Hearthfire [SPOILER VERSION], will contain spoilers Options

[hazmick]

So Hearthfire has landed at last! hooray! I've set up this thread for questions about it and any info that people can add into it would be great.

[hazmick]

ok here's the SPOILERIFIC info.




Once Hearthfire has been downloaded you can load up your Skyrim character of choice as usual. A courier will approach you after a while with several letters. One is from the Jarl of Falkreath's steward, asking you to come and talk to her about purchasing a plot of land ((for 5000 gold)).

The second letter is from the orphanage in Riften, asking people to come and adopt children, although after a bit of wandering around Windhelm I've found a child looking for adoption by herself and according to the Bethesda forums there are other new children in other cities as well.

The third letter I received was from the Jarl of Windhelm (where Haa-Rei currently resides) telling me that I can add a children's bedroom onto my current home, all holds have this option apparently I only have the Windhelm house though.


Now to the building bit. The first thing you do after buying your plot of land is to go and check it out, it's situated just north of Pinewatch in Falkreath hold, overlooking the lake. It's name, shockingly, is Lakeview manor.
There is a chest and working area already there, the chest contains enough materials to build a small hut. The other materials such as clay, stone and lumber can be mined and purchased in order to expand your small hut into the large estate they you've dreamed of. Oh yes, you also get a lovely Redguard steward from the Jarl of Falkreath as a moving in gift If you want to leave your small hut how it is then you can, stables, gardens e.t.c are available for crafting straight away.

You also have a sort of pet hawk, it has a nest, containing an egg and some feathers, on the roof of your home.

Stone and Clay quarries are located near your home and can never run out, allowing you to mine forever and ever and ever. In order to get more logs you have to travel to a mill and order some, they get delivered straight to your home. You can just purchase the lumber if you want or you can use the mill to cut it yourself, either way it gets delivered (without postage and packaging ) Your steward can also get materials for you, for a small fee.

Once you have purchased a garden you may plant any plant that you have in your inventory apart from nirnroot, for example I have some blue mountain flowers which I can choose to plant.

FISH HATCHERY: This is unique to the home in Hjaalmarch due to it's close proximity to the ocean, you may build a fish hatchery, any fish or fish egg that you place in here will breed/hatch which gives you a supply of various fish, if you place slaughterfish eggs in here you will get some friendly slaughterfish living and breeding here. It's also a nice addition to the marshland for the aesthetic value


I can now confirm some new foods available for purchase at inns: Argonian Bloodwine, butter, Surilie Brothers wine, sack of flour. (Food items such as soups and stews appear to have been re-textured as well)

New stuff in general stores: Glass, straw, goat horns, childrens clothes, childrens doll, wooden sword (for players and children alike)

**Word to the wise: you're gonna need a heck of a lot of iron ingots (I've used over 200 so far), gold (I've spent around 30k and counting), and corundum ingots (no more than 20 i'd say) for each home to be fully upgraded. You'll also need lots of things like horker tusks, bear pelts e.t.c for mounted animal heads if you want them**

The kitchen extension adds an oven which allows you to do some baking, you can bake: apple dumpling, apple pie, braided bread, bread, chicken dumpling, garlic bread, jazbay crostata, juniper berry crostata, lavender dumpling, potato bread, snowberry crostata and sweet roll.

Mudcrabs now drop mudcrab legs which can be cooked at the conventional cooking pot.

When building extensions you have lots of combos to choose from; you now have the option to add three wings to your home, for each wing there are three additions to choose from, you may only have 1 addition per wing. All rooms have a small crafting bench to add interior upgrades with, you can toggle these benches on or off using the workbench outside.

The west wing can have: bedrooms (although all houses already have bedrooms these ones are nicer), a greenhouse or an enchanters tower.
The north wing can have: storage room, a trophy room or an alchemy lab.
The east wing can have: an armory, a kitchen or a library.

TROPHY ROOM: once you've built a trophy room you can use the crafting table inside to build trophy bases, 3 large and 4 small. The large trophy bases have scale models of: bear, chaurus, cow, deer, dragon skull, draugr, dwarven sphere, falmer, frost troll, frostbite spider, horker, sabre cat, snow bear, troll and wolf trophies to choose from, 1 per base. The small bases have scale models of: draugr, dwarven spider, falmer, goat, hagraven, ice wolf, mudcrab, skeever, skeleton, slaughterfish and spriggan to choose from, again it's 1 per base. The models require items such as timber and straw as well as creature specific items such as dwemer scrap or slaughterfish scales in order to be crafted.

LIBRARY: The library is housed in a decent sized tower, lots of bookshelves are available for crafting, obviously, and you can build a table and chair set on the roof.

ARMORY: This adds lots of display space with 5 mannequins placed on top of 5 small cupboards, 8 weapon racks and 2 weapon plaques, there are also armory stuff such as grindstones available, chests and dressers, and an outside training area with archery targets.

ENCHANTERS TOWER: Like the library it is housed in a tower, the main feature is the arcane enchanter but otherwise there is generic furniture and display cases available as always.

