Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[lamaros]

Those classifieds are great. If only the writing in the game was that good.

Edit: Ingmar, it sounds like what you are complaining about is a personal compulsion, not the game itself. If they had put in a new screen at the start of the game: Pick your class! Mage Warrior Thief, and then restricted you from playing the Companions, Thieves or Mage quest chains based on that choice, and restricted you from putting perks into non-class skills (or only let you choose one non-class skill) then they game would be much more replayable in your eyes?

Of course that would also break everyone who wants to pay something a bit more varied than those restrictions, but it would hard code your repeatability in for you.

[Sky]

Oh look, steam updated Skyrim on me. Looks like a few more nights off until they unfuck it.

[Tannhauser]

Same here.  Last night was milky-smooth and now performance is down.  Annoying.

[Ingmar]

Those classifieds are great. If only the writing in the game was that good.

Edit: Ingmar, it sounds like what you are complaining about is a personal compulsion, not the game itself. If they had put in a new screen at the start of the game: Pick your class! Mage Warrior Thief, and then restricted you from playing the Companions, Thieves or Mage quest chains based on that choice, and restricted you from putting perks into non-class skills (or only let you choose one non-class skill) then they game would be much more replayable in your eyes?

Of course that would also break everyone who wants to pay something a bit more varied than those restrictions, but it would hard code your repeatability in for you.

No, what I mean by that "every shred of content" thing is there's no reason for me to ever play through one of those lines with a 2nd character once I've done it once. Barely anything changes based on my choices at all. And because every character can basically be good at everything, there's not even much of a carrot of trying things with a different playstyle there.

I'm not even sure I'm complaining, exactly. It's still light years better than Oblivion's way of doing the same thing but you barely even level if you're playing optimally.  

[lamaros]

No, what I mean by that "every shred of content" thing is there's no reason for me to ever play through one of those lines with a 2nd character once I've done it once. Barely anything changes based on my choices at all. And because every character can basically be good at everything, there's not even much of a carrot of trying things with a different playstyle there.

I'm not even sure I'm complaining, exactly. It's still light years better than Oblivion's way of doing the same thing but you barely even level if you're playing optimally.  

Yeah, it's a weird complaint, or I'm not understanding. Isn't like... every RPG game like that?

[Ingmar]

Not at all. In class-based games, for example, often the gameplay changes quite a lot. Other RPGs often have different outcomes based on the old traditional 'kick/save puppy' type choices. Other ones might get their replayability through random/dynamic content. Even just something like seeing how different companion characters might react to something would add a lot for me.

TES games basically do none of these things. In a perfect world I'd have all the things that Skyrim *does* do well coupled with something that makes me want to play in character, and something that makes a subsequent playthrough as a different character compelling.

As it is I will have to settle for what is probably going to be 120+ hours on just one playthrough, it's a hard life.  

[sinij]

Reports in the Steam forum that it updates even with autoupdate off.

Yup, just found that out myself. Fantastic!

Not only that, Steam won't allow you to go into offline mode unless you go online first, and if you do it will check for patches... Good thing I always keep it in offline mode and even have firewall rule to prevent any attempts to dial home.

[Tannhauser]

I like Steam as much as the next guy, but they are getting pretty draconian.  What's the harm in not updating a single player game? 

[CmdrSlack]

Reports in the Steam forum that it updates even with autoupdate off.

Yup, just found that out myself. Fantastic!

Not only that, Steam won't allow you to go into offline mode unless you go online first, and if you do it will check for patches... Good thing I always keep it in offline mode and even have firewall rule to prevent any attempts to dial home.

So has Steam slipped you a roofie, stolen your kidneys, and then left you in a bathtub full of ice yet?

The inability to turn off autoupdates for the game does sound a bit  , however.

[Ingmar]

Sounds like a bug.

[lamaros]

Not at all. In class-based games, for example, often the gameplay changes quite a lot. Other RPGs often have different outcomes based on the old traditional 'kick/save puppy' type choices. Other ones might get their replayability through random/dynamic content. Even just something like seeing how different companion characters might react to something would add a lot for me.

As it is I will have to settle for what is probably going to be 120+ hours on just one playthrough, it's a hard life.  

I still don't get it. They could forcibly divide that 120 hours up in to 4 different playthroughs if they want, giving you the experience you're talking about. They've just chosen not to do that and let players decide how they want to spend their time in the game.

You've decided to do it all with one guy. Me and rk47 have decided to break it up into a number of characters.

Things change depending on your choices.  It seems you're looking for a very specific type of thing.

