Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[friznit]

[media]http://escapistmagazine.com/videos/view ... ead-Skyrim[/media]

Also, more like this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02 ... -mudcrabs/

GIEF MOUNTED COMBAT NOW!

[Roman Totale]

OooOOooh, epic!

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2DshotexMU[/media]

Holy Jeebus that's amazing!

[deject]

More epic:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U48uDLQ2_fs[/media]

[Dog Pants]

This has to be what they're thinking:

[Roman Totale]

They are so misguided

[deject]

That's perfect.

[eRabbit]

Oooooh...

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZqXKZOS2jQ[/media]

Few things get me excited... mounted combat and crossbows being the main ones. Want.

[deject]

DONGOURD!

[FatherJack]

I saw this had been released as DLC for the 360 version only, no word on a PC/PS3 release, but do want:


Skyrim: Hearthfire

- Choose Your Land - Choose from property in the salt marshes of Hjaalmarch, the forests of Falkreath, or the vast tundra of The Pale. For the more ambitious landowner, purchase multiple plots and start building a real estate empire.

- Customize Your Home - Expand your home with a variety of room combinations including an armory, alchemy tower, kitchen, trophy room and more. Grow plants in your new greenhouse, cultivate slaughterfish in the fish hatchery, house your Arcane Enchanter in the enchanting tower, or display your latest conquest in the trophy room. Add additional features like stables, mills, smelters, gardens and more.

- New Objectives and Interactions - Guard your home from unwanted visitors like marauding kidnappers, armed bandits, and skeever infestations. Turn almost any follower into your personal steward to improve and protect your home. Or if you require more help, hire a personal bard or carriage driver to ease the burdens of home ownership.

- Adoption - Transform your house into a home with Hearthfire's all-new adoption system. Adopt children and discover new ways to interact with your family. Play games with the kids, allow them to have pets and gain new bonuses from having a family.

[friznit]

That last bit sounds a bit dodgy...

There was some mod announced very early on that planned to have you owning a village, attracting inhabitants, building up farms, providing security and hiring adventurers to do quests for you. It sounded epic in every way, but I've heard nothing about it since sadly.

[FatherJack]

That last bit sounds a bit dodgy...

I do wonder how the mechanic will work, whether you have some sort of new dialogue options, or simply abduct any street urchin that you wish to add to your collection.

[friznit]

SimPaedo!

[FatherJack]

Hearthfire £3.49 on Steam. Watch out, children of Tamriel!

[Roman Totale]

Images from the forthcoming 'Dragonborn'

[FatherJack]

I've been having fun with a few Steam Workshop mods as well as Hearthfire. I've built almost everything I can in Hearthfire, so it's these mods and tweaks that are keeping me playing.

The Dark Brotherhood Resurrection: Part 1
A continuation of the Dark Brotherhood questline, it adds two quirky new followers who give you quests and can accompany you. Both have unique stealthy abilities and even teach you new shouts and spells. The quests are pretty inventive and so far have involved killing virgins (identified by use of a spell) and murdering a soul-gem salesman on the road and planting a Forsworn weapon near the body. The plot is thickening with the discovery of a dragon cult and I rather like it.

Amazing Follower Tweaks
This allows you to have five people following you at once, as well as customise how they act when following you, you can adjust their fighting style and teach them spells. They also carry a spell which will teleport you to where they wait after leaving your service. They can ride your spare horses, carry or sell your shit, level with you, be made immortal and even be made into werewolves or vampires. It also has the option to summon up to 32 former followers (not under your control) which - if your game doesn't crash - is quite the spectacle if you fancy taking down an Elder dragon on master difficulty.

It's a bit fiddly, a little buggy, some things only work with the followers from the base game and it is quite a drain on the CPU which can cause a slowdown on entering a new area as it calculates where to spawn them. It's quite a bit of fun though if you fancy tearing unstoppably through an entire town, or if like me you only really want one follower with you, but want to keep track of all your other ones and have something to do with all your fancy spare weapons and armour.

Town Portal Spells + Merchants
Similar to the spells you can learn from followers with AFT above, this adds learnable spell tomes purchasable from merchants in each town which teach you a teleport spell to take you straight there. The spells differ from using fast travel, in that you can cast them anywhere - even in a dungeon. Handy for when you can't fast travel what with your pockets being stuffed full of lovely loot.

Jazonz Valet
Jaxonz Valet Improved Sorting
Jaxonz Unpack Spells
These are housekeeping mods which take the pain out of lugging around crap you've looted. The Valet can be hired to live in your home and will sort anything you give him into containers you specify by placing notes he has in his inventory into them first. He also has a bunch of cash with which to buy stuff off you. The Unpack Spells mod allows you specify a dropbox where you can magically send anything you've picked up. Both are pretty handy if you're as light-fingered as Kitty, though need to be used with caution as they can remove quest items. Requires the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE).

CS Tag and Track NPCs
Kind of an extension to quest markers, this will allow you to tag pretty much any NPC in the game - even those without quest dialogue, and track them on the map. Handy for finding wandering merchants and checking what the missus gets up to when you're off adventuring.

Bank of Skyrim
Got a bunch of cash lying around, but not quite enough for that shiny new house? Try investing some of it, or maybe take out a loan.

SkyUI
A replacement UI that makes the inventory actually usable with a mouse and keyboard. Requires the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE).

