Skyrim; Wielding Swords, and Banging Nords

[Sivin]

To continue the Skryim discussions.

Verboten, you need to buy the spells from mages. And some questlines give you unique spells.

[TheEvilKing]

Not always from mages - some regular merchants also sell spell books.

[Sylphic]

All of the court sorcerer guys in the Jarls' palaces sell spell books.

Bummer to hear the magic system is kind of broken (not that it's bothered me too much - I rarely play casters).. I did run into a fun bug in the Civil War questline where my own faction decided to start attacking me everywhere I went, and I had to chase down the Legate and talk to her while the rest of the camp hammered on me (no real damage but still pretty fun). Then when they finally un-bugged later in the questline, my own horse decided to start attacking me and my Legion pals punted it off a cliff...

[Verboten]

It looks like I'm going to be siding with the Imperials, the Nords keep on making hostile comments about those filthy elves and why are they not dead yet. My next character will be an Argonian.

Sylphic I actually like playing stealthy characters, but I love the almost seamless switch between fighting styles so I'm trying to get good at fighting and casting while becoming a stealthy arrow shooting god.

[Sylphic]

I went pure in-your-face warrior style this time, but my next run-through will be with a stealth character. Will probably just be archery and daggers though, no spells. :)

[Kosciuszko]

I've just made a two-handed Orc Warrior.

So far feels much more powerful than my mage. Instead of dying in two-three attacks, stuff just gets shrugged off. And when necessary, Barbarian Rage.

[Ser-Arthur-Dayne]

I'm definity doing archery next time. Getting tired of the barbarian warrior.

[Tyrellius]

I went 1-hand sword and shield, heavy armour build. I use my shield to interrupt casters and slice their heads off easily via power attacks. Once I get the shield sprint perk, the squishies wont stand a chance. Currently playing on masters difficulty, only had to switch the difficulty down for the Wolf Queen quest end fight, that was a one was a bitch for me, too many enemies attacking from all sides. Been playing mostly solo, but now that I'm approaching level 40 I may start getting a caster companion to come along and nuke from afar while I dash in like a madman.

ETA: I cant heavy armoured enemies down too quickly, sometimes it takes a good few whacks, but I'm a pretty solid tank and melee enemies dont pose any problems for me

Possible companion/marriage, Solitude, civil war [not joined either faction yet] and Main quest[On Elder Knowledge] spoilers below:

My character is a nord and I wanted to side with the Stormcloaks, but after reading various books regarding Ulfric and the Forsworn, I just dont know. The guy seems like a huge hypocritical jerk! His city is a den of racism, murder and shit. If he cant run his own city, how the hell could he run Skyrim? I'm hoping by not getting married, I can somehow get the Jarlessa and form some sort of union there and go imperial.

What companions are you guys converting into Blades? So far I've only take Mjoll the Lioness as she seemed totally genuine. Funnily enough the dude is that saved her is still tagging along even though Mjoll is making moon eyes at me constantly, guess I shouldnt tease so and wear that amulet all the time.

[Sylphic]

I wanted to go Stormcloaks on my next character, but there doesn't seem to be very much about that faction that's attractive... every time I walk into the bar in a Stormcloak-aligned city I end up getting into fisticuffs with some idiot for making racist comments...

True Imperial for the time being!

[Inigima]

Diggin the title.

[The Winged Wolf Bran Stark]

So... was I the only one who wanted to kill that guy who caused the Night To Remember quest? Admittedly, it was nice to discover a new city (and start a new quest), but I was annoyed by all the stuff I apparently did.

And then it turned out he was a Daedric. DAMN IT!!

[Sivin]

Thanks, Inigma.

I was all set to join the Stormcloaks, then when I got there the guys continually insulted me (I am working a Breton), and the guy who was testing me said "You'll get a special audition, because I think that you look weak and will probably die."

Whereas, when I went to the Imperials, the commander said "We normally have a long training process, but you look like a badass. So go capture a fort, alone, and you're in."

Guess who I'm working with?

[Inigima]

Where the fuck is the carriage in Winterhold? Every time I want to catch a lift somewhere I wind up fast-traveling to Whiterun and taking the carriage from there because I can't find the fucking thing.

[Tyrellius]

Well, it is a shithole of a town. Carriage only drops off, prolly. (or it fell into the sea)

[Fez]

So because THQ apparently still hasn't figured out how the US Postal Service works and has yet to get my preorder of Saints Row 3 to me I ended up going out and buying this today. I'm not sure if this was a great move or a terrible move because I've been playing for about 8 of the past 11 hours (though in my defense I've been spending all day nursing a hangover from last night; of course I was going to be sedentary).

