As I mentioned in the Buglist thread...Riften is absolutely, pants-on-head broken for me.

TL;DR version: after ~3-4 minutes (tops) spent inside Riften, on my first time visiting it, one of two things happen: either all the guards suddenly go hostile, or hordes of hostile Stormcloaks spawn in. Sometimes both. It's as if the game thinks I'm on the Imperial side of the Civil War quests and am supposed to be defending Riften or something, but...I'm not. I haven't picked a side yet.

http://youtu.be/2DnOSmIjw_E, retracing the steps I took outlined below. (And also demonstrating that I'm not on the Imperials' side and I have no bounty.) Sorry there's no sound. Either MSI Afterburner's video capture feature doesn't support it, or I need to tweak something. You can see in the video that both the Stormcloaks and Riften Guards are hostile toward me, for no reason at all.

If you'd like to try and replicate this yourself or just see it in person, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10456033/Save%20127%20-%20Eira%20Temura%20%20Skyrim%20%2069.35.18.ess. You'll have to jog through the lake to the North Gate to get inside, first.

Full version:

My character's ~70 hours into the game. Just visited High Hrothgar. Not in any factions whatsoever. First time visiting Riften; I went in through the North Gate (after failing to persuade the guards at the other gate), paying the "entry tax" on the way in. I have Meeko and Erik the Slayer in tow. No mods, just a texture mod (for the female skin) and a controlmap mod to allow left-handed me to rebind the keys. That's it.

On entering the city, I talk to Mjoll the Lionness a bit, then get force-greeted by Maul. Persuade him into giving me some "dirt" for free. Get the "No Stone Unturned" http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:No_Stone_Unturned from him. Move on.

I then walk forward into the city and overhear a conversation between Sapphire and Shadr. As soon as that conversation finishes (or shortly thereafter), the combat music starts and suddenly the guards all go hostile, OR a bunch of Stormcloaks spawn in. Or, as seen in the video above, both.

In short: HOLY HANNAH WTF IS THIS, BETHESDA. Someone want to explain what's going on here, please?

You openly murdered any Thalmor?

I've been attacked by Justiciars a few times (the ones carrying the execution order for the PC) and killed them. I also ran across a prisoner transport ages and ages back and talked to one of the Justiciars in it...we got on the subject of Talos, she didn't take it well and attacked me. Killed them, freed their prisoner and gave him some supplies.

It didn't count as a murder--if you pause the video (or just load my save) when I'm looking at my crime/bounty stats at the beginning, you can see that I have no murders and only four assaults. And no bounty.

Why would killing the Thalmor make the Stormcloaks spawn in and be hostile? Edit: And only in Riften? It's been 20+ hours of gametime since I ran across that prisoner transport, and I've been to Windhelm, Whiterun and Markarth since then.

Just a side note... MSI has sound but no clue how it works just watched a vid comparing it to FRAPS and was very impressed.

Just want to add Ive had this exact same issue on 360, so its not limited to the PC nor is it just you Tyraa. In my case I had the 3 man Stormcloak patrol spawning right next to the argonian jewler in Riften. They attacked me when I went near them, causing all the gaurds in town to come after me also. All I then did was reload a save prior to entering town and it didnt happen again, so I just ignored it and moved on.

My thoughts on it are its due to the way Riftens spawn code is set.

Just mentioning, because I killed a Thalmor patrol today after they decided to attack me (I was minding my own business walking up to the Dragon Bridge) and suddenly Vigilants of Stendarr and Stormcloaks were all up in my junk (despite having completed the Stormcloak Questline) and when I arrived in the town everyone either ran away or attacked me, decided to load an earlier save.

So strange my Guild Master thief lives in Riften and I have never seen anything like that. Plenty of random thieves being killed by the guards at night and me reaping the rewards other than that very little chaos.....unless pre patch 1.3 random CTD's are chaos.

Hmm. Very odd. I've yet to have the Vigilants of Stendarr get hostile with me. Did you spawn any Daedra around them? Apparently that ticks them off. But yeah, you'd think if my killing those Thalmor was going to get the Stormcloaks after me, it would have happened when I was completely surrounded by them in Windhelm.


Well, at least it's not just me. Unfortunately so far it's happened to me every time I go to Riften--I tested this out ~5 times in the process of recording the video. I'll try going to Riften and not starting "No Stone Unturned" tomorrow and see if that fixes it. Not sure why it would, though. Just the only thing I can think of to do differently. (Edit: I suppose the other thing to do would be try to enter the city during the day rather than at night.) Sure would be nice if I could actually go into the city without it turning into murder central, though. I've got a bounty quest to turn in.


Yeah, this is my first time using MSI for video recording (I usually just use it for a custom fan speed profile), and I'm really impressed with it, too. Good video quality at a decent compression size. Shame you can't get sound to go with it, though.

Yep I use it for the custom fan profile as well having the video feature is really nice extra

I tried your save games:

Didnt use the autosave, it starts in the middle of a fight in an inn?

Using the manual save you start in the middle of the lake and have to swim/run about 5mins to get to Riften.

I dumped the dog and companion outside the gate in case they are attacking something to trigger things (looked a bit like that in the video). However, this didnt help and even going in to Riften alone and not talking to anyone I still get attacked on your save game.

This doesnt help you I guess, but at least theres confirmation that you probably cant avoid triggering the attacks as you enter

Tried your save, same problem as you. But I think I've found a way round it! Ran across the lake to the guard towers by the north entrance then deliberately got caught pick pocketing a guard. Elected to serve time and slept in cell bed. Once released, I was able to wander around Riften all day picking up quests as normal.

It sounds like a bug, or you've done pissed someone off without realising. As the poster above said, if you manage to pay a fine or go to jail in riften, it should clear it.

Whoops. I'll take that one down, then. I don't usually use autosaves at all, so I wasn't sure which of the three was which. Took my best guess; looks like I was wrong.

Thanks for checking them both out, though! That saved me some troubleshooting.


Aha! I just managed to do the same, and you're right. Seems to have cleared the problem up. I was even able to exit Riften and re-enter it without everyone going axe-crazy on me. Thanks!


I'm going to go ahead and say it's a bug, just because I can't figure out who I could have pissed off that hard. My character makes her living by being nice to people. No robberies, no murders, no breaking and entering. I think I had one accidental theft in Windhelm (meant to talk to a merchant; accidentally grabbed a cheese wedge sitting out on her stall instead) that resulted in some thugs getting sent after me. That's been it.

Meh. Who knows. At least it's fixed now.

I've had something similar happen to me.
I came across a stormcloak squad of 3 just outside Windhelm (near the front entrance to Yngol Barrow I think).
I walk toward them, they warned me away - I ignored them (as it was they who were in MY way! ) , and they went mental on me!

I got a bounty for defending myself!

Exact same spawn of 3 Stormcloaks next to the jeweler in Riften happened to me yesterday. Funny thing is that they didn't attack me, but I happened to save at the end of the night right near there. Today, whenever I load that save, they immediately start fighting me, which starts all the townspeople fighting on my side! So, at least I am fortunate that the Riften folks and guards don't attack me.[PC, ver 1.3.10]