Finally took the plunge and got Skyrim (legendary was $20 at wally world). I got myself into the mindset to forget the other Elder Scrolls games and just enjoy this one for whatever it is. Once I got settings that my computer could live with and got out of the initial area the game's been running pretty smoothly.

Other than somebody telling me where a good 'starter home' is, I'm flying pretty much blind as far as spoilers go. At first I thought I'd side with the Imperials, but then I met some of those elves wandering around in the woods - I'm a Bosmer and it still didn't end well for them... Stuck up jerks.

Taking my time plot wise. The soldier I left with suggested I go to Solitude, I was headed that way when II got a letter asking me to go to Falkreath, then vampire hunters want me to head out wherever that fort is on the edge of the map. Oh, and somebody wanted me to go tell some Jarl that a dragon attacked, but that's way on the back burner. For now I'm sort of meandering my way out west seeing what turns up. Just cleared out a vampire lair (I'm level 10) - lived through the end by quaffing potions like I was playing Diablo (and a bunch of reloads and lucky sneak attacks). Loving the archer thing - it's difficult, in a 'real' sort of way.

The one feature I really miss, even with just the couple places I've been through, is Daggerfall's auto-map generator. Morrowind didn't need it since the 'dungeons' were just glorified tunnels for the most part. Goddess! How cool would that have been to keep track of where you are in these keeps and crypts and multi-level structures? Well, that and a constant stream of quests. When I heard about the radiant system I thought that's what they were doing. Ah, well (maybe a mod?).

Playing with keyboard and mouse since my Saitek p990 died (need to replace that). Controller might make some switching things out smoother, but I'm still getting used to everything.

All in all, looking forward to lots of hours playing though it. Glad I got myself into a good mindset to play it. To pull from another developer - Mass Effect was very 'streamlined' compared to Baldur's Gate, but it still turned out to be a great series (right up until they dropped the ball at the end...) So long as there's lots of interesting things to find, people to meet, and stuff to do, I'll be happy

Mass Effect Series was, is, and always will be my favorite Games. I even love the ending to Mass Effect 3, I can hear the hate comments typing.....

I don't think there's any mods that auto-generate new locations (guessing that's beyond what's possible with the available tools) but you might like to check out http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/70142/? which is similar to the Chantry boards in Dragon Age Origins, but with radiant quests rather than pre-determined ones. Some of them are similar in type to the radiant and misc quests from the base game, I haven't played with it yet, but it seems to be popular, and the mod author is very good (although English is not his first language, so there's the odd misspelling and whatnot, but far better than I could do in his native language, and I have qualifications in it...) Another potentially endless source of radiant bounty quests (ask him if he's got any leads anywhere in the world and he'll come up with a bounty somewhere in the local(ish) area - complete it and claim the money and he can give you another) is http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/24666/?. There's also various mods that add in new locations, some are simply a new dungeon or two, some add in whole new lands to visit (variable quality, as with mods in general, but there are some really good ones out there.) I'm really looking forward to http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/70219/?.

Starter home... Lake View, you got the Letter from the Jarl of Falkreath. You don't have to build the "manor" right away, just the first part that makes a great starter home. or their are some free storage places in various locations. PC.. mod homes. ( Breezehome in Whiterun or Honeyside in Riften are vanilla starter homes)

Welcome to Skyrim!! Their are various different map Mod's, I'm sure one of them might be exactly the kind of thing you are looking for... sure.. enough players complained about the vanilla one at the beginning to think their would be...lol I have "a quality World Map", which is good enough for me ( it's really pretty good) but I also have the "map" memorized, so.. I don't even look at it much.

Once you get to where you want to explore "new" places their are plenty of mod's out their that add everything from one new dungeon to whole new world spaces. I have several tracked on the Nexus... I have only used two so far "Helgen Reborn" and "Northern Encounters", but I have quite a few tracked. I tend to add things that add to Skyrim as is first then change things up. Like Expanded Towns and Cities and Skyrim Floral Overhaul.

