an iPad 2 that she plays loads of games on and watches iPlayer etc on. So I can game any time I want really. Perfect girlfriend! Buy her an iPad, get her addicted to Puzzle Quest and game away to your heart's content.



Haha. We're far too British and married for that sort of nonsense. Eurgh!

Yeah, she's a Bejewelled/Frozen Bubble addict already. Have been considering getting her a cheaper tablet for Xmas. Might be a good idea.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 8, 2011)

Garek said:


> I am worried it will be like Oblivion  A game I want to love, but just too flawed to do so. Once that curtain fell away I could no longer see the wizard, just a flawed old man.
> 
> Especially since I love the Witcher 2 (so far, still in Flotsam).


Well, which flaws in particular? They've addressed a lot of them for Skyrim...


----------



## Garek (Nov 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Well, which flaws in particular? They've addressed a lot of them for Skyrim...



Lifeless towns, levelling systems (which I know they have changed), repetitive levels, voice acting, graphics, faces, the complete discontinuity between indoor environments and outdoor ones.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 8, 2011)

Garek said:


> Lifeless towns, levelling systems (which I know they have changed), repetitive levels, voice acting, graphics, faces, the complete discontinuity between indoor environments and outdoor ones.



Well, the voice acting still seems pretty ropey, and you won't be getting contiguous indoors/outdoors on this generation of consoles, but everything else has definitely been improved


----------



## Garek (Nov 8, 2011)

Cool, I hope so. I do want to like this game. Oblvion became a genuine disappointment as I really wanted to love it.

I have heard the levelling is more like New Vegas and that is a game I put a lot of time into (before I mysteriously abandoned).

Skyrim is going to be the game I play after the Witcher 2 so it will be interesting to compare. (I suspect Skyrim will be somewhat more chaste made as it is by those ever so prudish Americans).


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 8, 2011)

I don't think it'll be as good as The Witcher 1 or 2, but it'll be better than Oblivion which I thought sucked. I preferred Dragon Age to Oblivion.


----------



## Garek (Nov 8, 2011)

Dragon Age is a game which I really should play again as I never completed it, or even got that far. Damn ugly game though.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 8, 2011)

Garek said:


> Dragon Age is a game which I really should play again as I never completed it, or even got that far. Damn ugly game though.



You think?! Compared to Oblivion it was stunning!


----------



## Garek (Nov 8, 2011)

That is true!


----------



## tommers (Nov 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Well, the voice acting still seems pretty ropey, and you won't be getting contiguous indoors/outdoors on this generation of consoles, but everything else has definitely been improved


 
*cough* dark souls.


----------



## Bingo (Nov 8, 2011)

whats this dark souls like then?


----------



## tommers (Nov 8, 2011)




----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 8, 2011)

Weird that it's not out on PC. If you're making something for Xbox you might as well add the PC title into the mix.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Well, the voice acting still seems pretty ropey, and you won't be getting contiguous indoors/outdoors on this generation of consoles, but everything else has definitely been improved



It's no Morrowind grumble grumble etc


----------



## bmd (Nov 8, 2011)

Bingo said:


> whats this dark souls like then?



Hardest game ever but an absolute classic. It will make you cry.


----------



## Bingo (Nov 8, 2011)

Woah. Is that the 1st one yeah?


----------



## Epona (Nov 9, 2011)

For those who pre-ordered on Steam, preload is now up!  You might (like me) have to log off Steam and log back in again to see the preload button.


----------



## bmd (Nov 9, 2011)

Bingo said:


> Woah. Is that the 1st one yeah?



It's the second. The first one was a PS3 exclusive called Demon Souls. I can heartily recommend Dark Souls but have never played the first one.


----------



## Garek (Nov 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Well, the voice acting still seems pretty ropey, and you won't be getting contiguous indoors/outdoors on this generation of consoles, but everything else has definitely been improved



Oh, and I forgot to say *I HAVE A QUAD CORE PC WITH A GTX570 * Bloody consoles.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 9, 2011)

TES 6 should be a massive improvement, assuming Bethesda aren't lazy. The game engine is essentially the same one that was used for Morrowind's development over ten years ago and it's ill-suited to a contiguous inside-outside game world. They need to get a new one, or TES 6 on the PS4 will just be more of the same but shinier.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2011)

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/11/skyrim-infinite-quests/


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## Crispy (Nov 9, 2011)

I'm having real trouble containing my excitement now.
Might throw a sicky on Friday


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 9, 2011)

sounds kinda awesome. though it will be intresting how well  the quest keep their flavour.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 9, 2011)

i'm off work from tonight all till tuesday might just have to have an epic skyrim binge

is steam preloading?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2011)

Epona said:


> For those who pre-ordered on Steam, preload is now up! You might (like me) have to log off Steam and log back in again to see the preload button.



Yep, mine is (pre-)downloading now.

Small game is small: 4.3gig. That's what steam told me I needed.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 9, 2011)

Epona said:


> For those who pre-ordered on Steam, preload is now up! You might (like me) have to log off Steam and log back in again to see the preload button.



tonight i'm so preloading.

i hope all will be well  come launch  i don't  want to see  the  dreaded "incomplete installation (10)"


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> sounds kinda awesome. though it will be intresting how well the quest keep their flavour.



Yeah, I expect it'll be background noise kinda quests: go collect X number of this plant for me; go clear X dungeon of Y type of monster for me; etc. If you space out the main quest lines then it at least means you'll never run out of incidental stuff to do as you amble along, but as for beating the main game and just continuing with nothing but those constantly spawning quests ... idk, I think I'd end up wanting to gnaw my own arm off. It's a nice idea though, that this is the game that, theoretically, will never, ever end.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 9, 2011)

it could be ok  depending on how well  it  is cooded.  so colecting X componants means  that   person y starts selling  substance Z  which leads to bandits A  trying to musle in on the business  and then when you deal with them   it means that all the animal B  they were keeping  for fur escape and plauge village C


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 9, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Yep, mine is (pre-)downloading now.
> 
> Small game is small: 4.3gig. That's what steam told me I needed.



Sigh. Low-res textures are small. I feel kinda hacked off about Skyrim already.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I'm having real trouble containing my excitement now.
> Might throw a sicky on Friday



Due to a lack of that sort of foresight I'm getting it delivered to work.


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 9, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> it could be ok depending on how well it is cooded. so colecting X componants means that person y starts selling substance Z which leads to bandits A trying to musle in on the business and then when you deal with them it means that all the animal B they were keeping for fur escape and plauge village C



Or it could be

Find me mushroom x, mushroom y and flower a from location n
OK thanks here's 23+r coins
Find me mushroom x, flower y and flower b from location c
OK thanks here's 23+r coins
etc


----------



## Garek (Nov 9, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Sigh. Low-res textures are small. I feel kinda hacked off about Skyrim already.



 I really hate the complaints about 'consolfication', but this makes me sad. Games designed to run well on the XBox are just so ugly these days. I'd be happy to wait an extra couple of months if it would come with a promise that the game would be PC optimised. I mean you shouldn't have to DL a mod just to get the inventory menu for example (I am looking at you Oblivion) to be the right size. These days nearly all developers are playing to the lowest common denominator.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 9, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Sigh. Low-res textures are small. I feel kinda hacked off about Skyrim already.



do you think they might do a downloadable high res pack?


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 9, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> Or it could be
> 
> Find me mushroom x, mushroom y and flower a from location n
> OK thanks here's 23+r coins
> ...



yeah but  from what the guy was saying about the radiant system give me hope


----------



## Garek (Nov 9, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> do you think they might do a downloadable high res pack?



Doubt it. They didn't do it last time.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 9, 2011)

Don't worry, there will be a high-res texture pack from the modders (along with a creepy "better" female bodies mod, natch)


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2011)

I can understand people with nice gaming PCs want to be able to experience the absolute best they can, but I don't begrudge console owners wanting to play games either, and the knee-jerk "damn you, consoles" thing that does the rounds gets incredibly boring after a while. After all, if console owners weren't buying these games as well, the devs wouldn't have the money to continue to develop in the first place. A whole bunch of people are going to be torrenting this game for PC, whereas the vast majority of console owners will be buying it. *shrugs* I like my games to be fun and interesting to play, and if they don't look as graphically excellent as they could, that's really the lowest thing on my wishlist, tbh.

Anyway, I don't know what videos you all have been watching, but everything I've seen of this game so far (even though it's been xbox footage) shows me a game that seems quite lovely to look at.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 9, 2011)

Garek said:


> Doubt it. They didn't do it last time.



Indeed. It'll have to be a user mod.

I wonder if they'll suffer in the same way Dice did when they stopped paying attention to the hardcore PC users? Dice went way back into the pro-PC realm for BF3 to great effect. Perhaps Bethesda should do the same.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 9, 2011)

it could  be really good dev work to get around texture sizes.  clever ways to use low res texture to make good looking stuff


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 9, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I can understand people with nice gaming PCs want to be able to experience the absolute best they can, but I don't begrudge console owners wanting to play games either, and the knee-jerk "damn you, consoles" thing that does the rounds gets incredibly boring after a while. After all, if console owners weren't buying these games as well, the devs wouldn't have the money to continue to develop in the first place. A whole bunch of people are going to be torrenting this game for PC, whereas the vast majority of console owners will be buying it. *shrugs* I like my games to be fun and interesting to play, and if they don't look as graphically excellent as they could, that's really the lowest thing on my wishlist, tbh.
> 
> Anyway, I don't know what videos you all have been watching, but everything I've seen of this game so far (even though it's been xbox footage) shows me a game that seems quite lovely to look at.



I don't buy in to the 'damn the consoles' school of thought. I think consoles are fantastic and, as you say, are responsible for the games industry thriving. (at least at the top end) My problem comes from developers only developing with console performance in mind, and adding crappy scale up options for PC gamers. It means games like Skyrim are limited by the scope of six year old technology. That's forever in games tech terms. Dice saw the error of their ways and developed BF3 for PC then scaled it down for console. That makes infinitely more sense.

Oblivion was fugly at the time and the PC version was incredibly shoddy. That's not good enough. I don't see anything to suggest Skyrim will be any different. That's why there's a sense of grumpiness on here. Just think what Skyrim could be!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> it could be really good dev work to get around texture sizes. clever ways to use low res texture to make good looking stuff



They have effectively said this. There was furore on the internets a couple of days ago when the "6gig" size thing came out, and an official person of some sort or other said they updated their compression techniques in quite innovative ways with the new engine, and that there was no need to worry.

We shall have to wait and see, but as I say, graphics are usually way down my list of things I like about games, the top is whether it's fun to play. And ffs, this looks like a nice game even without it being optimised for someone with a couple of grand of rig in their basement.


----------



## Garek (Nov 9, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I can understand people with nice gaming PCs want to be able to experience the absolute best they can, but I don't begrudge console owners wanting to play games either, and the knee-jerk "damn you, consoles" thing that does the rounds gets incredibly boring after a while. After all, if console owners weren't buying these games as well, the devs wouldn't have the money to continue to develop in the first place. A whole bunch of people are going to be torrenting this game for PC, whereas the vast majority of console owners will be buying it. *shrugs* I like my games to be fun and interesting to play, and if they don't look as graphically excellent as they could, that's really the lowest thing on my wishlist, tbh.



I largely agree, certainly about the knee jerk re-actions from people. But I don't think it is wise for developers to completely abandon their PC audience. I am not necessarily talking about graphics, but little things like making sure menus are optimised for keyboard and mouse rather than a pad. Little things to make it feel a little more at home on their systems, rather than a straight port. Oblivion was bad at this. At lot of games are bad at this. Games incidentally that cut their teeth on the PC, such as GTA.

It's not much to ask. From what I can tell Arkham City is going to be well optimised with lots of lovely graphical extras and others such things. That is what I am looking for. Even if it does mean I have to wait a little longer.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 9, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> They have effectively said this. There was furore on the internets a couple of days ago when the "6gig" size thing came out, and an official person of some sort or other said they updated their compression techniques in quite innovative ways with the new engine, and that there was no need to worry.
> 
> We shall have to wait and see, but as I say, graphics are usually way down my list of things I like about games, the top is whether it's fun to play. And ffs, this looks like a nice game even without it being optimised for someone with a couple of grand of rig in their basement.



It's not about having a couple of grand PC. It's about basic PC w/ gfx card performance. And whilst graphics aren't a big deal to you, they are to lots of other people. In The Witcher 2, for example, there are times when you just want to stop playing and look around. I can't envisage the same in Skyrim. It's not the main point of the game, of course, but it'd be nice if the ride was as smooth as it could be.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2011)

Oblivion, incidentally, was for me a hideous experience on xbox. So it apparently being optimised for console is news to me, because in practice it sure as hell didn't feel that way. Maybe I'm just a bit weird though. idk.

Skyrim is a PC title for me though. I seem to get more out of my rpgs if I'm playing them on PC.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2011)

Thing is, in all the gameplay vids I've seen so far, what I see does look beautiful. To me at least.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 9, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Oblivion, incidentally, was for me a hideous experience on xbox. So it apparently being optimised for console is news to me, because in practice it sure as hell didn't feel that way. Maybe I'm just a bit weird though. idk.
> 
> Skyrim is a PC title for me though. I seem to get more out of my rpgs if I'm playing them on PC.



It was pretty hideous on all formats to be fair


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 9, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Thing is, in all the gameplay vids I've seen so far, what I see does look beautiful. To me at least.



Yeah, it looks nice. The artwork is good. But to anyone used to playing with decent PC titles over the last three or for years, it's probably going to look a bit dated. Like going back to SD TV after getting used to HD goodness.

Morrowind looked great at the time, but if you'd played Oblivion before that it would have looked pants. It's all about knowing what could be, not what is.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 9, 2011)

preload is damn slow


----------



## Garek (Nov 9, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Morrowind looked great at the time, but if you'd played Oblivion before that it would have looked pants. It's all about knowing what could be, not what is.



My greatest flaw with computer games is seeing what could be, not what is. And is has gotten worse. The more developers fill up the areas my imagination previously compensated for the more disappointed I become. I think this is down to due unequal evolution of the various components that make a computer game. When you compare advancements in graphics to AI, for example, you can see a real discontinuity. Which is why I think the indie scene is currently going through a really strong period. It is separating out out the burden of technology from new and original ideas.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> preload is damn slow



Was zipping by at 2.2mb/s for me for most of it, until the end, when it dropped to about 500kb/s or so. Still, dl and installed in under an hour.

Now just got to sit and wait ...


----------



## golightly (Nov 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I'm having real trouble containing my excitement now.
> Might throw a sicky on Friday



I suppose some might say breaking my shoulder and being signed off sick for six weeks might be slightly over the top, but I'm desperately looking for a silver lining here.


----------



## Epona (Nov 10, 2011)

golightly said:


> I suppose some might say breaking my shoulder and being signed off sick for six weeks might be slightly over the top, but I'm desperately looking for a silver lining here.


Hiya mate, how in the hell did you do that?  Hope you have a quick recovery


----------



## golightly (Nov 10, 2011)

Epona said:


> Hiya mate, how in the hell did you do that? Hope you have a quick recovery



Stupid accident on a bike.  Cracked the top of the humerus and needed to have plate fitted.  I shall be playing Skyrim with an xbox controller because it's easier to manage than keyboard and mouse in my present state.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2011)

first review is out. More are due to be out at 1pm  *eta* looks like they shouldn't have published it, and it's been mostly taken down

http://www.gamespot.com/the-elder-s...-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-review-6344618?page=1​


----------



## Random (Nov 10, 2011)

I want this so much. And I want it to run perfectly. Am considering getting a second-hand Xbox360 specially for Skyrim, as I don't trust my laptop.


----------



## golightly (Nov 10, 2011)

Just got the disk from Play this morning.  I can't play it yet but at least I can look at the map.


----------



## Random (Nov 10, 2011)

golightly said:


> Just got the disk from Play this morning. I can't play it yet but at least I can look at the map.


I. Want. It. So. Much. I. Can. Taste. It.

The review paints it as a mixture of Fallout 3 and Morrowind. I think I've just come.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2011)

golightly said:


> Just got the disk from Play this morning. I can't play it yet but at least I can look at the map.


it's alright for some, my pre order from Game, wasn't delivered when I left for work...

is the map cloth or paper?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 10, 2011)




----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2011)

Another review
http://feedyourconsole.com/2011/11/review-elder-scrolls-skyrim/
the reviewers main criticism is bizarrely lack of co-op mode


----------



## golightly (Nov 10, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> it's alright for some, my pre order from Game, wasn't delivered when I left for work...
> 
> is the map cloth or paper?



It's textured paper. Fairly thick to give it a parchment like feel.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 10, 2011)

tbf, co-op elder scrolls _would _be a lot of fun. Impossible to pull off though.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 10, 2011)

Preloaded this last night. I'm out tomorrow night, but having little planned for the rest of the weekend.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 10, 2011)

Eurogamer review (and I trust their reviews more than any other): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-10-the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim-review


> It evokes a word that's overused in reviewing of all kinds: one that's best kept in the cellar in a plainly marked box and reserved only for the most special of occasions. For Skyrim though, I'd like to blow the dust off it, open up the lid, and enjoy a masterpiece with you. 10/10


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2011)

it does seem to be getting mostly 5/5 or 95%+ reviews.... lots mentions glitches, but hopefully the day one patch will sort a fair amount of that out...

I wonder if accessing Steam through a Australian or New Zealand based vpn would allow earlier activation, or would it just potentially break things.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 10, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> it does seem to be getting mostly 5/5 or 95%+ reviews.... lots mentions glitches, but hopefully the day one patch will sort a fair amount of that out...
> 
> I wonder if accessing Steam through a Australian or New Zealand based proxy would allow earlier activation, or would it just potentially break things.



It does indeed allow early activation. Use a VPN like this guy did: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32576459&postcount=6192


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2011)

that's very tempting... but I might err on the side of irrational caution and wait until midnight, as I don't want to risk even the slightest chance of being Steambanned, and losing a huge chunk of the games on my PC


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 10, 2011)

The reviews are very, very favourable. I'm glad I pre-ordered now.

Dilemma. I have holiday I can take. If I don't take it, I'l get an extra £500 or so in my pay packet in Jan. What to do. 

I kinda hate that I can exchange unused leave for cash.


----------



## Random (Nov 10, 2011)

Take the holiday! You can't buy time with money, and you never have enough time.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 10, 2011)

Yeah, but £500 is a lot.


----------



## Garek (Nov 10, 2011)

RPS have a piece on it.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 10, 2011)

"Not only is Skyrim, for my money, the game of the year, but… oh this is hard. Very hard. I’m sorry Morrowind – I love you, but I don’t need you anymore. I think, at last, there is a new Best Elder Scrolls Ever."


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 10, 2011)

Oh boy oh boy oh boy.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 10, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> that's very tempting... but I might err on the side of irrational caution and wait until midnight, as I don't want to risk even the slightest chance of being Steambanned, and losing a huge chunk of the games on my PC


You won't. They ban people for _purchasing_ via VPN, but not for unlocking. Lots of people have done it, for plenty of other Steam games, so really - you have nothing to fear.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2011)

ahh, ok, that'll be the 'irrational' part of my fear then...


----------



## Epona (Nov 10, 2011)

I need something to pass the time today, so I've been reading reviews linked on the metacritic page - and wondering what the fuck has happened to literacy standards in gaming journalism these days.  I can forgive a reviewer for talking about fighting a "robot" in an "elven tower" as not everyone is as familiar with TES as myself - but repeated sentences, bad grammar, and using incorrect words (it's a TRACT of land, not a "track") really grates.  I hope that some of these people are reviewing on an amateur basis, because some of the writing is appallingly sloppy.

Yes I'm bored!!!  Can't concentrate on anything today


----------



## Crispy (Nov 10, 2011)

Edit: @OML
Fair enough 
I know what I'd be doing!


----------



## Crispy (Nov 10, 2011)

Know what you mean, Epona. It's trajic how pour some of the writing out their is. Even on big 'reputable' sights like IGN.


----------



## Epona (Nov 10, 2011)

Thanks for making me laugh!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 10, 2011)

Is it nearly midnight yet? Is it? Is it?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 10, 2011)

Tell me why I shouldn't go to Oxford Street at midnight >_<


----------



## Garek (Nov 10, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Know what you mean, Epona. It's trajic how pour some of the writing out their is. Even on big '*reputable*' sights like IGN.





I saw a tweet the other week relating to Eurogamer's 8/10 score for Uncharted 3 saying, "If I were a game I would much rather get an 8/10 from Eurogamer than a 10/10 from IGN".


----------



## agricola (Nov 10, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Tell me why I shouldn't go to Oxford Street at midnight >_<



Theres already quite a few people queuing up outside, at least ten to fifteen when I went in there around 3 pm.  No fancy dress though.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 10, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> "Not only is Skyrim, for my money, the game of the year, but… oh this is hard. Very hard. I’m sorry Morrowind – I love you, but I don’t need you anymore. I think, at last, there is a new Best Elder Scrolls Ever."



Bollocks, i'll believe it when I see it. In about 12 months, when it's cheap and I might have a better computer.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2011)

and I have the disc, with parchment like paper map (what happened to the pre-order cloth map, eh?)...

but I've also discovered that my dvd drive is not working (well ok, it's not opening the tray, and there's nothing in there)..... arsebuckets


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 10, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> and I have the disc, with parchment like paper map (what happened to the pre-order cloth map, eh?)...
> 
> but I've also discovered that my dvd drive is not working (well ok, it's not opening the tray, and there's nothing in there)..... arsebuckets



add game on steam?  you might be able to use your serial to register on steam and download from there


----------



## Epona (Nov 10, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> and I have the disc, with parchment like paper map (what happened to the pre-order cloth map, eh?)...



There never was a cloth map - Bethesda only ever said there would be a "Premium map, printed on burlap-like paper" for pre-orders. Some fans only read as far as premium map, and assumed it was cloth and that got passed on as if it were fact.

There is no cloth map, there was never going to be a cloth map, and Beth never said anything about a cloth map - it was all assumption by over-enthusiastic fans.

Pisser about your DVD drive - does it have a recess to manually open it (unfolded paper clip usually does the job)? Oh yeah or as Shippy says, you should be able to add it to Steam and download.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2011)

actually I gave the top of the pc an exasperated small thump (shades of picking up the Atari ST holding it an inch above a flat surface and dropping it to fix problems), and the dvd tray popped open... woo... should have done that before re-installing the drive's drivers... thanks both of you for the tips...

and I type corrected about the map... it *is* on burlap like paper...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 10, 2011)

*twitches and keeps looking at her clock*


----------



## poului (Nov 10, 2011)

COME OOONNNNNNNNNN, LET'S FUCKING 'AVE IT!!!!!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 10, 2011)

European beta testing invites went out for SW:TOR today, and, I hate to say it, but I'm actually glad I didn't get one because OMG HOW WOULD I HAVE DECIDED WHICH TO PLAY?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

So, are we all playing then? Hmm?

*watches tumbleweed blow through the thread as everyone is crafting shit and stabbing things with swords*


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

Having problems with the kb+m controls, it keeps telling me to press E to loot bodies but pressing E is just grabbing stuff and moving it around in the air, bodies included.

Steam version doesn't come with a fucking manual (yeah thanks for that!) so struggling a bit atm to get the controls working.  Oh and my mouse buttons are back to front RMB controlling left hand and vice versa, but with no FUCKING MANUAL I don't know how to remap them!!!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Blargle, that's a pain.

I'm stuck in a steam decryption wait from hell right now. Stuck at 35% for what seems like forever. So I haven't even gotten to the bleedin' main menu


----------



## Dooby (Nov 11, 2011)

I've had spectacular self control and not ordered it. Am really behind on studying and just can't piss away the next few days. Will order it after a few days of studying. Then I'll piss away the few days after that.
Is it beeyeurtiful?


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

How long you been in decryption now VP, or are you playing now? (If I don't hear from you I'll assume all is well  ) - mine took a good while to decrypt.

Sorted my problem by swapping keyboards - the one I was trying to use to play was the one with a dodgy E key, I've been trying to hang onto it as long as possible because I get attached to peripherals - it's full of my crumbs and stuff   (Yes I am a bit weird).


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Yeah, I started it up. Got through character creation. To the bit where it all goes pearshaped. Had to exit, having a fucking annoying as hell problem. I can't move the window (I always play in windowed mode because I do other stuff in the background), and I can't switch between windows/programs. It's fucking me off massively at the moment. And going to task manager does fuck all, because I can't use my mouse at all ... it's like it gets locked in Skyrim.

*sigh*

Annoying issue is annoying.

Otherwise, I set it at ultra settings and it looks beautiful, but my frame rate isn't all that (not a deal breaker, but would get annoying during fast paced action), so going to set it at high.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

I have to say, at the moment, I'd say that controls would be better on console. But we'll wait and see, perhaps I'll get the hang of it as it goes on. And if I can sort out this bastard windows issue


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 11, 2011)

had a little go... it's rather good... shame I've got work, um, later today.  Annoyingly it uses the xbox 360 controller automatically, and I presume I have to unplug it if I want to use kbm


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

Now I have got mine working the controls are OK but the default key mapping is not coming naturally to me straight away (I was able to pick up both OB and FO3 within seconds) just because of little stuff like hitting E to loot a container and TAB to close the looting menu - why can't I hit E again to close it, that's what comes naturally to my hand?  That sort of thing.  And I usually moan about not being able to hit I for inventory and M for map - that I can do, but it's TAB to close them again, why not just have open and close on the same button like a toggle?

But I will get used to this, and otherwise it's great so far, it's just that I need to stop thinking that the keys are going to be the same as previous games (functions on the R and F keys are strangely reversed from OB and I keep going into 3rd person mode when I want to draw my weapons) and scratching my head when I find myself in a different menu than the one I want


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

You can remap the keys though, in controls.


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

Yes you can remap them, but you cannot (as far as I can work out) open and close a container with the same key, which is a bit fucking nuts really.  I'll get used to it.


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

Hehe - I am STILL limping through the starting dungeon, overencumbered to fuck. This is what happens to hoarders.

So far I have slashed a bloke with an axe, stabbed another with a sword/dagger combination, and fried some spiders with a shock spell. And picked up more than I can carry, and had the bloke I'm supposed to be following keep yelling at me to hurry up - fuck that mate, I've got a backpack full of useless crap that might come in handy, and if I don't need it for a quest or to sell it will end up decorating my first home. So if you're not going to make yourself useful and offer to carry some of this shit, you can just shut up and wait for me to catch up   God I love TES


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Well, I've worked out how to switch programs. shift + tab to bring up the steam overlay thing, then I can switch around. Still can't move the window, but that's not a problem.

Made it out of the intro section, had a lovely wander through some snow and the music was stunning. Now reached a town, about to have a look around. Was merrily picking some beautiful flowers by the river and got sneak attacked by a couple of wolves.

I think I'm going to like this 

Need to work out how to take a screenshot though.


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

I think there's an in game screenshot utility in Steam (I only know this because sometimes one of the cats walks across the keyboard and opens the "Steam screenshot manager". But Fraps is free download and a good utility for screenshots and video capture in games. Just start the utility up and have it running in the background while you are playing, and you can take shots of any moment you would like to capture for posterity 

I have now tried all sorts of things but I just one-shotted a bear from stealth with a bow and arrow - archery sucked in previous TES games to be honest, but I think I might have just found my weapon of choice  Still not out of the starting dungeon as I had keyboard problems for an hour before I got to play properly and I also like chatting about it - I may be a solitary gamer, but I do enjoy talking about things I'm doing in game


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

OK and now I am completely and utterly fucking lost, I somehow managed to wander off the road - I have shocked a bandit to death and nicked all her stuff, and I just got me a wolf too - it's the middle of the fucking night and I have no idea where I am.  The only skill I have levelled up so far is stealth and I feel very vulnerable and it seems to be a long walk to any safe place - it would be a darn sight quicker if I dropped some of this shit I am carrying but I can't bring myself to do it.

Wondering if I should start a blog detailing the Skyrim adventures of a seriously overencumbered stealth archer/electrocutionist - but I have a feeling that, like my current travel speed, it would be pretty slow-going


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

.... And when I finally arrived in Riverwood, NPCs commented that I wasn't wearing any clothes. I knew I couldn't have shocked that bandit to death by destruction skill alone...  It is kind of hard to see what you're wearing in your inventory - my tip (having inadvertantly walked around nekked for a while) is to switch to 3rd person view and rotate the camera around so you're looking at your character from a front angle before trying out any costume changes!


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 11, 2011)

I got lost quite early on, due to going in a river and floating downstream with the current.  I did get some salmon out of it, though. Thank god for fast travel. Been mostly burning things to death, and being killed by giants


----------



## Streatham_Mao (Nov 11, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Need to work out how to take a screenshot though.



F12 if you're using steam.  You'll get to deal with the image once you leave the game. 

I got an email from Amazon telling me that my delivery was delayed.  They'd already put delivery date back to the 12th!

That said, I do have a podcast to make, so I suppose it's good for productivity...


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 11, 2011)

oh some ini file editing tweaks (pc only obv)
http://www.gamefront.com/how-to-improve-skyrim-with-ini-file-tweaks/


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 11, 2011)

Funny midnight launch photos, http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...rolls-5-skyrim-midnight-launch-photos-article


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Thanks for the screenshot advice.

Didn't play for long in the end as I got an attack of sinus pain (fucking cold - first one in 2 years ).

I may go back and start again, because I was too rah and grr trying to work out how to switch programs in windowed mode to appreciate the start of the game. Also, I want to try to kill that bear


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 11, 2011)

right couple of hours in and  first major bit of questing done and first dragon world learnt

it's awesome.  it's also  the same game.  a much more polished version  but the same game.  which is good.

i'm duel wielding fire based spells  and finding it  very effective against most  bad guys   although  i almost got killed by that spider  till i worked out i kinda had to  keep my distance


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 11, 2011)

also got a house.... but can't find it.  not town mini-map! boo!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

I downloaded fraps. Shall see how it goes.

Definitely going to start my character again. I really didn't get a chance to enjoy the opening last night because I was feeling so ill, and was raging because of window problems. Should be much better today, especially now I have a vague idea what I'm doing. Shall likely spend a heck of a lot more time in character creation too.

I ended up favouring fire in my left hand, a fuck off awesome axe in my right. I'll likely stick with that magic/blade combo, unless I try out dual wielding spells or a crossbow on occasion. Need to do it enough to level to make them worthwhile I expect, but I don't think that'll be a problem, considering the scope of this game.


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

My sorry-arse still-only-level-2 obsessive hoarder Nord is desperate for a home (or more accurately, some bloody safe storage, the home itself is sort of secondary) - I am not going in any dungeons until I have somewhere to put my shiny things - so she has mostly been chopping wood to earn some cash.  The pay is not bad for menial work in a small village.  Once I have enough money for a house (er.. storage) I will see about honing up my combat skills on some serious questing.

I have put my only perk point so far in destruction because I find that quite fun.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 11, 2011)

Are the gravelly-voiced Dunmer back?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

This is a game that could last a freaking lifetime


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

So, I encountered the issue the guy from Kotaku had: my character had an arrow sticking out of her head that wouldn't go away (and one sticking right into her precious womanlyparts). Looking online, the easiest way to get rid of this is to bring up the console (for me it's the § key) and type "sexchange", and then obviously "sexchange" again, so you revert to what you were before. Arrows disappeared.

I'm just worried it might cause my achievements to not get registered, because I used the console. Anyone know if that is likely or not? If so, I have a save before I did it I can go back to, and just put up with arrows -_-


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

I think if it's anything like FONV, if you use the console it will turn off achievements for the rest of that session.  So use the console, then save and exit the game then restart and load up that save - that worked OK in FONV.

But I have no idea whether it will be the same for Skyrim, I don't tend to bother about achievements so never really notice what happens with them in Steam games.  If they are important to you it might be best to live with the arrow until a patch sorts it or until someone confirms for definite what happens with achievements/console use!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Here's my character, Anais.


----------



## Garek (Nov 11, 2011)

Tweaks to make it look more purrrty.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 11, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Here's my character, Anais.



Natalie Portman?


----------



## Epona (Nov 11, 2011)

My little blue cat won't let me play - he's gone all clingy because I'm looking at the screen rather than him and spent the last couple of hours trying to climb into my arms.  He has now started dropping things on my feet because he wants to play fetch, if I don't throw something for him to bring back to me he starts tapping insistently on my foot.

I cannot play under these conditions!  Going to give them their tea in the hope of distracting them for a bit


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 11, 2011)

I've heard the console porting of the UI isn't very good, so how is navigating the user interface with a mouse? Can you successfully remap all the keys?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> I've heard the console porting of the UI isn't very good, so how is navigating the user interface with a mouse? Can you successfully remap all the keys?



You can remap fine to whatever you want. I'd say it'd probably be a lot easier to deal with the menus with a controller, although I haven't hooked my xbox controller up yet. Sometimes it's awkward - when navigating the skills constellations, for example. I also had an issue when dealing with a merchant, I kept trying to click on the items and it took me out of the buying/selling menu each time. Rather annoying, but once you get used to it you can mitigate the issues.

But yes, menus aren't optimised for kb&m.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 11, 2011)

my character

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/594701896644115695/7C7DD1A60C6992ED5B4654DE80624420B7ABF949/
new like  level 9 or 10


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 11, 2011)

anyone know a magic trainer?   i'm buring thyrough my levels and not taking the training opertunities


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Only met an archery trainer so far, but then I'm only at level 2 .... taking my sweet ass time.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 11, 2011)

Why aren't you all playing as Orcs? Pah!

I like the detail of the brooch on Shippy's character. The designers did some research, it seems


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Still finding it touch to get the hang of what the skill constellation things are all about. Not sure why some bars fill, others don't, what that means, and how to work out properly what I should or could be putting points into. It's all a bit hit or miss at the moment.

Anyway, how to steal in skyrim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt5aUdijAN8


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Yeah, so, Skyrim comes out, and the very next day I get a SW:TOR beta tester invite.

Awesome gaming period is awesome.

But how to divide my time!


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 11, 2011)

found a trainer in winterfel at the college of magic


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

Aha, figured that's where they'd be. I'm heading that way, via Whiterun. Or whatever it's called. So many names, so much generic naming.


----------



## Corax (Nov 11, 2011)

More advice please folks!

I hate hate hate hate hate playing games with a mouse and keyboard.  So much so that despite the shortcoming, I enjoyed Oblivion much more on the X-Box than the PC version I had before my machine died.

I had a wingman rumblepad years ago, but it never worked properly and was fucking impossible to configure.  It had a slider thing on it, and if it wasn't right in the middle to the nanometre, my character/car/plane/kitteh would spin round in frantic circles.  The slightest breath on it would send it beserk.  It ended up in the bin I think.  It was 'top of the range' at the time, and it was shit.  

I'm taking delivery of a swish new desktop that has more capability than I really need on Wednesday.  

I'd like to play the PC version of Skyrim on it, so that I can dick about with mods etc at a later date.

If I get a new PC game controller, will it be easily configurable and work well with Skyrim?  And will it be compatible and usable with other games?  Have PC devs started programming this stuff in since 10+ years ago?  If so, does anyone have any recommendations for controllers?  It would *definitely* need to be wireless.  The Logitech F710 has had rave reviews, but costs fuckloads.  The PC version of the XBox controller's even more.

Or should I just buy the XBox version?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 11, 2011)

You can plug in an xbox controller and it will recognise it immediately and work like it would on an xbox (or so I have been led to believe, a quick google should clear it up). I have no idea if a wireless xbox controller would work the same as it does with the xbox, though.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 11, 2011)

Yes, get a wired Xbox controller. It's what the game was designed for.

I'm playing a Breton. Name of Gerard, white Mohawk and pointy beard, specialising in destruction, axes and (so far it seems) lock picking. I got out of the starting dungeon and did a smart 180 turn into the unknown. Have cleared a couple of dungeons and am now helping some guy I met by a camp fire to re-take his fort. Boss bandit inside is proving tough. Killed me twice now, so I think I'll use up the summon frost astronach scroll I found in the last dungeon. The sit back and spew fire into whatever is left over.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 11, 2011)

Oh, hang on, wireless?

The Xbox controllers are Bluetooth (my mac can see and use them, with the right driver) so if your PC has that, you're good to go.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 11, 2011)

PS the only reason I have time to type this is cos I thought I'd better install the game to my Xbox to improve loading times


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 11, 2011)

You can buy an adaptor for the wireless pads if you don't have Bluetooth.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

My Nord, Anais, seems to be specialising in Destruction, one-handed smashy weapons, and lockpicking as well. And light armour. I stumbled upon a fort up near the north east of the map, north east from Whiterun, that had mages in it, and a fire thingy outside. Cleared it out. Got lots of lovely stuff from inside. Had to keep dropping all the useless crap I'd been picking up earlier, dammit. Shall go back through for another sweep at some point.

Still have no clue about crafting ... not played any of the ES games before (apart from an hour in Oblivion that had me throwing it across the room in disgust), so I don't know what I'm doing. But fuck, this game is huge.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

I killed my first dragon.

I.
Am.
DRAGONBORN.

*ahem*


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 12, 2011)

it's starting to  stretch now

however i do thing this is possibly the best RPG i've played in a long time

i'm going a bit epic  and doing dragon killing  buit the thing that really irritates me is i never have enough salt for cooking


----------



## Epona (Nov 12, 2011)

I just got my first dragon too!! God this is good. My only slight gripe is about the UI as it's a bit clunky with kb+m and the hotkey/favourites thing is just awkward - it's been designed so that the functions fit on a controller, which is fine if you're using a controller, but if you have 300+ potential key combinations it's a bugger not to be able to use that resource more efficiently (anyone remember the days of keyboard overlays in the box with a game because most of the keys were used as shortcuts for something? *sigh* ) - but it's more bearable here than in Oblivion, because the game is SO much better and grittier and more atmospheric.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 12, 2011)

now level 20 6 or so dragons in  deep into  the mages guild main quest  and  looking over all the other organisation and  subquest  and  feeling a bit overwelmed.   it's both good and bad personally.   marvelosly open  but  i'll have trouble getting back into it after a break


----------



## Dandred (Nov 12, 2011)

Loving this, spent about 10 hours playing non stop yesterday........ I'm doing a quest for the companions but I've got stuck in a cave, there are three handles to turn and doors open but I can't get the door I need to open to open......


----------



## tommers (Nov 12, 2011)

Hmmm.... I'm a bit more mixed.  Yes it is massive, yes it is atmospheric but combat is still rubbish and loading times grate.

Does installing it cut them down?

That said, I did just kill a necromancer, nick her robe and then raise her as a zombie.  So I had a dead girl in a bikini as a really crap bodyguard, which was pretty funny.  But she disappeared.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 12, 2011)

loading times are practically non existant for the glorious pc master race so yeah it may well help out


----------



## Corax (Nov 12, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Oh, hang on, wireless?
> 
> The Xbox controllers are Bluetooth (my mac can see and use them, with the right driver) so if your PC has that, you're good to go.


W00t! That's 40+ quid I don't need to spend then. Will check my spec but I'm 99% my new mb's got Bluetooth onboard. Ta


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 12, 2011)

Wow, wow, wow. It's light years better than Oblivion. Graphics are dated, but that matters less when the game is just amazing. Even my Mrs is gripped and she's just watching me play.

Killed my first dragon, got my voice on, got a really fit housecarl called Lydia. All good


----------



## spawnofsatan (Nov 12, 2011)

Dandred said:


> Loving this, spent about 10 hours playing non stop yesterday........ I'm doing a quest for the companions but I've got stuck in a cave, there are three handles to turn and doors open but I can't get the door I need to open to open......



What are the symbols on the door, is it the Golden claw quest?


----------



## agricola (Nov 12, 2011)

Dandred said:


> Loving this, spent about 10 hours playing non stop yesterday........ I'm doing a quest for the companions but I've got stuck in a cave, there are three handles to turn and doors open but I can't get the door I need to open to open......



Is this in a dungeon that spirals upwards and has vampires and skeletons in it?  If so, look closely in the room that had the skeleton in it.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 12, 2011)

Zero load times on PC. The interstitial graphics are impossible to read a result.


----------



## Dandred (Nov 12, 2011)

spawnofsatan said:


> What are the symbols on the door, is it the Golden claw quest?


That was easy.....the answer is in your hand..


----------



## Dandred (Nov 12, 2011)

agricola said:


> Is this in a dungeon that spirals upwards and has vampires and skeletons in it? If so, look closely in the room that had the skeleton in it.



That would be it.........I just went out and TCL'ed over the mountain and went in a different way and it was no problem.


----------



## Dandred (Nov 12, 2011)

I can't get over how stunning it looks, and there is the music from Morrowind in it! Just waiting for someone to say "greetings outlander"


----------



## Crispy (Nov 12, 2011)

TCL?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

The music is amazing, I want to get my hands on the soundtrack if possible. I can imagine laying back and drifting off to more than a couple of the tracks. Trudging across the top of a mountain range as the moons are overhead with some gorgeous aurora overhead (fuck the aurora are amazing) with that music playing .. just lovely.

I'm still only level 7 and yet have played for something like 17 hours. This game will last me forever.

Oh, and as for Lydia, she can die. So be careful. There are conflicting reports on the net, but it seems most likely that she will fall in combat but revive if an enemy kills her, but if you accidentally hit her with an attack that deals the final blow, she's gone for good. Or so I hear.

Today I focus on getting better at enchantment, alchemy, and smithing. And levelling up some. Joined the mages college late last night (read: 6am), so going to mosey on down and see what they are all about today.


----------



## Garek (Nov 12, 2011)

Wtf!? Just started playing, raiding my first chest, finished with that, press Escape and...IT DOESN'T TAKE ME BACK TO THE GAME. Just the menu. Really weird. Escape just flips you between the two


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

Tab takes you back out. Escape is for the system menu, stats, saving, and tab takes you to the more action-oriented menu, so items and whatnot, and tab exits you out of everything. Very important to remember if you're reading other people's books, as clicking E again to put it down after reading actually steals it, you have to press tab. Yeah. I've learned to save before I start rummaging through book piles now, just in case.


----------



## Garek (Nov 12, 2011)

Cool cheers 

TIme to get a'hunting. Playing as a female Nord.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 12, 2011)

just had my first annoyance (apart from some of the children speaking in an American accent, rather than the cod-Scandinavian accent that predominates, and the menu system for kbm (why doesn't right click drop an item grrr etc)). Been given a quest from one of the Companions, only to find out that I'd actually killed the bandit leader, and the quest marker is over a dead body.

oh and switching off vsync in the ini file has had a notice affect on graphical smoothness


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> oh and switching off vsync in the ini file has had a notice affect on graphical smoothness



Oh? It actually helps? Maybe I'll give it a go


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

Found more magical standing stone thingies, right up at the very top north east part of the map. Stunning scenery in this game, really and truly beautiful.

Have turned off vsync in the menu, and turned on tree shadows and land shadows. No trees around here atm though, so shall have to wait and see. Nowt but ice and icy water. And lolruses


----------



## Cid (Nov 12, 2011)

Ah good, you can use hotkeys - that was annoying me.

Enjoying it so far, just seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity in some ways, parts of the interface clunky, graphically pulls some great tricks, but some rather flat textures close up - having said that I was going to upgrade my PC, but couldn't due to financial problems and it runs perfectly on high. General look is nice though and I'm sure there'll be lots of good stuff as things progress. Also lovely to be playing a game where you don't have to worry about every FUCKING XP POINT (that means you Bioware you low-life fucks).


----------



## Dandred (Nov 12, 2011)

Crispy said:


> TCL?



If you press the ` button on you can open the console commands........ TCL is the turn off or on collisions command. Has been since morrowind at least.


----------



## Epona (Nov 12, 2011)

Crispy said:


> TCL?



Console command - toggles collisions so you can fly or walk through stuff (or get yourself out of a pickle if by some glitch you get stuck in the scenery - hasn't happened to me yet in Skyrim but had to use it a few times in Oblivion.)


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

One thing I can't work out yet: novice, apprentice, etc., in magic ... some of my spells are apprentice level, most are novice. How do I make my novice ones level up? Buy another book once I've trained with a magic trainer? Or should they do it automatically? I is confuse.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 12, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> One thing I can't work out yet: novice, apprentice, etc., in magic ... some of my spells are apprentice level, most are novice. How do I make my novice ones level up? Buy another book once I've trained with a magic trainer? Or should they do it automatically? I is confuse.



Isn't it that you can only use them when you reach a certain level? So now you've moved from novice to apprentice and later you'll get to be expert, or adept, or whatever, and be able to access those spells as well.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Isn't it that you can only use them when you reach a certain level? So now you've moved from novice to apprentice and later you'll get to be expert, or adept, or whatever, and be able to access those spells as well.



Ah, I wondered if that was it. So I can't level my flames spell to apprentice, it just means I was able to access it as a novice, and couldn't access apprentice spells until then? That makes more sense. I thought I was going mad 

I'm getting a little overwhelmed with things now. I'm looking through my misc. list of quests and not remembering where people are to turn them in, and selecting them in my journal as the active quest doesn't always put a marker on the map, which is annoying.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

Gah. I went back to Helgen, cleared out some bandits, was heading east to Riften, but going up the mountain path just to the east of Helgen the game keeps crashing. I just freeze, every single time I get to this part of the path. No idea what's going on. Incredibly frustrating. Restarted several times now.


----------



## tommers (Nov 12, 2011)

Go round it.


----------



## Epona (Nov 12, 2011)

I just killed my second dragon - my first random dragon appearance.  It landed on the road right outside a small town so I had help from some guards and when it was dead the townspeople came up to have a look - absolutely epic.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

tommers said:


> Go round it.



I did in the end. Weird that it crashes right there.

Anyway, it's very windy and cold and snowing where I am right now. Still a long way to go before I get to Riften.

Wow Epona, that sounds amazing. I can't wait to get my first unexpected dragon 

Best thing about this game so far: the environment, light, weather and music ... with the right combination I could imagine roaming around forever.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 12, 2011)

playing this on the pc and it's kinda ugly as fuck, also it just feels like fallout 3 but with a lot of fantasy tat that doesn't interest me as much.

will give it more of a try but I still think melee combat in first person is shite and always will be.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 12, 2011)

I lost Lydia. She was behind me, then she wasn't. Maybe she'll catch up with me. Maybe she found a foe too strong for her. idk.

Poor Lydia.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 12, 2011)

she may have buggered off  back home


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 12, 2011)

droped another 4 hours into this with out meaning to

does have random crashes  but  so far  nothing epic has been lost


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 12, 2011)

has anyone else found their horse going manically aggressive in fights, like chasing after archers up on rampart walls, or chasing bandits into tents?


----------



## Epona (Nov 12, 2011)

revol68 said:


> ....but with a lot of fantasy tat that doesn't interest me as much.



If you don't like "fantasy tat" then Elder Scrolls may not be the series for you tbh, what with it being a fantasy swords & fireballs type thing and all   I'm really enjoying dual wielding melee combat as a stealth character - it's an RPG and complex stuff like a cover system and fancy moves would turn it into something quite different and not at all to my liking afaic.  As it is I just point my character in vaguely the right direction and swing my weapons and hit stuff and get hit a bit in return, then run away a bit to glug a potion or cast a healing spell, then hit stuff a bit more - I don't know what else people expect from RPG combat tbh.  It all used to be point and click dice rolls back in the day, and that suited me just fine too.


----------



## Epona (Nov 12, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> has anyone else found their horse going manically aggressive in fights, like chasing after archers up on rampart walls, or chasing bandits into tents?



Oh blimey, enraged horse. Do they do a lot of damage, they are big stocky fuckers with hooves like dinner plates, I wouldn't want one of them going ape on me!

I have avoided getting a horse, I like horses a lot and get upset if anything happens to my horse in a game (I once had the free horse in Oblivion die on me and I had to reload after I'd wiped the tears off my cheeks  ), I'd rather walk everywhere   At least until the Creation Kit is released and I can look up the ID to set it as unkillable


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 12, 2011)

They seem to be quite hard. Wolves, bandits, all have fallen to it's hooves.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 13, 2011)

I can't stop taking screenshots of the scenery. Such lovely colours. I've been making my way to Riften for what seems like 6 hours now. I keep coming across caves and forts that need clearing out. Nearly there now though.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 13, 2011)

Rifften. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. be carful


----------



## Dandred (Nov 13, 2011)

revol68 said:


> playing this on the pc and it's kinda ugly as fuck, also it just feels like fallout 3 but with a lot of fantasy tat that doesn't interest me as much.
> 
> will give it more of a try but I still think melee combat in first person is shite and always will be.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 13, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> Rifften. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. be carful



So I have found. Going to leave first thing tomorrow


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 13, 2011)

ok  found a bug.   sometimes if you fast travel just after leaving someplace  you crash out. thankfully   this means its just after an autosave


----------



## Crispy (Nov 13, 2011)

Just done the first College quest and been told to report back to the arch mage. Can't find the bastard anywhere in the college. He's not in his quarters - not even at night. Grrr.


----------



## Garek (Nov 13, 2011)

I went to Folkreath. Miserable wee town. Had one of those strange conversations with someone where you were obviously meant to have talked to someone else first to get an idea of what they were on about.

Really enjoying the game so far. Feels massive. Just wished it looked as good as the Witcher 2.


----------



## golightly (Nov 13, 2011)

Has anyone found any weird glitches?  I've found what looks like a wand suspended 20 feet in the air and another time I found a line stretching up into the sky which, when i looked closer, appeared to be an extremely elongated book.  Anyway, I found the arch-mage sitting in a corner of his room.  I missed him at first.  Btw, about to face my first dragon.  Not sure that I'm ready yet.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 13, 2011)

golightly said:


> a line stretching up into the sky which, when i looked closer, appeared to be an extremely elongated book.



Did this glitch happen at the end or latter part of a particularly long Skyrim session?  I've had similar in other games, but only after hours and hours of playing leading to overheating of my video card.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 13, 2011)

golightly said:


> Has anyone found any weird glitches? I've found what looks like a wand suspended 20 feet in the air and another time I found a line stretching up into the sky which, when i looked closer, appeared to be an extremely elongated book. Anyway, I found the arch-mage sitting in a corner of his room. I missed him at first. Btw, about to face my first dragon. Not sure that I'm ready yet.



Oh you'll be fine. The first dragon is a pussycat. Well, not literally. Oh boy, now that would be awesome. "Here kitty kitty kitty" ... "meow" *breathes fire all over you as it tries to rub its head against you lovingly*


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 13, 2011)

just lost another 12 or so hours to skyrim

i've managed to become thane to just about every jarl

also found a good way to trash dragons. knock back on double destruction. i can hit them with double fireball till they go down. they keep getting knocked back and not getting a chance to attack. chug a few mana ups. mind you i was putting all my points into destruction and training the fuck out of it.

the smaller guys are kinda worse


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 13, 2011)

That snow troll is a motherfucker. But I am only level 5.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 13, 2011)




----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 13, 2011)

I'm at level 13 now, I've crafted some superior elven armour, and enchanted it. That will last me a while. Stashed my dragon bone and dragon scales in my free room at the mages college. Don't think I'm going to bother buying a house, since I've got a ton of storage for free there. And Lydia's handy for carrying my ingots and leather around for smithing on the fly  Now, if only she wouldn't keep running off and killing wildlife and getting lost when I'm not looking.


----------



## golightly (Nov 13, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> Did this glitch happen at the end or latter part of a particularly long Skyrim session? I've had similar in other games, but only after hours and hours of playing leading to overheating of my video card.



Probably about 4 hours which is quite a while for me but not that much for the likes of shippy.  I might see if I can find where I saw it.  I think it was somewhere to the South of Whiterun.  I know there were some giants about so i didn't hang around.



Vintage Paw said:


> Oh you'll be fine. The first dragon is a pussycat. Well, not literally. Oh boy, now that would be awesome. "Here kitty kitty kitty" ... "meow" *breathes fire all over you as it tries to rub its head against you lovingly*



Maybe someone should make a Skyrim mod with giant kittens like in the Goodies where the kitten knocks over the GPO (BT) Tower.    Btw, the dragon was easy-peasy as you said; I just had a go at it with some lightning and it fell over.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 13, 2011)

i can't imagine taking on a dragon  with a sword.

i'm all about rapid fire spells

and lock picking


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 13, 2011)

oh jesus i just looked at steam  i've played skyrim for 44 hours


----------



## Corax (Nov 13, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Oh, hang on, wireless?
> 
> The Xbox controllers are Bluetooth (my mac can see and use them, with the right driver) so if your PC has that, you're good to go.


Hmm.  Wiki saysthat PS and Wii are bluetooth, but


> Xbox 360 wireless accessories communicate over a proprietary 2.4 GHz protocol



So if right, I'm back to asking for wireless PC controller recommendations.

There is/was an MS adaptor thingy, but there are tonnes of reports of them dying after a couple of months and IIUC they've been withdrawn in the US.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 13, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> oh jesus i just looked at steam  i've played skyrim for 44 hours



*counts fingers*
That barely leaves any time to sleep!

If you persist, you can jump all the way to the top of Throat of the World, before you're supposed to. You can't skip the story forward, but there are some valuable ores for mining up there. Views not bad either.


----------



## Epona (Nov 13, 2011)

I am at level 12 I think, killed 3 dragons, and had another 2 circle overhead looking threatening before flying off!

Highest skill so far is sneak - I knew I wanted to do the thieves guild quests on this playthrough (although haven't done so yet!) so I started sneaking everywhere right from the beginning and it's now at about something like 53 and I've put most of my perk points into it.  Stealth kills are good fun, wiped out a whole vampire cave with barely a scratch (although I had a hairy moment when one of them spotted me and raised her very recently er... laid to rest companion from er... undead right behind me)

The Daedric Princes are on form, I keep seeming to get roped into their quests almost unwittingly.  One of them nearly made me piss myself with fright tbh


----------



## tommers (Nov 13, 2011)

I've got Azura's Star.  Level 6 I think, but only played for about 5 hours.  Kind of a scary, thin, dark elf, witch woman.

Although obviously this is all just in my head and what I use to attack with cos they got rid of everything to differentiate your character from a Nord Male, or a Khajit at the start.  I'm lucky really that my really thin weak old woman can carry as much stuff as your massive bearded norse barbarian.  And she hits just as hard with her axe too.  But then, I suppose your spells do exactly the same amount of damage.

Anyway - I like it, despite all that.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 13, 2011)

Corax said:


> Hmm.  Wiki saysthat PS and Wii are bluetooth, but
> 
> 
> So if right, I'm back to asking for wireless PC controller recommendations.
> ...



Adaptor thing has worked great for me for years. You really don't wasn't anything other than a 360 pass or one that emulates its buttons exactly. Every modern game our set up for it.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 13, 2011)

gah   had to make  my first big uncomfortable choice.    with TES it is much more no right answer when compared to fallout.

in skyrim everyone is a dick


----------



## Corax (Nov 13, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Adaptor thing has worked great for me for years. You really don't wasn't anything other than a 360 pass or one that emulates its buttons exactly. Every modern game our set up for it.


Hmmm. Maybe it's worth a punt. I guess if it fails early I can always send it back.

Is it one of these then?






ETA: Now I've looked at the dates, all the early death reviews I've seen are from some time back.  Perhaps they sorted the issue.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 13, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> gah had to make my first big uncomfortable choice. with TES it is much more no right answer when compared to fallout.
> 
> in skyrim everyone is a dick



They really are. I haven't officially made my choice of who to support yet, Stormcloaks or Imperial Army. I'm Nord though, so I guess I'll go with the obvious choice there. But seriously, they're all pricks.

Also, the guards in Riften killed a dragon for me. And I still got to absorb its soul and steal its bones and so on. This pleases me.

Then I got drunk and apparently did something involving marriage and a goat, and ended up on the opposite side of the map when I woke up. idek.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 13, 2011)

i quick traveled away from a dragon  after i killed it  and  it  got  stuck


----------



## agricola (Nov 13, 2011)

Lydia is meant to follow you around?  Since I bought my house in Whiterun, she just hangs around there for me.


----------



## Epona (Nov 13, 2011)

agricola said:


> Lydia is meant to follow you around? Since I bought my house in Whiterun, she just hangs around there for me.


She'll act as your companion if you ask her to, otherwise she stays in your house.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 13, 2011)

Corax said:


> Hmmm. Maybe it's worth a punt. I guess if it fails early I can always send it back.
> 
> Is it one of these then?
> 
> ...



Yup, one of those.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 13, 2011)

I've had to back out of my first fight. Just a bunch of bandits, but I kept getting killed. I hear the first time you enter a dungeon, it sets the enemies at your current level (or thereabouts), so if I come back later they'll be easier to kill. I bloody hope so. They were only bandits D:


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 13, 2011)

why do dwarves have shelves so high i have to jump to see whats on them?


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 13, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> why do dwarves have shelves so high i have to jump to see whats on them?



Dwarves weren't actually short, it was a mistranslation of their elven name IIRC.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 13, 2011)

The dwarves were the Dwemer - underground elves. Once allied with but subsequently mortal enemies of the chimer (who became the dunmer or dark elves). The "last living dwarf" can be found in Morrowind. He's fat and old and has spider legs grafted on.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 13, 2011)

Oh, and dual casting perk is the BOMB, yo.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 14, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> why do dwarves have shelves so high i have to jump to see whats on them?


It's a consequence of Dwarven society's eventually catastrophic overreliance on huge clockwork butlers


----------



## Epona (Nov 14, 2011)

I hadn't seen a dragon in a while.  I agree to escort unarmed bloke somewhere.  Dragon shows up within seconds, and dry-freezes the poor sod.

I need to find some more word walls, I only have 2 words and a couple of spare dragon souls!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 14, 2011)

I've only found one word wall so far, the first one in bleak barrow falls. It's not like I'm not wandering around anywhere. I've spend nearly 40 hours in the game ffs.

Near the end of my first Daedric Shrine quest. Azura's Star thingy, which will be nice since I have been doing enchanting quite a bit.


----------



## Epona (Nov 14, 2011)

I have now played for 44 hours.  I have 3 shouts now (just the first word of each) but I keep forgetting to use them!  I have done some miscellaneous quests, completed 1 daedric shrine quest (Clavicus Vile) and started another (Molag Bal), the first couple of bits of the MQ just up to the point where dragons start appearing, and just been accepted by the Companions after doing the first bit of their questline.  I have about 50 unfinished quests in my quest log, my mouse arm feels like a piece of chewed string, and this game is seriously fucking with my sleep patterns.

The dungeons are fucking lovely after playing Oblivion for the last 2 or 3 weeks!


----------



## tommers (Nov 14, 2011)

I am very jealous of all the 40 hour brigade.

I have to grab an hour where I can.

And that jungle thing has just started too.


----------



## golightly (Nov 14, 2011)

I know I'm being terribly sensible here but does it really matter that you take three days or three weeks to get 40 hours worth of play as long as you enjoy it?  On the other hand sharing your enjoyment of the game and telling others where you have got is a big part of the pleasure here.  I normally buy games long after they have been released so that I get them at a cheaper price but, as I don't really do multiplayer, it makes it a very solitary activity.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 14, 2011)

tommers said:


> I am very jealous of all the 40 hour brigade.
> 
> I have to grab an hour where I can.
> 
> And that jungle thing has just started too.



I reckon I did about 8 hours this weekend and it felt like plenty. First game in ages that I'm gutted about going in to work about. I could very happily spend all of today in Skyrim.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 14, 2011)

Gah. Work. Here too soon. It was such a lovely weekend. Drinks with friends on Friday. Skyrim all Sat morning. Sat afternoon out and about with friends. Sat evening at a mate's for dinner. Then onto another mates for drinks and stuff. Then up early on Sunday for Skyrim, a takeaway pizza, a film called Our Idiot Brother, then some Community, then a couple of episodes of The Killing (original) then a couple of games of FIFA before bed. It doesn't get better than that


----------



## Crispy (Nov 14, 2011)

At the end of the first Companions quest (don't worry this won't spoil anything), the journal updates with the simple words "read the note". It doesn't help that the note in question is placed in such a position that it's edge on to your view. I spent _ages_ wandering round and round in circles looking for that bloody note.


----------



## tommers (Nov 14, 2011)

I quite like it that I can turn the quest pointers off (just by not making it an active quest.)

I was mooching about last night reading books and stumbled across an answer to one of them.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 14, 2011)

I can never be arsed to read the books. Perhaps I should.

Which town would you live in, that you've visited so far? I like Riverwood. The simple life. I'd weekend at Hrothgar though, on occasion.


----------



## tommers (Nov 14, 2011)

I've only seen Riverwood and Winterhold. Oh, and Whiterun.

I haven't even had the golden claw quest yet, although I've got 2 other ones sending me to Bleak Falls Barrow. 

You MUST go there!


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 14, 2011)

lost most of yesterday to it, thought some of the dungeons were too dark, until i plugged my pc into my 42 inch tv, and realised my monitor just needs brightness adjustment  , oh and then i got the magelight staff that helps, Im really starting to get into it, just not sure which sidequest to do next as im only level 5 , got 3 dragon shouts but need to mash up some more dargons ( my last encounter with a random dragon ended very badly lol ) before I can use them..


----------



## Crispy (Nov 14, 2011)

I've picked up a severe alchemy habit. You pick up so many ingredients wandering the wilds, then you can go to an apothecary's, use their lab to make dozens of potions/poisons then sell them on immediately (saving the health/magica ones for yourself, of course).


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 14, 2011)

i found the alchemy a bit hit and miss, where do you find the recipies ? ( I never bothered in Oblivion ... )


----------



## Crispy (Nov 14, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> i found the alchemy a bit hit and miss, where do you find the recipies ? ( I never bothered in Oblivion ... )



Just eat the ingredient to discover the initial effect. There's plenty of simple potions you can make just knowing that. Then sometimes, you'll combine ingredients that have other effects in common, so you learn those. You can even just mix stuff together at random. If any effects match, then they are learned and become available for other potions. I'm seriously considering putting 3 or 4 perks into it.

Pretty much every time I go back to town after some questing, I level it up in one sitting and make 100s of gold.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 14, 2011)

nice one, thank you, that will prolly make me lose another 20 hours lol


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 14, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> i found the alchemy a bit hit and miss, where do you find the recipies ? ( I never bothered in Oblivion ... )



To begin with I just started mixing any old thing up. Stumbled upon what might be the most expensive potion in the game (not sure, there are so many) on my first try! Brings in something like 250 gold per potion, more with speechcraft and enchantments that help speechcraft. You'll eventually get potion recipes at vendors, but half the fun is having a surplus of some ingredient and trying it out. If they don't mix, they'll be greyed out when you select them in the future so you don't waste more.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 14, 2011)

Also, catching butterflies is fun


----------



## Corax (Nov 14, 2011)

Ordered


----------



## tommers (Nov 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Also, catching butterflies is fun



Burning them is funnier.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 14, 2011)

killed my third dragon, via bow initially, and then when it was landbound, steaming in with a mace, with a fair amount of help from my horse.

Am liking the enchantment thingy. have broken down all magic items I'm not using, so I can hopefully enchant a heavy armour helmet with a plus on magica, or a magica regen, and ditch the hood I'm using


----------



## Dooby (Nov 14, 2011)

I ordered this after saying I wouldn't and it should've arrived today and it hasn't! *weeps*  *gets on with actual stuff urgently needing done*


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 14, 2011)

I'm going to start again. What's 37 lost hours of gameplay, eh?

Not having played a game like this before, stumbling around not knowing what I'm doing, not knowing how to build an effective character, has meant my Nord pure mage is pretty shit at what she does. I'm finding switching spells and making sure I'm protected and yet still able to deal damage effectively in combat really fiddly, awkward, clunky, and annoying as hell. So I'm going to sack it off and restart, Nord, one-handed combat (will use a shield for blocking, but use the odd spell for back-up, like conjuring an atronach, healing, I'll look into alteration/illusion for anything useful too) for the most part, a bow to try to stay out of the fray when possible. The one thing I'm most unsure about is whether to go light or heavy armour. I like the idea of stealth attacks, but when they go wrong or when I encounter a room of enemies I have to get rid of, I don't want to be left too vulnerable up close and personal.

Bah. Right now I'm utterly loving the scope of the game, the atmosphere, the environment, the premise. But I'm getting aggravated that I'm so shit at building a decent character and finding some combat situations frustrating. And this is playing on easy.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 14, 2011)

I don't think I've ever played an RPG whilst consciously building a character. I always just go with the flow.

Maybe take a step away for a little while then go back to it, or take a different side quest or ten to level up a bit more. You shouldn't be able to paint yourself into a corner in this way. It's just the current path your on demands a harder character, I'd guess. Go back, level up, then approach it again.


----------



## Garek (Nov 14, 2011)

After staring in mute frustrated fury at the screen during my Escape debacle where I discovered that *pressing escape does not take me back to the fucking game* I am really quite loving this post.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 14, 2011)

It seems to be a much more pleasant experience when played with a 360 pad. I've not felt frustrated by it at all tbh.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 14, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm going to start again. What's 37 lost hours of gameplay, eh?
> 
> Not having played a game like this before, stumbling around not knowing what I'm doing, not knowing how to build an effective character, has meant my Nord pure mage is pretty shit at what she does. I'm finding switching spells and making sure I'm protected and yet still able to deal damage effectively in combat really fiddly, awkward, clunky, and annoying as hell. So I'm going to sack it off and restart, Nord, one-handed combat (will use a shield for blocking, but use the odd spell for back-up, like conjuring an atronach, healing, I'll look into alteration/illusion for anything useful too) for the most part, a bow to try to stay out of the fray when possible. The one thing I'm most unsure about is whether to go light or heavy armour. I like the idea of stealth attacks, but when they go wrong or when I encounter a room of enemies I have to get rid of, I don't want to be left too vulnerable up close and personal.
> 
> Bah. Right now I'm utterly loving the scope of the game, the atmosphere, the environment, the premise. But I'm getting aggravated that I'm so shit at building a decent character and finding some combat situations frustrating. And this is playing on easy.


I always play an absolute tank, always. Have attempted other chracters in the past who are clever and use tactics, but running in beating the fuck out of things maxing endurance just seems to suit. Having said this I always play on easy.
Real life's hard enough, want to be able to win at games without too much effort.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 14, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> killed my third dragon, via bow initially, and then when it was landbound, steaming in with a mace, with a fair amount of help from my horse.
> 
> Am liking the enchantment thingy. have broken down all magic items I'm not using, so I can hopefully enchant a heavy armour helmet with a plus on magica, or a magica regen, and ditch the hood I'm using



Armour prevents your magica from regenerating as fast. If you're going full mage, you should just be wearing robes.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 14, 2011)




----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Armour prevents your magica from regenerating as fast. If you're going full mage, you should just be wearing robes.



ahh, but I'm mostly a 1 handed tank, but that flame thingy came in very handy for burning the undead at early levels, and I tend to use healing spells as well. As far as I know, in Skyrim (as opposed to Oblivion) there is no penalty to wearing armour for magic, just that robes and the like give you huge magica regen bonuses.  Could be very wrong.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 14, 2011)

I spent G1000 on a horse, rode up to the mountain near Barrow Falls, but when I dismounted it just fucked off somewhere. Now I can't find it and am stuck on foot in a godforsaken blizzard.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 14, 2011)

Horses were destined to be buggy as hell. I took one look at the price and thought "No way am I going to let Bethesda's AI routines take care of my 1000 septim investment, no SIR!"

Same goes for sidekicks. "No, I can adventure and dungeon crawl quite well without you stepping on traps or getting in the way of doors and switches, thanks."


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 14, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> I spent G1000 on a horse, rode up to the mountain near Barrow Falls, but when I dismounted it just fucked off somewhere. Now I can't find it and am stuck on foot in a godforsaken blizzard.



fast travel, and it should re-appear, or appear at the stables attached to the city.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Horses were destined to be buggy as hell. I took one look at the price and thought "No way am I going to let Bethesda's AI routines take care of my 1000 septim investment, no SIR!"
> 
> Same goes for sidekicks. "No, I can adventure and dungeon crawl quite well without you stepping on traps or getting in the way of doors and switches, thanks."



But Lydia is so good at carrying dragon bones. She's my pack mule.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 14, 2011)

Hmm. Those things _are_ heavy.
Can you tell her to wait outside the dungeon, then crawl back to her overencumbered and offload the loot?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 14, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> It seems to be a much more pleasant experience when played with a 360 pad. I've not felt frustrated by it at all tbh.


 
i agree with this, after getting a bit annoyed with the mouse and keyboard route, i decided to bite the bullet and use the 360 controller, a much better experience


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Hmm. Those things _are_ heavy.
> Can you tell her to wait outside the dungeon, then crawl back to her overencumbered and offload the loot?



I believe so. She has a limit to what she can carry as well though, and it's less than you, I think. No way of working it out though, she just suddenly stops accepting stuff.

And she always sounds so pissed off when I ask her to hold something. Poor Lydia.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 14, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> fast travel, and it should re-appear, or appear at the stables attached to the city.



It didn't work, I fast travelled back to Whiterun where I bought it, there is a horse at the stables, but it isn't mine. I just want Norbert back, or a refund.


----------



## Corax (Nov 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


>


I so identify with that.  I also explore every square inch of every broom cupboard.  It took me several sessions to even see daylight for the first time in Oblivion.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 14, 2011)

I got a refund on the horse, bought another one and then slayed a dragon.






A Breton Mage, but highly skilled in archery and swordsmanship, and Norbert the horse who didn't fuck off this time whilst I fought.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 14, 2011)

What I want to know is when do we get to buy some horse armour?


----------



## Corax (Nov 14, 2011)

I've got some I can sell you if you like.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 14, 2011)

is anyone having a hard time deciding between the Empire, and the Stormcloaks?  The Stormcloaks seem to be far right nutters, with a nasty belief in racial superiority, and wanting aggressive strong leaders.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 14, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> is anyone having a hard time deciding between the Empire, and the Stormcloaks? The Stormcloaks seem to be far right nutters, with a nasty belief in racial superiority, and wanting aggressive strong leaders.



Yeah, there's certainly an element of 'eradicate non-nords' about them ... otherwise I kind of like the whole rising up against their oppressors kind of thing .... but idk, it's certainly shades of grey, that one.

I'm playing a Nord, so I'll likely go with type, with the idea that it was the Imperial Army that wanted to execute her at the beginning, so why would she hold any other opinion? Maybe as I get more into the story, my (her) opinion might change.


----------



## Corax (Nov 14, 2011)

I expect the stormcloaks are just good patriots.  If it were up to you lot we'd all be bending down to Nord Law and there'd be Nordic temples on every street.


----------



## captainmission (Nov 14, 2011)

on the subject of racial superiority has any one notice in the first big town you come to there is one black npc? And one of his conversation options is 'you're not from arround here are you?' or words to that affect. But you don't get that option with the bretons or dark elves or lizard or catmen. Just the black guy.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 14, 2011)

i love the fact the situation in the reach with the forsworn is a mini version of the  whole stormcloak vs empire thing

plus it made  me do something i really didn't like.   forced me to pick a side.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 14, 2011)

geting seriously into smithing.   i have so much dewer metal  after  fething a sword and  going after a staff   that i felt i needed to do some thing with it.

what is the level cap?


----------



## Cid (Nov 15, 2011)

I believe it's theoretically 81 (max all skills) but it slows considerably after 50.

I swear it was 9.30 10 minutes ago...


----------



## Cid (Nov 15, 2011)

captainmission said:


> on the subject of racial superiority has any one notice in the first big town you come to there is one black npc? And one of his conversation options is 'you're not from arround here are you?' or words to that affect. But you don't get that option with the bretons or dark elves or lizard or catmen. Just the black guy.



I suspect that's poking fun at small-town attitudes...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

I think the intended level cap is 50, yes. But since you can keep questing indefinitely, you can keep going up, but as Cid said, at a far, far slower rate. I heard the upper limit was 70, but the maximum to get everything upgraded seems more likely.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

Well, I restarted anyway. Boo that the game doesn't keep your characters as different save files, so all my previous saves are mixed in with this new character. So awkward.

Focusing on my bow and sneaking now. Just finished the golden claw quest at bleak falls barrow, and had no problem. Snook past the bandits outside to get in. Then too almost everything out with my bow inside, including stealth killing every undead thingy in that room with the pots of fire you can shoot down in it, just before the word wall.

Analis (Anais' long lost sister) feels far more at home as a sneaky, light armoured warrior type, than she did as a mage. Hope to put some perks into one-handed at some point as well. It's nice I can block with my bow, so that skill set can have dual use for me, whether using my bow or my axe&shield.

Now, on to Whiterun, where I'll get my first dragon out of the way so I can set off and wander and encounter more.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 15, 2011)

apparently there are already over 100 mods for it!
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/14/the-10-best-skyrim-mods-so-far/?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

Oh heck, if ENBSeries are making a full graphical overhaul ..... I can't wait to see that.

As it stands, with only the tree and water shading .ini changes, one of my favourite pass-times is to wander around and get rid of the HUD and take scenic screenshots. If they do for Skyrim what they did for GTAIV ... wow.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

Really loving my archer. Going to focus on perks in stealth as well, for the archery bonuses, and omigosh it's going to be amazing.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

intresting.  although you need higher smithing  dragon armour is worth less than dedrich armour


----------



## Epona (Nov 15, 2011)

Stealth is so much fun, it's what I've been concentrating on.  I prefer dual swords but use a bow occasionally to take someone out at a distance or to plink away at a dragon before it lands.  I just got around to joining the thieves guild.

A dragon just appeared as I left Riften and started circling over the city, I was going back and forth through the city gates to shoot arrows at it and did it some damage but it landed inside the city and the guards there got to it first when it landed and finished it off - I still got the soul though.

Street furniture, Riften style....


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

Exactly the same happened to me, Epona. I left for the first time, and it showed up, and the guards got it (looks like it fell in the same place too) before I could. Didn't half have to do some juggling of inventory between me and Lydia to be able to carry its bones and whatnot XD


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

i've had two of them attack me at the college of magic

also one at  er...  notmoria


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

argh  think a quest just failed to initiate.    the guy made big words about going to attack some place then  went to bed  and all the people are stuck  in  the positions theyt were in after the attack


----------



## golightly (Nov 15, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> argh think a quest just failed to initiate. the guy made big words about going to attack some place then went to bed and all the people are stuck in the positions theyt were in after the attack



Must have been some armchair anarchist.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

Companions and College questlines progressing nicely. They've got some proper dramatic heft to them, and some nice conversation setpieces. Not sure if I want to go "all the way" with the Companions, though (mustn't spoil it either!). It's worth doing the first quest just for the free Skyforge Steel weapon. I do twice as much damage as I did before. Might pay to get it enchanted.

Gained 3 Alchemy levels in one potion-making session last night 

I think I'll end up joining the Empire. The stormcloaks are a nasty bunch, and I really didn't enjoy my time in Winterhelm. Those poor Dunmer! I figure if the Empire can be reunited, it can better resist the Aldmer.


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 15, 2011)

I was heading to Bleak Falls Barrow and ended up at some farm with a big brewery. I think I may have gone the wrong way. I went North East from Rivendale, is that right? I wasn't really listening to whoever pointed me in the right direction and I can't work out where to go from the quest log.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

fen_boy said:


> I was heading to Bleak Falls Barrow and ended up at some farm with a big brewery. I think I may have gone the wrong way. I went North East from Rivendale, is that right? I wasn't really listening to whoever pointed me in the right direction and I can't work out where to go from the quest log.



Go to the task list and then set it as active and choose to view it on map.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Companions and College questlines progressing nicely. They've got some proper dramatic heft to them, and some nice conversation setpieces. Not sure if I want to go "all the way" with the Companions, though (mustn't spoil it either!). It's worth doing the first quest just for the free Skyforge Steel weapon. I do twice as much damage as I did before. Might pay to get it enchanted.
> 
> Gained 3 Alchemy levels in one potion-making session last night
> 
> I think I'll end up joining the Empire. The stormcloaks are a nasty bunch, and I really didn't enjoy my time in Winterhelm. Those poor Dunmer! I figure if the Empire can be reunited, it can better resist the Aldmer.



Hmm, I've done the first Companions quest and I didn't get a weapon


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 15, 2011)

Of course, I meant Riverwood not Rivendale.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Hmm, I've done the first Companions quest and I didn't get a weapon


Oh yeah, there's that little introductory one. I meant the first proper dungeon quest. You accompany their 'leader' guy to a barrow.


----------



## golightly (Nov 15, 2011)

Having clairvoyance is just like having GPS in the car.  It takes away the need to navigate expect when it takes you the wrong way and you end up in the middle of a lake.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

I have deliberately avoided getting that spell.


----------



## MooChild (Nov 15, 2011)

Found a bug with infinite speech skillups just by chatting to one guy, so avoid repeatedly pursuading the barman in the brewery to tell you about his boss.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Oh yeah, there's that little introductory one. I meant the first proper dungeon quest. You accompany their 'leader' guy to a barrow.



Yeah, I did that and thought I'd cleared the final hall out of goodies. Damn it!

Maybe I did get it. I can't remember. I've got a cool mace I found on a treasure map anyway, that'll do me for now.


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

MooChild said:


> Found a bug with infinite speech skillups just by chatting to one guy, so avoid repeatedly pursuading the barman in the brewery to tell you about his boss.



Damn it, if I wasn't resolutely anti-cheating I'd be there in a flash.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 15, 2011)

It's arrived!
I'm going for a walk to the shops for supplies first, and because I feel it might be the last exercise I do for a while...


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## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Yeah, I did that and thought I'd cleared the final hall out of goodies. Damn it!



You've stood out the back of the hall for the initiation speech? Go talk to Eorlund at the Skyforge and he'll make a weapon of your choice for free.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I think I'll end up joining the Empire. The stormcloaks are a nasty bunch, and I really didn't enjoy my time in Winterhelm. Those poor Dunmer! I figure if the Empire can be reunited, it can better resist the Aldmer.



this is kinda what i felt about  the forsworn. i was umming and arrring  about making  my choice untill the  leader asked me to kill a fairly innocent guy and  i just thought "fuck you".

it reminds me of my time in new vagas  i was concerned about the NCR but in the end   they are  kinda the least worst.   same with the imperials.  i feel shitty for the guy in the street  but  a lot of the storm cloacks are tits


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> You've stood out the back of the hall for the initiation speech? Go talk to Eorlund at the Skyforge and he'll make a weapon of your choice for free.



Did not know that. Sweet! Did I miss something in the speech, or did you discover that by asking around?


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Not sure if I want to go "all the way" with the Companions, though (mustn't spoil it either!). It's worth doing the first quest just for the free Skyforge Steel weapon. I do twice as much damage as I did before. Might pay to get it enchanted.



i went all in.   but  was talking to the boss guy about  him wanting to change his mind.  he sent me on the quest  and on my return   i got the  quest fuck up.  it may mean i can't  finish the brotherhood questline


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## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Did not know that. Sweet! Did I miss something in the speech, or did you discover that by asking around?


You weren't listening


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## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i went all in. but was talking to the boss guy about him wanting to change his mind. he sent me on the quest and on my return i got the quest fuck up. it may mean i can't finish the brotherhood questline


Probably best to return to an earlier save then


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## Random (Nov 15, 2011)

The revol68 complaints about bad graphics make me hopeful my machine can run this. Will try to torrent it, and it it works will get a legit version for all the DLC.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Probably best to return to an earlier save then



unfortunately it's like 3 hours since my last save.  i tried to follow the guy  and  that killed my autosaves.


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

Random said:


> The revol68 complaints about bad graphics make me hopeful my machine can run this. Will try to torrent it, and it it works will get a legit version for all the DLC.



If it can run Oblivion it can probably run this. It's a three/four year old game in PC gfx terms.


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## poului (Nov 15, 2011)

critical hit archery perk....


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## ruffneck23 (Nov 15, 2011)

im not sure why people think the graphics are shite, apart from the facial animations ( which there is a mod out for ) I think it looks beautiful , im playing it at 720p on a 37in tv ( on pc that is ) and im realy impressed..


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

the graphics aren't bad  they just  ain't pushing the envelope.  they could even be considered a bit old.

but what the world lacks in  res it makes up for in content and depth


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## Random (Nov 15, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> If it can run Oblivion it can probably run this. It's a three/four year old game in PC gfx terms.


Not tried Oblivion, but have run Fallout 3 with a bit of slowdown.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

The graphics are dated in the sense that they aren't going for the level of realism you can get in other titles, but quite frankly, imagine the number of disks they'd have needed to make it like that. That much detail for the massive, almost endless amount of stuff in the world? And the power needed to render it all on screen and have it all be interactable-with (awkward phrasing). They chose their priorities wisely, imo, in that they focused on content first, shininess last. (Although I wish they'd have sacked off the "shiny" UI, but that's a whole other story.)


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> im not sure why people think the graphics are shite, apart from the facial animations ( which there is a mod out for ) I think it looks beautiful , im playing it at 720p on a 37in tv ( on pc that is ) and im realy impressed..



They're not shite, but they're not at the level of current PC graphical standards.


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> The graphics are dated in the sense that they aren't going for the level of realism you can get in other titles, but quite frankly, imagine the number of disks they'd have needed to make it like that. That much detail for the massive, almost endless amount of stuff in the world? And the power needed to render it all on screen and have it all be interactable-with (awkward phrasing). They chose their priorities wisely, imo, in that they focused on content first, shininess last. (Although I wish they'd have sacked off the "shiny" UI, but that's a whole other story.)



I'm not saying they've done a bad job. It's just a shame they didn't dev for PC and scale back. It's still a great game.

Anyway, looks like mods are being produced very quickly to make up for some of these shortfalls, which is why I love PC gaming.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

I understand, and yes, it's a shame they didn't do that. Maybe they get their most money from the console crowd, or wanted to get more this time, so put more focus on developing for them, knowing the PC crowd can mod to their hearts' content. idk.

Anyway, regardless of whether the graphics are up to scratch or not, it's one of the most beautiful games I've played. When I come out of some cave or other, and stand on a precipice looking over a valley, with the aurora in the sky, or the sun just going down and orange leaves blowing past me, it's just stunning. And honestly, this is some of the most beautiful water I've seen in a game too. Especially with the .ini tweaks.


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## Cid (Nov 15, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> im not sure why people think the graphics are shite, apart from the facial animations ( which there is a mod out for ) I think it looks beautiful , im playing it at 720p on a 37in tv ( on pc that is ) and im realy impressed..



It pulls some clever tricks, but look at anything closely and it's not that great; flat textures etc. My major gripe with it is just how lazily the PC version has been ported. Still a great game mind you, but that's partly why it pisses me off - I suppose things that look easy often aren't, but surely the basic UI is worth getting right.


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I understand, and yes, it's a shame they didn't do that. Maybe they get their most money from the console crowd, or wanted to get more this time, so put more focus on developing for them, knowing the PC crowd can mod to their hearts' content. idk.



Games will always make a shed load more on console than on PC, but other studios do it for PC then drag it back for the sake of making the best game they can make. It would have been nice if Bethesda had done the same. They claim it's because there are too many hardware configs on PC, but that's the whole point of DirectX, so it seems a slightly weak excuse to me.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 15, 2011)

Unwrapping my copy of the game now. I'm soooo excited. Fuckin' dragons!. I love dragons goddamit!


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## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

It might also have something to do with their rather decrepit technology base. Maybe they _are _working on a proper modern engine for TES 6 and didn't want to waste time/energy on trying to bring Gamebryo up to snuff.


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## golightly (Nov 15, 2011)

I have to say that I've not been particularly convinced by the AI in combat situations.  There's been too many occasions where I've beaten someone because they've been too stupid to duck when I shoot a fireball at them, or I position myself to shoot through an obstacle and my oponent does not move out of my line of sight.  Still, if the AI was better I would be moaning about how hard it was to play.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Unwrapping my copy of the game now. I'm soooo excited. Fuckin' dragons!. I love dragons goddamit!



lol

I think you'll love it. The dragons are beautiful to look at. The fierce look on the face of the very first one you encounter ... excellent.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

golightly said:


> I have to say that I've not been particularly convinced by the AI in combat situations. There's been too many occasions where I've beaten someone because they've been too stupid to duck when I shoot a fireball at them, or I position myself to shoot through an obstacle and my oponent does not move out of my line of sight. Still, if the AI was better I would be moaning about how hard it was to play.



Everything about the combat is clunky, imo. But I guess that's just reflective of the kind of game they're making. It's about the exploration, the depth, the amount that there is there. I guess combat is somewhat secondary. To me it always feels incredibly chaotic, and because it's so fiddly to swap out spells or weapons in the heat of battle, I find strategising to any great extent quite difficult. Which is a shame, since there are so many awesome combinations of combat tools you can utilise. If you set things up before a fight then fair enough, but trying to change mid-battle, trying to adapt to a situation, that's quite difficult (for me at least).

And the various keybindings screw me up too. More than once I've accidentally hit Z in a town and dragonshouted at people, so I have to reload. Maybe that's more to do with my flat laptop keys though, since they're easy to skim over for the one next door. Q and Z just feel quite awkward to go to in the heat of a frantic battle - so more often than not I forget I've got a dragonshout at all, and end up frantically spamming whatever I've currently got equipped, without better utilising Q (or hotkeys) to switch things around.

I'm shaping up to be a bit of a stealth archer this time though, which feels a lot better and gives me a bit more room. I haven't cleared out endless tight corridors of bandits yet though ... that'll be the real test. I expect my dragonshouts and some back up spells will come in very handy for slowing a fight down and spreading people out and pushing them back and tying them up with familiars or atronachs so I can continue to snipe them.


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## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

Wii U will have the perfect controller for a game like this. Great big touchscreen in your hands for choosing weapons and spells on the fly. Would be great


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## ruffneck23 (Nov 15, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> And the various keybindings screw me up too. More than once I've accidentally hit Z in a town and dragonshouted at people, so I have to reload. Maybe that's more to do with my flat laptop keys though, since they're easy to skim over for the one next door. Q and Z just feel quite awkward to go to in the heat of a frantic battle - so more often than not I forget I've got a dragonshout at all, and end up frantically spamming whatever I've currently got equipped, without better utilising Q (or hotkeys) to switch things around.



why dont you change them in the settings ? but tbh get a wired 360 controller ( i know its been said before   )


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> why dont you change them in the settings ? but tbh get a wired 360 controller ( i know its been said before  )



Changing keybindings has been a bit buggy for people. Mostly when changing things like R and E, since they are contextual, so I haven't wanted to risk it. And, idk, apart from that, and navigating the damned menus, I'm used to using kb&m now. Also I think I'm tainted by the horrific experience that was Oblivion on the xbox. Plus, I think I'll have more control over my archery using a mouse. Especially now I've turned mouse acceleration off. Movement feels a lot cleaner.


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## ruffneck23 (Nov 15, 2011)

ok fair enough


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

I tried it with mkb and it was a pretty unpleasant experience. But if it works, it works!

Todd Howard, the director, was asked what he thought they'd really nailed with Skyrim and he said 'the world'. And I'd agree. To be frank, the combat is terrible, the gfx dated, the UI weak, the character models blocky and unexpressive, it's full of bugs and the AI is non-existent BUT I still think this could be the best game I've ever played.


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## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

Compare the film-like writing, acting and editing in something like Uncharted 3 with the way things are handled in Skyrim: Characters standing on the spot speaking their lines (obviously recorded one actor at a time), and when they do try and move they're rotating on the spot, or getting stuck on each other and the scenery when walking from room to room. It's comic  But I know which game I'd rather be playing.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

That stuff ceases to matter when you use your imagination and get so immersed in the world itself. That's the beauty of such an open-ended world. There's danger lurking everywhere, some of it tied to the political background stuff, some of it not, and you're there to navigate your way through it and carve your place in the world. It's great.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

As for the Stormcloak versus Empire thing, I haven't followed enough of that plotline to form a real opinion. But I'm trying to put aside my own feelings and doing that odd thing called "role play" instead. My character has only had herself to rely on for far too long, is suspicious of power, doesn't want to get involved in it, just wants to survive and get what she can out of life. She's also smart enough to know when to play along with those in positions of power, so doesn't smart talk them, tells them largely what they want to hear, for the moment at least. She's just found out she's dragonborn, whatever the hell that is, but apart from asking a couple of questions of the Jarl and others about what dragonborn means and who the greybeards are, she wants nothing to do with it, and will carry on the way she was. That is, until events around her force her to face up to it and she finds herself getting more and more embroiled in what's going on in Skyrim.

But when it comes down to it, she's a Nord, who was caught when crossing the border back into Skyrim, caught by the Empire. While she has no interest in the politics of the land, she also has no reason to question that almost-expected identification with the Nord/Stormcloak cause. She looks after herself, so the problems of others having to deal with the brutal, unsubtle uprising and/or the continued Imperial oppression don't really concern her.

For now, at least.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

Basically all of that ^ is my way of justifying why I'm not going to go see the greybeards immediately, and instead just roam around exploring and getting by. And killing things.

She's no hero, she doesn't really want any kind of power, she's just someone living by her wits, who will probably end up getting more and more pissed off at the world as time goes by, until she suddenly realises she's at the centre of it all and has to act, in one way or another.


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## ruffneck23 (Nov 15, 2011)

ah i was on my way to the greybeards but i think im might mosey on about the place first....


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

VP, it's interesting that you don't play as you. I wonder what percentage of people play as someone else, and what percentage plays as themselves?

I feel a poll coming on. Maybe.


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## ruffneck23 (Nov 15, 2011)

i dont even play as the same sex as i am ( thinks therapy maybe in order..... )


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## Cid (Nov 15, 2011)

I'm going sneaky too I think; combat without some kind of advantage is just far too messy with the weapon swapping etc... Character is a Dark Elf, a worn out veteran of Morrowind's post-imperial power struggles. Even sneak is pretty buggy though, at least outside dungeons - seems enemies are much better at seeing through bushes. Also could really do with different icon for friend/foe detect and it would be nice if he'd actually respond to my commands to stand up in combat. As per usual I seem to be getting by with careful planning and lots of potions though. Really wish they'd make an effort with this stuff though, I mean it can't be _that_ hard, there have been other games that manage it on much smaller budgets.


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## Epona (Nov 15, 2011)

I just found M'aiq!

He told me:
Nords wear a lot of fur armour, this makes M'aiq nervous
M'aiq was soul trapped once, it wasn't pleasant, perhaps you should think about that hmm?


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> VP, it's interesting that you don't play as you. I wonder what percentage of people play as someone else, and what percentage plays as themselves?
> 
> I feel a poll coming on. Maybe.



I never play as me. I split my characters in rpg's reasonably evenly between men and women, although I previously went through a phase of preferring to play as men, I'm now going through a phase of preferring to play as women (my current characters in DA2, ME1 and KotOR are all women). They all have their own motivations for doing stuff. Some more in depth than others. Some evolve as the story goes along, some I have a more detailed idea of who they are when I start. Some will naturally end up picking choices that I would pick, but they still do other things I wouldn't necessarily do. The only things I tend to have issues with is playing racist characters, or sexist characters, or whatever. I'd rather pick an apathetic character who doesn't much care about "causes" than one who is actively bigoted. I find that more difficult to do. I guess that just means I can't totally separate out my own set of morals or ethics. I should try to sometime though. See what it's like, whether I end up liking or actively hating my character. I pretty much like all my characters.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> i dont even play as the same sex as i am ( thinks therapy maybe in order..... )



nither do i

i even have a t-shirt about it


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## Cid (Nov 15, 2011)

I just go chaotic neutral - that's just how I roll...


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## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

Cid said:


> I just go chaotic neutral - that's just how I *roll*...


ISWYDT


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## Cid (Nov 15, 2011)

Worthy of a resurrection I think:

http://instantrimshot.com/


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## MooChild (Nov 15, 2011)

I use one of these (Well, an N52te) instead of a keyboard, usb connection, programmable (and recordable macro keys).
Life is so much simpler playing pc games with it.

Plus i have generic set of keys that i go into any game and just remap to the buttons.


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## Crispy (Nov 15, 2011)

Wow. Bet you can hack the Matrix with that shit


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## ohmyliver (Nov 15, 2011)

That fast move shout is invaluable if you're overburdened...  just saying, like.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

I was overburdened after killing that first dragon. The walk back to Whiterun was .... yeah.


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## ohmyliver (Nov 15, 2011)

slightly regretting not visually modelling my character on the ex-lead singer of Turbonegro, for the big boned Nord party animal win. But not enough to start over...


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## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 15, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I guess that just means I can't totally separate out my own set of morals or ethics. I should try to sometime though. See what it's like, whether I end up liking or actively hating my character. I pretty much like all my characters.



Lol. I know what you mean; I caught myself feeling a little guilty after considering stealing from that faldor guy's home. Although I really want to get into the character of a black-market trader type, getting rich by stealing shit and selling it on. I'll be a rough shaven pirate as opposed to a weasley pickpocket, exproprating others' wealth in audacious displays of highway robbery. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Gotta have a code of honour though; I'm no rat.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

She is developing faint glowy red scars on her body.

Why?

Edit: look, can you see them? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9682450/screenshots/skyrim/TESV2011-11-1518-28-52-79.jpg


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## Jackobi (Nov 15, 2011)

Perhaps she has contracted a disease, look in the Magic - Active Affects menu which should indicate a disease or cold etc. If you look in the General Stats menu (Esc), it also shows how many diseases have been contracted overall.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

Nope, she's completely disease-free, and always has been.

Very odd.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

Having a bow enchanted with soul trap is incredibly handy. It one-shots most decent-sized animals once you've got a perk or two in archery and if you shoot from stealth, which is easy to do when out hunting, so it always fills up a soul gem. Very, very useful. Until I realised this, I didn't really like the soul trap thing, because it meant being quite fiddly, casting then fighting, or multiple hits from a melee weapon before death. This is very good though. imo soul trap was meant for archery.


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## Corax (Nov 15, 2011)

I was going to carry on playing Oblivion for a bit, but seeing the screenshots on this make it look like a SNES game.


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## ohmyliver (Nov 15, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> Perhaps she has contracted a disease, look in the Magic - Active Affects menu which should indicate a disease or cold etc. If you look in the General Stats menu (Esc), it also shows how many diseases have been contracted overall.



also the extras (i.e. city guards, random townspeople, etc) will tell you that you look ill.


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 15, 2011)

That's 'cos of a magic effect.


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## golightly (Nov 15, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Everything about the combat is clunky, imo. But I guess that's just reflective of the kind of game they're making. It's about the exploration, the depth, the amount that there is there. I guess combat is somewhat secondary. To me it always feels incredibly chaotic, and because it's so fiddly to swap out spells or weapons in the heat of battle, I find strategising to any great extent quite difficult. Which is a shame, since there are so many awesome combinations of combat tools you can utilise. If you set things up before a fight then fair enough, but trying to change mid-battle, trying to adapt to a situation, that's quite difficult (for me at least).



That kind of makes sense although there is a lot of combat.  I constantly seem to get mugged by wolves and bears and I wish that they would just get the message that I've got better things to do than get in to a scrap every five minutes.

I've gone for the mage this time.  I usually like to be a thief or a rogue, but I fancied a change.


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## Dandred (Nov 15, 2011)

The only thing that is getting on my tits is the fact that I don't know where any of the people my misc quests have come from.
  I would love to have "......... met you in ........ he/she/they wanted you to get/do/kill/ect, so /he/she/they can.... do whatever they wanted me to do.

Great game otherwise.........  Why don't my restore magic items work when I use magic in a fight?


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

ahhh  found it

(not good at editing wikies so please fix) A glitch occasionally occurs where this quest cannot be started. For pc users, there is a console command that can be entered to skip the quest, but not start it. Be sure to save first! This will sometimes also cause errors where the important NPC's for the next quest bug out. Console command: player.SetStage C06 0
This glitch can be caused by having a quest from the Jarl of Winterhold to get the Helm of Winterhold, and the location happens to be the same one as this quest takes place in. If you have the quest in your log by the time you finish the previous Companion's quest, it will not be started. To fix this, do the Jarl's quest without killing the dungeon's boss (or anyone if you want to be safe) before you complete the previous quest. If done correctly, this quest should be started as normal.


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## agricola (Nov 15, 2011)

Shouting _fus_ at mages who get bounced off a wall into a greatsword is tremendous fun.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

ok  just finish the main companion story line.....  really nice

not  as huge looking as the college of mages  quest though!


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

I feel somewhat overwhelmed by the scale of the quests. I'm putting off getting started on any of the long ones, and just moseying around on my own instead at the moment.


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## Epona (Nov 15, 2011)

Aye I am completing quests but the number of unfinished ones just goes up and up!!! And completing some of them often takes a lot longer than I imagined they would, I spent several hours last night in one barrow that I thought was just going to be a short side quest that I could get done before bed (I did get it done before bed, but only because bed was a long-forgotten thought at the back of my mind that eventually happened at around 5.30am!) - if it had been Oblivion I'd have died of boredom if I had to spend that long in one of those generic dungeons, this one had interesting traps and puzzles to unlock new areas - I'm actually enjoying the puzzles, because they're not mindbendingly obscure, they usually just need you to be thorough looking for carvings or what have you to find the answer and I already enjoy exploring thoroughly.

It's very unusual for me to feel completely satisfied with the number of quests in a game, and tbh TES is the only series that I think has enough content to stop me worrying that I'm running out of stuff to do - and this game is currently surpassing all expectations in that regard - but I am suffering from "what to do next" syndrome a bit!

As someone mentioned a bit earlier though, I do wish there was a bit more descriptive text in the quest log for the misc ones - I keep having to select a load of quests at a time to look at the markers on the map to see if I can wrap up any that are nearby, and I swore I was not going to use quest markers! Having the name of the town (or nearest town, for those in the wilderness) mentioned in each objective (and possibly sortable by town/nearest town, so that if I am in Windhelm I can sort the list by ones that mention Windhelm in the description) would make it so much better. I have a load of ingredients to deliver to people but find that I forgot to do so when I last visited a location!


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

ok  mages quest  slightly anti climatic.  i suppose it's about the same as the companion quest in length  but  because it was hinting at  world changing  magical devices  i  expected more


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

I completely agree. Looking through the Misc. log is probably the most overwhelming thing of all. I have to pay close attention every time it adds something to my journal, go look at the entry then and there, and hope that later on I'll remember what it was about when I get around to doing it. I guess the easiest thing to do would be to crack on with each quest as you receive it, but I'm not sure that suits many people's play style at all. Some lend themselves to being done right away, but others are ones you'll get around to eventually, if you're in the area.

I wonder if anyone will sort a mod for that at some point. I really hope it's possible. Apparently the menus use some sort of pseudoflashthingy (I don't understand these things), which makes it a bit harder to mod. Or so I read.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

I never get tired of wandering around this game:


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

ok 60 hours in and i've  hit the next level  stage  ive cleared the  companion and mages  quest lines  and  unlocked the super hardcore spells


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 15, 2011)

I reckon a person could total 200 hours in this game, if they wanted.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 15, 2011)

probably
i know i'm going to go over 100.  i mean although i'm now finished the main quests  of  both guilds  (well they are the fighter and mages guild)  i'm still getting  quest off them.  like a mysterious quest to find the ultimate elemental destruction spell.

i'm also  only just at the beginning of the thives guild quests.

i ended up killing the  dark brotherhood  after  they tried to force me into killing  a random


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## Dooby (Nov 16, 2011)

Why is this thread not going on all night, hmm? Hmm? Hah. Amateurs!

Oh god I need to sleep, my eyes hurt, everything hurts...


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## Epona (Nov 16, 2011)

I have had to alt-tab out of the game for a few minutes until my little blue cat loses interest - it's like he JUST noticed what was on screen and decided to try to help me catch butterflies  I'm worried he's going to damage the telly if he starts swiping at it in a predatory manner. He always has loved eating insects, and moths are his favourite, so I shouldn't really be surprised. Even a small feline with few ideas in his head besides cuddles and food is finding this experience immersive 

Really loving the daedric quests in this, there were some I just didn't bother seeking out in previous games, but this time round I feel as though I am being manipulated (at least so far by Clavicus Vile, Molag Bal, and Sheogorath) which is fantastic - even though I kind of knew what was going on before I got to the reveal in each quest, but I liked that anyway - as a long-time TES fan it's good to feel that you "get it" before reaching the punchline, so to speak. And I am sure newcomers will also find the quests enjoyable and/or disturbing even if they are a bit wtf? at first


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 16, 2011)

Why can't I find a single solitary ingot of quicksilver when I need one? I'm one step away from my gilded elven armour. I have my exquisite enchanted elven bow. Haven't had chance to use it yet though.

But enough for tonight. Sleep


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 16, 2011)

I know where there is a quicksilver mine.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 16, 2011)

Wow. Half 4 in the morning; that's a hardcore session on a weeknight. I was up for bloody work an hour after you went to bed. Can't wait to get home though. Stupid job getting in the way of the important things in life.


----------



## Cid (Nov 16, 2011)

Ain't that the truth...


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

Well, that's the college quest line broken for me  I had to leave the dungeon to buy a spell that I didn't have that I needed to "focus" a doohickey. When I come back to the dungeon, the doohickey wouldn't respond to my spells at all, and the buttons don't do anything  boo.


----------



## golightly (Nov 16, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Well, that's the college quest line broken for me  I had to leave the dungeon to buy a spell that I didn't have that I needed to "focus" a doohickey. When I come back to the dungeon, the doohickey wouldn't respond to my spells at all, and the buttons don't do anything  boo.



This the mages' quests?  If so then if you go up to the control panel above the globe you will find two spell tomes that provide the relevant spells.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

That's what the guy said, but only the flame tome was there. I ended up loading an earlier save, exiting the dungeon, buying the spell, coming back and _then_ talking to the guy about the doohickey. That worked


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> That fast move shout is invaluable if you're overburdened... just saying, like.


The other thing you can do is drop your heaviest item, then use Grab to hold it in front of you for no movement penalty. You have to pick it up again to go through doors, of course.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 16, 2011)

Crispy said:


> The other thing you can do is drop your heaviest item, then use Grab to hold it in front of you for no movement penalty. You have to pick it up again to go through doors, of course.



Good tip!  Although I've now brought a house, so I can dump my dead dragon bits, and hoarded books, etc and roam unencumbered once more, rather than doing the inventory shuffle any time something interesting comes my way, like the heavy and not really worth anything much (although having flogged them, I'll no doubt find out that they are very useful, although that may just be unjustified Dungeon of Brooms fear) bits of broken dwemer technology.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

I really want to make a little gallery of Dwemer artifacts, but they all weigh so much  When I get my house I think I'll go on a dedicated treasure hunt...


----------



## tommers (Nov 16, 2011)

does stuff stay in any chest?

So, if I kill a load of bandits can I take over their camp and use it as my camp? I might move their dead bodies. Or I might dress them up.


----------



## MooChild (Nov 16, 2011)

bleh quotes borked and double posts!


----------



## MooChild (Nov 16, 2011)

Crispy said:


> That's what the guy said, but only the flame tome was there. I ended up loading an earlier save, exiting the dungeon, buying the spell, coming back and _then_ talking to the guy about the doohickey. That worked



I spent ages trying to figure out that doohicky, finally got it. (then i killed the person who gave me the quest to stop him telling anyone) just in case like


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

tommers said:


> does stuff stay in any chest?
> 
> So, if I kill a load of bandits can I take over their camp and use it as my camp? I might move their dead bodies. Or I might dress them up.


It can't be guarunteed. If the game decides your save file is getting too big, it will purge some changes you've made in the world. The only truly safe containers are in houses you own, and rooms you are given as part of joining a guild.


----------



## MooChild (Nov 16, 2011)

Crispy said:


> It can't be guarunteed. If the game decides your save file is getting too big, it will purge some changes you've made in the world. The only truly safe containers are in houses you own, and rooms you are given as part of joining a guild.



Meh, i've been storing stuff in the inn with the secret room, spose i should move it all somewhere, but theres something like 30 dragon bones lol


----------



## tommers (Nov 16, 2011)

Crispy said:


> It can't be guarunteed. If the game decides your save file is getting too big, it will purge some changes you've made in the world. The only truly safe containers are in houses you own, and rooms you are given as part of joining a guild.


 
Oh, OK.  I got a room from the mages so I'll use that.


----------



## Corax (Nov 16, 2011)

Game and wireless controller thingy have just arrived!!!!  _*bounces up and down excitedly*    _

Now I just need a PC to play it on.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

Incidentally, anyone playing on xbox can transfer their save games to PC: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:Save_File_Format


----------



## InfoBurner (Nov 16, 2011)

Does anyone else go all out Kevin Mcloud whenever they buy a house?

I've put in 50hrs but at least 5 of 'em have been spent balancing mammoth tusks, arranging all the volumes of 'The real Balthazar' in my bookshelves and creating a feast of epic proportions, served on platters of silverware.

My actual living room is a scene of strewn coffee cups and crumbs but Breezeholme is immaculate
(Hate cleaning up after the 'reloading' poltergeists, though).

Trying to pace myself. Just started the DB...awestruck!


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

I retract my earlier statement. Guild bedroom containers are NOT secure, according to my latest googling.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 16, 2011)

has anyone tried smelting?  I didn't know that you can smelt down things like dwemer cogs to make dwarven ingots etc...


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

I'm giving smithing in general a miss. My character is almost pure mage now, so weapons and armour are meaningless


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 16, 2011)

smithing is pretty essential for a heavy armour/melee tank.  I seem to be going for a more Vulcan style figher...  I find it great that the lack of character classes allows a sort of evolution and specialisation as you go on through the game, rather than a 'stick with what you've chosen right at the very beginning'.... Although I do plan on avoiding the MG and TG and DB side quests, for when I do a magic user or stealthy playthough.


----------



## tommers (Nov 16, 2011)

Vulcan?


----------



## tommers (Nov 16, 2011)

I'm really tempted to restart with a dedicated smith character.  I like the idea of just going about doing menial jobs.

My mage is so fiddly.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

tommers said:


> I'm really tempted to restart with a dedicated smith character. I like the idea of just going about doing menial jobs.
> 
> My mage is so fiddly.



Tell me about it - I wish I had more shortcuts.


----------



## tommers (Nov 16, 2011)

I had a purge of my favourites thing, got rid of all the non-essential potions and it's still massive.

And it's annoying to have to go to "healing" after a fight, and then to "raise zombie" and then back to "flames".

I also seem to have a hell of a lot of wolf pelts.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 16, 2011)

tommers said:


> Vulcan?


Hephaestus then, greeco-roman god of smithing... because the closest thing in Norse mythology is Wayland the Smith...


----------



## Cid (Nov 16, 2011)

tommers said:


> Vulcan?


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 16, 2011)

tommers said:


> I also seem to have a hell of a lot of wolf pelts.


that's a lot of leather armour you could make


----------



## poului (Nov 16, 2011)

Yesterday I got arrested for punching a chicken.

God I love this game.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2011)

A sizeable percentage of forum posts about Skyrim the world over end with words to the effect of "This. Fucking. Game."


----------



## Epona (Nov 16, 2011)

More from M'aiq:

M'aiq likes to fast travel, some lazy people prefer to use carriages, it is all the same to M'aiq (the fast travel arguments have raged hard on the Bethsoft forums for years! A lot of people who like to roleplay very relieved by the inclusion of carriages to the point where for a few days after it was announced it was the most talked about feature, although I still get the impression that Bethesda are slightly bewildered by fast-travel-rage)
M'aiq once walked to High Hrothgar, so many steps he lost count (many threads about counting the steps, wondering whether there would be exactly 7000 etc...)


----------



## poului (Nov 16, 2011)

...the thing is, because I was already the Thane of Winterhold I asked to be let off and the guard relented, but stressed that it was my final warning . So I immediately went and punched the hapless chicken again. The guard was then notably more vexed in his tone of voice.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 16, 2011)

I had stashed stuff in my mages college room, and it was always there when I went back. Hmm.

Anyway, I'm something like level 54 with smithing now. Just got my lovely exquisite gilded elven armour, got my elven shield, will stick with my elven bow and ancient nord war axe though, since i'm mostly a bow user, and up close the axe seems sufficient for now. Am going to stock up on arrows, and head out to find the lover stone, since right now I have the warrior stone enabled, but that doesn't help my light armour or sneak much. Although I've found a great way to level my light armour (and block) is to stand around and let wolves attack me while I sit and stare out the window - my health and armour is rated high enough right now that I can stand for ages being attacked and it barely touches me.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 16, 2011)

Bastard sneaky dragon landed right behind me without warning, and I didn't realise until I heard a "thud", and turned around to see its face right in mine a second before it started breathing fire at me. On my first leisurely and pleasant walk from Whiterun to Rorikstad as well.

Killed it dead. Dead.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 16, 2011)

Thats beautiful


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 16, 2011)

I thought I was bad playing till 1am on a school night and then I logged on here and saw all the posts at 4 in the morning.

Spent two and a half hours happily wandering around not achieving much last night. The first random dragon appeared and decided to fight a convenient nearby troll, which caused enough damage that I only needed to hit it with a couple of arrows to kill it.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 16, 2011)

This is what I've been experiencing in the last 15 minutes, as found dragons a piece of piss (disclaimer- playing on easy):

http://i1012.photobucket.com/albums/af243/hadrian_x/i-9HNNHvS-XL.jpg

I dunno how to make it 'show up', it's ABOUT GIANTS


----------



## Corax (Nov 16, 2011)

Game delivered. 
Controller thingy delivered. 
PC delivered. 

Fucking VGfuckingA to DVfuckingI fucking adaptor fucking missing.


----------



## Corax (Nov 16, 2011)

Dooby said:


> This is what I've been experiencing in the last 15 minutes, as found dragons a piece of piss (disclaimer- playing on easy):
> 
> http://i1012.photobucket.com/albums/af243/hadrian_x/i-9HNNHvS-XL.jpg
> 
> I dunno how to make it 'show up', it's ABOUT GIANTS


----------



## Dooby (Nov 16, 2011)

Cheers!


