Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[NecroMorrius]

Already posted at the top of the page, Morrius, but it's the thought that counts.

Awesome that it's possible though. I'm tempted to get the PC version now.

Ah yeah sorry.

[daveodeth]

As well as having a value of 50, skill books also have embossed covers.

The covers also show what skill they increase by what sign they have on the front to.

[SqueakyG]

The mission was to get the claw.

So I have to absorb some kind of word which has nothing to do with my main objective?

Perhaps the reason for your confusion is that Bleak Falls Barrow is the place for two main early quests, which will be done at the same time. Early mild game spoilers ahead (not tagged because that's annoying) :

So one of the first side-quests in the game is to find the Golden Claw at Bleak Falls Barrow. While you're in there you'll find the Golden Claw, then the natural layout of the dungeon will lead you deeper inside where you'll find the puzzle wall, go through it, find the dragon word wall, absorb the word, fight a Draugr, pick up something called a Dragon Stone from it, then leave.

You'll also have the first main quest in your log: visit the Jarl of Whiterun to ask for his aid. When you get there his wizard will ask you to go on a quest for him: get a Dragon Stone from Bleak Falls Barrow. Well... most players have already been there and got that dragon stone already! So just hand it to him. The reason he asks you to go to Bleak Falls Barrow is in case you didn't choose to do the Golden Claw quest.

I think the Golden Claw is tagged as a "quest item" and can't be given to anyone until the dungeon is tagged as "cleared". This prevents you from losing it before you can use it on the puzzle wall.

Remember, you have to get quite close to the dragon words on the wall. You'll know when you've absorbed it. If you honestly can't absorb the word, or if the Draugr doesn't appear, your game is bugged.

[Cosmic_Guru]

I think I have possibly completed one of the single longest crawls of recent memory. I will spoil the name of the location - I just picked it at random because I could see there was a unfound village not too far away which hopefully I could pick up some more work from afterwards. The name of the dungeon is

Talvald's cave

. It starts out simply with a few ice wraiths in a small area, nothing my summoned fire atronarch couldn't handle. Ho, hum I thought,nothing much to see here, just loot this here chest and I'll take off again. Oh, that was a mistake, ambush by the rather angry Falmer occupants. These are rather nasty critters - they are blind and in theory at high skill level it may well be possible to completely tip toe around them, and seem vulnerable to fire but they live in holes in the walls and if you think you have cleared an area and straighten up again, out they come to attack you from the rear. They also farm chaurus and chaurus reapers to extract the poison for their weapons (which can be upgraded with the chaurus chitin - it's a mini ecosystem there all right). Anyway the simple first area led on into 2 massive grotto type dungeons with water features and the works, (great opportunities to snipe) and then finally into a Dwemer structure which still had functioning pistons. At the end there was a massive scrape with one shadowmaster and three gloom lurkers. Finally the reward, although the dwemer chests are very easy to miss, and there were a couple of quality items, but the real reward was the whole drawn out experience, brought home when you return to the starting chamber and recall how simply it all started out.

AND THAT IS JUST ONE FRIGGIN DUNGEON. OK, I am slow and like to stealth and snipe where others may be running in one shotting in heavy gear, but with the necessary housekeeping before and afterwards, this must have taken about 3 hours.

Candlelight spell is wicked though - for when you have cleared out the bad guys the light generated seems ideal to spot the sparkly stuff you might otherwise have missed out.

After this, I just continued with the Companions questline and should be able to finish it off shortly (and enroute there was an epic dragon fight with a necromancer and a khajiit caravan getting involved too).

I actually felt in-game guilt for a moment when I had to go and retrieve something from the Companion living quarters which were at the time empty, but that guilt and remorse couldn't stop me from my nasty thieving habits.

[SqueakyG]

So anyway, Bethesda have announced that the 1.2 patch for Xbox 360 has been finished and is now going through certification by Microsoft. They expect it should be released "the week after Thanksgiving." (I actually had to google when that is... thanks for thinking the whole world is America, Bethesda!) Anyway, Thanksgiving is next Thursday, meaning the patch could be one-and-a-half to two weeks away.

