Surviving Skyrim

That's because, though it may not have fixed the current water bug issue, my response was both timely (going on summer and the beach season), and helpful. Seriously, it is never a good idea to use any console video game while in the water!

Water in the PC version of Skyrim is flawless. That right there made me wonder why I went to the console for the Elder Scrolls games. Oh yeah! Steep requirements! With that said I'll just refer to my opening statement, flawless.

For now.

Still expecting a bug somewhere.

I keep wanting to stick this back in my PS3 and starting over, but then I remember the bugs. I'm sure many of the issues have been addressed by patches by now, but there's probably still too many problems. It just seemed like they really didn't give a rat's ass about supporting the consoles, and that just burns my ass considering a big portion of their profits were coming from the consoles. Same old complaint I guess. I do look forward to trying again on a PC.

You know, mentioning that, that's ONE thing Bethesda could have done to stop a LOT of the whining. Allow access to the friggin command console on consoles! I mean, have it like L3+R3 to bring it or something... and they already let you access the PS3 onscreen keyboard for character name, so it's not like it would be "too hard" to allow typing into the console. SO many issues could have been at least bypassed...

So ok, yeah. I now have Skyrim via Steam on my PC. WOW they have mods a plenty! I got a mod for a house with many many places for storage. Shelves, cases and what-nots. Since I had a plethora of potions which I didn't want to put in chests, I decided to place them on shelves and tables in a room that I really didn't use that often. It became my 'potion room'. Well, it so happens that I took quite a bit of time to get all of the potions set up looking pretty. You know since it's a pain in the ass to get items vertical after manually picking them up... I'd say damn near 1.5 hours. It really didn't seem that long since it was looking good. Damn good. As I was surveying my work, I scanned the room and accidentally hit the 'z' key.

Guess what that key does... go ahead. guess.....

Fus Ro Dah

I found a nice chest to hold my potions..

The look on Vader's face... priceless, I'm sure! You should check if there's an "easy placement" mod or some such... maybe even a position lockdown mod. They had similar mods in Oblivion,for those who wanted to decorate the living crap out of a place. Like getting a mod for a working CCG in Oblivion, and wanting to put all the cards on a shelf facing out so they would be on display. Nice placement mod helped a LOT! Not 100% sure what they would be called...

Keep in mind, there's a bit after the credits... and don't worry about spoilers, cuz there really hain't any.

Biggest tip I've learned for surviving Skyrim? Don't play it.

I looked at the number of games I have installed through steam, and decided I need to beat some of them so I can uninstall. Ahhh....Skyrim. I've been so close for several months, time to finish this.

After all these years, all these bugs, loading times, quests that couldn't be completed, and all the mod downloads to make the game less shitty.... I finally made it to the end of the main quest. I completed the big 'world-saving' objective... and I said "WOOT, I did it!!!" sigh, "Now I suppose I should wade through the DLC before I uninstall it." Then, while I'm torn on what to do next... what do you think happens? When I'm ready to load the main area again and listen to all the Skyrim folk thank me for being such an awesome Dragonborn, what great fanfare welcomes me? The fucking game locks up at the load screen so bad that I actually have to log out of windows to get my mouse cursor back. So...I beat it? I didn't beat it? Do I even care anymore?

And there it is in a nutshell. Even with all of the amazing mods I found and installed, playing this game has become a chore. It's not that it's so much easier or my character is so tough that the game is boring, my character on the PS3 could kick this character's ass. I'm level 41 and I still have some difficulty with some dragons and draugr, so I'm not just breezing through. It's just that there's no feeling of reward, no... I don't know how to describe it. Just after all the bullshit, and I get "yay...you did it... all hail dragonborn... good journey..." and BUG! But based on Oblivion, it's going to be a nonstop same game I've put umpteen hours into, but now townsfolk will say "hail, dragonborn! Thank you for saving us!" in the three viking voices Bethesda decided to pay for. You know... you get to the end of the Twinkie and wonder what happened to the cream filling.... that's skyrim.

