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I am surprised there is no topic on this yet.

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guess perhaps there's just something about Bethesda's approach to sandbox style of play that doesn't resonate with you then, Xavier? Interesting.

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But I think that can be somewhat distinguished from the actual character models which weren't so awful for the era, at least for RPGs.

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Originally posted by Xavier:

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But I think that can be somewhat distinguished from the actual character models which weren't so awful for the era, at least for RPGs.

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Wow, I totally disagree. For instance, KOTOR came out only a year after, and it had Bastila. The year before, you had Yuna, though maybe you aren't counting JRPGs.

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Originally posted by Geraine:
I am hesitently optimistic about Skyrim. I loved both Morrowind and Oblivion, but they had their issues. Plus Bethesda released Hunted: The Demonforge that was supposed to be an amazing game, and I bought it and played it once. Now I can't even trade it in for a decent amount and I can't bring myself to try that steaming pile of crap again.

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And, like me, they remember the Oblivion hype versus the Oblivion reality — I still use it as the posterboy for incompetent game design.

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Originally posted by Dan_Frank:

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Originally posted by Xavier:

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But I think that can be somewhat distinguished from the actual character models which weren't so awful for the era, at least for RPGs.

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Wow, I totally disagree. For instance, KOTOR came out only a year after, and it had Bastila. The year before, you had Yuna, though maybe you aren't counting JRPGs.

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I'll grant you Bastila, but it's pretty unfair to compare a JRPG cinematic screencap to the gameplay of a comparable era game. JRPGs love their overblown cinematics.

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Actually, I don't play JRPGs, not a judgement, I've just never got into that genre. I can see how someone coming from that tradition would have bigger issues with how characters look.

I just found myself comparing them to other sandbox games like GTA: Vice City (same year) and GTA: San Andreas (two years later) which looked more like this.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Now them's some real graphics!
 

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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
I did not like JRPGS when I was younger. Then I rediscovered them in high school with the ZSNES emulator and roms. I quite enjoyed them all the way until about Final Fanatasy 12. It's been a steaming pile of crud since then.

I never played FFX, and some people think that's nuts, but it didn't seem far removed from its sucessors. I haven't been blown away by a JRPG since Chrono Cross.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
What's funny to me is that some of the traits that made the JRPGs of old so amazing are the very things that JRPGs adamantly refuse to do now. Compared to the alternatives, they were amazingly open-ended and allowed for the players choices to matter (FF3/6/whatever and ChronoTrigger are what I'm thinking of here). Whereas nowadays, a hallmark of JRPGs is that they are insanely constrictive and linear compared to the other RPGs on the market.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
I can't think of a JRPG I've played before, aside from FF13 which I'm playing now. I'm really struck by how linear it is. I haven't played an RPG that was so on rails in quite some time. Or at least, that feels so on rails.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Yep!

I remember when I first heard about ChronoTrigger, and how the ENDING of the game varied based on YOUR ACTIONS. I was utterly floored. O, for that bygone age.
 

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Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
 
Totally Rad was actually a pretty fun game, and I still own the original NES cart!

The early reviews painted Hunted as being Demon Souls crossed with Diablo. I was excited for it and it really let me down.

I agree with the sentiment about JRPG's. Back in the SNES and PSX days there were no truly awesome Western RPG's released. Since then good JRPG's have been hard to come across. In fact, Xenoblade on the Wii is arguably the best JRPG I've played for years.
 

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Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
 
FF12 is tight.

Oblivion is an obtuse game, where Morrowing is just freedom. But they were both good.

More people need to play Etrian Odyssey 3 for the DS.

Excited for this.
 

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Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
I'll wait till it reaches $10 on Steam
 

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Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
 

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Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Blizzard does a fantastic job making games I'm only peripherally interested in. Bethesda does a dreadful job making precisely the games that I want.

It's pretty frustrating.

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Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:

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And, like me, they remember the Oblivion hype versus the Oblivion reality — I still use it as the posterboy for incompetent game design.

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I haven't played Oblivion, but have heard some things about it and was curious if you could summarize what was bad about the design (or provide a link)

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The minimal summary is that really absolutely none of the fundamentals of gameplay mechanics were done right, and most of them can be actively called 'botched' or 'a failure.' Usually you can say something like "a lot of" or "too many of" the fundamentals are weak, but in the case of Oblivion, all of them were design failures. This is actually somewhat impressive. It was created by a (1) combination of goofs during development nearing 'crunch time,' (2) an unwillingness on the part of the studio to abandon questionable design decisions, pushing them into the final edition without much of any regard for how well these designs were testing with players, and (3) Bethesda's bizarre desire to maintain a significant quantity of Elder Scrolls' old mechanics, to 'keep an old feel.'

The world leveling system is a perfect, all-encompassing example of this. It is the number one thing which should have been scrapped, but wasn't. The ramifications of this design decision expanded into all areas of the game — it affected character creation, by making it so that it was not only possible, but very easy, to ruin the game experience by not building your character in specific ways. It affected the storyline, because the 'world level' was not inherently linked to your combat skill level, and the gate missions were essentially pure combat challenges. Depending on how you have played, they end up frustratingly impossible or offering no difficulty or challenge at all. It nullified the sense of character progression — if you slept and leveled, you weren't leveling yourself, you were leveling the world ... and hoping you had taken a step forward to match. The end result is that most subsequent playthroughs of the game are specifically designed around gaming the world leveling system to render the world's challenge level into nothing.

In fact, the single worst part about the world leveling system pertained to the method by which the world 'leveled' enemies to match your player level. Specifically, the rate of enemy hit point increase per world level. At level one, enemies can be one-shot, and combat is fairly fast. You can knock a bandit down with a single well-placed swing or a sneak attack. But once the world goes up in levels enough, enemy hitpoints have increased additively enough so that combat with anything — from a Daedra to a bandit to a mud crab, whatever — involves button mash attrition. You simply have to hit them over and over again until they are dead. Eventually, they are buckets of hitpoints and it gets really, really grindy — near impossible, in fact, if you haven't leveled 'correctly' and thus don't have the output necessary to best them in button mash attrition. The literal best way to play by a wide margin is to purposefully never level at all, and aid this by never, ever, EVER choosing skills for your class that you intend to use.

World Leveling is just the centerpiece, the quintessential core of Oblivion's complete gameplay design failure. Every other gameplay mechanic can also be criticized sufficiently. The stat system, including level multipliers, is capricious enough to force players to game it at least to some degree, or the world outpaces you. This means you have to level 'the right way,' which involves painstakingly constraining the way you play at most times to ensure that you're getting three multipliers per level.

The skills system, and the 'choices' it gives a player, is violently unsuited to the world, and this ruins people's gameplay very frequently. Parks created a diplomat, used social skills around town, and would be murdered by world-upgraded boars the second he left the capital. On the other end of the scale, certain skills are rather oddly easy gamebreakers, like Alchemy in Morrowind. Maxed stealth, which you can literally get in your jail cell at the very beginning of the game with minimal effort, can allow you to flat-out attack people in broad daylight without revealing yourself. This is just one specific example, here are many others. Other skills and abilities are just .. confusingly badly designed. Half of the starting birth signs are completely useless, others are overpowered blatantly. Speechcraft is not something that should ever have been approved as a final system. Ever. Even employees still make fun of the idea to this day
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 

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World Leveling is just the centerpiece, the quintessential core of Oblivion's complete gameplay design failure. Every other gameplay mechanic can also be criticized sufficiently. The stat system, including level multipliers, is capricious enough to force players to game it at least to some degree, or the world outpaces you. This means you have to level 'the right way,' which involves painstakingly constraining the way you play at most times to ensure that you're getting three multipliers per level.

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The skills system, and the 'choices' it gives a player, is violently unsuited to the world, and this ruins people's gameplay very frequently. Parks created a diplomat, used social skills around town, and would be murdered by world-upgraded boars the second he left the capital. On the other end of the scale, certain skills are rather oddly easy gamebreakers, like Alchemy in Morrowind. Maxed stealth, which you can literally get in your jail cell at the very beginning of the game with minimal effort, can allow you to flat-out attack people in broad daylight without revealing yourself. This is just one specific example, here are many others. Other skills and abilities are just .. confusingly badly designed. Half of the starting birth signs are completely useless, others are overpowered blatantly. Speechcraft is not something that should ever have been approved as a final system. Ever. Even employees still make fun of the idea to this day

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
(though I've heard of players who did the 'point your guy in a direction sneaking into a corner, and walk away' trick, and that's old school gaming-the-game right there!)

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I totally did that. Rubber-banded the thumbstick in the forward position next to a sleeping guy, watched tv for a while, checked back every so often to see if the guy had woken up and spotted me.

