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.

 

[Kzach]

Here's another legitimate drawback: I'm levelling faster through smithing than I am through anything else.

Completing quests, even, gives zero XP. But make a few iron daggers and WHOOSH! you level like crazy. I'm up to 70 Smithing at level 19 and I'm only up to Whiterun 0.o

The drawback comes from the fact that all my other skills are low. I'm having to stand and let wolves attack me for a good 15-20 minutes in order to keep my Heavy Armour skill up to speed. I'm spending even more time struggling to keep my Two-Handed Weapons skill up by running and around and hunting wolf packs and bandits.

Then again, I do have flawless orcish armour and a flawless dwarven warhammer

 

[Stumblewyk]

Here's another legitimate drawback: I'm levelling faster through smithing than I am through anything else.

Completing quests, even, gives zero XP. But make a few iron daggers and WHOOSH! you level like crazy. I'm up to 70 Smithing at level 19 and I'm only up to Whiterun 0.o

See, I don't see that as a drawback - it's simply another aspect of the sandbox/simulationist properties of the game.

You're a 70th level blacksmith. Probably one of the best smiths in all of Skyrim. Very definitely in the upper echelon, because you've taken the time to become a great smith. But you're a lousy adventurer, because you've taken the time to become a great smith - at the expense of swinging your large warhammer and crushing bandits and wolves out in the wilderness.

If you want to be a better warrior, spend less time smithing, and more time killing.

As to quests or killing enemies giving zero XP, more sandbox/simulationism - what makes you better at being an adventurer? Killing baddies and rescuing princesses, or the ACT of killing guys and rescuing princesses by getting more experienced with your weapons and armor, and casting spells, and unlocking doors and chests?

It's just a different approach to rewarding your actions - you're rewarded for doing the actions making the thing possible, not just doing the thing.

And it's not like this is a system new to Skyrim - this is how every TES game has worked. Personally, I jumped in back in the Morrowind days, and thought it was brilliant, but to each their own.

 

[Kzach]

See, I don't see that as a drawback - it's simply another aspect of the sandbox/simulationist properties of the game.

Stop making sense; it's becoming super annoying.

 

[Agamon]

Here's another legitimate drawback: I'm levelling faster through smithing than I am through anything else.

Completing quests, even, gives zero XP. But make a few iron daggers and WHOOSH! you level like crazy. I'm up to 70 Smithing at level 19 and I'm only up to Whiterun 0.o

The drawback comes from the fact that all my other skills are low. I'm having to stand and let wolves attack me for a good 15-20 minutes in order to keep my Heavy Armour skill up to speed. I'm spending even more time struggling to keep my Two-Handed Weapons skill up by running and around and hunting wolf packs and bandits.

Then again, I do have flawless orcish armour and a flawless dwarven warhammer

Doc, it hurts when I do this.

Then stop doing that.

*rimshot*

My first play through, Smithing didn't get over 70, I had other stuff I'd rather do than stand in front of that forge. My buddy did that though, 100 smithing by L25.

 

[Kzach]

Actually, the point I was trying to make but got lost because of my absent-mindedness, is that it's FAR easier to level (and get levels) smithing than anything else.

Take my orc. He's got a relatively low Heavy Armour skill because he hardly ever gets hit because he kills stuff so quickly (pretty much one hit kills on everything bar dragons, giants, that sort of thing). And yet, despite this, his Two-Handed Weapon skill is also very low (perhaps because he doesn't need to swing it very often?). Yet compared to how much time I've spent hitting things to how much time I've spent in the forge, my relative return is about 1,000% higher.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Stop making sense; it's becoming super annoying.

Sir, yes, sir!

 

[Goodsport]

Official trailer for the upcoming The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Dawnguard game add-on (DLC for consoles, Expansion Pack for the PC):

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PjBSicSVqI]The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Dawnguard - Official Trailer[/ame]​

Scheduled for Summer 2012 (no exact date given yet), but with one caveat: it will be released exclusively for the Xbox 360 for thirty days, after which it will then be released for the other platforms.


-G

 

[Goodsport]

• "Mounted Combat arrives in 1.6 Skyrim Update" (Thursday, 5/24/12)

-G

 

[SolitonMan]

I'm still enjoying Skyrim, it's opened my eyes to the main advantage of a pc game over a console game - free mods! The SkyUI mod is a must have for anyone who hates the standard interface. It allows for sorting and filtering, which is great when you get to higher levels and have to find that one Shout or Spell and your list is very long.

The load times are much, much faster on my pc than my Xbox. I can wait anywhere from 20 - 30 seconds to just leave my house on the Xbox, whereas the longest I've waited on the pc is about 15 seconds, but usually only wait 5 - 6 seconds.

I like the Magicka Sabers mod which provides the player with effective light sabers of various colors. Wielding the sabers while wearing the Nightingale armor gives one the look of a Dark Jedi.

Some of the monster mods (Skyrim Monster Mod, Deadly Dragons) are pretty good, too, and add a nice variety to the game to supplement the repetitiveness of the existing monster set.

The Levelers Tower is a "cheat" mod that adds a tower to the game near Helgen. The Tower is a kitchen-sink of a residence, with an entry area containing many storage units to house specific content (e.g. - daedric weapons, daedric armor, food, dwarven items, gems, etc. - many, many containers) and with a simple button to immediately sort out those items from your inventory and store them (and clean them of the "stolen" tag); a map of Skyrim with teleport links to major sites; and teleport pad to other areas of the tower. The basement contains all the necessary crafting stations, a practice dummy that can help build skills, a skill cheat area where you can click a button to gain a skill rank, and many other features. My favorite area is the arena, in which you can summon creatures to face yourself, or pit them against each other.

I've barely scratched the surface of the mods that are out there. I'm still loving this game, and I'm sure once I start adding new quests that kind users have created I'll be more entertained still.

Anybody have any mods to suggest? I'm always looking for something fun to play!

 

[JDBrockin]

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