Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim teaser trailer

**swmeek** · 01-24-2012, 01:44 AM

Even an in game warning of say " you now have a bounty on your head in such and such part of Skyrim" would be nice.

**PP Mguire** · 01-24-2012, 05:06 AM

It tells you when you get a bounty. It will show up in white in the corner of your screen like other messages saying you now have such bounty. The crime menu also says on the very top what town you currently have bounty in and how much. So lets say I kill a soldier, it will say "Whiterun 1000" in the corner and reflect that under the crime menu on top.

**swmeek** · 01-24-2012, 02:33 PM

Oh okay that's cool.
I've not had any bounty on my character so I wasn't sure.

**Frag Maniac** · 01-24-2012, 11:50 PM

Silly me, I forgot it probably wouldn't show anything if there was no current bounty. I've never noticed the small text in the upper corner of the screen unless I'm looking up though. If you're not looking there it can be hard to notice. I'd prefer something similar to the way Assassin's Creed does it, where the mini map turns a different color, maybe with directional arrows pointing where the bounty area is. I do a lot of fast traveling when selling goods to make time pass when traders run out of cash. I don't want to have to check the menu screen before heading to another town every time. Granted this game has no mini map, but they could just highlight the compass bar at the top of the screen in various shades, red meaning you're approaching a bounty area.

Last night I struggled through the quests following Diplomatic Immunity where you have to deal with catatonic Esbern. I finally got through it getting workaround tips on the net, including sending him flying with a shout to wake his arse up when he stands there pulling the same book out at Delphine's hideout. One bit of advice, which didn't work, was to try and beat him a bit to see if he'd speak, but in the process I discovered a nice sneak leveling trick. If you line up so Esbern is between you and Delphine, crouch, and wait for hidden status, then punch him once, you'll get a sneak rating point for every 3-5 hits.

I took my sneak rating from mid 20s to 100, but unfortunately I applied one of the level ups to the wrong perk in going for Assassin Blade, so now I have to build it some more. According to a wiki I read on perks afterward, the Deadly Aim perk is required to get Assassin Blade, which makes no sense at all to me. I would think requiring Backstab, which is the one I chose, would be more appropriate.

I found out today there's a simple Esbern fix available where you just download, copy and paste his dialog files into the game's data directory. Unfortunately all the saves auto and otherwise that would take me back to those missions to find out what the heck he was saying to get the story details have been overwritten. Bethesda did most things well in this game, but got some things so wrong. I find it odd too that such a simple fix for such vital story missions were not implemented in the last patch.

Now I'll have to either search for videos of the Esbern missions that have fixed audio so I can get the story details, or start a whole new game, which is not an acceptable option at this point.

**PP Mguire** · 01-25-2012, 03:58 AM

Lol I said in post 98 in this thread how to fix the Esbern issues. I refused to play the game any further until I found a way to fix it.

**swmeek** · 01-25-2012, 11:20 AM

Here's the patch notes for the new beta update that's out.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/133...release-notes/

**Frag Maniac** · 01-25-2012, 09:05 PM

LOL, oh crap, wish I'd read your post about the Esbern fix before using the moveto command at his lair door and shouting at him. I managed to load a save near the end of Karthspire that revealed some of the dialog, but I missed most of what he said due to no saves to load.

I've already read the patch notes for 1.4. Amazingly still no mention of an Esbern fix. Bethesda must be as catatonic as he is. The main things in it that interest me are the performance improvements. I played a session last night with Skyboost, but didn't really notice any improvement.

Finally got my Assassin Blade perk though. It's cool to be able to one hit kill with sneak attacks, all the sweeter when you get the throat slit animation. Made it to Angi's Farm too and raised my Archery skill level. I did the thieves mission where you have to burn the bee hives and raid the safe, but I forgot to bring my damn torch. I ended up using a Fire Breath shout, run and hide, repeat, approach.

**PP Mguire** · 01-25-2012, 11:29 PM

I run a ton of mods (over 2GB) and apparently the new patch will give me around a 10FPS boost. Here's hoping.
When I came across that Esbern thing I was lucky enough to have a friend pretty much in the same area as me in the game playing on the 360 so I could hear what he said just in case I decided to move ahead. Little Google helped me fix the problem though.

