Skyright and Skywrong, my love affair with the harsh northern world of Tamriel.

Like many in the gaming world, I eagerly awaited the coming of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  I have been in love with Elder Scrolls titles since Morrowind and longed for a return to Tamriel, the land in which all of these games take place. While I admit the game ended up being worthy of the Game of the Year awards it has already received, I wanted to share my thoughts on the game, both good and bad. I warn you now that I will not be using any kind of spoiler tag as this is pointed at people who have spent a good amount of time playing the game. So if you have yet to do something you don't want ruined, tread carefully.

I am starting with my biggest gripe because it comes to mind easier and often creators look for criticism before praise (or is that just me.)  As I said before I love the game but there are a few things that drew me out of the game with a grim look on my face.

My biggest peeve is a technical one. Bethesda talked about the favorites menu and how it would allow you to switch between spells, weapons, and powers on the fly.  Even though the manual said I could use my numbered keys to save my choices it wasn't until I did some poking around on the internet that I learned I could only assign these things from within the small in game favorites menu.  And even then, only 8 things total. 8. Even tough I play on the PC where there is more than an alphabets worth of friggin keys to push.  I know there are those that would be quick to point out that it was also made for consoles and they have limited means of assigning and selecting things. My response? I don't give a shit. I play on a computer.  I understand that they want to appeal to as large an audience as they can in order to make as much money as they can, and I am fine with that.  What I am not fine with is it seemed like they made no effort to make a difference between the versions.

Now some response to that would be, "oh just download a mod to have more keys." I have, but the point is I shouldn't have to. Don't get me wrong, I am extremely happy with the modding community and the amazing mods they have come out with despite the lack of an SDK, (the Creation Kit in this instance) but it shouldn't be left to the modders to do something like this. Let them be the ones who break the system and come up with new ways to play the game (Like letting me block with my one handed sword while having a spell equipped in the other hand, another limitation based on console controllers) It wouldn't be as bad if there weren't 20+ shouts in the game, powers based on race choice, whether or not I am a vampire/werewolf, special abilities granted by quests, and standing stones. If i had a sword, bow and shield and that's all, I could still run out of keys with arrow choices. I typically play battle mages or night blades, so I need these keys to rapidly switch between my arsenal during combat (and yes, I do use all those different spells) So please Bethesda, I understand you have to make things fit on a console controller, but do not forget about us with keyboards. At least in Morrowind I had 10 keys at my disposal.

I have other small beefs with the technical aspect (like the above mentioned blocking issue) but I can live with those. Other smaller things are some of the textures, specifically weapon and LOD textures. They seem needlessly small and ugly after staring at them for as long as I did. Again the modders were quick to answer and they have done a great job, but it always makes me wonder why they are forced to do someone else's job.

Moving on, I typically play games to be immersed in the world and story, (which is why I am not often seen playing multi-player games) And for the most part, Skyrim nailed it.  I loved being able to walk through a town a listen to people have conversations that were not specifically about me and things I had done.  Also talking to someone and letting the world move on was a great step forward.  There were a few times where I walked away from conversations I was in the middle of because I heard other people talking about something that piqued my interest. The breaker for me was, where the hell is anyone outside of a town? Sure there was a person here running for their lives, or a guard escorting a nobleman everywhere in the province. But where was everyone else? I heard plenty of people talking about caravans, and what not. but I only saw roaming guards or soldiers.  I only encountered one or two adventurers inside caves so I began to get the impression that everyone in this world would have been completely screwed if I had not shown up.

"Oh no someone has stolen my magic ring of dimples, I would go after them but I am no warrior" yet you have no problem drawing steel on me, the person you expect to one man army an entire stronghold of thugs, when I accidentally grab a bread loaf instead of that book you set out for me. That theft was bound to happen because 90% of the residents of Skyrim are bandits or "dark" mages intent on doing whatever weird and gross stuff they are doing. Or the Forsworn, screw the Forsworn and their spine swords.

So the other half of immersion is the story, and I am still unsure how i feel about the various quest lines in Skyrim so far. For the most part I enjoyed them, but I felt a little let down. Sort of how you do on Christmas even though you got everything you wanted.  I'll start with the main quest here, as it is most important to the game. So there I was, the mighty Dragonborn, ready to save the land of Skyrim from Alduin the world eater, or something.  I felt like there about six people who cared that I was trying to help save everyone (for really no personal gain beyond learning to yell in interesting manners.) Trying to get people to help me was like pulling teeth with my bare hand and they are still awake and fully aware of my hand going in their mouth.

"I need your help to stop super dragon from eating the land and the souls of your dead friends." I valiantly exclaimed! (No need to explain how to exclaim valiantly, when you are Dragonborn, even your darkest murders are valiant)

"I don't trust you," says the jarl/general/other jarl ive already helped twice/hobo on the street.

"But I am Dragon born!"

"So?"

"You know of my legend do you not?"

"Ah yes, the world eater comes to destroy us all and only the Dragon born can save us!"

"Yeah that, also I'm the person you mentioned, the guy who is trying to save you"

"I could not even be bothered to give the tiniest of shits unless you go into a cave I made up and find a specific rock that doesn't exist and bring it to me"

"..."

