Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[robdood]

Hey zy, I don't think the AI has improved much since Oblivion. I didn't say it had. The point is, improving the AI is obviously low down the list of priorities for Bethesda. That's all. Saying they've learnt fuck all on five years still reeks of entitlement to me.

I also worked in games professionally, and surely if you have to then you also understand you can't have everything.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

To try and help this A.I debate.

I forget the name of the Bandits cave, but its near to Whiterun and they have a Wolf imprisoned in there.

anyway.. Whether it is an example of A.I is wafer thin but as you enter the cave theres a blind man sat at a table and he asks if you are one of the bandits from outside that you just killed. You of course say "yes" and he assumes its you. Its very immersive if anything else.

After wiping out the entire cave plus the leader of the bandits, I left the blind guy alone. Poor old fucker doesnt deserve an Axe to the back of the head.

[JoeK]

Harold, before I twatted him:

[Hello Goaty ♥]

Here's a discussion on our Blind Man Ulfr

http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/comments/m8ik2/ulfr_the_blind/

[Yasawas]

I'm the worst thief in the guild, haven't managed to successfully pick a pocket yet. Including old sleeping ladies.

A few times now I've been in a house with one sleeping occupant skulking about as quietly as I can and the "Hidden" icon you get when crouched unseen has changed to "Detected" even though the victim remains asleep and there's definitely no-one else there. What's the deal with that?

[siread]

So I've been running around Whiterun for the last fricking hour (inside and out) trying to find Aela to take a shield to her. When I'm inside the city walls the custom marker points outside. When I'm outside the city walls the marker points inside. Seriously fucked off with this map and quest log. Someone please tell me where to find her.

[DJ KNIGHT XIII]

People being negged for making comments about how the game Could be made better is a bit disappointing. Some of us look at the game and see that whiles its brilliant stuff to play it does have some flaws that could have been corrected quite easily. The UI for the PC version for one. It shows that therre was a alck of effort to optimise the game for PC's which is a pity. Thankfully its not game breaking.

So yeah its brilliant stuff but it could be even better. Just image how good THAT would be!

Well said, I have always felt that the negging system is a detriment to this forum but I suppouse this really is not the place for me to raise this issue .

[Guest]

You have to do the story quest there first. After that you need to talk to the bald guy who hangs around to the left of and in the room behind and above the Jarl's throne.

Bring 5,000 gold too

I do want that house. Going to be 5 grand well spent.

Thing is I'm dead keen to start enchanting...and I de-chanted one item that gave me a double enchant. I've found that once applied to clothes it massively inflates the price - even at my low enchant level! I'm going to find lots of tunics and rinse/repeat making them. Money + enchanting skills up! Lovely...I think once I sell 2-3 of those tunics I'll be up to a good 5k gold so then I can dump stuff at the house and not worry about carrying it all the time. I may even de-chant my boots of burden (+30 to carry) at some point...

[Kiwi Cake]

Woah, didn't expect to come back to this.

Why not? You made a ridiculous statement without providing any justification, surely you didn't expect that to go down well?

I think it's fair to say that the AI hasn't improved a great deal, but it's certainly been tidied up and things like the daily routines seem far more convincing then they ever did in Oblivion. Gone are the days when pretty much everybody in a town wandered around aimlessly, replaced instead by people seeming to have places to go and things to do (for the most part). Also gone are the days when two people would randomly engage in the stupidest conversations imaginable.

Even the combat AI, which is possibly the most unchanged, seems to have improved at least a little. In Fallout I could quite happily hide around a corner and shoot people in the face as they ran around it, but ranged characters in Skyrim seem quite happy to sit and wait for you to come to them. On the whole the world feels very cohesive I think, despite the obvious room for improvement.

Given that Bethesda have, with no increase in available power from the consoles, managed to improve on Oblivion and Fallout 3 in almost all areas (albeit to varying degrees) I think it's safe to say that they certainly have learned something in the last five years.

[JPR]

Edit: Also, PC stuff: Does anyone know a good fan site that is likely to be a one-stop-shop for the impending mods deluge?

Skyrim Nexus will likely be the best place to find mods.

