Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

This is the trade-off between games like Skyrim and games like Dragon Age. Both are role playing games, but totally different. In their own way, each shows the limitations of a computerized dungeon master. The things you are complaining about for Skyrim are things that are very hard to fix if you want to keep the 'open world, sandbox' deal for which the Bethessda line is famous. The bad part is that for all that content you generally have weaker stories and quest lines, and in order to be able to interact freely with the rest of the world it sort of limits your overall impact on it.

Dragon Age takes it to the other extreme- one of the best stories and voice casts I've seen in a game, and some tremendous character and plot development but within a tightly scripted storyline that severely limits the amount of freedom you have in the world. By restricting that freedom the game can allow you to have 'an impact' at certain scripted points.

The two games are the example of the tradeoff that must be made for SP computerized RP games. Someone in another forum remarked that the perfect RPG would be a blend between Skyrim and DAO. Well no shit- it's called a PnP game with a human DM. It's the only way (currently) you can make a game 'open world' combined with 'great plot and character development.' When computers are a little closer to becoming sentient, or you can program a game to be self-programming to a degree (think about that for a minute), such things will be possible in a computer RPG. Until then, not so much.

I feel you pain and share it- love the game, but there are some awkward moments when you become a person of power yet are treated like a stranger wherever you go.

You don't have a pc capable of handling Skyrim?

Oh, and if Bethesda had made the guild stuff all DLC the cries of 'foul', 'rat', and 'moneygrubbers' would have been LEGION. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Overall, I think they hit the mofo out of the park with this game. Very immersive (above points nowithstanding) and TOTALLY addictive.

Have you ever tried the old wing commander games marso?

I wound up stopping with my Viking at Level 49. The game was starting to have to get stupid at every encounter to keep the challenge level up. Every Draugr became a deathlord, and then it would be a half dozen at a time and so on.

A couple good mods from the Nexus for those playing on PC: JaySUS swords, which gives about thirty craftable weapons to include various (realistic) norse swords and axes, a basket hilted sort of broadsword, several variants of Templar knight swords, and a couple hangars and rapiers.

There are some good Conan sword mods out there, again, purchasable or craftable.

Templar armor mod, which is a reskin of the ebony armor (not a replacer) and can be crafted once you can craft daedric stuff (without needing the daedric hearts)

There are some others too.

New character is an Imperial swashbuckler/thief type sort of modeled after Wesley / The Dead Pirate Roberts. Runs around Skyrim with his rapier, dagger, lockpicks, and Deryni-style illusionist magic relieving the unworthy and unwary of their valuables, while tentatively studying his strange power as the Dragonborn.

So far the thieves guild quests are interesting- this second run through is opening whole new avenues of stuff and quests in the game. It's interesting, the whole sub-plot with Maven Black-Briar and her quest to control the mead industry of all things. A regular medieval Al Capone. This character is staying out of the politics of the civil war between the stormcloaks and the Empire- I've ridden right on past a couple knock down drag outs and refused to get involved.

As others have mentioned- it is possible to encounter some bosses in this game that are tough to beat early on, even around levels 15-20. There is one lich up near one of the dragon walls just north of Whiterun that has given me fits twice now- In two games I've had to haul ass when he spawned because he takes me down in like two seconds. Of course, the Nord went back and dealt with him eventually, and so will the thief, when the time is right.

Usually, the first time you encounter an ancient dragon you have to bolt unless you are tooled up with potions and other buffs in order to handle his mojo. Not too long after that they rapidly become like the other dragon fights. Once you advance the main quest and learn the dragonrend shout, dragons quickly become a non-issue.

Fun, fun game. And here I thought I was hooked on New Vegas!!

Anyone else notice that Jarl Ullfric is voiced by none other than Vladimir Kulich, Buliwyf from the 13th Warrior? (I may have posted that before...)

Yeah but I like the controllers on the Xbox plus the flat screen has a much larger picture.

When Wing Commander 2 came out it was pretty much the ultimate game of it's day. That and Mechwarrior 2. Everyone in high school was playing those games.

I say bioware needs to really remake wing commander.

Alright!! Finally at lvl 20! Learned some spells and potion mixing and starting to feel like hot shit! I have about 6 dragon souls stores up and found a sword in Folgunther that absorbs 15 points of health from an enemy and grants it to me. With this, a shitload of Resist Fire & Restore Health potions, I decided to take a trip back to Dragontooth Crater... Along with the Superior Elven Armor and fire resistant boots I enchanted myself.

I beat that dragon's ass in so bad that it's now called the Redgaurd Crater.

I also absorbed the Elemental Shout. Went back to White Run and bought myself a home there. I think I'll give it a break for the night and visit Shearpoint sometime next week.

Having a ball do far and I plan to sink dozens of more hours into this game. However, I don't feel that it was worthy of all the GOTY awards its getting. Uncharted 3 & Batman: Arkham City were shorter games but much more polished and exciting gameplay, IMHO.

Helped sack Whiterun with the Stormcloaks, feel like a real shitheel for doing so. They do a good job of giving a face to the war.

Got a couple of stealth quests coming up, problem being I'm running round in Steel Plate, a veritable Knight of Skyrim. Going to try to go the stealth route for a while as part of my rounded character design - I've already killed the leader of the Dark Brotherhood so I'll have good light equipment, balance out my skill set. So I'm going to join the Thieves Guild - then I'll tear it down around their heads once I learn what I need to learn.

I felt bad about taking Whiterun as a Stormcloak as well, even more so with Solitude, but after it was done I actually felt a lot better owning property in both with MY people in charge.

