Relativelybest

I never liked the idea of becoming a vampire in these games. It always seems like more trouble than its worth. More to the point, it would be incredibly out of character - my PC is uninterested in being anything except a dragonborn human. She sees no appeal in becoming a werewolf, vampire, draugr or anything else. It's not like she has anything against them, she just thinks nothing can really top being a thu'um master with the soul of over fifty (and counting) dragons. (My Oblivion character, notably, hated all undead and vampires in particular.)

It's really the same thing I didn't like about Bethesda's other games: The combat system. I didn't like how fighting was handled in Oblivion but eh, old game is old. I didn't like the melee fights in Fallout 3 but eh, it's mostly a shooter anyway. When I saw the trailer for Skyrim I got excited becuase it kinda looked like they had updated the combat mechanics to something I might actually have fun with. Understand that I more or less exclusively play warriors; I'll dabble in stealth and magic but if I can't barge into a room swinging something sharp around and kill anything that stands in my way I'm just not happy. But no. Aside from some shiny new additions like dual wielding and finishing moves, it's still the same thing as before: You click on the button a lot to swing your weapon back and forth, back and forth at your opponent while he does the same thing and eventually one of you runs out of health and dies. See, the reason I don't like this is that there is no real skill involved. You win fights because you have a better sword or a better armor or more health than your opponent, or perks that makes you better at hurting people with a sword, etc. Many times I've won mostly because I had a bunch of potions to keep me alive. Aside from power attacks or blocking with a shield, there's no way to vary how you swing a sword at people, no real strategies. I've played three of these games extensively and I've never felt I won a swordfight because I was actually good at swordfighting. The only times in Skyrim when I feel like I'm playing a genuinelly skilled character is during those finishing move cinematics, but I can't really trigger those at will and even if I could I don't want to win every fight with an instant kill cutscene. I want to win because I pulled off the right move at the right moment. You know which FPS game did have really damn good melee combat mechnics? Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, that's which. It's been ten years and I still haven't seen another game with such an intuitive fighting system. It had three styles of lightsaber combat and you could actually chose which direction you swung your saber depending on which direction you were moving - vertical, horizontal or diagonal. Since parries tended to happen automantically when the path of your saber crossed that of your opponents, and even a glancing hit could end the fight, this led to some extremely varied, fast-paced and mobile battles, anything from minute long swashbuckling duels to samurai-style one-swing-instant-death rushes. I remember using cheat codes to spawn large numbers of enemies and just practice my saber skills. So why is it that ten years later, Bethesda can't make a game where I can play a warrior with more options than mindlessly hitting my opponent over and over until he dies?

Just like in Oblivion, I play an opportunist and a blood knight - a strongly individualistic person who is mainly interested in growing more powerful and aquiring more stuff, and who loves a good fight more than anything. I do tend to have a noble streak and my Skyrim character genuinely wants to save the world. She has almost no interest in politics and actually finds the civil war to be kinda stupid what with the whole dragon problem. That said, I find it to be kinda hard to be noble when wounded enemies plead for their lives, only to get back up and attack again a minute later. The game actually forces you to kill people who are begging for their lives.

Some people have made an interesting observation regarding the Thalmor: There are apparently hints that their ultimate goal may be to completely unmake Mundus - to literally destroy the world - so they can go back to the spirit realm that they think Lorkhan's creation have separated them from. If that is true, Bethesda might be trying to establish them as villains for a future Elder Scrolls game. Elder Scrolls: Summerset Isles?

Arngeir: "A young Greybeard named Ulfric Stormcloak, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, led the Rebellion to hunt down and destroy the Empire. He betrayed and murdered the High King."

I'm having a similar problem. Opening the race menu messes up the colors in my character's face (and, insanely, this applies to my saves retroactively unless I quit and reload from an older save) and I don't want to give her a whole new makeover just to change her placeholder name into what I actually want to call her. Now, there is a command called "setactorfullname", but apparently it only works with parameter messages for some reason.

