advice to new players

[DWFII]

In light of the glitch difficulties I have been experiencing, I have been thinking about this...

I am a relative newbie to this game and RPG's in general but it seems to me that if someone were writing tips for newbies or a strategy guide, a mild caution to follow quest lines rather than go off on independent adventures ought to be included.

Either that or the designers of the game might create items to be retrieved or scenarios which are specific to the completion of a quest, regardless if they are completed as part of a quest or not. These would be picked up and carried. Or, alternatively if the quest objective was completed outside of an actual quest then the AI might assign a different quest or acknowledge in some fashion that the objective was no longer achievable.

For instance, I have run across several instances both in gameplay and reading the wiki...as well as talking to more experienced players...suggesting that killing an NPC, who is essential to a quest, before actually being on the quest may cause a glitch. The quest Trouble in Skyrim immediately comes to mind because I am having just such problems...despite not really killing the NPC "before his time," so to speak.

I have the penchant to explore trails and sometimes even venture off across country. I encounter camps and barrows and caves that may or may not be the objectives in quests that I am not even aware of. For me this is part of the allure of the game but it appears it may cripple your gameplay.

Not so good. IMO.

 

[Adam Warlock]

*** SPOILER ALERT **** This happened to me because I cleared Northwatch Keep without having "Missing in Action" as a quest at that time. Now Thorald Gray-Mane perpetually hangs in the torture chamber and 2 other prisoners still just stand around in their open cells.
I also failed The Cursed Tribe quest because I killed the quest giver by mistake. Now that Orc stronghold is only populated by an invulnerable and hostile Chief Yamarz and I missed out on owning a tremendous warhammer artifact and some potential followers.
I agee you have to be careful if you avoid the main quest lines early like I did but sooner or later you`ll be going down those paths since so many unique objects and other things like particular shout words are only found through those.
My inwardly-tortured but deadly-serious good guy is now at level 75 and only just beginning Diplomatic Immunity in the main quest and has not done the Companions , Dark Brotherhood , Thieves Guild , or Civil War yet ! Yes , I am god-like but still having much fun as an Elder Scrolls rookie learning the ins-and-outs of playing the game.
It seems clear to me that you shouldn`t(can`t) do everything with just one character so I`m rolling with a more evil build next time and doing those questlines to the extent I can while those pesky dragons just sleep away in their tombs.

 

[BrthrhdOfSteel]

I have had this happen a few times, but not often. Most of the time you will still be able to do the quest, or the quest giver will say something like " Go kill such and such" and an option in ur dialogue box will be " I have done that already" or something like that. Or u just cant go any farther somewere till u start a quest. Most important quests that require going into a dungeon or something wont even let u in till u start it. Like in the quest **POSIBLE SPOILER**




"Under saarthal" for the collage of winterhold. Until u start this quest, u cant even get in the door to saarthal. Even though another quest takes u there, u cant get in for that quest until u start "under saarthal"

I am pretty sure i read about the upcomming update for the game, they are going to fix most of the few quests that get a glitch if u go to that place early.

 

[Adam Warlock]

I will note that some of these dead ends can`t be avoided because I have lost the Shalidor`s Insights quests when I was sent to a site where I had been before and the current prize is now inaccessable by normal means.
As a radiant quest , there was no way I could have known this would happen beforehand but Bethesda will hopefully fix this(if not already so) with a patch.

 

[DWFII]

In one scenario I am conjuring in my mind, when I approached Farkas for work, he could have said..."it appears Bleak Helm Hollow was cleared recently but has now been reoccupied. Go and clear it out again."

A simple solution for the player and for gameplay...I don't know how complicated it would be to program the AI to recognize that the player has already cleared Bleak Helm Hollow (it already recognizes the fact on the map) and offer up an If/Then alternate dialogue.

[parenthetically, I did not kill the NPC prematurely...although the glitch seems to be related]

 

[DWFII]

I have had this happen a few times, but not often. Most of the time you will still be able to do the quest, or the quest giver will say something like " Go kill such and such" and an option in ur dialogue box will be " I have done that already" or something like that.

