Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Sheepherder]

Why?  Just to clean the gems out of your inventory?

[Ironwood]

Pretty much - gems are a pain in my tits.  Also, I use weapons that are more....damage focused and swap to the Soul Drinker for the final rend.

If the Tanky Woman is doing all this, I don't have to.

[MuffinMan]

Finished the Thieves Guild last night. I thought I was done the night before but I guess I still had to do the little jobs over and over and over again and over again to actually become the guildmaster. I don't think I would have even found that out if I didn't look at a wiki.

[Bunk]

Pretty much - gems are a pain in my tits.  Also, I use weapons that are more....damage focused and swap to the Soul Drinker for the final rend.

If the Tanky Woman is doing all this, I don't have to.

Just make sure you load her up with lots of petty gems, unless you relesh having Grand Soul gems full of mudcrab souls.

[Tebonas]

Thats the reason I stopped using enchanted weapons and use Ghostblade exclusively. Fuck micromanaging my Soul gems.

[Ironwood]

Don't really give a toss about that.  If I want an enchant, I'll suck a Bandit into my Black Star.  The rest is just used to skillup and recharge weapons.

[Tebonas]

Corrupting Azuras Star was not an option for my Paladin. My assassin will do that right before she sacrifices her High Priestess to another Deadra for style points, though.

[Ironwood]

Hmm, I didn't really consider it corrupting it.  More....fixing it differently.

[Malakili]

So much fanciness going on here.  I just  burn people to death by shooting fire from my hands.  What can I say, I'm a man of simple pleasures.

[K9]

Don't really give a toss about that.  If I want an enchant, I'll suck a Bandit into my Black Star.  The rest is just used to skillup and recharge weapons.

This

[K9]

The damage runes are pretty awesome once you have the mana to toss more than one out per fight. The only annoying thing is that they don't seem to scale properly with destruction perks, or benefit from impact...

[Malakili]

Does Skyrim need a story line?

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/152323-storyline-in-skyrim-no-thanks/

My response? Abandon quests altogether for future Elder Scrolls games. Skyrim is at a place in its evolution where the series can’t rationalize holding onto several RPG conventions for convention’s sake. There is no reason that we need to go into Skyrim expecting quests to guide us along everywhere because the point of the game is to explore with player-driven volition. I can see a Skyrim that has no quests that are explicitly given to the player but only offers rumors and clues along with different ways of obtaining them. My first time in Riverwood, I was looting the general store on the top floor and happened to overhear some siblings arguing over finding something called the golden claw. Just that knowledge should have empowered me to go find it, but Skyrim relies on the quest-giving model and its explicitly defined objectives, which are all created by developers instead of the player. This is especially problematic when you get the claw back from the bandit who holds it.  Your game journal tells you to explore the barrow further. My decision to keep going into the ruins or to get the claw back to the store would be more meaningful if I came to that decision on my own, as hints were already there to do so.

Interesting read, I think I agree with most of it.  I often skip most of the quests in Elder Scrolls games anyway, but I think it would be really interesting to see them go with a "questless" game and see what it looks like in earnest.   Then again, the game would likely have a lot of "there is nothing to do in this game" responses

[K9]

I guess games like Minecraft and Terraria are recent examples of questless sandboxes, although they are a lot more streamlined and have a somewhat 'implicit' quest. I don't think there is any shame in telling a story, although the majority of games have pretty dire and unremarkable plots. I think a strong story can be a great addition to a game, and I don't really agree with the suggestion that the story in Skyrim (which is decent, but not amazing) constrains the player's actions in a way that really harms the gameplay.

[Miasma]

That person is both pompous and utterly retarded at the same time.

[Ironwood]

Read the whole thing.  Way to miss the point entirely, you mug.  Stop writing.

Elitist fucking nonsense.

(Edited to add, this was directed at the article.)

[Sheepherder]

The presence of fate as a central concern grows stronger in each installment

It wasn’t until the Jarl of Windhelm told me that I couldn’t ignore the summons of the Greybeards (and I promptly did)

Fuck he's an idiot.

[rk47]

Tell him to just play Mount and Blade. 

[lamaros]

Yeah, create the quests in detail but just don't tell the player about them isn't really "not making quests", it's just "wasting resources hiding content most players probably wont ever do".

[Malakili]

Yeah, create the quests in detail but just don't tell the player about them isn't really "not making quests", it's just "wasting resources hiding content most players probably wont ever do".

I think finding the content is at least 1/2 the fun.  Just checking off a bunch of tasks in my journal saps my will to play by comparison.  I agree with the author of the article that the most important story in the elders scrolls games is basically a history of what your character did.  Hell, we have a subforum for this kind of thing (Radicalthon).  Not that it precludes quests, but the quests/story have become the point themselves a little too often these days.  I understand that not everyone likes exploring for its own sake and some people really like a narrative to direct them to the points of interest, but I can't get over the feeling that being pushed down a story line and visiting location A B and C in order isn't nearly as interesting as finding your way there either by accident or through clues found in the game.  Yes, this means you could miss some content - that is ok with me.

[Selby]

Does Skyrim need a story line?

The early Might & Magic games were like that.  There was a story... kind of.  Lots of things to see and do and explore, very little in the way of actual structured quests to advance the story or plot and relatively open-ended for 1988-1992.  Those kinds of games tend to require a certain player type to enjoy and can leave those who don't really like it feeling cold though.

[lamaros]

Yeah, create the quests in detail but just don't tell the player about them isn't really "not making quests", it's just "wasting resources hiding content most players probably wont ever do".