Ah, hold on! That right there says you need to change the setting iMasserSize. I think that's what I was looking for, actually. EDIT: Aaaaaand now I appear to have broken the sky. Terrific.

Actually, I want to alter one of the moon mods I already have, not make a new one. Never used FO3Edit. Is it any easier to figure out then GECK?

I want to know how to tweak the size of the moons. (Masser and Secunda.) I have two moon mods that both achieve this somehow, so I know it can be done. I just don't know my way around the GECK so I'm not sure where to look. If someone could point me in the right direction, that would be great.

So, I keep seeing this techno-katana type sword, but I've never found the actual mod: http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/downloads/images/10779-2-1286453300.jpg Any idea where it's from?

I didn't dislike Mothership Zeta as such. Some things were annoying, like the extra graphics causing lag in my computer, or the act that I couldn't pick up alien clutter to bring back to Earth. Still, I had fun cloaking myself and running around stealth killing aliens on their own ship. There was a nice irony to that. I think it mostly suffered from being repetitive, and kinda long considering there's no way to go back to earth before finishing the questline. On the other hand, it all turned out to be a veritable money factory due to Sally and Elliot providing you with unlimited alien supplies that could be converted to caps. I never had to worry about funds ever again after finishing MZ. :laugh: Though, was I the only one who found it just a bit creepy that a grown man was perfectly willing to settle down full-time on a spaceship in orbit with only a small girl to keep him company? I liked Point Lookout - mostly because I thought it had the best atmosphere out of all the DLC, and the one the made me feel the most like an adventurer - I really enjoyed spy quest and the secret places. If anything, the main problem was that it didn't have enough mysteries to solve. I'm not sure which DLC I disliked the most, since it's been a while since I played it. Though, I do remember that I found nearly everyone in The Pit to be blithering idiots. So the slaves hire the most heroic person they can find to kidnap an infant baby, do not bother telling said hero about that one little detail, and then get all condescending when said hero refuses. Yeah, that was an awesome plan. As for the slavers, not only do they actually pay their slaves, but they pay them in guns and armor. :wallbash: ...What, xenophobia? No it isn't. That's not even a pun to begin with.

I will be honest: I rather dislike the new look. However, I expect I will learn to tolerate it.

No, see, I'm Swedish, and so is the voice actress. So, it's kinda hard for me to accept this as some kind of Nord dialect as opposed to an actual Swedish person speaking English while pretending to be a fantasy character. It sort of adds a whole extra level of disbelief for me to suspend.

This is what killed Vilja for me. I just can't take that Swedish accent seriously. I'm almost sure this is intentional, actually. When you talk to them about Grey Fox, they switch to normal people voices and IINM, that dialogue is specific to the beggars.

I do make a lot of characters just for the sake of making characters. Several of them aren't really going anywhere right now, I admit. The ones I do enjoy playing tend to focus more on mod quests, since I find the main quest slightly boring. My main character recently blew through Dungeons of Ivellon and the first Gates of Aesgaard and is right now in the middle of Lost Spires. Meanwhile Martin is still flipping through the Mysterium Xarxes. I did intend to do some serious replaying of Shivering Isles, though I'm having trouble with the missing Gatekeeper bug and cheating myself through the gate isn't very satisfying.

