Skyrim - One Year On

[Krantos]

Still playing it.

Just started a new character this morning, actually. Using the "Live another Life" mod, I'm having her start as a member of the Imperial Legion. My goal is to have her go the entire game with little to no looting of corpses. She can loot weapons they drop on the ground but no taking gold, armor, or items off their person.

Rationale for that is, frankly, the idea of constantly looting the dead is rather grim. I mean, I do it with all my other characters without even thinking it, but that's because I see it as gameplay component without thinking of the import in-game. Just a little something to make it a little more grounded.

Also means gold is going to be a lot more scarce. Add in that I am playing on Expert with the Tougher Dragons mod installed (yes, I know Deadly Dragons is better), so I'll be needing potions, and, hopefully, it will add some more bite to the combat and make me pay better attention during fights.

Additional goals are:
1) wait at least until level 20 to start the main quest (I hate fighting the dragon at the beginning and hiding in the tower while the guards kill it)
2) Not enter a cave/ruin/dungeon unless I have a reason to go there. Basically just more roleplaying. My character isn't a mindless sociopath so she's not going to just go around killing everything for sport. Getting paid to take out bandits, though, that's something else entirely.

 

[Zenn3k]

Traded it in, unfinished and with no feeling or regret or feeling like I was missing out on anything.

Story was okay, but side-quests were so incredibly terrible I found little to no reason to do 99% of them...couple hundred gold? Yay?? No experience for quests really took the point of even doing these quests away, you could get the same amount of combat skill just walking in a random direction for 2 hours. Few interesting unique items to gather, there were maybe 5 worthwhile items to find in the entire game world.

I didn't complete the Civil War quest, didn't much care about it...after I decided I wanted Imperial I walked into Windhelm and opened my attack on the "King" in order to win the war for my side....only to find, nobody in that room could die. I stopped caring about the civil war from that point on-ward, after all, its just clicking "Yes, lets do what you just said" about 50 times until 1 side wins anyway...I wanted a fun approach to that quest, the game prevented me from having the fun I wanted.

I did get the Dawnguard DLC, played it for a few hours...found a new story, some neat new stuff, certainly improved what the game had to offer, but I didn't care that much, didn't finish that either.

So yeah, my "world" is still being attacked by Dragons, however, I don't really get why thats such a problem, given that 99% of the world population is immortal (even when you hack at them for 20 minutes with your 2H Sword)...so I didn't see much reason why they needed to be saved.

 

[ElectroJosh]

I must be one of those who felt that Morrowind > Skyrim > Oblivion > Daggerfall > Arena (yes I started playing TES games in the nineties).

Anyway I am on my third playthrough. I basically play like a particular class each time as so:

1) Dark Elf Assassin (probably 25-35 hours of playtime)

(major skills: sneak, one-handed (emphasis dagger), bow minor skills: Light Armor, Alchemy)

- completed Dark brotherhood stuff
- Defeated Alduin
- Completed a few other assorted quests (only one Daedric)

2) Breton Warrior/Tank (around 50-60 hours)

(major skills: Two handed (emphasis war-hammer), heavy armor, smithing minor skills: bows, sneak)

- completed companions quest
- Defeated Alduin
- Completed civil war (white cloak)
- A bunch (but not all) of the Daedric quests
- way more of the side quests


Then I stopped playing for a while. DLC came out - and then went cheap on Steam one weekend


3) Nord Theif/Mage (yeah a bit odd, put about 35 hours so far)

(major skills: Destruction, Sneak, bow, enchanting minor skills: conjuration, one-handed (mace focus))

- Defeated Alduin
- Completed Thieve's guild
- Completed Mage guild
- A few side and Daedric quests
- Going through the Vampire stuff now


All in all, not the best game ever but I find it fun. I think of a character build ahead of time and work on those skills (and related quests) so each playthrough has felt like a different game.

 

[Windcaler]

Ive had four big runs through skyrim over the year and they went like this.

