The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Catch-All

manta173 wrote:
Grenn wrote:

I've done it. I'm a Nightingale. And then Astrid asked me to murder three people. The thought of it disgusted me, so I killed her. I'm off to inform the guards at Whiterun and maybe we can wipe this Dark Brotherhood scourge from Skyrim forever.

This is one of my favorite moments. You think you only have one option then you choose the better one.

I don't usually play as a heartless killer, but typically by the time Astrid gives me a choice I've murdered hundreds. Not even like... hundreds of Draugr. Bandits, soldiers, overly aggressive wandering spell casters, probably an orc or two who is waiting for death... And then she's like "Instead of just murdering everyone, everywhere, forever mode... come murder specific people, for specific reasons, when you're ready for it." I gotta tell you, from a certain perspective, that sounds almost relaxing in comparison.

So I started a new Skyrim character for the Xbox 360 version a few days ago and have been doing the Companion quests with him. In one quest, Vilkas accompanied my character and reminded me of how super-annoying companions are in this game (especially after being spoiled by Fallout 4) because my character would be sneaking up to make a sneak attack with his bow when Vilkas would creep up behind him and PUSH him just before making the shot, causing it to miss and getting everyone angered and running around.

Then there was one where I was less than one second to firing a perfect sneak attack on someone sleeping in bed when Vilkas barges past me and does his own "sneak attack" with his two handed sword. I was so irked at that point that I reloaded the game for the sole purpose of making my attack. It was MY sneak attack, not his!

Been sick with a yucky cold since yesterday, so playing more Skyrim than anything else. Not sure why, but TES games are like chicken noodle soup during times like this one. Maybe just the soothing environments despite periodic episodes of crazy briarhearts trying (and succeeding) to kill my characters. Finally had to turn down difficulty temporarily and go into werewolf mode when a briarheart was accompanied by two fireball flinging hagravens. Sheesh. I think I remember something about those briarhearts being bugged in the vanilla game into being super powerful.

Been doing a lot of stuff in and around Markarth. I think that place is worse than Riften when it comes to corruption and outright evil.

Urge to start new character rising... rising...

Gravey wrote:

Urge to start new character rising... rising...

Dragon's Dogma is coming out in a couple of weeks.

Gravey wrote:

Urge to start new character rising... rising...

Doooo eeeet!

Grenn wrote:
Gravey wrote:

Urge to start new character rising... rising...

Dragon's Dogma is coming out in a couple of weeks.

Guilt about abandoned Dragon's Dogma character on 360 rising... rising...

That sort of ties into how Skyrim is like chicken noodle soup. Dragon's Dogma looks amazing and I heard the ending will blow me away IGN.com and I liked fighting that cyclops... but then I had to learn its crafting system and what the potions do and how it works and I could just snipe bears and pick blue mountain flowers instead...

bekkilyn wrote:
Gravey wrote:

Urge to start new character rising... rising...

Doooo eeeet!

:)

Hrrrggghh

So I'm really having a lot of fun with this character...a Bosmer. He's gotten up to a 70 in sneak and I just love sneak attacking everything with the bow (even if bow skill is still only 44 or so). Right now, he's wearing all forsworn armor in honor of Hircine and he hunts practically everything, especially when being compelled by a daedra! Just recently joined the Dark Brotherhood too.

I'm playing as if the werewolf blood has made him a bit feral, so even though he generally tries to help people, he doesn't always know what's going on. Going to have him do all the dark and crazy stuff first as he gets everything figured out, and then eventually he will get the beast fury under more control and become a bit more civilized. Maybe even join the Legion! Find a husband or wife...adopt.... In the meantime, he's been staying far away from Whiterun so that his current state of mind doesn't accidentally bring shame to the Companions.

I kept him away from going to inform the Whiterun Jarl about the Helgen dragon too because I didn't want to start the main quest with all the dragon attacks and everything. Eventually, he will end up as the Dragonborn and realize why strange, dark walls with runes keep putting things into his head that he can't use, but that's for far in the future when he has much better control over his beast blood.

