Today in Skyrim..., Epic battles, mudcrab sightings, anything but spoilers. What did your Options

[SubRosa]

Welcome to Skyland. I noticed many of the same things you did when going from Oblivion to Skyrim. Especially the muted color palette. I find I like the system of sliders they used for making faces better than the wild free-for-all of Oblivion. It is a lot easier to make a good looking character. While in Oblivion it was darn right difficult to do so. Given what a perfectionist I am, I appreciated it a lot.

Skyrim also gave me Persephone, who is probably the character nearest and dearest my heart. I have replayed her multiple times in her home game, and she has migrated to Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, and even Links386.

[Lopov]

The problem with Skyrim though isn't just that (aside from dirt/scars/war paint) it's a world of generally pleasing faces, but that it's a world of a relatively narrow range of faces repeated over and over. I've already lost track of how many Ralof clones I've seen.

I agree, and I think that not including a face randomizer was a bad idea. Though faces generated in Oblivion weren't always pretty, they could even be horrible at times, but with time you were given a good template that was easy to work on. I also don't like working with forced presets (like forced eyes, noses, mouths...) - I prefer to edit these things on my own. TBH I find most vanilla mouths and noses horrible. I found some mods with time that make creating a distinctive character easier, though. What I wrote, mostly holds true for men IMO - women are easier to create for me, not that I had many women in Skyrim.

Lopov – Eeep! Rattler’s bringing his bloody buffet style to Skyrim!

In Rattler's opinion, snow looks much better in white & red color.

GOOD for that horse.

Hey, he didn't intend to eat it, he just wanted a transportation to Riften. At least he didn't intend to eat it right away.

I wonder what he would think if he meets that delightful little dragoness in Markarth's crypts. Would Rattler strike an alliance of appetites with her and her ... patron, I wonder? My cannibal sure did.

Hard to say. Chaotic evil by alignment, Rattler doesn't perform well in any kind of groups. His 'projection' in the Capital Wasteland worked with slavers but even they got afraid of him after a while and betrayed him.

__

I The beast comes to town

Rattler said “Stand aside!” but guards at Riften south gate laughed at him.

Rattler said “I’ll be back. And you won’t like it when I’ll be back,” but Riften guards dismissed his threats as hollow.

Guards didn’t know that when Rattler threats, you better run and hide. Because now both guards were dead, their arrow-pierced bodies hidden behind Riften walls. And Rattler was the first man after a long time to enter Riften through the south gate which was normally locked for travelers.

[Acadian]

Now there's Rattler just doing his civic duty of helping to open a long closed gate so the fine folks of Riften can come and go more easily - free from the hindering of corrupt guards. How kind!

[Renee]

Guess those two guards will never comment about Rattler crying about "stolen sweet rolls," eh?

[gpstr]

Just now got back online after two days of spotty weather and a spotty satellite connection...

So, why do all men in Skyrim have stumpy legs?

It's not that bad with Nords or Redguards or some of the others, but it looks really out of place on my new Altmer mage.

Oh yeah - I have a new Altmer mage - Hestil. I also have a new Dunmer spellsword - Satra Zoval. Simon the Breton was supposed to be a spellsword, but since I didn't have a good enough grasp on how combat works, he ended up more of a pure melee fighter, of necessity.

Combat's sort of odd in this game. I can see how it appeals to some people much more than Oblivion's. I'm sort of surprised though that I haven't seen more people make a point of their preference for Oblivion's.

Combat in Skyrim is much more visceral, but it's also much easier. Timing and range aren't as important as they are in Oblivion, since so much of combat is just doing a power attack and watching the kill shot animation play out. I finally figured out that that's why I was having such a hard time keeping Simon alive, and I figured it out by playing Kazir for a while. With Simon, I'd been trying to fight basically the same way I would in Oblivion - moving around, swinging, dodging, blocking, looking for an opening, swinging... And he kept dying.

