You know what I love? Acting. I love games that encourage me to treat the world like a stage and my playable character like a role to perform. I love not using my character as a mere tool to do what I want to do, but doing what I think my character would do.

When a game makes me feel like I should act out the role of the character, it gets me out of the mindset that I should play in the ‘perfect’ or ‘most efficient’ way, and instead makes me feel like I should play in the way that best strengthens my own version of the story.

Not many games are able to make me play like this. Most playable characters, even the most well-rounded ones, are designed in a way so that by just doing what I want to do, they act how they should act. An easy example: Master Chief is a superhuman cyborg soldier because that is exactly how the player of Halo is going to act within the game’s mechanics.

But some characters have a broader spectrum of ability and ways to be enacted that encourage me to perform them in certain ways.

This is probably most explicit in role-playing games like Skyrim that allow the player to heavily customise the character to be how they want them to be. My wood elf assassin that I take with me through every Elder Scrolls game has a clear skillset and ideological leaning. I make certain choices in those games based on not what I would do, but on what I believe that character would do.

But in these games, the character is still someone I created nearly from scratch. The games I find really interesting are those that give me an already well-rounded character, but one with just that little bit left open for me to decide how they would act.

The game that has most recently got me thinking about this is the latest Tomb Raider. Lara Croft is clearly her own character with a long history that has been developing for decades before I even press the ‘New Game’ button. In the most recent game, the story and mechanics are clearly trying to convey a sense of gritty survival against all odds. There is a desperation in Lara’s movements, in the way she moves around each battlefield.

For the opening hours of the game, the only weapons I had were the bow and the pistol. It created this tension where I would get confident with the bow, stealthily taking down enemies without being seen. But then I would screw up—like the novice that Lara is. Then I would change to the loud, messy, imprecise pistol, blasting away frantically in a panic. At first I would carefully aim for headshots, as I would in any shooter, but it just felt wrong. I didn’t feel like in this story that the character Lara Croft would carefully, calmly aim for the head. So instead I would perform her how I think the character would act: being scared, wasting ammo.

Later in the game, I obtained a machine gun. In the next room, time slows down as I am asked to gun down about seven men with my new tool. It felt so wrong. The machine gun was too powerful. It was out of character with the way I wanted to enact Lara as a character in this story. So I put the machine gun aside, and refused to use it ever again, forcing myself to stick to the bow and the pistol (and, later in the game, the loud, messy shotgun).

The game gave me the Lara Croft that the designers thought would fit the story, much like the script writer of a film or theatre play already has ideas for a character before the actor comes along. But then, like any actor, I brought with me my own ideas of how this character should be acted. When I entered the world — when I got on the stage — I brought my own ideas to the story. By choosing what weapons my Lara Croft would use, I created my own performance.

And that’s why I love acting in a game. It’s not about finishing the game as efficiently or perfectly as possible. It is about letting a story pick you up and carry you along so that you care about nothing other than participating in that story. Tomb Raider lets me feel that. The story might be fairly cliché and typical, but by being able to perform Lara Croft the way I want the character to be acted, that cliché and typical story feels just a little bit more personal, and a little bit more meaningful. Like something I helped to bring to life.

If you delayed picking up Skyrim because you suspected a special edition would pop up at some stage or other, your patience has been rewarded. Bethesda has a long history of repackaging its hits, meaning that today’s announcement of The Elder Scrolls V: Legendary Edition probably won’t come as much of a surprise.

The new release will include version 1.9 of the core game, which recently added a withering new difficulty level, removed the level cap for some skills, addressed some stability issues and fixed a range of persistent bugs. The collection will also include DLC instalments Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn.

The Elder Scrolls V: Legendary Edition will be available in Australia from Thursday 6 June. The PC version will retail for $49.95.

Ther are two kinds of people in the world: people who want to play Skyrim as a Ninja Turtle, and people I’ve just deleted from my Facebook for not having any joy in their souls.

Higeyosi’s TMNT mod gives you a craftable set of armour and a mask made with one Dragon Bone, one Dragon Scales, two Leather Strips and one Linen Wrap, which when equipped on your faithful Argonian character, makes you look quite a lot like one of the world’s most famous chelonian crime-fighters.

You can put together the armour at any forge, and although it’s classified as a Daedric set, you don’t need the perk.

There’s not much else to say about this except that the world is a vast and wonderful place full of clever people with a lot of free time, and that the machinima this produces may well be better than the upcoming movie.

Source: PCGamesN

The team behind Skyrim have finally hung up their daedric armour, washing their hands of a development cycle that started way back in 2006. In a farewell post on the Bethesda blog, they thank all the players for their support and mention the need to move on.

“For the last year and a half we’ve been working on new content for Skyrim; from the game updates, Creation Kit, Steam Workshop, Kinect support, to DLCs. Parts of our team have also been in pre-production on our next major project, and that game is at the point where it requires the studio’s full attention to make it our biggest and best work yet.”

“Even though we’re moving on, we’ll still have minor updates to Skyrim as needed. We’ve invested so much of ourselves into Skyrim and will never truly say goodbye to it.”

