SKYRIM!!!

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Ok yea they could have skipped the Gimli, Tauriel and I guess Aragorn look-a-likes! 

[snapple]

Played the beta for TESO.



 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Played the beta for TESO.



 

Wow really? Feel free to eleborate...

[snapple]

Doesn't feel like the elder scrolls at all. just an mmo with an elderscrolls skin

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Doesn't feel like the elder scrolls at all. just an mmo with an elderscrolls skin

That dosen't sound to promising, how long did you play? What is the beta exactly, the full game or just a limited version?

[El Barto]

That sounds about like what I was expecting. Watching some gameplay videos everything seemed sped up to focus more on action than immersion.

As for me, I'm still playing vanilla Skyrim and enjoying it. Someday I'll install DB and Dawnguard and start anew. Personally, I just enjoy the building of a character over the long haul more than running around killing anything that moves.

BTW, has anybody ever actually maxed out restoration or alteration? I guess if you're playing a straight up unarmored magic user that might be useful, but it never really appealed to me.

[Zook]

BTW, has anybody ever actually maxed out restoration or alteration? I guess if you're playing a straight up unarmored magic user that might be useful, but it never really appealed to me.

It's quite nice when low on potions to use something like Close Wounds or Fast Healing.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

As for me, I'm still playing vanilla Skyrim and enjoying it. Someday I'll install DB and Dawnguard and start anew. Personally, I just enjoy the building of a character over the long haul more than running around killing anything that moves.

You should try Hearthfire, sounds like your cup of tea. It's pretty addictive.

[TioJorge]

I'm just now jumping on this train and loving every second. It truly is a beautiful game and now that I've got my powerhouse gaming Schwarzenegger PC I can run this puppy completely maxed out without a single hitch, bump or screen tear. I really love the music, especially; it's an immersive experience and it's really got a way of getting under your skin in a very good way. I was never all that into the series before, and had only played an hour or two of Morrowind back in the day. But this seems to be a whole new experience altogether. It feels much more refined and purposeful and while there's still glitches galore, I almost like that aspect of games (unless it breaks the game...) and it's fun to play around with certain glitches; not to mention it is quite literally impossible to get every single edge refined and smoothed out with a game of this size and with how much shit is going on all at once.

As for TESO, I threw that idea out the window the moment I heard 'subscription'. I've done it in the past with WOW, I've done it more recently with FFXIV, and while I loved both of those games, XIV much more so, I still don't play enough to justify that kind of money. I mean if you play constantly and you use every minute you can, then sure, it's really not a lot of money. But for as much as I game these days, it's not justifiable and I'd rather pay for a game once and then play it at my leisure without worrying about my bank account. It's a shame, but I also kind of expected this thing to go to shit if someone expects a fully fleshed out ES experience, except online. I don't think that's possible considering how much depth and ingenuity goes into these games. It sounded awesome on paper but with the subscription, plus the fact that it's more than likely going to be a shallow version of an ES game with tons of twats running about....eh, I'll pass. MMOs simply aren't for me, I'm learning. Which is fine. But hey, I'd love to be wrong and it be a completely immersive, utterly amazing experience that you can have with others. MMOs usually don't turn out that way though.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Cool to hear man. I remember when everything clicked for me in Skyrim. The music, landscape, story, scenery, characters when everything just molded into one immersive experience. I get goosebumps thinking back at all these great moments I had in this game. It's no wonder it's called one of the greatest games of all time.

[El Barto]

As for me, I'm still playing vanilla Skyrim and enjoying it. Someday I'll install DB and Dawnguard and start anew. Personally, I just enjoy the building of a character over the long haul more than running around killing anything that moves.

You should try Hearthfire, sounds like your cup of tea. It's pretty addictive.

BTW, has anybody ever actually maxed out restoration or alteration? I guess if you're playing a straight up unarmored magic user that might be useful, but it never really appealed to me.