Like I said, they do a freaking terrible job making the games I'm really interested in. So frustrating.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
It was really strange. I recognized, "Huh, this is pretty silly," of the level system (both world and PC) when I played it. Then, months later, I heard the mods were pretty sweet and gave them a shot. They made the game so much better, much more enjoyable than I would've expected, because I generally look for story in games quite a bit more than gameplay. That is, an excellent story will make up for a lot with me in the gameplay department, but the mods I used changed very little-only a few small additions-to the story, and made major changes in the level system. It was so superior to the unmodded version I couldn't believe they hadn't done something like that for the game itself.
 

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Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
The story was mediocre-- with the exception of the Thieves' Guild-- and I got the leveling pack as soon as I got the game.

I enjoyed it.
 

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Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
 
It was a good game that took an understanding of how things work and it was fun to optimize how you played. It's good.
 

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Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
 
I liked Daggerfall a lot, and loved Morrowind. I played Oblivion at a friend's house long enough to get an idea of the problems that Sam outlined, and then never bothered to pick it up, despite the fact that I could have patched it into a working game through the application of mods. I'd just lost enthusiasm for it, and had other things I wanted to do with my time.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Didn't dig the Assassin's Guild story, eh Scott? (Not that I think it's a sign of good taste or something-it's just those two are the ones most commonly mentioned. Personally I enjoyed that one as well the most.)

I think I might've been like Jake-having played and really enjoyed Daggerfall and Morrowind (though not beaten at that point), the tutorial was really frustrating once I realized, "Well, damn. I designed about half of my character wrong." I remember it really frustrated me at the time-you know, the way trivial things in a video game sometimes just really bug you, even though you know they're trivial. Then I got out of the sewers and the real sandbox moment was revealed, and I didn't mind so much, heh.

It's strange, a sandbox style game with a good grab along those lines will make up for a lot with me as far as games. The same with written stories, too.
 

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Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
 
Oblivion is super obtuse.

Not broken.
 

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Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
 
I mean come on were not talking about FF8 here.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
Besides the game's F minus minus score for gameplay mechanics, I also have to note their ... difficulties with immersion, which surprise me because of the ways that a lot of their design decisions ended up negating a lot of the extreme effort and expense they went to trying to create a large, contiguous geology and environment. Oblivion released with ghastly potatofaces, which the game tiresomely liked to pimp out by jamming straight up to extreme close range whenever you interacted with any of the game's ten voices that weren't patrick stewart. Oh, right, and it's an entire continent with ten voices that aren't patrick stewart! That is almost not hyperbole. They were stretched so thin that most class/gender combos were all but universal across the whole world (oh, look, it's another dark elf with a widow's peak and that weasely mr. burnsish voice! what a surprise! he must be no. 51,662!). You had gorgeous vistas that probably you saw once before getting in the habit of mashing the fast travel button. There's like a million world dungeons! They are all the same three tilesets! Hmm!

However, other elements of the game besides the core gameplay mechanics (immersion, graphics, performance, GUI, storyline, etc) aren't critically flawed, they tend to be at least .. decent? Which is why you could still play through the game and have an okay time. Well, once you figured out which of your character 'choices' were actually wrong answers on the Oblivion quiz.

Well I guess I'm going to fast travel to all the capitols, steal each and every one of the silver plates from each of their completely unguarded dining rooms, sell it all for a million billion gold, buy some magic items and sleepwalk through the game at level one. Hooray?

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It was so superior to the unmodded version I couldn't believe they hadn't done something like that for the game itself.

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Huh. That wasn't my experience-maxed stealth, I mean. It actually was one of the most tedious skills to level (though I've heard of players who did the 'point your guy in a direction sneaking into a corner, and walk away' trick, and that's old school gaming-the-game right there!), and when you maxed you could sneak up on someone in broad daylight-from behind. But that's about it.

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Originally posted by Samprimary:
Besides the game's F minus minus score for gameplay mechanics, I also have to note their ... difficulties with immersion, which surprise me because of the ways that a lot of their design decisions ended up negating a lot of the extreme effort and expense they went to trying to create a large, contiguous geology and environment. Oblivion released with ghastly potatofaces, which the game tiresomely liked to pimp out by jamming straight up to extreme close range whenever you interacted with any of the game's ten voices that weren't patrick stewart. Oh, right, and it's an entire continent with ten voices that aren't patrick stewart! That is almost not hyperbole. They were stretched so thin that most class/gender combos were all but universal across the whole world (oh, look, it's another dark elf with a widow's peak and that weasely mr. burnsish voice! what a surprise! he must be no. 51,662!). You had gorgeous vistas that probably you saw once before getting in the habit of mashing the fast travel button. There's like a million world dungeons! They are all the same three tilesets! Hmm!

However, other elements of the game besides the core gameplay mechanics (immersion, graphics, performance, GUI, storyline, etc) aren't critically flawed, they tend to be at least .. decent? Which is why you could still play through the game and have an okay time. Well, once you figured out which of your character 'choices' were actually wrong answers on the Oblivion quiz.

Well I guess I'm going to fast travel to all the capitols, steal each and every one of the silver plates from each of their completely unguarded dining rooms, sell it all for a million billion gold, buy some magic items and sleepwalk through the game at level one. Hooray?

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It was so superior to the unmodded version I couldn't believe they hadn't done something like that for the game itself.

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The mighty Oscuro's and the like. Modding got the game a fair bit further than it was out of the gate (at least for the PC Gaming Master Race; the console rabble were left to molder).

The degree to which homebrew modding improved the game's mechanics was actually fairly embarrassing for them. Within days of the game being out, some guys scribbing out code at home had already released a mod that vastly improved the horrid faces. Just some guy at home! Some other guy fixed their terrible menus with a snap of his fingers. The complete world overhauls came not too long afterwards, etc, etc.

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Huh. That wasn't my experience-maxed stealth, I mean. It actually was one of the most tedious skills to level (though I've heard of players who did the 'point your guy in a direction sneaking into a corner, and walk away' trick, and that's old school gaming-the-game right there!), and when you maxed you could sneak up on someone in broad daylight-from behind. But that's about it.

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max stealth, top with a paltry amount of chameleon. Murder people all day! Some of this was, I believe, mitigated by the overhauls. But if you're just playing an unmodded version of the game and you're playing it 'right' (by durr-ing out the world level) then it takes a paltry amount of effort to be an untargetable phantasm.

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Originally posted by Marlozhan:
I just need a new computer period to play Skyrim. AGP motherboard. And I simply don't have the money for that. Or I can pick up a used PS3 on Craigslist for $180 and play the game. But if it turns out to be as broken as Oblivion was, and I can't mod, then I am just stuck not playing it. And as much as the mechanics sucked in Oblivion, I am a SUCKER for open world environments that I can just explore at will.

Besides, I ended up spending more time modding Oblivion than I did actually playing it. Every time I installed a mod and started playing, I would think, "I wonder if I can make this better?", and I would go back to hunting for more mods. I got tired of looking for mods, but my brain couldn't let go of the idea that I might be able to make the game even better or add something cool.

A console would just let me let go of that and just play the dumb thing. Just make a better game Bethesda!

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Besides, I ended up spending more time modding Oblivion than I did actually playing it. Every time I installed a mod and started playing, I would think, "I wonder if I can make this better?", and I would go back to hunting for more mods. I got tired of looking for mods, but my brain couldn't let go of the idea that I might be able to make the game even better or add something cool.

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Didn't dig the Assassin's Guild story, eh Scott? (Not that I think it's a sign of good taste or something-it's just those two are the ones most commonly mentioned. Personally I enjoyed that one as well the most.)

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Originally posted by Samprimary:
It sounds like a speed trap, but worse. In order to increase city revenue, they're setting up manslaughter traps.

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Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
 
I seriously cannot wait for this game. I'm playing Oblivion now and I'm sad that I waited so long. It's amazing! Although there are a few flaws to it, but that's to be expected with a game that came out so long ago. But Skyrim looks like it is going to completely change everything, and in a good way. The duel wielding, constellations, new engine, better graphics, dragons, and so on all look like great fits for a great game.

Between this and Zelda, I'm going to get my fantasy fix without a doubt!
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
There's one thing Skyrim is really going to test, and that's Bethesda's statements that Fallout (aka the best oblivion mod) as an experience really taught them a lot about how to make games better.

Let's see, shall we?

I'm really happy I got out of the habit of autobuying games based on hype, a long time ago.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
What do you mean, Samprimary? That is, that Fallout 3 is the best Oblivion mod?

