Goodness me is that the time? Looks like another adventure update is in order

Haa-Rei and Derkeethus finally finished their epic bro-venture and Derkeethus has headed back home to Darkwater Crossing. Haa-Rei decided to have a wander over to Rorikstead to see his friend Erik the Slayer.

We were reading his wiki entry and it turns out our farmer friend prefers light armor and two-handed weapons (even though he buys himself iron armor and a 1H weapon ) so we stopped off in Whiterun and made some Scaled armor and a very nice Glass greatsword which has been enchanted and named 'Cabbage' so Erik will feel more at home when he uses it to cut a swathe through the masses of bandits we're sure to encounter.

So now, our Argonian and our farmer slayer are on their way to The Reach to hunt some Forsworn. Fun fun fun

Ulfdis is about half-way through the Companion quests, and I am feeling vastly underwhelmed. I do not know if I will bother with trying to finish them. Even just for curiosities sake. I have to say, the major questlines in Skyrim are really poorly done.

The main quest feels not only forced, but flat. As many have noted elsewhere, Alduin is a poor villain. He is bad because we are told he is. It is much easier to be pissed off at Tullius or Ulfric than it is to be at the dragon who saves our butts at the beginning of the game. Alduin just isn't there. He is the absentee landlord of major villains.

The Civil War gets dull pretty quick, as it devolves into a series of near identical 'take the fort' quests. Then it just completely jumps the shark when you get a bounty for killing soldiers of the opposite side. Not to mention being prevented from killing the leaders of each Imperial/SC camp, even though they have no purpose whatsoever in the game.

I loathed the first few quests of Thieves Guild line. Framing innocent people and roughing up shopkeepers is not what I really want to do in a game. The quest where you sneak onto the island, break into the safe, and burn the three beehives was excellent. I felt like a real thief there, tip-toeing my way around one guard after another with none the wiser. But the rest of the questline does not follow up with more of the like. Instead it is a lot of dungeon-crawls killing Draugr, Falmer, etc... Stuff you expect a muscle-bound brute to do, not a master thief.

The College of Wintherhold just pushes you too fast down its railroad to solve the mystery of the plot macguffin and then get rid of it. There is not a nice place in the middle where you can just stop and be a student for a while. Unless you just try to ignore that giant glowy plot macguffin and psijicc agents lurking around. Plus they never even bother explaining what the plot macguffin really is, or what it does. After all that trouble, you think they could at least tell us what the bother was all about?

The Companions of course force you to be a werewolf, whether you like it or not. Yes you can choose not to get all furry. But then you cannot do half the questline can you? Then the lycanthropy is a watered-down twinkie designed to appeal to Twilight fans who think you need to have superpowers to be cool and sexy. Obviously I am old school, because I remember when werewolves were terrifying monsters, creatures of unbridled bloodlust and fury that killed everything in their path, regardless of what the person inside the wolf actually wanted (and usually to their absolute horror, as they kill all their loved ones). Lycanthropy should be a curse, not a set of cool powers that makes you a superhero and babe-magnet.

Even besides that, the Companions themselves just leave me flat. They just strike me as being nothing but a bunch of loud-mouths long on talk and short on action. Why would anyone want to hang out with these losers? I think the questline should have ditched the werewolf crap, and instead focused on each of the members of the Companions. They could have given us a quest or two that was about each one, getting us a chance to get to know their backgrounds and flesh them out as real, living people. Through it all we could have been retrieving the fragments of Wuuthard as an overarching goal, putting it back together at the end, and smiting some big bad out to use it for evil. Then we would have both characters and simple, but believable plot holding them all together.

I have yet to try the Dark Brotherhood, so I cannot say much about it. Being able to destroy it rather than join up was a good thing though. So just on that alone I would rank it as the best of all I have done. I wish they would give the option of destroying the Thieves Guild and Maven Black-briar, and putting Riften back together. That would have been much more satisfying than the regular TG questline.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 3 2012, 09:59 PM

hazmik: Why did they name their sword "Cabbage"? Interesting choice for a weapon-name.

