Word of warning, there will be spoilers in this thread. I'll try to hide any actual main story spoilers in spoiler tags but everything else will just go in the standard paragraphs. It might end up picture heavy too.

So far I'm absolutely loving the game, it is exactly the same feeling as I had when first starting up Oblivion. The game has run very smoothly so far with only one crash (after 7 hours of straight gameplay) although I am only on medium graphics at the moment. I'm intending to try and push them up a little, I reckon I might be able to coax high out of my rig.

The tutorial is far nicer than Oblivion's (no more horrible samey tunnels to run through but a nice mixture of environments) but it's very strange not having any major skills to choose! Even so I've made my typical Nord female warrior/paladin type who essentially sword-and-shields most stuff with the odd healing spell and very occasionally uses offensive magic (but only if she really has to). The dual hand system is nicely implemented; left mouse button is still your right hand and right mouse is left hand so attack and block stay the same as most other games. You can shield bash as well though by holding in block then tapping attack; so far a very useful tactic is to shield bash as the enemy winds up a power attack to both avoid being attacked and also get in a free hit or two whilst they're stunned.

My boyfriend has gone for a Khajit thief/assassin type and is going down the dual-wielding and archery route. His character's name is Tian. We've decided to go opposite ways and see what happens so once out of the tutorial area he headed west and I headed east. He's been exploring around Falkeath where he has managed to become a Thane there after helping the local lord with a couple of quests. I on the other hand skirted around Riverwood (the place in all the demos/trailers) and headed on to Whiterun where I've joined the Companions (a fighters guild) and done a couple of "Deliver x to y" quests, one of which resulted in me meeting the Jarl who insisted I tell him about my first-hand experience in the opening (I won't spoil the opening because it is pretty amazing to watch). Thanks to this he entrusts me to help out his court wizard who is studying dragons and dragon lore in general and sends me off to Bleak Falls Barrow (also shown in trailers/demos) where I find my first dragon shout along with lots of nice loot and some scary undead types. I also found my first dragon after this; a scripted quest one in order to let you use the shout you find in Bleak Falls Barrow. It's quite an awesome feeling but as you head there with a few town guards it's certainly a much easier fight than it would be on your own. I barely touched it to be honest; a couple of lightning bolts whilst it was flying and two sword hacks when it landed and was nearly dead anyway.

Other than that my typical Elder Scrolls luck continues. If you read my old Oblivion thread you'll see I seem to pretty much set foot outside a town and contract a disease virtually straight away. Well, I caught one within half an hour of playing Skyrim. I swear I'm a magnet to them. It could be worse though, Tian has ended up with a ring that is cursed and stuck on him which can potentially randomly turn him into a werewolf! So far he's not turned yet though. I've bought a horse (it's very furry and black) and also got catapulted by a giant! I basically found two giants with two mammoths close to Whiterun and decided to go close but not attack. Well it seems the giants don't want you near; it's kind of like watching apes. If you get close they go into an aggressive stance but don't attack... unless you get too close. One hit and I literally flew in the air. Remember the guy who falls out of the sky in Morrowind? It was like that but in reverse...

Anyway I'll post a few screenshots for now. And before I forget, the collectors edition was well worth the money. The art book is beautifully bound and the statue is just great quality. The stand for it (the dragon wall) is hollow and feels cheap but Alduin himself... he's very heavy and incredibly detailed. I'm very happy with him!

Just noticed in-game screenshots get saved as .bmp so won't post too many, hopefully Steams version saves as .gif or .jpg

I think steam saves them as .png

Steams saves a jpg. My key is F12... I think that's the default.

Thanks for filling in your life so far... I'll be posting my own shortly.

Played for a few more hours last night and thought I'd update you before diving in again today.