----------



## golightly (Nov 16, 2011)

MooChild said:


> Meh, i've been storing stuff in the inn with the secret room, spose i should move it all somewhere, but theres something like 30 dragon bones lol



The arch-mage position comes with a penthouse apartment, which is quite handy.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 17, 2011)

okay kinda going to retract my earlier statement, might have got a wee bit sucked into this now.

also Giant's much like the wu tang clan are nothing to fuck with.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 17, 2011)

revol68 said:


> okay kinda going to retract my earlier statement, might have got a wee bit sucked into this now...



One of us.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 17, 2011)

Visiting Markarth. Doing my usual thing of visiting the blacksmiths and general stores first, and the pub.

Got attacked on my way there by a small band of Forsworn, so I think I'll look into that quest first. Analis tends to keep out of things, keeps her head down, doesn't want to get involved in the petty goings on of others. But she was attacked. She wants to know who these jokers are. Even though part of her is warning her to keep her distance ...


----------



## Epona (Nov 17, 2011)

I just went went through my first dwemer ruin - by fuck am I overencumbered, but I am obsessive about picking stuff up (I am the embodiment of broom dungeon syndrome!) and I can't leave any shiny shiny behind.

I finally managed to find a weapon with paralysis enchantment - not from any loot, I had to buy it from a court mage for a steep price!!! Then immediately disenchanted it so that I could put the effect on a bow instead. Well worth it though. Either keep them still for a couple of seconds to stop them wandering around so they are in the same place for a second arrow, or if they are nearer, to close the distance so that I can go in with dual swords. Mind you my sneak skill is over 80 now so most things I can creep up on - but if I find myself approaching a room with more than one enemy I can use it to buy myself a couple of seconds grace so they don't all descend on me at once!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 17, 2011)

I've got my bow enchanted with soul trap at the moment, but I'm only level 19, haven't been to see the greybeards yet, only just starting my first "major" quest (in Markarth, about the Forsworn). So soul trap works nicely to keep me in soul gems for my axe which is enchanted with shock damage and magika damage, and so I can continue to forge iron daggers and enchant them to up my smithing and enchanting skills cheaply and still make a slight return on them in the process 

I'm pretty much still always living hand to mouth now though.

And oh my god it's 5.15am.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 17, 2011)

i really want to know what happens  if you pick the other end to the forsworn thing  to what i did


----------



## Epona (Nov 17, 2011)

I'm in Markarth at the moment, seem to have got myself in a bit of a pickle!  Want to know what happens next but I need to go to bed before I keel over!


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

And at the other end of the scale my son woke me up an hour ago. 

I have never played a warrior in an RPG but I made one last night and I love it. Quick, easy,  smash, smash, smash.  I'be been poncing about for years with thieves and wizards when I would have been happier with a huge orc with a massive  hammer.  

And I'm also designing my own clothes, so that's nice.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 17, 2011)

Wow @ some of you. You really love RPGs, huh? I assume you're freelance or out of work atm, or are you going to work to sleep?


----------



## Random (Nov 17, 2011)

Got up at 5am because the baby was lively and took the opportunity to install Skyrim. it works with lowest settings! But the framerate is crap unless I have it in windowed mode boo.

Will restart and run through the intro again in windowed mode, just to get the max out of the beautiful opening. The way you see the dragon behind the xecution, and know that no one else has spotted it yet!

Plus think I went into the keep with the wrong person. Didn't see that there was two ways to do it.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 17, 2011)

i've made myself a dadric bow.   also i have started picking so archery perks.    OMG it's  fucking awesome!  it  reminds me of playing thief back in the day.

just gave it extra fire damage.  it make sneak hits normally insta kills


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

Random said:


> Plus think I went into the keep with the wrong person. Didn't see that there was two ways to do it.



Makes no real difference


----------



## Random (Nov 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Makes no real difference


I'm talking about in roleplaying terms!!!!! Plus I see on UESP that you get different armour depending on what you choose. Whaever you guys say about the Snowshoes being dicks as well, after narrowly avoiding being executed by the Empire I just want to kill Romans right now (and level up in their heavy armour). Think my character will start off like my main in Morrowind: A freebooting robber, with heavy armour, sword and shield, plus lockpicking and then later a bow.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

You can't avoid leveling up lockpicking really


----------



## Random (Nov 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> You can't avoid leveling up lockpicking really


No indeed


----------



## MooChild (Nov 17, 2011)

golightly said:


> The arch-mage position comes with a penthouse apartment, which is quite handy.



Yes, i've just attained this position (after all the trickery with puzzles), and now most of the crap i dont want is randomly strewn around the floor


----------



## MooChild (Nov 17, 2011)

Currently up to 36 dragon bones / scales....

Have kind of changed focus from destruction magic to sneaky archer. It seems to be working well, even with 3.0 sneak dmg with bows its fairly devastating. Bought an elven bow of lightning, which is fairly shiny, want to see the stats on the bound bow to see if thats better, but shiny bow looks cool anyway and creatures die, so it doesn't really matter too much.

Also found out that if you hit a favorites button, hitting it again reverts to your previous choice which is pretty ace. (At least I think this is what happens).


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

Parents of baby born on 11.11.11 named him Dovahkiin and will now receive free Bethesda games for life.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...hallenge-accepted-parents-name-baby-dovahkiin


----------



## MooChild (Nov 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Parents of baby born on 11.11.11 named him Dovahkiin and will now receive free Bethesda games for life.
> 
> http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...hallenge-accepted-parents-name-baby-dovahkiin



Good lord


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

Stupid fucking twats.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

I dunno. Cool name bro


----------



## Cid (Nov 17, 2011)

He's got an excellent middle name to fall back on anyway.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 17, 2011)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-face-off-skyrim

So Xbox beats PS3 again. Will the worm ever turn on that one, or will developers continue to treat the 360 as the core dev platform until the 720 (or whatever) comes out?


----------



## Random (Nov 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Parents of baby born on 11.11.11 named him Dovahkiin and will now receive free Bethesda games for life.
> 
> http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...hallenge-accepted-parents-name-baby-dovahkiin


Idiots. Plenty of epic names based on real languages, instead of Klingon or whatever. But I do like the handling of Scandinavian in Skyrim so far. When I hear them talking about Sovngard I can tell instantly that they mean some kind of 'house of rest' valhalla-equivalent.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 17, 2011)

tommers said:


> I have never played a warrior in an RPG but I made one last night and I love it. Quick, easy, smash, smash, smash. I'be been poncing about for years with thieves and wizards when I would have been happier with a huge orc with a massive hammer.
> .



Heh, that's the spirit! A no tactic tank, it's the only way. I'm a redguard (the orc wasn't pretty enough) with a warhammer, a huge bloke called Pumpkin.


----------



## Cid (Nov 17, 2011)

Another Penny Arcade job for um... certain people.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 17, 2011)

I had over 50 cabbages at one point.


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

Tommers likes this.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 17, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I had over 50 cabbages at one point.


Hope you've kept them for when you get to a level when you can forge cabbage leaf armour...


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

Dooby said:


> Heh, that's the spirit! A no tactic tank, it's the only way. I'm a redguard (the orc wasn't pretty enough) with a warhammer, a huge bloke called Pumpkin.



I must admit, I read your earlier post and thought "no way I'll ever play a warrior" 

I can't believe I've been so blind.  I've spent years of my life skulking in shadows when I could have just run in, "bop" in the face with the massive warhammer, nick the stuff, onto the next one.  I cleared a dungeon last night in about 10 minutes.  And my orc looks well scary.  Properly like something out of Lord of the Rings.

And then I can indulge my creative side by making myself some nice armour and a bigger hammer.  I can't wait till I can make orcish armour.

I've still got the mage sat there, stewing, but I reckon it'll be a while before I go back to her.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 17, 2011)

tommers said:


> I must admit, I read your earlier post and thought "no way I'll ever play a warrior"
> 
> I can't believe I've been so blind. I've spent years of my life skulking in shadows when I could have just run in, "bop" in the face with the massive warhammer, nick the stuff, onto the next one. I cleared a dungeon last night in about 10 minutes. And my orc looks well scary. Properly like something out of Lord of the Rings.
> 
> ...


Welcome to my world.  I still like them to look pretty, with nice scars and fancy outfits an all and a camp demeanor, so can't quite bring myself to go full orc, but yeah, always max up strength and endurance and you can take out a dungeon whilst absent mindedly eating your cabbage soup


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

There isn't any strength. 

My massive orc hits with exactly the same force as my spindly elf mage woman.

I may have already mentioned this.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 17, 2011)

speciesist!


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

The species isn't the problem.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 17, 2011)

Dooby said:


> Heh, that's the spirit! A no tactic tank, it's the only way. I'm a redguard (the orc wasn't pretty enough) with a warhammer, a huge bloke called Pumpkin.



My mate's Redguard, Frank the Mighty Bastard, carved a bloody swathe through Morrowind


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

oh yeah?  your "mate" was it?  Just admit it.  You'll feel better.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 17, 2011)

tommers said:


> There isn't any strength.
> 
> My massive orc hits with exactly the same force as my spindly elf mage woman.
> 
> I may have already mentioned this.


Bit pants that innit. Well anything you can get that's in the strength direction. Do they all start able to carrythe same amount of weight or is that species based?


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

No.  Everybody is the same at the start.  All carry the same amount, all spells are equally efficient, all take the same damage.  Doesn't matter whether you're big or small, young or old, Orc, Khajit or Elf.

The only thing that's different is your "racial power" and your appearance.

And yes, then you can take perks to customise your character but even then "2 handed weapons add 20% damage" is hardly differentiating is it?


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

And don't get me started on those effing stones.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 17, 2011)

um, technically, that's not wholly accurate.  The efficiently and damage of spells and weapons are tied to their skill levels which start at different levels for the various races...

you're correct about carrying ability though


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

Oh ok, so all orcs, all dunmer etc are the same?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

I like the blank slate approach


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 17, 2011)

tommers said:


> Oh ok, so all orcs, all dunmer etc are the same?


isn't it more that your choice represents an oversimplified species archetype, which you then fashion into the specific character that you want by playing?


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

I would like more control over customising my character.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

tommers said:


> I would like more control over customising my character.


So play the way you want to play and spend perks on the things that you want.


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

Oversimplified is the word.


----------



## tommers (Nov 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> So play the way you want to play and spend perks on the things that you want.



We're not having this conversation again, but surely more choice is better than less choice?

Would you like it if you had 3 perks to use at the start, when you make the oh so important choices about how you look?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

tommers said:


> We're not having this conversation again, but surely more choice is better than less choice?
> 
> Would you like it if you had 3 perks to use at the start, when you make the oh so important choices about how you look?



No, because I would have had no idea which were worth using until I'd played the game for a bit. I'm only now settling down into the skills I like and I'm level 14.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

I think we'd better not have the discussion again actually


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 17, 2011)

who says orcs have to be strong anyhow?


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 17, 2011)

I'm on the crispy side of the debate. I think it's a bit stupid determining important elements of your character before you know who you want to be, in accordance with the world.

But we're not discussing it, so, erm...

I still want to know what happens during your days, VP, that enables you to be playing this alllll night. Nosey, I know.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 17, 2011)

I'm one of the unwashed masses, i.e. student.

Also, my sleeping patterns are a bit weird compared to many people's anyway. I have mates I chat to who are on different time zones, so I'm often up until 3-4am regardless of Skyrim. Up by 10-11am most mornings.

(Incidentally, it made my trip to the States earlier in the year seamless, no jet lag because going to bed at 11pm there was the equivalent of my usual bedtime over here anyway.)


----------



## Dooby (Nov 17, 2011)

I don't wait to see how the world pans out. An elder scrolls game? Bash the fuck out of everything.
I think it's therapeutic.


----------



## Cid (Nov 17, 2011)

I'm liking the levelling too - it's not as if you don't have choice, it's just that that choice is affected by the stuff that you do rather than raw stat stuff... Tbh this was where the previous games fell down anyway, lots of planning on how you should be playing to get the stat gains you wanted for the next level. I like playing with character stats etc, but not having to think about them when I just want to do a dungeon or two - with this system you still have a lot of scope for customising your character, but it doesn't affect normal gameplay.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 17, 2011)

tommers said:


> oh yeah? your "mate" was it? Just admit it. You'll feel better.



I wish i'd thought of that character name, but I really can't take the credit!


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 17, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm one of the unwashed masses, i.e. student.
> 
> Also, my sleeping patterns are a bit weird compared to many people's anyway. I have mates I chat to who are on different time zones, so I'm often up until 3-4am regardless of Skyrim. Up by 10-11am most mornings.
> 
> (Incidentally, it made my trip to the States earlier in the year seamless, no jet lag because going to bed at 11pm there was the equivalent of my usual bedtime over here anyway.)



Aha. I have considerable envy. Well, in a way, being left to my own devices is no good for me. I quickly devolve into a depressive drug addict with a pizza habit. But I envy the time and the fortitude needed to have that much spare time.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Aha. I have considerable envy. Well, in a way, being left to my own devices is no good for me. I quickly devolve into a depressive drug addict with a pizza habit. But I envy the time and the fortitude needed to have that much spare time.


I believe there's a dressing gown of +50% fortitude


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 17, 2011)

If only life could imitate art in that fashion


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 17, 2011)

Hmm just installed and spent ages sorting out the look of my character.

There's no option to change the age appearance as there was in Oblivion, which is annoying cos the male characters look about 20 years older than the female ones.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 17, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> Hmm just installed and spent ages sorting out the look of my character.
> 
> There's no option to change the age appearance as there was in Oblivion, which is annoying cos the male characters look about 20 years older than the female ones.


Wasn't mainly designed by men, was it?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 17, 2011)

open console > fov 85 (or whatever number suits you) = a wider field of view and not so much of that cramped feeling. Default is something like 65 I think. Have heard of some going as far as 100+. 90 was too much for me, 80-85 feels about right.

Apparently doesn't mess with your steam achievements either. (And I've used the console to get rid of random arrows poking out of me that wouldn't go away, and have gotten achievements since.)

Might have an effect on your fps/performance, since it's rendering more on screen. I haven't noticed any problems yet.

Also, if you are using kb&m, make sure you've unchecked "game controller" from the settings menu. I hadn't (it's on by default), but now I have menus seem easier to navigate. Still not perfect by a long shot, but not as many annoying mis-clicks where I end up asking someone the same thing 3 times in a row because it's failing to highlight the right answer.

Also, if you're playing in windowed mode and want to switch to another program, tab+shift to bring up the steam overlay, and you can. Took me ages to work that out, because I've never had to do it before, it's always worked by just pausing to the main menu. It is a little glitchy, I've had a big old system crash once when using it, lost my mouse cursor, it all went pear-shaped. Only the once though, and I use it constantly in a session.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 17, 2011)

Man, Morokei is an absolute badass. Took me a whole twenty minutes to beat him. Reward VERY much worth it


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 17, 2011)

Doing my first Daedric quest (with this character, did Azura's Star with my last one): Malag Bal's. It's taking me out in the grey, windswept, wilderness near Markarth, and it's tipping it down with rain. It's fucking stunning. The real star of this game is the scenery. It's so very well done (graphics schmaphics )


----------



## Corax (Nov 17, 2011)

Just setting up now. I love how one of the 'secret question' options Steam gives you is mother's maiden name. Do fuck off lol.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

Got the Mace of Molag Bal. Very nice it is too.


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## Epona (Nov 18, 2011)

VP, I think I mentioned already how much I am enjoying the daedric shrine quests in this game - some of them are much more "in your face" than in previous games where you had to seek them out - and there were some I never even found! I like that because especially with the ones I've done (Molag Bal, Sheogorath, Clavicus Vile) it feels appropriate that I am being toyed with. I eventually completed the Molag Bal quest



Spoiler



Found the Boethiah worshipper when I was in the location for a completely different quest!



and I don't think I'd finish it with other characters, but with my thief/assassin it fit right in nicely.

Sheogorath is also on good form



Spoiler



to start the quest - as you approach the Blue Palace in Solitude a beggar will ask you to go to the Pelagius wing of the palace to find his former master - Pelagius was insane and as Sheogorath is the prince of madness I could sort of see where it was heading when the beggar gave me the quest - it's a fairly short quest and the reward is pretty much useless IMO (true to form!) but it's very well executed.


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## Dandred (Nov 18, 2011)

I'm quite proud of myself, I've been determined not to look at any cheats, hits or spoilers for any of this game, really enjoying that for some reason, everything I find or do I've worked out myself.

Even managed to kill two giants and I'm only level 11


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

I ran away from 1 giant who was trying to kill me. I was hunting a dragon, and it started attacking a giant camp and its mammoths so I'm trying to kill the dragon, and then when it's dead they turn on me! So I ran and ran, and had to wait for ages before I could go loot the dragon body for bones


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2011)

Daedric bow (legendary) + 61 points fire damage enchantment + 2 points in overdraw + zoom + slowtime + sneak = INSANE

i felt almost bad for the game  when i came into a room filled with Draugr sat in chairs around a central area   and i just sat hidden  by the door  and picked them off one by one  with instakill arrows.  most  didn't even get to sit up.

man  a few perks  and  a lot of smithing go a lot way to making you totally ninja


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 18, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Doing my first Daedric quest (with this character, did Azura's Star with my last one): Malag Bal's. It's taking me out in the grey, windswept, wilderness near Markarth, and it's tipping it down with rain. It's fucking stunning. The real star of this game is the scenery. It's so very well done (graphics schmaphics )



Ok, but imagine if you knew that out could look way better than it does. That's the point. Not that it looks bad. That it could look a lot better. By being wowed by the scenery you're enjoying something us graphics whores enjoy. That's why we have decent PCs. Not for any other nonsense reasons. Just so stuff looks a pretty as poss.


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## Jackobi (Nov 18, 2011)

Some of the PC tweaks look amazing: "Tools and tricks: twofold increase in landscape cell loading distance, large address aware patch to TESV executable, free camera, no-HUD, 2160p rendering, timecycle adjustment, custom FOV."


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2011)

got my full set






normally don't bother with the helmet though


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## Cid (Nov 18, 2011)

Oh ffs shippy I didn't want to see that!


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## bi0boy (Nov 18, 2011)

The graphics are annoying in dungeons. I'm playing on a 24" 1920x1080 monitor and the crappy textures make it feel how I'd imagine watching a 640x480 movie in the cinema would be. I might have to play in windowed mode so as not to get a headache.


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## bi0boy (Nov 18, 2011)

I love how I never have time to read any of the loading tips as my SSD is just too awesome.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2011)

Cid said:


> Oh ffs shippy I didn't want to see that!



it's a bit strange that   it's far cooler than both sets of the dragon armour


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 18, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> The graphics are annoying in dungeons. I'm playing on a 24" 1920x1080 monitor and the crappy textures make it feel how I'd imagine watching a 640x480 movie in the cinema would be. I might have to play in windowed mode so as not to get a headache.



Change your FOV settings. By default they're set for TVs, not for monitors. Weak port.

Oh, and even without an SSD the game loads too fast to read the loading screens. But, yeah, with an SSD it's great


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## MooChild (Nov 18, 2011)

Finished mages guild quest, working on thief guild quest now. Trying to work through my misc quests to get rid of them, but still have loads to do. This game is immense!


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## Random (Nov 18, 2011)

Have literally only played one hour on this. Simply have no more time  Am loving dual weilding, but I wish that you could still block with your off-hand weapon.


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## Termite Man (Nov 18, 2011)

I didn't think I was really getting into this game, but I have just played 5 hours non stop and will be going back for more later.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

I started a quest last night. Someone told me they did it, and it was just a case of killing a handful of bandits to get the thing you needed to take back to whoever had asked for it. So off I went, thinking this will be a nice simple quest before bed.

3 hours later ... THREE. And it turns out this quest actually spawns in different places. For me it spawned in a mine that had a particularly long and sprawling quest in it with mages and daugr and OMG IT TOOK FOREVER.

4.30am before I finished.

This game *shakes head and laughs*


----------



## Crispy (Nov 18, 2011)

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-personality-flaws-skyrim-forces-you-to-deal-with/

Worth quoting this:



> King: Wanderer! Thank the gods you've come! The prophecy told us that a mighty warrior would arise, worthy of wielding Fjalnir, the God-axe, and slaying the evil Demon Prince Synraith. We believe you to be that warrior. What say you, traveler? Will you accept this task?
> Me: Yea, verily I shall accept thine task and vanq- wait, Synraith? Fiery dude in a floating city? Cape made out of screeching souls? Ahhh, shit. I already killed that guy.
> King: You ... already slew the Demon Prince, the Knife in the Dark, the Void at the Heart of All Men, whose identity you did not learn until just now?
> Me: Yup. I saw that castle floating up in the sky, and I wanted to know if I could jump up the rocks to get in the back way. It took a lot of reloads, but I finally managed to hop on up in there.
> ...


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

I pretty much identify with every single thing in that list. Especially, perhaps, the being given a quest and doing everything humanly possible to avoid doing that quest.

Been gifted with an amazing talent for absorbing the souls of dragons? Been told where you can find out about this amazing talent? Yes? Go hunt deer and harvest juniper berries for 50 hours.


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## Epona (Nov 18, 2011)

HA!  I just had a brief conversation with a random encounter Imperial Guard patrol bloke and it was only bloody Fenris - the voice actor I mean, unmistakable voice.


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## tommers (Nov 18, 2011)

I am currently trying to get 5,000 gold to buy a small house in a backwater town rather than go and see those immensely wise mystical sages who live at the top of that awe inspiring mountain and will tell me the secret of my destiny.

I spent over 1,000 of that on making my hammer do 10 more damage last night.

WTF is wrong with us?


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## Crispy (Nov 18, 2011)

tommers said:


> WTF is wrong with us?


We're at work when we could be playing skyrim.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2011)

I'LL BE WAITING FOR YOU OUTSIDE!

(three weeks later)

...

(a lot later)

ARE YOU READY TO SET OFF?


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

Epona said:


> HA! I just had a brief conversation with a random encounter Imperial Guard patrol bloke and it was only bloody Fenris - the voice actor I mean, unmistakable voice.



He voices a few of the random Imperials. He is also the guy driving your carriage at the beginning of the game.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

And all orc males are voiced by the guy who voiced Yancy in Alpha Protocol.

VA spotting is fun. And nerdy.


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## Crispy (Nov 18, 2011)




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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

Fucking beautiful.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2011)

carriages  don't seem to work for me.  i get in but they never set off.


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## Epona (Nov 18, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> carriages don't seem to work for me. i get in but they never set off.



Are you overencumbered?  I found that happens when I am (which is frequently!)


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2011)

ahhhh


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## tommers (Nov 18, 2011)

is there any difference between heavy and light armours apart from weight (obv) and the skill that governs it?

ie. does it make more noise?  do you move more slowly?  etc etc.


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## Random (Nov 18, 2011)

Epona said:


> Are you overencumbered? I found that happens when I am (which is frequently!)


That's crazy. Surely carriages are exactly what you need to carry more than one person can run with? Do horses also not work if you're carrying too much?


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## ohmyliver (Nov 18, 2011)

you make clanky noises when you move, so I presume that stealthing is more difficult, and I think you move more slowly.... but I'm presuming this by the fact there is a heavy armour perk which "makes Heavy Armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn"


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> you make clanky noises when you move, so I presume that stealthing is more difficult, and I think you move more slowly.... but I'm presuming this by the fact there is a heavy armour perk which "makes Heavy Armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn"



Yep, although I don't think it makes you silent. If it did, there really would be no point in having the two types of armours in the game.

As it is, light armour is serving me perfectly. I haven't put loads into sneak yet, maybe 3 or 4 perks, and already draugr, for example, can be staring right at me and not see me. Fucking lovely.


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## Crispy (Nov 18, 2011)

I am so going sneaky for my 2nd playthrough. Whenever the hell I get round to _that _


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## ohmyliver (Nov 18, 2011)

Random said:


> That's crazy. Surely carriages are exactly what you need to carry more than one person can run with? Do horses also not work if you're carrying too much?



Elf and Safety gone mad


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## ohmyliver (Nov 18, 2011)

I already want to do a stealth, and a magic playthough.  I'm avoiding the thief's guild quests, and the mage's guild quests because of this...


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## Termite Man (Nov 18, 2011)

tommers said:


> I am currently trying to get 5,000 gold to buy a small house in a backwater town rather than go and see those immensely wise mystical sages who live at the top of that awe inspiring mountain and will tell me the secret of my destiny.
> 
> I spent over 1,000 of that on making my hammer do 10 more damage last night.
> 
> WTF is wrong with us?


how do you buy houses and what is the point?


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> how do you buy houses and what is the point?



You get to ask the steward or whoever of a town you've helped. And the point is a) storage; b) somewhere to display all that crap you've picked up.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

See, I have "story" reasons for why my character isn't going to see the greybeards. She's sceptical of this "destiny" shit, she wants a quiet life, not to be the focus of the hopes of an entire land. So yeah, she keeps killing dragons when she encounters them and they attack her. And she keeps absorbing these dragon souls. And she keeps learning these words of dragon shouts. But she feels uneasy whenever she does. And she retreats back into the wilderness to try to ignore it, and carry on as she was. But slowly, little by little, she's going to start realising she can't ignore this, because it's bigger than her, no matter how much she wishes it wasn't.

But for the moment, she's just going around hoarding cabbages and making soup.


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## tommers (Nov 18, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> how do you buy houses and what is the point?


 
Well mine is from the jarl's steward.

The point is that they are all kinds of awesome.  You can keep stuff there.  In Oblivion I had about 5 of them, with different weapons, different armour and bits an pieces - so I could go out and get stuff and then go back and store it there.  Means you don't have to carry round that armour that improves speech, or dragon bones or whatever.  Which leaves you free to get more stuff.

And, presumably, you will be able to have alchemy labs, workbenches, arcane enchanters etc etc all in one easy place - right next to all your accumulated ingots, ore and ingredients.


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## Termite Man (Nov 18, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> See, I have "story" reasons for why my character isn't going to see the greybeards. She's sceptical of this "destiny" shit, she wants a quiet life, not to be the focus of the hopes of an entire land. So yeah, she keeps killing dragons when she encounters them and they attack her. And she keeps absorbing these dragon souls. And she keeps learning these words of dragon shouts. But she feels uneasy whenever she does. And she retreats back into the wilderness to try to ignore it, and carry on as she was. But slowly, little by little, she's going to start realising she can't ignore this, because it's bigger than her, no matter how much she wishes it wasn't.
> 
> But for the moment, she's just going around hoarding cabbages and making soup.



you can make soup ?


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> you can make soup ?



Oh young Padawan, so much to learn.

There's a veritable Delia's "How To" series of recipes waiting for you to create. From simply cooking your venison, to using it with other ingredients to make a useful venison stew, from munching a cabbage to mixing it with apples for a strange apple and cabbage pie thing, that helps with various things like stamina and health. Oh yes, many dishes that are useful can you make.

If you can find enough salt.


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## agricola (Nov 18, 2011)

The random dragons are a bit gung-ho, I think.  Last night one went after me, then went after some bandits, then went after some mammoths as well.


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## tommers (Nov 18, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Oh young Padawan, so much to learn.
> 
> There's a veritable Delia's "How To" series of recipes waiting for you to create. From simply cooking your venison, to using it with other ingredients to make a useful venison stew, from munching a cabbage to mixing it with apples for a strange apple and cabbage pie thing, that helps with various things like stamina and health. Oh yes, many dishes that are useful can you make.
> 
> If you can find enough salt.



I cooked some venison and it meant it restored 10 health.

Even the weakest potion does 20 and it weighs 0.5, rather than 2.

Does it get better?


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

tommers said:


> I cooked some venison and it meant it restored 10 health.
> 
> Even the weakest potion does 20 and it weighs 0.5, rather than 2.
> 
> Does it get better?



When cooked into complete dishes, they tend to weigh around 0.5. Venison Stew: Restores 15 Stamina and an additional 1 Health and 1 Stamina per second for 720 seconds. Cabbage and Potato Soup: Restores 10 Health and 10 Stamina. When cooked, they are effectively like potions, and weigh about as much. But do different things.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> If you can find enough salt.



the bane of every chefs  existance


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2011)

i relly wish cooking  could have been like smithing  where you level up and unlock  recipies


----------



## Crispy (Nov 18, 2011)

This isn't a Nintendo game


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## Cid (Nov 18, 2011)

I draw the line at cooking, I mean it's basically pointless except perhaps at starting levels. Admittedly I indulge in many other pointless things in Skyrim, but it's one step too far for me - i don't have enough time to commit properly to the game (as a matter of fact I'm still at work) as it is.


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## Corax (Nov 18, 2011)

Now the nipper's in bed, and I've installed the 4,394 updates to my shiny new pooter, I've finally got the chance actually play it.

I have, of course, spent around an hour adjusting my character's nose and deciding between hairstyles, and then another half hour choosing a name.

I'm very proud to have now completed (on my first attempt no less), the "Get to the keep" quest.  Watch out, Skyrim.

****************

Slightly irking that I can't minimise it rather than shutting it down if I want to pause for 5 minutes to step onto the web.  Is there an easy way round this?  I have memories of getting games to run windowed, but it's about 5 years since I've done any PC gaming.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2011)

Corax said:


> Slightly irking that I can't minimise it rather than shutting it down if I want to pause for 5 minutes to step onto the web. Is there an easy way round this? I have memories of getting games to run windowed, but it's about 5 years since I've done any PC gaming.



This game is a bastard for that, the usual ways to minimize don't work. You playing in windowed mode? You can switch to firefox (or whatever else) using 2 different methods:

1) If you're playing through steam: press shift+tab and it brings up the steam community overlay. Once that is active, you get your normal mouse back, and can switch to another window, and back again.

2) If not, the slightly more fiddly way is using Task Manager. Press ctrl + alt + del, select task manager, and then choose which program you want to switch to.

I use method 1, and it works for me. It caused a crash once, when I did it just as I was coming out of fast travel. So you might want to wait until you are in a safe location and save first, just in case. But I tab out like this lots of times per session (I'm doing it right now), and have only had the one issue.


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## Corax (Nov 18, 2011)

1st sentence - I've not seen a windowed mode option?

ETA: forget that, just found it.  

I'm on steam though, so will give 1) a go. Ta.


----------



## Boppity (Nov 18, 2011)

I love it!!! I've lost a week to it already!


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## Corax (Nov 19, 2011)

You know the very first bit? The bit before you even have any menu controls?

I went the wrong way and the dragon ate me.

Oops.


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## Boppity (Nov 19, 2011)

LOL.


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## Corax (Nov 19, 2011)

I'm now carrying too much, and I haven't even seen daylight again yet.  I'm carrying so many fur gautlets and assorted blunt weaponry it's ridiculous.  Plus lots of wine, random food, and some books.  I resisted picking up all the straw baskets and tankards, which is good.

I'm going to have to come back to it tomorrow to rationalise my inventory a little.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 19, 2011)

Seeing SO much love for this game from friends actually tempted to get it even though I know I don't have the time to play it properly...


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 19, 2011)

It's truly remarkable, you won't regret it. It's like the gaming equivalent of a Tolkein novel.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 19, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> It's truly remarkable, you won't regret it. It's like the gaming equivalent of a Tolkein novel.



Heh really can't justify it on cost either, having bought an iPhone 4S, Battlefield 3 and Halo CE A all within four weeks of each other my other half would give me the 'look' if I wanted to get yet another time and money sink.


----------



## Boppity (Nov 19, 2011)

I'm in the Dark Brotherhood but I fear I've made a mistake since I always feel really guilty when I have to kill innocent people...


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Boppity said:


> I'm in the Dark Brotherhood but I fear I've made a mistake since I always feel really guilty when I have to kill innocent people...



But I hear you get great armour, so ....


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## Boppity (Nov 19, 2011)

It's not THAT great! I prefer the thieves guild armour. But I'm all about sneaking around and shooting people with arrows than running in with a heavy weapon. I panic!


----------



## Riklet (Nov 19, 2011)

I refuse to play Skyrim because I am still embittered about the evil tedium that was Morrowind, with its rediculous stupid loading system every time you went through a fucking door.  That entire game was one massive fucking black screened loading door.

Ok actually i just dont have a console or a decent computer, but screw you elder scrolls anyway.


----------



## Garek (Nov 19, 2011)

I do love Bethesda's bizarre morality. Like in Fall Out 3: New Vegas where you are not allowed to steal from slavers because stealing is bad mmmkay even if it is from murders and rapists.

Similar y I have just killed a vampire trying to take over a whole town. But can I take her cabbages? Can I fuck. Because that would be stealing


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 19, 2011)

rather than morality  that's just game mechanics.

i do like the fact that if people really like you  taking their  stuff doesn't count as stealing.

it would be kinda cool to  have  complex  states  associated with objects  but frankly i prefer  the  depth they have put elsewhere

also  i'm now 80 hours in and still no end in sight.   just finishing up  the thieves guild stuff.


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## Crispy (Nov 19, 2011)

Part of me wishes that they'd go down the total simulation route, with guilds and factions and individual AI actors with beliefs and desires. But it would be so complex as to be impossible to balance. you'd steal someone's cheese and before you know it, two whole towns are at war with each other. But I want to see it tried


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

It's like they've given us a taste of a vast, complex world, and now we want more. And who can blame us. It would be amazing.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 19, 2011)

bimey, just lost today , learning to do alchemy and genreally mucking about on random quests , however  quick question , im level 40 destruction but am only casting novice spells , do i need to get them from somewhere ? ta


----------



## Crispy (Nov 19, 2011)

Yes you need to buy more powerful spell tomes. There's a couple of people at the college who sell them. Be sure to get the perk for whatever level spells they are (eg adept) so they cost half the magicka to cast.

The Atronach stone is absolutely killer for mages. Combined with the body and head gear im wearing, I can stand in front of most enemy mages just sucking up their spells and shooting back at them, pausing for a healing spell every now and then.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Only just getting started on the game today. I'm going to buy my house in Whiterun today. I put it off, since she's the wanderer type. But despite upping my stamina considerably, I just get overencumbered far too often now. I had to walk back to Windhelm from somewhere yesterday, sooooooo slowly. And trying to travel to various merchants so they could buy my various stuff was tedious beyond belief. So yes, I need somewhere to put all my ore and ingots. I've ditched all my food, I don't really need it. No more hoarding cabbages. I don't think I'll end up in a cabbage cave where my only path to victory is by throwing 5 cabbages per second at various cabbage monsters.

At least I hope I don't. Because now I'll be fucked.


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 19, 2011)

I just killed my first dragon, only a town guard got in the way of my finishing off blow, and got gutted by my sword. Needless to say I was then mercilessly taken by his companions.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Friendly fire is a fucker in this game.


----------



## Cid (Nov 19, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Only just getting started on the game today. I'm going to buy my house in Whiterun today. I put it off, since she's the wanderer type. But despite upping my stamina considerably, I just get overencumbered far too often now. I had to walk back to Windhelm from somewhere yesterday, sooooooo slowly. And trying to travel to various merchants so they could buy my various stuff was tedious beyond belief. So yes, I need somewhere to put all my ore and ingots. I've ditched all my food, I don't really need it. No more hoarding cabbages. I don't think I'll end up in a cabbage cave where my only path to victory is by throwing 5 cabbages per second at various cabbage monsters.
> 
> At least I hope I don't. Because now I'll be fucked.



Um... All you hoarders do realise you can drop stuff, fast travel and go back to pick it up right?

I was going to say your character is an absolutely terrible idea for this game, I mean you really could just spend the rest of your life playing and never get anywhere.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 19, 2011)

i wish there was a carry cheat seperate from god mode

or  a bag of holding  magic item


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Cid said:


> Um... All you hoarders do realise you can drop stuff, fast travel and go back to pick it up right?
> 
> I was going to say your character is an absolutely terrible idea for this game, I mean you really could just spend the rest of your life playing and never get anywhere.



I've still very, very early on in terms of the main quests. She's evolving, just like most people do when suddenly put in a new situation. I can't see why she's a terrible idea ... it's one way of playing that is reactive to what happens as time goes on. I intend to spend a lot of time in the game, I don't have a set time by which I want to complete it. If it takes me 200+ hours, then I'd say I've gotten my money's worth. And played it the way I want to.


----------



## Cid (Nov 19, 2011)

I just worry you might still be playing on the 9th of march next year, that's all.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Cid said:


> I just worry you might still be playing on the 9th of march next year, that's all.



Why worry. I'd love to be doing so.


----------



## Cid (Nov 19, 2011)

But you won't be able to play ME3 _and_ skyrim, surely?

I'm just jealous really, I have no time for anything outside work these days, only notched up 20 hours on skyrim, and a few hours of that is leaving it on pause .


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Oh I can multitask. I'll be getting SW:TOR next month too.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 19, 2011)

I was going to buy a house but I went to windhelm instead of whiterun. I suppose I could have fast travelled between the 2 but I had a route planned to do a few missions on the way and I didn't want the hassle of going out of my way just to buy a house. I'll do it on my way back.


----------



## tommers (Nov 19, 2011)

I bought one today. I was disappointed.  No forge. Let alone a smelter.

There is one next door though.


----------



## Garek (Nov 19, 2011)

Garek said:


> I do love Bethesda's bizarre morality. Like in Fall Out 3: New Vegas where you are not allowed to steal from slavers because stealing is bad mmmkay even if it is from murders and rapists.
> 
> Similar y I have just killed a vampire trying to take over a whole town. But can I take her cabbages? Can I fuck. Because that would be stealing



Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. It just makes me smile that's all.


----------



## Epona (Nov 19, 2011)

Cid said:


> Um... All you hoarders do realise you can drop stuff, fast travel and go back to pick it up right?
> 
> I was going to say your character is an absolutely terrible idea for this game, I mean you really could just spend the rest of your life playing and never get anywhere.



I'm not using fast travel this playthrough. If I want to carry everything home, I just crawl back.
Afaic, the main aim of this game is to just enjoy it the way you want to, and although some prefer the achievement of having finished the plot or risen to the top of their faction, for some of us it means taking it slowly (as well as sticking to the morals and motivation we have decided for that particular character, even though that doesn't always lead to doing much questing, or with our own personal rules such as no fast travel, or no theft etc.) - the best thing about TES games is it's easy to do that!

It took me 8 years to get around to doing the main quest in Morrowind. I've played over 100 hours of Skyrim so far and my quest stats still read "Questlines finished 0"


----------



## Garek (Nov 19, 2011)

Um, how do you figure out door puzzles? Surely not just trial and error? What am I missing?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 19, 2011)

There are usually clues around or behind them...


----------



## Epona (Nov 19, 2011)

Garek said:


> Um, how do you figure out door puzzles? Surely not just trial and error? What am I missing?



What type of door puzzles?  If it's one involving a claw ornament, the correct code will be on the claw and you can zoom it in your inventory to see the symbols.

Other times there are often clues around the area - I did one where I had to rotate 4 pillars to the correct symbols, and in order to find the clues I had to stand on a pressure plate to get 4 doors to open and close, behind each door was a symbol that corresponded to one of the pillars.


----------



## Garek (Nov 19, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> There are usually clues around or behind them...



See that is what I thought, but I it ain't working for me. Which suggests I ain't reading the clues right.


----------



## Garek (Nov 19, 2011)

Epona said:


> What type of door puzzles? If it's one involving a claw ornament, the correct code will be on the claw and you can zoom it in your inventory to see the symbols.
> 
> Other times there are often clues around the area - I did one where I had to rotate 4 pillars to the correct symbols, and in order to find the clues I had to stand on a pressure plate to get 4 doors to open and close, behind each door was a symbol that corresponded to one of the pillars.



Oh for God's sake, cheers, I see now


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 19, 2011)

tommers said:


> I bought one today. I was disappointed. No forge. Let alone a smelter.
> 
> There is one next door though.



that is a bugger. hardly any have  enchanting tables either.   arch mages pimping room  is great for all magicy stuff however.

i think the one in solitude has an anvil though


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 19, 2011)

fucking whale, snake or bird...


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 19, 2011)

for anyone hording dragon souls  i'd say stop.  your likely to meet more dragons than word walls


----------



## tommers (Nov 19, 2011)

Or on an item...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

The house in Windhelm can be upgraded to have an alchemy station and an enchantment station, I believe. No idea if the other houses can be upgraded to have them too. That said, once you have a base in the town, it's easy enough to dump the rest of your gear, load up on ingots and ore and ingredients, and dash across the road to the smithy or alchemist for what you want to make/sell.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Contains game-opening spoiler: http://i.imgur.com/cPrL2.png


----------



## Dooby (Nov 19, 2011)

I've an alchemy lab in my Whitethingy house


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Ah yes, I see there is an option for that. I guess I don't mind my trip up to Dragonsreach to enchant things. And it's handy having the smithy next door.


----------



## Garek (Nov 19, 2011)

Next question: where can you see current affects? Like potions and blessings?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2011)

Tab > Magic > bottom of the list: active effects


----------



## Garek (Nov 19, 2011)

Cheers


----------



## Cid (Nov 19, 2011)

Epona said:


> I'm not using fast travel this playthrough. If I want to carry everything home, I just crawl back.
> Afaic, the main aim of this game is to just enjoy it the way you want to, and although some prefer the achievement of having finished the plot or risen to the top of their faction, for some of us it means taking it slowly (as well as sticking to the morals and motivation we have decided for that particular character, even though that doesn't always lead to doing much questing, or with our own personal rules such as no fast travel, or no theft etc.) - the best thing about TES games is it's easy to do that!
> 
> It took me 8 years to get around to doing the main quest in Morrowind. I've played over 100 hours of Skyrim so far and my quest stats still read "Questlines finished 0"



Yeah, of course, I suppose I've just been working too hard and lost track of the concept of 'free time'. I mean I was in a raiding guild in the early days of WoW, so I can't really talk...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

Epona said:


> I'm not using fast travel this playthrough. If I want to carry everything home, I just crawl back.
> Afaic, the main aim of this game is to just enjoy it the way you want to, and although some prefer the achievement of having finished the plot or risen to the top of their faction, for some of us it means taking it slowly (as well as sticking to the morals and motivation we have decided for that particular character, even though that doesn't always lead to doing much questing, or with our own personal rules such as no fast travel, or no theft etc.) - the best thing about TES games is it's easy to do that!
> 
> It took me 8 years to get around to doing the main quest in Morrowind. I've played over 100 hours of Skyrim so far and my quest stats still read "Questlines finished 0"



That is impressive. Same here though, stats tell me 0 questlines completed, 4 main quests completed (up to the point where they want you to see the greybeards) and only 6 dungeons cleared. Six. And I think I've been playing with this character for 60+ hours now. I don't think I'll be seeing the greybeards until I've at least put in 100 hours. I've got too much to do, too much to explore, so much to see.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

And I'm already thinking about what my next character - most likely an Orc 2-handed warrior - will do in certain situations I encounter now. I know that once I've played this through the first time, I'm less likely to spend quite as much time taking it all so slowly, so I want to experience it with wonder and excitement as much as I can now.

May create my elven mage at around the same time.

I'm interested to see how the world reacts to the different races. Reactions to the fact I'm a Nord have been there, but infrequent so far, almost incidental. Still, it adds a bit of flavour that I enjoy.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 20, 2011)

So apparently nirnroots don't grow back. I've been alchemising those things like any other plant. Guess I should hang on to them just in case, also, I am blood kin to the orcs. Not very useful for my Mage, but I'll come back if I do a hack n slash character


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 20, 2011)

i really like how  you can change as a charator

i started of  destruction maxed out   all guns blazing type

but  a while back i REALLY got into sneak and archery

now  i mainly go through dungeons picking off enemys  from mad distances away  and onnly switch back to  destruction spells  for   REALLY tough boss fights


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i really like how you can change as a charator
> 
> i started of destruction maxed out all guns blazing type
> 
> ...



Sneaky archery is so incredibly useful. Being able to pick off tough things in the wilderness while they're still searching for you is great too. Even when I do my 2-handed warrior and my mage I think I'm going to put a bit into sneak and archery. I find it really useful to sneak pretty much everywhere I go, because you never know when there's a goat or a giant or a deer or a person looking at you from afar. Whenever someone is within your line of sight and your sneaking, it levels.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 20, 2011)

i think detect life need to have more of a linger  for arcery to be REALLY badarse


----------



## Epona (Nov 20, 2011)

I tried out a bit of destruction magic, then a bit of hack and slash dual wielding, then a bit of backstabbing, then stealth archery.

Archery is SO much better than in previous games (where it was more a case of peppering your foe with 50 arrows and barely seeing their health go down especially at higher levels, all the while running backwards), and being a sneak archer is just so much fun!  The slow time perk is really great. I am still using a bow with a paralysis enchant, it gives you a couple of seconds grace if you don't manage to take them out in one shot. Have the Mace of Molag Bal and that Red Eagle Bane sword on standby for if things get up close and personal, the mace is really handy for filling soul gems.

I am really missing my detect life constant effect enchants from Oblivion though. I used those a lot as a stealthy character in that game.


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

Just taken a break for a quick slash. I should, er, stop playing now, right? I will in a sec, I just have to go somewhere to get something for someone first.


----------



## Epona (Nov 20, 2011)

Crispy said:


> So apparently nirnroots don't grow back. I've been alchemising those things like any other plant. Guess I should hang on to them just in case,



Yeah I got a radiant quest thingy to collect them and I think the person who gave it to me told me they didn't grow back - I knew that in the back of my mind from vanilla Oblivion but I'd been using the "regrowing nirnroot" mod for so long that I'd forgotten about it! Had to collect 20 of them for this objective which took me quite a while!

ETA: Forgot to say that alchemists occasionally sell them, but I haven't found any source that always has them, so I'm holding onto mine from now on in case I get anyone else asking me to collect them.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

I have epic glass armour (all except helm, need 1 more ingot of malachite). And an epic glass bow, that does shock damage and magika damage. Now I'll stop focusing on smithing for a while, apart from making the odd batch of iron daggers and enchanting them, to make some money (and level a bit more), and maybe do a handful of quests. I did another Daedric one (got some leather armour from it), killed another couple of dragons. Think I might head to Riften and think about starting the Thieves' Guild stuff.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 20, 2011)

so , ive woken up thinking about nothing else much than going back to skyrim 

I am now arch mage of the college, which is nice... got my first adept / apprentice spells , some fukker tried to challenge me almost immediately

'BOOM' he lasted about 1/2 a second 

goodbye life


----------



## Garek (Nov 20, 2011)

I'm loving sneak archery to. I find it useful for dispatching the first enemy in a dungeon before getting up close and personal. For most of the game so far I have been using two steel axes because I love the L+R mouse button special move, even if it does wipe out your stamina. One of them got half inched though by a spell of disarming  So I am now using one steel axe and one sword of frostiness.


----------



## Garek (Nov 20, 2011)

Spoiler: Cool 'weapon'



Any found the Wabbajack? It is awesome if mental  First time I decided to use it in combat it went, um, interestingly. I fired it at a bandit thinking it would hurt them when in fact it turned them into a massive orc in heavy armour  Fuck I thought so I fired again and this time they turned into something even worse though I couldn't register what it was. So I fired again and they exploded in a shower of gold coins. Very rare in a computer game I sit back stunned but that is what i did looking at the shower of gold coins coming down from the ceiling. Another time it didn't go to plan was when I sued it on a sabre tooth cat. It turned it into a mud crab and instead of killing the mud crab I, um, decided to laugh and mock it. Wish I had known it was just temporary  One minute I am pointing and laughing, next thing I know there is one pissed off cat tearing out my jugular


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 20, 2011)

I've been trying to reduce the number of quests I've got on my quest list but I keep getting given more. It's like the people of skyrim are incapable of doing anything themselves.


----------



## Dandred (Nov 20, 2011)

Why when I'm out in the middle of nowhere after taking  a beating from some frost trolls does the blood dragon show up and rape me senseless.......

Need a hint on a weapon that is good again ghosts.......Had to leg it out of the final companions quest I was getting slaughtered even with the companions....


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 20, 2011)

I've not fought a ghost yet, unless you mean like ice wraiths but those are easy so you probably don't.


----------



## Cid (Nov 20, 2011)

In Oblivion it was silver and shock enchants/spells I think, not seen any in Skyrim.


----------



## Garek (Nov 20, 2011)

Right, my mission for tonight is to find some Dwemar ruins. Haven't come across any yet but I reckon if I keep walking in the mountains I am bound to find some. I want some Dwemar armour. Once I have done that I may consider finding a dragon, which despite being level 12 I still have not done.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 20, 2011)

I've 'killed' three random dragons so far. They've all decided to fight something else in the area and got sufficiently beaten up that they were very easy to kill. The last one I fast travelled, arrived at my destination, and a dragon was there which looked at me then keeled over and died.


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

I'm really not very heroic.

The bigfuckoff warhammer weilding bandit up by bleak barrow was too hard for my level 1 nothing-much-at-all-yet, so after pricking a few arrows into him I ran all the way back to riverun with him chasing me.  The citizens all ran like the clappers, and bandit fella got lost looking for me in some gardens.  So at that point I doubled back to the tower and killed the much weaker archer that was left there.

I think bigfuckoff bandit may meet a nice girl in Riverrun and decide to settle down to the quiet life and grow leeks.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 20, 2011)

Corax said:


> I'm really not very heroic.
> 
> The bigfuckoff warhammer weilding bandit up by bleak barrow was too hard for my level 1 nothing-much-at-all-yet, so after pricking a few arrows into him I ran all the way back to riverun with him chasing me. The citizens all ran like the clappers, and bandit fella got lost looking for me in some gardens. So at that point I doubled back to the tower and killed the much weaker archer that was left there.
> 
> I think bigfuckoff bandit may meet a nice girl in Riverrun and decide to settle down to the quiet life and grow leeks.



How do I do a bit of farming? Is it possible?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 20, 2011)

The wabbajack is awesome


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 20, 2011)

evrey single negative thing i can say about skyrim is totally destroyed by  the levels of awesome seen in this game


----------



## tommers (Nov 20, 2011)

Yes. This.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 20, 2011)

I've had to literally drag myself away now because I need to tidy the house and do something productive.


----------



## Garek (Nov 20, 2011)

So some guy says "Oooh! Are you going to this place? Can I come to!". I think fuck it yeah sure just keep yourself out of trouble.

We are walking along the road and I see four bandits in front of me. I go into sneaky mode thinking it best that we avoid them. The four bandits however come upon a couple of wolves and a big fight breaks out.

The guy I was escorting sees this, cries "BANZAI!"*, and charges at the wolf/bandit fight, with no armour or weapon, tiny fists flailing and and a fucking suicidal determination in his heart. He charges right into the middle and for a few brief, very brief, seconds, he gets himself right in the middle of the fight.

He would have made a great English officer of yester year.

*ok not really, but he may as well have done


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 20, 2011)

Has anyone been attacked by an assasin? One came at me whilst I was wondering about going no place in particular. Can't think what I did to piss anyone off. Maybe it was the horse I stole? I dunno.  What is the usual trigger for someone to put a hit out on you?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

Think I was accompanied by the same guy. He kept punching mudcrabs to death for me.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Has anyone been attacked by an assasin? One came at me whilst I was wondering about going no place in particular. Can't think what I did to piss anyone off. Maybe it was the horse I stole? I dunno.  What is the usual trigger for someone to put a hit out on you?



Yep, on my way to Markarth for the first time, walking along by the river towards it, an assassin came out of nowhere. I was on the opposite side of the river, so he started wading across, and then suddenly disappeared. No idea if he drowned or what.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)




----------



## Garek (Nov 20, 2011)

Oh yeah, on the same walk I found a good way to kill bears. Lead them into the river and tread water whilst stabbing them.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 20, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Has anyone been attacked by an assasin? One came at me whilst I was wondering about going no place in particular. Can't think what I did to piss anyone off. Maybe it was the horse I stole? I dunno.  What is the usual trigger for someone to put a hit out on you?



if your karma is tops you get assasins coming after you

so i killed the dark brotherhood


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 20, 2011)

I've found a pet dog. Meeko is his name-o 

And is there anyway of seeing how good or bad your karma is?


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 20, 2011)

this game man

this motherfucking game


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 20, 2011)

Looks like its doing the job, guys I know who like to play different games have only been playing this all week!


----------



## Boppity (Nov 20, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Has anyone been attacked by an assasin? One came at me whilst I was wondering about going no place in particular. Can't think what I did to piss anyone off. Maybe it was the horse I stole? I dunno.  What is the usual trigger for someone to put a hit out on you?



Twice. Once was because I killed a man's entire family and he caught me. The note on the assassins explained that I ought to be killed. The other time I'm not sure what I did, but the note stated that I did not have to die. Merely punished. (They tried to kill me anyway) But I assumed I must have done something less significant to this guy!


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 20, 2011)

for me this is game of the year.

more than that, this is   probably the best RPG game EVER!

i'm sorry baulder's gate and planescape  but   i didn't experiance you  till recently  and   therfore  didn't "get"  the experiance.  i did  like neverwinter nights however.  not as much as skyrim  but   it has it's place in my heart.   

i also  purchased  neverwinter nights 2  but STILL haven't played it


----------



## tommers (Nov 20, 2011)

I was thinking about that earlier. Dark souls is a better game and made me feel a lot more than skyrim but it can't match the whole other world thing that skyrim does.  You can lead a whole other life in it. There's nothing else like it really.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 20, 2011)

well fuck me pink i've been massively sucked into this.

had a wee explore down to the south east last night, cleared out some fucking hard ass darve elves or something in a dwarvian mine, got some great armour and a bow for my trouble.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 20, 2011)

I've only played FIFA this weekend. I've had a but of a headache and Skyrim didn't seem apt somehow.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 20, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Has anyone been attacked by an assasin? One came at me whilst I was wondering about going no place in particular. Can't think what I did to piss anyone off. Maybe it was the horse I stole? I dunno.  What is the usual trigger for someone to put a hit out on you?



I got attacked by assassins when leaving Whiterun, as soon as I exited the gate. One of the quests was to find an object in someone's house, I lockpicked the house, but whilst I was in there I stole a load of items. That person put out a contract on me, although I am not sure how he knew it was me as I am sure I wasn't spotted. I found the contract on one of the assassins after I killed them all, it stated that I was a thief and should die by order of burgled person.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 20, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> I got attacked by assassins when leaving Whiterun, as soon as I exited the gate. One of the quests was to find an object in someone's house, I lockpicked the house, but whilst I was in there I stole a load of items. That person put out a contract on me, although I am not sure how he knew it was me as I am sure I wasn't spotted. I found the contract on one of the assassins after I killed them all, it stated that I was a thief and should die by order of burgled person.



It seems likely that it was the horse I stole then. I'm tempted to return to where I stole it and impose my wrath upon them in an orgy of murderous rage.


----------



## Boppity (Nov 20, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> It seems likely that it was the horse I stole then. I'm tempted to return to where I stole it and impose my wrath upon them in an orgy of murderous rage.



Ah I know the feeling!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

There's nothing like an eye for an eye in Skyrim.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 20, 2011)

Having just reread the contract, it says I should be taught a lesson, and perhaps killed.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 20, 2011)

I need you all to decide for me. Murder of innocents is not what my character is supposed to be about. Unfortunately it seems I will have to kill the mans family if I am to avoid arrest. What shall I do?


----------



## Dandred (Nov 20, 2011)

Go to jail or kill his family.....Your character is not abut murdering innocents?


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

Yeah, the graphics are good.  Yeah, it's immersive.  Yeah, it's blah blah blah blah blah.

Fuck all of that.  The _*biggest*_ improvement is the lockpicking.  I fucking_ hated_ that whack-a-mole shit in Oblivion!


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 20, 2011)

Dandred said:


> Go to jail or kill his family.....Your character is not abut murdering innocents?



Nope. He's a principled expropriator of others' possessions. A man has to have a code you know.


----------



## Supine (Nov 20, 2011)

Mediocre review in todays Observer. I've just ordered it based on this thread being so long! Hurry up postie


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

Supine said:


> Mediocre review in todays Observer.


Really?  Link?

Was it because Jools Holland isn't in it?


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 20, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> Having just reread the contract, it says I should be taught a lesson, and perhaps killed.



don't tell me.  you help the grey-whatsists


----------



## Supine (Nov 20, 2011)

Corax said:


> Really? Link?
> 
> Was it because Jools Holland isn't in it?



I can't link to a real world newspaper!


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 20, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> don't tell me. you help the grey-whatsists



Not as far as I know, I am sure it was a Companions quest, although I will check next time I am in Skyrim.


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 20, 2011)

This is pretty much broken on the PS3, to the extent it is unplayable. I love the attention that Bethesda give their worlds, but as software developers they absolutely stink.


----------



## Boppity (Nov 20, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> Not as far as I know, I am sure it was a Companions quest, although I will check next time I am in Skyrim.



I had the same message! But I haven't done any Companions quests.


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

Supine said:


> I can't link to a real world newspaper!


Eh?


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 20, 2011)

He/she read it in the paper, not online.

A Google brought me this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/20/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-review


----------



## tommers (Nov 20, 2011)

Bit brief!


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> He/she read it in the paper, not online.


Very few publications exist solely IRL.



ChrisFilter said:


> A Google brought me this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/20/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-review


Ah!  Thank you, that's exactly what I was after.  
I did have a search but without knowing eg the article title I came up with too many possibilities.  You're clearly a better googler.


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 20, 2011)

fen_boy said:


> This is pretty much broken on the PS3, to the extent it is unplayable. I love the attention that Bethesda give their worlds, but as software developers they absolutely stink.



Only played a couple of hours, will exchange for the Xbox version tomorrow.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 20, 2011)

damning with faint praise

that sounds like a review of someone who played an hour or  so  of just the main quest


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

tommers said:


> Bit brief!


Also:


> In previous Elder Scrolls titles, the price paid for this freedom was some rather homely visuals and


This is utter bollocks. When I first loaded Oblivion up the graphics were among the best I'd ever seen. Judging it by today's standards is idiotic.


----------



## Boppity (Nov 20, 2011)

Corax said:


> Yeah, the graphics are good. Yeah, it's immersive. Yeah, it's blah blah blah blah blah.
> 
> Fuck all of that. The _*biggest*_ improvement is the lockpicking. I fucking_ hated_ that whack-a-mole shit in Oblivion!



I liked the old lock picking! Hahaha it was waaaay easier.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 20, 2011)

tommers said:


> Bit brief!



Here's the full review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/10/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-review


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

Boppity said:


> I liked the old lock picking! Hahaha it was waaaay easier.


Vice versa for me.  I hate reaction speed stuff when I'm trying to chill out with a game, but the feely stuff of the new method's great.


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Here's the full review
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/10/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-review


Sister paper, rather than being the full version of the same thing.

Anyway, I'm handing in my notice tomorrow.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

By the way, for those interested, http://www.skyrimnexus.com/index.php <-- for all your modding needs.

I've installed the "no more blocky faces", along with all the better detailed mods that same modder has done. Makes a difference, and a nice subtle one too. Now reskinning my glass armour to something less garish.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Nov 20, 2011)

I was walking down Oxford street and saw a massive pre-midnight queue outside Game! They were waiting fr Skyrim I was skeptical. This thread has made me want to go and trade MW3 for this. That and seeing a video of the werewolf. Mainly the werewolf thing actually. I am expecting some 'I told you so' now.


----------



## Supine (Nov 20, 2011)

Corax said:


> Eh?



I could photo the article!

Looking forward to playing it. Just finished batman & looks like this will take some time


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 20, 2011)

Corax said:


> Also:
> 
> This is utter bollocks. When I first loaded Oblivion up the graphics were among the best I'd ever seen. Judging it by today's standards is idiotic.



Na, in fairness the oblivion graphics were shit even for the time.


----------



## Corax (Nov 20, 2011)

Cobblers! 

If you're a hardcore gamer then maybe.  For the casual gamer, we were all _OMG each of the blades of grass is moving individiually!  _


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

Not even for the "casual gamer", but I'd say for the traditional RPG gamer, really. I think RPG fans expect less in terms of graphics than shooter fans or action fans, or whatever. That's not to say there's any right or wrong, it's just differences in priorities. I think we've come to expect that we won't get ultra-realism, nor do we really want it, because the worlds would be smaller, the lead times far longer, and the disks tenfold more numerous  I think we're mostly happy with the things that make us go "omg the water looks amazing" while we ignore that the texture of that snow on that rock over there looks dreadful when you get to within 10 feet of it. As long as we get the feeling of vastness, freedom, and immersion we expect from the best RPGs like this, we're happy to settle for less in the graphics department.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)




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## Epona (Nov 20, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Not even for the "casual gamer", but I'd say for the traditional RPG gamer, really. I think RPG fans expect less in terms of graphics than shooter fans or action fans, or whatever. That's not to say there's any right or wrong, it's just differences in priorities. I think we've come to expect that we won't get ultra-realism, nor do we really want it, because the worlds would be smaller, the lead times far longer, and the disks tenfold more numerous  I think we're mostly happy with the things that make us go "omg the water looks amazing" while we ignore that the texture of that snow on that rock over there looks dreadful when you get to within 10 feet of it. As long as we get the feeling of vastness, freedom, and immersion we expect from the best RPGs like this, we're happy to settle for less in the graphics department.



Absolutely, I get a bit peeved with people who moan that the graphics in a completely open world game with hundreds of individual objects per cell that you can interact with and a shit load of AI routines ought to be just as good as the graphics in whichever "on the rails" shooter happens to be flavour of the month.

And another one that gets me is the yadda yadda yadda "this generation of consoles holding us PC gamers back" argument. I actually remember the days when as a PC gamer I could spend £450 on a graphics card in January that wouldn't run a new release in April. I for one am FUCKING glad those days are over, and that games are having to be designed with lower spec requirements. There were more games that I wanted that I had to wait for until I could afford an upgrade than those that I got to play on release day.

As a PC gaming nerd with a very limited budget, it's a real relief that most games released aren't stretching current PC technology, and anyone who moans about it either a) has a lot of disposable income, or b) isn't old enough to remember how things were wrt needing a new expensive bit of hardware every few months, which is what the situation was a couple of decades ago.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 20, 2011)

I think we're at a reasonably comfortable place right now, actually. There are graphically stunning games out there on PC, and there are games that are coming out on console and PC at the same time that are able to run on both, for people with lesser PC rigs too. It's all out there for people, and developers just have to decide where their priorities lie when they start to build a game. And like you say, Epona, people can still play games when their PC is a year or 2 old, or more, without taking too much of a hit in either graphics or performance. I reckon that's pretty good.


----------



## Epona (Nov 20, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I think we're at a reasonably comfortable place right now, actually. There are graphically stunning games out there on PC, and there are games that are coming out on console and PC at the same time that are able to run on both, for people with lesser PC rigs too. It's all out there for people, and developers just have to decide where their priorities lie when they start to build a game. And like you say, Epona, people can still play games when their PC is a year or 2 old, or more, without taking too much of a hit in either graphics or performance. I reckon that's pretty good.



Yep. My only criticism of the way things are at the moment is not to do with graphics being "held back", it's to do with cross-platform games and ports not having appropriately designed UI features for close up monitor/keyboard+mouse as opposed to distant large screen hdtv + gamepad use, it is my honest belief that many games developed for consoles would benefit heartily from a few user interface changes for release as PC versions, and I do get cross at stuff being "stripped out" of a previous PC series in order that the controls fit on a 360 pad. A case in point is that in Skyrim, Shouts are mapped to what used to be the "grab" key/button in Oblivion - that's not too bad (although I sometimes find myself grabbing things instead of taking them), or sometimes nothing is done about expected analogue input (from analogue sticks) when using a digital input (kb+m) (I cannot walk in Bully using a kb+m resulting in me constantly being in trouble for running in corridors, this could easily have been made a walk/run toggle key for PC - I have a feeling that lockpicking is a lot easier in Skyrim with analogue input than with kb+m, based on the easy vs. difficult complaints I have seen about the minigame), but when you look at something like CIV 5 you could not do half of the stuff that you could do in earlier games, because all the controls had to fit on the few input options on a game pad rather than having the expanse of a keyboard and mouse with over 300 key combinations at your fingertips. And mouse acceleration is often really poor in console->PC ports, resulting in a whole heap of issues for the PC player.

And yes I know PC gamers can use 360 pads, but that's not really the solution here - games released on PC should be designed or at least amended to be able to use the native input devices of a PC. I can't use analogue sticks anyway cos of arthritis in my thumb joints, fucking painful!


----------



## Cid (Nov 21, 2011)

Corax said:


> Vice versa for me. I hate reaction speed stuff when I'm trying to chill out with a game, but the feely stuff of the new method's great.



It's exactly the same as Fallout 3 isn't it? Although if it's not broke...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

Word of warning: I just found out the hard way (but thankfully saved before hand) that using showracemenu to use the character creator in game will erase all your racial active effects, so frost resistance for Nords, for example. That's if you *don't* change your race in there. But if you *do* change your race, it fucks up your levelling and takes away and redistributes levels arbitrarily.

So, er, yeah, don't use it.


----------



## Epona (Nov 21, 2011)

Cid said:


> It's exactly the same as Fallout 3 isn't it? Although if it's not broke...


It's not the same as FO3. Graphically it looks very similar, but a) you can attempt locks above your skill level, and b) there's a lot less 'give' in the lock and picks break a lot easier.

Personally I am finding lockpicking a right bugger, whereas FO3 lockpicking was a breeze.

I do wish that there was an "autopick" option based SOLELY on character skill rather than whether the player can succeed at a minigame - this is an RPG after all, and there should be an option to have chance of success based on character skill alone. Pickpocket skill works on character skill and luck alone, lockpicking should work the same way, or there should at least be an option to do so rather than breaking a million fucking lockpicks because you as a player are a bit cack-handed (as it happens, my real life lock picking skills are better than my skill at this mini-game, even though my character should be bloody brilliant at it). Or bring back "open lock" alteration spells!


----------



## Epona (Nov 21, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Word of warning: I just found out the hard way (but thankfully saved before hand) that using showracemenu to use the character creator in game will erase all your racial active effects, so frost resistance for Nords, for example. That's if you *don't* change your race in there. But if you *do* change your race, it fucks up your levelling and takes away and redistributes levels arbitrarily.
> 
> So, er, yeah, don't use it.



Yeah that was a problem in Oblivion too.  What are you trying to do when using that command?  Because there are other less risky ones that you might want to try instead, depending upon what it is you are trying to achieve


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

Just fiddling with my face now I've installed the various mods to make textures a bit better, is all. It's no biggy.

Also I don't know why, but I'm finding lockpicking rather easy. I usually suck at this kind of thing, but I can pick a master lock (with patience and possibly reloads), and I haven't put any perks into that tree.


----------



## Epona (Nov 21, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Just fiddling with my face now I've installed the various mods to make textures a bit better, is all. It's no biggy.


Ah ok so nothing you could achieve by another route - but yeah in my experience you can reset everything in a very nasty way bugging up your levelling if you use it.



Vintage Paw said:


> Also I don't know why, but I'm finding lockpicking rather easy. I usually suck at this kind of thing, but I can pick a master lock (with patience and possibly reloads), and I haven't put any perks into that tree.



Are you using a 360 controller or keyboard/mouse? The reason I ask is because I posted a thread about it on the Bethsoft forums and a lot of people who were finding it easy (and not everyone was, some others also found it really difficult) told me I was a) an idiot (which was completely unhelpful) or b) to do it _gently_. Now there is no _gently_ on a digital input device such as a keyboard, the input from the key is either 0 (not pressed) or 1 (pressed, and that input repeated if held down) so I was wondering whether it might be a device specific issue.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

I'm using kb&m. I don't know what to say, I guess it's just one of those things that some find easier than others. There are plenty of things I find awkward as hell, like trying to remember I have dragonshouts and actually use them, or swap out spells in a battle without getting overwhelmed and dying immediately.


----------



## Epona (Nov 21, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm using kb&m. I don't know what to say, I guess it's just one of those things that some find easier than others. There are plenty of things I find awkward as hell, like trying to remember I have dragonshouts and actually use them, or swap out spells in a battle without getting overwhelmed and dying immediately.



Oh balls, I'm just completely shit at it then   Bring back autopick!

I've spotted a mod that gives a visual cue when you're in the sweet spot, might have to try that.  I refuse to be held up by cack-handedness at a fucking minigame!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

I'm in Solitude, and people keep disappearing. As in, their models disappear, and they are just clothes floating around XD


----------



## Epona (Nov 21, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm in Solitude, and people keep disappearing. As in, their models disappear, and they are just clothes floating around XD



I've had that happen a few times, at one point Madesi's (the Argonian with a market stall in Riften) face disappeared, and another time I went into the cistern behind the Ragged Flagon and none of my thieves guild compatriots had any arms between their shoulder coverings and their bracers/gauntlets!  Most disconcerting.  Fortunately saving, exiting, and reloading fixed it.  Another time I went into the alchemy shop in Riften and it was just green mist with potion bottles floating in it.  For that I had to reload the save before I entered the shop, I could see from the autosave screenshot that the save was buggered.

Odd that all my issues have happened in Riften!


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 21, 2011)

personally i got really good with the lock picking minigame.  and now i'm leveled up in it most locks  give me no trouble whatsoever.    however  i do which  there were more spells   like  the  lock picking  spell.  combat magic is great  but  i feel  that   a lack or misc spells   kinda  makes you have to specialise in  other skills   rather than focusing on just magic.


----------



## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

I have managed to ignore, without even trying, magic.

I found me Dwemer ruins and I am now strutting about in full Dwemer armour  Some guard even said it looked cool.

I really like how you can de-enchant stuff. Fantastic for transforming properties to better armour and weapons.

Lockpicking - I have found it quite easy using mouse and key board. You just got to make sure you don't hold down the keys till you are sure. Just keep nudging it a little. Then a little more. Might take a pick or two but once you know where to concentrate your efforts it is easy enough.

Alchemy - anyone any good at this? My poor old Nord warrior reckons she is a dab hand and has poisoned herself way too many times to find out what various things to. I don't know why I bother. I end selling half the potions anyway. But. Can't. Stop. Collecting.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 21, 2011)

The majority of my carrying capacity is potions. I can't sell them fast enough. I TRY not to pick up all the ingredients I walk past, I really do!


----------



## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

Crispy said:


> The majority of my carrying capacity is potions. I can't sell them fast enough. I TRY not to pick up all the ingredients I walk past, I really do!



"Why are you carrying ten pairs of antler?"
"Because they might have really good properties! Like health or stamina!"
"What like some flower do which don't weigh anything?"
"Um...yeah..."


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 21, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm in Solitude, and people keep disappearing. As in, their models disappear, and they are just clothes floating around XD


Heh, my favourite glitch was when I went into the smithy in one of the towns, and the two people in there appeared without heads... although clothes and hair and facial hair was still present.   It did occur at the end of a multihour skyrim session though...


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## Crispy (Nov 21, 2011)

I've had the 'attached arrow' thing for a bit (it's gone now), three complete lock-ups when going through a loading screen, and most of the time I'm wearing my robes with built-in hood and also a face mask, my head disappears. That's the extent of my glitches. Remarkable for a Bethesda game tbh!


----------



## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

I've had a few crashes-to-desktop. And also non-loading textures once where everyone became a pure black model, like a human version of black onyx.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 21, 2011)

So, who has joined the Imperial Legion, and who has gone with the Stormcloaks? I've just gone for the latter. A little uncomfortable with the Nord nationalist rhetoric, but we'll see how things pan out I guess.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Nov 21, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> So, who has joined the Imperial Legion, and who has gone with the Stormcloaks? I've just gone for the latter. A little uncomfortable with the Nord nationalist rhetoric, but we'll see how things pan out I guess.



I suspect it's not a coincidence that someone I know who has been lost in Skyrim for a week or two now, calls them 'Stormfront'?


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## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> So, who has joined the Imperial Legion, and who has gone with the Stormcloaks? I've just gone for the latter. A little uncomfortable with the Nord nationalist rhetoric, but we'll see how things pan out I guess.



I'll be joining the Stormcloaks as I hate the Imperialists. Better to pissing out the tent than pissing in. Sort out the ethnic-nationalist lot in the civil war that comes after independence.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 21, 2011)

Bernie Gunther said:


> I suspect it's not a coincidence that someone I know who has been lost in Skyrim for a week or two now, calls them 'Stormfront'?



Shit! Have I unwittingly become a fascist?


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## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

“For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 21, 2011)

i've managed to avoid picking a side so far.

it's tough  but  i'm sorta leaning towards the imperials.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 21, 2011)

The Thalmor are the real threat to Skyrim and all of Tamriel. Only a united empire will have the strength to stand against them (as they surely will - the concordat is not a lasting peace). For the Empire!


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## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 21, 2011)

Crispy said:


> The Thalmor are the real threat to Skyrim and all of Tamriel. Only a united empire will have the strength to stand against them (as they surely will - the concordat is not a lasting peace). For the Empire!



Filthy imperialist scum! Why can't you leave my people be?


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

My character went to Solitude last night, and so far (remember I'm role-playing hard, people) what she's seen has merely made her want to go running back into the arms of the Stormcloaks. Well, not literally. She doesn't much like politics, but she finds the Imperials all rather arrogant and full of themselves. While the Stormcloaks are as well, there's seems a simpler kind of arrogance. I think of the Imperials as Orlesians, and Nords as Fereldans (in my Dragon Age analogy). And ugh, I do not like the Orlesians.

So yes, I think she will be a Stormcloak. Either my assassin (race undecided) or my high elf mage will be Imperial sympathisers. Not sure about my orc warrior though.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 21, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> My character went to Solitude last night, and so far (remember I'm role-playing hard, people) what she's seen has merely made her want to go running back into the arms of the Stormcloaks. Well, not literally. She doesn't much like politics, but she finds the Imperials all rather arrogant and full of themselves. While the Stormcloaks are as well, there's seems a simpler kind of arrogance. I think of the Imperials as Orlesians, and Nords as Fereldans (in my Dragon Age analogy). And ugh, I do not like the Orlesians.
> 
> So yes, I think she will be a Stormcloak. Either my assassin (race undecided) or my high elf mage will be Imperial sympathisers. Not sure about my orc warrior though.


 
I just got to solitude,  just before I had to go to bed , ( 2.30 am  ) and admittely its a lot more colourful than i thought it would me, ive not really got into the whole civil war thing. ( Is there an option to go all mercenary on them ? )

but i got to say i love it, completely second life for me


----------



## Corax (Nov 21, 2011)

Corax said:


> I'm really not very heroic.
> 
> The bigfuckoff warhammer weilding bandit up by bleak barrow was too hard for my level 1 nothing-much-at-all-yet, so after pricking a few arrows into him I ran all the way back to riverun with him chasing me. The citizens all ran like the clappers, and bandit fella got lost looking for me in some gardens. So at that point I doubled back to the tower and killed the much weaker archer that was left there.
> 
> I think bigfuckoff bandit may meet a nice girl in Riverrun and decide to settle down to the quiet life and grow leeks.


This appears to be a solid tactic!  I cleared the other much more feeble bandits out of the tower and then went back to Riverrun to sell my loot.  Lying in the middle of the high street was a dead bigfuckoff fella and his warhammer.  There's a certain satisfaction to getting the town guards to do my dirty work for me.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

*sigh* Oh Bethesda.

I've just found out, when you first enter Solitude, an "event" triggers. If you enter by the main gate, it's right there in front of you, you can't miss it. It's reasonably important, could certainly be important to your character if you're thinking about the whole Stormcloak/Imperial thing.

Well, I didn't enter using the main gates. I came in through the gate in the rocks, into the windmill. I mean, this is Skyrim, you explore, you go through random doors, right? Well, that event still triggered as soon as I entered, but of course I couldn't see it. I was nowhere near it. So I missed it.

Come on, Bethesda. Surely you should realise people aren't always going to be in the places you want them to be in unless you give them no alternative. You should have made it trigger when the player was merely "near" that area, rather than it triggering when the game recognises they are first in the city.

Fail. Fail. Fail. So now I've missed this whole event.


----------



## Epona (Nov 21, 2011)

Poo, I'm in the middle of an interesting quest and I just realised that I'm going to have to join the College of Winterhold in order to get access to one of the ruins I need to get into.  I was going to save that questline for my mage character.  Never mind, I don't appear to be very good at getting on and doing the actual quests (managed to do the quests to join TG, DB, and Companions and so far have only managed to do 2 side jobs for the TG in over 120 hours of play!) so I think I'll just join them too and probably won't get around to doing the rest of the plot in this game.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 21, 2011)

amd whilst we are at it, where the hell is the emerald claw? i need it to finish a quest but have come across it anywhere , my saphire claw seems not to do


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 21, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> *sigh* Oh Bethesda.
> 
> I've just found out, when you first enter Solitude, an "event" triggers. If you enter by the main gate, it's right there in front of you, you can't miss it. It's reasonably important, could certainly be important to your character if you're thinking about the whole Stormcloak/Imperial thing.
> 
> ...



go back a save or 2 and go through the front 

i agree its annoying, i had one of those in new vegas and made me stop playing it, but its hardly to be unexpected consdering the scale of the thing.

however there is a patch due out this/next week so maybe it had been addressed..


----------



## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

Some more mods here.

Tonight I am going North. Far North. By foot. I've been walking everywhere. I like to set out at dawn and watch the sun come up as I walk so I will often stop in a town to make that possible. Before going out I will cook and prepare all the food for the day then go to bed with the aim of getting up at 4am and heading out.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

I haven't joined any guilds yet. I think I'm up to 80 hours play now, or thereabouts.


----------



## Corax (Nov 21, 2011)

Having never played on Steam before - do patches get applied automatically, or do I have to do something?

Couple of hours A/L well used to come home and play this afternoon.


----------



## Corax (Nov 21, 2011)

Garek said:


> Some more mods here.


From the screenshot they've used, the Enhanced Blood Textures one replaces something that looks a bit like blood with something that looks a bit like blackberry jam.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

Corax said:


> Having never played on Steam before - do patches get applied automatically, or do I have to do something?



Yep. I think the default steam setting is to apply updates automatically. You can turn it off on a game-by-game basis or for all, I think. I'm not sure. I leave it to update itself. Seems easier that way. Although you could get burned by a shitty update that you don't want. Depends on your needs.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 21, 2011)

i entered in the wrong door too.  but in a way i kinda like the fact  that stuff happens  in the world    whether you see it or not.

mind you all the  scripts are written    as if you did see it.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Nov 21, 2011)

OK. Thanks to Urban 75 I am now SKRIMMED up...

I have a hideous looking Dark Elf and am in the business of sneaking around and shooting arrows at things...


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 21, 2011)

good lad 

say goodbye to life, its even keeping me out of the pub


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 21, 2011)

My day just disappeared.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 21, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> My day just disappeared.


 
that is what happened to my weekend, one min i was 13 hours into it, next thing i know, its up to 25....


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 21, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i entered in the wrong door too. but in a way i kinda like the fact that stuff happens in the world whether you see it or not.
> 
> mind you all the scripts are written as if you did see it.



That's the problem, the rest of the game plays out as if you did see it. First thing I hear whenever I speak to people there is "oh you saw what happened at X". And I'm all 

It rather breaks immersion.

As does the fact that the centre of the fucking Imperial Army, the place where all their armour and weaponry is made, doesn't have a fucking smelter.

When this game gets it right, it's brilliant. When it gets it wrong it really pisses me off. So many instances of little things that make no sense.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 21, 2011)

Boppity said:


> I had the same message! But I haven't done any Companions quests.



It was possibly a quest for the Jarl of Whiterun in that case.

A ninja assassin from the Dark Brotherhood attacked me whilst leaving Solitude last night, I have obviously pissed a few people off for some unbeknown to me reason.







I have no idea what the Black Sacrament is.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 21, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> It was possibly a quest for the Jarl of Whiterun in that case.
> 
> A ninja assassin from the Dark Brotherhood attacked me whilst leaving Solitude last night, I have obviously pissed a few people off for some unbeknown to me reason.
> 
> ...



I got that when I was wandering in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately the assassin appeared at the bottom of a large steep slope I was at the top of and stood there while I shot him in the face. No assassination attempts since.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 21, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> It was possibly a quest for the Jarl of Whiterun in that case.
> 
> A ninja assassin from the Dark Brotherhood attacked me whilst leaving Solitude last night, I have obviously pissed a few people off for some unbeknown to me reason.
> 
> I have no idea what the Black Sacrament is.



The same note was on the assassin that tried to get at me. Not sure what this Black Sacrament is either.


----------



## Epona (Nov 21, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> It was possibly a quest for the Jarl of Whiterun in that case.
> 
> I have no idea what the Black Sacrament is.



It's the ritual to contact the Dark Brotherhood in order to have someone assassinated. It involves various body parts from corpses and a blade coated in nightshade.

There is a rare book called "A Kiss, Sweet Mother" which explains this.


----------



## tommers (Nov 21, 2011)

The only thing that makes me want to play again as my dark elf mage is the dark brotherhood, by far the best questline in oblivion.

Doesn't really fit with my orc smith - although there was that one in the oblivion DB I suppose.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 21, 2011)

Epona said:


> It's the ritual to contact the Dark Brotherhood in order to have someone assassinated. It involves various body parts from corpses and a blade coated in nightshade.
> 
> There is a rare book called "A Kiss, Sweet Mother" which explains this.



I am wondering if the two assassination attempts are both in relation to Olfrid Battle-Born. The first attempt wasn't an 'assassin' character, but three 'hired thug' type characters, the Assassin seemed more hardcore. He can have his silver ingot and loaf of bread back if they mean that much to him. Otherwise, can I perform the Black Sacrament and attempt to assassinate him?


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 21, 2011)

It appears my battle axe wielding nord is a bit of a psycho who will kill people if they are slightly rude to her, but then I'm not keen on mages anyway so they deserve an elven axe in the head.


----------



## Boppity (Nov 21, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> It was possibly a quest for the Jarl of Whiterun in that case.
> 
> A ninja assassin from the Dark Brotherhood attacked me whilst leaving Solitude last night, I have obviously pissed a few people off for some unbeknown to me reason.
> 
> ...



I got one like that too! And the irony was, I was the listener for the Dark Brotherhood at the time!


----------



## Cid (Nov 22, 2011)

For those not doing the main quest yet, it's really worth doing the climb mountain bit, gives you useful stuff.



Spoiler



Second word of the unrelenting force shout and the whirlwind sprint shout which is very useful for some types of traps and accessing secret bits. Oh, and a shrine that gives a blessing whereby beasts won't attack or run away.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

Think I might go do that soon. Thank you


----------



## Epona (Nov 22, 2011)

Has anyone else come across any fantastic tableaux in this game yet?  It was something that Bethesda did a lot of in FO3 (such as the tribute to David's "Death of Marat" involving a skeleton in a bathtub) and often they were quite touching or funny.  Well they are on form in Skyrim too I am pleased to say.  My favourite so far has been stumbling upon



Spoiler



a tent on the beach on the north coast of the province - 2 bedrolls, bottles of wine, 2 goblets, 2 cream treats, 2 pairs of shoes - bedrolls scattered with red mountain flowers and an amulet of Mara resting on a pillow.  I have no idea where the pair of lovers are, but if I come across their mangled bodies later (which I half expect tbh) I think I will probably cry.  Until I learn otherwise, I will just imagine that they have gone for a romantic stroll


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 22, 2011)

in the north  there is an undersea trench filled with ship wreaks.

if you have water breathing it's an awesome experiance


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 22, 2011)

Journey to Windhelm


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 22, 2011)

also.... i only just found out about sprint...


----------



## tommers (Nov 22, 2011)

Sprint?  I saw it mentioned on one of the 2 handed perks...  I'm going to feel stupid aren't I?


----------



## ExtraRefined (Nov 22, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> I am wondering if the two assassination attempts are both in relation to Olfrid Battle-Born. The first attempt wasn't an 'assassin' character, but three 'hired thug' type characters, the Assassin seemed more hardcore. He can have his silver ingot and loaf of bread back if they mean that much to him. Otherwise, can I perform the Black Sacrament and attempt to assassinate him?



Yeah, I think you get them for murdering and robbing people. I got one after looting all of Battle-Born's stuff, and another after robbing and murdering a couple in the wilderness for dissing me.


----------



## tommers (Nov 22, 2011)

One attacked me the other day and all I've done is kill a Redguard who was rude to me and stolen a horse off a dead bandit.  (God knows why it was labelled as "steal").


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 22, 2011)

tommers said:


> Sprint? I saw it mentioned on one of the 2 handed perks... I'm going to feel stupid aren't I?



I noticed a one-handed perk, +50% damage when sprinting (Left-Alt on PC).


----------



## tommers (Nov 22, 2011)

Yeah, the 2 handed one is a critical if you hit when sprinting.

I thought at the time "oh it must mean when you're running."


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 22, 2011)

I noticed sprinting from the outset when I set up the keys.

It's nice to be able to run and retain your stamina.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

Lydia died. Buried under a pile of Falmer, deep into a Dwemer ruin, 2.5 hours after the last save. I dragged her onto a stone slab and left a mountain flower on her body. She was sworn to carry my burdens :'(


----------



## Structaural (Nov 22, 2011)

Damn, this game. My wife call herself a Skyrim Widow now. I managed to avoid RPGs my whole gaming life until Fallout 3 and now this. Fuck, I'd say it's like crack, but at least you run out of crack eventually....
There's just nothing better than freezing time in the middle of a battle, to eat some food, change spells or weapons, drink a potion or 4. It's a bit massive init.
Vintage Paw you should write a game blog, hilarious (I think the fact that you play RPGs like me helps, well slightly better actually)


----------



## Structaural (Nov 22, 2011)

You can sprint? lol


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 22, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Lydia died. Buried under a pile of Falmer, deep into a Dwemer ruin, 2.5 hours after the last save. I dragged her onto a stone slab and left a mountain flower on her body. She was sworn to carry my burdens :'(


have you read this http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/21/skyrim-lydia-death/ ?

I worry that my dog got killed somewhere, as I've not had it by my side for hours.  Hopefully he's just wandered off to the hut where he was watching over his dead previous owner.  I've also not seen Lydia for ages, but I think she's ok, just got supplanted when I had to take a Companion with me on a quest.  She better not have got rid of the junk that she was carried for me.....


----------



## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> have you read this http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/21/skyrim-lydia-death/ ?



But now I know that I must have dealt the killing blow/fireball


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 22, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Lydia died. Buried under a pile of Falmer, deep into a Dwemer ruin, 2.5 hours after the last save. I dragged her onto a stone slab and left a mountain flower on her body. She was sworn to carry my burdens :'(



You mean you didn't guiltily steal her clothes to see her in her underwear?

I'm more of a sociopath than I ever realised.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 22, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Lydia died. Buried under a pile of Falmer, deep into a Dwemer ruin, 2.5 hours after the last save. I dragged her onto a stone slab and left a mountain flower on her body. She was sworn to carry my burdens :'(



How do you manage that long without a save? Aren't there autosaves?

I save relentlessly anyway, mostly because I die a lot.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> How do you manage that long without a save? Aren't there autosaves?
> 
> I save relentlessly anyway, mostly because I die a lot.



I'd gone back and forth through a bunch of doors looking for her. All my autosaves contained her death.
I took her armour back, cos it was a nice set of steel plate, but I dressed her in one of my spare robes for her dignity


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 22, 2011)

yeah im constantly saving, learnt that lesson right back earlier, i think i killed lydia by mistake but ive now got some bad ass azura ( sp?? ) worshipping mage as companion, plus my *Flame Atronach is the don, i just tend to send it in rooms first to see how many people are in there and to flush a few out or destroy them *

*not sure why my font changed then ?? lol
*
*
*

*
*


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 22, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Lydia died.



I've grown attached to her, she is great for carrying dragon bones. So sorry to here that.

Have a pic of my Lydia.






And some more travels...

Norbert IV (nobody knows where Norbert I, II and III fucked off to) rears-up at a roar of thunder.




Sneaking.




It spots me.









Suddenly my tactical advantage isn't looking as promising.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

It's ok, I have a new companion now. She's a mage though, so can't wear Lydia's old armour.


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 22, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> I've grown attached to her, she is great for carrying dragon bones.



You can give her stuff???


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 22, 2011)

Yes, you can give her armour to wear and weapons to use too, although she just auto selects the best choice from what she is given. Talk to her and say you need to trade.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> Yes, you can give her armour to wear and weapons to use too, although she just auto selects the best choice from what she is given. Talk to her and say you need to trade.


And endure the most sarcastic reply you'll hear in the entire game


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

I've been taking far too many screenshots of this game. Mostly of the scenery, because it's stunning. If we're doing the picture thing, I'll show a couple (or so) of my favourites, and one of my character as she is now too:





Around the swamps near Solitude.





Under the stone arch directly south of Solitude.





The shrine of Meridia.





Aurora in the mountains north of Solitude.





Having just discovered the Steed Stone. (I have all the "detailed faces/eyes/lips/bodies" mods, as well as the "no more blocky faces" mod, all from the same person, and a reskin of glass armour.)


----------



## crustychick (Nov 22, 2011)

ooooh, i've just bought this for my fella for his birthday - totally selflessly obv.... *waits until Sunday*

looks goooood!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

I've been waiting to be a freaking tester for SW:TOR for months, and now it's the big old stress test weekend (downloading the client now ...... all 20gb of it -_- ) I WANNA PLAY SKYRIM INSTEAD.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 22, 2011)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Aren't there autosaves?



Only when going through a door into a town, mine, cave or similar, the loading screen kicks in and autosaves. Wandering around a cavern or in the wilderness for a couple of hours without triggering an autosave is highly likely.

I noticed an autosave mod on the skyrim nexus site yesterday.


----------



## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

Yeah. This is better than Morrowind.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 22, 2011)

whos been modding it ? ive got much nicer textures, a nvidia performance mod that really does work, much nicer skys and better faces


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> whos been modding it ? ive got much nicer textures, a nvidia performance mod that really does work, much nicer skys and better faces



*ahem*

*points to her last post*



Got the full set of mods from the person who did the "no more blocky faces" one, so eyes/lips/faces/bodies. Fiddled with my .ini file on day one, to alter tree and water shadows, sort out issues with mouse acceleration/smoothing, and so on. Altered my FOV as well, to be a little wider (I have it at 80, I think). And I've reskinned my current glass armour and weapons. Not many reskin mods out there yet, especially so for robes, which is surprising. This game has gotten me interested in downloading the dev tools and trying my hand at it.

I'm looking forward to a hair mod, that gives a wider range of hair colours. Not your typical ridiculous pinks and purples (to me that would seem grossly ridiculous in this world), but a better range of natural colours with some depth and more texture to them. I'm pretty happy with the hair styles as they are, although I'm sure more will be made (and just like there will be bright green and bright pink hair to satisfy the Japanophiles, I'm sure the hair styles will be equally as ridiculous and out of place. But hey, that's the beauty of a game like this; you're free to butcher it in whatever way you choose).


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 22, 2011)

, yeah i just read above post lol


----------



## Bingo (Nov 22, 2011)

Are there any mods for xbox or just pc?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

Bingo said:


> Are there any mods for xbox or just pc?



I expect there will be some limited way to mod your xbox saves at some point (I know there are for Mass Effect), but I doubt you'll ever have the range of options a PC player does.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

People with that starfield photography sky mod - does it slow down your game? I have the odd bit of lag as it is, don't want to make it worse. But man, it would make the sky even more beautiful. I assume the moons stay the same, and you still get aurora and so on, yes?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 22, 2011)

No lag for me , the moon looked massive for me at one point, not seen the aurora yet biut thats not to say it isnt there....


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

Perhaps I'll give it a go. It does look stunning in the pics.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 22, 2011)

i never take any companions around with me.   well that dog  but that was questing.

i'd feel more for lidia if i didn't  have three other house carls.

i'm just glad  some of the  jarls  don't  bother with the  property  thing  when it comes to thane-dom


----------



## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

Can anyone tell me whether there's a way to own more land than just a house? One of the things I liked most about Morrowind was building my stronghold as I rose through the ranks of the nobility. Or holding my stronghold in Baldur's Gate 2. In both cases you got a mini-settlement to run, where as Skyrim seems to have nothing more than player housing from a MMORPG.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 22, 2011)

Random said:


> Can anyone tell me whether there's a way to own more land than just a house? One of the things I liked most about Morrowind was building my stronghold as I rose through the ranks of the nobility. Or holding my stronghold in Baldur's Gate 2. In both cases you got a mini-settlement to run, where as Skyrim seems to have nothing more than player housing from a MMORPG.



It would be soooo good if you could construct your own buildings.


----------



## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> It would be soooo good if you could construct your own buildings.


In Morrowind you couldn't choose how your building looked, but you had to do little quests in order to get the next stage of the stronghold built, and eventually bare ground would become a settlement. Likewise with the Solsteim colony.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

I guess the point of this is that it wants you to be involved in the communities that are already there, so having property in one of the towns, or more than one, might encourage more roleplaying or more thought when it comes to certain things like the Stormcloaks/Imperial thing. Perhaps. If you go and build your own stronghold on the edges of somewhere, or out in the middle of nowhere, then you're apart from it all, and might miss a sense of being a part of one of those communities. Again, perhaps.


----------



## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

No, there's no rp point, they just want to pander to the MMORPG players/couldn't be arsed


----------



## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

Building your own stuff with the construction kit is pretty easy btw. All the buildings are made from a kit of parts that aligns together on grids. Nothing stopping you making a 100m long farming cottage that snakes its way across the plains (which is actually a dwemer temple on the inside)


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 22, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Building your own stuff with the construction kit is pretty easy btw. All the buildings are made from a kit of parts that aligns together on grids. Nothing stopping you making a 100m long farming cottage that snakes its way across the plains (which is actually a dwemer temple on the inside)



I've got the xbox version. My PC is crap.


----------



## Structaural (Nov 22, 2011)

Crispy said:


> And endure the most sarcastic reply you'll hear in the entire game


----------



## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Building your own stuff with the construction kit is pretty easy btw. All the buildings are made from a kit of parts that aligns together on grids. Nothing stopping you making a 100m long farming cottage that snakes its way across the plains (which is actually a dwemer temple on the inside)


My character's concept was that he was a social climber, wanted to own land and be a big shot. Now I find there's nothing really beyond becoming a combat monster I'll have to think again. Although getting a house and then filling it with followers could do some of the job.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 22, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> I've got the xbox version. My PC is crap.


Me too


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 22, 2011)

Random said:


> My character's concept was that he was a social climber, wanted to own land and be a big shot. Now I find there's nothing really beyond becoming a combat monster I'll have to think again. Although getting a house and then filling it with followers could do some of the job.



Class traiter eh?


----------



## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Class traiter eh?


Classes were quite a bit more fluid in the real old norse days. If you were big, strong and charasmatic enough you could develop a following and get rich through raiding and set yourself up as a chief. Very different to the highly stratified Roman Empire of the same period.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

I've just installed the 4gb launcher thing, see if it solves my crashes to desktop. I've only been having them since the patch *sigh*

Shall have to investigate whether the patch overwrote the .ini changes I made to trees and so on. Hopefully not.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 22, 2011)

Random said:


> If you were big, strong and charasmatic enough...



You sound like a manager I once had to suffer under. The delusional twat looked a bit like this btw:






I'm sure you've met the sort.


----------



## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> You sound like a manager I once had to suffer under. The delusional twat looked a bit like this btw: I'm sure you've met the sort.


 Oddly enough a lot of Swedish bosses are indeed over 6 foot and built like a brick shithouse. It seems as though the viking leaders' genes have found a home in upper management. Although I'm not sure about the charismatic part.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

The 4gb launcher doesn't allow you to get at your quality settings, so I launched through steam, altered my AA (turned it up a notch to see if it worked better with the 4gb launcher), loaded my game, saved, exited, then launched with the 4gb again. Seems fine. I guess that's the only way to do it.

The patch seems to have preserved the .ini changes I made, and my texture mods are working fine. Shall see if I get any crashes as the day goes on.

Oh, and just had my first dragon that didn't burn up after death, so no soul. I hear it happens quite randomly to a fair few people. This one was a bounty, but a respawn of a word wall dragon I'd previously killed. No idea if that was why. Some people seem to say it's always respawns, some people say even new dragons sometimes don't burn for them. That said, the spawning of dragons is supposed to be infinite, so I don't think we're ever at risk of finding ourselves with too few souls.

And, it gives me the perfect story reason to finally go and see the Greybeards. She didn't question too much what was happening with the dragon shout thing, was suspicious of it, just got on with it when she found more words, absorbed more souls, but now she's not absorbed one she's suddenly wondering why, and her interest has been piqued enough to go and finally make that 7,000 step journey up High Hrothgar.


----------



## Cid (Nov 22, 2011)

Oh yeah, is anyone playing the same race as their Oblivion character? I swear my male DE has the same grunts etc as my female DE from it.


----------



## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

No, Dark elves look too ugly for my first playthrough.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

I suspect the majority of people are playing as Nords first time through, for the vanity aspect.


----------



## Corax (Nov 22, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I suspect the majority of people are playing as Nords first time through, for the vanity aspect.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

Corax said:


>



'Tis okay, I am too.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

Finally on my way to see the Greybeards.

The 4GB launcher really seems to have made my gameplay a smoother experience. Might risk cranking my settings up another notch at some point, not yet though. I'll see if it can handle it later tonight, after a couple more hours of playing and heating up my laptop


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 22, 2011)

um wow
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114323-Theres-More-to-Skyrim-Than-Skyrim

so  wait does this mean it would  be possible to load in all the texture data from oblivion and morrowind?


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 22, 2011)




----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

I've only just worked out you can rotate the world map. And alter the degree at which you view it.

Some 140 hours in.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 22, 2011)

well crap i've just hear through the grape vine that the  dark brotherhood  quest line  is  VERY epic

and i killed them all

well  looks  like i'm going to have to play this game at least once more


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

Headphones, music turned up, it's a fucking lovely experience.

That music is just .... *bites her fist and has a bit of grit in her eye*


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 22, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


>




I haven't laughed so much for like, six months.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 22, 2011)

Crashed tonight. Lost quite a lot of time. Sigh.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 22, 2011)

Right i'm a bad as Nordic female stealth/archery kick ass bitch, I'm not joining the shithead Imperials or the racist Stormcloaks. I hope I'm not forced to at any point either.

Also did in the that Dark Brother Hood shower.

Basically I'm a lone communist warrior wandering form place to place killing bastards. I'm also hot as fuck.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 22, 2011)

The Greybeards are fun. And spritely, for old folk. And patient. Very patient.

And a dreadful, laboured cliche.


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 22, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> The Greybeards are fun. And spritely, for old folk. And patient. Very patient.
> 
> And a dreadful, laboured cliche.



Slay them then if you don't like!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> Slay them then if you don't like!



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do like them! Just that they are a cliche. Grand old mystical men, living apart from society, in a little cabal at that. Old men holding onto knowledge other people aren't allowed to have unless they are special. I'm not saying I don't like them, I'm just aware of the image, is all.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

I killed me a blood dragon:


----------



## Epona (Nov 23, 2011)

Since the small PC patch yesterday I've been having terrible trouble with lag and micro-stuttering with large drops in fps. It was fine before that running on ultra settings.

I shouldn't be having any issues - AMD Phenom II Quad Core 3.4 GHz, HD 5850 1024Mb GPU, 4Gb RAM, Win 7 - and I checked all my drivers earlier to make sure they were up to date - AMD just released a new Catalyst driver so I updated to 11.9 and it's not made any difference.

There's no way I should be having trouble running this game, that patch has done something untoward 

Any suggestions? I hadn't previously tried any performance enhancing tweaks or mods as it wasn't necessary but are there any that would solve this issue for me?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

Epona:

Firstly, skyrim doesn't allow you to utilise anything above 2GB of RAM, so first, get this: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1013 - use that to launch the game and it does (when you use that to launch, you lose the ability to alter your graphical settings from the official launcher, so if you want to change them, just launch as normal, change them, then I guess load your game, save, exit, and launch using ^ that).

Next, try the first two of these solutions: http://www.gamefront.com/how-to-improve-skyrim-with-ini-file-tweaks/ (this says to do it in the steamapps .ini file, although some commenters say it should be the mydocs .ini file ... I did it in the steamapps one, I believe, and it worked, but ymmv).

Finally, have you unchecked the "Game Controller" box in the in-game settings? It's on by default, and is easily missed. That can help alleviate some mouse issues you might be having.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 23, 2011)

I was also going to suggest the Large Address Aware hack, but I did it manually using CFF.

_- Before making any patches always backup your original __TESV.exe__ just in case something goes wrong. _
_ - Download and install CFF explorer (which can be found at http://ntcore.com/exsuite.php)_
_ - Run the CFF Explorer_
_ - Click the folder icon on the left hand side and browse your PC for TESV.exe._
_ - Click on File Header on the left, find Characteristics on the right and click the "Click here" button highlighted in blue. _
_ - Tick "App can handle >2GB address space" and click OK_
_ - Save by clicking the disc icon and overwrite the file when prompted_

I don't have any stutters, and haven't patched yet, but this hack improved my load times and made the game generally a bit snappier.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 23, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> People with that starfield photography sky mod - does it slow down your game?



I am using 'Enhanced Night Skyrim - Color Galaxy' and 'Enhanced Night Skyrim - Medium Stars' from the Enhanced Night Skyrim mod by CptJoker and haven't noticed any performance hit, although I have a fairly powerful desktop PC.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 23, 2011)

Sometimes it's best to just...



















...run away!


----------



## Garek (Nov 23, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Firstly, skyrim doesn't allow you to utilise anything above 2GB of RAM, so first, get this: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1013 - use that to launch the game and it does (when you use that to launch, you lose the ability to alter your graphical settings from the official launcher, so if you want to change them, just launch as normal, change them, then I guess load your game, save, exit, and launch using ^ that).



I read about this the other day. Absolutely fucking ridiculous. Like seriously, come on Bethesda, show us some love.

Really want to be playing this game but finding time is tricky  currently working 6 days weeks. I've got 28 hours under my belt so far. I reckon a few more of wandering around, I want to check out one of the Northern cities, then I think I will head back South to kick off the main quest.

Also what is people's opinions on Giants? I am taking a you-don't-harm-me-I-don't-harm-you approach. A bit tricky at one point as I wanted to take a path they were on but they growled at me and so I had to find another way.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Nov 23, 2011)

There was a review of this game on FiveLive last night and my ears pricked up because I'd noticed this thread being active. One of the reviewers said he hadn't played it yet as it was something that demanded getting up, not getting dressed and devoting your entire life to the game, and the actual plot wasn't that important as everything else was so compelling. He was waiting for Christmas, when he had some holiday so that he could devote every waking hour to it, and it was something he couldn't wait to do. I don't do gaming, and I doubt I ever will but I found that alarming. The other reviewer was waxing lyrical about this game.


----------



## Structaural (Nov 23, 2011)

It's an unbelievable time sink. I need to set alarms so I go to bed before 1am.


----------



## Random (Nov 23, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> I don't do gaming, and I doubt I ever will but I found that alarming.


 There are worse things you could waste your time on than literature, and I think Skyrim easily qualifies as literature. But myself I've got a job and two very young children, so I play for an average of half an hour a day, or less. What's to worry about?


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Nov 23, 2011)

I found the reviewer saying you had to devote your entire life to it even to the extent of not getting dressed in the morning alarming.


----------



## Structaural (Nov 23, 2011)

I only play after my kid's gone to bed and dinner's done and dusted. My weed smoking has dropped considerably, before I'd sit outside for 20 mins with a spliff and watch some shit on my phone, now I'm finished in 10 mins and back in Skyrim for 2 hours at a time. This is a good thing...


----------



## Structaural (Nov 23, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> I found the reviewer saying you had to devote your entire life to it even to the extent of not getting dressed in the morning alarming.



This would be great, but not possible for me


----------



## golightly (Nov 23, 2011)

Garek said:


> Also what is people's opinions on Giants? I am taking a you-don't-harm-me-I-don't-harm-you approach. A bit tricky at one point as I wanted to take a path they were on but they growled at me and so I had to find another way.



Generally, you can peacefully coexist with the giants if you don't get in their way.  Trouble is that they tend to attract the attention of dragons so you have to keep half an eye on the giants if you want to take down a dragon without getting clobbered.  The first time I killed a dragon that was attacking  some giants I barely got away with my life and the dragon didn't produce a soul so it was all wasted effort.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Nov 23, 2011)

I freely admit that computer games are something that have passed me by and I have a sense of bafflement about the whole thing.


----------



## Random (Nov 23, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> I found the reviewer saying you had to devote your entire life to it even to the extent of not getting dressed in the morning alarming.


Mrs Magpie, that's his opinion. You don't 'have' to play any game in a way that takes over your life. Except online games where your fellow players are always bugging you to take part in big organised events, maybe. Like I said, half an hour a day. I'll probably play this for the next ten years or so, as I did a previous version, Morrowind.


----------



## Cid (Nov 23, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> I found the reviewer saying you had to devote your entire life to it even to the extent of not getting dressed in the morning alarming.



It depends how you want to treat it, its been completed in 2 hours 15 minutes - that's a speed run by testers, but it shouldn't be hard to do it in less than 100 and still get a lot out of it. For myself, and most others, it's just nice to get involved in the whole game world... Obviously this will be to different extents for different people, I'll probably average an hour or two a day - time usually spent relaxing with iPlayer and posting here anyway. The good thing about it is you put in what you feel you can, there's no obligation or anything. When I played World of Warcraft I think my clock ended up on 35 days or so, and that's 35 days of solid playing (and that doesn't even touch what some people put in) - that really is unhealthy and disturbing.


----------



## tommers (Nov 23, 2011)

I think tonight needs to be a skyrim free night for the good of my marriage.

Once i start I can't stop.  I think I need counselling.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 23, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> I found the reviewer saying you had to devote your entire life to it even to the extent of not getting dressed in the morning alarming.



HAVE is a strong word. you don't HAVE to read a book in one sitting.  you don't HAVE to watch a film trilogy back to back.

but often to  get the most involved experience  you will want to.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

I'm not entirely sure it's useful to use a subjective opinion as some kind of objective yardstick by which to judge something/people. I'm not entirely sure what, in the grand scheme of things, _would_ be that wrong with someone if they devoted huge chunks of time to a game. If it works for them, and they can do so without it fucking up other people in some way .... really, why is it "alarming" or "disturbing"? It's simply the way they've chosen to prioritise their life in a way that they enjoy.

And even if we all broadly agree with what I just said, then why the sudden rush to absolve ourselves by stating "oh no, I only play X amount of time, I'm still normal, see?"

I've sunk a lot of time into this game, more than I thought I would when I picked it up. It's kept me up until the wee small hours of the morning. And I've loved every minute. But then I'm probably just a deeply disturbing person.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> I am using 'Enhanced Night Skyrim - Color Galaxy' and 'Enhanced Night Skyrim - Medium Stars' from the Enhanced Night Skyrim mod by CptJoker and haven't noticed any performance hit, although I have a fairly powerful desktop PC.



Yep, I ended up using that (before the galaxy update) and had no problems with performance (especially after starting to use the 4gb launcher). Glad you linked to it though, looks like they updated shortly after I downloaded the old version. Just installed the colour nebula, and am interested to see how it looks. I suspect I may end up going to the blue version instead, but we shall see.

Thanks


----------



## Garek (Nov 23, 2011)

I spent over 6 hours playing it last Saturday. Considering that is my only day off I found it a wonderful way to relax, to get lost in that vast world, to not actually really do anything but wander and explore, see what was out there.


----------



## Random (Nov 23, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> And even if we all broadly agree with what I just said, then why the sudden rush to absolve ourselves by stating "oh no, I only play X amount of time, I'm still normal, see?"


 If that's directed at me, you can see that in my reply I both saud there was nothing wrong with spending loads of time on Skyrim, but that also it was not _mandatory_, as proved by my situation.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

My point is that we often say "there's nothing wrong with X" and then quickly rush to say "not that I do it, you understand".

It's a bit like best of both worlds. That's how it comes across, anyway. Just an observation.


----------



## Random (Nov 23, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> My point is that we often say "there's nothing wrong with X" and then quickly rush to say "not that I do it, you understand".
> 
> It's a bit like best of both worlds. That's how it comes across, anyway. Just an observation.


 It's a wrong observation, as I've pointed out.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 23, 2011)

i lost 25 hours to skyrim in 3 days last week, and im proud


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## Random (Nov 23, 2011)

Don't mean to sound snappy, VP, but want to make it clear I'm not doing what you say you're observing.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

My observation was that "that is how it comes across". In other words, that is how it sounds when I read that sort of thing. Interpretation being one of those pesky "subjective" things, you can't tell me that is wrong, you can tell me you aren't doing something, but you can't tell me that I don't interpret something the way I do, in fact, interpret it.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 23, 2011)

anyway......

http://skyrimforums.org/threads/skyrim-world-map-in-full-3d.777/

ooh...

ahh..


----------



## Epona (Nov 23, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> I found the reviewer saying you had to devote your entire life to it even to the extent of not getting dressed in the morning alarming.



That's the sort of hyperbole typical of games reviewers when describing a game they like to be honest - nothing to be alarmed about, it's nothing more than reviewer code for "this game is big and this game is good".

Where Skyrim differs from other games is that most chart-topping games (shooters and the like) these days offer around 20 hours of content at most, Skyrim offers several times more than that in written plot content for those who want to play through all the plots, and there is a huge map to explore freely for those who like to explore.  Which just makes it a fantastic bargain, not something dangerous.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Nov 23, 2011)

Epona said:


> That's the sort of hyperbole typical of games reviewers when describing a game they like.....................Which just makes it a fantastic bargain, not something dangerous.


Ah, OK I get it now. 
Sort of an overblown version of a book reviewer describing a book as "unputdownable".


----------



## Epona (Nov 23, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> Ah, OK I get it now.
> Sort of an overblown version of a book reviewer describing a book as "unputdownable".



