Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

welcome to Skyrim

yes iirc that part made no sense and is constructed/marked badly

you can get into the 'museum' but the zone past that is a 'laboratory' that you shouldn't go into. no warning

some chatter abt it here:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim_talk:Understone_Keep#Calcelmo.27s_Laboratory_Glitch_-_Trespassing.3F

xp haha yes that too

yeah i had that same issue. i was going through all the winterhold missions and i was really into the game, having a lot of fun, then that thing in markarth kind of turned me off the game for a week or two because i was so confused by it. but now i'm back into it.

Oh fuck. Cos i just killed that guard. How did you fix it?

Seems like i can probably just ignore that place for a while and do a bunch of other quests.

Also, Lydia got killed so i went to Riverwood and recruited the chick that took me to my first dragon fight. Now i have no idea where she is, she's completely disappeared!

submit to a guard, either pay a fine or do time

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Crime

the secret to these problems is having abt a million saved games tbh

one of my criticisms of this game & other games like it is a relative lack of attn on ambient sound and ambient dialogue, especially in cases like this.

people say such meaningless shit to you (and bizarrely way to personally revealing). and when you do something like tresspass or murder in front of them, they still don't say anything that conveys any meaningful information about what the is happening in the gameworld. it leaves the player guessing about what the people "think".

I think the ambient sound is great! Though yeah you're right it doesn't serve much purpose. They did get a little slack on the scripting. At one point I was running through the woods and a dragon appeared, who was fighting 2-3 people, I think members of the Companions. I showed up and helped them kill the dragon, then I started talking with them. When i asked if i could join them they said 'I don't know if you are up to the task, and there's no way to test it'. Right after i killed a dragon, which was now a giant skeleton right next to this dude.

The best moments still seem to be when you are just running around open-world doing stuff. I was fighting another dragon and I was perched on the top of a mountain throwing lightning at him and doing my best to avoid his frost breath. Then out of nowhere a cave bear comes up behind me and starts killing me. It sucked, but it was pretty epic and awesome!

I still don't know what happened to the 2nd housecarl, who vanished before I even ran into a fight.

Juiced for games by my trip to Eurogamer, I had another go at getting back into Skyrim last night, and couldn't. I don't understand why not. On paper this should still be right up there with my all-time faves. I've installed a million mods, one of which even promises to make the mages guild worthwhile. What else can I do?

I fixed it by heading off and doing a bunch of other stuff (this game is huge, i have like 30 different missions listed at the moment) and then returning later when i got bored of all that. I did a fast travel to Whitehold and a guard stopped me as soon as i arrived. I could pay the bounty (all the gold i had) or ask to go to jail or fight. I ended up going to jail and woke up in a cage in an icey cave with a Ice Atronach right in front of me. I picked the lock of the cage and killed him off, stealing his soul, and then checked the other cages for loot. Then i ran outside and realized i was in far northwest skyrim somewhere that looked like the Antarctic, and there were more Ice Atrnoachs waiting for me, plus some Mammoth and Frost Bears. A fun way to level up, and I'd rather be doing that then talking to people.

I just bought this even though I have never played a RPG in my life.
I was attracted by all the talk of open world stuff but now I'm wondering if the magic skill points and all that are not gonna turn me off straight away.

The 'perks' system really gets on my nerves. It's a really pretty menu but it's ridiculously hard to find your way around in it and see what exactly you can spend your current points on.

I've more or less gotten into the habit or whenever there is a conversation, skimming over the subtitles, but quickly hitting enter to skip through all the dialog choices. Rather than hear some long-winded story about someone that had a magical something or other but they are in a cave and blah blah, I skip to the end and that little text box shows up at the top saying "Go to this mine and find this". My favorite parts of this game are the fighting.

I've installed a million mods, one of which even promises to make the mages guild worthwhile.

wait waht, mages guild is one of the best parts of the game

otm

That's great news, cos i've been putting it off but im going to get into it soon. Still having fun hunting dragons and drugars in the snow and swamps.

if nothing else the questline comes with a house that is pretty much what i imagine a skyrim pimp living in

Partway through Dawnguard I was asking someone to do something (I forget what) and they were all like "pff why should I?" and one of my conversation options was "Because I'm the boss of the fucking magicians guild yo" and I was like "oh yeah I forgot about that, cool".

Also J'Zargo is one of the best sidekicks.