[Sng]

I'm starting to think I should restart with a different character. I'm just not sure what I want to be/do.

I'd love to be a pro with a bow and arrow. But I'd also like to be awesome with a one-handed weapon. And also sneaky. And all this whilst being an awesome magician who can heal and dish out pain in equal measure.

What race should I go for? I'm Imperial at the moment, is there a better race for me to go with instead? Keeping in mind I'm a couple of hours in.

[Yiggy]

So I've been running around Whiterun for the last fricking hour (inside and out) trying to find Aela to take a shield to her. When I'm inside the city walls the custom marker points outside. When I'm outside the city walls the marker points inside. Seriously fucked off with this map and quest log. Someone please tell me where to find her.

She's in the companions base I think. In a room downstairs. I found her quite easily. Check the local map for a more accurate placement marker of what building she's in.

[Yiggy]

So how do I start enchanting? I have no idea how to do it.

[siread]

She's in the companions base I think. In a room downstairs. I found her quite easily. Check the local map for a more accurate placement marker of what building she's in.

Ah right, cheers. The map was the problem though. Inside Whiterun, and inside the companions building the marker was nowhere to be seen. On the world map it was quite clearly showing inside the city.

[Talk Show Host]

I don't accept that everything is fine; but I am a realist. It's not as simple as just cutting down the amount of content from 300 hours to 100 hours, it's the amount of time it would take develop something which is a 'nice to have' vs something which is 'must have'.

For me a more realistic (not revolutionary) world with NPCs is a must have.

At some point during the design stage they choose to just feature freeze. It's of course a shame when little things don't get included, but zy's 'THEY'VE LEARNT NOTHING IN FIVE YEARS' just makes me angry tbh.

I'm not the one who said "they didn't learn anything in five years", for starters. But, since you want to go there, the battle system is not very different, UI is not very good (it's really bad with a M&K), the NPCs and the world are still zombie like, the horse riding is very restrictive, there are bugs galore, the engine on the PC is badly optimized, etc. So yeah, if someone wants to be really strict, they can claim that they haven't learned anything and that this is Oblivion with dragons.

I don't agree with them per se, but if they want to claim it I won't call them crazy.

And do you really mean it when you say you'd rather lose two thirds of the game's content in favour of NPCs that put pyjamas on?

Think about how ludicrous that sounds.

I don't think it sounds ludicrous at all. I would take a 100h Skyrim with a more realistic and sensible world than this 300h zombie fest.

Again, I love the game because I didn't have crazy expectations from it. But the "oh, the game is hugely complex so we must forgive its repeated mistakes" line is getting really, really old.

Back to the game then:

I climbed High Hrothgar after playing more or less 20 hours. AMAZING!

The draw distance in the PC version is really good and the whole atmosphere of the climb was unbeatable.

I don't know if this will be a classic RPG for me, but in terms of atmosphere it has no rival. Ever.

[robdood]

For what it's worth TSH, I do agree it would be better with better NPCs. How couldn't I? I'd just prefer to carrying enjoying it for what it is; to me saying 'it could be better' seems a little pointless (even though I do it myself, and have done earlier in this thread) since things could generally always be better. You critisms are valid, but think it's obvious the bulk of the development team's time is spent on creating content. Perhaps they are overambitious in that regard, but that's just the way it is.

ANYWAY. I'm glad we're sharing the love re: the atmosphere regardless I am trying to make my way to the south east of the map today, it literally took me all day (real life time). The views were amazing

I still haven't met a giant though wtf!

[Janski]

Another daft quest-ion...

Alvor in the Rivenwood (first town after intro) gave me a load of Misc quests to forge a few items, which I've done.

Now he's asked me to make a tempered hide helm, and I can't seem to make it. Even with the required leather, I've made a hide helm but he doesn't seem to want that, am I missing the tempered bit?

[Guest]

Out of interest guys - is there a way to make clothes? Or just armour? I want to make tunics to sort out my enchanting/money making business venture

[FlowerOfInfinity]

Another daft quest-ion...

Alvor in the Rivenwood (first town after intro) gave me a load of Misc quests to forge a few items, which I've done.

