Sky-rant

[Spirit]

Well...

I can honestly say I've never had such a hard time installing a game than until now, with the new Elder Scrolls game Skyrim.

After getting past numerous "Server Busy" messages, the game then insists on installing over the internet rather than off the dvd. A quick search of the internet reveals a way to force an install off the dvd, followed by another 5 or 6 restarts of Steam after it froze while trying to presumably "authorise" the installation.

Finally attempt number <who knows> and it connects successfully, then using the command line trick it actually uses the dvd, and not 5gb (or 7 hours of time) of my monthly broadband allowance.

Now it's installed, it's still downloading 240mb of patches ... and it's on day of release! Nearly 90 minutes after starting, and I've not played it yet. In an hour I have to sleep for an early shift tomorrow!

I don't dislike the idea of Steam ... it's a pretty good platform for games, but what in the hells is making this so hard? Could Bethesda not have made a more traditional installer, rather than going with Steam?

Rant over ... unless the game doesn't load.

Rakku

[Dhalin]

You're probably getting lots of "server busy" errors because there's still millions of people trying to do the same thing you're doing at the very same time.

Here in a few days, the congestion should let up and the install process should go a lot more smoothly. Why it tries to use the internet instead of the DVD is a bit of an oddity though, perhaps just a small programming oversight or error or something, maybe when it attempts to Q the server, a server error causes it to try and download from the server instead of getting it from the DVD or something.

I was pondering going out shopping to get the game today, but uh, maybe with this news I might wait till Tuesday afterall, when the congestion dies down.

You see this sort of thing happening on MMORPG patch days, same thing -- too many people clogging the system ASAP to get their stuff.

[Blue Hasia]

funny thing is i had a conversion in game about how consoles need installs now to. i pop in skyrim to my ps3...ok first i need a ps3 update 10 mins. system restart ok now it needs to install itself on the ps3, ok 5.6 gigs and 10+ mins wait. ok installed now it needs an update also before i can play it.

[Dhalin]

funny thing is i had a conversion in game about how consoles need installs now to. i pop in skyrim to my ps3...ok first i need a ps3 update 10 mins. system restart ok now it needs to install itself on the ps3, ok 5.6 gigs and 10+ mins wait. ok installed now it needs an update also before i can play it.

Such is what happens when they port a PC game to a console, especially a game that's meant to be regularly updated.

I've always said that consoles are slowly turning into PCs, might as well just get a decent PC IMO. At least you'd be able to download player-created mods.....

[Spirit]

It's not the first time I've seen Steam try and install off the net, instead of a dvd... before reinstalling by pc from scratch one time, I backed up all the steam games. When I'd finished reinstalling Windows and installed Steam, I then restored my games and it tried to do the same thing. I do appreciate that the Steam servers must have been stuffed, but I thought they would have been able to cope, given the strength of some of the titles released in the past.

It is strange how console games now have to install, but it makes sense I guess. I've been playing now, and it is an impressive game. My one complaint is that the menu interfaces are *extremely* console oriented. Thankfully it works just as well with mouse/kbd.

Pc will always be the main platform for me... I do wish Red Dead would release for it!

Rakku

[Dhalin]

As far as complaints about Skyrim, I've only found two:

1). Mouse Sensitivity maximum is too low. I'm a player who jacks sensitivity to the max more often than not, and the maximum sensitivity setting is not enough for me. This is WITH a high-performance mouse, even. I'd like to increase it another 20-30% or so.

2). I don't really like the idea of having to equip spells to a hand -- in Oblivion, I enjoyed being able to heal myself while swinging a melee weapon and using a shield. But in Skyrim, you can't do that any more. The best you can do is set your blade and healing spell to both of your hands, but you lose the shield.

But yet, you can set a "Shout" to Z, and you can use that along with a shield and sword... why couldn't they have let us do something similar with spells?

[Frith-Rae]

Such is what happens when they port a PC game to a console, especially a game that's meant to be regularly updated.

I've always said that consoles are slowly turning into PCs, might as well just get a decent PC IMO. At least you'd be able to download player-created mods.....

Backwards. Skyrim is a console game first and foremost (controls and UI are the way they are due to console) and it was ported to PC (not the other way around, like their other games were..unfortunately).

And like you Ive had a *#@%@ of a time with the controls and mouse stuff - had to tweak and read forums and all that jazz to get it to w ork right. And it STILL is buggy (rebind commands aren't rebound for every t ype of screen - sometimes Im still having to use the original key instead of my rebound key but its random so heck if I know when I go to press it if its right or not LOL).

And its weird - my game installed from my DVD and then got the patch from Steam. The patch took maybe 10 minutes if that - no problems connecting at all. And yes, this was day of release as well.

But they need some more patches for PC - mouse and keyboard controls being buggy as heck the nerd rage across the internet Friday was legendary..(and being as I was searching for fixes to my problems I read through mucho of them LOL).