Good for you. It took me a long time to learn how to do this. I hated Oblivion for many years because I thought it was "dumbed down" in comparison to Morrowind. It wasn't until 2013 that I was able to let go of my expectations and appreciate the game for what it was. It isn't always easy to do this.

Anyway, hope you have fun in Skyrim. It's my second-favorite game in the series.

You might want next to take the plunge at mods. Unofficial Patches, SkyUI and others fix a lot of issues and inconveniences. And then there are mods that expand the content...

I strongly disagree with the person above me. Do not "plunge into mods" when you are playing any game for the first time. It's the worst thing a gamer can do. Always take your time to find out what you like and what you don't like first. THEN go out and find some mods that will do what you want.

This is the only intelligent way to add mods to any game. We have to work new gamers through so many problems because they "plunged" into mods in their first game without knowing why they were even adding the mods. Somebody told them a mod was "essential" so they blindly added it, and then those of us who answer questions in mods forums have to spend time troubleshooting their borked game.

Take your time. Enjoy the game. As you play the game and as you discover things you would like to change about the game, THEN it is time to think about mods. Not now.

I'd recommend just doing bug fixes, performance mods and getting SkyUI. Play the game first and then think what you want to add onto it. Also always do checks on mods to see if they'll preform well or break your game entirely and pay attention to compatibility issues. I also recommend getting ENBoost as it can help with performance while not changing anything graphics wise.

Always read and research, that's rule one of modding.

When you do feel like getting serious into getting mods read this

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/wiki/beginners_guide

It's very helpful for someone who is just getting into modding a Bethesda game.

Agreed, when it comes to "modern games" Mass Effect triology is the best so far.

when it comes to older games, the Ultima series and Fallout 1 & 2.

But WHICH Mass Effect stands as the best??

Gotta say 1 imo for it's writing
Gameplay? Two hands down.

Also welcome to the forums, new community manager! Have a fishy stick. http://www.uesp.net/w/images/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg

Actually, mods adding back attributes and the spells from previous games were the main driver of me buying Skyrim in the first place. Before, I was sceptical. Now, I love it.

I'll admit to being a big mod fan. Started with Baldur's Gate. Last install I had for the BGT had over 300 mods, including all the 'big' ones. Hundreds of hours of play and at least three playthroughs to conceivably see it all. I'd love a mod to put he attributes back. I've heard of Skywind, of course, but without things like that I just can't see it 'working': too many changes to 'base' systems in the engine.

I do have one mod installed that let me customize the skill growth to simulate the 'custom class' feature - so I've got penalties to all my magic skills, and small bonuses to a few thief ones. It's worked out ok. I may be leveling a wee bit fast but nothing mind blowing, and that will slow down when I have to round out my character. Other than that, it's pretty much straight vanilla for now.

The 'board' sounds interesting. If you haven't played Daggerfall, if you were a member of a guild, say the Fighter's guild, you could always get a quest, provided you weren't already working on one. Sometimes they were simple ones, like some fool a few towns over let a bear/harpy/tiger into his kitchen, or they could be full out dungeon crawls. You never knew what you were going to get. The point is you could stick with a guild and feel like you had a place that always had work for you. Join a few guilds and you were never short of things to do (not to mention all the merchant/innkeeper/random NPC quests). Yes, they all followed a few formulas, but there were so many towns and dungeons and NPC's (not too mention different countries) that it managed to keep feeling different for the most part.

The auto-map I was referring to: rather than just giving you a top down view of the 'dungeon', you could flip it 90 degrees (projective geometry) and see the 3D image. Move that around, rotate it, figure out where you were and where you needed to go. It was a few years ahead of its time - you could click on a single 'room' to hide it and see what was behind/beneath but that was it. It took some getting used to but it really helped you get a feel for what was going on around you (the fact that Daggerfall had huge dungeons added to this).

Good question, I think I liked ME3 most in the end since it was the final chapter and everything made sense in the end.

But ME1 had one of the best stories while ME2 greatly improved the gameplay and controls. ME3 felt more like a combination of the two!

Also, welcome!

Thanks for the welcome (and the breaded fish delight)

ME2 was my favourite but any game Garrus is in will always have a place in my heart!