I had a little bit more of a looting spree to start with, finishing up a few quests and exploring a few dungeons. I ran into my first trolls (and promptly ran away from them again!) and also my first sabrecat... not a pleasant experience. I ran into another cat too, you'll see who in the screenshot below. A bandit fort near Whiterun soon got cleared out; I ran into the courtyard on my horse (have to think of a name for it that rivals Fluffy!) thinking there were only 2 but it turned out about 6 bandits were there and all were intent on killing the horse. Somehow though the plucky equine survived and handed out a good few hooves to their faces too.

I was also promoted to Thane of Whiterun and as such have a lovely housecarl called Lydia who I can ask to follow me around, help fight and even carry things for me! I left her in Whiterun though. I also found "Treasure Map IV" on a bandit and tracked down the treasure. I wasn't even aware there were treasure maps so that's a nice little surprise.

After that I decided to head north east even though I still have a few more things to do in Whiterun. On my way I ran into a tomb in which a necromancer was defiling his enemy's ancestors and had to help sort him out (that was not a friendly fight at all) then came to Windhelm. It was night by this time so I slept over in a inn before heading even further north across some very frozen wastes (avoiding ice wolves, horkers and ice wraiths) until I reached Winterhold. There I put my faithful steed to pasture on the thinnest snow I could find and retired for the night.

Tian meanwhile was having adventures off in the west still; he has completed a quest for Hircine so has his first daedric artifact and also found a bandit camp hidden in tunnels beneath a remote cottage (which had some very nice loot in). He's currently making his way to the north west to reach Solitude.

While'd I love to read you and Satis' stories, I want to make sure there aren't any spoilers in there before doing so! So...any spoilers in these threads?

Any main story spoilers I'll put in spoiler tags. Other stuff is just general "ooh I found this" so potential minor spoilers I guess

Yea, same here. The one thing that talked about the main quest I spoilered. Everything else is just "I went here and killed stuff". I haven't done any quests other than talk some dude's dad into letting him be an adventurer. That guy's now my faithful companion. I expect he'll die a horrible death.

Great stories Pev. And good on you for killing that dragon!

Funny story: I ended up in Bleakfalls Barrow too, but in a completely different manner than you! And I got the word of power too, even tho I obviously have no way of using it yet.

Well I was around my mates last night so didn't have a chance to update this thread; just heading out for some food at the local but when I return I shall regale you with my latest tale... including my first unscripted dragon fight!

edit: on with the tale! I started yesterday by setting out from Winterhold, after chatting to a few people and accepting a few quests (one of which consisted of "there's a dragon, go get him" which I hastily avoided!) to head back to Whiterun and buy myself a house. I was getting quite a stash of ingots, ore and leather which was weighing me down so a house was needed. On the way I found a mine, but was unable to actually mine anything because it had one measly ore deposit which the miner was using. The cheek!

After a long ride to Whiterun I finally got my grubby mitts on the key to my very own house and proudly entered "Breezeholme"... a very dusty, cobwebbed old house but it has potential. I'm quite miffed though; all the house is in ruins except the one little room for my housecarl which is beautifully furnished, has lights, books etc. I'm the Thane, why doesn't my room come ready furnished?!

I dumped the stuff I wanted to keep then headed back out to the wilds to go kill a Sabrecat for the companions. I'd already done this once and got horrendously mauled so it was with some trepidation I headed back over there. On the way I took out a fort of bandits that the Jarl had put a bouty on and in doing so found the Lunar Forge plus two Lunar iron weapons that have additional effects if used while the moon is out. Then on to the Sabrecat lair, which I just about managed to finally conquer, with many health potions swigged.

Feeling tough, I headed north a little way to a small cottage perched at the foot of a mountain. I headed in to see a robed man sitting at a table. I approached him for a friendly word and got an ice bolt in the face. Bloody ice magicians. He killed me the first time but the second time I (barely) kicked his ass. Unfortunately all his stuff was still marked as "steal" which I'm not doing on this character so I had to leave the cottage as it was. Stepping outside I heard an ominous noise and dreading what I would see, looked up to the skies.

