The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Catch-All

ClockworkHouse wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

Yeah, Elder Scrolls games have always been excellent about requiring zero knowledge about the world's lore, while making available in game far more information than any sane person could ever absorb.

Hyetal wrote:

But I'm sure Montalban will be by in a second or two.

In my defense, instead of playing any new games this Fall, I've been playing the meta lore game with TES. Sorry, Batman, Deus Ex and Dead Island. You just can't compete with Leaper Demons and Sky Whales.

farley3k wrote:

I chose the PS3. Mostly because I expect that within a year there will be a really cheap Game of the Year Edition for the PC which will have any expansions. By that time there will also be a few great mods. So I can finish the game once with no real extras on the PS3 then forget about the game for a few month and by the time it is really cheap on the PC I will be ready to play it again.

I'm going this route as well, except I'll be playing it on the Xbox 360. Like you said, there will eventually be a Steam sale or GOTY edition I can pick up on the PC for cheap. As well, and this is the biggest reason for me, is that for Oblivion there were so many great mods out there that I spent way too much time finding and installing mods, and not enough time playing the game. Playing it on console forces me to just play the game on a comfy couch with a 50" TV in front of me.

DSGamer wrote:

I wouldn't worry, but if you really want to read up on lore, I'm sure Montalban will be by in a second or two.

With VATS!

At the core of lore is the idea that this world (Tamriel, technically a contintent) is made up of a bunch of independent kingdoms: Cyrodiil, Black Marsh, Elsweyr, Hammerfell, High Rock, Morrowind, Skyrim, Summerset Isle, and Valenwood. Each of these kingdoms is home to a predominant race, which gives rise to the playable races. Respectively: Imperials (humans), Argonians (lizard people), Khajit (cat people), Redguards (humans), Dunmer (dark elves), Nords (humans), Altmer (high elves), and Bosmer (wood elves). The history of these nine kingdoms is divided into Eras.

Roughly, the First Era begins with the return of men to Tamriel, is defined by conflicts that largely reflect a transition of power from the elves to men, and ends with the assassination of the Emperor by forces loyal to a foreign power known as the Akavir. The Second Era is dominated by conflict between various powers, and comes to an end with the unification of the Empire under the leadership of Tiber Septim, a Nord referred to apocryphally as the Dragonborn. Septim loses his ability to speak in the dragon tongue to an assassin, but survives and kicks off the Third Era. This era is huge in terms of lore, covering all four previous games; it ends with the Oblivion gates being dealt with in the previous game.

There's a massive amount of content about the events, people, and beliefs of each era available in-game (you can read all kinds of books), and the lore is also widely collected and published online. I wouldn't worry too much about not enjoying the game if you aren't going in with a full history, but for ES nerds, there's as much detail as you can handle available.

TheHipGamer wrote:

ES for Dummies

Nice.

I've been on board since Morrowind and didn't know most of that stuff. Well, not in such a succinct manner anyway.

karmajay wrote:

Re: inventory

I need to promise myself ill only carry a few weld around unlike Fallout 3 and NV, where I would carry 25 different erode ay all times!

Yeah. In Fallout 3 and NV I was constantly battling encumbrance. Including choosing perks and upgrades to carry more stuff. I was a hoarder.

Skyrim Will Have Infinite Quests

So long, real life. It was nice knowing you.

Aaron D. wrote:

Skyrim Will Have Infinite Quests

So long, real life. It was nice knowing you.

Enjoy your new life as a FedEx guy with a LARPing addiction.

Aaron D. wrote:

Skyrim Will Have Infinite Quests

So long, real life. It was nice knowing you.

See, now Todd Howard's just trolling people like me. I have to complete every quest and now they have to go and make that impossible. Asses.

Any npc that asks if I can go collect that thing that he's too lazy to get for himself will promptly receive a neat little gift I like to call a dagger through the throat.

Assassination missions, though? Hell yes.

Hyetal wrote:

Any npc that asks if I can go collect that thing that he's too lazy to get for himself will promptly receive a neat little gift I like to call a dagger through the throat.