The mage's guild may be one of the best parts of the game but the questline is FAR too short. Unless there are loads of secret bits to it that I blundered past. I want something that takes a bloody long time to finish, something with loads of depth and controversy, that you can't just storm through. I'm one of those irritating Morrowind fans, remember.

huh i don't think i've done the mages guild at all yet - this is separate from the winterhold storyline, right? i'm on the trail of the elder scroll right now.

I got to a point in the mage guild where there was a big fight in winterhold, but after that it still seemed like there was more work to do if I wanted to keep going.

oh looking online winterhold = mage's guild. yeah that whole series of missions was really fun.

yeah but there are also some missions in the main storyline that take place in winterhold/mage college/vicinity.

J'zargo only has so much room to carry things.

One of the biggest lols in the game is if you're still with Lydia, even after you've completed the mage quest every time you heal her she still says "a healing spell? Are you a priest?" I'm the fucking Archmage, bitch! You were there!

no one acknowledging that i was the archmage, or having a clue who i was (inc thalmor) broke my heart a bit

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/1812mw0lrkbd6jpg/original.jpg

cute.

The Mages Guild quests are AWESOME. Having all these magic fights and farming evil apparitions for magic crystals. I play it to "Space Ritual" (Hawkwind), "A Beard of Stars" (Tyrannosaurus Rex), and "Melissa" (Mercyful Fate).

It helps you realize how important Enchantments are to the game. The last shout i got SLOWED DOWN TIME which is effing rad.

I think I've run into a glitch. I went to Markarth and was framed for a murder and sent to Cidhna Mine. Killed everyone inside and made my way past some robots and finally made my way back to the city. The courier comes up and says "I've got something for you" and hands me (items added) yet I check my inventory and nothing has been added! There is a Silver-Blood that attacks me as soon as I've exited the ruins and if I fight back then all the guards of the city start fighting me too. Fuck this.

I may end up having to go back to a way earlier save, though i really don't want to do this. This game is still pretty fun, but I'm not as obsessed with it so much anymore. I can start it up and spend and hour or two running through lists/crossing off journal entries, and it's fun.

Em....so apparently the Silver-Blood is supposed to give me all my stuff back? I'm going to try to side with Madanach instead of killing him, though walk-throughs say I should get my stuff back either way...

Ok so thanks to this wiki

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:No_One_Escapes_Cidhna_Mine

I left the city, waited 24 hours, then entered again and went back to the same spot. Dude gave me all my stuff back and got the Jarl to pardon me.

For the time that i was stuck in that glitch, tho, the Silver-Blood was an unkillable NPC, so I probably should have just used him to level up my destruction spells. But where's the fun in that?

from my sister re: my nephew:

> I thought I would share the "list" Simon has been making over the last few days.
As background, Skyrim is a video game set in a medieval world, sort of like online
role-playing. You can pretty much get away with anything, as it is a game for
teens and up. Simon has spent his computer time lately playing on this, being what
he calls a "nude assassin," which is a regular Skyrim guy in the most minimal
clothing, i.e., a loincloth. The other characters in the game will talk to you,
and I often hear them asking Simon's character "Why aren't you wearing any
clothes? Aren't you ashamed?" which I think he enjoys. Anyway, he seems to spend
all of his time in this game committing crimes and running around looting, which I
like to think is because he can't do these things in real life and not that I am
raising a little sociopath :) He has created a list, "The Nude Assassin Policies,"
of which I share some here (verbatim, capitalization his):
>
> 1. As a nude assassin, you may never get married (this is mentioned several times)
> 2. If you put on any other apparel except for your hat you are no longer a nude
assassin
> 3. You may not pay a fine you may only go to jail or run
> 4. No learning at the college of Winterhold
> 5. No being fancy
> 6. If somebody has something "valuble" that you want and your pickpocket skills
are low WHO CARES TAKE IT
> 7. NO ROBES because you are nude
> 8. If you accidentally get a servant you must "dispose" of them
> 9. If they offer gold DO IT
> 10. Anger someone with a dagger or knife then finish them off with something like
a battleaxe

What if you consider the concept of a Nude Assassin inherently fancy?

I'm at Level 53 and after a long time spent doing misc quests have jumped back into the main one, taking over the Empire, etc. Only problem is that I think maybe the main quests were designed for someone at a lower level. I equip a fire sword and run in and it takes only like two hits to take out an Imperial Guard. I can single-handedly slaughter a whole fort of those guys.