It's quite nice when low on potions to use something like Close Wounds or Fast Healing.

I use the healing spells on myself and any allies. Still, with a character at L79, my restoration skill is still about 40something.

And Hearthfire was installed nearly from the beginning. Sucks having no steady place to call home. That said, the mechanics of building a damn house are dreadful.

:Tio, I was a late arrival too. Enjoy it while your character is still young. There will come a point where you become essentially invincible and it's no longer the same game. It's still immersive and all, but without much of a challenge.

Also, be sure and let us know how your PC is doing once you have 80 mods installed and you're working off of a 28mb savegame. 

[Perpetual Change]

Bart, you know you can buy houses in the cities, right? None of them are as convenient as the Hearthfire homes, though.

[El Barto]

Bart, you know you can buy houses in the cities, right? None of them are as convenient as the Hearthfire homes, though.

Sure, but at that point I only had access (and funding) for Breezehome, which kind of sucks. As I recall, it was lots more storage options that I really wanted. Oh, and the garden/greenhouse make amassing a fortune pretty simple.

[Dellers]

That sounds about like what I was expecting. Watching some gameplay videos everything seemed sped up to focus more on action than immersion.

As for me, I'm still playing vanilla Skyrim and enjoying it. Someday I'll install DB and Dawnguard and start anew. Personally, I just enjoy the building of a character over the long haul more than running around killing anything that moves.

BTW, has anybody ever actually maxed out restoration or alteration? I guess if you're playing a straight up unarmored magic user that might be useful, but it never really appealed to me.

I've maxed them both out. There were some easy methods to get them maxed out.
Vanilla as in no mods or anything? I modded the game instantly. Took away all the bugs people complained about, so I have hardly ever come across bugs to speak of. There are incredibly many mods that are almost a must.

[Ħ]

My brother got this game for Xbox and I get to play it every other weekend. I made a character named J.P., who is a medium-build Nord with long black hair and a short beard. (J.P. is my default create-a-character in pretty much every video game .)

I've never played a game like this. I am not far at all. Haven't even gone to Bleak Falls Barrow...got sidetracked with the Companions. (J.P. is now a werewolf, which is fitting.)

J.P. is getting good at two-handed swordplay, archery, and light armor to start. Going for a "heroic" build. I sort of have Aragorn from LOTR in mind as a template. But stop me now if the gameplay is going to get boring. Even on Adept, I haven't died once. There was one part where I accidentally stumbled into a bandit fort near Whiterun and the 2-hander made short work of five guys attacking at once. So I'm considering shield and sword as it seems like it would spice up the combat.

But honestly I have no idea what's out there and want to keep it that way. The mystery really adds to the experience. Just let me know if my character will get stale.

Anyway, the game is, like, the best game I've ever played and I'm only a few hours in.

[orcus116]

As for me, I'm still playing vanilla Skyrim and enjoying it. Someday I'll install DB and Dawnguard and start anew. Personally, I just enjoy the building of a character over the long haul more than running around killing anything that moves.

Careful with Dawnguard. The stupidest part is that when you start the quest the game starts randomly spawning master vampires in cities who can kill off merchants, blacksmiths, and similar NPCs you might use/encounter all the time. There are console codes to resurrect the NPCs if their body is there but sometimes if you spawn at say Dragonreach and then fly off somewhere else the game will dump a master vampire somewhere in Whiterun without your knowledge and you'll have to take guess why poor Belathor isn't in his shop anymore. One of the most unacceptable game designs ever, especially since Adrianne can bite it with one axe swing but fucking Nazeem is unkillable.

[El Barto]

Vanilla as in no mods or anything? I modded the game instantly. Took away all the bugs people complained about, so I have hardly ever come across bugs to speak of. There are incredibly many mods that are almost a must.

No, I just meant only the Skyrim story part. No other quest packages or anything. Mine is pretty heavily modded, and I've got HF installed.

