SKYRIM!

[StokesAk]

Khajit master race reporting in.

[PFactorDave]

Sounds like someone stole your sweet role

What does it matter...

You can't get a good sweet roll in this stinking skeever hole of a city anyway.

[B4Buster]

It's not multiplayer - it's a standalone single-player game.

Huh, assumed it was multi-player. How does the leveling system work being single player?

[mensa180]

Also playing a wood elf archer.

[Ack-Ack]

Huh, assumed it was multi-player. How does the leveling system work being single player?

You level up by leveling up your skills, as you don't get XP from kills or quests. 

I do like how both sides (Imperial and Rebel) have their dark and dirt side, so there is no real choice of being the good or bad guy as both sides have their good and bad.  The Stormcloaks (rebels) are fighting for their own way of life but are racists and only have a "Nord Only" philosophy, while the Imperials are a more open society but fascists at heart.

ack-ack

[APDrone]

You level up by leveling up your skills, as you don't get XP from kills or quests.

ack-ack

Eh?  I've been racking up a lot of skill levels while killing things.

Or am I confused?

[PuppetZ]

Eh?  I've been racking up a lot of skill levels while killing things.

Or am I confused?

Yeah since you have to use skills to kill thing. Like archery, one handed, two handed, armor skills, ect...

[B4Buster]

Interesting how they can motivate you to level up when there is no Player v Player incentive (e.g. I want to level up to be better than other players). Very interesting indeed. Can you "beat" the game, or is it endless?

[Ghosth]

Started a new character, Breton, war hammer, good bow and mage skills. Joined the stormcloaks early, sacked whiterun. We have the imperials on the run now. I'm just over lvl 10 and really starting to crank.

The warhammer is an orc version with a flee enchantment on it, so anything under lvl 7 that takes a hit runs. Lets me shoot a few with the bow, switch to the hammer, lay a few strokes, then switch back to bow or mage skills for cleanup.

3 major points I love about skyrim

A No matter what side you choose (or no side, which is a choice) its not as simple as black/white, good vs evil.

B You can quest, or not quest, your choice, there is so much you "can" do that doing quests is not essential to having a good game.

C There will be a world of mods out for it shortly, I think already over 1k mods out there.
Its the gift that keeps on giving, get tired of it, change it.
I have not modded mine yet, its still fresh, but nice to know I can when I'm ready to.
The map is huge, I've got loads of hours into it and I don't think I've really explored 1/4 of it.

[titanic3]

Interesting how they can motivate you to level up when there is no Player v Player incentive (e.g. I want to level up to be better than other players). Very interesting indeed. Can you "beat" the game, or is it endless?

Of course, there are many quests (at least 500 from what I've seen), with 100+ hours of gameplay. There is the main quest/story line which involves a war against dragons, and you can complete the whole thing in maybe 10-15 hours. But there are tons more quests available. These include small ones, like dungeon clearing, acquiring an item, or killing a certain someone, to big ones, like the civil war between Imperials and Stormcloaks, or joining a secret guild/group.

The game-world itself is massive, even though it only takes 30 minutes to walk from one side to the other, there's over 100+ hours of content packed in between. Not to mention there are multiple ways of playing your character, and different races means there are some race specific quests, which encourages replay with different styles/races. There are 10 races.

Also, there are player made mods. These can range from small graphic improvements to a complete game overhaul. http://skyrimnexus.com/
The amount of gameplay you'll get from these mods are massive, I've already clocked 300+ hours with Fallout 3 (made by the same company, same design, different settings). I expect to hit at least 400 hours at the rate I' going right now with Skyrim.

[kilo2]

Of course, there are many quests (at least 500 from what I've seen), with 100+ hours of gameplay. There is the main quest/story line which involves a war against dragons, and you can complete the whole thing in maybe 10-15 hours. But there are tons more quests available. These include small ones, like dungeon clearing, acquiring an item, or killing a certain someone, to big ones, like the civil war between Imperials and Stormcloaks, or joining a secret guild/group.

The game-world itself is massive, even though it only takes 30 minutes to walk from one side to the other, there's over 100+ hours of content packed in between. Not to mention there are multiple ways of playing your character, and different races means there are some race specific quests, which encourages replay with different styles/races. There are 10 races.

Also, there are player made mods. These can range from small graphic improvements to a complete game overhaul. http://skyrimnexus.com/
The amount of gameplay you'll get from these mods are massive, I've already clocked 300+ hours with Fallout 3 (made by the same company, same design, different settings). I expect to hit at least 400 hours at the rate I' going right now with Skyrim.

It has a system where it will randomly generate side quests. So it will never end.

[Wiley]

More or less endless as kilo2 said, you will eventually cap all your skills and stop advancing your character, but it's just such a large open world, it'll take quite some time to go everywhere and do everything.  I've been through the main quest and the civil war on one side once, and have started another character for another playthrough.  I'm quite impressed that I'm having quite a different experience because I made a point of not following the same groove I did for the first character, and I'm running into all kinds of different things, even in some of the same areas from the first playthrough.

Between how it's designed and the possibility for player mods, I believe it's going to have a buttload of replay value.  I find one of the hardest things to do with the elder scrolls games though, is not to break it.  On my first playthrough, I went sneaky assassin type.  With the way some parts of the game work, sneak/backstab/daggers/archery is pretty overpowered.  I'm playing through as pretty much a pure mage on my second time through, and it feels like, 'oh, now I'm actually playing the game instead of oneshotting everything.'

I've always been a sucker for open world sandbox games, and the elder scrolls/fallout series' are very much to my liking.  You can cross the world in about half an hour of walking, but it's just so chock full of stuff, and the larger dungeons don't feel recycled like they do in so many games.

Wiley.

[B4Buster]

Out of my normal genre but I may need to check this out.

[ink]

Great game....I was heavy into Oblivion, that's one of the very few games that would drag me away from AH....Skyrim is even better....

the mods are touchy some will break your game, so read ALL the comments before picking a mod, in Oblivion I ran around 100 mods...I did mod Skyrim at first but they are unstable...as of yet, or just don't look good.

it seems to me they took all the best mods made for Oblivion and put them into Skyrim.

[wil3ur]

I've only done one character so far.  I'm a Nord Heavy Ninja...  2 Handed weapons, Heavy Armor, Sneak & lockpicking and mastering blacksmithing... everything a good Ninja should know.

I've gotten my heavy armor perked to where it doesn't weigh anything and my sneak perked to where my armor doesn't make noise.  My sword perked to where I can basically 1 hit crit nearly anything I've run across in the game.  I'm level 31 currently, and have basically followed a linear pattern out of the first area, doing quests as they come along, exploring entire areas.

I've joined a cult of cannibals, become a warewolf, a member of the Thieves Guild and a member of the Dark Brotherhood, I've joined the Storm Cloak rebellion, and been named Thane of three cities with another two titles in close works...

That being said, I've only seen about 1/3rd of the map, and only cleared maybe 1/2 of the dungeons found in that 1/3rd I've cleared.