While not having played all that many hours, I haven't seen that...I certainly don't appear to have that ability or that dialogue option when I talk to Farkas or Aela or Vilkas...

 

[BrthrhdOfSteel]

The first time this happened to me was durring the Dragonstone quest for the main story line. It intersects with "the golden claw" quest, but doesnt matter witch one u do first. If the main story one is done first, When u start "the golden claw" u have the option to say, or r forced to say "i have found it already" and the quest is finished as fast as u started it. Wont go into more detail cuz of possible spoiler.
It also sounds like u r having this problem on the companions quests, witch i have foud to be real glitchy all around

 

[bulbaquil]

The first time this happened to me was durring the Dragonstone quest for the main story line. It intersects with "the golden claw" quest, but doesnt matter witch one u do first. If the main story one is done first, When u start "the golden claw" u have the option to say, or r forced to say "i have found it already" and the quest is finished as fast as u started it. Wont go into more detail cuz of possible spoiler.

In that particular case, though:

- It's on the main questline, so it was probably more thoroughly debugged.
- It's easy for the player to find out about Bleak Falls Barrow without actually stumbling upon it - if you follow close to Ralof/Hadvar on your way out of Helgen, they'll talk about it; if you go to the Riverwood Trader (which is likely) you'll probably find out about it.

 

[Train]

As a TES veteran, I miss the days when they'd let you kill anyone and simply gave a message stating that "the threads of fate have been broken". It just made it seem more real, none of these unkillable NPC's, and when you did break a quest by accident you knew it (for the most part). It's actually my only major complaint about the last two games, they've made it more player friendly for the newbs...rubbish!

It doesn't bother me that quests break, I just wish they'd tell you. Then again, I don't mind so much, I find myself constantly restarting and creating a new character by the time the last one got to lvl 30-40 anyway, I've only had one that made it as far as 60, and that's the only one I decided to complete the mainquest with.

 

[BrthrhdOfSteel]

In that particular case, though:

- It's on the main questline, so it was probably more thoroughly debugged.
- It's easy for the player to find out about Bleak Falls Barrow without actually stumbling upon it - if you follow close to Ralof/Hadvar on your way out of Helgen, they'll talk about it; if you go to the Riverwood Trader (which is likely) you'll probably find out about it.

That is all absolutly true. Probably more effort was put into making the main story less "glitchy". My first playthrew i kind of rushed to whiterun, so i never started the golden claw till like lvl.30.
That was just the only example that i could think of off the top of my head were that particular situation occured for me. Were u have a choice to say u already did it, instead of bugging out and not even letting u do it.
I REALY enjoy just going out without a quest marker, and exploring any dungeon i can find, and for the most part i havent had a problem with it affecting quests.

 

[Perkless in Skyrim]

A simple solution that I wouldn't think would require much coding would be to repopulate a dungeon for a quest if the player has already cleared it. Would definitely solve most of the issues for people that like to do things their own way instead of following questlines.

*SPOILER*

I almost broke the side quest: Heart of Dibella by killing everyone in Karthwasten but since I have the strategy guide I was able to find a workaround.

*END SPOLIER*

As a TES veteran, I miss the days when they'd let you kill anyone and simply gave a message stating that "the threads of fate have been broken". It just made it seem more real, none of these unkillable NPC's, and when you did break a quest by accident you knew it (for the most part). It's actually my only major complaint about the last two games, they've made it more player friendly for the newbs...rubbish!

It doesn't bother me that quests break, I just wish they'd tell you. Then again, I don't mind so much, I find myself constantly restarting and creating a new character by the time the last one got to lvl 30-40 anyway, I've only had one that made it as far as 60, and that's the only one I decided to complete the mainquest with.