Assassination missions, though? Hell yes.

But...he'll give you something when you get that thing that he wants. You can never have too many things.

Fellas, fellas, fellas.

You can do the fetch quest, get the reward, then kill the quest-giver and take the thing that he wanted in the first place.

Everybody wins.

Well, except for the NPC.

I see these Radiant quests as a way to get an extra reward for the exploring I would be doing anyways. The fact that the game uses these quests to direct me toward places I've never been before makes me even more excited then I can possibly stand.

I was starting to waffle on the idea of picking this up at a midnight launch, but now my decision to get the game as early as possible and play until the sun comes up has been cemented.

Hyetal wrote:

Any npc that asks if I can go collect that thing that he's too lazy to get for himself will promptly receive a neat little gift I like to call a dagger through the throat.

Assassination missions, though? Hell yes.

This. I play games like this organically. I'm not shy about killing "quest givers" if I don't want to do what they're asking me to do.

DSGamer wrote:

Yeah. In Fallout 3 and NV I was constantly battling encumbrance. Including choosing perks and upgrades to carry more stuff. I was a hoarder.

Following the wiki to get that ring to increase encumbrance -- yup. (Or was that needing more encumbrance to get a foolishly heavy ring? I forget.) That mod to increase your encumbrance in Oblivion? Yup.

An obsessive need to loot ALL of the armor from ALL of the corpses in ALL of the dungeons? Guilty.

DSGamer wrote:
Hyetal wrote:

Any npc that asks if I can go collect that thing that he's too lazy to get for himself will promptly receive a neat little gift I like to call a dagger through the throat.

Assassination missions, though? Hell yes.

This. I play games like this organically. I'm not shy about killing "quest givers" if I don't want to do what they're asking me to do.

Hey, can you get me that thing off the shelf? Please? Wait, why are you taking out your sword?

Katy wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Yeah. In Fallout 3 and NV I was constantly battling encumbrance. Including choosing perks and upgrades to carry more stuff. I was a hoarder.

Following the wiki to get that ring to increase encumbrance -- yup. (Or was that needing more encumbrance to get a foolishly heavy ring? I forget.) That mod to increase your encumbrance in Oblivion? Yup.

An obsessive need to loot ALL of the armor from ALL of the corpses in ALL of the dungeons? Guilty.

Unfortunately I'm not a member of the Glorious PC Master Race. So no mod for me.

Re: inventory

I need to promise myself ill only carry a few weps around unlike Fallout 3 and NV, where I would carry 25 different weps at all times!

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Fellas, fellas, fellas.

You can do the fetch quest, get the reward, then kill the quest-giver and take the thing that he wanted in the first place.

Everybody wins.

Well, except for the NPC. :)

No, he wins, too. He wins at losing.

karmajay wrote:

Re: inventory

I need to promise myself ill only carry a few weps around unlike Fallout 3 and NV, where I would carry 25 different weps at all times!

This is much better than this:

karmajay wrote:

Re: inventory

I need to promise myself ill only carry a few weld around unlike Fallout 3 and NV, where I would carry 25 different erode ay all times!

Damn you, autocorrect?

So I have a 360 I never touch (I've always been a "PC guy"), and a 4 year old PC...

I'm thinking of picking up Skyrim (also never played any of the previous Elder Scrolls games). I loved, and wouldn't dream of playing Fallout 3 on the 360 (FPS belong on PC), but should I get Skyrim for my ignored 360 (also Batman: Arkham Asylum/City looks like console games to me)? I'd think so, seeing that it probably wouldn't even run on my PC, even though I'd prefer to get them through Steam.

Enable away...

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Eld...

Take with several grains of salt. If you think it'll run, I would definitely get it on PC, and even if you're ambivalent, Bethesda games are usually very easy on the scaling thing.

lord_haven wrote:

for Oblivion there were so many great mods out there that I spent way too much time finding and installing mods, and not enough time playing the game. .

