what game(s) are you getting this season?

[Drem]

grabbing skyrim today. assassin's creed after/during. so much good stuff coming out. battlefield 3 is tits

[Harrison]

MW3, BF3, Skyrim, and that will be too much on my plate already. I should be happy with those three until Diablo 3.

[Jay]

Uncharted 3, Batman Arkham City, Skyrim, Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, King of Fighters XIII, Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, Dark Souls,

[10sun]

No games

[vonkaar]

Loving Skyrim right now... it's freaking incredible.

I've had HoMM6 on my library and I'm a huge Might & Magic fan but I just haven't fired it up yet. I'm just too involved in Skyrim to care about anything else. I haven't been so engrossed in a game in a LONG time. The made-for-console interface on the PC is a little screwy but whatever, it's fine and I'm sure some mod will fix that down the road. This 'season' was supposed to be HOMM6 + ES5 but all I've had time for was the latter.

Patiently waiting on Diablo 3.

[Drem]

omg i'm so surprised there isn't a sprawling skyrim thread like this forum had for oblivion

best RPG i've played since OG EQ

i'm absolutely absorbed. i'm playing on master and refusing to fast travel so i get a sense of exploration and accomplishment rather than B-lining thru the whole game and missing all the awesome atmosphere. i think running everywhere lends another level of immersion to a game. i've seen some sweet shit go down that never would've happened if i just fast traveled everywhere like a pussy. and playing on master makes you utilize every available facet of healing and defense that you can, as it should be imo. love how they put cooking food in, a la gothic 3, which was way better than oblivion

i'm level 12, dark elf, archery/dual wielding axes and light armor. sneaking (for backstab modifier) but not a thief and lots of alchemy, 0 spellcasting. haven't went far enough to have dragons spawn randomly because i'm honestly a little terrified of them on master. that first dragon for the storyline at the watchtower fucking owned me if it ever hit me. had to reload a billion times til i got the right run

ran over to riften on my horse, first major city i've seen aside from whiterun and the outside of windhelm. i've noticed everywhere higher in elevation so far has had noticeably more difficult mobs. over by riften i hopped off the horse to fight a wolf and some breton literally came out of the shadows (crouched, trying to sneak up on me, prolly how we look when mobs see us whilst sneaking) 15' in front of me in full dwemer armor and two-hit KOed me with a fireball/sword combo. no joke. also atronachs are roaming the wilds over by riften. didn't even try to start a fight. as soon as fireballs started flying at me from deep in the woods i just started booking it

i'm not sure if every area has harder mobs but i've only been as far west as a companions quest took me (like right next to whiterun) and as far southeast as riften. haven't hit the coast or the mountains or anything major yet. trying to seriously savor the shit out of this game like i did with fallout 3. fuck fast travel, fuck EZ mode

only things i'm seriously miffed about: removal of athletics/acrobatics (because that's how i justified never fast traveling) and still lacking the ability to levitate

[Drem]

i'm sure zanchief will comment about how they sold an incomplete game (patch on day 1, new game engine but still has a lot of similar bugs) but i just don't give a shit. no other company offers games with this much to do until you dive into MMO land. except maybe grand theft auto games

[Jay]

Drem, you're doing the exact same thing I'm doing cept I'm a wood elf =P

Game is amazing so far. There's bugs here and there but its mostly minor clipping issues and that's about it. Haven't run into a totally broken quest chain or game breaking glitch yet. One thing imo that Bethesda needs to change though, sneak is waaaay too powerful.

[Zanchief]

Haven't played so I can't comment on the bugs, but so far from all the people I've heard of playing, Bathesda really cleaned up their act in that department.

I'll likely borrow this sometime soon. Very excited.

[vonkaar]

I walk everywhere but I've fast traveled between quick ones because it didn't really offer much. I only saved 10 minutes of walking here and there. I totally agree with the immersion though. I've walked forever. I'm also level 12, Breton mage / archer. I've made it to Riverwood, Stonehill, Dragon Bridge, Solitude and some town in the middle, north of High Hrothgar (after I completed the way of the voice).

