Xydonus

You do realize that Oblivion's NPC's were far worse in their npc repeats, not to mention the mishap dialogues with the beggars and the lack of voice acting. Skyrim has improved on that, granted, not by much, but at least its improved. I don't see how anyone can like Vanilla Oblivion over the likes of Skyrim, Skyrim has far more character than Oblivion ever did. Also, to anyone else, don't bring 'mods' into the discussion. This is Vanilla Skyrim and Vanilla Oblivion, comparing modded Oblivion to Vanilla Skyrim doesn't make much sense... Regards to some of the posts I've read, some good valid points have been made. First off, I love Skyrim, not been playing it constantly like some have, considering I've got it since release and am only level 28-29, but to me it has blown me away. Is it perfect? No, far from it. Can it be immersive breaking at times? Certainly can. I also take notice of all the little details that some people ignore. For one, I'm really surprised Bethesda has included the broken record of 'I took an arrow in my knee' statement for every single guard. You would think as a developer you would avoid unique statements becoming globalised in a game like Skyrim, and there's more than a few cases of this happening in the game. It's a great game but it does feel like theres stuff missing, yet I still firmly believe it's the best game yet. I've played Daggerfall, Morrowind+expansions, Oblivion+expansions and now Skyrim, I've also played the fallout games. One thing that I see a lot of people doing in this thread is taking Fallout 3 and stating how this in Fallout should be in Skyrim and this should be that, etc etc... Fallout is fallout, and while its only natural for people to look at some of the quality stuff in Fallout and how it could work in Skyrim, they are completely separate games. Made by the same developer, yes, but completely separate. The mentality for creating a game like Skyrim is the Elder Scrolls mentality, not the Fallout mentality... If you've played all the Elder Scrolls games, you see there's a pattern that they've followed for years. unfortunately, they've yet to vastly improve that pattern, sometimes they've done the opposite! I play Skyrim with the Elder Scrolls mentality mindset and not the Fallout mindset. Both games are unique in their own way. Bethesda doesn't need to take stuff from the Fallout franchise, while it doesn't hurt to do so if it improves the game, what they really need to do is improve the pattern that they've stuck with for the whole Elder Scrolls series rather than drastically changing it into something vastly different. If you've not played the earlier Scroll games and have gotten into Skyrim and only played the likes of Fallout, then I can't blame anyone for sharing similar opinions that stuff in Fallout would work well in Skyrim (it wouldn't). I like to play Skyrim and not be reminded about a vastly different game called Fallout, and thankfully I'm not reminded of that fact. But I would also like to play a game where the developer learns from its mistakes and improves on them, such as immersion breaking dialogue to the interface among other things. Just so long as they follow the Elder Scrolls pattern... :P

According to the article: "they built a new precipitation system that allows artists to define how much snow will hit particular objects. The program scans the geography, then calculates where the snow should fall to make sure it accumulates properly on the trees, rocks, and bushes." Source - http://www.greenabbot.com/2011/01/skyrim-snowfall-engine.html Does it accumulate? I've yet to see any signs of snow accumulation and I'm a bit sceptical to put it down as a bug, seems like a rather big bug to leave broken. Not that it matters so much for the game itself, but I'm a bit of a stickler for when features gets promised and they aren't present. Despite that, Skyrim is fantastic... Love it, but snow accumulation would be a nice immersive feature to have, and hopefully a mod might come along and actually add it, if it's not present. And if it isn't present, well, I think Todd Howard and Fable creator Peter Molyneux might have something in common. Growing trees anyone? :P

