Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Another helpful hint: companions can bear the brunt of even the most powerful force shout you can dole out. Keeping a proverbial leash on your companions can be difficult at times, so this trick is useful if, say, you're navigating your way down some rocky terrain and don't want your companion to get too confused about how to circumnavigate a particular boulder (this happens, particularly if any jumping is involved). Just force shout them off the side of the cliff and meet them at the bottom as they're dusting themselves off. And, unlike most other methods of assault, you can do this repeatedly without your companions getting pissed and attacking you or leaving your company. Be warned, though: I've also force shouted a companion or two off the side of a mountain out of frustration because he/she was being a navigational douche and I wound up losing them for a time. But you can always quickly get them back to your side by fast travelling to the nearest location on the map.

Most importantly: watching your companions rag doll through the air and into an abyss is a treat that no Skyrim player should miss out on.

Who are your favourite companions, everyone?

"Favorite"? They're mostly different shades of irritating imo. The dog, maybe? Actually, the dark elf lady from the college was fine. Certainly not J'zargo or whatever his stupid name is.

in my 3 playthroughs i don't think i had one for very long, maybe early game.

I think I accidentally killed all of my followers (except for elf lady, who works in my house).

Aela is my favorite. She's useful no matter what kind of character you have.

It's not jzargo's fault he only has so much room to carry things.

It's totally J'zargo's fault that J'zargo always refers to J'zargo in the third person, though.

I married Mjoll the Lioness and we were very happy together.

Hey, that's my wife, too! What's the idea.....

I've Faendal as a follower and I can't marry him! rude.

Have you figured out how to get married? It's an unintuitive process that I finally had to just research (like curing vampirism). Involving an amulet from I don't remember where.

IIRC, the priest who gives you the amulet clearly instructs you how to get married?

I married Mjoll the Lioness too in a lesbian wedding, but then I started to feel bad that this awesome barbarian woman stays home making me food, so I downloaded a divorce app and became single again. After that, Mjoll wasn't very happy to see me whenever I ran across her in Riften, but at least she's free again.

I think the biggest flaw in Skyrim marriage is that every character begins to speak and act in the same domesticated way once they are married, regardless of who they were before. My second wife is this fearsome Orc warrior, and it's pretty weird to hear things "It's lovely to see you again" or "Here, I baked you some pie" from her mouth. I think I'll have to divorce her too, and find some non-warrior woman who might actually enjoy staying at home and taking care of my two daughters.

I guess I could take my wife with me on quests, so she wouldn't have to sit at home baking pies, but I specialize in stealth and long-distance archery killings, so followers are usually useless or even detrimental to me.

Btw, looking for lesbian marriage made me realize the inherent racism in Skyrim... AFAIK there's only one lizardwoman you can woo, and no catwomen at all. Dunno if it's any better with men?

As for followers, the jester guy from the assassins' guild side quest is pretty funny, because he tends to crack inappropriate jokes about the situations you get into. But even that gets boring after a while.

Essential followers cannot, I think, die under any circumstances.

Blackreach is, uh, ambitious and disorienting. For some reason I swear that playing through it with the vampire DLC installed changes the experience slightly. I don't remember those flying bugs at all. Somehow I completely skipped the nirnroot hunt as well.

have you been to blackreach... on weed?

Do I wanna be pretty levelled up before I attempt there? I'm still only about level 15 (been too busy to play games lately)

IIRC, there's nothing too overpowered in Blackreach. There are some giants, but they're avoidable. Lots of falmer hiding in the darkness. I think there might be some spheres? If you haven't encountered those yet, you might want to brace yourself.

It's an enormous area, though, without many exits. And it's largely dark and sometimes difficult to navigate. So keep that in mind.

I dont think Ive encountered falmer or spheres yet! Giants only in the meek, skulking distance. Not impeding on those fuckers.

It was pretty tough even getting to Blackreach for me. If you can get there, it's probably safe to be there.

