Out of Pod Experience

I think the record is just under quarter of an hour to beat Morrowind from a new game according to Youtube? Start off with an alchemy character and steal some good equipment and you're set.

In any case, what has me concerned with Skyrim is those forest paths along with the protagonist runs or gallops in the reviews. Take a close look at them - they really don't look like you can deviate away from them. So we may have something that is much more of a corridor shooter/linear in many cases than we would want it to be. Thus the elder scrolls series of games may be going the way of CoD games.

I've built a cardboard dragon in my garage where I've been practicing my slaying.

11th can't come soon enough!

That's the majority of fun people had with TES games, you didn't have to play the main storyline AT ALL - you could simply go from town to town and loot and destroy all the houses and sell the stuff to fences, which is pretty much what I do in my TES games. I don't even bother with the storyline, I just get a' lootin and a' scootin until I am strong enough in game to beat the town guards, then I kill them.

I have a feeling skyrim is going to be different than my last ventures into TES though, the systems are robust and have adapted to the needs of the world around it. The BIGGEST complaints in morrowind were the fighting system - it was so clunky it was very difficult to use for the most part, it wasn't enjoyable. They've fixed that, another complaint was also the skill system, they've fixed that too.

The amount of immersion in the game has far surpassed that of its predecessors, its gone from just picking some mushrooms off the ground to literally plucking the butterfly's out of the sky and eating them/mixing them into alchemy.

Skyrim is going to be great and I can't wait to get my copy. BF3 will even have a hard time getting me back.
And Eve? Distant memory until the winter expansion.

Argonian, one hander and shield, lockpicking and alchemy.
No sneak, lockpick is just to barge in where I please.

I always like to lean on the action side of action RPG's. Go combat in places where you're supposed to 'go around' it with stealth or diplomacy checks set low or some alternate path made available. Just walk right in and win the fight.

Sometimes you run into that wall where you weren't supposed to fight THAT much. Like in Deus Ex HR when I cleared the three science buildings in massive gun fights, but the three hostage scientists wouldn't leave until I wen tthrough the story triggers for them to sneak past all the dead guards and make a daring escape. I expect Skyrim to be better, but I still worry.

Sucks I work next weekend, three 12hr shifts no less.
Might have to try and get out of work on Friday.





Are we certain of this?

There are a lot of people out there who assume this about STEAM games, but the vast majority of games in my STEAM library are just shortcuts. I can browse to the files and launch their .exe files without steam running with no issues. Nothing stops me from putting a new shortcut to these on my desktop with a simple right click and never interact with STEAM again. Mostly it's just Valve games played online that require me to start up steam, since they use STEAM ID's to connect to things and VAC to try and stop cheating etc, but I'm not at home to test every one of them.

Can you link me something that says you have to be running steam to start up the game? All I'm getting out of google are other forum rants and articles stating steam is their digital distributor.

No. I don't have steam installed and never will have. In the past though I have had to tolerate the usual panopoly of steamosexuality:

Forced updates
Offline mode 'con'
Resource hog
Spyware - reports everything you do, and a lot you don't.
Perversion of retail rights ie. renting access vs purchasing a license to the software outright. I'm paying $40 to be Valve's 'advertising partner' and give them all my 'demographic data'. Forever? Sounds like a bargain!
DRM (nuff said)
etc etc etc

There are just a few reasons why I hate steam and will never install it. I'm sure there's plenty more .. but I cba to actually :effort: on the subject tbh. Its pretty obvious why people hate steam and prefer to use 'other means' to access software they paid for (or didn't).

And re: the lack of clarity about skyrim needing steam to 'activate'; the reality is you need steam installed and running every time you want to play Skyrim. It usually goes something like this:

1. You have to Steam to launch Skyrim. Offline mode? Sure. Until it 'expires'.
2. Steam needs an update, WAIT atleast 44 minutes...
3. Steam doesn't recognize my computer (and then say I must be using a different one /WHAT???/ when I login using the same info every time) Wait, What?
4. Steam sends countless verification emails that I must log into my email and copy codes from and paste them in order to use the SAME password and email that I've been using. I have only had these issues with Steam, no one else.
5. Die of boredom and rage

My only problem with steam is their servers can never handle all the people trying to authenticate when a big game is released. So even if you get a game the morning it's released, you can still spend half the day waiting for steam to let you play.

Thank you, sir.

Wait, this isn't a banana! AT ALL

Do you think the devs of that game knew that a "sky rim" involves a tongue and a rear end?

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1242199-skyrim-and-steam/

Very clear.

Thank you for a real answer instead of a rant. I'm fine with STEAM and it's 'cons', so this doesn't bother me personally, but a lot of people seem to care and I will share the link.