Elder Scrolls V - Part 2

[Spidey-Bat]

I'd rather have convenient access to my items than be "taken out of the action." Seriously, that's a dumb excuse. The point of accessing the menu to take a pause in the action and look at your inventory.

If you want to know what it's like to use the menu with a keyboard and mouse, put socks on your hands while you use the controller.

I hate the menu but it's more manageble when you just press the shortcuts to look at items, magic, and the map. Cuts out the uselessness of the Tab key.

 

[sandwraith]

If you want good light armor do either the thieve's guild or Dark Brotherhood mission lines.

Not sure if I'm cut out for the Thieves' Guild. My pick-pocket and Lockpick skills are laughable but my Sneak is pretty well leveled.

As far as interface is concerned, I'm firmly on the fence though I wish the quick select on the weapons/abilities was a little more seamless rather than the unnatural pause in combat you get when you select a weapon or spell on your "Favorite" list. I wish they went with the Fallout option of having all the weapons, spells selectable using the 8-way D-pad (I play my games on a PS3) but since the game does have the two-hand option, I can understand why it was probably difficult to implement.

Now back to the game. Where can I find a shop selling a book on Soul Trap?

 

[Spidey-Bat]

Talk to the mages in the Jarls' castles. They sell spell tomes.

 

[Soapy]

I definitely wish Skyrim's menus conveyed more information and generally had more going on, but I also don't have any real issue with them.

Strictly speaking in terms of menus, when you argue Morrowind versus Skyrim, you pretty much have to choose form or function, because neither game has both. In retrospect, Oblivion was a nice balance, but all those ****ing tabs. Tabs, tabs everywhere.

And also, it only showed like four items at a time. Okay, I take back what I said about Oblivion's menus. They sucked.

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

And compared to the grid system, its better by leaps and bounds.

In a grid system, I move my curser, click, done. Takes roughly a couple of seconds. It's intuitive and fast to the point that most of the time I don't bother binding hot keys.

This is what is required with the leaps and bounds. Regardless of my Xbox360 controller or mouse and keyboard, there is no way to skip this. It's also pointless using the favorite feature (and would probably actually take up more time) as there are that many variants dwindling on 1-5 uses at best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2BNfuegFHY

Is this faster? No. It took almost a minute. Has the supposed minimalist approach made it more intuitive? No. It's actually done the opposite. which amazing when you think about it. It either tells me A) this is more interested in being athetically pretty than practical or B) Bethesda are terrible at designing menus. At first I assumed this was a problem with just another lazy developer not bothering to make an decent interface for the mouse and keyboard but this problem is the exact same with the xbox360 pad. Really not very good.

 

[sandwraith]

Talk to the mages in the Jarls' castles. They sell spell tomes.

Thanks.

As for how I feel about the game, I really think this game is solid. I mean, Bethesda traditional bugs aside, I feel really immersed into the utter vastness of Skyrim. A feeling I've long forgotten since playing more story-driven RPGs like Dragon Age or Mass Effect.

I like being able to really REALLY take a trip off the main story only to be immersed into another interesting Side quest, scale annoying mountains only to be mauled by a Snow Saber Cat.

I think the Voice acting could have been a little better but I'm pretty okay with the current cast.

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

Just finished the College of Winterhold quests. Looking forward to getting around to tackling the Brotherhood next.

 

[Spider-Who?]

In a grid system, I move my curser, click, done. Takes roughly a couple of seconds. It's intuitive and fast to the point that most of the time I don't bother binding hot keys.

This is what is required with the leaps and bounds. Regardless of my Xbox360 controller or mouse and keyboard, there is no way to skip this. It's also pointless using the favorite feature (and would probably actually take up more time) as there are that many variants dwindling on 1-5 uses at best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2BNfuegFHY

Is this faster? No. It took almost a minute. Has the supposed minimalist approach made it more intuitive? No. It's actually done the opposite. which amazing when you think about it. It either tells me A) this is more interested in being athetically pretty than practical or B) Bethesda are terrible at designing menus. At first I assumed this was a problem with just another lazy developer not bothering to make an decent interface for the mouse and keyboard but this problem is the exact same with the xbox360 pad. Really not very good.

How exactly is it less intuitive? It's completley straight forward. If I want to get to my weapons, all I gotta do is click my right directional button twice. Boom, I'm there. There's no need to shift through several menus nor squint at tiny thumbnails in a grid to figure out what I need. I prefer reading through an alphabetical list then trying to figure out which sword that little icon signifies.

Concerning the video, the amount of potions is extreme, most people won't have that much, and secondly the ability to scroll faster is there (at least on the ps3). So the result of the video is skewed.