I tried fighting with Kazir the way I would normally with a claymore fighter in Oblivion, but that even more obviously didn't work. He couldn't even move fast enough to get in and out of range, so all the rest of it was hopeless. So, pretty much because there was nothing else he could do (and because there was a hint in the fact that greatswords in Skyrim do much more base damage than claymores in Obivion), I started doing power attacks, and he turned into a beast. So then I went back to Simon, gave him an off-hand sword to match the one he was already using and started doing power attacks with him, and he turned into even more of a beast.

But I already sort of miss Oblivion's combat. I miss having more control of the character. I miss that dance with a claymore - moving in and out and around, keeping just outside of the opponent's range and stepping in just long enough to get off a swing, then ducking back out before the counterattack. Yeah, there's something viscerally appealing about Kazir cutting the legs out from under an opponent, but I didn't do that - I just held down the mouse button and watched as it happened on its own, and that's just sort of disappointing.

That's sort of an odd thing too, and always has been. In pursuit of roleplaying, I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm not the character - that I'm just an observer and the character is the one living a life in Tamriel. But at the same time, I really enjoy the combat - the test of my skills that it provides. And I'm sort of disappointed that Skyrim doesn't test my skills anywhere near as much. But at the same time, from a pure roleplaying perspective, shouldn't that actually be better? It should be more of a test of the character's skills than my own. But somehow it's just not as satisfying.

Anyway...

Simon (who's grown a last name now - Duchesne), is in Markarth, returning, for the first time since his escape from the mines, after tying up some loose ends in Whiterun. He's still traveling with Annekke, and I still love it when a fight's over and he looks at her and she's got that bemused half smile on her face.

Kazir is also in Markarth, though he's not clear on that right at the moment, since he just stepped out the door of the Temple of Dibella after waking up there with a hangover and no memory. He's also a recent addition to the Companions, which seems to suit him well.

Hestil - the Altmer mage - is in Whiterun, but about ready to do something else. I parked him when I wasn't quite sure what that something else was - I just know he's itching to get moving.

Magic's interesting in this game. It's really not like "magic" per se - it's more like another weapon type. It plays pretty much the same way - point the character at the enemy and hold down one (or both) attack buttons and watch as the game does whatever it does. The lack of armor doesn't appear to be as much of an issue as it was in Oblivion, or at least as far as melee fighters go. They can't even really get close enough to Hestil to do any damage. Archers are another story though.

Satra the new Dunmer came about because I still wanted to play a battlemage, but Simon had turned into a dual-wielding dervish. It's really the same playstyle I had in mind for Simon - soften 'em up with spells and finish 'em off with a blade - but I didn't know enough about how combat works then to keep Simon alive that way. I'm not sure that I do now, but I'll find out. At least he hasn't died yet, which already puts him way ahead of Simon.

He just arrived in Whiterun and hasn't even met the Jarl yet.

And I'm already planning a pure stealth character who'll dual wield daggers - Bosmer maybe. And at least one heavy armor character - all three of my fighters so far are light armor. And I want to see dual wielded war axes. And I need to experiment with warhammers. And I haven't done any thievery, other than the missive at the Battle-Born's. I don't even have any female characters yet - I don't feel like I have a good enough grip on the roleplaying ins and outs yet.

Oh, and I turned off the music. That's something I did a long time ago in Oblivion, at first mostly to get rid of the battle music radar, but I found it really helped me stay immersed in Tamriel to not have any sounds that didn't actually exist there. I wanted to spend at least a while listening to Skyrim's music, but I lost interest. There was one pretty good theme that I heard mostly in inns, but the rest of it was pretty forgettable. Well - except for one standout outdoor theme that sounded truly great - in Morrowind.

Yes, Skyrim lacks some common RPG elements found in earlier games, and yes, you were right to protest this, gpster. That being said though, Skyrim is far from unsatisfactory, in my opinion, and that's without mods. WITH mods, you can basically add all the things that are missing from earlier games, so you really have no more excuse, sir.

