Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Sky]

Whoa, loving that screenshot of an interior, Sky: feels cozy  

The fully-furnished version of the house in Whiterun. Has an alchemy lab in it, too.

I was running past a tower outside Whiterun, see a dragon swoop in and some archers pinking away at it. Trot over to help, and the dragon loops a bit too close to a giant, which takes a swing at the dragon. Dragon flames the giant, then lands by the tower. I start bashing the dragon with the help of the archers and STOMP this giant foot smushes an archer. We just kill the dragon and the giant starts playing Babe Ruth with archers. Since he's distracted, I'm able to make fairly quick work of him...he had been softened up pretty good by the dragon and a few arrows, though.

Quinton,
On dungeon detail, lots of great placement. Someone had a lot of fun. My favorite so far was a random skeleton that was lying with his arm outstreched about a foot from a healing potion.

I can't do the mage college, because I can't cast the spell to gain entry - not enough mana :) Which is actually cool, since I'm almost pure warrior except for Restoration. Kind of a paladin, I guess, though since I've been using the light spell because I wanted my right hand free for my shield, I'll get some Alteration, too. And I've been pretty strict about my skills, 1h/block/heavy with a focus on how I play (war axe+shield) and ignore any perks that fall outside that. I've limited my smithing so short, focused sessions that usually gain me a single level; and I save points if they don't work with my narrow focus. Works pretty well, I still get pounded by the harder foes, but even that is mitigated by watching for power attack cues (bear rearing up on his hind legs, for instance). My next block perk slows down time when an opponent starts a power move.

You NEED to have a ranged attack if you're a spellsword; random dragon encounters are a huge part of the game and you're gonna need ranged attacks to fight them.

Not necessarily. I struggled a bit with dragons at first, but once I had the full three word shout from the shout quest line, I find it's enough to get through the ranged phase of the fight. It seemed to only interrupt the dragon's attack and not damage him, but the one I soloed last night by the Asure shrine landed after maybe four ranged rounds (vs the one I mentioned before, where he was damaged by the giant and archers).

[Engels]

So how do you burn down armor/things to get them into ingots? I want to go back to that dwarvish dungeon naked and loot the crap out of it.

[NiX]

I've been trying to find that out too. Have you tried putting them in a smelter?

Also, anyone killed the Dragon around ? No matter what I do he won't come after me. The town guards are even ready to attack.

Edit: Also, I can't get my FOV to stay at 90. I've done both of the FOV settings that people are using and it always resets.

[Khaldun]

I've killed four dragons with minimal archery. You just have to wait for them to land and keep running around in the meantime so it can't draw a bead on you. Helps to have a meatshield companion or some other mob that will draw its attention when it is landing.

[Fraeg]

tweaked some stuff, maxed most settings, looks and feels great in the outside world, but bogs don't a little bit in the really detailed dungeons.

Did the golden claw and killed my first dragon last night.  Like a lot of people i am a little Schitzo with what my character is.  At one point I was considering making a 2Hander mage, that has faded and I am doing Dark elf: Destruction, Resto, few points in sneak, 1 point in Bows so far.... still not sure :D   I am loving the look of my Bald, redeyes, red warpaint as if it is crying tears of blood, claw marked scratched up face.  No sexy bondage Dark Elves here, this Dark Elf clearly says: Stay The Hell Out Of My Way!!

The limit to hotkeys is pissing me off, unless I am missing something we can only map to 1-8/9, and the hotswapping in combat can be a little funky.  The ability to map to my F keys as well would be great to keep things more fluid.  /shrug  

Very glad I brokedown on Friday and downloaded this from steam.  

*edit* I will admit it took me only about two hours before I upped the weight limit.  I was running from a dungeon to town, selling, then running back to dungeon picking up everything i couldn't carry then back to sell.... I was having flashbacks to my EQ1 monk (was it a 14 pound limit for them?).  Sorry but thats a no can do for me at this point.

[ShenMolo]

I was blown away by this particular moment, and liked it enough to want to share it:

In Riften, I met a hireable Mage companion, and decided to dismiss my housecarl Lydia so I could try out the mage. Lydia politely tells me she will head back to my house and wait for me there.