It's interesting to me that you seem to take a much, much dimmer view of Oblivion (and Fallout 3?) than, well, just about everyone. It's not that I disagree with any of the things you mentioned individually so far, in this thread at least. In fact I think they're pretty spot-on and well put. It's just that you...hmmm, make of their sum a much greater amount of bad than I do. That, and I like games and stories and talking about how they're made *heh*.

What's your opinion on Fallout 3?
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
To be fair, I agree completely with Samp about Oblivion and Fallout 3. I tried so hard to enjoy those games, and just failed miserably.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Heh, well Tom I hope you'll pardon me for sayin' so, but the vibe I get from you is that the hata' gene is pretty strong with when it comes to things like this. That said, why do you think you disliked them so much (or failed to enjoy them)?
 

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Posted by Yebor1 (Member # 1380) on :
 
These sandbox games where i can take my time and do what i like how i like are my favorites. IE Oblivion (my all time favorite),the fall out games, red dead redemption, grand theft series, the assasins creed series.
they are not hack and slash follow the path games. There is a freedom you dont have in other games. You have to decide how to complete the storyline missions and you can do them differently every time. I tend to spend more time in these games just exploring and soaking up the environment than i do on missions. I also take a lot of time building up my character outside of missions. So yeah I am waiting for SKYRIM. I think my Girlfriend is getting tired of me talking about it.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

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That said, why do you think you disliked them so much (or failed to enjoy them)?

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
What do you mean, Samprimary? That is, that Fallout 3 is the best Oblivion mod?

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It's interesting to me that you seem to take a much, much dimmer view of Oblivion (and Fallout 3?) than, well, just about everyone.

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That's pretty impossible. I mean, every time a thread about oblivion comes up, it's usually mostly just about modding it. When it's just talk about Oblivion proper, it's about how bad it is and what a vanishingly small percentage of people could bring themselves to finish it.

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It has long been a joke since Fallout 3 came out — since it took the general tech, open world, and gameplay concept of Oblivion and did it vastly better — to have called it "Oblivion's best overhaul mod to date."

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Huh. That hasn't been my experience of Oblivion threads.

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I really have to disagree with you, I played Oblivion on console (i.e. no modding, straight out of the box) and put over 230 hours into the game. You don't play a game that much and call it boring.

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The game mechanics were fine, not flawless, but not nearly as dreadful as you seem to be implying.

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I got to experience oblivion from at least three decent spheres: my countless gamer friends, the internet's wide swath of games talk, and my coworkers talking games and game design ... while making games in the industry! If I could sum up all the talk about oblivion I have encountered from these spheres, the condensed, unalloyed reception was essentially 'underwhelming, but at least you could mod it.'

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To tie it in to what we're talking about, it's why the hype is diluted this time around! Oblivion — the product released on shelves — got really old, really fast. It was an underwhelming product. It's not a game that stinks, or that I would describe as 'unplayable,' — if you want a game very much so like Oblivion which failed in far more aspects to the point of being describable that way, check out Two Worlds — but it is my primary example of bad game design philosophy, principles, and execution. Oblivion is an example of bad game design. They spent so much money and time and poured so much effort and energy into it, painstakingly crafted a humongous, immaculately detailed world, made it beautiful, filled it with cities and mountains and whole climes, and then firmly, inexorably capped the worth of these assets to most gamers by having such a completely flawed set of mechanics at the core of the game. The end result was that Oblivion went to market for the PC as a modder's dream — plenty of fundamental material to work with (world, engine, etc), coupled with the whole damn game being immediately conductive to startlingly easy improvements in quality.

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Boring is a matter of personal taste. I don't contend that nobody could possibly have liked the game, I contend that the game is, from a developmental standpoint, a perfect example of bad game mechanic design and implementation. (to note, I also use it as a perfect example as to why platform/launch window crunch time — tying development schedules rigidly to platform launches in order to make your game a launch title, or the like — is a faustian bargain that will often sacrifice a game's potential, as well as the prestige of your company and titles)

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Unless the claim is that screwed up game reviewing processes are what led so many people to spend money and sink time into it, I think it's hard to take seriously some of your more harsh criticisms, at least when you start talking about what 'most' people took from it.

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They spent so much money and time and poured so much effort and energy into it, painstakingly crafted a humongous, immaculately detailed world, made it beautiful, filled it with cities and mountains and whole climes, and then firmly, inexorably capped the worth of these assets to most gamers by having such a completely flawed set of mechanics at the core of the game.

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Some of the things you are complaining about are just about open world games, which are very few and far between as it is. Not only that, but it was released like 7 years ago, which is a long time in the video game industry.

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There are some aspects of the game that I noticed were improved upon in Fallout, but I suspect that's simply because Fallout came out after Oblivion. With Elder Scrolls 5, they seem to have taken those changes and improvements into account. But even still, I really like Oblivion as it is. Honestly, the only thing I wish they'd added would have to be marriage and having kids. That would have really put it over the top as a "Second life sim".

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Idk Samp. You might have technical reasons for why the game isn't good, but all I know is that when I play it, it's fun, and that's honestly all that I care about. Some of the things you are complaining about are just about open world games, which are very few and far between as it is.

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Originally posted by Samprimary:
Oblivion — the product released on shelves — got really old, really fast. It was an underwhelming product.

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Originally posted by umberhulk:
ME1 is a mess.

ME2 is barely an RPG.

Icewind Dale goat.

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Your use of exclamation marks to denote smug snark seems fairly unique.

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

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Your use of exclamation marks to denote smug snark seems fairly unique.

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When inventing a tone for me in your head, try reading it as something other than "smug snark."

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

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Your use of exclamation marks to denote smug snark seems fairly unique.

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When inventing a tone for me in your head, try reading it as something other than "smug snark."

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Originally posted by umberhulk:
Yeah, but Morrowind has no learning curve in anything, pretty much. It's just freedom, with some gamebreaking equipment.

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Originally posted by Mucus:
That system kinda broke down with Nemesis being bad and Star Trek(2009) being good though.

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No, the new Trek is essentially a reboot. The curse is over. And as far as the old series, Nemesis was go. . . it was goo. . . nevermind, it sucked, you're right.
 

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Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
Actually, I'd like to know the answer to that question too just in case it pops up on a Steam daily sale.

Assume I've played Fallout 3, found it fun, but underwhelming with little desire to replay it. However, I still found, say Dragon Age Awakening worth playing after Dragon Age. Is New Vegas compelling enough for me to take a look at, or is it a "skip" such as with what I thought was the consensus with Dragon Age 2?

Edit to add: And assume I'm going to play it on PC
 

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Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
 
My wife and I both played Oblivion, were kind of meh, both loved Fallout 3, and both hated New Vegas. Some of the critics liked it, but IMHO it was terrible.

The content was boring. The desert landscape was blah and really spread out. And it was RIDDLED with bugs. On the PS3, it was essentially unplayable, the bugs were so bad.
 

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Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
 
New Vegas just seemed like a REALLY long expansion to Fallout 3. The systems were the same, the weapons were the same, only the story was different. It's worth playing through once, though I would skip the majority of the optional quests.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Oooh, New Vegas, what an interesting topic!

From a technical standpoint, it was terrible. If you hate bugs and the like... yeah, don't play New Vegas. But then, what are you doing playing Bethesda games in the first place?

From a gameplay perspective, however, I thought New Vegas was actually a significant improvement over Fallout 3. I'm probably in a minority here.

I think New Vegas' superior gameplay is reflected in... leveling of zones (in that they were much less leveled, and there were many more areas you could just die if you were too low level) the HP of enemies (in that they had far fewer, so there was less of a grindy "shoot this super mutant master in the head thirty times before he dies" feel) and Survival mode (where you have to eat, drink, and sleep to stay alive, and limb damage is harder to heal).

Now, the rub here is that New Vegas isn't really a Bethesda product, it's an Obsidian product (who apparently have even worse testers than Bethesda!), so the lessons Bethesda learned from Fallout ≠ lessons learned from New Vegas. Which makes me sad.
 

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Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
If you don't like bugs you probably shouldn't be playing a Fallout either, they're practically an homage to Fallout 1 and 2

How good were the story and quests in New Vegas?
Any memorable characters?
 

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Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Mucus:
If you don't like bugs you probably shouldn't be playing a Fallout either, they're practically an homage to Fallout 1 and 2

How good were the story and quests in New Vegas?
Any memorable characters?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Oooh, New Vegas, what an interesting topic!

From a technical standpoint, it was terrible. If you hate bugs and the like... yeah, don't play New Vegas. But then, what are you doing playing Bethesda games in the first place?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Oooh, New Vegas, what an interesting topic!

From a technical standpoint, it was terrible. If you hate bugs and the like... yeah, don't play New Vegas. But then, what are you doing playing Bethesda games in the first place?

