Skyrim - Assorted Round-Up

I've tried to avoid this because everyone is talking about Skyrim and nothing else, including myself, but I know you guys are itching for some more Skyrim news so here you go:
Kotaku: Skyrim is the Pinnicale of Short Attention Span Gaming - This is an aritcle from Kirk Hamilton about how in all the previous TES games he's been able to finish them by sticking to the main quest and finishing the game, but Skyrim has him just wandering around the game world and loving every moment of it. I can relate to his frustrations and joy of just wandering around. Many times I'll be headed to a quest area when I'll get distracted by something along the way.:

These days, I mostly just wander around. And it's great! This isn't a complaint. But I don't believe I've ever played a game where I would forsake the story that's been written for me, or even the sidequests that can help me level my character, in favor of aimlessly wandering around.
Skyrim drives me to distraction more perhaps than any other game I've ever played. I'm still getting my head around why this is, but the fact remains: the more I discover, the more I get distracted. I boot the game up with the intention of doing something—anything!—and find myself staring at the map for a good five minutes. I look at my frankly insane list of miscellaneous quests, blanch, and exit the quest-selection screen. I start walking again.

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Rock Paper Shotgun: Skyrole: 29% of You are Warriors - RPS did a survey on what kind of character their readers played in Skyrim and fighters came in first at 29%. Wizards 22%, Assasin 15% and Thief 14%.
JTM Games: The Psychology of Skyrim - A slightly funny article on the different psychology aspects your character goes through while playing the game. It's better than reading another review of the game:

Kleptomania
Kleptomania is an impulse-control disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to steal. Kleptomaniacs feel the need to take things, usually items of little or nearly no value, but often move onto shoplifting and incidents of more significant theft. The Doväkiin seems compelled to steal almost everything he sees.
That is troubling enough, but the province of Skyrim is altogether geared toward nurturing this unfortunate mental disorder. (I’m looking at you, Thieves’ Guild.) Furthermore, kleptomania is often categorized under the umbrella term of…

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Speaking of reviews. There are literally hundreds of them out there from every website imaginable. They basically all say the same thing. Skyrim is great. It has flaws. Buy it now:
Strategy Informer - 9.5/10
The Yorker - No Score: Overall impression is "With Skyrim, Bethesda has given players a world, and a full one" with some slight flaws.
Manapool - 9.6/10: The reviewer listed the top seven things they hate about Skyrim, but in the end he had a hard time coming up with seven. Here's a protion from the conclusion:

I struggled to get as far as seven, really, I was aiming for ten. This is a monumental game, landmark stuff, and it’s hard to think of how to actually improve it. All of my above points are thoroughly true and I stand by all of them. But as the score below reflects, my heart is not in the criticism here, I’m just being perverse. It’s really that I’m just desperate to find reasons to spend less time playing it. I wish it was worse, I really do, because it’s going to be a painful draw on my evenings for some months to come. 14 hours of play has merely scratched the surface of something utterly huge and engrossing.

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Shackbar Games - 5/5
7outof19.co.uk - 9/10 Odd name for a website
Gamer's Intuition - No Score: Overall impression is that it's a great fantasy RPG.
Wanganui Chronicle - 5/5
Comics and Gaming Monthly - 85/100

At first my plan was to take it slow and be methodical, and follow the main quest and hit a few side quests along the way. I wanted to take everything in and didn't want to go too fast. I wanted to savor every minute. What I didn't realize is just how big this game really is! At this rate, I'll never finish!

Steam has me clocked at 82 hours and I've haven't gone any further in the main quest than the first Dragon. I've only explored the general area around Whiterun and Riverwood and as far south as the Pinewatch shack - which by the way was a very cool run through! I did start over twice now, but both times were around the very start. 82 hours in and I hardly scratched the surface!

This is by far my all-time favorite game!

So anyone else encounter Paul Bunion and his Big Blue Ox yet?

Anyone else getting a strange glitch where Nirnroot become progressively brighter until they almost resemble hazy miniature suns from a distance? I haven't, but there do seem to be a number of people seeing it on the official forums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up7ELJ2F9T0

That does seem a little bright.

Ah, Nirnroot is a great way to just explore at night. You can see it from miles away and there are some great ruins near a couple of the plants. Fun stuff!

crpgnut said:

Ah, Nirnroot is a great way to just explore at night. You can see it from miles away and there are some great ruins near a couple of the plants. Fun stuff!

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Well not so great if their glow effect keeps stacking up to the point where it causes the cells their in to crash when loaded. So far I do think that's speculative in the official forums, didn't see anyone suggesting it actually has happened to them.

Nice observations in those quotes, that I can really relate to, especially:

These days, I mostly just wander around. And it's great! This isn't a complaint. But I don't believe I've ever played a game where I would forsake the story that's been written for me, or even the sidequests that can help me level my character, in favor of aimlessly wandering around.
Skyrim drives me to distraction more perhaps than any other game I've ever played. I'm still getting my head around why this is, but the fact remains: the more I discover, the more I get distracted. I boot the game up with the intention of doing something—anything!—and find myself staring at the map for a good five minutes. I look at my frankly insane list of miscellaneous quests, blanch, and exit the quest-selection screen. I start walking again.

