News from the 'Rim

[susie_flo]

Good morning, fiends!

I fear this is where I am about to lose 90% of you...

I'm having a rare Xbox love-in and have procured a second-hand copy of Skyrim for 5 of your earth pounds. Suffice to say I'm not at all au fait with the sort of games that last 300 years and involve orcs and elves and shit, so I may be some time...

Anyway I had a 'runaround' on it the other night and had to decide what race to be. Being a typical noob (apparently) I chose Nord, for the sole reason that I like to be good at fighting. (I mos def don't want to spend every battle scene endlessly popping up the menu to select complicated attacks and spells and potions).

However - now that I've looked up Nords on the interweb, I think I might be playing a big old, racist, elf-abusing lummox. Also, considering I'm a huge, blonde, axe-wielding Helga, some of the early combat is hard - damn it.  I hate that giant spider.

I don't really want to be a dumb, axe-wielding EDL member. Should I have been a Breton instead, to be good at magic and not bad at fighting?  If I start again as a Breton, will I just get killed all the time?

My usual style of gameplay is to be a highly-moral paragon and a lone assassin, where I get to free the world from oppression and can be strategic and take baddies out from a distance with a sniper rifle and then be all kick-ass and ninjy when they run up close to me. What is the 'Rim equivalent of that?

Skyrim people... talk to me.

Is there anyone out there?

(NB: don't tell me to be a 'High Elf', because they sound even more like racial supremacists than the Nords)

(PS: for everyone else, normal service will be resumed imminently)
 

Comments

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes me me me me! I've logged something upwards of 400 hours on Skyrim and 700+ on Oblivion. I'll come back and post more in detail when I'm not on the phone!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

Right. In Skyrim I have two main characters; one is a Bosmer and the other is an Argonian. I find the water breathing of Argonians really useful.

My Bosmer is a typical archer; I've maxed out sneak and archery, and I LOVE sneaking around dark forts and caves. I can take out almost any NPC with one shot. Alchemy goes well with Archery although I never got very far with it in Skyrim, because I find poisons so often it barely seems worth it. If you have the Dragonborn addon, go to Solstheim and get the Stalhrim bow, which is really powerful. Later on in the game you'll get Daedric arrows which are the most powerful.

My Argonian is a bit more of a straight warrior, although he has some destruction spells as well, and I like getting up close in battle sometimes too. He also occasionally picks people's pockets just for the hell of it!

I think weapons like axes get much more powerful later on; if you stick with your Nord she'll kick ass in a few level's time.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skyrim is INVALUABLE.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Cool! Archery sounds like the next best thing to snipey goodness... do you reckon I could make my Nord good at archery, even if I were to use my early level ups for combat/health, rather than stealth ...or is that a bad combo?

I will bookmark that website - thanks!

I am curious - does your twin character thing mean that you started the game twice, as two diff people? Do you play different missions as each one, or follow roughly the same game? Do you hop between them, just for the whim/novelty of it?

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

Yes I played all the way through and up to about level 40 with my Bosmer, and then started again with the Argonian. I did totally different things the second time around, although I did eventually do the main quest and obviously the more you play the more there's overlap between them, though the game is so huge that takes a while. And even if you do the same quest twice, there's usually different choices and so on you can make that make it feel different.

I also have a dark elf character who I started specifically to be magic only, but I found that really hard. I found it really difficult to level past about level 15 and I kept getting killed, which I find very irritating! I'm sure it's possible to be magic-only, but in general I think I prefer a combination so that you have options when you get into a tight spot.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

Yes your Nord could be good at archery- most characters have a prime focus and a secondary. Maybe try a bit of both! What I do sometimes is use archery for the start of a battle until they spot me, and then bring out the bashy weapons later when the close fighting starts.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

Oooh I could talk about Skyrim for HOURS.

Did you know that The Elder Scrolls Online (MMORPG like Warcraft) is coming out this year? Tom and I had a go at a Beta a couple of weeks ago and really, really enjoyed it. I think we'll get a subscription when it's released and have a go, as apart from anything else I really want to go back to the Oblivion area of the map and see what's different.

Back to Skyrim- if you're a straight warrior then you need to join the Fighter's Guild in Whiterun as you get loads of free kit and armor, and endless quests to help you level, and explore and so on. Plus I think you get endless followers as well if you want them.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Fab - thanks. If I choose to be a warrior, will I just get endless fighty missions and miss out on explory/puzzly ones?

The decisions are killing me.

I've never ventured into the world of online gaming with STRANGERS. I always ignore those options and just play the offline single-player version. (I fear I might have to get over that at some point unless I want to be an obsolete grandma that nobody makes games for any more)

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

You can basically do any quest with any character, so you won't miss out on anything, And a lot of the quests have a puzzle at one point and fighting at others, so don't worry about that.

I hated the social aspect of Warcraft, but I am reassured to read that ESO (Elder Scrolls Online) will have a lot of quests aimed at solo players so that you don't have to engage with 14 year olds!

[dexypunk.livejournal.com]

I always play as a Nord, mainly because frost resistance. But it doesn't really matter what you play as - all racial types experience or dole out racism from/to someone, at some point during the game. The high elves hate everyone, the Bretons hate the Nords in the Reach, the Nords hate everyone that isn't a Nord, the Imperials are fairly easy going but viewed with suspicion by Nords, everyone hate the Dunmer, everyone hates the Argonians and everyone hates the Khajit. Bosmer are fairly neutral, but useless in combat to start with.