Ħ: no knowing WTF to do is one of the great parts of the game. By the time I really got rolling in story missions I had probably 15 major quests and 25 misc quests stacked up in my queue. I'm sure I've had 50 open at one time before.

Orcus: The one time I did activate Dawnguard, I showed up in Solitude to discover a huge stack of dead bodies in the middle of the town, like out of some horror movie. It included some people I interacted with so I deactivated it and went back a few saves. I'll wait and fire DG up after I've done all the regular Skyrim stuf I want to do.

[TioJorge]

I've literally been walking around as Wolverine the entirety of my game... (and on occasion, Goku, but that doesn't look as good...Iron Man is also an option but I'm a bigger Wolverine fan)


I fucking love mods.

[Dellers]

Careful with Dawnguard. The stupidest part is that when you start the quest the game starts randomly spawning master vampires in cities who can kill off merchants, blacksmiths, and similar NPCs you might use/encounter all the time. There are console codes to resurrect the NPCs if their body is there but sometimes if you spawn at say Dragonreach and then fly off somewhere else the game will dump a master vampire somewhere in Whiterun without your knowledge and you'll have to take guess why poor Belathor isn't in his shop anymore. One of the most unacceptable game designs ever, especially since Adrianne can bite it with one axe swing but fucking Nazeem is unkillable.

You'd want this mod, which makes people run inside during vampire attacks: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28235/?
You'll end up with almost no people in the towns after a while without it.

[Zook]

I have Skyrim on PS3 and while the vampires were a pain in the ass, I had a bigger problem with dragon attacks, specifically in Riverwood. I had to reload my game cause the blacksmith (over 200 hours and I still don't know his name) was killed. I got an inheritance and was like FUCK. So then after the reload a dragon attacked again and killed his wife. I hid her body under the stairs.

[El Barto]

I have Skyrim on PS3 and while the vampires were a pain in the ass, I had a bigger problem with dragon attacks, specifically in Riverwood. I had to reload my game cause the blacksmith (over 200 hours and I still don't know his name) was killed. I got an inheritance and was like FUCK. So then after the reload a dragon attacked again and killed his wife. I hid her body under the stairs.

I think that might have been Lod. He died in my game, too. Nice fellow. In both of my games that archer dude got killed by dragons, also. Just to make them less of a nuisance I installed a mod to knock the random dragon attacks down to 10%, which is still fairly frequent; no idea how people put up with 10 a day. The bigger problem I have with Riverwood is that everybody and their dog (literally) wants to fight the dragons, so invariably some of them catch blowback from a stray incinerate spell and the next thing you now the entire town turns on you. Every damn time I walk through there that little girl tells me she hates me now because she thinks I killed her old man. 

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Even though I have Skyrim, I'm not really a serious gamer. I mostly just wander around doing stupid crap.

Case in point, I bought a Rage spell in Whiterun. Naturally, I wanted to test it to see how it worked. I cast it on the crazy preacher man out in below the Jarl's palace. What happened then was the preacher started to go insane, but somehow the Whiterun guards swarmed him and exterminated him in a matter of seconds, then went about their business as normal.

Now, every time I go to Whiterun, I see the empty spot where he used to stand.

[El Barto]

You're lucky they didn't come after you first. If they see you rage him they'll bag you as the instigator. 

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Yeah, I don't know how I didn't get caught for that one. I did find out, though, once you have the allegiance of the mercenary group in Whiterun (can't remember their name), they'll attack Whiterun guards for you. I know this because I was once beating up an obnoxious kid in Whiterun, and as the guards came to slaughter me, my mercenary allies rushed to the rescue.

[CrimsonSunrise]

I've been playing Elder Scrolls for a few months now.  Love it!  I've heard about mods, but don't really understand them.  Where do you find and download them??  I hear there's a bunch, what are the best ones?

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I assume you play on a PC? You can always use the Steam workshop which is very straight forward or you can go to:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/?

Which has no limit on what kinds of mods you want. Mods are made and used to enhance the game in every way thinkable.