Could that new project be The Elder Scrolls: Arena? Well, probably not, but we’ll see.

Source: Bethblog

If we ever needed any other reason to love PC gaming, here’s one now: a new mod for Skyrim lets you turn the entire game into a tropical, jungle adventure. Snowy hills are gone and sweeping green grass is the order of the day, with palm trees and moss and clear blue skies. The mod also affects animals, turning trolls into apes, bears into pandas, and much more. Check out this delightful video below, or head over to the listing on the SkyrimNexus and grab it for yourself.

Bethesda continue to patch and patch Skyrim, and they’ve announced overnight that the 1.9 beta is now available for Steam users.

The beta brings with it a new ‘Legendary’ mode where you can not only select Legendary as a difficulty level to make things a whole lot harder for yourself, but also allows you to make skills of 100 into ‘Legendary’ skills. “This will reset the skill to 15, return its Perks and allow the skill to affect leveling again,” writes Bethesda.

“This effectively removes the overall level cap.”

Click through for the full patch notes below.

Bug Fixes

• General memory and stability improvements
• Fixed issue with quest scripts that were not shutting down properly
• Companions will equip better weapons and armor if given to them
• Fixed rare issue where player is unable to learn the Clear Skies shout during “The Throat of the World”
• Fixed rare instance where Alduin would become invincible during “Alduin’s Bane”
• Fixed a rare issue where player could become stuck in Night Mother’s coffin during “Death Incarnate”
• Fixed rare issue where protected companions could be killed from poison damage
• Fixed rare issue with certain ash piles left from resurrected NPCs not clearing properly
• Fixed rare issue with NPCs and creatures respawning improperly after player fast travels
• Fixed rare crash when entering Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary
• Fixed rare crash when entering a player owned home
• Random dragon attacks will no longer occur during “Battle for Whiterun”
• Fixed a rare crash when attempting to save your game during “Waking Nightmare”
• Fixed issue where “Glory of the Undead” would not start properly if player is in combat with Eorlund Gray-Mane
• The white phial is no longer consumed if given to a follower
• If player marries Aela, the “Totem of Hircine” quest will be available
• Unused briar hearts can be dropped after finishing “The White Phial”
• Fixed issue with paying off a crime against the Companions that prevented player from getting Companions quests properly
• Thieves Guild caches are now properly enabled in the appropriate cities
• The Dragon Infusion perk now works properly when taking Esbern’s Potion
• Cragslane Cave properly resets if player receives a radiant quest to clear it out
• Fixed rare issue with bounty quest objectives not properly clearing after completion
• Gallus’ Encoded Journal is no longer a quest item after completing the Thieves Guild
• In “No Stone Unturned” Vex will now accept Unusual Gems if you’ve collected them all before starting the quest
• Vekel the Man now gives rewards for completing “Toying with The Dead”
• Fixed rare issue with being unable to turn in stolen items in “The Litany of Larceny”
• Fixed issue with followers becoming over-encumbered after being repeatedly rehired
• Fixed rare issue with visiting Kynesgrove on horseback not progressing “A Blade in the Dark” properly
• Fixed issue with receiving a duplicate radiant quest from a Jarl
• Fixed conflict with clearing Driftshade Sanctuary before starting “Trouble in Skyrim”
• Fixed issue with using shouts while in jail and having guards unlock the jail cell
• Fixed rare issue with quest NPCs not properly moving to quest locations
• Fixed issue with NPCs not selling master level spells
• Fixed rare issue where player gets control locked outside the Thalmor Embassy at the start of “Diplomatic Immunity”
• Fixed rare issue with disappearing containers after upgrades in player owned house
• Fixed issue with being erroneously attacked while as a werewolf during “Ill Met By Moonlight”
• The Ebony Blade is now only improved by two handed perks
• Locked door to Proudspire Manor can now be unlocked by proper key
• Fixed issue with merchants not receiving the proper additional gold with the Investor perk
• Fixed a rare issue where the player would be unable to learn a word after leaving for several days during “The Way of The Voice”
• The Nord Hero Bow can now be improved
• The Purity perk no longer requires the Experimenter perk
• Fixed rare instance where Lovers Comfort would not be applied properly
• If you approach Frostmere Crypt from the north, “The Pale Lady” will start properly
• Fixed rare issue where player could be prevented from speaking with Atub to start “The Cursed Tribe”
• Fixed rare issue where a dragon could appear in the Mind of a Madman realm and kill the player
• Fixed instance where player could get stuck in Japhet’s Folly
• Fixed rare instances where Arngeir would not teach Worldwind Sprint
• Fixed issue with “Ill Met By Moonlight” if Sinding dies before the quest starts
• Gharol can now properly train up to level 75
• Fixed conflict with visiting The Karthspire before starting “Alduin’s Wall”
• Reduced the instance of random dragon attacks after fast traveling post main quest
• Recruited Blades now have appropriate dialogue while at Sky Haven Temple
• Fixed rare issue where an incorrect dungeon could appear as a location during “Totems of Hircine”
• Fixed rare instance in “Fetch me that Book” where books found before getting the quest would not be properly recognized
• Fixed rare issue with traveling to Thalmor Embassy with companions during “Diplomatic Immunity”
• Fixed issues with Matching Set perk not working properly with certain pieces of armor
• Fixed issues with Custom Fit perk not working properly with certain pieces of armor
• Fixed issue with NPC dying in a bear trap blocking progress in “Time of My Need”
• Fixed rare issue with swinging door becoming stuck and blocking an entrance in Volunruud
• Imperial Light Armor can now be crafted
• Fixed issue with “Vald’s Debt” where Vald was not leveled properly
• Fixed issue with Vilkas not giving proper greeting after completing “Battle for Whiterun”
• Fixed issue with respawning actors that were raised by using the Ritual Stone power
• Fixed issue with the Ancient Knowledge perk not calculating properly
• The Palace of Kings now has patrolling guards on upper floors
• Reduce percentage chance of getting a werewolf loading screen while player is a werewolf
• Pantea’s flute is no longer a quest item after completing “Pantea’s Flute”
• Placing an unread Oghma Infinium on a bookshelf in the player’s house no longer allows the book to be reused again
• Adjusted dialogue priority to improve chances of hearing more combat dialogue from certain NPC enemies
• Fixed issue with falling damage on high difficulty levels
• Fixed bad collision on certain clutter objects
• Fixed rare instance of couriers who would appear only dressed in a hat

