I just ordered it. Eek!

M'AIQ!!!!





Heh, heh, heh. Too much fun.

I have been playing it today. It's a beautiful game! Sadly, I don't get to experience the beauty, because I have to play at the absolute lowest graphical settings.

On the lowest screen resolution.

At 10 FPS.

That's what I call dedication.

I hated Oblivion but I do find myself enjoying Skyrim a great deal. The dumping of the prior game's generic fantasy setting certainly helps as does a much more toned down scaled leveling system.

All up I'm pleased with my decision to return to the franchise after Bethesda's last TES misstep. The fact it's all running a max settings at a constant 60 fps also helps.

Well, I just sat down and played Skyrim. Just, as in, over 12 hours ago. Time for bed! I know this game is going to be a major time sink! It is absolutely GORGEOUS visually...I'm very pleased it ran smoothly on ultra all that time. Nicest environment I've ever seen in a PC game.

It's awesome We have it going on the PS3 and pc as well in our house. I have two chars at the moment , my imperial mage is on the console so I can't get screenies. My new one is another mage but breton. I am just relieved it runs, I have it on medium settings and it still looks amazing so I'm very happy !

i have it for xbox, as i know all too well that my computer would have a bitch fit if i put another game on it, and also i played oblivion on xbox, so to me, thats my preferred format. i am loving this! i love the way the characters look, the towns, the wilderness, everything, it's amazing. playing my usual type, a sneaky archer Khajiit named Kiskirr. unlike normal though, i'm not stealing everything thats not nailed down. being good, for once. it can't last! xD

The best time I had so far - and I know this is morbid - was murdering my follower, Lydia. She was useless in battle - I didn't even know she was there during attacks until the bloodshed was over, at which time she would arrive next to my side, sheathing her sword as if she'd helped. She uttered a really bitchy phrase each time I had her carry anything for me, constantly got in my way, and lacked personality. After one particularly intense battle I noted she was laying deceased on the ground, so I went and looted her for my things. It turned out her gear was better than mine, so I took it all and donned it. As soon as I put it on, though, I realised I was not comfortable with my follower being dead (this was before I learned how crappy she REALLY was), so I reloaded a save and made sure to keep her out of harm's way. But I kept thinking about how I'd like to have her armour. Then she got round to annoying me and proving her worthlessness. So I brought her to the woods, killed her, stripped her of her clothing, and dragged her body into a nearby river. I watched her float away before sinking into the depths. It was so sinister! I felt like a true viking!

Then a few days later, a courier found me and gave me her inheritance.

I have a different follower now - Uthgerd the Unbroken. She's a little better, but not much. And I like her gear too... >.>

Actually, I think the companion system in Skyrim so far isn't that great. I haven't got much a sense of personality from either follower I've used, and they both seem very unfriendly and unlikeable. Fallout: New Vegas companions are better. In NV, it's annoying when they repeat the same lines all the time, but you actually get a sense that a real character is following you around rather than a bot. And I never really get caught up trying to move around a companion in New Vegas, whereas in Skyrim I've been blocked by my followers many times, especially in caves where there isn't much space. They also keep scaring me when they run up to me from odd directions. I was making my way up a hallway in a fort, killing bandits, and Uthgerd the Unbroken was at the end of the hall running toward me. Didn't realise it was her until my warhammer was coming down on her skull.

My other complaint has to do with the mountains. Like in New Vegas, there are slopes that look like they should be mountable but are not, so you wind up having to walk all over the place in the wrong direction(s) trying to find a path you can take to get to a location on or around a mountain. I find that pretty frustrating. It would be nice if you could scale the cliffs! At least the easy looking ones. It does give you an excuse to explore the world, yes, but sometimes I just want to get to a quest location and I cannot figure out how to access it because there are stupid hills in the way that my character should be able to just walk or climb the hell over.

Anyway, here's my character. I figured I might as well make a Nord, since this is Skyrim and all. I'm crafting him with two-handed weapons, heavy-armour, and not much magic at all in mind.

I didn't realise how much he looked like Captain Jean-Luc Picard with hair until I snapped this screenie...





Isn't the water STUNNING in this game? I love the waterfalls.

i don't like followers, kinda defeats the sneaky lone archer thing, so i don't have them. never had them in fallout either, where i was a lone sneaky sniper lol.

