Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

this game is really p freaking awesome

some of these side quests (and not even -- just random caves + dungeons) are more exciting and well designed than some game's main quests

OMG that arrow YT made me burst out laughing, I wasnt quite expecting what happened.

How was that possible? You'd have to be some sort of trigonometry genius to figure that out.

ok, i'm a few hours into this, at level 5? or something, and it's awesome! i'm playing a thiefy type wood elf

i'm a huge complainer about all games as u all kno, and i don't have anything bad to say so far about this. the only time i was like whaaat was finding some gold pieces on a dead animal.

it's fucking beautiful. and the UI is so well designed. the controls make sense, it's kind of hard, the story seems interesting. love love love that the first few minutes throw a choice at you w/o letting you know it's a choice. the radically simplified no-class no-attributes character system is brilliant. freedom, man!

instead of following the dude out of the first dungeon i thought, well ok my character isn't from here and doesn't want to be in this mess, how bout i try to head south and see what happens? cleared a small cave with wolves in it, found a small keep called "bloodlet throne" filled with vampires that i had to leg it out of eventually, now i'm in a nice little house that has some kind of secret bandit mining operation underneath it.

The design of Markarth and the area around it is awesome

This has basically been my entire Saturday. Gotta hand it to Bethesda, they killed it with this one. So much fun. Can't wait to see what they do with the next Fallout.

Yeah me too.

My best buddy's wife just gave birth to their first child today. She was sleeping on his chest for the first time as he texted me "what if she is dragonborn dude."

so, just started and...this isn't influenced by fallout, it actually IS fallout, but with snow and swords and a bit of ui polish? i approve!

lydia and i had a big adventure today. we broke into a museum and the moment we got in, she bugged out and started saying, "you're not supposed to be in here!" whenever i tried to talk to her. this was a problem bc i had previously told her to wait for me (i was doing super stealthy thief things and i didn't want to be interrupted). anyway, after leaving and reentering numerous times hoping she'd follow me, i eventually gave up and decided to execute poor lydia so i could at least get another (non-bugged) follower. so i shoot her to death arrows and just when she has died -- she suddenly gains all of her hp back and the game says that she has left my group. she begins to walk away, newly unbugged, and i chase after her to apologize. i start to talk to her and the option to have her follow me is on her discussion menu. i request, she agreed, and we went merrily along our way once more :)

I'm hoping this holds up in the endgame. Big problem I had with the Fallout games was doing everything I could and I just got too powerful for it to be any fun anymore. I hope for the new Fallout they make it as much as possible like this. Being beholden to some of the old franchise precedents just doesn't work. Kill VATS or do something wildly different with it.

As a stealthy, thiefy character, Lydia has fucked me over so many time. Give her a lot of "wait here" orders. Companions are pretty essential for archer types though, I do appreciate the tanking.

The sound design is so good! And the music! Letting lose a full dragon shout is fucking satisfying.

Pretty sure I am going to clock hundreds of hours in this game, but mostly because I appear to be completely terrible at it.

I still need to "finish" oblivion :/ I havent even played the main quests in it yet! I get caught up doing spells and shit.

Oblivion meh, burn it and buy Skyrim

I killed a dragon and a mammoth back to back and felt like a god.

I killed my first giant. It was a quest from the jarl of sadtown (I can't remember the name of the incredibly depressing town with the giant graveyard in the south) and it was surprisingly easy. Of course, Lydia and the worst dog in the world kept him busy at close quarters while I just feathered him with arrows and my conjured atronach pelted him with fireballs.

Having a gang is really useful outdoors. Indoors, not so much.

Gone back to the main questline, was about 1/3 of the way through then got sidetracked, now I'm level 30 and most of the base-level bandits and draugrs are one hit kill. It's kinda fun to charge round dungeons without fear like a maniac - sometimes I'll just stand still and let the swordblows rain down on me, to increase my armour skill - but might increase the difficulty level if it really stops being any kind of a challenge.

Bump that difficulty up even one notch and you won't be standing still for long, i can tell you that

I've broken my vanilla playthrough vow and installed 2 mods, one replacing the boring sans font with a more elder scrolls-y font, one adding some extra bookshelves to Breezehome so I could tidy the fuck up. I still wish I could put a skull on a bookshelf, or put stuff on a plate and not have it spontaneously leap onto the floor but nvm. I'm pretending I have a geist in the house.

Trying to decide whether to get that dog or not. Hm.

decide to destroy the dark brotherhood, we'll see how that goes

one adding some extra bookshelves to Breezehome so I could tidy the fuck up

skysims

i think it's kinda funny how there is gold everywhere. like every pot in a forgotten ruin has a few coins. and you have all this shit worth thousands. but nobody in business has more than a couple hundred at a time. you're like a walking liquidity crisis.

whiterun blacksmiths are doing pretty well, >2k between them every day. (took me an age to figure out you can buy from 'er outdoors, and she has a separate cash pile.)

thx for new display name

WoW years mean I'm slightly disappointed at merchant funding caps & their unwillingness to buy any old junk I want to clear out of my bags.

Only just getting into dropping stuff on the floor in Breezehome. Pigsty by next week.

put it in the endless chest

but i like leaving stuff on the floor. it gives the place an easygoing bachelor pad feel.

Got a free flat when I became arch-mage, why is everyone buying real estate

Gotta do something with all the money.

I hope to have vacation homes throughout Skyrim. I'm not renting a bed for a good night's sleep.

here's a design quirk i'm a little embarrassed to say just crossed my mind: unlike fallout or dragon age, i don't think there's any sex in this game? but you can get gay married! the chastity feels so odd considering how vicious and murdery some of the quests are. idk i'm not asking for anything that isn't there, it's just odd to think about how these elements get put in or not.

Can you imagine how bad the animation for that would be? That 30-seconds to sit animation is bad enough.

Plus, you'd probably get stuck.

MINIGAME!

*shudder*

"I am SWORN to put your penis in my vagina..."

"Let me guess, somebody stole your sweetroll"

really shd have left this one alone

A whole new line to explore in alchemy...

I'm sorry, I'm still lolling at the idea of Lydia rolling her eyes at my sexual advances and being super sarcastic about the whole thing

That damn dog would get in the way.

sorry, but all capacity for fantasy world sexuality was directed toward Game of Thrones. there's none left over for any other fantasy worlds. we'll just have to make due.

even all of the fantasy world sex was not enough for Game of Thrones, so they had to borrow a little from Blind Date and the Bachelor. sorry about that wedding night, bachelor!

holy god played too many hours of this last night

I had to restrain myself from turning it on at 11:45 last night because I knew I would play until 3

haha i can echo both of those sentiments

echoechoecho

come on skyrim, drop in price you dick

need to bring bo'bahg into life

honestly though as someone who plays maybe A game a year, owns a mac, and has never owned a console, i've just been giddy being able to play something so good. the last sandbox game i played was GTAsomething, years ago, for a few days while at a friend's house. also WoW, i guess. i feel like i got to skip over years of bad gaming and had this dropped in my lap.

mostly its the size of it, there's just so much to DO, and theyve managed to avoid making it grind-y. like, it seems like you could finish the main story (barely begun), the guild quests (i'm doing thief+assassin), and just dick around leveling crafting skills and still have fun with it.

do these games typically have DLC/expansion packs?