I take the mage out, and do some adventuring, clearing out caves and killing bandits and late that night I ride up on a woman, walking (literally - walking, not running) down the road in the direction I am heading. As I ride up to her, I notice it is Lydia, my housecarl! She is literally walking back to Whiterun. I speak to her briefly and she asks me if I need her help. When I tell her no she heads on down the road.

In any other game I can think of, she would have just disappeared when I dismissed her. In Skyrim, she literally started walking from Riften to Whiterun, quite a long journey! I couldn't believe it. In so many ways, the world of Skyrim is happening all around you, independent of what the player is doing.

[Ruvaldt]

In so many ways, the world of Skyrim is happening all around you, independent of what the player is doing.

This is very true.  I was on my way down south towards Riften, but decided to stop by a few areas on the way there because I had an outstanding bounty on an outlaw leader and a cave to explore.  As I walked toward the ruined tower that the bandits were using I saw a large shadow flit across the ground and looked up to find a dragon swooping through the sky.  The dragon paid absolutely no attention to me and instead made a beeline for the ruined tower with the bandits.  I ran up the hills as fast as I could while watching the dragon hanging out by a cliff just roasting all of the bandits and I'm worried that I'm going to lose my bounty, but get the message that the bandit leader has died and I should return to claim my reward!  Thanks dragon.  What followed was a fight between the dragon and another group of "treasure hunters" that ran over from a nearby cave and I, most of which occurred on a hillside with a ruined tower and a large stone bridge over a stream. 

It was one of those epic rpg fights that I've been craving from games for so long, but not only was it an impressively fun fight it actually felt like I was a participant in a larger world.  I'm sure that a lot of this feeling is smoke and mirrors, but that makes no difference to me; it feels right and that's all I want.  This game deserves all of the praise it's gotten and I'm hooked.  36 hours in and I can't wait for more.  I'm really surprised too, because I have generally not liked TES games, finding them pretty bland and tedious.

[Quinton]

It just keeps getting better and better.  I now wonder if there's content like the mage college quest series out there for non-mages that I'm missing out on as an extremely magey mage.

I have to agree about the "feels right"ness of it all.

This is some of the best dungeon crawling I've ever experienced.  Extra dungeons *and* extra crawling, with a side of extra dragons and a heaping helping of epicness for dessert.

[NiX]

In any other game I can think of, she would have just disappeared when I dismissed her. In Skyrim, she literally started walking from Riften to Whiterun, quite a long journey! I couldn't believe it. In so many ways, the world of Skyrim is happening all around you, independent of what the player is doing.

There is a quest where you have to follow an NPC or find his schedule. He literally walks the entirety of the map over an in-game week based on the schedule, but what they don't tell you is that he will stop to fight stuff and even if you're not around, he's fighting stuff. This fucked me over as I was waiting for him in Whiterun. I slept in the hopes that it would speed things up. Turns out if he's far behind schedule he will skip the city. Talk about immersion.

[Ruvaldt]

Yeah, the dungeons are striking.  Even the worst dungeon I've been in from Skyrim was better than the best dungeon from Oblivion.  They are all well above par, and, in many cases, phenomenal.  Every dungeon so far has had some kind of half-seen story, at least, and none of them have been mundane or bland.

As to other quest series akin to the Mages guild, you could try the Bard College in Solitude.  I've only done the first quest for them, but it was awesome, and I think there's more to follow.

[ShenMolo]

I'm starting to think that using a Companion makes the game a little too easy, and I have decided for a while to explore solo, or use companions as mules only. I have bumped up the difficulty to Expert and am thinking of maxing it out.

I'm really morally torn by a lot of the quest lines, especially the Empire vs Stormcloak thing....still trying to remain neutral until i can discover a compelling reason to choose sides.

[Riggswolfe]

Well like most of you I'm loving the game. I'm only 14 hours in but that's alot considering I had SQL server migrations to do this weekend.

I've had a few interesting encounters:

1) A giant killed me and launched me more or less into orbit with his last hit. Sadly I was too dumbfounded to take a screenshot of my limp body floating above the highest mountains in the game.
2) I fought a dragon on a hillside and whipped it's ass. I saw a mammoth and remembered that a woman had asked me to bring a mammoth's tusk to her so I picked a fight with it. The mammoth ate my lunch! It was utterly humiliating. I now avoid angering mammoths.

