Skyrim

Why the hell hasn't there been a Skyrim thread yet???

The 5th Elder Scrolls series is AWESOME! I was slightly disapointed by the mod turnout for the game 3 days in the release date, then I released... the creation kit required to do any editing isn't even out yet. This means that hundreds of mods are made by crazy modders taking matters into their own hands by using other programs to try to augment the game, before the creation kit is even out!

It will be amazing. More google results than Oblivion. They introduced dragons and overhauled the game mechanics. Most glitches will get fixed by Bethsda patches, if not by player made patches.

Talk about one less reason to step outside the house.

I want to chat with you sometime today about Skyrim. If we forget to chat, then I'll send you a message overnight or tomorrow.

Copied from my thread at another forum:

First, let me talk about Oblivion. Oblivion was great. It was the first modern game I started playing, and it wowed me wholeheartedly. When I started, I had Shivering Isles and all those yummy mods. I recount spending tons of time installing mods and trying to make my own mods (bad mods, now in retrospect). Of course, there were flaws, but the game was great, and I was enraged when Fallout was released when I was scouring the interwebs for info on Elder Scrolls V. Yeah, I like Fallout in the end.

Skyrim. First of all, I want to say, the game is awesome, and I give it, say, 9.5/10. It will probably go up to 10/10 when the mods roll out. (Ok, 1000+ are out. But with creation kit not out yet, the heavy mods are not out yet. So in essence, the mods "for realz" have not shown themselves yet.) With like 5 years in between Elder Scroll games, saying that this 5th Elder Scroll game is going to be big is more or less an understatement. Let me start out by what I like.

Obviously, I love the large game. The many locations. For the few saying "zomg oblivion haz moar locations dan skyrim", realize that that is merely the number of fast travel markers. Many dungeons are cookie cutter variety for Oblivion, while the dungeons in Skyrim vary. And I thought the dungeons were good in Oblivion. Now I see Skyrim. Whoa, baby. I love the combat. The combat in Oblivion, while fine, isn't really that good. The melee part, for me, was just block, then attack. The player is encouraged to block until being hit, then counter by whacking the enemy a few times, then blocking again. That's a bit inadequate, even for awe-struck me. After all, the game really centers around combat. Why do you explore? Why do you make money? To be the baddest knight in Tamerial. In Skyrim, the dual wield has me in a dream. The power attacks are actually something I really want to use all the time now. The leveling system makes more sense to me. (In Oblivion, to have max levels, you actually had to make your "specialized" skills as low as possible. WHAT?) The perks system is great. I love the constellation perk interface. I like how there are more than a few voice actors this time around. And DRAGONS. YEA! The new skills are good. I can't really argue with the removal of some of the skills from Oblivion either.

Now, let's talk about what I dislike. From a technical aspect, I am disappointed. Where are the fancy DX 11 effects? And what the hell are those blocky, ugly shadows? And only support for TWO CORES? COMON! I mean, I love this game, I love this company, but to be fair, that's sad. And the max support for memory at 2gb? I KNOW, many mods can fix the issues or help lessen the effects of problems in Skyrim. In Oblivion, there is the OBGE 3. In Skyrim, I'm gonna see SGE. Sure. But this doesn't give makers of this game the ability to make mistakes like this. Nobody is going to be able to release a "multi core" patch. For now, people are going to get CPU bottlenecked, unless they get like Core i5 2500k and OC it. The UI. Oh no. The UI is just bad. Really, I want to say that it's just feels like a console port. Making pots suck for me. I'm tired of clicking the ingredients, pressing R to craft, then pressing "ok" after the potion failed to be produced. The whole Skyrim-stuck-with-Steam thing is annoying me as well. The process of having Steam DOWNLOAD the game after I BOUGHT THE CD is just ASININE. I had to manually change things up to make it install from the CD. I sometimes feel like Bethesda is turning their back on PC people, when they release shady patches that lock modification of the exe. People, piraters are gonna pirate. You can't stop them. Trying to stop them is only going to piss of legit people like me. (The large address aware patch had to be changed to work again, fixing an oversite by Bethesda.)

Yeah, sure, my complaint paragraph is larger than my "in-awe" paragraph. But at the end of the day, I willfully overlook the negatives of this game and just enjoy the game that is Skyrim.


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Read what Bethesda is working on at: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1300562-skyrim-what-were-working-on/

Creation kit is slated for a January release. Not as soon as I'd hoped; people were even hoping the kit to be released on 11-11-11. But it if Bethesda need that time, people damned well better give them the time, else a godload of glitches will pop up. Speaking of which, people are saying that the patch 1.2? Doesn't fix shadow bug. What it does fix is the glitch of having dead npcs pop up at your wedding. Imagine. You are walking down the isle with your favorite npc, and you see dead people in the audience. The patch, however, gives glitches that are equal parts humorous as they are dumb. The infamous backward flying dragon bug. People are joking, "Do the dragons say beep-beep when backing up?" "Now we know that the dragons are backwards-compatible." An example of a less funny glitch is the uselessness of magicka resistance. Namingly, there is none now. The patch glitched it. Now I am waiting for a patch to patch the patch? WHOA, WHAT?

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Me at Skyrim currently: I play on hardest. Not just to have a challenge and feel better about myself. The game is too easy for me at normal difficulty. I' currently around level 23, and I'm at the main quest, in the final dungeon leading to Sovergarde to fight Alduin.

