Just wanted to give anybody interested a heads up.

Any of you who don't suffer from vertigo can consider yourself real lucky because you can play Skyrim for hours and hours at a time.

Every time I play Skyrim I can only make it about an hour before feeling early symptoms of a bout of Vertigo coming on.
Last night I played for almost 2 hours and paid the price.
Got a full blown Vertigo episode and am still not feeling 100%.

If you don't know, vertigo is similar to sea sickness or car sickness. I suspect it is exactly the same mechanism because I cannot ride on a commercial bus without getting sick or a commercial airplane.
The first (and last) time I took a commercial airline flight, I started throwing up about the same time as we heard the landing gear being pulled into the plane and stopped throwing up as we were taxiing to the destination 2 hours later. Along with the vomiting is a loss of balance and feeling that everything is spinning around.
For those of you old enough to drink imagine the worst hangover you have had and double it.
The only cure is a good night's sleep to let things reset inside my head.

So I feel really dedicated for playing at all and risking an attack.
Some games I can play just fine, such as online poker, other games such as Halo, no way.
For Skyrim I have been safe as long as I limit myself to 1 hour a day.

For me the game has progressed pretty slow because of my limitation of 1 hour per day. My Nord is up to about level 35 and I have played almost every evening since the game came out.
On the other hand I curse Bathesda for making a game that is so interesting that I am compelled to play even if it means getting sick.

I looked up Vertigo on Google, though luck that.
Me myself have problems with migraine, but I go on medics for that.

I can relate. I have the same problem. One of the ways I solve it is that I use 3rd person (a heartfelt thanks to Bethesda for not eliminating it!) especially when running across country or running through endless dungeon corridors in search of something.

But I still have to stop playing far too often so I won't get sick.

This breaks my heart because a dear friend who I always talked about Oblivion with as we went along has the problem of motion sickness. It finally got bad enough that she couldn't even finish her game and so far, nothing has worked for her. She's going to try Skyrim but I don't know if she can play it because there's so much action. I keep hoping though...lost my gaming buddy. I hope you find a remedy to help you too.

Do you get vertigo underwater?

I ask because I have a friend who is a diver on the oil rigs. He has problems above the water, but suffers no ill effects when underwater. He's found lack of clarity (ie the murky water) helps. Have you noticed if the condition gets any better in game with mist?

Can't you take pills to prevent that from happening? This is Skyrim man, take drugs if you have to!

sorry to hear that, I have a couple of friends with the same problem

I used to have your symptoms and my eye-doctor explained it to me. It's easy to prevent once you understand it. The 20-20-20 rule he taught me works wonders. Every 20 minutes, spend 20 seconds looking at something more than 20 feet away. Cleared it up for me, and it comes back when I ignore his advice.

Are you on the PC? If so, there may be some thing you can do to help this.

In the INI, enter the following

fov 90

The numeric value is the width of the field of view. Stock is 75 and that is more for a standard width monitor. Values between 80 and 105 seem to work best on this game on widescreen monitors. Once you find a value that helps then you can make this permanent in the INI file. Just putting it in the console it only lasts for one gaming session.

that sound awful, i'm really sorry for you and really hope you will find help and maybe a more final solution to it, as i can clearly see how it can impair you in real life and whilst trying to entertain yourself. erm as someone above mentioned, maybe a good joint would help? just a thought

That's really bad. I tend to get a headache after awhile, but playing in third person DOES help a lot! Also staying back a bit from the TV/Monitor. Hope something helps you play longer!

You could possibly try some exercises to strengthen your sense of balance, check it out.

Since I am immune to having hangovers, I can't really relate to this feeling.

And you should be lucky, you get to play more than me

To elaborate on this a bit, apparently just putting that in your INI doesn't help. You need to change the INI, then use the console command to change it in the game, and then save the game. After that, the FOV change should stick.

There are pills available (mecklazine ?) but they only work in about 3 out of 4 people. I happen to be the 4th person. All it does to me is make me drowzy and sick. Tried it a couple of times in a car on long trips.
There is also a perscription patch which worked successfully for me on a half day deep sea fishing trip and an 18 hour car trip. The problem with the patch is that they cost about $10 each and have "side effects" such as double vision for closer items that mess with reading and computer related stuff. You also have to put on the patch 4 hours before needing it.

Like I said before, next time you have played Skyrim for hours and hours, just stop for a second and appreciate the little blessings you get in this life.

Thanks for the tips. I will check and see if any will help out.

I'm really sorry that your condition prevents you from playing Skyrim for too long.

Aside from all the other suggestions mentioned here, if you are on PC, you might also check Plynxs No Motion Sickness from the Nexus. It helps with camera sway.

Aw D: I feel bad about you man.
Take care.

Yeah, sorry dude. I have had vertigo too, and still get migraines from games sometimes. I tried to go back to Oblivion and it killed me with the shifting landscape and low-light dungeons. Skyrim affects me a little, but it helps to play in third person.

lol
yea that does svcks those doesn't happen to me but I feel bad for the people it happens too.

would it help if you remove sceen bobbing, stumbling and stuff like that? I'm not sure if it's doable in the game atm, but I'm sure a mod could fix that if it would help. otherwise, there's some sound advice in the thread already.

I here you who mention using the external viewpoint.
Diablo was an excellent game that I played for hours and hours with no issues what so ever and it had that God's eye perspective.
One that I REALLY wanted to play wa Halo but it messed with me in just a few minutes.

Several times I have tried the external perspective but it is tough to control with the mouse. Probably would be better with an Xbox but my kids tore mine up while visiting over the Christmas holiday. Plus the Xbox is in the living room hooked up to the big screen TV and surround system. The wife gets annoyed when some noise (like a shout would do) rattles the windows and disturbs her. Better to keep it on my PC in my converted 8' x 8' closet "man cave".