Right then, as it turns out, if I disable just about everything on my PC(explorer included), the game will actually run. Although I think it works with those active as well. Slowly, very slowly, those 90MB of occupied RAM build up at a rate of about 10-20KB per second, to about 100MB, and then it enters the menu. On the lowest setting, the game runs better than expected. Honestly, at this level I fail to see any difference between the Creation engine and the old Gamebryo engine. The rocks still have that glossy reflection that makes them look like plastic, and all the textures look like dirt. I understand they're low rez, but I've spent the better part of last week replaying Severance, it too had low textures, but they didn't look like dirt.

Still, happy that it runs on a 1.8 GHz singlecore processor, and 1GB of RAM, with an AGP video card. Now all I have to do is tweek the mouse, because right now the movement stinks, and find a way to murder the person who created the interface in his sleep. When they said it would be Apple inspired, I thought it was going to be awful, and I was right. To this day, the only Elder Scrolls game in the main series to have a proper interface has been Morrowind. 

Time for the upgrade my friend. If it's a problem with money, you could always go Robinhood on a Bestbuy shipment. I just hate to see a good gamer so disadvantaged. 

I thought this about the map at first too, until I realized that the WASD keys allow you to scroll everywhere and see everything.  Now my only problem is that it should allow you to zoom farther out. 

What do you find bad about it?  I'm curious. 

Edit:  Interesting thing in those sales numbers:  14% of box sales are PC which doesn't factor in digital sales.  Steam has reported 230,000 concurrent players logged in playing Skyrim, so we can safely assume that it has sold at least 300,000 (likely quite a bit more) on Steam.  

That means a lowball estimate for Skyrim opening weekend PC sales is 750,000 with 1,000,000 in the range of possibility.  Not to shabby for an opening weekend on a dead platform.  It also means that Steam likely came close (but probably fell short) to matching PC box sales of the game.  

Sandybridge, 1155's.  You can put together a comparable monster of a computer for $600, as long as you don't need a hd anyway.  OMFG are the prices going crazy...

The 3d map is bad because clouds cover a lot, and it's impossible to pick out any details about the environments. The only functional part is the icons for the dungeons/cities and quest locations.

The white chalk map is bad because it's impossible to tell one thing from another. If I wanted to use it to navigate, I would be hard pressed to do that. This is true ten-fold when there's some sort of 3d layout to the geography.

Fair enough.  I generally agree on the uselessness of it for anything but general "get you in the right area" navigation.  I guess that's just all I expected from it.

After many more hours of play (turns out, I CAN put college h/w & studying till the next day, repeatedly!)

-Auto-leveling needs to go.  My level 20 character has as much trouble killing bandits as he did at level 1.  That isn't right. 

-Of the dozen caves & dungeons I've cleared, none gave me anything unique.  Staffed with the average generic enemies with a big bad guy at the end.  Reward : Sometimes a word, mostly a "Generic helm of +5 generic". 

-I don't feel unique.  My guy has gone from stealth to 2 handed, 1 handed, stealth again, archer, mage, 1 handed.  I don't feel like I'm specializing in any category - or need to.  In oblivion jumping around so much would yield a terrible guy.  Mine?  Not very challenging.

-Oh my god, bethesda hired more than 2 voice actors.  Hoozah!

-They hired 1 person to write the lines.  It seems being shot in your knee is an easy way to a city desk job in skyrim. 

-How am I not able to get myself below 250 weight?  What is taking up so much room?  I can't drop this, I need sell it!  Ughhhhthhhh

-Traps seem pointless.  Either it does no damage to you, or it's activated as you enter the room.

-AI still less useful than a baby full of bricks. 

-Monsters are in 2 categories : Things you 1 hit, and things that 1 hit you. 

Great game, and the modding community is already growing without the editor.  When that's released..dear lord. 

And there's work being done on replacing Skyrim's UI on the nexus forum. 

If you folks come across any stellar mods, please provide links and some details in this thread.  I'm sure many of us would appreciate it.  TIA!

So I'm torn on Skyrim.

On the one, it may rank among the "best of" categories for anything Bethesda has ever done. Performance, visuals, story-telling, expansiveness. They're probably going to be able to license the engine out to tons of people based solely on how great it shows an open world and the level of fidelity it keeps.