I'm still pretty much unmodded, though most of that's because I haven't even been online in almost three days. Now that I'm back, I'm not quite sure where I'm going to go first. Maybe see if I can set it up so that Hestil at least doesn't walk like a gorilla.

Me personally, I find that I can RP males more effectively in Skyrim than I can in Oblivion. And it mostly comes down to facial hair. It's because I can create the exact guy I'm looking for in Skyrim, including some manly-looking men. My crusader guy has huge muttonchop sideburns, for instance, my evil-ish spellsword has one of those sadistic-looking mini-beards, my ruffian who did Thieves Guild has a huge, Hells' Angels looking beard. And so on.

The facial hair is nice - it really made the difference with Satra in particular - that sparse, mustache-less goatee adds just enough scruff to him to really drive home his personality.

Welcome to Skyland. I noticed many of the same things you did when going from Oblivion to Skyrim. Especially the muted color palette. I find I like the system of sliders they used for making faces better than the wild free-for-all of Oblivion. It is a lot easier to make a good looking character. While in Oblivion it was darn right difficult to do so. Given what a perfectionist I am, I appreciated it a lot.

Every time I come out of the game, everything looks greenish, since my eyes have grown so accustomed to not seeing that part of the spectrum.

I haven't decided how I feel about the sliders and relatively narrow range of adjustments yet. It is nice to be able to make a good-looking character without having to spend a half hour (or more) randomizing faces, but I already miss happening on some really fascinating face through randomization. I would've never gotten Elenin, for instance, if it wasn't for Oblivion's facegen.

I also don't like working with forced presets (like forced eyes, noses, mouths...) - I prefer to edit these things on my own. TBH I find most vanilla mouths and noses horrible.

Mouths in particular. I've already discovered that that pretty much comes down to picking the mouth that's least objectionable - I rarely see one on a character that actually looks good. Noses don't seem quite so bad - so far at least I've been able to find one that actually looked about right for each of my characters. I'd like to be able to tweak them a bit, but at least they're close enough to what I'd prefer. So far.

Boy I love the absence of neck seams though.

[Renee]

So, why do all men in Skyrim have stumpy legs?

They do? I haven't noticed. Uh oh.... hope this doesn't ruin the game for me now... I'm really enjoying gaming with my crusader guy on Xbox lately. He's a Breton though, and you specified Altmer. The only Altmer male I've ever gamed with mostly wore robes, so problem solved.

I've actually found combat in Oblivion to be easier overall, so go figure. *shrugs* And this is with default difficulty in both games. I used to think this was because I had a habit of nerfing the way the game levels upwards (on consoles, I would choose Majors so that the game levels up slowly), but even on PC, in a game in which my main character uses her Majors more often, I find Skyrim's combat more difficult.

And if we compare vanilla Skyrim (on Xbox 360 / no mods) to modded Skyrim, I find vanilla Skyrim more difficult, although I admit this is because on PC I often put my characters into enemy Factions, or give them extra followers, etc. On Xbox, we can only have one follower at a time, and there's no console to AddFactionRank with.

Combat's sort of odd in this game. I can see how it appeals to some people much more than Oblivion's. I'm sort of surprised though that I haven't seen more people make a point of their preference for

Me personally, I don't have a preference.

Boy I love the absence of neck seams though.

Finally, something we can all agree on.

[SubRosa]

You can still dance in and out of range with a claymore in Skyrim. I do it all the time with Persephone. Watch her first fight here. She never gets touched. The secret in Skyrim is not to power attack. It is to use the bash. You can bash even without a shield. If you time it right, it will stop your opponent's attack, with you taking no damage. Then you can follow up with a strike while they are open. It is all about finding the timing to not only move into striking range and back out again, but also to move in closer to bash. Just practice more.

There is also a perk in the Block tree at a skill level of 30. I forget what it is called, but it slows down time whenever your opponent tries to make a power attack. This is one of the most powerful perks in the game. It completely changes melee combat. You can see Persephone making use of it in the vid above.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Feb 10 2017, 01:31 AM

[Renee]

Cooool that was fun to watch, SR! I'm going to watch that a few times over, I like seeing how others (whom I know) like to approach their gaming.