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aaaaahahaha. Sadly true! In the case of Obsidian and the bugs, I think it was an invariable consequence of having to use Gamebryo as a game engine. It's hard to fault the testers. They likely deserve a little bit of pity; case reproduction in that horrid game engine during development had to have given them nightmares.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:
Re: new Vegas bugs - my favorite was always Ackerman and Gilbert are Dead

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
So... yeah, no apology necessary, I was just curious. But if this derail really bothers you and you have no interest in discussing it, I apologize, and I'll drop it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

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Your use of exclamation marks to denote smug snark seems fairly unique.

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When inventing a tone for me in your head, try reading it as something other than "smug snark."

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*snort* Samp, he's hardly the first and he won't be the last to interpret your tone that way. I can't speak to whether it's a majority opinion or anything, but enough people think so (and have said so) that they're hardly inventing it-communication is a two-way street.

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quote:

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9. - Character, Leveling, Stats & Skills
* 10 playable races to choose from.
* In-depth character customization that allows to change your character physique, give them a beard, and other more detailed changes to your characters body.
* No More Class Selection - Your class is now determined by which skills you choose to progress and what weapons/spells you choose to use.
* There are 18 skills, down from 21.
* 4 skills are removed: Mysticism, Hand-to-Hand, Acrobatics & Athletics.
* Armorer is replaced by Smithing.
* No Major/Minor Skills to choose from, so every skill increase will contribute to a level-up.
* No Birth Signs.
* Attributes have gone down from 8 to 3: Health, Magicka and Stamina
* Advancing a skill from 30-31 will contribute more to a level-up than advancing a skill from 10-11, making it better to focus on a smaller range of skills.
* You gain a perk every level.
* When leveling up, you can pick stamina-, health- or magic boosts.
* There's a soft level-cap at 50, but you can still level-up after this, but you'll gain no perks. (Highest possible level is estimated to around 75)
* Leveling is faster than in previous games.
* 5 Magic Schools: Destruction, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration & Illusion.
* There's a total of around 280 Perks (Including Ranks).
* Perks will, among other things, decrease the sound of your footsteps, Disarm enemies, give you access to Unique Special Moves.
* You can Sprint, which drains Stamina.
* Backwards running speed has been reduced, and you can no longer outrun NPCs while running backwards.
* There are three Archetypes: The Warrior, The Mage & The Thief. (You will not choose these, they are merely there for categorizing.)
* Each Archetype have a crafting-skill. The Warrior: Smithing, The Mage: Enchanting, The Thief: Alchemy.
* Sprinting while wearing heavy armor drains Stamina faster.
* Your speed is governed by your stamina attribute and your equipment. Racial speed is the same, so a khajiit will run at the same speed as an Orc.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Swampjedi:
It seems... remarkably dumbed down. It's almost like they just deleted anything that allowed you to break/be broken by the Oblivion leveling "feature."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I remember thinking the art in Oblivion-aside from NPCs-was pretty damn good. *shrug*

I was wondering if anyone has seen the videos floating around right now, of the first 15-20m of the game? Being a poor fool when it comes to resisting stuff like that, I watched it-there are dome spoilers, but they're the sort that were unsurprising, know? I find it hard to say whether someone wi be better or worse off for having watched it. Without giving away anything that isn't widely known, it takes you through the beginning 'you're a prisoner' bit-why you were taken prisoner, and how you came to get loose.

In particular I was curious if any knowledgeable people had watched it, because some folks-comment reply stuff, really-are claiming it looks like Bethesda either lied or really exaggerated their claims of making a new engine for the game.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

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Originally posted by Swampjedi:
It seems... remarkably dumbed down. It's almost like they just deleted anything that allowed you to break/be broken by the Oblivion leveling "feature."

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Why wouldn't that be a good thing?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I don't think so-he was only referenced specifically as a Nord after he picked. As for their story system, there wouldn't be much call for it anyway at that stage-intros are often tightly scripted.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Swampjedi:
It seems... remarkably dumbed down. It's almost like they just deleted anything that allowed you to break/be broken by the Oblivion leveling "feature."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
... though I understand that's been a staple of the Fallout games since the beginning? ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Swampjedi:

quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

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Originally posted by Swampjedi:
It seems... remarkably dumbed down. It's almost like they just deleted anything that allowed you to break/be broken by the Oblivion leveling "feature."

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Why wouldn't that be a good thing?

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Overly simple IS better than totally broken. I'd have preferred they fixed it instead of totally getting rid of it, assuming that was possible.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I don't remember Alchemy well enough to comment from Morrowind

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Huh. I coulda sworn they specifically said werewolves weren't in-I wonder if that was just some trickeration?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Huh. I coulda sworn they specifically said werewolves weren't in-I wonder if that was just some trickeration?

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quote:

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Go to Start->Control Panel->Sound. In the Playback tab right click on Speakers or whatever has a green tick next to it, then click Properties. In the advanced tab on this new window select "24 bit, 44100Hz (Studio Quality)" in the drop down menu.

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quote:

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Steam > steamapps > common > skyrim > Skyrim
Create a backup of the file (just in case)
Scroll down to where it says '[Controls] and find bMouseAcceleration=1
Change to bMouseAcceleration=0
Save and try it out

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jake:
Maybe they read "Out of the Deep Have I Howled Unto Thee" and just couldn't resist.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Juxtapose:
Edit - also, steam says it hasn't unlocked yet. Is that not accurate, or is it just available elswhere?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Guuuuh, I'm trying so hard to remain stoic and indifferent, but I am fangirling so hard for this game. (Sigh)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Guuuuh, I'm trying so hard to remain stoic and indifferent, but I am fangirling so hard for this game. (Sigh)

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Oh, yeah, that. Been there. The most important part is to avoid reading release-day reviews. Apropos of nothing here is a link in my post:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/10/skyrim-review-pc/

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I hate you for that link.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Yeah I read it.
 

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Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
 
Seriously, bugs and glitches aside, if the game just keeps making you want to play for hours on end, isn't that, in the end, kind of the entire point of a game? If you are thinking about it in your sleep and you want to keep playing, despite being annoyed at time by glitches and such, doesn't that mean the overall game is a success and worth the money? Is it fair to say a game sucks when you can't bring yourself to stop playing it?

Now, game-breaking glitches are another story. If I play Skyrim for 50 hours and then lose my game, that is unforgivable.
 

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Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marlozhan:
Seriously, bugs and glitches aside, if the game just keeps making you want to play for hours on end, isn't that, in the end, kind of the entire point of a game? If you are thinking about it in your sleep and you want to keep playing, despite being annoyed at time by glitches and such, doesn't that mean the overall game is a success and worth the money? Is it fair to say a game sucks when you can't bring yourself to stop playing it?

Now, game-breaking glitches are another story. If I play Skyrim for 50 hours and then lose my game, that is unforgivable.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marlozhan:
Seriously, bugs and glitches aside, if the game just keeps making you want to play for hours on end, isn't that, in the end, kind of the entire point of a game? If you are thinking about it in your sleep and you want to keep playing, despite being annoyed at time by glitches and such, doesn't that mean the overall game is a success and worth the money? Is it fair to say a game sucks when you can't bring yourself to stop playing it?

Now, game-breaking glitches are another story. If I play Skyrim for 50 hours and then lose my game, that is unforgivable.

---

If you want a summary of my WHOLE opinion on Oblivion, not just specifically why I use it as a poster child of How Not To Design Core Game Mechanics, it's that it is ultimately not a bad game, just one that was stifled greatly despite ultimately being worth playing.

The odds of Skyrim not being worth playing is excruciatingly slim. Given that it's likely done away with the dumbfoundingly poor legacy elements of Elder Scrolls which they wanted to keep as late as Oblivion, you could daringly hope that it is actually great.
 

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Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
 
Bugs, eh? I think I'll wait, then... perhaps for the inevitable game+DLC "GOTY" compilation.

For now, back to Uncharted 3, then Assassin's Creed: Revelations next week.
 

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Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
 
Game needs a hide helmet mod. I'll probably have one in less than a day.

PC GAMER SUPREMACY
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
It sucks that my desktop hasn't been turned on since I was last playing Oblivion three years ago, and I'm now on macs only.

Guess I'll have to get this bad boy for PS3.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Holy s*#t the world is *big*. Even primed to expect it to be be enormous, I'm still surprised.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
screw y'all and your fancy new games, imma go kick it oldschool with oblivion

http://i.imgur.com/0byWu.png

mngh

actually you know what
 

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Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
 
So I bought the game last night (midnight release) and have been playing it all day today. Here are my thoughts so far.

The graphics are leagues ahead of Oblivion and Fallout. The new engine is fantastic and really brings the world to life. The details are great.