On the other, I can't see how anyone thinks this isn't a dumbed down version of TES. The shouts don't replace stats, it doesn't replace the flexibility of spell creation, it doesn't replace the fact enchanting has been nerfed down to a poor man's version of even Oblivion enchanting. Mechanically, Skyrim is at or below what Oblivion offered us. In terms of mechanics its actually completely forgettable. All of the "fun" things have been put under the hood.

The game is Jekyll and Hyde to me. One part of it clearly feels like it was designed by the best Beth has to offer....and the other half feels like it was designed by people whose job it was to simplify the systems so they fit on a nice, neat console package.

That said I think I'm up to 40 hours and am pretty sure I will play more of it than Oblivion when it's all said and done. It's really a matter of when I become so OP that there's nothing left to find, make or level up to. I'm enjoying experiencing the world, I'm just sad that gameplay was demystified to me within an hour. I can already see the Daedric Gear I'm eventually going to be wearing because Bethesda made sure to chart the whole expanse of game play, sans the shouts, before our very eyes. Jesus I wish developers would quit doing that. How sad is it that I got truly excited about the Silent Moon enchantment because it wasn't a "Restore/Damage/Ravage/Fortify blah blah blah" effect. Never mind the fact the enchant is just an elemental-less damage attack.

I'd gush more but I've done most of my gushing on other forums. I will say that when modders are done with it, god and the Creation Engine willing, Skyrim will be a masterpiece.

The game looks good, but I'll wait for a game of the year edition or something like that, with all the inevitable expansions included. The mods will have matured by then as well, improving gameplay and content where needed. Also, I'm not sure my laptop would survive running this game 

I think the console vs. PC argument drowns out the very real issue that RPGs have to deal with:  their accessibility to new players.  There's a reason that Skyrim is crushing the sales records of not only Bethesda's other highly regarded (and awarded) games but is beating the snot out of games like BF3.  They put some compromises in place to increase their audience.  

I desperately miss the spell creation system and have, without thinking, headed to the Winterhold to create a new spell on a few occasions because that's just something YOU CAN DO in a TES game.  As for the skills, I think the perk system is a fair trade off for the lack of stat customization.  If anything I think the perk system needs to be stronger to balance out the lack of major/minor skills in order to create better differentiation between play styles (more like talent trees than small nice benefits).  My bad ass fire mage should not be able to easily pick any lock in the game just as well as a rogue character I play.  

However, overall, I've enjoyed the game tremendously despite a few thing I'd consider flaws.  If the loss of ability to greatly min/max my character by learning and exploiting the minutia of stats is the price I have to pay for Skyrim, and more importantly, for the NEXT TES game then I'm willing to pay it.  The biggest thing here, I think, is the retail success of Skyrim.  It proves that this sort of game is a viable big budget title on par with any other genre.  The only game outselling it this over its first week this year is MW3.  Other studios will notice this.  

I'd rather a slew of big budget RPGs with more accessible mechanics than the once every five years TES game.  

Two other things:

I've never understood the love for Oblivion.  I played it and enjoyed it well enough, but meh.  I joined the franchise at Daggerfall and Oblivion is the worst of the four big TES games since (Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skryim).  Oblivion's level-with-you system was awful.  Skyrim is still too closely tied to the character's level for my liking, but its certainly a giant step in the right direction (towards Morrowind, away from Oblivion).  Oblivion tried to make the game systems more accessible than Morrowind but I think largely did what you're complaining about Skyrim for.  It removed the fun parts of Morrowind's systems without actually replacing them with anything.  It felt dumbed down and unimaginative.  At least Skyrim gives you a trade off for the over-simplification. 

Lasty, I agree, 12 to 18 months of modder attention has the potential to make Skyrim the best RPG game ever seen.  Understanding the power of a good modding community is one thing that Bethesda gets and other studios should take notice of.  Many of my favorable memories of Morrowind or (especially) Oblivion are actually mod based, but I still attribute those memories to the game and Bethesda. 

Skyrim is a fantastic game, but I share some of the main complaints.  Spell crafting, enchanting, lack of stats.  I like those things, I am a geek, I like micromanagement crap and numbers.  Nothing gets me hotter than looking at a page of numbers.  Thats the geek in me.  No race stats bothered me a bit, but not much.  But, even though the spell crafting and enchanting has been dumbed down, we do actually get more crafting.  Smithing is a lot of fun.  Perk system of leveling is far better than previous TES games.  Some like the dual wielding, it's kind of neat, gives you more options, but I have never found TES combat good, but that's not why I play these games.  AS for exploration?  Fantastic, there is no peer.  Better than any game I have ever played.  Everywhere I go seems new and interesting to explore.  Races look better too. Truly great game.