Something that makes me want to play in character, and something that makes a subsequent playthrough as a different character compelling.

I feel the exact opposite. This is exactly what Skyrim gives me. ME2 and Dragon Age, for example, gave me no desire at all to play the game through again. I tried but got bored out of my brain. It's EXACTLY the same experience, with a different line of dialogue here or there. If I tell you the story of two playthroughs in that game the elements are exactly the same, just changed in order or a slightly different start. If I tell you the story of two Skyrim playthrough...

1: Was trying to sneak in to Skyrim to find my fortune as a criminal. Got picked up crossing the border after getting caught in an ambush set for some nords. Got saved from death by a dragon. Escaped and made my way to Whiterun. Fell into work with some companions group but got bored. Took a trip to Riften and joined the thieves guild, helping to build them back up after recent setbacks and carve myself a big slice. Ended up embroiled in some business with the dark brotherhood, who I thought were extinct. Killed a lot of people who got in my way, got rich and bought houses all over the place.

2: I was picked up trying to enter Skyrim and was unable to convince the guard I was with the Thalmor. They were going to kill me, but a dragon attacked the town. I escaped with an imperial, and sucked up enough to get my record wiped in Solitude. I have not forgotten they were going to kill me, and they will pay. I skipped out from the army after the tried to conscript me and I've been building up to my revenge. I was killing every imperial I saw on the road, but my magic was lacking when trying to take on big groups, so I enrolled myself at the college. After i have trained more skills I'm going to return to the capital and plunder it for all its worth. Meanwhile there are some odd goings on here, and some opportunities for powerful magic artifacts. They took my money when they arrested me, and I've been spending all my gold on magic training, so I am still poor. I am SICK of this tunic, but I have my eye on the nice robes the Thalmor here has...

[sinij]

So I tired cranking up the difficulty... not working. Easy combat is still super easy, but with harder difficulty you get insta-killed a lot more, like 2 fireballs will outright kill my 300 hit points, resistance-wearing character.

Overall combat is still poorly balanced, you ether completely dominate something or instantly die. I think thins problem could be solved by halfing all damage in the game.

[sinij]

I feel the exact opposite. This is exactly what Skyrim gives me. ME2 and Dragon Age, for example, gave me no desire at all to play the game through again. I tried but got bored out of my brain. It's EXACTLY the same experience, with a different line of dialogue here or there. 

I agree, and feel the same way. Every game trying to split still delivered too similar experience, even KOTOR that had by far most significant evil/good deviations.

[Ingmar]

Not at all. In class-based games, for example, often the gameplay changes quite a lot. Other RPGs often have different outcomes based on the old traditional 'kick/save puppy' type choices. Other ones might get their replayability through random/dynamic content. Even just something like seeing how different companion characters might react to something would add a lot for me.

As it is I will have to settle for what is probably going to be 120+ hours on just one playthrough, it's a hard life.  

I still don't get it. They could forcibly divide that 120 hours up in to 4 different playthroughs if they want, giving you the experience you're talking about. They've just chosen not to do that and let players decide how they want to spend their time in the game.

You've decided to do it all with one guy. Me and rk47 have decided to break it up into a number of characters.

Things change depending on your choices.  It seems you're looking for a very specific type of thing.

What you described in the spoiler aren't choices, other than the choice to just not participate in a chunk of content, except maybe the DB one. What I would ideally like is for those major chunks of story content - the guilds, etc - to have divergences in them. Something like that would have me looking at two 100 hour playthroughs instead of one 120 hour one, say - that would be great IMO.

[Khaldun]

I gave up on Lydia a while back--didn't leave her dead, but told her to split, and she never returned home. Committed suicide or something. I'm hanging out with Eradur now but I'm about done with him simply because I don't want to hear the story one more time about how he felt guilty leaving his buddies in the evil temple to die. Also his amazement at entering a dwemer ruin is kind of annoying simply because we've been in about six of them now. "I've never been in a dwemer ruin!" Dude, you have taken too much damage to the head.

I'm not asking for Bioware companion quests, but I don't think it would be too much to add a "dwemer_yes" flag so that in the second and subsequent ruins he says something like, "These are still amazing!" And also, please, something where I can say, "Do not ever tell me again about how you feel guilty."

[sinij]

I would like more basic control over companions - set them to passive, active or aggressive. Set them to ranged, magic or melee. Explicitly tell them what to wear. Set follow distance. Plus give me a stone of summoning, so when they got caught on terrain I can easily get them back.

