Yeah see I can see why dual wield and light armor would be a problem for a bit. Even in heavy I was getting hurt for a few levels and chugging potions. But soon as I could make ebony weapons, and enchant one with fire and the other with absorb health, it was chop chop central.
One handed, heavy armor, smithing, enchanting, restoration and lock picking are my highest skills.
Just wondering how you buy a house. The Jarl said I can, but I don’t see anything for sale.
Papageno
4806
A disc check is defeated easily enough with a modified exe from the usual source. Still, if the game drops to 5 bucks as a daily deal during this sale, I’ll bite.
MrPerson
4807
Time shout is the biggest improvement you can pick up as dual wield.
Short of that, I spent a lot of time kiting and healing. Restoration really needs a few perks to get rolling, but once it does it’s pretty solid.
I run without armor. I have access to the alteration buffs, but the last really combat usable one tops out at 300 armor (which is less than it sounds; there’s a hidden armor boost to characters wearing real armor in the damage calculation), and for most of the way up to level 40 I only had 180 armor value with my spell. I can easily get two shot by a lot of enemies, but the time shout gives me such an advantage it’s really only an issue if I screw up and leave myself exposed.
I can kill just about any enemy, including “boss” type enemies, in a single power attack, so with a time shout I can eliminated the all the serious threats in most encounter.
I do find dual wield really boring though. Sword and board is a lot more interactive.
malkav11
4808
Sure, but it’s still DRM. It’s probably even something like SecuROM, because even though everyone these days thinks of SecuROM as that nasty online activation limit nonsense, they’ve made disc check DRM for ages.
Mirriam
4809
Man, this game! We ended up buying a second copy this week so my daughter and husband can play on my husband’s xbox 360. The only game the three of us have ever been into as much together is WOW.
Even my daughter, who normally doesn’t like open world RPGs that much can’t stop playing. She’s rolled a Khajiit archer and is simply having fun exploring, doing alchemy, pootling around in her home, cooking, woodcutting and playing dress up with the various clothing pieces she found. She also sneaks everywhere, and at walking speed, hehe. I’m not very patient so to me it’s painful to watch (I only sneak in dungeons) but she’s having fun.
I’m already planning out various other characters myself even though I’m far from done with my archer. I’ll probably roll a pure mage (and turn the difficulty down a bit) or a havy armor/blunt/restoration paladin type next.
I love the new skill/stat/perk system, I can simply play the game without having to worry about how I level up. I do my crafting in busts, so every now and again I spend an hour or so getting my smithing and enchanting up to the same level as my archery and sneak and so far that has served me well. It doesn’t become overpowered and i get to wear new gear regularly.
I’ve only finished the companions, I’m halfway through the main quest, and will still have to chose sides between the two factions. Farkas from the Companions has been faithfully at my character’s side since I was able to take him along, and I suppose they’ll be tying the knot soon.
I haven’t even visited 3 of the mayor cities, and some of the others only briefly during the main quest.
It’s my GOTY for sure, and I can see myself playing it for years even on the console without mods. Bethesda really outdid themselves this time.
kedaha
4810
Thoroughly enjoying the game so far, much improved over Oblivion. But, don’t think it’s going to be one of my all time faves(only 15 hours in though, so who knows!). It’s a beautiful game at times - and it’s beauty due to scenery, atmosphere and vista rather than HD textures and graphical prowess - but I still find the setting terribly generic. No crazy architecture, nothing awe-inspiring, just a beautiful pleasant nordic/plains territory with fairly standard buildings, villages and towns.
Little details also, nag at me. How the biggest city in the land(Whiterun?) is tiny with about 30 NPCs. How you encounter wild life, bandits and enemies within 60seconds walk of said biggest city in the land. How the game doesn’t convey ANY sense of civilization.
The writing. The main quest so far has been a drag. Sidequests have been uniformally unengaging. I know Bethesda has people who can write, Tamriel has a wonderful lore and Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim are filled with fantastic books fleshing it out. It’s a shame this skill doesn’t seem to extend to quests. It’s a big, open world game. I don’t expect every quest to be amazing - but I’d like even a couple that actually dragged me into the game world and made me feel something.
All that said, in an open world game my problems with it so far are ultimately not that big a deal. Excellent game, and nice to see they actually did learn from Oblivion :)
What pisses me off to no end, is that after so much time I finally have Ebony armor set (including Ebony Mail daedric quest item), and the freaking thing is bugged, because it does not take into account perk giving 25% bonus when wearing matching set.
So with my old orcish set I still have better armor rating than with this new shiny Ebony set. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
And of course no mod that would fix it is released.
(emphasis mine)
Can you give examples what you have in mind?
Seems like Skyrim (PS3) might benefit from one of these…
It’s a single-player game.
In these days of boringly balanced RPGs, the freedom to do something wacky (or overpowered) drew me back. Rather like Just Cause 2.
kedaha
4816
They had the opportunity to be as fantastical as they wished(Morrowind was probably an extreme example of this). Ignoring being able to create physics or logic defying buildings, monuments, cities, structures etc - here are some real world examples to show you can do non-fantastical without being generic:
Castellfollit de la Roca
Macchu Picchu
Meteora
Neuschwanstein
Mont Saint Michel etc
Skyrim’s world is great, I’ve climbed pretty much every mountain I’ve passed just so I could see the view, just a shame the structures/villages aren’t similarly engaging to me.
S’pose the easiest way to show what I mean is to show examples:
What I think is concept art for Whiterun: http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-17/es5s-whiterun-city.html
What Whiterun looks like:
http://www.nowgamer.com/siteimage/scale/0/0/279997.png
I find one of them interesting and compelling to look at, and one boring.
Similarly,
Concept art for Barrows:
http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-17/es5s-nordic-temple-ruins.html
Barrows:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111120142231/elderscrolls/images/thumb/f/f1/Bleak_Falls_Barrow_00.jpg/830px-Bleak_Falls_Barrow_00.jpg
In this case I’m not sure if they’re of the same area in game, but I hope it shows what I mean. The concept art stands out, Bleak Falls is just plonked on a mountain.
Please do note, I’m not a hater, an anti-fanboy, or just picking holes in an overall excellent game - it’s just personal criticism of a couple of aspects :)
Mirriam
4817
kedaha, have you been to Markarth yet? You might like the design of that city if you are looking for something different.
kerzain
4818
I don’t say this lightly, you’re stupid.
The awe-inspiring visuals are in this timelapse video, not the game: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-skyrim-timelapse-world-in-motion
Solitude is cool looking. Keep exploring.
But if you’re going to get upset at sparse towns and straightforward writing, it’s hopeless. They only had time to improve one thousand things this time around.
Westy
4820
I think they were under tremendous pressure from whoever pays the bills to tone any weirdness or irregular beats as much as possible from Morrowind forward in order to reach as a broad a market as possible. My totally unsubstantiated hunch (well, evidenced only in the games that they release) is that they’ve been gradually buying themselves more headway as their more original stuff (or more original takes on their assets and engine) got acclaim and sales (Shivering Isles regarded as the best Oblivion content, New Vegas critically acclaimed for taking more chances than FO3, etc). But that doesn’t mean that the leash is off yet. Still, I think that in general Skyrim is a lot more courageous aesthetically than Oblivion, but it certainly has a ways to go.
