Game: Skyrim

[Animeniax]

I'm playing on PC. I didn't play Oblivion because I heard it was repetitive and the leveling system wasn't great. So far, I'm really enjoying Skyrim, even with the average graphics. Hopefully someone releases an extreme quality texture pack for the game.

Usually I don't like RPGs this expansive because it feels like you're living another life... which is pointless when you have a real life you could be living. But Skyrim is pulling me in, and I hope to get 100+ hours of gametime.

I'm a level 5 wood elf.

[Penner]

I just recently started playing this aswell, and so far its really awesome, i can see myself playing this quite some time.

Currently Level 10 Redguard, mainly Dual-Wield/Archery with some sneaking and whatnot thrown in :P

[Ryllharu]

Level 21 Nord. Sneak/Bows/Smithing. Also lycanthrope. As I said in the other general game thread, I'm so specialized in stalking/assassinating, that I die in most normal melee combat. Killed about three dragons so far. The most fun was a random encounter in a wooded area. It was pretty crazy.

I've only spend time on about a quarter of the map now. So you can pretty much choose a direction and just run with it.


I'll probably make a Shield-maiden character for some variety. Blocking seems like a pretty in depth skill. Restoration and Maces.

[Penner]

Yeah i'm going pretty heavy on the sneaking, but that's because i pretty much steal everything in sight like some crazyperson :P

Lvl 15 now, and so far i haven't had any enemy encounters i couldn't handle, so whatever i'm doing seems to be working (atleast for now ^^)

[Animeniax]

I'm level 14. I'm kind of unsure what kind of character I'm trying to build. I'm a frontal assault kind of guy, so choosing a wood elf was a bad idea. But I know sneaking is vital with these types of games, so I've mostly been leveling my sneaking and archery skills. I hate that I have to wear heavier armor to keep from dying repeatedly, but that messes up your sneaking ability. I need to decide on a character and go 100% that direction.

[Ryllharu]

I've made my Shield-Maiden, Imperial race. Blocking, Heavy Armor, Single Handed (maces are nasty!), Restoration, and a little Smithing. Level 9 or so.

Once you get the rhythm of blocking down, it's really a lot of fun. Blocking a power attack keeps you from getting killed, though you do get staggered. Blocking a normal hit allows you to connect your own power attack, and with the mace, it's usually lethal. I even got a special kill animation on the first dragon.

The real sweet thing was what I found with a random loot book. Alteration school, Transmute. Raw iron ore becomes silver ore, and silver ore becomes gold ore. 84 magic cost, so you can just use it while you run around.

With the extra gold, I opted to buy a horse. Those things are incredibly annoying. The first time, I left it too close to the bandits, and it got in the way a lot and took out 2 of the 3 bandits, leaving less skill gain for me. The second time I left it too close to the enemy encampment, it killed them all before I could get there! No skill gain!

I'm not really sure what the point of them is. They don't really run faster than I do, even in heavy armor, and they run out of stamina just as easily.

[darkshadow]

KungFu Horse?

[shinta|hikari]

Probably tangled...

[Animeniax]

I lost my first housecarl today. She ran off to engage the enemy while I was shooting them with arrows from a safe distance. Sucks, because she was my packhorse, carrying all kinds of extra equipment I wanted to sell for gold.

Did anyone buy a permanent room in Whitehold? I guess it's the same as your permanent residences in Fallout 3.

edit: I bought the home in Whitehold for 5k gold. Now I can horde all of the treasure and equipment I find instead of dumping it on my sidekick.

[Dark Dragon]

If you're having trouble using light armor, skill up Blacksmith and rush to 30 for the Elven set. It weight almost nothing and offer high defense, excellent for sneaking/stealth kills.

Horses are ridiculous strong in this game. I had a dragon attacked me and my horse proceed to attack it.
My Lydia (who was super decked out) and the horse ended up doing most of the damage.

I don't even remember what's the main quest anymore, just going around gathering ores to raise my blacksmith level.

[Buffalobiian]

I'm a female, black/grey-furred Khajiit. lvl3 only at the moment. Gave her +40% pickpocket skills to start off. :P

I hope to turn her into an assassin character with high sneak and poison abilities. I'd prefer her weapon to be a pair of crazy dual-wielding daggers, though I'll have to work out how I'll get something good to make up for their lack of damage. I don't think I can specialise in forging and magic binding too much, or else I'll be all over the place. Maybe I'll try to buy her good weapons from all the gold I'll be stealing :P.

I also ran into some weird graphical glitches where textures will look different depending on what angle you view them from. Rather, textures will appear/disappear depending on how you look at them. I've been running the game via the exe now and bypassing steam. Seems to be fixing it.

[Animeniax]

Do you guys find that you make characters that represent yourselves and your ideals from real life? Or do you tend to make characters that work best in the game, or that represent how you would like to be/do?

I tend to make characters that represent myself as I am in real life, so they are usually warriors, specializing in frontal assault with weapons. I rarely make mages/thieves.