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Sundas, 6:22 PM, Evening Star 13, 4th Era 202

Lord Haaf-Mersey and his current follower, a female elf named Belevar, just got to Valtheim Towers. No enemies are here; they've been taken care of days ago. So there was no huge, epic fight, but the lord and his follower had a bit of disagreement. Haaf-Mersey wants to stay here, because he just read The Firmament. This book describes how it's possible to see which Starsign each month pertains to, as such...

When the sun rises near one of the constellations, it is that constellation's season.

As the pair walked by Valtheim, with Whiterun in the distance, Haaf-Mersey noticed the sun was going down exactly where Dragonsreach is. Which means Dragonsreach is exactly to the west, from the vantage point that he had on the road, anway. Is there a way to tell which constellation lies exactly to the east?

And so began the disagreement. Because he wants to stay in Valtheim all night, stargazing, while Belevar is eager to just get to Whiterun, where it's warm and comfortable. It's her first time away from Castle Dawnguard in a long time, so she's eager to see Whiterun's nightlife.

In the end, Haaf-Mersey got his way. He's giving Belevar plenty of gold to come along with him, and he's just too curious about this stupid starsign thing.

This post has been edited by Renee: Feb 10 2017, 12:17 AM

[gpstr]

I've actually found combat in Oblivion to be easier overall, so go figure. *shrugs* And this is with default difficulty in both games. I used to think this was because I had a habit of nerfing the way the game levels upwards (on consoles, I would choose Majors so that the game levels up slowly), but even on PC, in a game in which my main character uses her Majors more often, I find Skyrim's combat more difficult.

I can't say which one I find harder or easier at the moment, since I'm still getting a feel for Skyrim's combat. Early on, when I knew nothing about how it worked, I found Skyrim's to be almost impossibly hard - Simon was dying on a regular basis, even after I turned the difficulty down (something I never did with Oblivion). But now that I've started to get the hang of it, he's rarely even threatened, and that's even after I turned the difficulty back up again. We'll see...

You can still dance in and out of range with a claymore in Skyrim. I do it all the time with Persephone. Watch her first fight here. She never gets touched. The secret in Skyrim is not to power attack. It is to use the bash. You can bash even without a shield. If you time it right, it will stop your opponent's attack, with you taking no damage. Then you can follow up with a strike while they are open. It is all about finding the timing to not only move into striking range and back out again, but also to move in closer to bash. Just practice more.

Mm... I'll likely work on the timing a bit more - I gave up on even finding it with Kazir. Moving backwards like he's wading through molasses was most of the problem to me. I'll take your word on it being possible though and keep trying.

I'm not so hot on bashing. I might play with it a bit, but I dunno...

There is also a perk in the Block tree at a skill level of 30. I forget what it is called, but it slows down time whenever your opponent tries to make a power attack. This is one of the most powerful perks in the game. It completely changes melee combat. You can see Persephone making use of it in the vid above.

Game gimmicks like that just don't appeal to me at all. I appreciate the suggestion, and who knows? I might even end up using it, but the whole idea of slowing down time just seems like cheating to me. I saw that there's a perk sort of like that in the archery skill tree too.

---

So I installed two more mods - for the two things that I most wanted to fix soonest. A Quality World Map (why in the world are there no roads on the vanilla map? That's just stupid) and a little tweak to get rid of that dumb blood splatter on the screen.

I spent the afternoon with Simon and Annekke. They wandered out west from Whiterun, just exploring, and happened on Bloated Man's Grotto, which is a really nice place all in all. Except for the bears of course.

The bears were sort of a good thing though, since it gave them a purpose. Added to the ones they'd already collected, it was more than enough pelts to satisfy the innkeeper in Ivarstead, so they headed back to Whiterun to offload loot, pick up the bear hides they had stored there, then head to Ivarstead.

