[QuickTidal]

I am also enjoying the 3rd Person view as well, and goddamn this game is GORGEOUS. Just walking over the river and looking down at the glassy rapids...and then up on the mountain by the ruins where you get the Dragonstone...the snow, the heights...fucking phenomenal. Yeah, I'm about 3 hours in and I don't feel like I've done much yet...this game is massive.

[QuickTidal]

Okay so about 6+ hours in, and now I've become a Thane of Whiterun (and got a badass flame axe badge of office), and was bequeathed Lydia as my housecarl, so she automatically comes with me to see the greybeards and I didn't have to hire anyone.

So far, the dragon battle at Firstwatch tower...fucking...e-p-i-c.

[Silencer]

Ah, you're main questing it, QT? I stopped before going to see the Graybeards. Was pretty hard to put a halt on things before then, and I get the feeling that after that point it might speed up again.

So far I've completed the DB questline, and am approximately 80% through (by my guess) the College's questline. After this I'm going to hit the main quest again, then consider doing the Companions, or starting another char to do that.

[Kanubis]

Right, won't retread what others have said.

What I'll add is that the political situation (regarding the civil war) is a really nice thing for fans of the series. I don't want to spoil anything, but it very closely ties in with the existing lore and the direction is has taken is a nice twist.

'By the Eight' indeed...

[Tapper]

Spent some time in Markham, and wow, that city is weird. Very steep, real easy to lose your bearings. The main questline there is also rather grim. The Forsworn you wack your way through on the way to the city drop surprisingly good weaponry as well - it all hits harder than Dwemer weaponry.

On the plus side, you can buy a wardog there, so with Lydia, myself and Vigilance ( what a name....well, it's better than FiFi I guess) I have a party of three, which basically amounts to making every single encounter apart from insane odds or non-human opponents a walk in the park. Managed to take a dragon down with just the three of us.

Then I spent most of this evening in dwarven ruins - the sentinel balls are doable, the spider workers are easy, there's also some goblin like blind creatures called Falmer who can be surprisingly tough. Went through it like a breeze apart from pathfinding issues with dog and Lydia which made them walk into rotating razorblades of rrrdooooom. And then I ran into a dwemer Centurion. Fuuuuuuck, that SoaB is tough.
So, I'll let him wait for a little while until I've upgraded Lydia and myself to decent armor and weaponry.

On the plus side, I'm now kitted out in dwarf plate on all limbs at level 14, sword and shield, so I look like a magnificent warrior until you see that behind the shield, I wear some fugly steel armor that lacks the lovely dwemer sheen.

[Silencer]

You can find a Dwemer cuirass in one of the Dwemer ruins to the north-east. It's not scaled loot so it should always be there. Called

Spoiler

Mzarlhf or something similar.

As for dragons...eh, I can take them out on my own (when they oblige me by actually fighting), and have been able to since level one. That's with the difficulty slider up from default, too. They're a walk in the park.

Those Dwemer spheres are tough at first glance - I first fought them around level 14 and they started off hard as...later, not so much, and I have no idea why. The damn spiders tended to provide more of a challenge as my primary enchantments (frost and absorb health) are both negated, thus lessening my otherwise awesome weapons' power, and reducing my available supply of health intake.

Falmer seem tough to start with too, but they're actually weaker than the spiders for me. Plus they're blinder than bats, so I can one-shot any that I come across quite easily. That's the worst part about the spheres...if they show up, they probably know you're there already, so no sneak attacks. The Falmer do have fairly powerful, if low-value, weaponry on them, though. O.o

I've mostly found the combat rhythm of the slower creatures (humanoids, Dwemer spheres) to be pretty easy to manipulate. Things like wolves and those damn Dwemer spiders can be pretty hard to block.

Some of the health some creatures and people run around with seems fairly arbitrary, which is annoying. Novice Conjurer taking half my magicka to burn to death? What's up with that? (Ward spells notwithstanding) Takes more of a beating than some dragons... :S

Most frustrating thing I've found so far, though, is the occasional what appears to be a critical hit on my character. Fought off all but two of the Al'kir warriors without more than a scratch? Sure. Fight the last two, they're chopping at my health slowly...down to maybe a quarter, just about time for a health potion, I guess, though these guys are wea-wait what the fuck I'm dead? I'M GOING TO HAVE TO CLEAN OUT THAT DUNGEON AGAIN BECAUSE I DIDN'T SAVE?!?!? THE FUCK HAPPENED!??!?! It's just like a sudden, non-power-attack super-shot, and it pisses me off because there's no way to predict it. If they can randomly do 50 points of damage all of a sudden, how am I supposed to maintain my health without burning through potions or magicka like there's no tomorrow? Or even soul gems to keep my weapon charged. ANNOYING. Still, it hasn't happened too often, at least. XD

[Slow Ben]

Wow. You guys explore the world alot faster than i do.



I'm level 14 and i've been doing nothing but quests and clearing dungeons around the first town (Whiterun?)

[Silencer]

There's plenty to do around each town, to be sure, but I quest with a character in mind other than "adventurer". In this case, first playthrough, I'm doing a couple of the guild quests then main quest - later I'll have more specific characters and also do more exploration of specific locations. But currently I'm just going where the quests take me, and I'm ignoring most of the side-quests (I have NaNo to write and my final exam tomorrow, lol) in favour of storyline.

The other thing is that a single town and its locales do not offer a wide range of weapons, spells or armour - you have to venture further afield to get more diversity, especially in the shops.