Dhalin - you can key bind spells/weapons (you still have to equip them by pressing the key but you can press one key - spell in hand - cast spell - and then press another ey and weapon returns to hand).

Go look into "Favorites" (its in the manual) - pull up your spell menu and make the spells you want handy as "favorites" (or weapons) - yea it does work like a web browser this way LOL. Once they are in your favorite list - you can highlight the spell/weapon and press a number-key. It is now hot keyed and yoou can press/use/press/swap quickly.

No, its not as straightforward as the other games that were made for PC first - but it IS a way to hotkey stuff. But you still have to put the spell in your hand to cast, and not free-cast like we use to could.

Bethesba has totally disappointed me in the Quality control department for this game. The gameplay itself is awesome. But the PC-port conversion with controls and bugs is abysmal. Very disappointed there.

[Dhalin]

Okay, so I find some more stuff that annoys me about Skyrim:

1). Why is every mundane creature so freaking powerful? And why are these powerful creatures bending me over every few steps?

To Elaborate this, I'll tell you of my first 3 hours into the game:

After the intro part, and after I got to that first town, I was given a quest to go see some important dude (they call em Jarls I think) at some castle. I go there, then I have to kill my first dragon (which was ridiculously hard to hit with arrows, thankfully he'll eventually land that you can start hacking at him).

Then, I'm given this quest to go to a place called High Hrothgar to get some training there. I look at the map and I am like ".... woah.... THAT far!?" Unlike Oblivion, you can't fast-travel to the main cities... that's kinda stupid. Oh well, off I go.

Right outside of Whiterun, I find this bandit camp. 3 bandits, who I kill with relative ease. I loot their camp and there's a locked treasure chest which is easily picked. Then, 2 more bandits come in, one of them is a higher leveled bandit with mage robes.

Apparently mages are overpowered in this game. You can't power attack them because apparently spells drain your fatigue (err, okaaaaay). He keeps using frost spells on me, so I drink a frost protection potion I happened to have found because it is doing some actual damage to me, a good bit of it too.

Then he suddenly starts casting lightning. UGH. Okay, so resistance potions are useless now? That's nice. Or do we have to drink all three to make sure they don't use something we can't resist?

Well, it takes me 3 tries to get past that fight because of how ridiculous incoming magic damage is.

On I go... next I find a cave near a river. Step in, and I see a Troll right near the entrance. I sneak attack him with a bow and it barely touches his HP meter, which refills in 2 seconds. He hits me once and does 30%+ of my life without a power attack.

Um, yeah, reload. I'll come back there later maybe.

Then I find 3 more dungeons on the way, 2 of which I clear out (bandits) and then I finally find that town the quest pointed me to. Now, the quest is pointing me to the place at the mountain peak.

On the way up there, I run into another troll. Nice. I try to fight it, but it is still too strong (even though I found nearly a full set of steel armor from some bandits) and I'm level 10 by now. I lead it back down into the town and the townspeople help me kill it.

Keep in mind that this is only like the 2nd or 3rd step in the main questline.

On my way up the mountain, I run into Ice Wolves. These guys hurt and hurt bad, ONE swipe of their claws does a good quarter of my health while a bite does even more. Thankfully I only ran into two of them, but between the two of them I had used a good 5 of my healing potions.

Then I find IT.

An ICE TROLL. A Normal Troll is already too freaking powerful, but an ICE troll? He runs down the hill at me, takes one good swipe and I try to block, and WHAM... a good third of my life is gone, so I just run. Thankfully he eventually breaks off and I make it to the peak.

But wait, this ain't over...

The guy at the top of the peak gives me training and tells me to go get an item from some cave. I open the map and it is the whole way across the map with no fast-travel? UUGH. Okay, Whiterun Stables is the closest.

I fast-travel there and start heading towards the quest area. Clear out a small bandit camp, run into a Sabercat. That Sabercat kills me twice before I finally kill it (using 3 potions to do so). Immediately after that, I find a bear which is utterly impossible to kill. I found out that you can walk way around it to avoid it, but meh.

Then I came across some dungeon full of nord zombies, forget what they're called drugar or something like that. There's this type of zombie that throws magic at you and that's where I left off -- another impossible dungeon because of overpowered mobs.

I'm like "what the hell!?". I'm just starting the main quests and they are already throwing overpowered crap at me?

2). Remember that mage I mentioned, whose spells hurt like hell? I tried my own spells, and they barely tickle even a lowly bandit. So, enemies using spells absolutely hurt like hell, but yet my own spells don't do jack? Nice.

I hate it when games near-require you to turn the challenge level down from the default challenge level just to make things more reasonable.

Even with setting it on Novice, I still couldn't clear that Nord Zombie dungeon; there's this dual-wielding ghost guy at the end who kills me in like 5 seconds, each swipe of his weapons doing a good third of my life, even if I try to block his attacks and he moves far too fast for me to swing and back up.

I find myself missing the days of Oblivion when challenges were more suited to your level....