I know we've had this discussion before, but thought I would add it here for completeness. I keep seeing that Legendary Edition of Skyrim for the Playstation, and keep thinking I should probably get it, seeing as how it has the DLCs and whatnot, but I'm so overcautious right now from my experiences with other games that cram the DLC onto one disc (Fallout: New Vegas, I'm looking at you). I don't want to buy a game that I've already played, had the experience ruined, just to have it happen again.

But...

Last half hour I've been going over reviews. The Gamestop user reviews average to 8.9; nice! But I'm reading these reviews, and they seem kinda washy, almost promotional in the way it sounds. Gamespot give it a 9/10. There doesn't seem to be any negative reviews of the game anywhere. And then I went to Amazon. Game still rates high, 4.5/5, but there seems to be more honest reviews. Reports of frame rates dropping, of game freezing and having to restart the system.

Seems that it doesn't matter what version or edition you buy for the Playstation... they all utilize the same patches (which is at 1.9 right now). The original game will run just as well as the newest version, the newest version will run just as poorly as the original version, depending on what patch you have. A lot of the glitches have been taken care of, and it does seem that the freezing issues, while still occurring, aren't as predominate as they used to be.

And from what I've been reading, all we really have to do to correct this is to delete our gaming information EXCEPT the saved game file. Load up the patches. Restart from the saved game. I might try this, instead of buying the newest version... come to think of it, I think the boys had already purchased the DLC for the game before, so it should all be good.

...

And just so I can say it, I did beat the game. I grew fed up and quit while running the side quests.

And did that ending of the main quest leave you feeling accomplished? A warrior of prophecy? Or did it make you think "Hey, just another day on the farm"??

Not going to bring other games into this, just Elder Scrolls. But Morrowind ended the main quest with something not seen in the entire game, something new, huge (story wise), and it was a very 'circle is complete' moment. You left feeling like after all your trials, you had made it. You had to prove to all the tribes that you were a demi-god reincarnated, and then they believed, and treated you as such. You were their savior. THEN, the DLCs each brought in new prophetic type stuff, which you weren't 'the chosen one', but it tied in to your past, and you now had the strength, and each DLC gave you that same feeling because of the story and progression of your skills through that story.

Oblivion. It started sliding downhill there. The ending was very good, like Morrowind's, with a lot more graphical flash and much Michael Bay, and as you might recall it involved Oblivion gates, so extra kudos for that. It was after the ending where Oblivion just kind of burped. You felt good watching the Michael Bay ending, but after that you start losing the excitement, and suddenly you're playing and forgetting what the game was actually all about, many of the side quests actually being more exciting than the main story. Oblivion's big saving grace was the Shivering Isles DLC, which had a more intense 'you the character must overcome' type of story, with more plot structure and good-book style story-telling. Oh, let's not forget Oblivion had the real voice actors also!

True. The ending of the main quest was rather... meh. I just saved all you people, and how do you show your gratitude? A couple words of encouragement, and that's it? How about you put me up on that throne, huh?

(which is why I like New Vegas... you can side with the NRC, the Legion, or say screw you guys, I'm doing things my way. I'm takin' over)

I can't make any comments about Oblivion. When I was playing it, I got over-powered real quick. Thief with all the necessary thief skills and signs, and what was it... 95% chameleon effect at all times? The lockpick that could never break? Beat the main, did a lot of the sides, but just got to the point where I got bored as it held no more challenges. Sure, could have removed my chameleon gear, but where's the fun in that?

But yeah, with Skyrim it was all "hey, thanks for being the dragonborn" and that's it. I think. It's been a couple years since playing. Too bad I'm playing three games right now, or else I'd fire this back up and see what's what.

The youngest, all of his own doing, began playing Skyrim about a week ago, after having installed update 1.9; for the heck of it, I went and purchased the Legendary Edition for the PS3. DLCs downloaded and installed just fine. Deleted any and all saved game data (but not the game save file itself), and lo and behold, the game started right back up from where I last saved. Too bad I didn't know where I was in the game any more: 156 hours 40 minutes in, level 47... and last played in April of 2012. I was so far gone that I decided to go back from square one.

I don't know if it's because of the downloadables, or if more was added to the different version updates, but there is definitely more. I've found some more caves and places to explore that weren't included in the original. There's more armor and weapons options as far as crafting and blacksmithing goes... you can even craft nails, locks, and hinges, though at this moment I don't know why or what for. Been playing for two - three days now, and not one guard has said anything about adventuring or knee injuries...not one! More decorations for your home. And... I have a daughter, adopted her as she was homeless. All of that, and I have yet to visit the Neckbeards.