The voice acting has been vastly improved. No longer are there only a handful of voices for hundreds of people. There's a lot of variety.

The music is beautiful in almost every moment.

The quests are interesting. Some are your typical "go here, do this", but there's variety. And there are more sidequests than Oblivion. Much more.

3rd-Person view is much better. So is riding a horse. I actually went out and bought a horse this time around, something I've never done before because riding them felt pointless in Oblivion.

The world feels alive. There are so many things going on that you can wander off into whatever corner you want in the world and you'll find something dynamic happening. Oblivion promised this, but it never really felt natural or full enough. This game actually manages to pull it off, at least so far.

The dragon stuff is all great. Taking down your first dragon, looting him, and absorbing your first soul is an amazing feeling. By far one of the best parts in the game!

My only complaint is that there's no hotkey for the map. I don't know why they took that away for the Xbox version, but Oblivion had it so that all you had to do was press one button and the map came up. From what I can tell, that doesn't exist anymore. It's a bit of a pain because it means an extra few seconds whenever you need to get your bearings, but I suppose it could be worse.

Anyway, this is definitely the best game in the series and superior to every other game this studio has ever put out. At least, that's my opinion.
 

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Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
 
Okay, I am quite surprised. I decided to load up Oblivion on my laptop, just for fun, assuming it wouldn't run it well. Imagine my surprise when I find out it runs all of the settings maxed better than my desktop runs Oblivion with the video settings around 75%.

My desktop has a dedicated 7800gs video card. My laptop has an integrated video card. How can I run the settings maxed, with HDR, and the game is fairly smooth (i.e. 25-35 fps)?

Yet, if I play LOTR online, it runs much smoother on my desktop than on my laptop. Go figure.

Laptop:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T6600 @ 2.20GHz
4gb Ram
Windows 7
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500/5100 Series, 2.2gb

Looking at the minimum requirements for Skyrim, my laptop seems to meet them, but I still doubt it would actually play it decently. My brother in law may be giving me his old PS3 because he is going to get a new one, so I would probably get Skyrim for that, but now I am wondering if my laptop could pull it off so I can have access to mods.

[ November 12, 2011, 12:05 AM: Message edited by: Marlozhan ]
 

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Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
 
On another note, do those of you that have Skyrim for the PC think the UI is as atrocious as the Elder Scrolls forums keep saying it is?
 

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Posted by T:man (Member # 11614) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Marlozhan:
On another note, do those of you that have Skyrim for the PC think the UI is as atrocious as the Elder Scrolls forums keep saying it is?

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quote:

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Originally posted by BlackBlade:
I rented it from Red Box. It's hard getting an archer/thief off the ground in that game.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tinros:

quote:

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Originally posted by BlackBlade:
I rented it from Red Box. It's hard getting an archer/thief off the ground in that game.

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I noticed the same thing. Especially during the first dragon fight, when my sneak skill was useless, the guards that were with me did most of the work. I just have to assume that things will get better later and refrain from fireballing everything to death.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dogbreath:
http://www.youtube.com/user/mongomondomongo#p/a/u/0/sTgUm8VEWiU

Exactly how strong are these giants?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jeff C.:

Anyway, as expected, I have become completely detached from the main storyline and sort of wandered off to do other things.

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You know, I've spent about 400 hours playing the TES games (including an entire semester of my Junior year in high school playing Daggerfall, not including Oblivion which I never bothered playing), and I've yet to ever beat the main story in any of them. The closest I game was in Morrowind.

It says a lot about a game that you can chose to completely ignore the main quest and still have an insane amount of fun playing.

Gabe from PA talks about being paralyzed by freedom... I find it sad that as a culture we're now so used to games that drag us along on a single track, that when a an RPG comes out that actually lets you role play, people feel lost.

I'm the exact opposite, I find the freedom incredibly exhilarating. Not that I'll have the time, or the computer, to play Skyrim until next year, but I'm already excited to see other people enjoying it.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
I don't think the whole Paralyzed By Freedom thing is really an issue with american gamers. If history of open-world gaming is any indication, we love it.

Japanese gamers may have quite a bit more trouble with it because their gaming culture is more repressed and closed off (I'm .. it sounds ridiculous but I'm not kidding, there's a whole line of study related to gaming attitudes and the decline of japanese studios and gameplay preferences) but hell just give them a Skyrim and the problem solves itself.
 

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Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
 
It's a mindset, I think. For completionists like myself, who feel the need to do every quest and level every skill to the max, open-world games are hard to get into. Fortunately, I've been able to step back into the mindset I'm in when I larp (shut up, it's actually more fun than I thought it would be), and Skyrim has been an amazing experience so far. I haven't run into a single bug yet, and I haven't used a single cheat code, even though it's resulted in me dying quite a few times.
 

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Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
 
I'm level 8 right now. I haven't really gone beyond Whiterun, but I think I'm going to start heading to Winterhold to enter the college of magic. I'm focusing so far on building a mage specializing in destruction and perhaps alteration and/or conjuration, and on archery.

I haven't experienced too many bugs, I love the game so far, but I find this kind of open-ended freedom appealing. I haven't spent a whole lot of time on the main quest so far, I tend towards doing about 5-10 side quests per every main quest.
 

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Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Samprimary:
I don't think the whole Paralyzed By Freedom thing is really an issue with american gamers. If history of open-world gaming is any indication, we love it.

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quote:

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The book that comes with the physical copy for PC mentions using 1-8 for hotkeys to select weapons, however it doesn't work the same way oblivion did. So I wanted to write a quick guide on how to use this method of quickly changing weapons/spells.
The directions in the book are poorly worded and I think have a few errors but after some tinkering I figured it out.
For this example I'll use two swords, a shield, fire, and heal for our items/spells. First you have to favorite them by pressing F in the items/spells menus. Then you press Q in game to bring up the favorites menu. Now I love dual wielding so I'm going to L-click and R-click on the sword to put on in each hand, then while I still have the sword selected if I press 1 that assigns that combo to 1 key any time I press it I'm now dual wielding swords. Now comes the tricky part the sword is labeled with a 1 so I can't assign another key to it, but if I put my shield (or any other weapon) in my left hand and press 2 (while that item is highlighted) it will give me a sword/shield combo when ever I press the 2. I can continue this by equipping the heal and pressing 3 and then fire by pressing 4 (while keeping that item highlighted). Want to add a great sword or bow select it and press your desired key.
This function basically allows you to set up your equipped weapons and spells. It probably works the same way with armor (I don't change my unless I get better so I didn't try) or arrows (again I like to hit things so I didn't experiment with that).
The biggest thing you need to remember is you have to favorite the item and you can only assign one number to each item so it takes some work getting 2 handed combos properly set up. I'm not sure how to hotkey dual sword, dual fire, and then fire/sword (since that would lead to a double label on one fire or sword).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marlozhan:
I think it's funny that reviewers say Skyrim is an improvement over Oblivion, yet some review sites like Gamespot gave Oblivion a higher score than Skyrim.

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Man, I can actually use that as Exhibit A.
 

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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
Well there should be some sort of consideration when a game is an upgrade of a previous format. Not that a sequel should be penalized for pushing the boundaries of its predecessor. But a game that adds almost nothing on top of what the prequel or inspiration offered should absolutely lose points for not being innovative.

Skyrim got a lot of the problems of Oblivion right this time around. It also has a completely different story, interface, etc.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
The only problem I have re: the Paralyzed By Indecision thing is I can never decide what I want to be. I have no problem exploring the open world, but I have a really hard time not wanting to use every piece of gear I find, regardless of what skills I have. So I have a mage, a thief, and a warrior, all at low level, none of them advanced particularly far. I really need to just pick one and go nuts.
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
Yeah, that's my problem with CRPGs -- I want my character to be master of all trades. In oblivion, my main character was a Khajit custom class assassin-mage, with maxed out stealth and destruction magic. Decent in close in fighting, but killer with a longbow. Wasn't perfect, but was the best blend I could come up with to let me sneak around as much as I could but still be able to stand toe to toe with most baddies.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
I'm really annoyed right now that you can't smelt together two ingots to make an alloy. You HAVE to use ore.
 

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Posted by TheGrimace (Member # 9178) on :
 
Has anyone else gone down the main Forswarn quest chain in Markesh? I'm at the end of it and I can't find a way that doesn't end up with me having a huge bounty for having a bunch of murders pinned on me or for actually being forced into releasing the Forswarn to actually cause a whole bunch of further murders, thus making me a horribly wanted man... I don't particularly want to pay a 4k fine, lose all my equipment or just abandon the city...
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Things like that are silly and disbelief-straining, Juxtapose. Such as how *absurdly* easy (and cheap) it is to level Smithing. It may be considered a spoiler, but I'll tell ya if you like.