I have several, so I'll just keep it short: Bellatrix Sheogorath: http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/9117/bellatrixsheogorath.jpg My first character and the one I achieved the most with so far. A Nord, since I wanted as many strenght bonuses as possible in order to carry loot. In terms of personality, she was a typical "blood knight", a purebred warrior who enjoyed fighting for the sake of fighting. For those here who like anime: I originally intended her to be Saber from Fate/Stay Night but with the personality of Zaraki Kenpachi from Bleach. She was intelligent, but had a tendency to solve all problems with violence. Her primary motivation was to grow stronger and aquire more power in order to overcome even greater challanges, until she either died or was most powerful being in the universe. (Yeah, she really wasn't sublte, or modest, in any way.) I imagine she was in jail for getting drunk and stabbing the captain of the city guard in "self defense". She finished all the major questlines except the Dark Brotherhood (due to an unfortunate glitch) and, ironically, the Fighters Guild. (Due to boredom and being way overleveled when she started.) She took to the Shivering Isles storyline with gusto and became very fond of Sheogorath. After becoming he Mad God of Shivering Isles, she took the name Bellatrix Sheogorath to honor him. One peculiarity of her character was he undying hatred of the undead, particularly vampires. Because of this, she maintained a personal and very one-sided enmity with (the completely unsuspecting) Countess Narina Carvain, whom Bellatrix was convinced was secretly a vampire. Ultimately, I stopped playing her because I ran out of interesting stuff for her to do and there wasn't a lot that could top becoming a Daedric Prince. IIRC, her level was something around 30-40 at the time. Flora the Red Dragon: http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7650/florathereddragon.jpg My second character, a bosmer. Flora was simultaniously the spiritual successor for Bellatrix and the prototype for Ashae. (See below.) Like Bellatrix, Flora was a free spirit who mainly just wanted adventure and fight challanging opponents. Her motivation was a bit more refined, though - she wanted to become the greatest swordswoman alive. Flora was a swashbuckling blade for hire and a good-hearted but slightly selfish person with little respect for rules or social mores that didn't suit her. The kind of woman who did whatever she felt like if she could get away with it, in other words, though I always imagined her as someone who had an easy time making friends. I'm not sure how she ended up in jail, but I bet she was convinced she didn't derserve it. She was a promising character, but I ended up distracted from her story when I went and created Ashae. Ashae Whitestrike: http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/8100/ashaewhitestrike.jpg Superficially very similar to Flora - indeed, she was intended as a kind of palette swap - this dunmer warrior also sought ultimate mastery of swordsmanship, but for somewhat less selfish reasons: Her intent to perfect her fighting skills grew from her desire to combat evil as effectively as possible. Ashae is a "white knight" sort of character, a noble warrior who's goal is to rid the world of evil and darkness. Unflinchingly brave and completely devoted to her ideals, she could never see a wrong without wanting to right it, never leave a just cause undefended, and was generally willing to offer her aid to anyone who needed it. She believed that even should the entire world descend into darkness, there must alwas be a single shining light no matter how small. Because of this, she made for an ideal heroine, though naturally her moral character wouldn't have suited the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood questlines. (On that note, I really have no idea how she ended up in prison.) Though she and Flora were very different, they would probably have been good friends -in a opposites attract sort of way- had they ever met each other. Elena McCoy: http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5393/elenamaccoy.jpg My current favorite character. Elena is... a bit different from my previous ones. Though she's technically a Breton, I actually imagine her as a visitor from a more modern world. Essentially, she's a Lara Croft-sort of character with some Chronicles of Amber-style dimension hopping tossed in: A treasure hunter and hobby archeologist - possibly immortal or very long lived - who travels through various planes and dimensions looking for artifacts and treasure. Originally she just stopped by in Tamriel on her way to the Shivering Isles but somehow got herself thrown in jail and ended up staying much longer then expected. Now she even owns property in the empire and has started to really care for Mundus. The occasional ventures into the Oblivion portals are to her not much different then the jumps between worlds she routinely does anyway. Elena doesn't wear armor, prefering highly enchanted adventurer's gear from her homeworld. Due to her lifestyle and origins, I imagine her as having nearly unlimited funds and access to top quality equipment. This has meant that she has always been slightly overpowered, but I mostly consider that fitting. One thing that sets her appart from my other characters is that while she is a very potent fighter, she she is not strictly speaking a warrior. This means that she will accept quests that involved recovering artifacts or exploring dungeons but avoid those with objectives of martial nature. She never saw a ruin she didn't like and enjoys collecting swords and unique books. Aside from her fighting skills, Elena also knows a bit of magic and is a skilled burglar, though she usually only steals things when she needs them for something and has been known to put stolen items back once she is done with them.