Here's a handy list on what kind of changes mods can do to a game:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/categories/?

[Perpetual Change]

I was under the impression that Skyrim *must* be played on Steam, even if you have the disc.

[El Barto]

I was under the impression that Skyrim *must* be played on Steam, even if you have the disc.

Well, not exactly.    Mine's not Steam, although I'm pretty sure I own a legal Steam copy. Frankly, Steam causes far more problems than it's worth. Better to DL a cracked copy and skip that whole thing altogether. I learned my lesson after the 13th freaking time LFD2 updated itself and screwed everything to hell. After the umpteenth time of having to reDL the thing I said fuck it and just started using my cracked version. No problems since. An update you didn't ask for with Skryim would be far more problematic due to all of the mods.

I've been playing Elder Scrolls for a few months now.  Love it!  I've heard about mods, but don't really understand them.  Where do you find and download them??  I hear there's a bunch, what are the best ones?

Nexusmods has an easy installer that'll take care of downloading and installing mods for you. Makes the whole thing pretty simple. Doing it manually isn't that hard, although they get hard to keep track of. One thing I'll suggest is to not go crazy installing mods just to check them out. When you decide you don't like one and uninstall it, it still leaves fragments in your savegame, so after installing and uninstalling hundreds of addons, your savegame file will start to get pretty wonky. Also, always be sure to save (manually) before installing anything. If you hate it, uninstalling and reverting back a save or two will save you a shit-ton of headaches.

As for which ones, check out https://www.skyrimgems.com/ . It's pretty much a best of the best kind of deal. All of these will be bug free, they're neatly categorized and they're all pretty good. Personally, I'm a big fan of the realism mods. Freezing or starving to death should be real factors, which Bethesda overlooked.

[Perpetual Change]

You play any of the Fallout games, Barto?

On the highest level of difficulty for New Vegas, I'm pretty sure you have to eat and monitor radition levels, etc.

[El Barto]

Played one for a bit a few years ago and couldn't get into it.

[TioJorge]

Barto...you're doing it wrong.  You can configure Steam not to update certain games, but if your mods are being 'overruled' by the updates, something isn't right with the mods you're using. I don't know about LFD2, but even so...an update should never screw with the mods unless it's an update to specifically change the core of the game and/or rid mods (which would be ridiculous). Either way, Steam has never been a burden to me and it's been the most streamlined, easy hub for all my games I've ever used; this coming from someone who up until about 2008 hadn't ever even thought of gaming on a PC.

As for cracked copies...in the past I had been a torrent whore but quite frankly, if an illegal rip of a game is running better than the actual disc/digital game, something is very wrong.  Not to mention the fact that after a while of downloading cracked games, you will get caught and big brother is cracking down big time on illegal versions of games (not to mention that any cracked game going online is a complete hassle and/or at times neigh impossible..though it doesn't matter with Skyrim). Well, at least in my area they are... A friend of mine who still torrents like a motherfuck just got a cease and desist letter straight from Valve...not his ISP...from Valve, saying that if he doesn't get rid of and show proof that his illegal copies are destroyed, they'll sue. I was pretty floored by that but it's become so common these days (despite the fact that it's lessening...a little) that it's not seen as stealing anymore.

I digress. Anyway, I always like to support the games I enjoy and the companies that make them now, especially considering how easy Steam has made it and the prices that come with it. To each his own though...I suppose if you can't get the official game to work then you're left with no choice...

I myself haven't been able to get into the Fallout series either. It's always felt so bland and everything seems to look the same. I'm all for an apocalyptic world, but this one felt a bit too lifeless. I don't mean there wasn't anything to do and such, but even when there were a bunch of crazy enemies around me or people to talk to, it all felt like of...empty. I suppose it's just not for me; but I did get New Vegas and am trying to get into that. I like it a bit more than F3 but I have a feeling I'll end up teetering off and moving onto something else.