Source: Bethblog

Wondering why your copy of Skyrim on Steam updated overnight with another 1.5GB? Well, it was a surprise bonus from Bethesda: updating the high-res texture pack to include the textures for Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn.

The official note on the Bethblog warns users to make sure they exceed the game’s minimum requirements before attempting to install the high-res pack, so if you haven’t already got this free DLC (which you can find in the Steam store) make sure you check what your machine is capable of before downloading the now 4.7GB worth of additional textures.

According to Bethesda, you’ll want be running Windows Vista/7, with a minimum of 4GB of system RAM, and a DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with at least 1 GB of RAM and the latest drivers.

As a glorious PC gamer, you owe it to yourself and your friends to enjoy this exclusive advantage over our console brethren. Download today!

Source: Bethblog

After a month-long period of exclusivity, Skyrim‘s Dragonborn DLC has now arrived on the PC. As we found when we reviewed it back in December, Dragonborn is a surprisingly large add-on that delivers an impressive new quest area and a story with more than a hint of tentacular Cthulhu-esque action.

Dragonborn takes you to the island of Solstheim off the coast of Morrowind, and as such you can expect to see a new twist on some familiar faces.

The new DLC is available on Green Man Gaming for $15.99 but appears to be currently out of stock, so if you need it immediately you can head over to Steam and pay $9 more to get it right now. Enjoy!

If you’re like me and you have to obsessively own every game soundtrack for every game ever, then I’ve got bad news.

Bethesda have just released the soundtracks for some of their biggest names onto iTunes so you can grab them officially and digitally at the same time.

Releases include The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Also up for grabs are Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Dishonored and RAGE.

Bethesda have revealed that the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim finally has a release date on PC: February 5, 2013. The DLC launched on XBox 360 back in December but, due to an exclusivity agreement with Microsoft, PC and PS3 players have had to wait until now to even find out when they’ll be getting it.

This also marks the first time PS3 players have had access to any sort of Skyrim DLC, with hold-ups meaning that unfortunate PS3 owners haven’t even had a chance to experience Dawnguard or Hearthfire yet. To celebrate, all three DLCs including Dragonborn will be 50% off for PS3 owners during launch week.

We reviewed Dragonborn last year, and found a surprisingly large add-on with a delightful smattering of Lovecraft to the whole thing — but some very nasty bugs as well.

Source: Bethblog

What? I don’t even… why? Gaming has gone mad.

Skyrim modder Clintmich has finished and officially released his latest mod: Super Skyrim Bros. The mod features a new instance that is accessed via a house near Winterhold, that completely mods the Skyrim world into Super Mario Bros. Almost completely. There are Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Invincibility Stars, even Bowser shows up as the final boss. You can’t jump on enemies though, my one complaint.

I enjoy how they’ve meshed ideas between the two games though, such as health, stamina and magicka mushrooms and the Staff of Fire Flower. All joking aside, this does look like a lot of light good-natured fun. But don’t take my word for it, slap on your fake moustache and your best faux-Italian accent and watch the trailer below. “It’sa me! Fus-Ro-Dah-rio!” Awful.

Source: RPS

I loved Mass Effect 3. I thought it was a great way to end a wonderful story and I spent as much time as possible savouring the final journey of Shepard and the crew of the Normandy, completing every side quest, every conversational strand and following every interpersonal relationship to its ultimate limit.

Likewise I loved Skyrim, albeit for other reasons. The story wasn’t particularly great but the sense of place was superb, with the rewards for exploration being constantly surprising and tangible. Over 180 or so hours I explored every inch of the world, investigating every cave, climbing every mountain and opening every door, portcullis and chest I came across.

