faifh

What is being native anyway? No, they have *no* right to remove anybody just because of his/her race. Infact they aren't actually the natives themselves but the foresworn are. The nords took Skyrim away from the foresworn way before.

How should a racist unite anything but his own race, other than possible submission, and he cant force all the empire just being nords. Everyone non-nord is only half a human to Ulfric and the Stormcloacks (except as honorable exception Free-Winter) and the non-human races like argonians may not even enter the city? And its more often hinted at, Ulfric and his man don't care a damm about non-nords. So you can control all of an empire only with so many nords. And it won't help much against a bigger foe anyway. Albeit its true the empire is the only chance against the thalmor, I take a little offence people are judging their choice soley by "who puts in more order" and who "kills of the enemy" more effectively, thats just the argument the facist factions work themselves (aka stormcloacks in this game). It should be, who gives more damm of liberty, human rights, etc. Yes, the empire isn't a shining example as well, but at least they are multi-cultural and respect all races just the same, and judge and individual by his or her actions instead of the color of his/her skin or fur or scales, and thus are able to form a larger entity like an empire at all.

Would be nice if the game would make a difference to that. Brute-Forcing wooden chests and doors would be a nice addition. The former breaking any potions inside, and both making a ton of noise - alterting anything else left alive. But also, the dwemer could build automatons in the complexity to full automatic battle machines, but no locks that could not be tricked by a simple small metal stick? Seriously... EDIT: I take that back, there are a set of (mostly quest relevant) locks that cannot be picked.

You never cared much about math to think twice about it, didn't you? :) 1% is 1 in hundred (definition of percent) 0.1% is 1 in thousand 0.01% is 1 in ten thousand.

I made me an enchanted set of locksmithing, 4 times +40% Lockpicking. Since it was all clothes, it was only 2 extra weight to carry around. Made even masterlocks not hard without a single perk in that tree. Only was a little tedious to put on the set for a lock and to replace it with your dragonbones again as soon it was open. I also put +carryweight on the same set since free double enchants, so at the end of the dungeon I could put on that clothes and piggyback a lot of stuff. If you want to min/max a power-play-char, the tree is quite a waste IMHO. Might be fit to roleplay a masterthief tough.

you didn't get the idea from V the Visitors, don't you? :)

I remember that one! I loved it too, as I felt so much made fun of. If I recall correctly it actually is positioned that way, you run over it, on the way out, but very easily miss it on the way in :-) Yes, but later on I still was constantly taken on by bandits, where their usual line way, "I'm going to hurt you lethally ... *ONE HIT* ... Uaaargh" I agree with this, aside from better graphics, voice acting and more 2011 technology, Skyrim compared to Morrowind, Morrowind was the better game. But thats still a very, very high standard to compare games with, so all in all, compared to the market average, Skyrim is still a top class game.

Ulfric explained it to me that way (somewhere in the imperial questline): "First we take over Skyrim, then we take over the empire, then we take over the Thalmor." Well thats an egomaniac dictator. Might have as well asked ""I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?"

Don't let your first impression rule everything. I too was pissed when Hadvar told me to join the legion, albeit he knew its a big step from being killed by the legion to joining them an hour later. I too was WTF you want form me? I didn't make a decision whom to join until several months into the game. A vast visit in Windhelm, talking with all the NPCs and listening a while to Ulfric in his palace of kings (i mean his idle talk when you do not converse with him, and his talk about why he fights) etc. What real life analogies come to your mind how this all works? Back then I had suddenly an urgent desire to thrust a dagger right into Ulfric when listening to him :-)

While I agree with all other points, this fits in story line. Except the dragons themselves, the blades and the graybeards, nobody gets to know of your feats (careful of spoilers here). Well the true, true heros are those that have their goings in the background and not the shiny in front, which is quite egoism anyway.

I actually felt oblidged to remove her sword, so the child is freed from her. I locked it up in my house instead.

I bought it online. Three hours download. It all depends on your inet.

I decided for my char, he would be mage/thief/archer type and thus ignored the companions completely. I never knew that lycanthropy exists in the game. Seems to be a companion quests and their ohterwise locked-out-dungeons exclusive.