Heh. These days my characters don't really use vanilla weapons - mainly because I care more about cool character design then getting a challenge out of the early levels. I prefer either the better of Ardonnay's elven swords or the high damage versions of the Realswords. Umbra is a fairly mediocre weapon by comparison. (My best swords do something like 50 in damage.) Then again, I actually find it annoying to have to clobber the enemies to death over and over.

During the Vampirism Cure quest, I was about to go slay Hindaril. So I followed Panther River, on the wrong side, looking for a good place to dismount and cross over. I found this large flat rock in the river that was for some reason covered in bones. I figured it was as good a place as any so I had my horse jump over to the rock. Only, when I dismounted I found me and my horse both had teleported waaaaay up into the air. I used TCL to avoid a bad landing but my horse actually fell all the way down and landed in the river. Amazingly, it survived. I tried to replicate this event by getting back up on the rock and dismounting, but apparently it was a one-time deal.

Recently overheard NPC convo: NPC1: Have your heard about Anvil? The chapel has been desecrated and the priests and priestesses murdered! NPC2: By the gods! NPC1: Indeed.

Vanilla? Madness Claymore, all the way. Mod? I have several favorites: Some of my characters exclusively use Ardonnay's elven longblades, which are some of the prettiest swords I have ever seen. I also like the Old Family Sword from Dungeons of Ivellon, and a number of the Realsword swords.

Well, Sheogorath and Ma'iq pretty much top the list. Not counting them, though: Countess Narina Carvain: Long story. Let's just say my first character made some... assumptions regarding some of the Bruma quests leading the countess to unwittingly end up her arch-nemesis. Raynil Dralas: Related to the above long story. Also, I liked the fight against him - it was one of the few battles in the game I thought felt had a dramatic build-up and an interesting location. Farwil Indarys: "HUZZAH!" ...Yeah, I actually liked the guy. At least he was brave, and absolutely not a quitter. Bolwing: He speaks entirely in jibberish, for crying out loud. Arvena Thelas: She keeps tame rats as pets. My main reaction to that was: "Awesome! I want one of those!" Beewos: "I used to be a dog. I got better. Not a better dog, though. I'm a terrible dog now." Mazoga: I have a soft-spot for self-appointed knights.

Generally, I head to town and sell all the stuff I picked up in the dungeon. Possibly, I also pick up one of the nice weapons I have added via mods. Then I head straight into Vilverin to fetch the Bag of Holding. (Which may be the single most useful mod I have ever downloaded.) Also, I recently realized that if you have Thieves Den you can get a decent sword early on without cheating by just fast-traveling to Anvil and picking up the free cutlass at the start of Dunbarrow Cove. (And if you kill all the skeletons you get a bunch of extras that you can sell.) Whether or not I follow up the main quest depends on my character, really. My current one is more of an adventurer/ treasure hunter/hobby archelogist, and only a warrior of necessity, so she hasn't really bothered.

You know, it mostly depends on my character, I think. My current character, for example, seems to prefer Chorrol for some reason. I'm not even sure why - she just feels at home there. I also have a dunmer character who prefers Cheydinhal. My first character loved Skingrad but hated Bruma because she was convinced Countess Narina Carvain was secretly a vampire. (...It's a long story.) So, yeah, it varies a lot. If I really do have a personal favorite, I suppose it would be Anvil, mainly for its nice aestetics. Though, my favorite house is the Skingrad mansion.

That goddamned mannequin in the Arlington House basement. It gets me every time. And, yeah, the Abominations were creepy. I think it was the pointing, really. There's something very unsettling about those things pointing at you; probably because it's a very human gesture.

148: Being level 30 with maxed out stats is awesome. 149: At a high enough level, with the right perks, radiation is at worst just a minor inconveniance. 150: This also applies to landmines. 151: Also: All kinds of traps. 152: There is only one thing more epic then defeating a Super Mutant Overlord in a fistfight with no weapons, and that is defeating the Evergreen Mills Super Mutant Behemoth in a fistfight with no weapons. 153: Did I mention that being level 30 with maxed out stats is awesome?