Heh that's probably why, I'm still going the lone wolf route (appropriate now I'm a werewolf!) Might take a dog with me when I get one though.

You're a werewolf!? That must come in handy.

Yes I am, only used it once so far and my god it was powerful! I don't get the "Well Rested" bonus for sleeping though. But I am immune to disease, huzzah!

Pff I have a racial of +50% disease resistance I don't need no fancy werewolf form to be awesome! /me is so jealous

Been playing more of course, and by God this game is massive. It's in some ways Oblivion Mark 2, improved in almost every aspect. It's glorious. Satis telling me yesterday that you can use old Dwarven mechanical parts you find to smelt them into Dwarven ingots at a smelter...it continues to amaze me.

What have I been up to in the meantime? Well, I've killed my first dragon. And yesterday, I killed my second dragon as I was visiting Riverwood. The town was attacked and the guards and rangers (and my housecarl) all joined in shooting it. I pretty much just shot it 4-5 times and then smacked the shit out of it on the ground to finish it off - I have upgraded my Dwarven armor and weapons further to 'exquisite' level. I'm able to craft Orcish armor now, too, though I haven't seen many Orcish ingots yet. If any. What amazed me about the dragon attack tho, was how natural it all felt. It comes down, perches on the city gates and breathes fire on me and the guards...then it flies up, torches a few peeps, then goes to sit on a house again. It was glorious. It even killed a named character! He was part of some quest I did earlier, and he was burned by the dragon breath (dude also had 300 gold on him for some reason haha! Jackpot!). And I loved how the entire town came to look at the dragon's bones when it was killed, talking about it and admiring it. It was so fucking well done. Kudos Bethesda.

Other things I've done:

- craft a full Dwarven armor set for my housecarl
- visited Makrath, which I loved, and did a cool quest there which landed me in some uhm, dire circumstances. It also pretty much MADE me murder someone...for the first time in the game. I mean, it's not like he was innocent or anything, but I still sliced n' diced him without being attacked first. So yeah...I'm a murderer now.
- been unenchanting shitloads of stuff in order to learn the enchantments. You wouldn't believed how much money this is costing me...but in the future, with enough souls, I can make profit by enchanting crappy weapons with minor enchantments before selling them. I hope.

Good things to know:

- I'm not a 100% sure but I think that if you are thrown in prison for a big crime, like murder or assault, you actually do your time in jail by sleeping through it etc. And you can attempt to escape
- you can't enchant every item with every enchantment. And I don't just mean that you can't make a breastplate that sucks life out of people near it (that would be a little OP), but for example the increased weight allowance enchantment can only be put on Boots...not breastplates, gauntlets, helmets. Lame. So you can't stack it for massive weight allowance. I CAN make it like +40 with enough skill and a grand soul, but that's about it.

Pics! Oh yeah, I still don't own a horse yet. I got like 8000 gold by now tho, so I may do so in the near future. Still, I'm good with the legion really. And if I buy a home I want enough book cases in it so may want to get a big one...

I own a house! I finally splashed on a place and bought me a place in Markarth, which is probably my favorite hold in the game so far (haven't seen them all), although Winterhold comes close. Working on getting a house there. More importantly, like most of Markarth it's built entirely into the rock walls, so like the Jarl told me "we're no too worried about any dragons here". I feel so safe in this places...one entrance, too small for a dragon and protected by a massive metal door, and the rest of it deep in the rock walls. It also came with a house carl, Argis the Bulwark or something, but the poor guy met his untimely end during the first expedition I took him along on (a Dwemer ruins excavation project)...thinking he was unkillable based on Satis' (mis- :p)information, I let him take all the damage from the Falmer in the ruins as I attacked them from the sides and back. After a particular difficult scramble with 3-4 Falmer, he turned out to be dead. I'm not sure if I accidentally dragon-shouted him to death or falmer poison/spells got to him but yeah, he's dead. Making me having to go back and forth 2-3 times to collect all the Dwarven scrap, plate and solid metal to smelt and improve my smithing/financial situation with. Pics of the house below.

I'm also close to being a legendary smith...95 or so in skill level, capable or making Daedric armor (and ebony and below) and improving weapons and armor to 'legendary' quality - even enchanted items. Enchanting is finally coming along too, sitting at around 55 but I've been binding grand souls to armor and weapons like a pro. I got crazy enchanments for carry weight and resist magic, and carry several pieces of jewelry (rings and necklaces) that protect me from fire, ice, magic, shock and poison respectively. I'm currently in the process of enchanting a silver sword with the most powerful turn undead effect I can manage, so I can finally piss all over those death lords and their BS. And I'm in full legendary ebony armor with matching enchantments, if that wasn't clear yet.

Pro tip for everyone struggling with their weight allowance: find and use the 'The Steed' stone. Not only does it give you +100 weight allowance, it also ignores all weight from the armor you're currently wearing. For a heavy armor user like me it's heaven. And it stops me from levelling as fast as before while being under the sign of the warrior, which is nice since I'm level 31 and have barely done anything in the main quest yet. Also, it doesn't drain my stamina and bar my movement as much (the heavy armor) when i'm under The Steed. So good times!

Other things to mention...i stumbled upon an erhm, interesting situation in an iceberg somewhere up North. As a result I'm now on a quest to collect blood from all -mer races...falmer, bosmer, altmer, orsimer and dunmer. Since I'm not a murderer I'm pretty much condemned to 'hoping' to run into dead elves and/or run into hostile elves, but I'm sure it won't take too long. I already accidentally found an altmer and orc body, and a falmer shouldn't be too hard to find. Worrying more about Bosmer than anything else really. And I went along a bit further in the Companion questline, which is pretty damn cool. I doubted for a moment to continue the quests, but accepted their offer in the end.