The thing is, however, that I have had absolutely no impetus to play any of the DLC for either title, though admittedly for quite different reasons.

Mass Effect 3 was a self-contained ending for me, a culmination of Shepard’s epic fight against the Reapers and something of a eulogy for the series as a whole. The game was essentially made up of a series of vignettes of characters the player had met over the course of the first two games in which Shepard did right by someone from his or her life and said goodbye to that companion, wrapping up their story thread and allowing them to go on with their lives in some fashion. More than any other game in the series, Mass Effect 3 is self contained – it’s all about endings, and even though there is a post-script that I suppose is meant to leave the story a little open ended allowing for DLC, the story, at least to me, felt finite. Over. Finished.

I was initially excited to have the prospect of more Mass Effect 3 on the horizon, but the closer it came to the first batch of DLC being released the less interested I became. In some ways the idea of new stories being slipped into the canon after it had been finished felt a little off, even a little disrespectful. It began to feel to me like (and I usually hate how casually this term is thrown about) a clumsy retcon of the story to fit in some extra chapters/money.

A lot of this comes from the fact that I played the game as soon as it was released, and so had very much finished everything the game had to offer before the first batch of DLC even dropped. If I hadn’t finished the game before the DLC was released I would almost certainly feel different, but that brings me neatly to Skyrim.

The narrative of Skyrim is no great shakes, so additions to the story have no real impact on its effectiveness. The joy of the modern Elder Scrolls games for me is in exploring the world and discovering the new. The problem I have with the Skyrim expansions isn’t so much the content — although I personally have absolutely no interest in building and furnishing an in-game house — but rather with the system into which they integrate. It’s easy to level in Skyrim, to gain extra skills and abilities, strength in combat and the tools required to survive.

It may not have been a problem for everyone — as a matter of fact I’m sure I’m in the minority — but the time I spent exploring the world of Skyrim levelled my character an extraordinary amount, to the point at which all of the combat content seemed trivial. I didn’t set out to game the system, but by sheer dint of the actual mechanics that was the end result, I was playing such an extremely powerful character that it actually removed much of the fun from the game.

My problems seem to boil down to two things; context and timing. In the case of Mass Effect 3 I feel that the context of the DLC is off, that it’s shoe-horning content back into a story that has already finished and thereby somehow lessening the experience, much in the way Walter Hill weakened his masterpiece The Warriors when he cut in some terrible comic book style scene transitions for the BD special edition, or, as a more contemporary example, the publishing of the Before Watchmen prequel comics. In the case of Skyrim it feels like a case of bad timing, as the more time you spend in the main game the less interesting the DLC becomes.

Is there a middle ground? I’m not sure. Borderlands 2 has done pretty well so far with their two DLC drops so far (and the third on the way this week), with a mixture of funny, expansive content and some great narrative choices, all released with impeccable timing, coming fairly soon after release and at regular intervals to ensure continued interest. But there are problems there as well. The lack of a level cap raise in any of the expansions so far makes the content, no matter how entertaining, feel somewhat like filler due to the lack of any actual character progress being made.

Is it possible to balance timing, context and content with DLC, or am I just being overly picky?

If you’ve ever played Skyrim for more than five consecutive minutes, you’ll quickly have noticed that there are approximately seven different NPCs in the game, all of them are voiced by the same person, and they all look like identical twins. Okay, okay, I’m exaggerating for comedic effect but the point is: there really isn’t a lot of variety in Skyrim’s NPCs.

So what’s the solution? The Skyrim Interesting NPCs mod, which has already been downloaded over 70,000 times, adds over 100 new NPCs to the game — with 90 of them being voiced by professional actors, too. And they sound pretty good! Take a listen in this video below (it’s fifteen minutes long, but you get the idea). There’s 20,000 new lines of dialogue, so presumably they chose to record only a sampling of them below.

Source: via RPS

Editor’s Note: As there’s no release date given for Dragonborn on the PC, and the content will be identical to the console versions, we’ve taken the liberty of performing our review on the XBox 360 instead.

If one were to look at the three chapters of DLC for Skyrim that Bethesda have released so far, its latest offering Dragonborn is the one most like an expansion of the original. If you’ll excuse an analogy this early in the review, it’s like taking the ingredients of your favourite cake and making a cupcake out of them. It’s everything you love, but smaller.

The start of the DLC may seem a little contrived. You’re minding your own business when some cultists come along, and attack you for ‘pretending’ to be the Dragonborn. Luckily, they have some instructions on them, telling you exactly where they came from and who they work for, which leads you to the island of Solstheim and the mining town of Raven Rock.

Once you’re free to explore Solstheim, you’ll find yourself doing exactly that. The island is far larger than I was expecting, and beyond the main quest, there are lots of little side quests and nooks and crannies for you to explore simply for the joy of exploring. It’s like you’re back in Skyrim!