I am the Uber Vanilla player. But then again, I don't have a PC, just a PS3.

I am on level 135. I think I found everything on the map now. I am trying to get to 150. Lydia and I have maxed out our daedric armor and weapons. I have ever ring / necklace combo I can think of to enhance the game. Doing thieves guild quests now. Game is still fun.

Yeah, it's a great game. The trilogy reminds me so much of the Xenosaga trilogy for PS1/2 (well worth the trouble of finding and playing through if you can). Even a bit of Neon Genesis Evangelion. I just think Bioware finally told a story they either let get away from them or didn't know how to wrap up properly. It happens to the best authors occasionally. ME2 was my least favorite, though it has grown on me. ME3 has a good story, but it brings in too much hope and triumph instead of sticking with fighting in the face of futility (being able to reconcile the Quarians and Geth being the chief offender).

For my 'starter house' I'm using the one where the witch was trying to start a coven. Shame really, since covens were so cool in Daggerfall. Dancing naked ladies and some nice quests. Someone should send a note to Bethesda that their games are rated 'M' - it's okay to bring the sixy back (see: The Witcher 3).

Back to Skyrim - the game is doing a really good job of making me fed up with both 'sides' of this war. If this keeps up I may just go around and kill everyone who's not down with Dibella. Make Skyrim a much more beautiful place. Of course the fact that I'm not playing a Nord helps with that as well, since it isn't my 'home' I'm talking about. Interesting RP stuff there.

Time to get back to exploring

Heh, I don't consider any of those "starter homes" since you need 5,000 or more septims for any of those options.

As for a cheaper alternative, the burned out inn at Helgan has some safe storage containers and a bed. It works as well as anyplace to stash your stuff while you are saving for a first home.

To the OP - it's easy to feel overwhelmed at first because you get blasted with quests. This is especially true if you keep talking to people in the game. It was foreign to me becuase most games are linear as far as questlines go. I got used to it after a while, and now I prefer the "do the game in any order you want" method.

I envy you a little. I loved the beginning when I hadn't seen the game yet.

Alchemist shack... or oh dang, forgot the name... cave with a vampire on the road between Whiterun and Rorikstead. ..on curve. Kinda between two boulders.

I broke 10k septims before I hit level 10, and it only took that long because I wasn't really worrying about making money at all. One thing all TES games seem to have in common (at least the main ones) is that you can be swimming in gold like Scrooge McDuck any time you feel like it with just a little bit of attention (and that's without using any 'exploits').

At this point I've got the mechanics of the game figured out enough I'm considering a restart. I'm not far enough that I've really accomplished anything (well, I've found two 'words of power'). Something I loved from the first Final Fantasy game (way back on the NES) - the manual walkthrough reached a point where it said "Now's the time to restart with classes that suit your playstyle".

When I play Morrowind, I'm a thief. I just feel the need to walk off with everything that's not nailed down, right down to the napkins and silverware. Daggerfall, I stick more to the honorable warrior/priestess (House of Dibella). Just don't feel the need to thieve with so many interesting dungeons to explore and quests to do.

With Skyrim I'm feeling very 'self sufficient'. Crafting is cool, and I've already uncovered enough crafting stations to know that crafting as I go will be viable. Money doesn't really seem important, since the things I always saved money for (enchanting and spellmaking) aren't in the game at all, and I seem to have no trouble finding decent gear and improving it. If I do this I won't even bother going to Riverwood - just head out into the world and see what quests find me and what catches my interest. Once I get settled down I can go back and worry about jarls and dragon's and stuff like that, if any are still left alive.

Enchanting is indeed in this game: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Enchanting

Money isn't too important, but trading increases your Speech skill, which affects your ability to persuade and intimidate (and improves the merchant prices.) Not terribly important, but useful at times, especially if you don't have much of the aforementioned money for bribes.

Guess it depends On your playstyle. None of my characters get that kind of cash before level 20. Instead, they are paying for a little training, or buying spell books or buying some gear, so they have no money for a house until later.