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I've just walked into a "black hole" on the area surrounding Orotheim. No matter which way I seem to approach it - CTD! Even invoking fast travel takes me straight back to my desktop after the obligatory pause and load screen diversion. The thing is, I have already been there on a quest and cleared the place and am trying to get back to do another as requested by Morthal's steward for a bounty. I can get to other parts of Skyrim with my level 56 2h warrior. Guess it's a bug?

Well from my point of view you seem to be getting there, and are sorting out rather a lot of seemingly unexpected problems. The new version 46 seems to be doing what it said on the tin - facilitating downloads and removing a lot of major stumbling blocks, so it's well done and thank you for that and for your continuing perseverance However, as an ex IT project manager, this has to be a bit of a disaster for you in terms of how your major upgrade affected service delivery overall. This was an ambitious project and action plan for all the right reasons but I am sure that hindsight tells you that crisis management is something you would prefer to avoid for the future Thank you for all your hard work in disaster recovery and for your continuing efforts to address all the impacts of this change. I can now use NMM to download and update mods. The downloads are still a little on the slow side but you have made considerable progress in addressing such issues over the last few days

I've just got stuck on this I'm level 15 and not involved in the civil war. I get a quest marker approach Pelagia, and he won't talk to me. Can I re trigger the quest?

Can't remember how many times I played BG and BG2 (inc Throne of Bhaal). Still got the games.I always took Minsc (and Boo of course) everywhere. Terrific characters even the ones I hated like that little elf from the Circus Aerie?. Jaheira, (a pain in BG1 with her going on about the balance) - once she got widowed she changed, Imoen, Viconia, Yoshimo, little Mazzie, Edwin etc. Seem to recall that the Skyrim Viconia mod is being re voice acted because of cost implications, Kivan another character in BG is also I think an Oblivion mod. Great effort went into creating credible "henchmen" (amongst other things) for that series of games and their expansions. It continued in NWN2 with a whole new set of NPCs . NWN1 had a sort of shrink wrap version of it with a much reduced adventuring party, The Hordes of the Underdark expansion opened that up a bit and took the game to a new level

So there we have it - No chance of dynamic personalities like MInsc and Boo!! What???? Boo is outraged! See his fury! It's small, so look close. Trust me, it's there! Minsc would have made an perfect Nord "Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads. Swords for everyone!"

Thanks for the tip GI on Serana and her attack of the vapours. I agree with your overall analysis. I am reminded of a simple exchange in ME3 between Shepard and the reporter Diana Allers in Shepard's cabin which illustrates the point I think we are both making. Allers: "Keep feeding me like this Commander and I might have to take you home" Shepherd (2 conversation response options): "I'm ok with that" or "Lets just keep this in front of the camera". Depending on the response the relationship develops accordingly, but ultimately you can only have a romantic relationship with one NPC as once you commit to an individual the others drop out but still remain as friends and/or comrades and develop as such. Skyrim doesn't bother. You can marry pretty much anybody you've either employed, had assigned to you as a servant, simply done a favour for, or beaten up in a fistfight - yeah right get the sappy muck out of the way while we concentrate on the real issues which are? There lies in my view the difference between a really good game and an exceptional one for role players at least

Yes Vilja developed further from the character in Oblivion does come across in the way you describe, but as an RPGer weaned on Baldur's gate Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age and Mass Effect I tend to look at Bethseda's efforts with a somewhat jaundices view. Now if only it were possible to make both the PC and NPC's like Vilja, Sarena, Caerwiden, and so forth more closely interactive that would be great. Difficult for modders because of the voice acting thing but for Bethseda? Serana irritated me with her constant complaining about daylight, and then when you got her into a cave or a dragr filled tomb she bitched about that as well. This is from someone who has been incarcerated for hundreds of years and after a brief bout of "There'a a real world out here". The carping starts Not getting excited about pixellated characters no matter their chest dimensions, but if you are going to create a character put one together that has real identifiable moralistic traits and a personality and charisma you want to explore and develop the true sense of Role Play My view is that Skyhrim identifies itself as an RPG but pays little more than lip service to the concept. Modders it seems are the only contributors who at least try and adhere to the basic rules of immersive role play

no solution except just deop her and move on i Found serana probably the most bugged npc in the game nor is she that good i usually send her away during the DG quest lines except for those few she is essential besides she is a vampire and jusy as evil as her father altho ibn a different matter as a ancient vampire she must hav fed on countless of inocent victims to survive and that makes her in my opinion evil I rather suspected that was the case. All I want to do with her is send her back to the Dawnguard castle but I guess she can just stay in Proudspire Manor scoffing all my food and drinking mead . No big deal, but as you say it's irritating having such a buggy character hanging around the place. There there are plenty of other followers available . Also irritating that her bugs haven't been ironed out yet, After all Dawnguard has been around for a while and Serana's obvious defects must be well documented by now. Like you also I preferred to leave her out of my party when I could. I only took Serana with me to see if I could get get her to cure herself of vampirism Thanks

I've completed Dawnguard as a member of the Dawnguard and have Serana as a companion. I've asked her about curing herself of vampirism and she says she needs to go away for a bit. However Serana returned to my mansion in Solitude and just sits there drinking up my supply of mead instead of going to see Falion as expected. Every time I approach and talk to her I get a one liner saying that she will be sorting herself out at some point but nothing happens. Can't make her follow me or do anything! Any suggestions?