Without spoiling too much, one of the places you will end up is the realm of Apocrypha — the domain of Hermaeus Mora, daedric prince of forbidden knowledge. If you’ve ever said to yourself “Man, Skyrim needs more Cthulhu,” then this is the place for you. In fact, there are little baby Cthulhus, called Seekers, floating about everywhere attacking you on sight and secretly reading books while you’re not looking. Apocrypha is confusing and labyrinthine, and H.P. Lovecraft would have been well at home here. But like all Lovecraftian tales, there is forbidden knowledge to be gleaned from the madness…! Fear not, I will say no more.

Now, while I keep saying that Dragonborn is like a tiny Skyrim, I don’t want you to get the impression that there’s nothing new. There are lots of new things: new enemies, new shouts, new environments covered in ash from the visibly nearby Red Mountain. The docile netch and their tiny netch babies in particular, are an addition that I appreciated. Nothing says, “I don’t think we’re in Skyrim anymore, Toto” than seeing some giant floating jellyfish on the horizon.

I enjoyed my time in Solstheim. For the days I was playing it, I would wake up and think, “Yay! Time to play more Dragonborn!” But unfortunately, I have one complaint, and it’s sort of a deal breaker.

Obviously I was playing on the XBox 360, as that’s the only platform Dragonborn is released on so far. So I was already dealing with abysmally slow load times. Sometimes there is lag after loading a new zone that is so long, you wonder if the game is crashing. But no, it’s just being ridic slow. After the fourth or fifth time the game actually crashed, though, I was ready to put my adorably pink controller through the TV. I wasn’t even doing anything particularly demanding. It would just stop mid-stride, and a primal scream of rage would escape my lips.

At one point, the upper level of a building didn’t even load properly. By the way, they build their houses underground here, so the upper level was where the exit was also situated. I ended up having to pull this stupid manoeuvre where I jumped from the top of the staircase toward the door, hammering the ‘A’ button hoping to trigger the door. It took me a few tries, but I eventually freed myself.

I never went in that building again. Just to be safe.

Long story short: if you enjoyed Skyrim, you will absolutely enjoy Dragonborn as well. It’s like taking your vanilla Skyrim cake, making a smaller cupcake out of the ingredients, and adding a pinch of ash and mushrooms (Mm-mmmm!). The main quest is interesting and engaging, as are the surrounds you explore. My only suggestion would be to perhaps wait for a patch to fix some of the bugs and crashes — or of course, wait until it comes to the PC.

Good:

• Surprisingly large map to explore
• Environment combines Morrowind and Skyrim
• Intriguingly Lovecraftian main quest
• Many side quests to keep you occupied
• Baby netches FTW

Bad:

• Unstable, with occasional glitches and lock-ups

Dragonborn is currently only available on XBox 360, where it costs 1600 MSP. A release window for the PC version is given as “early next year”.

A reddit thread from a user claiming to offer “a look inside Bethesda” has been shut down by an official Bethesda developer, who took to the site to trash the claims as “a mixture of half-truths gleaned from interviews and outright falsehoods,” and to say it was “best to just move on.”

“We’re all excited for more news out of Skyrim,” wrote Bethesda’s Ricardo Gonzalez, “but let’s not take advantage of the community’s fervor to peddle silliness. Thanks, and have a good day.”

The original post, which has since been removed, claimed that a separate skill tree for spear use was on the way, with spears being introduced in an upcoming DLC. The upcoming DLC was part of two more planned expansions, each as big as the recently-released (for XBox 360 owners, anyway) Dragonborn DLC.

“Without giving a lot away, the next DLC will explore the beginnings of the Nords and Skyrim’s culture, as well as the Snow Elves and yes, even the Dwarves. The last DLC will involve the choosing of a new King of Skyrim and the war against the elves.”

But, since all that’s not true, there’s nothing to see here. Move along! Move along.

Source: OXM

Skyrim‘s next DLC pack Dragonborn is on its way to XBox LIVE tomorrow. But what about everyone else? Will there be a repeat of the Dawnguard expansion debacle? Well, Bethesda have confirmed that the PS3 and PC versions will be released ‘early next year’. There’s no indication whether ‘early next year’ means January 1 or February 28 or even later, but it is a positive indicator in any case.

Official word from the Bethesda Blog: “We’re less than 24 hours away from unleashing Skyrim’s next add-on Dragonborn on Xbox LIVE.  It’s one of our most ambitious add-ons ever and we’re excited for everyone to play it.

We’re also happy to announce Dragonborn will be available on PS3 and PC early next year. And we’re still not done – we look forward to sharing more Skyrim news next year!”

Despite these happy words of encouragement about Dragonborn, however, PS3 owners are still waiting for the previous expansion, Dawnguard. So I’m sure PS3 players are reading this with a rather large grain of salt.

If you are excited, though, a few more details about exactly what’s going to be in this DLC pack were leaked just today, so check them out over here.

Source: Bethesda Blog

A beta tester for the upcoming Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim is apparently leaking like a sieve, probably much to the consternation (or possibly amusement) of Bethesda. The Outhousers is collating an enormous list of the leaked information, which so far includes achievements, shouts, weapons, locations, and monsters not yet officially revealed.