I got to thinking about it on the way back, and decided I wanted to enchant some swords for Simon. He was using a mismatched pair - an Elven sword enchanted for shock and a Honed Ancient Nord Sword enchanted for fire - but he had a pair of unenchanted glass swords he'd really prefer to use. So the obvious thing to do was to enchant them. But since I didn't have much of an idea of how it all worked (not the basic mechanics of it, but details like how many charges were optimal), I wanted to be able to experiment a bit.

So they went back to Whiterun and dealt with everything, dropped off the old swords and got the glass ones out of storage, then trooped up the hill to use the enchanter. I considered buying some filled soul gems, since the best he had were common, but I figured I'd just see what could be done with those - there'll be plenty of time to do better ones later on. I did one of the swords with a 10 point fire enchantment and the other with soul trap. Then, since I wanted to test them out without wasting a lot of time walking to and from somewhere, I gritted my teeth and fast traveled them to Ivarstead. They gave the bear hides to the innkeeper, then went across to the barrow behind town (Simon hadn't investigated that one the first time he was there, since he was already loaded down with loot from the trip out). The enchantments worked out fine - they burn through charges a bit faster than I'd prefer, but not so fast that it's an actual problem. And Simon demonstrated his combat proficiency by curbstomping the whole room full of draugr at the end, by himself (Annekke was trapped on the other side of the gate) AND with a 25% penalty to melee case of Rockjoint.

Then they left town by the southern route and spent the night at the Alchemist's Shack, then offloaded some loot at the Imperial camp nearby, then made the hike through the southern pass and up around through Helgen and back to Whiterun, where they are right now.

[Renee]

"gritted my teeth while fast-traveling"

Don't worry about running out of charges on your swords, re-enchanting them is much easier in this game. You don't have to find one of those rare Varla stones, nor do you have to stand around some Mage's Guild, waiting for the enchanter to get off his/her damn 2-hour lunch break, or waiting for them to show up at all...

Maybe I shouldn't spoil for you though how it works, in case you don't already know.

[Lopov]

Now there's Rattler just doing his civic duty of helping to open a long closed gate so the fine folks of Riften can come and go more easily - free from the hindering of corrupt guards. How kind!

Indeed. Skyrim needs more people like Rattler.

Guess those two guards will never comment about Rattler crying about "stolen sweet rolls," eh?

They will when they respawn.

@gpstr - it took me a while to notice that followers smile at our characters and that our characters smile back.

I have troubles with combat in Skyrim when not playing it for long time, then it's always very hard to me but as I play, I get used to it.

@Renee - Haaf-Mersey the astrologer. I'm glad Mjoll's not with him else she'd totally ruin his stargazing.

__

II Craven

The arrogant and influential matron of the Black-Briar clan, Maven Black-Briar, was scared to death. Never before has she been so terrified. She thought that her life is over, that she is going to be Rattler’s next victim…

***

A few minutes ago she entered her manor, accompanied by her faithful bodyguard and her son Hemming. She was coming straight from the Bee and Barb, where she used to spend most of her evenings. Her servant immediately notified her of some Redguard savage that barged in the manor about an hour ago and claimed to have a meeting with her. This same savage emptied a few bottles of their fine mead (and brake them afterwards), ate some of their fine food (without cutlery), and made obscene jokes about Maven’s granddaughter Ingun (particularly about her breasts).

Maven immediately knew that the savage in question can only be Rattler, the mercenary from Morrowind, sent to her aid on behalf of her Telvanni acquaintance. They were supposed to meet in the inn and now it was time to show the barbarian that nobody’s going to behave like that in her own manor. It was time to set clear rules for the savage. Oh how much she’s going to enjoy showing him who’s the most important person in Riften.

Rattler was waiting in Maven’s luxurious bedroom, standing by the fireplace.

