I have found so much in Skyrim which is non-linear and open to personal strategy that I feel new players should be encouraged by "older" players giving their own examples of how this great game lends itself to personal innovation and adaption. Below, I repeat one example of how I was in a tight spot but managed to get out of it without giving up and "retreating" to a previous save. (Admin.: please don't think I am spamming. I just want to encourage new players and this is, for me, a nice example ). I have had other similar experiences since. I love this game and hope others will give their own examples of how they adapted to situations.

With a new char. at level 6, I killed a conjuror and clicked on the large stone he was praying at. It gave me a daily power with which I could reanimate corpses for a couple minutes . (No spoilers). A couple of levels later, I found myself trapped at the end of a dungeon and faced with taking out a mad mage before I could possibly exit. (There was only a "one-way" to enter the cave and I couldn't go back).

My char. is using Archery and Sneaking mainly. However I had run out of arrows (meh). I searched all of the Draugrs I had killed (about 15) but nada. I was now level 9 and the mage would still wipe the floor with me. Besides, he was continually conjuring up replicas of himself as well. What was I to do? I didn't want to acknowledge defeat and go back to a save before I entered the cave.

I had an idea. The Reanimate power can raise up whatever corpses of animals and creatures are around me and they will fight for me. I had to wait 24 hrs between casting the Power spell each time but I wasn't going anywhere anyway . So I began doing that and getting them to follow me to the tunnel just before the cavern where the mage was doing his replicating act. He was continually disappearing and reappearing. It took a while but eventually I had about 6 Draugrs ready.

Then I had a stroke of luck. I saw a small platform I had missed earlier. I jumped on to it and fell down behind boulders. There was a Draugr corpse there with around 14 arrows on him. (Who says there is no god?). However, even that amount of arrows would still not give me the edge on my own but with the Draugr corpses as allies?

I got to the corpses, stayed in Sneak (Sneak was 40) and raised them all up with the Power spell. They charged the mage and his 2 other replicas which kept dying and reappearing. It was hard to know which was the real mage. Staying as hidden as possible, I gradually wore the mage down as the Dreughs hit on him and the replicas. With 2 arrows left, suddenly he went down, just as the Draugrs began to die and one of them was still hitting on him. The last replica vanished as the mage died. That battle took 3 and a half minutes (The time the corpses stayed "alive").

That showed me just how random and non-linear so much of the game is as well as how you can innovate and use different strategies at times. So many surprizes and that was just one dungeon episode.

Writing "(no spoiler)" before posting a spoiler doesn't stop it being a spoiler. I know the place you are talking about, I'd not yet gone down the hole. Now you've told me what's down there. Thanks mate.

He's right about the spoilers thing. Use " " (I think that's the right coding?....) But anyway I agree with you comepletly. I've been on this forum for a couple weeks and have read a lot of good, bad, and ugly stuff. It all comes down to one thing - Skyrim. IMO it's a good game. I only dabbled in Morrowind and never had a chance to experience a TES game (My PC is junk therefore I barely played Morrowind). This game truly lets you do things the way you want LIKE A BOSS.

Sorry about that. I thought that simply saying about a "mad mage" could apply to so many "mad mage" situations present ingame. As for - - - -, a new player will only find that out when he or she does enter that particular cave ( whose location and name I obviously didn't reveal). Take care, friend.

I've moved the thread to spoilers now.

Oops

That's really quite impressive that you had the initiative and patience to do that! Many people in similar situations would curse angrily and re-load an earler save. Sounds like it was an epic battle you had!

I dont get why people care so much about spoilers. I mean yeah, so what, now you've given a bit of the game away to me about a point I've not yet reached, but it's certainly not going to ruin my enjoyment of the game any!



Did the psycho mage drop any good loot btw?

People will play Skyrim or they won't. It makes not difference really. Bethesda earned well over $200 Million just in the first weekend that it was released and I'm sure a lot more after that. It's not an MMO that depends on a large player base to survive. It's a single player game that I can play forever if I want to regardless of how many new people start playing. So yeah, although I applaud your enthusiasm, there is no need to encourage anyone to join in the fun. People will tell their friends and such and that is enough.

I agree though that it's a good game and I'm glad you got out of you tough spot alive.

If it helps, I modified the post re. how I entered the cave (plus other comments) so not to give too much away. Check it out.

Sorry. . . not telling. . . as for the battle - Yeah, it was short, fierce and frantic.

Oohh, tease...

I remember this one and IIRC, my experience went down just like this. It was my first real use of that Stone power and it was great because I was in way over my head with all those draugr. That power is what got me through that dungeon and that quest.

The bland storyline and NPCs personalities and lack of quests aftermath involvement with the player makes this game not appealing to anyone who is after a true rpg.

Nah, if you perceive the game to be all that then it just means that it wont appeal to you.
One mans treasure is another mans rubbish, and vice versa, and all that.

You're naive or ignorant if you think it's only me who thinks this way. It's true Skyrim's storyline is childish and simplistic.