**Frag Maniac** · 01-26-2012, 08:49 AM

Originally Posted by PP Mguire

Little Google helped me fix the problem though.

Yeah I made the mistake of Googling for Diplomatic Immunity workarounds instead of fixing Esbern, so I only found the console command and shout tips.

On the one hand, at least Bethesda are continuing to patch the game. On the other, I don't see how they could miss such a blatant bug in a main story line that affects at least 3 missions in a pivotal part of the story, when the fix is merely getting the game to recognize the contained audio files for Esbern.

**PP Mguire** · 01-26-2012, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

Yeah I made the mistake of Googling for Diplomatic Immunity workarounds instead of fixing Esbern, so I only found the console command and shout tips.

On the one hand, at least Bethesda are continuing to patch the game. On the other, I don't see how they could miss such a blatant bug in a main story line that affects at least 3 missions in a pivotal part of the story, when the fix is merely getting the game to recognize the contained audio files for Esbern.

I think the patches they are putting out are just minor patches for now and they are working on a huge one. On the other hand, they could be letting the modding community do all the work and fixing stuff not being taken care of.

**Frag Maniac** · 01-26-2012, 04:26 PM

I've seen the release notes for the upcoming 1.4 patch, which is currently in beta, and it's a pretty big patch, but still no mention of the Esbern bug.

Spent last night power leveling my Smithing via buying and stealing iron ingots, hunting game around Whiterun to make leather strips, and making and selling back iron daggers. I went straight to 100 on the left side of the tree, but I'm a bit bummed that the plate dragon armor base rating isn't any better than my blades armor I got free at the Sky Haven Temple.

I had some fun hunting deer and elk along the way though, often interrupted by saber cats, bears and dragons. Only bummer was one of the dragons I slayed and marked after building up too much weight to carry the bones wasn't there when I returned. I have two sets of bones and scales at my breezehome pad, but I need to get about 3 more dragons to have enough for either a plate or scale set of armor. I'll probably go with the scale and improve it. Whole set only weighs 26. That and the Extra Pockets Pickpocketing perk I plan to get will make for being able to haul lots of gear.

**PP Mguire** · 01-27-2012, 06:27 AM

Originally Posted by Frag Maniac

I've seen the release notes for the upcoming 1.4 patch, which is currently in beta, and it's a pretty big patch, but still no mention of the Esbern bug.

Spent last night power leveling my Smithing via buying and stealing iron ingots, hunting game around Whiterun to make leather strips, and making and selling back iron daggers. I went straight to 100 on the left side of the tree, but I'm a bit bummed that the plate dragon armor base rating isn't any better than my blades armor I got free at the Sky Haven Temple.

I had some fun hunting deer and elk along the way though, often interrupted by saber cats, bears and dragons. Only bummer was one of the dragons I slayed and marked after building up too much weight to carry the bones wasn't there when I returned. I have to sets of bones and scales at my breezehome pad, but I need to get about 3 more dragons to have enough for either a plate or scale set of armor. I'll probably go with the scale and improve it. Whole set only weighs 26. That and the Extra Pockets Pickpocketing perk I plan to get will make for being able to haul lots of gear.

Last I heard it was around a few hundred MB. By huge I mean a few GB. Was hoping for a nice DX11 update to the game. Probably just wishful thinking. (not this patch obviously)

**Frag Maniac** · 01-27-2012, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by PP Mguire

Last I heard it was around a few hundred MB. By huge I mean a few GB. Was hoping for a nice DX11 update to the game. Probably just wishful thinking. (not this patch obviously)

If it has to be that big they clearly didn't design the game with DX11 in mind. Then again, a game with a world this big being only 5GB total is kinda strange considering today's graphics and the huge file sizes some games are. The many mods available help some, but last I read the Skyrim HD mod had only progressed to including two towns thus far.