“You Maven?” he snarled as soon as she stepped in the bedroom, followed by her bodyguard.
“For you I’m Madam Maven Black-Briar, barbarian,” curtly answered Maven. ”And you are…Rattler, I assume? What kind of a name is that…anyway, let us make some things clear. You were NEVER invited to my manor! In the letter I wrote, I mentioned that you’re going to find me in the INN! Perhaps you don’t know about me but my name, the name of MAVEN BLACK-BRIAR, carries some weight in Riften! Nothing gets done without my approval in this city. I have the Jarl's ear, and the guards in my pocket. Anyone makes trouble for me and I pay a visit to the Thieves Guild. Make me angry and I contact the Dark Brotherhood. You'd do well to remember that the next time you act like you did tonight, barbarian. Now get out and meet me tomorrow in the inn. I'll be upstairs. That’s when we’ll discuss business.”

The bloodshed which followed, happened in less than a minute. Without saying a word, Rattler unsheathed the silver nodachi from his back, jumped over Maven’s bed, pushed her aside, and attacked her bodyguard like a feral sabre cat. Paralyzed with horror, Maven couldn’t even move and though her bodyguard tried to fight back for a while, the barbarian from Morrowind within seconds shredded him through and through.

Done with the bodyguard, Rattler stepped towards Maven and pressed his bloody nodachi against her fur scarf and that was when Maven was convinced that her life is over.

“Craven Black-Briarrr!” grinned Rattler. ”That’s how I call you! What now? What now, eh? Whore! Not feeling powerful anymore, Craven?”

“D-don’t….” stuttered Maven, feeling drips of her bodyguard’s blood on her neck.

“Craven stutters?” shouted Rattler. “I KILL people who stutter!”

Maven stepped back and fell on her bed. She never felt so powerless before. It was becoming obvious, though, that Rattler won’t kill her, he was just playing with her. What infuriated her the most is that she allowed him to see fear in her eyes. But maybe if she quickly changes the subject…

“Stop! Have it your way then! Let’s discuss business! I want some people dead!” she yelled but then lowered her voice. “Obviously you…you have way with that. The first man I want dead is Thomm. He lives in a fort called Faldar’s Tooth, west of Riften, right by the lake. Kill him…and you will be rewarded.”

“See how easy it is?” Rattler put the greatsword back on his back and headed for the balcony. “Until next time, Craven,” he said as he jumped from the balcony.

As Maven was again getting control of herself, and heard her children running up the stairs to see what had just happened, her mind already sentenced Rattler to death.

[Renee]

Cripes. Criminy. Sheesh.

@Renee - Haaf-Mersey the astrologer. I'm glad Mjoll's not with him else she'd totally ruin his stargazing.

He woulda told Mjoll to go to bed. As it is, his current follower Belevar is a little too quiet.

Haaf-Mersey wound up staying up until about midnight, but then got up 5 hours later, so he could see which constellation was on the horizon (where the sun would come up). Indeed, The Thief is the set of stars which lined up, and this makes sense since it's Evening Star in his game right now.

[Acadian]

Renee - Glad that LHM is enjoying his stargazing!

Gpstr - Also glad that you are enjoying Skyrim. I enjoyed the game very much. My biggest gripe was the excessive 'hand micromanagement' required to use skills/spells.

Lopov - Oh my! Seems like Maven's more than met her match!

[Lopov]

He woulda told Mjoll to go to bed. As it is, his current follower Belevar is a little too quiet.

Not sure if that'd help. I bet she talks while sleeping.

Lopov - Oh my! Seems like Maven's more than met her match!

It was about time!

__

By the canal

Sheshko liked it in the Beggar's Row. He stayed inside during days but when shadows fell over Riften, he sneaked out. This one had to eat too and water skeevers were his favorite prey. Occasionally Madesi or Violet would bring him apples and Sheshko was very grateful to eat something healthy but nothing could compare to the joy which skeevers made in his tummy.

Down by the canal lurked some suspicious man and after Sheshko took a peek in his pockets, he found the man to be a skooma dealer!

"Oh, oh, oh,
sweet skooma o' mine!"

Sheshko sang as he emptied the man's pockets for five flasks of this most precious fluid. He was becoming really good at sneaking and could slip past people without being detected if it was only dark enough.