This was it. My first unscripted dragon. The damn this is huge; it was circling over the top of a rather tall mountain and still a good distance away and it still looked huge. I mounted my faithful steed and started towards it. I'd barely gone anywhere when it spotted me and homed in. In fact it pretty much landed on me, causing the horse to rear up in fright. I quickly jumped off and tried to strafe around to its tail but got caught in some firebreath. Luckily it didn't do *too* much damage and I was able to heal up as it took to the skies again. Once more it landed and I hacked away with my sword a few times before it took flight. It was maybe 15% damaged by this time. The dragon spotted a sabrecat and decided to head for that while ignoring me; I quickly took advantage and followed, intending to smack the dragon from behind. Once I reached it however I realised the cat had nearly killed the dragon! So I quickly took advantage of that and killed the cat just at the instant it finished the dragon for me. One more soul is mine.

Luckily for me the mountain the dragon had been circling had a word wall right on the summit, where I just happened to decide to explore. After gathering it I headed down the north side and circled round the mountain range with the intent of heading back to Whiterun. Of course I got a little side tracked and found a few random things along the way, including a shipwreck filled with mudcrabs and a cart that had been ransacked by bandits.

Now I'm heading back to Whiterun with the intention of helping out the companions some more and just generally settling into the town a bit.

You seem to be in a general area that's a lot colder/snowier than me! Love the pics and the stories.

Also, I think I need a horse. Or a house. Or both!

cool stuff. I'm amazed you were able to take out the dragon so "easily". What level are you now?

I've just hit 14. When I took on the scripted dragon I was about 7 I think, and probably about 10 for the first random one. I was actually surprised too, not so much at how little damage I was doing to it (it really was minimal amounts which is why the sabrecat killing it freaked me out!) but the fact I could survive its breath so easily. That snowy/cold area Ox was way north east in Windhelm; Whiterun isn't actually overly snowy, it's pretty much Rohan from LotR but with very snowy mountains surrounding it. I haven't seen much snow at all today in my adventures.

I decided to stick around Whiterun a bit more, try to settle in and make myself at home. So I started out by trying to get into the Companions properly. In order to do this I had to head off to try and help them recover a fragment of an artifact that belonged to their founder which proved to be a very long and incredibly awesome dungeon that also led to some... revelations about a few of the Companions. It also led me to my third dragon word and as this one was Fire, I had to spend the soul on it that I'd saved up. Loving it so far, it one hit kills most bandits I've come across. I then headed back to Whiterun where I was officially made a member and even given my own Skyforge Steel Sword (which was no better than my current sword but I guess it's the thought that counts).

After a day spent walking around Whiterun and generally chatting to people I headed up to Dragonsreach to purchase furnishings for my house, then went to the local tavern, The Bannered Mare. Here I found a woman I'd been asked to look out for who told me that they men after her were assassins. I agreed to go and help her out by taking out their leader so it was back onto the road for me.

As I stepped out of the gate, Mirmulnir's skeleton randomly dropped out of the sky onto my head. Apparently he was annoyed at being dead and wants to try and brain me every time I leave now; it's done it several times when I leave the town, always landing in new and weirder positions. So I untangled myself from the bones and headed west to take on the assassin leader.

I got there with relatively little trouble, other than a spriggan on the way who I managed to take out quite easily with the fire breath shout. Luckily this was a nice short cave and at the end of it the leader of the assassins offered his side of the story. His story was much better so I agreed to help him ambush the woman. I turned around and exited the cave.

My first glimpse of the outside world was of a distant scaly body launching from the ground up into the skies. My third dragon. I was at this point in the middle of a rather large stretch of plains and this dragon really swooped a good distance around the plains. He also chose to ignore me for ages, focusing on a detachment of Legion soldiers who were a good minutes run away. As I was halfway to them the dragon finally circled down towards me... no, not towards me, towards a sabrecat who was heading for me. The cat stopped to defend itself and the dragon launched icy breath at it, then circled away back to the soldiers, leaving the cat to head for me. I quickly equipped flames and burnt it as much as I could, then finished it off with the fire breath shout.