With this play through, I spent a few hours stealthily sneaking by the bear in the initial cave from where you were going to be executed. This brought me up to level 12, and maxed by stealth (or sneak? whatever) to 100. At 100, the skill can then be reset back to its original rate, and releases all the skill points back to you; this is what makes the skill "legendary". It doesn't boost it over 100, it just allows you to continue gaining experience points; remember, maxed skills don't count towards experience.

I have not had any burps, hiccups, glitches, or freezes at this writing. I did have a couple moments where, when searching a cabinet or table or dresser where the...well,here... know how, if you look at something, if it's empty it'll say empty? And stuff that contains items won't say empty? I've had a couple dressers that read as containing stuff, open them, and there'll be nothing there. Check that same item again, and then the item appears. Nothing too bad,definitely something minor in comparison to other happenings. Oh, and containers reading "empty" are still empty.

Don't think I've played long enough to find old glitches, but so far it seems everything works with v1.9.

To edit, or to make a new post?  Ehh, make a new post. This isn't an actual surviving post, but it helps.

I know, I know, a lot of you do your gaming on Steam, and that's fine.  Personally, I really don't have time for PC gaming like I once did (decades ago), which is why I stick with console gaming... convenience.  I wish I had the mods as you people do, or the ability to do more, but I'm happy with what I got.  Or get.

The only reason I bring this up is because of the Legendary Edition for Skyrim.  Sure, it's probably old news by now, and chances are the PC downloadables have been played by you already, but it's new to me.  Take for instance my previous post, where I mentioned adopting a kid.  Found out that yes, this is from a DLC: Hearthfire... available on Steam October 2012, available on PS3 February 2013.  The other two DLCs on this disc are Dawnguard and Dragonborn.

Let's just pretend for a moment that no one's downloaded and DLC for this game so far.  I'm merely writing this up because I've grown tired of game descriptions not really describing anything about the game.  Hell, when was the last time anyone's seen a game with a category on it?  Flight sim, FPS, RPG, whatever... we're surrounded by colorful or fanciful cover art, a couple screenshots on the back, and a sentence or two of the rich world we'll be delving into.

*ahem*  Sorry 'bout that.  Anywho, about the included DLC on the Legendary Edition.



I'm normally not one to buy different versions of something if it can be helped, and experience has shown that games that go beyond the original programming... games that are "Best of the Year" with added bonus content are a prime example... are buggy and freeze often.  However, with this there is a difference: the added content, those three downloadables, are not included on the disc.  They are not running off the disc (well, they are in a manner of speaking, I suppose).  They are still downloaded and installed onto your PS3's hard drive.

If you play this on console, I recommend picking it up. For $30, it isn't bad at all. If you do this on PC, chances are you probably have the DLC.

The "arrow to the knee" comments are becoming... not so much more abundant, but I've started to hear them. There still seems to be a wider assortment of comments than before. Have yet to run into any glitches or instances of game freeze, although there have been a couple of times I've tried to open a door or drawer, and the item would open, but the game would not advance me through the door (door would open, but not all the way) or the items in the drawer would not be seen (drawer opens, but no dialog box); however, simply reopening the item corrects that feature.

The one glitch I found all those years ago and posted about within this thread, the Nightingale mission where you beet Frey and have to escape, has been fixed. Haven't attempted to do the mission where you get the house after solving the murder (Winterhelm, has it? I don't remember). That's what caused me to quit playing in the first place, so I'm kind of reluctant.

But yeah. Level 29 now, many hours in. Not a single issue to report, at least none with the main story. Haven't done anything in the DLCs yet, besides adopting the two kids. Finished the Thieves Guild quests, performed one assassination for the Dark Brotherhood, and entered the Mage's College, but that's it; been working on side missions and dungeon spelunking. Haven't even seen the Neckbeards yet (that's the next point in the main storyline).

Noted my first real glitch and / or bug yesterday evening. While one of the issues is tolerable and does go away, the second is irritating.