This is an interesting point and an aspect of modding that I haven't really seen explored - once you start changing the game, where does it stop? How does it change your relationship with the game, if so many variables are yours to change. I know to some it might make me a luddite but I simply like to play the game the developers intended.

lord_haven wrote:

I see these Radiant quests as a way to get an extra reward for the exploring I would be doing anyways. The fact that the game uses these quests to direct me toward places I've never been before makes me even more excited then I can possibly stand.

Yeah, that's kind of brilliant -- I've spent a lot of time chasing map markers in Oblivion (and then in FO3/NV), but quests seem like a much more immersive way for the game to say "Hey, there's something interesting over in that direction."

Katy wrote:

Following the wiki to get that ring to increase encumbrance -- yup. (Or was that needing more encumbrance to get a foolishly heavy ring? I forget.)

It was a foolishly heavy ring. Because the Mage's Guild is dysfunctional.

AcidCat wrote:
lord_haven wrote:

for Oblivion there were so many great mods out there that I spent way too much time finding and installing mods, and not enough time playing the game. .

This is an interesting point and an aspect of modding that I haven't really seen explored - once you start changing the game, where does it stop? How does it change your relationship with the game, if so many variables are yours to change. I know to some it might make me a luddite but I simply like to play the game the developers intended.

It's a real risk when you start to mess with the game. I ruined Morrowind for myself because I got into the mods, and that pulled back the curtain and ruined the magic. If I could just add in anything I wanted, what was the point of playing? Why not just give myself a billion gold and save 30 hours of my life?

For Oblivion, I learned my lesson and only installed mods that would enhance the base game. If it looked like it would change too much or imbalance things even a little bit, I ignored it. Mods were a way to get more entertainment out of the game, rather than play god.

Considering that the mod community may take a while to get going for Skyrim, and how few mods I ever installed for Fallout 3 compared to Oblivion, I'm confident the console version of Skyrim will feel pretty darn robust and not just like the vanilla version of a more awesome PC game.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Fellas, fellas, fellas.

You can do the fetch quest, get the reward, then kill the quest-giver and take the thing that he wanted in the first place.

Everybody wins.

Well, except for the NPC. :)

If I get around to a second playthrough I would do a lot of this, but first time through I know I will not be able to resist being good.

Awww Yiss.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ZoJEj.png)

lord_haven wrote:

I was starting to waffle on the idea of picking this up at a midnight launch, but now my decision to get the game as early as possible and play until the sun comes up has been cemented.

I'll have to wait until Friday evening, but my consolation is that my wife will be doing her night shifts, meaning I can play virtually uninterrupted from 7pm Friday to 7am Sunday (or until my Xbox melts).

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen.

FTFY

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

So I have a 360 I never touch (I've always been a "PC guy"), and a 4 year old PC...

I'm thinking of picking up Skyrim (also never played any of the previous Elder Scrolls games). I loved, and wouldn't dream of playing Fallout 3 on the 360 (FPS belong on PC), but should I get Skyrim for my ignored 360 (also Batman: Arkham Asylum/City looks like console games to me)? I'd think so, seeing that it probably wouldn't even run on my PC, even though I'd prefer to get them through Steam.

Enable away...

I'll be playing on my 3 year old PC(Core 2 Duo, ATI 4870, 4 gb ram), I'm a bit worried about the performance.

I didn't want to pay the 50 euro price tag, so I ordered on Amazon, which has to come USPS so I won't be playing it until next week sometime.

I'll be playing on my 3 year old PC(Core 2 Duo, ATI 4870, 4 gb ram), I'm a bit worried about the performance.
I didn't want to pay the 50 euro price tag, so I ordered on Amazon, which has to come USPS so I won't be playing it until next week sometime.

My build is pretty similar to yours (C2D E8500 3.16ghz, 4 gb ram, Radeon 5850). I'll try and remember to post some feedback on how it performs for my system. Windows 7 64-bit, 1920x1080.

I got release day delivery and I'm moving from DC back to Philly on Monday. So my copy will sit at work until maybe Sunday when I can take a moment to zip over to the office to grab it. So bummed