I don't think you can go there at all until you've met Paarthurnax. That's what the Wiki implies, anyway.

Elder Scroll series is 75% off on Steam right now. Tempted to buy Skyrim again.

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/elder-scrolls/

Huh. I'd buy Elder Scrolls Online if I thought there was a chance in hell my laptop could handle it.

Has anyone here spent any time with ESO?

nope

I'm put off by the concept of MMORPGs, due to the Hell is Other People factor tbrh. 10 mins on WoW back in the day was enough for me.

If I could play it on a private server with a few mates it might be a diff story.

i tried eso for a couple of days. nice looking game but main problem i had with it is that it doesn't have the elder scrolls feel and the mmo part of it is kind of wack. so failing on those 2 fronts, its kinda hard to recommend

i did put boot camp on my macbook recently and installed skyrim and dark souls. looks really good, can't wait to start modding it

this story is amazing

https://twitter.com/PatrickLenton/status/717163582115307521

Most followers have "protected" status or something, but I always fight hard and expect them to just fill in the gaps with magic etc.—side note, is there a follower who just heals you repeatedly? that would be good. But I guess the dogs are not "essential" quest items or whatever. My loyal vampire hunting dog fought along side me for so long, but then, in the dwemer ruins, his AI pathfinding struggled to get out of the water. He just ran and ran and ran into the side of the underwater wall. I thought that leaving would cause him to teleport to me, like Serana always does, but when I went back I found him floating in the water.

... Just floating there...

I debated going to get the other vampire hunting dog I didn't choose, but it was just too sad, so I left.

Huh. I thought you personally had to kill your followers/companions for them to die. Goes to show what I know.

I liked having a companion but he and any other followers in quests kept getting in the bloody way because im a distance fighter and I'd keep inadvertently shooting everyone on my team, to cranky shouts of "hey! I'm on YOUR SIDE!".

...my bf swapped the PS3 for the PS4 in my little cave recently so now I cant play Skyrim anymore and I am sadface :(

(unless I go and buy a PS4 copy and START ALL OVER AGAIN I suppose)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkS4ebfDYsU

Started playing this again after F4 turned out to be meh. Going as a goth magic caster this time round since I didn't really do the magic stuff last time. Deep into it already.

I spent an evening whacking a load of mods on, using this video as a base (there's a handy googledoc with all the mods). It makes Skyrim look like it came out in the last 6 months, relaly beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sg8tqqrKtI

when's this getting HD remade

do steam folks get the remaster free or is it being treated as a 'new' game?

remake comes out in October.

And yeah it's a free update for existing PC owners.

My understanding is one has to have the base game and all the DLC for the free Skyrim remaster.

what, you can't simply walk into Markarth?

i have been thinking about playing this again. it was way better than any of the Fallouts imo.

I think back to Bergson's formulation of comedy as "something mechanical encrusted on the living." Bethesda games, to me, are about "something living encrusted on the mechanical." For all their clunkiness, there are always little events that seem unscripted or spontaneous and therefore joyful. They're usually bugs, to be fair, but I'm glad Bethesda doesn't try to limit them by designing more limited games.

Inspired by this revival, I loaded up an old saved game and just started killing everyone and everything I encountered, which quickly spiraled out of control and got pretty exciting just before the game inevitably froze up completely. Ahhh, there's that old Skyrim experience I'd forgotten!

no mods for ps4 version

http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/b31c4ced285e73f40c884d009c5a7da6-650-80.png

I only play strategy games and first person RP/adventure, where a 90° FOV on a desktop monitor is way more immersive. Consoles cost more than an adequate video card. Mods are icing for me.

TBF, the last console I personally owned was a Mattel Intellivision.

i was hanging out w some people irl and someone mentioned Skyrim. then someone asked me if I knew about the best build. he said to put all your points into stealth and magic, so that you can sneak up to anything and do massive crit damage. you cast a stealth spell and then do the leveled up surprise attack. apparently dragons will go down in 2-3 hits. has anyone tried this?