You may not have subscribed to the way of the voice, as you believe the voice is to be used for good, but the dragons certainly did the exact opposite. They don't sit on their laurels, instead the vast, VAST majority go about, or rather, went about, under the leadership of Alduin, burning and destroying land and consuming all manner of nasty bits of meat... So in theory, if Paarthurnax can actually turn a few dragons to his view of thinking, that is, the way of the voice, then rather going about and torching the land they'll actually put-up, shut-up and keep their voices to themselves, then the world of Nirn would be better off. Odahviing also never said anything about Paarthurnax not being trustworthy, as I've just literally completed the main quest a few moments ago, so his words are fresh in my mind. All he said was that Paarthurnax's attempt to get dragons to follow the way of the voice may not be so easy, as not all dova will choose his leadership and his views over Alduins former way. If anything, Odahviing is the one dragon that you would want to keep an eye on. Calling him loyal is a bit of a stretch. Only reason why he follows the Dragonborn, and he makes this very clear in what he says, and the way its said, is because 'currently' the dragonborn is the most powerful user of the Thu'um, and has demostrated his ability and proved his worth. So he doesn't follow because he likes you, he follows because he respects you. That respect can quickly vanish should someone come along and prove to be more powerful. After all he did betray Alduin, and never picked sides until you defeated him, basically tipping his tail in the tides. So that's just using my logic for not wanting or having killed Paarthurnax... :P I think Bethesda have poorly implemented the Blades, because lets face it, they were hardly any help at all, and double-back on their codes about protecting the Dragonborn which should come first above all else about justifying the death of a dragon, whose crimes are only recorded in a dusty tome. At least they should have allowed you to complete the quest by flat-out refusing Esbern, kinda annoying having that quest active in my journal. I also highly doubt that Paarthanux, after having helped get rid of Alduin, and having teached humans the way of the voice, spent thousands of years residing over the wise Greybeards, is suddenly going to get a lustful of power and take up his brothers destiny which if Paarthurnax is as wise as he looks, knows full well that's only going to end in tears.

Try reinstalling any texture/body mods you've currently got installed, might help. Just re-overwrite the files.

Well, I've managed to solve all my texture issues. Just uninstalled Nexus Manager, reinstalled it, didn't touch the Archive Invalidation, and it just seemed to resolve all my problems doing that...

Pretty much having the same problem, it won't let me remove archive invalidation, and it has screwed up some of the textures.

Agreed with OP, quite amusing to see mods that make characters look like Barbie and Ken... Characters in Skyrim look amazing regardless of what others might say.

http://www.techday.co.nz/gameconsole/news/skyrim-crushes-competition---updated/21513/2?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook 'Story: Bethesda Game Studios' latest Elder Scrolls game, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has exceeded expectations from critics, and appears to be doing pretty well commercially, if figures on the Steam gaming network are anything to go by. The game was released on Friday, and although sales figures haven’t been released yet, Steam says it is the number one game being played on the network, dwarfing even Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.' Glad to see this game beating MW3 for the number one spot on Steam, in terms of playing at least...

Anyone know a command that renames your Horse? The command used to do this in Oblivion doesn't work...

Horses were a late addition to the game judging by how Howard put it in the dev-blogs when asked a question about Horses, think it was somewhere on the lines of 'We'll see, we haven't explored that avenue just yet'...

Todd Howard has already stated before that you level up much faster at the start of the game, and it slows down mid-way through.

300 hours + according to official sources.

Aye, that was worded wrong. Corrected made.