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That JTM article is particularly funny. Lack of consequences from your actions doesn't prevent roleplaying, though...

Blimey I bet the Wanganui Chronicle has never been more popular or had so many readers hehe (I live in New Zealand by the way folks), and if you want have a go at pronouncing it, its something like "Wang" "ga noo eee" ... my maori is absolutely non-existent so I have to give you the white man's version lol.

But its looking like that there are a lot of flaws in Skyrim (I've seen some of the wonderfully funny glitches, and considered getting it just for them) but it remains to be a lot of fun. I don't know if it will replace Morrowind as being my favourite Elder Scrolls game but its sure looking better than Oblivion.

That one really disappointed me, the most disappointing thing to me being ... the grass!! I was first interested in Oblivion since I understtod that every strand of grass would be "individually animated" (a fabulous feat of computer software engineering I thought at the time) ... but unfortunately, I was hideously disappointed to find these strange "x-marks the spot" grass structures that moved in a most un-grass-like way in the wind. Strange as it may seem that really spoilt it for me at the start, and so I turned off the grass almost immediately (you could also see when wolves were attacking you ... then).

And the game although ok at the start (after the tedious first dungeon of course) was just a real sort of "meh" sort of game. I never really took to it like Morrowind (that was my second home for months on end). I was never really that engrossed in the world. I think it was too generic and never really had the feel of an alien or "other" world like Morrowind did.

I re-installed it on a new machine I built recently, and I'm having a bit more fun with it because I'm ignoring everything and just tomb and cave raiding. I'm getting to see more of the world, and I'm enjoying it much more than following the main quest line or any of the prescribed side quests. I hope to visit all the tombs and underground areas in the world if I can before going back to complete the main quest and any other side quests I come across.

Skyrim will have to wait for a wee while for me, I think, now. Once I finish Oblivion I may try out the Morroblivion mod and see if I can finally get through all of Morrowind but with really nice graphics ... or I may just reinstall Morrowind and re-try some favourite old mods. Soo many decisions ... sooo little time.

Anyway, just a few thoughts from the back side of the world. Hope all is well at your ends and you are not being eaten by too many mammoths

Best wishes

Harvey P. (christchurch, nz)

These days, I mostly just wander around. And it's great! This isn't a complaint. But I don't believe I've ever played a game where I would forsake the story that's been written for me, or even the sidequests that can help me level my character, in favor of aimlessly wandering around.

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Having read plenty similar views in the past week I can't help but think how TES games may actually be similar to GTA..

Oblivion was GTA in a fantasy setting. However, Skyrim is quite a bit more than that in my opinion.

Anyway, I do get distracted more in Skyrim than other games, but I still play it almost as systematically as I would other games.

Something I've found interesting about Skyrim is that a there are a lot of quests where you are presented with one (sometimes two) most obvious solutions. More often than people in the official forums seem to realize, there are other solutions too. For example, many forum posters over there have been ranting about being forced to join X guild to progress the main plot. True, there is someone who will only talk to and help you if you do his initiation quest - and he is probably going to come right up and initiate the conversation himself. You can do this if you want, or you can (and this is a shockingly complex work around)... ask somebody else. Have people been so ruined by games these days that they don't look for alternatives when they don't like the obvious solution?

A somewhat related quest asks you to ruin the life of a pretty nice fellow. People have complained about that saying they think its ridiculous you're "forced" to do this to get more quests from that group. Of course again there's other ways to go about doing things - you can screw up and then the NPC is fine or you can just stand there and do nothing and be stubborn. Both work and allow you to progress - albiet with less enthusiasm on the part of the jerk recruiting you.

Its odd though but people have been complaining as though your quest log is a series of commandment - things you have to do and how you must do them. Sure, sometimes there is a lack of options - though often "not doing it" is one of them.

Most games today are like TV shows or movies. They're about giving you an experience, and the expectation is that you don't have to make an effort for it. You shouldn't need to consider what to do, and you shouldn't need to make a choice for yourself - except if it's one that's CLEARLY lined up for you.

For some reason, that's the most widespread form of entertainment, and I just think it's incredibly boring.

TES games have always been the opposite of that, though I admit a lot of quests are too narrow in terms of choice. But if you look at the games as a whole - they're almost nothing BUT choice.

Exactly why I love the concept and subgenre, and Skyrim is the game Bethesda have tried to make since Arena.

Yeah I would have liked to see more of that and there are cases where a third option feels like it is missing - particularly at certain parts of side-quests tied into the main quest. Although, now that I think of it, that particular side quest does involve a possible conversation where the target suggests that sometimes "doing nothing" is the best option. Its amusing because there are a few quests where waiting/watching just a little bit longer does open up alternatives.

Oh on a related note - I did like finding alternative methods to achieving the same quest outcome in assassination quests. I found that frenzy (cast while muffled and invisible with muffle and invisibility re-cast afterwards) is a hilarious way to get someone's friends, family, and personal guards to do your job for you. Murder by madness basically.