My follower mostly tends to be a packmule and a distraction for enemies. My sneak skill is very high, so she's good at luring enemies closer once I start sniping them with arrows, and she'll keep them busy while I set them on fire once they get close enough. At one point, I went through a gate that came right back down behind me, with tons of enemies on the other side... but they only noticed her, on the other side of the gate where they couldn't get her, and completely ignored me while I killed all of them (there was a TON of them!), snarling at her through the gate. Hi-larious.

Just finished installing, so my night's sleep today is doomed. But iiiiiit's SO worth it!

The other problem with companions in Skyrim, is if you take an odd route - say, down a very steep mountainside, they will not follow. The game wont teleport them either. They probably take a long way searching you out, but sometimes depending on the terrain, they wont be back any time soon, til your enter an instance.

Has anyone else had the glitch where you get shot with an arrow, but it never fades off your character until you're hit with an arrow again?

Also is there any rhyme or reason to the cinematic kills?

I thought it was quite funny having an arrow sticking out of my characters head as she carried on casting and running through the cave I think the slow mo kill is for when you do a special move/extra power kill . I have done a few by luck I think!
I have Lydia and a stupid pilgrim type who both got in the way of my flame spell when we got attacked by a looter outside Whiterun , next thing I know all the city guards in sight of it attacked me!!! No turning the blind eye for a thane !!

Damocles, that horse must have very strong hooves. :D

Tonight I realised you can catch bugs and use them as ingredients. There are also bird nests about the world, and dragons sometimes leave black footprints where they landed, which looks quite neat.

I loved Oblivion (I used to watch my dad play it for years before he thought I was old enough to play it.) but I uninstalled it after going through the entire game twice.
So when I heard about Skyrim I was super-excited and drooled over the beautiful pictures and the DRAGONS :O but the 18+ rating is scaring me off a bit. I'm 14 (15 in febuary) and was unphased by Oblivion but I honestly don't know wether to get Skyrim or not.
What do you guys think?

Ask your parents.

Already done that, my dad isn't sure either.

I guess it depends on what you're concerned about. There is some blood and ick, and the finishing moves animations can be a little bit graphic. There are a couple decapitations (executions) too. But most of the time it's not -super- graphic violence... it can be pretty scary, but that's more in a suspenseful sort of way. And also spiders.

Ooooh yes, I'm off to play right now. The thing that bothers me is that they seem to have removed the Athletics and Acrobatics skills which means that there is no use in not using speed travel and I loved to walk around and skill up in Oblivion.

Ah ok, thanks
I'm terrified of spiders but I'm ok with the decapitation stuff, I'm more likely to go ew than scream.
Well anyway, I suppose it depends on how big it is now as The Sims takes up a lot of space on the laptop :/

Ah yes acrobatics, used to make my wood elf in morrowind look like a hyperactive bunny. That skill made me jump everywhere!
It's still worth going by foot I think though since the scenery is gorgeous, you can stock pile alchemical ingredients, hunt, mine ore if you find any and level up from random enemy encounters. There's also a dog roaming around somewhere that can become a companion :D

That's why I had never been able to get anywhere in Oblivion. I would go by foot, then I would look at the sky, pick flowers, hunt deers and... *opens the map* Damn it, what the hell do I do here?
I guess I should not be allowed into *real* woods. Ever.

When I saw your character I thought "Hey wait, that's my High Elf Mage Lilith"


Here she is visiting a "small" shrine.

I've been holding off playing until something is done about the spiders. The giant ones in Skyrim are horrifying! I saw a picture of one in the game guide and that sealed the deal of no play til a mod is made.

Fortunately someone over at the Skyrim Nexus has made a temporary mod to replace the spiders with bears or sandcrabs. When the creation kit is released there will most likely be better mods for replacing them, but this will work for now.

Once Thanksgiving week is over and I start playing, this mod is being loaded up immediately.

Amazingly, outside of one hidden object game, Skyrim is the only game I've encountered that has taken my arachnophobia to such a degree that I can't play a game. I've had few problems with all the various spiders in DDO or in DA:O and those were some of the worst offenders to date. IMO realism can go too far.