Helghost's argument for or against killing Paarthurnax I believe is flawed for various reasons some of which I will set out here. Firstly in roleplay as I am the dragonborn I will make the decisions about who to slay not the Blades. The Blades have a much distorted view of their own importance and purpose- distorted because largely only fragments of their lore have come down to them and they are fond (well Delphine certainly is) of making rash judgements based on the flimsiest of evidence. I don't believe it is my duty to pass judgement on anyone or anything for their past actions. Those actions should be left where they are - in the past. Besides the dragons are my kin and I take the view that I am not brought into Skyrim to slay all of them. When the greybeards tell me of a word, if where I go there is a dragon guarding it who wishes to challenge me then that's their look out. Also when a Jarl puts a bounty on one for destroying farms, buildings citizens then that threat needs to be nullified. I have however been brought into Skyrim as the balance to Alduin's threat and purpose. That is my first and only priority . Sod the civil war not interested. Not interested in bloodying the Thalmor's nose either (any more than I need to) Paarthurnax is an ally in this fight and I do not betray Allies. I'm certainly not going to help the blades build a private army so they don't get my followers and housecarl(s). I don't need the Blades to defeat Alduin. The blades or the pitiful remains of them are still gnawing on the bones of their old plots to wipe out/seek revenge on the Thalmor and threats to Tamriel. That was never their duty they just took it upon themselves at some point. It is clear that previous Dragonborn never really trusted them to do anything but act as their personal bodyguards and they failed dismally at even doing that in Oblivion! Esbern's academia is useful from a historical perspective but that is as far as it goes Paarthurnax may become a problem for Skyrim as is General Tullius, and Ulfric the arse. But they are for another day not this one in the quest to defeat Alduin Sorry Nudedragon no action today? I as the dragonborn am not around to correct someone else's perceived mistakes, and I'm certainly not going to get involved in leading a crusade - there's two of them already going on in Skyrim led by Ulfric and Tullius. The only thing I would say is that the three great Nord Heroes who sent Alduin into the Teed Akhran (The time wound)? saw no reason to kill him and they had far more reason than modern day Nords (or bretons) so why should I? How long does one have to carry an imaginary grudge? forever? Btw the Blades knew nothing about this at all only what they've gleaned from books and scrolls (incomplete records). The Greybeards show perhaps a similary narrow minded view of the world through their own outlook, but they are not aggressive and therefore not a threat . On the contrary they possess much wisdom (if it is to your taste ) and they show no inclination to go forth as crusaders to convert the world to their beliefs by using words of power to repress or overcome opposition to their will All the reasons I have given are one's from a role play perspective using a neutral approach. Of course the other side of Skyrim is that you can kill pretty much whatever and whoever you like but there are consequences

It depends on whether you berlieve in Destiny. Many gamers myself among them believe that they can change the shape of a projected future wthin a timefrrame by their actions. Those actions can foreshorten your lifespan or extend it, can change the future of others, can by preventing someone chopping down trees, save de-forestation for a while. Ultimately the trees, mountains, rivers, and valley formations don't care if you win or lose a war, marry all nine of the Valkyries, have sex with several horses or blow your money on Skooma. They will still be doing their thing long after you are dust atoms. We all die eventually but many of us like to think that we have a choice in whatever time we have in how we decide to live our lives as individual. Importantly we can think that we can change the future or make it better for us personally If we believe we are simply puppets being jerked around by some invisibly semi malevolent deity with a warped sense of humour then what is the point of our existence and why should we bother to exert ourselves at all. Being a puddle of slime seems a reasonable alternative. As for marrying a vampire lord's daughter - isn't that her choice as well? You could have a marriage ceremony performed with a skeever - doesn't mean to say that the skeever will do anything else but give you a disease!

Well thanks to all for contributions each one relevant and helpful and special acknowledgement to ginnyfizz for the backup on Stem Issues - I thought for a moment it was just me Here's what I have done Renamed Mesh and Texture files Tested ok with head only appearing Uninstalled all mods Reloaded 3-5 mods at a time deleting some to avoid duplication of effort and testing regularly Finally reloaded game with all selected mods running - Problem gone away and the pleasure of Whiterun now await me. Think it's time for a bottle or 10 of local mead Will keep other long term clean up advice on the back burner for now Once again Thank You

Good points and thank you. Sometimes when I have run Steam updates I end up re downloading the whole of my Half Life Game suite. Also I have now disabled the Steam Cloud synch option as it inevitably (well used to back in the day) couldn't synch and drove me nuts by prompting me with error messages, but generally I am rather wary of Steam on principal as it has caused me problems in the past with other games when it has run (a) its own updates, game updates and some downloads. I understand that it is a convenient buffer zone for many game producers and provides some useful functionality for them. Skyrim is more than many other games really buggy so it is I think more difficult to pin down operating difficulties for gamers like me Anyway I may have ID'd my particular thorn in my gameplay side. The Skyrim mod optimiser can, on odd occasions cause CTDs when you run the optimiser for NIF files so I am initially carrying out the following recommended process 1. Rename meshes and textures folders 2. Test 3. Disable 3-5 mods 4. Test 5. Repeat 3-4 until no CTD 6. Enable last 3-5 disabled mods one-by-one I have already run the disable latest (or contentious) mod test (via Nexus sited donloads via NMM) so I know none of those individually are causing the problem. If the above doesn't work out then it's WIPEOUT time as has been previously suggested

Thanks again. Looks as though I have no choice. However as I had loaded a number of new mods I did run the Skyrim Optimizer, which although not listed as a mod, runs from windows and has been known to cause problems on occasions. I'm just checking that out after which I shall do what you suggest As a further test I started a new game and got the same problem Oh bother! (or words to that effect!)

Thanks for that So Many Mods. As you say the remedy you recommend is pretty drastic stuff. Before going that route I would like to explore one or two more basic processes of elimination first. The thing that puzzles me is that Whiterun hold is a place where I am in and out of as regularly as a fiddler's elbow during an Irish Jig and before the latest Steam update I had no problems