I've found a money-making trick that actually sort of fits within the game, that is it's a totally silly cheat. It involves smithing, enchanting, and a particular enchanted item I was lucky enough to find and break down. It does require some startup gold, but more than pays for itself. Which is good, because after skill level 50, training costs jump by at least 3x.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
I'm curious, Rakeesh. Hopefully I'll have the willpower not to abuse it.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
*that it's *not* a totally silly cheat, I mean.

Which one did you mean, Dan? Smithing or money-making?
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Smithing was the one I was curious about, I'm fine earning my money the hard way (by stealing it). But I have found it surprisingly hard to level smithing, barring grinding the hell out of ore deposits, which doesn't terribly interest me. The margins on buying ore and making it into armor/arms are pretty terrible.

How much of a spoiler are we talking? If it's major plot related, I'll pass. If you can strip it of plot, great. Like "If you use the quest reward you get from the quest at This Location then you can do XYZ to up smithing," but if not I'd rather dwell in ignorance than get spoilers.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Okay I'm curious about both.
 

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Posted by Yebor1 (Member # 1380) on :
 
ok where the heck is a smelter cause i havnt seen one yet been saving my raw ore i have mined
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
I've only found one so far, in Whiterun by the lady blacksmith. I didn't notice it at first, big stone dome behind her forge.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
*snort* I'm the same way, Dan.

OK, gameplay spoiler! Not at all quest related:

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

For smithing, a couple of tips: purchase all the iron you can, ingots and ore, from the general stores and blacksmiths in the cities and towns-take a cart ride if you need to. It's relatively cheap, and very fast. Do the same with leather and leather strips-this won't be much of a problem, though, since every wolf, bear, goat, deer, and sabertooth cat you kill yields hides which turn to leather which turns to leather strips.

Once you've got at least 20 iron ingots and leather strips, visit the Guardian Stones near Riverwood, select Warrior, return to Whiterun and rest for 8hrs. Your Smithing skill will now improve at +20% the usual rate. Craft iron daggers, and you're done. Heavy skill leveling results-I hear improving an iron dagger with an ingot levels even faster.

(You can do this for each stage if you like, hit each different Guardian Stone. But I've happened upon a Stone which improves *all* skill advancement by +15%, eliminating the need, really, to switch around.)
As for money making, I stumbled on it by accident: I got an item which had the Banish enchantment, and broke it down to learn it. Then I applied it to those iron daggers I'd made, even with petty-sized souls-they sold to vendors, not just its base value, for about 800gp.

I don't know the street value of other enchantments-the ones I remember don't pay nearly as well. This method requires some money to load up on the low grade empty soul gems, the ability to soul trap, and the knowledge of the Banish enchantment at an enchanting station. Doing this has also greatly improved my Conjuration skill, as the Soul Trap spell falls in this category-as do my Bound Weapons, which now automatically trap souls if they kill things.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
 

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Posted by Yebor1 (Member # 1380) on :
 
ty i didnt know what to look for


well back to the game.
i love my ps3 version.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
***SPOILERS!***

quote:

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Things like that are silly and disbelief-straining, Juxtapose. Such as how *absurdly* easy (and cheap) it is to level Smithing. It may be considered a spoiler, but I'll tell ya if you like.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jeff C.:
Yeah, giants sending you into space is definitely a bug.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rakeesh:
It involves smithing, enchanting, and a particular enchanted item I was lucky enough to find and break down.

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Yeah, and it's not even hard to get a weapon enchant. It can be done nearly instantaneously. I've already found a number of things which I would consider 'breaks' — and which should be avoided as though they were console cheats — and I want to send them a list of things they have to fix alongside the smithing/enchanting/speechcraft recursion chain.

My favorite so far is that there's a number of people sitting around the world who you can attack forever with no reprisal (they don't fight back, nor is it considered a crime by any witnesses) because they can't die due to quest reasons. So, if you were so inclined, you could just hammer them with weapons and spells until you're leveled up all the way in multiple schools. It shouldn't be too hard to, you know, have put a flag on these characters which prevents skillup.

Damage from low-level creatures like wolves (and any self-inflicted damage, from falling or environment) also should scale off to the vanishing point in terms of providing skill-ups for armor and restoration.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
Anyone else doing the quest A Night to Remember? If not, you should. You can begin it in the inn at Dawnstar.

It starts with a drinking contest.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
I started it from the Bannered Mare.

But yes, it began with a drinking contest.
 

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Posted by T:man (Member # 11614) on :
 
Wooh. Finished the College of Winterhold quest. Morekei killed me maybe 25 times til I finally got him, he glitched and stopped casting spells so I just ran up and shot flames at him for five minutes.
 

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Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
I drew this to taunt my friends, because I know it's exactly what happened.

http://i.imgur.com/FeWvC.png

---

That was funny. I can't say if it's true or not; my writing peeps aren't saying nothing.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
I'm still a huge old wanderer. I've done almost none of the main quest, or any other main quests, except...hmm, four or five stages into it past Whiterun? I'm at the point where I'm getting letters from 'A Friend', as well as directions out of High Hrothgar, about places to investigate to find both dragons and Word Walls. Because that sends me all over Skyrim, it takes a *long* time to get there, partially explaining my level which is probably high compared to the usual spots in quests.

In Oblivion, if you waited too long to start the main quest it would be obscenely difficult, and everyone with you was almost sure to die. Hopefully that won't happen this time!

Anyway, I've killed a few Dragok Priests and gotten their masks-this happens in the course of discovering some of the Word Walls. These fights are, with my build and difficulty level at least, extremely tough-substantially harder than most dragons. My only bet is to get the drop on 'em, keep them staggered as long as I can, and then blast them into a wall with a Shout and hope they're sufficiently dead when they stand up.

Even these very similar-in type, I mean-dungeons are distinct from one another. Not just in the type of enemies, but their structure-some of the designs are similar, since they're all from the same basic culture, but one was frozen in the top due to its location, and bears had...nested?...in it. Bears are tough, which meant a hard fight. Some are partially flooded and flat, others have enormous antechambers. Sometimes I'm sent to the top of a mountain on the other side of the map, and I have to hump it out there-and then frantically summon my goon and weapon whenever I see something or hear a roar, just *sure* it's an angry dragon.

I'm disappointed in the followers, though-they're useful (but dumb), but they're very vanilla. The one I have now, a Dark Elf conjurer from the Shrine of Azula, had an intriguing background-I thought it was cool that Morrowind is, effectively, *gone* in Tamriel,-but nothing's been done with her after I finished Azura's quest. Lydia, my 'housecarl' courtesy the Jarl of Whiterun for feats of derring do, is even *more* bland. In Fallout 3, there were a couple of pretty nifty stories in the followers you could get.

I'm all decked out in Ebony armor now, which is rad. It was my favorite in Oblivion as well, though I think the design in that respect has taken a hit-I really liked the black and gold coloring. Probably won't even wear Daedric, though I've got a perk point just waiting to be used-it looks too monstrous, heh.

I wonder if I can safely take Giants and Mammoths now. Hmmm.

After shooting at a dragon with a powerful bow, breathing fire on it, and setting a death mark on it, thanks to the damage-over-time shout it was banking for another strafe when it became too injured to fly, so it plummeted almost right into me-so close, in fact, that I wouldn't see it and was blasting flames into the dust cloud frantically. They're extremely dangerous up close when you don't know where their mouths are, even weakened. Even lovingly forged Ebony armor is but a nice texture contrast when they decide to chomp.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
Man, it's really tempting to jump straight to making a final review of this game, but the scope of it — and having to deal with the psychological nature of the enthrallment phase — means it's not time yet.

I have my answer now, though: yes, Skyrim showed that Bethesda really did learn what I wondered if they learned.
 

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Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
 
FYI, Oblivion is now on Steam for 5 dollars for the next two days.
 

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Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
 
Ha! I saw a mammoth yesterday (I'm level 7) and what I thought were 2 guys with it. I fired off an arrow or two and as they charged towards me...I realized they were giants. Oh, crap. Thankfully I had saved it when I spotted the mammoth so I was able to avoid them after I died in one hit.

I did misplace the pilgrim that can follow you on the Eldergleam/Nettlebane quest, but it's probably my fault. I have a tendency to go off road, off cliffs, through the water, etc. with little regard for those following me. Have to work on that.

Samp, I agree - Skyrim so far feels like Oblivion, minus the stuff that bothered me. Other than the sucky UI (I'm playing on the PC).
 

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Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
 
I saw my first mammoth last night too. I saved immediately after seeing it and went to bed. I'm hoping that I'm out of aggro range for the giants that are undoubtedly with it (and that my housecarl doesn't do something stupid). I'll find out tonight, I guess.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
The giants and their mammoth herds are pretty much peaceful. Leave them alone (and back off when they tell you to) and they'll leave you alone.
 