The patch that fixes the awful awful textures... hopefully. They haven't actually said it fixes that. But it needs to fix it, because it's honestly spoiling my experience.

So my dilemma: should I stop playing for a couple of weeks and wait? I really don't want to stop now I'm fully absorbed, but if I keep playing at my current pace I'll be finishing up in two weeks. Or at least I will have seen every wonder of Skyrim, walked the streets of every city, climbed every mountain... with textures that look like shit.

[Guest]

Sometimes small quests can just be pretty epic. Even wandering around to a new location is ace. I've only just gone east and the river and paths there are just lovely. All superbly designed.

I quite enjoy having my troop swim the river with me, the dogs seems to love it.

I lost the stray last night in a big battle. Didn't see him go down. Rather upset but the barking has been getting in my nerves.

Barbas has to go too. He has a habit of following me very closely and actually if I come to a dead stop nudging into the back of me and pushing me...I've almost plummeted from cliffs several times not least of all from near the top of them 7000 steps. It will be a shame to see him go as both he and the stray I had would take out wolves in seconds. Maybe I'll not complete his quest yet and keep him. Hmmm...

[Cosmic_Guru]

Sometimes small quests can just be pretty epic. Even wandering around to a new location is ace. I've only just gone east and the river and paths there are just lovely. All superbly designed.

I quite enjoy having my troop swim the river with me, the dogs seems to love it.

I lost the stray last night in a big battle. Didn't see him go down. Rather upset but the barking has been getting in my nerves.

Barbas has to go too. He has a habit of following me very closely and actually if I come to a dead stop nudging into the back of me and pushing me...I've almost plummeted from cliffs several times not least of all from near the top of them 7000 steps. It will be a shame to see him go as both he and the stray I had would take out wolves in seconds. Maybe I'll not complete his quest yet and keep him. Hmmm...

Your troop?

Yeah, there is no clue in the quest name as to whether it will be quite short and easy or involve a lengthy crawl and face off with levelled enemies. And that location I visited was just a random cave passed by earlier and not quest driven at all

I still have trouble believing I've played this for 40 hours and only found 3 of the major locations (and one of those is a one street affair barely qualifying as such).

[Guest]

Troop; I had ended up with 4 people following at one point. One guy for a quest, Nettlebane. He was rubbish and died before we got there though. Lydia, stray dog, Barbas. Four it was a it's peak down to two now.

[Monkeyboy]

Some of the Miscellaneous quests are like proper, main ones. I've nearly finished one which I just got from reading a book. It's turned into an epic multi-dungeon adventure.

[Guest]

Some of the Miscellaneous quests are like proper, main ones. I've nearly finished one which I just got from reading a book. It's turned into an epic multi-dungeon adventure.

Was that the "coloured bird"?

I got a decent weapon from that; gave Lydia my old burning axe of pain.

Does anyone know if:

1) Giving a following NPC a magic weapon which they use actually uses up the charge? I checked the axe I gave to Lyd last night and it didn't seem to have depleted that much.

2) can you give them soul trap weapons and gems for them to Hoover up souls for you..?!

[Captain Kelsten]

I'm gonna start again and make a bald headed, big bearded, scarred, dual weilding berserker of a bloke and just hack shit up. I shall post pics soon...

Edit: God, I wish you could skip the intro

[George Clooney]

So which stone perks are people using then? I won't use anything but

Steed stone. That extra 100 carrying capacity is essential for proper dungeon looting

Me too, the armour perk with it makes it that much better.

I have been playing this a massive amount since it came out. I mean, virtually every day for a few hours at least, and last weekend when I was ill and stayed in bed all day, I probably clocked up around 10-12 hours a day. Still doesnt feel like I've scratched the surface. Barely done any of the mages guild, done maybe 4 quests for the companions, 2 for the imperial legion. I've done a number for the Brotherhood which I fucking love. They were ace in Oblivion, and while I've not found anything as interesting as the "house party" quest, the main quests (not the simple "go here, kill him" quests which are more like side quests) are sweet.

