Holst

Indeed, the game isn't optimized for survival, but with a few mods you can come damm near close to it. At this moment I'm still in far harbor, and actualy its quite hard. Regarding your comments : 1) when you lower your timescale, you won't have to eat/drink every 10 minutes. 2) Loot overhaul and not building any water pumps, makes purified water more rare. 3) carry weight can be modded. With the bonus of my backpack I'm now maxed at 160lbs. Together with a combination of mods which increase the weight of weapons and ammunition, their isn't much room to fiddle with a missile launcher let alone a fat man. 4) With true storms you can ad the spawning of feral ghouls during rad storms, even at level 45 i'm still looking for shelter. 5) Besides mods, there are things you can roleplay. For me: I don't do drugs, no power armor, no map (only in settlements or distinctive landmarks), no crossair and I don't take perks which grant some magical power. But I hear you, I do miss the atmosphere of Stalker. Hopefully the next Beth game will be a lot darker/harder. (Sorry for my language, no native speaker)

Playing surival with among others: arbitration, realistic guns, loot overhaul and true storms with maxed feral ghouls. First time in far harbor, its a blast. The recordable holotapes are saving my set-up.

@KrazedKitten: You're talking money and Bethesda. Quite frankly I would pay a lot more for Beth games when they wanted so. Some Total war titles aside, no other games could keep me occupied for so long. To hear people complain when they've spend more than hundred hours on the game (even unmodded), it's a joke.

I've read this comment a lot lately, and to think of it I've been reading it since the release of Oblivion. Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand the meaning of it. To address two points mostly criticized the last two weeks. Storyline: The average gamer at this moment is in his thirties. I'm 34 and for me this means that I've read around a thousand novels, watched at least three times as many movies and played more than a hundred games. By now I believe to have seen almost every plot possible and it's quite hard to surprise me anymore, so actually in a game I tend to neglect the stories because almost all of them consist out of flat stereotype characters in a modern Hollywood movie script. If it's good the better, but otherwise I won't judge the game based on its story. Dialoguewheel: You're left with four basic replies, does this limit you? For me it doesn't. Sure in Mass Effect you had tons of options, but as someone else wrote 'in the end you just clicked every line'. I prefer this system because you don't end up listening to hours of information you can't actually use ingame. Secondly, I've always found it easier to immerse in my character in Beth games rather than in ex ME because although you had a lot of dialogue options on a regular basis you ended up with choices on more idiotic than the othter. Last thing about F4 not being a rpg. I've not yet completed the main quest and have been playing almost 50 hours since release (long time any game got me hooked up so much). The most attractive thing about tes games or f3 and f4 is just the fact that Beth seems to realize that the best stories are those written in the mind of the players. All considered I've been pretty much been doing what I've done since Morrowind: wander around, collect items, get some skills and kill the nasty things without anyone constant telling me where to go or what I should be doing. I was waiting for a new playground and for me Beth delivered just that. No native speaker, so sorry for my English.

Nothing specific, but would it be possible to silence the npcs 90% off the times when you just pass them? Right now Skyrim is a place filled with naging people.

I've always played Oblivion with mods that added travellers and adventurers to the world, because they decreased the feeling that you where the center of the world. No doudbt these kind of mods will be made again for Skyrim. But now I was wondering if it would be possible to make creatures roam the world. e.g. travelling groups of bandits, or a snow troll that leaves his lair in the morning to hunt for food and returns at dusk. Maybe I must clarrify this further: I want them to have a fixed starting point (camp, lair...), but make them move freely arround the world untill they need to rest again. At this point most of the time your enemies are concentrated arround a certain camp or building, well I want to see their chains cut so they can roam free. In this way the guards that are posted at villages do have a worthy task and it could occur that when you're resting your feet in an isolated inn suddenly the door opens and there stands a hungry troll ready to devour you all. Secondly I would like to see the same thing happen in dungeons. No more enemies with fixed positions so that once you've cleared a dungeon there's no point of returning to it, but let them wander so that you'll never know what's arround the next corner; even if you're returning to the entrance. My question: can this be done? ps: sorry, no native speaker.

@manshooter: if you want realistic combat, why not take a look at the way combat works in m&b? For me combat is the most dissapointing aspect of the game because it is dominated by your healthbar and requires few skill. Don't know if there are others who played m&b or warband, but the thing that pleased me the most was that every battle was determined by your skill. Even if your healthbar was near zero you could still stand up against another opponent because you knew that if your timing was right and you didn't make any mistakes, he would hit the ground. In Skyrim you have to reley on potions and magic for some instant healing and else you have no other choice than to run because you'll still recieve damage when blocking and dodging just doesn't work. I would love it for combat to become more deadly, but not if this means that first contact is decisive for the outcome of every battle. Small sugestion. - pump up the damage from weapons - successfull blocking results in no damage taken -blocking requires stamina, holding down block is impossible or drains stamina - if it is possible: breakable shields, so we can once again scream like a little girl when our foe breaks through our defence and all we're left with is our sword. For companions: why not add a daily wage, determined by their level. This could be a standard amount eg 7sep/level, or you could calculate a certain % each time the player recieves gold. Also: killable, but with an expencive option for resurection (temple, scroll...). Yes, I'm a p&p d&d player.

Have only tested the game with a friend, so I can't be sure if these things are included. - be able to bash a locked chest - deadlier traps - allong with "dampening" the ambient lights, give the npc's a random chance to use torches or other lightsources., and actualy force the player to use a lightsource or be screwed. -torches only last several hours -drop lit torches when pulling a shield -impliment a chance of faillure when crafting. Can't recall what game this was in but there when you mixed a potion with the wrong ingredients there was a chance that it would explode, damaging or even kiling the player; believe it was a M&M game from the '90. -remove the regeneration of mana and health. -combatmusic only starts when you've recieved or inflicted damage. -make it possible to add notes to the map Most of these things where done for Oblivion through mods, so I believe it can be done again for Skyrim. As for me, I'll wait another year before buying the game.

Earlier this year I reinstalled the game and because I wanted a totaly different experience, I downloaded quite some mods. It took me three months of my freetime after work and between household duties to choose all the mods I wanted, download them and in the end get them all to work without conflicting with eachother. In the end I had a totaly different game and from my point of view a nearly endless well of pleasure. Now it crossed my mind, why doesn't Bethesda do this? It has been five years since the release of Oblivion, why don't they start working on a new release for the game including the top mods of the last five years. Normaly they could do a better job than I can, and of cours the modmakers would have to agree that their work is used in a commercial product, and yes there are some hard choices to be made; but in the end I would have gladly spent 50 euros on a copy of a totaly modded oblivion that ran stable and just needed to be installed. Or is this just lazyness? Off course the same thing could be done for Morrowind. (Sorry for my Englisch, no native speaker.)

Maybe this should have been posted in the section where the new members introduce themselves, but I just wanted to show my gratitude to the other members whom are leaving so mush useful comments. After a couple of years I recently reinstalled oblivion on a new system and without the information I obtained here, I would have never been able to make it into a modded and fairly stable game. So thanks to all, and looking forward at more reading.