Skyrim is an excellent game! It just took an arrow to its knee. NPCs not updating their talks when events have been happening. For example, Farengar Secret-Fire, still tells me "If you got the attitude, you should join the mages college in winterhold". Dude I'm the archmage! Maybe he doesn't know, 'cause hes far away, but I'd really wanted to give him a line about that. Similar "Did you come to dragonsreach to discuss the ongoing hostilities?" - Even after the civil war has ended (at least mostly). When I join the companions very late in the game, Vilkas still says "never heared of this outsider". For all what I've done so far! (without spoiling it here :-) The woman at that tree of life still tells me I'm not welcome, albeit I decided not to do harm. Not enough choices in some quests, and some NPCs marked important that shouldn't be, like for example I joined the Dark Brotherhood since I was nosy, but then decided it was all too creepy, and I would rather end them -> not possible. Or i'd like to tell Delphine what I really think of her ideas what I should do... I had an urgent desire to thrust a dagger into Ulfric when I heared his "why he fights" speach, unless I couldn't since he was marked important, and I wonder too they let you this close to their leader, when you are even a high ranked imperial. I mean there comes that imperial officer, with dagger drawn and goes into ulfrics sleeping chamber, not even sneaking. Nobody cares, probable they know his important flag is set anyway, and you cant harm him thus. Many NPCs (named and unnamed) far too indifferent about you killing their companions, I only got once the bandidts shouting "there is a kill abound", usually two wizards stand there, one drops dead from my sneak-attack-arrow, the other say, "what was that", investigates for a 30 seconds and says "must have been my imagination" while almost standing on his dead buddy. A bit too many quests were at the end just dungeon raids, where you have to get something at the very end of it. Biggest let done was the Bards college quest line. I expected from the bards college quests to be diplomacy, talking, entertaining, seduction, fund raising, deceiving, etc. But they all were just tomb raids, get me this from that tomb, get me that from that tomb. Tomb raids fitted the mage guild okay, but the bards... bleh. And you never were able to actually play any instrument :-( A music battle show-off with another bard with an appropriate mini game, that would have been awesome. Not too much variation on the style of dungeons, at least these tombs are quite too big majority. Should have been more sewers, larger caves, castle dungeons, ice caves, vast invested libraries, etc. there are these other things, but many only in puny versions compared to the tombs all the way. Same I felt i was fighting a tad too much Draugr, compared to other things. Once again they do dungeon scaling, albeit not as bad as Oblivion but still. I think they just should let that be, a given dungeon should have a given difficulty, either its easy if you are overleveled, or near impossible if your character doesn't know its limits and when to say no. I think if the games would make the level scaling for the character smaller it might be far less a problem, like you emerge 2-3 times as powerful on the cap as in the beginning. But not 100-1000 times, like most RPGs do. I like the skilling system in principle, too many RPGs with XP/Level system made me wonder, why does killing 100 Orcs make me better in lockpicking (if I choose so). But with their perks they still get that bad, fighting a lot with your two-handed sword, gets you more alchemy perks -> what gives? Perks should be distributed to the constellation that gave the skill increases. And I would like to have an in-story (console free) option to "forget" decissions and redistribute somewhat, even if its expensive, which would give gold some sense again later in the game. Developed Smithing and Alchemy gives way to much gold. Skyrim is far less sexist than the average RPG, since it got quite a leap of high ranking and tough females, like female fighters, Astrid as leader, etc.. But it still has a male dominance. You got Ulfric vs. the Queen where she is kinda depicted as week leader. You got the greybeards as obviously male exclusive club (except the dragonborness) don't say females could not have gray beards, obviously, might have named differently. In most Inns the cleaners is female (except e.g. belathors helper is only male cleaner, that comes to my mind). Anyway, I suppose if you really would count the named NPCs in upper and lower class, you surely find quite a male dominance still. It has invisible walls at the end of the map and around cities, might have given another more in-story limitation. Other than "you cant go there" The PC-interface has rather stupid default keymappings, and a far too small default sensitiveness. Many other gui elements are confusing and twisted. Left mouse button for right, right mouse button for left. Tab menu, go to left for magic, magic menu appears to the right, go right for items, items appear in the left. Forced Steam. Some shouts available only in some faction quests. That one bug, that doesn't advance my greybeards stonewall quests, because the stone wall doesn't give me my shout. Screen switches when you go through a door. I know technical limitations and all that, but it would be much more awesome, if loading would happen more in the back when you approach something instead (like outdoors it happens anyway), and going in and out of the building would be more a zooming animation rather than loading screen. Especially NPCs that touch a door and vanish are meh, instead of going through it. --- Anyway, I think its not that fair to only concentrate on the weak aspects. Its still a very great game in the style not many are made. They still try to make open worlds, and with this many things are just way harder than a linear game play, where the devs have to take far less care about many things, because all story is linear anyway. Maybe its the being rather good, that makes people want it to outstanding good, and complain a lot about their favorite peeves.

