Skyrim

[Chickenfeed]

Its 1.4.0.27 I do believe. They fixed a huge number of bugs and incorperated many code and performance optimizations (such as those in the skyboost mod) The game runs as much as 3x better in some areas on my 2500K. Props to Bethesda for owning up to the fact the game was optimized like crap and doing something about it. Why it wasn't done right in the first place is beyond me.

I was a good 80 hours in with my first character but remade an assassin and am enjoying the game much more the second time knowning more about the games ins and outs. Its funny because I'm already a level away from my first character (46) and in a fraction of the time, skill power leveling for the win ;P One downside to this (although I think its fun ) because daggers are quite weak head on if you level too fast you are often to weak so if you don't stealth and backstab everyone you'll be in for a tough time. This pretty much makes the game stealth only mode for expert and master as things have far too much health to take down in groups with daggers. My previous charcter used high damage enchanted swords with a lot of + one hand damage % and things werent even hard at all on master, resulting in the same fight over and over. Stealth requires a bit more planing and when things go wrong its all the more exciting

One thing that makes the game much less tedious is the merch side of the speech craft tree. Being able to sell anything to anyone ( as well as the higher gold cap and ability to fence goods ) is really convient. Some may like the roleplaying aspect of selling certain goods to certain merchants but damn does that get tiresome.

[Frag Maniac]

I'm at player level 47 with Dragonscale improved to Legendary, which nets me a 703 armor rating when the ring and amulet of minor squire are worn. I'm playing as Nord Warrior on Master, but with a mix of skills. Having 100 Sneak with Assassin Blade helps a lot in situations where my armor isn't tough enough for a straight on approach. Even without Silence and Shadow Warrior, 100 level Sneak is quite stealthy. I also have the aforementioned Elemental Protection, and my Block is at 100. Smithing of course is at 100 as well, as are Light Armor and Pickpocket. My only other fairly high skills are One Handed at 77 and Archery at 60. I primarily use a Skyforge Steel War Axe for combat and a Glass Bow and Dagger for stealth, all improved to Legendary.

I do have lots of ebony ingots and 7 Daedra hearts now if I really want to pursue making Daedric armor, but there's other skill building I think I could benefit from vs spending lots of time building up Heavy Armor and the heavy side of Smithing, like higher One Handed and Archery. I'm only at level 1 hack and Slash. Once you get up in the mid 40s player level, leveling up is much slower, so you have to spend your points wisely. BTW, does Hack and Slash apply even to the undead that you would think to have no blood, like Draugr Deathlords? I can't believe I've gotten to level 47 and have never seen any but the 3 standing stones at the start of the game.


*****SPOILERS*****
Last night I went to get the 3 Daedra hearts available on the mission to cleanse Azura's Star. I thought I was going to have to go do some skill building and come back, as those nasty Daedra mages protecting Malyn Varen were easily finding and killing me. I ended up making a video showing a way it can be done via sneaking without being thief. With this method it requires at least the 30 sec invisibility potion (Extended), but the kills were done without it. I spent the only Prolonged invis potion I had, but I can always make some more. It's nice to go the tougher route and get the star via Azura vs Nelacar. The payoff is you can fill it easily via killing any simple white sole creature, even Mudcrabs. Otherwise it requires killing black sole creatures. I can't stand listening to Nelacar anyway.

[UrbanSmooth]

That was fun to watch, Maniac. Thank you.

[SabreWulf69]

From PlayerAttack -

Report: Skyrim High Res pack out Tuesday

Bethesda head honcho Pete Hines has a surprise up his sleeve – and it’s not that the Creation Kit for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be released this week.

Hines already confirmed that much via his Twitter account, where he also mentioned the download would “have a special surprise with it”.

“What could it be!?” he asked – and the internet answered.

In a rapidly growing thread on the game’s official forums, cogs started turning in clever gamer skulls, and a potential conclusion was reached: A High-Res graphical pack for the PC version of the game, something many fans have wanted since launch (if not before!).

Backing up this theory, one gamer uncovered the following image by snooping around through Steam documentation:



Key words there, of course: “High Res Pack” and Skyrim. Pretty convincing stuff!

At this stage, of course, take everything with a grain of salt – but it looks rather possible that things in Skyrim may look even more shiny on PC after this week.

Earlier this month, Bethesda promised that the “impressive” Creation Kit was “nearly here” – I don’t think anybody expected it to arrive quite so soon!



…of course, if it’s not the new High Res pack, then it could always be horse armour. You’d be happy with that too, right?

Source

[nksharp]

Now if only BF3 would make something similar.

Guess it is about time to reinstall skyrim though.

[WrigleyVillain]

CK and Texture Pack avail for download.

Interesting how they did the texture pack - it's a set of BSAs with ESPs, so you can turn them on and off, they don't just automatically replace your existing texture BSA and they won't override texture mods either.

[Frag Maniac]

I'm drooling over this HD pack, but I've only a GTS 250 1GB, so I'll have to wait.

I'm tempted by the 7970, but still have a bad taste in my mouth from choking on several years worth of bad ATI drivers when I had their cards. Maybe I can hold out for Nvidia's 600 series. Seems like they should have dropped price on the 580 by now though. Even with the 7970 being $50 more, it's really a wash since it has 33% more VRAM. So the end result is more performance and much high OCing for around the same money. Ah, but then software support matters too.

[SabreWulf69]

New random shot I took from Skyrim :-) -

[Ket]

Whats with all the images on the forums getting auto-resized? While I welcome it, their getting auto-resized to stupidly small dimensions. Also, it looks like bethesda have never heard of DoF in that image

[3lfk1ng]

DOF comes with ENB series mod from Boris.