Exactly, and it is an extremely good game with a lot of content (something the series as a whole is famous for), so it's very easy to glance at the clock and realise you should have started cooking dinner already!  But that's no different than a great book where you just have to get to the end of the chapter before bed.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 23, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> Ah, OK I get it now.
> Sort of an overblown version of a book reviewer describing a book as "unputdownable".


Exactly  (unless you spill the superglue)


----------



## Garek (Nov 23, 2011)

I have a problem with the weight of the stuff I am carrying  I wish I could carry more but I can't because of all the books I am carrying. I could get rid of the books but that seems wrong. I am not leaving my literary collection on some snowy hillside. That's obscene.

So I am carrying around about 50 books all over bloody Skyrim till I can get a house  This is ridiculous. Why the hell won't my brain just let me throw the books away!?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 23, 2011)

Give them to Lydia? (She doesn't have to come with you)


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 23, 2011)

I'm finding it slightly annoying that when mounted on a horse I can't speak, and neither me nor the horse can attack anything.


----------



## Cid (Nov 23, 2011)

I want to be able to pick flowers from horseback. It is bloody annoying having to dismount for combat and ending up with views all over the place, no weapons at the ready etc.


----------



## Garek (Nov 23, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Give them to Lydia? (She doesn't have to come with you)



I have yet to meet the famous Lydia.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 23, 2011)

Garek said:


> I have a problem with the weight of the stuff I am carrying  I wish I could carry more but I can't because of all the books I am carrying. I could get rid of the books but that seems wrong. I am not leaving my literary collection on some snowy hillside. That's obscene.





Garek said:


> So I am carrying around about 50 books all over bloody Skyrim till I can get a house  This is ridiculous. Why the hell won't my brain just let me throw the books away!?




exactly my problem (always collected the books in Oblivion, and Fallout 3/NV too)...and only resolved by getting a house... it's got bookshelves y'know... 

or find the The Steed Guardian Stone for a 100 increase in carry capacity and weightless armour


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 23, 2011)

Garek said:


> I have yet to meet the famous Lydia.


you'll be thane-king your lucky stars when you do

I'm here all week, try the veal etc


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 23, 2011)

I'd have quite liked mounted combat, but in away I'm glad it's not implemented otherwise I'd be carrying a range of mounted weapons along side swords shields and bows...


----------



## Crispy (Nov 23, 2011)

Garek said:


> I have yet to meet the famous Lydia.


Any companion then. There's a guy you can hire for 500g in the Solitude pub


----------



## Garek (Nov 23, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Any companion then. There's a guy you can hire for 500g in the Solitude pub



I like the thought of that  A batman to carry my books


----------



## Epona (Nov 23, 2011)

In one way I sort of like the idea of having a companion, but not with this character - stealth assassins/burglers don't want anyone setting off traps or alerting guards!  I don't think Lydia knows what I get up to when I leave the house, and I don't think she wants to know - best to keep it that way


----------



## Corax (Nov 23, 2011)

Horses are still shit.  Why can Bethesda not animate equines with any degree of realism?  It buggers up the suspension of disbelief for me, so I'm everywhere on foot.


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 23, 2011)

Right, I'm going to try and get as many companions as I can and have them all follow me and get in each other's way.


----------



## Cid (Nov 23, 2011)

Corax said:


> Horses are still shit. Why can Bethesda not animate equines with any degree of realism? It buggers up the suspension of disbelief for me, so I'm everywhere on foot.



Yeah, I'm kind of preferring being on foot, can pick flowers to my heart's delight and the sodding thing doesn't get in the way all the time, or run away from dragons so that I have to chase them (although it seems to be very good at fighting them). I quite like the feel of riding up and spotting a distant keep or enemy and quietly dismounting to approach though. One of the good things about Oblivion was the variety of horses, getting faster as you progressed - don't think that happens in Skyrim and they're just a bit slow to make enough difference tbh (unless there's a horse sprint option or something).


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 23, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> Right, I'm going to try and get as many companions as I can and have them all follow me and get in each other's way.



i thought you could only have 1 companion at a time ??


----------



## Crispy (Nov 23, 2011)

Yep one at a time


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 23, 2011)




----------



## Dooby (Nov 23, 2011)

I've had Lydia kicking about my house for ages but I don't WANT a companion, I like doing it all alone. I hope she at least cleans the damn place while I'm gone.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 23, 2011)

i keep walking into my bedroom and getting a shock  seeing her behind me


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

The only place I've upgraded in my Whiterun house is my bedroom, and she's always sat just behind the door, eating bread at the table, staring at my bed.

Stalker.


----------



## Corax (Nov 23, 2011)

I don't have a house yet, or enough gold to buy one.  I don't think I've sunk as many hours as many on here, and I also crawl through dungeons at a snail's pace checking every nook and cranny, so have only done Bleak so far.  I've got an hour or so spare now, so off I go!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

Playing a sneaky archer character means I crawl through them really slowly too. But that's a hell of a lot of fun, and very satisfying: seeing a group of 3 or 4 Draugr in a room up ahead, and picking them off from the shadows one by one, while the others start looking around confusedly for me. Takes forever though. But to me, that's excellent, because each half decent dungeon crawl feels like a substantial "level" in itself, and can take an evening's worth of playing to get through. Certainly going to be getting the most for my money.

Installed this today: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=711 - not had a chance to see it in full action other than the river by Riverwood, but that did look very pretty. I expect once the Creation Kit is out, the mods will be astounding.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 23, 2011)

I had a nice comedy death yesterday when I froze a troll on a cliff edge and he fell off it and in my haste to see where he landed so I could loot his still warm body I ran right off the cliff and fell to my death beside him


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

Using the mod mentioned on the last page, but with the blue version of the nebula (the coloured one seemed a little distracting for me, so I swapped them out).

New moon


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 23, 2011)

Should i do the washing up* or play skyrim

*there is currently 4 days of washing up waiting to be done so it won't be a quick job.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

I think you know the answer.

*looks at her own sink*


----------



## Epona (Nov 23, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> Should i do the washing up* or play skyrim
> 
> *there is currently 4 days of washing up waiting to be done so it won't be a quick job.



If I had 4 days of washing up waiting to be done I wouldn't have any pots or pans left to cook with, or any plates left to eat from!  Put on some music and do the washing up before it gets any worse - then you can get back to the game without that nagging feeling that you ought to be doing something else


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 23, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I think you know the answer.



takeaway delivery?


----------



## Garek (Nov 23, 2011)

Buy a dishwasher off eBay. Play more Skyrim.

In fact just bid for a dishwasher. That count as taking a step to solve the problem.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 23, 2011)

Collect all dishes, store them in a chest, problem solved.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 23, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> anyway......
> 
> http://skyrimforums.org/threads/skyrim-world-map-in-full-3d.777/
> 
> ...



I saw that recently, but it renders the map unavailable in towns and indoors.


----------



## Corax (Nov 23, 2011)

So, now that I've got the Nexus mod manager and a few mods without breaking everything - how do I increase the draw distance?


----------



## poului (Nov 23, 2011)

some adventurers on the PC using the noclip have discovered that beyond the borders of Skyrim they've actually rendered the entire continent of Tamriel to scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlbA2qiXsf0


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 23, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> um wow
> http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114323-Theres-More-to-Skyrim-Than-Skyrim
> 
> so wait does this mean it would be possible to load in all the texture data from oblivion and morrowind?






poului said:


> some adventurers on the PC using the noclip have discovered that beyond the borders of Skyrim they've actually rendered the entire continent of Tamriel to scale.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlbA2qiXsf0



too slow!


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 23, 2011)

Corax said:


> So, now that I've got the Nexus mod manager and a few mods without breaking everything - how do I increase the draw distance?



On the launch screen Options menu>Advanced>View Distance. Turn everything up.


----------



## Epona (Nov 23, 2011)

poului said:


> some adventurers on the PC using the noclip have discovered that beyond the borders of Skyrim they've actually rendered the entire continent of Tamriel to scale.



No they haven't. It's Cyrodil as far as the White Gold Tower, and a bit of mainland Morrowind and Vvardenfell - a very very long way from being "the entire continent of Tamriel".

The reason it is there is mostly for LOD - ie. so that you can see a long way into the distance when standing at the edge of the playable area. Oblivion did similar, although not quite to the same distance.

It will be handy for modders making large landmass mods though.


----------



## poului (Nov 23, 2011)

Epona said:


> No they haven't. It's Cyrodil as far as the White Gold Tower, and a bit of mainland Morrowind and Vvardenfell - a very very long way from being "the entire continent of Tamriel".
> 
> The reason it is there is mostly for LOD - ie. so that you can see a long way into the distance when standing at the edge of the playable area. Oblivion did similar, although not quite to the same distance.
> 
> It will be handy for modders making large landmass mods though.


 
it goes well beyond the tower. it's far beyond whatever would be necessary for mere visuals.


----------



## Corax (Nov 23, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> On the launch screen Options menu>Advanced>View Distance. Turn everything up.


Cool.  Thanks.  

Still runs perfectly smoothly.  And I still keep getting killed by fucking sabre-cats.  

Next one I'm wondering about is the thing that tells it to use more than 2Gig of RAM if it needs to.  Is that worth doing/safe/easy?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

It's very easy. You just download it, put it anywhere you like (it says it doesn't need to go in a particular folder, but I've put mine straight in my steamapps/skyrim folder), then just right-click the launcher and run as admin. That's all there is to it. To "uninstall" you just delete that folder, or simply don't ever use it again.


----------



## Corax (Nov 23, 2011)

Oh, I didn't realise that was a mod.  I'd got the impression it involved getting under the bonnet a bit.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

Nope, it's actually very, very simple. I see a new version has come out since I started using it. Probably won't change my experience any, so I'll leave it a couple of days, see if people seem generally happy with it.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 23, 2011)

Bored of the crashes now. Might give up and reinstall.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2011)

Keep your save, so you don't lose your progress.

Or, have you tried all the hints and tips for solving crashes? Like the 4gb launcher? There's plenty about it around the internet.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 24, 2011)

Corax said:


> Still runs perfectly smoothly. And I still keep getting killed by fucking sabre-cats.
> 
> Next one I'm wondering about is the thing that tells it to use more than 2Gig of RAM if it needs to. Is that worth doing/safe/easy?



Have you tried ultra settings on the first Options screen? If it runs smoothly you can start adding HD textures.

I am also using FXAA Post Process Injector (preset 1) as I found the default ambience a bit washed out.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 24, 2011)




----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 24, 2011)

As stunning as those shots are, there's far too much sharpening for my tastes. They are lovely though.


----------



## Epona (Nov 24, 2011)

AWWWWW I found a doggie, a stray doggie. I had him follow me and took him home to my house in Solitude and told him to wait there. He can't be messing up my stealthy activities so I don't want him following me about, he's going to be a pampered pet and I will take him for walks in town etc.

How do I give him a name? Is it the same console command as in Oblivion (SetActorFullName "xxx" iirc?)  Thinking I might call him Garmr


----------



## Crispy (Nov 24, 2011)

Spoiler: Top of Throat of the World



I started talking to the dragon before he'd properly landed. As a result, he started spinning round and round and moving upwards. I had to turn subtitles on because I couldn't hear him all the way up there, spinning round and round. When I had finished the conversation, he assumed the "landed" pose then fell out of the sky. LOL Skyrim.


----------



## Random (Nov 24, 2011)

Love the way the game plays with RPG tropes in a knowing way. At the end of one quest, someone warning me not to get taken in by a pretty face "you're better than that". Leaves me feeling I played a part in a real story, not just took the "good" option, as opposed to the obviously "evil" one. A lot of the caves seem familiar from Fallout3 and I wonder whether they imported the moral ambiguity from that as well?


----------



## Cid (Nov 24, 2011)

Bethesda have always had moral ambiguity to an extent, just with successive titles its had more influence on plot etc.


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 24, 2011)

Epona said:


> AWWWWW I found a doggie, a stray doggie. I had him follow me and took him home to my house in Solitude and told him to wait there. He can't be messing up my stealthy activities so I don't want him following me about, he's going to be a pampered pet and I will take him for walks in town etc.
> 
> How do I give him a name? Is it the same console command as in Oblivion (SetActorFullName "xxx" iirc?) Thinking I might call him Garmr



Was the dog waiting by the side of a road with a house nearby in Hjaalmarch?  If so his previous owner (who is in the bed in said house, and very dead) has already named him.


----------



## Random (Nov 24, 2011)

Cid said:


> Bethesda have always had moral ambiguity to an extent, just with successive titles its had more influence on plot etc.


You're right; maybe the more obviously 'questy' quests here made it more obvious how they were going agains tthe normal grain; but thinking back to Morrowind (and Daggerfall) there was plenty of choice and a wide gray zone in the choices to be made.


----------



## Corax (Nov 24, 2011)

Ah, seems I hadn't actually 'activated' any of the mods I'd downloaded.  I had thought that the difference must be a lot more subtle than screenshots had led me to believe!   

Ultra detail has started to make it a bit stuttery. Only just noticeable, but enough to irk.


----------



## Corax (Nov 24, 2011)

Okay, advice needed.

I've stored up all my perks so far (only level 7*), so not as mad as it sounds, as I wasn't sure how I wanted to play.

Thing is, I want to do a bit of magey stuff, I fuckin _love_ the magic in TES games.  But I don't want to be pure mage, I want to be able to smack something about sometimes too.

All easy enough if I equipped myself in light armour with a sword and shield.  But I'm finding I like the two handed weapons a helluva lot more (which are therefore levelling more).  I'm thinking of wearing light armour, building up my magic shit, but also hefting a double-handed greatsword.  Is this workable, or am I just going to create a fuckup of a character that will be useless by half way through the game and have me cursing and starting again?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 24, 2011)

Workable if you stick to the pre-battle magic like alteration illusion or conjuration. Shields up, make them fight each other, chuck an Atronach in the mix then wade in with the smashy smashy.

And of course there's enchanting...


----------



## Voley (Nov 24, 2011)

My brother is right into this at the minute. Are there any downloadable extras planned that I could get him for Xmas?


----------



## Epona (Nov 24, 2011)

NVP said:


> My brother is right into this at the minute. Are there any downloadable extras planned that I could get him for Xmas?



Nothing announced yet, which means very unlikely to happen before Xmas.

DLCs will be released on XBox 30 days before other platforms anyway (fucking Microsoft throwing their money around!)


----------



## Cid (Nov 24, 2011)

Fuck's sake.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 24, 2011)

Corax said:


> Okay, advice needed.
> 
> I've stored up all my perks so far (only level 7*), so not as mad as it sounds, as I wasn't sure how I wanted to play.
> 
> ...



you will probably want some archery as well, focus your mage on maybe 2 different spell types and you should be able to do sword and magic.


----------



## Corax (Nov 24, 2011)

Cool. My archery's been levelling up a fair bit anyway. I only discovered the magic menu at level 4, I was waiting for someone to lead me on a starter magic quest lol.  I shall start spending my perks!

Of course, what I *really* want is a very nimble warrior who's also very strong, has a huge talent with magic, is a sharpshooter with an arrow and picks locks at a hundred yards.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 24, 2011)

Don't we all.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 24, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Don't we all.


not me, I don't like mages.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 24, 2011)

I already have my next 3 characters planned in my head 

So this one is a Nord who mostly focuses on sneaky archery, but with a bit of sword and shield (or mace and shield, atm) thrown in when things require it. She will likely join the Thieves' Guild out of a misguided sense of wanting to be bucking authority, but will probably end up not spending much time with them after she's seen what they're like. Will side with the Stormcloaks.

Then the next 3 will be:

-- Orc two-handed warrior type, heavy armour, light bow work. Will join the Companions. Might side with the Stormcloaks, not sure yet.
-- Bosmer assassin, focusing on daggers, sneaking, archery again. May look into illusion magic, maybe a bit of conjuration, not sure. Will join the Dark Brotherhood (and maybe the Thieves' Guild). Will likely end up siding with the Empire, although not too sure.
-- Either an Altmer pure mage, or an Imperial battle mage (leaning towards the latter right now). Will join the Mages' College, and will, obviously, side with the Empire.


----------



## Voley (Nov 24, 2011)

Epona said:


> Nothing announced yet, which means very unlikely to happen before Xmas.


Ta. I quite fancy having a go of this after reading this thread. I've never been one for swords and sorcery stuff but the beautiful graphics and the open world are swaying me. Thing is, I didn't really like Oblivion much.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 24, 2011)

I hated Oblivion. Couldn't get into it one little bit. But I've been thoroughly wooed by Skyrim. It's just astonishing.


----------



## Epona (Nov 24, 2011)

NVP said:


> Ta. I quite fancy having a go of this after reading this thread. I've never been one for swords and sorcery stuff but the beautiful graphics and the open world are swaying me. Thing is, I didn't really like Oblivion much.



Skyrim is a return to form in many ways, I view Oblivion as the duff one of the series.  I still enjoyed it well enough mind you, especially with 150+ mods installed to improve it   But Skyrim is miles ahead of it.


----------



## Voley (Nov 24, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I hated Oblivion. Couldn't get into it one little bit. But I've been thoroughly wooed by Skyrim. It's just astonishing.


Might have to give it a go in that case.


----------



## Garek (Nov 24, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I hated Oblivion. Couldn't get into it one little bit. But I've been thoroughly wooed by Skyrim. It's just astonishing.



For me it goes like:

Oblivion - fatally flawed and unplayable
Skyrim - flawed but wonderful


----------



## Corax (Nov 24, 2011)

I loved Oblivion but then got bored with it.  Skyrim seems to have much more variation and depth.

As always though, I'm having problems with encumbrance and gold.  I find I'm carrying too much all the time, and never have enough money because I'm loathe to sell any enchanted item I pick up, just in case I _need_ it.  Do you think the two problems might be related?


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 24, 2011)

it's removed or reduced the main gameplay things that annoyed me in Oblivion, namely the levelling of monsters etc, and the mechanics of levelling for characters.  Which combined added a slightly erksome spreadsheetism to the game play, as you'd have to level around the key skills of your character to get high increases, otherwise the levelled monsters would just rip you apart.

I find the levelling in skyrim to be much more fluid, more organic. I really like the way that your character evolves far more around how you play, rather than how you play evolving from what character type you chose at the beginning. Also the levelling of the world around you is done much better. I like the fact that, unlike in Oblivion, I can go to a place/dungeon/cave and have to run away from it's boss, and go back and build up the character, sadly without any Team America montage mode, and go back and destroy said boss.

The people and voice acting are less generic than Oblivion which also helps.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 24, 2011)

You want to disenchant it, then you can enchant the weapons you really want to use with the enchantments you want down the line. I bought a ridiculously priced pair of hide boots that had extra sneak bonus, only to disenchant them and enchant my legendary glass boots with it instead.

You'll start getting money soon enough. Just be canny about how you sell your loot. Before you sell weapons and armour, go and upgrade it as much as you can first, then go enchant it with your best enchantment, then sell it.

(Helps to have a weapon that is enchanted with soul trap, so you can keep lots of soul gems around for all that enchanting.)


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 24, 2011)

Corax said:


> I loved Oblivion but then got bored with it. Skyrim seems to have much more variation and depth.
> 
> As always though, I'm having problems with encumbrance and gold. I find I'm carrying too much all the time, and never have enough money because I'm loathe to sell any enchanted item I pick up, just in case I _need_ it. Do you think the two problems might be related?



pick every flower you see and make potions out of them then sell the potions for a lot more than the ingredients were worth, thats how I got my 5000 for my house which then means I can leave stuff hanging around. Mage* robes are a good source of income as well, they only weigh 1kg but sell for around 50-60 gold.

*and it means you get to kill some mages which is never a bad thing.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 24, 2011)

Alchemy, smithing and enchanting have been my main source of income. And you get to keep the stuff that's decent, like potions.


----------



## Corax (Nov 24, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> You want to disenchant it, then you can enchant the weapons you really want to use with the enchantments you want down the line. I bought a ridiculously priced pair of hide boots that had extra sneak bonus, only to disenchant them and enchant my legendary glass boots with it instead.
> 
> You'll start getting money soon enough. Just be canny about how you sell your loot. Before you sell weapons and armour, go and upgrade it as much as you can first, then go enchant it with your best enchantment, then sell it.
> 
> (Helps to have a weapon that is enchanted with soul trap, so you can keep lots of soul gems around for all that enchanting.)


Oh shit!  I forgot about that disenchanting thing, despite whottisface telling me about it very clearly.  I was five seconds away from selling loads of enchanted stuff for fuck all at the general store in desperation, and only hit pause to top my glass up.  Glad I did - I shall scoot off back to his funny goth workbench.


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## Cid (Nov 24, 2011)

Epona said:


> Skyrim is a return to form in many ways, I view Oblivion as the duff one of the series. I still enjoyed it well enough mind you, especially with 150+ mods installed to improve it  But Skyrim is miles ahead of it.



I actually think Oblivion is underrated - there were two massive things that let it down; the oblivion gates and the dungeons. I don't even think the dungeons would have been that bad, were it not for the enemies in them, specifically the undead - just horribly irritating to fight. On the other hand it had some absolutely brilliant quests; searching inside the painting springs to mind, then there was a weird icy one, and something odd where you had to get through a load of strange rooms. And one where you had to die. And one where everyone ended up in their underwear... It was a flawed game, but certainly playable on the PC, and had some moments of brilliance... Which I'm actually yet to encounter in Skyrim, which is an all-round great game, just hoping that spark of originality comes through (tbf mostly been doing very minor quests or starting quests, so can't really expect that yet).


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 24, 2011)

oblivion wasn't dreadful.  it just  didn't have that certain something.

morrowind had it  and  i think skyrim does too.

although  i think  perhap morrowind  felt  more alien  but in a good way. skyrim is  very LOTR in setting. this isn't really a bad thing  but   you kinda know what to excpect


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## Epona (Nov 24, 2011)

Cid said:


> I actually think Oblivion is underrated - there were two massive things that let it down; the oblivion gates and the dungeons. I don't even think the dungeons would have been that bad, were it not for the enemies in them, specifically the undead - just horribly irritating to fight. On the other hand it had some absolutely brilliant quests; searching inside the painting springs to mind, then there was a weird icy one, and something odd where you had to get through a load of strange rooms. And one where you had to die. And one where everyone ended up in their underwear... It was a flawed game, but certainly playable on the PC, and had some moments of brilliance... Which I'm actually yet to encounter in Skyrim, which is an all-round great game, just hoping that spark of originality comes through (tbf mostly been doing very minor quests or starting quests, so can't really expect that yet).



I largely agree with that - Oblivion gates got tedious really quickly (mostly because there were just 7 maps, and up to something like 100 potential gates, it would have been so much better if there had been fewer gates with more unique maps and towers to explore!); dungeons were cut & paste; level scaling was awful and unless you indulged in serious min/maxing and made a power build it seemed like you were getting less powerful throughout the game, and loot scaling was just as bad.  The other thing I'd add is that it was largely without atmosphere or intrigue and conflict - everything was shiny bright and even the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood seemed like nice enough guys once you got to know them (best questlines in the game mind you) and it was too black & white good vs evil stuff.

I did still enjoy it though, and there were some excellent mods made for it (Mart's Monster Mod, The Lost Spires, Heart of the Dead, Kragenir's Death Quest, A Brotherhood Renewed (continuation of the DB questline), Tears of the Fiend - to name but a few) that were so well written and executed and added so much more fun and atmosphere to the game.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 24, 2011)

There has been one quest that was kinda ..... unique in feeling, during one part of it at least. Won't spoil it, but it was one of the Daedric quests. The moment didn't last long, but it was unexpected and felt quite awesome at the time.


----------



## Cid (Nov 24, 2011)

If anything beats finding the corpse you just made with an arrow between the eyes/in the neck, it's taking one-shotting each of the four Draugr someone just summoned without them even seeing you.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 24, 2011)

the dadric stuff in skyrim  i have encounter is  really colourfull and well made  if a little short


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## Cid (Nov 24, 2011)

Epona said:


> I largely agree with that - Oblivion gates got tedious really quickly (mostly because there were just 7 maps, and up to something like 100 potential gates, it would have been so much better if there had been fewer gates with more unique maps and towers to explore!); dungeons were cut & paste; level scaling was awful and unless you indulged in serious min/maxing and made a power build it seemed like you were getting less powerful throughout the game, and loot scaling was just as bad. The other thing I'd add is that it was largely without atmosphere or intrigue and conflict - everything was shiny bright and even the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood seemed like nice enough guys once you got to know them (best questlines in the game mind you) and it was too black & white good vs evil stuff.
> 
> I did still enjoy it though, and there were some excellent mods made for it (Mart's Monster Mod, The Lost Spires, Heart of the Dead, Kragenir's Death Quest, A Brotherhood Renewed (continuation of the DB questline), Tears of the Fiend - to name but a few) that were so well written and executed and added so much more fun and atmosphere to the game.



I think the fact I'd micro-managed levelling in Morrowind and had been playing WoW for some months before helped, new about power builds, used to grinding etc. But yeah, agree with the rest - I'd say it was a flawed game with hints of genius, so far Skyrim is a brilliant game but it hasn't beaten Morrowind for me yet (relatively i mean, obviously trounces it in many ways).


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## Epona (Nov 24, 2011)

I have decided I have to play a necromancer at least once - I was just in a dungeon clearing out a bunch of necromancers and one of them raised the corpse of a goat.  Being attacked by a fucking zombie goat   It wasn't the most deadly foe I have ever faced but it definitely put a smile on my face


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 25, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I already have my next 3 characters planned in my head
> 
> So this one is a Nord who mostly focuses on sneaky archery, but with a bit of sword and shield (or mace and shield, atm) thrown in when things require it. She will likely join the Thieves' Guild out of a misguided sense of wanting to be bucking authority, but will probably end up not spending much time with them after she's seen what they're like. Will side with the Stormcloaks.
> 
> ...



You do worry me, a little. Like epona did when she said she cried when Skyrim was announced.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 25, 2011)

Any true RPG nerd knows that planning and rolling up the characters is half the fun of it


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 25, 2011)

I guess I'm not a true rpg nerd. I started life with final fantasy VII and before that secret of mana. I missed this whole second life thing. It's seems too removed from real life for this old square.


----------



## Epona (Nov 25, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> You do worry me, a little. Like epona did when she said she cried when Skyrim was announced.



pffft - it's not that often that a game comes around that I have even a marginal interest in, let alone one that I am excited to play.  I'm allowed to get overexcited every once in a while.  Oh and btw I realised today that this has been the longest thread (both in terms of number of posts and the length of time it's been active) I've ever started, so it's not just me!

And wot Stigmata said, half of the point of gaming is getting a pencil, a blank character sheet, and set of dice (or computer equivalent).


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 25, 2011)

Hey, I'm not having a go. I'd probably cry if they remade  FF VII. I'm just curious. I have far too much real life to get invested in the same way you guys do.


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## Ax^ (Nov 25, 2011)

.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Hey, I'm not having a go. I'd probably cry if they remade FF VII. I'm just curious. I have far too much real life to get invested in the same way you guys do.



You know, someone could take offence at that "I've got too much real life" comment, you know, as it implies those who get involved in the game more than you don't have enough real life.

Just saying.


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## Epona (Nov 25, 2011)

Yeah that is pretty offensive tbh.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 25, 2011)

Really? You've already said that you're a student, VP. I just mean that my 50 hour working week doesn't permit me to spend all night playing Skyrim.


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 25, 2011)

Believe me, I'd much rather have less real life. No offence intended.


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## Cid (Nov 25, 2011)

Same, 50+ hour working week doesn't leave much room for Skyrim, but then it doesn't leave much room for a social life, holidays, hobbies (not that Skyrim isn't a valid holiday/hobby) etc either...


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## Dandred (Nov 25, 2011)

After getting to level 20 I scrapped my second character, I used to many perks all over the shop rather than concentrating on a few so my character ended up being a bit useless at higher levels. My new character is a very hot Redguard female who is specializing in dual wielding axes. Got up to level 5 and I haven't had two experiences the same yet. This game is so huge it's incredible.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 25, 2011)

Cid said:


> Same, 50+ hour working week doesn't leave much room for Skyrim, but then it doesn't leave much room for a social life, holidays, hobbies etc either...



Indeed.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 25, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Hey, I'm not having a go. I'd probably cry if they remade  FF VII. I'm just curious. I have far too much real life to get invested in the same way you guys do.



Never understood why anyone cried at F7, it was so plastic in terms of emotion...


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 25, 2011)

We've talked about this before, k_e. You have no soul.. remember?


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Nov 25, 2011)

I preferred FFVIII

The plot is making me think I should have made a NORD.

I got some awesome sneak kills with perks in sneak. I have one-shotted people from miles away with bows. But now I want magic.. so I am speccing into destruction too. It would be a shame to totally miss magic..

WoW is missing a trick with the lack of warrior mages so...

In days gone by I would have resented the implication that I had a life also. But unfortunately one has sort of sneaked up on me. (+1 Sneak)

incase it hasn't been posted: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-personality-flaws-skyrim-forces-you-to-deal-with/



> King: Wanderer! Thank the gods you've come! The prophecy told us that a mighty warrior would arise, worthy of wielding Fjalnir, the God-axe, and slaying the evil Demon Prince Synraith. We believe you to be that warrior. What say you, traveler? Will you accept this task?
> 
> Me: Yea, verily I shall accept thine task and vanq- wait, Synraith? Fiery dude in a floating city? Cape made out of screeching souls? Ahhh, shit. I already killed that guy.​
> King: You ... already slew the Demon Prince, the Knife in the Dark, the Void at the Heart of All Men, whose identity you did not learn until just now?​
> ...


----------



## Garek (Nov 25, 2011)

@Sid - Those quests were inspired. Thank you for reminding me


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## Voley (Nov 25, 2011)

Right. I have a free weekend and my bro's copy of Skyrim to try-before-I-buy. I'll see you all some time after Xmas.


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## Ax^ (Nov 25, 2011)

Baldurs gate  > FFVII



Shall see what skyrim's like later


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## MooChild (Nov 25, 2011)

Finished all of the guild quests, the elder scroll quest and the main quest as a sneaky archer. Decided to start again with a heavy armoured two handed wielding Orc.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2011)

MooChild said:


> Finished all of the guild quests, the elder scroll quest and the main quest as a sneaky archer. Decided to start again with a heavy armoured two handed wielding Orc.



That's exactly what I'm doing. There's something awesome about being sneaky and getting off a room full of kills before anyone's noticed you, but sometimes you want to try the less ... subtle approach, and bash some heads


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## Crispy (Nov 25, 2011)

When I do my BASH THINGS playthrough, I'm going to make my guy look like Kahl Drogo, use two swords and not wear any body armour. Raaaar!


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 25, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> As stunning as those shots are, there's far too much sharpening for my tastes. They are lovely though.



I was testing some custom textures, which particularly on the last one, looked too sharp with the post processing preset, I agree.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 25, 2011)

Also, not my image, but LOL:


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## Voley (Nov 25, 2011)

wtf?


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## Cid (Nov 25, 2011)

Well you have to put all those cabbages somewhere.

The carrots in Skyrim are orange aren't they?


----------



## Voley (Nov 25, 2011)

Very true.


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## Stigmata (Nov 25, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> That's exactly what I'm doing. There's something awesome about being sneaky and getting off a room full of kills before anyone's noticed you, but sometimes you want to try the less ... subtle approach, and bash some heads



Sometimes you want them to know you're coming, like Omar in The Wire


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## tommers (Nov 25, 2011)

I can recommend the orc warrior thing. I kill basic enemies in one hit.

Once the boss of a cave came rushing out shouting 'you shouldn't have come he...' and I killed him before he finished.  Twat.


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## MooChild (Nov 25, 2011)

I'm finding it's a lot easier than a spellcaster. Although sneaky archer *(which the spellcaster developed into) is pretty awesome.
You can't beat running up to people and axing them in the face.


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 25, 2011)

I got "stuck" today for the first time. I couldn't move or jump and had to load my last autosave, which was prior to me having dealt out some carnage. 

I remember this happening in oldschool games quite often, but I'd have thought they'd have sorted it by now.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 25, 2011)

I got stuck in exactly the same spot after killing the archer lurking behind that rock.


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## Epona (Nov 25, 2011)

Now the Thalmor are hunting me down.  A group of them accosted me rather violently while I was happily mining some iron ore and minding my own business - nasty fight because of course I wasn't stealthed, first thing I knew about it was when I was watching my character mining and suddenly there were lightning bolts all over the place!  They sometimes have nice armour though, although one of the bodies floated off out to sea and I couldn't find it to loot 

Really loving the musical score, I don't think I've enjoyed any in game music this much since Arcanum, and that's saying something!


----------



## Crispy (Nov 25, 2011)

Epona said:


> Really loving the musical score, I don't think I've enjoyed any in game music this much since Arcanum, and that's saying something!







http://www.bethblog.com/index.php/2011/11/03/pre-order-the-four-disc-skyrim-soundtrack/

Order before Dec 23rd and it'll be signed by Jeremy Soule


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 25, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> We've talked about this before, k_e. You have no soul.. remember?



Nah I just don't have the emotional landscape of a 12 year old.


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## bouncer_the_dog (Nov 25, 2011)

So I played a drinking game on the way to the greybeards and woke up on completley the other side of the map!! Now I'm solving crimes there rather than dealing with this shout business..


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## Termite Man (Nov 25, 2011)

I haven't come across any of the daedric quests yet, who gives them out?


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## Termite Man (Nov 25, 2011)

also I have got to a point in 1 quest where it clearly relies on you having done a seemingly separate unrelated quest first (which I have done) if anyone knows what I'm on about but didn't do the unrelated quest, what happens with the quest you're trying to do (it involves dragons)


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 25, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I haven't come across any of the daedric quests yet, who gives them out?


 
The thane's right hand man at the palace in Solitude has one iirc. It's not obvious that's what it is though.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2011)

I have zero idea what you're talking about XD

However, in terms of Daedric quests, you just tend to stumble upon them, but they don't always announce themselves as being Daedric.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 25, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I have zero idea what you're talking about XD
> 
> However, in terms of Daedric quests, you just tend to stumble upon them, but they don't always announce themselves as being Daedric.


I might have one in my 'to do' list then.

On my wanders today I came across a noble being escorted by an imperial guard, being the good communist stormcloak that I am I killed them both.


----------



## Epona (Nov 25, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I haven't come across any of the daedric quests yet, who gives them out?



The Daedric Princes themselves, usually, but sometimes not by direct means - for some of them you don't ask to do their quest, you are picked on by them! Some of them you have to find their shrine, but some of them are quests which seem to start out quite innocently but turn out to be something more. A lot of them are level dependent.

I am reluctant to post spoilers because some of them come as a bit of a surprise and I really think they benefit hugely from the element of "oh fuck".


----------



## Random (Nov 25, 2011)

Is anyone else suffering from a jack of all trades problem? I'm levelling in lots of skills at once, but only one of them has got to above 25. So, despite being level 8 I'm really not much good at anything. (levelling in lockpick, sneak, archery, heavy armour, one handed, shield and also sometimes alchemy, smithing and destruction too.)

All I can kill right now are bandits and wolves. Loving the bandits' dialogues, btw. In Morrowind the bandits might as well have been unead, for all the humanity they displayed, apart from cursing while they fought. Now I can listen in on them before I attack and hear them discussing allsorts. Nice!


----------



## Corax (Nov 25, 2011)

Stupid Q alert!

Now I've got Lydia and given her all my worldly goods, can I tell her to "Stay!  Stay!  Stay!  Good boy!" and bugger off exploring, and she'll still be there with my stuff when I come back?

I don't have a house yet, and I _assume_ the above is true - but it would be a bit of a fucker if I'd misunderstood......


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2011)

Levelling is most important in those things you want to put perks into. To get the most out of it, imo, you need to identify 2 or 3 main skills that you would like to upgrade right to 100 with perks, and a small number of others you'll put a couple or so perks into. You can train in them (for money), you can grind (creating a ton of iron daggers, enchanting them, selling them off ... gets smithing, enchantment, and speech, and sees a modest return, for example), or you can let them level naturally, which will take longer, but if you use it you'll gain, eventually.

There are some things I can't personally see the point in putting perks into. Lockpicking, for example. I haven't put a single perk into it, but I'm able to pick master locks, and lockpicks are so easy to come by and so cheap, you'll never run out. Speech isn't a remarkably useful tree in this game. The only decent perk is that you can get shopkeeps to have more money, but it's no disaster if that never happens. You can still level in them to your heart's content, whenever you use them, but personally I wouldn't invest my perks that way. My perks get saved for combat and protection (and sneak, for stealth characters), and smithing. Smithing is a must, imo.

The good thing about this system in Skyrim is that you can level in everything as you use it, and you naturally become a bit better at it. You don't need to discriminate what you level in. But once you've identified the skill trees you want to unlock more useful and powerful aspects of, that's when you need to think a bit more carefully about using those skills often, and yes, sometimes grinding with them, so you level enough to get the perks you want.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2011)

Corax said:


> Stupid Q alert!
> 
> Now I've got Lydia and given her all my worldly goods, can I tell her to "Stay! Stay! Stay! Good boy!" and bugger off exploring, and she'll still be there with my stuff when I come back?
> 
> I don't have a house yet, and I _assume_ the above is true - but it would be a bit of a fucker if I'd misunderstood......



If you part ways with her, she'll go back to Dragonsreach, with your stuff, and she'll keep it. If you tell her to stay, theoretically she will stay put, but will still engage enemies if they wander past, I think. So she could just die. Her body should still have your gear on it though


----------



## Corax (Nov 25, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> If you part ways with her, she'll go back to Dragonsreach, with your stuff, and she'll keep it. If you tell her to stay, theoretically she will stay put, but will still engage enemies if they wander past, I think. So she could just die. Her body should still have your gear on it though


But I can tell her to stay, in Whiterun, and then bugger off?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2011)

Corax said:


> But I can tell her to stay, in Whiterun, and then bugger off?



Yeah. Her default location is Dragonsreach, in Whiterun. If you tell her you don't want her to follow you anymore, she'll always head back there, with your stuff, and be there whenever you need her.


----------



## Corax (Nov 25, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Yeah. Her default location is Dragonsreach, in Whiterun. If you tell her you don't want her to follow you anymore, she'll always head back there, with your stuff, and be there whenever you need her.


I'm not "parting ways" though, just telling her to stay where she is, in Whiterun - yeah?

I think I'm probably being a little over-cautious and obtuse.  Blame the Alto Wine (sloe gin).


----------



## Dooby (Nov 25, 2011)

I like the cutaways like going inside the mind, and would've liked the misty grove to be bigger. So I could play in it more and have a little pretend it's my real garden.
I hate dark underground caverns, even though I keep telling myself they're just coloured in different. But I always look for adventures that are above ground, they're easier to breathe in. *it's just pretend*


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 25, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Nah I just don't have the emotional landscape of a 12 year old.



I was 14 when it came out


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2011)

Maybe I'm just being really, really dense. If you tell her to "stay" she will stay. Doesn't matter where you are. She will have your stuff. She will continue to have your stuff when you find her again. If you merely want her to stay in Whiterun, the easiest option is to tell her you're parting ways. It's not permanent. It just means "head home I'll see you later". And she will be nice and safe and warm in Dragonsreach. By the door, or sometimes eating at the long table. And she will have your stuff.

Basically, she will always have your stuff. No matter what. Wherever you put her, leave her, send her, kill her, marry her, move her, etc. She keeps your stuff.

She is, after all, sworn to carry your burdens.

I have never asked her to "stay". When I travelled with her she either came into the fray with me, got lost somewhere down a path while she decided it was crucially important to slay wild beasts while I was still en route somewhere, or I left her at Dragonsreach, so she'd be where I could easily find her.

There's a risk, of course, that if you tell her to "stay" in a populated place, the paths of the other characters will budge her out of the way, and she might, if you left her there for a ridiculous amount of time, end up on the other side of town through being shoved and trampled on.

But she'll still have your stuff.


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## bouncer_the_dog (Nov 25, 2011)

I cleared out a castle of mages almost entirley by sneaking up behind them and slitting their throats. I also one shotted one from the shadows with an arrow in the forehead. It was brutal.

But I fucked it up in one room, killed one and then legged it as two other flamed and froze me.

But I returned about five minutes later and silently despatched them.

I must say that if I was hanging out in my mage castle and a bloke turned up and shot about five arrows into a friend of mine before legging it out the front door my reaction would not be to casually leave my former colleagues corpse slumped on the floor and return to my book, sitting at a table. Or would it..hmm..


----------



## Corax (Nov 25, 2011)

Ah!  I thought it _*was*_ permanent!

I thought the 'parting ways' option was releasing her from her duty, and she'd effectively just run off with all my stuff!


----------



## Dooby (Nov 25, 2011)

bouncer_the_dog said:


> I cleared out a castle of mages almost entirley by sneaking up behind them and slitting their throats. I also one shotted one from the shadows with an arrow in the forehead. It was brutal.
> 
> But I fucked it up in one room, killed one and then legged it as two other flamed and froze me.
> 
> ...


Ooh that's impressive, the mages are the only things that kill me. Had to pull in Lydia to do it for me.  My usual batter them in the face tactic doesn't work so well


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2011)

Mages are the hardest bastards (in terms of humanoids) in this game to kill. And playing as a mage you're the easiest to kill.

I call shenanigans


----------



## Crispy (Nov 25, 2011)

Get yourself some magic absorption and resistance  I just soak that shit up and spew it back at them.
Although being Breton helps a great deal in this regard...


----------



## Epona (Nov 25, 2011)

Best to one-shot mages from stealth before they get time to fire up their ward spells and start raising zombie goats from the dead.  It can be a tricky fight if they see you and set their undead livestock on you!

I've not put much effort into Smithing but I drank a potion to fortify my skill and managed to improve an Ebony bow to exquisite before enchanting it with my preferred paralyze enchantment and I'm quite impressed with it.  I have a feeling that if I concentrated on putting all my perks into the crafting skills it could make the game much too easy!  As it is I haven't put perks into any of them (except the first smithing perk, in a moment of madness) but I do find potions to fortify the skills occasionally and it makes a huge difference.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 26, 2011)

I've taken smithing a bit too far. I'm level 17 and think I've just hit 60. Haven't made anyhting exciting yet, am gonna start trying that shortly.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

I'm planning on getting smithing to 100, so I can make dragonscale armour. It's currently at 83. Can't see much benefit in making a new set of ebony weapons atm, my glass ones are all legendary and enchanted to suit. I will make daedric weapons when I can though.


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## Dooby (Nov 26, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm planning on getting smithing to 100, so I can make dragonscale armour. It's currently at 83. Can't see much benefit in making a new set of ebony weapons atm, my glass ones are all legendary and enchanted to suit. I will make daedric weapons when I can though.


Jebus, I thought I'd gone far with it. What overall level are you?


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## Corax (Nov 26, 2011)

I'm level 7!!  *proud*


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## Cid (Nov 26, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Get yourself some magic absorption and resistance  I just soak that shit up and spew it back at them.
> Although being Breton helps a great deal in this regard...



Indeed... In my case Dark elf vs fire mage... Um... Yeah, sorry it seems a little warm in here, let me PUT AN ARROW IN YOU FACE!

Others just make sure I have some potions, good thing about Skyrim is there aren't that many disciplines you have to deal with, so it's not that hard to have a few resist items and plenty of potions.

Oh, and drain magicka of course.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

Dooby said:


> Jebus, I thought I'd gone far with it. What overall level are you?



Level 34. It seems to have slowed a bit now though, but I'm reasonably happy with where I am skills-wise, so I'm cracking on with some questing.


----------



## Epona (Nov 26, 2011)

Yeah I found levelling slowed considerably once I was past lvl 30-ish.  That's probably to do with the fact that if you have a few skills you consistently rely on, they may well have reached 100 by that point and so are no longer contributing towards gaining levels even though you are still using them - stealth is my one, I've used it a lot but it hit the max ages ago, so although I was gaining levels at a rate of knots earlier in the game from increasing my stealth skill, it's no longer contributing to my overall level.


----------



## Random (Nov 26, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Get yourself some magic absorption and resistance


Are we talking potions and enchantments? I managed to get through Morrowind without doing any enchantment, and hardly ever necked a potion. Is it essential in Skyrim? Just cleared out a castle of apprentice mages and it did indeed get very messy; eventually I hid and looted the bodies while Lydia hunted them down like a terrier on rats.


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 26, 2011)

How do you get to smith silver weapons, I can't see an explicit perk for it, does it come automatically with another one?


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 26, 2011)

MooChild said:


> You can't beat running up to people and axing them in the face.



Instant decapitation with a two-handed sword is totally awesome.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 26, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Mages are the hardest bastards (in terms of humanoids) in this game to kill. And playing as a mage you're the easiest to kill.
> 
> I call shenanigans



Most mages take 2 or 3 swings from my battleaxe and they go down, but maybe I have specifically made myself into a mage killer (have I mentioned I don't like mages yet)


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 26, 2011)

I'm trying to get a balance between being sneaky and rushing in axe swinging, I reckon if I sneak too much my armour won't level up enough and i may need decent armour later.


----------



## tommers (Nov 26, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> Instant decapitation with a two-handed sword is totally awesome.



How have I avoided this?   Been using my greatsword for ages and never chopped anybody's head off?


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 26, 2011)

tommers said:


> How have I avoided this? Been using my greatsword for ages and never chopped anybody's head off?


I think you need to use a perk to get it.


----------



## Voley (Nov 26, 2011)

Blimey. Up till stupid o'clock playing this last night. I'm level 5 as a wood elf. I thought we were meant to be good archers though. I can't hit a fucking barn door let alone a deer or something. Have reverted to type as I do in most RPG's and am just twatting everything in sight with a double handed axe. As tactics go it's not subtle but seems to be working. I got through the barrow with all those skeletons OK adopting this approach.


----------



## Bingo (Nov 26, 2011)

its a mid to high level perk for 2h sword, my orc meathead just got it


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 26, 2011)

NVP said:


> Blimey. Up till stupid o'clock playing this last night. I'm level 5 as a wood elf. I thought we were meant to be good archers though. I can't hit a fucking barn door let alone a deer or something. Have reverted to type as I do in most RPG's and am just twatting everything in sight with a double handed axe. As tactics go it's not subtle but seems to be working. I got through the barrow with all those skeletons OK adopting this approach.



I can't hit a moving target with an arrow unless it is coming straight at me.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 26, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> I was 14 when it came out



And crying means your emotions were two years behind.


----------



## Voley (Nov 26, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I can't hit a moving target with an arrow unless it is coming straight at me.


Maybe we're just not cut out for this archery lark then. Oh well I've not actually bought this yet so maybe when I do I'll start again as an Orc. Brainless violence is more my style than all this creeping about in the dark malarkey tbh.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 26, 2011)

I still creep about but it's normally, sneak up let off a couple of arrows from stealth and rush in axe swinging. I have noticed if you miss the target they will wander off to see where the arrow landed and stand around confused so you have a stationary target.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 26, 2011)

I haven't tried using arrows yet, too keen on my war hammer. But the jabbawack comes in right handy when I remember it


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I'm trying to get a balance between being sneaky and rushing in axe swinging, I reckon if I sneak too much my armour won't level up enough and i may need decent armour later.



Top tip: when out in the wilderness, if you get attacked by wolves, stand there and let them attack you. You'll be hard enough to be able to take it for a while, and your light armour will increase accordingly.

You can try the same with anything, but mudcrabs deserve an axe to the face.

As you level further, the enemies get harder and seem to swarm quicker (for me anyway), so you'll end up levelling armour naturally anyway.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I can't hit a moving target with an arrow unless it is coming straight at me.



Yeah, me neither and I've been almost exclusively using a bow and I'm now level 34.

There's a good perk (with 2 levels to it) that slows time when you zoom in. Well worth it. Helps with things on the ground, like bandits, but not so great against dragons or wildlife that move quicker.

I'm a fucking boss at anything that's standing still though


----------



## Voley (Nov 26, 2011)

Zoom in? You can zoom in? This may be where I'm going wrong.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

lol, zooming is a perk too. Once you've got that perk, when you draw, if you press/click the other attack button it will zoom in and you hear your character take a deep breath. It slows time (initially by 25%, the 2nd perk ups that to 50%). It consumes stamina while you're in that mode.

It's dreadfully useful.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 26, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I have noticed if you miss the target they will wander off to see where the arrow landed and stand around confused so you have a stationary target.



i often fire an arrow to, lure people out.

or use my throw voice dragon shout


----------



## Voley (Nov 26, 2011)

Ah right you are. I doubt I'm ever going to hit anything enough to get that perk though tbh. I was born to be an Orc I'm convinced of it.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 26, 2011)

If I'm using a staff, like me wabbagabbacrackerjack wotever, what skill does that come under? `don't see staffs in the skills examples


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 26, 2011)

My character disdains bows and arrows, generally preferring to just stride into the cave/room and invite others to impale themselves on his sword.

It's a bitch dealing with dragons though as there's lots of running about waiting for them to land somewhere that is accessible by foot.


----------



## Voley (Nov 26, 2011)

If you have staff that comes under 'managerial / professional'. You should have a target-focussed career review with them with a set of core objectives and a set of clearly defined goals possibly leading to some sort of performance related pay bonus.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

Staffs are one-handed weapons, I believe.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> My character disdains bows and arrows, generally preferring to just stride into the cave/room and invite others to impale themselves on his sword.
> 
> It's a bitch dealing with dragons though as there's lots of running about waiting for them to land somewhere that is accessible by foot.



To be honest, that's my general tactic with dragons using a bow too, since it's so difficult to hit them while they're swooping about.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 26, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Staffs are one-handed weapons, I believe.


Cheers, strange they get no mention in the skills thing. Feel theyre less faff than bows and arrows


----------



## Voley (Nov 26, 2011)

I'm gonna have to buy this now obvs. I doubt I'll be able to wait for someone to get it me for Xmas. But then I'll fall foul of the 'don't buy yourself shit just before Xmas as you're family will, quite rightly, hate you for it' rule.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 26, 2011)

Lydia and I (foreground) both looking particularly mean, I thought.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 26, 2011)

Oh ffs, level 18 warrior and only now I twig it might be a good idea to visit the warrior stone. Arse.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

Dooby said:


> Oh ffs, level 18 warrior and only now I twig it might be a good idea to visit the warrior stone. Arse.



lolol. The game practically funnels you to it as soon as you leave Helgen XD


----------



## Dooby (Nov 26, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> lolol. The game practically funnels you to it as soon as you leave Helgen XD


You'd THINK.  I scamper off going Ooh shiny....  Got it now. I am such a twat.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 26, 2011)

To be fair, there is a lot of shiny in this ga........ ooh, shiny!


----------



## Crispy (Nov 26, 2011)

Dooby said:


> Cheers, strange they get no mention in the skills thing. Feel theyre less faff than bows and arrows


You'll level enchantment when you cast soul trap and use soul gems to refuel your enchanted staffs.


----------



## Epona (Nov 26, 2011)

Glad I'm not the only one who can't hit dragons when they're flying about, I thought I was just being a bit shit.

I still haven't found the warrior/thief/mage stones, got lost right after the tutorial dungeon.  I get lost quite a bit tbh, the map looks pretty but isn't particularly useful for navigation purposes.  Good job getting lost is such fun!


----------



## Dandred (Nov 26, 2011)

My first two characters didn't find the stones either, I can't believe how I missed them.........they are on the path from the starting dungeon to Riverrun....

I only just found my first Deadra statue after nearly 100 hours combined.


----------



## Corax (Nov 26, 2011)

I came across this map on the web, which whilst hideously presented, looks like it could come in handy at some point.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 26, 2011)

The in-game map is crap, even with a no clouds/zoom-in mod. I use this one as a visual reference, mostly to find paths.



Spoiler: Spoiler - Skyrim Map


----------



## Corax (Nov 26, 2011)

Pretty.  Where's that from?


----------



## Corax (Nov 26, 2011)

I relation to Skyrim, I have a wee graphics driver question btw, if anyone's well genned: http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/do-i-why-do-i-have-an-old-graphics-driver-on-my-new-pc.284819/


----------



## Epona (Nov 26, 2011)

Cheers Jackobi, the roads on that one are a great help!  Many is the time I've wandered off the road to look at something and been unable to find my way back and the in-game map really doesn't help that much.  The Morrowind map was a bit shite as well in that regard, I reckon the Oblivion one only seemed a bit better because most of the terrain was pretty flat so you could just point yourself in the right direction and you'd eventually get where you wanted to go, but it was just as useless in mountainous regions!


----------



## Crispy (Nov 26, 2011)

That map's well inaccurate. Doesn't represent the real layout of elevation and rivers at all.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 26, 2011)

I only use the map for vague directions anyway so it doesn't bother me that it's a bit crap. I'm starting to recognise scenery on certain routes so I can navigate those quite easily now.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 26, 2011)

Corax said:


> Pretty. Where's that from?



I'm not sure, I would have posted a link, but I had to upload it to Imageshack from my hard drive. I will post a link if I see it again.



Epona said:


> Cheers Jackobi, the roads on that one are a great help! Many is the time I've wandered off the road to look at something and been unable to find my way back and the in-game map really doesn't help that much.



It is the best looking map I have found so far, I was getting frustrated at ending up on the top of mountains, but I know the routes quite well now between Whiterun, Windhelm and Winterhold at least.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 26, 2011)

Crispy said:


> That map's well inaccurate. Doesn't represent the real layout of elevation and rivers at all.



There is one map that appears in-game on the loading screens and in one of the Jarl's quarters. Stick to that one if you want 



Spoiler: Spoiler - Skyrim Map


----------



## Crispy (Nov 26, 2011)

I


Jackobi said:


> There is one map that appears in-game on the loading screens and in one of the Jarl's quarters. Stick to that one if you want



I have _that _one blutacked on my wall


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 26, 2011)

Another good Skyrim map.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/skyrim/mapofskyrim.php#null


----------



## Corax (Nov 26, 2011)

What's a good Value:Weight ration for you?

I'm working off 10:1 for it to be worth taking atm, but I'm only on my second crawl. I've seen some working off 100:1!

Great explanation I came across that's worth sharing:



> Here's a reaaaaally basic newb tip, but I wasn't aware of this for a while, being new to the Elder Scrolls games.
> 
> You can't sell stolen goods to normal vendors.
> I was always wondering why my first character was so completely encumbered despite my having sold everything to the magic, general goods, and armor vendors. My inventory was always packed.
> ...


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 26, 2011)

After days of frustration, anger, and refund intentions, I realised, after replaying the same hour of game over and over, that to get passed the crashy bit you need to set gfx to low, play for a while (in my case, from meeting thingy in the underforge and *that thing* happening right through to the end of the Silver Sword cave) and then you can go back to ultra. Only seems to have started happening since the patch Bethesda put out. The nexus and Bethesda forums are full of VERY angry PC gamers. Releasing a patch with no improvements, a FUCK load of bugs and only restrictions is really poor form.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 26, 2011)

Look out! Wall bandit 

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/649872251711616414/AD1ADF0BBADA7C6CBEF374A219922EC17C7E7E5B/


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 26, 2011)

Mine's run flawlessly since the outset.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Nov 26, 2011)

a single arrow shot to the head whilst lurking in the shadows is very satisfactory,,


----------



## Supine (Nov 26, 2011)

Just started playing. I'm really getting into it


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 26, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> Mine's run flawlessly since the outset.



Mine ran flawlessly until the patch. Same scenario for significant numbers of users. Seems to be more common amongst win 7 64 and amd users.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 27, 2011)

finished the theves guild quests

man this game really is epic

this  raised the bar interms of western RPG


----------



## poului (Nov 27, 2011)

this heavily perked destruction set-up i've got is the bomb. i'm so glad i completed the winterhold college quests before anything else. Nothing beats giving some no-mark bandit a sharp lightning bolt to the balls.


----------



## poului (Nov 27, 2011)

#double post#


----------



## poului (Nov 27, 2011)

#triple post/shit internet#


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 27, 2011)

who else  here  thinks  skyrim is EASYly the game of the year?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 27, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> who else  here  thinks  skyrim is EASYly the game of the year?


For me, there is no contest. It's got some damned strong competition too. Portal 2 was valve's A game for single player (now put that same effort and polish into half life 3 you bastards!) and in the a absence of skyrim would have walked it. But the sheer scale and breadth of the world that they've made here... It's what gaming is all about if you ask me. A perfectly realised world to explore, with systems and rules to understand and master. I just wish there was more than one studio making this sort of game!


----------



## Epona (Nov 27, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Mine ran flawlessly until the patch. Same scenario for significant numbers of users. Seems to be more common amongst win 7 64 and amd users.



Same here, Win 7 64 bit and AMD GPU - ran fine til the patch, then got really laggy and massive fps drops.  Don't know quite what happened because as far as I know the patch was just a Steam security thing.  It's running smoother with the 4Gb launcher that VP recommended a few pages back (thanks!) but I've also had to turn shadow quality down to high when it ran fine on ultra before!

Still, there's a patch due to be released next week, hopefully that will fix a lot of issues.


----------



## Epona (Nov 27, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> who else here thinks skyrim is EASYly the game of the year?



Ignoring the fact that GOTY awards are meaningless these days as every man and his dog seems to hand one out... 

Yeah obviously, at least in my opinion. Despite its flaws it's still one of the most engaging and certainly the largest game released in the last few years. Earlier in the year I thought The Witcher 2 might pull some RPG category awards because it is a great game, looks utterly stunning, and I would like to see CDPR get some recognition for their achievement, but honestly I think Skyrim will sweep the board certainly in terms of RPG category, and possibly best game also.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 27, 2011)

for me skyrim is not good.

it goes beyond that.

i really think skyrim is a benchmark in RPG.

in fact skyrim is a benchmark in non liner gameplay.

it's not a sandbox game. it's a fucking beach.


----------



## Epona (Nov 27, 2011)

I think it's lived up to the extremely high expectations I had of it very well   And that's high praise given how fussy I am about games, and how much I expect from Bethesda.


----------



## tommers (Nov 27, 2011)

I think it will undoubtedly sweep the boards.

It's a life simulator though. Dark souls is much tighter, more designed and has more ups and downs.  They're completely different experiences but they've been the stand outs for me this year, by an absolute country mile.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 27, 2011)

I think this is the first game I've bought that was actually released this year so it's game of the year for me (but out of a possible selection of 1 thats not hard). I tend to get disappointed if games can be finished too quickly, especially when you are paying £40 odd for them but this is great value for money just on playing time alone and that playing time is just so much fun, the great thing about it is people of all abilities can play because there are no bits that are too hard (yes shippy I'm talking about you) and it's not really too easy either.


----------



## Corax (Nov 27, 2011)

I think Saints Row III should have been delayed.  Their thunder has been well and truly klepped.


----------



## Corax (Nov 27, 2011)

Have others been propelled into space by being hit by a giant?  I'd assumed it was deliberate (it's funny and cool ffs), but it's being described as a glitch in lots of places.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Nov 27, 2011)

I feel slight guilt at exploiting the game, for instance filling a troll with arrows as it runs around underneath me like an idiot. But bastard would two shot me if I went down there..

I like to play games with a bit of finess, like doing a perfectly placed jump in mario or a silenced pistol headshot in Goldeneye. Doing short controlled burst in MW (when it's not necessary).

I haven't got there yet in Skyrim. My fights are undignified flailing around shouting 'die die' and ending on minimal health. So I now have no qualms about cowardly lurking and the rest..


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 27, 2011)

Corax said:


> Have others been propelled into space by being hit by a giant? I'd assumed it was deliberate (it's funny and cool ffs), but it's being described as a glitch in lots of places.


I have , I'm trying to avoid giants because they are killing me with one hit but I have to kill one for a mission I'm on so I might just have to snipe with the arrows and then run away repeatedly.


----------



## Corax (Nov 27, 2011)

Mammoth whispering.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 27, 2011)

Just started playing and damn does appear to be a little of the epic and friggin huge side

*goes back to losing more hours to it**


----------



## ohmyliver (Nov 27, 2011)

Game of the year, yes, definitely. I'm also finding it interesting the attachment to some of the NPCs, tw*tty teenage death lols videos aside obviously...

Although having just had an epic fighting a fire breathing dragon in a village consisting of thatched buildings, all of which didn't catch alight despite being blasted with fire , possibly a little bit of environment damage would have helped


----------



## Epona (Nov 27, 2011)

ohmyliver said:


> Although having just had an epic fighting a fire breathing dragon in a village consisting of thatched buildings, all of which didn't catch alight despite being blasted with fire , possibly a little bit of environment damage would have helped



Unlikely to happen in a Bethesda game or at least certainly TES (outside of specific scripted quest events), they have stated that they create a liveable world and prefer not to have bits of it destroyed randomly in a way that might permanently mess up the world for the player! So don't expect environmental damage in a Beth game any time soon, or probably ever, it's at odds with what they want to do and is a definite design decision, not an oversight or something they didn't have time to include.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 27, 2011)

Corax said:


> I think Saints Row III should have been delayed. Their thunder has been well and truly klepped.



i'm finding SRIII a good counterpoint to an epic skyrim session


----------



## Supine (Nov 27, 2011)

In. Impressed so far


----------



## Corax (Nov 27, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i'm finding SRIII a good counterpoint to an epic skyrim session


Not got it yet, but I'm looking forward to playing it.  I just think they've misjudged it commercially, as it would be getting more coverage if everyone wasn't too busy Rimming.


----------



## Voley (Nov 27, 2011)

I set a mammoth on fire yesterday. Fun while it lasted.


----------



## Corax (Nov 27, 2011)

Cue Daily Mail outrage: _*"Video Game About Torturing Endangered Animals Angers Rights Groups"*_


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 27, 2011)

Corax said:


> Cue Daily Mail outrage: _*"Video Game About Torturing Endangered Animals Angers Rights Groups"*_


it is the kind of thing peta would moan about


----------



## Epona (Nov 27, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> it is the kind of thing peta would moan about



They'd have a field day over the whole zombie goat thing then


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 27, 2011)

so , I got a bit annoyed about becoming a vampire, took a lot of going back and fucking about to find someone i could feed on so I didnt become starved and instantly hateable, once this was done I got myself cured. Went to carry on doing what I was trying to do originally , got completely sidetracked and that was most of Sunday gone 

Damn drinking contests


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 27, 2011)

I'm irritatingly close to buying a copy of Windows 7 specifically to Bootcamp to Skyrim. (Well, also bootcamp to all the other PC games I have.)


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 27, 2011)

You'll be pleasantly surprised, if you've not used it. It's a superb OS.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 27, 2011)

I have no intention of using it for anything else apart from playing games - it's just that Lion doesn't include Bootcamp drivers for XP any more.

eta: although, I do have the old Snow Leopard discs which presumably come with Bootcamp XP drivers somewhere, if I can extract them.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 27, 2011)

Only just got round to visiting Markarth. Wow, what a stunning city


----------



## Epona (Nov 27, 2011)

Quick question for those who have done The Companions questline, those who have not joined them should not look if they don't want spoilers



Spoiler



If I go "all the way" with them, so to speak, is there a cure or am I stuck like that for the rest of the game?



Ta


----------



## Epona (Nov 27, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Only just got round to visiting Markarth. Wow, what a stunning city



Kind of beautiful, kind of nasty and seedy - I feel that way about most of the cities tbh, only Whiterun out of all the major cities seems to have a good vibe!  That's a good thing IMO.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 27, 2011)

Epona said:


> Quick question for those who have done The Companions questline, those who have not joined them should not look if they don't want spoilers
> 
> 
> 
> ...



you can change your mind


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 27, 2011)

Epona said:


> Quick question for those who have done The Companions questline, those who have not joined them should not look if they don't want spoilers
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You're offered a way back pretty soon


----------



## Bingo (Nov 28, 2011)

wow just ran my 1st Dunmer ruin... wicked dungeon! My pure mage has to take it soooo steady, have decided to get light armour now my robes can f off !!


----------



## Dooby (Nov 28, 2011)

Epona said:


> Quick question for those who have done The Companions questline, those who have not joined them should not look if they don't want spoilers
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Why are you wanting a cure? That's the reason I joined companions. Yay.


----------



## tommers (Nov 28, 2011)

You don't need that trickery!


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 28, 2011)

I haz a bug, I wonder if any of you have encountered it, in the ' diplomatic immunity ' quest , you do everything that is required and you are sent back to riverswhatever ( although it could be white run, not important ) to speak with Delphine. You enter the inn at all times of day and the locator arrow points to where she is( it almost looks as so she is beneath you ) but she is no where to be seen, I cant find a way downstairs. Ive re-started, reloaded the game but still the same thing 

anyone else found this ??


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 28, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> I haz a bug, I wonder if any of you have encountered it, in the ' diplomatic immunity ' quest , you do everything that is required and you are sent back to riverswhatever ( although it could be white run, not important ) to speak with Delphine. You enter the inn at all times of day and the locator arrow points to where she is( it almost looks as so she is beneath you ) but she is no where to be seen, I cant find a way downstairs. Ive re-started, reloaded the game but still the same thing
> 
> anyone else found this ??



I thought that for a short while, then realised there is a way to get downstairs...


----------



## Crispy (Nov 28, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> I cant find a way downstairs. Ive re-started, reloaded the game but still the same thing


Look everywhere in her bedroom...


Bingo said:


> wow just ran my 1st Dunmer ruin... wicked dungeon! My pure mage has to take it soooo steady, have decided to get light armour now my robes can f off !!


Not using any protective spells? Oak/stoneflesh?


----------



## 100% masahiko (Nov 28, 2011)

is this game better than Dark Souls?


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 28, 2011)

100% masahiko said:


> is this game better than Dark Souls?



They're very different.

It's a difficult question, I've got both and I think Dark Souls is better, especially as the console version (PS3 anyway) of Skyrim has crippling performance issues and bugs. I've swapped Skyrim PS3 for the Xbox version to see if that's any better, if I had a decent PC I'd definitely get Skyrim on that in preference to the consoles.

If you ask me again in 6 months when I've had time to play Skyrim to something approaching 'completion' the answer might be different.

I'd wager you'll get the answer Skyrim on this thread, but I'd urge you to try Dark Souls.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 28, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Look everywhere in her bedroom...


i was told to go to the inn ( well thats where the direction arrow is pointing ) does that mean she has a room there ?

Thanks for the advice tho


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 28, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> I thought that for a short while, then realised there is a way to get downstairs...



Thanks,

I have more of a look around when i get home


----------



## tommers (Nov 28, 2011)

100% masahiko said:


> is this game better than Dark Souls?



what fenboy said.  Very different games.  This is like a nice walk in a lovely park, whereas dark souls is a trek across a harrowing desert, but with a really really good thing at the end of it.

I would urge everybody to play it, it is amazing.


----------



## MooChild (Nov 28, 2011)

Well, operation Orc Two Handed Axe with added brutality seems to be paying dividends. I've got smithing up to 92, crafted some epic daedric armour and a daedric battle axe. He's a radical stormcloak, so when he sees imperial people in the wilds, he kills them. He was even tempted to kill the bard in the inn simply because he was singing pro-Empire songs. That bard is lucky he never leaves the inn, thats for sure.

The masque of clavicus vile looks awesome too, even though its stats are sub-par.

Also the steed stone is awesome for heavy armour wearers, if you can find it


----------



## crustychick (Nov 28, 2011)

just started playing this yesterday as the boy was too hungover (bless) and had to sleep all day. awesome (for me).

people have started telling me I look like shit though - do I *need* to sleep or something?


----------



## Crispy (Nov 28, 2011)

crustychick said:


> just started playing this yesterday as the boy was too hungove (bless) and had to sleep all day. awesome.
> 
> people have started telling me I look like shit though - do I *need* to sleep or something?



You have a disease - check your Active Effects in the magic menu. Take a Cure Disease potion, or worship at a shrine.


----------



## crustychick (Nov 28, 2011)

Crispy said:


> You have a disease - check your Active Effects in the magic menu. Take a Cure Disease potion, or worship at a shrine.


ah shit  that makes sense... i vaguely remember that now!


----------



## 100% masahiko (Nov 28, 2011)

tommers said:


> what fenboy said. Very different games. This is like a nice walk in a lovely park, whereas dark souls is a trek across a harrowing desert, but with a really really good thing at the end of it.
> 
> I would urge everybody to play it, it is amazing.





fen_boy said:


> They're very different.
> 
> It's a difficult question, I've got both and I think Dark Souls is better, especially as the console version (PS3 anyway) of Skyrim has crippling performance issues and bugs. I've swapped Skyrim PS3 for the Xbox version to see if that's any better, if I had a decent PC I'd definitely get Skyrim on that in preference to the consoles.
> 
> ...



I get the idea thanks!
I suppose the question is, which game is better for the 'casual' player?

I'll probably be able to waste 30 mins to an hour per session. 
And per session is once every other day...
I love nasty scary games, and combat, lots of combat in a nightmarish surroundings (is why Dark Souls is so appealing)
.
But Skyrim is easier, less vivid - open world...

It's just I don't want to waste thirty odd quid for a game I can't play...and Dark Souls seems that way.
How hard is it? I mean really. Is it so difficult you end up stressing? Cos I can't handle that.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 28, 2011)

The whole point of Dark Souls is that it's hard. It's oldschool hard - you will die a lot until you are skilled enough to progress. Then you will continue to die when the next challenge comes up.

Skyrim is as hard as you want it to be. Dial it down to Easy, pick up a massive axe and you can just chop away at your leisure. It's a massive game though. If you're only nibbling at it in 30-60 minute chunks, you'll be playing it all year.


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 28, 2011)

I'd say Dark Souls doesn't lend itself well to very short sessions, the lack of progress could become frustrating. It's perfectly possible to play for half an hour and get pretty much nowhere. In Skyrim you'd at least make some progress even if it's just a small amount.


----------



## tommers (Nov 28, 2011)

When I fight dragons in skyrim I really miss the roll button.


----------



## 100% masahiko (Nov 28, 2011)

Dark Souls sounds amazing, providing you have enough time to play... 

Skyrim it is then. Lots of head-chopping I guess.


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 28, 2011)

Though it seems a little odd for me to recommend Skyrim on the basis that you don't have much time to play.


----------



## 100% masahiko (Nov 28, 2011)

fen_boy said:


> Though it seems a little odd for me to recommend Skyrim on the basis that you don't have much time to play.



I'm on BF3 (level 7!), Arkham City (3% completed) and will take on Skyrim.
Games tend to last me years.


----------



## fen_boy (Nov 28, 2011)

Are you on PS3 for Skyrim? If so I'd wait till they patch it.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 28, 2011)

My  main glitch seems to be that half the location indicators on my miscellaneous quests point me to the Lover stone which has nothing to do with them. Spent a long time loitering with intent up there before I realised that couldn't be right...


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 28, 2011)

Dooby said:


> My main glitch seems to be that half the location indicators on my miscellaneous quests point me to the Lover stone which has nothing to do with them. Spent a long time loitering with intent up there before I realised that couldn't be right...


 
lover stone eh? sounds you were dogging more than loitering..


----------



## Dooby (Nov 28, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> lover stone eh? sounds you were dogging more than loitering..


I did feel a bit dirty. THough I haven't done any of that malaraky since fable 3 when I ended up withe multiple families demanding money off me


----------



## tommers (Nov 28, 2011)

I still miss my zombie son from fable 2.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 28, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I have no intention of using it for anything else apart from playing games - it's just that Lion doesn't include Bootcamp drivers for XP any more.
> 
> eta: although, I do have the old Snow Leopard discs which presumably come with Bootcamp XP drivers somewhere, if I can extract them.



I got Windows 7 for this exact same reason a month or so ago. Well, for SW:TOR, but Skyrim was a pleasant bonus.

I haven't booted into OSX for probably 3 weeks now


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 28, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I got Windows 7 for this exact same reason a month or so ago. Well, for SW:TOR, but Skyrim was a pleasant bonus.
> 
> I haven't booted into OSX for probably 3 weeks now


I did actually go out and buy a copy of W7 this afternoon. I can probably claim it against tax I suppose, it has some legitimate uses. (I have a feeling that HMRC might not believe that Skyrim counts, though given that I work with games, it could be research material...)


----------



## Bingo (Nov 28, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Look everywhere in her bedroom...
> 
> Not using any protective spells? Oak/stoneflesh?



Yeah just started using stoneflesh halfway thru... not bad but just smithed myself some elf armour so gonna have to put up with silly goldness for a bit til I can get some glass stuff! What a game tho...


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 28, 2011)

I just got killed by a rat


----------



## crustychick (Nov 28, 2011)

boy has been playing all day. wonder if i'll get to have another go tonight


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 28, 2011)

I'm not too impressed by the combat system, I would prefer the option of a 'pause and cast' system as used by Dragon Age. A lot of close encounters with swords or melee weapons turn in to frantic left mouse clicks, it can feel a bit too chaotic at times.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 28, 2011)

his life is lost, youre on the brink, looks like there may have to be 2 x consoles and tv's in your pad...


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 28, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> I'm not too impressed by the combat system, I would prefer the option of a 'pause and cast' system used by Dragon Age. A lot of close encounters with swords or melee weapons turn in to frantic left mouse clicks, it can feel a bit too chaotic at times.



play it using an xbox360 controller, it works much better ( as has been mentioned a couple of times already  )


----------



## Corax (Nov 28, 2011)

Dooby said:


> My main glitch seems to be that half the location indicators on my miscellaneous quests point me to the Lover stone which has nothing to do with them. Spent a long time loitering with intent up there before I realised that couldn't be right...


Have you checked to make sure you haven't got more than one quest as 'active' in your Quest list?


----------



## Dooby (Nov 28, 2011)

Corax said:


> Have you checked to make sure you haven't got more than one quest as 'active' in your Quest list?


Doesn't seem to be linked to that if you mean when you highlight it and get a marker, like? I've got about 300 ongoing quests, obvs. CAn't find any quests at all going on at the lover stone either, disappointingly..


----------



## Supine (Nov 28, 2011)

fen_boy said:


> Are you on PS3 for Skyrim? If so I'd wait till they patch it.



I've not had any problems. Touch wood!


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 28, 2011)

Is it the blue custom marker, Dooby?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 28, 2011)

oh , i would just like to say how much fun the drinking contest quest was , much longer than expected, and i kinda love the goat


----------



## Crispy (Nov 28, 2011)

Aaargh I keep hearing about this drinking quest! How do you pick it up?


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 28, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> oh , i would just like to say how much fun the drinking contest quest was , much longer than expected, and i kinda love the goat



I had a drink with them and promptly buggered off, didn't realise there was a quest!


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 28, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> I had a drink with them and promptly buggered off, didn't realise there was a quest!



That is a different scenario I think, with the three guys at the crossroads?


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 28, 2011)

Yeah three guys, they popped up in a couple of places (or at least I think they did, maybe it was the same place, by a road)


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 28, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Aaargh I keep hearing about this drinking quest! How do you pick it up?



At one of the inns in Whiterun, there is a lone man sitting at a table challenging to a drinking contest. Triggering it may depend upon another scenario being complete, as I am sure we had previously spoken and he wasn't up for it.

Edit: At the Bannered Mare in Whiterun near the well.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 28, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> At one of the inns in Whiterun, there is a lone man sitting at a table challenging to a drinking contest. Triggering it may depend upon another scenario being complete, as I am sure we had previously spoken and he wasn't up for it.


Oh I did the bloke in the pub drinking contest. You have to be above mevel 15 or so apparently for it to take off


----------



## Dooby (Nov 28, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> Is it the blue custom marker, Dooby?


Nah, it's when you can't remember what any of your quests were about so click on show location of tehm and the map pans to an area with the quest location in the middle, no markers in this case


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 28, 2011)

I have done it too, at level 14, and it turned in to chaos. I ended up murdering a few people and felt I was heading towards the darkside.


----------



## Jackobi (Nov 28, 2011)

Dooby said:


> Nah, it's when you can't remember what any of your quests were about so click on show location of tehm and the map pans to an area with the quest location in the middle, no markers in this case



Are you using any mods?


----------



## Dooby (Nov 28, 2011)

Jackobi said:


> Are you using any mods?


Any whats now?  Am playing on xbox, straight up, no fancy gizmos.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 28, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> oh , i would just like to say how much fun the drinking contest quest was , much longer than expected, and i kinda love the goat



Might do the that one later then, I've left him waiting for a while now.

Met the Dark Brotherhood for the first time yesterday.


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 28, 2011)

Is there more than one drinking contest because I got into one in Winterhold not Whiterun.


----------



## Epona (Nov 28, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> Is there more than one drinking contest because I got into one in Winterhold not Whiterun.



The same one - it just has a random starting point (could be any inn, anywhere)


----------



## Termite Man (Nov 28, 2011)

I'm at a lumber mill and one of the lads working there put a log on the thing ready to cut, I actually said out loud 'cool can i pull the switch'


----------



## revol68 (Nov 28, 2011)

right getting pissed off cos my communist prophet of righteous vengeance hasn't been able to wipe out that fucking thief guild in Riften, apparently you can't actually kill them, what a load of shit, so now I've joined the cunts despite the fact they are anti working class gangster scum doing the bidding of some some pseudo feudal lords!

why can't i kill them! and do i fucking have to pick a fucking side between all those disgusting ruling class shits peddling their competing bourgeois narratives? The blood and soil fascism of the Stormcloaks or the empire building Imperials? the only group I have some sympathy with is those "feral" fucks i'm too drunk to remember the name of who have a fuck ton of hot women archers dressed in ripped rags but I can;t interact with them beyond shooting them in the face.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 28, 2011)

revol68 said:


> the only group I have some sympathy with is those "feral" fucks i'm too drunk to remember the name of who have a fuck ton of hot women archers dressed in ripped rags but I can;t interact with them beyond shooting them in the face.


Been to Markarth and investigated the murder yet?


----------



## Epona (Nov 29, 2011)

Yeah the Thieves Guild is not all nicey nicey Robin Hood "steal the poor folks taxes back from the tax collector" like it was in Oblivion.  My character has had to smash a few faces (and vases) this time round, and seems to be helping one proto-capitalist shitebag get even more shitey.

I kind of like that there are more grey areas in this game though.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 29, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Been to Markarth and investigated the murder yet?



yeah and got myself locked and and then led a prison break and yet still I can't interact with the feral fucks!

yeah there is a lot more grey areas in Skyrim than even Fallout 3 though I don't think that necessarily is a good thing, it's everyone is a shit is pretty much the cynical wisdom of the age, alas the wisdom of the idiot for whom every cow is black at night.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 29, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> You'll be pleasantly surprised, if you've not used it. It's a superb OS.


So far, Windows 7 has been an utter, utter pain in the cock. I'd forgotten what the BSOD looked like before now. I'm not going to fucking bed before it's actually fucking working, but I will potentially be very tired and pissed off when I get up in the morning. I've already spent about five hours on it.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 29, 2011)

I have literally never seen a bsod with windows 7


----------



## Epona (Nov 29, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> I have literally never seen a bsod with windows 7



I did, once, but it was while I was tinkering with the voltage settings on my RAM so it wasn't a random system failure that came out of nowhere. I think Win 7 is probably the most stable Windows OS I've used to date.


----------



## tommers (Nov 29, 2011)

A dragon attacked whiterun last night and killed carlotta. I found her body and her daughter next to it.  Tragically her daughter doesn't seem to realise anything is wrong, she still says she looks after a stall with her mother and it's hard work but fun. I imagined what it would be like for my son if I died and he had nobody to look after him. 

So obviously I looted the body and took the key to her house.  I'll have a look later and see if she's got anything nice.


----------



## Garek (Nov 29, 2011)

I love this game. I got to play it properly for a few hours last night. Unlike others I can't dip in and out as I find it does work for me. I find I need to get myself immersed.

Anyways I am doing bard mission so I was looking for a flute and stumbled across an abandoned light house and instead of going to get the flute I ended spending two hours exploring that instead. I love getting distracted and finding myself doing something completely different to what I intended. Really shows how much there is to do in this game.

In the end I did eventually get the flute and tonight I will be heading back to the bards college to complete a couple of the missions I have open. Then, finally, I may see about starting up some dragon action. I am now level 18 so it is getting silly that I have encountered one yet. Need to trigger that quest line.

Oh and damn ui. I didn't realise the font of mission becomes bigger due to selecting up and down with keyboard (I guess because that is how you do it with a pad) so at one stage I thought large font missions were main quests. Grrrr.

Anyone DL'ed the snow mod? I have installed 'Realistic Snow' and it is very good. Makes the North East an oppressive place to explore. I am hankering after some time in Riften after all this bloody snow.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 29, 2011)

Garek said:


> Anyone DL'ed the snow mod? I have installed 'Realistic Snow' and it is very good. Makes the North East an oppressive place to explore. I am hankering after some time in Riften after all this bloody snow.



Does it really make that much of a difference? I couldn't tell too much in the screenshots on the mod page. Does it provide a hit to performance? I already stutter a little now and again when in an area with lots to render (although for the most part, running it on High, with a couple of other things turned up even higher, and with the hi-res sky and water and character mods, it's not too bad at all).


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 29, 2011)

loved that little lighthouse quest.    lots of eggs after that.


----------



## Random (Nov 29, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> I just got killed by a rat


Flashback to Privateers Cove!

Have been considering reinstalling Daggerfall, but reading the Bethesda forums on it just reminded me how much I hated that stupid first dungeon; and the other dungeons. Getting lost underground is not something I enjoy. All the floaty pixelated priestess-boobs aren't enough to make up for that.


----------



## Garek (Nov 29, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Does it really make that much of a difference? I couldn't tell too much in the screenshots on the mod page. Does it provide a hit to performance? I already stutter a little now and again when in an area with lots to render (although for the most part, running it on High, with a couple of other things turned up even higher, and with the hi-res sky and water and character mods, it's not too bad at all).



I'm not sure. I should probably have visited the snowy area before installing to see if there was a difference. No performance hit at all for me.


----------



## Structaural (Nov 29, 2011)




----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 29, 2011)

I may or may not have just downloaded this for my Kindle: http://t.co/T1xBOxFN


----------



## al (Nov 29, 2011)

At first I thought my talking dog was awesome, now I'm very close to killing it in the face - NEVER take a dog when you aim to be stealthy, it's worse than Lydia...


----------



## crustychick (Nov 29, 2011)

I keep finding myself pointlessly jumping. must get myself out of bad old habits!


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 29, 2011)

al said:


> At first I thought my talking dog was awesome, now I'm very close to killing it in the face - NEVER take a dog when you aim to be stealthy, it's worse than Lydia...



i saw something that looked like a wolf in the distance, ran up to it , released a fireball, then then just as it burnt up the indicator came up stating it was a stray dog, i actually got really upset that i killed a future pet 

god this game is seriously starting to affect my mental health


----------



## Voley (Nov 29, 2011)

I've got a wolf as a familiar. Minor battles now see me sitting back and letting Lydia and the wolf do most of the groundwork before I swoop in with the axe and gain all the glory.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 29, 2011)

By the time I've got back from the pub it should all be downloaded onto my now-working Win7 partition. I'm sick as a Glitter today and clearly the best cure will be sitting about all night playing silly games.

Feel a bit guilty for not finishing Dragon Age first though.


----------



## 100% masahiko (Nov 29, 2011)

Just got it.
Loadsa fun!!!


----------



## Corax (Nov 29, 2011)

Anyone using the QD Inventory mod?







I think I'll wait until he's ironed out some of the known wrinkles, but the concept would be much more usable than the default.


----------



## Corax (Nov 29, 2011)

Surprised we've not had this (unless I missed it).


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 29, 2011)

I read there was going to be an update tomorrow, somewhere. I think.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 29, 2011)

Yep there is a patch coming, should clear up a fair few of the more obvious and maybe annoying bugs, like people showing up dead at your wedding, and so on


----------



## Corax (Nov 29, 2011)

I hope vampires are bad.  I just found some locked in cages in Fellglow Keep dungeons, so bravely killed them with burning arrows through the bars.

I feel a bit dirty.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 29, 2011)

Corax said:


> Anyone using the QD Inventory mod?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Illegible font, but otherwise it looks nice.


----------



## Epona (Nov 29, 2011)

I'm going to be getting that mod after the known issues have been ironed out.  Thankfully the font is changeable because that one is dire, I don't know what possessed the author to advertise it with that one in particular!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 29, 2011)

I just finished downloading it a few minutes ago - because helpfully Windows decided to turn itself off and stop downloading while I was out - and now the CUNTING THING WON'T START BECAUSE IT SAYS IT WANTS TO UPDATE TAKING APPROXIMATELY 22 MINUTES.

for FUCK'S SAKE


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Nov 29, 2011)

I managed to squat jump over an entire mountain range today. Weird. But cool. Xbox technique: run left and right bashing Y looking at a mass of grey and dark grey pixels..


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 29, 2011)

After having spent far too much time playing SW:TOR this weekend, trying to get back into Skyrim's controls is proving ..... frustrating.

I keep trying to move the camera around and suddenly realise I'm firing arrows instead.

One control scheme to rule them all ... etc.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 29, 2011)

argh annoying bug in  the Ansilvund Excavation

it's a pillar puzzle  with a rather cool way to solve it   and i solved it the cool way    but  for some reason  the pillars won't turn!


----------



## Epona (Nov 30, 2011)

Has anyone been going everywhere on foot? I've noticed that the road signs take you on some very bizarre routes, I'm starting to wonder if myself and my drinking competition buddy might have tampered with them on our night out. There's a pretty direct route between Windhelm and Riften, but if you follow the road signs they take you almost as far as Ivarstead before sending you back in the right direction. I know there are mountains and stuff, but it's just silly 

I just did a particularly nasty Daedric quest in a manner that can only be described as poetic justice - glad I took time to think about what I was going to do.


----------



## al (Nov 30, 2011)

The dog is gone!  And I didn't even kill him....


----------



## Crispy (Nov 30, 2011)

PS3/Xbox patch is out.

DON'T get it. It breaks all magic resistances (fire/ice/lightning) and dragons fly backwards. Bethesda you geniuses >_<


----------



## 100% masahiko (Nov 30, 2011)

why is everyone attacking me for no reason?


----------



## Random (Nov 30, 2011)

100% masahiko said:


> why is everyone attacking me for no reason?


Who?


----------



## 100% masahiko (Nov 30, 2011)

I'm only two hours in...
so the first town where the blacksmith lives.
elves. bandits. traders. everyone is attacking me and i can't engage in any dialogue.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 30, 2011)

You must have killed someone in the village. Load an earlier save.


----------



## Random (Nov 30, 2011)

Do civilians also run away in combat situations?


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 30, 2011)

The consequences for stealing are a little harsh if you ask me

Only been play a few hours and inadvertent stole an apple whilst trying to instigate a conversation in one of the inn keepers, cue 2 of them trying to beat me to death thru the village, ran off and came back and paid off the bounty,

Then 3 hired thugs come after me to teach me a lesson about stealing

It was a friggin apple


----------



## 100% masahiko (Nov 30, 2011)

thanks...probably...i attacked the kid's dog.


----------



## tommers (Nov 30, 2011)

Crispy said:


> PS3/Xbox patch is out.
> 
> DON'T get it. It breaks all magic resistances (fire/ice/lightning) and dragons fly backwards. Bethesda you geniuses >_<


 
Does it really?  Sigh.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 30, 2011)

i've taken to  just  headshotting  everyone i see  out and about.    i wish there was an easy way to tell if  people you bump into are nasty or not.

i may have to save game  and walk up to them.

or  perhapos  throw voice might work


----------



## Corax (Nov 30, 2011)

Ax^ said:


> It was a friggin apple


Typical bloody lefties.  Crime is crime.


----------



## crustychick (Nov 30, 2011)

i've joined the thieves guild... wasn't planning on going this route but it's fun!


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 30, 2011)

100% masahiko said:


> why is everyone attacking me for no reason?


 
are you a blood starved vampire? everyone just hammers you if you are...


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 30, 2011)

I can't play right now because "can't connect to Steam network"

I bought the fucking DVD FFS 

Steam sucks


----------



## bi0boy (Nov 30, 2011)

The game is currently unavailable

Please try again another time.


----------



## Dooby (Nov 30, 2011)

I'd be a lot further on if I understood the difference between right and left, east and west. Inadvertantly discovered a LOT of teh map 

It'd also be easier if I stopped punching people by mistake when I'm trying to talk to them. Life lesson right there.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 30, 2011)

Yahtzee's review of Skyrim was a little underwhelming, imo. He's off his form. Sounded like he was desperately trying to keep his usual witty bile, but really had very little to vent about. But instead of doing a humorous positive review, it just sounded tired.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 30, 2011)

Ax^ said:


> The consequences for stealing are a little harsh if you ask me
> 
> Only been play a few hours and inadvertent stole an apple whilst trying to instigate a conversation in one of the inn keepers, cue 2 of them trying to beat me to death thru the village, ran off and came back and paid off the bounty,
> 
> ...


To be fair, it is asking for trouble a bit to have the key to steal things being the same as the key to talk, so if you're a bit slapdash when going up to somebody in their shop and trying to talk to them and you misplace your crosshairs slightly...

I've not done that, but I've repeatedly pulled out my sword while trying to click through people's boring conversations. Maybe that's a Freudian slip though.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 30, 2011)

Crispy said:


> PS3/Xbox patch is out.
> 
> DON'T get it. It breaks all magic resistances (fire/ice/lightning) and dragons fly backwards. Bethesda you geniuses >_<



Ah, so they weren't just content to fuck PC gamers over. They had to go and get everyone.

Muppets.


----------



## Epona (Nov 30, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> To be fair, it is asking for trouble a bit to have the key to steal things being the same as the key to talk, so if you're a bit slapdash when going up to somebody in their shop and trying to talk to them and you misplace your crosshairs slightly...



Yeah well these days developers have to make sure all the functions fit on a controller (even if that means removing functions that existed in previous PC developed games, or mapping them to the same button - hence "grab" is now holding down the activate key, cos they had to make room for a shout button) and sod the other 300 button combinations on a keyboard, they're only there for decoration when gaming!

</rant>


----------



## Supine (Nov 30, 2011)

I'm level 8 on a quest. I keep getting feckin smashed up by a load of beasts. 

Should I get the hell out and level up somewhere easier? Loving the game but feeling beaten up!!!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 30, 2011)

Yep, leave the quest and come back later. The moment you enter a quest/dungeon the enemies are set relative to your level. If you come back when you're level 12, say, they will still be what they were when you first encountered them, making it, hopefully, a breeze.

What are you playing as, btw? In my experience, mages have it tough early on, warriors have it easiest, with archers somewhere in between. But persevere because it does get easier.


----------



## Cid (Nov 30, 2011)

All hail shitty Irish accents, all hail Sheogorath, all hail the Wabbajack!


----------



## Epona (Nov 30, 2011)

Cid said:


> All hail shitty Irish accents, all hail Sheogorath, all hail the Wabbajack!



Oh was that supposed to be an Irish accent?
Love Sheogorath though

Oblivion/Shivering Isles Spoilers as well as some Skyrim Sheogorath quest spoilers:



Spoiler



What I loved most about that quest was that he indicates in dialogue that he possibly _is_ the Champion of Cyrodil, as per the end of the Shivering Isles expansion:
- Says he was present when Martin Septim defeated Mehrunes Dagon
- Says he was there for "the Fox" (ie. The Gray Fox, OB Thieves Guild questline)
- Says he was there for "the head" (OB Dark Brotherhood questline, where you find the head of the mother of the DB traitor)


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 30, 2011)

Sometimes I worry I'm missing out on so, so much by never having played an ES game before, and knowing next to nothing about the lore of Tamriel. But I guess you have to start somewhere.


----------



## Epona (Dec 1, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Sometimes I worry I'm missing out on so, so much by never having played an ES game before, and knowing next to nothing about the lore of Tamriel. But I guess you have to start somewhere.



Well there are some references to previous stuff which is in the game for long-time fans to appreciate (for example, there hasn't been a Daedric quest yet where I couldn't see the general direction it was going to be taking before I'd got there) - I'd be disappointed if that wasn't the case. But not knowing it is not going to ruin your experience, you're not missing out on a huge amount of things relevant to this game, it's mostly easter eggs or just slotting the game into existing lore. And just ask if there's anything that comes up that players of previous games or readers of the novels might be able to explain or at least help put in context.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

Thanks Epona, I will. It's the sort of franchise where you really need to have been following it to some degree from an early time ... rather than it being something where you can read up and know it all. But I'm sure the more I play the more I'll pick up.


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## Epona (Dec 1, 2011)

TES probably has the richest in-game lore of any stand-alone game franchise (ie that is not a spin-off from other long-established media/table-top game/comic book series/novels etc. with pre-existing lore), or at least up there with the best of them, and it's one of the things that attracts me to the series. It's in no way necessary to know any of it to enjoy playing Skyrim as each game works perfectly well as a standalone, and even as an old hack a lot has changed in Tamriel between Oblivion and Skyrim so I'm treading some new ground too and have been reading a lot of the new books I come across in the game to get to grips with the current situation!

On that note, if anyone is interested, someone has put all the Skyrim in-game books into Kindle and e-reader format, you can download them here - might be useful for those who spend more time commuting than playing the game.


----------



## Random (Dec 1, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Yahtzee's review of Skyrim was a little underwhelming, imo. He's off his form. Sounded like he was desperately trying to keep his usual witty bile, but really had very little to vent about. But instead of doing a humorous positive review, it just sounded tired.


I agree about his form. Extra Punctuation wasn't that great either this week, but he's recently admitted on his blog that he's been suffering from depression and I think that explains it.

Forced bile aside, he seems to be very positive about Skyrim, really. He's doing his usual thing of going on and on about the negative and occassionally slipping in something positive that, when you listen carefully, means that he's been playing loads and loads of Skyrim and loving it to bits.


----------



## Gromit (Dec 1, 2011)

al said:


> At first I thought my talking dog was awesome, now I'm very close to killing it in the face - NEVER take a dog when you aim to be stealthy, it's worse than Lydia...



I told the dog to fuck off and stop following me as it kept nudging me as I was trying to take a shot with the result of me wasting a soul trap charged arrow. 

I now have a set of armour that lets me fire off destruction spells for zero magicka. I grinded my enchanting like mad for it. Thunderbolt and Incinerate heaven.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Dec 1, 2011)

pc patch is out now....

hopefully it wont make the dragons fly backwards ( even tho i think it would look cool  )


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

PC patch broke the mouse for me. I could no longer move it vertically. If anyone else has this problem: save a copy of your Skyrim.ini file somewhere safe, then delete it. The game will repopulate a new one for you, and it should fix it. Then just add in bit by bit any modifications you'd made to it via the one you saved. Most changes I think (like to trees and water) have gone in the SkyrimPrefs.ini anyway, so there shouldn't be too much to alter.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 1, 2011)

Yesterday's patch stopped me clicking on menu options and scrolling lists (including my inventory). Which was really handy.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

It hasn't done that for me. Very strange. Have you got "Game Controller" unchecked in settings? It's on by default, I believe.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 1, 2011)

Dunno. I might take my lunch break there and check.


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## bi0boy (Dec 1, 2011)

PC patch didn't give me problems, although I'd got used to pressing Tab to leave some menus, and they've now changed it to Escape.


----------



## Corax (Dec 1, 2011)

I press red.


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## Garek (Dec 1, 2011)

Garek said:


> After staring in mute frustrated fury at the screen during my Escape debacle where I discovered that *pressing escape does not take me back to the fucking game* I am really quite loving this post.



They have patched this! Escape now actually does what you intuitively think it will do! Yay!


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## bi0boy (Dec 1, 2011)

Garek said:


> They have patched this! Escape now actually does what you intuitively think it will do! Yay!



but they didn't have to disable Tab at the same time


----------



## Garek (Dec 1, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> but they didn't have to disable Tab at the same time



 oh Bethesda...when will you learn?


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## Epona (Dec 1, 2011)

I've heard that the patch breaks all resistances in the game - elemental resistances, resistances to damage (from armour etc), disease and poison resistances - whether innate racial resistances or from items - and not just for the player, apparently you can now kill flame atronachs with fire spells. 

I took Steam offline when I saw the initial reports to avoid the patch and am not going back online until it's sorted.  Have also made a backup of my unpatched files just in case.


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## bi0boy (Dec 1, 2011)

How can you play offline? I tried last night but couldn't figure out how. It seemed I had no choice but to go online and wait for the patch to download before I could play.


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## Bingo (Dec 1, 2011)

Gromit said:


> I told the dog to fuck off and stop following me as it kept nudging me as I was trying to take a shot with the result of me wasting a soul trap charged arrow.
> 
> I now have a set of armour that lets me fire off destruction spells for zero magicka. I grinded my enchanting like mad for it. Thunderbolt and Incinerate heaven.



How exactly does that work then? Am a enchanting heavy mage type... sounds good!


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

I thought it just broke resistances on the console version. Hmm. Well, mine's patched, so we shall have to wait and see.


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## crustychick (Dec 1, 2011)

ah shit - I think i got lydia killed. and I was just making the house all nice for her n everything  *sob* I didn't even notice until I finished the quest I was on - she's rotting underneath the HoneyMead Brewery I'd wager - a sad end. oh well.... at least I'd taken most of the stuff I wanted off her


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## Structaural (Dec 1, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> How can you play offline? I tried last night but couldn't figure out how. It seemed I had no choice but to go online and wait for the patch to download before I could play.



Disconnect your internet and then open Steam, it'll give an option ro run in Offline mode. Also you should be able to go to Properties on your game and choose - Do not update automatically (though I had trouble enabling this in Deus Ex so not sure with skyrim).


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## Gromit (Dec 1, 2011)

Bingo said:


> How exactly does that work then? Am a enchanting heavy mage type... sounds good!



Enchanting lvl 100 + Enchanting Skill 5/5 allows you to put Fortify Destruction @ 25% on a Necklace, Ring, Helm and Chest Armour.

When you are at 100 you might as well get the t'wo enchantments per item' skill too. So as well as free destruction you can have extra effects on top for wearing those four pieces.

I put mine on a full Steel Plate armour set. By getting a load of heavy armour skills i can soak up a fair bit of damage whilst setting everything around me alight. Pop some healing every now and then when i need it.


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## Crispy (Dec 1, 2011)

See, that sort of "gaming the system" play style is something I just can't enjoy. I use the skills that are fun and put my perks into things that look useful. I might plan ahead a little bit, but I level up by doing what's fun, not making levelling up my aim, IYSWIM


----------



## Gromit (Dec 1, 2011)

crustychick said:


> ah shit - I think i got lydia killed. and I was just making the house all nice for her n everything  *sob* I didn't even notice until I finished the quest I was on - she's rotting underneath the HoneyMead Brewery I'd wager - a sad end. oh well.... at least I'd taken most of the stuff I wanted off her



I've gotten Lydia killed plus some mage guy i was rescuing from a dungeon. 
Then later a Priest woman got scoffed by a dragon. Which I was glad of cause she kept killing petty creatures before i could trap their souls.

I'm not a good person to travel with tbh.
The talking dog was lucky I told it to piss off really.


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## Crispy (Dec 1, 2011)

Oh, and Conjura Dremora Lord is kick ass  - not even sure my character should have access to such a thing. It takes 2/3 of my (buffed) magicka to cast, but that guy is a tank. "I SMELL WEAKNESS" - CHOP CHOP SMASH. Conjuration is levellng fast


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> See, that sort of "gaming the system" play style is something I just can't enjoy. I use the skills that are fun and put my perks into things that look useful. I might plan ahead a little bit, but I level up by doing what's fun, not making levelling up my aim, IYSWIM



I don't see that as gaming the system. It is simply planning ahead to a greater extent. Just like in the real world, if you know you want to be able to play guitar really well, you might take lessons, and you sure as hell have to practice a lot before you can. All your character is doing is thinking "I want to be able to be as well protected and prepared for combat as possible, I need to make sure I have the skills to do that".

It's not gaming the system, it's using the system in one of the ways it was intended.

All ways are perfectly valid.


----------



## Crispy (Dec 1, 2011)

Yeah, I'm not saying "don't do it that way" - just saying I don't


----------



## 100% masahiko (Dec 1, 2011)

Gromit said:


> Enchanting lvl 100 + Enchanting Skill 5/5 allows you to put Fortify Destruction @ 25% on a Necklace, Ring, Helm and Chest Armour.
> 
> When you are at 100 you might as well get the t'wo enchantments per item' skill too. So as well as free destruction you can have extra effects on top for wearing those four pieces.
> 
> I put mine on a full Steel Plate armour set. By getting a load of heavy armour skills i can soak up a fair bit of damage whilst setting everything around me alight. Pop some healing every now and then when i need it.



that's alot of hours


----------



## Stigmata (Dec 1, 2011)

Epona said:


> TES probably has the richest in-game lore of any stand-alone game franchise (ie that is not a spin-off from other long-established media/table-top game/comic book series/novels etc. with pre-existing lore), or at least up there with the best of them, and it's one of the things that attracts me to the series. It's in no way necessary to know any of it to enjoy playing Skyrim as each game works perfectly well as a standalone, and even as an old hack a lot has changed in Tamriel between Oblivion and Skyrim so I'm treading some new ground too and have been reading a lot of the new books I come across in the game to get to grips with the current situation!
> 
> On that note, if anyone is interested, someone has put all the Skyrim in-game books into Kindle and e-reader format, you can download them here - might be useful for those who spend more time commuting than playing the game.



The best introduction to the setting has always been the Pocket Guide to the Empire. It's a few centuries out of date now, of course.


----------



## Garek (Dec 1, 2011)

It is 1am on a cold, breezy night, though thankfully the earlier blizzard has lifted. I am making my gradual way to Solitude to visit the Bard's college and finish the tasks they have set me. On my way I see a man standing with his back to me. I instantly become defensive, crouching low, bow at ready yet something about his manner seem strange. Almost peaceful in fact, though something is definitely not quite right. I relax and observe. He is standing very still, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, just staring into the distance. I walk up to him and he turns his head and, with a far away glazed look in his eyes, tells me "The legion is always looking for new men. If you think you have what it takes you should sign up". I look at him, waiting for him to go on but he says no more. I feel a touch of pity for him. The war has obviously taken a cruel toll on his mind, the stresses and the pressures of combat have reduced this man to a monosyllabic shell. There are no more words to come.

I still have far to walk so I turn and continue on my way. It starts to snow. I look round and once again the man is at peace, silent in the wilderness.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

I love this game.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 1, 2011)

Garek said:


> It is 1am on a cold, breezy night, though thankfully the earlier blizzard has lifted. I am making my gradual way from to Solitude to visit the Bard's college and finish the tasks they have set me. On my way I see a man standing with his back to me. I instantly become defensive, crouching low, bow at ready yet something about his manner seem strange. Almost peaceful in fact, though something is definitely not quite right. I relax and observe. He is standing very still, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, just staring into the distance. I walk up to him and he turns his head and, with a far away glazed look in his eyes, tells me "The legion is always looking for new men. If you think you have what it takes you should sign up". I look at him, waiting for him to go on but he says no more. I feel a touch of pity for him. The war has obviously taken a cruel toll on his mind, the stresses and the pressures of combat have reduced this manner to monosyllabic shell. There is are no more words to come.
> 
> It begins to snow and I still have far to walk so I turn and continue on my way. It starts to snow. I look round and once again the man is at peace, silent in the wilderness.



the bards college is in solitude, you have got very lost somewhere.


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## Corax (Dec 1, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> the bards college is in solitude, you have got very lost somewhere.


He's going from to solitude. It's a circular trip.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 1, 2011)

I accidentally from to Solitude.


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## Garek (Dec 1, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> the bards college is in solitude, you have got very lost somewhere.



I meant to Solitude  Was walking from The middle northern city.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

So yeah, apparently the patch did break magical resistances on PC too.

Bit of a big fucking thing to mess up -__-


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 1, 2011)

no, this is good.   it means bethesta  know  we also have  saints row  arkham city and assassins creed to play.  they are just trying to help us out.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> no, this is good. it means bethesta know we also have saints row arkham city and assassins creed to play. they are just trying to help us out.



Well if they could hold off on completely breaking it until SW:TOR is out, I'd be most grateful.


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 1, 2011)

So general advice is don't patch it if you enjoy the game ? Just started getting into it


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## Corax (Dec 1, 2011)

I've had no problems on the PC.

Although my flaming arrows may have killed that flame atronach a little easily now I come to think about it...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 1, 2011)

I haven't actually had any noticeable trouble apart from the interface fucking up and thinking I was clicking stuff I wasn't, which may even be just shitty Windows 7 driver shit shit.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

Ax^ said:


> So general advice is don't patch it if you enjoy the game ? Just started getting into it



Probably hold off on the patch for a little while. It's still perfectly playable on PC; the mouse sensitivity issues were down to so many people having applied their own workarounds to the un-patched issues, that Beth's own patch broke ours, iyswim. But now I've deleted the modifications I'd originally made, the mouse is working.

The resistances being broken, that's another thing entirely. I haven't noticed it so far, but I haven't played much since the latest patch. I'd expect once you're going up against harder dragons and mages, you're going to miss those resistances.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I haven't actually had any noticeable trouble apart from the interface fucking up and thinking I was clicking stuff I wasn't, which may even be just shitty Windows 7 driver shit shit.



That's a common issue. It's because it was made for a gamepad, not a mouse. It's annoying as hell. If you have an xbox controller, I hear the experience is better if you use it than if you struggle on with mouse and keyboard.

*is still struggling on*


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

I swear, it seems like there is more foliage on the ground since this patch, and wildflowers (particularly mountain flowers) are slightly harder to spot.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 1, 2011)

just playing assassins creed revelations  and on the little island  in the animus there are little blue plats

they look just like the blue wild flowers in skyrim

i tried to collect them...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2011)

Downloaded an HD snow&rocks retex today.

The rocks 







Unfortunately, where the realistic rocks meet the blocky, out of focus, low-res ground, it's a bit .... jarring


----------



## al (Dec 1, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> just playing assassins creed revelations and on the little island in the animus there are little blue plats
> 
> they look just like the blue wild flowers in skyrim
> 
> i tried to collect them...



I was out walking IRL and saw a bush with red berries on it - automatically thought "ah, snowberries.." and almost picked them....


----------



## Dandred (Dec 1, 2011)

I feel a bit sorry for everyone who is having problems.......I downloaded this from demonoid as being in Korea I would have to wait a few more weeks to buy this, not had any problems and the unofficial patches released by people have been great.


----------



## Crispy (Dec 2, 2011)

So, bl******ch. wow, that place is something else.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 2, 2011)

You know what, though - opportunities for roleplaying are actually still quite limited. Or non-existent.

So-called "sandbox" RPGs really just give you a huge physical landscape that you can wander around in but not really change anything, as opposed to a small world where you can't change anything. And there are even fewer character-related dialogue options than in F3, or Ultima in some cases.


----------



## Voley (Dec 2, 2011)

I'm glad I don't have all this extra downloadable stuff to have a go at tbh. I've got a feeling this game is going to consume enough of my life after Xmas as it is.


----------



## Garek (Dec 2, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> That's a common issue. It's because it was made for a gamepad, not a mouse. It's annoying as hell. If you have an xbox controller, I hear the experience is better if you use it than if you struggle on with mouse and keyboard.
> 
> *is still struggling on*



I'll give you my mouse and keyboard when you take it from my cold, dead hands


----------



## Cid (Dec 2, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You know what, though - opportunities for roleplaying are actually still quite limited. Or non-existent.
> 
> So-called "sandbox" RPGs really just give you a huge physical landscape that you can wander around in but not really change anything, as opposed to a small world where you can't change anything. And there are even fewer character-related dialogue options than in F3, or Ultima in some cases.



Indeed... I was hoping that the economy system in Skyrim would actually mean something, changes to buildings, attitudes etc. Although it also pisses me off when you have to do time-sensitive maintenance in sandbox games... Morrowind managed to do construction projects, don't see why Skyrim shouldn't - especially given the opportunities for it in war (maybe helping establish bases, affecting the leadership of towns - maybe I haven't got that far though). And I am Dovahkiin, I require a big house and mead hall to present all my dragon bones!


----------



## tommers (Dec 2, 2011)

Crispy said:


> See, that sort of "gaming the system" play style is something I just can't enjoy. I use the skills that are fun and put my perks into things that look useful. I might plan ahead a little bit, but I level up by doing what's fun, not making levelling up my aim, IYSWIM



I won't bore you with what I think of it!


----------



## Gromit (Dec 2, 2011)

As I was going to Solitude
I met a man with seven Atronachs
Every Atronach had seven sacks
Every sack had seven Familiars
Every Familiar had seven zombie kittens (aw cute)
Kittens, Familiars, sacks, Atronachs
How many were going to Solitude?


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 2, 2011)

Who cares zombie kitten's

Want


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 2, 2011)

I am finding this game is filling the WoW shaped hole in my life. But with a pause button.


----------



## Dooby (Dec 2, 2011)

Do I want to join the dark brotherhood? I get terrible guilt so it may not be best...


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 2, 2011)

I joined the Stormcloaks! I realised they aren't racist but just a bit ignorant about outsiders. I'm sure they'll leave the Khajit alone and the Thalmor are sneery cunts anyway.

Wasn't much fun slaughtering the friendly Whiterun guards though.


----------



## golightly (Dec 2, 2011)

Crispy said:


> So, bl******ch. wow, that place is something else.



I'm there now and I'm now completely lost.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 2, 2011)

Gromit said:


> As I was going to Solitude
> I met a man with seven Atronachs
> Every Atronach had seven sacks
> Every sack had seven Familiars
> ...


one, you.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 2, 2011)

Just used a fire resist potion then realised there was no point.

*kicks the latest patch*


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 2, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> one, you.


Nope.  They were both  travelling in the same direction.  They happened to meet  as   the larger party was slowed considerable  because  the sacks kept catching fire.