Watching the Helgen scene a few times, I think he just plays with you, like our cat that plays with a mouse it captured, until it eventually kills it off, when playing either too wild, or when bored swallows it. For example he shouts unrelenting force upon you, to see how you react, not firebreath just yet. He just sensed you, and want to look what you are capable of, luckily you escaped, like our cat that loses a mouse in its play one or the other time. Then he was bored with you, so he didn't come back against you, unless you learned dragonrend, whence you suddendly posed a possible danger.

I started a mage character and while it worked well at the beginning since the firebolt makes staggers I switched to sneak/archer later and improved upon one-handed, since you weapons improve drastically with smithing, but nothing but a few perks improves magic damage, so it doesn't scale as you level.

This. You can't really say for sure if Daedra are evil or not imo. I can see a hero justifying himself after killing someone for a extremely powerful artifact that helps him save the world. "Azura is the only daedric that is not considered inherently evil". - A loading screen tooltip (recreated from my memory), would the tool tips lie to you?

It improves the mana regen rate while in Ethernal Spirit. Unless you use it often anyway, not a great buff IMHO.

Well I tried not to kill the Vigilant, and let him hit me for 15 real minutes while I looked for switches etc, but there is no other option to get out of the house. However, I freed that strong willed guy -> good. I was even honest to that strong willed guy, that Molag Bal wants to see him, and it was his own decision to get there. So I still considered my actions good, as I did not lie or trick him. However, when Molag Bal tells you to kill him 3 times, you have no other choice to advance/end the quest. You could only leave the house, and leave him there for starving. I suppose he will still be locked in the altar, whenever you come back.

Maybe it was just Alduins idea of a welcome-party! Maybe you all know this video already, but here is the more macho version of him, I watch it over and over, and that way it makes more (non)sense anyway :-)

If you want to have the fighting style in Skyrim match the real-world, there will be a lot of tweaks necessary. For example, despite the "Akavira Katana" being a 1-handed sword, in real life all Samurai swords (Tanto, Wakazushi, Dai-wakazushi, Katana, Dai-katana, etc) were exclusively 2-handed weapons. No Samurai dual-wielded anything, and, if you want to think of the real world, very few fighting styles ever called for it. There is one Spanish fencing style that calls for a rapier and a dagger; the only example I can think of. My knowledge about that stems from a book "snowcrash" where the protagonist trained with a Katana and Wakazushi, suppose it isn't much of an authoritative source. It also described the main problem of your Sword fasten in the bone of your opponent if you don't take care and thrust too deep, which makes you a sitting duck for the next to come. Also never a problem in Skyrim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrying_dagger Yes, thats seems also to be really to be the only real fighting style I know that uses two weapons. Yes, but ironically Skyrim doesn't allow you to parry with the second weapon if you have one, what was the primary purpose of the dagger. Anyway, it Sword&Dagger makes still more sense to me than two swords, it just feels more immersive to do something that makes more sense :-) For me it didn't matter anymore if the total damage output was 350 or 400, so I went for 350 just for style.

Okay, okay, so the three weren't. But you are not the first dragonborn. I don't remember who was dragonborn. Talos was one. Also the blades for example where formed around one, and hinted there was more than one. Maybe there is only one per generation. So you might argue its the same reborn? But there that ends. I find any connection theory to Alduin and him mystically wanting to help you thing shady at best, because Alduin "feels" the prophecy, doesn't make sense.

Thats the suggestion of Delphine, who believes the Thelmor are behind it (where the evidence in the embessay turns out that theory to be false anyway). Anyway, even without the Thalmor, I don't think Alduin knows who Ulfric is, or the details of the politics. How could he? He doesn't talk with any humans. Thats why I disregard her theory. Nor does Alduin ever again try to stop the war from being ended. Like showing up at Windhelm or Solitutde to help the loosing side, so the war doesn't end.

Dual wielding n Daedric Sword (Legendary) in right hand and a Daedric Dagger (Legendary) in left hand. With several plus 40% one-hand damage enchanted items, they eventually had 200 and 150 damage. So any enchantment becomes puny against that and just an encumbering to need to refill, and elemental fury not working anymore. which was quite a sudden death to almost anything in the game, if not in cool down. I used a dagger for the left hand, because: * two identical swords made the favorite menu funky, * I had a dagger right in the hand for assassin moves. * it made a role-play. As far I know there aren't any or at least not much real fighters who used two long-swords. Since it doesn't quite work out. But Samurai used the Katana in the right (or left for left-handed) and the Wakizashi in the offhand. I think the quite shorter Wakizashi was also used rather defensive and for tricky attacks. Two long swords would just be trouble, since they would get in the way of each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism#Species_with_larger_females_than_males