Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

[Arthmoor]

So I finally found the DB Sanctuary, and I dunno about anyone else, but that place is orders of magnitude more badass than the Cheydinhal Sanctuary ever was. Plus, much to my surprise, it has a word wall. Go figure that the DB would be sitting on something like that. Their uniforms are every bit as cool looking as we were shown in the press shots. I'll reserve judgment on the plot as I get more involved, because going by first missions alone, the Thieves Guild is far more interesting. Neat thing is that they both seem to have some sort of loose tie with each other so it's not like being in a guild bubble anymore.Also, for the curious, my wife resurfaced on her own. Guess it was just an AI delay or something. Either that or it was because I took the amulet off to use a different one and her AI reset because of it. Either way, she's tending house now in Whiterun and has informed me she'll be setting up a shop in the city. Which seems cool. Perhaps I can even stock it with stuff to sell. If not, there's huge mod potential there for a "family business".

[Mael]

I just enchanted my elven armor to give me +1 stamina. Farengar says "well done. Not many enchanters could pull that off." I laughed.The FPS limiter didn't seem to do much for me, even with all the other settings in the guys description. Well, that's not true. It definitely made a negative impact on my loading times.I went ahead and forced some other settings via the nVidia control panel -- triple buffering and vertical sync. Looking pretty good now, even on my weak GTS450.

[Hana]

Yes' date=' I've more or less lost any will to give a rat's ass about Oblivion given my troubles with the CS and with its general instability.[/quote']

It really is that much better than Oblivion ever was.

Wow, those are some pretty harsh words I never thought I'd hear from you two. We all know Oblivion is an old game and has it's issues, but come on. Before Skyrim everyone was happy enough with it, and you've got umpteen mods out there to prove it (and you need to support). In five years, you'll say the same about Skryim when another new shiny toy comes along.Mael, that was a very gripping (and amusing for us outsiders) little tale, thank you for that.Speaking of outsiders, I'm starting to feel like one, so I doubt I'll be around much any more. Getting pretty sick of everyone's gushing. This isn't the end all, be all of games.Have fun.

[Arthmoor]

Lydia had a similar comment when I enchanted an axe with +20 frost damage. Pretty amusing.Also, raise your hand if you've had randa-dragons simply fly off in a direction you couldn't follow. Lost THREE that way, one even after I nailed it with an arrow.@Hana: Trust me, you have NOT had to deal with the spate of problems I've been having with the CS and/or CSE over the last few months. So I don't think I was quite harsh enough actually. Also, I never said I wasn't going to support the stuff I've already released. In fact I still have at least one more TIE update in the works and need to upload one more All Natural update.I don't remember why you're not getting Skyrim. I know I was rather seriously pissed off about Steam and came damn close several times to canceling my pre-order and washing my hands of the whole affair. Turns out, thanks to whatever event caused it, I haven't even had to use Steam except for initial install. Also, the art book is nothing short of awesome, although I'm refraining from any detailed looks as its littered with spoilers. The statue isn't quite what I'd hoped but it still goes nicely with my other dragons.None of this would have solved my problems with Oblivion. I was already done. I just hadn't said anything yet. This was in large part why I was pushing Sutch to get done. There will not be another new Oblivion mod from me. I'm not sure what I would have done, other than sit around and be a cranky old bastard about it, but yeah, now there's something new to play and some new stuff to look forward to working with.

[Dwip]