----------



## Cid (Dec 2, 2011)

2401.


----------



## Epona (Dec 3, 2011)

I have decided that my favourite type of landscape in the game is the volcanic style tundra between Windhelm and Riften, with its bubbling pools and yellowish rock formations - reminds me of when I visited the volcanic crater on the island of Nissiros which was quite otherworldly and alien and ranks high up in the "list of cool things I have seen" which actually isn't that long, but still.


----------



## Dooby (Dec 3, 2011)

Right I've saved and stopped at teh start of deciding whether I join the brotherhood or kill em. I need to be told what to do. Oh my.


----------



## Epona (Dec 3, 2011)

Hehe - well if your character wants to do a bit of cold-blooded assassination for little purpose other than spilling blood/monetary gain then join them, but it you're going to feel bad about it, then wipe them out. I haven't got through the whole questline yet, but apparently it is a good plot.

It also depends upon your character skills - it's the sort of thing that is a lot easier if you have certain perks on the stealth tree and are able to dispatch your targets without being spotted.


----------



## Dooby (Dec 3, 2011)

I built up loads of stealth and I do like a good story line but I do feel bad killing folk for no reason. Which annoys me the same way as I pretty much hold my breath swimming under water. And get nervous going into dark caves..


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 3, 2011)

i get nervous underwater.

the ships emerging from the gloom of the water   in the undersea  trench  gave me a chill. it reminds me of the time i almosty had a heat attack  diving   when  i  went down this  rop  for ages   to see  a tiny bit of metal   which turned into  what looked like climbing frame.  i turned around  to see it was the  radar mast of  a fucking huge tanker.  it was like  a block of flats  had crept up behind me


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 3, 2011)

i think this time as i wiped up the dark brotherhood     next time i'll play it  and  join the other side


----------



## Epona (Dec 3, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i get nervous underwater.
> 
> the ships emerging from the gloom of the water in the undersea trench gave me a chill. it reminds me of the time i almosty had a heat attack diving when i went down this rop for ages to see a tiny bit of metal which turned into what looked like climbing frame. i turned around to see it was the radar mast of a fucking huge tanker. it was like a block of flats had crept up behind me



That sounds pretty amazing!  I hate being underwater and although I can swim decently enough I would never choose to go swimming for pleasure, let alone go any deeper - the pretty fish and stuff can stay where they are, and I'll stay dry thank you very much.  If I'm watching a film where someone goes underwater or a nature documentary about sea life I hold my breath and start feeling a bit claustrophobic!

Same in Skyrim, most of the time I have to swim anywhere I will keep my head above water and try to get out of it as quickly as possible.  It doesn't help that there's no visible cue such a breath meter, my hearing isn't all that and I sometimes drown without warning!


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 3, 2011)

actually  i find  i'm less nervous underwater  than i am on top.  i guess you feel  more  in the environment than bobbing somewhat exposed on the top.

the really low draw distance underwater in skyrim is what makes me nervous. dunno why  slaughter fish don't really bug me.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 3, 2011)

I keep meaning to get some waterbreathing necklace or something, because I haven't really explored underwater in the game much at all. I had to briefly to get at a chest for a quest, and suddenly realised how much I was probably missing.


----------



## Epona (Dec 3, 2011)

There does seem to be quite a lot of stuff underwater especially along the northern coast! I haven't found any water breathing enchantment yet or I'd have one, because without a visual cue about how much breath you have left it's a bit of a nightmare going diving tbh (I have been underwater but have to use tgm because all the "you're about to drown" cues are audio and I can't hear them well!)

One of my favourite non-quest mods for Morrowind was Abot's Water Life, it used a script to generate all sorts of shit in the sea from non-aggressive fish and harvestable seaweed and dolphins where you could grab their fin and hitch a ride, crabs and shellfish along the shore that you could kill and harvest ingredients from, to shipwrecks and chests with treasure, to large sunken palaces with lots of treasure guarded by dreugh. Water-breathing enchantment essential!


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 3, 2011)

I've been putting off going back to whiterun because of something that is going to happen there but I really need to leave my excess stuff somewhere because both lydia and i can't carry much more.


----------



## golightly (Dec 3, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I've been putting off going back to whiterun because of something that is going to happen there but I really need to leave my excess stuff somewhere because both lydia and i can't carry much more.



They should have lockers or safe deposit boxes in Skyrim.  There's definitely a gap in the market that should be exploited.


----------



## tommers (Dec 3, 2011)

I'm thinking of re-starting. I kill pretty much anything with one hit and have had to heal once in about the last five hours. It's a bit dull. 

The main story line looks like it could be cool but I want to play dark brotherhood so I might just do that.


----------



## Crispy (Dec 3, 2011)

Just turn the difficulty up a notch


----------



## tommers (Dec 3, 2011)

Is that in options?

And, while we're here, how do I get subtitles?  Couldn't see it...


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 3, 2011)

I'm fucked off with the storm cloaks, after being a principle fighter in a battle with them I have been arrested twice for trying to talk to someone to complete a mission. If they try it again I will axe their fucking heads.


----------



## Garek (Dec 3, 2011)

I have to hand it to Bethesda. It takes real skill to make a UI which is so fucking infuriating and which makes even the simplest of tasks such as renaming an item a frustrating nightmare. I managed to rename an item ONCE. I can delete text, but to enter in new text I think you have to highlight the area or something which is annoying as the mouse if locked to the menu so what you are clicking can be no where no where the icon is pointing.


----------



## Epona (Dec 3, 2011)

Garek said:


> I have to hand it to Bethesda. It takes real skill to make a UI which is so fucking infuriating and which makes even the simplest of tasks such as renaming an item a frustrating nightmare.



Very true. And yet despite the fact that the UI is a complete and utter bastard to use the game itself is compelling enough to struggle on with the UI, albeit with a bit of swearing through clenched teeth! A lot of games I'd have put down in frustration after a couple of things that have happened to me while trying to do something that ought to be fucking simplicity itself (spending a perk point, selecting the dialogue option you actually want to use, trying to name an enchanted item!) Very much looking forward to UI overhauls when they are completed and issues fully ironed out. I do wish that Bethesda had just taken on a couple of those who have done previous UI overhaul mods as consultants a bit before release to design a more useful UI for PC users and kb+m input, because they obviously don't have a clue about it.

Edit: oh and Flash can go fuck itself, what a stupid idea that was.

tommers - subtitles are under display options, right down the bottom of that screen.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 3, 2011)

I swear, if I fail to grab one more irritating slider which doesn't need to be there in the first place _one more time_....


----------



## Garek (Dec 3, 2011)

I've read interviews with Bethesda and they never really tried to hide their irritations with the challenges of putting a game on the PC. This is something that really rankles because it feels as though they haven't even tried to successfully develop it for the PC. The PC is an inconvenience to them so they won't even try.

Spent another ten minutes trying to figure out how to rename an item. Can't hover the mouse over the thing I want to select because of how the menu acts. Same problem I guess as Epona trying to select a speech option.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 3, 2011)

I'm glad I've got it on xbox


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 3, 2011)

During it production I was wondering wtf developed for consoles


Its a fricken rpg but hey ho

First rpg I've been able to slowly get addicted to on this generation of consoles


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 3, 2011)

Found an iron ore mine.

As a result, I just made 52 iron daggers.

.............what?


----------



## Crispy (Dec 3, 2011)

PC gamers - use a pad, it's better for this game 

Having a HARD time clearing out this dungeon. Full of Draugr death lords and scourges. Keep kicking my ass, my orc companion's ass and my conjured dremora lord's ass. I managed to get the Quest Complete thing, then a stray arrow killed me >_<
Try try again...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 3, 2011)

If it's too tough, leave it and come back later when you've levelled a couple of times. They will stay the same level, because it sets them in accordance to whatever level you are when you first enter the dungeon.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 3, 2011)

Because the resistances are borked right now, I've turned my difficulty down. 

*shakes her fist in Beth's general direction*


----------



## Epona (Dec 3, 2011)

Crispy said:


> PC gamers - use a pad, it's better for this game



Can't use one due to arthritic thumb joints - fucking nightmare level pain after just a few minutes.  Shouldn't have to anyway, kb+m are the native input devices for a PC (as well as when working being faster and more accurate than a pad and much better for anything that requires aiming) and developers ought to bloody make sure they work when releasing a title on PC - but it's a common problem with ports sadly.

Just the fact that control pad was selected by default upon starting up Skyrim on PC speaks volumes about the "effort" (or lack thereof) that Bethesda put into making sure that the PC version was the best it could be for the platform!

Don't get me wrong, I love BGS games and if Skyrim wasn't otherwise a complete delight I wouldn't still be playing it let alone raving about it, but they deserve to be roundly criticised over the PC UI because it is a complete balls up.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 3, 2011)

Since the patch, 50% of the time I can't alt+tab (in windowed, using shift+tab first to bring up the steam overlay).

Pain in the backside.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Dec 3, 2011)

Each patch seems to make it worse.


----------



## Epona (Dec 3, 2011)

I haven't put Steam back online since before it was patched to 1.2 and have a backup copy of my Skyrim folder, if anyone wants to borrow a copy of the previous version of the 2 files that were patched until such time as it's officially fixed, PM me.

PC version, obviously.


----------



## Garek (Dec 4, 2011)

Epona said:


> Can't use one due to arthritic thumb joints - fucking nightmare level pain after just a few minutes.  Shouldn't have to anyway, kb+m are the native input devices for a PC (as well as when working being faster and more accurate than a pad and much better for anything that requires aiming) and developers ought to bloody make sure they work when releasing a title on PC -* but it's a common problem with ports sadly.*



I am trying to remember where I saw it but I read a something from the makers of Arkham city saying that they were making a console version _and _a PC version. This is what I wish Bethesda had done. There is no need for it to be a port. In fact, develop for the PC, then dial it the fuck down for the console.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 4, 2011)

I don't know what it was like after Oblivion came out, but there really has been, despite the effusive praise, a hell of a lot of criticism of the port to PC, so maybe, just maybe, they might take a little bit of it on board?

Or maybe not. If they know modders will fix it with the creation kit then I guess they might think "why bother?"


----------



## Dandred (Dec 4, 2011)

Can someone explain all this port business to me? Aren't all games all made on PC and then made for consoles?

I'm sure the people that made Skyrim weren't putting it together on a x360, they were making it on a PC for a console.


----------



## Garek (Dec 4, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I don't know what it was like after Oblivion came out, but there really has been, despite the effusive praise, a hell of a lot of criticism of the port to PC, so maybe, just maybe, they might take a little bit of it on board?
> 
> Or maybe not. If they know modders will fix it with the creation kit then I guess they might think "why bother?"



It was just like this after Oblivion came out. Again the UI came in for criticism. Again low-res textures came in for criticism.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 4, 2011)

Dandred said:


> Can someone explain all this port business to me? Aren't all games all made on PC and then made for consoles?
> 
> I'm sure the people that made Skyrim weren't putting it together on a x360, they were making it on a PC for a console.



It was made _for_ consoles, so the UI is optimised to work with a controller, and so on. That's what it means by a "port". It means the console experience and coding was then simply recoded for PC, but in this case the UI wasn't re-optimised for mouse&keyboard. So you end up with a game that doesn't feel like it should be played on a PC, and it's a frustrating experience.

It's got nothing to do with what machine and software it used to _create_ the game on, but what machine and software it was made to _play_ on.


----------



## al (Dec 4, 2011)

I saw a backwards dragon!

They're beautiful and majestic and just a lttle bit silly....


----------



## Dandred (Dec 4, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> It was made _for_ consoles, so the UI is optimised to work with a controller, and so on. That's what it means by a "port". It means the console experience and coding was then simply recoded for PC, but in this case the UI wasn't re-optimised for mouse&keyboard. So you end up with a game that doesn't feel like it should be played on a PC, and it's a frustrating experience.
> 
> It's got nothing to do with what machine and software it used to _create_ the game on, but what machine and software it was made to _play_ on.



Yes, but this term port has been knocking about for ages, I didn't mean with just this game. You can just use your mouse to click on any of the skill trees/perks and it takes you there.....

I don't see what I have lost from this being a "port" I remember playing Arean and Daggerfall and this is ten times better.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 4, 2011)

Dandred said:


> Yes, but this term port has been knocking about for ages, I didn't mean with just this game. You can just use your mouse to click on any of the skill trees/perks and it takes you there.....
> 
> I don't see what I have lost from this being a "port" I remember playing Arean and Daggerfall and this is ten times better.


Daggerfall was fifteen years ago!

The whole UI design is very obviously based on console controls - mostly D-pad and one or two buttons, which means picking items from lists and traversing trees, with analogue controls being reserved for in-game looking and turning because it's much less precise with controllers - and the mouse aspect is just tacked onto that. You start to notice it an awful lot when you look for it, particularly in parts that are annoying. The inventory and the perks system, for instance, are cascading tree structures which have quite small click targets (because they aren't meant to be clicked on!) Perks in particular drive me nuts, because they're displayed much more visually, but clicking on things doesn't always get you what it should - you might accidentally move to the next skill rather than backwards or up the current one.

The conversation menu interface seems to be particularly crap, too - it frequently doesn't properly highlight speech options that you click on, but _does_ activate the currently selected option, so you keep repeating yourself or saying the wrong thing.

I've already complained about the stupid theft-inducing one-button inworld interaction setup, which is purely console-related. There's not even a "don't auto-steal" setting that I've seen which would at least mean you could speak to somebody across a market stall without worrying about clicking on a sausage they've got dangling in front of them and having to reload a saved game.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 4, 2011)

The menus are made with the idea of scrolling with a thumbstick and clicking with an A button in mind. In practice, trying to select things with mouse is a tedious affair. I've ended up clicking the wrong thing because it's so buggy at selecting what I want numerous times, and look around online and you'll see my experience isn't unique.


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 4, 2011)

The patch changed the effect of key-remapping, so for example your actual 'left' and 'right' buttons work the lockpicking, instead of the default A and D keys.

Because of this last night I kept accidentally taking all the 100 or so items from my cupboard when I'd meant to take one or two. I kept having to put all my possessions into the cupboard and then carefully re-equip myself.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 4, 2011)

About to go and try to get myself in with the Dark Brotherhood. Looking forward to getting all stabbity.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 4, 2011)

That talking dog is fucking annoying.


----------



## Supine (Dec 4, 2011)

Played loads this weekend. Went from L7 to L13 and killed a dragon. Still getting regular beatings though


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 4, 2011)

Fighting dragons seems just to be a pain in the arse. I avoid them not because I think I'll get killed, but because it's lots of wandering around with a drawn bow waiting for the dragon to stop flying, and then saying "shit" and trying to jump away if it stops to breathe fire at _you_ rather than somebody else.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Dec 4, 2011)

level 17 , and just had to kill someone then eat them, i feel slightly sick now


----------



## Gromit (Dec 5, 2011)

I chew up dragons for breakfast. One of the more easier fights IMO

Once you've engaged the target...

Situate yourself near a rock to hide behind when you need to (to avoid the breath)

My spells now stagger opponents when I duel cast. This interrupts a dragon breath and often even stops the dragon releasing one.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 5, 2011)

I killed a dragon with dual wield daggers :-D

Nightingale armour looks


----------



## Cid (Dec 5, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Fighting dragons seems just to be a pain in the arse. I avoid them not because I think I'll get killed, but because it's lots of wandering around with a drawn bow waiting for the dragon to stop flying, and then saying "shit" and trying to jump away if it stops to breathe fire at _you_ rather than somebody else.



You want to get yourself some resistance gear and stock up on potions. They are bloody annoying though, just circle for ages and there's not much chance of hitting the fuckers at range.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 5, 2011)

Not much point getting resistance gear right now D:


----------



## ChrisFilter (Dec 5, 2011)

So is it all still fucked then? Resistance gear, I mean.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 5, 2011)

Apparently so. There's supposed to be another patch to fix it this week, not sure when.

Although it'll probably break something else, like the ability to walk or something.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 5, 2011)

Couldn't help myself; been getting a bit artsy-fartsy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/buca/sets/72157628295220483/detail/

Ongoing, etc.


----------



## Corax (Dec 5, 2011)

Inventory management is taking the shine off it a bit for me.  I want to be exploring stuff, not moving stuff between chests to try and organise it so I don't accidentally sell something I need etc.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Dec 5, 2011)

Just sell everything. You really don't need to collect everything.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 5, 2011)

Only thing I keep is dragon scales for my armour once I can make it, any metals I might need to craft stuff later, and any Daedric stuff I get that I don't want to lug around with me because I won't use it. I carry the potions I need with me, and my various amulets/rings/random armour pieces that improve my smithing, lockpicking or whatever, so I can swap them out as and when I need them. Then it's just the armour I'm wearing and the weapons I use constantly. I carry nothing else. Oh, and soul gems and lockpicks. I have lots of them.

I find it easy enough to quickly go through and sell what I need when I'm at a merchant.


----------



## Cid (Dec 5, 2011)

I really want to make a skyrim chess set in the style of the Lewis chessmen, perhaps reindeer horn instead of Walrus ivory (which is obviously not on) with a bog oak and beech board... Doubt I'll find the time, but would be a good way to practice carving.


----------



## Cid (Dec 5, 2011)

Also (think someone mentioned this) what fucking idiot thought it would be a good idea to have the same key for 'take all from your chest' and 'store one item in chest'?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 5, 2011)

Are there any helmets in Skyrim that don't look stupid, incidentally?


----------



## tommers (Dec 5, 2011)

They've gone a bit overboard on the horns.  Got to be said.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 5, 2011)

If I wore armour I'd want horns on my helmet.


----------



## golightly (Dec 5, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> If I wore armour I'd want horns on my helmet.



Yeah, I imagine you would.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 5, 2011)

Horns I can live with, but stupid looking flared collar things... plus it looks about three sizes too big. I'm actually vain enough to remove the helmet entirely and lose X points of AC, just so it doesn't annoy me in third person view.


----------



## ohmyliver (Dec 5, 2011)

The Mask of Rahgot makes you look a bit like a miscellaneous ABC warrior if you wear plate armour, albeit a depressed ABC warrior wearing a hood


----------



## Cid (Dec 5, 2011)

I quite like Vokun, but it's heavy.

e2a: same graphic as above.


----------



## Epona (Dec 6, 2011)

I've finally got around to completing a questline - the Thieves Guild plot (good story but one of the main characters had a really irritating voice IMO) - and that was after a concerted effort to actually get on and achieve something!  Still got plenty to do for them before I get to be guildmaster though.  I am no further on in the main quest than I was 2 days after release, and I still haven't joined a civil war faction, although this character will end up with the Stormcloaks which is something I planned from the beginning.  I had intended to join them at the earliest possible opportunity but sort of got distracted - then got distracted from my distractions.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 6, 2011)

Skyrim Serial Killer


----------



## Structaural (Dec 6, 2011)

PS3 version may not get fixed, borked at development stage. But Bethesda blames the platform (slackness):
http://www.computerandvideogames.co...ire-large-time-commitment-claims-fallout-dev/

Man, just got my Smithing to 40 odd by making 45 iron daggers, enchanted 30 of them and made five grand selling them - my speech is shit too.
I have a house!
Sad, I spent 10 mins just sitting in my chair, watching the fire...


----------



## Crispy (Dec 6, 2011)

If you see a fox, follow it. All foxes will lead you to undiscovered dungeons or other local points of interest.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Dec 6, 2011)

good call


----------



## Cid (Dec 6, 2011)

Structaural said:


> PS3 version may not get fixed, borked at development stage. But Bethesda blames the platform (slackness):
> http://www.computerandvideogames.co...ire-large-time-commitment-claims-fallout-dev/
> 
> Man, just got my Smithing to 40 odd by making 45 iron daggers, enchanted 30 of them and made five grand selling them - my speech is shit too.
> ...



Be careful when you do that, if you gain lots of levels quickly without improving combat skills you'll find enemies more difficult (as effectively their level is increasing, but your combat abilities aren't). You can counter it by going to a trainer or using one of the grinding methods (eg let a low damage enemy hit you repeatedly for armour).


----------



## Structaural (Dec 6, 2011)

Oh cheers, yeah I was noticing that my destruction spell level is only 28 because I've been chopping wood, doing alchemy, enchanting, doing more alchemy and wandering Whiterun and the College of Mages. I haven't done a mission in ages... except fixing the Elderthingey tree. I'm still new to RPGs so dont' really get levelling yet.
Must try that low damage enemy thing with a healing spell loaded..


----------



## Cid (Dec 6, 2011)

Your main offensive skill should really be the highest so I'd go to a trainer for that or spend some time burning stuff or you'll have trouble with dungeon bosses...


----------



## revol68 (Dec 6, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Horns I can live with, but stupid looking flared collar things... plus it looks about three sizes too big. I'm actually vain enough to remove the helmet entirely and lose X points of AC, just so it doesn't annoy me in third person view.



yeah i usually stick with a hood cos my character looks sexy as fuck in them and she's a stealthy archer anyways.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 6, 2011)

Cid said:


> Your main offensive skill should really be the highest so I'd go to a trainer for that or spend some time burning stuff or you'll have trouble with dungeon bosses...



Most of my individual levels are around 17-25 to be fair (actual level - 17), but there must be a bug in smithing as every 2nd dagger upped my level.
I'm doing okay, I cleared Alftand the other day, only to find I should have started a quest first. It was bloody difficult, dwarven robots and magical Falmer everywhere, but got there in the end.
Dual Casting Firebolts seems my strongest attack, I nearly killed a Giant with it the other day but he eventually got a club to my head and launched me into the ionosphere after I ran out of magic, forgot you could pause, forgot I had loads of potions, just ran backwards staring fearfully into its eyes thinking  'one more fireball'....


----------



## Structaural (Dec 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If you see a fox, follow it. All foxes will lead you to undiscovered dungeons or other local points of interest.



I'd better stop killing them for their souls, mwahahah.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If you see a fox, follow it. All foxes will lead you to undiscovered dungeons or other local points of interest.



They do? Huh. They never seem to notice me until I'm practically on top of them, then they run around my feet a few times before grumbling and sauntering off.

I am rather a fan of the magical goat spirit guides though.

One escorts me up High Hrothgar every single time. They seem to appear at times of philosophical importance.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 6, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> They do? Huh.


It works in real life as well. Didn't you know?


----------



## tommers (Dec 6, 2011)

The ones at the bottom of our garden don't. They just seem to shit everywhere and be mangy little twats.


----------



## Dandred (Dec 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If you see a fox, follow it. All foxes will lead you to undiscovered dungeons or other local points of interest.



That's not just because the world is so cluttered you're going to run in to something whatever direction you take, is it?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 6, 2011)

tommers said:


> The ones at the bottom of our garden don't. They just seem to shit everywhere and be mangy little twats.


That means that there's fairy treasure at the bottom of your garden.

All this time and you never knew


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 6, 2011)

_Every_ time I go to Riverwood another sodding Dragon is attacking.


----------



## tommers (Dec 6, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That means that there's fairy treasure at the bottom of your garden.
> 
> All this time and you never knew


 
If there is then it is really well hidden.

I spent about 3 months in the summer digging the whole thing up and all I found was a huge yellow plastic tub buried under the decking.  That is still there.  Cos it is absolutely impossible to get out.  And.. AND... it hasn't even had a single one of those fucking foxes drown in it.

I hate my garden.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 6, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> _Every_ time I go to Riverwood another sodding Dragon is attacking.



Everytime I go anywhere a dragon attacks - is it above a certain level? That's how I ended up fighting that Giant, I was well on the way to killing a dragon, when I noticed it's health didn't seem to be going down only to realise I was attacking a Giant hiding behind the dragon (who probably killed the dragon in the first place).
Is there any defence against being launched into space?


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 6, 2011)

i used to read this thread, but then i got an arrow in my knee.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 6, 2011)

I wouldn't have got that two days ago, but a guard was telling me all about yesterday


----------



## tommers (Dec 6, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i used to read this thread, but then i got an arrow in my knee.



TOOK an arrow in the knee.

TOOK.

Get your memes right. 

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-took-an-arrow-in-the-knee


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 6, 2011)

tommers said:


> TOOK an arrow in the knee.
> 
> TOOK.
> 
> ...



You edited that quickly.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 6, 2011)

but you don't care about the lost "like you"?


----------



## tommers (Dec 6, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> You edited that quickly.


 
I wondered if anybody would notice that.


----------



## tommers (Dec 6, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> but you don't care about the lost "like you"?


 
No.  No I don't.  Screw it.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 6, 2011)

tommers said:


> TOOK an arrow in the knee.
> 
> TOOK.
> 
> ...



ha:


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 6, 2011)

Finally starting the DB storyline. Finally.

Stabbity.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 7, 2011)

Of course, I've gotten distracted. Did the very first part of the DB quest, just where you do what you do that leads to them noticing you, then wandered off north-east from Windhelm, on my way to Azura's Shrine, and found all sorts of awesomely cool stuff.

I love this game.


----------



## Voley (Dec 7, 2011)

Looks like my Xmas present of this may be somehow finding its way into my hands a little early this year. This weekend, hopefully.


----------



## Random (Dec 7, 2011)

The game seems to be broken for me now, after completing battle for whiterun. Have forced the quest to update using the console, but when I try to enter whiterun or travel anywhere else it just keeps on loading and eventually hangs after a few minutes


----------



## A Dashing Blade (Dec 7, 2011)

Random said:


> The game seems to be broken for me now, after completing battle for whiterun. Have forced the quest to update using the console, but when I try to enter whiterun or travel anywhere else it just keeps on loading and eventually hangs after a few minutes



Yup, same with me (PC version), it's bacause of the complexities of saving all the info, save-game files > 5mb


----------



## Random (Dec 7, 2011)

A Dashing Blade said:


> Yup, same with me (PC version), it's bacause of the complexities of saving all the info, save-game files > 5mb


On the same quest? I've got autosave turned off, so all it's trying to do is update the world after the battle results, I suppose. Will deleting most save files lighten the burden?


----------



## Structaural (Dec 7, 2011)

Whaat? that's a bit worrying, is that the new patch ?, I heard about this happening on the PS3 but not the PC. I'm still using the 1.2 version...


----------



## Epona (Dec 7, 2011)

People seem to be quite pleased with the 1.3 patch so far, but it's not been out long - I'll stay offline until tomorrow I think just to see more feedback.

Bethesda will also be rolling out official LAA support for PC users next week which is fantastic news, my AMD drivers shouldn't have any more hissy fits about me not using the Skyrim exe file to launch the game without me having to spank them into submission....


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 7, 2011)

Epona said:


> People seem to be quite pleased with the 1.3 patch so far, but it's not been out long - I'll stay offline until tomorrow I think just to see more feedback.
> 
> Bethesda will also be rolling out official LAA support for PC users next week which is fantastic news, my AMD drivers shouldn't have any more hissy fits about me not using the Skyrim exe file to launch the game without me having to spank them into submission....



What has it fixed then? I haven't been on steam so haven't seen any patch notes. Resistances, I suppose. Many stability issues?


----------



## ohmyliver (Dec 7, 2011)

apparently it does the following. My copy of Skyrim has just updated its self. Will report back in an hour some hours at some point in the future when I've had my Skyrim fix

General stability improvements  
Optimize performance for Core 2 Duo CPUs (PC Only)  
Fixed Radiant Story incorrectly filling certain roles  
Fixed magic resistances not calculating properly  
Fixed issue with placing books on bookshelves inside player purchased homes  
Fixed dragon animation issues with saving and loading  
Fixed Y-look input to scale correctly with framerate


----------



## Epona (Dec 7, 2011)

Having a look at the thread over at Bethsoft it appears some folks are having trouble with it, but it's trouble in the sense that some of the mods and post process injectors and ini tweaks are causing problems (which is not Bethesda's issue to sort out) so if having any trouble strip everything extra out and delete your ini file so that a new one is created on start up and then tweak that and start adding stuff back in to see what works and what doesn't. Should be obvious but apparently it isn't to everyone, at least not to everyone on the official forums!

SKSE authors hope to have a 1.3 compatible update tomorrow, not sure about other stuff at this point!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 7, 2011)

Do you have a link to the thread, Epona? I'd be interested to know which .ini tweaks and mods are causing some issues, since I've got a few myself. The main mod is the 4GB Launcher, which has been pretty indispensable tbh.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 7, 2011)

Dual wield dagger decapitation move is pretty harsh!


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 7, 2011)

bouncer_the_dog said:


> Skyrim Serial Killer


 don't ask me how I know this but this is quite hard to do...


----------



## Epona (Dec 7, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Do you have a link to the thread, Epona? I'd be interested to know which .ini tweaks and mods are causing some issues, since I've got a few myself. The main mod is the 4GB Launcher, which has been pretty indispensable tbh.



Ha, I wish! There's no thread detailing anything useful at all in a nice handy format (not least because everyone has a different combination of mods made by different people, there's no one thread that could even begin to cover all of them), and the main patch thread is most people saying "thanks, much better now, this and that is fixed" with just a small handful of hysterical crybabies going "WAAAH my game doesn't work after the patch, Bethesda broke it, fuk u Bethesda" and refusing to take the (sometimes not very politely delivered) advice of ppl telling them to revert to original ini settings and disable mods before throwing a wobbler and as per usual it's descended into playground level tantrums and flaming while the moderators tear their hair out.

AFAIK reports seem to say that the 4Gb launcher is fine.
Script Dragon and SKSE 1.2 versions do not work, should be updated tomorrow - presumably some mods that use them will need updates after the new versions of those utilities are released.
Texture replacers are unlikely to cause any issues (at least as far as I can work out) provided the 4Gb launcher still works OK.
ini tweaks especially to mouse acceleration etc. no longer work since the patch addresses some of those issues and changes stuff, so revert to a clean ini first if you experience problems.

Edit to add: Having said that, of course if I find anything that is more useful than pages and pages of headache-inducing arguing I will post a link!

Edit to add again: seen a report that the FXAA post-process injector is working


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 7, 2011)

Thanks! Yeah, the last patch broke my mouse sensitivity .ini settings, deleting and letting the game repopulate it sorted it out. Shall just do that again.


----------



## Epona (Dec 8, 2011)

I am still blown away by the vistas in this game, this is the only game ever where I just feel compelled to take screenshots because I'll get to the crest of a hill at sunset and see some beautiful scenery open up in front of me tinged all orange from the setting sun with the first few torchbugs or luna moths coming out to play, or at night a deep violet and green aurora providing a backdrop to the distant mountains while a ruined fort looms out of the darkness nearby. What it lacks in close up texture detail it more than makes up for in the dramatic landscapes of the setting.

The dungeons are also so much more interesting than the ones in Oblivion, I look forward to exploring a new dungeon in this game whereas it was a bit "oh god, not again, let's get through this as quickly as possible" in OB. It really is a superb game, despite the godawful UI and patches that break stuff


----------



## Dandred (Dec 8, 2011)

The dungeons are designed better than in Oblivion but the lack of variation of enemies is getting a little boring, skeletons, druger and necromancers..........

Also another thing that has been bugging me a little is the lack of dialog, quests don't seem to give you any options apart from accept it and do it or decline.

Still a great game though.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 8, 2011)

it manages to be realativly ballenced.

and i am VERY hopeful about mods  for  doing stuff like adding in extra dialog and
even monster types


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 8, 2011)

Npc could have a defensive/ offensive option really,


Hey I'd settle of a stay the fuck behind me option


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 8, 2011)

dialogue or behavior?

dialogue is easy.   behavior less so.


----------



## Random (Dec 8, 2011)

Structaural said:


> Whaat? that's a bit worrying, is that the new patch ?, I heard about this happening on the PS3 but not the PC. I'm still using the 1.2 version...


My problem has nothing to do with updates, I've not patched mine at all.

Am feeling quite positive about my broken save, though, as now I can re-roll a proper battle mage  Maybe a Breton.


----------



## poului (Dec 8, 2011)

absolutely breezing through these thieves guild quests with my silent casting invisibility spell.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 8, 2011)

So far not had any issues with the latest patch. All working as I expect. Looking forward to the official LAA patch though.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 8, 2011)

poului said:


> absolutely breezing through these thieves guild quests with my silent casting invisibility spell.


where did you get the invisibility spell?  i've been after that one!


----------



## MooChild (Dec 8, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> where did you get the invisibility spell? i've been after that one!





Spoiler



Mages guild, i think they unlock after your relevant skill gets over a certain point.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 8, 2011)

I officially adore the Dark Brotherhood shrouded armour. I just one-shotted a spriggan with my bow from stealth.


----------



## Epona (Dec 9, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I officially adore the Dark Brotherhood shrouded armour. I just one-shotted a spriggan with my bow from stealth.



I've not used that at all, as I'm mostly using bows the x2 backstab damage from the gloves is useless and I have better % damage from bows on other gear than the DB headwear.  I love the Nightingale armor and boots from the thieves guild questline however as it looks totally amazing, but have ditched the hood and gloves in favour of some bow damage enhanced gear.


----------



## Voley (Dec 9, 2011)

My Xmas prezzy has arrived early somehow.  Thing is, I can't remember wtf I was doing. Searching for some horn of summat for the blokes up that mountain. I've found a new word to say down in the depths of somewherethatsoundsabitlikeIsengard, though. Is that it?


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 9, 2011)

You get a set bonus with a light armour perk.

The x15 dagger backstab bonus feels like easy mode.

I took on 6 snooty thalmar at once with daggers and pwned the lot. Unfortunately I accidentally killed the prisoner I was rescuing but hey ho..

Loving the nightingale armour. To get the guildmaster armour you have to do 5 devlin and 5 other person thieves missions in each major city... nearly there...


----------



## Cid (Dec 9, 2011)

NVP said:


> My Xmas prezzy has arrived early somehow.  Thing is, I can't remember wtf I was doing. Searching for some horn of summat for the blokes up that mountain. I've found a new word to say down in the depths of somewherethatsoundsabitlikeIsengard, though. Is that it?



Check your objectives under journal (j), make sure only the one you're on is selected, press M to show it on the map (L switches between local and world) or follow the indicator on the bar at the top of your screen.

Or whatever the xbox equivalents are.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 9, 2011)

NVP said:


> My Xmas prezzy has arrived early somehow.  Thing is, I can't remember wtf I was doing. Searching for some horn of summat for the blokes up that mountain. I've found a new word to say down in the depths of somewherethatsoundsabitlikeIsengard, though. Is that it?



Ustengrav. Yes, you get a word of power in there. It is the quest for the horn, but that quest continues outside of Ustengrav. As Cid says, check your journal, make sure nothing else is marked as active, only that, and it'll take you where you need to go now.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 9, 2011)

Epona said:


> I've not used that at all, as I'm mostly using bows the x2 backstab damage from the gloves is useless and I have better % damage from bows on other gear than the DB headwear. I love the Nightingale armor and boots from the thieves guild questline however as it looks totally amazing, but have ditched the hood and gloves in favour of some bow damage enhanced gear.



For the level I'm at right now, the x20 bow damage with the cowl is lovely, and since I'm an assassin and I've put my perk into x15 dagger damage, the x2 backstab from the gloves is also nice. I'm going to switch to dual-wielding daggers for close encounters, rather than my mace and shield, I think. Dispatch them quickly.

I'm going to join the Thieves Guild down the line, after I've done most of the initial DB stuff.


----------



## Voley (Dec 9, 2011)

Ta folks.  I spent ages fucking about after getting the word thinking I still had to look for the horn down there. Will have another go in a minute, ta.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 9, 2011)

Are you all playing magic elf stabby ponces, or has anyone else gone down the two handed/heavy armour route?


----------



## Voley (Dec 9, 2011)

Is 'playing as a mage' a euphemism for homosexuality yet?


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 9, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Are you all playing magic elf stabby ponces, or has anyone else gone down the two handed/heavy armour route?



I'm level 24 with level 68 two-handed. Most people die with a single sword blow, which is nice. However, my character disdains heavy armour as it's worn by cowards.


----------



## Boppity (Dec 9, 2011)

I'm a wood elf thief and Dark Brotherhood listener with a penchant for the bow and arrow!


----------



## ohmyliver (Dec 9, 2011)

I've gone for the heavy armour wearing one handed swordsman, so effectively a wanker in a shell-suit (or in this case dragon bone suit).


----------



## tommers (Dec 9, 2011)

I did the big orc thing and got bored and am now playing dark souls instead.

Why can't they put all the crafting stuff in one place?  Make some armour,  run to the other side of town.  Loading screen. Enchant armour.  Loading screen. Run back. Go to shop. Loading screen. Sell armour.  Leave shop. Loading screen.

No wonder it swallows hours!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 9, 2011)

Oh for contiguous indoor/outdoor areas.

I'm playing a sneaky archer assassin (and someday she'll also be a thief), but I started a two-handed heavy armour warrior orc. I just like sneaking so freaking much. The bow combat is excellent.


----------



## tommers (Dec 9, 2011)

Yeah when I go back to it I'm going to be all sneaky sneaky.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 10, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Are you all playing magic elf stabby ponces, or has anyone else gone down the two handed/heavy armour route?


 2 handed elven axe wielding nord here (in heavy armour)


----------



## Corax (Dec 10, 2011)

Is anyone else feeling that the 'compass' bar is overkll?

I miss exploring and trying to find stuff.


----------



## Gromit (Dec 10, 2011)

I'm heavy armour but sling fireballs not two handed. When I do need to get close up and personal my soul sucking one hander and a free hand for healing.


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 10, 2011)

Lydia died on me yesterday, I thought she could look after herself but apparently not, I left her lying in a cave.

Later on, I was sitting home alone going through my possessions, and I thought I heard the front door open. I turned round thinking maybe she was actually alive, and she'd followed me back, but alas it must have been someone outside making a noise.


----------



## Garek (Dec 10, 2011)

I am in a haunted house. It is dark and scary but apparently there is a prize.

I do hope it's cake.


----------



## Boppity (Dec 10, 2011)

Garek said:


> I am in a haunted house. It is dark and scary but apparently there is a prize.
> 
> I do hope it's cake.



Is it in Solitude?


----------



## Garek (Dec 10, 2011)

Nope. Markarth.

I have just left Markarth and I hope never to return. A really unsettling, claustrophobic place.


----------



## Boppity (Dec 10, 2011)

Garek said:


> Nope. Markarth.
> 
> I have just left Markarth and I hope never to return. A really unsettling, claustrophobic place.



Ah I think I know the one you mean. I didn't like that mission. Felt bad.


----------



## Voley (Dec 10, 2011)

I've lost Lydia, too. She got stuck the other side of a gate in one of the barrows and that was the last I saw of her. I'd given her a half-decent sword, too, the cow.  And she was sarcastic when I gave it to her.  I've hired a magician in Riften to take her place but he's a bit annoying and I might have to smite him most thunderously.


----------



## Garek (Dec 10, 2011)

So what are people doing about the Thalmor? I have just come across them escorting a prisoner. Kinda tempted to free him. Elves are right stuck up bastards.


----------



## Voley (Dec 10, 2011)

Also I seem to have at least two contracts on my life, one of which is from the Dark Brotherhood who have 'performed The Black Sacrament', apparently. I'm hoping this is just the name of some sort of prog-rock opera and its nothing to worry about.


----------



## Dandred (Dec 10, 2011)

Garek said:


> So what are people doing about the Thalmor? I have just come across them escorting a prisoner. Kinda tempted to free him. Elves are right stuck up bastards.



I just kill them and free the prisoner.....


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 10, 2011)

The first time I saw some Thalmor agents escorting a prisoner I thought I'd have a chat with them to see what was up. They were so derisive of me, a Nord in my own country, that I ended up slaying them both in self-defence after I tried to free the prisoner. That incident eventually led to me joining the Stormcloak rebellion.


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 10, 2011)

I'm missing the "fame" and "infamy" scores from Oblivion, unless I haven't noticed them in the stats?


----------



## revol68 (Dec 10, 2011)

it is pissing me off that i think i'm missing loads of good missions and story by refusing to join the fascist stormcloaks or the imperial cunts.


----------



## Gromit (Dec 10, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> The first time I saw some Thalmor agents escorting a prisoner I thought I'd have a chat with them to see what was up. They were so derisive of me, a Nord in my own country, that I ended up slaying them both in self-defence after I tried to free the prisoner. That incident eventually led to me joining the Stormcloak rebellion.



Once I stumbles upon the Thalmor battling a bear that had wandered onto the road. 
Being no fan of either ursine or elvenkind I sat down to watch wondering who on earth to root for. 

Eventually the bear was despatched but not before it had mauled their prisoner into a blood drenched corpse. 

I approached to congratulate them on their wilderness scrap but before I could say a word they warned me away from the dead prisoner stating how they were going to take him in. I guess dead or alive bounties are now in place and he must have been a very important prisoner to merit such. Wish I'd saved him. I could have killed them and claimed the bounty myself.


----------



## Dandred (Dec 10, 2011)

revol68 said:


> it is pissing me off that i think i'm missing loads of good missions and story by refusing to join the fascist stormcloaks or the imperial cunts.


You're not missing much. Go somewhere and kill some dudes. I did the Imperial missions with this character and wasn't amazed with the story arc or what changed after i did it.


----------



## ohmyliver (Dec 10, 2011)

also the Thalmor tend to have nice armour and weapons with a high resale value


----------



## Corax (Dec 10, 2011)




----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 10, 2011)

needs more Venger


----------



## Bingo (Dec 10, 2011)

and Tiamat


----------



## ohmyliver (Dec 10, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> needs more Venger


He's quit the dungeoning business to set up his own bus company....


----------



## Garek (Dec 10, 2011)

Dandred said:


> I just kill them and free the prisoner.....



Yep. That's what I did to. Who the hell do they think they are!?

Come to a conclusion about giants. They are basically shepherds, except with mammoths not sheep. And they make cheese. Really every one should just leave the poor sods alone.


----------



## Crispy (Dec 10, 2011)

If you think that the Stormcloaks are an anti-thalmor side, then you didn't read the thalmor dossier on ulfric...


----------



## agricola (Dec 10, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If you think that the Stormcloaks are an anti-thalmor side, then you didn't read the thalmor dossier on ulfric...



Isnt that more about him than about them?


----------



## Garek (Dec 10, 2011)

'F' is no longer working for me when it come to favouriting  Also fire didn't load for a couple of hours. Back now.


----------



## Crispy (Dec 10, 2011)

agricola said:


> Isnt that more about him than about them?


there is no them, just him


----------



## Epona (Dec 10, 2011)

Garek said:


> Come to a conclusion about giants. They are basically shepherds, except with mammoths not sheep. And they make cheese. Really every one should just leave the poor sods alone.



Er yeah... sometimes along the roads you will see a farmer taking a painted cow as an offering to the giants.
Follow him and see what happens...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 10, 2011)

Epona said:


> Er yeah... sometimes along the roads you will see a farmer taking a painted cow as an offering to the giants.
> Follow him and see what happens...



Really?

Wow, I've never seen that.

This game XD


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 10, 2011)

*shakes head*

Ok that another couple of hours wasted trying to wait around to see the painted cow offering


----------



## Epona (Dec 10, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Really?
> 
> Wow, I've never seen that.
> 
> This game XD



I've seen a few, you can talk to the farmer and he has a couple of dialogue options to explain what he is doing and why the cow is painted - most of them I've come across have been along the road that runs through the flat plains area between Whiterun and Rorikstead, if you use that road a lot you'll probably come across that random event eventually.


----------



## Corax (Dec 10, 2011)

I killed a giant, who then sank into the mountainside.  Poignant?


----------



## Epona (Dec 11, 2011)

Skyrim took Best Game at the VGAs (probably the only GOTY that means anything, what with it being the video game equivalent of the Oscars) and best RPG - also Bethesda Game Studios got best developer award.

Well deserved IMO.


----------



## Corax (Dec 11, 2011)

Yet neither best XBox or PC game.  It's contradictions like that that make awards look so overtly manipulated.

Not being even shortlisted for best original score is a bit dick too.


----------



## Epona (Dec 11, 2011)

Corax said:


> Yet neither best XBox or PC game. It's contradictions like that that make awards look so overtly manipulated.
> 
> Not being even shortlisted for best original score is a bit dick too.



Now I can understand it not getting best PC game, because the PC interface is seriously fucked up.  But why Portal 2 which is a multiplatform game?  I'd rather see a PC only game, or at least one that was developed primarily for the PC, get the PC award.  The Witcher 2 was nominated and should have got it, for its interesting gameplay and also for graphics which really made the most of PC hardware and replaced Crysis as a benchmark (as in "my PC can run TW2 on ultra")

I agree with you on the score, it has the best music since Arcanum IMO, and for me that is saying a lot.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 11, 2011)

the VGAs have a history of being shit

they have the most visibility  but  most people think they are a joke most of the time


----------



## Garek (Dec 11, 2011)

Epona said:


> Skyrim took Best Game at the VGAs (probably the only GOTY that means anything, what with it being the video game equivalent of the Oscars) and best RPG - also Bethesda Game Studios got best developer award.
> 
> Well deserved IMO.



Hmmm, I don't think it is that well deserved. I am struggling to sum up on my thoughts on this but I think my main problem with it is that it isn't really doing anything new. It is a good game sure, but there is no real spark of ingenuity to it, no real depth. It also follows a lot of weird game logic.

I don't think Bethesda are that great a developer. Not saying they are bad, jut not great.

Skyrim for me is good _for a game. _But it doesn't go beyond of that. iyswim.

Argh. I am going to have to come back to this because this doesn't quite convey what I am trying to say and I really need to get to work!


----------



## Garek (Dec 11, 2011)

Epona said:


> Er yeah... sometimes along the roads you will see a farmer taking a painted cow as an offering to the giants.
> Follow him and see what happens...



Sounds like that is my goal for tonight!


----------



## Voley (Dec 11, 2011)

How do you enchant weapons again? My axe isn't setting things on fire any more.


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 11, 2011)

NVP said:


> How do you enchant weapons again? My axe isn't setting things on fire any more.



You need to recharge it with a soul gem


----------



## Voley (Dec 11, 2011)

Oh right. I've got a couple of them. I wondered what they were for. Ta.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 11, 2011)

i think skyrim deserves praise as it shows that refinement is often equally as important as innovation.

skyrim shows the purpose of refining game concepts. how you can develop a game so while it is better it is still the same game you know and love. when making a particular game sometimes refinement is more important than being different.

i like the later assassin's creed better than the earlyer ones because of this. the later ones arn't new and diffrent but all the little thing are better.

yes as a whole the industry needs more innovation but refinement makes a good game better.   yes skyrim is the same thing  as  morrowind and oblivion (and fallout too really) but  it's not just a copy it's an evolution.


----------



## Voley (Dec 11, 2011)

Given that this game is so good I'm wondering why I couldn't get into Oblivion now.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 11, 2011)

small things can lead to big things

for somereason  oblivion  just  didn't  quite have the atmosphere of either  morrowind or skyrim


----------



## Voley (Dec 11, 2011)

My only criticism of it so far is that there's almost too much to do. And yes, I know that's not a criticism as such. As a bit of a novice at RPG's it can be a bit overwhelming at first. I've got so many fucking quests ongoing right now that I keep losing the plot occasionally and details like how to enchant things - see above - get forgotten.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 11, 2011)

that is one of the things about elder scrolls games.

but i would say that skyrim is much better about this then morrowind was. in morrowind i literally forgot the entire main quest. seriously after messing about with the fighters and mages quild i seriously could not even remember a single thing about what the main quest was.

at least in skyrim you always know two major facts. 1.) there is a civil war on 2.) there are dragons.

it's always a ballencing act. would you rather
a.) you forget how to enchant things
b.) they remove enchanting so there are less things to forget

i do ki9nda feel  that morrowind is a good  comparison  because in a way  that game is truer to the open world idea.  the big plot  is  sometimes a case of can't see the wood for the trees.   skyrim is  more in your face about the main plot.
personally  i think  in terms of  the game i'm after the skyrim system, is slightly better than the morrowind  system  if only because i did kinda lose motivation about the main morrowind quest  so after  doing the mage and fighters quests  (and getting barred from the theives guild)   i kinda  felt a bit lost


----------



## Voley (Dec 11, 2011)

Oh, definitely a). I'm guessing if you've played all the others it's a bit easier though. I'd never even heard of Morrowind before you mentioned it, for example.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 11, 2011)

sorta.

it is it's own game in many ways  in terms of details.   i think you need to get used to the type of world  more than the game mechanics.   i think the games that prepared me for skyrim the most  is  fallout games.  fallout 3  had me  ignoring the main quest and just  randomly wandering around the place   but with the bigger picture still in mind  and  new vagas  really got me sold in  having lots of different factions battling each other.  in fact in my mind i sorta equate the empire with the NCR.   although i think the stormclocks  are a lot more grey area than the legion


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 11, 2011)

hummm

actually i kinda want to play morrowind again  now  that  skyrim has  got me back into TES  i might appreciate it better


----------



## Voley (Dec 11, 2011)

Yeah, I've played the two most recent Fallout games. I think I'd be a lot more lost if that wasn't the case.


----------



## Garek (Dec 11, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i think skyrim deserves praise as it shows that refinement is often equally as important as innovation.



I can accept that except I don't think Skyrim is that refined. In fact i think it is really rough round the edges. Or did you mean refined as in building on the previous games?

RE: The main quest - I am completely failing to get on with it and having a wonderful time because of it. In fact only last night did I visit the grey beards and I am nearly at level 30. Just been too busy doing other things.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 11, 2011)

I don't even know which quests are main quests and which are side quests. I'm just doing things depending on where I am on the map.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 11, 2011)

I tried Oblivion and hated it. I tried Fallout 3 and hated it. I adore Skyrim. I don't know why, just something about all the pieces coming together in just the right combination for me. I haven't played a game as in-depth as this before, all my RPGs have been more linear affairs like the Dragon Ages, for example. But if you set out to focus on one thing for a while, like alchemy, you'll learn a bit more about it, and the more you play the more you'll start to understand why potions can be useful in battle as well as for patching you up. Same with enchantment, you'll find yourself buying gear you don't want because it's enchanted with something, and breaking it down so you can enchant something else down the line. You'll end up with two sets of weapons, one with soul trap enchanted on it, so you can always keep a good supply of soul gems, and one that is strictly for hard hitting damage. And so on. It comes with time, and at the level you want it to. There's so much stuff in it because it lets you have more control over the type of character you want to play, with the distribution of skills that suits your style. So there will be some things you don't use or forget about, but that's fine - in real life we can't do everything either.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 11, 2011)

Garek said:


> I can accept that except I don't think Skyrim is that refined. In fact i think it is really rough round the edges. Or did you mean refined as in building on the previous games?



yeah  as an evolution on the last game  not simply  polish

it's a mix between innovation and  simple tweaking

i think assasins creed has been fairly much the same game since II  but  it has been tweaked a lot  and  for the better in my opinion.   that  is a game that is  refined in execution (or should i say assassination?)

elder scrolls on the other hands   tend to feel  both  familier   yet  totally  diffrent.

i really like this kind of refinement and evolution.    if you like a series it's what you want to see from it

if you like a game  you want to see more of that  type of game.  you don't  want totally different games  all the time.  on the other hand  you don't  want endlessly clonestamped games

i think the elder scrolls  is  a really  good example of a series  that has  evolved   over the years  but managed to still feel  like  a series.  although  i only  have experience with III onwards  also each evolution is also a refinement.  (some missteps as well but that is part or also trying something new)


----------



## revol68 (Dec 11, 2011)

i'm enjoying it but it's not sucking me into the story, it;s more a game that plays on a hoarding and leveling dynamic, well that and exploring the map is pretty awesome but it isn't like Fallout3 where I felt drawn into the world and that my actions made a difference.

Frankly I think it's the fantasy setting with it's racialist structure, it makes them reactionary at the core.


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 11, 2011)

So a side note who programmed the bloody horse frost to think it was a level 30 orc that can storm forts on his own

Lol


----------



## Corax (Dec 11, 2011)

Experiencing a lot of pop and graphics gliches recently.  I've added the 4GB launcher, hoping that improves matters.


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 11, 2011)

Does anyone else get the juddering upside-down dragon corpse appearing at the gates of Whiterun every morning, or is it just me?


----------



## golightly (Dec 11, 2011)

No but I saw a pie with the shakes today and the all the trees turned into blue blancmange and then the game crashed. Too many mods I reckon in my case.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 11, 2011)

The 4gb launcher does wonders for me. Can't play the game without it, and I've only got a handful of higher texture mods installed, and one or two .ini tweaks for shadowing and so on.

I had a slight flicker of some pop-in textures yesterday, but it was minor.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 11, 2011)

golightly said:


> No but I saw a pie with the shakes today and the all the trees turned into blue blancmange and then the game crashed. Too many mods I reckon in my case.


Too many drugs more like.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 11, 2011)

I just found a giant mudcrab. It was already dead. It's huge.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 11, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I just found a giant mudcrab. It was already dead. It's huge.


I saw the giant mudcrabs and also a painted cow. However, it was just a cow all painted with spirals wandering along the road, with a giant following it. I wandered after them both for a bit to see what was going to happen, but it got far too boring.


----------



## agricola (Dec 11, 2011)

Today I tried to help a ghost, but got distracted by a fight between a dragon and a giant ghost crab.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 11, 2011)

This is the sort of thing, though, that makes me agree with revol to an extent - there are a million and one brilliant things to do, and you can wander around finding little mini-bits and hacking people up and playing with all the skill combinations and marrying people and looking at the scenery and so on for ages, but it's not actually character-based role-playing. There aren't many opportunities to make meaningful plot-related choices and how you behave doesn't make much difference, except in really broad ways which usually involve fights (e.g. getting arrested).

I started with a vague idea of a character and was looking for ways to develop that - in this case, an orc attempting to escape stifling martial culture and defeat stereotypes by moving to human lands, but who kept falling into expected behaviour patterns - but apart from not going with the Companions and joining the Bards' college, it's mostly just settled into dungeons and killing shit now. Despite there being a martial race-based rebellion going on nobody even cares that I'm an orc, apart from a few guards who say "stay out of trouble, orc!" when I go past.

One thing that got to me was that I did a mission which required breaking into the Battle-Born clan house. A contract was put out for doing this, and I had some thugs attack me, while carrying the contract (doh - why do assassins in Skyrim do this? they all do it, it can't be good standard business procedure) I went back to try to find the person whose name was on the contract, thinking that maybe they'd have a go at me when I saw them in person, or that at least I'd have an extra conversation option to show them the note and say "what's all this about then?" Nope; they talked to me like I'd just met them and there wasn't even the option to piss them off, which was something that was in Fallout 3 all the time.

I mean obviously I'm enjoying the game but it feels more like Minecraft sometimes than interactive fiction. Also I still haven't found a helmet that doesn't look stupid.


----------



## Crispy (Dec 11, 2011)

I share your frustrations, FM, but I just can't see developers - especially Bethesda - tackling that sort of dynamic storytelling any time soon. Have a read of this: http://gropingtheelephant.com/blog/?p=3059 and then consider how hard it would be to implement in a game of the scope of TES games. And consider the possibilities for game breaking bugs. You couldn't possibly test for all combinations of player actions, so you end up with people unable to complete the game because of the butterfly effect from stealing 2 gold in the early game means the high king won't talk to you in the final scene.

Having everything voice acted doesn't help. It's orders of magnitude easier to provide reactions to every possible player action, when it just takes a few lines of text.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 11, 2011)

Oh, it is hard and time-consuming, definitely - I write systems for game plotting nowadays, and I'm constantly frustrated by development effort vs level of plot interaction. I can bore for England on the topic, _with diagrams_. But there are things that can be done. It's more of a deliberate emphasis. ES games have never really been very storytelling, even back in the days of Arena - there may be a huge overarching plot but your place in that has always been quite proscribed. What they've always excelled in doing is let you wander around and do random stuff between plot nodes.

I can't stand voice acting. I'd rather just have text.

(I'm writing an indie game at the moment btw which has a parody of RPG dialogue - villagers are under a curse which makes them rapidly forget what they've heard and stops you saying things to them they don't want to hear, but which also protects them from being randomly attacked by monsters and players.)


----------



## Stigmata (Dec 11, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I can't stand voice acting. I'd rather just have text.



The voice acting thing makes it much harder to make good mods for these games that don't come across as amateur efforts. I really wish they'd go back to text based dialogue, but i'm sure that will never happen.


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## Boppity (Dec 11, 2011)

I quite like the voice acting. Esepcially if you're sneaking around. Sometimes just hearing a voice through a door alerts you that there are people present. I like that.


----------



## Stigmata (Dec 11, 2011)

Boppity said:


> I quite like the voice acting. Esepcially if you're sneaking around. Sometimes just hearing a voice through a door alerts you that there are people present. I like that.



That's different though, the odd greeting or comment or even "I saw a mudcrab today..." can be reused more easily than detailed or character specific dialogue.


----------



## poului (Dec 12, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> I officially adore the Dark Brotherhood shrouded armour. I just one-shotted a spriggan with my bow from stealth.



daedric arrows


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## FridgeMagnet (Dec 12, 2011)

"I am sworn to carry your burdens  "

I just want to give you a fucking magic shield so you don't die so quickly you irritating woman.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 12, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> (I'm writing an indie game at the moment btw which has a parody of RPG dialogue - villagers are under a curse which makes them rapidly forget what they've heard and stops you saying things to them they don't want to hear, but which also protects them from being randomly attacked by monsters and players.)



memento the rpg?


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## Crispy (Dec 12, 2011)

Not that the game has perfect voices already. Anyone done the quest to solve the nightmares in Dawnstar? Guy has the worst cock-er-ney accent ever. >_<


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## Voley (Dec 12, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "I am sworn to carry your burdens  "


Mercurio or whatever he's called is even worse. He gets all huffy saying 'I am an apprentice magician not a pack horse!" Repeatedly. But he does have a nice line in fiery blasts during a scrap so I'm tolerating him for the time being.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 12, 2011)

I backstabbed a Dragon.


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 12, 2011)

Brought down a blood dragon with 4 arrows last night. It was very nearly 3.


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## al (Dec 12, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "I am sworn to carry your burdens  "
> 
> I just want to give you a fucking magic shield so you don't die so quickly you irritating woman.



My followers weapon of choice? A pickaxe...

She's got numerous one-handed weapons made out of ebony, glass, elves and fucking dodo scrotums yet she chooses the pickaxe? On top of this at the merest hint of an aggressive enemy (while I'm sneaky sneaky snipey snipey) she lets loose a lumbering tit of a frost atronarch that will invariably end up attacking me after it wanders in front of my bow.

Is an armoured pack horse/ monster bait really worth all this trouble? if she doesn't watch out she'll get an arrow in the knee....


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## Crispy (Dec 12, 2011)

My follower is an orc. He says "My blood runs cold. I prefer it boiling" and when I heal him he says "If you heal away my scars, there's going to be a problem.". He always equips the badass armour and weapons I give him. He's wicked


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## ChrisFilter (Dec 12, 2011)

Finally, FINALLY, got Skyrim working again yesterday. Now it no longer crashes every time I enter or exit a building/dungeon. I nearly cried tears of joy.


----------



## A Dashing Blade (Dec 12, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Finally, FINALLY, got Skyrim working again yesterday. Now it no longer crashes every time I enter or exit a building/dungeon. I nearly cried tears of joy.


Same problem here, havn't found a solution yet (apart from reboot every 45 mins or so), how did you do it?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 12, 2011)

Are you using the 4GB Launcher? I know I keep harping on about it. But seriously, I can't actually open the game using the usual launcher anymore. I can only play it without crashes using that.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Dec 12, 2011)

A Dashing Blade said:


> Same problem here, havn't found a solution yet (apart from reboot every 45 mins or so), how did you do it?



a) Copy your save files to a temp folder on your desktop
b) Delete the whole /my games/skyrim folder
c) Start Skyrim again (this will add a new /my games/skyrim folder with fresh ini files)
d) Exit
e) Paste your save files back again
f) Start the game using the 4GB launcher and all should be well

I did this on 1.2 and it made no difference, but with 1.3 it's worked.


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## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 13, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> a) Copy your save files to a temp folder on your desktop
> b) Delete the whole /my games/skyrim folder
> c) Start Skyrim again (this will add a new /my games/skyrim folder with fresh ini files)
> d) Exit
> ...



alternatively get it on an xbox360


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## tommers (Dec 13, 2011)

Haha.


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## ChrisFilter (Dec 13, 2011)

bouncer_the_dog said:


> alternatively get it on an xbox360



Na. I'm very happy as a graphics whore. And the mods make these initial hassles well worthwhile. Besides, it's only Bethesda games that are so shoddily made. All other games run without a hitch.

The 360 is a nice machine, I owned one for years, but my preference now is for PC. The 360 feels very dated. And my PC is in my lounge hooked up the big telly so it's used for XBMC as well.


----------



## Epona (Dec 13, 2011)

Fed up with using menus to switch between shouts?

Have a look at this mod demonstration - Thu'uMic - use a microphone to trigger shouts by voice -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNCKgmjOkXg (demonstration starts at about 50 seconds in)

Link to the mod on Nexus is under the vid.


----------



## Voley (Dec 14, 2011)

al said:


> On top of this at the merest hint of an aggressive enemy (while I'm sneaky sneaky snipey snipey) she lets loose a lumbering tit of a frost atronarch that will invariably end up attacking me after it wanders in front of my bow.
> 
> Is an armoured pack horse/ monster bait really worth all this trouble? if she doesn't watch out she'll get an arrow in the knee....


I've got a similar problem. My bloke wades into battle immediately - sometimes before I'm even off me horse - and often has relatively weak enemies killed by the time i get involved. As a result I'm not levelling up so quickly. Arrow in the knee time? He was a great help killing my second dragon though.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 14, 2011)

This rather rape obsessed viking fellow just punches everything (takes out a giant with 4 punches to his knees):


----------



## Crispy (Dec 14, 2011)

NVP said:


> I've got a similar problem. My bloke wades into battle immediately - sometimes before I'm even off me horse - and often has relatively weak enemies killed by the time i get involved. As a result I'm not levelling up so quickly. Arrow in the knee time? He was a great help killing my second dragon though.


Maybe make some Poison Of Gimping (or whatever) so you can give him a quick stab before a fight and make him more useless.


----------



## agricola (Dec 14, 2011)

Today I found some hunters relaxing in the hot springs east of Fort Amol, and accidentally kicked their clothes into the water.  One of them asked "What are you doing that for".  This is the greatest game ever made.


----------



## Gromit (Dec 14, 2011)

I'm now the proud owner of a full set of daedric heavy armour, legendary quality with my fortify destruction enchanted onto it. 

Falmer arrows just ping off me now.


----------



## Boppity (Dec 14, 2011)

I bought my friend this for Christmas. Now he can share my joy. I am the best fucking friend ever.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 14, 2011)

Boppity said:


> I am the best fucking friend ever.



you do realise you have now just destroyed his xmass  and possible doomed any of his current relationships

he used to be a normal person until he took a skyrim in the knee


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## Boppity (Dec 14, 2011)

I used to be a normal person until I took a skyrim in the knee! Now I'm dragging my best friend down with me!


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## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 14, 2011)

he is sworn to carry your burden


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## Epona (Dec 14, 2011)

Bloody hell I don't seem to be progressing in this game at all (in terms of story).  I have spent most of my time collecting lost rings and books and weapons for people.

For the last week I have been planning to do the next bit of the main quest (the first one the monks give you) at the next available opportunity but I currently have a house to rob, a book to find, a lost helm, and a giant to kill for bounty, all taking me in the opposite direction and I just have to get those done first.  Also have a dragon and a bandit leader to clear up and a shop ledger to alter elsewhere on the map.  And a Dark Brotherhood quest to turn in and get the next one, when I'm next around that area.  Most of these are at locations I haven't explored yet - although they might just be simple fetch quests, they are sending me all over the place to new dungeons, and I really like that they are providing a little direction to my otherwise random wanderings!


----------



## Supine (Dec 14, 2011)

Epona, I feel the same way. Although I have a completely different set of things to do 

In fact, thinking about it, I don't have a clue what the main quest actually is. And I don't care.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 14, 2011)

Supine said:


> Epona, I feel the same way. Although I have a completely different set of things to do
> 
> In fact, thinking about it, I don't have a clue what the main quest actually is. And I don't care.


I'm in the same boat, even if i wanted to get on with the main quest I wouldn't know which quest is the main one to do it.


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## Epona (Dec 14, 2011)

Supine said:


> Epona, I feel the same way. Although I have a completely different set of things to do
> 
> In fact, thinking about it, I don't have a clue what the main quest actually is. And I don't care.



Some of my main complaints about Oblivion, which I did quite enjoy in a lot of ways, were that a. dungeons were boring and b. there was no reason to visit the vast majority of them (which was not such a bad thing, given point a!). Apply points a and b to the small settlements outside of cities also, which with the exception of Hackdirt and Waters Edge, were really just filler material with no point to them - the Oblivion mods I enjoy most are ones that give quests to the small settlements and make use of the unused dungeons in interesting ways, giving them a point to their otherwise useless existence.

It's something that as far as I am concerned has been very well fixed in Skyrim. The dungeons are interesting to explore even after an embarrassing number of hours playing one character, and although the radiant quest system is filler material in its own way, it does a very good job at making it worthwhile stopping off to visit the tavern in a small settlement or taking a slight detour to check out a mining camp, because someone might have a random job for you and that might take you somewhere interesting. Exploration has been the strongest feature of most BGS games and something I enjoy, but it's certainly enjoyable to be pointed towards different places that you may not have found yet rather than just randomly picking a dungeon to enter, even if it is just to pick up a book.

Where it falls down slightly IMO is that you can have done multiple things between one visit to a settlement and the next, and mostly NPCs just have a greeting or the same dialogue options they had 3 weeks ago - it would be better if they had more lines that opened up at different times depending on the quests you'd done either locally or that affected the province in a way they would have noticed, or more in the way of chit chat or stuff about their background or the history of their town that might randomly pop up as a new dialogue option upon repeated visits (we have radiant quests, I also want radiant dialogue!) - but I suppose once you start having to budget for VO that sort of thing becomes prohibitively expensive.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 15, 2011)

Epona said:


> Where it falls down slightly IMO is that you can have done multiple things between one visit to a settlement and the next, and mostly NPCs just have a greeting or the same dialogue options they had 3 weeks ago - it would be better if they had more lines that opened up at different times depending on the quests you'd done either locally or that affected the province in a way they would have noticed, or more in the way of chit chat or stuff about their background or the history of their town that might randomly pop up as a new dialogue option upon repeated visits (we have radiant quests, I also want radiant dialogue!) - but I suppose once you start having to budget for VO that sort of thing becomes prohibitively expensive.



I do get comments about my armour and being in the companions from some people but it's not the 2 way dialogue just stuff they mutter as I walk past so they are getting there with it.


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## Voley (Dec 15, 2011)

Killed my third dragon last night and was feeling pretty cocky about it until I stumbled across a village ravaged by another one. Another one which then proceeded to attack me at the same time as a giant, a mammoth and three wolves that decided to get in on the action just for good measure. I lasted about 15 seconds.


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## Gromit (Dec 15, 2011)

I think that I've completely overpowered myself now. 

Master destruction spell Lightning storm with no mana cost = Death Star Beam Weapon. 
Which is appropriate seeing as I've just joined the Imperial Empire. 

I've been avoiding the main quest as I don't want the game to end.


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## Crispy (Dec 15, 2011)

Gromit said:


> I think that I've completely overpowered myself now.
> 
> Master destruction spell Lightning storm with no mana cost = Death Star Beam Weapon.
> Which is appropriate seeing as I've just joined the Imperial Empire.
> ...


It doesn't end. You finish the main quest and the rest of the game is still there to play.


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## Gromit (Dec 15, 2011)

Epona said:


> Where it falls down slightly IMO is that you can have done multiple things between one visit to a settlement and the next, and mostly NPCs just have a greeting or the same dialogue options they had 3 weeks ago - it would be better if they had more lines that opened up at different times depending on the quests you'd done either locally or that affected the province in a way they would have noticed, or more in the way of chit chat or stuff about their background or the history of their town that might randomly pop up as a new dialogue option upon repeated visits (we have radiant quests, I also want radiant dialogue!) - but I suppose once you start having to budget for VO that sort of thing becomes prohibitively expensive.



There is a little of that. e.g. One guard exclaiming as I passed "Surely that's not Asura's Star?!". 
A quest reward that I carry. 
I agree that there isn't much of that sort of stuff though.


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## ruffneck23 (Dec 15, 2011)

ive got azuras star but dont know what to do with it 

help please


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## Crispy (Dec 15, 2011)

*whistle* "who did you have to kill to get _that_ blade?"

I'm an unarmed mage.


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## MooChild (Dec 15, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> ive got azuras star but dont know what to do with it
> 
> help please



You use it collect souls - i.e. soul trap, and you can use it to recharge items or enchant other items, and its not destroyed, it is only depleted.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Dec 15, 2011)

yeah i realise this but can you equip it ? i have it stored and it does nothing , im prolly being thick tho


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## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> *whistle* "who did you have to kill to get _that_ blade?"
> 
> I'm an unarmed mage.



it's sticking out of your pocket


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## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 15, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> yeah i realise this but can you equip it ? i have it stored and it does nothing , im prolly being thick tho



presumably it  fills  slowly as you soultrap kill things


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## MooChild (Dec 15, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> presumably it fills slowly as you soultrap kill things



If you have other soul gems, they fill up first, i.e. the size of the gem finds the smallest gem it can fit in. As the Azura's star will fit a grand soul, it will only fill up when you trap a grand soul, or all your other gems are full.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 15, 2011)

are drugar classed as human?  (ie black gem)


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## Crispy (Dec 15, 2011)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> are drugar classed as human? (ie black gem)


no


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## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 15, 2011)

poor things.  soul downgrade...


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## ruffneck23 (Dec 15, 2011)

MooChild said:


> If you have other soul gems, they fill up first, i.e. the size of the gem finds the smallest gem it can fit in. As the Azura's star will fit a grand soul, it will only fill up when you trap a grand soul, or all your other gems are full.


 
cheers for that i was wondering why it wasnt filling up


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## Gromit (Dec 15, 2011)

Does anyone know if it captures human souls like a black soul gem?


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 15, 2011)

Gromit said:


> Does anyone know if it captures human souls like a black soul gem?



Only if you chose to turn it black. You had two options, you could return it to the elf in Winterhold (turns it black), or you could return it to the shrine (can only trap non-human souls).

I turn it black. That way it will always be filled with grand soul, and will never fill up accidentally with the soul of a freaking mudcrab.


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## Gromit (Dec 15, 2011)

Bah looks like being a goodie two shoes back fired on me. 

Not that I have any shortage of full grand soul gems.


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## Boppity (Dec 15, 2011)

My game keeps freezing on the Xbox.


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 15, 2011)

Having a new go as a mage/alchemist - not using any weapons at all

Don't seem to be able to drop ingredients, or put them in a cupboard, I just end up eating them.


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## Voley (Dec 15, 2011)

Random passers-by keep telling me I look sick. I understand that in the parlance of youth that is now considered rather cool.


----------



## Dooby (Dec 15, 2011)

Top tip - don't roast your veggies whilst playing Skyrim, thinking they can't have been in the oven all that long  (((burnt tatties)))


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## Crispy (Dec 15, 2011)

NVP said:


> Random passers-by keep telling me I look sick. I understand that in the parlance of youth that is now considered rather cool.


You have a disease. Check your active magic effects. Pray at an altar to cure it


----------



## ohmyliver (Dec 15, 2011)

or drink a potion of cure disease


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## Corax (Dec 15, 2011)

Or reply "yeah blud, y'getme?"


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 15, 2011)

or apparently you can just ignore it. I caught something somehow while escaping from the initial dragon attack thing, and all that happened was that everyone I passed had a 50% chance of saying "ooh you look ill".


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## Epona (Dec 15, 2011)

Boppity said:


> My game keeps freezing on the Xbox.



I've now got to the point where I can't continue with the character I have been playing since release, I suspect the size of my save files has exceeded a reasonable level (21 Mb now), I keep getting lag and CTDs or stuff failing to load (ground textures, entire buildings, interiors, items on shelves etc.) which requires exit and reload. I suspect that there is save game bloat caused by things such as nirnroot glow reapplying on top of the existing glow every time a cell resets (If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the resetting nirnroot), and ash piles never being disabled when the cell reset, and god knows what other countless useless references may be in my save games that aren't so easily noticeable!

So I think issues also manifest on PC, but takes a lot longer (300+ hours on one character) to cause problems than on consoles.

I have carefully stored my saves for that character elsewhere on my PC and will come back to her when either Bethesda (hopefully) or modders (shouldn't be left to them, but it is a useful backup option for us PC gamers) get these issues ironed out.

I didn't have any issues for weeks, then bam my game reaches a certain point in terms of hours of play/save file size and that's it, CTDs or exit and reload every 10 minutes because stuff isn't loading properly, corrupted or bloated saves are almost certainly the culprit IMO.

I am starting a new character to do the Main Quest in the meantime!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 15, 2011)

Epona, did you start using the 4GB Launcher? If not, that's helping a lot of people with CTDs. If so, then ... idk. I'm sorry you're having issues 

A patch was due this week, I believe, with their own LAA implementation.


----------



## Epona (Dec 15, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Epona, did you start using the 4GB Launcher? If not, that's helping a lot of people with CTDs. If so, then ... idk. I'm sorry you're having issues
> 
> A patch was due this week, I believe, with their own LAA implementation.



Yes been using the 4Gb launcher since you recommended it (thank you!), and hadn't had a CTD in ages, but once my save files (unmodded game btw, no hi-res texture files or anything) started going over 20 Mb I had a whole shit load of issues suddenly start happening just with that character, if I start a new one it is all fine and running smoothly, which suggests it is a save file issue specific to long games. Oblivion had various long-game issues on release (including the notorious "A-Bomb" bug and save file bloat) and I think I have run into the Skyrim equivalent!

I don't think many play the game the same way I play it tbh - most of my time with that character was spent wandering around catching butterflies rather than actually doing quests and stuff, so it's only an issue (at least on PC) for the minority who play a character for hundreds of hours, and even if Bethesda don't fix it, the folks who are responsible for Wrye Bash will eventually come up with a save game cleaner which will be as much of a lifesaver as it was for Oblivion, for those of us who like to play one character who does sod-all for 6 months, rather than getting on with quests and "finishing" the game then restarting to try a new character


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Dec 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> You have a disease. Check your active magic effects. Pray at an altar to cure it


answers like yours put me off giving this game a go, i have to say.


----------



## Corax (Dec 15, 2011)




----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 16, 2011)

Epona - my bosmer will likely clock up over 300 hours by the time I've gotten half way into the main quest, so I expect I'll run into those problems too. Load times are already sluggish, but that's because of the texture mods I've got. I don't mind so much though, worth it, at the moment. Wouldn't risk any other big ones though.


----------



## Epona (Dec 16, 2011)

Vintage Paw said:


> Epona - my bosmer will likely clock up over 300 hours by the time I've gotten half way into the main quest, so I expect I'll run into those problems too. Load times are already sluggish, but that's because of the texture mods I've got. I don't mind so much though, worth it, at the moment. Wouldn't risk any other big ones though.



I like Bosmer, as you enjoy roleplaying your characters are you aware of the Meat Mandate and Green Pact?* Might make a particular daedric quest easier to stomach for your Bosmer character 

*Bosmer do not use any plant materials from the Valenwood for construction, they are strict 100% carnivores - and are required to feast upon the bodies of their fallen enemies, including cannibalism.

References:

The Green Pact
A Dance In Fire v.7
Pocket Guide to the Empire, esp. the last box on this page


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 16, 2011)

Oh yes, *that* quest  I picked it up with my last character but didn't get to the next stage of it. No idea what I would have done, but now ... well, my Bosmer can let rip


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 16, 2011)

whats a bosmer


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Dec 16, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> whats a bosmer


gallic bosom by the sea?


----------



## Epona (Dec 16, 2011)

I tried out loads of characters of different races in previous games but somehow always came back to playing Bosmer, the lore about them is just so intriguing and different than the usual 'la la la skipping through the forest, oh look - a tree, a butterfly' wood elf type trope.

But in Morrowind there was this one thieves guild quest that involved nicking something from off the top of a tall cupboard and my Bosmer could never reach the bloody thing without jumping up and down and getting detected, there was a major height difference in that game, an Altmer character could pick the bloody thing up while crouched in sneak mode - so there were disadvantages


----------



## Epona (Dec 16, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> whats a bosmer



Bosmer = Elder Scrolls version of "Wood Elf", originating in the province of Valenwood.

Mer is a term indicating an elf, either generally (if someone refers to "men and mer" they mean humans and elves as a generalisation), or as a suffix - Bosmer, Altmer, Dunmer, Dwemer, Orsimer, Falmer (referring to different races of elves)...

Edit to add: Faendal in Riverwood who you can potentially recruit as a follower is a Bosmer.


----------



## Epona (Dec 16, 2011)

Well 'cos of my problems with my previous game, I started a new one.

I daresay that anyone who has played the game has already seen this.

I followed Ralof out of Helgen like my last character and OMFG. Last time I took a wrong turn out of the starting dungeon and got horribly horribly lost, didn't make it to Riverwood for hours. This time I actually followed Ralof to Riverwood, and he chatted to me the whole way there, we fought some wolves together, he showed me the Guardian Stones (which last time I didn't even find til I was like level 30 because I was heading in the wrong direction and possibly floating upstream) and commented on my choice, and as we approached the village told me he was pleased that we had travelled to Riverwood together, then there was this whole touching scene with him and his sister and her family including the obnoxious little brat (who seems a hell of a lot LESS obnoxious than in my last game, following that conversation!) and a discussion about Ulfric that *I completely missed out on last time*.

There are benefits to starting a new character, especially when you find out that you missed stuff the first time round


----------



## Dandred (Dec 16, 2011)

Is it worth doing the last mission in the thieves guild to get the Master Armor? I have the nightingale armor and the other goodie, is it worth taking them back to Nocturnal?


----------



## Voley (Dec 16, 2011)

Crispy said:


> You have a disease. Check your active magic effects. Pray at an altar to cure it


I wonder how I got it. A rather uncouth looking chap in Windhelm challenged me to a fist fight so I probably got it off him. Or a toilet seat in Riften or something.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 16, 2011)

Someone's made an online mod: http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3592


----------



## 100% masahiko (Dec 16, 2011)

I'm gonna start all over.
Start as an dark elf or something.


----------



## Gromit (Dec 16, 2011)

I've completed the main quest. 

So what next?

Think I'll try to get 100k gold. 
Then buy all the houses. 
Whilst trying to max out all the dragon shouts.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 16, 2011)

explore every mother fucking  cave, fort and building in skyrim

what i have been doing so far is  first becoming thane in  every town   then   finishing  the guild* quests

i still haven't finished the brotherhood off completely  because last time i tried  to start the  second "cure"  quest  the  guy didn't follow me  as i think he is meant to.  i decided to reload  and try again later

*by any other name


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 16, 2011)

You know what, I ended up buying a bloody 360 controller in GAME to avoid the general irritation of the controls. Of course, now I have to deal with the basic irritation of controllers generally, and also that my body moves even less when playing with it so my extremities tend to go to sleep.


----------



## Supine (Dec 17, 2011)

Ps3 update seemed to make the game a bit slower and the screen darker. Joy!

Still enjoyed kicking some ass though


----------



## Corax (Dec 17, 2011)

I'm going to start again as a mage.  My character ended up an MPD fuckup, not sure whether he was a barbarian, an archer, a mage or a thief.  And consequently not being much of anything and having to hide behinf Lydia most of the time.

I suppose I role-played a heroic coward.


----------



## Voley (Dec 17, 2011)

I've got a bit stuck in this cave called Fordelsomethingorother. I'm trying to get this magical mask. There's this room with a spiral staircase and a platform on it where you get attacked by Drougr Wights or something and a couple of blokes who blast you with frost incessantly. I've tried casting fireballs and various other things but no luck. The circle of protection spell (or something?, I can never remember what these things are called) worked OK for a bit. All my foes fled for a bit which allowed me and my follower to regroup but they just came back and totalled us again after. Anyone else had this? Any tips? Or do I just have to give up and come back when I'm a bit more than level 12?


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 18, 2011)

Can you not snipe them with the bow while sneaking to kill a couple of them, then go in with frost resistance and fortify armour on and kick arse.


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 18, 2011)

Try some shock/lightening spells on the blasting blokes to drain their magicka so they resort to coming at you with their daggers, or rain magicka-draining poisoned arrows on them if you don't have enough magika or scrolls yourself.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 18, 2011)

I've finally got rid of that fucking dog.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Dec 18, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I've finally got rid of that fucking dog.



 , he didnt annoy me too much , it was his master that pissed me off..


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 18, 2011)

ruffneck23 said:


> , he didnt annoy me too much , it was his master that pissed me off..



He just kept nudging me and getting in the way, with him and Lydia I'd often find myself trapped in a room because they were standing in the door way and I couldn't get past them.


----------



## bi0boy (Dec 18, 2011)

Lydia buggered off because I left her in my mansion and she got bored of waiting. No idea where to find her and I've got a Khajit follower now who's much more fun.

It's a bit of a let down purchasing Proudspire Manor, because you get this huge house but no one comes visiting to admire your decorations.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 18, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> Lydia buggered off because I left her in my mansion and she got bored of waiting. No idea where to find her and I've got a Khajit follower now who's much more fun.
> 
> It's a bit of a let down purchasing Proudspire Manor, because you get this huge house but no one comes visiting to admire your decorations.



I only have one house. It's full of metal though.


----------



## Voley (Dec 18, 2011)

I gave up on that cave in the end. I think it comes from aiming my level ups solely at two handed weapons. I can't fire my bow and arrow for shit and my magic's pretty crap, too. So now I'm doing the Dark Brotherhood stuff and am getting a bit more magical / sneaky. I'll go back and have another go later.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 18, 2011)

NVP said:


> I gave up on that cave in the end. I think it comes from aiming my level ups solely at two handed weapons. I can't fire my bow and arrow for shit and my magic's pretty crap, too. So now I'm doing the Dark Brotherhood stuff and am getting a bit more magical / sneaky. I'll go back and have another go later.



I'm very 2 handed with heavy armour, I jut smack the shit out of everything.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 18, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I'm very 2 handed with heavy armour, I jut smack the shit out of everything.


See, I restarted with a sneaky elf bow type character, and all I find now is that, while it's great fun sneaking up on bandits and getting sneak attack kills, what generally happens is that anybody even slightly hard just goes "ouch! right then you bastard" and runs at me and I have to use a bunch of healing potions. So I tell Lydia to wait in a corridor, then I go into a room, snipe a few times then run back down the corridor before I get murdered, and let Lydia deal with them. Which is not very heroic.

As the two-handed heavy Orc character I was playing previously, I could just run in and slaughter pretty much anything.


----------



## Cid (Dec 18, 2011)

My sneak-archer-dual wield has benefitted enormously from enchant and smithing - made necklace, ring, helm, bracers to buff smithing then improved my armour (oh yeah, blacksmith potions too, have to be quick though) and weapons, followed by buffing them with grand souls (courtesy of the star quest black option) - I haven't invested perks in them disproportionately either... I was level 30 mind you, but it's worth looking into as they're such easy skills to level (be careful to keep combat skills up though). After my last big session I'd pretty much doubled my armour and weapon damage, as well as adding something like +75% to base archery (can still improve on that) and a big wedge of health on the chest armour. Also means I can carry extra sets of lighter armour (you get 'light elven' which weighs less than the normal stuff) with resistance enchants that render most elemental attacks ineffective.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 18, 2011)

yeah i only really started to like archery after i got much better bows


----------



## Voley (Dec 19, 2011)

Cid said:


> My sneak-archer-dual wield has benefitted enormously from enchant and smithing - made necklace, ring, helm, bracers to buff smithing then improved my armour (oh yeah, blacksmith potions too, have to be quick though) and weapons, followed by buffing them with grand souls (courtesy of the star quest black option) - I haven't invested perks in them disproportionately either... I was level 30 mind you, but it's worth looking into as they're such easy skills to level (be careful to keep combat skills up though). After my last big session I'd pretty much doubled my armour and weapon damage, as well as adding something like +75% to base archery (can still improve on that) and a big wedge of health on the chest armour. Also means I can carry extra sets of lighter armour (you get 'light elven' which weighs less than the normal stuff) with resistance enchants that render most elemental attacks ineffective.


I agree. Smacking shit up with a big hammer _is_ the best way forward.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 19, 2011)

But presumably, if you can upgrade bows and light armour to make them useful, you could also upgrade great swords and heavy armour even more.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 19, 2011)

Enchanting really is where it's at. I've enchanted myself a ring that gives me +53 health, an amulet that gives me +33% archery damage (on top of the 20% that the first tier dark brotherhood cowl gives me), my bow currently has soul trap enchanted on it, but once I can smith the next level, I'm going to make another that is purely damage focused in its enchantments, and use that for the hard stuff, and the soul trap bow for when I need to replenish my stocks. I've got a full set of smithing accessories: a ring, an amulet and a pair of bracers, all enchanted with smithing, that I put on to improve my weapon and armour crafting. And now, when I get some nice weapon loot, I enchant it first with my most expensive enchantment, and make lots of money.

Seriously, enchantment may be my favourite thing ever. Apart from archery and sneaking. Which is clearly the most superior combat/play style


----------



## Structaural (Dec 19, 2011)

I like it, it's the only thing that doesn't really run out, once you've got the enchantment, other than finding gems and items to enchant. I'm far from your level though... I'll disenchant something that gives 30% and put on something else for 5-11%...


----------



## Cid (Dec 19, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> But presumably, if you can upgrade bows and light armour to make them useful, you could also upgrade great swords and heavy armour even more.



2h weapons have a high damage output but are relatively slow (especially combined with heavy armour), dual wield is very fast so you keep your opponent from hitting back as much - also means you can have two enchants (or 4) so good for strategic play. Heavy armour you're never going to be able to carry more than one set around, light armour it's easy to carry 3/4 so you can be a lot more adaptable... I can pick off most opponents with my bow anyway, so rarely get swamped as you can with pure melee builds. Also good for strategic use of poisons etc.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Dec 19, 2011)

I actually prefer to pile in with dual daggers than the bow these days.. swish swich..erk


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 20, 2011)

This has just turned up on my doorstep, just in time for the holidays.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> This has just turned up on my doorstep, just in time for the holidays.



Kiss goodbye to Christmas


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2011)

So where do you get soul trap ability from?

I'm getting to be a sneaky archer but could do with some gems to charge the bow.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 20, 2011)

Supine said:


> So where do you get soul trap ability from?
> 
> I'm getting to be a sneaky archer but could do with some gems to charge the bow.



I got it off an enchanted weapon I found, failing that get a soul trap magic tome and just use that and 1 handed on some animals to charge some gems up.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 20, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I got it off an enchanted weapon I found, failing that get a soul trap magic tome and just use that and 1 handed on some animals to charge some gems up.


 
also , get Azuras star, it's better for charging than soul gems so you can use soul gems for enchanting and making money.


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2011)

Better to go for the black option imo, only charges off humanoids but it's not like there's a shortage of bandits, necromancers, vampires etc and you get a grand soul every time.


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2011)

Supine said:


> So where do you get soul trap ability from?
> 
> I'm getting to be a sneaky archer but could do with some gems to charge the bow.



e2a: just echoed termite man.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 20, 2011)

Cid said:


> e2a: just echoed termite man.



I never thought of doing that. I'm just working my enchantment up so I can put 2 enchantments on a weapon.


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2011)

ftr what I said was that you can disenchant a weapon you bought/found with soul trap then re-enchant your preferred weapon. Unless TM was making a joke.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 20, 2011)

Cid said:


> ftr what I said was that you can disenchant a weapon you bought/found with soul trap then re-enchant your preferred weapon. Unless TM was making a joke.



It would be handy to do serious damage on harder opposition with a flaming axe then twat them at the end with a soul trap weapon. Double enchantment FTW.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 20, 2011)

Cid said:


> ftr what I said was that you can disenchant a weapon you bought/found with soul trap then re-enchant your preferred weapon. Unless TM was making a joke.


also I think I quoted the wrong post. #it was meant to be the first post I was quoting.


----------



## Epona (Dec 21, 2011)

Supine said:


> So where do you get soul trap ability from?
> 
> I'm getting to be a sneaky archer but could do with some gems to charge the bow.



I bought or found a dagger enchanted with it, the dagger was of little use to me so I disenchanted it to learn the Soul Trap enchantment and then put it on a bow. Fortunately bows are fairly light so I carried it round as a spare and just used it when I needed to fill up more gems. My main bow was a bow with paralyze enchantment, until I got the really good bow that is a reward towards the end of the Thieves Guild questline.


----------



## Voley (Dec 21, 2011)

Put a few solid hours in last night and made good progress with the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. My bloke's up to level 13 now and although I still struggle with baddies at the end of dungeons, trolls are a piece of piss now. Starting to use a bit of enchantment myself now, too and slowly getting a bit more magical. It's really great this game, really quite spectacular.


----------



## Garek (Dec 21, 2011)

I use dual Dwarwen axes because I love the power attack.


----------



## Supine (Dec 21, 2011)

Living this game. I'm up to level 20 with some sneaky skills 

I've finally noticed how to turn ore into ingots. Unfortunately I'd already worked out how to turn iron into silver and gold. Where does a companion go to find ore? I need iron ore to make stuff.

Plus I bought a soul catch spell from a shop. Not worked out how to use it yet though.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 22, 2011)

Only played a few mins of this before popping out but have to say very nice looking on the Xbox.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 22, 2011)

Supine said:


> Living this game. I'm up to level 20 with some sneaky skills
> 
> I've finally noticed how to turn ore into ingots. Unfortunately I'd already worked out how to turn iron into silver and gold. Where does a companion go to find ore? I need iron ore to make stuff.
> 
> Plus I bought a soul catch spell from a shop. Not worked out how to use it yet though.



You can find ore in the various mines (marked with crossed hammers). Mostly they have one main type of ore in each one. Some of them you can walk into and mine away and some have bandits etc in them you have to clean out.

Alternatively most of the blacksmith characters will sell you metal ingots - iron is very cheap.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 22, 2011)

There's a mine to the west of Whiterun that has a lot of iron (and bandits). Otherwise, yes, just buy the iron ore, it's very cheap. Iron ingots are pretty cheap in a pinch, as well.

In terms of using soul trap - if it's the spell then you need to cast it on a target before you attack, and hope you kill it before the time runs out. Then its soul will fill any empty soul gems you're carrying*. The easiest way to use it that I've found is to enchant a weapon with the soul trap enchantment (you'll need to find or buy a weapon with it first, then either use that or disenchant it and enchant your weapon of choice). That way there's no fiddling about trying to cast then swap to your weapon, then attack.

*certain restrictions apply /legalese


----------



## D'wards (Dec 23, 2011)

Been playing this so much that when i watched a show about the riots earlier my first thought was the way to deal with them is to hit them with the frost spell then steam in with enchanted orc sword.


----------



## Voley (Dec 23, 2011)

D'wards said:


> Been playing this so much that when i watched a show about the riots earlier my first thought was the way to deal with them is to hit them with the frost spell then steam in with enchanted orc sword.


I used to get that after playing GTA too much. I'd be walking down the street sussing out which were the best cars to nick.


----------



## Epona (Dec 23, 2011)

D'wards said:


> Been playing this so much that when i watched a show about the riots earlier my first thought was the way to deal with them is to hit them with the frost spell then steam in with enchanted orc sword.



I was working out who I needed to speak to about joining them and overthrowing the current rule - each to his own I suppose.

My worst "I've been playing too many computer games" moment was when I was waiting to cross a busy road and the thought flashed through my mind that if I failed to get across I could just reload my save...


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 23, 2011)

Epona said:


> I was working out who I needed to speak to about joining them and overthrowing the current rule - each to his own I suppose.
> 
> My worst "I've been playing too many computer games" moment was when I was waiting to cross a busy road and the thought flashed through my mind that if I failed to get across I could just reload my save...



at least you didn't check to see if Lydia had made it across safely (she probably wouldn't of  )


----------



## Voley (Dec 23, 2011)

Epona said:


> My worst "I've been playing too many computer games" moment was when I was waiting to cross a busy road and the thought flashed through my mind that if I failed to get across I could just reload my save...



Was this the soundtracK?


----------



## Teepee (Dec 23, 2011)

got sneak fully upgraded, combine this with a good dagger the armour set from the 



Spoiler



dark brotherhood


 and my backstabs do 30x damage. Took down an ice troll in one hit with this at level 14!


----------



## golightly (Dec 23, 2011)

Teepee said:


> got sneak fully upgraded, combine this with a good dagger the armour set from the
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The backstabs do 3.0x damage rather than 30x damage


----------



## al (Dec 24, 2011)

D'wards said:


> Been playing this so much that when i watched a show about the riots earlier my first thought was the way to deal with them is to hit them with the frost spell then steam in with enchanted orc sword.



I was outside smoking a spliff and looked up at the stars, only to wonder if I had any perk points to upgrade....


----------



## al (Dec 24, 2011)

golightly said:


> The backstabs do 3.0x damage rather than 30x damage



not if you take the right perk, think it's a sneak one...


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 24, 2011)

al said:


> not if you take the right perk, think it's a sneak one...



yeah that does 3.0x damage, it's just after the bows do 2.0x damage on the sneak tree.


----------



## al (Dec 24, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> yeah that does 3.0x damage, it's just after the bows do 2.0x damage on the sneak tree.



No, you can get x15 with the assassins blade perk, combine it with a bit of kit from the dark brotherhood and x30 a go-go...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 24, 2011)

Man it's too easy to just start stealing loads of shit then get into fights in this game...!


----------



## Supine (Dec 24, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Man it's too easy to just start stealing loads of shit then get into fights in this game...!



Just like real life 

I've taken my ps3 back to the fam home for Xmas. The game looks fuck loads better on a HD tv!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 24, 2011)

Haha yeah true although in real life people don't just randomly leave tons of cash laying about!

Yeah it's a very nice looking game, poss one of the best on the Xbox. Seriously considered taking mine with me to the family house but figured they'd not appreciate me ignoring them for 3 days solid.


----------



## Dooby (Dec 24, 2011)

I've been out to the poundshop (on CHRISMAS EVE) to get AA batteries coz I just had the horrible fear that my xbox controller could die on christmas day


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 24, 2011)

Haha good move!


----------



## Dandred (Dec 24, 2011)

I've got my enchantment p to 50 from just recharging weapons with soul gems........Not even actually enchanted anything yet.


----------



## Dooby (Dec 24, 2011)

I've finally got round to gettign my fully kitted house in Riften. My first sad case thought, ohhhhh that'd be nice for christmas... (it's NOT real, it's NOT real)


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 25, 2011)

I've just realised I can have a white christmas this year

*turns on skyrim*


----------



## Epona (Dec 26, 2011)

I let my dad loose on Skyrim today (edit: I actually mean yesterday of course  ) while I was preparing dinner.

He usually only plays vehicular based PC games (racing cars/flight simulators etc) but he was quite taken with it - until he started to feel a bit dizzy and motion sick. I think it was the HDTV that did him in, he's used to playing games on a decent monitor which probably has a higher refresh rate. Sadly my monitors are all old and crap, so the TV is a much better option


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 26, 2011)

Could have been the field of view too. I believe it should be set differently depending on your distance from the screen and the size of the screen. Hence why so many PC players were changing it in the console/ini files, because it was originally set to be ideal for people using consoles on large TVs.


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Dec 26, 2011)

i've just lost 5 hours or so to this today. wandered into a place, got asked to get a golden claw, got it and took it back, but the geezer didn't want it, found out i hadn't read some invisible words so had to clear out and go back through the same place, now done.

moved onto whiterun now and quite interested to join the companions and go round being a merc for bit perhap?

bit buggy, very reminiscent of fallout 3 in gameplay and structure, i think i'll prolly get right into this.


----------



## Teepee (Dec 27, 2011)

golightly said:


> The backstabs do 3.0x damage rather than 30x damage


no they do 30x. shrouded gloves, blade of woe, assassin's blade perk = 30x damage. Can kill a dragon priest in 2 hits from sneak. Kills pretty much everything else instantly. It's actually ridiculously overpowered and is making the game a bit boring. I snuck though a falmer packed dwarven ruin and killed everything without getting hit once


----------



## Teepee (Dec 27, 2011)

Also notice how everyone with skyrim doesn't seem to post much any more!


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 27, 2011)

Teepee said:


> Also notice how everyone with skyrim doesn't seem to post much any more!


too busy playing


----------



## golightly (Dec 27, 2011)

Teepee said:


> no they do 30x. shrouded gloves, blade of woe, assassin's blade perk = 30x damage. Can kill a dragon priest in 2 hits from sneak. Kills pretty much everything else instantly. It's actually ridiculously overpowered and is making the game a bit boring. I snuck though a falmer packed dwarven ruin and killed everything without getting hit once



Ah, I see.  I had been aware of the backstab perk being 3.0x and should have known that there would have been other perks and kit that would raise that.  I agree that 30x is ridiculously overpowered which was, in part, why I thought it was a mistake.  From what you describe it's almost God-mode.


----------



## cliche guevara (Dec 29, 2011)

Got this for Christmas and have sunk fifteen hours into it already. Just found Delphine and confirmed that I am Dragonborn. Not sure I'm that bothered with the main quest at the minute though, I'm sure there are hundreds of side quests to do in the mean time.


----------



## Cid (Dec 29, 2011)

You could put it like that, yeah. I'm 70 odd hours in, level 32 and on the second quest in the main plotline. In fact I think I haven't done more than 2 quests for anyone yet - keep getting distracted by random caves/towers/tombs. However haven't been able to play recently due to large amounts of work...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 29, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> too busy playing





I'm up to level 58 or something now. Starting to max out my most used skills so I might need to switch to two-handed and heavy armour and start pickpocketing people all over the place to level up.


----------



## Gromit (Dec 29, 2011)

To put the value of this game into some context...

I took a break from Skyrim to play Assassin's Creed. Completed it fully over the space of three days (fairly solid) playing. 

Still loads for me to do in Skyrim despite completing the main quest and playing it for weeks on end.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 31, 2011)

Do dragons appear when you have done certain parts of the main quest? I went ages without seeing a dragon then I liberated the reach and I've killed 3 dragons in about 3 hours.


----------



## Termite Man (Dec 31, 2011)

Gromit said:


> To put the value of this game into some context...
> 
> I took a break from Skyrim to play Assassin's Creed. Completed it fully over the space of three days (fairly solid) playing.
> 
> Still loads for me to do in Skyrim despite completing the main quest and playing it for weeks on end.



This game has cost me less than £0.75/hour so far and I'm only on my first playthrough and there is loads of missions outstanding to do .


----------



## fen_boy (Jan 1, 2012)

£23 on steam atm.


----------



## D'wards (Jan 1, 2012)

Oh no, Lydia died and it autosaved

Can i get a new slave?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 1, 2012)

D'wards said:


> Oh no, Lydia died and it autosaved
> 
> Can i get a new slave?



Yes, there are loads. There's a good fighter for hire in the Solitude pub.


----------



## Stigmata (Jan 1, 2012)

Got this for Christmas. Stutters on the lowest settings. Back to Minecraft for me!


----------



## D'wards (Jan 1, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Yes, there are loads. There's a good fighter for hire in the Solitude pub.


Cheers, i actually found another autosave just before the fight where i got her killed - got a soft spot for Lydia


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 1, 2012)

D'wards said:


> Cheers, i actually found another autosave just before the fight where i got her killed - got a soft spot for Lydia



She is so useless though. I was trying to do a sneaky bit of shooting from cover, retreat and sneak back when they stop looking for me trick and Lydia kept getting in the way when i did my tactical retreat.


----------



## D'wards (Jan 1, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> She is so useless though. I was trying to do a sneaky bit of shooting from cover, retreat and sneak back when they stop looking for me trick and Lydia kept getting in the way when i did my tactical retreat.


Yeah, runs in the line of my ice/fire shooting the complains about it.


----------



## Corax (Jan 2, 2012)




----------



## ruffneck23 (Jan 2, 2012)

fen_boy said:


> £23 on steam atm.


absolute bargain for that !!


----------



## Crispy (Jan 2, 2012)

Bear in mind that your follower doesn't level up with you - they stay at the same level as you were when they joined you. So if you got Lydia early in the game and you're now level 20, then she'll be no use at all against leveled enemies. DUmp her and get a new one


----------



## ohmyliver (Jan 2, 2012)

is that why they disappear after a certain amount of time?


----------



## al (Jan 3, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Bear in mind that your follower doesn't level up with you - they stay at the same level as you were when they joined you. So if you got Lydia early in the game and you're now level 20, then she'll be no use at all against leveled enemies. DUmp her and get a new one



not exactly...



> A follower's level can continue to increase along with the player's level, whether they travel with you or not. However, each follower has a maximum level (which varies for each follower). Also, each follower has a specific set of favored skills. Regardless of how often a follower uses a skill, they do not get better at it, as a player does by continuous use of a particular skill. For example, trying to force Brelyna Maryon to be a sword wielding, shield bashing warrior will not work, she will always be more adept at using magic



http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Followers


----------



## Crispy (Jan 3, 2012)

Ah, thanks for the clarification


----------



## Structaural (Jan 3, 2012)

I just dumped Lydia (well she died, dunno where, dunno when), lost my 3rd horse too, the fucking nutter, climbing up steps to fight a high level mage who burned him to death.
I'm essentially a mage but I've got lots of two-handed and heavy armour points, two handed attacks on mages are devastating with my 50% magicka drain greatsword. Especially if I can get 'em before they conjure a bloody ice monster.

I think I'm giving up on followers and horses...


----------



## cliche guevara (Jan 3, 2012)

I'm at level fifteen now but haven't really got the hang of the hole horses thing. I've only had one on missions or when I've nicked it and they just seem to fuck off as soon as you dismount, and you can forget finding them again if you go into a new area, or a building. Does this get better if you buy one? Can you leave it somewhere?

The horse physics are the one thing that I think really sucks about this game too, they should be like Red Dead Redemption.


----------



## Dooby (Jan 3, 2012)

I need to get another follower for the occasional times when mages are a pain in the arse to kill. Lydia fucked off bored of waiting, and the one in Riften, I never got coz there's a bug in the game - if you decorate your house or something before going back to the Jarl you can't finish the quest to get her. Hope I don't run out of hired thugs. Just want canon fodder tbh

Haven't atempted a horse, I just know that'd annoy me.


----------



## Voley (Jan 3, 2012)

cliche guevara said:


> I'm at level fifteen now but haven't really got the hang of the hole horses thing. I've only had one on missions or when I've nicked it and they just seem to fuck off as soon as you dismount, and you can forget finding them again if you go into a new area, or a building. Does this get better if you buy one? Can you leave it somewhere?
> 
> The horse physics are the one thing that I think really sucks about this game too, they should be like Red Dead Redemption.


Yeah the horses stick around if you buy one. They're generally nearby whenever you fast travel somewhere. I agree that after playing RDR they're a bit crap, too. I keep riding mine off cliffs just trying to turn round. And they have a tendency to come off the worst when attacking dragons.


----------



## Voley (Jan 3, 2012)

I got that follower bloke in Solitude that Crispy recommended. He's called 'Bellend' and is pretty handy when it all kicks off. He's good with a sword and I've given him a staff so he can conjure up a wolf to fight with us.


----------



## cliche guevara (Jan 3, 2012)

NVP said:


> Yeah the horses stick around if you buy one. They're generally nearby whenever you fast travel somewhere. I agree that after playing RDR they're a bit crap, too. I keep riding mine off cliffs just trying to turn round. And they have a tendency to come off the worst when attacking dragons.


Cheers for this, might buy one then. Can you attack from horseback? I'm under the impression that you can't?


----------



## Voley (Jan 3, 2012)

cliche guevara said:


> Cheers for this, might buy one then. Can you attack from horseback? I'm under the impression that you can't?


No afraid not.


----------



## Corax (Jan 3, 2012)

Only one like for that video?  You haven't bloody watched it have you?


----------



## Dooby (Jan 3, 2012)

no


----------



## Daniel (Jan 3, 2012)

I really want this game, but know if I get it, it will suck away my life.

Loved oblivion.

I'll give it 2 weeks


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 3, 2012)

The horses are pointless. You can't attack from them and lydia can't keep up with them.


----------



## crustychick (Jan 4, 2012)

i loved my horse, but yesterday I lost Frost and I'm totally gutted  I miss her big horsey face


----------



## cliche guevara (Jan 4, 2012)

I lost Frost within five minutes of stealing her. I also bought a horse last night and lost that the first time I fast travelled. I'm giving up on horses.


----------



## Corax (Jan 4, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> The horses are pointless. You can't attack from them and lydia can't keep up with them.


With my shit prone-to-dying character, I found them quite useful for riding in random directions until stuff stopped attacking me.  And then wondering where the fuck I was.


----------



## crustychick (Jan 4, 2012)

so, new projector arrived! PS3 AV cable = lost  ARGgGGHHH....


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 5, 2012)

I have the evil demon eyed horse. It seems impossible to get rid off and is handy in a fight.


----------



## crustychick (Jan 5, 2012)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I have the evil demon eyed horse. It seems impossible to get rid off and is handy in a fight.


oooh, i like the sound of him...


----------



## Structaural (Jan 5, 2012)

Shadowmere? I've heard rumours about him... said to be invicible....


----------



## tommers (Jan 5, 2012)

That is one old horse.


----------



## Epona (Jan 5, 2012)

And it's supposed to be a her, not a him.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 6, 2012)

Slight error in the voice acting there.. Oops..


----------



## Private Storm (Jan 6, 2012)

I had a horse. A bear kicked its ass. I'd had him for about 10 minutes. Utter waste of gold.

Was loving the dog though, until he also got his ass whooped. I shouldn't be allowed to keep pets.


----------



## bmd (Jan 6, 2012)

Re: Lydia, I gave her an Orc hammer to carry and now she's using it. She never even asked.


----------



## Dooby (Jan 6, 2012)

I had Frost for the thieves guild, pain in the arse, had to protect him from being killed all the damn time. Dumped him in a stable with a lifetimes supply of sugarlumps


----------



## Supine (Jan 7, 2012)

Playing drunk doesn't work! I just ran head first into a well defended fort. I got beaten to hell 

About ten times!


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 7, 2012)

Does anyone else think they're about getting to the end of this?


----------



## fen_boy (Jan 8, 2012)

Annoying Hagraven.


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 8, 2012)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Does anyone else think they're about getting to the end of this?



I'm 80 hours in now, I was going to have a second play through with a different character after but i might just get Fifa 2012 instead and play that for a while. Skyrim is starting to be a chore now , I guess thats what you get for it being so big.


----------



## Voley (Jan 8, 2012)

I need a good new follower. I've just defeated Rahgot to get his mask but it's cost me Bellend. Which is a pity as he only has one annoying thing that he says repeatedly whereas all of my other followers have had several. Also he was good in a scrap. So I went back to Lydia, got attacked by a dragon and that was her goose cooked, too. So. Any ideas where I can get another one? That Orc one that Crispy mentioned sounds good although a magician might not  be a bad idea as my bloke is good with two handed stuff up close but not that good at shooting things from a distance. Any ideas?


----------



## bi0boy (Jan 8, 2012)

NVP said:


> I need a good new follower. I've just defeated Rahgot to get his mask but it's cost me Bellend. Which is a pity as he only has one annoying thing that he says repeatedly whereas all of my other followers have had several. Also he was good in a scrap. So I went back to Lydia, got attacked by a dragon and that was her goose cooked, too. So. Any ideas where I can get another one? That Orc one that Crispy mentioned sounds good although a magician might not be a bad idea as my bloke is good with two handed stuff up close but not that good at shooting things from a distance. Any ideas?



A Khajit called J'zargo, a novice you meet when Joining the college of Winterhold is quite cool as a follower.


----------



## Voley (Jan 8, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> A Khajit called J'zargo, a novice you meet when Joining the college of Winterhold is quite cool as a follower.


Ah, I'm just doing a quest for him atm. I didn't know he'd become a follower. He's fairly irritating already mind.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 8, 2012)

There's quite a good mage who'll become your follower at Winterhold, you just have to let her cast some spells on you first. Can't remember her name. (She's not the Khajit)

This mod has improved my enjoyment:
(new GUI for the Tab menu)
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3863


----------



## Voley (Jan 8, 2012)

Well I got myself another cat-bloke for a follower after finding an amulet for him but I mistook him for a skeleton in a battle and accidentalied him. He lasted about ten minutes all together.  Anyhow, I've now got J'zargo and he seems to be faring a bit better. That's five followers I've managed to kill now. I've given up on horses as I seem to keep setting them on fire.


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 8, 2012)

I'm just finishing the blood on the ice quest and the murderer is gone into a house (my house as well  ) and I guess I have to kill him but he won't die, One hit from my 2 handed Axe and he crouches on the floor and no matter how much more I hit him nothing happens and when I leave him alone he just stands up again, I can't go back because my saves have all been over written so I'm stuck with this damn unfinishable quest


----------



## bmd (Jan 8, 2012)

Let's see what Esbern has to say.


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Jan 8, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> I'm just finishing the blood on the ice quest and the murderer is gone into a house (my house as well  ) and I guess I have to kill him but he won't die, One hit from my 2 handed Axe and he crouches on the floor and no matter how much more I hit him nothing happens and when I leave him alone he just stands up again, I can't go back because my saves have all been over written so I'm stuck with this damn unfinishable quest


it will be because there's another bit of the game where he has a role and you haven't played it yet. same thing could happen in fallout 3 unsurprisingly, there were some people who you couldn't vanquish no matter what.

also need to be careful with autosaves, because if you try and do things you shouldn't, you can get stuck in some truly repititive loops of gameplay, i've found. stil, enoying my time in Markath, sorting out feuds, fighting after waking up here, following a drinking contest in whiterun


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 8, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> I'm just finishing the blood on the ice quest and the murderer is gone into a house (my house as well  ) and I guess I have to kill him but he won't die, One hit from my 2 handed Axe and he crouches on the floor and no matter how much more I hit him nothing happens and when I leave him alone he just stands up again, I can't go back because my saves have all been over written so I'm stuck with this damn unfinishable quest



That quest hasn't started for me for some reason.