[Perpetual Change]

I gotta admit, with things like the Steam sales basically giving games away, I find it really hard to imagine how people still go through the hassle of torrenting.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I have to agree that since installing all my games through Steam it's been one smooth ride. Before that I always spent hours downloading the right drivers, figuring out why my game keeps crashing, why is this not compatible with that, spending times on forums searching for solutions on how to work around certain glitches in the matrix and all kinds of shit. Trying to even get GTA 4 to start was no short of a miracle. Since Steam I rarely have to do anything anymore. It's pretty much one click and your good to go.

[El Barto]

Barto...you're doing it wrong.  You can configure Steam not to update certain games, but if your mods are being 'overruled' by the updates, something isn't right with the mods you're using. I don't know about LFD2, but even so...an update should never screw with the mods unless it's an update to specifically change the core of the game and/or rid mods (which would be ridiculous). Either way, Steam has never been a burden to me and it's been the most streamlined, easy hub for all my games I've ever used; this coming from someone who up until about 2008 hadn't ever even thought of gaming on a PC.

As for cracked copies...in the past I had been a torrent whore but quite frankly, if an illegal rip of a game is running better than the actual disc/digital game, something is very wrong.  Not to mention the fact that after a while of downloading cracked games, you will get caught and big brother is cracking down big time on illegal versions of games (not to mention that any cracked game going online is a complete hassle and/or at times neigh impossible..though it doesn't matter with Skyrim). Well, at least in my area they are... A friend of mine who still torrents like a motherfuck just got a cease and desist letter straight from Valve...not his ISP...from Valve, saying that if he doesn't get rid of and show proof that his illegal copies are destroyed, they'll sue. I was pretty floored by that but it's become so common these days (despite the fact that it's lessening...a little) that it's not seen as stealing anymore.

I digress. Anyway, I always like to support the games I enjoy and the companies that make them now, especially considering how easy Steam has made it and the prices that come with it. To each his own though...I suppose if you can't get the official game to work then you're left with no choice...

I myself haven't been able to get into the Fallout series either. It's always felt so bland and everything seems to look the same. I'm all for an apocalyptic world, but this one felt a bit too lifeless. I don't mean there wasn't anything to do and such, but even when there were a bunch of crazy enemies around me or people to talk to, it all felt like of...empty. I suppose it's just not for me; but I did get New Vegas and am trying to get into that. I like it a bit more than F3 but I have a feeling I'll end up teetering off and moving onto something else.

Yeah, the Summer Sale was a golden opportunity to legalize stuff. That said, I've almost always found that good, reputable cracks run better than the real deal. Having to be connected to Steam anytime you want to play annoys me. Updates being applied annoys me (and I have disabled them in the past, but the games tend to get hosed anyway). Having to keep disks around for every game you play annoys me. The one good thing about Steam is that it seems to do away with the most intrusive DRM (since it's essentially DRM itself), but non-Steam games have that as a reason to DL them, as well.

Here's the other thing. A lot of games suck. A lot of them are very good but just don't wind up clicking (Fallout). Just DLing cracks allows me to decide what's worth keeping and what's not. If I'd payed $40 for Fallout, I'd be plenty annoyed. Skyrim is worth every bit of that money. As was L4D, HL2 (which somebody up here graciously gifted me, and sorry I never remember who it was), and plenty of others. Steam makes it easy to come back later and cough up their well deserved dough. However, by that point the game is already installed and cruising right along, not to mention heavily modded. Why switch versions then?

As for Skyrim mods, they do apply to specific versions of the game. Bethesda seems to be through with the major updates, but I recall that the update to 1.9 screwed up a helluva lot of people. Then you have to update your unofficial patches, and SKSE to specific versions, as well. Then mods won't work because they're designed for specific version of SKSE or SD.

[CrimsonSunrise]

Off to work.  Thanks for all the mod help guys!  Can't wait to  try some.  How about a list of your favs?  Thanks again.