Nevertheless, the Thalmor have already decided he is a problem and sent assassins. Could be from things that happened before he ever entered Skyrim though....

Went into this character's first dwarven ruin today and naturally it was HUGE! Thank goodness he's getting pretty good with sneak attacks and then running and getting hidden again because some of the stuff in there would have been nearly impossible for him to go toe-to-toe with at this point. Still used up almost all of his healing potions.

Now he's in a tomb full of draugr and trying to peck away at a Deathlord. Even with 8 glass arrows and 3x sneak attack damage, he's barely making a dent with each shot. At this rate, the Deathlord won't be killed with only 8 of those arrows, so he'll need to use the next best damage he has.

At least he's no longer stuck with Barbas the "let's stand right behind you and push you as you release your bow shot" bark bark.

Other than the above, just some pretty easy Dark Brotherhood contracts.

Inspired by my Fallout 4 playthrough and with a bevy full of mods I jumped back in on PC. I must say with a nice ENB and some high res texture packs the game looks gorgeous. I also thew in a bunch of gameplay mods to mix it up (Deadly Dragons, Dynamic Loot, Organized Bandits of Skyrim, Hunter Reborn, Falksaar, Wyrmstooth, Forgotten Magic and about 50 more mods).

I got 100% achievements on xbox and now going for the same on Steam (yes, I love the game that much). So far my Nord has become the ArchMage and is now moving up the thieves guild ranks rapidly. She just married a sellsword from the Bee & Barb in Riften and adopted the poor homeless girl from Whiterun. I'm having a lot of fun. I really love the Bethesda open world games.

I always wanted a mod to let Bosmer play "properly" with the green pact and only consuming flesh and what not. Problme was I always played with a needs mod (food, water, rest etc.) and none of those ever seemed to cover cannibalism properly.

bekkilyn wrote:

At least he's no longer stuck with Barbas the "let's stand right behind you and push you as you release your bow shot" bark bark.

That stupid dog - he liked pushing me off of ledges. I remember there was a popular mod made to address his behaviour called 'Back off Barbas!' or something to that effect.

RooksGambit wrote:

I got 100% achievements on xbox and now going for the same on Steam (yes, I love the game that much). So far my Nord has become the ArchMage and is now moving up the thieves guild ranks rapidly. She just married a sellsword from the Bee & Barb in Riften and adopted the poor homeless girl from Whiterun. I'm having a lot of fun. I really love the Bethesda open world games.

I have both an xbox and a steam game too. My current character is on xbox with just the vanilla base game + Hearthfire (will install other expansions later when I've run out of base game stuff and can put off the town attacks for as long as possible.)

My Steam character is a Nord Stormcloak bard who is engaged to Faendal...I even made them rings and everything with their names on it. (I have him set as a marriageable NPC by using a console command though they aren't married yet.) They live in Windhelm with two adopted girls...the one from the streets of Windhelm and the other that girl from Whiterun. I think she's completed the mage questline...I love that questline! I have Lydia and...I can't remember his name, but the Windhelm house thane....dressed up in Stormcloak armor and shields and have them stay in the house (though due to a mod, they visit the tavern during the day) to look after the girls while my character and Faendal are away. There's also 2 or 3 dogs and a fox there. I used a decorator mod to move furniture around and also installed a small Talos shrine.

Bethesda makes my favorite games, which is why I barely seem to ever get anything else played.

Prozac wrote:

I always wanted a mod to let Bosmer play "properly" with the green pact and only consuming flesh and what not. Problme was I always played with a needs mod (food, water, rest etc.) and none of those ever seemed to cover cannibalism properly.

My Bosmer isn't much into the pact, but he is currently a werewolf. With the werewolf ability, you can eat corpses to gain back health. Perhaps you could make a Bosmer to fulfill the pact that way. Not sure how easy it would be to do though since my character rarely goes into werewolf form. I think if you got Hircine's ring, you can use it more often.

Maybe feeding as a vampire could count too.

BushPilot wrote:

That stupid dog - he liked pushing me off of ledges. I remember there was a popular mod made to address his behaviour called 'Back off Barbas!' or something to that effect.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were 500 mods available for that dog! I always choose to reunite him with his master though. Despite him being annoying and having that awful voice, he's still cute and I can't ever do the alternative.

