Quote from: thedungeondelver;490328If I were to take a drunken* swipe at classifying the three ES games I have played to the conclusion of the main quest by D&D systems I have played I'd go:

Morrowind: some crazy 2e plot-heavy shit going on there with great houses and dabbling in the affairs of gods and meeting vivec and all that jazz, plus the cross-rip of Asian, European, and middle-eastern fantasy styles in a sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland that reminds me faintly of Dark Sun (when you get around Red Mountain).  Note this is a positive rather than negative view.

Oblivion: AD&D 1e, because holy cow you've gotta stop this guy from summoning the devil so you go to hell to fight his minions oh yeah and there's dungeons!  Of course it all looks like Excalibur because that movie is bad ass except some dudes called...the blades, yeah!  They have Katanas because again, bad-ass (again, positive rather than negative)

Thus far, Skyrim: OD&D, the DM may or may not have his own skill system (he's not telling) going on behind the screen.  Elves are bright and terrible, and Everything Out In The Wild Can Kill You.  Pure northern European fantasy. (again, so far)

How would you classify Daggerfall and Arena?

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;490330How would you classify Daggerfall and Arena?

Dude TBH I did not play them extensively at all.  It wouldn't be fair of me to judge them.  Mechanically they (and Morrowind and Oblivion) remind me more of Rolemaster than any D&D.  I'm just going by feel of campaign, and I didn't get far enough into those two to give a clear answer.

(Also, back to Skyrim: getting jumped by four bow-using bandits on a mountainside...and Dragon Fury shouting them all to their deaths 18000 feet below and days later finding their broken bodies lying in the valley floor below is hilarious.)

One more Skyrim hilarity:

I have now had two attempts made on my life.  Not in the "here I am in a dungeon, come at me bro." sense but in the walking down the road to the next map marker...suddenly, bandits!  Kick the shit out of them, loot them...aha, what's this?  A "contract"?

"SIR WILLIAM* MUST DIE!  Signed, (some lady I shoplifted from, and insulted)."

uh...damn.  Okay.  Well, ha, I put paid to that notion - the thugs sent to do me in are all dead!

Days later, all the way across the province...jumped again by a bandit!  But this one is wielding a poison blade and arrayed all in black leather and cloth armor!  BDSM fetishist or Dark Brotherhood assassin! Only a looting of the corpse will tell!  One microwave session later, I loot his body and...another contract taken on me!

SHE MAD?  AWW YEAH.  SHE MAD.

*=my character's name.  Not the "Sir" part, though.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;490338One more Skyrim hilarity:

I have now had two attempts made on my life.  Not in the "here I am in a dungeon, come at me bro." sense but in the walking down the road to the next map marker...suddenly, bandits!  Kick the shit out of them, loot them...aha, what's this?  A "contract"?

"SIR WILLIAM* MUST DIE!  Signed, (some lady I shoplifted from, and insulted)."

uh...damn.  Okay.  Well, ha, I put paid to that notion - the thugs sent to do me in are all dead!

Days later, all the way across the province...jumped again by a bandit!  But this one is wielding a poison blade and arrayed all in black leather and cloth armor!  BDSM fetishist or Dark Brotherhood assassin! Only a looting of the corpse will tell!  One microwave session later, I loot his body and...another contract taken on me!

SHE MAD?  AWW YEAH.  SHE MAD.

*=my character's name.  Not the "Sir" part, though.

This is all the reason anyone could need to play this game.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;490330How would you classify Daggerfall and Arena?

I'd classify Daggerfall as hilariously broken nonsense.  Pointless skills.  Tons of glitches.  Almost mandatory munchkining.  It's the computer game equivalent of Palladium Fantasy.  

God, I love Daggerfall.

Quote from: Imperator;490345This is all the reason anyone could need to play this game.

I know, right?!

I just murdered my way through a dungeon (and god, the Dungeons in this are gorgeous...they make most Oblivion dungeons look like storage closets by comparison) full of necromancers, got to the "boss lair" and decided to quit hauling a "scroll of blizzard" (x2) around with me and use the fargin thing rather than deal with getting tazed by these jerkwads in bathrobes while I try to perforate their livers in the name of {$MISSION}.

