dukethepcdr

Since the main theme of the game is being a dragonslayer, it seems to me that the most effective thing to do is to focus on ranged attacks. Whether that is through magic or ranged weapons is up to the player's preferred style. I have more fun in dragon fights (the main point of the game) when I have leveled up my ranged shouts and my bow weapons. The mod that lets you buy fire arrows is really handy for this and I highly recommend it. The cool thing about it is that it lets you buy a whole bunch (if you have the coin) so you can be over-the-top, or you can buy just a few of them and use them as a last resort. I also like to use my dragon shouts as a last resort too. I like to role play my hero as someone who is not all that keen on magic and who trusts his sword arm and bow more than he does spells. When I start a new game, which is fairly often as that is my favorite part of the game, I like to start out with almost nothing like a refugee running for his life would do. If I was really trying to get away from a place as fast as I could, I wouldn't stop to pick up everything in sight. Light, fast and sneaky is the way I'd do it if I really had to. Another must-have mod is the one that gives you a bunch more guide stones on your way to Riverwood. Of those, my favorite one is the Spy Stone as it gives you bonuses to several of the most useful attributes in the game including charisma and ranged attacks. I find that having really high charisma and really high ranged attacks are the way to go in this game. Charisma gives you more options when interacting with NPCs which makes the game more interesting and more than just a shooting gallery.

Wow, that's a lot of trouble just to see the version number. They could have just put it on the launch screen like most devs do. Thanks for the info though.

From this forum thread and the 'dawnguard is on steam' thread, it sounds like this DLC only makes things worse. As much as I'd like to fight from horseback like I already can in the lesser know Mount and Blade game, I think I'll pass on it. Especially if I have to pay another $20 for it. Maybe someone should just put dragons in Mount and Blade instead :).

I love all the cool mods that people are making. It has really made Skyrim a better game! I wish that I could even begin to understand the Creation Kit so that I could make mods too. Another thing I can't understand is how to use SKSE or the Skyrim Script Extender. I went to the website for it (thanks to those modders who put links to it on their mod download pages!) and downloaded it. When I read the 'readme' file for it I was baffled. Install this type of file in these folders but those types of files in different folders? I hate to break it to the guys who made SKSE, but this is more than the average person can understand. Thank goodness for the Mod Manager! Otherwise, all the mods would probably be as big of a pain in the ### as SKSE is to install. I tried to figure it out, but kept having problems with SKSE. I finally gave up and deleted all the SKSE files. I guess I'll have to stick to the non-SKSE using mods. If I may, I'd like to plead with modders : "Please do not use SKSE in you mods unless it is absolutely necessary to get the game to do what you want. Some of us can't understand how to install SKSE and we're missing out on your cool mods". I'd also like to ask the makers of SKSE to come up with an easier way to install the program. Remember guys, not everyone is as clever as you are. We are not all computer programmers. Heck, I know plenty of gamers who understand even less than I do about how computers work. Thanks.

I've been installing and trying out mods almost as long as I've been playing the game. In some ways, customizing and modifying the game is almost more fun than just playing through it. I've become fascinated by the amazing ideas that the modding community has come up with on Skyrim Nexus. I'm no psychiatrist nor a psychoanalyst myself, but I am someone who is really curious about how everything (including the mind) works. I'm curious about what drives a person playing Skyrim to say 'I want to change the way this game looks or works'. Especially to go to the trouble of actually creating a mod or mods that they can apply to the game in an attempt to actually cause the change. I've downloaded the Creation Kit and tried using it, but found it mind boggling. I have no idea how to use it. Yet, people have been modding Skyrim even before the kit came out. Simply amazing. If you have, or are in the process of, modding Skyrim, I'd love to know what you were thinking of when you decided to make a mod. Have you been modding other games in the past and it has become a hobby for you? Are you new to modding and was curious about trying it? Do you have aspirations of making your own game and use modding as practice for making aspects of games? Whatever it is, I think it would be very interesting to see your thoughts about modding. I also am curious about how we, as players, choose the mods to download from sites like Skyrim Nexus. What is it about being able to change the game you are playing that interests you? Is it a curiosity thing where you find yourself thinking 'lets install this mod and see what happens'? Is it a feeling that the 'vanilla' game is too flawed or too boring as it is straight out of the box? Whatever it is, it would also be interesting to see the gamers' point of view when it comes to downloading mods and running the game with them. I am personally, in the camp of the gamers who download mods. I would like to make games or at least conversions of existing games, but I simply don't seem to have the patience, perseverance and/or mindset to get through learning the coding and wireframe manipulating aspects of most games' modding kits to be able to do it. I wish I knew a 'modding savant' who I could work with so I could share ideas with them for dialog, designs, scenes etc. and let them do the part of making the modding software bend to our wills. Using mods, to me, is like experimenting. I like the 'lets' try this and see what happens' aspect of it. Sometimes, the mod turns out to be something really special that really enhances the game. Other times, it's barely noticeable. Still other times, it crashes the game or makes it somehow play worse. In any case, it's an interesting 'meta game' that really extends the replayability of these games. Even just looking through the ever increasing lists of mods on the Nexus is interesting to me. I find myself wondering why people made some of these mods. I'm looking forward to seeing what you think about making mods for games, using mods in games as a player or both.