Also, for my eyefinity users: Keep your eyes out for the new eyefinity launcher

[Frag Maniac]

Whats with all the images on the forums getting auto-resized? While I welcome it, their getting auto-resized to stupidly small dimensions.

Are you forgetting this forum is also stupidly slow at times? Until they get the new T1 ISP they're looking to upgrade to, they'll probably stick with resizing them rather small.

As for DoF, the game files had it before this addon, but it was never really done the way DoF is normally done.

[Manicdan]

i think i liked the mods better than the patched high res textures

do we have a perf hit comparison for installing either? im using a 1gb card and id like to increase textures even if i have to drop some view distance

[Ket]

Are you forgetting this forum is also stupidly slow at times? Until they get the new T1 ISP they're looking to upgrade to, they'll probably stick with resizing them rather small.

As for DoF, the game files had it before this addon, but it was never really done the way DoF is normally done.

XS has been stupidly slow at times ever since I joined, I'm used to it.

[SabreWulf69]

These shots are with the new Bethesda higher res textures + my other usual mods and tweaks (click for larger size) I also dislike DOF in most of my games (personal taste) -





I haven't noticed much difference really despite the large 3+ GB size of the thing and I only have a 1GB 560Ti and a lowly Core 2 Duo E8400 and I'm averaging 40 FPS which is fine for me. I only use FXAA PPI and not ENB as I find ENB too over the top in many regards and I can't get the new 'Realistic Lighting With Customization' mod to work right either.

[Frag Maniac]

Nice shots, but the first is a reminder that most bodies of water in the game do little to reflect anything despite there being 4 different reflection options for it.

The page also loads pretty fast and if the shots are uploaded diligently like you did with click to resize, there's really no sense whining about the forum resizing them.

[[XC] Oj101]

@SabreWulf69: Which "usual mods and tweaks" are you using? That looks incredible

[SabreWulf69]

Also, the same pic above but with different water reflects a lot of stuff but seems to lose any natural DOF effect, but having the other way loses as many reflections, still playing around with it I guess...

Mods and tweaks I'm using are -
INI tweaks from Neogaf Skyrim Performance thread
No more blocky faces mod
Detailed bodies, lips and faces mods
High Resolution Eyes mod
FXAA PPI
Skyrim Sunglare V3.0
No Intro Fix
SkyUI
Texture packs - Bethesda HD Textures DLC, Serious HD Retexture Landscape mod, Skyrim HD mod, Skyrim Flora Overhaul and Realistic Water Textures

[SabreWulf69]

Not sure if anyone has seen this yet, but this is definitely post worthy -

[SabreWulf69]

A break down of the new texture pack from Brumbek -

Detailed Analysis of HighRes Pack - Click to Learn

Also, a mod in development that aims to recreate the Lord of the Rings world using Skyrim -
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/02/mid...s/#more-489548

[Ket]

The page also loads pretty fast and if the shots are uploaded diligently like you did with click to resize, there's really no sense whining about the forum resizing them.

Thats a rather flamebaiting/troll-like word to use. How is constructive critisism "whining". Its a good thing your not a mod, or anyone with any kind of authority. Clearly you wouldn't take critisism well.

[3lfk1ng]

It pains me to watch such an amazing video knowing that we may never see all this amazing content that the devs themselves have created in a fun work event.

[Ket]

Its not surprising. Similar to what Asus did once, I think it was a dual GPU GTX480 they made in-house and showed it to loads of people. When asked if Asus would ever release the card they replied "No. We did it just because we could." I think that video says 3 things though;

1. "Look at what we can do when we make Skyrim for the PC PROPERLY"
2. Skyrim would be a trillion times better if Bethesda released all of that cool stuff
3. Being a game dev really is the coolest job in the world

[Frag Maniac]

Thats a rather flamebaiting/troll-like word to use. How is constructive critisism "whining". Its a good thing your not a mod, or anyone with any kind of authority. Clearly you wouldn't take critisism well.

Not surprised you missed the whole point of it. You were passive aggressively throwing insults at those running the forum vs understanding that it takes a pretty damn good ISP with lots of bandwidth to do what your asking. They've already answered the many comments about the oft slow page loading by saying they've had problems with their present ISP, and are looking at other options. A little patience and understanding goes a long way, vs complaining about the resizing, even to the point of calling it "stupidly small".

That's whining, plain and simple, and it's also flame baiting criticism. How you could see anyone pointing that out to you as trolling shows your immaturity. My comment about the forum being stupidly slow was more aimed at your lack of common sense than anything to do with them not speeding it up, because I know that often takes time and money. What's ironic is you say you're used to it, yet are clueless why they would use resizing.

What's stupidly small is your patience and understanding, among other things mentioned. It's also absurd you should suggest my not taking criticism well when you think nothing of dishing out insensitive digs at those ponying up the work and money for the site, or anyone that defends them when you do. You really don't get how bratty and snobbish you often sound do you? Just goes in one ear and out the other.

[NEOAethyr]

I'm glad I'm not the only one pissed off today .

Gotta install skyrim tonight to .. ah, who knows actually.
I just free roam it.

[nksharp]

It pains me to watch such an amazing video knowing that we may never see all this amazing content that the devs themselves have created in a fun work event.

More DLC, great :/

In any case I am sure modders could do any of the stuff in the video, better and for free.

Edit : Is that even the original video or just some adaption. I ask because the arrow in the knee is becoming overused, stopped watching the video after hearing it twice since it will only get worse.