Elder Scrolls : Skyrim

[Janx]

Janx, you mentioned playing this game with your wife; do you play at the same time, using the same screen? If so, how do you do that? Does it just require two controllers or do you have to network two Xbox's? Is it one of those Xbox Live Gold things?

we have to take turns. Sadly, it's a 1 player game. She plays a lot. She really likes elder scrolls.


I'm glad you've given it a second chance, some extra tidbits of knowledge:

followers return home if you tell them to wait here for too long. Home being wherever they hang out, not your actual house.

each follower has a different max level (basically they match your level, until they cap out). There's a kajit wizard in the college of magic who's max is the very max of 80-something. Plus, as a caster, he is less likely to run in front of you.

followers are supposed to be flagged as semi-essential, so they would only die if YOU kill them. that seems to be broke, and they can die quite handily on their own (as well as rushing in front of you to get whacked in the back).

PErsonally, I like to work alone. My wife almost always brings a follower, she's just careful about how she uses them in combat.

 

[Banshee16]

Also, there are a number of quests where it seems like the game wants you to do a certain thing. I thought, "What if I did this instead?" And, what do you know, the game not only allowed it, but acknowledged it. Saving people you are supposed to kill or vice versa, keeping something you're supposed to fetch, etc. And that's just the "invisible open-ness", a lot of quests give you the option of talking, sneaking past, or killing NPCs. All of them? No, side quests are generated by an algorithm, so that would be tough to randomly generate. But the quests are incredibly complex, to the point that it's hard to believe.

It's like being upset that the universe isn't big enough. Possible, I guess, but not very logical.

Yup. I was doing the murder investigation quest in Markath......tried a few different things. When I got framed for crimes I didn't commit, and the guards came to arrest me, I protested my innocence, and when they refused to listen, I fought back. It turned into an epic fight with the entire city guard. I burned them all to a crisp, then walked out of the city, and would have been able to resume my other quests.

Then I reloaded my save, allowed myself to get arrested and thrown in their prison. The guy down there that you're supposed to cooperate with was a pretty vile person. He wanted my character to murder another prisoner, just because, in order to be included in an escape attempt. My character was innocent of the original crime, and realized the guy was bad news, so instead of going along with the quest line, my character turned into werewolf form and ripped him apart. Then looted his body, found the directions to the escape tunnel, and walked out.

There were multiple ways to complete that quest......the *only* thing that could have made it freer would have been to allow me to use my negotiation skills to avoid arrest in the first place.

Banshee

 

[SteelDraco]

I've gotten into this game quite a bit - I found a third-party mod that allows me to remap the keyboard so that I can play left-handed. Not being able to do that was a dealbreaker for me, and mods are why I play these games on a PC (the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games tend to develop a huge modding community).

I'm playing through as sort of an orcish artificer - he has a good smithing, enchanting, and some defensive spells, but mostly he's running around in heavy plate killing people with a two-handed sword. I'm having quite a bit of fun with it. I've decided my character left his stronghold in order to learn more about smithing and enchanting, in particular wanting to find out more about the dwarves and what made their stuff work before they all disappeared. I haven't picked a side yet in the Stormcloak/Imperial conflict - I've not yet talked to the Imperial General, but from what I've heard he's not a bad guy, and I might end up going that way, despite starting off going with the Stormcloaks. The Nords are all pretty racist, which makes my orc not want to help them - even if they're decent to orcs now, it's clear they won't be if they have all the power.

I'm surprised at how easy the dragons have been so far. I'm mostly able to just take cover until they land, then berserk and charge them. A couple of power attacks with my greatsword and they bite it. I'm assuming that later dragons get more interesting to fight, with different special abilities and stuff? I hope so. I'm 15th level or so now, and just got to the College of Winterhold to pick up some new enchanting skills.

 

[Kzach]

Went to sleep after just hitting 10th-level last night. Just started up the game again and... somehow the Xbox has managed to completely wipe my USB memory stick with all my saved games.

I knew I couldn't rely on MS to do anything right.

 

[Banshee16]

I'm surprised at how easy the dragons have been so far. I'm mostly able to just take cover until they land, then berserk and charge them. A couple of power attacks with my greatsword and they bite it. I'm assuming that later dragons get more interesting to fight, with different special abilities and stuff? I hope so. I'm 15th level or so now, and just got to the College of Winterhold to pick up some new enchanting skills.

I think the dragon difficulty is situational. They tend to follow a pattern. If I'm rested, and mobile, they're a long fight until I can bring them down, but doable. That having been said, though they could be more difficult, it doesn't bother me that much....just being in the fight, hearing their shrieks echo off the mountains, seeing them strafe people as they fly by....it's pretty immersive.

I do find an annoying tendency for them to appear just after I get out of a quest area, like a dungeon, when I'm loaded down with loot, and walking really slowly. Then, they're more difficult. The big danger is if they land, and walk over to you and bite....I've been winning fights, and have the dragon down to maybe 20%, but I'm loaded down with loot, and the dragon walks over and eats me. Fight over. That's annoying. Since that bite attack is so lethal, any time they start walking towards me, it's a bit of a panic to get out of the way.

Banshee

 

[Kzach]

The three hardest combats I've had so far were against two giants (took four attempts to finally kill them both at 9th-level) and a mammoth (the one mammoth isn't so hard, but attack one and you quickly have the herd on you making it impossible to kill even one).

The hardest, however, has been a chicken in Riverwood. Yes, that's right, a chicken. I had three hired goons come to 'teach me a lesson' in the middle of the village and couldn't figure out why I was dying to them all the time until I realised that I kept using my shout and it kept hitting the damn chicken which aggroed the entire village on me. Apparently, chickens are extremely valuable.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Apparently, chickens are extremely valuable.

At least they can't report crimes like the chickens supposedly could during early beta versions of the game.

 

[Kzach]

At least they can't report crimes like the chickens supposedly could during early beta versions of the game.

Stealing is one thing that is annoying me in the game. It's WAY too easy to accidentally steal something because just about everything, everywhere in a town is 'stealable'.

I stole a bottle of mead (accidentally) from my room in Riverwind (how do I steal something when it's in my ROOM?!). And for that, Orgnar sent a bunch of hired goons after me. It's a bit ridiculous.

I was happy, though, to later get revenge on him and beat him into submission for Falkas and the Companions.

 

[Alan Shutko]

I stole a bottle of mead (accidentally) from my room in Riverwind (how do I steal something when it's in my ROOM?!).

That's just the early version of charging you five bucks for the bottle of water on the pressure sensor in hotels now!

 

[Stumblewyk]

Yeah, it can be easy to accidentally steal something. That's why you get in good with the Thieve's Guild, and then you can just bribe guards to leave you alone if your bounty is low enough.

Spoiler

Or in the case of the civil unrest I caused in Markarth, the guards just ignore my bribe attempts, and all try to kill me on sight while I attempt going about my business in their miserable, crapsack city.