Funny clip from the game:

[Ryllharu]

Do you guys find that you make characters that represent yourselves and your ideals from real life? Or do you tend to make characters that work best in the game, or that represent how you would like to be/do?

I make characters that I think will be the most fun to play. They rarely represent myself or what I would do in real life. First off, 95% of characters I make where gender is a choice are female. That's been something I've done since the original Baldur's Gate (mostly to watch the slender leg come in and out of the female mage sprite, or the slight wiggle of the female rogue sprite's tight backside).

Then, I tend to play my characters as Chaotic Neutral. "Because it might be fun..." would be their motto. The other rule of thumb is they brutally return betrayal (again, another trend burned into me from Baldur's Gate, where the opportunity to do so happened so very often). My own personality is more like Lawful Neutral, or True Neutral.

I guess you could say that there are elements of my personality baked into them, but it is mostly exaggeration and superficialities. I certainly don't run around hunting people, like a character of mine will always do. I just like the stealthy gameplay. It's a fun challenge. Blame that on Metal Gear and the Thief series.

[Buffalobiian]

I personally like to think of myself as the intelligent, thoughtful type - which is true to an extent. But what I really want to be (and to an extent I've slowly found that to be more true when it comes down to an actual task) is to brute force my way through without much thought at all. It's so much easier on the brain.

The stealth character I created was because I thought it would be cool. Ryll's comments largely reflect my own.

I do feel like I'm cheating though, since I can always save the game before picking a pocket - and if it fails I have the choice to start again. It takes the thrill out of it, so I might stop doing that now.

[Animeniax]

Yeah I'm bad about saving before I try something. Then I half-ass the attempt (like strategizing an attack), then I die, then reload. If I didn't have the option to reload, I'd take longer to plan and carry out my attack. But redoing several steps/areas to get to the big battles gets too repetitive and tedious, so it's easiest to save right before you attack.

I feel shitty even in the game when I steal. It doesn't help that steal is in bright red lettering.

[Buffalobiian]

I think that saving before you go out into a battle is fine, since you end up having to revive yourself from some previous save point anyway. The problem I have with pickpocketting is that it's not exactly life-threatening. The only bad thing that comes out of it is that someone has a worse impression of you, and a guard may charge you some coins to get off. The fact that I reloaded a few times means I was sort of cheating the system and the whole point of trying to be a better pickpocket.

In light of that, yes I think I'll stop. My coin-steal % is high enough that I won't lose out from having to pay fines with the money I've stolen anyway I think.

I don't get it though. The first perk that you get for pickpocketting increases your chance of stealing by 20% - and you get to upgrade that perk 5x. So in the end I get... +100% chance of stealing? It might have said that the chance decreases with the value of the item and whether the item is equipped or not though.. so that might be it. Still, after a few more lvl ups it almost guarantees my steals.

I guess I could also think about upgrading my haggling skills so I can sell my shit off for even more, but I'm more like a solitary, socially dysfunctional thief/assassin rather than your smooth-talker type of 2-faced backstabber.

[Ryllharu]

My Shield-Maiden got attacked by three saber cats in a row. The horse saved my ass every time. I'm glad I bought it now. We make a good combo. It runs from dragons though. Blocking works well on bears, and even dragon bites, but for some reason the saber cats just chew right through. I can block their initial charge, but subsequent swipes and lunges always seem to hit for full damage. Same goes for trolls, blocking the whole time, dead in three hits.

I obtained the Disarm shout. That makes even the strongest bandits quiver in fear of the Shield-Maiden. One close-range shout, and a mace to the skull makes short work of them. I almost feel bad for them as they feebly attempt to pummel the shield with their fists. I just wish it had a little longer range. I'll have to look for the other words.

My huntress character can solo saber cats, if they even see her creeping through the woods in the first place. I don't think I'll ever bother getting her a horse, despite their physics-bending hill climb ability.

[Buffalobiian]

Hey, right at the beginning of the game, when you part ways with the guy who saved you from the dragon (or as his version says, you saved him), and you part ways to make way to his uncle's place by going over the mountain.

Unless you walked around, did you guys manage to practically jump along the near-vertical wall? I'm not sure if it's just the way physics run in this game, or if it's my cat-like agility at work.

It'll be cool if I can jump people from above like that. I'm also intrigued at how the Shadow Warrior perk would work. It sounds like when you bob down during a fight, the fight stops and they spend a second or so looking for you (as crazy as that may sound). So... does that mean I'm out of sight and can use that Daggerx15 critical hit perk right in their face during a fight? Guess we'll find out.

[oyabun]

Reading your stories about Skyrim makes me want to play it already. I already have a character build up in mind. How is the story so far?

[Death13a]

personally i don't know about the story i just visited Greybeards one time and that's where story ends! too busy running around Skyrim, doing who knows what, there just so much too do that the main quest becomes just A quest that you will EVENTUALLY get to.