So my current character completed the Dark Brotherhood questline today. He also has a certain very cute, red-eyed horse! I love the spectral assassin that refers back to Oblivion, but had to stop using it because it wouldn't stop talking and driving me crazy...and people think the Longs talk too much in Fallout 4!

He has a 1000 gold bounty in Windhelm. He's joined the Thieves Guild too to see if they can help get rid of the bounty, but they haven't offered such a service. I have a feeling that the Guild needs to be restored in Windhelm before it would happen, which means that he would have to do tasks in Windhelm first...which may not be possible with that bounty because the guards are attacking him on sight. Maybe they've calmed down a bit since then and will just let him pay the bounty. He had one in Solitude that was even more gold and the guards there let him pay it and never attacked.

Now that there's a bit of a lull in major events, maybe it would be a good time to visit that Museum he's heard about.

I hate Briarhearts with a passion. I hate them. I just HATE them! Grrr!

Oooh wow! I just something in my game that I have NEVER seen in all the many hours and hours I played in my PC game, even though I don't even use fast travel in my current PC game.

I was heading east from Morthal at about 3am when I came across a frostbite spider. I shot at it once and then noticed this ghostly looking thing near the spider. It looked kind of like a ghost horse. I got closer and....

Spoiler:

it turned out to be a ghost of a headless horseman! It started running off and I just left the spider where it was and chased after it. I kept chasing and chasing and ignored everything that attacked me, and then the ghost horse ran up to this place called Hamvir's Rest and disappeared! Three weak skeletons attacked me there and I found a bunch of nightshade and a master locked chest, which I opened after fighting a dragur that was guarding it. There was some sort of tombs blocked by impassable gates, but I was able to reach a magic dwarven helmet through one of the grate. There was a skull next to it too and an iron greataxe. I noticed the horseman carrying a great axe on his back. I wonder if the headless horseman is Hamvir's ghost?

In any case, I have NEVER before seen this sight and it's just amazing how even after playing a Bethesda game for hundreds of hours, we still have a chance at coming across something new!

Think I saw him once, near the watchtower where you fight the first dragon. Never tracked him back to his lair, though.

I think the think that always intrigues me most is that things are obviously going on in the world in which you have no part - like coming across a cart with a dead merchant and dead Forsworn near it and stuff lying around about it, or seeing the main event that is a Giant vs Dragon fight. My character and companion usually sit up on a nearby hillside, crack open a couple of bottles of Nord Ale and whatever foodstuffs are in the backpacks for a picnic.

Of course, if the scaly swine wins, we're going down there to finish him/her/it off.

I dumped hours into this when it came out but never went back for the DLC, so I started a fresh character to give that a try over the holidays.

I started building a house but was detoured trying to find the furthest points of interest on the map. I don't think I've made it north of Whiterun or west of Falkreath yet.

It's very easy to get detoured in this game.

Got my 8th daedric artifact tonight! Decided to also help Calcelmo in Markarth with a huge spider that has been disrupting his research in the dwarven ruins there, and then got pulled into a different quest. I'd forgotten just how huge that place is! It's really fun having a high level of sneak and an ebony bow. I've been taunting the Falmer by shooting their own arrows back at them, mwahaha!

Detoured!

I've sunk 1232 hours into Skyrim and never finished the Dawnguard DLC or started the Dragonborn DLC, both of which I have had installed for 2 years.

For shaaaame!! The Dragonborn DLC is amaaaaaaaazeballs!

Eleima wrote:

For shaaaame!! The Dragonborn DLC is amaaaaaaaazeballs!

Hah, I've played for hundreds of hours as well and still haven't started Dawnguard or Dragonborn, other than killing whatever assassins get sent after my characters.

I just spend so much time playing the stuff in the base game and Hearthfire and then end up getting distracted by other games before ever getting to the point of starting the expansions.

*This* time will be different though! It *will*!

(Speaks in a smaller voice: I haven't yet finished Bloodmoon or started Shivering Isles either...)