Guards probably still didn't forget about him so he needed to be careful not to be seen, even more so because they used to carry torches in nighttime. But even if they'd catch him, he hid skooma and other goodies in a sack in the Beggar's Row so nothing would be confiscated. Nothing at all. Sheshko was clean. Legit.

This post has been edited by Lopov: Feb 11 2017, 05:22 PM

[Renee]

Shesko is awesome. I wonder if he's still wearing that silly hat!

[Acadian]

Despite his unassuming nature, Sheshko is certainly taking ownership of Riften's nights.

[gpstr]

@Renee - I'd already discovered that recharging was pretty easy, but I wasn't sure about the balance of charges and power and such - how quickly I'd burn through how many charges and how much recharge I could get out of the souls I trapped. As it turns out though... yeah. It's very generous.

@Acadian - thanks and yeah - the hand micromanagement irritates me too, and that's even without trying to play an illusionist/archer.

---

So I installed one more mod - Immersive Saturation Boost, to get rid of that sepia/grey tone to everything. The game's much more pleasant to look at now. Other than that (and the other minor things I'd already done), I think I'm going to just let it go and see what vanilla's like. Unless I come across some other thing that I just can't tolerate.

And I created yet another character - that makes five now - but I'm planning on staying with this one as much as possible. It's a female Nord named Valri and she was created with three ideas in mind (other than female Nord) - heavy armor, two-handed weapon and Stormcloak sympathizer. She's fiercely proud and determined, and thus the perfect character for playing out the main quest, which I really want to do just so I can see how things work, so I'll know how to approach it with my other characters, who are likely going to be at least somewhat less interested in all that.

Other than dragons and civil war and suchlike, she's joined the Companions (and loves her new Wolf Armor) and is dealing with a handful of side quests. In fact, I left her in Eldergleam Sanctuary just now. She's likely heading back to Whiterun to deliver the sapling to Danica, then... I'm not sure what she's going to do next. Maybe go look for that Horn the Greybeards want...

[Renee]

So I installed one more mod - Immersive Saturation Boost, to get rid of that sepia/grey tone to everything. The game's much more pleasant to look at now

Interesting. I find the game's look to be not as vibrant as Cyrodiil, but this has never bothered me. Then again, making the jump from Xbox to PC was enough of a graphics boost to keep my eyes awed.

You should try Alternate Start: Live Another Life? if you haven't already. Since you're up to 5 characters within a short time, hopefully you haven't done the Tutorial all 5 of those times. Alt Start mods can help us with starting characters in remote locations, for those who want to RP absolutely no involvement with the Main Quest, or beginning parts at all.

This post has been edited by Renee: Feb 13 2017, 05:01 PM

[gpstr]

Interesting. I find the game's look to be not as vibrant as Cyrodiil, but this has never bothered me. Then again, making the jump from Xbox to PC was enough of a graphics boost to keep my eyes awed.

The problem I had with Skyrim's colors is that sepia/grey shader that the entire world is run through. It not only looked unnatural - it actually made my eyes hurt to spend too much time looking at it.

You should try Alternate Start: Live Another Life? if you haven't already. Since you're up to 5 characters within a short time, hopefully you haven't done the Tutorial all 5 of those times. Alt Start mods can help us with starting characters in remote locations, for those who want to RP absolutely no involvement with the Main Quest, or beginning parts at all.

I've looked at it and considered it, but I don't trust it. I used Arthmoor's Alternative Start mod for Oblivion with Lemdel the Altmer barbarian and it infuriated me.

The problem is that he set it up so that with his mod running, it's actually even MORE difficult to realistically avoid doing the main quest. I've seen that with some of his other mods too (notably Vergayun and Open Cities Reborn's version of Chorrol) - he seems to just presume that everybody is going to do the main quest, and he actually goes out of his way to make it even more in-your-face. It's bad enough having Beth try to force the main quest on me - I'm sure as hell not going to let Arthmoor force it on me.