The only reason why I'd consider playing as a female in this game or any other game that gives me the option, would be to see if the NPC's treat the female character differently and/or say different things to her. At least Bethesda is giving us gamers the Option to pick which gender we want to play. We've got to give them credit for that. Too many games don't give you the option and make you play a character that is one or the other. I hate it when games make the PC a female as a publicity stunt or so they can cram feminist 'girl power' dialog at us. At least in RPGs where the game needs to work out with either a male or female player character, there usually isn't too much of that nonsense. Now in the very, very few games where the storyline and plot actually requires a female main character in order for the story to make any sense and the game treats the female character with a bit of dignity without turning her into a spokesmodel for the National Organization of Women or something, I don't mind playing a female. A fairly good example of this was the Metroid game series. Once they revealed that Samus was a girl, it kinda changed the way many players felt about the character, but they still didn't make a big overblown deal about it in subsequent games after the reveal. Samus goes about her business of saving the universe without looking for opportunities to make fun of men nor dose she engage in any of those pointless 'battles of the sexes' with anyone.

I downloaded a mod called "performance tweaks for smooth gameplay" and it's done more to make my game run well than any other mod I've gotten.

Is there a faction in the game that does not have a major downside? I joined the Companions in one gamesave only to find out that they want to turn me into a werewolf. I don't want to RP a werewolf, so I deleted that gamesave. In another gamesave, I tried to talk Aventus Arentino out of having the orphanage matron killed, but there wasn't any option to do that, only to kill the matron. So I did and wound up ticking off the Dark Brotherhood and having to kill some random tied up NPC in order to escape without having to join them or die. So I deleted that gamesave. I don't want to RP a villain any more than I have to. I joined the College of Mages but it seemed kinda boring to me. I don't really want to officially join the Stormcloaks nor the Imperials because then if you join one, you just tick off half the NPCs in the game and they won't help you anymore. You kinda have to join with the Greybeards to advance the plot, but other than that, which faction is worth joining if you don't want to be a monster nor a villain? The Greybeards are kinda cool in a sort of Jedi way, but they don't give you very much to do (that I've seen so far anyway). I've thought about the Bards College, although that doesn't really fit with what I imagined for my hero's interests. But, if some of their quests are cool and you don't have to do anything evil for them, I might try it.

I agree that Steam is pointless. One of the very few things I don't like about Skyrim is that they made Steam required. That was a mistake. Steam runs in the background and does what? Waste RAM cycles is what it does. I don't chat with other gamers while playing the game. I've taken a few screenshots with it, but there are other, less system resource hogging programs out there that do that too. If our Steam accounts ever get messed up or, God forbid, Valve ever goes belly-up, any game we buy that requires Steam will suddenly cease to be playable. That's not right. I've got many PC games made by studios that ceased to exist years ago, but I can still install their games and play them. I agree that the Skyrim Disc is quite usefull. When I made the mistake of installing the HD textures from Steam for Skyrim, it made my game unplayable on my PC. Turns out my PC is only marginally adequate for playing the game even though it seems like it ought to exceed the system requirements. I think its mostly due to Steam and all the other programs that you can't turn off that run in the background of today's operating systems that are the culprits. I even have 4GB of RAM running on 64bit Windows Vista and have the mod that removes the 2GB RAM limit for the game, an Nvidia GeForce 8800 video card etc. and it still can't handle the HD graphics (not even the ones from Skyrim Nexus). After I did some research, I found out that the only way to get rid of the HD graphics was to uninstall the game completely from my PC and start over from scratch with the retail disc.

I would recommend getting Skyrim for the PC if your computer exceeds the system requirements for the game. If you have more than 7 GB of room on your hard drive (I'd suggest having 10 or 15 GB free so you have room for mods), a really good video card (an NVidia GeForce 8800 or better), and at least 2GB of RAM, it will run the game pretty well. If you just barely meet the system specs, you'll have to turn down the graphics quality quite a bit and the game won't look as good as it should. Even if you play it with the visual settings turned down, it's still a great game. I disagree that the game is too shallow. Like any RPG, you have to get into it and go along with the premise of it in order to really enjoy it. Some aspects of the controls and user interface are done more simply than they were for Morrowind and Oblivion, but I see that as a good thing. It makes the game work better for consoles and it makes the game more user friendly for a lot of today's kids who didn't grow up playing the complex computer games and who have little experience with role playing games. Like anything made by humans, it has its flaws and aspects that maybe could have been done differently, but that's the great thing about the PC version. You have this great Skyrim Nexus website to get mods from to make the game more to your liking. As for the game itself, I happen to be a big fan of stories about vikings, so I really enjoy the viking-esque flavor of this game. The storyline is interesting and is a rather different take on the whole 'hero slays the dragon' genre of fantasy stories. If you played Fallout 3, you'll see some of the lessons they learned on making that game applied to this one. In fact, I'd say that one way to describe Skyrim without spoiling anything is to say that it is like the guys who made Oblivion and who made Fallout 3 got together and swapped ideas. If you have liked Bethesda's previous games, you'll like this one.