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Thanks for the response. I don't understand everything that you're talking about and I'm sorry I only have an incomplete understanding of the game. It sounds fun, though.

It sounds like you've waited for this the same way that I'm still waiting for The Playstation 4 in December 2012 and Unreal Tournament 3.5 or 4. My sister has a Playstation 2 at her house and I want to buy a Playstation 4 to play Playstation 1, 2, 3, and 4 games. I know, some Playstation 1 games won't work on The Playstation 3.

You can make your own mods, levels, or graphics in The Unreal Series, Half-Life 2, and many other games. When the Skyrim Development Kit is out, please post a link to it on this thread. I want to make a list next year of 101 games where you get to make your own total conversions, mods, add-ons, levels, graphics, sounds, or music.

Oblivion was one of the most moddable game I have ever seen in my life. I have not played every game in the world, but for now, it is still the most moddable game I've ever seen. (Not sure is Wolf3d counts.) The idea is that Skyrim would be even MORE moddable than Skyrim. The creation kit is supposed to be able to edit more than the Contruction Set for Oblivion. Of course, there is no way to tell until it comes out at the first month of next year. Mods continue to crop up even without the release of the Creation Kit, as authors find obscure ways to mod the game, albeit with limited success. Still, many impressive mods have shown up. Some people as so obsessed with modding the game to the point that they update their mods 3 times a day by doing hex editing.

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Few more opinions about the game:
Shouts: These are special abilities that the player may use in the game. Some people complain that they are useless, either due to their 'lackluster' effect, or the long recharging times. I disagree. The issue is more about the lack of variety of shouts, and the balancing of shouts. Some shouts are simply superior to other shouts, and none of them are very difficult to obtain, thus warranting their strong abilities. Variety wise, it's not bad. I mean, there is a decent selection of shouts. But I want like, 50 shouts. Or 100. I think there are like 25. The idea of shouts, I like. Problem is, a few shouts are useless, or not really useful. For example, unrelenting force or the calm animal shout is pretty useless to me, personally. And as the player levels up, those shouts get more and more useless. But some shouts liked Marked for Death are a must-have for big bosses. I really hope the creation kit will allow adding new shouts to the mix.

Quests: The real plus side to the quests in Skyrim is the amount. I don't feel that most of them are very compelling. But there are MANY. The problem occurs when the big quests don't have the impact. The main quest I mostly feel is very good. However, I don't get some official acclaim or some giant trophy or 1000000 gold pieces for SAVING THE WORLD. I mean, yes, there are rewards along the way. But wouldn't YOU give some money to someone that just saved your life? And your children's life? And their children's life? A similar problem occurs with the civil war quest. You join a side, and what do you get at the end? A cruddy sword. The general gives you "their sword" as final reward, which isn't even that good. Then you realize he still has his sword with him. HE LIES! That's not his sword! The quests in the civil war quests, while not very bad, are not very good either. You just go to places and kill people. Upon finishing the quest, npcs still act like the war is still going on, and honestly, that kills the feeling of triumph from winning. Some quest lines for guilds are too short. There are like 4 quests for the Bard Guild. And the Dark Brotherhood allows you to be the leader too easily. Ok, I kill a few people for somebody, now I rule the largest mercenary organization in Skyrim?

Extra note on main quest: Spoiler alert! At some point, I am given the option to kill Paarthurnax, the leader of the Greybeards, a bunch of reclusive people living at a tall mountain who are among the very few people who can use shouts. The Blades, sworn to kill dragons and protect Dragonborn people (like the player). The Blades want you to kill Paarthurnax, who fought alongside Alduin, the bad guy. But considering the fact that all dragons fought alongside Alduin (or they'd be fighting Alduin, and they'd be dead), it's hard to find a real reason to kill Paarthurnax. The blades leader won't see past over a thousand year grudge against what Paarthurnax thousands of years ago. Wow. And if I don't kill him, I can't do the Blades quests. If I kill him, I'd be murdering a good guy, while losing the ability to work with the Greybeards.

Spells: I want more. It's like the shouts thing. There is a good supply, but I want to be blown away by the variety. While the mechanics of using spells is a step up from Oblivion, the spell variety isn't much better than Oblivion. Sure, mods will pop up. But right now I need to judge the game based on what's there TODAY. The lack of spellmaking hurts also.

From the way I say things you might think, oh, ok, Skyrim is the worst game EVER! It's not. I'm merely trying to be critical in my analysis. I'm purposefully trying to find flaws with the game, even if the game is great. Once again, as I said earlier, I'd give the game 9.5/10. That's a very high score in spite of all the problems I have with the game.

Skyrim 1.3 patch is out, which fixes the magicka resistance bug (and the backwards flying dragon bug?). Also said to make Skyrim more stable and have optimized performance for core 2 duo cpus.

1.4.1 patch is out. Skyrim creation kit is out Tuesday!

Creation Kit is out, and the suprise Bethesda promised is a new high resolution texture pack.

I liked Skyrim but I am a bit worried the direction the series is heading in. The game is way too easy and simplified compared to Morrowind and Oblivion. At level one I had no issue taking out an entire castle full of bandits, but in Morrowind I could barely hurt a mudcrab starting out!

The combat is more entertaining due too a number of reasons but it felt more balanced in Oblivion. It seems like for every new thing positive I could say about Skyrim there seems to be a new negative. I give it a solid 7.5 because it is a fun but flawed medieval fallout game.... (mixed bag)