It's possible that he did a better job of it with Skyrim, but I just can't be sure of that, and since it's impossible to revert an alternate start mod without literally starting the character all over again, I'm just not willing to experiment with it. Or at least not yet.

And actually, I've already done the tutorial many more than five times - those five are just the characters I've kept. I've started, and at least gotten out of Helgen if not all the way to Riverwood, at least a dozen of them. What I finally did though was to make two hard saves - one with Ralof and one with Hadvar - immediately after he frees the character, before they make their escape from Helgen. Since the character has no experience at that point, it's possible to use ShowRaceMenu to change them into whatever I want. It still means they have to do the actual escape, but that's fine - I don't mind that part, and it gives me a good chance to test the character in easy combat.

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So... Valri.

She ended up making the trip all the way up to Northwatch Keep to rescue Thorald. That seemed to be the most pressing thing on her list.

That was a terrific trip.

The first day was just a pretty uneventful trip to Rorikstead - a few bandits and wolves and such along the way, but nothing really unusual. She met a would-be adventurer named Erik in Rorikstead and gave him some money to buy some armor. She liked Erik, and left town the next morning planning on swinging back by after she was done to check in on him.

The second day was a sharp contrast to the first - LOTS of interesting and dangerous stuff.

The first notable thing was a bandit fort that actually straddled the road. She refused to pay their "toll" and ended up having to fight the lot of them. Which she did. (Note - she died for the first time there, and no, I don't play dead-is-dead, and no, I won't - I need to be able to take my characters into danger without having to worry about them dying because I did something stupid. And she died because I did something stupid - I thought the place was empty and was running her around, collecting loot, and she barged into the main building, only to find the bandit leader still there and still very much alive. She didn't even have enough time to draw her battleaxe. After the reload, she moved more cautiously and was fine.)

The second notable thing was Meridia's shrine. She actually had it marked on her map, but I wasn't looking at the map - she just saw what looked like a temple up a ways from the road and went to investigate it, then found out what it was. Since she already had the Beacon, she explored more, and it just went from there. Most of it was pretty easy, but the last fight was brutal - mages really challenge her. She was badly wounded a couple of times, but managed to pull through.

The Dragon Bridge was awesome, though the village seems a bit unsettling.

She ended up far north by nightfall and kept looking for a place to stop, but didn't find one. She made it to Northwatch Keep at about midnight (encountered a hostile werewolf along the way too) and met Avulstein and a couple of other fighters he'd picked up along the way, and figured there was no time like the present. She scouted around a bit, but the others were very aggressive and there didn't look to be a lot of resistance, so in the end, they just barged in and started killing Thalmor. It was really sort of anticlimactic - the trip up turned out to be much more dangerous than the fight against the vaunted Thalmor.

Once Thorald was free, the brothers took off and Valri crashed for the night, then set off the next morning.

She got into Rorikstead late in the evening and found Erik sporting a set of (shabby) iron armor and, feeling a bit responsible for him, as well as a bit... well... interested, she hired him to join her. They went on to Whiterun the next day, where Valri sold all of the Elven armor she'd gotten at Northwatch and got Erik a set of steel armor and some better weapons.

They're heading north next - up to Morthal first, then out into the marshes to look for the Horn for the Greybeards.

This post has been edited by gpstr: Feb 13 2017, 09:35 PM

[Renee]

Damn. Shot down, lol. Sorry gpster, only trying to help.

I like alternate start mods (especially for Skyrim) because there is no option for an exit-save in this game (at least not on consoles), like there is for Oblivion. In other words, to start a new character, one has to go through the entire tutorial scene, and for someone like me who did this scene over a dozen times on consoles, I like that finally I have the option to start at some campfire, or on some dock, or whatever options the mod provides.

Your method works though too, the showracemenu deal. I've never tried that.

That was a terrific trip.

Oh yeah. Your brother was right about this game, right? I'm glad he convinced you to try it.

This post has been edited by Renee: Feb 13 2017, 11:25 PM