Be Excellent To Each Other

Yup

I reached level 50 and got my 20 Dragon shouts yesterday and I've still go the Bard's and Dark Brotherhood quest lines to even look at (let alone complete) and I'm 85 hours in.

It's absolutely fucking massive and I'm still finding out new ways to approach situations and trying out different skills just to level them up and see what the perks are. I got tired of Oblivion at about the 75 hours mark - this looks like it will hold my interest for much longer.

I'm getting to grips with the size of it, in as much as I've accepted that giant portions of the map will remain unexplored for some time.

Yesterday I saw a giant walking along a road, and couldn't figure out why. I followed him for ages. Eventually I worked out he was following a cow. A sabre cat lept from the side of the road and attacked the cow, which angered the giant who annihilated the cat, but sadly the cow was dead.

The giant stopped, and looked mournfully at the cow and didn't move and totally ignored me. Then I noticed the cow had loads of weird symbols painted on it. Turns out local farmers offer up cows to giants like this as sacrifices, and you'll randomly encounter farmers with the cows on their way to the giant. I caught this guy on his way back with the cow.

After looking at the giant for a while I decided there wasn't any reason to leave him there, so I attacked him. I'm strong enough now to take several hits, and if you block a giant hit it'll level your Block massively. Don't block and it'll level your armour massively. We played ring-a-roses around a tree stump for a while with me intermittantly tanking hits and healing until I got bored and took him out. Being able to take out giants in 3 hits is awesome

Giant and cow tale awesome there EBG.

Eyes now red and raw, but CAN'T SEEM TO... STOP.

Just done the Golden Claw Barrow thing and joined the companions, who seem to be confused as to whether they're an honourable bunch of A-Team types or complete dicks. And am actually enjoying reading the books inside this game. Shock!

Astonishingly have encountered no glitches yet.

I've encountered a glitch where a quest won't update. It says 'talk to blah and make her do blah', and I do. She's supposed t take an item from me and give me a reward, and while the dialog is there, the item doesn't move, I get no reward, and the quest doesn't update. Sadface.

I'm level 49 now I think, just made it to Solitude. Steam reckons 64 hours done, in about 9 days. Fuck me.

I'm level 28 in 50 hours since Dec 27th. It's brilliant this game. Old Man Afterthought has three different characters on the go, and it is the only XBox game he owns...

Dear god man are you not sleeping?... I am level 40 and got the game on the 13th Jan

You can use the console to fix quests that are broken and are not updating.

And to turn towns into horrible crossdressing paradises.

Luckily enough I've been injured this week so exercise hasn't impeded my ability to sit on my arse. I don't play games much because they don't hold my attention, but when they do, I'm right in there.

My current stats are lvl 39 with 82 hours played

I made a set of Ebony Armor, and an Ebony Epic sword, but haven't improved the armour, so I'm still in the orcish. Got slaughtered by a cave full of wizards whilst looking for a staff for someone. Going back to that one later.

I'm level 55 now. Finally got enchanting to 100, and Speech is now at 98 I think. Most of my magic apart from restoration (about 80ish) is pathetically weak because I've never used it. Most of the spells are pointless and useless. Joined the mages college now though so hopefully some questing there will up those stats a bit.

One-handed attacks, either with shield or dual wielding, are fucking rubbish. I made two legendary daedric swords and found the attacks pitifully weak and stamina-draining. Nothing tops two-handed warhammer death.

I've got cash coming out of my arse, about 65k last time I checked but I must have spent a good 50-60k on various training for skills at higher levels (4k per level). I've entered most of the big towns now but haven't had the time/patience to explore them properly. I've reduced my playing a bit because I've got other stuff to do at the mo, but I'll keep chipping away at it for another couple of months I expect.

I was happy I reached lvl 41.

I prefer 1 hand to 2 hand, for speed. Plus I can smash with a shield which stuns folks/dragons etc etc

I don't need to stun anyone. Most people die in one hit from the hammer.

I liek to have a hand free, for fast heal / clairvoyant / candlelight etc..

Hmm, not seen those tomes yet.

I am thinking I want to use magic more...

I think the designers realised they needed a spell like Clairvoyant given how fucking hard it is to work out how to get to a location on the map. So often I've walked right to where I think I need to be, only to be faced with a sheer cliff or just nothing at all even though I'm standing right on the marker. Oftentimes the entrance to the location is miles away from the marker and involves backtracking on foot for 10 minutes. Without the spell I'd have gone mad by now trying to find things.

Right hand for sword, left hand for flames/ice/sparks/firebolt

I will try this... I need to get firebolt!

For shit players.

I use it... Mean Zardoz

The Champion of Cyrodill needs no Clairvoyance

Your mum is a shit player.

I'm level 29 and am getting murdered by the friends of someone who ripped me off on a crime deal The game seems to suddenly have gotten harder.

I noticed a bump in difficulty a while back. I'm destroying everyone again now though. I think I'm level 40.

Tell you what, those Forsworn Briarhearts are a fucking bastard. Despite being armoured up the arse those guys can slice me to pieces in seconds if I'm not careful.