I think finding the content is at least 1/2 the fun.  Just checking off a bunch of tasks in my journal saps my will to play by comparison.  I agree with the author of the article that the most important story in the elders scrolls games is basically a history of what your character did.  Hell, we have a subforum for this kind of thing (Radicalthon).  Not that it precludes quests, but the quests/story have become the point themselves a little too often these days.  I understand that not everyone likes exploring for its own sake and some people really like a narrative to direct them to the points of interest, but I can't get over the feeling that being pushed down a story line and visiting location A B and C in order isn't nearly as interesting as finding your way there either by accident or through clues found in the game.  Yes, this means you could miss some content - that is ok with me.

You're confusing two things.

One is a linear story you are expected to follow. One are "story elements" you are expected to find and do.

You can't find a lot of quests in Skyrim unless you just run around and explore. However you still need to start somewhere, be it in a book, a conversation, etc. If you don't have those starting points then you don't really have quests, but then people also don't know they are doing them.

Eg: There's this witch somewhere in the middle of nowhere. She seems like a nice old lady hermit, but if you get into her basement you see all her herbs and journals and the like and realise. Then when you come back up again she is hostile and tries to kill you to stop you spreading her secret. This turning hostile is put into the game, it is not a product of basic game mechanics. Getting a reward for returning the claw to Riverwood is also quest element, not something natural.

Complaining about the way quests are delivered being too generic and straightforward "walk up to questgiver A, B, C and get quests" is not the same thing as saying quests and story elements should be removed entirely.

What you seem to be complaining about is a quest design, the quest log, and quest markers. That's an entirely different thing to saying "get rid of quests".

[koro]

Yeah, of all the flaws Skyrim has, I'm not certain I'd list quest structure among them. I mean, that shitty article's example of overhearing the brother and sister talking about that claw is a good one: you can find the claw without ever having set foot into the store. The person who helped you at Helgen cheerfully points out Bleak Falls Barrow to you, and all but tells you to go explore it. There are a ton of quests like that, and I think it's a great compromise between a completely directionless experience like the early Might & Magic games and something like Oblivion where fully 45% of the dungeon locations on the map were entirely pointless to go in to because they're quest dungeons and nothing will spawn 'til you're on the right stage of the right quest.

[Ironwood]

I visited a barrow last night that contained a Necromancer.


Someone on the quest writing team is a sick puppy.

[stray]

Yeah, of all the flaws Skyrim has, I'm not certain I'd list quest structure among them. I mean, that shitty article's example of overhearing the brother and sister talking about that claw is a good one: you can find the claw without ever having set foot into the store. The person who helped you at Helgen cheerfully points out Bleak Falls Barrow to you, and all but tells you to go explore it. There are a ton of quests like that, and I think it's a great compromise between a completely directionless experience like the early Might & Magic games and something like Oblivion where fully 45% of the dungeon locations on the map were entirely pointless to go in to because they're quest dungeons and nothing will spawn 'til you're on the right stage of the right quest.

Yeah, I like the way quests are stumbled upon.

Although, the storywriting in general is rushed. That's my main beef, as far as story goes. They could have drawn things out more. Take the Companions, for example.

[Malakili]

Steam downloaded 18MB worth of something for Skyrim today, but I can't find any patch notes anywhere, anyone know anything?

[Ironwood]

Steam knows when you touch yourself and punishes you for it.

[koro]

The Large Address Aware stuff was enabled with the patch. Dunno about anything else.

[Sparky]

Update 1.3.10 Notes (PC)

    Support for 4-Gigabyte Tuning (Large Address Aware)
    Fixed issue with accented characters not displaying properly at the end of a line

http://www.bethblog.com/2011/12/07/skyrim-update-1-3-now-on-steam/

[Rendakor]

Does that mean it is properly configured for having more RAM, or do I need to do the Large Address Aware tweak again to get it working?

[Sophismata]

Eg: There's this witch somewhere in the middle of nowhere. She seems like a nice old lady hermit, but if you get into her basement you see all her herbs and journals and the like and realise. Then when you come back up again she is hostile and tries to kill you to stop you spreading her secret. This turning hostile is put into the game, it is not a product of basic game mechanics. Getting a reward for returning the claw to Riverwood is also quest element, not something natural.

Stuff like that is terrible. I remember that old lady, I snuck into her house and she never saw me, but she still went hostile.

[UnSub]

Steam knows when you touch yourself and punishes you for it.

Steam must punish a lot of its player base then.

[Ironwood]

You get used to it.
 

[Phred]

Does that mean it is properly configured for having more RAM, or do I need to do the Large Address Aware tweak again to get it working?

From my limited understanding of programming, the large address space program just sets up the parameters then loads skyrim into it's own address space as a child. If so, why can't they just make the steam launcher do this operation itself?

[Azazel]

Yeah, create the quests in detail but just don't tell the player about them isn't really "not making quests", it's just "wasting resources hiding content most players probably wont ever do".

Everquest!

Hidden quests, non-filled-in backstory. Those days were glorious times, my friends. Then, sad as it may be, it took an arrow, in the Knee.


 

[Jobu]

I lost 10 levels on my main pure-caster because I didn't really pay attention to explicitly saving (just used the autos and quick-saves) and when I made an alt on a whim, I only realized an hour later that they didn't have seperate save pools for each character (a la Mass Effect 2). 

I made a thiefy, assassiny dude. What's the best avenue to improve weapons... enchanting or smithing? I don't really have the patience to do both, and I am already deep into alchemy for poisons. If I want to just dabble in one.... I'm thinking maybe enchanting? That worked pretty well on my abandoned mage.