Is that all of them? I can't remember.
I did my first full playthrough as a fighter, and my second as a rogue and I LOVE playing thief style. It takes ages to get 'good' at fighting, but now I can take out huge bears with one arrow from miles away and it's FUN.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

In that case I may just stick with my Nord and give it a whirl.

What sort of things should I be levelling up to get good at snipey arrows? Is that combat or stealth?

[dexypunk.livejournal.com]

Stealth eventually. I levelled health and stealth alternately. Once you get the perk that lets you zoom in and slow things down when you're shooting, stealth comes in really handy.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I play a bit while Leo is awake and when I shoot bears (I don't do big battles or kill NPCs when he's around) he says "Oh Mummy you made the animal fall over!" :)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! I occasionally play when James is around - (usually impossible) - and I always feel TERRIBLE if I do something violent.

Once he sat on my lap while I played and the juxtaposition of him doing cute animal jigsaws on his iPad while I killed and skinned a tiger on screen (in Far Cry 3) gave me deep feelings of 'bad mummy' - lol!

[dexypunk.livejournal.com]

I completed it when Jack was still a baby, and used to play it with them around all the time til Jim started having nightmares about dragons.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

You definitely need a Friday night out.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Ha! I'm sure you are right.
Oh, but a duvet day with my Xbox speaks to my soul. It's so rare!

[steer.livejournal.com]

I love Skyrim... to be honest, it's following the story I like best and you can get your way through with more or less any combo of character and abilities so I don't strategise too much and instead just follow up what quest lines I want. I think you'll find most of the races in Skyrim have something dodgy about them -- the imperials and elves are snotty, the nords are little Englanders (or little Norwayers), the argonians and whatever the heck the cat things are often get in trouble because their faces don't fit.

Few suggestions: 1) You'll be hit from all sides with people saying "could you fetch me the magic toilet paper of gondor" and "Could you go over there and scratch my wife's back as we're both too lazy to sort that out ourselves". There's a temptation to take everything, optimise and go to a city where there's five things to do and do all those. But unless you have a powerful memory you end up forgetting what the hell is going on with everything. So you end up having a lot of conversations which are "Thanks for the thing" (what thing?) "Now could you go and place the rune in the stone to complete the ritual" (what ritual?). When you look at the summary it's all a bit vague and you can't remember really who asked you to do what and why because you've got 25 things on your to do list and you're not tackling them in any order. So for minor quests it's better to do them in order rather than be efficient.
2) There's a distinction of quests you get:
a) Story quests -- necessary to complete the game... they get harder as they go on so it's pretty hard to just run through them one after another as you will be underpowered
b) Major side quests -- not necessary to complete the game but scripted and interesting and a long "story" that is worth pursuing -- the mage's guild, the fighters guild etc... Again they sort of level harder so you need to level up. It's pretty obvious usually when you start on these things. There are some cool stories told which are interesting so these are worth seeking out (though I didn't do all of them and I diid 100 hours in game and missed out major side quests).
c) Minor side quests -- these are little things which are scripted and fun and can be really interesting -- you can pursue these to the end without levelling usually and it's probably more enjoyable to do so (unless you have to walk to the other side of the map). Some of these are fun and funny, some of them not so much but the point is that a human has thought about them and tried to tell a short tale which is interesting.
d) Dynamically created quests -- these are just a pain... basically there's always something to do even when all the "scripted bits" are done someone will say "Hey, I really need you to kill that gruffalo over there" or "Could you deliver this parcel to the next town" -- these are random, uninteresting things which are just make work. They're slightly useful to get money or XP (neither of which you'll probably be short of) but essentially someone says do something, you do it, they thank you and give you cash. You soon spot the pattern and stop taking them -- if the spoken dialog seems generic it's probably a random quest.
3) If you play paragon style there's some frustrating things that there are some quests where there is no paragon path -- theives guild quest lines, or people asking you to do stuff which is basically evil. If you've any sense of "100% ing" this will really bug you because you'll end up with a TODO list completely finished except for two or three things like "Bludgeon the old man" "Steal the lady's soul" etc. Annoying. It's hard to spot these things in advance too.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I read about some really quite insane gamer who did the whole thing without killing any NPCs except those you can't NOT kill. Bonkers. I think they had followers who were allowed to kill, and they used a lot of paralyse spells and so on to get past baddies without needing to kill them. And sneak, of course! But still, it sounds impossibly difficult to me.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh, I saw that too. Bad craziness but ingenious.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for that. I know exactly what you mean about quests where you're basically just doing the work of a lowly errand boy.

I don't care too much about 100% - especially in a game that goes on FOREVER.

I've already had one quest that I'm not too sure about - where two men who both want the same girlfriend have asked me to deliver fake letters from each other to her... (Jeez, people - I am an axe-wielding battle Nord, not an evil postman!)

[dexypunk.livejournal.com]

I'm currently doing a playthrough without touching the main quest. Radiant quests are FUN.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to see what you mean about the piddling side missions and not being able to work out where on earth to go to complete them all.

I'm supposed to be intimidating Skulvar Sable-Hilt, giving some salts to Arcadia and talking to someone called Aventus Arentino (I have no memory about what).

Where the feck are these people?? Is there a way of selecting a minor side-mission and getting a reminder of what it was - or flagging it as active so that it shows on the map? (I never seem to get a map pointer when I select one)

*mumble grumble*

[picosgemeos.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the new Elders Scrolls Online trailer...? :-)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet ventured into the world of 'online' gaming with OTHER PEOPLE. (Though I might take a look... and G is starting to fear for my future)