Ah. back on the penis discussion I see.

This game is an absolute work of art, I don't think I'll be doing much else for a while.

Oh hey, I think I've figured out your problem:

You don't like Elder Scrolls games.

Well, one other thing: It doesn't require you to grind skills to avoid leveling up with an underpowered character.

I'm not sure enjoying the previous games in the series is a requirement for enjoying this one, I tried playing Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion about 2 months ago in preparation for this and I could not get into it. Visually it was an ugly mess and the inventory interface was cumbersome. I understand there are mods that update the graphics, but I never bothered since nothing else about the game pulled me in.

But I'm loving Skyrim. The inventory/leveling system seems much more modern (very similar to Fallout3) and it's beautiful.

Do you know what the unofficial patch did for Oblivion? It fixes broken quests, makes it so entering and exiting doors doesn't have a high probability of crashing, fixes a bunch of LoD issues, and in general made the unplayable game useable. I like Elder Scrolls games once I know all of the content is out, and there are mods to fix some of the things that, you're right, I don't like. Such as the leveling mechanic, and in Oblivion the terrible UI. You might be somewhat right though, because when it comes down to brass tacks the combat system is boring and values based, and I'd probably prefer a more twitchy combat experience. The moddability is really the thing that sells me on these games.

Edit: And let's just mention for a minute some of the texture and character skin updates? Those were necessary for me.

The leveling system sucked and the game felt clunky. I also didn't like how opponents leveled with you or how the value of items found depended on your level. Being able to finish an RPG without leveling much (if at all) just seems wrong.

For some reason I loved Morrowind, but I'm not sure if it's because I was much younger/had much more time to play, or if the game was really that different. I do recall that it pulled me in a LOT more than Oblivion did.

The enemies don't level with you anymore. I spent half of last night getting my ass handed to me by a frost troll that I couldn't get past. Also, don't go near Giants.

I'm not really the best guy to explain the differences between Oblivion and Skyrim. Skyrim feels a lot like Oblivion to me, but it's got a decent amount different at the same time. If that makes any sense.... which I don't think it is.

**** it.....


















I'm going to go kill a dragon.

[Edit: Didn't even see the "Unlock" button at the bottom of the screen. Nevermind.]

I'm quite impressed with Skyrim. It's definitely sucked me in a lot more than Oblivion did, the only things annoying me are the blatant examples of the console port and the occasional crash out of nowhere.

Does it corrupt save files?

TELL ME IT DOES.

From what I read you get stuck in some loop unable to enter a certain city.

I tried playing it for a few hours this weekend, and I'm still struggling to really get into it. To me at least the interface seems way worse than even Oblivion's was (which in turn was a lot more awkward than Morrowind's). It leaves me feeling like we regressed back to FF7's inventory menus and such. Guh. Hopefully there will be a mod for that at least soon. They seemed to nerf leveling so that you can do it anywhere which is also a bit disappointing to me. Having to find somewhere to rest to level up in previous games felt like it added some structure and sense to the game, vs just questing 24x7x365.

The main selling point for me was some comment by one of the designers that they'd basically screwed up on Oblivion and made it super generic and dull (which I agreed with entirely and is why I never finished that one) in terms of settings, and they wanted to make Skyrim more like an exotic adventure like Morrowind was. Anyone further than a couple hours in that can comment on that?

The main thing that I'm fairly disappointed with (and to be fair, this was hugely advertised) is omfugging dragons. Nobody's seen them for an "age" )at least a week ago?) and now they've been coming back. And you can SLAY DRAGONS. And also you've got some special "Dragonborn" heritage that lets you use DRAGON BALL-Z^H^H powers. TES has done SO WELL at not just mouth-breathing about frigging dragons like is the trope. Until now. I got over dragons after I realized I was only reading Anne Mccaffrey for the sex scenes. Oh well.

Long story short, I really want to love it, but I ended up spending most of the weekend playing Minecraft instead.

At least my Argonians got some makeover love at least! (still vaguely bitter about the Black Marshes being canceled.)

The setting is definitely a lot better. I'm not sure if it's as "exotic" as Morrowind, since I'm a 2 hour drive away from that kind of terrain, but it's definitely not as generic.

The dungeons are way way way way way way way better. I actually go out of my way to visit them. The dungeons in Oblivion were as dull as dishwater and I hated them and I deeply resented every time the quest railroaded me into one. I swear to God, the worst dungeon in Skyrim is more fun than the best dungeon in Oblivion. If anything should be a selling point for Skyrim, it should be the damn dungeons.

Dungeons and Dragons you say?

I know what you mean. I haven't felt lost in one yet, and it seems as though they're not just endless corridors for the sake of being "content" and padding the amount of time you can spend exploring.

Also, the map shows when a dungeon has been cleared. I think that's my favorite feature after dungeons that are worth clearing.

Oh I didn't notice that it shows if the dungeon is clear.

