The Elder Scrolls XIII: Born Under a Certain Sign

[Winter_Wolf]

What? I adore Blood on the Ice. What's better than stopping a murderer by running up and kill moving them as they try to commit their crime? Vigilante Justice Piledriver is hilarious.

How about accidentally killing the latest victim while you're trying to save her? Mmmaybe it was just a visual glitch, but I'm pretty sure my great sword went through two bodies when I rolled up behind the killer and shoved three feet of Skyforge steel into his spine.

And I was hailed as a hero and not immediately attacked for killing an innocent victim in the course of trying to save her.

That character was one of my favorites, in no small part for "let it ride" when I made horrible mistakes and didn't reload a save to prevent something terrible from happening. A lot of "friendly fire" casualties and a couple of pretty hefty bounties because apparently "sit here" sometimes means "steal this apple in front of the whole tavern" followed by, ah, rapidly escalating hostilities I guess you could say.

[DigoDragon]

because apparently "sit here" sometimes means "steal this apple in front of the whole tavern"

I rarely go to alchemy shops for that reason. I think they purposely leave ingredients on the counters so I accidentally click on them instead of engaging the shop owner for legit business.

Dragonborn: "Hey, I'd like to buy--"
Arcadia: "Thief! I saw you swipe that hagraven feather!"
Dragonborn: "Wait, no no! I want to pay for this! I have money! See! Septims!"
Arcadia: "Guards!!"
Guards: *bust in the door and arrest Dragonborn*

[Next Day]

Dragonborn: *walks into shop, Fus Roh everything off the counter*
Arcadia: "Ahh! Why in the 9 divines did you do that?!"
Dragonborn: "So I don't get arrested again!"
Guards: *busts in the door* "Who's disturbing the peace?!"
Dragonborn: "Oh come on!!"
Courier: "Uh, is this a bad time to deliver a letter to the Dragonborn?"

[Triaxx]

The guy at the start of Markarth, is also funny, step in, grab him by the shoulder, and scramble his kidney's for him.

Even a bit of dialogue acknowledging you saved the woman.

[Spore]

Courier: "Uh, is this a bad time to deliver a letter to the Dragonborn?"

Something I feel the Courier is the only other mortal with CHIM aka able to "break the fourth wall". As I leave the house with my first Brotherhood contract in it (the wife of the mine guy) with her blood still dripping from my blade, this Courier beams himself in my view and gives me the letter thanking me from the murder. As I stare him blankly in the eyes he just says: "No more letters I'm afraid." but what he means is: "I will follow you, little lizardman."

He seems to be the reason why almost every quest giver knows of my deeds before I turn in the quests.

[veti]

Yeah, having a time limit on gaining quests is a terrible idea. What if it's your first playthrough and you don't find it at first? You'd totally miss out on the quest altogether!

So... missing out on content because you don't know it's there on your first playthrough is "terrible", now?

Good grief, whatever happened to Easter eggs, people? The game is supposed to be about freedom.

There actually is one (just one, so far as I know) time-gated quest in the vanilla game: the one where you save Malborn from the Thalmor assassin. First time I played the game, I had no idea it was even an option. When I discovered it, I didn't think "Hey, cheats! They didn't tell me about this!!" - I thought "ooh, that's pretty neat".

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Or, perhaps, missing out on a quest you did want to do because you took too long to get there, or didn't know it was time gated. My point being, if you can ACCIDENTALLY miss a quest that isn't SUPPOSED to be an easter-egg or secret quest or whatever? That sucks.

[DigoDragon]

Something I feel the Courier is the only other mortal with CHIM aka able to "break the fourth wall". As I leave the house with my first Brotherhood contract in it (the wife of the mine guy) with her blood still dripping from my blade, this Courier beams himself in my view and gives me the letter thanking me from the murder. As I stare him blankly in the eyes he just says: "No more letters I'm afraid." but what he means is: "I will follow you, little lizardman."

He showed up for me during the fight with Odaving to deliver a letter about locating dragon shouts because I had just fired off the dragon shout to summon Odaving. And not to be outdone, I once went to bed in Proudspire manor, then woke up to see a Stormcloak Courier in my bedroom staring at me! He just shrugs and quietly leaves my house. If couriers in Skyrim don't have CHIM, no one does.

[veti]

Or, perhaps, missing out on a quest you did want to do because you took too long to get there, or didn't know it was time gated. My point being, if you can ACCIDENTALLY miss a quest that isn't SUPPOSED to be an easter-egg or secret quest or whatever? That sucks.