@Samson - Three or four now, yeah. In one case, I had one circle the Peryite shrine for a while before it decided not to play. Speaking of which, apparently I needed to do three daedric quests at the same time? I wasn't even looking for them, they came and found me.@Hanaisse - Well. You mostly weren't here for it, insofar as we were having discussions on the issue in 2006 or so, but yeah, I gots my problems with Oblivion. I never was a really big fan of the combat model, level scaling never stopped being ludicrous, and none of the fixes for it were particularly to taste. LAME more or less fixed my magic issues, but there was a lot of struggle there. Never did get a lot of quests I was truly in love with, or dungeons, or puzzles.So here I've got this game that offers me engaging combat, shiny as hell graphics, cool quests, cool puzzles, and the list goes on. Yeah, I'll probably get tired of it in five years, but you know how many games I'm NOT tired of after five years? Ultima 7 (still the best RPG ever made) and the Baldur's Gate series (close runner-up).None of which should be taken as a knock against Oblivion, really. I got five years out of it, and that's a damn good run. Had a lot of fun, but I pretty much did what there is to do there, and it's time to move on to something better. Skyrim is something better, just as Oblivion was in many ways better than Morrowind was.So, yeah. Personally pretty done with Oblivion, just as I'm pretty done with Morrowind. Not going to run around dissing on Oblivion or anything, and I'm obviously still going to support my stuff, but really don't want to keep climbing the same old mountains forever, you know?[edit]Eh, wasn't done yet. Also I forgot Skyrim hates alt-tab. Oops.@Samson - You know, we never have had a reasonable pic of your shelf-o-dragons. Just saying.@Hanaisse - Also, re: gushing, I mean, what did you expect, really, because if you dig far enough back in the archives for both Samson and I, we totally did the same thing for Oblivion, and if you go really far back, Morrowind. Previous 70+ pages of pre-release chatter should be a clue. Also, it's a new game, and a new game we've been collectively waiting for for five years. Gushing is the appropriate reaction unless it sucks, and I've got a nicely scathing review of NWN1 if you want some "waiting for years and then the game sucked" action from me. I thought Skyrim was going to be pretty good, and it's dramatically better than I expected it to be, so. It is moderately unclear to me how these things were not clear to you.All of that said, we should miss you if you went (and who else would we get shiny textures from? ). Nobody's being all "Oblivion mods must die! They are the forbidden subject! Kill the blasphemers!" Want to talk Oblivion? Talk Oblivion. Want to talk Morrowind? Talk Morrowind. Talk up some Daggerfall. It's all good.

[AndalayBay]

And if you guys are ever in the mood to try out another game, check out Risen. The smithing in Skyrim is really similar to what they did in Risen. Risen is pretty short, which is kind of nice sometimes. There's supposed to be a sequel - I should scan the net and see where that's at.We're still going to finish Awakening. I'm just waiting for my remaining testers to finish up. Hopefully this time everything works and we can go. Arthmoor, I did have one last question about that quest you were looking at if you wouldn't taking a quick look.

[Arthmoor]

Yeah, I've now done 4 daedric quests as well and wasn't looking for them. They found me first. None of which initially screamed "I'm a daedric shrine quest". I mean hell, the guards in one of the cities gave me one, of all people.I'd also tend to agree about Ultima 7. I'd probably play that through again if I had a working copy. Alas, my only copy is on original floppies and I don't have a floppy drive.Yes, there were good times had with Oblivion. Less so in recent months. I don't plan to saddle myself with quite the same amount of stuff this time around, and definitely not getting too involved in bug fix support. I certainly don't want that sort of thing to deal with for the next 5 years as every last rock and tree gets every last pixel buried properly. Though, floaters? I've yet to find a one in Skyrim. About the only facepalm worthy event was realizing several of the books carried up from Oblivion are still filled with all the same typos the UOP fixed 4 years ago.Risen's demo permanently turned me off from ever bothering. Ridiculous levels of bugware, utterly shallow characters, terrible interface. No way in hell I'd give money to a company that doesn't even think highly enough of their own product to put out a working demo. Gothic 4 sold me easily with their demo.

[AndalayBay]

I guess it's a good thing I never saw the demo - the game was ok. I enjoyed it.Anyway, have any of you guys used the LAA patch on Skyrim yet? I see that somebody has another variant on that, but I'm not sure I want to try it or not.

[Arthmoor]

So far there isn't a need. I don't think it'll hurt anything, but why touch it until you're sure you need more memory.

[Mael]

For some reason, my FPS is bottoming out on this particular view. Down to 20 with no fluctuations. I assume it's from the light source and shadow occlusion. I have shadows on ultra (anything less and they look like poo), but only 2x on the AA.Fun times.Not so much for the bandit leader I just sniped. The AI is a little weak in that aspect. This is what happened: I'm sniping my way through this bandit cave. I shoot down the entry guards. I creep around and shoot down a third bandit, alerting the chief and another minion. I creep back around a wall and wait. The chief runs up and says "whoever did this will pay." Then he goes and sits back down at the fire.I creep up to the balcony and put one in his face. "Is someone there?" they ask in unison. I am already back behind a wall. Waiting. Patiently waiting. Now I've gunned down a guy directly in the chief's line of sight and _then_ I shot him in the face. You'd think at this point he'd be all "I'LL FIND THIS MURDERER," but no, he goes and sits back down at the fire. So I sneak back around and shoot him in the face again with a poisoned arrow, then tag the minion through the cracks of a walkway rail while she goes to investigate his corpse.I think they could have made the AI a _little_ smarter about these kinds of things.