I got into the series from Oblivion but I couldn't agree more with being able to kill EVERYONE! Accidents happen (especially with random dragon attacks) and some accidents happen on purpose (Dark Brotherhood) but I would prefer to have NPCs only marked as essential if they've already given you the quest and once it's completed they go back to being mortal. I guess I wouldn't even mind if you could fail a quest due to the quest giver dying before it was completed.

And if they can generate no-name NPCs like farmers and kill fodder for the Dark Brotherhood then why not replace named NPCs the same way? Then players could indulge their darker sides without breaking the game.

 

[Train]

Best advice for new players is to at least go back and play Morrowind, and if you really want to show your devotion, play Arena or Daggerfall (you can actually get TES 1 and 2 for free from Bethesda's website). After that, you should no longer have any problems playing Skyrim...let's just say people would stop complaining about bugs, glitches, broken quests, etc.

I started with Morrowind when it first came out, I didn't like it at first and had only rented it (Xbox), then after returning it I suddenly felt sad without it, there was something missing from every other game I played after that. So I bought a copy and played it for nearly two years straight, couldn't take it out of the disc tray. I liked Oblivion too, but not as much, Morrowind's better (though I'm a little tired of it now). Before Skyrim came out I decided to go back further and played Daggerfall...and that's when I truly understood TES. Daggerfall isn't easy in any sense of the word, and you really have to love the series to play even as much as I did (reached level 10 on the character I started). I can safely say there's things about Skyrim that make it the best one of all, but there's still some stuff I wish was kept from Morrowind (though I understand why it was dropped).

 

[bulbaquil]

As a fan of the Breton race, I really should play Daggerfall, particularly as it's (1) free, and (2) probably wouldn't be the slightest trouble to run on a modern computer, even a laptop.

 

[RedVideo]

I have cleared out places while wandering around, and then received quests to go back and found those places re-populated. I have also done radiant quests for the Companions that cleared out places that were later re-visited for specific quests.

 

[Train]

As a fan of the Breton race, I really should play Daggerfall, particularly as it's (1) free, and (2) probably wouldn't be the slightest trouble to run on a modern computer, even a laptop.

In that case, I propose a challenge: first one to level 20 in Daggerfall wins, and I'll let you get to 10 (which I think is my level, but I'll have to check to make sure) before I start, heck, I'll give you a one point lead, that is, if you're in... (look at avatar for my current facial expression).

In order to play Daggerfall, you have to do it through Dosbox. Bethsoft gives detailed instructions to install it properly, and as long as you follow it to the letter, you'll have no problem. Someone who doesn't know anything about Dos can do it in 30 min. or less, an experienced Dos user can probably do it in 5-10. Practically any OS can play it since it's being accessed with a Dos simulator, it's just that my computer can't play it at full screen...I think that's because either (a) it doesn't work in fullscreen or (b) it's because I'm using a 1920x1080 monitor.

Installation is like a test to see if you're determined, once you beat that, you feel like you've paid for it practically, so now you have to play it...

 

[bulbaquil]

Unfortunately, I seem to be having trouble actually accessing Bethsoft's install instructions... the site that's supposed to have them apparently doesn't exist or can't be accessed. I'm not getting a 404 error; I'm getting a "server can't be accessed" error.

 

[Train]

Actually, in the download they provide the instructions as well in a PDF...unless the download isn't working either... If it is, just save the file like you would anything else and extract it.

Edit: Had to check in out for myself, this seems to be a working link to download the game

The Elder Scrolls Official Site

 

[Train]

the site that's supposed to have them apparently doesn't exist or can't be accessed. I'm not getting a 404 error; I'm getting a "server can't be accessed" error.

Yeah, that's what I got, try the link I posted above, that should work.

 

[ShadowMage]

Actually, in the download they provide the instructions as well in a PDF...unless the download isn't working either... If it is, just save the file like you would anything else and extract it.

Edit: Had to check in out for myself, this seems to be a working link to download the game

The Elder Scrolls Official Site

Oh thank you. I might download Arena soon. I'm a fan of the older games, like legend of zelda or mario.