Ok it is nowhere near that bad, but it seems like none of the populace believed I was doing these things despite the fact I just yelled and changed the cloudless day into a full on lightning storm that disintegrated the people attacking the town.  And then my biggest helpers, the two remaining Blades, turn their backs on me because I refuse to kill the one dragon who is not being a total asshat.

I remember feeling exausted in Morrowind as I traversed the landscape making a name for myself. And there, only a few knew of my legend, and the ones who did were either actively trying to stop me, or help me. (Or some combination of both you strange dual skinned demi god with a town named after you).

The whole shebang didn't feel like it took that long either, and I refused to fast travel (better chance for random dragon attack I thought) From "AMG YOU DARGONBORN" to "Here are cooler and more powerful ways to yell" to "You must learn " to " Defeat Alduin" to "You saved heaven! and Skyrim! YAY we guess." Again, only like four people cared, and they reacted as if I had just brought their mail in when I came to visit. "You did what now? Oh cool, thanks, just put it on the table." No sacred gem, no hidden power, hell you spend three fourths of the game eating dragon souls, but when you ace the big bad, he explodes (albeit in a cool way) and everyone stands there staring. At first I thought they were awestruck. Nope.  I didn't feel like I impacted the world. Maybe that's for the best though, these people seem incapable of casting the level one healing spell or drinking the practically free healing potions, so a scare such as that may have left me and the gray beards as the only people living in Skyrim. On to guild quests!

Dark Brotherhood.  Easily my favorite in Oblivion, I was looking forward to being an agent of Sithis before I woke up in that horse drawn carriage next to that thief and those stormcloaks. Ultimately it also left me feeling the worst. Don't get me wrong, it had some incredibly cool moments, but once the story got rolling, I could tell what was going to happen from a mile off. Also if they made that jester any more annoying I would have cheated and made everyone in that cave kill-able and been done with it. I never got that dark feeling that I did in Oblivion, yet I can't put my finger on exactly why.

Thieves Guild. I was barely interested in these guys in Morrowind and Oblivion, but when I joined I ended up being glad I did. The whole deal with Nocturnal's cowl altering reality, stealing an Elder Scroll to fix it, awesome. So again, I was excited for some epic hi jinks. Luckily I was less disappointed. Ultimately its hard to one up stealing an Elder Scroll, but I will say that the Riften guild did their best. The idea that someone essentially stole from a god and severed its subtle ability to make a thieves life easier and totally screw the guild in that way was an interesting tale. The twists were not super obvious, and fun.  Joining a failing guild and them not letting me lead them until I had completely lifted them out of their funk took a good deal of effort and that felt worth it (to me at least, I just want Vex to stop being such a bitch to me, but I can deal)

The College of Winterhold. The Mages guild analogue was better than I expected.  Granted I didn't expect much as I typically only join to get access to the really cool spells and items, so even though I didn't travel through time or defeat a long dead evil, I felt like I accomplished something, and the fellow members seemed to care and realize just what I did to help them. I don't think it made be worthy of being their leader, maybe a high adviser given the fact that I am NEVER there, but none of them seemed to care about that so I didn't either. I wish they had gone into more detail about the Psijiic order, or even let me join them, but oh well. Maybe in DLC.

The Companions. I went in with the worst expectations to this guild of fighters (in fact I avoided it for a good hunk of the game despite they are practically right on front of you when you start) but left feeling the warmest. By the end of the main quest, I actually felt like one of them despite my magical and sneaky ways, and I felt like they wanted me around. This was in no small part due to the characters, Vilkaas, Farkaas, and Aela. I don't know what it was about them that made me care about their plight, but I did.  I only had two small issues with this quest line but really they aren't even worth mentioning.

The Civil War. Imperials vs Stormcloaks.  I didnt know what to expect going in and for the most part Im pleased.  I have only done the Imperial side at this point because I grew to despise Ulfric, (as a character, the folks behind the character, actors writers and what not did an awesome job) At first I really liked these quests, they were affecting the world, the quests seemed different and interesting and you get to fight giant battles. What better place to call upon your pet dragon or animal companions and truly use your power in giant melee's.  Some the wind got sucked out my sails halfway through when the interesting quests stopped and it became "go take over that fort" for the rest of the campaign. It felt like the developers ran out of time and just let it be what it was.

Overall, the quests in the game were quite solid, but all major quest lines seemed short. Luckily they all have "radiant" quests, which all sadly become "do the same barely worthwhile task for hardly any reward" style quest"  My biggest deal with the guild type quests is that with the exception if the Civil War line, the leader of every guild bit the dust. Whether through my hand or not, it was impossible for them to be more dead and so the underlings just seemed to name me leader because none of them wanted to deal with change.  It struck me as bizarre in all cases (going back through the other elder scrolls as well) that my actions in the fifteen seconds I was in the guild made me leader.  Only in the thieves guild did i feel worth it.

I feel like I am being needlessly harsh, but its only because I love the series so friggin much.  I play games to get lost in their worlds and none have done it better than this series so far. As I said the game is very deserving of the accolades it has and will recieve, but there is always room for improvement.

Despite this giant list of caveats, they are really only nit picks (except for the eight keys thing. More definable keys now) I can only see things getting better from here unless they start really dumbing it down. Bethesda, I only give you shit in the from of this blog because this is one of my favorite series of games, and I want you to be the best you can. P.S Bethesda, never cave in to people who want multiplayer in elder scrolls. We both know it doesn't fit.