I think what this really boils down to is simply showing how vastly different things are when running on a console versus computer. I can see where you're coming from while using a keyboard and mouse, but for me, using a ps3 controller, I find the way they have handled it to be fine (though ill agree that the favorites thing needs a little work).

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

It's a rogue built with all perks spent on alchemy and sneak. Getting a short time but high damage output is the point and the fun of the class. Potions are a necessity at the higher difficulty level. Simple color coding or an icon type or a sub menu for specific type would have cut alot of corners. A small morrowind menu would display all that from the get go, with the ability to resize it to whatever you want.

 

[Destructus86]

I definitely wish Skyrim's menus conveyed more information and generally had more going on, but I also don't have any real issue with them.

Strictly speaking in terms of menus, when you argue Morrowind versus Skyrim, you pretty much have to choose form or function, because neither game has both. In retrospect, Oblivion was a nice balance, but all those ****ing tabs. Tabs, tabs everywhere.

And also, it only showed like four items at a time. Okay, I take back what I said about Oblivion's menus. They sucked.

I think the menus in Skyrim are pretty dang awful....feels very consolized. I'm hoping they refine them even more for PC.

 

[CrypticOne]

My game keeps freezing. Anyone have this problem? Or should I just exchange it for a new copy?

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

It doesn't freeze for me but sometimes it jumps to the desktop for no apparent reason.

 

[The Squirrel]

My game keeps freezing. Anyone have this problem? Or should I just exchange it for a new copy?

On the PC? Yeah it freezes/crashes the computer a lot. This seems to be a problem with Windows 7 - 64bit though. We updated our drivers and lowered the graphic settings so hopefully that will help.

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

I'm on 32 bit and makes 0 diffrence.
This has only happend about 4 or 5 times in 30 hours though.

 

[AndThePickles]

I've heard a lot of complaints about the PC version...glad I decided to go with PS3.

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

I've heard a lot of complaints about the PC version...glad I decided to go with PS3.

[URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/18/elder-scrolls-skyrim-ps3-problems"]Yea.
[/URL]

 

[AndThePickles]

[URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/18/elder-scrolls-skyrim-ps3-problems"]Yea.
[/URL]

Haha, figures. Hopefully the patch will come out before I've played 20 hours

 

[ProjectPat2280]

Guess the 360 version reigns supreme over all the other peasant versions of the game. Iv come across no gameplay destroying bugs, no lag, no crashes. The only thing i have seen is that texture problem where the textures dont load, but that was corrected by uninstalling the game. Haven't seen it since. Bow down all you pitiful half-lings.

 

[Donut]

I am kind of annoyed that we still have to fight Dragons after the main quest. Your boss is dead *****es

 

[ProjectPat2280]

I am kind of annoyed that we still have to fight Dragons after the main quest. Your boss is dead *****es

Thats good to hear. I was afraid they were gonna disappear once you completed the main quest. Iv killed 30 or so and iv loved every battle.

 

[CrypticOne]

Nah, mine's on the PS3. I'll be playing through missions and right when I kill something it freezes. And when I run through one town, in particular, the one where the old dude keeps himself locked up in the main story, it lags up big time.

My little brother was like, "They put TOO much into this game." That was his reason for the problems. I'm gonna check it back into Wal-Mart.

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

Guess the 360 version reigns supreme over all the other peasant versions of the game. Iv come across no gameplay destroying bugs, no lag, no crashes. The only thing i have seen is that texture problem where the textures dont load, but that was corrected by uninstalling the game. Haven't seen it since. Bow down all you pitiful half-lings.

The vast majority of bugs i'v came across such as for example, a mamooth standing on top of a dragon have came from the game itself rather than the system thats running it. The jumping to the desktop issue is the only system related one I have come across. Everything else is in-game which is the exact same across all formats.

 

[ProjectPat2280]

The vast majority of bugs i'v came across such as for example, a mamooth standing on top of a dragon have came from the game itself rather than the system thats running it. The jumping to the desktop issue is the only system related one I have come across. Everything else is in-game which is the exact same across all formats.

It was sarcasm.


Iv still yet to see those bugs tho since iv uninstalled the game, with almost 40 hours in. Except for the one where the giant smashes an animal and sends it in to orbit.

 

[DBryan]

How can anyone expect a bug free game when Bethesda always put so much into their games? And they always release patches or whatever to fix it.

 

[Paroxysm]

How are my fellow brother and sisters doing on this fine day(in Skyrim)?

I just smashed a couple of bandits heads in with a mace then threw their bodies into a river.