Stemin

Several possible solutions here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Return_to_Grace

I should think that was obvious. You list them as the most powerful race. Do we need a playable race that has an advantage over the others thus rendering them useless, and do we need MORE power in a game that already lets you become overpowered? You say that as if it matters. Or as if it changes the fact that as I already said, you took my statement out of context. And that separates them from other ruins how? Attention to detail was given to all the dungeons of Skyrim, and many of them have a lot more variety. I don't need you to tell me how much the Falmer have to do with the Dwemer, but you're deluding yourself if you think you can't bring up the Falmer without discussing the Dwemer. So first you argue that the Dwemer might well be the focus of the entire game and then you argue that the majority of the game is optional, so what are you getting at? Are you implying that the main quest isn't the main quest because they intended it to be the main focus of the game? And again, to anyone who's spent any time playing the game, the amount of Dwemer-based conversation is minimal.

And I would argue that makes it all the more reason why we don't need them as a playable race. No, you took what I said out of context. I was speaking in terms of the Dwemer as a playable race, which is what would ultimately be likely to happen if the Dwemer returned as far as the lore is concerned. You're entitled to your opinion, but I would disagree with you. I don't find the Dwemer ruins to be the most visually stunning in the game, and quite frankly I'm tired of them. They all share the same feel, and as soon as I enter a Dwemer ruin I know I'm going to likely encounter Falmer. In fact, my favorite Dwemer ruin happens to be the one you go to during "The Only Cure", which is a longish name starting with a B that I'm too lazy to look up right now, because it has some unique features and you don't encounter any Falmer. I see no evidence that the Dwemer are the focal point of the game either.

What evidence do you have for this? Her whole philosophy was "for the good of the family." She brings you in, and accepts you, then Cicero shows up claiming you're the listener and how is she supposed to trust you then? And I don't know if you noticed or not, but Cicero is a total whack job. I wouldn't respect anything he said either if I was in her shoes, regardless of what tenets he claimed to follow.

The dawnguard are directly linked to the Riften guards. If you commit a crime in front of a Dawnguard, you will get a bounty in Riften regardless of where the crime is committed.

Screw that. The Dark Brotherhood was done. Cicero was fleeing from the last Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary in the Empire. Astrid kept the guild alive by doing what's necessary. Adapting. Things that don't change die. Where was Sithis or the Night Mother when Maro was wiping them out? You want to follow the old ways, be my guest, but don't hate on Astrid for doing what's necessary to survive.

It works when I do it (), but its one of the buggiest features of dawnguard, completely locking up your character often and requiring you to reload. It's much better just to feed when NPC's are sleeping if you feel the need to do it at all since as near as I can tell there is no consequences to being a vampire like there were pre-dawnguard.

90 person development team, 4 years of development (possibly more, I'm going off the basis that they said they started it right after fallout 3). And that was the "lazy" approach?

I don't want to know what happened to the Dwemer. The whole situation has been so built up that anything they do is going to be a let down. There's also plenty of playable mer races, so bringing them back serves little purpose without totally changing the lore, IMO.

It's also possible to travel "off the map" in Sovrengarde and Skuldafn and see some more terrain oddities. That's an interesting theory about the LOD being generated from Oblivion and/or Morrowind. I would be interested to hear some more theories on this.

Up until the release of Dawnguard, we had no way of knowing if part of the reason it took 5-6 years was maybe this stuff was already mostly developed during that time. I was pretty disappointed the way locations just appeared for Dawnguard in a map I've been playing with and learning for 9 months. But I didn't bring up this old thread just to play thread necromancer. I was wondering if based on this subject someone could explain exactly what they DID do here with these areas.. I have yet to disable borders in my game and check them out, but the videos of these areas seem to show them as not being fleshed out. The ground isn't very solid looking, and everything has a hazy LOD look to it. What exactly did they do to create these areas since they obviously didn't do any actual level creation. Is this just the normal LOD process? I skimmed the creation kit sites LOD tutorial and it basically said the CK lod generator was unfinished and required you use one or more of several third party programs listed on the page. Like I said, I skimmed it, but the fact that LOD was "generated" made me think that the level was done first, and the LOD was generated from the level itself. But these areas are just the opposite.

Ok. You're confused. I'm not talking about Skyrim. I'm talking about Oblivion. 100 hours into Oblivion on 360, I'm at level 4 or so.

I don't disagree with that, but if that's the case, then I can't help but wonder about the conversation that took place regarding Hearthfire. As I said above, it's not exactly Dawnguard. If I'm Microsoft and I paid a good sum of money for exclusives, I'd want to wait until the next expansion dlc, and not waste my money on something that's a $5 sell, even if it does seem to be something the consoles would enjoy more.

I'm using the NVidia plugin with Adobe CS5. I really don't have any formal training with this stuff so I'm trying to learn as I go and I recently figured out (With the help of someone on this forum) how to add an alpha layer to my normal map to help with light shading in game. It was suggested I save as a "DXT5 ARGB 8 bpp | interpolated alpha" and I have been doing that for my normal maps. But the problem I'm running into is I have a real headache of a time now getting the NVidia filter to switch back to colormap when I'm making edits to the actual texture. I go into the "Image Options" folder and change it to colormap, click ok, but when I go back in I see it immediately has changed back to Normal Map Tangent space. The 2d and 3d previews reflect that. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

I don't have an answer, but I also read that Microsoft got the 30 day exclusive for the first two dlc's. The question I have, is do they get to choose which two? Because the space core was PC only, so what was the deal with that? Did Bethesda get around it by putting it in the Steam Workshop instead of the DLC area, or did Microsoft just pass on the exclusive? Some people are calling it a mod instead of a DLC, but it's all semantics to me. Hearthfire is bigger than the space core, but it's certainly no Dawnguard.