I have noticed the difficulties are odd. If I encounter, say, a bandit, I make short work of him. But if it's a bandit thug I have to use every trick I have to survive!

[Gunzwei]

So how do you burn down armor/things to get them into ingots? I want to go back to that dwarvish dungeon naked and loot the crap out of it.

To my knowledge this can only be done with dwarven bits into ingots at the smelter. There is however a spell you can find that turns one ore into another.

[Sky]

Also, anyone killed the Dragon around ? No matter what I do he won't come after me. The town guards are even ready to attack.

Showing a coworker the first screenshot in my random shots post, he asked me where I took the photo :) Then he noticed the crosshair and gasped. Then he asked me if it was a screenshot from my new computer and I saw a bit of envy, poor mac guy 

[Rendakor]

I have noticed the difficulties are odd. If I encounter, say, a bandit, I make short work of him. But if it's a bandit thug I have to use every trick I have to survive!

I think there are different "levels" of mob types. Bandit would be the low level, the Bandit Thug is a bit higher, followed by Bandit Outlaw, etc. Most mobs in the game are like that, where the different name indicates a varying level of difficulty.

[NiX]

I think there are different "levels" of mob types. Bandit would be the low level, the Bandit Thug is a bit higher, followed by Bandit Outlaw, etc. Most mobs in the game are like that, where the different name indicates a varying level of difficulty.

I think their health bar is decorated differently, but I'm not 100% sure if that's true. Sometimes I notice and sometimes I don't.

I did some googling and found out who hired some thugs to kill me for stealing. This is messed up.

[Kitsune]

I ran across a dwemer ruin and absolutely loved it.  The traps were all fun and everything was the right amount of steampunk to bring back the good old days from Morrowind.  I also enjoy a lot of the touches, like finding a pile of charred bodies in front of a suspiciously-inviting gate in a dungeon.

[Riggswolfe]

I have noticed the difficulties are odd. If I encounter, say, a bandit, I make short work of him. But if it's a bandit thug I have to use every trick I have to survive!

I think there are different "levels" of mob types. Bandit would be the low level, the Bandit Thug is a bit higher, followed by Bandit Outlaw, etc. Most mobs in the game are like that, where the different name indicates a varying level of difficulty.

I guess I wasn't clear. I figured out that it is bandit->thug->outlaw->highwayman but it seems to me that the jump in difficulty between them is much more severe than it could be. A bandit I kill in one or two hits. A bandit thug sometimes kills me and my companion both.

[Miasma]

I followed that wiki link and realized something terrible.  Oblivion was released in 2006?  It's been five and a half years since I played it?  That can't be right, where did all that time go, I would have said it was two years ago tops...

[Morfiend]

I followed that wiki link and realized something terrible.  Oblivion was released in 2006?  It's been five and a half years since I played it?  That can't be right, where did all that time go, I would have said it was two years ago tops...

World of Warcraft?

[tgr]

Oh neat, aurora borealis.

[NiX]

Oh neat, aurora borealis.

You just noticed? That's awesome.

[palmer_eldritch]

I met a female hunter out doing her thing in the wild. Later, I met her again. It turns out she's a member of The Companions adventuring company, and hangs out with them in their headquarters while she's not out hunting. I also met some of her buddies in the headquarters.

Some time after that I came across the same NPCs once again. They'd gone out as a party and were taking down a giant white bear.

None of that was for a quest or part of a storyline. It's just the NPCs doing what they do. Brilliant stuff. I guess it's an illusion - the NPCs aren't actually out living their lives when the player isn't close - but it's the most convincing illusion of a living world I think I've seen in any adventure game or RPG.

[Kitsune]

I was out in bumfuckville nowhere and overheard a man panicking in earshot.  Not generic NPC-is-attacking lines like "Halt!" panicking, but, "Oh gods I'm going to die out here, there's blood everywhere." panicking.  Interested, I diverted from what I was doing to find a guy sitting in a puddle of blood by a cave.  He expressed to me that he was in fact totally going to die and would I please save his life, so I handed over a healing potion to get him on his feet, whereupon he told me that he and two friends had been ambushed while hunting in the cave, with him as the sole survivor.  He wanted to go recover their bodies, but I figured that he'd wind up being ganked in no time if he was already injured, so I told him to sit it out while I took care of business.  I rolled in and applied my special brand of atronach conjured peace to the creatures in the small cave, then went out to let him know that the coast was clear.  He gave me a magic knife in return, and indicated that I should come to visit him in the city as his new best friend ever, which I haven't done yet but mean to follow up on the next time I'm in the area.