Not that it isn't fun! But it feels like the levelling in this game is a little out of balance. Maybe i need to set the difficulty a little higher....?

Most of the skills offering levelling shortcuts, even if its just pounding the hell out of a plot-centric (and hence immortal) character. But game the system, and you'll unlock god mode with all the pluses and minuses that entails.

Never craft just for the sake of leveling crafting skills. Never cast for the sake of leveling magic skills. Never sneak for the sake of leveling sneak.

FWIW, when I last played (February?), I ran through the main quest and then became a pretty serious illusionist mage before 30% of the game was completed. Detect Life or Detect Dead to see through walls, Invisibility to sneak into a firing angle, then double fisted Frenzy or Mayhem to cause the whole mob to kill each other off, leaving one heavily wounded survivor to mop up. Usually the most I saw was the flaming outlines from the detect spells running around and falling. Rinse and repeat. Amusing to watch the temporary insanity of factions, but strictly for drunken kicks.

but the BEE-FAN-SEE shout is my favourite shout in the game.....

Started playing this now, and have done my usual Fallout3 trick in wandering off the beaten path - doing stuff i'm not supposed to - getting into battles that I'll never win. For instance I'm only level 4 and I got involved in some mission that involved killing some pirate leader. The mission was off the map and required a boat to get there. I had no chance to defeat the guy, he was way tough and there was no way back to the main map until I'd killed him.
After many attempts I did it though, just waded in, used all my potions, etc

I like riding horses particularly.

Hey, I played this game!

I liked it a lot!

The game got too strong, though, once I got Level 50+ I could be taken down by two Forsaken arrows. I don't know why that happened! I was a super-powerful Conjuror and things were going great, but as soon as I upgraded my Enchantment and Smithing to wear heavy armor, ironically I became far more vulnerable. Maybe because 10 of those levels were gained through grind-y Enchantment and Smithing exercises?

My favourite parts were the feelings of intense guilt that accompanied some of the Daedric quests. I felt so guilty after taking this too-cute-to-live Markarth warrior dude out to, well, disembowel him.

Yeah ive recently been getting in some crazy fights where an arrow will just wipe me out. I just learned how to do Dragonscale armor, and it looks so awesome, that I threw away all my Glass armor and just wear that now. But yeah it feels like the difficultly is ramping back up at times. I was fighting a bunch of bandits in a cave last night and some guy with a huge axe just came up and chopped my head off.

I had never used a horse until last night when i was given Shadowmere. They are pretty awesome! Got to say the Dark Brotherhood storyline is kinda confusing, one day I'm assassinating the Emperor the next some random farmer for 200 coins.

at some point i recall downloading some dlc that said I could make my own house, anyone know where I do this in game?

no idea, i never bothered with that

there are a few enemies that seem to scale very severely, the forsworn bosses for some reason were always tough. even if they went down easily their damage against you insane.

the dawnguard dlc adds a bunch of upper-upper level enemies so you have something to beat up on at level 50+

The housebuilding stuff has a bit of a weird trigger, I think you need to go to the orphanage in Riften? Then they ask you if you want to adopt kids, you say ok, they say tough you can't cos you have no house, and hey presto, you're off housebuilding. Actually there might be other ways to start that because this is how mine happened but surely that's too odd to be the official way? Kinda feel like I maybe just missed the original trigger and it shoehorned me in this way instead.

haha bethesda! *shakes fist*

for ref:

http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Hearthfire

OK, I'm a year late on this one. After finishing Dishonored, thought I would give it ago. Fun, but I find I'm spending most of my time in 3rd person. I only switch to 1st person to fight. I'm also regretting my character selection. I'm always a sucker for a cat race, but I don't really like the style of combat for them. I'd rather just bash/magic things.

Open up console and type showracemenu and you can re-create your character from scratch at any point. A word of warning though: seems like your levels get all kind of messed up when you do this...

I do the same thing w 3rd person. It just feels normal to me, every RPG I've ever played was 3rd person.

sooo new expansion for this? i'll probably check it out.

My new favorite past-time is clearing out dungeons by slowing down time right before a fight, then jumping around like the Matrix throwing a zillion dual-cast fireballs at everyone. It's so awesome when you take out a 2 or 3 at once.