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Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
 
Is there an in-game explanation for why giants are so much more formidable than dragons?

From the Penny Arcade comic I was assuming they were huge, but in the video where they are punting things into space they don't seem much more than 15 feet tall.

Just curious. I probably won't get the game until its 20 bucks or less, so it'll be a long time until I care.
 

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Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
 
I'm willing to bet they'll patch the giants thing eventually.

Anyone heard anything about their plans for DLC? Oblivion had a ton of it, as did both Fallouts.

Anyway, mammoth tusks are worth about 150 each. Do the giant drop anything valuable? I've yet to actually kill any of them...
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
None that I've encountered so far. It is pretty silly. I concocted a few RP possibilities, heh. Right after I'd killed three or four magic, flying, fire breathing giant reptilian predators...and had the stuffing kicked out of me by a hairy elephant herbivore, much less their shepherds.

As for giants' loot, they always carry a couple hundred gold at least, an alchemical ingredient, and often some weapons, of varying quality.

[ November 16, 2011, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: Rakeesh ]
 

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Posted by T:man (Member # 11614) on :
 
Are Dragon Priests supposed to be the hardest things ever to fight? (I've killed 3 now, all by summoning atronachs and running away, then the atronach is turned on me!)
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
[QUOTE]Samp, I agree - Skyrim so far feels like Oblivion, minus the stuff that bothered me. Other than the sucky UI (I'm playing on the PC).

Pretty much!
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeff C.:
I'm willing to bet they'll patch the giants thing eventually.

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Why? They're perfect as they are. Always pretty much an optional challenge, but otherwise just fine to leave alone.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
On the subject of the UI, I think this sums it up pretty well:

PC Skyrim Is A Frustrating Mess and will Soon Be the Best Version - it includes a reddit graphic showing that Morrowind's menus, magic and inventory management was well better than what they came up with for Skyrim.

And, most importantly, they remind all of us that it's not going to be a problem for long, because ... ~modding~
 

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Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
 
Of course, those Morrowind menus that worked fine on the PC were a pain in the ass on consoles. Look at those potion icons -- no indication whatsoever of which potion is which without mouseover. And I'm not sure I'm down with using glyphs over words, in any event. I'm certainly finding that plenty frustrating in HoMM VI.

Seems like Bethesda likes to make only one version of their UI. At least the UI functionality is worse on the moddable version, although the mod toolset has yet to actually appear.

On the whole, this is sounding a lot like the Oblivion launch in terms of UI and bugs, but fortunately nothing at all like it in terms of actual mechanics. By pretty much all accounts I've read, the underlying game is great.

What I'm hoping for is DLC along the lines of Shivering Isles, where you go somewhere colourful and whimsical rather than somewhere brown and gray. That, bug fixes, and a load time patch for HDD installs on the console version, since that's where I'll spend most of my time until I can pick up the PC version on the cheap in a year or two and test out the cream of the modding crop.

Until patch day, though, it's Assassin's Creed: Revelations for me.
 

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Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
 
Yeah. I bought the 360 version, primarily because I wanted Kristy to play it, and knew that she wouldn't if I got it for the PC, but I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up picking up a PC copy of the game too once the price has dropped to a fraction of what it is currently, and the mod community has had time to really improve things.
 

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Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeff C.:
I'm willing to bet they'll patch the giants thing eventually.

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Why? They're perfect as they are. Always pretty much an optional challenge, but otherwise just fine to leave alone.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
I'm kinda avoiding scrolling to avoid spoilers, anyone know any potion recipees?

Also, anyway to make dual wielding with my drow elf wearing mythril armor not suck? I can't seem to block anything and on harder difficulties everything seems to kill me in one hit.

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quote:

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Originally posted by T:man:

quote:

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
I'm kinda avoiding scrolling to avoid spoilers, anyone know any potion recipees?

Also, anyway to make dual wielding with my drow elf wearing mythril armor not suck? I can't seem to block anything and on harder difficulties everything seems to kill me in one hit.

---

I think your first problem is playing as a race that doesn't exist. (Unless you meant your Dunmer, or Dark Elf)

You can't block while dual wielding and unless you pour maybe 30/70 into health and stamina respectively, you won't be able to do enough power attacks to be able to fight anything hard.

I would suggest sneaking everywhere.

---

I do sneak and its pretty good but there's always something I end up fighting and I can never get out of it without getting hurt and it becomes a race to see who can out dps the other.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Well, yeah, dual wielding is strictly a DPS build.

Get a shield!
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
*Realizes Blayne just admitted he is a dark elf who is dual wielding*

... Did you get some scimitars off the Alik'r and enchant one with Frost damage and the other with Fortify Light Armor?
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
If you're going to dual-wield, I think you'll need an enchantment on your weapons to do some crowd control work-paralysis, if that's possible, but I haven't seen it yet. The problem is that, unless you're at lower difficulty levels I think, you're gonna hit places where there are multiple enemies attacking at once and even groups of enemies in some places (Forsworn, in the Reach, are really good at this).

If you're committed to dual-wielding (and I agree it's weak), you're going to need a follower, and preferably a summoned created that'll last at least long enough to let you thin the herd.

----

To whoever asked, I believe Dragon Priests are supposed to be extremely difficult-they are for me, even now, but their loot-their masks, really-is excellent.

I'm considering going to Master difficulty level, but some fights are still just brutally hard even with my whole crew with me (follower, her summon, my summon), whereas others are sometimes absurdly easy now. For example, I got jumped by an Ancient Dragon in the sticks-he didn't even strafe, just landed right on top of us-so I ditched my conjured sword, summoned a Dremora Lord-whose trash talk is great-and started packing my special sword I just found with a huge damage bonus to dragons. I believe I critter twice on a power attack, because his health just plummeted, like a Bandit Outlaw. Of course he was getting burned, zapped, sliced, and chopped simultaneously and thanks to my panic shout couldn't react.

But Draugr Deathlords, Wights, Scourges can really threaten me, or kill me outright, and those fur wearing lunatics in their swarms (Forsworn) have killed me, proportional to encounters, more than anyone, including generic bandits.
 

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Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
 
Rakeesh, what is your build? Hearing your tales of derring-do is quite inspiring.
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
*Realizes Blayne just admitted he is a dark elf who is dual wielding*

... Did you get some scimitars off the Alik'r and enchant one with Frost damage and the other with Fortify Light Armor?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
If you're going to dual-wield, I think you'll need an enchantment on your weapons to do some crowd control work-paralysis, if that's possible, but I haven't seen it yet. The problem is that, unless you're at lower difficulty levels I think, you're gonna hit places where there are multiple enemies attacking at once and even groups of enemies in some places (Forsworn, in the Reach, are really good at this).

If you're committed to dual-wielding (and I agree it's weak), you're going to need a follower, and preferably a summoned created that'll last at least long enough to let you thin the herd.

----

To whoever asked, I believe Dragon Priests are supposed to be extremely difficult-they are for me, even now, but their loot-their masks, really-is excellent.

I'm considering going to Master difficulty level, but some fights are still just brutally hard even with my whole crew with me (follower, her summon, my summon), whereas others are sometimes absurdly easy now. For example, I got jumped by an Ancient Dragon in the sticks-he didn't even strafe, just landed right on top of us-so I ditched my conjured sword, summoned a Dremora Lord-whose trash talk is great-and started packing my special sword I just found with a huge damage bonus to dragons. I believe I critter twice on a power attack, because his health just plummeted, like a Bandit Outlaw. Of course he was getting burned, zapped, sliced, and chopped simultaneously and thanks to my panic shout couldn't react.

But Draugr Deathlords, Wights, Scourges can really threaten me, or kill me outright, and those fur wearing lunatics in their swarms (Forsworn) have killed me, proportional to encounters, more than anyone, including generic bandits.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
Yeah the lopsided difficulty in all sorts of encounters bothers me as I can never figure out how to fight them without needing to lower difficulty.

Anyone know a good pure mage build? One That doesn't need to use weapons at all?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Hah, Sam(p) that's pretty amusing. How long did it take you to become invincible? I mean, are you level 20, or level 50, or what?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jake:
:: laugh :: Yeah. Maybe restrict it to dodging, or have it pop to a 3rd person view for the duration of the tumble.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Hah, Sam(p) that's pretty amusing. How long did it take you to become invincible? I mean, are you level 20, or level 50, or what? [/QUOTE
Great build, and it's the Enchanting tree that broke it to hell and back. Once I had Extra Effect, enchanting made it so that spamming impact chain lightning was something I could do forever. On a set of leather armor that had long ago surpassed the armor rating cap.