Fire one!

They're howling maledictions and threats, all the while staggering towards me through an insanely persistent ice storm spell.  Fire two!  Now two of the three are dead and that third one is cowering in a corner begging me to stop.



Nope.  You put on the robes, you started peeling children as a hobby, you get to taste burny justice, sister.

I love this damn game.

Quote from: Dixon Hill;490348I'd classify Daggerfall as hilariously broken nonsense.  Pointless skills.  Tons of glitches.  Almost mandatory munchkining.  It's the computer game equivalent of Palladium Fantasy.  

God, I love Daggerfall.

If I can grit my teeth and put up with the graphics I may have to give that sumbitch another go.

A long, long time from now, however...

I figured out what was going on with the shouts. I don't have the first words of the shouts, which is what you need to activate them. I have a bunch of second and third words.

Luckily, my Unrelenting Force blast is now powerful enough that I can blow Draugr Overlords around like the autumn wind. I looted the guy in Solitude who's being executed right as you enter and took his talisman of Talos for a 20% reduction in the time between shouts, and I am now a bellowing Bretonic bastard. Even dragons stagger under it (I killed two or three more today).

Working on:

Geirmund's Epitaph questline
Companion questline
High Hrothgar / Courier missions to find Words of Power
Bounties (I've done one bounty on a giant, and one on a dragon so far, plus innumerable bandits)

I'm level 27, wearing all Dwarven Armour (superior), and using the same Skyforged Steel Sword I got somewhere around level 4 (I upgraded it to Superior quality around level 10ish).

I'm amazed at how much stuff I've done, and I haven't even been to Dawnstar, Winterhold, Rorikstead, Falkreath or Markath yet. I've only been to Solitude long enough to claim it as a destination on the map and loot the Talos amulet. I haven't been back to Helgen since the game's opening, though it's next on my sweep and clear list. Right now, Riften aka fetch quest central is sucking me in, even though I decided not to join the Thieves' Guild. Still haven't done any political stuff.

I'm actually surprised at how difficult it is to choose factions from the politics. On the one hand, Ulfric is a murderous, self-serving loudmouth advocating Nordic revanchism, and I'm not a Nord. On the other hand, every time I see the Imperials in action they are cutting people's heads off. Plus, they caved to the Thalmor, who seem to be (I'm guessing here) the big bads, and banned the worship of Talos.

Right now, I'm waiting until I start my sweep and clear of Solitude before I decide. If Tullius apologises for trying to cut off my head, I'll give the Empire a chance. On the other hand, if he's a dick, I'm going to join the Stormcloaks, Blade membership or no Blade membership, and kill the fuck out of the Imperials.

Edit: And of course, all of this is just to build up levels to finally beat the boss of Voluunrad, who I spent two hours on last night trying various strats and getting my ass kicked over and over again.

The most bizarre thing ive seen (SPOILER) is the quest for the kid who thinks he's summoned you as a Dark Brotherhood assassin.

You turn up at the orphanage ostensibly to kill the headmistress whom he thinks is an evil old cow, and you assume that there's going to be a choice - kill her or persuade her to be nice (something like that).

In fact she really is an evil old cow, stood there berating and threatening 5 kids who, when you kill her, all cheer at her murder. Yet the authorities only intervene when i took 4gold's worth of knick knack from her table (which wasn't highlighted as theft). In so doing, they step over the corpse, ignore the cheering kids, and haul me off to pokey.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;490338One more Skyrim hilarity:

I have now had two attempts made on my life.  Not in the "here I am in a dungeon, come at me bro." sense but in the walking down the road to the next map marker...suddenly, bandits!  Kick the shit out of them, loot them...aha, what's this?  A "contract"?

"SIR WILLIAM* MUST DIE!  Signed, (some lady I shoplifted from, and insulted)."

That's nothing. The Winterrun guards paid a few thugs to beat me up dead or alive. The guards. Whose job is exactly to take care of thieves like me themselves. And it was a class action contract, too, signed collectively "The Winterrun Guards".

I still can't get over how really gorgeous the area graphics for this game are.  The character models all look pretty good, but still move unnaturally when you are doing anything more then moving in a straight line.  Batman movement this is not.