Seris Stormtail: A male Argonian warrior specializing in heavy armor, bows (sword and shield back up), smithing, and restoration magic. Seris originally came to Skyrim as an explorer and adventurer, wanting nothing more then to see the provinces beyond his home of black marsh and nearby Morrowind.

Seris became the Harbinger of the companions and still holds the beast blood in him today. He and his wife Aela travel Skyrim regularly hunting the deadliest beats, dragons. His home is in the Dwarven remnants of Markoth where he holds the title of thane and serves honorably and loyaly

Seris takes no place among the civil war though he feels for the Stormcloacks. For him, the right to govern ones self and the freedom of religion are unquestionably important things to fight for. He hopes that one day a peaceful resolution can be found.

Alduin has been defeated and Parthanax still teaches the way of the voice at the throat of the world. The blades, while strengthened through his actions remain powerless to strike at Parthanax all because Seris has refused to pick a side in their vendetta.

Lorin: A female Nord and spellcaster specializing in all forms of magic and alchemy. Lorin returned to Skyrim after studying magic in Cyrodil when she heard news that her brother had disappeared. Only to later find out that he was captured by the Aldmeri dominion and tortured to death.

Lorin is a hardcore supporter of the Stormcloak cause, mostly because the empire allowed her brother to die in pain and misery and still refuses to hold the elves responsible. So she joined the rebellion seeing the empire as weak and even worse uncaring of crimes commited outside of Cyrodil. She was the cause of Skyrim earning its independance and to this day she continues to hunt the remnants of the elves

Her hatred of the dominion only complicated things as she became the archmage of the college of winterhold. Arcano's betrayal only made things worse. However she also joined the thieves guild, eventually ascending to guild master and leader of the Nightengales.

Unfortunately I could never finish that playthrough. Around level 46 I began to find the magic system was completely broken as I could literally not kill something my level before running out of mana and her other weapon skills went entirely unused. This character got deleted without finishing the main story or even starting Dawnguard

Khallif Swifttail: A Khajit theif specializing in sneaking, pickpocketing, speechcraft, and daggers, Khallif came to Skyrim to elude bounty hunters chasing him from all across the provinces. Today he makes his home in honeyside, keeping close the thieves guild.

Khallif was quick to join the thieves guild in Riften so he had extra resources to pull in case bounty hunters found him again. Eventually he became the guildmaster and leader of the Nightengales. He also joined the Dark brotherhood and murdered the Emperor (and those that wanted him dead).

However when Vampires began to roam the lands Khallif made a surprising choice to join the Dawnguard and put an end to them once and for all. Seeing the vampires as a threat to all life

Rena: A female Imperial warrior and patriot specializing in one handed swords, shields, heavy armor, and smithing. Rena was a proud legionare in Cyrodil before defying orders to come to Skyrim to assist with the war effort.

She proudly wears the heavy set of imperial armor and shield, though she forsakes the imperial sword for a daedric one. Though heavier armors would be more effective her unique skill set makes her armor nearly as good.

As a patriot she joined the imperial legion again, and worked her way up to end the civil war but she also became the Harbinger of the companions. Alduin was defeated and Parthanax still lives at the throat of the world.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Also I've managed to muck up my enchantment skill so levels exponentially and reaches 100 just from unenchanting about 20 weapons. Naturally I abuse this bug every single time.

You did this how exactly?

I don't know, I think it was a mod (or combination of mods) reacting badly to one of the many patches Bethesda did. I tried deleting all mods and the bug persisted, so it's changed some integral value for measuring enchanting experience that s outside.

A similar thing happened to smithing with a lot of people: http://www.gameskyrim.com/patch-smithing-experience-bug-t229121.html but it was easily fixed by uninstalling the bad mod, I can't get rid of mine unless I perform a full reinstall, and I couldn't be assed to do that.
I play with unleveled Skyrim and a few more difficult combat mods as well, so it's actually handy to have earlier on, as the game's that much more difficult.