PositivelyNegative

I agree, but I've never been a huge fan of mage characters. I have an assassin-like character (though he destroyed the Dark Brotherhood, ironically), a warrior, and a mage. The mage is probably the most fun to play, but the weakest of the three. It's not even that they don't deliver great hits, but that they just can't take much damage - though this is something to be expected with high magicka and low hitpoints. I wish there were more mage-friendly enchanted armor. I just can't justify wearing armor when it doesn't give me the ridiculous magicka and magicka regeneration bonuses like many mage robes do. As for destruction spells, I think they're pretty weak too. I use conjuration instead. I think there's something like a 30 point (and growing) spread between my mage's conjuration and destruction skills.

I wish I could help you, but as I said, I was able to actually purchase the house. That's odd that you can't lockpick it; that would either imply that you're supposed to be able to buy the house like I did, or that something (among other things) screwed up and it's supposed to be accessible, but isn't. What a weird quest; a lot of people have had issues with this one. Not only does the quest screw up for a lot of people, but it screws up in so many ways too [ there are literally too many to list] It seems like you are familiar with the cheat, but I'll go ahead and post it anyway. To get in the house, go to the console, click on the door so that a number codes shows up in parenthesis above the console, and type in "unlock". That will open the door for you. Save your game before this in case it won't trigger the journal, but otherwise, I think it should work once you set foot in the house and it loads the interior. Another option would be to set your locpicking skill to 100 using the console code "playrer.setav lockpicking 100". I think there is also a code to add quests to your journal - perhaps including different stages of the quest. That might certainly be a work-around for everyone, though I think it might be buggy for obvious reasons. I am not familiar with the cheat, but it might be worth checking out. I do know that quests have specific IDs, which would imply that you could access them via console. NOTE: I would have a ridiculous number of back-up saves. Keep a save before each new action in the quest, and don't delete the back-ups until you are able to not only finish the quest, but purchase the house and decorate it. Good luck. I am curious to see how this pans out - might provide a solution for others stuck in the quest.

I have the same problem, and also a good computer. It's annoying, but doesn't freak my computer out so much and bring it to a crawl as far as speed goes, so I merely boot the game up again...then wait another 2-3 hours like you before it crashes. But damn, problems like this on an alienware computer?! I've heard they're great gaming PCs. Their performance of course varies depending on size and model, but for the most part, they have excellent specs. I considered getting one, but ended up getting an xps instead. That really speaks to how bad some of the problems are with this game - when a high-performance gaming machine can't even run it without problems. Of course, I love the game, and have been a fan of the series since I first played Morrowind when it came out, but there are some serious stability issues that have plagued each and every game. Morrowind crashed often; Oblivion crashed way too often and nearly blew up my previous computer a few times, and Skyrim crashes often too. I had no idea that they are still working off of an 11 yr-old engine; I have little to no programming know-how, but I can definitely see how that would probably complicate things. Kudos to Bethesda I guess if they're able to make it work, but it's too bad for a lot of players.

I haven't run into this problem, but as pantherfern suggested, this is a glitch that I've heard comes up when you carry a bounty. Apparently, Vilkas and Farkas are "guards" and will chase you when you have a bounty. Check the wiki for him at: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Vilkas or at http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Vilkas and look at "bugs".

Sorry, I don't have any suggestions, but I have also had quite a few graphical errors in Skyrim as well. I have a good graphics card and a fast computer, but I have often had to lower my settings randomly to avoid crashes, etc. Usually when I choose "default" graphics settings on load, it gives me "high" quality, but sometimes it sets it to medium. And I actually successfully ran the game on ultra settings for a while without too many problems, even though my computer can only apparently have "high" skyrim settings. Your problem is extremely weird though. Do you have any mods loaded?

SPOILER? [not much of one if you often check the wiki, but I thought I'd warn you] This quest is buggy for me as well - though at a different stage - when you ambush the butcher at night and rap up the quest. He won't spawn and attack a woman like he is supposed to. I am not sure if this was supposed to happen, but I was actually able to buy the house before I started the quest. Weird.

Exactly. This is less about overall difficulty level and instead more about relative difficulty between creatures. Giants and mammoths are more difficult to kill than dragons, but I guess if they were too powerful the first dragon fight would be nearly impossible. Maybe giants and other tough creatures need to have a leveling system closer to dragons? Dragons are more difficult for my warrior character because I have to wait until they land before I can dish out much damage, but my main character has no problem because I built up his archery skill. It literally takes 2-3 shots and they're down. [though to be fair, I have good equipment from built-up smithing and enchanting skills]

Oh, I didn't realize it hadn't come out yet; I am not a modder. I guess I just assumed it had already been released because of the discussion on the Blades questline mod. That's too bad then. It's to come out when - in January?

EDIT: whoops, realize I'm referencing something on pg. 3. Sorry folks. Yeah, a lot of the factions in Skyrim seem underdeveloped (see my Thalmor request). I have not gone through all of the main quest yet, so I am not familiar with all of the things you're talking about, but I would definitely appreciate something like this - otherwise it seems like the Temple is kind of a waste and that the Blades were just put there to keep them in the TES storyline. Improvements of Skyrim politics in general would be a good idea too - funny that you can get Faendal to join the Blades. One, he shouldn't really want to join considering his race. And two, as you pointed out, the Blades should be more suspicious of him.

I agree - at least have dual wield weapons visible. And maybe this needs to be posted somewhere else, but is there any way to fix graphical errors as far as arrows/two-handed weapons go? Warhammers don't look so good with quivers, actually sort of running through them like mace animations often look. And when you turn the third-person camera to the side, basically getting your character's profile, the quiver actually looks like it's floating. Maybe an all-around weapons mod is in order. I wish I had some sort of background with this, but like you, I am a "noob" and still have trouble installing many mods much less designing them...

One of my characters is a high elf and I think it would be cool if he could somehow join the Thalmor using a created side quest storyline. Yeah, they're not exactly a sympathetic bunch, but I think linking him up with the Imperials or the Nords would be unrealistic. I feel that the Thalmor are one of the more important factions in the game, especially politically, but that they were relatively underdeveloped quest-wise. [even fighting against them] I just thought there was a lot of wasted potential there - especially for players who prefer to play high and dark elves.