If your playing Skyrim you might be interested in a few handy to know information about the game, as it contains a lot of stuff under the covers that isn't obvious. This guide is mostly helpful for new players, and there's bound to be corrections to be made here... Warning - This doesn't contain any major spoilers, but it does have a few minor ones, such as information about certain game aspects - First of all, this game has about 300 hours worth of play - http://skyrimguild.com/unlimited-quests-in-skyrim/ - and unlimited quests to boot. Marriage - You can get married in the game. You need to get a Amulet of Mara, wear it and speak to some woman whose name escapes me at the moment, that's all I know on that subject for the moment. Adoption - Not sure if its present, but there is an Ophanage in the game, and a strong hint of possibility that you can adopt, maybe after doing a quest or getting married. Murder - If you murder someone in cold blood, like an innocent, and if your witnessed, you'll get a big FAT bounty on your head, go too far and the guards might just try to kill you on sight. However, if you kill all the witnesses that originally witnessed your crime, your bounty goes away. Assuming the guards don't get you first! Guilds - Theres a few guilds and factions you can join, and probably a few others that are secret. The Dark Brotherhood are a secret guild of Assassins, joining them isn't easy. I know a way that might be possible but I'm not going to spoil it. Thieves Guild is another secret guild, but not as secret as the Brotherhood. Joining them is fairly easy once you find out where they are based, which I know as well. If stealing and robbing is your thing, you can sell your stolen goods to fences which get unlocked upon joining. You can also pay off any bounties you might get on your head by speaking to a certain guild member. Battle-Born Clans/Companions - There's a few clans you can join and the Companions are a group of hardened mercenaries that I'm told pay well for services rendered. Imperials - Head over to Solitude if your thinking of taking up the cause for Imperials, just be warned that once you do, the Stormcloaks are unlikely to welcome you in. Stormcloaks - These are the so-called rebels of Skyrim, Nords who are fighting their own kin to put Ulfric on the throne. If you want, you can join these at Windhelm. College of Winterhold - College of Mages is the guild to join if your interest is magic. You can learn new spells and get quests here. There's probably a few more as well, minor ones at least. Level Cap - Level cap is confirmed to be around the 80 mark. Companions - You can hire mercenaries, there's one to hire in each of the major cities, they are usually cheap enough, far too cheap if you ask me. You can also get a dog companion in the city that is furthest West. Diseases - You can contract a disease which if you do, you can view its effects in the Active Effects panel. You can get these cured at a shrine or through a cure disease potion. Travel - You can ride by horse after buying one for a thousand gold at a stable, fast travel to discovered locations and hitch a ride in a horse drawn carriage after paying with gold. Crime & Bounties - You can view your crime stats in your General Status menu. Bounties are region based, meaning if you get a bounty in 'The Reach' for example, which is far to the east, you'll have guards trying to kill or arrest you in that region. Murder, stealing, assault, trespassing, lockpicking doors that you shouldn't are all considered criminal offences. Going to jail will hurt your skills and attributes. The more serious the offense, the longer you'll be locked up. You can do murder, steal and other stuff without getting caught, but only as long as you don't get caught! If your being chased by the guards, and get into a fight, you can yield to them by putting your sword away, basically surrendering. Magic - Magic system is fairly easy to grasp, but also complex. eventually you'll get the ability to dual cast spells. You can assign a spell in each hand, left & right. Holding down both left and right mouse buttons combines the spell. So if you have Frost & Fire, you can deal both cold and hot magic. You can also wield a sword in one hand and magic in another if you want. There's also other forms of magic as well. Other forms allow you go invisible, some allow you to summon Daedra or other creatures to you and theres even a spell that allows you to pick up objects far away with your mind. Handy for a thief... Scrolls are cast-away spells that you can find. You don't need to be skilled in magic to use them. Enchanting - You can enchant items by using an Enchanters Arcane Table. Enchanting means you can make them magical. You can for example enchant your non-magical sword, and even give it a name. Enchanting takes a lot of skill, and patience. First, you need to have a soul-gem. Soul gems are used to capture the souls of anything that you might kill (with exception to normal people, not sure?), once you capture the soul it will go into your soul gem. Soul gems come in different sizes, the smaller ones are useful for capturing petty souls, like wildlife and common creatures, bigger soul gems are for bigger prey, like dragons, etc. Having a soul gem though won't allow you to capture a soul, you need to find a spell or an enchanted weapon that allows you to plant a soul capturing spell on a target. As long as that target has this spell effect on it, and you kill it while the spell is active, you get its soul. Souls are also lucrative to sell. Once done you can pretty much enchant anything. You can make magic rings, magic armour and that. But you'll need to learn enchants. This can be done by joining the Magic College or having a magic item and breaking the enchant at a Arcane Table. Once done, the item is destroyed but you would learn its power, which you can then use to enchant items with. Mage characters specialize in enchanting. The following races also get a boost to enchanting - Altmer, Breton, Imperial, and Orc. Alchemy - Handy to know if you want to make your own potions, especially handy for a thief or a reclusive character. Alchemy is more complex than enchanting, and the most complex craft in Skyrim. There's a lot of ingredients, and when you start off you won't know what the ingredients do. Alchemy takes time and patience to learn, it's also difficult to progress in this field. To start alchemy, you can approach a Alchemists Table that you'll find in certain places, a Herbalist might have one for example in a town. Ingredient is the main thing you'll need, this can range from meat, flesh, plants and other sorts of nasty stuff. You can make your own poisons as well. Alchemy is a huge system which you can play with. Best way to advance is to get trained in its use. Each ingredient has about 4 effects to it, and these effects are unknown. For example, if you eat a lot of beef, eventually you'll understand the effects of beef