I didn't even check my difficulty, I just started with the default installation. Tweaked the graphics to ultra but that's it. I assume I'm playing on Normal?

I'm heavy into alchemy... somewhere around 39 now I think. I've discovered almost all of the four effects from the common ingredients, though I'm saving all of the nicer ingredients for better combines as I skill up. I've got around 7k saved up and have a lovely Housecarl named Lydia. She says that she wants to fight for me but I think she wants my junk.

I just love how incredibly immersive this game is. I'm on my way to some town/dungeon/tower to complete some task and even on short trips I still find 3 quests to complete and hours of content to distract me. I might walk into a farmer who needs her wheat picked at 2 septims a bushel (double the standard rate!) or an injured merchant who wants revenge on a recent bandit raid. You pick up clues just by sitting in the bar and listening to idle chatter. It's amazing.

Bugs - I've certainly had crashes. I once had an amazing 30-minute alchemy run where I skilled up 4-5 times and discovered at least 20 effects totally wiped away because the game just crashed on me. In the 10-12 hours I've played, I've had complete game crashes maybe 4 times. That's pretty bad =/. I have a pretty powerful computer and I'm running this on the max graphics settings but it doesn't make a difference how I tweak it. I recently added a few graphic mods to make things look a little prettier and I've crashed once since then. I save often.

[Kaemon]

I'm a huge Oblivion/Fallout 3 fan. This game is way better imho. Like Vonk, I'm a Breton Archer/Mage, was going with heavy armor but I just switched to Light armor. I'm also a huge Alchy, and I'm starting to dabble into enchanting. I do miss the speechcraft mini game Oblivion had and acrobatics. Right now I'm lvl 7 but I've been avoiding leveling up until some other skills get high enough, I also use the level up's as an instant heal in case I'm low on mana and health, leveling up in the middle of a fight brings you back to Full health and mana. Cheating, I know....but it helps.

[Griever]

I went female Nord and am going the assassin route. Using 2 one-handed swords until I get assassin's blade. Does anyone find the game to be very dark brightness-wise? I've had to turn up the in game brightness one short of max, and up the brightness on my TV. I understand that it should be dark at night and in dungeons, but were times I literally couldn't see anything in front of me.

Other than that, fucking amazing game. I always thought the NPCs in Oblivion were the worst part of that game and ruined the immersion, but they've done a much better job in Skyrim. No more zoomed in faces and horrible voice acting.

One of the coolest parts of the game how you can spend hours playing and not accomplish a damn thing. Exploring is so rewarding. I could almost get to level 50 without doing any main storyline quests. Some of the most thrilling moments are when you are minding your business, chasing butterflies for alchemy ingredients and then you get jumped by a Dark Brotherhood assassin. The Thalmor Justicars also want me dead for some reason I haven't discovered yet.

[Griever]

I forgot to mention that I love that enemies no longer scale with your level and punish you for leveling from exploring, random dungeons, etc. I also think Bethesda did it right by letting you play as any race doing any play style you like. I never liked being punished for choosing unconventional race/class combinations. The only difference between the races are the racial abilities which - are mostly negligible - and your starting skill values. Those small skill advantages are easily overcome, and everything else is based on the skills you use most and the perks you choose.

[Durothil Skyreaver]

I'm playing a Dark elf, dual wield daggers/archery, sneak, smithing. Currently lvl 25, working on the main quest as I have put in 20+ hours already. I've haven't been to most of the major cities still. Really like the scale and size of the world. I'm really looking forward to the mods that are coming down the pipe.

