daemondarque

This rampant quest railroading has been a game-killer for me--avoiding quests or situations that a given character would not possibly agree with is like walking through a minefield. One cannot even just explore the world without falling victim to it. Find an item, read a book--and Zap! You either suck it up, or forgo your progress and reload a previous save. I am not the sort of player who resorts to having a walkthrough close at hand when playing for the first time, but in Skyrim it becomes absolutely necessary--and for me, that ruins the gaming experience. Do I dare talk to this person or not? Better check! And why Beth would even presume that every player wants to join every guild on a single playthrough is a mystery, since that adversely affects the game's replayability.(and longevity). Did they somehow forget what made their previous games great? First thing my character did was join the Companions, because it seemed like a cool guild with a lot of history, and doing good deeds for money seemed just right, to get the feel of where I might want to go next in the game. Lo and behold, after one assignment I find out their secret... gulp ... okay, really, live and let live, just don't make me into one, and we're good. I guess. But guess what? And now I'm a member of a guild that won't give me any more assignments unless I do something unnatural. Impasse. The mages guild assumes I'm a card-carrying member when I have only ever cast one spell (the one I needed to get inside--which I had to do to complete a random quest--and I had to waste two level-ups to get the required magicka for that.). Ditto the thieves guild. Ditto the dark brotherhood. What is this shiiite? The guilds in Oblivion at least had standards--and you had to seek them out; Skyrim drags you kicking and screaming, whether you want to or not. And the guild quests are just a small symptom of a larger malaise that infects the whole game. By far the most frustrating and illogical quest is that of the Blades. For hundreds of years they have been spies--which means they know the value of a willing informant or inside man, and how to exploit it ... and yet they demand Paarthenax's immediate death, or they will not talk to you anymore. What? They turn their backs of the Dragonborn? Talk about being used, and lied to--all that fluff about their existence being to protect and serve was apparently nothing more than B.S. Now, it seems to me that the Thalmor are their real enemy, since members of their Order were systematically hunted down and killed (hint: not by dragons) ... and there's little doubt the threat to the Empire still exists in spite of the treaty. Having a host of dragons on your side just might be an asset? But no, the Blades are dead set on annihilating an endangered species... Sorry for the rant, but how Bethesda can get so much so right, and still muck up roleplaying so badly is beyond me. That's the R in RPG, y'know? I like what they've done with the game world very much, but without modders, I give Skyrim's life expectancy about six months--not six years like it has been so far with Oblivion.

I've seen this happen on Bonelords from Warcry... Unfortunately, skeletons were never meant to wear armor; they were meant to fly apart, and the mesh has no choice but to follow. The only way I know to fix it is to remove the sleeves.

In the process of exploring Blackmarsh and Valenwood, but I can't wait to see these... just the thought makes me itch to bring up the CS once again.

Oh, that's simple ... interior design, location, and character. But all three must take into account the type and personality of a PC who might live there--a bachelor (or a ranger) typically doesn't place a lot of importance on frills, whereas a high-class lady champion might. Interior design = I don't have to have huge mansions with large rooms, but I do insist that I'm not knocking my shins on furniture and clutter. The imaginative use of standard textures is fine; and a house doesn't really need to sing and dance to be good. Two of my most favorite homes are a) the Captain's quarters in Knights of the White Stallion - beautiful, spacious, and functional. Love that there is a closet for each type of collectible. b) Castle Knightstone - perfect location for my Divine Crusader ... it's not huge, but has all the character and atmosphere of a medieval castle.

I would like to reserve CHO27 ... "May my soul be half an hour with Akatosh Before Mehrunes Dagon knows I'm dead" ... and if it would not be too out of line, I would like to request CHO28 for Sen-Chan (epitaph not yet decided).

Awesome ... thanks for the update!

