Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn!

[Ehres]

Hate to say this but I'm on a second playthrough of Skyrim as a female heavy-armour, two-handed, archer Redguard and I just reap no joy from it. Probably because I'm playing it straight after kicking ass as a female light-armour, archer, one-handed Argonian mage. I just need two last achievements, UGH.

[Siren]

I'm on my first play-through, and I've found that it's hard to choose what to specialize in. Right now I'm a dual-wielding Nord with Light Armor and Archery as other focuses. Sometimes I enjoy going nuts with a flawless Blades sword (I'm like level 12 or something) and whatever other one-handed melee I have, but there's really nothing quite like taking something down from lord-knows-who-far away with a well-placed arrow.

Unfortunately, I'm playing on the PS3. Despite playing with how often the game saves, which I had heard would prevent/mitigate the crashing issue, I've experienced more than my fair share of stalled screens and broken play sessions. So. Much. Hate.

[Zook]

I haven't experienced too many glitches on the PS3, the most notable for me are some quests that remain active after I've finished them. I've had the game crash on me once and when I first picked it up I had to uninstall the updates and then re-install them because the game refused to create a new game.

[Vanitas666]

I'm on my first play-through, and I've found that it's hard to choose what to specialize in. Right now I'm a dual-wielding Nord with Light Armor and Archery as other focuses. Sometimes I enjoy going nuts with a flawless Blades sword (I'm like level 12 or something) and whatever other one-handed melee I have, but there's really nothing quite like taking something down from lord-knows-who-far away with a well-placed arrow.

Unfortunately, I'm playing on the PS3. Despite playing with how often the game saves, which I had heard would prevent/mitigate the crashing issue, I've experienced more than my fair share of stalled screens and broken play sessions. So. Much. Hate.

tip: turn of all autosaves except "save on wait" and wait a lot

[Ehres]

The game's crashed a few times for me but that's the general fault of my 360 if I leave it on for too long. Unfortunately I've also got my fair share of glitches where I'll pick up an item before I discover its quest and can't finish the quest. But it's neither here nor there; they aren't game-breaking, simply irritating.

[Sexual White Chocolate]

^My main problems with picking up an item early were a) getting the Last King of the Ayleids from that solitary Argonian north of Solitude from his chest before getting the quest for it (when having to find the elder scroll) and b) with Greta in Solitude in trying to convince her to go to Temple again.

The Last King of the Ayleids issue is solved pretty easily. You have to give the book to the Orc librarian at the college as one of the ways to find the location of the Elder Scroll, but if you've already talked to Septimus Signus, just [find the Elder Scroll/complete the quest] and the book shouldn't be marked a quest item anymore.

For Greta, it seems like if you pick up the amulet of Talos before talking to her, you get the reward but the quest doesn't disappear from the Misc quests, which is rather annoying to me as someone who likes to complete everything. I'm not sure if not picking up the amulet from Roggvir until after you talk to Greta (after talking to her daughter) will allow the quest to be marked complete. Seems like a bug throughout all the systems for that quest, though.

With ingredients, if marked for a quest and you've completed said quest (like say fire salts are still marked as quest items for Balimund in Riften even though you did the quest), you can just eat one (or perhaps all in your inventory at the time? it's one of the two ways) and then the items should be fine to store in a container again, no longer considered quest items.


Siren: Generally, it's the constant buildup of saves that hurt PS3 users since it seems like the size of the save files keep growing to incorporate ever little change. In any case, turning off autosaves except for one that you can control (like waiting or whatever else you want) is sound advice. Then just save constantly like most TES users do anyway.

[Siren]

I actually did turn off all the autosaves after seeing that tip online, and that's when I started having more issues. Before that I'd had a few glitches, but since I was starting over again I figured I'd avoid game-breaking freezes and preemptively stop autosaves. It's weird.

[King Chaser]

I picked this game up on Saturday and now I am addicted...

Also, that Yeti thing on the 7000 steps is ridiculously overpowered.

[Ehres]

I picked this game up on Saturday and now I am addicted...

Also, that Yeti thing on the 7000 steps is ridiculously overpowered.

Frost Troll. If you're having difficulty, it may be because you're under-levelled. Fire works well on Frost Trolls.

[King Chaser]

Frost Troll. If you're having difficulty, it may be because you're under-levelled. Fire works well on Frost Trolls.

Yeah I just decided to run past it anyways xD

[Sexual White Chocolate]

Dawnguard DLC comes out tomorrow for 360 users. In the great words of Fat "Vagina-Neck" Bastard, "I'm sooooo exciiiited!"