Morrowind was actually pretty good about this, I remember going into a generally nondescript cave only to find a little coven of demon worshipers inside.  Oblivion absolutely sucked on throwing little charming side-stuff into the game.  But they definitely nailed it with Skyrim when you can uncover little gems like this completely out of the blue.

[Quinton]

Some screengrabs I liked that aren't terribly spoilery (tried to avoid any actual story or quest spoilers):

[ShenMolo]

I'm starting to think that using a Companion makes the game a little too easy, and I have decided for a while to explore solo, or use companions as mules only. I have bumped up the difficulty to Expert and am thinking of maxing it out.

I take this back lol, moved into some new areas and started getting smacked around...I started getting a little lazy...

[Soukyan]

I haven't had my companion follow me around yet, and foolish me didn't even think to have it battle with me. I suppose I'll have to try that. I decided to go Mage in Skyrim since I did the thief/archer/warrior thing in Oblivion. I'm liking it a lot, but I do have some tough encounters at times, so the companion as a distraction gambit will help a bit. I do have my flame atronach, but spent perks on Destruction instead of Conjuring so summoning the bugger eats a bunch o' Magicka.

That aside, Bethesda scored a winner all around with this game.

[koro]

If you're trying to level smithing, make iron daggers and leather bracers until the cows come home. Smithing seems to be more useful for enhancing weapons/armor than actually forging them, you don't even break even on materials cost.

That's where enchanting comes in. An iron dagger can cost me about 25 gold in bought materials, but slapping a really shitty health absorb enchant on it using one of my ten billion petty/lesser soul gems brings it up to the point where it sells for 200 gold. It's purely free money.

[lamaros]

The game is $90 and I don't know if it will run on my laptop, but you are all testing my resolve...

[Tale]

The game is $90 and I don't know if it will run on my laptop, but you are all testing my resolve...

I found it for A$79 and ran it on my laptop till 3am.

[Wasted]

I went cheap and got it for A$48 from ozgameshop but now I'm really feeling the wait.  Still got a week or so to wait for it to ship over.

[Comstar]

I just went and bought it and the steam install seems to be stuck.

So, anything I should be aware of when making my character?

[koro]

I just went and bought it and the steam install seems to be stuck.

So, anything I should be aware of when making my character?

Not really. There's no stats to take into consideration and no permanent birthsign-like things. Races gives nothing but cosmetic options, a few starting bonus skills, and a racial skill or bonus or two.

[Nija]

In any other game I can think of, she would have just disappeared when I dismissed her. In Skyrim, she literally started walking from Riften to Whiterun, quite a long journey! I couldn't believe it. In so many ways, the world of Skyrim is happening all around you, independent of what the player is doing.

I had something like that happen with a simple randomly spawned side-thing-to-do  - not even really a quest. I wiped out one of those prisoner escorts and freed the prisoner. I then explored some hamlet nearby and headed up a mountain path. I found a dead wolf, a dead escaped prisoner, and a wolf at 75% health attacking me. This was about 10-15 minutes after I freed him and quite a ways from where I set him free.

Little things like that mean so much to me.

[tmp]

Fucking Companions.

Ran into three of them taking down the giant on a farm outside Whiterun, after they're done they brag about it and how badass they are.  Right as they leave, i spot another giant approaching so figured i'd lure the bastard in the middle of them and with four of us it'd be a nice kill. So i put an arrow in the giant's eye, the guy gets pissed and runs over... at which point the Companions just stand and watch, very much otherwise ignoring the rampaging monstrosity, the farmers screaming for help and how one of their own nearly got plastered in the process, too.

Managed to solo the fucker eventually with the sliver of health left (got nearly hit, once), didn't even get a golfclap. I guess it's kind of fair since i didn't help them with their giant kill too... but still