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Loredas, 7:18 pm, 20th of Evening Star,

Gunter, Son of Talos return Winterhold helmet for Winterhold. Go deep inside cave, make pay many white ghost. White ghost woman-folk un-dead. Gunter make white ghost woman-folk not go happy.

Fight draugr. Fight white ghost woman-folk. Fight man who make ice from fingers at cave end. Man who make ice from fingers strong magic, but Gunter strike man who make ice from fingers much. Man who make ice from fingers stagger. Fall. Gunter hit much. Gunter kill man who make ice from fingers!

Me find key. Key open lock and Gunter find Winterhold helmet.

Gunter travel new girl-friend Aela Huntress. Gunter like Aela Huntress girl-friend much. Aela Huntress girl-friend like Gunter, Son of Talos much for too. Me and Aela make good for marry. Me give Aela Huntress girl-friend gold neck-piece. Pretty gold! Shiney! Aela Huntress girl-friend give Gunter many happy thinking.

We make sleep. We travel in morrow, need find Magic Ring in cave on map.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Sep 3 2012, 10:02 PM

Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of that. The most fun I have in Skyrim is the stuff I make up for Aravi. I haven't done the other guilds yet, but prepare to be underwhelmed by the companions conclusion.

This post has been edited by King Coin: Sep 3 2012, 10:25 PM

I think some of them are well-done. I enjoyed The College questlines, for instance. My only criticism is that wow....it was over so fast.

Gunter completed the Companions, and I would agree that it wasn't very good. I mean, it started off okay, and I even tolerated Gunter accepting werewolf blood. But the end of the questline really fell flat. I can't even really describe how it fell flat....I just wasn't very impressed.

Good thing Gunter happened to be the perfect character for Companions! As an uncomplicated oaf, Gunter Son of Talos doesn't really understand what happened, that he is now the leader. The concept of leaders and what they do is something he can barely comprehend, which makes it easy for me to ignore his role, as well.



Me too. You have to be playing a really evil charcter I suppose, one who likes torture and blackmail. I started TG with Khahkhayre, but even he (as careless as he is about other people's feelings) had trouble messing with the shopkeepers. He really struggled through that part, and gave up on TG altogether.

Nice. And the sword's color should match his thumb.

Mikke of Green River has been engaged in the Dawnguard questline. Spoilers follow.

I agree, it's interesing when we get to that part of Dawnguard, Grits. I have yet to finish Dawnguard yet, but I did find the parts that i did to be interesting.

Erik's a farmer when you first meet him, then you convince his father to let him become a mercenary (and a follower) When he follows me he always talks about how he doesn't miss farming so I thought wielding cabbage in battle might make him think about his life and stop complaining when he's adventuring with me

That's cool. I have an idea for a Crusader character that starts off poor. I already see him as a farmer, too. At least, that is how he will start off.

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, 2;39 pm, 23rd of Evenng Star

Gunter find inn. Me tired. Find place sleep with Aela huntress.

Before go in, man run to Gunter. Man give gunter note. Note many words, Gunter not know many words. Gunter give note girlfriend Aela huntress. Aela huntress say "Jarl of Falkreath want us pay him visit". gunter agree.

Me head and Aela huntress follow Guntr. We go Whiterun, meet cat-faces. Cat-faces sell many good thing Gunter. Me buy doll. Gunter buy doll. Gunter give doll Aela huntress-girl friend.

Aela make smile at Gunter. Aela want know when go RIften. Gunter confuse. Me go Falkreath? Me go Riften? Gunter not know!

.

Ulfdis got as far as the kill the witches quest, and I just gave up on the Companions. Kodlak sounds like such a whiner. What was he expecting when he became a werewolf, to be tip-toeing through the tulips for the rest of eternity? He knowingly sold his soul to a Daedric Lord in return for power, but now that he's had his fun and its nearly time for him to pay the price, he wants to weasel out. It would be one thing if he had been infected by accident, or against his will. But the Companions all willingly agree to become lycanthropes (well, except the player characters who want to complete the questline, they are forced into it...). If they do not think there are going to be some downsides to becoming Hircine's beyotches, then they are dumber than they look (and that is saying quite a bit for some of them!).