Aside from all that, I've been wandering and like Satis, cleaning up loose ends and quests. I wish someone revamped the journal, cause it's fucking horrible once you get a lot of quests or just travel enough. I can't recall half of the reasons or people who gave me them for, all the quests I have in my journal. The terse line of information isn't enough, and the fact that you can't sort them by faction or city or whatever doesn't make it any better. I bought a horse once, but I didn't like the speed and movement. It wasn't worth the trouble or money. It wa skilled shortly after in a bandit ambush, and I never replaced it.

For Pev:

Picture time!

And a seperate post for my house pics It appears that I didn't take any pics of my entrance hall, bedroom(s) and alchemy room. Soon to come then.

I love that house, think that might be the next place I settle down as I have to agree Markarth is probably my favourite place so far. Plus it won me over with weapon and armour stands; the 3 weapon stands in Whiterun just aren't enough for me.

I love that picture with the weird jellyfish! Sounds like you're kicking ass crafting wise, I need to work on my smithing and enchanting a bit more too. And completely agree with The Steed; I'm going back to get that blessing again. I dropped from 455 weight allowance to about 360 after I clicked The Warrior and regret it (especially as I had about 390 on me at the time...)

Entirely agree on the journal, it's bloody crap. If it wasn't for the fact it always places a marker on your map I wouldn't be able to complete most of the quests I have. Just one line like "Ask Margaret in Whiterun about the events" under the quest name would be nice

For Ox

agreed on the quest journal...it sucks serious ass. Especially the miscellaneous one. One short line of text that tells you absolutely nothing about what the quest is about or for. I also wish you could cancel quests... I have several evil quests or quests for factions I want nothing to do with polluting my journal. It'd be nice if I could clean them out.

Yeah, not to mention heavy quest items.

I took tons and tons of pics since last time, I'll post them and make a report soon.

It's actually been close to a week that I haven't played! Not because the game is boring, but because I never really had the time or urge to sit myself down and enjoy it for a while - I want to do the game justice, if you know what I mean.

What's happened since last time...I did a lot of the main quest. Well, a "lot" is probably a bit much, I'm sure it's much much longer than what i've done so far. High Hrothgar is a cool place, and advanded shouts kick ass. I also did some more of the Companion quests, including the Kodlak one Pev mentioned in her thread. That was a pretty cool quest and dungeon. But the entire questline is far from over, i got the idea.

I also finished the entire Imperial Legion questline and One thing that bothered me about it though is that even though I was raised in rank a few times and given a nice sword or shield, I never got any officer's armor. So even though I was a Legate by the end, which is pretty damn high up the ranks, I was still running around in my regular imperial legion heavy armor. Not that it was a problem - stormcloaks could barely hit me for damage - but it would have made more sense if I had at least a nice officer's helmet. I tried to 'roleplay' by always wearing my Imperial armor during mission for the legion, would have been dumb to run between 20-30 legionnaires as the only one in entirely non-descript ebony armor. I think that actually breaks the rules of the Geneva Convention (non-recognisable uniforms).

I also wandered and did some quests for people and factions I like Mjoll the Lioness who's my new sidekick. I also bought the house in Solitude which, sadly, is a bit of a dump compared the majestic safety of the Markrath house. Killed some more dragons, collected more ingredients, souls and armor...I think i have an almost complete set of Daedric armor that I crafted myself. Daedra hearts are a bitch to find, especially since I wasted many of the ones I found early in the game on potions. Didn't know their use for smithing yet, back then. I'm holding off wearing the armor until my set is complete so I can enchant it with uber enchantments and grand soul gems. Preferrably while wearing my enchanting gear (2 or 3 -forgot- items that I enchanted with + X% enchantment power).

I'm gonna make a selection from the bazillion gazillion pics I took since last time now...

And a few more pics I took of my house

Well, I finished the main quest. I saw in the Steam community thing that Satis did too, but I'll put any real spoilers between spoiler brackets, don't worry!

Before focusing on the main quest for real I also did some more work for the companions, among other thing I retrieved I wrapped up a few minor quests too, including the Azura one Satis mentioned before...and he was right, it's pretty tough.

Also...I got hitched, haha! I married my trusty companion, Mjoll The Lioness. I don't take her adventuring anymore, don't want her to die...I invited her to come live with me at my house in Markrath, where she spends her days using the alchemy table/enchanting table, managing a shop and baking me home-made food (bonuses!). It's pretty awesome.

Then I went to do the main quest. It's really well done and I enjoyed it a lot, had a truly epic feel to it - although because of my high level and insanely pimped out armor it wasn't very hard. But that's ok.

All in all, a great main quest for a great game. I started a new game with a new character (a female Dark Elf) thinking I will do a stealthy thieving type of character, and I went through the intro and everything. But I'm not sure I want to continue playing with this new character just yet...may be bette to let the game lie for a while and to see what mods come out in the coming weeks and months.

Screenshots!

To answer your question, yes it's the same, even without short-circuiting the quest. And yea, I beat the main quest too. I still plan on hitting level 50 though, just for the hell of it. How'd you get to marry Mjoll, btw? Spoiler it if you want, I'm just curious how to make that happen.

I already told Satis on Steam, but for anyone else curious about how you can get married..