Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[caladein]

There should be a block to chop wood around any water mill.  Pick up a woodcutter's axe, get chopping, and then sell the firewood to the mill owner who's likely hanging around the place.

Mining requires a pickaxe in the inventory and you'll run into the occasional discolored rock outcrop that you can mine.  Ore can be turned into ingots at a smelter.  They're almost always found outside mines in my experience and at some blacksmiths (Warmaiden's just inside Windrun has one).

The other facility that's a bit scarce is the Enchanting table.  Until you buy a house outside of Windrun, your best bet is to go to the keep in that city.

[Jimbo]

Thanks!!  I swear I walked around the Warmaiden's Shop in Windrun, but must have missed it. 

[Bunk]

Leveling speed is pretty much determined by how focused you are. If you pretty much just use 2-3 skills (sneak, archery, 1h for example), you should level one or two times a dungeon until your mid 20s.

If you switch it up and get hit a bit and level block, light armor and restoration in there you will level a bit slower(not much, since those are all reactionary), if you switch it up a LOT and swing some 2hs, kill a few dudes with destruction and conjure up some zombies you'll level at a snail's pace.

I think you are missing a detail though. Really low skills raise quickly, so if you do a bunch of stuff you've never done before, you'll grab a couple levels really quickly, as each of those skills jumps from 5 to 7.

They don't count for much thankfully. The system tags your highest skills as your focus, and those are the majority providers for leveling. If I have 70 sneak, 70 1h, and 70 bows I can go from 20-40 smithing and not raise a full level (but I'd probably be close)

It's to keep you from level match fucking yourself by taking non combat skills like alchemy late in life.

Basically, a primary skill rising gives you say, 100 xp. A minor skill rising gives you 20 xp.

Ok, that makes more sense then, good.

[tmp]

Man, Lydia is pretty tough. We were on a trip to a quest cave, and spotted a lone giant passing by. Started fighting him, when in middle of the fight giants does GIANT SMASH and Lydia literally disappears. I manage to finish off the giant, then start to consider reloading as i don't see my housecarl anywhere... then, a few seconds later there's a splash in a nearby spring -- it's Lydia, coming back from her trip to low orbit. She picks herself up and runs over, ready to follow as if nothing has just happened

On the other hand, in regular fights 3 times out of 4 she manages to work herself right in the front of my sword, half the time that ending fatal...

[K9]

I broke...

[Ghambit]

Kinda creepy how people talk about this game like they actually live in Tamriel.

[NiX]

I want to roll with the Lydia, but I don't want to trigger the dragons. Being that my new character is a mage I probably won't brawl too well.

[tmp]

Kinda creepy how people talk about this game like they actually live in Tamriel.

Only if they choose to play as khajiit, really.

[KallDrexx]

If you haven't gotten Skyrim yet, Amazon is offering buy 1 game get 1 50% off, and Skyrim is on the list in the promotion.

[koro]

Welp.

[Engels]

So, I'm level 19 now, feeling pretty powerful, kickin ass until this one quest:


Are there some encounters that require you to be a certain level? I thought all this stuff scaled.

[Ironwood]

I thought it didn't....

[Rasix]

I am CTD'ing like crazy.  Usually happens when I loot a chest or exit/enter a new area.  Guess it's time to see if I need to update my drivers.

[NiX]

I am CTD'ing like crazy.  Usually happens when I loot a chest or exit/enter a new area.  Guess it's time to see if I need to update my drivers.

Try the Audio and RAM fixes. The Audio fix reduced the amount by a lot while the RAM fix completely stopped the crashes.

[rattran]

Mreidia's quest guy at the end was tough, I manged to
Also  for the Mythic Dawn quest line, favorite so far. Go Go Mehrunes Dagon!

[tmp]

Welp.

I could see the Big Macintosh skin working pretty well, but these are just wrong.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I am CTD'ing like crazy.  Usually happens when I loot a chest or exit/enter a new area.  Guess it's time to see if I need to update my drivers.

Try the Audio and RAM fixes. The Audio fix reduced the amount by a lot while the RAM fix completely stopped the crashes.

where's the ram fix again?

[NiX]

where's the ram fix again?

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=202

There's also one where you use CFF explorer to do the exact same thing. As with everything Bethesda, BACK UP THE EXE. You might want to turn off auto-update in Steam so you have time to replace the EXE when patches get released.

[Reg]

The only smelter I've come across so far is at Warmaiden's in Whiterun.

[Engels]

Mreidia's quest guy at the end was tough, I manged to

What level were you when you did this? It looks like we're similar in level.

[Paelos]

If you haven't gotten Skyrim yet, Amazon is offering buy 1 game get 1 50% off, and Skyrim is on the list in the promotion.

Well fuck. They need to add more than two PC games so I at least have a choice. I don't really want RAGE.

[Ingmar]

Getting a little annoyed at the usual Bethesda stable of three voice actors for the entire game. Surely they could have found more than one out of work Swedish actor?

[Lucas]

Teh Pretty (I'm sure there are lots more impressive sights, but I've only just begun exploring):

1920x1200

Increased exterior cell buffer and added uGridsToLoad line (you can also notice the bright blue spruce trees and enhanced night mods I mentioned earlier).

[Sky]

Getting a little annoyed at the usual Bethesda stable of three voice actors for the entire game. Surely they could have found more than one out of work Swedish actor?

Especially when they were hyping their huge stable of voice actors. That one female guard sure does get around! But calling it three actors is a bit harsh. It IS better than previous Bethsoft games in that department.