I finally reached the legion soldiers and the fight began in earnest. This was a far more cautious dragon and it kept circling around usually heading a huge distance away from us before heading back in to breath ice as it passed overhead. Eventually I hit it with a fire shout and it dropped down to let me smack it about with my sword. The pattern continued for quite some time as this one really didn't like to land at all and even when it did it would fly off almost immediately. But finally I was victorious and my third soul was claimed. The legion solders didn't fare so well; one regular soldier and the captain survived but three others perished in the fight.

After the excitement I headed back to Whiterun and fooled the woman into heading down into the ambush, watched her get captured and got my portion of the reward then decided to head over south of Riverwood to do a quest for the temple in Whiterun, but about that time my computer decided to lag out big time, so here I am.

I'm now running it on medium graphics but with everything set to reflect and the textures all set to high; I tried it on high and it was fine for half an hour then inexplicably started to lag. I've tried it twice and both times it started lagging within the half hour so guess I'll have to stick with medium-and-a-half for now.

edit: almost forgot the toughest fight of the day (yes, tougher than the dragon). On my way back from the dragon to Whiterun I encountered and Vampire Mistwalker and a Valiant of Stendarr having a brawl. Thinking that the Valiant would ignore me (I'd previously met them and they assured me they only fight unnatural things like the undead, werewolves and vampires) I joined in the fray. Big mistake, they both decided to go for me and the vampire was insanely tough! I ran away and let them fight it out for a bit, though I have no idea what happened to the Valiant. I never found a body or saw it again. But the vampire kept coming for me and if I got in range it had a horrible drain life spell that quickly took me out and healed the vampire. So I kept it at range and used Flames against it, with a fire shout when I ran out of magicka then ran away to regen. Eventually I emerged triumphant.

Nice... congrats on all your dragon kills. Doing 2 better than me thus far. I find it quite amusing that his skeleton keeps assaulting you as you exit town. Thankfully, he's not quite as persistent in my game.

His skeleton has popped up in all sorts of places today. It's actually quite a nice sight now; when I see it after a long adventure I know I'm home and when I'm leaving for a new adventure it's like a "look what you already accomplished, nothing else can stand in your way!" He did creep me out earlier though when he decided to spawn in the ground then literally rose up out of it, nose first, followed by wings just like a zombie arising from the grave.

I've done a stupid amount of stuff today (had today and got tomorrow off work, hooray). I've now fought 4 more dragons. One occurred on top of a mountain; I found a word wall beneath me and as I peered over the edge the dragon took flight. Another was again at the top of a mountain but a much flatter, more confined one. Both went down relatively easily as they were frost dragons (Nord frost resistance is a godsend for those) however the second one had a word wall with a full 3 word shout on it and this was guarded by some guy called Korsis(?) who I promptly ran away from. VERY powerful and with the model of a wraith-type creature. My third dragon was on a tiny bridge over in a forest to the east as I was on my way to a quest. I got attacked by a storm mage at the same time but luckily the dragon had already scorched her a bit so I was able to finish her off quickly and concentrate on the dragon. The final dragon was in some swamps to the east and was fairly easy to take down again as it was another frost plus I had lots of space to manouever and no other enemies around.

I also cleared out a mine of bandits down near Riverwood, encountered a hagraven (NOT nice), pissed off a tree (yes you heard right) and became a werewolf. My most interesting adventures of the night have been the companion quests. Companion quest spoilers:



I've also found a ton of beautiful vistas and interesting spots such as little hidden shrines to Talos and Mala. I have 3 spare dragon souls I think and the following shouts:

Hey pev, did you become a werewolf by 'design' (ie through a quest or something) or by accident (werewolf attack)?