I've also found by first bit of non telegraphed, really alternate ways to do a quest as well, and it makes me wonder if there are others I've missed. By alternate ways, I dont mean something like in the brotherhood quests where you might get advised to kill someone at a certain point, but then someone else suggests killing them a different way, I mean totally changing the outcome of the quest. I've not read all the thread so apologies if someone has mentioned it already. It starts with "the Felsworn Conspiracy" in Markath.

You start investigating the family that essentially run the town and find out that he's keeping the leader of the Felsworn prisoner in his mine. Your snooping ends up with you getting thrown in there as well. You meet with the leader guy and he's planning to break out - and he'll take you with him if you show some loyalty by killing one of the inmates. However, I have this habit of checking what people are carrying to see if its anything interesting. Some of the main story characters I've found carry journals that can make some good reading. The leader guy happened to have a note on him so I took a look. It basically said "in case I die, use my key to unlock the tunnel near my room". But what key? There wasnt one on him, and looking around his room I couldnt find one.....so I killed him. He was alone and a sneak attack from behind meant no one else noticed. Sure enough, there was a key on his corpse which signalled my freedom. I break out leaving the other people in there none the wiser, but on exiting to the town, find the guy in charge of the town waiting....to basically thank me for getting rid of the guy and to give me my stuff back and a ring that improves my smithing. I wondered what would happen if I didnt kill the guy and did it the way the game seems to want me to. Turns out that it basically ends the other way round. You break out of the prison (with EVERYONE this time) and the felsworn leader guy kills the other guy and runs out of town (and you get some enchanted felsworn gear).

And there you have it. The way I did it at first was found completely by chance, and was totally untelegraphed but TOTALLY changed what happened, and potentially changed further events in the game. Makes me wonder how often that happens.

[JoeK]

Man, this game keeps on giving!

The Shrine of Azura is bloody awesome!

Really, really awesome. Completely took me by surprise!

[davejm]

I think this is my favourite game of all time. It's tricky when there are so many older games that I have fond memories of, and I don't have that same excitement for games as I did when I was a kid. But oh man, this is awesome stuff.

I absolutely love games with a more focussed narrative (like Mass Effect, for example) - but this is awesome in a totally different way. It has its flaws, but for a game this ambitious they've done a fantastic job with it. It ticks so many boxes for me.

Loving it.

[Guest]

BARBAS! STOP NUDGING ME WHEN IM PICKING UP ITEMS IM A GONNA SLIP AND STEAL SOMETHING BY MISTAKE!

[Monkeyboy]

Was that the "coloured bird"?

Yep.

In other news, I recently jilted my bride to be at the altar. Her tits were too small.

Not long after, I got propositioned by a gay blacksmith!

[Mr.Crowley]

I don't know if it's a scripted moment but;

Diplomatic Immunity quest spoiler

I was just getting ready for the undercover mission and had given away all my weapons and armor. I was dressed in fancy party clothes in the small village outside of Solace when a blood dragon attacked. It took quite a while but I eventually defeated it by hiding a lot and shouting at it.

The timing was just perfect. I'm used to being covered in full plate mail, swinging my deadly elvish warhammer around with gay abandon.It was still awesome.

[Guest]

BARBBBAAASSS!

Bloody frost trap glyph thing on the floor - he bloody walks on it and it explodes killing me instantly.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

Some of the Miscellaneous quests are like proper, main ones. I've nearly finished one which I just got from reading a book. It's turned into an epic multi-dungeon adventure.

Thats what is unique about this and Oblivion, I love the way it all unravels

I was taking a stroll next to a lake with me and the lad Mauricio and we came across another bandit hideout. It just morphed into a full on firefight from nothing! the night was shattered with proper fireballs shooting all over the place, because the bandits had a couple of dirty wizards as part of their clan.

We wiped out the gaff.. but then I spotted another door! leading up to a keep.

The boss man was holed up in there with two wolves for protection

so we fucking had the lot of em, and nicked the leaders magical axe.

this series is the GTA of Role Playing games, it really is.