Furthermore, on the subject of dungeons, I find it amazing that when I pass close to one instead of thinking "I would go in there but I don't feel like going through endless winding tunnels and ending up lost, then doing an hour of backtracking just to get back outside" I think "I wonder what I'm about to kill and loot"

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Marriage
Holy god look at the size of that list.
They can act as companions too, which means this has the single largest companion list of any bethesda game, and quite possibly for any RPG.

I did notice that actually (and the first dungeon I hit even had a puzzle!) I'll have to press on and see, I guess. Your experience with dungeons is pretty encouraging though, since in Oblivion after the first obligatory Daedric plane and fort I had utterly no interest in visiting a second one ever again.



What I meant by this is looking at the bestiary and what architecture I've seen so far it all seems to be well presented, but there's nothing really fascinating and alien (like in MW you had silt-striders natches and nix hounds and so forth. In Skyrim the most exotic beast I've encountered was a wolf that was called a "skeever" instead. I mean, they have giants and undead and goblins and such, but who doesn't these days? No cities made out of enormous desert crab carapaces, or mushrooms, or even cities like Vivec. Is it true that they completely changed Dwemer ruins? They were one of my favorite parts of MW and the only screenshot I've found so far they look completely wrong and dumbed down). It definitely seems to be more Beowulf slash than somewhere actually new (ie it feels more like I'm just traveling than actually exploring) per se. Which could still work, to be fair. We'll see. Worst case I'll just use it as an excuse to replay MW instead!

The Dwemer ruins are fine. The few I've seen have been more-or-less graphically upgraded Morrowind-style ruins, steam pipes, Dwarven carvings, cogs and everything. The only real difference is that they're less brown.

Keep in mind that the ruins on Vvardenfell are a lot newer, they were designed to tap into the geothermal energy of Red Mountain, and they were all a part of one huge complex dedicated to studying of Heart of Lorkhan. You wouldn't expect human buildings to look the same under those circumstances, would you?

Wait... aren't all of her sex scenes GAY SEX SCENES?
[/COLOR]

That's an excellent point, Jon`C. Everything in Skyrim one would expect to be a lot older than in Vvardenfall. Concern redacted.

Edit: I would just like to also note that my Argonian is named Lifts-Her-Tail. Cos I love those books.

I love how the game doesn't level with you, this game makes oblivion look like a joke, it feels much more like Morrowind in a great way.

So much detail...sigh..I wish I didn't have 5 weeks left of school this semester

Awesome horse physics in this game.

Sounds like they spent so much time making gamebryo not look like gamebryo that they didn't realize the problem wasn't the graphics, it was the gameplay! Lawl.

I've put 24 hours into this game so far.
I own a house, and a horse. I'm married, my wife owns a shop which provides a source of income. I have badass armour and cool weapons, as well as force powers to compliment them. I won a civil war. I have a band of heroes to fight with me whenever I need them.
That was the prelude, now begins the story.

In other words: The text adventure game is history.

Tibby, if you kill your wife can you marry again?

Why don't you find out?

I've played for 22 hours and I've barely accomplished anything worth noting. I'm mainly just pissing around and occasionally doing quests.

Gamebryo doesn't 'look like' anything. A game's visuals are determined by the art, not the graphics engine. And if they were, why would you want to make it not look like gamebryo? Are you implying that there is something bad about using gamebryo? (Actually, Bethesda is one of their oldest clients; they've been using gamebryo since morrowind.)

Because I'm not there yet, I've only got about 8hrs gameplay. And thanks for choosing to not be helpful.

Skyrim is a new engine.

Gamebryo is far more than just a graphics engine. And yes, I am fully aware how long they've been using it. It's been buggy since Morrowind! It's all about the quirkiness and bugs that are rampant throughout the games featuring Gamebryo (even non-Bethesda ones).



It's a heavily modified Gamebryo engine. The graphics have been reworked from the ground up, but it's still sitting on top of Gamebryo. There was miscommunication early on with developers saying IT'S BRAND NEW when it's really just heavily modified to get rid of the old graphical crap they used to use.

A quick search suggests the answer is yes. I may try this tomorrow just to see.

The bug with the "Nobody Escapes from Cidhna Mine" is easily avoidable. It's follows on from another quest. At the end of the first quest you go into a temple to meet a guy and get ambushed by city guards. You kill 'em and leave, but once outside they try to arrest you. If you agree to go to jail the Escape quest begins. The bug is that after you've completed the Escape quest if you go back into the temple, the same guards are there to ambush you. If you kill them, the city guards will try to arrest you like before. If you don't resist arrest and ask to go to jail, it glitches out and the guards will start attacking as if you had resisted.

Easy enough to avoid by just not going back into the temple. At least until a patch is out.

It has its hiccups, but honestly it's still a really fun game. I like it way better than Oblivion or Morrowind. The only real problem I've had is occasional crashes, but quicksaving frequently alleviates that, and thankfully load times are super quick so getting the game back up and running doesn't take long at all.

This is the first time I heard that. I thought it was a new piece called the Creation Engine.

Yes, totally new, that's why all the same console/scripting/engine commands from MW still work. There's also apparently bits of Fallout left in places.

And money is still ID'd as 0000000F