But the landscapes, the buildings the dungeons are amazing.  Everything just looks and flows so organically.  They way water breaks over rocks, salmon jumping up stream, insects buzzing around, fallen trees and scrub everywhere.  The world design they accomplished is astounding.

Now here's to hoping they finally fix the character movement/interaction in the next one.  It's not currently game breaking by any means.  But I can only imagine at how much more amazing it would be if characters moved like they did in a much more action oriented game like Batman or Assassins Creed.

Quote from: Premier;490366That's nothing. The Winterrun guards paid a few thugs to beat me up dead or alive. The guards. Whose job is exactly to take care of thieves like me themselves. And it was a class action contract, too, signed collectively "The Winterrun Guards".

I literally laughed out loud when I read this.  Holy shit, dude, the ill-paid defenders of a city took up a collection to have your ass beat.  That is hilarious.

Again, I love this game.

When I saw it I thought "Okay it's leaps and bounds above Oblivion, graphically, but I could go back to Oblivion to finish out my second run through; the graphics in Oblivion aren't that dated."

But no.  No, I'd be missing out on gaming in an actual living world that moved on irrespective of what I did, people with their own agendas doing things not based on me doing things, but on them just up and doing it.

I just learned how to mine. Here comes the money!

Quote from: thedungeondelver;490349Nope.  You put on the robes, you started peeling children as a hobby, you get to taste burny justice, sister.

I love this damn game.

FUCK YES.

Quote from: Premier;490366That's nothing. The Winterrun guards paid a few thugs to beat me up dead or alive. The guards. Whose job is exactly to take care of thieves like me themselves. And it was a class action contract, too, signed collectively "The Winterrun Guards".

Awesome. Simply awesome.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;490351I'm actually surprised at how difficult it is to choose factions from the politics. On the one hand, Ulfric is a murderous, self-serving loudmouth advocating Nordic revanchism, and I'm not a Nord. On the other hand, every time I see the Imperials in action they are cutting people's heads off. Plus, they caved to the Thalmor, who seem to be (I'm guessing here) the big bads, and banned the worship of Talos.

Right now, I'm waiting until I start my sweep and clear of Solitude before I decide. If Tullius apologises for trying to cut off my head, I'll give the Empire a chance. On the other hand, if he's a dick, I'm going to join the Stormcloaks, Blade membership or no Blade membership, and kill the fuck out of the Imperials.

Edit: And of course, all of this is just to build up levels to finally beat the boss of Voluunrad, who I spent two hours on last night trying various strats and getting my ass kicked over and over again.

*Major Spoiler Warning*


The situation as I understand it: The High Elves (Altmer) got taken over by a cult that hated that Talos (who's not an Aedra) got included in the list of Divines in the Imperial Cult (all the others are Aedra, which is Altmer for "Our Ancestors" - They participated in making the world). So, this cult takes over Summerset Isle, land ot the Altmer and renames it something not Imperial, then takes over a couple provinces with magic trickery (they may or may not have made the moons disappear for two years).

A few things also happen at this point: Vivec, being dead, can no longer cast continual Slowfall on a giant asteroid above Vivec city and the thing crashes at its full, original speed, which triggers Red Mountain, a truly enormous volcano (think about 500+ miles across), which wipes out Morrowind, province of the Dunmer. The Bretons (IIRC) also suffered some sort of catastrophe.

So, the Thalmor and their converts revolt and attack the empire while it's weak. They grab southern Hammerfell and make a probing attack on Cyrodil, which goes so well they take the Imperial capital and force the Emperor to flee. IIRC, the Argonians, never fond of "Soft-skin dominence" and never really conquered, revolt successfully.

The Emperor rallies his troops and manages to push the Thalmor back a bit and then hold, but the war as a whole is a major defeat for the Empire. So he signs a peace treaty outlawing the worship of Talos (who is sorta, in a mythological way, the person who first started the 3rd-Era Empire (Oblivion marked the end of the 3rd-Era). This treaty also stated that the Empire couldn't give any aid to Hammerfell.

At some point, the Thalmor leaned on the Empire to have their agents shut down Talos worship. The Empire, reduced to about three provinces, can't really say no.

Then the Thalmor pretended to loose in Hammerfell.