Here’s some highlights: new shouts are available, including ones that create small cyclones, bend dragons to your will, and a ‘Dragon Aspect’ that greatly buffs you and saves you from death once a day. New locations on Solstheim include Raven Rock, Imperial forts, Nordic and Dwemer ruins and more, with at least one new companion and marriage option available. Werebears will make an appearance, along with the Morag Tong, giant-sized and extremely tough creatures called Lurkers will apparently make your life hell, and a mysterious “serpent-like creature”.

Spears are also mentioned — but unfortunately they’re not a proper new type of weapon. They’re a weapon used exclusively by Reiklings, if you pick them up they become arrows in your inventory. Also, it’s worth noting that players who’ve slain Alduin and finished the main Skyrim quest will get different dialogue during their travels through Solstheim. Get slaying!

Source: The Outhousers via Reddit

Some vocal old-school RPG fans dismissed Skyrim on launch as being “for babies” and “too easy”, but while it’s easy to criticise, it’s more difficult to actually figure out where the problem lies and then try to fix it.

Well, that’s exactly what a user named Xarrian has done with The Requiem Mod for Skyrim, an old-school mod aimed at making the game exponentially harder, more terrifying and more reliant on player skill for progress.

Enemy levelling is now out, and all enemies are completely static. This means that enemies are now, generally, a lot harder for you to tangle with, and foes like dragons, giants and werewolves will maul you to death. Skill rates have been adjusted down so you gain points slower, new skills and perks added, and spells have been made much harder to use with huge mana costs. Combat has also been hugely overhauled, to the point where unarmoured foes will die in one good hit.

If this sounds like your sort of thing, head over to the official page and download it for yourself!

Source: Kotaku AU

Bethesda’s announcement of the Dragonborn DLC was a shock to nobody, but the reveal trailer showed a DLC larger in scope than a lot of us were really expecting. Now, Bethesda have released this slew of new screens for their DLC, and — to be frank — it looks pretty boss. Check ‘em out.

Nemesis_22 joins us with the first of our Community Soapbox articles! If you’re interested in submitting a soapbox article, check here for more information. Mild spoilers for Skyrim may follow.

As I grow older, more jaundiced and fatter around the middle, I find that there is still one tried and true method to RPG games which never, ever, seems to die the death it so richly deserves: fetch quests.

You know the ones I mean – Some pitiful specimen calls out to you as you draw near them in some ratbag village, and goes, ‘You there, heavily armoured fellow whose destiny it is to save the world from terrible evils, kill me some insignificant rats/crabs/bugs and I’ll reward you with yet more shinies!’ And lo and behold, you find yourself doing it. And hating it. Or at least, you would be hating it if you were not obsessed with the reward you are going to get at the end, you greedy sod.

Because, let’s face it: This isn’t the world saving earth shattering quest you were hoping for. In fact, it will probably pop up while you are trying to stop a big bad evil guy from actually shattering the earth and killing all those puppies you swore to protect, or whatever it is that motivates your character. And for some daft, daft reason, you’ll pause in your mission of utmost importance to go kill a few rats and hand in their tails for a pitiful sum of money.

Why are they even there? That’s easy enough to answer — Fetch quests are padding. Games put them into RPGs to make them seem much, much larger than they really are. It’s a classic mixture – put in the right amount of awesome, give it volume with fatty horribleness that isn’t good for you, and people will eat that stuff right up.

Kingdoms of Fetchquestalur

A perfect example in recent memory was Kingdoms of Amalur. The fact that it was once an MMO is painfully obvious, as within minutes, you are not so much encountering fetch quests as much as being actively assaulted by them. In the face. With a spiky club marked ‘FTCH KWESTZ HEAR’. The game has so much of it, in fact, that despite its huge size it never feels anything more than purely exhaustive. Run here, do this, get paltry reward, just to get one step closer to doing things that actually matter, while the BBEG waits patiently waving a hand saying ‘don’t worry, no rush’.

And that right there, is the problem I have with fetch quests, much, much more so than the fact that they tend to be horribly boring. They don’t matter. They don’t feel important, usually because they are precisely that. And by doing them, you lower yourself. You are degrading your character. If you want your character to feel like the big goddamn hero that they are, you are going to have trouble achieving that by making them go and catch butterflies.

An RPG, more than anything else, is (usually) supposed to do one thing: make you feel like a big damn hero, and make your character an engine of destruction that makes bad guys wet their pants and go running back to mummy. So why do they insist, over and over again, to make you a little errand boy in order to be rewarded?

I can understand that the spirit of altruism and general kindness is important, and teaches humility, which is good in a hero, but honestly, would you have the temerity to walk up to the most powerful individual you’ve ever seen and say, ‘Hey, you. Get out there and do some task I’m too lazy or inept to do for me. Kthnxbai?’ I don’t believe you would. I know I wouldn’t say much more except ‘Oh god, please don’t hurt me’ while trying to run.

Kingdoms of Amalur was a prime example of this. So is every single MMO since they first began, but they are also a game where you are just a face in the crowd, never a person in charge (except nominally through a guild). Knights of The Old Republic did a good job of making them sound more important than they actually were – the wording was shifted to make it sound less like a fetch quest, and more like you were the ultimate last resort to getting the solution fixed. After a few hundred of these scenarios the effect wore a little thin, but the effort was there.