GREENHOUSE: as the name suggests this room is dedicated to growing plants, you can build 3 large planters which can house 4 plants each, then you can build 6 small planters which house 1 plant each. Like the outdoor garden you can grow any plant in here apart from Nirnroot and its crimson cousin.

NOTE: your house also has a cellar which acts as a forge and storage area, there are also barrels of mead which you can use to fill up some bottles if your feeling thirsty The cellar also has a place where you can build shrines to any or all of the nine divines, each divine's shrine requires different materials to craft.

Your housecarl is pretty important by the way, you can ask them to be your steward and then they can hire a personal carriage and bard, purchase supplies for you to save time and buy things like chickens, cows and horses. They can also provide basic furnishings for your homes for a small fee.

OTHER HOLDS: If Falkreath isn't your style you can purchase a plot of land in Hjaalmarch (Morthal hold) from the Hold's steward. The name of this home is Windstad Manor, it is situated north of Ustengrov, very near to High Gate Ruins right at the edge of the marshes with a view of the sea, and Solitude in the distance. As with the Falkreath home it costs 5000 gold and you receive all the necessary materials to build a basic yet cosy hut.

Still not happy? Then how about a home in The Pale (Dawnstar hold) ((I had to speak to the jarl for purchase options for some reason)). The name of this home is Heljarchen Hall, it is located just west of the giant camp Blizzard Rest, on the border between the snowy mountains of Dawnstar and the flat tundra of Whiterun. Again this home costs 5000 gold and you receive all the necessary materials to build a basic yet cosy hut.

Having three homes gives you the ability to have all the different accessories, for instance one home could have the alchemy and enchanting towers with a library, one home could have a greenhouse, a trophy room and an armory e.t.c

ADOPTION OPTION: Adoption is pretty simple, once you have a child's bedroom in your house (including houses you owned prior to Hearthfire) you can casually wander up to kids and ask them to move in. You can have a maximum of two children.

There are 3 other children added to the game and children at the orphanage in Riften are available for adoption. you can also adopt a child if you kill their parents as the child will be moved to the orphanage.

I have adopted a child from Windhelm named Sofie, she can be found in the gray quarter selling flowers in order to afford food. You simply ask if she wants to be adopted and she happily agrees and runs off to her new home. Once there you can give her gifts such as new clothes, wooden toy swords and dolls which can be bought from any general goods merchant (including your spouse).

You can then play tag or hid&seek with your child, tell them to go play outside or go do their chores and at night time you can tell them to go to bed. It is also possible to give your children weapons such as daggers, to what end I'm not sure.

Your child may also decide to have a pet; foxes, skeevers and mudcrabs have been reported as available pets and your child will just find them nearby and ask to keep them. Dogs in the game, including huskies added by dawnguard, may also become family pets if you wish.

This post has been edited by hazmick: Sep 15 2012, 01:27 PM

[SubRosa]

That sounds pretty neat. Especially being able to plant a garden! I was guessing that you could not build your house anywhere, but rather only in certain specified spots. The lakeshore north of Falkreath sounds like an excellent place! Are there any other places you can build, or is that it?

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 4 2012, 04:56 PM

[Darkness Eternal]

Surillie Brother's Wine is stil in buisiness! Sweet! Does this mean that Tamika's wine ran out?

Anyways, can we adopt Babette? Oh and can we build castles?

[hazmick]

Rosa: That's the only place in Falkreath hold. According to the forums at bethesda there is a plot of land in Hjaalmarch and one in The Pale, though I haven't checked them out yet.

Darkness: No confirmation on Babette yet, she's not in my game anymore. No castles either I'm afraid, although once the house is fully upgraded it's pretty big.

This post has been edited by hazmick: Sep 4 2012, 09:51 PM

[King Coin]

This sounds so cool, I'm very excited for this! Keep those details coming!

[hazmick]

In answer to SubRosa's earlier question I did some investigating into the other home locations and added the info: here it is anyway

If Falkreath isn't your style you can purchase a plot of land in Hjaalmarch (Morthal hold) from the Hold's steward. The name of this home is Windstad Manor, it is situated north of Ustengrov, very near to High Gate Ruins right at the edge of the marshes with a view of the sea and Solitude in the distance. As with the Falkreath home it costs 5000 gold and you receive all the necessary materials to build a basic yet cosy hut.

Still not happy? Then how about a home in The Pale (Dawnstar hold) ((I had to speak to the jarl for purchase options for some reason)). The name of this home is Heljarchen Hall, it is located just west of the giant camp Blizzard Rest, on the border between the snowy mountains of Dawnstar and the flat tundra of Whiterun. Again this home costs 5000 gold and you receive all the necessary materials to build a basic yet cosy hut.

All homes have the same design.

This post has been edited by hazmick: Sep 4 2012, 09:51 PM

[McBadgere]

All homes have the same design.

Well yeah, who needs the house to reflect the style of the hold it's in?... ...