Lighten Up
Makes loot lighter, so you can plunder more of it. Most notably ingots, dragon bones and potions - not weapons or armour.

Hearthfire - Buy Ingots from Stewards
Iron ingots aren't as easy to find as they should be, considering how many you need to build/furnish your house - now you can just buy them if you have the gold.

Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1
This adds Wheatley from Portal 2 who crashes to earth..err Nirn and annoys the piss out of you. That is until you hollow him out and turn him into a helmet.

[Killavodka]

Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1
This adds Wheatley from Portal 2 who crashes to earth..err Nirn and annoys the piss out of you. That is until you hollow him out and turn him into a helmet.

You forgot the part where he tries to sell you a Barclays product using visual metaphors...

[Grimmie]

I'm a massive fan of modding TES games up the wazoo, so I should post what I'm using I suppose?

Realistic Ragdolls and horse
Lost my immersion every time a critical arrow from my assassin launched somebody 15ft off a ledge, so I installed this. Gives dead actors more weight and friction so that they fall faster (more realistically) and slide less. No more chasing dead bandits down a steep hill!

Bandolier - Bags and Pouches
Increases your carry limit by letting you craft pouches, bandoliers, knapsacks and the like. Very neat little thing.

Divine Punishment for Mention of Arrows in the Knee
Haven't seen this in action yet, but it punishes town guards with a deadly lightning bolt at mention of the forbidden catchphrase. Guards respawn though, so it's okay.

The Cartographers Map Markers
Adds more map markers to the main overview, allowing you to jump to specific buildings in cities without having to go inside first. Not sure if I like this one yet as it tends to make looking at quest objective markers in cities a little difficult.

Improved Skill Books
Appends skill books with the skill raised in square brackets. It also sends it directly to your inventory instead of opening it when you pick it up so you can use that valuable skill increase when the level's high and difficult to train.

Diamond Weapon Smithing: Archery
Haven't played around with this much, and although I dislike adding things that unbalance the game greatly, this looks like it's a pretty good trade off between expense and power. You can use flawless gems (garnets, diamonds, amethysts etc) and rare alchemic ingredients (glowing mushrooms, giants toes, etc) to make magic arrows and magic bows. I've only unlocked the frenzy arrow and a stagger arrow at the moment (the skill's tied to smithing) but it's good fun. The stagger arrow stacks with the archery stagger skill and knocks people back - helped me survive my first draugr temple guardian fight!

Item Sorting
Works well with SkyUI (as mentioned by FJ) and categories things so that they're all listed neatly. Prefixes such as Bone:, Ingot:, Food:, Drink:, etc means things are sorted very well and are easier to locate in a full inventory.

Reduced Distance NPC Greetings
AKA the "Silence is Golden" mod. You have to be nearer people before they say stupid things to you. Feels a little more realistic when running through a crowded street.

Wear circlets with hoods
Makes sense. Also works with dragon-priest masks.

Elvenwood
A wood-elf village in the treetops. I haven't actually stumbled across it in game yet, so I can't comment. Looks pretty cool though.

Birds and Flocks
Adds more birds, and flocks of birds. Makes the world seem a little more real and a little less barren.

Auto Unequip Arrows
Think you look silly in third-person when your greatsword's piercing your arrow quiver? (oor-er) This mod removes your two-handed-weapon from your back when you've got a bow equipped, much neater.

Crimson Tide - Blood
Adds spurting arteries and arches of blood to heavily wounded enemies on death, dependent on where you clobber them.

Whistle
Can't find your horse? Use this "spell" to whistle for it, and it'll come galloping over from wherever it is. Think of Gandalf's whistle for Shadowfax.

Lightweight potions
Yep. They're too heavy and I like a lot of them at my disposal.

5kg Dragon Scales/Bones
Again, really fucking heavy. I installed this for my Barbarian who was aiming for dragonbone armour, but switched to a new character before he could even craft daedric. Oops.

Better Quest Objectives
Essential, in my opinion. Replaces vague quest objectives with more specific wording and corrects location of some quest markers. No longer do you have to guess where on a 20 mile road you're meant to be going, it'll say it's between town X and Y and give you a helping hand.

Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers
For the collector.

Horse Armours
They just look better. I haven't bothered crafting any as I don't really use mounts (they die too often!), but it adds armour to horses that are ridden around by other actors.

RNG (Dynamic) Guards
Just better guards. No longer all the same face, same dialogue, same guard. They have individual armours and clothes depending on the location of the hold they're stationed at.

Legible Road Signs High Res
Makes blurry road signs legible. Maybe the official High Res DLC fixes this, but my PC is too poopy to handle any of that.

Dynamic Merchants
Lots of options to make merchants more realistic. I have it set to let them accumulate more gold the more I use them for selling to, and to have more gold in the morning than they do at night (as they spend it as the day goes on restocking).

Phew.

[Grimmie]

Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1
This adds Wheatley from Portal 2 who crashes to earth..err Nirn and annoys the piss out of you. That is until you hollow him out and turn him into a helmet.

How do you do that?

[FatherJack]

Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1
This adds Wheatley from Portal 2 who crashes to earth..err Nirn and annoys the piss out of you. That is until you hollow him out and turn him into a helmet.

How do you do that?

Take him, an iron helmet and some refined moonstone to the Midden - which is a kind of shrine under the Mage's College.