Today in Oblivion, Pell's Gate became a ghost town... Well, maybe I better back up a little, to where my Level 21 Dark Elf (Ronin) decides to take his new girlfriend (Katriana from HOD) along on an easy quest-- show her the sights around Imperial City, maybe show off a bit, that kind of thing. And even though he's got almost 300 hours ingame, Ronin's never done the Waterworks quest from Let the People Drink... So he takes a shortcut, and the two of them trot across the waterworks bridge to Drothan's house--such a lovely view at sunset--and that was where the trouble all started. At first it wasn't so bad (although if you know what a Vatte-lys is, you know it was bad enough!) They're Vacuity's mean little wisp-like MMM pretties that you can't see till they suck the life out of you--and we met up with two of them on the wooden bridge outside the house ... followed by two Efrits and one Hill Giant, all in a row. Tough going for a bit, but so far, so good, right? Ha. After dusting himself off, Ronin steps through the door of Drothan's house... and comes face to face with two Lesser Balrogs. Inside. Beating the crap out of Drothan. I can only guess that they came up from the Amazon cave below. Now I've taken on Lessers before with other characters of similar level--not saying it's not a fight, especially right up front with a sword, but they do go down. But having to take on two of them in such a small space doesn't usually bode well; and because of his birthsign, Ronin's got a serious frailty with regard to magick, and particularly fire. And so he did what any seasoned FCOM adventurer would do under those circumstances--he turned right around and got the hell outta Dodge. Of course, he was only trying to lure them away from Katriana... With the two Balrogs breathing fire down his neck, he ran, mentally adding up how many souls he could count on for help... there's usually a Tamriel Traveler at the corner there, and always three or four folk standing around Pells Gate yakking ... and then there's that fort over there just crawling with bad guys--wonder if they might volunteer to provide a little cannon fodder... Chaos did ensue, but in truth, the plan didn't work so well after that--mostly because unbeknownst to anyone, amongst the Black Bow bad guys was a Frans boss, and those dudes are like heat-seeking missiles ... they don't care about no stinkin' balrogs, they want your blood. And by that time Ronin had pretty much had enough of the running thing, had found out that Balrogs can see you even if you're invisible, and why the hell is there never a cop around when you need one, anyways? He took advantage of a split second when their attention was on somebody else, and tucked into the Inn to take a quick nip of Strong Healing Potion ... and to pull his trusty old Runeskull-enchanted katana of Corruption out of his backpack. Yep, the very same sword I made him put away--quite some time ago--when I thought it was making the game too easy. This time, I don't think he would've survived without it... because even after running over all those folks, there was barely a dent in those Balrogs ... and the Frans guy leading the pack was still looking pretty spry too. But now with his familiar quick, razor sharp sword, it was finally time for little Ronin to dance... When the battle was finally ended, we'd lost one Traveller (yes, he dropped good loot!), and I've no idea where the rest of the bodies are. All I know is there's just a Nord guy left in Pell's Gate, standing around talking to himself and waving at passers-by... Katriana--well, she wasn't all that impressed. Separate rooms at the inn. But by the Gods, the people can now Drink!! Pell's Gate (And btw, I'm going to let him keep his sword...) But they were Balrogs, Kat...

or your machine startup looks like this... http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27993&navtag=file/images.php?id=27993&tab=3 I love this one:

When you nearly stop the car because you thought you saw a Nirnroot...

Have you already finished the main quest? If so, a CTD here is most commonly due to a problem with the Bruma statue--changing the race, hair, and even sometimes the clothing on your PC causes it to have an identity crisis... If it's out of the question to revert to a previous savegame--too far back--it's sometimes possible to fix it. But the fastest and easiest way is to use a small mod called Kill Bruma Statue (or somesuch), which removes the statue completely. You can then recreate the statue in your current likeness using Update My Statue, if you wish. (I have had a couple games where this procedure didn't work so well, but for the most part it does.) Either way, you should then be able to enter Bruma again. If you haven't done the MQ, then I'd start checking for any mod that overhauls/affects the city or its inhabitants..

Glad to hear you're still working on this--the improved roads and border crossings have become an essential part of my landscape, but as always I'd like to see more. It's the small touches that add life and believability to a world.

Impeccable timing! I had just decided yesterday that I was going to give this mod to my verry bored Dark Elf (27) ... he's in Bruma right now, after just having talked to the beggar for the first time. He's sharpening up Light of Dawn right now, while he waits for the download to finish...

Many of the older images were taken with a different video setup and bloom lighting, so they do tend to be darker. I now use HDR and have a new video card and LCD monitor--makes the game pretty bright... I can go back and tweak either way if I run across one that really bugs me ... but so far I haven't found them too dark--full widescreen lightens them up considerably ingame--if anything, the newer screenshots are too bright, lol.

Here are some that I snapped pix of while I was playing yesterday. I have several different types included in my esp (over 70 shots in all, I think): characters by race and by profession, gameplay action, story shots from various characters' lives, and a special group honoring my (currently) six champions--the latter are portraits done using your smaller-frame template (unfortunately the game decided not to cooperate and let me get a screenshot of any while I had Fraps up).