I was really excited for Bloodmoon, but never got farther than making a new character. But eight years later I figured Skyrim ticked that box, and then Dragonborn definitely ticked it.

But for the non-Mundus stuff, Shivering Isles is bigger and better than Dragonborn.

The nice thing about Dawnguard is that it mostly integrates with the rest of Skyrim's landmass, both in terms of the expansion's main quest, as well as the extra side quest involving the dwarves that it introduces. So it's easier to fit it into your regular questing, minus one significant detour that's pretty easy to put off until you're ready.

beanman101283 wrote:

The nice thing about Dawnguard is that it mostly integrates with the rest of Skyrim's landmass, both in terms of the expansion's main quest, as well as the extra side quest involving the dwarves that it introduces. So it's easier to fit it into your regular questing, minus one significant detour that's pretty easy to put off until you're ready.

That reminds me....I *did* actually do some of Dawnguard due to that dwarven quest, though I haven't finished that quest on any of my games as of yet. Currently, I'm playing a 360 game with only Hearthfire installed to avoid town attacks until I'm ready for the expansions. When I recently went into a dwarven ruin, I remembered there was supposed to be a shard there and couldn't figure out why it wasn't there. I looked it up on wikia and realized that the entire questline was a Dawnguard thing and that's why my base game didn't have. I had no idea until now that the quest wasn't a part of the base game.

In general, I love expansions like Dawnguard that add neat things to the base game and wish it were more common.

Dragonborn is worth the effort to leave Skyrim for a little while. Much of the writing in the main game isn't... great, in my opinion, but Dragonborn has many fun, well-considered quests and moments.

And I hear Solstheim is lovely this time of year. If you don't mind a bit of ash.

The weirdness of Apocrypha alone is worth it.

Unfortunately that was my least favorite part of Dragonborn: Apocrypha was neat and mysterious and creepy the first time, tedious as hell the second and beyond.

Still worth it, especially since it gives you some neat toys to play with, but I think Dawnguard is still the better expansion, despite its story having a few notable leaps of logic.

bekkilyn wrote:

In general, I love expansions like Dawnguard that add neat things to the base game and wish it were more common.

I don't actually know how many little things were added here and there, but one is the Ebony Knight. Watch out for him, especially if you've over-leveled (after the legendary update) and playing on high difficulty. What an insanely tough fight that was.

BushPilot wrote:

I don't actually know how many little things were added here and there, but one is the Ebony Knight. Watch out for him, especially if you've over-leveled (after the legendary update) and playing on high difficulty. What an insanely tough fight that was.

Heh, sounds kind of like that elf Gaenor in the Morrowind Tribunal expansion. I'm pretty sure I'll be over-leveled by the time I install Dawnguard, but not sure what the difficulty will end up being by the time I'm there!

Found out werewolf perks come with Dawnguard too. Was trying to take a look at them while in werewolf form and nothing was happening.

I've been meaning to make a post about this for weeks but I've been too busy. But now that vacation is over, I can finally post about gaming.

I've been dumping hours and hours into Skyrim in the last few weeks. And man, I have to say, this game is vast, VAST! I didn't realize how big and filled it was. I beat Dragonborn over the holiday break, which I found really interesting. I played Morrowind in college a bit, but my computer wasn't really up to it, and I wasn't really into that kind of game at the time. But Dragonborn was a bit like a revisit, in the Skyrim engine. It was annoying to have to travel back and forth to empty out my inventory periodically, but overall a great DLC.

The game itself is just a huge time suck, I'll spend hours just wandering around. The exploratory element is probably my favorite part, especially with all the graphical mods I've installed. I often will find myself going back to places I've already explored for quests because I'm way ahead of the game in that way. I especially love the fact that I can play my favorite kind of character, a bow and two-handed sword fighter.

Anyway, great game. But. I don't understand how anyone can play this game more than once. This game has taken me months to get even half way in. To me, this is a game of one and done, I cannot imagine going through this game a second time. I'll probably pop in once in a while and run around, but I cannot imagine replaying it from the beginning. Though I'm not really sure where I am percentage wise.