This game really is great. I like it so much more then Oblivion and I get the same sense of wonder that I did with Morrowind, only now with better gameplay. I'm a Nord so most everyone's been nice to me, no racist comments or anything, and I'm currently doing the "destruction magic with the left hand, war axe in the right hand, wear heavy armor and charge right into things" style of play and its been pretty awesome. I've gotten a large number of deathblow animations and I'm not sure what triggers them but its not just a cosmetic thing, those enemies are dying before they otherwise would when one of those activates.

I've killed my first dragon and now apparently I'm supposed to climb to the top of a mountain but this seemed like a natural breaking point to ignore the main quest for a while and go do my own thing; which I have been. I still haven't even been to any towns yet beside Riverwood and Whiterun, and I'm pretty sure there's still a bunch of Whiterun quests left to do, which just goes to show how big the game is. I did blow a lot of money getting a house and buying the decorations, not sure why but it seems easy enough to get money in this game and I don't have that many expenses. I guess its good for Lydia to have a place that she can chill at when I'm leaving her behind on what sound like the tough missions so she doesn't get killed.

Also I gained the ability to become a werewolf; it was far more simple and easy to do then I would have thought.

[Shaun Snow]

Upping the holy shit quotient - a dragon just attacked the city of Riften in broad daylight. I didn't even think they could get inside the city walls, but there it was, roaring and circling overhead! The whole town got in on the fight and it was finally brought down right outside the Jarl's castle. I did a quick run around town, checking to see who we lost and wondering if I should reload to avoid breaking any plotlines, but the only casualty was the old beggar woman. I'm assuming she has little to contribute so on we go.

[Sharpes]

So... was I the only one who wanted to kill that guy who caused the Night To Remember quest? Admittedly, it was nice to discover a new city (and start a new quest), but I was annoyed by all the stuff I apparently did.

And then it turned out he was a Daedric. DAMN IT!!

Check out the Abandoned house while you're there. :)

[Slick Mongoose]

So... was I the only one who wanted to kill that guy who caused the Night To Remember quest? Admittedly, it was nice to discover a new city (and start a new quest), but I was annoyed by all the stuff I apparently did.

And then it turned out he was a Daedric. DAMN IT!!

I had the strange experience of being married to Ysolda when she was talking about giving me a wedding ring to marry my fiance......

[Werthead]

Does the game still treat outdoors and city areas as separate things and you have to load between them? That was annoying in Oblivion, and apparently unnecessary given how quickly and effortlessly it was modded out.

[Swift]

Got my collector's edition Friday evening and have been playing a lot this weekend. I'm loving it, which doesn't surprise me at all. I'm also really surprised at how well the game runs on my PC. I only have a ATI 4850, and I think the game actually runs better than Oblivion when I was doing crossfire with 4850s (one of them died, which is why I am down to one). The game runs very smooth at high settings on 1440x900. I honestly thought I was going to have to play on medium to low settings. Very pleased to see that wasn't the case.

Some quick thoughts/comments:

I was going to do a heavy warrior, weapon and shield warrior. But I wasn't digging heavy armor for the same reason I never used it in Oblivion. The extra armor just doesn't seem worth the ridiculous amount of extra weight. I know there is the perk that reduces the weight, but it seemed like it would take forever to get.

I am definitely loving block. Using the slow-down time perk helps immensely during fights with tougher enemies. Shield bash those bitches in the face, and then wail on them. Makes me feel good.

I'm also finding the game to be pretty easy. I upped the difficulty to expert and then to master, and it is still not particularly challenging. Not sure why this is. I'm thinking weapon & shield is a good build, but I won't really know if that is the reason why or not until I play the game a lot more.

Some mildly annoying things:

1. Menu is definitely "consolized." If you're playing on Xbox or PS3 that is probably great. But the menu doesn't work well on the PC. Way too much scrolling. You can use WASD with E as enter to do all the menu stuff, but it is still kind of annoying.
   
2. Favorites menu is great, but I can't figure out how to hotkey favorites to numbers, which makes me think you can't do it. Very lame. You can still get through the favorites with only the keyboard which is nice (q plus WASD keys), but it is still not nearly as fast as being able to hotkey stuff. Am I just being dumb and it's easy to do? Let me know :)
   

Does the game still treat outdoors and city areas as separate things and you have to load between them? That was annoying in Oblivion, and apparently unnecessary given how quickly and effortlessly it was modded out.

Yes, for the large towns you still have to load.