from consuming it a lot. You can also make a fair bit of gold from making your own potions and selling them. Potions have a wide range of quality, from weak to strong, and even more variance in their effects. Poisons - You can apply poisons to the tips of your weapons and arrows. They have a one-hit effect, meaning once you apply it and hit something, the poison is gone and whoever you hit has now got the poison. Races - Just some background on the races - Each race has a gift. A gift is a power that you can use once a day only, this is found in your Magic/Power menu. Mer - (Elven Kind, Orcs are also under this rather than beast - Wiki source) Orcs - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Orc - +10 Heavy Armor, +5 Enchanting, Smithing, Block, Two-Handed, One-Handed Berserker Rage : You take half damage and do double damage for 60 seconds. Altmer - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Altmer - +10 Illusion, +5 Conjuration, Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Enchanting Highborn : Regenerate magicka faster for 60 seconds. Highborn : High Elves are born with 50 extra magicka. Dumner - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Dunmer - +10 Destruction, +5 Alchemy, Illusion, Alteration, Light Armor, Sneak Ancestor’s Wrath : For 60 seconds, opponents that get too close take 8 points per second of fire damage. Resist Fire – Your Dunmer blood gives you 50% resistance to fire. Bosmer (Wood Elves) - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Bosmer - +10 Archery, +5 Alchemy, Light Armor, Sneak, Lockpicking, Pickpocket Command Animal : Make an animal an ally for 60 seconds. Resist Disease and Poison : Your Bosmer blood gives you 50% resistance to poison and disease. Beasts Argonian - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Argonian - +10 Lockpicking, +5 Restoration, Alteration, Light Armor, Sneak, Pickpocket Histskin : Invoke the power of the Hist to recover health ten times faster for 60 seconds. Resist Disease : Your Argonian blood is 50% resistant to disease. Water Breathing : Your Argonian Lungs can breath underwater. Khajiit - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Khajiit - +10 Sneak, +5 Alchemy, One-Handed, Archery, Lockpicking, Pickpocket Night Eye : Improved night vision for 60 seconds. Claws : Khajiit claws do 15 points of damage. Humans Imperial - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial - +10 Restoration, +5 Destruction, Enchanting, Heavy Armor, Block, One-Handed Voice of the Emperor : Calms nearby people for 60 seconds. Imperial Luck : Anywhere gold coins might be found, Imperials always seem to find a few more. Breton - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Breton - +10 Conjuration, +5 Alchemy, Illusion, Restoration, Alteration, Speech Dragonskin : Absorb 50% of magicka from hostile spells for 60 seconds. Magic Resistance : Breton blood grants a 25% resistance to magic. Nord - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Nord - +10 Two-Handed, +5 Smithing, Block, One-Handed, Light Armor, Speech Battle Cry : Target flees for 30 seconds. Resist Frost: Your Nord blood gives you 50% resistance to frost. Redguard - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Redguard - +10 One-Handed, +5 Destruction, Alteration, Smithing, Block, Archery Adrenaline Rush : Stamina regenerates 10x faster for 60 seconds. Resist Poison : Your Redguard blood gives you 50% resistance to poison. Lore I know a good bit about the lore, but if anyone has questions about it I can answer. The general story, the short version, in Skyrim is that Dragons, long thought to be extinct, have returned. You are the Dragonborn, which you'll find out from playing the game, and your soon tasked to deal with the dragon menace among other things. A civil war has broken out as well as the Dragons, and you can take sides. The rebel Stormcrows have killed the High King of Skyrim, and the Imperials, who represent the Empire, are trying to maintain order. Here's a simplified map of Tamriel, the continent that your on - http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Tamriel - Tamriel is just one continent among others on a planet called Nirn, which has 2 moons. Secundus and Masser, Masser being the largest one. Vampires, Werewolfs and Tips - Warning, may contain minor spoilers - This is a subject that I personally don't know much about, since I'm not a vampire or a werewolf, so I can only go by what I've read on the forums here. In Skyrim, there's a possibility that you can contract Porphyria (Vampirism) and Lycanthropy, the werewolf disease. Far as I know, you can contract these diseases by fighting a vampire or a werewolf, and getting bit. Theres a fairly big chance you might get infected. If you do, you have a few days to get cured before you're a vampire or a werewolf for good. You can get cured at a temple or use a potion. Being a vampire requires you to stay in during daylight hours and only going out at night. While you can proceed to leave during daylight, you'll gradually get hurt and will be extremely weak, so any fight you get into might be your last (needs to be confirmed). You can also feed off the living. You can sneak into people's houses and feed off them while they sleep, or however you please (also needs to be confirmed). Lack of feeding will make you weaker. It has its advantages though. Your immortal, as a vampire, but you can still die. Your immune to all diseases, resistant to poisons and are much stronger than a normal person, long as you feed regularly. (Confirmation?) I'm not a vampire myself and theres little info on the subject, but I'm not sure if the guards will attack you on-sight, be it night-time or daylight. Being a werewolf is slightly easier. In werewolf form you'll be attacked on sight, so beware. I don't know if you need to feed regularly as a wolf, I doubt it. Also not sure if your forced to change on certain nights... Skyrim Terms & Other Info 'Hold' is a city in Skyrim. There's 8 holds, 9 if you include Riften. 'Jarl' is like a count or a city leader, each hold has a Jarl, and they run the city. 'High-King' is the King of Skyrim, who is of course dead. Skyrim is now in the hands of the High-Queen. Choosing a race doesn't change the story of the game, but it does effect how your treated in some cases. My character is a Nord, so other Nords call me 'Kinsman', and I seem to be treated with a bit more respect by other Nords. There's no huge difference, just stuff that you might hear. There is racism in Skyrim if you can find it... :P The Empire in the game is loosely based on the Roman Empire. Theres lots of books in the game, and a lot of them give a detailed account of the history of the Empire and its Emperors. Current Emperor in the game is Titus Mede II (Something I read somewhere confirms this). The Thalmer are an alliance of elves that have formed their own empire, called The Dominion. Hope this helps, feel free to add any possible corrections needed.