Spent last night power leveling my light armor in the Thieves Guild suit. The Mud Crabs were useful up until about level 40-45, then I switched to using a Giant, changing difficulty level to Master to give more credit to each hit. I took a break from the drudgery and made Dragonscale armor and shield from the dragon parts I had, then decided to try it out hunting for more dragons to complete the set.

After a bit of hunting I couldn't find any in the usual places I'd seen them, so I ventured up to the only place on the map that had an unexplored area marked by a dragon symbol, the mountain by Winterhold. I went to Winterhold first, encountering my first Snow Bears and Horkers along the way. I visited the town, which is smaller than I thought it would be, then ventured up the mountain.

What ensued was the most epic dragon battle I've had yet, a fire breathing Elder Dragon that was quite large and vicious. After shouting at it I couldn't get anywhere near it without it eating me. I quickly switched to my most powerful long distance dragon slaying gear, which includes the Hide Archery Helmet, Minor Ring of Archery, and Legendary Glass Bow with a total damage rating of 76 with my Archery skill and boosters factored in. I sufficed with Ancient Nord Arrows though, because I had plenty of them.

At the beginning I didn't know if I could even survive the battle. I was contemplating the possibility of having to reload a prior save, and build up my gear and skills first. Then I started finding little nooks and crannies to escape to in between it's scorching fire attacks, and managed to get in some good saves and stamina recovery. I'd seen a rock archway earlier I was desperately trying to get back to after finding no better cover elsewhere.

About 100 arrows later after numerous rinse and repeat shout, shoot, take cover, shoot, hide from strafing runs and save combinations, the beast finally went down. In the process I managed to add on a few archery skill points. I was a bit disappointed the thing only had a lousy one dragon bone along with the usual 3 scales, but the altar just below had at least 60 Ancient Nord Arrows to help restock what I'd spent.

After quitting my session I later realized it wasn't my new armor that was lacking as I'd assumed when Snow Bears, Frost Trolls, some Bandits and that beastly dragon seemed harder than they should have been to fight. I'd forgotten I had bumped the difficulty from Adept up to Master. That combined with my being only level 38 overall made for quite a bit of challenge. Leveling up seems faster though, so I may leave it there until I encounter a battle too overwhelming for me.

I just hope the latter parts of the game don't require a lot of Magicka. It's something that doesn't really interest me.

**PP Mguire** · 01-28-2012, 12:31 AM

Well considering Cry**** 2 had about 2GB worth of DX11 update in total, I would think Skyrim being HUGE would have a huge update too. I already have over 2GB of mods to improve textures and from what I'm to understand it's just bumping texture res on each individual piece. Making them DX11 and adding tessellation would probably be way bigger than that.

I played the whole game on master and didn't find it too difficult at all. My first run through I wound up stopping at level 33.

**Frag Maniac** · 01-28-2012, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by PP Mguire

I played the whole game on master and didn't find it too difficult at all. My first run through I wound up stopping at level 33.

Well like I said, I may leave it on Master, esp after I complete the Dragonscale armor set. I have the Matching Set perk unlocked too, so a full set will give me bonus protection. There's no short answer for the ease or difficulty of playing the game though. It depends entirely on the tools and methods one uses, what mods if any used affect gameplay, and a person's overall experience with how ES games are played. I'm a relative noob at the latter.

For one I don't get into the Magicka stuff much at all, and have yet to even use any healing or other types of potions. My way of playing it is to get by with as few tools as possible, even if it takes longer. Some battles I think should feel long and arduous when on Master, and when you win them with few tools, it feels like a bigger accomplishment. It's actually less immersive for me the more magic is used anyway.

My view of Magicka can be summed up with my reaction to that stuffy sounding twit at the inn at Winterhold that says he used to be with the college but doesn't want anything to do with it anymore. I think it conditions people to thinking they can do anything they want and act any way they want, and they become easily bored and often snobbish by it. I see it as more of a crutch than necessity so far. On the other hand, if people want to play it like they're an all powerful wizard that can conjure up beings to fight for them at will, they can if they want.

One of the main things that makes the game so popular is being able to play it virtually any way you want. What's needless tedium to some, is a sense of immersion and accomplishment to others.