Lydia freaked my cat out last night. He had just lain down next to me, started dozing off and the surround speaker next to him emits a throat-clear from Lydia that sounded exactly like my fiancee (who wasn't there). Kinda freaked me out a little, too.

One other thing about the VO, the general goods guy in Whiterun has several lines that sound just like Barry from Storage Wars, especially the 'come back!' line.

[Ingmar]

Yeah it was a bit of hyperbole. They do seem to have just a small number of people to do all the Nords though, where they probably should have splurged a bit since Nords are like 75%+ of the people in the game. It wouldn't be so jarring if they wouldn't use Generic Nord #1 for important characters like the Jarl of Whiterun, when I hear his exact voice coming out of a random innkeeper or farmer it kind of takes me out of things, which is a shame since immersion should be the biggest strength of a game like this.

On graphics mods, the game is gorgeous as-is, I don't see any reason to tweak it at all.

[Koyochi]

On that note, it was funny when I dropped a staff in a town square. Some female guard bitched me out, told me someone could get hurt leaving weapons around. I think I had a choice to push it with her or apologize (I apologized).

I dropped some stuff while an orc was looking, heard him saying "And they say we are the dirty kind, but he over there is leaving his trash everywhere" or something alike.

Comments from npc's can be usefull though. In Riften I was selling my loot from inventory, walked on the market square and heard the blacksmith saying "hm, you should put some cloths on". I didn't got it at first, but then I zoomed out and discovered I sold most of the things I was wearing too. Npc's helping where UI fails !

[Pezzle]

So, I think I am turning into a Vampire, or an alcoholic.  Not sure as I do not remember how that worked in previous games.  Sun comes up and I get a message about becoming weaker.  Sun goes down and I get a message about being thirsty.  Not really sure what to do about it.  

I did kill off a cave full of the damn things.  Fucking Vampires.  

Oh, and I cannot find an entry for current status effects any longer, and I cannot zoom my archery aim any longer, sort of strange.  

Beyond that everything goes swimmingly.  Hit level 19 as a stealthy archer type, piling mountains of loot in my house.  Killed my third Dragon.  Actually it was mostly Lydia.  Dumb thing just about landed on me, she kept shield bashing and stunning it.  If you think she has no personality I suggest you avoid the 2h weapon wielding woman you can hire.  She never says a damn thing.  I might try hiring the Dunmer in leather later, maybe she talks.  

[bhodi]

Character flipped from 'lousy' to 'overpowered' here at level 35 or so where I finally got my under-combat-leveled smithing/enchanting/alchemy character to 100 and made myself a complete heavy set of dragon armor with two daedric maces all improved to legendary. I don't even have them enchanted yet (I'm waiting for 100 enchant so I can get 2 enchants per) but they still kill everything in 1-3 hits.

If you want to level smithing + enchanting all you really need is some seed money, some patience with the UI, and to be able to cast soul trap or find an item with it. Here's what you do:

If you have a soul trap weapon, disenchant it and enchant a mace or favorite weapon with the soul trap, set it to 1-2 seconds and you should have hundreds of charges even with a small gem. If not, just keep soul trap in your left hand and a mace in your right. Smack each one with soul trap as you engage.

Buy all the iron ore, ingots, and leather you can from whiterun. Make as many iron daggers as you can, and then leather bracers.

Head up to the keep and enchant all those daggers/bracers using your crappy soul gems. I used absorb health / fortify 1h / fortify 2h as it bumped the price the most. Yes, this is akward and annoying and a bit time consuming thanks to the UI. Sadface. Buy some empty crappy soul gems to replace the ones you used.

Sell your newly enchanted goods back to the same vendor next to your house in whiterun you bought the ingots from, since he'll have all the money you used to buy the ingots. You'll get all your money back and more.

Then , just continue on to whatever dungeon and steal all their souls with soul trap to put into the crappy gems. When you go back to town, do the same thing. Once a day, the vendors regenerate about 1k in gold and all their ingots so you can do this basically every time you come back from a dungeon. Or, if you want to powerlevel, hop between two cities. I used the one on the far left, the fast travel to the keep is right above the blacksmith.


Once you're done with that, enchant bracers/ring/chest/necklace for +smithing, make some dragon armor and some daedric weapons, drink a +smithing potion, and then go enhance all that gear to legendary.

[bhodi]

You are becoming a vampire. Don't become one, they suck. Go pray at any shrine (the Talos shrine in Whiterun is convenient)

Alternatively, become a werewolf. It fixes everything and has no significant downsides. Plus, you get a "Fuck this dungeon, I'm done with this shit" button.

[tmp]

You are becoming a vampire. Don't become one, they suck.

[Pezzle]

Yes, I can go become a werewolf whenever I like.  How do you know when you actually turn into a vampire?  Burst into flames in the light?  Damn I get distracted easily in this game.  Maybe tonight will be crafting time!

[Ingmar]

You only have 3 days once you catch the disease to remove it without doing a big involved quest I think.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yes, I can go become a werewolf whenever I like.  How do you know when you actually turn into a vampire?  Burst into flames in the light?  Damn I get distracted easily in this game.  Maybe tonight will be crafting time!

Everyone tries to kill you.

[Rendakor]

Vampires do not burn in daylight in Skyrim; I know because I had a quest to go kill one. Normally for assassinations I wait until nightfall then murder them while they sleep, so for Mr Bloodsucker I made my way to his house and waited until noon. I started to sneak up when I saw him out, chopping wood in broad daylight. 

[Cyrrex]

Dumb question from a person who is dumb:  if I download this via steam, is it still easy to mod later?  Or does steam try to ruin your fun?