The tolerable issue is choppiness. Started experiencing that when first loading up the game... but there could be a simpler explanation that I'll have to test tonight. I'm performing a fast travel to one crowded location while the place I am at is still loading the characters and background, and to compound things, I'm attempting to move as soon as I materialize; oh, I should mention that this usually occurs when I exit a building before I attempt the fast travel. I don't think it's a bug per say, it could very well be that I'm trying to get the system to do too many things at once, what with the buffering and loading and rendering while other items are being removed.

The second problem is irritating, to say the least. It is a side mission of sorts. In the southwest corner of the map, in the mountains south of Riften is a keep. If you performed (or will perform) the dragon slaying quest presented by the Jarl of Riften, it'll be east of the dragon's home or whatever it is. Anywho, as it turns out, there's also a dwarven city near that keep as well.

If you're like me, chances are you try to do some mountain climbing. You look at the map, see how close you actually are to a structure, and decide it'll be easier or make more sense to climb the mountain instead of walking all the way around while looking for a trail. **note: there really should be a mountain climbing skill, don't you think?** While climbing the mountain, I noted that I could jump on top of the keep and take the inhabitants by surprise. Which I did.

Thought they would have been bandits, but no. There was a couple witches up there, in addition to a... to a... hagraven. Yep, a hagraven (one of the winged witches). Sniper shot the hagraven, took out the two witches as they were unaware and searching. Proceeded to enter the keep after having to pick a master level lock. Odd that there would be a master lock to enter a dungeon, but ehh.

Worked my way down... down... down. And then suddenly, some witch runs up to me and says something like "We should get going. Mother's this way." What the hell? So I follow her all the way back up, where I learn she needs my help to kill her mom before she transforms into a hagraven. Listen lady, I already killed your...

Damn. She walked through the door. Time to go back out.

The witch I was following is talking to no one. An arrow indicates I should sit in the chair, so I sit. The witch says "die, mother" and then puts the dagger back in her belt, turns, and walks into the keep. A smaller arrow points to the ground, where I already killed the hagraven.

Open the quest list, find out I'm in a quest. "Repentance". Can only be completed when I help the witch kill her mom. According to the wiki, I gain the witch as a follower, one who can later be used as a steward when I make my own home. But that'll never happen because the quest won't end.

Seems this is a known issue. At the bottom of the page, it says that a known bug exists where, if you enter the keep from the top instead of from the bottom, the above happens.

*grumble*

Repentance

soothsayer wrote:

The second problem is irritating, to say the least.  It is a side mission of sorts.  In the southwest corner of the map, in the mountains south of Riften is a keep.  If you performed (or will perform) the dragon slaying quest presented by the Jarl of Riften, it'll be east of the dragon's home or whatever it is.  Anywho, as it turns out, there's also a dwarven city near that keep as well.

I think I found your problem. Looking at the map in such a fashion that Riften is in the southwest puts one...oh... a few kilometers way the fuck out of the game zone. Bug? Indeed! Why, looking at my map, I can hardly begin to fathom just where the hell you're at! Kudos to you on a fine exploratory expedition! I would hardly be able to find such a location since the PC version has a compass built into the HUD so I can always tell my directions... hmmm... funny they didn't patch that into the PS3 version....

Oh, I see what I did there. I somehow combined two trains of thought, with a resulting head-on collision. Meant to say southwest of Riften. Silly me, must have taken one too many blows to the head while jumping into shop signs.

So let's get this straight... you WERE or WEREN'T some 50 kilometers East of Riften, somewhere in the mountains of Morrowind? Cuz depending on your answer, I'm either putting you halfway from Riften to Balmora, or roughly halfway between Riften and Bruma. Seriously man... use some landmarks and descriptions! Did you pass the giant gnarled pine on the mountain that's shaped like a mudcrab? How about the ruined Telvanni tower surrounded by 5 meter high mushrooms?

No, none of those... but I did find a tree growing in mid-air, which was quite surprising, especially considering it had no root structure.

Welcome to Whiterun! The jarl lives here, your friends are here... heck, your first house is here. You've come home after each adventure, dropped off all the goods you've collected thus far. Adventure after adventure, you've filled every barrel and chest with weapons and potions and miscellaneous items, items that might serve a purpose later, items that could be sold in the future once the shop keep gets more coin. Yep, those barrels and chests sure do hold a lot of items, don't they?