Now he's asked me to make a tempered hide helm, and I can't seem to make it. Even with the required leather, I've made a hide helm but he doesn't seem to want that, am I missing the tempered bit?

You have to temper it afterwards I think, on one of the other machines.

[MrCarrot]

Another daft quest-ion...

Alvor in the Rivenwood (first town after intro) gave me a load of Misc quests to forge a few items, which I've done.

Now he's asked me to make a tempered hide helm, and I can't seem to make it. Even with the required leather, I've made a hide helm but he doesn't seem to want that, am I missing the tempered bit?

What he really wants is a Hide Helmet (Fine). You have to use the workbench to improve a basic Hide Helmet one level.

[jonamok]

I'm one of the least easy to please gamers out there, always wanting the moon on a gilded stick, but I think I might be playing a slightly different Skyrim to some on here and other forums, because I am totally blind to its oft-reported flaws. They are so relatively tiny that for me they pale into a gnat's chuff compared to the majesty of everything that is so, so right.

It is a work of brilliance, and I feel sorry for those whose experience and enjoyment is being in any way reduced for what is pretty much one of the greatest achievements in gaming I can remember.

[hoot]

I haven't got enough gold for a house yet, could I stash stuff in a chest in the Companions place? I don't want to dump a load of stuff and then it disappears.

[Delargey]

edit: Nevermind. Being an idiot.

[locke_211]

Quick question about the Thieves Guild quests:

Do the non-main ones you can get from the two people in the bar just go on and on? They're fun and give good amounts of money, but are they leading to anything? What happens if you just keep doing the main ones and ignore them - do you ever need to do more of them to activate the next main Thieves quest?

[Janski]

What he really wants is a Hide Helmet (Fine). You have to use the workbench to improve a basic Hide Helmet one level.

Hmmm... I'm sure I've done that and I don't get the dialogue option to give it to him

Cheers, will have another look

[Guest]

I don't know if this will be a classic RPG for me, but in terms of atmosphere it has no rival. Ever.

This is 90% of the win for me; I felt Oblivion was a bit dull by comparison - dull in a kiddy crayon kind of way. Fallout I preferred yet went the other way. This is more towards Fallout in many respects and yet builds upon that in so many ways.

[ilpostino]

(I must get round to installing it on my 360 hDD to help with the loading times)

Hold off on that for now. There's some texture streaming issues when installed to the 360 HD. Wait for the patch before you do that!

[b00dles]

It's brilliant but I'm not going to go into it for the mo (although the little tales in here are brilliant), just a quick question;

Is there any way to tell how much a merchant likes you, in regards to the prices etc, or is it just a matter of comparing them all. Also, do the people that sell those things give you a better or worse price? As in, should you sell tools to a smith, or to the normal shop?

I;m sure in Oblivion there was some sort of way of telling if a merchant liked you and then gave you better prices..

[Schnibbles]

Oh boy, just had a fantastic moment.

Having just had a huge goddamn fight that required me to put the difficulty down to get through the bloody thing, I get accosted by some wretch who informs me he will be taking what I just fought so hard to get. Various hard-man comments are exchanged and the fight begins - I toss a couple of fireballs at him and he retreats beyond the door that he had opened to accost me.

I summoned a Flame Atronach just in front of him, stepped back beyond the threshold, and closed the door. The edges of the door flashed white occasionally from the enemy's lightning, and the ground thumped from the Atronach's fireballs. Occasional epithets rang out while no sound could be heard from the Atronach, besides its attacks. He healed himself, the flashes and thumps continued. Then there was a pained "ENOUGH!" followed almost immediately by the final crash of a fireball.

The aggressor dead, the door opened and the Atronach glided out, leaving behind a corpse.

Really made me smile, that.

[hoot]

Hmm, think I've got a problem, my compass at the top of the screen isn't tracking quests, in so much there's no marker there. I've only got one active quest set, the Clairvoyance spell gives me the path okay but that's it. I've tried leaving my current location, toggling active quests etc and nothing has worked.

Anyone else had similar?

edit: Randomly sorted itself out when I found a totally unrelated quest item.