But no game in my recent memory was a worse offender than Skyrim.

Oh, Skyrim

“Surely not!”, comes the hue and cry. “It is an open world game! You don’t even ‘have’ to do the fetch quests! There’s no limit to what you can do!” Lies. Why, you ask? It is a bit of a tricky one to answer, but most of it comes down not so much to the fact there are fetch quests, but instead, by the way the NPC’s treat you in the game.

Now, let us get one thing straight. When I created my character in Skyrim, I made him to be a ‘good guy’ from the outset. Ulric The Sorrower was supposed to stride the world like a colossus, righting wrongs, saving the world and fixing the problems everyone was facing. And by the end, he did. Mostly. He was an absolute, undeniable titan of a fellow, able to take on entire hordes of enemies and swat them down with contempt. At level 60 or something, he’s a one-man wrecking machine who can fight, and win, against enemies that most would quail and flee from. He was capable of entirely ungodly amounts of carnage with sword, shield, magic and shouts. Everyone knows he’s the Dragonborn, a mythical super hero who has the power to shape nations.

So why the hell does some git sitting on his backside on a made-up pseudo-throne think he can tell him what to do? And don’t, whatever you do, get me started on the Daedra. I ended up selling Ulric’s soul without even realising it to so many different Daedra that when he dies, they’ll spend eternity over arguing who gets which piece of him, but man, even the nice ones were far from being actually ‘nice’. They usually hovered somewhere around ‘jerk’ to much more unmentionable levels of obnoxious arrogance.

Everyone in Skyrim acts like this. They don’t quail in the presence of a being who can turn a 100 foot long flying lizard into nothing more than his newest pair of handsome scaled leather shoes. It’s pretty common actually – people seem to have no instinct of self preservation in the way they deal with this walking terror. They give him orders, they see nothing more than a vassal for their self-entitled wishes. Tiberius Septim, the first emperor, was a Dragonborn! These are not people to mess with! And yet every single person you encounter treats you like some sort of muppet. Tolerated, ordered about, but never really accepted. Even the guards think they can push you around (‘no lollygagging’) instead of behaving like they should against a person who can single-handedly depopulate a city, which is either outright fear or respect. The amount of people and creatures that Ulric actually killed is something like ten times the actual number of normal NPC’s in the entire game. And yet some schmuck who cannot even hold a sword right tries to push him around.

It doesn’t even make sense

The thing that really tore it for me in Skyrim was the faction quests. You had two choices to side with – the Imperials or the Stormcloaks. I considered my options seriously, and for a while, I thought I should side with the Stormcloaks. After all, the Dominion are a pack of jerks who can choke on my battleaxe, and I would happily butcher them by the hundreds. In fact I did exactly that. Skyrim ran red with arrogant xenophobic jerk blood.

But then two facts reared their head. Firstly, the Queen is not that bad a person at all. General Tulius is a dyed-in-the-wool moron however, and treated me just like every other noble know it all. And second, no one is a bigger jerk in this game than Ulfric Stormcloak. The guy is a monumental nitwit. He’s thrown his nation into civil war, killed his king, and gone to war against a force that is just a buffer for an even bigger force just behind that. Basically, Skyrim is in big, big trouble and a very real danger of being stomped into the mud by the Dominion, just so he can get power. And that’s it. The complete breadth and extent of his motivation. He’s a greedy, power hungry war monger with no real motivation beyond what he can get for himself. If he wasn’t, he would have formed an alliance with his king and thrown the Imperials out together. But no, his first plan was to kill the king, and thus, make himself prime candidate to take the throne, by slaughtering the people he claims to stand for. The Queen herself said the king was amenable to Ulfric’s ideas, but the jackass killed his most powerful potential ally instead out of sheer greed. How could anyone follow such a twit?

I ended up choosing neither side in the conflict. Not the Imperials, because they are basically working for the Dominion, and I hated those guys (it was so very mutual). And not the Stormcloaks, because then I’d be helping a man I outright despised as a greedy, self serving swine who had gotten hundreds of his people he professed to care for killed out of his own ambition. I was hoping against hope that, in the end, I would be able to settle the conflict between them my way.

And finally, my chance came. I got to be the mediator between the two parties, deciding who got what at the negotiating table in order to secure both peace and a means to stop Alduin. Finally they were taking me seriously!

Nope

Or so I thought. What I actually got in the end was everyone thinking I was the biggest loser in the kingdom, as I burbled and blundered my way through verbal choices that sounded like they came from a half wit. At no point did the character try and steer things themselves, they simply repeated proposals from one side or the other like a moronic automaton, and in doing so, everyone got mad at him. Far from being the one who united them, the hatreds remained as strong as ever, and now, they both hated me just as much as they outright loathed each other.