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 8, 2012)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> That quest hasn't started for me for some reason.


are you stormcloak?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 8, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> I'm 80 hours in now, I was going to have a second play through with a different character after but i might just get Fifa 2012 instead and play that for a while. Skyrim is starting to be a chore now , I guess thats what you get for it being so big.



It hasn't become a chore for me, I think it's a great game and I've enjoyed it all the way through.

There's no point in a second play through that I can see though. All the quests will be basically the same and it's far too huge to make it worth it for the variation that might be there.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 8, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> are you stormcloak?



Yes but only very recently. I avoided taking sides until I'd run out of other quests.


----------



## Supine (Jan 8, 2012)

Well I'm 75hrs in and still havn't been anywhere near rifken. I presume I'll need to go there at some point but I'm still busy with shit loads to do elsewhere.

Wonder how long it would take to walk from markrth to rifken. I might give it a go.


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Jan 8, 2012)

I got attacked by raghot by suprise in a frantic fight of duegar and a flying bastard shooting stuff at me.. I died.

Second time I went in and backstabbed the fucker while he was sleeping - two shotted him...


----------



## Structaural (Jan 9, 2012)

Real Dangers of Skyrim 

I'm staying with my mage (with good heavy armour), but I'm going to start putting points into thief, long way to go. Stamina, archery and sneak I'm going with and I've changed my mystical stone to Thief. I've got the beginning of a few Thieves and Assassin's Guild missions, but I dont' think I'll do well without some sneaking skills.

EDIT, ..and pickpocketing


----------



## crustychick (Jan 9, 2012)

crustychick said:


> i loved my horse, but yesterday I lost Frost and I'm totally gutted  I miss her big horsey face


Frost is back! yay!


----------



## crustychick (Jan 9, 2012)

crustychick said:


> so, new projector arrived! PS3 AV cable = lost  ARGgGGHHH....


new cable arrived - OH MY. it's like LIVING in Skyrim


----------



## Supine (Jan 12, 2012)

So, I've slowly beaten my way up to L30. Not sure what I need to capture the souls from humans. Any tips?

I just bumped into a place that seemed to spawn dragons. It didn't register as a location though. I presume it's something to do with the main quest, which I have no idea about yet!


----------



## Crispy (Jan 12, 2012)

Supine said:


> So, I've slowly beaten my way up to L30. Not sure what I need to capture the souls from humans. Any tips?



Only Black soul gems can contain human souls (they're equivalent to Grand souls when it comes to enchanting). There's a shady guy (I think an altmer) at the College who'll sell you them.


----------



## Dooby (Jan 12, 2012)

I became head of the Thieves guild last night, which was a strange development being a heavy armoured tank who hits things. Dunno what one to continue next. Also I have shit tons of gold, dunno what to spend it on really.
Think I came to like the thieves guild quests as battering enemies was minimised coz I'd rather skip through it going la lala la hello trees hello sky, than have to ALWAYS fight things. That said I'm not being a bloody bard, they annoy the bejesus out of me


----------



## Structaural (Jan 13, 2012)

You can't be a bard. They missed a trick there, could have had speech and persuasion bonuses. Can't run a shop either, though lots of mods are being worked on...


----------



## Supine (Jan 16, 2012)

I've got Lydia back 

I had some lame follower from winter hold. I dropped him back cos he kept on dying without any effort to kill anything.


----------



## Voley (Jan 16, 2012)

I've managed to kill J'Zargo now too.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 16, 2012)

I'm disillusioned by the indifference of the world to my actions 
I should finish the main quest with my mage, then start over with a sneaky stabby shooty.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 17, 2012)

Crispy said:


> I'm disillusioned by the indifference of the world to my actions
> I should finish the main quest with my mage, then start over with a sneaky stabby shooty.



I don't really get the whole different playing style thing at all tbh. I've been through it as a sort of jack of all trades and for me it doesn't really have much replay value in that sense - the locations, quests etc are still the same whether you use magic, a bow or a massive two handed axe.

I get what you're saying about the indifference of the world though. Although in one sense your choices are virtually limitless the effects of those choices is pretty minimal on the whole (unless you decide to slice up a whole town or something I guess). It's a great game but I'd much rather see the next generation of games focusing on that rather than better graphics etc.


----------



## golightly (Jan 17, 2012)

NVP said:


> I've managed to kill J'Zargo now too.



I had him sacrificed for a daedric quest so he does have his uses.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 17, 2012)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It's a great game but I'd much rather see the next generation of games focusing on that rather than better graphics etc.



Absolutely. This piece sums up my feelings exactly: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/14/gaming-made-me-ultima-vii/


----------



## Voley (Jan 17, 2012)

golightly said:


> I had him sacrificed for a daedric quest so he does have his uses.


 I almost wish I'd saved Lydia for this. She wouldn't be so fucking sarcy about carrying my burdens after a good sacrificing.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 17, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Absolutely. This piece sums up my feelings exactly: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/14/gaming-made-me-ultima-vii/



I loved Ultima VII, it was one of the first games I really got into and wasted properly huge chunks of my time on. Reading that article though that area is one that hasn't really moved forward much in however long it's been since then (must be not far off 20 years), certainly compared to the big leaps made in general.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

That sort of detailed interactivity is an order of magnitude harder to pull off now that we have realistic 3D. The breadmaking in Ultima 7 involves no custom animations, the objects involved are tiny sprites and the code is simple. In one week, a competent one-man band could make an entire interactive kitchen in the U7 engine. To do that in 3D would take an army of artists and animators, and any gaps in the facade would ruin your belief in the world.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 18, 2012)

Crispy said:


> That sort of detailed interactivity is an order of magnitude harder to pull off now that we have realistic 3D. The breadmaking in Ultima 7 involves no custom animations, the objects involved are tiny sprites and the code is simple. In one week, a competent one-man band could make an entire interactive kitchen in the U7 engine. To do that in 3D would take an army of artists and animators, and any gaps in the facade would ruin your belief in the world.


It is harder to do, but it's mostly a matter of game priorities. For instance, the blacksmiths in Skyrim are always using their equipment to make weapons - the animations and effects are all there. Is this actually useful work that they're doing, in that it's done when they have the right components, it repopulates their shop with items and those items then disappear as people buy them? No (well, not that I'm aware).


----------



## tommers (Jan 18, 2012)

No. But I like the way they start stocking the components you need as soon as you get the perk.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It is harder to do, but it's mostly a matter of game priorities. For instance, the blacksmiths in Skyrim are always using their equipment to make weapons - the animations and effects are all there. Is this actually useful work that they're doing, in that it's done when they have the right components, it repopulates their shop with items and those items then disappear as people buy them? No (well, not that I'm aware).


Nope, not at all. You can leave your game running all week, standing next to the blacksmith, and he'll still have the same inventory (which is dependent on your level).

This sort of thing doesn't bother me in a game like Final Fantasy, where things are far more tightly controlled. But TES is part of the western RPG tradition that says "do what you want to do!". So it bothers me that what I do is pointless, and that all the other characters in the world obey different rules to the ones that constrain me.

The blacksmithing example is a good one. Those animations are not cheap to make, and they are good for only one crafting chain. You will watch that guy make the same sword over and over. It would be prohibitively expensive to make animations for all weapons and armour creation.

I'd like this sort of game to take a purposeful step away from ultra-realistic graphics. Use a stylised graphical representation that has its own internal coherence, but doesn't require meticulous detail for every object and action. It's the interactions that matter, and all  you have to communicate is the inputs and outputs.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

tommers said:


> No. But I like the way they start stocking the components you need as soon as you get the perk.


I don't. It removes all believability from the world. Ebony should be rare. Mined only in a few places, deep underground, or for sale at high prices from a handful of specialist dealers in teh big cities. Not available from the chickenshit village blacksmith just cos your smithing skill hit a certain number.


----------



## Mungy (Jan 18, 2012)

Crispy said:


> I don't. It removes all believability from the world. Ebony should be rare. Mined only in a few places, deep underground, or for sale at high prices from a handful of specialist dealers in teh big cities. Not available from the chickenshit village blacksmith just cos your smithing skill hit a certain number.


whats the back story on the blacksmith though? used to work for king wossaname, stole loads of his stuff and did a runner and was a hunted man til they lost him near the village of chickenshit. you won't believe the stuff he has stashed just outside town 

not played the game like, just saying


----------



## tommers (Jan 18, 2012)

Crispy said:


> I don't. It removes all believability from the world. Ebony should be rare. Mined only in a few places, deep underground, or for sale at high prices from a handful of specialist dealers in teh big cities. Not available from the chickenshit village blacksmith just cos your smithing skill hit a certain number.




I was being sarcastic. I've been severely underwhelmed by Skyrim for ages. 

Dark souls etc.


----------



## YouSir (Jan 18, 2012)

Been trying to get into Skyrim for a few days now. So when does it get good? Very pretty and all but the missions, the world, the perks, all a bit predictable isn't it? Fallout, as a comparison, has a genuinely interesting world and even where the missions are the bog standard fetch this, kill him ones there's a proper sense of atmosphere there. Skyrim seems to lack any real sense of character, a bit like Oblivion, although from what I've seen that had at least a little more to it. Should I keep trying to love it or am I just destined not to see the appeal?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 18, 2012)

YouSir said:


> Been trying to get into Skyrim for a few days now. So when does it get good? Very pretty and all but the missions, the world, the perks, all a bit predictable isn't it? Fallout, as a comparison, has a genuinely interesting world and even where the missions are the bog standard fetch this, kill him ones there's a proper sense of atmosphere there. Skyrim seems to lack any real sense of character, a bit like Oblivion, although from what I've seen that had at least a little more to it. Should I keep trying to love it or am I just destined not to see the appeal?



TBH it doesn't change a lot. I thought it was great but if you're not enjoying it I don't think there's a point where it suddenly 'gets good'.


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Jan 18, 2012)

i think you're both right, i've found it very similar to fallout 3 initially but as i realised that were some very different things to think about so i suddenly found myself enjoying immensely and immersed in the game, rather than noticing the similarities to fo3.

i killed my second dragon today, first since i killed the first one in the main story line, cos i wanted to get a bit tough before i encountered them. i kicked his fucking arse  enchanted bow, potion of reduced magicka with health boost and stamina, boots of reduce fire and a shield of blocking, lydia wanging arrows into him as well.


----------



## Supine (Jan 18, 2012)

^ Blimey. Shows how the game can be so different. I must have killed 5-6 dragons and I still have no idea what the main mission is. I'm 80hrs in and still wandering around discovering random stuff.

I really must head SE to the rifken area at some point.


----------



## YouSir (Jan 19, 2012)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> TBH it doesn't change a lot. I thought it was great but if you're not enjoying it I don't think there's a point where it suddenly 'gets good'.



Shame, always liked the idea of proper fantasy RPGs but the reality always seems so cliched, to me at least. So much scope there though, some decent writing and some proper thought about the game world and you'd have a classic game. Instead it's always Tolkien driven archetypes or lazy historical rip offs (Vikings, Romans, 'mysterious' Eastern race etc). I know there's value in tradition but still, some innovation wouldn't hurt.


----------



## tommers (Jan 19, 2012)

Pandas?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 19, 2012)

YouSir said:


> Shame, always liked the idea of proper fantasy RPGs but the reality always seems so cliched, to me at least. So much scope there though, some decent writing and some proper thought about the game world and you'd have a classic game. Instead it's always Tolkien driven archetypes or lazy historical rip offs (Vikings, Romans, 'mysterious' Eastern race etc). I know there's value in tradition but still, some innovation wouldn't hurt.


Morrowing (elder scrolls 4) had it in spades. Giant mushrooms, dirigible cattle, public transport on the back of insects, a city inside the shell of an enormous extinct crab, buildings made from engineered fungi, unique and interesting great Houses, nomadic tribes, incarnate gods of dubious morality. Great setting.


----------



## Dooby (Jan 19, 2012)

I always hope to find a fungi village again. I loved that one.


----------



## fen_boy (Jan 19, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Morrowing (elder scrolls 4) had it in spades. Giant mushrooms, dirigible cattle, public transport on the back of insects, a city inside the shell of an enormous extinct crab, buildings made from engineered fungi, unique and interesting great Houses, nomadic tribes, incarnate gods of dubious morality. Great setting.



Elder Scrolls 3.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 19, 2012)

Like I said, 3


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 19, 2012)

Morrowind had those too.


----------



## Pingu (Jan 19, 2012)

i am finding this really hard to get into. which is weird as its the sort of game i normally love


----------



## Crispy (Jan 19, 2012)

Here's how the Blacksmith should work, in a truly "sandbox" world.

The village blacksmith character has knowledge of the following skills:

Smelting iron ore into iron
Making swords
Making axes
Making maces
Making plate armour
Making xxx (where xxx is other sensible items a village blacksmith might make. Horseshoes. Scythes. Saws)

The village blacksmith character has knowledge of sources of iron ore(location, travel time, price)

The mine outside town
The general store
The player character

The blacksmith has a Desire for iron that is calculated on his stock of crafted items. As his stock goes down, his desire increases and he'll go and get some more iron and make more items. If the player sells him a load of iron at a cheap price, then the smith makes more money selling swords to the local militia, and you can rob it off him later on. You can increase the local militia's desire for swords by unleashing a horde of summoned warpigs against them. If you find another mine, with much cheaper ore prices, then you can pass that information on to him.

If you want to buy steel items, then you have to find a smith who can work steel. That smith will have knowledge of smelting iron into steel and so on.

This simulation approach isn't done, because consoles do not have the RAM to hold all such data for every character in the world, whilst also holding all the data for the rich immersive graphics. I wish someone out there sacrificed graphical fidelity for simulation fidelity.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 19, 2012)

i'm sure that stuff is out there

just limited to indie stuff.

skyrim is nice because it's the thin end of the wedge  for this stuff.   a blockbuster game  that pushes the idea  that  this kinda stuff can be in a popular game


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 19, 2012)

also i'm hoping for a morrowind expansion to skyrim.   all the weird and interesting morrowind stuff in a skyrim package


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 19, 2012)

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/19/skyrim-mod-replaces-dragons-with-my-little-pony/


----------



## Voley (Jan 19, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Here's how the Blacksmith should work, in a truly "sandbox" world.
> 
> The village blacksmith character has knowledge of the following skills:
> 
> ...


You have thought about this too much. It's time to go out and twat something with an axe.


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Jan 20, 2012)

what a complete fucking pain in the arse, i'm stuck in misty grove after revisiting it after completing relevant quest, quick search reveals this is a terminal bug so just lost about 2 hours of gameplay and 3 completed quests i reckon.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 20, 2012)

Paulie Tandoori said:


> what a complete fucking pain in the arse, i'm stuck in misty grove after revisiting it after completing relevant quest, quick search reveals this is a terminal bug so just lost about 2 hours of gameplay and 3 completed quests i reckon.


What's more, this bug is fixed in the 1.4 update, which is imminent.


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Jan 20, 2012)

phew, just about blow a gasket but for some reason, there were 3 autosaves, 2 for entering misty grove, but the 3rd from when i entered Morvunskar again, so managed to sneak in and loot the chest i missed before, avoiding Sanguine in the process and then cleared out.

and relax


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 21, 2012)

I've got my smithing and enchatment up to 100 and I was saving my upgrade points for when I did that so I could double enchant and make dragon armour but it turns out I hadn't been spending points on the smithing tree so I had to use the points I'd been saving on smithing upgrades I thought I already had


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 22, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> I've got my smithing and enchatment up to 100 and I was saving my upgrade points for when I did that so I could double enchant and make dragon armour but it turns out I hadn't been spending points on the smithing tree so I had to use the points I'd been saving on smithing upgrades I thought I already had



I've got my dragon plate armour now  so once I have got my levels up for double enchanting I can change out the light armour I'm wearing and then I will be double hard to kill


----------



## Cid (Jan 22, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Here's how the Blacksmith should work, in a truly "sandbox" world.
> 
> The village blacksmith character has knowledge of the following skills:
> 
> ...



Skyrim, but with more Dwarf Fortress.


----------



## tommers (Jan 23, 2012)

I've started a thiefy character and it's much more fun than the 2 handed fighter I had before.  There's actually a bit of tension creeping round people's houses nicking stuff (mostly lavender it seems), which was missing before.

I imagine it'll all become horribly overpowered later as they fail to resist the urge to shower me with gifts...  and I'm having to avoid the main plotline (shouts?  for a thief?), and, of course, the temptation to load up on heavy armour, spells and carry a fucking mace (why not?  I've got a perk that reduces armour noise)... but yeah, it's better.

This game really does try to give you everything though, dunnit?


----------



## crustychick (Jan 23, 2012)

my thief-y character is a total pussy - she can't fight for shit! luckily being able to turn invisible is a bit of a lifesaver (literally) most of the time! and I've just got a new mage-style follower so I let her whip out the flame atronachs and the like while I run away and hide!


----------



## Structaural (Jan 23, 2012)

There are a few shouts useful to a thief: Aura Wisper and Throw Voice.


----------



## tommers (Jan 23, 2012)

It's more of a principle. 

I want to limit myself or it just all gets a bit meh.


----------



## tommers (Jan 24, 2012)

Do those shouts appear in specific locations? Or is it random?


----------



## Gromit (Jan 24, 2012)

Specific. 

Some aren't even accessible unless you are doing certain quests.


----------



## Epona (Jan 24, 2012)

Aura Whisper was pretty much the only shout I used with my thief character, but for her it was invaluable - she couldn't fight for shit at close quarters, so it was important to be able to find out the positions of enemies in the next room in order to decide tactics.


----------



## tommers (Jan 24, 2012)

Yeah, I got it with my last character but can't remember where.


----------



## Epona (Jan 24, 2012)

The 1.4 Beta is now available for PC.

To participate in the beta, change your settings for the game in Steam to beta, restart Steam and let it dl the patch (which is about 190Mb). You can roll-back to the current patch by changing the game settings back the way they were. Users who have switched to the beta patch are reporting huge increases in fps and that previously buggered "long game time" saves now work without crashing every few minutes - I'll be trying my save from my abandoned 350+ hours character a bit later and will report back.

DO NOT use the beta if you are using SKSE or Script Dragon - they will not work with the new version until the authors have updated them.


----------



## Supine (Jan 24, 2012)

350+ hrs!!! Strewth, that's dedication to a game 

I'm about 90hrs in and thought I'm hardcore!


----------



## tommers (Jan 24, 2012)

Yeah. Hardcore meet epona.


----------



## Epona (Jan 24, 2012)

Update:

Just discovered that SKSE has an updated version that works with 1.4

(I'm not using it myself, I'm waiting a few months until we have a final patch before going mod-happy, I can't be doing with having to update mods every time a new version of the game comes out  but thought this info may be useful for those who are using it)


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 24, 2012)

after all this time on the game how  do you feel about it compared to  previous TES games?

for me the game mechanics are fantastic..... i just am slightly underwelmed by the world when  remembering back to morrowind.
not  in terms of epic vistas. skyrim has that... it just feels...  a bit too standard fantasy.  i want more odiities


----------



## Crispy (Jan 24, 2012)

Morrowind is always going to come top of the Weird and Wonderful list. I can't think of another RPG with such a unique setting.

At least Skyrim has some flavour to it. Oblivion was far worse for looking utterly standard fantasy.


----------



## crustychick (Jan 24, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Oblivion was far worse for looking utterly standard fantasy.



at least it had the Shivering Isles for a dose of wacky though! I didn't play Morrowmind though so no idea how fantastic it was....


----------



## Cid (Jan 24, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Morrowind is always going to come top of the Weird and Wonderful list. I can't think of another RPG with such a unique setting.
> 
> At least Skyrim has some flavour to it. Oblivion was far worse for looking utterly standard fantasy.



Oblivion did have interesting quests though, and Skyrim really does look standard fantasy - just the Norse variant. Given how many interesting high steppe/mountain plateau cultures there have been you'd think they could have done something a bit more interesting.


----------



## Cid (Jan 24, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> after all this time on the game how do you feel about it compared to previous TES games?
> 
> for me the game mechanics are fantastic..... i just am slightly underwelmed by the world when remembering back to morrowind.
> not in terms of epic vistas. skyrim has that... it just feels... a bit too standard fantasy. i want more odiities



Details for me - e.g just got married, I don't need a DAO sex scene or anything, but it would be nice if my new wife didn't just walk out of the temple before the priest even finishes talking. Also I wake up 'feeling my lover's comfort' but she'll be sitting downstairs and I'll be greeted by the ever-enthusiastic Lydia instead (she sits next to my bed). We're not talking major overhauls here, just another 10 minutes in the recording studio for each spouse and a few basic if-thens... And if you can't get spoken dialogue right, don't use it - I'd rather read a good book than watch a Uwe Boll film after all.

I suppose we'll see a lot of how its built when the construction set comes out, which should be soonish iirc.


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 25, 2012)

Cid said:


> Details for me - e.g just got married, I don't need a DAO sex scene or anything, but it would be nice if my new wife didn't just walk out of the temple before the priest even finishes talking. Also I wake up 'feeling my lover's comfort' but she'll be sitting downstairs and I'll be greeted by the ever-enthusiastic Lydia instead (she sits next to my bed). We're not talking major overhauls here, just another 10 minutes in the recording studio for each spouse and a few basic if-thens... And if you can't get spoken dialogue right, don't use it - I'd rather read a good book than watch a Uwe Boll film after all.
> 
> I suppose we'll see a lot of how its built when the construction set comes out, which should be soonish iirc.



you can get married ?


----------



## Structaural (Jan 25, 2012)

I went mod-crazy yesterday, also bought a legit version off of Steam, which then proceeded to fuck up entirely requiring another download of 6GB and somehow screwed every other downloaded game in Steam (after running the script editor SKSE without Steam running).
Still it's all working now. Loving some of the mods, mainly cosmetic one's : better graphics and water, better snow, better stars at night and sun glare. Wondering which high-res textures to put on without slowing it down too much, probably go with Skyrim HD 2K...
The changed inventory (SKUI) is just superb, very easy to find heavy objects to drop and quicker to find relevant potions and magic spells.
Oh and I've put a lockpicking cheat on, because I hate lockpicking. I know... I'm slack..
I lost Lydia some time ago and so used a teleport console command to teleport to her side, only to find the weapon I gave her and no sign of Lydia, not even a pile of ash. I was sad...


----------



## Random (Jan 25, 2012)

You can all fuck off, with your smithing and your enchanting and your Lydias


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 25, 2012)

Cid said:


> Also I wake up 'feeling my lover's comfort' but she'll be sitting downstairs and I'll be greeted by the ever-enthusiastic Lydia instead (she sits next to my bed).




How long until the concerned parents of America pick up on this promotion of voyeurism?


----------



## Cid (Jan 25, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> you can get married ?



Yeah, the priest is in the tavern in Riften. Gives you a few useful things.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 25, 2012)

I haven't found one item of clothing that increases/fortifies alchemy, is it rare?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 25, 2012)

Structaural said:


> I haven't found one item of clothing that increases/fortifies alchemy, is it rare?


Must be. I got some Orcish gauntlets +20% alchemy and that's the only thing I found so far.


----------



## Cid (Jan 26, 2012)

Also, I've done a couple of the main quest lines (mage and companion) now and I think a big part of this game was anticipation... Sandboxing it was great; you could think '80 hours in and I've not even touched the story stuff!', but then you do and it's all a bit crap. Main characters basically just acting as dungeon transitions, weak dialogue, no real sense of progression. Possibly if I wasn't already so overpowered it would have seemed better, but I doubt it... I think that's the thing for me, there are some great elements to this game and I can forgive it a lot because of that, but once you start to get into the main plot lines the lack of really substantive characters brings it down. Hoping the main quest, DB and Thieve's guild will be better (the DB actually did seem more promising when I started it).

Basically I'm still feeling hurt by the callous indifference I get from my in-game wife.


----------



## tommers (Jan 26, 2012)

That's the most realistic bit.


----------



## tommers (Jan 26, 2012)

Cid said:


> Also, I've done a couple of the main quest lines (mage and companion) now and I think a big part of this game was anticipation... Sandboxing it was great; you could think '80 hours in and I've not even touched the story stuff!', but then you do and it's all a bit crap. Main characters basically just acting as dungeon transitions, weak dialogue, no real sense of progression. Possibly if I wasn't already so overpowered it would have seemed better, but I doubt it... I think that's the thing for me, there are some great elements to this game and I can forgive it a lot because of that, but once you start to get into the main plot lines the lack of really substantive characters brings it down. Hoping the main quest, DB and Thieve's guild will be better (the DB actually did seem more promising when I started it).
> 
> Basically I'm still feeling hurt by the callous indifference I get from my in-game wife.



My problem with it is that you've used the same character to do the warrior and mage questlines and are about to do the thief and assassin ones with them too.  Where are the limits?  On one hand it's great that you can do whatever you like but, on the other, if everything is handed to you on a plate, if there are no limits at all then it just gets dull.  

And why do you always end up as the archmage / guild leader / listener?  Soon as I meet them I think 'you poor fucker.'


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 26, 2012)

i do think making you the leader is a bit much    but i guess they were doing it  so you can  chose for that to be your major  epic story


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 26, 2012)

tommers said:


> My problem with it is that you've used the same character to do the warrior and mage questlines and are about to do the thief and assassin ones with them too. Where are the limits? On one hand it's great that you can do whatever you like but, on the other, if everything is handed to you on a plate, if there are no limits at all then it just gets dull.
> 
> And why do you always end up as the archmage / guild leader / listener? Soon as I meet them I think 'you poor fucker.'



I don't see anything wrong with being able to do all the questlines as 1 character in theory as the way you level up in skyrim means you can make your character an all rounder to do that, the problem is you don't need high magic skill to do the mage quest but can bash your way through 2 handed, thats where the problem is.


----------



## Cid (Jan 26, 2012)

Actually it's a considerable advantage doing the mage quest as a non-mage really - not affected by any of the drain magic stuff.

Doesn't bother me that you can do all of them either - just that they lack substance. Problem with spreading a game out like this I suppose, but really we're not talking about techincally complex stuff - extra dialogue, few more quests, some magic challenges a bit more substantial than 'melt the icey door' (and leaving the spell tome next to it ffs) and proper balancing and it'd be fine.


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 26, 2012)

Cid said:


> Actually it's a considerable advantage doing the mage quest as a non-mage really - not affected by any of the drain magic stuff.
> 
> Doesn't bother me that you can do all of them either - just that they lack substance. Problem with spreading a game out like this I suppose, but really we're not talking about techincally complex stuff - extra dialogue, few more quests, some magic challenges a bit more substantial than 'melt the icey door' (and leaving the spell tome next to it ffs) and proper balancing and it'd be fine.



The thieves guild quests were quite good and the DB one is looking promising as well, mage and companions were just a bit shit.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 26, 2012)

The sheer size of the game is it's strength and it's weakness IMO. It's its defining characteristic in a lot of ways and means that just exploring is great but it has to limit it eventually. You could sit here all day and go 'why didn't they do this, that and the other' but at some point they have to actually put the game out. The stuff about the way spouses behave for example - that's a bit more work on another, what, 30 characters or something just to add that in.

And then with the different quest lines, it does feel a bit weird for the same character to be head of the mages, fighters, thieves, assassins and everything else but the game is so huge I'm not dedicating another hundred hours to re-exploring and re-doing bits of the main quest in order to have a more coherent character.

Anyway, it's still one of my favourite ever games even though I could list issues with it all day.


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 26, 2012)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Anyway, it's still one of my favourite ever games even though I could list issues with it all day.



I agree , I'm over 100 hours in and I'm still going back although it's getting to the point where I'm just doing it to finish the game because there isn't really that much variation in the game play.


----------



## Voley (Jan 26, 2012)

I've just got my telly fixed and was looking forward to a good bit of Skyrim over the weekend and now my fucking Xbox has got the fucking red ring of death.


----------



## Supine (Jan 26, 2012)

Still no idea what the main quest is. I'm not that fussed to be honest. Still enjoying wandering around and arrowing things 

What level can you get a character to? I'm L35 and just decapitated my first victim


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 26, 2012)

Supine said:


> What level can you get a character to? I'm L35 and just decapitated my first victim



I'm not sure - I think you can keep at it until you hit 100 in all your skills. Obviously levelling up gets slower when you start hitting that on the ones you level the quickest. I got to level 62 or 63 I think.


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Jan 26, 2012)

you lot do my brain in i think you overthink it sometimes,


----------



## Voley (Jan 27, 2012)

Paulie Tandoori said:


> you lot do my brain in i think you overthink it sometimes,


Yup. This post made me lol for that exact reason:


Random said:


> You can all fuck off, with your smithing and your enchanting and your Lydias


----------



## tommers (Jan 27, 2012)

Paulie Tandoori said:


> you lot do my brain in i think you overthink it sometimes,



 A game has to have restrictions, something to limit player actions or it's not a game.

This is a gratification engine.  Everything is set up to make the player feel good about themselves.  Great stuff but there's no sense of accomplishment.

Sorry.  You're right, I just want to know why it leaves me so dissatisfied.   

The sheer size, scope and immersiveness of it is amazing though.  Got to be said.


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 30, 2012)

Completed the main quest and pretty much all the other quests as well, the last part of the main quest was well easy, a bit disappointing tbh


----------



## Supine (Jan 31, 2012)

Just passed 100hrs, do I win a prize?

Thought not. Still keep getting suprised by little details. I took a long shot at two bandits who were sitting at a table. I hit a bottle of wine which flew between them. It looked great


----------



## Termite Man (Jan 31, 2012)

Supine said:


> Just passed 100hrs, do I win a prize?
> 
> Thought not. Still keep getting suprised by little details. I took a long shot at two bandits who were sitting at a table. I hit a bottle of wine which flew between them. It looked great



you mean you missed the bandits . Thats poor shooting.


----------



## Cid (Feb 5, 2012)

Well cranking up the difficulty is certainly worth it.


----------



## crustychick (Feb 6, 2012)

I had a good proper Skyrim day yesterday. I can FINALLY improve magic weapons. life is good. and overall, i'm just loving the levelling up and skills menu, when compared to how it worked in Oblivion. It's a joy. Oh and I can also now execute a silent forward roll in sneak mode. love that


----------



## Gromit (Feb 6, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> you mean you missed the bandits . Thats poor shooting.



Losing a bottle of wine is a worse punishment than death to some. 

Those bandits will live in wineless misery now. Torture beyond belief.


----------



## ohmyliver (Feb 7, 2012)

has anyone tried the high rez pack that's now available to download on Steam?


----------



## Epona (Feb 8, 2012)

ohmyliver said:


> has anyone tried the high rez pack that's now available to download on Steam?


 
Nah, the bloody thing's huge, hi res isn't that important to me so I'm not hugely excited by it tbh, my monitor is shit and ancient so I play on the TV anyway - it's not as if I'm able to see every texture in great detail, I'm not going to get as much out of it as if I were sitting up close to a good monitor. Nice to know it's available though for if I should ever feel the need.

I have downloaded the CK and had a bit of a poke about - spent the last hour making myself an empty interior and then ran out of inspiration about how to furnish it, so I'm going to come back to it when I've had a think!


----------



## ohmyliver (Feb 8, 2012)

yeah, it's a whopper of a download.... and... well, it makes close up look luverly, and the lighting indoors seems also luverly, but it seems to make stuff seen at distances look a bit less good.

it also messed up alt-tabbing out of Skyrim for me..


----------



## bi0boy (Feb 8, 2012)

Just installed it, now the game crashes to the desktop every few minutes.


----------



## bi0boy (Feb 8, 2012)

It seems fucking useless Steam won't let me uninstall the frigging texture patch. Looks like I'll have to reinstall the whole game from scratch and download all the updates again. totally wtf.


----------



## Citizen66 (Feb 9, 2012)

It's for sale on Steam atm for around 23 quid; all those who don't have it which is probably none of you.


----------



## Termite Man (Feb 9, 2012)

After finishing the main quest I went out and got Mass Effect 2 pre-owned and I have to say while Skyrim was big and open and lovely to look at it was no where near as fun (for me)


----------



## ohmyliver (Feb 11, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> It seems fucking useless Steam won't let me uninstall the frigging texture patch. Looks like I'll have to reinstall the whole game from scratch and download all the updates again. totally wtf.


 
You can uncheck both the high rez packagaes in the data files section of the launcher. It's worked for me (I did get a message saying the saved game was reliant on missing data or something like that, but it's seemed to have no effect)


----------



## Supine (Feb 18, 2012)

I've been plugging away at this still. Up to L40 and finally doing the main quest. I've never spent so much time playing a game! Think I'm 118 hrs in so far.

Other game manufacturers must be livid. On average I used to buy a game each month. I havn't even thought about a new one since getting this last year. Is it too big?


----------



## Voley (Feb 18, 2012)

Supine said:


> Other game manufacturers must be livid. On average I used to buy a game each month. I havn't even thought about a new one since getting this last year.


True. I've just sold mine within an hour on Ebay for thirty quid. Most games are down to 15 quid-ish when they've been out this long. 20 if you're lucky.

I only sold mine because my Xbox has just red-ring-of-deathed itself and there's no chance of buying another just now. I do think I'd played it enough by the end though- I'd pumped a lot of perks into making my bloke very strong with heavy armour / warhammers etc and most missions were just a case of bludgeoning my way through to the end. It had got a bit repetitive tbh but I thing I must have played 50 or so hours. Certainly got my money's worth.


----------



## bi0boy (Feb 18, 2012)

So when is the first expansion pack coming out?


----------



## Cid (Feb 20, 2012)

NVP said:


> True. I've just sold mine within an hour on Ebay for thirty quid. Most games are down to 15 quid-ish when they've been out this long. 20 if you're lucky.
> 
> I only sold mine because my Xbox has just red-ring-of-deathed itself and there's no chance of buying another just now. I do think I'd played it enough by the end though- I'd pumped a lot of perks into making my bloke very strong with heavy armour / warhammers etc and most missions were just a case of bludgeoning my way through to the end. It had got a bit repetitive tbh but I thing I must have played 50 or so hours. Certainly got my money's worth.


 
Yeah, the problem is that balancing at high levels is basically broken - I'm playing Darksiders at the moment, I was finding it too easy even with the difficulty at the highest setting.


----------



## Structaural (Feb 20, 2012)

Thought I'd have a nice go of this last night, got to Morvunskar in the Night to remember quest (getting pissed with Sam) and am getting completely destroyed by the 4 mages in there. Literally getting one shotted with an ice spike. WTF. I'm level 27. Do I have to go away and do smaller quests to level up, I spent about an hour trying different tactics, I had 7 resists drunk,  and 30 health an magic potions on buttons 5 & 6 and still was getting one-shotted. I don't normally have this much trouble. Put me right off playing it..


----------



## Cid (Feb 20, 2012)

Resists potions aren't cumulative, you need some enchanted gear.


----------



## Structaural (Feb 20, 2012)

Good to know, I've the good robes and stuff for destruction, but I seem to be getting weaker. I was reading that magic is balanced pretty badly in the game. Might look at Balance Magic mod...


----------



## Structaural (Feb 20, 2012)

Aha, somehow the new patch put me on Master level, that can't help...trying again


----------



## Supine (Feb 20, 2012)

I shot a hawk out of the sky today. This shouldn't please as I'm a vegi. It felt quite good though


----------



## crustychick (Feb 21, 2012)

Supine said:


> I shot a hawk out of the sky today. This shouldn't please as I'm a vegi. It felt quite good though


that's some pretty good shooting skills! i'm pleased when I can hit a dragon with an arrow - and they're BIG!


----------



## Supine (Feb 28, 2012)

Finally finished the main quest after 140 hrs. Did one of the main characters thank me? Nope!

Not sure if I'll stop playing or become a thief now.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Mar 6, 2012)

Supine said:


> I shot a hawk out of the sky today. This shouldn't please as I'm a vegi. It felt quite good though


 
I did that for the first time the other day. Standing on the bridge in Solitude. Was rather pleased with myself. Then picked it up and made it dance for me for a while, got bored, left it on a rock.

I'm not the only one who makes dead things dance for me in games where you can pick them up, right?


----------



## Cid (Mar 6, 2012)

Yeeesss... Dance. That's what I make them do.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Mar 6, 2012)

You're one of those filthy dead sex positioners, aren't you?


----------



## Dooby (Mar 17, 2012)

I appear to have just finished this by mistake. bugger.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Apr 21, 2012)

Anyone still playing?

I took a break to play some other stuff, but am getting back to it. Since the release of the creation kit, most of the original mods I'd got have either been rendered obsolete or made better. So I've decided to reinstall the whole game, get rid of all the unnecessary bloat, and start over. It's a bit thrilling, really.

My first priority is to get as far as the dragon at Kynesthingy, so I start seeing dragons again (if you are on that quest, after having gotten the Horn (rofl), but don't go to meet her at Kynesthingy, you don't see random dragons in the game, apart from those by word walls). Then I'm going to stop with the main quest, and crack on with the DB quest line, and going to places I've never been before.

There are a few new quests being made by modders now. There's one where you can go to Elsewyr, which looks interesting. I'm going to hold off on those for a while. It's not like the game is exactly lacking in content as it stands.

I'm also going to stick to the Nexus for most of my mods. After experimenting with Steam Workshop for them, it's too hard to control what's happening doing it like that. If there are some I can only get at the workshop, then so be it. But for the others, I'll manage it myself.


----------



## Voley (Apr 21, 2012)

I've just got back into it (after a break while my Xbox Red Ring Of Deathed itself ). Up to level 39 now, done most of the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood stuff. I was getting a bit bored of it as I'd pumped all my perks into two-handed weapons and heavy armour so each mission was getting a bit samey - slugging it out with a warhammer in cave after cave. So I've branched out into sneaking and archery and I'm really into it again now. I still haven't really done that much magic, either (despite being High Mage in Winterhold) so there's that entire avenue to explore at some point.


----------



## InfoBurner (Apr 21, 2012)

Looking forward to the Xbox, kinnect, shouty update, which might breathe a tad more life back into it. 450hrs spent in Skyrim since November. Beautiful sandbox.


----------



## ohmyliver (Apr 24, 2012)

I've been playing it of and on since it came out. I got to level 40something with the first character, a nord specialising in one handed, shields with a bit of archery and destruction magic on the side, then completed the game with the second a high elf magic person mainly destruction, but with a fair amount of conjouring (in a sort of 'no attack my atromach, not me' way), and lastly a wood elf sneaky poisoning archer.  Did the appropriate guild quests for each one.  Do quite want to do a 2 handed tank, but I'm going to wait until the DLC comes out for it.   I've found new/different things in each game.


----------



## Structaural (Apr 24, 2012)

Got a bit bored with it, installed a load of mods, loving it again.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Apr 24, 2012)

i gave up after 72 hours, but decided to start playing it from the beginning in 3d, its mental


----------



## Structaural (Apr 24, 2012)

How d'you do dat?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Apr 24, 2012)

you have to have a 3d nvidia card, and 3d vision kit and 120hz monitor ( thats the expensive way..)

ive got an nvidia card , a samsumg 3d tv and nvidia 3dtv play which is about 40 quid, this converts the game to 3d and works really well but at only 720p but it still looks lush


----------



## Structaural (Apr 24, 2012)

Nice.

I lack all of those, can't they make a green/red version


----------



## Epona (Apr 24, 2012)

Structaural said:


> Nice.
> 
> I lack all of those, can't they make a green/red version


 
If you've got a pair of green/red glasses (or any other standard colour combo ones, or you can buy some on ebay or whatever), you can download free drivers which will do anaglyph 3D to most games, you don't need a special monitor or anything, whichever display you are using now will be fine. It gets a bit headachy after a while mind you 

Try googling for iZ3D driver, the anaglyph only version is free.


----------



## Structaural (Apr 24, 2012)

Cheers, will investigate..


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Apr 24, 2012)

must try 3dskyrim.  my 3d system sits around not being used.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 1, 2012)

Apparently you ought to be looking out for update info tomorrow!

Or today, even.

Which I guess is a bit crap for those bored senseless already by it. But ace for those of us who held back and are just about to start playing.


----------



## fogbat (May 1, 2012)

I still have yet to get to Kynesgrove. Tend to play it sporadically, every now and then when I have a few hours to spare. Mainly whack people with a one-handed sword while burning them with flames.


----------



## tommers (May 2, 2012)

That sounds familiar.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 2, 2012)

Slowly reading through this thread. Reached page 20. The one thing that stands out is people wanting storage. I can understand if you have an abundance of food or herbs that can be used, but hoarding weapons and armour etc? Just sell it!


----------



## Citizen66 (May 2, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> I suspect it's not a coincidence that someone I know who has been lost in Skyrim for a week or two now, calls them 'Stormfront'?



Ah yes. But are they virulent national socialists or just Disenfranchised working class?


----------



## Citizen66 (May 2, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> small things can lead to big things
> 
> for somereason  oblivion  just  didn't  quite have the atmosphere of either  morrowind or skyrim



Oblivion was class. Best bit: after joining a guild being able to steal all the guild's trinkets (without it being theft,) and then selling it all back to them.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (May 2, 2012)

i didn't hate oblivion.   it  just felt  much more like ageneric RPG  when compared to the other two.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 2, 2012)

I liked it because it was the first Bethesda game I played, followed swiftly by fallout 3. I didn't really have anything else to compare it to.


----------



## Epona (May 3, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> Slowly reading through this thread. Reached page 20. The one thing that stands out is people wanting storage. I can understand if you have an abundance of food or herbs that can be used, but hoarding weapons and armour etc? Just sell it!


 
I'm a hoarder (OCD) in real life, I'm not able to play a game differently, it's just the way my brain works.  I need to keep at least 1 of every object that I am able to pick up, "just in case".  Or if possible, 2 of each, so that if I use 1 of something for a quest, or upgrade it, I have another one in storage in case I still need one of that item for something later.  I need storage!


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## FridgeMagnet (May 3, 2012)

I do that, and I have no OCD. Games have encouraged it for a long time by having ridiculously huge inventories as well as puzzles needing random items to complete them. I mean, you never know when you might need a broom, or a plate, or a piece of cheese.


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## Epona (May 3, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I do that, and I have no OCD. Games have encouraged it for a long time by having ridiculously huge inventories as well as puzzles needing random items to complete them. I mean, you never know when you might need a broom, or a plate, or a piece of cheese.


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## Citizen66 (May 3, 2012)

Epona said:


> I'm a hoarder (OCD) in real life, I'm not able to play a game differently, it's just the way my brain works.  I need to keep at least 1 of every object that I am able to pick up, "just in case".  Or if possible, 2 of each, so that if I use 1 of something for a quest, or upgrade it, I have another one in storage in case I still need one of that item for something later.  I need storage!



Ah, yes, but it won't be much use on a quest if it's in storage at the time, will it? And anything sold can be bought back again. Like i said, i can understand storing herbs, food and valuable stuff which have uses, but not things that can be sold, bought back again, and appear frequently in the game.

Im playing as a thief. So far my sneak and illusion skills are quite high which means my combat and armour isn't all that which means i have to think a bit about what I'm doing. I tend to avoid combat as i come worse off. However, i'm now at the end of a quest where there's 3 bandits and combat is unavoidable. I've deduced that if I run into water i won't get attacked. So i keep jumping in and then back out again - attack quickly - and then jump back in again. The best weapon for this is probably a bow, but it kind of doesn't inflict enough damage and i can run out of arrows so have been using fireball which subsequently has been raising my destruction levels. I kind of like the fact that your character builds as much by accident as by design.


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## ohmyliver (May 3, 2012)

that's about the only good thing about the game Rage (apart from the graphics), is that non essential crap that you pick up is clearly labled as such.


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## Citizen66 (May 3, 2012)

ohmyliver said:


> that's about the only good thing about the game Rage (apart from the graphics), is that non essential crap that you pick up is clearly labled as such.



Well, unless you're picking up wooden plates, a lot of the non essential crap is worth money, which helps you buy the essential crap. Which is another argument for you selling it rather than hoarding it away in your personal chest.


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## crustychick (May 3, 2012)

I have so much money, I don't know what to spend it on


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## Citizen66 (May 3, 2012)

Yeah. It does seem that money is easier to come by than it was in oblivion. In oblivion you had to clear out all the guilds of their goodies and run backwards and forwards to vendors which was a laborious process. Oh there was alchemy too but no smithing. And the quests in oblivion paid next to nothing. Or am I thinking of Warcraft?


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## Vintage Paw (May 4, 2012)

It's easy to farm money early on as well. Just make a few of the most expensive potions every so often, and craft iron daggers and enchant them, and sell it all off. If you've got a pickaxe and a weapon (preferably bow) enchanted with soul trap, a decent supply of empty petty soul gems, and the patience to smith, enchant, and create potions, you're set.

Although, take it too far and ...


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## Citizen66 (May 4, 2012)

Haha I love all these cartoons. 

Yeah, i get all that. Im not wasting too much time leveling crafts, as much as i'd like to. Although my sneak / toughness balance swings more towards the cowardly direction, it works for the most part. Just not when i'm overwhelmed up close by a gang in broad daylight. But if there's dark corners i can skulk in to pick them off from, it's all good. i think I'm following a similar trajectory to a few who spoke earlier on this thread. I love playing as a thief.


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## Voley (May 5, 2012)

I've come to the conclusion that I like the boring bits in computer games the best now. Making and selling a few axes in Skyrim, riding round in the wilderness not doing much in Red Dead Redemption, having a game of Civilization where you try to avoid a war, that kind of thing. When there's an Xbox game where you win by putting your slippers on and having a nice sit down I'll have found my niche, I reckon.


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## Epona (May 5, 2012)

NVP said:


> I've come to the conclusion that I like the boring bits in computer games the best now. Making and selling a few axes in Skyrim, riding round in the wilderness not doing much in Red Dead Redemption, having a game of Civilization where you try to avoid a war, that kind of thing. When there's an Xbox game where you win by putting your slippers on and having a nice sit down I'll have found my niche, I reckon.


 
Same here, in open world RPGs like Skyrim I prefer to pootle about doing nonsense like crafting and talking to NPCs and just enjoying the world, the dragons can wait.  In CIV 4 (which I have been playing a lot recently, Caveman2Cosmos mod) I just like a nice quiet game where I can build stuff to my hearts content without having to worry about wars and such.  I am not much of a thrill-seeker tbh.


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## Vintage Paw (May 5, 2012)

I'm pretty much the same. I almost always played Civ 3 to get a cultural victory (fucking hippie). I loved trotting around in RDR, doing some hunting, watching the sunrise and sunset. And in skyrim, I can spend hours travelling from one end of the map to the other, hunting, sneaking (always), and taking far too many screenshots of the fucking stunning scenery.


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## Citizen66 (May 5, 2012)

NVP said:


> I've come to the conclusion that I like the boring bits in computer games the best now. Making and selling a few axes in Skyrim, riding round in the wilderness not doing much in Red Dead Redemption, having a game of Civilization where you try to avoid a war, that kind of thing. When there's an Xbox game where you win by putting your slippers on and having a nice sit down I'll have found my niche, I reckon.


 
I'm exactly the same. I never even started doing the main quest in oblivion. I haven't with Skyrim yet (although only about 20 hours in) and I suspect this might be the same. The underlying reason (for me, at least) is probably that I don't want it to end, so just potter along doing stuff until it's run its course or I get distracted by a new shiny game.


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## Gromit (May 5, 2012)

I'd like to see these sorts of games demand a level of strength to be achieved before you are able to complete the main quest and so you HAVE to complete side quests until you are strong enough to do the next stage of the main.

We've seemed to have lost that though. Most non linear games now allow you to pretty much do the main quest without having to do many side quests at all.


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## Vintage Paw (May 5, 2012)

I've clocked up something like 400 hours in there now (although I do tend to leave it paused while I get distracted browsing online). I've restarted so many times I've gotten to the point where I'm happy to dl various mods that make things more fun.

One of the best (and which has made me grossly OP) is the Black Tower and Black Sacrament mod (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5696). As a result of having access to craftable Black Sacrament armour with various pieces, all of which are enchantable, and having worked on my enchanting skill to get it to 100, I'm level 41 and can one-shot giants and mammoths and take down elder dragons in 2 shots (I use a bow). I'm considering cranking up the difficulty by a notch or two to compensate, tbh, but on the whole, since I've put so much time into the game in its vanilla state, I'm more than happy to add things to the game that make it more fun and "FUCK YEAH!"

And getting the mod that increases my carrying capacity was the best thing I ever, ever did.


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## Citizen66 (May 5, 2012)

What skill governs carrying capacity? I'm sure it was strength in fallout but doesn't seem to be the case in skyrim.


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## Gromit (May 5, 2012)

Stamina


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## Citizen66 (May 5, 2012)

Ah right. I hadn't been bothering with that one.


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## FridgeMagnet (May 5, 2012)

Gromit said:


> I'd like to see these sorts of games demand a level of strength to be achieved before you are able to complete the main quest and so you HAVE to complete side quests until you are strong enough to do the next stage of the main.
> 
> We've seemed to have lost that though. Most non linear games now allow you to pretty much do the main quest without having to do many side quests at all.


If you can't predict when somebody is going to start a quest and what level they'll be at, you need to have auto difficulty adjustments. But that means you can't block players off purely on the basis of difficulty, only by plot based means (which means they're linear again).

Actually it's not a choice between linear and non linear - game plot is all branching, so you can have lots of simultaneous branches that all need to be completed to get to a stage where everything starts to be linear again, or in fact more complex structures though those tend to confuse people. I wrote a system that encoded game tasks and goals like this, with dependencies and instances where doing one thing blocked you from doing another thing and it told players what they had to do next etc etc, which was editable via a web form and linked to games with an API. It was wonderful but without exception, everything anyone used it to do was either "do A, then do B, then do C, ok you won" or "do A, B and C in any order then do D, ok you won", no matter how many examples I wrote which were more complex.


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## Voley (May 5, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> the game in its vanilla state


Heh.


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## Gromit (May 5, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> If you can't predict when somebody is going to start a quest and what level they'll be at, you need to have auto difficulty adjustments. But that means you can't block players off purely on the basis of difficulty.



Why can't you?

There are a few ways to do it.

Main quest giver says you need to go to dungeon X. But you'll have to fight me for the key. He stops short of killing you if you are too weak (says come back later when you ain't such a pussy) and surrenders if you get his health down low enough.

Or if you are a thief you have to pick his pocket but he is hard to pick or get it from his master locked chest where he puts it when he sleeps. Etc.


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## FridgeMagnet (May 5, 2012)

Gromit said:


> Why can't you?
> 
> There are a few ways to do it.
> 
> ...


Fixed difficulties in non-linear plots may end up unbalanced. Too hard isn't usually an issue so much as long as there are ways to get out and do something else to power up, but too easy bores people. I'm not saying that it's impossible to sort out by the way (e.g. with minimum levels for opponents and problems but which can scale up) but it also just doesn't seem to be the fashion these days as you say, I'm just pointing out potential issues.

I don't like this fashion personally - it makes the game world feel less real and more like something which exists for the benefit of the player. Part of the problem is the whole concept of levelling up in this sort of RPG, which let's face it is just daft. You get vastly more powerful in just a few game weeks, often for no apparent reason, you're just an amazingly quick learner or something.

It's a convention that allows repetitive game component experiences to feel a bit different - okay, so you're fighting yet another fucking Draugr, but now you have a new weapon or a new spell - but I feel that's a bit lazy. If you look at other forms of RPG, like text adventures say, they don't tend to have levelling at all, and they're quite capable of keeping the player's attention. Novelty can be delivered in all sorts of ways.

(When I was running pen-and-paper RPGs, I often used to forget that I'd been awarding experience points, and after a while realise that actually everyone was beating the shite out of all the enemies and passing all the skill checks I set.)


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## Citizen66 (May 8, 2012)

I'm stuck in a bit of a rut. Got the money together to buy a house in Riften. Then discovered you had to do some quests for the Jarl which I've now done. Then discovered I also have to do an unspecified number of quests for the people of Riften to raise my standing with them. I've cleared about five bandit boss quests and there's still no mention of whether this is raising my standing. There's nothing I can see in stats about it. I don't even know if they're the right quests I should be doing.


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## Vintage Paw (May 8, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> I'm stuck in a bit of a rut. Got the money together to buy a house in Riften. Then discovered you had to do some quests for the Jarl which I've now done. Then discovered I also have to do an unspecified number of quests for the people of Riften to raise my standing with them. I've cleared about five bandit boss quests and there's still no mention of whether this is raising my standing. There's nothing I can see in stats about it. I don't even know if they're the right quests I should be doing.


 
Either this site: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/TES_V:_Skyrim or this one: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page (second one is better, imo) might have the answer for you.


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## Citizen66 (May 8, 2012)

I check them almost constantly.  but they shed little light other than 'complete riften-related quests', unfortunately.


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## Vintage Paw (May 8, 2012)

Hmm, then I don't know I'm afraid. Maybe just keep on questing and hope for the best. Or go off and do something else entirely and don't worry too much about the house for now, unless you desperately need it for storage.

I check that second site all the time too. Every time I come across a new cave/barrow/fort, I look it up to see how big it is and whether I want to embark on it right away or save it for later. If it's got a decent quest attached to it, I'll leave it until I receive the quest, but if it doesn't, I'll likely jump in. I know that takes the element of surprise away, but sometimes I'm on my way to somewhere else and I don't want to get caught up in something that will make me lose 4 hours of my life first


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## Citizen66 (May 8, 2012)

I seem to be pretty unbeatable with invisibility amd slitting people's throats when sneaking. I can kill someone and the person sitting next to them doesn't flinch.


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## Shippou-Sensei (May 8, 2012)

riften takes the longet to get a good standing if i remeber corectly


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## Vintage Paw (May 8, 2012)

Yeah, I have so many points in sneak now, and a bunch of sneak enchantments, I can actually crouch and walk right up to people and they have no idea I'm there 

It sometimes makes it difficult to get the attention of a dragon I want to kill, so it'll stop flying away though.


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## Citizen66 (May 11, 2012)

Finally became Thane of Riften and bought Honeyside. Needed to do a fairly simple quest for the mage in Mistveil Keep. Bought the house, got it fully kitted out and still have 15,000 gold in my sky rocket.  just finishing the quests to become head of the thieve's guild and then will have to think about what I want to do after that.


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## crustychick (May 16, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> Finally became Thane of Riften and bought Honeyside. Needed to do a fairly simple quest for the mage in Mistveil Keep. Bought the house, got it fully kitted out and still have 15,000 gold in my sky rocket.  just finishing the quests to become head of the thieve's guild and then will have to think about what I want to do after that.


right, this is what I need. more houses 

I am head of the Thieves Guild and I don't even have a bloody house in Riften. must amend.


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## Citizen66 (May 16, 2012)

crustychick said:


> right, this is what I need. more houses
> 
> I am head of the Thieves Guild and I don't even have a bloody house in Riften. must amend.



You get a house 'carl' too. Like an upper class thief should. Like royalty.


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## crustychick (May 16, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> You get a house 'carl' too. Like an upper class thief should. Like royalty.


good, I could do with one of those


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## captainmission (May 17, 2012)

I find my house carl quite creepy. She sit in my bedroom and watches me and my husband sleep


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## Vintage Paw (May 29, 2012)

Is that Lydia, in Whiterun? Yeah, she just sits there eating bread. Watching you. Always.

If you're playing on PC, there's a mod that puts her back in her own room instead.


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## Chz (May 31, 2012)

So far as comparisons to Morrowind go... Yes, Morrowind felt more "epic" due to the strangeness of the place, but the game was a lot less fleshed out than Skyrim is. It'll be nice if they decide to revisit it at some point - but *only* if you can find a way to kill ALL the Cliff Racers so you never see them again.


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## Random (May 31, 2012)

I wish you could build a stronghold, like in Morrowind 

And how did you get married, Capt?


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## Vintage Paw (May 31, 2012)

You need to wear an Amulet of Mara to get married. Then new dialogue options open up with various NPCs.

There was a thing a while back, where the devs were given some spare time to develop one thing each that they wish they had gotten time to put into the game. There were some interesting things, like mounted combat, and the ability to build your own player house. They said that as time went on, some of them might end up being patched into the game. We've just seen mounted combat arrive, so I'm hopeful player house building will make it too. The popularity of house mods from nexus and workshop suggests it's something a good deal of people would appreciate, without having to learn how to use the creation kit.


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## Shippou-Sensei (May 31, 2012)

mounted combat  has been so needed for so long


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## DREV (May 31, 2012)

--- DAWNGUARD DLC TRAILER BADASS


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## agricola (May 31, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> mounted combat has been so needed for so long


 
It all depends how its done.... hopefuly Bethesda will just play lots and lots of Mount and Blade, and copy it.


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## Vintage Paw (May 31, 2012)

I just watched that expansion trailer. It looks very, very, very interesting.

I, er, should probably think about doing some of the main story line in preparation


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## ohmyliver (May 31, 2012)

mounted combat is in the beta 1.6 patch


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## agricola (May 31, 2012)

ohmyliver said:


> mounted combat is in the beta 1.6 patch




Looks dull, tbh.


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## Epona (Jun 1, 2012)

DREV said:


> --- DAWNGUARD DLC TRAILER BADASS




Fucking awesome! I have been away from Skyrim for a bit for various reasons (nothing to do with Skyrim itself, which I still think is a superb game, just that I've been busy with other things for a while) but this trailer looks very interesting, I guess it's based around the Snow Prince in some way (couldn't really hear much of the audio).


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## Epona (Jun 1, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> The popularity of house mods from nexus and workshop suggests it's something a good deal of people would appreciate, without having to learn how to use the creation kit.


 
I love house mods - it's actually pretty easy to build a house using the Creation Kit and I had my own crap one finished the day after the CK was released, but there are so many people out there with better imagination and creativity than myself so I can usually find something far better on the Nexus - I'm not really very imaginative or arty.   Anyone who is, should not find learning the CK an impediment to their creativity - at least for creating interiors and exteriors it's pretty intuitive and not that difficult to pick up, that's the easy bit - there's a lot of stuff in there that is more complex, but if what you want is a house and have a clear idea of what you want to make, (as long as you are using existing tilesets) it's not at all difficult - what is difficult is making it good and unique and realistic, but that isn't due to problems with the CK, that's down to your creative talents.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jun 1, 2012)

agricola said:


> Looks dull, tbh.


 
looks better than sitting on your horse like a lemon

that really  took you out of the game.    i'm not asking  for awesome gameplay here. that's not what makes skyrim skyrim.  i just  want  something that makes sence  for the game.    this looks like it does it


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## captainmission (Jun 2, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Is that Lydia, in Whiterun? Yeah, she just sits there eating bread. Watching you. Always.


 
I've moved to a different house now. The new house carl has abetter sense of personal space.



Random said:


> And how did you get married, Capt?


 
If you go to riften's temple and get the amulet of mara and wear it random npc's will ask you for marriage. It did take me quite a while to find one wasn't ugly though. The character models in skyrim are pretty grim, unless you get a mod.


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## Cid (Jun 2, 2012)

It's a good idea to marry an NPC who's available as a companion btw, means you can get the 'lover's comfort' bonus by sleeping near wherever your next quest is.


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## Streatham_Mao (Jun 3, 2012)

Chz said:


> So far as comparisons to Morrowind go... Yes, Morrowind felt more "epic" due to the strangeness of the place, but the game was a lot less fleshed out than Skyrim is. It'll be nice if they decide to revisit it at some point - but *only* if you can find a way to kill ALL the Cliff Racers so you never see them again.



Unfortunately, Vivec (being a dick) actually set up a deadman's switch to punish the Dumner if he was  somehow gotten rid of. 

You know the asteroid hanging over the capital city? Vivec never stopped it, merely froze it. Once he was gone, it started up again and hit with all the force of a rock from space.  

Boom.

Iirc it's mentioned in the 36 sermons that Vivec planned this as revenge if the Dumnmer stopped loving him.


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## Buddy Bradley (Jun 19, 2012)

I've just started this (about 5 hours in), killed the first dragon and up to Level 5. Now I'm finding that many places I go, I can't kill the bigger baddies - went into Snapleg Cave and couldn't get past the big spider, then tried to get to the Greybeards and got killed by a snow troll. 

Do I need to figure out level-appropriate quests, or am I just a crap player?


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## Citizen66 (Jun 19, 2012)

Apparently the mobs spawn at the level you're at, but they may be tougher than what you are iyswim. When it's difficult its advised that you do something else until you've levelled again a couple of times. Also try raising attributes that will aid you, such as weapons/armour skills etc.


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## Chz (Jun 19, 2012)

That's not quite correct. In Oblivion, everything spawned to your level. In Skyrim, they will spawn to your level _within their limits_. Giants, for instance, have a minimum level of 20 or something. If you're level 5, they will always smush you. Mudcrabs have a fairly low maximum level. One glaring problem is with dragons. They want to get into dragons early, so they make them killable. Then you head out thinking "Well, if I can kill _dragons_..." and promptly get turned into paste by a troll.

One interesting cheat is that spawns are permanent once they occur. Pop into a cave at level 1, go back when you're 20 and let them all beat on you overnight. Bam. Level 90 light or heavy armour!  Personally, I think the stats work well enough that I try not to game them.


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## Voley (Jun 19, 2012)

Finally defeated Alduin last night. Killed him at the first attempt.  I am level 52 with Dragon Armour and a Warhammer that does over 110 damage though so I think I'd prepared well. The main reason I'd been putting it off was I didn't want the anti-climactic 'driving round Grand Theft Auto when you've done everything' feeling you get at the end of open-world games. Fortunately, croaking Alduin seems to have really kicked off the war storyline so now I'm about to reclaim the land of Skyrim for the glorious Stormcloaks and BANISH THE EMPIRE FROM OUR SOIL FOREVER !

TO SOVNGAARRDE AND GLORY!


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## Citizen66 (Jun 19, 2012)

I got a bit bored after completing the thieves' guild quests.  Been getting back into Civ for the expansion coming out.


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 20, 2012)

I'm something like level 45 and am part way through the DB questline. I've not got further with the main quest than meeting Delphine near Kynesgrove or whatever it's called, after getting the horn from her (and taking it to the Greybeards to get me Unrelenting Force fully upgraded), and killing that dragon while Alduin trash-talks me. At this rate, I'll never finish.

I had all these grand plans to create a 2-handed warrior of smashy-smashy awesomeness, an aloof mage, and so on, but I adore sneaky archery so much I can't so much as contemplate going through the game world not hunched down, creeping through, with my bow drawn ready to kill.

Bows do so much damage


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 20, 2012)

I can't help it, I like my prettifying mods. This is my Maera, sneaky archer assassin extraordinaire:


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## Buddy Bradley (Jun 24, 2012)

This is very funny: The Life and Death of Skyrim's Lydia.


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## Termite Man (Jun 24, 2012)

Buddy Bradley said:


> This is very funny: The Life and Death of Skyrim's Lydia.


 
that was posted a while ago, still funny though


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## Voley (Jun 24, 2012)

Buddy Bradley said:


> This is very funny: The Life and Death of Skyrim's Lydia.


Lydia vs Gate.


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 24, 2012)

Poor Lydia. There are so many more house carls you can be assigned, and yet because Lydia is always the first, she bears the brunt of everyone's lust/frustration/burden-needs.


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## Voley (Jun 24, 2012)

I think the best follower is the spectral assassin. The stuff he says is all so fucking daft I don't mind him saying it again and again. "Do you know the tale of the treachery of Chaden Hall?" Yes, mate, I do. You've told me approximately a hundred fucking times. Good thing about him is you can just kill him if he's getting on your tits and as he's already dead you can drag him back from the void to fight for you next time you need him. The Dark Brotherhood tend to get a bit pissy with you if you kill him, mind. I got fined a couple of times and I'm fairly certain it was for killing my ghost bloke.


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## Voley (Jun 24, 2012)

I like the unintentionally daft bits in Skyrim, like Lydia vs Gate above. 'Goat resisted Dragonrend' is the best message I've had lately.


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 24, 2012)

I love the goats. Every time I go up to the greybeards, there's a magical mountain goat spirit guide who leads me up. They are awesome.


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## Sunray (Jun 27, 2012)

i've now managed to get in over 100 hours played in this game and I'm at level 23 all out destruction mage which is a right pain in the arse to achieve as you get totally twatted at the start, what with everything just running at you and attacking and you having no armour what so ever.

I am now slightly over powerful as I can now be tank to my friend, dragons are mere time wasting diversions I've got loads of souls. To use up the souls I been doing the words of power which often have an extra quest thrown in there and some are kinda fun.

Was trying to use a nord as a tank, but he became so underpowered that all he ever did was say 'you going to die' then 'mercy' as the 1st hit practically killed him.  Got Y'Zargo I think his name is.  He's Ok but his insistence on lightening when he has much more powerful spells is annoying. I'm doing all the killing with dual wield fireballs which stun.

Yet to find a dog anywhere apart from a dead one in some evil wizards lair.


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## Chz (Jun 27, 2012)

Though magic resistance doesn't help you early on so much, having 65% resistance later (25% Breton, 25% Lord Stone, 15% Agent of Mara) makes you bloody unstoppable against a lot of things.


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 27, 2012)

I finally started my orc 2-handed warrior. After spending 400 hours sneaking and shooting arrows from the shadows, it's rather refreshing being able to run through dungeons and just hit things in the face. I was tempted to go with Nord, because I want to side with the Stormcloaks on this run, but I'm fed up of humans, and the orcs have the perfect set of starting point distributions (since I'm an obsessive smither/enchanter). I had a little look around, because I thought an orc would totes side with the Empire, but I read a few very convincing arguments online as to why they'd side with the Stormcloaks, so that's what I'm going with.


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## InfoBurner (Jun 27, 2012)

Started Dawnguard, the expansion, last night. No spoilers but the vampire lord and revamped werewolves are just awesome


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 27, 2012)

Ah, that's out then? I'm playing on PC so it'll be a while before I can get my hands on it. I'm looking forward to it though. I haven't finished even 1/10 of the quests with my level 45 assassin, and yet I've discovered practically every area and building on the map, so I'm looking forward to something fresh.


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## captainmission (Jun 27, 2012)

InfoBurner said:


> Started Dawnguard, the expansion, last night. No spoilers but the vampire lord and revamped werewolves are just awesome


 
so it's like twilight then?

do they add any new lands to explore or is it just new quests?


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## InfoBurner (Jun 27, 2012)

More like a nastier Underworld. There's a new plane of Oblivion and one medium sized new part of Skyrim. The quests depend on which of the 2 new factions you choose. Crossbows, legendary dragons and various new beasties and equipment. Feels meaty but don't know how far I've gone. Bethesda reckon there's 15-20 hrs worth


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 11, 2012)

(His Doctor Who cover is fucking amazing too)


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## Epona (Jul 13, 2012)

I am going to start a new game soon, and need some recommendations for 'must have' mods.

So (PC users!) is there anything I should definitely include in my list?


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## Bernie Gunther (Jul 13, 2012)

Epona said:


> I am going to start a new game soon, and need some recommendations for 'must have' mods.
> 
> So (PC users!) is there anything I should definitely include in my list?


 
You know this list?

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11


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## ohmyliver (Jul 13, 2012)

Frostfall looks interesting (basically allows your character to die from hypothermia, meaning you have to be careful about say getting wet, and then trudging through a blizzard)


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## Epona (Jul 13, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> You know this list?
> 
> http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11


 
Cheers, I'm downloading the pdf to see what's included. Packs like this can be handy (I use Morrowind Sound & Graphics Overhaul for example) but what constitutes a good artistic change or gameplay change can be quite subjective.

Do you use it yourself? If so a brief review would be useful 

Edit: OK I've looked at the pdf and it's mostly textures/sound improvements and everything is optional, looks good - thanks for the tip 

Edit again: Oh it's just a tweaks/mods guide then, rather than a packaged set of mods?  Confusing.


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## Epona (Jul 13, 2012)

ohmyliver said:


> Frostfall looks interesting (basically allows your character to die from hypothermia, meaning you have to be careful about say getting wet, and then trudging through a blizzard)


 
Yeah - no.  I did have a look at it.  I like some immersion mods (I'm definitely on the lookout for stuff that introduces a need to eat/sleep etc.) because I find that fun in a role-playing sense, but the frustrations of reloading after dying in the wilderness are not for me - I like my fun to be slightly less deadly


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## Bernie Gunther (Jul 13, 2012)

Epona said:


> Cheers, I'm downloading the pdf to see what's included. Packs like this can be handy (I use Morrowind Sound & Graphics Overhaul for example) but what constitutes a good artistic change or gameplay change can be quite subjective.
> 
> Do you use it yourself? If so a brief review would be useful
> 
> ...


 
Well, the wife bought me a snazzy new graphics card (GTX 670 SC) for my b'day, knowing I'd want to replace my old card before installing GTA V (whenever it appears)

The latter not being available yet, I decided to have a bash at Skyrim and being a bit of a geek on the quiet, decided to mod the crap out of it.

The pdf I linked gives you a stable set of non-gameplay tweaks that work together safely and overwrite each other in the right order to give you optimal textures etc, but you still have to install them separately, run BOSS etc.

On top of those I'm currently running: Frostfall, Imps More Complex Needs, Better Magic, Cloaks of Skyrim, Gromit's potions heal over time, KenMod Lockpick pro, Camping Kit of the Northern Ranger, Jaysus Swords, Duel Combat Realism, Dance of Death. All of the above installed via NMM and then re-ordered with BOSS and checked for issues with Wrye BASH.

Then I run ENBseries and Enhanced Shaders on top of that.


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## tommers (Jul 13, 2012)

Sounds like fun.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jul 13, 2012)

Epona said:


> Yeah - no. I did have a look at it. I like some immersion mods (I'm definitely on the lookout for stuff that introduces a need to eat/sleep etc.) because I find that fun in a role-playing sense, but the frustrations of reloading after dying in the wilderness are not for me - I like my fun to be slightly less deadly


 
Frostfall isn't too dangerous as long as you're careful, e.g. not to swim from that hut where you meet Astrid and then go trudging through a blizzard to go play with Vokun.


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## Epona (Jul 13, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Well, the wife bought me a snazzy new graphics card (GTX 670 SC) for my b'day


 
I installed my new GTX 670 Jetstream last night   Hence my sudden desire to ramp up Skyrim to the max  



Bernie Gunther said:


> The latter not being available yet, I decided to have a bash at Skyrim and being a bit of a geek on the quiet, decided to mod the crap out of it.
> 
> The pdf I linked gives you a stable set of non-gameplay tweaks that work together safely and overwrite each other in the right order to give you optimal textures etc, but you still have to install them separately, run BOSS etc.
> 
> ...


 
Cheers, useful info.  I've got the pdf in front of me and will have a read to see if I like the suggestions.  I'm an old hand at using BOSS and Wrye Bash for Oblivion so no worries there.  Most of the mods you list are things I am interested in, so I will have a look at them - thanks 

The main issue for me at the moment is that there seem to be lots of variations on ENBseries, and I am struggling to decide!


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## Bernie Gunther (Jul 14, 2012)

The base ENBseries mod is downloaded from http://enbdev.com/download_mod_tesskyrim.htm

The author doesn't provide profiles though, so you pick them off Nexus and install over the base mod.

I found Enhanced Shaders to be the least offensive (some are really garishly oversaturated) of the profiles.


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## Cid (Jul 14, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> (His Doctor Who cover is fucking amazing too)




Thank you for this, he appears to be made of greatness.


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## Epona (Jul 14, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> The pdf I linked gives you a stable set of non-gameplay tweaks that work together safely and overwrite each other in the right order to give you optimal textures etc, but you still have to install them separately, run BOSS etc.


 
I decided to go for the stuff on the pdf list as there's a bewildering amount of choice and there's no need for me to try to reinvent the wheel, if that stuff all works together then great, it will at the very least be a useful starting point. 

I've been downloading and adding textures and meshes for the best part of 8 hours now, must remember to make a back up copy of those folders when done!


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## Bernie Gunther (Jul 14, 2012)

Epona said:


> I decided to go for the stuff on the pdf list as there's a bewildering amount of choice and there's no need for me to try to reinvent the wheel, if that stuff all works together then great, it will at the very least be a useful starting point.
> 
> I've been downloading and adding textures and meshes for the best part of 8 hours now, must remember to make a back up copy of those folders when done!


 
You should be ok with all the textures maxed, especially if you have the 4Gb Jetstream, but the pdf provides a trick for reducing texture sizes if you get paging.


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## Epona (Jul 14, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> You did get the _4Gb_ Jetstream right?


 
2Gb 

Installing things no more than 2 or 3 mods/texture packs at a time and checking that there are no errors and the framerate is good after each few - I am an old hand at this with previous TES games  It's just so fucking tedious


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## Bernie Gunther (Jul 14, 2012)

Fair enough. I messed a bit with Fallout New Vegas and Oblivion, but I wasn't in at the start with either. Skyrim is the first one where I've really tried experimenting with mods since shortly after it came out. 

In terms of interesting builds to try out, I've been using this site. http://theskyrimblog.ning.com/group/character-building


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## Epona (Jul 15, 2012)

Aaaand... I still haven't finished 

I did take a break to have a late dinner with my OH and watch some downloaded TV, then back to the job at hand... Had some initial difficulty with SkyUI but it must just have been a corrupted download as redownloading it worked OK. Now onto the sound files.

I worry I could be dead of old age by the time I've got this thing up and running  Recently reinstalled Morrowind and at least as many mods as this, but they were mostly ones I've been using for ages (and already had all the files downloaded and knew what I was doing with them) so it didn't take nearly this long.


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## The Groke (Jul 15, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> You should be ok with all the textures maxed, especially if you have the 4Gb Jetstream, but the pdf provides a trick for reducing texture sizes if you get paging.


 
My 1.2Gb GTX570 SLi setup eats up Skyrim even with all the textures modded and ramped to max - he should have no issues with a 2Gb 670


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## Epona (Jul 15, 2012)

The Groke said:


> My 1.2Gb GTX570 SLi setup eats up Skyrim even with all the textures modded and ramped to max - he should have no issues with a 2Gb 670


 
*Ahem* I think you mean she  but yeah I'm not having any issues, framerate fine after installing all the graphics mods. I still have to decide which ENBSeries thingy I'm going to use (I kind of like the garish/cinematic ones to be honest, I like to have pretty and colourful scenery rather than bleakness) but I'm sure it will all run fine once I've finished, and if not, I know what I need to tweak to get better performance - and when texture replacers come with a hi-res and medium set I always download both so that I have alternative files to hand in case it turns out that I need to ramp things down a little.

I'm now at the point of installing actual mods rather than replacers, I'm going for more complex needs and I think I will try the frostfall one, I can always turn it off if I don't find it fun. But I'm going to leave that for after I've had some sleep, because I'm fucking sick of extracting files into this or that directory and testing that it works right now - I'm done for the night, just going to relax for a bit before bed


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## Voley (Jul 15, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> (His Doctor Who cover is fucking amazing too)



That is fucking appalling.


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## Voley (Jul 15, 2012)

Oh Jesus, he does the Lord of The Rings, too.


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## Epona (Jul 15, 2012)

All set up and running well.

Using a selection (well OK, most of them) from the STEP guide, and True Vision ENB which I linked to earlier in the thread (and which I like a lot, nights are darker, and daytime colours are more vibrant than vanilla but not unnaturally so - also you can turn the DOF effect off if you don't like it  )

For gameplay I've gone for:
Imp's More Complex Needs
Frostfall
Camping Kit of the Northern Ranger
Hunting in Skyrim
Babette's Feast (adds more cooking recipes, IMP compatible)
Cooking Expanded (ditto)
Cerebral Den (a player home just outside of Whiterun - plenty of storage for hoarders like me!)
Real Wildlife Skyrim
Realistic Wildlife Loot and Recipes
Scenic Carriages (having been totally and quite unexpectedly wowed by abot's scenic boats/silt-striders etc. for MW)
Skyrim Monster Mod (WIP)
The Chronicles of Steel (WIP)
Interesting NPCs (WIP)
Ingredients of Tamriel
Cloaks of Skyrim

Edit: Hmmm, froze to death right near the beginning on my way to Bleak Falls Barrow.  Not a good start!


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## Epona (Jul 21, 2012)

I'm currently trying out the Alternate Starts mod. Rather than starting the game in Helgen, I picked the Shipwreck Survivor option - started on a semi-submerged ship off the northern coast, had to swim my way through the wreckage, salvaging odds and ends out of crates and from the dead bodies of a couple of fellow passengers, then make my way to shore. So I have started my game in rags and picked up a couple of quests in Dawnstar. I have a journal quest to ask around about what happened at Helgen for when I want to start the main quest. There are loads of other starting options to choose from, placing you in different areas and different situations, so starting the game again should never get boring - and if I want to do the whole Helgen prisoner start again that is also included as an option.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jul 21, 2012)

I'm currently trying this weather and skies mod. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17802

Seems very good, although the author recommends disabling a couple of things I installed based on that STEP guide.

High popularity and the author's previous rep from Fallout seems to have most of them e.g. the Frostfall guy, actively working on compatibility updates though.


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 21, 2012)

Epona - I always wondered how the alternate starts would work. Because the first meeting with the dragon at Helgen is pretty pivotal, with an aspect of it being that its run-in with you there is what kicks off all the action in the game. I can see how it's not strictly necessary, but from a story point of view, it works better than an alternate starting point for me.

Although if you're not planning on doing the main quests then I guess it doesn't matter either way. You can get through the game never meeting a dragon at all (if you're careful who you talk to at Whiterun).


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## Citizen66 (Jul 21, 2012)

I think it's a good idea. The thought of sitting through twenty or so minutes of memorable gameplay and cinematics over well-trodden terrain everytime you restart completely puts me off having a second or third run through.


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## Epona (Jul 21, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Epona - I always wondered how the alternate starts would work. Because the first meeting with the dragon at Helgen is pretty pivotal, with an aspect of it being that its run-in with you there is what kicks off all the action in the game. I can see how it's not strictly necessary, but from a story point of view, it works better than an alternate starting point for me.
> 
> Although if you're not planning on doing the main quests then I guess it doesn't matter either way. You can get through the game never meeting a dragon at all (if you're careful who you talk to at Whiterun).


 
Well it gives you a journal quest to ask around about a rumour regarding trouble in Helgen, which allows you to start the main quest at your leisure, just in a slightly different way (but one that still gets the story started), and without having to do the longish escape from Helgen segment, which I found was getting boring the number of times I restart!



Spoiler



Asking around eventually directs you to a campsite near Helgen, where there is an alternate encounter with Alduin to kick start the story. You then have the option to head into the cave that is used in the vanilla starting sequence where you find Ralof and the Imperial bloke (can't remember his name) injured. Give one of them a healing potion and the one you choose to heal will lead you out of the cave and to Riverwood, should you choose to follow them that far, as per the unmodded game.

So it does still introduce the story, it just bypasses the dungeon escape segment and works as a main quest delayer.

I might try the 'left for dead' option next time - robbed by bandits and left in one of several random wilderness areas with nothing but the shirt on your back. The farm owner option also sounds interesting, you get a small farm and farmhands and a regular small income from the farm. Or one of the guild member starts... or argonian dockworker... Imperial Legion or Stormcloak soldier... or necromancer cave start... or bandit (where you start with a bounty in whichever hold you start in)... and that's just some of the options

Skyrim: Origins


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 21, 2012)

That does, actually, sound excellent. Wow, modders are awesome.


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## Epona (Jul 21, 2012)

Modders are awesome - this is Arthmoor's work so you know it's going to be quality


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## Epona (Jul 24, 2012)

I realised mounted combat was added in the most recent patch, so I went and bought a horse. I also had a cowardly horses mod, so they avoid combat where possible. Well I lost the horse within minutes, I dismounted, a bear unexpectedly charged up to us, horse fled, once I'd killed the bear I couldn't find the bloody horse anywhere. I'd had it less than 3 minutes


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 24, 2012)

There's a mod that lets you summon an ethereal horse, in a variety of flavours (flaming, icy, stormy, etc.).


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## Epona (Jul 26, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> There's a mod that lets you summon an ethereal horse, in a variety of flavours (flaming, icy, stormy, etc.).


 
I kind of like real horses though (although after my accident it would take a lot of persuasion to get me back on one IRL). There was a mod that let you call your horse to you, but it's not been updated for the last official patch and using it is therefore going to mean all kinds of trouble.

The horse I had was a black one (which the stable owner tells you is a 7 year old mare called Allie) from the Whiterun stable. I miss her


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## Buddy Bradley (Jul 26, 2012)

How soon do patches come through for non-PC versions of the game?


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 26, 2012)

Epona said:


> I kind of like real horses though (although after my accident it would take a lot of persuasion to get me back on one IRL). There was a mod that let you call your horse to you, but it's not been updated for the last official patch and using it is therefore going to mean all kinds of trouble.
> 
> The horse I had was a black one (which the stable owner tells you is a 7 year old mare called Allie) from the Whiterun stable. I miss her


 
There's always the DB questline then. I <3 my derpy Shadowmere.


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## Jon-of-arc (Jul 31, 2012)

ok, so I just got this tonight. I'm some weird cat thing. I went down a mineshaft and killed loads of people and stole all their stuff.  Then I noticed that I was close to maximum carriable weight so I chucked a load of it away.  Now loads of people keep telling me to put some clothes on (   ) but I don't know how.  

Strangely addictive gameplay, even though precisely fuck all has happened since that dragon at the start, and the fact that I can barely understand a word of the "fantasy" gobbledygook shit that they keep all saying to me.


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 31, 2012)

lol

Do you want to wear armour and so on? Or do you like the feel of the wind in your fur? Go to your inventory, go to armour, and just click what you want to wear, easy peasy.

Make sure you hoard brooms and cabbages. You never know when you're going to need them.


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## Citizen66 (Jul 31, 2012)

You're only ever going to want to hoard brooms and cabbages if you have a penchant for farting and like a broom handle to stir that particularly unhelpful potion. 

Actually, there may be a use for them, probably is.


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 31, 2012)

There is a use for all those ruined books you keep finding in dungeons, apparently. Not that I've experienced it yet, but I'm told it's there.

Hoard ALL the brooms.


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## Citizen66 (Jul 31, 2012)

I always class the ruined books as unlucky loot. There better not be any meaningful use for them lol. I do hoard quite a lot. Especially food, knowing that I probably won't ever use it unless it's needed to build a particular skill. haven't come across that yet though. It seems mainly to be for health / stamina / magic boosts for those that don't do potions / magic etc.

Should elaborate : the cooking skill seems to be aimed at not discriminating against characters that avoid potions and magic. But it's a bit pants if you do use either of the latter.


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## Gromit (Jul 31, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> There is a use for all those ruined books you keep finding in dungeons, apparently. Not that I've experienced it yet, but I'm told it's there.
> 
> Hoard ALL the brooms.



I think its use as an ingredient for the summoning pit thingy under the Mages University. Though I could be wrong.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jul 31, 2012)

Cabbages definitely come in handy if you run mods like 'More Complex Needs' and have to worry about eating a balanced diet.


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 31, 2012)

Yes, I think that's right, Gromit. I haven't done the mage's college quests, so never got that far.


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## Citizen66 (Jul 31, 2012)

But does that require hoarding them? Just remember where a couple are. Or keep a couple. 

But yeah, fair play getting one over the nay sayers.


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## Citizen66 (Jul 31, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Cabbages definitely come in handy if you run mods like 'More Complex Needs' and have to worry about eating a balanced diet.


 
Skyrim: NHS Advice Expansion Pack


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## ohmyliver (Aug 2, 2012)

So... Dawnguard is finally available for PC, has anyone got it? Is it good?


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 3, 2012)

i'm going to wait a bit   till it's under a tenner


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## Voley (Aug 3, 2012)

You can never have too many cabbages.


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## Mungy (Aug 3, 2012)

NVP said:


> You can never have too many cabbages.


that's just about made my day, if not my week


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## Epona (Aug 3, 2012)

ohmyliver said:


> So... Dawnguard is finally available for PC, has anyone got it? Is it good?


 
Where? It's not on my Steam page for Skryim DLC?

Edit: No you're correct, it is there, once I logged out and back on again. I've been checking twice daily for an announcement about PC release date, and they release it right under my nose when I'm not looking for it.

There should be an alert system for this sort of thing!

Other than Urban I mean, thank you ohmyliver for letting me know! Because Bethesda is kind of crap at this sort of communication - I'm on their forum every day, and last I saw from there a few hours ago was "we haven't announced a PC release date yet"

I am really fucked off actually, because I've been checking like 4 times a day for an announcement for the last week, and then I have to get the news off urban (which I am grateful for!), but Bethesda fucking suck at marketing and communication!!!


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## Citizen66 (Aug 3, 2012)

Lol. Before i played skyrim a mate showed me his game that he had well advanced on and he just had this room somewhere with all his shit thrown on the floor.  there was that much stuff it brought the frame rate right down. And this was on the xbox which the game is calibrated to run on.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 3, 2012)

It's amazing what you can do with cabbages:


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## Voley (Aug 5, 2012)

In a similar vein:


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## Jon-of-arc (Aug 7, 2012)

As well as being a Companion & the DragonBorn, I am also now "Thane of the Jarl".  I am getting quite used my aristocratic status, and the resulting deference from mere proles.  I may start referring to myself as such in real life, in order that my lessers accord me respect consumerate with my status.  I should probably start with this thread - so please remember etiquette when responding to my posts.  In future, you can all refer to me as "My Thane" or, when you wish to refer to me in the third person and distinguish me from any other Thanes, "Thane Jon of Arc, DragonBorn" is correct.


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## Citizen66 (Aug 7, 2012)

Thane means you get to buy a house. Or it does in Riften.


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## Gromit (Aug 8, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> Thane means you get to buy a house. Or it does in Riften.



... And get to tell the cops (guards) don't you know who I am?! When you break the speed limit (kill or steal) and get let orf.


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## Bernie Gunther (Aug 8, 2012)

There's a very entertaining 'bitching about Skyrim' thread on Something Awful.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3463574&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1


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## JimW (Aug 8, 2012)

Finally had a go on this, and sorry if this has been moaned about earlier in this long thread, but was most amused where my reward for some do-or-die mission killing ghouls was about 100 gold, and in the same city someone gives you 400 for walking up the hill to the palace with their dog-meat delivery. Free market economics yet to make it to Skyrim.


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## Epona (Aug 11, 2012)

So has anyone else played Dawnguard? What did you think of it?

I bought it the night it was released for PC and just finished the main quest today (although I didn't plough straight through it, I did other stuff between DG quests) and I still have a load of radient side-quests to go.

I absolutely loved it, and for me it was well worth the money. The only thing I didn't like was vampire master spawns killing off townsfolk (Skyrim is sparsely populated enough as it is!), but being on PC there was a mod for that within 24 hours of the DLC being released.

And although for the month before it was released on PC I thought it was only teenage boys wittering on about how much they liked Serana, actually I really like her too, she's a great follower, and the only one I haven't become annoyed with in a matter of minutes. She has a proper story, is involved in the DG quests, plenty of dialogue, relaxes and does her own thing in taverns and your home (and even other people's homes!), and seems far more involved and real than most of the vanilla followers. Plus she doesn't seem to get in the way of my stealth approach to combat.  She is now my permanent follower, and goes everywhere with me.


----------



## ohmyliver (Aug 17, 2012)

I'm working my way through it (as a vampire, using a bow wielding, sneaky, assassin/poisoner).  Yeah, I'd agree it's good.  Serana did repeat a few lines of dialogue a lot in the way up to her mother's alchemy lab bit, but I can over look that. 

I'd go as far as to say it's better than a fair chunk of the story arcs in the actual game. 

Although, having played a *lot* of Red Dead Redemption recently, my first instinct was to hammer the A button on my xbox controller for windows thingy as soon as I got on a horse, which of course just made me get off the horse.


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## Epona (Aug 17, 2012)

Haven't tried the vampire side, I've never actually been a vampire in any TES game, it just doesn't appeal to me for some reason.

With the alternative start mod, I have managed to get to level 53 without starting the main quest. Suits me just fine, it took me 10 years to get around to doing the Morrowind main quest!  I like to leave it til last, even if it takes me years to get there - I'll do it eventually. I've also come across some quests that I haven't done before - Skyrim certainly isn't short on content!

Thing is, I've now decided that all the house mods I've tried are not quite right for me, so I've put the game to one side for now and started making my own home in the Creation Kit. The main living space is nearly finished, but I have a load of other plans for it! It could take me a while


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## ohmyliver (Aug 17, 2012)

I've done 4 characters (well, ok 3 and a half) and found new things each time I played.  

The vampire thing makes food far more useful as if you've not fed for a while your health and stamina don't regenerate in daylight so those stews come in handy if you suddenly need to run away from say, an angry town, although my last character (Orc, 2 handed weapons, heavy armour, smithing) used cooking a lot because I didn't use alchemy.


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## Epona (Aug 18, 2012)

ohmyliver said:


> I've done 4 characters (well, ok 3 and a half) and found new things each time I played.
> 
> The vampire thing makes food far more useful as if you've not fed for a while your health and stamina don't regenerate in daylight so those stews come in handy if you suddenly need to run away from say, an angry town, although my last character (Orc, 2 handed weapons, heavy armour, smithing) used cooking a lot because I didn't use alchemy.


 
Ah now I use Imp's More Complex Needs (water, food, sleep requirement mod) so I do quite a lot of cooking - food doesn't give buffs with this mod,but I need to eat to to stop myself from getting hungry which results in penalties.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 18, 2012)

the problem i found  was there was never enough salt.


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## ohmyliver (Aug 18, 2012)

Epona said:


> Ah now I use Imp's More Complex Needs (water, food, sleep requirement mod) so I do quite a lot of cooking - food doesn't give buffs with this mod,but I need to eat to to stop myself from getting hungry which results in penalties.


 
Does it include more recipes? On a tangential note, I found a recipes in a Skyrim book (Uncommon Taste) that I was briefly tempted to try out for real, like.   I've just googled it, and there are already youtubes of people cooking it. 


@Shippou, that seems to be fixed, as I've found a lot more salt playing recently.


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## Epona (Aug 18, 2012)

Yeah same here I have an abundance of salt (about 250 units stored), garlic is a prized commodity however, I always seem to run out of garlic! But you don't need it for most recipes.

ohmyliver - I use Imps and a couple of compatible cooking mods (recommended on Imp's nexus page - Babette's Feast is the name of one of the mods I use, but check Imp's nexus page for other compatible recipe mods)

I understand the cooking vibe and wanting to try stuff out irl - I once hosted a Roman dinner party (for friends on my ancient history A-level class at the Working Men's College) based on old translated recipes which was massive fun for me as an enthusiastic cook and ancient history buff, most of the food went down really well (there were a couple of dishes that were a bit odd to our modern taste, but they still got eaten!) and it was great fun! We all dressed up, and I decorated my flat with faux marble pillars and all sorts of other stuff. I was scraping squashed grapes off the floor for a few days afterwards mind you, I don't know what it is with Roman themed parties and grapes, but there you go...


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## ohmyliver (Aug 19, 2012)

Nice bit of lore with Knight Paladin whatshisface.


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## bi0boy (Aug 20, 2012)

NVP said:


> In a similar vein:




Are you telling me people could have cheated with the cabbages in the room thing by using the console? I thought they actually walked around searching out cabbages and offloading them in the room.


----------



## Epona (Aug 20, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> Are you telling me people could have cheated with the cabbages in the room thing by using the console? I thought they actually walked around searching out cabbages and offloading them in the room.


 
Well I suppose you could walk around picking up cabbages and transporting them to the room of your choice for 300+ hours - but the easy way is to go to the room of your choice, open the console, type player.additem 00064b3f 5000 then close the console, open the inventory, highlight the cabbages and then drop them -a few at a time for a nice cascade effect. Or you could just bypass the inventory and spawn the cabbages straight into the room at the instructed co-ordinate, havok will make them bounce around nicely (especially if you spawn them a bit above ground level) - if somewhat unrealisticly. 

My home is coming along nicely, I've been glued to the creation kit for days now, it's just a little bit addictive


----------



## Termite Man (Aug 20, 2012)

Epona said:


> Well I suppose you could walk around picking up cabbages and transporting them to the room of your choice for 300+ hours - but the easy way is to go to the room of your choice, open the console, type player.additem 00064b3f 5000 then close the console, open the inventory, highlight the cabbages and then drop them -a few at a time for a nice cascade effect. Or you could just bypass the inventory and spawn the cabbages straight into the room at the instructed co-ordinate, havok will make them bounce around nicely (especially if you spawn them a bit above ground level) - if somewhat unrealisticly.
> 
> My home is coming along nicely, I've been glued to the creation kit for days now, it's just a little bit addictive


you have just killed the magic for me


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## Voley (Aug 20, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> Are you telling me people could have cheated with the cabbages in the room thing by using the console? I thought they actually walked around searching out cabbages and offloading them in the room.


I like to think that cabbage collection is a labour of love, too.


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## Voley (Aug 20, 2012)

Termite Man said:


> you have just killed the magic for me


It's like being told there's no Father Christmas.


----------



## Cid (Aug 27, 2012)

Epona said:


> So has anyone else played Dawnguard? What did you think of it?
> 
> I bought it the night it was released for PC and just finished the main quest today (although I didn't plough straight through it, I did other stuff between DG quests) and I still have a load of radient side-quests to go.
> 
> ...


 
Yep, enjoyed it - although the er - Well it's not really a spoiler, but the first big bit - got pretty dull. Serana definitely a high point, thought decent characters (and scripting of NPCs outside crucial plot bits) were conspicuously lacking in the vanilla game (especially now that my wife won't say anything except 'something has shifted in the moons brother'). Crossbows also very satisfying. Clocked up an enormous amount of time on it (probably 200 hours plus) and, although I'm fairly close to the end of the main plot (I think), haven't started Empire vs Stormcloak.


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## Epona (Aug 28, 2012)

Cid said:


> Yep, enjoyed it - although the er - Well it's not really a spoiler, but the first big bit - got pretty dull. Serana definitely a high point, thought decent characters (and scripting of NPCs outside crucial plot bits) were conspicuously lacking in the vanilla game (especially now that my wife won't say anything except 'something has shifted in the moons brother'). Crossbows also very satisfying. Clocked up an enormous amount of time on it (probably 200 hours plus) and, although I'm fairly close to the end of the main plot (I think), haven't started Empire vs Stormcloak.


 
Yeah at the moment Serana stands out as the NPC with more to say and more backstory than anyone else in the game so far - and I hope we are going to see more good follower NPCs in future DLC. Interaction with NPCs is not something that Bethesda does particularly well, and when they do finally do a decent job they deserve to know that this is the kind of follower/NPC/character development we want. Crossbows, agreed, you will have to prise mine out of my cold dead hands - slightly slower to reload and a bit noisier, but having a ranged weapon that is loaded with a bolt before I need to use it so that I can get off one shot quickly in an emergency rather than waiting to draw a bow is superb for my gameplay style.

I just finished the Civil War questline for the first time (on the Stormcloak side) and thought that it was very well done (certainly for an open world RPG that doesn't put all its eggs in that particular basket), it has actually been my favourite part of the game so far - storming forts with a team of NPCs and the larger city sieges were immense fun - certainly it is on a small scale compared to FPS games in which storming or defending a strategic military position is their bread and butter (and tiny scale compared to large military strategy games), but it's not an FPS game or a military strategy game, and I think they pulled off those battles quite well for a first person single player RPG. Loved every minute of the Civil War quests!


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## tommers (Aug 28, 2012)

Hearthfire?!?!?!

Build your own houses. Adopt a kid.

Fuck me.


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## Citizen66 (Aug 28, 2012)

Skysims.


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## tommers (Aug 28, 2012)

I thought it was a joke when I read about it.

Are we sure it's not a joke?


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## Citizen66 (Aug 28, 2012)

Sorry, i thought you were referring to epona's post about a house building mod (i'd also probably get hooked for days on end to something like that).


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## Buddy Bradley (Aug 28, 2012)

Link would be helpful: http://videogamewriters.com/bethesda-reveals-next-skyrim-dlc-as-hearthfire-53648


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## tommers (Aug 28, 2012)

No. It's the next expansion. Out in Sept. Ever wanted to know what happens when the vampire leader of the dark brotherhood settles down, gets a kid and raises fish? Now you can.

I love the escapism.


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## tommers (Aug 28, 2012)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Link would be helpful: http://videogamewriters.com/bethesda-reveals-next-skyrim-dlc-as-hearthfire-53648



I did put the name!!!


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## Citizen66 (Aug 28, 2012)

tommers said:


> No. It's the next expansion. Out in Sept. Ever wanted to know what happens when the vampire leader of the dark brotherhood settles down, gets a kid and raises fish? Now you can.
> 
> I love the escapism.



Lol. I do like the unending concept of skyrim though. Although in reality you explore something a bit (like 20 hours or so) and then move onto something else. They're giving you more hours to enjoy the world. It isn't all about relentlessly questing and killing goblins with sticks. We need to sleep. And shag. And have kids. And raise them and look after them.


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## tommers (Aug 28, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> Lol. I do like the unending concept of skyrim though. Although in reality you explore something a bit (like 20 hours or so) and then move onto something else. They're giving you more hours to enjoy the world. It isn't all about relentlessly questing and killing goblins with sticks. We need to sleep. And shag. And have kids. And raise them and look after them.



And pay our taxes, commute to work, pay the gas bill, sort out an isa, put the rubbish out, change some nappies, make breakfast  and run the kids to school

Skyrim : middle age fire


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## tommers (Aug 28, 2012)

Of course the big question is: will you be able to pay for a cleaner?


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## Citizen66 (Aug 28, 2012)

tommers said:


> And pay our taxes, commute to work, pay the gas bill, sort out an isa, put the rubbish out, change some nappies, make breakfast  and run the kids to school
> 
> Skyrim : middle age fire



It's like that part of GTAIV where you sat around watching TV and pissing around in your flat and stuff. Why would you want to do this when there's COPS outside to piss off and CARS TO STEAL?


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## tommers (Aug 28, 2012)

Exactly.  And I'm already sat watching TV and pissing about IN REAL LIFE.  That's why I put a fucking game on.

I have kids.  I have a house.  I don't have a fish hatchery, granted.  But still.


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## Citizen66 (Aug 28, 2012)

I did play the SIms for a bit once. You neglected washing your own dishes in order to be there to make sure they were washed online.


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## Buddy Bradley (Aug 28, 2012)

20 years ago when I went to university to study Computing and AI, I had a vision that one day we would be able to plug our immersive gaming devices directly into the phone lines, where we would all play a single multiplayer game that was basically a 1-1 equivalent of the actual real world. Same scale, same open-ended endless gameplay mechanic, same freedom of choice, same seven billion players.

We're not quite there yet, but it's getting ever closer.


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## Random (Aug 30, 2012)

Very pleased about Hearthfire. My main problem with Skrim is that it didn't have the Strongholds that Morrowind offered. Only just got my Xbox, though. Will I need a big hard drive to download the DLC for Skyrim?


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## ChrisFilter (Aug 30, 2012)

Sigh. I wish I had time to play this. I get said every time I see this thread in 'new posts.


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## Voley (Aug 31, 2012)

Adopting kids really does sound shit, although I wonder if this is possible:

1. Adopt irritating American-voiced kid in Whiterun who's always prattling on about working with her Mother in the market.
2. Turn into a werewolf before her very eyes.
3. Chase her into a crypt.

Swings and roundabouts.


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## ohmyliver (Sep 5, 2012)

I'm liking this mod 


It's clearly a spell they really should have included in the original game


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## Voley (Sep 5, 2012)

ohmyliver said:


> I'm liking this mod
> 
> 
> It's clearly a spell they really should have included in the original game



 There are few games that can't be improved by a cave bear playing 'Misirlou' on a lute, it has to be said.


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## Epona (Sep 7, 2012)

Oh ffs, I was one of those who, in the run-up to Skyrim's release, was banging on about wanting to build a stronghold like in Morrowind. Hearthfire is a dirt cheap DLC, about the price of a pint of beer in central London, that will allow me to do that. I'm looking forward to it (and I am looking forward to see what modders can do with the module-style building mechanics).

Also no-one here seems to have grasped the simple fact that MS paid Bethesda for a 30 day xbox exclusive on the first 2 Skyrim DLCs - the first was a good quest/faction based DLC, the second is a £3.40 home-building kit, and all further DLC will not have a platform-exclusive period - it's not compulsory to buy it if it's not what you want, it's not as if anyone is forcing that cash out of you, so it seems to me that the only people who got screwed here were MS.

EDIT: Oh and I've turned my current game into a party-based RPG thanks to UFO (Unlimited Followers Overhaul), which gives more control over followers and allows you to have several at a time.  It's absolutely bloomin' superb, I recommend it, alongside mods that add enemy spawns (Skyrim Monster Mod for example), or make existing enemies harder (Dangerous Dragons).  I'm having a whole different style of game with several followers!


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## Epona (Sep 23, 2012)

Hehehe   COPS:Skyrim


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## Cid (Oct 6, 2012)

Hearthfire on steam.


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## Epona (Oct 6, 2012)

Cid said:


> Hearthfire on steam.


Got it, enjoying it, although finding myself far more invested in it with a new character because I don't have the septims/iron to insta-build it (I had a test run with an older character when I first got it.) Using it with the Tundra Defense mod to turn my Hearthfire home into a large outpost/small city. Not bad for £3.49, can't complain!

On another note, this is both highly entertaining, and awe-inspiring (in terms of the animations):


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 7, 2012)

That. Is. Astounding.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 8, 2012)

@Epona - you've had some experience with the Creation Kit, right? I've just gotten hold of it, and just wanted to create a version of armour that I've downloaded as a mod but with different stats. I've followed the basic tutorials on the CK wiki, but it's saying it doesn't exist in the game (when I bring up the console and try to give it to myself). I'm very confused. Do you know of any tutorials out there or other resources that are easier to deal with than the wiki? Because I've done everything it told me to, and yet it's still not there


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## Stigmata (Oct 8, 2012)

^Have you selected it as a data file when beginning the game?


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 8, 2012)

Yep. It already was one. I'm attempting to modify an esp that already existed and was working in the game, by loading it up in the CK (setting it to active), duplicated the things I want to modify, changing them, giving them IDs I can remember, then saving. Restart the game, ensure the eps is checked in the data section of the launcher, and nothing. The original items that were in that plugin are there, but not the new stuff. Am I doing something wrong by altering a plugin that already exists? Surely not


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 8, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> I did play the SIms for a bit once. You neglected washing your own dishes in order to be there to make sure they were washed online.


Sitting up at 3am making sure your sims get to bed in time to get up for work tomorrow with their energy bars full.


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## Citizen66 (Oct 8, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Sitting up at 3am making sure your sims get to bed in time to get up for work tomorrow with their energy bars full.


 


Exactly.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 8, 2012)

Okay, false alarm. It _does_ work, but the ID I specify in the CK bears no resemblance whatsoever to what it recognises it as in game 

It's simply replaced the original armours that were in there with the new ones, so when I typed 'help *armourname*' into the console, it brought back the same list as before, without the name changes I'd given them in the CK. So I didn't think it had worked. But it had. How fucking weird.


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## Epona (Oct 9, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> @Epona - you've had some experience with the Creation Kit, right? I've just gotten hold of it, and just wanted to create a version of armour that I've downloaded as a mod but with different stats. I've followed the basic tutorials on the CK wiki, but it's saying it doesn't exist in the game (when I bring up the console and try to give it to myself). I'm very confused. Do you know of any tutorials out there or other resources that are easier to deal with than the wiki? Because I've done everything it told me to, and yet it's still not there


 
Sorry, only just seen this!

So when you opened the CK, you then loaded Skyrim.esm and the mod, did you set the mod as the active file or did you make a new plugin? (This will have happened automatically if you did not set an active file when choosing which data files to load). Btw best practice is always to create a new .esp of your own rather than using someone elses mod as the active file (you'll be screwed when they next update it, even disregarding the propriety of file authorship blah blah blah!) - this will happen automatically if you do not set a file as active when you load it, and you'll have to name the file when you first save it.

I just made myself some new enchanted armor and here's how I did it.

- Start the CK, and load up Skyrim.esm (if I wanted to use an armor mesh from a mod I would also select the mod to load)

Now you can do one of 2 things:
1 - if you only want to change the enchantment on the armor in the mod, find the armor you want to change in the object window, right click on the name, and select Edit. This will bring up the box with the armor properties. Make any changes as you see fit, do not rename it or mess with the FormID.
2 - if you want to retain the original armor AND make a new version with a different name/properties so that both exist in-game, Click on the name in the object window of the item you want to copy/modify (you may need to click on it twice to get an insertion point appear in the name) and type in a different name without spaces or punctuation - I used EponaDragonArmor. A confirmation box will appear asking you if you want to make a new object, click yes! Right click on your new armor, select Edit, make any changes you want.  Don't forget to give it a name that will appear in-game, I used Epona's Dragon Armor.

I went for option 2, and used the vanilla dragonscale armor model.

- Now MAKE A NOTE OF THE FORMID OF YOUR NEW ITEM, don't try to change it or anything. It will be 01xxxxxx if you only have Skyrim.esm loaded, 02xxxxxx if you have Skyrim.esm and another file loaded etc. The first 2 numbers will change in game depending on where your plugin is in your load order, so disregard them. My Dragonscale Armor of Lockpicking had the FormID 01000D63, but I'm only interested in the 000D63 part.
- Hit the save button. Name your plugin file and save it in your ...Skyrim/Data folder.
- Use the Skyrim Launcher or Wrye Bash to activate your plugin, and then load the game.

To console yourself the armor in game you need to know where your plugin is in the load order to find out the first 2 numbers of the FormID - I had mine at the end of a long list of mods so I checked in Wrye Bash rather than count, and my Epona Dragon Armor mod is 3D in my load order (if you're counting rather than looking it up and you have a lot of mods, remember that it's a hexadecimal count!) So in game I use player.additem 3D000D63 1 and voila I have my new armor.

Sorry for the US spelling, as it's an American game I use the US spelling in any mods including calling my armour "armor" so that it is consistent with the game.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

@Epona - that's just excellent, thank you! Yep, I didn't really know what I was doing to I ended up edited the mod itself, rather than creating a new one (I did set it to active). But as you say, that has drawbacks (not least messing with someone else's work).

I'm still a bit sketchy on a couple of issues.

I duplicated the armour I wanted to change when I eventually got it to work yesterday (before I saw your post, obv), and altered the things I wanted on the duplicate, leaving the original alone (all in the same mod, not in a new one, as I said). I changed the name, so it theoretically should have created another version, with my different stats, right? But in game, in the console, the original version is gone now, replaced with my new one. So I must have done something wrong in the duplication process, but when I load that mod up in the CK, both are there.

The other thing I wanted to know, was, is it possible to add more than one enchantment to something in the CK? I only see the dropdown box that lets you pick one. Say I wanted some super awesome boots that have the muffle enchantment, and a sneak enchantment (which is something that kind of makes a whole lot of thematic sense to me), is there a way to do that? If not, if I just put muffle on them, as long as I make sure the boots have a tempering recipe thing associated with them, can I enchant them with another once I unlock that perk? I'm not sure I've been able to enchant already-enchanted stuff in game before. I have a feeling there _must_ be a way to put multiple enchantments on things via the CK, because I've downloaded mods that have them before.

Sorry for all the questions! And thank you for helping me out


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## Epona (Oct 9, 2012)

@Vintage Paw (I like the way you get a notification doing that, I never realised that before now and just thought it was a trendy hangover from twitter  )

- I don't know what you might have done wrong there, did you at any point get a dialogue box confirmation where you were asked to confirm that you wanted to create a new object? Each object has 2 names, the "EponaDragonArmor" reference that appears in the object window, and the "Epona's Dragon Armor" proper name that appears in game. You need to change the "EponaDragonArmor" style one in order to create a new item, changing the "Epona's Dragon Armor" name will just change the way the name is displayed in game, without creating a new item. That's fine if that's the result you want, but if you want to have both armors in game you first need to change the name in the object window and create a new item, then make sure you are editing your newly named/created item.  You don't need to use Duplicate.

- I haven't done this (I've been mostly doing interiors), but I suspect you need to first create a new enchantment in the CK with the multiple effects you want (in the way that some items in the game have +magicka and +restoration, that is just 1 'enchantment' in the CK), then select that new enchantment in the drop down box when you are creating your new weapon/armor. You cannot add a second enchantment in-game, that perk just allows you to put 2 enchantments on an item, but they have to be done at the same time, once an item is enchanted with anything you are stuck with it.

EDIT: Yeah I just checked, you create an enchantment with multiple effects and then select EponasMegaWickedEnchantment or whatever you decide to name it from the drop down box when editing your armor/weapon. Not sure where the Enchantments can be found mind you, but I got some by using a filter on "All" in the left hand pane, so they're in there somewhere!


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

Sadly the notifications don't work with spaces in names ... so I don't get these notifications  They sound awesome though heh.

1) I changed the ID name, which was the one at the very top of the window. So it went from the original VeryLovelyArmourDuplicate001 to CatsAwesomeArmourOfAmazeballs (names used for illustration purposes only ). When I clicked okay at the bottom of the editing window once I'd done everything, it asked me if I wanted to create a new FormID, and I suspect this is where I went wrong. The tutorial on the wiki that I was following said to click No, and then Yes to the next thing. Which I did. So I suspect the new armour therefore took the FormID number from the old one, so while both technically exist, only the newer one is being accessed by that number, iyswim.