So I deleted all my saves up to that point, and went back to playing Ulfdis from that point. I found a quest mod that adds a ship and a bunch of quests along the Sea of Ghosts, I might try that out with her.

Um. Well this is the spoiler section so I won't use official spoiler tags, but I'll give a hint. At the "end" of Companions (just after Kodlak grants us his title), we have the option of giving up werewolf blood. I won't say how to do it, if you choose to get that far in the future, you can figure it out; you're a smart cookie. The game doesn't just give us this option though, we have to figure out how to do this ourselves, which I thought was kinda neat.

Another thing I've noticed is Companions does not "end" just because we've become leader. There are still quests after this, and the ones I've seen so far are all radiant. But still, this is better than in Fighter's Guild IMO, during which the FG leader no longer has much to do once he/she becomes head of the guild.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Sep 5 2012, 12:31 PM

I know you can cure yourself of lycanthropy at the end. I just do not want to go any farther in the questline at all. It just is not enjoyable.

I do like the radiant quest system, and how Skyrim uses it to add to all the major questlines. The minor ones too. I think I most like how they use it for the bounties that the steward of every hold hands out. That was a neat idea. I agree that it is much better than Oblivion's purely static system of quests, where once you are done, you are done.

I kinda dug portions of it; especially the fact that as we're doing Companions, the NPCs actually are acting as companions. They don't just stay in their guild like they do 95% of the time in Fighter's Guild of Cyrodiil.

I figured out what bugs me about Companions, by the way. The main thing that bugs me about Companions (and College, too, but not as much) is how easy we can become the leader. In FG and MG, the questlines are very long...by the time they "end", I felt as if my character earned the title. I don't get that feeling with Companions. It would make more sense if some other Companions got jealous or something, since they've been there longer than we have, and then they challenged us somehow.



Yeah, me too.

.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Sep 5 2012, 03:39 PM

"J'Zargo?...What brings you to darken my door again?"

"'Zirlo...We found something...In a place called Saarthaal...Near the college."

"Yes? What is it?..And why is this so bad you have to come all the way to Whiterun to seek my help?"

"Um...There is something strange with this...Your lot...You do strange."

"My lot?..The Companions? or...Ohhh."

"There is something else. Some of us think the Thalmor are snooping around."

"There's that word again...Snooping...*Sighs*...What makes you think that?"

"There's this Altmer asking too many questions...His name, I swear I've read his name somewhere before."

"Well, what is this name?"

"Ancano...I know I've read it before...Years ago...I don't know...All I can remember is, Mother was there."

"Even if you did read it, that may be a common name amongst Altmer, no?"

"Yes, it may be...Or...It may not...We shall see..."

"*Sigh*...I need to see the others, leave Farkas in charge...We will need to find Caerellin and, if possible, Dinasafon...He knows a thing or two about the Thalmor..."

"Dinasafon?...Hmmmm...There's something..."


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J'Zirlo is doing the College of Winterhold questline, but I'm having it that it was actually J'Zargo that started it off and came to get J'Zirlo for help...Ties it all in to my overall story...Which doesn't make anything complicated and overlong at all... ...

That is fine, man, that is fine.

So Gunter Son of Talos died. He and Aela the Huntress were in some fort, and at some point they got swamped with bandits. There were like 8 of them! I couldn't ignore this...he died fairly. I was pretty bummed though. I like the guy a lot.

After a day of mulling about, I decided I'd start him all over again. Well almost all over again. There was no way I was doing Helgen all over, for instance.

I re-started his game from Save 10, and deleted anything later than 10. This put him just outside Whiterun. He was wearing a nearly-full armor suit + an iron sword. He apparently had not started crafting yet at this point, yet had heard of the Companions (this was in his list of questlines).

