What do you do? Do you find a place to make camp and cook some food? Slay some bandits and take their stuff? Or do you ignore the survival element and just play TES as just a video game? I'm curious to know since I tend to put myself in my character's shoes and sort of adopt a survival element that may or may not be intended, certainly not like in New Vegas where it has a dedicated mode just for that.

Would any of you be open to a similar mode in the new TES or Fallout games? Also, would you want it to be a dedicated and optional mode or something similar to past TES games and Fallout 3 where it is not a gameplay mechanic?

That's interesting. I usually make my way to Riverwood and rest for a few days before starting my adventure.

On the PC I use Frost Fall, Wet and Cold, Climates of Tamerial, and quite often on of the needs mods. So that means I do have to look for means to survive in the wilds. I usually do stay in Riverwood for at least a few days gathering up supplies to head to Whiterun.

I think if it is added I think it should be added like it was in New Vegas as an option.

I mostly handle survival matters myself, using my imagination. I haven't been impressed with New Vegas' "hardcoe Mode" or most of the "realism" mods for Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Too often they rigidly place exactly the same needs requirements on every character. Applying one set of rules to every character is not my idea of roleplaying. So I generally choose when and where how long my characters sleep, eat, drink, bathe, without outside help from software.

I like Maskars survival mods in Oblivion because you can customize the effects by editing the ini so you can change the effects of lack of sleep, drink or food for different characters pretty easily. I haven't tried Frostfall yet but am looking forward to it. I like using survival mods because it reminds my character to eat, sleep and drink and makes such things more meaningful in the game world. Sure you can just use your imagination to do those things but without any actual in game effects it feels kind of hollow to me.

I would like to see an optional survival mode in the base game for console players.

TELL ME ABOUT IT!! I thought it was ludicrous that a game set in a land of endless snow didn't have a "cold" mechanic. The Game Boy Advance game for the first Narnia movie, which was considered a mediocre offering at best, had a hypothermia mechanic. Skyrim did not. What is wrong with this picture? Also, hardcoe mode in New Vegas was considered a very positive addition to the Fallout game. So why not add it to Skyrim, either at the start, as a patch, or as a part of Hearthfire?

To answer the question, though, I usually head to Riverwood and sell all the stuff I took off the dead Stormcloaks. Need some capital before I head off to save Skyrim (or to not bother with saving Skyrim).

What escape? I recently started in the College of Winterhold right off the bat.

Basic Needs doesn't work that way in Skyrim, as you can customize the settings for each character.