2) That makes perfect sense, re creating a new enchantment. Now I just have to work out how to create that enchantment to begin with (total n00b).

Thanks again


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

Oh oh oh, I found this: http://skyrimmoddingtutorial.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/applying-enchantments-to-an-item/ which goes through (briefly) how to create new 'enchantment forms' that you can apply to items. I'll have a play around and see what happens.


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## Epona (Oct 9, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> The tutorial on the wiki that I was following said to click No, and then Yes to the next thing. Which I did. So I suspect the new armour therefore took the FormID number from the old one, so while both technically exist, only the newer one is being accessed by that number, iyswim.


 
Click yes for a new item!  Tutorials are great but sometimes they show you something slightly different than what you actually want to achieve 

There are some good video tutorials on YouTube (search for Skyrim Creation Kit Tutorial).  Depends on your learning style though, they don't suit me and I tend to get distracted, but they are very popular and well-regarded.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

Yeah, I'm a bit rubbish with video tutorials. I like to have a set of instructions I can keep referring to every step of the way (and then disregard the bits I'm sure I know better about and thus find myself having made a pig's ear of it all ).


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## Epona (Oct 9, 2012)

I have to get my hands dirty, I learn quickly in a 'whoops, I broke it, how does it go back together?' setting, although written instructions are useful if I need to look up how to do a specific thing. Being shown or told how to do something is no good for me whatsoever (unless I have a very specific question), it very quickly becomes 'blahblahblahdiblah' in my head. Like when adults talk in Peanuts


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

Hehe, yeah, I like to jump in and make stuff happen, and see what I break along the way.

Well, I have created an enchantment form, with 3 enchantments (muffle, stealth, and waterbreathing, because seriously, who can be bothered with drowning? ) and it works when applied to stuff. Which is brilliant. I also created my own new plug-in, duplicating a pair of boots from another mod, and added the enchantment to those. Loaded it in the game, and so far so good. Only problem is, when I equip them, while all the stats get applied correctly, there's no visual model, so she's got bare feet.

This was why I just edited the current mod in the first place, because there were already designs attached to it. So I guess I have to work out how to get it to recognise that design. It's not in vanilla skyrim (i.e. skyrim.esm) and I was sure I read something that said you can't refer to other plug-ins using them as master info, so I'm not sure how to do that. I shall investigate.


----------



## agricola (Oct 9, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Hehe, yeah, I like to jump in and make stuff happen, and see what I break along the way.
> 
> Well, I have created an enchantment form, with 3 enchantments (muffle, stealth, and waterbreathing, because seriously, who can be bothered with drowning? ) and it works when applied to stuff. Which is brilliant. I also created my own new plug-in, duplicating a pair of boots from another mod, and added the enchantment to those. Loaded it in the game, and so far so good. Only problem is, when I equip them, while all the stats get applied correctly, there's no visual model, so she's got bare feet.
> 
> This was why I just edited the current mod in the first place, because there were already designs attached to it. So I guess I have to work out how to get it to recognise that design. It's not in vanilla skyrim (i.e. skyrim.esm) and I was sure I read something that said you can't refer to other plug-ins using them as master info, so I'm not sure how to do that. I shall investigate.


 
No Morrowind-style levitation?


----------



## Epona (Oct 9, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Only problem is, when I equip them, while all the stats get applied correctly, there's no visual model, so she's got bare feet.


 
If the original mod uses a BSA instead of loose files, you need to unpack the BSA file using a tool such as BSAOpt (on the Nexus under that name), then put the mesh for the boots into your Skyrim/Data/Meshes folder (or in a subfolder Skyrim/Data/Meshes/MyModName to keep everything neat). In the CK, where it says 'model' in the edit box for your boots, click the browse button then find the mesh you unpacked. It should then work. I think!


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

Epona said:


> If the original mod uses a BSA instead of loose files, you need to unpack the BSA file using a tool such as BSAOpt (on the Nexus under that name), then put the mesh for the boots into your Skyrim/Data/Meshes folder (or in a subfolder Skyrim/Data/Meshes/MyModName to keep everything neat). In the CK, where it says 'model' in the edit box for your boots, click the browse button then find the mesh you unpacked. It should then work. I think!


 
Hmm, I found the armoraddon model the original armour was pointing to (in the original mod) and it's a .nif file. Anyway, with both loaded in the ck, I've set the model on my plug-in to use the model from the other one (it let me select it) so I'll see if that works. It'll mean needing to have both mods active (if it works) but at least it's a temporary solution while I keep learning more. When I loaded my plug-in up, I realised there was no model selected at all, which'll be why she had bare feet 

Gotta love learning curves.

edit: nope, didn't work.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

agricola said:


> No Morrowind-style levitation?


 
Levitation does sound awesome. But I like to keep my feet on the ground


----------



## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

Right, I've downloaded BSAOpt, unpacked the BSA files, and there are all sorts of meshes and texture files. I have a feeling I have to create a model (as armoraddon) using all the correct files which I then associate with the armour. I'm wondering if I can't just duplicate the model that already exists, since it has all the paths to the BSA file already in use, and just put that in my active file 

Edit: IT WORKED. *dances* No need for BSAOpt for the moment then. Which is a relief, because I can only handle one learning curve at a time 

Thanks again Epona!


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## Epona (Oct 9, 2012)

Cool, glad you found a way around it! I always try to dl and manually install loose file versions of mods (that include custom meshes/textures) where they are offered as an option because it does make life a bit easier if you want to do your own tweaks for personal use.  So many mods for Skyrim only have BSA though, that's the only way to upload them on Steam Workshop, compared to previous/pre-Steam TES games where modders only used BSA files if their mod was really massive with new meshes and textures.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

Yep, I expect extracting all the meshes and textures would give you a lot more flexibility. In this instance, I was more than happy with the models as they were, and just wanted to add my own stats/enchantments, so duplicating and creating a new instance of the models in my own plug-in was the easiest and quickest way. As long as I keep the original bsa file where it is, everything should be fine. I expect I'd be able to disable the original esp once I'm done modifying everything I want into my own plug-ins, as long as that bsa stays there.

I know some modders ask that you don't modify their work, but I'm not uploading it anywhere or distributing it. I'm not quite sure how me modifying it for my own gameplay hurts their integrity or reputation. It's no different from me applying enchantments to them via the normal methods in game, ish. If I wanted to create versions to upload to nexus/workshop, obviously I'd contact the modders and ask for permission/collaboration.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

The fruits of my labour (well, mostly somebody else's):






(I use Bella's Better Females - sure, it's not in keeping with the vanilla Skyrim aesthetic, but dammit I don't care. Pretty Bosmer ftw.)


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## Epona (Oct 9, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> I know some modders ask that you don't modify their work, but I'm not uploading it anywhere or distributing it. I'm not quite sure how me modifying it for my own gameplay hurts their integrity or reputation. It's no different from me applying enchantments to them via the normal methods in game, ish. If I wanted to create versions to upload to nexus/workshop, obviously I'd contact the modders and ask for permission/collaboration.


 
Don't worry about it, tweaking stuff for personal use is acceptable and it's largely understood that people are going to change the stats/enchantments of any custom item (or indeed any vanilla item) they particularly like the look of but that doesn't suit their character/playstyle, it's distribution without permission that crosses the line and you've not done that so just enjoy your tweaks!


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

Trying to mod a weapon is a whole other kettle of fish


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## Epona (Oct 9, 2012)

I'm currently having fun playing with the Tundra Defense mod - I have turned Heljarchen Hall into Heljarchen Village, and have a mine, barracks, shop, some houses, a captain of the guard, 4 guards and a dwemer spider patrolling the perimeter, a guard by the front door to my house, a guard down by the housing area, 2 miners, and 4 citizens - who are providing me with ore and paying taxes to me! Placement of items and buildings is a bit tricky as the ground isn't as flat as it looks, but it's great fun.  The place is now quite busy with steward, housecarl, husband, kids, and followers as well as the residents/guards.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 9, 2012)

That sounds insanely complicated


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## Epona (Oct 12, 2012)

Today I have been using Nifskope and the CK to make unhavoked statics for purposes of home-decoration.

I have also been delving into scripting, as I've had a Brilliant Idea.  I've reached a bit of a head-scratch moment trying to bring my Brilliant Idea to fruition, so am taking a break for a cuppa.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 12, 2012)

I can certainly see how modding could become a full time job 

My thing at the moment is trying to work out how to modify the enchantment on a unique item. I made a new enchantment form for a nice bow, and I tried to apply it to the Nightingale bow. It just wouldn't work. Every time I loaded it up in the game, it reverted to the standard Nightingale bow enchantment. So in the end I gave up and did it on a Daedric bow instead.

Then I had the bright idea that I have a mod that adds unenchanted versions of various unique weapons and armours to the game (in a handy chest in Dragonsreach), so I loaded that mod up in the CK, and duplicated the Nightingale bow from that to use instead, which worked just fine.

When I was first trying to get it to work, I tried creating the bow with no enchantments first, so wiping the original enchantments off. But it still wouldn't work.

I had a thought, though. Perhaps if I used the entry for a normal bow, say the daedric bow, but pointed its model path to that for the Nightingale bow - that should work, right? It's the daedric file, so there will be no enchantments, but it'll use the mesh for the nightingale one. That'll solve any potential issues that might arise from using another mod as the basis for my own mod.

I did the same with the Blade of Woe, used the unenchanted version from that mod. Works just as I want now.


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## Epona (Oct 12, 2012)

I'd be inclined to make a new bow (find the items/weapons section of the object window, right-click anywhere in the list of items and select 'New'), give it a different name and reference name, whatever base damage/charge etc. you want, and use the Nightingale mesh. Problem with some unique items is that they're not actually unique, there are something like 6 different levelled versions of the Nightingale Bow which just complicates matters.

I've had a right old time of it today with Papyrus, not so much a learning curve as a learning vertical  No guide to doing exactly what I wanted to do, so a lot of trial and error involved and looking at lots of other different scripts that did similar-ish things. It's the sort of thing that I know I ought to be able to pick up ok as I'm not a complete programming noob (about half a step up from noob-ism), but it was all a very long time ago. Gave myself a headache, had lots of cups of tea, suddenly a light-bulb came on over my head and I now have working scripts. Pretty poor show considering I've been at it since 9am. 

Edit: I've now got my scripts doing more complicated things, and although it took me ages to get my first script working (it was one of those oversights where something had just gone straight over my head), I now actually feel pretty damn pleased with myself. As it's Friday night, I'm having a self-congratulatory beer


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## Epona (Oct 19, 2012)

Today I am trying my hand at exterior worldspaces.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 4, 2012)

OMFG. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26393

A new follower, Vilja. Apparently this is the Skyrim version of a well-regarded Oblivion mod. That Terry Pratchett has written dialogue for. Because HE USES THIS MOD.

*fangirls*

I've just downloaded it, and Vilja's been in tow for a little while now. Wow. Just. Wow. This is how all companions/followers should be. She's got so much to say, she recognises my outstanding quests, she'll let _me_ follow _her_ and will take me to interesting places we can go adventuring together in, she comments on people, she has conversations with other people, she has her own questline.... wow.


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## Dandred (Nov 5, 2012)

I might have to reinstall....tat mod looks great.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 5, 2012)

The voice acting isn't amazing (but neither is the rest of vanilla Skyrim's ) but the person doing it has a thick Swedish accent so doesn't sound out of place, really. It's not perfect, but you get used to it pretty quickly.

From the looks of the Oblivion version, it was updated quite a bit with more dialogue and content, which is great.

One thing though, it's causing my game to lag a bit. I've seen someone else say the same in the nexus comments, so I'm going to keep an eye on them and see if there are any replies. It was a huge file to download, obviously because of all the audio, but there aren't any massive texture files involved (there's a face texture, but it's not really any different to the face mods I'm using already). No idea if the amount of scripts needed for her integrated and in-depth behaviours would cause lag. Maybe @Epona has more experience of what might be causing it?


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 5, 2012)

ERMAHGERD


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 5, 2012)

@Epona, I have to say, when you first started this thread way back when, I remember thinking "pah, what's the big deal?" I'd played Oblivion for all of an hour on the xbox, and didn't like it. I'd played Fallout3 for about 4 hours on the xbox, and didn't like it. This was in the days before I realised the holy amazingness that is PC gaming with its capacity for modding.

But having taken the plunge with Skyrim, I've racked up something like 550 hours of play (don't judge me) since it's been out, and I still get excited over new content, and hopefully will do for years to come. It's so extendible with the various mods and overhauls, you can play a completely different game to the one they packaged and sold. I don't have anything that modifies actual gameplay right now (like levelling, combat, whatever), just graphical mods and so on, but I know that should I ever become burnt out with the vanilla gameplay, there are overhauls that change the very basis of how you progress, and it'd make things fresh again. I fully expect that I'll be in a similar position in several years time to what you are still with Morrowind - still loving it, still playing it, and probably only recently having gotten around to the main quest


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## Stigmata (Nov 5, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> ERMAHGERD




Lots of Morrowind goodness (Telvanni! Redoran! Netch!) and what looks like a new daedric realm too. Good stuff, although I thought Empress Alessia was the first Dragonborn.


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## Epona (Nov 8, 2012)

Vintage Paw - thanks for the heads up on that follower mod, I'm going to try it out soon.  I'm kind of tempted to try out the Oblivion version first, but my DVD drive is still broken, I'll have to see if I can run the game with a disk image made on my OH's PC.

And now that Bethesda have finally made a cryptic announcement regarding the availability of Dragonborn on PC (and DLC content coming to PS3 soon, I thought I'd mention that for those who use PS3!) I can now feel excited about it, hopefully all platforms will get this one at around the same time and I won't have to spend a month trying (and inevitably failing) to avoid spoilers and ruin it for me.  Loving the Morrowind vibe of the architecture.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 8, 2012)

Well I've been dragging Vilja around with me quite a bit (I don't usually use followers of any kind because I'm the lone wolf sort ) and she's pretty handy in a fight. She's interesting, got lots of anecdotes, she likes to dance on tables, she's sarcastic, sometimes snarky, and pretty good fun. She's been integrated really well. Sometimes the voice acting and audio quality will make you wince, but I've pretty much got used to that.

One thing though .... the creators say this isn't supposed to happen but a fair few people are reporting it on nexus, she will talk over you when you're in dialogue with others. For example, yesterday, I was in the basement of Dragonsreach doing a certain thing that involved hearing a voice behind a door, and although that audio was louder, just in the background was Vilja wittering on about this or that. So I took her back upstairs, and told her to relax (which makes her leave your service and just chill in whatever area she's in) and left her in the main hall, and went back down again. BUT I COULD STILL HERE HER. She carried on talking every minute or so. There's an option to tell her not to talk so much, and I can see everyone utilising that at some point, but even then, when she _does_ say ambient dialogue, it'll still talk over what you're doing. They say she's not meant to talk to you unless you look at her, and certainly not if you're talking to others. Nope.

Still getting lag with her installed too. And I got a CTD for the first time in forever yesterday. Kept happening in exactly the same place, as I approached Solitude. I think it might be one texture mod too many, so I'm considering a complete reinstall to clear out the faff.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 8, 2012)

seen this?


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 8, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> seen this?


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## Voley (Nov 8, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> seen this?



That looks fucking amazing. However I've never actually played against total strangers online so it might be a bit wasted on me tbh.


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## Epona (Nov 8, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> seen this?




I've never been into MMOs, and was a bit 'meh' about the idea of this - but it actually looks very TES, according to people who have seen/tried the previews it feels very TES, and apparently it will be possible to do a lot of stuff solo.

Being a TES nut, I can't help but be intrigued. Of course whether I give it a go will greatly depend upon whether there's a subscription fee, since there's absolutely no way I can pay a monthly fee with no income!


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## tommers (Nov 8, 2012)

I see they've put classes back in.  :smug:


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## Epona (Nov 9, 2012)

Is anyone here intending to play TES:O?

The more I find out about it and the more time I spend browsing threads in the official and other forums, the more interested I get (and I'm working out things I could cut back on in order to afford a monthly sub  ), despite a few lore inconsistencies (as long as they don't get carried over into the single player TES series, which is unlikely as it is a different developer, I can imagine this as a parallel dimension version of Tamriel slightly different world/timeline type of scenario).  

I've never played an MMO and have no idea how one actually works.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 10, 2012)

maybe

not if it's subscription

i have guild wars 2  for most of my MMO needs and that's  got no subscription.   

i'd  deffo be up for  giving it a whirl if it was free to play or   was the same model as guild wars.


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## Bernie Gunther (Nov 10, 2012)

When you kill someone, does their stuff drop and do they lose it?

If so, I'm in ...


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 10, 2012)

sounds unlikely.  i think the PvP stuff takes place in an alternate world  a bit like GW2  going from what i saw in the video.

i think  that model  in the standard environment  would  be  a bitch for griefing


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## Epona (Nov 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> When you kill someone, does their stuff drop and do they lose it?
> 
> If so, I'm in ...


 
PvP is only in the province of Cyrodil (I say 'only', but that's still going to be a large area), it's not world-wide PvP, so it's not going to be a free-for-all in terms of just murdering any poor sap you come across to nick their gear.  It's still a way from launch and not a huge amount of info about mechanics yet.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 10, 2012)

I'm certainly cautiously interested. I'm developing a pattern wrt MMOs (which I'm sure many, many others do as well), in that I tend to buy them, play them solidly for a couple of months, then cancel my sub. I'll be interested to know what pricing model they end up using. For some reason, I want to say I don't think they'll be shitty about it, but who knows.

That video said a few things that pleased me: that PvP will be viable no matter your level; that everyone gets teh loots, rather than the obnoxious roll system so many MMOs go with; the customisation of roles beyond the initial class system sounds interesting; solo end game content! Those points make it very interesting to me.


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## Epona (Nov 10, 2012)

Cautiously interested is a good way to describe it.  If it was a single player RPG TES spin-off with a one time only £30 or £40 to buy the game, no doubt I'd be in there like a shot, my main area of doubt is the MMO side of things as I've never done that before.  I don't think I'd be able to team up with complete strangers to complete a dungeon that can't be done solo (I'm painfully shy, to the point of social phobia), but the occasional get together with people I already talk to online wouldn't be so stressful and actually sounds like it could be fun, when more details about the game (including the all-important pricing structure) are released I'll find out who might be interested in getting together for a go on it.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 10, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> That video said a few things that pleased me: that PvP will be viable no matter your level; that everyone gets teh loots, rather than the obnoxious roll system so many MMOs go with; the customisation of roles beyond the initial class system sounds interesting; solo end game content! Those points make it very interesting to me.


 
the GW2 system works well

though it does mean  the pvp stuff is separate world   but i like that    totally co-op pve  and  a seperate  pvp


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## Bernie Gunther (Nov 10, 2012)

Epona said:


> PvP is only in the province of Cyrodil (I say 'only', but that's still going to be a large area), it's not world-wide PvP, so it's not going to be a free-for-all in terms of just murdering any poor sap you come across to nick their gear. It's still a way from launch and not a huge amount of info about mechanics yet.


 
It's sort of the other way around. The only MMO I've ever really had a big blast of adrenaline playing is Eve, because whenever you PvP there, you stand to lose all the stuff you have with you, which you might have spent a lot of time grinding to earn.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 10, 2012)

Epona said:


> Cautiously interested is a good way to describe it. If it was a single player RPG TES spin-off with a one time only £30 or £40 to buy the game, no doubt I'd be in there like a shot, my main area of doubt is the MMO side of things as I've never done that before. I don't think I'd be able to team up with complete strangers to complete a dungeon that can't be done solo (I'm painfully shy, to the point of social phobia), but the occasional get together with people I already talk to online wouldn't be so stressful and actually sounds like it could be fun, when more details about the game (including the all-important pricing structure) are released I'll find out who might be interested in getting together for a go on it.


 
Epona, I get stupid scared of teaming with people I don't know as well, mostly because I haven't got much experience wrt the various roles people expect you to take in dungeons. So, if we both find ourselves giving the game a whirl, I'd be only too happy to team up with you so we can be useless together


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 10, 2012)

If anyone is interested, http://skyrimgems.com/index.html is a good place to get an idea of what gameplay enhancement mods are available. It's focused on gameplay rather than aesthetics, so this is not the place to go for all the inflatable boob mods. Nexus is still you first port of call there.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 13, 2012)

So, Skyrim is one year old. It doesn't feel like I've been playing it that long. Maybe I'll actually get to the end of a single, solitary quest line this year? Who knows. I got maybe half way through the DB quest line once 

Done myself a complete new install of Skyrim and a few choice mods, trying to cut back a bit. Started my first proper smashy 2-handed character. It's quite liberating not having to sneak everywhere, and being able to get up close and personal instead of everyone being dead before they know I'm there. Also playing it almost entirely in 3rd person view, which is novel.

Over 580 hours of play so far, and I've only just joined the Companions for the first time. I think this might be the playthrough I finally break my rule and do the Amulet of Mara marriage thing, because dat Aela 

Uninstalled the Vilja mod in the end, because I was getting annoying lag, and because they still have some niggles to iron out re. her talking over you too much. That said, that's really the way all follower mods should be made (albeit less performance-intensive).


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## Epona (Nov 16, 2012)

Yeah I've still not finished the DB questline - I am determined to get through it at some point, just because the DB questline in Oblivion was the very best thing about the (vanilla) game, and even better with mods to rebuild the DB throughout Cyrodil after the vanilla guild story is finished. I only did the Companions very recently, because I suddenly got into followers (using the UFO mod which enhances followers a great deal and allows multiple followers*) and I really wanted to have Aela as a follower, you need to do the Companions questline to have her as permanent follower or spouse. I also got married for the first time with that same character, I'd have gone for Aela but I really wanted someone to stay home at Windstad Manor and stay with/protect the kids (I can't actually believe I am typing that, but it's role-playing, innit  ) rather than just leaving them with the steward all the time, and I wanted Aela's bow/sneak skills out in the field with me, so I married Vilkas - he's nice enough, but I do wish there was a bit more depth to it than him calling me dear and offering me a cooked meal when I get home, it's quite shallow and honestly I think if something is going to be put in a game I'd rather it was done properly but it seemed a bit tacked on IMO.

I'm waiting for Dragonborn (whenever it's coming to PC) to start a new game with new content - there are still plenty of places I've not explored, but I want to come back to it fresh when I have other new things to do as well as trying out some of the original dungeons that I haven't touched, and hopefully doing the Dark Brotherhood questline too, with a new character. In the meantime, I'm playing Fallout 3 which I haven't played for at least 2 years since I lost my disk, got it on Steam not so long ago and thought I'd give it a good bash whilst waiting for Dragonborn.

*UFO's multiple follower thing is interesting, obviously the game isn't set up for multiple followers, so there's no banter. UNLESS you have both Annekke and Eola as followers at the same time. They actually have a conversation with each other, consisting of a few lines each. It makes me wonder if the devs originally planned to allow more than one humanoid follower and started to write a bit of dialogue between them and the feature got cut early due to time, or maybe technological constraints due to processing power/memory on the consoles.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 17, 2012)

Oh god, don't worry about the role-playing thing. I've fallen deeeeeeep into the whole backstory and 'what happens when I'm not watching' thing  Yeah, I think Rana is going to marry Aela. They luuuuuurve each other 

Aela trying to look after Rana after Rana encountered Alduin at Kynsegrove for the first time since Helgen*:






Then they wandered up a path and this is the moment a giant spotted them:





*yes, I'm using 'pretty people' face mods, because I can.

I finished the Companions quest line! I really enjoyed it, but it was far too short. It was very moving reading Kodlak's journal, and then everything that happened after that point. I've decided that I won't be doing anything to do with the Civil War in this play-through, because Rana takes her role as Harbinger very seriously, and won't get them involved in politics. Rana hopes that eventually Aela will move in with her at her Lakeview house, where they will have lots of room and seclusion to enjoy the hunt


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## Epona (Nov 17, 2012)

Blimey, your character is flippin' gorgeous, mine always end up looking like the back end of a bus - I'm getting that face mod (and the hair one you recommended a few pages back) for my next character!


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2012)

It's a mixture of face mods actually, because there were a couple of things that bothered me.

The base mod is Better Females by Bella: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2812 - I install the main file, then install the "Less Makeup" version on top in the hope that it doesn't make npc's who wear makeup look like clowns (oh Lydia  ). The skin texture is really smooth in that mod, and I don't like the over-plucked, stylised eyebrows in it either, so....

Then I install Better Females by Bella Natural Edition: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26113 - this is by someone else who wanted a slightly more natural look to the skin. I use the "No makeup" version, which still does let me use makeup in the character creator, but doesn't have it built into the complexion like the base Bella mod. (It doesn't seem to affect npc's in that they still have the makeup strength inherited from the base Bella mod. However, you can force it by using the console to change an npc's weight. Lydia looks bloody stunning with no makeup, BUT it creates a difference between body and head colour, only slightly but enough to be very noticeable if you have the neck exposed. It also tends to reset if reloading. Not sure how to fix it, since my CK skills are lacking.)

Onto the eyebrows, I use the "Darker Feminine Brows" that are in the optional files of the Face Pack contained in this body mod: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2666 - they look more natural, but not as bushy as those in the vanilla game. I just drop the eyebrow files into the correct folder to overwrite Bella's.

Then, I overwrite the lips with Seductive Lips HD: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/22701, which seems to have some very nice textures. I have noticed doing this introduces those jagged lipstick edges that were in the vanilla game. I'm not sure if it's because that mod hasn't fixed them, or if it's because of the combination of mods I use. It doesn't bother me because my characters don't wear lipstick, and you have to get really close to any of the others (like, change the FOV to 20 and zoom in) to notice it.

Finally, onto the eyes. For most things I use The Eyes of Beauty, because they don't seem over the top like some of the others: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13722, however, for Werewolf eyes and Vampire eyes, I use the individual files from Improved Eyes Skyrim: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9249.

*wipes her brow*

That's quite a lot, isn't it  It doesn't really take long to sort out though. Oh, and ApachiiSkyHair for me (there are only 2 or 3 styles that don't look ridiculous, imo), as well as AOF Believable Hair to make the texture of npc hair a bit nicer: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4307.

Edit: forgot to say, also using Better Freckles: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4502 - which gets rid of the rosacea. I'm not massively impressed with the quality of the freckles that they replace it with though. I was using another mod that added 4 new complexions at the end of the slider with various amounts of freckles and they were really lovely and didn't look like blobs of paint. But, just as I reinstalled my game and went to re-download all my mods, the author set the file to hidden and it's been like that for days now. If it comes back, I'll let you know, and I'll probably rename one of those files as the freckle complexion that npc's use too.


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## Epona (Nov 18, 2012)

Cool, thanks for that VP!  IRL I'm not at all vain or concerned with appearance, but it would be nice to have a character in a game look really good.  I'll give those mods a spin


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2012)

No problem. And yeah, I'm not one who's into makeup or dyeing my hair, or caring much at all beyond washing my face (although I straighten my coarse, frizzy hair, for the sake of everyone I meet more than my own ), but I like being able to make my characters look decent sometimes


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## Epona (Nov 18, 2012)

I hear ya - I wouldn't know what to do with make-up tbh, because I've never used anything other than a touch of mascara, I'd have no idea how to apply it.   I do sometimes dye my hair - once when I was younger I had a metallic red streak put in it by a hairdresser and have occasionally used henna at home to make my hair more red/copper.  I have redhead complexion that my reddish brown hair doesn't quite live up to, sometimes I just need to make my hair more red!


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 18, 2012)

if i'm going to invest 100+ hours into being an escapist fantasy character they better look tasty.

i know i'm not the dragon born. i'm slightly crap. if i'm going to be the hero of the world i'm also going to look good. and have tits normally asosiated with back problems. thankfully they are boyed upwards due to being filled with dragon souls


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## Epona (Nov 18, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> if i'm going to invest 100+ hours into being an escapist fantasy character they better look tasty.
> 
> i know i'm not the dragon born. i'm slightly crap. if i'm going to be the hero of the world i'm also going to look good. and have tits normally asosiated with back problems. thankfully they are boyed upwards due to being filled with dragon souls


I did actually LOL at that   Also going to give you a mild scolding for the idea of gravity-defying tits due to dragon souls.  But LOLing at the same time.


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## Buddy Bradley (Nov 18, 2012)

Epona said:


> Is anyone here intending to play TES:O?


Is it going to be PC only, or will TES:O be released for Xbox/PS3 as well? Will be interesting to see if they can get console players interested in an MMO - I'd probably get it, as long as the monthly fees weren't exorbitantly high.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 21, 2012)

shit  it's going to be subscription based


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## tommers (Nov 21, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> shit it's going to be subscription based


 
Not for long I'd imagine.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 21, 2012)

no.

can't imagine it will

intresting  take on it    towards the end
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escapist-podcast/6532-068-The-Bell-Tolls-For-the-Twinkie

they all say   it's  won't work  as it won't  feel like elder scrolls  and  the subscription model is broken.


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## Epona (Nov 21, 2012)

It's conjecture, nothing has been officially stated yet about subscriptions one way or the other.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Nov 22, 2012)

ah... the  guys at the escapist  were talking  as if it was  all decided.   i wonder  if  they  knoiw  someone  who knows some one etc etc.

i don't see it  being  free to play  

maybe  gw2   with a lot  more   freemium content


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2012)

I think I need this:


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## Epona (Nov 23, 2012)

Oh superb - I want that.  It would have to be on an internal door though, it would ruin the slightly TARDIS look of the front door.


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## Voley (Nov 23, 2012)

I think these belong here:


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## Random (Nov 23, 2012)

Oh got I hope those are not real tattoos.


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## dweller (Nov 23, 2012)

For those that don't have skyrim yet you can buy it for £7.99 at the moment.
Cheapest it has ever been I think.
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-7-99-plus-10-1-topcashback-gamefly-1375131


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 24, 2012)

I've become somewhat obsessed with screenshots (more so than usual).


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## Johnny Vodka (Nov 26, 2012)

Just picked this up for £15 in Morrisons today.


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 27, 2012)

Bought an Xbox for the spare room, and it came with Skyrim, so despite being 60 hours in on my PC, I've started again. Gone for a 2-handed weapon Redguard this time around. It's a lot more fun smashing people up than burning them. Gonna level up my archery and speech as well as restoration.

Anyway, at first it all felt quite boring - I'm not very good at replaying stuff, or rewatching films - but gradually it pulled me back in and now I'm hooked again. Such an incredible game.

I own Forza 4, Fifa 13, Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. There is literally no need for me to buy another game, ever.


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## Random (Nov 27, 2012)

Can you take on a dragon with a melee weapon? Is getting up close and hitting it with an axe an option?


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 27, 2012)

Sure is. At least, it was with the first dragon. I killed it in one landing. It may get harder.


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## Random (Nov 27, 2012)

ChrisFilter said:


> Sure is. At least, it was with the first dragon. I killed it in one landing. It may get harder.


That's great, as I'm planning to abandon bows and magic for my next playthrough, and scrolling around looking into the sky to aim at a dragon was really getting on my nerves. My morrowind characters have all been big into making things go splat by hitting them


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 28, 2012)

I'm using a greatsword this playthrough, and dragons was the thing I worried about, but as long as you can get them to land, it's easy. I recommend getting a crossbow (if you have the Dawnguard dlc) to piss it off enough that it lands.

PC-modders: this is worth keeping an eye on. Someone's created a profile manager, so you can switch between characters. They've only just uploaded it, so I'm watching the comments to see how it works for other people before I entrust my saves to this unknown entity.

Also, discovered an ENB that only provides DoF, and found another mod that lets you toggle DoF from an ENB on and off in-game, so I've installed those to prettify my screenshots, but so I don't get the massive fps hit when cavorting around killing things (my game ctd'd in The Rift because my fps plummeted). It means I can keep all the lovely weather and lighting things that my RCRN mod provides, and get DoF from an ENB without it messing the colours up. I might investigate a full ENB alternative at some point though, now I know how easy they are to install and that I can toggle the DoF.

Pretty:


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 28, 2012)

"And the price for most initialisms in a post goes to... Vintage Paw!"


----------



## tommers (Nov 28, 2012)

ChrisFilter said:


> I own Forza 4, Fifa 13, Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. There is literally no need for me to buy another game, ever.


 
FIFA 14?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 28, 2012)

ChrisFilter said:


> Bought an Xbox for the spare room, and it came with Skyrim, so despite being 60 hours in on my PC, I've started again. Gone for a 2-handed weapon Redguard this time around. It's a lot more fun smashing people up than burning them. Gonna level up my archery and speech as well as restoration.
> 
> Anyway, at first it all felt quite boring - I'm not very good at replaying stuff, or rewatching films - but gradually it pulled me back in and now I'm hooked again. Such an incredible game.
> 
> I own Forza 4, Fifa 13, Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. There is literally no need for me to buy another game, ever.


 

ahem... far cry 3


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 28, 2012)

Both good points, and well made.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 29, 2012)

Moar initialisms.

I ditched RCRN, and got me my first proper ENB. Totes worth it. THIS is how The Rift is meant to look:


----------



## Vintage Paw (Nov 29, 2012)

Aela the Huntress never looked so awesome, about to shoot an arrow through someone's knee, no doubt:


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 29, 2012)

Your obsession with glamorous medieval babes is peculiar.






This is Aglor. His hobbies include fighting, mining, blacksmithing and reading. He has a 2:1 in Theology and Art History from the University of Kvatch. His best friend is called Uthgerd. They travel around having adventures and fighting people, but they keep things platonic because they value their friendship and they just don't see each other that way.


----------



## Voley (Nov 29, 2012)

Vintage Paw said:


> Also, discovered an *ENB* that only provides *DoF*, and found another mod that lets you toggle *DoF* from an *ENB* on and off in-game, so I've installed those to prettify my screenshots, but so I don't get the massive* fps* hit when cavorting around killing things (my game *ctd'd* in The Rift because my fps plummeted). It means I can keep all the lovely weather and lighting things that my *RCRN* mod provides, and get *DoF* from an *ENB* without it messing the colours up.


 
*WTF*.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 29, 2012)

Stigmata said:


> Your obsession with glamorous medieval babes is peculiar.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Glamorous medieval babes are awesome.

Aglor looks like he could fuck someone's shit up, and that he'd sit down and think about the metaphysical ramifications of random violent encounters afterwards.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 29, 2012)

Don't even ask him where he stands on the whole Talos issue


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Nov 29, 2012)

Started with 2 hours last night, after which I was thinking 'this is okay'.  Managed another hour tonight and it's starting to grip, though all I did in that hour was talk to a magician and have an arrow fight with some bandits.     Enjoying it a lot, but don't know how I'm going to find the time to properly get to grips with it.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Nov 30, 2012)

It'll happen. It's insidious. I


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 1, 2012)

It worms its way into your life, and before you know it you're writing an article like this 

Anyway, the crossbows they added in with Dawnguard are brilliant:


----------



## Epona (Dec 1, 2012)

Oh yeah crossbows are awesome! Although if you can craft high-level bows they are better in terms of rate of fire/quietness, but only at a high crafting level. If you're not doing the whole smithing thing, then crossbows are definitely the way to go. Took me a while to work out that you can enchant enhanced crossbows too. 

Which ENB are you using? I've gone with Vibrant ENB for now, because I'm not so much into the whole unsaturated dark 'realism' vibe that is currently fashionable in games, if I'm playing fantasy I want some fucking colour in the world. I live in East London, if I want grey I can go outside and look at all the concrete, gimme some colourful fanasy ffs.


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Dec 1, 2012)

ENB?


----------



## ChrisFilter (Dec 1, 2012)

On PC you can install all sorts of user-generated mods. Graphics, game play, all sorts. No idea what enb is, but it'll be something visual I'd expect.


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Dec 1, 2012)

Oh, I'm playing on x-box.


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 2, 2012)

Graphical, yes. Have you seen those youtube videos of heavily modded GTAIV where it looks ultra realistic? That's in large part the result of ENBs. It allows a whole host of graphical settings to be 'injected' into the game engine, where they weren't previously present. It can control all sorts of things, from simple colour and tone changes, to advanced sharpening, bloom, complex shadowing, depth of field (where what you're focused on looks nice and sharp, and what is further behind or in front of that is blurred, mimicking a camera lens - or someone with bad eyesight, like me ), and so on.

The more advanced the things you do with it, the better a computer you're going to need. Just using an ENB that alters colours a bit isn't going to tax your performance much at all. Enabling DoF and SSAO (ambient occlusion, which gives depth to an image by making it look like light is behaving more realistically in terms of shadows and highlights, mostly) will really make your game crawl to a halt if you play on a macbook pro, like me. Same for it you force FXAA and other kinds of sharpening through it. Thankfully though, you can toggle the whole thing off really easily in-game, or just the meaty DoF and SSAO parts of it leaving the nice colours. That's what I do; I keep the tones and contrast and brightness changes more or less all the time, and toggle on DoF and SSAO when I want to make something look nice for pretty screenshots. Playing with DoF enabled is crap anyway, everything keeps getting blurry.

Edit:

A picture from GTAIV with a photorealistic enb:


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 2, 2012)

I can't quite rival that with my computer (rofl, if only) but I'm pretty happy with this:


----------



## ChrisFilter (Dec 2, 2012)

Johnny Vodka said:


> Oh, I'm playing on x-box.



Me too. I have it on PC too and I did install a load of mods. You can turn it into the kinda graphics console gamers will be enjoying in about 3yrs when the the new systems are out.


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 2, 2012)

This is relevant: http://kotaku.com/5961994/what-skyrim-looks-like-when-youre-running-100-mods-at-once


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## Stigmata (Dec 2, 2012)

^Elder Scrolls VI: Dominion (that's what the smart money says, anyway)


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 2, 2012)

Epona said:


> Oh yeah crossbows are awesome! Although if you can craft high-level bows they are better in terms of rate of fire/quietness, but only at a high crafting level. If you're not doing the whole smithing thing, then crossbows are definitely the way to go. Took me a while to work out that you can enchant enhanced crossbows too.
> 
> Which ENB are you using? I've gone with Vibrant ENB for now, because I'm not so much into the whole unsaturated dark 'realism' vibe that is currently fashionable in games, if I'm playing fantasy I want some fucking colour in the world. I live in East London, if I want grey I can go outside and look at all the concrete, gimme some colourful fanasy ffs.


 
Missed this, sorry 

I'm using Fimbulvinter ENB. I reckon it does vibrant _and_ moody, all in one  It's certainly not got super colourful eye-popping saturated fantasy colours though (this is where we differ somewhat - I like it moody ).

And yeah, my smithing is at 100, and my enchanting not far off, but since she's mostly just into the smashy greatsword thing, the crossbow is useful to just pack an initial punch at a dragon, so she can get it down on the ground and beat its face to a pulp. I like the design of the initial one too, and I think it suits her style. Aela's got a dragonbone bow though (suits her more than a daedric one). And she's pretty handy with it, I must say.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Dec 5, 2012)

Sorry for the screenshot spam. I like to share the pretty, though.


----------



## The Boy (Dec 5, 2012)

Stumbled upon this thread a couple of days ago which led to me picking this game back up.  Didn't want to jump back in at the deep end after ages away though, so have created a new character.

I'm only two hours in and I'm already hooked again.


----------



## Stigmata (Dec 5, 2012)

Somebody get Dragonborn and tell me about it please


----------



## Epona (Dec 8, 2012)

Stigmata said:


> Somebody get Dragonborn and tell me about it please


Not out on PC until early 2013, so I can't help. I have heard that it is absolutely superb, short MQ but a shit-ton of side quests, and very atmospheric with a Morrowind vibe. No spears or playable wear-bears though (this might only make sense to people who hang around the Bethsoft forums!)


----------



## Voley (Dec 8, 2012)

Stigmata said:


> Somebody get Dragonborn and tell me about it please


 
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_V:_Dragonborn



> the add-on will feature a plethora on new quests, characters, shouts, armor and weaponry and the ability to tame and ride Dragons.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 8, 2012)

apparently  the dragon riding  controls teribly


----------



## Epona (Dec 8, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> apparently the dragon riding controls teribly


 
Who gives a shit, I never play a TES game where the ease (or even possibility) of riding dragons factors into my enjoyment. I find it hard to believe that we're even in a situation where this is a discussion. Bethesda should have just from the get-go said 'no you're never going to ride a dragon, this isn't that sort of game, get over it" rather than listening to all the 13 year olds on the official forum going "waaah, I wantz to ride a dwagon after I finish my homewerkz and my mum lets me use the xbox for an hour before tucking me in under my 'my little pony' bedsheets and turning on my nightlight so that the monstwers don't eatz me while I'm asleep - online I am known by the gamertag l33tkiller3000 and you can eat my shitz, but if mommy doesn't turn on the nightlight I can't sleep, and wah wah wah I wantz to ride a dwagon in Skyrim, even though I'm younger than the age rating for the game, but Bethesda will listen to me because my pocket money makes me the only fucking human on the planet with disposable income".


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 8, 2012)

...
~hides under bed~


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## Epona (Dec 8, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> ...
> ~hides under bed~


 
Yeah the Bethsoft forum makes me want to do that!  From the time the game was announced it's been full of kiddies wailing about wanting dragon mounts - I'm just pissed off that Bethesda even gave this idea the light of day, however crap it turned out. I'd have told them all to do one and spend their pocket money on sweets and weed, like we used to back in my day. But my way of doing things is probably not a realistic marketing model *cough - lowest common denominator - cough*.


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## Stigmata (Dec 8, 2012)

I only hang out on the Lore forum, and at the Imperial Library where they slag off the Lore forum. But I heard you get your own Telvanni tower in the new expansion. And Chitin and Bonemold armour?!


----------



## Supine (Dec 8, 2012)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> apparently the dragon riding controls teribly


 
I imagine that would be the case in real life. If they existed


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## Voley (Dec 8, 2012)

When that dragon takes off with you on its back to battle Alduin I thought you were going to get the ability to fly them. I got very excited by this, like when you found out for the first time that you could fly helicopters in GTA.  Then it dawned on me that the towns etc are all separate bits of programming - ie it's not just one big interactive map like GTA is and that this was pretty unlikely. Only thing that's disappointed me by Skyrim, that. Makes sense to save it for a later date though. It's not like there wasn't enough going on in Skyrim already.


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 25, 2012)

Got myself a new laptop. Skyrim looks a bit nice now.


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## Stigmata (Dec 25, 2012)

I hate you. Merry Christmas


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 25, 2012)

I think the correct greeting is "Maimy Stabmas" - it's got a better ring to it.


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 29, 2012)

Rana's been hunting dwagons...


----------



## Balbi (Jan 1, 2013)

So, I made my new years resolution to get back on with Skyrim.

Two hours today starting as a Breton, and I have discovered...

A) I really fucking hate that big spider in bleak falls barrow

B) Sneaking is fun, but steaming into nord zombies with a steel warhammer is better

C) I don't get magic, or rather, I haven't had cause to use it yet.

May have let the the Jarl of Winterfell's goons do most of the work on the dragon before warhammering it to death as well.

This is fun


----------



## Chz (Jan 2, 2013)

I think Skyrim's biggest drawback is that magic is just a poor cousin to smacking 30 shades of shit out of everything with a big, bloody axe.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 2, 2013)

i think the magic could  be better.   it's not terrible but it's a bit off.  also it seems really weak in comparison to other stuff.  my charator started as a wizard but later became an archer when i found out that with  a top bow and sneak i could one hit kill most mother fuckers


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## Balbi (Jan 2, 2013)

Might have accidentally stabbed a child. Oh, and tested firestorm and killed Lydia. 

My Breton distrusts mages.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 2, 2013)

I've never been able to get the hang of magic either. The extent of it is summoning the horse from Dawnguard, and the occasional mod that relies on spells to work. And they expect you to not wear armour either. WTF is going on with that? The magic system isn't intuitive enough to make use of the idea of casting something like Oakflesh quickly at the beginning of a battle, then switching to a destruction spell, or to conjure an atronach, and make sure all this time you're not being hit. Bollocks to that. Armour and smashy weapons please.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 2, 2013)

it's a pity because force lightning people to death is awesome.


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## Balbi (Jan 2, 2013)

Damn it Lydia


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 2, 2013)

Balbi said:


> Damn it Lydia


 
She's sworn to carry the burden of your inability to target attacks without hitting her.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 2, 2013)

I lost Lydia somewhere. My kids keep asking where she is.


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## tommers (Jan 2, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> And they expect you to not wear armour either. WTF is going on with that?



What stops you wearing armour?


----------



## 8ball (Jan 2, 2013)

tommers said:


> What stops you wearing armour?


 
Bloody health & safety tossers on the Mage Council.


----------



## Voley (Jan 2, 2013)

tommers said:


> What stops you wearing armour?


You got to have decent robes to be a wizard, haven't you?


----------



## 8ball (Jan 2, 2013)

NVP said:


> You got to have decent robes to be a wizard, haven't you?


 
You can still use magic iirc but the robes can give certain bonuses to magic.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 2, 2013)

Yeah, you don't have to wear robes, but the incentive to do so has been built into the game because of the bonuses you get. Fuck that shit.

Armour!


----------



## tommers (Jan 2, 2013)

Ah right I thought they might have introduced some restrictions in some DLC or something.


----------



## Epona (Jan 12, 2013)

The best TES game (vanilla) so far for magic playthrough IMO was Oblivion, just because a) spellmaking, b) you could cast a spell whilst holding weapon & shield, and c) spellmaking. In Morrowind it was OK, because of a and c which were present in MW of course, but you had to switch from weapons to spells in order to cast. I got a mod that allowed casting without switching out your weapon/shield and that was superb and made all the difference. In Skyrim, similar problem wrt not being able to cast a spell unless I unequip a weapon etc. and the constant switching back and forth makes a mixed build (especially if you want to make an arcane archer type build, rather than 1 hand) really tedious to play. And there's no spellmaking, you're just stuck with the spells on offer, which become weak against opponents at higher levels. Being able to make your own spells (at a cost of course) would go some way to remedying that, but as it stands going the way of the pure mage in Skyrim is really not that appealing. Magic became boring 

But I have to give them a huge thumbs up for finally making archery viable - it really really sucked balls in previous games, but they definitely got that right and made it fun to play an archer in Skyrim.

Edit to add: VP, I think I'm starting to fancy some of your characters.


----------



## Balbi (Jan 13, 2013)

Plugged my hdmi cable into my xbox, the hdmi cables iffy so I got twenty minutes of HD Skyrimg and then went back to RGB scart. Like going from a megadrive to a zx spectrum.

Must buy new cables.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 13, 2013)

I'm doing the main quest. Cor. I quite like it.


----------



## Epona (Jan 20, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm doing the main quest. Cor. I quite like it.


 
It took me a while to get around to doing the MQ, and (especially compared to previous TES games) it actually felt kind of epic. I really enjoyed it, which surprised me.  My one criticism would be that it seemed a little short, and there were aspects of the story that could have been explored better.  But it was pretty decent, IMO.

IMO- In MW, the build-up was better than the denouement (and the build-up was bloody superb). In OB, I felt like an extra trying to get a line of dialogue and a mention in the credits in what was really Martin Septim's heroic tale (but he's acted by Sean Bean, I don't mind being an extra in his story iykwim). I don't always need to feel like a hero in games, and don't start out playing with the need to end up feeling like a hero, but I found the end of the Skyrim MQ did actually make me puff up a bit with hero-awesomeness, and also made me think 'not a bad job at all', which for a series of games I haven't ever expected a great story out of (but love more for the exploration aspect, without expecting too much by way of plot or storytelling), is pretty much a good result in my book. It's not groundbreaking and there's no wild twist that makes you go 'ooh, didn't see that coming', but it's a nice safe and solid ending to the MQ, and a satisfying end, IMO.



Spoiler



Although ffs if you are using Frostfall or any other mod that makes you take any sort of damage due to the cold environment, it might be worth disabling it right before the end of the MQ so that you can enjoy the ending at the top of the Throat of the World without worrying that you're about to die of hypothermia


----------



## maomao (Jan 20, 2013)

I'm a level 21 high elf thief/magician and it's all going wrong. 

Neither my archery or my magic are really strong enough (I have level 42 destruction but I haven't been to Winterhold in this life yet so I'm stuck with novice spells). I keep trying to avoid Markarth cause it's weird there but I have 2 quests (both from thieves guild) that are pointing me there. And I married Lydia (mainly because she kept getting killed and I like her too much to let her die) but she just fucked off with all the stuff of mine she was carrying and now she wants to sell it to me! If the girl wants a new frock (or a new horned helmet) I'll buy it for her but I kind of imagined marriage would be less like a shopping trip. Thinking of starting again but don't really feel like going through all the shit I've been through a second time. And I'm halfway through the main quest as well as being halfway through the thieves guild, and spent a lot of time building my house at Falkreath, so I would have to do it again. 

Bit pissed off with this now.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 20, 2013)

Have you got smithing?   my archery was crappy  till i started smithing better bows.   once i got myself an ultimate level daidric bow with fire enchantment  i was one shot killing deagar in the head.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 20, 2013)

some days it  is a bit like this though


----------



## maomao (Jan 20, 2013)

I have level 21 smithing, loads of different metals in my building box at Lakeside Manor and a ring of minor smithing but I have so far failed to make myself anything decent. I did upgrade a bow at one point, I think it was on a tanning rack with some leather strips but it's all a bit hazy. I've got an elven bow which does 26 damage but I haven't tried to upgrade it yet. I haven't got the hang of enchantment yet. I've got bucket loads of minor and lesser soul gems but the only big one I had (Greater?) Lydia fucked off with when I married her and I'm fucked if I'm paying her to get it back. When I've tried enchantment before it said my soul gems weren't good enough. I have 2 weapons that say they will fill a soul gem but I forget to use them in the heat of battle and they're not very pwerful anyway.


----------



## maomao (Jan 20, 2013)

If I kill Lydia can I a) get my shit back and b) marry someone else? Rayya's been giving me the glad eye ('honoured to see you again my thane!') but I don't like the turban. I wanted marry Hert but every time I came calling at the woodmill a dragon turned up and she got killed in the ensuing battle.


----------



## Epona (Jan 20, 2013)

I have no idea about whether you'd get your stuff back, but I do know that in Skyrim you are married For Life, and you can only do it once. Even if your spouse dies, you cannot remarry, that is it, you made your choice, you have to live with it type arrangement. You can only marry one time.

What platform are you playing on?  If you're on PC then maybe us other PC gamers can point you towards some console commands or mods.   If you're not on PC, you're stuck with whatever you've already done.


----------



## maomao (Jan 20, 2013)

I'm on PC of course. Gaming on consoles isn't proper gaming. Don't really want to mod out of where I am cause that feels like cheating. Think I'm going to start again and work on my smithing and enchantment as well as looking for a more even spread of powers. 

Was having a look at available mods and apart from lockpick pro I really didn't feel like installing any (yes I know that really _is_ cheating but picking locks gets boring after a couple of dozen). I'm a bit aesthetically challenged anyway so none of the pretty mods are really appealing, I'm happy with the original UI and there's enough undone stuff that I don't feel like adding anything plotwise yet. I'm also regretting not having an enchanting or alchemy table at Lakeside Manor so a restart may be called for. 

Any really essential mods you'd recommend?


----------



## The Boy (Jan 20, 2013)

Elder Scrolls from 1994 - 2011.  Probably a pearoast, but I hadn't seen it before.


----------



## Epona (Jan 24, 2013)

maomao said:


> I keep trying to avoid Markarth cause it's weird there but I have 2 quests (both from thieves guild) that are pointing me there.


 
This might be a bit late, but for future reference - when you ask for a thieves guild radiant job from Vex or wotsisface (ie. one of the extra ones, not the thieves main questline ones), hit quicksave (F5 on PC) as soon as you come out of dialogue after asking for a job. If you are given a job you don't like because it's location is wrong for you, you can quickload (F9 on PC) and you will be given a different job when the game reloads. Just keep using quickload until you get a job you want. It's easy that way to get jobs in locales that you visit regularly (or need to do more jobs in to build up the guild) without having to turn any down or be stuck with something you don't fancy doing  Just do a proper manual save once you've been given a job you want to do, in case of ctd or power failure


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 24, 2013)

That's excellent advice, Epona 

So, I remember you said you like fantasy ENB configs... I have a doozy for you:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/30158

















Lots more shots from others in all sorts of conditions and locations on the mod page. As I've said before, I love desaturation and bleakness, but this has won me over.

(Oh, and I finished the main quest. For the first time. It was brilliant, and I agree with everything you wrote before, Epona. Finally made this new character: Pia, Redguard, gonna be in the Thieves Guild. Slowly getting used to her.)


----------



## Epona (Jan 26, 2013)

VP - cool, I'm so glad you enjoyed it - BGS are not known for being the best storytellers in RPG gaming (although like me a lot of people like them as developers for the exploration aspect of their games, which they do better than anyone else imo), and although the story overall was in itself a bit clichéd, and it didn't have so much of the atmosphere of MW, and some of the guild plotlines suck balls and are too short, but they did manage to make the MQ ending good and with a bit of an epic feel to it.  I do have some criticisms wrt plot, faction storylines, and PC interface, but overall I think they did a pretty good job.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 26, 2013)

Oh definitely. They certainly aren't BioWare when it comes to bringing a story together. I haven't gone through the whole of the Dark Brotherhood quest line, but what I saw of it was rather good. I've heard it's one of the best in the game. The only one I've completed is The Companions, and while I enjoyed it and felt moved by it, and felt like I was one of them, it was far too short, and was very lacklustre in the way it just sort of ended. It's nice to have the little side quests at the end when you can do the cure things, but other than that, meh. I felt like I was one of them while I was doing the quest, but after I felt no real compulsion to keep going back to them.

And I got married for the first time, during Rana's play through. And yeah, as soon as I got married, I lost pretty much all interest in bringing Aela along with me anymore. And it was pretty sad to go back to the house and see her there, just a shell of a housewife, really. I don't think I'll get married again, I'll just head canon a romance in my head if any suitors come calling for Pia during her play through. Although, since she's modelled somewhat on Isabela from DA2, it's more likely she would be calling on them, all of them, whenever she was feeling saucy 

Dragonborn is available for pre-order now, but I'm holding off until it's out to let people deal with the bugs and to update any mods to be compatible. I'm excited to play it though


----------



## bi0boy (Jan 26, 2013)

Epona said:


> This might be a bit late, but for future reference - when you ask for a thieves guild radiant job from Vex or wotsisface (ie. one of the extra ones, not the thieves main questline ones), hit quicksave (F5 on PC) as soon as you come out of dialogue after asking for a job. If you are given a job you don't like because it's location is wrong for you, you can quickload (F9 on PC) and you will be given a different job when the game reloads. Just keep using quickload until you get a job you want. It's easy that way to get jobs in locales that you visit regularly (or need to do more jobs in to build up the guild) without having to turn any down or be stuck with something you don't fancy doing  Just do a proper manual save once you've been given a job you want to do, in case of ctd or power failure


 
That's cheating!


----------



## bi0boy (Jan 26, 2013)

Gonna crack this open again as I never got round to finishing the mage guild quests

Any essential mods I should get?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 26, 2013)

bi0boy said:


> Gonna crack this open again as I never got round to finishing the mage guild quests
> 
> Any essential mods I should get?


 
All of them. 

Well, it depends on what you want, really. There are some 'quality of life' mods out there, such as ones that alter the user interface to be a bit more PC friendly, then there are various graphical mods, to make everything look hi-res and a bit nicer. There are complete overhauls that will alter everything. There are gameplay mods that will alter the levelling, crafting, and combat mechanics. There are, of course, the mods that will make your characters look pretty/porny/weird, etc. There are lots of weapon and armour mods, that either add new things or retexture the current stuff. So it depends on what you want.

Nexus is being a bitch today, and I can barely get anything to load, but a handful of things I use and/or recommend are:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11 - this is a very good base to start from: its aim is to provide a complete all-round improvement to the vanilla game, attempting to retexture almost everything, but in keeping with the original. You don't have to follow the whole thing, but it has some very good advice, and you can pick and choose what you might want to install from it.

Included as part of the above is http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/20801 - the Texture Pack Combiner. Again, it takes a 'choose as much or as little as you like' approach, and aims to improve the textures of lots of things in the game while making sure none of the textures conflict in any way.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19 - this is the Unofficial Skyrim Patch (there's also one for Hearthfire and Dawnguard, you can search on the names for them, they'll come right up) and has been slowly solving Bethesda's bugs since release.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3863 - this right here is a thing of amazingness. It changes the interface to better suit the PC, and the most recent release has enabled the Mod Configuration Menu, which allows you to have control over various mods you have installed from within the game menu (as long as the respective mod author's have enabled that functionality). I couldn't live without it now. It requires you install the Skyrim Script Extender (which is all explained and linked to in the link above) in order for it to work properly, and you'll have to launch skyrim through the SKSE.exe, but that's very easy to sort out, and definitely worth it.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3829 - Deadly Dragons - it's a hell of a lot of fun, and fully configurable through MCM ^ - best used with caution with low level characters though, because.... well, you can configure the dragons to be so super hard...

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29624 - Race Menu is new, and massively popular. It alters the layout of the character creator, and adds in some options, such as an infinite palette of colours, and the ability to layer multiple warpaints. It's brilliant.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/18465 - this is very useful and interesting if you intend to get to the end of the main quest, and allows you to change slightly what happens at the end, because it's not necessarily to everyone's taste.

For a retexture of the vanilla armours, I highly recommend http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24909 - he's slowly going through them all and doing a fucking amazing job. I beta test for him so I get sneak peaks at what's coming next  I couldn't play without these textures now.

If you want your characters to look a little more interesting: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13722 - retextures the eyes and adds a bunch of new ones. Hi-res and beautiful.

There are tons of other face/body/hair mods I can give links to if that's what you're interested in, so let me know and I'll hook you up.

My mod list is astonishingly massive.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13268 - pretty much the main water mod everyone uses. It's gorgeous. (This is in the first guide I linked to, but just in case you don't bother with it...)

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27043 - this changes some of the interior lighting so that it makes sense - now light only comes from light sources rather than just randomly being light. It's really lovely.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/85 - more gorgeous stars and galaxy.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/6387 - will help you claw back a few fps in areas with stuff that drops, like rain, snow, and leaves.

Then you come to stuff like whether you want to use a weather or lighting overhaul. There's Climates of Tamriel, which changes and adds hundreds of weather types. Then there's Realistic Lighting with Customisation. I think they are compatible with each other with the most recent v4 release of RLwC, but you'd need to check. I don't use either. I use ENBs instead. They are basically post-processing injectors that alter the contrast, saturation, colours, bloom, HDR, add grain, DoF, and a whole host of other beautiful effects. They can be taxing on your VRAM, but there are plenty that offer performance versions, and there are lots of ways to edit the code yourself to disable certain more resource-hungry effects. I adore ENBs because they make such a difference, and it's so easy to swap them out for others. If you want any recommendations I can give you links to some of the most popular, and the most beautiful (imo).


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## maomao (Jan 26, 2013)

And then of course there are mods that are just worrying:


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 29, 2013)

Yeah, I'm liking this new enb config...


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 30, 2013)

just got the DLC

man...;  the core game is now under £20.   it's a must buy for anyone who hasn't already.


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## maomao (Jan 30, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> just got the DLC
> 
> man...; the core game is now under £20. it's a must buy for anyone who hasn't already.


I got it for a tenner in Game (real shop, not online).


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## Epona (Jan 31, 2013)

Does anyone know if the Dragonborn DLC is supposed to be up for preload on Steam? I know it's not out on PC til the 5th, but I preordered because my internet connection has been like wading through treacle in winter for the last week, and I was hoping I could spend the next 5 days downloading it. I did my purchase and got e-mail confirmation but nothing seems to be downloading.

Edit to add: seems to have started OK now. My internet has been really shit for the last couple of weeks, despite the router telling me that we're getting a download speed of 8Mb/s, which is normal - but we're not actually seeing anywhere near that speed, I'm having flashbacks of being on dial-up, it took 4 hours to download The Daily Show which is a new low. Must test the line for noise later.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 31, 2013)

I've been holding off on buying Dragonborn. I'm thinking I'll wait a little while for my various mods to be updated to be compatible. Hopefully shouldn't take too long, and I'm in no rush to play it the moment it releases. I'm looking forward to it, though


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 31, 2013)

So far dawnguard stuff is good.

bugger.  it seems  by accepting vampirehood i've locked my path.  i was hoping to be more of a double agent


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## The Boy (Feb 1, 2013)

Getting a bit annoyed by this now.  Keep going off on missions and getting stuck at the end bosses.  Frustrating as fuck.


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 1, 2013)

The Boy said:


> Getting a bit annoyed by this now. Keep going off on missions and getting stuck at the end bosses. Frustrating as fuck.


 
Stuck because they keep killing you? You can come back and kill them later when you're harder if you want. The way Skyrim sets the level of enemies is based on your level when you first encounter them. So if you head into a dungeon at level 11, enemies will be created to be around that level too. But if you leave, and come back later, as far as I'm aware they will still be stuck at that original level from your first time in there.

Or, change your tactics. Make sure you're either buying nice new armour and weapons or you're spending some time smithing some and enchanting it to stay alive longer and do more damage. Buy or make potions and hotkey them so you can mash your restore health when things get hairy. Or lower the difficulty.


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## tommers (Feb 1, 2013)

And make sure you have enough health potions and pause the game whenever you need to.  You can just pause and restore all your health whenever you like.  The only reason you would die is from not carrying enough potions.

Or do the faction quests and get the equipment which means you do 8x damage or whatever.


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## maomao (Feb 1, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> The way Skyrim sets the level of enemies is based on your level when you first encounter them. So if you head into a dungeon at level 11, enemies will be created to be around that level too. But if you leave, and come back later, as far as I'm aware they will still be stuck at that original level from your first time in there.


 
I had problems with some of the bosses with my last character when I went into the main quests a bit early. The troll on the way to High Hrathgar and the one when you come through the little dungeon after leaving the Thalmor embassy were both too much for a low-levelled character. Martin the High Elf (I lack imagination) however spent a little time sharpening up his archery skills before trying to tackle any trolls and if anything it seems a little easy now. Getting to be arch-mage of the College of Winterhold was a piece of piss quite frankly. I'd also recommend trying the Gauldur legend quests because the bosses aren't that hard and the reward is a pretty nifty amulet that raises Health, Magicka and Stamina by 30 each which is a pretty big advantage in early levels.


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## Johnny Vodka (Feb 1, 2013)

maomao said:


> I had problems with some of the bosses with my last character when I went into the main quests a bit early. The troll on the way to High Hrathgar and the one when you come through the little dungeon after leaving the Thalmor embassy were both too much for a low-levelled character.


 
Run by the trolls.  You don't need to fight them.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 1, 2013)

I'd forgotton how much i enjoy a lot of this game.  although it gets a bit repetitive  the game play is good fun.   i tend to sneak through the ruins  using my bow and arrows  with  3x damage from sneaking i can take  just about anything down in 2 or three hits.  weaker creatures go down in one hit.   it's very rare anything even touches me


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## The Boy (Feb 2, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Stuck because they keep killing you? You can come back and kill them later when you're harder if you want. The way Skyrim sets the level of enemies is based on your level when you first encounter them. So if you head into a dungeon at level 11, enemies will be created to be around that level too. But if you leave, and come back later, as far as I'm aware they will still be stuck at that original level from your first time in there.
> 
> Or, change your tactics. Make sure you're either buying nice new armour and weapons or you're spending some time smithing some and enchanting it to stay alive longer and do more damage. Buy or make potions and hotkey them so you can mash your restore health when things get hairy. Or lower the difficulty.


 
Yeah, I've got about four missions that are unfinished atm.  The obvious solution is to get some armour, but I've got no stamina or melee skills because I've just been doing destruction magic spells.  

I'm half tempted to start again but I'm about 35 hours in.  Admittedly about ten of those hours are from when I forgot to turn the eggsbox off.


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## maomao (Feb 2, 2013)

The Boy said:


> Yeah, I've got about four missions that are unfinished atm. The obvious solution is to get some armour, but I've got no stamina or melee skills because I've just been doing destruction magic spells.
> 
> I'm half tempted to start again but I'm about 35 hours in. Admittedly about ten of those hours are from when I forgot to turn the eggsbox off.


Go and kill some hunters round the lake near Falkreath. They're all pussies and will die with a couple of blasts of flames. You can nick their armour and hopefully get a level up while you do it. Make sure and nick a bow and arrow too. Essential eve if you're not a specialist archer cause putting a couple of arrows in someone before they get close will wear them down a lot.


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## The Boy (Feb 2, 2013)

maomao said:


> Go and kill some hunters round the lake near Falkreath. They're all pussies and will die with a couple of blasts of flames. You can nick their armour and hopefully get a level up while you do it. Make sure and nick a bow and arrow too. Essential eve if you're not a specialist archer cause putting a couple of arrows in someone before they get close will wear them down a lot.


 
Oh, I've been sneaking and archerying like fuck.  I think that's the problem - I can clear a whole level without getting into a fight until the end bosses by which point I find out I'm a proper pussy.  And I've been trying to avoid using armour 'cause mage robes and stuff give you magicka bonuses.


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## maomao (Feb 2, 2013)

The Boy said:


> Oh, I've been sneaking and archerying like fuck. I think that's the problem - I can clear a whole level without getting into a fight until the end bosses by which point I find out I'm a proper pussy. And I've been trying to avoid using armour 'cause mage robes and stuff give you magicka bonuses.


Hmmm. I don't even carry a melee weapon, just a bow and arrow and magic for when they get close. Have you got diseases or something? Check under magic > active effects. Go and pray to Talos if there's any red ones.


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 2, 2013)

If you disenchant a mage robe, you'll be able to enchant a piece of armour with the same thing. Are there perks that say you get bonuses if you only wear robes too? If so, I would think that eventually they won't really matter, if your armour is good and you have the enchantments on there too. Enchant something with health, there's an enchantment that helps both destruction magic and magika regen, so use that too. Eventually, once you've enchanted enough stuff and got more perks in that tree, you'll really benefit from it, and the final perk lets you enchant items with 2 effects instead of 1, making you an indestructible powerhouse of awesome and doom.


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 3, 2013)

Yeah, so...





I nearly fucking did a sex wee when the dragon attacked, because the lighting, time of day, and location was perfect. I spent ages taking screenshots, only to have the game crash as soon as I went to loot its body XD Too much awesome for one machine to handle, obv.


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## maomao (Feb 3, 2013)

Finished the main quest now and feeling a bit lost. Don't really want to join any of the little gangs and I'm already arch-mage of WInerhold. I suppose I could do the civil war thing.

Have married Camilla from the shop in Riverwood in this life cause I get 100 gold a day from the shop. Came home from saving the world only to find Faendel walking out the front door. I shot him in the face with my new ebony bow of course, I'm not putting up with that shit, but Camilla just acts like she doesn't know anything, just 'this is fresh, I'll make another one tomorrow'. Been hanging out with Lydia a lot.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 6, 2013)

dawnguard has downloaded....

made it to sol.... whatsit


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 6, 2013)

It's buggy as all hell, by all accounts. There's already an unofficial patch for it on nexus, by the same people who do the main unofficial patch. Last I heard, 94 bugs identified and counting... reports of some that will break your current save game because of odd scripting issues. (Obviously, ymmv, due to mod lists, current save game stability, and so on...)


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## bi0boy (Feb 6, 2013)

Nice cabbages


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 7, 2013)

so far so kinda intresting.  not huge space wise  but then there is often a deceptively large amount of stuff in skyrim.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 7, 2013)

some of the new foes are hard as nails


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 9, 2013)

top tip.  before heading to the island  swap all your fire enchantments for frost enchantments


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 9, 2013)

the black books are very HP Lovecraft


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## Epona (Feb 9, 2013)

Shippy, did you try to chat to me last night on Steam? Sorry, I didn't realise until I came out of the game! Although I've been using Steam for years I am not fully conversant with the chat function, my apologies, I wasn't ignoring you or anything like that.

I haven't got to Dragonborn stuff yet, I decided to start a new game and I've got to level 23 and hit a major bug/mod incompatibility which I'll have to sort out before I can progress further.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 9, 2013)

don't worry.  was  just  a  sorta wave  rather than  a proper conversation attempt

owch on the bug.  i've had to turn off a town mod  i had.  it  killed my frame rate   and  i'm on a top computer.  it didn't  even max out  my CPU or RAM   it  just  couldn't  keep it's shit together


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 9, 2013)

If anyone is running an AMD card, the latest beta drivers target lag in Skyrim, apparently improving it massively. The latest nvidia drivers are meant to be pretty good too.


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## Epona (Feb 10, 2013)

Cheers for the heads-up on the drivers VP, I think I have the latest nVidia one but I'll check.  I sometimes have a bit of stuttering in cities, but not sure that it's due to graphics issues as my GPU should be able to chew up and spit out Skyrim without breaking a sweat, it's my CPU and RAM that are only average.

Managed to get my bug sorted (as per usual, a couple of hours of googling and reading to find a solution that was lost and ignored in the middle of a rage-filled thread, 30 seconds to fix!) but still not got onto any Dragonborn stuff.  I think I might do the Companions questline beforehand as I do like to have Aela as a follower.


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 10, 2013)

What was the bug you were experiencing? The major ones I've heard of is soul absorbing being broken for some people (which stops you from being able to do the main quest,  obv - even though you can manually add dragon souls through the console they don't count as the ones you need from Mirmulnir at Kynesgrove, for example). Mods that alter dragon behaviour I believe are broken, I think because the old scripts for dragons have been entirely superseded by the new Dragonborn scripts. And there was a rather big bug in the DLC itself, that stopped something at the end from being able to happen, but there are workarounds for that I think. Oh, and there's an animation bug, but that can be solved by installing and running the latest version of FNIS.

I really want to play it, but I've got so many mods I know something will break, so I'm holding off until at the very least Deadly Dragons is updated.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 10, 2013)

now and again i get souls not absorbing.. not had that for a while though so i assume it got patched


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 10, 2013)

It was a thing a while back. I'm not sure if it was actually intended behaviour. If you killed a dragon that had respawned at a word wall (and possibly elsewhere) that you'd killed previously, you couldn't absorb its soul. This new bug is different entirely. It stops all souls being absorbed, including the important story-related ones. It doesn't appear to affect everyone though, so I have no idea what's going on.


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## Cid (Feb 10, 2013)

I'm enjoying Dragonborn a lot so far, revisiting old Bloodmoon locations, bit of Redoran architecture, bit of Telvanni... The Lovecraftian bits are great also.


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## 8ball (Feb 22, 2013)

Got the game and loving it so far (PS3 version), but despite the suspension of disbelief necessary for a game with dragons, elves, magic etc. I still have problems with the fact that I'm able to eat about 12kg of cheese in the middle of a battle, carry on fighting and don't even get massive constipation later.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 22, 2013)

dragons have amazing lactose tolerence.


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 22, 2013)

I bought Dragonborn, haven't started it yet though. I'm trying to get the house in Riften first, then I'll probably casually make my way there, although I really should head out to Solitude for the Thieves Guild first, they did say it was kinda important. And I could swing by Ustengrav and look for the Horn while I'm at it... but, Solstheim looks so pretty.


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## Random (Feb 22, 2013)

It's going to break my heart seeing (I guess) the Raven Rock colony all trashed, after I worked so hard to foster it from nothing in Bloodmoon. Hopefully those nasty little boar riding elves aren't so tough this time: even with my daedric blade and 100 str it was a close thing whether I'd kill them or not.


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## Cid (Feb 22, 2013)

Do we have to spoiler all dragonborn discussion until you get bored of Oblivion then?


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## Random (Feb 22, 2013)

Cid said:


> Do we have to spoiler all dragonborn discussion until you get bored of Oblivion then?


No, don't mind me.


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 22, 2013)

Someone is retexturing Solstheim... available in PC-crippling 2-4k textures, or a more friendly 1-2k version. He seems to be working on it pretty much constantly, adding new areas, addressing issues as people flag them. It looks pretty good, it must be said. I shall download it before I head off there. I haven't played Morrowind, so I don't really know what to expect once I get there. It's going to be quite the culture shock, I'm sure.


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## 8ball (Mar 8, 2013)

Ok, now they've made me Arch-Mage of this college but it's really weird - I have no lecturing schedule, don't have to chair any meetings, no budget stuff - they've basically just given me this massive flat in a castle with an internal garden rent-free but if I want lessons in magic (because the other mages are still better than me), they charge me shitloads of gold.

It's some kind of weird scam, I'm sure of it. 

And I can still eat cheese by the truckload with no bowel issues.


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## maomao (Mar 9, 2013)

Level 53 now and it's getting harder and harder to do level ups. I now have a completely unrealistic character who is Arch-Mage of Winterhold, Harbinger of the Companions and Chief of the Thieves Guild. It's rather addictive though and I will complete every quest I can find before I get Dawnguard or Dragonborn.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 9, 2013)

maomao said:


> Level 53 now and it's getting harder and harder to do level ups. I now have a completely unrealistic character who is Arch-Mage of Winterhold, Harbinger of the Companions and Chief of the Thieves Guild. It's rather addictive though and I will complete every quest I can find before I get Dawnguard or Dragonborn.


 
Well, there's the Dark Brotherhood... that's fun.

Patch 1.9 is in beta at the moment. Part of what it will bring is 'Legendary difficulty' and 'Legendary skills'. The first is self-explanatory. The second allows you to 'reset' your skills when you reach 100 so you can continue to accrue points and presumably place perk points, so there's no more level cap. I don't know if it's going to make levelling come a bit quicker again once you've reset it down to 15, or whether it means you have an effective point score of 115, or what. And you can keep resetting them over and over again whenever you hit 100. Should make things a bit more interesting, I guess.


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## 8ball (Mar 11, 2013)

maomao said:


> Level 53 now and it's getting harder and harder to do level ups. I now have a completely unrealistic character who is Arch-Mage of Winterhold, Harbinger of the Companions and Chief of the Thieves Guild. It's rather addictive though and I will complete every quest I can find before I get Dawnguard or Dragonborn.


 
I'm on level 42 now.  The Thumbs Of Thunder perk is awesome.


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## maomao (Mar 11, 2013)

8ball said:


> I'm on level 42 now. The Thumbs Of Thunder perk is awesome.


Got to level 54 yesterday. I feel a bit guilty for some of my level raising exploits. Have been alternating 'equilibrium' and 'close wounds' do get my restoration up and buying every piece of iron ore I can find so I can turn it to gold and raise my alteration (get to sell it back for a tidy profit too). Have also been casting 'calm' regularly on my wife and kids, the kids like it though. Raising pickpocketing is a bit tedious, if you don't want to go to prison or fight whole towns full of guards the only way to do it is save every time you're just over the pocket and keep reloading till you get it.

Have got all 9 dragon priest masks (and the wooden one) now and only missing two words of power but I want all my sneak perks before I do the Dark Brotherhood so I can savour the assassinations.


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## 8ball (Mar 11, 2013)

That transmutation thing is a possible game-breaker but mashing yourself up and repairing yourself to get your restoration stats up is a bit mad.  As for drugging your family   - this game brings out worrying traits in people... have you got them locked in the basement? 

Does levelling up individual skills have much effect aside from allowing you to choose better perks when the 'main skill' levels up?

Hoping I won't need to pickpocket too much since that is my weakest skill - my character is a 'basically good but somewhat irritable mage/warrior/soul-hunter/chef/herbalist'.  Not enjoying having to bully people for the Thieves Guild - found out what those jewels were but it looks like a tiresone completionist collecting outing - tempted to slap Maven up and help out that deluded lion-girl but not getting the opportunity.


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## maomao (Mar 11, 2013)

8ball said:


> That transmutation thing is a possible game-breaker but mashing yourself up and repairing yourself to get your restoration stats up is a bit mad. As for drugging your family  - this game brings out worrying traits in people... have you got them locked in the basement?
> 
> Does levelling up individual skills have much effect aside from allowing you to choose better perks when the 'main skill' levels up?
> 
> Hoping I won't need to pickpocket too much since that is my weakest skill - my character is a 'basically good but somewhat irritable mage/warrior/soul-hunter/chef/herbalist'. Not enjoying having to bully people for the Thieves Guild - found out what those jewels were but it looks like a tiresone completionist collecting outing - tempted to slap Maven up and help out that deluded lion-girl but not getting the opportunity.


 
My one handed damage seems to have gone up quite a lot despite not having any one handed perks at all so I think it does make a difference. Might just be my bitching Daedric sword though. 

I didn't enjoy the thieves guild stuff much either and now some Daedric Prince wants me to trick someone into jumping off a cliff. Think I'll just have to face it that I'm a nasty fucker at heart. Drugging the family's okay though cause the kids enjoy it and Camilla would just be out fucking elves if I didn't.

I've got 13 of the unusual gems but i don't think I can be arsed finding all of them. Would need to sit down with a walkthrough and that's a little obsessive even for me.


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## 8ball (Mar 11, 2013)

maomao said:


> I didn't enjoy the thieves guild stuff much either and now some Daedric Prince wants me to trick someone into jumping off a cliff.


 
Oh, yes, Behemoth the Bohemian or some such. I told her to stuff it and I might come back and kill all her followers next time I'm having an angry day.



maomao said:


> Drugging the family's okay though cause the kids enjoy it and Camilla would just be out fucking elves if I didn't..


 
Is that whatserface from Riverood? Looks the type...



maomao said:


> I've got 13 of the unusual gems but i don't think I can be arsed finding all of them. Would need to sit down with a walkthrough and that's a little obsessive even for me.


 
Yeah, they don't seem to do anything, buggered if I can be arsed with them.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 12, 2013)

Add the gems in the console for the ultimate cheating experience


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## 8ball (Mar 17, 2013)

My character has died of ennui after Aldium buggering off in the middle of a fight so I'm starting again on 'master' difficulty for a bit more of a challenge - nasty dark elf character this time - hoping increased difficulty doesn't unbalance game too much - seems fine so far.


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## maomao (Mar 17, 2013)

Level 61 and 19 Stones of Barenziah now. I've really got into fighting two handed with kick-ass Daedric warhammer. Thinking of looking at a walkthrough to get my last two words and the last few stones. If it doesn't stop fucking raining I can see me finishing this.

I play it on expert most of the time though I might bump it to master for the last bit cause I don't think I'll be playing it through again anyway.


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## 8ball (Mar 17, 2013)

Is this your first go through? It's already quite different with a different character and different early choices.


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## maomao (Mar 17, 2013)

8ball said:


> Is this your first go through? It's already quite different with a different character and different early choices.


It's my fourth character but the first one past level 30. I tend to make the same choices because I'm like that. Apart from picking a different side in the civil war (I was a stormcloak) I can't see what would be majorly different on another playthrough.


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## renegadechicken (Mar 18, 2013)

Just got this from reading the comments on here. Dunno which to start first after farcry 3 as i also got crysis 3 at the same time, (gotta love skidrow). So it's a toss up between this and crysis 3.


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## 8ball (Mar 18, 2013)

maomao said:


> It's my fourth character but the first one past level 30. I tend to make the same choices because I'm like that. Apart from picking a different side in the civil war (I was a stormcloak) I can't see what would be majorly different on another playthrough.


 
Only my second character - probably feels different because on first go through (which I abandoned due to lack of challenge - got the impression I'd over-levelled and got so many resources the rest would be too easy) I'd not done any Dark Brotherhood or Companion stuff plus had barely even visited a couple of cities. Only did the first basic job at Blackreach too. Plus I'm not playing as per my real personality and making a real effort to be a right nasty fucker.

edit: no civil war stuff either, come to think of it - mostly lots of undead-twatting and dwarf-stuff-nicking and mage stuff and being nice to randoms and dragon-slashing.  feels a lot more 'dangerous' on master difficulty level - more as it should be


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## 8ball (Mar 18, 2013)

renegadechicken said:


> Just got this from reading the comments on here. Dunno which to start first after farcry 3 as i also got crysis 3 at the same time, (gotta love skidrow). So it's a toss up between this and crysis 3.


 
I understand Farcry 3 is something of a big sandbox game, so I'd do Crysis 3 first to mix things up a bit rather than going stright onto a massive sandbox RPG.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 18, 2013)

Yeah, if you've got a few new games, I'd leave something like Skyrim until you've looked at the others because if you do end up really liking it, your other games won't get a look in for weeks. Or maybe months. Or in my case, 1 year and 4 months.

>_>


----------



## renegadechicken (Mar 23, 2013)

Hehe decided to go for mass effect 3....enjoying it so far, and more so than i did with skyrim to the same '/played/


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 24, 2013)

ME3 is awesome too. Well worth getting all the DLC for it too, they're all really good, although perhaps Leviathan is my favourite because it adds to the lore, Omega is ok but it feels a bit tacked on, and the most recent, Citadel, is mostly just crackfic, utter and complete fan service, but funny as hell, and adds an arena so you can try out all sorts of different builds and teams, which is pretty cool.

Edit: If you're playing in the arena, I HIGHLY recommend using Grunt and Wrex as your team. I am a micro-managing freak when it comes to my team, and I only bring along people I can completely synergise my powers with, and Grunt and Wrex are utterly and completely useless in that regard, but stack them up with their extra armour powers, and just let them loose while you hang back, and they Krogan!smash into everything in sight, which keeps it off you, and you can pick them off from a distance. I really fucking wish they were available in the main game.

Edit 2: Although, I'm currently playing NG++ (a new game plus imported into another new game plus) as an engineer, and it's insanely overpowered on hardcore. I might venture into insanity with it at some point, because seriously nothing lasts past the opening salvo in any fight ^^


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## maomao (Mar 24, 2013)

Up to level 66 now and they've removed the level cap with this legendary skills shit. Grrrrrr. Don't want to knock any of my skills down because I'll just end up wasting time grinding them back up again. I spent 40 minutes blocking a fucking giant to get my block to 100 this morning.

Into the Dark Brotherhood and trying to grind less and just get on with the story but then I find myself in a bar going round calming people


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 24, 2013)

I've stopped worrying about levels and so on. The things I use regularly and need to use will level up on their own without my help. I'm level 39 and nothing really touches me. The 2 things I do focus on trying to get to 100 relatively early are smithing and enchanting, because then once I can temper my weapons and armour to their fullest extent and enchant them with 2 enchantments each, it really doesn't matter too much what other skills I have because nothing's going to kill me anyway. I find myself using less powerful swords because otherwise everything dies too quickly. An elder dragon died in 2 hits the other day.

I'm more into RP-lite, so I don't want characters who can do everything. It wouldn't make sense. They don't go in every cave, they don't join every guild, they don't talk to every person in a town and pick up all their trash quests. They go where they need to go for various storylines, maybe venturing into a cave here or there if it looks interesting, but otherwise they are who they are. I like it that way, because it means I can have more than one character, and they each get to do different stuff.

With my last character, I did all the Companions stuff, Dawnguard, the main quest, and made it to level 49 before I retired her, and I never once went to Markarth, and only went to Solitude when I needed to for the main quest. I think I've been everywhere major apart from Morthal and Falkreath with this current character, but only because a quest (either main or Thieves Guild) took me there. I've passed through Dawnstar but only on my way to other places. I haven't touched Dawnguard or Dragonborn with this character yet, haven't finished the Thieves Guild story yet, haven't got past Kynesgrove in the main quest, but feel like I've done loads, even though I've only done what has been required of certain quests. I find it far more satisfying playing like this.


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## 8ball (Mar 25, 2013)

Yeah - I'm doing the same sort of thing - retired character 1 when it started feeling a bit easy so re-started on Master - this guy is an embittered dark elf who has contempt for large organisations and religion, so is ignoring both the civil war and the 'summoning' from the ageing hippies up on the big hill.

At this precise moment he's in prison, mostly sulking.


----------



## Corax (Apr 6, 2013)

Just restarted this having screwed up my previous install with conflicting mods (using BOSS & nexus this time...).  It's still fucking


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## QueenOfGoths (Apr 6, 2013)

Started this a couple of days ago - still finding my feet a bit. I am a wood elf called Elvis Thunderstruck!


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## maomao (Apr 6, 2013)

I finished all the Dark Brotherhood stuff now but a bit scared to get either of the expansions now the weather's warmed up.

Last week I discovered Shadowmere a)doesn't fight back and b) heals almost instantly. My character is level 76 now. Poor poor Shadowmere.


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## Cid (Apr 7, 2013)

How do the legendary skills work?

The expansions are both well worth it.


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## Epona (Apr 8, 2013)

Cid said:


> How do the legendary skills work?


 
I don't know - for the simple reasons that A - I have a ton of mods installed that work with 1.8 and that will probably implode with 1.9 until I upgrade all the mods as well, and as I am replacing my hard drive in (hopefully) a few days time I have turned off Steam updates because it's not worth updating to 1.9, pissing about updating every mod to work with it, when I'll have to reinstall everything in the next few days anyway. And B - I use Community Uncapper which removes the 100 skill level limit and allows me to reach a high level without maxing all my skills - I can still get to see the high level enemies in Skyrim Monster Mod, the worst dragons that can come my way, and stand a chance of getting the 'level 81' Dragonborn quest without ever having trained/grinded a skill that I don't want to use.  So I doubt I'll be using the 'Legendary Skills' function.



Cid said:


> The expansions are both well worth it.


 
Agreed - although Dawnguard had some gaping plot holes (especially if playing the Dawnguard side), I still enjoyed it and have played it several times. Dragonborn is fairly buggy, and the main quest is over too quickly, but there are a ton of side quests, the Black Books thing is great, and I like the Morrowind vibe. Dragon riding is shite, but I never bought a TES game for that sort of thing so I don't care. I thought both were good additions to the game in their own way.


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## maomao (Apr 8, 2013)

Cid said:


> How do the legendary skills work?
> 
> The expansions are both well worth it.


If you get to 100 on any skill you can set it back to 15 and free up all your perks in that skill to redistribute as you like. That skill then shows as 'legendary' (which is of no practical use, it's like it was when you just started the game).  I've only done it to lockpicking, however with that particular skill you can never increase it by picking a lock that you've picked before. I've got a lockpicking mod because picking locks annoyed me so I only did it for the levelling boost


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 8, 2013)

If you can't ever be bothered to unpick a lock, bring up the console (whatever key is under esc on your keyboard - it's ` for me) and while it's open click on the lock and you'll see a little code pop up, then type unlock in the console and hit enter.

Bish bash bosh.


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## maomao (Apr 8, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> If you can't ever be bothered to unpick a lock, bring up the console (whatever key is under esc on your keyboard - it's ` for me) and while it's open click on the lock and you'll see a little code pop up, then type unlock in the console and hit enter.
> 
> Bish bash bosh.


 
Lockpick mod feels like you have special powers and less like cheating though.


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## Corax (Apr 12, 2013)

Custom quest/map notes

I'd have thought this was a dead easy mod to accomplish, so I'm surprised I've found nowt searching.

Is there a mod to leave your own notes against quests in the journal, or against a map location as this person suggests?

In a game this big it'd be dead handy. I'm tempted to start a spreadsheet instead, but I may never live it down if anyone IRL finds out...


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## Epona (Apr 13, 2013)

maomao said:


> Lockpick mod feels like you have special powers and less like cheating though.


 
Personally if I were going for a mage playthrough, I'd want to use a mod that adds a lockpicking spell - it's been in previous TES games, so it's not cheating - just adding something back in to Skyrim that was in previous games (was always an Alteration spell - you could even make your own spell that unlocked every container within 20 feet if your Alteration skill and magicka were high enough to cast it, but an 'on touch' spell could be used by lower level mages, although the higher level unlock spells had a higher risk of failure at low levels, which is only right and correct!) If I were playing a pure warrior, I'd want a mod to bash open locked containers (possibly with a potential to damage the contents). Lockpicking as it stands in vanilla is fine for a thief, but a mage or warrior should have other options.

Edit to add: I currently use mods that add detect life/unlife enchantments and night eye potions and enchantments, which were available in previous games - I certainly would have no issue with an opening spell, it too was in previous games, and I would want it if I were playing a mage who wanted to open locks by magic rather than pissing about physically fiddling with locks.


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## Corax (Apr 13, 2013)

Hmmm.  I'm starting to get back in to this - done enough to join the companions, and a few side quests - level 11 atm.  But I've not done any enchanting yet.  I've _dis_enchanted a few items, and I've got a few (empty) jewel thingies, but I'd much prefer to have an enchanted soul trap weapon than dicking about casting the spell at the right time.  (I've got the spell, but the enchantment's not the same thing is it?)

Any tips on where I can find something soul trap enchanted that I can break down to learn it?


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 13, 2013)

Hmm, they tend to come in random drops, you might find something in and around Winterhold? I'm not sure where is reliable, tbh. Getting a bow with soul trap is very nice. Plus, once you've got yourself 100 in enchanting you can enchant things with 2 effects, so you could have a weapon with soul trap and something deadly, so you never run out of gems but can still handle the baddies.


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## Cid (Apr 13, 2013)

They start cropping up around level 20 I think , perhaps a bit lower. Can't remember if there are any named weapons with it.


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## Cid (Apr 13, 2013)

Also er... Minor spoiler for Daedra side quest.



Spoiler



Pick the black star.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 13, 2013)

Cid said:


> Also er... Minor spoiler for Daedra side quest.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Good advice. Makes things easier.


----------



## Epona (Apr 14, 2013)

It is taking me hours after installing my new HDD to reinstall all my mods.  I love the modding capability of TES games, but fuck me it can take ages to set everything up the way I want it!


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## Epona (Apr 14, 2013)

OK all done, more or less to my satisfaction (in that I will probably realise I am missing something at some point down the road).  Had a hell of a job with ENBs, tried and discarded several before going back to the one I was using before (Vibrant ENB) which is no longer on the Nexus but I still had the files on my old hard drive, which hasn't completely given up the ghost!

Trying out some new mods, have taken this opportunity to try out Vilja follower mod (she can actually read books to me, as far as I am concerned that is going way above and beyond the call of duty when making a follower mod, extremely impressed with some of the little touches that the mod author has gone to the effort of including!)

Achieve That! is great - fed up with Steam achievements that don't do anything?  I've never seen much point, but I am *loving* this mod.  It adds 100+ in-game achievements covering all elements of gameplay that give small bonuses when you reach various different targets - such as +1 to a skill, or +10 carry weight, or + a small amount of damage etc.


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## Corax (Apr 15, 2013)

With the HD patch I've disabled all the graphical mods apart from the pretty night sky thing.  I've got immersive weapons and armour going, plus SkyUI (with SKSE), Quality World Map, Glowing Ore Veins and Unread Books Glow.  I've ramped the FOV up a bit too.

I'm a wee bit puzzled by my performance though.  I've had to turn antialiasing off and some of the settings down to prevent stutter.  My machine's a couple of years old now, but I thought it was still pretty good relatively?

4Gb RAM, i5 2500k @3.3Ghz, Asus P8P67 mb, 1024mb Radeon HD 6800... 

Should I be having these issues?


----------



## Epona (Apr 15, 2013)

Where are you getting stuttering? I get some in the cities (especially Windhelm, around the market), but I don't think it has anything to do with the graphics as it tends to be in NPC-heavy areas so I was assuming that my machine was struggling more with their AI and pathfinding. I have a very swish graphics card (nVidia GTX 670 with 2Gb VRAM) but my CPU and RAM are only average (4Gb RAM, AMD Phenom II 965 Quad Core).

Edit to add: I've also gone for the Immersive Armor/Weapons thing this time round, good selection of stuff. I also recommend The Chronicles of Steel - Skyrim which is great if you like realistic weapons rather than oversized and overelaborate stuff.


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## QueenOfGoths (Apr 15, 2013)

Still enjoying this - am now at level 13 but seem to be picking quests that are currently beyond my level/skills at the moment 

Plus I really should use magic more but, well, maybe I have played "Assassin's Creed" too much but I just end up bashing people around the head with a two handed battleaxe  'cos it's so satisfying!


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## spawnofsatan (Apr 15, 2013)

Finally at level 50


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## Corax (Apr 15, 2013)

Epona said:
			
		

> Where are you getting stuttering? I get some in the cities (especially Windhelm, around the market), but I don't think it has anything to do with the graphics as it tends to be in NPC-heavy areas so I was assuming that my machine was struggling more with their AI and pathfinding. I have a very swish graphics card (nVidia GTX 670 with 2Gb VRAM) but my CPU and RAM are only average (4Gb RAM, AMD Phenom II 965 Quad Core).
> 
> Edit to add: I've also gone for the Immersive Armor/Weapons thing this time round, good selection of stuff. I also recommend The Chronicles of Steel - Skyrim which is great if you like realistic weapons rather than oversized and overelaborate stuff.



It does tend to be in town rather than out in the wild or in dungeons. 

On an unrelated note, I have no idea how people play this game so quickly. It's just taken me several hours just to get from Breezeholme to Winterhold. And I wasn't even doing side quests or anything.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 15, 2013)

Wisdom has it that Skyrim utilises the CPU to a greater extent than most games, so if you have an aging one but a good GPU you might see worse performance than you were expecting.


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## Epona (Apr 16, 2013)

Forgot to say - also check that you have the correct sound drivers and that they are up to date. Having the wrong/out of date sound drivers is a known cause of stuttering and CTDs in Skyrim. I was having horrendous trouble with the game yesterday until I remembered that I had forgotton to install the Realtek sound drivers for my chip after an HDD replacement and clean Windows installation and was instead relying on the generic MS ones 

Once I had the correct drivers reinstalled I was back to just a tiny bit of stuttering in Windhelm market!


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## tommers (Apr 16, 2013)

Bethesda have announced that the DLC is now finished btw.


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## maomao (Apr 16, 2013)

Corax said:


> It does tend to be in town rather than out in the wild or in dungeons.
> 
> On an unrelated note, I have no idea how people play this game so quickly. It's just taken me several hours just to get from Breezeholme to Winterhold. And I wasn't even doing side quests or anything.


You walked? That would take fucking ages. Either fast travel or if you haven't been there before then get a coach. It's fun walking the odd journey but fuck doing it all the time.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 16, 2013)

maomao said:


> You walked? That would take fucking ages. Either fast travel or if you haven't been there before then get a coach. It's fun walking the odd journey but fuck doing it all the time.


 
Or get a horse. The Convenient Horses mod makes that really easy to do too. I never used to use horses, but I use them all the time now. I like travelling from place to place - I very, very rarely fast travel. I've perhaps done it 3 or 4 times during this playthrough, and I'm level 41 now.

I just made a new character, though, to play when I'm getting bored of my thief. Her name is Aless Nin, breton. Still working on her backstory. She uses magic and daggers.







Shameless plug to the website I put all my screenshots on, including non-Skyrim ones.


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## 8ball (Apr 16, 2013)

Good website


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## maomao (Apr 16, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Or get a horse. The Convenient Horses mod makes that really easy to do too. I never used to use horses, but I use them all the time now. I like travelling from place to place - I very, very rarely fast travel. I've perhaps done it 3 or 4 times during this playthrough, and I'm level 41 now.
> 
> I just made a new character, though, to play when I'm getting bored of my thief. Her name is Aless Nin, breton. Still working on her backstory. She uses magic and daggers.


 
I don't have that much imagination. All my characters except one have been called Martin (RL name).


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## Voley (Apr 16, 2013)

My bloke was called Benchod The Lamentable.


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## maomao (Apr 16, 2013)

My first character was called Orc. Orc the Orc.


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## Stigmata (Apr 16, 2013)

My friend's Redguard knight in Morrowind was called Frank the Mighty Bastard. I've never been able to beat that.


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## Jackobi (Apr 17, 2013)

Corax said:


> I'm a wee bit puzzled by my performance though. I've had to turn antialiasing off and some of the settings down to prevent stutter. My machine's a couple of years old now, but I thought it was still pretty good relatively?
> 
> 4Gb RAM, i5 2500k @3.3Ghz, Asus P8P67 mb, 1024mb Radeon HD 6800...
> 
> Should I be having these issues?


 
Your graphics card could do with an upgrade if you want to push the video settings harder.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 17, 2013)

Jackobi said:


> Your graphics card could do with an upgrade if you want to push the video settings harder.


 
Indeed. 1GB vram certainly isn't going to be enough to deal with graphical mods you might put in. If you're (not you, but Corax - or anyone, really) running the official hi-res dlc then there's an optimised version on nexus that lets you pick slightly lower res versions of them to save on vram.

There's also something called ddsopt, which is, as the name suggests, a dds optimiser. DDS files are the texture files for the game. Running the optimiser on everything except character textures (which need more care and should preferably be uncompressed if you care about that sort of thing) will reduce the file size of everything, make sure everything has the right compression, but doesn't make barely any noticeable difference to in-game quality.

I've got a 7970M 2GB card, with an i7 3630QM @ 2.4ghz and I'm running a veritable shit ton of 2k and 4k retex mods, all settings on Ultra and a punishing ENB config, and I get between 20-30 fps outdoors, 35-50 indoors (I think, I haven't checked that much since I changed to this new ENB, although without an ENB and with only a few hi-res mods and everything on Ultra I get 60fps everywhere). The game renders some things in an odd way, using the CPU when other games might use the GPU, for example. There are probably a ton of guides out there that will help you know what to change in your ini files to get the best performance without sacrificing too much quality.


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## Corax (Apr 17, 2013)

My machine was pretty good a couple of years ago! _*cries*_


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## spawnofsatan (Apr 17, 2013)

Bugger, think i've messed up the Elder scroll quest


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## QueenOfGoths (Apr 18, 2013)

I apear to have joined the Stormclock Rebellion....despite the fact I gather they are a bit racist. Maybe. They have good helmets though.

I often thank providence I wasn't born in nazi Germany


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## maomao (Apr 18, 2013)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I apear to have joined the Stormclock Rebellion....despite the fact I gather they are a bit racist. Maybe. They have good helmets though.
> 
> I often thank providence I wasn't born in nazi Germany


It's either that or 'the empire' which sounded much dodgier to me.


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## 8ball (Apr 18, 2013)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I apear to have joined the Stormclock Rebellion....despite the fact I gather they are a bit racist. Maybe. They have good helmets though.
> 
> I often thank providence I wasn't born in nazi Germany


 
Definite dodgy racists.  Then again, the Empire seem to be under the thumb of a bunch of dodgy racists...


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 18, 2013)

I plan on keeping out of the civil war stuff unless it's with a character who would have a specific reason for joining one side or the other.

My nord didn't join the rebellion, because she was leader of the Companions and she agreed with Kodlak that they should have no part in politics.

My redguard didn't/won't join either side because she doesn't give a shit about that sort of thing, she's a thief, she's got thieving to do.

My new breton... well, I'm not sure about this yet. Ordinarily I don't think she would get involved, but it depends on what happens during her time in Skyrim. You see, she is an agent for a noble house in High Rock, working for them in all kinds of underhand, undercover, and sometimes under-the-covers ways to help them maintain their political and social position within breton society. She had to leave, though (for a reason I haven't decided yet), and as she spends time in Skyrim she might find it useful to join the Empire in order to cement her employer's standing with them... idk, I'll have to think about it.

Any imperial or altmer I'd make would join the Empire. If I make another nord it'll be someone who is a bit more RAH SKYRIM FOR THE NORDS and will join the rebellion. Most of my other characters though I don't think could give a shit.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 18, 2013)

I actually really like that there is no good guy in the civil war. They are both odious at times, both also have people who have honest and good intentions. I like that kind of thing. I really hate games that end up giving you a bunch of options with one that is automatically the 'good' option. How fucking boring. This is why I love the ending to ME3.


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## 8ball (Apr 18, 2013)

Really?  The ending where you just get to choose what colour the explosions are?


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 18, 2013)

8ball said:


> Really? The ending where you just get to choose what colour the explosions are?


 
Yes. I love it.


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## 8ball (Apr 18, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Yes. I love it.


 
Pfft!

The only one that made sense was the one they added later.

On another topic - horses in Skyrim always make me feel guilty - you should be able to buy horses for your mates rather than have them run behind you.

Makes me feel like a right twat.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 18, 2013)

8ball said:


> Pfft!
> 
> The only one that made sense was the one they added later.
> 
> ...


 
The Convenient Horses mod lets your followers ride too. It's pretty configurable as well, so you can adjust things like do they run away from combat or get stuck in, etc.

And it has horse armour.


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## QueenOfGoths (Apr 18, 2013)

I have not ridden any horses yet. I quite enjoy just running around


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## 8ball (Apr 18, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> The Convenient Horses mod lets your followers ride too.


 
I'm pretty sure it doesn't on a PS3.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 18, 2013)

8ball said:


> I'm pretty sure it doesn't on a PS3.


 
I forget not everyone is a member of the glorious PC master race sometimes. Sorry.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 18, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I forget not everyone is a member of the glorious PC master race sometimes. Sorry.


 
I was, but I grew tired of the arsing about with drivers, settings etc. that comes with PC games.

What about your dog - does he get to ride a horse too?


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 19, 2013)

My dog is speedy enough to run along with us. He seems to enjoy it.


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## Epona (Apr 20, 2013)

I've now tried Convenient Horses, and I still can't take to using horses in the game.  I bought one in Whiterun and made it halfway to Dawnstar before taking it back to Whiterun stables and parking it there.  I'll make sure it's fed and groomed regularly.  I only got one because Vilja was complaining that she wanted to ride her horse.  I've now told her she can ride while I'm on foot.  I like horses in real life and used to ride frequently, but in Tamriel they can stay as decoration.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 20, 2013)

What's the Vilja mod like? I had her for a short while after it was just released, but she started to get on my nerves, even when I told her not to talk so much. I don't think I do so well with followers though. I don't mind having someone around for a quest or two, but I generally prefer to go it alone.


----------



## Epona (Apr 20, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> What's the Vilja mod like? I had her for a short while after it was just released, but she started to get on my nerves, even when I told her not to talk so much. I don't think I do so well with followers though. I don't mind having someone around for a quest or two, but I generally prefer to go it alone.


 
It took me ages to willingly take on a follower in a BGS game (I blame the bloody escort missions in every game they put out previously which typically reduced me to headbutting the keyboard in frustration at the poor AI pathfinding, then failing the quest because a rat/cliff racer ate the person you were supposed to be escorting). Serana being forced on me for Dawnguard did the trick and I now no longer adventure alone.

I really like Vilja - yes she is quite chatty (a lot of her comments are NPC comments from Oblivion, which makes me smile) but I find that OK, but then I mostly hear speech as 'burble burble burble' unless I'm actively concentrating on it and can easily glance at the subtitles to see if she is just burbling or wants to talk to me about her quest. Best thing though is that I can tell all my other followers (currently Faendal, Annekke, and Derkeethus, will be adding Aela once I have finished the Companions questline - all those followers have good sneak and archery skills, as does Vilja, so they don't get in the way) to follow Vilja, which greatly simplifies the mechanics of managing a large group - tell Vilja to wait somewhere or relax at home and my entire party will stay with her unless I instruct them otherwise. Completely compatible with UFO which is the multiple-follower mod I use (and both are compatible with convenient horses). You can also ask her to take the lead and she'll take you exploring as her follower rather than the other way round, which adds a different dimension to play that I quite like.  She also looks really good in Arena Mage armor from the armor mod I am using


----------



## 8ball (Apr 21, 2013)

On a slightly different topic - how do these Legendary skills work?

Do you become crap at something again if you choose 'Legendary'?


----------



## maomao (Apr 21, 2013)

8ball said:


> On a slightly different topic - how do these Legendary skills work?
> 
> Do you become crap at something again if you choose 'Legendary'?


Basically, yes. Your level is returned to 15 and your perk points are returned to be redistributed. You can put them back on that skill but not if there was a level requirement to choose that perk.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 21, 2013)

maomao said:


> Basically, yes. Your level is returned to 15 and your perk points are returned to be redistributed. You can put them back on that skill but not if there was a level requirement to choose that perk.


 
So do you become crap at that particular thing again (if, say, you levelled up a lot but never bought the perks), or is it just resetting the actual number to allow you to level up further than before (aside from the normal level-up increases in health/stamina/magicka)?


----------



## maomao (Apr 21, 2013)

8ball said:


> So do you become crap at that particular thing again (if, say, you levelled up a lot but never bought the perks), or is it just resetting the actual number to allow you to level up further than before (aside from the normal level-up increases in health/stamina/magicka)?


You become crap again. Though I think the actual increase in ability comes from the perks not the higher numbers anyway.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 21, 2013)

See, I just can't understand the point of this legendary skills thing. Legendary difficulty? Okay, that's fine. An extra hard difficulty for the hardcore who are bored now. But just in general, idk, I'd have far rather if they actually extended the level cap in a meaningful way, and worked more thoughtfully to add new skills/perks to the top of the skills trees, maybe making you really work for it by only letting you buy the perks once you reach 150, 200, 250, 300, for example (instead of every 10 points opening up a new perk somewhere in the tree). In what reality does several hundred hours of gameplay and character improvement translate into "oh noes, you lost your ability to swing a sword or temper armour! d'oh! Best start again!"?

Really fucking stupid, if you ask me.


----------



## maomao (Apr 21, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> See, I just can't understand the point of this legendary skills thing. Legendary difficulty? Okay, that's fine. An extra hard difficulty for the hardcore who are bored now. But just in general, idk, I'd have far rather if they actually extended the level cap in a meaningful way, and worked more thoughtfully to add new skills/perks to the top of the skills trees, maybe making you really work for it by only letting you buy the perks once you reach 150, 200, 250, 300, for example (instead of every 10 points opening up a new perk somewhere in the tree). In what reality does several hundred hours of gameplay and character improvement translate into "oh noes, you lost your ability to swing a sword or temper armour! d'oh! Best start again!"?
> 
> Really fucking stupid, if you ask me.


But in reality, by the time you've maxed out on your favourite skills they've got kind of boring. I have 100 archery with every archery perk and once I've got my archery bonus gloves, helmet, ring and necklace on my flawless or epic or whatever daedric bow with daedric arrows does 230 something damage, plus shock damage and it's a rare baddy indeed that can take more than two of them. I can't bring myself to legendise that particular skill but if I did I wouldn't be going back to a hunting bow with iron arrows or anything, it would just provide a little extra challenge I guess. I still prefer your way but it's not quite as stupid as that.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 21, 2013)

I guess that's true enough. I suppose my way would have to be coupled with harder enemies appearing once you get over that 100 point limit.

I've always meant to take a look at SkyRe - it completely changes the mechanics of levelling, changes the skills, makes things more challenging from the outset, etc. I've not got around to it because it's such a big change I've been scared (plus it alters armour and weapon stats, so any mods you have that introduce new armour and weapons won't match up with that and you need a patch for each one).


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## 8ball (Apr 21, 2013)

It definitely seems like my sneak and pickpocket skills (which I've levelled up a lot with but not bought many perks for) are a lot better because of the levelling up.  If it was just dropping the perks I might be a little tempted to switch one or two especially if I thought I'd picked bad perks but I'm playing on 'Master' and it could be a big dent in my character if the 'base skill' for the skill was majorly affected.  I've heard different opinions over whether (both on this thread as well as generally on tinternet).


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 21, 2013)

I was always under the impression that your ability did get better just by your skill points increasing, and then adding perks helped you just unlock different abilities, and so on. If you put no points in any perks but just keep levelling up with your weapon and armour skills increasing, I expect you would still be able to take on stronger foes at higher levels, although you would be at a disadvantage because you hadn't gained any of the better combat perks along the way. That was how I thought it worked, anyway. I never put points in lockpicking and yet the more I do it the easier it seems to get. That could just be psychological though, I honestly don't know.


*googles*

From the wiki:

*"Skills* represent actions that can be taken in game; there are 18 in total and each is tracked by its own system of skill points. Skill points are a measure of how proficient the player is at these skills and increasing them grants benefits to the skill _*as well as*_ granting access to perks that may be taken upon leveling up. Also, when a certain level is reached in some skills, guards and other NPCs will comment on it!" [my emphasis]


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 21, 2013)

See also:

"Leveling skills without perks
Perks, which have skill-level requisites determining when the player has access to them, increase the effectiveness of skills in various ways, but aren't required to use that skill effectively, even at higher levels. Most of the early Perks available in any skill tree lower the difficulty of using the skill (i.e. locks of a given difficulty become easier to pick once the Perk for that difficulty level is taken), while the more advanced perks provide the character with unique abilities that make them even more effective (Wax Key, for example, which places a copy of the key [if one exists] for any lock successfully picked into the player's inventory, allowing them to circumvent that lock in the future should an NPC relock it).
While Perks are extremely useful and make the player much more efficient, they're not absolutely necessary in order for the player to use a skill effectively. As the skill is used and its level increases, the ease of the skill also increases. For instance, as the player's speech skill increases, it becomes easier to persuade/intimidate NPCs. (Bribery is always successful.) By small increments as the level of speech increases, regardless of whether the player takes the Perks for the various difficulties, it slowly becomes easier. So even if the player uses a piece of apparel or potion to enhance their speech skill (For example, an Amulet of Dibella or a Philter of Glibness) taking the perk simply causes a much more immediate and noticeable decrease in the difficulty of persuasions/intimidations at that level."


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## 8ball (Apr 21, 2013)

Cheers - that's what I figured too - it's especially notable with things like lockpicking and sneaking.

So my question is whether choosing Legendary nixes that base skill as well as just resetting the actual number and losing existing perks.  Makes quite a big difference as to whether I'm adding a bit of challenge or scuppering my character.


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## QueenOfGoths (Apr 25, 2013)

I am now the Arch Mage of Winterhold. Which is nice.

I also have Onmund as a follower, having 'lost' Lydia , who is great!! Though I do tend to use him as cannon fodder or a pack horse  He doesn't seem to mind though!


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## Epona (Apr 27, 2013)

According to Steam, I have now racked up over 1500 hours of play on Skyrim.

Say whatever you like about my gaming habits, but I've certainly got my moneys worth out of this game. Still plenty of stuff I haven't done too!