But now... now you've got a bigger house, a better house. Perhaps you just bought the home in Solitude. Maybe you've built your own. Either way, it's time to move. Right? Wrong!

You've moved from barrel to end table, chest to dresser, emptied and picked up every item you've collected, but then you notice you're moving rather sluggish. You check your inventory and note you have accumulated over 8,000 pounds of stuff. What to do? You can't see all that, oh no. You can't fast travel.

Ahh, take a coach, right? Nope, sorry; you're too heavy to take a coach. But wait, what's this? You can get on a horse? And ride it? Why yes, yes you can! You may be too heavy for the coach, but for some reason, you aren't too heavy for a horse. And guess what... you can fast travel while sitting on the horse.

That's right folks! You can bring all your stuff with you in one go, as long as you fast travel from the back of a horse!

I say thee, NEIGH!

I believe I have found a bug or glitch... yep, just confirmed it on the interwebs. No real proven way to fix it, though many say to reload a previous file and just not do that portion of the game.

...

Returning home, I heard my horses attacking something; rounding the corner, both horses were attacking a bandit. I ran in, knife ablazing, and slew the scoundrel. Going through her pockets, I stumbled upon a ransom note. My love has been kidnapped! What to do!

I went inside, and began to shed myself of unwanted weight and items, to best rescue my woman. However, I then received a message, written clear as day above my head: the kidnapping mission was successfully completed. What? How? Did my fair maiden escape? Perchance did my housecarl head out and rescue her herself? I must wait and see what transpired!

So wait I did, and when my wife appeared before me, it was to my horror. The fiends, the brutes... they did something to her, perhaps with electricity or some foul magic. My wife, my love, she now walks backwards and stumbles into things; and when she does, the fits and seizures grab hold of her, her legs and arms twitching as if possessed.

I am afraid I shall never have my wife again.

bug be gone

Oh my goodness, the first bug I had experienced in Skyrim is gone. At least, it's gone from the PS4 version "Skyrim Special Edition".

**I know we had a different thread for Skyrim stuff, I just can't find it at the moment. I'll move this after I do.**

When doing the Thieve's Guild quest, you have to track Mercer to retrieve or stop him from obtaining the Eyes of the Falmer. The original glitch was, once the mission was accomplished, you had to talk to Karlia, but she was stuck in the water (would walk to shore, walk back under the water), thus preventing the completion to trigger. But now that segment is gone... when you escape the cavern, all the surviving people present (from the cavern) are automatically in the tunnel leading to the surface.

Yay! I take that as a good sign!

a glitch and a fix

Came upon a "new" glitch yesterday, new in that I've only just experienced it... which is funny, because I never dealt with it with any of my other play-throughs.

In the Dark Brotherhood line of quests, you are tasked to hid in the Night Mother's coffin to eavesdrop on poor old Cicero. Remember the mission? Good, good! *Cicero dances* The glitch is this: you enter the coffin, coffin closes; you hear Cicero mumble and giggle, a lot of background noises like conversations out in the distance and the forge being used. And more background noise. And more background noise. And more background noise. And, well, you get the idea on where this is going.

I found this odd and quite scary. This has never happened before; was there something wrong with the PS4 Special Edition?

After a relatively quick search online, I found the cause of this glitch: when I entered the room that contained the Night Mother's coffin, I closed the door behind me (it was an iron door). It turns out that that is the culprit behind the glitch... seems poor Cicero hasn't yet learned how to use door knobs. By closing the iron door, you prevent Cicero from entering the room; if Cicero cannot enter the room, he can't talk to the Night Mother, who in turn cannot talk to you, dear sweet Listener.

I was fuming! I just played for three hours, completed a bunch of side missions and cleared an underground city I never had before, and I certainly didn't want to redo everything all over again. As luck would have it, there was a known fix. And it worked!

If you experience this glitch, what you do is save the game. Don't quicksave, as that won't work, but an actual full save. Then you "wait" an hour in game; don't wait an hour in real life, just in game. Once you do that, you should hear Cicero talking.

Yay!