[Vanitas666]

is there any release date for PS3 and PC yet? I honestly hope they wait more then a month because I have so many games to play and I started a Skyrim Master savefile not to long ago so I want to finish the main quest and join the Dark Brotherhood and a few more things (I'm making up a complicated story to make both my female wood elf from Skyrim and Oblivion and my Male Nord from from Skyrim and Morrowind canon characters in the same universe + they always need reasons to do the things they do.) before I start the DLC.

[Sexual White Chocolate]

<ProdneyDangerfield> hahaha
<ProdneyDangerfield> so like
<ProdneyDangerfield> i load up an old save on my main character
<ProdneyDangerfield> back when he was like, lvl 42 and not a werewolf or anything yet
<ProdneyDangerfield> this save is right at the door inside of breezehome
<ProdneyDangerfield> so okay, i walk outside
<ProdneyDangerfield> it's just dark. there's barely any light over the walls of whiterun
<ProdneyDangerfield> i'm like "hmmm so where does this start" because i had just looked at my quest guide in the house
<ProdneyDangerfield> so i start walking towards the gate and all of a sudden i see dialogue from someone named vampire lord pop up at the bottom of my screen
<ProdneyDangerfield> then he and the guard at the front of whiterun get into it, i quickly execute the vampire with a finishing move from behind, using one blade in front of his neck, and the other to impale him in the torso from his back
<ProdneyDangerfield> search his body, and the guard mentions dawnguard is recruiting again
<ProdneyDangerfield> i look at the [emptied/naked] looted vampire corpse and the "Quest: Dawnguard" pops up
<ProdneyDangerfield> and this all took place within about 10-15 seconds of me stepping outside my door
<ProdneyDangerfield> i'm just sitting there thinking "well that was fast"
<ProdneyDangerfield> haha

So, I guess it's time to start Dawnguard.



To Vanitas: No official release date yet, just figure in about a month.

[rawpower]

I heard for the PC version they're adding in mounted combat. The game seriously needs that, I'm tired of having to get off Shadowmere everytime I meet some bandits or a dragon, and then I worry about him dying because he turns into a heat seeking missile and starts attacking every threat in the area. They should add in horse armor, too.

[Sexual White Chocolate]

Mounted combat is already in- it came with the last patch update. For all systems. It just got killing 3 cave bears, 3 frostbite spiders, and 1 lone wolf with mounted combat. It's so ridiculous and overpowered, but it's loads of fun because of it too. You're just running circles around them all.

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So after what, 4 days of playing for way too many hours a day each day, I just beat the Dawnguard questline. I did definitely take my time with it though. If I had just run through it could have been much quicker, but much less enjoyable I think. To be honest, it's worth $10 alone just for Serana, who's by far the best companion there is. Unlike other companions where I can't wait for them to leave me, I actually like having her around, even as a stealth character. It's a great storyline, and Serana's really well-written. Without spoiling anything, there's some new areas, some new dungeons, obviously the two factions and their respective bases of operations (homes).

One thing I didn't mention in the "what we know," because I didn't, is that you can now craft arrows. It's truly beautiful. As well as a few other things you can craft. Arrows are: 1 Firewood, 1 [Ingot type] for that particular arrow. So, 1 firewood, 1 ebony for arrows, and so forth. It only gets a bit different for Daedric and Dragon, where Daedric you need an ebony and a deadra heart (like everything else daedric). For Dragon, you need 1 firewood and 1 dragonbone. Dragonscales are useless to anything other than selling or light armor still, but the dragonbones are great for the weapons. Dragonbone arrows are 1 point of damage higher than daedric at 25 an arrow. Honestly though, I find it much easier than daedric arrows since I have over 100 dragonbones in my chest at home, but hardly any daedra hearts.

If you go with the Dawnguard, you can buy armored trolls for 500 gold to follow you around, and you can also take one of the two huskies at a time to follow you around and fight for you. Be warned though that these creatures can die. But yeah, huskies are nice. Much nicer looking than any of the dogs or wolves of Skyrim, I'll tell you that. Also, you can upgrade your crossbow and learn to craft special exploding bolts (of fire, ice, and shock) if you side with the Dawnguard and do the respective quests.

I haven't done the vampire side yet (though I know it will be similar save a few discernible differences), though I intend to after I do this big "Lost to the Ages" quest. You'll likely spot a new book all over the place as you continue along the new Dawnguard dlc areas. It should be overly obvious, but it's tied to a pretty decent reward if you follow through. About to work on that, then like I said, I'll go the vampire route. I still haven't even tried being a Vampire Lord or played with a character that's a Werewolf, so I'll get to you guys later on the perks and whatnot haha.

But I can tell you the DLC is worth it.