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## maomao (Apr 27, 2013)

Epona said:


> According to Steam, I have now racked up over 1500 hours of play on Skyrim.
> 
> Say whatever you like about my gaming habits, but I've certainly got my moneys worth out of this game. Still plenty of stuff I haven't done too!


Where does it show how many hours you've played? Used to be in the main library list but doesn't seem to be there anymore.


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## Epona (Apr 27, 2013)

maomao said:


> Where does it show how many hours you've played? Used to be in the main library list but doesn't seem to be there anymore.


 
Right next to the "Play" button for whichever game's page you are currently viewing in your library.


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## maomao (Apr 27, 2013)

Epona said:


> Right next to the "Play" button for whichever game's page you are currently viewing in your library.


I had a different view set. 280 hours is scary enough for me lol.


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## Epona (Apr 27, 2013)

maomao said:


> I had a different view set. 280 hours is scary enough for me lol.


 
Even if you bought it full price on release day, that still makes it a bit of a bargain in gaming terms, if you've had 280 hours of fun out of it.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Apr 27, 2013)

Epona said:


> According to Steam, I have now racked up over 1500 hours of play on Skyrim.
> 
> Say whatever you like about my gaming habits, but I've certainly got my moneys worth out of this game. Still plenty of stuff I haven't done too!


 
I think that fucks up occationally.   it says i've  played 251 hours of assassins creed III  but  there is no way i racked up that many hours.


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## Epona (Apr 27, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> I think that fucks up occationally. it says i've played 251 hours of assassins creed III but there is no way i racked up that many hours.


 
Sadly in this case I don't think it has fucked up - I seriously need to get out more


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## maomao (Apr 27, 2013)

Epona said:


> Even if you bought it full price on release day, that still makes it a bit of a bargain in gaming terms, if you've had 280 hours of fun out of it.


Minus 3-4 hours attacking Shadowmere to get my level up.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 27, 2013)

I'm on 1355 hours. And I'm okay with that.

I admit that I often pause the game and wander off online and get lost for a couple of hours, so we have to factor that into the equation.


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## 8ball (Apr 27, 2013)

maomao said:


> Minus 3-4 hours attacking Shadowmere to get my level up.


 
<marks another card>


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## 8ball (Apr 27, 2013)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I am now the Arch Mage of Winterhold. Which is nice.


 
You say 'nice', but you'll soon see why whenever you saw Savos Aren he was mooching around not doing very much.  It's a scam position set up so that the faculty can rinse you for tuition fees.

Should I have used spoiler code there?


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## Corax (Apr 27, 2013)

129 hours apparently. Seems about right seeing as I didn't touch it for about 6 months and only recently restarted. Also, I do one helluva lot of pausing...

Just completed Shriekwind for Trouble in Skyrim.  Shall have another little sesh tomorrow I think.  I don't remember exploring Falkreath ever before, so that may be on the menu.


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## Epona (Apr 27, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I admit that I often pause the game and wander off online and get lost for a couple of hours, so we have to factor that into the equation.


 
This is true - I often play in the evening when I'm cooking dinner and will pause the game for a couple of minutes to go chop onions or stir something, but it's typically only for a few minutes at a time, if I'm going to be away from the PC for a while I'll exit the game to save electricity (cos the fans all go like the clappers whilst I'm gaming!)


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## 8ball (Apr 28, 2013)

Quick tip for anyone who may be considering it - do NOT try to re-organise the various items in your house into neat, delineated piles using the 'Unrelenting Force' shout.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 29, 2013)

8ball said:


> Quick tip for anyone who may be considering it - do NOT try to re-organise the various items in your house into neat, delineated piles using the 'Unrelenting Force' shout.


 
*sigh*







There's a mod called Placeable Statics that will let you put them all back again.


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## QueenOfGoths (Apr 29, 2013)

8ball said:


> Quick tip for anyone who may be considering it - do NOT try to re-organise the various items in your house into neat, delineated piles using the 'Unrelenting Force' shout.


I keep setting Shouts off when I put the PS3 controller on the table  It's quite scary...and Ormund doesn't like it as he always seems to be standing in front of me when I do


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 29, 2013)

This mod may be of interest to some: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/33395

SkyTweak: basically provides a series of in game menus to let you tweak almost every conceivable thing, from stamina regen to the amount of damage you take on various difficulties; from your running speed to how much more carrying capacity you gain with each level of stamina increase; from how often vendors restock to how quickly you gain experience points in each individual skill....

The mod author is adding things by request too, if they are doable obviously. You can change as much or as little as you like, to make a very balanced game or to cheat your socks off. It's up to you. Plus, it's compatible with everything you might already have installed and detects whether other mods have already altered any of the values already.

I'm downloading it now; I'll report back.


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## fogbat (Apr 29, 2013)

I'm half-seriously considering selling a kidney to buy a decent PC on which to run Skyrim.

XBox is great, but mods sound fun, and God!  mouse aiming the bow must be so much easier.


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## Corax (Apr 29, 2013)

Yay I'm a werewolf.  I've not been a werewolf before.  Kewl.


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## The Boy (Apr 29, 2013)

The Dark Brotherhood gave me the ability to summon this spectral assassin dude.  Handy as fuck in a square go, but he's following le around and doing my tits in now.


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## 8ball (Apr 29, 2013)

The Boy said:


> The Dark Brotherhood gave me the ability to summon this spectral assassin dude. Handy as fuck in a square go, but he's following le around and doing my tits in now.


 
He's _so_ annoying.

I only use him in near-hopeless fights for this very reason - send him straight to the front to say hi to the Pyromage Murderbastard...


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 29, 2013)

I caution players against going to Lost Valkygg while they are still a low level. There are 2 Dragur Murderboss Deathking Cuntlords in there who will fuck your shit up.


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## 8ball (Apr 29, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I caution players against going to Lost Valkygg while they are still a low level. There are 2 Dragur Murderboss Deathking Cuntlords in there who will fuck your shit up.


 
Save early, save often.  There's nothing like this game for drumming it into you.

They should get Bethesda to do games based on road safety.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 29, 2013)

Indeed. I am an overcautious saver, it's true.

I ended up cheating myself some potions. If I hadn't have done, I never would have got past the first one. Each arrow it fired at me drained 3/4 of my health. And when it shouted at me and knocked me to the ground, it then shot an arrow at me while I was lying on the ground.

I died a lot.

If I'd have just exited out the front and left, I'd have forgot about it and never come back  But tbh I feel naughty for cheating.


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## 8ball (Apr 29, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> If I'd have just exited out the front and left, I'd have forgot about it and never come back  But tbh I feel naughty for cheating.


 
Sometimes I get in those situations so I'll just kill a random minion and exit through the side door.

See you after College, mingers!


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 29, 2013)

I'm overencumbered in Morthal and I can never remember if there's anyone in this town to buy my shit.

#firstnirnproblems


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## 8ball (Apr 29, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm overencumbered in Morthal and I can never remember if there's anyone in this town to buy my shit.
> 
> #firstnirnproblems


 
There's a mage who owns a shop IIRC.

edit: love "#firstnirnproblems"


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## QueenOfGoths (Apr 29, 2013)

8ball said:


> Save early, save often. There's nothing like this game for drumming it into you.
> 
> They should get Bethesda to do games based on road safety.


I drive myself mad saving  Mind you was glad tonight when Ormund got killed  so I could go back and save him

He is quite a bit stronger than me so ends up doing most of the killing, I would tell him to wait somewhere but I like having him around 

I've just asked to join the Bard's college but have yet to find whatever poem I need to get in


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## Citizen66 (Apr 29, 2013)

I'm playing this again. Hard as fuck as a mage in the early stages... I keep having to drop the difficulty level for the dungeon bosses.


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## Citizen66 (Apr 29, 2013)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I drive myself mad saving  Mind you was glad tonight when Ormund got killed  so I could go back and save him


 
I just played that tonight...  I left him dead though. That level was hard enough anyway as a lvl 4/5 mage without having baggage to mind.


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## Epona (Apr 30, 2013)

My current game is at about 110 hours and I'm on save number 3000. It's not the likelihood of character death, it's the risk of modding my game to an early grave that makes me that cautious! Oblivion especially seemed to be particularly prone to random CTDs with 200 or so mods installed and even if a modded game is stable there's no telling when you might run into an unexpected conflict or previously undiscovered bug, so you just get into the habit of saving frequently, buggering about with your load order frequently, saving some more, then crashing again! Mods are on the whole fun, but can provide a few headaches along the way if you run a lot of them together.


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 30, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> I'm playing this again. Hard as fuck as a mage in the early stages... I keep having to drop the difficulty level for the dungeon bosses.


 
Yep, I'm finding this. At first I always played an archer because it's easy as hell, then 2handed because it's fun to smash people upside their heads, then dual wielding swords, which has the most awesome killmoves, but now I'm playing a 1-handed mage who uses a dagger for up close and it's quite tough. Switching as soon as possible to the fireball/ice spike/lightning bolt spells is wise since they are considerably more powerful than the novice stuff. The favourites menu is your friend here as well. Favourite all your spells so you can pause and swap them at a moment's notice during combat. Fuck wearing unarmoured clothes though - I'm wearing light armour - I'd not survive otherwise. Keep levelling enchanting and you can enchant your light armour with extra magicka etc to match the robes - you just won't get whatever that particular bonus in the perk tree is for wearing clothes, but I really don't care about that.



Epona said:


> My current game is at about 110 hours and I'm on save number 3000. It's not the likelihood of character death, it's the risk of modding my game to an early grave that makes me that cautious! Oblivion especially seemed to be particularly prone to random CTDs with 200 or so mods installed and even if a modded game is stable there's no telling when you might run into an unexpected conflict or previously undiscovered bug, so you just get into the habit of saving frequently, buggering about with your load order frequently, saving some more, then crashing again! Mods are on the whole fun, but can provide a few headaches along the way if you run a lot of them together.


 
Yeah, that's exactly why I save often. I save before zoning, every single time. My game will freeze unexpectedly when loading into a new area, so saving before is a god habit to get into. Also, yesterday, having just downloaded new HD fire effects, I spawned 2 flame atronachs, was using firebolt, in a small cave that had a big roaring fire, and it was all just too much and the game just went POOF and CTD XD I had saved about 30 seconds before though, so all was good.


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## Citizen66 (Apr 30, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:
			
		

> Yep, I'm finding this. At first I always played an archer because it's easy as hell, then 2handed because it's fun to smash people upside their heads, then dual wielding swords, which has the most awesome killmoves, but now I'm playing a 1-handed mage who uses a dagger for up close and it's quite tough. Switching as soon as possible to the fireball/ice spike/lightning bolt spells is wise since they are considerably more powerful than the novice stuff. The favourites menu is your friend here as well. Favourite all your spells so you can pause and swap them at a moment's notice during combat. Fuck wearing unarmoured clothes though - I'm wearing light armour - I'd not survive otherwise. Keep levelling enchanting and you can enchant your light armour with extra magicka etc to match the robes - you just won't get whatever that particular bonus in the perk tree is for wearing clothes, but I really don't care about that.



If there's a few enemies in a room then fury is good (making one of them attack the others) and raising some kind of spirit to use as a tank is useful too. Problem being I want to build destruction spells which neither of those two are. And nothing seems to help with the bosses!

Will look into wearing and enchanting light armour though. Cheers for the tip.

e2a forgot about the favourites thing too. Swapping spells was well frustrating.


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## Citizen66 (May 3, 2013)

Has some patch just been released or something as I've just seen Skyrim update? Or has a weird Steamism just occured?


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## Epona (May 4, 2013)

No update that I can see, there's usually an announcement on the official forums and nothing has been posted up. If you are subscribed to any mods on Steam Workshop is it possible that one of those received an update?

Speaking of which, I usually go to the Nexus for mods, which apparently means that I have missed out on some great stuff that isn't put up there (not everyone agrees with their using advertising to fund the site, although afaic they have to keep the servers running one way or another,... and they can sometimes be a bit heavy with the ban button).

So I would like to recommend a series of mods that I found on Steam Workshop that are not available on the Nexus for whatever reason, so if you are looking for well-written quest mods that fit seamlessly into the world (some of the locations involved crop up as radiant 'kill the bandits' bounties that you pick up from inns or Jarl's stewards for example), written by an experienced modder, lore-correct, and fully voiced, these might be what you are looking for. They are released as separate mods, and include 5 quest mods, 4 villages that appeared in TES I: Arena (2 of which are still functioning hamlets around the location of 2 of the Hearthfire homes, 2 are now abandoned ruins, with quests attached), and Pit FIghter which is the restoration of the Arena faction (which was half done in the original game but dropped before release, it doesn't appear in-game but some assets and the Windhelm Arena can be found in the Creation Kit!).

So check these out if you are looking for well written quest mods:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/ThirteenOranges/myworkshopfiles/


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## Epona (May 4, 2013)

This playthrough I am not using Skyrim Monster Mod. I'd been using it for ages, because I really like the dungeon spawns, but was finding the wildlife spawns were making me feel quite anxious about going near any of the open settlements for fear of major NPC depopulation due to some high level mob taking out half the village before I'd drawn my bow. Without it, I am enjoying using horses more, because I'm not having to fight something every 3 paces along the roads.

I do recommend trying Skyrim Monster Mod if you want a bigger challenge than the vanilla spawns provide (groups of 3 werewolves or a pair of dragon spawn descending upon you regularly when you're really at quite a low level) but for now I'm enjoying a quieter life and safer road travel!


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## Vintage Paw (May 4, 2013)

I'm considering a re-install, because my textures are a bit out of date, and to update them I really need to start from scratch.

I'm thinking about swapping from NMM to using Mod Organiser instead - Epona do you have any experience with it? It looks a bit complicated, but from what I can tell it would make it easier in the long run to manage a large amount of possibly conflicting mods. I tend to install quite a few things manually instead of using NMM, because I can decide which parts of it I want to install, while leaving other parts out (generally for some texture mods). Since MO keeps things separate from the main Data folder, I'm not sure how that would work now. In particular, my character texture folders change on a regular basis, since I edit and create some of the textures myself and mix and match between different mods, and I wouldn't want anything to overwrite them from MO's virtual Data folder.... hmm. I wouldn't want to create my own mod for my texture files because it makes swapping them in and out when I'm editing them far more difficult if you have to repackage and reinstall each time.

I'm going to try not to go overboard with the amount of things I install this time. I will keep Deadly Dragons, and Convenient Horses. I'm not sure whether to start using Wet&Cold or not, have you used it? I'll keep Get Snowy and the Footprints mod. A shit ton of texture mods, obv., and stuff like Race Menu, SkyUI, SKSE, SkyTweaks, there's something called SkySet that lets you force change the weather via the MCM menu (easier than memorising or looking up the console codes for weather), I'll reinstall that too. I wondered at one point whether to use SkyRe, because changing the gameplay sounds really interesting, but that adds in the complicated process of having to patch everything to make it compatible, and I'm not sure I want that. So Epona - is there anything you would recommend for a basic install, stuff you can't live without, that really helps everyday gameplay, that you consider essential, etc?


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## Corax (May 4, 2013)

I've got a few NMM mods installed (eg Sky UI, Better weapons/armour, a pretty sky one) but nowhere near as many as some of you seem to be juggling.  I honestly don't know where you find the time to actually _*play*_ the damn game!


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## Corax (May 4, 2013)

Quick Q for the mod experts though - I bought Bioshock Infinite a couple of weeks ago because I'd been salivating over the prospect since it was first announced.  Typically for me though, I've not yet played it once as I'm waiting for *just* the right moment to really enjoy it.    The icon is sitting on my desktop like an unopened box of chocolates.

Anyway - do people mod most PC games, or is it limited to a certain selection?  Was wondering if their are likely to be extra bit created for Infinite at some point.


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## Citizen66 (May 4, 2013)

I haven't used any mods yet but might give some of Epona 's suggestions a whirl.


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## Stigmata (May 4, 2013)

Corax said:


> Quick Q for the mod experts though - I bought Bioshock Infinite a couple of weeks ago because I'd been salivating over the prospect since it was first announced. Typically for me though, I've not yet played it once as I'm waiting for *just* the right moment to really enjoy it.  The icon is sitting on my desktop like an unopened box of chocolates.
> 
> Anyway - do people mod most PC games, or is it limited to a certain selection? Was wondering if their are likely to be extra bit created for Infinite at some point.


 
First person shooters like Bioshock don't produce large modding communities in quite the same way as some other genres. Some games are designed to be adaptable by players (the Elder Scrolls series, the SimCity games, most Paradox strategy games) and others aren't.


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## Epona (May 4, 2013)

I don't use mod managers so can't offer any advice there, I install everything manually (the exception being the few quest mods from Steam Workshop that I mentioned earlier) as I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to stuff like that. Then I use Boss and Wrye Bash to sort out load order, merges, and levelled lists.

My absolute bare essentials (other than textures and ENB) would be:
SKSE
SkyUI
Smart Souls (which is an SKSE plugin I think, stops souls from going into larger gems)
Better Quest Objectives (more descriptive than vanilla, for ease of playing without quest markers)
Frostfall and IMCN (I do like the survival type stuff so they are essentials for me)
Wearable Lanterns (alternative to torches, they clip to your belt leaving both hands free)
Run For Your Lives (unarmed citizens sensibly flee indoors during a dragon attack rather than trying to punch the dragon to death, guards and other capable npcs such as members of The Companions will stay and fight, there's also another mod that does the same for the DG vampire attacks)
Alternate Start - Live Another Life (great for roleplaying or if you don't want to do the Helgen intro yet again - my current character started as a farmer at her own farm just south of Dragon Bridge).

Edit: Not sure how, but I forgot to include Skyrim Community Uncapper - an SKSE plugin that allows your skills to go above 100 (up to the hard-coded level of 255, or configurable in the .ini file to anything in between, with the ability to adjust the speed of skill increases etc.)  Could be used to very cheatily achieve a ridiculously high level, but I find it very good for roleplay as it will let me continue to level naturally rather than get stuck at about level 35 without having to grind skills that aren't appropriate to my character.


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## Citizen66 (May 4, 2013)

It's so hard as a mage.


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## Epona (May 4, 2013)

Sorry, had to break off to watch Doctor Who.

Other mods which I like to use but don't consider essential include:

Ars Metallica (small scale smithing overhaul, allows you to melt down weapons/armour)
UFO (allows multiple followers and better follower/group control, includes follower horses which can be easily turned off in game if you prefer to use convenient horses for your followers)
Move It (followers move further away if you walk/sprint into them, essential if using multiple followers to prevent getting stuck behind them in narrow spaces! Can be merged into your Bashed Patch)
My Home is Your Home (tell your follower/s where you want them to live or set up one home as a home base for all of them - for that purpose I use Cerebral Den, a nice underground home with lots of storage and all the facilities you need handily and centrally situated right by Whiterun stables, but you can use any vanilla, DLC, or mod home, or an inn, or anywhere else you fancy).
Convenient Horses (if you like to ride, I am now getting used to it!)
Cloaks of Skyrim (some NPCs will wear cloaks, faction cloaks, guard cloaks, craftable cloaks, a lot of unique cloaks hand-placed at different locations/dungeons around Skyrim, also provide exposure bonus if using Frostfall)
Night Eye Overhaul (Toggleable permanent effect for Khajiit, plus potions and enchanted items for other characters)
UltraVision (similar to above but adds detect life/unlife enchanted items that you can craft at the Skyforge, you can also make the items and disenchant if you want to learn the effects to put on alternative gear)
Lanterns of Skyrim (adds more night-time light sources along roads and in settlements, fully configurable via the MCM page of SkyUI)
Ingredients of Tamriel (adds every alchemy ingredient that has ever been in a TES game via levelled lists for ingredient loot and vendors)
Willow's 101 Bugs (adds loads of different types of butterfly, moth, dragonfly, and a firefly to butterfly spawns, very pretty and atmospheric and lots of different alchemy effects)
Clams Drop Pearls (because they used to in Oblivion - so occasionally you will get a pearl or small pearl as well as clam meat)
Achieve That! (In game achievements that give small rewards, not essential by any stretch of the imagination, but if Steam achievements leave you cold then you might find this fun because they actually give you rewards in game. Requires SkyUI as it is viewable from the MCM page).

Weapons and Armour addons - I particularly like Immersive Armors, Immersive Weapons, Jaysus Swords, Basic Crossbow Collection (requires Dawnguard), The Chronicles of Steel (TCOSS).

I also use General Stores - it's more of a modders resource providing universal storage and autosorters, I made a mod myself to put sorters from it in cities and homes in my game. Unfortunately the mod seems to have been abandoned and there were a couple of small bugs in the latest version. I'm using a previous version that I beta tested very thoroughly prior to its release, so I can guarantee it works, and the mod I made for myself using it is based on that version. I hope someone takes over responsibility for it (with permission of the original author of course) and continues development as it's absolutely bloody awesome. It won't be me though, because as enthusiastic as I am about this particular resource, I have commitment issues when it comes to modding - as soon as I offer to do something I tend to lose interest


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## Epona (May 4, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I wondered at one point whether to use SkyRe, because changing the gameplay sounds really interesting, but that adds in the complicated process of having to patch everything to make it compatible, and I'm not sure I want that.


 
Same here, I had a look at it and got quite excited about all the perks, then thought realistically about it and decided the headache of trying to make everything else I like work with it was just too much hassle! I'd suggest if you're going to try it then you just try it alone on a new game and then decide whether it's worth pulling your hair out to try to make anything else you want to use play nicely!


----------



## Epona (May 4, 2013)

Stigmata said:


> First person shooters like Bioshock don't produce large modding communities in quite the same way as some other genres. Some games are designed to be adaptable by players (the Elder Scrolls series, the SimCity games, most Paradox strategy games) and others aren't.


 
Indeed, there's a world of difference between providing a map editor so that people can design their own maps/levels for a shooter and share them; and providing a full editor, tutorials on the scripting language, and releasing source code to the community. BGS have always been superb at supporting and encouraging modding even to a point where it can make their original game virtually unrecognisable, such as massive gameplay and mechanics overhauls, or total conversion mods. CIV is another series that is traditionally good for supporting extensive modding with source code being released, and thus has a very healthy and active modding community.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 4, 2013)

Epona said:


> I don't use mod managers so can't offer any advice there, I install everything manually (the exception being the few quest mods from Steam Workshop that I mentioned earlier) as I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to stuff like that. Then I use Boss and Wrye Bash to sort out load order, merges, and levelled lists.
> 
> My absolute bare essentials (other than textures and ENB) would be:
> SKSE
> ...


 
I keep forgetting about that Smart Souls mod, thanks for the reminder. All of those sound good (already use SKSE and SkyUI). The Uncapper is one I've had my eye on for a while. I mentioned SkyTweaks earlier - it lets you alter the rate of skill progression too, but it inherits whatever you have set through other mods already, so in theory it doesn't conflict with a single thing. I'm really enjoying it so far, lots of possibilities.


----------



## Epona (May 4, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> It's so hard as a mage.


 
I rarely play as a mage, but those who do so tend to recommend Midas Magic for a greater variety of spells.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 4, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> It's so hard as a mage.


 
It is. I've been playing as a part-mage part-stabbity type, and I die a lot quicker if I rely on my magic. The SkyTweaks thing I mentioned up there lets you alter all sorts of things to do with spells, though, like rate of magicka use/renewal, how strong your magic grows as you progress through levels, etc. I've just changed it so I can conjure more than one familiar/atronach at a time, which is awesome. I love having 5 flame atronachs trailing along behind me as we explore the misty marshes east of Solitude


----------



## Citizen66 (May 4, 2013)

Epona said:
			
		

> I rarely play as a mage, but those who do so tend to recommend Midas Magic for a greater variety of spells.



You're like an Elder Scrolls oracle!


----------



## Epona (May 6, 2013)

Oh apparently also there are some other mods out there (besides the Pit Fighter one I mentioned earlier) that restore and finish cut/partially done content that never made it into the final game - such as a series of radiant quests to find parts of the poetic edda for the Bard's College in Solitude, greatly expanding that questline.

I haven't been successful in locating that particular one, so if anyone comes across it in their searches please let me know!


----------



## Citizen66 (May 6, 2013)

I was doing the quest Revealing the Unseen And couldn't get past two Falmer using a destruction spell and a Flame Atronach. So I left the quest (good excuse to sell/store stuff I was already carrying anyway) and picked up a follower from the college. Returned to Mzulft, explored a small bit I'd missed first time around where there were two Dwarven Spiders and my 'follower' (forget his name now) died in that _very first fight!_ 

Back to square one then. So I was left with no choice than to reduce the difficulty from medium to baby just to finish the quest, which I then managed.

Returned to the college only to discover I'd been suspended. Turns out it was *ME *who killed the follower.  

Doh.


----------



## Corax (May 7, 2013)

Epona said:


> Smart Souls (which is an SKSE plugin I think, stops souls from going into larger gems)


How do you install this one?  I found it on Nexus, but it's only as a manual download rather than NMM and it just says to "pop it in"...?

Ps - I don't suppose you're posting on NHSManager.net forum are you?  Saw a few posts with your U75 username, and just wondered as it's quite unusual.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 8, 2013)

How annoying. Carrying about twice my maximum following a quest, couldn't find the short cut out so had to slowly waddle all the way back through the dungeon. Then walked to the closest town - Morthal - only to discover there isn't a stable there. So waddled to the next closest one - Solitude - paid the carriage and when I get on he keeps saying "Can't wait here forever" and goes nowhere! 

I think the game is trying to tell me something. Greed doesn't pay.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 8, 2013)

Bought a horse. Problem solved.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 8, 2013)

You could have sold some of that stuff in Solitude, you know. Surely you don't need 56 glazed nordic bowls and 65 cabbages to decorate your home?


----------



## 8ball (May 8, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> You could have sold some of that stuff in Solitude, you know. Surely you don't need 56 glazed nordic bowls and 65 cabbages to decorate your home?


 
Too much loot in that game - only solution is to ignore most of it imo.

Though I imagine you have a mod for it.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 8, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:
			
		

> You could have sold some of that stuff in Solitude, you know. Surely you don't need 56 glazed nordic bowls and 65 cabbages to decorate your home?



There was nowhere in Morthal to sell stuff. I reached the stable first so I had to decide between fast travelling to Whiterun where you pretty much end up at the blacksmith or waddling up to then around Solitude searching for if I could sell the stuff there. Or not. Bit of a no brainer really.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 8, 2013)

I wouldn't mind those two hours of my life back though.


----------



## Epona (May 9, 2013)

Corax said:


> How do you install this one? I found it on Nexus, but it's only as a manual download rather than NMM and it just says to "pop it in"...?


 
You HAVE to install SKSE and SKSE plugins manually as not all of it goes in the Data folders so NMM and other mod managers will screw it up. Do you already have SKSE installed? If not you have to do that first, here are some details in case you aren't already using it - get it here (anywhere else you find it uploaded is probably without the permission of the authors and may not be up to date) and install that manually - check the readme instructions as some of the files go into your Skyrim folder and some in the Skyrim/Data folder. From that point on you have to launch the game using the SKSE Launcher which is one of the files you placed in the Skyrim folder, you can create a shortcut and put the shortcut on your desktop for ease of access.

Now once you have SKSE installed, you should have a Skyrim/Data/SKSE folder. You put the smart souls file in Skyrim/Data/SKSE/Plugins (you might need to make a new subfolder in SKSE and name it Plugins if there isn't one already). Then when you run the game using the SKSE launcher smart souls will run automatically, it's not a data file so you don't need to make sure it's checked as an active mod or anything like that.



Corax said:


> Ps - I don't suppose you're posting on NHSManager.net forum are you? Saw a few posts with your U75 username, and just wondered as it's quite unusual.


 
Nope, I'm not connected with the NHS at all (other than using its services, obviously) - the name's not that unpopular, I rarely get to use that name elsewhere so if you see an Epona on another forum it's probably not me unless it's a really small forum. I often find myself using Epona222 instead.


----------



## Stigmata (May 9, 2013)

Whenever I read SKSE my mind makes it sound like 'sexy'


----------



## Corax (May 9, 2013)

Epona said:


> You HAVE to install SKSE and SKSE plugins manually as not all of it goes in the Data folders so NMM and other mod managers will screw it up. Do you already have SKSE installed? If not you have to do that first, here are some details in case you aren't already using it - get it here (anywhere else you find it uploaded is probably without the permission of the authors and may not be up to date) and install that manually - check the readme instructions as some of the files go into your Skyrim folder and some in the Skyrim/Data folder. From that point on you have to launch the game using the SKSE Launcher which is one of the files you placed in the Skyrim folder, you can create a shortcut and put the shortcut on your desktop for ease of access.
> 
> Now once you have SKSE installed, you should have a Skyrim/Data/SKSE folder. You put the smart souls file in Skyrim/Data/SKSE/Plugins (you might need to make a new subfolder in SKSE and name it Plugins if there isn't one already). Then when you run the game using the SKSE launcher smart souls will run automatically, it's not a data file so you don't need to make sure it's checked as an active mod or anything like that.
> 
> ...


Cheers - I've got SKSE as I think SkyUI needs it?  I don't remember installing that manually though!


----------



## The Boy (May 9, 2013)

Amazing the difference that levelling up makes, not to mention having decent kit.  My last character, I got stuck trying to kill that Captain Hrogar character for fucking hours and in the end I only managed because of a bug that saw him get stuck in the water.  Last night, by contrast, my lvl 38 sneakity-archery-elf-chick with Nightingale Bow and Ebony Arrows just picked him off before he got anywhere near.  Piece of piss.


----------



## fogbat (May 9, 2013)

I love it when I notice there's a whole area I've not visited. 
Only realised last night that I'd never been to Dawnstar.


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

fogbat said:


> I love it when I notice there's a whole area I've not visited.
> Only realised last night that I'd never been to Dawnstar.


 
If you've not been to Dawnstar til last night there's a *lot* left to see.


----------



## fogbat (May 9, 2013)

8ball said:


> If you've not been to Dawnstar til last night there's a *lot* left to see.


I'm only level 34 with my first character. I imagine there's fuckloads left to see


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

fogbat said:


> I'm only level 34 with my first character. I imagine there's fuckloads left to see


 
I'm only on PS3 so don't even have access to the mods unless I seriously get my hacker hat on (which I can't be much arsed with these days), but it has to be the best value game for years.


----------



## fogbat (May 9, 2013)

8ball said:


> I'm only on PS3 so don't even have access to the mods unless I seriously get my hacker hat on (which I can't be much arsed with these days), but it has to be the best value game for years.


Definitely! I'm on XBox 360, but would love to get a decent computer to install it on and get access to mods.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 9, 2013)

I'm now the arch mage. It's usually when I reach the end of a line of quests that I get bored and stop playing. As happened when I played as a thief and a warrior. So what do I do next to keep my interest?


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> I'm now the arch mage. It's usually when I reach the end of a line of quests that I get bored and stop playing. As happened when I played as a thief and a warrior. So what do I do next to keep my interest?


 
I'm on my second character - first go on the normal difficulty level and things felt a bit unchallenging so I'm playing a new character on 'Master' and he's becoming a real badass.  Have you done the Companions quests or Dark Brotherhood yet?


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

fogbat said:


> Definitely! I'm on XBox 360, but would love to get a decent computer to install it on and get access to mods.


 
You can mod on the 360 if you want, as with the PS3, just not as easy as with the PC and the range of mods isn't the same.


----------



## treelover (May 9, 2013)

Gamers Gate are also doing Skyrim at 7.12 with coupon, is it worth waiting for complete ed, will DLC come down in price? it takes me ages to finish even base games.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 9, 2013)

8ball said:
			
		

> I'm on my second character - first go on the normal difficulty level and things felt a bit unchallenging so I'm playing a new character on 'Master' and he's becoming a real badass.  Have you done the Companions quests or Dark Brotherhood yet?



Oh that's a point. I accidentally killed a comrade so the brotherhood should come to me when I sleep. Good suggestion.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> I'm now the arch mage. It's usually when I reach the end of a line of quests that I get bored and stop playing. As happened when I played as a thief and a warrior. So what do I do next to keep my interest?


 
Main quest? It's pretty good. Dawnguard? Dragonborn? I'm still to play the latter myself.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 9, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Main quest? It's pretty good. Dawnguard? Dragonborn? I'm still to play the latter myself.


 
I'm only level 10! Nowhere near needing DLC. I just was wondering what else there is to do besides main quest or the warrior/thief/mage ones.


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Oh that's a point. I accidentally killed a comrade so the brotherhood should come to me when I sleep. Good suggestion.


 
They turned up after I nicked one of their contracts in Windhelm.


----------



## ohmyliver (May 9, 2013)

8ball said:


> They turned up after I nicked one of their contracts in Windhelm.


that's the only way to get them to turn up, lets face it if they had to turn up after every friendly fire fatality in Skyrim they'd have all died from exhaustion years ago.


----------



## ohmyliver (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> I'm only level 10! Nowhere near needing DLC. I just was wondering what else there is to do besides main quest or the warrior/thief/mage ones.


Daedric item quests, place specific quests, bards' quests, etc etc etc


----------



## Citizen66 (May 9, 2013)

ohmyliver said:


> that's the only way to get them to turn up, lets face it if they had to turn up after every friendly fire fatality in Skyrim they'd have all died from exhaustion years ago.


 
Oh right. That's how it worked in oblivion iirc. You kill someone then when you next sleep they pay you a visit.


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

ohmyliver said:


> that's the only way to get them to turn up, lets face it if they had to turn up after every friendly fire fatality in Skyrim they'd have all died from exhaustion years ago.


 
Fair enough - that's what happened with me.  I've heard of the 'friendly fire' fatalities, though - an overlap between potential followers and contracts would explain it, but the oracle* would know.

* - by which I mean Vintage Paw


----------



## Epona (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Oh that's a point. I accidentally killed a comrade so the brotherhood should come to me when I sleep. Good suggestion.


 
Yeah what 8ball said, it doesn't work the same as in Oblivion, where they would turn up after you murdered any NPC, in Skyrim:



Spoiler



You have to investigate rumours about Aventus Arretino in Windhelm performing the black sacrament, and complete his quest, before the Dark Brotherhood will come to you


 
I haven't got very far in the Dark Brotherhood yet, I keep meaning to give it a go but end up getting sidetracked.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> I'm only level 10! Nowhere near needing DLC. I just was wondering what else there is to do besides main quest or the warrior/thief/mage ones.


 
You're arch mage at level 10?

Jesus fuck, man. Go and explore some shit!


----------



## Epona (May 9, 2013)

Corax said:


> Cheers - I've got SKSE as I think SkyUI needs it? I don't remember installing that manually though!


 
If SkyUI is working without giving warnings about not being fully functional, then you must have SKSE installed!  In which case installing smart souls just involves putting the smartsouls.dll file that you downloaded into Skyrim/Data/SKSE/Plugins and that's it, you're good to go.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 9, 2013)

Epona said:


> Yeah what 8ball said, it doesn't work the same as in Oblivion, where they would turn up after you murdered any NPC, in Skyrim:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Before I started my new character, I'd just got the note for this with my redguard, then put her aside to play my breton for a while. I just went back to my redguard, totally forgot I'd done this, went to sleep in Honeyside and nearly fucking shat myself when it all started happening XD I've done it before, but I'd just forgotten and wasn't expecting it this time.


----------



## Epona (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> I'm only level 10! Nowhere near needing DLC. I just was wondering what else there is to do besides main quest or the warrior/thief/mage ones.


 
You're spoilt for choice, there's almost too much to do in this game.  Asking for bounties from innkeepers and Jarl's stewards is a good way to get sent to various different dungeons and at the same time win favour with Jarls and earn some septims (if you are somehow still short of cash!)  Also if you intend playing Dawnguard it kicks in from level 9 upwards and gives you access to some good loot (and crossbows), you don't need to be a high level or anything.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 9, 2013)

Isn't there some stormcloak thing you can get involved with too?


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Isn't there some stormcloak thing you can get involved with too?


 
Yep, you can pitch in on the civil war on either side.


----------



## Epona (May 9, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Isn't there some stormcloak thing you can get involved with too?


 
Yep there's the whole Civil War questline - if you see groups of stormcloak or imperial soldiers on the roads, ask them how to join their faction and you'll be given an objective for each faction - it's up to you which side you choose.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 9, 2013)

I'm a bit confused how someone can make it to the end of a guild storyline and only be level 10, considering how fast you level up at the beginning. For pete's sake, you seem to gain a level every time you encounter a wolf at that stage.


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I'm a bit confused how someone can make it to the end of a guild storyline and only be level 10, considering how fast you level up at the beginning. For pete's sake, you seem to gain a level every time you encounter a wolf at that stage.


 
If you've played very linear games in the past and you've been going straight from place to place and playing it like you might play _Crysis_ or something then I can see how that would happen.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 9, 2013)

I mean, my redguard is level 41 and she's almost coming towards the end of the thieves guild story, and hasn't done much else besides that, apart from picking up a few incidental things that have cropped up along the way.


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 9, 2013)

8ball said:


> If you've played very linear games in the past and you've been going straight from place to place and playing it like you might play _Crysis_ or something then I can see how that would happen.


 
Yeah, but stuff attacks you. When you walk from A to B. And you kill it. And you gain skill points. Which lead to gaining levels. Even if you don't dip into a random dungeon along the way, you're going to have to kill some things. And during the college quest line, things... to kill... which causes levelling up.

I'm so confused.


----------



## 8ball (May 9, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Yeah, but stuff attacks you. When you walk from A to B. And you kill it. And you gain skill points. Which lead to gaining levels. Even if you don't dip into a random dungeon along the way, you're going to have to kill some things. And during the college quest line, things... to kill... which causes levelling up.
> 
> I'm so confused.


 
If you fast travel and use coaches between cities I'm sure it's still easily done.

edit:  that could be your challenge for your next character  - you could play a Thalmor cursed with a pathological lack of curiosity


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I mean, my redguard is level 41 and she's almost coming towards the end of the thieves guild story, and hasn't done much else besides that, apart from picking up a few incidental things that have cropped up along the way.


 
Yeah I usually experience a similar sort of thing. My current character is level 59 (and now gaining levels/skill levels extremely slowly, due to use of the uncapper and only using a few skills) and despite being quite keen on questing has only completed The Companions, the Dawnguard MQ, and the Dragonborn MQ. I tend to accept lots of quests then do/turn in whatever I can when I happen to be in the right vicinity - and wander about the map doing them, as well as picking up any other quests that come along on the way. So I'll never get through a questline quickly as if I am sent from Solstheim to The Reach on a quest (thanks Neloth, you lazy bastard!), it could take me a good couple of weeks in-game time to actually make it there (and 20 or so other quests or dungeons, shopping and using inns in towns or camping along the way, picking up and turning in other unrelated quests etc.)  I was over level 30 before I'd visited all the hold capitals.

To me, it feels more like a coherent and living world that way, rather than being given quest A - going straight to the location - returning to questgiver, then getting the next quest, and repeat until I've completed the story.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 10, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:
			
		

> I'm a bit confused how someone can make it to the end of a guild storyline and only be level 10, considering how fast you level up at the beginning. For pete's sake, you seem to gain a level every time you encounter a wolf at that stage.



Give it a whirl then. There's only about 3 or 4 - albeit quite big - quests involved in it. Actually I got it a bit wrong. I'm level 11 (close to 12).


----------



## Citizen66 (May 10, 2013)

Epona said:
			
		

> To me, it feels more like a coherent and living world that way, rather than being given quest A - going straight to the location - returning to questgiver, then getting the next quest, and repeat until I've completed the story.



But now I have the arch mage's robes. Why wait to get your hands on the decent goodies?


----------



## Citizen66 (May 10, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:
			
		

> Yeah, but stuff attacks you. When you walk from A to B. And you kill it. And you gain skill points. Which lead to gaining levels. Even if you don't dip into a random dungeon along the way, you're going to have to kill some things. And during the college quest line, things... to kill... which causes levelling up.
> 
> I'm so confused.



I haven't avoided stuff. Ive fought whatever creatures I've chanced upon and done a fair bit of alchemy. The mage quest line just isn't that big. *shrug*


----------



## Vintage Paw (May 10, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> I haven't avoided stuff. Ive fought whatever creatures I've chanced upon and done a fair bit of alchemy. The mage quest line just isn't that big. *shrug*


 
Fair enough, I've not done that one, I admit. Did you not go to Whiterun at the beginning then? And fight the first dragon?

The beginning of each of my games seems to go the same way: escape Helgen, go to the Talos statue and grab the Thalmor armour to sell, go to Riverwood, go to Bleak Falls Barrow, back to Riverwood, go to Whiterun, kill the dragon at the Western Watch Tower, then the game begins.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 10, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:
			
		

> Fair enough, I've not done that one, I admit. Did you not go to Whiterun at the beginning then? And fight the first dragon?
> 
> The beginning of each of my games seems to go the same way: escape Helgen, go to the Talos statue and grab the Thalmor armour to sell, go to Riverwood, go to Bleak Falls Barrow, back to Riverwood, go to Whiterun, kill the dragon at the Western Watch Tower, then the game begins.



Nope, haven't done any of the main quest in any of my play throughs. 

Actually, I played the first quest in it once I think.


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> But now I have the arch mage's robes. Why wait to get your hands on the decent goodies?


 
Fair enough - but mate, no wonder you were finding the combat tough - enemies in Labyrinthian spawn at a minimum of level 24!  That must have been a bugger to get through if you were that much lower level, so you well and truly deserve whatever goodies you got


----------



## Citizen66 (May 10, 2013)

Epona said:
			
		

> Fair enough - but mate, no wonder you were finding the combat tough - enemies in Labyrinthian spawn at a minimum of level 24!  That must have been a bugger to get through if you were that much lower level, so you well and truly deserve whatever goodies you got



Oh really?  

No wonder it was difficult! (although I did have to switch to the easiest level...)


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Oh really?
> 
> No wonder it was difficult! (although I did have to switch to the easiest level...)


 
 You got away with it with the College questline, but I wouldn't rush through the others for the simple reason that although they won't be quite _that_ difficult, the quest rewards are levelled so you'll get the worst version at early levels. Unusually, most of the College quest rewards aren't levelled, so you got the only version of those robes, rather than something that will be outranked by normal dungeon/enemy loot by level 20.


----------



## treelover (May 10, 2013)

just found out it has masses of spiders in it, even with the 'spiders begone!' mod, not sure now...


----------



## Citizen66 (May 10, 2013)

Epona said:
			
		

> You got away with it with the College questline, but I wouldn't rush through the others for the simple reason that although they won't be quite that difficult, the quest rewards are levelled so you'll get the worst version at early levels. Unusually, most of the College quest rewards aren't levelled, so you got the only version of those robes, rather than something that will be outranked by normal dungeon/enemy loot by level 20.



Makes sense. Apart from what are we supposed to be doing in the mean time? 

Actually I think that's probably where I'm going wrong. I reach too quickly for stuff then the alternatives remaining are a bit of an anti climax so I get bored. 

I want to build up my alchemy skill. I know ingredients are found everywhere, but are there any locations that are better to forage than others? I like foraging. That's when I get to enjoy the environment and atmosphere the most in the game.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 10, 2013)

treelover said:
			
		

> just found out it has masses of spiders in it, even with the 'spiders begone!' mod, not sure now...



There's mechanical spiders in the mage quest line. Not as scary as the real thing, surely...?


----------



## treelover (May 10, 2013)

According to Skyrim Wiki there are lots of different 'real ones' same in War in the North, wish developers would get wise.


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Makes sense. Apart from what are we supposed to be doing in the mean time?
> 
> Actually I think that's probably where I'm going wrong. I reach too quickly for stuff then the alternatives remaining are a bit of an anti climax so I get bored.
> 
> I want to build up my alchemy skill. I know ingredients are found everywhere, but are there any locations that are better to forage than others? I like foraging. That's when I get to enjoy the environment and atmosphere the most in the game.


 
If you've spent a lot of time in Winterhold, have you not asked the innkeeper at The Frozen Hearth for work, or asked the Jarl if he has any tasks for you? (The innkeeper will give you a bounty that needs collecting - these are radiant quests that are repeatable in different locations, the Jarl will give you a quest to find an item). Also other people at the college will give you quests (the enchanter will ask you to pick up an item from a random NPC client for enchanting for example, the orc librarian has 2 types of repeatable - in random locations - quests that you can do for him, and each of your fellow students has a quest, some of the mages also have quests). If you're in Winterhold at the moment then that would be a good starting point - pick up as many of those quests as people are willing to give you, then pick one and head out to do it. That's a really good way to be sent to lots of different dungeons.

Alchemy ingredients are absolutely everywhere, and the best way to build up a large collection is to decide which quest you have been given you would like to do first, then WALK (or run) to the quest location and pick plants along the roads - just walking to your next quest and picking everything should net you enough ingredients to have a good alchemy session when you get back. If you're concentrating on alchemy then a good perk to take is the one that lets you discover more than one effect when you eat an ingredient, that leaves less to trial and error. Alchemists do well to walk and pick flowers, you'll miss out on a massive amount of free ingredients if you fast travel or get a carriage.


----------



## 8ball (May 10, 2013)

treelover said:


> According to Skyrim Wiki there are lots of different 'real ones' same in War in the North, wish developers would get wise.


 
There aren't so many spiders really.  The game is still going to be a bit of a bugger if you're phobic, though.


----------



## Citizen66 (May 11, 2013)

Epona said:
			
		

> If you've spent a lot of time in Winterhold, have you not asked the innkeeper at The Frozen Hearth for work, or asked the Jarl if he has any tasks for you? (The innkeeper will give you a bounty that needs collecting - these are radiant quests that are repeatable in different locations, the Jarl will give you a quest to find an item). Also other people at the college will give you quests (the enchanter will ask you to pick up an item from a random NPC client for enchanting for example, the orc librarian has 2 types of repeatable - in random locations - quests that you can do for him, and each of your fellow students has a quest, some of the mages also have quests). If you're in Winterhold at the moment then that would be a good starting point - pick up as many of those quests as people are willing to give you, then pick one and head out to do it. That's a really good way to be sent to lots of different dungeons.
> 
> Alchemy ingredients are absolutely everywhere, and the best way to build up a large collection is to decide which quest you have been given you would like to do first, then WALK (or run) to the quest location and pick plants along the roads - just walking to your next quest and picking everything should net you enough ingredients to have a good alchemy session when you get back. If you're concentrating on alchemy then a good perk to take is the one that lets you discover more than one effect when you eat an ingredient, that leaves less to trial and error. Alchemists do well to walk and pick flowers, you'll miss out on a massive amount of free ingredients if you fast travel or get a carriage.



Cheers will follow your advice. 

Although Minecraft seems to be coming into view again...


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## QueenOfGoths (May 11, 2013)

Epona said:


> Yeah I usually experience a similar sort of thing. My current character is level 59 (and now gaining levels/skill levels extremely slowly, due to use of the uncapper and only using a few skills) and despite being quite keen on questing has only completed The Companions, the Dawnguard MQ, and the Dragonborn MQ. I tend to accept lots of quests then do/turn in whatever I can when I happen to be in the right vicinity - and wander about the map doing them, as well as picking up any other quests that come along on the way. So I'll never get through a questline quickly as if I am sent from Solstheim to The Reach on a quest (thanks Neloth, you lazy bastard!), it could take me a good couple of weeks in-game time to actually make it there (and 20 or so other quests or dungeons, shopping and using inns in towns or camping along the way, picking up and turning in other unrelated quests etc.) I was over level 30 before I'd visited all the hold capitals.
> 
> To me, it feels more like a coherent and living world that way, rather than being given quest A - going straight to the location - returning to questgiver, then getting the next quest, and repeat until I've completed the story.


I have just got to Level 29 and I haven't visited all the hold capitals yet, I gather quests as I go along and then tend to intersperse miscellaneous ones with 'essential' ones.

I also tend to wander around as well, something I did a lot in "Fallout 3", popping into any caves or keeps or whatever as and when I discover them. I also pop back to the Arch Mage quarters or Breezholme every so often to dump stuff I've found and, in the AM quarters, enchant some items or make some potions. My enchanting skills are pretty good, alchemy not bad but I have so many potions now that I haven't been doing as much recently.

I _may_ get married, having got the Amulet of Mara, but I gather if I marry Onmund - who is interested - I will lose him as a follower which I am not sure I want to do.


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## Citizen66 (May 11, 2013)

Sell the potions! Use the money to buy ingredients to make more! Making your skill better.


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## Vintage Paw (May 11, 2013)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I have just got to Level 29 and I haven't visited all the hold capitals yet, I gather quests as I go along and then tend to intersperse miscellaneous ones with 'essential' ones.
> 
> I also tend to wander around as well, something I did a lot in "Fallout 3", popping into any caves or keeps or whatever as and when I discover them. I also pop back to the Arch Mage quarters or Breezholme every so often to dump stuff I've found and, in the AM quarters, enchant some items or make some potions. My enchanting skills are pretty good, alchemy not bad but I have so many potions now that I haven't been doing as much recently.
> 
> I _may_ get married, having got the Amulet of Mara, but I gather if I marry Onmund - who is interested - I will lose him as a follower which I am not sure I want to do.


 
I believe you can still take your spouse with you, but they get really, really boring once you've married them. If you leave them at home, basically whenever you go home they stare listlessly at you, and your interaction stretches to either asking them to cook you some food or taking their money that they made selling stuff from some invisible shop they have set up... somewhere. Personally, having experienced a Skyrim wedding to Aela, I'll stick to headcanoning that they are at it like rabbits by the fire in random empty dungeons, rolling around in piles of hay, rather than worrying about having one of them stupid ceremonies.


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## Epona (May 11, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I believe you can still take your spouse with you, but they get really, really boring once you've married them. If you leave them at home, basically whenever you go home they stare listlessly at you, and your interaction stretches to either asking them to cook you some food or taking their money that they made selling stuff from some invisible shop they have set up... somewhere. Personally, having experienced a Skyrim wedding to Aela, I'll stick to headcanoning that they are at it like rabbits by the fire in random empty dungeons, rolling around in piles of hay, rather than worrying about having one of them stupid ceremonies.


 
The ceremony - the funniest bit is the way your new spouse can't even be bothered to stick around until the priest finishes talking - they bugger off out the door with not even a word to you like they've just realised it's all been a big mistake!


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## Epona (May 11, 2013)

Hehe - In one game my character actually chased Vilkas through Riften after our wedding, just so that I didn't have to go back to Jorrvaskr (where he was heading with some determination) to tell him to live in my house.


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## ffsear (May 13, 2013)

Just completed the main story line!  Was very impressed with the final battle.   Thieves guild next!


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## Cid (May 13, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> I believe you can still take your spouse with you, but they get really, really boring once you've married them. If you leave them at home, basically whenever you go home they stare listlessly at you, and your interaction stretches to either asking them to cook you some food or taking their money that they made selling stuff from some invisible shop they have set up... somewhere. Personally, having experienced a Skyrim wedding to Aela, I'll stick to headcanoning that they are at it like rabbits by the fire in random empty dungeons, rolling around in piles of hay, rather than worrying about having one of them stupid ceremonies.


 
It is useful having the additional xp bonus (from sleeping with spouse in beds in dungeons etc), but yeah - really poorly realised aspect of the game.


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## QueenOfGoths (May 19, 2013)

I have married Vilkas but am retaining Onmund as my follower.

I quite like the fact Vilkas calls me "my love" and "my dear" and always says how happy he is to see me when I get home. As well as cooking my tea


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## Cid (May 19, 2013)

It's useful to take follower-spouses to inns near a quest (or a campsite will do) so you can get the lovers XP bonus.


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## Epona (May 21, 2013)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I have married Vilkas but am retaining Onmund as my follower.
> 
> I quite like the fact Vilkas calls me "my love" and "my dear" and always says how happy he is to see me when I get home. As well as cooking my tea


 
When I've wanted to marry a male character, it's usually been Vilkas because it strikes me that he potentially could be quite a deep and interesting bloke (Farkas frequently comments about how intelligent his brother is). And then it's just 'give me a meal', 'give me the money from your invisible shop', and 'yes dear' in response. So last time I had a character who wanted to marry a bloke I married Farkas instead because it makes fuckall difference since they are all exactly the same once you marry them! Only did it that way because Farkas cannot be a Steward and so Vilkas was my steward, we all lived together at Heljarchen Hall - make of that what you will, I didn't smith all those locks for nothing. 

So few of the blokes have any personality whatsoever, most of the time I'd rather marry Aela or Mjoll - and of course I sometimes choose to marry them (but then they become bland if you marry them, and if you marry Mjoll you have regular visits from her stalker, who isn't in any way threatening but he seriously needs to get a life). Celann (Dawnguard) is one of the few blokes that looks as though he bathes regularly and isn't a borderline alcoholic, but he's not available for marriage.


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## Epona (May 21, 2013)

OK Here's a story - last time I married Mjoll, I met poor Aerin coming along the road around the vicinity of Deepwater Crossing to visit her - he was done in by wolves before I could intervene. Now I feel really fucking sorry for poor Aerin, the guy is a bit hopeless, I just married the love of his life. The poor sod STILL hasn't given up, he'd follow her to fight 20 Dwemer centurions even though he has no armour and is only armed with a dagger and the regular walk to wherever we have set up home is nothing to him. So I used the console to resurrect him then escorted him all the fucking way to to Whiterun to visit Mjoll - I respect that they have a long friendship and even though I married her, I still want them to be friends, and I was mortified that he died making a massive trip to visit. Neither of the sods seemed the least bit grateful. Despite that, I now feel bad if I ever take her outside of Riften... wish there was a quest to match up Aerin with someone who would appreciate him, because it's so pathetic and I feel so sad for him


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## maomao (May 22, 2013)

After nearly a month of not playing about 10 days ago I got the Dragonborn and Dawnguard add-ons and started a new character, a female Breton thief. I decided to do some normal content before I headed out for any of the new locations but I was approaching level 37 when I was capturing the dragon to take me to wherever the fuck Alduin lives and was starting to worry about being too powerful again. So I left him there, on the porch of Dragonsreach with the big thing on his neck and fucked off to Solstheim. I hope he's ok. I might not be back for a few months. Just got fed up of those cultists telling me I'm not the proper Dragonborn so I thought I'd better sort out this Miraak cunt first.


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## Stigmata (May 26, 2013)

ffs when are they announcing the next game

If it's not set in the Aldmeri Dominion I want my money back


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## Corax (May 30, 2013)

Epona said:


> If SkyUI is working without giving warnings about not being fully functional, then you must have SKSE installed! In which case installing smart souls just involves putting the smartsouls.dll file that you downloaded into Skyrim/Data/SKSE/Plugins and that's it, you're good to go.


 
Help!

I've done *almost *exactly that.  The dll is in Skyrim/SKSE/Plugins - there wasn't a Data file in SKSE.

It's certainly not working, because I've got grand gems etc filled with petty souls.   

Any ideas?


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## Vintage Paw (May 30, 2013)

Corax said:


> Help!
> 
> I've done *almost *exactly that. The dll is in Skyrim/SKSE/Plugins - there wasn't a Data file in SKSE.
> 
> ...


 
The folder structure should be Skyrim/Data/SKSE/Plugins - looks like your SKSE folder is 1 level too high in the folder hierarchy. Create an SKSE folder inside your Data folder, a Plugins folder inside that, and drop the .dll in there.

(SKSE doesn't generally come with these ready-made folders - you have to create them.)


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## Corax (May 30, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Create an SKSE folder inside your Data folder, a Plugins folder inside that, and drop the .dll in there.


 
There _*isn't*_ a data folder - is that odd...?

The Skyrim folder just has two inside it - SKSE and Saves.

Do I just create a Data folder (and then SKSE, then plugins), or am I looking in the wrong place or something?

Thanks btw.


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## Vintage Paw (May 31, 2013)

Oh, okay. If you haven't modded anything at all yet, then yeah, you won't have a Data folder. That's my mistake, sorry - I'm so unused to seeing a non-modded game.

Right, so create the necessary folder structure where you need to. So, it goes Steam/Steamapps/Common/Skyrim/Data/SKSE/Plugins and then put the .dll in there.


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## Corax (May 31, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Oh, okay. If you haven't modded anything at all yet, then yeah, you won't have a Data folder. That's my mistake, sorry - I'm so unused to seeing a non-modded game.
> 
> Right, so create the necessary folder structure where you need to. So, it goes Steam/Steamapps/Common/Skyrim/Data/SKSE/Plugins and then put the .dll in there.


 
I've got a fair few mods installed - all through NMM though.  Does that use a different structure?


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## Vintage Paw (May 31, 2013)

Nope. All .esp files (plugins) go in your data folder - they have to go there, they can go nowhere else, whether you install them manually or through NMM. If you have anything that adds/changes textures, sounds, meshes, whatever, it all goes in there too (for example, if you have a mod that retextures a piece of armour, it'll go in the data/textures/armor/*armorname* folder). Practically anything that is to do with a mod will be in your data folder (apart from SKSE (the main stuff, not the plugins for it), any enbs you might run, and some game utilities).

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that if you are running mods you do not have a data folder under your main Skyrim folder.

A good thing to do as an exercise would be to manually download a few mods, un-zip them, and look at their folder structure. This will help you get acquainted with where different files are located. Even if you're using NMM all the time, it's good practice to at least have a working knowledge of what is happening when you are modding your game, because it makes troubleshooting that much easier. Mods have flaws, and the more mods you have the more potential there is for something to go wrong. So being able to drill into your folders and see what might be the problem is an essential skill. You should never really just rely on something like NMM doing it for you, because all the modders are working independently, they all have their own standards, they all have their own ways of working, and no two are going to necessarily do things in the same way, so conflicts arise.


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## Corax (May 31, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Nope. All .esp files (plugins) go in your data folder - they have to go there, they can go nowhere else, whether you install them manually or through NMM. If you have anything that adds/changes textures, sounds, meshes, whatever, it all goes in there too (for example, if you have a mod that retextures a piece of armour, it'll go in the data/textures/armor/*armorname* folder). Practically anything that is to do with a mod will be in your data folder (apart from SKSE (the main stuff, not the plugins for it), any enbs you might run, and some game utilities).
> 
> It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that if you are running mods you do not have a data folder under your main Skyrim folder.
> 
> A good thing to do as an exercise would be to manually download a few mods, un-zip them, and look at their folder structure. This will help you get acquainted with where different files are located. Even if you're using NMM all the time, it's good practice to at least have a working knowledge of what is happening when you are modding your game, because it makes troubleshooting that much easier. Mods have flaws, and the more mods you have the more potential there is for something to go wrong. So being able to drill into your folders and see what might be the problem is an essential skill. You should never really just rely on something like NMM doing it for you, because all the modders are working independently, they all have their own standards, they all have their own ways of working, and no two are going to necessarily do things in the same way, so conflicts arise.


 
Thanks.

I've stuck it in the location you set out, so hopefully it'll work.

All the NMM mods are in the data folder there too.  But when Epona said "Skyrim/SKSE/Plugins" I'd gone to a different location (in 'C:\games' I think), rather than under the Steam bit.  Is that from a previous install or something, or is this just my utter lack of file-structure knowledge showing...?


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## Epona (May 31, 2013)

Corax said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I've stuck it in the location you set out, so hopefully it'll work.
> 
> All the NMM mods are in the data folder there too. But when Epona said "Skyrim/SKSE/Plugins" I'd gone to a different location (in 'C:\games' I think), rather than under the Steam bit. Is that from a previous install or something, or is this just my utter lack of file-structure knowledge showing...?


 
Your save games and config/settings files will be in Documents/My Games, which is on your C drive by default - unless you've specifically told Windows to put userinfo somewhere else.

As Vintage Paw says, your Data folder should be in the path ....wherever you installed Steam/steamapps/common/Skyrim/Data


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## Vintage Paw (May 31, 2013)

Corax said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I've stuck it in the location you set out, so hopefully it'll work.
> 
> All the NMM mods are in the data folder there too. But when Epona said "Skyrim/SKSE/Plugins" I'd gone to a different location (in 'C:\games' I think), rather than under the Steam bit. Is that from a previous install or something, or is this just my utter lack of file-structure knowledge showing...?


 
Anything that you install normally through steam will, as Epona said, be in Steam/steamapps/common/gamename - and the top level Steam folder will be wherever you decided to install Steam (by default that's in Program Files, for me it's in my own specially created Games folder directly under C). If you've got a Skyrim folder in your C:/Games folder that _isn't_ the same place as your NMM files are going, then I guess it must be an old left-over installation.


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## Corax (May 31, 2013)

Cheers both.  Fingers crossed it'll be working now.  My inventory's so cluttered with misused gems I'll have to pay a bit of extra attention to tell though!

Big gems with little souls in - are they essentially fucked in terms of their potential size now?  Or can I save them for enchanting weapons etc, and still get the large capacity benefit?


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## Epona (May 31, 2013)

Corax said:


> Cheers both. Fingers crossed it'll be working now. My inventory's so cluttered with misused gems I'll have to pay a bit of extra attention to tell though!
> 
> Big gems with little souls in - are they essentially fucked in terms of their potential size now? Or can I save them for enchanting weapons etc, and still get the large capacity benefit?


 
I have a feeling that you can drop them on the floor and they empty due to a bug - not sure whether that's been fixed.

Just do a check to make sure you have SKSE properly installed - in your ..Steam/steamapps/common/Skyrim folder, 
you should have a number of SKSE files:

skse_1_9_32.dll (although the numbers may be different if SKSE has been updated since I last installed it)
skse_loader.exe
skse_steam_loader.dll 

If none of those files are present, you have not installed SKSE and need to go back to stage 1 (install SKSE) before any of the plugins will work.


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## Corax (May 31, 2013)

skse_1_9_32.dll  - Yep
skse_loader.exe - Yep
skse_steam_loader.dll - Yep

I was sure that SKSE was installed proper, because SkyUI's been working flawlessly (and what a fricking improvement _that_ is!)

Thanks.  Guess I was just looking in the wrong place!  I bought Skyrim on disc rather than direct from Steam, so maybe that's why I've got folders elsewhere?


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## Epona (Jun 1, 2013)

Corax said:


> skse_1_9_32.dll - Yep
> skse_loader.exe - Yep
> skse_steam_loader.dll - Yep
> 
> ...


 
OK, and how are you launching the game when you play it? If using SKSE you must not use the 'play' button on your Steam page, or the default Skyrim.exe shortcut icon on your desktop. You must launch the game by double-clicking the skse_loader.exe file (or you can place a shortcut to that file on your desktop).

Having bought it on disk should make little difference, it still installs in your Steam directory (and unless you tell it specifically to read off the disk, it still often downloads all the files - the disk is nothing more than a glorified coaster). 

I am pleased to see that Steam has now introduced easy multi-disk/multi-partition support so you can choose to install games in other locations - handy for those of us with SSDs who may want to keep the big 40-Gig-once-modded games on a mechanical drive but put smaller ones on the SSD.  But the default install location is wherever you installed Steam.


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## Corax (Jun 1, 2013)

Epona said:


> OK, and how are you launching the game when you play it? If using SKSE you must not use the 'play' button on your Steam page, or the default Skyrim.exe shortcut icon on your desktop. You must launch the game by double-clicking the skse_loader.exe file (or you can place a shortcut to that file on your desktop).


 
I have an SKSE shortcut on my desktop.


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## Epona (Jun 1, 2013)

Oh and I am sure it's already been mentioned and you probably already know that it's not a great idea to install Steam or any games into one of the Windows/Program Files folders (which often come up as default install location for new programmes) - Windows security measures (UAC) monitors those folders like the raging father of a teenage daughter and it can put unnecessary barriers in your way when you want to mod games or customise the config/ini files.


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## Corax (Jun 1, 2013)

Epona said:


> Oh and I am sure it's already been mentioned and you probably already know that it's not a great idea to install Steam or any games into one of the Windows/Program Files folders (which often come up as default install location for new programmes) - Windows security measures (UAC) monitors those folders like the raging father of a teenage daughter and it can put unnecessary barriers in your way when you want to mod games or customise the config/ini files.


 
Nope, that's a new one to me


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 1, 2013)

That's why I put Steam in its own folder - I originally had it in Program Files, and I didn't actually experience any problems, but having done plenty of reading about Skyrim mods over the past 18 months one of the biggest cautions was to not install under that, because it can cause all sorts of permissions problems. You can disable UAC, I hear, but whether you want to do that just for the sake of games or not is debatable. Better shifting your Steam installation. There are instructions on how to do it without uninstalling steam entirely, but I believe you have to end up re-downloading your games again anyway, which is a pain. Something to think about next time you decide to have a clear of your HDD though.


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## Epona (Jun 1, 2013)

Even before I had an SSD I always went that one step further and kept my completely clean Windows install in its own partition.  Nothing else goes near that installation or even on that partition unless there's a bloody good reason why it needs to be in that location.

It only takes having some sort of problem that requires you to format C: and do a clean install of the OS once to learn that lesson!


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## BigTom (Jun 2, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> That's why I put Steam in its own folder - I originally had it in Program Files, and I didn't actually experience any problems, but having done plenty of reading about Skyrim mods over the past 18 months one of the biggest cautions was to not install under that, because it can cause all sorts of permissions problems. You can disable UAC, I hear, but whether you want to do that just for the sake of games or not is debatable. Better shifting your Steam installation. There are instructions on how to do it without uninstalling steam entirely, but I believe you have to end up re-downloading your games again anyway, which is a pain. Something to think about next time you decide to have a clear of your HDD though.


 
I'm sure I moved my steam installation without having to re download games, was over a year ago though so my memory could be wrong.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jun 2, 2013)

Epona said:


> Even before I had an SSD I always went that one step further and kept my completely clean Windows install in its own partition. Nothing else goes near that installation or even on that partition unless there's a bloody good reason why it needs to be in that location.
> 
> It only takes having some sort of problem that requires you to format C: and do a clean install of the OS once to learn that lesson!


 

i'm in that position now

kinda luckily the only stuff on the disk is windows and core programs like office and adobe. as it's a SSD

steam etc  is on another drive


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## Vintage Paw (Jun 2, 2013)

BigTom said:


> I'm sure I moved my steam installation without having to re download games, was over a year ago though so my memory could be wrong.


 
You might be right. Maybe you just need to revalidate the cache? I'm not sure. I know I redownloaded mine but I only had a few installed at the time anyway (I usually only have about 5% of my Steam library installed at any one time).


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## Epona (Jun 2, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> i'm in that position now
> 
> kinda luckily the only stuff on the disk is windows and core programs like office and adobe. as it's a SSD
> 
> steam etc is on another drive


 
Yeah I always keep everything else well away from my Windows install and system partition. I had one bad experience several years ago when OH managed to somehow delete or corrupt an important WinXP system file and the only way round it was formatting C and reinstalling the OS - because he'd put every fucking thing in Program Files it was just loads more work to redownload or disk-install everything. That taught me never to install anything to the Windows drive/partition (I even keep my "Documents" folders on a different drive/partition than the OS), in combination with backing up system restore or registry files regularly on a different drive, because it makes it so much easier to recover from that sort of situation. And that policy has saved me a ton of work when I've had virus problems or HDD issues.


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## Corax (Jun 14, 2013)

Right, minor but annoying prob:

I've ditched Lydia and left her at home, and started a bit of a bromance with Vilkas.

The guy's a bit thick and has a tendency to step on rune traps, but I can live with that.  He hefts a sword well, and he has dreamy eyes.

But... unlike Lydia he seems to have a total inability to regenerate health.  After a fight he stays at his depleted level (whether only a bit hurt or a lot), and it doesn't creep back up over time at all.  It's not a deal-breaker, but it's a bit tedious having to stand around putting my healing hands on him every time (phnaar).

I've got UFO installed, but despite a bit of googling I'm not sure whether it's related.

Any words of wisdom gratefully received.


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## Epona (Jun 14, 2013)

Corax said:


> Right, minor but annoying prob:
> 
> I've ditched Lydia and left her at home, and started a bit of a bromance with Vilkas.
> 
> ...


 
What happens if you give him some healing potions, does he use them or not?

Try setting Vilkas as essential - use the "...you know" then "you are important" dialogue options that UFO adds.  In the vanilla game Lydia is set as essential but Vilkas isn't once you've finished the Companions storyline, and UFO doesn't change those vanilla settings.  I think Lydia heals because she's set as essential and Vilkas doesn't unless you heal him or give him potions because he's not set as essential.  Change the settings for Vilkas in his dialogue and see what happens.


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## Corax (Jun 15, 2013)

Epona said:


> What happens if you give him some healing potions, does he use them or not?
> 
> Try setting Vilkas as essential - use the "...you know" then "you are important" dialogue options that UFO adds. In the vanilla game Lydia is set as essential but Vilkas isn't once you've finished the Companions storyline, and UFO doesn't change those vanilla settings. I think Lydia heals because she's set as essential and Vilkas doesn't unless you heal him or give him potions because he's not set as essential. Change the settings for Vilkas in his dialogue and see what happens.


 
Yep - I'd accidentally set him as mortal and non-regenerating by saying to him that "Everybody dies..."

I thought we were just having a chat!  

I really ought to read instructions for stuff.


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## Epona (Jun 15, 2013)

Cool, glad it's sorted.

In some ways it feels a bit cheaty to set followers to essential, but given how bad they are at avoiding traps in dungeons they'd all die in fairly short order on the first run-through of any of the dungeons! When they are essential they will go out of combat when their health is at zero so they can't help you in combat but won't be killed by the pressure plate trap they followed you across.  I have the light-step perk ffs, why don't they?


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## Corax (Jun 15, 2013)

I don't even have light step, I just don't stand on the traps.  And Vilkas carefully watches me as I delicately edge around them, and then goes _'huuuuuuuuurrrrrr!!!!' _and bellyflops the pressure plate.


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## Epona (Jun 15, 2013)

Corax said:


> I don't even have light step, I just don't stand on the traps. And Vilkas carefully watches me as I delicately edge around them, and then goes _'huuuuuuuuurrrrrr!!!!' _and bellyflops the pressure plate.


 
Artificial stupidity! I'd love if there was some method to point out traps to your followers so they would go around them, it's not rocket science. Pressure plate here, don't step on it!  In role-playing terms, it's not as if I would walk around a trap and fail to tell my friends about it!


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## Corax (Jun 15, 2013)

Epona said:


> Artificial stupidity! I'd love if there was some method to point out traps to your followers so they would go around them, it's not rocket science. Pressure plate here, don't step on it! In role-playing terms, it's not as if I would walk around a trap and fail to tell my friends about it!


 
Or _would_ you...?


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## Epona (Jun 15, 2013)

Corax said:


> Or _would_ you...?


 
If I have a follower I don't like and I'm playing an evil git, I kind of want to hang on to them for Boethia iykwim


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jun 15, 2013)

Epona said:


> Artificial stupidity! I'd love if there was some method to point out traps to your followers so they would go around them, it's not rocket science. Pressure plate here, don't step on it! In role-playing terms, it's not as if I would walk around a trap and fail to tell my friends about it!


 

it's not the same  but i really love the systwm in portal two player  where you can point out things to your partner. 

it wouldn't be to difficult  for ES  to impliment a system where you moused over something   and  could make a comment.   then depending on your and your companions stats  the companion did something.  either   avoid it  or perhaops  with some companions  deliberately  stops on it.


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## Stigmata (Jul 7, 2013)

Epona, Vintage Paw and anyone else- do you know of any good mage armour/robe mods? Lore friendly stuff for my new character.


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 7, 2013)

Stigmata said:


> Epona, Vintage Paw and anyone else- do you know of any good mage armour/robe mods? Lore friendly stuff for my new character.


 

Oh, there's a really nice ebony armour/robe thing... http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/21341//? - if you use that, make use of this excellent ebony armour retexture mod (I recommend the silver version) http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/37487//? (some pics of my character wearing ebony armour with the silver retex). This mod http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26752//? adds robe variations to it.

(While we're at it, I really recommend installing that modder's entire retexture pack - it's the best quality stuff you'll find - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24909/? )

This is nice mage clothing for women: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/36780/? (I'm using parts of it right now)

For the sexy men out there: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29469//?

Another for women: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/18105/? (read the description - this is for various colour options, you need to download the original first)

A nice range of circlets, both armoured and un-armoured: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27288//?

A simple dress for mages - not really my taste but it might be yours: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/22612//?

Glass mage armour in the style of the ebony (I prefer the ebony) - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/16012//?

Immersive Armours has a rather nice Dwarven Mage set:http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19733//? (and a patch to make it use the retextures from the pack I linked up there: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29167/? )

Chainmail robes, looks pretty nice: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/7374//?

Mage backpack - looks great in game: skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31191/?

I'm certain there are loads more, but that should get you started


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## Corax (Jul 20, 2013)

You seen "The Real Barenziah" series of books in Skyrim?

Apparently they were also in Daggerfall. But the Skyrim ones have been 'censored by the temple'. The Daggerfall ones contained passages such as this...


> "No? Well, a bargain's a bargain and Therris keeps his word. But here. Now." He hiked her skirt up and pulled her onto his lap so she sat astride, facing him. He opened her shirt and pulled it down on her shoulders so that her breasts were exposed.
> 
> "Nice pair, kid." She was facing the wall but she could feel the stares of the other patrons. A hush had fallen over the place. Even the bard had stilled. She felt both nausea and a hot burning desire. Her hands released his turgid penis and then it was inside her and she was screaming in both pain and ecstasy. Then everything went black.
> 
> ...


Oh my word....


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## Epona (Jul 20, 2013)

Corax - yeah I think they wanted a slightly lower age rating for Skyrim! For some reason game publishers seem to think that they need to aim for a teen market (and will shut the lid on adult content in games they publish in order to avoid getting an adult-only censorship rating), despite the fact that it's the 30-40 demographic that buys most games, and the average age of gamers is somewhere in the early 30s, iirc.

Personally I loved the 'Sermons of Vivec' series of books in Morrowind, some of those were a bit out there.


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## Stigmata (Jul 21, 2013)

Epona said:


> Personally I loved the 'Sermons of Vivec' series of books in Morrowind, some of those were a bit out there.


 
Have you seen this? The god Vivec in his misspent youth as a canny rentboy


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## Epona (Jul 21, 2013)

Stigmata said:


> Have you seen this? The god Vivec in his misspent youth as a canny rentboy


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 30, 2013)

I see it's down to £15. I held of when it was new due to me not normally having much perseverance with games, but it seems to be such a classic and it's down to £15 on Steam.

Can anyone tell me how controller friendly it is on PC? Steam says partial controller support, but not sure what means. Don't have the funds for a wireless keyboard and gaming mouse, but fancy some PC gaming from the sofa.


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## Corax (Sep 30, 2013)

Global Stoner said:


> I see it's down to £15. I held of when it was new due to me not normally having much perseverance with games, but it seems to be such a classic and it's down to £15 on Steam.
> 
> Can anyone tell me how controller friendly it is on PC? Steam says partial controller support, but not sure what means. Don't have the funds for a wireless keyboard and gaming mouse, but fancy some PC gaming from the sofa.


I play it on PC with an xbox controller, and it works absolutely perfectly.  Tbh, I don't even know what they mean by 'partial' - nothing seems to be missing or require kb/mouse.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 30, 2013)

Ta Corax


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## bi0boy (Sep 30, 2013)

It would be more accurate to say it has partial mouse support tbh


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 30, 2013)

On it's way down. It's times like this I wish my connection was a little faster then 5mbs.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 30, 2013)

Bugs already. First bit of the game, run away from the dragon, had my hands cut free and it tells me to loot somebodies body. Every time I press "a" I seem to make him float around the room next to me, but not be able to take anything. 

I'd have thought it would be well patched by now as I downloaded from Steam.


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## maomao (Oct 1, 2013)

Global Stoner said:


> Bugs already. First bit of the game, run away from the dragon, had my hands cut free and it tells me to loot somebodies body. Every time I press "a" I seem to make him float around the room next to me, but not be able to take anything.
> 
> I'd have thought it would be well patched by now as I downloaded from Steam.


On the keyboard that would mean you were hitting the shift key at the same time by accident. E = search , shift + e = pick up. I'm not familiar with x-box controllers though but is there any chance you're doing something similar?


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 1, 2013)

maomao said:


> On the keyboard that would mean you were hitting the shift key at the same time by accident. E = search , shift + e = pick up. I'm not familiar with x-box controllers though but is there any chance you're doing something similar?



No, but hammering it a couple of times sorted it.

Anyway, played for far to long last night, I like to way it seems quite open, yet I haven't had many, what am I supposed to do now moments which is what has put me of RPG games in the past.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 1, 2013)

shift+e is the same as holding e down, so perhaps you were holding a too long and it registered that you were trying to move him. You just have to tap it.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 1, 2013)

Maybe that was it. 

It's the first game I've played properly from the couch using a controller since I got a TV. It's not that fast paced, so I quite like it. Other then shooting arrows. I'm missing things I'd get with a headshot with a mouse, but I'm sure I'll get better.


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## Corax (Oct 1, 2013)

Global Stoner said:


> Bugs already. First bit of the game, run away from the dragon, had my hands cut free and it tells me to loot somebodies body. Every time I press "a" I seem to make him float around the room next to me, but not be able to take anything.
> 
> I'd have thought it would be well patched by now as I downloaded from Steam.


I don't think that's a bug, just that you're holding it down too long.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 2, 2013)

There are plenty of bugs that Bethesda never bothered/managed to fix.

However, modders come to the rescue.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19//?
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/23491//?
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/25127//?
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31083//?

The unofficial patches for Skyrim, Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn. They are still being updated, so they don't fix everything, but they fix a heck of a lot. Every PC player should be using them, imo.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 2, 2013)

Thanks Vintage Paw, I'll have a look.

Joined the Civil War and the storming of Whitehelm was very cool. It's a shame the sun doesn't shine a little more in Skyrim, like the UK it can be such a pretty places when it does, but due to the lack of lighting effects, the scenes in the dark/snow don't seem that impressive graphically.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 2, 2013)

Also how the fuck do you fight dragons if you've made a tank character. I can't get close enough to it to twat it with my great sword.


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## ffsear (Oct 2, 2013)

Use your shouts.  Dragonrend I think


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 2, 2013)

ffsear said:


> Use your shouts.  Dragonrend I think



Ta. Best go do a mission that gets me it.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 2, 2013)

Global Stoner said:


> Thanks Vintage Paw, I'll have a look.
> 
> Joined the Civil War and the storming of Whitehelm was very cool. It's a shame the sun doesn't shine a little more in Skyrim, like the UK it can be such a pretty places when it does, but due to the lack of lighting effects, the scenes in the dark/snow don't seem that impressive graphically.



Whiterun or Windhelm?

Also, on the lighting - there are lots of options there.

If you don't want to use an ENB (can be daunting, eats fps, newest ones improve memory management and help prevent ctds due to the hidden 3.1GB memory cap, can look fucking stunning), then you could check out Climates of Tamriel - it introduces a lot more weather types, gorgeous skies, and it can look just beautiful. There's also things like Realistic Lighting Overhaul, or Enhanced Lights and FX, etc. Also Dramatic Clouds - replaces the texture of your clouds to make them more... well, dramatic. Lanterns of Skyrim adds lanterns in key places to make it look prettier at night (or during the day, if you leave them switched on). 

Lots and lots of options out there to get the lighting and weathers looking better.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 2, 2013)

Also you don't get Dragonrend until right near the end of the main questline. Other ways to do it are to keep a bow bound to your hotkeys just to take a couple of snipes as it's flying, until it lands. Likewise with a spell (I recommend something lightening-based). Make sure you have some relatively flat, clear ground near you otherwise it won't/can't land. Even if you've made a tank character, it's no bother to grab a bow or a spell and just use them situationally to grab a dragon's attention. A real warrior would use the right tool for the job, not stubbornly stand there, adamant that s/he's a stocky warrior and therefore refuses to use something ranged.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 2, 2013)

Ah yeah that would be Whiterun. 

Those are some very stunning shots, what do you think my machine could cope with? I've got an old E8400 with a 5850, so guessing it's the CPU that would hold things back. I'm playing on high at 1080p. Had a look at high resolution texture pack on Steam, but the requirements are a tad high!


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 2, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Also you don't get Dragonrend until right near the end of the main questline. Other ways to do it are to keep a bow bound to your hotkeys just to take a couple of snipes as it's flying, until it lands. Likewise with a spell (I recommend something lightening-based). Make sure you have some relatively flat, clear ground near you otherwise it won't/can't land. Even if you've made a tank character, it's no bother to grab a bow or a spell and just use them situationally to grab a dragon's attention. A real warrior would use the right tool for the job, not stubbornly stand there, adamant that s/he's a stocky warrior and therefore refuses to use something ranged.



I had been using a bow, but as I've stuck most of my points on my two handed and heavy armour skills, it seems to do a piddly amount of damage, so had stopped using it, likewise with magic. On the plus side for a L5 character he hits things quite hard!


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 2, 2013)

Level 5? Pah, you'll be in the 20s in no time. Those first few levels fly by. I wouldn't worry about a bow or whatever not doing much damage. You don't have to put your perk points in anything to benefit from levelling up. The way it works is that as you use something, say a 2-handed weapon, you gain levels in that skill tree (up to 100). If you have 100 in 2H weapons but haven't spent a single perk point in that tree, you'll still do a heck of a lot more damage than if you'd never used a 2H weapon before and it was still at 15. Putting points into the skill trees just unlocks certain fancy aspects... like being able to slow time when you zoom in with a bow in the archery tree, for example, or being able to disintegrate people with your shock spells (destruction tree). I never put any more points into the armour skills than the one at the bottom, and by level 53 my light armour rating is well over 500 (sometimes a lot more, but I accessorise ), because of judicious use of enchanting and because the more you get hit, the more your armour rating goes up as you level naturally. I've never, ever put a single perk point into lockpicking, and I can open master level locks with only minor irritation. 

If all you want to do is grab a dragon's attention so it'll land near you so you can go and whack it with your greatsword, then keeping that bow or magic spell handy would be a good idea. It doesn't matter how much damage they do, as long as you get its attention and it'll finally land.

As for graphics... I'm not so well versed in what different hardware can handle. My laptop is pretty beefy, but the ENBs I tend to use will knock a steady 60fps down to 20 quite easily (there are ways to make them performance friendly, and there are some that already are, but it can be difficult to find one you like sometimes).

I don't believe things like Climates of Tamriel cost too much in the way of performance. It's worth having a good read of the mod pages.

As for texture packs, there's a version of the official hi-res texture packs that has been optimised for people with lower end systems: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9080/?

This is worth a look: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11/? - it's called STEP (Skyrim Total Enhancement Project). The nexus page will direct you to their official Wiki. Even if you don't follow their suggested guide for modding your whole game, it has a lot of really good resources there to help you understand how to optimise performance, fix various bugs, and perhaps still make certain parts of the game look nicer than they usually do. The mod list will give you lots of ideas about what's out there, and you can pick and choose what you want, leaving whatever you don't fancy or can't manage. Even just as a resource for the latest unofficial patches and information on creating a clean installation and safe save games it's invaluable.


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## Epona (Oct 3, 2013)

Global Stoner said:


> Bugs already. First bit of the game, run away from the dragon, had my hands cut free and it tells me to loot somebodies body. Every time I press "a" I seem to make him float around the room next to me, but not be able to take anything.



I went through this on release day - turned out my keyboard was fucked and could no longer recognise the difference between a tap on the E key and holding it - spent a while in frustration before giving up and digging about in the hardware graveyard for a spare keyboard with a less sticky E key, which worked fine.
A note on ENBs - if you have a 5850 with 1Gb of VRAM, avoid ENBs that require a lot from a GPU.  I found certain ENBs that run fine on my GTX670 really bogged down my old 5850 to the point of turning the game into a slideshow - if the description of the ENB says it requires a high performance card with a lot of VRAM, then don't try to use - stick to ENBs that aren't so demanding.

And avoid very high res texture pack mods - opt for high performance versions of texture mods over high detail, they are usually still an improvement over vanilla textures, but not so taxing.  Also before modding anything, make a backup of the entire Skyrim folder so that you can easily revert to vanilla if it goes tits up, and just add one or two things at a time then check that the game still loads and runs with a decent framerate (Windhelm market is the best location for checking that your framerate is still acceptable, there's so much clutter and NPCs and light-sources and shadows being rendered there that it's a good place to check that you haven't given your system more than it can handle). ETA: and don't add and remove .esp/.esm file mods mid-game.  Test stuff out beforehand to decide what mods you want then start a new game with that load-out and don't change it, as that can cause save file corruption.


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## Supine (Oct 3, 2013)

Any rumour on VI yet? Loved skyrim and need another fix


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 3, 2013)

Epona said:


> ETA: and don't add and remove .esp/.esm file mods mid-game.  Test stuff out beforehand to decide what mods you want then start a new game with that load-out and don't change it, as that can cause save file corruption.



Some can be removed without problems, some not so much. If you're not confident with different types of mods and what they are doing under the hood, then Epona's advice is spot on. But it's not a hard and fast rule, and you can uninstall some things quite happily without problems. For example, armour and weapon mods, and generally things that don't use scripts of any kind (don't uninstall armour and weapons mods if you're wearing them at the time, obv.).

That being said, if you use SKSE (Skyrim Script Extender - which is a requirement for many mods) it has a function that lets you call ClearInvalidRegistrations via the console, which will remove left over, orphaned scripts from your game. It makes dealing with this sort of thing a lot easier, but of course it's still best to do as Epona says, and avoid uninstalling mods part way through a game, especially if they have scripts, and particularly if you don't really know what you're doing -- and always follow the installation and uninstallation instructions on the mod page or ask the mod author for more details if you don't understand. It's very easy to corrupt your game, even without mods installed. But there is a wealth of information out there to help you create the most stable experience possible, and to help you make the game prettier and more fun to play without sacrificing performance if you can't afford it.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 7, 2013)

Hey, Epona

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/43801/?


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## Epona (Oct 12, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Hey, Epona
> 
> http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/43801/?



I'm getting the invalid URL message - stuff sometimes takes a while to show up on/upload to the Nexus, so I'll try again in a few hours! 

Edit: OK got it, for some reason the link was wonky (no pun intended) but putting it my address bar worked.
I just want you to know I look nothing like that.
I'm more of a liver chestnut.



Edit in case anyone wonders - no I did not pick my user name because of the Zelda games (in fact I've never played them), rather we both picked the name from the same source - a Gallo-Roman goddess, usually depicted with a horse.


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## Bernie Gunther (Nov 8, 2013)

I've decided (stuck indoors with a heavy cold) to have another bash at Skyrim now that Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn are out.

I'm using an ENB (forget which) the STEP list of 'safe' mods, plus the following (with a Bash patch)

Community Uncapper
Lock Overhaul
Extensible Follower Framework
Convenient Horses
Dance of Death
Frostfall - Hypothermia, Camping & Survival
Cloaks of Skyrim
Winter is Coming
Realistic Needs and Diseases
Climates of Tamriel
Duel - Combat Realism v7
OBIS - Organised Bandits in Skyrim
Hunterborn
Harvest Overhaul
ASIS
Deadly Dragons
High Level Enemies

I find that stuff like Deadly Dragons and ASIS to provide improved NPC AI, along with Duel set up to make hits really hurt and plus various immersion and NPC variety mods works a lot better than ramping the difficulty, in terms of making it challenging once you get past L15 or so.

Currently I'm just pushing L28 and still finding it interesting. I haven't started Dragonborn or Hearthfire yet, just doing the main quest, Dawnguard and anything that pops up en route. (Although now I've done the Soul Cairn thing, it looks like I'm going to have to sign up for the College to get any further with Dawnguard plot)

Using something vaguely inspired by the following build concept.

http://theskyrimblog.ning.com/group/character-building/forum/topics/character-build-the-heretic (apologies for shitty music on that page)

Does anyone else favour a similar approach?


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## Supine (Nov 8, 2013)

Is a version of this coming out on next gen consoles? I need another fix


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 9, 2013)

The idea of actually having proper 'builds' for characters never really occurred to me XD  Since you can more or less tear through everything without giving your skills a second thought, I barely give them a second thought  But then, the only combat mod I have is Deadly Dragons, and I don't play on higher difficulties. idk, Skyrim's never really been about the combat at all for me, more about having my own silly personal narrative worked out and romping around seeing pretty things. Maybe in 10 years time once I'm sick of it I'll install all the various overhaul mods and do it completely differently.


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## Bernie Gunther (Nov 9, 2013)

It's the 'more or less tear through everything without at thought' bit that I'm trying to fix.

With the set-up above I have to worry about freezing to death, starving (while stuck someplace like Blackreach that has minimal food opportunities) getting mugged by random bandits ... etc.

The specific build thing is because without a concept in mind, I tend to gravitate to pretty much the same Dark Brotherhood/Nightingales sneaky archer style that I already got bored with first time around.


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## Epona (Nov 10, 2013)

Bernie Gunther said:


> It's the 'more or less tear through everything without at thought' bit that I'm trying to fix.
> 
> With the set-up above I have to worry about freezing to death, starving (while stuck someplace like Blackreach that has minimal food opportunities) getting mugged by random bandits ... etc.
> 
> The specific build thing is because without a concept in mind, I tend to gravitate to pretty much the same Dark Brotherhood/Nightingales sneaky archer style that I already got bored with first time around.



I do like the survival mods - Frostfall is superb.

If you don't want to go through the intro every time you restart and like to roleplay, then Live Another Life: Alternate Start is superb, loads of options for new characters, some of them dependent on race.  Some of them (especially Shipwrecked! start) are difficult with Frostfall but there are a range of starts to choose from.  I particularly enjoy Left for Dead, or Property Owner: Farmer starts.  It also delays the start of the main quest until you decided you want to trigger it, so is good if you just want to play a nobody for a whie.


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## Bernie Gunther (Nov 10, 2013)

Thing about running survival mods and so on, is that you eventually find yourself massacring a fortress full of psycho necromancers in order to steal their cheese ...


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 10, 2013)

There is one thing I like about the fantasy aesthetic in video games.

All those cheese wheels.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 10, 2013)

Every now and again I pop back into this thread and feel a real hankering to get onto The Rim again. I know I'll just get lost in a fantasy world and neglect the rest of my life though.


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## Corax (Nov 23, 2013)

I've picked it up again.  This is what I always do with games - play constantly for a week or so, then don't at all for a couple of months, and repeat.  Combined with my scaredy-cat cautious slow playing style and obsession with exploring every nook and cranny, games last me about 20 times longer than any normal human being.  

Anyway, posted this on the bandwidth thread but it belongs here too.  Made me lol.


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## Epona (Nov 23, 2013)

Corax said:


> I've picked it up again.  This is what I always do with games - play constantly for a week or so, then don't at all for a couple of months, and repeat.  Combined with my scaredy-cat cautious slow playing style and obsession with exploring every nook and cranny, games last me about 20 times longer than any normal human being.
> 
> Anyway, posted this on the bandwidth thread but it belongs here too.  Made me lol.



I have always wanted to go the 'confused turtle' route, unfortunately I don't think a shield in each hand was ever implemented.  Although the idea did provoke much discussion on the official forum in the months leading up to release (much like the suggestion from devs that the economy would be dynamic - *sigh* - still, can't have everything I suppose).


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 23, 2013)

Epona - do you have the Trade and Barter mod? It helps flesh out the economy a little bit, and you can add to it with a couple of options in the SkyTweak mod as well.


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## Epona (Nov 23, 2013)

Vintage Paw said:


> Epona - do you have the Trade and Barter mod? It helps flesh out the economy a little bit, and you can add to it with a couple of options in the SkyTweak mod as well.


Cool, I'll check that out - thanks for the tip


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## ffsear (Dec 3, 2013)

Played last night for old times sake.   Hooked again!


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## 8ball (Dec 3, 2013)

Supine said:


> Is a version of this coming out on next gen consoles? I need another fix


 
I believe a whole new Elder Scrolls title is in the works.


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## Ming (Jan 4, 2014)

Bump! I've not modded before. I've bought Morrowind (GOTY ed), Oblivion (GOTY ed) in the Steam sale and i've a legit Skyrim steam version (and the legendary version i've downloaded from elsewhere). What are the best mods and (more importantly) how do i add them? Will mods work with both my versions of Skyrim? Should i start with Morrowind and play chronologically (i have to admit Skyrim is the one i've already started but only played to the dragon voice learning place)? Thanks for any advice.


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## Epona (Jan 4, 2014)

Ming said:


> Bump! I've not modded before. I've bought Morrowind (GOTY ed), Oblivion (GOTY ed) in the Steam sale and i've a legit Skyrim steam version (and the legendary version i've downloaded from elsewhere). What are the best mods and (more importantly) how do i add them? Will mods work with both my versions of Skyrim? Should i start with Morrowind and play chronologically (i have to admit Skyrim is the one i've already started but only played to the dragon voice learning place)? Thanks for any advice.



I consider it fairly essential to get the unofficial patches for each game (and for each expansion for each game - so for Skyrim Legendary Edition, you will want to get the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, the Unofficial Dawnguard Patch, the Unofficial Dragonborn Patch, and the Unofficial Hearthfire Patch).  The Unofficial Skyrim Patch is too large a file to be hosted on the Steam Workshop, and can be obtained from The Nexus.  If you scroll down the page a bit you will find links for the patches for the DLCs.  If you are unfamiliar with installing mods for TES games you can use NMM which is the site's own installer.

Whether you will want other mods is down to taste, there are many to choose from (ranging from new quests and landmasses to sound and graphics improvements to new hairstyles for characters)  I'd suggest installing the patches then playing for a bit and deciding whether you'd like anything to change.

The same applies for each game, although as Morrowind is older it more obviously benefits from a graphics update, and I heartily recommend Morrowind Overhaul to make it look far more up to date - that's a compilation of graphics and sound mods with a handy installer/configuration tool for tweaking your setup - and it's by far the easiest option if you've never added mods to a TES game before.

Edit: I don't really think it matters too much which order you play them in, Oblivion is set shortly after Morrowind, but Skyrim is 200 years later, and none of the games is a direct continuation of the story from the last game.  There are references to events of previous games and although personally I would prefer to play them in order (as there are references to historical events that took place in previous games, mostly in in-game literature, and a couple of mentions in dialogue), it is not essential and I doubt you'd miss anything by playing them out of order.  Although there was 1 daedric quest in Skyrim that particularly mentioned events in Oblivion/Shivering Isles, and it made me grin because I knew what it was referring to because I played it before iykwim.  But not essential to play them in order, just occasionally you'll 'get' a reference if you did, but nothing important to the story.  It's not like Gothic where you're starting the next game as the same character a couple of weeks after the end of the previous game.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 4, 2014)

I've not played Oblivion or Morrowind and have managed to sink over 1,700 hours into Skyrim  and I don't feel like I've missed out on anything from earlier games. You might find it weird moving backwards, because of differences in gameplay and graphics, and the more natural progression is forwards, but if that sort of thing doesn't bother you I'd say just jump in with whichever one takes your fancy.

As for mods, what Epona says is spot on. The unofficial patches are an absolute must, and most modders work from an expectation that you'll have those installed before you install their mod (not that they are necessarily required to run other mods, just that it will help cut down on erroneous error reporting). The games are buggy as hell, so if you're going to be modding you should try to work towards a decent understanding of what is happening when you install a mod, where you're putting it, what files are being affected, and how to safely remove it. Some mods can't be removed mid-game without borking your save, mostly ones that alter gameplay in some way. Texture mods can be removed and swapped in and out at will (for the most part - if it has an .esp or .esm it may be more tricky).

A good place to start for Skyrim would be to spend some time reading through the documentation for the latest STEP version. STEP isn't a mod in and of itself, but it's a guide of recommended mods that when taken together will alter and improve practically every single part of the game, from models and textures to combat and the economy. It tries to keep the main vanilla feel of the game, so there isn't anything weird and wacky there. You can take as much or as little from it as you want, but at the very least it contains some decent information on how to create a stable base game, how to create backups, how to use some of the various mod installers, and so on. And of course acts as a decent directory of mods that won't hopefully cause conflicts with each other and the best way to install them.

The nexus is chock full of stuff and it's very easy to get bogged down in it. You can search by category, and you can order them by popularity and/or endorsements, so you can see which mods others believe are indispensable - bear in mind some in the top of these lists might have been updated with newer versions, so always check out the comments, installation requirements, etc., which is good practice for any mod anyway. There's nothing that will piss a mod author off quicker than someone asking in the comments why X happened when it covers that on the front page of the mod in the description - so read, read, read, and then read some more.

If you have any specific questions, like "what does .dds mean?" or "where is my textures folder?" or "what's MCM?" just give us a shout. Epona will know more for Oblivion and Morrowind, and both of us know a good deal about Skyrim, so ask away


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## moon (Jan 4, 2014)

I've started playing this, my first ever computer game, its fab, i just got the dragon stone thing..


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## Citizen66 (Jan 4, 2014)

The main thing with playing them backwards is how dated the others look compared with Skyrim; especially Morrowind.


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## Ming (Jan 4, 2014)

Hey! Thank you very much for the replies! I think i'll continue playing Skyrim but mod them all and do a reverse when i've finished it and do Morrowind and Oblivion. I used to play AD&D back in the 80's with dice and paper (a lot...knew the rules back to front unlike my A-Level subjects) and its amazing that its all come to life in games like these. I'm playing a pure destruction mage in Skyrim at the mo'.


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## Epona (Jan 4, 2014)

Ming said:


> Hey! Thank you very much for the replies! I think i'll continue playing Skyrim but mod them all and do a reverse when i've finished it and do Morrowind and Oblivion. I used to play AD&D back in the 80's with dice and paper (a lot...knew the rules back to front unlike my A-Level subjects) and its amazing that its all come to life in games like these. I'm playing a pure destruction mage in Skyrim at the mo'.



Ah cool!  The one worry I have with people coming new to Morrowind is that they won't get the 'To Hit' mechanics as it's a little odd in a 1st/3rd person game these days, but if you've done PnP then the idea that you don't always hit your foe when you are crap at a skill shouldn't phase you unduly.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 4, 2014)

Pure destruction mage is a tough one to start with... good luck


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## Citizen66 (Jan 4, 2014)

Ming said:


> Hey! Thank you very much for the replies! I think i'll continue playing Skyrim but mod them all and do a reverse when i've finished it and do Morrowind and Oblivion. I used to play AD&D back in the 80's with dice and paper (a lot...knew the rules back to front unlike my A-Level subjects) and its amazing that its all come to life in games like these. I'm playing a pure destruction mage in Skyrim at the mo'.



I finished the Mage Guild quests and became Grand Dragon Arch Mage Supremo (or whatever it's called) by lvl 11. Can you do better?


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## Citizen66 (Jan 4, 2014)

Tbf I did have to drop the difficulty to pull it off...


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## tommers (Jan 4, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> I've not played Oblivion or Morrowind and have managed to sink over 1,700 hours into Skyrim



You do realise that means you've played an average of 2hrs 20 mins every single day since it came out?


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## tommers (Jan 4, 2014)

Ming said:


> Hey! Thank you very much for the replies! I think i'll continue playing Skyrim but mod them all and do a reverse when i've finished it and do Morrowind and Oblivion. I used to play AD&D back in the 80's with dice and paper (a lot...knew the rules back to front unlike my A-Level subjects) and its amazing that its all come to life in games like these. I'm playing a pure destruction mage in Skyrim at the mo'.



Morrowind has the most complex game system and best setting IMO.  Give it a go.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jan 4, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> Pure destruction mage is a tough one to start with... good luck



My impression was that it got harder as your level rises (because your damage doesn't)

I couldn't stick to pure mage though. Too squishy for me. Had to either armour up or go stealth/bow.

Stealth + (bound) Bow with Conjuration/Illusion/Alteration/Alchemy, Vokun's mask and Royal Vampire Armour was my favourite set-up.


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## Ming (Jan 5, 2014)

Citizen66 said:


> I finished the Mage Guild quests and became Grand Dragon Arch Mage Supremo (or whatever it's called) by lvl 11. Can you do better?


Well i've cranked the difficulty down to minimum. The first giants i met killed me without breaking a sweat. My tactics currently are summon a wolf and then flame/run away/regenerate/repeat. Might have to look into some other approaches.


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## Epona (Jan 5, 2014)

When you're at a low level, just skirt around the giants - they aren't super-aggressive and won't attack you if you don't approach them!  

Listen out for them thumping their club on the ground, that indicates you're too close, so just move away (use sprint if necessary) to get out of their personal space.


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## Epona (Jan 5, 2014)

Bernie Gunther said:


> My impression was that it got harder as your level rises (because your damage doesn't)
> 
> I couldn't stick to pure mage though. Too squishy for me. Had to either armour up or go stealth/bow.
> 
> Stealth + (bound) Bow with Conjuration/Illusion/Alteration/Alchemy, Vokun's mask and Royal Vampire Armour was my favourite set-up.



Stealth archer is by far my favourite Skyrim build, Skyrim made archery so much fun.


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## Ming (Jan 5, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> I've not played Oblivion or Morrowind and have managed to sink over 1,700 hours into Skyrim  and I don't feel like I've missed out on anything from earlier games. You might find it weird moving backwards, because of differences in gameplay and graphics, and the more natural progression is forwards, but if that sort of thing doesn't bother you I'd say just jump in with whichever one takes your fancy.
> 
> As for mods, what Epona says is spot on. The unofficial patches are an absolute must, and most modders work from an expectation that you'll have those installed before you install their mod (not that they are necessarily required to run other mods, just that it will help cut down on erroneous error reporting). The games are buggy as hell, so if you're going to be modding you should try to work towards a decent understanding of what is happening when you install a mod, where you're putting it, what files are being affected, and how to safely remove it. Some mods can't be removed mid-game without borking your save, mostly ones that alter gameplay in some way. Texture mods can be removed and swapped in and out at will (for the most part - if it has an .esp or .esm it may be more tricky).
> 
> ...


I've installed NAMM but unfortunately its saying it doesn't have permission to write ('get write permissions'). I'm running Windows 8 and it gives me this message on Morrowind (Steam) and Skyrim Legendary (other type download). Help!


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## Epona (Jan 5, 2014)

Ming said:


> I've installed NAMM but unfortunately its saying it doesn't have permission to write. I'm running Windows 8 and it gives me this message on Morrowind (Steam) and Skyrim Legendary (other type download). Help!



Ah I expect you installed the game in the default location (program files or wherever) which is 'protected'.  Bad idea, you should always install games in another folder which is not protected like Fort Knox (I use a partition for games so I always install games to T:\\Games (which is the partition I have set up on my data drive specifically for installation of games), rather than C:\\Program Files).  There is a way around it, you need to disable the UAC (User Account Control) on the Program Files folder while you install mods, then turn it back on afterwards.  I don't know how to do that in Win 8.


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## Ming (Jan 5, 2014)

Epona said:


> Ah I expect you installed the game in the default location (program files or wherever) which is 'protected'.  Bad idea, you should always install games in another folder which is not protected like Fort Knox (I use a partition for games so I always install games to T:\\Games (which is the partition I have set up on my data drive specifically for installation of games), rather than C:\\Program Files).  There is a way around it, you need to disable the UAC (User Account Control) on the Program Files folder while you install mods, then turn it back on afterwards.  I don't know how to do that in Win 8.


Looks like i can't do it on my version of Windows 8 because to completely turn off UAC (the slider doesn't turn it off completely) you need to able to access the local security policy bit of the operating system which didn't ship with my home version. I understand why people hate Microshite more now. No worries. Still got 3 extremely cool games to play!


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## Citizen66 (Jan 5, 2014)

Ming said:


> The first giants i met killed me without breaking a sweat.



Giants? 








Epona said:


> Stealth archer is by far my favourite Skyrim build, Skyrim made archery so much fun.



Good for a bit of theivin'


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## Epona (Jan 5, 2014)

Ming said:


> Looks like i can't do it on my version of Windows 8 because to completely turn off UAC (the slider doesn't turn it off completely) you need to able to access the local security policy bit of the operating system which didn't ship with my home version. I understand why people hate Microshite more now. No worries. Still got 3 extremely cool games to play!



It's fine as long as you never install anything to that directory, when installing games or other programmes always install them in another place than the default 'Program Files' location, then you should be able to add mods or edit a game's .ini file to your hearts content without causing Windoze to get its knickers in a twist (the vast majority of problems that come up from 'I can't run x game' to 'I can't change a setting in my config file' to 'I can't add a mod' come down to having installed the game in the default location - just don't do it!)  It's fairly easy for me, I keep my OS in one partition and never install anything else there as it is far easier to cope with OS issues or viruses if you ever have to take a 'nuke it from orbit' position, if you know the only thing in that partition is the OS.


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## Ming (Jan 5, 2014)

Epona said:


> It's fine as long as you never install anything to that directory, when installing games or other programmes always install them in another place than the default 'Program Files' location, then you should be able to add mods or edit a game's .ini file to your hearts content without causing Windoze to get its knickers in a twist (the vast majority of problems that come up from 'I can't run x game' to 'I can't change a setting in my config file' to 'I can't add a mod' come down to having installed the game in the default location - just don't do it!)  It's fairly easy for me, I keep my OS in one partition and never install anything else there as it is far easier to cope with OS issues or viruses if you ever have to take a 'nuke it from orbit' position, if you know the only thing in that partition is the OS.


Thanks Epona! You are cool. Right i'm restarting Skyrim (just downloaded the legit DLC's). Think i'll go for a battle mage this time. One of my new years resolutions is to not use any walkthroughs on any games. With regards to Morrorwind looking a bit dated...i still think the first Deus Ex is the best of that series so i guess i'm old school.


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## Epona (Jan 5, 2014)

Ming said:


> Thanks Epona! You are cool. Right i'm restarting Skyrim (just downloaded the legit DLC's). Think i'll go for a battle mage this time. One of my new years resolutions is to not use any walkthroughs on any games. With regards to Morrorwind looking a bit dated...i still think the first Deus Ex is the best of that series so i guess i'm old school.



Glad to be of help 
Even vanilla Morrowind doesn't look so bad that it's unplayable (it's more visually up to date than Gothic which I played and enjoyed recently), but it's fairly easy to make it look really quite pretty.  Check out the first post of the Screenshots thread, I posted up some modded Morrowind screenshots and it looks fine - the art style of the game is good and it has some fairly unique terrains and environment concepts, so with some updated textures and a bit of groundcover and shadows/light effects added via mods it can easily have its own visual 'wow' moments.  The modded improvements are SO good, it would almost be a shame to play without them, even though they aren't necessary to enjoy the gameplay.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 5, 2014)

I tried to get back into morrowind  as  i remember the setting to be fucking outstanding.  

it  does  feel  clunky as fuck after you have played skyrim.   

i got  boosted graphics   which are nice   but   not  essential. they add  a layer of  niceness but it's still dated.	
not t that dated is  bad.   it's  still a great  game.  it's just.....  well  the fighting in skrim feels  so good  it   just  really  highlights  how meh it is  in morrowind.	also   it  has a much worse learning curve.


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## Epona (Jan 5, 2014)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> not t that dated is  bad.   it's  still a great  game.  it's just.....  well  the fighting in skrim feels  so good  it   just  really  highlights  how meh it is  in morrowind.	also   it  has a much worse learning curve.



I remember the first time I played Morrowind, plonked off the boat in Seyda Neen after a very basic 2 minute tutorial detailing how to look at your journal and inventory and how to wave a weapon around, and was struck with this 'hold on... so I can do whatever I want?' moment.  I don't think any game has ever come close to that moment of feeing complete freedom in a game.  By comparison, Oblivion and Skyrim railroad you into the main quest.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jan 5, 2014)

I dunno.   morrowinds  mian quest  if   a lot  vauger  and   that  kinda means  you   feel  freeer   but  i think	 skyrim   can be  equally as free.  

i don't  think skyrim railroads you.   it  does  leave you a trail of  breadcrumbs  and  does   have  a  more  focused  end  goal  but	i  really  do think   as soon n as   you  break free  of  your execution your kinda free to do  whatever you want.   it's  just  they make  it  so much easyer  just   to  let  yourself  be railroaded.




i do kinda think  the  hellgates  and  taken over areas  of  oblivion  did  kinda feel  more railroady.   or  at  least  intrusive.


i  bet  you could  easily	ignore  the rebelion  and  whiterun  quest  and   have  a  60+hour  rpg   just  wandering  through skyrim.


with morrowind  i ended up mainly  doing the  fighters and mages guild quests.	 and  slave  freeing.   once  i  got  some  hang  of  shit.


plus  i kinda cheated  due   to  some   unfair  early  fights.


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## Epona (Jan 5, 2014)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> I dunno.   morrowinds  mian quest  if   a lot  vauger  and   that  kinda means  you   feel  freeer   but  i think	 skyrim   can be  equally as free.
> 
> i don't  think skyrim railroads you.   it  does  leave you a trail of  breadcrumbs  and  does   have  a  more  focused  end  goal  but	i  really  do think   as soon n as   you  break free  of  your execution your kinda free to do  whatever you want.   it's  just  they make  it  so much easyer  just   to  let  yourself  be railroaded.
> 
> ...



I think Skyrim feels free if you played earlier games and know that the setup of TES games usually allows for 'fuck the main quest, I'm going to find a hut in the woods and hunt and fish for 3 months'.  I think newcomers unused to that freedom probably feel more compulsion to follow the main quest.  Moreso than in Morrowind, where the MQ starts off as 'deliver this letter when you get around to it' with no sense of urgency.

Oblivion - I have a love/hate relationship with that game (most of the hate has been eliminated with mods, the love still flourishes).  I love the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines/stories, they were the best in any TES game to date.  Hated the ridiculous level scaling and the Oblivion Gates.  But what a lot of people don't seem to realise, is that most of the Oblivion Gates were optional - you need to close the fixed location ones that appear just outside each city late on in the MQ, that's a total of 6 Oblivion Gates each with a unique map and towers.  The others (all the random ones, I think the game can conjure up something like 90+ random Oblivion gates through the course of the game) are optional, you don't HAVE to enter them, you don't HAVE to deal with them.  They disappear when you get to a certain point in the main quest, and are purely optional content.  In order to proceed in the MQ, you only HAVE to deal with the 6 gates (or maybe 7, could be the Kvatch gate early on in the story makes 7) that are linked to the MQ (the ones you are told to deal with when you reach that point in the story).