[Arlos]

[Griever]

[Drem]

lol

checked out markarth. if anybody's wondering you can buy a dog from the stables there. but all it did was bark every 15 seconds so i told it to go home. markarth itself however is beautiful

it is really cool to just ask guards about rumors and get tons of new locations to go check out. or sit in bars like vonk was saying

dunno about you guys but since i'm running so much i've been running into all sorts of nonsense on the roads. roaming groups of bandits, thalmor justiciars (who seem to want you dead if you do anything but denounce talos in front of them, griever), and i even ran into "revelers" yesterday who were just drinking honningbrew mead and gave me a bottle to celebrate

[vonkaar]

This was the one that made me laugh the most...

[vonkaar]

And... this was SO true for me last night. I killed my 2nd dragon, thought I was awesome and ran into my first giant encampment. I knew nothing about these guys so I thought I'd kill one. Walked right up and started wailing away with firebolt. Wack! Slow-motion finishing move to highlight how badly he owned my ass. Okay, let's try that again. Go back a few yards to the dead bandit, rise up oh zombie and serve me. Coated my best arrows in my best poison and went in. First arrow hit, slowing him down for a little kite. Ten arrows later and all my $300-400 poisons spent, he's at 80% and my zombie is in the earth. I think I *might* have been able to kill him if I had enough slow poisons ready to go and an assload of 50dd potions, but I didn't... and I didn't have 30 minutes to spend on a 'look what I did!' kite. So I walked in, bent over...

holy shit those guys are rough

[vonkaar]

3rd post in a row...

maybe some Mod can split this off into an actual Skyrim discussion?

[Griever]

On the way to High Hrothgar, a guy was sitting on the road and he had just got mugged. He asked me to escort him back to his camp and once there he would reward me. Of course I obliged. Upon getting to his camp, he and 4 of his friends ambushed me. Of course I kicked their asses, but the moment was thrilling. Anything can happen at any time in this game.

[Lyion]

I'm digging this so far, although only up to level 6. Using my Perks on Destruction and 2H so far just for fun, playing my Briton tank mage wannabe.

This game is making me seriously consider my SW:TOR preorder. I've had more fun with Risen, Divine: Divinity, and this than in any MMO lately.

[vonkaar]

Using my Perks on Destruction and 2H so far just for fun, playing my Briton tank mage wannabe.

That's the flexibility that I fucking love in this... you want to be a giant Orc wearing heavy plate and specialize in polearms? Go for it. Wait, you also want to be a master illusionist? NO PROBLEM. Just work on it =).

[Kaemon]

And... this was SO true for me last night. I killed my 2nd dragon, thought I was awesome and ran into my first giant encampment. I knew nothing about these guys so I thought I'd kill one. Walked right up and started wailing away with firebolt. Wack! Slow-motion finishing move to highlight how badly he owned my ass. Okay, let's try that again. Go back a few yards to the dead bandit, rise up oh zombie and serve me. Coated my best arrows in my best poison and went in. First arrow hit, slowing him down for a little kite. Ten arrows later and all my $300-400 poisons spent, he's at 80% and my zombie is in the earth. I think I *might* have been able to kill him if I had enough slow poisons ready to go and an assload of 50dd potions, but I didn't... and I didn't have 30 minutes to spend on a 'look what I did!' kite. So I walked in, bent over...

holy shit those guys are rough

Sneak attack archery 3x dmg, kite his ass to a tower and go inside tower, he cannot get inside the tower, but he sure wants to try. I just pinged them until they were all dead. 150-200 gold each. The ones by Whiterun I kited to the stables and jumped on the roof of the house and pinged them until they were dead. Sometimes they run and hide, just have to jump down to lure them out.

[Kaemon]

I was able to get Sneak to 100 in a few hours....go to a tavern and get behind the bartender. If you're under 40 backpedal in the corner until you get to 40. Won't take long, once 40 get the perk that dampans your the sound of your armor by 50%. Now you can autorun in the corner before you go to bed and be at 100 by morning when you wake up. Approx 3 hours. I gained 7 levels too, from 13 to 20.