That being said, the quests often make purchased weapons redundant, see from the DB questline (minor, not really spoiler):

Spoiler

Blade of Woe? Does 20 damage at less than 50 one-handed skill, plus ten points of absorb health. It's a fucking badass Ebony dagger, and is my best weapon (no kidding, it beats most longswords around at my level (16) hands down). Short of getting Mehrunes Razor, I'm unlikely to be able to find, let alone buy, something comparable - not for a long, long time anyway....and it also fits my character, being a dagger.

So...yeah. Give and take.

[Slow Ben]

yeah, thats what i do on my 2nd playthrough.

[QuickTidal]

Say what you will, but when I started to go through that pass in the Mountains to get north of them...not one but TWO effing Frost Trolls came at me and Lydia. I ran like stink to get away from them cause they make awfully short work of me.

Gods I love this game.

[Gothos]

Yo Silencier, seems like you've been critically hit


One thing I have to add after getting my second char - stealther - to lvl 18? 30x Backstabs. Fuck Yeah.

[Tapper]

@ Silencer: funny. I find the board-and-sword opponents quite tough to do, but have no problems with the guys you have issues have... usually manage to block-and-bash any wolf that comes of me, but against armed opponents, I try to get the bash in when I want it and fairly often, get pummeled with a power strike shortly after, especially when facing multiple foes.

I also need to make some serious work of enchanting - literally nothing in my equipment is enchanted or magical, apart from my dwarven bow of woes.

As for getting critically hit: yeah, it happens - not too often, usually I'm the one doing the short animation, but I've been spitted upon a two-handed sword a couple of times as well.

[Garak]

Am I the only who's jaw dropped when he read about the war between the Empire and the Dominion? I mean the Empire's in bad shape and those Stormcloaks are rebelling at a time like this. They are so dead when I get to them. Yeah, I was always pro-Empire in these games.

Also, the first time I saw the Imperial soldiers, they reminded me of Malazans for some reason. Then the Roman Empire for the painfully obvious reason.

I'm loving the atmosphere of this game. At first I was afraid it might seem a bit meh like Oblivion (which was still decent but lacked a certain something to really draw me in) but Skyrim has drawn me in very well.

[Dolorous Menhir]

So it's good? Never played Oblivion but loved Morrowind. What're the options for the magician class?

[Tapper]

 Garak, on 13 November 2011 - 01:07 PM, said:

Am I the only who's jaw dropped when he read about the war between the Empire and the Dominion? I mean the Empire's in bad shape and those Stormcloaks are rebelling at a time like this. They are so dead when I get to them. Yeah, I was always pro-Empire in these games.

Also, the first time I saw the Imperial soldiers, they reminded me of Malazans for some reason. Then the Roman Empire for the painfully obvious reason.

I'm loving the atmosphere of this game. At first I was afraid it might seem a bit meh like Oblivion (which was still decent but lacked a certain something to really draw me in) but Skyrim has drawn me in very well.

Well, seeing how several cities pack elven "ambassadors", the Imperium lost the war. There are a few dialogues and books saying the emperor surrendered and gave power to the Elves, who then banned Talos worship because he was a human hero and no god of theirs (thus a convenient rallying symbol). In a way, I understand the Nords.

Haven't made my choice yet - thought I was going to throw my lot in with the Nords, then arrived in Solitude, which is under Imperial control, and one dialogue with their Jarl later, I am not so sure which side I want to be on - it seems the choice is essentially between a tyrant surpressor who has his own strings pulled by the dominion and who is going to curb the Jarls, or a power hungry nationalist.


@ DM: it is most certainly beautiful. And big. But mostly, incredibly beautiful. The landscape, the houses, the flowers, animals... just wow.

Good... well, it's an Elder Scroll game, so you know the roam-free-mode thing. If I had to name two downsides, it would be that Bethesda still sucks at path-finding and that the magic system no longer allows as much versatility to build your own spells as it used to. Oh, and decorating your house with your non-weapon/armor loot is a nightmare.

On the plus-side, there is now very much a customization possibility through the skill tree and the voice acting is very well done for such a big game.

[Aptorian]

Here's a quicklook where they show off some environments, quests, combat, etc. They start right off with a random dragon encounter. There's also a hilarious bit where they try to pick a fight with a couple of giants. Also they raise a zombie chicken.



THose of you who've played the game, are all the dragon encounters like this? I actually expected the dragons to be a lot tougher... and maybe bigger?

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 13 November 2011 - 07:12 PM

[Aptorian]

This is a picture of a mammoth fighting a dragon. Fucking awesome. And apparently the Mammoth is winning.

(Oops kind of big)

Spoiler

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 13 November 2011 - 08:00 PM

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

This game is awesome. I've been doing a lot of dicking around and hunting bandits. Bought a house in Whiterun. Learned a shout, that's as far as I've gone in the main quest. No major complaints yet, beyond the standard nerd rage.

[Dolorous Menhir]

 Aptorius, on 13 November 2011 - 07:07 PM, said:

Here's a quicklook where they show off some environments, quests, combat, etc. They start right off with a random dragon encounter. There's also a hilarious bit where they try to pick a fight with a couple of giants. Also they raise a zombie chicken.



THose of you who've played the game, are all the dragon encounters like this? I actually expected the dragons to be a lot tougher... and maybe bigger?

For a 52 minute quick look...it went awful fast. Somewhere between the dragon fight, raising a zombie chicken and the part where they murdered their companion and were stunned to find out they actually were the beneficiary of her will after joking about the possibility, I was sold. Definitely going to get this.

Any recommendations on PC vs PS3? Could go for either, but always preferred a mouse in games where that matters. Make a difference here?

[Gothos]

Finished DB and Thieve's Guild storylines. Level 29 now. Taking the civil war next, methinks, already joined the Stormcloaks and took Whiterun.

No time to write, got to go to sleep now. Work tomorrow.