However:

Did the fetch the staff quest for one of them student types. Stupidly hard. Had to hide and then run in screaming with my sword! However after a few hits and a few potions ... I died. Took nearly an hour to figure out a way to kill the mofo! Hardest mage type person I've come across so far.

You can level up quickly by not actually doing any fighting I made the mistake by concentrating on my blacksmith skill to 100 & that took me up quite a few levels. When I then went fighting I got my arse kicked !!

Ok I just got the achievement for having 100,000 gold. I then spent about 40k of it buying and kitting out a house in Solitude. I think that's the last thing I can buy that costs any money so picking up treasure I don't actively want to use is now pretty pointless. Due to what I assume is a glitch the Riverwood Trader seems to keep 11,000 gold and refreshes every day, so that's been handy for getting rid of shit en-masse.

Getting a bit worn out from playing so I'll knock it on the head for a while.

Aye, used the exploit on the dude in the Blackbriar Meadery to get my speech up to 100 because I was sick to death of trawling round all the shops in Whiterun or wherever, even after I'd invested my 500 gold in each, and still not being able to flog all the loot I've been picking up per dungeon. I usually turn over about 5k gold in Whiterun now and will have my 100,000 cheevo shortly, as I've been buying stuff for various houses etc.

For my next dungeon I thought I'd have to turn the difficulty down, formerly pwnable enemies were smiting the fuck out of me, but instead I've adapted a couple of tactics and ploughed through, with renewed interest in developing further skills. I'm at the point where I've got as far as I can with the high skills in this or that which I really really wanted, but I've got to select a load of shit perks I'll never use to get the stuff I want next. Boring, because I'll get to the end of the game having hardly used some of the stuff I'm after :/ Might drposwords completely for magic and archery now though, am level 43.

Finished. Well, I have achievements wise. Also I've had it off Lovefilm for two months so I need to send it back so I feel like I'm using it properly.

Oh btw I got attacked by two dragons simultaneously the other day. That was pretty awesome shit.

I think I'm going to start this today.

Sweet found book that ups 5 stats or something by 5 levels. OMG!

Also did my first decapitate blow today on some poor orc.

I had that book for about 20 hours before I thought to actually read further than the first page.

Decided to start Arkham Asylum instead.

I bought this on the PC and was massively unimpressed with it, it's a single player WoW, it really is.

If you like Skyrim, you'll like WoW, and WoW is better.

I tried to get into Skyrim, I properly tried to like it, but I was constantly reminded of the fact that it was just a big empty make believe world with no other real people in it, basically an MMORPG without the MMO bit - and a typical fucking Bethedesa bug-fest as well.

I don't know why I keep buying their games, every game from Oblivion onwards has basically been the same, and I haven't really liked any of them for largely the same reasons.

It is WoW possibly but without the hours and hours of grind.. Ah you want a snow cat mount bring me 3000 dear pelts!

The same. I first read it and found that it didn't prompt me for anything. Strange. Any I'm saving it till I get bored with the game. Which I probably will do once I finished most the quests. There's a bug that allows you to copy the book multiple times so going to use it to max everything at some point. Cheating but it's better than grinding after 100 hrs or play or so.

I'm just collecting the blood for that. Might well spam the spells becauseI have stuff like alteration that's still at level 20 and its really unlikely I'll ever see a need to cast the spells.

I'm now fapping around in Dragonscale armour to get the light stat up. Had to do a tour of all the fixed dragon encounters for the materials. At the moment it offers half as much protection as Daedric although my light skill is only at 21 with no skill perks. Mind you, my enchanting is so awesome that my effective light skill is 80 with the armour buffs

While I'm busy with that I've given Lydia my Daedric set along with her own legendary warhammer. Although her health is still utterly pitiful as a follower it does rather look like I've got a Dremora following me the whole time, and she's rather effective.

I have wood elf blood to get..

I switch between, dragon, thief and brother hood armour.. Depending on my quest

I tried to kill a giant and a mammoth last night. It didn't end well. I don't think my one hadned skill is high enough, nor my heavy armor. Or maybe I don't have sufficient health, or something.

I tried heavy armour, but I prefer light now..

That speech exploit was useful, just boring to do. But I gained 3 levels and have 100 in speech now.

I used the exploit to go from 98 to 100. heh.

I keep my Daedric on at all times. It hits the armour cap of the game and I have the perk so it weighs nothing. I also have carry weight buffs so equipping it actually lets me carry more than if I take it off

Your problem Mali is that you're using one-handed attacks, which are shit. Giants and Mammoths go in 2-3 hits for me, and usually 1 hit if its a sneak attack. I think my damage rating on the warhammer is about 250.

My sword is 51...

I don't know why anyone would use one handed, or with a shield. With awesome armour you don't need to block and most stuff dies in one hit. The only thing that isn't a total piss-take are Dragons that need a good 5 or 6 power hits to the face before they die.

2 handed is for pussys...


One handed and spells is where it is at

I think there is more than one way to play the game. I found a pimped out skyforge blade with fire damage was better than a two handed. Plus I like the flexibility of shield/healing/magic

I really like my bow.. Pimped out Deadric bow with fire damage.

I've spent 52 hours doing it one handed and have invested a few perks in it, so I'm a bit loathe to switch. I'll review it when I get home.