So... For those that played Morrowind, how does this compare?

Would it just feel like the same thing all over again? Because I dumped a ton of hours into ESIII and eventually got bored with it.

It's much better done than Morrowind. And there is more of a story to it, for sure. There was relatively little story in Morrowind, and the same thing happened to me - I eventually just said screw it.

However, it has it's limits. For example, I'm playing a Knightly type Breton, and I've got sympathies for a group of folks that want to wipe out the Thieves Guild in one of the major towns. I joined up with them, figured I'd infiltrate, then once I knew all the players take them down. However, I can't - because the Thieves Guild is one possible major quest line, most of the NPCs there are marked as essential - you can't kill them.

Even though several of the townspeople ask you to destroy the Guild because it is causing them so much suffering.

REALLY don't like things like that - I'm being asked by the towns people to do it, but I can't?

It's a great game, but it still has it's flaws. Still, most of those are because they tried to do too much, but they still end up limiting your actions a lot of the time.

Can't name them specifically, but I know searching the nexus I've run across some mods that re-tag various essential NPC's as non-essential so they can be killed. However, you have to go into that knowing that it can break entire quest lines.

Agreed, and I may have to do that.

Here's another example of my problems with this quest path:

[spoilers]
So I'm tasked by the Thieves Guild to go help Maven, and she wants me to eliminate the rival Honningbrew Meadery. We'll, I'm not going to help her, I'm going to sabotage the mission. I go to Whiterun, meet Mallus, who wants me to poise as a helper to Sabjorn who runs that meadery to eliminate his rat problem by poisoning their nest. But they really want me to then take that rat poison and dump it into the meade vats, thereby poisoning the Captain of Whiterun's guard, who is now a friend of mine after I helped put the Stormcloaks in charge.

So OK, I'll go through with it, clean up the skeaver problem to help Honningbrew, then not dump the rat poison in. As I'm hoping to kill Maven anyway.

Except the quest won't let me - I've done all that, not put the poison in the meade, and I can't end the quest because Sabjorn doesn't recognize the fact that I've eliminated the rat problem UNLESS I also finish the Thieves Guild quest. I can't turn Maven in, I can't help her competitor. I just have to walk away.

Guess I had to advantage of playing New Vegas after some patches had come out - but this is the type of thing that annoys the hell out of me. If it's a wide open game world, you have to account for players not doing what you expected. New Vegas almost always had an option for you to jump out of any quest line if you decided against doing it. These guys didn't script that.

I did have the option of telling Maven about Louis Letresh and his attempt to get the stallion Frost from her stable, which is the quest I did right before this one (as Sibi sold Frost in good standing, I took Frost back for Louis). Indeed, I had the option of taking Frost instead of giving him to Louis. But it doesn't recognize the fact I finished the quest for Honningbrew that was requested, because there's also a quest to use that to destroy Honningbrew for Maven? Weird).


Edit: Ah, even better. So when I go through with the plot, just to see what happens, the wrong captain of the Guard shows up. Caius, the Imperial guardsmen, not the new Stormclock captain. And, of course, even though he's my dread enemy, he's marked as essential, so I can't kill him. I'm forced to watch as he takes Sabjorn to Dragonsreach - even though he would be killed on sight if he showed up there. Dumb dumb dumb.
[/spoilers]

The meadery quest is part of a larger quest.

Christopher plummer voices the guy at the monastary at the mountain.

Limits of a computerized DM. With as many locations, NPC's, and quest lines that are packed into this game, it simply isn't possible to script everything. The creation kit will be out soon and I'll be surprised if the modding community doesn't succeed in taking this game to new heights- I look forward to it.

Part of the reason I think this is true is because there is no pre-release playtesting that can compare to the entire fan base playing the game and uncovering all these little glitches by doing things the programmers may never have dreamed we'd try to do. As the lists of glitches expands, there are probably modders frothing at the mouth to be turned loose with those modding tools.

Loving the game so far. I've decided to level up my Smithing and Enchanting levels by mining iron ore, smelting them into iron ingots, smithing then into iron daggers, enchanting them with soul capture and various other enchantments with the petty and fragmented soul gems and selling them. I found an Ebony ore mine and got my first ebony ingot. I think I have to be level 80 in smithing to be able to use it.

In other news, my wife called me at work today and told me she misses me. For the last week or so, my life has been work, travel to and from and Skyrim. I guess I can give it a rest tonight.

Ah, another video game widow cries out for attention!

But back to the important stuff: Yeah, my first nord character never wielded a weapon or piece of armor that he didn't forge/enchant himself.

Where's the flying and levitation?

In Oblivion, I invented speed/jumping boots that I could jump across the continent If I wanted.

I've been selling my enchanted weapons after they were drained. I did some poking around on the Internet and found out that I need to get a black soul gem in order to recharge my weapons. Off to Azura's temple I go! I ended up in some half submerge temple ruin fighting a shitload of adept and advanced mages. Finally got to the boss Mage and he was difficult. I ended up dipping out of the quest, selling my drained enchanted weapons, reforging and enchanting a new set of them and finally defeating the boss Mage. This almost depleated my gold.

Now I have the Black Star thing-a-ma-jiggy and I have a choice... To take it back to Azura's temple to a Dark Elf monk there who I have no reason to trust or to take it to Nelacar, a former student at the college who was banished for doing some far out experiments. I don't know if I missed it, but I have no idea of the ramifications of either choice.... What's the difference to me? Did I miss something?