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## ruffneck23 (Jan 5, 2014)

just started a new game after finally getting it legit , think , i'm going to try and mod it up and make it look even more purdy


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## CosmikRoger (Jan 5, 2014)

Just ordered the legendary edition for 25 euros as I'm starting to get bored of minecraft after caning it for a couple of years. I tend to watch more gamers youtube videos than play games myself and this looks like it could be another couple of years before I have to buy another game.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jan 5, 2014)

ruffneck23 said:


> just started a new game after finally getting it legit , think , i'm going to try and mod it up and make it look even more purdy



Might be an idea to do all your modding _before _you start a game, then don't change anything. Much less likely to have it become unstable later on if you do it that way.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 5, 2014)

Ming said:


> Looks like i can't do it on my version of Windows 8 because to completely turn off UAC (the slider doesn't turn it off completely) you need to able to access the local security policy bit of the operating system which didn't ship with my home version. I understand why people hate Microshite more now. No worries. Still got 3 extremely cool games to play!



Well, you can still move the installation to a non-UAC directory. There are Steam articles explaining how to move your Steam installation outside of Program Files, or you can just uninstall and reinstall from scratch. It's absolutely worth it. I don't have a single game installed under Program Files. It was a pain when I realised I needed to move everything, but once it's done it's done forever (or until your computer breaks and you get a new one - in which case you just do it from the get go ).


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 5, 2014)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Might be an idea to do all your modding _before _you start a game, then don't change anything. Much less likely to have it become unstable later on if you do it that way.



It's generally a good idea to start a game with no mods installed, and then add a few mods in at a time, play for a while, make sure nothing is broken, then add a few more, rinse and repeat, making sure you leave yourself lots of solid save points to fall back to in case a new mod does break something. If you add 100 mods all at the same time (or 200, or 50, or 30) before even starting and something interacts badly with something else, and you find yourself playing through Helgen, going to Riverwood, heading to Bleak Falls, back to Riverwood, off to Whiterun and then to the Watch Tower to fight the first dragon and find that as soon as the dragon approaches your game insta-crashes every single damn time and you have no idea why... well, then it's a fucker of a cunt to have to reinstall the whole thing from scratch because you can't work out which mod is causing the problem. No, better to make sure you have a stable vanilla save game at the start, and then slowly add what you want. Of course, trying not to remove anything is good practice, because lots of things can break. Which is why you should keep lots of stable save points from before you add anything new, then play for a while on incidental things before assessing if it's a keeper or a borker.

^ This exact thing happened to me some months ago.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jan 5, 2014)

Or just use STEP (including their forum for the 'packs') to make sure what you install at the start has already been tested ...


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 6, 2014)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Or just use STEP (including their forum for the 'packs') to make sure what you install at the start has already been tested ...



I did >_<


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## Ming (Jan 6, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> Well, you can still move the installation to a non-UAC directory. There are Steam articles explaining how to move your Steam installation outside of Program Files, or you can just uninstall and reinstall from scratch. It's absolutely worth it. I don't have a single game installed under Program Files. It was a pain when I realised I needed to move everything, but once it's done it's done forever (or until your computer breaks and you get a new one - in which case you just do it from the get go ).


I think i'll do that VP. Got a few days off coming up. Isn't it a pain when your own computer tells you can't do things. I think i might give it a reprogramming it'll never forget.


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## ohmyliver (Jan 8, 2014)

Has anyone seen this? (Skywind Skyrim mod, basically attempting to be Morrowind done in the Skyrim engine)  Looks veh interesting. 
http://kotaku.com/high-res-skywind-..._source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow


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## moon (Jan 8, 2014)

Can someone help me? I've just started playing this... I blame my bf for showing me his oculus rift virtual reality headset... never played a computer game before etc etc.
Anyway.. i finished getting the dragon stone thing then got lost and came across some bandits, amongst them was a man surrounded by a silver light who kept sneaking up and throwing flashes at me.
Do you know who/what it was?


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## 8ball (Jan 8, 2014)

Evil wizard.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 8, 2014)

Yup, some variety of evil mage type person. They can be quite dangerous in a fight. Always best to either avoid them if low levelled or try to take them out as fast as possible. The glowy thing surrounding them was likely some kind of buff spell, to make them stronger against damage so it's harder to kill them. The flashy things he was throwing at you were evil magicks. 

You can be one of those people if you want


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## moon (Jan 8, 2014)

Also, at some point, somewhere in the game I started flying, sort of low on the ground with my arms outstretched. Does anyone know how I did this?


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## 8ball (Jan 8, 2014)

moon said:


> Also, at some point, somewhere in the game I started flying, sort of low on the ground with my arms outstretched. Does anyone know how I did this?


 
Did you throw yourself at the ground and miss?


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## moon (Jan 8, 2014)

no i was sort of in a seated position feet crossed arms outstretched to the side, i was inside possibly moving over a carpet or some fire ... it was quite early on in he game and I've only played about 5 hrs... I did a weird controller combination beforehand I think..


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## Citizen66 (Jan 8, 2014)

Can't people fly on dragons with dlc?

Other than that, no idea.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 8, 2014)

Could be a glitch. Sometimes the animations screw up. How did you stop doing it? Did you have to jump or something to force the character out of that position, or did it just naturally happen? Were the arms not quite straight out but more like a slightly higher / \ ?


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## moon (Jan 9, 2014)

Not sure, I was in a state of stress at the time as I've never played  computer game before and didn't know wtf was going on. However I seem to remember a certain amount of clothing fluttering and a swish sound as I moved forward.. could have just been a glitch or my lack of experience/awareness though..
But thinking back it could have been one of those things where the game animates your character for you..
Will let you know if it ever happens again


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 9, 2014)

I think you should keep a video game diary. It'd be a big hit. The way you're describing your first experiences of a video game is brilliant


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## 8ball (Jan 9, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> I think you should keep a video game diary. It'd be a big hit. The way you're describing your first experiences of a video game is brilliant


 
I'm thinking a blog.  One game from a different genre every couple of weeks.


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## moon (Jan 9, 2014)

Haha could do, I'll be able to talk about the rash I got from stress of playing the game, its going down now that I've decided to chill in an alchemists shack for a while.
Btw does anyone know how you catch diseases in the game? I managed to get 'joint rock' which I'm sure I caught from a wild animal!
A deer kept coming up to me and wouldnt go away, I had a bow and arrow in my hands at the time but didnt want to shoot it so decided to try the 'command animal' thing.
However I didnt realise that I had to put down the bow and arrow before using it so ended up shooting the poor thing, it ran off with arrows sticking out of its arse...
I think I got bad Karma for that... hence the disease


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 9, 2014)

*giggles*

Rockjoint - you get diseases from other creatures that have the disease - so if you've fought a wolf or something and it bit you it could have passed on the disease. You can cure it with a cure disease potion that you can buy at an alchemist shop, or learn how to make your own. It can also be cured by activating a shrine of one of the divines. You'll stumble upon them now and again in various places. Cities generally tend to have one somewhere in their environs.

That poor deer.


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## moon (Jan 10, 2014)

Hi, I managed to cure my disease at a temple 
Am learning about weapons now, after someone laughed at me for using an ornate fire stick thing which I subsequently found did zero points of damage.
I'm now using the axe thing that the Jarl gave me and have increased my 2 handed skill, I took a bear out with one blow using it.
The person who laughed at me was the wife of the pub owner in riverwood (I think) her husband caught me stealing so I killed him and took the keys to the pub, then thought if I kill the wife I would then own the pub  but she just laughed at me, I'm definitely going back there with the Jarl's axe…
..


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## tommers (Jan 10, 2014)

You're getting there.


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## Citizen66 (Jan 10, 2014)

Was that in Riften? Collecting money owed to someone? You're only supposed to scare him iirc.


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## 8ball (Jan 10, 2014)

moon said:


> Hi, I managed to cure my disease at a temple


 
This wouldn't go over at all well in any other sub-forum.


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## moon (Jan 10, 2014)

Citizen66 said:


> Was that in Riften? Collecting money owed to someone? You're only supposed to scare him iirc.


 No it wasn't, and I didnt mean to kill him, I just panicked as I was stressed and ended up in a fight


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## maomao (Jan 10, 2014)

moon said:


> No it wasn't, and I didnt mean to kill him, I just panicked as I was stressed and ended up in a fight


I don't think you can kill his wife, she's involved in the main quest if I remember right.


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## Citizen66 (Jan 10, 2014)

moon said:


> No it wasn't, and I didnt mean to kill him, I just panicked as I was stressed and ended up in a fight



Oh. Was it in one of the major towns? You'll have guards after you.


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## moon (Jan 10, 2014)

I dunno, but at one stage a guard came after me, I told him I was the Jarl's Thane and he left me alone, I've managed to take a few things without alerting guards since then..

I discovered that the alchemist's shack is in fact a free house and you can store things in a secure bedside cabinet, so I'll be putting all my stuff in there, and using the bed as I want to eat and sleep ever day, am also worried about travelling at night as I've heard there are vampires and werewolves out there...

I left Lydia with the Jarl as she was getting on my nerves (her armour was clinking too much etc), she's also carrying a few things for me.

Am gonna take a look inside the bears cave over the weekend and also complete a visit to somewhere, I think I'm trying to find out the secret of the tree's powers or something..

oh and there is also the possibility that I might get an Xbox 360 at the weekend too  so may have to restart the game as I've been playing it on the mac (windows partition) and need to free up my computer.

So I guess I should get the one with 250g hdd?


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 10, 2014)

moon said:


> Hi, I managed to cure my disease at a temple
> Am learning about weapons now, after someone laughed at me for using an ornate fire stick thing which I subsequently found did zero points of damage.
> I'm now using the axe thing that the Jarl gave me and have increased my 2 handed skill, I took a bear out with one blow using it.
> The person who laughed at me was the wife of the pub owner in riverwood (I think) her husband caught me stealing so I killed him and took the keys to the pub, then thought if I kill the wife I would then own the pub  but she just laughed at me, I'm definitely going back there with the Jarl's axe…
> ..



You might find you can't kill her... for reasons. (and she's not his wife)


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 10, 2014)

moon said:


> I think I'm trying to find out the secret of the tree's powers or something..



The Eldergleam in Whiterun? The big old tree that is mostly dead? Fun little quest that will take you to a couple of different places with some interesting things to kill and to do.


----------



## moon (Jan 10, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> You might find you can't kill her... for reasons. (and she's not his wife)


Ok, i read up in the wikia (is this cheating?) that she goes away and the person I killed becomes the owner.... soo...


----------



## Citizen66 (Jan 10, 2014)

moon said:
			
		

> Ok, i read up in the wikia (is this cheating?) that she goes away and the person I killed becomes the owner.... soo...



Nah. Everyone reads the wiki.


----------



## Hoss (Jan 12, 2014)

moon said:


> I discovered that the alchemist's shack is in fact a free house and you can store things in a secure bedside cabinet, so I'll be putting all my stuff in there, and using the bed as I want to eat and sleep ever day, am also worried about travelling at night as I've heard there are vampires and werewolves out there...



Be careful - you might find that any belongings stored in the trunk are gone when you return, as it's not a property 'owned' by your character.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 13, 2014)

Many containers are set to respawn their contents at various points, sometimes relatively frequently (a few game days). I'm sure there's a list on the wiki that says which location's containers are safe or not, so it's worth checking so you don't find your prized collection of rare cabbages has disappeared while you were off chasing butterflies.

If you're playing on PC (and considering continuing to do so) you can download various player houses from either Steam Workshop or Skyrim Nexus. For player houses, I'd recommend staying away from the workshop, because it updates mods automatically, and if a mod author updates the house in any significant fashion you can end up losing your stuff just like you would with normal containers that respawn. If you install the house via nexus instead then you have full control over when (or indeed if) it is updated.


----------



## Citizen66 (Jan 13, 2014)

She obviously had checked, the trunk by the bed is safe to store stuff.


----------



## moon (Jan 13, 2014)

Yes and i now have 2 companions to carry stuff for me, uthgerd the unbroken is a much better follower than lydia and she is super cool 

Had to restart the game on an xbox  which is painfull on a 27inch crt tv.. And i havent managed to take the keys to the pub this time as the owner keeps beating me up...


----------



## moon (Jan 14, 2014)

I've discovered that Uthgerd will try to attack me if I kill an innocent civilian…
I found out as last night, as I was standing on the bar in the Bannered Mare and decided to strike the bar with he Jarl's axe. Unfortunately some of the enchantment that was on the axe flew off onto the bar lady and she died 
That’s when Uthgerd the Unbroken tried to kill me.
This is ok as she is such a good companion but it means that I can't kill the barman and get the keys for the pub in Riverwood whilst the owner is out…
For now…

She also goes missing sometimes, last time this happened we were running out of Bleak falls Barrow and I turned around to find she wasn't there!
So I retraced my steps and found her standing over the injured giant spider with her blade pointing at its head…
I had to tell her it was ok and she should follow me.
This woman has balls!!


----------



## Epona (Jan 14, 2014)

You're obsessed with those keys!

Each follower has a setting which is their morality.  Some followers will steal for you, others will refuse etc.  Typically housecarls have high morality and will not commit crime although do not report you for it, followers that are thieves and assassins will be more willing to do bad things on your behalf.  There are also hidden factions for all NPCs within the game (such as a guard faction, a town residents faction, a followers faction, a bandit faction etc).  This will determine their behaviour if you attack another member of one of their faction.

I am not sure with Uthgerd whether this isn't a bug though!


----------



## moon (Jan 14, 2014)

I just want to own the pub!!
I read up on Uthgerd and its one of her settings..
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Uthgerd_the_Unbroken


----------



## Citizen66 (Jan 14, 2014)

moon said:
			
		

> I just want to own the pub!!
> I read up on Uthgerd and its one of her settings..
> http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Uthgerd_the_Unbroken



Well make her wait somewhere whilst you kill him?


----------



## moon (Jan 14, 2014)

have been getting eye strain watching on my CRT, which i love for waching DVDs etc, so will get a cheap 24 inch monitor at some point, they are only around £130. I've heard tha the LED tvs are not so great for gaming due to lag..
yes i am addicted..


----------



## tommers (Jan 14, 2014)

You'll be posting screen shots soon.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 14, 2014)

tommers said:


> You'll be posting screen shots soon.



I heartily approve of this.


----------



## moon (Jan 14, 2014)

Am getting this LG monitor..
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1119206.htm
It has a 5 ms response time and a headphone socket so i can hook it up to my amp.


----------



## ohmyliver (Jan 15, 2014)

it's £23 cheaper at Ebuyer, that monitor


----------



## moon (Jan 15, 2014)

I dont like waiting for things to be delivered.. i can pick the Argos one up after work.. maybe tonight 
I am jusifying it and my xbox as xmas presents to myself... plus I handmade most of the presents I gave and was working on them from October onwards sooo.... I cans has it..


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 15, 2014)

Get a 39" 4K television for the price of a decent monitor: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers


----------



## moon (Jan 15, 2014)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Get a 39" 4K television for the price of a decent monitor: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers


 
 'the HDMI 1.4 ports can only support 30Hz at the signature 3840x2160 resolution'


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 15, 2014)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Get a 39" 4K television for the price of a decent monitor: http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers



Even if I could stretch to that, it would take me a long time to be able to afford a graphics card that could drive games at the resolution!


----------



## ohmyliver (Jan 15, 2014)

The actual tv gets terrible reviews.... and doesn't seem to be available in the UK.  You might as well get a 24 inch monitor and get someone to punch you in the eyes every couple of hours and save yourself the money.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 15, 2014)

I get the feeling that 4k is still in it's infancy and unless you really need one right now, it's going to be better to wait a bit anyway.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Jan 15, 2014)

4k will start coming through pretty quickly now, as they are starting to get into the ( rich ) consumer pricing, give it a couple of years and they will be very affordable.

anyway its all about 8k now

http://www.techradar.com/news/telev...glasses-free-3d-1214341#future_company_footer


----------



## moon (Jan 16, 2014)

I got the monitor and my eyes are no longer bleeding..
Here I am with uthgerd






and with Whiterun (?) in the background, I held the torch for a good lighting effect





Am I the only one still playing this game?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 16, 2014)

moon said:


> Am I the only one still playing this game?



No. Most absolutely not. (ignore the arty shit for the first few pics)

My current character:


----------



## tommers (Jan 16, 2014)

moon said:


> I got the monitor and my eyes are no longer bleeding..
> Here I am with uthgerd
> 
> 
> ...



 told you.


----------



## moon (Jan 16, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> No. Most absolutely not. (ignore the arty shit for the first few pics)
> 
> My current character:


 fantastic picture, is that PC quality or something?


----------



## moon (Jan 16, 2014)

I subscribed to theradbrad on youtube and what can I say..  Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, GTA...
Why have I been bothering with films and tv for sooo long??!!!....
<weeps>


----------



## Citizen66 (Jan 16, 2014)

Are you brand new to gaming?


----------



## moon (Jan 16, 2014)

yes.. 
i just tried to play halo 4 as it came bundled with the xbox but no sure if I like shoot em ups... gone back to Skyrim.
Still trying to get to Ivarsted..


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 17, 2014)

moon said:


> fantastic picture, is that PC quality or something?



Thanks, yup, PC with a bajillion mods. 

And omg Mass Effect. Yes. Start with the first one. Seriously. You must play them in order. And then tell us all about it. There is a thread for each of the Mass Effect games around here somewhere.


----------



## Citizen66 (Jan 17, 2014)

The Fallout series is worth checking out if you like Bethesda stuff: future dystopia rather than fantasy setting.

Also Oblivion is the game before Skyrim. There's others before that but they seem well dated now.


----------



## moon (Jan 17, 2014)

I also got Tomb Raider bundled with the Xbox from Argos, so will have a go at that first..


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 17, 2014)

There's no turning back now, moon. You're going to have to quit the rest of life so you can dedicate yourself to catching up on all these games. 

The Saints Row games are fun too - the most recent one was a blast, plus you could fly


----------



## moon (Jan 17, 2014)

no no no honestly this is just meant to be filling my tv watching time.. honest.

I did seem to put a couple of used games in my amazon basket though 
Assasssins Creed 1 and Mass effect 1, they were only about £2.50 each...

I seriously must get some other stuff done this weekend though, so not gonna report back here until I actually finish those things


----------



## Hoss (Jan 20, 2014)

I've played Skyrim twice now...restarted with a different character as I lost one of the dragon masks about 4 actual months into a game 

The game has a habit of making time fly by like nothing else I've played. I can easily spend a couple of hours doing nothing in particular within it.


----------



## Hoss (Jan 20, 2014)

Also, not the best photo but here's my character, Goncourt the Great (a Breton, Nightingale armour, Volsung dragon mask and clutching the Sanguine Rose), my vampire companion Serana (right, with shield and Forsworn armour), my summoned Dremora Lord and a giant that just stood by and didn't attack any of us, which made for a cool group shot.

Anyway, I attacked the giant, he didn't retaliate, I attacked some more and ended up killing him.
Felt bad afterwards for killing a passive, peaceful giant


----------



## Epona (Jan 20, 2014)

The Sanguine Rose looks cool as fuck, pity I always ditch it for a more useful weapon.

A Night To Remember has to be one of the best quests in any TES game though.


----------



## Hoss (Jan 20, 2014)

Epona said:


> The Sanguine Rose looks cool as fuck, pity I always ditch it for a more useful weapon.
> 
> A Night To Remember has to be one of the best quests in any TES game though.



The Sanguine Rose was really useful against Lurkers when I first visited Apochrypha. Plus the summoned Dremora looks cool in any situation and has a great parting shot once he's dispatched an enemy "There could be no other end!"


----------



## moon (Jan 22, 2014)

Just a quick update. Am beginning to realise how vast this game is... and how much I need to learn!
Uthgerd died  we were fighting a hagraven when she got hit by its magic.. I so wish i had gone to Winterhold College to get the healing hands magic before going to Orphan Rock.. I did go back to find her and see if I could revive her but her body had gone, there was just a pool of blood and her sword.. so sad..

Anyway I am now in Winerhold learning magic, I fought a dragon who was eating seals off the coast but a giant killed it first, I got its soul though, and some bones/scales

Have realised that almost everyone you speak to will ask you to do something for them (reminds me of my real life!) Eorlund even told me to stop doing things for people (a valuable lesson in life also) then promptly asked me to do something for him.. 

That's all for now, am thoroughly enjoying this questing thing


----------



## moon (Jan 22, 2014)

It is amazing how the game seems to take over your whole life though 
I was reading a blog about Senagalese men's robes recently and instantly wondered what magical properties they had, plus whenever I see the 'Anelka's quenelle' thread I think it's got something to do with Skyrim, just because the words look very typical of things found there 

My plans for this week are to make enough money to buy a house. However I seem to be constantly ripped off by the trader in Whiterun, selling Mage robes to him for 100 gold, which he then puts up for sale at around 500!! I even sold him a magic staff for around 200 which he sold for approx 2000..

You live and learn...


----------



## Hoss (Jan 22, 2014)

moon said:


> It is amazing how the game seems to take over your whole life though
> I was reading a blog about Senagalese men's robes recently and instantly wondered what magical properties they had, plus whenever I see the 'Anelka's quenelle' thread I think it's got something to do with Skyrim, just because the words look very typical of things found there
> 
> My plans for this week are to make enough money to buy a house. However I seem to be constantly ripped off by the trader in Whiterun, selling Mage robes to him for 100 gold, which he then puts up for sale at around 500!! I even sold him a magic staff for around 200 which he sold for approx 2000..
> ...



Anelka's Quenelle does sound a bit like an quest object or Skyrim location 

If you decide to level-up your Speech skills, you can start to make better money from traders and get your house quicker. You can, if you chooose this path, also invest in traders which gives them more money to buy stuff from you.

I've just switched on the Xbox and popped SKyrim in to check my skills for you and now I'm having a quick 5 minutes...thanks moon!


----------



## Citizen66 (Jan 23, 2014)

moon said:
			
		

> It is amazing how the game seems to take over your whole life though
> I was reading a blog about Senagalese men's robes recently and instantly wondered what magical properties they had, plus whenever I see the 'Anelka's quenelle' thread I think it's got something to do with Skyrim, just because the words look very typical of things found there
> 
> My plans for this week are to make enough money to buy a house. However I seem to be constantly ripped off by the trader in Whiterun, selling Mage robes to him for 100 gold, which he then puts up for sale at around 500!! I even sold him a magic staff for around 200 which he sold for approx 2000..
> ...



Join the Thieves' Guild and rob all his stuff... Also build up bartering skills.


----------



## moon (Jan 31, 2014)

So, I think I've learnt quite a bit of magic at Winterhold, haven't really done any enchanting though, have sat in my room and read a book about it, plus one on fighting trolls, and blocking your opponent etc.

I accidentally stole a book from the library and the librarian tried to kill me, I put down all my weapons so he could finish me off and I could restart that segment without the bad karma, but he just said 'You're not worth it' and walked off!! sucks..

Now I'm a bit too scared to leave the college lol 
I think I'll hang out in the town for a while, then go to find some stolen books etc...

Am also playing Mass Effect 1, just getting the hang of it but am finding the dialogue a bit slow... have landed on a new planet to look for someone and am sorting out the crew etc, I guess I should take along some of the new guys but feel I'm betraying the original team etc etc...

Assassins Creed 1 is beautiful but a bit dull in terms of the game play.
Not sure about Tomb Raider, Lara Croft is annoying, and Halo 4 seems a bit dull too..


----------



## moon (Feb 6, 2014)

I seem to be getting killed loads recently, am currently walking from winterhold college to find the stolen books and had to use an illusion spell to get past the tower thing with skeletons and I think novice vampires? I'm level 9 now but couldn't kill them at all!! I think I may be lacking in something..
Then there was a cave full of spiders which would not die, I kept getting poisoned and ended up using a fireball scroll thing on them (J'zargo's scroll didn't do anything..), then a tree thing threw bees at me and I had to use my running shout to get away. Then I got to the Night Inn place and accidently stole a book (again!) and some hired thugs killed me. I had to restart the game from an earlier section.
I keep thinking I'm doing something wrong, as in I didn't do something at the Winterhold College before setting out on the quest...


----------



## ruffneck23 (Feb 6, 2014)

i found the whole of the mage quests at winterhold really really easy to complete and became arch mage very quickly, so maybe theres a side quest of soething youre missing out on...


----------



## moon (Feb 6, 2014)

I havent actually completed that many quests.. I just seem to collect loads because I like talking to people, then I dont bother following them up 
Maybe I should go back to whiterun and finish some of the quests there. I think a crazy guy with a stuck cart is still waiting for me to get help, and that was weeks ago..lol


----------



## ruffneck23 (Feb 6, 2014)

yeah the main way to evolve and get xp , thus more powerful stuff is to get questing IMO


----------



## captainmission (Feb 6, 2014)

has anyone posted this yet?


----------



## moon (Feb 6, 2014)

lol so funny.. love skyrim


----------



## Vintage Paw (Feb 6, 2014)

You're playing a pure mage, right? Just using your skills will get you to level up in them. So if you're focusing only on magic you need to use it as much as possible to level up. You could spend some time doing some alchemy or enchanting or smithing or something to get a little level boost as well, since it all adds towards your overall level.

I find pure magic quite tough, tbh, and if I play a mage-type character it's always in armour and with another weapon as well. Once you get the adept level spells and above it gets a bit easier, but you're still squishy. I found the whole process of casting things like oakflesh then switching to attack spells cumbersome, which is why I never bothered. I'd rather wear real armour.

Maybe think about taking a sword in one hand, and magic in the other. It'll help you when you get into a tight spot. And armour. Once you've levelled up your magic of choice a bit more and maybe taken perks and learned spells that aid with wearing clothing instead you can ditch the armour but until then I'd recommending diversifying a bit.

Level 9 is still a pretty low level. If you kill lots of things and do a fair bit of additional things like alchemy etc you should be able to get up to the mid-teens quite quickly and you'll start to feel a bit more substantial.

You'll _have_ to diversify if you ever want to get above a certain level because you only level from improving skills by using them, so once you've improved all the skills you use regularly to 100, unless you take the legendary option and reset them to 15 they won't improve any more no matter how much you use them and you will stop levelling up, which means no more perk points, no more additions to health, magicka or stamina or to carry weight allowance.


----------



## moon (Feb 7, 2014)

Hi, thanks for the advice, yes figuring out what to wear mid-battle is a bit of a challenge.
I've never used a 1 handed weapon and have only just started archery, was very tied to the 2 handed axe of whiterun, so will work on those skills at the weekend.
I've decided to go back to Whiterun for a while and try to finish some quests there, will aslo work on smithing, enchanting and alchemy..
However I am still determined to get some tree sap on the way back...


----------



## moon (Feb 7, 2014)

I've just seen this! Is ffing amazing.. am never watching tv again!


----------



## Epona (Feb 8, 2014)

moon said:


> I've just seen this! Is ffing amazing.. am never watching tv again!



It is a really nicely done trailer, very atmospheric


----------



## moon (Feb 8, 2014)

Yes, but I took a look at some of the actual gameplay and it looks nothing at all like the trailer.. maybe Bethesda should make films instead..


----------



## Vintage Paw (Feb 8, 2014)

They never do these days. The CG trailers for a lot of the AAA games are always like mini movies now, and bear little resemblance to what the gameplay will be like, nevermind the graphics. They are impressive though.


----------



## moon (Feb 9, 2014)

I just lost 3hrs to Skyrim but learnt to sneak, tested j'zargo's scrolls on vampires, (i dint realise they only worked on the undead.. ) used a blizzard scroll on an atronach, did some archery etc and i still havent arrived back in Whiterun yet..


----------



## moon (Feb 11, 2014)

So, I got the Eldergleam sap, it was surprisingly easy.. I sort of only just realise that you need to use a spell tome in order to cast spells... I had loads in my books itinerary  and conjuring atronachs is just so cool..

I have Lydia with me now and managed to kill a dragon using archery and my enchanted bow.
I've also used some of my metal and gems and forged them into pretty rings which I later sold.

I think I'm getting to grips with this game a bit more now.. have arrived at Windhelm so will have a good look around tonight


----------



## Vintage Paw (Feb 11, 2014)

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Do you have any story for your character or are you not interested in that kind of thing?


----------



## moon (Feb 12, 2014)

No, no story, just someone who likes exploring, making stuff and I'm surprised to say that I'm enjoying the fighting too, am also very tempted to start pick pocketing etc 
Went to Windhelm and hated it so left without even doing any quests, also got an amulet from the catacombs under Whiterun and found Uthgerd's grave  will drop some blue mountain flowers there when I go back..


----------



## Vintage Paw (Feb 12, 2014)

moon said:


> No, no story, just someone who likes exploring, making stuff and I'm surprised to say that I'm enjoying the fighting too, am also very tempted to start pick pocketing etc
> Went to Windhelm and hated it so left without even doing any quests, also got an amulet from the catacombs under Whiterun and found Uthgerd's grave  *will drop some blue mountain flowers there when I go back..*



That's one of the things I like about this game. Despite there not being a game mechanic for paying respects for someone who has died we still feel moved to do so in our own way. It doesn't necessarily build characters up in any way - the story writing and characterisation is never the strong point of these games - and yet even if we don't realise it we create little spaces for them in our heads and are sad when their little grouping of pixels and pathing and ai algorithms bites the dust.


----------



## moon (Feb 12, 2014)

I finally bought a house! I only had enough money left over to decorate the living room and dining room, but have books on the shelves and will soon get a fire going when i decorate the kitchen.
Now if only i could import some e-books into skyrim then sit by the fire and read them


----------



## Vintage Paw (Feb 13, 2014)

You can, however, download all of Skyrim's books onto your kindle*. I forget where I got it from. You might find it through a google search.

*It's not an official Bethesda thing but organised by a fan I think.


----------



## CosmikRoger (Feb 13, 2014)

I've been playing this for two or three weeks now and have got up to a lvl 16 orc. I am incredibly shit at the fighting (a bit like real life) and rely heavily on my female companion (a bit like real life) who only follows me around 'cos I beat her up in a pub brawl (not at all like real life). I keep accidentaly shouting at friendlies which makes the world an his brother want to kill me, the same with accidentaly pickpocketing people or stealing stuff. Some goddess kept dropping me from about 1000ft for completing her quest, after the tenth time I had to cheat and put on god mode. I am relying rather heavily on the skyrim wiki for walkthroughs as I have a hard enough job just controlling the direction my orc walks in.
I am starting to get a bit pissed off with the loading screens though, it takes foerever, enough time to roll and smoke a joint, so consequently I forget what I was doing and end up starting new side quests before finishing old ones. For example, I go back to Whiterun to unload all my illgotten gains, get the loading screen, smoke a fat one waiting for it to load, come back to the computer, start another quest before unloading and the first bit of loot on the next quest takes me over the weight limit.


----------



## moon (Feb 13, 2014)

Have decided that tonight I'm going to travel back to all the places I've looted and collect stuff I didn't want, then sell them and furnish my home. And if the traders don't have enough cash I'm going to pick pocket 
I just want a nice house with shelves full of books and bell jars containing butterflies etc

Have seen some YouTube videos of the other houses in Skyrim and Breezehome looks the cosiest. Unfortunately I'm playing on Xbox so can't pimp it with mods but I just want to sit by the fire and read books anyway 
In fact I play Skyrim sitting by a real fire at home… lol

eta its weird but I feel physically warmer when standing/sitting near fires in skyrim, I think its the warm orange glow that they give off..


----------



## 8ball (Feb 13, 2014)

Just buy ALL the houses!


----------



## moon (Feb 13, 2014)

Why? I dont want a stupid armoury in my house nor a smelter or forge, especially when the blacksmith is just across the road and I can sell the ore and buy metal..
I want to feel and be part of a community, even if I ignore people most of the time and may even start stealing from them.. 
Now if only I could get a cat for my house too, that would be cool..

Some of the other houses are just too big and look cold, you probably spend as much time walking around them as walking around whiterun.. I guess the only reason to buy is to store things in them.
I'm guessing that some of the chests etc can become full?


----------



## Epona (Feb 13, 2014)

I have started a new game of Skyrim not having played it for a few months.  Need me some TES love (and it's the only TES game I currently have installed and modded, just needed to update some mods).

Playing a Bosmer stealth archer (nearly said Nightblade then ) which is by far my favourite build for Skyrim.  I am joining the Companions and have been told to beat up Rorik (I hate those brawl quests!) - it's quite a walk to Rorikstead though so I'm putting it off until I have other reasons to head that way.


----------



## Epona (Feb 13, 2014)

moon said:


> Now if only I could get a cat for my house too, that would be cool..



Get a Khajiit follower and tell him to wait there?


----------



## moon (Feb 13, 2014)

lol J'zargo offered to be my follower after I tested his scrolls, but he just annoys me whenever I look at him..


----------



## Epona (Feb 13, 2014)

There's another Khajiit follower who is really cool, one of the guards for the trading caravan that goes between Riften and Dawnstar.  I forget his name but he'll be a follower if you do a quest for him.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Feb 13, 2014)

Epona said:


> There's another Khajiit follower who is really cool, one of the guards for the trading caravan that goes between Riften and Dawnstar.  I forget his name but he'll be a follower if you do a quest for him.



omg I didn't know that. And I've only played the game for something like 2,200 hours *cough*

And yeah, bosmer nightblade archer >_>

Goddammit I want to post a picture of her.


----------



## moon (Feb 13, 2014)

yes post a pic, btw what is a bosmer nightblade archer?


----------



## Supine (Feb 13, 2014)

2200 hours!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Feb 13, 2014)

moon said:


> yes post a pic, btw what is a bosmer nightblade archer?



Oh, it's from ESO... I mentioned it because Epona did  I'm not allowed to post it. Dammit I want to. The NDA is still in place, although we're now allowed to talk about anything that we might have seen (or could argue we've seen) in the press, since they had a press beta and are allowed to write about the first 15 levels of content. They can't stop people talking about what the press write!


----------



## Epona (Feb 13, 2014)

moon said:


> yes post a pic, btw what is a bosmer nightblade archer?



It's from Elder Scrolls Online which is still in beta and under a non-disclosure agreement - so screenshots not allowed.
I am sure once the game launches, Vintage Paw will provide plenty of excellent screenshots, she's got a real knack with the camera so I am looking forward to that


----------



## moon (Feb 13, 2014)

ok but how can you bring a character from the online version into the game? Is it just the playing style? or clothes etc?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Feb 13, 2014)

She hasn't brought it over. She's made a bosmer archer in Skyrim, but nearly called it a nightblade because that's a class name in ESO and she's been playing it recently in the beta so it was in the forefront of her mind, it was a slip of the tongue.

It'd be nice to get some of those abilities in Skyrim though.

Siphoning got me out of many a near-death situation. That and running the fuck away.


----------



## Epona (Feb 13, 2014)

moon said:


> ok but how can you bring a character from the online version into the game? Is it just the playing style? or clothes etc?



What Vintage Paw said 

I am having difficulties playing Skyrim now.  Keep forgetting to save, and wondering where everyone else has got to


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## Balbi (Feb 13, 2014)

Supine said:


> 2200 hours!



91 DAYS


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## moon (Feb 13, 2014)

Here I am with Lydia in my new house, that is awaiting a fire..






and here is my real fire at home


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## moon (Feb 13, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> She hasn't brought it over. She's made a bosmer archer in Skyrim, but nearly called it a nightblade because that's a class name in ESO


Ahh i'm a wood elf in skyrim too, dint know they were called a bosmer..


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## Epona (Feb 13, 2014)

moon said:


> Ahh i'm a wood elf in skyrim too, dint know they were called a bosmer..



Have a look at some lore about Bosmer here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Bosmer

They are really interesting because they are not your typical fantasy wood elves - they don't eat or use any plant matter that comes from their forest, but they are very bloodthirsty when it comes to eating flesh, have cannibalistic rituals, and consume the flesh of their fallen enemies.  They're only 'a bit hippie' when it comes to plants - with everything else, it's a case of eat it once it stops moving. 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Green_Pact


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## moon (Feb 14, 2014)

Last night I sneaked and stole a horse, rode it to Helgen. (which is now full of bandits) I let the horse go and fought the bandits but it came back and started attacking the bandits too 

Have furnished my house now, and am gonna run around chasing things for a while before I increase the difficulty (currently on novice) and start questing again..


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## ffsear (Feb 14, 2014)

moon said:


> Here I am with Lydia in my new house, that is awaiting a fire..
> 
> 
> 
> ...





I've not seen Lydia in about 18 months


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 14, 2014)

Maybe she died


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## moon (Feb 16, 2014)

arghhh! I just went into shimmermist cave and the grotto, wtf was in there.. I just ran away screaming..lol


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 16, 2014)

I LOVE Shimmermist. From what I remember, it's falmer and a rather awesome thing right at the very end that can provide quite the fight if you're at an early stage in levelling.


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## Sweet FA (Feb 18, 2014)

I've not read the thread but have been playing since Christmas. I have just found out you can fast travel to places. I have walked fucking _miles. _And my horse wandered off while I was battling mages, the treacherous bastard


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## moon (Feb 18, 2014)

lol, its actually better to walk I think as you discover more things and get more experience..but it must be terrible if you're carrying too much to run...

I am currently completing Winterhold college quests.. the sense of urgency is so immense that I haven't had a chance to explore much.. but meeting the psijic monk was just soo cool, I practically followed him all the way to the town and kept asking him questions so I could hear his voice 

I'm trying to arm up Lydia with enchanted weapons and clothing, she's tough but am worried she might die.. I told her to wait for me in Winterhold town (as I thought non-students were barred from the college) but after the explosion in the Hall of Elements she appeared next to me, inside the college.. that was weird..

Am really getting into stealth archery with a sparks enchanted bow  and freezing Chaurus with my ice shout before zapping them with sparks.

Am having problems conjuring atronachs, it says I don’t have enough magicka but I have about 230 and a flame atronach seems to cost 130, but maybe its referring to something else.

Also am a bit worried that I may finish the game if I complete all the college quests?? I really want to try joining the companions/imperials etc etc.. I had the thought that all the quests converge to an end point and you have to restart the game to try new things… but I am probably wrong.

Am liking all the Dwemer ruins and realised what was in the Shimmermist Grotto… am still not going back there for a while though.. but its all very 'steampunk' 

I seem to have collected a shit load of weapons and crafted a heap of potions, just the traders in Whiterun never have enough coin for offload them… am thinking to visit another town such as Solitude soon and trade them there. But I also really need to keep an Itinerary of what I have as I seem to have sold stuff some good stuff which I now need, and have bits at winterhold, breezehome and the alchemists shack.. its a bit messy..

I thoroughly enjoyed spending some extended time in skyrim this weekend… makes me want to open a little Arcadia's Cauldron shop somewhere filled with bottles of potions and collected ingredients etc etc


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## Epona (Feb 18, 2014)

moon said:


> Also am a bit worried that I may finish the game if I complete all the college quests?? I really want to try joining the companions/imperials etc etc.. I had the thought that all the quests converge to an end point and you have to restart the game to try new things… but I am probably wrong.



Don't worry about it.  The guild quests are all separate to the main quest.  Even when you finish the main quest you can carry on playing indefinitely and finish up anything else you hadn't done.  So it's fine to complete all of the Mage's Guild story, you can then go and do the Companions or any other quest line afterwards.  There is no point when the game ends, only when you've decided you've had enough, or would like to try a new character


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## Hoss (Feb 18, 2014)

Moon, don't, whatever you do, sell any masks of any kind that you come to find in your possession. I had to restart as a new character after 3months or so of playing when I realised that I'd sold the wooden mask at some point.

It's not crucial to the game as such but it is part of the dragon mask story arc.

E2A: I was trying to moon but couldn't work how to do it. Am I being really thick or is there a little code I need to use?

E2A: FFS, it just worked in the edit.


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## maomao (Feb 18, 2014)

Epona said:


> Don't worry about it.  The guild quests are all separate to the main quest.  Even when you finish the main quest you can carry on playing indefinitely and finish up anything else you hadn't done.  So it's fine to complete all of the Mage's Guild story, you can then go and do the Companions or any other quest line afterwards.  There is no point when the game ends, only when you've decided you've had enough, or would like to try a new character


That's one of the things I don't like about the game to tell the truth. You can start a quest, wander around for ages and when you go back it's all waiting like you've never been away. I left that dragon chained up at Dragonreach for months and months and he wasn't particularly pissed off. I think quests should wander off or disappear if you don't do them within a reasonable amount of time.


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## Epona (Feb 18, 2014)

maomao said:


> That's one of the things I don't like about the game to tell the truth. You can start a quest, wander around for ages and when you go back it's all waiting like you've never been away. I left that dragon chained up at Dragonreach for months and months and he wasn't particularly pissed off. I think quests should wander off or disappear if you don't do them within a reasonable amount of time.



Oh god no, I don't like to feel rushed into questing.  Half the joy of TES is getting distracted by 'ooh, what's that over there' and forgetting what you were doing for a week or so as you find yourself doing something different than what you had planned, quests on a timer would ruin it for me.


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## Vintage Paw (Feb 18, 2014)

I've had a couple of quests flash up on screen in the past as being 'failed' - presumably because I completed a stage of a different quest that contradicted, or I simply took too long. One was one you can pick up in Whiterun as soon as you get there, but I forget exactly what it was. It might have been related to a family sword or something, idk.

moon - the main quest has to do with dragons and the woman from the inn at Riverwood - you'll know you're on it because it's kinda epic. But as Epona said, even if you finish that quest you're not done... you can carry on forever, dungeon delving and picking up radiant quests from people. You can join every single faction/guild in the game - although you can't follow both the Stormcloaks and the Imperials in the same playthrough. I personally prefer limiting my games to 1 or 2 factions, because I'm yet to make a character for whom it makes sense that they would be the leader of every single group in the country 

Incidentally, if you are going to eventually complete the main quest (some people never do) I'd recommend doing so during a playthrough where you have done the Companion's quest line. It's not essential, but it has a certain poignancy to it if you do.

On fast travelling - I almost never do it. I don't blame others for doing it, but part of the whole point of the game for me is exploring and walking around the gorgeous landscape, stumbling into random ruins and dungeons.


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## Buddy Bradley (Feb 18, 2014)

For some reason I'm seriously mulling re-buying this on PC, since I hardly ever get any time to play it on the PS3 nowadays.

Apart from Thief is there anything else coming out soon that might make this a poor decision? (first-person RPG open world type thing)


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## Epona (Feb 18, 2014)

Buddy Bradley said:


> For some reason I'm seriously mulling re-buying this on PC, since I hardly ever get any time to play it on the PS3 nowadays.
> 
> Apart from Thief is there anything else coming out soon that might make this a poor decision? (first-person RPG open world type thing)



The Witcher 3 - although that's probably going to be 3rd person, but will be open world and will be RPG.  That's scheduled for a Q2 release, although I don't think there's a date set yet.

Mind you I keep going back to TES games even months/years later, so I'd never consider it a wasted investment, just if you won't have much time to play it now it might be worth waiting for the next Steam sale!


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## Buddy Bradley (Feb 18, 2014)

Epona said:


> The Witcher 3 - although that's probably going to be 3rd person, but will be open world and will be RPG.  That's scheduled for a Q2 release, although I don't think there's a date set yet.


I've been slowly playing Witcher 2, but I'm getting to the point where I have to force myself to go back to it, and even then I don't play for very long.



> just if you won't have much time to play it now it might be worth waiting for the next Steam sale!


That's a good point - how long until the next one?


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## Epona (Feb 18, 2014)

Buddy Bradley said:


> That's a good point - how long until the next one?



They usually have a big sale sometime during the summer, but it's worth checking out the weekend, midweek, and daily deals too.  If you put it on your wishlist, you'll get an email when it goes on sale.  I think during the last Holiday sale, the Legendary Edition was going for just under £11 so it might be coming up cheaper by the summer.

In other news, one of my sticks of RAM just fucking failed, so now having issues with Skyrim as I'm down to 2Gb - bah.  I wanted to upgrade my RAM at some point anyway, but can't afford to do it this month.


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## Buddy Bradley (Feb 18, 2014)

Epona said:


> If you put it on your wishlist, you'll get an email when it goes on sale.  I think during the last Holiday sale, the Legendary Edition was going for just under £11 so it might be coming up cheaper by the summer.


Yeah, just added it. There's some chatter about a Spring sale, so maybe that will pop up in the next month or so.


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## CosmikRoger (Feb 23, 2014)

I killed Alduin the world eater last night, couldn't tell you how I did it other than by mashing buttons though.
According to Steam I have played Skyrim for 74 hours which is patently bollocks as at least half of of that time has been spent waiting for loading screens.


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## moon (Feb 24, 2014)

Am now arch mage, and am pondering becoming a werewolf. Still having lack of success summoning atronachs, but used the bound sword to increase my skills and just read up on casting atronachs on the ground.. Will try this soon.
Tried to get my bf into playing too, but with no luck.. yet..


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## Sweet FA (Feb 25, 2014)

Gah. Why does it freeze? It did this to me last night too 

I'm escaping prison with nothing but soiled pants and magic to save me, I've just duffed up 2 massive spiders and now I've got to do it all over again . I think there's a couple of those rolly robots round the corner too, the ones out of I, Robot 







I look like I'm doing jazz hands.


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## ffsear (Feb 25, 2014)




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## Epona (Feb 26, 2014)

ffsear said:


>




I love doing that in 1st person games (save first of course) - Dive Rock in Oblivion, Bard's Leap in Skyrim, and off the rim of the dish of the highest satellite station in Fallout 3.  Up close to a big display screen it can make you feel right queasy in 1st person!

Mind you in Skyrim I have been known to make use of the rugged terrain - I don't use fast travel much but sometimes when I'm up the top of High Hrothgar and can't be arsed to wind all the way back down along the path through Ivarstead and go from there to my destination, I will sort of point myself in the direction I want to end up and cross my fingers.  As long as I concentrate on changing direction so that I'm never falling too far, it's possible to make it back to Whiterun in a few minutes (and with a few bruises) rather than over half an hour.  I've often thought a toboggan mod would be handy


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## moon (Mar 3, 2014)

I've joined the thieves guild  also joined the companions but am not sure I like them, or being a werewolf.

Spent a bit of time finishing up Whiterun and Winterhold quests, sorted out Breezehome so that the first cupboard downstairs holds weapons and smithing materials. The chest in the alchemy room holds potions, the cupboard in the dining area holds all the domestic crap I've looted by accident or which has fallen off tables etc in my house. The cupboard on the landing holds books that dont fit on the 2 bookcases downstairs and the chest in the bedroom holds garments and jewellery 

I started to get a routine of going on a quest in the morning returning at nightfall, stashing loot, processing ingredients, checking over weapons and replenishing enchantments etc. I tooled up Lydia with a fab Drainheart sword which she loves to use, and I am jealous.. 
Then before going questing in the morning I sell some shit and chat to a few peeps etc lol.

However this will probably all change now that I'm a Riften thief


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## Sweet FA (Mar 4, 2014)

Um...how do you buy a house? I'm a right heavy bastard with all my armour, potions, weapons etc. I have to throw shit away on a fairly regular basis just so I can walk...


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## moon (Mar 4, 2014)

You can buy a house (Breezehome) from Proventus Avenicci, Jarl Balgruuf's steward in Whiterun, I think you need to become Thane first though, it costs 5000 gold. Plus more to decorate it.
Or you can use the  Alchemist's Shack as free home the bedside table is a secure storage area.


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## Buddy Bradley (Mar 4, 2014)

You can also use your room at the Mages college place to store stuff.


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## Epona (Mar 5, 2014)

In order to buy a house, you usually have to complete a quest or two for the Jarl of the hold.
If you do the main quest, the easiest one is Breezehome in Whiterun, all you have to do for that is follow the main quest up to the point of the dragon attack on the tower just outside the city, at some point during all the hubbub the Jarl will give you permission to buy property in the hold, and when you get back from defeating the dragon will make you a Thane (which gives you Lydia as housecarl and potential follower, and an enchanted named weapon).

Typically you purchase and decorate a home from the Jarl's Steward.

You DON'T have to be Thane to buy property, in fact it is the other way around - in the major cities you HAVE to own property before being named Thane.  Being given a Thane title gets you a housecarl for each of your houses though, and a uniquely named weapon or piece of armour.  To be given a Thane title you need to assist 5 people in each of the 5 major holds (the ones with walled cities as their capital).  You can also become Thane of the smaller cities/holds (Morthal, Dawnstar, Winterhold, Falkreath) by assisting 3 people within each hold.  This can be done by either completing radiant quests, or minor jobs such as chopping firewood/mining ore/gathering crops, giving a drunk something to drink, brawling with someone who challenges you to a fight etc.

Requirements for getting the houses are:
Whiterun - complete Dragon Rising (no further requirements to become Thane)
Riften - complete the skooma dealers questline, started by helping an Argonian called Wujeeta who works in the fishery on the docks (assist 5 people in the hold and own property to become Thane)
Markarth - complete The Forsworn Conspiracy, then ask the Jarl for another job and retrieve his father's shield (assist 5 people in the hold and own property to become Thane)
Solitude - investigate Wolfskull Cave, then take King Torryg's battlehorn and place it at the shrine of Talos - Jarl Elisif gives this quest after the Wolfskull one that you get from Falk Firebeard (assist 5 people in the hold and own property to become Thane)
Windhelm - depends which side of the Civil War you join.  Either way you have to complete Blood on the Ice.  If you are on the Imperial side, then you can buy the house after taking over Windhelm for the Imperials, if on the Stormcloak side you will be able to buy the house after Ulfric makes you Thane for your actions in support of the Stormcloaks. (no further requirements to become Thane).

If you have Hearthfire DLC, there are 3 plots of land you can buy and build a house on.  If you don't have the DLC, you can still become Thane, you just don't get a house there.
The Pale (Dawnstar) - Complete A Waking Nightmare (lvl 22 minimum), then complete a radiant 'kill a giant' quest from the Jarl (assist 3 people in the hold to become Thane)
Hjaalmarch (Morthal) - Complete Laid to Rest (assist 3 people in the hold to become Thane)
Falkreath - Complete a radiant bandit quest for the Jarl.  If you are 'unknown' in the hold he may ask you to get him a bottle of Blackbriar Reserve mead first (assist 3 people in the hold to become Thane).  Edit: There is a bug associated with this whereby if you progress too far down the Dark Brotherhood story the Jarl will hate you and you won't be able to buy the land unless you side with the Stormcloaks and replace him.  If you intend to side with the Imperials, do the Jarl's quests and buy the land before going too far into the Dark Brotherhood plot.

Winterhold - no property you can own other than your bed and a container in the student dorm at the mage's guild, or on completion of the mage guild quest line you get the archmage quarters.  But you can still become Thane of Winterhold by retrieving the Helm of Winterhold for the Jarl, then assisting other people in the hold.


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## moon (Mar 5, 2014)

Thanks for the clarification Epona


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## Epona (Mar 10, 2014)

Up until this playthrough, I hadn't really considered having my family live in any of the vanilla houses.  It's like Hearthfire gave me the option of 3 country estates, so lets have a family move in there, right?
Turns out, wrong.
This time, for the first time, I built a child bedroom in my house in Solitude, and had them move in there.  In the hearthfire houses, they always complain about being cold, or monsters in the woods or whatever, my spouse regularly gets kidnapped by bandits, and there is a constant skeever problem in the basement.  They bloody love living in Solitude though.  Instead of arriving home to a random dragon/bandit/draugr attack and screaming kids or a kidnapped spouse, I am greeted at the city gates by kids who have taken a quick break from playing tag with the local children to say hello.  They also took to Meeko straight away and asked me if they could keep him as a pet, rather than bringing home weird pets like mudcrabs and frostbite spiders and ignoring the poor doggie.  (((Meeko)))


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## CosmikRoger (Mar 10, 2014)

I was rather proud of my big house that I built with my own hands. 
I'd gotten married to Uthgerd, which seemed only fair as she had saved my arse countless times, and adopted a child from Whiterun but she kept complaining that Breezehome was too small. I spunked almost all my money on building a house with loads of furniture and now she asks WTF was I thinking of moving them all out here as they are always fending off bears and wolves.
My housecarl stroke steward is a babe though, with her matching bendy swords. Came out of the house one day and she was mid melee with 3 bandits, I didn't have time to get my weapon out (fnuurr) before she had despatched the lot of them. Oh and some turd has stolen my horse
I'm gonna move


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## Epona (Mar 14, 2014)

CosmikRoger said:


> Oh and some turd has stolen my horse
> I'm gonna move



Bet you find the poor thing rolled over and burnt out on a back road somewhere near Whiterun.  That always struck me as the town most likely to have block races.


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## Voley (Mar 15, 2014)

captainmission said:


> has anyone posted this yet?


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## Fez909 (Apr 8, 2014)

I was going to post this on your screenshot thread Vintage Paw but it seems I've imagined it. I've looked at your last three year's worth of threads and there's nothing there. Does such a thing exist? It seems a particularly mad thing to have invented if I have. 

Anyway, Skyrim duck/goose (not mine; found on Reddit)


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## golightly (Apr 8, 2014)

Fez909 said:


> I was going to post this on your screenshot thread Vintage Paw but it seems I've imagined it. I've looked at your last three year's worth of threads and there's nothing there. Does such a thing exist? It seems a particularly mad thing to have invented if I have.


 
This one, I think.


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## Fez909 (Apr 8, 2014)

golightly said:


> This one, I think.


Aha, it was Epona's thread. VP just took over 

Cheers!


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## Vintage Paw (Apr 8, 2014)

I have a habit of doing that


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## Epona (Apr 10, 2014)

I don't take that many screenshots myself, I started the thread so I would get to see ones that other people had taken


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## moon (Apr 25, 2014)

Haven't been here for a while as life took over but have still been playing.. am level 35 or something now.
I have the most amazing follower in Erandur, I adore him, plus a pet dog who fights, and my trusty flame atronach.. we all make a good team 
I did the main quest up to where I have to kill the Dragon but didn't feel strong enough so am back to thieves guild and other random quests.
Still just have Breezehome which Lydia is looking after for me and seem to keep spending money so haven't looked at buying another house
Will try to put some time in this weekend


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## Epona (Apr 25, 2014)

In my last playthrough I am afraid to say that I killed Erandur (I had been after that "Oblivion Walker" achievement since 11.11.11, at some point I just had to bite the bullet in at least one playthrough  )

Which dog did you end up with?  (I love Meeko).


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## Delroy Booth (Apr 26, 2014)

Skyrim is shit


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## moon (Apr 29, 2014)

Epona said:


> Which dog did you end up with?  (I love Meeko).



I *HAD *Meeko but he died in a cave  ,  this is the problem with having followers with no armour etc, (just like the healer from the temple in Whiterun who wanted to come on the elderglean quest..) they just get in the way and end up being killed... it's no surprise that my most used spell is Healing Hands..

Erandur is currently tooled up with loads of enchanted weapons, scrolls, staffs and blades amour..

btw is there any benefit in becoming a werewolf?... I have the skill but never seem to need it and you are basically fighting and naked with no protection.


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## QueenOfGoths (May 4, 2014)

I became a werewolf and I think I used it once or twice. Is was too rampaging for me, plus I think my follower tried to kill me or something like that!

Just started playing it again having reached level 50 and kind of doing most of the quests.

Was tempted to go the magic route but I have come to the conclusion I just like hitting people too much so this time will concentrate on light armour, one handed and sneak.

I've just meet Vilkas, who was my husband the last time I played, and I got quite wistful  I imagine the same will happen with Onmund who was my follower for most of the game (after my first one was killed )

*tells self it's not real... like Star Trek.. and Fallout*


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## Epona (May 5, 2014)

I did the Companions questline several times, but never actually used the werewolf form at all.  It's not something that interests me very much!

The guy who follows you on the eldergleam quest - if he is still alive when you get to the eldergleam, the quest can go a different direction.  I didn't realise that until after a few playthhroughs, becuase usually he dies before getting there..


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## moon (May 15, 2014)

I have started cooking and traveling around selling my food as well as my enchanted rings etc and potions.

Makes for a good restful time to spend the day making stuff (and buying things from the merchants) then take the cart to various towns, sell things, have a few chats with people, complete a few town-based quests then return home to Whiterun...

I did the inside the mind of a madman quest too, that was interesting... want to test the wabbajack on a dragon 

Erandur is still going strong, duel casting powerful staffs and also wielding the sanguine rose  he is very quick at swapping out weapons.. I have given him loads of scrolls but he seems to use them at the wrong times, such as reanimating a mudcrab corpse.. and summoning a frost atronach whilst fighting a bear/wolf...

Haven't really been purposefully following quests for a while as am not so keen on killing things at the moment although I do love my Dawnbreaker sword


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## moon (Jun 25, 2014)

I've stopped playing this as was getting dizziness from the spinning etc
Playing Tomb Raider now


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## Buddy Bradley (Jul 26, 2014)

Haven't played for ages on the PS3, but I re-purchased it on PC from Steam and restarted a new character. It's the first time I've been able to explore mods, so I've been having fun trying to find my way around with the iHUD minimal UI and enjoying improved graphics. If anyone (Epona ?) has mod suggestions that aren't going to be too demanding on my Mac running on Boot Camp, I'd love to hear them.


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 26, 2014)

What kind of things are you most interested in? Graphics or gameplay? I ran quite a lot of graphical mods under boot camp before I got my current laptop, and at 1600x900 it was just fine. I couldn't do everything I wanted, of course.

Scripted mods (which covers a fair few of the more fancy gameplay mods) can be more troublesome -- in general graphical mods are safe to use and just rely on your vram's ability to not make everything come tumbling around your ears.

Your first port of call is ENBoost. I know you're not probably planning on using an ENB (although you probably could, I did through boot camp), but enboost is a component of all newer ENBs, but is designed to run on its own as well. It helps free up memory, allowing you to use a lot more than you ordinarily would. It helps prevent crashes, in effect. It requires a few tweaks to its own supplied ini file, but that's easy enough to do.

The unofficial patches are a must. They correct most things that Bethesda never got around to fixing, and are often required for some other mods. A search for unofficial patch will bring them up for the base game and each dlc on nexus.

You'll want MCM, but you probably already have that - a lot of gameplay mods require it. There's also SkyUI, that changes the look of all the menus. That's down to personal taste. I can't imagine going back, tbh.

After that, it's up to you.

If you want gameplay mods, just make sure you read carefully about any scripted elements and how to install and uninstall. As a general rule, you can't safely uninstall anything like this without some trace of it remaining in your save games. The only way to ensure a properly clean save is to go back to one from before you installed whatever you're removing. Ignore anyone who tells you they have a foolproof method for cleaning your save. They don't. You might find you're just fine, and encounter no problems, but then again you might, so plan ahead. The more scripted mods you have, the more you run the risk of your game becoming unstable, so pick only the ones that you feel are absolutely necessary, and see how you go with them for a while.

There are various follower mods that give you more control over the amount of followers you can have, their combat abilities, actions, armours and weapons, etc. The one I used most recently was AFT (Amazing Follower Tweaks) I think. As far as I'm aware, it isn't scripted.

Then some cool things like Wet and Cold, which gives everyone certain behaviours in different weathers: they'll wear hoods and gloves and capes if it's cold, run inside if it rains, some have umbrellas if it rains, they'll get snow and ash collect on them, drips after raining or swimming, etc. It's customisable via MCM. It's scripted.

Footprints is nice, does what the name suggests, gives people (and some animals) footprints in the snow and ash. Scripted, up to you if it's worth it.

Deadly Dragons is really nice. There are lots of other dragon mods, but that was the one that fit my needs the best. It adds different dragons, it lets you control how often you might get random dragon attacks, you can control the level of dragons and how evil they are. It's scripted. I think bellyache's dragon retextures are included but if not look them up too. And while you're at it, bellyache's creature retextures are some of the best out there.

aMidianBorn's weapon and armour retextures are the best out there. He's also been slowly doing over towns and environments. His cave textures are wonderful. If you don't find them under aMidianBorn, search for Book of Silence.

Race Menu is excellent - it gives you much more control over sliders during character creation, and lets you layer as many warpaints as you like, gives you lots of new options. It requires skse, but lots of things do so you might already have that installed. Consider the precachekiller file as well - it stops the race menu from crashing if you have lots of things like custom hair styles installed.

Vurt's Flora Overhaul is very pretty, almost everyone uses it to some degree. There are different flavours to suit your needs. You can use it in conjunction with Grass on Steroids, which lets you have more grass without compromising your fps. Or, you can use it to have the same amount of grass but actually gain fps.

I always recommend STEP as a good starting point because they go through and identify the 'best' (subjective, obv) mods that are mostly in keeping with vanilla Skyrim, check them for conflicts, and give instructions on installation, stability, etc. It can be useful to find mods you never even thought of searching for. You don't have to use everything it suggests, you can pick and choose.

Beware of SMIM (Static Mesh Improvement Mod). It's great, but it can be really taxing on your system because it's adding a lot of polygons. There are some meshes that it adds that are more demanding than others, and iirc it points out which those are.

One really nice lighting mod that I like is ELFX (Enhanced Lights and FX). I haven't used the outdoor module or the enhancer, but the indoor base mod is really nice. It works with a lot of ENBs too, if that's your thing. (There are some good performance ENBs out there, incidentally, so don't necessarily write them off because they are resource-intensive. And I can give you tips on how to make them more performance-friendly if you see one you particularly love but it's just a bit too greedy. A really lovely and semi-vanilla one right now is Serenity ENB - it comes in different performance versions, so you could always try the lower end ones.)

If you're looking at body replacers, if you care about that sort of thing, UNP for women probably has the most support in terms of armour and clothing that has been made for it. My personal favourite is CNHF (Calyps and Nuska's Heroic Form) - it aims for a less sexualised, more "I'm gonna fuckin' cut ya" vibe. It has less armour support, but you can use any UNP armours with it without any seam issues or missing body parts. For men choices are more limited (big surprise there). I think you get 2 choices of body replacer and a pitiful handful of skin texture choices. A friend of mine is creating some male textures, and they're excellent, but he hasn't formally released any of them yet. I have an old beta version if you want them - they're pretty resource intensive though. As for textures for women, there are millions. I like Real Girls, Maevan's Mature Skin, and then there are some by anaphiel but they're not on nexus. I can hook you up  I always end up creating my own from mash ups of other people's though 

There are some good water mods to choose from, I think I was using RWT (Realistic Water Two) most recently, but WATER is great as well. This was with WATER, iirc.

For snow I've always liked it from Snow and Rocks HD the best, but others tend to recommend others over that. The one that used to be recommended in STEP (not sure if it still is) looked too pristine for my liking. There's loads to choose from though.

Ultimate Fire HD Effects has different texture sizes for fire, and even the performance version is an improvement over the vanilla fire textures. The highest quality version is just *swoon*

Enhanced Blood Textures, well, enhances blood textures >_>

Convenient Horses gives you lots of ways to control how horses work and makes it a more useful thing to have around. It's scripted.

Winter is Coming adds a bunch of really nice cloaks and hoods to the game.

Wearable Lanterns is really useful, letting you have light in dark places without sacrificing a hand to hold a torch. You can set it to auto-turn on and off in dark areas (basically when an area is flagged as indoors or night).

Lanterns of Skyrim adds lanterns to roads and buildings outdoors, creating a bit more of a lived in feel. An NPC will wander around tending to them in the wild sometimes.

The Paarthurnax Dilemma is a mod that alters your choices at the end of the main story quest so it's not quite as annoying as it can be for some people.


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 26, 2014)

Oh god, there are just so many to recommend. Those above are just some of the really basic ones I would consider as standard for my games... in terms of texture replacers it's nearly impossible to list all the various options. You can get practically every single object in the game retextured if you want. But they'll have a cumulative effect on your fps and performance, of course. There are some that try to help performance without sacrificing too much graphical fidelity, so if you have the time and motivation you can search to find things to use together so you can retexture the things you care about really nicely, but get performance versions of other things you don't care about. 

My main recommendation is to start slow, start small. Don't mod all the things at once. Particularly in terms of gameplay mods, add one or two at a time, play for a while, make sure it doesn't fuck things up, then add some more. Don't add them all, because if something fucks up after 2 hours of playing, you'll have little idea what is causing it and have to delete the lot, revert to an old save, and then start adding them in one by one again to eliminate the culprit. I once spent 2 days modding my game. I played for ages. Got to the part where I'm going to kill the first dragon outside Whiterun and it would crash as soon as the dragon came near and roared. Every time. I couldn't fix it, as much as I tried. I had to uninstall everything and start from scratch. Everything. Considering my mods folder generally sits at ~60GB you can imagine that was a bit of a chore. Don't make the same mistake as me.


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## Buddy Bradley (Jul 26, 2014)

I'm mostly adding graphical mods at the moment, plus the "unofficial patch" one that sounds pretty standard for everyone to install. I have the 2K textures, water, lighting, background noises and flora stuff, and iHUD to remove the compass. I'm not really planning to install much of the gameplay-changing stuff, I'd rather experience it as it was intended.


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## Epona (Jul 26, 2014)

I'd definitely recommend SkyUI - it doesn't affect gameplay but makes a massive improvement to the UI (so that it's actually nice to use and more intuitive with kb+m instead of the hot mess that is the vanilla UI on PC).
It's one mod I wouldn't ever want to be without.

The other "must have" for me (besides the official patches) is a little mod that requires SKSE called "Smart Souls" - it prevents small souls going into big soul gems, so if you run out of petty gems you won't find all your grands filling up with crappy mudcrab souls!


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## Vintage Paw (Jul 26, 2014)

Epona said:


> I'd definitely recommend SkyUI - it doesn't affect gameplay but makes a massive improvement to the UI (so that it's actually nice to use and more intuitive with kb+m instead of the hot mess that is the vanilla UI on PC).
> It's one mod I wouldn't ever want to be without.
> 
> The other "must have" for me (besides the official patches) is a little mod that requires SKSE called "Smart Souls" - it prevents small souls going into big soul gems, so if you run out of petty gems you won't find all your grands filling up with crappy mudcrab souls!



Oh yeah, I had one like that, it was called acquisitive soul gems I think. It's a really useful idea, since some of the bigger gems are harder to come by at times.


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## Hoss (Jul 30, 2014)

Vintage Paw said:


> What kind of things are you most interested in? Graphics or gameplay? I ran quite a lot of graphical mods under boot camp before I got my current laptop, and at 1600x900 it was just fine. I couldn't do everything I wanted, of course.
> 
> Scripted mods (which covers a fair few of the more fancy gameplay mods) can be more troublesome -- in general graphical mods are safe to use and just rely on your vram's ability to not make everything come tumbling around your ears....



Vintage Paw Epic post. Really useful. Makes me want to try it out on my Mac via Steam but I doubt it's powerful enough to do it justice. am checking now!


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## Buddy Bradley (Jan 27, 2015)

So I finally, after 4 years, finished the main quest and killed Alduin. And... is that it? Absolutely nothing happens, the quest just ends, nobody congratulates you, no big shiny reward, just - nothing.


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## Epona (Jan 27, 2015)

Buddy Bradley said:


> So I finally, after 4 years, finished the main quest and killed Alduin. And... is that it? Absolutely nothing happens, the quest just ends, nobody congratulates you, no big shiny reward, just - nothing.



Did you not get the big speech with all the dragons circling in the sky above you? 
I thought that was awesome!


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## Buddy Bradley (Jan 27, 2015)

Epona said:


> Did you not get the big speech with all the dragons circling in the sky above you?
> I thought that was awesome!


Well, yeah (although I couldn't hear it all that well because my wife was talking at me at the same time  ) I was just expecting something more, like a parade and recognition of the fact that I just saved the entire world.


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## Epona (Jan 27, 2015)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Well, yeah (although I couldn't hear it all that well because my wife was talking at me at the same time  ) I was just expecting something more, like a parade and recognition of the fact that I just saved the entire world.



Honestly, I love my husband dearly, and we usually talk nonstop, but when I am coming up to a big story moment in a game I tell him and he will stay quiet for the duration. I guess it helps that he plays games too!


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## Lord Hugh (Jan 29, 2015)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Well, yeah (although I couldn't hear it all that well because my wife was talking at me at the same time  ) I was just expecting something more, like a parade and recognition of the fact that I just saved the entire world.


Maybe if you'd saved it sooner!


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## Pseudopsycho (Mar 6, 2015)

I hit 100hrs last night and have done fuck all of the main quest(s)  I did just get my 100th point in smithing and am level 37. I have built lakeview manor, have two other houses, two horses and a dog! I can tell this is going to be worse than Fallout NV at this rate.


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## 8ball (Mar 6, 2015)

Pseudopsycho said:


> I hit 100hrs last night and have done fuck all of the main quest(s)  I did just get my 100th point in smithing and am level 37. I have built lakeview manor, have two other houses, two horses and a dog! I can tell this is going to be worse than Fallout NV at this rate.



I'm like this too - the massive dragon would have wiped out half the planet or something and I'd be up some mountain picking flowers.


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## Pseudopsycho (Mar 6, 2015)

I've got 7 spare dragon souls because a) I've only unlocked the 6 or 7 shouts I stumbled across and b) I'm faffing so much I keep getting random dragoned whilst trying to make money to buy stuff to make stuff to level up and make money to make better stuff...


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## Steel Icarus (Sep 12, 2015)

I'm half in awe of this game (scale, story, inventory, distractions) and half really fucking irritated by it. Combat is stupid and getting attacked all the fucking time is stupid. I found a mine (hurrah! I unlocked a location!) and immediately was told by some prick he was going to enjoy cutting out my colon, so I fucked off down a mountain, he kept coming, I got a fair bit away then HE WAS ON MY HEELS so I legged it into a house thinking that would be that, but he came in and started whacking me, so I got out the old axe and promptly took out the poor woman whose house it was so her husband leathered me. Like, cheers Skyrim you melt.

Not sure I'm going to play much more, it's just too annoying/broken (three times now I've got stuck in scenery and had to reload).


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## Vintage Paw (Sep 12, 2015)

Is this your first experience with Bethesda?


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## Steel Icarus (Sep 12, 2015)

Vintage Paw said:


> Is this your first experience with Bethesda?



Yeah  I think I've been spoiled - the only things I've played comparable to Skyrim is Zelda games, the gameplay of which is always flawless, and Metroid, which again is terrific


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## Vintage Paw (Sep 12, 2015)

Yeah, you have to let go of any preconceptions. A Bugthesda game is not a polished experience. It's a big, dirty, awkward, clunky, broken, glorious mess of a gem.


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## 8den (Sep 12, 2015)

I found the hand to hand combat so insanely boring o just gave up (after reaching about level 60 something and having a full set of dragon bone armour and a sword.


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## Vintage Paw (Sep 12, 2015)

Archery is lovely in Skyrim.


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## Epona (Sep 13, 2015)

Vintage Paw said:


> Archery is lovely in Skyrim.



Yes, this.  After being a bit 'fail' in Morrowind and Oblivion, archery is pretty much the win button in Skyrim. A bit OP, but really well implemented compared to previous games in the series.


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## emanymton (Sep 14, 2015)

S☼I said:


> I'm half in awe of this game (scale, story, inventory, distractions) and half really fucking irritated by it. Combat is stupid and getting attacked all the fucking time is stupid. I found a mine (hurrah! I unlocked a location!) and immediately was told by some prick he was going to enjoy cutting out my colon, so I fucked off down a mountain, he kept coming, I got a fair bit away then HE WAS ON MY HEELS so I legged it into a house thinking that would be that, but he came in and started whacking me, so I got out the old axe and promptly took out the poor woman whose house it was so her husband leathered me. Like, cheers Skyrim you melt.
> 
> Not sure I'm going to play much more, it's just too annoying/broken (three times now I've got stuck in scenery and had to reload).


You should have tried playing Daggerfall, it felt like you got stuck in a wall every 5 steps. There is a free version floating around on the Internet somewhere with a command to move you back 1 step just to get around the problem.


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## Epona (Sep 17, 2015)

emanymton said:


> You should have tried playing Daggerfall, it felt like you got stuck in a wall every 5 steps. There is a free version floating around on the Internet somewhere with a command to move you back 1 step just to get around the problem.



The first 2 games, Arena and Daggerfall, are both 'officially' now available completely free of charge.  Unfortunately Daggerfall did not like my mouse, and my mouse did not like Daggerfall :/


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## emanymton (Sep 17, 2015)

Epona said:


> The first 2 games, Arena and Daggerfall, are both 'officially' now available completely free of charge.  Unfortunately Daggerfall did not like my mouse, and my mouse did not like Daggerfall :/


I loved Daggerfall when it came out but never really got very far into the plot as I just kept creating new characters to play with.
I was running it on a netbook that is officially the slowest computer in the word a couple a years ago, and it worked surprising will with just the track pad. 

You are missing out on the pleasure of spending hours and hours (sometimes over 6) wandering around a randomly generated dungeon and still not finding what you are looking for. 
Although the free version out there now has a control to jump to all the key locations in a dungeon. I also remember 1 occasion where I just walked down a corridor opened a door turned left and the thing I was looking for was right there. I didn't even have to fight anything. 

I find it surprising when I play skyrim how much if Daggerfall there is in it (I've never played Arena) but also how many things haven't made it, sometimes just little things like closed shops having a message telling you their opening hours.


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## ffsear (Oct 14, 2016)

Anyone going to get the remastered version out this month?

Skyrim Remastered hits HUGE milestone, as Bethesda announces new Creation Kit

I'm looking forward to it,  not played skyrim in about 18 months.   I'll be taking the opposite path this time and siding with the Storm Cloaks


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 14, 2016)

I could have my arm twisted, even though I bought the original and all its DLC at full price first time around 

I'll hold off though to see what the state of modding will be with it. Years have gone into mods for the original, and while some will undoubtedly work with the new one already, lots more will need to be reworked, and if their creators don't get the remastered version they're unlikely to ever be done.

It being 64bit will make it an altogether more enjoyable experience for those who like to push the graphics, without the need for 4GB launchers and all that jazz.


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## ohmyliver (Oct 14, 2016)

If it's free like the bioshock remasters then yes, I'm getting it


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## Chilli.s (Oct 14, 2016)

Id look at a remastered Skyrim for a new playthrough but don't think its worth another full price purchase. Played the whole thing rigorously the first time for too many hours.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 14, 2016)

No other game has captured the 'wander around doing fuck all for 2000 hours' vibe for me like Skyrim did. 2000 hours and I never did the Solstheim dlc, and only completed the main story and vampire dlc once.


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## Voley (Oct 14, 2016)

35 quid was the price I saw for this. Is that right? I'm not paying that for the same game no matter how pretty it is.


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## Hoss (Oct 14, 2016)

I'm sure I read recently that it's free (or very cheap) on Steam for anyone that owns the original version. 

Edit: I did.







.


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## moon (Oct 14, 2016)

I will be getting the PS4 version, I already have 2 other versions for PC and Xbox360 but it was the first ever video game I played so its quite important to me.

Plus I only ever got up to level 40 on the xbox version as it was so bugged.. I'd like to try to complete it on the PS4


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## moon (Oct 14, 2016)

Voley said:


> 35 quid was the price I saw for this. Is that right? I'm not paying that for the same game no matter how pretty it is.


I only paid about £10 for the xbox and pc versions so I don't mind shelling out a bit more for the remaster


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## Hoss (Oct 14, 2016)

As exciting as it is to get an improved Skyrim experience, is much rather have TES 6, whatever that may be. 

The announcement of TES 6 will be the catalyst for me buying a next gen console or shelling out for a gaming PC.


.


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## Johnny Vodka (Oct 14, 2016)

I'll prob get the remastered version for ps4.  Never finished it on xbox 360.  Looks so beautiful.  However, will wait for price drop.


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## Voley (Oct 14, 2016)

I've got a PS4. £35 on that at Game. Not at that price, ta. I'll give it a bit and see what it's going for on eBay in a few months.


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## Johnny Vodka (Oct 14, 2016)

£15 - £20 is what I buy a game for.  I have enough games I've barely touched.


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## Pseudopsycho (Oct 14, 2016)

ohmyliver said:


> If it's free like the bioshock remasters then yes, I'm getting it



If you've got the Legendary edition or all the DLC then it'll be free, roll on the 28th. I just hope there'll be someway to transfer my saves over...


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## DrRingDing (Oct 14, 2016)

Epona said:


> Did you not get the big speech with all the dragons circling in the sky above you?
> I thought that was awesome!



Nooo! I've just started playing Skyrim on the PS3 and have, just today met Alduin who has told me I'm dragonborn.

Serves me right for nosing on a thread about a 5 year old game.

Shall i just kill him now and be done with it?


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 15, 2016)

Well if it's free it'd be rude not to grab it. 

It's a great game. One of my favourites.


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## Hurin85 (Oct 16, 2016)

I never got in to this what was the top 3 best bits ? and why did you love it ?


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## Chilli.s (Oct 16, 2016)

The scenery.
The exploring.
Starting off weak and sneaking about scared then eventually becoming tough and practically invincible.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 16, 2016)

Chilli.s said:


> The scenery.
> The exploring.
> Starting off weak and sneaking about scared then eventually becoming tough and practically invincible.



That, pretty much.

It's seriously lacking in story, but it seems to have captured just the right combination of open worldiness for me that story doesn't matter at all and I can walk from one side of the map to the other, taking detours here and there, and getting lost in caves for hours (I never did explore all of that vast network in the north that stretched for nearly half the map). Having spoken to friends about it, I know there are places I still never discovered (there's a place with some kind of dwemer device that tips you upside down and into a cave... I never found that). And I do not exaggerate when I say I poured 2000 hours into it.


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## Johnny Vodka (Oct 16, 2016)

Chilli.s said:


> The scenery.
> The exploring.
> Starting off weak and sneaking about scared then eventually becoming tough and practically invincible.



Yes, definitely the scenery - just the look and feel, which I suppose will be even better now.  Only thing I'm not that keen on is the combat - very clunky, unless I'm missing something.  Maybe that's why I put more effort into archery, which at least feels like it requires skill.


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## DrRingDing (Oct 19, 2016)

DrRingDing said:


> Nooo! I've just started playing Skyrim on the PS3 and have, just today met Alduin who has told me I'm dragonborn.
> 
> Serves me right for nosing on a thread about a 5 year old game.
> 
> Shall i just kill him now and be done with it?



Nope, just came across the real Alduin. I was confusing some priest with the dragon.

For me the music is superb. My other says its on Spotify. On a half decent surround sound system its great.


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## Chilli.s (Oct 20, 2016)

Oh yeah... the music. Epic.


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## moon (Oct 20, 2016)

ESO music is better


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## ffsear (Oct 20, 2016)

Chilli.s said:


> Oh yeah... the music. Epic.



Hell yea!


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## moon (Oct 20, 2016)

Oh yes that is a good one..


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 20, 2016)

The Skyrim theme still gives me goosebumps.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 20, 2016)

ffsear said:


> Hell yea!




Okay, yeah. Listening to that and I'm definitely going to be downloading the remastered version. Fuck, I love Skyrim.


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## MooChild (Oct 20, 2016)

I've pre-ordered for my xbox one, despite playing the bejeesus out of it on PC.

I can't wait


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

The special edition is available for pre-load on Steam now. 

I've been going through all my old screenshots and posting some of them on twitter under the SkyrimMemories hashtag. It's making me excited to play it again. It's been 3 years since I last uninstalled it. 

On the modding front, there's going to be a new CK (creation kit), and from what I've seen it looks like old mods might be able to be ported by updating the bsa and esp files in the new CK. Plain old texture replacers should work out of the box though since you just drop 'em in a folder and they override the vanilla textures. Presumably they won't have changed the file names/types for all the textures.

I'm most interested to see if Boris is going to port the current ENB over to a 64bit binary. We'll be able to use ReShade, which is a heck of a lot more powerful than SweetFX was back in the early days of Skyrim, but it's still no match for Skyrim's ENB potential, with its splits in time of day, interior/exterior tweaking, changes to fog, clouds, interactions with water shaders, etc. 

I hope I'm able to recreate a couple of my favourite characters.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

This was my favourite character ever - dark elf thief assassin Anis Verethi


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

It has downloaded. Woooooooo! I'm excited like it's 2011 lol.


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## ffsear (Oct 27, 2016)

Vintage Paw said:


> It has downloaded. Woooooooo! I'm excited like it's 2011 lol.



Is it letting you play now,  or do you have to wait until midnight?


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

It unlocks tomorrow. Not sure if midnight or some other time. Presumably midnight. I'm not staying up for it. I'm not that excited lol.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

I tell you, 10GB downloads faster in 2016 than it did in 2011.


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## Chilli.s (Oct 27, 2016)

Vintage Paw said:


> It has downloaded. Woooooooo! I'm excited like it's 2011 lol.



Hard not to be a bit jealous too, but Iv blown my games budget on fighting world war one for now. So no new Skyrim here for the time being.

Your screenshots are really good.


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## Hoss (Oct 27, 2016)

Chilli.s said:


> Your screenshots are really good.



Second that. You can really see the difference with a good gaming rig & mods compared to vanilla Skyrim on the 360.



.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

Thanks.

I was using mods and an ENB back when I played it on my bootcamped macbook, so it's never been necessary to have a really powerful computer to make it look good - you just had to find compromises. Most of my better shots were on my Windows laptop, which was pretty powerful at the time for what it was. Obviously on console it's a different matter.

Mods I'm most interested in this time around are texture and model replacers for characters/character creation, the usual grass/tree/environmental texture replacers, and I'm hoping beyond hope that Deadly Dragons gets updated for it because it was really, really good. It's going to be easier to run mods now it's 64bit.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

ENB forums suggest Boris will look at updating the ENB binary as much as is possible if the special edition proves popular enough. I'm holding out hope.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

Mods: Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)

Skyrim: Special Edition interview - Todd Howard on remastering the fantasy epic


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## moon (Oct 27, 2016)

I am wondering how this will play on the Nintendo Switch.. should be interesting..


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)




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## Vintage Paw (Oct 27, 2016)




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## ffsear (Oct 27, 2016)

Have downloaded on ps4.  Playable at midnight.


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## ohmyliver (Oct 28, 2016)

Had a little play.  Annoyingly I didn't move my saves over, so started from the beginning with some sort of Khajiit stealthy fighter type. 

It looks *much* prettier.  View distances are vast, there's a lot more foliage, lighting and shadows are much nicer. Weather/mist/snow is much better.   I suspect this is going to look a-maaa-zing when all the mods get into play.


----------



## moon (Oct 28, 2016)

It looks amazing, my copy arrives tomorrow


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Oct 28, 2016)

Other then prettier graphics, does it bring anything else new out the box?


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## ruffneck23 (Oct 28, 2016)

Just checked my steam and as id bought the GOTY edition , ive got the special edition free, think il have to take a look


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 28, 2016)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> Other then prettier graphics, does it bring anything else new out the box?



Graphics and a 64-bit engine, which will mean better stability. But other than that, no.

Seems that they've compressed the audio quite terribly in order to fit it all on consoles - but have done so for PC as well . It's markedly worse than in the original game. There's a way to move the original audio over. I expect it'll be a mod before too long (or even an optional extra official pack like the HD textures were back in the day).


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## moon (Oct 28, 2016)

noooo, the audio is so much a part of the whole experience...


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## agricola (Oct 28, 2016)

I do like the way this has been done, the beauty is in the little bits and not just the spectacular views.


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 29, 2016)

Managed a very rough approximation of my OTD (one true dragonborn), Anis Verethi, thanks to crossed fingers and toes and thrusting a bunch of old mods at the game and hoping for the best. Got ReShade installed too, and am downsampling via dsr, but not to 4k because that plus godrays will kill all things (I just had my first crash lol).


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 29, 2016)

They're starting work on the new SKSE (which is needed for a heck of a lot of mod functionality). It means the future is bright for PC modding. Really pleased.


----------



## Pseudopsycho (Oct 29, 2016)

Was playing vanilla (except HD textures) so saves ported! 200hrs of pootling means I can now actually play the game - I didn't even get to the greybeards! After a new geforce driver update it is now running happily on my gtx970 with everything on ultra  at this rate might need a new monitor to push the resolution up a bit...


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 29, 2016)

You should be able to use DSR to downsample. The option is in the nvidia control panel. You pick the resolution you want to use, and it'll show up in the Skyrim launcher.


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## Pseudopsycho (Oct 30, 2016)

Vintage Paw thanks! set to 4x (being optimistic) and here's my first attempt at a screenshot! How do you get a free-look camera?


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## Vintage Paw (Oct 30, 2016)

There are loads of console commands to help with screenshots. This is a really good tutorial covering a lot of them (they seem to be the same in all recent Beth games).

You bring up the console by pressing ` (or whatever is to the left of 1 on your keyboard). Bringing up the console freezes time, but it will start again when you close it.

If you want to be able to see your character in shots, make sure you go into third person before using any of the controls, otherwise they'll be invisible.

These are the commands I use the most:

tfc 1 freezes time (although grass still sways) and enables the freecam (toggle free camera). tfc 1 again changes it back to normal.

tfc enables the freecam in the same way, but doesn't freeze any of the action. I don't use this very frequently because it can be a bit more fiddly and I always fuck something up.

sucsm x (where x is a number) changes the speed at which the freecam moves. The default is quite fast (I think the default is 10). I tend to start off with 4 or 5, and then to really refine the placement I'll go down to 1 (or lower). You can go really high with it as well if you want to zoom across the landscape. You don't need to reset this when you're done as it has no impact on the normal gameplay camera.

tm = toggle menus. It removes the hud, but will also remove the console from view. You can still use the console while tm is active, but you'll probably fuck up. You can't move the camera while the console is open, so that's the best way to work out whether you've left the console open or not once you've used tm. It's best to use tm only once you've set up all the other commands you want to use. Typing tm again turns the menus back on.

fov x (where x is a number) changes the field of view (think wide lens or telephoto). The default is a ridiculously narrow 65. I tend to change it to 80 for gameplay. You can use fov quite creatively to create some lovely pictures. If you're taking portraits of characters going down to ~30 is a good staring point. I like 50-60 for landscape shots, preferring to pull the camera back to fit everything in rather than using higher numbers and introducing more distortion (with high numbers you'll start to get fisheye distortion - in original Skyrim you couldn't go much higher than about 110-130 I think). Of course you can use high numbers to create a distorted effect if that's what you are going for. Experiment with this a lot - it makes or breaks a shot.

csb = clear screen blood: if you've got the perfect shot lined up but you've got blood all over the screen from a recent kill. Of course you might want that for dramatic effect.

There are loads of other commands as per that tutorial, but I'm a lazy kind of screenshotter so I don't tend to use them to set up staged shots and so on. 

One command to keep in mind is tcl = toggle clipping. It's useful in case you get yourself stuck somewhere that you can't get out of in the game. It allows you to move your character freely, even high up into the sky if you want, and lets you go through objects. Perhaps handy to get out of Blackreach if you can't find an exit 

---

When you're using freecam (tfc 1 or tfc), the usual wasd keys control your movement as you'd expect. In addition, LMB and RMB let you move the camera up and down. Sadly there's no way to tilt the camera, which is a real shame.

---

One last command for the lolz: try twf (might require twf 1, not sure). Then try not to freak out. (Type it again, and maybe a third time, to disable.)


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## Pseudopsycho (Oct 30, 2016)

Cheers for that, it's certainly tempting to get very involved: I had a quick play and was much happier with my second attempt - but as I said I haven't even got very far into the story! I'll bookmark this and come back I think. 

Alyss Koopur and Rayya chilling in Winterhold:


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## moon (Nov 1, 2016)

I dipped into this at the weekend and immediately got motion sickness..lol again!
But I was also ill with a bad cold so that may have had something to do with it.
It does look beautiful though...


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 1, 2016)

I fixed my crashing. It was the result of 4 face normal maps that had been saved without alphas. So I resaved them with alphas and the crashing went away. It seems SSE is a little more strict when it comes to how it handles dds files, and I know the nif (mesh) format has changed a bit too, although the ones I'm using seem okay at the moment.

Landscape textures now have a specular in the alpha layer of the normal map, so all the old landscape textures have to be converted rather than just whacking them in as before. Otherwise things get shiny shiny shiny. In the long term it means more beautiful textures, but in the short term it's mildly annoying because you can't just drag and drop the old ones. 

People are investigating ini tweaks. The one I'm most interested in at the moment is reducing the awful crushed blacks. It seems putting this line in your Skyrim.ini helps:

fGlobalContrastBoost=-0.2

(under [Display])


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## ffsear (Nov 2, 2016)

Has the game got harder ?  Or have i forgotten what its like to be low level again.  I don't remember dying this much early on.   6 attempts to kill the dragon outside Whiterun


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 3, 2016)

It feels a tiny bit harder to me as well. Not sure if it's just my bad memory.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 3, 2016)

Grass and tree mods are out.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 4, 2016)

Despite no skse support, it's is possible to use an old version of SKYUI.

Instructions are here to fix the search function and to get rid of the nag screen (which does nothing but nag, but doesn't break the UI).


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 4, 2016)

Also, the first bare bones ENB binary is out.


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## Supine (Nov 6, 2016)

Disc ordered. Looking forward to another skyrim adventure


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## Orang Utan (Nov 6, 2016)

Introduced my 11 year old nephew to this today. 
Back to Overwatch for him. But he inspired me to get back into it.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 7, 2016)

I've been enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. When I started it back up for the first time since '13 I realised as I was going through Helgen and off to Riverwood that perhaps having played it to death in the past meant I couldn't enjoy it again, and I felt like I was having to go through the motions. But as soon as I got that first stuff out of the way and killed the first dragon and set off on my own it all came flooding back and I'm having a great time.


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## ohmyliver (Nov 10, 2016)

I had a spectacular killshot animation whereby my Khajiit jumped on a dragon's head and clubbed repeatedly in the side of it's head with her dwarven life stealing mace. 

I wish I'd screenshotted it but tbh I was too busy going 'wow'


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## ffsear (Nov 11, 2016)

!!!!!!


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## moon (Nov 11, 2016)

No Way, I wanna go!
the tickets are expensive though £50-£80  

edited to add that I've just seen this too
Skyrim composer warns fans against London music concert

Apparently the original score composer is warning fans not to go to the event..


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 16, 2016)

Update to my modding/SSEEdit/conflict shenanigans: it's a bloody fucking nightmare.

I was at Lake Ilinalta earlier, and my water was a fucking checkerboard pattern of old vanilla water flowing in one direction and the nice new water from WATER flowing in another. I'd had this earlier near Windhelm, but shrugged it off as an anomaly. 

So I've been tits deep in SSEEdit trying to learn what you're meant to do to fix it. In the end, a combination of forwarding update.esm's water records to Verdant and Birds of Skyrim, and fowarding WATER's water records to Verdant and Birds of Skyrim, seems to have fixed it and Lake Ilinalta looks beautiful once more. Verdant I can understand, because it deals with plants and stuff near and in water. But Birds of Skyrim? I don't think there are any ducks. idk. 

No doubt every other water source in the game will now look like a giant's taken a shit in it or something, but I'll have to find that out tomorrow, because it's late.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 16, 2016)

My turmoil:


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 18, 2016)

It's more difficult to get super lovely screenshots this time around because ENB is really only in its infancy (in fact I'm not using it at all; I'm still using ReShade). Nevertheless, I'm still taking screenshots and getting some I like.

This is a fave from the past couple of days:



 

(supermassive hi-res avail. at the link)


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 19, 2016)

I knew this would happen


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## Pseudopsycho (Nov 21, 2016)

60hrs on SE and Alyss is now upto level 60. I switched to light armour and dual wielding axes as he was a bit of a tank. At least now I'm playing the story quests, after going double legendary in smithing and enchanting


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## D'wards (Nov 25, 2016)

I have thios on PS4 and have the Skyfall Mod

IS there any way i can get my adoptive child to live there instead of Breezehome?


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## ffsear (Nov 25, 2016)

Skyrim SE is £25 on PSN today


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2016)

My kid lives at Lakeview and I make her do chores all the time. But I bring her a doll and a book and an apple and a sweet roll from time to time.


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## Vintage Paw (Nov 25, 2016)

I'm level 30-something... 34? or 39? Can't remember. I've whacked up the difficulty because I kill everything too fast on adept. On expert I need a good supply of potions even in heavy armour, but really it's fucking shock spells that kill me. I love making anti-mage potions.


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## Pseudopsycho (Nov 29, 2016)

Not been playing much over the past few days as I've found The Guild on youtube


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 2, 2016)

I've been playing No Man's Sky since the update, but I'll be going back to Skyrim again soon.


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## ChrisFilter (Jan 29, 2017)

Just picked this up again as it runs nicely on work laptop and I'm hopelessly addicted. More than the first time. Picked up where I left off, which was 60 hours in but without having finished Act I so I've got loads of storyline to run straight into. 

As much as I love The Witcher, I think Skyrim shades it.


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## ffsear (Mar 18, 2017)

I've done some quest where I have been turned into a vampire.  I don't like.   How do I un vampire myself ?


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## Chilli.s (Mar 18, 2017)

I can't remember exactly, but it is curable...


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## Almor (Mar 22, 2017)

ffsear said:


> I've done some quest where I have been turned into a vampire.  I don't like.   How do I un vampire myself ?


 
If it's quest related you have to follow  the quest to find a cure?
General vampiric infection can be cured in the early stages with cure disease potion or blessing in a temple? 
(may be thinking of oblivion)


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## ffsear (Mar 22, 2017)

Almor said:


> If it's quest related you have to follow  the quest to find a cure?
> General vampiric infection can be cured in the early stages with cure disease potion or blessing in a temple?
> (may be thinking of oblivion)



Cheers,  it wasn't an infection,  its a quest where I was given the choice.


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## Almor (Mar 22, 2017)

ffsear said:


> Cheers,  it wasn't an infection,  its a quest where I was given the choice.


 
I think the only cure there is to follow the quest in a 'cure vampirism' way
Or reload


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## Hoss (Mar 22, 2017)

ffsear it's a while since I last played this quest but doesn't becoming a werewolf via the Companions quest cancel Vampireness? 


.


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## Buddy Bradley (Aug 25, 2017)

This looks like a pretty fun thing:


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## Chz (Aug 25, 2017)

I quite like that. Skyrim never looked good enough to be "real", so it may as well have a style that works for it. See also: Dishonored.


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## Vintage Paw (Aug 25, 2017)

Buddy Bradley said:


> This looks like a pretty fun thing:




I'm feeling the itch to take screenshots with that mod... Great find.


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## cypher79 (Aug 26, 2017)

Skyrim VR is coming out later this year....goodbye real world.


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## Rosemary Jest (Sep 9, 2017)

Been playing this again over recent weeks, finally succumbed to the special edition for the xbox one.

Already played it through twice in the 360...

I'm at level 42 (!) and avoiding much of the main quest. Not sure about Dawnguard either, can't be arsed with being a vampire. . So put that on hold for a while.

It's a cracking game though, rocking me nord carved armour and dragonbane and been concentrating on smithing so am pretty much indestructable.

Only wish the music was as good as Oblivion. I mean, its still great, but not quite as good. Love the soundtrack for the Dragonborn expansion too, never realised they used the same music as Morrowind as never played it, but how ace is that? Nice touch.


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## Vintage Paw (Sep 9, 2017)

I _still_ haven't played Dragonborn, despite buying it shortly after release.


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## Rosemary Jest (Sep 9, 2017)

It's good, i only played it for the first time last year and I bought it just after it came out like you.

It's got a slightly different atmosphere to the main game and is definitely worth playing. Quite a big expansion too if you don't rush it.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 9, 2017)

There's some great stuff in it, especially the new spells and shouts. Plus the morrowind-ish styling of solstheim looks great.


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## Almor (Sep 9, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> There's some great stuff in it, especially the new spells and shouts. Plus the morrowind-ish styling of solstheim looks great.


 
I didn't really like the dragon born quest itself but being back in morrowind-ish land was awesome


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## hendo (Sep 10, 2017)

I loved the SE on PS4 and maybe I'll go back if I can rid myself of the Elite addiction.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 10, 2017)

I loved Skyrim but was never able to devote the time to it to see more then a tiny fraction.

However I now work away loads, especially over the summer months and so could be tempted to buy a Switch to play it on.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/kotaku...tendo-switchs-big-holiday-rpgs-1802109580/amp


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## Rosemary Jest (Sep 22, 2017)

The Thalmor can fuck right off!


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## Rosemary Jest (Sep 24, 2017)

I'm just off to kill Cicero, the creepy little jester that he is. Should I kill him or not?


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## ffsear (Oct 15, 2017)




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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 24, 2017)

Got the PS4 remaster, saving it to play over Christmas, can’t wait!


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## Hoss (Nov 24, 2017)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Got the PS4 remaster, saving it to play over Christmas, can’t wait!


Please report back with your findings! I'm toying with the idea of getting a PS4, currently have my trusty 360... Or do I wait for next gen console and TES 6? My gaming time is quite limited, which makes it quite difficult to justify a £250+ purchase right now.

Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk


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## Rosemary Jest (Nov 24, 2017)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Got the PS4 remaster, saving it to play over Christmas, can’t wait!



Enjoy. It's just as good the second time round.

I played side quests and only a bit of the main story, still haven't completed the main quest this time round annd might never.


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## ruffneck23 (Nov 27, 2017)

Anyone playing in vr yet ? Am tempted but would like some user feedback first


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## Chilli.s (Nov 27, 2017)

ruffneck23 said:


> Anyone playing in vr yet ? Am tempted but would like some user feedback first


Yes... have given myself motion sickness after a couple of hours today.


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## ruffneck23 (Nov 27, 2017)

+
15 mins a time ive heard for the first few days , then your brain kinda works it out


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## ffsear (Nov 28, 2017)

ruffneck23 said:


> Anyone playing in vr yet ? Am tempted but would like some user feedback first



Don't think I could handle Giant frost spiders in VR tbh.


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## Johnny Vodka (Nov 28, 2017)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Got the PS4 remaster, saving it to play over Christmas, can’t wait!



It's a buy again for me (had it on the 360, want for ps4), but I'm going to wait patiently for it to drop below £20, seeing as I bought it previously and I also got so much other stuff to play.


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## Chilli.s (Nov 28, 2017)

Ok... played again, feel less queesey. The graphics are a bit last gen. The game seems a bit dumbed down as I'm killing anything and not dying. I can see that vr is gonna be a big thing as the graphical capabilities get there but Im not as impressed as the kids are.


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## Corax (Feb 8, 2018)

Left this for a bit, and now might pick it up again.

Thing is, do I continue from wherever the hell it was I'd got to, or do I start afresh...


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## Johnny Vodka (Feb 8, 2018)

It's now not a buy again game for me.  I recently picked up Fallout 4, which is basically exactly the same game in a different skin.


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## 8ball (Feb 8, 2018)

Johnny Vodka said:


> It's now not a buy again game for me.  I recently picked up Fallout 4, which is basically exactly the same game in a different skin.



The same as Fallout 3, you mean.

Would love to play a totally new Fallout...

Got the PS3, think I might be waiting for the PS5 - the PS4 sounds like a fairly incremental step fromwhat I hear..


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## 8ball (Feb 8, 2018)

Going to try Skyrim again as a thief cat dude on ‘hard’, I think.

Love that game.

Just finished The Last Of Us, though.
Almost recovered from the ending enough to give it another play through.

Fucking hell, what an ending...


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Feb 8, 2018)

8ball said:


> The same as Fallout 3, you mean.
> 
> Would love to play a totally new Fallout...
> 
> Got the PS3, think I might be waiting for the PS5 - the PS4 sounds like a fairly incremental step fromwhat I hear..



We've had PS4 Pro with upgraded graphics. Probably good for a few more models before they break backwards compatibility.

I to would love a new Fallout though.


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## 8ball (Feb 8, 2018)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> We've had PS4 Pro with upgraded graphics. Probably good for a few more models before they break backwards compatibility.
> 
> I to would love a new Fallout though.



Is that a big gain over vanilla PS4?

What I’ve seen of PS4 so far isn’t much of a stretch from PS3.  I don’t have that much time to play games and I want at least one more go through LOU and Skyrim and the whole Mass Effect Shebang and the MGS Patriots game... 

I reckon that should get me to PS5 at least...


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Feb 8, 2018)

8ball said:


> Is that a big gain over vanilla PS4?
> 
> What I’ve seen of PS4 so far isn’t much of a stretch from PS3.  I don’t have that much time to play games and I want at least one more go through LOU and Skyrim and the whole Mass Effect Shebang and the MGS Patriots game...
> 
> I reckon that should get me to PS5 at least...



I think it depends on the game and if you have a 4k TV. Microsoft have done two X Box upgrades now. Haven't upgraded personaly.


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## Voley (Jun 27, 2018)

Wow. Just played the VR version for the first time. The dragon attack bit at the beginning is incredible.


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## moon (Nov 27, 2018)

I've been playing the special edition on the PS4 Pro, it's like a completely new game!


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## 8ball (Nov 27, 2018)

Started the PS3 version with all the expansions a few days ago (didn't have the DLC before).

See you next June...


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## moon (Nov 27, 2018)

Lol, I only got to level 40 on the Xbox as it bugged out on me so maybe I might actually finish skyrim at some point.
I'm convinced it's the best video game ever made!


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## Hoss (Nov 27, 2018)

moon it is! And I'm really impatient for TES 6. Hope it lives up to expectations.

Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk


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## moon (Nov 27, 2018)

Is it true that it might take place in Hammerfell?? I soo want it to.


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## Chz (Nov 27, 2018)

I'd rather see Morrowind on a modern engine, even if it's revisiting the past.


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## 8ball (Nov 27, 2018)

moon said:


> Is it true that it might take place in Hammerfell?? I soo want it to.



That was the rumour I heard nearly 2 years ago, and that the working project name was _Redguard._
I've been assured since that this is not the case, but who knows.


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## moon (Nov 27, 2018)

I need it to focus on Redguards.. it's a story that has to be told imo..


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## Epona (Nov 28, 2018)

I just - want them to update the engine - I want them to still allow mods/addons but I think it could be updated a little - am playing Fallout 76 right now which uses the same FO/TES engine and it is clunky and buggy as hell - as it always was, but the longer it is in use, the more pronounced it becomes.


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## moon (Nov 28, 2018)

Lets hope the whole Fallout 76 fiasco forces them to invest in new servers, engines or what ever it takes to make their games perform well and look good.
ESO is barely hanging on by a thread at the moment as each new update adds further strain to their systems.

However I get the impression that they are banking on The Elder Scrolls Blades to be their new mobile money spinner sooo... hmm we shall see....


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## Epona (Nov 28, 2018)

moon said:


> Lets hope the whole Fallout 76 fiasco forces them to invest in new servers, engines or what ever it takes to make their games perform well and look good.
> ESO is barely hanging on by a thread at the moment as each new update adds further strain to their systems.
> 
> However I get the impression that they are banking on The Elder Scrolls Blades to be their new mobile money spinner sooo... hmm we shall see....



LOL - ESO is massively successful, I am not sure where you get the idea that it is barely hanging on by a thread

I agree that FO 76 has some issues that need to be ironed out, but ESO is by a different developer and shouldn't be dragged into this


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## moon (Nov 28, 2018)

I meant in terms of performance, ESO is barely hanging on, the issues are most noticeable in PVP and VET PVE where the lag issues, memory leak, fps are causing some huge problems amongst the player base, mostly on console but PC users are also reporting these problems.

Overland PVE seems to be OK and this is where ZOS makes most of their money but I was not referring to financial performance in my post.

ESO runs on the same servers as Fallout 76 (or so I'm told) and they are both fall under the Zenimax umbrella who most likely have overall control of the purse strings where it comes to investing in new engines and servers.

And I'm sorry but you dragged Fallout into a Skyrim thread so I think its ok for me to talk about ESO in relation to Fallout 76


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## Epona (Nov 30, 2018)

moon said:


> I meant in terms of performance, ESO is barely hanging on, the issues are most noticeable in PVP and VET PVE where the lag issues, memory leak, fps are causing some huge problems amongst the player base, mostly on console but PC users are also reporting these problems.
> 
> Overland PVE seems to be OK and this is where ZOS makes most of their money but I was not referring to financial performance in my post.
> 
> ...



Er... ESO uses a different engine than the TES/FO one (I said TES/FO use same engine, not ESO), I only mentioned it because that is mostly what I am playing at the moment.  I didn't drag it in, it's called having a conversation...

Also FO 76 is not that much of a fiasco - its a pretty good game if you ignore everyone yelling "this is shit" and actually play it.

If FO76 runs on ESO servers when a lot of people who play ESO pay a sub, that would be outrageous.  I don't think that can be the case.


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## Buddy Bradley (Jan 11, 2020)

Reinstalled ESO again after burning out on WoW Classic. I've never made it past level 19 before, so this time I'm trying to go in with more of a "wander around and see what happens" mindset (instead of trying to complete every quest hub a la WoW); also going to focus on building a healer, since that's what I've done in every other MMO in the past but never actually bothered learning how it works in ESO.

Is anyone else still playing? Epona moon Vintage Paw


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## Epona (Jan 11, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Reinstalled ESO again after burning out on WoW Classic. I've never made it past level 19 before, so this time I'm trying to go in with more of a "wander around and see what happens" mindset (instead of trying to complete every quest hub a la WoW); also going to focus on building a healer, since that's what I've done in every other MMO in the past but never actually bothered learning how it works in ESO.
> 
> Is anyone else still playing? Epona moon Vintage Paw



If you've not played for a long time you may not even recognise it as being the same game - a lot has changed, mostly for the better - hopefully you'll find it more fun now!  I play on the NA server, user name Epona222


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## Buddy Bradley (Jan 11, 2020)

Epona said:


> If you've not played for a long time you may not even recognise it as being the same game - a lot has changed, mostly for the better - hopefully you'll find it more fun now!  I play on the NA server, user name Epona222


I'm on the EU server. I sprung for a month of ESO Plus too, after constantly having to rearrange my bag space. Not sure exactly what the deal is with DLC though - they all still show up on the Crown Store, but also I got a bunch of quest starts that lead me to new zones, so I assume I can now access all those areas too.


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## Epona (Jan 12, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I'm on the EU server. I sprung for a month of ESO Plus too, after constantly having to rearrange my bag space. Not sure exactly what the deal is with DLC though - they all still show up on the Crown Store, but also I got a bunch of quest starts that lead me to new zones, so I assume I can now access all those areas too.



You get access to all the DLC (but not the most recent Chapter, which is Elsweyr) as part of the benefits of having a sub, for the duration of whichever subscription you paid for.  Once that expires, if you don't renew, you lose access to the DLC.  The option to buy the DLC for crowns is for if you decide not to pay for ESO+ subscription, in which case you can buy them individually.


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## Buddy Bradley (Jan 12, 2020)

Also just realised I posted in the wrong Elder Scrolls thread...


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I'm half in awe of this game (scale, story, inventory, distractions) and half really fucking irritated by it. Combat is stupid and getting attacked all the fucking time is stupid. I found a mine (hurrah! I unlocked a location!) and immediately was told by some prick he was going to enjoy cutting out my colon, so I fucked off down a mountain, he kept coming, I got a fair bit away then HE WAS ON MY HEELS so I legged it into a house thinking that would be that, but he came in and started whacking me, so I got out the old axe and promptly took out the poor woman whose house it was so her husband leathered me. Like, cheers Skyrim you melt.
> 
> Not sure I'm going to play much more, it's just too annoying/broken (three times now I've got stuck in scenery and had to reload).


Well, I'm trying again and this time it's fab.

Not very far in - level 8 and have just killed the dragon that some idiot resurrected - but I'm enjoying it muchly. I'm an Orc, I'm aiming for single handed tanky mayhem


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## ItWillNeverWork (Apr 8, 2020)

Would you recommend ESO as an isolation based pastime? I played a bit of Skyrim back in the day but never got into the online wagon. How does ESO compare to other online worlds? 

I really like the idea of wandering around buying and selling things, or maybe killing people from a distance (I’m a coward when it comes to games). Is ESO like that? Is the world completely open so I can wander until my hearts content?


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## Gromit (Apr 9, 2020)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Would you recommend ESO as an isolation based pastime? I played a bit of Skyrim back in the day but never got into the online wagon. How does ESO compare to other online worlds?
> 
> I really like the idea of wandering around buying and selling things, or maybe killing people from a distance (I’m a coward when it comes to games). Is ESO like that? Is the world completely open so I can wander until my hearts content?


Not a buying and selling type game (such as Elite & No Man’s Sky).
Loot and sell yes. 
Craft and sell yes.
Steal and Fence yes.
Buying from merchants though is pricey.

Originally areas were level restricted. Since ‘One Tamriel’ you can go pretty much anywhere whatever level.
DLC areas aren’t accessible if you ain’t bought them but there’s plenty of world to explore without making a single purchase.

Sorcerer class allows distance killing. A good Daedric summoning build is how I roll.

Yes I’d say it fits the bill for an isolation pastime. Wander the countryside without leaving your home. Travel abroad and meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture... and kill them. /fullmetaljacket


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## ffsear (Apr 9, 2020)

Nice work..   I've just started The WItcher 3.   Only about 2 hours but enjoying it so far.


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## Sunray (Mar 27, 2021)

Skyrim will be 10 this year.

I wonder if TES 6 will be using the creation engine? 

"16 times the detail."


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## Steel Icarus (Apr 11, 2021)

I eventually ended up "finishing" Skyrim, including the DLC, and also building a house with a library containing every book in the game.


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