[b00dles]

I'm probably being thick but how can you pay off a bounty? I somehow seem to have a 1000 bounty on my head and went up to Dawnstar for the first time as part of a quest and the guards said something about 'don't steal another item' and then started hacking into me,, I hadn't even done anything in the city yet at all! I do have a stolen sapphire I'm meant to plant on someone for the theives guild but how could they know what's in my inventory?

I haven't tried it again yet to see if it happened again but I did notice I had the bounty on me and thought it must be that, I'd rather just pay it off than try and kill all the guards...

[roland79]

These are my thoughts :

Bethesda are probably he best company out there when it comes to creating open worlds. Sklyrim reminds me in many ways of Falout 3, and it makes it all to clear how shit job Obsidian did with New Vegas. Bethesda should make all fallout games from now on.

Because Skyrim is to me a strong contender for game of the decade.

[Yewone]

Sod Companions, my new best bud is a Storm Atronach! Even giants shit themselves when they see us coming!

[George Clooney]

I'm probably being thick but how can you pay off a bounty? I somehow seem to have a 1000 bounty on my head and went up to Dawnstar for the first time as part of a quest and the guards said something about 'don't steal another item' and then started hacking into me,, I hadn't even done anything in the city yet at all! I do have a stolen sapphire I'm meant to plant on someone for the theives guild but how could they know what's in my inventory?

I haven't tried it again yet to see if it happened again but I did notice I had the bounty on me and thought it must be that, I'd rather just pay it off than try and kill all the guards...

If you have a bounty on you, you can pay it off through the thieves guild. Depending on what you've done, the guards will usually let you pay a fine as well, but the thieves guild is cheaper. A bounty of 1000 is usually "I've killed someone" territory. At least thats how much its gone up when I've killed someone. Having said that, it only goes up if there are witnesses. Kill the witness, and it gets removed.

You can also do illegal activities in front of people if you plop a bucket over their head.

[daveodeth]

These are my thoughts :

Bethesda are probably he best company out there when it comes to creating open worlds. Sklyrim reminds me in many ways of Falout 3, and it makes it all to clear how shit job Obsidian did with New Vegas. Bethesda should make all fallout games from now on.

Whaa! All this shades of grey bollocks and far more intricate quest structures all started with new vegas. If anything Obsidian gave great examples how to keep the player interested, their execution was suspect in cases, but if was far better than what Bethesda had done in F3.

[Sng]

[roland79]

Whaa! All this shades of grey bollocks and far more intricate quest structures all started with new vegas. If anything Obsidian gave great examples how to keep the player interested, their execution was suspect in cases, but if was far better than what Bethesda had done in F3.

New Vegas was the most shit Fallout game ever. Period.

[Talk Show Host]

Whaa! All this shades of grey bollocks and far more intricate quest structures all started with new vegas. If anything Obsidian gave great examples how to keep the player interested, their execution was suspect in cases, but if was far better than what Bethesda had done in F3.

I agree. Skyrim doesn't even come close to the choices I had to make in New Vegas, it's a very linear game in that regard, unfortunately.

But in all other respects, Obsidian just can't compare. I wonder though what they would produce if someone gave money and 5 years.

[daveodeth]

New Vegas was the most shit Fallout game ever. Period.

Now I know your just mental

[SqueakyG]

Holy shit, I just ran into a fellow named Krosis. You can read the spoiler if you know what I'm on about.

So I find a dragon shrine, kill the pretty easy dragon, saunter up to the word wall feeling like a badass... then Krosis jumps out of a coffin! I'm level 15 and I never knew any of these dragon shrines were protected. He's some kind of guardian? He totally fucked me up. I eventually took care of him... his mask looks pretty special

But... poor Lydia. She didn't survive the fight. "I will protect you with my life." You sure did, my lovely pack mule, you sure did.

[George Clooney]

Hmmm, think i've encountered a bug. Early on for the bards college you get asked to retrieve 3 instruments for 3 seperate people. I had 1 on me by pure chance from clearing where you get it from a previous quest. The NPC will accept that I've found the lute (its Finn's Lute) and rewards me appropriately.....but then the lute stays in my bag, and the quest doesnt get flagged as completed. Will be pretty annoyed if it stays like that, as I dont seem to be able to get any more quests for them.