So, instead of being the big damn hero of Skyrim, I ended up being the single most reviled individual in the entire world for doing the right thing. The game lifted me up from my role of menial labourer to become, for one shining moment, the guy that people listened to. And for that, he limped through the dialogue and became viewed lower than dirt. Even the Blades turned against me when I refused their petulant request to kill a certain ancient dragon because of crimes done in the past. By that token, with the crimes I had committed in the name of the greater good, they’d have tried to kill me not long after (note – they said this after saying they were sworn to serve the Dragonborn and protect them. Did they forget who their boss is supposed to be?).

The way it should have gone

If I had a choice, I would have done it differently. Very, very differently. I would have flown in on the back of Ohdaviing to Ulfric’s city, and slapped some sense into him. If he refused, I would have Storm Call’d and Fus Roh Dah’d his city into rubble. I would have sworn my allegiance to the Queen, a person who genuinely seemed like a real decent person, and told Tulius he had two choices – with me and Skyrim, or against me personally. If I told him this on the back of a mighty, massive dragon, do you think he would argue? Like hell. And then I’d have stormed out of Skyrim with a big army of Nords and Imperials, and given the Dominion such a kicking they would have been hurting generations later.

After all, who would argue with me? I’m the goddamn Dragonborn. But apparently, being the fabled hero to save the world from a creature known as the World Eater is something equivalent to being a janitor. Out of sight, out of mind, cleaning out the trash and being told to do menial tasks.

What I figured out, in the end, is that the entirety of Skyrim is one very cleverly veiled fetch quest, as you run around to the whims of another, never taking command. Designed to make sure you never rise above, you remain a prisoner from the very first moment you open your eyes on the execution cart. No matter how high you rise up, you are never seen for what you are – a true hero – and remain, forevermore, languishing in the mire of forgettability along with every other nameless soul to lift a sword in the name of a lord who does not care anything about you, except for what they can get out of you. That, right there, is the utter embodiment of what a fetch quest is – doing something beneath the doing of another for menial reward, something I understand a lot of people do for an actual job in the real world, but they sure as hell don’t need it when they are pretending to be a big damn hero. That is what real life is for. And I hope one day, RPG games learn to keep this aspect of real life well out of their genre.

Skyrim screenshots via the fantastic Dead End Thrills.

Remember all those rumours about how there was going to be Skyrim DLC called ‘Dragonborn’, and that it would have dragon mounts in it? And then Bethesda posted that image of a man with a weird tentacle mouth helmet and you said it looked like a Dragon Priest? Well, we were all right. All of us. Bethesda have just released this trailer for the upcoming ‘Dragonborn’ DLC, featuring a main villain who was a Dragon Priest — the first Dragonborn, in fact — and who eats the souls of dragons just like you do. And you can ride around on a dragon. And, to be honest, it looks sweet as hell. Take a look.

Dragonborn will be available for download for 1600 Microsoft Points on Xbox LIVE on December 4. Naturally, there’s no word of when PC players will get their hands on it.

What could it all mean? Well, Bethesda are promising a new trailer tomorrow — probably Tuesday our time — so in the meantime, they’d like you to stare very closely at this image of what looks (to me) like some sort of man with a tentacle-mouth helmet thing on his face. Cthulhu DLC for Skyrim? Why yes, I would re-install, actually. Yes I would (click to embiggen).

Source: Twitter

A Skyrim ‘Premium Edition’ has been announced, or rather listed on Amazon.de with pricing and content descriptor. The game has been confirmed for parts of Europe and the UK, and ships with an official T-shirt, a copy of “The Infernal City” novel, six concept art postcards, and for the PC release, a 600 page ebook and soundtrack disc.

It’s listed at 59.99 Euro on Amazon, and while Australia hasn’t been confirmed yet, we are reasonably certain more information regarding its release here will be forthcoming.

The weird part, apart from all of this, is that despite T-shirts and art postcards and all that cool stuff, the release will not have DLC bundled in. What? That seems crazy! There’s still time for this to change, since it’s not really been announced yet — but will you buy it, if it doesn’t come with the DLC?

Source: VG247

Some busy Skyrim players have been busily mining away on the data included in the next beta patch, which is currently available for testing. The results of that mining have been revealed on the Bethesda forums, and they include multiple reference to ‘DLC2′, ‘Dragonborn’, animations to be played while mounted on a dragon, and new quests set in Solstheim, Telvanni, Castle Karstaag, Raven Rock and Miraak Temple.

Solstheim is of particular significance: the island appeared in the Bloodmoon expansion for Morrowind. New armour types were also datamined out of the patch, including ‘bonemold’, ‘chitin’, ‘nordic’ and ‘stalhrim’. Mmm, bonemold.

Source: OXM

Word via the Bethesda Bethblog is that Skyrim‘s ‘Hearthfire’ DLC has realised the error of its XBox 360-exclusivity-ways and is now available on Steam for PC users.

Retailing at $6.49 for Australians ($4.99 for the US), the worst-kept-DLC secret in the world allows you to purchase land and build up to three different houses, as well as adopt children with which to fill them.

You can even go shopping for various room additions and toolbenches and stuffed animal heads and all sort of nonsense to keep you occupied. Get all the info over here on Steam!

Source: Bethblog