Probably crazy... Although I would agree that Solitude wasn't as big as I expected, even though it was impressive and far more impressive than the boring boring Counties in Oblivion. But they ARE bigger than Oblivion cities, not by much mind you. Riften is quite impressive...

User reviews tend to be a bit sketchy, well some of them. The '1.0' ones are usually trolls, or people who bought Skyrim and for some reason or another can't play it, or they've encountered a s*** loads of glitches for some reason (I've hardly encountered any), and while I can understand they would be mega-pissed if they had legitimate reasons, I wouldn't go out of my way to write a review and RAGE on it like some of them do. So I would take that metacritic user review stat with a pinch of salt.

My favourite moment in Skyrim, and without including any spoilers, with exception to the actual event that took place, so be warned, happened when I was on a quest towards a certain town. I stopped in the local inn, picked up a few conversations and a quest to booth, rented a room and was about to get some rest when I got talking to an interesting person. I ended up in a drinking contest between this stranger. After a few rounds of drinks, I win the drinking contest and end up getting plastered. Screen goes black, and after a few moments, I appear suddenly in a temple with a priest shouting at me for defiling her temple and causing a right mess. After cleaning the place up at her request, I discover that me and my drinking partner came into the temple and defiled it, possibly pissing all over the place and doing what drunks normally do out of their face. My drinking buddy however is nowhere to be seen... So that was fine... I proceeded to leave the temple, and once outside, to my shock and horror, I'm confronted with a strange scene. I'm not in the town anymore! I look around at all the strange scenery, check my map and discover that I've im at the complete opposite end of the town that I was originally in, miles and miles away! Couldn't help but laugh. The Hangover Movie suddenly sprang to mind, and somehow I have a feeling that this specific quest/event was inspired by that, as I have no idea how I ended up in a City far far far far away from the town that I had some important business to do. So I've only got one lead to follow and try to attempt to retrace my steps, but all in all it just goes to show that the unexpected can suddenly spring up when you least expect it!