I've become inspired by the cool mods on the Nexus and have lots of ideas for making my own mods. The only problem is after downloading the Creation Kit, I have no idea how to use it. It does not seem to have anything in it. If I wanted to say, make a static object (such as a boat) portable, how would I use the Creation Kit to do that? Or if I wanted to upload my own music into a mod so it could be in the game how would I do that? I have lots of ideas but no understanding of how to make them happen in a mod.

I had that problem too until I downloaded a mod called "Quick Start Skip the Opening Sequence". It puts you in the exit to the dungeon and lets you pick your race, looks etc. there and asks who you followed down into the dungeon. When I use that mod, I find that I can start a new game with all my mods enabled.

Mine would be combat from horseback. I love riding the horses, but I wish that you could do something while on the horse. Is the Dovakiin so bad at horseback riding that he has to hold on to the saddle with his hands? Should be a horsemanship perk tree branch that lets you get better at it until you can gallop past an enemy and slice it with a sword or axe. Could also be a spearing perk so that you could lance an enemy. Then, you could even expand it further and have jousting tournaments in the game. An older and much less well known game called Mount & Blade has these features. It is also a medieval RPG. It's combat system is more advanced than Bethesda's but the role playing aspect is not nearly as good. A 'dream game' would be to have the combat of Mount & Blade with the story telling and role playing of Skyrim. Maybe a talented modder over on the M&B nexus page could team up with a great modder for Skyrim and make a mod that lets you do these things from horseback.

Why is it that the Dovakiin can ride a horse (a wonderful innovation in the last few RPGs to come out in recent years. Mount and Blade's horse-riding system is still the best), can swim for miles (unless you install one of the 'realism' mods that makes him get tired or hypothermia in water) and can ride in wagons, but he can't do anything to a boat? If I could make any sense out of the Creation Kit, I would make the mod, but I can't even understand how to use the interface let alone make anything with it. A mod that at least made the little fishing boats usable would be cool. Could even be a first-person-only perspective thing to avoid having to make animations for rowing. It just seems weird that our hero can swim and swim all over the place and catch fish with his bare hands (noodling is possible, I've got friends in Oklahoma who can do it, but its much harder in real life than it is in this game :)). Thanks!

"Shor's bones, a handsome man in Falkreath" From the first time he was greeted by Narri in Falkreath, my character had a thing for her. He wandered all over Skyrim and went to every tavern, shop and farm. He saw lots of cute girls, especially after some of the face and body mods started coming out :). Many of the girls got impressive make-overs in the looks and abilities departments, especially Lydia (could practically be a category for her alone on nexus). Yet no love for Narri. She has the best quips and sayings, even without modding, of the girls in the game. My character married Carlotta from Riverwood after getting the Amulet of Mara and doing the little quest that goes along with it. She is alright, especially with a couple of make-over mods applied to her. However, he wound up divorcing her with the divorce shrine mod after being driven crazy by her obsession with that stupid Golden Claw :) Narri on the other hand, has much more variety of sayings already (would love to see her given more) and even when they are repeated, most of them make some sort of sense in a home setting. Anyway, I wish that I could make any sense out of the Creation Kit! I would make a mod for Narri. However, I can't seem to even make any sense out of the interface for the program, let alone actually creating anything. Could they make the kit any more obtuse? I would love it if someone would make a mod for her. Thanks in advance.

Most woman's names started out as man's names anyway. Some are altered such as Georgia or Joan. While others are 'unisex' and are used for both sexes like Jayden and Stacy. So I don't see what the problem is.

Agreed. Someone needs to make a better wedding scene. She just says the marriage vows and leaves. It could be so much more touching with embracing and kissing etc. The spouses say such nice things. I would be nice if they did loving actions too. The mods that let you make anyone a follower are a bit of a help since some of them let you even make your spouse a follower. It was kinda sad that your spouse is stuck at home after you marry her. I've rather enjoyed adventuring with my spouse Narri. She's pretty handy in a fight and its super handy to have her spouse bartering system and meal fixing so handy on the road too. Some kind of script that made her and other spouses hold your hand, kiss you and such would be the icing on the cake. Wouldn't have to be anything rated XXX or anything, just something romantic.

What the game Needs is an option to turn shadows off completely. Those of us who do not have uber PCs have problems getting things to render properly in the game, especially shadows. I won't go out and build or buy a $2000 computer to play this game, no matter how much I enjoy the game. With all the cool performance enhancer mods out there, there must be someone who can figure out how to get rid of shadows. I tried editing every shadow line mentioned in the .ini files by setting them to 0, but the game just ignored it and rendered shadows anyway.

I used to be able to give items to npcs and followers and to put items into wardrobes, chests, etc almost any container. I've downloaded a few mods for the game since then and haven't been able to do this anymore. I've tried uninstalling all the mods that had to do with containers and modding npcs but no luck so far. Any ideas on how to do this besides reinstalling the game? Thanks!