In this alternate existence, Gunter Son of Talos has re-started Companions, and just finished retrieving the first fragment from Dustman's Cairn. Gunter is annoyed with his partner Farkas, who is strong but so bad at combat. The Xbox is glitching or something; half the time he just stands there and doesn't even recognize he's being attacked!

Gunter and Farkas are on their back to Whiterun.

.

Haa-Rei spent the weekend messing about in Falkreath, building a house e.t.c so there hasn't been much time for adventuring.

We did purchase an armoured frost troll from our Dawnguard friend Gunmar though and it's already managed to save Haa-Rei a couple of times so it was money well spent Now we intend to do some serious adventuring and have agreed to try and find the White Phial for Nurelion.

This is another thing: just before Gunter died, he had gotten word from a Courier, and made his way to Falkreath to speak to the Jarl there. He was so excited about being able to buy property (to please his girlfriend), yet had nowhere near 5,000 gold.

I think that's what did him in; he starts to rush into situations that he shouldn't. But I gotta say, I'm glad his game has started all over. I am glad because I am curious to see how Hearthfire works itself into the game (and therefore Gunter's story) from an earlier point in time.

4:23 am, Loredas, 18th of Frostfall, 4th Era 201

Day 62:
Gunter many thing need do. Me go Whiterun. Speak Companion Farkas. Gunter have cheap iron daggar from wizard cave. Must give Farkas cheap iron daggar.

Why companion want cheap iron daggar of wizard cave? Gunter not know.

Me need make cave bandit dead today, before. Too. Find cave near Riverwood. Make bandits all dead. Bandit bad. Bandit must PAY. Gunter MAKE bandits pay for steal good from friend Skyrim. Jarl Falkreath want bandit dead for no pay gold to Jarl. Gunter make bandit PAY for no pay Jarl Falkreath.

me need find little girl Whterun. Sad little girl, need father. Me speak little girl. Me need speak sad little girl want Gunter take? Gunter make father little girl?

Gunter make house, take sad little girl beggar find house. Gunter make sad little girl of Whiterun friend. Gunter like friend, make little gi rl beggar more smile.

Make all thing happen soon. Gunter make find many thing happen soon.
.
Gunter, Son of Talos II is organizing his thoughts, trying to figure out what he's going to do today. That's what the above is, basically. He hasn't actually done anything yet, you see...



This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Sep 18 2012, 10:00 PM

Ummm...Not sure if this warrants its own topic really, but I'm shy see...So I'm putting it here...

Soooo...I never knew this...

J'Zirlo's smithing it 100 with all the perks...And everything is all Legendary and all that...

So there's me thinking that I can't improve anything anymore...

Oh no... ...The daughter wanders up and announces that she's tried one of the Smithing fortifying armour things and that does, in fact, shove the stuff up just that little bit more...

Snassn Frassn...

So this morning, I went to every shoppe...Found a grand total of two items...Disenchanted one, enchanted a bunch more things (armour, necklace and ring...Just realised I never tried a circlet...Oooh, there's one for tomorrow...) you can't enchant helmet, gloves and boots btw...Yeeeeah, love the way Bethesda did that...Aaaamywho...

So, I buy loads of Ebony...And, adding one item at a time, I improve my sword...(y'know...Put on armour and improve, put on necklace and improve, put on ring etc...)...So now it still says legendary, but it's something like 30 points further along...And as my enchanting only added 10% improvement...

Putting the one on at a time, I think helped...

When I enchanted and improved the stolen Blades armour in order to do this Thieves Guild thing it would only go to Flawless for some reason...Now it's up to Epic...

It's technically a new thing, or at least something I didn't know...If I find more wearables + the potions, I shall be doing all this again... ...

BTW I appreciate that I may be behind on this, but I was, like, well chuffed to have found it out... ...

Well done that daughter there!!... ...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: Sep 22 2012, 02:33 PM

You can enchant helmets, boots, and everything. You are just limited to the types of enchantments you can use on each type of armor/clothing. Helmets and circlets are mainly Fortify Magicka or Fortify Magicka Regeneration, and I think maybe one other thing. Here is a list of what you can enchant every piece with.