I would agree with you that, basically, Skyrim's main storyline is "bland" in that it doesn't really bring great changes to already published fantasy themes. It simply does the job quite well.
Re. the quests, there are enough presented to "choke a cow" and sufficient variation in their telling, along with some nice differences in caves, castles, etc., (compared with, say, Oblivion) to give "value for money".
But, personally, I am finding that the real "gold" in the game is turning out to be how well, as I have demonstrated above, the game machine/technology allows the player to think up
and actually put into successful practice his or her own strategies and approaches to a problematic situation. As I travel I am now, more than ever, watching and assessing possible tactics beyond what the game basically offers.
I cannot imagine what an explosion of player mods and plots and strategies the Creation Kit will bring into being when it comes. The future is looking very good

When I say Skyrim has a bland storyline I don't mean it doesn't 'bring great changes to already published fantasy themes'... If you're talking about fatansy games, there's plenty in the market with decent storylines. Skyrim's story is just dragon hunting. Alduin wants to destroy the world just because. You're destined to hunt down Alduin just because you're a Dragonborn. It's not just this. The entire game's story and side quests are all very simplistic if you're looking at it from a story telling point of view. A good rpg game is where you can emotionally link your player character into the story through a good storyline. And if you look at every NPC in the game, they all share the same simplistic personality which doesn't develop or change throughout the game. Skyim forces you to imagine too many things which just translates to poor storyline.

Skyrim as an action-rpg with a mainstream childish story sandbox type of game, not a traditional mature rpg game where player has a lot of game effecting choices and an engaging story. That's the thing I do like about Skyrim, it's open ended and has potential once mods come in.

I hear you. hmmm. . . now you are making me think of Witcher 2 and perhaps you would agree that it is the "traditional mature rpg game" you prefer?

It's amazing, the nicer I try to be to people on the internet, the ruder and nastier they seem to be in return.
Was there really any need to be so rude? Did you really need to call a stranger on the internet who you know nothing about naive or ignorant, simply because they have an oppinion that's different to yours? really?

Did it make you feel good about yourself and fill your day with inner peace and tranquility? If so, I'm glad
If not... Well .. That's sad that you have to insult people you dont know if you dont even get any pleasure from it.

Big hugs. Try to calm down a little, yeah?

snugglypops may think it's childish, but I need to be reminded what childish aspects are involved in stabbing dragons in the head, beheading enemies, or stabbing them through the back. Skyrim's graphics and story/plot(s) are a far cry from Kingdom Hearts or Fable. While at times I feel some of the NPCs, particularly the Graybeards, may treat me like a moron (good Dovahkiin *pat pat*, here's a Dragonborn treat for using a shout correctly!), the poster who most people are responding to completely ignores the conflict with the Thalmor going on within the MQ, the MQ easily leads one into the civil war, which is another decent story that has garnered quite a bit of debate in the spoilers and Lore section from people who fancy storylines, I wouldn't take their opinion on the matter very seriously, they have little understanding of what they argue.

When did I say the combat is childish? I'm referring to the dialogue and storyline for main quest and side quests. Without the blood and gore elements in the game, if you only look at the storyline, this game's easily rated 8years+ because you don't need a brain to follow the simplistic storyline.

IMO your post puts the game storylines in the proper perspective. Although the backgrounds of the different storylines, from the Main story through the Dark Brotherhood, Civil War, Thieves Guild quests line etc., while they do not stray from traditional fantasy storylines they are, for me, very entertaining and involving. So I think I would rather call them "usual" or "normal" than "bland" and that would make them more acceptable in the traditional sense. Bethesda has certainly "fleshed them out" enough to please the majority of players. The Dark Brotherhood certainly does not shy from presenting challenges and scenes which are def. not "childish", nor are some scenes such as the public beheading in a certain city "childish".

I must admit that some things do grate on me, e.g. when I sneak and kill a guy and his partner standing beside him as he drops, looks around and mutters: " hmm. . . I thought I heard something. It must have been nothing", and the guy lying dead at his feet. How that got by the game checkers, I don't know. Or, as has been pointed out, the continual asisine comments from various NPCs.
Ah, well. . . maybe a mod will come out to deal with those. . . we hope.

not everyone likes pure rpgs, i really don't care what label the game has, its inconsequential to me what label you want to put the game under, this isn't the 70's where you have a play an rpg in your head and a piece of paper, modern games are"video" games, visual, so old fashioned rpgs aren't what most people want, bethesda isn't gonna make a game so only 10 people will enjoy it, modern rpgs are way better, mixing action, exploration, combat etc, they're a lot more elements going for em than just the rpg element, there's the combat element, the stealth element, the exploration element, the character development element...there's a lot of elements to todays rpgs and they're fun, so go back to playing dungeons and dragons if you don't like the game.

if they wasted all their time on the "story" the rest of the game would svck ,so its fine how it is...you don't seem to get bethesda games, their games are combat and exploration driven, they are not story driven, the game doesn't rely on the story and for good reason....cause "story" isn't what makes a game good or not good, the game world itself is the star, thats what makes a bethesda game fun....cruising around exploring, battling enemies in all sorts of different environments. the story is only one element and not an overly important one at that.

In pursuit of encouraging new players it would be helpful if people didn't post things like: "This again?" or "Still?" et al New people start this game every day (for a little while longer, anyway) and as fast as these forums move threads are quickly pushed to the deeper pages and are missed by newcomers. FWIW no one has attacked me yet, but I've seen a few of those comments in a few threads. If it's old news just cut n paste your reply from a previous thread or ignore the thread.

That's how children behave when they're out of arm's reach. <.<