All right then, let's reclassify all of the daedric quests as "secret". Happy now?

There are waaaaaaaaaaay too many quests in Skyrim. Have you ever, past level five or so, not had at least half a dozen current quests, not even counting "miscellaneous objectives"? Selectively trimming that list - in a way that's determinate, but not explicitly set by the player - would not detract in the slightest from any one playthrough, and it would add hugely to replayability.

[Triaxx]

I love having a full quest log. I actively search out quests. Whether I do them or not. I still find new ones, and that's what keeps me playing.

[Caelestion]

There are waaaaaaaaaaay too many quests in Skyrim. Have you ever, past level five or so, not had at least half a dozen current quests, not even counting "miscellaneous objectives"? Selectively trimming that list - in a way that's determinate, but not explicitly set by the player - would not detract in the slightest from any one playthrough, and it would add hugely to replayability.

I think you missed the memo on how Bethesda wants you to play Skyrim. (Selectively is not the answer.)

[Kareeah_Indaga]

because apparently "sit here" sometimes means "steal this apple in front of the whole tavern"

For me it was a mug in the Thieves Guild.

Courier: "Uh, is this a bad time to deliver a letter to the Dragonborn?"

And for added hilarity, he shows up in nothing but a hat and undies. (Anyone else remember that bug?)

I had one of those guys show up with a 'sorry your friend died, here's your inheritance' letter when the lady in question had JUST been killed on the other side of town, courtesy of a random vampire attack.

[Temotei]

I had one of those guys show up with a 'sorry your friend died, here's your inheritance' letter when the lady in question had JUST been killed on the other side of town, courtesy of a random vampire attack.

I got that letter for Nazeem after I killed him in the open and said I was thane of Whiterun to get off.

[Rynjin]

All right then, let's reclassify all of the daedric quests as "secret". Happy now?

Yeah, Skyrim's Daedric quests are super hard to fi-A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON

[Temotei]

Yeah, Skyrim's Deadric quests are super hard to fi-A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON

I'm travelin' to the Shrine of Azura. Here, I'll mark it on your map.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I'm travelin' to the Shrine of Azura. Here, I'll mark it on your map.

I'd come with you, but while I was following the main quest I got locked in a glacier by this big mess of eyes and tentacles that spawned in front of the exit.

[Keltest]

I'd come with you, but while I was following the main quest I got locked in a glacier by this big mess of eyes and tentacles that spawned in front of the exit.

What was that? I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention, this courier was telling me about this new museum opening up in Dawnstar.

[Triaxx]

Mmm... Nothing like a big bowl of priestio's in the morning.

[Lord Raziere]

What was that? I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention, this courier was telling me about this new museum opening up in Dawnstar.

I'd go there but I'm busy investigating this strange abandoned wing in the Blue Palace. Don't worry I'm sure its nothing and it'll be done in no time.

[Rynjin]

To be fair, I will say Mephala's is hard to find. I've had Skyrim since release day and didn't even know that quest existed until someone mentioned it in this thread.

[Spore]

Did I really just not get that NPCs always offer a Grand Soul to a Black Soulstone? Or is the UESP-Wiki wrong here?

[Keltest]

Did I really just not get that NPCs always offer a Grand Soul to a Black Soulstone? Or is the UESP-Wiki wrong here?

As far as I can remember, black souls are always Grand.

[Spore]

As far as I can remember, black souls are always Grand.

Thank you. Now ignore me as I shall commence building a REAL Warlock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7edeOEuXdMU

[ArlEammon]

Soul gems are such a horrifying concept.

[Keltest]

Soul gems are such a horrifying concept.

That's kind of the point. Black Soul Gems are super evil necromancy. Nobody in skyrim treats them any differently because its either magic and therefore all equally bad, or its magic and therefore all equally unaligned, depending on whether you ask inside or outside the College.

There was an entire guild quest chain in Oblivion dedicated to making sure that the people using these things got put down hard.

[factotum]

You think the concept is horrifying, wait until you visit the Soul Cairn and find out where people whose souls have been trapped go once the gem is used up. Place is an absolute dump, not a Starbucks to be seen!

[ArlEammon]

You think the concept is horrifying, wait until you visit the Soul Cairn and find out where people whose souls have been trapped go once the gem is used up. Place is an absolute dump, not a Starbucks to be seen!

It has a nice shop keeper. lol.

[veti]

Place is an absolute dump, not a Starbucks to be seen!