And...

The west wing can have: bedrooms (although all houses already have bedrooms these ones are nicer), a greenhouse or an enchanters tower.
The north wing can have: storage room, a trophy room or an alchemy lab.
The east wing can have: an armory, a kitchen or a library.

Again with the well yeah...Can't have an option to keep adding to your house so it's like a mansion with all of them can you?...Nooo, that would be too much like letting people have a choice eh Bethesda?...

And yes, I can build more than one house and put the other options in them, but that's not the point...I want posh bedrooms on one floor with an enchanter's tower on the corner and downstairs I can still have the rest...Christ this makes no sense...The houses we had already had smaller versions of all these things in them anyways...Well, Markath does...The wife's house in Riften does...Daughter's in Solitude does...

And no, I'm not happy about hordes of whining children clogging up my game either...

On the whole...While I will no doubt spend the time to make the house and probably enjoy doing so...In the end I shall probably just amble about ignoring the homes as I do now...Unless it's to off-load some junk into the chests therein...

And presumably, if I want to build my house in Dawnstar to fit something in with my story, that's when I'm gonna wind up fighting the giants all the damned time...Ferf*ckssake... ...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: Sep 4 2012, 09:56 PM

[hazmick]

And presumably, if I want to build my house in Dawnstar to fit something in with my story, that's when I'm gonna wind up fighting the giants all the damned time...Ferf*ckssake... ...

So far at Falkreath I've had 1 giant attack, he didn't manage to get far as me and my steward are pretty decent fighters. Even if he manages to kill a cow or a chicken you can easily re-purchase them for a low low price. The hairiest moment so far was a dragon attack, my wife was having a walkabout outside when mr.scales decided to show up, no damage done thankfully and his skeleton was kind enough to glitch through the floor and out of my sight

[Grits]

Right now I can see into the next room where The Girl is playing with her kids in Riften. There’s new dialog from her spouse Marcurio. She just made them go do their chores. I should tell her it’s time to empty the dishwasher.

[McBadgere]

I will now admit...

We have been Youtube-ing this...Just to see...Y'know?... ...

And we all agree...

It's soooo lovely!!!!...

Even though we're all doubting it'll turn up on the PS3, we're all hoarding Iron and Corundum ingots like there's no tomorrow... ...Yes, it's a complete cheat...But hey, we're not beyond that at all... ...

I'm still disappointed by the lack of choice in where to put stuff in the rooms/placement and amount of additional rooms...But, what you get for the money, really does make up for it...

Gorgeous stuff...

I take at least some of what I said earlier back...

Though, I will say...

No cows...

No kids...And I mean children...Not baby goats...No to them as well...Also...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: Sep 8 2012, 06:39 PM

[Lady Saga]

Wow, so this girl was begging in the Bannered Mare. It broke my heart (I was near tears). What a moment. This has to be Hearthfire, I've never seen this happen before.

My character Gunter gave her some coin. He's been staying at the Bannered Mare a lot, so I hope she sticks around there 'til Gunter gets a house.

[hazmick]

Wow, so this girl was begging in the Bannered Mare. It broke my heart (I was near tears). What a moment. This has to be Hearthfire, I've never seen this happen before.

My character Gunter gave her some coin. He's been staying at the Bannered Mare a lot, so I hope she sticks around there 'til Gunter gets a house.

if you're on about who I think you're on about then yeah, she begs around whiterun, you'll probably find her sitting on the benches under the gildergreen tree.

Haa-Rei is tempted to adopt her but he already has one child and he doesn't want to adopt another in case bethesda add argonian children in the future.

[Lady Saga]

I have also heard some new conversations (i am sure) and sayings from a few NPCs in-town. I don't know if Hearthfire introduced these, or if I'm just imagining things again. I WISH I had written what I heard down at the time, so I can type them here and stuff....and get your opinions.

I've been wrong before, you see.

[Grits]

Lydia has a new attitude. She is still "swooorn to carry your burdens," but now she also has some civil replies.

[King Coin]

I always liked Lydia's attitude, considering most players just use followers as pack mules.

[Grits]

Lydia has definitely earned her right to sarcasm by saving most of my characters’ butts early on when they were weak.

I recall her wiping out the bandits of Valheim Towers nearly single-handedly while Rowan tried to figure out how to work a bow. It was particularly embarrassing when Lydia charged back out to the road just in time to save my little Imperial from the bandit chief. Then when Rowan sheepishly handed over pretty much all of the bandits’ pants for her to carry, Lydia’s eyeroll was the perfect response!

[King Coin]

<snip>

Perfect!

[Lady Saga]

Wow. This is amazing. Finally got to the part of Hearthfire where Gunter buys some property. I am reading the book now about our options for building a house, and how we can expand the inital house into something much larger. And I'm like holy compassion, waht a beautiful addition to the game.

Best 5 bucks I ever spent on DLC, that's for sure.

[SubRosa]

Gunter can read?


Sorry, Renee, I could not help it!