[Arthmoor]

The FPS issue is probably due to overlapping light sources. A commonly known Gamebryo engine issue. Damn you Bethesda for not actually writing your own. Also, the shadows are definitely messed up and probably not helping. Hopefully that gets fixed sooner rather than later.

[Dwip]

IIRC, if you turn the shadows down a notch, it apparently really helps, if I remember my forum browsings correctly.As to Daedric quests, I've now done, er, let me see here. Meridia, Azura, Peryite, Hircine, Clavicus Vile, and I have the start for the Boethiah one that I got randomly mid-CV quest.So, if you ever find yourself with directions to Last Valley Redoubt, I encourage you to make haste thereto, because the scenery is win:If only the words I was getting did things I actually needed done.

[Mael]

Wait untill you get to Blackreach.Also, just putting into action what everyone wishes to do."I found him like this officer, honest!"I went and got a blessing of Talos right afterwards too.

[Arthmoor]

My plans for him are slightly more subtle than that :)Also, it's official, Skyrim is now dominating my image gallery's recent images list completely. Who knew?Daedra quests: Mephala, Sanguine, Molag Bal, and Clavicus Vile. Sanguine being easily the most entertaining so far.

[Dwip]

Huh. You have a wildly different set than me. Also, it turns out I did Sheogorath, too, which is obviously the best of the bunch, though Meridia's was pretty sweet in its own way.In other news, my pile of items to sell finally got big enough that I started teleporting around towns so I could sell things 700 god damned gold at a time to the jackass general traders. I took off my armor to be able to carry more crap, which of COURSE meant that I got leapt by a frost dragon as soon as I showed up in Winterhold. Fireball staves are our friends.I'd kill somebody for a merchant that doesn't suck.

[Arthmoor]

Is that a merchant with decent money mod I hear being asked for? Do I smell a rehash of my Morrowind merchants that could actually buy your stuff? :PIt sure sounds like it. Although Bethesda might well have stuck a secret mudcrab merchant in the game again. Nobody has said anything so far but that doesn't mean it's not there.It's also quite amazing the sheer volume of stuff to do and I haven't even been to Winterhold, Dawnstar, Morthal, or Solitude yet. Holy crap there's just piles and piles of stuff.

[Dwip]

I'm already plotting how to return Thalonias, obviously, though I did kind of steal him from you for Weye. :PAnd I know, right? I pretty much did quests in Falkreath today. That's what I did. Falkreath isn't all that big.

[Arthmoor]

Also, because it's so true: http://v.cdn.cad-comic.com/comics/cad-20111116-83046.png

[Dwip]

Jesus Christ yes.

[prettyfly]

My Skyrim's acting weird. If I run any programs (well, firefox anyway) after I log on, shut them down, then open up Skyrim, I lose roughly 15-30 frames of performance in game, generally down to the 20-30s area (oddly, interiors suffer the worst). If I run the game without running anything else after I log on, I don't and everything's rosy. So, yeah. :crazy:Also, College of Winterhold, a bit stereotypical at the start, but I'm still optimistic that its going to shape up awesome.

[AndalayBay]

Oh, the irony. Arthmoor, have you played through the DB questline yet? Let me know when you finish it and I will explain. You're going to love this.

[Mael]

prettyfly, awesome doesn't begin to describe it. And I'm not even finished yet.On a related note, finally a TES game where I can enjoy being a mage. Say what you will about it being a console port, but they aced magic combat this time because of it.

[Mael]

BTW, first mod request is that someone puts an enchanting table in the mage's living quarters.

[Dwip]

I just bought the house in Solitude, and yeah, I sense a house mod coming on. I gots my ideas.OTOH, we all know about the auto-arranging that bookshelves, weapon racks, and mannequins do, right? Because that's pretty hot.In other news, I didn't so much find an epic dungeon earlier, so much as I found an epic dungeon complex with three seperate dungeons in the same spot. I'm sure there's going to come a point where this game stops amazing me, but that time is not yet.

[Arthmoor]

No, actually we don't know about auto-arranging. Mainly because we haven't actually tried putting stuff on shelves yet. I'm probably going to move myself to a house somewhere other than Whiterun because that house is kind of lame.Also, holy crap, Markarth is a wealth of questing, and who doesn't love questing in a city that doubles as a Dwemer ruin?Also ran into my first upgraded dragon - a Blood Dragon. I have failed utterly to get a screenshot of how Lydia and I got the drop on the bastard from behind and above his perch on his word wall. Didn't matter, he nearly wiped the floor with me anyway.