Well, I'm new here. I have played through Oblivion GOTY edition a couple (or more) years ago. I'm about to install Skyrim: Legendary Edition and eventually start the game. All depends how long I have to wait for Steam too do its thing.

Does anyone have any advice for this newbie, especially re: MODS? I understand there are a lot of them and I'd only be interested in "good" ones, especially graphics and gameplay, and whatever else you might think important for a newb just starting out. Thanks in advance.

Dunolde

Welcome!

I'd advise that you play & enjoy the game for a while before you start adding mods. They're great & all, but you don't know what you want changed until you know what you're working with. And the vanilla experience is fun enough to sustain you for some time anyway.

After you've played around and begin to notice things that disappoint, or have heard of some mods that address something you think would be cool, have at it. I think I played for 6 months or so before installing any mods.

Do not harass the giants leave them be and your corpse won't be too burned up to be recognize after re entering the atmosphere.

The standard advice is to play a little and see what you like and don't like before you start changing the game. Otherwise you may change something with a mod that you may have really liked about the vanilla game. It helps to get a feel for vanilla first before modding.

There is one mod you may want to start out with though: The unofficial patch. Fixed thousands of bugs left in the vanilla game. You may quickly want SKYUI and iHUD as well too..

As far as general play advice, the game itself is pretty easy at normal difficulties and even at expert. My advice would be to just play and have fun and not worry about building the most badass character or what perks to take. There is a point later in the game where you can respec perks anyway, so don't sweat over every perk. I'd would avoid grinding or exploiting and don't read walkthroughs.

Make sure that you save regularly and just see where the road takes you. Welcome to the forums by the way!

i suggest keeping your playthrough as organic as possible with very little outside help. experiment and figure things out on your own. and, that includes turning off quest markers, not using the magic gps system, etc. (personally, on the 360 i go hudless and with music off, absolutely no crosshair and sound effects up.) only use the map when you are at a known location.

as well, after an initial test character that i play for a dozen or so hours just to get an idea of the mechanics, i always restart once i get the hang of things and create a SPECIFIC character roleplay with self-imposed rules and restrictions. i do not need this character to do everything in the game. it dramatically lengthens the wonder and experience of the game.

for me, the mods i'd absolutely install right away would be those involving HUD and immersion improvements.

lastly, you may want to consider NOT installing dawnguard on your first character, since, it greatly alters the stock game with some results you may not be too keen about.

Welcome!

You're in for a treat! Skyrim is by far one of the most epic, most beautiful and simply awesome games there are! As others have said I personally would wait a bit before you get mods, play through the stock game a bit first, until you get used to the game and its mechanics.

Only real advice I can give is basically what others have said, don't pick on enemies that are simply far too powerful for you defeat as a low-level character, e.g. Giants (I made the huge mistake of picking a fight with a Giant as a low-level character, not even Lydia could save me!), also it's highly recommended that you save often!

One piece of advice I will give would be to go through Bleak Falls Barrow before you travel to Whiterun, that'll save you a bit of time backtracking, when you play through the starting bit of the main quest line you'll see what I mean by that. The enemies there are "levelled", so you shouldn't find it too difficult, though the boss at the very end of BFB might present a bit of a challenge to you.

Happy travels through Skyrim!

Hello, and welcome! Here is your complimentary http://images.uesp.net/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg

First and foremost: If you plan on modding your game then may I suggest checking out https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7DlYarj-DdhDG41roBVJfNCqvO5MmKP

Anyhow, here's a short list of some of the mods I run with any character:

Unofficial http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19/?, http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31255/?, http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23491/?, http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25127/?, and http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31083/? patches.

http://skse.silverlock.org/ + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37xAMUQc1oY.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50471/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40706/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3863/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3222/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/44596/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28170/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/41592/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23600/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/29624/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57859/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23906/? & http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28235/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/10906/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/13652/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63354/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9557/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30533/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63704/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/47327/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57353/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26126/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4929/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51024/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26359/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18465/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52583/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4020/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/2097/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/746/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23390/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/601/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17491/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17214/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34960/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/38151/?.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62894/?.

Saber cats make great pets, just rub their belly and they will follow you home.

Like Oblivion, M'aiq offers you great advice. Be sure to watch out for him on your adventures.

Advice is like chicken soup - it may be good for you, but if you take in too much of it - you will be sick of it eventually....

So I will give you "IMPRESSIONS" instead.

It is the most remarkable game I had played at the time I got into it because of the beautiful landscape and wonderful characterizations found in it.

Much of it will feel familiar, the dungeon diving, puzzle solving, and so on. Enemies in it seem to be more "ALIVE" in that they are close enough to real seeming personalities in some cases that the ones you hate vastly deserve to be hated!!!

* And then there are the just plain "SLEAZY" NPC's...

It is well rounded.

What I found the most fascinating about SKYRIM is that having gone to high school in the Maryland/Silver Spring area, the woods and over all landscape felt strangely familiar, and so having hiked all around in similar terrain I began to expect the sights and sounds that are plugged into the SKYRIM landscape.

It felt like home.

Water sounds like running water. The leaves change. At night it all becomes gray and dim. During the day the colors are amazing. You can almost smell a "GREEN" smell in the air, from the leaves, or a "MUSTY" smell of old leaves on the ground. And the snow and rain are the same.

But there are no BICYCLE TRAILS in SKYRIM...

I'll tell you one thing: install Unofficial Skyrim Patch and all its brothers and sisters and start the game with only those. Skyrim is already plenty fun without mods, especially without glitches

Also, without playing the game you wouldn't know which areas you'd want to improve

P.S.: I also highly recommend SkyUI. It's basically on the same level of importance as Unofficial Patch and perhaps even higher, depending on what you think of iOS interface on PC