13 thoughts on “Skyrim question.”

  2. It’s a pool that looks 12-feet deep, but once you spend a bit of time swimming in it, you discover it’s really only 2-feet deep.

    There’s no real limits on player behavior. What do I mean? There’s a quest (mission, really) that has you kill a high-ranked person in broad daylight, on purpose. Once you get caught for the crime (which you will because the town guards are bloodhounds that will follow you across the entire map to arrest you), you will be a able to pay a measly 1K gold fine and you’re an upstanding citizen again. It’s a crime that should have you rotting in a dungeon forever, but won’t because that would show the unable-to-escape-because-everybody-knows-you-did-it-even-if-you’re-wearing-a-mask mechanic to be a game breaker.

    You can join and lead EVERY guild in the game. At the same time. Nobody really cares and they treat you the same when you’re the leader as they do when you’ve first joined. As in, the repeatable (and repetitive) missions are the same, and they’re giving you are the same missions as leader that you got as a newbie. Even most if the idle dialogue from the NPCs is the same.

    The factions (except for the participants of the civil war) don’t care who you’re a part of. The town guards don’t care who you’re a member of. Being a member of the Thieves Guild, or the Brotherhood of Assassin, means nothing to the town guard, Jarls, or other members of authority. In fact, after you complete the Brotherhood of Assassins quest line (a very cool quest line, to be sure) you can side with the Empire forces and help them win the civil war… when they should be wanting your head on a pike. For a very good reason. But they don’t care. At all.

    The Smithing portion of the game, while cool, and very powerful, over-levels you to the point of making the game silly. As in, if you level your smithing to 100 in the early game, you’ll need all the upgrades you can make to your equipment to survive the now-much-more-powerful-than-you-thanks-to-the-10-levels-you-gained-from-making-iron-daggers. In smithing, you gain the same experience no matter what you make. So, the most economical and fastest method of leveling your smithing is to make lots and lots of iron dagger. 498 is the magic number, I recall, and it’s actually pretty cheap and quick to do.

    Alchemy, on the other hand, gives you experience based on the value of the potion you produce. Which is what smithing should do. But it doesn’t. Just because.

    Long story short; It’s a good game, but the internal inconsistencies that make the sandbox more of a beach than a box, leaves those who want a challenge based on their decision… out in the cold. Your decision don’t matter, nobody really cares what you’ve done, and nothing you do really changes much.

    It’s a good game that needs lots of work. It’s not epic. Well, the scenery is, but that’s it. I’d advise waiting until a bunch of the patches and DLC have come out. Or, if you’re a modder like me, you wait until the Construction Kit comes out and people start making mods that fix the basic problems of the game. So, I’d say June of next year would probably be a good time to pick up the game. If you can wait until Christmas of next you, you’ll probably be better off and able to get it for much cheaper than right now.
    /rant

  4. Well, 300+ hours of play leaves an impression PubliusNV. I should apologize for the wall of text. Sorry Mr. Lane.

  6. I’ve got a few hours into it, on release day, but then, being a bethesda softworks game, I decided to wait for the patch, and then got sidetracked into other stuff. If you’ve played the other recent Elder Scrolls games, it’s similar, so no big surprises so far, other than a whole lot less micromanagement of your character advancement. I expect the main quest to take 20-30 hours, and to really complete everything to be closer to 200-300, if it follows the previous games.

    I think most of the serious stuff has been patched by now, but it’ll probably be January before I get back to it.

    BTW, if you have a 360 controller to plug in, you get the superior console UI instead of the keyboard/mouse one.

  7. I was hoping to use this new game to justify a new PC. Laptops seem to be all the rage and PC games have cratered I guess since I don’t see any. I want CivV, but I can’t justify spending $1000 for one game.

  8. I say get it and be thankful you have it on the PC where you can actually download these patches. I hear a lot about the folks who end up spending several hundred hours playing, but I’m not sure how well it scales if you’re more casual, so take a look at what your time commitments are coming up.
    Or save yourself some sweet sweet filthy lucre and get yourself the Pathfinder Beginner’s Box to play with your kids. Maybe there’s even time to get them hooked for Santa to bring them some custom Stowe characters: http://jamesstowe.blogspot.com/2011/09/dnd-for-dads-commission-funtime.html

  9. “BTW, if you have a 360 controller to plug in, you get the superior console UI instead of the keyboard/mouse one.”

    LOL! Superior? Er, not quite: http://syncaine.com/2011/11/14/a-child-rapist-hitler-and-the-skyrim-ui-designer-walk-into-a-bar

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/14/user-interfarce-skyrims-silly-choices/

    http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/11/pc-skyrim-is-a-frustrating-messand-will-soon-be-the-best-version.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

    Also, the AI for your companions is maddening, especially if you’re an archer. Your “partner” likes to stand between you and the enemy you’re trying to shoot at. All. The. Time. Heaven forbid if you’re in some tight-dungeon hallway-like space… your companion will decide he or she needs ALL the hallway to swing wildly in.

    Really, I love this game, but sometimes things happen that makes one scream. You know, like life.

  10. I’ve got a lvl 10 Dark Elf whom I’ve turned into a walking flame thrower. Also got my bow pumped up a bit. I start with shooting arrows at stuff then when the mob runs up on me I give it a face full of dual-casted flames. Having played Oblivion and Fallout previously I already new what to start off on. Namely breaking into peoples houses in the middle of the night and rummaging through their stuff. No this game does not reinforce good moral standards.

    I’m also using Lydia as my companion to sorta act as my tank. I agree with Kresh though, I end up launching more fireballs into her back than hitting the mobs sometimes. I nearly fell out of my chair with laughter when I ran into a giant for the first time. Lydia ran up and started attacking it and the giant with one mighty swing of its club booted her like a golf ball hundreds of feet into the sky and completely over the top of a nearby mountain. After seeing that I jumped up on a rocky outcrop and started putting arrows into the giant. After about 20 arrows I look over and there is Lydia running over the top of a hill making a bee line right back for the giant. The giant reared back and with another swing booted her right back up over the top of the mountain; lol. Also there was the mountain pass I was running through when all of a sudden a dead horse came rolling down the side of the mountain and landed right in front of me. I just stopped and stared, looked around wondering, “where the hell did that come from?” Just some dead horse rolling down the mountain, lol.

  11. “Lydia Vs. Gate” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTMwjYgJsFQ
    “Lydia the Unbreakable” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBv5-r-S7n4
    Lydia is a companion that is rewarded to you upon completing the first major part of the main quest. You become a Thane, she becomes your Houscarl, and the shenanigans begin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-0eFt7IuBY
    Josh has a point: The game has many “Wait, WTF is this now?” moments. Lots of random events, weird happenings, and crazy thing. I even met the headless horseman once!

  12. If you’ve ever played Morrowind and Oblivion, you really can’t wait for this one. But I learned a valuable lesson with Oblivion – Wait for the Game of the Year edition. It will include all patches and all the expansion packs that will be included for the game. It’s driving me crazy to wait, but I believe it will definately be worth it.

    Does anyone know if there is a construction disc for Oblivion? I loved the construction disc for Morrowind and isn’t that the most incredible idea for gaming that you can add your own stuff?

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