Single mod authors spend months on a project this big, and then they're at the mercy of testing it themselves and then releasing it on Nexus or Steam where users will report further bug findings that will need to be ironed out. Bethesda's been advertising this since what? May? And it was introduced conceptually during the DICE video back in what? 2011? I seriously doubt they just sat on this the whole time while money was there to be made. Also, the average programmer makes minimum $15/hour (that's more of a breakdown, I would be willing to bet the majority of them are actually salary and some are just contractors), which means they're making an average of $400 apiece minimum take home pay. A few thousand dollars would rack up in a week alone among several programmers. Insert joke here about Bethesda releasing buggy products, but I'm sure this thing had additional hours in bug testing as well.

What do you expect for $5? I would be willing to bet the development costs were considerable for something like this and the console gamers will be quite happy to have something like this. I guarantee the PS3 crowd would love to have it. You should see them raising hell over not getting Dawnguard.

The dremora at the shrine are leveled. The two outside are higher level and the weapons are random but always have a fire enchantment. There is usually one spell caster inside. It is quite possible to find glass weapons with fire enchantments, but unless you're avoiding smithing and enchanting perks the weapons aren't worth it regardless. I find the shrine a useful source of dead thralls and gold if you're leveling smithing, as well as decently leveled loot and enchantment. There's also a nice offering on the backside of the shrine if you climb the mountain where you can usually find some diamonds and flawless gems as well as another chest and enchanted weapons.

I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. Give me one good reason why something Bethesda didn't create is their "fault." ? Regardless of whether the creation kit is used, or if it's loaded through the data menu, that doesn't mean said mod was created correctly.

I would never act smug or self-righteous over something like that but I do get tired of people complaining about Bethesda when the problem is their mods.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The alchemy lab was working fine, why would they even mess with the script?

Not weak per say, but there are several points in the game in dlc areas (like the fight with Lord Harkon) as well as a few areas (the Balcony) where your dead thralls either drop dead, or just plain get lost. In addition, they die every time you turn into a vampire lord. Lastly, Serana is a very powerful necromancer in her own right, and constantly resurrects dead enemies of all levels. This causes complications because if your dead thrall does die in combat, she often resurrects them immediately so you lose your thrall. Sometimes they turn to ash when her spell wears off, other times they react like a dead thrall should and just become a dead body like they should. An odd side effect is often after combat, if the dead thrall has been resurrected by Serana and her spell hasn't worn off, they will often begin walking away. I would love to know what script is conflicting and where they're headed, but the spell never lasts long enough for me to figure it out.

Did this today. I'm almost done with the vampire quests, but I'm waiting on the radiant quest system to give me the ones I haven't done yet :rolleyes: As a vampire, she mentions as soon as she leaves the soul cairn that she planted some new plants in the courtyard and she "hopes they will grow". In addition to the usual deathbell and nightshade, there are some mountain flowers and some dragon tongues, but very little else in the courtyard changes. The one vampire whose name begins with a g and I'm too lazy to look up right now offers to repair the doorway to the courtyard. Beyond that there is no further interaction and the mother never leaves the lab. The complaint about the soul cairn entrance is the message "to soul cairn" follows you around the room in a lot bigger radius than is typical. I mean a LOT bigger. Regarding interaction with Serena... it's funny... Bethesda seemed to do a good job of adding specific dialogue to her whenever a new event in the quest line occurs, but once the quest was over, there was nothing about her mother at all, one way or another. I cannot confirm or deny if there's any "idle conversation" with her mother as I've never had the patience to stand still long enough and also I'm not sure if her being a follower would effect such a conversation. I know when you play as Dawnguard her "home" is Dawnguard Fort, but I would presume as a vampire if you dismiss her she stays in the Castle proper and not where her mother is, since that seems to be where she idles during the brief period when you're without her at the beginning of the quest. All in all she's still one of the better characters in the game, and even though I'm attempting to roleplay a pretty evil character I still found myself taking her with me after the quest without any other motivation beyond the fact that I _LIKE_ her. I do plan on curing myself once I've accumulated all the vampire perks to get the trophy, and I'm curious as to whether or not I will get the option to cure Serana at that point like I did during Dawnguard. Except during Dawnguard if you reacted a certain way, the conversation will go into a loop and you never get the option to cure her. I never got the initial conversation as a vampire that I did with Dawnguard prior to finishing the quest. I find playing as a vampire lord SUPER frustrating as it automatically kills your dead thralls (btw, Dawnguard in general really cripples dead thrall), and a vampire lord isn't very powerful and my character is approaching level 60.

I thought it was a nice touch that they allow you to release her. I just wish there was more interaction afterwards. I have heard that she may repair the garden if you choose the vamp lord side, but I haven't quite finished that line yet. When I did Dawnguard I got no such option after freeing her. Also kinda distracting that the entrance to the soul cairn takes up so much area. The "enter soul cairn" marker should be limited to the staircase.

I've had problems with it before and after dawnguard. Oddly enough I never had a problem on PS3. I don't know if this is a coincidence or not.