[lamaros]

Not at all. In class-based games, for example, often the gameplay changes quite a lot. Other RPGs often have different outcomes based on the old traditional 'kick/save puppy' type choices. Other ones might get their replayability through random/dynamic content. Even just something like seeing how different companion characters might react to something would add a lot for me.

As it is I will have to settle for what is probably going to be 120+ hours on just one playthrough, it's a hard life.  

I still don't get it. They could forcibly divide that 120 hours up in to 4 different playthroughs if they want, giving you the experience you're talking about. They've just chosen not to do that and let players decide how they want to spend their time in the game.

You've decided to do it all with one guy. Me and rk47 have decided to break it up into a number of characters.

Things change depending on your choices.  It seems you're looking for a very specific type of thing.

What you described in the spoiler aren't choices, other than the choice to just not participate in a chunk of content, except maybe the DB one. What I would ideally like is for those major chunks of story content - the guilds, etc - to have divergences in them. Something like that would have me looking at two 100 hour playthroughs instead of one 120 hour one, say - that would be great IMO.

I uh. I just don't get it. It really just sounds like you want the game to restrict you because you don't want to restrict yourself. Personally I like role playing by choosing the role myself, not having a game ask me "A or B?" a number of times.

I'm sure someone will mod in what you're looking for in the future though.

[Ingmar]

I'm pretty sure asking for more choice, not less? Maybe it comes at the cost of a dozen random generic draugr dungeons. That wouldn't really bother me.

EDIT: I could get behind your theory if there were any roleplaying hooks or foils at all for a character to play against, but there aren't really. I can't get into playing a character with a specific personality in a world that has no other characters.

[rk47]

You mean how Anders reacted to the whole you want to help him or ignore his pleas would result in the destruction of the chantry pretty much in all playthrough would improve the narrative of Skyrim?

Fuck, no. Bethesda set out to make a sandbox. Bioware wanted to make an interactive story. I haven't met a single strong personality in the game yet, but there's sufficient pull to return, explore the next cavern - complete a few quests and still having a ton of stuff to do, because it's fun. More fun than dealing with a space crew full of family issues or fetching a book for a witch to get her in bed.

To me, it's more fun to treat it as a sandbox, rather than expecting Bethesda to pull off the narrative brilliance of David Gaider and co. It's just not important. Maybe to you it is. Obviously a different entry to the game would be preferable, yes. In Arena, you started as a prisoner. In Daggerfall, a survivor of shipwreck. In Morrowind, a prisoner. Oblivion, prisoner again. Skyrim...mmmm yeah.

There's plenty of issue with Bethesda writing, and scripting, yes. There's plenty of wtf if you completed the Dragonborn questline and being treated like dirt in the Imperial Legion, but that's probably because the writers never took into account of the variables at play. It was just too massive. I chuckle when I completed the Dark Brotherhood final mission and was still allowed to join the Imperal Legion and pledge my vow to a dead man. But that's the limitation of sandbox narration for you.

IMO, New Vegas pulled off faction gameplay and merging it with main quest better...Bethesda chose to implement it half-assedly.

[Ingmar]

Yeah I'm not really asking for Bioware stuff to be strapped in. Obsidian would be plenty good.

EDIT: SO moving on, how is the patch? I'm kind of afraid to log in.

[Bstaz]

I am sworn to carry your burdens.       

[Tebonas]

Guys, someone at gamefaqs discovered that Fortify Restoration potions affect the enchantments on equipment.
That means you could have fortify alchemy enchantments get more powerful, and so make better fortify enchantment potions.

I played around with it for a while. Got about five crashes(probably due to drinking a 280k% fortify enchantment potion) and then decided to settle for 58k%.

I ended up with this. And 13k health/magicka with regen to match.
Speaking of clownshoes.

I figured this would still work, as I discovered that particular loophole in Morrowind. At least you can't enchant armor to 100% camouflage and be untargetable in this game.

This game demands some restraint on the part of the gamers. Most gamers don't have that. Can't blame the game for your faults.  

[jakonovski]

Ha, so much for trying out those Liche lord fights without magic resist.

[snowwy]

Besides the resist fuck-up, i've had none of the other problems people are talking about. Haven't been dragon-hunting though, so no idea about that one.

[Falconeer]

I'm with Ingmar on the Roleplaying thing. It's not that I necessarily like a game locking me out of content, but I appreciate feedback, and the more sandboxy a game is, the more "wordly" it is, the more I like to see that what I do mimicks reality. That's why I like just morality systems (which I hate in real life, hah), and I like that what you do has consequences. That's why I can do without the magic sword of uberness as a reward, but I love to back in the city and get NPCs talking to me about what happened. That IS a reward. I am in these games for the stories and the world, not for the items.