Loving the game, find nothing boring about it. To me, its the best in the series, surpassing even Morrowind, and I always prefered Morrowind even over the likes of Oblivion.

Pretty much this. Seconded! Skyrim's characters look awesome and much better than Oblivion's in my opinion. Especially the orcs. Thirded. I guarentee 80% of the people complaining in this thread are the ones who downloaded manicure mods and skimpy dresses in Fallout. It's the apocalypse, your character isn't supposed to look like a supermodel. Skyrim strikes a great balance between having characters that look like they belong in the setting, while at the same time having a natural beauty. (If you're not completely incompetent with the character creator, that is.) Also the showracemenu command works fine, so you can change your face and hair at any time and the console is enabled by default. Just don't change your race or gender because it will break your game. Agreed. Some just want to have spickle clean barbie dolls, others want to remake their Twilight idol in Skyrim, it sickens me!

I don't see any problem with the body textures or looks at all, its done rather well in my opinion. I think Bethesda were striving to have a certain look, but I do agree not being able to change the age settings among other things is annoying, but the overal textures, even the dirt looks great...

Only one command that I'm interested in, and thats to rename my horse! Tried the original command that worked in Oblivion, but I knew it wouldn't work regardless...

Everything up on ultra, maxed out. 1920x1080 Win7/64 bit 4gb ram 4890HD 1gb XII Phenom, Black Edition Not sure on the ghz, might be around 3.2/4ghz Incredibly smooth, actually surprised how smooth it plays compared to the likes of Oblivion/Fallout. They did a great a job optimizing the engine.

I jacked mine up to Expert, might even jack it up further, but right now playing on Expert feels about right for my level, adept is far too easy...

Didn't bother reading Camonna Tong's post due to a lack of paragraphs and spacing... Nudity in games seems to always have two crowds behind it, the 'NO' crowd and the 'YES' crowd, with each side having different reasons for wanting or not to have nudity in a game. You could argue that nudity would add immersion into the game, perhaps your playing a female character, or even male for that matter, and decide to go for a swim, not wanting to get your gear soaked you strip down to nothing... Or even quest related events that might be tied to nudity. Then of course you could argue against it, and there seems to be more arguments against nudity than there is for it. I've read a good few posts here, some really apply daft reasoning and logic for not wanting nudity, others are fairly logical. I don't mind nudity, whether its present or not. If its present, it needs to be tasteful when required, it's certainly not if you're having bandits coming at you wearing nothing. This will only lead to distraction and death! And of course it looks silly... So why would Bethesda include nudity when they know full well that the modders will include this, evidence by the amount of nudity mods for Fallout and Oblivion/Morrowind. If I was Bethesda, and from a business standpoint, it wouldn't make sense to include nudity. Bethesda doesn't need the extra hype or press surrounding Skyrim, everyone knows what Skyrim is, so using it as a PR stunt doesn't apply here. Putting nudity in would only displease the crowd that don't want nudity in their games. Leaving it out won't displease anyone, since a mod will come around and add nudity regardless, and your hardly going to get fuming customers from the lack of nudity, when your more likely to get them if you include it in. There's always a 'few', quite a few actually, that will be offended by nudity. Bethesda dare not take a risk that they don't even need to take. If a nudity mod comes along, and if it's actually good and not a all out perverted pornograph extravaganza, then I'll download it simply for the immersion. But there is no practical reason for including nudity in Skyrim. Bethesda probably had this discussion before internally, and logically it makes more sense to leave it out than include it in. Games these days are getting more bolder, hell even Rockstar went ahead and included full frontal nudity in a scene in one of their expansions for GTA IV. So, why not Skyrim? Pretty obvious as I said, no point. A mod will come along and include it anyway, so Bethesda have played their cards right and kept both sides of the argument happy. Even suggesting an option where you can turn nudity off/on might cause a few unhappy customers, some people just don't like nudity AT ALL, even when given a choice...