It's a Steamworks game, so *all* PC sales are "on Steam". No need to inflate the numbers; whatever number Steam says are playing are it.

Also, the skill perk interface is a complete and utter abomination of unusability. But on the other hand (hah), it has double-handed flame-thrower magic...

Good point.  I hadn't thought of that. 

Yeah, exploration is the best I've seen in any game. The content is pretty poorly distributed though. Sometimes you can ride for minutes without seeing things, sometimes you can't even ride for tripping over all the dungeons.

Also, is it just me or is my companion literally immortal from enemy damage? I've only ever seen my companion die from friendly fire or fall damage, if its hostile damage they just go prone and take a time-out.

Are there any good pc mods out yet? 

Enchantment this time around - with the 100 Skill Perk for enchantment allowing two enchantments per piece - is a lot more powerful, though still not Morrowind levels.  However, I also lament the lack of Spell Create.  I also weep because we lost more of the fun spells.  I feel Bethesda are basically idiot-proofing their games more with each instalment.  Mods add it back, for what it's worth, but it'd be nice to be able to create the bat shit-insane stuff I churned out in Morrowind.

As for mods: not yet, the Creation Kit hasn't been released yet.  No idea when, but Bethesda are working on it.  A new patch is due out within the next few weeks as well.

People are pulling apart the GUI as we speak, however, and are well on their way to learning it's inner workings.  The main UI Mod guys from Oblivion are back, and have basically declared they're going to make the UI Bethesda should have.  So, it won't be long.

The only decent mod so far is a Map Mod that allows you you to zoom into Street Level.  It's pretty sweet, but amounts to NoClip in it's execution.  Personally, I'd just like to be able to see Roads.  The 3D Map is basically useless as it stands.  Fuck, the parchment map in the box is more useful.  You can lower the map's zoom height in the .ini.  Works a treat, but gets blocky fast.

 PC Skyrim sales were around the 14% only counting retail copies. That puts PC sales at a bit over 450,000 copies before any digital only sales are brought into the picture. I doubt digital sales would double that number, and admittedly it's not as impressive as Xbox's 60% (again, before digital sales.) It's still nothing to scoff at though.

 - It's hard not to type a tirade about how remarkably abysmal the UI is, not to mention the laughable google satellite "map" and "journal" options. Map and journal are both very loosely used terms here mind you.

My advice for the PC players who are on the fence. Don't buy it. Not yet at least. Wait until modders (hopefully) fix the UI and map, and other "features" in the game first. Unfortunately that will take quite awhile, but should be done by the time they release all of the DLC in a GOTY boxed set. Buy it then, you'll be much happier that way.

Yes, there's a few actually. Most are bugfix mods, but there are a few worthwhile texture replacers are already out and this one is definitely worth installing.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=131#

There's also a handful of .ini tweaks to improve other visuals (like the lego style shadows.) Also check out the FPS limit mod if you've got a good rig that lets the FPS creep up too high. For some reason, y axis movement is tied to your FPS, so it can be hyper sensitive (or sluggish) if your FPS is unchecked.

I just can't imagine playing this game with a controller.

Are there any vampires in this version?

Yes, there are vampires.

I see all the complaints and they are correct. But to me, it doesn´t matter. The overall experience is so fantatastic. I love it so much. An amazing game.

@LordXia

I think, the lackof stats gives us a lot more freedom. For example ....if i wanna raise my HP in MW or Oblivion, i had to use certain abilitys to give constitution a +3/4 or 5. So i was forced to use spears or wear mid. armor, although i like light armor and daggers much more. So....no limitations on this side.  

Only major thing I dislike about it is the gods of the Nords are pretty much absent. Aside from a very few cases of using the nordic names Ysmir and Alduin for Talos and Akatosh, it's all the Imperial Cult. I know the Empire's been imposing it's religion on Skyrim for a while now, but I'd still like to hear the stories of Shor and Tyne, and the deceits of Herma-Mora and things like that.

This thread has devolved into constructive analysis and warm feelings. Where are the fanboys? Where are the snide remarks? Where are the comparisons between the first game and this one? Where is that drawing Heavenfall posted awhile back with the three levels of Elder Scrolls reactions? 

I am just so disappointed in this thread. You guys need to shrink up. 

Crappy map problem solved?

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/16/skyrim-mod-adds-street-view-like-map-functionality/