I've been going to town on Skyrim lately. Last time I updated I had made my 4 characters. High elf battlemage, Argonian Vampire Thief, Orcish warrior and Breton pacifist. Over the last week I've made a Nord battlerogue while playing on Master difficulty. It was fun for a little while but after a few hours of having to run away from anything bear sized I abandoned it. I began a game on the Xbox version for achievements and to compare the two, it loads and saves SO much quicker on the Xbox. Anyway I made a Dunmer full mage wizard type dude and I'll play as him every now and then. And last night I made yet another character, also a Dark Elf but this time he's a proper rogue. I'll be upgrading his health, magicka and stamina evenly for a change and he's going to specialise in light armour, dual wielding daggers (unenchanted so I can make use of the faster strikes shout) and I'm actually putting perks onto pickpocket which I thought I'd never do. I don't think I need to see the beginning of this game again any time soon lol. At some point while playing as my Nord on Master difficulty I must have saved over my Argonian Vampire thief because she's gone, vanished from the saved games list. Oh well, she was only level 28.
That was much funnier than I was expecting. I especially loved it when he dropped the wooden bowl to make room in his inventory then immediately picked it back up.
Be warned about the new patch that finally arrived yesterday. Bethesda have once again proven how useless they are when it comes to fixing bugs. They decided to include an "improved visual transition when going underwater" but of course this completely unnecessary addition has come at a price. As soon as the camera hits the surface of the water the game crashes, every single fucking time. This is apparently only on the (now painfully obviously inferior) PS3 version. Bethesda have said you can fix it by "clearing the game data". I'm going to try it now and not delete my save files in the process. How can they make the best game ever and be so damn inept at making it work properly at the same time?
I just deleted the game data and re-installed it and it still crashes when going underwater. I've read from another source that you have to delete the game data AND the update data, then install them both again. Hopefully this will work, if it doesn't I'll just have to stay out of the water until Bethesda fixes it, probably introducing another game breaking bug in the process. Never buying a Bethesda game for a Sony console ever again.
It works. Just so we're clear you have to go to game data utility in the XMB and delete both the Skyrim data and the Update data, then start the game and install them both, the update should be installed before the game randomly.
I am very positively surprized by the 1.5. First, the popup is gone, the game is as it was before 1.4 came out. In 1.4 on Ps3 they drastically reduced the view distance of various environmental items (rocks, bushes, grass etc.). This looked nasty and I am glad it's back to the normal state. Then, the water rendering has improved. It's just wow! For example, in Whiterun when you are near the Kynareth tree and you look at the water flowing around, you can see how it reflects the bricks below. Also, water textures are back to normal, they were reduced significantly in 1.4. Yet another thing, you can marry Lydia which I of course did. She opens a shop in Breezehome and she seem to sell all the stuff I put in containers around. This is kinda stupid as I don't want to buy the stuff I already have but she also buys stuff, she has 750 gold. I don't know if it is only her or any person you marry opens a shop in your home? Then, the stamina drops down when you keep the arrow ready on a bow. This means that you can't wait forever to release the arrow because when the stamina finally drops to zero, your character puts the bow away. I haven't tried to jump into water but as the workaround seem to work as you confirm, it should not be a big problem. Kill cams are nothing special. They are implemented exactly the same way they did in Fallout 3. To conclude: another important step forward. I am 80+ hours into the game, have companions, mages, thieves and dark bros completed, married Lydia and we just started the civil war quests.
I'm still unmarried and I have almost 300 hours clocked up spread over 5 or so characters (main character is at 199 hours). I was unaware you couldn't marry Lydia. I would have tried but on my main character she was killed when we were ambushed by 3 frost trolls outside Labyrinthian and I've used different followers since. Underwater does look much better now they've updated it, even though they ballsed up the update. I always love the killcams so more is welcomed by me, the magic and archery ones looks awesome, I've not used melee weapons since the update so I haven't seen the new melee killcams.
I've noticed that at least three of companions can be married (they have the line in the dialogue) when you wear the amulet of Mara - Aela and twins Farkas/Vilkas. You can then choose according to your preferences. I remember I lost Lydia once but I reloaded the game immediately. As for melee, I almost don't use melee weapons. The combos : flame attronach + fireballs vs sneaking + bow fit me best. When it gets hot, I have Lydia wearing the dragon armor figthing at close range while I myself help from the distance. I still wear the Archmage Robes - even when I was doing companios quests - as magic regenerates twice as fast while wearing them. Bows are deadly from the distance, I have a perk that triples the damage, 45 hp bow and 14 hp dwarven arrows which means that one shot from the distance takes about 180 hp. Often this is enough to kill with just one shot.
While I do really enjoy mages and rogues my favourite class is battlemage. On Oblivion and Skyrim I've made Shinji the high elf battlemage who specialises in heavy armour, block, blade/one-handed, restoration and destruction. If you have the time I highly recommend creating a new character that uses heavy armour with a shield/one-handed weapon combo. The shield bash is very useful as it allows you to get a couple of hits followed by a heavy attack with little effort and very damaging results. The armour and shield combined make you into a tank later on and there's even a block perk that negates 50% of all elemental damage when blocking, extremely useful against dragons and mages
Bethesda just tweeted that mounted combat is coming in the next update. https://twitter.com/bethblog/status/205749996153348097 PC players who opt into the steam beta can try it out today.
Here's a vid of the mounted combat in action. https://twitter.com/gstaffinfection/status/205781666558513152
I've finally finished the main plot (and got the gold Dragonslayer trophy) thus making all the quest lines complete. There are some lesser trophies left (like 5 or 6 of them) but I am not sure if I want to spend more hours to get the platinum. The timer shows 105 hours so far, more or less just like the previous Elderscroll games I've finished. This is with no doubts the best Elderscrolls game of them all. It is so huge and so open that I wonder how it was possible to get all this together. Massive and fascinating. Thanks, Bethesda, I wait for a dlc with some new missions. Considering that I've played on PS3, it was not that bad, really. There were some issues in 1.4 with ugly popup and 1.5 requires the game content is removed from the hdd otherwise the game hangs as you touch water. Also, I got some minor issues in the civil war line where I was not able to pick new missions from Legate Rikke and the cure was to exit the game and load again. The game hung like 4 or 5 times, 2-3 of which were caused by this water issue in 1.5. Great game, it really fulfilled my expectations.
not that bad?? lol flying elaphants or dragons that go backwards is not that bad not more than half a dozen game crashes and quests you had to delay or ignore entirely. You are a VERY forgiving fellow Torq.
you just go out of the game to the xmb and then reload the game and the option to get a new task appears in the dialogue. weird but works. @Pdraggy: these are all old issues. dragons flying backward and flying elephants occur only in versions prior to 1.3.
The civil war quest line was definitely the source of the most bugs/glitches that I experienced on the 360. Getting off of my horse at a legion camp and then seeing it shoot 300 yards backwards off the mountain like it had been shot out of a cannon was the highlight...