That's why I'd be totally ok with me wiping out a random fort changing the political situation of the world, or me joining a faction having changing the way the world reacts to me and the life of my character evolve accordingly. Don't want to lose content, but I care about the narrative, and it's lost to me if my actions have no real repercussions. Sure I can tell stories to myself, but I don't need a game for that. I like to see "represented", performed, acted, the consequences of my choices. And that's why I feel the game is missing when in order to give you "absolute freedom" it has to make the inhabitants of the world completely flat and indifferent, after spending so many resources trying to facilitate immersion.

The way I see it, an RPG sandbox shines when it makes you believe you are living a real life, a real role. This was impossible up to a while ago, but we are getting closer and closer, and I think Bethesda could do it easily if it wasn't for the fact they agree more with Lamaros and RK47 than me and Ingmar.

It's OK, still a great game, but it breaks my immersion, in a game that is SO MUCH about immersion, when the world reminds me so blatantly that it's all bullshit and nothing of the stories or my actions and choices really matters.

I think there's so much that can be achieved choice-wise between the stiffness of Bioware and the indifference of Bethesda.

[Ironwood]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xCjK3BD6u4

For those who haven't updated and want to see backwards dragons.

Dear Bethesdda- Please add a Dragon Shout that makes Dragons fly backwards.

Ka-Riss-kros!

That'd also make them jump, jump.

So much giggling.

[Khaldun]

It doesn't seem to me to be that hard to add better, consistent flags as certain questlines progress. NPCs in other towns know I'm the archmage, but the mages at the college and the various court wizards don't really seem to know it, which is very immersion-breaking.

[lamaros]

It doesn't seem to me to be that hard to add better, consistent flags as certain questlines progress. NPCs in other towns know I'm the archmage, but the mages at the college and the various court wizards don't really seem to know it, which is very immersion-breaking.

Yeah, they could have had one person just going through writing fluff text and adding fluff features based on a number of pretty general flags and add a whole lot to the game. The problem is that the costs aren't just in the writing, it's in everything that follows on from that.

Guards saying shit is really nice and makes you go "why can't more characters be like this?" until you realise that though there are 100 guards, the 'guard' is actually just one character with two voice actors. When you start adding in another unique NPCs you double the workload involved straight away, and if you cover even a small sample of the unique NPCs in the game all of a sudden half your voice acting budget is going to go on NPC flag comments that most of the players won't ever hear.
You've also got to have writers who know the whole world really well if you want to intertwine stuff, and you massively increase your QA requirements and possibility of bugs.

If you want something like that in Skyrim I think you're talking MMO level budget. I'm prepared to give Bethesda a lot more credit than I perhaps should, but I think most of it just comes down to money, not their design philosophy or competence.

[Murgos]

Besides the resist fuck-up, i've had none of the other problems people are talking about. Haven't been dragon-hunting though, so no idea about that one.

Same here.  Played about 90 minutes since the patch (all of it in a dungeon), it was fine.

[tgr]

Friend of mine said he had to get his repaired or something, so he asked if I could fire mine up. 3 hours later, I could tell him definitely that skyrim was, indeed, still working for me.

I actually didn't even know it had been patched.

[NiX]

Guess I'll have to check mine to see if it's wonky or not.

[Sky]

I played for about a half an hour on my catman. Didn't want to touch the main campaign because I saw the words "save game corruption".

[koro]

http://www.bethblog.com/index.php/2011/12/01/skyrim-what-were-working-on/

No toolset or quest bug fixes til January, the toolset will be integrated with Steam, and there will be a patch next week to fix the problems 1.2 introduced.

[Jeff Kelly]

I restrained myself for weeks and refrained from buying it. After having spent a couple of hundred hours (three playthroughs each) on Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas I was wary to buy another time sink.

Couldn't resist any longer after hearing about all of the praise on Skyrim from, well basically everybody. Just started playing and there goes my christmas holiday this year alright.

Haven't played much yet but I can feel the addiction already.

Not that this will interest most of you but the German localization is probably the best localization yet of any game I've played. I contemplated buying the UK version but right now the 360 version is unavailable everywhere so I caved and bought the German version instead.

I have never experienced a localization that good. I'd say after all I've seen so far it's actually on par with the original, the highest praise I could give.

Kudos for Bethesda for their attention to detail even with the translation

[Falconeer]

I don't know how good the German version can be, but honestly think the original-English version deserves to be had just for Lisette and this song (and The Dragonborn Comes too).