As exciting as it sounds to spend my time going through the rest of skyrim simply casting permastun chain lightning over and over again in all situations ... nope. My next character is going to forego Impact and any of the crafting skills.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
anyone have a guide as to what sort of order to do perks and leveling for your builds, and do you do all main quests first, a mix, or only side questsÉ

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Hah, Sam(p) that's pretty amusing. How long did it take you to become invincible? I mean, are you level 20, or level 50, or what?

---

I could have easily had it at level 15 if I had tweaked my build slightly. I planned out my perks ahead of time for the character I wanted. I plotted my build to focus on these things (bolding are the major priorities):

Destruction: Augmented Shock 2/2, Disintegrate, Dual cast, Impact
Sneak: Muffled movement, Backstab, Shadow Warrior
Light Armor: Wind Walker, Deft Movement, Unhindered
Restoration: Respite, Restoration, Recovery 2/2
Pickpocket: Extra Pockets
Smithing: Arcane Blacksmith
One handed: Armsman 5/5, Dual Flurry, Dual Savagery, Bladesman 3/3
Enchanting: Enchanter 5/5, Insightful Enchanter, Corpus Enchanter, Storm Enchanter, Extra Effect

Great build, and it's the Enchanting tree that broke it to hell and back. Once I had Extra Effect, enchanting made it so that spamming impact chain lightning was something I could do forever. On a set of leather armor that had long ago surpassed the armor rating cap.

As exciting as it sounds to spend my time going through the rest of skyrim simply casting permastun chain lightning over and over again in all situations ... nope. My next character is going to forego Impact and any of the crafting skills.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Maybe I'm missing something. How does all the dual wielding stuff synergize with the spellcasting stuff? Did you just swap between them a lot?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
I've finally got a guy just starting to explore the mage's college. Am I right in thinking there is no longer any mechanic for designing your own spells? That's kinda sad, but... also possibly for the best. Designing your own spells made everything in Oblivion easy mode.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marlozhan:
So, does it take effort to break the game through stat building, or does it happen relatively easily?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by BlackBlade:
Turns out even without a horse you can still climb basically any obstacle in the game. Jump mechanics for a first person game showed up with Quake, you'd think by now we could get them right.

---

Gothic II came out in 2002 and it's noted for having perfect jump mechanics, as well as having 100% of the terrain interactive. It was also completely seamless. If you could find some way to get up to somewhere you "weren't supposed to be" (by cheating, or using some elaborate trick), instead of seeing a lot of blue or black like in most video games, all those parts are just as detailed, and some of them even contain Easter eggs. The only real limitation on your movement is the fact the game is set on an island. And it does let you swim out pretty far - even to some small outlying islands. Swim too far and there's a nice video of you getting eaten by a shark.

Gothic III, which came out 4 years later, had horrible terrain, lots of places where you arbitrarily couldn't climb/get past, and lots of terrain bugs.

In other words: it's a laziness issue, not a technology issue.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
I'd say that crafting skills-notably Enchanting-*can* break the game, but it's not somehow inherent to using them if you don't cheese hardcore iron daggers for an hour or two of wandering purchasing and crafting, likewise with alchemy. As for Enchanting, I think it's a bit like the Chameleon Suit in Oblivion, or tweaking Alchemy in Morrowind or custom spells in Oblivion. You *can*, with the correct perks, build a character who effectively has unlimited ammo. But you have to work at it.

For better or worse, I think Bethesda has made the decision that these sorts of things are going to be in their games, and players can avoid or utilize as they like.
 

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Posted by T:man (Member # 11614) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Maybe I'm missing something. How does all the dual wielding stuff synergize with the spellcasting stuff? Did you just swap between them a lot?

---

Most of that is irrelevant, that's just my FULL build.

If you want to break the game, you only need Impact and enough enchanting to reduce Destruction costs, in sum, by 100%. With extra effect, it can be zero mana costs for two schools.

Fun, huh.

Dual Wielding with enchanting would be its own bag of fun, since the Dual Flurry + Extra Effect would have you sucking life and stamina out of enemies far faster than even gangs of them could kill you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
What's your magicka and difficulty level?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Sam, but there are a lot of skills that don't help you smash badguys. I mean, if you level Pickpocket, Speechcraft, and Lockpicking a lot aren't you looking at the same potential problem?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Well, it sounds like it's not quite Impact that's as game-breaking as it is your creation of a near infinite ammo character.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
It's not the Impact perk choice as it is your use of Enchanting (which the game permits!) that is game-breaking, it seems to me. I mean if you couldn't just infinite-ammo your way to victory via Enchanting, you'd need to use other spells such as conjurations, runes, illusions, paralysis, alteration when they get close, etc.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Aros:
The PS3 version was so laggy. . . . I ended up buying a solid state drive. Smooth as silk. One of my load times (coming out of the Arch-mage's quarters) was under 1 second.

Awesome.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Marlozhan:

quote:

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Originally posted by Aros:
The PS3 version was so laggy. . . . I ended up buying a solid state drive. Smooth as silk. One of my load times (coming out of the Arch-mage's quarters) was under 1 second.

Awesome.

---

This link shows a couple guys putting a SSD in a PS3, and finding absolutely no difference in speeds for saving, installing, and loading. I wonder if Skyrim accesses the hardware in a different way that allows the load times to decrease with a SSD.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jake:
I'm finding the load times on the 360 pretty aggrivating. Lately I've kept a book next to me on the couch to read when moving in and out of dungeons/buildings/whathaveyou.

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quote:

---

1.2 has broken a few things on the PC version. Particularly with the interface. Not prohibitively so for me, but annoyingly so.

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I can't fast travel. The confirmation dialogue is unresponsive.

It's unfortunate timing too, I was really getting into my second character.
 

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Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
 
Who has time for a second character? My first is barely to level 40!
 

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Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aros:
Who has time for a second character? My first is barely to level 40!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Aros:
Who has time for a second character? My first is barely to level 40!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sean Monahan:
I found this link from Bethesda's forums to a zip file to rollback changes made by the 1.2 patch for the PC.

DISCLAIMER: I have not tried this rollback myself. I simply link it for anyone whose game is prohibitively borked, and who might want to look into it.

ETA: Yeah, let's try adding the link.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_:
Anyone else have a glitchy dragon which just randomly flies around (often backwards) and won't land or engage around Mistwatch? Stop the danger music, there is no peril here!

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quote:

---

If you can get your mind to accept that mechanically your Nord mage isn't optimized or even competitive then you should have fun.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Xavier:

quote:

---

If you can get your mind to accept that mechanically your Nord mage isn't optimized or even competitive then you should have fun.

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I am fine with my character not being optimized. But what does it mean that they aren't "even competitive"?

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quote:

---

If it means that I'll often wish I was playing a build that didn't suck, then no, I am not okay with that. But if it just means that a different character can clear content 10% faster or something, then who cares.

What I need help with, I suppose, is knowing just how much better a DarkElf/HighElf/Breton is than a Nord at being a mage. And if a Nord mage is going to be fun or if it'd be frustrating.

---

Some of this depends on the difficulty level. In Skyrim (and most Bethesda games, if memory serves) difficulty level is entirely based on 'they hit harder, you hit softer'. So for example a Breton's...I forget the term now, racial ability includes a flat magic resistance and a once-daily major short boost to magic resistance.

If you're playing on normal and more or less skilled at these style games, lacking that bonus won't make much difference-especially since as a mage you'll be able to level up two different skills (one spell school, one item creation) to emulate exactly that ability. So having a Nord's frost resistance won't be as good as a Breton's magic resistance, but it'll still be handy (lots of things do frost).
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
The point value for the skills you start with is almost completely irrelevant. Most racials are completely irrelevant and you will rarely ever use them, especially if your game is unmodded and it's too much work to tab over to, say, Ancestor's Wrath in the middle of a fight.

Many are only somewhat relevant (i.e., Dunmer fire resistance and Nord frost resistance are both very helpful when fighting their respective half of all dragons) and only a scant few elements of your race really do seriously matter so much as to make that race clearly better.

Every race works for anything you want to do with it. Only two races have a 'competitive' 'optimized' advantage I would ever really care about. Beyond that, every race is competitive.
 

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Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
 
Thanks guys. At least now my indecision is better informed .
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
for the curious, only Altmer or Breton come packing noteworthy "optimized" character enhancements. Breton's stock 25% magic resistance is nuts, and Altmer give you, to start, the equivalent of spending five levels on Madjecdkjicka increases
 

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Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by scifibum:
Darn, it looks like I missed out on the $8 deal. I still don't want to pay $30, because I'm sure I won't end up playing it enough.

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