True, but it has its bad points too.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

True, but it has its bad points too.

XD

I have a LOT of complaints with Soul Cairn (spoilered for length):

Spoiler: The Place

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The landscape is boring. Horrible, hideous, but boring. As far as the eye can see there are rocks, dead trees, castles and structures no one uses (and that right there is a problem—who built these, and why aren't they still using them?), and those cracks in the ground that fill soul gems. And that's largely it; no weirdo plantlife, no fun and exciting alchemical ingredients to harvest except those largely-useless Soul Husk things, no spiritual geysers spewing monsters, no rivers of energy winding through the air. I'll paint an exception for the sky: that's cool and aesthetically appropriate, but hardly a reason to visit. And everything, EVERYTHING is in the same monochrome color scheme. And did I mention there's no map for this blur of rocks and dark purple they call Soul Cairn?

Spoiler: The People

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The people are also boring. They're all miserable (and I can't say I blame them there, as they got stuck in Soul Cairn). But most of them don't have names, they stand around doing nothing, and most of them have nothing to say to you. Their single piece of canned dialog is even randomly generated. It's difficult to feel sorry for what is obviously a scenery prop that happens to be person-shaped.

There are a tiny handful of exceptions to this: the people who have quests. And there are only maybe three of those. Why is that the case? We're in an afterlife, and an afterlife no one wants to go to. There should be all kinds of plot hooks:

• 'Please finish this task I was performing when I was violently murdered'
• 'I'm a necromancer trying to get my hands on some of these weird undead, help me/stop me'
• 'Help me escape from Soul Cairn' – okay we do get two variations on this (Arvak and Durneviir) but no one seems interested in escaping to, say, the Far Shores. Or surely there's a Divine or Daedric Prince who had a cherished follower get soul-trapped and wants them back? Maybe a normal Daedra from say, Colharbour, got stranded or finished a mission and wants to go back to their home realm? Soul Cairn is miserable, why don't more people want out?
• 'Help me screw over the Ideal Masters'
• 'I'm a planar traveler researching realms of Oblivion, help me with my research'
• Any variation of 'I know I'm dead, please tell Person X who is still alive I love them/there's money under the hearthstone to pay off my debts/anything else that could possibly be helpful for the living to know' – we kind of get this with St. Jiub, but again, there are so many viable variations and virtually no existing quests, why not one or two more?

Spoiler: The Creatures

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Nothing but humanoid skeleton monsters in the entire realm. Even the dragonbone Keeper things are humanoid. There is no monster variation at all; I get more variety from generic bandits – at least those might have a guard dog, or someone might know how to conjure an Atronach or something.

The wildlife is non-existent: discounting Arvak there are maybe two quadrupeds in the entire plane, those being ghostly scenery and nothing more. This ties in to my complaint about fun alchemy stuff: no insect equivalents, no bird equivalents, I'll give the lack of fish a pass because I don't recall seeing any actual water in the entire zone...this is where soul-trapped stuff goes, why does nothing exist here?

Worse, the Ideal Masters – the entities in charge! – aren't even qualifiable as people: they're landscape. They don't give quests, you can't fight them, they don't even talk.

Remembering all the weird stuff we fought in Shivering Isles, even vanilla Tamriel, it's very disappointing for another plane of existence to be so dull in terms of wildlife.

[Spore]

I feel the entire scenery of the Soul Cairn fitting. After all you only see a small part of it I suppose. It's bleak and dreary but I feel the artificially generated inside of a soul gem shouldn't include a water park and lush landscapes. With the Ideal Masters feeding off of souls and being completely shapeless I feel they're what would be equivalent of elder gods in the ES universe. No matter the Aedra, Daedra or Magne Ge worshipped, all trapped souls go there.

And besides other powerful artifacts and magical items, it is actually pretty weird that is impossible to bind permanent magic to an item besides soul gems.

[Keltest]

I feel the entire scenery of the Soul Cairn fitting. After all you only see a small part of it I suppose. It's bleak and dreary but I feel the artificially generated inside of a soul gem shouldn't include a water park and lush landscapes. With the Ideal Masters feeding off of souls and being completely shapeless I feel they're what would be equivalent of elder gods in the ES universe. No matter the Aedra, Daedra or Magne Ge worshipped, all trapped souls go there.

And besides other powerful artifacts and magical items, it is actually pretty weird that is impossible to bind permanent magic to an item besides soul gems.

Are Sigil Stones soul gems then? Because that's how I got most of my early magic items in Oblivion.